Global Gender Gap Index Says Iceland Is The Best Place In The World For Women

Today’s Lady News: Bea Arthur Does Good & Iceland Is Best For Women

Posted by: Jessica Wakeman Filed in: news
5:30PM, Wednesday October 28th 2009

Bea Arthur, the “Golden Girls” star who passed away earlier this year, left $300,000 for a homeless shelter for LGBT youth. Thank you for being a friend, Bea! [PinkNews]
Iceland is the best place in the world for women, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index. The index ranked 134 countries based on women’s access to resources and opportunities like income parity, health care, paid maternity leave, and political empowerment. Iceland took Norway’s place this year as the best place in the world for women to live, while both the USA and the UK slid down the list. [Forbes]
Five people have been arrested in connection with the gang rape of a 15-year-old girl outside a homecoming dance in Richmond, California, last week. So far all of the men arrested are under the age of 21, which is depressing. But what is even more horrifying is how police say possibly as many as 10 suspects took part in the gang rape while as many as 20 stood by and watched. [ABC News]

Naissance Capital, a Swiss investment company, announced it will start a fund to invest exclusively in companies with women on their boards, or take minority stakes in companies without women so they can use their leverage to place women on them. [NY Times]
Thankfully, eBay has blocked a scheduled online auction to raise money for Scott Roeder, the pro-life extremist charged with recently murdering late-term abortion provider, Dr. George Tiller. Pro-lifers had hoped to raise money for Roeder by selling a cookbook of recipes by a woman who once shot and wounded Tiller in 1993, among other gems. [AP]
Will “don’t ask, don’t tell” be a thing of the past? John McHugh, Secretary of the Army, told a military newspaper he thinks the military is ready for gay militiamen and women to serve openly. [Huffington Post]
The House of Representatives passed an act on Friday which would require cruise ship owners to keep anti-retroviral drugs (to prevent HIV from transmission) onboard in case of sexual assaults, as well as the materials to provide medical care and preserve medical evidence for someone who has been raped. [Ms. Magazine]
Will the first-ever census data about LGBT families (last item) be good news for gay rights’ activists or bad news for people who want to take rights away from homosexuals? [Newsweek]
Proving rape isn’t necessarily about sex or how conventionally sexy a woman looks: a Californian man pled guilty to raping and murdering a 93-year-old lady almost two decade ago. [L.A. Times]
New York State Senator Chuck Schumer told a gay rights group last week, “If Dick Cheney can support [gay] marriage, so can every Senator. So can every Democrat, Republican, Liberal Conservative. Equality should know no bounds, and we must not rest until we have marriage in all 50 of these United States.” Hear, hear. [Politico]
Studies show women who have migraine head aches with “auras,” meaning sensory or visual disturbances, are twice as likely to have a stroke. The risk is greater if the woman is under 25 and on the Pill. [BBC]