Almost all the women faculty members at Illinois State University — 350 women total — have filed a class-action suit against the university for sex discrimination.

The suit started when three women professors in the College of Business noticed that new men were being hired at higher salaries than the women made. According to figures provided by the university, men outearn women at every academic rank. Other women say that men faculty receive more mentoring, and that women’s research is denigrated. The lawsuit asks that the university make up for wages the women would have earned if it were not for the discrimination.

Triathlete Audrey Contente has invented a product called "Instead" that can be used during a woman’s menstrual cycle for up to 12 hours in place of tampons or pads. The flexible, soft plastic cup fits under the cervix and collects menstrual blood rather than absorbing it. Contente, a seller of biomedical supplies, began working on the device in 1986 in search of an easier way to deal with menstruation while training. For a free sample call 1-800-INSTEAD

No woman has ever been the Secretary-General of the United Nations. A group called Equality Now has proposed six women to be the new Secretary General, including: Gro Harlem Brundtland, former prime minister of Norway; Frene Ginwala, Speaker of Parliament in South Africa; Sadako Ogata, High Commissioner for Refugees, United Nations; Navanethem Pillay, International Rwandan Tribunal, United Nations; Mary Robinson, President of Ireland; and Leticia Shahani, President of the Senate in the Philippines.

The term of the current Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, is ending and a new Secretary-General must be picked before January 1. Many countries favor giving Boutros-Ghali a second term, but because the United States has vetoed the decision, it is unlikely he will continue with a second term.

The Ms. Foundation for Women is accepting Letters of Intent from organizations which promote girls’ and young women’s health. The Foundation will award grants averaging $50,000 for each of three years to between seven and 15 organizations. To request an application for Letters of Intent, call 1-800-809-8206, or (212) 742-2300 ext. 346.

Hundreds of thousands of women were raped during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Yet neither the new Rwandan government nor the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal, which are both investigating Rwandan war crimes, are taking rape seriously.

Both the Tribunal and the Rwandan government have very few women investigators, causing Rwandan women to be reluctant to disclose their rapes to the male investigators. In addition, many investigators do not believe rape is a prosecutable crime or a serious crime. Often, women know the identities of their rapists but are hesitant to reveal them for fear that their confessions will not be kept confidential and the rapists will retaliate.

Up to one million Rwandan people were massacred in 1994 in a planned effort to eradicate the Tutsis, a minority group in Rwanda.

Women’s intercollegiate sports opportunities are growing, but slowly, according to a new report by the U.S. General Accounting Office. Since 1992, the average number of sports offered to women went up from 7.1 to 7.5 in 1996. And the percentage of athletes who are women increased from 34% in 1992 to 37% in 1995.

However, few states are actively working towards gender equity in intercollegiate sports. Seventy-five percent of states did not even have a staff member at their education department who was responsible for gender equity issues. And the Office of Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education says they do not have the funds to conduct "compliance reviews," which are investigations of an educational institution initiated by the Office of Civil Rights. In recent years, OCR has limited itself to responding to citizen complaints about gender inequity.