Some of you know I’m a big fan of Time Magazine writer Nancy Gibbs. I was thrilled to see they assigned her to write this week’s cover story, part of a package including research and opinion on the status of women in the U.S. today. 

Don’t miss it! You can read the whole thing for free online at http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1930277_1930145,00.html

Here’s how the main story opens:

If you were a woman reading this magazine 40 years ago, the odds were good that your husband provided the money to buy it. That you voted the same way he did. That if you got breast cancer, he might be asked to sign the form authorizing a mastectomy. That your son was heading to college but not your daughter. That your boss, if you had a job, could explain that he was paying you less because, after all, you were probably working just for pocket money.

It's funny how things change slowly, until the day we realize they've changed completely. It's expected that by the end of the year, for the first time in history the majority of workers in the U.S. will be women — largely because the downturn has hit men so hard. This is an extraordinary change in a single generation, and it is gathering speed: the growth prospects, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, are in typically female jobs like nursing, retail and customer service. More and more women are the primary breadwinner in their household (almost 40%) or are providing essential income for the family's bottom line. Their buying power has never been greater — and their choices have seldom been harder.

It is in this context that the Rockefeller Foundation, in collaboration with TIME, conducted a landmark survey of gender issues to assess how individual Americans are reacting. Is the battle of the sexes really over, and if so, did anyone win? How do men now view female power? How much resentment or confusion or gratitude is there for the forces that have rearranged family life, rewired the economy and reinvented gender roles? And what, if anything, does everyone agree needs to happen to make all this work? The study found that men and women were in broad agreement about what matters most to them; gone is the notion that women's rise comes at men's expense. As the Old Economy dissolves and pressures on working parents grow, they share their fears about what this means for their children and their frustration with institutions that refuse to admit how much has changed. In the new age, the battles we fight together are the ones that define us. 

 
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From The Sunday London Times

July 26, 2009

Women are getting more beautiful
Jonathan Leake, Science Editor

FOR the female half of the population, it may bring a satisfied smile. Scientists have found that evolution is driving women to become ever more beautiful, while men remain as aesthetically unappealing as their caveman ancestors.

The researchers have found beautiful women have more children than their plainer counterparts and that a higher proportion of those children are female. Those daughters, once adult, also tend to be attractive and so repeat the pattern.

Over generations, the scientists argue, this has led to women becoming steadily more aesthetically pleasing, a “beauty race” that is still on. The findings have emerged from a series of studies of physical attractiveness and its links to reproductive success in humans.

In a study released last week, Markus Jokela, a researcher at the University of Helsinki, found beautiful women had up to 16% more children than their plainer counterparts. He used data gathered in America, in which 1,244 women and 997 men were followed through four decades of life. Their attractiveness was assessed from photographs taken during the study, which also collected data on the number of children they had.

To read the entire story, go here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6727710.ece


 
 
 
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I think it's time we got back to basics.

Over the past few days, I’ve met some interesting people while reporting out a story on marriage. Three, in particular, made me stop and think about where this blog is headed. I may invite one or all of them to participate. 

One highly accomplished woman told me she has had the rug pulled out from under her in the past few months. Not one accustomed to free-fall, she’s lost her marriage and her business, all in a very short time. She has no choice but to move on, she said. 

This woman's education and career should provide her some very positive choices, but still, she’s out there on a limb, maybe for the first time her life. I’m not sure of her age, but am certain she fits the situational requirement of the average birdsonablog reader.

Yesterday’s conversation reminded me how far many of us have come in our lives. We were all pioneers, but without the sunbonnets.

Those of us who grew up in the US in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, had few role models, really, for the lives we’ve lived. What were our choices? Not Barby, not Jane Fonda, not Nancy Drew or Betty Crocker, not even Gloria Steinem or Madonna. How did we ever find our way?  

(Click Read More for the rest of this story)