Gloria Steinem Honored At 'An Evening With Gloria Steinem' Benefit, 3/16

Gloria Steinem, World Renowned Feminist Activist, Writer, Lecturer and Founder of Ms. and New York Magazines, will be honored for her activism and will appear as the Guest Speaker at a fundraiser entitled, "An Evening With Gloria Steinem," benefiting The Women's Reproductive Rights Assistance Project (WRRAP) to be held at a private home in Beverly Hills on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. The underwritten event will feature hors d'oeuvres and a wine reception catered by 21 West, with Valet parking included. Tickets are $125 per person and may be purchased by calling 818-501-4286. For further information on WRRAP's mission, please visit the website, www.wrrap.org.

WRRAP raises money for low-income women of all ages, ethnicities and cultural backgrounds who are unable to pay for either emergency contraception or a safe and legal abortion. WRRAP's services are provided free-of-charge to clinics all over the nation. All clinics are State-of-the-Art facilities and most are affiliated with organizations with very high standards such as Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), the National Abortion Federation (NAF) or the National Coalition of Abortion Providers (NCAP).

Joyce Schorr, President and Founder of WRRAP said: "The money we raise is never asked to be repaid. Ninety-five cents of every dollar we raise assists the women who need it. We do not judge the woman or her situation; we just help her. We are privileged to have Gloria Steinem, the legendary champion feminist activist as our 2010 WRRAP Honoree and Guest Speaker. Ms. Steinem defines the word activism. Her accomplishments have changed the world in the advancement of women's rights. Her activism has rewritten history as we know it today."

Gloria Steinem reflects on WRRAP saying: "While working to keep abortion from being criminalized from the top, women are being denied reproductive freedom at the bottom. For poor women or even women serving their country in the military, abortion has become restricted, unaffordable, distant and even criminal. Women are losing control of their bodies, their health and their destinies!"

"I believe in WRRAP, the national fund that creates a bridge between these women and a safe legal abortion, as a freely chosen option. WRRAP is an organization run by volunteers; this heroic effort has often been the only barrier between low-income women and the compulsory pregnancies that lead to everything from inability to care for the children they already have to death due to self-induced abortions or cheap and unskilled abortionists."

"WRRAP must do its work. I can think of no more satisfying and concrete way of making reproductive freedom an egalitarian reality. Just listening to the life stories that come over WRRAP's phone each day, from the dire emergencies to the heartfelt thanks, demonstrate the transforming impact of the organization and its importance in helping women who are in need of assistance."

Some Facts About Abortion Provided By Gloria Steinem:
- Women in over 87% of U.S. counties have no abortion services. When they can't afford childcare or time off from work or travel money, there is no safe and legal alternative.

- Young women in 35 states live in the prison created by parental consent, parental notification and judicial bybass laws. If they are unable to tell their parents, or if they feat entering a courtroom where an unknown judge may or may not give permission in time, they need outside help and support.

- In 17 states, public funds either pay for all abortions, or for those involving the majority of health circumstances; 13 states do so under court order. Although the other 33 states say they comply with the federal Hyde Amendment, which requires funding for abortions where the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, or where the woman's life is endangered, in fact such payment is nearly impossible to obtain. Before the Hyde Amendment, federal Medicaid covered over one-third of all abortions. Since 1977, after Hyde became law, it has paid for virtually none.

- Women dependent on military health services, whether they are married to soldiers or are themselves soldiers risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, are denied access to abortion or even emergency contraception. They often turn to WRRAP for help in funding safe abortions within the limits of the military leave they must seek and the military pay they depend on. This is true event for those who have been raped on duty by enemy soldiers or far too frequently, by their own comrades.

- Low-income women are also forced to confront such other access barriers as pharmacy refusal clauses, extremist protesters in front of clinics, waiting periods that require more lost work days and clinic trips, in-person informed consent counseling designed to prevent and misinform, and breaches of their privacy through fake clinics or the taking of photos by picketers outside clinics.

- Although the constitutional right to freedom of choice, as recognized by the Supreme Court in the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, was meant for all women, the reality of all these facts taken together is that safe and legal abortion services are not readily available to low-income women. WRRAP can help these women by providing funds and support.

About Gloria Steinem:
Gloria Steinem is a writer, lecturer, editor and feminist activist. She travels in this and other countries as an organizer and lecturer and is a frequent media spokeswoman on issues of equality. She is particularly interested in the shared origins of sex and race caste systems, gender roles and child abuse as roots of violence, non-violent conflict resolution, the cultures of indigenous peoples, and organizing across boundaries for peace and justice.

In 1972, she co-founded Ms. magazine, and remained one of its editors for 15 years. She continues to serve as a consulting editor for Ms., and was instrumental in the magazine's move to join and be published by the Feminist Majority Foundation. In 1968, she had helped to found New York Magazine, where she was a political columnist and wrote feature articles. As a freelance writer, she was published in Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, and women's magazines as well as for publications in other countries. She has produced a documentary on child abuse for HBO, a feature film about the death penalty for Lifetime, and been the subject of profiles on Lifetime and Showtime.

Her books include the bestseller Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem; Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions; Moving Beyond Words; and Marilyn: Norma Jean, on the life of Marilyn Monroe. Her writing also appears in many anthologies and textbooks, and she was an editor of Houghton Mifflin's The Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History.

Ms. Steinem helped to found the Women's Action Alliance, a pioneering national information center that specialized in nonsexist, multiracial children's education, and the National Women's Political Caucus, a group that continues to work to advance the numbers of pro-equality women in elected and appointed office at a national and state level. She was president and co-founder of Voters for Choice, a pro-choice political action committee for 25 years, then with the Planned Parenthood Action Fund when it merged with VFC for the 2004 elections.

She was also co-founder and serves on the board of Choice USA, a national organization that supports young pro-choice leadership and works to preserve comprehensive sex education in schools. She was the founding president of the Ms. Foundation for Women, a national multi-racial, multi-issue fund that supports grassroots projects to empower women and girls, and also a founder of its Take Our Daughters to Work Day, a first national day devoted to girls that has now become an institution here and in other countries.

She was a member of the Beyond Racism Initiative, a three-year effort on the part of activists and experts from South Africa, Brazil and the United States to compare the racial patterns of those three countries and to learn cross-nationally. Now, she is working with the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College on a project to document the grassroots origins of the U.S. women's movement.

As a writer, Ms. Steinem has received the Penney-Missouri Journalism Award, the Front Page and Clarion awards, National Magazine awards, an Emmy Citation for excellence in television writing, the Women's Sports Journalism Award, the Lifetime Achievement in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Society of Writers Award from the United Nations, and most recently, the University of Missouri School of Journalism Award for Distinguished Service in Journalism.

Ms. Steinem graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Smith College in 1956, and then spent two years in India on a Chester Bowles Fellowship. She wrote for Indian publications, and was influenced by Gandhian activism. She also received the first Doctorate of Human Justice awarded by Simmons College, the Bill of Rights Award from the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, the National Gay Rights Advocates Award, the Liberty Award of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Ceres Medal from the United Nations, and a number of honorary degrees.

Parenting magazine selected her for its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995 for her work in promoting girls' self-esteem, and Biography magazine listed her as one of the 25 most influential women in America. In 1993, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. She has been the subject of two biographical television documentaries, and The Education of a Woman, a biography written by Carolyn Heilbrun.

In 1993, her concern with child abuse led her to co-produce and narrate an Emmy Award winning television documentary for HBO, "Multiple Personalities: The Search for Deadly Memories." With Rosilyn Heller, she also co-produced an original 1993 television movie for Lifetime, "Better Off Dead," which examined the parallel forces that both oppose abortion and support the death penalty.

Born on March 25, 1934 in Toledo, Ohio, Ms. Steinem now lives in New York City, and is currently at work on Road to the Heart: America As if Everyone Mattered, a book about her more than 30 years on the road as a feminist organizer. She is also writing for other books and publications and co-founded the Women's Media Center (www.womensmediacenter.com) in 2004. To learn more about Gloria Steinem, please visit www.feminist.com/gloriasteinem.

Endorsers of WRRAP include: Claudia Lapin Charitable Trust, Fullen-Smith Foundation, Greetin Foundation, Hefner Foundation, Mike and Corky Hale Stoller Foundation, Ms. Foundation - The Gloria Fund, Peter Norton Family Foundation, Playboy Enterprises, Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, Roth Family Fund, Sidney Stern Memorial Trust, The Annenberg Foundation, The Bydale Foundation, The Prentice Foundation, The Rose and Sherle Wagner Foundation, the National Abortion Federation, Planned Parenthood and The National Coalition of Abortion Providers.

WRRAP Event Underwriters include: Mike and Corky Hale Stoller Foundation, The Greetin Foundation, Sandra Savett, JoAnna Esty, Ray and Jean Summers, Arny and Joyce Schorr, Francisco Alonso, Lisa Berger, Sherry Lawrence, Susan Adelman and Claudio Llanos, Leroy and Mary Carhart, Patty and Peter Cohen, Dr. Mildred Hanson, Amy Madigan and Ed Harris, Kathleen McDowell, Steven and Carol Witlin, Joanna di Paolo and Anthony Fuller, Christina Pickles, Frank and Helene Pierson and Jocelyn Tetel.

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