Article here. Excerpt:

Article here. Excerpt:

'Whether it's body image, lad culture, fatherhood or masculinity, men are lacking support and direction as they struggle with the multi-faceted expectations around being a man.

Many are at breaking point.

One symptom of this is the biggest cause of male deaths under the age of 35: suicide. Mental health issues such as depression and anxiety often go untreated and without discussion.

This crisis prompted the launch of the Southbank Centre's Being A Man festival last year, which returns at the end of November to explore the challenges and pressures surrounding masculine identity in the 21st century.

The event, which HuffPost UK are proud to partner with, takes place one week after International Men’s Day (19 November) and will feature a three-day programme packed with talks, debates, performances and workshops from over 150 speakers, including Akala, Frankie Boyle, David Baddiel and Kellie Maloney.'

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'National fraternity and sorority groups have hired former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) to lobby for legislation that would prevent colleges from punishing certain students accused of sexual assault.

Lott is among a group of lobbyists who have collected $140,000 from the "Safe Campus Coalition" so far this year, according to congressional disclosure filings. The coalition is made up of the National Panhellenic Conference, North American Interfraternity Conference (NIC), Kappa Alpha Order, the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity and the Sigma Nu fraternity.

The lobbyists are helping the groups push for the Safe Campus Act, which would restrict colleges from punishing students for sexual assault unless the police are also involved. Other illegal behaviors -- such as theft or physical assault -- would not be held to this requirement. The proposal is uniformly opposed by advocacy and activist groups that work with rape victims.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'College students can't miss the warnings these days about the risk of campus sexual assault, but increasingly, some students are also taking note of what some perceive as a different danger.

"Once you are accused, you're guilty," says Parker Oaks, one of several Boston University students stopped randomly by NPR between classes. "We're living in a society where you're guilty before innocent now."

Xavier Adsera, another BU student, sounds a similar theme. "We used to not be fair to women on this issue," he says. "Now were on the other extreme, not being fair to guys."

As colleges crack down on sexual assault, some students complain that the schools are going too far and trampling the rights of the accused in the process. In recent months, courts around the nation have offered some of those students significant victories, slamming schools for systems that are stacked against the accused.'

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'In a series of tweets on Wednesday, the official WikiLeaks account questioned whether “feminism” (always in scare quotes) was “a reactionary vehicle to push state interests such as censorship and imprisonment.” Links to accompanying blog posts implied that the 2010 sexual assault accusations against Assange might have been falsified by government officials as justification for his arrest, a common theory among his supporters.

“Has modern ‘feminism’ become a reactionary vehicle for state censorship, repression and war?” Wikileaks tweeted on Wednesday. The tweet links to a 2010 post by blogger Daisy’s Dead Air questioning whether the charges against Assange—two allegations of molestation, one of unlawful coercion, and one of rape—were genuine, or if they had been manufactured by the United States government.'

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'A policy recently passed by state lawmakers giving due process protections for students accused of crimes on campus was vindicated at the University of North Dakota last week.

Since 2011, the Obama administration has stretched Title IX into a requirement that campuses adjudicate serious accusations of sexual assault and harassment on campus. This has resulted in kangaroo courts often presided over by inexperienced academics or administrators where alleged victims have all university resources working on their behalf. Alleged perpetrators aren’t even allowed basic tenets of due process: rights like legal counsel, the right to cross examine witnesses against them, and the right to be made aware of the charges against them.'

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'In the new sex ed, boys are presumed to be rapists until proven otherwise. Why else would boys be required, every few minutes, to repeatedly ask women if they are enjoying the sex – and if they fail to ask, be accused of rape?

Consent from the person you are kissing — or more — is not merely silence or a lack of protest, Shafia Zaloom, a health educator at the Urban School of San Francisco, told the students. They listened raptly, but several did not disguise how puzzled they felt.

`“What does that mean — you have to say ‘yes’ every 10 minutes?” asked Aidan Ryan, 16, who sat near the front of the room.

“Pretty much,” Ms. Zaloom answered. “It’s not a timing thing, but whoever initiates things to another level has to ask.”`

Article here. Excerpt:

'Affirmative consent, the latest policy intended to prevent sexual assault, has roiled college campuses. Those who advocate for affirmative consent legislation say those who want to have sex should be required to discuss and verbally agree to such activity before it happens. Opponents say that such stringent requirements de-romanticize what should be a subtle, interactive process often based on nonverbal cues.
...
The second aspect of the consent rule is what I call the “enforcement principle.” It involves how the system — whether it be the legal system or the academic disciplinary system — decides whether a given sexual act did or did not receive consent. Here I would insist on the actual Blackstonian principle being applied. Even though it is better for 10 potentially welcomed sexual acts not to occur than for one non-consented act to take place, it simply doesn’t follow that the same calculus should be applied in the context of enforcement and punishment on a college campus. In that very different context, it is better for 10 individuals who did not obtain consent to go free than for even one individual who did obtain consent to be wrongfully punished. Being wrongfully punished can be catastrophic for a student.

Article here. Excerpt:

'A look at the new landscape of sex education published by The New York Times contains an eye-opening anecdote: In California, teachers are telling kids to get consent every ten minutes during sex to avoid committing rape.

The article is about the brave new world created by affirmative consent, or “yes means yes,” which holds that a person must obtain explicit prior consent for every sexual act or else be considered to have committed sexual assault.The standard isn’t limited to sex itself; a person would also need explicit affirmative consent to kiss somebody, too.'

Article here. No surprise, really. First, high-level pols are notorious for their attitudes of entitlement and being abusive toward staffers. But it looks like VAWA Joe reserves his rudest and most abusive language for men only. Surprise, surprise. Guess I'd rather be called "dumb fuck" over being fondled by him any day, which is his M.O. with women around him. Excerpt:

'But if you just worked your ass off for him for a few years, he ignored you, intimidated you, sometimes humiliated you, took no interest in your advancement, and never learned your name.

“Hey, Chief,” he’d say, or “How’s it going, Cap’n,” unless he was ticked at you, in which case he’d employ one of his favorite terms for male underlings: “dumb f–k.”

“Dumb f–k over here didn’t get me the briefing materials I needed.” It was both noun and adjective: “Is the event leader a Democrat or a Republican? Or are you too dumb f–k to know?”

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'The argument that false allegations ruin lives, meaning the system is flawed, erodes the support that sexual assault victims need. The law gives victims power for a reason. Without it, victims wouldn’t get needed care. UNL promotes an atmosphere that allows all students, regardless of gender, to feel safe on campus. Police enforce laws that aid the less powerful and prevent tragedies. The most productive step taken to help sexual assault victims is allowing them to report their case to police officials right away. Almost instantly, an officer can be at the scene, and together with law enforcement, the university’s investigation can be underway. While countless sexual assaults still go unreported, the fact that any victim can receive immediate attention after a horrific crime has taken place gives the victim the opportunity to step forward.

The system is undeniably skewed to help the victims, which can lead to unwanted consequences. Since the weekly emails have started, I’ve heard frequent conversations about false reporting of sexual assault. The FBI states that two percent of rape accusations are deemed false, equal to any other violent crime. Some dispute that number because of the murkiness around sexual assault statistics, but the concern is still on students’ minds. A Rolling Stones article titled “A Rape on Campus” detailed the story of a girl who had been raped in a fraternity at the University of Virginia. Her story was later deemed fictional but along the way ruined the reputation, career and life of the accused. The same system which gives victims hope permits deceitful individuals to make untrue accusations.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Waking up each day in the Land of Hims, where the pay gap is wide and sexism both subtle and overt, it's tempting to wish that the easy comfort and understanding found in the company of other women were a 24/7 reality. Spend some time at a women's college, or scroll through secret feminist Facebook groups where conversation can take shape freely, away from the patronizing or defensive rebuffs we've trained ourselves to brace for, and you might understand the lark of the feminist utopia. A place populated solely by women who Get It, living and working with ease. No leaning in, no pushing against, and best of all: no men.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Earlier this year, University of California Santa Barbara Professor of Feminist Studies, Mireille Miller-Young was sentenced in a criminal case in connection with an assault on pro-life young people who took the pro-life message to the UCSB campus. Now, the civil side of the legal battle has concluded with her settling with the pro-life students she victimized, but still failing to issue an apology for her actions.

The incident, which took place on March 4, saw two pro-life students Thrin and Joan Short, lead the peaceful pro-life outreach event with 11 friends, most of whom were students from Thomas Aquinas College. They used signs displaying images of abortion victims to begin conversations with students before a confrontation by Professor of Feminist Studies, Mireille Miller-Young turned violent.

Article here. Excerpt:

'A couple of weeks ago I was asked to be on a panel about the suburbs. It’s a subject that fascinates me, so I thought about it over a few days and then rejected the idea.

The very last thing the suburbs need is an old, white guy representing them in any capacity. It would shore up a stereotype the suburbs are trying to break.

I don’t do panels anymore. I enjoyed doing the TPT Almanac media panel for the several times I did it, then got tired of having brilliant comments dismissed because I’m the “old, white guy.” Same with a few news panels in house at MPR.

Clearly, that’s a selfish reason, but it still provided an opportunity to begin to listen to other voices, especially more ethnically and racially diverse voices.
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All of this sounds far more noble than it really is. But the conclusion is the same. If white men are really interested in supporting diversity in the public space, the very best thing they can do to achieve it, is to sit down and be quiet.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'As [members of] the 2015 freshman class navigate their first semester, sexual assault at our nation’s colleges and universities remains a topic of serious concern.

The current system of investigating and adjudicating allegations of sexual assault on campus is broken. It does not serve the interests of students, schools or the public.