Women

Mullica Hill is an intimate small town where it seems everybody knows everybody else. A quick stop at the supermarket can take half an hour because you're likely to run into friends and neighbors and find yourself chatting and catching up. It was against this backdrop that something marvelous was born in Mullica Hill. Colleen Fossett was the prime mover. A seasoned marathoner and triathlete, she would often run by the house of Maureen Brigham. Inspired, Brigham decided to join her. Fossett, 42, a pharmaceutical sales rep, knew Michelle Powell, 45, a stay-at-home mom and avid runner.

Yesterday was "Shero Day" at Dunbar Elementary School in North Philadelphia, the companion to Hero Day the day before. For Shero Day, girls from Dunbar asked women they admired to spend the day and tell about their lives and achievements. The day featured a rite of passage ceremony based on African tradition.

MAYBE IT started on "Jerry Springer" - that is, women cursing, clawing, and punching one another as bemused-looking men try to pull them apart. Snooki and the "Jersey Shore" crew have cemented images of crude behavior by women in the minds of young TV viewers. These televised fisticuffs seem to go unpunished; so many, especially young people, may mistakenly believe there are no consequences and that somehow after the fight is over that they are going to gain respect. A little closer to home it is reported that two women, one the president of the Chester Upland school board, and the other a Chester High School teacher, allegedly were involved in a physical confrontation in plain view of students at the school.

Good news for women: They are on the move. In the last two decades, studies show, more women are in the labor force than ever before; in fact, the nation's labor pool would be a weak skeleton of itself without them. They have more education than ever before. They have better opportunities mandated by law, even without the inclusion of an Equal Rights Amendment in the Constitution. Bad news for women: They may be essential to the workforce, but a huge number of them continue to labor in what could be called traditional women's occupations - which pay traditionally low wages.

Turnovers proved costly as the La Salle women's basketball team fell, 56-43, last night at Wichita State. The Explorers committed 27 turnovers in the loss. Morgan Robertson led La Salle (1-4) with 11 points, and Tara Lapetina scored nine. The Explorers next play at 1 p.m. Sunday when they host Lehigh at Tom Gola Arena.

The Special Victims Unit is investigating two attacks on women that happened earlier this week in South Philadelphia. In both incidents, the attacker grabbed the victims, choked them and attempted to sexually assault them. Both victims were young adults, and the attacks occurred east of Broad Street in the very early morning hours, police said. Police have no suspects in the attacks.  

Area members of the Benevolent Protective Order of the Elks have voiced resounding approval of the organization's decision to keep its doors shut to women, while women's rights advocates are calling it discriminatory. An overwhelming majority of those attending the Elks' annual convention last month in New Orleans defeated the motion on the ballot to delete the word "male" from membership applications, according to Thomas Roache Jr., secretary of the North Penn Elks Lodge. "While we realize our women are very important to our organization, we also realize we do have a fraternal organization and we feel we have a right to have meetings in the privacy of men, although nothing secretive or vulgar goes on," Roache said.

IN HER July 15 column, Christine Flowers concentrates on the whirlwind response to a recent article in the Broad Street Review by its editor, Dan Rottenberg. Rottenberg's column was in response to one in BSR that I wrote that urged women all over the world to speak up, breaking an entrenched code of silence that correspondent Lara Logan bravely pierced, as have members of the Peace Corps, where sexual violations and even death have been ignored. My column for BSR documented unsettling, graphic examples of sexual abuse including rape, as well as other horrific and terrifying sexual violations that I know of through clients and others.

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is lifting its ban on women serving in combat, opening hundreds of thousands of frontline positions and potentially elite commando jobs after generations of limits on their service, defense officials said Wednesday. The changes, set to be announced Thursday by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, will not happen overnight. The services must now develop plans for allowing women to seek the combat positions, a senior military official said. Some jobs may open as soon as this year, while assessments for others - such as special-operations forces, including Navy SEALS and the Army's Delta Force - may take longer.

    Mitt Romney does not often take questions from the pack of reporters that trails him from state to state, and his staff is stingy with one-on-one interview opportunities. Yet as he greeted supporters on the rope line Thursday afternoon at Mountain Energy Services in Tunkhannock, Pa., Romney decided to answer a query shouted over the burble of post-rally noise. Yes, the likely Republican nominee said, women should be admitted to the Augusta National Golf Club, the exclusionary male bastion that hosts the Masters tournament.