Four women who were found guilty of forcing toddlers to hit each other with objects have escaped jail, having been given a suspended sentence. The women filmed a 2-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl, and forced them to hit each other with a magazine and a hair brush. When the 2-year-old boy refused to fight, they called him a "wimp" and a "faggot."

When the children's father — home from Iraq — found the video, he was searching for film footage of the children merely playing. He reported the abusive women to social services, and now the children's grandmother has care of the children.

In a police interview, one of the abusive women — Carole Olver — said, "I didn't see any harm in toughening them up; I done the same with my own children."

Analysis: Negative development for men. Thousands of military men are risking their lives for their country, yearning to reunite with their families. For such a man to learn that such abuse existed, then to report it only to have the perpetrators let free, is simply an injustice.

Women are routinely given less severe sentences for their crimes, compared to men. Men can be separated from both their children and their own homes merely on the word of a woman, via a restraining order. But even when a man has videotaped proof of women committing a crime, four women are essentially given a slap on the wrist. This double-standard in the application of the law hurts men, imposing harsher punishments on flimsy evidence. It hurts society by teaching women offenders that the consequences of their actions are not serious. Most of all, it hurts children by separating them from their fathers on the flimsiest of evidence, and by assuming children are always better-off when left in the care of women.

Women must be treated with the same harshness — or mercy — as men, in criminal procedings. Prosecutors should have the courage to pursue justice against female criminals, without fear of public backlash merely because the suspects are women. In this case, the judge should have imposed jail time — but instead allowed four proven child abusers to go free.