Vergewaltigung und Mord: Geistig Behinderter 26 Jahre unschuldig im Knast

Die Staatsanwaltschaft hatte damals die Todesstrafe gefordert, das Geständnis des Betreffenden wurde aber angeblich aus ihm herausgeprügelt. Jetzt beweisen DNS-Tests die Unschuld des Mannes. Die Schweizer Zeitung "20 Minuten" berichtet.

USA Today: "Frauen gewinnen, während Männer verlieren"

Die größte Zeitschrift Amerikas, USA Today, berichtet über die Folgen der gegenwärtigen Wirtschaftskrise:

Women are on the verge of outnumbering men in the workforce for the first time, a historic reversal caused by long-term changes in women's roles and massive job losses for men during this recession.

Women held 49.83% of the nation's 132 million jobs in June and they're gaining the vast majority of jobs in the few sectors of the economy that are growing, according to the most recent numbers available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That's a record high for a measure that's been growing steadily for decades and accelerating during the recession. At the current pace, women will become a majority of workers in October or November. The data for July will be released Friday. (…)

Through June, men have lost 74% of the 6.4 million jobs erased since the recession began in December 2007. Men have lost more than 3 million jobs in construction and manufacturing alone.

The only parts of the economy still growing — health care, education and government — have traditionally hired mostly women. That dominance has increased in part because federal stimulus funding directed money to education, health care and state and local governments. (…)

The gender transformation is especially remarkable in local government's 14.6 million-person workforce. Cities, schools, water authorities and other local jurisdictions have cut 86,000 men from payrolls during the recession — while adding 167,000 women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Hier findet man den vollständigen Artikel.

USA: Kinderloser Mann von Kindesunterhalt befreit

A Georgia man who spent a year in jail for nonpayment of child support - despite the fact he has no children - has been cleared of the debt, his attorney said Tuesday.

CNN berichtet.

USA: Zahl der mit AIDS infizierten Jungen in den letzten zehn Jahren verdoppelt

Während Hillary Clinton erklärte, bei der Bekämpfung von AIDS würden Mädchen und Frauen in Zukunft Vorrang erhalten, stellte sich heraus, dass sich die Zahl der mit AIDS diagnostizierten Jungen im vergangenen Jahrzehnt fast verdoppelt hat.

Reuters berichtet.

Immer mehr Soldaten bringen sich um

Die Suizidrate unter US-Soldaten ist weiter gestiegen. Vor allem Männer, die im Krieg kämpften, sind gefährdet.

Hier erfährt man mehr.

USA Today: Obama muss sich endlich um die Männer kümmern!

In der "USA Today", laut Wikipedia die am weitesten verbreitete Zeitung in den Vereinigten Staaten, findet man inzwischen einen Artikel wie aus dem maskulistischen Lesebuch. Ein Auszug:

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, men make up the majority of those injured on the job. In the manufacturing, mining and construction fields, 86% of workplace injuries and illnesses occur to men and 92% of workplace-related deaths are men as well.

And let's remember our injured vets: 98% of the Iraq wounded are men, and for many of them, their war-related health problems will continue for a lifetime.

Psychological issues again, often left untreated because of a lack of employment and insurance affect men in much greater numbers, as well. Almost 70% of homeless adults are men, and the suicide rate for young men is five times that of young women.

These factors help explain why, in 2006, the average American male could expect to live 5.1 fewer years than the average woman; a black American male will likely live 11 fewer years than a white American woman. (By contrast, in 1920 men and women could expect to enjoy about the same lifespan.)

Despite the overwhelming evidence that men are being left behind, the U.S. government has never made a concerted effort to address male health issues. Right now, there are seven (seven!) offices of women's health in the U.S. government: six in the Department of Health and Human Services and one in the Department of Agriculture. And the Pentagon makes huge investments in women's health research. Yet there is not a single federal organization that encourages and disseminates physical and mental health research for and about men.

One argument for funding so many health service organizations targeted to those citizens who already enjoy the best health, the most insurance, the longest lifespan, and the safest and most plentiful jobs that would be women is that it's payback time. Medical research in the past has been conducted primarily on men, and (theoretically, at least), men got the benefits of that research, so women need the opportunity to catch up.

Obviously, however, the life-expectancy totals don't bear that out. Women have gained in the past century, while men have fallen behind. And saying men benefit from being experimented upon is like envying the lab rats for their medical careers. Men especially soldiers, prisoners and minorities have been research subjects because they were, in some sense, expendable. And men can't become pregnant, another reason why bombarding the bodies of women with untested chemicals and other therapies is frowned upon, while doing the same to men often elicits little more than shrugs.

The Obama administration showed great eagerness in addressing the problems of women soon after it took office, with the establishment of the White House Council on Women and Girls. We applaud that move, and we now look for equal time for the males of the species.

"Denver Post" erschüttert über Männerfeindlichkeit in den USA

John Phipps zeigt sich in der "Denver Post" erschüttert darüber, in welch groteske Schieflage die amerikanische Geschlechterpolitik geraten ist:

Approximately 80% of the unemployed today are men. The unemployment ax is falling hard on men - many are in jobs that don't require education beyond high school; this will transcend the current economic crisis due to the combined effects of technology and globalization. Obama and Congress face millions of angry and disillusioned unemployed young men.

For every 100 women enrolled in college in the U.S., 77 men are. And this trend is continuing to worsen. In regard to bachelor degrees, it's 10-0/63. In regard to associate (community colleges), it's 10-0/67. For every 100 women ages 18-21 in prison, 1,430 men are. For every 100 young women, ages 20-24 who commit suicide, 624 young men will. For every 100 girls suspended from public elementary and secondary schools, 250 boys are, and for those expelled it's 10-0/335.

Boys lose interest in school at a younger and younger age. Our schools know the problem and how to began to fix it, but do not. Single sex classes can be a part of the answer. More men in teaching one another as well as better instructional methods. But often these and others are directly or indirectly (by intimidation) adversely affected by feminist organizations. (...)

After three decades (plus) of feminism, shouldn't this have been the decade during which our culture provided just a little encouragement for boys and young men? The actual result: Last month Obama created the White House Council for Women and Girls. Right there in the White House.

Women's groups pressured him - about 50 of them, I hear. They wanted an actual cabinet seat for a Women's Office, but now are happy that they have the entire cabinet as every matter that now comes before the cabinet must include an assessment of what impact it will have on women and girls. One well known lady evidently exclaimed that now we have a nation of women.

Some of us better start looking at our boys and men. It's getting late in the game.

Kinderpornos: US-Staatsanwälte handeln immer fragwürdiger

Wie man in mehreren Medien lesen kann, wird unsere Familienministerin Ursula von der Leyen für ihren nach Ansicht vieler Experten völlig übertriebenen Aktionismus bei der Bekämpfung von Kinderpornographie scharf kritisiert. (Siehe etwa zur Situation heute Vormittag den Beitrag "Zensursula" macht ernst, das Netz auch.) Nicht minder fragwürdig handeln inzwischen auch amerikanische Staatsanwälte – wozu es hier einen lesenswerten Beitrag gibt.

Präsident Obama aufgefordert, sich auch Jungen und Männern zu widmen

Vor einigen Wochen hatte US-Präsident Barack Obama ein White House Council für Mädchen und Frauen eingerichtet, was ihm angesichts der Situation vieler Jungen und Männer einiges an Kritik einbrachte. Jetzt fordert ihn eine der führenden Männergruppen in den Vereinigten Staaten auch in dieser Hinsicht zu mehr Gleichberechtigung auf:

One of the leading organizations of men in America has asked President Obama to create a White House Council on Men and Boys.

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., the world’s oldest collegiate Greek-lettered organization of African-Americans recently wrote the president a letter encouraging him to create the council after Mr. Obama formally established the White House Council on Women and Girls.

“Mr. President, we are keenly aware of the challenges that face women and girls. However, we believe a focus must also be placed on men and boys,” wrote the Rev. Herman “Skip” Mason, Jr., general president of Alpha. “As a father of a six-year old son and an eight-year old daughter, like you I want to make sure that there are well-educated, responsible and community-oriented men for them to look up to as they grow and develop.”

Hier geht es weiter.

Lesermail (Folter)

Genderama-Leser T.L. schreibt mir:

Hallo Herr Hoffmann,

regelmäßig lese ich Ihren Genderama-Blog, der mir sehr gut gefällt. In Ihrem heutigen Beitrag "Frankfurter Rundschau und Co. amüsieren sich über gekränkte Männer" taucht am Ende des Zitats von Frau Staude (FR) der Begriff "Waterboarding" auf.

Das Thema Folter durch US-Amerikaner geht ja dank Obama gerade wieder durch die Presse. Was mich dabei aber immer wieder fasziniert, ist das permanente Verschweigen der Tatsache, daß alle Folteropfer ausschließlich Männer sind! Ich habe jedenfalls noch von keiner durch die USA entführten/gefolterten Frau gehört, und wenn es sie gäbe, dann wüßte dies dank unserer Presse jeder.

Als der Abu-Ghraib-Skandal aufgedeckt wurde, veröffentlichte die Gefängnisleitung am nächsten Tag stolz, daß die zwei einzigen Frauen, die es unter den mehreren tausend Gefangenen gab, entlassen worden seien! Darüber, ob diese überhaupt von den Folerungen betroffen gewesen waren, wurden keine Angaben gemacht, was (bei unserer Presse) soviel heißt wie - nein.

Müßig zu sagen, daß wenn seit 2001 ausschließlich Frauen von den USA entführt, gefoltert und dabei auch ermordet worden wären, das Geschlecht der Opfer dann doch das eine oder andere Mal in den Artikeln zum Thema aufgeblitzt wäre.

Michelle Obama lädt Mädchengruppen ins Weiße Haus ein

It felt like a high school prom at the White House Thursday night…minus the teenage boys and the spiked punch.

Michelle Obama hosted 110 high-school junior and senior girls from eleven Washington-area schools for dinner and music in the East Room. Sheryl Crow and Alicia Keys performed.

Scattered throughout the crowd were women who all marked “firsts” in their professions: Dominique Dawes, the first African-American to win an individual Olympic medal in rhythmic gymnastics, Gen. Ann Dunwoody, the first female four-star general, Dr. Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman to travel to space, Susan Rice, the first African-American woman to serve as Ambassador to the United Nations…oh “and then there’s me, the first lady,” Obama said as she finished ticking off the guest list. (…)

Obama assembled the group in honor of Women’s History Month. She told the group of girls to use the night for networking and to “poke and prod” the successful women in the room “to figure out how they got where they are.”

Hier findet man den vollständigen Artikel.

Währenddessen widmet sich Obamas Team der Bekämpfung von häuslicher Gewalt – natürlich ebenfalls geschlechtsspezifisch: "Domestic violence is still a major issue, not just for women but also for girls."

Von der Journalistin Kathleen Parker gibt es einen kritischen Kommentar zu diesem Sexismus: Bring the Boys Along

(Bei dieser Gelegenheit erklärt Parker auch noch mal, warum die auch von Obama aufgestellte Behauptung, Frauen würden einer beträchtlichen Lohndiskriminierung unterliegen, einfach nur großer Blödsinn ist, räumt aber ein, dass man mit solchen Erklärungen vermutlich nur tauben Ohren predige.)

USA: Zweierlei Maß bei Teenagersex

After a 17-year-old boy had sex with his 14-year-old girlfriend, he was charged with a felony for statutory rape. When a 17-year-old girl in the same town commited the same crime, she was charged with far less. Was the boy the victim of gender bias?

Alan Jepsen was playing videogames at his home in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, when the cops came knocking on his door. He was handcuffed in front of his sister and thrown in jail. In the words of his attorney, Jeffrey Purnell, “This child, this 17-year-old high-school kid, had to spend a week in jail—they locked him up and they put him in jail with grown-ups.”

His crime: Having sex with his 14-year-old girlfriend. And, perhaps, being a boy.

Hier geht es weiter.

"Ein dringendes Menschenrechtsthema"

Der US-Schulinspektor Edward Hayes widmet sich der Frage, wieviel in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten international für Mädchen getan wurde, während die Jungen immer kürzer kamen. Ein Auszug:

In 1991, the prestigious, but goofy, American Association of University Women (AAUW) made a startling declaration: ‘Most girls emerge from adolescence with a poor self image.’ Researchers, all female, informed the body politic that the primary culprit here was the public school system in America. No one seemed to notice that at the time this assertion was loosed upon us that 85% of all public school teachers were women.

Consequently, after much ripping of garments and public self- flagellation, Congress passed the 1994 Gender Equity in Education Act which officially categorized girls as an ‘under-served-population,’ placing American womanhood on a par with other discriminated against minorities. Millions of dollars flowed into the coffers of thought-control institutions so they could look deeply into this heart-of-darkness. In 1995, at the UN 4th World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, the American delegation, chaired by Secretary of State Madelyn Albright, laid bare the educational and psychological deficits of American girls as a pressing human rights issue.

Man darf gespannt sein, ob und wann die Benachteiligung der Jungen genauso nachdrücklich angegangen wird.

Hier findet man den vollständigen Beitrag.

"Maybe we need a White House Council on Men and Boys"

Auch in den USA kommt man allmählich dahinter, dass die Amokläufer der letzten Woche etwas mit der Jungenkrise zu tun haben könnten:

We’ve seen that face before, though it was easy to forget. Young, pasty-faced, non-threatening, it might be the face of the underemployed young man still living with his parents down the street, or the student with no honors by his name in the class yearbook. Pretty girls pay little attention to faces like this.

It’s only when this generic underachiever blows away several people or someone famous, that we trouble ourselves to study that face, the face of Michael Kenneth McLendon, who killed 10 people in South Alabama Wednesday, or Tim Kretschmer, who killed 15 in Germany the same day. Young men like these seem to have tragic bad timing: Bereft of attention all their lives, they often do their killing on the same news cycle.

This is the face of Arthur Bremer, of John Hinckley, of Eric and Dylan, the Columbine boys, and dozens upon dozens of faces whose rampages have faded into memory.

We can’t presume to understand what hidden abuses might have caused any of these individuals to snap, or whether there was any particular reason at all. When a man systematically kills his mother, grandmother, uncle and cousin, it hints of some dark family secret. But McClendon killed people he didn’t know as well, and later stories from Alabama have shot down the earlier report that he kept a “hit list.”

There is, however, overwhelming evidence that underneath each specific case of hidden turmoil, there runs a deep current of humiliation and shame.

“Everyone laughs at me, nobody recognizes my potential,” Kretschmer, the German high school kid, wrote before his rampage.

Many people have similar feelings, but it’s the effect these emotions have specifically on young men with marginal sexual or financial prospects which has this murderous result, whether the gun laws are those of the state of Alabama or the Federal Republic of Germany.

Hier geht es weiter.

Wie furchtbar, dass es erst Dutzende von Toten brauchte, bis Journalisten das aufgreifen, was die Männerrechtsbewegung seit Jahren dringend empfiehlt.

"Barack Against the Boys"

Das von US-Präsident Barack Obama eingerichtete White House Council on Women and Girls sorgt in den Vereinigten Staaten weiter für Debatten.

Obama selbst nennt seine Erfahrungen mit weit überwiegend weiblichen Familienmitgliedern als Hintergrund für seine Ausrichtung und zitiert die altbekannten irreführenden Statistiken der Feministinnen:

Women earn just 78 cents for every dollar men make; 1 in 4 women still experiences domestic violence; women are 49 percent of the work force but only 3 percent of Fortune 500 chiefs.

Leiterin des Councils wurde die alleinerziehende Mutter Valerie Jarrett:

"The council is going to examine all the programs at the federal level that touch on women and girls and we're going to work to coordinate and make sure that each of those programs is doing everything that it could do to help support women and girls," Jarrett told NBC News after the event.

Konservative wenden ein, das Council diene dazu, Feminismus zum Regierungsprogramm zu machen.

Die Publizistin Ilana Mercer befindet in ihrem Artikel Barack against the boys, sofern hier kein gewaltiges Missverständnis vorliege, sei Obama verwirrt, übelwollend oder beides:

Barack, however, has it backward: It is boys, not girls, who lag behind – and have for decades. (…)

The facts from Newsweek, another Holy Order of Obama, suggest Obama might wish to reconsider his barmy order: "High-school boys are losing ground to girls on standardized writing tests. The number of boys who said they didn't like school rose 71 percent between 1980 and 2001, according to a University of Michigan study. Nowhere is the shift more evident than on college campuses. Thirty years ago men represented 58 percent of the undergraduate student body. Now they're a minority at 44 percent. … At many state universities the gender balance is already tilting 60-40 toward women."

Es ist gut möglich, dass im Weißen Haus nur ein Ideologe gegen einen anderen ausgetauscht wurde. Ähnlich wie Bush, wenn auch in ganz anderer Hinsicht, scheint Obama nicht wirklich im 21. Jahrhundert angekommen zu sein. Von Obamas Leitidee "Vereinigen statt spalten" ist geschlechterpolitisch jedenfalls wenig übrig geblieben.

Nachtrag: Eine weitere Journalistin zeigt sich durch Obamas sexistisches Council irritiert.

USA: Hilft Geschlechtertrennung gegen Jungenkrise?

Hoping to quell unruly behavior and improve middle school students' grades, school leaders in Lawrence are turning to a throwback to the old days: separating the girls from the boys. (…)

"We're doing this because we're profoundly concerned about the adolescents. They're crying out," said Lawrence schools Superintendent Wilfredo Laboy, who added that he is specifically worried about boys falling behind girls academically.

Hier findet man den vollständigen Artikel.

"Hört auf, der Jungenkrise auszuweichen"

Wie ähnlich die Jungenproblematik diesseits und jenseits des Atlantiks aussieht, belegt ein aktueller amerikanischer Artikel, in dem der Autor auf genau jenen Aspekt zu sprechen kommt, mit dem ich auch "Rettet unsere Söhne" eröffnet habe: den bizarren Umstand, dass der offensichtlichste Aspekt der Bildungskrise, nämlich die Situation unserer Jungen, in dieser Debatte weitgehend ausgeklammert wird und bestenfalls als ein "Sonderthema" gilt:

'Interestingly, however, there's something all these groups studiously avoid talking about. These U.S. education numbers look bad primarily because the schools are failing boys. For the most part, those awful high school graduation numbers are driven by boys, not girls (32 percent of boys drop out, compared to 25 percent of girls). And the lackluster college graduation rates are due primarily to men floundering in college (men earn about 42 percent of four-year degrees). Given that men are far more likely to major in math and science – a special worry for the technical industries - the chamber should be particularly concerned about men falling behind. (…)

Higher education leaders, who feel they are blameless in the boy troubles and have reaped the benefits of ever-rising numbers of female applicants, look the other way. That is proving to be a mistake. High-tuition second and third-tier private colleges that tolerated significant gender imbalances are now under stress from the recession. Today, they may be wishing they had stepped forward to try to solve the male college pipeline problem, which goes well beyond poor and minority boys.

Rezession in den USA: Haben bald mehr Frauen als Männer einen Arbeitsplatz?

Die "New York Times" berichtet:

The proportion of women who are working has changed very little since the recession started. But a full 82 percent of the job losses have befallen men, who are heavily represented in distressed industries like manufacturing and construction. Women tend to be employed in areas like education and health care, which are less sensitive to economic ups and downs, and in jobs that allow more time for child care and other domestic work.

“Given how stark and concentrated the job losses are among men, and that women represented a high proportion of the labor force in the beginning of this recession, women are now bearing the burden — or the opportunity, one could say — of being breadwinners,” says Heather Boushey, a senior economist at the Center for American Progress.

Economists have predicted before that women would one day dominate the labor force as more ventured outside the home. The number of women entering the work force slowed and even dipped during the boom years earlier this decade, though, prompting a debate about whether women truly wanted to be both breadwinners and caregivers.

Should the male-dominated layoffs of the current recession continue — and Friday’s jobs report for January may offer more insight — the debate will be moot. A deep and prolonged recession, therefore, may change not only household budgets and habits; it may also challenge longstanding gender roles.

US-Colleges: Kluft zwischen den Geschlechtern wird breiter

Until the 1980s, more men than women attended and graduated from college. But by the 1990s, women had caught up, and soon they overtook men.

Despite increasing concern, the gap has widened steadily this decade. By 2007, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, a third of women ages 25 to 29 had bachelor's degrees, the highest proportion ever. For men, it was just over one-quarter, lower than it was in 2000. (…)

The trend is playing out in the gender ratios at many colleges. To maintain a balance between the sexes, some schools have worked hard to attract young men.

Seton Hill University in Greensburg is about two-thirds female. Though the former women's college began admitting men in 2001 and added a football team in 2004 to attract male students, it has yet to reach a gender balance.

While the athletic program has been a draw, admissions director Sherri Bett said, almost all the men who choose Seton Hill are athletes. Bett said the university was struggling to come up with ways to attract a larger and more diverse pool of men.

"We're always brainstorming ideas," she said. "One idea is scholarships (for men), but we don't want to be unfair." (…)

Dickinson College in Carlisle was two-thirds female in the early 2000s. Gradually, by reaching out to male high school students and, controversially, favoring male applicants, the college came closer to a balance. It now is 55 percent female.

"Gender ratio is so important," said Stephanie Balmer, the college's dean of admissions. "When you're building a class, you're building a community, and you want it to reflect the world in which they'll work and live." (…)

While the college does not actively pursue men, Daniel Obara, vice president for academic affairs, said the gender imbalance is a concern. He could only speculate as to its cause.

"There may be more incentives for women in education, in terms of job opportunities," he said.

Obara's theory is backed up by income statistics from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry. A degree has a greater impact on salaries in fields that are dominated by women, such as health and education, than in fields dominated by men, such as construction and manufacturing.

Hier findet man den vollständigen Artikel.

USA: Mehr Männer als Frauen von gestiegener Arbeitslosigkeit betroffen

In these tough times, the unemployment line is getting longer and longer, and it looks like you have a better chance of standing in it if you are a man. A new study shows women seem to be holding on to their jobs more than men.

Hier geht es weiter.