in any crime report, gender specification is normally key to placing that steretypical plant into your barin.
seeing that man did this a man did that is (within reason of course) losing its shock effect, so the words pedo, pervert, monster etc etc areused. reporting that woman did this still causes ripples of shock, so if a headline just referred to a monster or a pedo, people would agree that the person is an evil inhuman monster. say it is a woman and the impact on social sensitivities is greater. saying it is an asian, black, muslim, gyspy , or assylum seeker has more or less the same effect.
yes they are monsters, but they also have a gender classification. try not to view it as a an abstract noun or a verb.