Free Republic

While Hollywood women have made incremental gains in below-the-line jobs like producing and editing, they backslid as feature film directors and continue on a path of “radical underrepresentation” in the industry, a new study says. Martha Lauzen’s “Celluloid Ceiling,” a comprehensive report of women’s behind-the-scenes employment in film run out of San Diego State University, hit on Thursday — and its analysis comes with a blazing criticism that Hollywood’s value shift is only lip service until the industry commits to transparency. “The study provides no evidence that the mainstream film industry has experienced the profound positive shift predicted by so...

As a female and a Republican – yes, shock and awe, there are women Republicans in Montgomery County – I cannot stop laughing at the recent decision by the Maryland Democrat Party to adopt separate but equal elections for their central committee members. Half of their central committee members must be female and the other half male, but that is not new. What is new is that during this year’s June 26 primary for 17 counties, each voter will HAVE to Vote for one or more MALES on the Male ballot and one or more FEMALES on the Female part...

There’s no denying the first half of 2017 would have been very different had Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. In her current St. Louis gallery exhibition, artist Bunny Burson remembers the future that very nearly was, creating an artwork using the iridescent confetti that was primed to go off on election night this past November 8, had the country elected its first woman president. A longtime Clinton devotee, Burson was the executive director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities under President Bill Clinton’s administration. In the aftermath of the 2016 election,...

It wasn’t sexism, or racism, or the FBI, or fake news, or the Russians, which cost Hillary Clinton the presidential election. According to a blockbuster campaign dispatch published by Politico on Wednesday, sheer incompetence was the real cause of Clinton’s electoral implosion in November. Clinton’s loss was caused not by one bad decision here or there, the Politico report shows, but by a cascade of mind-bogglingly stupid decisions made throughout the campaign.

Hillary Clinton has picked out a symbolism-laden spot for her party on election night. The Democratic nominee and her supporters will celebrate or bemoan the results at the Javits Center in New York, her campaign said Wednesday. The convention hall has a glass ceiling, and Clinton has notably used the imagery of shattering the "glass ceiling" when she talks about trying to become the first female president. Manhattan could end up being the center of the political world on election night if Donald Trump also decides to mark the occasion there. He's often used Trump Tower for campaign events, starting...

Female chief executive officers earn more money on average than their male counterparts for the second year in a row according to a new survey. Researchers looked at the pay and benefits packages for male and female business leaders for 2014 and 2015. The data showed that the median pay for a female CEO was almost $18 million last year, while their male counterparts were worth on average a mere $10.5 million. Also, the packages received by women increased in value by around 13 percent last year, compared to a moderate three percent rise for the men. …

A pair of researchers from Cornell decided to test the theory that there is a bias against women pursuing academic careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) and found that there is none. “Results revealed a 2:1 preference for women by faculty of both genders across both math-intensive and non-math-intensive fields, with the single exception of male economists, who showed no gender preference,” Wendy M. Williams and Stephen J. Ceci wrote in an article published this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They surveyed “873 tenure-track faculty (439 male, 434 fmale) from biology, engineering, economics...

WASHINGTON, Iowa – A missing Iowa businesswoman's car has been found near St. Louis, Missouri but the 45-year-old still hasn't been located. The Washington County Sheriff's office said Sunday that Sharon Ruth Hopf's 1999 white Chevy Lumina had been found. Investigators are searching the car for clues that might lead to Hopf. The Crawfordsville woman was reported missing Thursday after she didn't show up for work at a home furnishings company she owns in Kalona. Anyone with information regarding her whereabouts is asked to contact the the Washington County Sheriff’s Department at 319-653-2107 or 1-800-TIPS-492.

A campaign spokesperson for presidential candidate Michele Bachmann says a report documenting the severity of the Minnesota congresswoman's migraines is overblown. But, there has been at least one admitted instance of Bachmann being sidelined for days due to a severe migraine and other instances of her falling ill on the House floor. In an article posted by The Daily Caller Monday night, un-named sources described Bachmann's migraines as regular and debilitating, often interrupting her work schedule. Alice Stewart, national press secretary for Bachmann's White House bid, joined the campaign in mid-June, and Stewart says she has seen no evidence of...

A little over two years ago, a black man educated at Ivy League schools was democratically elected to the most powerful office in the world. Most people saw the election of Obama to the U.S. presidency as decisive evidence that affirmative action policies are no longer necessary, if they ever were. Obama seemed to agree with that; while running for president he admitted that when his daughters apply to college, they “should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged.” Yet in spite of a slight trend in high court decisions striking down affirmative action,...

Justine Siegal became the first woman to pitch batting practice in a major league spring training camp when she threw to the Cleveland Indians on Monday.

Ask yourself: Who is likely to be the first female president of the United States? Anyone? Anyone? Despite our assumption that a female president is inevitable, and likely soonish, it's surprisingly difficult to come up with a name. Briefly, Hillary Clinton seemed the obvious answer. For a flicker, Sarah Palin was an entertaining notion -- and remains so among a certain contingent of stubborn optimists.... It is easy to argue that Clinton and Palin are so unique, each in her own way, that inferences about gender in politics can't be drawn. Clinton's role as former first lady and wife of...

AUSTRALIAN companies should be given five years to increase the number of women sitting on their boards before government legislation forces them to do it. Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick has outlined her vision to steer corporate Australia toward "the road to gender equality". Just 8.3 per cent of board members in the nation's top 200 companies are women - the same number as two years ago. Ms Broderick said yesterday it was time for radical action to change that. She wants Australia's corporate governance rules to be changed to require top companies to set three- and five-year targets...

Lack of feminist support for governor is not hypocritical For the record, Sarah Palin was far from the feminist ideal. Seriously. I have yet to come across one feminist-identified individual with an iota of support for the woman. However, political commentators displayed their limited understanding of feminism by considering this lack of support hypocritical. In their minds, Palin was strong, confident and defiant of gender norms. She was basically a man (say, George Bush for example) in a woman’s body. Kate Obenshain’s Nov. 21 article for the Washington Times, “Radical feminism’s mighty foe,” falls in line with this critique. According...

Hollidaysburg, PA (AHN) - Betty James - the co-founder of the company that made the Slinky - and a single mother who broke the glass ceiling to become a successful executive in the 1950s has died. She was 90. James co-founded what would become the Slinky empire in 1945 with her husband, the late Richard James. But when her husband left to join a religious cult and follow it to Bolivia, she took over control and management of the company, James Industries Inc., along with raising the couple's six children alone.

Obama interview: How does it feel to break a glass ceiling? How does it feel to “win”? How does your family feel about your “winning” breaking a glass ceiling? Who will be your VP? Should you choose Hillary Clinton as VP? Will you accept public finance? What issues is your campaign about? Will you visit Iraq? Will you debate McCain at a town hall? What did you think of your competitor’s [Clinton] speech? Palin interview: Do you have enough qualifications for the job you’re seeking? Specifically have you visited foreign countries and met foreign leaders? Aren’t you conceited to be...

Even the kids were in the dark. Meghan McCain, 23, didn't find out until a few hours before the rest of the nation. Track Palin, 19, an Army private on base in Fairbanks, Alaska, got the news in a text message an hour before his mother, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin took the stage in Dayton, Ohio, as John McCain's pick to be his running mate. "I said, 'Track! Turn the TV on in an hour,'" Sarah Palin told PEOPLE. "He says, 'What does this mean? Am I going to have to crawl in a hole?' And I said, 'No!' Because...

RUSH: Senator McCain just took the podium with raucous music, raucous crowd energy. The place is going nuts there in Dayton, Ohio. Let's join it in progress and listen. (cheers and applause) The senator is looking genuinely happy today. (cheers and applause) MCCAIN: Thank you. RUSH: Well, I'm just describing this for you all who can't see it, his wife is hugging him. MCCAIN: Thank you. CROWD: John McCain! John McCain! John McCain! John McCain! MCCAIN: Thanks for reminding me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. CROWD: John McCain! John McCain! John McCain! John...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - They may be a small minority in corporate boardrooms, but women directors typically earn more than men, a new U.S. study has found. Female directors in corporate America earned median compensation of $120,000, based on the most recently available pay data, compared with $104,375 for male board members, research group The Corporate Library said in its annual director pay report on Wednesday. At the same time, the study said, women in corporate boardrooms are outnumbered eight to one. "This makes being a director one of the few jobs in the U.S. economy where the pay differential...