Gloria Steinem lectures at East Carolina University

The evening of November 6, 2009 will be a historic moment for women’s studies at East Carolina University as well as for women throughout Eastern North Carolina. That evening, Gloria Steinem will deliver a public lecture, “Reflections on Feminism: A Voyage of Discovery with Gloria Steinem,” beginning at 7 p.m., in Wright Auditorium. 

“We are proud to welcome Gloria Steinem to East Carolina University to deliver the Premier Lecture in this year’s Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series,” said Dr. Alan White, dean of the Harriot College of Arts and Sciences. “Steinem’s work for gender equality has significantly shaped the world in which we live. Her passion for positive social change has also led her on a most meaningful personal voyage of discovery about which we are very excited to learn.”

Ms. Steinem is known globally as an eloquent spokeswoman on gender rights and gender equality. She co-founded Ms. magazine in 1972 and was one of its editors for 15 years. She also helped to found New York magazine, where she worked as a political columnist. Earlier, Ms. Steinem had broken new cultural and journalistic ground in 1963 with an investigative report on how the women of Playboy were treated. Ms. Steinem’s report was later made into a 1985 movie, A Bunny's Tale.
 
Steinem continues to serve as a consulting editor and columnist for Ms. She is also the author of several important books including Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983), Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem (1992), Moving Beyond Words: Breaking the Boundries of Gender (1994), and Doing Sixty and Seventy (2006).
In the 1970s she became a leading figure of second-wave feminism in the women's rights movement. In 1971, Steinem, along with other feminist leaders (including Betty Friedan and U.S. Representatives Shirley Chisholm and Bella Abzug) founded the National Women's Political Caucus.

“To have Gloria Steinem on campus affirms ECU’s commitment to issues of equality and service. She has spent her life challenging all of us to make a difference, to be vehicles for social change; and her appearance here will spark a renewed discussion of feminism’s role in that ongoing change,” said Cheryl Dudasik-Wiggs, director of ECU’s Women’s Studies Program.

As an organizer, Steinem also helped to found the National Women's Political Caucus, a nonpartisan organization devoted to advancing pro-equality women of all races. She is president of Voters for Choice, an independent bipartisan political action committee that supports candidates working for reproductive freedom. Steinem is also a founding president of the Ms. Foundation for Women, a national, multiracial women's fund that supports grassroots projects to empower women and girls. Steinem has also campaigned actively for the Equal Rights Amendment, in addition to other laws and social reforms that promoted equality

After growing up primarily in the Midwest where her unconventional childhood included no full year of schooling until she was 12, Steinem graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Smith College in 1956. Following graduation, she lived in India for almost two years as a Chester Bowles Asian Fellow. There she wrote for Indian publications and was influenced by Gandhian activism.

 “Steinem’s lecture continues an East Carolina tradition of public lectures on campus by renowned women including Helen Keller (1916), Amelia Earhart (1936), and Eleanor Roosevelt (1941),” observed John Tucker, director of the Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series.

Tucker also noted that "a large turnout, if not a sell-out, is expected."

Those interested in tickets, which are $10.00 each for the public, should contact the ECU Central Ticket Office by calling 328-4788. The Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series is sponsored by the Office of the Dean of the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences. Steinem’s lecture is being co-sponsored by the ECU Women’s Studies Program, the Ledonia Wright Cultural Center, and the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society.