I AM so glad I wasn't born a man.

This has got nothing to do with facial hair or the fact that woman can have babies while men can't.

It's that women don't automatically get branded as a pedophile or a sexual predator based purely on their sex.

I was doing a story last week on a single dad offering his help for free to other single women.

On the surface, it seemed like an honest gesture of goodwill.

I don't know the man and I can't pretend to know his intentions.

But what disturbed me was a phone call I had from another woman who had called the police about him.

This man had approached her with an offer for help and, from what I can tell, had also suggested they might end up going on a date.

The woman was concerned he was looking to take advantage of vulnerable women.

The reason? "Nothing is for free in this world."

The fact that a man can't offer his help to a woman without being assumed to have an ulterior motive makes me feel tired and angry.

What is wrong with the world that so many of us assume the worst?

Even one of my male colleagues admitted one of the first things that popped into his mind when seeing an elderly man at a swimming pool videoing kids was "is he a pedophile?".

A male associate of mine used to work in child care, but he quit as he was fed up having to try to reassure mothers he had a Blue Card.

He would never consider picking up one of the children who had hurt themselves or giving them a hug in case someone misread his actions.

Peter Slipper's text messages to James Ashby also raised some interesting questions. Would it be considered anything if women ended texts to each other with XX?

Off-duty paramedic Matt Petersen, a father of three, summed it up nicely last year when he spoke in the Daily of how he was caught between wanting to help a girl on the side of the road or driving past because someone might misinterpret his actions.

There are many bad people in the world, male and female, and we need to be cautious. But we also need to be fair and believe in the good of people.