North America

Murder Rate Decreases, But Rape Increases.  [United States] The first decline in four years in the U.S. murder rate is very good news for some cities but does not mark a return to the large national crime declines of the 1990s, experts say.  Rape was the only one of the seven crimes to show a numerical increase, up 0.8 percent to 94,635 offenses, but the rate of rape declined 0.2 percent to 32.2 rapes per 100,000.  Lynn Parish of the Rape, Abuse & Incest Network, a national anti-sexual assault group, said Justice Department studies show the incidence of rape, whether reported to police or not, has been declining over 30 years while reporting of rape to police has climbed for a decade.   The FBI data was compiled from reports to more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies, representing 94.2 percent of the nation's population.  The Justice Department has found that barely half of all violent crimes and fewer than 40 percent of property crimes are reported to the police, but its surveys of crime victims, which also track unreported crimes, show trends similar to those among the reported crimes tracked by the FBI.
Consumer Yakfest.   [United States] Clotheshorses, shopaholics, kleptomaniacs and teenagers desperate to pierce their navels: these are among the female consumers of varying age who sprawl across the screen in Henry Jaglom's comedy "Going Shopping."  The movie, written by Jaglom and Victoria Foyt, who stars as the owner of an upscale urban boutique called Holly G's, for which she designs many of the high-priced dresses, is a mostly all-girl yakfest; the men skulk guiltily around its margins.  Sandwiched between chapters of a sketchy story about Holly's struggle to save her store from bankruptcy after her boyfriend, Adam (Bruce Davison), reneges on paying the rent, are gaggles of female talking heads who confess their private shopping fantasies and fetishes, chattering on ad nauseam.  The gist of these noisy little essays, which cover every conceivable mood swing to afflict the dedicated shopper, is that most women of a certain upper demographic feel entitled to more shoes, more flimsy frocks with designer labels and thousand-dollar price tags and more money to pay for them than they have in their designer handbags.  Their very identities depend on such luxuries.
Ludington-Area Women Shed Clothes to Support Hurricane Relief.  [United States] After seeing the movie "Calendar Girls" a few years ago, a group of local women joked about creating a calendar featuring nude photos of themselves as a gag gift for their husbands.  But it took Hurricane Katrina to make them follow through.  Dubbing themselves the Disaster Housewives of Ludington, the 12 women -- all in their 50s and 60s -- posed sans clothing for a fundraising calendar.
WPP Comments on French Controversy.  [United States] WPP Group on Friday issued its first statement on the controversy surrounding creative consultant Neil French, who offered his resignation two weeks after he made disparaging remarks about women at an industry event in Toronto.  Attendees paid $125 a head to hear French discuss the creative side of advertising on Oct. 6 at the John Bassett Theatre.  Creative stars Rick Boyko and Mark Fenske were also on hand, and the event featured a "French" barmaid serving drinks on stage, as well as a flamenco dance routine, alluding to French's stint as a bullfighter.  "He said 'because they are crap,” said one attendee.  “It felt like I got a shotgun blast in the face.  I've had the experience of him being an excellent leader and very inspiring person.  My head is still spinning because it was so outrageous.  The upshot of what he said is that you give [women] a shot and they run off and have babies.  It wasn't in good humor.  It was extremely painful the way he spoke."  She said if this incident shines a spotlight on an "obvious problem" within the industry among many men, then "there is a good thing that can come from it."
10 Most Powerful American Women.  [United States] What is power?  Who holds the most?  These questions are impossible to answer definitively; power is too fluid, and opinions are necessarily subjective.  But one thing is certain: Women today are in positions of greater power, in a wider variety of fields, than ever before.
White House Asks Judges to Vouch for Miers.  [United States] Stunned by conservative opposition to Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, President Bush next week will bring in former justices from her home state of Texas to trumpet her qualifications for the nation's highest court.  The event is part of an administration effort to refine its push for Miers after its initial strategy failed to quiet opposition from members of the president's own party.
'Privacy' Issue Spurs New Debate.  [United States] Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' views -- or non-views -- on a key privacy case are adding to conservatives' unease about her.  The 1965 case established the right to privacy, which later served as the linchpin to the 1973 Roe. v. Wade ruling on abortion rights.  Sen. Arlen Specter says Miers called the 1965 privacy ruling "rightly decided," but after the White House took exception, Specter said Miers called him to say he had "misunderstood" her.  Eight years later, when the court decided Roe vs. Wade, it used the same principle to extend the reach of the right of privacy in reproductive matters, striking down state laws criminalizing abortion.  Conservative critics of Roe take issue with the court's finding of a right to privacy, which is not specifically spelled out in the Constitution.  In Griswold, the majority opinion held that the right emanated from "penumbras" in the Bill of Rights "formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance."
Sexism Obscured.  [ United States] Somehow Harriet has become proof that we Americans have moved on to a great gender-free utopia, a postfeminist world in which we can now mercilessly tear down a woman without fear of being labeled a sexist piglet.  First we were told that Miers got the nod as a woman.  Now we are told that the full-scale attack proves she is one of the boys.  Tina Brown even wrote: "The healthiest aspect of the Harriet Miers nomination is that women haven't rallied to her cause."  I'm not a big fan of Miers, but I do not see her as proof of the arch prediction that equality would be the day mediocre women take their place beside mediocre men.  So I can't sign on with those who see the slashing of Miers by women as a sign of progress for women.  Today, partisans are poles and polls apart.  Nevertheless, Democrat Celinda Lake and Republican Kellyanne Conway, who do pink and blue polling for their red and blue clients, collaborated on a new book called "What Women Really Want."  This odd couple found a sister 'hood where shared concerns for issues such as health care, pensions and children top the priorities.  They write, rather too hopefully, that women are "quietly erasing political, racial, class and religious lines to change the way we live."  But in real life, the 'hood keeps getting wrecked: Gender is trumped by ideology; shared issues are blown away by partisan fingers on the hot buttons.
 High Court Clears Way for Missouri Inmate's Abortion.  [United States] Issuing its first abortion-related decision under new Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the Supreme Court refused Monday to block the court-ordered transport of a female prison inmate to an outside clinic for an abortion.  The court's two-sentence order capped five tense days of litigation in which the woman, 16 weeks pregnant, battled a new Missouri policy forbidding prisons to assist women seeking to terminate their pregnancies, as corrections officials had done in seven cases during the past eight years.  In seeking emergency Supreme Court intervention, Missouri had asked Thomas to give "heavy consideration" to its policy of "discourag(ing) abortions and encourag(ing) childbirth."  But the state had a heavy legal burden: to show that it would face "irreparable harm" if it had to transport the woman.  The state said that it would lose the $350 cost of a day's prison guard salaries, as well as run the risk of an escape or injury to the prisoner, public or guards.
White House Letter: New Girls Can Network Just Like the Old Boys.  [United States] In all the conservative uproar over President George W. Bush's choice of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, and in all the looks backward into Miers's career and upbringing in Texas, one thing has been lost: her current life in the Bush administration as one of a handful of powerful single women who have become friends and part of an informal network of support in Washington.  For much of the past five years, Miers, 60, has been a close friend not only of Veneman but of Condoleezza Rice, now the secretary of state.  Schedules permitting, the three would get together for what people still call girls' nights out in Washington.  The three continued the tradition in September during the United Nations General Assembly over dinner at the Bull and Bear, where Veneman, who is now based in New York, joined Miers, Rice and Anna Perez, Rice's former spokeswoman.  "There's a lot of girl talk," said a friend of Miers and Rice who asked not to be named because she did not want to be identified discussing the women's personal lives."It's about life, not business."
Maureen Dowd: All the President's Women.  [United States] The White House is filled with buttoned-up nannies serving as adoring work wives, catering to W.'s every political, legal and ego-affirming need.
TV Show With Female President May Prepare U.S. for the Real Thing.  [United states] This fall's new hit TV show "Commander in Chief" could help a woman get elected president.   By showing a strong female president leading in a time of war, the ABC show starring Geena Davis could help overcome some voters' lingering reluctance to put a female in charge of national security.  And that could make it easier for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or some other female candidate to win the White House, even in 2008.
A TV Show and Its Political Party.  [United States] When Margaret Thatcher led Britain in the 1980s, there was much speculation about women finally breaking the glass ceiling of America's governing class.  There was also much horror, in certain circles, that they might share Mrs. Thatcher's politics.   It would have made an interesting TV show, a Thatcher-like figure putting some spine into her male subordinates, telling them not to go wobbly and otherwise keeping standards up.  No such luck.  A few years later we got "The West Wing" instead.  But the glass-ceiling speculation has not gone away.  Indeed, it is more intense than ever.  Political pundits speculate endlessly, for instance, about a possible Hillary-Condi match-up in 2008.
Golf: Same Old Wie in Pro Debut.  [United States] At noon in the foothills above the Coachella Valley, where celebrities for decades have come to frolic and tan, Michelle Wie stepped onto a manicured tee box and prepared to take her place among the notables.   A few hundred onlookers stood next to Bighorn Golf Club's first hole, including Wie's mother, Bo, and father, B.J., who are from South Korea, and various executives from Nike, including its founder, Phil Knight.   She turned 16 on Tuesday and, last week, signed endorsement deals with Nike and Sony estimated to be worth $10 million.  On the same day that Wie made her professional debut here, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club announced that it was changing its entry rules to allow women to qualify for the British Open beginning in 2006.
Microsoft's New Xbox Pitch Has Feminine Side.  [United States] Note to hard-core video game players: Microsoft says it is aiming for your mothers and wives.   In the coming weeks, Microsoft plans to introduce a marketing campaign to expand the appeal of the new Xbox 360 game console beyond the young men who are the Xbox's biggest fans.
William Safire: 'Guys' Isn't Always a Guy Thing.  [United States] In olden times - a period from the 17th-century terrorist named Guy Fawkes through Damon Runyon's "Guys and Dolls" to about a dozen years ago - the word guy denoted a man.   In the singular, it still does: a guy thing connotes an activity understandable only to the male.  How come a group of women can be called guys?  For groups of women, Deborah Tannen, professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, always uses guys, never gals: "It's not unusual for the male to include the female and for the female not to include the male.  Think about clothes; it's common for women to wear clothes that look like men's clothes, but for a man to wear very feminine clothes is different."   Only in the plural is a woman likely to be called a guy.  "You can say, 'Call Mary and Jane and see if those guys want to come to dinner tonight,"' notes Geoffrey Nunberg, a professor at Stanford, "but you can't say, 'I wanted to invite Alice, but the guy wasn't answering her calls.'
Calling in 'Sick'?  It's Probably a Man.  [United States] Men are twice as likely as women to play hooky by calling in sick, according to a recent survey.  The 11th annual Attitudes in the American Workplace poll, reported by the Marlin Co., a workplace consulting firm, showed that in the past year, 14 percent of women reported calling in sick when they were not, while 29 percent of men admitted to doing so.
Test Offers Hope to Infertile Women.  [United States]  Many are eagerly waiting for egg-freezing to come of age.  When it does, women will be able to effectively stop their biological clocks, freezing good eggs when young to be used years or decades later when their fertility is fading.  Women facing chemotherapy will have a hedge against the infertility that often results.  Clinics will be able to operate well-screened "egg banks" much like today's sperm banks.  Thus far, most specialists say they need more scientific studies - and better success rates - before egg-freezing can make sense for the general female public.  In some of the most recent studies, up to about 70 percent of eggs have survived the thawing process.
Births to Unmarried U.S. Women Set Record.  [United States] Nearly 1.5 million babies, a record, were born to unmarried women in the United States last year, the government reported Friday. And it isn't just teenagers any more.  "People have the impression that teens and unmarried mothers are synonymous," said Stephanie Ventura of the National Center for Health Statistics.  But last year teens accounted for just 24 percent of unwed births, down from 50 percent in 1970, she commented.  The increases in unmarried births have been among women in their 20s, she said, particularly those 25 to 29.  Many of the women in that age group are living with partners but still count as unmarried mothers if they haven't formally married, Ventura noted.

'Stunning' Test Shows Hope for New Cancer Tactic.  [United States] Cancer researchers published results Thursday showing one of the most dramatic advances in breast cancer treatment in decades.  The data found that the drug Herceptin reduced by half the risk that women with a fast-growing type of tumor would experience a relapse.  Two studies, done mostly in the United States and Europe, focused on the 15 percent to 25 percent of cancer patients with a gene mutation known as HER2-positive, which makes their breast cancers particularly aggressive and resistant to treatment.  One in three of these women relapse, and most of those die.   But when Herceptin was given to women with early-stage HER2-positive cancer after surgery, and combined with standard chemotherapy agents, their cancer was far less likely to return.
Women & Aging: Research Update.  [United States] High blood pressure: Women who consume high doses of non-aspirin painkillers are much more likely to develop high blood pressure than women who don't use them, according to research reported in August in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association.  Women who took 500 mg or more of acetaminophen per day on average were about twice as likely to develop high blood pressure.  Older women, ages 51-77, who used an average of 400 mg or more per day of ibuprofen were about 80 percent more likely to develop high blood pressure.  Article also covers heart attacks, osteoporosis, breast cancer, AIDS, longevity, Alzheimer's disease, ovarian cancer, and depression.
Rare Honor for Rights Icon Rosa Parks.  [ United States] US civil rights icon Rosa Parks will be the first woman to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda - a tribute usually reserved for presidents and soldiers.  According to the Architect of the Capitol, the Capitol Rotunda has been used for this honor only 28 times since 1852.
Education, Weight Seen To Affect Women’s Sex Life.  [Canada] Women who are educated, married or heavy are more likely to have low sex drives, according to a landmark Canadian study that explored links between sexual problems and social and personal factors.  The research, which is published in the current edition of The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, found that 55 per cent of respondents had one or more of three concerns about sexual function: low desire, pain during sex and infrequent orgasm during intercourse.  Contrary to the researchers' expectations, university-educated women are more apt to have low sex drives -- 48 per cent compared to 31 per cent among high-school graduates.  They are also less likely to have orgasms during intercourse.
It's a Fight for Human Rights.  [Mexico] No one expected it to last this long, but more than one year, two months and three weeks later, Violeta Jarero Castillo remains protesting downtown.  Castillo said until the Mexican and international governments change policies to favor Mexico and free two political prisoners, she'll stay put.  Castillo and an always-changing number of other individuals have called downtown Guadalajara home, but not in a traditional sense.  Armed with pamphlets, descriptive boards, fliers and painted banners, the protesters use their public right to make their quite-public plight. They live there, 24 hours a day, camped out in the shadows of an adjacent cathedral.  It's not just a protest for the sake of protesting, said Castillo.  It's a fight for human rights and the dignity of millions of Mexican people who make their living through farming.

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