COS junior lobbying for women in Tallahassee

Kelly Quintero, a junior political science major and women’s studies minor, has always believed in women’s equality. In fact, today she considers herself to be a second-wave feminist, or a generation Y and X feminist, who strives to give women their voice back.

With UCF’s diverse selection of clubs and organizations, Quintero easily found a place on campus where she could voice her opinions: the National Organization for Women at UCF, of which she is currently president.

With much aspiration and after three years of being heavily involved with NOW at UCF, Quintero was asked personally by Donna Slutiak, president of the state of Florida’s NOW chapter, to run for the newly opened legislative director position, as she was extremely impressed with Quintero just by the few times they spoke in person.

“Kelly has different qualities that I like to see in upcoming leaders, and many of us are older, and I love having a younger feminist on board because we need to know how our actions and reactions are affecting our leaders of tomorrow,” Slutiak said.

Quintero was accepted into the Tallahassee-based position in June, but the job will not really start to pick up until the legislature is in session, which is in January.

“I look at this position as a chance to get involved and put to work the things I have learned in my classes to better inform women about what bills are affecting them in the Florida legislature,” Quintero said.

With this new position, Quintero will be traveling to Tallahassee a few times a semester to speak with Florida NOW lobbyists, but she insists that it will not interfere with her school work.
“I will give it my all, but only after I give being a student my all,” she said.

She will also be lobbying herself, talking to Florida representatives about bills that affect women and giving women in Florida the information they need to make an informed decision about such things as women’s health care.

“As a woman, it is so important to know how the government is treating you and how your health is basically on the chopping block because there are not many female representatives and so they don’t know what women’s health really entails,” Quintero said.

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