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grrrly news 11/2

November 2, 2003 12:12 PM posted by lisa : track it (0)

Feminist leader Ireland dismissed as YWCA director
Patricia Ireland, a prominent women's rights advocate, has been dismissed after six months as chief executive of the YWCA of the U.S.A.
Dorris Daniel-Parkes has been named interim director by the National Coordinating Board of the YWCA, the organization said.
"We have the deepest admiration for Ms. Ireland's dedication to women's issues and social justice, but the YWCA has proved to be the wrong platform for her to advocate for these issues," board chairwoman Audrey Peeples said in a press release.

Ban on Late Abortion Sparks Legal Challenges
Abortion rights supporters cheered when Dr. LeRoy Carhart won a Supreme Court ruling three years ago striking down Nebraska's ban on partial-birth abortions

Research on human embryos common, says ethicist
Research on human embryos is common at infertility clinics in Canada and has been for years, says a prominent medical ethicist.
But right-to-life activists say they are shocked at the practice, claiming it has never been publicly reported or debated.

A Double Standard for Sex Offenders?
There are tens of thousands of male sex offenders in U.S. prisons, and only 1,200 female offenders. But sex offenses by women are more common than most people would think, according to one study.

Indian activists petition against the criminalisation of homosexuality
The New Delhi High Court is currently considering a petition lodged by activists attempting to overturn an 1860 British colonial law which criminalizes homosexuality in India.

It's a change which is not going to come easily. In reply to the petition, India's Government has argued that "Indian society is intolerant of the practice of homosexuality".

Scalia Ridicules Court's Gay Sex Ruling
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia ridiculed his court's recent ruling legalizing gay sex, telling an audience of conservative activists Thursday that the ruling ignores the Constitution in favor of a modern, liberal sensibility.
The ruling, Scalia said, "held to be a constitutional right what had been a criminal offense at the time of the founding and for nearly 200 years thereafter

Taliban death threat to Afghan women at NGOs
The ousted hardline Taliban militia has threatened to kill Afghan women working for foreign non-government organisations, a Pakistan-based Afghan news agency said on Friday.
In a pamphlet to authorities and residents of eastern Laghman province, the Taliban said a jihad, or holy war, against American forces in Afghanistan was the duty of every Muslim.

Maybe Supermoms are finally getting tired
New figures from the Census Bureau show a slight decline in the number of women going back to work within a year after they have a child, reversing a longstanding trend. This could be a blip, or it could signal that the generation of women who thought they could have it all -- marriage, kids, career -- is gradually giving way to a generation who recognize that something has to give.

Ten Florida women sue for right to bare breasts
Meet the girls and women who call themselves the Topfree 10, a group as diverse as the ordinances and attitudes governing women's breasts nationwide. They range from 14 to 74 years old.
The forces motivating them to pick this fight with Brevard County, Fla., vary nearly as much as their ages. About the only thing they have in common is the belief that they should have the same rights as men. Even when it comes to shedding their shirts.

Wisconsin Senate Overwhelmingly Approves Born Alive Bill
The Wisconsin Senate overwhelmingly passed the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, with a vote of 31-1.
The Act, AB 372, which protects infants born alive after botched abortions, had passed in the state Assembly unanimously. The bill will now be presented to pro-abortion Governor Jim Doyle (D), who has not indicated whether he will sign the bill.

NOW What?
NOW's endorsement of Carol Moseley Braun was a symbolic act. But some feminists wonder: Is this the right time for symbolism?

Cyber women test what's real
Software cyberbabes, created by powerful computers, sophisticated modelling packages and active imaginations are getting extremely human-like.

America, Get Over Race
Freedom High School in Oakley, California made big news and big controversy recently when a freshman there, Lisa McClelland attempted to start a Caucasian Club. Of course her efforts became a target for the predictable cries of racism and bigotry.
It is a fact in America today that while Hispanic Club’s, African-American Clubs, or Asian Clubs are welcomed as diverse and wonderful, a White Club is berated as evil and racist. This is the result of the climate of racial hostility and divisions created by the multi-culturalists and political correctors in our nation.

Beware the two-income trap
Having mum and dad both in the workforce makes a family more economically secure. Right? Well, no. Not according to a recent book by Harvard law professor and bankruptcy expert Elizabeth Warren. Her startling proposal is that two-income families may be more vulnerable to financial disaster because they lack the safety net provided by a non-working mum in a single-earner family

Schooling Mum
'The role of parents can be more important than that of the teacher', intoned Margaret Hodge, minister for children, young people and families, yesterday, marking the start of the UK's annual Parents Week (or should that be Parents' Week?). 'We would not be carrying out our public duties properly, if we were to ignore the clear evidence that good parenting is vital to improving children's life chances

George Bush, the Anti-Family President
Behold the perverse and heart-wrenchingly anti-family policies of Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney: Women reservists, young mothers of infants and small children, leave their families to go halfway 'round the world to act as cogs, expendable parts, in the machinery of the deeply anti-American Empire. And hearken to the silence of the courtiers and grant-grubbers of Establishment Conservatism, whose mingled nescience and cowardice testify to the gutlessness and wicked stupidity of what passes for the Right.

Domestic Violence Awareness Meets Marriage Protection
If it's October it must be "Domestic Violence Awareness Month." This federally driven observance has generated a steady stream of dishonest claims about how domestic violence is a gender crime perpetrated entirely by men against women. This non-existent crisis will be used to set aside more constitutional protections in order to railroad innocent men into jail.

Women Lawmakers Keep Afghan Women Funding in Supplemental
Women members of the House and Senate succeeded in their fight to keep language in the Iraq and Afghanistan Emergency Supplemental appropriations package that provides funds for programs for women and for human rights. In conference committee negotiations, some male lawmakers tried to delete $60 million designated for women's programs in the Afghanistan reconstruction package, claiming that this amount was too large of a portion of the overall $1.2 billion Afghan reconstruction package

Anti-Abortion Policies Take Heavy Toll in Africa
A Kenyan woman bleeding from a botched abortion is denied medical help by disapproving hospital nurses. It is the kind of incident that translates into high maternal mortality rates in Africa, where reproductive-health clinics are losing U.S. funding.

Spain's Domestic Violence Fatalities Rising
Spain has adopted a wide range of measures aimed at protecting women from domestic violence. But with the number of fatalities threatening to break records this year, Spanish women's groups say the legislation falls far short of what is needed

Teen Magazines Send Girls All the Wrong Messages
Magazines for teens blast girls with urgings to maximize their "hot" looks while promoting the virginal ideal. These mixed messages may well be destructive and in part responsible for the rising numbers of teens starving themselves.

Kenya School Shelters Girls from Forced Marriages
For many students, the African Inland Church Girls Primary School is just a regular boarding school. But for some Masai girls, it's a refuge from family plans to marry them off despite Kenyan law.

Political Women Consider Higher-Office Void
As they consider the general absence of women in higher office, participants at a leadership conference in Boston see New England as a case study for the problems facing female politicians across the country.

Globe Publishes Prom Pix of Kobe Bryant's Accuser
This was the headline of this past week's Globe, a supermarket tabloid: "Kobe's Accuser: Did She Really Say No?" An accompanying photograph shows the alleged rape victim in the case against Kobe Bryant, the U.S. basketball star, hiking up her dress to reveal a garter at her 2002 high school prom.

Ms. Abzug Goes to Congress
By 1970, the women's movement had begun to have an impact on political life in the United States. Although some feminists believed real change would only come from working outside "the system," others ran for electoral office. Along came a Jewish New Yorker, the daughter of immigrants, who had been, she said, "born yelling" in 1920, the year American women won the vote.
Bella Abzug had already made her mark as an activist lawyer. In the 1950s, she defended Willie McGee, an African American accused of raping a white woman in Mississippi. Locked out of hotels there by white supremacists, the eight-months pregnant Abzug slept in a bus station.

Changing Gender Without Changing Jobs
A transgendered English professor spends a year teaching in her old identity as a man. This fall, Justine Nicholas reveals her new gender identity to students and teachers and receives some surprising responses.

Teaching women it's OK to fight back
A Williamson County man is making it his mission to help women protect and defend themselves.

It's a gift Robert Cooke gives in memory of his daughter, Rachel Cooke, who went missing in February 2002 and hasn't been seen since.

Lead roles for women in conflict resolution
HUTU and Tutsi women are working together to run a news radio station in Burundi. Former underground teachers in Afghanistan are running their classes above ground. Women in the United States who lost loved ones on September 11 are pushing for peaceful solutions to the war on terror. These women are heroic and deserve a greater voice when it comes to negotiating the end of conflicts, according to the makers of the new documentary film Peace By Peace: Women On The Frontlines.

Five Women Moving Mountains in Santa Fe
This summer, the lieutenant governor, three cabinet secretaries and one secretary-designate were a force as they toured the state. By talking to real folks like you and your neighbor, they formed a plan to overhaul the services that dictate the quality of our lives.
Shortly after Bill Richardson became governor, five women set about to overhaul the state's health and human services system.
Rarely has there been a situation so ripe for a metaphor.

Teenage Girls Chase Down Flashing Suspect
A man described by authorities as a known sexual predator was chased through the streets of South Philadelphia by an angry crowd of Roman Catholic high school girls, who kicked and punched him after he was tackled by neighbors, police said Friday

Sex and violence, feminist style
The film industry's idea of equality means that now women too can make violent and masochistic movies

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