Article here. Excerpt:

'Numerous studies, in particular for the U.S., have shown that individuals in occupations with high injury risk are compensated for that risk by corresponding bonus payments. At the same time, male workers are overrepresented in the most dangerous occupations like scaffolders or miners, while females typically work in relatively safe occupations with respect to occupational injuries. It is therefore remarkable that almost all studies analyzing the gender wage gap have disregarded different occupational injury risks as a potential explanatory variable for observed gender wage differentials.

Story here. Excerpt:

'BARTOW | Danielle Jones was once regarded as a dedicated sixth-grade science teacher with a knack for mentoring at-risk students.

Now, the 33-year-old Auburndale woman has been found guilty of having sex with four teenage boys, ranging in age from 14 to 16 years old. Two of the boys were her former students.

She faces up to life imprisonment at her Friday sentencing hearing. A score sheet prepared for Jones' case shows her lowest recommended sentence to be about 55 years.

Circuit Judge Donald Jacobsen can impose a lower sentence but would have to provide a written explanation if he chose to do so.
...
She said a double standard exists where boys are not treated as victims when they are sexually abused by women.
...
"If she is attractive, we give her permission to sexually abuse the boy," said Duncan.

Story here. Excerpt:

'He was made out to be a rampaging "Rambo," an armed and dangerous beast who raped his wife and later tried to kidnap her.

But it turned out that it was all wrong. Stephen Vaughn was innocent.

When the gavel finally came down, it was clear that Vaughn was not much more than a hapless character in an existential nightmare caused, in part, by his own poor judgment.

According to his attorney, Vaughn was primarily a victim of a prosecutorial process that operates under the assumption that the husband must always be guilty in domestic disputes in which violence is alleged.

A passing glance suggests that the system actually worked in the end. After all, an Orange County grand jury threw out the 2008 rape charge. Last month, a Westchester County found Vaughn not guilty of attempted kidnapping and a host of lesser charges.'

Piece here. Excerpt:

'From where I sit I think women today, particularly in the South, have it pretty darn good.

We are enjoying the steady spread of women’s equality in the workplace, home and school system while still being treated like damsels in distress when it comes to our lifestyle.

Are we confused? Are we screaming to be treated equally while our actions are saying something else?

In a world of so-called gender equality, where do we differentiate between independence and chivalrous traditions?

Even though the feminist movement brought the right to vote and the beginning of equal pay for women, our demands for independence have been shadowed by the fact that we still expect special treatment.

Should we consider our rights and the way we clarify them to be all or nothing? Can we have our cake and eat it, too?'

News release here. Excerpt:

As of August, the male unemployment rate was 10.1 opposed to 7.6 for women.

'In August, construction employment declined by 65,000, in line with the trend since May. Monthly losses had averaged 117,000 over the 6 months ending in April. Employment in the construction industry has contracted by 1.4 million since the onset of the recession. Starting in early 2009, the larger share of monthly job losses shifted from the residential to the nonresidential and heavy construction components. In mining, employment declined by 9,000 over the month.

Employment in health care continued to rise in August (28,000), with gains in ambulatory care and in nursing and residential care. Employment in hospitals was little changed in August; job growth in the industry slowed in early 2009 and employment has been flat since May. Health care has added 544,000 jobs since the start of the recession.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'NBC News will devote a significant amount of time and attention next month to the changing roles of contemporary women, much of it based on a study initiated by Maria Shriver, the one-time NBC correspondent who is married to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California.

NBC is describing the project as an effort to “educate the public on the current state of women in America.” The news division is planning to include coverage related to the study over a full week of its evening newscast and three mornings on the “Today” show.

“The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything,” is modeled on a study undertaken almost 50 years ago during the administration of John F. Kennedy, Ms. Shriver’s uncle, and led by Eleanor Roosevelt. Ms. Shriver said that this one was not a government based study, however.'

From an IA email alert:

'Help stop the AAP and AAFP from recommending circumcision!

Right now, both the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) are considering recommending infant circumcision for all baby boys – for the first time in history.

We need to show the medical community that circumcision is unnecessary, harmful and ethically wrong – before it’s too late.'

They are asking for donations, too.

Contact info for AAP and AAFP:

American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP): here.
American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP): here.

Story here. Good for her! Now why again are women not by default subject to selective service (aka the draft) should it be activated? Seems to me that with such weapons as rifles, a greater amount of physical strength isn't as necessary as it was back before the invention of firearms. Excerpt:

'Rukhsana Kausar, 21, was with her parents and brother in Jammu and Kashmir when three gunmen, believed to be Pakistani militants, forced their way in and demanded food and beds for the night.

Their house in Shahdra Sharief, Rajouri district, is about 20 miles from the ceasefire line between Indian and Pakistani forces.
...
Militants often demand food and lodging in nearby villages.

When they forced their way into Miss Kausar’s home, her father Noor Mohammad refused their demands and was attacked.

Story here. Excerpt:

'[Vanessa] George, and her co-accused, all aged 39 and parents themselves, appeared at Bristol Crown court, facing a combined total of 37 charges, including making and distributing indecent images of children.
...
George admitted seven sexual assaults and six counts of distributing and making indecent pictures of children.
...
Blanchard pleaded guilty to 17 child pornography counts and two sexual assaults on children. He also admitted a further charge of possessing extreme pornography.

Allen pleaded guilty to four child sex assaults and one count of distributing an indecent image.
...
George, who abused babies and toddlers in her care, swapped her collection of images with the two other accused, it emerged.

The married mother met her accomplices “entirely by chance” in a Facebook chat room.

George used what she termed her “fun phone” to take 150 obscene images of infants in her care.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A grandmother and an aunt pleaded guilty on Tuesday to starving to death a four-year-old boy who weighed less than nine kilograms when he was found last year at his home in central Mississippi.

Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon accepted capital murder pleas from Austin Watkins' grandmother, Janice Mowdy, 43, and aunt, 22-year-old Stephanie Bell.

In exchange for the guilty pleas, the judge sentenced the women to life in prison. They could have faced the death penalty if a jury had convicted them.'

---

Ed. note: Reported in an Australian paper, but the crime referred to herein occurred in the US.

Article here. Excerpt:

'ORLANDO, Fla. — Attorneys for a Florida woman charged with killing her 2-year-old daughter want to prevent prosecutors from seeking the death penalty and said Wednesday that charges against her should be dropped.
...
Anthony's attorneys said that prosecutors can't prove first-degree murder was committed or that Anthony ever abused her daughter, Caylee.

"Specifically, the state cannot establish whether Caylee Anthony's death was accidental, natural, or the result of an intentional or negligent homicide," they said.'

Essay here. Excerpt:

'In Australia as in many another place, it has become so familiar a news item we can call it hackneyed. It croaks from the radio as we grump through our Monday breakfast: the missing dad found this weekend in his car at some abandoned spot, his children dead in their seatbelts beside him — shot or poisoned by fumes from the exhaust. There is no sympathy for such a father; perhaps there should not be. Our feelings go out conventionally to the innocent lives the dad has taken with him, and perhaps, as we sip our coffee, we catch mention of a distraught mother — who’s released her darlings on an ‘access’ or ‘contact’ visit, for Father’s Day perhaps or for one of the children’s birthdays — only to see the lives most precious to her snuffed out by an oaf who is now exposed for all to see as the brutal, ‘abusive’, self-obsessed pig that she’d always said he was.

That’s what is reported, and it’s what we see.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Government announced that mothers who decide to return to work after six months can hand over, in effect, the remainder of their maternity leave to fathers.

The change means either party can receive the statutory rate of £123 a week if they chose to take the time off work when the child is aged between six and nine months old. After that, whichever partner has the 'maternal' role, they can take the following three months of leave unpaid.
...
The Federation of Small Businesses also cautioned the new law was wide open to abuse and fraud because it could be easy for a man to take time off and be paid at the same time as his wife was taking time off work and also being paid.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'ATLANTA, Sept. 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In 2003, The American Association of Blood Banks found that in almost 30 percent of the paternity tests conducted the man being tested is not the biological father.

"This means millions of fathers may unknowingly be raising children who are not theirs biologically. When a man discovers the truth about the child's parentage, this can have a far-reaching emotional impact upon him, the child, and the families involved like John Edwards' situation," said Carnell Smith PfV, renowned paternity fraud expert and director of U.S. Citizens Against Paternity Fraud ( http://www.PaternityFraud.com ).

Smith said, "Surprisingly there has been no formal study of this - until now."

Article here. Excerpt:

'IRVING, Texas, Sept. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- To help break the cycle of domestic violence, men must get more involved in speaking out against the problem and become advocates for change.

That was one of the primary messages of the 4th Annual Verizon Foundation Domestic Violence Prevention Summit held Thursday (Sept. 24) at the Omni Mandalay Hotel.

"Domestic violence is not just a women's issue," said actor and Verizon Foundation Community Champion Victor Rivers. "As a child, I was a victim of abuse and saw my father belittle and attack my mother. To break the cycle of violence, I'm calling on men to become more involved in the issue and make it a point to teach their children that domestic violence is never acceptable."

According to a U.S. Department of Justice study on intimate partner violence, 1 out of every 4 women will experience domestic violence.'