The XX Factor

Don’t Forget the Girls

Following the appalling revelations about child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests that have filled the papers recently, one question has started to nag at me: What about the girls? So many of the news stories focus on priests taking advantage of their position to rape and otherwise sexually traumatize boys and young men. Now, I have no way of knowing this for sure, but I’ll bet that thousands of girls the world over were similarly abused. Is anyone else wondering if young women have been left out of this story, and if there’s some agenda that’s driving that absence?