Create Hysteria, Then Profit from It

Article here. Excerpt:

'In case you missed it, there is a documentary film that purports to expose the “campus rape culture.” Premiering at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, “The Hunting Ground” takes full advantage of the belief that college campuses are extraordinarily dangerous places for women because sexual assault is so common and tolerated. Canadian writer Wendy McElroy’s Daily Bell piece about this film is excellent.

“The film is best understood as a volley in the campus consent wars now raging across North America,” she writes. “It is part of a manufactured and coordinated hysteria about campus rape that imposes a politically-correct agenda and strips accused male students of due process rights.”

Exactly. This is another of those hobgoblins H.L Mencken observed were so vital to crusaders, who constantly need “issues” that keep people looking to them for salvation.

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Connecticut bill requiring "affirmative consent" on campuses voted to joint committee

Bill status page here. Bill as referred here. Excerpt:

'Section 1. Section 10a-55m of the general statutes is repealed and the following is substituted in lieu thereof (Effective July 1, 2015):

(a) For purposes of this section and sections 10a-55n to 10a-55q, inclusive:

(1) "Affirmative consent" means an active, informed, unambiguous and voluntary agreement by a person to engage in sexual activity with another person that is sustained throughout the sexual activity and may be revoked at any time by any person;
...
(b) Each institution of higher education shall adopt and disclose in such institution's annual uniform campus crime report one or more policies regarding sexual assault, stalking and intimate partner violence. Such policy or policies shall include provisions for: [(1) detailing]

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Men aren't stupid and women aren't crazy - A good article, for once

This article was great to read, for once. Heather Gray writes in News.com.au with a heap of good sense. Excerpt:

'YOU know the moment. You’re at a backyard barbecue when one of the wives starts telling silly tales of her husband’s misdeeds. She tells them with a smile and may even be hugging her husband when she does it. Still, though, there’s this cord of tension that you can just feel. She’s mocking him in front of his friends and is doing it in such a way that he will seem “sensitive” if he gets upset about it.

It might be called “passive-aggressive”.

Instead of saying what’s really bothering her, she lets him know through “a joke.”

Others may call it “emotional manipulation.”

She’s being mean and then making him feel like he’s overreacting if he brings it up or gets offended because she was “just joking.”

Maybe as an isolated incident, we can look at this as simple, emotional manipulation. However, this isn’t just one incident.

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Hillary Gets Special Protection On Wikipedia

Article here. Excerpt:

'Despite the steady wave of scandals that have begun to erode even the New York Times’ portrayal of Hillary Clinton, her image remains unblemished on Wikipedia. Since he first started editing her page in June 2005, Hillary’s “Wikipedia watchdog" has been guarding against slanders, accusations, unfair assumptions, and distortions on the high-traffic, heavily footnoted, highly policed Hillary Rodham Clinton Wikipedia page.

Unlike most Wikipedia editors, who prefer to remain anonymous, "Wasted Time R" has no problem giving his real name: Jonathan Schilling. Leading up to Hillary’s failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, Schilling’s significant role in the shaping of the image of the former first lady was the subject of several interviews and articles, including pieces by NPR, BBC, Canadian Radio, and New Republic.

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Female chauvinist pigs on men behaving badly

Article here. Excerpt:

'There are man-haters everywhere, it seems, from children’s telly to high culture. Charges of sexism have been levelled against the creators of the Daddy Pig character in Peppa Pig — daddy is portrayed as a hopeless bumbling idiot while Mummy Pig is the embodiment of good sense — and the literary critic Harold Bloom argues that there is ‘a strong element’ of misandry in Shakespeare (whereas misogyny, he says, is hard to find).
The latest challenge invited you to climb aboard the bandwagon and compose an extract from an imaginary novel written from the perspective of a female chauvinist author. In a small but accomplished entry, Sergio Michael Petro, Frank Upton and Sandra McGregor deserve an honourable mention, the winners take £30 each and Adrian Fry pockets the extra fiver.

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Canada: Are men becoming collateral damage in the battle for gender equity?

Article here. Excerpt:

'But in the need to ensure there are safe places for women to be educated – which is crucial – isn’t it worth asking if there can be safe places for men to gather without suspicion of being a cabal of misogynist terrorism? In the heated discussion about rape culture, the feminist voice is loudest at the moment, which makes many young men feel that their every move, every thought, is policed. Some might even suggest they’re victims of misandry, if they weren’t sure their complaints would fall on deaf ears.

A witch hunt, you say? Well, I won’t use that loaded term, because it only serves to ratchet-up the gender wars when what we need is a little calm.

That said, some of the research about fraternity culture is not kind. A 2007 study by professors at the College of William and Mary – the place, ironically, where the first Greek-letter fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa, was founded in 1776 with the motto “Philosophy is the guide to life” – found that men in fraternities were three times more likely to rape than those who weren’t.

A culture of male peer support for violence against women coupled with excessive drinking practices contribute to a higher risk for sexual assault, the study found, leading some scholars to suggest fraternities should be banned. Other research has added to the alarm. Elizabeth Armstrong and other professors at Indiana University studied the social life at a large Midwestern university for five years, producing a book in 2013, Paying for the Party, How College Maintains Inequality, and a paper on sexual assault that described how fraternities contribute to the reproduction of gender inequality.

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Governor: "...you never, ever, ever hit a woman"

Story here. Excerpt:

'Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday that he and other elected officials can’t fight domestic violence alone — ordinary residents must join the battle, too.

Abbott stopped here Thursday morning for the grand opening of The Gatehouse, a 96-unit apartment community for abused women and children.
...
“No woman should be trapped in an abusive relationship,” he said. “No woman should feel unsafe in her own home. No woman should feel helpless with no place and no one to turn to.”
...

...
“This is not a women’s issue,” he said. “This is a man’s issue … and we need to draw a line in the sand and say you never, ever, ever hit a woman.”

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Actress criticised for comparing her Jewish boyfriend to her dog

Story here. Excerpt:

Girls actor Lena Dunham [link added] has been criticised for comparing her Jewish boyfriend to her dog.

Published in The New Yorker, her article, Dog or Jewish Boyfriend? A Quiz, offers a list of 35 things comparing the two.

"Do the following statements refer to (a) my dog or (b) my Jewish boyfriend?" she asks.

"1. The first thing I noticed about him was his eyes."

"2. We love to spend hours in bed together on Sunday mornings."

Moving on to question eight , Dunham writes about "him" feeling judgemental about the food she serves him.

"When I make something from scratch, he doesn't want to eat it, but he also rejects most store-bought dinners.

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Congresswoman Claims Climate Change Will Turn Women Into Prostitutes (and demands pre-emptive "gender-sensitive" solutions)

Story here. Excerpt:

'On Wednesday, California Democrat Barbara Lee proposed a resolution in the House of Representatives that claims women will eventually be forced into prostitution in order to obtain life-sustaining food and water for their families.

Lee introduced House Concurrent Resolution 29, warning that women will be forced into “transactional sex” to get enough food and clean water — all because global warming will create “conflict and instability” in the world.
...
Lee’s document goes on to urge Congress to agree on the “disparate impacts of climate change on women,” and goes on to demand that Congress use “gender-sensitive frameworks in developing policies to address climate change.”

Lee also charges that women, who are “often underrepresented in the development and formulation of policy regarding adaptation to climate change,” are doubtless in the best position to offer policy ideas.'

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Hillary ‘Super Volunteers’ Warn Reporter Against Using ‘Sexist’ Words

Story here. Excerpt:

'A team of Hillary Clinton “super volunteers” warned a New York Times reporter on Wednesday against using words about Clinton that they deem to be “sexist.”

The group, “HRC Super volunteers,” wrote Times reporter Amy Chozick, the paper’s Hillary Clinton reporter, and put her on notice regarding “coded sexism.”

Sexist words, according to the group, include: “polarizing,” “calculating,” “disingenuous,” “insincere,” “ambitious,” “inevitable,” “entitled,” “over confident,” “secretive,” will do anything to win,” “represents the past,” and “out of touch.”

“You are on notice that we will be watching, reading, listening and protesting coded sexism,” the group reportedly wrote her.'

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What it's like to be falsely accused of rape

Article here. Excerpt:

'I’ve been very interested in the last few days to read about Kayode Modupe-Ojo, who has spoken to the press about being falsely accused of rape.

Even though Mr. Modupe-Ojo's experience is a lot more painful than mine – he was jailed for a short time, named publicly, and saw his business tainted by association, while I avoided all three mainly due to the ineptitude of my accuser – I still have a first-hand insight into what it’s like to be falsely accused of sexually assaulting somebody.
...
Firstly, what was interesting, even unique, about my false accusation is that I knew it was going to happen. To explain, my accuser was a one-night stand who had taken to harassing me after I denied her a second date, turning up drunk at my flat and sending me abusive texts and voicemails. In the early summer of 2010 she stepped up the frequency of her visits. When I found her stood outside my home one evening in the pouring rain, intently watching my bedroom window, I told her that I was going to have to go to the police if the behaviour continued. She responded by telling me that if I did go to the police, she would tell them that I had drugged her and sexually assaulted her.

Unsurprisingly, I didn't go to the police straight away, but eventually the persistence of her harassment gave me little choice. It's a faintly surreal experience telling a police officer that, by the way, when you arrest her, she's probably going to tell you that I raped her, but I figured that my warning them at least would slightly discredit her if she went through with it.

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"You can’t ban douchebaggery: Kill the frats, sure, but you can’t stop entitled white bros"

Article here. [Warning: Using Firefox but not IE, a "slide show" opens in the lower part of the page as an overlay that contains NSFW images. Salon has really sunk even for it; some of these images are pornographic. Only reason I don't *not* post it is because when using IE, the "slideshow" does not seem to come up. But regardless of what browser you use, navigate to it while at work at your own risk.]

Excerpt:

'So let’s ban frats, right? Let’s empty their houses and pressure the national organizations to donate the space to be turned into something else. (Repurposed dorms open to all students or maybe, you know, the headquarters for a chapter of Men Can Stop Rape.) Let’s push the thousands of former Greeks to join other public service groups if they really want to help their communities. Let’s open the doors and let sunlight disinfect the whole mess.

Racism and misogyny on campus won’t suddenly disappear if this happens, but shuttering the Greek system could be seen as an institutional commitment to lowering the number of dead drunk kids, women assaulted or otherwise dehumanized and racist parties defended as harmless fun.

This is the side I ultimately come down on, but here’s where I get stuck: You can ban frats, but you can’t ban large groups of entitled white men from living together. You also can’t simply ban toxic masculinity and white supremacy. These are frat problems, of course. But they are also our problems.
...

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Our view: What police didn't say in the UVa rape report

Article here. Excerpt:

'The bottom line: There’s no evidence the assailant “Jackie” named to friends actually exists, no evidence a party was held at the fraternity that night and, of course, no evidence the alleged gang rape happened.

Furthermore, “Jackie’s” veracity was called into a question on an unrelated matter. In April 2014, “Jackie” told university officials she had been attacked on a Charlottesville street, struck in the face with a glass bottle and that her roommate picked out the shards. However, that roommate told police she did no such thing. “Jackie” also said she called her mother that night. Police say phone records show no such call.

There’s one sure conclusion to be drawn from this: Rolling Stone got snookered by a story that seemed too good to be true for its purposes. If the pop culture magazine had bothered to do some of the serious reporting that The Washington Post, in particular, did, this whole ugly situation could have been avoided.

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YWCA says more men report being victims of domestic violence

Story here. Excerpt:

'A man shot by his girlfriend is still in critical condition.

Police say she shot him during a domestic dispute.

It happened at the Park Estates Apartment Homes on Estate Drive between Poplar and Park in East Memphis.

The YWCA says an increasing number of men are becoming victims of domestic violence.

Men are calling the crisis helpline more and more.

Jacquelyn Williams with the YWCA says they want to know how to get out of their situation.

“They’re curious because they’re experiencing some aggression from either their wives or girlfriends and they’re wanting information,” she said.'

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Mary Portas: 'Motherhood is better without men'

Story here. Excerpt:

'TV presenter Mary Portas [link added], who has been married to both a man and a woman, claims that bringing up children is better with a lesbian.

‘I have to say that sharing motherhood with a female makes it doubly wonderful,’ gushes Portas, 54, whose wife, 41-year-old fashion journalist Melanie Rickey, gave birth to their son Horatio in 2012.

‘Women are so capable — they are able to do an awful lot of things.’

Portas disclosed last month that Horatio was conceived artificially using sperm donated by her brother Lawrence Newton.

‘Melanie and I don’t even have to sit and talk about how we want to bring Horatio up,’ she adds. ‘We just agree.’'

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