Article here.  Excerpt:

'Indeed, the law’s advocates don’t uniformly believe its written standards will actually be followed at all. This defense by Amanda Marcotte is telling: “The law has no bearing on the vast majority of sexual encounters. It only applies when a student files a sexual assault complaint.” So the law will not come into play because nobody will actually try to enforce it. Instead, it will technically deem a large proportion of sexual encounters to be rape, but prosecutors will only enforce it if there is an accusation. And since most, and possibly nearly all, sexual encounters will legally be rape, then accusation will almost automatically result in conviction.

Indeed, this may be the point. Culp-Ressler dismisses concerns about convictions of innocent people. (“In reality, false rape allegations are very rare, comprising about two to eight percent of all reports.”) Two to 8 percent seems like a fairly high number of innocent people to convict as rapists, and of course that proportion could well rise quite a bit under a legal regime that expands the definition of rape in ways that are both extremely broad and extremely confusing.
...

Article here. Excerpt:

'Under ordinary circumstances, the facts alleged by Abrar Faiaz in the legal complaint he filed last spring in U.S. District Court in New York against Colgate University [link added] would strain credulity [sic]. But because Faiaz’s allegations are consistent with the organized offensive against due process perpetrated by universities in recent years, they should be considered with an open mind.

The lawsuit accuses Colgate and several members of the university's administration, faculty, and staff -- including President Jeffrey Herbst, Provost Douglas Hicks, and Dean of the College Suzy Nelson -- of multiple civil rights violations as well as false imprisonment, breach of contract, and failure to substantially observe the school’s established procedures. The court is currently weighing Colgate’s motion to dismiss the suit.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A disturbing trend of filing of false rape cases has come to the fore, mocking stringent laws adopted by the parliament last year to prevent crime against women. The Delhi Commission of Women (DCW) has come out with startling statistics showing that 53.2% of the rape cases filed between April 2013 and July 2014 in the capital were found 'false'.

The report says that between April 2013 and July 2014, of the 2,753 complaints of rape, only 1,287 cases were found to be true, and the remaining 1,464 cases were found to be false.

The report further revealed that between June 2013 and December 2013, the number of cases found to be untrue were 525. And in between, January 2014 and July 2014, the number of false rape cases were 900.'

Articke here. Excerpt:

'I have a slightly different take on California's recent decision to regulate college sex. Don't get me wrong, it's beyond idiotic, unworkable, even borderline Orwellian. We'll get to all that.
...
The incredible overreach of the law has been discussed at great length. The Times editorial board expressed its own sensible misgivings in an editorial before Brown signed the bill into law. "It seems extremely difficult and extraordinarily intrusive to micromanage sex so closely as to tell young people what steps they must take in the privacy of their own dorm rooms."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'There’s really only one thing that progressives get wrong: human nature. This leads them into error on economics, where they imagine they can micromanage billions of individual decisions every day; foreign policy, in which they overestimate the appeal of “talks” and underestimate the ferocity and opportunism of aggressors; and sex, in which, well, where to begin?

California proposes to stop campus rape and sexual assault with a law redefining consent. Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation last week specifying that verbal consent must precede all sexual activity. Further, consent cannot be given if someone is incapacitated by drugs or alcohol.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Policywise, it's easy to argue that Barack Obama is a feminist president. The first bill he signed was for equal pay. He launched a White House task force to fight sexual assault and ensured mandatory contraception coverage in Obamacare, a decision he has had to fight for. So why does the president keep making sexist jokes casting his wife in the role of the mommy who has to take care of him?

Article here. Excerpt:

'Patients are more likely to heed the advice of female doctors than their male counterparts, a study has revealed.

In particular, recommendations about nutrition, exercise and weight loss were much more likely to be acted on when dispensed by a woman.

The researchers say their findings ran contrary to what they had expected - that patients would be more likely to take advice from a doctor of the same gender.
...
The researchers believe their findings indicate that communication skills play more of a role than gender when getting patients to trust a doctor.   

The new study suggests that some male doctors could learn a thing or two from female physicians - at least when it comes to dispensing advice on nutrition and exercise.'

Link here. Excerpt:

'MBABANE – Government plans to give adolescent girls monthly cash incentives to keep them safe from the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and sugar daddies.

Girls in the age group of 18 to 24 will be paid at least E200 per month, for the next five years. The World Bank pilot project under the DPM’s office has 9 000 girls already from four constituencies who have been identified as first beneficiaries of the project.

The girls would use the money to pay for their immediate needs, such as toiletries, sanitary pads, cologne and general things they desire.

Khanya Mabuza, the Director of National Emergency Response Council on HIV and AIDS (NERCHA) said his organisation came up with the initiative after having worked with other partners to develop an HIV/Aids Investment case, aimed at ending AIDS in Swaziland.

He said the case came up with a plan to give adolescent girls monthly cash incentives to keep them safe from HIV.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Piedmont resident Lisa Braver Moss is collaborating with Rebecca Wald of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on a book called "Celebrating Brit Shalom," to be published in the spring.

Brit shalom, which means "covenant of peace" in Hebrew, is a naming ceremony for newborn Jewish boys that does not involve circumcision as in the traditional bris milah (covenant of circumcision).

The book offers families who don't want to circumcise their infant sons the choice of three original brit shalom ceremonies that include prayers, readings, new music -- and the cutting of only a pomegranate, a fruit that symbolizes wisdom and righteousness in Judaism.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'A group of 20 attorneys from across the country with experience handling sexual assault cases sent a letter on Thursday to the co-sponsors of the Senate’s campus sexual assault bill.

The attorneys, who have all represented students accused of sexual assault who are now suing their universities for lack of due process, wrote that while sexual assault needs to be addressed, rights of the accused need to be preserved.

“We are concerned that the complexity of the problem and the momentum to find a solution to the manner in which colleges handle these matters will overwhelm any effort to ensure fair treatment to and protect the rights of the accused — particularly with respect to due process, impartiality and the collection of evidence,” the attorneys wrote.

They cited the Campus Accountability and Safety Act, noting the legislation uses the word “victim” or “victims” 34 times but “accused” only once.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A woman who was acquitted of murder after killing her ex-husband more than 20 years ago in South Florida is now facing charges of trying to kill her adult son — with the same gun.

Prosecutors in Las Vegas want a jury there to learn about the trial Linda Cooney won in 1993, when she was accused in the Feb. 7, 1992 shooting death of prominent Palm Beach County tax attorney James Cooney.

The testimony of Kevin Cooney, 11 at the time of the trial, was key to his mother's acquittal, according to Peter Magrino, the prosecutor who tried the case. James and Linda Cooney had divorced four years earlier, and she claimed she acted in self-defense when she shot him.

When Linda Cooney shot her ex-husband in 1992, Kevin Cooney told police he saw his fatally wounded father lying on the floor after he'd been shot. His hands were empty, he said. But during the trial, he told lawyers his father may have had something in his hands after all.

Article here. Excerpt:

'It’ll take more than an act of Congress to get more women into tech, former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm agreed Thursday.

Changes may have to come from companies — or from women themselves, they said during a POLITICO Women Rule event in San Francisco.
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Congress could require the industry and tech investors to disclose more data about how many women they hire, Napolitano suggested.
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Napolitano, who is now president of the University of California system, suggested she would consider moves to encourage transparency in the tech industry. She pledged at the event to inquire as to whether the University of California could demand that investment firms receiving money from the school system disclose their employment figures.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The 'Undue Importance' Of SAT Scores Is Keeping Women Out Of Elite Colleges

Female college applicants' scores on the SAT could be keeping them out of some of the most elite colleges in the country, according to a new study.

According to the study, "the evidence best supports a conclusion that women's lower average standardized test scores, combined with the importance attributed to those scores in admissions decisions, creates de facto preferences for men that drive women's under-enrollment in these institutions."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'If there is a singular conversation starter about gender and money it is this:

Who pays on the first date?

As women make huge huge gains in family medical leave and gaining seats on corporate boards and in Congress, dating expectations barely budge. The status quo is that men pay on first dates. Last week NerdWallet released the results of a survey that found 77 percent of straight people believe men should pay on first dates — a sentiment held by 82 percent of men and 72 percent of women. I am one of those women. I have no financial reason not to pay for my own $29 grilled farm-raised salmon on a first outing with a man. But I really, really prefer if he cooly assumes the bill and slips the server his Visa.

It’s not about snagging a rich husband or a free meal.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Two months after Sao Paolo’s city authorities approved a bill enforcing women-only carriages on the city’s metro network, a transport minister has said that similar measures may be needed in the UK.

Claire Perry, speaking at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham yesterday, said she is “absolutely determined” to cut the number sexual offences on public transport, and that women-only carriages could be a way to prevent “groping and low-level violence”.
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Segregated carriages currently operate in India, Russia, Indonesia and Japan, where transport police have seen a drop in incidents since they were introduced. SheTaxi, a woman-only taxi company, also launched in New York this month.
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Perry said she’s also considered other “wacky ideas”, like banning repeat offenders from public transport permanently in a “three strikes” system. For all the practical barriers, that might be less wacky than removing women from mixed carriages for their own safety.'