Oh come on Squeers, you can't be serious?
Are you suggesting that incidents of child abuse would have been much less if only the mothers hadn't missed 'knowing' about it?

What a disgusting thing to say!

Paedophiles are very clever at covering their tracks and at ensuring that children keep their mouth's shut.

In cases like the many Priests implicated in sexual abuse, and the JImmy Saville allegations, where were the father's of all the kids involved? How come they didn't 'know' that their kids were being abused?

That question is just as ludicrous as your comment...

"Are you suggesting that incidents of child abuse would have been much less if only the mothers hadn't missed 'knowing' about it?"

Not only that, Suseonline. I'm saying that it would be much less if women "acted" on their "knowledge" instead of denying it.
My own mother was turfed out by her mother when as a child she told her that her stepfather had "misbehaved". Her mother refused to believe it and the stepfather went on to misbehave with two sisters as well.
I know of other instances and believe it's extremely common for women to turn a blind eye--hopefully less these days.
It beggars belief that with over 300 Savile victims no one came forward till now. More likely some were successfully muzzled (paid off).

I don't say fathers aren't also to blame, though in most cases mothers are the primary carers. Indeed all too often the fathers or brothers or cousins are the abusers and the mothers "their" protectors.

Child molestation is not a one on one crime between abused and abuser, it's environmental, incestuous and even social in terms of power matrices and emotional dependencies.

Women have a unique perspective on male sexuality, which despite a veneer of "respectability" is clearly voracious. Many men simply can't help it and the women in their lives have had to learn a degree of tolerance in order to serve their own "perceived"best interests.

The Savile case might be a high-profile instance of celebrity, but rather than sensationalising it we should acknowledge that sexual abuse is banal, endemic and effectively authorised.