Article here. Excerpt:

'A hardline feminist has been chosen as the Government's new chief spokesman on families.

Dr Katherine Rake, who wants to see men bring up babies, will head the Family and Parenting Institute, a heavily state-financed organisation set up by Labour to speak for parents and children.'
...
'It has complained that women will never achieve equality with men at work without 'challenging the traditional roles of homemaker and breadwinner'.

Fawcett has also condemned Tory plans to give tax breaks to married couples, complaining that 'it penalises all those children living with unmarried parents or with one parent'.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'June 12, 2009 · On Father's Day, June 21, hundreds of Marines from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina will have been away from home for nearly a month. While the Marines are in Afghanistan, their children are learning to get along without their dads. NPR is following the deployment of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Regiment, a unit of more than 800 Marines known as "America's Battalion." On the home front, the families of those deployed are coping with their absence.

American flags dot the street that leads to the home of Marine Sgt. Major Bob Breedan, the 2nd Battalion's top enlisted man. Breedan talked with NPR before his unit deployed to Afghanistan.

He said he has missed almost every milestone in his daughter's life. His wife Barbara didn't miss a thing.'

Via Marc A.: Story here. Excerpt:

'NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 12 - Kenyan men were crying foul on Friday for what they termed as ‘discrimination’ in the Budget delivered by Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday.

An organisation championing men’s rights said men were the biggest losers because their commodities were not zero-rated as was the case for those used by women.

“We were the biggest losers. Women were the winners because their cosmetics and jewelry were zero-rated,” Nderitu Njoka, chairman of the Maendeleo ya Wanaume told Capital News.'

Ed. note: Please forgive my ignorance of the workings of the government in Kenya or the role this budget plays in determining things like tax levels, etc. Can someone from Kenya or knowledgeable about the Kenyan budget/government process help me put this story into better context?

Article here. Excerpt:

'Here come the stats police.

Mobilized by distressingly low levels of public trust in official statistics, the U.K. government is embarking on a daring, and possibly unique, experiment. With broad support, Parliament in 2007 approved the formation of the U.K. Statistics Authority, a group with the budget, authority and independence to question other government agencies on the numbers they release to the public.

After its formation last year, the authority got off to a slow start, but it has already taken to task other government agencies for presenting data in a misleading way. Now, it is gearing up for audits on hot-button topics, such as crime statistics and education test scores, whose reliability has come into question.'

Article here. Note the stats:

'Female public servants make disability claims at roughly twice the rate of men. In 2008, women, who represent 54.4 per cent of the workforce, filed more than 70 per cent of all claims -- up from two-thirds in 2007.'

Note the excuse:
'"That likely reflects the fact that women face more pressures outside the office, Gordon said.

"It's a pretty well-known fact that women tend to be the main people who give home care, and they're trying to work to support the family as well. And there's a lot of single mothers who work."'

There is comments section below, let's get our voices heard.

Story here. The media could not have a more winning formula for sensationalism and luridness. Excerpt:

'Amanda Knox is a riddle. The expatriate American student has been the mysterious, ambivalent Mona Lisa face plastered across television, websites and newspapers since a few days after Halloween 2007. According to Italian authorities and their partisans in the blogosphere where her case has been strenuously debated, behind her beatific smile lies a psycho hedonist capable of depraved murder. But family and friends insist she's just a granola-crunching athlete and honor student from Seattle who has, through bad luck, become the poster child for the perils that await American girls caught up in the dark side of Italy.'

As always, if Amanda had been Adam, would the article be written the way it is? Would there be so much 'controversy' in the case. No.

Article here. Excerpt:

'PARIS, Texas - A teenager who has profound mental disabilities was sentenced to 100 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges in a sex abuse case involving his 6-year-old neighbor.

Aaron Hart, 18, of Paris, was arrested and charged after a neighbor found him fondling her stepson in September. The teen pleaded guilty to five counts, including aggravated sexual assault and indecency by contact, and a jury decided his punishment.
...
Hart has an IQ of 47 and was diagnosed as mentally disabled as a child. He never learned to read or write and speaks unsteadily.
...
"He couldn't understand the seriousness of what he did," said his father, Robert Hart. "I never dreamed they would think about sending him to prison. When they said 100 years — it was terror, pure terror, to me."'
...
Hart's appellate attorney, David Pearson, said the court-appointed doctor did the bare minimum to assess competency and ran tests geared for mental illness, not mental retardation.

He said an appeal will be filed.'

Article here.

'New fathers don't have to meet all the expectations mothers do, said Brett Singer in ParentDish, but why do so many people seem stuck on the silly "notion that women are somehow wired for parenting and men are not"? British newspapers are citing Michael Lewis' new book Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood as evidence that men have to adjust in order to love their children. In the age of modern parenting, that "sounds pretty old-fashioned to me."

Plenty of guys say men aren't natural parents, said Ellie White in Britain's The Sun. In addition to Michael Lewis, who writes that fatherhood can be "boring and demoralizing," there's Ben George, editor of the literary journal Ecotone, who says men are only beginning to talk openly about the "dark moments of fatherhood." And Fox News broadcaster Steve Doocy, author of the forthcoming book Tales From the Dad Side: Misadventures in Fatherhood, says men aren't wired for parenting the way women are.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Dear Abby: My sister has five children, all younger than 18. She has full custody and receives child support every month from her ex-husband.

The problem is, she has been spending that money on her boyfriends instead of her children. Because of it, they have been homeless twice, and it may happen again.

The only person in that household with a steady job is the oldest, but he can't support all of them by himself. How can I make my sister see how irresponsible and immature she is?

Dear Alarmed Auntie: Your sister's behavior is not only irresponsible, but also detrimental to the welfare of her children. If it's possible, contact their father and let him know what has been going on. Also contact Child Protective Services because although foster care is not ideal, it would be better than what's going on.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Equalities Minister Harriet Harman has been accused of over-stating the plight of women in the workplace: using misleading statistics to make it look as though female workers are having a tougher time than they really are.
...
But I am reliably informed that when the National Statistician Karen Dunnell went to the Government Equalities Office last November and told them that their way of calculating gender pay differences might be confusing and potentially damaging, the GEO ignored her and published anyway.

So instead of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) pay-gap figure of 12.8% (hardly something to crow about), the department put out a press release in April this year which stated that women are paid, on average, 23% less per hour than men.

Article here. Excerpt:

'This month marks the 100th anniversary of Father's Day, and a big celebration is planned for June 20 at the Lincoln Memorial. I figured it was a good time to ask a local lawyer who is active in family court, child support and gender issues about what he sees facing boys and men at this milestone.
...
"We ought to be looking at why boys are disengaged in primary and secondary education such that they never get to college. What is it about our school system that turns off the boys so that by the time college comes around, they're not in the equation? What is it that is causing boys to have lower academic aspirations than girls?" Mr. Henry asked.

Other topics:

• Domestic violence, which is a national issue with an office of its own when it's against women, but an invisible issue when men are the victims.

Article here . Excerpt:

'But that assumes both parents are reasonable. In this case, the mother is clearly a nutbar who used her kids as weapons against her ex. Jail might have taught her a lesson a lot sooner.

A.L. is "exhausted but very, very happy. He has his children," says his lawyer, Harold Niman.

"This kind of case will hopefully send a message to those people who think it's OK to undermine a relationship between the children and the other parent."'

We criticize Ms. Jacobs when she lets her inherent misandry leak out in a lot of her columns but here she gets it right. Please email and thank her for getting it right this time. It also lets her know we are still watching her. Her email address is at the bottom of the column.

Story here. Excerpt:

'WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The suicide rate among U.S. Army soldiers jumped in May -- continuing a four-month upward trend and on a record pace for a second straight year, according to Army statistics released Thursday.

Last month the deaths of 17 soldiers were either confirmed or suspected to be suicides, up from 13 in April and 13 in March, the new numbers revealed.

The Army said the total number of potential or confirmed suicides since January stands at 82. Last year the Army recorded 133 suicides, the most ever.
...
"It's clear we have not found full solutions to this yet. But we are trying every remedy and seeking help from outside agencies that are experts in suicide prevention. There isn't a reasonable suicide prevention tool out there the Army won't potentially employ," he said.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'According to ESPN, a certain Alfred G. Rava took the time to drive from San Diego to Oakland to attend the Oakland A’s Mother’s Day promotion. A lot of the activities were geared towards breast cancer awareness—a 5k fight-breast-cancer run and free mammograms. Rava focused on the fact that Macy’s gave the first 7,500 women attending floppy sun hats.

Rava sued—and sadly enough, nearly won, using California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act of 1959. The judge ruled that any male who can prove that they were among the first 7,500 people to enter the stadium can receive $50, two-for-one A’s tickets, and $25 coupon to Macy’s.'

---

Ed. note: The ESPN article is here. Not surprisingly, it is not sympathetic to the point the man was trying to make.

Article here. Excerpt:

• In 2006, Fitness USA agreed to place a divider and frosted glass in its Lincoln Park, Mich., gym to ensure gender separation. The move came after 200 Muslim members of Fitness USA signed a petition saying that the company reneged on a promise to maintain gender separation at that facility.

• Last year, Harvard University agreed to set aside women-only hours at one of its fitness centers for students after Muslim women pleaded their case.

• Curves for Women gyms, a fast-growing franchise in the United States, has rapidly expanded into the Middle East, with more than two dozen facilities in Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar opening in the past two years, according to Becky Frusher, head of corporate communications for Curves.
...
Mullooly says she helps to maintain a women-only atmosphere at the club, which also has a pool, by stopping all male visitors at the front desk and by scheduling repairs by workmen after hours.'