General Motors has named Mary Barra its next chief executive, making her the first woman to head up a major automaker. Ever. Barra, 51, GM's current head of product development, will take the reins in January, culminating a 33-year career at the world's second largest automaker.

It shouldn't be, but this is kind of a big deal. After decades of gender "equality," only 4.2 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. Perhaps after a few more decades of equality, headlines like the one on this post will be reduced to being merely offensive instead of ironic?