From: harelb@MATH.CORNELL.EDU (Harel Barzilai)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.activism
Subject: oops (bad post -- or, how emacs can end patriarchy!)
Date: 13 Apr 92 05:47:27 GMT
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB

Sorry about the "emacs" post -- that was supposed to go to
gnu.emacs.help -- the problem is that the emacs macros are so nice and
concise that a single keystroke or two off posts it to the "usual"
newsgroups (these two) rather than the specified. Maybe eventually
I'll get so much advice from g.e.h. that I'll become a Guru myself and
these things won't happen again. Maybe...

To make up for all that, here's a cool article, brought to you by PBS
and sponsored by major military contractor General Electric, several
"international public relations consulting firm"s, DuPont, and other
nice folks whose money "public" radio/tv depends on for survival....

well, brought to you by your friendly neighborhood
misc.activism.progressive co-moderator ...without futher ado.......

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              U.N. Report Find A World Of Woe For Women
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              By Peter James Spielmann, Associeted Press

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Women around the world lag far behind men in power, wealth and
opportunity despite some advances in the last 20 years,
Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar said in a report released
yesterday.

"The World's Women, 1970-1990," collects 20 years of statistics on
the changing roles of women  in the work place, education, health,
child-rearing, and leadership positions.

The study fond that almost all jobs are segregated by sex, with women
relegated to lower-=status, more poorly paid positions. Worldwide,
womens' pay averaged 30-40  percent less than that of men.

It found that women work as much of more than men in every region of
the world -- as much as 13 hours more per week, on the average, in
Asia and Africa.

Women in the Soviet Union and former socialist countries of Eastern
Europe participated more in the economy and received closer to equal
pay with men than elsewhere. The introduction of capitalism now
threatens that relative equality, the study said.

The percentage of women in the paid labor force rose to 39 percent
overall in the developed world, while remaining at 35-40 percent in
East and Southeast Asia, dropping to 37 percent in sub-Saharan Africa
and reaching only 17 percent in the Muslim nations of western Asia,
the Mideast and North Africa.

Control over childbirth is a major concern to women, and the report
notes major gaps between the Third World and developed countries in
the fertility rate and birth-spacing, one key to healthier families.

In Asia and Africa, it says, a woman typically has her first child at
age 19 or earlier, and her last at about 37. In Bangladesh,
Mauritania, Nigeria, Sudan and Yemen, child-bearing starts as young as
age 15.

In the developed nations, by contrast, the average woman has her first
child at 23 and her last by age 30, so she can devote more time to
education and a career.

Women hold only 10-20 percent of managerial jobs worldwide, and fewer
than 10 percent of the legislators were women by 1987.

In the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 28 percent of the legislators
were women, though that share has also declined since the revolutions
of 1989 and 1990 swept away socialist governments in the East bloc.

Women filled only 3.5 percent of Cabinet posts, and in 93 nations,
none of the Cabinet ministers are women.

Only six of the 159 U.N. member nations were led by women heads of
state at the end of 1990 -- Iceland, Ireland, Nicaragua, Norway,
Dominica and the Philippines, the report said.

Women generally have lower mortality rates than men, but because women
are denied the same nutrition, health care and other support that men
get in some underdeveloped countries, there are more men alive today
than women. Of the 5.3 billion people in 1990, 2.6 billion were women.

Other reasons cited for the preponderence of men include  female
infanticide, said to be practiced in rural China, and widow-burning
and dowry deaths in India.

In an example of the use of new technology to perpetuate male lineage,
the researchers found that of 8,000 abortions performed in Bombay,
India, after parents learned the sex of the fetus through
amniocentesis, only one would have been a boy.

In a growing sign of "the dark side of equality," the report said
death rates for women in the developed countries are increasing from
traditionally male-oriented  hazards -- including alcoholism,
tobacco-induced diseases, motor vehicle accidents and violence.

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Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:18365 ca.politics:3513 ba.politics:2675 alt.politics.homosexuality:2203