Jim Castelli submitted this Boston Globe story and writes, "Mark Scialdone is a boy, but was chosen for this season's Globe's girls' All-Scholastic squad as a gymnast. In 1978, 136 NCAA colleges had men's gymnastics, now only 24 do. In MA, only 8 high schools have boy's gymnastics teams. This year when he accompanied his Beverly, MA team as captain to the New England Girls Gymnastics Championship, he was told that his scores would not be allowed."'Technically he was a non scoring participant,' said Haig Varadian, executive director of the Council of New England Secondary Schools Principals Association....'The Council feels its an invasion of the girl's tournament...The playing field isn't level when you have a boy competing against girls.'" But in the wake of Title IX, the girls' teams may be the only playing field left for male gymnasts.

I consider this very relevant news because of the way gender was portrayed in the article. Basically, it acknowledged that men are more willing to destroy their lives in a stressful, all-consuming job and that the high turnover rate of women in the industry is a signal that the job standards need to be changed. "Stress and lack of work/life balance in the IT workplace is taking [a toll on women]...Women in IT are the "canary in the coal mine" warning that the New Economy workplace is destructive for employees...IT managers should realize that what women are experiencing in the IT workplace is very likely a reflection of men's experience and that unreasonable stress and lack of work/life balance have the power to destroy productivity in the long run." Read the article from Computerworld at this link.

There has been lots of interesting activity going on in New Hampshire in support of men's issues (particularly father's rights). The NH chapter of the National Congress for Fathers & Children has been active at the state level, speaking out on legislation and even having legislation for men passed as well. Their recent major undertaking was to draft a report on the status of men in New Hampshire, and their results include a great deal of useful information for men's activists in the state and elsewhere. Go to this link to download the report, and please distribute it wide and far!

China has taken a significant step toward the toleration of homosexuality by removing it from the list of mental illnesses created by the country's main Psychological Association. "China is to remove homosexuality from the official list of mental illness. Up to now homosexuality has been automatically included by the Chinese Psychiatric Association (CPA) in its diagnostic manual." The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality as a mental illness in 1973. The Irish Times article can be read here.

In another story of a false accusation, a Michigan police chief, Ronald Deziel, was accused of sexually assaulting a woman working in a hair salon. There were inconsistencies in the woman's story and also no DNA evidence was found where it was expected in the woman's clothing fibers. The case has been very high-profile and damaging to Deziel's reputation. "County prosecutors are now considering whether to charge the Taylor woman with making false statements to police and the filing of a false police report, which is a misdemeanor punishable by up to 90 days in jail." I guess when the consequences of making a false accusation are so insignificant, it's questionable whether to even bother pressing charges! Click here for the Detroit News story.

AngryHarry sent in this story from the UK Times. It's about a man who was falsely accused of sexually abusing his (then) three year-old daughter by his wife. The wife was determined to have Munchausen's syndrome by proxy, and the way the child was interviewed by social services and police was irresponsible (leading questions, etc.). He will be suing the police dept. and social services unit that handled the case negligently.

Salon.com recently interviewed Christina Hoff Sommers about Jane Fonda's recent donation of 12.5 million to Harvard University for the creation of a Gender Studies Center, and Carol Gilligan's recent leaving of Harvard. The article discusses Sommers' views on the future of gender studies and covers a number of important issues, including the problems that college aged men are facing. She ends with: "I'm sorry to report the good news that little boys are healthy. They are neglected academically. Boys could be doing a lot better, especially in reading and writing and simply caring about educational achievement. But they are not pathological. Being a boy is not a disorder; it's not something you need to recover from."

In more than a twist of irony, a UK police public relations manager who authored a guide on political correctness for the department was fired after four women accused him of sexually harassing them at a party. "During his 18 months in the job, Mr. Williamson was part of the team which produced a guide called The Power of Language, which advised the force's 7,000 officers to avoid sexually overt terms of endearment such as 'love,' 'pet' and 'dear' because people might find them offensive." Read the article here.

An Anonymous Reader sent me this link to an ABC Good Morning America story that William Stowell, 19, is suing the hospital that circumcised him as an infant. He claims that his mother, who signed the waiver form, was under the influence of painkillers when she signed the form. "Stowell's attorney, David Llwellyn, has considerable experience with men who lament the loss of their foreskins. He has filed similar lawsuits in the past, winning as much as $65,000 in one settlement...the hospital claims there is a 10-year statute of limitations on medical malpractice suits. However, Llewellyn responds that in the state of New York, the clock doesn't start ticking until a person turns 18." While it might not be productive to open the floodgates of litigation for people who were circumcised, I'd like to see cases like this bring about the end of the practice on infant males who can't give consent.

In Utah, a new law went into effect requiring an arrest to be made when the police take a domestic violence complaint. This story from the Salt Lake Tribune is by a police officer who made the first arrest under the new law - and he had to arrest a woman. The article is good because it's honest and portrays a realistic (indeed, it was real) scenario of domestic violence against men.

geoffg50 sent me a link to this New York Times story on paternity fraud and male reproductive rights. The article is in-depth, and presents the problem of children's rights vs. the father's in a fairly objective manner. A lawyer for the man whose case is in question was quoted as saying, "I now advise every man who's getting a divorce to get paternity testing...I don't like it much, but now it seems like it could be malpractice not to warn them." Exposure like this in the NYT could be very significant to the cause.

frank h writes "This link will lead you to an article that portrays men not only as abusers of women and children, but also as the sole and exclusive abusers of pets. What next? Abusers of stuffed animals?" While people who are violent to other people are probably more likely to be violent to animals, this does seem to be pushing the concept a bit far. The article just reeks with the gender politics of domestic violence we're so familiar with.

Anonymous User writes "Bogota's mayor really has found the way to make the hatred of men even more present in Colombia. Click here for the article." To "cut down on street crime and domestic abuse," the mayor imposed a curfew on men and encouraged women to go out and party all night. I can't think of a more humiliating way to marginalize men in society that's been done before. If something like this spreads, we'll see just how hopeless today's men have become.

It's starting to happen - awareness of the misleading notions we've had about gender health disparities are entering the mainstream media. The Wall Street Journal has reported on the NIH retractions of statements claiming that women's health research has been neglected. Click here to read the article, which was forwarded to the Men's Health America mailing list. Now is the most critical time to keep pushing these facts into the open - we are close to, or at, a pivot point where a flood of news articles on this issue could break free.

Marc Angelucci from Men Enabling New Solutions will be hosted on radio station KRLA in the Los Angeles area, to discuss the reality of domestic violence against men. You can listen to the show on-line at this link. He will be on the air from 11:00-11:30 AM Pacific Time. Marc will be referring to facts and statistics about domestic violence that can be read on this web site. Click "Read More" below to view this information.