Part of the outrage over McQueary’s failure to stop the child rape he was witnessing is caused by the sense that he violated the canons of masculinity. A male’s strength is given to him to protect the weak. If he fails to do that, even if he did not technically violate a law, he has violated a code of honor to which most men subscribe.
If a 60-year-old cleaning woman had seen Sandusky raping a child, we would not have been angry at her if she had fled and called her husband asking him what to do. Many women would have acted more forthrightly than McQueary did (at least according to the version he told the grand jury). We would not expect an older woman physically to challenge a male associated with the football team, and we might be disappointed if she did immediately call the police, but we would not scorn her the way we scorn McQueary – a scorn that has begun to sting him and has caused him to rethink his story.
Protecting children has never been a universal masculine trait. Men thrive in hierarchal settings…paying homage to one another according to their titles. Women, not so much.
It is impossible to imagine that a woman would have remained mute watching a grown man abuse a child in a locker room shower.
AW
I often wondered why I have so much rage regarding this type of behaviour both in the medical profession and in the Church while the males ,including Cardinals Bishops and priests all let it slide without a blink of an eye.
I just attributed it to being a mother and my natural instincts while musing if most males have lost their own natural instincts or whether the need to protect has been usurped by rampant sexual deviancy pushed as the norm on a dumbed down society..
Mary Henry, your comment “the need to protect has been usurped by rampant sexual deviancy pushed as the norm on a dumbed down society” is spot on! Remember the 14 year old victim who got away from Jeffrey Dahmer and was found by the police bleeding and crying? Dahmer told the police that he was an adult and his homosexual lover and that they had just had a fight. So the police just returned the boy to Dahmer, and their excuse was that they could not tell how old Asians are because Asians do not show their age. Then one of those brilliant East coast psychiatrists said that the policemen should not be disciplined for their understandable mistake. Yikes! This country really is no longer safe to live in.
We men see sex molestation different than women.
Well Tony, we women are seeing today’s men in a different light also.Perhaps that is why there are so many divorces and desperate people on dating sites or choosing to live single?
Tony, perhaps you could be more specific about the differences in the way men and women see sex molestation. Inquiring minds want to know.