Article here. Excerpt:

'Iceland, a country that ranks highest in the world for equality, will become the first nation to borrow money to spend on improving the gender gap.

The move follows a protest at the end of last year by thousands of women, who took to the streets to highlight the inequality that still exists. The bond offering will break new ground in a hot market for ESG debt, where so far only companies or development agencies have linked borrowing to gender spending.

“We would be the first sovereign to do a bond in this format, which I think is a good opportunity to step in that market and show an example of what can be done,” Thórdís Kolbrún Reykfjörd Gylfadóttir, Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, told Bloomberg. She recently traveled to New York to talk about social gender bonds.

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'For the last six years, I’ve been collecting and researching cases in which people – mostly young women and sometimes children – were charged with falsely reporting a rape or sexual assault. I’ve amassed more than 230 cases that span the country, an investigation we first shared in the documentary “Victim/Suspect,” streaming on Netflix. In our first-of-its-kind qualitative analysis, we found a pattern of police turning their suspicions to the reporting victim before thoroughly investigating the alleged crime.

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'For many progressives, weary from a pileup of male misconduct, the refusal to engage with men’s feelings has now become almost a point of principle. For every right-wing tough guy urging his crying son to “man up,” there’s a voice from the left telling him that to voice his concerns is to take airtime away from a woman or someone more marginalized. In many cases, the same people who are urging boys and men to become more emotionally expressive are also taking a moral stand against hearing how they actually feel. For many boys, it can seem as though their emotions get dismissed by both sides. This political isolation has combined with existing masculine norms to push a worrying number of boys into a kind of resentful, semi-politicized reclusion.
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Video here.

'Most people see feminism as being about equality. They also tend to think of MRA's as being haters. Are they right? This video takes a close look at just what a hate group is and how feminism and men's advocates fit in. Thanks to StudioBrule for the clips of the Farrell protest. This post was based on the work of David Byron. If anyone knows where he might be these days I would love to hear from him.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'My experience is not merely anecdotal, but part of larger educational trends. Boys are not faring as well as girls in the classroom. Women outperform men in school in terms of school readiness in kindergarten, GPA, and increasingly in college enrollment and degree attainment. According to Richard Reeves, of the top 10% of students, two-thirds are girls. On the flip side, boys comprise nearly two-thirds of the bottom 10% of students. While boys outperform girls overall on standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT, girls perform better on the written and verbal portions of the exams while boys outperform on STEM subjects.

Not only from a grades standpoint but also a disciplinary standpoint, boys are not faring as well. Boys are roughly 2.5 times more likely to be suspended or expelled from school than girls; of all expulsions from public school in the 2017-2018 school year (the last year the National Center for Education Statistics has available data), 72% of all expulsions and 70% of suspensions were of boys.'

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'A Scottish Greens MSP was heckled at Holyrood after calling for NO new road upgrades in Scotland, despite representing a community which has been crying out for one. Highlands MSP Ariane Burgess called on public transport improvements instead.

And her colleague Maggie Chapman even suggested that "road building is a subsidy for wealthy, usually white men who are the main beneficiaries of reducing journey times between cities."

The Scottish Tories brought in a debate about the current poor state of roads across the country, including the pothole scarred city routes. They blamed "17 years of SNP neglect, underfunding and broken promises" for this situation, which includes the A9 dualling being delayed by a decade.

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'Millions of men in England and Wales pose a danger to women and children, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police has said.

Sir Mark Rowley said the figures were “eye-watering” and an “inconvenient truth” as he called for a much bigger effort, a national strategy and more money to tackle the problem.

He relied on an upcoming study produced for police chiefs nationally that says there are up to 4 million perpetrators of violence against women and children, who are mainly men, with one in 10 people being victims, who are mainly women or children.

Rowley, who is Britain’s most senior police officer, said the scale of offending by men against women and children was beyond the criminal justice system to tackle.

He told the London policing board: “When you look across violence against women and children, there are millions of offenders in the UK. Some of the numbers are eye-watering.

Article here. Excerpt:

'To understand the state of men in this country, it’s necessary to know three things.

First, millions of men are falling behind women academically and suffering from a lack of meaning and purpose. Second, there is no consensus whatsoever on whether there’s a problem, much less how to respond and pull millions of men back from the brink. Third, many men are filling the void themselves by turning to gurus to guide their lives. They’re not waiting for elite culture, the education establishment or the church to define manhood. They’re turning to Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson and a host of others — including Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson — to show them the way.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Many of the young men I spoke to felt surrounded by signals that a muscular body was what they needed. They had noticed that celebrities, from movie stars to the sexed-up randos on reality shows such as Love Island, had got more muscular, though no one I talked to wanted to emulate a movie star exactly, let alone go on reality TV. The idea that “muscles get you girls” came up often, although most men I spoke to acknowledged that only a small subset of women prefer a mammothly muscular body. Many mentioned social media, where they saw constant images of successful muscular men – friends they knew and influencers they didn’t – which had, in some small way, made them feel bad about themselves. Many had got into weightlifting or fitness in order to feel better, and yet they often felt as if they were falling behind, or not achieving the milestones – “gains” in muscle or strength – that they should. Steroids, they hoped, would help.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The introduction of gender quotas in Welsh elections "could lead to legal challenges", according to a new report.

Politicians say those challenges could disrupt the outcome of the next Senedd election.

The cross-party Reform Bill Committee says the Welsh government has to take action.

The bill that's being considered would only change the rules when it comes to Senedd (Welsh parliament) elections.

The next vote to choose representatives in Cardiff Bay is due to take place in May 2026.

If approved, the changes would come into effect ahead of that vote.

The aim of the proposals is to increase the number of women who stand for election to the Senedd.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has been accused of mansplaining after interrupting a radio debate in which his fellow party member was speaking.

The prime minister made a surprise appearance at France Info on Monday, appearing on stage next to Valerie Hayer, candidate for the upcoming European Parliament elections on June 9.

Ms Hayer, of the presidential Renew party, was taking part in a debate with lead candidates when Mr Attal interrupted an exchange with the anchor.

LFI MP Raquel Garrido called the incident "mansplaining or, to be more precise, manterrupting".

But writing on X, Ms Hayer lashed out at opponents accusing Mr Attal of sexism.

"Instrumentalising the feminist cause only harms it. Real sexism is believing you can think for me," she wrote, adding she was "proud" to have Mr Attal "by my side" in the campaign.

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'Politicians from all the major parties got behind our campaign to fund healthy relationships workshops in schools to address sexist abuse and harassment, as the Rotary Club of London gave its support with a four-figure donation.

It follows support from Mayor Sadiq Khan who backed our campaign along with our call for the Department for Education to create a new category that records when a pupil is excluded for sexist abuse.

It comes as a report from the Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza highlights the problem of “rape culture being normalised in schools” with “boys in particular mimicking harmful sexual behaviours they have seen online”.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Watched by 2.8 million, the TikTok video touched off a viral conversation about microfeminism, inspiring women – and men – to respond with their own small but mighty clapbacks at sexism that are spreading online and off.

Refusing to step aside for a man barreling down the sidewalk? That’s microfeminism. Claiming the armrest when you’re in the middle seat or the whole seat when the guy next to you on the subway is “manspreading?” Those, too, are acts of microfeminism.

So is greeting women first in a meeting, referring to "hers and his," assuming a CEO is a she and saying "girls" instead of "guys" as a gender-neutral term.

“I’m doing this thing, this tiny little act of collaboration with women, and I wondered if they noticed, and if anyone else is doing it,” Chaney told USA TODAY. “And, wow, I learned they absolutely do.”

And now these everyday acts of defiance are turning into an online movement.

Article here. Excerpt:

'For a long time, the internet and social media have been bloated with memes, even articles, that denigrate men and most forms of traditional masculinity. Many of the people behind these posts insist that they are simply snarky barbs aimed at people with the most “privilege” who can’t take a joke.

If there was ever any doubt about the veracity of or honesty behind such a statement, a growing trend appears to pull back the veil.

In one American study, white parents picked a female embryo 70 percent of the time. A 2010 study showed that American adoptive parents were 30 percent more likely to prefer girls than boys, and were willing to pay an additional $16,000 to ensure they got a girl.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Rapist, school-shooter, incel, man-child, interrupter, mansplainer, boob-starer, birthday forgetter, frat boy, dude-bro, homophobe, self-important stoner, emotional-labor abstainer, non-wiper of kitchen counters.”

These were some of the thoughts that kept Ruth Whippman up at night when she was pregnant with her third son and imagined his future. The year was 2017, when the Me Too movement was in full swing and a year into what she described as the “Pussy Grabber” administration of Donald J. Trump — “a time when the news was a rolling horrorshow of male bad behavior.”

Even in the “liberal urban bubble” of Berkeley, it became “increasingly clear that girls were now considered the prize. Boys, while cute and puppy-like, were generally viewed on some level as trouble — feral, hard to control, animalistic,” Whippman writes in her new book, Boymom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity.