Some women sexually abuse children.
Although intellectually we may know this to be true, many of us find it hard to believe that a woman would harm a child in this way. Yet the impulse to give women the benefit of the doubt may affect how we conduct ourselves professionally. In 1988, researchers Hetherton and Beardsall conducted a study to examine whether the gender of a perpetrator of child sexual abuse influenced child protection professionals. Both female and male social workers and police officers participated in the study. What they found was that social workers and police officers were more likely to minimize reports of child sexual abuse when the alleged perpetrator was female.