Wendy McElroy's latest Fox News column explores the core problem many of us see with mainstream feminism: "you're not a woman, so you just can't understand." McElroy examines identity politics in all activism, and points out that men and women, although different, do have common ground, and each should value the opinion of the other, The parallel in feminism is that, although a man does not experience womanhood, he nevertheless understands injustice. Depending on his life experiences, a man may empathize with a rape victim more deeply than many women do. Moreover, like the doctor, men can have perspectives on "women's issues" which are valuable precisely because they are different. And "womanhood" is not so fragile as to be damaged by listening to the opinions of men.

Glenn Sacks wrote a great piece on shared parenting in support of a proposed Tennessee bill that would make shared physical custody the default for divorcing parents. "Advocates of the bill emphasize that it will lower the divorce rate, since parents won't be rewarded by the courts for being the first one to terminate a struggling relationship. In addition, they say, it encourages cooperation and even reconciliation because each parent knows that, barring proof of abuse, they will not be able to drive the other parent out of their children's lives." I hope activists in TN are organizing well in support of this bill, which will help many fathers, but most of all, children.

Here we go again, jumping straight in the fray of hypocrisy and heresy on the subject of Andrea Yates. At least this article points out the double standards involved, although she wants Russell Yates imprisoned as well (can anybody say fall guy?), but I think you people can read between the lines. While the article is questionable in places, it looks like the Andrea Yates story will be making debate for quite some time.

Since the questions are starting to roll in about the comment moderation system, which is in the process of being enabled, I'd like to direct people to some documentation about the system. Unfortunately, I don't have the time this week to rewrite the docs and make them specific to this site, so instead I will point you to Slashdot's Comments and Moderation FAQ. It's long and complex, but worth reading. I'm sure people will still have questions, so feel free to ask them under this story, and I'll do my best to answer them.

warble writes "Why it takes a woman to get this kind of ruling is beyond me. See the ruling at this press release. I am dumbfounded that a woman is able to get these guidelines proven to be illegal while men's cries were largely ignored. It is stunning and demonstrates how biased and cruel the judicial system is in its treatment of men. This challenge cannot possibly be the first challenge to the oppressive and illegal requirements of the child support laws throughout the U.S." While I understand the double standard at work here, I think we should still celebrate this ruling as a great step forward.

Another woman is being let off easy after committing the murder of her two infants, according to this story from Nashville's WSMV NBC affiliate. Her excuse is not postpartum depression, but another "rare" form of mental illness. Similarly, an "angry" Cincinnatti woman will not be indicted on assault charges after she shot a man in the groin. The man was alleged to have assaulted her son, but had not yet been tried or convicted. The grand jury cited "emotional distress" as their excuse for not indicting her. And, in a final act of judicial hypocrisy, an 8-year-old Ann Arbor boy has been charged with felonious assault for pointing a toy gun at his classmates.

Anonymous User sent us this story from the Boston Globe and writes "Poor Jane Swift is playing the "gender card" claiming that powerful men are trying to undermine her next run for MA Governor. She knows that the Massachusetts press will eat this ploy up and and cast doubt on any man that runs against her now. Shameless... The poll at the end of the article shows that she has very low voter support. Maybe she should stick with the issues..." I do hope MA voters will show Swift and others that this kind of politics will not be supported.

dominic7 sent us this BBC article and writes "[This is] interesting. It's frustrating to keep on seeing study after study prove that the inclusion of fathers in their children's upbringing is important, yet see these studies ignored by the "powers that be"." One notable thing about this article is that it also acknowledged that even divorced dads have an important impact on their children's educational success, something I wish many family court judges would take note of.

SJones writes "A transvestite castrated his/her husband, apparently out of anger, and the husband is reported to have died from the pain of the castration itself. The article is here. This is the second time I have read a news article in which a medical professional said a man may actually die from the pain of an injury to his testicles. The first was the case of the woman who bit off the testicle of a drunken man who sat on her."

The upgrade of Mensactivism.org this weekend went surprisingly well - there were no unexpected problems or delays, except for a temporary DNS issue. As I'm now way behind in a ton of my other commitments, things will get back to normal at a fairly slow rate. The apache compression module hasn't been installed yet, and probably won't be until this weekend. The new moderation system will also become more visible as the week goes on. We'll do our best to get up to date on our current submissions bin, and thanks to everyone for your patience!

This Sunday (3/3), the jointly sponsored mensactivism.org and ifeminists.com chat will feature a question and answer session about writing as activism. The featured answer-woman and answer-man will be Wendy McElroy and myself. While Wendy can answer specific questions about writing as a widely published columnist/activist, I will answer questions from the newspaper perspective related to getting your op-ed or letters to the editor in print. Join us at 9p.m. EST on Sunday in the ifeminists.com chat room.

JM writes "Out of France comes a new test (already starting to be used) that, in the words of an influential science magazine, will "prove rape". It does not prove rape. What it really shows is that a woman has had sex with a man from a certain biological group - NOT a certain individual - up to a week or so after sex. It does this by detecting Y- chromosomes. This test only determines that sex has taken place. The rape aspect is still totally dependent on whether the sex was consensual. It looks very much as though this test could be used as a "plan B" to prosecute men - guilty or innocent - when it has been shown that no sperm are present."

The Men's Activism News Network will be unavailable this weekend due to a major server software upgrade. The outage will begin early Saturday morning and the site should be back up by Sunday evening. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but we intend to offer some cool new features with the upgrade, including an apache file compression module that should increase the download speed of MANN for most users, regardless of your internet connection speed.

Anonymous User sent us this Boston Globe article and writes "[This is] yet another example of how terrorism isn't only performed by men." Thanks also to SJones for sending us this link, and to Rams for sending us this one. It's a sad fact that terrorism, like all violence, isn't a gender issue.

I found this link to callrape.com while I was surfing ifeminists.com this morning. This site provides an overview about the rape of males and attempts to dispell some myths surrounding it. There's also a history of male rape and some words about the "aggression vs. sexual desire" debate. MYTH: The majority of male rape occurs in prison. FACT: A study of incarcerated and non-incarcerated male rape victims in Tennessee concluded that the similarities between these two groups would suggest that the sexual assault of men may not be due to conditions unique to a prison, and that all men are potential victims (Lipscomb et al., 1992).