Friday, November 2, 2007

The Feminine Critique

A steady stream of research on how women are perceived in the workplace concludes that women face an uphill battle. There are still no straightforward answers about why there are not more women in positions of leadership, or why they are perceived differently from men in leadership. Click here for more.

Sierra Leone rape victims neglected

In Sierra Leone, violations of women’s rights continue unabated. Nearly six years after the end of civil conflict, violence against girls and women is still rampant. Amnesty International has called on the government of Sierra Leone to provide justice and reparations for the victims of sexual abuse. Click here for more.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

'One Team, One Book' teaches young athletes about Title IX

In St. Louis, the Hillsboro High School volleyball team is educating themselves and others about Title IX. With the encouragement of their coaches the team is reading “Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX” and devoting 30 minutes of practice each day to discuss what they have read. The project was started by the school’s librarians in an effort to educate young athletes about the challenges previous generations faced participating in school sports. The project has been a success for this team and has encouraged other teams to take part in similar activities. Click here for more.

Black, female leaders battle Baltimore urban woes

As of this year, Baltimore’s top elected posts- Mayor, City Council President, Chief Prosecutor and Comptroller are all held by Black women. The jury is still out on how their presence may affect growing crime and poverty rates, but many are hopefully that the shift in leadership is for the better. Click here for more.

Female Baby Boomers Face 'Retirement Gap'

The first Baby Boomer to file for social security was a woman, highlighting the increasing number of women who will rely on the program in the near future. Thousands of Baby Boomers could apply for social security everyday over the next 20 years, over half of whom will be women. Yet, in the presidential primaries there has been no mention of the retirement gap or the particular needs of women. Click here for more.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Argentina's first lady wins top job

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, former senator and first lady, won Argentina's presidential election on Sunday. Fernandez won over 40% of the vote and promises to build on the economic legacy of her husband’s presidency. Much of Fernandez’s support came from Argentina’s poor and working class citizens, who credit her husband with generating jobs. Please click here for more.

Friday, October 26, 2007

A woman's supreme right over her own body and destiny is in jeopardy

Forty years after the passing of the Abortion Act in the UK, women’s rights are still in jeopardy. The debate still rages on about the rights of the fetus and the right to privacy as hundreds of anti-abortion activist gather to demonstrate. Click here for more.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

For Women, Greater Obstacles to Retirement

For many women, retirement is not an option. An increasing number of women can not afford to retire because they have not saved enough money to support themselves after retirement. Even if they have invested in a traditional pension or a 401(k) plan, women consistently enter retirement with about half as much money as men do. Please click here for more.

Monday, October 22, 2007

For Women, a Slow Narrowing of the Pay Gap

In 1979, women working full time made only 63 percent as much pay as men, according to data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Now working women make 81 percent as much as men. Yes, that’s an improvement, but it still means that median weekly earnings were $600 for women last year, compared with $743 for men. Click here for more

Why Men Dominate Math and Science Fields

A new study suggests that women are less likely to participate in science and engineering settings where they are outnumbered by men. The study published in Psychological Science notes that in order to bring gender equality to science and engineering, changes must occur in the social and culture aspect of the fields. Click here for more.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

House Fails to Override Child Health Bill Veto

Supporters of the S-chip bill did not muster enough votes in the house to override a presidential veto. The bill to provide health insurance for 10 million children was supported by a vote of 273 to 156, 13 votes short of the necessary two-thirds majority to pass the bill. Recent polls show widespread public support for the measure and the democratic leadership is confidant in its ability to propose a re-drafted version. Click here for more.

System overhaul key to reducing breast cancer deaths for black women

In Chicago, massive changes to the city’s healthcare system are required for reducing deaths from breast cancer, according to a special task force. African American women there are dying from breast cancer at a rate 68% higher than white women and experts point to a segregated healthcare system as the main cause. Underserved women in the city do not have access to high-quality screening, detection or treatment, causing a high rate of mortality. To improve survival rates, the panel recommends creating a universal, transparent quality-control system for screening and detecting breast cancer. Please click here for more.

Abstinence 1, S-Chip 0

The House of Representatives is considering increasing funding for abstinence only education by $28 million. Abstinence-only programs, the only form of federally-financed sex education, could receive $200 million a year if the bill passes. In an effort to pass the State Children’s Health Insurance program, democratic leaders are offering a trade off that would increase funding to the abstinence-only programs despite their having been proven ineffective. Please click here for more.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Birth-Control Foe To Run Office on Family Planning

The Bush administration has appointed Susan Orr, an opponent of contraception, as chief of family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services. Orr has supported proposals to stop health insurance plans from covering birth control and appears to be as controversial as her predecessor Eric Keroack, who also opposed support for contraception. In her new post, Orr will oversee $283 million in annual grants to provide low-income families and others with contraceptive services, counseling and preventive screenings.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Unilever Shuns Stereotypes of Women (Unless Talking to Men)

Unilever, makers of Dove and Axe, promote two competing images of women. The Dove campaign celebrates women of all shapes and sizes while the Axe campaign features underfed and over-sexualized images of women. Is this hypocrisy? Some consumer groups say that Unilever should be criticized for its imbalanced messaging. Please click here for more.

Deadly Deliveries

Maternal mortality is increasing nationally. A total of 54 women died in 2004 and it is estimated that more than 13 women will die for every 100,000 babies born in the United States. A number of factors are contributing to the increase in maternal mortalities, including: the rising age at which women have children, the obesity epidemic, and a decrease of practicing obstetricians. In New York, where rates are among the highest in the country, another leading factor is the growing number of poor and immigrant patients. Please click here for more.

Outlawing Abortion Does Not Lower Rates

A global study of abortion rates around the world has concluded that rates are similar in countries where abortions are legal and those where they are not, suggesting that banning abortion does not deter women from seeking the procedure. The study shows that in Uganda, where abortion is illegal, the estimated abortion rate is more than twice the rate of that in the United State. The lowest rate was in Western Europe where abortion is legal and contraception is widely available.
Please click here for more information.

Afghan Women Jailed for Safety

Women in Afghanistan who have been jailed for “moral crimes” such as adultery or being in the company of a man who is not a relative are believed to be safer in prison. The annual festival of Eid, that brings the prospect of presidential pardons, puts these women at risk of being released and put in the custody of relatives who may carry out “honor killings” and other serve punishments. Warnings from international organizations about the risk of releasing these women follows an early September report by the U.N. that found at least half the women in Afghanistan's largest jail are there for so-called moral crimes. Please click here for more information.

M.B.A. Programs Pay Off for Women Seeking a Return to Wall Street

Women returning to the workforce after leaving to fulfill family obligations are now being aided by executive MBA programs. Programs like Back in Business at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth offer a curriculum that combines academics and career opportunities. With a median age of 47 and an average of eight years out of the workforce more than half of the programs participants found jobs with high-level companies such as Goldman Sachs.
Please click here for more information.

Monday, August 20, 2007

UPDATE: White House Acts to Limit Health Plan for Children

The Bush Administration has implemented new standards that limit the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The administration has adopted these standards in order to restore the program to its original focus on low-income children. When the SCHIP was created in 1997, the purpose was to provide coverage to children of low-income families, and the execution of this program was to be determined by the state. The only stipulation was that this program could not be a replacement for private coverage. To prevent children from switching from private coverage to the public SCHIP, the administration suggests that states create a waiting period before considering children eligible for the public program.

Now, in order for states to make individual changes to SCHIP, they must first demonstrate that they have enrolled at least 95% of children below 200% of the poverty level. “Deborah S. Bachrach, a deputy commissioner in the New York State Health Department, said, ‘No state in the nation has a participation rate of 95 percent.’” Several states, including New York and New Jersey feel these new standards will be impossible to meet and will hinder efforts to insure more children.

Click here to read the full article.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

UPDATE: Women's March Into Office Slows

Although women represent the majority of votes in major elections, they only hold 1 out of every 6 elected Federal positions and 1 out of every 4 elected State positions. Debbie Walsh, Director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, a NCRW member center, observes, “We’ve hit a plateau.” Although Hillary Clinton could be elected President in 2008, and Nancy Pelosi is in little danger of losing her Speaker of the House title, several other women governors, senators, and congresswomen are at risk of losing their positions in the next election.

This plateau has occurred for a number of reasons, according to experts. Several of the major issues ruling the 2008 elections, including Iraq, national security, and immigration, are issues that have traditionally been gendered “masculine,” and therefore, women candidates are not perceived as desirable or capable. Research by political scientist Jennifer Lawless at Brown University shows that women are less likely than men to enter into competitive races, and women are even less likely to enter into the race when opposing another woman. Despite women’s reluctance to run for office, however, Lawless’ research shows that women candidates are as likely to win as men.



Click here to read the full article.

Monday, August 13, 2007

NEW: The Color of Health Care: Diagnosing Bias in Doctors

A recent study by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and other Harvard University affiliates reveals evidence that quality of health care is linked to deeply-rooted internalized racial stereotyping. The study showed that doctors with subconscious racial biases were less likely to prescribe aggressive heart attack treatment for black patients than for white patients.

Researchers used the Implicit Association Test to determine doctors’ biases. Doctors were then given a case study of a man who entered the emergency room with severe chest pain. The patient was described as “white” to some doctors and as “black” to others. Doctors who were told that the patient was white were more likely to believe that he was having a heart attack than doctors who were told that the patient was black.


Click here to download the published study.

Click here to read the full article.

Monday, July 30, 2007

NEW: Salary, Gender and the Social Cost of Haggling

A new study by Linda C. Babcock and Lei Lai from Carnegie Mellon University and Hannah Riley Bowles from the Kennedy School of Government may explain why women’s salaries are still lower than those of their male counterparts. Traditionally, the gender gap in salaries is considered to be the result of men’s aggressivity and women’s passivity. Therefore, according to this theory, women could close the pay gap through assertiveness training.

Babcock, Lai, and Bowles, however, found that the gender gap stems from differences in the way men and women negotiate. Findings indicated that there is a social risk involved in negotiating. The study showed that both men and women perceived women who asked for more as being “less nice” and subtly penalized these women. Men tended to penalize women who asked for more money, but did not penalize other men for doing the same. Women tended to penalize both men and women who negotiated.

Results of this study explain that the social risk of negotiating is higher for women than men; therefore, women are less likely to negotiate salaries because they will be perceived less favorably by their superiors.

Read the full article.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

UPDATE: Ex-Surgeon General Says White House Hushed Him & Surgeon General Sees 4-Year Term as Compromised


Yesterday, former Surgeon General, Richard H. Carmona, testified to a Congressional panel that top Bush administration officials tried to prevent him from speaking out on public health issues they deemed controversial, including abstinence-only sex education, the emergency contraceptive Plan B, and mental and global health issues. He stated that any health information that did not align with the administration’s ideological or political agendas was excluded from or pushed to the fringes of his reports. For example, when Carmona wanted to speak out about scientific research supporting the benefits of teaching about both abstinence and contraceptives in schools, he was silenced. David Satcher and C. Everett Koop, also former Surgeon Generals, attended the hearing, and claimed that although these practices had become worse during the Bush era, previous administrations had also suppressed scientific information that conflicted with political and personal interests. Satcher reported that under the Clinton administration, he was refused permission to publish a report about sexuality and public health due to sensitivities surrounding the Lewinsky scandal. Koop stated that under the Regan administration, he had been dissuaded from confronting the AIDS crisis. For similar reasons, former FDA commissioner, Susan F. Wood, resigned in 2005 because of the administration’s delay tactics surrounding the approval of over-the-counter sales of the emergency contraceptive, Plan B.

Full Articles:
Ex-Surgeon General Says White House Hushed Him
Surgeon General Sees 4-Year Term as Compromised

Thursday, June 21, 2007

UPDATE: HHS Hatchet Job on Comprehensive Sexuality Education Deceptive and Politically Motivated

“Today, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), a division of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a report attacking comprehensive sex education programs.” Eight programs were evaluated—7 revealed the positive impact of condom usage, and 2 revealed the positive impact of delaying sexual initiation. Most importantly, the report revealed that the information presented in the comprehensive sex education curricula is nearly 100% scientifically accurate and effective, despite the report’s original intent to discredit comprehensive sex education programs. The report, however, claims that these curricula do not provide sufficient emphasis on abstinence because the word ‘abstinence’ is used fewer times throughout the report than words like ‘condom’ and ‘contraception’. Martha Kempner, Vice President for Information at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), pointed out that counting words is not a reliable measure of what messages the students are actually learning.

Full Article:
HHS Hatchet Job on Comprehensive Sexuality Education Deceptive and Politically Motivated