Tagged: Women

There’s been a lot of attention lately on women in leadership roles especially since the release of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's book Lean In. Saturday, more than 150 women will gather in Boise for the annual Go Lead Idaho Conference. It's meant to help engage women in leadership and civic participation.  

Most of the films you’ll see this weekend at the Family of Woman Film Festival in Sun Valley come from overseas. The festival will feature films from Egypt, Democratic Republic of Congo, and India. Only one film comes from the U.S. The Invisible War, which exposed the sexual assaults in the U.S. military. That documentary was recently nominated for an Academy Award. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a long history of discriminating against farmers who are women, Hispanic, Native American and African American. Numerous lawsuits have cost the government several billion dollars. The latest legal settlement is for women and Hispanic farmers who can prove they were discriminated against in the 1980s and ‘90s. But some of these farmers say the deal to make amends for discrimination is itself discriminatory.

An Idaho woman arrested for inducing her own abortion is taking her case to federal court. Jennie Linn McCormack was charged last year under an obscure Idaho law for ending her pregnancy with RU-486. She joins an increasing number of women who get the so-called abortion pill off the internet. McCormack’s attorney says he’s willing to take the challenge all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, neither pro-choice nor pro-life groups are paying attention to the case.

A new nationwide study says Idaho has one of the widest gaps between how much money insurers charge men and women. The survey by the National Women’s Law Center found women pay around $700 more each year. The practice, known as “gender rating,” is banned under the health care overhaul now before the U.S. Supreme Court this week.