Greco kicks off year for WILS

Men and women were indeed created equal -- especially when welfare and child-care issues are at stake, prominent Philadelphia businessperson Rosemarie Greco told a crowd in Logan Hall Thursday. More than 60 people came to hear Greco, currently a leader in a city welfare-to-work program, discuss the problem of women on welfare and urge female leaders to find a solution during a lecture sponsored by the University's ongoing Women in Leadership Series. "Women's issues? are not issues for the softer sex? whatever that is," said the interim president and chief executive officer of the Philadelphia Private Industry Council, a group which is implementing the "Greater Philadelphia Works" program. The WILS planning committee chose Greco for the first of its three-part series because she is at the forefront of both her profession -- business administration -- and the Philadelphia community. She is past president of CoreStates Financial Corp., the banking company which was bought earlier this year by First Union Corp. of North Carolina. During the time of the suffragettes, "a woman's wages were the property of her husband," Greco explained. Though she recognized that women voters and legislators have come a long way in taking their lives into their own hands, she added that "all is not well." For example, she said, Franklin Field could be filled four times with Philadelphia's female and child welfare recipients, while the average welfare family leader is a woman. "These are women's issues," Greco repeated. To solve welfare and child-care problems facing women, Greco called on the women leaders in the audience to unite. She renounced the idea that leadership is rooted in gender or genes. Instead, she argued that women's leadership is embedded in "equity, equality and empowerment." Greco answered audience members' questions pertaining to job training and female leaders' obligation to help reduce unemployment. WILS planning committee member and College and Engineering senior Janelle Brodsky praised Greco's speech. "She presented everything in this wonderful format that was a mix of research findings, her own research and personal experience," the Panhellenic Council president said. Philadelphia attorney Louis Coffey, one of three male audience members, shared this sentiment. "I'm glad to see that there is ongoing reinforcement of the empowerment of women," he said. Last year, College seniors Rachael Goldfarb, chairperson of the Student Committee for Undergraduate Education, and Roshini Thayaparan, former chairperson of the Residential Advisory Board, developed the WILS concept after discussing their personal problems as female leaders in a primarily male-dominated campus. "Now that the world has been Lewinsky-fied, it's become increasingly difficult for me to replicate the kinds of relationships the former chairs, who were men, seemed to cultivate," Goldfarb said. Penn Microbiology Professor Helen Davies is scheduled to speak October 28 in the next WILS installment. U.S. Appeals Court Judge Marjorie Rendell, a University Trustee and wife of Mayor Ed Rendell, is scheduled to speak November 11.