Nature or nurture, right?

No, I was asking you why you think this is and you don't provide any explanations.

Ah - no you didn't - you justified only looking at boys bad behaviour because they're the only ones that commit violent crimes (note the legal female voilence is fine).

I presumed you'd like to finetune yoyr idea and profile racially since crime stats do break down along racial lines.

But no ! profiling men the gender is fine but anything else is baaaaddd. Might seem racist then !

Well if you really want to go the essentialist gender differences route then fine. I presume you'll be ok with employers in various technical fields giving preference to men because of their superiour spacial and mathematical skills, and the army might as well give up on women altogether since few of them have a aggressive bone in their little feminine bodies.

Well, what's what here is that men seem to be more likely to become violent criminals than women.

Well the majoritiy of violent crime in the good ole USA is commited by black men, so I guess you recomend profiling black boys.

Thats up to you - I certainly didn't

Yes, but being a vicious entitled abusive little shit isn't a crime, is it now? Whereas committing a rape is.

Well abuse is a crime - I thought as a expert legal eagle you would know this. I guess you think women abusing their children is just fine - well probably just abusing the boys anyway.

And since when were we limiting this to legal issues, the whole thrust of the article and many replies has been about boys bad behaviour - I'm saying its about time the girls and women were called out on this on Salon.

One question, blackpaw, why is it that men commit about 95% of the crimes out there?

Well apart from being crap - the majority yes, but certainly not 95% - so what ?

The majority of child murders commited by parents are done by the mother - what about that ?

And parents worry about it - but they don't publicly express that.

So how many of the people here have asked their friends, neighbours etc as to how they are ensuring their little boys don't grow up to be rapists - good way to get a punch in the face, or be ostracised.

And all those who asked variations on the "Who hasn't crossed the road to avoid groups/packs of men on a street corner - be honest !". Ok lets be *really* honest and take it a little bit further - "Who hasn't crossed the road to avoid groups/packs of BLACK men on a street corner - be honest !".

Not so nice now and I'm willing to bet more accurately applied to the pseudo privileged liberals who troll these boards.

And the whole "Well all kids can grow up wrong of course, not just boys she was just expressing her worry". Well that would hold more water if salon ran similar articles about girls - but they don't, its all about the boys, men and the evil they do. Same for most of the posters here - its all about parenting the girls to protect themselves from men and the boy to recognise that men are bad. Never a thought for the possibility that their little princess could grow up to be a vicious entitled abusive little shit.

"What are little boys made of? Snips and snails, And puppy dog tails ... What are little girls made of ? Sugar and spice and all things nice"

That's pretty much the level of salon articles and messages on here with regard to male/female issues.

Im sure Salon will run some articles... when the number of women who do what you described equal the number of men who abuse

So is any one conducting serious research on this - with proper funding ? nationwide government funded legally backed initatives to investigate female abuse of children (physical and emotional). No there isn't. People don't believe women abuse, they don't want to, they won't see it, they gloss over it and they certainly don't keep records.

It a classic catch 22 - there are not serious stats on female abuse because there's no need to collate them because there is no problem of female abuse because look - no stats !

do wish Salon would restrict the ability to post letters to paying subscribers. I think the level of discourse would be higher

Man, you are a class act - money is certainly a indicator of quality isn't it ?

:Snirk: If you had a brain to go with that mouth you would have noticed I am a paid subscriber.

Just off tonights NBC:

Woman Charged With Trying To Run Over Ex-Husband

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12153488/from/RL.2/

Woman arrested after leaving baby in car

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12372094/from/RL.3/

Jeeze - looks like we'd better reassess all our daughters in the light of their likelyhood to atempt murder or abuse children. I'm sure salon will run some articles soon.

! What was I thinking ! of course the attempted murder was really the fault of an abusive husband, and the 30yr old who left her baby to go shopping was just depressed from the constant oppression suffered by all middle class white woman, poor little victims that they are.

Yup - the definitive guide to young children. Well that says a lot about the writer of that letter.

Actually, if you had read *and* comprehended it you might have realised it was a allegory for adult behaviour and completely ridiculous to apply to this discussion.

I think it was to point out that she was not a peer of the students, which may have served to remove what might ordinarily be check on their behavior

Really ? - I would have thought the opposite - a peer would be more likely to be treated with a lack of respect.

But I'm not a expert on the whole US frat thing - I find it quite bizzare.

You should be getting editors choice for that, well considered and insightful. It gave me food for thought.