Welcome to Infinite Women

This Day In History

Business

1958 Mary Roebling is the first woman director of a stock exchange (American Stock Exchange).

Law

1966 The bill removing Australia's marriage bar - which forced women in the public service to give up their jobs once they married - completed its passage through parliament on 28 October, just before the 1966 federal election. It came into effect on 18 November 1966.

2013 Helen Murrell became the Australian Capital Territory's first female Chief Justice.

Sports

1962 After Australian swimmer Dawn Fraser broke the 60-second mark in the 100 meters, one of the oldest records in swimming, a reporter asked how she planned to celebrate. Fraser, knowing she was at an emotional pitch and would be unable to sleep, replied: "I'll go to a party. And I'll drink a fair bit of beer.… I've worked so bloody hard for this night; now it's come, I'll have to unwind."

Writing

1949 French feminist Simone de Beauvoir publishes the controversial and influential Le Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex), a scholarly and passionate plea for the abolition of what she called the myth of the “eternal feminine.”