MSM Tensions Erupt
8/27/08
The Nation: The media news is that the tensions at MSNBC–both political and personal–erupted, leading to several on-air fights between the talent. While Fox News stays ruthlessly on message, MSNBC has been looking increasingly like The Real World. First, when Joe Scarborough started talking up a perceived McCain surge in the polls, Keith Olbermann muttered that he should “get a shovel.”

Michelle Was Great; Why All the Surprise?
8/29/08
Women’s eNews: Michelle Obama’s speech earlier this week was so good Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich could taste it. But the media’s wide-eyed surprise dismayed her with its suggestion than such an accomplishment by a black woman should be considered rare.

McCain Chooses Palin as Running Mate
8/29/08
New York Times: In a surprise move, Senator John McCain chose Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate on Friday, shaking up the political world at a time when his campaign has been trying to attract women, especially disaffected supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, McCain officials confirmed.

Texas Delegate Waited A Lifetime For Obama’s Moment
8/29/08
LA Times: The barriers of segregation came down so gradually that Bertha Means never experienced an epiphany — one defining moment to celebrate freedom’s progress. But the African American great-grandmother and civil rights pioneer finally had that moment Thursday night a long way from her Texas home.

Biden’s record on violence against women highlighted at DNC
8/28/08
Ms. Magazine: Senator Joe Biden, who has long worked closely with the women’s movement, accepted the Democratic nomination for Vice President last night. Biden was introduced by a short video and remarks by his son, Beau Biden. Both highlighted Senator Biden’s work with the Violence Against Women Act.

Abortion Protesters Drowned Out at Women’s Caucus
8/28/08
AP via Chicago Tribune: Four abortion protesters, including one from Iowa, who interrupted the Democratic convention women’s caucus were drowned out by chants of “Obama!” and removed from the room by officers. A short while later, three more women were escorted from the room when they held up Hillary Clinton for president signs during a speech by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle.

Women making inroads into Judiciary in MI
8/27/08
Daily Press: The seal of the Michigan Supreme Court and other judicial bodies features a robed woman with a blindfold holding the scales of justice. But getting women elected to actually judge from on the bench has been a slow process.

SF women rally to support incarcerated NJ women of color
8/28/08
The Edge: Lesbians in San Francisco came together to support on of their own, a New Jersey woman they believed to have been wrongfully imprisoned following an assault in New York’s West Village.

Shattering The Math Ceiling For Girls
8/27/08
Wall Street Journal: The 2008 SAT results are in and there’s frustration that overall performance remained flat.  Performance remained stagnant for girls and math scores, as they continue to lag behind their male counterparts.

Reproductive Right Bill Sparks debate in Kenya
8/28/08
Global Voices: A bill proposed by Kenyan women’s rights groups, which would make it easier to have an abortion, has re-sparked the debate about legalizing abortion. The procedure is currently illegal in Kenya, unless the pregnant woman’s life is in danger. Many religious leaders and politicians in the country have spoken out against this attempt to change the abortion law.

Japanese Women Shy Away From Dual Mommy Role
8/28/08
Washington Post:  “I have never met a Japanese man who did not want me to be his mommy.” That is the reason, Takako Katayama says, that she has not married. At 37, she has carved out a comfortable life here in Tokyo, with her own apartment, a good job at a cable television network, and a network of family and friends.

African Ministers fine tune AU gender policy
8/28/08
Africa Online: Without the dynamism and hard work of the African civil society, gender mainstreaming and women empowerment on the continent will remain a pipe dream, according to African Union (AU) Commission Chairperson Jean Ping.

Europe’s last witch exonerated 200 years after beheading
8/28/08
Telegraph, UK: Anna Goeldi was executed in 1782 after she was convicted of poisoning the eight-year-old daughter of a family she was working for, causing her to have convulsions and spit pins. But, the parliament of the Swiss canton of Glarus has decided to pardon Goeldi as a victim of “judicial murder”.

German chancellor Merkel tops Forbes list of most powerful women
8/28/08
Canadian Press via Google: German Chancellor Angela Merkel topped Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most powerful women for the third year running, while U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice slipped to seventh from fourth last year.

India’s Indra Mooyo on Forbes list of most powerful women
8/28/08
Hindu Times: Led by soft drink giant PepsiCo’s India-born chief Indra Nooyi, business executives account for nearly two-third of the world’s 100 most powerful women’s list compiled by US magazine Forbes.

Iraqi Girl Tells Of Ordeal As Suicide Bomber
8/29/08
Reuters: Rania is only 15-years old, but in the past week the softly spoken Iraqi girl has been drugged, strapped with explosives, arrested by men she nearly blew up and then shoved into a detention centre.

Rural Women in South Africa have huge potential
8/28/08
Daily Dispatch: In National Women’s Month, the messages hailing the contributions to South Africa by its women are repeated over and over again, with emotive, exquisitely wrought advertising campaigns. But a glaring reality gives the lie to the promises of our Constitution: women, especially rural women, face hard challenges in having to provide for their families with paltry resources in tough times.

Pakistani women members open up to House truths
8/28/08
Gulf News: The majority of women parliamentarians in the National Assembly complain they are not taken seriously by their male colleagues and have even had to stand up to harassment.

Black women south africa’s most unemployed
8/28/08
AFP via Google; As one in nearly three black South African women who are jobless, Sabatha Nyawo has pounded the streets of South Africa’s financial capital Johannesburg for two years in search of work.

Do Doctors View Women as Pre-Pregnant
8/28/08
New York Times: A recent report raised concerns about women of childbearing age sharing prescription drugs. While the focus of the study was on drug sharing, readers of the Well blog took the discussion in an entirely different direction.

Treatment of women in early labor to cut risk of cerebral palsy
8/27/08
Telegraph, UK: One third of all cases of cerebral palsy – which David Cameron’s son Ivan suffers from – are linked to premature birth.   New findings show that women who received magnesium sulphate in an attempt to delay the birth had a lower chance of their child having cerebral palsy.

Margaret Cho’s New Reality Show
8/28/08
Racialicious: How can a twenty-something heterosexual Iranian-American identify with a thirty-something bisexual Korean-American? We’re both misfits.

Alpha female adventures – MSNBC
8/28/08
MSNBC: While a number of adventure travel operators (run by women) focus strictly on the women’s market, others have discovered the benefit of including women-only trips in a larger repertoire.