Customer Reviews

Women Who Sexually Abuse Children (Wiley Child Protection & Policy Series)

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Ford's work takes Elliot's and brings it up to date. An excellent piece on a still-ignored topic.

This book works hard to say that women can and do sexually abuse children. It asks, "If we can accept that women can physically abuse children, why is it hard to accept that they can abuse sexually?" It pulls numbers and examples of how its contention is true. This reminds me of how the teacher abuse shown in "North Country" was universally horrifying but many would pooh-pooh the sexual dynamic in "Notes on a Scandal" as it involved a teen boy and a female teacher. I do worry that this book can be used as a misogynist tool against women. However, the editor is female and the chapters are trying to get all readers to accept that this injustice does happen.

I struggle with some methodological issues here. Most every author bemoans the lack of research done on this topic. However, they quote a bunch of sources and it seems to suggest that there is research. Then again, some researchers, like Saradjian, are quoted so much, that person may feel plagiarized. Perhaps the authors here have read hundreds of articles on sexual abuse and they are synthesizing the scant info on female abusers. Though the introductory chapters seemed repetitive, the book gets better as you keep reading. I think various chapters will be of use to counselors and psychology majors. The chapters point to findings, but not solid conclusions. It does have summary points to help readers who get lost in all the numbers and references. Still, there's no way you can read this and be able to point out which specific woman sexually abuses and which specific child has been sexually abused by a woman. I'm still struggling with whether this book is amazingly thorough or tacitly scant.

When I was in law school, rape had to be covered in criminal law classes. However, it's a topic that no law professor or bar exam writer asks about. It's understood that the discussion may give too many people flashbacks. Readers should not be fearful here. The number of actual episodes of sexual abuse by women of children is very small here. This is not a huge book of case studies. This book's purpose is to admit the tragedy happens, but it doesn't pass on that message through the shock and awe of heartbreaking events.