Schools

East End Women's Network: New Board, Scholarship Winners

Longstanding networking group appoints new board members and awards annual scholarships at Baiting Hollow meeting.

State Senate candidate and noted local photographer Liz Glasgow are among the influential East End women to be selected as new board members for the East End Women’s Network, a group of civic-minded women that has helped promote women in business, industry, labor, government, the arts, education and public service since 1981.

The new members were sworn in at a meeting at Giorgio’s in Baiting Hollow last Wednesday, where Patch was the featured business. North Fork Patch editor spoke about the evolution of Patch and the benefits of using the website for business people.

Finally, two female high school seniors were awarded scholarships based upon essays they wrote about why it’s important for women to support one another. First place winner Zoe Vayer of won $1,000 for her essay about her mother.

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“She has taught by example and shown me how to be an independent woman,” she wrote. “My mother has shown me how to act with kindness and selflessness. She has played a key role in making me who I am today and I look up to her as a human being and as a female role model.”

Zoe also wrote that women must support each other because the fight against gender stereotypes is “rooted in centuries of gender profiling.”

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“Women’s greatest obstacle is overcoming male expectations and biases,” she wrote. “Men expect women to fill certain roles and to behave in certain ways.  Women ought to have the same opportunities as men in the work place and household.  Women should not be expected to do dishes, expected to wash clothes. A woman should just as well be able to grill a steak or play football.  The argument is not whether women are physically or emotionally equal to men. The key is opportunity.”

Second place winner Stephanie Puwalski of Eastport South Manor won $500 for her essay that also addressed the theme of the ongoing struggle for gender equality.

“Oftentimes, women are criticized if they do something wrong because they are usually expected to do and say things in a certain way,” she wrote. “Then again women could just be criticized because of a man’s fear that if a woman stops acting with support and encouragement, there will be an outbreak of chaos. For the love and inspiration a woman offers is an intrinsic aspect of today’s world.”

See attached PDFs to read the full essays from this year’s scholarship winners.


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