Aid agencies say young women are being forced into prostitution around the world – including Russia's capital.

Tanya M. Acker
AC360° Contributor
Attorney

At the Women’s Conference hosted by Governor Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver last week, I listened to Somaly Mam, a human rights activist who has made the liberation of girls from sex slavery her life’s work, describe her experience of being sold into sex slavery in Cambodia at 10 or 12-years-old. (Ms. Mam did not know exactly how old she was when she was first imprisoned in the brothel, as she lost all conception of time during her confinement.)

She talked about the fact that child sex slaves are raped sometimes 20 to 30 times a day and also described the horror of watching her best friend murdered, an event which ultimately prompted her to attempt a successful escape.

I then heard Ms. Mam and Nicholas Kristof describe the widespread tragedy that is the global sex trade in girls and how in many cases, as these girls are valued by their brothel masters at only a few hundred dollars a person, those brothel owners often think it efficient to execute the “recalcitrants” publicly in order to send a lesson to the others.

And then, as I listened to Lisa Ling correctly point out that much of what passes for “news” these days consists of talking heads yelling at one another, I thought about how, as one of those talking heads, I have spent more time arguing with right wing anchors about such inanities as whether the President is simultaneously a socialist and fascist who wants to impose his own version of martial law, than I have discussing the plight of these girls.

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Kim Parker
Pew Research Center

Women now make up almost half of the U.S. labor force, up from 38% in 1970. This nearly forty-year trend has been fueled by a broad public consensus about the changing role of women in society. A solid majority of Americans (75%) reject the idea that women should return to their traditional roles in society, and most believe that both husband and wife should contribute to the family income.

But in spite of these long-term changes in behaviors and attitudes, many women remain conflicted about the competing roles they play at work and at home. Working mothers in particular are ambivalent about whether full-time work is the best thing for them or their children; they feel the tug of family much more acutely than do working fathers. As a result, most working mothers find themselves in a situation that they say is less than ideal.

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Elise Miller
AC360° Associate Producer

Tonight we’re talking to four successful women who have at least this much in common; they’ve risen to the very top in traditionally male dominated fields.

Our panel of experts will be tackling issues that working women face and sharing how they’ve overcome obstacles to make a name for themselves. The panelists are financial powerhouse Suze Orman, first female White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers, neurosurgeon and author Dr. Katrina Firlik and professional poker player Maria Ho.

We’re also focusing on the Tuesday elections. Many of you will be voting, so we’re breaking down the races and the issues. Members of the best political team on television will also look the changed landscape for Democratic and Republican candidates – exactly one year after the general election.

And Afghan electoral officials have declared incumbent President Hamid Karzai the winner of the 2009 presidential election. The announcement was made after opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah withdrew saying he believed a second round of voting would be fraudulent. We’ll dig deeper tonight on the implications of Karzai’s presidency on U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.

What else are you following? Let us know and see you at 10 p.m. ET

A 15-year-old girl was gang raped on the campus of Richmond High School in Northern California

Ron Avi Astor
Special to CNN

The alleged gang rape of a 15-year-old girl on the campus of Richmond High School in Northern California while 10 or more witnesses, most of them students, looked on has sparked familiar questions: "Why are our kids so messed up?" "Why didn't these students try to stop the crime?" "What's happening in our schools?"

These are fair questions, and commentators in the media have provided familiar answers. The purported rape is another sad example of today's self-absorbed and uncaring youth. It was the media's glorification of violence that caused it. The horrific act shows how sociopathic brains develop. But it seems as if the majority of commentators have settled on the idea that the Richmond students did nothing because of the "bystander effect": The more people involved in a criminal incident, the less likely any one of them will intervene to do something about it.

Unfortunately, this "What's wrong with our children?" approach leads to a dead end, because it results in a sweeping moral condemnation of the schools, families and students in this community. These perpetrators committed a heinous act that should be widely condemned. But a discussion that focuses exclusively on the immorality of these deviant young men does not provide solutions that prevent gang rape from happening.

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Editor’s Note: On Monday on AC360°, we’ll look at the gender gap at the office. Dr. Katrina Firlik will be part of our panel discussing the changing roles of women at work. Don't miss this special report at 10 p.m. ET.

Women make up only 5 percent of all neurosurgeons.

Dr. Katrina Firlik
Neurosurgeon & Author

I remember the scene well. I’m being interviewed for a position in a neurosurgery residency program. I’m sitting across the table from two senior neurosurgeons, one friendly and talkative, the other reserved. I’ve anticipated the common questions and I’m armed with quick responses. Why did you choose neurosurgery? What are your strengths? Your weaknesses? Can you explain the research you’ve done? Where do you see yourself in ten years? The friendly one is asking all the questions and I feel like I’m acing them. The quiet one stares at me.

I sense the end of the interview and there’s a long pause. The quiet one finally pipes up: “How do you know you’ll be able to handle a surgical drill?” Now there’s one I hadn’t anticipated. And there’s one I doubt he asked the guy with the crew cut before me. Think…think. I feign nonchalance and attempt spontaneous wit: “Well…if you accept me into the program I’ll show you how I can use a drill.” The friendly one cracks a smile.

As a woman in a male-dominated field (only about 5 percent of neurosurgeons are women) there were moments like this, but they were actually rare. In my book, Another Day in the Frontal Lobe: A Brain Surgeon Exposes Life on the Inside, I don’t focus on the “woman in surgery” issue as much as some readers hope. Truthfully, there just wasn’t much there. But that’s progress!

It was a different story for the generations of women who became surgeons before me, but that’s not a story that I can tell, and they are to thank for clearing the way.

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Erica Hill | BIO
AC360° Correspondent

If you’re not a working woman, you don’t need to look far to find one. Women now account for half of the U.S. workforce, and they are increasingly a major economic force within their families, as more women take on the role of “breadwinner.” Despite their solid place in the workforce alongside men – and most families’ need for women to work - it is impossible to ignore the wage gap. Women make 77 cents for every dollar a man brings home. Seventy-seven cents. It is a sobering figure, and a telling one.

Fortune illustrates the chasm in simple numbers from some of the nation’s top earners. The magazine put together lists of the 25 highest-paid women and the 25 best-paid men. Below are the salaries of the top three on each list – I’ll let you guess which salaries belong to the female execs, and which belong to the males.

LIST 1:
1. $42.4 million

2. $23.9 million

3. $20.3 million

LIST 2:
1. $112.5 million

2. $104.5 million

3. $84.5 million

Interesting the difference in those numbers, no? There are other factors that need to be taken into account if one is to compare salaries, among them experience, health of the company and the industry, but still, you can’t ignore the paychecks.

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Hana Al Badree in her temporary home in Amman, Jordan.

Charity Tooze
AC360° Contributor

Hana Al Badree, not her real name, a 57-year-old Iraqi refugee living in Amman, Jordan, had just received a message from Iraq when I called to check on her. Al Badree’s 12-year-old nephew had just died.

He jumped over a fence attempting to retrieve a ball in his Baghdad neighborhood when he fell on his head. Her last surviving brother, his father, then went into cardiac arrest due to the shock of his son’s death.

Al Badree’s life has spanned two wars. She has lost nearly a dozen family members to violence. She said this was her “fate.” This was not the first time Al Badree had said this. Now, her gravelly voice struggled to conceal the onslaught of emotions that threatened to overwhelm her.

One week earlier, I had served her hummus and black tea garnished with mint at my apartment in downtown Amman. She had been working with me as an interpreter for five weeks while I interviewed dozens of families for a documentary. She translated my questions and lent her credibility with the community to the project. Families, who otherwise might have been less open, welcomed me and shared their stories and pain. Now it was time to interview Al Badree about what had driven her into asylum.

Because of threats of violence, we agreed to change the names of the family members for the purpose of this report.

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U.S. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden make use of the White House putting green.

Maureen Dowd
The New York Times

I felt a twinge of envy when I heard that my pal Tom Friedman had played golf with the president for five hours one September Sunday.

Tom learned a lot about Barack Obama’s positions on weighty issues and sporty ones. (This president doesn’t cheat and he does expect bets to be paid off.) My natural impulse was to shrug it off. Men have always craved private realms — the golf club, men’s club, garage, workshop, shed; a place to get away from the chatter and clatter of women and kids. (In Obama’s case, he may desire a testosterone break from his estrogen nest — a wife, two daughters and a mother-in-law.)

Gordon Thorburn, the British author of the book “Men and Sheds,” explained that the word shed derived from the Anglo-Saxon “scead,” or shade. It was, in a metaphorical sense, obscure, an “intellectual pantry” or “spiritual home” where a man could reflect and dawdle with tools and toys.

But I don’t kid myself that the presidential playing fields are merely about play. After Tom’s golf outing, Politico ran the headline: “Friedman jumps to the front of the influence list.”

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For the first time in history, women make up half of the U.S. workforce and are the primary or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of all American families. Forty years ago, women made up only one-third of all workers.

Joanne Lipman
New York Times

FINALLY! I hear we’re all living in a women’s world now.

For the first time, women make up half the work force. The Shriver Report, out just last week, found that mothers are the major breadwinners in 40 percent of families. We have a female speaker of the House and a female secretary of state. Thirty-two women have served as governors. Thirty-eight have served as senators. Four out of eight Ivy League presidents are women.

Great news, right? Well, not exactly. In fact, it couldn’t be more spectacularly misleading.

The truth is, women haven’t come nearly as far as we would have predicted 25 years ago. Somewhere along the line, especially in recent years, progress for women has stalled. And attitudes have taken a giant leap backward.

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Columbia University
Mailman School of Public Health

Current debate over health care priorities and how best to pay for them presents a critical opportunity to improve women’s health throughout the life span—before pregnancy, during the child-raising years, and as productive seniors. We have a window of opportunity to establish a comprehensive standard of health for American women—a standard that enables women to attain good health in their childhood and adolescence, maintain good health during their reproductive years, and age well.

A new analysis published by the Columbia University Mailman
School of Public Health makes a case for a comprehensive “wellwoman standard of care” and underscores why such a standard must include reproductive health. The analysis makes a scientific, data-driven case that reproductive health is a key determinant of women’s overall health, and therefore, that the treatments and services that promote reproductive health should therefore be part of any national health plan.

Society benefits from healthy women who can participate fully in family, workforce, and community life and therefore, must make health care investments that permit girls to grow into healthy women. Moreover, because a woman’s health in childhood ultimately affects her pregnancies, children also benefit directly from such health care investments.

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