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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Parents objecting to male nursery staff changing nappies

273 replies

popehilarious · 18/09/2019 16:38

www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/news/1168681/parents-uncomfortable-with-male-practitioners-changing-their-childs-nappy

Hope the clicky link works.
The male staff are usually the key workers who would normally change nappies but some parents object.

I'm not a safeguarding expert but presumably the same rules and policies apply to both sexes of staff? How can a nursery as an employer discriminate duties on the basis of sex, or would this fall under the exemptions (ie asking for same-sex person to do intimate care) where the child is female? I'm a bit muddled about this.

My son had male nursery key workers who were great role models.

OP posts:
LordRandallXV · 21/09/2019 13:05

I also think there are likely more female abusers than we realise, but I still doubt it's more than male abusers.

However, in terms of emotional abuse, I wouldn't be surprised if females were the main perpetrators. I don't have this on any statistics but just my observations that I've met a lot more really bitter and twisted/passive aggressive mothers than fathers who tell their children fucked up things.

RoyalCorgi · 21/09/2019 12:55

I'm not convinced that most child sexual abusers are male. They may be the most convicted but, for many years, female sexual abuse was a taboo.

I think you're almost certainly right that there are more female sexual abusers than we realise. I've certainly heard of some cases.

However, I think it is stretching it to say that they might make up half or even more of all sexual abusers. There are probably simply more of them than we realise. There are also, almost certainly, more male sexual abusers than we realise, given the amount of sexual abuse that goes unreported.

When it comes to nursery staff - and I know this isn't a popular opinion - I would be very wary about leaving a child in a nursery at all. I think an awful lot of people go into those jobs, not because they like children, but because there isn't anything else for them to do. Jobs aren't well paid and staff turnover is often high. I've also heard from people who have worked in those places and say they wouldn't send their own children to them. The risk of sexual abuse may be a concern, but it's one of many.

LordRandallXV · 21/09/2019 12:44

Is your hypothesis that both partners in the relationship are trying to kill each other but the men win?!?

Not necessarily, but the studies I posted above indicate that violence is reciprocal in approximately 50% of cases and 70% of cases of 'one sided violence' are perpetrated by the female (e.g. hitting their partner who doesn't hit back).

Lweji · 21/09/2019 11:35

Depends what is more important to you, protecting your child from a higher risk or being what you perceive as ‘fair’.

Your reply missed the point completely.
It's not about being fair. It's about distinguishing increased risk and absolute certainty.
It's also about not eliminating something because of an increased risk. Because there is also a risk for females, will you forbid women from changing nappies too?
Instead, the way is to assess individual risk and implement measures to reduce it, from any source.
Much better than to distrust any man and then end up being the victim of a female abuser that you were oblivious about.

It's not about fairness, it's about reducing risk effectively.

Lumene · 21/09/2019 10:18

DoI pecieve more of a risk because of his gender, no.

Doesn’t matter whether you choose to perceive a higher risk or not based on sex it is still there.

Lumene · 21/09/2019 10:17

There's a big difference between being aware of an increased risk and refusing men point blank.

Yes there is. And there is still a statistically higher risk in using a Male carer. Depends what is more important to you, protecting your child from a higher risk or being what you perceive as ‘fair’.

june2007 · 20/09/2019 21:15

"Things you happen to have heard about on the media are not really that relevant. We are talking about nursery safeguarding in the UK."

My point was abuse happens by men and women. I work with male nursery nurses who change nappies and do personal care, same trainng and cheks as anyone else. DoI pecieve more of a risk because of his gender, no.

Tanith · 20/09/2019 20:54

I work as a childminder with my DH. We've been running our childminding business for a long time.

I've only ever been asked once, by a father, if DH would be changing his DD's nappies. No-one has ever asked me if I will be changing their son's nappy.
DH finds this type of discussion bizarre. He's actually only too happy to get out of changing nappies. Some of them are vile; he can't understand how anyone would be turned on by them. Since the Poo Troll made his notorious appearance on MN some years ago, I have been enlightened and I now know that there are some very odd individuals in this world.

DH does not abuse the children in our care. Neither do I. We do protect ourselves, though: our nappy-changing area, while private, is easily overseen when necessary. We both understand why parents may be worried, but we don't accept that only I may change a child's nappy. While parents are free to express this preference, we are also free to explain that we can't work with that restriction.
As for the children themselves, they don't notice or care if whoever changes them is male or female so long as someone gets them out of that nappy before they get nappy rash!

I'm not convinced that most child sexual abusers are male. They may be the most convicted but, for many years, female sexual abuse was a taboo.
I remember when child sexual abuse within the family first became widely known: a 14 year old murder victim called Keeley Barton. Prior to that, most people thought of child sexual abuse in terms of stranger danger, the dirty old man in a mac.
Until the Plymouth nursery case, people simply refused to believe that child sexual abuse could be committed by women.

A few years ago, Kidscape did a report on child sexual abuse by females. It included testimony by victims who were simply not believed, who were told they were mistaken and that their abuse must have been committed by a man.
It makes me question whether we truly know how many abusers are male and how many are female. I worry that, by denying that female abuse takes place, its victims are silenced.

I think, to be safest, safeguarding procedures should be followed by all childcare's, male and female.

I think there are further taboos that are beginning to be broken down. Child sexual abuse committed by children is beginning to be recognised. There is also the idea that some people seem to hold that paedophiles switch off on their 65th birthdays - why else would they be perfectly happy with the current trend to hold playgroups in care homes, many with minimal checks?

In short, I think that refusal to believe abuse might take place is more dangerous.

popehilarious · 20/09/2019 18:32

Making and distributing photos for their consumption by...
Led girls to be abused by....

Things you happen to have heard about on the media are not really that relevant. We are talking about nursery safeguarding in the UK.

OP posts:
june2007 · 20/09/2019 18:11

Just to say the last person I heard of locally who was making and distributing indecent photos was a women. Stacy Dooley looked at paedophilia in Philippians who handed over the children to the abusers. the women. In Japan inappropriate photos were being taken off the children but who facilitated this, the women. Who led teenage girls to the Rochdale gang, that's right a girl.( But I would say she was a vitim herself.)

Lweji · 20/09/2019 09:38

Parents being wary of the increased risk of sexual abuse by men are not using double standards, they are using statistics

There's a big difference between being aware of an increased risk and refusing men point blank.

Lumene · 20/09/2019 09:03

Parents being wary of the increased risk of sexual abuse by men are not using double standards, they are using statistics.

Lumene · 20/09/2019 09:01

Agree with RoyalCorgi.

RoyalCorgi · 20/09/2019 08:34

Men, as a class, are far more likely to be abusers than women are; however this doesn't really help you assess the risk of an individual man.

This is spot-on. The one thing I'd add (and I haven't read the whole thread, so I'm sorry if someone has made this point) is that abusers actively seek out job roles that give them an opportunity to abuse children. They become teachers, priests, sports coaches, doctors. So amongst those professions, the proportion of men who are sex abusers is going to be higher than in the general population - much higher, probably.

And that's why you need to be extra-vigilant with male nursery workers.

TheSandman · 20/09/2019 02:05

@AncientLights

*Sandman angell84 merely said she was uncomfortable, you are the one leaping to the conclusion that she's talking about paedophiles/rapists/perverts. Why would that be?

There is such a thing as dignity. You seem to have a problem with women being accorded any.*

I have no problem with dignity. Why do you assume I have? I would like to be accorded some too. I'm fed up with the pervasive assumption that men (I am one)who are interested in children and childcare must have some ulterior (possibly sexual) motive whereas women are somehow seen as natural carers.

popehilarious · 19/09/2019 22:55

Should the female workers not change baby boys either?

That is not being questioned because it is males that are, as a group, the more dangerous by far. Not females, as a group.

OP posts:
Hey1256 · 19/09/2019 22:40

It's ridiculous. Should the female workers not change baby boys either?

Ffs people we are never going to change double standards with this bullshit happening.

Goosefoot · 19/09/2019 22:38

Well the take home.message should really be that MEN need to work on sorting this out. But they wont while women are happy to blame each other for behaviour that we have all been victim to fir insignificant portion of our lives.Even now men are playing the victim over others feeling this way instead if actively condemning or speaking up about all the men who want to remove the right for women to say no and be safe.
Their first thought is "poor me" not anger or disgust at the men that have helped give them the poor name.

Goodness, are you happy with that logic generally? That's just the sort of thing people were saying about profiling terrorists a few years ago!

Goosefoot · 19/09/2019 22:32

Wow, a lot of misunderstanding of risk on this thread

It statistics, which are very unnatural to the way the human mind works in a lot of cases.

popehilarious · 19/09/2019 22:26

Wow, a lot of misunderstanding of risk on this thread but interesting to see where people's minds go.

Safeguarding is about reducing risk; obviously you can't really eliminate it completely.
Men, as a class, are far more likely to be abusers than women are; however this doesn't really help you assess the risk of an individual man.

In my opinion the benefits of male nursery staff massively outweigh any risk, when combined with standard safeguarding procedures.

However, as SarahTancredi has pointed out, we are not stupid or sexist to consider risks. Parents should consider it a priority to educate themselves about good safeguarding policy in any setting regardless of who is carrying out the care (I am guilty of not asking about this but will do, going forward).

Just to throw another tangent in, any man who isn't permitted to change nappies, who then comes out as a lifelong gender dysphoric who now identifies as female will surely be treated with suspicion? (Not saying this is right of course!) Would that person then be allowed or 'banned' from changing nappies - and would the nursery be in breach of the equalities act? My point is that having responsibilities that are assigned to staff according to their sex will surely conflict against the rights that trans people are so loudly trying to assert at the moment? (similar to what we are seeing with people requesting female HCP and getting a trans woman).

OP posts:
Lumene · 19/09/2019 20:58

Obviously, women will usually end up losing as men are far stronger

Is your hypothesis that both partners in the relationship are trying to kill each other but the men win?!?

Or are you saying actually you understand that the vast majority of people killed by their partners are killed by men?

LordRandallXV · 19/09/2019 19:57

It's unrealistic to think that we'll ever totally eradicate violence from the human race. When you have millions and millions of couples, you'll have many thousands who are violent. It's inevitable that a small number will end up killing each other. Obviously, women will usually end up losing as men are far stronger.

chickenyhead · 19/09/2019 19:53

Stop spouting crap then. Oh only 2 women a week. That's ok then. Cool.

chickenyhead · 19/09/2019 19:52

Some key statistics:
From April 2014 to March 2017, 73% of victims of domestic homicides (homicides by an ex/partner or family member) were women. This contrasts with victims of non-domestic homicides, where the majority of victims were male (88%) and 12% of victims were female (ONS, 2018).
From April 2014 to March 2017 four in five female victims of domestic homicide were killed by a partner or ex-partner (239, 82%); of which the vast majority of suspects were male (238). 45 male victims (45%) were killed by a partner or ex-partner in the same time period; 7 of the suspects in these cases were male, and 38 were female (ONS, 2018).
One study of 96 cases of domestic abuse recorded by the police found that men are significantly more likely to be repeat perpetrators and significantly more likely than women to use physical violence, threats, and harassment. In a six year tracking period the majority of recorded male perpetrators (83%) had at least two incidents of recorded abuse, with many having a lot more than two and one man having 52 repeat incidents. Whereas in cases where women were recorded as the perpetrator the majority (62%) had only one incident of abuse recorded and the highest number of repeat incidents for any female perpetrator was eight. The study also found that men’s violence tended to create a context of fear and control; which was not the case when women were perpetrators. (Hester, 2013)
Over 80% (83%) of high frequency victims (more than 10 crimes) are women. (From a study of data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, a nationally representative household survey.) (Walby & Towers, 2018)
In the year ending March 2018 the large majority of defendants in domestic abuse-related prosecutions were men (92%), and the majority (66%) of victims were recorded as female (13% of victims were male and in 21% of prosecutions the sex of the victim was not recorded) (ONS, 2018

LordRandallXV · 19/09/2019 19:52

Women are more likely to be verbally and physically aggressive towards their partners than men suggests a new study presented as part of a symposium on intimate partner violence (IPV).

Analysis showed that women were more likely to be physically aggressive to their partners than men and that men were more likely to be physically aggressive to their same-sex others.

Furthermore, women engaged in significantly higher levels of controlling behaviour than men, which significantly predicted physical aggression in both sexes.

Dr Elizabeth Bates of the University of Cumbria explained: "This was an interesting finding. Previous studies have sought to explain male violence towards women as rising from patriarchal values, which motivate men to seek to control women's behaviour, using violence if necessary.

"This study found that women demonstrated a desire to control their partners and were more likely to use physical aggression than men. This suggests that IPV may not be motivated by patriarchal values and needs to be studied within the context of other forms of aggression, which has potential implications for interventions."

Women more likely to be aggressive than men in relationships

June 26, 2014
British Psychological Society

www.google.com/amp/s/medicalxpress.com/news/2014-06-women-aggressive-men-relationships.amp

The study, which challenges the long-standing view that women are overwhelmingly the victims of aggression, is based on an analysis of 34,000 men and women by a British academic.

"It's a complex argument but we do get more women aggressing against male partners than men against female partners," said Dr George. "The view is that women are acting in self-defence but that is not true - 50 per cent of those who initiate aggression are women.

His research is backed up by historical records which show that men who were beaten by their wives were publicly humiliated in a ceremony called a "skimmington procession". The procession was named after the ladle used to skim milk during cheese making.

Women are more violent, says study

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/women-are-more-violent-says-study-622388.html?amp

The article summarised the latest official statistics and research on domestic violence, providing evidence that most domestic violence is two-way, involving women as well as men.[2] This was regarded as a breach of policy, because, on its own website, RAWA says its domestic violence policy “is historically framed by a feminist analysis of gendered power relations” which, contrary to the international evidence, denies women’s role in domestic violence.

The problem is often more complicated, and may involve both women and men as perpetrators”. Based on the findings of an analysis of more than 11,000 American men and women aged eighteen to twenty-eight, the letter concluded:

"When the violence is one-sided … women were the perpetrators about 70% of the time. Men were more likely to be injured in reciprocally violent relationships (25%) than were women when the violence was one-sided (20%). That means both men and women agreed that men were not more responsible than women for intimate partner violence."

After analysing the data, which contained information about domestic violence reported by 11,370 respondents on 18,761 heterosexual relationships, the following conclusions were reached:

- A woman’s perpetration of domestic violence is the strongest predictor of her being a victim of partner violence;[7]

- Among relationships with non-reciprocal violence, women were reported to be the perpetrator in a majority of cases; [8]

- Women reported greater perpetration of violence than men did (34.8 per cent against 11.4 per cent, respectively).[9]

Based on the information available, the authors concluded:

Our findings that half of relationships with violence could be characterised as reciprocally violent are consistent with prior studies. We are surprised to find, however, that among relationships with nonreciprocal violence, women were the perpetrators in a majority of cases, regardless of participant gender. One possible explanation for this, assuming that men and women are equally likely to initiate physical violence, is that men, who are typically larger and stronger, are less likely to retaliate if struck first by their partner. Thus, some men may be following the norm that “men shouldn’t hit women” when struck first by their partner.

Women Can Be as Violent as Men

quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/09/women-can-violent-men/

Design/methodology/approach

The paper's approach is to re‐examine NISVS data, research on the impact of IPV on male victims and the system's response to it.

Findings

In the last year, males are more often the victim of intimate partner physical violence, psychological aggression and control over sexual/reproductive health.

Social implications

Increased domestic violence education directed at women and services to men should lead to a reduction of DV against women as well as men, since woman aggressors frequently are themselves victimized subsequently.

US National Survey: more men than women victims of intimate partner violence

www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/17596591211244166/full/html