Gender

President Obama is demanding action following the Pentagon survey that showed sexual assaults sharply on the rise, and  by the thousands. We look at the problem in the military with Roz Branson, executive director of TurnAround Inc. of Baltimore.

April 8, 2013

April 3, 2013

March 11, 2013

In 2011, Maryland women made, on average, 88 cents for every dollar made by men, according to data from the U. S. Census Bureau.  The gap in Maryland is smaller than the national average, which is 77 cents for every dollar. There are efforts on both the federal and state level to lessen that gap, and prohibit gender discrimination in the workplace.  The Paycheck Fairness Act, sponsored by Senator Mikulski would prohibit employer retaliation for sharing salary information with coworkers.

In his inauguration speech, President Obama highlighted equal pay for women as a priority for his second term. It has been 50 years since another Democratic president, John F. Kennedy, signed the Equal Pay Act, which mandated compensation equality between the sexes. While women have made gains in pay, they still lag 18 to 20 percent behind their male peers.

Nearly two years ago, Chrissy Polis, now 24, became the unwitting symbol of the struggle for transgender rights and protections. Two teenagers assaulted Polis as she attempted to enter the restroom of a fast-food restaurant in Baltimore County. A cell-phone video of the beating went viral. In one of the few interviews she's agreed to give, Chrissy Polis shares the story of her life, the attack, and what’s happened since. We’ll also look at the latest local and national efforts aimed at helping protect transgendered people from discrimination.

In three weeks, Marylanders will decide whether to legalize same sex marriage.  It's a referendum being watched around the country.  We talk with two reporters about strategists...and money... coming into the state.

Today is ‘Ada Lovelace Day,’ a day that recognizes women working in science, technology, engineering, and math. We talk with Penny Rheingans, director of the Center for Women in Technology at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, about how to draw more women into tech.

Whether the “war on women” is a fabrication of election year politics, scholar and activist Beth Richie says the threat of real violence to black women in the U.S. has never been more serious. And, with the partisan divide over the recent renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, she says legal, social, political and economic policies are to blame. Richie is author of “Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America's Prison Nation.”