Background: In my blog post If You See a Father Holding His Child’s Hand, Call the Cops!, I called attention to the man-bashing Virginia Department of Health poster pictured above. I wrote:
“If dad goes for a walk with his daughter and holds her hand, apparently Virginia Department of Health officials wants you to pick up the phone and destroy his life by reporting him as a possible sexual abuser. I would’ve thought this article about this campaign was from The Onion or some satirical publication, but it’s for real. The picture above of a man holding a child’s hand–a touching little scene–is actually supposed to make us think he’s sexually abusing the child. Unbelievable.”
Rush Limbaugh saw my commentary on the issue and covered it on his nationally-syndicated broadcast–to read the transcript of his comments or to listen to the radio archive, click here. Many of my readers called or wrote the Virginia Department of Health to express their views of the ad.
The article Are We Teaching Our Kids To Be Fearful of Men? (WSJ Online, 8/23/07) points out numerous examples of men being treated like predators by businesses and government, including the “Prevent Child Sexual Abuse” poster above.
Are We Teaching Our Kids To Be Fearful of Men?
By Jeff Zaslow
WSJ Online, 8/23/07
When children get lost in a mall, they’re supposed to find a “low-risk adult” to help them. Guidelines issued by police departments and child-safety groups often encourage them to look for “a pregnant woman,” “a mother pushing a stroller” or “a grandmother.”
The implied message: Men, even dads pushing strollers, are “high-risk.”
Are we teaching children that men are out to hurt them? The answer, on many fronts, is yes. Child advocate John Walsh advises parents to never hire a male babysitter. Airlines are placing unaccompanied minors with female passengers rather than male passengers. Soccer leagues are telling male coaches not to touch players.
Child-welfare groups say these are necessary precautions, given that most predators are male. But fathers’ rights activists and educators now argue that an inflated predator panic is damaging men’s relationships with kids. Some men are opting not to get involved with children at all, which partly explains why many youth groups can’t find male leaders, and why just 9% of elementary-school teachers are male, down from 18% in 1981.
People assume that all men “have the potential for violence and sexual aggressiveness,” says Peter Stearns, a George Mason University professor who studies fear and anxiety. Kids end up viewing every male stranger “as a potential evildoer,” he says, and as a byproduct, “there’s an overconfidence in female virtues.”
In Michigan, the North Macomb Soccer Club has a policy that at least one female parent must always sit on the sidelines, to guard against any untoward behavior by male coaches. In Churchville, Pa., soccer coach Barry Pflueger says young girls often want a hug after scoring a goal, but he refrains. Even when girls are injured, “you must comfort them without touching them, a very difficult thing to do,” he says. “It saddens me that this is what we’ve come to.”
TV shows, including the Dateline NBC series “To Catch a Predator,” hype stories about male abusers. Now social-service agencies are also using controversial tactics to spread the word about abuse. This summer, Virginia’s Department of Health mounted an ad campaign for its sex-abuse hotline. Billboards featured photos of a man holding a child’s hand. The caption: “It doesn’t feel right when I see them together.”
Read the full article here.
