Article here. Excerpt:

'Ladies, gather round. We have a problem.

The problem is men. They are in crisis. Dreadful things are afoot for them, and they need our help.

Despite 6,000 years of patriarchy, despite the fact a mere 6.2 per cent of countries have a woman in charge, despite being boss of all major world religions, most businesses and all our current wars, men are not happy.
...
Anyway, men have started a campaign for some long-overdue recognition. It’s called International Men’s Day and it happens every November 19.

Now, I know there may be some among the sisterhood who’d complain they’ve already got the other 364 days a year. And they’d have a point.
...
We should support anything which might, one day, lead men who father children and shirk responsibility to shoulder half the moral and financial burden of their own behaviour.

We should throw ourselves behind a day that might prompt men into speaking out about rape, and perhaps taking a day off from it.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The men's rights movement, which has gained new visibility in recent years thanks to the Internet, is often viewed as a lunatic fringe of women haters. Unfortunately, quite a few websites in the so-called "manosphere" do their best, or worst, to earn this reputation. But feminists (of both sexes) who rightly criticize misogynistic men's rights activists tend to either dismiss men's issues altogether or argue that the best remedy for male-specific problems is feminism itself -- since it challenges all sexism.

In theory, that may be true; quite a few feminists, including Betty Friedan in "The Feminine Mystique" 50 years ago, have argued that men should be freed from gender-role pressures. In practice, however, the women's movement has been mostly unsympathetic or hostile to claims of anti-male sexism (except on a few issues such as parental leave, where benefits for men directly benefit women).

Thus, women's groups, including the National Organization for Women, have opposed expanding the rights of divorced fathers, despite evidence that in this area, men tend to get the short end of the stick. When efforts to combat domestic violence have led to more arrests of female perpetrators, the typical feminist response has been to claim that battered women are getting arrested for defending themselves and to demand action to reduce arrests of women. Reports on gender bias in schools sponsored by groups such as the American Association of University Women have downplayed alarming trends of boys lagging behind in most areas of academic achievement.
...
No less important, while feminists denounce misogyny on the Internet, few have challenged anti-male hate speech from feminist blogs -- sometimes defended as a response to oppression.

Article here. Excerpt:

'My first thought when I heard that there was an International Men’s Day was to sigh and roll my eyes. It was only a matter of time. The reaction when people from an oppressed group set up an event or day to celebrate the achievements that have been made despite this, and to inspire people to continue to tackle inequality then this is the result.
...
The theme for this year’s International Men’s Day is ‘Keeping Men and Boys Safe’ focusing on five key challenges:

Article here. Excerpt:

'Do men face discrimination? I don't mean gay men or black men or poor, uneducated men or even short men. Or, come to think of it, the many judged "typical boys" every day, but just men? All men.
...
In the past year a website has been set up explaining what an international men's day should do in the UK. The campaign's objectives include promoting male role models, celebrating the contribution that men make, highlighting discrimination against men and the inequalities that men and boys face and thus improving gender relations and gender equality.

Article here. Excerpt:

'No parent would deny there are differences between their sons and daughters, so educator Michael Reist wonders why Ontario insists on an educational model that has traditionally treated them as if they learned the same way.

The bestselling author was visiting Windsor Monday to conduct a seminar for the Greater Essex County District School Board on just how significant those learning differences can be and how to stop male students falling further behind in academics.

Do schools better suit girls?

“It’s a huge generalization, but I think it is true,” Reist said. “To treat everyone the same is to treat them unfairly sometimes.”

The Munk Debate report on the gleefully asked "Are men obsolete?" question, debated by four women exclusively, is here. The result was, of course, foregone. These kinds of male-bashing events have been held for years on college campuses. Never be the least surprised at the "conclusion".

Doris Lessing has died. From a 2001 article:

'The novelist Doris Lessing yesterday claimed that men were the new silent victims in the sex war, "continually demeaned and insulted" by women without a whimper of protest.

Lessing, who became a feminist icon with the books The Grass is Singing and The Golden Notebook, said a "lazy and insidious" culture had taken hold within feminism that revelled in flailing men.

Young boys were being weighed down with guilt about the crimes of their sex, she told the Edinburgh book festival, while energy which could be used to get proper child care was being dissipated in the pointless humiliation of men.

"I find myself increasingly shocked at the unthinking and automatic rubbishing of men which is now so part of our culture that it is hardly even noticed," the 81-year-old Persian-born writer said yesterday.'

Article here. Excerpt

'A company widely criticised for seeming to have an all female workforce - with the exception of an all male senior management team - has defended its hiring practices.

Cellular Solutions, who describe themselves as the "leading communications provider to south-east England", were at the centre of a gender row this week.

Some 31 employees illustrated on the 'Meet The Staff' page of their website were all young, seemingly attractive women - whereas their four strong senior management team were all men.'

---

Relatedly: UK threatens firms with gender quotas as women’s appointments fall

Article here. Excerpt:

'Feminism is trying to yank the U.S. military in two directions at once. While claiming that women have no problem meeting the rigorous standards of the SEALs or infantry, advocates of opening these branches to women argue that female members of the military must be protected from the male sexual predators that, we are assured, are widely represented in the military. However, they can’t have it both ways. Are women “hear me roar” Amazons, or are they fragile flowers who must be protected from “sexual harassment,” encouraged to level the charge at the drop of the hat?
...
Let me be clear: There is absolutely no excuse for sexual assault. Period. There is no excuse for a superior who pressures a subordinate for sexual favors. Period. The data cited by the Pentagon creating widespread panic within the military are rendered suspect for two reasons. The first problem is methodological: The numbers — some 26,000 active-duty service members out of a population of 1.4 million claim to have been sexually assaulted in 2012 — are based on an anonymous survey. This number far exceeds reported cases of sexual assault.

The second and more significant problem is that the survey uses the term “sexual assault” in a way so broad as to render it nearly meaningless. Indeed, much of what is now covered by the Pentagon’s sexual-assault rubric represents the de facto criminalization of normal relations between the sexes of the sort that come about when young males and females are thrown into proximity.
...

Story here. Excerpt:

'Sex, politics and morality: Put the three together, and you are sure to end up with a steaming tub of trouble.

This is what is happening in France, where plans to curb the sex industry by criminalising the clients of prostitutes have caused an almighty row.

Feminists and Socialist ministers are punching it out with libertines, sex workers fear the change will make their lives more dangerous and some experts wonder whether the law will be workable.

A bill due to come before Parliament at the end of this month will make those paying for sex liable to a fine of 1500 ($2440) and double that if they are caught again.

Courts will also have the power to order those convicted to attend a "prostitution awareness programme", similar to programmes on alcohol abuse for drunk drivers.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A major campaign to reduce violence against women and bring more rapists and abusers to justice was announced today.

In an exclusive interview given on her first day as Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders told the Standard that attacks on women and other hate crimes were a “blight on society” that affected all sections of the community.

She said she was determined to use her five-year term leading the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure that more suspects were brought to court to face justice. The pledge by Ms Saunders, who added that prosecutors could “do more” to raise the conviction rate for rape, came as she revealed key aims.'

A Canadian academic study looked at the influences and feelings of couples who decided on an abortion. A summary is here at "Understanding the pregnancy decision-making process among couples seeking induced abortion". Perhaps not surprisingly, men had little say in the decision and reported they were not as happy with the discussions that took place. (70.4% of Men vs. 96.6% of Women were "happy with discussions".) Abstract excerpt:

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Marine Corps may have to change its physical standards in order to put females in positions to one day lead infantry platoons in combat.

Both the Marine Corps and the Army continue to wrestle with the mandate that former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta issued in January, directing the U.S. military to open hundreds of combat-arms jobs that have been closed to female servicemembers.

So far, the Marines have been out ahead.

The service has opened up infantry training to female officers and enlisted Marines as part of an effort to gather data on how females and males compare when performing infantry and other combat-arms-related skills, and how those findings relate to current male and female physical fitness standards.
The effort is scheduled to run until fall of 2014, but the results so far have drawn attention.
...
So far, the results have not been promising. Nine of the 10 females that volunteered out of The Basic Course failed to make it through the first day of IOC. The remaining female volunteer dropped because of an injury from the course a week later.

The Marine Corps will continue to allow female Marines to go through IOC and ITB until the research phase ends next fall. From there, the data will be compiled into a recommendation to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on how the Corps intends to open up certain combat-arms jobs to women by Jan. 1, 2016.
...
"And we will kind of see … if a Marine gets a 300 on the PFT and CFT; how well they do on the MOS tasks. So we are looking at that to see … whether or not these physical standards are applicable to these MOSs.

"Depending on what the data says, and what it shows, it will decide whether or not any of the standards for the MOSs need to change."

Article here. Excerpt:

'Pop quiz: What's the opposite of "misogyny"? If you said "misandry", you're not only wrong but also a bit of a negative ninny for thinking the opposite of hating one gender is hating another.

Misandry is its male counterpart, but the opposite of misogyny is actually "philogyny", which the dictionary defines as a "love or liking for women". But don't feel bad if you've never even heard the word before, because the dictionary also describes its usage as "rare".

I'm not sure if it means anything that so few people have a need for this word in their vocabulary, but it feels tempting to draw a parallel with the regressive evolution of eyeless cave fish. Said Charles Darwin: "I attribute their loss wholly to disuse."

There's certainly a shortage of philogyny within Men's Rights Activism, a loose and alarmingly large group of angry straight men who seem determined to talk their way out of ever getting laid again. Turning reality on its head, they claim men are oppressed by women in a matriarchal society and feminists, their arch-enemies, are all misandrists on a mission to strip men of their last remaining rights, the poor things.
...
Now let's draw another cheeky parallel. If the men's rights activists trick of wailing about misandry while completely ignoring their own misogyny doesn't sound strangely familiar, simply substitute "racism" for misogyny and "reverse racism" for misandry, and it's easy to see that disgruntled whites are playing exactly the same little word game.

Like misandry, so-called reverse racism is a classic red herring fallacy and a concept that exists more in the imaginations of narrow-minded bigots than in the real world.

Op-ed here. Excerpt:

'Last summer, we wrote that Nebraska's domestic violence policies need revision, primarily because they are based on inaccurate information. Since then, two new studies have been published that confirm the need for our domestic violence policies to be revised. These studies also describe a worrying new trend in domestic violence.

Before we discuss these new studies, let's summarize what the research shows about domestic violence:

* Women and men commit domestic violence at comparable rates.

* Men and women are victimized by domestic violence at comparable rates.

* Half of all domestic violence is mutual.

* When domestic violence is not mutual, female-only and male-only domestic violence occur at comparable rates.'