We add these any time something catches our attention. We'd love to hear about what
catches your eye and get your comments on these posts!

Local & National

• Women as Change Agents, Peace Makers and Nation Builders
  Congratulations to three outstanding recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize: Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian Leymah Gbowee, , and Twakkul Karman of Yemen. They were recognised for their "non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work". Read More
  
• CA Governor Brown Acts to Protect Pregnant Women and New Mothers
  Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today signed four bills to protect pregnant women and new mothers. The bills ensure maternity services are covered by health insurers and new mothers can no longer lose their health insurance as a result of taking maternity leave. Other bills signed by Governor Brown include:
  SB 222 by Senator Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa) and AB 210 by Assemblymember Roger Hernandez (D-Baldwin Park) – Together, these bills require that every individual and group health insurance policy must provide coverage for maternity services.
  
• Gender Gap in Nonprofit Salaries Persists, Study Finds.
  Female executives are receiving a smaller percentage of the total compensation paid by charities, even though the proportion of charity leaders who are women continues to rise, a new study has found. Read More Read More
  
• What if you looked at war as though women mattered?
  Award-winning documentary filmmaker and Stanford alumna Abigail Disney talks about her latest project, PBS mini-series Women, War & Peace - the most comprehensive global media initiative ever mounted on the roles of women in peace and conflict.
  Read More Read More
  
• Violence Against Women Impedes Economic Development
  We all know the ways that violence against women affects bodies, minds and souls. Less understood is how it impedes not only their personal development but that of their communities and even their nations. Read More
  
• Thanks to health care reform, women will have access to a wide range of free preventive health care services under guidelines recently announced by the Department of Health and Human Services. Beginning in August 2012, new health insurance plans will be required to cover women’s preventive services such as contraceptives, annual well-woman checkups, and domestic violence screenings without charging a co-pay or deductible. Read More

• Sen. Barbara Boxer and her colleagues have introduced the Military Access to Reproductive Care and Health (MARCH)
  for Military Women Act, which would provide American service women health care coverage for abortion in cases of
  rape or incest and allow them to use their own personal resources to access a full range of reproductive health care
  at U.S. military facilities. Read more here Read more here

• Pieces of a U.S. Maternal Health Plan Take Shape
  A bill in Congress would help states research why so many U.S. women die in pregnancy and childbirth.
  And that data could make health reform more responsive to a worsening problem, a leading health activist says.
  Read More at:Read More

• The Obama administration has rightly decided to reject a Indiana law banning the use of Medicaid funds at
  Planned Parenthood clinics, which provide vital health services to low-income women.
  Read More here

• How Women Are Faring in the Workplace
  The report from the U.S. Congress' Joint Economic Committee has the usual measures of women's economic progress–pay, educational attainment, business ownership–with the usual findings: The gender pay gap persists, and women are underrepresented in management. But there were a few surprises. Read More

• A hearing convened by Senator Durbin, Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law,
  the hearing, Women’s Rights Are Human Rights: U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All
  Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) , took place with many women and organizations providing
  testimonials. The video of their testimony and their full statements can be found at www.CEDAW2010.org.

• Let's keep talking about venture funding for women. The uncomfortable truth is that companies led by women
  receive only a sliver of the venture capital dished out each year. Venture capital is the fuel that propels Silicon Valley.
  It is the boost that builds startups, which hire people, create new products and produce more startups.
  Read More

• UN Women Born: Civil Society Celebrates Creation of Gender Equality Entity
  the United Nations General Assembly resolution, agreed to on 30 June and to be formally adopted by the General
  Assembly on Friday, 2 July, to establish "UN Women"-the new gender equality entity at the UN. 
  The work of UN Women will be framed by the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action and the
  Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which marked its 30th
  anniversary in 2009. Read More

• The U.S. Department of Labor today announced the kickoff of the first phase of the Career Videos for America's
  Job Seekers Challenge, which invites members of the public to produce and submit one to three minute videos
  focusing on the daily activities of one of 15 high-wage and in-demand occupations.. The creators of the top video
  in each category will win a $1,000 cash prize. Read More 
  
• Young women are untapped resource for science-based economy.
  While more than half of American college students are female, only 18 percent of engineering undergraduates are
  women. Aptitude tests show no intrinsic gender gap that could explain this disparity, but women avoid technical
  studies in large numbers. This represents a substantial lost opportunity not just to science, but to our economy.
  Women make up a huge talent pool from which we should be drawing our next generation of innovators. Read more
  
• Why Are Women-Owned Firms Smaller Than Men-Owned Ones?
  The Wall Street Journal recently featured article about women entrepreneurs.  And the figures highlighted in this
  report were decidedly grimmer than those in other reports. 
  Reporter Sharon Hadley has found that in 2009 that “the average revenues of majority women-owned businesses
  were still only 27% of the average of majority men-owned businesses”. read more
  
• Volunteers and the Health Benefits of Service The health benefits of volunteering have been reported before,
  That picture is a little clearer thanks to a report VolunteerMatch released with UnitedHealthcare. Does volunteering
  make you healthier, or do healthier people volunteer? Should service be prescribed for those with cancer or chronic
  illness? Are there health benefits to volunteering that working for pay cannot provide?  
  UnitedHealthcare/VolunteerMatch Do Good. Live Well. Survey [pdf]
  
• Women Feed the World, But Struggle to Feed Themselves
  Ask your Senator to Co-Sponsor The Global Food Security Act GFSA, S. 384. It would give women the tools they
  need to feed themselves and their families. Women farmers grow over half of all food in the world. Yet women
  receive about five percent of all agricultural extension services and own an estimated two percent of the world's
  titled land. Equal access to inputs - such as credit, tools, fertilizers and technological advances - is imperative to
  increasing food security and reducing hunger. Today, many development programs and services do not adequately
  invest in women. The Global Food Security Act strengthens food security by increasing critical investments, and
  focusing on small-scale farmers, especially women. Read more
• In the fast-moving world of high-tech start-ups, the number of women has been slow to change.
  The article "Out of the Loop in Silicon Valley, why so few Women in Silicon Valley?" featured in the Business section
  of the New York Times last Sunday, provides an in-depth analysis of gender discrepancies in the high-tech industry
  at different levels. Read More
  
• AAUW ( the American Association of University Women) has issued a report that examines the reasons why
  there are relatively few women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) professions. the report,
  looks at research findings that point to eight environmental and social that serve as barriers to women's participation
  and progress. Read More
  
• Does Wall Street Need an Estrogen Injection? *Some suggest that having more women in high-ranking bank
  positions might have helped avoid the financial crisis. Would the presence of more women in the C-suites have led
  to a different outcome? Would women have made fewer outlandish bets, been more team-oriented and more willing
  to listen to dissenting views? Read More Read More
  
• Department of Labor announces availability of $1.8 million to assist women in non-traditional occupations
  In the America of the 21st century, the role of women in the workplace should be defined by their training and
  abilities, not their gender," said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. "These grants recognize that women can —
  and do — excel in a wide range of professions, from construction and manufacturing to science and engineering.
  The U.S. Department of Labor is committed to helping all women gain the skills and on-the-job training that will lead
  to their long-term success, and I am pleased that today's announcement brings us closer to that goal." Read More
  
• Space is about to have a female population explosion. One woman already is circling Earth in a Russian capsule,
  bound for the International Space Station. Early Monday morning, NASA will attempt to launch three more women
  to the orbiting outpost — along with four men — aboard shuttle Discovery. It will be the most women in space at the
  same time. Read More
  
• Should Motherhood mean no family planning?...Read More...
  
• Promoting women is simply good business...Read More Read More
  
  
• Fighting for Women's Economic Security Everywhere
  A group of experts from around the globe converged in Haifa, Israel, late last year to discuss a crucial topic at a
  United Nations conference: the impact of the economic crisis on women worldwide and noted in their declaration,
  "We strongly emphasize the role of women as important agents of change and urge their full involvement in efforts
  to stimulate national economies to ensure long-term recovery."
  For more on the conference, read the Haifa Declaration.
  
  San Jose police, county DA go extra mile on domestic violence cases.
  Read More
  
• Women Scientists Do More Housework than Men
  When the biologist Carol W. Greider received a call from
  Stockholm last fall telling her she had won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, she wasn't working in her lab at
  the Johns Hopkins University. The professor of molecular biology and genetics was at home, folding laundry.
  Read More