I’m not sharing this Huffington Post article so much for the headlined story, but the slideshow that follows the main article. It lists 48 cases of teachers committing sex crimes against their underage students. What threw me is only 3 of the offenders are men.
I did not expect that.
Last week my fiancee and I looked at schools for our daughter to start in January. I remember thinking about one particular school, “I feel more comfortable all the teachers here are women.” I think I thought that because there’s a deep-seeded paranoia all fathers exhibit against all men regarding their little girls. We just assume the worst to better defend against it. That slideshow really caught me off-guard. Despite our most certain convictions, you just never know. People are fucked up.
This got me thinking — why do we as a society assume in most cases sex offenders are men? I suppose random or public offenses would point mostly to men since they have the physical strength or prowess to pull something off. Same with controlled environments mainly populated by adults, such as the workforce — men can manipulate and force other adults into situations easier than women, and the offenders are often in positions with resources to cover up misdeeds.
Why is the ratio so diverse when the main environment is schools? 48-3 tells a disparate story.
My main hypothesis is men go through a more scrutinizing hiring process, be it by design or otherwise. Upon entering the education system, a man’s background check is likely more rigorously examined than a woman’s and the screening process is more intense. If true, this is only part of the answer why there are drastically fewer male offenders than female in schools — they’ve been weeded out through the system. Beyond that I don’t really have any answers. Unfortunately, all parents deserve them.
It’s difficult to blame the school for letting Cook go, but either she and her fiancee should have been fired or neither.
YourFriendAndyL.com 
November 22, 2013 at 10:33 am
Interesting. I believe you are right, about that much more thorough background check that men go through, compared to women. The only thing I would like to say is that I am so fed up of men in church who think that women “are thinking and acting with what they sit upon”; even though many centuries have taught women that if you don´t dress the way men want you, you will only get a job in a factory when it is wartime (feeding/food for the cannons), and therefor will not even let them count how much money the church is spending on toilet paper (being an “accounant”/book keeping) because “it would be a sin against God giving them such a great authority over men”, which we have seen in Norway in a church), but they will speak to them “prophetcially” about working for the men for free. That has made me “show them the butt”. If I am forever a hooker in their eyes, let me be so, to please them. Remember all the cases where men fire women who are too attractive (their wives don´t like them) or never hire them in the first place, because they are afraid of the opposite sex. My problem is not being too attractive, rather the opposite. But they ought to start cheking women. I have not planned raping anyone who read my blogpost, and I am not a teacher (that is forbidden in “my circles”, being born with female genitals). Men at least have the holy books on their side! And how many male teachers, professors, doctors etc are in the workforce, compared to women? “Rape” is not hiring women, because you think men have “inherited” a “divine” intelligence, that women have not.
November 25, 2013 at 2:47 pm
I had no idea Norway was such a sexist society within its religious circles. I’m sorry you have to deal with all that prejudice — I’m honestly shocked by its existence.
I can’t comment with authority on the church-related points you address since I haven’t experienced them first hand. I’m an atheist now, but was born and raised Roman Catholic — by my early twenties I came to the conclusion things just didn’t add up, amongst other things. For the most part, I would say the branch of Catholicism I grew up with is pretty liberal — we didn’t have any female priests, but we had co-ed Alter Servers and I never noticed any direct prejudice against women. Of course, I was a little kid at the time, so some things may have gone over my head. I would have to assume, given your cultural surroundings, that leaving the church to escape this type of sexism is not an option for you. If it is, you should absolutely move out and on — but if not, find other women, like you, who are experiencing the same things. Band together and speak up about what you’re going through — the internet can give you a great forum for open ears. People will listen.
Take care!
November 26, 2013 at 2:40 am
Hi, thanks for your kind response. I don’t know what happened to me. It was like a match that lit or something. Sorry if I sounded rude. Actually Norway, in general (among “heathens”) is the land of equal opportunities, even though men may earn more that women for doing the very same job, and in some branches it is very male dominated, maybe not just because women don’t apply for the jobs, but because men are preferred by the employers. There are statics to read, that I don’t really care to read.
You have the Mormons, the “Smiths Venner” (Friends of Smith, I don’t know if his name was Josef?) – and in that sect the women have to wear long skirts and have braidered hair (a woman who was there for years told me so) and also in the “Christian Fellowship” movement, where I was for three years, there is a whole lot of teaching directed towards women that they have to obey their husbands. I am glad I grew up in the Lutheran church, but since a girl prayed for me and my foot grew out and pelvis became straight (confirmed by the doctor who couldn’t understand a thing), I joined her. – But even though you are healed, that doesn’t mean that place is heaven, “where it happened…” But I met a lot of wonderful people there. The secular world and the “religious” world of Norway can be like two different planets. Thank God I grew up with a whole lof of “dirty jokes”-telling people, who even swore (curse words) and just ordinary people, even though my parents are Christians, because it has spared me from being caught up in “abnormal” environments. My childhood, school years trained me to be with all kinds of people, and that is good. We moved from the country side to a city, and didn’t get time to find a home and a local school in time for our kids, and that is why we put them in a Christian school, where they had a good time, but none of them became Christian until after having completed school (one of my daughters), so going to a Christian school does not automatically make you a believer, or going to a “heathen”, secual school, does not make you an atheist, even though it helps at least hearing the doctrine first, in order to make up your mind if you believe in it. – In Florida the kids learn a whole lot of the doctrine of Islam, but only “a sentence or two” about Christianity, which has made many parents upset. The first book that was printed in the US was a psalm book, and it is now worth 19 million pounds. It defined what the US was and what kind of future it would have (BBC yesterday). Maybe it is nice of the American government or states to make sure that the kids learn about their past, even though they may not like it, and not just make sure they can apply for job as imams tomorrow, but know nothing about the grace of God through Jesus? Was Muhammed so much more graceful to the Jews and Christians of heathens (kaffirs, dhimmi). God bless you.
November 26, 2013 at 3:16 am
PS: Regardin that “showing you my behind”; you may interpret it as “turning my back on you” (plural, not you). A month ago I tried to upload four pictures of my cat to my Blogger-blog. The laptop or whatever, took control of everything, and uploaded every private picture and “video” that I unfortunately had on the camera then, and I wasn’t able to stop it. I know for sure I only clicked on 4 picture, but my private parts went public “in the cloud”, for everyone to see. Then, to my horror, I realized what “shared privatly” means. That is public. The other alternative is also public. I had been editing my short movies in vain. Everybody have seen my behind now. Five minutes later the headline at http://www.sol.no from Nettavisen was a journalist blaming mothers for sharing too much, and there was my breast, my… for all to see. I felt it was directed towards me. For an hour that “pornographic” stuff went in circle on the Blogger-“Cloud”, and I was not able to delete it. I don’t know what was happening. – So, in pure… feeling “pissed” or you may say angry feministic, I posted a few of those picures on purpose, which someone may call “showing you the finger”. The US government has been enjoying viewing people’s private parts for many years now, on Google, Facebook and God knows where, so I hope they didn’t miss a thing. Nice having sex with them, even though it was long distance.
November 28, 2013 at 2:36 am
Sorry about all the spelling errors. There should have been an editing tool here 🙂