Of the 3.66 million workers in the U.S. who are paid the minimum wage of $4.25 an hour, 63 percent are women. The debate to raise the minimum wage 90 cents over a two year period is currently dividing Congress by party lines. Republicans have generally opposed an increase, fearful that it will contribute to […]
In 1995, the number of women diagnosed with AIDS increased to its highest percentage yet: 19 percent of all adult and adolescent cases. Nationwide, the AIDS rate has declined. Last year the number of people diagnosed with the disease dropped seven percent. There have been over half a million AIDS cases reported since 1981.
On April 13, a group of 60 members from the Concerned Parishioners of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington gathered outside of the National Cathedral to protest the local appearances of Jane Holmes Dixon, one of six female assistant Episcopal bishops in the U.S. The protesters oppose the Church’s liberal policy towards ordaining women, and gay […]
According to a study in Thursday’s (4-18) American Journal of Public Health, adult men are responsible for two thirds of the babies born to teenage mothers in California in 1993. The men averaged four to six years older than the girls they impregnated. The study by Mike Males of UC Irvine concurs with findings from […]
A ruling by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission has found the American Legion’s California division guilty of discriminating against gay men and lesbians. The city commission concluded that the division of the largest veterans’ organization in the United States distributed homophobic literature opposing gays in the military, lied to a gay veteran’s group, and […]
Concord City Manager Rita Hardin won her sexual harassment suit against Concord and its former mayor, Byron Campbell. A federal court jury in San Francisco heard the seven-week retrial and awarded Hardin $1.3 million, concluding that Campbell had sexually harassed Hardin and forced her to resign in retaliation for her pursuing an investigation into his […]
In an amended federal complaint filed Wednesday (4-17) with the U.S. District Court in Peoria, Ill., attorneys for the women suing Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing claim that male management and union workers at the plant organized and promoted sex parties several times since 1994, circulating throughout the plant pictures of male employees involved in sex acts […]
A group of 15 lawyers’ groups called the Join Bar Coalition planned a news conference for Thursday to announce its efforts to defeat the anti-affirmative action measure on the California November ballot, the self-titled “California Civil Rights Initiative.” California Secretary of State Bill Jones announced Tuesday that the Initiative, filed on February 21, had collected […]
On Monday (4-15), the California Supreme Court ruled that a parent with child custody can relocate despite objections from the other parent and without having to prove that the move is essential for a new job. Michael Maroko, lawyer for mother Wendy Burgess, said, “Women are now free at last to relocate with their children […]
After the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a huge sexual harassment case against Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America, top officials at the company’s Normal, Illinois plant called a meeting of employees to warn them that they could lose their jobs if sales drop as a result of the allegations. Officials also said phones would be […]
Research appearing in the Wednesday (4-17) Journal of the National Cancer Institute links the gene BRCA1 with ovarian cancer in ten to 20 percent of the cases involving women under 50. The gene, also linked to breast cancer in young women, tells the body how to build a protein that blocks cancer, unless the gene […]
Eight Roman Catholic cardinals have written a three-page letter to President Clinton condemning his decision to veto a bill banning an abortion procedure used to save the life, health, or future fertility of a woman. The cardinals pledged to make their concern a public issue on the same day House Republicans postponed a vote to […]
University officials in Texas, worried about the legality of affirmative action programs after recent blows, have suspended a statewide scholarship program for minority students. A recent decision by a federal court forbids affirmative action programs for people of color in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Higher education officials feel the ruling might have implications far beyond […]
According to a survey sponsored by Women, Men and Media, women are only involved in 15 percent of front-page news stories. The figure decreased from last year’s 19 percent. The survey looked at twenty newspapers in February for references to and photos of women and for bylines by women on front pages, opinion pages, and […]
On Monday (4-15), San Francisco Superior Court Judge William Cahill allowed a lawsuit to proceed against California Gov. Pete Wilson and University of California regents. The defendants allegedly violated the state’s meeting law when they voted last July to dismantle affirmative action in the UC system. Lawyers for the UC Santa Barbara Daily Nexus claim […]
On Tuesday (4-16), British scientists announced that a bioactive substance found in soy protein could block estrogen from causing breast cancer. Isoflavonoids may work like the popular breast cancer drug Tomoxifen, indicating that women eating a diet high in soy proteins could reduce their risk of breast cancer. Announcing the findings in remarks for a […]
A jury convicted a San Francisco police officer Monday (4-15) of forced copulation and kidnapping by use of police authority but acquitted him of aggravated kidnapping for the purpose of rape. Francis Hogue faces up to 11 years in state prison and will be sentenced May 6. On March 18, 1994, the employee of a […]
Uniting to “Fight the Right,” an estimated 45,000 marchers flocked to San Francisco Sunday (4-14). Organized by the National Organization for Women (NOW), the march was at once a show of support for affirmative action, reproductive freedom, and gay and lesbian rights, and a protest against racism, violence against women, and the war on poor […]
On May 2, the Board of Immigration Appeals will hear the asylum request of Fauziya Kasinga who has spent the last two years in jail awaiting asylum from Togo where she escaped female genital mutilation. The decision of the court, the highest administrative tribunal in the U.S. immigration system, will likely set a precedent that […]
On Friday (4-12) the Food and Drug Administration approved an application by Advanced Technology Laboratories to use its ultrasound equipment to help determine if lumps in women’s breasts are cancerous. The screening could reduce the number of biopsies – over 700,000 annually – by almost 40 percent. ATL’s high-definition machines allow doctors to distinguish between […]
