Article here. Excerpt:

'The conversation about campus sexual assault lacks trust, most notably around the idea of false reporting. The wedge this issue drives between women and men has to be addressed when developing sexual assault legislation.

There are several numbers in circulation that claim to represent false reporting. One study often quoted by women’s rights groups found only 2 percent to 8 percent of reports to be false. A different study, often quoted by men’s rights groups, predicted that anywhere from 40 percent to 50 percent of cases are false.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The process Montana universities use to discipline students accused of sexual assault may not be the best system for adjudication, but it’s the only tool the schools have, Commissioner of Higher Education Clayton Christian said Monday.

“The code of conduct was meant to expel students for cheating on a test, not where it’s went,” Christian said. “That’s a challenge and limitation of it. But we’ve got to have some process until we come up with a better one.”

The records produced from one such process, the University of Montana proceedings that found former UM quarterback Jordan Johnson raped a student and that led to his expulsion, are the subject of a lawsuit filed by author Jon Krakauer.

Article here. Excerpt:

'A week ago, CNN aired “The Hunting Ground,” a documentary aimed at exposing the prevalence of rape in all too many college campuses. One of the many stories “The Hunting Ground” profiled was that of Erica Kinsman, a Florida State student who accused Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Jameis Winston of raping her. In the film, Klinsman accuses Florida State and the Tallahassee Police Department of complicity because of her perception that they failed to thoroughly investigate her allegations despite the fact that Florida State hired a former State Supreme Court justice to arbitrate.

Florida State President John Thrasher blasted the film, saying that its depiction of the Winston case supported a “simplistic narrative” replete with “major omissions and glaring distortions.” Trasher’s point is a reasonable one: Because the film failed to interview a single university official, it left viewers with the facile impression that “colleges and universities are to blame for our national sexual assault crisis.”

Tomorrow is Giving Tuesday. We know your shopping lists are already getting crowded with holiday gifts and chestnuts for roasting!

But please consider adding a donation to SAVE to the list. Here's why:

• We really care! We work hard to make sure that the laws in our country fairly get the right results, while making sure constitutional rights are protected.
• We work hard! In the past year we have tackled numerous legislative projects at both the state and federal level, with great successes! We've been racking up the trophies!
• Our 'we' is small! We are mighty, but small! This means every dollar makes a difference! Smaller nonprofits are often overlooked as larger nonprofits have bigger ad and fundraising campaigns.

Please consider contributing to SAVE on our website, here: http://www.saveservices.org/contribute

SAVE by donating tomorrow!

Thank you, and truly yours,

Gina Lauterio, Esq., Policy Program Director
Stop Abusive and Violent Environments   
www.saveservices.org

Article here. Excerpt:

'At the weekend, two desperate fathers once again risked their lives with the kind of publicity stunt we are now well accustomed to.

This time, Martin Matthews, 48, a represenative of fathers' action group Stop The War On Dads and Bobby Smith, 33, of New Fathers 4 Justice, scaled Buckingham Palace walls and climbed onto the top of the Queen's Gallery.

Like protesting dads dressed as Batman and Spiderman before them, they were calling for equal rights for fathers in divorce settlements, and for a reform of the family courts system which they feel is stacked against men, favouring mothers as sole custodians.

Holding a banner that read ‘I Am Harry’s Dad’ and referring to the recent ISIS atrocity in Paris, Mr Matthews said, “Obviously there were a few concerns. People are going to be nervous at the moment. But even if I had taken a bullet, it would have been worth the risk.”

Article here. Excerpt:

'There’s something particularly annoying about male politicians giving out. Is it their voices? That high-pitched whining? Or is it just their general air of hysteria? I mean they sound pretty hysterical to me. I can’t even understand what they’re saying! It’s their emotional nature I suppose, and their fragility.

I’m not sure how we expect these delicate creatures to make tough decisions. Particularly if it’s that time of the month. They’re probably more concerned about what they’re wearing than actually being politicians. Let me tell you something, you have to be very wary about ambitious men. And don’t they kill each other too with pure bitchiness? Sure they’d stab each other in the back before they’d shake a hand. You know what? Sometimes I think other men are men’s own worst enemies.

Article here. Excerpt:

'This is a story about how the language regarding the crime of sex trafficking has become so fuzzy that even the nation’s top law enforcement officer can speak before an international audience and utter wildly inflated statistics.

Throughout 2015, The Fact Checker has dug into dubious statistics concerning sex trafficking, so this recent speech by Attorney General Lynch caught our eye. Lynch has taken a keen interest in sex trafficking, recently announcing more than $44 million in grant funding to combat human trafficking in the United States, including supporting law-enforcement task forces and victims services organizations. She devoted a significant part of her speech to Interpol to discussing sex trafficking.

But laudable efforts to help victimized children can be undermined when advocates resort to hyperbole to tout their success. Let’s explore how that happened here.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'It’s become a fact of American life that girls are better than boys at school. They get better grades. They’re suspended less. For every generation since the boomers, women have been more likely than men to earn high school and college diplomas.

In fact, girls are pretty much the only reason the high school graduation rate went up in past 40 years, according to calculations by Harvard economist Richard Murnane. The male high school graduation rate has been stuck at 81 percent since the 1970s, while the female graduation rose from 81 percent to 87 percent.

Women have been so persistently superior it is perhaps time for a new stereotype about the sexes — girls as bookish mavens like Lisa Simpson; boys as goof-offs like Bart.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A British woman who tried to kill her husband by poisoning his Christmas drink of sparkling fruit wine with anti-freeze was jailed for 15 years on Monday after being undone by a spelling mistake and a trail of text messages.

Following family arguments, Jacqueline Patrick, 55, twice tried to kill her husband Douglas, 70, in October and on Christmas Day 2013, by spiking his cherry Lambrini, a drink favored by teenagers looking to get drunk on a low budget.

"Perhaps most shocking of all was the note she gave to the London Ambulance Service purporting to be from her husband, stating that he did not wish to be resuscitated," said Detective Inspector Tracey Miller, of London's Metropolitan Police, in a statement.

The forged note showed a misspelling of the word dignity as "dignerty". When police later asked her to write the word, Jacqueline Patrick made the same mistake.'

U.K. Parliament debates male suicide and International Men's Day

In case you missed it (most here probably didn't) Thursday 19 November 2015 was International Men's Day, A debate was had in Parliament in the London. It was proposed by MP Philip Davies and mocked by MP Jess Philiips saying “every day is International Mens’ Day”. If you’re not in the slightest worried about male suicide, men’s health, workplace deaths, treatment in the family courts or constant vilification of men then maybe you could agree with her. In spite of her objections it did go ahead. It was held in Westminster Hall, not in the main House of Commons where other debates were considered more important.

You can watch it here:
Westminster Hall
Thursday 19 November 2015 Meeting started at 1.30pm, ended 4.31pm
Parliament TV
or read the transcript here:
Hansard transcipt
or download it here (read pages 71-94 (marked 241WH to 288WH at the top of the page):
Download PDF

You can see the comment by MP Jess Phillips.
27 October 2015: Jess Phillips MP mocks an application to debate men's issues on Intnl Men's Day

And other comments like:
From the Independent (UK newspaper)
Need some reasons why we don't need International Men's Day? Allow me to enlighten you

From the Guardian (UK newspaper):
Relax, guys – it’s International Men’s Day (the official one)

Story here. Excerpt:

'A mother who left her newborn baby in a Christmas manger inside a New York City church will not be prosecuted, authorities said Wednesday.

"After a full review of all the facts and circumstances surrounding the discovery of a newborn infant this past Monday in a creche inside of Holy Child Jesus Church in the Richmond Hill section of Queens County - including locating and interviewing the mother - my office has determined that no criminal prosecution of the child's mother is warranted," Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said in a statement.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Women’s Aid is feeling extremely fortunate. The chancellor has just announced that we will be sharing a fund of £2m to work with another domestic abuse charity, SafeLives, to improve early intervention in domestic abuse: something we have long argued is essential.

This work is being funded through the proceeds of the tax on sanitary products. There is good in this, but questions are inevitable and we are glad the government will continue to work to get rid of this tax.

However, we must take every opportunity to loudly and clearly affirm that women alone are not responsible for ending domestic violence.'

--

NISVS Infographic

Story here. Excerpt:

'A GamerGate supporter who snuck into an anti-GamerGate panel at Northeastern Illinois University and streamed it online was reported to campus p0lice and falsely accused of making “threatening comments.” He caught the whole thing on film.

Cristian Flores, who goes by the Twitter username “Experiment #626,” was roaming the corridors after the panel, at which feminists bemoaned the lack of “safe spaces” to “protect” them from gamers, when he was approached by a campus police officer and told that someone matching his description had been reported for making threats. As the video below clearly shows, he had done no such thing.

The GamerGate supporter, who identifies himself by name to the officer around 1 hour and 48 minutes into the footage, had been fooling around to amuse his viewers. He had picked up a packet of Ritz crackers and placed one of them on a sign, and turned a tap on and off again at the request of his fans.

Article here. Excerpt:

'When students of color don’t feel welcome on campus, it’s just as serious as rape.

That’s the impression that Wesleyan University’s Antonio Farias, vice president for equality and inclusion and Title IX officer, gave the campus community in his response to recent student protests.

Following up on President Michael Roth’s promise to “communicate better” about the school’s existing system for reporting incidents that are “concerning, harmful and/or contrary to” community standards, Farias wrote:

"We cannot fix what we cannot see, and it is apparent from the heartrending stories I’ve heard from marginalized students that our system of documenting and investigating instances of discrimination is not sufficiently understood and used across the campus. Reporting is an essential first step to get at the root causes of discriminatory behaviors that are caustic to the learning process."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Most mainstream news publications publish, you know, news. Except when it’s about “rape culture” on campus, when no news is also considered news. Case in point: following a winter survey they initiated last year on campus sexual assault, CBC News this fall conducted a survey of 87 post-secondary institutions to investigate the reporting of sexual assaults in 2014 on and off their campuses.

Since the received activist wisdom on the subject assures us that one in four (or five, depending on the polemicist) women on campus will be sexually assaulted during her college tenure, the researchers were chagrined to find that the actual number of reports came to 700 – averaging out to 1.85 per 10,000 students – a figure that jibes with rates of sexual assault in the general population. In 16 schools – seven in Quebec and nine in western Canada – not a single sexual assault has been reported in the last six years.