PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Teri Stoddard
Email: tstoddard@saveservices.org

WASHINGTON / July 12, 2012 -- Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE) welcomes the recent announcement that the Department of Justice and FBI are launching a probe of thousands of criminal cases to determine whether defendants were wrongly convicted. The news was highlighted in a recent Washington Post article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/justice-dept-fbi-to-review-use-of-forensic-evidence-in-thousands-of-cases/2012/07/10/gJQAT6DlbW_story.html

Each year millions of dollars in prosecutorial resources are squandered on trivial and false cases of domestic violence, thus shortchanging real victims who deserve priority from the criminal justice system, SAVE believes.

One survey found that about two-thirds of prosecutors’ offices around the country have implemented so-called “no-drop” policies for domestic violence: http://www.saveservices.org/downloads/Unequal-Justice-in-the-Criminal-Justice-System . Such policies obviate the requirement of probable cause, and have resulted in innocent citizens being needlessly charged and wrongfully convicted.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The new Quinnipiac University and ABC/Washington Post national surveys out this week converge on one key conclusion: as the election nears, President Obama is sinking to historic lows among the group most consistently hostile to him.

Throughout his career on the national stage, Obama has struggled among white men without a college education. But in these latest surveys, he has fallen to a level of support among them lower than any Democratic nominee has attracted in any election since 1980, according to an upcoming National Journal analysis of exit polls from presidential elections.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Many teachers and parents believe that we should select books that boys will be interested in because girls will read them no matter what. While I do believe this is true, it is dangerous to keep pushing male-oriented books on our young female students. Girls are already so overwhelmed with all of the classics written by (and for) dead, white men. They encounter important heros in literature such as Guy Montag, Holden Caulfield, and Jay Gatsby to name a few. They also encounter their helpless and often short-lived female counterparts who generally serve to inspire or otherwise drive the male hero of the story with no true agency themselves. While these books are important for students to read, if we don’t counter the images of women we show young female students in literature, we risk sending the message that women aren’t good for much besides inspiring men.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'All human beings should be able to make their own decisions about whether their genitals are to be injured. All the more so if such a procedure is irreversible and not medically necessary.

In countries where daily personal hygiene is possible and routine, there are no, or at least only highly doubtful, verifiable medical advantages of circumcising a child. Even if the removal of the foreskin could minimize the man’s risk of contracting H.I.V. or reduce his female partners’ risk of developing cervical cancer, this does not justify the circumcision of children. Whatever risks might exist for an uncircumcised man and his partners, they would not become relevant until the man is sexually active. For young boys, there are no medical benefits. On the contrary, circumcision carries all the risks inherent in any surgery.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The recent court decision in Cologne that found ritual, medically unnecessary male circumcision to be a violation of the child's rights should not surprise scholars of American constitutional law. Two landmark cases have long held that U.S. law protects religious belief, but will not condone potentially harmful religious practice.

In 1878, in Reynolds v. U.S., the Supreme Court held that “laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices.”

Likewise, in 1944 in Prince v Massachusetts, the justices ruled: “The right to practice religion freely does not include liberty to expose the … child to ill health or death. … Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But they may not make martyrs of their children before they have reached the age of full and legal discretion when they can make that choice for themselves.”'

Article here. Excerpt:

'July 11, 2012 /24-7PressRelease/ -- So you're about to become a dad -- congratulations! Getting ready for a new baby is a big job, but if you and the baby's mother are not married, there is one important task you need to take care of. You need to establish paternity and go through the process of legitimating your child. If you don't, you will have no legal rights regarding the care and custody of the child.

In Georgia, when a child is born outside of a marriage, the mother is the only person allowed to have legal or physical custody of the child. There are no automatic fathers' rights. This is true even if the mother and father live together or have been in a committed relationship for several years.
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Paternity establishes a duty to pay child support. It does not give a father a right to seek visitation or custody of a child.
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Article here. Excerpt:

'Undecided women voters in key swing states have spoken: dads and other old white guys are out and mommy lawmakers are in, especially those with a little spine--or a pistol.

In a far-reaching Emily's List poll that showed President Obama beating Mitt Romney among the group 48 percent to 40 percent, the 950 women in 13 states rejected male politicians in Washington, blaming them for the fiscal crisis and being out of touch with the everyday woes of females.

The poll, which the progressive group is using to guide its Women Vote! project to back female Democratic candidates, put dads near the bottom of the list of appealing attributes women voters prefer, slightly above attorneys, stock brokers, lobbyists and current members of Congress.

At the top: Teachers, female police chiefs and moms. "Moms are more appealing than dads," said pollster Lisa Grove, because it's assumed that they understand what women want.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'We live in a sexist society, one where gender programming starts at birth (though the advent of the sonogram has allowed parents to get a head start by painting the nursery pink or blue and stocking up in advance on gendered toys and clothes) and is so pervasive as to be inescapable. Feminism has done an excellent job analyzing and challenging the ways that these assigned and enforced gender roles damage and deform the lives of women. The same tools of analysis can be applied to the damage and deformation that men suffer. And that damage, sad to say, is severe.

Article here. Excerpt:

'A German mayor faces accusations of sexism after ordering for his town's trickiest parking spaces to be marked 'men only'.

Gallus Strobel, mayor of the Black Forest town of Triberg, has demanded that spaces are painted with a male or female symbol depending on their perceived difficulty.

Women have been allocated wide, well-lit spaces located close to the exits of car parks, while men are expected to pull in at more difficult angles close to cement pillars.
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It comes less than a week after pictures emerged of a car park in China which has introduced a ladies-only parking zone.

The underground shopping centre car park in Tianjin has an area clearly marked with neon signs, bright pink shopping-themed decor, and hazard bumpers in each space.

It is believed to be one of several car parks in China which have special ladies-only parking zones to make them feel comfortable when parking.

Article here. Excerpt:

'During this, the summer of the 40th anniversary of Title IX, American women have reached another milestone in sports: For the first time, they outnumber men on the U.S. Olympic team.

The U.S. Olympic Committee released its roster for the London Olympics on Tuesday. There were 269 women and 261 men.

CEO Scott Blackmun called it a "true testament to the impact of Title IX," the 1972 law that increased opportunities for women in sports across America.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Single-sex classes began proliferating after the U.S. Education Department relaxed restrictions in 2006. With research showing boys, particularly minority boys, are graduating at lower rates than girls and faring worse on tests, plenty of schools were paying attention.

In 2002, only about a dozen schools were separating the sexes, according to the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, an advocacy group. Now, an estimated 500 public schools across the country offer some all-boy and all-girl classrooms.

Proponents argue the separation allows for a tailored instruction and cuts down on gender-driven distractions among boys and girls, such as flirting. But critics decry the movement as promoting harmful gender stereotypes and depriving kids of equal educational opportunities. The ACLU claims many schools offer the classes in a way that conflicts with the U.S. Constitution and Title IX, a federal law banning sex discrimination in education. Researchers also have weighed in.

This article provides an excellent analysis of men's loss of due process rights under VAWA. Excerpt:

'While "due process" exists in form, it no longer means anything in substance, and the Mondale Act and the Violence Against Women Act have further eviscerated what have been called "the rights of the accused." Being that the main purpose of the VAWA was to get more convictions of assault, sexual assault, and rape against men, the law has been very successful, but only by spreading the net very wide (on the assumption that all men are rapists and women always tell the truth they when accuse men of rape) and eliminating requirements that the prosecution bring corroborating evidence.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force draft recommendations to screen for intimate partner violence (IPV) in healthcare settings omits screening for the abuse of male patients: http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/draftrec2.htm.

This has us baffled, since the following studies have demonstrated the feasibility of screening for male victims of domestic violence: http://www.saveservices.org/camp/uspstf-studies

Have a look at the article "A Closer Look at Men Who Sustain Intimate Terrorism by Women" by Denise A. Hines, PhD and Emily M. Douglas, PhD, published on the National Institutes of Health website: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2913504

Article here. Excerpt:

'An Indiana man faces five years in prison because he criticized the judge and the custody evaluator in his divorce and custody case. Here’s Dan Brewington’s website and here’s a link to his brief appealing his criminal convictions.

Article here. Excerpt:

'A Harvard administrator said the University does not intend to alter its sexual assault policies in response to Yale’s recent settlement over a complaint that alleged that Yale’s sexual misconduct grievance procedures violated Title IX.