Media

• The roles of women presented in the media can often end up reinforcing cultural stereotypes, which influence other women to follow suit.
• Even media attention on women who help and fight for certain causes is distorted. For example: Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) analyzed U.S. media reporting during British Princess Diana's funeral, and noted that the US media typically concentrate only on a few people like the late Diana and Mother Teresa who had some sort of celebrity type status, and rarely reported on the thousands of others doing similar work.

Source: http://www.globalissues.org

Violence

• At least 1 in every 3 women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused during her lifetime.

Source: Ending Violence Against Women, Population Reports, Series L, No. 11, December 1999

• In 2001, women accounted for 85% (588, 490 women) of the victims of intimate partner violence.

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003

Domestic Homicides

• In 2000 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner. The same year, 440 men were killed by an intimate partner.

• In 2000, intimate partner homicides accounted for:
  • 33.5% of the murders of women
  • less than 4% of the murders of men

Source: Bureau of Justice, Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003

Rape

• 1/5 (21%) of women reported she had been raped or physically or sexually assaulted in her lifetime

Source: The Commonwealth Fund, Health Concerns Across a Woman's Lifespan: 1998 Survey of Women's Health, May 1999

• 1992-2000: 41% of the rapes/sexual assaults committed by strangers were reported to the police: Only 24% of the rapes/sexual assaults committed by an intimate were reported.

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, Reporting Crime to the Police, 1992-2000, March 2003

Stalking

• 503, 485 women are stalked by an intimate partner annually in the United States.

Source: P. Tjaden & N. Thoennes, Extent, Nature and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence, National Institute of Justice, 2000

• 78% of stalking victims are women.

Source: Center for Policy Research, Stalking in America, July 1997

Sweatshops

• Women make up 90% of sweatshop laborers.
• Women are paid as little as $.06/hour and work 10-12 hour shifts (Overtime often mandatory).
• In some cases, women are allowed only 2 drinks of water & 1 bathroom break/shift.
• Over 50% of US garment factories are sweatshops run in apparel centers in: California, New York, Dallas, Miami, and Atlanta
  • Some companies running on sweatshop labor are: Guess, Nike, Disney, Wal-Mart, JC Penny's, Sears, Bloomingdale's, Reebok, the Gap, Liz Claiborne, Ralph Lauren

Source: Department of Labor, and www.feminist.org

Fair Labor

Did you know that women cultivate, plow and harvest more than half of all the food in the world?

• In sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, women produce up to 80% of basic foodstuffs.
• In Asia, they account for around 50% of food production.
• In Latin America, they are mainly engaged in subsistence farming, horticulture, poultry and raising small livestock.

Source: Inter Press Service (1998)

Yet many of these women go unpaid.

Source: http://www.globalissues.org

Feminization of Poverty

• Two out of every three poor adults are women.
• 'Women do 2/3 of the world's work, receive 10% of the world's income and own 1% of the means of production.' (the informal slogan of Decade of Women)

Sources: Richard H. Robbins (Professor of Anthropology at State University of New York, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism (Allyn and Bacon, 1999), p. 354) and http://www.globalissues.org

Health

• Heart disease is the #1 cause of mortality in women, killing more women than men each year.
• Colorectal cancer is the 3rd leading cause of cancer deaths in women, killing almost 30, 000 women each year.
• HIV/AIDS is the 5th leading killer of women aged 35-44.

Source: National Vital Statistics Report, Vol. 53, No. 17, March 7, 2005