Evelyn Murphy

Her 2005 book, Getting Even: Why women don't get paid like men and what to do about it was the product of a research effort lasting eight years. In conjunction with the book, Murphy founded The WAGE Project (Women Are Getting Even) to battle wage discrimination against working women. She has testified before U.S. Senate and House committee hearings on pay discrimination against women.

After Dukakis announced that he was not running for Governor of Massachusetts in 1990, Murphy entered the race. With strong name recognition and a solid base of liberal support, Murphy was the early frontrunner. In July 1989, Murphy led Attorney General Francis X. Bellotti 42% to 18% in a Boston Globe poll. That November, Murphy still led Bellotti, but only by 2%. In January, after Bellotti's first wave of television commercials and the entry of Boston University President John Silber into the race, Murphy fell to 20% to Bellotti's 38% and Silber's 16%. At the 1990 Democratic Convention, Bellotti won the convention endorsement with 51% to Murphy's 40% on the second ballot. Silber received 15.5% on the first ballot, which allowed him to run in the primary.

In 1990 Murphy entered the corporate world. She became managing director of the law firm Brown, Rudnick, Freed & Gesmer, and corporate director of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Shawmut National Banks, Fleet National Bank, Fleet Mortgage Company, and Fleet Credit Card Corporation. Blue Cross recruited her to the position of executive vice president in charge of federal and stage media and civic relations. During the latter job, she founded Blue Cross' HealthCare Policy Institute.

In 1986 Murphy ran for Lieutenant Governor against State Senator Gerard D'Amico in the Democratic primary, winning by 374,714 votes (60.10%) to 248,671 votes (39.89%) for D'Amico. In the general election, the Dukakis-Murphy team garnered 1,157,786 votes (65.15%) versus 525,364 votes (19.56%) for George Kariotis and Nicholas Nikitas.

Murphy served as Massachusetts Secretary of Environmental Affairs from 1974 to 1978. In September 1979 President Jimmy Carter named her to the chairmanship of the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere. In 1982 Murphy sought the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor, losing to John Kerry. In 1983 she was appointed Secretary of Economic Affairs, a position she held until 1985.

Evelyn Murphy (born May 14, 1940) is an American businesswoman and politician who was the 67th Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts from 1987 to 1991, being the first woman in the history of the state to hold a constitutional office. She is now the president of The WAGE Project, a United States nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating wage discrimination against women; a resident scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, and a corporate director.

Murphy was born in 1940 in Ancón, Panama, to American citizens. Her father was stationed with the army in the Panama Canal Zone, where her mother joined him in 1939. At the age of six weeks, Murphy was brought to her grandmother's home in Massachusetts. She continued to hold dual U.S.-Panamanian citizenship until the age of 19, when she took the oath of U.S. citizenship in Washington, D.C.