Article here. Excerpt:

Story here. Excerpt:

'A father yesterday spoke of his anguish over an extraordinary £100,000 12-year court battle for the right to see his daughter.

The man, described as ‘irreproachable’ by a senior judge, has endured years of legal fighting with his ex-partner, who has refused to allow contact between him and their 14-year-old daughter.

Incredibly, the family courts have made 82 orders that he be allowed to see the girl, known only as M. But none was enforced by a system which senior judges agreed had ‘failed the whole family’.

‘My relationship with my daughter is slipping away,’ the man said. ‘Her childhood is disappearing.’

The Court of Appeal three months ago ordered that the case be resolved, saying the teenager’s childhood had been ‘irredeemably marred’ by years of litigation.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Iceland takes over the Presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers from next year, during which time the Council will focus on labour market issues, men and masculinity as well as ways of removing border obstacles between the Nordic countries.

The June 2014 conference on masculinity and the study of masculinity in the Nordic region should also be interesting. Two renowned masculinity and gender researches will deliver the conference keynote speeches; the Australian Professor Raewyn Connell from the University of Sydney and the American Professor Michael Kimmel from the State University of New York.'

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Wikipedia on Raewyn Connell and also on Michael Kimmel.

Story here. Excerpt:

'This has to hurt: more and more older boys are getting circumcised in Florida.

After Florida terminated Medicaid funding for infant circumcision, circumcision costs to the state have skyrocketed to more than double previous levels.
...
Florida is among 18 states that ceased Medicaid funding for infant circumcision after a 1999 report by the American Academy of Pediatrics declared the procedure may not be medically necessary.

Now, Medicaid coverage is available in Florida only for older males for whom the procedure is deemed medically imperative, such as those who have suffered repeated infections.

But the procedure is far more cost-effective on babies, according to Dr. Islam. “The benefits are that the child does not have to undergo general anesthesia, there is much less cost to public monies, it’s safer for the kids to get it done and that’s the right age, as well,” Islam said in a statement.'

Story here. Excerpt;

'CHICAGO — A man who says Chicago police tortured him until he confessed to a rape he didn’t commit was expected to walk out of an Illinois prison Wednesday after 30 years behind bars.

Stanley Wrice’s release from the Pontiac Correctional Center comes after Cook County Judge Richard Walsh overturned Wrice’s conviction Tuesday, saying officers lied about how they treated him.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Battered women are morally entitled to kill their abusive partners, even those who are passed out or asleep, says a respected University of Ottawa law professor.

Prof. Elizabeth Sheehy raises the provocative idea in her new book, eight years in the making, called Defending Battered Women on Trial. It will be published Dec. 15 by UBC Press.

"Why should women live in anticipatory dread and hypervigilence?" she writes in the book's concluding chapter. Would it not be just, Sheehy asks, "to shift the risk of death to those men whose aggressions have created such dehumanizing fear in their female partners?"
...
Sheehy likened women in abusive relationships to prisoners of war. "We would never say of a prisoner of war that it's not just that she or he kill their captor to escape. It is just to kill to escape that kind of enslavement."

Article here. Excerpt;

'Female scientists are more receptive of abstract artworks than their male counterparts, suggesting that they are likely to be open to a more ‘anarchic, creative and radical’ approach to science, according to new research released today.

How Scientists Look At Art’, a study conducted by University of Reading and commissioned by Bayer to mark its 150th anniversary, suggests that women may bring added creativity and a more challenging approach to science, adding weight to the ongoing, global drive to encourage more women to enter the profession.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Women entrepreneurs tend to treat their employees better and give back to their communities, said Joy Anderson, President and Founder of Criterion Institute, which helps shape emerging financial markets and movements.
...
In general, women entrepreneurs are more altruistic and empathetic. Combined with their rising success, it’s likely that small- and mid-sized company social responsibility efforts will increase and take on new forms,d which may well change the way we all think about business responsibility.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'It's well-known that what a mother eats before and during pregnancy can affect fetal development, but research now suggests that a father's diet prior to conception may also play a critical role in a newborn's health.
...
But the way that a father's diet can influence the health and development of offspring has received little attention, said Sarah Kimmins, a specialist in reproductive biology at McGill University who led a study looking at the effects of paternal folate levels.
...
In a study of mice published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers found that a low-folate diet in males was linked to an increased rate of birth defects among their pups, compared to the rate among pups whose fathers were fed a folate-sufficient diet.

"When we looked at the offspring, when we looked at the fetuses, we were really quite shocked that we saw the birth defects," Kimmins said Tuesday from Montreal.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Young American women are increasingly likely to receive pay nearly equal to their male counterparts, with earnings at 93 percent of men, a new study finds. Still, those women remain as pessimistic as their mothers and grandmothers regarding gender equality.

A report for release Wednesday by the Pew Research Center paints a mixed picture.

While women under 32 now have higher rates of college completion than men that age, the analysis of census and labor data shows their hourly earnings will slip further behind by the women’s mid-30s, if the experience of the past three decades is a guide.

At a recent dinner for Hillary Clinton, Sheryl Sandberg said the following:

“When you give money to men, they spend it on whiskey and themselves…when you give to women, they spend it on their children."

See here.

So I wrote the following to leanin.org:

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To: info@leanin.org
Cc: partners@leanin.org

'“When you give money to men, they spend it on whiskey and themselves…when you give to women, they spend it on their children,” said Sandberg at the gala.'

Is she really that nasty?

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And then I received this response:

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From: Andrea Saul

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for pointing this out — she was quoting an old saying from the World Bank (she didn't say it was true) and the context wasn't included. I've asked ABC to correct it.

Best regards,

Andrea

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So I followed up with:

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Her request for help is here. Excerpt:

'“Help! I’m asking for the help of the public! I am a mother to a baby. The Rabbinical Court is forcing me to cut my year old son against my will (circumcise him) while subjecting me to heavy financial sanctions daily!

After my exposure to the information regarding circumcision, I refuse to mutilate my baby. I don’t have the right and I do not agree! He was born whole and he will stay whole! His integrity is his full right! The Religious Court has no right to do that! No one in the whole world is authorized to force me to mutilate my son, to cut his penis!

Article here. Excerpt:

'A year ago 19-year old Preston King was a light-hearted young Southern California man in love with his high school sweetheart. Her pregnancy changed their lives dramatically.

As the birth date approached, King was shocked to learn that the mother planned to give the baby up for adoption, whether or not he agreed to it. The adoptive couple had already been selected by the mother, and King was invited by an adoption agency – via text message – to meet them. King immediately petitioned the Orange County courthouse for paternity testing, and in the weeks leading to the birth, went to court several times to claim his paternal rights.

In spite of his best efforts, though, King was not allowed to sign a declaration affirming his fatherhood and was denied the right to paternal mention on the birth certificate. After King spent a mere 15 minutes alone with his baby, born September 7, the infant went home with his adoptive parents.
...
Observers of the family law system in Canada will be reminded of the quite similar 2007 case of Hendricks vs Swan in Saskatchewan. Saskatoon dad Adam Hendricks was in the same position as King. He was a willing father, whose girlfriend unilaterally adopted their baby out to well-off strangers.

What do these two cases tell us about the prevailing culture as filtered through the family law system? That mothers count in a child’s life and fathers don’t.

As the Hendricks and King cases make clear, our misandric family law systems routinely assign more importance to mothers over fathers. Yet decades of research unequivocally prove that children want to love and be loved equally by both their parents. These travesties of gender injustice must end. Equal parenting is equal gender justice.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Book a room on the 11th floor of the Hamilton Crowne Plaza here, and you'll get special bath salts and body products, a magnifying mirror, nail polish, nail files and a curling iron.

In other words, you'll get pretty much anything you need to pamper yourself.

They're not exactly the types of amenities that men would go for, but that's the point.

The Hamilton Crowne Plaza is one of a small, but growing number of hotels offering floors dedicated to female travelers. These hotels are particularly trying to appeal to female business travelers, who are moving up the career ladder and hitting the road more often.

Story here. Excerpt:

'The suspension of a 6-year-old boy for kissing a girl at school is raising questions about whether the peck should be considered sexual harassment.

The boy's mother said officials at Lincoln School of Science and Technology in Canon City, a southern Colorado city of 16,000, are over-reacting. Jennifer Saunders said her son was suspended once before for kissing the girl and had other disciplinary problems, and she was surprised to find out that he would be forced out of school again for several days.

First grader Hunter Yelton told KRDO-TV (http://tinyurl.com/lyhxh7l) that he has a crush on a girl at school and she likes him back.

"It was during class, yeah. We were doing reading group, and I leaned over and kissed her on the hand. That's what happened," he said.