THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Sharron Cohen
“I’m loud, I’m in your face, I’m borderline inappropriate at times. But if you’re going to give me a pulpit, I’m damn well going to be heard.”
A plaintiff in the landmark case, Frontiero v. Richardson, which was one of the first successful sex discrimination cases in U.S. history, 1973. Physical therapist, Air Force officer, school library aide, bookmobile librarian, romance writer, lighthouse keeper, Gloucester Writers Center Storyteller.
Interviewed by Judy Waxman, Oral Historian, August 2025
Photo 1. Lt. Sharron Frontiero (now Sharron Cohen) in her Air Force uniform in 1972. Photo 2. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sharron Cohen on the steps of the Supreme Court building in 1999.
More About Sharron:
- “It’s Okay to Be a Hero”: Remembering Justice Ginsburg’s Words, Sharron Cohen and Nathan Cohen
- The Supreme Court Historical Society, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s early career as a leading advocate before the Supreme Court. Panelists Sharron Cohen, the plaintiff in Frontiero v. Richardson (1973). Joseph Levin, co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Served as Sharron’s counsel in the landmark case Frontiero v. Richardson. Professor Phillippa Strum, Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Broeklundian Professor of Political Science Emerita, City University of New York. Professor Amanda Tyler, the Shannon Cecil Turner Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Stephen Wiesenfeld, plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld (1975), for which Ruth Bader Ginsburg served as his counsel.
- Frontiero v. Richardson plaintiff discusses gender equality 50 years after the landmark Supreme Court case. Author Joshua Prager in conversation with Sharron Cohen, October 2023
- Sharron A. Frontiero and Joseph Frontiero, Appellants, v. Elliot L. Richardson, Secretary of Defense, et al.