Story here.

'A 30-year-old Northern California woman has pleaded not guilty to charges that she had sex with three teenage boys.

Deborah Towe faces 11 felony counts, including unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, oral copulation of a person under the age of 16, committing lewd acts upon a child and arranging a meeting with a minor for a lewd purpose.

The boys were 15 and 16 years old.

Police in Anderson, about 150 miles north of Sacramento, began investigating in April after two girls from a local middle school reported that a friend's mother was having sex with boys.

In a 48-page report released this week, Towe told police she was protecting her daughter by diverting the boys' attention to herself.

She denied the charges during an appearance Wednesday in Shasta County Superior Court. Towe remains jailed, with her bond set at $250,000.'

Via Marc A.: Story here. A recent ABA Journal article addresses new research showing it is the choice of pausing career to care for kids, not one's sex, that causes the gender gap in law firms. This coincides with what Warren Farrell's explains in his book, "Why Men Earn More" and what other research confirms about the "pay gap."

If we really want to remove the gap, we need to encourage women to allow men to be primary parents. Excerpt:

'NEW YORK (Reuters) - They may be a small minority in corporate boardrooms, but women directors typically earn more than men, a new U.S. study has found.

Female directors in corporate America earned median compensation of $120,000, based on the most recently available pay data, compared with $104,375 for male board members, research group The Corporate Library said in its annual director pay report on Wednesday.

At the same time, the study said, women in corporate boardrooms are outnumbered eight to one.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'DUBLIN – A fiercely debated, nine-year investigation into Ireland's Roman Catholic-run institutions says priests and nuns terrorized thousands of boys and girls in workhouse-style schools for decades — and government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation.

High Court Justice Sean Ryan on Wednesday unveiled the 2,600-page final report of Ireland's Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse, which is based on testimony from thousands of former students and officials from more than 250 church-run institutions.
...
"A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys. Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from," the report concluded.

Video here. Caption:

'Welcome to our second installment of "Ask a Feminist," in which our own Dana Goldstein and Ann Friedman address a topic in the news related to gender and feminism. Today's episode features a question from Matt Yglesias: "Is it sexist to say the financial crisis was caused by men?"'

Article here. Excerpt:

'State Rep. Jessica Farrar pushed a proposal through a House committee last week that could lessen penalties for some mothers who kill their infants.

The measure is aimed at women who show signs of postpartum psychosis, a rare condition that's been cited in such high-profile murder cases as that of Andrea Yates, the Texas mom who drowned her five children six months after giving birth to her youngest.

The long-shot bill will likely never see the House floor, the Houston Democrat acknowledged, and she's fine with that.
...
Under the bill, a defendant's attorney could argue during the punishment stage of a murder trial that the mother's judgment was impaired by the effects of birth or lactation. If the victim was younger than 12 months old, the crime could be reduced to a state jail felony, meaning a maximum sentence of two years and a minimum of 180 days. Currently, the slaying of anyone under the age of 6 brings a capital murder charge.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The crime was so horrible, it's been hard for many to forget, especially in the town of Lamar. Two small children murdered in their own home on South 6th Street during the afternoon hours of October 16, 2003.

Grace Headlee, 4, and Gabriel Amaya, only 5-months-old, were drowned in their bathtub by their own mother Rebekah Amaya.

Right now we are awaiting a judge's decision on whether Amaya will be free to walk among us. She is asking for the chance to make unsupervised trips away from the State Mental Health Institute.
...
Amaya's former sister-in-law, Michelle Jamie, was and is still outraged that Amaya admitted to the crime, but in 2005 a judge found Amaya Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity.

"She killed, she took two lives and she hasn't spent a single day in prison. It's just not fair," Michelle Jamie said. "Innocent by reason of insanity, kind of contradicting. Innocent and killing. Just should be guilty by reason of insanity."

Story here. Excerpt:

'COLUMBUS, Ohio — Police, residents and prosecutors are considering the pros and cons of a new Web site that gives rape victims a forum to post information about their alleged attackers, 10TV's Lindsey Seavert reported on Monday.

Signs that encourage victims to expose their attackers can be found in the Short North. In bold print the flyers read, "Expose your rapist."
...
Even though phony posts can be traced, O'Brien worries about false accusations and proof of guilt.
...
Residents in the Short North shared similar concerns with 10TV News.

"It's harmful in a way because people could post something about somebody that is untrue," a passerby said after seeing a sign.'

---

Ed. note: The web site in question is http://www.youforum.cc/safespacecolumbus/

Story here.

'Earlene Rogers, 18, was indicted by a grand jury in Kirksville because she allegedly lied under oath. Specifically, she accused two men of raping and sodomizing her -- then, after the men spent eight months in jail, withdrew the charges. The county prosecutor accuses Rogers of lying when she made the original report.

Oh, and here's an eye-opener of a quote:

“The state can prove a sex crime merely by the allegation of the victim. You don't really need any evidence, you don't need any eyewitnesses. It's just whether or not a judge or jury would believe that witness. And so if the victim then under what we believe falsely accuses somebody there has to be accountability towards that person,” said Adair County Prosecutor Mark Williams.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A Canberra school teacher had sex with her 14-year-old male student so often that intercourse was like ''second nature'' for the pair, a court heard yesterday.
...
The 43-year-old, who was a science teacher at Saint Francis Xavier and coordinator of the boy's Year 9 group when the alleged offences were committed, has pleaded not guilty to five counts of sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16 and one count of maintaining a relationship with a person under the age of 16.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'MOUNT VERNON, Mo. -- A former Greenfield High School music teacher now is accused of having sex with a 16-year-old student at her home here. The Lawrence County prosecuting attorney charged Alison Peck, 23, with statutory sodomy and statutory rape on Monday.
...
The Dade County prosecuting attorney charged Peck last week with two counts of statutory rape. Those charges resulted from the Greenfield student telling a Missouri State Highway Patrol detective that he and Peck had sex at a park in Dade County. He also said he visited Peck at her home in Mount Vernon and had sexual relations numerous times.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'With one glance at the female companions surrounding the President during the photo op, including Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, and other members of the Congressional Women’s Caucus, one might reasonably inquire about the content of the advice the President is likely to get. Will it include more health and reproductive services and safe and professional day care, followed by very early childhood education, after-school care, and a longer school year for women who have children, but can’t be with them? Will all this be subsidized even more with tax dollars requiring more double incomes and the emptier homes that come with them? One would not have to look far to see that these measures are at the core of the agenda of those who have taken up women’s issues (like Pelosi and Boxer), and, were more proof needed, that they have just received a massive economic jolt, thanks to the recent crisis.
...

Article here. Excerpt:

'Strong families need strong fathers, but American television has come a long way from the 1950s series "Father Knows Best."

Now Lifetime TV, a network known for its movies about women being endangered by men, has sunk to a new low - a reality program called "Deadbeat Dads."

Article here. Excerpt:

'In her 2001 speech, delivered at the Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at the University of California-Berkeley, Sotomayor questioned the notion that male and female judges would reach similar conclusions when deciding cases, though she also "sounded many cautionary notes," the Times reports. Sotomayor said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." Sotomayor also said that the increasing diversity in federal courts "will have an effect on the development of the law and on judging." She said that being a woman or a minority can affect a judge's perspective because of "experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences."'

"Immigration laws are being manipulated by women claiming domestic violence to gain citizenship," says immigration law attorney Nicomedes Suriel. "Women have found a loophole in the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)". (cite) Mr. Suriel was commenting on the case of Reed Simon, whose Ukrainian ex-wife's phony accusations cost him tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and ate up a year and a half of his life before the judge dismissed the case. Simon has since found dozens of other men facing the same situation.

Suriel says some directors of domestic violence shelters for immigrants also run dating services through which they set women up with American men, all the while coaching the women on what accusations to make and when, in order to seize his property, get permanent U.S. residency, and eventually citizenship. These women and the shelter directors are "gaming the system", he says. On occasion, a judge sees through the scam. In other cases, the damage is never rectified.

The recurring themes in these incidents are:

Story here. Congratulations to them! Now had the sexes been reversed, would boys have been allowed to play on the girls' tennis team? Excerpt:

'The championship was a "repeat" of sorts. The sisters won the girls' AA doubles state championship last year without dropping a set the entire season. When they couldn't find enough players to field a team this year, they had a choice – play no matches until the sectional tournaments and then play singles only, or join the boys team and play all year.

"I wasn't going to leave her hanging," Karli said.

The result? Karli was the top seed on the boys team and went 22-0 on the season. Tanya was the second seed and went 20-2, losing twice to the same opponent. Thanks to their nearly automatic two points, the team went 19-3 on the year.'