I agree much more needs to be done to protect children. That’s the very reason I do this work. But the solution is not to vilify or pathologise men who choose to care for and educate young children. The solution is to overhaul a fractured system – starting with the ridiculous patchwork of state-based regulations governing early childhood education and care in Australia.
We need a unified, national approach that ensures consistency, accountability and support – for children and educators alike. We need robust, mandatory training in child protection for all educators, regardless of gender. We need professional standards that uphold child safety and the dignity of workers. We need appropriate reward and remuneration to encourage the very best to answer the call of early childhood education. And we need to acknowledge that good men in this field are not the problem – they are part of the solution.
But don’t you know that all men are rapist pedophiles and all women are perfect motherly protectors? This is far from an Australia only thing. Most western countries seem to have the same ideas, but it’s never been true.
The answer to a problem is never going to be to insist that everything other than the desired answer is totally and unequivocably false. If you actually want to resolve this, instead of turning it into yet another unresolvable conflict, you’re going to have to be honest about why concerns exist.
I can tell you why. Male sex offenders are inherently more physical, or at least expected to be. It’s the same reason why rape in many places can only be committed by a man. There’s absolutely female pedophiles and predators, but people either ignore them, or don’t look hard enough to see them. My own personal theory is that female pedos are just as common as male, but the way they get sexual gratification is different so evidence is more common for men.
Even if all child abusers were men (which they’re not), it would still be a far cry from saying all men are child abusers.
That’s starting to change now, a uk study found reports of female predators are up