Yet another female English teacher has made the news after having sexual relations with sexually abusing a student.
I’ve written about this problem before, but it occurred to me that at the time, I didn’t mention one of the reasons I am concerned about the issue, as the post is centered around the larger and more important issue of child abuse. But… is it just me, or does it seem as though an inordinate number of female teachers who victimize male students are English teachers? Or do I just have that perception because I notice it more when the teacher is described as an English teacher? I mean, sheesh, I don’t want my profession to become the butt of jokes — “she was an English teacher, wink wink, nudge nudge, know what I mean?”
Wikipedia’s article “Sexual harassment in education” has some interesting and appalling statistics.
I was talking with some music teachers last night about how a lot of the abusers happen to be music teachers due to the one on one nature of the job description.
I imagine that female abusers just get more press than the men so it seems more prevalent. Who knows though.
I was just gratified that the newspaper article refers to the situation as "sexual abuse" and not just "sexual relations". These kinds of things need to be called out in strong terms.
You know Robert, you're right, of course. And I used precisely that term!
I have to disagree with Joel. I don't believe that women molesters get reported on more readily than men molesters. I think the dynamic has been too long that if a boy is molested by a woman, then he should consider himself lucky. There is a different kind of stigma there, supported by cultural ideas of machismo. I think it's simply coming to light more often, that boys are molested at a much higher rate than anyone guessed. There is research that shows this…