Coming of age in the early ’70s, girls like me learned they should be treated as equals. We were the first group of girls to play competitive sports in high school (volleyball) and went to college in large numbers.

In 1983, I was the first woman hired to be on the consulting staff of the LA office of The Boston Consulting Group. For two years, I was the only female consultant. I wore dresses, suits, and blouses with french cuffs. Shoes and stockings were a welcome avenue of self-expression, and my LA colleagues considered my choices a little bit “wild.”
A visit to the Paris office while on vacation with my husband opened my eyes. There, I met a woman manager who wore black leather pants at work. Wow! I came back determined to liberate BCG’s female consultants.

I love hearing from women from those days. They say that because I wore pants, they had the nerve to do the same. All at once, in the mid-1980s, working women across the country had had enough – now we wear skirts and dresses because we want to, not because of some official or implicit dress code.

Another reason I love Paris!