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Part of it may the paranoia in our society about stranger abductions. I say paranoia, because such abductions are exceedingly rare; they happen, and parents need to be vigilant about them, but they are very rare.
Very few men want to harm children, but looking at it from the other point of view, man are much mor likely to be sexual predators than women. Using raveneye's statistics, its about 4 times as likely. But those statistics also indicated that the women molestors, like most molestors, are in the position of being caregivers. Since women are much more likely to be caregivers for the children of others than are men, the likelihood that any one female caregiver would be a molestor as compared to any one male is much less than the statistics would indicate.
This particular issue seems to be more one of stranger danger. It would be interesting to see the statistics on what percentage of stranger abductions / molestations are by men, by women, and by teams.
I'm not a parent yet, but I am frequently left with children in my care (as a teacher and by neighbors during the summer). I would be more likely to be wary of a strange man than a strange woman, but I'm going to be wary of any stranger who wants to touch or play with my wards.
In this case, the bias has some basis in reality. Men, even if we take raveneye's statistics at face value and apply them to stranger abductions, are far more likely to be child molestors.
But let me emphasize before I finish this, that stranger abduction / molestation is rare, and caregivers should be wary of all stranger contact involving children in their care, regardless of the sex of the stranger. But I can understand being a little more wary of men.
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