This story, which appeared in the Dec. 27 Washington Post details NOW's efforts (via a "Women at Ground Zero" video) to derail federal attempts to assist the victims and cities in recovery by diverting funding earmarked for recovery to encourage more women to enter the rescue fields. Apparently, NOW is upset that only 25 of the 11,000-some-odd firefighters in New York are female, and it doesn't matter to them that women make their own career choices. It's also worth pointing out that images of men in the media got a boost from the emergency workers responses to the 9/11 outrages. Perhaps NOW simply can't stand positive images of men?
Update: My apologies to Neil Steyskal for not mentioning him earlier. He also submitted this story.

In her latest column, ifeminist and friend of MANN Wendy McElroy describes how the efforts of American government to force "diversification" is not the same thing as promoting equality. While she does criticize the men's movement for claiming that the recent Ford discrimination lawsuit and the Jim Babyak lawsuit are victories, she has a point that government needs to stay out of the diversification business.

This Wednesday's on-line chat will be a discussion about what worked for us in 2001 and how to apply these strategies to promote men's rights and fight male bashing in the new year that has begun. Stop by our chat page at 9:30 PM EST on 1/2/02, say hello to everyone, and share your New Year's Resolutions regarding activism! I'll also be looking for a volunteer to help me maintain the Media Watch page, which I think will become a more important and utilized resource of this site in future. See you there!

Stan Gaver writes "Columnist Mona Charen has a great article about the latest male heroes who confronted the "shoe bomber" on AA flight 63. Her closing is particularly enheartening: "God bless our men, who've taken so much undeserved abuse for decades, yet never stopped being men and gentlemen."" Thanks also to krob4399 for sending this link in, too.

As the founder of Mensactivism.org, I'd like to take a few moments to thank the people who have made this site such a success this year, and more than I ever expected it to be. Click Read More below to read some notes on the history of MANN, the people who have brought us to our current point, and the top five comment posters. Let the good times roll...

napnip received a response from Ames Department Stores after he e-mailed them about the vending machines inside those stores containing boy bashing stickers ("Boys Are Aliens," "Boys Are Brainless," "I Make Boys Cry," among others). Store officials point out that they do not stock the vending machines themselves, but have asked the company which does to remove the offending stickers. You can read the e-mail to napnip by clicking Read more below. Here again, we see proof that our activism works.

I've received two book reviews for Rich Zubaty's excellent book, What Men Know That Women Don't. You can view them in the Read More section, and the book can be bought at this site, in either electronic form (so you can download it immediately), or in print. Many thanks to J. Steven Svoboda and Ssargon for the reviews!

equalitarian62 writes, "I finally plugged my TV in again in order to see what new male-bashing commercials were airing. I didn't have to wait long. Reebok had two commercials featuring men acting like fools, with the theme music being "This is a Man's World." In one of these commercials, a man walks into a gym full of fit women, and trips and stumbles over the exercise equipment. At the end he is rescued from a machine by one of these strong women, and the message "It's a Woman's World" flashes on the screen. I think that this is once again a highly offensive way of selling products. I'll be sure not to buy anything from Reebok in the future. Apparently these misandristic ads are part of a new campaign called "It's a Woman's World." Click here for more info." Also thanks to Adam S. for notifying us of this. Nightmist's Note: You can screen the insulting ads (as well as a "behind the scenes" explanation of them) here. Click Read More for Reebok contact info.

Gordon Finley, a Professor of Psychology at Florida International University, gave us permission to reprint a letter which was published in the Miami Herald on 12/28. Prof. Finley responds to an article on the rising numbers of child abuse and neglect deaths, and points out that the social workers dealing with these cases would be more effective if we confronted the problem of false accusations, which comprise a sizable proportion of their caseloads. Go to the Read More section to view his letter.

Margaret Wente wrote a balanced review of Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture for the Globe and Mail. I say it's balanced because she offers some criticism for the book as well. Overall, she definitely feels this book is needed, though she finds it to overstate the problem at times. Speaking of this book, I think it's time that I ordered a copy myself. Thanks to an Anonymous User who sent this review our way.

As promised, I have set up an e-mail list to be used for the book reading group. If you haven't heard, Mensactivism.org has set up a "book club" of sorts - every couple of months, people who want to participate will decide on a book to be read, and then form a reading schedule for the book. The mailing list will be a place to discuss the contents of the book and other related issues (please note that is not a general purpose list, so please keep discussions on-topic!). The first book we are reading is Christina Hoff-Sommers' Who Stole Feminism?, and we are reading 3-4 chapters each week. To join, click here and fill out the web form. All are welcome.

John May sent in this chat transcript from CNN where gender feminist leader Gloria Steinem is interviewed. The main topic of the discussion is women's rights in Afghanistan, but it's always a good idea to keep tabs on what Steinem is up to.

Douglas Rome submitted this article from the UK Guardian. It describes the increasing derision people are expressing for older men, and as Douglas writes, "This article is especially interesting in that it's by a radical feminist who's shown no previous sympathy for men's plight: I think they're becoming worried, at last, over the molten fury of the men's movement about what Karpf describes as sexism hiding behind feminism."

The same Anon User who sent in the news that Egypt has banned the flogging of male prisoners also discovered this Reuters article which states that 137 Saudi Arabian and five foreign young men were flogged for "harassing women." I have no idea what they mean by harassment, whether it was inappropriate touching or possibly rape, but even Amnesty International believes this to be a grave human rights violation of these men, as reported in the article.

An Anonymous User writes, "On Dec. 19, Judy Mann wrote a column in the Washington Post that stereotyped and vilified men. Many of us wrote letters to the editor. On Dec. 22, the Post "Free for All" section ran a letter from a Markus Garlauskas that characterized Mann's column as "an anti-male message of hate." On Friday, Judy Mann resigned her position at the Post. I don't know whether or not we can take full credit for her resignation, but I do believe that we did make a difference to stop anti-male bigotry." Apparently, Judy couldn't help but make a few final snide remarks about men in her last article (see paragraph 3, in particular). Good riddance.