Article here. Excerpt:

'Speaking of households being turned upside down, you probably saw Sunday's NWjobs article about men being laid off at a far more rapid rate than women. As Patrick May of the San Jose Mercury News reports, in an increasing number of households, women are being thrust into the role of main breadwinner and laid-off men are stepping into the role of househusband or stay-at-home dad.
...
"Since the recession began in December 2007, more than 80 percent of those laid off have been men, thanks to their disproportionate slice of jobs in hard-hit fields such as construction and manufacturing..."

And while it's typical for more men to lose their jobs during a recession than women, May's article points out that this is the highest unemployment gender gap the country has seen during the past 25 years.'

Article here. Excerpt:

"The advert features a couple who are straight out of a 1970’s sitcom - she’s a sour-faced battle-axe in training and he’s a simpering emasculated idiot. Their relationship is so loving that they can barely bring themselves to look at each other. So instead they take part in a bizarre silent and deeply menacing gurning competition.

There she stands - hands on hip, desperately trying to suck her lips clean off her face - as a statuesque representation of womankind’s disgust at the inadequacies of men. Whilst he fidgets uneasily on his stool, presumably because he’s so idiotic he’s put his underpants on the wrong way."

I just saw this ad on TV and HAD to post about it. It's unbelievable.

Article here. Excerpt:

"The portrayal of teenage boys as "yobs" in the media has made the boys wary of other teenagers, according to new research.

Figures show more than half of the stories about teenage boys in national and regional newspapers in the past year (4,374 out of 8,629) were about crime. The word most commonly used to describe them was "yobs" (591 times), followed by "thugs" (254 times), "sick" (119 times) and "feral" (96 times).

Other terms often used included "hoodie", "louts", "heartless", "evil" "frightening", "scum", "monsters", "inhuman" and "threatening".
...

"We found some news coverage where teen boys were described in glowing terms – 'model student', 'angel', 'altar boy' or 'every mother's perfect son'," the research concluded, "but sadly these were reserved for teenage boys who met a violent and untimely death."

Article here. Excerpt:

'I've heard horrific stories of men being denied access to their children after a divorce, of boys getting harsh punishments that are not applied by schools or the legal system to girls, and I've seen scholarship and fellowship programs for women and minorities where guys, especially white guys, can't get in.

We don't fight discrimination with discrimination -- and while I am not for "councils" of this kind to begin with, I'm disgusted that the president thinks it's a good thing to come out with a council for women and girls when there are vast problems men and boys are dealing with.
...
Then again, if you really want to change things, to really improve life for a great number of people (especially children), how about coming up with a Council Against Single Motherhood, including rich, largely white women, who are selfish, me-first/children's needs second "single mothers by choice"?'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Ninety-five percent of crimes are committed by men, that’s a fact every man has to confront — that violence is mainly male, but at the same time, 95 percent of men aren’t violent. So, yes, men commit violence, but it’s a small percent, your son has to know both those things,” Thompson said to me.

And while men and boys get more air time in movies and on TV — 70 percent more than girls — they also are frequently cast as the instigator or troublemaker.

Couple that with the lack of nurturing adult males depicted in TV and movies and you begin to wonder what that impact has on these boys who will one day be fathers themselves.

“There’s a serious dearth of both sympathetic and competent fathers in TV and movies, the best we can do is ‘Two and a Half Men,’ and these are well-meaning bumbler dads,” Thompson notes.
...
Female teachers need to avoid approaching boys with a “reformist” mindset, he said, which is woven into our culture of parenting boys.'

---

Article here. Excerpt:

'By coincidence, on the same day this week’s shootings occurred, President Obama signed an executive order creating the White House Council on Women and Girls to ensure they are “treated fairly all matters of public policy.” There are still many reasons why special care should be taken to ensure that women aren’t discriminated against in the workplace, that domestic violence is treated as a serious problem and that girls get the same educational opportunies as boys.

'But this is not our only gender-specific problem. Sometime this year, for the first time in history, the number of American women drawing a paycheck will exceed that of men. This doesn’t mean that women suddenly are doing a lot better. It means that men are being disproportionally affected by the economic downturn and are doing a lot worse.

Whether the current economy bothered McClendon at all is uncertain; he seems to have quit a couple of jobs by choice. Like most of his brethren, however, there’s a familiar dead-end quality to the outlines of his story.

Story here. Excerpt:

'St. Thomas School in Waterdown wants to get its boys excited about reading. By doing so, school and Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board officials hope they can boost the primary boys’ literacy scores and assist in closing the 20 per cent reading gap identified between genders.

But while the test scores ranked above the board and provincial averages, broken down, the results indicate a reading gap between the school’s boys and girls. “All my girls are at an A level in reading and most of my boys are at a B level,” explained principal Michael Goffredo. “They are doing well, but there is a gap, a 20 per cent gap.”
...

“We decided that we have to change the way we teach,” said Goffredo. Implementing two strategies in each Junior Kindergarten to Grade 3 classroom, teachers have restructured their lessons to target boys and further engage them.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Barack, however, has it backward: It is boys, not girls, who lag behind – and have for decades.

The 1972 federal law Title IX saw billions funneled into sex-based affirmative action programs. Schools – primary, secondary, tertiary – were feminized and boys demonized. The very system Obama has just reinvigorated has already instituted what Dr. Bruce Perry, a Houston neurologist, calls a "biologically disrespectful model of education." Disrespectful to boys. "Girl behavior [has] become the gold standard," seconds psychologist Michael Thompson, Ph.D., coauthor of "Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Lives of Boys": "Boys are treated like defective girls.

And when the defective "suffer" bouts of boyness – competitiveness, aggression, hyperactivity – they are punished, or medicated.'

Bizarre. Wonder where this fits into "The Duluth Model". It's probably all the brother's fault. Anyway, story here. Excerpt:

'PITTSFIELD — A woman who allegedly intended to artificially inseminate her wife with her brother's semen has been charged with domestic assault and battery.
...
Jennifer A. Lighten, 33, told police that Stephanie Lighten, her wife, was "all liquored up" when she returned to their Lincoln Street apartment, where the defendant then allegedly tried to use a syringe to inseminate her, according to a police report.

According to a report by Pittsfield Police Officer Kipp D. Steinman: "Jennifer said that Stephanie had a 'turkey baster and her brother's semen in a sealed container.' Jennifer said she told Stephanie that she didn't want to get pregnant." The device was actually a large syringe with a catheter tip, police said, and it was still in its original package when officers confiscated the item.

Story here. Excerpt:

'WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama invoked his grandmother, his single mother and his two young daughters on Wednesday in creating a White House panel to advise him on issues facing women and girls.
...
Obama cited statistic to back up his case: Women earn just 78 cents for every dollar men make; 1 in 4 women still experiences domestic violence; women are 49 percent of the work force but only 3 percent of Fortune 500 chiefs.
...
Advocates praised the new panel. The National Women's Law Center applauded the move but added that more needed to be done. California first lady Maria Shriver, who is working with the Center for American Progress on a report on women's issues, said the move was a reminder that "we are now what I like to call 'a woman's nation."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'President Barack Obama on Wednesday created a new bureaucracy to deal with women’s health, domestic violence and economic security. But some conservatives fear the new council will actively promote the feminist agenda in the government.
...
“It’s a political payback for feminists,” Crouse told CNSNews.com. “There is no question what is coming down the pike. Women voted for him, 56 percent to 44 percent.”
...
According to the White House, the council will work directly with the departments of State, Treasury, Defense, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, Education, Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, the ambassador to the United Nations, the Office of Management and Budget, the Council of Economic Advisors, the National Economic Council, and the Domestic Policy Council.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Mayor Bloomberg Launches the New York City Women's Resource Network as Part of Women's History Month Celebration!

On Thursday, March 5, 2009, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced the launch of the NYC Women's Resource Network, a free, online, searchable database of over one thousand nonprofit organizations and government agencies that provide a variety of services to women and families in New York City.'

Via email:

Dear MensActivism,

It is with great pleasure that I announce two exciting events sponsored by the University of Minnesota Libraries.

First, there is an exhibit showcasing materials from the Robert Bly Papers held by the University of Minnesota. The exhibit is running now through May 9, 2009. You may view this dynamic exhibit at the Elmer L. Andersen Library on the West Bank of the University of Minnesota. For directions and more information on the exhibit, please go to: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/lib-web/events/2009/01/the_pen_still_moves_freely_rob_1.html.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Smiling happily for the camera, these are three of the teenage girls shot dead by a crazed gunman at a German school.
...
Authorities believe he deliberately targeted women as 11 of his 16 victims were female.
...
All three teachers were women and eight of the children were girls. More than a dozen other teachers and pupils were injured.'

I commented to the article as follows. Doubt it'll get published, but here it is:

'Before a claim that he was targeting females over males can be made, you have to ask yourself what the male:female ratio of students is in the school. Here in the US our last couple of birth cohorts have been markedly female. As many as 70% of our college students are female. In some counties especially in northern states in the US, the M:F ratio is 1:3 in high schools. So jumping to conclusions about the shooter's gender-based murder preferences here is a bad idea.

Article here. Excerpt:

'A little while ago the President signed an Executive Order to ensure there is always an eye kept on how every government agency is addressing the challenges confronted by women of all ages. The White House Council on Women and Girls will be chaired by Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, with Director of Public Liaison Tina Tchen serving as Executive Director, and will made up of Cabinet Secretaries and other top White House staff. It will begin its work immediately by asking each agency to analyze their current status and ensure that they are focused internally and externally on women.'

N.O.W. couldn't be happier. Their press release is here.