City Officials to Honor ‘Women of Courage’
Los Angeles politicians will honor police officers, firefighters, lawyers, a community activist, an Olympic athlete and a teacher who died in an accident this spring with “women of courage” awards next week.
For the third year in a row, the city’s Commission on the Status of Women will present the awards at a banquet on the anniversary of the day women first got the right to vote.
“Women of courage is, to me, a redundancy,” Mayor Richard J. Riordan said at a City Hall news conference Monday.
“At some point in our lives, it would be nice not to have to be courageous just to be female,” added Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg. “But we’re not there yet.”
This year’s honorees include track star Jackie Joyner-Kersee; Linda Wong, general counsel of Rebuild L.A.; Corina Alarcon, a domestic violence advocate; inspector Alicia Mathis of the city’s fire department; all female employees of the Los Angeles Police Department; the city attorney office’s domestic violence unit; and Helen Bernstein, the longtime head of United Teachers-Los Angeles, who died after being hit by a car in March.
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