Story here. Excerpt:

'A male client of Your Community Connection recalls realizing his marriage was over.

That decision came after he was beaten with a pipe in front of his young son.

The middle-aged man said the most difficult part was turning to police and then to YCC for help because he was embarrassed for many reasons, including that he had allowed the situation to escalate.

Last week, YCC announced it is nearly two-thirds of the way to its goal of raising $1.5 million to add a separate wing, creating the state's first designated space as a domestic violence shelter for men.

"It is important that we get the message out that NO ONE should be abused," said Julee Smith, executive director of YCC. "I think those men that have asked for help are courageous. They know that something is wrong and needs to change."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Members of the Boston University community collected over 1,000 signatures for a petition to defend BU’s wrestling program in a Save BU Wrestling cross-campus campaign Friday.

Since BU Athletics officials announced that the wrestling program would be cut after its 2013-14 season, BU students, alumni and supporters of the program across the country have banded together to protest the decision. The “Save BU Wrestling” Facebook page now has over 7,000 members.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Philadelphia High School for Girls -- with its 1,100-plus spaces reserved for academically talented young women -- stands as a living monument to institutional sex discrimination. While former Superintendent Arlene Ackerman repeatedly professed her commitment to "ending inequity" in Philadelphia's public schools, she, incongruously, turned a blind eye to the manifest inequity of the District's operating a special admission, academically superior high school for girls without an equivalent school for boys. In its continued operation of Girls' High, the District is promoting a gender-based double standard of educational opportunity.

Article here. Excerpt:

'What is happening to young men?

The question may take you by surprise. Indeed, few things have been as under-reported as the way a rising generation of American men is failing in every important measurement, from obtaining a higher education to establishing a foothold in the labor market and taking responsibility for the children they father.

In his recent State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama spent a bit of time decrying a well-worn statistic that reportedly shows women in America earning 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man. This, he said, “is an embarrassment.”

But while it is true that women ought to be paid equally for the same work as men, the real embarrassment may be that the 77-cent figure is misleading.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Attorneys for a Naval Academy midshipman accused of sexually assaulting a classmate argued Monday that the academy's superintendent was pressured to prosecute the case — one of several claims the legal team is making in an effort to have the case dismissed.

Midshipman Joshua Tate is awaiting trial on charges of aggravated sexual assault and making false statements, stemming from an alleged assault at an April 2012 off-campus party.

The case has gained national attention, and at a motions hearing in military court at the Washington Navy Yard, Tate's attorneys said academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Michael H. Miller was influenced by military and political pressure when he made the decision to prosecute the midshipman.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Typical of all such churnings of the advocacy-government complex, the school-discipline and sexual-assault initiatives are drearily familiar, representing longstanding bureaucratic obsessions. But Obama’s announcement of his overstuffed sexual-assault task force for once did contain something new and noteworthy: a brief invocation of the chivalric ideal. Before examining that break from tradition, it’s worth reviewing the boilerplate that preceded it.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is accepting public comments on the Draft Guideline for the Prevention of Surgical Site Infections until 28 February 2014, presenting an opportunity for opponents of circumcision in the U.S. to archive practical arguments against continuation of the practice in the Federal Register.

The online comment box is limited to 5000 characters, but you can upload larger documents.

Doctors Opposing Circumcision (DOC) produced an excellent document about the risk to newly circumcised boys from Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, here (scroll down to 'Statements'), which unfortunately hasn't been updated since 2008, but is still better than nothing.

Story here. Warning: NSFW due to nudity in video. Excerpt:

'Russian president Vladimir Putin has long been a target of Femen, the militant feminist group whose members remove their tops to protest against patriarchy and organized religion, and for LGBT rights.

Three members doffed their shirts in front of the Russian embassy in Berlin to reveal the slogan "Gulag Games" on their backs.

One of them left a lit torch on the sidewalk and threw a bottle at it.

She has been arrested, allegedly for "throwing a Molotov cocktail at the Russian embassy".'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Hundreds of demonstrators organized by a far-right group protested in Paris on Saturday demanding the dissolution of FEMEN. They called for the feminist organization, which is headquartered in the French capital, to "go back to Ukraine."

The General Alliance Against Racism and for the Respect of French and Christian Identity (AGRIF) says FEMEN provokes the Christian community in France, Ruptly news agency reported.
...
In December, FEMEN staged an action at Madeleine Church in Paris, holding pieces of meat in each hand, representing the fetus of Jesus.

The controversial feminist organization says it is "fighting patriarchy in its three manifestations - sexual exploitation of women, dictatorship and religion." It is mostly known for staging topless protests as well as other provocative moves like burning Islamist flags.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Another American teacher-student sex romp is making worldwide headlines.

This time, the educator is Meredith Powell, a 24-year-old math teacher at Lincoln High School in Tacoma, Wash.

Powell stands accused of engaging in oral sex and other sexual acts behind the locked door of her classroom with two different male students, reports local CBS affiliate KIRO-TV.

The students were either 15 or 16 year of age.

Police say she also sent at least one racy Snapchat photo of herself lounging in the bathtub to a third underage male student.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Chandigarh, Feb 6: Its strange, but true. The Punjab government has ordered that no male teachers would will teach in government girls' school. In fact, all of them have been shifted to different other schools in the district, much to the anger of the teachers' union.

After this move, Punjab would be the first in India to have no male teachers in girls' school.
...
Students and teachers both condemn the move saying that the state government is humiliating the male teachers with the order, implying that all men are rapists.

One of the members said "why should all men be generalized as perverts. These children are like our own kids. This decision of the government of shifting male staff is not a practical solution to solve the problem. If any school has faced such problem then the guilty should be punished or he should be shifted".'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The only FTSE 100 woman chairman has urged employers to allow women to take up to six years off to focus on raising their families. She says retaining the best staff is cheaper than training new recruits.

“Employers have to learn to accommodate you through the mid-life piece,” Dame Alison Carnwath, the chairwoman of the Land Securities property group said in an interview with the Financial Times.

“If you want to spend, say, six years having children and getting them off to school before you come back and do full-time work, [companies] have to look upon it as not wanting to lose somebody.”'

Article here. Excerpt:

'London - It seems the stresses and strains of the day do not end upon going to bed – if you’re female, that is.

A study has revealed that while women spend longer under the covers than men, they actually get less sleep.

And researchers suggest that the problems of juggling work and family life may by why they are left tossing and turning.
...
Dr Neil Stanley, a sleep expert, said women may be more willing than men to sacrifice sleep for their other half.

“There’s the idea that the man is the breadwinner, he’s the one who fought woolly mammoths and all that sort of thing, and therefore his sleep needs to be preserved and a woman will forgo sleep for him.

“A woman will let a man snore away noisily, whereas a man will instantly wake a woman if she dares to make any noise.

“Women are also more prone to worry about all kinds of things – from whether they’ve got the kids’ clothes ready, to ‘will he still love me tomorrow’.”'

Article here. Excerpt:

'One big reason women make less than men is because they tend to demand more flexible schedules. And new economic research shows that if more workplaces adopted a more team-oriented, job-sharing approach—like physicians in a group practice—the cost of flexible work would dissipate and the premium for long hours would too.

"That’s how physicians have been able to not be 24/7, not be on call all the time, to have lives of their own,” says Claudia Goldin, a Harvard professor of economics. Her new paper, A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter (pdf), is to be published soon in the American Economic Review, and explores the reasons behind pay differential between genders even as women have caught up with men in education, experience, and other measures.
...
She asks: Why should someone who works 80 hours a week be worth more than two people who work 40 hours a week?

Article here. Excerpt:

'The physical standards portion of the Army’s approach is just one part of the deliberate effort to expand women’s participation in the Army. The second component of the Army’s process is a gender integration study of “institutional and cultural factors” and seems to be composed of a series of surveys being administered to service members. This is where the Army’s approach becomes even less clear. In October, all infantrymen were asked to complete an online survey regarding their “thoughts” on the possibility of opening the infantry to women. The survey asked infantrymen to agree or disagree with such statements as: