Article here. Excerpt:

'Virginia put to death a 41-year-old woman Thursday night, the first execution of a female in the country in five years and the first in that state for nearly a century.
...
Legal scholars attribute the "gender bias" in executions to women's lower propensity to kill and the tendency of those who do to kill a husband, lover or child in the heat of emotion, seldom with the "aggravating factors" states require for a death sentence. Lewis pleaded guilty to having arranged the killings to collect $250,000 in insurance money on her stepson.

"The way capital punishment statutes are written inadvertently favor women. They make it a worse crime if a homicide is committed during a felony, like robbery or rape, which are rarely involved in women's homicides," said Victor Streib, a Northern Ohio University law professor who has spent 30 years researching condemned women. "It's also easier to convince a jury that women suffer emotional distress or other emotional problems more than men."'

Article here. Excerpt:

"Every major non-geological disaster in history has been man-made, from climate change to the credit crunch and from warfare to genocide.

"Men's denial of vulnerability and the need to consume and acquire are intricately connected."

Masculinity, argues Jukes, is like an illness acquired in early boyhood. It is, he believes, built on a 'fault' created during the Oedipal crisis and is hugely destructive.

"It is like two sides of a divide. One side is a boy's relationship with his mother, and later the pressure not to be so deeply attached to the mother because it is seen as feminising.
...
"Maleness and masculinity are not the same thing. Masculinity is a psychological, socially based construct whereas maleness is a biological given," he says.

Article here. Excerpt:

'We've arrived at another crossroads," declares Newsweek — and this one represents a crisis for masculinity. As the magazine's current cover story asserts, "The prevailing codes of manhood have yet to adjust to the changing demands on men." With this cover story dedicated to "rethinking" masculinity, Newsweek launches itself into a very relevant cultural conversation.

"Man Up!" is the message the magazine conveys on its cover, though by the time a reader actually reads the article, he or she may be forgiven for having little idea of what this means. If, indeed, the traditional male is "an endangered species," where does this leave men?

Article here. Excerpt:

Article here. Excerpt:

'Some bad ideas never die. On Tuesday, during Senate debate, Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that, “I’m going to do my utmost to see if we can find a way to have a vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act. It is so fair to do that, to do a better job of equalizing pay between men and women when they do the same work. It seems fairly basic and fair.”

Senator Reid has apparently not read the bill. In addition to the 2009 “Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act,” this latest Democratic pre-election pandering to the trial lawyers and some women’s organizations is creating an administrative and legal nightmare for any employer trying to manage his or her workforce. It could totally upend criteria for hiring and setting pay. What do President Obama and the Democrats consider “unfair” about paying workers more if they have more experience, more education, or specific skills?

Story here. Excerpt:

'CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. - A woman has been found guilty of manslaughter in death of her boyfriend, who drank a jug of margaritas laced with antifreeze at their apartment in western New York.
...
Cynthia Galens was charged with murder in January, three months after Air Force veteran Thomas Stack died from complications of ethylene glycol poisoning. But a grand jury opted in February for a less severe first-degree manslaughter charge.

The 52-year-old Galens has been on trial for four days. The trial began Monday.

Investigators say she told them Stack was emotionally and physically abusive and she decided to exact revenge by pouring a shot glass of the toxic automotive chemical into a margarita mix. Stack died four days later.

Galens says she intended to make him sick, not kill him.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'SEATTLE -- A woman fatally shot three people and herself at a Seattle home Thursday, injuring another woman who fled into the front yard and told officers: "My mom has gone crazy," police said.

Officers responded to a report of gunshots at about 1:30 p.m. and could still hear shots being fired from the house when they arrived, police spokesman Sean Whitcomb said. A man in his 50s ran into the house. Two more shots were fired and he ran back out, telling officers his wife had shot herself.

When police were able to go inside, they found the four dead, including a woman in her 50s they believe was the shooter, Whitcomb said.

He said police don't believe anyone else was involved.

In addition to the older woman, the dead included two women in their late teens and a man in his 30s, police said. Their relationships were not immediately known.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Members of an Annapolis organization are so concerned about boys' academic performance that they want to create an all-male school.

Brian Tucker of Concerned Citizens for Successful Students approached the county Board of Education last week about tailoring an academic program specifically for male students. It would operate either as an entire school or as an academic initiative geared just toward boys. The plan is in its early stages and the group is discussing it with county officials.
...
There has been an ongoing debate about the value of single-sex education and whether both boys and girls benefit from it equally.

The National Organization for Women opposes such efforts, saying they "increase sexism and exacerbate feelings of superiority toward women," according to the group's website. But officials of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education support the concept, offering training to teachers so they can provide opportunities that do not exist in coed environments.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Teresa Lewis, a 41-year-old Virginia woman who admitted murdering her husband and his son, has run out of appeals and is set to be executed Thursday. Her co-conspirators were given life without parole, and Lewis' attorneys have argued that new evidence shows they were actually the masterminds of the plot -- therefore her sentence is unfair. She also has an IQ of 72, which means she's borderline mentally retarded.

Nearly all the stories I've seen mention how rare it is for women to be executed; she would be the only woman to be executed in the country in five years -- in Virginia it's been nearly a century. I understand the desire of news writers to point out rarities; it makes the story more important. But in this case, it also implies that most of the 1,226 other executions the United States has carried out since 1976, the vast majority of which are of men, are normal.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Two Boiling Springs teachers are facing charges after deputies say they threw parties for teenagers that involved alcohol, marijuana and sex.

Sarah Jane Lindsay, 42, of 438 Maplecroft St., and Audrey Beidleman Grabarkiewicz, 44, of 230 Sandy Drive, were taken into custody by Spartanburg County sheriff's deputies Monday. Police had been investigating since a parent came forward with a complaint in July.

Lindsay, a teacher at Boiling Springs Elementary, is charged with nine counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and criminal sexual conduct with a minor between 11 and 14 years old.

Grabarkiewicz, a preschool teacher at Lake Bowen Baptist Church, is charged with 10 counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Investigators said Grabarkiewicz also had “sexual relations with some of the victims,” but, because they were older than 16, she will not be charged, according to a statement from the sheriff's office.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'CLEVELAND, Ohio --The Cleveland mother who tortured her 8-year-old son for four years will spend 34 years in prison.

And the boy's father, who did nothing to protect the child and eight siblings, was sentenced Tuesday to 26 years. Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Kathleen Ann Sutula ignored a plea agreement between Andreia Huffman, 37, her husband, Jason Dunikowski, 32, and county prosecutors that called for 19- and 17-year sentences.
...
"Torture is not allowed in our society," Sutula said, while looking at photographs of the boy's swollen, broken nose, bruised legs and red wrists that had been bound every night with duct tape.

"Anyone who thinks the sentences are harsh, hasn't seen the evidence."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Technology changes. The economy changes. But some things never change. Some fathers still take time out with their sons – fishing, playing sports or video games, tinkering on cars. Even in challenging times, these unshakable dads are forging family ties, modeling manhood and fatherhood, and delivering life's most important lessons.

"The bonding between a father and son is important in terms of relationships and how they'll (boys will) generalize and translate to relationships with other males," said Rob Goldman, a psychologist who works for the Suffolk County Probation Department in New York.

It's also beneficial in helping keep boys out of trouble. There's a correlation between children who wind up in the juvenile justice system and incarcerated dads or fathers who abandon their children, he said.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Gareth Malone has never been one to shy away from a challenge. He made his name on TV as the choirmaster in BBC Two's The Choir, a series which saw him bring together people from all walks of life and turn them into accomplished singers.

However back in April Gareth took on one of his toughest challenges yet, as he took over the reins of a primary school class for a term, helping to reinvigorate the educational experience for a group of 39 boys from an Essex school. Many of these likely lads hadn’t been fulfilling their educational potential, a story that can be found up and down the country as boys continue to lag behind girls in terms of literacy.

With the head teacher’s full consent, Gareth sets to work attempting to meet the challenge of increasing the boys’ reading age by six months in just eight short weeks. It’s a tough ask, and TV’s Mr Nice’s efforts make for fascinating viewing. You'll marvel at his tricks, which include special lessons, cleverly devised competition and infectious enthusiasm.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'For the first time, more women than men in the United States received doctoral degrees last year, the culmination of decades of change in the status of women at colleges nationwide.

The number of women at every level of academia has been rising for decades. Women now hold a nearly 3-to-2 majority in undergraduate and graduate education. Doctoral study was the last holdout - the only remaining area of higher education that still had an enduring male majority.

Of the doctoral degrees awarded in the 2008-09 academic year, 28,962 went to women and 28,469 to men, according to an annual enrollment report from the Council of Graduate Schools, based in Washington.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Sometimes you just have to feel sorry for President Obama. Having recently appointed Austan Goolsbee to his economic team, feminists are outraged that Obama chose a man to replace Christina Romer. "Many women have become the sole breadwinners, but because of the wage gap, as the sole breadwinner they can't provide for their families as men can," Terry O'Neill, head of the National Organization for Women, said. "If you had half of the economic advisers being women, I think that perspective would come to the forefront."

In one sense, O'Neill is right about a wage gap -- on average, women earn about 80 cents to a man's dollar. Could this mean feminists and Democrats actually have a point on this one? Not a chance. In lieu of the recent 39th anniversary of "Women's Equality Day" and O'Neill's remarks, it is imperative we revisit the wage gap myth. As much as special-interest groups and the media love to parrot the 80 cent statistic, it is hardly due to gender discrimination.'