Editor’s Note: This blog was written by Lynn H. Yeakel, Vision 2020 Founder and Co-Chair and Director, Drexel University College of Medicine’s Institute for Women’s Health and Leadership.
To celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the U.S. Constitution in 1987, I organized a national conference in Philadelphia entitled “Women’s Future Under the Constitution” in my role as CEO of Women’s Way, the nation’s first and largest women’s funding federation. Gloria Steinem was a speaker, as was national columnist Ellen Goodman. But the woman who provided the grounding in women’s history and received the most enthusiastic response was Dr. Gerda Lerner.
Dr. Lerner’s impact resulted from her determination that women receive credit and recognition for their accomplishments and contributions to society, and in the 1970’s she created the first women’s studies program and the nation’s first graduate program in women’s history. In many ways, Gerda Lerner epitomized the leadership that is the cornerstone of Vision 2020, and the 1987 conference laid the foundation for the Vision 2020 campaign to achieve women’s economic and social equality.
Read more about this important woman here.
