This article from The New Republic outlines the increasing role that feminism has played in the democratic party, and gender politics in general. With the U.S. election differences in gender voting preference playing a very significant role in this election, this is probably going to become a very popular topic among political analysts (as it has already).

Apparently some teachers in the UK are concerned that the new paternity law proposal could seriously disrupt education in these times of severe teacher shortage. IHF notified me of this story in the UK Telegraph. A spokesman for the Education Dept. replied to the complaints with "Schools will have to manage in the same way as other businesses."

This report by Stephen Baskerville reminds us how corrupt the family courts are, and gives an informal estimate that puts as much as one-third of the jail population of this country as fathers on contempt-of-court charges. And with a quote like this "A Georgia sheriff and superior court judge have proposed creating forced labor camps specifically for fathers", the analogy between child support and slavery has never been more true. Please send Stephen an email of thanks for his superb and highly articulate articles. He must take a tremendous amount of flak for being so outspoken in the name of fathers and men.

I know many readers will enjoy Jocelyn Payne's web site and organization - Women Opposed to Male Bashing (WOMB). She describes the site as, "an Egalitarian, Anti-Sexist, Anti Hate
site - Pro woman, Pro man, Pro Dialogue. I respect Masculists, Feminists & Humanists who are searching for a fair and balanced relationship between the sexes , while respecting gender differences." The WOMB site includes many useful links to men's rights web sites and research on men's issues.

IHF sent in this story from the UK Telegraph. It's about a man who is suing his former lover for tricking him into raising a child that isn't his. "Mr X plans to sue Mrs Y for "deceit", the emotional distress caused by the discovery, and the costs, with interest, he incurred while bringing up the child. The man, from the West Midlands, and his former girlfriend cannot be named because of a court order protecting the child's identity." This case could have profound effects on the Choice for Men movement in the UK, and even in the US.

Although the article is from April of this year, if you click here you'll read a good, concise piece explaining the misconceptions and reality about the gender wage gap. From the article: "The pay equity movement seemed to be cruising along until a 1999 study came out that cast doubt over the validity of the 73-cent statistic. Researchers Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Christine Stolba argue that the wage gap is virtually nonexistent when you consider factors such as job experience, actual number of hours worked and individual choices, such as flexible scheduling to balance work and family life." The researchers wrote Women's Figures, an indispensable reference to have when debunking the wage gap myth.

Foster's Daily Democrat printed this front page story about a man who is serving a 6-20 year sentence for aggravated sexual assault of his former girlfriend. DNA evidence has just proven that he is not the father of the woman's child, who was conceived at the time of the rape, and the victim had even recanted her story in the original trial! But he was still convicted because the prosecution claimed she had a vested interest in recanting the story and used an older videotape of her making the accusation to convict him. After the trial, she even went to media outlets saying she had made up the accusation in revenge because she thought he was seeing another woman. Will justice be served?

WasatchFrontMan writes "Brian O'Neil is a man and is openly religious. That is a bad combination these days for a college administrator. The inevitable happened - the mostly female administration at Middlesex Community College eventually found a way to have him removed. He was fired even though he had always received good reviews and only a month earlier, he had been given a merit pay raise. Click here for the full story" This article also deals with gender pay issues and seems to be a pretty clear cut case of discrimination.

It's pretty obvious how this represents a double standard: a 28-year-old teacher in Canada who was having a sexual relationship with one of her students, 17, and became pregnant by him was recently acquitted in court for the charge of sexual exploitation of a minor. I'm sure the attentive reader will notice many other ways the story is portrayed that wouldn't happen if the genders were reversed in this case. The article is from Canoe News and can be read here.

Peter Brimelow wrote an article in Forbes Magazine about the general erosion of due process. I'm including it here since I think civil liberties are very relevant to pro-male activists, considering the removal of due process in rape laws and attempts to censor speech by PC advocates. The article gives some interesting background and perspectives on how we got to this state today.

Ed Bartlett from Men's Health America recently posted that the NIH has released its latest report on gender enrollment in NIH sponsored research, and the results aren't good for men. You can read his posting here. "In Fiscal Year 1994, men represented 44.9% of participants in extramural research, women 51.8%, and the sex of the remaining 3.3% was unknown. By 1997, male participation fell to 37.1%.
Table 2 in the most recent report presents disturbing news: In 1998, male participation dropped to 32.2%" But Ed also writes that due to the media focus on the election, it is best to hold off on letter writing campaigns and activism until we can expect to get some coverage of the issue.

Back in August we included a story about Cathy Fordham, who ran a community recovery home and manipulated and falsely accused several men there of assault and sexual assault. Just recently she has been sentenced, as this story from the Ottawa Citizen tells us. Basically, she was given six months of parole with strict house arrest, because she was "not a danger to the public." Considering how manipulative she's been described as by both her patients and the police, I have some doubts about the effectiveness of this sentence.

Here's some breaking news from the UK Guardian.
As this story tells us, rape shield law which forbids the questioning of a victim's past sexual history in court is being challenged under the Human Rights Act in Britain, as part of the right to a fair trial. This case could have a profound effect on rape cases and may even have a "ripple effect" through the West if it is overturned.

We have a new feature article submitted by Justin Zellers. It's a superbly written essay which summarizes many issues in the men's movement, examines how it came to be and its relationship with feminism. Justin clearly and positively outlines the need for the men's movement, without unreasonably scapegoating feminism or polarizing men and women further. It's an effective presentation of men's issues that has the potential to open many minds. You can read the essay by clicking "Read More" below...

This article from The Regional Economist destroys myths about the gender wage gap, in particular the myths that the gap is related to equal pay for equal work and that it is due to discrimination. From the article: "Is one to take from the numbers presented here that the gender wage gap of 23.5 cents is mostly an illusion, and that gender wage
discrimination is not a serious problem? Well, yes and no. Most of the
gender wage gap is due to factors other than wage discrimination, so it is illusory as an indicator of wage discrimination. Nonetheless, no study has been able to explain it away entirely."