Male nannies/childminders

Dammit sorry everyone, and thank you old lady!

Oldlady, I think it should be the other way round, is milo happy to leave her dc with their father, grandfather, brother, uncles, nephews. And would that be a blanket no or only a no to some. If it is a no to some what method does milo use to identify those that she feels are risks, families all over the world would pay very highly for some kind of full proof "peado" detector.

Wrong thread, LeithLurker.

Going back to the original point of this thread and men paying for sex, it seems to me that in the end those opposed need to answer two questions.

1. What do you propose is done about human sexuality? Adults wanting sex, feeling horny, feeling the need for attention, perhaps even selfishly just feeling the need for release?

1. During this thread it is clear that arguments have been offered for those who work and use the sex industry, as well as those who claim it is exploitative and based on abuse. This thread has demonstrated that very few will change sides, and it seems no common ground of any value can be achieved. Given that the status quo is what those against want to change, which means either changing peoples minds or mobalise far, far larger numbers than you have been able to do already. Or simply imposing legal and social restraints on the public at large, how are YOU going to move the argument on. As I said the status quo is that prostitution will continue in much the same way as is.

Is your dh happy to be alone with your dc, miloben? Because most child abuse occurs at the hands of family members. Statistically, the person a child is most at risk from is his male primary carer.

Sorry for typos - iPad keeps changing my words.

I remember the renowned children's advocate, John Walsh, whose son was murdered by a male child sex offender, advised parents not to leave their children alone with men as men commit something like 99% of child sex of offences. He was pilloried for this, but the thing is, the facts speak for themselves. It is a fact that men a overwhelmingly more likely to sexually abuse children than women. I have no qualms about male teachers and feel I shouldn't be against male nannies, but I know that deep down I wouldn't want a male being alone with my children. My husband is even more adamant about this.

This is so very rich, two of the most well known feminists on MN promoting sex discrimination.

Eats & Food, tell us how you would phrase your argument to a woman who wishes to follow a career path that places her and those she works with in a situation where they could be accused of some kind of wrong doing? I doubt you would be talking about additional safeguards for the women over the men as they are more likely because of their gender to be the site of the problem.

Also let us say in 30 years time all the discussions of shared child care, parental responsibility, women being assumed to be the main child care providers, etc have not moved forward one iota. What would you then say the problem is, you clearly cannot argue that it is the attitudes of men that need to change as the numbers of men who would be willing to change their attitude and act as role models will have been kept artificialy low by allowing them to claim that women such as you do not want them involved as they may be a risk. So the patriarchy continues as a result of feminists arguing for discrimination. Not even positive discrimination at that!

Statistically more women are raped than men- should we stop women going out alone after dark for their own protection?

It's the same bloody stupid prejudiced arguement.

FoodUnit - there is nothing 'purely politically correct' about men having the same opportunity to work in child care. The deductive reasoning otherwise is totally specious, but it's difficult for some people to let go of their totems.

"what is 'purely politically correct' about a man being a child carer?"

The 'politically correct' thing, would be to say 'men and women are equal now, all the abuse perpetrated by males is forgotten, doesn't exist and isn't a risk' in such a way that puts the vulnerable in harms way.

For men to work in care without this blanket political correctness would be to add safeguards to protect both the man from accusation and the children from abuse.

And the reason touching children is now taboo is not because of 'peedo hysteria' but because of very real acts of abuse overwhelmingly perpetrated by males. So the perpetrators deserve the blame for these measure, not those who want to prevent them from perpetrating.

it is true that more girls are sexually abused than boys are, from what we know. But...quite how that fact bears any relevance as to the prevalence of male nursery workers abusing any children is moot.

No, of course 'equality' doesn't mean everyone gets treated the same - in fact it's the opposite. But here FoodUnit and Eats are spuriously mixing stats and drawing invalid conclusions (abuse in the home/abuse in paid child care) for a discriminatory purpose.

I don't want children to be abused either, but keeping men oug of childcare won't stop the majority of the abuse, which occurs within the home.

Not true OldLady. Read something I think done by NSPCC? saying that majority of paedophiles go for girls, a substantial minority go for boys and a minority go for either sex. Paedophiles largely do care about the sex of the child. But I dont want any child to be sexually abused - girls or boys.

Would you ban fathers, or indeed family members, from nappy-changing and general childcare duties? And how does that square with men taking on more responsibility for their dc?

Thank you so much for posting this, if we want men to take responsibility for their children, then why do we label all male child carers as paedos? This community is a bit strange...

Would you happen to know what % of boys suffer sexual abuse in childhood? Because peedos running loose in our nurseries don't usually care much about the sex of the child.

I don't have those stats, nontheless it would be prudent to be 10 to 20 times more cautious when employing males than females to work with vulnerable people.

No, not at all. You show a complete misunderstanding of statistics and probability.

According to this site

www.whiteribboncampaign.co.uk/Resources/violence_against_women

21% of girls experience some form of sexual abuse. That's 1 in 5 girls, so not having men in childcare is not stopping abuse.

FoodUnit, I've said it before on this thread, and had no reply... Most child abuse takes place within the family. Would you ban fathers, or indeed family members, from nappy-changing and general childcare duties? And how does that square with men taking on more responsibility for their dc?

so FoodUnit, what is 'purely politically correct' about a man being a child carer?

My thoughts exactly Felicity, especially as this board is meant to be about feminism/equality... I wonder if these people would mind being generalised and I hope they never have sons who want to go into childcare, so they can realise the absolute ridiculousness of their accusations.

"Yet here, in FWR, where talk is of equality, the replies are far more of the "Oh, no, peedo!" variety. Interesting."

Its obvious. The majority of people in the world are in denial about the prevalence of abuse and tend towards victim-blaming. The status quo is actually upheld by this and relies on it, and without it the world would look very different. FWR is about changing the status quo.

Most people have a shallow notion of equality that is basically 'men and women doing the same' which doesn't take the biological difference in vulnerability into account.

I am all for males being more involved in caring roles, but not in a purely politically correct way that puts vulnerable people at risk.

It's surprising, or not, how a bunch of otherwise intelligent women can come over all ill-informed and unsophisticated in their thinking when a chance to undeservedly bash a whole host of men.
It must be an odd space to occupy when one insistently calls for men in general to take more responsibility re child care, and have a greater profile in 'providing care', but then rely on some fairly discriminatory and reactionary thinking and attitudes in hoping it doesn't happen.

There aren't many places where apparent-feminists and the Daily Fail have a Venn Diagram share, but screaming 'paedophile' seems to be one of them.

Can you imagine what it would be like to be in the majority of male child care workers who are decent people and be constantly accused of being a pedophile.

It's a wonder any of them do it.

Some of the posters on this thread ought to be ashamed of themselves.

What I don't quite understand is that when I asked the "how do you feel about men in childcare?" question in _chat a couple of months ago, the response was overwhelmingly positive, with only a couple of nay-sayers. Yet here, in FWR, where talk is of equality, the replies are far more of the "Oh, no, peedo!" variety.

Interesting.

We don't live in a society where we try to pre-empt everything, we don't treat everyone differently because of statistics that prove something, should we not let black people into shops as they are more likely to steal? Should we not let men drive as they are more likely to get into accidents? This kind of hysteria surrounding paedophilia and child abuse is ridiculous and the people on this thread are generalising all male child carers as paedophiles, despite the fact a tiny amount of them actually are, and yet again, almost 90% of sexual abuse is comitted at home, so why don't you keep your husbands away from your children? Because it is ridiculous to generalise half of the population of the planet...