The British government is planning to announce later this week that it will support the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The move by the British government leaves the United States, which opposes the ICC without full exemptions for its military personnel and officials, in stark contrast with the members of the European Union […]
A recent report reveals that chronic lung disease among women has almost doubled in seven years due to heavy smoking. Almost half of the 50,000 cases of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease diagnosed in England and Wales between 1990 and 1997 were among women. These numbers constitute a steep rise in the percentage of women with […]
Saudi Arabia has agreed to support some portions of the United Nations law on women’s rights known as CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women). CEDAW is the first convention to comprehensively address women’s rights within political, cultural, economic, social, and family life. The United Nations adopted CEDAW in 1979. […]
For women, power is an absolute dimension of physical health, says Dr. Nancy Padian, Director of Research at the AIDS Research Institute at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). Padian, an expert on the heterosexual transmission of AIDS, has been conducting research in Harare, Zimbabwe for the past seven years in an attempt […]
The Clinton administration will release guidelines later today that will enable federally funded scientists to conduct research using stem cells, harvested from human embryos, despite the persistent opposition of anti-abortion activists. The guidelines will specify that research must only be done on cells, not on embryos, and that no federal funds can be used to […]
The 1997 gender equality mandate for Southern Africa, better known as the Declaration on Gender and Development, spearheaded a movement in which women can embark on the decision-making process with equal footing. The Declaration set forth provisions for women to achieve at least 30 percent of seats in Parliament and other governmental structures by the […]
In an effort to increase fertility and replenish the country’s population, the Singaporean government is offering substantial incentives to women to bear more children. The government is paying employers up to $20,000 to grant working mothers eight weeks of maternity leave for a third child. Altogether, the Singaporean government will be shelling out at least […]
Contrary to popular beliefs about the birth control pill, a recent British Medical Journal study showed that new types of pills, specifically third generation pills introduced in the 1990’s, do not increase the risk of blood clots. Fear of blood-clotting due to third generation pill usage has caused the percentage of women using the drug […]
Finally, the media is recognizing the incredible trend occurring among women in America and around the world: the percentage of women choosing not to get married has reached 40%. This number was actually determined after the 1995 census, showing that 43 million women in America are choosing not to get married. These women are impacting […]
Since the Democratic National Convention last week, Vice President Al Gore received a post Democratic convention bump, putting him ahead in the Washington Post – ABC poll, and even in the CBS and CNN – Gallup polls: Washington Post – ABC Gore pre-convention: 43%—–post-convention: 50% Bush pre-convention: 52%—–post-convention: 45% CBS News Gore pre-convention: 35%—–post-convention: 45% […]
President Clinton kept his promise when he vowed to put more women and minorities on the Federal bench-48 percent of Clinton’s federal judge picks have been women or minorities (compared to 28 percent by George Bush and 14% by Ronald Reagan). Currently, 15 percent of judges are minorities and 20 percent are women. GOP politics […]
Protesters at the national Boy Scouts of America headquarters were rejected at the front door Monday when the group arrived presenting a petition with 55,000 signatures of people who objected to the organization’s ban on gay troop leaders. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts can prevent gay men from being troop […]
If history has a healthy sense of the absurd, then at its bar Bill Clinton will be crowned with a tiny laurel for service to the cause of free love and phone sex. For everything else—his scoldings on “personal responsibility” and “playing by the rules,” his war on the poor and license with repressive state […]
Meanwhile, corporate profits have hit a 30-year peak. Income inequality is at extremes, and stock market speculation (the precarious engine of growth under Clinton-Gore) breaks all bounds. Against the profusion of day-traders, witness the average household’s ballooning debt, now almost equal to its disposable income. As for “Putting People First,” since Clinton-Gore promulgated that slogan […]
The Taliban militia’s harsh new policies are compromising the lives of thousands of Afghan widows. In an attempt to enforce a system of gender apartheid, Taliban authorities imposed a new ruling that forbids women from being employed by foreign aid agencies. Many agencies provide food to thousands of poor Afghan widows and their families, and […]
A Zogby International poll of 1,005 high school students found that about nine in ten teenagers support gun-control measures such as criminal background checks, with 79 percent of teenage women favoring stricter gun laws as compared with 52 percent of teenage men. A high percentage of teens also supported requiring a safety course and a […]
For the first time in history, women will make up 42 percent of the 10,500 athletes competing in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. This figure is up by almost 1,000 since the 1996 Atlanta Games. However, women still only comprise 11% of the 113 International Olympic Committee members. Women will also be competing […]
Four decades after its introduction, more than 100 million women across the globe take the birth control pill. The preferred contraceptive for women between the ages of 16 and 49 was first introduced in 1960 in the United States but did not become available in the United Kingdom until 1961. Despite research that proves the […]
Those seeking to abolish female genital mutilation (FGM) in Tanzania confront new obstacles as communities practicing FGM begin to carry out the practice underground. This recent underground movement has formed in reaction to the 1998 Sexual Offenses Act which makes genital mutilation of young women under 18 a federal offense. According to a recent World […]
United Nations agencies are feeling the repercussion of a growing problem witnessed in the global women’s movement – lack of resources to support and fund women’s projects. Specifically, the United Nation’s Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and its Trust Fund were forced to make narrow decisions on more than 200 funding requests totaling $12.5 million […]
