Article here. Excerpt:

'After serving nine months in prison for stealing, Jacqueline McDougall’s future was on the line. A parole board would decide whether she would be locked up for an additional three years.

But her fate was not the only one hanging in the balance. If denied parole, McDougall’s young son Max, who grew up behind bars with her, would be sent home if he became too old.

“Nightline” spent a year following McDougall and Max at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in Bedford Hills, N.Y. They are part of the small, but growing number of inmates raising their babies behind bars.

The vast majority of the 2000 or so inmates who give birth in American prisons are separated from their babies shortly after birth. Bedford is one of the handful of women’s prisons that allow some incarcerated moms to keep their newborns with them, in some cases until the babies are 18 months old.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'German listed companies will be granted no exceptions to a 30 per cent women's quota for supervisory boards by 2016, said Manuela Schwesig, the minister responsible for drafting the legislation.

Schwesig, 39, a Social Democrat and the youngest member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's third-term cabinet, dismissed industry pleas for exemptions in fields that are a traditional preserve of men, such as metalworking or engineering.

"It's an argument often advanced that certain sectors don't have enough women available to fill the supervisory-board posts," Schwesig said last week. "I don't buy it."'

Story here. Excerpt:

'The FPB ruled that the website, ulwaluko.co.za, run by Dutch doctor, Dingeman Rijken was a "bona fide scientific publication with great educative value," the City Press newspaper said.

The FPB stipulated that the website -- which shows photographs of the penises of initiates who are suffering from deformities, wounds, infections and amputations after undergoing botched traditional circumcisions -- must place an age restriction warning that its contents are only suitable for those over the age of 13.

The Community Development Foundation of SA initially lodged the complaint, suggesting the images were pornographic and that they broke doctor and patient confidentiality.

However, Rijken said he had obtained informed consent for each photograph.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Centre Party (Senterpartiet, Sp) politician Jenny Klinge wants to ban circumcision in Norway, or bring the penalty for a boy’s circumcision-related death in line with laws governing female genital mutilation. Health minister Bent Høie criticized Klinge for comparing the two practices on Wednesday, and said while laws are being developed to regulate male circumcision it won't be outlawed.

“It can not be such that when a boy dies, then it’s not punished at all, while if a girl dies it’s punishable by up to 10 years,” said Klinge, reported Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK). She wants the act of removing part of the male foreskin banned in Norway, like female circumcision is.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Yet, says Senior, women are still cranky about this because they believe men don't do their share of the household tasks. She makes no mention of the idea that women should pick up more paid hours to compensate, or to allow their husbands to work less. Nope, it's just about hubby working more so that the wife feels better.

How about instead, women say, "Gee, honey look at this! We're both working equally hard!"?

Senior notes that women's work is difficult because it requires multitasking. We have to do things that have to be done now. "Complicating matters,"she writes, "mothers assume a disproportionate number of time-sensitive domestic tasks, whether it's getting their toddlers dressed for school or their 12-year-olds off to swim practice."

Story here. Excerpt:

'A California teen who fathered a baby with his high school teacher has filed a civil lawsuit against the convicted child molester and the school district where she worked.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday on behalf of the now 18-year-old student alleges that the Redlands Unified School District and Citrus Valley High School were negligent and complicit in the victim’s abuse at the hands of 29-year-old Laura Whitehurst.

‘Children in California, children in Redlands should not be a sex toy for their teacher,’ said one of the boy’s attorneys, John Manly.
...
Faced with a 29-year prison sentence, the former AP English teacher pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful sex with a minor and two counts of oral copulation with a minor in exchange for the dismissal of the other charges against her.

Whitehurst was sentenced to a year in prison in August, but was released last month after serving only six months.

Article here. Excerpt:

'British MPs have just made public an extensive report into the status of women in scientific careers, and it’s full of well-considered insights. First up: it recognises that women are really, actually, needed in STEM fields.

When discussing the role of women in science and what we can do to improve the ridiculous gender gap in senior science positions (the word used in the report is “astonishing”), people often act as if helping women into the field is somehow doing them a favour. But giving women the same opportunities as men to advance in scientific careers isn’t just good for equality; it’s necessary if we’re to meet the country’s demand for scientists and engineers, and reap the resulting economic benefits.
...
The MPs then looked at why women are so poorly represented in STEM jobs, and their conclusions were obviously made up of many different points. It’s worth reading the full report if you’re interested, but their key observation was the “leaky pipeline” effect. While girls are successfully encouraged to get into science, they’re not making it to the top levels. On average, only 17 percent of professors across STEM fields are female.

The reasons for this are multiple, but one obvious one is systematic discrimination. We’ve seen study after study on gender bias in the scientific community—from rates of publication, to funding, to job opportunities—and the report thankfully doesn’t pussyfoot around the issue. Scientists both male and female, it explains, are susceptible to gender bias just like anyone else.

Article here. Excerpt:

'More than 10 million men, or one out of every six in the 25 to 54 age bracket, are unemployed in the United States, and only about one third of them say they are actively seeking jobs. Experts believe this dire condition could also be causing declining marriage rates.

Ask yourself would this "humor" be posted on Scientific American's blog if the victims had been women with their vaginas cut out? Then why is it "funny" when the victims are men? Please post your thoughts on the blog. Excerpt:

'This is one of the ones for the IgNobels that really is only funny because, well, it’s about penises. Getting eaten by ducks sometimes. But otherwise, it’s actually quite a serious subject, and the paper itself has important implications for surgery in…delicate areas.

It turns out, during the 1970s, Thailand had an epidemic. Not an epidemic of cholera or polio or something (though it may have had those, too). No, this was an epidemic of revenge. A particular type of revenge, by women on their philandering husbands.

Article here. Excerpt:

'In 1980, just 12 percent of boys said they did not like school very much at all, according to a study by the Institute of Social Research at the University of Michigan. By 1991, the percentage of boys who disliked school doubled, zooming to 24 percent.

Schools come down hard on boys who are often rambunctious, messy, disorganized, and enjoy activity and competitive games. Yet many schools are cutting back on recess and are eliminating games that boys enjoy. “Since the 1990s, many schools have done away with games like dodgeball, red rover, and tag,” finds researcher Christina Hoff Sommers. Some schools even label “tug of war” as “tug of peace.”

Letter here.

Re “How Can We Help Men? By Helping Women” (Sunday Review, Jan. 12):

'Stephanie Coontz proposes a number of excellent ideas to make our society friendlier to women and rightly recognizes that addressing these issues would likely benefit men as well. We would do well to seriously consider putting her ideas into practice. But there is no reason this should be to the exclusion of directly addressing issues faced by men.

The Great Recession has left many more men than women out of work, and with men being substantially less likely than women to pursue higher education, this gap is expected to persist for the foreseeable future.

Article here. Excerpt:

'In Tuesday’s piece "Feminist? You better believe it," a number of claims were made that I don’t agree with.
...
I feel that your postulations against the male population are not only wrong, but also sad. They assume the worst in society, for both men and women. And they assume that feminism is the only solution to the make the world a better place.

But feminism is an inexhaustible ideology that will forever see women as the victims, and men as our tyrants; there will never be a sufficient outcome.

As Barbara Kay said in the best anti-feminism essay every written, “scapegoating an entire group to explain the unachieved goals of its own members … always ends in grievance.”

Men don’t walk around searching for promiscuously dressed women to take advantage of. Rape is not a mainstream thought for the common man.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Haryana Police declared on Thursday all cases of sexual violence will from now be investigated by woman cops.

The decision, the police said, was taken on the basis of recommendations by the Centre for sensitive and effective policing after Nirbhaya's gang-rape in New Delhi.

Haryana reported 927 rape cases in 2013 while the numbers were 686 in 2012 and 733 in 2011.

Implementing this move is, however, likely to be difficult as women form a small percentage of the total strength of the police force in Haryana. In Gurgaon, for instance, where the ratio of women cops to men is almost 1:10, the order from DGP S N Vashisht led to a reshuffle across the ranks.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Democratic Party has found what seems to be a winning formula in both state and national elections – a “War on Women” being waged by the Republicans.

The “War on Women” is based on the premise that women are oppressed if they do not 1) have access to free birth control, 2) have unlimited access to abortion, 3) receive “equal pay for equal work” based on credentials rather than performance, and 4) have the support of the state if they have a child out of wedlock.

On closer examination, however, this “War on Women” turns out to be something very different. It is a feminist-and-Democratic-Party-led “War on the Family” that is threatening the very foundations of American society.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The letter lays out various requests. “We urge (the Department of Education) to be more transparent about its own investigations and enforcement actions against colleges and universities regarding campus sexual harassment and sexual assault,” wrote Maloney and Speier in the letter. They urge the Department to push for a centralized database of all universities’ records. As of today, they argue, students and their families have a difficult time accessing information on a school’s safety, including the campus history of Title IX-related compliance issues, sexual assault incidents, statistics and policies.

The representatives also seek to require schools to conduct surveys and exit interviews regarding campus safety. These surveys could provide a more accurate picture of the scope of sexual assault on campuses, giving students a better idea of how safe their school is.