Iowa Senator Seeks Tax on Pimps, Prostitutes. [United States] Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa is hoping to stamp out the sex trade by taxing pimps and prostitutes, then jailing them when they don't pay. The Senate Finance Committee is expected to vote Wednesday morning on the pimp tax. The bill also calls for more jail time for sex workers. If passed, the provision will authorize at least $2 million toward the establishment of an office in the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation unit to prosecute unlawful sex workers for violations of tax laws.  "Recent headlines have focused on sex trafficking in connection with the World Cup in Germany," Grassley said. "This vile crime is under our noses in the United States, and it's a no-brainer to have the IRS go after sex traffickers. Prosecuting these tax code violations can get these guys off the street and yank from their grasp the girls and women they exploit." Grassley said the problem is "especially horrible" when underage girls are involved. Asked if taxing sex workers would legitimize their trade, a Grassley spokesman said the goal was simply to find "yet another alternative to track the money flowing in this industry to get at potential criminals." Currently, the IRS has to prove a prostitute's or pimp's income to pursue a tax law violation. But under Grassley's proposal, a pimp could get up to 10 years in prison for each prostitute for whom the pimp hasn't filed a W-2, which means a pimp caught with 10 unregistered prostitutes faces a century in prison.

Louisiana Governor Expected To Sign Strict Abortion Into Law Soon. [United States] Gov. Kathleen Blanco was expected to sign a strict abortion ban into law after the Senate on Monday gave the measure final legislative approval. Blanco has said she planned to sign the bill that would ban nearly all abortions in Louisiana, though only if the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion rights ruling is overturned. The bill by Sen. Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa, could only take effect under two circumstances: the U.S. Constitution is amended to allow states to ban abortion; or the Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade. Under the measure, doctors found guilty of performing abortions would face up to 10 years in prison and fines of $100,000. Originally, the bill would have allowed abortions only to save the life of the mother, with no exceptions for victims of rape or incest. The House added a provision to allow abortions in cases where the mother's health faces permanent harm. The Senate voted 27-0 to approve the change and send it to Blanco.

South Dakota Voters to Decide Fate of Abortion Ban. [United States] Voters will have the final say on South Dakota's tough new law that bans almost all abortions. Secretary of State Chris Nelson said Monday that the law's opponents had collected enough signatures to put a question on the Nov. 7 ballot asking voters if the law should go into effect as planned or be dumped. The state's abortion law, among the strictest in the nation, bans the procedure in all cases except when necessary to save a woman's life, with no exceptions for rape or incest. Supporters hoped it would prompt a court challenge that would give the U.S. Supreme Court an opportunity to overturn its 1973 Roe. v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. Instead of challenging it in court, opponents, who argue the law is too extreme, gathered enough petition signatures to put the question directly to voters.

Top Court to Decide Second Abortion Law Case. [United States] The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday it would expand its review of a federal law banning some abortion procedures and would decide a California case on whether the law was too vague and imposed a burden on women. The justices in February agreed to rule on a Nebraska case on whether the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 is unconstitutional because it lacks an exception to protect the health of a pregnant woman. The California case involved additional issues on whether the law imposed an undue burden on a woman's right to seek an abortion and whether it is unconstitutionally vague. A U.S. appeals court declared the law unconstitutional and upheld an injunction barring its enforcement. Both cases will be decided in the upcoming term that begins in October. The law represents the first nationwide ban on an abortion procedure since the Supreme Court's landmark 1973 ruling that women have a constitutional right to abortion.

Morning-After Pills Free on Friday in Colorado. [United States] Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains will offer free emergency contraception Friday in response to the governor's veto of legislation that would have made the pills more easily available. Gov. Bill Owens vetoed House Bill 1212 in April. It would have made it possible for women to get emergency contraception from a pharmacist without a doctor's prescription. "Governor Owens denied the women of Colorado Springs, but Planned Parenthood won't," said Katie Groke Ellis, public affairs coordinator for Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs. Owens' office declined to comment, but a news release issued in April said. Owens vetoed the bill because of concerns that minors would have been able to obtain the pills without the counsel or guidance that would be provided by a doctor. Owens vetoed similar legislation in 2005. Dubbed the morning-after pill, emergency contraception has the same ingredients as birth control and keeps a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. The Rev. Bill Carmody of the Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs joined other abortion opponents in hailing the governor's veto. "Good Christian women are aborting fetuses every day, and they don't even know it," Carmody said about the use of contraception, including birth control pills. Birth control pills and emergency contraception have no effect once an egg is implanted.

More Women Graduate. Why? [United States] This gender imbalance is present at most college graduations. More women than men apply to college in the first place. And once there, more women than men make it through. According to the most recent data from the Department of Education, only about three in every 10 boys who enter four-year colleges emerge four years later with a bachelor's degree, compared with four in every 10 girls. Although university officials tend to point to inadequate preparation in high schools, the problems begin far earlier. In preschools, more boys than girls get booted for bad behavior. In elementary schools, boys slip behind girls in reading skills. In middle schools, the gender gap widens. By high school, girls are so far ahead the boys don't feel like playing catch-up. At that age, trying too hard is seen as uncool. Poor motivation and lackluster academic backgrounds follow many boys into college, where they find a mostly unsupervised living environment. Plenty of time for drinking, chasing girls, staying up all night and playing poker and video games. Not a recipe for academic success. Many educators, especially feminists, say academic gender gaps don't matter because men end up running things anyway. Some conservatives argue that doing nothing about the gender gaps is better than creating a new class of "victims."

Women on Faculty Still Lag at Harvard, Report Finds. [United States] A year after Harvard's president, Lawrence H. Summers, promised a major effort to make the faculty more diverse amid a controversy about his remarks about women in science, a university report released yesterday indicated that most of the work remained to be done. Women represent considerably less than half of the faculty in all but one of Harvard's schools, and while the number of women in tenure-track positions grew slightly from the last academic year to the current one, women still make up a small fraction of the university's tenured professors. These were among the findings in the first report from the Office for Faculty Development and Diversity, which Dr. Summers established at Harvard in May 2005. He also pledged to spend at least $50 million over the next decade to improve the university's efforts to recruit and promote women and minorities. Dr. Summers announced the initiatives after months of controversy over his remarks suggesting that "intrinsic aptitude" could help explain why fewer women than men reached the highest ranks of science and math in universities. Much of the data in the report was assembled to highlight where women and minority members had been making progress and where efforts and resources needed to be concentrated, said Evelynn M. Hammonds, senior vice provost for faculty development and diversity, in a preface to the 49-page document.

Women Catch Up in Diplomas, Lag in Pay. [United States] Women now earn the majority of diplomas in fields men used to dominate--from biology to business--and have caught up in pursuit of law, medicine and other advanced degrees. Even with such enormous gains over the past 25 years, however, women are paid less than men in comparable jobs and lag in landing top positions on college campuses. Federal statistics released Thursday show that women earn the majority of bachelor's degrees in business, biological sciences, social sciences and history. In undergraduate and graduate disciplines where women lag, they are gaining ground, earning larger numbers of degrees in math, physical sciences and agriculture. The number of women in undergraduate classes has grown more than twice as fast as it has for men. Women outnumber men on campus by at least 2 million. In business, by far the most popular degree field among undergraduates, women earn slightly more than half of all bachelor degrees; it was one-third in 1980. Women who work full time earn about 76 percent as much as men, according to the institute. They are underrepresented in full-time faculty jobs, particularly in physical sciences, engineering and math.

Dean Stresses Need For Female Role Models. [United States] Judy Olian, dean of UCLA Anderson School of Management, is one of the few female heads of top business schools in the United States. But Olian is rather modest about it. "I don't get up in the morning and think about that. Anderson is a good school and I happen to be a woman dean of that school," she said in a recently interview with The China Post. "I don't think of my career in gender term but in performance term." Olian does consider herself as a role model for women as they pursue a leadership position in their careers. She said having a role model is important when encouraging more women to get into business -- especially the senior level of companies and enterprises. "Whether in Taiwan or in the United States there is just that many women who are at the senior level of businesses, and that's a missed economic opportunity as there is a lot of talent among women that I'd like to see present in businesses," she said. In Olian's words, the biggest challenge facing women in a serious work role is juggling and balancing career with everything else that women do. She said men face the same challenges, too, but "it's just a little tougher for women."

Schools Try Single-Sex Classes to Close Gender Gaps. [United States] Chances are you won't see three boys sharing lip balm during a typical eighth-grade social-studies class. Girls do. You probably won't hear girls call each other stupid in class - then add a playful shove for emphasis. Boys do - at least when girls aren't around. Such differences in behavior, reflected in recent brain research, have inspired half a dozen public schools in the Twin Cities area and more than 200 nationwide to try single-sex classes. Some advocates say such experiments could help close a gap in male/female academic performance. Girls tend to get better grades, and women outnumber men in college, for example. "Guys tend to glaze out in class," said Michael Gurian, a national advocate for boys. "Women's brains are hardly ever off duty." The National Association for Single Sex Public Education reports at least 209 U.S. public schools are offering separate-gender classes. Of the 44 schools that have completely converted to single-sex instruction, only one is in Minnesota. That's Minneapolis Academy, a two-year-old charter school with 60 boys and 40 girls in fifth to seventh grades. Founder Leon Cooper said the school's new fifth-grade classroom has both boys and girls, although they're seated separately, but the other grades are separated by gender. The separation, along with required uniforms and a strict discipline code, "put a damper on sexual tension," he said. Most Minnesota public schools with single-sex classrooms offer them as a limited option. But some officials would like to increase their number.

Female War Vets Honored This Memorial Day. [United States] Veterans of all ages and genders were honored this Memorial Day at Fort Snelling National Cemetery, but female veterans took on special focus this year. Veterans Mary McGee and Liz Whitbeck never miss Memorial Day ceremonies at Ft. Snelling. The female veterans share more than a friendship of 30 years. As soon as she learned she could be a U.S. Marine in World War II, Witbeck jumped at the chance. "Wow, that was it. I went right out and enlisted," she said. At the Ft. Snelling ceremony on Monday, retired Air Force Col. Ginny Johnson talked about how female have faced down difficult times to become an important part of today's military. "But we female stayed. A lot of us stayed, because we female knew, like the female before us, that we belonged. That if we left, our nation's interest would not be well served," Johnson said. Female have been involved in military service since the Revolutionary War, and Minnesota has more than 22,000 female veterans.

District 7’s First Female Commander Has Had Memorable Year of Service. [United States] Jane Ellefson of Dawson was surprised and honored when she was elected American Legion District 7 commander during last year’s convention in Morris. Ellefson is the first woman to hold the position in District 7. On Saturday, a new commander will be elected during the American Legion 7th District convention in Marshall. “I was nominated and I was just in awe,” said Ellefson. “I have been involved with the Legion quite a bit since I retired from the military. There was something in my life that I was missing.” Ellefson said her husband, Merlin, served as district commander in the past. “My husband was district commander two years ago and the comment was made, ‘why can’t we have a husband and wife,’ and one thing led to another, my name was on the ballot and no one opposed me,” said Jane Ellefson.

Broker Sues Morgan Stanley Alleging Sex Discrimination. [United States] A former female broker of Morgan Stanley DW Inc. filed a class-action lawsuit against the brokerage Thursday alleging sex discrimination. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, alleges that the company's female financial advisors are denied the same business opportunities as their male counterparts, and are therefore paid less. The plaintiff, Daisy Jaffe, who worked at the company's San Mateo office from 1982 to 2005, claims the company favored less-qualified male colleagues, who were given more valuable client accounts. Jaffe, 51, also alleges age discrimination. The lawsuit alleges Morgan Stanley DW, which has more than 500 retail locations nationwide, has created a system in which branch managers routinely assign fewer and less valuable accounts to female brokers, said plaintiff's attorney Kelly Dermody. Dermody estimated that about 2,000 of the company's 9,500 financial advisors are women. The lawsuit seeks back pay for female brokers and changes in how the company assigns business opportunities. Mark Lake, spokesman for Morgan Stanley DW, the retail brokerage arm of New York-based Morgan Stanley Inc., declined to comment on the lawsuit Thursday. In 2004, Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $54 million to settle allegations of rampant sex discrimination in the company.  

Three Female African American Doctors Sue Hospital. [United States] After wrongfully being accused of neglecting a caesarean section patient, three female African American doctors are now suing the hospital. Three African American doctors have filed a lawsuit against Alta bates Summit Medical Center on Tuesday, on grounds of racial and gender discrimination. The women alleged that the hospital along with the satellite centers in Oakland and Berkeley, showed bias towards physicians, siding with white male doctors during an internal investigation in to physicians. It is reported that the women were initially reported for not immediately helping with a Caesarean section delivery, according to the lawsuit. The hospital’s Medical Executive Board later found that the three women never acted in an unprofessional manner and that the patient had already been taken care by another obstetrician.

Female Firefighters Placed on Paid Leave for Own Protection: Trio Who Sued Toledo for Gender Bias Accused of Secretly Taping Colleagues. [United States] Three female members of the Toledo Fire Department who sued the city last year over gender discrimination have been placed on paid leave pending an internal investigation that includes allegations the women secretly taped conversations in their workplaces. Chief Mike Bell told The Blade the women were placed on leave for their own personal protection while the internal investigation continues. He declined to elaborate on why they would need protection or to discuss specifics of the investigation - including the allegations of surreptitious taping and whether it involved video as well as audio recordings. The women filed a lawsuit Nov. 21 in Lucas County Common Pleas Court accusing the city, Chief Bell, and Deputy Chiefs John Coleman and Robert Metzger of gender discrimination, retaliation, and creating a hostile work environment for women. Chief Bell said "there is nothing from our standpoint" that indicates the current matter is related to the lawsuit, adding that this is a "totally separate issue we're investigating."

Female Cop Gets Nearly $2M. [United States] By the time testimony in the three-week trial was over and the case was given to the jury, it was her word against a half-dozen police officers. Suzanne Barth, Mokena's first female cop, claimed she was subjected to a ceaseless stream of degrading comments by her colleagues. Despite days of testimony from officers who called Barth a liar, the jury in the federal trial quickly sided with her -- declaring she was the victim of sexual harassment and gender discrimination. They awarded her nearly $2 million. Barth, a 30-year-old native of Chicago's West Lawn neighborhood who now lives in the southwest suburbs, joined the department in 1998. She was warned as early as her days at the police academy that Mokena had never had a female officer and that she was likely in store for a rough time. "The longer I was there," she said last week, "the more I realized that was true." After several years, with Barth's complaints about incidents of repeated sexual taunting, fellow cops allegedly refused to provide backup on calls; one sergeant allegedly said he couldn't back her up on a call because he was eating. She quit in 2002, citing concerns for her own safety.

Providence Fire Department Appoints First-Ever Female Captain. [Unites States] The Providence Fire Department has its first-ever female captain. Heidi Rivard was among five firefighters promoted in a ceremony today. Rivard is the first woman in department history to hold the rank of captain. She joined the department in August 1991 and has served in the city's East Side, Mount Hope and downtown neighborhoods. Two other firefighters were promoted to captain today, two were promoted to lieutenant and two new chaplains were appointed.

Troutman Urges Safety For All Women. [United States] Armed with the conviction that domestic violence should be eliminated -- and until that time its victims need help -- the new head of the Center for Women and Families talked about how she sees her job. "No woman should have to feel as if she doesn't have safety," Denise Vazquez Troutman said yesterday during a press conference announcing her as the center's president and CEO. According to statistics distributed by the center, one in every three Kentucky women has experienced domestic violence. One in every six American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape -- and about 44 percent of rape victims are under the age of 18.

NASA Names Second Female Shuttle Commander. [United States] Astronaut Pamela Melroy, a two-time shuttle pilot, will become the second woman to command a NASA shuttle when she leads the upcoming STS-120 mission to the International Space Station (ISS), the space agency said Monday. Melroy, a U.S. Air Force colonel hailing from Rochester, New York, will command a crew of six astronauts charged with delivering a new connecting node to the ISS. Built for NASA in Italy, the Node 2 module will serve as a link between other habitable space station compartments. Joining Melroy on the STS-120 mission – currently the fifth shuttle flight to fly after NASA’s STS-121 spaceflight launches next month – are pilot George Zamka, mission specialists Scott Parazynski, Douglas Wheelock, Michael Foreman and Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency (ESA). Melroy is only the second female astronaut to command a U.S. orbiter after shuttle veteran Eileen Collins, who led NASA’s STS-114 return to flight mission in 2005 and retired in May 2006. Collins first commanded a shuttle mission in 1999 after serving as pilot on two previous flights.

Let's Face It, Looks Count. [United States] Who says you can't judge a book by its cover? Why not be as superficial as possible? Why not trust first impressions? We all do it, and sometimes we're actually correct in doing so. A study released several weeks ago noted women can look at a photograph of a man's face and assess with high accuracy whether he's the kind of guy who likes children, and thus shows good potential as a long-term mate. Conversely, the females identified correctly the men who had the highest testosterone levels and most suitability for a short-term fling (i.e. someone who won't tolerate nagging over changing diapers, chauffeuring the kids, doing household chores, keeping beer stains off the furniture, etc.).

Abused Women Feared For Life. [Canada] More than three-quarters of Canadian women seeking refuge from domestic abuse are in danger of being killed, states a study by a University of Calgary social work expert. Dr. Leslie Tutty said yesterday she was stunned by results showing 77% of 368 women surveyed while being admitted to shelters across the country were under lethal threat. "It's a national embarrassment ... it's not getting better," said Tutty, who conducted the survey for the YWCA in 10 cities, including Calgary, during eight months in 2005. She said a danger assessment calculated 77% of the women were in serious or extreme danger from their partners or those close to them. It's not a case, said Tutty, of the survey subjects exaggerating the threat to them.

Female Smokers Aplenty Here. [Canada] Local women are considerably more likely to light up a cigarette than their sisters elsewhere in Ontario and the rest of Canada, new data from Statistics Canada indicate. According to a survey by the federal agency in 2005, almost 27 per cent of female respondents in Leeds, Grenville and Lanark identified themselves as smokers. That compares to about 18 per cent of the female population in Ontario and just under 20 per cent across Canada who say they are smokers. The figure is the most disturbing from the massive national survey on health issues released Tuesday, but it is not the only area where local residents and females in particular fall behind the provincial and national numbers. Yves Decoste, tobacco control co-ordinator with the Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit, said women can be more susceptible to smoking for a number or reasons. "Some women see smoking as a way to control weight or control stress," said Decoste.