She deserves to celebrate her retirement. She can relax and do the things she has always wanted to do but never have time to do. Due to this fact, these gifts are the perfect way to get her started on ...
Yahoo: 30 Retirement Gifts for Women to Celebrate Years of Hard Work
Due on MSN: Best 39 Retirement Gifts for Women That They Will Love
The plural possessive is "ladies'." "Lady" is singular, so if you were referring solely to one woman's shoes, it would be "the lady's shoes." As for your second question, I'm assuming you're referring to a group of women in your salutation of them, so it would be "Good morning, ladies." And as you're addressing them directly, the comma preceding "ladies" is necessary.
Hence, there is no ambiguity with the men, and for the same reason no ambiguity with the ladies. Ladies is the plural form of lady, so the apostrophe goes to the right - ladies'. If you are wondering why we don't write ladies's, it is because ladies is one of the exceptions, along with girls', parents', players', weeks' and even Klingons'
Ladies Captain means the Captain responsible for Ladies Golf elected to represent the Lady Members at Club and County level and to fulfil [sic] any requirements of the relevant Golf Association.
It probably has to do with the phonetic and metrical properties of "ladies and gentlemen" versus "gentlemen and ladies." Say them both out loud and see which one sounds better to you, intuitively.
Both "Ladies' Beer" and "Ladies Beer" are acceptable, but there is a slightly different implication depending on which you use. "Ladies' Beer" is written in the possessive form, and thus implies ownership.