By Randolph E. Schmid, The Associated Press

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WASHINGTON – Women with more of the hormone testosterone tend to behave more like men when taking financial risks, according to a new study.

“Women with higher levels of testosterone turn out to be less risk averse, more willing to take risks,” Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago said in a telephone interview.

Known as the male sex hormone, testosterone occurs in both men and women, but at higher levels in men. It has long been associated with competitiveness and dominance, reduction of fear, and with risky behaviours like gambling and alcohol use.

Co-author Paola Sapienza of Northwestern University noted that women in general are less likely than men to take financial risks.

“For example, in our sample set, 36 per cent of female MBA students chose high-risk financial careers such as investment banking or trading, compared to 57 per cent of male students. We wanted to explore whether these gender differences are related to testosterone, which men have, on average, in higher concentrations than women.”

Previous research in England showed that higher levels of testosterone seem able to boost short term success at finance. Researchers there tested male traders morning and evening, and found that those with higher levels of testosterone in the morning were more likely to make an unusually big profit that day.

Zingales and his team tested the testosterone levels of more than 500 MBA students – males and females – and asked them to choose between accepting a guaranteed monetary award or choosing a risky lottery with a higher potential payout. Students had to choose repeatedly between the lottery and a fixed payment at increasing values.

In general men had higher levels of testosterone and were more likely to choose the risky lottery than women.

But it also turned out that women with higher levels of testosterone were almost seven times more likely to take risks that women with lower hormone levels.

On the other hand, there was no difference in risk-tasking between those with relatively low levels of testosterone – 90 per cent of women and 31 per cent of men.

In addition, the researchers found that married men and women had lower levels of testosterone than single individuals.

“Married people are also known to be more risk-averse than unmarried people,” they noted.

The research was funded by the Templeton Foundation, the Zell Center for Risk Research and the Center for Research in Security Prices and the Initiative on Global Markets at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090824/science/science_us_sci_finances_sex_drive_1

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The “Mother of Judo” waited 50 years to get the gold medal that was snatched from her in her first serious competition, a gender injustice that fuelled Rusty Kanokogi’s winning crusade for women’s judo in the Olympics.

The gruff, plain talking Kanokogi who has received praise and recognition from the government of Japan, the International Judo Federation and International Women’s Hall of Fame, was denied the prize at a YMCA tournament for being a woman.

“This should never, never happen to a woman again in sports,” Kanokogi said about the rage she felt back in 1959.

The 74-year-old was speaking in an interview with Reuters on the eve of last week’s medal ceremony that rectified the wrong half a century later.

“It was a negative for a while but I turned it around into a positive. I started the manoeuvring for the recognition of women’s judo and other sports. Basically it was encouragement.

“If the medal had not been taken away from me, who knows? Women’s judo could still be waiting to get into the Olympics.”

The gender-equality fighter who is now battling a rare form of cancer was born Rena Glickman and grew up tough on the streets of Brooklyn’s Coney Island when girls were not allowed to play most school sports.

BOYS ONLY

“I was a strong girl, very physically active with no sports in school because that was for boys only,” she said.

“So I took pleasure in hitting the heavy bag (punch bag) after school. I had a chip on my shoulder so I started using people in the street as a heavy bag.

“I was getting in trouble. Here I had the physical ability of a strong male with the mentality of a teenage girl. I was kind of lost. I was a lost soul with no place to go.”

Kanokogi found herself in judo, intrigued after a friend showed her some moves.

She threw herself into the sport and practised with the young men at the local YMCA when asked by the coach to fill in for an injured boy in a competition at upstate Utica, New York.

Told to try and earn a draw in her match to help the team, the 24-year-old produced a surprise.

“Instinctively, once I took hold of my opponent’s judo gee (uniform top) I just went in for the big attack and I threw him,” she recalled. “It worked. I got a full point.”

Kanokogi said that although it was not in the rules that competitors had to be male, she disguised herself anyway. “I wasn’t told to take the ace (stretch) bandage and bind up my boobs,” she said. “I did that on my own.”

However, the tournament director confronted her afterwards, insisting girls could not compete and saying she would have to give her medal back or her team would be disqualified.

“I took the medal off and handed it to him,” she said. “All of the guys wanted to give the medals back and the trophy and I refused to let them do that. We had a solemn ride back to the city.”

NO SHRINKING

Kanokogi did not shrink from the episode.

Instead, she worked even harder as a competitor and instructor, travelling to Japan three years later to study the Japanese martial art. There she met future husband Ryohei Kanokogi, a coach for Japan’s Olympic team.

She dedicated herself to the sport and the premise that women deserved the right to compete in judo at the Olympics, which men had done since in 1964.

Kanokogi, who married her judo soul-mate in 1965 in a partnership that produced two children, organized the first women’s world championships in 1980 at Madison Square Garden, assembling 27 countries to satisfy an Olympic pre-requisite.

“In 1984 at the LA Olympics they once again rejected women’s judo from the Games. I went crazy,” she said.

Enlisting help from the American Civil Liberties Union and politicians, Kanokogi threatened legal action over sex discrimination and finally broke through when women’s judo was staged as a demonstration sport at the 1988 Seoul Games.

Four years later it became a fully-fledged part of the Olympic programme in Barcelona.

“I wanted it not just for United States women but for women round the world to be able to be in the Olympics,” said Kanokogi, who last year was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun from Japan, its highest honour for a foreigner.

“What the hell was the problem? It was mentality. Full contact sport for women. The first in Olympic history.

“Could the IOC relate to it? They could think of mommy on a horse but they couldn’t think of mommy fighting.”

Eileen O’Connor, head of the Brooklyn YMCA, presented Kanokogi a medal in “recognition for a lifetime of inspirational leadership and commitment to equality for women in sports.”

The feisty Kanokogi is now fighting a battle for her health. She suffers from multiple myeloma, a cancer that has also led to kidney failure, forcing her on dialysis.

“Through the judo, my spirit is still extremely strong,” she said. “I’ve lost some weight and I need a cane. However, I can use that cane like a Samurai sword. I’m not worried.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090827/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_judo_kanokogi_1

KABUL – For women, Afghanistan’s recent elections appear to have been more of a setback than a step forward.

Early reports strongly suggest that voter turnout fell more sharply for women than for men in Thursday’s polls. Election observers blame Taliban attacks, a dearth of female election workers and hundreds of closed women’s voting sites.

Some worry the result could be a new government that pays even less attention to women’s concerns in a country where cultural conservatism already restricts female participation in public life.

Kulsoom Bibi, a woman in her 40s, is among those who did not vote.

“The rockets started coming from the early morning and, until night, the rockets still came,” she said in Kandahar, the southern city that is the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban. “The government hasn’t done anything for women, and there were a lot of security problems. That’s why I didn’t cast my vote.”

Official results from Thursday’s presidential and provincial council elections aren’t expected for weeks.

Amid Taliban threats, both women and men appear to have voted in lower numbers than in previous elections. One election official estimated overall turnout at 40-50 percent, down from 70 percent in the last presidential election in 2004.

Women voters, however, faced additional obstacles, observers said.

At least 650 polling stations for women did not open, according to the Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan, the country’s top independent vote monitoring group. In the southern province of Uruzgan, only 6 of 36 women’s polling stations opened, the group said.

That was partly because authorities couldn’t find enough female staffers.

In some areas, “there were women who came to polling stations, and found no women workers there and went away. They didn’t cast their votes,” said Nader Nadery, the head of the group.

European Union observers noted that poor security hardened cultural attitudes in a nation where most women won’t leave home without wearing an all-encompassing burqa.

“The lack of personal security … disproportionately affected women and consolidated the opinions of many families and communities that it was not appropriate for women to be active outside the home,” the EU mission said in a statement.

Afghan women have made great advances since a U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban government in 2001. Under the Taliban, women were banned from school and could not leave their homes without a male relative. Today, millions of girls are getting an education, while some women hold elected office.

But as the Taliban have re-emerged, especially in the nation’s south and east, women have again become favorite targets. Female government officials regularly report receiving threats to their safety. Some women leaders, including a prominent policewoman, have been assassinated.

At the same time, the government has taken steps deemed anti-woman, most notably passing a law that appeared to legalize marital rape. After an international outcry, the law was revised, though activists say the new version still has problems.

The news for women was not all bad. Solid female turnout was reported in the relatively safe north.

Many women set aside fears to run in the elections. Two were among more than three dozen presidential candidates. And 333 women ran for provincial council, up from 242 in 2005, according to the EU. However, the proportion of women candidates decreased in 14 of the 34 provinces.

Haroun Mir, director of Afghanistan’s Center for Research and Policy Studies, said the low female turnout is one reason the next government is likely to do little for women beyond appointing a handful to token positions.

“Women are scattered, they don’t have a unified voice,” he said. “I’m pretty sure that they will not have any influence or any bargaining power.”

Rachel Reid, Afghanistan researcher for Human Rights Watch, described efforts to increase women’s participation in the election as “too little and too late.”

“Presidential candidates were more likely to present themselves as able to negotiate with the Taliban than to protect women’s rights,” she said.

Women need to improve their lobbying ability to gain more powerful positions in government, said Shinkai Karokhail, a female lawmaker from Kabul.

She found solace in the fact that many women turned out to vote despite the volatile situation.

“One woman in Kandahar coming out and casting their vote is like more than 1,000,” she said. “The fear I had is maybe none of the women would come out.”

___

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/ap/20090824/tap-as-afghanistan-women-510daa6.html

CEDAR HILL, Texas (AP) — Joan Twagira loves the thought of readers passionately discussing the latest novel they’ve devoured that she’s decided to start a club at her book store in Kigali, Rwanda with the hope of drawing in more customers.

As she turns the pages of her black leather notebook, Twagira reads off some of the other ideas she got from a women’s leadership program at Northwood University’s suburban Dallas campus: Spend a day reading to children. Donate books to kids. Set up booths at community events to advertise her business.

“I love a challenge and I like to improve myself,” Twagira said in explaining why she decided to join the Peace Through Business program.

The venture is sort of a mini-MBA program that brings Rwandan and Afghan entrepreneurs to the United States during the summer. Twagira and the other participants have gotten hands-on experience this month with American mentors on everything from installing accounting software, creating a Web site and how to manage employees.

The program’s 30 women graduated Tuesday and the ceremony was filled with smiles and tears. Former first lady Laura Bush told the women she was impressed by their resilience.

“Your entrepreneurial spirit … can further the stability and economic growth of your country,” Bush said. “This is your chance.”

As part of the privately funded program, the women study business basics in their native countries for eight weeks and are required to devise a business plan. Based on their attendance, scores and the viability of their business, 15 women from each country are selected for two weeks of leadership training and mentoring in the U.S. The program also pairs each participant to live with a female American entrepreneur who has a similar business.

In this year’s program, the Rwandan and Afghan women had businesses that included clothing boutiques, coffee plantations, furniture making, and an ice cream shop.

Peace Through Business began when the U.S. State Department in 2006 requested that the Oklahoma City-based Institute for Economic Empowerment of Women create the training for Afghan women. The program expanded in 2008 to include female business owners from Rwanda, which had one of the fastest growing economies in East Africa last year.

“If we can teach women from Afghanistan and from any war torn country, if we educate her, she would educate her family and once you do that, you would educate her community,” institute and program founder Terry Neese said.

The adversity of starting a business amid turmoil is something women from both countries understand. Twagira opened her book store nine years ago, while Rwanda was striving to recover from the 1994 genocide in which more than half a million people were slaughtered. Her business has since grown to two shops.

Fellow participant Razia Arefi is from Afghanistan and, like many, had to flee her country years ago when it was under Taliban rule. The Taliban banned women from, among other things, getting an education. Since the U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban government in 2001, Afghan women have made advances, but have recently become favorite targets as the Taliban have re-emerged.

Arefi has returned to Afghanistan, which has grown increasingly violent.

Each day when she leaves her house to go to work in the morning, she worries about her safety and whether she’ll be able to return see her family that evening.

“Will I get back to home and see my children?” the 29-year-old mother of two said she asks herself.

Despite the challenges waiting back home and cultural differences, the participants and mentors say their time together has made them realize all have a challenging, yet similar balancing act: raising children, having a personal life, owning a business and encouraging independence in other women.

“We have sisters over there,” said Arefi’s mentor, Sharon Evans, who is president of CFj Manufacturing, a Fort Worth company that makes uniforms, jewelry, embroidered linens and other items. “They have the same goals, drives that we have.”

The Rwandan and Afghan women are already making plans on how to help other women back home. So far plans include forming business associations, employing more women and being more involved in politics.

“Everybody is fired up,” Twagira said.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Business-program-helps-Afghan-apf-690075062.html?x=0&.v=1

WASHINGTON – Women with more testosterone tend to behave more like men when taking financial risks, according to a new study. “Women with higher levels of testosterone turn out to be less risk averse, more willing to take risks,” Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago said in a telephone interview.

ADVERTISEMENT

Known as the male sex hormone, testosterone occurs in both men and women, but at higher levels in men. It has long been associated with competitiveness and dominance, reduction of fear, and with risky behaviors like gambling and alcohol use.

Co-author Paola Sapienza of Northwestern University noted that women in general are less likely than men to take financial risks.

“For example, in our sample set, 36 percent of female MBA students chose high-risk financial careers such as investment banking or trading, compared to 57 percent of male students. We wanted to explore whether these gender differences are related to testosterone, which men have, on average, in higher concentrations than women.”

Previous research in England showed that higher levels of testosterone seem to boost short term success at finance. Researchers there tested male traders morning and evening, and found that those with higher levels of testosterone in the morning were more likely to make an unusually big profit that day.

Zingales and his team tested the testosterone levels of more than 500 MBA students _ males and females _ and asked them to choose between a guaranteed monetary award or a risky lottery with a higher potential payout. Students had to choose repeatedly between the lottery and a fixed payment at increasing values.

In general, men had higher levels of testosterone and were more likely to choose the risky lottery than women.

But it also turned out that women with higher levels of testosterone were almost seven times more likely to take risks that women with lower hormone levels.

On the other hand, there was no difference in risk-tasking between those with relatively low levels of testosterone _ 90 percent of women and 31 percent of men.

In addition, the researchers found that married men and women had lower levels of testosterone than single individuals.

“Married people are also known to be more risk-averse than unmarried people,” they noted.

The research was funded by the Templeton Foundation, the Zell Center for Risk Research and the Center for Research in Security Prices and the Initiative on Global Markets at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/ap/20090825/twl-us-sci-finances-sex-drive-ef375f8.html