Working Women

Readers didn't know what to expect when legendary editor and original Cosmo girl Helen Gurley Brown passed the reins to a more modern-thinking Bonnie Fuller in February 1997.Now the magazine's fans find themselves in a similar position, with Fuller moving on to work her magic at Glamour, and former Redbook editor Kate White stepping into the distinguished position at Cosmopolitan.White has been editor in chief of Child, McCall's and Working Women. She has also written two books: "Nine Women Who Get Everything They Want" and "Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead but Gutsy Girls Do."

BOSTON -- Back in the early 1980s, when Karen Nussbaum was the head of 9 to 5, the organization of clerical workers conducted a national survey on working women and stress. It identified the worst ''coping mechanism'' that women used, the one sure to lead to the highest stress and the worst results.No, it wasn't alcohol, it wasn't drugs. It was, she says, ''apologizing when you weren't wrong.''Yet that was the posture of many working women in the years after they began flooding the workplace: apologetic.

HOW DO you phrase the importance of affirmative action for a young woman, for somebody who comes in the room and half the chairs are already filled with women?"

The notion of what it means to be a family's provider in the United States got a stark update yesterday with a new study showing that 55 percent of working women contribute half or more of their household's income.Women have moved beyond the debate about whether they belong in the home or the workplace, according to the study, conducted by Louis Harris and Associates for the Families and Work Institute and the Whirlpool Foundation.Rather, they see harmony between their roles as nurturers and providers and are looking not to shed responsibilities, but to better balance them.

Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and the U.S. Department of Labor kicked off a project yesterday that honors local employers for taking steps to help working women.A dozen companies and institutions -- ranging from a recycling firm to a hotel -- now are part of the Labor Department's "Working Women Count Honor Roll." The companies pledged to aid working women by offering flexible working schedules, extended maternity leave, improved health benefits or job training and advancement."I would like to formally challenge Baltimore companies to follow the lead of these companies," said Mayor Schmoke before about 50 working women at City Hall.

WASHINGTON -- While most U.S. women like their jobs, they're stretched to the breaking point trying to juggle family, work, child care and other pressing concerns.That's the consensus from a first-of-its-kind survey of America's working women, distributed by the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor. First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton joined Vice President Al Gore and Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich in a news conference yesterday to discuss survey results.More than 250,000 women responded to the "Working Women Count" survey, which polled women on issues such as equal pay, job advancement, and child and health care.

Washington -- The fact that Karen Nussbaum began her career at Harvard is not exactly unique. There are enough Harvard people in the high ranks of any administration to form their own Crimson think tank.What is different about the new director of the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor is that her Harvard days were spent as a secretary majoring in the lot of clerical workers. She ''graduated'' to found 9 to 5, the national organization for office workers that was immortalized in the namesake movie.

Debating whether or not creating a women's commission in Carroll County is good public policy is a moot issue now, but the problems facing this county's women remain.Since five of the county's six legislators -- Sens. Charles Smelser and Larry Haines and Dels. Richard Dixon, Donald Elliott and Richard Matthews -- refused to introduce legislation that would have authorized a county commission, they now have a duty to address those issues the commission would have handled.However, if they are going to be of any use to Carroll's women, these five males will need to raise their consciousness quite a bit. They will have to immerse themselves in some of the pressing needs of Carroll's women, which differ quite a bit from the characterizations leveled by the opponents of the proposed commission.

The journey through "Her Hands," an art exhibition about "woman's work," covers lush and surprising terrain: There are tributes to grandmothers and infants, records of broken hearts and spiritual awakenings, celebrations of the female creative force and the power of female anger.On display in the library at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, the show was conceived for Women's History Month to explore the notion of women's labor as a vital aspect of American culture. Open to anyone interested in developing the theme, the show carried only one stipulation: Each submission must fit inside a 12-by-12-by-4-inch clear box.The result is a series of testimonials to the diversity of women's lives.

Sharon Prost is a high-powered, type-A, Washington lawyer who's got herself a big-time job as Sen. Orrin Hatch's legalcounsel.She thought she had it all, as having it all gets defined these days for women. She had a husband, two kids and a career.Now, she has a career.Well, technically she still has kids, but she just lost custody of them in a divorce case. She didn't beat her kids. She didn't abuse them. She lost them because . . . she works too hard.The judge wrote, as reported in the New York Times, that Prost was "more devoted to and absorbed by her work and her career than anything else in her life, including her health, her children and her family."

Even when Claudia Morrell's three daughters were small, she logged 60-hour workweeks, nights and weekends included, as a technology executive. Not feeling "perpetually guilty" was her biggest challenge. But never once did she consider herself an unfit mother. "My kids always knew I loved them, what I was doing was important and would help their futures and that mothers need to have lives, too," says Morrell, who lives in Perry Hall. "My kids turned out OK, and I think I'm a role model for them."

As chairwoman of the Harford County Commission for Women, Lisa Tittle is brimming with ideas on how to improve the lives of women. Why not start a halfway house with training programs for women leaving prison, she asked. How about opening a school for young mothers, who want to return to class but cannot overcome hurdles like child care and transportation? Maybe the commission should lend its support to the Homecoming Project, an association that helps women recovering from substance abuse.

The Howard County Commission for Women and Howard Community College will co-sponsor a workshop, "Getting the Pay You Deserve: Women Negotiating Better Salaries," on Oct. 27 at the college. Evelyn Murphy, founder and president of the Wage Project and author of Getting Even: Why Women Don't Get Paid Like Men and What To Do About It, will speak. Breakfast will be served from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Two workshops - "Start Smart" for women in college and "Get What You're Worth, Get What You Want" for women in or returning to the workplace - will be held from 10:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Registration is required.

YOU'D THINK, with all the pink ribbons flying, that breast cancer was the No. 1 killer of women. Certainly it is the disease women are most aware of, and most afraid of, I think. Women are hugely informed about self-examination, the pros and cons of annual mammograms and the concerns about hormone therapy. But the one thing most women do not know about breast cancer is this: They are more likely to die of a heart disease. "Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women," said Dr. Robert Eckel, president-elect of the American Heart Association last week.

Amajority of women age 50-plus say getting older isn't as bad as they expected, a survey shows. For the most part, the study by the National Center on Women and Aging at Brandeis University challenges a stereotype that aging is a drag. Findings of the poll of 1,001 women last summer include: * Age isn't necessarily the issue. Disability can hit at any age, and serious health conditions can affect women's ability to pay for health insurance and health care, as well as saving for the future.

Last weekend, the Baltimore Playwrights Festival premiered plays by two of its veteran writers. The Whispers of Saints is Mark Scharf's 10th festival production, Amanda's Line is Kathleen Barber's eighth. Neither play is its author's best work. Both, however, display flashes of talent and are well cast. And, coincidentally, both concern relationships between women. Scharf focuses on the troubled bond between a mother and her grown daughter. Each of these women is dealing with a crisis stemming from a relationship with a man. Reeling from the unexpected news that her husband wants a divorce, Laura (the daughter)

BRYN MAWR, Pa. - You'd think that if a president once taught at your college, you'd glorify his name. But at Bryn Mawr College, there's now no sign that Woodrow Wilson was ever there. The only sign was a plaque the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission erected on the fringe of the campus in 1958. When that sign was taken down in the fall, almost nobody at the prestigious women's college noticed. At Princeton University, where Wilson later taught and became college president before being elected governor of New Jersey and then president of the United States, he is an icon.

When women decided to go to work en masse in the 1970s and had nothing to wear, Ellen Tracy came to the rescue. Ellen Tracy is no super-feminist, symbol of women's rights - or even a real person. It's the label of a fashion house that was savvy enough to realize that being a career woman didn't necessarily have to mean dressing like a man. To many, Tracy became their best friend - albeit a pricey one. And if they looked behind the labels of those well-cut jackets and skirts, they'd find a fellow working woman named Linda Allard.

Readers didn't know what to expect when legendary editor and original Cosmo girl Helen Gurley Brown passed the reins to a more modern-thinking Bonnie Fuller in February 1997.Now the magazine's fans find themselves in a similar position, with Fuller moving on to work her magic at Glamour, and former Redbook editor Kate White stepping into the distinguished position at Cosmopolitan.White has been editor in chief of Child, McCall's and Working Women. She has also written two books: "Nine Women Who Get Everything They Want" and "Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead but Gutsy Girls Do."

BOSTON -- Back in the early 1980s, when Karen Nussbaum was the head of 9 to 5, the organization of clerical workers conducted a national survey on working women and stress. It identified the worst ''coping mechanism'' that women used, the one sure to lead to the highest stress and the worst results.No, it wasn't alcohol, it wasn't drugs. It was, she says, ''apologizing when you weren't wrong.''Yet that was the posture of many working women in the years after they began flooding the workplace: apologetic.