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."

I was glad to see that Neil Lyndon has a second part to his first article about his fall-out from society due to his public questioning of feminist theory. You can read part two here. In it, Lyndon talks more about his son, discusses domestic violence, academic feminism, and women's suffrage. Check it out! Update: I've changed the link to the story, as it was not working consistently for some users.

If you click here you'll go to an excellent statistical analysis of sentencing for youth offenders in Canada. Included in the report are some facts about gender, including that males are more likely to be placed into custody and receive harsher sentences on an offense-by-offense basis. Before using these numbers I suggest checking two things: that the age differences between males and females be factored out, as well as Recidivism (repeat offenders). I can't tell from the abstract whether these were accounted for. StatCan is a high-quality organization, so it may be the case that this has already been done.

There is a story in the Metroland News by a father who lives 5 minutes from his daughter/ex-wife and yet has little contact with his daughter due to bias in the family court system. He's seen it all: false accusations, blatant disregard for his daughter's well-being, and being stuck and not able to fight back. It's a well written story with plenty of facts about divorced dads, definitely worth reading.

In Sydney, Australia, an international conference of scholars and doctors held talks on circumcision, and debated whether it is equivalent to female genital mutilation and should be banned as FGM is. "Prof. [Greg] Boyle said circumcision was a violation of a child's human rights and should be considered an offence to be prosecuted through the courts." You can read the news article by clicking here.

An Anonymous User (you can obviously understand why) submitted this link to a Campus Report of a feminist event at Penn State titled "CuntFest." I don't even know how to sum it up, except it was an extremely vulgar and disturbing performance supporting radical lesbian feminism, whatever that means. It was even more extreme than the Vagina Monologues, if you recall what that was all about. Please don't read the article if you are easily offended.

This is a very long, but really insightful and interesting article. Neil Lyndon was a popular writer from Britain, whose life was radically changed after he wrote an article on men's issues that undermined the tenets of feminist theory. His story can be read here, in his own words. I'd highly recommend this article to anyone on his or her way to becoming a high-profile figure in the men's movement, to know what to expect from your opponents. This will continue to be a struggle for us for some time, but things are already changing and opportunities are opening more often these days. I personally continue to remain optimistic. Update: I've changed the link so that it should work more consistently.

This story from the Globe and Mail talks about Fred Rutledge, and 8th grade teacher who went through tremendous grief in a false accusations case over 2.5 years ago. Just recently, he finally completed a law suit obtaining 1.1 million dollars in damages. It was a nightmare case: "In 1998, Mr. Rutledge became one of the hundreds of teachers in Canada falsely accused of sexual misconduct with students. The utter absence of evidence did not prevent the police from arresting him. Convinced that they had stumbled on a vast cover-up, they also laid charges against a school social worker, the vice-principal and the principal for failure to report his crimes."

The UK Telegraph posted this story on the decline of male enrollment at universities. From the article: "Only 44 per cent of this year's admissions are men and academics now wonder whether their encouragement and preference for women may have gone too far...The pattern of declining male applications and rising female university attendance was established in the 1970s. During the past decade, however, it has worsened drastically...Government estimates forecast that men will make up only 42 per cent of university students by 2010."

One would like to think this is a joke, but in today's gender climate, I seriously doubt it will be taken that way. In an article about the way marriage "civilizes" men, Jonah Goldberg happily takes degrading digs at single men and masculinity in general: "The first thing that needs to be stipulated is that men are disgusting by nature...Like dogs, men need to have their instincts redirected toward positive ends...[marriage] encourages knuckle-draggers, like me, to stand up straight, work hard and play by the rules." Does this man have any self-respect? You can read his article at this link.

Marc Angelucci is in the news again, reminding LA Times readers about the reality of domestic violence against men. You can read his letter here. There is no doubt that Marc has been a letter writing "powerhouse" lately, and he is certainly inspiring change.

Here's some more news on the draft topic: As this CS Monitor story from April tells us, women might be subjected to the draft as well as men. At least seven out of ten women oppose being drafted, and if it does go into effect, "the Swedish Constitution would have to be changed, since it now forbids gender discrimination except in the cases of military service or affirmative-action measures." However, the "quote of the week" goes to Annica Kronsell who said: "I think even the women who are very involved in equality issues have taken it a little for granted that men are involved in that sector...This is a little different because it's arguing not to have a right but to have a duty, an obligation."