Thursday, May 29, 2008

AAUW News Alert

One More Year of Pay Discrimination

Take Action!


Thursday, May 29 marks the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the Ledbetter v. Goodyear case. While the House acted quickly in passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (H.R. 2831) in July 2007, the Senate last month narrowly failed to pass a vote to move on to final passage of the legislation. AAUW thanks you for your repeated efforts on this legislation in the past, and we urge you to contact your senators again today to send a strong message that this anniversary will not go unnoticed, and that pay discrimination will not be tolerated.

The Supreme Court's decision in the Ledbetter v. Goodyear case last May severely limited the ability of victims of pay discrimination to vindicate their rights. AAUW believes the outcome in Ledbetter is fundamentally unfair to victims of pay discrimination, which is responsible for a significant portion of the wage gap experienced by women and people of color.

AAUW believes that the narrow legislative fix contained in the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act would more justly allow victims of pay discrimination to seek vindication, and AAUW and its members will not stop until the Senate gets it right by adopting this critical measure.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Stir it Up: Women's Activism Reframing Political Debates

Join the Opening Plenary for the National Council for Research on Women (NCRW), Annual Conference, Thursday, June 5, 2008 at the Kimmel Center at NYU. This session is free and open to the public. To register for the entire conference, please visit the NCRW website at www.ncrw.org.

Friday, May 23, 2008

New York Hosts World Science Festival

New York, NY, May 22-What do scientists and artists have in common? Creative brains that "all light up in the same way," said Nancy Andreasen, a neuroscientist who will participate in the first World Science Festival in New York City, May 28 through June 1. The festival's events highlight connections between science and other disciplines and focus on qualities such as creativity and curiosity, which scientists and artists have in common.

With events scheduled at venues such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art, the organizers hope to attract a public that may otherwise be intimidated by science. The aim of the five-day festival, co-founded by Columbia University physicist Brian Greene and television producer Tracy Day, is "to move science from the cultural fringes to the center," said Dr. Greene.

Vote June 3rd Primary in New Jersey

Regina Leslie, President, League of Women Voters, Somerset Hills urges voters to choose their candidate for the US Senate. News Flash: Congress makes the laws of the land.

Update on "Women Leaders Rising"

The International Women's Forum (IWF) sponsored the conference in Buenos Aires. Leanna Brown , former New Jersey Republican state senator and attendee of the conference commented that "A mistake by men is viewed more tolerantly than a similar action by a woman. People are not surprised if a man is corrupt. A woman must be beyond reproach."

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The New Jersey Council on Gender Parity’s
2nd Annual Women in the Science and Technology Workforce Summit
Friday, May 30, 2008
The Conference Center at Mercer
West Windsor, NJ

AAUW Update

On Tuesday, May 20, AAUW released the most comprehensive analysis to date on trends by gender, race/ethnicity and income in education. The findings of Where the Girls Are: The Facts about Gender Equity in Education show that girls' successes do not come at boys' expense. Rather, when girls do better in school, so do boys. While the report finds no evidence of a boys' crisis, it does uncover large disparities in educational achievement by race/ethnicity and family income. The report received front page coverage in The Washington Post.

Why do women choose non-science fields?

The freedom to say 'no' Why aren't there more women in science and engineering? Controversial new research suggests: They just aren't interested. By Elaine McArdle May 18, 2008 Boston Globe

Women make up almost half of today's workforce, yet hold just a fraction of the jobs in certain high-earning, high-qualification fields. They constitute 20 percent of the nation's engineers, fewer than one-third of chemists, and only about a quarter of computer and math professionals. Over the past decade and more, scores of conferences, studies, andgovernment hearings have been directed at understanding the gap. It has stayed in the media spotlight thanks in part to the high-profile misstep of then-Harvard president Larry Summers, whose loose comment at a Harvard conference on the topic in 2005 ultimately cost him his job. Now two new studies by economists and social scientists have reached a perhaps startling conclusion: An important part of the explanation for the gender gap, they are finding, are the preferences of women themselves. When it comes to certain math- and science-related jobs, substantial numbers of women - highly qualified for the work - stay out of those careers because they would simply rather do something else.

Elaine McArdle is a Cambridge writer. Her first book, "The Migraine Brain,"coauthored with Harvard neurologist Dr. Carolyn Bernstein, will be publishedin September by Free Press.C Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Hello Women Scientists

Hello Women Scientists