Article here. Excerpt:

'A debate has come into being quietly here about the place of Brit Milah (the ritual circumcision of Jewish baby boys on the eighth day after birth). The debate is not taking place abroad, not in “anti-Semitic” Germany, but here in the State of Israel. When one mother refused to have her son circumcised, the rabbinical court tried to force her to do so, and the High Court of Justice countered the rabbis in the name of liberty.
...
I approached the topic with a great deal of curiosity, and conducted a kind of man-in-the-street poll for several weeks. I asked my questions with care and got detailed responses. The many answers I received all pointed in a single direction: that the institution of circumcision is coming to an end. Or, to be more precise, the institution of circumcision has no real hold among the segment of the Israeli population that is not conservative and religiously observant.
...
Generations of Jews have lived since those ancient commandments were almost completely abolished. Here are the facts: there is no Jewish death penalty. We do not put out eyes or cut off hands. There are no rabbinic executioners, or people who amputate limbs for violations of Jewish law. All that are left are the mohalim – those who are specially trained to perform circumcisions.

Ritual circumcision is the only act of physical harm that remains. For how much longer?
...
Let us conclude with a paradox. An important part of the religious argument against abortion is the fetus’ right to life. According to this argument, the fetus is a living creature in every way. And, they claim, every child – inside or outside the womb – has the right to be born and to live.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Twenty-one years ago this month, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed August as National Child Support Enforcement Month but in doing so focused attention on the symptom of a greater problem — a family court system that discourages shared parenting and gender equality in instances of divorce or separation.

As an increasing amount of research on parental roles has emerged in recent years, it has become clear in hindsight that family courts should focus instead on what children benefit from most — equal time with both their parents, even in instances of divorce or separation. By doing so, they would resolve not only delinquencies associated with “child support” in the financial sense, but also problems tied to gender inequality and, most importantly, the court’s continued practice of depriving children from the countless benefits associated with constant love and caring from both their parents.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Is executive-level leadership at the Maryland Insurance Administration a “girls-only” club, virtually excluding men who are hired or promoted to top posts at the state government agency a mere 8% of the time?

Under Commissioner Goldsmith, the organization chart published by MIA or posted on the state website shows 22 total positions available, including deputy and associate commissioners, and their immediate support staff.

Of those 22 available positions, one is vacant. Of the remaining 21 positions, 18 are filled by women and three by men. One of the men is technically part of the state attorney general’s office, which means of the 21 positions directly under and appointed by the insurance commissioner, 18 are filled by women and two by men.

That’s an executive-level staffing ratio of 87% women and 13% men.

Surely, you say, many of those are holdovers from previous administrations.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A new criminal offence of domestic abuse could be introduced to include emotional and psychological harm inflicted by a partner within a relationship.

The government launched a consultation on Wednesday to look at strengthening the law by explicitly stating that domestic abuse covers coercive and controlling behaviour as well as physical harm.
...
The consultation document says that police fail to see abuse, particularly in its nonviolent form, as a serious crime, adding: "Creating a specific offence of domestic abuse may send a clear, consistent message to frontline agencies that nonviolent control in an intimate relationship is criminal.

"Explicitly capturing this in legislation may also help victims identify the behaviour they are suffering as wrong and encourage them to report it, and cause perpetrators to rethink their controlling behaviour."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'This is the most most heinous thing I've learned in my two years compiling Fatal Encounters. You know who dies in the most population-dense areas? Black men. You know who dies in the least population dense areas? Mentally ill men. It's not to say there aren't dangerous and desperate criminals killed across the line. But African-Americans and the mentally ill people make up a huge percentage of people killed by police.

And if you want to get down to nut-cuttin' time, across the board, it's poor people who are killed by police. (And by the way, around 96 percent of people killed by police are men.)'

Story here. Why didn't she get 10 years? Excerpt:

'Tania Pontbriand, a married former physical education teacher who had an affair with a 15-year-old student, has been sentenced to 20 months in prison.

She was handed an 18-month sentence for two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, and 20 months for sexual assault.

Pontbriand was sentenced by Judge Valmont Beaulieu in a Gatineau, Quebec courtroom on Friday morning.

The 15-year-old told police that he and Pontbriand had slept together over 200 times from 2002 to 2004.

Pontbriand, 43, began the relationship with the boy when she was 32 and he was 15.

She abruptly broke up with him in 2004 and he kept their affair secret until he told his mother in 2007.
...
The maximum sentence she could have received is 10 years in jail.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'California’s so-called “yes means yes” legislation, which returned to the state Senate for a vote on Assembly amendments, would require college students to get “affirmative” and ongoing consent during sexual encounters.

How exactly a person can prove such consent following a sexual-assault allegation is anyone’s guess, including a bill co-sponsor’s. One expert’s plausible suggestion: Make a sex tape every time.

Brooklyn College history professor K.C. Johnson, co-author of a book on the Duke lacrosse rape case, told the Washington Examiner that “recording the entire sexual encounter” from start to finish may be the only foolproof solution:

Of course, Johnson noted, “such a recording could in and of itself violate criminal law and college policies.”

As for ensuring that consent is “ongoing,” Johnson said “California students would be wise to interpret the measure as stringently as possible — that is, there must be consent for every single stage of the activity.”

Story here. Excerpt:

'Hundreds of people have hung bras around Valladolid's city hall in a protest to demand the resignation of the Spanish city's mayor after he warned men to be wary of false accusations of sexual assault.

Monday's protest came days after mayor Francisco Javier León de la Riva told a Spanish radio station that rape allegations should be carefully scrutinised. "Sometimes it's the other way around. Imagine you get into an elevator and there is a girl who is out to get you. She enters with you, tear off her bra or skirt and flees, shouting that you have tried to assault her," he said. "Beware of this kind of thing."

The mayor, from the conservative People's party, said women bear some of the responsibility in avoiding assault. Noting that "you can't have a police officer in every park," he said "at six in the morning a young woman should be careful of where she goes."'

Article here. Excerpt:

Link here. Excerpt:

Article here. Excerpt:

'And I'm going on record to say that it's not just my husband. I'm prepared to throw a large majority of men under the bus here, although not Clint Eastwood or my grandfather. So there are of course exceptions.

But according to women everywhere, men just can't handle the pain. They wheeze and whine, they moan and complain, they need fretting over and fussing, while the wives nurse the baby while standing up, cooking dinner and overseeing homework, all with a 103 temperature, a broken leg and three broken arms. Yeah, three.

It makes me rethink some of the turns of phrase I randomly use without thinking like, "Take it like a man," or "man up." How did these become part of the vernacular? I think "Take it like woman" is more appropriate, and from now on I'm telling my boys to "Mom up," because if there's something we know how to do, it's suffer.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Democratic attorney general candidate Warren Tolman apologized on Wednesday if anyone was offended by his use of the word "unbecoming" to describe his opponent Maura Healey's criticism of his private sector record, as female Healey supporters blasted the comment as "sexist."
...
Tolman used the word during a Boston Globe Opinion debate Tuesday as Healey criticized him for not being forthcoming about his registration as a federal lobbyist while working as an attorney at Holland & Knight.

The episode conjured memories of a 2002 debate when former candidate for governor Mitt Romney drew the ire of prominent women like Teresa Heinz Kerry and Hillary Clinton for describing then Treasurer Shannon O'Brien's attacks on his abortion position as "unbecoming."

Article here. Excerpt:

'"I will not rest until my granddaughters have every single right my son & my grandsons have." - Joe Biden

It is 2014. The chairman of the Federal Reserve — one of the most powerful people in the world — is a woman.  So are the Chief Executive Officers of IBM, General Motors, Yahoo, Hewlett-Packard, and Lockheed Martin. The president of Harvard University is a woman, as is the president of Intel. There are currently 3 women on the U.S. Supreme Court,20 in the U.S. Senate, and 79 in the U.S. House. The next President of the United States could well be a woman.

Despite all this, Vice President Joe Biden says his granddaughters have fewer rights than his sons and grandsons. Just look at the photo, above. There they are. Looking up longingly at … something.

Freedom. Equality. To Biden’s granddaughters and millions of other oppressed American women, those are just hollow phrases. Because, subjugation.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Making up for the loss of a woman talent with another woman hire is the new mantra at corporate India which is going all out to improve upon its gender diversity ratio at the workplace.

Sodexo India, Fluor, an engineering, procurement and construction maintenance firm, and Pitney Bowes, a global technology company, follow such a practice of replacing a woman employee with another woman employee.

Gender ratios are currently skewed towards male employees even in some of the most progressive organizations today. There appears to be a sense of urgency with which companies are adopting new practices to improve their gender ratios.

"We have come up with a new practice of replacing a woman with a woman. If we lose out on a woman employee, we will ensure that she is replaced by another woman employee so that we maintain our gender diversity. We will, however, not compromise on quality," said Rohini Anand, senior VP & global chief diversity officer for Sodexo.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Noiva do Cordeiro in south east Brazil is home to 600 women, mainly aged between 20 and 35.

While some are married, their husbands are forced to work away from home and can only return on weekends.

Sons are sent away at the age of 18, and no other men are allowed to live full-time in the town, which is located in a remote valley.

The settlement dates back to the 1890s, when a young woman and her family were excommunicated from the Catholic church after she was accused of adultery when she left a man she had been forced to marry.

Slowly, more single women and mother-only families joined the community, and several attempts by men to interfere with their way of life only strengthened their desire to live in a strictly female environment.
...
"We'd like to get to know men who would leave their own lives and come to be a part of ours.