Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/author/kristin-bender/)
Last fall Teens for Safe Cosmetics launched a small body care product line that promises to keep suspicious chemicals off adolescents’ skin. First quarter sales totaled $150,000 and the group plans to add more products this year.
The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers came together three years ago as the fulfillment of a shared prophecy among female spiritual leaders. Since then they’ve been traveling the world, praying and offering home-grown advice.
Tributes and honors for female athletes are cropping up around the nation. While many are limited to exhibits inside larger museums, a new planned center named for Billie Jean King provides the first-ever hall of fame just for female athletes.
Disabled women lag behind their male counterparts in competing in sports events. But opportunities and recognition are gradually expanding and one Paralympic swimmer is training for 2008 in Beijing.
A U.S. filmmaker is hoping that her documentary will stir U.S. politicians to do more to alleviate fistula, an easily treated condition that has turned millions of African women into outcasts. Important screenings are planned for February and March.
As a federal bill to crack down on sex trafficking awaits congressional hearings, sex workers are circling the wagons and standing up for their livelihoods. One self-described “unrepentant whore” is offering a seminar on law and safety in Oakland, Calif.
Women, the primary shoppers in 8 out of 10 households, are increasingly reaching for organic food. As the demand increases, women are also leading the debate over what is organic and pushing for stricter norms.
Female teens are taking on the cosmetic industry, leading a national campaign to educate girls about phthalates and other toxins in nail polish, shampoos, hair dyes and facial cleansers.
Women are pioneering the emerging biofuels industry. They are advocates for a new source of energy: Vegetable oil that cooked French fries is recycled to power cars and trucks and produce far fewer emissions than diesel fuel.
Voters in Berkeley, Calif., are considering a measure that would decriminalize prostitution in their city. If approved, the plan would redirect more social services to prostitutes. But critics say the measure will only enable pimps to profit more freely.