Gender News -- Archive

Gallup Poll Confirms that Abortion is a Settled Issue

There are many obnoxious and screechy subjects of political discourse, but abortion is the screechiest and most obnoxious. Today, the 29'th anniversary of Roe v Wade, I saw Kim Gandy of NOW and Janet Folger, Center for Reclaiming America arguing abortion with each other on CNN. There were plenty of forced smiles as they snapped at each other, though at one point I thought the two women might start pulling each other's hair.

It's been pretty obvious since the 1980s that the substance of abortion policy is a settled issue in America, despite the ability of the issue to generate freakish explosions of emotion from pro-choice and pro-life advocates. The main evidence of this is that public opinion on the subject of abortion has been fairly steady for decades, changing little. (See 1/22/02 Gallup News Service analysis of abortion polls.)

Here are some findings from the poll:

• Americans generally support abortions in the first few months of pregnancy, but generally oppose third trimester ("partial birth") abortions.
• Abortion is really not a "women's issue." Men and women have similar attitudes toward abortion.
• However, deeply religious people are more likely to oppose abortion rights than unreligious people.
• Although Americans generally support abortion rights, they also support some restrictions: a 24 hour waiting period, parental consent for teen girls, and spousal notification for married women. However, Americans are divided on the RU-486 "abortion pill."

The steadiness of American opinions on these issues is evidence that abortion policy will not change, no matter who serves as president, legislator or judge.

Still, pro-lifers talk about the need to overturn Roe v Wade to save millions of lives (fetuses) each year, and pro-choicers talk darkly about returning to coat hanger abortions if Roe v Wade is overturned. What about that?

Actually, the evidence is that neither of these extreme positions is true. In fact, abortion is illegal in many countries of the world, and yet the figures on the web site of the Alan Guttmacher Institute show that abortion is, on the average, as common and safe in countries where abortion is illegal as in countries where it's legal.

One thing that neither the left nor the right likes to admit is that even if abortion were somehow made illegal in the U.S. (which is almost impossible), it would cause enormous political uproar but, on a statistical basis, change neither the number of abortions nor the safety of abortions (since girls and women would continue to get safe illegal abortions in private doctors' offices, using health of the mother as a pretext).

How Women Sniff Out Mr. Right

49 women were asked to smell t-shirts that had been worn by men for two nights, to determine which ones smelled the best. The result? Women prefer men who smell like their fathers, according to the University of Chicago researchers who conducted the study. (See 1/21/02 Nature News article.)

Egyptian Wives Worse Off than Afghan Women Were

According to a letter published in an Egyptian newspaper by an unnamed 55 year old woman, married 25 years, Egyptian wives are are subject to the same fundamentalist Islamic restrictions in Egypt as they were in Taliban-governed Afghanistan. (See 1/20/02 Middle East Times article.)

Lisa Kerkorian Demands $320,000 Monthly Child Support Payments

Former tennis star Lisa Bonner and billionaire Kirk Kerkorian were married just 28 days, but she now says that she and their 3-year-old daughter cannot live on that measly $50,000 month child support that she's receiving. She demands $320,000 per month, to pay for these essential expenses: $144,000 monthly for travel, $14,000 for parties and play dates, $7,000 for charity, $102,000 for food, $1,400 for laundry and cleaning, $1,000 for toys, videos and books and $436 for the care of Kira's pet bunny, the court filing said. (See 1/15/02 Reuters article.)

Houston Judge Punishes Women for Violating Restraining Orders

Feminists are furious at Judge Megan Lake Thornton for punishing two women who had obtained restraining orders against their husbands, and then went back to them. She ruled that the order was mutually binding, and cited the men for contempt as well.

"You can't have it both ways," she said, adding, "It drives me nuts when people just decide to do whatever they want" after a court has ruled. Thornton made clear that she expected the original protection orders against all contact to apply equally to the person suspected of abuse and the abused. "They are orders of the court," she said. (See 1/12/02 Houston Chronicle article.)

If this ruling survives appeal, it is very good news. Real abuse victims will not be hurt by this ruling at all; the only ones who will be hurt are women who make false claims of abuse in order to get revenge or gain leverage in a divorce. Feminists who oppose the ruling are in the morally weak position of having to explain why it should be perfectly OK for battering victims to return and let themselves be battered some more. As Judge Thornton said, "You can't have it both ways."

Is Paula Zahn "A Little Bit Sexy?"

The increasingly bitter competitive cable news wars between CNN and Fox News Channel heated up even more last week when CNN ran a promo touting news anchorwoman as "provocative, super-smart and oh yeah, a little bit sexy." Fox commentators have been ridiculing the CNN ad, squeezing a little revenge out of the fact that CNN stole Paula Zahn away from Fox just before 9/11. Several columnists have joined the fray, saying that being good-looking is an unwritten requirement for almost every female anchorwoman. (See 1/9/02 New York Times column by Maureen Dowd, and also see 1/11/02 Wall Street Journal column by Tunku Varadarajan.)

Rose Meltzer Challenges Men at Championship Bridge

Champions in games like bridge and chess are almost always men because few women are willing to put in the years of spending 60-80 hours per week for study and practice required to become a champion. However, one woman, Rose Meltzer, is being recognized as one of the top bridge players in the country, even receiving the compliment, "God, Rose, you bid that just like a man!" (See 1/8/02 Chicago Tributes article.)

Cathy Young: Rape Shield Laws Being Used to Convict Innocent Men

A recent column by Cathy Young in the 2/02 issue of Reason Magazine highlights the way in which women use rape shield laws to hide important defense evidence in order to convict innocent men of rape.

Recent studies of rape accusations, based on new DNA evidence and discussed at length in my book (Click here for a summary), show that women lie in 4-7% of rape accusations, and misidentify the rapist in 25-30% of stranger rape cases. If you're a man reading this, you should be aware that any woman can victimize you and possibly get you convicted by making a false rape accusation, and she will be able to use rape shield laws to prevent you from putting on an adequate defense.

Elizabeth Dole: Reagan's Image "Upset Women"

A 1982 memo written by Elizabeth Dole, then aide to President Reagan, said that his reputation as a "man's man" was harming his image with women. According to her notes: "While this characterisation has been helpful with men, it may have worked to his detriment with regard to women." (See 1/5/02 London Telegraph article.)

How does the "man's man" image do today, after the heroism of the firemen and policemen at the 9/11 terrorist attack? Very well, complains Ellen Goodman in a whiny man-bashing column. I guess if you're a guy, there's just no satisfying Ellen. (See Goodman's 1/3/02 column.)

Why William Kennedy Smith was Acquitted of Rape

Remember back to 1991, when William Kennedy Smith was accused of rape by Patricia Bowman, a woman he had sex with several hours after meeting her in a bar? I watched that trial on TV. When it started, I expected Bowman to crucify Smith, but by the time it ended, I was convinved Bowman was lying. Evidently, so were the jurors, since they acquitted Smith.

This acquittal has always pissed feminists off, and now criminologist Gregory Matoesian has written Law and the Language of Identity: Discourse in the William Kennedy Smith Rape Trial, to tell his view of what really happened.

According to Matoesian, Roy Black, the defense lawyer, got his client acquitted by catching the alleged victim in "a patriarchal double bind" in which she was "constrained to embrace the patriarchal logic of sexual rationality, and thus be implicated in constructing the same dominational structure that oppresses her and contributes to her own subordination in the first place."

In my opinion, it's feminist garbage like this that destroys the credibility of real rape victims. (Click here for more information.)

Feminists insist on festooning rape with all sorts of political baggage which obscures the fact that real rape is a violent crime, not a fund-raising vehicle. When feminists begin to take rape more seriously, then others will take it more seriously. (See 1/4/02 UPI article.)

NOW Graphic Shows Lots of Cute Chicks on NOW Staff

In the latest issue of the National NOW Times Online, from the National Organization for Women (http://www.now.org), there is a picture of the NOW staff members hired in 2001.

Judging from the picture, it's plain to see that there are several very good looking girls on the NOW staff. With their obviously soft, supple bodies, any guy would be lucky to have one of these women as a sexual object. Who would have expected NOW, of all places, to house such a bevy of beauties? (See the National NOW Times article.)

Size Really Does Matter For Condoms

One size doesn't fit all, and that's why pharmacies should stock a variety of sizes. Size was the biggest problem for condom users, but other problems which cause condoms to fail include dryness and breakage. (See 12/31/01 article from The (New Zealand) Dominion.)

Another Book Bashing Men and Marriage

It's called: Wifework: What Marriage Really Means for Woman, by Susan Maushart, scheduled for publication in March.

A detailed summary of the book has just been published, as part of the book's initial publicity campaign.

Maushart goes through her usual litany of complaints: Her fiance asked her as a favor not to smoke at their wedding reception; she felt compelled (and not because her husband asked her) to scrub the bathroom and to cook dinner using a Betty Crocker cookbook. This corresponds to the "malaise" that women feel as soon as they get married that my own book documents at length. ( Click here for a description.)

Maushart quotes sociologists who say things like, "the influence of fathers is relatively minor" for adolescents, and "once you have one good parent in place, having another parent doesn't have a huge effect."

But what about the sperm and money that men provide?

Maushart has a twist: She wants women to be able to have children completely free of any need for a man. So she proposes use of in-vitro fertilization to get pregnant, and a network of "female friends or kin" to provide money support.

This is an example of how silly these women's books tend to be. The idea that large numbers of women would work 40 hours a week, and then give part of their paychecks to other women who want to have children through in-vitro fertilization without collecting child support from a man is so ludricrous that you'd think the author would be embarrassed even to suggest it, except that there seems to be no suggestion by a woman that's too ridiculous to get published.

Like other books I've reviewed of this type, the bottom line is that this book is telling women neither to get a job nor to commit to a man, but instead to have children to get money, and to get the money from whatever source they can -- i.e., the father. In the end, this is one more book encouraging women to follow the career strategy of targeting a man, and getting pregnant, just to collect child support.

If you think I'm being unfair to women by suggesting that they would get married and get pregnant with no objective other than to get divorced and collect child support, you don't have to believe just me -- just believe Susan Maushart, the author of this book which, in the end, suggests this as a bottom line strategy. (I'm inferring this from the summary published in the article quoted above; the entire book is not yet available.)

As is the case with other women's books of this type, the words "child support" are never mentioned, mainly because these women authors are too embarrassed to mention it, although it's obvious that most of the case studies of women "seeking liberation" in this way are indeed collecting child support, and in doing so destroying the lives of the men they target.

There are other things besides child support that authors of these books don't mention.

The major one is Child Abuse. 70% of child abuse perpetrators are mothers, and even when a man is a child abuser, it's most likely to be the mother's boyfriend. This means that Maushart is telling women to expose their children to an increased likelyhood or abuse, rape, and violence. Unfortunately, that's the way it always seems to be going these days. (See 12/30/01 article in The Guardian.)

Hillary Clinton Surprises Everyone in '01 by Hunkering Down

Newt Gingrich and Hillary Clinton were the political Evil Twins of the 1990s. They both had extremely abrasive personalities which thrilled their partisans and enraged their opponents. Generally speaking, anyone who loved Hillary Clinton absolutely loathed Newt Gingrich, and anyone who loved Newt Gingrich absolutely loathed Hillary Clinton.

However, while Newt has mostly disappeared from the scene, Hillary has surprised her political opponents by becoming a lot more sober and thoughtful.

This is a pleasant change from the shrill, man-bashing feminist Hillary of ten years ago. She's drawn new respect from her low-key approach to her come-from-behind win of the New York state Senate seat, followed by her low-key approach to serving her constituents.

"You find Hillary at a soup kitchen in Batavia more than you see her at an international women's conference," says pollster John Zogby.

And there's no doubt that the 9/11 attacks had an enormously sobering effect on her, especially because Chelsea was only a couple of blocks from Ground Zero when the attacks occurred.

In fact, she was so overwhelmed by the attacks that, when she spoke at a televised memorial service on September 15, four days after the attack, I was startled to hear her compare the attack on the World Trade Center to the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Anyone who's read my writings about politicians knows that I don't have a very high opinion of any politicians since, after all, they're always running for the next election, and always saying what the latest poll tells them to say. And let's face it, NOW is joined at the hip to the Democratic party, and especially to Hillary, so the man-bashing is sure to return sooner or later.

Still, it's been nice to see a more demure Hillary, at least for a while, and for as long as it lasts. (See 12/27/01 New York Post editorial.)

Taliban abducted orphans for sex

The Taliban seemed obsessed with protecting women's virtue, such as by requiring them to wear head-to-toe burqas.

However, it now turns out that hundreds of girls were abducted, forcibly married, raped or sold into sexual slavery by Taliban fighters. Orphans were especially easy prey, since they had no families to protect them. (See 12/24/01 article in The Australian.)

More Irish Women go to Britain for Abortions

Abortions are illegal in Ireland, but increasingly, pregnant Irish women are going to abortion clinics in Britain when they want an abortion. In all, about 9 percent of Irish pregnancies end in abortion. (See 12/24/01 New York Times article.)

Dad's Love Influences Child as Much as Mom's Love

Researchers reviewed almost 100 U.S. and European studies investigating the effects of parenting on the psychology and behavior of children as they grew older. The earliest study was conducted in 1949, and the most recent was completed in 2001.

The result was a finding that a father's love -- or the lack of it -- contributes as much to the development of a child's personality and behavior as the love of a mother, according to researchers. In some respects, a father's love is even more influential, according to the results, which were published in the current issue of the Review of General Psychology.

The withholding of love by either the mother or the father is equally connected to a child's lack of self-esteem, emotional instability, withdrawal, depression and anxiety. And the risk of developing problems with aggression, drug and alcohol abuse, and delinquency was equally related to a child's rejection or acceptance by either parent. (See 12/20/01 Reuters article.)

This study provides clinical support for the widely publicized statistical findings that children of single mothers are more likely to be victims of violence, abuse and rape than children in intact families.

Dying Boy Receives His Last Wish : Sex

"Jack," a 15 year old Australian boy, died of cancer last week but not before his last wish was granted: He wanted to lose his virginity before dying.

When he confided his last wish to his nurse, a child psychologist was consulted, and he OKed it. Jack's friends contributed the money, and a prostitute was hired. "He was very, very happy -- and only slightly disappointed that it was over so quickly," said the psychologist.

Meanwhile, ethicists debated the issue. "About half said, 'What's your problem?' And the other half said [it] demeans women and reduces the sexual act to being just a physical one." (See the 12/22/01 article in The Sun, and also the 12/22/01 article in the Canadian National Post.)

Women Say that Saudi Treatment of Women is Taliban-Like

Americans in Saudi Arabia are amused by the descriptions of the treatment of women by the Taliban in Afghanistan -- because women in Saudi Arabia are not treated any differently. What's even worse, according to the Americans, is that American women, including women in the armed forces as well as wives of men working in Saudi Arabia, are forced to recognize the same restrictions. "As a husband and as a father of a teenage daughter, I can assure you that life even for Western women in Saudi Arabia is every bit as bad as you describe. Saudi official assurances that non-Muslims need not follow Muslim codes of dress and behavior are utter nonsense, and the very real threat of punishment or abuse for not wearing abbayas [head-to-toe black cloaks] or for going out unaccompanied leaves most Western women in Riyadh to live lives of silent depression." (See 12/22/01 Washington Post article.)

Osama's Mommy Says He's a Good Little Boy

Alia Ghanem, Osama bin Laden's mother, says that the tape is a phony. "Osama is too good a Muslim and too good a person to say or do what the script of the video suggests he said and did," she said. "But I don't agree with everything he says and he knows that. I pray to Allah that he will live until the truth is revealed." (See 12/22/01 Reuters article.)

Woman Conceives Triplets While Already Pregnant

How can a woman be pregnant continuously for 12 months?

It's called "superfoetation," and it refers to a situation where a woman conceives a new baby while already pregnant with another baby.

In the case of 20 year old Flavia D'Angelo of Rome, Italy, she had already been pregnant with one child for three months when she conceived triplets. The first baby has just been born, and the triplets are due in three months. Yes, it's a record. (See 12/19/01 London Telegraph article.)

How Women With Burqas Helped Win The War

Kandahar resident Abdul Ali used a satellite phone to call the anti-Taliban forces and give them the coordinates of buildings to be bombed. How did he hide the satellite phone from the Taliban? He counted on women who risked their lives to carry his satellite phone under their all-encompassing burqas, moving it from house to house to avoid detection. (See 12/15/01 Sydney Morning Herald article.)

More Women Than Men Develop The "Seven Year Itch"

Women at all ages are about a third more likely than men to say that they wished not to be married, but this feeling peaks at six to nine years after the wedding, when a a third of married people at that stage answering wanting to be single again.

Twice as many wives as husbands, at around one in seven, also said that they wanted to "live on my own for a while." Again, the biggest danger period for this feeling was around seven years, along with the first year of marriage. See 12/18/01 article in London Times.)

This is quite consistent with the statistic that two out of three divorces are initiated by women. Click here for further discussion of why women initiate divorces far more often than men.

Holiday Season Presents Special Problems for Children of Divorce

Even though children look forward all year to the holiday season, it can be a time of great sadness for children of divorce, so much so that they often can hardly wait until the holiday season is over, according to Boston Globe columnist Barbara F. Meltz. Children put themselves under a great deal of pressure to keep the peace and deal with conflicting loyalties during the holiday season, and the pressure is only increased by the fantasy that most children harbor that the parents may get back together. The experts' advice for divorced parents: Work out a plan for holiday visits, present it as a fait accompli to the children, and stick to it. (See 12/13/01 article in the Boston Globe.)

Women's Groups Outraged by Spanish Rape Ruling

Women's groups expressed outrage when the Supreme Court of Spain reduced the sentences of three convicted rapists since they were drunk. "Having ingested alcoholic beverages throughout the night ... may be considered to have keenly affected their volitional faculties," said the high court, calling these "very valid" mitigating circumstances.

Feminists expressed outrage, with one saying that "[the] courts are taking as mitigating factors conditions which should be aggravating factors." (See 12/12/01 AP article.)

The outrage is, in my opinion, phony. As explained at length in Fraternizing With The Enemy, women's groups use rape as a fund-raising and political device, and support the rapist when it's to their political advantage, or the victim when that's to their political advantage.

Indeed, one of my biggest criticisms of feminist groups is that they consistently destory the credibility of real rape victims by trivializing rape and using it as a political tool, especially by wildly inflating the incidence of rape, and even pressuring researchers to publish inflated figures.

The Spanish Supreme Court ruling is entirely consistent with "feminist theory." In order to inflate rape figures, feminists have insisted that if a woman has been drinking, then she is incapable of giving consent to sex, and therefore consensual sex with a woman is rape if she's had even a single drink. Well, if a drinking woman is so incapacitated that she can't give consent to sex, then a drinking man is too incapacitated, by analogy to the feminist reasoning, to understand whether consent has or has not been given, and so sex cannot be rape.

This is only one of the many ways that feminists have damaged women for political reasons. Feminists have only themselves to blame for this rape ruling. Feminists need to start focusing more on the needs of their constituents -- women -- instead of just looking out for their own short-term funding and political power.

How NOW Placed Money and Politics Above Women

Ever wonder how the National Organization for Women (NOW) could actively support and carry water for President Clinton after he had been found to have abused numerous women, and even was credibly charged with rape? Tammy Bruce, the former chairman of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization of Women, said in a radio interview that it's because of $750,000 that NOW received from the Clinton administration. Bruce said that NOW received the money at the time of the Monica Lewinsky investigation, and was the only time that NOW had received federal money, creating, at least, "the appearance of impropriety." (See 12/11/01 article in WorldNetDaily.)

HHS to Christina Hoff Sommers: "Shut the f**k up, bitch"

Officials from the Center for Substance Abuse and Prevention (CSAP) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) treated Christina Hoff Sommers abusively and offensively during an invited speech at a CSAP sponsored conference.

The abusive behavior was led by Professor Jay Wade, of Fordham University's Department of Psychology, a supposed "expert on listening skills," ordered Sommers to "shut the f*ck up, bitch." There follow additional abusive behavior by other attendees at the CSAP conference. No one from CSAP apologized to Sommers, nor were the abusive guests admonished. (See 12/5/01 National Review article.)

Sommers is author of the 1994 book, Who Stole Feminism?: How Women have Betrayed Women, a book which showed how shoddy feminist "research" is; and is author of the 2000 book The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men, a book which focuses in on shoddy research by Carol Gilligan and feminists who have been blaming boys for not being more like girls.

As I have personally seen, abusive, offensive behavior is unfortunately the norm for hardcore feminists who simply have no response other than abusiveness to numerous research studies that show that feminist assumptions about boys, girls, family violence, sexual harassment, and so forth, are simply wrong, and often fraudulent. My book, Fraternizing with the Enemy tells numerous anecdotes of how researchers, even pro-feminist researchers, were pressured to lie about research about subjects like rape and family violence. Click here to read about two major feminist 1990s hoaxes.

Romania Resumes Allowing Adoptions

After banning foreign adoptions in October, because of criticisms of rampant corruption in the treatment of orphans, Romania is beginning to allow adoptions again, so far on a very limited basis. There are thousands of Americans trying to adopt Romanian children, and at 3,500 cases were in the system at the time that the ban was imposed. (See 12/7/01 AP article.)

The Woman Shortage Is Growing Worse

For men in their 30s and 40s, it's becoming increasingly difficult to find a mate. While the numbers of boys and girls born every year are roughly the same, the overall birthrate dropped 40% form 1995 to 1973, according to a 12/7/2001 Wall Street Journal article. Since men tend to marry younger women, there are fewer women available for them to marry. Pop culture has perpetuated the belief that men have the advantage but it's men who are at a big disadvantage.

Fashion: Butt Cleavage Is In

The shapeliest girls are exhibiting a new fashion trend: low rising jeans that expose part of the butt. The trend is growing in popularity thanks to Jennifer Lopez. I enjoy seeing shapely, skimpily clad girls as much as any guy, but this trend doesn't turn me on. Judge for yourself: for pictures, see the 12/5/01 Fox News story on the subject.

Boys are More Stressed in the Womb than Girls are

Everyone knows that men suffer more stress than women, but now it turns out that it begins before birth! New research shows that male foetuses find the womb more stressful than female foetuses. (See 12/4/2001 BBC News Online article.)

Bush's Hairdresser is an Afghan Woman

Afghan Zahira Zahir frequently comes at President Bush carrying sharp scissors -- and cuts his hair. She says that she's lost customers since the Afghan war started, but many, including Bush, have remained loyal. She cuts both Republicans' and Democrats' hair, but says they have different demands, with Republicans usually preferring a short back and sides. "They want very conservative haircuts," she says. "Democrats have longer hair most of the time and don't pay as much attention to their grooming." See 11/30/01 London Times story.

Moderate Drinking Can Help Women Get Pregnant

A new study shows that women trying to get pregnant will be helped by drinking alcohol moderately. The research does not explain why alcohol increases the pregnancy rate, but one theory is that a moderately drinking woman is more likely to have sex, and therefore more likely to get pregnant. See 11/28/01 BBC News story.

The U.S. is The World's Sexual Superpower

Americans make love more often than people of any other nationality, according to a survey conducted by condom manufacturer Durex. The survey showed that people average having sex 97 times per year, but the figure is 124 times per year for Americans. And since I'm Greek, I'm happy to report that the Greeks made love the second most frequently -- 117 times a year on average. However, France's reputation as a nation of lovers took something of a hit with frequency of 110 times a year. See 11/28/01 Reuters story.

Finally - An Explanation for the Missing Gender Gap on Defense

For decades, there's been a gender gap in polling on U.S. defense spending, with men generally favoring more defense spending then women. Since 9/11, that gender gap has closed. What's changed?

It turns out that there is a new gender gap, and it's the new gender gap that's ending the old gender gap. It arises in relation to perceptions of threat. Sixty-three percent of men think another terrorist attack is imminent, whereas eight in ten women do. About 34 percent of women say life has returned to normal, compared to 48 percent of men. And one in five women think life will never return to normal. In short, women feel more threatened than they did before and than men do now. See 11/27/01 column by Tod Lindberg.

Bad News : Lipstick Sales Are Up!

Lipstick sales are up 12% since last year at this time. Deep, bright lipstick shades, with names like "berry," "red glorioso" and "vino divino," are now most popular, while pale, neutral shades aren't selling as well. Cosmetics companies are pushing sales with slogans like, "love, peace and lipstick" and "On a bad day, there's always lipstick." Why is this bad news? Because women traditionally turn to lipstick as a reasonable indulgence and pick-me-up when they feel they can't afford a whole new outfit, indicating further that retail sales in general may be suffering. See 11/26/01 WSJ article.

Human Cloning Science Overtakes Politicians

Remember the fierce debate about stem cells prior to 9/11? About 80% of that debate has been made moot by the announcement this weekend that a Worcester, Mass., company, Advanced Cell Technology Inc. has cloned a human embryo. Listening to the company spokesman on the Sunday news shows, you can almost hear the guy's tongue tripping over itself as he tries to choose the words that won't get too many politicians mad at him, by saying that this new technology won't be used to clone actual humans, but will only be used to cure everything from paraplegia to Alzheimer's disease. Indeed, politicians have been universal in expressing disdain for cloning humans, and there's talk of passing laws to effectively shut Advanced Cell Technology down.

My prediction is that the politicians will be talking about this for weeks, but nothing they say will be of any consequence, because what they say will be overtaken by the next technology breakthrough, which will probably occur in the next six months.

See the 11/25/01 Scientific American article describing the science, an 11/25/01 article from MSNBC and then an 11/25/01 article from CNN.com giving the politicians' responses. The CNN.com page also has video where you can see politicians calling on scientists to not clone humans. See also the 11/23/01 press release from Advanced Cell Technology, and also the 11/25/01 press release.

College Bans Affairs Between Professors and Undergraduates

The previous policy at College of William and Mary permitted affairs between professors and undergraduates, provided that the professors informed their bosses what was going on. However, any such affair is now grounds for dismissal, although exemptions may be granted "in exceptional circumstances." See 11/21/01 AP article.

Evolutionary Psychology Shows That Men Are Ignorant And Gullible

Your wife just gave birth. Is it your baby? Are you sure? According to experts in evolutionary psychology, mom will have little difficulty convincing you that the baby is yours, even if it isn't. She just says, "Doesn't he look exactly like you?" It doesn't take much more than that to convince dad, even if the baby isn't really his, and doesn't look very much like him at all. See 11/21/01 Nature Magazine article.

"CheckMate! I Caught You Screwing Around!"

The web site www.getcheckmate.co.uk is selling a chemical "Infidelity Kit" that you can use to see if your spouse is cheating. You use the chemicals on your spouse's underwear, and a purple result indicates that semen is present. circumstances." See 11/19/01 Reuters story.

"Annas" On The March -- Spreading Anorexia Gospel

Anorexic girls, calling themselves "Annas," are defending their lifestyles. Says Sahara, "Twenty years ago homosexuality was still classified as a disease. Ten years ago who would have thought that fat people would organise so successfully that Californian fire services have to employ people so overweight they cannot climb a ladder or else risk being sued? At least we are not risking any lives here, at least only our own. If we want to die this way, then that should be our choice." See 11/18/01 London Sunday Times article.

NOW: "Single Moms Need Money, Not Men"

The summary on the front page of the NOW (National Organization For Women) web site (www.now.org) says, "What single moms really need for kids is money, not men." Typical NOW man-bashing stuff.

When you click on the item and read through the actual article, you find an article by Cindy Richards, a former Chicago Sun-Times workplace issues reporter, which begins as follows: "The data piling up show children raised by single parents fare worse, on average, than children raised by intact two-parent families."

The article goes on to say:

Studies show children raised by a single mom are more likely to engage in sexual activity earlier, to display violent behavior, abuse drugs and alcohol, commit suicide, have emotional and gender identification problems, perform poorly in school, drop out of school, commit a crime and go to jail.

Specifically, Congress found in 1996 that children from single-parent homes are four times more likely to be expelled or suspended from school. In addition, according to the welfare overhaul legislation, children of single-parent homes are three times more likely to fail and repeat a year in grade school.

These findings, which began coming out in 1995, have been embarrassing to feminist and social service organizations who are proponents of spending government money to encourage single-mother families, by paying money to single mothers through welfare, and paying money to social workers for support services for single mothers.

Richards tries to indicate that the problems of single mothers are due primarily to poverty, when she quotes another feminist as saying, "I don't think you will find that a very poor two-parent family is better than a well-off single-parent family," and "Indeed, many of the negative outcomes attributed to children in single-parent households mirror those of children living in poverty." She quotes a feminist law professor, a single mother, as saying, "The presence of a man available for parenting is of dubious benefit." Ha, ha.

In fact, these are carefully worded statements which make implications which are simply wrong. True, children of poor parents may not be able to afford two TV sets (or maybe even one TV set), but that doesn't mean they're more likely to take drugs or become teenage parents.

That data that Richards is referring to shows that these problems are caused by lack of fathers, not by lack of money. A child with two involved poor parents is indeed much better off than one with a well-off single parent, in the sense that he's less likely to grow up to be a batterer, and she's less likely to grow up to be a rape victim.

However, beyond the usual feminist disinformation and prevarication, this article signals a change in NOW's position from a few months ago. In the past, NOW refused to admit that fathers are good for anything, except for providing sperm and money. But at least this article quotes a male psychology professor as saying,

Clearly a male and a female in a committed relationship is by far the best and it seems to be more than just the two of them. There is an interactional process that goes beyond the two people. The two together offer something different than either can do by themselves.

In the past, all you could find on the NOW web site were statements like, "Promoting marriage, for many poor women, is a dangerous policy." As more and more women each year express unwillingness to call themselves feminists, NOW seems to actually be changing direction. Who knows -- maybe if we wait 30 or 40 years, NOW will actually start to like fathers.

Beautiful Women Are Like Drugs To Men

A new study by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital shows that the face of a beautiful woman has the same effect on the average man as food for a hungry man or drugs for an addict. The research also shows that this reaction is not something that's learned or "socially constructed," but is part of the basic circuitry of the brain. Duh! See 11/9/01 AP article.

Afghan Women Free At Last

Afghan women have been tearing off their veils, and they can go back to work. Meanwhile, girls' schools are reopening for the first time in three years. See 11/13/01 BBC World News Article.

Sexism Is Back in Advertising

Do you remember the 70s airline ad "I'm Carol. Fly me!"? Feminists got those ads banned, but they're back in force. See 11/13/01 Sydney Morning Herald article.

Women May Be Drafted

If the war against terrorism goes on for a long time, then the military draft may be reinstated, and if that happens, then women health care professionals will probably be drafted, according to Lew Brodsky, public affairs director of the Selective Service System. "Looking at the numbers of medical personnel required, the time frames and the kinds of skills required - it would have to include women," he said. See 11/12/01 CNS News Article

Suddenly, Women Are Loving Manly Men

As a result of the 9-11 terrorist attack, something's been happening to women, and suddenly women are more turned on by strong, manly men who can fight off terrorists, and are less concerned about whether he can change diapers. See 11/6/01 Fox News article.

No Gender Gap in War Effort

Recent polling shows that women support the war effort as much as men do. According to the Pew Research Center, there was a gender gap over defense spending prior to 9-11, but that gap has now closed, and both men and women support the war effort by 86%. See 11/6/01 Christian Science Monitor article.

Divorced Catholics Getting Easier Annulments

The Archdiocese of Boston is making things easier for Catholics to get married a second time -- in the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church doesn't recognize divorces, even when granted by civil courts, forcing remarrying divorced men and women to essentially abandon the Church. However, the Church has always allowed a political out, an "annulment," which is a ruling that the marriage was a fraud, and never even existed. And since the marriage never existed, the divorce is moot. Now, the Church is entering the 21st century by making annulments easier. See 11/4/01 Boston Globe article.

William F. Buckley's National Review Goes Nuts Over Porn

The 11/19 issue of the conservative National Review magazine will be focused on pornography and its pervasiveness. The never-ending war on pornography has been going on for centuries, most recently through an unholy alliance between the feminist left and the Christian right. And what does Mr. Buckley consider to be examples of the pervasiveness of pornography? He points to last year's Esquire magazine cover photo of Clinton with his knees widely separated; and a print ad for a Valentine's Day Sex Tour at the San Francisco Zoo, where you learn that male lions can copulate up to 50 times a day. That's the problem with these crusades -- with child pornography banned, and violent pornography effectively banned, anti-porn crusaders are stuck with criticizing anything that refers to sexuality in any way. Maybe they should ban Geoffrey Chaucer's bawdy The Canterbury Tales, written in the 1300s. See 11/2/01 National Review Online for Buckley's column.

Social Service Organizations Target Men To Gain Funding

The book Fraternizing With The Enemy explains how social service organizations generate tens of thousands of phony and manufactured domestic violence. charges against men in order to bolster their budgets. Even though the evidence indicates that these activities may be illegal, the social service agencies are protected because feminists are the richest and most powerful political lobbyists in the country, and feminist politicians gain in budgets and political power through false charges. Each false charge is worth tens of thousands of dollars in lucrative fees and grants to these organizations.

But even so, the case against Ken Newell, which The Massachusetts News has been following years may set something of a record. His ex-wife, a drug addict named Cathy Newell, has had him arrested 27 times on phony and manufactured charges. Social service organizations automatically support these charges, irrespective of the facts, because of the money. These organizations have probably received hundreds of thousands in fees and grants because of Newell. See 11/1/01 MassNews article.

Home Paternity Test Kit Test Marketed in Europe

Humatrix AG is test marketing a home paternity test kit in Cologne, Germany. Most of the buyers are men trying to disprove paternity. Men can take the test in secret -- taking swabs from their and their children's mouth, and sending them off to the lab. Results come back by mail a few days later. See 10/31/01 Ananova article.

Joan Vennochi: Mass Democrats To Women: Drop Dead!

A criticism that I've been making for almost ten years to any feminist who would listen is that feminism is way too political. The National Rifle Association, for example, will support anti-gun-control Democrats, but NOW, Emily's List and other feminist organizations never support even the most pro-woman Republicans. And, as their wild support of credibly accused rapist Clinton showed, when party politics conflicts with support for women, feminist groups never hesitate to sell out women for party politics.

Feminist Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi is just discovering this for herself, as she views Massachusetts Democratic Party politics. With Republican Jane Swift in the Governor's chair, and Republican support for other women, "Republican women in Massachusetts are flexing real political muscle. [while] Democratic men are treating Massachusetts Democratic women the way they always do: with disdain."

For example, "Boston's elite female professionals support Mayor Menino, overlooking the guy-driven impetus in his administration to gun for women who are viewed as threats or just nags. That political instinct worked to marginalize Peggy Davis-Mullen as a city councilor and mayoral candidate. Robert Consalvo, a Menino-backed candidate is also trying to unseat longtime City Councilor Maura Hennigan, following the same Menino-backed playbook that led to the unseating of another district city councilor, Diane Modica."

Vennochi concludes, "As long as Democratic men talk the feminist talk, it doesn't seem to matter what they do to or for Democratic women. That is also funny, as in strange - isn't it?"

I've been saying this for almost ten years, and for some odd reason saying it has never made me very popular with feminists. That's also funny and strange, isn't it? See Vennochi's 10/31/01 Boston Globe column.

UAE Girls Warned Against Western Values

Queen Sheikha Jawaher bint Mohammed Al Qasimi of the United Arab Emirates is advising girls to adhere to their Islamic values and social traditions and to enhance their skills in literature, arts and sciences. She says, "Our girls today are being targeted by a destructive media, which aims to lead them astray from their social traditions and lure them into a type of liberal acts, which would make them vulnerable to exploitation. Such media has also been trying to instill in girls new consumption habits, which may not comply with their families' economic conditions." A recently enacted "decency code" counteracts the media, by aiming to protect girls and society as a whole from the dangers of some imported values. See 10/29/01 Gulf News article.

Women Pilots Flying Combat Missions, But Staying Off The Ground

During the 1991 Gulf War, women sailors flew combat support missions, earning a lot of press coverage and sparking debate about women in combat, especially after a woman helicopter pilot was captured by Iraqi forces. Women also served as pilots in Kosovo, and women fly the most advanced fighter aircraft, bombing Taliban and al-Qaida targets while under anti-aircraft fire. On the other hand, the administration is planning to kill Clinton era proposals to put women on the ground in battle zones. See 10/23/01 AP article. , and the 10/20/01 US News article.

Researchers Discover Artificial Sperm

Men often complain that women have no interest in them except for sperm and money, but soon that may change: Women will need them just for money.

US researchers Dr.Jerry Hall and Dr Yan-Ling Feng have have discovered a cocktail of chemicals which could be used as artificial sperm. Although the experiments have only been carried out on mice, researchers believe it could also work in humans. The only drawback: Any babies born from the process would be female. See 10/22/01 Ananova article.

Fewer Moms Returning to Work a Year After Giving Birth

According to the Census Bureau, more than 55 percent of the 3.9 million women age 15 to 44 who gave birth between July 1999 and June 2000 returned to work, or were actively seeking a job within a year of having their baby. This figure was down from a record high of 59 percent the last time the survey was conducted, in 1998. The declines came mainly among white women, mothers older than 30, married women and those with higher levels of education -- characteristics of women who tend to live in families that make more money. See 10/18/01 Fox News article.

Terrorised Americans Turn to Terror Sex

They are calling it end-of-the-world sex, post-disaster sex, post-terror sex, and even Bin Laden sex, the inelegant post coital expression for which is "bin laid." Sociologists and psychologists are reporting that Americans are taking recourse to intercourse - frequent, random, and even reckless sex to cope with fear, sadness and vulnerability stemming from the September 11 terrorist attacks. Dating services are seeing a significant increase in clients and singles bars in New York and Washington are humming again. From the no-no nineties, America has leapt into a mating millennium after the worst-ever terrorist carnage last month has left them feeling bewildered and bereft. See 10/11/01 Times of India article.

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