William Saletan in Slate:
Move over, Mrs. Robinson. The new public enemy is the bespectacled babe who teaches our kids math in the classroom and sex in the parking lot. Dozens of female teachers have been caught with male students in recent years, and the airwaves are full of outrage that we’re letting them off the hook. On cable news, phrases like “double standard” and “slap on the wrist” are poured like pious gravy over photos of the pedagogue-pedophile-pet of the month. “Why is it when a man rapes a little girl, he goes to jail,” CNN’s Nancy Grace complains, “but when a woman rapes a boy, she had a breakdown?”
I hate to change the subject from sex back to math, but this frenzy—I’m trying hard not to call it hysteria—reeks of overexcitement. Sex offenses by women aren’t increasing. Female offenders are going to jail. And while their sentences are, on average, shorter than sentences given to male offenders, the main reason is that their crimes are objectively less vile. By ignoring this difference, we’re replacing the old double standard with a new one.
More here.
