Local community meets feminist Gloria Steinem
By Angela Greiner Contributing Writer

PHOTO/SUBMITTED (l to r) FLIC founder Deborah Penta, Corridor Nine Chamber of Commerce Barbara Clifford and Gloria Steinem come together Nov. 30 during the inaugural FLIC luncheon.

Region - Feminist icon Gloria Steinem, 73, was welcomed as the guest speaker at the inaugural luncheon of the Westborough-based Female Leadership Interest Council (FLIC) Nov. 30 at Mechanics Hall in Worcester.

The event, which attracted 300 attendees, was organized into a lecture and then a question-and-answer period; Steinem identified the latter as her preferred format because a lecture has a hierarchical structure that creates an artificial barrier.

"Hierarchy is based on patriarchy," Steinem said.

Steinem, at ease at the podium where two other revolutionary feminist leaders, Lucy Stone and Abbey Kelley Foster, once stood, cautioned the audience not to take women's progress for granted.

"No movement has made a lasting mark until it has lasted for a century," she said.

She warned that critics in the early years of the women's movement had argued that it was unnecessary and in recent years irrelevant. Steinem said that the current view is troubling because there is so much that has yet to be accomplished.

"We have 60 more years before we are born into a society that accepts us as unique individuals," she said.

Steinem acknowledged that there have been significant changes over the past 40 years but said that women today are still faced with the predicament of balancing career and family. The idea that women can have it all, she said, was the enemy of the women's movement because currently it means that women have to do it all.

"Women are still trying to do it all and it is not possible," Steinem said.

She challenged women to get angry.

"We are sold the notion that American women should be grateful," she said. "Why are we the only advanced democracy without a national health care or child care system? And why is the United States one of only five other countries that does not off er paid [parental] leave?"

Steinem also challenged women to tear down the feminist and masculine roles that restrict the development of the complete individual. She then cautioned against the attitude, shared by men and women, that men cannot do what women do.

While raising boys, Steinem suggested, "Teach children to care about children; it brings out [their] humanity. Women became whole being in the public; boys become whole being in the private life."

Steinem, who founded "Ms. Magazine" in 1972, said that women have to take responsibility for what they have not done. She challenged the audience to go out and get 10 women to vote, and encouraged women to support other women in the work force and to question why women honor people who do not honor women.

For more information about FLIC, visit www.femaleleaders. org.