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Eek, A Male

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Re: Eek, A Male

#81

Post by simias »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #42
alexophile wrote: post #24

[I originally posted this on a reddit discussion, link's at the bottom] One day, my friend Bryan was charged with the daunting task of getting Ellie, one of the older and more difficult students, to read out of a children's book for a distinct and measurable amount of time. After some cajoling, pleading, and maybe even trickery, the two were finally sitting down at a table with myself and another student. To keep Ell…

I'll never forget when my two oldest kids (now in their 20s) went to one of those early head-start kind of places when they were a kid. One week the lesson was on inappropriate touching. I know this because both kids spent the next month inappropriately touching everybody they met -- with some very humorous results. Of all the things that have changed in the last 40 years or so, this thing we've done where we've trai…

All the french people in the audience will remember the Outreau trial ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outreau_trial ) where several innocent people spent years in prison and one commited suicide, all that based on the lies of two persons and bogus psychiatric expertise of the children. The media also took a big part in this debacle. I think it really made people realize something here, I don't think this could happen again anytime soon. I hope you won't have to live something like that in the US to make things change.

People should be presumed innocent unless proven guilty, not the other way around. The modern western society would have us think otherwise (and not only for child molesting, see CCTV, airport screenings, ...).

Re: Eek, A Male

#82

Post by potatolicious »

kenjackson wrote: post #66
vacri wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are the stats about male /teachers/ alone with pupils having a worrying level of sexual predation, which is what you claimed.

Here's one about daycare workers: http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/33/4/481.full.pdf Here's a quote based on their data, "In summary this study found that a sexual interest in children is relatively common among male public sector child care workers". Here's another study about educators: http://www.taasa.org/library/pdfs/TAASALibrary142.pdf Choice quote, "The vast majority (96%) of the abusers in our study wer…

Though you're certainly entitled to do whatever you wish re: your child's education and care, I do find your attitude highly disturbing.

You are condoning the ostracism and discrimination of an entire gender from an entire field of occupation, and the best comment you can come up with regarding it is hey, maybe people can get some sweet deals from all the male caretakers who will now be working at slave wages just to find work.

Imagine if we replaced "male" with "black". Would it seem like such a reasonable position then? Would we be okay with condoning the economic exploitation of blacks by encouraging an uneven employment playing field?

So why are we ok with doing this to all men?

Re: Eek, A Male

#83

Post by Semiapies »

vacri wrote: post #58
gaius wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2110756 Obv there are more comments here now :-)

It's funny how that works - a brand new article not having much commentry. No such thing as confirmation bias, eh?

Oh, come on - he gave it a full eight minutes before complaining that some girl got more attention in a thread on her post.

Re: Eek, A Male

#84

Post by nollidge »

meterplech wrote: post #45

Lenore Skenazy is actually the leader of an entire movement around kids being able to do more of what they want (hence the book: Free Range Kids). You can check out the blog here: http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/ Also, she caused quite a stir a few years ago for letting her 9 year old kid ride the subway alone. Her story about it is here: http://www.nysun.com/news/why-i-let-my-9-year-old-ride-subwa...

Skenazy was also featured in an episode (608) of Penn & Teller's Bullshit about the topic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Penn_%26_Teller:_Bullsh...

Re: Eek, A Male

#85

Post by theycallmemorty »

ja27 wrote: post #13
PaulHoule wrote: post #3

My child went to an excellent day care center that got targeted for harassment because it had male workers. The place got inspected by the state and ultimately got a clean bill of health, but it cost them money and caused a lot of worry for them and parents who had children there. I spoke with the director and we both agreed that children spend too much time with women in school and day care. One of the reasons many…

I spent several years working with elementary-aged kids in our church. For one whole year, it was me and another dad with a class of a dozen or so 5 year olds. (We're all background-checked, for what little that's worth. We also have child protection guidelines to follow - foremost of which is to never be alone with a kid and no other adult.) It was amazing to see the reactions of moms dropping off their kids when th…

The Child Protection Policy at my church requires a male and female leader in every situation.

Its a shame that this is where our society is going and that being 'beyond reproach' means remaining one step ahead.

Re: Eek, A Male

#86

Post by Cushman »

haploid wrote: post #69
sarkozy wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More men are not needed in childcare/teaching because women are naturally - from birth - better at the type of empathy and communication that is required in those fields. It's the same reason that women excel in technology management roles (while generally being inferior in technical roles because of inadequate training or aptitude, exceptional cases like Marissa Mayer excepted). Even a woman with average communicati…

Downvote the heretic! Unpopular opinions will not be tolerated! Oh, HN, you never fail to disappoint.

Public shaming is an appropriate response to prejudice. It's how we get from "that's common sense" to "does anyone really think that?"

Re: Eek, A Male

#87

Post by chc »

stonemetal wrote: post #59
alexophile wrote: post #24

[I originally posted this on a reddit discussion, link's at the bottom] One day, my friend Bryan was charged with the daunting task of getting Ellie, one of the older and more difficult students, to read out of a children's book for a distinct and measurable amount of time. After some cajoling, pleading, and maybe even trickery, the two were finally sitting down at a table with myself and another student. To keep Ell…

We were like 20 at the time, and ill-equipped to deal with children on this level, so we probably should have relayed the event to an adult of some sort At 20 you are an adult of some sort, and have been for some time. The only problem I see in the story is you don't act like it.

You are an adult of some sort at 20, but for most people, that sort is "barely."

Re: Eek, A Male

#88

Post by johngalt »

kenjackson wrote: post #40
rgraham wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation? What evidence shows that there are enough bad ones? Cherry picked news stories by for-profit media? What if all the good ones packed up and left when they were treated like predators-to-be?

One of the better papers to read is http://www.ipt-forensics.com/library/female.htm It is specifically about lifting the lid on abuse perpetuated by females, and not a "cherry picked" story. Here's a site that is more numbers focused: http://www.yellodyno.com/html/child_molester_stats.html Here are some numbers: Nearly all the offenders in sexual assaults reported to law enforcement were male (96%). - Sexual Assault…

1. Abuse > molestation. A woman can still horribly harm your child without sexual assault.

2. Regarding Mr. Abels quote, I think you'll find that female abusers go unreported more often precisely because of this bias.

3. Do you also avoid black people? Statistically they are much more likely to be criminals. So you only allow your family to be around white people right? Do you feel safer that way?

Re: Eek, A Male

#90

Post by kenjackson »

potatolicious wrote: post #78
kenjackson wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the better papers to read is http://www.ipt-forensics.com/library/female.htm It is specifically about lifting the lid on abuse perpetuated by females, and not a "cherry picked" story. Here's a site that is more numbers focused: http://www.yellodyno.com/html/child_molester_stats.html Here are some numbers: Nearly all the offenders in sexual assaults reported to law enforcement were male (96%). - Sexual Assault…

You've failed to address the core question, and instead are following a red herring: What are the chances of my child's teacher (of any gender) being a molester? The answer to that, as always is: vanishingly low. So sure, I'm willing to go along with the notion that, in the absurdly improbable case that your child's teacher is a molester, it's probably a man and not a woman. So? Your child is orders of magnitude more…

The answer isn't vanishingly low. Contrary to popular belief, while family is the single largest group to molest a child it isn't an order of magnitude difference. And to capture just sheer numbers, I've borrowed a quote from Wikipedia:

"In North America, for example, approximately 15% to 25% of women and 5% to 15% of men were sexually abused when they were children.[11][12][13] Most sexual abuse offenders are acquainted with their victims; approximately 30% are relatives of the child, most often brothers, fathers, uncles or cousins; around 60% are other acquaintances such as 'friends' of the family, babysitters, or neighbors; strangers are the offenders in approximately 10% of child sexual abuse cases.[11] Most child sexual abuse is committed by men; studies show that women commit 14% to 40% of offenses reported against boys and 6% of offenses reported against girls.[11][12][14] Most offenders who sexually abuse prepubescent children are pedophiles,[15][16] although some offenders do not meet the clinical diagnosis standards for pedophilia.[17][18]"

If you read my other link there's a study from the UK that notes 20% of studied male daycare workers had a sexual interest in children (maybe selection bias or reporting issues, but no indication that such a problem exists in that data).

And regarding harming someone, I'm an incremental customer. My choice does no more harm than someone else's incremental choice to not fly at all due to "irrational fears" or not solicit a certain neighborhood bar due to "irrational fears".

I just can't look at this data and see what you see. I'm sorry. I really wish I could see things your way. Honestly I do. But I can't seem to find a way to slice the data that gives me the warm fuzzies you have. And at the end of the day I'm not going to place my child in a situation that I'm weary of in order to make other people feel good.

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