Attorney Catherine MacKinnon once proclaimed, "Penetrative intercourse is, by its nature, violent." Her writings argue that in a patriarchal society, women are incapable of giving consent, so all heterosexual sex is rape. For years, critics dismissed her has a nut case.

But now, MacKinnon's minions are working to assure that she gets the last laugh. The process began 9 months ago at the federal level with a radical overhaul of definitions of rape:

1. In April, the US Department of Education released its "Dear Colleague" letter: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201104.html

2. In December, the Centers for Disease Control issued its National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf

A group in Connecticut has started it's own Alimony Reform Group (http://www.ctalimonyreform.com/). In our latest meeting we met with counsel to start drafting a new law that will change some of the ambiguities of the current laws. We are looking to establish guidelines for the courts to apply alimony as a transition to independence for the divorcing parties, not as an award or lifetime entitlement. We believe that the current law hurts rather than helps families, by cultivating a battle amongst divorcing parties. We encourage people to join our cause, we could use lots of support to see this law through the legislature. Or check online, many other States have begun similar movements.

Dear Friends & Brothers,

Please accept my mightiest apologies for the late release of this issue. Times and situations got the best of all of us here at the TWF Team.

As you all are aware, since the cost of production and courier charges was beyond our means, we've moved to Online Version Only. If you want you can access older issues at our website.

The WILL Magazine November Issue 4 on Child Rights is finally uploaded to our website.

The link to the issue is http://thewillfoundation.webs.com/documents/Child%20Rights%20Nov%20Issue%204.pdf

We ask everyone to please download and read. If you like it, you can share it with your friends and colleagues.

We humbly look forward to your feedback, comments, and article contributions.

Thanking you with best regards,

Anwar H. Danish

From SAVE:

Last week we mentioned that the National Alliance to End Domestic Abuse (Jewish Women International) is having a webinar on January 12 called Screening for Domestic Violence: The New Healthcare Regulation's Impact on the Medical Profession and Domestic Violence Practitioners.

You have asked JWI to present a balanced, gender-inclusive presentation. And we are hoping that's what you'll get.

Will you be our eyes and ears?

Register for the webinar here: https://www.jwi.org/SSLPage.aspx?pid=2627. There is a charge of $25. Then send your notes to tstoddard-at-saveservices.org.

If you enjoy keeping people on the straight-and-narrow, join CAMP, the Countering Abuse Misinformation Project: http://www.saveservices.org/camp

Sincerely,

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

Article here. Excerpt:

'In Hollywood, it is generally agreed that blowing stuff up is a guy thing. So is shooting people, driving down city streets like Evel Knievel, and getting into fistfights no actual human being could survive unmaimed. But these aren’t actual human beings. They live in movies carefully aimed at what’s euphemistically called the young male demographic, i.e., guys of all ages who shell out again and again for films with the depth and complexity of Grand Theft Auto, only louder and larger. For us other demographics—women, men with brains—such films are so formulaic that all the explosions in the world can’t stave off boredom. Two new high-profile movies, Drive and Warrior, sound like they fit this mold, and to some extent they do. But they’re smarter and go further, exploring the hypermasculinity expressing itself on the screen and calculating its real-life cost.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A Florida woman who reportedly became incensed while watching TV’s Judge Judy was arrested Sunday after she allegedly struck her husband on the head with a hammer.

Janet Knowles, 62, was charged with aggravated battery following the bizarre 10:30 AM incident at a residence in Jupiter. Knowles, seen in the above mug shot, is locked up in the Palm Beach County jail in lieu of $10,000 bond.
...
The report does not specifically indicate why Knowles was so upset about Judge Judy, who is pictured above. The victim, who was seated in a recliner when twice hammered, suffered large cuts to his head and forearm, according to cops.'

I received this URL: http://www.circumcisiontv.com/ via email from an intactivist. Warning: It shows graphic footage of actual circumcisions being performed as well as narratives by doctors about what and how they perform them (ie, using restraints to hold the baby down, etc.). Honestly, I couldn't get past more than about a minute of watching the video on that page. When people tell you that circumcisions don't harm babies or that there is little blood, etc., send them this link and tell them to just watch. Ask them to tell you later how long they could.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Men's activists have been around for decades, but thanks to the internet they're getting slicker, more organised, more professional, and more visible.

Men's outcomes in some areas really are poor. Male suicide rates are three to four times higher, their life expectancy is lower. Girls often outperform boys at school. Males are more likely to be incarcerated, more likely to be addicted.

But these genuine issues are not the ones that concern the new breed of men's activists. These men are aggrieved because they see misandry - the hatred of males - everywhere in society, from government down.

They have a persecution complex, and aggressively lobby for better rights for men - usually at the expense of women.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Two Canadian fathers whose children were allegedly abducted by their mothers and taken to European countries say authorities have done little to try to enforce court orders and bring them back.

"I'm holding my hands up going, 'Can somebody please do something about this?'" said Calum Hughes, whose five-year-old daughter Livia was allegedly abducted by her mother from B.C. and taken to Italy in 2009.

"Somebody is not doing their job behind a desk," said Gary Mezo, from Thunder Bay, Ont. His two-year-old son Gary Jr. has been in Hungary for a year. Court records confirm his mother took him there without his father's permission.

"I believe Canada has to put its foot down — finally — and do whatever is written in law what has been ordered in court."'

Story here. Excerpt:

'NORWALK -- A 20-year-old woman who falsely accused two men of rape was sentenced to a total of seven months and one day in prison Friday at Norwalk Superior Court.

Brittany Reith, of 7 Commerce St., also received two years of probation after pleading guilty to falsely reporting an incident in the second degree, violation of probation and fourth-degree larceny.

Reith was arrested in June for filing a fabricated sworn, written statement accusing two innocent men of raping her at gunpoint.

As a result of Reith's statement, patrol officers arrested two innocent men on April 7 for felony sexual assault and battery charges.

The charges against both men were dropped after detectives conducted further investigation and found serious inconsistencies in Reith's statement, police said.'

Story here. While I'm sure some women are subject to mistaken-identity arrests, all the sample stories given are about men. I suspect it's a "hidden problem" mostly men face and so is rarely discussed, such as paternity fraud. Excerpt:

'More than 500 people were wrongly imprisoned in Denver's jails over seven years, with some spending weeks incarcerated or pleading guilty to crimes they did not commit before authorities realized they nabbed the wrong person, a federal court filing shows.

Civil-rights lawyers suing the city and county of Denver assert the documented mistaken-identity arrests "are the tip of the iceberg" and are an undercount of the true magnitude of the problem.

In one case a black man spent nine days in jail after he was arrested on a warrant for a white man wanted on a sex-crimes arrest warrant.

In another, authorities arrested an 18- year-old when they were searching for a man 30 years older.'

From Chapter 5 - Related matters raised during the inquiry of the Finance and Public Administration Committee (Senate) report entitled "The administration of health practitioner registration by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA)". Excerpt:

'Avant Mutual Group also noted that other complaints have been made by ex-spouses of doctors during family break-ups and anonymously. Avant concluded 'the necessity for AHPRA to be take care in accepting and acting on such complaints including using its emergency powers as set out under section 156, needs to be emphasised'.'

Link here. Excerpt:

'Jail and prison inmates are at increased risk for exposure to infectious diseases. The steady stream of new arrivals can introduce new types of infectious diseases to facilities, and close confinement makes it easy for diseases to spread, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explained.

The CDC scientists found that 55 percent of U.S. jails -- facilities that house people awaiting trial or serving short sentences -- received no H1N1 vaccine during the 2009-10 outbreak, which means they were not part of the national vaccine campaign.
...
Most jail inmates are healthy men, but there are also inmates in the highest risk categories for flu, including pregnant women. While the median jail stay is 48 hours, some inmates are detained for months, the study noted.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Looking back at the year just ending, it’s extraordinarily easy to identify FIRE’s biggest fight of 2011: the dramatic new regulations announced by the federal Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in its April 4 “Dear Colleague Letter.”

In my five years here at FIRE, I can’t remember it ever being this easy to select a topic for my end-of-year review. Simply put, FIRE’s legal work has been dominated this year by OCR’s letter: analyzing OCR’s new requirements of every college and university that accepts federal funding (read: virtually all of them); crafting and publicizing our response and concerns; answering critics of our defense of student rights; tracking the importation of the worst of OCR’s new regulations into proposed federal legislation; documenting the impact OCR’s letter has already had on individual students and schools nationwide; and more.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Teachers at a Skokie school forced a 6-year-old with a broken leg and a concussion to crawl back to his classroom across an icy playground, then failed to call for an ambulance, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday.

Kindergartner Rahul Chandani slipped on a mound of snow and hit his head in the playground at Devonshire Elementary School on Jan. 3 last year, but didn’t get any medical help until his mom came to get him, the lawsuit filed in Cook County circuit court by Chandani’s parents Pritam and Priya alleges.

“His teacher told him, ‘You’re a big boy — I can’t carry you,’” the boy’s mother, Priya Chandani, said Wednesday, “She told him to walk back, but his leg was broken so he fell again and then had to crawl at least 200-300 feet back to the school building.

“If someone did that to me as an adult, I’d slap them.”