Article here. Excerpt:

'As NFL teams do their due diligence on former Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston, a U.S. Senator suggested Thursday that front office personnel consider viewing a documentary in which a rape allegation against Winston is included.

At a press conference Thursday to re-introduce the Campus Accountability & Safety Act, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., was asked what it says about the NFL and our culture that Winston will likely be the first overall pick in the NFL draft in April.

"I think it's very important that any team that is thinking about drafting Jameis Winston watch this movie before they draft him," she replied.

In "The Hunting Ground", Erica Kinsman, a former FSU student who accused Winston of raping her in December 2012, spoke publicly for the first time. The film was screened at the White House on Wednesday.'

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Article here. Excerpt:

'Even as new documentary The Hunting Ground gets activists fired up to combat the problem of rape on campuses, there’s a backlash brewing. Emily Yoffe has published a long piece excoriating what she sees the film’s one-sidedness at Slate, in line with her longstanding efforts to brand anti-rape activists as hysterics. “Sexual assault is a serious problem on campus, and activists are to be applauded for bringing attention and resources to it,” she writes. “But the atmosphere of alarm that pervades The Hunting Ground does not serve accusers, the accused, or their classmates, young people who are still learning how to think about sex.”

And today, essayist and op-ed writer Meghan Daum praised the film, but qualified her praise with concern that there’s a growing “grievance culture” on campus that obscures the real issue with rape.

"In grievance culture, sexual assault and victimhood exist as absolutes, independent of context or gray areas. The woman who gets drunk at a party and has sex she neither exactly consented to nor exactly resisted is just as much a victim as the clearly brutalized woman. The undergraduate at an elite college who continues to hang out with her alleged rapist long after the deed supposedly occurred is said to be suffering the same syndrome as the woman who lacks the resources flee a domestic batterer on whom she may be psychologically or financially dependent."

Article here. Excerpt:

'WHAT:
The Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities (CSMM) at Stony Brook University will host the International Conference on Masculinities: Engaging Men and Boys for Gender Equality, a four-day symposium to encourage men’s activism in support of gender justice and increase cooperation between feminist activists and academic researchers who address these issues.

The conference, the most comprehensive ever held in the United States dedicated to engaging men and boys for gender equality, features an international roster of renowned leaders on gender issues. Sheryl Sandberg and Gloria Steinem will make presentations on opening night along with Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director of UN Women, Stony Brook University President Samuel L. Stanley Jr., M.D., CSMM Director Michael Kimmel and, via video, playwright Eve Ensler. Jane Fonda will address the conference on Saturday evening.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'In March 2013, Cisco CEO John Chambers sent out a memo to all 400 of his most senior employees, vice president and above.

“We can no longer pretend that biases don’t exist, nor can we talk around them,” he wrote, quoting Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in her book Lean In. “The result of creating a more equal environment will not just be better performance for our organizations, but quite likely greater happiness for all.”

Article here. Excerpt:

'A Republican-led Tennessee legislative committee failed to extend funding Wednesday for the state's Economic Council on Women, with some of the lawmakers asking why there isn't a similar council for men.
...
"Other than generating reports, what benefit does the state have by having this council?" he asked. "My second question is, with women making up 51 percent of the population of the state, why don’t we have a men’s economic council, why don’t we have a Hispanic economic council, why don’t we have an African-American economic council, why don’t we have this group and that group? Why do we have a women’s economic council, and why is it needed?"

Qualls-Brooks replied that "men basically are running everything, anyway."

"When you focus and deal with issues that relate to women, then it ripples over and deals with children and families as a whole," she went on. "So when you focus on what women do, you’re enveloping and embracing everyone."

State Sen. Mae Beavers (R) proposed that the legislature create an economic council for "everybody," rather than just for women.

"My concern is balkanizing. If we divide and subdivide our population, is that beneficial in the final analysis?" said Beavers. "I always have a concern that we create the balkanization of our population. We’ve become, almost by implication, a victim group, and I don’t perceive women as victims at all."
...
State Senate Minority Leader Lee Harris (D) accused his Republican colleagues of perpetuating a "war on women," a term used by Democrats in the wake of the 2010 midterm elections to describe conservative attacks on reproductive rights and women's rights in general."
...

Article here. Excerpt:

'The gap is so great that the UK's university admissions authority has warned that being male could soon be seen as a new form of social disadvantage.

In the UK, the gender gap between men and women entering university has never been wider. In a remarkable statistic from the Ucas admissions service, the gap is more than 50% in a quarter of parliamentary constituencies. And no doubt this disparity will play out over future generations.

But hold that bandwagon there.

Because a global study from the OECD, based on more than 60 countries, has thrown up some very interesting challenges to generalisations about girls always doing better than boys.
...
First of all, it suggests that school systems give greater rewards to girls rather than boys, even when pupils are of similar ability.

Teachers are more likely to "mark up" girls' work, says the study. It suggests that this leniency in marking is an unacknowledged reward for girls being more school-friendly.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The initiative hopes to motivate men to work towards equality in all areas of their lives, including at home with housework, with their children, in their marriages and at work. The campaign includes tips that men can implement in their daily lives at work and at home.

Some of the tips include being an active father by participating in caregiving and being a 50/50 partner by doing half of the childcare and housework. Tips for men at work include actively giving women credit when it's due and sharing "office house work" such as organizing events and training new hires.

"When men lean in for equality, they win -- and so does everyone else," Lean In's website reads.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'The Daily Beast has retracted an article claiming that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker cut all provisions requiring the state’s universities to report sexual assaults. Before finally admitting she “screwed up,” the source of the post tried to defend herself on Twitter.
...
Then she refused to apologize, blaming both the Wisconsin budget and Walker himself for her mistake:

“And I’m not gonna apologize for what was in the budget. Because that was in the budget. Ask your gov. to apologize for bad optix.” — Natasha VC (@natashavc) February 28, 2015"
...
In a related story, a New York Times columnist wrote two weeks ago that Walker was responsible for 2010 cuts to education, resulting in teacher layoffs. The problem being, Walker didn’t take office until 2011.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The U.S. Air Force on Wednesday announced a series of initiatives aimed at increasing the number of female pilots and improving retention and promotion of female and minority airmen.

The initiatives include a push to give more waivers to people who don’t meet Air Force height requirements to increase the pool of officers who are eligible to become pilots. While the waiver program currently exists, many cadets aren’t reviewed to see if they are eligible, Air Force officials said.

Air Force officials estimate that over the next five years, approximately 900 female airmen could be granted waivers, allowing them to enter pilot training.
...
Ms. James said women aren’t as well represented in the pilot career field, and the service must do what it can to try to increase the pool of potential female pilots.

Article here. Excerpt:

'A new documentary calls colleges like Harvard and Notre Dame "The Hunting Ground," where rapists prey on women. A bipartisan group of senators demand new rules to "curb campus sexual assaults."

Apparently, new laws are needed because at colleges, sexual assault is "epidemic." Rape is so common that there is a "rape culture."

I hear that a lot.

It is utter exaggeration. Fortunately, AEI scholar Christina Hoff Sommers is around to reveal the truth.

"This idea of a rape culture was built on false statistics and twisted theories about toxic masculinity," she says.

No one denies that some men, especially when drunk, get violent and abusive. I saw nasty behavior when I was in college, and I assume there are places worse than Princeton. 

Sommers says, "I always make clear, rape is a very serious problem, (but) if you look at the best data ... it is not an epidemic. And we do not have a rape culture." 

Article here. Excerpt:

'Columnist George Will wrote about the “supposed campus epidemic of rape,” accusing schools of making “victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges,” while others chimed in to claim sexual violence on campus is a “false epidemic” and accused survivors of fabricating their assaults.

Rape is the most underreported crime in America, not a crime in which we see rampant false reporting or embellishment. An attack of this nature is often the most personally painful moment in a victim’s life. What’s truly harmful is not the voices of survivors coming out of the shadows — but rather disparaging rhetoric that makes reporting even more difficult. We can’t let that rhetoric distract from our work to combat these crimes.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Justin Dillon, former federal prosecutor and now a white collar defense lawyer, knows all too well the ways campus sexual abuse investigations can go wrong.

His litany of bizarrely skewed hearings is fraught with the potential for harm and tragic outcomes.

The college student brought up on charges of giving his girlfriend an unwanted kiss, more than a year after the relationship ended; an alleged rape victim who said friends had information the accused had raped others, but then declined to identify the friends; the hearing panel, composed of a librarian, a student dance major, and a professor of romance languages, whose job was to decide whether a sexual assault had occurred.

"It feels oftentimes that every new case I get is more absurd than the last. Sometimes you get people who are not old enough to drink, but are old enough to decide whether someone is a rapist," says the Harvard-trained lawyer, based in Washington.

Podcast page here.

'In recent years we’ve seen more and more people opposing circumcision around the world, but especially in America. Collectively they have become known as ‘intactivists.’ These people are the target audience of Foregen, an organization that not only lobbies against circumcision but also, as stated on its website, “promotes genital integrity through regenerative medicine.”

Eric Clopper, a spokesperson for Foregen, tells host Gilad Halpern that his organization refrains from politics, and its sole purpose is to help circumcised men enjoy sex as they should.'

Link here. Excerpt:

'Deputy Secretary Higginbottom will present 10 extraordinary women from 10 countries with the 2015 Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award on March 5 at 1:00 p.m. EST. First Lady Michelle Obama will join Deputy Secretary Higginbottom and the awardees as a special guest at the afternoon ceremony at the U.S. Department of State.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Anthony Crook's photo was on the front page of a local newspaper after being made public by Essex Police - but no charges were ever brought against him.

The publicity resulted in the 37-year-old losing his job and - in his words - becoming "unemployable".

He became depressed and began drinking heavily.

Judge Deborah Taylor ruled that police breached both data protection rules and Mr Crook's right to privacy.'