The number of young women who smoke remains shockingly high, despite educational campaigns and widespread public knowledge about the health hazards of smoking. Many educators suspect that young women are especially vulnerable to smoking campaigns because advertisers have connected smoking with thinness, because young women often smoke as a means of maintaining their weight, and […]
President Clinton proposed a $4.5 million initiative to protect abortion clinics from anti-abortion violence today, on the 26th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion. Under the initiative, security professionals would assess abortion clinics’ risk for attack, and money would be allocated to help clinics […]
In countries throughout the Middle East, India, Pakistan, and Brazil, women and girls are routinely killed by family members who believe that they have violated the family’s honor in some way. Most often, women are thought to violate their family’s honor by losing their virginity. A girl or woman who has been accused of losing […]
The first person accused of violating California’s new “cyberstalking” law has been charged with computer stalking, using a computer to commit fraud, deceive, or extort, and three counts of solicitation to commit sexual assault. Fifty-year-old Gary S. Dellapenta began stalking the plaintiff after she refused his romantic advances. She alleges that Dellapenta was so persistent […]
The National Museum of American Jewish Military History in Washington, D.C., will soon boast a new exhibit profiling the experiences and contributions of Jewish female veterans of major U.S. wars and discussing women’s historical role in war efforts. The exhibit will consider how Jewish women overcame discrimination based on their sex and their faith to […]
Eleanor Smeal, national feminist leader and one of the nation’s leading experts on anti-abortion terrorism, today released the results of the Feminist Majority Foundation’s sixth annual National Clinic Violence Survey Report, the most comprehensive study of anti-abortion violence in the United States. The 1998 survey shows that in the first seven months of 1998, 22.2% […]
The NCAA asked the U.S. Supreme Court for protection from liability under Title IX, arguing that the organization receives public funds only indirectly, and therefore should be exempt from claims of sex discrimination under the federal law. Former college athlete Renee Smith sued the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) for sex discrimination under Title IX, […]
Scientists Nicole Sampson and Hui Chen of the State University of New York at Stony Brook have made a discovery that could lead to a new kind of contraceptive that would enable human eggs to keep sperm cells at a distance. The new method would make an unfertilized egg act as if it had already […]
Researchers have known for some time that high levels of the blood clotting factor fibrinogen have been linked to cardiovascular problems in men, but the link between fibrinogen and heart health in women had not be demonstrated in women until now. A Swedish study published in Arteriosclerosis, Thombrosis, and Vascular Biology has confirmed researchers’ suspicion […]
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a defamation suit originally filed by anti-abortion extremist group Operation Rescue in 1994. Operation Rescue National sued Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) with defamation after Kennedy said that the group advocated firebombing and murder. Group leaders Randall Terry, Philip Lawler, and Robert Jewitt claimed that they “have never […]
FBI Special Agent Woody Enderson announced yesterday that alleged clinic bomber Eric Robert Rudolph may soon be forced to retreat from hiding to get more food and supplies. Rudolph is one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted fugitives, wanted in 3 Atlanta-area bombings and a fatal bombing in Birmingham, AL. Rudolph’s targets were abortion clinics, […]
Former chemistry professor Leslie Crane was awarded $12.6 million in a sex discrimination case filed against Hartford’s Trinity College. Fifty-five-year-old Leslie Craine alleged that, despite the unanimous recommendation of her department and five successful years of teaching at the college, she was denied tenure because of her age and sex. The jury rejected her claim […]
The Historical Museum of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery opened this past August near Seoul, South Korea. The museum documents the Japanese military’s abduction and sexual enslavement of over 200,000 women during World War II. Most of the slaves, whom the Japanese military called “comfort women,” were young, poor Koreans. The young women were kidnapped or […]
A white male-owner of a contracting business claims he was denied the opportunity to bid on a San Francisco city contract because of his race and sex and has sued the city for violating Proposition 209, a California state law which forbids state and local government officials from considering the race or sex of contractors […]
The United Nations Children’s Fund is seeking $136 million in emergency aid donations for women and children, arguing that they are increasingly targeted in wars worldwide. UNICEF estimates that as many as 48 million women and children in 20 countries are endangered by war. Executive Director Carol Bellamy said, “Today, children and women are not […]
The United Nations Development Fund for Women, together with other UN agencies, will sponsor “A World Free of Violence Against Women,” a global multimedia event that will take place from 9:30am to 11am EST on March 8, 1999. Using live, two-way video, the event will bring together international human rights activists, UN leaders, government representatives, […]
Nurses Christine Clunie and Alison Hale lost their jobs when their employer, Wiltshire Healthcare NHS Trust, forced them to work rotating shifts, making it impossible for the women to arrange care for their children. Wiltshire instituted the rotating shifts, which required nurses to work a variety of morning, evening and night shifts, in an attempt […]
Nearly 100 United Methodist Church ministers defied their Church’s ban on gay and lesbian weddings by blessing the union of a lesbian couple at a convention hall in Sacramento, CA on Saturday. Still more ministers could not attend the ceremony, but signed petitions of support for the right of gays and lesbians to marry. Over […]
The National Network of Women’s Refuges (NNWR) reported that the number of Irish women and children fleeing from violence men increased to 4,654 last year a 35% increase from 1997. In addition, Irish women placed over 15,000 distress calls to the country’s 15 refuges. NNWR national coordinator Margaret Costello commented, “It is just not acceptable […]
A report issued by the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights League (NARAL) reveals that women have fewer reproductive choices now than they had 26 years ago. The report contends that anti-abortion laws have quadrupled in the past three years, with 62 new anti-abortion laws enacted during 1998 alone. NARAL President Kate Michelman noted that the […]
