On the final day of the NGO Forum in Huairou, Western women’s NGOs held a press conference to confront Western media about their poor coverage of Forum activities. Representatives from NGOs in Spain, Norway, and the United States decried the media’s almost exclusive focus on the logistical difficulties of the conference and on criticism of […]
The International Wages for Housework Campaign at an NGO Forum panel called upon delegates at the Fourth World Conference on Women to accept Platform language urging governments to measure and value women’s unwaged work. The provision suggests that governments include unwaged work in their national accounting, but does not go so far as to require […]
At the final press conference for the NGO Forum, Irene Santiago, Executive Director, said the Forum had been an extraordinary gathering where women “shared their strategies, research, their knowledge of technology, information and connected the local to the global.” Over 30,000 women registered and participated in the Forum where 4,500 workshops, panels and plenaries were […]
Commentary by Eleanor Smeal The Senate Ethic Committee’s stunning recommendation to expel Senator Packwood sends a strong message to the Senate and the Nation that women have at last been heard. Sexual harassment is a serious offense which won’t be ignored. Senator Boxer and the courageous women from Oregon, who have led the fight, have […]
A second provision urges the review of the “differential impact of electoral systems on the political representation of women in elected bodies” and asks governments to consider the adjustment or reform of systems to enhance women’s representation. Other organizations working for the adoption of strong language on women in political-decision-making include International Alliance of Women, […]
Beatrice Bakojja, Member of Parliament from Uganda, expressed that Uganda has very few women in politics at all levels of government. She identified the main obstacles to womenês political participation as being mainly cultural, educational and financial. Ugandan society is traditional and stigmatizes women politicians. In addition, few women possess the financial resources to run […]
Commentary by Eleanor Smeal When he addresses the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing next week, World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn is expected to argue that women bring a necessary resource to economic strategizing. Indeed the bank is expected to take to Beijing the long-time feminist message that discrimination against women hurts financial […]
At a press conference yesterday, Nancy Mellete, a second lieutenant in the Oak Ridge Military Academy corps of cadets, announced that she planned to join the legal proceedings seeking to allow women into the Citadel. Mellette, who is a member of her a cademy’s cross-country, track, basketball and softball teams and who can run two […]
Following a series of regional strategy meetings held over the course of the past week, the First Global Congress of Women in Politics has agreed on an overall strategy that calls on governments assembled here in Beijing to commit to gender balance in political decision-making at all levels and in all the world’s countries. While […]
Approximately 40 people braved the rain to attend today’s Feminist Majority workshop, From Cairo to Beijing. Panelists spoke from Asia, Africa, and the United States about the successes and problems with the implementation of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo last year. All three panelists stressed the important role of NGOs […]
Commentary by Eleanor Smeal When he addresses the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing next week, World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn is expected to argue that women bring a necessary resource to economic strategizing. Indeed the bank is expected to take to Beijing the long-time feminist message that discrimination against women hurts financial […]
The conservative political climate now endangers teachers’ unions, which face attack from both federal and state governments. New measures, threaten to limit teachers’ abilities to strike, raise money, and bargain. The measures also limit tenure and a unions’ abilities to negotiate issues such as privatization of schools. A new Michigan law, for example, which teachers […]
The Republican Congress has significantly decreased the amount of funding for Legal Aid Programs designed to help the poor. Congress has reduced the budgets of sixteen national organizations, which provide legal advice to lawyers in neighborhood offices, by twenty-four percent this year alone. Due to budget cuts, the National Housing Law Project in Oakland, California […]
Huairou, China, Sept. 5 – I joined several hundred other people to march for lesbian rights on Tuesday, September 5th. The march spanned nearly the entire NGO forum site, beginning at the main entrance and ending at the lesbian tent at the other end of the site. Demonstrating the international nature of the movement, slogans […]
After receiving an angry fax from Operation Rescue activist Terry Randall, the New England Journal of Medicine has tightened security at its Boston-based offices. Randall sent the fax in response to a study published in the Journal and written by Dr. Richard Hausknecht which found that a combination of two commonly available medicines can induce […]
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that portions of a 1993 South Dakota law are too restrictive. The panel ruled that the state cannot include a parental notification mandate unless the minor also has the option of receiving permission from another authority, such as a court. The court also […]
Lead attorneys for women suing breast implant manufacturers failed to reach an agreement with the manufacturers within the thirty day period set by U.S. District Judge Sam Pointer. Last fall, Pointer had approved a $4.25 billion settlement by which implant recipients would each receive a net payment ranging form $105,000 to $1.4 million based on […]
Within the first week of the fall semester, students at UC-Berkeley protested this summer University of California Regents’ decision to eliminate affirmative action in all California University admissions policies. Nearly three-hundred students gathered on noon Wednesday and a smaller group went on to blockade the admissions office for the rest of the afternoon. Organizers claim […]
Twenty-two women began training yesterday at the newly created South Carolina Institute of Leadership for Women. South Carolina and the Citadel gave Converse College, a private women’s school, $10 million to start the leadership program in an attempt to keep women out of the publicly funded Citadel. A federal judge is scheduled to rule in […]
Fire struck the St. Petersburg’s All Women’s Health Center yesterday at approximately 8:30 p.m. The fire, which destroyed the entire building, is the second fire the center has experienced within the past eight days. Officials have concluded that arson was the cause of the first fire and suspect it is the cause of the second […]
