Do female sexual abusers escape with lighter sentences just because they are females?

I think the term "sex offender" is a very large term that makes a big deal of different types of crimes. For example, imagine a 18 year old college student while at a drunken party decides to have sexual relations with his 16 year old girlfriend who is also drunk, but
"consented”, would be labelled a "sex offender" the next morning when her father finds out and the police press charges. That 18 year old is now a RAPIST and sex offender for life and on equal grounds with a 60 year old pedophile who spent 30 years in prison for actually raping a 9 year old girl! Are these two people "morally" equal? One is a sick pervert who raped a kid and the other is a kid who made a mistake in his youth and suffered the consequences from it. People don't consider these things when they see the term "sex offender". The common thinking is that if you've seen one sex offender, you've seen them all.

Except when it comes to females. Going back to the party scenario, if boyfriend and girlfriend are both drunk and have sex, the male is always guilty of rape but the female for some reason isn't. After all, the male was drunk so technically he couldn't "consent" either right? So why is it that HE raped HER and not the other way around? Aren't they guilty of the same crime?
The fact is, society doesn't take women seriously as sex offenders and we don't even label them sex offenders. If a female school teacher has consentual sexual relations with her underage but yet physically mature student, then IF they later get married, have two kids and live happily ever after, society will eventually forget what happened and will not label her as a sex offender as

time passes by, even though they should because she DID commit a crime and they should set an example that women can be sex offenders too.

"Sick" as people want to label the female teacher, the fact is that she will never be seen as "dangerous" for the simple fact that she is a woman! People don't expect a female to sexually molest or assault anyone else. People DO expect males to potentially sexually molest or assault anyone they come in contact with.
Sexual offenses committed by women have exposed a cultural double standard. The public is more willing to forgive and except the female abuser’s claim that she had a
“relationship” with the victim. In most case, the victim turns out to be a teenager, the sexual abuse is more likely to be dismissed as the offender is mentally ill.
The thing with Female predator’s crimes are often due to marital problems, depression, loneliness, immaturity or self-esteem issues. Not only does society look at female offenders differently, so do the offenders themselves. Women predators are more likely to see the abuse as a romantic relationship.

Dr. Leigh Baker, a clinical psychologist in Colorado interviewed hundreds of male and female predators for a study and from all the stories told by these men and women helped Dr.
Leigh Baker come up with a theory that are three types of predators: Inadequate, anti-social and pedophile. [ (Colemen) ]
A inadequate adult (Sex offenders) have trouble forming attachments with other adults and are more confortable with children. (Morris) Someone who is anti-social doesn’t go by society’s rules and a pedophile is sexually turned on by children.

While some women are pedophiles and some men actually confess the love for the children they have sexually abuse, women are more likely to say it was a “relationship”. What majority of the women offenders seek are that “deep spiritual oneness” [ (Wilkins) ]
When women are caught, they usually make then self seem as the victim, showing low self-esteem, a sense of loneliness, needing to be the center of attention, putting their own need for a connection before common sense. While mental illness may be responsible for hypersexuality, impulsiveness and poor dicision-making, diagnosing a sexual predator is rare. They are more likely to have a personality disorder or to have been sexually abused themselves at childhood. (Morris) But when the role is in the other shoe and it’s a male offender that had sex with an underage child, no one feels sorry or empathy towards the male offender. A man and women can commit the same crime but have different sentences
I really think its unfair. Is sentencing females to minimal punishment such as probation justified because women molesting boys is just different from men molesting girls? There are difference between men and women when it comes to sex offenses. For starters, men are far more likely to commit a sexual assult than women are. Men are also rearrested much more often.
Women who go through with this type of action have serious problems. Like the men, they have poor coping skills and trouble showing empathy.
In conclusion, I really believe that theres a double standard in male and female sex offenders. Society tends to “forgive and forget” female sex offenders for the crime they have commited even though they might be the exact same ones the males commit. I find it unfair

because we are all equal, women fought for their rights and the rights to be treated equally as men. So why not prosecute them for the exact same crimes men commit. There is no gender in laws. We are all human.

Works Cited

Colemen, Angela. Female-Offenders.com. 3 August 2010. 31 October 2012 <http://female-offenders.com/Safehouse/2010/08/female-sex-offenders-a-double-standard.html>.
Morris, Rebecca. The Seattle Times. 27 September 2007. 31 October 2012 <http://seattletimes.com/html/living/2003874026_predator10.html>.
Wilkins, Carol. The Bias in Favor of Female Sex Offenders. 28 March 2008. 26 October 2012 <http://voices.yahoo.com/the-bias-favor-female-sex-offenders>.