1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
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When Juanita Kreps became the first female secretary of Commerce in 1977, it was a time of increased inclusion of women in the workplace and a national shift in cultural norms around women not only joining male-dominated industries but also leading. Once at Commerce, she focused the debate around hurricane naming, which began in 1973 and resurfaced in 1975 when Australia decided to switch to alternating male-female names for tropical cyclones and other storms rather than only female names. Few feminists gave the move much attention but Kreps directed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to follow the model. The National Hurricane Center had already ceded to the World Meteorological Organization for global tropical storm naming, and the WMO argued it was too late to make changes for the 1978 but could do so in 1979. Kreps was unsatisfied, and so the National Weather Service worked out a deal with Mexico to change the naming system for the Eastern Pacific Region of the U.S. for the 1978 interim. The deal was announced May 12, 1978.
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