Article here. Excerpt:

'The broadcasters welcomed a promise from Tony Hall, the BBC’s Director General, that by the end of 2014 the corporation would aim to have a women presenting 50 per cent of breakfast shows on local radio.

Describing the plan as a “quota”, she said that it represented a move toward “fairness” that would never be achieved without a directive from above.

Writing for telegraph.co.uk, Miss Arnold said sexism still exists in radio and if the new plans mean that women are given a job over men it may “redress the balance of the last 2000 years".

Local radio is seen as an important training ground for the national media, and flagship programmes including BBC Radio 4’s Today programme have long been criticised for being too male.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Fifteen universities worldwide — including Yale University, Brown University, and Pennsylvania State University — will offer college credit to students who “write feminist thinking” into Wikipedia.

The program, “Storming Wikipedia,” will be part of the Dialogues on Feminism and Technology online course developed by FemTechNet, an organization of feminist educators and scholars.

Approximately 300 students are currently registered for the course, Alexandra Juhasz, professor of media studies at California's Pitzer College and one of the course facilitators, told Campus Reform Thursday.

“A woman's point of view or feminist point of view is not yet expressed in relationship to women in technology in Wikipedia,” she said. “We hope that people engage in this project in respect to other themes as well.”'

Article here. [Ed.: bronxman's comments submitted with this item appear as the first comment since they were too long to post with the item.] Excerpt:

'A student at Swarthmore College who accused it of being lax in its pursuit of allegations of sexual misconduct says the Pennsylvania college is retaliating against her by denying her a job as a dormitory resident adviser, The New York Times reports. But college officials deny any retaliation. They say they cannot employ the student, Mia Ferguson, because she refuses to tell authorities the name of the victim of an alleged rape.

Ms. Ferguson, who joined other students in filing two complaints with the U.S. Education Department this year over Swarthmore’s handling of sexual-misconduct cases, was accepted for the resident adviser’s position this past spring. The alleged rape occurred three years ago.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Chinese netizens are aghast after the government of Shenzhen, China issued a decree, saying it will charge men who use their public toilets but can't aim their shoot well inside the urinal.

The decree, which will fine public toilet users 100 yuan ($16), will take effect on September.

But the thing is, officials did not specify just how much spilled urine exactly pass for a description of "uncouth use of a public toilet."

As expected, Chinese netizens immediately took to Sina Weibo to lash out over the incredible regulation.

"Who will supervise such behavior? It will be illegal to install cameras of men urinating in toilets," user Liuyanguangguang said.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Brace yourselves, ladies: You're about to be shocked by the opposite sex. Seriously. We've always known that men can be, ahem, slightly less clean than we are, but we had no idea the level that 20-something dudes could stoop to. If you thought your guy friends (or lovers) had outgrown their frat-bro days of dirty dishes and even dirtier laundry, we almost hate to show you this survey from a U.K. mattress company. It turns out that young single men only change their sheets an average of once every three months.

And, the news only gets worse from there. The average man admitted to only owning one set of sheets (compared to three sets for women), and the study found that within couples, 81% of the sheet washing was done by the woman. The results also pointed to an age correlation — the worst cleanliness faux pas were committed by men between the ages of 18 to 35, while guys, ages 35 to 50, seemed to clean up their act a bit.'

Link here. Excerpt:

'The proportion of men who experience symptoms of depression may be similar to the proportion of women with depression when doctors look for non-traditional symptoms, according to a new study.

Researchers found that one third of both men and women met the criteria for a depression diagnosis when traditional and alternative symptoms - such as aggression and sleep problems - were taken into account.

"You end up getting very similar rates of depression," Lisa Martin, the study's lead author from the University of Michigan in Dearborn, told Reuters Health.

About 16 percent of Americans currently meet the criteria for depression, Martin and her colleagues write in JAMA Psychiatry. Previous research has found women are about twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with the condition.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'NEW YORK – New York City police say they've arrested a woman after she offered an undercover officer a $60,000 stamp collection to kill her husband.

Police say Elena Adams was arrested Thursday and charged with conspiracy and criminal solicitation. They say the 57-year-old met with an undercover officer inside a car in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn to discuss the murder-for-hire plot.

Police say Adams told the officer her husband should be struck by a hit-and-run driver on Sunday as he crossed a street after lunch. They say Adams gave the investigator a picture of her husband, the stamp collection and jewelry.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A Burlington woman pleaded guilty last week to felony obstruction of justice, falsely reporting that a man raped her sister.

Patricia Suzzane May, 38, of Kimesville Road, Burlington, was charged with sell/deliver a schedule II controlled substance on March 9. She was also charged with making a false statement to investigators, that the man she sold drugs to had raped her sister.

May was later indicted on a felony obstruction of justice charge.

In exchange for the plea, the remaining charges were dismissed. Superior Court Judge Elaine Bushfan issued a four- to 14-month sentence as a level-one offender and placed her on 24 months’ probation. May was ordered to complete a seven-day split, active sentence in the Alamance County Jail and have no contact with the victim in the case.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'An elementary school teacher at a North Carolina K-12 school has been accused of having sexual relationships with two different students over a four-year period.

Amy Tilley Bower, 45, was arrested and charged Wednesday with two counts of sexual activity with a student and two counts of indecent liberties with a child, according to the Watauga County Sheriff's Office.

Police received a report concerning the 5th-grade teacher's inappropriate conduct in late July.

According to WBTV, the report alleged that Bower was involved in sexual relationships with minor male students from 1998 to 2000 and 2004 to 2006.

According to WSOC, both students were 15 years old when the alleged relationships began.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Montana residents are fuming and on a campaign to oust a state judge who ruled that a teacher who raped a 14-year-old girl — who subsequently killed herself — deserves only 30 days behind bars.

What made the sentence more shocking to many was District Judge Todd Baugh’s remarks in court: He said that even though the girl, Cherice “Cherry” Morales, was decades younger than her attacker, Stacey Dean Rambold, 54, and obviously troubled, taped police interviews showed she was “as much in control of the situation” as Rambold. The judge also said the girl was “older than her chronological age.”
...
Meanwhile, Montanans have been sending protesters to his courthouse in Billings. The Montana National Organization for Women also has asked the state to step in and force a longer jail sentence for Rambold.'

------------
Female Teacher Molests 13 Year Old Student, No Jail Time

Article here. Excerpt:

'According to new Census data, more American men are living alone than ever before -- and the rising divorce rate could be to blame.

The Census data shows that the number of men between the ages of 15 and 64 who are the head of a one-person household has risen considerably since 1970. In 1970, 23 percent of men who fell within the 15-64 age range lived in a one-person household, compared to 34 percent who do today.
...
However, there was no increase in the number of women living in single person households, or men over the age of 65 who are the heads of single-person households. The Census report indicates that this could be because children are more likely to live with their mothers after a divorce, leaving more fathers living completely alone post-split.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Police in northern China launched a massive search Wednesday for a woman accused of gouging out the eyes of a 6-year-old boy.

Authorities in the city of Linfen in Shanxi province offered a 100,000 yuan ($16,000) reward for the woman's capture.

Police did not say if they had identified a suspect, and the boy said only that the woman spoke with an accent from outside the area. State media said the boy was recovering in a hospital, but had lost his sight permanently following the brutal ordeal Saturday.
...
State media previously had raised the possibility that the boy's corneas were taken for sale because of a donor shortage in China.

A news report on a provincial TV channel showed the boy writhing in pain on a hospital trolley, with bandages around his head, and his parents, both farmers, crying.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Cuccinelli is not specifically, openly pro-fathers’ rights (and to be clear, the No. 1 “fathers’ rights” issue is wanting to pay less child support). His support for their agenda is honestly more about his opposition to legal divorce, something else he doesn’t talk about much anymore.

“If you are sued for divorce in Virginia, there’s virtually nothing you can do to stop it,” Cuccinelli said in 2008 to the Family Foundation, a socially conservative Richmond-based advocacy group. “This law has everything to do with the breakdown of the family. The state says marriage is so unimportant that if you just separate for a few months, you can basically nullify the marriage. What we’re trying to do is essentially repeal no-fault divorce when there are children involved.”

Article here. Excerpt:

'Two weeks after he was sworn in as Virginia attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli II went to court one last time as a private-practice lawyer.

Fellow lawyers viewed the appearance at the Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court in January 2010 as unusual because attorneys general almost never handle private cases. At the time, Cuccinelli’s deputy told The Washington Post that the case involved “some sensitive issues and some child witnesses, and the client wanted some sensitivity, and he wanted Ken Cuccinelli, so he finished out that matter.”

Cuccinelli’s office didn’t say so then, but the client was Ron M. Grignol Jr., a former House of Delegates candidate embroiled in a custody dispute with his ex-wife.

Article here. Excerpt:

'National Parents Organization of Connecticut is seeking volunteers to respond to Connecticut’s Department of Social Services proposed amendments to the child support guidelines. We need volunteers to attend the hearings and help get other members to attend the hearings.
...
The Connecticut Executive Committee is writing National Parents Organization of Connecticut’s formal response representing our views and recommendations. It will be posted on the website when it is competed.

From our experience in Massachusetts, we have learned that attendance is important.'