The House and the Senate have now passed bills to reauthorize VAWA for another 5 years. Both versions of the reauthorization bill acknowledge that male victims of DV need help too, however the language needs to be strengthened.

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Marc A. writes "http://starbulletin.com/print/?fr=/2005/10/08/edit orial/commentary.html

'Ignoring the fact that gender inequities hurt boys has promoted the idea of girls as "underdogs" while suggesting that boys are somehow privileged.'"

Anonymous User writes "This woman stabs her husband because he is verbally abusive. She is severely and harshly punished with a community rehabilitation order. The judge and prosecutor fall over themselves to avoid blaming her.

Next time your wife nags or yells at you, try stabbing her. The judge will understand and be appropriately sympathetic."

Anonymous User writes "Woman gets 20 years for killing her son. Story here."

Anonymous User writes "MIsForMalevolent struggles with why a divorced man in the system would ever choose to try and better himself or improve his income. He seems to indicate faith as an answer, but he may be discounting plain old subborness (whoops, tenacity)."

frank h writes "Just so you know, "honour killing" is not just for women. Check this out:

A UNIVERSITY student was murdered to 'vindicate a family’s honour' after he fell in love with their daughter and made her pregnant, a court was told yesterday."

Roy writes "According to the National Network to End Domestic Violence, VAWA (S. 1197) was passed in the Senate today, "by unanimous consent."

Copy from NNEDV's always-lovely Allison...

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frank h writes "Country singer Chris Cagle has had a little bit of disappointing news of late. It seems he is not the father of the baby him and his "girlfriend" were expecting.

OBTW, this morning (10-5-2005), Diane Sawyer had a piece where a non-father was interviewed, along with his (female) lawyer. It seems his ex-wife duped him, and by G-d, the lawyer actually used the term "paternity fraud." I was shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you."

This at standyourground.com. Hooray to those who get the message out!

Rob writes "You'll remember an article here a while back about a 12yr old girl who hung a 5yr old boy from a tree. The boy nearly died. Before being caught, she blamed 3 other boys who were all taken from their homes and interrogated at a police station.

Anyway, she effectively escapes punishment. Read it here. Also, read her defence lawyers mitigating claims and his anger at her being treated as an "Adult". I'm not sure what his complaint is. IF she was an adult, she'd probably still got off."

Section 1402 of the Senate version of VAWA states how the funds will be used:

  (b) USE OF FUNDS- Grants awarded under this section shall be used--

`(1) to provide personnel, training, technical assistance, advocacy, intervention, risk reduction and prevention of domestic violence, dating violence, stalking, and sexual assault against disabled women and girls;

Note that disabled women and girls qualify, but apparently not disabled boys or men. This is simply outrageous.

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mens_issues writes "Our friend Thomas (Tom) Fullery has created a satirical new Yahoo group called The Patriarchy. Its web address is:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ThePatriarchy"

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Anonymous User writes "This mother got drunk and suffocated her baby by falling asleep on the child. She gets three years 'community rehabilitation'. If you get drunk and kill someone in an car accident you go to jail - but get drunk and kill your own baby and somehow that is different.

Now imagine how many years in prison a man would have got for a similar offence. "

Despite enormous pressure by VAWA advocates, the Senate failed to vote on the Violence Against Women Act yesterday. We believe the reason for the delay is that bill contains a number of contentious issues. The Senate has now adjourned, and will come back into session this coming Wednesday.

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Anonymous User writes "In light of the recent Cornyn/Kyl amendment to VAWA, the following article is disconcerting. Maybe a simple archive on VAWA background materials might be started/added on one of the MRA sites (mediaradar.org has a good start). Here is the URL."