Article here. Excerpt:

'"They throw guys in jail for non-support all the time, and when they do, the guys serve the whole 30, 60 or 90-day sentence (the term keeps lengthening), even though cocaine dealers routinely get out of jail after serving half their time.”

Ontario’s Family Responsibility Office, which is responsible for ensuring that custodial parents don’t get stiffed for child support payments by the non-custodial parent, has a lot of power.

Starting Dec. 1, someone (read “father”) in arrears on their support payments can have their car impounded. That’s about the stupidest punishment for non-payment one can imagine, since most people need their cars in order to work. As Lloyd Gorling, a father’s rights activist put it, “How are you going to make support payments if you can’t get to work? If you can’t make support payments, does the government really think you’re going to be taking a taxi every day to work?”'

Story here. Excerpt:

'The radical feminist tendency to reject relationships between men and women was not a solution for inequality, she said.

“I believe that early feminism at least partially overlooked that partnership and children bring happiness,” she told the magazine.

The minister also rejected the idea of quotas to improve women’s standing in the workplace, calling it a “political capitulation.” She blamed some women’s own choices for the fact that they earned less than men.

“The truth is this: Many women prefer to study German philology and humanities, while men study electric engineering – and that has consequences when it comes to wages. We can’t forbid companies from paying electric engineers more than a philologist.”

Schröder told Der Spiegel that a new part of her policy would be providing more support to boys, who are falling behind girls in schools. Government policies have neglected boys and men, she said.'

From A Voice for Men, here. Excerpt:

'The lives of most boys and men are now more unfulfilling than ever before in postmodern America. It is situation the beginnings of which arguably can be traced back to the post-World War II generation of men. That is an important history to be told. In general, misandry—typically dressed down in the media in the tatters of bad jokes—has by now produced two generations of males born since 1975 who feel less than welcome at home, in the workplace, and especially at school.

Blog entry here. Hard to know where Sarah Palin is at vis-a-vis feminism today. I do know she is reported as having said misandrist things, more often in rooms filled with female supporters, but not as much in mixed-sex gatherings. Makes no difference to me if she is just "playing to the audience," if that is the excuse you want to make for her, since in either case, it still isn't right. (If a person wants to "play to the audience" and if that audience happens to be a bunch of Nazis, is something the speaker says that is patently racist forgivable for the "playing to the audience" reason?) Nonetheless, following is the excerpt:

'Furthermore, we discovered that during the last national conference of NOW, which took part in Indiana from June 19-21, 2009, the "pro-Palin feminists" gained the majority - reportedly with a very slim margin of only eight votes!
...

Article here. For those new to the case, read some about it on Wikipedia here. She has consistently claimed she was a battered woman and that she didn't mean to kill her husband. The Dateline site story has comments, one from user shatteredmen which follows in part, with minor edits:

'Mary said the shot gun went off "accidentally". Did the phone get unplugged accidentally? Did the reservations for her get away get made accidentally too? Did she accidentally write 17 THOUSAND dollars of hot checks for which she and Matt were to meet the authorities at the bank the day he was shot to talk about paying it back? (The last I knew, writing checks for money you knew you did not have was a crime but she got away with that too.) What would YOU do if you accidentally shot someone? Would you watch them bleed to death or would you call 911? Also, there was NO EVIDENCE of abuse and I contend there is a good chance Matt did not even know about the high heels that were used to prove his abuse. He is no longer here to defend himself as she trashes his name more and more.

Story here. Remember this particular case? Here is how it ends... for now. I have a feeling it won't, though. Excerpt:

'Two Vancouver police officers who faced an allegation of abuse of authority have been cleared by Delta police investigating the incident.

The accusation was made after the officers went to the wrong entrance of a home when investigating a domestic-violence call around 2:15 a.m. on Jan 21.

A woman called 911 to report that her husband was drunk and had assaulted her.

When plainclothes officers arrived at the address provided, they believed Yao Wei Wu, 44, was their suspect and used force to arrest him, resulting in injuries to Wu’s face, legs and back.

On Feb. 1, Delta police began to investigate what happened.

A report prepared by a senior Delta police investigator found that, although Wu had seen the officers’ badges and knew they were police, he resisted arrest, prompting the officers to pull him to the ground, where he hit his face. He was also punched in the shoulder a number of times.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'In the run-up to the midterm elections, a bevy of conservative female candidates invoked feminism in one way or another, but all backed policies harmful to women. In the process, they became media darlings. Palin, who wasn’t running herself but helped get a number of candidates on the ballot across the country, opposes abortion and sex education. ...
...
The 2010 Year of the Woman was mainly about candidates who supported policies traditionally advanced by white men. This is not just an isolated political accident. It is part of a pattern that has dire consequences for women.

At first glance, it may seem like a wonderful time to be female -- a time of empowerment and achievement: the "You Go, Girl!" era.

Article here. Excerpt:

'In one corner: six reluctant, badass fathers-to-be in their 20s. In the other: New York psychologist and family therapist Jeff Gardere (“Dr. Jeff”), whose job is to transform them into grown-ups ready to face fatherhood. They meet on Dad Camp, one of the latest offerings from the parenting wing of the reality-TV genre, airing for the first time in Canada.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Since domestic violence and allegations of domestic violence are a big part of what’s wrong with family law as it relates to child custody, I thought I’d do a piece on this study entitled “Are Abuse Shelters Helping the True Victims of Domestic Violence?” It comes to us courtesy of the organization Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE).

It doesn’t pretend to be an in-depth treatment of anything; rather, it simply sketches some of the many problems, questions and issues that attend domestic violence and the system of shelters in this country.

Like many other people and organizations, SAVE is dead serious about domestic violence. It’s so serious in fact that it wants people to know what DV is, who does it, who the victims are and, most importantly, how to effectively deal with the problem. In other words, in all those ways, SAVE is at odds with the DV industry generally.'

From SAVE, via email:

On Tuesday we witnessed a political cataclysm take place across the nation. Whether you are Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, now is the time to capitalize on this dramatic shift in the political landscape.

To assist in your efforts to reform state DV laws, SAVE has posted a series of state-level summaries:

Link to article here. Excerpt:

'A West Australian woman has been banned from ever owning a pet after she pleaded guilty to killing a puppy by repeatedly throwing it against a wall.

Tracie Marie Beal was sentenced in Mandurah Magistrates Court on Thursday for ill treating an animal.

The 28-year-old Mandurah woman had admitted that on the night of January 19 she was given a small, six-week old puppy by a friend.

Beal then took the puppy home and after a short time she became upset and repeatedly threw it against a wall, killing the animal.'

Link to article here. Excerpt:

'An Adelaide woman killed her two-year-old son by standing on his mouth and chest because she believed he had been taken over by an evil spirit, a court has heard.

Rachael Cherie Hadley, 23, was found not guilty in the South Australian Supreme Court on Friday of murdering the boy, with Justice Kevin Duggan finding her mentally incompetent at the time.

Duke Hadley died from asphyxiation with Justice Duggan saying his mother believed she was saving him, rather than hurting him.
...
"She believed she was expelling an evil spirit from him and that she expected him to recover," the judge said in summarising two medical reports.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'While men alone are certainly not the solution, this change cannot come without large numbers of men and women working together. We can "pave to the way" to gaining the support of larger numbers by removing barriers that traditionally keep men from engaging in a topic which touches us all.

This conference will broaden the ways our movement seeks to engage those who identify as male in ways that do not continue to marginalize across gender, sexual orientation, race and class, while challenging us all to explore the intersections of oppression and violence.

We will explore ways to include those beyond the "choir" across the professional experience in the field, connecting the secular movement with work faith communities are doing, and by hearing about the work and experiences of young people becoming the new generation of leaders.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Yesterday my students and I discussed Mary Daly, the Boston College professor, feminist theologian, and professional provocateur who died earlier this year. Judging by our discussion, feminist theology has died too, and feminism with it.

Article here. Excerpt:

'While it's thrilling that there is also a movement of young men all who want to tear down the patriarchy right alongside women, it's dangerous that they don't have a clear picture of what they want to build in its place. At the conference, one young man spoke up against the notion of a new "feminist masculinity," explaining that he feared it would be one more box that young men felt they had to fit into. There's a lot of validity to his argument, but I fear that the old adage is true: We can't be what we can't see. Models help us try on various identities and find one that is truly authentic. The more publicly feminist-aligned men we have, the more opportunities the next generation has to find a positive, masculine gender identity that actually fits.