Misogyny and Sexism in the News

[Kobi]

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

[Greyson]

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

[Kobi]

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

[EnderD_503]

Originally Posted by Kobi

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

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.

An Ontario judge ruled today that a woman accusing two family members of molesting her as a child must remove her face veil during testimony. (Danish Ismai/Reuters)

By CBC News

An Ontario judge has ruled a woman must remove her niqab to testify in a Toronto sexual assault case.
Justice Norris Weisman announced his decision after applying a new test set out by the Supreme Court of Canada dealing with witnesses wearing a veil.

The woman at the centre of the case is known only as N.S.

"I conclude that to permit N.S. to testify at the preliminary inquiry with her face obscured by the niqab will impair defence counsels' ability to assess her demeanour, as well as the [judge's] ability to assess her credibility," Weisman said.

The woman has been fighting for six years for the right to wear her niqab during the trial of her uncle and cousin, who are accused of sexually assaulting her when she was a child in the 1980s.

Weisman had first ruled in 2008 that N.S. must remove her niqab during testimony. That decision was appealed all the way up to Supreme Court.

The test set out by Canada's top court in December includes four issues a judge must consider, including: the potential witness's depth of religious belief, and whether the veil could lessen the fairness of the trial.

The preliminary hearing for the two relatives accused of sexually abusing the woman is scheduled to begin next week, but her lawyer said the ruling on the niqab will be appealed.

About to turn 75, Judge Weisman is set to retire on May 1.

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

[Kobi]

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

[Greyson]

Calif. teacher blames job loss on abusive ex

By JULIE WATSON
Associated Press
Thursday, Jun. 13, 2013 - 5:30 pm

SAN DIEGO -- A San Diego-area teacher says she is losing her job for being the victim of domestic violence.

The attorney for Holy Trinity School teacher Carie Charlesworth told The Associated Press on Thursday that she had received a letter notifying her that her 14-year contract would not be renewed because her ex-husband's violent history posed a risk to the school.

"We feel deeply for you and about the situation in which you and your children find yourselves through no fault of your own," Beecher wrote. "It serves no purpose to go through your husband's legal history, except to say that his threatening and menacing behavior has not changed but has actually increased over the past 20 plus years."

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/06/13/549...b-because.html

[Greyson]

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

[Kobi]

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

[Kobi]

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