Story here. Excerpt:

'A judge's decision to free a Canadian mother convicted of strangling her 14-year-old daughter with a head scarf has prompted growing outrage from victims' advocates groups.

A suspended sentence was given to Aset Magomadova, 40, by Court of Queen's Bench Justice Sal LoVecchio on Thursday, stunning a national victims' group based in Toronto, the Vancouver Sun reports.

"I really strongly disagree," said Joe Wamback, founder and chairman of the Canadian Crime Victims Foundation. "It sends a message to the rest of the community and the world that her daughter's life was valueless."'

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Ed. note: Barbara Kay comments here. Excerpt:

A reminder that the new BBC Radio segment Men's Hour airs for the first time this Sunday.

With respect to the first episode, "Including features such as Thought for the Gay, Questions You Daren't Ask Your Doctor, M Music Crisis, Token Women, and Hoover the Studio or Apologise for Feminism"

The segment, which has already been referred to here, will feature host Tim Samuels. He has been quoted in an interview saying this about the show "I don't think men's magazines have moved on very far from the laddism of the '90s, so there's nowhere that really caters to what I think the modern man is. He's a mixture - a more complicated creature who wants to talk about emotions and feelings. I don't think there's currently space in the media to talk intelligently about relationships, work or the pressures of life. That's what we're trying to do."

Article here. Excerpt:

'The accolade of being chosen as head boy or girl is often the proudest moment of a pupil's young life.

But one mixed comprehensive has dispensed with its tradition of having one of each - because the boys are not up to scratch.

For the first time since it was founded in 1959, Acle High School in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, will have two head girls. And in a further snub to the boys, the two deputy positions have also been filled by girls.
...

Headmaster Tim Phillips admitted many pupils had objected to his decision but insisted it was right.
...
'I believe there is a wider issue of why the strongest boys don't put themselves forward for senior positions and we will be looking to work on that with students.'
...
Those who applied had to submit an application and be interviewed by the head and two teachers. Ten girls and two boys were selected.

Denise Hines and Emily Douglas have published the first article from their project on male victims of partner abuse entitled "A Closer Look at Men Who Sustain Intimate Terrorism by Women", appearing in "Partner Abuse", Volume 1, Number 3 and Men's Experiences with Partner Aggression Project can also be accessed through the Men’s Experiences with Partner Aggression Project website.

More at New Perspectives on Partner Abuse.
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Ed. note: Already discussed on MANN here, but the foregoing gives a bit more information.

This was the headline video in the newsletter email I received today from the Big Think website.

Video and transcript both provided.

Feminist Attorney, Gloria Allred: "There is No In Between"

Via Abusegate Bob:

Dear colleagues and friends,

Emily Douglas and I are proud to share with you our first published article from our project on men's experiences with partner aggression. It was published this month in the journal Partner Abuse, and is attached. We have another article about to be released in a month or two in the Journal of Aggression, Conflict, and Peace Research, and we will share that when it is released. A draft of that article, along with recent conference presentations and media mentions can be found on our webpage: http://www.clarku.edu/faculty/dhines/results.htm

All the best,

Denise A. Hines, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor
Clark University

Blog entry here.

'Because of problems in the family court system, when a divorced or never-married military parent deploys overseas, they often face the possibility of losing their custodial arrangement and their relationship with their children. Fathers and Families and its legislative representative Michael Robinson have been at the forefront of this issue, successfully working to pass military parent legislation in dozens of states.

In 2003, Fathers and Families publicized the heartbreaking case of Lt. Gary S., a San Diego-based US Navy SEAL who had his child permanently moved from California to the Middle East against his will while he was deployed in Afghanistan after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The first success on this issue occurred in 2005 under Robinson’s leadership with the passage of California SB 1082. SB 1082 addressed the way parents who serve are often taken advantage of in custody and family law matters while they are deployed, and helped resolve the child support nightmare many mobilized reservists face.'

Article here. If you're divorced or in the process of a divorce you should definitely lock down your Facebook and other social sites. Excerpt:

'Facebook and other social networks, such as Twitter, Flickr, Photobucket and MySpace, are becoming the latest legal tool in divorce and child-support battles.

Lawyers and private investigators collecting background on a client's ex-spouse are trolling the websites as a quick and easy way to catch someone doing something they don't want brought up in court -- snapshots of snuggling with a mistress, seminude photos with children nearby or drunken party pictures from a bar on a weekend a child is visiting.

"It's happening a lot," said lawyer Mark O'Mara.

Orlando lawyer Diana Tennis remembered a case in which her client was fighting for more time with his child. Tennis came across a Facebook picture of the opposing parent's new boyfriend proudly posing with a gun he'd just purchased.

"It can be used as leverage," she said, adding that's not the image the opposing parent wanted to portray before a judge.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'INDIANAPOLIS -- When Shannon Ellis became pregnant two years ago, it was a surprise to family members. They had been told her husband had undergone a vasectomy.

But Ellis and her husband told friends and family the husband had had the procedure reversed.

That wasn't the case.

The truth, confirmed by a DNA test, was criminal. The father, the test showed, was a 14-year-old relative of Ellis' husband.

Shannon Ellis, then 34, had coaxed the boy into having sex with her on several occasions in 2007 and 2008. She is facing felony charges of sexual misconduct with a minor and already has entered into a plea agreement.

"This has damaged him for life," the teen's mother said. "She took away so many 'firsts' for him: becoming a father, seeing his child get her first tooth and taking her first step. Shannon needs to pay for what she did."

Ellis will be sentenced next month. The plea agreement caps her jail time at a maximum of 10 years. The prosecutor has not asked for minimum jail time.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The following is an article by Fathers & Families Board Member, Robert Franklin, Esq.:

"Given the unusual facts of this case, and recognizing the inherent, equitable rights of biological parents who are deprived of parenting through no fault of their own, the grant of joint custody to Trevor cannot prevent Cahill from going forward with his paternity action."

That´s the Supreme Court of Kentucky writing in this case (Leagle, 6/17/10). Let me repeat the key words: "recognizing the inherent, equitable rights of biological parents who are deprived of parenting through no fault of their own…" Let me be clear; those words have the power to blaze trails into the law governing paternity fraud and adoption where none have gone before. They were written by the highest court in the state.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Cases like this are fair more common than many people think. Paternity fraud is a term that was introduced by men’s rights groups to describe when a mother names a man as the biological father even though she knows (or suspects) he is not actually the father. This paternal discrepancy happens when a man believes he is the father of a child, but the child is identified as biologically being fathered by another man.

In an article published several years ago in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health it was reported that close to 1 in 25 fathers are unknowingly raising another man’s child. These figures are startling to many men and more and more people are turning to DNA paternity testing services to scientifically determine paternity.

Article here. Excerpt:

Article here. Excerpt:

Story here. Excerpt:

'SANTA ANA – A 25-year-old Santa Ana woman was sentenced to a year in jail Friday for sending hundreds of threatening text messages – to herself.

Jeanne Mundango Manunga's criminal problem was that she blamed the harassing text messages on an ex-boyfriend and his sister-in-law, and reported them to the police.

They were arrested on false charges of making criminal threats and required to post thousands of dollars in bail. The sister-in-law was arrested three times, and spent some time in custody before she could gather enough funds to pay the bail on her third arrest.

A jury convicted Manunga of three felony counts of false imprisonment by fraud or deceit and two misdemeanor counts of making a false police report in May.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Sociologist Joel Best once said, “A bad statistic is harder to kill than a vampire.” And no field is more rife with bad statistics than domestic violence.

It would seem that the best time to launch a bad statistic about domestic violence is during massively attended sporting events. A gullible public seems to think that high levels of testosterone on a playing field plus alcohol just naturally translates into an astronomical escalation of male fans beating up on their wives and girlfriends.
...
Why do these myths persist? Because they make great copy and because there is something mesmerizing about a statistic that freezes journalistic brains, especially when the statistics bolster common cultural biases or trends. And one especially pejorative but persisting cultural trend is the impunity with which all men can be demonized. The moral of these hoaxes is to view statistics that paint a negative picture of unusually high numbers of men with deep suspicion.'