The Violence Against Women Act reauthorization bills introduced recently in the House and Senate ignore well-documented problems.

These VAWA Reform Principals are vital to the creation of an effective and comprehensive domestic violence bill: http://www.saveservices.org/pvra/vawa-reform-principles
 
Today we'd like you to call your Representative. Tell them, "Say NO to H.R. 11 and YES to Real VAWA Reform!" 
 
Find your Representative by zip code here:
 
http://www.house.gov/
 
Please keep using those phones!  Thank you!
 
Teri Stoddard, Program Director
Stop Abusive and Violent Environments   
www.saveservices.org

Article here. Excerpt:

"Outraged smartphone users have criticised a game for encouraging young women to behave violently to their partners.

The 'Boyfriend Trainer' app has the users play the 'girlfriend' and asks them to advance through the game by attacking the 'boyfriend' when he misbehaves.

'Crack that whip and teach your guy a thing or two about being the Perfect Boyfriend!' it says. 'When scolding doesn’t work, just zap him, whack him and train him to be your ideal man!'"

Article here.

'LA CROSSE, Wisconsin (WXOW)-- Superbowl Sunday is this weekend, and for the vast majority of people it's simply good entertainment and some fun often shared with friends.

The focus is different, however, for a local domestic violence shelter. They say they see an increase in domestic disturbances.

"We see more crisis line calls, somewhat, not a huge amount," said Ann Kappauf, the executive director of New Horizons Shelter. "Often times it's because there's the drinking involved. And although drinking does not cause a person to be abusive, it's almost like that liquid courage.'

---

See: Domestic violence myths help no one

Story here. Excerpt:

'JACKSON HEIGHTS — A married NYPD cop killed himself last year because his frisky female supervisor repeatedly pressured him to have sex or face a bad work schedule, a new lawsuit charges.

The widow of veteran officer Matthew Schindler is suing the police department and Sgt. Christine Hertzel, claiming his Feb. 13, 2012, suicide was brought on by sexual harassment at his job at the 115th Precinct.

The lawsuit, filed Jan. 22 in Queens Supreme Court, alleges a despondent Schindler, 39, shot himself with his service handgun on the way from work to his Long Island home after telling Hertzel to keep her hands off him.

It adds that he told Hertzel her unrelenting advances had left him depressed, but she refused to let up.'

Article here. Notice the article focuses on how much sex men are getting, as opposed to women-- as if how much of it they were getting wasn't as important, or correlated to the men-running-the-vacuum-cleaner issue the "study" is supposedly about. But in any case, I saw this and laughed. Let's assume the "study" has reached a valid conclusion. The article goes on to suggest that despite its finding, men should continue to do more traditionally female-role housework to make their wives happier. Isn't that nice. Nice. Reminds me of that book I mentioned in a previous post, "No More Mr. Nice Guy". "Nice guys" don't live happy lives. Getting "less sex" is just one of the ways they don't live happy lives. Excerpt:

'The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as they say: the more housework married men do, the less sex they have, according to a new study published Wednesday.

This ad shows dads doing what regular dads do with their kids, without attempting to make them look like idiots.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A woman filled up her vagina with poison in a bid to kill her husband, it is claimed.

She then invited him to perform a sex act on her during which he would ingest the deadly substance.

But in a move which probably speaks clearly of the start of their marriage, he refused to do so and was also suspicious of her motives.
...
The wife could yet face charges by police in Sao Jose, Brazil, over the incident.

Local Police officer Walter Colacino Júnior said: "[It is] an investigation of attempted murder."'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A South Carolina soldier has been reunited with his 22-month-old daughter after she was given up for adoption without his knowledge or consent when she was born.

Sgt. Terry Achane took tiny Teleah home after leaving a Provo, Utah, courtroom Friday where a judge gave him custody.

“I got my daughter back,” said 31-year-old Achane, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. “I’m very happy. It’s 22 months too long, but the wait was worth it.”'

Article here. Sympathetically-written as it is, notice the tack it takes: Permanent alimony is bad because it negatively affects "the second wife". No mention of the patent unfairness/absurdity of permanent alimony in today's day and age. Excerpt:

'The permanent alimony trap can be especially maddening for someone like Jane Carter, 43, who is using a pseudonym so she can more freely discuss her husband's case, which will soon be hashed out in court. Her husband separated from his first wife in 2003 and was ordered by the courts to pay his ex-spouse $90,000 a year (not including child support).
...
Unless Carter wins the court's favor, there's seemingly no end in sight. In fact, she says her husband's ex-wife is now after her money. "I have a small nest egg for my 11-year-old son, and her lawyer is trying to find out how much I have for that nest egg because we're in the midst of a modification proceeding," says Carter.
...

Article here. Excerpt:

'Hillary the radical feminist whose theism dictated that men were only needed for sperm donations not only became involved with a man who represented everything feminists condemned, but she became the very thing feminists accuse stay-at-home mothers and conservative women of being, i.e., dependent on men for their advancement.
...
Hillary saying her job is to see that it doesn’t happen again is specious and purposefully misleading. You cannot ensure something doesn’t happen again without knowing what caused it the first time. Hillary doesn’t want to address the causal factors of why Stevens, Smith, Doherty and Woods were murdered – because to do so would mean Obama would have to answer the question of why he permitted them to be murdered as he reportedly watched the live feed of their murders from drones recording the attack.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'When we look at the acts of almost unspeakable gun violence making news and breaking hearts, it doesn’t take Rachel Maddow or Wayne LaPierre to target the fact that men are responsible. We don’t need to hit the archives for historical documentation. What we need to do is this: We need to stop selling guns to men.

Women will be able to buy and own guns but not be permitted to share them with our male counterparts.

Why? Because it’s clear that men don’t know how to handle weapons. Remember, even Dick Cheney shot his lawyer — by mistake. His wife, Lynne Cheney, might have killed a lot of artists’ hopes as head of the National Endowment for the Arts, but she never shot any real artists. Not that I know of.
...

Article here. Excerpt:

'A teacher facing trial for having sex with a 15-year-old student is feared to have been planning to elope with him to Mexico.

Kathryn Murray, 29, was found with the teenager at her father's home despite a court order banning any contact.

The 29-year-old was ordered to surrender her passport when she appeared before a judge in Houston, Texas on Saturday.

Prosecutors fear she was on the verge of leaving the U.S. to start a new life in Mexico with the teenager.

Murray is due to go on trial later this year on four under-age sex charges and faces up to 20 years in jail.

She is accused of having sex with the boy at his home, in her classroom and a hotel. The middle school teacher was found with the boy, now aged 16, at the home she shares with her father in Houston.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'There are lots of theories out there about why boys suddenly started doing worse than girls in school -- things like boys' active natures, television, lack of male role models, and so forth -- but none of them fully explains the gender gap, since these theories most precede boys' troubles.

However, there was one major change that took place at the exact same time that boys' problems started.

During the 70s, most Canadian public schools began using a new type of approach called child-centred learning. Unfortunately for the boys, child-centred learning works a lot better for girls than it does for boys.

In schools that use child-centred learning, the boys tend to struggle with learning -- especially when it comes to reading. For example, girls do 10-15 percentage points better than boys on Ontario's provincial reading and writing tests (girls also do a few percentage points better in math.)'

Article here. Excerpt:

'If you're a male student on campus at Liverpool Hope, Bath Spa or Cumbria University, you may be feeling a little outnumbered. These are some of the 20 institutions where there are twice as many female fulltime undergraduates as there are male, according to Higher Education Statistics Authority (Hesa) data.

In 2010-11, there were more female (55%) than male fulltime undergraduates (45%) enrolled at university – a trend which shows no sign of shrinking. The latest statistics released by the University and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) revealed a 22,000 drop in the number of male students enrolling at university. This meant that last autumn women were a third more likely to start a degree than their male counterparts, despite the fact that there are actually more young men than women in the UK.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'4. You won’t be such a pathetic sloth – Married people are more productive. Married men in particular, have higher employment rates, work longer hours and receive better wages. It’s time to stop wading through puddles of your own filth as you reach for the hotpockets and have a dame whip you into shape. You’re welcome.'