Article here. Excerpt:

'In Cedar Falls, Clinton told the crowd that one in five women report they were sexually assaulted in college, a statistic often cited by politicians that is also a source of debate. “Think of the impact on their lives while they’re trying to manage the emotional, the physical, sometimes the educational, financial fallout,” said Clinton. “They miss classes, some drop out, some never finish their education.”

She also suggested that she would propose policy changes to the criminal justice system — and encourage schools to do the same to their own disciplinary procedures — to "ensure a fair process."

“Rape is a crime wherever it happens,” she said.

Before her speech, Clinton met with about 15 students and local activists to discuss the ideas, an aide said, and to encourage feedback. “There are good smart solutions," she told the crowd in Cedar Falls. "We just need more of them."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Hillary Clinton claimed on the campaign trail in Iowa on Monday that one-in-five women in college have been sexually assaulted, though the ratio she cited has been debunked by many scholars who believe it overstates the problem of campus sexual violence.

“This is a special time and a special place to be talking specifically about an issue that effects one-in-five women on campus,” Clinton said during a “Hillary for Women” event at the University of Northern Iowa.

Clinton’s remarks were timed with the release of a three-pronged policy proposal to help combat the “epidemic” of campus sexual assault. The plan aims to provide a support network for survivors of sexual assault. It also proposes to increase focus on university disciplinary proceedings for accusers and the accused. She also addressed providing sexual violence prevention programs for students earlier in school.'

Article here. We keep hearing from feminists that feminists do not hate men and that feminism is not about misandry. This article, from my home country in the U.K., does little to convince me to the contrary. We keep hearing over and over from feminists that they don't hate men. Yet, we keep hearing over and over from feminists how much they hate men. Excerpt:

'In the feminist world, Bindel’s views are far from isolated and she’s just the latest in a long line of high profile feminists to propose either imprisoning all men or even eliminating or exterminating all or the vast majority of the male population. Bindel’s fellow travellers in this regard include author of the “Scum Manifesto” Valerie Solanas, “academic” Mary Daly (for whom Bindel wrote a glowing obituary) and also Sally Miller Gearhart, an author who also worked at San Francisco State University. Nor is this an isolated incident in terms of Bindel’s behaviour, for example in 2006 she wrote a Guardian column titled “Why I hate men”  and her writing regularly attacks men as a whole falsely paints violence and abuse as gendered, something done by men to women, rather than by people to other people.

Article here. Excerpt:

'It’s the time of year called the Red Zone: the weeks between new student orientation and Thanksgiving break when college students are at the greatest risk of sexual assault. According to statistics, one in five women will be sexually assaulted while she’s at school — usually by someone she knows — and a disproportionate number of those attacks are happening right now.

Several factors contribute to this disturbing trend. First year students are meeting new people and trying new things. Many of them are newly independent, living without parental support for the first time. And, they’re in a new place, adjusting to an unfamiliar and often bigger environment.

A first year student at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington put a fine point on it: "Since we're in a new place, we're all really vulnerable and uncomfortable with our surroundings for a while. People can tell if someone's a freshman."

Article here. Excerpt:

'Monday in Iowa, Hillary Clinton will promise to crack down on sexual assault on college campuses — broadly embracing policy ideas supported by President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and a bipartisan set of US senators — according to a campaign official.

The preview of Clinton's plan, which was scant on details, broke down her aims into three main buckets that largely reflect policies incorporated in a bill Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduced in late July.
...
The campaign official noted that Clinton's ideas are in line with Obama's efforts to combat sexual assault on campus. Last September, the president unveiled the "It's on us" campaign to raise awareness about the issue, with Biden, the author of the Violence Against Women Act and a potential Clinton primary rival, at his side.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The hypermasculine image that vape marketers are selling is a self-fulfilling prophecy that could lock vaping out of the mainstream if the community can't overcome the stigma.
...
"The non-vaping public sees vaping the same way they see fedoras," Avery said. "They associate it with this awful MRA [men's rights activist], neckbeard culture."
...
If vaping wants to go mainstream, it needs to include women. A handful of surveys and research papers show that women are anywhere from 1.27 to 2.05times more likely than men to try vaping. But in terms of advertising? The disconnect should be obvious by now: Men are 1.25 times as likely to see a vaping-related advertisement.

"Everybody in the vaping community has the same blinders on, thinking that they need to target this young male population," Avery said. "The industry itself is doing a good job of keeping that reputation as well: a young shitty male activity."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'NKU Director of Public Relations Amanda Nageleisen provided the following statement to Campus Reform correcting an inaccuracy in the Northern Kentucky Tribune article cited in this story:

"The protest in question was NOT organized by the Norse Violence Prevention Center; it was organized by a group of students. A NVP staff member did attend to provide support to any student who may have been triggered by the protest.
...
Several students at Northern Kentucky University participated Thursday in a “mattress girl”-themed demonstration organized by a group funded by federal grants.

A week after one female NKU student spent a day carrying a mattress on her back to protest the school’s handling of her sexual assault complaint, a laEmma Sulkowicz, several other students gathered outside the student union bedecked in bedsheets to demonstrate in support of the survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence,The Northern Kentucky Tribunereported Thursday.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Is Congress waging a war on college men? It’s starting to look like it.

Last week, Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat, suggested that even innocent students should be booted from campus if they were accused of sexual assault. According to Polis: "If there are 10 people who have been accused, and under a reasonable likelihood standard maybe one or two did it, it seems better to get rid of all 10 people."

So one of the longstanding traditions of American law — that it is better to let 10 guilty men go free than to imprison one innocent — has now been turned on its head. Under the Polis standard, it’s basically the other way around.

Article here. Excerpt:

"First-year Megan Meadows, while recognizing the importance of having programing geared towards men, noted that the Women’s Center’s involvement seemed odd.

“It’s kind of difficult for women to define what a man is for men,” Meadows said.

Senior Rebecca Shaw said men on Vanderbilt’s campus may not want to attend programming led by the Women’s Center.

“If it's aimed towards men I could see how it could be a deterrent like ‘why is this woman telling me how to be more masculine?’” Shaw said.

However, junior male Jason Thome sees it differently — he thinks the Women’s Center’s background in issues of gender and stereotypes equips them to lead masculinity week. Thome, a Student VUceptor, noted that some of his favorite sessions during VUcept training were lead by representatives from the Women’s Center.

“I think if anyone's equipped, it’s the people who have dedicated so much of their lives to breaking down stereotypes and barriers, so I support that 100 percent,” Thome said.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Just when you thought the everyday etiquette of how men are expected to integrate with women couldn’t get any more confusing, Dame Helen Mirren has announced, of all things, that cuddling is sexist.

Speaking yesterday to the Mail On Sunday’s You magazine, Mirren, 70, said: “It annoys me when I see men with an arm slung around their girlfriend’s shoulders. It’s like ownership. Of course, when you’re young, you want the guy to take your hand and look after you.

“But when I see girls being leaned on, I want to say, ‘tell him to get his damned arm off your shoulder’.”

Now, regular readers will know I collect “sexism is everywhere!” stories like a sheep attracts ticks. I try not to, but I just can’t seem to stop picking them up. But even I didn’t see “teenage cuddling: it’s a tool of the patriarchy!” coming.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Describing the words someone uses as ‘unacceptable’ can appear politically neutral, unemotive and simply commonsense. It allows the speaker to take the moral highground by suggesting there are ways of speaking and behaving that all right-thinking people agree upon. Those whose words are labelled ‘unacceptable’ are deemed to have crossed a line and committed a transgression against such normal codes of decency and politeness. As we have seen with Charlotte Proudman’s calling-out of the supposedly sexist barrister, and all those who rushed to decry Tim Hunt’s joke, the biggest infringement against the acceptable is to commit speech crimes against feminism. The feminist war on unacceptable language now encompasses everything from jokes and compliments to mildly flirtatious comments.

The roots of this obsession with policing language began at least as far back as the 1980s. A social constructionist view of gender as performative rather than biological met an emerging postmodernism that assumed discourse constructs not just perceptions of reality but reality itself. This led feminist theorists, such as Julia Kristeva, to argue that it is language that constructs power relations and the conditions for oppression. According to this view, women’s oppression could be challenged by changing the language and images through which people constructed the world. Today, when young women are seemingly quicker than ever to declare themselves victims of everyday sexism and casual misogyny, the notion that words are pre-eminently important in shaping reality has remained. Only now it has been joined by the notion that language can inflict mental harm on women, who are seen as vulnerable to everything from adverts on the Tube to clapping.

Article here. Excerpt:

'One of the things that got overlooked last week was a congressional hearing "before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training on the topic of 'Preventing and Responding to Sexual Assault on College Campuses.'" The highlight (or lowlight depending on your view of the Constitution) came from Rep. Jared Polis, (D-CO).

Sparks flew when Rep. Polis said "It seems like we ought to provide more of a legal framework, then, that allows a reasonable likelihood standard or a preponderance of evidence standard. I mean if there’s 10 people that have been accused, and, you know, under a reasonable likelihood standard maybe one or two did it, it seems better to get rid of all 10 people. We’re not talking about depriving them of life or liberty, we’re talking about, they’re transferred to another university, for crying out loud."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'On what planet is it right to punish the innocent in a quixotic effort to curb campus rape?

Unfortunately, it’s a-okay in the bizarro world that is Capitol Hill. Democrat Colorado Rep. Jared Polis earned roaring applause on Thursday when the lawmaker declared it is just to expel all students — regardless of guilt — who are accused of sexual assault.

“I mean, if there’s 10 people that have been accused and under a reasonable likelihood standard maybe one or two did it, seems better to get rid of all 10 people,” Polis said at a House hearing on campus sexual assault. “We’re not talking about depriving them of life or liberty, we’re talking about their transfer to another university.”'

Article here. Excerpt:

'A fundraising walk this month aims to bring discussions about suicide and mental health “out of the darkness” and into the light.

The eighth annual Watertown Out of Darkness Walk for Suicide Prevention will be held at noon Sept. 26 at Thompson Park.

The walk is one of more than 300 Out of Darkness Walks around the country organized by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. It raises money to support research and local education programs to fight suicide.

“When you walk in an Out of Darkness Walk, you join with people across the country to help raise awareness of suicide and financially support the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, which supports the survivors of suicide loss, advocates for public policy and invests in research and educational programs to prevent suicide,” event organizer Vicki S. Hill said in a news release.

Ms. Hill said she became involved with the event to honor her brother, Joe Morse, who was lost to suicide in January 2012.'

Story here. Most military PTSD victims are men, but there are many ways a person can get PTSD. If this story's substance pans out, it'd be a huge game-changer. Excerpt:

'MDMA, often known as Ecstasy or Molly, has for decades been used as a party drug — consumed in clubs, fuel for all-night raves. But lately, the substance is also being used in very different settings, for a very different purpose: to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved phase two clinical studies of the treatment, and they're now underway in four locations. Results so far have been promising, according to reporter Kelley McMillan, who has been investigating this new use of MDMA and has written about it in the current issue of Marie Claire.