Michael Skinner is an artist who has dealt with severe physical and sexual abuse as a child, as well as PTSD and depression as an adult. Yet he uses his music as a means to heal and rebuild himself and others who share his experiences. Mike recently created a web site to
promote his music, his advocacy, and to be a resource to provide information and help regarding the issues and concerns around childhood sexual abuse and the long term effects of this abuse. The various resources and links listed will help lead to other resources, especially for males, as this is a subject most are uncomfortable discussing. Sadly, it is a distasteful subject that has caused severe damage and harm to many in all walks of life.

Glenn Sacks wrote an article about V-Day, Eve Ensler's V-Day: For Women, Afghanistan is Everywhere, which debunks many of the statistics commonly used in the campaign. This is one incredibly useful resource to have handy. Also, tonight Glenn will discuss his recent column Shouldn't Men Have a Choice, Too? on the Stacy Taylor Show, on KOGO 600 in San Diego, starting at 8 PM PST. His talk will coincide with tonight's MANN chat on reproductive rights, so if anyone in the San Diego area can log in and let us know how he's doing in real-time, that would be great!

Intrigued by Wendy McElroy's column on male suicide a few weeks ago, the Toronoto Star decided to take its own look at the rate of male suicide and divorce in Canada. McElroy herself is quoted in the piece, and the men's movement is mentioned prominently. The author also interviewed men who have considered suicide in response to unfair child support payments. "There has been very little research to find out how alienated men feel after a complicated divorce and after losing custody in courts. But when you go through the research that's there, you come across story after story about men who wrote notes about their divorces or were clutching court orders while they committed suicide," says McElroy, whose anthology Liberty For Women: Freedom And Feminism For The 21st Century, will be published this year. We should extend both the Toronto Star and Wendy our thanks for continuing to shed light on this issue.

Tonight's Mensactivism.org on-line chat will be on the recent passage of a Georgia bill which will outlaw paternity fraud, giving men the right to stop paying child support for children that they were tricked into believing where their own. We'll be discussing overall issues related to men's reproductive rights and invariably many unrelated topics too (as usual, :). Join us at 9:30 PM EST tonight (2/20) in the MANN chat room.

Wendy McElroy has announced that there will be a book discussion on Daphne Patai's Heterophobia starting up tomorrow at iFeminists.com. Her iFeminists bulletin board announcement can be read here. Note that she will be giving away free books to random participants, so why not check it out? As Wendy writes, "Reading the book is a definite plus ;-), but lurkers are welcome."

Neil Steyskal writes "The Washington Post has printed a highly irresponsible editorial advocating the expansion of so-called protective orders in Maryland. These orders are widely abused to gain an advantage in divorce cases. The supposed due process they afford is a naked sham because the orders are issued almost automatically. A moment's reflection will make it obvious that there is no way to show when a domestic violence claim is a lie, whether for profit or just malice. Comment to: letters@washpost.com."

Anonymous User writes "This story shows that the precedent in Scotland to mass test hundreds of innocent men has been accepted. I despair that this seems now to be an accepted practice in such a short time. You will note that this time, the DNA testing is thrown into the story almost as an aside. I would urge all the affected men to resist this process. Also, what will now happen with the growing DNA "bank"?"

Wendy McElroy this week in her Fox News column tackles the most recent outbreak of the wage gap myth, and rightly criticizes media which latched onto the statistics as an indicator that women are facing sexism in salary. But National Review columnist Betsy Hart took the time to examine the study commissioned by Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and John Dingell, D-MI. She found it to be a "biased and highly-emotionalized reinterpretation" that the "creative" staff of Maloney and Dingell had imposed upon otherwise straightforward data. In this column, McElroy also quotes Hart's interview with Maloney, who shockingly admits her interpretation of the data was a deceit designed to keep the "right" from stopping money on such studies. McElroy explains the importance of examining statistics (especially as reported by the media) and not blindly accepting them as fact.

In case you've been living under a rock, here's a story about the infamous Andrea Yates (mother who drowned her five children in the family bathtub). Her trial has started. According to her lawyer, she didn't understand the wrongfulness of her actions when she murdered her kids. It should be remembered that Yates herself called police and her husband to report her own crime. The jury is made up of eight women and four men. In an attempt to show that Yates knew what she was doing, the prosecution pointed out that she complied with instructions from police who arrived at her home, made contact with them and had no problem understanding directions. Yates also apparently admitted to officers that she had been considering killing her children for two years "because they weren't developing correctly."

It's always upsetting when someone makes a false accusation of rape, but it's really disturbing when attorneys are caught doing so. This was the case with a young Australian lawyer, whose name is not being released, who pleaded guilty to making six false reports to the police, which included two occasions of her impersonating a child making a rape accusation against a man. "The woman...claimed that a mental condition triggered by memories of sexual abuse as a child had caused her to make the false reports." Fortunately, the Victorian Supreme Court ruled that her law certification should be revoked. The story can be read here.

Cathy Young has joined Wendy McElroy in denouncing the attempts to change Valentine's Day into a day of remembering violence against women (known as "V-Day"). Young's Boston Globe story explains how the Vagina Monologues and similar events are sexist and paternalistic with their focus on violence against women, and how they contribute to an atmosphere of distrust and antagonism between the sexes.

ronn sent us a press release regarding a web site called the Unity Wall. "The Unity Wall, an online, interactive Memorial Wall has been released as a testimonial to those who have been hurt by the current unfair child support laws. It resembles a simple wall of granite with names inscribed on its surface. Each name is a hyperlink to a web page written by that person, telling their own story of the pain these laws have caused them. The Unity Wall contains the names of fathers who have lost custody of their children only to find themselves victims of a divorce industry that profits from of their suffering." You can submit your story to the Unity Wall, which I encourage people to do.

Dean Tong had an article printed in NewsMax which discusses mistaken cases of child abuse. Tong gives a few examples of mistakes made in these cases that put innocent men and women behind bars, and he believes that these mistakes are becoming dangerously common. "What we don't know in alleged child physical and sexual abuse cases is coming back to haunt us. Social workers, police officers, therapists, guardians-ad-litem, lawyers, judges, teachers and legislators need a wake-up call that all is not well in America's child protection system. And the errors committed are hurting the very individuals we are trying to save from harm, our children!"

Ellen Makkai wrote an article for WorldNetDaily which explains the need for fathers in the lives of children, and the risks people take when they voluntarily have children without father involvement. What I found most disturbing in the article was a quote of a 1999 N.O.W. legislative report which said, "There is very little in the way of scientific evidence that supports the assertions about the consequences of 'fatherlessness' and about the need for father involvement ... in fact, the evidence is heavily weighted in the opposite direction. Makkai then goes on to debunk this idea with the rest of her article. She definitely deserves some e-mails of support for this.

Luek submitted this link and writes "I just found this excellent "pro-male" legal services site by Trial Consultant Kenneth R. Pangborn, that has some very good general information for men explaining just what legal ramifications you will face if ever falsely accused of rape, harassment, child or spousal abuse. And most important, how to fight back! One good point that is brought out on this site is that men tend to trivialize and downplay any false accusation brought against them and presume that the "system" has build-in safety mechanisms that will automatically vindicate them. Nothing could be farther from the truth! With misandry-focused legislation like the infamous "VAWA ACT" becoming the social trend, it is best to dust off the old adages: "To be forewarned is to be forearmed." "Knowledge is power, so get empowered!""