http://jezebel.com/florida-girl-face...mate-508849336


http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18o9...g/k-bigpic.jpg


Kaitlyn Hunt's parents knew their 18-year-old daughter was dating a 15-year-old girl whom she met through classes and varsity sports at the Florida high school the two attended. But when the younger girl's parents learned about the relationship, they had Kaitlyn arrested on two counts of felony lewd and lascivious battery on a child ages 12 to 16. Kaitlyn must now choose whether to go to trial — if found guilty, she'd have to register as a sex offender and could serve up to 15 years in prison — or accept a plea deal of two years' house arrest and one year of probation. The Hunts hope growing publicity will pressure the state to drop her case and focus on protecting and educating teenagers instead of prosecuting them for falling in consensual love.

Steven Hunt told Jezebel in a phone interview that his daughter Kaitlyn, whom friends and family call "Kate," grew close with her 15-year-old former girlfriend through classes and the varsity basketball team the two played on at Sebastian River High School in Sebastian, Fla; the younger girl was a freshman student enrolled in International Baccalaureate courses with upperclassmen, so they were peers in the same social circle. Kate's mother, Kelley Hunt Smith, wrote on Facebook that the two girls hung out with the family at their home and before basketball games. Since Kelley had seen the girl's father at sporting events, she assumed her family knew about and accepted the relationship. Kate had always dated boys, but when she told her mother she was dating a girl, Kelley "didn’t want to make it a big deal," she wrote. "I talked to her about it, and figured it was just a social thing, times have changed and a lot of kids are experimenting, so I didn’t make much of it."

"We knew about her sexual preference for a long time," Steve said. "It wasn't an issue for us."

But it was an issue for her former girlfriend's parents. When the girls' basketball coach found out the two were dating, she kicked Kate off the team and told the younger girl's parents, who told police. That's when Kate was arrested. According to Kelley:

On Saturday February 16th our families world was shattered and our daughters nightmare begun. The police came to our home and arrested my daughter, put her in hand cuffs and we had no idea why. They refused to tell us anything at first because she had turned 18. Kate was ripped out of our arms, terrified, crying hysterically. My younger daughter was there at the time, my husband and myself, we were mortified. They finally told us she was being arrested on “probable cause”. I asked them probable cause of what, they said sexual battery on a person 12-16 years old. My heart dropped, I knew then that it had to have been her girlfriend's parents. These people never came to us as parents, never tried to speak to us, didn’t try to get the school involved to speak to us and tell us they had a problem with the girls dating, not one single word. Instead, they set out their vengeance and had my child arrested on FELONY charges.
Kate, who agreed to cut off contact with her former girlfriend and was subsequently expelled weeks before graduation to boot, has until Friday to decide whether to go to trial or take the plea deal. Her parents don't want her to choose either option.

“The (assistant) state attorney, Brian Workman needs to use taxpayers money to prosecute REAL criminals, not a high school student who has never been in trouble a day in her young life, all because she had a mutual consenting relationship with someone who has bigoted parents,” wrote Hunt Smith. "...they feel like my daughter “made” their daughter gay. They are bigoted, religious zeolites that see being gay as a sin and wrong, and they blame my daughter."

Kate's father said this case highlights glaring problems with age-of-consent laws and sex-education. The age of consent in Florida is 18, but should 18-year-old high schoolers really be responsible for setting boundaries with the 14 to 17-year-olds who take the same classes and participate in the same after-school activities as they do? "There's no education at her school that describes what to do and what not to do within a consensual relationship in terms of age," Steve said. "The fact that this was a same-sex relationship was clearly the motivation factor [behind the arrest]. But this law is ridiculous regardless of whether teenagers are gay or straight."

From the "Free Kate" Facebook page:

The law needs to change, not only to protect Kate, but to protect the millions of teenagers, boys and girls, straight and gay, whose lives are regularly ruined because parents disapprove of their children's sexual choices. We want justice for all 18-year-old high school seniors who have undergone criminal prosecution for exercising poor judgement in their dating life. Such students are not predators. They're just kids. Likewise, we believe the law should not be arbitrarily enforced based on a parent's anger. Parents should be empowered to protect their children, but not at the price of destroying another young person's life forever.
The Hunts have launched a Change.org petition, which has over 52K signatures, and a fundraising site to help with extensive legal fees. "Kate is strong but scared," Steve said. "We hope she gets her freedom soon."

This Free Kate story is making me twitch a bit.

Its another of those where, to me, the issue isn't quite as clear cut as these parents might be trying to make it sound.

I'm trying to sort why I am feeling the way I am .

First off, I have a real problem when parents, trying to protect their kid, are wanting to challenge the protection of consent laws for children by turning it into an issue about homophobia and sexual experimentation.

They are also faulting the law for existing, the school for allowing mixed age mingling of students without some parameters of some sort, the school for telling the other parents, the other parents for reporting it to the police, and the district attorney who should spend taxpayers money prosecuting real criminals. Whoa.

We only have the alleged perpetrators parents side of the story. What's the other side?

Second, I don't always get the concept of "legal consent". Somehow on the morning of their 18th birthday, it seems we expect some wisdom and growth was wasn't there the night before.

Third, the parents are giving conflicting stories. The mother is saying her daughter always dated boys but had told her she was dating a girl now. The father says they had known about their daughters sexual preference for a long time. To me, this sets up a credibility issue.

Fourth, the mother indicates she made many assumptions about this. She assumed the other family knew. She assumed the other family accepted it. Why assume? Why not just ask your kid? Was she aware of the differences in their ages and the potential pitfalls?

Part of this is sounding like she wanted to be supportive of her child's developing sexuality but was reluctant or unsure of how to go about it.

Fifth, if these young women are both in the IB program, they are very bright kids, albeit still kids. Did anyone talk to these kids?

Sixth, if this was an 18 year old boy and a 15 year old girl, would I look at it differently?

Seventh, the Free Kate page is postulating the following:

"The law needs to change, not only to protect Kate, but to protect the millions of teenagers, boys and girls, straight and gay, whose lives are regularly ruined because parents disapprove of their children's sexual choices. We want justice for all 18-year-old high school seniors who have undergone criminal prosecution for exercising poor judgement in their dating life. Such students are not predators. They're just kids. Likewise, we believe the law should not be arbitrarily enforced based on a parent's anger. Parents should be empowered to protect their children, but not at the price of destroying another young person's life forever."

This is the same type of rationale I have seen used when male high school athletes have been accused of taking sexual advantage of intoxicated young classmates. Just poor judgment. Shouldn't destroy a young persons life or their potential future athletic career.

I don't know what to think.

From the father of Kaitlyn Hunt
 

MY DAUGHTER WAS ARRESTED, EXPELLED AND CHARGED WITH A FELONY FOR A SAME-SEX RELATIONSHIP SHE HAD AS A MINOR

On Saturday, February 16, our family's world was torn apart and our daughter's life turned upside down.

The police came and arrested my daughter, put her in handcuffs and no reason was given at all.

They refused to tell her mother anything at first because she had turned 18.

My daughter was ripped out of her mother's arms, hysterical. The police finally told us she was being arrested on “probable cause." When they said sexual battery on a person 12-16 years old, it was clear what was going on.

It had to have been my daughter's girlfriend's parents.

My daughter, Kaitlyn, was in a romantic relationship with a student at her school who was also a teammate on the basketball team.

She is a high school senior living in Indian River County, Florida.

Until halfway through the school year, she was a student at Indian River High School, where she had been a cheerleader, a varsity basketball player and was busy preparing for a career serving others in the nursing field.

Kate was a popular student who was voted as the student with "most school spirit." Kate's girlfriend was a freshman student enrolled in international baccalaureate courses with upperclassmen and a fellow player on the basketball team with Kate.

While Kate was three years older than her girlfriend, they were peers. But when Kate's girlfriend's parents learned of their relationship, they went directly to the police to press charges without sharing their objections with Kate or her family.

The police taped a conversation between Kate and her girlfriend, which led to Kate's arrest. Kate was interrogated extensively without a lawyer present. I am a former police officer, so she trusted the police and didn't feel she had anything to hide. Kate was eventually charged with two counts of felony lewd and lascivious battery on a child 12-16.

The prosecutor later offered a plea deal of felony child abuse, with two years house arrest followed by one year probation. Today, the girls are 18 and 15.

Kate's girlfriend has taken no part in her prosecution and adamantly denies she is a victim, but the law grants her no rights in this matter. Kate has offered to permanently cease contact and leave the state if charges are dropped, but that offer has been rejected by the prosecutor and the girlfriend's parents.

Before the legal trouble began, Kate was already a target at her school.

After the relationship started, the basketball coach approached her and said, "Kaitlyn, can I talk to you? I heard you have something going on with another female player on our team, and I can't have that kind of drama on my team, I don't allow it and I wouldn't ever. So, I'm sorry, but playing on our team won't work out for you."

Yes, that's right, my own daughter was removed from a sport she loves simply because she was in a relationship with another "student."

Now, it didn't stop there. The girl's mother found out about the relationship, and, as several people told me, the girl's mother said that there's no way her daughter could be gay.

Anyone who knows my daughter Kate knows how wonderful she is.

Kate is an 18-year-old senior about to graduate with an exemplary record at school and home. She has always been a wonderful student, respected and well liked. She has cheered on the varsity cheer team all throughout high school, sung in chorus and was voted most school spirited. She has never been in trouble, ever. She truly is the model student and child.

This relationship occurred when they were both minors, and my daughter's girlfriend's parents waited until she turned 18 to arrest her.

These people never came to us, never tried to speak to us, didn’t try to get the school involved to speak to us and tell us they had a problem with the girls dating, not one single word.

Instead, they set out their vengeance and had Kate arrested on felony charges.

It was Kate's senior year -- she only had a few months until graduation and we wanted her to finish. But the parents petitioned the court and asked the judge to remove Kate from school, even though the judge already ruled Kate could continue school. But this other student's parents feel like my daughter “made” their daughter gay.

My daughter's girlfriend has said from day one, she cares about my daughter, she never wanted her parents to do this, she was 100% consenting and it was by her own choice that she was with my daughter.

She doesn’t want Kate to be punished.

My daughter's life is being destroyed. Kate is deeply depressed, crying all the time and suffering night terrors.

I will do whatever it takes to fight for my daughter.

And I'm finding out that I am not alone.

Internet activist group Anonymous launched #OpJustice4Kaitlyn on May 19 and released a statement addressed to the Indian River County State Attorney's Office that reads in part: "Kaitlyn Hunt is a bright young girl who was involved in a consensual, same-sex relationship while both she and her partner were minors. She has a big future ahead of her and there are people, thousands of people in fact, that have no intention of allowing you to ruin it with your rotten selective enforcement."

How can you help?
First, sign this petition.

Second, if you would like to help with the considerable legal fees, you can purchase a bracelet that says "STOP THE HATE, FREE KATE."

Third, if you're a resident of Florida, please contact your state legislators and tell them the law needs to protect high school peers from prosecution.

Find your state legislators here.

Fourth, share this story!

Share with everyone. If you know a high school student, make sure he or she knows the law.

Please -- let's stop the hate. Free Kate.

"This relationship occurred when they were both minors, and my daughter's girlfriend's parents waited until she turned 18 to arrest her.

These people never came to us, never tried to speak to us, didn’t try to get the school involved to speak to us and tell us they had a problem with the girls dating, not one single word.

Instead, they set out their vengeance and had Kate arrested on felony charges.

It was Kate's senior year -- she only had a few months until graduation and we wanted her to finish. But the parents petitioned the court and asked the judge to remove Kate from school, even though the judge already ruled Kate could continue school. But this other student's parents feel like my daughter “made” their daughter gay."

It's also part of the discourse of this case that the younger girl's parents are Evangelical, and had reacted very badly to their daughter being 'gay'.

They have directed their homophobia by creating a difficult situation in that laws need to be prosecuted consistently, regardless of gender and orientation, or it leaves room for being seen an unenforced law.

My thoughts are that had their daughter been dating an 18 year boy, this would not have happened. If, as the father in the above quotation states, the relationship occurred while they were both minors, the Prosecution may have an out if it could be seen as malicious intent of the parents to wait to file charges until she was 18... why the delay in reporting something they were so bothered about. I believe they called it 'sinful'.

I don't know statistically, how many males don't get charged with sexually interfering with a minor female-- but i'm also thinking that this feels like 'selective prosecution' with the younger girl's religious parents fanning the flames. Not long ago, there was overwhelming lament for the 'poor young men' who had raped a girl, having their 'promising futures' tarnished by being held accountable.

This was a consensual relationship that began when they were both minors, the implications of an 18th birthday were only significant to the younger girl's parents, it seems.

http://www.themilitantbaker.com/2013...bie-fitch.html
http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enha...69063628-1.jpg

“P.P.S. You should know your Large t-shirt comfortably fits a size 22. You might want to work on that.”

Back to the Free Kate thing again for a moment. There was an Associated Press story yesterday that contradicted some of the earlier stories.

This story said:


"An 18-year-old Florida cheerleader is facing felony charges that she had sexual contact with her underage, 14-year-old girlfriend."

"The two had a consenting relationship that began soon AFTER Kaitlyn Hunt turned 18, and Hunt Smith, Kates mother said she assumed the younger girl's parents knew that."


In addition, it says this:


State Attorney Bruce Colton said the victim's family is not pushing for prison but wants Kaitlyn Hunt to be held responsible in some way.

"One of the reasons this case has gotten people's attention is because it's being publicized as a person being persecuted because she's gay, and that has nothing to do with the case, nothing to do with the law, nothing to do with the sheriff's office filing the charges," Colton said. He said the law is designed to protect younger children from older children who might be more aggressive in starting a relationship.

"The law doesn't make any differentiation. It doesn't matter if it's two girls or two boys, or an older boy and a younger girl or an older girl and a younger boy. Whatever the combination, it doesn't matter."

"It's very difficult under these circumstances when the defendant and the victim do not see what they're doing as a crime, but understandably the law is very clear that when someone is more than four years older than the victim and the victim is under the age of 16, then they cannot give legal consent," said New Jersey defense attorney Gregory Gianforcaro, who has represented victims and defendants on both sides of this issue.


I am still not sure what to think. There is more than one side to any story. Something still feels fishy about this one.


Full story

House panel moves to curb military sexual assaults
 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers have approved legislation to stem the growing epidemic of sexual assaults in the military.

The bill approved by a House panel Wednesday authorizes changes to military law that would strip commanding officers of their authority to unilaterally change or dismiss court-martial convictions in major cases, such as rape and assault.

Republicans and Democrats backing the revisions believe they will lead to a cultural shift in the armed forces that encourages more victims to step forward.

The bill also would impose harsher penalties on service members found guilty of sexual offenses by requiring that they be dismissed or dishonorably discharged.

http://news.yahoo.com/house-panel-mo...173033382.html

Florida high school suspends teacher for touching girl on head with banana
 

Is a cigar sometimes just a cigar? That debate will remain unresolved, but The Daily Caller can say with confidence that a banana is definitely not always just a banana at North Marion High School near Ocala, Fla.

School district officials suspended North Marion High teacher Jonathan Hampton for three days without pay after he allegedly used a banana to touch a female student on the head during class, reports Ocala.com.

Hampton was teaching an advanced, college-level course at the time. The theme of the discussion that day was the Freudian ramifications of Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

According to a May 13, 2013 discipline letter obtained by local CBS-affiliate WKMG, Hampton “rubbed a student’s head and neck area with a banana” while the topic was “cylinder objects, phalluses and/or sex symbols.”

The unidentified student’s parents reported the incident on May 6, some three months after it happened. According to the school district, they complained because their daughter felt uncomfortable. It’s not clear what factors caused them to wait three months to lodge their grievance.

A district representative said that Hampton was suspended because, given the totality of the circumstances, school officials had determined that he made inappropriate use of the banana.

The discipline letter written by deputy superintendent Rick Lankford suggested that other students had complained that Hampton’s college-level coursework has gone beyond community norms with “excessive frequency, causing discomfort to many of your students.”

Some parents and community members side firmly with the school district.

“That is disgusting, very disgusting,” said Dale Johnson, identified by WKMG as a grandmother. “I don’t think he should be allowed to teach kids. You don’t do stuff like that and get away with it.”

Hampton did not speak with local media but his attorney Mark Fiedelholtz did, telling a much different story.

“He doesn’t recall ever touching the student with a banana, but if he did it would be to get their attention,” Fiedelholtz told WKMG.

“There was nothing else to it,” he also said, according to Ocala.com.

The attorney added that no other students had made a complaint at the time or during the three subsequent months about the alleged banana incident.

Hampton has taught at North Marion High since 2007. According to personnel records obtained by WKMG, his work as a teacher has been generally “outstanding.” He was the 2011-12 teacher of the year. In 2009, though, Hampton landed in hot water for negative online commentary about students and fellow teachers.

http://news.yahoo.com/florida-high-s...W4tVVM-;_ylv=3

Another teenage death after sexual assault while drunk/pics on internet
 

SARATOGA, Calif. (AP) — One evening last Labor Day weekend, 15-year-old Audrie Pott walked up the driveway of a classmate's home alongside other teenagers. She'd told her parents she was spending the night with a friend. The friend claimed she was sleeping at Audrie's. Instead, the girls were having a party. A classic teenage ploy.

On that Sunday night, she was just another kid pushing the limits as she celebrated the last days of summer, getting drunk with her friends on vodka and Gatorade.

Police and a civil lawsuit outline allegations of what happened next: Three boys came into a room where Audrie had passed out. When she awoke the next morning, her shorts were off. Pictures were doodled on her body with a Sharpie. On one leg was the name of a boy, followed by the words "was here."

Soon Audrie learned about a photograph apparently making the rounds — of an intimate part of her body, taken, a family lawyer says, while she was passed out. "I have a reputation for a night I don't even remember," she wrote in another Facebook message, "and the whole school knows."

Eight days after the end-of-summer party, the sophomore who dreamed of traveling the world took her own life, hanging herself in a bathroom at home. Now the three boys, only 16 themselves, stand charged with sexual battery.

As they buried Audrie, her parents had no idea about an alleged assault, let alone that school officials, alerted by students about the party and the picture, had already gone to the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office, which launched an investigation.

Then the Pott family began getting phone calls. "There was information some of the children had that they felt would be vital for us to find out," Larry Pott said.

The three boys accused in the case were charged in the fall but remained in school (one transferring elsewhere) until April 11, when sheriff's deputies arrested them on charges of sexual battery and distribution of child pornography. Attorneys representing the teens, whose names have not been released because of their ages, urged the public to withhold judgment.

"Much of what has been reported ... is inaccurate. Most disturbing is the attempt to link (Audrie's) suicide to the specific actions of these three boys," said a statement from attorneys Eric Geffon, Alan Lagod and Benjamin Williams. "We are hopeful that everyone understands that these boys, none of whom have ever been in trouble with the law, are to be regarded as innocent."

The Pott family has sued the boys and their families, and filed an administrative claim against the Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District, alleging that administrators were slack in responding to bullying against Audrie. "With no assault, with no cyberbullying, Audrie is in art class right now," Larry Pott said at a news conference last month, his voice breaking.

The Potts also have launched the Audrie Pott Foundation to support local music and art scholarships in Audrie's memory, as well as youth counseling. And they are pressing for a change in state laws to stiffen penalties for cyberbullying and assault.

http://news.yahoo.com/girls-suicide-...134103899.html

It’s 2013, And They’re Burning ‘Witches’
 

http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature...g-witches/558/


Belief in black magic persists in Papua New Guinea, where communities are warping under the pressure of the mining boom’s unfulfilled expectations.
Women are blamed, accused of sorcery and branded as witches — with horrific consequences.


*disturbing images contained in the article on the link*

Rape victim: Retaliation prevalent in military
 

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Stacey Thompson had just been stationed at a Marine Corps base in Japan when she said her sergeant laced her drinks with drugs, raped her in his barracks and then dumped her onto a street outside a nightclub at 4 a.m.

The 19-year-old lance corporal was not afraid to speak up.

She reported it to her superiors but little happened. She said she discovered her perpetrator was allowed to leave the Marine Corps and she found herself, instead, at the center of a separate investigation for drug use stemming from that night. Six months later, she was kicked out with an other-than-honorable discharge — one step below honorable discharge — which means she lost her benefits.

Now, 14 years later, she has decided to speak out again, emboldened by the mounting pressure on the Pentagon to resolve its sexual assault epidemic.

She went public with her story Thursday in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press and spoke Friday at a news conference with Sen. Barbara Boxer ahead of next week's Senate hearing on the problem.

"To see that what happened to me 14 years ago is still continuing to happen now, for me that was a big reason why I felt the need to come forward," she said. "I can finally say I have the strength."

Retaliation is part of a military-wide pattern that has prevented countless cases from being reported and investigated, exacerbating the epidemic, according to victims' advocates. A Pentagon report released earlier this month found 62 percent of sexual assault victims in the military who reported being attacked say they faced some kind of retaliation afterward.

Boxer is pushing for a bipartisan bill that would put the cases in the hands of military trained prosecutors and not the chain of command.

"Too many survivors of military sexual assault are afraid to report these crimes because they fear retaliation, and they don't believe they will get justice," Boxer said. "They deserve a system that encourages victims to come forward knowing that the perpetrators will be brought to justice."

Marine Corps and Navy officials declined to comment, saying they do not discuss specific cases.

All branches have been scrambling to implement sexual assault prevention programs and improve their response to cases amid growing outrage over the Pentagon's failure to stem the problem as a string of arrests and incidents of sexual misconduct continue to surface.

As many as 26,000 military members may have been sexually assaulted last year and thousands of victims are unwilling to come forward despite new oversight and assistance programs, according to the Pentagon. That figure is an increase over the 19,000 estimated assaults in 2011.

Only 3,374 of these crimes were reported, resulting in 238 convictions.

"It's an ongoing problem that is not getting better, it's getting worse, as the latest statistics out of the Pentagon show," said Brian Purchia, spokesman for Protect Our Defenders, which has been helping Thompson.

"Unfortunately commanders are conflicted: When a sexual assault occurs on their watch, it reflects poorly on them and that's why it's shoved under the rug. The perpetrators frequently out rank the victims, which is also why there is this bias. They're going to trust people they've known — not an 18 or 19-year-old just new to the service."

Former Marine Capt. Anu Bhagwati said military culture will not change until the military justice system is reformed and service members are given access to civil courts to file suits in cases of retaliation and discrimination.

"There is no outside redress," said Bhagwati, who leads the Service Women's Action Network.

Thompson said she paid heavily for reporting the assault.

The investigator called her a liar, and military authorities checked her hands for needle pricks after accusing her of using drugs. She said she never used drugs. She was reassigned to another unit, removed from her job and told to report to an office with nothing to do.

Then she was kicked out. She continues to suffer from her other-than-honorable discharge, which stripped her of her benefits and she believes has led to her missing out on Defense Department jobs.

"I felt the Marine Corps re-victimized me again after getting raped," said the 32-year-old mother of three.

Thompson said then she shut down, refusing to talk about her rape. She was afraid of men, especially Marines. To this day, she keeps her dog nearby when she showers and sleeps with lights on in her house, even when her combat Marine husband is home.

"That fear is still with me 14 years later," she said.

But the fight is there too. Thompson requested her records in December. She said they showed the drug use allegations against her came from her perpetrator's friends.

She is now appealing her case to the Department of Veterans Affairs and is seeking compensation related to military sexual trauma. After that, she plans to also appeal her discharge status to get it upgraded to honorable.

http://news.yahoo.com/rape-victim-re...W4tVVM-;_ylv=3

Military's sexual-assault problem has deep roots
 

NEW YORK (AP) — Sexual assault occurs in myriad settings and the perpetrators come from every swath of U.S. society. Yet as recent incidents and reports make clear, it's a particularly intractable problem in the military, with its enduring macho culture and unique legal system.

The most significant factor, according to advocates, is the perception by victims in the military that they lack the recourses available in the civilian world to bring assailants to justice.

"The military says they have zero tolerance, but in fact that's not true," said Dr. Katherine Scheirman, a retired Air Force colonel with more than 20 years of service in the U.S. and abroad. "Having a sexual assault case in your unit is considered something bad, so commanders have had an incredible incentive not to destroy their own careers by prosecuting someone."

Insisting it takes the problem seriously, the military has put in place numerous policies and programs to reduce the assaults, notably since the 1991 Tailhook scandal in which Navy pilots were accused of sexually abusing female officers at a Las Vegas convention.

Still the problem persists, as indicated in a recent Pentagon report estimating that 26,000 service members were sexually assaulted last year, compared with 19,000 in 2011. Victims reported 3,374 incidents in 2012; there were convictions in 238 of those cases.

"That means there are thousands of felons walking around — free and dangerous — in the military today," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

Boxer is co-sponsor of a bill that would remove top commanders from the process of deciding whether sexual misconduct cases go to trial. Instead, that decision would rest with officers who are trial counsels with prosecutorial experience.

To advocates for assault victims, that would be a crucial step forward, given Defense Department findings that many victims are of lower rank than their assailants and most fear retaliation if they report the incident.

The missing element is accountability, according to Nancy Parrish of Protect Our Defenders, one of the groups urging changes in the military justice system.

"When military leaders are held accountable for countenancing bad behavior, then you'll begin to see a shift in the culture," she said. "They've proved they can do this with racial integration. Anyone who countenanced racist behavior would be fired."

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has conveyed the same message, calling sexual assault "a crime that demands accountability and consequences" and describing it as "a serious problem that we must solve."

Outrage over the Pentagon's failure to stem the problem has grown following an embarrassing string of arrests and incidents of sexual misconduct. On Friday, in the latest disclosure, the Pentagon confirmed that the U.S. Naval Academy is investigating allegations that three football team members sexually assaulted a female midshipman at an off-campus house last year.

Some longtime advocates for assault victims say they've grown weary of promises to do better.

"They say they are dismayed, saddened, committed to making change, but all their rhetoric really boils down to is, 'How do we not get caught?'" said Paula Coughlin, who as a Navy lieutenant in 1991 was instrumental in bringing the Tailhook scandal to light.

"There's an environment in the military that says you can get away with it — you don't go to jail if you attack women," said Coughlin.

In the civilian world, positions of power often are exploited by sexual abusers, as evidenced by the many cases involving clergymen, coaches and teachers.

Scheirman, now a physician in Edmond, Okla., said issues of power and control are particularly pronounced in the military.

"Commanders have the power to destroy your career, to make your life a living hell," she said. "Though 99.9 percent of them don't, you can't take that chance. If it was a commander who assaulted you, you'd be delusional to think that if you reported it, any justice would be done."

While precise comparisons are difficult, the Defense Department's recent report suggests that women in the military and the civilian world face roughly the same risk of sexual assault. One crucial difference is that most civilian victims have options, such as going to the police or filing a civil suit, in the aftermath of harassment or assault that aren't available to service members.

"In civilian world, all of these recourses act as a deterrent," said Anu Bhagwati, a former Marine captain who advocates on behalf of assault victims as executive director of the Service Women's Action Network.

In the military, Bhagwati said, "there's no freedom of movement, no right to quit your job, You're forced to coexist with your perpetrator."

Cynthia Smith, a Defense Department spokeswoman, says the military does offer options to assault victims, who can report incidents to a sexual assault response coordinator, a victim advocate, a health care provider or a chaplain.

The contrasts between the military and corporate America are stark to Marene Nyberg Allison, who was in the first class of women at the U.S. Military Academy, graduating in 1980. After six years in the Army, she became an FBI agent, served on a Defense Department advisory committee on women in the military, and is now a senior executive with Johnson & Johnson.

"If I go on a business trip and someone tried to sexually assault me, I could sue them, I could sue the company, I could sue just about everybody," she said. "In the military, you're not allowed to do that."

"At a corporation, no one is asking, 'Does a woman really belong here?" she said. "You see that in the military — this whole idea of 'Do women belong here at all?'"

Steps are being taken.

Two weeks ago, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered the military to recertify all 25,000 people involved in programs to prevent and respond to sexual assault. On Thursday the Defense Department launched a service called The Safe HelpRoom, enabling assault victims to participate in group chat sessions providing support and referrals.

Bhagwati says the biggest strides toward achieving lasting change would be to double the representation of women in the military from the current level of 15 percent and end the exclusion of women from certain units and missions. In particular, she said, more women are needed as officers, so they have the collective confidence to push for change.

"It's hard for women to go against the grain," she said. "It's not a culture that teaches moral courage, as opposed to battlefield courage."

It's also a culture that has been conducive to sexism and the degradation of women, Bhagwati contends.

"At bases overseas, there's commercial exploitation of women thriving around them, women being trafficked," she said. "You can't expect to treat women as one of your own when, in same breath, you as a young soldier are being encouraged to exploit women on the outside of that base."

"We don't condone that kind of behavior," insisted Cynthia Smith. "We work in an environment where we need to treat everyone with respect."

Jessica Kenyon, who served with the Army in South Korea, recalled a pervasive tendency to scapegoat women.

"If there are any problems in the unit — sex, drinking and driving, anything that could possibly be tagged to women being in the unit — it's seen as their fault," she said.

Kenyon said her Army career derailed after she was raped and impregnated by a fellow soldier in 2006. Now 32, she runs online support services for military victims of sexual assault.

"I treat my cases like they are incest survivors," she said. "You're willing to take a bullet for the guy you just met and to have that trust willfully violated makes the sense of betrayal that much higher."

One notable aspect of the Pentagon's recent sexual-assault estimates was the level of male-on-male assaults. Men were the victims in nearly 14,000 of the estimated 26,000 assaults, although women, comprising a small fraction of active-duty personnel, had a higher rate of being assaulted.

"Men need to be encouraged to come forward, so if you ask for help, it's seen a sign of strength, not of weakness," said Paul Rieckhoff, a former Army officer who heads Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Allyson Robinson of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, one of the groups which successfully campaigned to let gays serve openly in the military, said repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" has given more male soldiers the confidence to report same-sex assaults.

"Under 'don't ask,' service members who were victims of assault by their own sex could have been accused of being gay if they reported it, and thus lose their careers," she said.

She disputed suggestions from some conservatives that repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" is responsible for an increase in male-on-male assaults.

"Sexual assault is never about sex or sexual orientation," she said. "It's a crime of violence that's about power and domination."

Cynthia Smith said commanders will be the key to any improvements.

"No one should be at risk — male or female," she said. "Commanders are expected to provide the necessary resources or training so that both men and women know where to turn should they have questions or need support."

Dempsey, among others, suggests that the sexual assault problem has been aggravated by the strains of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Professor David Segal, director of the University of Maryland's Center for Research on Military Organization, said such strains are a key factor in the surge of suicides, spousal abuse and other problems in addition to sexual assault.

"The military has been phenomenally stretched over the last decade — it's been asked to do too much for too long with too few resources," he said. "The veneer of civilization is very thin, and the wars have worn it down or cracked it."

http://news.yahoo.com/militarys-sexu...121614939.html

Chinese City Of Wuhan Wants To Discourage Extramarital Affairs By Fining Unwed Mothers



The government of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province with a population of more than 10 million, recently published a draft of its Population and Planned Birth Regulations, one of which specified that an unwed mother who cannot supply proof of the child’s father, or who had a child knowingly with a married man, will have to pay a “child-rearing fee.”

Read more:

http://www.ibtimes.com/chinese-city-...others-1290569

Mississippi aims to curb teen pregnancy with umbilical blood law
 

JACKSON, Mississippi (Reuters) - Mississippi will require doctors to collect umbilical cord blood from babies born to some young mothers, under a new law intended to identify statutory rapists and reduce the state's rate of teenage pregnancy, the highest in the country.

The measure, which takes effect on July 1 and is the first of its kind in the country, targets certain mothers who were 16 or younger at the time of conception. Under the law, doctors and midwives will be expected to retrieve umbilical cord blood in cases where the father is 21 or older or when the baby's paternity is in question.

Samples will be stored at the state medical examiner's office for testing in the event that police believe the girl was the victim of statutory rape. But they will not automatically be entered into the state's criminal DNA database.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/mississippi...142008317.html

Had been following this story and watched a documentary on the women who are trying to hold the military responsible (forget the name). What I dislike about the CBC's coverage of it is that they came framing it as "rape statistics being on the rise in the military" and military authorities "vowing" to get a handle on it...yet they didn't mention that the rape/abuse stats aren't "on the rise." They've always been there but people were just threatened into silence and ignored, not to mention military authorities doing very little to stop it. I just hate how a lot of news bodies frame it like it's "new." Of course stats are going to be "on the rise" if no one ever gave a shit before.

It reminds me of the increase in news coverage of gang rapes of teenage girls in North America. All the comments about "kids these days" and "back in my day boys were taught to respect girls" and "where were the parents of these boys" and all that bullshit. For weeks people used the case of RehtaeH Parsons as the example that things have to change and to discuss rape culture and dignity and justice for victims...then with the following article those same people turned their backs on another victim just because she wears a niqab. Some of the comments before they were taken away are just sickening...many people are starting to recognise that it's fucked up to question a white victim's credibility...but a muslim woman in a niqab? No, it's perfectly "ok" to drag her dignity through the mud by making her remove her niqab just to "assess her credibility and demeanor" (bullshit). Misogyny and islamophobia at their finest.

http://www.cbc.ca/mt_ept/stories/201...o-testify.html

'War on women" returns
 

Not every Republican learned Todd Akin’s lesson from 2012 – and Democrats noticed.

This week alone: Sen. Saxby Chambliss blamed sexual assaults in the military on hormones, conservative pundit Erick Erickson credited biology for male dominance in society and Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said working moms are making kids fail in school.

Democrats and liberal groups are seizing on these comments to reignite their 2012 strategy — rally the base to raise big money and put Republicans back on defense with women voters ahead of the mid-term elections.

“Women voters are paying attention — this week was a big reminder that the GOP assault on women’s rights continues,” said Jess McIntosh of EMILY’S List.

The group, which helps pro-choice women get elected to office, is planning to use Chambliss’ remark in an email blast and social media campaign called “Great Moments In GOP Women’s Outreach.”

Inside the Senate, Democrats are beginning meetings to strategize their messaging on the issue, according to a Senate Democratic aide.

“This is not an issue for Harry Reid or Chuck Schumer to jump into. This is an issue for Patty Murray and Claire McCaskill and the women senators to jump into,” the aide said. “We will take advantage of it, but this is the mold of the Planned Parenthood fight and the Blunt amendment fight. The female senators will take the lead. Part of the advantage of having a large number of women in your caucus is having people who are effective messengers on issues like this.’

Republicans pushed back at the moves, accusing Democrats of politicizing issues like military sexual assault that should be bipartisan.

At the National Republican Senatorial Committee, GOP operatives sought to squash the controversy, trying to head off a rehash of lessons learned from the last election cycle, after which Republicans promised to be more sensitive when talking about women’s issues.

“As a woman, the politicization of sexual assault or rape is offensive in and of itself. This is an important conversation to be had in congressional committees – it shouldn’t be used as a page in Democrat politicos’ playbooks looking to exploit this tragedy for political gain,” said Brook Hougesen, NRSC spokeswoman.

“If Democrats want to debate the ‘war on women’, look no further than the agenda set by Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer,” Hougesen said, turning the issue to the economy. “Women have had a difficult time finding work, and juggling multiple jobs and their personal lives with Democrats controlling the economy and the government for the last five years.”

Still, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is cooking up state-by-state releases calling on possible GOP Senate candidates to condemn remarks from GOP leaders.

“These comments make Todd Akin look moderate. Republicans have offended women across the country,” said DSCC spokeswoman Regan Page. “This was a defining issue in 2012 and will certainly be a problem for Republicans again in 2014.”

The playbook worked well for Democrats in 2012, when they turned controversial comments about rape by then-Senate candidates Akin and Richard Mourdock into a national discussion that contributed to Reid hanging onto his majority.

Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway acknowledged the comments don’t help Republicans with women, but she argues it will be difficult for Democrats to harness electoral victories off of them.

“These unfortunate, untoward completely baseless comments are unhelpful in an environment where the left still seems to be obsessed with a war on women,” Conaway said, who was quick to point out that the 2012 election was really about abortion politics. “Rape is four a letter word, so is debt to many women.”

But Republicans have a lot of explaining to do.

At Tuesday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on military sexual assault, Chambliss appeared to dismiss the severity of the issue when he cited hormones as a factor in the high rate of incidents.

“The young folks that are coming in to each of your services are anywhere from 17 to 22-or-three,” said Chambliss, a two-term Georgia Republican who plans to retire in 2014. “The hormone level created by nature sets in place the possibility for these types of things to occur.”

Erickson stepped into the fray this week by saying on Fox News that “when you look at biology, look at the natural world, the roles of a male and female in society, and the other animals, the male typically is the dominant role.”

And Bryant, speaking Tuesday at a Washington Post forum, blamed poor academic performance among youths on “both parents started working. The mom got in the workplace.”

While Chambliss also said “we simply can’t tolerate” sexual assaults, and he’s a cosponsor of two bipartisan bills that try to deal with the latest spike in violent crimes, the Georgia Republican’s comments nonetheless prompted rebukes from Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The Florida Democrat slammed the GOP and argued that their public remarks are a better indication of where the party stands on women’s issues.

For a United States senator or anyone to write off sexual assault and the personal violation of a woman or man to raging the hormones of youth shows just how dramatically out of touch the Republican Party is,” she said on MSNBC.

Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), the lead sponsor of legislation that would take prosecution of military sexual assault out of the normal chain of command, during a separate appearance Tuesday on MSNBC, also took aim at Republicans.

“Rape and sexual assault are crimes of violence, crimes of dominance. More than half of the victims are men. These are not crimes of lust. They’re not crimes of romance. They’re not dates that have gone badly,” she said. “They’re not issues of the hook-up culture from high school or hormones, as my colleague said. We’re talking about predators, often serial predators who are targeting their victims in advance, making them vulnerable through alcohol or other means and actually stalking them.”

Even some Republicans looked to distance themselves from Chambliss and other conservatives.

Rep. Martha Roby (R-Ala.) declined to comment Wednesday when asked about the recent remarks from her GOP colleagues.

“You’re going to see a bipartisan effort here today in the Armed Services Committee,” she said just outside the Rayburn Office Building hearing room where the panel held an all-day markup of the Defense Authorization bill.

Votes on several amendments dealing with sexual assault were expected Wednesday.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham conceded Chambliss could have spoken more eloquently about sexual assault but still defended his GOP colleague.

“I think what he was saying is you’ve got a lot of young people in the military and we just have be realistic,” Graham told POLITICO. “I don’t know where you were at 17 to 23. I don’t know how you were. But these are formative years. I know Saxby very well. Anybody knows Saxby is not suggesting that he’s justifying rape.”

To address the issue, Graham said any sexual predators serving the military “need to be sought out and pounded, driven out of the service in such a fashion to deter others.”

The South Carolina Republican also warned about “off-color jokes being told, where there’s an uncomfortable work environment where you’re showing disrespect for your female comrades in arms.”

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) said Chambliss’ remarks are part of a larger problem with the makeup of Capitol Hill.

“The reason these guys say these things is because they really believe them,” she said in an interview. “When you still have 80 percent of Congress that’s guys, you’re going to have people in leadership positions who think these things. It’s a shame because it really hampers our efforts to make sure we have a system that really works for all the victims of violence.”

Illinois Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky said the Republicans’ remarks won’t just hurt them politically — it might also make for trouble in recruiting women to join the armed forces. “Women, particularly women contemplating going into the military, would be very offended and also put off by that comment,” she said. “Because it sounds like it tolerates, it understands that these young men can’t control themselves. That’s just counterproductive and really offensive.”


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/0...#ixzz2W2M9bZbR

Catholic Church Supposed Value of "Family First."
 

SOCIAL JUSTICE

A City of Widows: Pictures From India’s Town for Discarded Women
When a woman’s husband dies in India, she can be subjected to stigma, loss of family and exile to a small city of 4,000 temples.


The Widow At The Door
A widow poses for a picture inside her room at the Meera Sahavagini ashram in the pilgrimage town of Vrindavan in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Thousands of temples devoted to Krishna make up the town, and devotees come from all corners of the Earth to walk the streets that Krishna walked.

People greet each other on the street by saying “Hare Krishna” (Praise Krishna) or “Radhe Radhe” (the name of Krishna’s favorite wife), and chant Krishna’s name with other believers for hours on end.

It is assumed that if you are in Vrindavan, you are attending to business with Lord Krishna.

But Vrindavan is also home to hundreds of Indian widows.

How did the widows all arrive at this sacred spot? What are they doing here? What does their presence say about India and the treatment of women in general? Click through this photo gallery, and all will be revealed.


http://www.takepart.com/photos/city-...ow-of-her-self

WHO study: Third of women suffer domestic violence
 

LONDON – In the first major global review of violence against women, a series of reports released today found that about a third of women have been physically or sexually assaulted by a former or current partner.

The head of the World Health Organization, Dr. Margaret Chan, called it “a global health problem of epidemic proportions,” and other experts said screening for domestic violence should be added to all levels of health care.

Among the findings: 40 percent of women killed worldwide were slain by an intimate partner, and being assaulted by a partner was the most common kind of violence experienced by women.

Researchers used a broad definition of domestic violence, and in cases where country data was incomplete, estimates were used to fill in the gaps. WHO defined physical violence as being slapped, pushed, punched, choked or attacked with a weapon. Sexual violence was defined as being physically forced to have sex, having sex for fear of what the partner might do and being compelled to do something sexual that was humiliating or degrading.

The report also examined rates of sexual violence against women by someone other than a partner and found about 7 percent of women worldwide had previously been a victim.

In conjunction with the report, WHO issued guidelines for authorities to spot problems earlier and said all health workers should be trained to recognize when women may be at risk and how to respond appropriately.

Globally, the WHO review found 30 percent of women are affected by domestic or sexual violence by a partner. The report was based largely on studies from 1983 to 2010. According to the United Nations, more than 600 million women live in countries where domestic violence is not considered a crime.

The rate of domestic violence against women was highest in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, where 37 percent of women experienced physical or sexual violence from a partner at some point in their lifetimes. The rate was 30 percent in Latin America and 23 percent in North America. In Europe and Asia, it was 25 percent.

Some experts said screening for domestic violence should be added to all levels of health care, such as obstetric clinics.

“It’s unlikely that someone would walk into an ER and disclose they’ve been assaulted,” said Sheila Sprague of McMaster University in Canada, who has researched domestic violence in women at orthopedic clinics. She was not connected to the WHO report.

However, “over time, if women are coming into a fracture clinic or a pre-natal clinic, they may tell you they are suffering abuse if you ask,” she said.

For domestic violence figures, scientists analyzed information from 86 countries focusing on women and teens over the age of 15. They also assessed studies from 56 countries on sexual violence by someone other than a partner, though they had no data from the Middle East. WHO experts then used modeling techniques to come up with global estimates for the percentage of women who are victims of violence.

Accurate numbers on women and violence are notoriously hard to pin down. A U.S. government survey reported almost two years ago that 1 in 4 American women said they were violently attacked by their husbands or boyfriends, and 1 in 5 said they were victims of rape or attempted rape, with about half those cases involving intimate partners.

Some experts thought the rape estimate was extremely high but said it may have to do with the definition of assault. The results were from a survey that did not document the claims, which were made anonymously

In a related paper published today online in the journal Lancet, researchers found more than 38 percent of slain women are killed by a former or current partner, six times higher than the rate of men killed by their partners.

Heidi Stoeckl, one of the authors at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the figures were probably an underestimate. She and colleagues found that worldwide, a woman’s highest risk of murder was from a current or ex-partner.

In countries like India, Stoeckl said “honor killings,” where women are sometimes murdered over dowry disputes or perceived offenses like infidelity to protect the family’s reputation, add to the problem.
She also noted that women and men are often slain by their partners for different reasons.

“When a woman kills her male partner, it’s usually out of self-defense because she has been abused,” she said. “But when a woman is killed, it’s often after she has left the relationship and the man is killing her out of jealousy or rage.”

Stoeckl said criminal justice authorities should intervene sooner.

“When a woman is killed by a partner, she has often already had contact with the police,” she said. Stoeckl said there should be more protection for women from their partners, particularly in cases where there is a history of violence.

“There are enough signs that we should be watching out for that,” she said. “We certainly should know if someone is potentially lethal and be able to do something about it.”

http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pb...629950/-1/NEWS

As court prepares affirmative-action decision, softer standards for men go unnoticed
 

The Supreme Court is poised to release its opinion on an affirmative-action case that could forever change the way public colleges and universities consider race in admissions. But even if, as some predict, the justices issue a broad ruling slapping down the use of race in admissions, an open secret in higher education—that many colleges lower their admissions standards for male applicants—remains unchallenged and largely unremarked upon.

For years, the percentage of men enrolled in college has been declining, with women making up nearly 57 percent of all undergrads at four-year colleges last year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. While schools are prohibited under the federal Title IX law from discriminating based on gender, some admissions officials have admitted in recent years that male applicants get a leg up from colleges hoping to avoid gender imbalances on campus.

Jennifer Delahunty Britz, the dean of admissions at the private liberal arts school Kenyon College, was among the first to admit this when she wrote an op-ed titled "To All the Girls I've Rejected" in The New York Times in 2006.

"The reality is that because young men are rarer, they're more valued applicants," she wrote, adding that two-thirds of colleges report that more women than men apply for admission. "What messages are we sending young women that they must, nearly 25 years after the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment, be even more accomplished than men to gain admission to the nation's top colleges?"

Delahunty Britz's acknowledgment opened the floodgates, and reporters began looking closely at schools that admitted a much higher percentage of male than female applicants.

Of course, these gaps don't necessarily mean that women are being discriminated against. It's possible that the male applicant pool is better qualified on average, though that's hard to ascertain when colleges generally resist releasing their admissions data.

The University of Richmond, a private liberal arts school, acknowledged in 2009 that it attempts to keep its gender balance at about 50-50, which meant women's admit rate was about 13 percentage points lower than men's over the previous 10 years. Admissions officer Marilyn Hesser told CBS that men and women had about the same standardized test scores, but that male applicants' GPA was lower on average. (The college's admission rate suddenly became more gender neutral the following year, in 2010-2011, when men's acceptance rate was only 3 percentage points higher than women's.)

The same year, the College of William and Mary, a public institution in Virginia, accepted 39.4 percent of its male applicants and 27.2 percent of female applicants. The school's admissions dean, Henry Broaddus, said men have slightly higher standardized test scores but lower GPAs than women, on average.

Broaddus defended the policy, insisting that William and Mary's female students want the college to to be gender-balanced and that colleges in general risk becoming less attractive to both men and women when the gender balance tips too far toward women.

"Even women who enroll ... expect to see men on campus," Broaddus said at the time. "It's not the College of Mary and Mary; it's the College of William and Mary."

In 2005, some trustees of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reportedly wondered whether they should instate "affirmative action for men," to counteract the declining percentage of men on campus. (The school is more than 58 percent female.)


The stories prompted admissions consultants who charge $200 an hour to caution on their website that female applicants must try harder. "The best advice we can give female applicants is to follow the same advice we're giving everyone—only more strictly: start your college applications early, apply to an appropriate number and range of schools, and prepare each one of your applications carefully."





Interestingly, none of these revelations prompted a wave of lawsuits, or even much outrage, from feminist organizations or other groups. It's even more surprising because the issue is probably more clear-cut, legally speaking, than race-based affirmative action.

In Grutter v. Bollinger, the 2003 case that set current law around race-based affirmative action, the Supreme Court ruled that in order to achieve a "critical mass" of underrepresented minority groups, colleges can use race as a limited factor in admissions decisions. The court said at the time it believed affirmative action would no longer be necessary after 25 years, an argument the Supreme Court is now reconsidering with Fisher v. University of Texas, a case brought by a white student who was rejected by the university.

Many legal experts expect the court, which is more conservative now than it was in 2003, to rule against UT, which could mean public colleges could have to stop considering race in admissions as a way to increase on-campus diversity.

But with men, there's no "critical mass" argument to make. Men are outnumbered by women on campus, but not so vastly that they can be considered an underrepresented minority. The Constitution does allow for more discrimination based on gender than race. (The courts treat any classification based on race with strict scrutiny; gender-based classifications get a more relaxed degree of review.)

But Title IX pretty clearly forbids any admissions decision that discriminates based on gender, meaning Congress has already made gender-balancing admissions decisions effectively illegal. In the one known case on this issue, plaintiffs challenged the University of Georgia in 2000 for both race and gender admissions preferences, and a federal circuit court found that gender preferences were illegal and struck them down. The school declined to appeal.

Why haven't there been more lawsuits?

Gail Heriot, a conservative law professor at the University of San Diego and a member of the federal U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said it's partly the murky politics of the issue. Liberal, feminist groups tend to support affirmative action for racial minorities and could be wary of attacking gender preferences for men lest it leads to attacking racial preferences.

Meanwhile, conservative groups that reject race-based affirmative action would rather draw attention to the "boy crisis" they believe harms men than seize the chance to deal a blow to both race and gender admissions preferences.

Heriot began a commission investigation into whether colleges were discriminating against female applicants in 2009, but the eight-member panel voted to end it at the suggestion of a Democratic appointee in 2011. Several schools had refused to hand over their admissions data to Heriot, which made the investigation difficult.

Heriot dismissed the argument that women would rather attend gender-balanced schools, even if it means they had to get better grades in high school than their male peers to get in.

"It strikes me as a very troubling argument to say, 'Gosh, women want to be discriminated against,'" she said. "You're going to have to prove that to me."


She still believes that a case against gender preferences at public schools could win.

"I'm a conservative so I tend to be on the other side of issues from Justice [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg. But I'd be happy to argue this one to her. I think I have a shot," Heriot said.


Meanwhile, admissions officers who do not want to give a leg up to men are left to find other means to attract men to campus. Brandeis University (57 percent female) tried offering free baseball caps to its first 500 male applicants, according to Heriot.

Eric Felix, an admissions officer for the University of San Diego, a small liberal arts school that is 45 percent male, says he tries to encourage qualified men to apply by tailoring applications materials to them, highlighting the school's engineering programs and sports teams instead of the beautiful campus shots sent to women. He also visits all-boys schools and ROTC programs to recruit.

Felix, who said he does not use gender preferences, said male applicants can often make up for their on average lower GPAs through "noncognitive" factors such as leadership roles in extracurriculars. "We're only going to admit students that we feel are successful," Felix said. "Once you get to the nonacademic pieces then men start to shine, because they put an emphasis on extracurriculars."

Felix said that although men might not be an oppressed minority, they are often discouraged from emphasizing academics because they are expected to get a part-time job or join the military. Felix also argued that gender is part of diversity on campus.

"Students need to be able to interact with a diverse population, and part of that diversity is gender," Felix said. "If there's a discussion about rape and sexual assault in court cases [in class] and there's not men to add a voice, that's a conversation that's really missing.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/c...182205509.html

Male Fox News guest to female Democratic consultant: “Know your role and shut your mouth”
Bill Cunningham also asked Tamara Holder, "Are you going to cry?

A finger-pointing political argument on Fox News Channel boiled over when a male conservative talk show host shouted at a woman to “know your role and shut your mouth.”

The man, Bill Cunningham, later asked Fox contributor Tamara Holder, “Are you going to cry?”

Fox on-air personalities on Friday were talking about the exchange on Sean Hannity’s prime-time show the night before. Commentator Juan Williams concluded that Cunningham “obliterated the line” of civil discourse in his argument with Holder. The two had been brought on by Hannity to discuss whether Attorney General Eric Holder — no relation to Tamara — had committed perjury.

Cunningham, sitting next to Tamara Holder in a New York studio, called her “one of the stooges of the left that will always be there to excuse away criminal behavior.” He said she had the “incurable fatal condition of liberalism that caused people like Eric Holder to be the consulary of Barack Hussein Obama.”

He was jabbing a finger at Holder, who returned the favor.

“I really hope that when you speak to a judge, you don’t point your finger in the person’s face the entire time,” she said. “Your finger does not make your point.”

Cunningham is a former assistant attorney general in Ohio whose wife is on the Ohio Court of Appeals. He hosts radio and television talk shows.

“Whose finger is in my face right now?” Cunningham asked.

Replied Holder: “Mine, because I’m telling you to shut up.”

“You shut up!” Cunningham said. “Know your role and shut your mouth.”

Cunningham could not be reached for comment Friday.

It was only three weeks after another exchange on Fox, where daytime host Megyn Kelly said she was offended by a male colleague’s suggestion that children of working mothers don’t fare as well as children with stay-at-home moms. One Fox contributor, Erick Erickson, said that in nature, males were traditionally dominant.

Later, Cunningham repeated his assertion that Holder was a “liberal stooge and an excuse-monger for the Obama administration.”

After Holder paused, Cunningham asked, “What, are you going to cry?”

“No, I’m not going to cry,” Holder said.

Admonished by Hannity at the end of their segment to shake hands, they refused. “I don’t shake hands with trolls,” Holder said.

Things were still smoldering on Friday when Fox returned to the argument. Daytime host Martha McCollum hosted a segment with Williams and Fox contributor Mary Katherine Ham on whether the combatants had gone too far.

“The merits of the argument might be on the Cunningham side,” Ham said, “but I’m on Team Tamara on the comment of knowing your role.”

Viewpoints: Injustices against women hidden for too long

By Camille Hayes

Published: Saturday, Jul. 6, 2013

DUBLIN, Ireland – On paper, Martina Keogh's life reads like a tragedy – but don't tell her that. When you meet her in person it's hard to reconcile the facts of her early life, which included her quasi-legal incarceration in one of Ireland's notorious Magdalene laundries, with the warm and funny grandmother she is today. I met Martina on a recent trip to Ireland, when she agreed to talk to me about her experiences in one of the slave-labor workhouses operated by the Catholic Church – with an as-yet-unknown degree of government complicity – from 1765 to 1996.

The Magdalene asylums, as they were formally known, weren't unique to Ireland. They existed in other European countries and there were a few in North America, but Ireland had the largest number and kept them operating longest. The mission of these institutions was ostensibly to rehabilitate women the church deemed morally compromised, like prostitutes and unwed mothers. But that mission, such as it was, was lost in the Irish facilities, which were run as commercial laundries staffed by unpaid inmates and generating profits for the church.

Read more here:

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/07/06/554...#storylink=cpy

Mob Sexual Assaults In Tahrir Square Are Escalating

Tahrir Square was a point of celebration on Wednesday as Egyptians celebrated the ouster of Mohamed Morsi, but for at least 80 women it was a nightmare.

In the last week alone, more than 169 cases of mob sexual crimes were reported in Tahrir Square, The Guardian is reporting. And since last Sunday, at least one woman was raped with a sharp object.

"We call it the circle of hell," one woman said of the assaulting mobs.

According to The Guardian, a typical attack consists of large groups of men who surround a lone woman, ripping off her clothing until she is naked. Soraya Bahgat, a women's rights advocate and co-founder of Tahrir Bodyguard, says that most of these groups of men head into the packed squares with the specific intention of assaulting or raping women.

BBC's John Inverdale Apologizes Over 'Sexist' Marion Bartoli Comment


LONDON, July 7 (Reuters) - The BBC faced mounting pressure on Sunday to take action against one its most high-profile sports presenters for criticising the appearance of France's Marion Bartoli who won this year's Wimbledon women's singles title.

John Inverdale incensed radio listeners before Bartoli beat German Sabine Lisicki when he asked if people thought her father told her when little that she was never going to be "a looker" like Maria Sharapova so would have to fight harder for success.

The BBC, Britain's publicly funded broadcaster, apologised for the comments after a storm of protests on Twitter, admitting the remark was "insensitive".

Inverdale said on Sunday he had written to apologise to Bartoli and told listeners ahead of Sunday' men's final that he used "a clumsy phrase" about Bartoli in trying to make a point that not all players need to be "6 ft fall Amazonian athletes".

But the apology from the 55-year-old, who has presented BBC shows since the 1980s, failed to calm the fury about his remark made 24 hours earlier and the lack of action taken by the BBC.

"This is appalling. Tennis is one of the worst offenders in sport in terms of the focus on women athletes' looks and the BBC needs to take action," Sue Tibbals, chief executive of the Women's Sports and Fitness Foundation, told Reuters.

"I thought Bartoli was an absolute inspiration, so spirited and gutsy, and she does not deserve these outrageous remarks. This is not a one-off event from this presenter."

A BBC spokesman, however, said the corporation had apologised and so had Inverdale and that there were no plans for further action to be taken.

Bartoli, 28, won the admiration of Centre Court on Saturday when she won her first grand slam title in a straight-sets victory over 23-year-old Lisicki that earned her 1.6 million pounds ($2.4 million) in prize money.

The Frenchwoman, celebrating her success in becoming the first Frenchwoman in seven years to win the coveted Wimbledon women's title, shrugged off Inverdale's comments.

"It doesn't matter, honestly. I am not blonde, yes. That is a fact," Bartoli said in a press briefing late on Saturday.

"Have I dreamt about having a model contract? No. I'm sorry. But have I dreamed about winning Wimbledon? Absolutely, yes."

Twitter users praised Bartoli's dignity as they called on the BBC to act against Inverdale.

Many of the Tweets included the hashtag "Everyday Sexism", which has gathered a large following as people tweet examples of causal sexism in the workplace and public life.

"Isn't it time the BBC woke up to the sexism at the heart of its sport broadcasting?" tweeted feminist blogger Leopard.

"#BBC apology over sexism comments not good enough. suspend #Inverdale & hold enquiry. Sexism is on par with racism," tweeted yvonneridley.

San Diego Mayor / Sexual Harassment
 

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner apologizes, admits 'I need help'

SAN DIEGO -- Facing calls for his resignation amid sex harassment claims, San Diego Mayor Bob Filner issued an apology Thursday for his treatment of women and vowed to change his behavior, admitting "I need help."

Filner indicated he will not resign but that "I have reached into my heart and soul and realize I must and will change my behavior." He said he and his staff will take the sexual harassment training offered by the city.

On a DVD given to the media, Filner said, "As someone who has spent a lifetime fighting for equality for all people, I am embarrassed to admit that I have failed to fully respect the women who work for me and with me, and that at times I have intimidated them."


He said he knew that San Diego residents "have every right to be disappointed" in him but asked that "you give me an opportunity to prove I am capable of change, so that the vision I have for our city's future can be realized."

Filner's admission came just hours after an an emotionally charged news conference in which three longtime friends and supporters called on him to resign for what one called "truly reprehensible" behavior toward women.

Although no details were given about alleged sexual harassment, former City Councilwoman Donna Frye and lawyers Marco Gonzalez and Cory Briggs said they will help the women if they decide to come forward and file lawsuits.

Frye, her voice breaking, said the women "are too scared to speak."

Briggs said his message to the women is, "When you're ready to file lawsuits, I'll be standing in court."

"The mayor is in control of the script," Gonzalez said. "The next chapter will largely be defined by his response."

The three said the alleged victims do not want to be in the media spotlight. Briggs asked reporters not to attempt to find out the women's names and interview them.

Frye and Gonzalez said they met recently with Filner. They declined to discuss what took place at the meetings. Gonzalez referred to Filner as "our friend and our ally."

But Frye said, "There are community standards in our society that need to be upheld."

The calls for his resignation are the latest in a series of turbulent events involving the 70-year-old Democrat, who was elected in November after 10 terms in Congress.

On Monday, Filner's fiancee sent an email to friends and supporters, announcing she and the mayor have broken their engagement and ended their relationship. The email from Bronwyn Ingram, whom Filner had referred to as San Diego's first lady, provided no details.

There also have been published and broadcast reports that federal officials are looking into a deal between Filner and a land developer.

The developer donated $100,000 to two of Filner's pet projects — one for veterans, one for bicyclists — allegedly in exchange for Filner dropping his opposition to a land-use project. Filner has since returned the money.

KGTV-Channel 10 has also raised questions about the use of public money for a trip to Paris Filner took to participate in a rally organized by Iranian dissidents. San Diego police went on the trip to provide security for the mayor.

While there has been grumbling in some Republican circles that a recall movement should be mounted against the combative Filner, particularly due to his feud with the Republican city attorney, Jan Goldsmith, the resignation demands signal the first defection from his supporters.

Briggs, Gonzalez and Frye each sent letters to Filner on Wednesday, calling on him to resign.

The letter from Frye, first revealed by KPBS, mentions "credible evidence of more than one woman being sexually harassed by you. Despite past rumors, I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Man Named Kim Gets Zero Job Offers Until He Adds ‘Mr.' to His Name

When Kim O' Grady was applying for jobs in the late 90s, he was excited. He writes that he had the relevant qualifications, experience and could also show a successful track record in his chosen career path — unfortunately for him, he also had a name that many people automatically assume belongs to a woman.

The rejections poured in, and he was confused. He was an ideal candidate, and to not even get interviews was very odd. He examined and re-examined his CV and couldn't figure out what was front with it.

Then, he had a thought:

I made one change that day. I put Mr. in front of my name on my CV. It looked a little too formal for my liking but I got an interview for the very next job I applied for. And the one after that. It all happened in a fortnight, and the second job was a substantial increase in responsibility over anything I had done before. In the end I beat out a very competitive short-list and enjoyed that job for the next few years, further enhancing my career.
Gender discrimination — it's a real thing, folks.

Interestingly, I talked to a man named Lauren who writes woman-centric comedy stuff and he tells stories of the exact opposite problem. It's obviously an exception to the rule, but when producers call in someone named Lauren who wrote a spec for "Labia Landia", they do a double take when an old dude walks through the door. Names, am I right?!

R&A to study male-only issue after British Open
 

GULLANE, Scotland (AP) -- Pragmatic yet defiant, the head of the Royal & Ancient issued a Hootie Johnson-like salvo in the latest battleground over male-only golf clubs: The British Open will not yield to pressure over three of its venerable clubs refusing to admit female members.

The way Peter Dawson looks at it, to compare this to racial or religious discrimination is ''absurd.''

At his customary news conference on the eve of the British Open, the R&A chief executive faced a barrage of questions Wednesday about the no-women-allowed membership at Muirfield and two of the other nine venues in the tournament rotation, Troon and Royal St. George's.

He was prepared for the issue, reading from notes that made it clear he believes single-sex clubs do little harm to the game and have largely been targeted by the media, politicians and interest groups.

''Obviously the whole issue of gender and single-sex clubs has been pretty much beaten to death recently,'' Dawson said. ''And we do, I assure you, understand that this is divisive. It's a subject that we're finding increasingly difficult, to be honest.''

One reporter, touching on the racial discrimination that once pervaded the game, asked Dawson what was the difference between a male-only club and one that allowed only whites to join.

''Oh, goodness me, I think that's a ridiculous question,'' he replied. ''There's a massive difference between racial discrimination, anti-Semitism, where sectors of society are downtrodden and treated very, very badly indeed. And to compare that with a men's golf club, I think, is frankly absurd. There's no comparison whatsoever.''

He later added: ''It's just kind of, for some people, a way of life that they rather like. I don't think in doing that they're intending to (bring) others down or intending to do others any harm.''

Dawson disputed any suggestion that male-only clubs stifle the growth of the sport. Still, he knows it will continue to be a point of contention - especially since Augusta National admitted its first female members last year - so the organization that governs golf outside the U.S. and Mexico plans to take it up once the Open is completed.

He wouldn't say what steps might be taken.

''Our natural reaction is to resist these pressures, because we actually don't think they have very much substance,'' Dawson said. ''But I'd like to stress we're not so insular as to fail to recognize the potential damage that campaigns like this can do to the Open championship. And it is our championship committee's responsibility to do what is best for the Open, and to maximize the benefits which the Open brings, not just to golf, but also to the local area.''

The debate has lurked over golf since Martha Burk and her women's advocacy group targeted the home of the Masters in 2002 for admitting only men as members. Then-chairman Johnson famously said the club would not be bullied into accepting women ''at the point of a bayonet,'' even at the cost of cutting loose television sponsors for two years.

Eleven months ago, with no advance notice and an understated announcement, Augusta National invited former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore to become members. Tiger Woods called the move ''important to golf,'' and now the battle has moved across the pond to the oldest of golf's four majors.

Dawson said the issue will be addressed.

Just not right now.

''When things are a bit quieter, after the championship,'' he said, ''I'm quite sure we'll be taking a look at everything to see what kind of sense we can make of it for the future. But I think right now our concentration has to be on this wonderful event and making it a success.''

Eleven of the 24 questions to Dawson during the half-hour news conference involved male-only clubs or related issues. Most golfers have shied away from the debate leading up to the Open, including top-ranked Woods.

When Rory McIlroy, the world's No. 2 player, was first asked about it Wednesday, there was a long pause and a forced smile before he said, ''Muirfield is a great golf course.''

Later, when someone asked McIlroy if the players had been advised not to comment, he was more forthcoming.

''I just think it's something that a lot of guys don't want to get themselves into because it's quite a controversial issue,'' he said. ''It's something that shouldn't happen these days. It's something that we shouldn't even be talking about.''

Ernie Els said it's ''weird'' that some clubs won't admit both sexes, while Luke Donald said ''we'd love to see these policies be a bit more inclusive.''

''Wherever the governing bodies decide to play a tournament, it's my job to turn up and be ready and play, and that's what I am going to,'' Donald said. ''I think the R&A is certainly trending in the right direction.''

But the leading Scottish politician won't be attending this year's event in protest.

''I just think it's indefensible in the 21st century not to have a golf club that's open to all,'' said Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, a huge golf fan who played a round with Phil Mickelson last week.

Two British government members - Maria Miller, the secretary of culture, media and sport, and sports minister Hugh Robertson - have also turned down invitations to attend, though Robertson downplayed the impact of his decision.

''I haven't had a call from the R&A saying we are going to change our policy next year, nor would I really expect one,'' the minister said.

Indeed, Dawson said the organization would not give in to political pressure.

''We've been through over 250 years of existence without getting into political comment, and I don't really intend to break that rule here,'' he said. ''We've got politicians posturing; we've got interest groups attacking the R&A, attacking the Open, and attacking Muirfield.''

While conceding that some changes are likely, Dawson made clear he believes the issue has largely been manufactured by those who don't necessarily have the best interests of the game at heart. He claimed there are very few clubs in Britain that allow only one sex, and that half of those are female-only.

''You can dress it up to be a lot more, if you want,'' Dawson said. ''But on the Saturday morning when the guy gets up or the lady gets up and out of the marital bed, if you like, and goes off and plays golf with his chums and comes back in the afternoon, that's not on any kind of par with racial discrimination or anti-Semitism or any of these things.

''It's just what people kind of do.''

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/r-study...109--golf.html
--------------------


Way too many things are coming up that are rendering me speechless these days. Add this to the list.

Zimmerman molested cousin over 10 year period
 

Link

In a newly released interview with the Sanford Police Department, a female cousin of George Zimmerman claimed he sexual molested her over a period of 10 years.

In the almost 30-minute interview taken in March with the woman, who was dubbed “witness 9” throughout court proceedings, she detailed five specific instances where she claimed Zimmerman touched her inappropriately throughout the years.

The instances would occur when their families were together, she said, and began when she was 6-years-old and he was 8. The woman told police she and her sister were sent to stay with the Zimmermans while her parents moved from Louisiana to Florida.

“He would reach under the blankets and try to do things,” she said. “I don’t know how I didn’t say anything but I didn’t know any better.”

The cousin told police there was also another victim, but through their conversations the second victim has refused to come forward and also said she would deny any allegations.

Over the years she said Zimmerman would continue to touch her inappropriately at family gatherings.

“Every time that we that we would go up there I could just look at him and he would give me a certain look and I would know if it was going to happen when we got together for family gatherings,” she said. “Cause he just got this look in his eye like he was going to.”

The final instance, said the woman, was when she was 16 and Zimmerman was living in his parent’s home in Lake Mary alone. She had come over to see the house, she said. After Zimmerman began massaging and groping her, she ran out of the home. Zimmerman was 17 at the time.

“I just wanted it to stop,” she said. “I didn’t want to have to tell anyone.”

The cousin did eventually tell her parents, who met with Zimmerman at a restaurant in Lake Mary to confront him. At the meeting, she said, he simply sat down said “I’m sorry,” and left.

Since then, she said, she has not seen him at family functions because the family now caters to her.

The reason it took her so long to speak out about his actions, she told investigators, was because she was afraid no one would believe her.

“He was a different person to me. He was very intimidating,” she said. “And the fact that he made everyone love him and he made everyone laugh and be so happy around him – I knew that if I said anything he would just deny it.”

She came forward to investigators in March because she said she no longer had to fear him.

On June 18 Zimmerman’s attorney Mark O’Mara filed a motion to block the public release of the cousin’s statement contending, “The content of this statement is not relevant to the issues of this case, and it would not be admissible in the State’s case in chief.”

O’Mara also stated releasing the statement would lead to widespread hostile publicity which would impair Zimmerman’s right to fair trial.

Zimmerman is currently out of jail on a $1 million bond after being charged with the second-degree murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman shot and killed Martin Feb. 26 at The Retreat at Twin Lakes and claims the shooting was in self-defense after Martin attacked him.

O’Mara also filed a motion Monday stating Judge Kenneth Lester should not have ruled to released the statements, since a motion to disqualify him as judge had been filed. Lester’s order to release the statement and O’Mara’s motion to disqualify him were both issued Friday.

However now that the statement has been publicly disseminated, O’Mara said Zimmerman’s defense team will defend him against the allegations.

“Now that this statement is part of the public record, the defense will vigorously defend Mr. Zimmerman against the allegations,” said O’Mara. “In the next several weeks, there will be reciprocal discovery filed regarding Witness #9’s statement.”

In addition to the accusations that Zimmerman sexual molested the cousin, the woman also told investigators in a separate interview that she was afraid Zimmerman may have shot Martin because he was black. It’s widely known in their family, she said, that the Zimmermans are racists.

“Growing up he and his family said that they don’t like black people if they don’t act like white people,” she said. “They like black people if they act white.”

She also told investigators that during a conversation about then presidential candidate Barack Obama Zimmerman’s mother proudly said she was a racist.

Norwegian alleges rape, fights Dubai jail sentence
 

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A Norwegian woman sentenced to 16 months in jail in Dubai for having sex outside marriage after she reported an alleged rape said Friday she decided to speak out in hopes of drawing attention to the risks of outsiders misunderstanding the Islamic-influenced legal codes in this cosmopolitan city.

The case has drawn outrage from rights groups and others in the West since the 24-year-old interior designer was sentenced Wednesday. It also highlights the increasingly frequent tensions between the United Arab Emirates' international atmosphere and its legal system, which is strongly influenced by Islamic traditions in a nation where foreign workers and visitors greatly outnumber locals.

Marte Deborah Dalelv, who worked for an interior design firm in Qatar since 2011, claims she was sexually assaulted by a co-worker in March while she was attending a business meeting in Dubai.

She said she fled to the hotel lobby and asked for the police to be called. The hotel staff asked if she was sure she wanted to involve the police, Dalelv said.

"Of course I want to call the police," she said. "That is the natural reaction where I am from."

Dalelv said she was given a medical examination seeking evidence of the alleged rape and underwent a blood test for alcohol. Such tests are commonly given in the UAE for alleged assaults and in other cases. Alcohol is sold widely across Dubai, but public intoxication can bring charges.

Dalelv was detained for four days after being accused of having sex outside marriage, which is outlawed in the UAE although the law is not actively enforced for tourists as well as hundreds of thousands of Westerners and others on resident visas.

Norwegian diplomats later secured her release and she has been allowed to remain at the Norwegian Seamen's Center in central Dubai. She said her alleged attacker received a 13-month sentence for out-of-wedlock sex and alcohol consumption.

Previous cases in the UAE have raised similar questions, with alleged sexual assault victims facing charges for sex-related offenses. Other legal codes also have been criticized for being at odds with the Western-style openness promoted by Dubai.

In London, a spokesman for the Emirates Center for Human Rights, a group monitoring UAE affairs, said the Dalelv case points out the need for the UAE to expand its legal protections for alleged rape victims.

"We urge authorities to reform the laws governing incidents of rape in the country," said Rori Donaghy, "to ensure women are protected against sexual violence and do not become the targets of prosecution when reporting crimes."

http://news.yahoo.com/norwegian-alle...172218759.html

Taliban-style edict for women spreads alarm in Afghan district
 

KABUL/DEH SALAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) - One of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's main religious advisers will not overturn a decree issued by clerics in the north reimposing Taliban-style curbs on women, in another sign of returning conservatism as NATO forces leave the country.

Just days after the United States launched a $200 million program to boost the role of women in Afghanistan, a senior member of the country's top religious leaders' panel said he would not intervene over a draconian edict issued by clerics in the Deh Salah region of Baghlan province.

Deh Salah, near Panshir, was a bastion of anti-Taliban sentiment prior to the ousting of the austere Islamist government by the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance in 2001.

But the eight article decree, issued late in June, bars women from leaving home without a male relative, while shutting cosmetic shops on the pretext they were being used for prostitution - an accusation residents and police reject.

"There is no way these shops could have stayed open. Shops are for business, not adultery," Enayatullah Baligh, a member of the top religious panel, the Ulema Council, and an adviser to the president, told Reuters late on Friday.

Residents of Deh Salah described the order as a "fatwa", or religious edict, although only senior clerics in Kabul should issue such a binding religious order.

But underscoring opposition to the edict, a mayor was shot dead by a teenaged shop owner while trying to enforce the order, which also barred women from clinics without a male escort, threatening unspecified "punishments" if they disobeyed.

Afghanistan has one of the world's highest infant mortality rates and more than a decade after the U.S.-backed toppling of the Taliban, it still ranks as one of the worst nations to be born a girl.

Under Taliban rule from 1996 until 2001, women were forced to wear the head-to-toe covering burqa and sometimes had fingers cut off for wearing nail varnish.

The decree, signed by a conservative cleric in the area named Zmarai, contained a warning of holy war if authorities tried to block it: "If officials do react to our demands, we will start a jihad."

There is growing fear among many people in Afghanistan that the withdrawal of NATO-led forces and efforts to reach a political agreement with the Taliban to end the 12-year-old war could undermine hard-won freedoms for women.

"LIKE THE TALIBAN AGAIN"

In the deeply conservative, male-dominated country where religion often holds more sway than legal authority, religious leaders have often been a major barrier to women obtaining the rights granted to them under the constitution.

In Deh Salah, home to about 80,000 people, most of them ethnic Tajiks rather that the majority Pashtuns, the main community from which the Taliban draw support, a cosmetic shop owner named Abdullah stood before his business - now hidden behind plywood sheeting - and said clerics were increasingly flexing their muscles.

"They want to bring back the Taliban days. If they have their way they will take control in this district and make life impossible," said Abdullah.

"We are poor people and they have closed me down. I want the government to take action or we are going to have mullahs running the place like the Taliban again," he said.

Shah Agha Andarabi, a doctor, said the rumor of prostitution and adultery in Deh Salah was without foundation and was being used as an excuse by conservative clerics to crack down on women.

"There is nothing going on in these shops and I guarantee that. There was no proof. They just wanted to close these shops to women," he said.

Deh Salah police commander Colonel Abdul Ahad Nabizada also rejected the claims underpinning the decree, but said the mayor who was shot while closing the shops had been frightened into action by the threat of jihad against him if he was deemed to be blocking the edict.

"Everyone here is Muslim. We haven't seen any behavior like they claim in this small city. There were women coming to get their needs in the market and conservative people were against it," said Nabizada.

U.S. aid officials this week announced a $200 million assistance package for Afghan women, to be matched by other international donors allied with the NATO-led coalition in the country, due to end combat operations by the end of next year.

Human rights and women's groups have accused Karzai's government of backtracking on pledges to protect women's freedoms, highlighted by parliamentary opposition to a presidential decree outlawing violence against women.

The government also appointed a former Taliban official to the country's new human rights body, while criminal laws under consideration in parliament would prevent women and girls testifying against family members accused of abusing them.

http://news.yahoo.com/taliban-style-...054400261.html

This kind of thing is one of the better arguments I've heard for cultural imperialism. Sadly, we still have plenty of savagery of our own, in our populations of old white male Republicans and ultraconservative Christian patriarchy holdouts.

update
 

Dubai pardons woman at center of rape dispute:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A Norwegian woman at the center of a Dubai rape claim dispute said Sunday that officials have dropped her 16-month sentence for having sex outside marriage and she is free to leave the country.

http://news.yahoo.com/dubai-pardons-...093407907.html

CNN's Victoria Arbiter: Kate Middleton 'Brilliant' For 'Delivering A Boy' On The 'First Time'

This woman is a freaking MORON!

Yeah, I was grossed the fuck out this morning with all of the talk on the morning tv shows about Kate Middleton's vagina.

I mean, there was some asshole medical correspondent on Good Morning America (I think it was that show anyway?) pontificating about whether or not Kate Middleton would have a C-section or a vaginal delivery.

Who fucking does that? And who the fuck thinks her method of birth is their business???????

I have no words.
 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...ushpmg00000037

Now, Texas wants women to have adoption course before abortion. And it's a freeking Dem that proposed it!