Article here. Excerpt:

'Women make up just over 50% of the Scottish population, but currently make up only 45% of public board membership.

The new law sets an objective for at least 50% of non-executive members on all boards to be women by 2022.

The legislation was passed by 88 votes to 28, with the Scottish Conservatives voting against.

It will apply to colleges, universities and some public bodies including health boards, enterprise agencies, the Scottish Police Authority and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.
...
Under the new rules, where a minister is faced with two or more equally qualified candidates for a public board position, they will be required to give preference to female candidates as a "tie-breaker".'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Public-health agencies have long stressed the importance of good education in improving the health of women and young mothers in the developing world. Less focus has been put on the men in these women's lives, however - specifically, how the level of education of partners and fathers, or lack of it, affects how the women care for themselves as sexually active people and expectant mothers.

Now a study by an African demographer at Université de Montréal shows that the more schooling a man has, the more likely his partner will look after her body before and after she gets pregnant, by using contraception, getting prenatal exams or having her child delivered by a health professional. The finding is based on analysis of recent standardized surveys of couples in 32 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and five in Asia.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Fresh off the #MeToo movement, a new women-only workspace in Shorewood aims to create a coworking community.

Men are allowed in when invited.

The idea was born by Shelia Long. Long noticed women in Shorewood were using coffee shops as their workspaces.

Long looked closer and found a lack of understanding in what a modern-day working woman needs: Flexibility.

"They wanted to be really close to home because they might have to pick up their kids from school so they needed something in the neighborhood," Long said.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'They may have attracted the headlines, but the anti-Trump protesters who attended the massive Women’s March in Washington DC, are now drawing criticism for abandoning their placards at landmarks and on the capital’s streets.

Organizers say that more that 2.5 million people took part in demonstrations around the world on Saturday, as protesters voiced opposition to President Donald Trump while also calling for the protection of civil liberties.
...
Following the march, tens of thousands thousands chose to leave their signs outside various DC landmarks including the White House and the Trump International Hotel.
...
Video of a man wearing a pro-Trump Make America Great Again hat cleaning up rubbish received more than 4,000 retweets and 5,000 likes on the social network.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'If you haven’t noticed, we’re angry. We’re seething. For some of us, it began the first time we were groped on public transportation and discovered one of the dark realities of living life in a female body. For others—among them, famously, Oprah Winfrey—it began even earlier, and in a much more terrifying way. “I knew that it was bad,” she has said of the sexual abuse she endured as a child, “because it hurt so badly.” We live with it, suppress it, are to some extent shaped by it, but mostly we keep a cork in it. But every so often, that rage roars up to the surface, and it’s not just one or two of us, it’s just about all of us. And when that happens, it seems to us that—if we can just stay angry and if we can just keep going—we might actually change things. Female rage is the essential fuel of #MeToo. Unchecked it is the potent force that will destroy it.

Article here. Excerpt;

'The nation’s highest military court has thrown out the 2012 rape conviction of a Coast Guard enlisted man because admirals and prosecutors packed the seven-member jury with five women, four of whom held jobs as advocates for victims of sexual assault.

In a 5-0 ruling that could change how the military conducts sex abuse trials, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces unleashed caustic criticism of all involved.

From the Coast Guard commandant down to an appellate court to the original trial judge, the high court said all contributed to a “stain on the military justice system.” The military has been under intense pressure to wipe out sexual harassment and assault, the five civilian judges noted.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Two female students at Yale formally accused a male student “only minutes apart” on the same day, saying he groped both of them on a bus and one of them months earlier in Paris.

They teamed up again by coordinating their testimony against the male – “who has been a conservative columnist for the Yale Daily News” – during the Title IX hearing itself, according to the accused student’s new lawsuit against Yale.

“John Doe,” whose parents immigrated to America in 2011, claims Yale found him responsible for sexual misconduct in spite of the fact that three witnesses walking behind him and “Jane Roe” in June 2016 in Paris did not see the alleged groping.

A few months later, nearly 20 witnesses also failed to notice Doe’s alleged groping of Jane Roe and her “longtime” friend “Sally Roe” on “a chartered bus from Yale to Harvard” for the Ivy League schools’ football game, according to the suit. It specifies that the bus trip had no connection to the university.'

SAVE has started a campaign to challenge the presumption of guilt inherent in "victim-centered" sexual assault imvestigations found here. Excerpt:

'Due process and the presumption of innocence are being threatened by efforts to:

1. Remove key protections from the accused
2. Eliminate use of the words “alleged” and “allegedly“
3. Refer to the complainant as the “victim”
4. Instruct investigators to “believe the victim”

Believe the victim” provides the ideological foundation for three related investigational approaches: “Start by Believing, “victim-centered investigations” and “trauma-informed” response.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'I’m not the first to observe that a lot of modern feminism consists of loud sloganeering about women’s choice and empowerment, behind a small subset of women looks down on other women and tells them they’re making the wrong choices. If you don’t believe me, try being a conservative woman (especially one who opposes abortion), or a stay-at-home mom, or someone who thinks the #MeToo campaign has become an out-of-control warlock hunt. We can also see this in the way feminists have taken a new step toward redefining sexual consent, the upshot of which is partly to tell other women that they are consenting to sex wrong.

Consent is the most basic and limited moral standard that you can apply to sex, but it has the virtue of being a clear and objective standard, and it is actually not controversial. You would also think that holding to consent as a standard would allow you to find enough male miscreants and female victims as it is. But I guess that doesn’t produce enough of them, or perhaps not of the right type.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Upon seeing that appeal, the Erik Wemple Blog consulted with an expert on employment law. Carolyn Wheeler of employment law firm Katz, Marshall & Banks delivered this assessment of the Axios entreaty:

[I]n a nutshell, I think, as the EEOC posters proclaim, that “Equal Employment Opportunity is the Law,” and that preferences for some groups over others are problematic even when the preferences are for the usually excluded groups. Advertising for men or women for particular jobs, or for younger workers, or for non-disabled individuals unlawfully restricts employment opportunities on prohibited bases. Affirmative action to reach out and recruit employees from historically disadvantaged groups is appropriate but is usually done just by placing ads or recruitment messages in places where those groups will see them, not by overtly soliciting their applications. This particular message violates Title VII and the ADA and sets the company up for legal challenges.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The NHS is refusing to give teenage boys an inexpensive vaccine that grants long-term protection against Britain's fastest-growing form of cancer – on the grounds that it is cheaper to treat deadly tumours later in life.

The jab grants immunity to the human papillomavirus (HPV), and has been provided free to all girls aged 12 to 13 since 2008 because HPV causes cervical cancer.

But it is now known it also causes 'oropharyngeal' cancer of the tongue, mouth and throat, whose incidence is rocketing, as well as tumours of the genitals and anus.
...
Professor Margaret Stanley, of Cambridge University's pathology department, the incoming president of the International Papillomavirus Society, said: 'You cannot protect against these cancers by only vaccinating half the population. Not to immunise boys is classic Treasury short-termism. You may not spend so much now, but it will cost far more years later.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'It feels less like legitimate concern on behalf of the strong for the weak, and more like a vendetta against men in general. Less a positive affirmation of the rights of women and more an attempt to eradicate one sex completely.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Six male presenters at the BBC are accepting pay cuts after income disparity among male and female staffers at the organization has come under the public spotlight.

“We are very grateful to Huw Edwards, Nicky Campbell, John Humphrys, Jon Sopel, Nick Robinson and Jeremy Vine, who have agreed that their pay will now be reduced,” the BBC said in a statement today. “These are great journalists and presenters, who have a real connection with the audience. We are proud to have them working at the BBC.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'So what can be done? In Britain it is legal to form a private members’ club whose membership is based on restrictive characteristics. There are women-only and ethnic-minority clubs which do not admit men or those of a different ethnicity. The government’s own guidance on the Equality Act says that while it is unlawful for a private club to discriminate against, harass or victimise an existing or potential member it is lawful to restrict membership to people who share a particular characteristic. This is not true for political parties, which cannot block membership on the basis of race or sex.
...
What is required is the compulsory publication of a register of members so that the public can be confident that the business of government and justice is not being done in the secret smoke-filled dining rooms of gentlemen’s clubs. A more transparent approach might also open up some of these gentlemen’s clubs to more adult attitudes towards women.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Scottish Labour is expected to introduce all-women shortlists to fight key target seats in a fast-track selection process to prepare for a second snap general election.

The party has identified 20 key Westminster target seats, including all seven Glasgow constituencies, after coming far closer than expected to winning back former seats in last June’s snap election.

The party’s Scottish executive will meet on Saturday to vote on plans backed by its new leader, Richard Leonard, to choose many candidates from all-women shortlists. Leonard told the Guardian in December he was “very open to ideas about positive action.”

Labour sources say a majority of the party’s MSPs at Holyrood, including senior women MSPs, oppose all-women shortlists because local parties would object to having that imposed on them by the central party.'