Wells Fargo Banks has announced plans to open a one billion dollar credit line for women who have run profitable businesses for at least two years. Bank officials said they hoped to tap into an important resource within the economy. Annually, women-o wned firms in the United States generate $1.4 trillion and employ 15.5 million […]
Helms Amendment Fails
The Senate voted yesterday against an amendment proposed by Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) which would ban U.S. aid to the United Nations Population Fund. By a vote of 91 to 9 the Senate passed a foreign aid bill which would provide $12.3 billion, $2.4 bi llion less than what President Clinton had requested, for international […]
New Study Published on Mammogram Testing
A study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that it’s cost-effective for women to begin yearly mammograms at the age of forty and then have bi-annual tests after the age of fifty. Dr. John Rosenquist and Dr. Karen Lindfors, co-authors of the recently published study, found that it costs $2,972 […]
Welfare Reform: The Senate and House Versions
Now that the Senate has passed its version of the Welfare bill, it goes to a conference committee so that both houses can reach a consenus. Below is a description of the similarities and differences between the House and Senate bills. Both versions abolish the Federal entitlement program, thereby eliminating any guarantee that all poor […]
Senate Votes to Eliminate Welfare Entitlements
In a bi-partisan assault on the federal welfare system, the Sente voted to pass its version of the Welfare Reform Bill. The following twelve Senators voted against the bill: Akaka (D-HI), Bradley (D-NJ), Kennedy (D-MA), Kerrey (D-NB), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Leahy (D-VT), Moseley-Braun (D-IL), Moynihan (D-NY), Sarbanes (D-MD), Simon (D- IL), Wellstone (D-MN), and Faircloth (R-NC).
Study Supports Use of Breast Cancer Drug
A study appearing today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute finds that the drug tamoxifen helps prevent breast cancer from spreading to the second breast. The study, conducted by Linda Cook a researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Rese arch Center in Seattle, found that treatment with the drug reduced the risk of for […]
Women Agents and F.B.I. at Standstill with Sex Discrimination Talks
A group of female agents have negotiated with officials for nine months in an attempt to bring to light and eradicate widespread discrimination and bias against women agents. The women claim that they are often assigned to lower prestige jobs, passed over for promotion, and denied assignments in the violent and organized crimes divisions — […]
STATEMENT OF CHIEF PENNY E. HARRINGTON, DIRECTOR
I am the director of the National Center for Women and Policing. I spent 23 years in policing and became the first woman Chief of Police of a major city in the United States. For the past three years, I have volunteered hundreds of hours of my time as a member of the Women’s Advisory […]
FIVE POINT PLAN OF ACTION FOR REFORM OF THE LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT
The Mayor and the City Council must demand that unless the Los Angeles Police Department hires 43.4% women, they will not be allowed to fill the positions gained through the crime bill. In other words, half of the police officers hired with crime bill money must be women. The City Council must immediately implement the […]
Senate Expected to Vote on Welfare Reform
The Senate is expected to vote, and pass, today a compromise welfare proposal which puts an end to Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the federal government’s main cash welfare program. Currently, fourteen million Americans, ten million of whom are children, receive benefits from the program. The welfare reform plan eliminates entitlements completely and instead […]
Women Soon to Outpace Males in Lung Cancer Related Fatalities
Dr. Michelle Bloch, Chairwoman of the American Medical Women’s Association, reported at a conference last week that women are dying of lung cancer at increasing rates and will soon die of it in greater number than men. At a conference entitled, “Women & Tobacco…There’s Nothing Glamorous About It,” Block reported that second-hand smoke, especially in […]
Anti-Abortion Activists Follow Powell
Retired General Colin Powell began his twenty-six city, four week book tour on Monday with a new group of followers — anti-abortion activists who protest his pro-choice stance. The protesters plan to follow him on the tour and urge him not to run for president. Powell will announce his decision to run, or not run, […]
FINAL FIELD NOTES FROM BEIJING: Closing Events of Fourth World Conference on Women
Work on the Platform for the Fourth World Conference on Women continued all night on Thursday, as exhausted delegates struggled with the final thorny issues. Friday’s closing events lifted the delegates’ spirits, particularly Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland’s stirring speech, and Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori’s bold rejection of Vatican attacks on family planning programs. […]
Faulkner May Try Again
Shannon Faulkner announced in a court affidavit that she still wishes to graduate from the Citadel. However, so as to avoid the emotional pain and isolation she felt earlier, she would like other women to join her if she re-enters. The Citadel is now fighting a plaintiff motion to add Nancy Mellette, a senior at […]
Summary Report On Conference Activities
Women scored an historic victory today as the international community agreed to count women’s unpaid work in their economic studies and valuations of the economies. Unpaid work performed by women has been estimated by a recent UNDP Human Development Report to amount to $11 trillion annually. Although the language will not directly affect actual wages […]
U.S. Women Still Face Discrimination
In a poll of three-thousand women, eighty-four percent stated that they still face more restrictions than men. Seventy-seven percent of the women stated that they still face sexual discrimination. The women went on to say that the discrimination was less open, but nonetheless a serious problem. Seventy-six percent also claimed that sexual harassment existed in […]
Women and Minorities Shut-Out from Public Contracts
A Los Angeles Times review of California found that women and minorities receive a very small percentage of public contracts. Even though women represent one-half of state citizens, they received a mere six percent of three-billion in contracts in 1993-94. And, minorities, who make up one-third of the state’s population, received only nine percent in […]
Powell Supports Abortion Rights and Affirmative Action
In an interview with Barbara Walters, which airs Friday September 15, Colin Powell said he supports a woman’s right to choose and affirmative action. Starting off a book tour, and quite possibly a presidential bid, Powell labeled himself pro-choice, s tating that if a woman decides to have an abortion, “it’s a matter between her, […]
Federal Appeals Court Strikes Down Restrictive Abortion Law
A federal appeals court struck down a Louisiana law on Monday which prevented Medicaid payments for abortions in case of rape or incest. The court found that the physical and emotional toll of rape and incest can make the abortion medically necessary. T he state had argued that its interest in promoting childbirth allowed it […]
US Delegates Discuss Violence, Families, Race
At the regularly scheduled U.S. Delegation Press briefing, U.S. Violence against Women Office Director Bonnie Campbell discussed what the U.S. is currently doing in the area of violence against women and how programs already in place will coincide with U.S. commitments to the UN Fourth World Conference On Women Platform for Action. During the question […]