women's role in society

The guest instructor in a Philadelphia University classroom got right to the point: You can do what you're thinking of doing, and you can make a difference. Just be prepared for the brutality.

"It is a dirty business, there is no doubt," Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane said. "It is distasteful. They call you every name in the book. They try and put you down as much as they possibly can - and sometimes that's your own party, just to get you out of the race so their buddy can run."

(CNN) -- Early in Dara's career, she was told by a coach that "honey attracts more bees than vinegar," so she took pains to rein in her natural candor and soften her opinions. But when she started her present job as vice president at a national retailer, her boss told her she was too nice. "Where's the balance?" Dara muses. "Do they want me to be harder or softer? With men or with women? With my superiors or my subordinates? It's tricky to figure out."

When Laura Boldrini, 52, was elected as speaker of Italy’s lower house last month, she knew the job would come with enormous challenges. But she didn’t expect it to come with death threats. Last week, the former United Nations high commisioner for refugees Italian spokesperson sat in front of Italy’s lower house of Parliament and read some of the hundreds of squalid emails she has received since taking office. Many threatened rape, sodomy, torture, and murder. All the warnings were sexual in nature. “You need to be lynched, bitch,” one hater wrote.

The frontrunner for head of state believes she can move the new generation on, so why are young men and women her biggest critics?

Egypt's revolution is now often described as hijacked and women's legal rights are seen as vulnerable to an Islamic-style promotion of marriage and family. But in a show of their own force, women keep braving the deadly dangers of street protests.

We invite our users to read the complete article published May 11th 2012

Yingluck Shinawatra was poised to become Thailand's first female prime minister Sunday after her party won a majority of parliamentary seats in the nation's general elections.

The official tally had not yet been completed, but with more than 90 percent of votes counted Sunday night, Yingluck's Pheu Thai party had won 262 seats in the country's 500-seat parliament.

We invite you to read the full article published July 4, 2011

Dorothy Height, a leader of the African-American and women’s rights movements who was considered both the grande dame of the civil rights era and its unsung heroine, died on Tuesday in Washington. She was 98.

We invite you to read the full article published April 20, 2010

Last month, Rwanda achieved something no other country had ever done before: produce a legislature in which women outnumber men. The results of last month's parliamentary elections gave women 45 out of the 80 seats in the chamber of deputies, or 56%. This surpasses Rwandan women's near parity in the outgoing parliament, already the highest proportion in the world.

Reinforcing presumed religious identities:
Where are women and secularists of Muslim countries in Obama’s speech in Cairo?

by Marieme Helie Lucas
Secularism is a Women's Issue (SIAWI)

It is beyond doubt that many people around the world, of various political opinions and creeds, will feel relieved after the discourse the President of the USA delivered in Cairo today. It is apparently a new voice, a voice of peace, quite far from Bush’s clash of civilisations. But is it so?