Mother of two girls Kasey Edwards revealed recently that lone male carers including relatives and friends have always been banned from babysitting or being alone with her young girls.

Her justification, in an alarmist ­article for Fairfax Media, sparked uproar from men and women alike, was based on statistics indicating men are usually the culprits when it comes to sexual abuse of kids.

Edwards’ husband is the only male exempt from their household gender fatwa.

The extraordinary all-but-one-man ban was a decision, she said, which the pair reached together based on “straightforward risk analysis: a cold, hard, unemotional reading of the statistical data”, she says.

Yet figures quoted included a 2011 Australian Institute of Criminology report that said male relatives committed 30.2 per cent of child sex abuse and 13.5 per cent was by the father or stepfather. And if we’re talking about risk analysis, what about this?

Girls need other men in their lives apart from dad.

As devoted as he may be, a father can only humanly offer one perspective, one reaction, one reflex.

It would be disastrous to raise young girls who think their father is the only good and decent man who exists on the planet because the rest are all evil predators they have to fear.

media_camera The suspicion with which our culture views men is driving male teachers away from the profession. (Pic: Supplied)

Social media expert Peter Sutton, who works with teens in schools across NSW, says there is no substitute for a face-to-face relationship in building a positive male role model for girls.

It is a sad reflection on life, he says, to wipe out all other contact with men.

“If a girl cannot talk to her dad and she is excluded from what should be trusted male friends, uncles, etc, then she will seek information elsewhere and that elsewhere is always the ­internet,” Sutton says.

“We teach girls what strength looks like, what empathy looks like and resilience. From a male perspective, it is important for girls to understand this.”

These days kids are blessed to have a male teacher because they are becoming as rare as hen’s teeth, a depressing result of the way our culture has come to view with suspicion men around young children.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports the percentage of male primary school teachers is declining in NSW.

In 2010, 19.8 per cent of primary school teachers were male — by 2014 this had dropped more than a percentage point to 18.7 per cent.

That’s now less than one in five. Male preschool workers can also offer a different approach to play and conflict resolution.

Then there’s reflecting the usual male/female balance of the workplace — the real world, in other words.

Yet all relatives — presumably this includes any living grandpas, uncles and cousins plus male friends — have all been banished behind her Do Not Cross crime tape.

Also rounded up are men involved in holiday and extra-curricular programs — in other words, a piano teacher, swimming coach or scout master cursed with both an X and a Y chromosome.

media_camera Kids today are blessed to have a male teacher, like Domenic Badolato from Sydney’s St Paul of the Cross Catholic Primary School, because they’re becoming as rare as hens’ teeth. (Pic: Justin Lloyd)

Edwards writes: “Group slumber parties are also out. When there is a group of excited children it is far too easy for one of them to be lured away by a father or older brother without being noticed.”

How does this negate absolute risk, when there are so many other dangers out there ready to trap and trip?

Edwards would argue that she only has her daughters’ safety at the core of her extreme view. But women can also be predators so why set up a young girl with a suspicion for life when the benefits of learning from male role models outweigh the threat?

Life is not a single-sex experience. And it is controlling, offensive nonsense to suggest only lone women can be the guardians of child welfare.

Surely it is more effective to raise daughters to be confident and self-aware.

Edwards said she is now relieved of the pressure to make a moral assessment of any lone male caring for her daughters. But how about we give men the benefit of the doubt and celebrate the unique and rewarding influence they can have on a girl’s life?

@whatlouthinks