Story here. Excerpt:

'The topless “Femen” activist who desecrated the Parisian church of the Madeleine days before Christmas last year was given a one-month suspended prison sentence for “sexual exhibitionism” on Wednesday by a penal tribunal in Paris.

Eloise Bouton, 31, made the headlines on December 20, 2013, when she burst into the choir of the church half-naked, shouting “Christmas is canceled,” bearing the same inscription on her back and the words “344e salope” (344th b****) on her chest.

These words refer to a famous manifesto published in 1971 by 343 women, mostly intellectuals, actresses and political activists, in the left-wing magazine Nouvel Observateur, in which they claimed to have had an illegal abortion and demanded the legalization of abortion. This was to take place four years later, in December 1974.

Story here. Excerpt:

'The Belgian Prime Minister has been showered with chips and mayonnaise by three former Femen protesters angry at government austerity and the “criminalization of the poor”.

39 year-old Charles Michele, the youngest Belgian Prime Minister ever, was about to start addressing an audience at a business conference in the city of Namur when the three female protesters struck.

Michele took a pasting from soggy fries and mayo, one of Belgium’s national dishes, by Feminist group LilthS, the renamed Belgian branch of Femen, who said they were protesting against budget cuts and the “criminalization of the poor.”

“The Belgian people can’t be left with Chips and Sauce austerity. That is why we threw a symbol of the Belgium they are dismantling in their face,” said a statement on the group’s Facebook page.

But Michele managed to keep a wry smile on his face throughout the stunt and later resumed his speech, although without his jacket.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The total discrediting of Rolling Stone’s story on rape at the University of Virginia has shined a light on one of the least palatable features of American life: the so-called epidemic of rape on campus.

Authorities from Barack Obama on down have cited the phony statistic that one in five college women is raped. Phony because it’s based on a 2007 survey conducted in two midwestern schools not of a random sample, but of a small number of self-selected respondents and includes unwanted touching and kissing as “sexual assault.”

A Department of Justice survey released this month presents a different picture. Between 1995 and 2013, it reports, an average of 0.61 percent of female students were raped or sexually assaulted every year — 2.4 percent over four years, not 20 percent. Moreover, the DOJ reports, that rate has been declining significantly in recent years, in line with a national decline in violent rape.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has dropped an increasingly disputed sexual assault statistic from her website. ChangeDetection.com shows how Gillibrand’s sexual assault resources web page [http://1.usa.gov/1m2xWoB] no longer includes [http://bit.ly/1C3Fi6M] a sentence citing the National Institute of Health Campus Sexual Assault Study, which concluded that one in five college women will be subject to rape or attempted rape. Gillibrand and others all the way up to President Barack Obama have cited that statistic in their push for colleges to better prevent sexual violence. But critics and media outlets [http://wapo.st/1AvC1JA] have noted the study’s flaws: It included only two large four-year universities and had a low rate of response, with more nuanced findings than lawmakers suggest. (H/T @mstratford)

From a whitehouse.gov mailing list email:

'Katherine Johnson. Maria Klawe. Barbara McClintock. If none of those names sound familiar to you, it's time to change that.

Because the groundbreaking, and largely unsung, work and discoveries of these women -- and many more like them -- helped shape modern science. And inspiring more young women to pursue careers in science and technology starts with simply sharing these stories.

We've put together an interactive audio hub that allows you to do that easily: Listen to women from across the Administration tell the stories of their heroes. When you learn something new (and you will), pass this on.

Once you do, you can add an untold history of your own, and then make a commitment to honor the legacy of these remarkable women in the best possible way: by encouraging a young woman to pursue a career in science.

Incredible, inspiring stories like these ones can only fade into obscurity if we don't tell them. And the only way we'll see more like them is if we get the word out now.

Article here. Excerpt:

'“History is a series of agreed-upon myths,” Napoleon Bonaparte observed cynically. Now some critics are saying that, today, current events are also a series of agreed-upon myths.
...
This is essentially the position of Townhall’s Erick Erickson in a piece entitled “The Man Hating Media.” He points out that Jackie’s unsubstantiated accusations made the fraternity subject to mob violence, faculty-member protests, verbal abuse, and a call by the UVA president for a police investigation; moreover, those who doubted the somewhat untenable “facts” of the case were, Erickson writes, “attacked … accused of supporting rapists, denying the holocaust, and being ‘rape truthers.’” He continues:

Article here. Excerpt:

'What I can say is that, whatever happens with the UVA scandal, this whole ordeal has once again exposed just how disingenuous and irrational many people — and by ‘people’ I mean feminists — are when discussing rape. Indeed, you expect feminists to be irrational about this topic because, for them, rape is not so much an actuality as it is an ideology. It might be appropriate to stop calling it Feminism altogether and start calling it Rapism.

Modern feminism is completely dependent on, and defined by, the idea that there is an epidemic of sexual violence against women. Not only an epidemic, but a culture that condones and encourages rape. A Rape Culture, they call it. A Rape Culture so virulent that it produces not simply rapists but people who are ‘pro-rape’ and engage in rape apologism.

Article here. What gives me some hope for sanity arising anew in American society's mindscape re feminism is that so many more women are recognizing the extremist nutsery modern feminism has gone to and are publicly denouncing it. This is just one further example. Excerpt:

'Since a delicious feminist folly occurs nearly every day, I had a hard time picking the sweetest of the cherries off the cupcakes. But here goes, more or less in descending order of absurdity:
...
Someone actually thought it would help the cause of women to dress up little girls in princess costumes and video them as they dropped the f-word more times than Leonardo di Caprio in “The Wolf of Wall Street.” I kept hoping the voices in this video were dubbed by adults who had the sense not to put foul words into the mouths of children -- but no chance.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston was cleared Sunday of the accusations he faced at a student code of conduct hearing involving an alleged sexual assault two years ago.

Former Florida Supreme Court Justice Major Harding wrote in a letter to Winston that the evidence was "insufficient to satisfy the burden of proof." Prosecutor Willie Meggs made a similar decision a year ago when he decided not to criminally charge Winston, citing a lack of evidence.

This month, a two-day hearing was held to determine whether Winston violated four sections of the code of conduct - two for sexual misconduct and two for endangerment.

The ramifications for Winston ranged from a reprimand to expulsion from school.

The woman can request an appeal within five days.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'More than any other force, a single oft-repeated statistic has driven a national campaign against sexual assaults on college campuses. It holds that fully 20% of female students are victimized.

The figure suggests that bastions of higher learning are dangerous places akin to war zones.

Now, though, scrutiny of the research behind the statistic suggests confidence in its accuracy is misplaced. Based on a Web survey of students at just two schools, it counted even unwanted kisses and gropes as assaults.

Article here. Excerpt:

'He has gotten used to former friends crossing the street to avoid him. He has even gotten used to being denounced as a rapist on fliers and in a rally in the university’s quadrangle. Though his name is not widely known beyond the Morningside Heights campus, Mr. Nungesser is one of America’s most notorious college students. His reputation precedes him.

His notoriety is the result of a campaign by Emma Sulkowicz, a fellow student who says Mr. Nungesser raped her in her dorm room two years ago. Columbia cleared him of responsibility in that case, as well as in two others that students brought against him. Outraged, Ms. Sulkowicz began carrying a 50-pound mattress wherever she went on campus, to suggest the painful burden she continues to bear. She has vowed to keep at it until he leaves the school.

Article here. Excerpt:

'When Shapiro eventually revealed evidence showing that Jackie had invented her rapist as part of an elaborate hoax, it looked like the story would be quietly forgotten. Demonstrating that sometimes the best defense is a good offense, Amanda Marcotte went on the attack, publishing “’Princeton Mom, Kevin Williamson and the revolting rise of the rape truthers.”

“There’s been a shocking media feeding frenzy over the discovery that one of the young women claiming to be a rape victim in Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s recent Rolling Stone piece might be exaggerating about her experience or even lying about it,” writes Marcotte.
...
She continues, “Subsequently, even though there’s no real evidence for it, many people stand behind the myth that women routinely lie about being raped, which justifies preserving a status quo where men’s word is considered more authoritative and trustworthy just because they are male.”

At this point feminists can be expected to quote the same misleading statistics about rape, such as only 8-10% of rape claims are false. In reality, false rape statistics reflect only the number of rape allegations declared by police to be unfounded; the actual number of false rape claims could be much higher, but we have no reliable way of knowing for certain.
...
While feminists claim that only a small number of women make false rape accusations, they have done everything in their power to encourage false accusations. By demanding that colleges lower the standard of proof to 50.1%, they roll out the red carpet for false accusers. If an insurance company declared that they would no longer conduct arson investigations, they would go out of business within weeks.

Some may recall Penny Marshall from the old sit-com Laverne and Shirley. She went on to become a very successful producer and director but also occasionally does cameos and guest star roles. She appears as the founder of the "Women and Women First" bookstore in a particular episode of Portlandia. The skit she is in starts at time mark 10:02. I figured after the incessant madness of UVA, "Yes Means Yes", and the likes of Gillibrand and McCaskill working full tilt to outlaw maleness, it was time for some comedy relief. Video on YouTube is here. (Marshall appears at time mark 11:41.)

Article here. Excerpt:

'Sometimes an intact foreskin is just the result of being in the right place at the right time, for the penis anyway. In 2002, when my first son was born, we were living in Britain, where less than 10 percent of males are circumcised. (In America, it’s around half.) After his birth, I was told we would have to make a separate appointment for circumcision with a specialist outside the hospital. I assumed we would do it. Wasn’t that what people did with penises? It was my husband who said: ‘Let’s not. It doesn’t seem necessary.’

We weren’t religious. We were thousands of miles from home. There was no one around to talk us into having it done. And we had just delivered a healthy baby boy. The last thing we wanted to do was have him cut.

Article here. Excerpt:

'In the email, Jackie wrote about her romantic interest in a friend of hers named Ryan Duffin. Duffin was forwarded the email on Oct. 3, 2012 by a man named Haven Monahan, who Jackie claimed she was going out on a date with on the night she says she was raped.

“When you like someone more than he likes you, you’ll do anything to switch the scales,” Jackie wrote about Duffin.

It was Duffin who Jackie first called on the night she claims she was raped. Duffin, who showed up to help Jackie along with two other friends, has said that Jackie claimed that night that she was forced to perform oral sex on five men at a fraternity house.