There may be some problems with the government proposals that are being bandied about south of the equator, but there's no doubt that men's rights activists have gotten the attention of polititians down under.

In this article, we see that New Zealand's Minister of Youth Affairs, John Tamihere, seems to be taking men's issues to heart.

Here we see that fathers' rights advocates in Australia have gotten the attention of the government, though the politicos seem to be trying to get away with tossing men a bare bone from women's/mothers' table of plenty. As Men's Rights Agency director, Sue Price, expressed, "the proposed changes would do little to help divorced fathers get more access to their children... She was worried staff at family centres might be biased against fathers." At least we've got their attention. We'll see what happens next.

Then there's this piece, which includes statements from Sue Price as well as Nigel Spence from the Association of Children's Welfare Agencies.

What gets me is that the politicos in Australia are insisting that "responsibility" be equally shared, but not time with the children. Hmmmmm. Responsibility for men without associated rights... Why does this sound familiar?

At least we're getting their attention, even if some of them are apparently trying to get away with what any thinking person should know won't succeed.

As a side point I've gotta say, Sue Price sounds mighty kewl to me.

Well well, it looks like the withholding strategy is something worth considering with
the news article
makes. To quote "While the major movie studios spent just 1.3 percent of their
$6.76 billion advertising budget online in 2003, the portion will balloon rapidly in
coming years, industry executives say. Hollywood doesn't have a choice. Young men and
other desirable audiences are not watching television, and they are relying less on
newspapers to find reviews and movie times, according to industry research" You hear that? withholding has been used against the nearest man for long enough, it's about time he made it work for him.

Colin writes "Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones has received a string of abusive letters and phone calls containing death threats from a stalker - guess what? The stalker is a woman. I thought only men did things like that. The story is here"

More of the same, right here from MSN. Article's author is a man, too, but as we know, men are often men's worst enemies!

Dittohd writes "All I've got to say is this guy better spend his winnings as fast as he can, before his ex can get the word, get all the advice she's going to get from all her girlfriends, and then sue him in court, saying that she should get half because he bought the ticket with "their" money while they were still married. Ha! ha!"

E-mail to admin@mensactivism.org is piped through some mailing list sofware that has been giving us problems for the past week. There are quite a few messages in the queue that have not yet been delivered, and it may take until the weekend for me to find time to fix the problem. The messages have not been lost but they are not accessible at this time. Your patience is appreciated.

Cain writes " Just one more female political group whose main agenda is hypocrisy."

Yep, it's the old do as we say, not as we do.

Benjamin Adam Studtmann writes "Oddly enough, Yahoo news is continuing to classify horrifying acts of public female violence as a mere current events trivialities. For example, a woman can publicly assault an 11-year-old boy in front of God and everybody at a water park, kicking him in the groin, and attacking bystanders who try to intervene. What will happen? Her water park pass will be revoked and she will receive trivial charges, the STRONGEST of which is third-degree assault. What would a news story look like in which a grown man, say at an ice cream parlor, slapped, punched, and kicked an 11-year-old girl to the ground for cutting in line front of him? What would the man be charged with, and how do you think our hypothetical case would be presented differently from the real one cited above? It is also intriguing to see the glimpses of personality revealed by the woman culprit's own words concerning unrelated subjects."

apetr writes "The American society of Civil Engineers feels the pressure that if there aren't just as many women in the field then something must be done! I find this sickening, how about a coalition to get more men into college. All the great achievments man (as in males) have made in techonology and engineering will get glossed over as it means nothing. If someone wants to be an engineer, it should be becasue they find the discipline awe inspiring, not because a handful of women were involved now lets make a curriculum out of it. Here is the article"

MSN reported (with characteristic lack of detail when it comes to these topics) that 1 in 36 Americans are in prison, on parole, or on probation.

Click 'Read more' for more commentary.

Is it really any surprise, a report of this recent ruling requiring a sperm donor to pay child support? The justification again: best interests of the child. I will say this much though-- the old maxim that a verbal contract is not worth the paper it is written on holds in pretty much every context you can imagine, including this one. Keep watch for the fallout; it may be that this ruling serves as the basis for going after contractually anonymous sperm donors when the mother decides she wants a new sportscar and that "nice man out there" just may be the perfect means to that end.

Benjamin Adam Studtmann writes "Truly amazing. Here we have a fascinatingly frank article from a gal at Maxim, supposedly giving advice to younger men on how to hunt older women. In its insights, it reveals appalling shallowness, subterfuge, manipulativeness, condescension towards all males, bitterness towards 'commitmentphobes', an amazing neurosis concerning age (since when is 26 'old'?), and complete and utter disregard for any form of emotional link between two adults. Not only is it disregarded -- it is aggressively encouraged. This woman is specifically hunting for a 'toy' to use and drop like a used Kleenex, and is triumphantly proud of it. Moreover, she makes it clear that she beleives utterly that this is all that males have ever or will be interested in. Oh, and one more thing -- the 'older woman' should always be in charge of every aspect of the situation, because she's smarter and more experienced at everything than you, and don't you forget it. I have no problem with the idea of dating older women, but this person's attitude towards the entire thing left me wanting to take a shower and join a men's drumming circle. Please read it, and let us know what you think."

LSBeene writes "I wrote a response to Melanie Jacobs article that said that "Paternity Fraud is a legal theory". Mike LaSalle was kind enough to post it on MND. Due to the length (6 Pages in WORD) it is in the Archive Section. I sent my reply to Melanie too. My article:
here.
Paternity fraud isn't a "theory" any more than pregnancy is a "theory". It makes a wage slave of an innocent person so that a lazy deceitful person can steal to live more comfortably. The best parent is BOTH parents.
Steven"

seattleshark writes "it's important that you read all three articles, then try to figure out what's what. Amazing, is all I can say (the last article may require registration...very easy to do). The first article, the
second article, and the
third article"

Third article requires registration.

alphamale writes "While I do not know the population of Japan offhand, 34,000 suicides in a year seems to be a catastrophe no matter what the population is. This is a shocking loss of life in epidemic proportions. 75% of the suicides were committed by men. Yet nothing is done. You can bet if 75% of the suicides were of women, there would be a beating of breasts, tearing of robes with billions of yen being thrown at the problem. Japan is not an aberration, the percentage of suicide participants who are male is similar the world over, yet society continues to ignore these lost, neglected and forgotten souls. Check out the story here"