At what age does an innocent boy that needs protecting from a big scary man, become a big scary man?

[needanewname]

Discuss.

"I absolutely think childcare workers should jump through hoops to ensure they do not have any opportunity to abuse children in their care." So do I - and they already do. So why single out men, specifically men dealing with girls? Do you honestly think that your typical paed is just a regular, red-blooded man who just happens to like 'em young? It is their youth that is the appeal, not their gender - for every paedophile who favours girls there will be one who favours boys.

So I reiterate, it is very sensible to monitor closely the behaviour of all people who work with vulnerable children (and adults, though that's another story.)

It is absolute madness to attempt to do that by singling out men, and within that to single out men who work with girls.

I think most schools are calm and sane on their stranger danger approach but not all. The head of the primary school next to dh's job is completely paranoid. The place looks like a bunker, with high gates and walls everywhere, the first thing kids used to see as they came in in the morning was a massive Stranger Danger sign, head even tried to stop council building block of flats in the city centre as some of those flats might overlook the playground. This is not an environment I would want my own dcs exposed to.

"Because you are a man" - no, this is not about violence against women. It is about violence against CHILDREN. Of both sexes. By adults. So it follows that my experience as a child (not as a man, as a child) is every bit as valid as yours. And my experience is that I encountered very few paedophiles. And, regarding the one I did encounter, it was a father abusing his own sons. He had ready access to others' children and yet his abuse was entirely in the family. However you dress it up, in comparison, the viewpoints on this and the other thread are paranoia that take little or no account of the actual facts of child abuse.

MIFLAW....men are singled out because it's usually men who abuse children, more common that men sexual abuse children in their families and in their care. And not more common that they get caught more common that they abuse.

60% of all cases of child abuse in childcare are by men, these men represent 2% of the whole work force(3000 men).

From the nspcc website:

Finkelhor (1986) has argued that rates for women who sexually abuse children have been under-estimated in the past, suggesting that the true figure for women who sexually abuse children is 5% for girl victims and 20% for boy victims. Some writers (see, for example, Lawson 1993 and Krug 1989) offer several reasons for possible under-reporting of female sexual offending such as mother-son incest. These include differing societal perceptions of maternal behaviour and presumptions about maternal innate goodness and asexuality as compared with the motivations and sexual interests of fathers; assumptions that boy victims are not really harmed by their abuse and/or may be too shamed to disclose abuse; and overextension of feminist explanations that male dominance, differential socialisation and sexual explanation are the sole causes of child sexual abuse. Other writers, however, have expressed concern that a search for equivalence in male and female offending rates (which has not been established) has the negative effect of detracting from the need to acknowledge fundamental issues of male power in society (see, for example, McLeod and Saraga, 1988 and Forbes, 1992).

Concerning the characteristics of women who sexually abuse children, Freel (1992) comments:

"there is general agreement on certain issues - that they are more likely to have been sexually abused as children; that they have had a traumatic childhood; that they are more likely to co-offend with men; (and) that they are likely to use alcohol or drugs. There is (also) evidence that female abusers are more likely to be the mothers or close relatives of the victim" (pp.8-9).

However as Adshead et. al (1994) suggest in their article this is a relatively unresearched area worthy of further study (see also Saradjian, 1996).

Crapola

I am going to disengage from this thread for the time being. But I just want my point to be on record in case I find out later the conversation has moved on and I am being misquoted.

I agree that the majority of child abuse involves men - though I think that probably more than anyone realises also involves women, either as instigators or as active participants, and I think it is sad for all THEIR victims that the assumption that abuser = man means that their voices do not get heard. Still, by and large, I am sure you are right.

I think - and this is based on my experience, the experience of others, the official statistics and the findings of various charities' research - that, in this country, at this time, the threat is massivley overstated and over-reacted to, often by people who have had no direct experience of child abuse (i.e. it's not a case of, "it happened to me, I am very paranoid" - it is people who are free to study the FACTS dispassionately.)

I further think that any approach to handling the very real risk of child abuse which involves treating men as guilty till proven innocent, or treating men differently to women, or suggesting that men are not "suited" to childcare, or suggesting that even for a man to want to be involved in childcare there must be something suspicious about him, is the sign of an exceptionally sick, horrible and depressing society and that, as a consequence, EVERYONE suffers - not just men, but women, and most of all the children themselves, who are on the receiving end of seriously fucked-up messages about what constitutes a normal reaction to other people and to ordinary social settings.

"60% of all cases of child abuse in childcare are by men" - so 40% are by women! Okay, as a proportion of women in the workforce, that's low. As a percentage of victims, however - i.e. children who have been damaged for life - that's high.

"these men represent 2% of the whole work force(3000 men)" - so, based on the behaviour of 60 men, it's right to view the approximately 29m males in the population (including, one day, your sons) with distrust?

Nice one.

I agree with you MIFLAW.

Once again miflaw takes sense whilst Crapola doesn't but instead resorts to mudslinging and accusing people of saying things they never have and never will just to try and score points

I don't hold the view that men cannot be trusted but I understand where that view comes from, I'm pretty sure I have stated that numerous times. And whilst I'm correcting you, again, it's the 3000 men that are being discussed-the ones that work in childcare. In the cases of child abuse in childcare your child is far more likely to abused by a man.

"Dione....that's what I said further up. The suspicion about men is why are they building and lifting heavy stuff instead of 'nancying' around and looking after kids?"

Well it's time we got over that suspicion because guess what, men are just as capable of women of caring for children, being appreciative of them and enjoying them and men are happy to contribute and volunteer within their community for no other reasons than it's good for their community,they enjoy it and often it allows them more play in their lives.

We really need more men in caring and voluteering roles. They have a different way of teaching and teach different things. This is good for our children.

Yup, we do need more men in caring roles. And no-one should treat all men as guilty until proven innocent.

Equally we need to protect children from abusers, whether male or female.

"I don't hold the view that men cannot be trusted but I understand where that view comes from, I'm pretty sure I have stated that numerous times."

Yes - so do I. and I still think it's bollocks and that we should be challenging it, not apologising for it.

Someone earlier said "I understand why my granddad didn't like Japanese people, he was in a camp." I understand that too - and it's still a racist viewpoint (all Japanese people are alike in their cruelty) and I like to think that, if we were to go to war again, once the war was over such blanket racism would no longer be acceptable because you cannot judge people on the basis of their race alone. Similarly, while I understand why some people who have been abused are then wary of all men, that doesn't mean it is reasonable and it certainly doesn't mean that those of us to whom that has NOT happened should endorse or indulge the subsequent prejudice against innocent people.

As for correcting me, no need. 2% of 3,000 is 60. It is entirely unreasonable to base an opinion on the conduct or nature of all men on a sample of 60 individuals.

Even if you limit your views to the people already in childcare, 2% is not enough to make any assumptions about the other 98%.

So what, exactly, are you "correcting" me on?

This statistic, of 60% of reported incidences of abuse in childcare perpetrated by men. Out of curiosity, how many incidences is that?

If it's 600 men vs 400 women, fine. If it's 60 men vs 40 women, then I'd say the sample is too small to base an entire moral panic on.

It would also be instructive to look at the gender distribution of false accusations of abuse in childcare (there have been a fair few of these, some with appalling consequences for the accused).

2% of the total workforce are men. 3000 men work in childcare out of 150000. NOT 60 MEN.

When a good friend of mine told me he was training as a primary school teacher I was immediately concerned. He is gay, fairly camp, and I was worried he might face prejudice from parents and teachers wondering what a man like him wad doing caring for small children.

However he is being readily promoted, is an excellent teacher and doesn't seem to have encountered prejudice.

Both DD's primary teachers are men. The more this is normalised the better. We need more men in these professions, we need good role models for children.

But not all 3000 of them are abusers so why should they all be regarded with suspicion?

I'm not sure safeguarding and viewed with suspicion are quite the same thing are they?

Of course they're not the same thing, no one has said they are. If you remember the original thread, it was about someone ojecting to a man taking her DD to the loo. It came up because she quizzed her daughter daily about who had taken her DD to the loo.

As stated several times by myself and others, we agree there should be safeguarding, however what I and many others failed to understand is why the mother needed to quiz her DD each day on who took her to the loo.

Yes, we are all aware that in the majority of the cases reported the abuser was a man, however that does not mean that all men should be viewed with suspicion. If we are looking at statistics and majority then we should be concerned with husbands, dads, uncles, family friends etc etc - this is obviously ridiculous and offensive.

Safeguarding means that a child shouldn't be alone with a male or female, this safeguards not only the child but the adult from any misunderstandings. It means that there should be no opportuniy for abuse to take place from any staff member whether it be sexual, physical or verbal.

The reason why I got so riled up on the original thread (and when full, started this thread) is that there is a general demonising of men in society. I am not the only one to feel this, others have felt it with their husbands too and I still think that we are doing a huge disservice to our children. Agreed it is a ridiculous question, however some people feel that it ok to question why a man would want to work with children, maybe because it is something he is good at and feels rewarded by.

The cases of abuse that have happened are appalling, anyone who carries it out - well there's just no words to describe how I feel about them. I still believe that they were able to continue and get away with it for so long was the secrecy and feelings of guilt that they managed to manipulate. I still feel that the best way to guard against these monsters is to educate our children and that we should be vigilant ourselves. Their bodies are their own, there should be no secrets from mummy and daddy, they can tell us anything without us getting upset, we should believe them if they tell us something has happended and that if anyone does something they don;t like, they can say so and also its not their fault. I have had this conversation with my children without going into too much details.

We have a male babysitter, recently DD2 started complaining that she didnt like him. I gently quizzed as to why and had anything happened. It turns out that she doesn;t like us going out! We have the same reaction with a female babysitter (again I gently quizzed why).

How on earth this has been tunred into a feminist issue I have no idea. Just because women have been (and still are) discriminated against does not m ake it OK to discriminate againt men.