frank h directed me to the International Reading Association's special interest group on Gender Issues in Reading Achievement and writes, "The person who currently chairs this group is unable to continue and the group is likely to fold. This is a wonderful opportunity to have a direct, positive effect on the success of males in reading education, especially considering the demonstrated poor performance of males in the recent NAEP results." Please consider volunteering if you have the background, and pass this information around to anyone you know who might be interested. Contact information is on the web page linked to above.

Anonymous User writes "Here is an article I think you may find interesting about male-on-male rape in men's prisons in the USA." From the article: ""I have been sexually assaulted twice since being incarcerated. Both times the staff refused to do anything except to lock me up and make accusations that I'm homosexual...," wrote J.G. of Florida...."Roughly half of all states don't even gather specific data on prison rape. And those that do, the data is just not realistic," said Joanne Mariner, author of the report. "The fact that other states aren't even collecting the data shows that they are not taking the issue seriously.""

Patricia Hausman is on a roll lately with her latest article about the futility of creating equality of outcomes: "Like any good gender warrior, La Parité says it is motivated by the principle that the sexes deserve "equal representation" throughout society. Au contraire. The low number of females among prison inmates, workplace fatalities, and non-custodial parents does not trouble this crowd. It focuses solely on stations in life that involve money, power, and prestige. La parité, it seems, is French for a world where women are guaranteed at least half of the good stuff, and men most of the bad."

Carnell Smith submitted this press release. It outlines Smith's Georgia court session where he explains how he was frauded into fatherhood. From the release, "We don't know and we won't have an answer from the Judge until he completes his review. There was one great victory for Smith, the mother's attorney admitted in open court "they do not want future child support" and the judge replied "I understand that child support is waived". The court recessed after conflicting testimony of the mother and her best friend. Smith observed several members of GA Dept of Human Resources present at the trial, along with 20(?) supporters of CAPF and other interested parties."

bernee writes "The high level of suicide in Australia in males aged 29-30 is noted in this article from The Canberra Times. No mention is made as to how to counter this trend nor the reasons for it." Well, I suppose acknowledging the problem is the first step, but not even offering any kind of explanation for the reasons behind it does seem kind of callous on this critical issue.

Jonathan writes "This is a short article highlighting the fact that for once, the UK Labour Government is removing a useless layer of bureaucracy, the Women's Unit. Unfortunately, despite accepting the fact that it was an embarrassment, derided by both men and women, they are still going to press ahead with positive discrimination for women in Government. This will be achieved by installing far more women ministers in the next Government, irrespective of ability. Click here for the link."

Trudy W Schuett writes "Trudy W. Schuett has left the Liberator, a print men's issues magazine, citing personal reasons. She intends to continue supporting the men's movement through other projects, such as The Moms for Dad's Rights Yahoo Club, The Men in Crisis Prayer Circle, and a projected book co-authored with AZFather's Rights Org member David Hamu. She will also begin publication of a bi-weekly e-zine called, The DesertLight Journal. The DesertLight Journal will focus on the issues of domestic violence and divorce/child custody, and the people and groups behind these issues. The DesertLight Journal will encourage new writers, and will often feature essays and articles written by former contributors to the now-defunct Themestream.com."

Marc Angelucci writes "Wired News printed an article on how NOW is creating controlled internet forums to avoid the "misogynist talk," "hate" and "verbal abuse" they allegedly receive in their internet forums. If some people were rude in the NOW forums, they should not be. But I have seen NOW take down messages from David Byron and others that were very polite attempts to engage in meaningful dialogue on the issues. NOW is telling half-truths and falsehoods as usual to justify their aversion to debate. If NOW wants to create controlled environments with no controversy for purposes of supportive discussion, that is wonderful. But if they are doing it just to avoid debate, which is very apparent, then they should be honest about it rather than lying and male-bashing to justify their cowardice. And the media should give balanced coverage of it by getting both sides of the story, which they did not. You can write a letter to the Wired News editor here newsfeedback@wired.com."

David Byron writes "An article by the Boston Globe entitled, "On campuses, fewer rallying for feminism" records a turn out of only about 40 women when Patricia Ireland, president of NOW, came to the all-female college at Wellesley. The article briefly discusses the reasons for the dwindling interest in feminism. As you can guess men are partly to blame, even at an all woman college!"

Anonymous User writes "In a recent issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, a study was done to examine whether one gender or the other reported exposure to a greater number of life stresses, or reported greater likelihood of depression in response to stress. Thus, the authors examine the "cost of caring" hypothesis, in which women are thought to be more prone to depression because they have a greater emotional investment in their social networks. Results: Men were more likely to report stresses such as occupational problems, job loss, legal problems, and being robbed. Women were more likely to report stresses from conflict, crisis, or illness in their support network. Results were seen as consistent with gender role expectations. There was no indication that women experienced more stresses or were more sensitive to stress. An abstract of the article can be found here."

frank h submitted this link from Reason Magazine and writes "I haven't read this yet; I just found it. But as I go to colleges with my daughter, I see the diminished opportunities for men in collegiate sports: the programs just aren't there. Yet the effort and expense the colleges go to in populating women's teams is unbelievable. Mediocre girls who clearly aren't as enthralled by sport are being offered full scholarships just to show up. The poor ratings and ticket sales of the WNBA should be an example. The right answer is clear: each candidate athlete ought to have the same chance of being EXCLUDED. That way, athletics would be funded on real student interest, not political correctness."

Both frank h and Sergei Hoff himself wrote in to inform me of Hoff's latest column in Toogood Reports. The article is a scathing criticism of compromising military standards for the sake of allowing women into combat positions in the U.S. armed forces. The issue is, of course, very controversial from a men's rights standpoint. On the one hand, our freedom could be at risk if we don't have a military which is anything less than the best, but many of us also see male-only military enrollment as evidence that men's lives are less important and as a gender we are "disposable" in wars. This is a conflict that I have yet to resolve for myself.

For my third article in my men's issues column for the UNH school newspaper, The New Hampshire, I wrote about a challenging topic - advocating the rights of men accused of rape and sexual harassment. I mentioned the news about Columbia University's draconian sex discipline code, and explained how men are routinely denounced when accused of a sex crime, even when few people know what the facts of the case really are. Read the article here.

Thomas Golden from Webhealing.com submitted this story from the Washington Post. It's about rape awareness groups that have shifted focus from blaming men and putting them on the defensive to encouraging men to empathize with women who are raped and viewing men as "helpers" who can work to stop rape. However, the approaches described in the article still portray men as the empowered group and strive to "reconstruct" masculinity. It also uses examples of male rape not to raise awareness of this neglected issue, but to try to "put men in women's shoes" to understand what rape is like for women. Despite the fact I still see the campaign as implicitly anti-male, women's groups have largely attacked the program for promoting male-only groups of activists and not coming down hard enough on men. Go figure.

Marc Angelucci writes "In the April, 2001 issue of Reader's Digest there is an article [not available on-line] entitled "Pay-Up Time for Deadbeat Dads." The article completely ignores reality, such as that fathers have a better record of paying court-ordered child support than mothers do, or that, of non-custodial dads without employment problems and who have access to their children, over 80% pay in full and only 5% don't pay at all. (Sanford Braver, "Divorced Dads.") Instead it presents things in the same one-sided, misandrist manner that the average major media article typically does. You can write a letter to the editor here."