Barbara Boxer (born 1940) is a Democratic Senator from California.

Barbara Boxer was one of six women elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992. Representing California as a Democrat, she was part of a larger movement that swept an increased number of women into positions of power within the government. A 10-year veteran of Congress, Boxer rose through her energetic and combative style, and her fealty to the liberal causes which had first inspired her entrance into politics--feminism and environmentalism chief among them. The product of a conventional background and upbringing, Boxer was inspired by the social upheavals of the 1960s to look beyond her home and family to make her mark on the world at large.

Boxer's origins and early years gave little hint of the career she would eventually pursue. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, the child of immigrants, in 1940. Boxer later recalled a conventional...