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Note that pfortuny said "mostly". Child abuse by mothers or other women absolutely does exist, but all evidence suggests it's less common than abuse by men.

by mcv 4y ago

dijit 4y ago
Not to be crass, but a friend of mine was sexually abused by her grandmother; we heard that "someone" in the house was abusing the girls and the assumption was that it was the father. Do you think that it's possible that we overlook female predators which assists in padding statistics causing this perception to be somewhat self-fulfilling? Obviously my anecdote doesn't apply to all places, that's not how statistics work, but it was the case that the grandmother was overlooked, and even when caught did not go into the crime statistics as it was considered a social services matter.
- pegasus 4y ago
  Because a large percentage of abuse goes completely unreported, I would expect we overlook even more male predators. The balance of power inside families tends to generally incline in their favour, so they surely find it easier to cover up their tracks.
  - klibertp 4y ago
    > The balance of power inside families The question is: is gender even related to this? Or is a position of power simply that much less often taken by a woman in a family? Similarly with race, ethnicity, job, and so on. I'm willing to believe there's a certain percentage of humans in general that simply enjoy hurting others - and that it's a much larger percentage than we'd expect. I also suspect that most of them are unaware of this fact about themselves, and so they don't actively, or consciously, seek to position themselves in a way that would allow them to hurt other without consequences. I would be willing to bet that the percentage of people who both know their nature and actively seek to express it via abuse of power to be vanishingly small[1]. If all of the above is true, then we're left with people who enjoy hurting others, but don't realize this or don't express it without being put in a position of power. When they are put in a position of power, they start expressing their desires. Whether they are men or women, white or not, rich or poor, etc. I think has little significance. [1] If you understand yourself well enough to know about this, you're also generally intelligent enough not to try doing it on random, unwilling people.
    - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
      It's difficult to answer. From my understanding, women are more sensitive towards social repercussions than men are. Which means even if men and women have an equal desire to be violent to get what they want or to derive pleasure from it, you'll always see less women than men do it on an equal playing field with noticeable catch rates and punishments. If you give women (relative) safety to commit violence and give them the ability to do so, they end up doing so in about equal rates. If you give them less repercussions than men, they end up doing it more. Teen violence is one which is noticeably weighted "in favor" of boys. Not that difficult to understand why, when boys are taught not to hit girls, but girls aren't taught the same and face little consequence in doing so. Not that it really matters. Truth is, both sexes are very much capable of violence, and both sexes have more than enough people willing to do so once the "benefits" outweigh the costs.

Note that pfortuny said "mostly". Child abuse by mothers or other women absolutely does exist, but all evidence suggests it's less common than abuse by men.

by mcv 4y ago

Note that pfortuny said "mostly". Child abuse by mothers or other women absolutely does exist, but all evidence suggests it's less common than abuse by men.

dijit 4y ago

Not to be crass, but a friend of mine was sexually abused by her grandmother; we heard that "someone" in the house was abusing the girls and the assumption was that it was the father. Do you think that it's possible that we overlook female predators which assists in padding statistics causing this perception to be somewhat self-fulfilling? Obviously my anecdote doesn't apply to all places, that's not how statistics work, but it was the case that the grandmother was overlooked, and even when caught did not go into the crime statistics as it was considered a social services matter.

pegasus 4y ago
Because a large percentage of abuse goes completely unreported, I would expect we overlook even more male predators. The balance of power inside families tends to generally incline in their favour, so they surely find it easier to cover up their tracks.
- klibertp 4y ago
  > The balance of power inside families The question is: is gender even related to this? Or is a position of power simply that much less often taken by a woman in a family? Similarly with race, ethnicity, job, and so on. I'm willing to believe there's a certain percentage of humans in general that simply enjoy hurting others - and that it's a much larger percentage than we'd expect. I also suspect that most of them are unaware of this fact about themselves, and so they don't actively, or consciously, seek to position themselves in a way that would allow them to hurt other without consequences. I would be willing to bet that the percentage of people who both know their nature and actively seek to express it via abuse of power to be vanishingly small[1]. If all of the above is true, then we're left with people who enjoy hurting others, but don't realize this or don't express it without being put in a position of power. When they are put in a position of power, they start expressing their desires. Whether they are men or women, white or not, rich or poor, etc. I think has little significance. [1] If you understand yourself well enough to know about this, you're also generally intelligent enough not to try doing it on random, unwilling people.
  - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
    It's difficult to answer. From my understanding, women are more sensitive towards social repercussions than men are. Which means even if men and women have an equal desire to be violent to get what they want or to derive pleasure from it, you'll always see less women than men do it on an equal playing field with noticeable catch rates and punishments. If you give women (relative) safety to commit violence and give them the ability to do so, they end up doing so in about equal rates. If you give them less repercussions than men, they end up doing it more. Teen violence is one which is noticeably weighted "in favor" of boys. Not that difficult to understand why, when boys are taught not to hit girls, but girls aren't taught the same and face little consequence in doing so. Not that it really matters. Truth is, both sexes are very much capable of violence, and both sexes have more than enough people willing to do so once the "benefits" outweigh the costs.