Boxer, Barbara (1940-)

Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer did not originally consider a future political career for herself. She married Stewart Boxer during her senior year at Brooklyn College and immediately went to work to put her husband through Fordham Law School.

After Stewart's graduation from Fordham, the couple relocated to San Francisco and raised two children, Doug and Nicole. During this time Barbara became involved with a program called the Education Corps of Marin, which provided job training to high school dropouts. While this may have been a first step in her interest in activism, her past experiences of sexual discrimination must have been equally important in pushing her into the political realm. While still in New York, she tried to get a ...