According to The Patent and Trademark Office, the number of women receiving patents for their inventions rose from 2.6% in 1977 to 9.2% in 1996. While women still lag far behind men, the recent increase is substantial. Women fared especially well in the field of chemical technology, where they claimed 15.7% of all patents issued. […]
Three Republican-sponsored bills restricting abortion rights passed in a Texas State Senate committee Wednesday, and will be brought before the full Senate. The first measure, sponsored by Sen. Jane Nelson (R-Flower Mound), would require women to wait 72 hours before getting an abortion. Under this measure, women would receive state-sanctioned information about fetal development and […]
The Center for Reproductive Law and Policy has filed suit against the Louisiana State University Medical Center for refusing to perform an abortion on a woman whose life was threatened by her pregnancy. The Medical Center allegedly told 27-year-old Michelle Lee that she could not obtain an abortion unless her risk of dying from her […]
Rep. Rick Lazio (R-NY) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA) are the sponsored of a new bill that would help uninsured or poorly-insured women with breast and cervical to obtain treatment. The government currently funds a Centers for Disease Control program in which low-income women are screened for breast and cervical cancers. Lazio and Eshoo argue that […]
Nike is willing to identify the locations of all its foreign factories and to allow independent inspectors to monitor them on one condition — that Nike’s competitors agree to do the same. In response to protests sponsored by students across the nation, Nike chair Phil Knight has contacted many universities which hold major Nike contracts. […]
Research conducted by midwives reveals that a cheap, easy medical test using common household vinegar (acetic acid) successfully identified cervical cancer and its precursors. In the study, midwives washed a patient’s cervix with vinegar, and then carefully inspected the cervix for any visual abnormalities. Vinegar causes cervical cancer cells and pre-cancerous lesions to turn white […]
U.S. Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and David H. Souter dismissed claims that the Court discriminates against women and minorities in hiring clerks during testimony before a House Appropriations subcommittee yesterday. Thomas and Souter were brought before the subcommittee to discuss the Court’s budgetary needs for the coming year. Democratic Representatives Julian C. Dixon of […]
The blind-folded and bullet-ridden bodies of activists Ingrid Washinawatok, 41, Lahe’ena’e Gay, 39, and Terence Freitas, 24, were returned to the United States yesterday from the Venezuelan field where they were found last week. The three Americans were abducted in Columbia and later killed by members of Columbia’s largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces […]
For the first time in history, two women will serve as ministers in the Swiss cabinet. Ruth Metzler’s 126 to 118 victory over her Rita Roos marked the first time that Switzerland’s parliament has elected more than one woman to its cabinet. Interior Minister Ruth Dreifuss had been the sole female cabinet member prior to […]
In 1995, financial constraints forced Whitehall-Robins Healthcare to stop manufacturing the Today Sponge, to the great dismay of the women who had depended on the contraceptive device. Now, the Associated Press has reported that Allendale Pharmaceuticals Inc. purchased rights to the sponge from its former manufacturer and hopes to being selling the product by this […]
Fourteen-year-old Natalia Toro became the youngest-ever winner of the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search. Formerly known as the Westinghouse Science Search, the contest is now sponsored by Intel Corp. and a nonprofits science news organization called Science Service. Toro, an exceedingly gifted child who began attending college courses while in sixth grade, won the prize […]
Last August, forty United Nations foreign staff members were withdrawn from Afghanistan after Carmine Calo, a military advisor to the United Nations, was murdered in Kabul. Calo was murdered in retaliation for U.S. missile raids. The U.N. is now preparing to return a limited number of its international staff to Afghanistan. Before all employees return […]
In sharp contradiction to past medical research, a 14-year study of 88,795 women bore no evidence that a low-fat diet protects against breast cancer or that a high-fat diet increases women’s risk for breast cancer. Medical experts have long hypothesized that a high-fat diet may increase a woman’s risk for cancer. This hypothesis was based […]
A California state official has ordered San Francisco’s Rio Bravo-Greeley Union School District to rescind an anti-gay action. Officials of the school district agreed to removed 15 students from the teacher James D. Merrick after the parents complained that they were uncomfortable with the teacher’s mannerisms and his public support of gay rights. Parents began […]
Harvard University faculty voted to dismiss student and D. Drew Douglas for raping a female classmate. The faculty opted to reject a possible lesser sentence of withdrawal, which would have allowed Douglas the opportunity to seek readmission to the school in the future. Douglas had pleaded guilty to battery and indecent assault, or improper sexual […]
The United Nations hosted a global, inter-agency videoconference entitled “A World Free of Violence Against Women,” on International Women’s Day, March 8. The conference linked U.N. officials, journalists, experts on violence against women, and others from 5 different sites in New York, New Delhi, Mexico City, Nairobi, and the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Speakers included […]
The Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia will host a special program entitled “War on Women: The Taliban’s Destruction of Human Rights in Afghanistan” this Thursday, March 11 at noon. The group has invited Afghan native and Physicians for Human Rights public health researcher Zorah Rasekh to speak about the Taliban’s abuses of […]
Retailer Mervyn’s California and the Women’s Sports Foundation will jointly offer more than $300,000 in scholarships to high school girls this July. Scholarship recipients will be selected based on their participation in athletics, their academic performance, their history of community service, and their financial need. Two hundred and eighty senior high school girls will be […]
The U.S. Supreme Court refused, without comment, to hear two separate appeals cases concerning Santa Barbara’s restrictions on how close anti-abortion demonstrators can come to abortion clinics and their patients. The city of Santa Barbara bars anti-abortion demonstrators from coming within 8 feet of clinic entrances and driveways. The ordinance, originally passed in 1993 but […]
Both the United States government and NGOs are calling attention to the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan at the 43rd annual session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York. The United States Mission to the United Nations has proposed a resolution on the situation of women and […]
