Lilly Ledbetter, equal pay and women’s rights activist, dies at 86

Women’s rights activist Lilly Ledbetter has died, according to a family representative. She was 86.

Ledbetter, best known for advocating for equal pay for women, died as a result of respiratory failure Saturday night. She was in Alabama, where she was born and raised.

“She was surrounded by her family and loved ones,” her family said in a statement Sunday. “Our mother lived an extraordinary life.”

Ledbetter’s fight for equal pay started in the 1990s, when she received an anonymous letter that said she was being paid far less than her male colleagues who had similar or less seniority and experience at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in Gadsden, Alabama, where she worked as an area supervisor.

“I took a job that had traditionally been considered a man’s job. I don’t agree with that term,” Ledbetter said in an interview with Forbes in 2016. “It’s a job. Whether it’s a man, African American, Latino, heavy, skinny, whatever. If they’re the best qualified for that job, they should get it, and they should get the money to go with it.”

Thus began years of legal battles that climbed all the way to the Supreme Court. Ledbetter ultimately lost the lawsuit against Goodyear, with the high court ruling she had missed the deadline to file her claim. But Democrats in Congress — urged on by a dissenting opinion from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — fought to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

The act makes it easier for a victim of pay discrimination to present a case, easing the statute of limitations that previously favored corporations.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was the first bill Barack Obama signed into law as president in 2009.

“Lilly did what so many Americans before her have done: setting her sights high for herself and even higher for her children and grandchildren,” the former president and first lady Michelle Obama said in a statement Sunday. “Michelle and I are grateful for her advocacy and her friendship, and we send our love and prayers to her family and everyone who is continuing the fight that she began.”

Last week, Ledbetter was awarded Advertising Week’s first Future Is Female Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes the achievements of trailblazing women. A film about her life, “Lilly,” starring Patricia Clarkson as Ledbetter, also premiered recently at the Hamptons International Film Festival.