Patricia Ann McBroom

I grew up in a small neighborhood east of Sacramento, CA. where we all knew each other, even building a Congregational church together. I was the middle child among three girls, living a rather idyllic life until my younger sister died when I was 12 plunging me into an existential crisis that left its mark on my life.  Rather than follow a traditional path as a woman of the fifties into marriage and motherhood, I moved to Washington D.C. in 1965 to pursue a career in journalism. 

Following that, I was employed as a science writer by the Philadelphia Inquirer, becoming the first woman in the news room at that paper. Breaking barriers was exciting to me, but I lived to regret several mistakes, particularly the one I made in teaming up romantically with the paper's other science writer. That move cost me my job and I went on to become a free-lance writer while earning a graduate degree in anthropology. Like many women of that era, life experience led me to become an active feminist scholar; I was driven to discover and understand gender equality over the ages which led to publication of my major work, 'The Third Sex, The new Professional Woman'. Our need to achieve gender equality has never disappeared and, in fact, at this point in 2026 is stronger than ever. 

Returning to California in 1987, I lived in shared housing in the Bay Area until discovering a movement called "Intentional Community," also known as co- housing. In 2000, I helped create Pleasant Hill Cohousing and have lived there ever since, spending my time enjoying physical activity, walking, attending retreat workshops, and being with neighbors and my partner of three years. It is wonderful to find new love at the age of 88 and wonderful to be living in a community that recreates the closeness of my original neighborhood.

I have written three books, the last being a memoir published in 2020 and I have taught Women’s Studies at Rutgers University and Mills College.