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An Evening of Arts and Fashion

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Oklahoma State University's American Association of University Women invites you to mark your calendar for Friday, March 16th at 6:30 p.m. for "An Evening of Arts and Fashion." All proceeds benefit the Women's Foundation of Oklahoma and Oklahoma's military women.

200 Cubed

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

On March 8th - International Women's Day - we launch 200 Cubed -- a 200 day effort to enlist 200 women to invest $200 per year for five years to sustain the important work of the Women's Foundation of Oklahoma.

Women more generous, more likely to donate

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

By Jessica Durando, USA TODAY

Women are more generous than men when it comes to charitable donations, a study released today suggests.

In all income groups, women are more likely to give, and in four of five groups, they give more than men do — sometimes twice as much, according to the study by the Women's Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy.

"Women have just been socialized as the care-givers in their families to be more empathetic and altruistic," says Debra Mesch, director of the Women's Philanthropy Institute. "I think this is being manifested in giving to charity."

It's not just character, though, Mesch says.

She explains, "We know that the primary factors for philanthropic giving are wealth, education and income. We see, especially in the USA, extraordinary gains in those areas for women."

In the study's middle range of income, $43,500 to $67,532, the average donation was $728 from women, $373 from men.

The report, Women Give 2010, found never-married and divorced women more likely to give than their male counterparts, and they gave more. Widows were less likely to give than widowers.

Paulette Maehara, president and CEO of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, says the findings are a natural outcome of more women earning more money.

"I don't think it says men are not giving," Maehara says. "I think it says more about the lifestyle changes that we are seeing in our own society. "

Mary Ellen Capek, a philanthropy consultant to charities, says she has been skeptical of previous research showing gender differences, but the new study "is a very responsible piece of work."

Paul Schervish, though, is still skeptical. "The findings are not solid enough to support the report's remarkable claim that it has finally clarified the inherent difference in charitable generosity between men and women," Schervish, director of the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College, said in an e-mail. "We may be witnessing the birth of a myth."

The study used data from 2007 on single-headed households from the Center on Philanthropy Panel Study.

Provided by http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/mind-soul/doing-good/2010-10-21-1Acharity21_ST_N.htm

Teen Birth Rates highest in southern states

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

(Reuters) - Birth rates among U.S. teenagers vary widely by region, with the highest rates clustered in southern states and the lowest in the Northeast and upper Midwest, government researchers reported on Wednesday.

Birth rates fell to 41.5 births per 1,000 U.S. teens in 2008 from 42.5 in 2007, spurred by drops in 14 states. That followed an increase in 2005-2007, according to the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.

The findings reflect differences in access to medically accurate information about sex, one expert said.

They are important because teen parents are less likely to pursue higher education, their children are less likely to be healthy, and they earn less on average than people who have children later.

Teenage birth rates by state ranged from a low of 25 babies per 1,000 females aged 15-19 in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont to a high of 60 babies per 1,000 teens in Arkansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Teen birth rates are typically higher among blacks and Hispanics, with Hispanic teens giving birth at a rate of nearly three times the rate of whites, and blacks giving birth at nearly two times the rate of white teens in 2007.

But population differences alone cannot not explain the regional differences in birth rates, the CDC researchers said.

Education and income, sexual activity and contraceptive use, and attitudes among teens toward pregnancy and childbearing are all factors, the CDC researchers said.

Birth rates for white teens in 2007 ranged from 4.3 per 1,000 in the District of Columbia to 54.8 births per 1,000 in Mississippi.

For black teens, birth rates ranged from 17.4 in Hawaii to 95.1 in Wisconsin. And for Hispanic teens, birth rates ranged from 31.1 in Maine to 188.3 in Alabama.

U.S. states with the lowest teen birth rates include North Dakota, Minnesota, Maine, New Hampshire, New York and Connecticut.

"This new CDC report makes it crystal clear that the teen birthrate is lower in states that provide students with comprehensive, evidence-based sex education," Leslie Kantor, National Director of Education, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement.

She said the surest way to cut teen pregnancy is to give young people -- especially blacks and Hispanics -- comprehensive sex education.

The Obama administration's 2010 budget included $155 million in funding for medically accurate information about sex and eliminated spending for abstinence-only programs favored by many social conservatives who oppose the teaching of contraception to teens in U.S. schools. Such programs received about $1.3 billion in federal funds since the late 1990s.

Teen birth rates in the United States are higher than in a number of other developed countries. In Canada the teen birth rate is 13 per 1,000, one-third the U.S. rate. And in Germany, the teen birth rate is 10 per 1,000.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Xavier Briand and Jerry Norton)

provided by http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69J4AE20101020

Job and Economic Security for American Women

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Download the PDF

This PDF provided by whitehouse.gov