Article here. Excerpt:

'As speculation heats up over another Kennedy in the Senate, New Yorkers - and especially women - need to seriously consider what exactly is behind the nudge-that's-become-a-shove for a woman to fill Hillary Clinton's seat.
...
This is the kind of emotion-laced rhetoric that reduces the importance of public service to a petty, quid pro quo board game of interchangeable pieces, and sets gender debates back 50 years to a time when it was argued only a man could lead a country, a boardroom or a military division - only now the argument is reversed.

Since when are men incapable of or disqualified from advocating for women's rights? Barack Obama supporters, in fact, told us incessantly during his campaign that he and Joe Biden would be two stalwart male champions of women's issues. In particular, the giddy cheerleading on behalf of Kennedy, a well-respected national figure who has no experience in elected office, only worsens the sexism and elevation of symbolism over substance.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'There is a newly built women’s prison in Massachusetts where 40 percent of the women have mental health issues and 85 percent have substance abuse issues. In the wake of severe budget cuts, instead of providing social services like drug treatment programs, mental health programs, jobs, childcare, etc., the state is throwing women in jail.

The Women’s Fightback Network in Boston is demanding that the governor declare an economic state of emergency. WFN brings to the forefront how women have been disproportionately victimized by foreclosures, evictions, job loss and budget cuts. Anita Hill wrote an article last year stating that women were particular targets of subprime predatory lenders, especially elderly women and Black and Latina women. One loan officer talked about how she would add many additional costs to the mortgage loan if the client “appeared uneducated, inarticulate, was a minority or was particularly young or old.”

Story here. Excerpt:

'Katie Gutierrez-Perez, 40, ran over Finlay Woods in her two ton Toyota Hilux as his mother Tina Woods pushed him along the pavement near a primary school in Chingford, Essex, in September.

Finlay was dragged under the wheels while his mother was smashed against a pillar and left with a head wound. The toddler was taken to nearby Whipps Cross Hospital but died.

Appearing at Snaresbrook Crown Court in London on Wednesday via video-link, Gutierrez-Perez sobbed as she admitted causing death by dangerous driving and driving without insurance.

Sue Rodham, defending, said: "There was quite clearly a failed suicide attempt and a history of depression."

Gutierrez-Perez owned a struggling café which had been closed by bailiffs days before the crash.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Proposed tough changes to family law in Ontario — from beefed-up requirements for those seeking custody of children to easier to obtain restraining orders and new rules on how to divvy up pension assets — were announced this morning by the provincial attorney general.
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The Star reported on Saturday that Bentley would introduce legislation that toughens how custody is awarded. The proposed changes include detailed, sworn child care plans from those seeking custody for both parents and non-parents; for non-family members seeking custody, they must submit to police checks and submit a letter from Children's Aid outlining concerns, if any, the society may have about that person's ability to parent.
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The changes were welcomed by many groups and advocates for women's rights.

"We can no longer ignore the fact that the safety of women and children in this province must be paramount," said Zahra Dhanani, legal director for the Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The number of women in prison is growing rapidly. In NSW, it has almost doubled in the past 10 years, and Aboriginal women are over-represented. Life in jail is difficult for anyone but for women there are particular challenges.

Most of the women in custody are mothers. But studies show their community support networks while in prison are weaker than those of men, as male partners are less likely to hang around and keep the household running.

Without partners, their children live with family or in foster care. Regaining custody can be hard, as women need stable housing to get their children back but struggle to get public housing if their children aren't living with them.
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Ms Armstrong agrees. She credits her success at turning her life around since 2003 to a mentor provided by the prisoner advocacy group Justice Action. She is now one of the driving forces behind the Women In Prison Advocacy Network.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Men tend to perform better than women at tasks that require rotating an object mentally, studies have indicated. Now, developmental psychologists at Pitzer College and UCLA have discovered that this type of spatial skill is present in infancy and can be found in boys as young as 5 months old.

While women tend to be stronger verbally than men, many studies have shown that adult men have an advantage in the ability to imagine complex objects visually and to mentally rotate them. Does this advantage go back to infancy?

"We found the answer is yes," said Scott P. Johnson, a UCLA professor of psychology and an expert in infant perception, brain development, cognition and learning. "Infants as young as 5 months can perform the skill, but only boys — at least in our study."

Around the country, groups are working to stop false allegations of domestic violence. Now the mainstream media are beginning to highlight the devastating impact of such claims.

Recently WCVB-TV, the ABC affiliate in Boston, Mass. ran a newscast highlighting two men whose girlfriends obtained domestic violence restraining orders. The orders had been issued without any evidence of abuse.

When it came time for the final hearing, the women didn't bother to show up and the orders expired. But the men's names were permanently entered into the state Domestic Violence Registry.

As a result, one man had his employment application denied. He commented, "I was guilty from the moment this person walked in and filed that order."

The segment also quotes a representative of the Massachusetts domestic violence coalition who notes restraining orders can be "misused," and admits, "I think it's a problem."

The 4-minute, must-see segment can be viewed here.

To RADAR's knowledge, this is the best-ever TV coverage of the problem of false allegations.

Story here. Excerpt:

'"STEVE" has been barred from seeing his daughter for seven years.

He has never harmed his only child or her mother. He has never threatened them and a court has accepted he is of good character.

But last week, after a tortuous 10-year journey through four courts, more than 20 hearings, 12 psychologists and six lawyers, he was told he could not see his daughter until she came of age.

Steve, whose real name cannot be revealed for legal reasons, has gone through more than 20 intrusive psychological examinations, while daughter "Molly" has endured seven.

He says he has spent more than $100,000 in 10 years.

His wife twice raised sexual-abuse allegations, proven false after months of investigation.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'RIVERSIDE, Calif. (CNS) -- A mother of four who fatally shot her husband in what she has repeatedly described as an accident was sentenced Friday to 40 years to life in prison.

Sonja Regina Hadnot, 39, was convicted in June of second-degree murder and a sentence-enhancing allegation of using a firearm in a crime resulting in great bodily injury or death for the June 28, 2000, death of her husband, David.

Judge J. Richard Couzens sentenced her to 15 years to life for the murder charge and 25 years to life for the gun allegation, according to Hadnot's attorney, Danny Davis.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'BRISTOL, Conn. - Authorities say a 22-year-old Southington woman faces up to six months in prison for falsely claiming a town police officer raped her last year.
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She alleged a Southington patrolman caught her trying to buy drugs, then forced her into having sex if she wanted to avoid being arrested.

She repeated the assertion to detectives, and more than 30 officers fitting Ladd's description were interviewed before she recanted.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'But if you want to bring out the big guns, I recommend what those of us inside the divorce industry have come to term the "nuclear option". Just call up Child Protective Services and tell them that your husband has molested one of his own children. I can't wait for you to see the look on his face! It is best for you to choose a child who is either 1) impressionable enough to repeat a story that you have taught him, or 2) is young enough that she can't be expected to articulate what "really" happened in her own words. A good time to make the child molestation allegation is after daddy has helped bathe your child. "Daddy washed me ALL over" is sure to raise questions.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Let's look at the different ways the genders approach parties:

Women enjoy parties for the conversation and companionship. Men like that stuff, too, but it's difficult to keep a scintillating conversation going while eating with both hands.
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For women, holiday parties offer an opportunity to dress up. For men, parties are a reason to wear pants, at least at first.
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At dinner parties, women compliment the chef by oohing over the food and asking for recipes. Men compliment the chef by groaning and asking for more.

Women politely offer to help the hosts serve food and drink. Men sometimes clean up their own spills.

Some fancy parties include dancing, which many women enjoy. Men prefer a challenging game of drunken Twister.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Men are losing jobs at far greater rates than women as the industries they dominate, such as manufacturing, construction, and investment services, are hardest hit by the downturn. Some 1.1 million fewer men are working in the United States than there were a year ago, according to the Labor Department. By contrast, 12,000 more women are working.

This gender gap is the product of both the nature of the current recession and the long-term shift in the U.S. economy from making goods, traditionally the province of men, to providing services, in which women play much larger roles, economists said. For example, men account for 70 percent of workers in manufacturing, which shed more than 500,000 jobs over the past year. Health care, in which nearly 80 percent of the workers are women, added more than 400,000 jobs.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'New research reveals that many men in second marriages shape up, becoming the partners their first wives had probably wanted them to be. They share the domestic chores more equally with their second wife than they did with their first.

But for women in second marriages, the story is different - or rather it is the same old saga. They tend to carry an unchanged and unequal burden of domestic chores just as they had done the first time round.
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"Maybe these younger second wives are asking the men to do more, and the men have to do more to compete with younger males," Dr Solaz said. "Maybe the men have learnt from the mistakes of their first marriage."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'University of Michigan researcher Daniel Kruger looks to evolution and mating for an explanation. He theorizes that men overspend to attract mates. It all boils down, as it has for hundreds of thousands of years, to making babies.
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Financial consumption was the only factor that predicted how many partners men wanted in the next five years and also predicted the number of partners they had in the previous five years, Kruger said. Being married made a difference in the frequency of one-time sexual partners in the last year, but not in the number of partners in the past or desired in the future.

The 25 percent of men with the most conservative financial strategies had an average of three partners in the past five years and desired an average of just one in the next five years. The 2 percent of men with the riskiest financial strategies had double those numbers.