Article here. Excerpt:

'For more than 20 years, the South Carolina Department of Social Services used false contempt of court threat to scare parents behind on their child support. It would issue a summons to appear for a hearing and pointedly remind the parent that he or she could be held in contempt of court for failure to pay.

Of course, it was an empty threat. No judge was present. It was not a judicial proceeding. Nobody could be held in contempt. The scare it placed in child support obligors who received it, however, was real. And yes, it skirted, if it not violated, all notions of due process.

One father questioned this practice. Because of his lawsuit, this scare tactic has been stopped.'

I can just imagine in the mind of the average reader: "He had it coming!" Yes, if she had done the same thing to him and he had stabbed her, do you suppose the "average reader" would think the same thing? Article here. Excerpt:

'According to a police probable cause affidavit, Sherry was cleaning the dishes when her boyfriend, Michael Martinez, “slapped her in the buttocks.” Martinez told a Bethlehem cop that he did this as a “joke” since he “was aware Sherry had sunburn in the area.”

Sherry, however, did not find this amusing and “became immediately agitated.”
...
After directing her two children to leave the room, Sherry allegedly “poked” Martinez in the abdomen with the knife, and then stabbed him in the shoulder. Before stabbing him a third time, “Sherry screamed, ‘I’m going to fucking kill you.'”'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Part of the problem is cultural, which policymakers may not be able to address easily or at all. One Dallas principal I spoke with noted that as more families split up, more young boys live in homes without a father. The lack of a dad can create numerous problems, he pointed out, but it especially can create a problem for young boys who lack a male figure helping supervise them.

Divorce may be the only way forward for some families, but fathers in situations like that owe it to their kids to remain a part of their lives, helping create horizons for them. For one thing, young men with only a high school degree are more likely to suffer economically. Holly Hacker reported in December on a telling difference: Men with high school degrees suffer higher unemployment rates than men with either an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree.'

Letter here. Excerpt:

'Most people might not know that if a person is charged with domestic violence and a jury acquits them (or the charge is dismissed) it does not prove that the defendant is innocent. The verdict simply means that there is reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty. This is much different from "proof beyond reasonable doubt" or the question of moral certainty where one would act in reliance upon its truth in matters that are important to them.

This also means that a juror cannot decide a defendant's actual innocence, although it does exist, and that leads to injustice. Moreover, an innocent defendant may be subject to a restraining order because the law does not require an overt act. Instead it is based on what the innocent defendant might do rather than what that person didn't do. That's open to pure speculation that continues to be fostered by the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

Article here. Excerpt:

'Flag football will be a girls varsity sport in public high schools this winter, costing the Clark County School District $225,000 for the first season as it tries to comply with federal requirements.

And flag football may just be the beginning, with girls lacrosse being considered for the 2013-14 school year, said Ray Mathis, the district's executive athletic director. Local high schools added girls freshmen soccer last school year but didn't do the same for boys. And boys won't receive any new sports for a while, he said.

That is because the district is trying to close the gap between the number of its male and female student-athletes, which was pointed out in a civil rights complaint made in 2010.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Looks like the Department of Homeland Security could be renamed the Department of Hyper Sexuality.

A blistering federal discrimination suit accuses agency honcho Janet Napolitano of turning the department into a female-run “frat house” where male staffers were banished to the bathrooms and routinely humiliated.

James Hayes Jr., who now is New York’s top Homeland Security cop, claims Napolitano filled top spots in Washington, D.C., with two of her gal pals who were bent on tormenting male employees.

The suit identified them as Dora Schriro, who is now running the city Department of Correction, and Suzanne Barr, the chief of staff for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.'

This story is doing the rounds in Australia, and finally some traction. Excerpt:

'A public backlash has prompted Virgin Australia to announce it will review its policy barring men from sitting beside unaccompanied children on flights.

The company was today widely criticised after a Sydney fireman reported his experience of being asked to swap seats because he was sat beside two unaccompanied boys.
...
"In light of recent feedback, we're now reviewing this policy. Our intention is certainly not to discriminate in any way."

A Virgin spokeswoman said the policy was shared by Qantas, Jetstar and Air New Zealand.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'I think we need a Title IX for Boards of Directors.

Last month, the business group CED issued an urgent plea for increasing representation of women on corporate boards. The blue chip panel wrapped its message in God, Flag, and U.S. Competitiveness. But the organization pulled its punches when it comes to getting the job done. Rather than call for a clear test, like the Title IX equivalent of equal expenditures, we are left with the hope that enlightened boards will lead the parade. Meanwhile, we are being beat to a pulp by our competitors -- France and Norway, among others, require boards to step up their game. To make their numbers, corporations in these countries have begun to poach the U.S. field of experienced, board-ready women. It's a little like American women moving from California to Rio to get a chance at beach volleyball.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Are times changing in the patriarchal society we live in? Has feminism smothered and surpassed the brotherhood, leaving them floundering and forgotten about on the sidelines? A true feminist would hope not, as (contrary to sloppy stereotypes) feminism is about achieving true equality, not the oppression of men.

A while ago, I wrote about how austerity in Britain is hurting women the most. Since then, things haven't got better, they've got worse. The British government is inflicting yet more pain on women in Britain by disregarding and debasing issues such as abortion, rape and domestic violence. Ruthlessly slashing the already frail budget from women's services, culling child benefit, housing benefit, child tax credits and cutting 40 per cent - £350m ($550m) - from Legal Aid's already meagre budget - these are just a few stomach-churning indications of how women in Britain are being forced into a further state of vulnerability by those in power.

Article here. Excerpt:

'In the constantly progressing and deteriorating and rapidly revolving kaleidoscope of misunderstanding and disgust and hunger that constitutes gender relations in the twenty-first century, a new gesture has emerged to define us: the sneer, the female gaze of contempt.

Feminine contempt is suddenly everywhere, subtly and invidiously panoramic, in public life and in private life, in the bedroom and on television and in bookstores and on the campaign trail. The sexuality of the moment is all about contempt. In Lena Dunham's hit show Girls, which has succeeded so admirably in providing American critics with a moment of convenient generational definition, the men are pitiable and grotesque. Whether rough or tender or vanilla, they fail. In Sex and the City, the women commoditized men, often in the most banal way, but at least they liked what the men had to offer: cocks and money and status and sometimes even support. ...
...

Article here. Excerpt:

'Here are the top five things men should not do when going through a divorce.

1. Do Not Move Out of Your House: Chances are you are getting divorced because you cannot stand living under the same roof as your wife. However, until a court says otherwise, the house you are living in still belongs to you so you are still allowed to live there. You will continue to contribute to the household expenses while the divorce proceedings play out. If you move out, you will have to support two households -- the one you are living in and the one you moved out of. Living together may not be an ideal situation, but it is the most cost-effective.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The freedom of companies to appoint directors solely on the basis of merit is a cornerstone of capitalism. That cornerstone is slowly but surely being removed in the name of an innocuous-sounding initiative, ‘improved’ gender diversity in the boardroom (‘GDITB’).

The British government continues to bully major companies into appointing more women to their boards with threats of legislated quotas if they don’t do so ‘voluntarily’...
...
So what does the available research tell us? Only two independent studies show a causal link between gender diversity in the boardroom (GDITB) and corporate performance, and in both cases the link is negative. The first study was carried out by two academics at the University of Michigan, Kenneth Ahern and Amy Dittmar, and the latest draft was published in May 2011. The report’s full Abstract:

Article here. Excerpt:

'Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sitting in San Francisco overturned the sexual assault conviction of a Las Vegas man named Calvin O. Jackson who has spent more than ten years in prison for a crime he may not have committed. The court held that Mr. Jackson was wrongfully prevented from presenting evidence at his trial that the woman who accused him, Annette Heathmon, had made other false claims of prior sexual assault against him. The court explained: "Jackson's defense was that the assault never took place and that he and Heathmon engaged in consensual sex. He contended that Heathmon used the police as a means of exercising control over him whenever they argued, and that her allegations against him were fabricated in this instance, just as they had been in prior instances when the police were called to respond to her claims." We offer no commentary,and we provide the following excerpt from the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.'

Last year Roxanne Jeskey of Bangor, ME admitted to killing her husband Richard. A detective's report detailed the injuries: "These included nose fractures, loss of an eye, rib fractures, rectal incised wounds, and internal hemorrhage from an instrument(s) pushed through his scrotum into his abdomen. Further, Mr. Jeskey was strangled with sufficient force to break the hyoid bone of his neck."

According to the 2012 report of the Maine Domestic Abuse Homicide Review Panel, women committed 5 out of 13 domestic violence homicides in recent years. That's nearly half, so you'd think that the Maine Coalition To End Domestic Violence (MCEDV) would present a balanced picture of DV. Not so.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A mother has been arrested after admitting to police she burned her 15-month-old son's genitals with a hair straightening iron.

Jodi Rock, 19, from Tahlequah, Oklahoma, remains in jail on $200,000 bail after she was charged with felony injury to a minor child.

Her son has been taken into state custody.

According to the three-page arrest affidavit obtained by Tulsa World, Rock told investigators while she was straightening her hair, she touched her hand to the iron then she took and closed the iron’s clamps on the toddler’s genitals.'