Article here. Excerpt:

'Inspired by New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the move to ban "man-spreading" -- men who sit on public transit with their knees spread so far apart that they actually take up seats next to them -- has reached Toronto and the Toronto Transit Commission, and it's caused some interesting gender chatter.
...
Funny thing about virility: it's often not what it seems. Like male animals, much of the virility is false but the display can be stunning. I had a boyfriend with a huge set of testicles that hung heavily under his pinkie-sized penis which only ejaculated prematurely, so I wouldn't say that large testicles necessarily indicate virility. The whole puffed-up, I-have-bigger-balls-than-you-and-that-makes-me-more-masculine mentality of man-spreaders is a delusion, mere posturing.

In the animal world as Dabbs mentions, panache works to look dominant and impress the opposite sex. I cannot imagine any woman being attracted to a man who tries so hard to show he's masculine by exposing what he thinks are mammoth testicles to prove his manhood, while simultaneously imposing himself into other people's space.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Lawyers for the University of Colorado have asked a federal judge to throw out the Title IX lawsuit filed late last year by an anonymous male student who claims he was wrongly accused and punished for sexual assault.

In a 25-page motion filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Denver, CU's lawyers argued that the male student's claims of sex discrimination are baseless.

The male student, whose identity is protected by the court, is suing CU under Title IX, the federal gender equity law that has historically been used to protect the rights of female students.

Title IX prohibits sexual assault, sexual harassment, retaliation and other forms of gender-based discrimination on college campuses.

Story here. Excerpt:

'North Dakota legislators introduced a bill Thursday that would grant university students and student organizations the right to be represented by an attorney during university disciplinary proceedings.

The bill, introduced by state Sen. Ray Holmberg, R-Grand Forks, would grant students the right to be represented by an attorney or non-attorney advocate at the student’s expense. The right would not extend to hearings regarding allegations of academic dishonesty.

Student organizations would also have the right to an attorney or advocate.

Holmberg said the bill has multiple sponsors, includingstate Rep. Lois Delmore, D-Grand Forks.

“We want to make sure it’s clear that due process has to be followed,” Holmberg said.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Nothing like starting off the new year with a little male bashing. Then again, the article upon which this column springs to life was written by a male.

Last month, Business Insider science reporter Kevin Loria — whose byline features his manly, unshaven face, thus pretty much establishing his gender — openly declared, “We men are idiots.”

To which every female reader of Business Insider no doubt gave a silent, if somewhat unsurprised, nod of the ol’ noggin.

Loria based his declaration upon a recently-published article in the British Medical Journal regarding a study that found that since 1995 almost 89 percent of the recipients — 282 in all — of the Darwin Award were male.
...
Those who claim a pair of XX chromosomes are not exempt from acts of idiocy, of course — yours truly included. When I was about 5, and disinclined to take the nap ordered by my mother, I decided to find out what would happen if I straightened out the bobby pin I had found under the bed and stick it inside the electrical wall socket next to the bed. Never did that again.

Same for the time when I was about 12, when I struck a match and held it close to my head. “Gee,” I told my younger brother, who was standing next to me, “It sounds just like a forest fire.”

“No wonder,” he calmly replied. “Your hair is on fire.”

Yep, I have done some idiotic things in my life — none fatal so far. Same for the poor woman who won a mention — though not the ultimate award — as a Darwin At-Risk Survivor.

Seems she decided to bake a cake using an old electric mixer with a detachable cord plugged into the socket.

Article here. Excerpt:

'It is also earning at least some critiques, largely from feminist corners. Some of these are predictable: Martina is “objectified” and judged by her looks. She isn’t given a chance to speak. No one in the video [link added] is given the opportunity to sue each other or protest naked. (Okay, I kid on that last one.) Other complaints are more nuanced: In a lengthy blog post, feminist critic and author Rebecca Hains called the video [link added] “sickening,” unraveling some of its weirder elements: “A grown man, telling [boys] to slap a girl that they so clearly like? And a girl being coached to stand there and let boys who are complete strangers to her touch her body? How awful!”

No argument here: The video is, at the very least, indisputably weird. But the worst part of “Slap Her,” despite the cries of feminists, has nothing to do with Martina, her treatment, or her rather clueless video directors. It’s the widespread and growing idea, reflected throughout our culture, that the Y chromosome, paired with toxic and constricting societal “gender roles”—as opposed to, say, flawed human nature—is the central driver behind domestic violence and various other evils in the world.  

Let’s step back for a moment. How strange is it, really, that millions upon millions of people would be “charmed” and “touched” and have their “hearts melted” by the fact that several young boys would refuse to hit a girl? Has our collective cultural opinion of the male species really sunk so low?

Article here. Excerpt:

'Twenty-fourteen has been a bad year for feminism. From the UVA rape hoax to the anti-civil rights atrocities that are “affirmative consent” laws, from the the scandalous radio silence after the Rotherham scandal, to the ever-escalating #Waronnerds (reaching peak absurdity in the controversy over Dr. Matt Taylor’s allegedly “sexist” shirt), 2014 was the year when feminism underwent a fall from grace that even John Milton would cringe to chronicle. It was the year the movement that gave birth to the suffragettes mutated into the Jane Birch Society, though actually, that might be unfair to the Birchers – they only saw communists under every bed, whereas many modern feminists see misogynists and rapists not only under them, but in them, too. It was the year when feminism decided it had had enough of trying to get equal rights, and now only wanted to get even, in the words of one particularly frightening column.
...
It is not possible to overstate the intellectual dishonesty, moral myopia, psychological ill health, ideological hypocrisy and logical bankruptcy in evidence throughout Marcotte’s writing. Whittaker Chambers once denounced Ayn Rand, saying that in her work, “a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding – to a gas chamber, go!” But Rand’s gas chambers, if they existed at all, did so in the abstract. Marcotte, on the other hand, barely bothers to disguise the voice in her writing commanding, “get thee to the gelding knife.”

Sorry I need to even ask such a question. I feel ignorant doing so, but, I thought i'd at least best ask before making comments on such a thing.

But just what is the real definition of "Patriarchy"?
I hear feminists and random women throwing the term about all the time. If it means that women in this country and the rest of the western world are oppressed by men, then I call it a fallacy at least and a misnomer at the most. "Patriarchy" would mean that women cannot vote or freely express themselves, right? Well, if so, where in the western world is such a thing happening?

I simply do not see it. Am I blind? as far as I know we women have the right to vote and have so since 1920, if I'm not mistaken. So for more than eighty years, the better part of a century, there has been that right for us. So where is the "Patriarchy"?

If it means we women do not have the right to free speech, then why, on TV and other forms of media, are the majority of commentators female, talking almost if not exclusively about "female issues"? So where is the "Patriarchy"?

Story here. Excerpt:

'Circumcision before the age of five can double a boy’s risk of developing autism, controversial research suggests.

Scientists believe the finding may be linked to stress caused by the pain of the procedure.

The study of more than 340,000 boys in Denmark found that circumcision raised the overall chances of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) before the age of 10 by 46%.

But if circumcision took place before the age of five it doubled the risk.
...
Professor David Katz, from University College London, who chairs Milah UK, a body that speaks for the Jewish community on issues related to circumcision, said: “This report is far from convincing: correlation does not equal causation.

“There is a long history of attempts to link autistic spectrum disorders to unrelated practices, such as the measles/mumps/rubella association, which proved to be fraudulent.

Link here. Excerpt:

'By: Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement, The White House

President Obama has said repeatedly that “when women succeed, America succeeds.” And over the past year, millions of women have gained the security of knowing that their professional, academic, financial, and personal dreams will not be put in jeopardy if they face a health challenge. Today, the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) released a report detailing the important strides we have made in women’s health as a result of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”).

Story here.

'The University of Missouri St. Louis police department says rape reported on December 17th by a student did not occur. The student who reported the incident met with investigators. The UMSL police department now says a warning sent about the incident was unfounded.

The student said that a man wearing a full ski mask forced her into the back seat of a parked car. Campus police sent an alert to students the following day to look for a suspect with a thin build and blue eyes. The victim described his car as small and dark in color.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A false accusation of rape allegedly caused a Barrow man to beat his cousin to death in a Fairbanks hotel room Wednesday morning, according to Alaska State Troopers.

Abraham S. Stine, 39, was charged Thursday with one count of second-degree murder for beating Wesley Lord, 37, to death at the Extended Stay Hotel on Old Airport Way. His girlfriend, Dominique Natalie Vasquez, 31, also of Barrow, also was charged with one count of second-degree murder for her actions during the incident.

Article here. Excerpt:

'A new kind of feminism has taken root in popular culture, leading some prominent doyennes of social media to proclaim 2014 a watershed year for womankind.

Combine the machine-gun fire of Twitter outrage, a wave of celebrity rape revelations and activists making careers of berating businesses for their unequal gender ratio, and apparently the result is some sort of giant leap for the cause of women.

It looks to me more like a reactionary leap than a progressive one. The feminism of sexual freedom and against gender stereotyping has given way to one that insists on lumping all women together (#YESALLWOMEN) as a collective victim of sexual assault.

The feminism of equality, of toughness, of anti-discrimination, has been overwhelmed by one of victimhood and demands for special treatment. The feminism of solidarity across class divides has been sidelined by an exaggerated concern with the problems of the elite.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Navy said Thursday that it is halting, at least temporarily, its practice of cutting female recruits’ hair short when they arrive at boot camp.

The service said it was taking the step “in an effort to standardize training and education across the military services,” following orders last year from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to review hair regulations after revised Army hair rules upset some female soldiers.

The ban on haircuts will run for the first three months of this year, and is in response to female sailors complaining that the short haircuts didn’t prepare them adequately for grooming the longer hairstyles permitted once they graduated into the fleet.

Article here. Excerpt:

'There's a category of words that have sprung up of late to shame men for acting in a manly terrible fashion. There's “mansplaining,” the verb and the noun, which describes—according to Urban Dictionary—the act of “delighting in condescending, inaccurate explanations delivered with rock solid confidence of rightness and that slimy certainty that of course he is right, because he is the man in this conversation.” (See: the book Men Explain Things to Me.) There's “manspreading,” also a verb-and-noun combo, which describes the act of spread-eagle-ing upon a seat, that seat usually being set in a public space, the spread-eagle-er usually being a man. (See the Tumblr Men Taking Up Too Much Space on the Train.)

Story here. Excerpt:

'Intel has pledged $300m of investment to improve diversity at the company and the wider technology and gaming sectors.

The firm plans to work with several partners, including the International Game Developers Association, the E-Sports League, Feminist Frequency and the National Center for Women in Technology to support, enhance or create new programs for the initiative.

"We're calling on our industry to again make the seemingly impossible possible by making a commitment to real change and clarity in our goals," said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich. "Without a workforce that more closely mirrors the population, we are missing opportunities, including not understanding and designing for our own customers."'