I took my younger son skating a few years ago. Went to the men's room. As I was coming out, a woman with a very angry face and holding a young boy's hand shouted at me, "What were you doing in there?"
Stunned, I mumbled that I was using the bathroom. She kept yelling, "You aren't supposed to. It's against the rules!"
Turns out the skating rink wouldn't allow men to go to the men's room alone. You were supposed to go with your son. (What if you had a daughter, you ask? You were supposed to tell a clerk, who would stand guard. What if you were there by yourself? Not allowed; you could only go to the rink if you were accompanying a child).
WTF? What is this? WSJ article gives some perspective.
In this forum, notice that no one worries about men who have daughters, only strange men who are pedophiles. Yet nearly ALL actual sexual abuse of children is the fault of family members. (And don't get me wrong, it's not like most men abuse their daughters, either. Extremely rare)
Women are very strange. They have plenty of good reasons to dislike men. Why are they making up absurd new reasons?
Consider the following comment, from this forum:
Well, I am a mom of two boys 8 and 5. I won't let them go to the mens bathroom alone any where unless their dad is with them. I think people just don't trust older men alone. I don't. Those are the one's that you always hear taking a little boy or something and leaving with them. And they are in the bathroom alone...and then I send my kids in there. I'm afraid they may be checking my kid out lol. idk, it's always been an issue for me. I was touched when I was little by my own grandfather. My grandfather was a well respected man in the community, he was asked to play pro golf after winning state championship in Texas, he was the manager over half of the Exxon plant in Texas. So this is why I wouldn't even trust a well respected man with a child. Maybe I am a bit over protective but if I can save my kids that kind of stress I have done my job. Until they are old enough to say no and fight a grown up, I will be that way. You really have to think about what could go on if you send a kid in a bathroom alone. You don't know who is in there. You don't know who they are or where they have been or if they have done something or are looking for someone. My kids do play outside and do kid stuff but when we are in public it's very different. Hope this helps some and may help you understand more what some people may feel about their kids. Boys and girls both. It's a crazy world so be careful. Now, yes she could have put her grandson in the stall that wasn't a changing stall in the bathroom but I'm sure that this may be why she had him with her.
I'm amazed. "You always hear"? In fact, you almost NEVER hear of this. It never happens, statistically, not compared to the frequency of abuse by familty members. She documents that in her own case the abuse was her grandfather, a family member. And concludes that ALL men want to abuse children. Ma'am, I'm sorry you were abused. But you are a dangerous lunatic.
(Nod to Angry Alex)
5 comments:
And don't get me wrong, it's not like most men abuse their daughters, either. Extremely rare
I think that more than that, while most abuse is by a family member, it's still not mostly fathers abusing daughers. It's much more likely to be grandfathers, uncles, and creepy cousins.
It's not that only girls are abused. In 2006 Väestöliitto survey for 8-graders in Finland 4,1% of boys reported to have been forced to sex vs. 2,3% of girls.
Girls reported to have been touched more often though.
finnish:
http://www.vaestoliitto.fi/ammattilaiset/seksuaaliterveys/tietoa_seksuaaliterveydesta/tilastot/seksuaalista_kaltoinkohtelua_kok/
As to your experience at the skating rink, I think that maybe while overall the occurrence of abuse by a stranger is statistically very improbable in the general population, in situations where large numbers of young children are present the occurrence is much higher (an increase from 1% to 2% is a 100% increase after all). My guess is that they people that work there are hypersensitive to the increased possibility and notice things we normally would not noticed- e.g. single men hanging out at the rink.
Your story reminded me of studying in Davis Library at UNC. I would go most evenings at stay until it closed. At some point the cafeteria dinner would work its way through my intestines and need to continue on its journey so I would visit the rest room. Someone mentioned to me that the restrooms in the library are a popular cruising area for gays. I thought he was just passing along an urban legend, but was told to watch out if someone comes in after me and taps their foot repeatedly for a minute and then leaves. Afterwords, I noticed it happening almost all the time. I'm sure it happened previously but I didn't have the context to understand the signal, or there were a lot of people in the Davis library bathrooms that required a wide stance. But either way, without the background to "read" the signals the statistics were meaningless.
The next step: eliminationalist rhetoric about getting rid of all males. Procreation could be handled by parthenogenesis, or, what the hell, get rid of all humans.
As to the original post, one could speculate that women's mistrust of strange men with their children is because it is in our evolutionary history to do so. Today, dominant male apes are known to enter the territory of unknown females and kill all their young in order to speed up the female's fertility cycle, since nursing females are infertile. With the children-massacre technique, the male(s) can mate with the female(s) sooner and leave more offspring behind. Naturally, females of most primate species are wary of strange men around their children. There are even men of human tribes who have been observed to murder the men and children of a foreign tribe, but save the females for mating purposes.
Perhaps modern women's fear of strange men with their children is actually a vestigial fear of murder, but women interpret it as a fear of molestation.
As to pkd's post, men are actually obsolete already:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11601-bone-stem-cells-turned-into-primitive-sperm-cells.html
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