Is it just me, or do most men get upset with all the pink breast cancer products out there (that's not a bad thing at all) and the total void of any blue prostate cancer products in Sept. (that's bad). I wrote to two corporations asking why men's health is totally unimportant to them, but praising their efforts to raise money for breast cancer. Ghirardelli wrote back saying they would forward my email. Probably never hear from them. General Mills did as well, though I did call too and left my comment to a consumer help operator to be forwarded. I also wrote my son's school district as they had a whole thing with breast cancer and t-shirts and a walk, but never heard back. I wrote to the local baseball team here on Long Island, The Ducks, as they had a breast cancer awareness night and auctioned off game worn pink uniforms to benefit the cause, but had no prostate cancer night. Never got a reply. I didn't write yet, but Pepperidge Farm and Dannon are two others. Has anyone ever seen a product donating to prostate cancer or men's health?

Perhaps these companies can have a Hall of Shame, even though they do help donate for women.

Story here. Anonymous reports of flirting (*gasp*!), ambiguous hand gestures, comments about a woman's height being like his own wife's (that cad!), and even suggestions around going back to his room just weren't doing the trick. So now... it's full-on sexual harassment as legally defined, rather than as defined in WST101 textbooks or college campus conduct codes. Wonder what's next, will he be rumored to eat kittens (only female ones) for breakfast, too? Excerpt:

'Sharon Bialek of Chicago became the first woman accusing Herman Cain of sexual harassment to go public Monday, describing an alleged incident in Washington in 1997 in which the presidential contender, then the president of the National Restaurant Association stuck his hand up her skirt and tried to pull her head toward his crotch.

"I said, 'What are you doing?'" alleged Bialek, who said she had contacted Cain for help getting a job. "You know I have a boyfriend. This isn't what I came here for."

According to Bialek, Cain answered, "You want a job, right?"

Good grief. Is there no end to the foolishness? Now he's the rapist. Story here. Excerpt:

'The 20-year-old woman who claims Justin Bieber fathered her now 4-month-old son says the pop star was “aggressive” and refused to wear a condom the night she says he got her pregnant.

“His whole demeanor changed,” Mariah Yeater told “The Insider” in an interview airing Monday night. “It went from cute and gushy…to just more aggressive.”

Yeater’s paternity suit against Bieber, 17, claims their tryst in a backstage bathroom at the Staples Center in Los Angeles following a concert in October 2010 resulted in the birth of her son Tristyn Anthony Markhouse Yeater this July.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'FORT DODGE, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa jury convicted a woman Monday of murder in the 2001 death of her 20-year-old neighbor, rejecting her claim that she shot him to protect herself and her three children during a home invasion.

Prosecutors maintained there was no home invasion and Tracey Richter, now 45, killed Dustin Wehde to keep him quiet about his role in a convoluted plot to frame her ex-husband. They said Richter lured Wehde to her home in Early in December 2001, had him write in a pink notebook that her ex-husband hired him to kill her and her son and then shot him nine times with two guns.

Richter was involved in a custody fight at the time, and prosecutors say she was trying to gain an advantage before an upcoming hearing to keep from losing her son and $1,000-a-month child support payments.'

Most of you may not have heard of Radicalhub.wordpress.com, but this site is a growing presence on the feminist blogosohere. That may be of little consequence, but it has now started a worrying theme of advocating what it calls a "resolution" - in effect the eradication at worst or the systematic exclusion at best of the human male.

One of the comments from the article...

re men: yes, they are the problem, and womyn will have to realise this. Men are the carriers of a Y chromosome that makes them the way they are, I believe Womyn have to be strongly aware of the posibility of men’s inherent sadism and cruelty.

There are many comments like this, all of which are perfectly in keeping with the overall meme of the article and of the site as a whole.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Cultivated femininity … in large part, that’s what an open marriage represents.

Despite what “they” tell us (“they” being Cosmo magazine editors and other such “feminist fighters”), open marriages are at least as beneficial to wives as to husbands, if not more so. Husbands are easily satisfied: They simply need their wives to act like their girlfriends (that’s why I’m a loud defender of mistresses, by the way).

Wives, though … wives need more, different, new.

I hear from so many women who wish their husbands would agree to an open marriage, and I hear from so many women who are lucky enough to be in an open marriage and who cite that as a main reason that they are such attentive wives.

Now, to be clear, I don’t endorse sex outside of marriage. Pretty much without exception. Which is precisely why open marriages are so well-suited to women: Women don’t benefit from the extramarital sex itself, but from the prelude to it and the possibility of it.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'CONCORD, N.H.—New Hampshire may be violating the civil rights of its female prisoners by not giving them access to the same programs as male inmates, according to a two-year study released Monday.

The New Hampshire Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights said in its report that the inexcusable disparities warrant action by New Hampshire to end the unequal treatment of female inmates. A spokesman for the Department of Corrections said the agency supports the committee's findings.

Committee Chairman Jordan Budd said the group lacks enforcement power to ensure that happens and hopes New Hampshire will act because it is morally and legally bound by the U.S. Constitution to ensure that women and men are treated equally and to correct an intolerable situation.

Article here. Excerpt:

'In India, as many as 61,453 married men ended their lives in 2010, compared to 31,754 women. After Chennai, Bangalore tops the list with 515 husbands taking the extreme step. Also, the rate of suicides among married men has almost doubled in the last 15 years. This makes us wonder whether more men are at the receiving end in marriages, or are there other issues that men face that need to be addressed.

According to Sneha Fernandes, counsellor at Transforming Lives, an organisation which provides family counselling, unlike women, men do not have options to vent their feelings of depression or frustration. “Women are expressive. They talk to their friends or family and depend on them for support. Whereas men are used to bottling up their feelings. I meet so many married men who just want someone to talk to and cry, but don’t find the comfort in their partners.
...

From Marc A.:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently told California Lawyer Magazine: "In fact, I've said quite often that if I were to invent an affirmative action plan, it would be to give men every incentive to be close to children. We would have a healthier world, I think, if men shared women's responsibility for bringing up the next generation."

Does this mean she would have affirmative action for fathers in child custody cases?

Although it's from 29 Nov 2008, this quote was still relevant today. From the opening of the article:

"LAGOS - THE Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual and temporal leader, on Friday said sex spelt fleeting satisfaction and trouble later, while chastity offered a better life and 'more freedom'.

'Sexual pressure, sexual desire, actually I think is short period satisfaction and often, that leads to more complication,' the Dalai Lama told reporters in a Lagos hotel, speaking in English without a translator.

He said conjugal life caused 'too much ups and downs.'"

Editorial remark:

Article here. Posting because of an interesting statement by the alleged mom's attorney:

'It's illegal in California to have sex with someone under age 18. If the other person is not more than three years older, it is a misdemeanor, which carries up to a one-year jail sentence.

"The issue of statutory rape, even if she's guilty, hypothetically, that has no bearing on the duties to provide child support," said one of Yeater's lawyers, Matthew Pare. "It's a totally separate issue."

Pare said he and his client have not been contacted by authorities or anyone representing Bieber. He said Yeater is a stay-at-home mother who is looking for adequate child support if a paternity test determines Bieber is the father.'

That's the way the system works, guys. Can you imagine any woman paying child support to her rapist?

A 43 year old Orange County woman is charged with having sex with a 12 year old boy. Here is the article. Excerpt:

'A 43-year-old Fountain Valley woman was charged with having sex with a 12-year-old boy who was her son's friend, authorities said Thursday afternoon.

Patricia Ann Serrano is charged with three felony counts of lewd acts on a child under 14 with a sentencing enhancement for substantial sexual conduct with a child, the Orange County district attorney's office said. She is scheduled for a continued arraignment Friday.

In October, Serrano allegedly had sex with the boy twice -- in a car and in her home, according to the district attorney' office.

The boy's mother discovered Serrano in a room with the victim. Serrano had allegedly been kissing the boy, but the mother did not observe any wrongdoing, the district attorney's office said. The mother became suspicious and alerted police.'

Via email from Tom:

Press release, Friday, November 4th, 2011:

Tom Martin, the man suing the London School of Economics (LSE) for sex discrimination in one of its gender studies Masters degrees, appears in a new video asking LSE students if they think discrimination against men in a curriculum is justifiable, as the university's defence team have argued.

Via email from a reader:

Yesterday the Norgrove report was published in the UK. It will define family policy for years to come and will describe the guiding principles of how fathers will be valued in the family:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/publications/policy/moj/family-justice-review-final-report.pdf

Story here. Excerpt:

'LAS VEGAS (AP) — A San Diego woman who claims pop star Justin Bieber fathered her 3-month-old son has a court date in Las Vegas on allegations she slapped an ex-boyfriend.

Court records show 20-year-old Mariah Yeater (YAY'-ter) faces a bench trial Dec. 12 on a misdemeanor battery charge that could get her six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

A police report says Yeater slapped her 18-year-old ex-boyfriend Dec. 21, 2010. The two were arguing about a window broken on the car of the his new girlfriend.'