Article here. Excerpt:

'The Women in Comedy festival is happening right now and runs through this Sunday, June 3rd.

With a mix of performances, workshops and more happening at the Planet Ant Theatre in Hamtramck, the mission of the festival is to celebrate diverse perspectives and the female voices that are part of the comedy scene here in metro Detroit.

In the late 90s, Nancy Hayden helped found the improv troop at Planet Ant which still performs today. She will be featured at the festival this year.

Hayden speaks with WDET’s Ryan Patrick Hooper about the rise of improv and how opportunities for women in comedy are changing.

Hayden says when she was first starting out, most women were cast “for their looks” and “to play the wives…the secretaries and the nurses.”'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Yes: Let’s restore constitutional protections on U.S. college campuses
For the radicals inhabiting the bureaucracy of American higher education, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is a threat.

For years, these “educrats” have built echo-chambers where speech codes, “safe spaces” and inquisitions have replaced free speech and academic freedom.

DeVos aims to change this. To the dismay of her critics, she already has withdrawn some of the most controversial Obama-era guidelines that essentially presumed the guilt of any male charged with sexual harassment.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Business Committee's Rachel Reeves called it "truly staggering", while Nicky Morgan, from the Treasury Committee, said she was "disappointed".

Prof Jonathan Haskel's appointment means there is one woman on the MPC.

The Treasury said the role had been awarded on merit.

The department insisted it was "committed to diversity and encouraging the broadest range of candidates".

It had "actively contacted" 44 women and 43 men to apply for the role.

Of those, 19 men and eight women applied and four women and one man were shortlisted. It also pointed out that two of the three people on the interview panel were women.

"The final appointment decision was based on merit," it said.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Last year the UN special rapporteur on the promotion of freedom of expression, David Kaye, said “online gender-based abuse and violence are undeniably a scourge, and governments and companies should be taking action against it”.

But Gender Equity Victoria’s manager, Jacinta Masters, said governments had not known where to start to tackle online violence against women. “For a long time the internet has been seen as too big or too overwhelming,” she said.
...
Masters said women were tired of waiting for major social media platforms like Facebook, Reddit and Twitter to address the targeting of female users and stamp out pages and users promoting revenge porn and misogyny.

The project being led by Gender Equity Victoria will work with moderators at media organisations to help them understand the gendered nature of violence. But a major part of the initiative, Masters said, would be empowering online “bystanders” to speak up and call out sexism.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'I have never had a job where the mood wasn’t set by the temperament of men.

I’ve witnessed men chuck pens, wadded paper, whatever was in their hands, at a wall or down a hallway the second frustration struck. Once, when asked a question, a man slammed his hands on his desk, pointed to his female colleagues, and yelled, “If it’s easy, ask them.” When men would do this in front of me or to me, I would often give them a look of “Now, now, this is a bit much.” I have lived too long to cower. And yet it was never my place to fight back or escalate. It was my job, much like the job of every other woman in the office, to withstand the rage of men, quell it even. We were pacifiers in pencil skirts.'

Podcast here. Excerpt:

'The University of Texas Austin is taking some heat for a poster campaign aimed at expanding ideas of masculinity. The program has been put on hold after conservative media outlets accused it of treating masculinity as a mental health issue.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Identity politics turns us from the pursuit of equality to the pursuit of power. That is what factional political movements do, which is why the Founders feared them. But good marketing does not mean good strategy. Legitimizing sexism (and racism) undoes generations of effort to produce a more equal society, one with fewer barriers. Everybody can play identity politics. Men and women. Whites and Blacks. Like yin and yang, the rise of one movement produces the rise of its opposite. More strife is the result.
...
Long ago, I was taught the basics of gender studies and feminism by Professor Judith Long Laws (author of The Second X: Sex Role and Social Role, 1978). She taught that the best test for sexism was role reversal. Swap the male and female roles in a sentence, story, or scenario. Does it still seem fair? That was second wave feminism. Third wave feminism wants more than equality. The family court system in many American states apply its prime tenet, which is succinctly stated in this t-shirt.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Dear Amy: I am a male with a female co-worker, “Danica.” I like Danica. We have a similar sense of humor, and I get the sense that she wants to be better friends.

However, she has a strong (and unwarranted) tendency to see injustice, racism, sexism and homophobia in innocuous interactions.

For example, once outside of work, I innocently inquired as to whether she was happy in her life, and she viewed this as a sexist and patriarchal question that basically reduced her to a damsel in distress.

However, as I explained to her, this is something I ask my friends of all genders.

Article here. Excerpt:

'A University of Wisconsin-Whitewater professor is urging schools to implement “Men’s Projects” to fight “toxic masculinity” in children as early as kindergarten.

In a recently published issue of On The Horizon, Kathleen Elliott argues that "finding ways to promote healthy masculinity early and to teach boys and young men to recognize, reject, and challenge simplified, toxic masculinity is essential for creating cultural change.”
...
The scholar further argues that in addition to implementing Men’s Projects in K-12, one of the key strategies teachers can use to fight toxic masculinity is to “highlight women’s achievements in curricula and in the classroom.”'

Article here. Excerpt:

'More than 45 years after it was approved by Congress, Illinois has become the 37th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.

The Illinois House passed the measure 72-45 on Wednesday ― more than three decades after the expiration of the ratification deadline. The state Senate voted in favor of the resolution, 43-12, last month. The measure does not require the approval of Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.

Article here. In the NYT, no less! Excerpt:

'This is a story of a rape accusation that would not die and a misshapen version of college justice meted out in three chapters.

Let’s begin with two Michigan State students looking to hook up in March 2015, mess around and perhaps have sex. Soon after, the woman accuses the man, Keith Mumphery, who would become a pro football receiver, of sexual assault in her dorm room.

The police investigate. Mumphery turns over the text messages from his phone and provides a DNA swab. Prosecutors conduct interviews. The accuser does not return calls. They decline to prosecute.

So ends Chapter 1.

Michigan State’s Title IX office, which investigates accusations of sexual harassment and violence and adheres to a significantly looser standard of evidence than in criminal cases, examines the texts and interviews friends and a nursing supervisor who oversaw the exam of the woman. Mumphery is not allowed to question his accuser. The panel clears him.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The founder of a women-only networking group has revealed how a civil rights law suit forced her to allow men to attend her events.

Created by Claire Wasserman 18 months ago, Ladies Get Paid was set up to help women embrace their ambition, take control of their careers and ultimately get paid and promoted fairly for the work they have done.

The organization hosts events, workshops and webinars, ranging in price from $15 to $25, where women can find out practical information and network both in person and online, and at first received an overwhelmingly positive reaction.

However, in 2017, Wasserman was sued after a man named Rich Allison from California came forward to accuse Ladies Get Paid of sex discrimination in violation of California's Unruh Civil Rights Act.'

Rocky Mountain MRA will be at the People's Fair in Denver this weekend (June 2 and 3).

"We're just about ready for People's Fair Arts and Music Festival and we're excited to get out there next weekend! Be sure to stop by and see us. We look forward to talking with people and meeting interesting people. We can't wait!

Best of all, People's Fair is free to attend and there's lots of great entertainment.

Thank you to everyone who has generously donated to our fundraiser! Your support made this possible and we appreciate your generosity.

People's Fair is this coming weekend at Civic Center Park in Denver:
Saturday, June 2nd 10am-9pm
Sunday, June 3rd 10am-7pm

There will be lots of live music, great vendors and other nonprofits. We're excited to attend People's Fair! There is a lot to see and do!"

For more information see the People's Fair website at https://peoplesfair.com/

If you want to volunteer at the booth, contact Aaron Mello at https://www.facebook.com/aaronleebra

Article here. Excerpt:

'A teenage girl falsely accused ex-boyfriend of drugging and raping her when he refused to rekindle their romance, a court heard.

Hannah Sandover, 18, had been dating her ex-boyfriend, also 18, for nearly a year when they broke up.

She later told a friend he had spiked her water bottle and forced himself on her in the back of his car during a trip to the Westbury White Horse in Wiltshire.

Her worried friend went to the police and Sandover gave a statement saying: "He became forceful and pinned me down, I kept telling him to stop.

"I think he had drugged the water I was drinking."
...
When she was taken to a clinic for an examination, her story started to change as she admitted she hadn't been drugged.

Sandover admitted she made it all up when her family began to question the story.

She admitted a charge of wasting police time at Salisbury Magistrates' Court, Wiltshire.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Authorities in Las Vegas arrested a high school teacher after she threatened to shoot up a concert so she could start a new #MeToo movement aimed at empowering women to become serial killers.

A Bonanza High School teacher, 48, was arrested earlier this month on terrorism charges after she threatened to "poke a lot of holes in a lot of people" at a concert in Las Vegas in text messages she sent to her friend. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports:

In the series of text messages detailed in her arrest report, (the teacher) had repeatedly romanticized “being remembered” and said she hoped to start another #MeToo movement, “but this time in which women feel empowered enough to become serial killers.”

"A perfect plan with my favorite song surrounded by a bunch of f****** up misfits like I am," the teacher wrote in a text message. "Imagine knowing exactly the moment that you’re going to die. I know exactly that your favorite song will be playing. By your favorite band. It’s just too perfect."'