We know only too well that by far the majority of psychopaths are men. Or at least we think we know that. Could it be that the criteria used to identify psychopaths are biased towards men? After all Hare began his work in male prison.
Think about it. While behaving and being the way the PCL-R without doubt earns one the label psychopath, this is simply a list of symptoms. It says nothing about the underlying dynamics. If psychopathy is life centered on the principle of power (as opposed to love) and if it is therefore characterised by what Liane Leedom nicely calls ‘warped empathy‘, then wouldn’t you expect there to be more or less the same number of woman as men psychopaths? And wouldn’t you expect them to come across differently?
I am beginning to wonder whether there may be two broad types of psychopathy – a ‘male’-type and a ‘female’-type. I place these in quotes because, when I think about it, men with might be thought of as ‘female’ psychopathy come to mind and we all know about women with ‘male’ psychopathy. And yet, at the risk of being un-PC, I want to maintain these descriptors for now so that the difference I think I see doesn’t disappear.
A ‘female’ psychopath would not necessarily commit crimianl/antisocial acts like her male counterpart, but she woud be as power-driven, as toxically narcissistic as a ‘male’ psychopath. The control, the manipulation, the dishonesty, the selfishness, the callousness – all these would be present, but we might not recognise them for what they are because of 1. media portrayal and 2. medical diagnosis of psychopaths. The difference would come in the gendered style of their behaviour.
In my clinical work I have come across this phenomenon. For example, a woman I now consider to be of the ‘female’-type of psychopath didn’t come close to committing a crime and yet the way she mothered her daughter, my patient, came close to destroying the child’s mind. This seems to me to be a perversion of motherhood eqivalent to the perversion of fatherhood we read about on this website.
Do readers have any comments? I’m particularly interested in any examples you might have of how ‘female’ psychopathy – if such a thing does exist – manifests itself?
I definitely believe that female psychopaths go undetected because they are able to hide behind female stereotypes and exploit the advantages civilizations extend the “weaker” gender.
I’ve seen women use claims of pregnancy with threats of abortion to manipulate men, women and institutions alike into giving them anything and everything they wanted. I’ve seen women use melodramatic claims of abuse to disguise slander, maligning their targets so credibly that reputations were ruined beyond hope of repair. I’ve also seen women get pregnant for the sole purpose of manipulating a gainfully employed and honest man into marriage. I’ve seen beautiful girls marry hard working men, run through assets he carefully accumulated for over a decade and run back to doting parents within 2 years, leaving the men disillusioned and broke.
In each case the women represented themselves as objects of pity, a naturally protected class, or helpless victims. I just don’t buy it any more.
Yesterday I posted some remarks about a brief social exchange between myself and a woman I considered fundamentally unethical. She was a newly divorced woman who was unhappy because she could no longer afford maid services and regular spa visits with fancy manicures etc. What I didn’t mention is that she also bitterly resented the amount of money from her share of the marital assets that was going to her only daughter’s college education. The daughter was an idealistic young woman with a strong work ethic who got excellent grades and planned to spend a few years in the Peace Corps. She had a close relationship with her father that seemed to exclude her mother. It wasn’t hard for me to see why. All of the daughter’s qualities were described by her mother with mocking contempt. The girl was plain, bookish, naively idealistic, etc.
I’ve interacted with too many women like the one above to be fooled any more. They are uninhibited in their basic selfishness, their self-image as a protected class, frail, delicate and deserving of infinite tenderness, not to mention their extraordinary willfulness. They WILL have their way, and nothing and no one matters beyond their needs, their wants or even their whims!
They leave their husbands and children badly scarred, and they create havoc in church, the workforce and the courts as well. The worst anyone ever says of them is that they might be a bit emotional, “high performance”, “high maintenance” or silly. I think they know exactly what they’re doing, and simply don’t care.
Dear Ox Drover, I hope your son C’s life gets much better soon. What a horrible betrayal he suffered from his wife.
It is wonderful that C recognizes his room-mate’s girlfriend will be high-drama, and knows he should leave. As a lifelong idealist, I admit it’s taken me a ridiculously long time to spot high drama people and RUN AWAY without shame.
Good Luck and God Bless You Both C & Ox drover
,
Dear Elizabeth,
Thank you for the good wishes and he is doing just great I think in his healing! He tends to want to rescue others (that’s our family curse passed on for generations) but he now recognizes that as negative and futile.
Jesus put it nicely when he said “cast not your pearls before swine, least they trample themm into the mire and turn and rend (tear) you” and the other one I like is about ” a sow who is washed, returns to her mire.” No matter how you “wash” these human swine, they go right back into the nastiness. Offering them “pearls” of love and understanding is like offering these pearls to swine who will be unappreciative of the value of what they are offered and pissed off at you for not giving them what they really want”
My sons, like I am, are learning this and eliminating the “swine” in our lives—-
Your post above about the witch that came to your house with one of your husband’s buddies for the testosterone festival is a perfect example of women who move through society with impunity like a tick moving from dog to dog, as a parasite, using their looks and “sex appeal” as a meal ticket.
My son was comfortable around “handicapped” people (because I made sure he was exposed to enough people who were “handicapped” that he was not turned off by them and saw them as humans) so he was not turned off by her handicapped son and in fact, had the opposite reaction to try to “save” her and her son. So he was the perfect patsy for her situation to be her meal ticket. At the time she married my son, her son was not expected to live tooo many more years, and in fact, because of my son’s care of him, he lived almost 8 years after they married, well beyond the expected life spann for men with his type (the worst) of muscular dystrophy.
In fact, my son took off the last week of his step son’s life to stay with him and hold him in his arms as he finally died, (he only weighed about 67 pounds though he was 22 yrs old) while the “loving mother” was out with her BF playing bondage games and having “kinky sex” and drinking and drugging with her son’s medications. But boy could she play the pity card of the poor suffering mother. LOL I’m glad the son died before she went to jail.
She only got 8 months jail time (because I was able to keep her from getting bail) but 5 yrs probation and a no contact order. Her BF is still in prison (I got his approved parole revoked) but she found herself another one on the internet so she is “back in business” but she is down a notch or two, the guy is what we call “poor white trash” in these parts, no education, not much in the way of money, I think he has some form of disability income as he is legally blind, and from what I hear from others, he has a nasty P-ish disposition, so she is definitely down the food chain this time financially AND socially.
By the time she became involved with her BF, she knew he was an ex-convict, she knew he was a convicted 3-X child molester, she knew he had Hep C, and she knew it was illegal to buy him a gun and did it anyway. She did not think about the consequences of her actions apparently, or thought she was so smart she would never get caught (he obviously wasn’t too smart to get caught as he had a CONVICTION list of separate incidents a foot long).
She made her choices for whatever emotional reasons she could come up with, but none of them were wise or based on any kind of love for herself, her children or her husband, but based on a rage-filled mind which blamed others for her problems and unhappiness.
Getting her out of my son’s life was WORTH all the chaos and pain we all went through, if there had been NO other benefit. As it is, not only he is better off now, but I am and so is his brother, and we are away from my mother’s toxic influence as well. For that I thank God for his mercy and protection.
Elizabeth Conley: You would have loved to analyzed the women I worked with … always setting up their prey, using them for what they could get and then discarding them … to get promotions in the workplace.
I remember one supervisor. Nice guy. Was married and had a son from his first wife … I don’t really know the story about their marriage, but remember it was her fault why their marriage failed.
Anyway, the ink wasn’t even dry on the guy’s divorce papers when one of the female predators I worked with went right for the newest target. It made your head spin how accurate and precise her intentions were to use and abuse this guy to get her promotion.
Those of us who knew the characters, sat back and watched the show.
Long story short, she used him for several months, already moved on without his knowledge … when he cornered her in the workplace hallway … to ask her to sit down that evening and have a heart to heart.
The woman’s sleezoid female boss was her backup … as they both ran to the big boss and played the victim game … boo, hoo “we broke up and he couldn’t accept it … now he’s following me at work and harassing me”.
Well, of course, it was all hushed up and swept under the rug … she got her promotion, he (the supervisor) got a written reprimand in his work files.
The guy walked around in a daze for years after that attack … he was the wounded victim, never knowing what hit him.
Then years latter, he runs in to me in the parking lot of our new building. Asks me, if I had a minute. Sure, I said. What’s up? He said, Wini, I know you know so and so and this is what happened a few years back. I said, “I already know the entire story”… you were played from the beginning so she could get her promotion”. I told him I was sorry that this happened to you … we couldn’t believe how fast she went in for the kill on you … I mean, the ink wasn’t even dry on your divorce papers.
At least he knew the truth after our talk … which didn’t make me popular with the evil women were I worked … and the rest is history… but, to me, the man needed to know the truth.
Peace.
And Dr Steve if you ever want to dispel the notion that female psychopathy may not exist, go to your State Women’s Prison and speak with the CO’s. What goes on inside the wire is not something that the public knows or cares about usually. I have a case study (in pdf form if you want it) of a woman who journaled her experiences and it looks at prison rape, women sexually assaulting other women and gives a description that most in the outside world never hear about.
BloggerT7165: Just go undercover in any office USA today. You’ll meet and greet many female predators disguised as the dutiful worker bee in any work force.
After I retired from my job, I decided to temp for a while. The very first job I was sent on had a female predator included in our crowd of temps. She kept warming up to me because we were closest in age, plus the fact that we were both single women.
For weeks as we got to know each other, I told her that I was keeping my distance from socializing with co-workers due to what happened in my other job.
Of course, she didn’t pay attention to my concerns and kept chumming up to me. I knew this chummy, chummy attitude well, since my female co-workers did the same to me, years prior.
Sure enough, another week goes by and she kept asking my opinion of who I thought the boss was in a team of staff in the place of employment that oversaw our work. I told her that I thought the 3 were equals and it was a team effort. True to form for the female predator she said “Well, I think X (the male on the team) is the boss and I’m going to make my move on him. You can make your move on the 2 females, if that is what you are in to.
After that break conversation, we were all gathered in front of X. This woman was the leader for that meeting. Her conversation with X, had nothing to do with work, it was about her ensuring he knew she was divorced, got the house, EX husband was no where in the picture …. and, how she needs a man’s help in starting up her tractor type lawn mower.
X, ate the attention up and made the other 5 of us temps sitting there listening to the dribble of this woman flirting with the team leader.
I tried several times to interject getting back on to why were in the meeting … aka work details. To be ignored as the two flirted with each other. A few of the other temps tried to interject to get back to work conversation or if we could leave the meeting and come back at another time.
Both Team leader X and this woman predator ignored us as they thought we were all rude … and they went back to flirting with each other.
Sure enough, my PTSD from what I dealt with in my former job kicked into gear and without realizing it I said “Well Mr. X, do we all have to date you”?
I’m laughing now, because I really didn’t mean to say that and loose my cool … but, you got it if you bet I was asked not to return … and I’m sure Ms. Predator, not only had an affair with Mr. X who was very married … she probably is up the ranks of this company, dumped Mr. X and I’m sure if he’s still working there … he takes orders from her now.
Parting words from Mr. X to me … “I have young daughters myself”. I looked at him and didn’t say a word… as he abruptly ended the meeting and true to form, Ms. Predator was so horrified at my comment as she cried her crocadile tears … and Mr. X walked her off the floor.
The other temps looked at me and said “she’ll learn, she didn’t know what she was doing”. I said to them “you’re very young and naive … she’ll be your boss some day and she’s the only one of us temps that never attended college”.
Peace.
To All,
I do believe we as women have to be careful of whom we choose as a therapist too. Unfortunately there are (I have read) many sociopaths attracted to work in the areas of psychology. That seems to be the ultimate control a nefarious person with an agenda and an appetite to manipulate and destroy would be drawn to in profession. A woman hater or man hater could do devastating harm to people in therapy by blaming them for wickedness being perpetrated on them. I think a lot of people would not question a therapist and assume they are credible, informed and truthful. However, they have the ability to back up their beliefs with studies, briefs and so on to convince patients of their unquestionable certainty in their assessments. Problem is that most people don’t know (I believe), for every belief and truth a therapist may put to you as the absolute, there is as many that assert the opposite belief. So, how then do we know if we have a truly compassionate, sincere person who is trying to help. One thing is that gut feeling, intuit. Do you feel better or worse when you have talked to them? It took time for me to find the right therapist,but the best thing I heard was the therapist say that they also see a therapist…I knew this was the right person. This therapist also said they will not hire anyone who hasn’t been in therapy or will participate in therapy. That sounds tremendously healthy to me and it is the old axiom of “practice what you preach.” I think Wini, OxDrover, Indigo, Elizabeth and others have made some valid points on the subject here. I am not a therapist, but I still believe there is a larger part of the population that is male who are abusive. Must think about this more to enumerate my reasons why but I feel this way for reasons I need to examine further. Kind Regard, Breach
I Feel Like I am A qualified Master of therapy! :)~ Guduate of LFU Magna cum loud :)~ LOVE JJ
Dear Wini, Yes, in the workplace, I have come across a fair share of power hungery women and bullies. Infact I have also come across a fair share of manipulative and wily women too – you dont have to be a man to come across them. But I find in my private life, and at work, that I am becoming more aware of their wily and devious tactics. The nice demure smiles that cover a whole range of undercover manipulations. I am becoming much more assertive about protecting my boundaries, and looking back I have been emotionally ‘fleeced’ by a few women too. But thanks to what I have learnt, my radar is working quite well, and I am so much more aware of what I am being drawn into before I become committed to it. I was waiting for a friend over the weekend and I overheard two men talking – one was saying that he had met a woman on a dating website and that he had chosen her purely because of her blond hair and blue eyes. I think this is a lesson to us all, and I am realising it more and more, that one must find out about the personality behind the face before one commits anything.
I felt really strongly today that I had to turn down a new friend, who I felt had been ‘nice’ to me, in order to use me, then went awol. I wrote her a letter saying that I considered relatonships to be a two way process and that I felt that she had not respected or valued my friendship and that I no longer entertain relationships on that basis. I know it sounds harsh, but I am tired of being taken for a ride, and for once I put my foot down.
Hugs to you Wini.
Beverly and Inthebreach57: All my bosses had their Ph.D.s and higher … when I asked them over the years what their specialty was … of course, I got a variety of answers. I found it interesting that most said they studied psyche first, to learn about themselves, then just continued in the field because they put time and money into this field. Hence, why they ended up with the degree in it. To me, this meant they knew there was something wrong with them back before college days (LOL).
I remember one of these bosses, back in 1981 said to me about co-workers “Wini, YOU really care about these co-workers”?. I said “Of course, don’t you?”. He just shook his head. I was in my early 20s at the time of that conversation. That was my first red flag that this character was a psycho … thinking it strange that I would feel something (anything) for my fellow co-workers.
Before my asking them why they got their degrees … I just chalked it up that they were all avoided the draft to the Vietnam war, sitting the war out and getting as many degrees as they could, to prevent being drafted. I still feel this way, since any veteran that came into our building, these bosses (they were lower level then) didn’t care for … and hence, those vets ended up getting careers elsewhere. I found that very interesting that vets who fought for our country, put their lives on the line, don’t hang around with bosses like I had. Very interesting … very interesting indeed. Maybe the vets have courage, backbone, ethics, etc. … total opposite of those bosses.
Peace.