A study led by Dr. Lisa M. Shwartz of the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in White River Junction, VT has found that doctors are less likely to prescribe potentially life-saving diagnostic procedures for women than men. The study of over 650 heart attack victims found that women appear to fare worse after heart […]
Randall Terry, the founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, has entered the Congressional race in New York’s 26th district. The district, which includes the cities of Ithaca, Binghamton, and Kingston, is currently held by Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D). Terry is running under an ultra-right conservative platform. During his speech announcing his candidacy, he denounced […]
United States First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Congress to fund a foreign aid program which provides small scale loans(generally less than $1000) for women and the poor who want to start small businesses. At a speech before the program’s supporters, Clinton said that the program is “one of the strongest tools we can employ […]
William Brennan, the former Supreme Court Justice who ardently fought for civil rights and individual freedoms, died July 24 in an Arlington, Virginia nursing home. In his 34-year career on the high court, he helped the Constitution achieve its purpose of protecting the dignity of all individuals, no matter what their rank or standing. In […]
Both chambers of the United States Congress have approved a bill to create a special breast cancer stamp. The House of Representatives and Senate reached a compromise on the bill’s language and have sent it to the White House for President Bill Clinton’s signature. The bill provides for a 40 cent stamp (eight cents higher […]
A rapist who fled to Europe for eight years to avoid trial was sentenced July 24 to sixteen years in prison. Alex Kelly was an eighteen-year old high school wrestler when two women charged him with rape. One of the victims, Adrienne Bak Ortolano, urged the judge to give her attacker the maximum sentence of […]
The On July 23, Sri Lanka announced plans to give women limited access to abortion. The island will make exceptions to its current law against abortion in cases of rape, incest, and fetal deformity. According to National Committee on Women Chair Wimala de Silva, the government is also likely to approve three months’ maternity leave […]
The domestic violence provision of the Gun Control Act forced seven Los Angeles Police Department officers who had been convicted of domestic abuse to give up their guns, Chief Bayan Lewis said July 23. The provision, which the federal government passed last year, prohibits anyone with a domestic abuse conviction from carrying a firearm. Lewis […]
On July 24, the Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD) released “Are Women Catching Up in the Earnings Race?,” a report showing that the wage gap between the sexes has decreased, but women’s salaries still lag far behind men’s. In 1995, women earned 65 cents for every man’s dollar, up 11 cents from 1981. For […]
The July 22nd arson of the West Alabama Women’s Center clinic in Tuscaloosa, AL marks the 13th abortion clinic arson or bombing of 1997 – the highest rate of anti-abortion violence since 1984. The Tuscaloosa clinic sustained massive damage, estimated at $100,000, due to the early morning fire. The clinic has been plagued in the […]
The United States House of Representatives has voted 422 – 3 to approve a new breast cancer postal stamp. The U.S. Senate approved the stamp last week. Proceeds from the stamp, which will cost 33 cents, will be used to fund research for combating the disease.
Pilot Jennifer Murray, 56, is two-thirds finished with her journey to circumvent the glove in a helicopter. If she completes the journey, she will become the first woman to have ever accomplished that goal. Murray hopes to make the trip in less than 100 days and plans to donate the $800,000 raised to the Save […]
A report conducted by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has found that 5,000 women in India are killed each year for not bringing enough dowry to their marriages. While the use of dowries – money and goods women bring to a marriage – is illegal in India, custom still pervades in much of the […]
By a 54 – 46 roll call vote, the Senate has continued the ban to exempt abortion from federal employees’ health insurance coverage. Six Democrats and 48 Republicans voted to keep the ban; 38 Democrats and 7 Republicans voted to kill the ban.
The Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan, has imposed even greater restrictions on women. Currently, women in Afghanistan are forced to cover themselves from head-to-foot, may not go anywhere outside without a relative male accompanying them and cannot attend school. Windows in a house’s room which contains women must be colored black so no […]
According to a United Nations report released July 22nd women throughout the world face an unacceptably high risk of violence. Carol Bellamy, the Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), commented, “In today’s world, to be born female is to be born high risk. Every girl grows up under the threat of violenceThis […]
Police have arrested 17 people for trafficking women from Vietnam to Cambodia as prostitutes. The network of prepetrators, arrested on July 18th, recruited women from Ho Chi Minh City since 1996 and sold them into prostitution. Already, more than 100 people in Vietnam have been arrested for trafficking women, with the maximum sentence no longer […]
The Lilith Fair, a female music festival on tour in the United States this summer, is the brainchild of musician Sarah McLachlan. The Fair features over 60 female performers, who appear on a rotation and include some of today’s top music stars. The festival includes McLachlan, Jewel, Shawn Colvin, the Indigo Girls, Tracy Chapman, Sheryl […]
Amelia Earhart’s Birthday Centenniel celebration begins in Kansas on July 24. The four-day celebration is expected to bring 50,000 visitors to the state, according to the Kansas City Star. Scheduled guests include Texas businesswoman Linda Finch, who recently re-enacted the aviator’s last flight. In 1929, Earhart and pilot Fay Gillis Wells co-founded the International 99s, […]
Democratic women in the House of Representatives delayed action on the FY 1998 agriculture appropriations bill on July 17 to protest the Republican leadership’s decisions on amendments to the Foreign Operations spending bill. The women were able to halt consideration on the appropriations bill by using a series of procedural votes, so most Republicans relented […]
