this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025

92 points (100.0% liked)

Australia

4422 readers

203 users here now

A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.

Before you post:

If you're posting anything related to:

The Environment, post it to Aussie Environment
Politics, post it to Australian Politics
World News/Events, post it to World News
A question to Australians (from outside) post it to Ask an Australian

If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News

Rules

This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:

When posting news articles use the source headline and place your commentary in a separate comment

Banner Photo

Congratulations to @Tau@aussie.zone who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition

Recommended and Related Communities

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:

Plus other communities for sport and major cities.

https://aussie.zone/communities

Moderation

Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.

Additionally, we have our instance admins: @lodion@aussie.zone and @Nath@aussie.zone

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

lodion@aussie.zone

Fluid@aussie.zone

bestusername@aussie.zone

eatham@aussie.zone

Nath@aussie.zone

As a male kinder teacher I agree more needs to be done to protect children. But the solution is not to vilify people like me (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by maniacalmanicmania@aussie.zone to c/australia@aussie.zone

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I agree much more needs to be done to protect children. That’s the very reason I do this work. But the solution is not to vilify or pathologise men who choose to care for and educate young children. The solution is to overhaul a fractured system – starting with the ridiculous patchwork of state-based regulations governing early childhood education and care in Australia.

We need a unified, national approach that ensures consistency, accountability and support – for children and educators alike. We need robust, mandatory training in child protection for all educators, regardless of gender. We need professional standards that uphold child safety and the dignity of workers. We need appropriate reward and remuneration to encourage the very best to answer the call of early childhood education. And we need to acknowledge that good men in this field are not the problem – they are part of the solution.

all 10 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] Tb0n3@sh.itjust.works 28 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

But don't you know that all men are rapist pedophiles and all women are perfect motherly protectors? This is far from an Australia only thing. Most western countries seem to have the same ideas, but it's never been true.

[+] ogmios@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] Tb0n3@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I can tell you why. Male sex offenders are inherently more physical, or at least expected to be. It's the same reason why rape in many places can only be committed by a man. There's absolutely female pedophiles and predators, but people either ignore them, or don't look hard enough to see them. My own personal theory is that female pedos are just as common as male, but the way they get sexual gratification is different so evidence is more common for men.

[–] TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago

Even if all child abusers were men (which they're not), it would still be a far cry from saying all men are child abusers.

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 1 points 2 weeks ago

That's starting to change now, a uk study found reports of female predators are up

[–] magnetosphere@fedia.io 14 points 2 weeks ago

We all want humanity to be wiser and more mature, but there are too many who refuse to let that happen.

[+] MudMan@fedia.io -6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I say this from the bottom of my heart with genuine curiosity...

...what in the anglosaxon is this?

[–] vaguerant@fedia.io 28 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You might be missing the context, which is that an Australian childcare worker, who is a man, and who was in the industry for about a decade and had access to over a thousand children in that time, was recently arrested on child sexual abuse charges relating to a number of those children.

This has prompted a lot of editorial inches on the myriad problems in the for-profit childcare industry and how they compounded to allow this situation to occur for so long. I haven't seen any coverage that blamed men, but there have been a few talking about the prejudice against men who want to work with children and the suspicion directed at them, especially right now.

Nobody sensible is actually suggesting that the solution is to vilify men who work with children, that's just a side effect of the revelation that a man who worked with children was a child molester. This piece is simply trying to redirect some of that reflexive distrust toward reforms that could actually make childcare and similar industries safer for children.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 6 points 2 weeks ago

I've definitely seen reports of people who are trying to pressure childcare centres to not employ men, or to remove their kids from places that do employ men. I don't know how true that is, or how widespread it is, if true. The people doing this are not, from what I've seen, in the media, but parents with horribly misaligned reactions.

[–] maniacalmanicmania@aussie.zone 8 points 2 weeks ago

I don't understand what you're asking. Can you elaborate?