A 25-year old man working on a Dutch school was accused by a 12-year old girl for touching her inappropriately and immediately fired without any proof. This means he also lost his VOG (declaration concerning behaviour) and can never work with children anymore.

So far, so bad. But now. The man himself went to court to fight all these decisions. The centre-right newspaper AD (‘general daily’) published the story, giving him ample room to tell his side of it, and what a nightmare it meant to him. And AD itself shared it on Facebook.

Lots of reactions, from both men and women, but more from women(!). Except for a few exceptions, massive support for the man. Mentioning that young girls can very well make false accusations and that some of them play outright crazy or dirty games; that men are less and less allowed to show affection at all, ‘the world is becoming a fridge’; a woman told about a friend and her having very good contact with a male teacher, but a female teacher reporting it for a futile touch on the shoulder and messing it up for no reason at all. That there are double standards and women get away with a lot more than men. That physical touch isn’t always sexual, let alone harassment or assault, and that hugs (though not specifically in school situations) can be a healthy thing from both men and women, if done carefully. The discussion was many-sided and very polite from all sides; exceptions to that were simply ignored.

Two things became clear: MeToo may still be alive, but it isn’t everywhere obscuring the other side of things anymore, and it has become totally normal again to bring up that other side. And even though some contributors remained a bit distrustful to men who were ‘too friendly’ towards kids, this was not the general tendency and no way people, even men, with other opinions were attacked in a dirty way. Men who were affectionate towards children were even a bit applauded, and many people made the remark that this wasn’t exactly the way to get more (much needed) men to work in schools. It was such a relief and a feast to read. (Btw no feminist or anti-feminist jargon at all.)

For the Facebook members I link the article plus discussion; hopefully they have a translation program or know Dutch.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02vig7Zw1eVR97nmKgxgwGW8PjLhU8hTm1iyJDY3Zfrsj5YLo29XKuycxM7KsUXctjl&id=100064759384137