Article here. Excerpt:

'Suggesting science research is too male dominated, this fall the University of Wisconsin-Madison will roll out a post-doctorate “feminist biology” program to counter the alleged sexism and get out from under “male, white, straight” viewpoints, organizers say.

The program will be under the school’s Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, rather than the biology department, as it strives to “uncover and reverse gender bias in biology,” the university states on its website.

Janet Hyde, director of the campus Center for Research on Gender & Women, said feminist biology “is raising new questions and suggesting novel solutions,” and described the new doctorate program as “the first in the nation – and probably the world.”
...
“Women are hardly ignored in biology. In fact, they have far surpassed men in earning biology degrees,” Sommers said.

Article here. Excerpt:

'There was a time when university finals were an opportunity for students to show off how much they’d learnt about a particular subject during their time in higher education. Not anymore. Students at the University of Oxford are using this exam season to show off their awareness of sexual violence on campus through pinning a white ribbon to the academic gowns they have to wear during their exams. The inevitable pictures of students donning ribbon-adorned gowns are being enthusiastically ‘liked’ and retweeted online.

This comes on the back of a campaign organised by the students’ union at Oxford called It Happens Here that calls on Oxford students to share their experiences of sexual violence. The campaign follows the arrest of the Oxford students’ union president on an allegation of rape. Can it be true that Oxford’s dreamy spires and quiet courtyards are hiding an epidemic of misogyny, abuse and rape?

As I’ve argued before on spiked, there is no evidence to suggest an explosion in sexual violence at British universities. Instead, the current talk of a university ‘rape culture’ is merely the product of female students being encouraged to interpret the messy, uncomfortable and perhaps regrettable processes that are involved in negotiating relationships and sex through the prism of rape. The introduction of compulsory lessons in how to ensure sexual consent at many universities will only exacerbate this trend.
...

Article here. Excerpt:

'A Houston-based men’s rights group has come under heavy criticism for attempting to host a conference on men’s issues later this month in Detroit. Conference organizers claim that they were required by Double Tree hotel, where the conference is being held, to purchase 2 million dollars in insurance and around the clock police presence. According to organizers, this is the hotel’s way to protect the hotel and its guests from alleged threats that were made against the event.

The conference is being hosted by A Voice for Men, a social activism group that claims to “promote the dissemination of information that will expose misandry and gender-centrism on all levels in our culture.” They openly advocate for men’s rights and advocate against existing bias in the family law system.

A Voice for Men officials told Breitbart Texas that after receiving threats against the hotel and its guests, Double Tree management sent them a letter requiring them to spend roughly $25,000 on extra security for the event.
...
While it is unclear whether the threats made the group are real, there is undoubtedly a lot of controversy surrounding the event. A petition created to demand that the Double Tree Hilton cancel the conference has garnered over 3,500 signatures. In the comment section of the petition, signators compared the group to the KKK, Nazis, and Terrorists. Some of the comments even hint at using force to disrupt the event.

Letter here. Excerpt:

'Editor’s note: On Thursday, U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) and Robert Casey (D-Pa.) sent a letter to Post columnist George Will objecting to his column published online last Friday about sexual assault on college campuses. Today, Will sent the senators a response. Here is an excerpt:

Dear Senators Blumenthal, Feinstein, Baldwin and Casey:

I have received your letter of June 12, and I am puzzled. You say my statistics “fly in the face of everything we know about this issue.” You do not mention which statistics, but those I used come from the Obama administration, and from simple arithmetic involving publicly available reports on campus sexual assaults.

The administration asserts that only 12 percent of college sexual assaults are reported. Note well: I did not question this statistic. Rather, I used it.

Article here. Excerpt:

'JUNE 2014: Author and educator Brian Leaf is the director of The New Leaf Learning Center, a holistic tutoring center in Massachusetts. As an advocate of "conscious parenting," he's become known for his ability to blend research and humor, as evidenced in his most recent book, The Misadventures of a Parenting Yogi: Cloth Diapers, Cosleeping, and My (Sometimes Successful) Quest for Conscious Parenting—which includes an entire chapter on circumcision. Earlier this month, his essay "Why I Didn't Choose Circumcision" (excerpted from his book) was featured in the Parents section of The Huffington Post.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Fathers’ Day has meant many different things to me over the years. I’ve spent the day in the company of my children and I’ve also spent it alone. But whether we’re together or apart, I am no less their father and they no less my children. Â This I can be sure of.

On a shelf in my bedroom I keep on display all of the little gifts and cards my younger daughter has worked so hard to make for me since she was first able. Origami cranes, a clay turtle with its baby piggy-back and a figure fashioned from Scotch tape and Snapple caps are just a few of these. They are precious and irreplaceable, as is she along with her sister and brother.

Our children have never been my soldiers or my spies - or sounding boards for my anger and frustration despite court appearances and divorce proceedings that have dragged on for over fourteen years. Instead I chose to love them unconditionally in the only way I know, which, difficult as it was at times, meant using restraint so they could develop their own views and opinions.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Today I have some big news that I am excited to share. I’ve recently been working on a project with my dear friend Lisa Braver Moss. We’ve been putting together a book for families who want to hold a brit shalom ceremony for their newborn sons.

If you aren’t familiar—brit shalom is an alternative to brit milah. The baby is given a Hebrew name and welcomed into the Jewish community without circumcision. By all indicators, brit shalom is becoming evermore popular. For example, Dr. Mark Reiss’s Brit Shalom Providers List now boasts nearly 200 officiants—more than 100 of whom are bona fide rabbis.

Lisa and I decided it was time for a book about brit shalom, one that families and officiants could turn to for advice and inspiration. The book will include a choice of ceremonies, original songs, information about brit shalom and tips for hosting a service.

Story here.

'This Father’s Day, there are some Dad’s who don’t want a new tie or a cold beer, but simply a chance to be a parent.

Call it ‘Occupy Family Court’ or ‘Fatherless Day.’ There was a protest Friday afternoon on the west steps of the State Capitol against a family court system they say automatically rules in favor of mom during a divorce, without giving dad a chance.

“From a biased family law system and the pain that father’s go through, many fathers have to go through Father’s Day without actually seeing their own children,” said Fred Hayward.

Divorce is messy and the impact on the kids can be permanent, and the father’s protesting Friday said if the custody is shared equally the damage can be minimized.

“Typically the father has to pay child support and never sees his kids except every other weekend and the children suffer,” said Jeremy LeRoux.'

A dad in South Africa, Michael Job, has started an international campaign to help him persuade the French authorities to cooperate with South Africa in the extradition of his daughter whom his estranged wife took to France on vacation with the agreement that she would return with their daughter to South Africa. Currently, she has failed to return to South Africa or arrange for their daughter's return to South Africa. See the following sites for details:

http://petitelili9may2012.blogspot.fr/

https://www.facebook.com/PapadelapetiteLili9May2012

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/help-me-get-my-daughter-back-2

Article here. Excerpt:

'One reason for the interest in fathers getting their due, suggests Alan Boudreau, who teaches at Northern Illinois University's College of Law in DeKalb, Ill., is that many of today's lawyers and judges come from homes where divorce played out.

"They were children of divorce at a time when the presumption was very much (that) the mother would stay in the marital home and have pretty much full-time custody of the kids, and the father would have visitation and maybe some overnights," Boudreau says. "I think those kids — when divorcing — want a different experience for their kids than they had."
The recession accelerated this trend, he says.

Announcement here. Excerpt:

'The disingenuous and quite insane backlash against the International Conference on Men’s Issues has produced some interesting results. First, the onslaught of yellow journalism from places like Daily Kos and the Huffington Post has been unprecedented, even for those two myth-factories.

The other thing it has produced is a hell of a lot more interest in the conference, and more ticket sales. So much so, as a matter of fact, that we have opted to move to a venue that will seat more people and provide more security than was available previously.

While we apologize for any inconvenience that the move is going to cause, it is nonetheless a positive move for the conference. Because seating capacity was misrepresented to us at the previous venue, we were forced to plan for an overflow room where we would pipe in live events to a monitor at reduced ticket prices.

Since 2011, when the U.S. Department of Education issued its notorious "Dear Colleague Letter," we have worked with federal lawmakers, attorneys representing wrongfully accused students, their parents, and concerned groups to address this egregious assault on due process rights. 

SAVE has established a website that catalogs the hundreds of editorials criticizing the Dear Colleague Letter:  http://www.accusingu.org/

And this week, we released the first-ever compilation of lawsuits against colleges and universities filed by wrongfully expelled students: http://www.saveservices.org/wp-content/uploads/Campus-Sexual-Assault-Lawsuits1.pdf

We are updating accusingu.org on a regular basis, so check back often.  

On behalf of all victims, and all who are falsely accused, thank you.

Teri Stoddard, Program Director
Stop Abusive and Violent Environments
www.saveservices.org

Story here. Excerpt:

'Rape is sinister, but perhaps equally sinister is the use of false rape charges as a tool to extort vulnerable men.

The number of cases of rape has seen an alarming increase in the Capital after the December 16 gang-rape incident, with two such cases being reported daily on an average.

However, "frivolous rape cases" have also seen a phenomenal rise, with accusations being used when relations go sour, or to settle scores.

Data from Delhi Police show 616 rape and 1,336 molestation cases were registered between January 1 and April 30.

This is a 36 per cent rise in rape cases against the 450 cases registered in the same period of last year.

Though there is an increase in the number of rape cases, the percentage of the "accused" being acquitted has shot up considerably too.

Article here. Excerpt:

'No, conservative commentator George Will should not be fired because, when writing about campus sexual assault, he declared that colleges are learning when they “make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate.”

He’s an opinion writer, which means he has the right to express an opinion, even one that’s offensive to women, especially to some feminists now lobbying to get his column dropped.
...
But Will’s questioning of statistics and how best to deal with campus sexual assault are not outrageous. It’s easy to cast it that way because, just like Benghazi and Bowe Bergdahl, the matter of sexual relations between our college-age children breaks down along ideological lines. In this case, a blast of tweets from the left quickly stirs an off-with-his-head frenzy.

Ever since the White House released a report aimed at exposing the problem of sexual assault on campuses, this topic has become yet another excuse for partisan braying.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Last week, George Will wrote a column about how progressive politics have fomented "rape culture" on college campuses. The column was not well received by some, or even, as a great many of the histrionic responses would indicate, well understood. I received the following press release yesterday, headlined: "87,000 Call on The Washington Post to Address Sexism, Fire George Will." A group called UltraViolet was touting the success of an online petition they'd whipped up over the controversy. From the release:

“The past week has seen the Washington Post devolve to violent and shameful rhetoric that normalizes rape and violence against women. In the face of a national epidemic of sexual violence, The Washington Post should take a stand against rape-- starting by firing George Will, said Nita Chaudhary, co-founder of UltraViolet. “From mocking survivors to misleading the public on demands for college sexual assault reform and blaming women for violence against them-- the Post has left the realm of honest debate and entered the realm of hate-speech and dog whistles.”