Many are remembering the author and women’s rights activist, Gloria Steinem, who died at the age of 92.<\/p>\n
While many know her for her work during the feminist movement of the 1960’s and 70’s, her impact is also felt here locally.<\/p>\n
While her last public visits to the area were in 2008 and 2012, many remember them just like it was yesterday.<\/p>\n
Gloria Steinem spoke in front of a crowd at the Lehigh Valley Women’s Summit in 2012 at Cedar Crest College. It is a day the college’s now president, Dr. Elizabeth Meade, remembers well. Not only for what it meant to the students, but also to her personally.<\/p>\n
“There is not a single other role model that has had as much influence on my development as a human being and as a woman than Gloria Steinem did,” said Meade.<\/p>\n
Steinem blazed a trail and impacted the lives of women like Meade and women’s advocate Pamela Varkony.<\/p>\n
“She represented everything that women thought they should be and thought they should be entitled to,” said Varkony.<\/p>\n
In light of her passing, both women are now reflecting on Steinem’s hard-fought battles and her leadership.<\/p>\n
“I think all the success that women had during World War II took several decades to percolate. By the time Gloria was coming into her own as a young woman, it was ripe; the movement was ripe for a leader,” said Varkony.<\/p>\n
Today, they are looking at the past.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s very important at this moment where we reflect on her legacy, where we don’t take that work for granted,” said Meade.<\/p>\n
They are also thinking about the future.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s important for us to realize how far we have yet to go. There’s never been a woman president. Women still are not at parity in the Congress of the United States. There’s never been a woman mayor of Allentown,” said Varkony.<\/p>\n
Varkony says that, with room to improve, there is a desire to grow and to live like Steinem.<\/p>\n
“There has always been a certain willingness in the Lehigh Valley for women to move forward,” said Varkony.<\/p>\n
That is evident for Meade, who sees the future in students every day at Cedar Crest College.<\/p>\n
“They get that what we want to do is empower them to be who they want to be, to make the choices that they want to make,” said Meade.<\/p>\n
“There’s a lot yet to do, and I think if Gloria were still here, she’d be saying, onward,” said Varkony.<\/p>\n
In addition to her visit to Cedar Crest College, Steinem also visited Lafayette College in Easton in 2008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many are remembering the author and women’s rights activist, Gloria Steinem, who died at the age of 92.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,116595,10095],"class_list":["post-278512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-gloria-steinem","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}