• Losses on Abortion, Other Ballot Measures Jolt the Religious Right. [Associated Press] From the country's heartland, voters sent messages that altered America's culture wars and dismayed the religious right — defending abortion rights in South Dakota, endorsing stem cell research in Missouri, and, in a national first, rejecting a same-sex marriage ban in Arizona. Conservative leaders were jolted by the setbacks and looked for an explanation. Gay-rights and abortion-rights activists celebrated. The verdict on abortion rights was particularly clear. Oregon and California voters defeated measures that would have required parents to be notified before a girl under 18 could get an abortion, and South Dakotans — by a margin of 56% to 44% — rejected a new state law that would have banned all abortions except to save a pregnant woman's life.

• Justices Engage in Sharp Questioning with Both Sides in Abortion Arguments. [The Associated Press] Supreme Court justices Wednesday sharply questioned attorneys on both sides of the legal battle over what opponents call partial-birth abortions as the highest U.S. court weighed whether to uphold Congress's ban on the procedure. In an intense session of arguments, lawyers for the Bush administration and supporters of abortion rights gave starkly contrasting views: A law passed by Congress labels it a gruesome and inhumane practice. Supporters argue that such abortions in the second trimester of pregnancy sometimes are the safest for women. A man in the audience began shouting midway through the proceedings, disrupting the hearing briefly before police dragged him away. Before that, Chief Justice John Roberts joined Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter, Stephen Breyer and John Paul Stevens in questioning whether the court should defer to congressional findings that these abortions are never medically necessary. Abortion advocates disagree, saying there is strong medical evidence to the contrary.

• Abortion and Bush Family Values. [The New York Times] In 2003, the institute estimates, there were 1.29 million abortions in the United States, 26,000 fewer than in President Bill Clinton's last year in office. Yet abortions fell much faster under Clinton, and the evidence shows that condoms do more to bring down abortion rates than pious moralizing. That's why staunch "pro-life" presidents like Bush or Ronald Reagan have accomplished far less in reducing abortions than a "pro-choice" president like Clinton.

• Women Leaders Lagging. [Chicago Tribune] Among Chicago's top corporations, the profile of power is male, and in 2005, it became more so, according to a new study by The Chicago Network, professionals dedicated to advancing executive women. Women have long lagged behind men in rising to the top corporate slots, and here in the nation's heartland, they are losing ground. Despite a growing pool of director and executive positions among Chicago's 50 largest corporations, the percentage of women filling those spots fell for the first time since 1998, when The Chicago Network began this study. The drop was just a mere 1% in both categories, to 13.8% of directors and 14.6% of executive officers, according to the companies' 2005 annual reports, but the momentum is headed backward.

• Why Aren't There More Female CEOs? [Slate] According to the October issue of Fortune, which highlights "The 50 Most Powerful Women in Business," women account for 35% of MBAs but only 2% of Fortune 500 CEOs. Women now make up 16% of congressional seats—and 0% of U.S. presidents. So, what happens to the grand ambitions of girlhood? There are three possible answers. The first is that innate differences between the sexes mean that women either don't seek high-risk jobs or don't perform as well at them as men do; many conservatives, for example, have seized on social science studies that suggest women demonstrate an aversion to risk-taking. The second is that conscious discrimination still exists—that sexism is alive and well in the workplace. In 1998, for example, Mitsubishi paid $34 million to female workers who claimed the company had allowed employees and managers to sexually harass them at its plant in Normal, Ill. The third is that, even though formal barriers to women's workplace advancement have been dismantled, unconscious bias continues to interfere, influencing, for example, awards and honors. Whatever the reality of innate gender differences may prove to be—and we still don't understand very much about it—the presence of unconscious bias has been amply demonstrated. One widely cited study showed that when applying for a research grant, women need to be 2.5 times more productive than men to be judged equally competent. The famous "McKay" study asked subjects to rank comparable academic papers by John T. McKay or Joan T. McKay; the "Joan" papers were ranked about one point lower on a five-point scale than the papers by "John." And since the arrival of "blind" orchestra auditions, in which candidates are evaluated from behind a screen, the percentage of women hired by the top five U.S. orchestras has risen from less than 5% to 34%.

• Female Execs: Life in Top Jobs Worth the Effort. [Pittsburgh Post Gazette] Reach for the top -- and don't eliminate choices too soon or worry about the myth of balance. That's the message successful female executives are telling young women in school and in the workplace. For years, many ambitious women were ducking criticism that a high-powered job meant they cared only about their careers and would never have a family -- or have one that was neglected. Now, women who have climbed high up the corporate ladder are asserting that they have a lot to celebrate and nothing to apologize for. The word "balance" should be banished from women's vocabularies, said Carol Bartz, executive chairman of the board of Autodesk. "Balance equals perfection, which none of us are, so I think we just have to get over it, otherwise (women) spend all their time being guilty," which causes stress and limits their goals.

• Women Should Negotiate for Best Offer. [News 14 Charlotte] So you've aced the interview and you've got a job offer. Now comes the sticky part that experts say men relish and women despise. When it comes to salary negotiation, many women may accept the first offer and not try to move the numbers at all, but even a little bump up in a woman's very first job can really add up over the course of her career. Linda Babcock is an economics professor and author of the book “Women Don't Ask; Negotiation and the Gender Divide.”

• Too Few Women: U. Must Address Enrollment Disparity. [Salt Lake Tribune] Since women make up more than half the population of Utah, it would be reasonable to assume that at least half the student body at the state's largest public university would be women. But that is not the case at the University of Utah, where only 44% of the undergraduates are female. That figure is alarmingly below the average of 55% at other colleges and universities in the nation. Women make up a greater percentage of undergraduates than do men at Brigham Young University and other public universities, Utah State and Weber State, where at least 49% are women. In fact, since 1994, when only 45% of U. undergraduates were women, females have routinely outnumbered men in BYU's undergraduate classes and graduation rates for the two groups are similar.

• Magazine Ranks Detroit Unhealthiest City for Women. [Detroit Free Press] Detroit is the unhealthiest city for women in the country, according to a survey in the December issue of Self magazine. High unemployment, depression and smoking rates landed the Motor City in the lowest spot on the magazine’s list of 100 cities. The city also had the highest rate of sexually transmitted diseases and a higher than average rate of violent crimes out of the other cities on the list. At the top of the heap was Honolulu, Hawaii—named the healthiest city due to its plentiful recreation and fitness opportunities, number of ob/gyns and high percentage of women with health insurance (95%, according to Self). There is some good news, though. The magazine’s Web site, Self.com, notes that Detroit was in the top 25 on the list for the amount of park space, in the bottom 25 for women’s drinking rates and in the top 25 for dental health.

• Suit Says Costco Denies Women Promotions. [Seattle Post Intelligencer] Gaining membership in Costco Wholesale Corp. is fairly easy for the general public, but moving into management is incredibly difficult for women, according to a discrimination suit against the company. Three women who say they were denied managerial promotions asked a federal judge last week in San Francisco to grant class-action status to their suit, which would cover more than 700 women. A ruling has not been made. The case, filed in 2004, alleges that senior management at Issaquah-based Costco is virtually all male and that the company discourages women from applying for management jobs and refuses to consider women for promotions. That's because the company doesn't post or advertise upper-level jobs when they become available, the suit says.

• Female Firefighter Alleges Harassment. [Los Angeles Daily News] For months, Los Angeles Fire Capt. Alicia Mathis had been getting increasingly frustrated with the department she loved. Fire commissioners and the department had pledged to reform a culture that many said fostered discrimination, harassment and retaliation, but Mathis worried the effort would end up like so many before - lots of talk and little change. Undecided on whether she wanted to risk her career with a lawsuit, Mathis sought the advice of another woman who had shaken up the status quo: Brenda Berkman. Berkman sued the New York City Fire Department for discrimination and became one of the first women to join the all-male NYFD in 1980.

• $3M Verdict to Female Workers Upheld by Appeal Court. [DesMoinesRegister.com] A pre-employment strength test administered to potential employees at the Armour Star sausage-making plant in Fort Madison is discriminatory, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. The U.S. Court of Appeals Eighth District also affirmed an earlier court decision awarding approximately $3.3 million for 52 female job applicants who were rejected because of the strength test. The sausage plant, which is owned by the Dial Corporation, was sued by the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment Commission. "We are extremely happy with the successful resolution of this case," said Associate Regional Attorney Jean P. Kamp, from the EEOC's Chicago District Office. "53 women were deprived of high paying jobs based on stereotypes that women are more likely to be injured, when, in fact, these applicants were all qualified to perform work requiring heavy lifting."

• First Female State Poet Laureate Chosen. [University Daily Kansan] The Kansas Arts Commission chose Lawrence resident and University of Kansas alumna Denise Low as the state’s first female poet laureate Nov. 15. Low will become the state’s second poet laureate beginning July 1. 2007. She received her bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in English from the University of Kansas and a master’s of fine arts in creative writing from Wichita State University.

• Female Justice Linder Will Make History. [Statesman Journal] High court will have two women; she is first to be elected directly. When Virginia Linder of Salem is sworn in Jan. 2 as the 99th justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, she will make history in at least two ways. Linder is the first woman elected directly to the court, succeeding the retiring Wallace Carson Jr. of Salem. She defeated Jack Roberts of Eugene, a former state labor commissioner, with a 52% majority for the court's first open seat in six years. And for the first time, the court will have two women among its seven members. Linder will join Martha Walters, a Eugene lawyer who was sworn in Oct. 9. Walters and three other women were appointed first.

• Knox County Voters Select State's First Female Sheriff. [Boston Globe] A high school dropout who rose through the ranks to become a Knox County detective says she was stunned by her election victory that makes her Maine's first female sheriff. "It still hasn't sunk in yet," Donna Dennison, a grandmother, said a day after her election in Knox County. State police and the Maine Sheriff's Association say her election makes her the first woman in Maine to head a sheriff's department.

• DC Names Female Police Chief. [Seattle Post Intelligencer] A veteran of 16 years on the force has been named chief of police for the District of Columbia, the first woman to serve as permanent chief of the department in the nation's capital. Cmdr. Cathy L. Lanier, currently head of the Metropolitan Police Department's homeland security office, was named Monday by Mayor-elect Adrian M. Fenty. Besides fighting crime in the city, D.C. police coordinates presidential motorcades and law enforcement during major events like presidential inauguration parades and protest marches. Lanier will replace Chief Charles H. Ramsey, who had sparred with Fenty over the use of police in neighborhoods. The mayor wants more officers in street patrol.

• Dixon to Become Baltimore’s First Female Mayor. [Baltimore Examiner] City Council President Sheila Dixon said that she is preparing to become the first female mayor in Baltimore history in January when Mayor Martin O’Malley will step down to become governor of Maryland. “I’m looking forward to making a smooth transition as president,” said Dixon, 52. “We’ve been making progress and I want to keep this momentum going.”

• Mr. Rooter Names First Female President. [Contractor Mag, IL] Franchised plumbing and drain-cleaning service company Mr. Rooter announced Oct. 30 that it now has a Mrs. Rooter in charge. Mary Kennedy Thompson has become president. Thompson, a former multiunit franchisee and president of national franchisor Cookies by Design, said she embraces the challenge of leading a company in a male-dominated industry.

• First Female Fighter Pilot Retires. [Press-Enterprise] Sharon Preszler was the first female active-duty American fighter pilot. On Oct. 13, she retired as a full colonel. She's moving to Arizona with her husband, James, and their 4-year-old son, Collin, and a career as a commercial pilot for Southwest Airlines. The Air Force was scrutinizing its female pilots to develop a list of potential combat pilots. Preszler, the onetime aspiring flight attendant, joined ROTC at UC Davis, where her flight-training career took off. Her flying years were controversial.

• No Court Martial For Female Kentucky National Guard Soldiers. [All Headline News] Several female Kentucky National Guard soldiers who allegedly posed nude for pictures before being sent to Iraq will be spared from court-martials and tougher sanctions. They will however face non-judicial and administrative sanctions for their deed. Maj. Jay Adams, chief of public affairs for the 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), told The Courier-Journal of Louisville that the women were spared from being suspended and were "busy supporting the war effort."

• Video Of Female Soldier Being Taped To A Poll In Iraq Hits the Internet. [Reiten Television KXMB Bismarck] A provocative video hits the internet this week showing male soldiers in Iraq aggressively duct-taping a female soldier to a pole! Titled, “When your the only girl in the maintenance section,” the 4 minute long video shows a laughing female getting wrapped up with heavy tape. “This is what happens in Iraq when there are no Hummers to fix and your the only chick in the section...AND the only Yankee in a Louisiana unit!” claims poster ‘wickedharleyluva’ on YOUTUBE.COM. “OK, I can’t breathe,” says the laughing female as the video comes to its conclusion. “Don’t leave me here.” It appears obvious the soldiers are not harming the woman. But it’s quite curious why the clip is being posted on the web.

• Survey: Female Vets More Successful Than Women Who Haven’t Served. [ArmyTimes.com] Female Army veterans earn more money and are better educated than their nonmilitary peers, but those same women also give up a lot in the process, according to a report by the George Mason University School of Public Policy. However, those who prepared the report cautioned against reading too much into the results since the 709 women surveyed were all members of the U.S. Army Women’s Foundation, which requested the report. Their experience may not reflect Army women at large. The survey found that 85% of respondents said they had to make personal sacrifices as a result of serving in the Army: 43% had never been married, and 59% had never had children. However, 60% said the Army made them more economically successful than if they had not served. More than one-third said they make more than $60,000 a year.

• Statues Honoring Women of War Dedicated. [Brownsville Herald] Sally Salazar was 19 in 1944 when she left Laredo for New Guinea, boarding a ship in San Francisco with 500 other women. A lot of them never came back to their hometowns,” she said. Some of them died in the war. Salazar, a Women’s Army Corps volunteer in World War II, worked in the office of the Allied base in Lae, New Guinea, organizing supply shipments to the front. She was discharged in 1947, debilitated by illness. The statues, modeled on old pictures of local women who served in the military during World War II, honor members of the Women’s Army Corps and of the Women Accepted Volunteer Emergency Service — better known as WACs and WAVEs. Women freed men from non-combat positions in both theaters of the war, working in communications, intelligence, maintenance and procurement, training Naval Air pilots for combat and flying transport planes.

• 98-Year-Old Female Marine Celebrates Corps's Birthday. [KVOA.com] 98-year-old Miriam Cohen says during World War II she wanted to serve and she did. Miriam comes from a strong military background. She wouldn't let her gender get in the way of serving her country. "That was a long time. There was war and we had to serve," Cohen says. At a time when the military needed women, she stepped up. "All our guys were in uniform or defense industries and we had a need for women in uniform and Miriam answered the call," Richey says.

• Military Values Influence Women, Researcher Says. [The Capital Times] Women don't have to be in the military to experience the subtle effects of its hierarchy, gender theorist Cynthia Enloe told her audience at a Thursday lecture. Her talk - titled "Where are the Women in the U.S. War in Iraq? Why Does it Matter?" - drew about 50 UW-Madison students and faculty members. It focused on defining what Enloe called the "subtle, multifaceted process" of militarization and how it determines women's roles. "For something or someone to become militarized," said Enloe, "they either become dependent on...military thinking or military values for any of the following: their own livelihood, their own sense of self-worth, their own sense of belonging or their own sense of safety."

• Legion Reaches Out to Women Veterans. [Rome News-Tribune] Thoughts of sacrifices made by veterans usually conjure up images of male soldiers fighting to defend their homeland. While such images are stirring, they fail to capture the efforts of female veterans. Many woman who served during wartime fail to pursue the benefits they are owed by their country. Shanklin-Attaway Post 5 of the American Legion wants to help woman veterans establish their military benefits. “Thousands of women have served in the military, especially since the start of World War II,” said Virginia Myers of Post 5. “They deserve all of the benefits they can get, and many women do not know it.”

• Survey Finds Percentage of First-Time Buyers Down, Single Female Buyers Increases. [MarketWatch] During the year ending in June, 36% of all buyers who purchased a home were first-time buyers, according to the association's annual profile of home buyers and sellers. That's down from 40% a year ago. About 7,500 buyers and sellers were surveyed. The percentage of single female home buyers, however, inched up in the survey to its highest level on record. Twenty-two percent of all home buyers were female and on their own, up from 21% a year ago and up from 14% in 1995. In comparison, single males accounted for 9% of home buyers, unchanged from last year.

• Female Football Coach. [WBIR-TV] When you watch football practice at Boyd Anderson High School in Miami it doesn't take long to notice something different. It's a woman doing what's traditionally a man's job. It's an unfamiliar voice to hear on the football field. A female voice. Especially when that female voice is the line coach at Boyd Anderson High School. "It was defiantly not accepted right away. I said, Oh my God. We're going to have a white football coach at BA? My mom is like, is she going to work? How long is she going to be there? She was like, she's going to get fired because she's white and she's a female"

• Exhibit Challenges Preconceptions of Female Athletes. [Inside Bay Area] 'Game Face: What Does A Female Athlete Look Like?" at the de Saisset Museum brings together 139 color and black-and-white photographs exploring the impact of sports on the lives of girls and women. The exhibition is grouped into five thematic areas: getting ready, start, action, finish and aftermath. The photographs range from a corseted woman with a bicycle in the 1890s to the full action shot of Santa Clara University alum and soccer star Brandi Chastain savoring her team's World Cup victory. Among the sports included in "Game Face" are track, table tennis, pole-vaulting, hunting, gymnastics and handball.

• Author Speaks on ‘Female Chauvinists’. [The Daily Beacon] On Wednesday night in the UC Auditorium, students packed in to hear Ariel Levy read excerpts from her book. The book discusses current trends of how women think exhibitionism is aiding to the continuation of the women’s movement and that “Female Chauvinist Pigs” are women who exploit other women’s sexuality. Levy, author of “Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture,” is a contributing editor to New York magazine. She has been on many talk shows, including “The Colbert Report,” to talk about her new book. She said she decided to write the book when she realized she “couldn’t turn on the TV without seeing a stripper. Christy Hefner, the CEO of Playboy, implied to me that if you aren’t comfortable with (the women in the magazine), then you are not comfortable with your sexuality,” Levy said at the event sponsored by The University of Tennessee Women’s Coordinating Council. “Raunch culture isn’t progressive. It’s essentially commercial.”

• Catcallers Beware! Women 'Holla Back' at Street Harassment. [Naples Daily News] Ask nearly any woman and she’ll tell you she’s heard it before: the sleazy, unsolicited come-on from a strange man on the street. Some lines are more creative than others, like “I wanna be your pony,” shouted at a woman in cowboy boots on Eighth Avenue in New York City. Some are harder to laugh at, like the man who walked up to two women late at night in Dolores Park in San Francisco and said, “Which one of you am I gonna rape first?” These and other stories can be found on the Web site HollaBackNYC, where tech-savvy women are using the Web to let men know that these aren’t just the worst pickup lines ever — they’re a form of sexual harassment. A growing number of HollaBack blogs let women “holla back” by posting their stories of catcalls, propositions, gropes and indecent exposures, along with photos of their harassers if they happened to have a camera or camera phone handy. HollaBackNYC, a blog started by a group of men and women in New York City last October, has inspired more than a dozen sister sites across the United States and Canada. Many women say street harassment is a national problem — and they’re not going to walk on and ignore it anymore.

• Women Stage Breastfeeding Protest. [KOIN.com, OR] About 40 women gathered at Portland International Airport Tuesday to demonstrate for the right to breastfeed in public. Demonstrations were staged at airports across the country in support of a New Mexico woman ejected in October from a Delta Airlines flight after refusing to cover up while breastfeeding on a plane. In Portland, the mothers sat near the Delta ticket counter and fed their children. They said it was not a boycott of the airline but a reminder of the importance of breastfeeding and of the need to accommodate it. Organizers said many women and babies don't want to cover or be covered because it can impede the process.

• Canadians Ponder Regulations for Abortion. [Angus Reid Global Scan, Canada] Many adults in Canada would like to change their country’s rules for pregnancy termination, according to a poll by Environics Research Group. 64% of respondents believe the law should protect human life from conception or during pregnancy. In 1967, Canadian justice minister Pierre Trudeau presented a bill to partially liberalize abortion. On the same bill, Trudeau urged for the legalization of homosexuality and contraception, saying, "The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation." The bill was signed into law in 1969, when Trudeau was prime minister. In January 1988, Canada’s Supreme Court ruled—on an appeal filed by pro abortion-advocate Henry Morgentaler—that Canada’s abortion law was unconstitutional. Abortion is now legal in Canada with no limitation on when to perform it.

• Ontario Commits $2 Million to Help Women Flee Violence. [CBC Ottawa, Canada] The Ontario government says it is trying to combat violence against aboriginal women with a $2-million boost for women's shelters. Minister of Social Services Madeleine Meilleur announced the new funding in Ottawa. "Domestic violence is a lot higher in the aboriginal community, and we're addressing that today," Meilleur said at a news conference. A Statistics Canada study found 21% of aboriginals experienced domestic violence in the five-year period up to 2004, compared to six% of non-aboriginals.

• Boom Leaving Abused Women Behind. [Calgary Sun, Canada] Alberta’s booming economy is taking a toll on abused women who can’t afford to run away from their tormentors, a watch group said today. The high cost of living and housing in the province means a growing number of women can’t afford to get away from their abusers and those who do seek help from shelters eventually return home to the violence, said Alberta Council of Women's Shelters spokeswoman Patti McClocklin. “Calls to crisis centers are up — women are phoning asking for advice, but not necessarily leaving, and women who do stay in shelters for a short period of time aren’t able to find any place to stay,” she said.

• A Lifeline for Women Facing Abuse. [Waterloo Record, Canada] Local women who live in fear of abusive partners could be the first in North America to receive cutting-edge technology to improve their safety. Research In Motion in Waterloo and Victim Services of Waterloo Region are negotiating a proposal in which women at high risk of domestic violence would be given BlackBerrys, equipped with global positioning systems.

• More Help for Abused Women. [Toronto Sun, Canada] The provincial government is putting millions into helping abused women become more financially independent, making it easier for them to leave their spouses. The province's $4-million plan will set up at-risk women from 10 organizations with a training program, childcare, support and counseling to help them to escape their violent situations. "Without being economically independent, you feel you are trapped," Margarita Mendez, executive director of Nellie's Shelter, said after yesterday's announcement at George Brown College. "That's why a program like this helps women who are getting on the path towards moving away from the relationship," she said.

• PEI Short on Female Cops. [CBC Prince Edward Island, Canada] P.E.I. has the lowest percentage of municipal female police officers in the country, a recent report shows, and the province's largest municipal police force has no current recruitment plans to change that. A survey by Statistics Canada released last week shows 13.6% of municipal police officers on P.E.I. are female, compared with 17.9% nationally.

• NWT's First Female MP Passes Away. [CBC North, Canada] A lot of people want to be able to tell whether the people they meet are women or men. Fortunate for them, there are ways to do this, because between South Korea's national ID cards and public restrooms, there are a lot of ways to tell. A person's appearance, clothing, style of speech, and attitude also classify people by their gender. It is all so natural that you don't even think of sexual identity as being important in the course of your diverse range of relationships. But the world as it has been meticulously structured would certainly become a confused system if there were a lot of people who were undeterminable or who spoke of their sexual identity in different ways.

• Female Soldiers Pull Their Weight. [Ottawa Sun,  Canada] The Cape Breton native is one of few Canadian women doing every job from medic to front-line infantry in Afghanistan. Women make up about 15% of the Canadian Forces but only around 7% of the 2,400 soldiers deployed here. Townsend says she's treated like any other soldier. "I find if you portray yourself as someone who can do the job, and you put in the effort to help them out as well, you'll gain the respect from the guys." Women are equally expected to unload heavy deliveries and fill and haul the endless sandbags. Sgt.-Maj. John Hooyer said gender makes no difference to him as long as every soldier is there to work and be part of the team.

• LIJA's Hipp Honored Among Canada's Top Female Entrepreneurs. [WorldGolf.com] Linda Hipp, founder and principal designer of the popular golf and sportswear brand LIJA, has been recognized in the 8th annual PROFIT W100 ranking of Canada’s Top Women Entrepreneurs by PROFIT: Your Guide to Business Success magazine. Ranking Canada’s top women entrepreneurs by the annual revenue of their companies, the PROFIT W100 profiles the country’s most successful female business owners. LIJA by Linda Hipp is specifically recognized as the No. 5 company in terms of three-year revenue increase, with 295% growth. Earlier this year, the company was named one of Canada’s 100 fastest-growing companies overall by PROFIT.

• 'Pipeline' of Future Female CEOs Remarkably Dry. [Globe and Mail, Canada] Don't expect women to start storming the corner office. A new study shows that the top management ranks of the largest U.S. companies -- the pool from which chief executive officers are drawn -- are remarkably devoid of women. The study, in the November issue of the journal Academy of Management Perspectives, reveals that 48% of the 942 companies analyzed have not a single female executive. Just 7.2% had more than two women in the top ranks.

• Women's Work. [Calgary Sun, Canada] In the years Methodist clergyman Egerton Ryerson formulated and launched the Canadian public school system in the mid-19th century, teaching was almost wholly a male profession. Today it is almost wholly a female profession. What exactly caused the change? Simple economics is probably the best explanation. Women would work for less. Beginning with what many men regarded as the thankless job of teaching the elementary grades, they became more numerous in the middle grades, and finally the senior highs. Another factor was at work, a kind of male arrogance. When something becomes recognized as "women's work," many men won't do it, believing it somehow compromises their manhood. In other words, women find no difficulty taking over men's work, but some men have difficulty doing women's work.

• Young Women are Targets for BC's Sex Trade, Study Finds. [Ottawa Citizen] Young women are being lured into the sex trade at parties held in the Victoria area, says a report on violence against sexually exploited youth and sex-trade workers.

Mexico

• Letter from Political Prisoners to the People of Oaxaca. [The Narco News Bulletin] The women of Oaxaca broke all of the molds and showed us the strength of women. They were at the watch points, the occupations, and the barricades, they flat-out destroyed many myths that subjugate women when, during that spectacular takeover of Channel 9, the women – by themselves – began to broadcast. They demonstrated that women have technical abilities, decision-making skills, intellectual capacity and bravery. When you women cried, “we will take off our aprons and pick up our rifles,” what you effectively did was to rid yourselves of the stereotype that sends you to the kitchen; and you did not pick up your rifles, but rather something better… control of your own future. Now, who can tell women from below in Oaxaca that they “can’t,” or tell women to “go cook and wash dishes,” or tell them to “go home?”

• Two Charged After Authorities Say Girl Smuggled into US for Sex. [Kentucky.com] Two people from Nashville were charged with the sex trafficking of children after authorities said they smuggled a 13-year-old girl into the U.S. from Mexico and forced her into a life of prostitution in Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky. Juan Mendez and Cristina Andres Perfecto were arrested last week and named Thursday in a complaint filed in federal court in Memphis. Federal officials in Memphis said it is the first case to their knowledge involving children smuggled into Tennessee to be forced into the sex trade.

• Illegal Migration and Mexico’s Maras. [ISN, Switzerland] As Central American street gangs have proliferated along Mexico’s illegal migration routes they have contributed to a growing security problem that forces many migrants to make a decision. They can subject themselves to shady human smugglers, who could just as easily sell women and children into the sex trade as they could safely deliver them to the US. Or they can make the trek alone, risking an encounter with maras, who are likely to steal their money, prostitute the women and kill or severely injure the men.

• Female Golfer is New Hero in Soccer-Mad Mexico. [Guardian Unlimited, UK] Woman golfer Lorena Ochoa has become a new source of national pride after conquering the world in a sport that is little known and even less played in soccer-crazy Mexico. For the first time, the timid and soft-spoken 24-year-old became the world's top female player on Sunday with her sixth victory of the 2006 season in the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour. Sports sections of Mexican newspapers, normally wall-to-wall with Mexican soccer coverage, published full-cover photos of Ochoa on Monday, her index finger outstretched to denote she won LPGA player of the year honors. "A Mexican woman is now the best in the world, who would have thought? Incredible for Mexico," said Francisco Villalobos, 39, an architect, getting ready to play a round of 18 holes on a Mexico City course.

• Revisit National Housing Trust Policy. [Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica] Before the slave trade was abolished, slaves were exhaustively used as mere implements of production. Therefore, in maximizing production, more males were brought to Jamaica than females. The breeding of slaves would then have been uneconomic in cost and time and in any event, families as basic socializing units were not the focus, although there were emotional ties. The system of hard labor, being sold, or death, ensured the habitual absence of males from domestic units, causing considerable strain on the more consistently-present female- heads. Those women tended to develop a 'superwoman' syndrome, taking care of all in need in the community, e.g. mothering orphans or ill males in the community - "Gi this little dinnah to Mass Lennie ovah deh, im no hab nobody" - but never feeling entitled to anything for themselves. Female slaves neither controlled who they had sex with nor were protected against being raped by white officials or male slaves. The former rationalized that black women were part animal with an animal's appetite for sex - always sexually ready. Female slaves, while developing a shame for their bodies, felt both intense fear and anger. These deep-seated emotions were transmitted through daughters in successive generations, though evidenced in opposing ways between stringent modesty and flaunting immodesty characterized by dancehall fashion.

• Women Ruled Waves at St. Thomas Radiology Regatta. [St. John Tradewinds, U.S. Virgin Islands] Women ruled the waves and courts for the first annual St. Thomas Radiology Women’s Sailing Regatta and Tennis Tournament, held out of the St. Thomas Yacht Club, November 10 to 12. “It’s been a great weekend,” said Verian Aguilar, who co-chaired the sailing portion of the event with Jessica Rosenberg. “We had a nice mix of sailors who were new to the sport, along with those who have sailed for several years, and a number of sailors who paired up to sail double-hand on the 420s who had never raced together before.” Meanwhile, Elsbeth Rowaan-Bartlett, tennis tournament organizer, said, “We expected about 20 players and had thirty-six compete. There was a broad range of ages and abilities. Everyone had a great time.” The 70 participants represented all three U.S. Virgin Islands, and included a large contingent of KATS (Kids and the Sea) sailors from St. John.