Excerpt: "Andrea Johnson had just finished university, escaped the confines of a women's shelter and got her own apartment in April.

Though there were signs she was depressed, no one seemed to realize the pain the 30-year-old was living with — pain that would cause her to throw herself and her 2-year-old child from an overpass on to Highway 401."

This has been national headlines and front page news for days now in Canada. All coverage takes a similar tone - tragic that this poor woman has died and gushing with praise about what a wonderful person she was.

I just find it strange that when a father does this the articles are never quite as favorable.

Read the Toronto Star's latest on this story here.

Carrie Lukas at the Independent Women’s Forum writes – "More than 40 years after Betty Friedan urged women to exchange their aprons for business suits, by many measures, women’s progress in the workforce has stalled.

Certainly today more women work and hold more prestigious jobs than ever before: as of 2002, women accounted for 46.5 percent of the workforce and held more than half of managerial and professional specialty jobs. Yet few women make it to the very top of the business world...

Why is this? Liberal feminist groups, like the National Organization for Women (NOW), tend to insist that sexism and discrimination are the primary cause. Yet many individual women recognize that their choices — particularly the choices they make once they have children — make the difference."

(Rather balanced article; nice to know that women actually have/make choices; though it omits any mention of our unquestioned cultural expectations that men must become lifelong wage-slaves with fewer choices than women.)

National Post columnist, Barbara Kay, writes about how men are still being made to feel guilty over Mark Lepine's school shooting 17 years ago that killed 16 women. She states, "From this human tragedy of no inherent political significance, a political industry emerged, which produced in the massacre's name: gun control laws, lavish public spending on women's causes, feminist-guided school curricula and a high tolerance for overt misandry."

Story here.

"Mother Of Boy Who Had Sex With Teacher"?? Does this title somehow imply the boy was the aggressor and the woman was victimized? What about: "Teacher who raped boy being sued"?

Excerpt:

"The mother of a boy who had a sexual relationship with a teacher at Kent County High School is suing the teacher and the county Board of Education."

"The lawsuit claimed the boy suffered mental anguish and has incurred huge medical bills as a result of the abuse."

Story here.

VANCOUVER — A British Columbia judge lashed out at a French woman yesterday for a nationwide campaign of vilification against her ex-husband that castigated him and the Canadian justice system on newscasts and front pages across France.

Hostility was so intense that the Canadian embassy was forced into the fray to defend Canada's role in the bitter child-custody case, while the French village where Nathalie Gettliffe lived "seemed determined to lynch" her former husband, Scott Grant, according to Madam Justice Marvyn Koenigsberg.

[...]

"They also said he was guilty of abusive behaviour. . . . This persistent and deliberate alienation from their father . . . is a terrible burden for any child to bear and may mark them for life."

The maximum penalty for Ms. Gettliffe's crime is two years in jail, plus three years of probation. Judge Koenigsberg called her 16-month sentence a severe judgment, required because of her prolonged defiance of the courts and the serious harm to her children.

This past week our hard work was rewarded with two victories. And both of them stemmed from flawed reports from the United Nations.

1. UN Study on Violence Against Women

   The first report was the UN secretary-general's Study on Violence Against Women. The document amounted to an ideological denunciation of the "patriarchy" and recommended that every country around the world enact VAWA-like laws: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/vaw. Columnist Wendy McElroy described the report as "embarrassingly inaccurate, ideological, and biased against men." (http://www.ifeminists.net/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.55)

   What happened next was nothing short of miraculous.

Article here. Excerpt:

"What drives a woman to strap a suicide belt to her body and blow herself up among a crowd of people?"

"Aside from highlighting the differences in Israeli and Arab coverage of the phenomenon, he reminds us that the lives of female suicide terrorists are no less tragic than those of male suicide bombers, yet the media accords women more sympathy and treats them with "kid gloves."

Story here. Excerpt:

"A woman charged with murder in the slaying of her police officer husband was indicted Wednesday on dozens of charges stemming from alleged financial crimes."

"The 58 counts brought in Iredell County Superior Court against Misty Keller Witherspoon include allegations of embezzlement, identity theft and obtaining property by false pretenses."

Story here. Excerpt:

"Later that day, as Jon White was leaving work, his wife chased him back into the Woodland Towers building by driving her Ford Explorer through the glass doors and into the lobby, according to testimony. She struck her husband, causing him to flip over the vehicle and fall to the floor."

"Schatz said he may be able to argue at trial that Brenda White was suffering from "extreme emotional distress."

Story here.

"The judge sentencing a French woman who fled Canada with her children and sparked a bitter international custody battle said on Friday the true victims in the case were the youngsters.

Judge Marvyn Koenigsberg said she believes Nathalie Gettliffe did not intend to remain in France permanently when she kidnapped her children, but that did not diminish the harm the case had caused.

Gettliffe fled to France with the children in 2001 after a Canadian divorce court rejected her request to take them there for 10 months. The court had ruled that would violate their father's right to have access to them.
...
"I don't think the greatest harm that happened to the children is not the five years (away), it's that they learned to hate their father," Koenigsberg said, admitting she was struggling with how to handle the case.

Story here.

"MENINISM is the catchcry of a movement of males who will storm the streets and burn their ties, rallying against the "all men are bastards" image that has an entire sex pigeonholed as violent, heartless and untrustworthy.

This is according to a new study saying there is a competing interest to the feminist struggle for equality; men and boys are now the target of negative stereotypes.

The research shows almost 70 per cent of social commentary on the male gender is unfavourable – portraying men as violent, sexually abusive, unable to be trusted with children, "deadbeat dads" and commitment-phobic."

Story here. Excerpt:

"The most surprising part of the breakup of Anthony Siminiuk's eight-year marriage is not the fact that he never saw it coming.

It is not that he drove his wife and two small children to the Regina airport for what he thought was a visit with family in Ontario, unaware she'd already cleaned out the closets, quit her job and planned on leaving for good.

It is not even that it has been eight months since he has seen his children, even though a court has granted him "liberal access ... either in Ontario or Saskatchewan" -- an entirely untenable option for someone on a modest sales salary.

What is most surprising is that it all seems to be perfectly legal."

Another video for you from CNN, here. This time the perp is the mother of the slain infant and the reporter comments something to the effect that at this time, police don't know what may have "pushed this mother over the edge."

More she-gets-a-pass commentary from the press.

So - two stories on the same day from the BBC. Spot the difference:

Man jailed for sex with teenager

Jail term for underage sex woman

Glad to see the story is, at the moment anyway, at the top of CNN's "Most Popular" videos. Not glad to see that the story even exists, however. Watch it here (RealPlayer or similar required). Note toward the end of the report though that the reporter mentions that something must have gone "drastically wrong", since the assailant was more badly-burned than the victim.

What actually has gone drastically wrong of course is that women think they can do this sort of thing and get away with it, and that reporters seem more sympathetic with the assailant than the victim, provided the assailant is female and the victim male.