Are there differences in the perceptions of male and female paedophiles?

I think that male paedophiles are seen as sexual predators. If a man is a paedophile then he is doing it because he enjoys it. Whereas if a woman is convicted of it, people look for reasons - her being abused being the top one. either abused as a child, or the victim of a man who is forcing her to do these things. Or her being mentally ill.

For some reason, most people are totally unwilling to accept that women can do these things for the same reason men do. A woman who does this must also be a victim somehow.

I don't understand why. Perhaps it is to protect our own perception of women as child nurturers and not child abusers?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14596811

news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/15396996

The second link has the details of a two year study started in 2009, so it will shortly publish its findings.

This is a pece from an article after George was convicted:

"Women suspected of committing sexual offences have traditionally been treated differently by the criminal justice system, often being referred on to social services or welfare agencies for treatment. While male paedophiles tend to be viewed as predators, female paedophiles have in the past been regarded as mentally ill.

When cases involving women offenders do go to court, they are often referred to family court for trial and are not reported because of confidentiality restrictions.

What has also led us to assume that women abusers are a rarity is that there is less reporting of sexual abuse by women."

Research suggests that the incidence of mother-son incest is far greater than we imagine it to be. Again, there are various reasons why it does not get discovered: if the mother is a single parent, it is less likely to be spotted by a fellow adult. Then there is the nature of the behaviour - say, bathing an 11-year-old child. This would be considered abusive if carried out by a father, but merely eccentric or abnormal if done by a mother. And whatever the precise nature of the abuse, if it started at an early age it is likely to be regarded as 'normal' by the child.

In the case of abused teenagers, the incest becomes apparent when the girl becomes pregnant. With a boy, there is no such giveaway sign.

The myth that women are not involved in child sexual abuse is being challenged with the explosion of internet child pornography and the high number of women users involved.

The laws to convict women didn't exsist until recently to include oral etc.

"However, statistics indicate that female child abusers not only exist, but in numbers approaching those of males. In New Zealand, 48% of child abusers for 2006, where the perpetrator gender was known, were women.
In the USA, in 2002, 63% of all child abuse, from neglect to sexual abuse, was perpetrated by the mother. In 40% of cases the mother acted alone."

I would love to see some reliable stats which support female sex abuse of children being as prevalent as male sex abuse of children. That does run counter to everythibg I have read, although I have never studied this.

I didn't pick up on sakua's post because the data is so old and now irrelevent.

Tbh female crimes against children are often ignored when compared to male crime (i find in my work, anyway). Things don't work as they should and people are not charged with the actual crime, they are charged with what will secure a conviction.

"Paedophile" is practically synonymous with "male"

I'm hoping that was just awkward wording, and you meant something more along the lines of "male paedophile is practically redundant". Because male and paedophile are not synonymous - they cannot be used interchangeably!

There are many academic boks on the subject of paedophilia/sex offenders/abusers and societies view of them, from all angles, psychology, sociology (Chivilary theory, cultural norms, labeling, Anomie etc).

I carry out parenting assessments and will say that i have never come across an abusive parent who has had a 'normal' childhood, i have discussed this on numerous occassions, as i believe that empathy can be blocked or removed by early experiences and no-one i have spoken to has said that there hasn't been clues as to why the person is capable of their crimes. But then that means that there is a danger of labeling people and counseling only works if a person is willing to engage.

There has been new research on racism that involves reading brain patterns in different situations and it has been found that held beliefs completly changes how the brain reacts to what is being seen/done. So if you believe that a person is inferior the pity/empathy responce is blocked, similar research is being carried out on sexual behaviour.

The problem is getting consent and the research holding up to scrutiny.

I don't think you understood MillyR when she was saying that there is a difference between a child sex offender and a paedophile.

Since this is for an essay, I think you need to get your terminology right, otherwise it gets confusing. What you are talking about is male and female sex offenders. The term paedophilia only ever refers a person who can only be sexually aroused by children. It refers to their sexuality, not their behaviour. They may or may not act on that arousal. It is fairly rare. Most child sex offenders, male or female, are not paedophiles. I don't actually know if there have been any documented female paedophiles.

Using paedophile as a blanket term for all child sex offenders is a tabloid thing.

This is a fascinating area for study though, I wish I had some more time today to join in properly.

got to step in here before the "men and women can be just as bad as each other" trope takes off:

"In 1973, Walter Gove found that ?for women the shift from being single to being married increases the likelihood of being murdered, while for men the shift decreases their chances.? Gove obtained similar findings for single as compared to married women as regards to ?accidental deaths.? It is, of course, likely that many accidental deaths were murders.

It was also found that:

Virtually all mass murderers are men, and most of their victims have been women.

Incest is a form of sexual violence that is primarily directed against female children by adult male perpetrators (Finkelhor (1980; Herman with Herschman, 1977). Herman and Herschman found that 92 % of incest victims are female and 97% of the perpetrators are male.

So yes, while much is made in the media of female paedophliles, it's very important to point out that women are often accomplices to men. And if all male paedophiles were given the same kind of coverage that fermale paedophiles are, then there'd never be room for anything else. "Paedophile" is practically synonymous with "male" (again please see the stats)

Thing is, some people are horrible. Irrespective of gender. Some people really like having power over others and being able to hurt them. Some of such people were hideously mistreated in the course of their own childhoods. (Fred West was brought up in a household of continual violent and sexually-motivated abuse, so was Ted Bundy). But most people are reasonably nice. Most people do not want to hurt others, most people feel pity and empathy and whiile they might lash out in anger or get their undies in an unethical bundle about some stranger the tabloids have turned into a hate figure. most people do not inflict continuouse mental/physical pain on others.

sorry that took me so long to type thread had moved on

It is IMO important to see the person behind the offender - sorry if that is a lilly livered liberal view. But I can not bring myself to believe that anyone is born naturally evil so something has made them feel that this behaviour is acceptable.

As for the conversation about paedophilia, I understood (may well be wrong) that this is when someone believes that children are capable of sexual maturity and capable of having sexual relationships below the current given age of consent.
The age that they feel maturity comes seems to vary within the community of paedophiles, with those who see a 9 year old as sexually mature feeling sickened by a paedophile who feels that coming around the age of 5.

I haven't read much about female paedophiles, but feel that this sort of distortion of reality can't just be a male trait.

wasn't vanessa Gorge taking the photographs primarily because a male paedophile asked/persuaded her to or am I mixing up cases?

I think you're right that we want to understand, regardless of the sex of the offender. But when it's a woman - yes, I think part of me does assume she was coerced/had been abused herself - I try to make some sort of vague excuses, because the alternative - that the offender was just plain evil - is too uncomfortable for me. Is that because I'm a woman, though? Does a man try to find a reason for a woman's crimes in the same way?

I don't mean the books like that I mean more the general public view of tabloid headlines.
there seems to be a Oh God what made her do that? view of a woman who commits a crime, but not the same instant question about why a man would commit an offence

If that is the case, why is there a massive genre of books about getting inside the mind of the killer, finding out about the killer's childhood and hearing criminal psychologists talk about the killer, hearing about the psychological profile of killers in general.

The public seems obsessed with 'understanding violent and/or sexual offenders, of either gender, aren't they?

I think that society clearly likes to understand the actions of women offenders in general in a way that they don't with men.
People assume that when a woman and man offend together that the woman has been coerced by the man. I would also assume that a defence lawyer would be happy to go along with this/ encourage this view of things, but is it the truth?

In the same way as there are vunerable women there are vunerable men.

It isn't about compassion though, is it? It is about understanding why people commit these crimes, which may be for reasons other than being a paedophile. If there is a good understanding of why it happens, there is a greater opportunity to treat people so that they do not offend or do not reoffend.

Deciding whether or not somebody is a paedophile or not isn't about the severity of their crimes through, Zigzag. Paedophilia is a particular psychological diagnosis. There will be lots of people who have committed the most serious crimes as child sex offenders who would not be diagnosed as paedophiles.