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'What is causing a worldwide Boy Crisis and how do we resolve it. A sobering look at the current state of Boys in our society and what we must understand before we can help them.
Dr. Warren Farrell is an American educator, activist and author of seven books on men's and women's issues., including the international bestsellers, Why Men Are the Way they Are, plus The Myth of Male Power. He is the only man in the U.S. to be elected three times to the Board of the National Organization for Women in NYC. and he is Chair of the Commission to Create a White House Council on Boys and Men. Warren has appeared on more than 1000 TV and radio shows, including numerous “ratings periods” for Oprah. GQ calls him (2015) the Martin Luther King of the men’s movement. Warren is currently co-authoring with John Gray the forthcoming The Boy Crisis.'
Most of us automatically answer it because that's the custom, that it is a mitzvah, to honor the family, or because it's healthy. Few of us give further thought to the ancient practice.
Rani Kasher, 54, a father of six children between the ages of 11 and 23, a coordinator of a cultural center in Kfar Giladi, a lecturer on nature and owner of a printing house, undertook the mission of bringing to the public's attention the true meaning of the act of cutting the foreskin.'
Story here. I have to wonder, does this really also happen to gay women there, too? The article says it happens to both, but gay men tend to receive the most frequent and harshest persecution in societies where there is institutionalized intolerance of homosexuality as compared to gay women. Excerpt:
'The documentary reveals how the activist Chen Wei is electrocuted, drugged and beaten, and even told his homosexuality was either a curse from his dead parents who were haunting him - or caused by grief over his dead pet parrot.
There are reportedly thousands of clinics containing everything from quack doctors through to exorcists in China, claiming that they can cure homosexuality and help gay men and women return to "normal lives".
As he undergoes the abuse, brave Chen from the capital Beijing secretly filmed what was going on.
He approached the clinic claiming that he was confused about his sexual orientation and did not understand why he was attracted to other men.
'For her part, Jan, 76, who now lives with Chris at his house (and receives $100,000 a year from Rooney's SAG pension and Social Security benefits), insists that she has been falsely accused and characterizes her late husband's Senate testimony as coerced and unreliable. "Mickey was a 90-year-old man who was in and out of it mentally and was easily influenced by other people," she explains.
'The International Council on Shared Parenting (ICSP) is a dynamic young European-based organization that is pulling together a wealth of leading-edge information about shared parenting that is often hard to find in the United States. It is holding its second International Conference on Shared Parenting in Bonn, Germany from December 9 to 11, 2015. The primary language of the conference will be English; a few presentations will be given in French or German, in which case there will be simultaneous translation into English.
Best airport from North America: Frankfurt, then high speed train to Bonn. Or combine a fabulous trip to Paris or Amsterdam with an easy train ride to Bonn. The dollar is strong, so your timing is perfect.'
'A recent New York Times article about affirmative consent, “Sex Ed Lesson: ‘Yes Means Yes,’ But It’s Tricky,” is triggering a strong negative public response. The article details the confused reactions of California high school students who are being instructed to ask permission for sexual activities every 10 minutes, or risk being adjudged guilty of rape.
The highest-rated reader reaction to the NYT account deplored how “The yes-means-yes standard turns almost all of us into rapists. We have let the radicals hijack this issue with disastrous results for innocent young people.”
Another reader commented ironically, “As far as I can tell, the new ‘affirmative consent’ paradigm allows for a very realistic possibility of two adults raping each other at the same time, which makes a mockery of the whole concept of rape.”
'A case of dowry has been registered against a dead man.
On October 5, 30-year-old banker Rakesh Pilania jumped from his apartment in an upscale Gurgaon locality. His family alleges that he committed suicide out of fear of being implicated under Section 498A of the IPC (cruelty against wife by husband or his relatives).
His wife, meanwhile, registered a dowry harassment case against her husband and his family a day after Rakesh died.
Though Rakesh is no more, proceedings under Section 498A would continue against his family.
Experts say Rakesh’s case brings to the fore the misuse of section 498A and its grave consequences, including suicide.
'Last week the New York Times published a balanced news story that inadvertently revealed the stupidity of “Yes Means Yes” policies. Those policies redefine a great deal of consensual sex andtouching as “sexual assault,” and effectively require college students to engage in “state-mandated dirty talk” during sexual encounters (as one supporter of “Yes Means Yes” policiesgloated). That potentially violates the Constitution, and such policies have led to costly lawsuits against colleges that have such policies.
'Because due process rights aren't apparently considered when discussing campus sexual assault, congressional staffers on Monday had to be briefed about them by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
FIRE staffers Joseph Cohn, Shelby Emmett and Samantha Harris met with congressional staffers to discuss the lack of due process rights afforded to college students accused of sexual assault, and provided analysis of current legislation on the subject.
FIRE discussed the need for accused students to have access to the evidence against them (because such an obvious right is currently not afforded to college students) and the elimination of conflicts of interest among campus investigators. Currently, the person investigating a sexual assault claim can also be an advocate for the accuser, producing a clear bias for an allegedly impartial investigator.'
'Weeks into her freshman year at the University of Minnesota, Courtney Blake was sexually assaulted in her dorm room. She reported it to campus officials, rather than police.
Though the young man argued the sex was consensual, he was found to have violated the student conduct code and put on disciplinary probation, given mandatory counseling and assigned to write a paper, according to an investigation document. Blake was moved to another dorm.
Less than a year later, Blake was assaulted at an off-campus party by a different student. This time, she turned to the police as well as campus officials, but quickly learned the justice system’s limitations. She got a more tangible response from the U, which expelled her assailant.
...
Critics of these internal investigations say colleges and universities are ill-equipped to handle cases that in a courtroom would constitute a felony. Because schools don’t have subpoena power, investigators and panels have to make decisions based on whatever evidence they can get.
'After being found responsible for sexual misconduct by a campus kangaroo court, a Brown University student is taking the unusual step of suing the university and suing his accuser. He’s accusing Brown of violating its own policies after putting him through a campus judicial proceeding that — as described in the complaint — would make any self-respecting lawyer recoil in disgust. The plaintiff, who goes by “John Doe” in the complaint, paints a picture of a university that was committed to punishing him from the start, exhibiting bias at every stage of the campus process.
'A student who was born female felt perfectly comfortable identifying as a man at Wellesley College — until people said he shouldn’t be class diversity officer because he is now a white male.
Timothy Boatwright was born a girl, and checked off the “female” box when applying to the Massachusetts all-women’s school, according to an article in the New York Times. But when he got there, he introduced himself as a “masculine-of-center genderqueer” person named “Timothy” (the name he picked for himself) and asked them to use male pronouns when referring to him.
And, by all accounts, Boatwright felt welcome on campus — until the day he announced that he wanted to run for the school’s office of multicultural affairs coordinator, whose job is to promote a “culture of diversity” on campus.
'An Institute of Physics (IoP) guide argues schools do not take sexist "banter" as seriously as they do racist or homophobic language.
This can lead to gender stereotyping and turn girls away from studying science subjects as often as boys.
"No woman should feel that their gender is a barrier to their success," the government said.
The guide, Opening Doors, to be presented at a conference hosted by the IoP, also urged teachers to reflect on their own language to ensure they are "not inadvertently transmitting negative messages".
It is based on the results of interviews with staff and young people in 10 schools in England.'
'In response, Ms Morgan said: "It is good to see that maths A-level is now the most popular A-level. We've got more girls studying STEM subjects both at GCSEs and A-levels.
"But the issue is that women are concentrated in less well paid occupations. Women are 92 per cent of secretaries, 94 per cent of child care assistants but only 7 per cent of engineers and 20 per cent of architects. Again that has to change.'
Bath MP Ben Howlett is pushing for greater numbers of women to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The MP has pressed the Secretary of State for Women and Equalities to do more to improve these numbers.
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