Article here. Food for thought. Excerpt:

'Many different individuals and groups surmise as to why this particular disparity exists; for instance, many people blame cultural stereotypes that dictate which careers are acceptable for males and females. Other people believe that certain negative social issues deter women from succeeding in these fields, while there is also the popular argument that women tend to shy away from scientific careers due to socialization. For instance, the career interests of children are directly tied to parental expectations. In fact, studies reveal that the gender-related parental expectations of teenagers positively correlate with their future career choices.

Biology Determines Occupational Choices?

According to psychology researchers at Penn State University, specific sex hormones directly influence people’s general interests. In turn, these specific interests directly affect which careers these individuals choose to pursue.

Story here. Wonder where the dad is in all this? And why is McCready's mother the guardian of the boy and not his father when it seems the boy can visit the dad? This is weird. But aside from that, seems this is a case of mom v. daughter and mom ignoring the law. Curious to see how they treat her when they finally catch up with her, which I am sure they will soon enough. Will she also get jail time like men who violate custody orders and take their kids across state lines? Usually mom alleges abuse at the hands of dad. In this one, she is alleging abuse at the hands of her own mother. Try to keep up with all the pronouns! Excerpt:

'ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) - Country singer Mindy McCready said Thursday she would not bring her 5-year-old son back from Tennessee to Florida, despite violating a custody arrangement and a judge's order.

Just reported by CBS 2 News around 5: 30 pm. Word is only starting to hit the web. As of 5:43 pm ET, a web search only yielded this NBC NY article:

'A grand jury has dismissed all charges against a McDonald's cook accused of beating two irate customers with a metal rod in a fight caught on videotape.

Rayon McIntosh was to be released from jail Friday after the grand jury vote.

The grand jury is still weighing charges against the women, Rachel Edwards and Denise Darbeau. They were arraigned on initial charges of trespassing in the Oct. 13 episode.

Another customer's video showed two women vaulting a counter to attack McIntosh and him grabbing a metal bar and hitting back, even after the women were on the floor. One suffered a fractured skull.

McIntosh said he was only defending himself. The women's lawyer says McIntosh used unjustifiable force.'

The White House Blog - American Leadership to Reach an AIDS-Free Generation. Excerpt:

'As President Obama said in his remarks and his World AIDS Day Proclamation, scientific advances have provided us with a unique opportunity for dramatic gains in the global response to HIV/AIDS. The concept of ‘combination prevention,’ through which we rely on multiple prevention interventions tailored to needs in the countries where we work, is at the center of this effort. The President outlined plans to expand our combination prevention work, including prevention of mother-to-child transmission, voluntary medical male circumcision, and condoms.'

Department of State Press Statement - World AIDS Day 2011. Excerpt:

From Marc A.:

Interesting quotes from intactivist rabbis and other Jews. Sample from Rabbi Binyamin Biber:

"We're seeing [circumcision's] decline, and we're seeing Rabbi's like me and others in other communities saying these practices are not warranted and we're seeing a generational shift away from them. One of the things that I think that's also critical is the growing popularity, and I think a rightful popularity of natural medicine and natural childbirth ideas. And I think that this is clearly seen as inconsistent - not consistent with natural childbirth, natural health. ... Inflicting a wound on an infant is clearly not one of those....“

Link here. Excerpt:

'Your heart relies on arteries to feed it blood. When plaque builds up in these crucial blood vessels, it's bad news. But it may be even more of a threat for women.

In a new study, researchers included 480 people who were having severe chest pain. Doctors gave all of them a high-tech test that took pictures of their heart to check for plaque.

Having a lot of plaque buildup in the heart's arteries had a different effect in men and women. It put women at a higher risk of major heart problems like a heart attack or dying of a heart-related cause down the road.

These findings show that having extensive plaque buildup is more worrisome for women than men, according to one of the researchers.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Radical feminists recently suffered a rare setback when a U.S. senator decided to back away from proposed legislation that would have denied college students basic civil rights.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) has dropped the "preponderance of evidence" standard that was to be added to the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Phil Cook of Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE), an organization that dedicates itself to protecting victims and stopping false allegations, tells OneNewsNow what that would have meant for college students accused of a sex crime.

"The standard is it's more likely than not a sexual assault occurred -- that's what 'preponderance of evidence' means," he details.

But even though the clause has been removed, the SAVE spokesman says there are still many unresolved issues involving the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, such as a Department of Education directive that requires schools to set up tribunals to judge students accused of sex assaults.

Article here. Excerpt:

'WASHINGTON (Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011) – Nearly 20 years after the Violence Against Women Act was first signed into law, U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced bipartisan legislation Wednesday to further strengthen and improve the programs authorized under the landmark law to assist victims and survivors of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. The legislation is cosponsored by Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho).
...
“These dollars go directly to woman and children who have been victimized by domestic violence,” Crapo said. “The reauthorization of VAWA provides critical services to these victims of violent crime, as well as agencies and organizations who provide important aid to those individuals. I have been a strong supporter of prevention and elimination of domestic abuse since coming to Congress, and I intend to continue to fight to keep these funds intact for women and children.”'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Section 102, “Grants to Encourage Arrest Policies and Enforce Protection Orders” calls for the development of “multidisciplinary high risk teams” focused on reducing sexual violence and homicides by developing “evidence-based indicators to assess the risk of homicide.” Oher than the ambiguous “evidence-based indicators,” there is no mention in the bill that a complaint by an alleged victim must be made before such assessments can take place. Absent a complaint, how does one justify government surveillance in order to gather “evidence”?

Another troubling clause concerns eligibility for grants in which the grantee, “with the exception of the courts,” must demonstrate that their ”laws, policies, or practices and their training programs discourage dual arrests of offender and victim” (italic mine). Offender and victim as defined by whom? Absent physical evidence, domestic violence cases are often he said-she said affairs. Dual arrests are often necessary in order to ferret out the truth, and this item would appear to inhibit that.
...

Article here. Excerpt:

'Paternity has been pushed into the national spotlight by the recent allegations toward teen pop star Justin Bieber. While tabloids buzz with celebrity paternity stories, thousands of men across the country face the same issue daily and turn to DNA paternity testing to either confirm or refute their relationship to children. According to DDC (DNA Diagnostics Center), the largest provider of private paternity testing worldwide, questions about paternity testing from men have increased annually and now account for about 40% of all inquiries.

“As one of the leading companies in DNA testing, we’re seeing an increase in calls by men seeking paternity answers, especially for cases where there are disputes or where chain of custody is important,” said Dr. Michael Baird, chief science officer for DDC. “In the case of DDC, we’re an accredited AABB laboratory that maintains a chain of custody reporting structure to ensure results of a test can be presented in court, if needed.”'

Article here. Excerpt:

'They believed that their son was innocent but were afraid that Virginia's penal system would grab hold of him and never let go.

So Cherri Dulaney and Edgar Coker Sr. told 15-year-old Edgar Jr. to plead guilty to raping a 14-year-old friend. Their court-appointed attorney told them that was better than risking adult charges and a lengthy prison term.

Two months after their decision, in November 2007, the girl admitted that she had lied.

The Cokers have been fighting ever since to rescue their son from the consequences. He served 17 months in a juvenile prison. He remains on the Virginia sex-offender registry, and the family moved to avoid harassment from neighbors.

The Verizon Foundation has produced a frightening video titled Monsters. The video's perverse message can be summed up in this slide: "She's afraid of her dad."

The video revels in powerful yet destructive stereotypes: fathers as abusers, wives as victims, and young boys as future abusers. The video tells the impressionable viewer:

"The child who lives with domestic violence... is afraid of the monster just down the hall," a girl's voiceover intones, while frightening images of a hunchbacked monster-dad flit across the screen: http://www.multivu.com/mnr/52044-verizon-foundation-national-domestic-hotline-video-launch-monsters

To be honest this video is not just biased, it's awful. Tell Verizon (politely) to clean up its act.

Contact Bob Varettoni, Executive Director of Media Relations:

Email: robert.a.varettoni-at-verizon.com

Please email today - thanks!

Sincerely,

Story here. If this were a man, it would have been front page news in Boston.com with several other articles that would overview the case in detail. Also, the woman got out of harsher charges because she invoked her her neo-feminist jurisprudence override and claimed she was "abused". Funny how these issues get worked out very differently in public opinion and sentencing. Excerpt:

'A Lowell mother has pleaded guilty to raping her four children, putting an end to a 16-year-old case that was reactivated last month when the Massachusetts Appeals Court overturned her conviction.

Nancy Adkinson, 49, was convicted in a jury-waived trial in Middlesex Superior Court in 1997 and given a sentence that would have kept her behind bars until she was 70 years old. However, the appeals court ruled last month that Adkinson was a battered woman whose husband, Corby Adkinson, also controlled the trial strategy that led to her conviction. The court ordered a new trial.

Link to media release here. Excerpt:

'The outstanding achievements of Australian Nobel Laureate Professor Elizabeth Blackburn have been recognised through a new fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) awarded to top female Research Fellows.

This important new NHMRC Fellowship was announced today by Minister for Health and Ageing Nicola Roxon and Minister for Mental Health and Ageing Mark Butler.

“The NHMRC Elizabeth Blackburn Fellowships will foster the career development of female scientists excelling in biomedical, clinical and public health research,” Ms Roxon said.

“Professor Blackburn’s stellar international career, which includes the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2009, has inspired the NHMRC to recognise the next generation of Australian women in science.”

Column here. A one-sided response from Amy Dickinson. She blames the husband as does the wife. The husband did say "I could never have kids." Amy does not say a word about the wife's deceit when she tried to subvert her husband's desires by secretly going off the pill. Apparently both Amy and the wife think women have a right to do this. Excerpt:

'I knew it was wrong, but I would accidentally-on-purpose skip days of my birth control, eventually ceasing to take the pills at all. I knew that if we had a child, my husband would grow to love it.

The problem was that, after months of this, I never conceived. A few weeks ago, I finally decided to broach the topic again with my husband.

I discovered that he had a vasectomy a year before we met!
...

Dear Seeking: When your husband stated "I could never have kids," it sounds like he seems to think this is the same thing as saying, "I had a vasectomy."