Article here. Excerpt:

'What you're seeing is how a civilization commits suicide," says Camille Paglia. This self-described "notorious Amazon feminist" isn't telling anyone to Lean In or asking Why Women Still Can't Have It All. No, her indictment may be as surprising as it is wide-ranging: The military is out of fashion, Americans undervalue manual labor, schools neuter male students, opinion makers deny the biological differences between men and women, and sexiness is dead. And that's just 20 minutes of our three-hour conversation.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Mark Andrew, 63, was at a Starbucks inside the mall at around 7 p.m. Thursday when a man grabbed his phone off his table and ran off.

When Andrew went after him, he was tackled by two teenage girls – aged 18 and 17 — one of which began beating him with a billy club. During the attack, they told Andrew, “We’re going to kill you,” police say.

Andrew was left with a large gash on his head that required nine stitches. He has since been released from the hospital.
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The two women who attacked Andrew were arrested and are in custody. The 18-year-old was identified as Letajia Shapree Cutler-Cain, of Brooklyn Park. She is pictured above and is being held pending felony charges of aiding and abetting aggravated robbery.

Police are still searching for the male suspect.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Females in the Marine Corps currently are not required to do even a single pull-up, and a deadline mandating that by Jan. 1, 2014, they be able to do at least 3 pull-ups as part of their training has been delayed for at least a year, the Corps quietly announced on social media.

Unlike their female counterparts, male Marines have long been required to do at least 3 pullups as part of the Physical Fitness Test (PFT). That's the minimum requirement for males.
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Currently, “women aren’t able to make the minimum standard of three pull-ups,” Marine spokesman Capt. Eric Flanagan told CNSNews.com. Fifty-five percent of female recruits tested at the end of boot camp were unable to do three pull-ups (1 percent of male recruits also failed).

Marine officers told NPR off-the-record that, given the three-pull-ups rule, they were afraid of losing “not only new recruits, but also current female Marines who can’t pass the test.”'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Nicole Colby Longton, an attorney who represented a student who sued Holy Cross for being accused of sexually assaulting a woman on campus, told Bloomberg News that young men face a “growing risk of being accused” on college campuses.

“One sexual encounter that involves alcohol, and the next thing you know you’re accused and expelled and branded for life,” she said. “Schools are going to push kids to have signed waivers before they have intercourse.”
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Rape poses a real threat to women on college campuses, and even if these young men are innocent, their claims reveal a desire to maintain a status quo that makes it easy for men to perpetrate crimes and difficult for women to report them. It’s one thing to protest that you were wrongly accused. It’s another to suggest that universities are making it too easy for victims to report crimes and seek justice.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Although the main reason the gap has closed is because women are earning more (they have risen by 25 percent over the last three decades), men are also bringing home less.

"This is a big part of the story," Parker says.

From 1980 to 2012, the median hourly wage for men has dropped 4 percent. For younger men, the drop has been 20 percent.

And it is even worse for young men without a college degree, Parker says.

"Young women are more likely to be enrolled in college," Parker says. "They are more likely to be getting bachelor's degrees. They're more likely to be getting many different types of graduate degrees."'

Article here.

'A Richland County deputies say a 34-year-old woman stabbed her fiance on Christmas Day after they argued over what colors should be used in their wedding.

Investigators say the man was trying to leave a home near Blythewood after the argument when Krysta James attacked him around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Deputies say the man was stabbed in the upper body, but his injuries weren't life threatening.

James is charged with criminal domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature. She remains in jail on a $10,000 bond and it isn't known if she has an attorney.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Qualified male candidates were repeatedly passed over for an assistant job in the University of Iowa track program after the athletic department quietly mandated that a woman be hired, a discrimination complaint alleges.

Track and field director Larry Wieczorek joked during the hiring process that then-assistant Mike Scott should consider having a sex change operation to improve his prospects, according to a complaint filed by Scott with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission.

In their quest to hire a woman, administrators rejected a committee's recommendation to offer the job to a highly qualified male candidate and twice rewrote the position description to try to attract female candidates, Scott alleges. After three postings spanning more than one year, the university hired Molly Jones for the position in September.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The French government has warned 500 companies they face fines for failing to comply with gender equality laws.

Women's rights minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem said the firms had been given an ultimatum to comply with anti-discrimination legislation dating back several years, but were still dragging their heels.

She said five companies were already being fined "penalties of several million euros for each month … until they bring themselves in line with the law".

"It is no longer a virtual sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of enterprises, but a real one. Suddenly the companies are sending us their professional equality plans. More than 4,000 have done so since January," Vallaud-Belkacem told Europe 1 television.

"But to be efficient, it [the legislation] has to be dissuasive and above all plausible," the minister, who has said that fining businesses who break the law is a "last resort".

Article here. Excerpt:

'A Hamilton councilwoman’s comments about sexism at Tuesday’s meeting have some politicians explaining, and one resident calling for her resignation.

While voting in favor of a salary ordinance that included a raise for newly elected Mayor Kelly Yaede, Councilwoman Ileana Schirmer said individuals who opposed the increase may be chauvinists because the mayor is a woman.

“When the previous mayor was there, Councilman Meara voted to give that mayor a raise, and then all that junk happened, and they rescinded it, rightfully so. If you go to the council meeting, you can see a pattern; everything the mayor proposes, Councilman Meara goes against,” Schirmer said Wednesday.
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The councilman said he is not opposed to pay increase ordinances, but that he didn’t vote for this one because Yaede is newly elected and it is not during the budget process.

Article here.

'An African American art student at Sacramento State University, Christina Edwards, is defending her art project, which features two white males dangling from a tree with nooses around their necks.

"The purpose of this performance was to bring to light social injustices and the issue of inequality that impact me and my community as a whole," Edwards said. The student used real men in her project, which divided opinions among fellow students.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'“If you are a white male, you don’t deserve to live. You are a cancer, you’re a disease, white 'males have never contributed anything positive to the world! They only murder, exploit and oppress non-whites! At least a white woman can have sex with a black man and make a brown baby but what can a white male do? He’s good for nothing. Slavery, genocides against aboriginal peoples and massive land confiscation, the inquisition, the holocaust, white males are all to blame! You maintain your white male privilege only by oppressing, discriminating against and enslaving others!” Professor Noel Ignatiev [link added], a tenured professor at Massachusetts College loudly proclaimed to his class last Monday, his final teaching day before retirement.
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Ivan Fernando: All whites, or just white males should commit suicide?

For those who mark this day, MANN says "Merry Christmas!". And for those who don't, have a great day anyway!

If you are apart from loved ones, especially all you dads (and a few moms, too) out there separated from kids or your families in general due to divorce, work, or military service, an extra helping of good vibes your way.

Article here. Excerpt:

'So if the barrier to integrating women into the infantry isn’t a physical one then what is it?

It’s cultural. And that’s why the infantry may not be the best place to start in military gender integration. Instead, as counterintuitive as it might sound, the military should begin with its Special Operations Forces: elite units such as the Green Berets and SEALs. Although not the obvious move, starting here would likely make for a smoother transition over all.

The infantry, our nation’s foot soldiers, exist in a hyper-masculine culture, awash with 19-year old riflemen, “grunts” as they call themselves. For what the infantry does—combat at close quarters—that type of hyper-masculinity works. It creates an unshakable determination to accomplish the mission and to protect your friends. When fighting house-to-house in Fallujah, or valley-to-valley in Kunar Province, technology counts for very little. Culture counts for everything. That doesn’t mean it can’t be altered to accept women, but it will be different. Not better, not worse, but different.

So how do you responsibly alter the culture so women are accepted and the force remains effective?
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If the military were to integrate elite formations such as the SEALs, Marine Special Operations and Army Special Forces, a few highly capable women in those communities would provide cultural proof that females can hang with “the toughest of the tough.”

Article here. Excerpt:

'However, critics of the initiative say it comes with social and health costs that are counterproductive. And they say they are deeply skeptical of claims by military leaders that standards will not be altered.

“The Pentagon and the White House see this as being about equal opportunity—it’s not about that,” said retired Army Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis, author of the book Deadly Consequences: How Cowards Are Pushing Women into Combat, in an interview. “What kind of nation pushes its young women into direct ground combat? A nation that is willing to compromise security even more and a nation that will not survive in the long term.”
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“If we do decide that a particular standard is so high that a woman couldn’t make it, the burden is now on the service to come back and explain to the secretary, why is it that high?” Dempsey said in January. “Does it really have to be that high?”
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“The use of the term ‘gender-neutral physical standards’ raises questions depending on how it is defined,” the memo said. “A plain reading of the term suggests that men and women would be required to meet the same physical standards in order to be similarly assigned.”

“However, in the past, the services have used this and similar terms to suggest that men and women must exert the same amount of energy in a particular task, regardless of the work that is actually accomplished by either.”

A report released last month by the Center for Military Readiness (CMR) notes that the Marine Corps’ implementation plan for women in combat includes similar criteria. Scores for men and women on the Physical Fitness Test (PFT) and Combat Fitness Test (CFT) were “gender-normed” in 2009 in order to “account for physiological differences between genders,” according to footnotes in the plan.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Melissa Mertz, Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association associate executive director, said the courts determined in 1975 that the PIAA could not prohibit girls from participating in boys sports or boys from participating in girls sports. Also, Title IX from 1972 states, "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance," which includes athletic programs.

However, in early September, Commonwealth Court Judge Kevin Brobson ruled the PIAA can adopt a policy that bans boys from girls' teams, essentially reversing the 40-year ruling that allowed boys to compete against girls under the Pennsylvania Equal Rights Amendment.

Mertz said a survey of PIAA membership showed strong support of limiting boys on girls teams, but there has not been much discussion in limiting girls on boys teams.'