Younger Women

Their gamble paid off.When the Women's Civic League members voted last year to move the annual Flower Mart to War Memorial Plaza from its original site in Mount Vernon, traditionalists were furious. The annual spring festival had endured around the base of the Washington Monument just about every year since 1911, for heaven's sake.But yesterday, as hundreds of workers poured out of downtown buildings to stroll through the mart and get lunch, even the strongest opponents of the move were conceding that the day was a success.

As with most of Washington's titanic battles, many of the casualties from the immigration debacle were unintended victims. Among those with the poor luck to be in the line of fire were Maryland's shrinking crab-processing industry and the mostly Mexican women who make up its seasonal work force. Congress should remedy this injustice as soon as possible by establishing a permanent program that allows such workers visas to come for a few months each year and then go home, without making them and their employers sweat through the 11th-hour theatrics of annual renewals.

Last week, as Harriet Legum waited for her mammogram at the Johns Hopkins Imaging Center, she fumed about the latest pronouncement from the National Institutes of Health. Unable to confirm the life-saving value of routine mammograms for women in their 40s, an NIH panel said Thursday that these women should weigh the evidence and decide for themselves whether to have the test.A breast cancer survivor, Legum was furious that anyone -- let alone a prestigious national health organization -- would refuse to recommend regular mammograms for women in their 40s. Her frustration spoke for millions of American women who expect guidance from national experts and instead find confusion about whether mammograms will help save their lives.

In the wake of the National Cancer Institute's decision to stop recommending regular mammograms for women in their 40s, many radiologists and other doctors who treat patients continue to be convinced by their clinical experience and intuitive reasoning the benefit of routine screening for these women would be obvious if the proper studies were done.Meanwhile, women and their doctors are left in a quandary about the best use of this weapon for early detection of breast cancer, the disease women fear most.

In a remarkable advance, researchers have shown that older women who have gone through menopause can easily become pregnant using donated eggs.The breakthrough, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, gives women who have been considered hopelessly infertile an unexpected second chance, the researchers said."

DETROIT -- The progress is slow, but women are making strides when it comes to taking home man-sized paychecks.During the 1980s, the average pay for a woman as a percentage of a man's pay rose significantly, and younger women appear to be doing the best, according to a Detroit Free Press analysis of recently released census data.In 1979, the average full-time working woman was paid just 61 percent of what men were; by 1989, that figure rose to 71 percent.Something hasn't changed, however: Paychecks of mothers lag well behind those of childless women.

BOSTON -- The heart of the story is the tape measure. Try to imagine the best and the brightest female tenured professors lurking around the halls of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, measuring the size of the men's labs and offices against their own.There is something so techie about it, so wonky, so MIT. The 15 women -- physicists, chemists, biologists -- were in search of hard numbers to prove what they had once been reluctant to admit: Men...

In the middle of her Fullerton family room, Dot Adriani stands majestically tall, eyes fixed on an imaginary audience, lost in the drama of singing "I Have Dreamed" from "The King and I." Beside her, playing accompaniment on his new Kurzweil digital piano, is her musical soul mate and husband, Paul Adriani. Occasionally the two exchange loving glances, acknowledging the musical partnership that has helped define their marriage.Paul is 74, his bride is 67. They will celebrate their first wedding anniversary next month.

Two-time breast cancer survivor Lillie Shockney knows mammograms save lives. Her patients at Johns Hopkins Hospital heed her advice when she implores that screening can detect the disease early enough to fight it. And women all over the world e-mail her anxious questions about how to protect themselves from cancer at all costs. When should they begin having breast X-rays and how often? Are mammograms sufficient or should they demand sophisticated MRI scans? What about their daughters - how soon should they have mammograms?

In a change of existing guidelines, an influential government panel said Monday that women do not need mammograms in their 40s and discouraged teaching breast self-exams - decisions that have sparked controversy and confusion among some breast cancer specialists and patient advocates. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a government panel that issues federal recommendations on preventive medicine, said that breast cancer screening in a woman's 40s does not save many lives and can do more harm than good.