Story here. Excerpt:

'Alan Cumming [link added] wants to tell you about his penis. He wants it to be a shining example to the world. In a candid interview with Drew Grant this week in the New York Observer, the 49-year-old Scottish actor reveals his strong opinions on “Girls,” naughty cellphone pictures, and, most controversially, circumcision. Or as he puts it, “genital mutilation.”

“There’s a double-standard, which is that we condemn the people who cut off girls’ clitorises, but when it happens to boys,” Cumming says. “I mean, it is the most sensitive part of their bodies, it has loads of nerve endings, and it can go horribly wrong. I’m speaking out against it … I’m just so suspicious of the medical industry, which just flings pills at people to ensure everyone is reliant on things. ‘Here are some pills, Mommy. Take them, and we’ll take your baby away and hack its thing off, and then we’ll bill you for that too.’”

Story here. Excerpt:

'Sevi Poblete strode proudly across the University of Rochester campus wearing 3-inch, black leather high-heeled boots that, for him, represented all women who suffered from sexual assault or abuse.

In honor of his friends and other victims of sexual violence, Poblete chanted: "Stop, Ask, Clarify!" as he led dozens Saturday to "Walk a Mile in Her Shoes," an event sponsored by Rochester's Survivor Empowerment Group (SEGway) and the University Health Services Health Promotion Office.

The internationally recognized campaign encourages men to literally walk one mile in women's high-heeled shoes, to bring awareness to sexual assault and violence.

"(Wearing the heels) makes it more meaningful and sets an example for other people who want to participate in future events" Poblete said. "For me it was more about the message."'

Article here. Reverse the sexes, change a little dialogue, and you have an international boycott of the company on your hands. As it is now, their sales have probably gone up. Excerpt:

'The ad's title, "Can You Sock Me?" telegraphs the premise of a young boy asking the question to his mother, who eagerly obliges in this double-entendre drivel. (Watch it, above.)

And that's not even the latest shlock from the European sock company, which appears to have a legitimate Facebook page packed with negative comments. The company's new ad (below) features a young man killing his hospitalized grandpa so he can take his socks.

The majority of YouTubers, both English- and French-speaking, expressed disgust with the "Can You Sock Me?" bit. "Someone looked at this and thought it was a good idea. Think about that for a moment," one wrote. Another penned, "Fock you, Burlington. Child molestation jokes aren't a good way to sell your crap."'

Story here. Excerpt:

'An 11th grade English teacher resigned last week after she was accused of having sexual relations with a student at a Pennsylvania high school.

Emily Nesbit, 31, was charged with institutional sex assault, a third-degree felony, on Friday. Police said Nesbit admitted meeting an 18-year-old male student for sex in a classroom after hours at Cumberland Valley High School in Mechanicsburg.

Nesbit is charged based on her position as a teacher, without regard to the age of the student. If convicted she could face up to seven years in prison, prosecutors told ABC 27 News.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'“Bill Gates: Foreskin Enemy #1.” This was the slogan on one of the picket signs outside TED at the Vancouver Convention Centre Tuesday night, where inside Gates and his wife, Melinda, were discussing their foundation’s efforts to combat communicable diseases in developing countries. The demonstrators were there to protest the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s funding of voluntary male circumcision programs in Sub-Saharan Africa, designed to reduce the transmission of HIV. The campaigners believe the programs do little to cut infection rates.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Three starving children -- including one who was chained to the floor to prevent her from getting food -- were found last month in the squalid home of a Northern California couple, authorities said.

All three -- two boys and a girl -- were taken into protective custody, and one was hospitalized, Monterey County Sheriff Scott Miller said Friday.

Authorities discovered them in the Salinas, Calif., home on March 14 after two of the young people missed appointments, according to several published reports.

"It was a particularly heinous case," Miller told the Monterey Herald. The children had "hardly eaten for months."

The girl, who appeared to have suffered the most extreme abuse, was chained to the floor to prevent her from getting any food, they said.

"It seems that the little girl was the major target of this abuse," Miller continued, adding that she looked "like a concentration camp victim."

The girl was in the hospital for about five days, he said, and seemed "traumatized."

Article here. Excerpt:

'With 20 percent of Utah's enrolled college students not graduating, Utah sits below the national average of college completion. This is especially true for women, according to Susan Madsen, professor at Utah Valley University and founder of the Utah Women in Education Initiative.

While Utah women obtain 10 percent more associate degrees than men, they receive 6 percent fewer bachelor's degrees, Madsen said.

A survey by the initiative concluded that Utah women have solid aspirations to attend college, but much lower aspirations to graduate. Nearly all women who didn't attend college or who dropped out said they truly believed they would get degrees "sometime."

Madsen hopes the Utah Women in Education Initiative will help women understand the accessibility of higher education, and the far-reaching benefits it can bring.

Article here. Some good info if you can read around the BS. The author actually suggests "girl power" as a possible cause. Ridiculous. And I doubt anyone regardless of sex would be tossing in humor if the topic was women having issues with "low egg count" or premature entry into menopause. Excerpt:

'Men's sperm production is decreasing rapidly and the scientific community is struggling to find an explanation, writes Dr Phil Hammond

Up to a fifth of young men have a low sperm count, defined as fewer than 20 million sperm per millilitre of semen. Quite why you need so many sperm to fertilize one egg remains a mystery, but a low sperm count or poor sperm quality is the main cause of infertility in about 20pc of couples with fertility problems in the UK, and is an ‘additional factor’ in a further 25pc of cases. So what’s going on?

Article here. Excerpt:

'A randomized control trial shows that circumcision in adult males can dramatically reduce HIV infection rates, and all my friends who opted for circumcising their baby boys are holding up the dozens of national news accounts of this saying to me, “See?! See?!” Like I just condemned my son to die of AIDS because I let him keep his foreskin.

Meanwhile, the subset of those friends who are Jewish keep hinting I might be anti-Semitic for suggesting that the Jewish ritual of neonatal male circumcision probably ought to end. Oy!

First things first: To state the obvious, circumcision doesn’t prevent HIV infection. A circumcised penis may be less effective at transmitting HIV, but it can still manage it. Anyone who thinks they are protecting their son from HIV by preemptive circumcision probably should also consider castration, since that significantly lowers the libido, and heaven knows libido is a serious risk factor for sexually transmitted diseases. Or you might just consider good sex education.

Story here. As we all know a man would have been vilified if he did something similar. Excerpt:

'Kelly Roberts needed a way to stay entertained while running the 13.1-mile New York Half-Marathon. Her solution? Every mile, she took a selfie with a hot runner in the background.

“I didn't really train for this race because of the crazy winter we had, so live Instagraming was kind of a way to take my mind off the race,” the 24-year-old Brooklyn resident told the Daily News. “And finding cuties/making myself laugh is the best distraction from the cold and exhaustion.”

She posted each photo to Instagram, adding the tag #hottguysofthenychalf. There's some "eye candy" at mile 12, a guy with "dat headband" at mile 4, and an older gentleman with "short shorts" at mile 8. Take a look at the hilarious series below.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'A few years ago, I walked into a university to find several posters of my face. That was disconcerting enough. But it was advertising a graduate scheme for a science teacher – and I am a citizenship teacher. I made inquiries, and was told a focus group had suggested a female teacher was needed for the campaign to "break stereotypes" about scientists. The organiser quipped: "I think your being blonde was a bonus."
...
Like the university tutors who thought sticking a blonde woman on a science poster would somehow resolve gender disparities, Truss's main solution to the science gap appears to be gutsy role-modelling. In a recent speech to Google, Truss said: "It's up to all of us to encourage girls and say, you are just as good as the boys, you can do it."

But why are girls the ones constantly pathologised? This narrative makes out that girls are afraid to study the big scary sciences: but another way of thinking about it is that boys are the odd ones – crowding as they do into just a few subjects. They take up 60% or more of places in just five subjects, and two of these – maths and physics – are particularly dominated by boys, with the subjects accounting for one in five of all A-level examinations taken by boys.
...
Looked at in this way, the question we need to answer is less "Why do so few girls choose physics?" and more "Why do so many boys only choose physics and maths-related subjects?" After all, if they spread themselves out across all other subjects, girls would no longer be regularly outnumbered in physics.

Article here. Excerpt:

'It was a little over a year ago (January of 2013) that former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chief of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey ordered that combat-arm roles will be opened to women in all areas of service. Even Senator John McCain (R-Ariz) supported the 2013-policy reversal that excluded women from front line positions and elite command jobs (put in place in 1994). Women, which make up 15% of the armed forces, have found themselves in reality combat more and more over the past decade. Moving forward women will now be potential candidates for more than 230,000 jobs in Army and Marine infantry.

President Obama reminded the nation that “valor knows no gender,” which was a poignant statement considering that 150 American military women have died recently in Iraq and Afghanistan (out of 6598 total fatalities) and another 1000 have been wounded, just in the past two years. This new policy is parallel to America’s manifesto - committed to equality and standards of fairness. Applying it to US Military is a progressive and noble evolution. But if I am being honest, the concern is whether physical fitness standards and testing will be lowered to accommodate the variances between men and women, to allow women to pass and qualify.
...

Story here. Excerpt:

'A feminist studies professor at a California state university is facing criminal charges after a videotaped run-in with a teenage pro-life demonstrator in which she snatched an anti-abortion sign and appeared to get physical with the girl.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Americans say the best or most positive thing about a possible Hillary Clinton presidency -- if she were to run and be elected in 2016 -- would be her serving as the first female president in the nation's history. Other positives mentioned by at least 5% of Americans are her experience, that she would bring about change from the previous two administrations, that she would adhere to a Democratic agenda, and that she would be the best choice.
...
These results are from a Gallup survey conducted March 15-16, which asked a nationally representative sample of Americans to say what would be the best and the worst things about a possible Clinton presidency, if she were to be elected in 2016.

Article here. Excerpt:

'President Obama urged women at Valencia Community College in Orlando, Fla., to tell Congress to pass the Equal Paycheck Act, furthering the myth that women make 77 cents to the dollar that men make and claiming that “if men were having babies, we'd have different policies.”

We probably would. There’d probably be a “war on men” pushing false statistics that men are paid less for women, without taking into account life choices.
...
Women are not earning just 77 cents to the dollar that men earn; that gap virtually disappears when degree and occupation are factored in. But Obama won’t make that distinction.
...
And notice how he said women would earn less “over the course of their career than a man at the same educational level”? Think about that for a moment. What he said is that it’s not fair for a woman with a bachelor’s degree to not earn the same as a man with a bachelor’s degree.