Article here. Excerpt:

'News of Sandra Bullock’s choice to have her adopted son circumcised has tickled the Jewish media: Isn’t it cool that non-Jews are getting their kids circumcised, too? And not just the snip-n-clip way, but the Jewish way, with a mohel.

What makes it more interesting, though, is that a high-profile celeb like Bullock is taking up the ritual during a period of sharp decline. According to a 2008 L.A. Times article, ritual circumcision of American boys dropped from 85% in 1965 to 56% in 2005. Unless performed for religious reasons, the story said, many parents chose to opt out because of questionable medical benefits and the stigma of genital mutilation. Then came a startling new development when a study out of Africa found that circumcised males were “51% to 60% less likely to acquire HIV from heterosexual vaginal sex with an infected woman.”'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The betting is that the Labor Department's Friday snapshot of the job market will show that employers added workers in April, perhaps even that the unemployment rate fell.

That would be good news, but not good enough. It's hard to exaggerate how bad the job market is. Here's one arresting fact: One of every five men 25 to 54 isn't working.

Even more alarming, the jobs that many of these men, or those like them, once had in construction, factories and offices aren't coming back. "A good guess...is that when the economy recovers five years from now, one in six men who are 25 to 54 will not be working," Lawrence Summers, the president's economic adviser, said the other day.
...
For 50 years, the fraction of men with jobs in what once were prime earning years has been trending down. Over the same decades, the share of women who work has been rising, a significant social change that lately has cushioned the blow of Dad's unemployment for many couples.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Kansas Athletics has reached an agreement with the government addressing a complaint that it discriminates against male athletes.

KU will have to submit documentation and a plan to ensure it is in full compliance with the law as part of the agreement, which resolves a Title IX complaint filed last November.

The agreement doesn’t mean KU is out of compliance with Title IX, but was a mutually agreed upon course of action to resolve the complaint between KU and the Office of Civil Rights, which oversees Title IX regulations.

Ron Neugent, a Wichita dentist and former KU swimmer who was a member of the 1980 Olympic team, filed the initial complaint against KU using the civil rights legislation long used to bring about equality for women.

At Kansas Athletics today, unlike many cases in the past, men are the under-represented gender. Though men and women are enrolled at KU in about equal rates, women comprise nearly 55 percent of the total student-athletes at the university.

Article here. Excerpt:

'eminism is a word that some people wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. Though it is sometimes perceived as a unilateral campaign against men, women’s rights and gender equality groups are increasingly presenting it as a movement in which people of all genders can be involved. Many scholars, activists, and student leaders are coming to redefine the term. Many of these are men.

“As a guy, I’m happy to be a feminist,” says Hugo Van Vuuren ’07, a workshop leader at the Office of Sexual Response and Prevention and the co-founder of MenSpeakUp, a website that promotes gender equality. “All it means is that you believe in equal rights.”
...
Both Marine and Castro Samayoa suggest ways for men to become respectfully involved and supportive of feminism.

Marine says that men can be more effective by confronting other men about issues of gender equality.

“When a man addresses another man about a problem in society, he may be more likely to see it as something pertinent to his own life than if a woman brought it up,” she says.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Harper government's latest showdown with women's rights groups, suggests the time has come for Canadian women -- and men -- to reclaim the word feminist. Bring it back to its mainstream roots.

A day after Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth warned aid groups that they risk a backlash if they don't "shut the f---up," news reports revealed Status of Women funding for at least 14 women's groups wasn't renewed for the current fiscal year.

According to the government, these organizations are victims of limited resources, even though they do valuable work that advances the cause of women's health, rights and equality.

So what does feminism have to do with it?

If the word were used properly, there would be less of a divide that occurs when programs rightly or wrongly get cut. Feminism simply means a belief that all people are equal, regardless of gender.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Two women are now facing felony charges after filing a false rape report this weekend in Fort Smith. Police arrested 19-year-old Heather Smith and her 21-year-old roommate Jeni Melton, after they claimed two unidentified men came into their apartment and raped Smith.
...
The women told police they had left Roosters around 3 a.m. and shortly after they arrived at their residents on Birnie Avenue, two men came into their home uninvited. According to the report, one suspect pinned Melton to the floor, while the second raped Smith in a back bedroom.
...
After several interviews and a 12-hour investigation, both men were released and will not face any charges. An additional witness to the incident came forward and police discovered major discrepancies in the initial allegations.

Smith and Melton were re-interviewed, arrested and charged with Filing a False Police Report, which is a felony. Both are being held in the Sebastian County Detention Center without bond.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Auckland, May 4 (IANS) A New Zealand teenager has admitted she falsely accused a man of raping her.

Christchurch District Court Judge Stephen Erber Tuesday told the 19-year-old student that her lies had “devalued the currency” for women who made genuine complaints of rape, New Zealand Herald reported.

Erber said that people may look at other women’s complaints sceptically because of her actions.

The teenager pleaded guilty in court to the charge of making a false statement.

“In explanation, she stated she did it because she liked the attention,” Constable Michael Tualii, the police prosecutor, was quoted as telling the court.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A Latrobe woman, who allegedly instigated an attack on a man she accused of sexual assault, has been charged with falsely accusing another man of raping her weeks earlier.

Felisha Hardison, 24, of 14 W. Harrison Ave., was arraigned yesterday by District Judge Michael Mahady for allegedly filing a false report with Latrobe police on March 31.

Hardison told police she had been raped by a man with whom she has three children. Hardison claimed the man forced her to have sex with him, punched her and choked her, and videotaped the act with his cell phone camera.

The man denied the allegations and said Hardison made the accusations to get custody of one of their children. A review of the cell phone camera footage contradicted Hardison's claims of rape and showed the two had consensual sex, police said.

Hardison was arraigned on the charge yesterday, the same day she and five others faced a preliminary hearing on charges they assaulted another man Hardison had accused of sexual assault.'

Story here.

'(UALR Public Radio) - Police say the mother of a woman accused of filing a false rape accusation at Fort Smith now faces a charge as well.

A news release from Fort Smith police says 39-year-old Ericka Lee Church of Sallisaw, Okla., has been charged with harassing communications, a misdemeanor.

The release said Church made harassing phone calls and sent text messages and Face Book postings to Steven David, accusing him of raping her daughter.

David was one of two men accused by Church's daughter, Heather Smith also known as Heather Boss and another woman of raping Smith. Fort Smith police say they have cleared both men of the accusations, and have charged both women with filing a false police report, a felony.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'An Oakland University student admitted to police that she falsely reported she had been raped by two men to get attention and support from her boyfriend, according to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office.

Now Jessica Joe is facing a felony charge herself.

According to the sheriff’s office, the 21-year-old Detroit resident was arraigned Tuesday in 52-3 District Court in Rochester Hills on a count of filing a false report of a felony and was released on a $10,000 personal bond.

Joe, police said, reported on April 24 that she was walking out of the CVS Pharmacy at Adams and Walton, when she was grabbed by two men and dragged into a van parked next to her car. She told police that the men pulled her clothing off and one man drove around, while the other man raped her and was eventually pushed out of the van in the lot, according to the sheriff’s office.'

Abusegate Bob has penned a series of new articles covering the hearing and VAWA in general. Good news includes the fact that male DV victims were indeed brought up at the hearing. This is a start; they have been invisible and to government officials and unmentioned since VAWA started. Progress. See http://abusegate.mensnewsdaily.com/

Note that most of the testimony delivered today is available for download as .pdf files. Go to the hearing page and look at the right-hand column under "Witness Testimony". You can download and read the statements. Of note is Dr. Gelles' statement which discusses on pages 6 and 7 of the .pdf file the lack of scope of the Act for male and other victims of DV. In his conclusion he states that this is an opportunity to revisit the scope of VAWA and to start including men in its consideration but also disputes the notion that the economic downturn we are in is causing an increase in DV generally.

I have read the other statements. [I am including contact information for those who made them. But if you choose to contact any of them and voice your concerns, I urge you to be factual and polite. (I suggest where possible that you use email over telephone since it is harder to get into heated arguments over email.) You will be a lot more persuasive if you point out the well-documented facts around male DV victims vs. being accusatory and making unproductive comments about, say, their relatives.] My take:

The Honorable Susan Carbon: No mention at all of male DV victims except on page 10 of the .pdf where she says: '...According to the 2007 "Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance" survey...approximately 10% of adolescents nationwide reported being hit, slapped, or physically hurt by a boyfriend or girlfriend in the past year.' (Contact here)

From Abusegate Bob:

On Wednesday May 5 at 10am Eastern time, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Violence Against Women Act. The hearing page is here: http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?id=4562

Even though you could not be there in person, you CAN submit testimony to the Committee. It's simple; just write a concise, polite letter about your experiences with VAWA, and email to Senators Leahy (Democrat of Vermont) and Sessions (Republican of Alabama). It is preferable that your letter not be longer than one page.

Just fill in the missing places in the draft letter below, and email it to:

Anya McMurray (Leahy's staffer): Anya_McMurray-at-judiciary-dem.senate.gov
Bradley Hayes (Sessions' staffer): Bradley_Hayes-at-judiciary-rep.senate.gov

Article here. Excerpt:

'CALGARY - Minutes after she is alleged to have fatally shot her common-law husband Kevin Dunseath in the head, Lela Mae La France phoned a friend looking for drugs, court heard Tuesday.

Claude St. Germaine testified he received the call from La France just after midnight on Aug. 9, 2008, requesting crack cocaine and telling him, "I killed him."

St. Germaine said he put his cell phone on speaker phone at the rural home, so three friends could hear what she was saying to La France on the call from hers and Dunseath's home in Strathmore, 40 kilometres east of Calgary.

"She said, 'I finally did it, I did what we had discussed, I killed him,'" the witness told Crown prosecutor Eric Tolppanen.

La France, 40, on trial for second-degree murder, has pleaded not guilty in connection with the death of Dunseath, 46.'

Article here. This is some very good exposure for this issue. Dr. Helen Smith is widely-syndicated and her column appear all over the place. Just Google "Ask Dr. Helen" to see. Excerpt:

'The other day I received an email from reader Kevin who is concerned about the increase in the depiction of sexual violence — particularly that of genital assault — against men in our society:

Dear Dr. Helen,

I want to ask you about something because you seem to be a logical and rational person and I am having trouble finding any logical, rational people who have the guts to speak out about this one particular issue.

Ever since I was a kid I have noticed a steady rise in the depictions of sexual violence against males in movies, and later in television. It was obvious that these depictions, always the hero sexually assaulting the villain and almost never the other way around, were encouraging this kind of sexual violence against males. As soon as it became a regular Disney staple it became a regular part of every boy’s life, something he had to endure repeatedly as part of growing up. Even as a kid I was baffled by parents willingness to let this go and not protest it. ...