Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/24680
THANK YOU, SENATOR KENNEDY THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT HAS LOST ONE OF ITS GREATEST CHAMPIONS BY MICHELE KORT LILLY LEDBETTER WAS SITTING IN A CROWDED WASHINGTON, D.C., TRAIN station last January when her cell phone rang. “A job well done,” the caller told her. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act—named after the Alabama tire plant manager who had taken her pay discrimination complaint to the U.S. Supreme Court, and then to the halls of the U.S. Congress to right its bad decision—had just been passed. The caller had been instrumental in pushing the bill forward, as he had countless oth- er women’s rights bills over his nearly 50 years in the Senate. He was quite ill now, and couldn’t even be on hand for the vote, but still found the time and energy to congrat- ulate Ledbetter on the victory. “When I get back to the office, I’ll give you a call and we’ll talk longer,” he said. “Thank you, Senator Kennedy,” she said—and you can just imagine the stunned reaction of the close-packed passengers seated around her when they heard those words. Edward M. Kennedy, who died of brain cancer on August 25, has been rightfully eulogized for his tireless efforts for health care and civil rights legislation. But his work in support of women ranks among his most impressive achievements. “Several reporters asked me over the years who the best legislator for women is, ex- pecting I’d name one of the leading women in Congress,” says Kim Gandy, former president of NOW and currently a resident fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics. “And I always surprised them by saying Ted Kennedy. But that was my observation; he seemed to instinctively know what was the right thing. And he had the stature and status to be able to take more risks, frankly, than senators who had less seniority and didn’t have the Kennedy name.” “Senator Kennedy was indefatigable, always there rallying the troops for social jus- tice and equality,” says Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority (publisher of Ms.), who calls it a privilege to have worked with him on women’s rights legislation 52 | FALL 2009 www.feminist.org RUTH FREMSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX