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?
The spath accused me of ‘stealing’ MY OWN engagement ring.
I didn’t wear it due to my work….it was kept in the safe. I would wear it when I went out, but as the years went on……he would control ‘when’ I could wear it. Like it wasn’t mine.
(ofcourse….NOW Iknow it was bought with drug money….that’s why the damn diamond was so big)!
Out of the blue.one day…..spath comes to me and says i’m planning on leaving him…..I was having a garage sale, and cleaning out all his hording shit….I had just bought a car from my cousin and he wasn’t at DMV to register it, so I put it in my name only….and he couldn’t ‘find’ the ring.
Yeah….plotting an exit…..SHIT!
The ring was bizaar…..he acused me of stealing it…..then my mother of hiding it…..he had this ‘plot’ all planned out….
and it went on for years!
UNTIL we moved….and he demanded I didn’t get rid of ANY pain cans from under the house…..we were to move them?
There was like 50 paint cans….wtf….i’m NOT moving paint cans….He said he thought he may have put the ring in a paint can.
MAY HAVE?????
Uh, I can ASSURE YOU….the only thing i’ve ever put in a paint can is a PAINT BRUSH!!!!
About 5 years of being accused and hearing shit about this ring…the paint can scenario comes up. Then he starts getting paranoid about the insulation in the walls.
Bottom line….HE stole my engagement ring!!!
ErinBrock,
Bizarre is right! They all act weird at times. When I did office work for my h-spath (working my full-time job plus putting in 20+ hours per week w/ his business), like a normal employee, I expected to get paid. He never bothered to pay me. I told him straight out that I wanted to be paid for my work. The h-spath responded by saying to me, “see, this is why we don’t work well together,” then he proceeded to move his office elsewhere, from the house to another location. He had no problem hiring another woman to do the same work, paying her. Nutty behavior! I give up – all you’re going to experience is craziness.
I think the engagement ring is what he used to ‘finance’ his beginning drug sales ‘business’.
Now….he’s up to just undet 100K a buy….too bad he got BUSTED!!!!!!
I guess that equvilates to losing the ring ALL OVER AGAIN!!!
🙂
ErinBrock,
I guess when he gets out of the slammer, he’ll have to start his “business” all over again, from scratch. Ah, rats! I feel SO SORRY for him.
Heres a kleenex for your tears darlen….
I think he’s still in operation!
Outlier.
i dont know if youve seen any of my earlier posts re my spath older daughter, but when she was a teenager,[she is now ,forty six,} she deliberately destroyd my art studio, including several of my oil paintings, some of which had been sold in a recent exhibition. She destroyed framed watercolours too, and art books, many of which had been prizes from Art college.She painted,”F—-cking B–ch’ in letters a foot wide overa commissioned mural Id started, of the resurrected Christ,-an foot high panel. All this, because I tore up one of her “Kiss” posters, that Id asked her nicely to take down from her bedroom wall.
Last June, I gave her an ultimatum,one apology for all of this destruction, plus other things shed done. naturally one year almost to the day later, no apology has been forthcoming, therefore I have to assume the relationshit is at an end.I have ne painting ofa seagull on my living room wall, which ended up with some red paint splashed onto it, from another one shed defaced. David manage d to peel off the red paint,
but I shuld have perhaps left ot on as areminder of psychopathic rage.Any surviving paintings that I left behind when I fled that house of horrors, my ex burned on a bonfire in the back yard, along with all my clothes and shoes.
Love, mama Gem.XX
geminigirl,
When I read your post to Outlier, I was blown away. What your daughter did to your artwork was inexusable. I have artists in my family tree, so I know that their artwork is “treasure” to them. All I can say is that I feel badly that a family member would do what she did. You’re right to say that your daughter displayed true psychotic rage as she destroyed and vadalized your pieces of art.
{{{{{{{GEM}}}}}}}} Yes, dear heart – the destruction of the closest thing to your heart, your work. I’ve seen it happen to others as well as myself.
When I lost all of my work to the ex spath, I grieved over it and did a series, 15 years later (last year) of completely emotional expressions. I can never get my work back or recreate it, but I can make new work and still pour my Self into each piece.
Brightest healing blessings to you, Gem.
I am inspired to write to you because your sight rarely contains stories about female sociopaths. Why is that?
Having read through your site, I am 100% sure now that I have encountered a female sociopath. I have no answers, but I wish to share my story with you, purely because other unsuspecting men out there may be able to recognise the signs in their potential or existing partners.
I met my partner in March on a dating site 3 years ago. I was just recovering from my divorce. Her name is Vikki B. I have 2 children and Vikki has one, who is autistic.
The very first thing I noticed was how quickly she wanted to meet me, rather than email or chat on the phone. The very first time we met she was charming, good company and made intimate advances towards me, stroking my legs, kissing me, and saying ‘let’s get that out of the way’. I was pretty much hooked that very first night.
The second time we met, at her house, we had sex until 4am. She had already told me that ‘she had an unusually male attitude to sex’, and said ‘it did not need to be wrapped up in hearts and flowers’. She also told me that night that she had ‘a sex buddy’ (J V), but she assured me she would stop seeing him. I should have run for the hills then, but I was hooked already.
I went on a pre-arranged holiday with my children to Tenerife for a week at the beginning of April. When I returned from holiday, and still after only knowing her for under a month, she invited me to come on holiday with her in July, with her son and her best friend of 6 years, Laura, and her family to the Dominican Republic. It was like a whirlwind of fun and great but S&M type sex.
In May, for my birthday, she paid for me to go with her to an expensive restaurant in the West End of London. She stayed over at my house. By now, she was telling me she loved me and sending expensive ‘love’ gifts to my home and to my work. She met my children in June, taking us all to a theme park. She met my parents and my family in June also, telling my mother how much she loved me, and how I was the ‘love of her life’. My parents really liked her. They were completely duped.
At the end of July, we went to the Dominican Republic as planned. It was here I saw my first sign of her hidden rage. One night after we had all had dinner, as we were walking past the hotel disco (which was completely empty) and her best friend, Laura, grabbed my arm and said ‘let’s dance’, and pulled me into the disco. We were the only one’s in there. Vikki flew into a rage at Laura and they never spoke, or sat for meals together again, for the rest of the holiday. One day on holiday, Vikki’s son was ill, could not leave the hotel room, and he was being sick. Vikki sat on the beach, leaving her son in the hotel room. We travelled home on the aircraft, away from Laura and her family.
When we returned from holiday, Laura contacted me by email to arrange a swap of holiday photos etc. She hinted to me, about Vikki’s infidelity, but refused to say exactly what. By now, her and Vikki were no longer friends. I could not believe that a 6 year friendship could end so suddenly and over something so trivial. But Laura described that as ‘the final straw’ and said I was a decent bloke who did not deserve her in my life. This puzzled me, but had planted a ‘seed of doubt’.Vikki ‘banned’ me from communicating with Laura.
In September, after a sailing trip with the children and her cousin, we stayed at my house. When Vikki left to go home, she had remained logged in to my home computer. Normally, I would have just logged her off, but ‘the seed of doubt over her fidelity’ got the better of me.
Sure enough, there were emails from Vikki to Laura (I still have them if you want to see them?) sent between April and June, graphically describing her sexual affairs with Jon Vine whilst I was holiday with my children, and also with a man,MG, who she had met in a Casino on Laura’s birthday night out at the end of April. From putting the dates together, I worked out that she was having sex with MG, whenever I had my children stay over with me, the night after she met my parents, the night after my birthday, the same night she had met my children for the first time, and all the time cleverly lieing to me in emails as to her whereabouts. She boasted to Laura about ‘having her cake and eating it’. The coldness of the emails was immense.Upon discovering the emails, I ended the relationship. However, she turned up at my door the following morning, begging forgiveness and saying it all happened ‘before our committment’. She swore on her son’s life, that it would never happen again and because I was so much in love with her, I forgave her and believed her.Laura told me that she had previously had several affairs behind her husbands back, including with his best friend (another ‘love of her life’), and with Laura’s brother. Her husband had died of cancer. Viiki’s excuse was because her husband ‘went off her sexually’ when she was pregnant.During the following months, we argued a lot. She ridiculed my insecurity, and denied sending me ‘vague’ texts (like ‘I have a lunch, or I am meeting someone important to me) and not being open about her days. But we moved in together the following August, despite me saying it was too soon! Strangely, there was then a shift. SHE became extremely insecure. Had panic and anxiety attacks when I went to work. Gradually, any women on my facebook page or acquaintances who I spoke to, were erased. She insisted on joining my facebook page, as a joint page. I was forbidden from having after work drinks, attending leaving parties, having any coffee breaks where females may be. Although, she wanted to keep her male friends and still meet them for lunch and coffees. One of those friends, Roy T, she told me after her husband had died, she had had a week long sexual relationship with, but they quickly realised it was wrong, and they finished it and stayed friends.Last October, she told me that if I attended my works Xmas party I would suffer for it. I had to attend as my bosses had asked me to head a table. She banned me from drinking alcohol at the Xmas dinner, and insisted I was home normal time. At a work conference I had to attend, she asked me for a delegate list and a photo of who was sitting at the dinner table. By now she had full access to my phone, home emails and had requested access to my work emails. I was completely emotionally isolated, and in a daze. The week before Xmas, she moved out. Moved in with her mother for a week and then rented somewhere new, telling friends and family, she had to get away from me! I was absolutely devastated as I really was in love with her. You may ask why I gave up everything for her, and all I can say is, when you’re in it, YOU JUST DON’T SEE IT. I would have done anything for her, and made many excuses for her. When we split up, I blamed myself entirely! But I was always asking my friends ‘am I going mad, is it just me’….I grieved for months, and then suddenly she contacted me again. Bombarded me with emails, describing us as being like Burton and Taylor, unseperable, she still loved me and wanted to try again. She swore, on her son’s life again, that there had been no one else sexually for the past 8 months. When I told her to leave me alone as I had moved on with my life and met someone new, she phoned me and said she had had a nervous breakdown, and was suicidal, but promised me wild sex if I came back. I panicked, quit my girlfriend, and met Vikki a few times for coffee. We even had sex once or twice…again she was telling me she could never move on without me.I phoned her everyday to check she was ok. Suddenly, the texts stopped coming back, she never answered the phone. I feared the worse, went round to see if she was ok…….and caught her shagging Roy T on her sofa! If you would like any further information, please don’t hesitate to ask, I would not want this to happen to anyone in the world………she is a Vile Deceitful Liar…………..but she has her evil hook in me.
I’m not sure if she is a Narcissist or a Sociopath, what do you think?
This women would always grab me, and say I love you and physically position my head to show affection. Young, about 26 years old, 100 pounds with a full figure. Absolutely sexy and more than likely manipulates 98% of all the men on earth of whom 86% get infuriated. I am neutral, I jog 10 Km’s a day, and cannot get angry at anything because I am high on endorphins; and have encouraged her to do the same. She would always converse with me the whole day. When someone approaches her, she does not know me at all. Actually, being 63 I tend to almost laugh at this behavior, but I really have compassion for this person and I simply will not vacate her.
She always talks about her boyfriend who is known to be a drug lord in Juarez, Mexico. That she broke up with him after living with him for six years and now she is trying to find a new boy friend. Extremely friendly when meeting people and absolutely depressed and almost to tears when telling the scenarior about her boy friend. She tells the same story to all. She wears his engagement ring. And further, she tells every that she loves them, and that most people believe it. As to me, having unique behavior experience and being sensitive to abuse; I tend to love those that love me and also my enemies. My love is unconditional, based on the constraint of care. I live alone and am extremely extraverted. Who knows I may be a sociopath as well, even though I am sensitive to my surrounding.
Recently the person of comment quit her work and I could no longer find her. To my suprise she called me up on the phone, to go drinking of all places at her parents home. However, she picked me up and took me to her home is an SUV that looked typical of those in the drug business. Almost afraid to get in, knowing the climate in Juarez these days. It was a skinner box ordeal to find my way back home after being dropped off. I had a few drinks and talked to her family, and helped her nephew do home work. When leaving, I asked her about directions, because she wanted me to visit her again. When I did she got absolutely furious.
A couple of weeks later, around the end of September, she called me up crying on the phone and said that her boyfriend of 6 years had been murdered. When I saw her again, the woman got back with her boyfriend, and was now married with a wedding ring attached to the engagement ring.
The woman returned to work, and is now exhibiting the same behavior as before, except that she really goes after the super heavy men and those that look asif they may be drug dealers. I know for a fact that this person is a heavy drinker.Everything that this person says, has no truth in it and is very manipulative. However, I tell her that it is her duty not to love me or to show affection, that it is my duty to extend with opened arms my care for her unconditionally. Now, this person I know is trying to build up the endorphins by sex, but I believe this is increasing her state of bizarre mental behavior rather than stabilizing it. Now she talks about her boy friends. Her best friend is now a girl friend. But this is because I believe she is finding a sexual release to build up the endorphins rather than to change her behavior.
Question, comment, criticism and social observation may be returned not only through this forum, but in my e-mail which is DELETED BY ADMINISTRATOR. I do have concerns about this behavior and if there is any therapy that will provide relief for this intrinsically intelligent and pretty woman. I am not looking at my profile as being a male, but rather what can be done to allow this women to be independent to the point that she is no longer co-dependent.