Consider this: While a woman serves as the U.S. national security adviser and another flies an F-14 fighter jet over Afghanistan, 98 percent of secretaries, receptionists and nurses are women, and 63 percent of the minimum-wage jobs in this country are held by women.

        And although 47 percent of the workplace is occupied by women, 7 percent of them earn as much as $250,000 a year, and 18 percent earn $100,000. Fewer than 1 percent of those are African-American women.

        These statistics, cited by former U.S. Labor Secretary Alexis Herman, preceded a challenge Tuesday to Cincinnati's successful women to help “lift up” their poorer counterparts.

        Ms. Herman was speaking to a mostly female crowd of 1,700 at the YWCA Salute to Career Women of Achievement at the Albert B. Sabin Cincinnati Convention Center.

        She emphasized that, in a knowledge- and technology-based society, education is paramount to success.

        The job market will be “completely unforgiving” for those with no skills, Ms. Herman said. “No job of the future will not have some kind of technological impact.”

        She also spoke of the need for child and elder care, a responsibility that falls largely to women.

        Before Ms. Herman spoke, eight women and one female high school student were honored for their leadership.

        They were: Kathy Beechem, executive vice president of Firstar Bank; Lisa J. FitzGibbon, president and CEO of Work Resource Center; Deb Henretta, president of Global Baby Care at Procter & Gamble; Karla Irvine, executive director of Housing Opportunities Made Equal; Vivian Llambi, president of Vivian Llambi & Associates Inc.; Kimya Moyo, district math curriculum manager at Cincinnati Public Schools; Gwen L. Robinson, president and CEO of the Community Action Agency; Dorine R. Seaquist, senior vice president of patient services at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center; and Whitni Len Cotton, a Walnut Hills High School senior who received the Mamie Earl Sells Young Leader Award.

        After the ceremony Ms. Herman said, “We must do more than remember these history makers; we must continue to make history.”

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