Article here. Excerpt:

'All 20 U.S. senators who are women sent a letter to President Barack Obama on Tuesday condemning Boko Haram, the Islamist organization that abducted some 300 schoolgirls in Chibok, Nigeria, last month. The senators called on the administration to impose further international sanctions against the militant group.

“We are outraged and horrified that these young women have been kidnapped, sold into slavery, had their education curtailed, and may even have been forced into marriages,” wrote Sens. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), who led the senatorial effort.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Picture the following scene, if you will, horrible though it is. A group of young schoolboys are asleep in their dormitory when the doors are quietly locked and the building set alight. Most are burned alive, while those who manage to escape have their throats slit by the Islamic extremists waiting outside. What's more, it's the third such attack in eight months.

Dreadful stuff, eh? The world should do something about it. Raise awareness. Another version of the BringBackOurGirls campaign for the Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram, perhaps. Only in this case, of course, there are no boys to bring back, only charred, bloodied corpses.

This is just one of the many grim stories of Boko Haram's campaign of mayhem in Nigeria, where I'm currently reporting on the case of the missing schoolgirls. As I type, Michelle Obama is on the television in the hotel lobby, borrowing her hubby's slot on the president’s weekly address to galvanise the world into action.

She says it's "unconscionable" that a terrorist group like Boko Haram should kidnap innocent schoolgirls simply because it disapproves of them getting an eduction. I couldn't agree more. But while this case has rightly become a cause celebre for schoolgirls' rights in Nigeria, it should be remembered that their male counterparts are having a rough time at the hands of Boko Haram too.
...
So why is it, then, that it is the girls' suffering, rather than the boys', that is finally bringing Boko Haram's mayhem to world attention? Plenty of media-analysis stuff has already been written on this, and I don't have much more to add.
...

Article here. Excerpt:

'As "rape culture" activism heats up, reporters are demonstrating a startling credulity on the subject. One case in point is the Chronicle of Higher Education's recent investigation of Title IX complaints from 2003 to 2013. The piece, entitled "Promise Unfulfilled?," illustrates the faulty assumptions driving many journalists who cover campus sexual assault.

The nearly 3000-word article, by Jonah Newman and Libby Sanders, advances the following thesis: the fact that only 10 percent of Office of Civil Rights complaints filed in the past decade led to settlements is evidence of "a process that...can be fraught with confusion and conflicting expectations, and often brings unsatisfying outcomes." It makes that argument, however, in an unusual fashion.

First, and most obvious, the article never mentions--not even once(!)--the OCR's 2011 "Dear Colleague" letter which demanded that colleges lower the threshold for convicting accused rapists , even as the piece addresses the years both before and after the OCR unilaterally, and dramatically, reinterpreted federal law. This oversight is particularly baffling given that many Title IX accusers wish to force adoption of new policies that increase the likelihood of colleges branding some of their students rapists. A pre-2011 complaint (when the OCR still respected due process on sexual matters) would obviously yield a different outcome than a filing made after 2011 filing, the period in which the agency has all but declared war on due process.
...

Article here. Excerpt:

'Leading British historian and writer David Starkey has slammed the idea that the BBC should appoint a female host for the remake of the hit documentary 'Civilisation'. Starkey called the moves "preposterous" as they have been based on a quota notion, rather than who would be best suited to do the job.

Starkey hit out at the idea in the Sunday Times, claiming “...just because someone is a woman they will have something interesting to say is preposterous”.

A campaign by female celebrities has called for Prof. Mary Beard to host the show, and feminist activists and celebrities have backed the idea that “would ensure [Civilisation] won’t just be about history but also herstory”.
...
“Feminism has got its knickers in a terrible twist. Are feminists claiming that women can compete on every level with men in every sphere — or are they now putting this different argument, which is that women bring different qualities to bear?"

Article here. Excerpt:

'Frankly, I have no idea if the repulsive physical attack was politically motivated or not and neither does the victim nor CAFE. The greater point, however, is that groups like CAFE are tired of contemporary feminism marginalizing and libelling men.

Are they correct? I didn’t think so until a few years ago I was asked to write a men’s column for another daily newspaper.

What I encountered was evidence of a campaign to discredit men and a legal and sociological campaign to remove their rights as husbands and partners and, in particular, fathers.

I’m very lucky to be in a happy marriage with a wonderful wife and with four great kids. I have never been a victim.

As soon as I wrote this column, however, I was inundated with stories of men, good men, who had lost their homes, their savings, their freedom, their children, after false and malicious complaints.

The anecdotes had similar themes. A married couple with children. The marriage falls apart, nobody’s fault in particular. She gets a lawyer, and suddenly alleges that she’s been abused — it’s not true, but it means he has to leave the home, has hardly any rights, can’t see the kids.

They divorce, he has to pay a lot of money in support even though she’s already with another man and doing very well financially. He now lives in a basement apartment.

He’s allowed to see the kids every second weekend, one night a week. But often she says they’re not well or she’s just not there when he goes to pick the children up. After repeated pleas he shouts, bangs on the door. She calls the police, he’s arrested, convicted, put on probation and humiliated.

Or how about the couple who argue and hit each other, or she hits him and he does nothing.

Article here. Excerpt:

'IN last week’s column, I wrote about the connection between college social life and socioeconomic stratification, and the way the party scene at many universities, oriented toward heavy drinking and hooking up, creates distinctive challenges for working-class students, whether they’re attracted to its thrills or alienated by its excesses.
...
But the modern university’s primary loyalty is not really to liberalism or political correctness or any kind of ideological design: It’s to the school’s brand, status and bottom line. And when something goes badly wrong, or predators run loose — as tends to happen in a world where teens and early-twentysomethings are barely supervised and held to no standard higher than consent — the mask of kindness and community slips, and the face revealed beneath is often bloodless, corporate and intent on self-protection.

I glimpsed this face, and saw it reflected in my friends’ eyes, at various moments of crisis during my own four years in higher education; I doubt that anything has changed for the better in the 12 years since. This seems to be what the anti-rape activists — victims, friends, sympathizers — are reacting against so strongly: the realization that an institution that seemed to make one set of promises had other priorities all along.

That the activists’ moral outrage is justified does not mean, again, that their prescriptions are correct. Their fatal conceit in many cases is the idea that by sweeping away misogyny they can resolve the internal contradictions of social liberalism, and usher in a world where everyone can be libertines together, and a hard-drinking, sexually permissive culture can be experienced identically by male and female, rich and middle class and poor.

Article here. Excerpt:

'A proposal to put a National Women’s History Museum on the National Mall is gaining steam on Capitol Hill. It’s a scheme that advances because few congressmen have the courage to say no lest they be called sexist, misogynist or maybe even treasonous. Who else would be against an institution to recognize the contributions of women to American history?
...
Mrs. Bachmann, in a speech to the House, cited the left-wing bias in an online exhibit on the museum’s website, in favor of liberal women and feminists, including “a glowing review” of Margaret Sanger, the enthusiastically racist and eugenicist [link added] founder of Planned Parenthood. “They leave out the pro-life views of the early suffragettes.” We don’t want to think how such a museum would depict modern conservative women, if indeed they depict them at all.

President Obama and V.P. Biden have started a new initiative called "Not Alone" to support victims of campus sexual assault. You can see it here: https://www.notalone.gov/

While we applaud efforts to serve victims, we have a problem with the exaggerated statistics used to kick-off this initiative. Sounding a lot like"rape-culture" promoters, the Pres. and V.P. claim that 1-in-5 women will be victims of rape or sexual assault during their time in college.

Think about that...ONE IN FIVE. Who would send their daughter to college if this were true?

Like we explained in our April 10th e-lert, "Rape Culture" is a Fraud, Prove it to Yourself," about 3% of female students are victims, far from the 20% claim. If you haven't yet, do the math yourself: http://www.saveservices.org/2014/04/e-lert-rape-culture-is-a-fraud-prove-it-to-yourself

Please tell the White House their sexual assault numbers are way off!

Article here.

'At a fundraiser on Thursday night, President Barack Obama chided Democratic voters for their “congenital defect” of turning out in presidential years but often staying home during midterm election cycles. In a segment on MSNBC in which the guests pondered ways to enthuse Democrats ahead of November, MSNBC producer Dafna Linzer suggested that Democrats are hoping Republicans call former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to testify on Benghazi and reignite the “war on women.”

“So, you want to know how you fire up the Democratic base? Here you go,” Linzer began. “You fundraise off Benghazi. That’s a great idea. As soon as the Republicans start doing that, that fires up the Democratic base.”

She added that it would be beneficial for Democrats if Republicans on the Benghazi select committee subpoenaed Clinton. “I would just love to see a table of Republican men question the Secretary of State all over again.”

“More war on women as a strategy to fire up the Democratic base,” Linzer concluded.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'This has been going on for years. Granted Twitter’s only been around for almost eight, but sometimes it takes a sensational number and the right gender to have the world consider something important enough to be outraged about.

"At least 59 children have been killed in Nigeria after Islamist gunmen opened fire at a boarding school before burning it to the ground, officials say. Members of the Boko Haram group targeted secondary school students as they slept in a dormitory, police say.
...
The police chief said all the victims in Monday’s attack were boys, and the school’s 24 buildings, including staff quarters, had been completely destroyed by fire."

That incident happened in late February but barely a peep from the media or any of our political or entertainment class. No hashtag for any of the killings last year…

"...

Presumed Boko Haram gunmen shot dead seven secondary school students and two teachers in Damaturu in June.

Scores have been killed this month, including in the north-eastern town of Benisheik in Borno state, where at least 142 people were slaughtered by presumed Boko Haram fighters who came disguised as soldiers, set up checkpoints and fired on motorists and bystanders."

Ironic how the Nigerian government once claimed to have “decimated” this Islamic group and how that declaration also was proven inaccurate. It’s also sad that when young women were abducted in a number too big to blow off, the war-on-women became more than just a bumper sticker slogan.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A judge told 20-year-old Jennifer Capes that "for real victims of these cases the chances of getting a conviction are worse when other people, such as you, commit offences of this kind"

A woman from Thorpe Green who falsely accused a man she met on the internet of raping her has been jailed for nine months.

Guildford Crown Court was told last Friday (May 2) that Jennifer Capes, 20, of Luddington Avenue, had admitted perverting the court of justice after making the claims on June 8 2012.
...
Richard Bentwood, defending, described the case as "tragic" for both the complainant and Capes, who has a six-week old daughter.

He said problems during his client's "formative years" had led her to be diagnosed with acute stress disorder and went on to suggest that the judge should consider a suspended sentence.

Judge Neil Stewart said: “For real victims of these cases the chances of getting a conviction are worse when other people, such as you, commit offences of this kind.”

Article here. Excerpt:

'If you want more women in your organisation, advertise jobs that are designated for women only. That’s what Delft University of Technology did.
...
To increase the number of women on their faculty, Delft decided in 2011 to hire the ten best women researchers they could find. Applicants could be at any stage of their careers and in any field of research covered by the university. These new employees received favourable conditions to push their research projects forward.

Crucially, the program was open only to women. Needless to say, there were legal challenges on the grounds of gender discrimination. But, as the rector of the university, Karel Luyben, described in a recent speech, he was able to convince the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights that it was essential to have more women faculty members and that more gentle measures had not succeeded.

Article here. Excerpt:

'CLINTON: The seizure of these young women by this radical extremist group, Boko Haram, is abominable, it's criminal, it's an act of terrorism.

INGRAHAM: Well, that's a change. As the "Daily Beast" reported today quote, "The State Department under Hillary Clinton fought hard against placing Boko Haram on its official list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Terror experts are now saying that that decision may have hurt our ability to confront this vicious terror outfit which has been brutalizing Christians and others for years. This past February, the group burned 59 young boys to death in northeastern Nigeria. No loud calls to intervene then. But now suddenly political elites want U.S. action.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The kidnapping of the 276 Christian schoolgirls by Islamic terror group Boko Haram is an atrocity, but it is not the first atrocity they have committed. It is just the first one to trip the West’s interest switch. A girl’s right to an education has become an important pillar in western ideology, and an important pawn in the battle against radical Islam. It is why Malala has seen herself elevated to an almost saint-like position.

Story here. Excerpt:

'CHESTNUT RIDGE, N.Y. - The January death of a 5-year-old Rockland County, N.Y. boy has been ruled a homicide and his mother is under investigation, sources tell CBS New York's radio affiliate WCBS 880.

Garnett Spears, of Chestnut Ridge, died Jan. 23 at Westchester Medical Center. Before his death, sources tell the station, doctors found the boy had suspiciously high levels of sodium in his system.
...
Lucian Chalfen, a spokesperson for the Westchester District Attorney's Office, told CBS News' Crimesider on Tuesday that the Westchester Medical Examiner ruled Garnett's death a homicide about a month ago.

At this point, Chalfen said, the death remains under investigation by the D.A.'s office, Westchester County Police and the Ramapo Police Department.