Eek! A Male!

01/21/2011

When Black women win victories, it’s a boost for virtually every segment of society.
Angela Davis, professor and author

" Eek! A Male! Treating all men as potential predators doesn't make our kids safer." This was the headline of a recent Wall Street Journal article by Lenore Skenazy shared with us by Mike Wilson. In the article Skenazy observes...

"...And so it goes these days, when almost any man who has anything to do with a child can find himself suspected of being a creep. I call it 'Worst-First' thinking: Gripped by pedophile panic, we jump to the very worst, even least likely, conclusion first. Then we congratulate ourselves for being so vigilant.

"Consider the Iowa daycare center where Nichole Adkins works. The one male aide employed there, she told me in an interview, is not allowed to change diapers. 'In fact,' Ms. Adkins said, 'he has been asked to leave the classroom when diapering was happening.' Now, a guy turned on by diaper changes has got to be even rarer than a guy turned on by Sponge Bob. But 'Worst-First' thinking means suspecting the motives of any man who chooses to work around kids.

"Maybe the daycare center felt it had to be extra cautious, to avoid lawsuits. But regular folk are suspicious, too. Last February, a woman followed a man around at a store berating him for clutching a pile of girls' panties. 'I can't believe this! You're disgusting. This is a public place, you pervert!' she said—until the guy, who posted about the episode on a website, fished out his ID. He was a clerk restocking the underwear department...

"We think we're protecting our kids by treating all men as potential predators. But that's not a society that's safe. Just sick." A working group of the World Forum Foundation, Working Group on Men in Early Childhood Education, provides a global meeting place for male and female early childhood professionals to reflect on the value of gender balance in early childhood education and the benefits and barriers to men's full participation, and to identify actions to promote these important issues worldwide.

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