Number Of Women

THE 1992 ELECTIONS almost doubled the number of women in Congress, the result of a record number of women candidates. Commentators called 1992 the "year of the woman," reflecting a surge of political activity among women generally attributed to negative fallout from the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings the year before.By 1994, the spotlight had turned from women candidates to Newt Gingrich and his brash young Republicans who swung control of Congress to the GOP. The Republican victory prompted descriptions of that electoral season as the "year of the angry white male."

Actress Angelina Jolie's decision to have a double mastectomy rather than risk developing breast cancer hit close to home for Melissa DeSantis, a Bel Air mother of three children. As DeSantis read about Jolie's experience, she began to feel a sense of kinship to the Hollywood star. DeSantis also made the tough decision to have her breasts removed in a February surgery. Like Jolie, she had one of the inherited gene mutations that leaves many women more likely to develop cancer.

Did you know?--The number of women who die from heart disease has shifted from 1 in 3 to 1 in 4 - a decrease of 17,000 deaths. - National Institutes of Health

The local chapter of Baltimore's NAACP has taken an interest in the recent tensions brewing between Baltimore city principals and city schools CEO Andres Alonso's administration, denouncing the recent moves concerning two principals whose school was cleared of cheating, and announcing that it wants to investigate the racial and gender makeup of principals who have been dismissed from the system. The city's NAACP President Tessa Hill-Alston attended a picket protest held by the city's administrators union last week outside of city school headquarters.

WHAT WOMEN don't know - or don't act upon - can kill them. Lung cancer causes more women to die each year than breast cancer and gynecological cancers combined, with 68,800 deaths last year. And the vast majority of cases are preventable, through lifestyle changes, awareness campaigns and targeted medical care. Some still prefer to think of lung cancer as largely a male affliction, but the number of women falling ill has grown steadily during the last two decades, reflecting the increase in the number of women who have started smoking since the 1960s.

ONE YEAR AGO, some 40,000 women gathered in Beijing in the largest meeting ever convened to discuss the status, roles and prospects for women and girls around the world. The fourth U.N. Conference on Women produced an ambitious Platform for Action. But has it made any real difference in the lives of women?A number of women's groups are monitoring progress, or lack of it. After only one year the results, not surprisingly, are mixed.A number of countries have established commissions to follow up on conference recommendations, but not all of them carry any authority or have enough funding.

Welcome to the teams competing here in the East Regional draw of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's basketball tournament. The city is glad to be part of what some observers of the sports and social scene believe has become the national pastime.It indisputably is that every Spring, when the colleges engage in the long, tense, one-loss-and-you're-out NCAA tournament that has come to be called "March Madness." Brokers have been offering tickets for today's sold-out double header at the Baltimore Arena for $300.

Not as many incumbents lost their races for Congress as had been expected in the Year of the Outs, but the next Congress is going to be a much changed institution nevertheless.The House of Representatives is going to be a much more representative body than ever before. The number of women representatives will rise from 28 to 48. The number of black representatives will rise from 25 to 38. The number of Hispanic representatives will rise from 13 to 19.There are several reasons for these outcomes.

ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- In the early morning darkness, Kathy Fields rises, readies the ingredients to make a batch of cheese, washes and milks the cow and four goats, and turns out the horses to graze at her Upper Saucon Township farm - all before heading off to one of her two other jobs. A midwife and assistant professor of nursing at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Fields is among a growing number of women farm operators who are sowing the seeds of joy. While the number of Pennsylvania farms is falling, the number of female farmers has grown.

Women, who represent only 6 percent of the U.S. House of Representatives and 2 percent of the U.S. Senate (not counting a recently appointed widow who is not a candidate in the special election to fill her late husband's seat), are the ultimate political outsiders. And in this, the year of the outsider, women seem likely to make great gains. There is a possibility that the number of women representatives will nearly double from the present 29. There is a possibility that the number of elected women senators will more than double.

Women planning to visit the beach in late August will have the opportunity to make their vacation like no other by participating in what Ocean City hopes will be the world's largest bikini parade. The bikini parade is the highlight of a planned Uptown Beach Bash, an event made to boost activity uptown in late August, drawing attention to an under utilized area during a slow part of the summer season. To break the Guinness World Record, set back in March by Panama City Beach, Fla., more than 450 women will need to participate in the parade, said Brad Hoffman of Spark Productions, the company organizing the event.

Baltimore ranks second - behind Miami - on a list of U.S. cities where AIDS cases are spreading fastest. One cause is the large number of women who live on the margins and trade sex for money and drugs. Their harrowing and compelling stories, as detailed this week by The Sun's Jonathan Bor and Kim Hairston, highlight a shadowy world where many urban ills collide. What's needed is a comprehensive effort, by public officials and private groups, to secure resources and provide services to these women whose private acts of survival have major public health consequences.

Preterm births are on the rise. Nearly one-third of women have major abdominal surgery to give birth. Compared with other industrialized countries, the United States ranks second-to-last in infant survival. For years, these numbers have suggested something is terribly amiss in delivery wards. Now there is even more compelling evidence that the U.S. maternity care system is failing: For the first time in decades, the number of women dying in childbirth has increased. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released 2004 data showing a rate of 13.1 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.

ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- In the early morning darkness, Kathy Fields rises, readies the ingredients to make a batch of cheese, washes and milks the cow and four goats, and turns out the horses to graze at her Upper Saucon Township farm - all before heading off to one of her two other jobs. A midwife and assistant professor of nursing at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Fields is among a growing number of women farm operators who are sowing the seeds of joy. While the number of Pennsylvania farms is falling, the number of female farmers has grown.

Did you know?--The number of women who die from heart disease has shifted from 1 in 3 to 1 in 4 - a decrease of 17,000 deaths. - National Institutes of Health

More women were inducted into the Naval Academy's Class of 2010 Wednesday than in any previous class in the school's 161-year history. The 273 women also make up 22 percent of the 1,218 students who entered the academy, the highest percentage in school history and second among service academies only to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, where women make up 28 percent of the student body. "In 1980, we admitted about 80 and in 1990, we did 136, and tomorrow, on induction day, we will have some 270," Vice Adm. Rodney P. Rempt, the academy superintendent, said Tuesday.

Women are making significant gains in vying for higher-paying managerial and technical positions. A new study shows the number of women earning $100,000 a year or better more than tripled during the past decade. In 2001, 861,000 women earned $100,000 or more, compared with just 242,000 women in 1991, according to federal wage and salary data analyzed by the Employment Policy Foundation, a Washington research organization funded by business and foundations. That was an increase of 256 percent for top female earners during the 1990s economic boom.

You've heard it a lot over the years: The theory that women, once elected to office, will wield political power in a way quite different from men.It's a popular concept, one based on the idea that women in political positions would replace the "male values" of competitiveness and power lust with their own nurturing "feminine values" of constructive compromise, sensitivity to relationships and a stronger ethic of honesty.In fact, this notion of women as kinder and gentler politicians is more than popular; it's one of the pillars of feminism.

More women were inducted into the Naval Academy's Class of 2010 Wednesday than in any previous class in the school's 161-year history. The 273 women also make up 22 percent of the 1,218 students who entered the academy, the highest percentage in school history and second among service academies only to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, where women make up 28 percent of the student body. "In 1980, we admitted about 80 and in 1990, we did 136, and [now] we will have some 270," Vice Adm. Rodney P. Rempt, the academy superintendent, said Tuesday.

The sight of the bus pulling off in the snowy, Baltimore night was enough to trigger a flood of sobs and despair in Esther Armstrong. Consumed by two jobs, night school and raising a daughter alone, Armstrong wanted desperately to return to the familiarity, not to mention the weather, of her native Ghana and abandon her dreams of starting a business. Today, she laughs at the bus-stop episode and rattles off a list of accomplishments. She became a homeowner and corporate recruiter for FedEx, and watched her daughter graduate from Vassar College.