Letter to the Editor here.

'Thirty years ago, I left the Middle East region for many reasons, and one of them was the "male chauvinism" aspect imbedded in the culture. I always knew that it was neither right nor fair for all the mothers, sisters and wives living under that kind of prejudice. Now looking back, when I first arrived to the United States, the initial decade seemed promising in many ways. However, as years went by, I started noticing a change. Today, there isn't a day that goes by without seeing a TV commercial that demotes the male image and his role in society. You see husbands depicted as if they are clueless, guys oblivious to the knowledge of operating household gadgets, fathers ridiculed in front of the kids while the mother is portrayed as calm, cool and collected, besides other commercials where the father is totally absent from the family.

Essay here. Excerpt:

'The Bro Code is founded on three cultural mandates: Entitlement, Silence and Protection. Entitlement is rooted in the ideas of male superiority; men are in control at all times and in all situations, and always exhibit the perfect example of perfect manhood. It is also gives men the right to regain those things given up to society.

A bizarre story, to say the least. Really weird:

'DENVER - On Monday night, a woman went into a convenience store in the 4600 block of Tower Road, sexually assaulted a customer and then bit him and a clerk on the neck.

"I was in shock! Did she really just bite me?" Alice Gonzalez, who was bitten in the strange incident, said. "I could feel her teeth."
...
"She latches on to my neck through my hoodie, cause I had a blue hoodie on," Gonzalez explained.

The clerk showed 9Wants to Know investigator Jeremy Jojola the marks on her still swollen neck.
...
According to Denver Police, the yet unidentified woman walked into the Barn Store around 10:30 p.m., groped the customer and bit him on the neck. The woman then allegedly went up to the clerk, asked for a hug and proceeded to bite the woman on the neck too.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Laura O'Donnell, 20, pleaded guilty and was convicted in the County Court of four counts of sexual penetration of a child under 16 and five counts of committing an indecent act with a child under 16.

Court documents reveal she plied the boys, aged 12, 15, and two aged 14, with alcohol on three separate occasions. The first two involved one victim and the third, all four.

Documents show O'Donnell, who had trained to be a childcare worker, assaulted the boys while drunk between February and June last year in Ballarat .

Judge Sue Pullen wholly suspended O'Donnell's two-year, five-month sentence and placed her on an 18-month community-based order despite her previously breaching a similar order for an attempted robbery.
...
The judge attributed her offending to a troubled background, low self-esteem and alcohol abuse.

Crime Victims Support Association president Noel McNamara said the sentence was a disgrace.

Article here. You just know I am going to post the first comment, don't you? Excerpt:

'First lady Michelle Obama announced today that U.S. business has pledged to hire 100,000 veterans and military spouses by 2014, and she made a personal vow not to rest until all of the country’s 859,000 unemployed veterans have gainful employment.

“Now I have to say I am excited to be here because this is a big day. This is unprecedented,” Obama said in a keynote address to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce today. “America has your back. Today, America’s businesses have stepped forward with pledges to hire 100,000 veterans and military spouses by 2014. That’s right, 100,000.”

Today’s pledge supports the “Joining Forces” initiative that Obama and Jill Biden, the vice president’s wife, launched earlier this year.

As if you needed a news story... read it here. As Gomer Pyle would say, "sur-prise, sur-prise, sur-prise!" Actually, Gomer, no, not really. Excerpt:

'With persistent economic woes gripping much of the electorate, President Obama today pivots his re-election pitch towards women voters, who backed his candidacy enthusiastically in 2008 and may prove more influential in 2012.

In an address before the National Women’s Law Center, Obama will celebrate the role of women in the civil rights movement and the steps he’s taken to keep their spirit alive, organizers say.

But despite advancements in gender equality under Obama — including the appointment of two women to the Supreme Court and enactment of a health care overhaul that provides insurance parity and free preventive care services for women — polls show he and Democrats face a difficult path towards rekindling active political support in the months ahead.

Article here. Excerpt:

'So if it’s statutory rape, what happens to Yeater?

I’ll tell you what Justin Bieber would say: I think this is much-ado-about-nothing. What was it, 30 seconds? If he says it didn’t happen but she can prove it, it will be a statutory rape—so she’ll get a suspended sentence, therapy, community service, or it’s not that way and she made it up, and then it’ll be a restraining order against her. But at this point in time, it’s Justin Bieber saying it didn’t happen, and I’m sure there are things going on behind the scenes to get her out of the media and a deal that way, so the question is how far she’s willing to go and what’s her price tag. It’s a chess game at this point in time.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'For these women, spending time at war brings special complexities and conflicts, because in war, expectations for hypermasculine behavior are more extreme than at any other time. (This is true to some extent whether the soldier is serving in a provisions unit or as a mechanic.) Indeed, the association of the military with hypermasculinity makes it harder for men as well as women to figure out what to do with their tenderness, vulnerability, moral conflicts and spirituality.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The email sent to Jack Goodchild this summer was short and to the point. Jack recalls: ‘Basically, it said: “I’m pregnant, it’s yours — but don’t worry, you won’t be having any involvement and we won’t be seeing each other any more.” 

It had been written by Tess, his on-off girlfriend of several months. And now it was all over. Having learned she was expecting his child, Tess apparently wanted nothing more to do with the father.

Moreover, the 41-year-old London businessman soon learned that this seemed to have been his lover’s plan all along. ‘I telephoned her straight away, as anyone would after receiving an email like that, to find out what was going on,’ he says.

‘I thought maybe there was some misunderstanding; that because we hadn’t talked about anything serious like starting a family, she assumed I wouldn’t be interested in the baby.

Article here. Excerpt:

'New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows the percentage of men between the ages of 25 and 34 living at home rose from 14 percent in 2005 to 19 percent in 2011. Women, on the other hand, are doing just fine. Not only do they dominate today’s college campuses, they have little trouble staying away from mom and dad’s place. That’s because women are flourishing in the workforce while men are not. Writers and pundits blame this phenomenon on the economy, but the trend reflects a much larger sociological problem. America is in the midst of a sea change: Never before has it been more difficult for men and women to find their way to one another, settle in for the long haul, and build strong families together.

Last April the Dept. of Education's (DED) stirred up a hornet's nest when it released its new sexual assault policy that requires colleges to change their standard of proof from the "clear and convincing" standard to a "preponderance of evidence." Adding fuel to the fire, Sen. Patrick Leahy's recent discussion draft of the Violence Against Women Act includes the DED's directive, which would turn the controversial policy into statutory law.

To date, the American Association of University Professors, the National Association of Scholars, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and SAVE have all come out against the DED policy: http://www.saveservices.org/falsely-accused/sex-assault/complaints/

Story here. Excerpt:

'A mother is facing child abuse charges after she starved her three-year- old son to the point that he went into cardiac arrest.

Arlena Alanz, 28, is alleged to have tied the special needs toddler to his crib with a rope to stop him from climbing out.

The severely malnourished boy weighed just 26lbs when he was finally taken to a hospital in Houston, Texas on October 2

Authorities found the boy after Alaniz called emergency services to her dilapidated apartment in a west Houston complex when the child stopped breathing, said Houston Police Department spokeswoman Jodi Silva.

Doctors said that the child was in cardiac arrest and suffering from severe 'failure to thrive'.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'It is being said that young women cannot find men of equal social status and are having to ‘marry down’. And the universities minister, David Willetts predicts that women will earn more than their male partners.

According to the Daily Mail ‘experts’ predict that women will become the breadwinners and men will become the stay at home carers as women ‘power ahead’ in education and in the workplace.

Well, is anyone surprised at this since we took the decision in the UK to keep male teachers out of schools, change the system completely to favour girls and ensure that women always benefit from reverse sexism, otherwise cries of male dominated sexism ring out?
...
When boys did better at school and got the good jobs it was their fault. That was how feminism was born. But now that boys are lagging behind somehow it is once again, you guessed it, their fault. Or why say that boys are said to be ‘lagging behind’.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas is a violent attack on masculinity. The men are accused of having made the world a shit place. Solana line up all the men are obliged to: war, violence, money system, imagination, ugly buildings and more. She puts forward the thesis that men are biologically inferior to men and that it is the foundation for all problems.

We are now setting up the show as a monologue. We think the text is funny, sharp, provocative, imaginative and liberating. It is a reaction to centuries of oppression of women. There is no equivalent. She draws his conclusions so far that men no longer have any raison d'etre.

This is of course provocative. And that is exactly what is meant. We want to create discussion. Not telling the truth. The point of our conception is that the audience is forced to own reflective.

Link here. Excerpt:

'A new study finds that low-income, urban fathers in the United States take an active role in their children's health and encourage them to eat healthy foods and exercise.

But the study also found that when their kids are sick, some of these dads may not give recommended doses of medicine to their children and may feel ill-equipped to handle emergency medical care.

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine researchers studied 31 fathers, most of them black and Hispanic, average age 31, in Chicago and Milwaukee. About 40 percent of the men earned $34,999 or less a year.