Tag Archives: Men

Gender, Sexual + Gender Minorities

France News | Gay Men

France opens blood donation to gay men with qualifications
  • Fulfilling a campaign promise of President François Hollande, the French health ministry announced it will relax the 1983 law banning gay men from donating blood.
  • Men who have abstained from sex with other men for at least 12 months will be allowed to donate blood, while men who have not had sex with men or have had sex in the context of a monogamous relationship for four months can donate plasma.
  • Rights groups cautiously praised the development, acknowledging the continued profiling of gay men through the ongoing restrictions, which will be reviewed in 2017.

Read more:
“Ouverture progressive du don de sang aux homosexuels à partir de 2016” (Le Monde)
“France to lift ban on gay men giving blood” (AFP via Yahoo! News)
“France to Lift Ban on Gay Men Donating Blood” (The New York Times)

(Image Credit: Noah Seelam/AFP)

Age, Gender, Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity

U.S. News | Haitian Immigrant Youth

In Search of Home

After the 2010 earthquake that devastated much of their country’s infrastructure, thousands of Haitians immigrated to the U.S. in search of a place to rebuild their lives. However, the traumatic psychological and material effects of the catastrophe made integration into their new homes difficult. PRI profiles efforts in Boston, home to one of the biggest Haitian-American communities in the U.S., to provide a space of transition for Haitian boys in search of familiarity.

Read more:
“A ‘home’ away from home is helping young Haitians in the US cope with trauma of 2010 earthquake” (Public Radio International)

(Image Credit: Rupa Shenoy/WGBH, via PRI)

Gender, Sexual + Gender Minorities

Japan Research | Gay & Bisexual Male Youth

Bullying among Gay & Bisexual Teenage Males in Japan

A research team at Takarazuka University in Japan conducted a wide-ranging study on the experiences of gay and bisexual men in Japan, with participants ranging in age from 11 to 71.  Researchers found high levels of identity-driven bullying experienced by teenage boys, which they connected to negative reactive behaviors including truancy and self-harm.

1,096

Number of gay and bisexual teenage boys in the study

44%

Percent of teenagers reporting having been bullied for their sexual identity

23%

Percent of teenagers who engaged in truancy

18%

Percent of teenagers who engaged in self-harm

41% (2015) vs. 63% (2005)

Percent of teenagers who reported never having learned about homosexuality in school

30% (2015) vs. 23% (2005)

Percent of teenagers who reported being taught negative information about sexual minorities

Full survey sample: ~20,000
Survey conductor: Takarazuka University

Read the news story at The Ashai Shimbun.

Gender, Race + Color + Ethnicity, Religion + Belief

U.S. News & Feature | Nonbelievers of Color

Arian Foster: Freethinking in the NFL

Image Credit: Josh Goleman/ESPN
Image Credit: Josh Goleman/ESPN

NFL running back Arian Foster, currently playing for the Houston Texans, has come out as a freethinker and nonbeliever, one of very few professional players to have ever professed nonbelief. With little to no separation between church and field in the NFL, Foster sits down with ESPN to share his experiences being out to teammates, the evolution of his belief, and the ubiquity of Christianity in football.

Read the full profile at ESPN.

Gender, Race + Color + Ethnicity

U.K. News | Black British Men

1 Comment

Black in London

Four years following the protests and riots that broke out following the death of black Londoner Mark Duggan, relations between the black community and law enforcement remain tense. Black men in particular express anxiety over police interactions and face targeting through stop-and-search policies. BuzzFeed News reflects on developments since Duggan’s death and the spaces black men turn to for camaraderie and relief.

“When you fail to make people in your country feel like the country belongs to them, you have riots.”

Read the full feature at BuzzFeed News.

(Image Credit: Shyamantha Asokan/BuzzFeed)

Gender

U.S. News | Men & Women

Netflix and Microsoft announce major expansions in parental leave policies
  • New parents at Netflix will now be able to take an unlimited amount of paid leave in the year following the birth or adoption of a child, regardless of gender.
  • At Microsoft, new fathers will be able to take up to 12 weeks of paid leave, with an additional two weeks of paid prenatal leave and eight weeks of paid disability leave for new mothers.
  • A fifth of U.S. organizations offer family leave benefits above those required by state and short-term disability laws, despite the country’s lack of laws guaranteeing paid family leave for at least new mothers.

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal.

Age, Gender

Turkmenistan News | Male Youth

1 Comment
Turkmenistan cuts study abroad for boys to expand military conscription
  • As conflict in Afghanistan threatens to spill into Turkmenistan, the Turkmen government has ended sponsorship for its male students to study abroad for college in order to broaden the conscription pool.
  • The majority of Turkmen youth get their university degrees abroad in countries like Ukraine and Belarus, with only a little more than 7,000 of its 100,000 annual high school graduates choosing to remain in the country for study.
  • Turkmenistan’s isolationist policies have severely crippled its education system, with ailments like rife corruption, poor financial planning, and the implementation of a compulsory 12-year education system only in 2013.

Read the full story at The Diplomat.

Health + Ability

U.K. Perspectives | Schizophrenia

First Person: When Schizophrenia Arrives

Daniel Smith shares his experience of the arrival of acute schizophrenia in his life, from the early warning signs through his first psychotic break to treatment and management.  Providing a glimpse of the complex emotional development and life adjustments such an arrival catalyzes, Daniel discusses the importance of acceptance, ownership, and disclosure as a part of the management process.

“Being a master of disguise … is nothing to be proud of.”

Read Daniel’s personal account at VICE.

(Image Credit: Wellcome Images, via VICE)

Gender

U.K. Feature | Men

Britain’s New Dad

The Guardian examines the changing culture of fatherhood in the U.K., with new paid paternal leave, flexible work options, shared parenting practices, and changing cultural attitudes encouraging dads to take on more domestic and familial responsibilities.  As women continue to confront the question while gaining stronger footing in the workplace, men too are beginning to ask: can they have it all?

Read the feature at The Guardian.

(Image Credit: Matthew Farrant/The Guardian)

Gender, Race + Color + Ethnicity, Religion + Belief

Bosnia & Herzegovina News | Muslim Men

Srebrenica genocide’s 20th anniversary brings together tens of thousands
  • The event in the eastern Bosnian town memorialized the more 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys–including 136 recently identified–who were massacred by Bosnian Serb forces during the Bosnian War.
  • The Srebrenica massacre’s U.N.-backed status as a genocide has been denied by some Bosnian Serb leaders, and recently Russia vetoed a U.N. measure to condemn genocide deniers.
  • At the memorial, Serbian PM Aleksandar Vucic was attacked by a crowd with rocks and water bottles, leading to his early departure.

Read the full story at Al Jazeera.

(Image Credit: Al Jazeera)

Gender, Sexual + Gender Minorities

Spain News | Gay Men

A decade after same-sex marriage legalized in Spain, couple faces ongoing familial insecurity as legal challenges to their parental rights continue
  • The couple had twins via surrogacy in 2013, but Spain’s National Institute of Social Security (INSS) denied one of the fathers’ request for leave benefits specifically due to the method of conception.
  • The administration argued that surrogate parenting is excluded from leave benefits for fathers because it entails none of the burdens that childbirth, adoption, or foster care do.
  • Two years later, a court sided with the new parents, ordering the INSS to pay the couple the withheld benefits, and after an appeal led to an additional ruling in favor of the couple, the INSS is appealing to the Supreme Court.

«Está claro que yo no he parido ni adoptado a mis hijos, pero ¿cómo vamos a conciliar nuestra vida familiar y laboral? ¿Pretende el INSS que renuncie al cuidado de mis hijos o que renuncie a pagar mis facturas e hipoteca?»

Translation: “It’s clear that I haven’t given birth or adopted my sons, but how are we going to reconcile our family and work life? Does the INSS expect me to give up caring for my sons or give up paying my bills and mortgage?”

Read the full story at La Verdad (in Spanish).

(Image Credit: Pablo Sánchez/AGM, via La Verdad)

Age, Gender, Religion + Belief

Bosnia and Herzegovina News | Muslim Men

The Islamic State targets Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina in latest recruitment efforts
  • A recently released recruitment video shows Bosnian IS fighters calling on Muslims from the Balkans–and specifically in Bosnia and Herzegovina–to launch attacks in their home cities and emigrate to fight in the Middle East.
  • Young men in Bosnia are particularly vulnerable to such recruitment efforts, where they face a 63% youth unemployment rate, precarious social conditions, and poor prospects.
  • Security and counterterrorism efforts have been largely uncoordinated and lacking a grand strategy, even in the wake of one radical’s attack on a police station in late April that left one officer and the gunman dead.

“Returning foreign fighters from Syria and Iraq – battle-hardened, skilled in handling arms and explosives, and ideologically radicalised – pose a direct threat not only to the security of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also of the region and beyond.”

Read the full story at the Guardian.

(Image Credit: Al Hayat, via the Guardian)

Gender
Working-class men at risk globally as jobs disappear and opportunity dries up for the low-educated, limited-skill demographic.
  • While men continue to dominate leadership and management roles across most industries, working-class men face ever-encroaching structural employment.
  • While American women with only a high school diploma have seen a slight pay increase of 3% since 1979, men of similar educational background have seen wages plummet by 21%.
  • The author suggests changing cultural attitudes towards child-rearing and employment industries, reforming the criminal justice system, and retooling the education system to be more accommodating of boys (particularly the youngest).

“Poorly educated men in rich countries have had difficulty coping with the enormous changes in the labour market and the home over the past half-century. As technology and trade have devalued brawn, less-educated men have struggled to find a role in the workplace.”

More on this story at the Economist.

(Image Credit: Jon Berkeley/The Economist)

Gender

Remittances to Tajikistan plummet 40% as Russia’s economic downturn impacts migrant workers, sending men home to a country with poor economic prospects for them. More from EurasiaNet.