Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, and Amy Brenneman, star of television’s “Judging Amy,” urged students at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee to register and vote on November 2. Speaking before a large crowd of students on Wednesday, the last day Wisconsin students could register on campus before Election Day, Smeal and Brenneman […]
A major federal study involving 162,000 women showed that women who use oral contraceptives have a decreased risk of heart disease, stroke, some cancers, and high cholesterol. Researchers at Wayne State University used the data gathered by the Women’s Health Initiative, the largest women’s health study ever conducted, to look at the impact on women’s […]
Gunmen attacked a bus in Baghdad today carrying female employees of Iraqi Airways, killing one woman and injuring fourteen others. The attack comes just two days after Margaret Hassan, who heads Care International’s operations in Iraq, was kidnapped from her car en route to work. As the violence increases in Iraq, threats against Iraqi women […]
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reports that rape is still being used as a weapon to terrorize women and girls, their families, and their communities in Darfur, Sudan. According to Pamela Shifman, the UNICEF advisor on violence and sexual exploitation, every woman and girl that she met while in the Darfur camps said that […]
Women serving in the United States Navy are no longer required to wear skirts as part of their uniform, due to changes to the Navy’s uniform dress code issued earlier this month. Previously, women were required to wear skirts for formal events, as well as pack them for sea duty. The changes affect the more […]
Women’s rights organizations are reporting success in registering voters across the country and in key target states as historic drives to get out the women’s vote continue in the weeks leading up to the presidential election on November 2. Leaders in the women’s movement spoke to the press today about their organizations’ efforts and the […]
The United States’ Permanent Mission to the United Nations stacked a panel discussion on strategies to combat maternal mortality with anti-women’s rights and anti-family planning advocates. According to Catholics for A Free Choice, the event held yesterday at UN headquarters included several panelists with a history of opposing women’s rights and sexual and reproductive health […]
Constitutional amendments banning gay marriage will appear on the ballot in eleven states this November. The amendments are expected to motivate conservatives to get to the polls in four presidential battleground states, reports the Associated Press, and may influence several Congressional races. According to the Human Rights Campaign, the following states will consider constitutional amendments […]
The head of operations in Iraq for CARE International, a leading humanitarian aid organization, was kidnapped this morning. Reuters reports that Margaret Hassan, who was born in Britain and married an Iraqi, has lived in Iraq over the past 30 years and has been working for CARE International since the early 1990s. According to CARE’s […]
A recent review of ten state evaluations on the effectiveness of abstinence-only sex education has found that the programs, which forbid discussion of contraception except to highlight failure rates, have shown no long-term success in impacting the sexual behavior of teens. Specifically, the review released by Advocates for Youth (AFY) demonstrated that abstinence-only programs do […]
Marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the adoption of the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the UN Committee for CEDAW announced that no country in the world has achieved full equality between men and women in law and in practice. The Deputy Secretary-General Louis Frechette asserted that women are still “significantly […]
Margaret Sloan-Hunter, a feminist leader and civil rights advocate, died September 23 at the age of 57 in Oakland, California after suffering from a long illness. Sloan-Hunter was a former editor of Ms. magazine, as well as founder and first chairwoman of the National Black Feminist Organization. Gloria Steinem lauded Sloan-Hunter for uniting both feminist […]
Neil Noesen, a pharmacist in Wisconsin, faced a disciplinary hearing earlier this week for refusing to fill or transfer Amanda Phiede’s prescription for birth control pills in July, 2002. Noesen is accused of unprofessional conduct by the state’s Department of Regulation and Licensing. Noesen was filling in at a Kmart pharmacy when Phiede attempted to […]
Over 250 global leaders have endorsed a statement that reaffirms the plan of action created ten years ago at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo. President Bush has refused to join the 250 world leaders including 85 heads of state and governments in signing the statement that ensures the rights of […]
Amy Baumann The United States Commission on Civil Rights issued a report last week evaluating the accomplishments and setbacks in civil rights’ progress. The Commission examined areas of continued disparities for minority groups such as housing, employment, voting, and education, reporting an overall negative assessment of the Bush Administration’s efforts. The report, entitled “Redefining Rights […]
A pharmacist in New Hampshire refused to fill a prescription for emergency contraception last month, adding to a long list of related incidents across the nation in which women have been thwarted from obtaining their time-sensitive legally prescribed medication. According to the Concord Monitor, Todd Sklencar of Brooks Pharmacy in Laconia, New Hampshire refused to […]
In an unusual statement from a high Church official, Philippine Archbishop Guadencio Rosales acknowledged that the Catholic Church must share the blame for the rapid increase in population growth in the midst of widespread poverty in the country. Twenty-seven million people in the Philippines (more than a third of the population) live on a dollar […]
Little noticed in the unusual Saturday session, the Debbie Smith bill passed the US Senate. The Justice for All Act of 2004 (H.R. 5107), previously passed by the House, incorporates the Debbie Smith Act, the Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology Act (H.R. 3214) and includes the DNA Sexual Assault Justice Act (S. 152). The measure […]
Margaret Moore, director of the National Center for Women and Policing (NCWP), will be a guest speaker for the Police Service of Northern Ireland next week at the launch of the Gender Action Plan for women and policing in Belfast, Ireland. The Gender Action Plan contains 33 recommendations to improve the recruitment, retention, and progression […]
In a country where sharia (Islamic) law is spreading throughout the north and possibly outside of its borders, two Nigerian women have been sentenced to death by stoning for having sex out of wedlock. Both sentences were imposed in the northern state of Bauchi by Islamic courts, reports Reuters. Hajara Ibrahim, a twenty-nine year old […]
