The issue of child abuse is centrally relevant to men and boys in terms of both those who perpetrate child abuse and those who are subject to it. Men and boys as perpetrators of child abuse is a welfare topic that, in many countries, has been difficult to place on policy, research or public agendas. In countries where it has reached one or more of those agendas, it still invariably creates heated debate. This resistance to acknowledging the issue may itself be significant—as is the international pattern of that resistance. For gendered aspects of the social dynamics which contribute to child abuse have tended to receive considerably more research attention—and also a degree of policy and welfare practice attention—in some countries of the world which might be described as ‘English-speaking’ (e.g. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States) than elsewhere. Indeed, such a relative lack of attention even applies to the Nordic countries. This is somewhat surprising given that the Nordic societies emphasise gender as a high-profile societal issue; and in general possess relatively advanced welfare provision—certainly compared to the United States and the United Kingdom, two countries in the world where the issue of men committing child abuse has received the most serious attention.
This state of affairs is especially surprising in the case of child sexual abuse, where existing research evidence on the gender dynamics involved is now considerable in a number of ‘Western’ countries and rather consistent over both time and space. For almost all the evidence suggests that the large majority of perpetrators are men and boys (see below for further details). Moreover, despite a relative lack of research on this issue in the Nordic countries, there are still some significant indications that such abuse may be at considerable levels there (Lundgren et al. 2001). Since a similar pattern of research and recognition/ non-recognition can be found in relation to the issue of men’s violence to women, some commentators have suggested that there may be particular cultural barriers to the recognition of gendered violence in the Nordic countries and, by contrast, some relatively facilitative cultural factors in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom (Pringle 2005).
However, as noted, even in those countries where the issue of men as perpetrators of child abuse is taken seriously—such as the United Kingdom and United States—there is still heated controversy about it publicly, professionally, academically and in terms of policy. Although the reasons for this are complex, one factor may be that this topic has clear implications for the issue of men as active carers of children which is being promoted vigorously by many ‘Western’ governments. There is certainly a real policy tension between the legitimate desire to promote men as active carers and the legitimate need to respond to the strong evidence (regarding child sexual abuse) that men and boys pose a greater statistical threat to children than women and girls—even though it is clearly a minority of men and boys who engage in such activities. So, there may be a tendency among certain researchers, policy-makers and professionals to deny the gendered aspect of the problem as a way of resolving that tension. An alternative viewpoint (Pringle 1998) is that these policy tensions can be managed creatively.
Child sexual abuse creates the most controversy even though research understanding about its dynamics is clearer than for other forms of child abuse. Despite warnings from some commentators that the levels of child sexual abuse committed by women may be underestimated (Elliott 1993), the vast majority of surveys across the world over the last twenty years suggest that men and boys perpetrate about 90 per cent of child sexual abuse: with a slightly lower figure for abuse by non-adults—a category which may account for as much as a quarter to a third of all child sexual abuse.
Most prevalence surveys, unlike clinic-based studies, also reveal little or no correlation between child sexual abuse and the class, ethnicity or sexuality of perpetrators: the most significant correlate is the gender of the perpetrator. The feminist view that the dynamics underpinning child sexual abuse are closely associated with the social construction of dominant forms of masculinity rests on this fact and its globally widespread incidence (Finkelhor 1991). Researching the size of the problem involves difficult methodological issues such as choice of definition . T he la prevalence survey by Kelly et al. (1991) used a range of definition s wi th vari ous deg re breadth. Prevalence ranged from 1 in 2 to 1 in 5 for girls and 1 in 6 to 1 in 14 for boys: thus even the narrow definitions revealed very significant levels of abuse. Given the large gender imbalance among perpetrators and the extent of the problem, it is hard to escape such a feminist analysis. However, some commentators sympathetic to that perspective suggest that one must also take into account a series of other power relations, in addition to gender, which ‘intersect’ with or ‘mutually constitute’ one another (Pringle 2005), such as those associated with dimensions of age, sexuality, disability and ethnicity. For instance, the commercial sexual exploitation by West European men of children from other countries and from within minority ethnic groups could be interpreted as the outcome of interconnecting power relations associated with age, gender, sexuality, ethnicity—and perhaps class.
Other forms of child abuse tend to offer a less clear picture of the gendered dimensions involved. If we take physical abuse, women seem to constitute at least 30 per cent of abusers of children and the figure rises to at least 50 per cent for emotional abuse—a category that is particularly difficult to define. In contrast, as some commentators suggest (Parton 1989), several other contextual factors may have to be taken into account in assessing these gender balances. First, one needs to recognise that, given the general care-taking patterns in most societies, the amount of contact between women and children is generally much larger than that for children and men. Second, one must consider the gendered power dynamics operating within the lives of some of those women who abuse children—where they are placed, for instance, in terms of their relationships with men.
The oppression of women by men and linkages to child abuse also figure largely in another body of important research which focuses on the way children are affected by witnessing violence to mothers—a phenomenon which some therapists and researchers would define as abuse in itself. Moreover, there is now a considerable body of international research, largely (but not exclusively) from the US and the UK, which has demonstrated that there is a significant overlap between men who are abusive to their partners and men who abuse their children physically and/or sexually (Hester et al. 2000). Such findings have important implications for the way child protection services for children and services for abused women are organised: in particular, how far there is systematic coordination between both sets of services (where they exist); and how far men’s history of violence to partners is taken into account when decisions are made about what in some countries is known as child contact and residence or access and custody. In an increasing number of countries the legal systems are incorporating these kinds of finding s in their operations—New Zealand being perhaps the most significant and creative example. On the other hand, in many countries where these issues are being considered, such as Britain and Sweden, difficulties with the system still continue (Eriksson and Hester 2001)—and in other countries, such as Denmark (Hester 2005), the legal protection for women and children in these situations seems to be deteriorating. Some feminist and profeminist commentators contextualise this research more broadly by emphasising the close connections in practice between all forms of what they would regard as men’s violence, including child abuse, violence to women, war, pornography and prostitution (Cowburn and Pringle 2001).
Gender also, of course, enters into the question of who is abused. Once again, child sexual abuse throws up some especially important issues relating to men and boys. On the one hand, it is certainly the case that all research evidence over a considerable period of time confirms that the majority of children sexually abused are girls (Kelly et al 1991). On the other hand, research from the 1990s has shown higher levels of abuse to boys than was found in previous studies. Although one cannot be sure how far this represents a change in the pattern of abusing or a change in attitudes about revealing such abuse, many commentators place more emphasis on the second of these possibilities. It does remain clear from studies that child sexual abuse of boys is mainly committed by men rather than women—even though the difference between the genders in terms of who abuses boys seems to be slightly less than is the case for abuse of girls. Moreover, some evidence suggests a greater tendency for boys to be abused outside family networks than is the case for girls.
‘Treatment’ programmes for abusers of children have been developed in a number of countries—most especially in the ‘English-speaking’ world. Controversy has particularly attached to those programmes dealing with child sexual abuse—which are mainly directed towards men and boys. Research on the effectiveness of such programmes is conflicting, though considerable agreement exists that they may be helpful in assisting some people to maintain more control over their behaviour. However, dispute remains about the effectiveness of different approaches: for instance, many feminist and profeminist researchers have been critical of programmes which do not explicitly address issues of power, both gendered and otherwise. Moreover, there are profound methodological problems in assessing effectiveness—not least the difficulty of knowing whether those who have received ‘treatment’ commit abuse again. The topic of effectiveness is also relevant in debates about how much funding should be devoted to services for child abusers and how much to those who have been abused, with feminist and profeminist commentators emphasising that services for abusers should not be financed at the direct expense of services for those who have been abused.
Finally, this leads to the question of prevention. Some commentators have suggested that if societies are serious about dealing with the issue of child abuse, then they must address it in concerted national—perhaps international—educational programmes. As regards physical abuse, the example of countries such as Sweden suggests that this kind of an approach can be extremely successful given a suitable cultural context. As regards child sexual abuse, no country in the world—and that includes the Nordic countries—has attempted such a concerted and broad societal campaign. Given the degree to which the practices of men and boys are involved in that form of abuse, it is hard to see how any such national project could avoid addressing directly the issue of power relations and men, which is perhaps why massive national educational campaigns are significant by their absence. However, the relative success of more locally focused campaigns across various parts of the world such as those in the United Kingdom by the Zero Tolerance Trust or Operation Kvinnofrid (Operation Women’s Peace) in the Stockholm area of Sweden—both of which made explicit links between various forms of men’s violence, including violence to women and children—suggests it could be done—if there was the political will. So far, no government in the world has really met this challenge. Many feminists and profeminists would suggest that this once again brings us back to the ever-present issue of men’s power.
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