Story here. Excerpt:

'Generous maternity leave and flexible working practices are in danger of sabotaging women's careers, the head of the new equality watchdog has warned.

With women now entitled to a year off for each child, Dr Nicola Brewer, the chief executive of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, said employers were thinking twice about offering them jobs or promotion.
...
She said that her concerns were underlined when the entrepreneur Sir Alan Sugar said that many employers simply binned CVs of women of child-bearing age.
...
Sir Alan warned in February that equal opportunity laws had made it harder for a woman to get a job.

Employers are not allowed to ask women about having children - so they would just not employ them, he said.'

All we can say is Wow! The first week of our Fix VAWA Now! campaign absolutely surpassed all expectations!

These are the highlights:

1. RightMarch.com announcement about our campaign went to 800,000 persons
2. Our press release announcing the campaign went to 17,000 media representatives
3. The TV interview resulting from the press release was viewed by tens of thousands persons
4. Gordon Finley's article, "Facing Reality on Domestic Violence" was posted on a number of web sites
5. The Fix VAWA Now! flyers and posters were distributed at a number of events
6. A number of organizations posted the Fix VAWA Now! logo on their websites

OVERALL, WE ESTIMATE THAT WE REACHED ONE MILLION PERSONS IN THE FIRST WEEK ALONE!

And we're just getting started.

Semper Fi,
Ed
http://www.mediaradar.org/

This makes me physically ill. When I see this kind of thing, I ask myself, "Just what are they thinking? Have they actually done any research at all?"

Can you imagine if a group of whites was going around asking black people to sign a pledge foreswearing some kind of behavior rooted in prejudice and stereotyping and to encourage other blacks to do the same? Can you just imagine the outrage, and rightfully so? So these women are going around and asking men to sign a pledge to say they won't be violent against women and to stand up against it or anything that seems like it encourages it. In fact most of the lines of the pledge basically say that the signer agrees to be a door-mat and never disagree with or have anything negative to say to a woman. Why not just ask men to sign a petition to introduce the full outright enslavement of men to women and be done with it?

Story here. Excerpt:

'the LaBarre case could illustrate gender disparities in cases of domestic abuse

Carolyn Lodge said she had concerns about her son’s relationship with Sheila LaBarre from the very beginning. Reached by phone last week, days after LaBarre was sentenced to life in prison without parole for murdering Lodge’s son, Kenneth Countie, Lodge said she had worried for her son’s safety while he was with LaBarre.
...
Like women, men are often too embarrassed to report abuse. And, because the news media tends to focus on women as the victims of domestic violence, men are hesitant to step forward, Straus said.

The perception of men as the sole perpetrators of domestic violence stems largely from international statistics showing that men commit roughly 10 times more violent crimes than women, Straus said. In fact, the only crime that has a higher rate among women than men is prostitution, he added.'

In case you missed it the first time, this was reported here. Note the side-linked related articles, too, regarding women as the "forgotten murderers" of children, etc. This is a good page to bookmark, so I wanted to point it out again. MANN also gets it submitted regularly so it is obviously makes a big impression on our readership. Excerpt:

'VANCOUVER - Canada's largest study into the sexual exploitation of street kids and runaways has shattered some myths about who the abusers might be - with the most surprising finding being that many are women seeking sex with young males.

Story here. Excerpt:

'The exhibitionist thief had mugged a disabled 66-elderly woman, stealing her identification and money from her waist pack. When the German granny called for help, a bystander tried to detain the thief, but she tore open her blouse and shouted "Help! Rape!" and escaped.

The 39-year-old man was so stunned and unnerved that he let the wily thief go, police said, adding that the woman managed to cover herself before slipping away.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'The legal ruling, which has just been published, is the first time a Muslim applicant had been rejected by France due to their religious practices.

The unnamed 32-year-old woman is married to a French national. She arrived in the country in 2000, speaks good French and her three children were born in the country.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'So it's entirely possible that Senator Obama is a sexist, misogynistic creep who gleefully rubs his hands together and laughs demonically while scheming to persecute his female employees. Maybe he has nothing better to do. But far more likely is that the aforementioned factors explain his office's inter-sex pay differential. Perhaps his male employees work more hours, have been more likely to accept promotions involving greater responsibility, have more experience, sacrificed "personal fulfillment" and instead chose more lucrative fields, and/or have greater seniority. Whatever the reasons, I'm quite sure of one thing: The phenomenon is attributable to natural, market-based factors and not a conscious desire to disenfranchise women.'

Article here. Excerpt:

"Yet in the United States, many people who consider themselves progressives still view anything to do with women as secondary. They fail to recognize what regressives do: that the ranking of male over female is a basic model children learn early on for equating difference with superiority or inferiority, with dominating or being dominated -- a model that can then easily be generalized to different races, religions, ethnicities, and nations.

In recent years, American regressives have vigorously promoted a family where fathers make the rules and harshly punish disobedience -- the kind of family that prepares people to defer to "strong" leaders who brook no dissent and use force to impose their will. Not coincidentally, over these same years aggressive wars were launched, gains for women and minorities were lost, and a "strong" executive branch held itself above the law."

Story here. Excerpt:

"The bench rejected the plea of the Mahila Vinod Kumar that she was illiterate and hence should be acquitted of the charge and conviction for perjury (misleading court with false evidence).

In this case Mahila had lodged a case of rape against two persons with the Pischhore Police Station in Madhya Pradesh on January 28, 1993. She claimed that the accused waylaid and ravished her by turns.

On the basis of her complaint the accused were arrested and a chargesheet filed by the police under Section 376(2).

However, during the trial she retracted her allegations and denied having made the charge against the men. She also denied having registered the FIR against the accused."

ABC Blog entry here.

If Obama is so concerned with the state of father participation, why doesn't he help men gain some equality during child custody hearings? Why doesn't he mention paternity fraud? He also failed to mention that many women today choose to have children out of wedlock. Many of those same women might decide they don't want the father around. Why not ask Barak if he plans to reauthorize the anti-male VAWA in 2009.

"Obama told reporters aboard his plane to San Diego that Americans need to recognize that there is a problem when more than a half of African American children are growing up without a father in the house.

“That is a problem and I won’t back up one bit in asserting that that’s a problem that we have to be honest about," he said.

Obama's tough love message to African American fathers came most notably in a Fathers Day speech last month in which he told fathers that “any ol' fool” could conceive a child –- but it takes a man to be father."

A Vonage TV advertisement, now blanketing the air waves, is annoying because it is gender biased. In the ad, "The Telephone Company" portrayed by a male is gradually pushed off the screen by Vonage, portrayed by a woman, each time a point is made in favor of Vonage. In this ad, the male is made to look stupid and weak compared to the woman and the company he represents as inferior. Imagine if the roles were reversed on this spot and the woman were pushed off the screen because she was inadequate, inferior, or second-rate. There would be all kinds of outcry from women's groups. I am appalled by this kind of male abuse in TV advertising. The TV is loaded with commercials in which men are portrayed as being stupid, weak, and inadequate. What can I do to stop this?

---

As a mother of two young boys, photographer and author Nancy Bruno is spearheading a movement to address the need for positive male role models in today’s society. Bruno has launched The Genuine Men Project to celebrate everyday men who define what it means to be a person of character, strength and authenticity. The project includes a photography exhibition and book, Genuine Men: Journeys in Stories and Stills (Bridgeway Books, May 2008) which feature candid black-and-white photographs and lifedefining stories of 35 men from the community. “Men today continue to be judged by their jobs, bank accounts, cars, homes and outward appearance,” says Bruno, who holds bachelor’s degrees in historical sociology and literature/rhetoric. “Powerful role models should not be defined by material gain and physical perfection but by the way the face and live through their life experiences

The Genuine Men Project captures the essence of what it means to be a man worth emulating.

At least one judge has some cajones. Read it here. The contention was that the woman's supervisor who had her get him coffee regularly was engaging in sexually discriminatory behavior. The judge ruled that such requests may be annoying but are not inherently sexually discriminatory. Good for him.

Literally, a federal case was made out of this. How much do you suppose this case cost to bring?

But I have heard tell of female executives who hire male secretaries specifically because they get a kick out of sending the fellow off on coffee runs and so on. Wonder why no one ever seems to make much ado about that? Excerpt:

'Nine minutes after receptionist Tamara Klopfenstein complained - for the second time - about getting her bosses coffee, she was fired.

"I don't expect to serve and wait on you by making and serving you coffee every day," Klopfenstein e-mailed to her boss at National Sales & Supply L.L.C., of Bensalem.

Dove has a series of TV ads intended to improve the self esteem of girls and women.

While they may have a point about unrealistic body image expectations for girls and women, they seem to imply that boys and men have no such similar issues.

Does that seem right to you?

What about the unrealistic and often unattainable body image expectations for boys and men? The image of being muscular (as in men's bodybuilder magazines) or handsome (as in magazines like GQ). The pressure to turn to illegal and dangerous methods of attaining a muscular body (i.e. steroids). Or the complete opposite of this (i.e. what not to look like) as shown all too often in commercials and sitcoms portraying men as obese slobs, or otherwise unattractive.

Think about it.