It seems the "gendered approach" we are hearing about regarding the efforts to help Haiti is far from new nor is it restricted to just a few charitable organizations, or ones that happen to be run or supported by feminists as such.

Take a look at care.org. I saw an ad on TV just today saying care.org was supporting relief efforts in Haiti and focusing on women and children (see the special Haiti page here). Well if they said they would be focusing on men and children they would probably guess that there would be fewer donations - and alas, they would be right. But how about just saying the people there need help and they are providing it? No, it needs to be about "women and children" - again. There are counter-examples of charitable groups not openly stating that they seek to help "women and children" - for example, Plan International USA says it seeks to help "children and their families".

Via Jeremy S.: Regarding Body in backyard is missing Fla. lottery winner's

"What is the point of including this in the article? It seems to me it is a reporter's way of biasing the reader to think that since he didn't pay child support (and has a CRIMINAL record for it), he is somehow a lower life form and hence not deserving of any pity or consideration. He is scum, therefore he deserved to be murdered. And of course we note that his purchases are enumerated too - again to bias the reader - "he had no right to any of the money anyway - he didn't pay child support so murdering him to take it away is not a big deal" seems to be the message. And also ,"Rolex from a Pawn shop".

What difference does it make where he bought it as long as he did so legally - would the reporter had said "Rolex from WalMart"? Again the implication that since he used the money to buy something from a pawn shop, he doesn't deserve to live. While I wouldn't go to a pawn shop, they are legitimate businesses and apparently one can get some fairly good bargains there.

Link to media release here (.pdf file). Excerpt:

'Women in regional South Australia are being offered free basic bushfire safety skills workshops to assist them in becoming Bushfire Ready. This follows a successful pilot program offered on Eyre Peninsula in 2008.

Fiona Dunstan, Manager Community Education and Public Warnings, says “The workshops provide women with a safe non-threatening setting to learn new skills to protect their families and livelihoods, covering both information and providing practical sessions over two sessions”.

“Feedback from women who attended the previous program was excellent,” she said.'

This was reported in an article on page 8 of the Saturday, 30th January edition of Adelaide newspaper "The Advertiser" (the on-line version can only be accessed through a paid subscriber service), a rag owned by Murdoch's News Limited which recently introduced a Friday "Women's Weekly", section and no longer pretend to be anything except a glorified women's magazine.

Story here. Excerpt:

' ST. PETERSBURG — Police said a St. Petersburg woman took a TV dispute too far Tuesday night when she stabbed and scalded her boyfriend over "American Idol.''

Police arrested Cynthia E. Bettis-Ware, 52, on a charge of first-degree attempted murder of Kevin Johnson, 47.

It happened at 11:22 p.m. at the Empress Motel, 1501 Martin Luther King St. N, which the couple listed as their permanent address, said police spokeswoman Jennifer Dawkins.'

Via Jeremy S.: Dated Jan 29, 1:30 AM: Captured by cellphone photography, a picture of signs in the windows to The University of Ottawa Women's Resource Centre's hate speech sent to FathersCan by a third party, via a student at Ottawa University. It's an "In the Window Now" situation. Male Students report being outraged.

FathersCan asks what would be the public and media reaction be if the wording was somewhat different and reflected a male perspective about dangers to women? The reader can use their imagination: Would a 'Men's Resource Centre' be allowed to display something akin to this (even were there to be such a resource centre, which there isn't) So, hate speech or not? Does the law allow this? Not for men.

---
Ed. note: One thing is to contact them and the University administration (see below). You have the "smoking gun" in the form of this picture. Sunlight, as I have said before, has a cleansing effect.

Article here. Excerpt:

'A REPORT commissioned by the Rudd government recommends major changes to the controversial shared parenting law introduced by former prime minister John Howard, saying it has put women and children at risk.

The report by retired Family Court judge Richard Chisholm says the law has also set fathers up to believe they are entitled to a 50-50 time split with their children after divorce, when this was never the parliament's intention, nor part of the law. The report into family law was ordered by Attorney-General Robert McClelland, in response to the shocking death of four-year-old Melbourne girl Darcey Freeman, who was thrown to her death from the West Gate Bridge one year ago.

Her father, Arthur Freeman, is now facing a murder charge.

In launching the report yesterday, Mr McClelland said it was "motivated at least in part by the very tragic events, in the case of Darcey Freeman".'

National Coalition for Men: President Obama Speech Spreads More Myths About Gender Pay Gap

Obama Ignores Department of Labor Study that Proves the Gender Pay Gap A Woman's Option

In his presentation, President Obama said: "We're going to crack down on violations of equal pay laws - so that women get equal pay for an equal day's work." In stating this, says Angelucci, "President Obama helped spread the myth that the gender pay gap is due to sex discrimination."

R.I.P., Mr. Salinger. Article here. Excerpt:

NEW YORK – J.D. Salinger, the legendary author, youth hero and fugitive from fame whose "The Catcher in the Rye" shocked and inspired a world he increasingly shunned, has died. He was 91.

Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author's son, actor Matt Salinger, said in a statement from Salinger's longtime literary representative, Harold Ober Associates, Inc. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in a small, remote house in Cornish, N.H.

"The Catcher in the Rye," with its immortal teenage protagonist, the twisted, rebellious Holden Caulfield, came out in 1951, a time of anxious, Cold War conformity and the dawn of modern adolescence. The Book-of-the-Month Club, which made "Catcher" a featured selection, advised that for "anyone who has ever brought up a son" the novel will be "a source of wonder and delight — and concern."

Story here. Excerpt:

'HAMPTON - After beating him with a frying pan and stabbing him with a kitchen knife, a Rothesay woman avoided jailtime and returned home with her victim/boyfriend.

Judge Henrik Tonning couldn't deny if the male/female roles were reversed, the penalty would likely be harsher.

Instead, he followed the joint recommendation of Crown prosecutor Kelly Winchester and defence lawyer Al Levine by sentencing Mary Lisa Joyce Carrier to a six-month conditional sentence, followed by one year's probation for assault causing bodily harm.

Carrier, 21, sat next to the boyfriend she assaulted and still lives with during her sentencing in Hampton provincial court. When she stood to be sentenced, he stood with her and often put his arm around her.
...
He said if the role was revered and it was a man who beat his girlfriend with a frying pan and then stabbed her repeatedly, he is "doubtful" the sentence would be as light.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The results of a major piece of government research on partner abuse in Scotland slipped out relatively unreported before Christmas. The new Scottish findings mirror much Australian and international domestic violence research showing family violence against men is frequent and often goes unreported.

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey 2008-09: Partner Abuse was published by Scotland’s Chief Statistician on December 15th 2009. The research was conducted with 16,000 interviewees and represents the most comprehensive investigation to date into the extent of partner abuse in Scotland.

Interviewees were asked about their experience of physical or psychological partner abuse both since the age of 16 and within the preceding 12 months. The findings included:

• 18% of adults who had had at least one partner since the age of 16 reported having experienced at least one form of partner abuse. The figure for women was 20.9% and for men 15.3%.

Article here. (Daily Mail has an article by Natasha Walter also on this topic.) Excerpt:

'"In previous generations many women had to repress their physical needs and experiences in order to fall in with social conventions, and feminism was needed to release them from the cage of chastity," writes Walter. "But what I heard from some women is that they feel there is now a new cage holding them back from the liberation they sought, a cage in which repression of emotions takes the place of repression of physical needs." In short, they daren't feel because it might limit the exercise of their freedom. "It's my choice," is now an argument-clincher for any kind of louche behaviour.

Article here. Excerpt:

"Record numbers of women are being arrested for violent crimes, it was revealed today.

Annual criminal justice statistics showed 88,139 women were arrested for violent offences in a single year - or nearly 250 every day. That is an increase of nearly 1,000 on a year earlier. At the same time the number of men arrested for violent crimes fell by 10,000.
...
The rise in arrests means that for the second consecutive year women were more likely to be held for crimes of violence than for any other offence. It overtook shoplifting for the first time in 2005/6. Today's figures, published by the Ministry of Justice and covering 2007/8, showed arrests of women for theft continued to fall, by nearly 3,000 to 77,425.
...
Violence against the person - a category which includes manslaughter, assault and grievous bodily harm - accounted for 35% of all crimes committed by women.

Story here. Excerpt:

'The young pledge said she was told the beatings would "humble" her, that each flesh-rending strike with a wooden paddle would build love and trust between sorority sisters.

It wasn’t hazing, she said they told her. The women of Sigma Gamma Rho at Rutgers University didn’t condone hazing.

For seven nights the beatings went on, she said. In all, she was struck 201 times. On the eighth day — unable to sit, her buttocks covered with blood clots and welts — she went to the hospital. Then she reported it to the university.

Today, Rutgers police said they had arrested six members of the sorority on charges of aggravated hazing, alleging they repeatedly beat at least three pledges between Jan. 18 and Jan. 25. A university official, vice president of student affairs Greg Blimling, and the pledge who spoke to The Star-Ledger put the number of victims at seven.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'In addressing intimate partner violence, the focus is usually on women who are physically battered by husbands or boyfriends. However, women sometimes hurt their partners as well.
Previous Section

Women are doing virtually everything these days that men are—working as doctors, lawyers, and rocket scientists; flying helicopters in combat; riding horses in the Kentucky Derby. And physically assaulting their spouses or partners.

In fact, when it comes to nonreciprocal violence between intimate partners, women are more often the perpetrators.

These findings on intimate partner violence come from a study conducted by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The lead investigator was Daniel Whitaker, Ph.D., a behavioral scientist and team leader at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (which is part of the CDC). Results were published in the May Journal of Public Health.'

From IA's recent email:

'Over the history of circumcision, there's been one justification after another," said Intact America's Georganne Chapin in a Washington Post article reviewing the debate over routine circumcision last week.

Hundreds of concerned readers have written comments in response to the article's apparent bias in favor of circumcision – and The Washington Post subsequently published a letter to the editor from John Geisheker of Doctors Opposing Circumcision. Read his letter to the editor and post your own comment >>

A new study finds little evidence that circumcision can prevent sexually transmitted infections, urinary tract infections, and penile cancer. Read the article >>