Article here. Excerpt:

'HARTFORD, Conn. — Victoria Steele saw her daughter on the day she was born, and was not allowed to see her again for five years.

Steele, just 18 at the time, was wanted for violating the terms of her supervised home release on a robbery charge. She was sent to the York Correctional Institution directly from the hospital. The state placed the baby with her paternal grandparents, who spoke only Spanish and never brought the child to visit in prison.

"I was so depressed," said Steele, now 45, of West Hartford. "I was emotionally, mentally, and physically lost. I had no I idea how to connect. It was like losing my child. I lost her. There were no support services in prison."'

Link here. Excerpt:

'My name is Peter. In August 2012 my the 6 week old little boy was subjected to circumcision.

He was circumcised for no medical reason, without his consent and without my consent as his father.

* In my view, society (or a parent) has no right to subject an infant to surgery without medical reason. An infant's body does not belong to parents, he is only in their custody until adulthood.

* My son was circumcised without my consent as father. My son had a natural right to expect that he would have my protection, care and authority. I had a natural right to give him that care, protection and authority. As you will read, every politician, every bureaucrat and the medical regulators are of the mind that the circumcision of my little boy was none of my business.
I DISAGREE.

For a doctor to take the decision to circumcise an infant without the informed, considered consent of both parents represents a blatant moral and ethical failing. If the doctor's decision is defended in law, the act becomes one of state sanctioned bastardry.

Article here. Excerpt:

'(Reuters) - President Barack Obama, leading in the polls among women voters, said on Friday he wants to help working women fight discrimination and juggle the demands of motherhood but stopped short of making promises on gender equality if he wins re-election.

At a White House event on women and the economy, Obama noted "there has been a lot of talk about women and women's issues lately," a nod to the emergence of contraceptive rights, working women and all-male establishments as heated issues in his race for re-election in November.

"But I do think that the conversation has been oversimplified," Obama said. "Women are not some monolithic bloc. Women are not an interest group. You shouldn't be treated that way."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Have you been contacted by the Department of Child Support Services that your information was on one of the four backup storage cartridges lost?

Information about 800,000 adults and children in California's child support system were lost during shipment. The cartridges contain such information as names, addresses, Social Security numbers, drivers’ license or identification numbers, names of health insurance providers, health insurance plan membership identification numbers and employer information.'

Article here. (Ed. note: This is not the same article as published by Kelly McParland, just posted here on MANN. Interesting the meme sprouted up at the same time in two different places, isn't it?) Excerpt:

'Today, a lot of younger women simply don’t need guys any more. Guys can even be a liability. The New York Times reported last month that, in the U.S., having children outside of marriage is the new normal. More than half of births to American women under 30 now occur outside marriage. One mother, Amber Strader, 27, told the Times she was in an on-and-off relationship when she got pregnant. Marrying her boyfriend, a clerk at Sears, never entered her mind. “It was like living with another kid.”

If illegitimacy has lost its stigma, so has being out of work. Men who failed to provide for their families used to be known as “bums” and “deadbeats.” Now they’re just slackers.

Article here. Excerpt:

'It may be that this condition manifests itself more in younger men because the old farts are too conditioned to adjust. Feminism has been a gradual process, and the ripple of unanticipated consequences has expanded at similar rate. Men raised to provide may feel uncomfortable outside that role, but less so a younger generation of males that hasn’t been treated to the same level of conditioning. Schools now work on the expectation that women are supposed to do well. To a much greater degree, society is set up to move them along the path to success and achievement. They still have the option of motherhood if they prefer, but there’s much less stigma (perhaps none at all) in choosing career over mothering, or vice versa. What’s important is self-esteem, and the assurance that, whichever path you choose, society fully embraces the choice as valid.

Article here. Excerpt:

'(CN) - The American Sports Council cannot proceed with a claim accusing the Department of Education of illegally enforcing Title IX rules on high school sports programs that American Sports claimed amounted to "federal gender quotas."

American Sports sued after the department refused to consider a petition to amend or repeal rules applying Title IX guidelines to high schools. American Sports argued that high schools were not required to use "strict gender quotas" to balance their athletic departments, and said the guidelines violate the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution.
...
In an emailed statement Eric Pearson, Chairman of the American Sports Council, told Courthouse News the court's ruling was "unfortunate" and said "justice has been denied to high school male athletes nationwide who have been and who will continue to be harmed by these unreasonable regulations."

Story here. Excerpt:

'A spurned housewife who claimed her husband raped her has been jailed after he showed police a video of them having consensual sex.

Kelly-Ann Ferguson, 23, had met her husband Paul to try and patch up their broken marriage but when he refused went to police claiming he'd raped her.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'As you might have guessed, the microsite features plenty of adulatory coverage of the law, including an interview with President Obama, a personal essay about the law from Katie Couric and an analysis of how female coaches are having a tough time competing with their male counterparts for jobs coaching women’s teams. Missing is any discussion of how countless men’s athletic programs have been cancelled due to Title IX quotas, including men’s swimming at UCLA. Before it was cancelled, the UCLA men’s swimming program produced 16 Olympic gold medalists.

Needless to say, one has to wonder why a news organization like ESPN would ignore juicy stories like these, especially as it would seem that the 40th anniversary of the passage of the law might be a good time to reflect on the totality of its impacts instead of just one side of the story. Then again, why should we expect that when ESPN as a corporation has already taken a side in the Title IX debate?'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Cathleen Williams, whose book, “Single Mother The New Father,” raised considerable controversy because of its provocative title, opened the discussion by saying, “As a single woman, I was able to successfully raise my son,” currently a student at St. John’s University.

“As a people, we tell women you can’t do it, that you’re doomed to failure. Not only can you, but you must do it for the salvation of our race,” she said.

She indicated that there are “over 10 million single women in the United States raising their children successfully,” admitting that she “didn’t do it alone.”

Story here. Excerpt:

'APRIL 5--An Indiana man had his scrotum severely torn when his “on-again, off-again” girlfriend entered his home and pummeled him in an attack that resulted in the woman’s arrest on several criminal charges, including two felonies.

Christina Reber, 43, was freed from jail yesterday after posting $10,000 bond in connection with her bust for the alleged attack last Friday at the Muncie house of her ex-beau (who told cops he had ended the couple’s eight-month relationship days before the assault).

The victim, 57, told police that he was working at his computer when Reber, pictured in the adjacent mug shot, “walked into his house uninvited,” according to a Muncie Police Department report that will make every guy wince. The man said Reber screamed at him to “call the fucking police” before launching her assault.

Story here. Excerpt:

'The Obama campaign is hoping to train an army of women at the DNC's national issues conference in Washington, D.C., later this month.

The two-day convention will include remarks by President Obama and strategy meetings on American women, values and the 2012 election as well as economic security and strengthening the middle class.

Confirmed training sessions include: "Talking to Your Neighbor: Persuading Women Voters," "Digital Organizing: Effective Social Media Strategies," "Talking about the President’s Accomplishments," and "Crafting Your Personal Narrative."
...
The White House also is targeting women with a forum on Friday that will highlight how the administration “has helped create economic security for women and recognized that women are key to economic growth and competitiveness.”'

Transcript here. Excerpt:

'Q Jay, thank you. I want to go back to the women’s conference on Friday. There’s a pretty obvious political strategy from Chicago to exploit the gender gap that you have. It’s in a lot of public polls that women, by a wide margin, are supporting the President over Mitt Romney or any other Republican paired up against him. Why are you using the White House on Friday to stage an event that clearly has some political implications?

MR. CARNEY: Ed, by that — you’re saying that anything that has to do with women has political -- so anything that has to do with growing the economy, because I think every political analyst out there would say that a stronger recovery would be good for the President politically, or anything that has to do with job creation is inherently political because more jobs would be good for the President.

Q So what day are you having a men’s conference on the economy? (Laughter.)

Article here. Excerpt:

'Middle school boys rated reading more valuable as an activity after two months of using an e-reader, according to a new study.

The findings come from a study of 199 middle school students who struggle with reading and who participated in a reading improvement class that included Amazon's Kindle e-reader, said one of the study's authors, Dara Williams-Rossi, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

The researchers found that boys consistently had a higher self-concept of their reading skill than girls both before and after using the e-readers. After use of the e-readers, boys' attitudes about the value of reading improved, while girls' attitudes declined, said Williams-Rossi, an assistant clinical professor in the Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development at SMU.'

Story here.

'Boys are to be allowed into an all-girls prep school for the first time in the North Down school’s history.

Cygnet House, preparatory school for Glenlola Collegiate Grammar School in Bangor, are to allow boys in, in a relaunch for the school in time for next September’s intake, or soon after.

The Department of Education has approved the plans but Minister John O’Dowd said the move did not signal an increase in capacity and would therefore not impact on neighbouring schools.

Last year every girl who attended Cygnet House’s P7 class secured a grammar school place.'