Much of it, maybe most of it, is the media conditioning; men kidnap young girls, men are child molesters, men are violent. I wonder, though, if there's a biological component; keep the "strange male" away from the young. In prides or groups of some kinds of animals, including simians, the dominant or higher-ranking males may try to injure or kill infants who are not theirs (by smell); because they want all offspring to be from _their_ line. So I wonder if some of this mistrust is inborn. Not that, as noted, women don't abuse or abduct children. But female child abductors, if not members of the family, are usually seen as mentally ill but not interested in the child sexually -- to be pitied, in other words.
I have seen a male child molester in action; not actually doing anything sexually, but a street person trying to engage in inappropriate conversation with a very young girl (7, 8) who some absolute idiot of a parent had apparently left alone at a city busstop _very_ early in the morning. He was easy enough to scare off; all I had to do is look at him (When he saw me, I saw fear in his eyes, and he knew I saw it; he literally slunk away).
The point is, yes, there are predators in this world, but they aren't going to be some guy that came with one of your girlfriends to a party; they aren't suddenly going to grab your kid and run. You put your child are risk if you're insanely careless, as the parent of the child above was. You also should examine any longterm relationships between your children in adults. But one time? At a party? The friend of someone you know? Hell, you might as well check every male's pockets for stocking masks while you're at it!
|