Graciela Fernandez Meijide, a 66-year-old mother whose son was kidnapped by death squads in 1976, has announced that she will run for president of Argentina in 1999 if she wins Sunday’s congressional elections for the Alliance party. Meijide has been a member of the Senate since 1995, and says her son’s disappearance prompted her to […]
A gay couple was granted joint adoption for their foster child yesterday, a decree believed to be only the second in New Jersey. Jon Holden and Michael Gallucio have cared for two-year-old Adam since he was three months old. He was born to a cocaine addict who was HIV-positive. Gallucio and Holden have been together […]
Operation Rescue targeted schools with graphic anti-abortion campaigns in U.S. cities last year. The Pro-Choice Public Education Project (PEP) is running television ads in 370 cities to counter Operation Rescue’s message. The ads will be broadcast on MTV. The one-year-old organization is comprised of nearly 50 pro-choice groups. PEP seeks to correct the misinformation in […]
Two young boys who saw their mother shot to death while she waited with them at a bus stop on Tuesday identified their father as the killer, telling police on Tuesday that “Daddy shot Mommy.” The tragedy, which occured during National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, highlighted the problem of protecting battered women from their abusers. […]
A study commissioned by the Defense Department says that despite a 1993 Congressional order that opened up thousands of combat-related military jobs, very few women hold these positions. Although women are now eligible to be assigned to any non-infantry positions for which they are qualified, there are only 814 women in the 47,844 jobs that […]
A new report by the chairwoman of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services states that sexual harassment, gender discrimination and sexual assaults still plague Army bases. In August 1997, author Judith Youngman visited the Army’s largest training base in Fort Jackson, S.C., where she interviewed 157 women and men. They told her […]
In a report to the federal government, the University of Pennsylvania revealed that men’s athletic programs receive more than twice the funds of women’s athletics. Although this is a violation of Title IX, which states that men’s and women’s athletic programs must receive virtually equal funding, the university said they were making progress. Title IX […]
The International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) honored three women with Courage in Journalism awards last night. The speakers and presenters included noted women journalists such as Katherine Graham, Judy Woodruff, Cynthia Tucker and Cokie Roberts. The $2,000 awards went to women who have put their lives at risk for news — Bina Bektiati, a freelance […]
Wendy Weaver, a coach and teacher at Spanish Fork High School in Salt Lake City, Utah, is suing Nebo School District for firing her because she is a lesbian. Weaver was fired as coach last summer after she divorced her husband and moved in with another woman. The principal told her that she would also […]
The government in India has planned an aid package for over two million girls in the country’s poorest families. They say they will give families who make less than $314 a year $14 when a girl is born, and $14-$28 a year for their schooling. The media suggested that selfish government employees will keep the […]
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala announced last week that $1 million would be awarded to four community-based projects and one national campaign to help young girls. “With these grants, communities can work together to help young girls stay healthy, stay active, and make the most of their lives,” she said. The […]
In an alarming trend that is increasing each year, secular hospitals are merging with Catholic hospitals and cutting off all reproductive health services. The mergers, which are often done to keep financially-struggling hospitals open, are becoming more and more common. For example, in New York City, a Catholic health maintenance organization purchased a statewide Medicaid-only […]
Yesterday, the Supreme Court refused to reinstate a Louisiana law that requires minors to get parental consent for abortions, agreeing that it caused “undue interference” with young women’s abortion rights. Although the Supreme Court has upheld parental-consent laws in other states, the Louisiana law was unique because it did not explicitly state that judges had […]
Noted radio and television correspondent and independent producer Nancy Dickerson died at age 70 on Saturday. She broke through barriers in the 1950s to be among the first women to cover politics and world affairs. She rejected a job as “women’s editor” at the old Washington Daily News because “writing shopping and food columns…seemed outlandish […]
On Saturday, October 18, over 1000 women and men from all over the country and the world participated in the National March To End The Silence in Washington DC. Organized by the National Silent Witness Initiative, women and men from all fifty states and seven countries marched on Washington in memory of all the women […]
Last month, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright hosted a party for foreign ministers with only one requirement — they must be women. At the party of eight women, with two women unable to attend, the foreign ministers discussed the political progress of women. Worldwide, there are only four female heads of government, 10 U.N. ambassadors […]
Four Bronx boys, all 8 and 9 years old, have been charged with sodomy for forcing a 9-year-old girl to perform oral sex on the Public School 44 playground. Bronx detectives are looking for a fifth boy and possibly a second victim. Police say that three boys held the girl down while the other forced […]
Saying that domestic violence “is not just an assault against a citizen, but that it does undermine democracy itself,” Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke on the topic at a conference of mostly women on Monday. “Domestic violence can never again be dismissed, as it so often has in th epast, as part of a country’s traditional […]
At the world’s biggest book fair in Germany last week, 23 feminist writers were awarded the first “Women’s Book Oscars.” An international panel chose non-fiction books that have “changed the world over the past 25 years.” Feminist classics such as Germaine Greer’s “The Female Eunuch,” Kate Millet’s “Sexual Politics” and Gloria Steinem’s “Outrageous Acts and […]
Russia’s interior ministry recently reported that the numbers of reported rapes are dropping, yet rape crisis centers say that the number of calls they receive has been consistent. Rape counselors estimate that fewer than 5% of rape victims report the crime to the police, with even fewer rapes actually being registered by the police. The […]
