Story here. Excerpt:

'A man hitting a woman is wrong and so is knowing it’s going on and doing nothing about it .

This is the message the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence is stressing in their Take The Pledge campaign, where men choose “to be a stand-up guy, not a stand-by guy.”

On Wednesday, a local community group called Men Of Action took the pledge along with donating food to the Haven House Family Shelter.

“I am beyond elated with this,” said Wendy Mahoney, executive director for the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Mahoney was in attendance and was also one of the keynote speakers at the program that was held at Fred’s Barber and Beauty Salon on Drummond Street —where the idea of Men Of Action began.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A young British Columbia man who claims his life was ruined by gossip about a false rape claim has won the right to sue his accuser for defamation, in a rare case of a sexual-assault complainant being held legally liable for her statement to police.

Simon Caron, who works in the oil patch as a leasehand, was cleared of the rape claim when he showed he was hundreds of kilometres away at the time, and could prove it with receipts and other records. No charges were laid. But as he describes it in his defamation claim against the complainant, who is a minor represented by a litigation guardian, the rumour mill “is still circulating.”

Article here. Excerpt:

'Breaking up is hard to do. Especially if you’re trying to break up with Christina Lorena Reber.

The Indiana woman was sentenced two years in prison for tearing off her ex-boyfriend’s balls as payback for breaking up with her.

The 46-year-old was charged with felony battery after she attacked the 60-year-old victim in March 2012.

According to a police report, Reber flew into a rage after the man broke up with her a few days earlier, which prompted her to break into his house and start punching him in the head. (The big head, not the little one…at least, not yet.)'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A state Senate committee heard testimony Thursday for and against a bill that would prevent accused rapists from claiming parental rights over children conceived during an alleged sexual assault.

Under the Rape Survivor Family Protection Act, sponsored by state Senator Jamie Raskin, D-Montgomery, a court could declare that a man is not the legal father of a child he conceived from an alleged rape.

Maryland law currently allows a man accused of fathering a child through rape to weigh in on custody and adoption decisions, including potentially preventing the mother from putting that child up for adoption, proponents of the bill said.
...
The bill outlines a “clear and convincing evidence” standard, common in state family law, for finding that the alleged rape occurred.

The state public defender’s office opposes the proposed law because it does not require a criminal rape conviction, which carries higher standards to prove guilt.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Last Friday, an incubator and coworking space for women only launched in downtown Dallas called The Kaleidoscope for Her.

The space will host events and courses for women, including one-month, two-month, and four-month programs to help them test their business ideas, get them off the ground, and grow. Depending on which option you select, membership is $150-350 per month.

According to founder Tilde Guajardo, the main difference from a traditional coworking space for both genders is that The Kaleidoscope for Her is built to be more collaborative.

“Studies have shown women are often more collaborative than men and more likely to share their voice when men are not part of the conversation,” she says. “We are not anti-men by any means, but creating a ‘safe’ and ‘non-competitive’ space for women to feel free to share is essential to maintaining an open and honest dialogue between our members.”
...
As far as I know, no one has yet created a similar space for men.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'A couple of weeks ago, I found myself wandering through a fascinating exhibition called Snip It! Stances on Ritual Circumcision in the Jewish Museum in Berlin.

Article here. Excerpt:

'When feminist advocates on campus sexual assault “speak truth to power,” they speak for (and often as) victims and survivors. In that position, it’s perfectly fair for them to pick and choose the constituencies to which they give voice. They can and should specialize. But as feminists issue a series of commands from within the federal government about what the problem of campus sexual violence is and how it must be handled, and as they build new institutions that give life to those commands, they become part of governmental power. Now that they have the power to adjudicate cases and determine sanctions, they are facing the full range of cases. For those feminists — and I would argue they should include, by now, the advocacy branch — the days of specialization should be over. It is time to govern. The current moment is a classic opportunity to observe how advocates turn their rhetorical tools and social-movement protest into institutional government.
...

Article here. Excerpt:

'It’s time to put down the mattress.

Columbia student Emma Sulko­wicz, who claims her close friend and former sexual partner Paul Nungesser raped her, has been carrying a mattress around campus for months to symbolize her status as a victim and remind everyone her alleged attacker remains on campus. (The mattress was also earning her course credit for performance art, but never mind that.)

Sulkowicz, who has been pictured in newspapers across the country, was even a guest of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand at the State of the Union address last month. The New York Times referred to Sulkowicz as “a woman with a mattress, refusing to keep her violation private, carrying with her a stark reminder of where it took place.”

Way to reserve judgment, folks.

Article here. Excerpt:

'That’s why the contretemps about a recent incident at Marquette University is far less alarming than libertarians think. An inexperienced instructor was teaching a class on the philosophy of John Rawls, and a student in the class argued that same-sex marriage was consistent with Rawls’ philosophy. When another student told the teacher outside of class that he disagreed, the teacher responded that she would not permit a student to oppose same-sex marriage in class because that might offend gay students.

While I believe that the teacher mishandled the student’s complaint, she was justified in dismissing it. The purpose of the class was to teach Rawls’ theory of justice, not to debate the merits of same-sex marriage. The fact that a student injected same-sex marriage into the discussion does not mean that the class was required to discuss it. The professor might reasonably have believed that the students would gain a better understanding of Rawls’ theory if they thought about how it applied to issues less divisive and hence less likely to distract students from the academic merits of the theory.

Story here. Excerpt:

'He documented what happened next on his Facebook page: "I saw a girl walking on the path I was heading towards. The moment she saw me she ran. She didn’t say anything, she just ran. I was stunned and just wanted to run after her and shout that she didn’t have to be afraid of me. But I know it wouldn’t have helped. There was nothing I could do."

Article here. Excerpt:

'Occidental College disagreed. The morning after the incident, both Jane and John said they didn’t remember what happened the night before and set about recreating the evening’s events by speaking with friends who witnessed them having sex, reviewing text messages they had sent to each other, and piecing together the physical clues. John awoke to find a used condom and Jane’s earrings in his room; Jane learned that after having sex with John, she had ventured out again to find another man to cuddle with. The facts of what happened that evening are not in dispute. But, a week after the incident, Jane filed a complaint against John with the school. John was ultimately found in violation of Occidental’s sexual misconduct policy, which forbids students from having sexual contact with anyone who is “incapacitated” by drugs or alcohol. John was expelled, the harshest possible punishment for students found responsible for sexual assault on campus. Then, he filed suit against Occidental, alleging that the school unfairly applied its sexual misconduct policy based on gender. (The suit refers to the students as just John Doe and Jane Doe, to preserve their anonymity.) As the lawsuit puts it: “John is being expelled because he is male; Jane Doe is not because she is female.”
...

Article here. Excerpt:

'The epidemic levels of rape on university campuses has a lot of people really worried. Unfortunately, they’re worried that campuses are going “too far” in their effort to punish rapists; that young men will be wrongly accused; that campus sex policies will criminalize consensual sex; that the rape epidemic is more ideological rhetoric than actual lived experience.
...
The concern over due process in campus adjudication procedures are also misplaced. In The New York Times, Judith Shulevitz bemoans the Department of Education guidelines that instruct schools to use a “preponderance of evidence” standard in rape cases, as if such a thing is unheard of. But this is the same standard of evidence that’s required when a rape victim sues her attacker in civil court. Shulevitz also warns that schools risk losing federal funds if they don’t adhere to the DOE’s rules, but no school has ever had their funding taken away because of a Title IX violation.

The Macquarie Dictionary has voted the gendered, derogatory word “mansplain” Word of the Year for 2015.

https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/resources/view/word/of/the/year/

'verb (t) Colloquial (humorous) (of a man) to explain (something) to a woman, in a way that is patronising because it assumes that a woman will be ignorant of the subject matter.
[MAN + (EX)PLAIN with s inserted to create a pronunciation link with explain]
–mansplaining, noun'

Mansplain is a portmanteau, a new word made by blending the beginning of one word with the ending of another, while including the original meaning of both words (i.e. “brunch”, including the “br” from breakfast and the “unch” from lunch). The word “explain” is simple and clearly by itself not patronising. So the patronising part of the meaning here must be related to the word “man”. If there was any doubt about the word “man” meaning patronising, the definition of “mansplain” published by the Macquarie Dictionary makes it clear that only men do the "splaining" and the patronising.

The specially convened Macquarie Dictionary Word of the Year Committee commented that mansplain was a “much needed word and it was a clever coinage which captured neatly the concept of the patronising explanation offered only too frequently by some men to women”. However, when used in this general context, “man” refers to all men generally. So while the Committee appears to be watering down the sexist nature of mansplain by suggesting it's just “some men”, the derogatory meaning refers to a patronising act commited by all men, as a result of their gender, whenever explaining.

Another "the real victim is girls" article points out the obvious: because women are not as strong/smart as men, they suffer greater percentages of injury per player, but it doesn't say what the total numbers are. Excerpt:

'Recent studies of high school and collegiate athletes have shown that girls and women suffer from concussions at higher rates than boys and men in similar sports — often significantly higher. For instance, in a recent analysis of college athletic injuries, female softball players experienced concussions at double the rate of male baseball players. Women also experienced higher rates of concussions than men in basketball and soccer. Across all sports in the study, the highest rate of concussions was reported not by male football players, but by female ice hockey players. In that sport, a woman experienced a concussion once every 1,100 games or practices — nearly three times the rate experienced in football. The gender disparity exists in high school sports, too. One study, analyzing concussion data for athletes in 25 high schools, found that in soccer, girls experienced concussions at twice the rate of boys.
...

Article here. Excerpt:

'On 17 January 2015, the website Injustice Stories published an article purportedly penned by a woman named Lana who claimed to have terminated her pregnancy at the five-month mark because she learned the fetus was male.
...
Missing from the account were any identifying details about the timeframe in which the purported abortion occurred, the general locality, or any other details or information regarding the procedure. In fact, the process of terminating a pregnancy after the twenty-week mark is far more complex and risky than a first-trimester abortion, and women who have experienced it are unlikely to describe it as "without a hitch."