Article here. Excerpt:

'BOSTON—Alimony isn't forever in Massachusetts anymore.

The state abolished most lifetime spousal support Monday, joining several states where alimony payments have come under scrutiny as payers argue they are struggling in the rocky economy

Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick signed a measure that generally ends alimony when the payer reaches retirement age or when the recipient begins living with a romantic partner.

Article here. Excerpt:

'WOMEN will be able to serve in any frontline combat role within five years after a historic change by the Government. Federal Defence Minister Stephen Smith said cabinet approved the change during a meeting yesterday.

"This is a change which has the strong support from the chief of the defence force," he said today.

Currently 93 per cent of Australian Defence Force (ADF) positions were open to women.

The other seven per cent excluded women "simply on the basis of sex", Mr Smith said.

These included jobs such as mine disposal divers, air force defence guards and infantry and artillery frontline positions.

These jobs make up 17 per cent of employment opportunities in the ADF.

Mr Smith said the discrimination would be removed over five years in a "careful and methodical" way.

The first implementation report would go to the Government in the first quarter of 2012.

Tomorrow (Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2011) Vice President Joseph Biden will make an appearance on ABC's talk show The View to discuss teen dating violence -- and we're asking you to contact the White House to make sure VP Biden gets his facts straight!

We would like VP Biden to emphasize these three critical facts during his appearance on The View:

1. Teenage girls are now more likely than males to be the initiators of dating partner violence.
2. Female abusers need help, not a cold shoulder.
3. The problem of dating violence against boys needs to be highlighted.

This morning SAVE sent a letter to VP Biden asking him to address these 3 issues: http://www.saveservices.org/2011/09/save-sends-letter-to-vp-biden-regarding-his-upcoming-appearance-on-the-view/

Article here. Excerpt:

'Fall sports season is in full swing for New Jersey high schools. But for many students, this may be the last year they play if supporters of Title IX gender quotas get their way in American high schools.

Last November, the Washington, D.C.-based National Women’s Law Center filed federal complaints against 12 school districts. The charge? Because the gender balance of male and female athletes did not exactly mirror the overall population of the student body, the school districts were discriminating. This numbers game assumed that boys and girls have identical interests in identical numbers.
...
With few options to address those complainants, schools must make the numbers work. They will have little choice but to eliminate male teams or significantly slash their rosters. As many as 1.3 million male high school athletes nationwide could be permanently sidelined — although that would not create any opportunities for female high school athletes.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Mr. Haynesworth, then 18 and never in trouble with the law, had been mistakenly identified by the victim as her assailant. He was arrested on suspicion of having committed five rapes and assaults in his neighborhood, and was tried for four of them. He was convicted in three and sentenced to 84 years in prison.

DNA has since proved that he did not commit two of the rapes he was tried for. The DNA from those two cases pointed to another man, in prison for having committed multiple rapes in the same neighborhood that occurred after Mr. Haynesworth’s arrest. That man, Leon Davis, who identified himself to victims as “the Black Ninja,” is serving multiple life terms plus 100 years.

Article here. Excerpt:

'As a young man:

• Teach them that “feminism” means promoting women’s rights and interests.
• Discuss how being a feminist does not mean women hate men or that women think men are the enemy.
• Teach them that by taking a role in feminism they will be helping everyone, not just women.
• Teach them that because they are at the top of society’s hierarchy, they have a responsibility and an ability to be part of social change and justice for everyone.
• Simply talk to them and use probing questions when teachable moments arise. Allow them to reach their own conclusions.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A mother-of-eight allegedly lived with the dead body of her three-year-old boy decomposing in the cellar of her home in northern England for up to two years.

Amanda Hutton, 41, was taken into custody after police made the grim discovery on Thursday, having been called to the house in Bradford by a concerned neighbour, the Daily Mail reports
...
Hutton, a single mother who was known to social services, also has two grown-up children aged 22 and 20 who had moved out of home.

One of the elder brothers, Tariq Khan, said he had no idea that his baby brother had died.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Immunizing half the population isn't forceful enough against widespread virus, expert says.

U.S. health authorities now recommend that girls and young women be vaccinated against human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted disease that is a known cause of cervical cancer, but that recommendation does not extend to boys and young men.

At least for now.

A debate that's been simmering over whether males also should be vaccinated for human papillomavirus, or HPV, could be resolved in October at a meeting of a key advisory committee of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said CDC spokesman Tom Skinner.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Fred Wyand has been in a prime spot to watch the evolution of the public health response to human papillomavirus, or HPV.

Since 2003, Wyand has served as editor of HPV News, a bimonthly newsletter published by the American Social Health Association. The newsletter has been around since the 1990s.

Story here. $1,000,000 bail. I applaud the prosecutor and judge for taking this very seriously. Unfortunately, none of the charges include domestic abuse. I suspect there'll be a battered wife defense but I don't see that working because her husband was the one who filed for divorce. The trial should be very interesting because her defense attorney will find some way to portray her as a victim.

'WESTMINSTER, Calif. — A California woman has pleaded not guilty to cutting off her estranged husband's penis and running it through a garbage disposal.

Catherine Kieu entered the plea in Orange County Superior Court Friday to charges of torture and aggravated mayhem with sentencing enhancements for great bodily injury and use of a knife.

If convicted of all counts, she could face life in prison without parole. She's being held on $1 million bail.

Authorities say Kieu spiked her 60-year-old husband's tofu dinner on July 11, then tied his hands and feet to the bed after he went to lie down. Authorities say Kieu cut off his penis as he woke.

Article here. Excerpt:

'WASHINGTON (AP) -- Young adults are the recession's lost generation.

In record numbers, they're struggling to find work, shunning long-distance moves to live with mom and dad, delaying marriage and raising kids out of wedlock, if they're becoming parents at all. The unemployment rate for them is the highest since World War II, and they risk living in poverty more than others - nearly 1 in 5.
...
Young males who lacked a college degree were most likely to lose jobs due to reduced demand for blue-collar jobs in construction, manufacturing and transportation during the downturn. Among teenagers, employment was less than 30 percent.
...
Opting to stay put, roughly 5.9 million Americans 25-34 last year lived with their parents, an increase of 25 percent from before the recession. Driven by a record 1 in 5 young men who doubled up in households, men are now nearly twice as likely as women to live with their parents.

From SAVE: The federal Violence Against Women Act is more about breaking up families than stopping partner abuse. That’s the main conclusion of 6 years of ongoing research to analyze the effects of VAWA on our communities and families.

And no surprise, the real victims of partner violence are hopping mad, saying VAWA has created a “broken system that is in dire need of repair” -- see http://www.survivorsinaction.org/

Today SAVE unveiled a series of reforms:

1. Give priority for services to persons with evidence of physical violence
2. Cut back on false allegations
3. Remove harmful policies like mandatory arrest

Additional policy changes are laid out in our proposed Partner Violence Reduction Act: http://www.saveservices.org/pvra/

Family break-up is the number one engine of an expanding welfare state. So policy changes that reduce false accusations and promote partner reconciliation will save substantial sums of money and reduce the federal deficit.

Tom Martin, the man suing the Gender Institute at The London School of Economics for teaching sex discrimination against men, appeared on A Voice for Men Radio on Wednesday to discuss some of the anti-male academic practice he alleges took place at LSE, and, Mr Martin suggests, across a broad range of other academic fields too.

The radio interview is conducted by men's rights activists (MRAs) Paul Elam, and John the Other (JTO) - Tom also fields calls from listeners.

The show is archived at:

http://www.sexismbusters.org/

(The interview with Tom Martin begins 36:30 minutes into the show)

The story has been covered by The Evening Standard, The Guardian (x4), The West End Extra, Forbes Magazine, and many websites - these links all available at http://www.sexismbusters.org/ too - including a contact email for Mr Martin.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Let’s make this perfectly clear: there is no rape culture at Yale.

If Yale had a rape culture, there would be students and faculty speaking in favor of rape. Rape would be a common practice; it would be routine to hear someone talking about raping or being raped by someone last weekend. People would discuss what styles or methods of rape they prefer. Obviously, the existence of a rape culture is a farcical idea. These things just don’t happen at Yale.

There are isolated incidents of rape, and that is surely a severe problem. Beyond the physical harm the victim suffers, rape erodes trust. Like any crime, it arouses fear.

Rape falls somewhere on a wide spectrum between murder and robbery. The number of people who commit rape is a tiny percentage of the population at large. The vast majority of people are not criminals.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Girls are overlooked when it comes to tracking the school dropout crisis in cities and towns across our country. Overlooking the problems that threaten the education of girls makes this crisis far more critical. Even though every state, even individual schools, counts dropout rates differently, estimates show the nationwide toll of dropping out:

• 50% Native American girls
• 4-in-10 black female students
• nearly 4-in-10 Latinas

Absenteeism, often triggered by feeling unsafe at school, can lead to dropping out completely.