Commenting on the battle for marriage in the UK is Melanie Phillips, whose article from the Sunday Times tells us that the case for marriage is being debated in politics. As this quote tells us, "a battle has been raging over marriage. In the nuptial corner are Jack Straw, Paul Boateng and David Blunkett. Opposing them is the feminist hard core made up of Baroness Jay, Harriet Harman and sundry women junior ministers." Unsurprisingly, the Prime Minister sided with the feminists. And the debate rages on.

An anonymous reader submitted this link to a Utah Salt Lake Tribune article about the importance of fathers. Prof. Hawkins of BYU is working with the National Fatherhood Initiative to help pass laws that will help promote fatherhood and marriage. From the article: "The fact is that fathers are great monitors of the present and especially the futures of children's lives...More than 60 percent of convicted rapists, 72 percent of teen murderers and 70 percent long-term prison inmates are males who grew up without fathers."

George McCasland writes, "I'm George McCasland, the person that answers the 1-800-SEE-DADS line for the National Congress for Fathers & Children. I would like to invite all of you to go to the NCFC-MoKan Chapter Web site at: kidsndads.org and click on the "Shelter" link. We are in the process of putting together a domestic violence shelter for men and children in the Kansas City area. This will be the first major center of its type in the country, and we hope will serve as an example for other shelters. I would like you to review our proposal and consider donating towards this effort. If nothing else, review it, and tell others about what we are trying to accomplish. We will not be able to change the public's views on domestic violence against men and their children, until we can show more than just some studies. We need to be showing some live examples of its effects. So please, take a look and consider helping in our effort."

This news from Yahoo! claims that women feel that women's health is ignored by politicians and medical researchers, mainly because the people responsible for making these decisions are men. I find this interesting not only in light of the recent report that Men's Health research is neglected by comparison to women's, but also that as far as politics is concerned, I've seen a tremendous amount of attention devoted to it. Promoting women's health issues is one of the key components of getting the "woman's vote," which is so coveted. I guess this just goes to show that perceptions don't always reflect reality.

I received notification from Dr. Charles Corry about a novel written by Trudy W. Schuett that focuses on the reality of violent women and domestic violence against men. You can find out more about the book at this link. The book's title is Friends to the End, and is apparently available only on-line. But it's an important step forward.

I found a good article on stress in the workplace and the ways it affects men. There are some tips about helping to reduce stress, and also signs that a person may be under severe stress (managers and co-workers take note!). You can read the MSN news article at this location.

bernee writes "This sad story about a man killing himself due to massive child support payments is typical of the perils faced by men - that he must give so much and then lose control his life because of an unfeeling Government policy - a supposedly "gender neutral" policy but one which, when tied in with the Family Courts, is clearly discriminatory. This is the reason why we must fight on. Another distressing aspect of this story is that the editor of the newspaper wrote an editorial two days before this article was published concerning the Child Support Agency. It is a fine example of gutless political crap that totally ignores who is really suffering because of these discriminatory policies. I have written to him in disgust. My letter is yet to be published."

A high school aged girl gave her prom date two black eyes for not kissing her at the prom. The boy did not retaliate because, "he was taught never to hit a girl." And not only that, but she initially claimed that he had raped her, and recanted charges, saying that she was angry that her boyfriend rejected her in her drunken state. You can read the article here. Can you believe this? According to "progressive" rape theory, this young man was a victim of attempted rape (unwanted sexual contact - kissing), and she then turns around and falsely accuses him of rape! And then there's the abuse - what a horrible situation this young man is in.

Marc writes "Yahoo! News repeated the wage gap myth, again. Click here. It's so tiring. Maybe we need a class action lawsuit to stop this. For now, we can scroll down to 'conversations' and give your input."

In today's Boston Globe, Cathy Young wrote a column on the recent press conference on public health research which demonstrated that women have never been neglected by NIH research studies. There are lots of good statistics here, and from my personal contact with Ed Bartlett, the reception of this news went well - he did not have one person come up and challenge him after he released the report. Now we just need to keep promoting this and get it to trickle up to the national media. Update: I've fixed the link now. Sorry about that.

I'm transferring the management of the Mensactivism.org domain name to a new registrar, in order to fix some quirks of this site's current setup (namely, the frames issue and not being able to bookmark individual stories). If things start acting funny this week please bear with me - everything should be changed over by the end of Friday.

In today's edition of the University of New Hampshire school newspaper, this article presents amazing statistics about violence against women and women's overall fear of violence. Some choice statements from the article: "67.6 percent of women surveyed
said that they would be afraid to walk alone at night, while only 4.4 percent of men said the same...[A UNH Police Officer] said this is due to the higher number of assaults on women than on men." Update: I am in the process of composing a response to this article. My results will be posted to Mensactivism.org when it is printed in the newspaper.

In this acticle (from July), George W. Bush tells us of his "Promoting Fatherhood" initiative, an $185 million program to help strengthen the role of fathers. While he does come at this from the highly dubious "responsible fatherhood" angle, he also says "Our nation must reverse the trend toward fatherless homes." It seems that the problems of fatherlessness are slowly starting to get noticed - keep up the great work people!

This article by Stephen Baskerville in DadMag.com is on the trials and tribulations that fathers go through in family court. None of this should be news to most readers of Mensactivism.org, but Baskerville as usual does an excellent job explaining the dangers of divorce to men, and DadMag.com is not really a "father's rights" magazine - so the word is getting out to new people.

Rand wrote in about this story from the UK Independent. It discusses a major study done on domestic violence by Prof. John Archer from the University of Central Lancashire. It is noteworthy that in his conclusions, Archer finds that Western women are more violent because they are "economically emancipated and therefore not afraid of ending a relationship." The article also mentions a forthcoming article in the Journal of Men's Studies that traces battered men in history, including John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, and Abraham Lincoln.