From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour.

I'm Sarah Austin-Gines.

It's been more than 50 years since the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention to eliminate

all forms of discrimination against women.

But I recently heard Melinda Gates say, while introducing a moth event, that based on current

rates of change as measured by the World Economic Forum, U.S. women won't gain equality with men for another 208 years.

We're making progress, but it's slow going. So the five stories in this hour are all about women claiming power.

Our first storyteller is Betty Reed Suskin. Betty's one of the oldest storytellers to Grace the Moth stage. She told the story with us when she was 97. The story happens when she's 95 years old and her friends and family were telling her that she shouldn't be living alone and independent any longer. Here's Betty Reed Susskin, live at the Moth in Missoula, Montana.

The year was 2017, and my friends were settling for Friday night bingo at the senior center.

And I was a full-term permanent park ranger at Rosie the River,

home front National Historical Park in Richmond, California.

But I had reached that age with problems that meant that I was, I'd outlived my sense of future, and was involved in a grand improvisation. I was making up life one hour at a time.

I was meeting with my attorney, going over end-of-life issues in the morning, going to work,

and then coming back to an exploding life, it was intense.

I spent my days as a ranger, doing things that rangers do, guiding tours.

I was being involved in trainings.

Of course, that takes most of our lives as rangers,

trainings in CPR in which I was most often the victim.

Training's in, with that defibrillator that's on the wall,

just in case one of our visitors got in trouble,

but also answering phones.

And that was tricky for me, because I would answer the phone,

...