A history marking the Turks and Caicos Islands' 50 years of Ministerial Government from 1976 to 2026 argues that women helped build the country long before they held office. Its author, cultural heritage researcher Joan Astwood-Sutton, says their work in homes, classrooms, clinics and offices is missing from official records.
Among those named is Mildred Garland-Astwood, a South Caicos-born teacher and craft educator who settled in Grand Turk in 1974 and designed a peach-and-white gingham uniform for North Primary School in September 1976; it is still worn at Ona Glinton Primary School. The 1976–1980 Legislative Council included two women, Helena Jones Robinson and Madlin Augusta Wynns-Potter, both appointed members. Rosita Beatrice Missick-Butterfield became the first woman elected in 1984, Arabella Smith the first woman in ministerial office after 1991, Lillian Elaine Boyce the first woman Deputy Premier in February 2009, and Sharlene Cartwright-Robinson the first woman Premier in 2016.
Joan Astwood-Sutton calls for closer research into the women's contributions, using interviews, family papers, government records and photographs, and invites correction where memory and documents differ.