Article here. Excerpt:

'The Journal reported recently that the Rapid City School Foundation honored the Teacher of the Year and the Teachers of Distinction. I couldn't help but notice all 20 teachers honored are female. Not to say that the 20 aren't deserving but, even if there are more women teachers than men, it seems strange that there isn't a more equal ratio of deserving male teachers. Maybe teachers had to apply and no males applied. The Journal article didn't state how the winners were nominated or chosen or who makes up the foundation.

Article here. Excerpt:

'CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Women's issues were front and center at the Democratic National Convention as President Obama and the many women headliners underscored over and over again the reasons why this election is critically important for women. The choice on November 6 for women could not be more stark and will determine if this country continues the progress we have made on women's rights, or if we retreat and lose the gains of more than forty years.

Women's health, pay equity, women's jobs, the fight for women's equality, and reproductive choice and rights were featured in Charlotte as Democrats made a strong and compelling case on these issues. The women delegates and activists responded with loud applause and sustained enthusiasm.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The National Council of Women has dubbed as "shocking" news that the Maltese government will join a diplomatic push spearheaded by the United Kingdom, to oppose a law that will introduce mandatory quotas for women on public companies and private companies on the stock exchange.

The law, pushed by the EU's justice commissioner Viviane Reding, seeks to have 40% of all boards of directors for companies listed on the stock exchange made up of women, by 2020.

Justice minister Chris Said told MaltaToday yesterday the Maltese government believes the EU should stay out of such legislation and instead allow national governments to pursue their own equality measures.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The central government's proposal to introduce a law, which, if passed, would mandate every man to part with a portion of his salary income as salary to his wife, has been strongly opposed by men's rights groups.

Save Family Foundation, a non-government organisation, has written a letter to Union Women and Child Development Minister Krishna Tirath [ Images ] seeking immediate withdrawal of the proposal.

The foundation, representing around 40 different men's organisations across the country, has termed this proposal one-sided.

The organisation has also sought Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's intervention in this matter.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Preventing discrimination or exclusion in STEM education is important, experts say, because unequal opportunities may be partially to blame for the traditionally low number of female engineers and scientists.

President Barack Obama’s administration is evaluating what could be included in a Title IX compliance test for STEM and whether it could encompass criteria similar to the “three-prong” test for compliance in athletics, Maatz said.

Under the test, schools can prove compliance by showing a history and continuing practice of expanding athletic opportunities for girls, by proving the interests of both sexes are being met, or by making sure percentages of girls and boys participating in sports are proportional to percentages of girls and boys enrolled at the school.

The idea of applying a proportionality test to student populations in STEM classes scares some educators and at least one women’s group.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Although girls and women have made significant progress in the 40 years since the introduction of Title IX — the law that prohibits educational programs that receive federal funding from discriminating on the basis of sex — students and educators say more work is needed to truly level the playing field.

A Daily Herald analysis based on data from the 2011 Illinois School Report Card found that while female students at the 25 top performing high schools in suburban Chicago scored higher than their male counterparts in the reading section of the 2011 Prairie State Achievement Exam, boys continue to outperform girls in the areas of math and science.'

Article here. From June but contains some stuff I have suspected myself. There is no doubt in my mind that the access to all manner of distractions, whether it be pornography or games or something else, has had a really bad effect on our children's (and especially, it seems, our sons') abilities to get and remain focused on more productive and valuable pursuits likely to serve them in life. Excerpt:

'Psychologist Philip Zimbardo claims that today's young men are destined for failure because of porn and video games.

In his controversial book The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling And What We Can Do About It, Zimbardo and co-author Nikita Duncan outline why he thinks men are failing in education and personal relationships.
...
Some highlights from the book:

Article here. Excerpt:

'But men will never fully recover because the bad economy simply expedited something that had been happening for years, according to Hanna Rosin's new book The End of Men: And the Rise of Women .

Rosin explains in her book:

In the Great Recession, three-quarters of the 7.5 million jobs were lost by men. The worst-hit industries were overwhelmingly male and deeply identified with macho: contruction, manufacturing, high finance. Some of these jobs have come back, but the dislocation is neither random nor temporary. The recession merely revealed--and accelerated--a profound economic shift that has been going on for at least 30 years, and in some respects even longer."
...
The August jobs report revealed men's participation in the workforce to be at the lowest level since 1948, the Atlantic reported. The number of men in the workplace began declining in the 1950s, when women entered the workforce in droves.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'NEW YORK (Reuters) - For all the bluster of her book's title, "The End of Men: And the Rise of Women," Hanna Rosin is surprisingly ambivalent about whether men are, in fact, doomed.

Women are quicker to adapt to the economy's new demands, Rosin says, pursuing higher education in record numbers and dominating fast-growing professions such as nursing and accounting.

At the same time, men watch the shrinking of manufacturing, construction and other traditionally male industries as if paralyzed, on the couch with a beer in hand.

More than two years of research and reporting, though, have left Rosin unconvinced that the end of men is inevitable.

"It's an obnoxious title," she conceded about her book and the 2010 cover story in the Atlantic magazine that launched it. "And I think my argument would have been much easier to make if I believed that women's brains are one way and men's brains are another way and the economy prefers our brains right now."'

Articled here. Excerpt:

'Keyvette Gamble went to a friend’s house with her 4-year-old daughter, playing cards into the early morning with plans to spend the night at the Southwest Washington apartment. After everyone had nodded off, Gamble slipped over to a bed where her friend’s 14-year-old son was sleeping.

Gamble, 24, then sexually assaulted the teenage boy, according to court records. The attack in September was one of three child sex abuse cases to reach a D.C. courtroom this year that involved an adult female defendant accused of sexually assaulting a teenage boy.

While sex abuse cases are all too common, prosecutors and child victim advocates say prosecutions of adult women sexually attacking boys are extremely rare. All unrelated, the three cases in the District surprised local authorities and have raised awareness of an often-underreported crime.

Article here. Excerpt:

'(Arlington, TN) There will be no jail time for an Arlington teacher who admitted having sex with two of her students.

That has people wondering if the punishment fits the crime.

A judge ordered Stacy Hopkins to have no contact with the two students with whom she had sex when she was a teacher at Arlington High School.

Not only can she not teach here anymore, she cannot have a job with anyone under the age of eighteen.

A judge gave Hopkins four years of probation after she plead guilty to two counts of aggravated statutory rape, but she escaped jail time.

Some people like Cathy Park think the sentence shows a double standard in the courtroom, “If this were a case where it was a male on a young female or if the children were younger, I think it would have been much more harsh.”'

Story here. Excerpt:

'TEXAS (WABC) -- A Texas jury saw dramatic video in the trial of a high school teacher is accused of having group sex with several of her students.

Prosecutors say 28-year-old Brittni Colleps had sex with five of her students in 2010.

Colleps, a mother of three and former English teacher, is accused of arranging the meetings through text messages.
...
This week, a jury saw cell phone video of a sexual encounter with four of the teens that the fifth one recorded.

Colleps is charged with several counts, including deviate sex and improper relationship between educator and student. She remained silent during her trial and Judge Ruben Gonzalez entered a not guilty plea. She faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted.

Her husband, Christopher Colleps, a soldier stationed at Louisiana's Fort Polk, has previously said he will support his wife and that they will remain married.

The teens are considered adults, but the law protects students from a relationship with someone in a superior position.'

Article here.

'Taxi drivers in Derry, Northern Ireland are installing video cameras in the cars. It all started with one driver, who installed a video camera in the cabin after an incident that saw a drunk passenger attempt to take control of the steering wheel. Some time after that, the driver was attacked by another customer, and used the footage in the trial that followed.

However, there’s another reason behind the aforementioned move. In 2011, there was at least one rape accusation that proved to be false and driver don’t want to go through such an experience.

"I know a lot of drivers who will not work at night because of fears of being attacked or robbed but the biggest fear they have is of being falsely accused of rape," said Jarlath Malone, owner of Derry cab company Foyle Delta.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'On Monday, Lok Sabha had passed the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Bill, 2010, drafted by Krishna Tirath, minister of women and child development without discussion despite uproar from BJP members.

Right groups raised concerns about passing of the Bill without consulting male representatives.

“There are times when we find that there is unwanted feminine attention which is overwhelming and discomforting. Further worse, pervert social mindsets force male victims to keep quiet,” said Atit, president of Men’s Rights Association, a rights group.

Swarup Sarkar, member of a rights group pointed out that based on presentations made by men’s rights organisations, the parliamentary standing committee on human resources development had also recommended that the law should be made gender-neutral and men should also be provided equal protection.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - There is backlash from both sexes after posters supporting men's rights were ripped down in Vancouver's Commercial Drive neighbourhood.

Some of the posters read "Stop violence against women, but not men, because men don't matter -- despite being more often the victims of violence." Many of the posters have been either taken down or defaced.

News1130 hit the streets to find out what you think about the controversial message. Men and women we spoke with say they should be left up because we don't hear enough about men's rights. They also believe Vancouver is an open-minded city.
...
"You don't hear a lot about [men's rights] and that's the surprising part. It is very surprising that they're being ripped down. Definitely, they should go back up. You see signs up for everything around here and to select which ones we put up and which ones we don't, it's a little bit ridiculous," explains another man.