Story here. Excerpt:

'The Marine Corps commandant has laid out a campaign to impose “cultural change” in macho ground combat units to make sure warriors display no resistance to accepting and mentoring women.

The “Marine Corps Force Integration Campaign Plan,” approved by Gen. Robert B. Neller, sparks a revolution in training and education as the 182,000-strong expeditionary force prepares for the Obama administration’s April 1 deadline to start the process of putting women in infantry, armor and artillery units.

It contains a new curriculum of sensitivity training.

“The purpose of gender integration education is to support leadership efforts to facilitate the cultural change necessary to ensure the integration of female Marines into ground combat arms MOSs [military occupational specialties] and units is successful,” the document states. “In most cases, the introduction of new players to a team disrupts unit cohesion.”

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Ghomeshi trial has to have been a giant embarrassment for Ottawa law professor and hard-core feminist Elizabeth Sheehy. In 2013, Sheehy published a book, Defending Battered Women on Trial. In it, Sheehy proposed that women who experience extreme abuse from their male partners should have the right to kill them pre-emptively – in their sleep, say – without fear of being charged with murder.

According to Sheehy, women in abusive relationships are like prisoners of war, for whom it is a duty to kill their captors. To be sure, Sheehy’s target group would not include the three women who made such a hash of their testimonies at the Ghomeshi trial, since they were not in any way captive to Ghomeshi as the women she envisages are, nor did they experience extreme abuse.

But that hardly matters, because Sheehy’s thesis rests on the same foundational articles of faith regarding all women victims, of all male abuse, that the Ghomeshi trial has taken a jackhammer to: namely, that women never lie about abuse and that the justice process is biased toward men.

She has been proved wrong on both counts.

To begin with the second myth: Handbooks for police across the country reflect the feminist vision of women that Sheehy embraces. In fact a decade ago some lawyers launched a human rights complaint against Alberta Justice over their “Handbook for police and prosecutors” dealing with domestic violence (the twin gender crime to sexual assault) because it portrayed men always as perpetrators and women always as victims throughout its 160 pages, and because the concepts of “innocent until proven guilty” and “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” didn’t make a single appearance in all those pages.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Going away for college is a dream for most young people, but for a local teen it turned into a nightmare.

Instead of starting fall semester, he spent the first day of school in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.

“It’s just I was the wrong guy,” Elijah Bethel said. “That’s all that really happened. They just picked the wrong person.”

Bethel was a star in the classroom and on the football field. But the hit he didn’t see coming happened last Fall when he enrolled at SUNY Buffalo State.

At 3:21 a.m. on August 28, 2015, campus police were called to Porter Hall where a young woman had been groped in her sleep. The attacker fled and dropped cigarettes and a lighter.

“She was sleeping, and it was very difficult for her to make an identification,” attorney Paul Michalek said.

She said it was a short, black man in black shorts.

Nineteen minutes later at 3:40 a.m., police see Bethel in black shorts with three friends on the other side of campus.

Article here. Excerpt:

'An editorial executive at the Harvard Crimson is decrying all people who believe in due process as “rape apologists.”

In an article on the Harvard Crimson, Nian Hu laments over the allegedly “stymied” progress for alleged sexual assault survivors.

While admitting, “practically everyone agrees that rape is bad,” Hu writes those who believe in due process for individuals accused of rape are “rape apologists”:

"Who is upholding this broken system, and protecting sexual assault perpetrators at the expense of survivors?

Rape apologists are. The problem is, they don’t consider themselves defenders of rapists. Instead, they call themselves defenders of liberty and due process before the law. They are the self-proclaimed champions of “innocent before proven guilty.” All they want is fairness and equality—that is, for the men who are accused of rape."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Hey, men: Ever wonder why your life expectancy is shorter than women's? It could be because you're too busy chugging whiskey, chopping firewood and doing other tough man stuff to go to the goddamn doctor.

Men who subscribe to traditional notions of masculinity are less likely to go to the doctor. They're more likely to downplay their symptoms. They also tend to experience worse overall health than people who don't hold those beliefs, according to new research.

Tradition-bound dudes are also more likely to choose male doctors — but they're less likely to open up to them about health issues than they are with female doctors.

Psychologists at Rutgers University say their findings could help explain why men tend to die earlier than women.

"Men can expect to die five years earlier than women, and physiological differences don't explain that difference," Diana Sanchez, associate professor of psychology at Rutgers' School of Arts, said in a press release.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Although a majority of women believe that women should, theoretically, be allowed to serve in the military, less than half of women support the idea of women actually having to be forced to serve if there is a draft.

A YouGov poll asked 1,000 Americans, including approximately 500 women, what they think about women serving in the military.

The poll found 68 percent of women support the idea of women being allowed to serve in combat roles in the military (40 percent “strongly support” the idea while 28 percent “somewhat support” it), while 87 percent of women support the idea of women being allowed to serve in non-combat roles (61 percent “strongly support” the idea while 26 percent “somewhat support” it).

However, despite the poll showing 75 percent of women believe men and women are equal, only 46 percent of women said women should be able to be drafted along with men.

We are conducting a survey on female perpetrated violence and male response to it.

The results so far have been shocking and we would like a broad a base as possible for comparison.

Article here. Excerpt:

'In a 26-page decision handed down Thursday morning, Ontario Court Justice William Horkins found former CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi not guilty of three counts of sexual assault and, while doing so, suggested that not all sexual assault survivors are telling the truth.

Among the many reasons for the verdict was the “inconsistencies” and “demonstrably false” nature of some of the witnesses’ testimony, he wrote.

He also wrote that the complainants’ evidence “illustrates the need to be vigilant in avoiding” the idea that all sexual assault survivors are telling the truth.

“However, the twists and turns of the complainants’ evidence in this trial, illustrate the need to be vigilant in avoiding the equally dangerous false assumption that sexual assault complainants are always truthful,” he wrote.

“Each individual and each unique factual scenario must be assessed according to their own particular circumstances.”'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Chief Human Rights Commissioner David Rutherford has emphasized that human rights for males are as important as those for women and other groups.

A meeting in December 2015 between Mr Rutherford and representatives of NZ men’s groups and services identified areas in which men’s human rights have been neglected in NZ. The meeting recognized that in the drive to improve rights for women and other groups traditionally seen as disadvantaged, men’s welfare has been forgotten.

At a follow-up meeting in February 2016 plans were considered to include men’s issues in future reports to the UN about New Zealand’s human rights record.

Spokesman for one of the groups involved, Hans Laven from community group the Ministry of Men’s Affairs (MoMA) described the meetings as “historic”.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Ride share services are convenient and popular. However, some riders think it may not always be the safest option.

“I’ve questioned who is driving me around,” explains car service rider Lindsay Roth of Brighton.

Chariot for Women is a new Massachusetts-based company that will soon offer rides nationwide from an app, similar to Uber, but this service is for women with vehicles only driven by women.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The United Nations office on women's rights in Brazil said Thursday that President Dilma Rousseff has been the victim of "sexist political violence" by opponents seeking to oust her.

Rousseff, Brazil's first woman president, is battling impeachment proceedings and mass protests calling for her departure.

The leftist leader's popularity has tumbled in the face of a recession and an explosive corruption scandal, but UN Women said underlying sexism is fueling the increasingly vitriolic movement against her.

"As a defender of women's and girls' rights around the world, UN Women condemns all forms of violence against women, including the political violence of a sexist nature directed against President Dilma Rousseff," Nadine Gasman, head of UN Women in Brazil, said in a statement.
...
Some three million Brazilians took to the streets on March 13 calling for her departure.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Why has marriage declined in America? Here's my dorm room bull theory: it's because men are pigs.

I know, I know: #NotAllMen blah blah blah. That said, let's unpack this a bit. Basically, an awful lot of men are—and always have been—volatile and unreliable. They drink, they get abusive, and they do stupid stuff. They're bad with money, they don't help with the kids, and they don't help around the house. They demand subservience. They demand sex. And even on the one dimension they're supposedly good for—being breadwinners—they frequently tend to screw up and get fired.

In other words, marriage has been a bad deal for women pretty much forever. But they've been forced into it by cultural mores and economic imperatives, and that's the only reason it's been nearly universal in the past.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A woman has been jailed for over three years after she admitted to tricking girls into having sex using a rubber penis.

Jennifer Staines, 23, groomed her victims online under the name Jason Spiller saying she was looking for love.

She even went on holiday with the girls and one relationship lasted for more than a year, convincing entire families that she was a man.

She wouldn’t let her victims – aged between 12 and 17 – touch her body and used condoms on the rubber penis. One of the girls went to her doctor believing she might be pregnant and so convincing was her deceit that one of her victims still struggles to believe she was in a relationship with a woman, not a man.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The growing federal emphasis on combating sexual harassment on campus, along with universities’ broadening definitions of inappropriate sexual behavior, has had a chilling effect on academic freedom and speech, especially on female professors in areas like gender studies, a report released Thursday by the American Association of University Professors said.

The report says that in the last few years, the government has been regulating not just sexual conduct but also sexual speech, and that the emphasis on complying with federal law has led to some professors being investigated by universities for making statements that some students find offensive but that the report says should be protected. A heightened focus on speech, the report said, has led to episodes like one in which students demanded trigger warnings before being exposed to graphic lesbian sex in “Fun Home,” the memoir by the cartoonist Alison Bechdel.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights brought needed attention to the problem of sexual assault and harassment on college campuses with its 2011 letter telling institutions to enforce the law. But in so doing, the office has created a slew of new problems with implications for free speech and academic freedom. That’s the premise of a lengthy new report from the American Association of University Professors.

Drawing on the history of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits gender discrimination in education, the report argues for a more judicious application of the law across academe. The report is an attempt to reshape discussion of Title IX -- to put substantially more emphasis on due process.

Predictably for so controversial a topic, “The History, Uses and Abuses of Title IX” is earning praise and criticism from those on all sides of the argument.