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I suppose solving the whole societal issue of sexual perversion could help.


Not solvable. Humans have a genetic defect which doesn't allow them to appropriately calculate risk when the situation involves emotion. Unless you completely censor kid ******* stories from the media, nothing will happen.

It doesn't matter if the odds of child being abducted by a stranger are less than those of winning the lottery. When every child that's abducted by a stranger receives massive attention, it requires a conscious effort to appreciate how infinitesimal the risk of this occurring actually is. The same applies to kids assaulted by teachers, priests, dog catchers, or whatever the ****. The constant media barrage, which continues because it sells a lot of swiffers, but is excused in the name of "awareness" is self perpetuating.

Add to this, the standard caveats about the 11 year old boy having sex with the 24 year old teacher being "lucky" and the 11 year old girl suffering a fate "worse than death" and you arrive here. In a country where Congress literally legislated a study they commissioned out of existence because it showed that long term damage from non violent, non coercive, child sexual abuse was nearly non existent, you're never going to have non custodial males risking the nightmare of an indefensible accusation by a child. Even if, as in the abduction scenario, the risk is small, it's clear that in current climate as successful defense against such an abduction is almost impossible. In most states, the accuser can't even be cross examined for various well intentioned reasons.

Lol, not even definable.
Not surprising. Imagine if the Man/Boy love organization got their hands on it though:D

They blame it largely on gender stereotyping & pay scales.

It's a fair point. Nursing is still over 90% female, and the pay scale's even pretty good.

Gender roles are hugely important in American life.

I've been teaching on the elementary level for 6 years now. As a male, I've been one of the only ones in each building.

First job--of the 46 or so employees in the building, there were 5 males. Only two were in classrooms. One was a kindergarten/preschool teacher, and myself in the fifth grade.

Second job there was a male 2nd grade teacher, a male 4th grade teacher (who looped to 5th then became a principal elsewhere), myself and another in grade 5, one in 6th, and one in 8th. Staff levels at this school fluctuated greatly and the school has had a hard time retaining people (it's an inner city school). I've since left and I think the number of male teachers is around 5 out of some 60 something employees. There are others in the building who work as aides or in occupational therapy. Breaking it down...3 classrooms per grade level k-8. 5 male teachers total among them as of this fall.

When I was in elementary school there were no male teachers. Had my first male teacher in grade 6, I think it was.

I'd like to continue teaching, but the job market isn't so great in New England currently. The number of available elementary teachers looking for jobs is staggering. At one interview I was one of 28 candidates. At another, they'd received some 250 applications. So if I can't find a teaching job I'll end up doing something else in education like curriculum development, which will be outside a school system.

Hmmm... Interesting topic. Unfortunately, I don't think there's much that can be done except to hope that the hype over this issue subsides over time. And certainly, the keyhole aspect of the national media feeds this quite a bit, but as long as people get sad when they hear about something bad happening to a child and tune in to hear more about it, that's not likely to change...


It's definitely annoying though. As a single male condo owner it's one of those things that's always somewhere in the back of the mind. In my case, I have three neighbors right next to me. All three have small children (total of 5 girls aged between 4 and 8 I think). It's one of those odd things making sure to be friendly, but not *that* friendly, both with the parents and the children. You don't want to appear to be the odd standoffish guy who never talks to anyone, but you also don't want to be the guy who's being too forward and outgoing either. And yeah. It bothers me that I even have to think about things in that context.


It's definitely a huge deal in grade schools. When my roommate was teaching for credit at a grade school, she used to talk about this quite a bit. Kids up to about 5-6 grade are quite open in terms of touching, hugging, kissing, etc. As a female, this wasn't a problem. Kids constantly came up to her and gave her big hugs, etc. For male teachers, this is a much bigger problem in terms of perception, however, the kids don't know or think about it. They'll hug a male teacher as much as a female at that age. I think this scares off a lot of male teachers. They know that at any time they could be accused of something improper and if someone racked up a set of observations of them with the kids, a set of completely innocent events could be easily construed as something less than innocent. It's just not worth the risk for them.