Appearing before the council’s Personnel Committee during a sexual harassment hearing, Penny Harrington of the Feminist Majority Foundation’s National Center for Women in Policing testified that women in the Los Angeles Police Department who complain of sexual harassment face reprisals from their co-workers. Harrington said some women who do report sexual harassment see once-positive job […]
All people treated for rape in Los Angeles County will now also be given urine tests to determine if the “Date Rape Drug” was used in the assault. The new procedure of collecting urine samples follows widespread use of drugs such as Rohypnol and gamma hydroxybutyrate which generally causes victims to become dizzy and black […]
At a Human Rights Day White House Ceremony on December 10th, President urged the Senate to end its fifteen year delay in signing the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The Treaty has been ratified by over 130 nations and was signed by President Carter in 1980. Clinton […]
While a National Center for Children in Poverty released a new study showing that 6.1 million American children under the age of six live in poverty, the Clinton administration announced plans to cut federal heating aid to the poor by 25%. The administration plans to eliminate in five years federal aid program to the poor […]
A 106 member-panel of the Virginia Military Institute, charged with paving the way for the traditionally all-male school to admit women, has backtracked on earlier school statements that no standards for cadets will change. The Commission has announced that the school may modify the traditional buzz cuts for cadets, eliminating military slang words considered offensive […]
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on December 10th in a case involving the confinement of dangerous sex offenders. The case involves state laws designed to keep dangerous, but not mentally ill, sex offenders in mental institutions after they have served their prison sentences. The case is on appeal from the Kansas State Supreme Court […]
Three sailors at the U.S. Naval Submarine Base are accused of gang raping a sixteen-year-old female on November 29. The rape allegedly occurred at a Navy run lodge. The men are being held on $100,000 bonds each. Two of the men, Lionel Benjamin, 19, and Raymond Johnson, 17, were charged Monday with first-degree sexual assault […]
The fundamentalist Islamic Taleban militia has disclosed that it punished 225 women who did not follow its strict clothing rules. After announcing the punishments, the Taleban-controlled Sharia Radio warned again that, “all women should wear the burqa and veil and respect sharia or face punishment.” The broadcast also warned that women must not wear long […]
Mary Leakey, whose discoveries of prehistoric bones and artifacts in East Africa have led to a better understanding of the origin of the human species, died December 9 in Nairobi, Kenya. Leakey’s discoveries proved that human evolution began on earth up to 3.6 million years ago and have added credence to Charles Darwin’s theory that […]
A proposed law in the Netherlands would give same-sex marriages the nearly identical legal status heterosexual marriages. Lesbian and gay couples would not, however, be allowed to adopt children. The proposal has broad backing in parliament and is expected to become law in early 1998. Though lesbian and gay rights advocates hail the law as […]
Stating that welfare reform will devastate California residents, Senator Dianne Feinstein wants to amend the newly-passed legislation. Though mindful that the 105th Congress is not likely to overhaul the welfare reform, which destroys the 60-year-old federal guarantee of cash assistance to the poor, Feinstein is determined to make changes which will accommodate California’s large and […]
A Columbia University student charged with assault, sexual abuse and unlawful imprisonment last week has also allegedly attacked at least two other women. The women told authorities recently that Oliver Jovanovic, 30, attacked them in a manner similar to the way he is charged with attacking a 20-year-old Barnard Student. Prosecutors claims that Jovanovic brought […]
President Clinton and Attorney General Reno are considering whether the federal government should involve itself in the legal battle over the constitutionality of the Proposition 209, the amendment passed in California last month that seeks to outlaw affirmative action and gut sex discrimination law in the state. The Justice Department has created a list of […]
Following a U.S. Supreme Court order mandating that the all-male state-supported Virginia Military Institute accept women, VMI has accepted four of the fifteen women who applied to its 1997 entering class. The VMI governing board reluctantly agreed in September to admit women rather than go private
British Lord Jeffrey Archer has asked permission from the House of Lords to introduce a parliamentary bill allowing women equality in the royal succession line. Traditionally, the eldest son, even if he is younger than his sister, has the right to the throne. Under the measure, a future first-born daughter of Prince William, son of […]
A study released by the Human Rights Watch has found that women in state prisons in the U.S. face constant sexual assault and harassment. Since 1980, the number of women incarcerated has increased by over 400 percent, twice the rate of men. Although there are over 64,701 women inmates, only 18 percent of uniformed corrections […]
Rosa Hartford must spend a year on probation, pay a $500 fine, and perform 150 hours of community service for driving a 13-year-old Pennsylvania girl to New York for an abortion. Hartford was sentenced by Judge Brendan Vanston for interfering with the custody of a child. Hartford’s lawyer, Kathryn Kolbert of the Center for Reproductive […]
President Clinton named U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright as the new U.S. Secretary of State on Thursday, December 5. Upon receiving Senate confirmation, Albright will become the first female secretary of state. Albright was born in Czechoslovakia and moved to the U.S. with her parents at age 11 after her family was exiled during the Nazi […]
On December 6, women across Canada will commemorate the murders of 14 women engineering students at the hands of a man who opened fire at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, shouting “You’re all fucking feminists. You’re women, you’re going to be engineers. I hate feminists, I’m against feminism. That’s why I’m here.” The Canadian Women’s […]
A newly-released study done by the Birth Control Trust in London found an announcement by the UK’s Committee on Safety of Medicines (CSM) concerning new findings on certain oral contraception was “unnecessarily alarmist” and caused “a needless panic.” In October 1995, new information detected an extremely slight increase in risk of blood clotting for certain […]
