Joy Picus

Joy Picus
Member of the Los Angeles City Council from the 3rd district
In office 1977–1993
Preceded by	Donald D. Lorenzen
Succeeded by	Laura Chick
Personal details
Born	circa 1930 Chicago, Illinois
Political party	Democratic
Residence	Woodland Hills, California, U.S.
Alma mater	University of Wisconsin

Joy Picus (born 1930 or 1931) was a Los Angeles, California, City Council member for sixteen years, from 1977 to 1993, and was a Ms. magazine Woman of the Year in 1985.

Picus was a native of Chicago, Illinois, where her father died shortly after she was born. As a youngster she helped her mother manage an apartment building, and at age sixteen she began her political science studies at the University of Wisconsin. She and Gerald Picus, a physicist, were married in Chicago; they lived in Washington, D.C., for a time, then moved to California when Gerald took a job at Hughes Aircraft in 1959. They had three children.

They lived in Woodland Hills in the San Fernando Valley, where Joy Picus became active in the Parent-Teacher Association and League of Women Voters and was also president of the Valley branch of the American Association of University Women. She was also employed for three years as community relations director for the Jewish Federation Council. She was a founding member of Temple Aliyah.

She became a feminist when she read Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique in 1964. "That was my awakening," she said. Before I didn't know who Susan B. Anthony was." When she became a councilwoman she sponsored a Susan B. Anthony essay contest each year. Before that, she sponsored a "Great Expectations" program for high school girls, to help them expand their goals.

After her City Council defeat in 1993, she worked on behalf of "family-friendly" workplaces, women's rights and recycling. In 2006 she was chair of FOTO, the Friends of the [Griffith] Observatory.

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