Article here. Excerpt:

'On Sunday, The Huffington Post UK imposed a 24-hour ban. On men. We decided to only use pictures of women on the front page - except for Richard Branson, who we'll get onto later.

You may well be thinking this is censorship. This is prejudice against men. Yes, it is.

I didn't actually think it was a good idea - more of an interesting experiment. To remove pictures of men from our home page, just because they are men, is obviously unfair. Yet it served a purpose.

When we report the news, we pick what we consider to be the biggest stories for our readers. Sometimes they are about men, sometimes they are about women (and sometimes about dresses, or dogs, or weasels riding birds).'

Video interview here. Description:

'Lawyer in Blue Jeans Jeff Isaac explains how a college gym asked for "women's only" hours at a public facility. Does it fall under Title IX?'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Calling the Ontario government’s campaign against sexual violence “sexist,” a men’s issues group unveiled a new billboard in downtown Toronto Monday in an attempt to draw attention to male victims of domestic abuse.

“HALF of domestic violence victims are men,” reads the billboard, paid for by the Canadian Association for Equality (CAFE). “NO domestic violence shelters are dedicated to us.”

The billboard comes after Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne released a three-year, $41-million plan to combat sexual violence last week. The campaign, spurred in part by the high-profile sex assault allegations against Jian Ghomeshi, includes a video ad with staggering scenes of women being sexually assaulted and harassed.

In a news release Monday, CAFE accused Premier Wynne of forgetting “half the victims of violence.”

Article here. Excerpt:

'“Women provide 66% of the work, produce 50% of the food, but earn only 10% of the income and own 1% of the property. We can change this.”
...
The Fact Checker encourages readers to submit fact checks via Twitter using #FactCheckThis, and this widely circulated Oxfam tweet ended up in our mailbox. It certainly offers a striking set of statistics.

But as is often the case, the statistics are too good to be true. Oddly, these statistics have circulated for decades, persistently, despite the efforts of researchers to debunk them as ridiculously inaccurate. One reason is because the statistics have been promoted by supposedly reputable organizations, such as Oxfam and UNDP. But people also often want to believe facts that appear to confirm their own biases.

Article here. Excerpt:

'What made the Abigail Simon case stand out was not only the teen-tutor relationship, or that the victim was a boy, but how people reacted to it.

It was online wildfire. Social media was abuzz with locker-room banter about the boy. Some said the relationship should have been the teen's biggest fantasy. Others suggested it wasn't a real crime. The teen wanted it, they insisted.

"He's a boy. Why would you open up this can of worms?" people asked the teen's mother, who brought the allegations to the school and police.

Simon in January was sentenced to eight to 25 years in prison for three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. Sixteen is the age of sexual consent and Michigan law prohibits school employees from engaging in sexual activity with students under age 18.

Now that the trial is behind them, the teen's mother says if the case had involved a female victim, it would have elicited a different response from the community.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Premier Kathleen Wynne is changing the way Ontario treats sexual violence and harassment.

Part of that plan involves a multimedia campaign including a powerful anti-sexual harassment and violence video that was posted on Youtube Friday morning with the hashtag #WhoWillYouHelp.

The Ontario premier wants to reform the way institutions like universities deal with it, what she calls the "culture of misogyny" and what is done to prevent these acts from transpiring.

"Today I'm challenging everyone in this province to step up and help end sexual harassment," she said in a speech in Toronto Friday.'

---
The #WhoWillYouHelp PSA is on YouTube here.

Link here. Excerpt:

'Circumcision of male newborns will be included in the current national health system in a bid to fight HIV/Aids transmission, a National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) official, Dr Edward Maswanya said.

Dr Maswanya who is NIMR researcher was addressing a workshop on Gender Assessment: National HIV epidemic and response in Tanzania Mainland Thursday.

He said at the workshop hosted by the Tanzania Commission for AIDS (TACAIDS, research findings reveal that circumcision prevents HIV/Aids transmissions by 60 percent.

According to Dr Maswanya the exercise has proved successful in Iringa Region. “After Iringa, NIMR will create a national strategic plan to include newborns’ circumcision in the current national health system.”

Article here. Excerpt:

'According to a New York-based psychiatrist, at least one of every four women in America is now on psychiatric medication, as opposed to one of every seven men. Dr. Julie Holland says this is nothing less than “insane.”

Holland’s recent op-ed in the New York Times titled “Medicating Women’s Feelings” was the most emailed article on the Times’ website over the last weekend of February. It began with the statement below:

"Women are moody. By evolutionary design, we are hard-wired to be sensitive to our environments, empathic to our children’s needs and intuitive of our partners’ intentions. This is basic to our survival and that of our offspring."

Holland warns that while these feminine qualities are “rooted in biology” and “not intended to mesh with any kind of pro- or anti-feminist ideology,” they nevertheless have “social implications:”

"Women’s emotionality is a sign of health, not disease; it is a source of power. But we are under constant pressure to restrain our emotional lives. We have been taught to apologize for our tears, to suppress our anger and to fear being called hysterical."
...
Though she wants to avoid getting political about the causes of this “insanity,” Holland nevertheless spells out that psychiatric medications are biochemically causing women to be cut off from their emotional sensitivities, leading to what appears to be a preferred “more masculine, static hormonal balance.”

“This emotional blunting encourages women to take on behaviors that are typically approved by men: appearing to be invulnerable, for instance, a stance that might help women move up in male-dominated businesses,” Holland writes.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Pupils are to learn the differences between rape and consensual sex from the age of 11 as part of a drive to equip pupils with the necessary skills for "life in modern Britain".

The age-appropriate "consent classes", which could be introduced as soon as after the Easter holidays, are to be added to the personal, social, health and economic syllabus after concerns were raised that teenagers were being pressured to have sex.

Nicky Morgan, the Education Secretary, publicised the move on International Women's Day.

“We have to face the fact that many pressures girls face today were unimaginable to my generation and it's our duty to ensure that our daughters leave school able to navigate the challenges and choices they'll face in adulthood,” she wrote in the Sunday Times.

President Obama's fiscal year 2016 budget eliminates all funding for the Centers for Disease Control prostate cancer program. Congress has the power to protect the CDC Prostate Cancer program. We ask for your advocacy to protect this life saving program.

Please tell Congress to SAVE THE CDC PROSTATE CANCER PROGRAM

Click to send your message to Congress: Malecare CDC Advocacy Page

Our advocacy campaign is off to a good start. As of March 4, 2015, hundreds of letters have been received by the Senate and House Budget committee Chairpeople. The CDC Director and one of the Budget Committee Legislative Directors have contacted Malecare. And, at least two of our counterpart organizations, ZeroCancer and Men's Health Network, are joining us in protest.

We need to keep our momentum. We need EVERYONE to write. If Congress does not hear from our prostate cancer survivor community, then they will correctly see that there is no political price to pay for reducing research funding.

Representatives hear from very few prostate cancer survivors and family members so your letter will be surprisingly powerful.

Cut and paste the sample letter, below, into all four of the Senate leaders' online comments pages, the House committee online comment box and then one email to your local Congressperson and Senators. Add in a sentence or two about who you are: a survivor, caregiver, relative, etc.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairperson:
http://www.cochran.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/email-me

Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chairperson:
http://www.mikulski.senate.gov/contact

Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Health Chairperson:
http://www.blunt.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact-form?p=contact-roy

Article here. Excerpt:

'While the entire country is rejoicing and celebrating Women's Day, an old mother is crying inconsolably in Jhansi. Her son, Avadhesh Yadav committed suicide on February 25, 2015 because of a "woman". This day has no meaning for her as she is confused of the word that means "Women Empowerment". Laws that have been made to protect women, abuse of same became the reason for her son's death.

Here are excerpts from suicide note left by Avadhesh Yadav:

My name is Avadhesh Yadav and I work in a private bank. I got married to Unnati Yadav on December 7, 2012. Within a week of marriage, she started pestering my family by asking divorce for no reason. We ignored. She never allowed me to come close to her for 2-3 months after the marriage. My father advised that with time everything will be fine. But it got only worse. She started misbehaving with my parents, hurling abuses at them. When we complained about this to her family, they gave excuses of some "external influence" on her and they would get her treated. She now started going almost every day at her home and threatened us of a dowry case if we said anything.
...
On advice of lawyers, we filed a case of restitution of conjugal rights, requesting her to come back. Three months after that in September, she filed a false dowry and domestic violence case (498A) on me, my mother, father, elder brother and his wife. We got bail. Her brother told me she wants to come back.

Video report on YouTube here. Articles here and here. Excerpts:

From first article:
'In a shocking twist to the Nagaland lynching case, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday said that 'unconfirmed medical reports' show that the complainant in the case was not raped.

Speaking to NDTV, Gogoi said, "it is up to the Nagaland government to come out with the facts. We have received an unofficial report of no rape." The chief minister further said that the accused Syed Khan was not an illegal immigrant and was a citizen of India.

Moreover, the brother of the accused, Jamal Uddin Khan, corroborated Gogoi's remarks, saying his brother had been made a scapegoat in the case and that the police was hand-in-glove with certain Naga groups.

"Is the Nagaland government running a jungle raj? The girl who filed the rape complaint was my brother's wife's cousin. Nagaland police have said that the medical reports say she was not raped," Jamal Khan told NDTV, adding that several of his family members were working in the country's armed forces and they were all Indian.

The victim, however, said she was given money by the accused after the assault to remain silent. "Rumours that I did this for money are false. The police arrested him the very same day. I did not think he would be attacked like this," she said.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'In late 2013 and early 2014, according to the Chronicle’s story, two women told classmates in group discussions at student retreats that Sulaimon had sexually assaulted them. Neither woman filed a complaint with law enforcement or Duke’s Office of Student Conduct, which investigates allegations of sexual misconduct on campus. And neither spoke to Chronicle reporters, whose story is based, in part, on the recollections of other students at those retreats and an “anonymous affiliate” of Duke basketball.

The “affiliate,” the Chronicle reported, heard about the allegations and brought them to Krzyzewski and several other administrators in spring 2014. This January, a second person — a Duke student who worked as a secretary in the basketball office — also told administrators about the rumors. On Jan. 29, Krzyzewski kicked Sulaimon off the team and released a statement saying the junior guard had been “unable to consistently live up to the standards required to be a member of our program.”

Federal law mandates university employees such as Krzyzewski report allegations of sexual violence and requires schools to investigate. But because the women wouldn’t agree to talk to school officials about their allegations, it would have been difficult for Duke to investigate. In statements this week, Duke administrators pledged they responded properly. On Thursday, Sulaimon’s attorney, who has refuted the accusations, told media outlets the university investigated last year and closed the case because the claims could not be substantiated.
...
The Chronicle reporters — Emma Baccellieri and Nick Martin — declined interview requests this week and referred questions to Chronicle Editor Carleigh Stiehm. Stiehm declined to answer questions.
...

Article here. Excerpt:

'A woman in Florida will be incarcerated unless she signs a consent form to have her four-year-old son circumcised. Although Heather Hironimus originally agreed with the boy’s father, Dennis Nebus, to have the boy’s foreskin removed, she has changed her mind. Her decision resulted in a court battle with the father.

Hironimus subsequently fled with her son; Nebus has not seen the boy since February 20th. Judge Jeffrey Gillen labeled the mother as ‘reprehensible’ for placing the boy in the public spotlight. Gillen has placed Hironimus in contempt of court. If she does not surrender the boy by Tuesday, she will become the object of a police search. He has ordered her to sign the consent form or face time in jail.

The boy is in no physical danger if the circumcision is not performed; the surgery is not necessary. However, the judge has made his decision in favor of the father. He blames the mother for placing the case and the little boy before excessive scrutiny.

Letter here.

'Civil-rights commissioners rightly objected to President Obama’s proposed budget increase for the lawbreakers at the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, where I used to work (“Civil rights commissioners: Rein in education admin. on ‘unlawful’ bullying, sexual assault policies,” Web, March 4).

As the commissioners note, the Office for Civil Rights has “made up” violations “out of thin air.” It has issued a flood of new rules that drive up schools’ expenses. It has done so without even codifying those rules, and without complying with the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires agencies to give notice of proposed rules and invite the public to comment on them before issuing them.