(WOMENSENEWS)–
Cheers
Women are on track to triple their political giving in 2008 compared to 2000, a jump spurred by three decades’ of income gains, which have fattened their pay checks by 60 percent, the Women’s Campaign Forum Foundation reported Sept. 23.
So far women have given $109 million in political contributions over $200. Women have donated $75 million to Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama and $34 million to his GOP opponent Sen. John McCain.
Women also donated $120 million to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s bid for the Democratic nomination.
With all that, women still represent just 27 percent of all campaign contributions. But in other categories of civic generosity–philanthropy and donations–women have surpassed men for the first time, U.S. News and World Report reported Sept. 23, citing federal tax data from 2005 that pegged women’s gifts at $21.7 billion and men’s at $16.8 billion.
More News to Cheer This Week:
- Diane Schroer won her sex discrimination case against the Library of Congress, the Advocate reported Sept. 23. The library argued that federal law did not protect Schroer as a transgender woman. Schroer applied for the job as a male then disclosed that she would transition to a woman after she was hired.
- A Malian woman received a second shot at asylum in the United States after Attorney General Michael Mukasy ordered a mid-level federal court to reconsider the case based on female genital mutilation on Sept. 22. U.S. immigration courts rule on 40,000 cases per year but the attorney general has weighed in only three times in three years,the Associated Press reported.
- A Women’s Sports Foundation analysis this week of collegiate athletics concludes Title IX has not caused the elimination of men’s teams, the Wall Street Journal reported Sept. 24. The study partly blames unrestrained spending on the most lucrative sports, football and men’s basketball, for cutbacks in other programs.
- New regulations require Chinese police to respond to the scene of all complaints of domestic violence, the People’s Daily Online reported Sept. 24.
- The eighth annual Brides’ March in New York on Sept. 26, organized by New York Latinas Against Violence, continued to memorialize the 1999 wedding-day murder of Gladys Ricart.
- A Sept. 29 concert at the Times Center in New York will feature a program of music entirely composed by living U.S. women.
Jeers
Half a million women continue to die in pregnancy or child birth every year while another 10 to 15 million sustain injuries during delivery.
