Globalization

Globalization—as a political, economic and cultural trend—continues to have a mixed impact on women. Although it is strengthening promotion of gender equality around the world, it is also in many cases widening the gulf between rich and poor, accelerating environmental degradation and increasing the workloads of women and girls. The expanding global marketplace is increasing women’s employment opportunities but also producing jobs that may be temporary, unsafe or exploitive. Furthermore, economic reform programs imposed on developing countries by international financial institutions have often eroded critical services, such as public health and education programs, thereby increasing the caregiving burdens of women and girls. While globalization has opened up new avenues for some women, it has also led to increased hardship for others.

Publication Party: The Global and the Intimate

Submitted by bwaf on Fri, 09/28/2012 - 4:27pm

Member Organization:

Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation

Celebrate the publication of The Global and the Intimate: Feminism in Our Time, edited by Geraldine Pratt and Victoria Rosner (BWAF Trustee).

Please join the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, the English Department, and the School of General Studies at Columbia University for a celebration in honor of the publication of: The Global and the Intimate: Feminism in Our Time, edited by Geraldine Pratt and Victoria Rosner (BWAF Trustee & Associate Dean at Columbia University)

Tuesday, October 9, 2012, 6:30-9:30pm, 754 Schermerhorn Extension, Columbia University, NYC

Special Guest Speakers will include Victoria Rosner, Geraldine Pratt, Rachel Adams, Mikhal Dekel and Nancy K. Miller

Global AIDS Conference Comes to U.S.

Teaser:

The International AIDS Conference comes to Washington, D.C., the American city with a higher AIDS infection rate than many African countries.

Editorial:

From ABC News:

As 25,000 global experts descend on Washington, D.C., this week for the first International AIDS Conference in the United States in 22 years, they face some sobering statistics: 3 percent of all residents in the nation's capital are infected with the HIV virus.

And with 7 percent of all black males HIV-positive, the city has a higher infection rate than African countries like Ethiopia, Nigeria and Rwanda.

The world might be winning the war on AIDS -- 2.7 million had HIV in 2010, down from 3.2 million a decade earlier -- according to UNAIDS, but the United States, alongside Eastern Europe, still sees new infections.

Nearly 1.2 million Americans are now living with HIV/AIDS, an all-time high, with nearly 50,000 new infections every year, according to theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention.

[...]

Source:

ABC News

URL:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/hivaids-infection-rates-rise-us-rare-conference-opens/story?id=16831699#.UBKeHWFfHll

Date:

July 27, 2012

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Women Beat Men on IQ Tests For First Time

Teaser:

New Zealand-based researcher James Flynn finds that women are now scoring higher on IQ tests than men.

Editorial:

From ABC News:

The author of the study, James Flynn, a New Zealand-based researcher known as an IQ testing expert, said that over the past century, women have lagged slightly behind men in IQ testing scores, at times by as much as five points. But now, Flynn said women have closed the gap and even inched ahead in this battle of the intelligent sexes.

“Over the last 100 years, everyone in the developing world has been gaining about three IQ points, but women have been gaining faster,” Flynn told ABC News. “This is the result of modernity. In every country where women have an equal chance of modernity, women have caught men [in IQ testing].”

Flynn has not yet published the results of his study, saving that for a book he will publish in September. But he told ABC News that he collected data from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Estonia and Argentina on scores on a standard IQ test, called the Raven test. Each country tested at least 500 men and 500 women, most between the ages of 15 and 18, Flynn said.

[...]

Source:

ABC News

URL:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/07/16/women-beat-men-on-iq-tests-for-first-time/

Date:

July 18, 2012

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Ladies first: Why 2012 is the Women's Games

Teaser:

London 2012 will be the first Olympics to which every nation sends a female competitor and in which women are not barred from any sport.

Editorial:

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.

[...]

Source:

The Independent (UK)

URL:

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/ladies-first-why-2012-is-the-womens-games-7920011.html

Date:

July 11, 2012

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Associated Issues & Expertise:

Saudi Arabia Not Sending Female Athletes To London Olympics: REPORT

Teaser:

Saudi Arabia says that no Saudi women have qualified for the Olympics, as no female athlete has taken part in the country's qualifying events. Saudi Arabia severely restricts women in public life.

Editorial:

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.

Source:

Huffington Post

URL:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/09/saudi-arabia-women-olympics-qualifying-results_n_1659626.html?utm_hp_ref=sports

Date:

July 11, 2012

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Contraception saves 250,000 lives each year: study

Teaser:

Contraceptive use saves the lives of more than a quarter of million women each year, either from death in childbirth or unsafe abortions, according to estimates published in the Lancet.

Editorial:

From Medical Xpress:

In 2008, 355,000 women died while giving birth or from illegal or dangerous abortions, a study published by The Lancet said.

But more than 250,000 deaths were averted that year because contraception reduced unwanted pregnancies, it said.

"If all women in developing countries who want to avoid pregnancy use an effective contraceptive method, the number of maternal deaths would fall by a further 30 percent," according to the research.

The paper, led by John Cleland, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, appears in The Lancet on the eve of a "London Summit on Family Planning," promoted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

It is campaigning for the rights of 120 million women and girls to have access to family planning.

"Increasing contraceptive use in developing countries has cut the number of maternal deaths by 40 percent over the past 20 years," said the paper.

[...]

Source:

Medical Xpress

URL:

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-contraception-year.html

Date:

July 10, 2012

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Associated Issues & Expertise:

10 Countries With Huge Gender Gaps In The Workplace: Survey

Teaser:

According to recent data from Gallup, a quarter of countries struggle with a wide gender gap in the workplace.

Editorial:

From the Huffington Post:

A significant number of countries continue to struggle with a wide gender gap in the workplace -- a fourth to be exact, according to data recently released by Gallup. That gender gap is technically the difference between the number of men and women in full-time or voluntary part-time work.

The problem is not universal. For every Ecuador or Saudi Arabia, two countries with enormous gender gaps, there is a Ireland or United Kingdom, both of which were found to posses a gender gap that actually favors women.

That's not to say gender gaps only exist in developing countries. Italy, a member of the European Union, posted a workplace gender gap of 13 percent, the survey found.

The pollsters last year questioned 187,119 people across 144 countries.

[...]

Source:

Huffington Post

URL:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/05/countries-women-work_n_1651946.html

Date:

July 9, 2012

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Women less likely to endorse independence in gender-unequal societies

Teaser:

A study of 54 countries finds that women in countries with great gender inequality are more likely than men to support authoritarian values.

Editorial:

From Phys.Org:

Women in countries with great gender inequality are more likely than men to support authoritarian values, according to a new study of 54 countries. The shift away from beliefs in independence and freedom is the result, social psychologists say, of authoritarianism helping such women cope with a threatening environment.

"If a person is authoritarian, they are more likely to follow what group leaders ask them to do, and to follow the crowd more generally," says Mark Brandt of DePaul University in Chicago, a co-author of the paper just published online in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Prior research has found that adopting authoritarian beliefs gives people a sense of connection to others and protection against threats. "It might be one way to compensate for the social devaluing that is associated with being a member of a disadvantaged group."

Brandt and his co-author P.J. Henry thus predicted that the greater thegender inequality in a country, the greater the endorsement of authoritarianism by women compared to men. They investigated this relationship by analyzing survey data from 54 countries, from Argentina to Vietnam. They used the publicly available World Values Survey, which asks participants about their beliefs in authoritarian (e.g. "good manners" and "obedience") values versus autonomous ("independence" and "imagination") ones. They gathered gender inequality data from the United Nations Human Development Report, which has tracked gender inequality around the world for more than 10 years.

As predicted, they found a link between high gender inequality and a support of authoritarian values among women. "I think many people will be surprised to find out that women can be more authoritarian than men," Brandt says. Most past research on authoritarianism has failed to showgender differences, perhaps, Brandt says, because these data were collected in the United States and other developed nations with lower levels of gender inequality. "Step outside that cultural zone to locations of greater gender inequality, and you will find greater gender differences."

[...]

Source:

Phys.Org

URL:

http://phys.org/news/2012-07-women-endorse-independence-gender-unequal-societies.html

Date:

July 5, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

California's Women Veterans: Responses to the 2011 Survey

Submitted by asklar on Thu, 07/05/2012 - 10:05am

CRB, at the request of CalVet and the Commission on the Status of Women, surveyed California’s women veterans to find out what they currently need, what they needed at the time they transitioned from the military, and what are their sociodemographics. This report presents the findings of that survey. Women veterans told us they need help finding a job when they leave the service and that they currently want physical and mental health care. The needs for women-specific and senior-specific services are growing needs in the women veterans community as well."

Rebecca E. Blanton and Lisa K. Foster (CRB-12-004)

URL:

http://www.library.ca.gov/crb/12/12-004.pdf

Women Matter

Submitted by asklar on Mon, 07/02/2012 - 10:08am

Since 2007, McKinsey’s Women Matter research has explored the role women play in the global workplace, their experiences and impact in senior-executive roles, and the performance benefits that companies gain from gender diversity. In this video, McKinsey partners Joanna Barsh, Sandrine Devillard, Emily Lawson, and Jin Wang recount the progress women have made in reaching the executive suite.

report | Women Matter 2012

Making the breakthrough

Many companies are making serious efforts to improve the number of women in top jobs. Some detect progress. But others say change is frustratingly slow. This report looks at what companies can do to make a breakthrough.

URL:

http://www.mckinsey.com/features/women_matter

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