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Female Supremacy Articles - Page 8

Turner Touts Female-Dominated Foundation

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Media mogul Ted Turner has taken a small step to demonstrate his belief that women should run the world because men have "mucked it up" with too much warfare and military spending.

The United Nations Foundation he established six years ago to distribute the $1 billion he pledged to U.N. causes has a new female-dominated board of directors - and Turner said it's about time.

"I've said for years and I'm really serious about it, I think men should be barred from holding public office for a hundred years," Turner said in a recent interview. "The men have been running the world for the last thousands of years and they've mucked it up something awful."

Turner said if women were in control "it would be a much more peaceful, prosperous, equitable world in a very short period of time."

"You'd have a huge shift away from military budgets and into education and health care," said the CNN founder. "And we're trying to set the example."

Last year, the foundation had five men and five women on its board.

When Gro Harlem Brundtland completed her term as director-general of the World Health Organization in July, the foundation's nominating committee invited her to join the board. Brundtland, Norway's first female prime minister, joined earlier this month.

"We cannot find another major organization in the world that has a majority of its board of directors as women," Turner said.

The foundation also is trying to set an example by arranging partnerships between the United Nations and outside organizations to tackle programs from eradicating poverty to helping fight AIDS, Turner said.

Turner, the U.N.'s largest individual benefactor, gave the foundation $500 million in five years. But then he cut his annual contribution in half - from $100 million to $50 million - because his fortune took a blow following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The second $500 million will be donated over 10 years.

Nonetheless, the United Nations Foundation is still spending at the same level - $104 million in grants this year - thanks to new money from governments, foundations, corporations and non-governmental organizations.

This year Rotary International joined the U.N. Foundation, the World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in an innovative program to combat polio in Nigeria and Pakistan - two of the most affected countries.

Estee Lauder's MAC cosmetics subsidiary also is helping with an HIV/AIDS program aimed at young girls in Angola, South Africa and Mozambique.

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Female Med School Applicants Surpass Men

By Theo Emery, Associated Press Writer

BOSTON - For the first time ever, women outnumbered men among people applying to U.S. medical schools for this fall a milestone in the slow but steady increase in the number of aspiring female doctors.

Nearly 35,000 men and women applied for the 2003-04 school year, a 3.4 percent increase over last year and the first increase since 1996. More than 17,600 of the applicants or 50.8 percent were women, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Women have yet to surpass the number of men actually entering medical school. Nationwide this fall, women were closer than ever to making up the majority of new students, constituting 49.7 percent of the entering class of more than 16,500.

AAMC President Dr. Jordan J. Cohen recalled that in his 1960 Harvard class of 150 students, there were six women. That was, he said, "a banner year" for the time.

Dr. Robert A. Witzburg, director of admissions at Boston University School of Medicine, said medical schools reflect changing social norms. His school opened as the nation's first all-women medical school in 1848 and began admitting men in 1872.

"The father of two daughters in me says that (women are) doing that because they're being given the chance, and because they're qualified and capable," he said.

The proportion of female applicants to men has risen steadily for years. For the 1993-94 entering class, women made up 41.9 percent of the more than 42,800 applicants, up from 34 percent of the more than 35,100 applicants a decade earlier. In 1963, they were 8.1 percent of the almost 17,700 applicants.

Yen Truong, 23, of San Francisco, is a first-year student at Tufts University School of Medicine where 52 percent of the 8,200 applicants for next year's class were women.

Truong is pursuing joint medical and public health degrees because, she said, she loves both science and community service.

"Medicine has come to accept that it's not just science, it's more of an occupation of caring," she said. "I think that's a positive change, in that women are better served that way, and patients are better served if there are more women doctors."

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More Women Hold Fortune 500 Co. Spots

By Anusha Shrivastava, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK - The number of women holding board seats in Fortune 500 companies is rising slowly but steadily, according to a study released Thursday by New York-based research firm Catalyst.

Women held 13.6 percent of corporate director seats in 2003, up from 12.4 percent in 2001 and 9.5 percent in 1995, the study said.

The number of women board directors have increased at an annual average rate of 4.1 percent for the years 1995 to 2003. The study predicts that if the increase holds steady at that rate, women will comprise a quarter of all Fortune 500 company board rooms in 20 years.

The number is likely to rise as the independence of boards has become increasingly important at a time when corporate governance issues are being fine-tuned following a wave of scandals, the nonprofit women's advocacy group said.

The search for more qualified outside candidates with fewer ties to chief executives and other directors will give more women a chance to serve on boards, the study predicted.

An increased demand for experts in fields like finance and human resources where women hold senior positions and vacancies arising because men are serving on fewer boards simultaneously, also should drive up the number of women board directors in the next few years, the study said.

Companies are also more sensitive to the fact that they are viewed as 'employers of choice' if women play powerful roles in their organizations.

Currently, 54 Fortune 500 companies have 25 percent or more women directors, up from 30 companies in 2001 and 11 in 1995. Even so, 54 companies have no women board directors and 208 have just one woman director. In 2001, 66 companies had no women in that position, down from 96 in 1995.

Women make up 46.5 percent of the U.S. work force and held a little more than 50 percent of managerial and professional specialty positions last year.

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A Dynamo and Her Daughters Turn Leftovers to Gold

GIANNOLA NONINO was given garbage, and she simply refused to accept it. That is one way to distill her experience and adventure, a liquor-trade tale in which she played Pygmalion to a peasant's swill.

Before Ms. Nonino administered her makeover, Italian grappa was no more dignified than its ingredients: the grape skins, seeds and stems left over from making wine. That mash was trash, and the crude concoction it produced often tasted that way.

But she saw a potential in grappa and a possible market for it that no one else did. She envisioned what it became: a crystalline nectar that could compete with cognac and do battle with brandy.

"I have changed grappa from a Cinderella to a queen," said Ms. Nonino, 65, at the end of a recent lunch here, over a glass of that post-dessert delicacy.

She accomplished something else, too. In the process of refining grappa, she both exemplified and defied what Italian ingenuity is all about, becoming a success story at once utterly representative and strikingly different.

Like many profitable businesses in Italy's rich north, hers is compact and focused, propelled by a special sense of style and built on the indefatigable drive of a closely knit family.

Unlike many others, the Nonino operation is a matriarchy through and through, with one sex clearly reigning supreme.

Giannola is the muse and mastermind of the enterprise. The senior executives are her three spirited daughters: Cristina, 40, Antonella, 37, and Elisabetta, 35.

They have no brothers. Their father hovers on the fringes of the frenetic activity. Their spouses are kept at an even greater distance.

"There is a family rule that husbands stay out of the business," Elisabetta said.

That formula works. Exactly 30 years to the month since Giannola and her husband, Benito, 69, unveiled the first truly high-end grappa, they have a brand and business well known not only throughout Italy but also in Germany, Japan, South Africa and America.

From their headquarters here near the northeastern Italian city of Trieste, the Noninos produce about one million liters of grappa a year, about 20 percent exported.

In recognition of that, they just received a special prize given annually by the president of Italy to the entrepreneur who has helped to bring worldwide prestige to the phrase "made in Italy."

That award belongs above all to Giannola, the mother of all Italian grappa at least as it is currently seen, sipped and savored and a sharp-tongued, sharp-witted, obstinate force of Italian nature.

I DON'T ever let up!" she said with a throaty chuckle and a mischievous wink at her daughters, who were huddled with her where almost all Italian families huddle: the dining-room table.

"The lady is a grump," Cristina added, "but she's bravissima."

"When she married my father," Antonella chimed in, referring to the early 1960's, "his mother said, `That woman will be your ruin.' Instead she was his fortune."

Benito Nonino's relatives were then distilling a liquor of an entirely different kind. Grappa was the Italian equivalent of Kentucky moonshine: a cheap source of warmth, a lightning path to drunkenness.

"It was a raw drink, associated with men and hard work," Giannola said. She wanted more for it and for her family, suspecting that both could do better.

Her scheme started with the winemaking detritus from which grappa had long been made. That gritty refuse mingled different varieties of grapes and usually sat around for days on end.

Giannola went to winemakers' wives, who depended on their husbands' for spending money, and offered them extra cash if they would keep the leftovers of one kind of grape separate from others. She also insisted that they hand it over while it was still fresh.

She and Benito, meanwhile, invested in state-of-the-art equipment, with the goal of sanding down enough of grappa's rough edges so that its fruit could be tasted, its sweetness set free. They accomplished that in December 1973, with a special batch of grappa from a single type of grape, the picolit variety.

Then came the harder part: selling it. "The bourgeois wouldn't even keep grappa in their liquor closets," explained Antonella, the family's unofficial historian. "They were ashamed."

Giannola had a few ideas. She put Nonino grappa in clear, gently curved, distinctive bottles that looked like upscale chemistry-class flasks. She placed silver stoppers atop them and used red yarn to attach labels that she wrote by hand.

She stormed wine tastings and fine Italian restaurants, her treasure in tow. She mailed it to famous people, beseeching them to taste it. "For 10 years I did nothing but work on this grappa," she said. "I didn't even have time to watch television, I was so busy writing the blessed labels."

One day a car pulled up to the family's offices. A driver got out and placed an order, on behalf of his employer, for 48 bottles. That employer was Giovanni Agnelli, the head of Fiat. That moment was the validation of Giannola's vision.

She never really doubted herself. If a woman could manage something as unruly as a family, why not a business?

In the Noninos' case, there were no boundaries between one and the other. Dinner was a strategy session. "Dad worked in the distillery, and my mother did everything else," Antonella said, adding that she and her sisters could not help but be swept into the whirlwind. "Grappa is part of our chromosomes."

So is marketing. While most Nonino labels are no longer handwritten, the family's push to fix grappa's image as a special, $60-a-liter luxury never ends. Over the years, the Noninos have put their grappa in so many elegant containers that a museum in Milan once collected them for an exhibition.

GIANNOLA'S life is like a rose-colored version of having it all.

Her youngest grandchildren's drawings decorate the walls of the offices that she shares with her daughters. Her house, repeatedly renovated over the decades, is just a few dozen paces away: close enough for her and her daughters to eat lunch there almost every day, with the grandchildren flitting into and out of view.

She has many Italians' candor. She has all Italians' flair for melodrama, which was clear when she cataloged the toll of her exertions.

"I've had three ulcers, a broken leg and two broken wrists," she said, not making clear precisely how these ailments were connected to grappa.

But the second of the wrist injuries was classic Giannola. It happened in a restaurant, toward the end of a business lunch, when she sped too recklessly from the table and lost her balance.

She was sprinting to get the check before any of the men there could.

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Higher Education meets Girl Power

November 10, 2003 (Chicago Sun-Times)

Maybe women are smarter than men. This year, for the first time ever, more women than men have applied to go to medical school, dramatizing a decades-long trend that has women dominating nearly all areas of higher education. Female college students make up 56 percent of the nation's 15.3 million collegians, outnumbering men by 1.87 million students. They earned almost 400,000 more bachelor's degrees in 2001-2002 and appear to be within reach of overtaking men in earning professional degrees and doctorates. They already surpass men in such schools as optometry, pharmacology and veterinary medicine.

Women still lag far behind men in certain traditionally male-dominated professional schools, such as engineering and computer science, but even in some of these fields, women have made significant gains. While men still earn more MBAs, for example, women outnumber them in undergraduate accounting and business classes. And women fall just short of the majority (49 percent) in law schools -- a stunning jump from just 8 percent in 1970. "In every state, in every racial and ethnic group, and in every economic class, the women are on a tear,'' said Tom Mortenson, a higher-education policy analyst who publishes a newsletter called Postsecondary Education OPPORTUNITY. "It's just a matter of time before all the fields flip over.''

Some suggest the dramatic progress of women in higher education appears to challenge a widely publicized theory, put forth in the 1994 book Reviving Ophelia by Mary Pipher, that girls are being shortchanged in the nation's elementary and high schools. Indeed, some education experts argue, it may be boys, not girls, who are at a disadvantage in the typical classroom. So why the big gains?

It's not just a matter of demographics -- there are actually slightly more men at the right age to be in college or doing postgraduate work. And men also score slightly higher on college entrance tests. But it may be that girls are better prepared for college, are more motivated for various reasons to get a higher education, and -- thanks to the women's movement -- are freer than ever to do so. They feel more careers are open to them. They feel less pressure to marry early and have children. They feel a greater expectation to work outside the home.

The national trend holds true in Illinois, where 56 percent of the state's 652,732 college students last year were women. Women outnumber men at all major undergraduate universities in the state except for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Southern Illinois University and the Illinois Institute of Technology. At some major Catholic schools in the Chicago area, the campuses are almost overwhelmingly female: 70 percent at St. Xavier, more than 66 percent at Loyola and 60 percent at DePaul. "They're downsizing every year,"' said DePaul commerce major Vanessa Mendez, 21, speaking of the male population on campus.

The fortunes of the two sexes are headed in such opposite directions that some experts believe America's education system is failing males. But most aren't calling yet for affirmative action for men. Mortenson, a senior scholar at the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education, notes that while the number of bachelor's degrees earned by men has increased 20 percent in the last three decades, the number earned by women has increased 117 percent. "Women have made nearly all the educational progress," he said. "Males are stuck where they were 30 years ago."

Other research, according to the Council for Exceptional Children, suggests that school classrooms have become more "girl friendly," in part due to the sheer number of female teachers. And all those women teachers have been good role models for girls, said Jacqueline Woods, executive director of the American Association of University Women. Woods also points out that many women go to college, or return to college, at an older age. Sixty-five percent of all college students over age 40 are women. "They know in order to become competitive in the career force they have to come back to school," Woods said. After school Woods' point begs the ultimate question: Does all this extra learning lead to better-paying, more-fulfilling careers? Already, some professions -- including academia itself -- are changing. While only 20 percent of older, full professors are women, 45 percent of new, assistant professors are women. Other professions, such as medicine and the law, seem guaranteed to become increasingly populated by women.

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Are girls smarter than boys?

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has published figures from their international survey which show girls are more confident of success than boys. Previous international assessments concentrated on 'school' knowledge, however, the survey aimed to measure how well students perform outside the school programme.

Comparisons of academic achievement were made in 43 developed countries. In nearly every country it was found that 15-year-old girls were more confident about obtaining highly paid jobs.

In the UK, 63 per cent of girls anticipate having 'white collar or highly skilled' employment by the age of 30, yet only 51 per cent of boys held the same expectations. This difference between girls and boys is repeated in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and the US.

The survey showed that 15-year-old girls were ahead of boys in their literacy skills in every one of the 43 countries. Eighty-nine percent of women go to university in New Zealand compared with only 62 per cent of men and in Iceland the difference is even greater with 80 per cent of women going to university while only 42 per cent of men attend.

OECD's head of analysis at the education directorate said boys may be falling behind due to the effects of peer pressure or an inability to cope with family disruptions while still in education.

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GUYS, brace yourselves.

The truth is out: Girls are smarter than boys.

Or at least that is what the school ranking results seem to indicate.

In this year's top 50 schools for Special and Express course, girls' schools take 13 spots - five more than boys' schools.

Looking at the top 15 schools, girls' schools take seven spots - same as last year, while boys' schools hold four.

So does that mean that girls are smarter than boys? Maybe.

On Sep 17, The New Paper ran an article on a study done by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The study, which was done in 43 countries including US, Japan, Italy, Spain and Germany, showed that girls were better readers than boys at the age of 15.

Boys were also more likely to drop out of school due to peer pressure or lack of family support.

But we should not be too hasty to generalise, said top secondary schools.

Mr Yap Meen Sheng, the director of corporate services at The Chinese High School, said:

'The social background in each country is different, so the situation might be different in Singapore.'

The Chinese High School, an independent boys' school, is ranked fourth this year.

Cedar Girls' Secondary School principal Susan Leong agreed.

'There are many reasons why girls schools fare better in the school rankings, not just because girls are smarter than boys,' said Ms Leong, whose school ranked 10th this year.

However, five schools The New Paper spoke to said there are differences in boys and girls, which may determine how well they learn.

Mrs Shirleen Ong, principal of Bukit Panjang Government High School (BPGHS), said generally girls fare better in the language and humanities department, while boys score higher in maths and science.

She said: 'The girls usually have a stronger language competency and can express themselves better, so perhaps that is why they eventually do better than boys in examinations.'

Over the past three years, the top student in BPGHS, a co-ed school which moved up two places to 15th this year, has been a girl.

Mr Yap also cited another difference: Emotional literacy.

He said: 'Girls are usually more sensitive to others' feelings than boys, so they may learn soft skills such as negotiation and interview skills better.'

All hope is not lost for the guys.

Miss Helen Choo, principal of CHIJ St Nicholas Girls' School, said soft skills can be tutored.

'Be it man or woman, if you realise that you are lacking in these skills, you can learn and practise to improve yourself,' said Miss Choo, whose school is ranked seventh.

However, ultimately, she feels that gender differences may not be a bad thing after all.

She said: 'Boys and girls are not created equal.

'But if we can work together and complement each other's differences, we can build a better place.

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Chinese women outshine men in business

BEIJING - Superior communication skills and more rational thinking made Chinese businesswomen more likely than their male counterparts to turn in a profit, state media reported on Aug 23.

About 98 per cent of all businesses run by women in China were profitable, compared with 80 per cent overall, the Xinhua news agency reported, citing a survey conducted by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (Unifem).

'Generally speaking, females are better at communication than men, and a lot of women display more rational thinking than their gender counterparts,' said Ms Shi Qingqi, vice- director of China's Association of Female Entrepreneurs, which conducted the survey jointly with Unifem.

'Chinese businesswomen also share a common strength: They are determined and persistent. Once they set a goal to carve out a career, they will pursue it to the end with unshakeable resolve,' the official People's

Daily quoted Ms Shi as having said.

The vice-director was in the capital to attend the five-day Ninth National Women's Congress, which started on Friday.

According to the Unifem survey, Chinese businesswomen on average made more money than their male counterparts - especially those in the annual income bracket of 100,000 to 500,000 yuan (S$20,000 to S$100,000), where women surpassed men by 5.2 per cent.

Chinese businesswomen could also be extremely hardworking, in some cases clocking up to 17 hours of work a day, AFP cited the survey as having said.

About 13,000 people participated in the survey, according to the People's Daily.

Statistics showed that 46 per cent of businesses registered after 1995 were headed by a woman. Among these, 41 per cent were owned privately.

The survey also confirmed a widespread belief: 83.3 per cent of the businesswomen polled were convinced that they were capable of running a bigger enterprise or a few enterprises at the same time.

Ms Shi said: 'The future is bright for China's businesswomen as globalisation and the advent of the new economic age have made physical differences between the sexes unimportant to career building.

'As China's market is huge and its economy is growing rapidly, there are many chances for Chinese businesswomen to thrive.'

The on-going congress will discuss a range of issues relevant to China's 620 million women.