Women's & Girls' Leadership

From jconline.com:

In 1981 Hardy became the first female firefighter at the Purdue University Fire Department. “At the time it was unheard of,” she said. “But it is not as unusual now as it was 30 years ago for me to be in a fire department.”

Recent trends reiterate Hardy’s statement, with reports that not only do women make up almost 60 percent of the workforce in America, but they are increasingly entering jobs in fields previously dominated by men.

According to a recent NBC news story as well as a study by the Center for Women’s Business Research, women are taking on jobs that have been traditionally held by men.

From ownership and professional positions all the way to the physical labor in industries such as construction, manufacturing, transportation and repair jobs, a woman’s presence is becoming less uncommon.

How does that data translate locally? Greater Lafayette Commerce’s CEO and President Joe Seaman says that’s a question not many people have asked. “The job may have the same name,” Seaman said, “but the skill sets are different. In the past strength was utilized, but now we are utilizing education.”

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From the BBC News:

Four in 10 women police officers have considered leaving the force because of low morale, a survey has suggested.

Female officers cited reasons including lack of flexible working and issues surrounding childcare.

The Independent Police Commission consulted 3,410 women officers in England and Wales for the study.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) said the findings highlighted the need for reform of pay and conditions in the service.

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From National Journal:

From The Independent:

The Olympics have not even started, yet their faces are already inescapable. Step on to the London Underground, open a newspaper, turn on the television, and the women of 2012 are staring out at you.

Jessica Ennis, Rebecca Adlington, Victoria Pendleton: their names are becoming as familiar as those of Premiership footballers. The queen is Ennis, the heptathlete who is already the unofficial face of the Games, and whose lucrative sponsorship deals are expected to bring her riches of close to £1m before she even steps on to the track.

It is already being whispered about by sports pundits and Olympic officials alike: our female competitors look set to do the unthinkable and claim more medals than our male athletes for the first time, toppling them from the top of the British podium.

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From the Huffington Post:

The story in the pan-Arab daily newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat – an important media tool for Saudi rulers – said Saudi male athletes have qualified to compete in track, equestrian and weightlifting at the games that start in less than three weeks.

There is no "female team taking part in the three fields," the report said Sunday, quoting an unidentified Saudi official. He said no female athlete had taken part in qualifying events in Saudi Arabia, which severely restricts women in public life.

Saudi leaders have been under pressure to end the practice of sending all-male teams to international competitions. They could face IOC sanctions after the London Games if women are excluded from the country's Olympic team.

The Saudi Embassy in London said two weeks ago that women who qualify will be allowed to compete. Last week, IOC President Jacques Rogge said he remains optimistic the Gulf kingdom will send women to the games for the first time.

From MSNBC:

• Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, 44, the former state attorney general and relative political newcomer, who just spent a sweltering July 4 campaigning with Romney.
• South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, 40, a Tea Party favorite and one of Romney's early supporters, who recently ducked ethics violations charges related to campaign lobbying.
• Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico, 52, the first female Hispanic governor in the U.S.,  who could potentially give Romney a boost with a constituency he sorely needs.
• Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, 57, who served in the Bush administration and would bring the foreign policy bona fides that Romney lacks.

From the Huffington Post:

By rewriting the rules that govern which strings the federal government can attach to its spending on the state level, Chief Justice John Roberts may have inadvertently prevented a future Tea Party-dominated Congress from executing one of its top priorities, defunding Planned Parenthood.

At the same time, it raises the question of whether the federal government can withhold Medicaid money if a state decides on its own to defund Planned Parenthood. Before Roberts' ruling, no legal scholar would have questioned whether the federal government had the authority to spend its own money or tie any strings it deemed appropriate to it. But after the ruling, it's an open question that will likely be decided in court, legal experts told The Huffington Post.

"I perceive NFIB v. Sebelius as throwing the courthouse doors open to coercion claims," said Nicole Huberfeld, a University of Kentucky law professor. "Because the holding is so dependent on the somewhat unusual facts of Medicaid, and because the court set forth no theory of coercion, I think we will see a lot of challenges in an effort to discover the contours of the coercion doctrine."

The issue raised by Roberts' opinion is whether the federal government can coerce a state into using its federal grant money in a particular way by threatening to withhold that money. For instance, if Congress voted to defund Planned Parenthood through the Title X federal family planning program, but New York wanted to continue sending its federal Title X dollars to Planned Parenthood clinics in the state, could the government withhold all Title X money from New York?

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From the Huffington Post:

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From Forbes: