Cheers
The WNBA, the women’s basketball league, is the only professional league to receive a perfect grade on the annual diversity report card on race and gender, the Associated Press reported July 23.
The report card is administered by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, based in Orlando, Fla., and rates leagues and college sports teams on the number of participating women and minorities.
This is the second year in a row that the WNBA received the highest possible rating, with the study concluding that "the WNBA remained as the best employer overall for women and people of color in sport," reported USA Today. The percentage of women as head coaches and team presidents increased 10 percent in the past year, the study found. Out of the 13 WNBA teams, 6 had female head coaches this season.
More News to Cheer This Week:
- Chris Christie, New Jersey’s Republican candidate for governor, chose Kimberly M. Guadagno as his running mate on July 20, Rutgers University reported in a press release. Guadagno, a former prosecutor, was the first woman to be elected sheriff of Monmouth County in 2007. News sources on July 21 reported that Christie may be gambling that Guadagno will help him with women and others who support abortion rights. If elected, Guadagno will be the second woman to hold a statewide office in New Jersey. The other woman was Christine Todd Whitman, the only female governor of New Jersey, who served from 1994 to 2001.
- An eight-year-long project aimed at training doctors, boosting medical education and improving facilities ended with a review seminar on July 22 and 23 in Da Nang, Vietnam, the Vietnamese News Agency reported on July 23. Through the project, reproductive care facilities were created, 235 doctors were trained in advanced reproductive health skills and 455 lecturers were provided with teaching methods, reported Voice of Vietnam. The project was started and implemented thanks to Jhpiego–an affiliate of Johns Hopkins University–the University of California, Vietnam’s Hue Medical and Pharmaceutical University, several of Vietnam’s governmental organizations and other foreign and nonprofit organizations.
Jeers
Erin Andrews, an ESPN sideline reporter, experienced a major invasion of privacy when streaming video and photo stills of Andrews naked in her hotel room were posted on the Internet. The person who posted these images has not yet been identified, but is believed to be a 49-year-old American male who uploaded the video under the username Goblazers1, the New York Daily News reported on July 22. Many other news sources, including ABC News, speculate that one of Andrews’ coworkers may have been responsible for the act. Media Matters, an organization based in Washington, D.C., that often provides video footage for various segments, stated on July 21 that they will not provide the video or stills of Andrews due to the invasion of privacy.
More News to Jeer This Week:
- A new study has found that more than 75 percent of female minority attorneys will leave their employer within five years due to job dissatisfaction. Called "Women of Color in U.S. Law Firms," the study is the fourth to be conducted by Catalyst, a nonprofit that works with businesses and professionals to improve opportunities for women around the world. The job dissatisfaction experienced by these women is the result of little room for growth or promotion and feelings of racial and gender stereotyping, as well as limited access to higher-profile clients and engagements, reported the Chicago Sun-Times on July 22.
- A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found an increase in teen pregnancies and syphilis during the years of the Bush administration, possibly encouraged by abstinence-only education, the UK’s Guardian reported July 21. For example, the number of female teens with syphilis rose by nearly 50 percent.
Kayla Hutzler, a journalism major at Manhattan College, is an editorial intern with Women’s eNews.
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