AFG writes "According to this story in the Sacramento Bee, a women who had falsely accused 8 men of rape -- in a blackmail effort to get $500,000 from them -- received a maximum of only one year in jail, due to a plea bargain. Now, if that doesn't get your blood boiling, this will: Her boyfriend, who had a lesser role in the crime, received a maximum of 2 years in jail. Even if he was the motivating factor behind her rape claims, she was still guilty of more crimes than he was. And wasn't she the one who made the accusation after all?
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/6497918p- 7448998c.html"

radikal writes "Shana Davidson, a blogger and graduate of Hampshire College, posited her ideas about the five different types of men and the "rules" of dealing with them. A year later, she reconsidered it. Read the original post at the bottom in bold first, then go back to the top for best results.

http://beltwaybloggers.com/bloggers/shana/manmatrix.html"

Trudy W Schuett writes "We’ve got a new front page, featuring the site of the month, a link to upcoming events, and a new, easy way to subscribe. We won’t be archiving past issues on-site this go-round; Volume 3 issues can be found at Smartgroups. As you’ll see from the events, your DLJ publisher is getting around, so this will be one less thing for her to do.

The May 2003 issue features news on how orgs can get help finding volunteers, the long-awaited film, "Evelyn" starring Pierce Brosnan, and much more!"

Garth writes "In British Columbia, Canada, the policy is changing so that there will no longer be mandatory charges laid in every case of alleged spousal abuse. Hopefully this will result in some common sense being used when dealing with these cases, rather than an automatic chasing down of the alleged perpetrator with pitchforks."

rage writes "Thanks to the tremendous efforts of Men's Health America, the May issue of the American Journal of Public Health features a theme issue on men's health....and the American Public Health Association
held a news conference on April 29 on this topic.

As the Men's Health America site states, "this is a historic event in the development of men's health. We invite you to thank the American Public Health Association for this publication."

So please do thank them by emailing them, and check out the following

link!"

If the previous incidents over in New Zealand didn't get your blood boiling, this will. According to the stuff story it's quite a depressing read, and right now words fail me.

Dittohd writes "I wonder how many at this site are aware of the Free State Project. I'm also wondering what others here think of this as a possible avenue to help us and other like-minded men and women to set up one state as not only more "free" than all the others, but a lot more "equal" and male friendly. As a quick synopsis, people are signing up who are fed up with our continued loss of freedom in the U.S. A number of states are being analyzed to determine and compare each's small population (easier to effect changes in state law and to get elected), the current population's predisposition to the philosophy of more rather than less freedom based on their current laws, etc. The goal is to get at least 20,000 people to move to the chosen state within 5 years of the project reaching that number of particpants. The state will be voted on by all members as soon as 5,000 sign up agreeing to move to that state after the 20,000 number is reached. There are over 3300 presently signed up. What do you think? Do you think this might be a good cause for us to join and advocate?"

It appears that very soon, with artificial wombs, men will be able to create male and female offspring, and women will be able to make female offspring, without recourse to the other sex or to the female body for gestation. (Women may only need male embryonic stem cells, however, to make Y-chromosome sperm and, thereby, to make male offspring.) This article describes how embryonic stem cells (including male embryonic stem cells) can be used to make human eggs.

It's ironic that, just when men are rising up against their oppression, men are gaining reproductive power equal to or exceeding that of women. Ladies and gentlemen: We are living future shock.

Thundercloud. writes "I couldn't believe my eyes, when I saw on MSN's homepage an article on MEN'S health. Not women's as is the norm, but MEN'S!
The article is entitled; "Why men die sooner".
They covered all kinds of things that the regular news won't even let see the light of day. Includeing MANY things we have discussed here at MANN.
They compared the life spans of Black and White men, But left out American-Indians, American-Asians and other American men, as usual.
(At least Hispanic men were mentioned, albeit breifly.)
This is a step in the right direction. We should continue to protest MSN when they do their anti-man stuff, But we should also praise them when they do things like this!
If you want to check it out, here's the link;
http://www.msn.com"

Doctor Damage writes "I found this one at Mens News Daily. For sheer, jaw dropping insensitivity to the needs of men and our right to justice, this one stands head and shoulders above the pack. In this story a brazilian judge ordered that a man not only pay child support amounting to 100 pounds a month, but fined him a further 10000 pounds. Why? because a probability greater than 99.9% that he was not the natural father based on DNA evidence was insufficient to counter the testimony of witnesses who claimed that he was the father. Notice also, that the story is listed in "quirkies" as if this example of judicial misandry completely out of control is somehow amusing! "

Napnip writes: I was at my local mall today, and there is a store in it called "Gadzooks". It's a trendy clothing store that has all the latest fasions. Well, when I walked past it, I noticed they had lots of large print signs in the windows. The signs said "SAY NO TO EQUAL RIGHTS" and "PROUD TO BE A SEXIST". The signs all had pictures of beautiful women with the bold letters in front of them.

Another sign said that all the male-related items were on sale and that the company was switching over to a completely female-related product line.

If you go to their website, you'll notice that their homepage says "By this summer Gazooks will become a whole new place. One that celebrates, glorifies, dresses and accessorizes girls only." Notice the words "celebrates" and "glorifies".

It's one thing to switch over to a strictly women's clothing store. It's another thing entirely to blatantly display sexism to the point that their signs declare that they're proud of it!

Do you think we should start a letter writing campaign to this company?

If you look at the lower left corner of Gadzooks' Home Page, you'll see a poster that says "EVERYTHING FOR GUYS MUST GO!" Note that the "EVERYTHING FOR" is much smaller than the rest, so what really catches the eye is "GUYS MUST GO!"

Also, Dan Lynch found this gem. Can you imagine an all-men's store selling T-shirts that say "GIRLS ARE STUPID... THROW ROCKS AT THEM!"?

I will host this week's MANN chat, Wednesday
night (4/30), starting at 9:30 PM Eastern Time, at the href="http://www.mensactivism.org/chat.shtml">usual location. The
topic for this chat will be "What Men's Health Crisis?"  Earlier
this week, a researchers at the University of Michigan published an
article that refers to a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030429/ap_on_he_me/men_s_health_4">"silent
health crisis" in men's health, and suggests the need for href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/hsn/20030430/hl_hsn/the_risky_lives_of_american_men">"a
new definition of masculinity that includes greater responsibility for
oneself."  What do you think about this issue?  Are men
experiencing a "crisis" in their health?  How much of the alleged
"crisis" is due to men's individual behaviors?  How much of the
"crisis" results from the disproportionate attention the government
pays to women's health?  Join us at this week's chat to explore
these questions about the men's health "crisis."  See you there.

CJ writes "Here is just one example of the ever increasing presence of the bludgeoning of male genitalia on TV and in the movies as humor: Oliver, the main character in Fox’s new family sitcom (Oliver Beene) gets scared to dance with a girl in the gym class. So while standing in front of the most attractive girl in his grade, he fakes getting kicked in the groin by someone, with the girl standing above him. The teacher calls the whole class to come and stand over Oliver and observe in a casual way while he asks the boy if his testicles had "retracted into his body" The whole gym class is invited to watch as this boy gets dropped on his behind as a way to fix his condition(?). The students go into an amused panic over this scene, as it was depicted as a fun and interesting event. In the last scene of the show, the teacher gets hit in the groin by a ball and falls to the ground, the students gather around and someone suggests a "testicle drop" and the show ends... This trend is increasingly becoming more popular/common. What can be done about this atrocious double standard, where any perceived violation of a female’s reproductive right is an outrage, and the destruction of a male’s reproductive system is common acceptable humor or a justified act. The episode guide makes no mention of the central theme of this show. http://www.fox.com/oliver/#episodes"

Dan Lynch writes "Now I just wanted to post this while it was still on my mind. But there seems to be a recurring theme in many comercials these days. The ones I am speaking of are ones like a recent Doritoes comercial I just saw. The set up is: two guys are at a party surrounded by pretty girls and some cutey catches their eye. Now they don't talk they more or less 'munch' their communications. The conversation ends up with one guy asking the other 'do you think I have a chance with her?' in subtitles. She walks over takes a chip and munches to the subtitle 'slim to none'. My question is--Why is this theme so prevelant on television with guys striking out with girls? Does this really sell stuff? Any thoughts on this?"

Yep, Yours truly is about to start doing a weekly advice piece coming to you each friday (Or bi-weekly, depending on how it goes) where you can ask me various questions (not strictly on men's issues) the more interesting questions will be more likely to be answered. To begin asking, send me an email with "Ask Ads" in the header to adam@mensactivism.org while I can't answer everyone, I will read 'em all, So we'll see how it goes.