Sue Luhring: A Brief Biography

In the year 1961 many major events took place and many new precedents were set. The creation of the Peace Corps, John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as America’s youngest president, and Alan Shepherd was the first American in space. That same year, my grandmother, Sue Hinrichs, now Sue Luhring, graduated from Waterloo East High School. She was an intelligent and driven young woman, but she had no intentions of going to college. She knew she didn’t want to be a teacher or a nurse, so there was no reason to attend college. My grandma was not the only young woman to face this same predicament, all of her close friends were in the same boat. She also told me that from her graduating class, at the absolute most, twenty-five percent of the women attended …show more content…
She was able to start and end her working career in the same place, with many promotions and titles under her belt. Even without a college degree she was able to obtain many important responsibilities in her work place, and along with that many pay raises, too. Despite this great climb through the corporate ladder, my grandmothers progress was still hindered by her gender. My grandma was the first female loan officer in the bank, and this opened the door for a few other women, as well. Even so, she made it very clear that the women in the office were almost always in the more supportive and subordinate roles. This is clearly seen in the fact that even when she was at her highest position, she was still a “secretary”. She was only able to rise through the ranks to a certain point, because she still needed to be doing “women’s work”. Another contributor to her halted rise in the company was her education level, if she would’ve had a college degree she might have been able to go a little further. That being said, her lack of higher education is linked to her gender. The glass ceiling suppressed my grandma for thirty-five years, and today’s working women are still unable to shatter