Female Sex Offenders

Female sex offenders are thought to have a different psychological make-up than male sex offenders.  There was the case of a teacher named Debra Lafave in Florida.  She was having a sexual affair with one of her fourteen year old students.  Lafave is outwardly attractive and a reporter who spoke about this case called her “a living barbie doll.”  So if a woman is physically attractive, what would cause her to have to sexually abuse a child?  Well, according to psychologist Dr. Alan Lipman, female sex offenders have a different reason for sexually abusing other people.  Lipman says that women sex offenders “do not develop sexually in the same way as other women do, so inside they are still very young sexually.”  I find it very odd that a psychologist would say this.  For one, I think that this statement generalizes women sex offenders into a group of sexually-immature individuals.  This psychologist seems to be excusing the behavior of female sex offenders and stating that the reason why they molest children is simply because they are sexually immature.  I believe that women sex offenders are much like male sex offenders and that there is really no difference between the two rather than genitalia.  I can imagine that the same amount of intimidation and force is used by both female and male sex predators.  This video speaks to the readings we read “Deviance Gendered, Criminology Exposed” and “Murder in the Feminine:  Marie Lafarge and the Sexualization of the Nineteenth-Century Criminal Woman.”  I believe that female criminals have similar psychological mindsets as male criminals.