Article here. Excerpt:

'Former Queensland premier Anna Bligh kicked off the topic by answering a viewer's question about whether she would advise young women to pursue a career in politics.

She said women needed to persist longer to be selected as leading figures in politics.

"We need the best and brightest. And to get the best and brightest, we need just as many young women to put their hands up as young men, to stay in the political parties long enough to get preselected and go through those sorts of jobs," she said.

Ms Bligh said despite the brutality of being a woman in Australian public life, she would not discourage young females to make this as their career choice.
...
Former federal independent MP Tony Windsor went one step further in saying women made better politicians than men, praising Julia Gillard for her role as the first Australian female prime minister.

"I think women — I'm generalising here — but I think women tend to make better politicians than the men," he said.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'SCOTTISH Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie is to seek to change his party’s rules to allow women-only shortlists for parliamentary selections.

Mr Rennie said he had “lost patience” with the current system and would take steps to address the gender imbalance within his party at its spring conference.

The party was criticised after its only female MSP, Alison McInnes, lost out to former MSP Mike Rumbles at the top of the party’s north-east Scotland regional list for next year’s Holyrood election.

Similar proposals have been rejected by the party in the past but Mr Rennie said the time was right for a “fresh start”.

He has pledged to lead a working group to look at measures to increase representation of Liberal Democrat women in Holyrood, Westminster and Brussels.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'She had posted a satirical cartoon on Facebook to protest proposed legislation to restrict birth control and women’s rights. Farghadani has since been found guilty of “spreading propaganda” and “insulting members of parliament through paintings.” She has been sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Farghadani is one of millions of women whose basic rights are being ruthlessly violated. In countries like Iran, Yemen, Egypt, and Cambodia, women are struggling for freedoms most women in the West take for granted.

But American feminists are relatively silent about these injustices — especially feminists on campus. During the 1980s, there were massive demonstrations on American college campuses against racial apartheid in South Africa. There is no remotely comparable movement on today’s campuses against the gender apartheid prevalent in large parts of the world. Why not?

Article here. Excerpt:

'It has been nearly a year since Democratic California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law the first-in-the-nation "yes-means-yes" policy on sexual consent. Since that time we've seen more schools adopt the policy, more lawsuits from students and more rulings from judges determining the merits of campus kangaroo courts.

One recent ruling, limited in scope but broad in its potential ramifications, addressed the yes-means-yes policies head-on. Judge Carol McCoy addressed two of the biggest concerns shared by opponents of yes-means-yes — the burden of proof being shifted onto the accused, and the nearly impossible task of proving such consent was obtained.

McCoy overturned a University of Tennessee-Chattanooga ruling that a student accused of sexual assault failed to prove he did obtain consent. Of course, such proof could not be obtained, as there are very few ways — and even fewer legal ways — to provide such proof.

Article here. Excerpt:

'A controversial men’s issues group that has been banned from Pride Toronto’s festival took part in this year’s Capital Pride parade in Ottawa.

The Canadian Association for Equality has a reputation for anti-feminist views, although the organizers insist it promotes gender equality and is not meant to be radical.

CAFE’s event have drawn crowds of fierce protests in the past and the group was banned from Toronto Pride Parade this year, for a second year in a row.

According to Pride Toronto’s news release in June, the group failed to meet that festival’s vision to “create a safe space to engage communities in the celebration of their sexuality.”

The group started a local chapter based in Ottawa this year.

Justin Trottier, CAFE executive director, said the group is a “very moderate social services organization” despite its reputation.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The problem with nearly every government program or regulation is that it spawns a private sector industry to leach off the regulation, as well as a new constituency group to support the perpetuation or expansion of the regime.

Today’s example is the egregious Title IX sexual assault protocols for college campuses, which, as noted here previously, isn’t even a formal federal regulation. It proceeded from a “dear colleague” “guidance” letter from the Department of Education—an example of what legal scholars call the growing practice of “informal rule-making.” It may seem informal to you, but when you’re on the receiving end, with the threats and blandishments of the federal government coming at you, it seems about as “informal” as a request from Don Corleone.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Belinda Guthrie: Sexual consent laws help prevent bad behavior
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Critics of affirmative consent argue it places an undue burden on the initiator of the sexual activity to prove that he or she had consent and violates the due process rights of the accused.

They argue that such policies will lead to an increase of false reporting of sexual assault after incidents that are, in truth, regretted sexual encounters but nonetheless consensual.

Critics also argue that affirmative consent policies are impractical and impossible to enforce and do nothing to improve the resolution of cases involving "he said, she said" arguments and cases in which one or both parties were intoxicated or under the influence of drugs.

Fundamental fairness and due process requires schools to conduct a thorough, reliable, fair and prompt investigation carried out by an experienced, trained and impartial investigator.

An inadequate investigation or the poor handling of a case by an institution does not warrant a movement away from states adopting affirmative-consent policies.
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Samuel R. Staley: Questionable laws turn sex into a police process

Rape is inexcusable and deserves to be discussed seriously, but the current nationwide push for so-called "yes means yes" laws is likely to cause more harm than good.

In brief, a "yes means yes" law puts into state statute a legally binding requirement that all parties involved in a sexual encounter demonstrate an "unambiguous, affirmative and conscious decision" to engage in voluntary sexual relations, to quote California's legislation, which passed last year.

In practice, this means getting verbal consent — an explicit "yes" — at every progressive step in a sexual act.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson’s Senate Bill 186 (SB 186) passed the senate floor with a unanimous 63-0 bipartisan vote on Monday.

SB 186, introduced by Jackson in February, would allow California community colleges to discipline students for off-campus sexual assault and sexual exploitation violations. The bill successfully passed through the senate and currently awaits approval by Governor Jerry Brown, who can sign it into law. University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) campuses currently have jurisdiction to expel, suspend or enact disciplinary action on students who commit sexual assault, but not the authority to punish students for incidents that happen off campus grounds.

Jackson said the bill’s success was backed by the common understanding that all college students from UCs, CSUs and community colleges should be held accountable for crimes such as sexual assault.

Link here. Excerpt:

'A Delaware judge on Friday sentenced former Baltimore Ravens cheerleader Molly Shattuck to two years of probation for the sexual assault of a 15-year-old boy, calling the case a difficult one and saying the socialite has already suffered great public humiliation.

Shattuck, who pleaded guilty to the rape charge, will serve 48 weekends in jail for the term of the probation. Prosecutors said the mother of three performed oral sex on the teenager, who attended McDonogh School in Owings Mills with her son."I take full responsibility for what I did," Shattuck, 48, said in between sobs as she stood before Judge E. Scott Bradley. "I was the adult."
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The judge sentenced Shattuck to 15 years in prison — the maximum sentence for the charges — with all but two years suspended.

"It's not a walk in the park," defense attorney Eugene Maurer told reporters outside the courthouse. He called the sentence fair.

Story here. Excerpt:

'In addition to the inviting photos, cops say Feeney also promised the unidentified student that she could get him admitted to Harvard University, reports local CBS affiliate WPVI-TV.

Feeney’s months-long pursuit of the student was a hard, persistent but ultimately unsuccessful slog, Chester County district attorney Tom Hogan charged.

Her quest began in 2014. There were hundreds of emails, police say. There were texts. These messages included a topless photo and other imagery of Feeney partially disrobed in various ways.
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“If you’d… just stop fighting and let it happen, you’d be a lot less uptight and much happier,” another missive said, according to investigators.

Feeney used her official Malvern Prep work email account, cops say.

Feeney kissed the teenager at one point as well.

“The defendant was extraordinarily predatory in the way she attacked this 16-year-old boy, going after him again and again and again,” Hogan told WPVI.

Article here. Excerpt:

"A row broke out last night over guidelines which would see men accused of date rape being asked to prove that a woman wanted to have sex.

As part of a major shake-up of investigations into sex offences, the Director of Public Prosecutions said it was vital to remove ‘any grey area’ to recognise situations where a woman may have been unable to give consent.

Campaigners described the move as a ‘huge step forward’ in ensuring fewer rapists escaped justice.

But critics said the guidelines threatened to undermine Britain’s long-standing principle that people were innocent until proven guilty.

Tory MP Philip Davies said: ‘It is not clear how anyone is supposed to prove that consent was given. Is the CPS really suggesting that you have to get a signed statement off someone before they have sex?

Link here. There is a blue 'Comment Now' button in the top right-hand corner of the screen. You can upload documents if 5000 characters in insufficient space.

Excerpt (emphasis added):

Article here. Excerpt:

'There are consequences for lying about having been sexually assaulted, but apparently only if the accuser first blames an unnamed stranger.

The University of Arkansas is dealing with its second false report of a student being attacked in a campus parking garage in the past year, The Arkansas Traveler reported:

"Junior Lindsey Sweetin pleaded not guilty to charges of filing a false police report at her arraignment. A court date was scheduled for Aug. 18.

Police said the false report was made March 9 after 20-year-old Sweetin claimed a man she did not know groped her in the Harmon Parking Garage on Feb. 26. Testimony from witnesses and video camera evidence could not support Sweetin’s claims. After further investigation, she admitted her claims were false. …

Article here. Excerpt:

'Two more bills currently in the California state legislature would aim to address the issue. One would require all of the state's universities – public and private – to disclose what disciplinary actions were taken against students accused of sexual assault. Another bill would require universities to indicate on transcripts when a student cannot re-enroll due to a suspension or expulsion.

Some proponents of the new policies have described campus adjudication of sexual assault as an educational process, rather than a criminal proceeding. That might be true if the consequences of a finding of responsibility weren't as damaging to one's future as a criminal trial.

A student found responsible for campus sexual assault is often branded a rapist in local (and often national) media, his transcript is forever marked and his reputation is forever tarnished. And let's not forget that a finding of responsibility can be achieved on nothing more than an accusation, with exculpatory evidence and witnesses ignored and a complete lack of due process.

An expulsion with a mark on the transcript could keep him from continuing his education. When accused students have been suspended and allowed to return to campus, outrage has sometimes ensued. Colleges are now being pressured simply to expel. Expelled students — again, expelled based on nothing more than an accusation — find it nearly impossible to transfer to another school. Their education is halted, and if they can't afford an attorney to sue the university for wrongful expulsion, their lives are put on hold.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Due process for college students has been in the news lately, as judge after judge makes favorable rulings for students accused of sexual assault.

Naturally, those outraged over the supposed epidemic of campus sexual assault claim that due process is an impediment to justice. An accusation is as good as guilt, some activists seemingly believe.

But accused students who feel they have been wrongly vilified are fighting back, by suing the universities that expelled them and treated them as guilty from the start. They're claiming a lack of due process protections.

For instance, most colleges and universities don't allow the accused or accuser to have legal representation (some schools allow a lawyer to sit in but not speak), many schools don't even provide students with an explanation of the charges against them, or allow the accused to cross-examine his accuser. No testimony in campus courts is given under oath, yet the transcripts and evidence can be turned over to police afterward.'