Blog Posts by ForbesWoman

By Nadia Arumugam

Image via WikipediaResearch has shown that minorities consume bottled water more often than white Americans, and spend a greater proportion of their income (about 1%, compared to the 0.4% white Americans dole out) on this superfluous commodity every year.

A recent study in the Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine confirmed this trend - finding that Latino and black parents were three times more likely to sate their children's thirst with bottled water, compared with white parents.

What sets this study apart from previous ones, is that it pinpoints the reasons why minority parents perceive bottled water to be superior, and thus a necessary expense. They genuinely believe it to be cleaner, safer, healthier, and more convenient than the stuff that pours out of the spigot (virtually) gratis. Health experts and tap water advocates heartily disagree and will produce reams of data revealing tap water to be pure, healthful, and entirely sanitary. In fact, authors of the

By Kiri Blakeley

The August issue of Harper's magazine contains a fascinating story about a woman named Joan R. Ginther, known in the press as the "luckiest woman in the world."

To earn that appellation, Ginther won the lottery four times. That's right, four times. And she didn't win no measly $20 and $30 payouts either-she hit multiple million dollar payouts each time.

First, she won $5.4 million; then a decade later, she won $2 million; then two years later $3 million; and finally, in the spring of 2008, she hit a $10 million jackpot.

The odds of this? One in eighteen septillion.

To put this into perspective, the Harper's story's author, Nathaniel Rich, says there are only one septillion stars in the universe, and one septillion grains of sand on Earth. A person with Ginther's kind of luck, writes Rich, would only happen once every quadrillion years.

Okay, a few months back, I found a $100 bill lying on the ground in a JFK terminal. The odds of that happening is

By Jenna Goudreau

In the boardroom or at a backyard barbecue, a woman's best beauty accessory is flawless, glowing skin. Yet we're bombarded at every turn by the effects of aging, stress, pollution and eating on-the-go. Add to that the heat of summer-with its moisture-sucking sun and makeup-melting humidity-and radiant skin may seem impossible.

Skincare experts, however, swear that nourishing your skin from the inside out can dramatically improve your complexion in as little as three weeks.

Foods To Turn Back The Clock

Celebrity aesthetician Bella Schneider has an impressive client roster that includes power women like Michelle Pfeiffer, Gayle King, Condoleezza Rice, Maria Shriver and Carly Fiorina. She says on-the-go women need to simplify their routines to four basic habits for glowing skin: Eating seasonal, "real" local foods (no Red Bulls or protein bars) that have not been processed or stuffed with preservatives; sipping water throughout the day and cutting back on

By Jenna Goudreau and Meghan Casserly

We're thrilled to present the second annual ForbesWoman Top 100 Websites for Women.

Our final tally of the best of the Web is the sum of a year's worth of clicking around, asking around and going down the rabbit hole of blog roll after blog roll. We're indebted to our friends in the ForbesWoman community: from the contributors and commenters on our site, to our outposts on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and all the good samaritans offering the latest just-gotta-reads.

Our criteria for the winners boils down to informative and compelling content and user interface, engaged communities and, of course, a female focus that's kept fresh by dedicated editors, writers and designers. Intelligence is a plus; fun adds bonus points. Here's the real challenge: Does it have that amorphous and often indefinable quality that inspires us to share--with our social networks and in e-mails and conversations with our moms, sisters, friends and

By Jenna Goudreau

Today the Supreme Court reversed an earlier decision of the Ninth Circuit, halting a mammoth sex discrimination suit against Wal-Mart from proceeding as a class action. The Wal-Mart v. Dukes case would have been the largest employment class-action suit in U.S. history, involving 1.5 million female employees of Wal-Mart.

The Court did not rule on the merits of the discrimination case, but held that Wal-Mart is entitled to individual determinations of its employees' eligibility for back-pay.

"The court has substantially raised the hurdles that workers have to surmount in order to bring broad cases," said Joseph Sellers, co-lead counsel with Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, on a conference call immediately following the decision. Sellers said the women's cases would likely proceed on an individual basis or in smaller, more closely linked classes. "The consequences could be dire for Wal-Mart, as well as the workers, as this case will be splintered so that it may take longer to resolve. We are determined to proceed on behalf of these women."

It is a huge victory for Wal-Mart, which employs 2.1 million people in over 9,000 stores around the globe. "We are pleased with today's ruling and believe the Court made the right decision," said a statement from the company. "By reversing the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision, the majority effectively ends this class action lawsuit."

A surprising new report finds that female physicians will earn $2.3 million less than male peers over the course of their lifetimes.

By Jenna Goudreau

A shocking study by medical website Medscape, a division of WebMD, today reveals that the gender wage gap among physicians may be widening-fast. After surveying 15,000 doctors, researchers discovered that across all specialties women earn a median salary of $160,000, compared to men's $225,000. That's a difference of $65,000 a year, meaning female doctors earn just 71% as much as male doctors.

In the course of a 35-year career, female physicians will lose a total of $2.3 million on average.

The gap may be explained by several factors, including firm size, specialty type, hours worked and remaining discrimination.

By Jenna Goudreau

Aircraft MechanicStep aside, guys. Women are moving up the payroll. According to a March "Women at Work" report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the gender wage gap continues to narrow. Women earned 81 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2010, up from 76 cents in 2000. Moreover, recent reports suggest that young urban women now earn 8% more than male peers, likely due to higher college graduation rates.

The fact remains, however, that men still earn more in almost every U.S. occupation-except in a telling few. An analysis of 2009 median weekly earnings for full-time workers, collected by the BLS, reveals at least 15 jobs where women earn slightly more than male colleagues.

In Pictures: 15 Jobs Where Women Earn More Than Men

Perhaps most surprising, women out-earn men in several male-dominated construction jobs. Female construction laborers, construction supervisors, maintenance painters, and aircraft and vehicle mechanics earn slightly above the median earnings for both sexes-despite holding just 3% of these jobs.

By MeghChristy Waltonan Casserly

This year the 20 richest women in the world have a combined net worth of $232 billion derived from a diverse string of industries including mining, banking, real estate and automobies. In fact, nearly every woman in this elite ladies' club has seen her wealth increase since the Forbes 2010 World's Billionaires List.

Wu Yajun is a former journalist and editor who worked for half a decade at the China Shirong News Agency. These days, her byline reads Chairman and CEO of Hong Kong based Longfor Properties, a growing real estate concern that boasts rising stock prices and soaring sales since being listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2009. What's newsworthy about Wu, despite her amassed $5.5 billion in personal fortune?

Of the 20 richest women in the world in 2011 as determined by the Forbes 2011 list of The World's Billionaires, she's the only one who's self-made.

Gallery: The Richest Women In The World

The rest of this rarified group is staffed by widows and heiresses, whose family ties have left them the wealthiest women on the planet.