Article here. Excerpt:

'There are many bad things about the modern atheistic assault on religion. But perhaps the worst thing is its rebranding of certain religious practices as "child abuse". Everything from sending your kid to a Catholic school to having your baby boy circumcised has been redefined by anti-religious campaigners as "abuse". This use of emotionally loaded language to demonise the practices and beliefs of people of faith has reached its ugly and logical conclusion in Germany, where a court has decreed that circumcision for religious purposes causes "bodily harm", against boys who are "unable to give their consent", and therefore should be outlawed.

Article here. Study here. Excerpt:

Research shows girls are more likely to suffer from “mathematics anxiety” – holding them back in tests.

It was suggested that maths was often viewed as a male subject, meaning many young women were socialised into thinking of themselves as “mathematically incompetent”.

Academics from Oxford and Cambridge universities said that girls and boys performed roughly the same in independently-set maths exams.
...

Children aged 11 to 15 were presented with a maths test and asked to complete a questionnaire used to assess their physiological, emotional, cognitive and behavioural reactions to answering the questions.

It revealed no difference between girls and boys in straight test results, but found that girls displayed higher levels of mathematical anxiety.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Health officials in New York City are asking for Orthodox Jews to accept a proposed regulation on a circumcision ritual after it has been linked to spreading herpes to infants and causing the deaths of at least two newborns.

The New York City Board of Health wants ultra-Orthodox parents that subject their children to the "metzitzah b'peh” ritual to be forced to sign a consent waiver before the circumcision procedure is performed. The reason, they argue, is that which can be potentially fatal.

While circumcision is considered commonplace in many religions, the specific metzitzah b'peh done by Orthodox Jews has caused concern in New York health officials because it doesn’t end with a simple snip. The health department says that around 20,493 infant boys were involved in the ritual in the month of June alone, which requires the person performing the procedure to orally suck blood from the wound on the boy’s circumcised penis after an incision is made on the foreskin.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Men are used to living with criticism, often from other men who are sometimes hard on each other. Sometimes from women. Or from well-meaning people in the media. We have been analysed, scrutinized, puzzled over, labeled, you name it. We are too much this and not enough that. We fail in Kindergarten for not being quiet enough and we fail later on because we're afraid of commitment.

The world of book-learning is especially critical of us. When I asked about books on men in one Sydney bookshop the reply was "Oh God, I don't know. Try under mental illness or self-help". Men will always be criticized for not being feminist enough. But as Garrison Keillor said, men can never be feminists. Millions have tried and nobody did better than C-plus.

Men are urged to take more care of themselves. But why do we expect men to look after their health if they are always told that society doesn't value them?'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The international campaign demonising the religious practice of circumcising young boys is fuelled by a new form of misanthropic bigotry. It represents a synthesis of twenty-first-century cultural correctness and old-fashioned prejudice. This moral crusade brings together many of the worst trends of our age: the paranoid dogma about the ‘vulnerable child’; the culturally sanctioned contempt for the exercise of parental authority; intolerance of freedom of religion; insensitivity to people’s traditional beliefs; and old-fashioned prejudice against circumcised people.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'In the end the Court let the tax stand:

Rather, based on the facts before us, we cannot say that a $5 fee on a marriage license constitutes a significant burden on the right to marry. Thus, we will apply the rational basis test. Applying that test, we believe that the legislature’s imposition of a small charge on marriage license applicants is reasonably related to the Fund’s narrow purpose of helping married victims of domestic violence leave violent marriages. As we find that the tax bears a rational relationship to a legitimate legislative purpose, the plaintiff’s due process claim fails.

Article here. Excerpt:

'A Putative Father Registry mandates that unwed fathers mail in a postcard to register their possible claim for paternity rights in a timely manner. Thus, the registry places the responsibility on the father. Mothers, however, do not need to identify the father or potential fathers.

Adoption agencies and attorneys favor registries because adoption proceedings can then commence without the possibility of disruption due to late paternity claims. Proponents claim:

Article here. Excerpt:

'Antonio Bandera took a last nervous drag on his smoke Friday as he readied himself for the grueling eight-hour entrance exam for elite Vienna Medical University. Making the cut's hard enough, he said, and this year his chances may be even smaller: The university is grading men and women differently based on gender.

"It's not right to give one sex or the other the advantage," he said. "How you score should determine how your chances are."

The university's policy is apparently unique in Europe. Those responsible for giving women a grading edge are aware that it could expose the institution to EU legal action, on charges of discrimination, but they argue that it's needed to even the playing field. Since the Vienna medical school introduced its current entrance exam six years ago, they say, women on average have scored significantly lower each time than men.'

Hello MRAs,

Here is another try at setting up a Men's Rights Group in London. 2010 was my last bash at it, with no real interest.

Paul Elam's "A Voice For Men" has flourished since then and I am eternally grateful beyond all words for what he and the AVFM team is doing, for MRAs worldwide, alongside all our other active, online and offline activists.

Why am I writing in again? Well John-The-Other is now involved in Vancouver with other MRAs, I am no JTO by any stretch, I am no great organizer and have no personal ambitions of leadership, but if they can do it in Vancouver and Australia, why not London too?

My original request was for a men only group, I felt men needed to find our feet independently. I was wrong, some of the most well spoken articulate MRAs speakers are woman. I don't think we can advance far without women, and there is always a danger we could become a reflection of Feminism ourselves, by not being challenged, in an unhealthy closed atmosphere like many hateful Woman's Groups.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Eastern Cape* - The high number of deaths at circumcision schools in the Eastern Cape required action, the SA Communist Party in the province said on Wednesday.

“This challenge warrants all people of our province to unite and fight against malpractice of this old custom,” SACP spokesman Siyabonga Mdodi said in a statement.

The SACP called on community forums, traditional leaders, law enforcement agencies and the health department to intervene.

The SACP said at least 20 initiates had died this year alone and scores more had been injured.

“Four had penile amputations and 131 (were) admitted to hospitals.”'

---
* Ed. added link

Article here. Excerpt:

'Pro-choice women have long asked men to remain silent when it comes to the issue of abortion. The theory was that it’s a woman’s choice, and therefore no man should have a say in the matter.

And while Sara Robinson of AlterNet makes it clear that she doesn’t believe that men have the right to stop the killing of their own children, she does believe that men need to start speaking out in favor of abortion. In her post, “Abortions Have Made Life Better for Millions of Men: It’s About Time to Speak Up in Support,” Robinson reminds us all that “for every single woman who’s ever had an abortion, there’s a man somewhere in the story.” But it’s only those who supported the abortion who matter to Robinson. She writes:

But even as we’re getting an aggrieved earful from the full chorus of patriarchal bullies, our own pro-choice men have receded into the background of the conversation, to the point where they have no voice at all. Worse: these sweet guys think that by holding their tongues, they’re doing us a favor.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'A federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday accuses Corpus Christi, Texas of discriminating against female applicants to the city's police department by requiring them to pass a physical test that favored men.

The Justice Department said the female pass rate for the test, which was used between 2005 and 2011, was 80 percent lower than the male pass rate and that it excluded otherwise qualified applicants from consideration for hire as entry-level police officers based solely on their gender.

The test, which included push-ups, sit-ups, and a 300-meter and 1.5-mile run, had identical cut-off scores for men and women. But between 2005 and 2009, only 19 percent of the female applicants who took the test passed it, compared with 63 percent of the male applicants, according to the Justice Department.

It said the disparate results "constitute a pattern or practice of resistance to the full enjoyment by women of their rights to equal employment opportunities regardless of their sex."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'New figures show teenage girls are more likely to achieve good grades in practical courses designed to lead straight to a job in traditionally male-dominated industries.

They were almost twice as likely to score highly in vocational qualifications sat between the age of 14 and 16, while results were around a third higher in courses sat in the sixth-form. The disclosure – in data published by one of Britain’s biggest exam providers – comes amid continuing concerns over the gulf in standards between boys and girls.
...
According to figures, girls are already ahead in most disciplines by the age of five and the gap widens throughout compulsory education.

Last year, some 62 per cent of girls achieved five good GCSEs, compared with just 55 per cent of boys. Almost one-in-10 boys also failed to gain at least one C grade at the age of 16 – almost twice the failure rate of girls.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Large numbers of boys are failing to develop a love of reading during primary education because of a shortage of male teachers combined with an anti-book culture among many fathers, an inquiry has found.

Gavin Barwell, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Literacy, said reading was not seen as a “masculine thing” by boys – leaving them lagging behind girls from the age of four onwards.

In many cases, schools failed to equip them with a selection of adventure and action novels by authors such as Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl and J.R.R Tolkien that are significantly more likely to appeal to boys at a young age, he suggested.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has just released its draft recommendations to screen for intimate partner violence (IPV) in healthcare settings. The panel says all women should be assessed for IPV: http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/draftrec2.htm

But if you're an abused man.... you didn't make the cut.

There's hope: the Task Force recommendations are just a draft, so if enough persons complain, maybe they'll change them to include men.

Here's how to email your polite comments: http://www.saveservices.org/camp/uspstf-responses/

Take 5 minutes today - you may save an abused man's life.

Sincerely,

Teri Stoddard, Program Director
Stop Abusive and Violent Environments
www.saveservices.org