Megan Renee Gamble: Profile of Empowered Leadership

Photo by Ursula Ruhl

Some women's rights activists complain that younger females have dropped the ball on the feminist cause. They obviously haven't met Megan Renee Gamble of Kirkwood.

Gamble a Kirkwood High School (KHS) graduate from the class of 2002, is the winner of the Missouri National Organization of Women (NOW) Young Feminist Award.

"Young people are needed to continue the fight for the rights of women after the rest of us are gone," said Carol Landry, president of Missouri NOW. "If the struggle ends, I am afraid we will revert back to a status when women were without a way to defend rights of their own."

Landry said Gamble typifies the kind of young women who are socially aware and willing to commit to important causes for their community and their nation. Gamble, who is now a freshman at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., is carrying on with her commitment at the college level.

"There is a women's group at Knox, which I head, which is sort of a junior edition of NOW," said Gamble. "It's called Students Against Sexism in Society (SASS). We have weekly meetings on issues ranging from the right to an abortion to dealing with violence on campus.

"We also have helped with a program in Galesburg to aid abused women," added Gamble. "We had a program, called the 'Clothesline Project,' which involved a visual testimony of women who had been abused and how they overcame the situations they were dealing with."

Even before college, Gamble had already established a record of activism which helped her win the NOW award. At KHS, she was on the school's AIDS Committee and helped distribute information about the AIDS crisis as well as helped organize an AIDS Day concert.

As part of Kirkwood's Eliot Chapel Social Action Committee, Gamble helped raise $2,200 to be shared with organizations such as the Women's Safe House. Gamble was active with Environmental Awareness into the Future as well, a group dedicated to preserving and cleaning up the local environment.

Gamble also served as vice president of the KHS chapter of the Gay Straight Alliance that she said works to ensure that all students at school, regardless of their sexual orientation, have a safe learning environment.

"Kirkwood High students and the community seemed to be split over the idea of GSA," said Gamble. "We had a GSA bulletin board and some people would rip off and tear up our announcements.

"But, generally, I think there was an educated, socially aware and tolerant atmosphere at Kirkwood High School," continued Gamble. "Of course, there was a petition going around in the community demanding an end to GSA, but we got lots of support from the community as well."

Gamble said she understands that social activism can bring critics, both locally and nationally. She said she thinks it is wrong when pundits like KMOX Radio's nationally-syndicated commentator Rush Limbaugh brand NOW members as "nags" and as "feminazis."

"I think anybody who says those kinds of thing is just wrong," said Gamble. "There may be some NOW members who are militants, but you can't characterize the whole group that way. Every organization has a few people at the extremes.

"The vast majority of the people I've met with NOW are caring and compassionate and the women are not manhaters," stressed Gamble. "All they are asking for is that both sexes be treated equally."

Gamble said NOW has made her more aware of current issues that are facing women. Among those issues are increasing attacks on Title IX funding for women's sports programs in school and efforts to cut child care funding programs.

Also, NOW members are currently considering an effort to revive the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) for ratification in states that have become friendlier to gender rights issues. One of those states is Illinois, and Gamble said she would be well situated to work for the cause from her new residence at Knox College.

Gamble said she first became interested in feminism after participating in a workshop called Anytown sponsored by the National Conference for Community and Justice. She learned more about feminism as a result of her NOW award, which included a trip to a recent NOW convention held at Central Missouri State University (CMSU) in Warrensburg, Mo.

State NOW President Landry said that too many young women do not know the debt they owe to feminists because women have been invisible in most history books. According to Landry, there is little to indicate that a struggle has ensued, so young women don't know what has gone on before and what continues to occur.

"Young women do not know that they do not have equal rights under the U.S. Constitution and that any right that they have now could be easily taken away -- just as there are those trying to take away Title IX rights right now," Landry said.

Title IX ensures that women get equity in all areas of education. The most visible aspect of Title IX, according to Landry, is in the area of women's sports. Though there is still no funding equity, she said women's sports are receiving more financial support and scholarship money, Landry said.

Title IX has led to a dramatic participation by women in high school and college sports. It also has led to more women being accepted into law school and medical school.

As for NOW winner Gamble, she has yet to decide on a college major, much less a career.

"I'm only a freshman at Knox, but there are so many classes I want to take in psychology, political science and women's studies," said Gamble. "The class I've liked best so far is an international relations class which really made me realize how much I have to learn."

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