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?
Milo,
You are funny! I liked what you said on a previous thread regarding grey rocking your daughter. .. how you talk shiat to her to bore her. The dog has a boil on it’s butt that needs squeezing? That, my friend made me howl laughing. I paraphrased it earlier in this thread as I thought there was a troll in our midst and Hens replied saying my dog might need her anal sacs attending to.
Thanks milo. Making people laugh is a gift
Thanks, strongawoman – would you mind telling my husband that, he doesn’t seem to “get” my humor. LOL
Really, sometimes laughter is all we have left to do.
hens, here’s another one for you:
😆 < – now how did you turn green?
MiLO,
I LOVE dry wit and one liners. Will pander for a pun. Can hardly wait to read your posts for April Fools Day.
Laughed so hard my dog started barking…
Thank you. Thank you varrry mucshhh.
ps Hens, colon the words mrgreen colon
mr greens colon
Hens? Colon, like in a punctuation mark? Next to the L? and mrgreens is typed one word. No spaces.
colon mrgreen colon
I personally feel that the difference in male and female psychopathy is no them, but the gender gap in society. Because of our general acceptance of female inflicted abuse, and the fact that there are so many systems in place to support women who are victims of abuse (which only re-inforces their “victim” status), it is responsible for the shaping of the behaviors we see in the female psychopath. It allows them to maintain control of whatever situation they so chose. Ie. Child custody, false accusations, getting away with crime, etc. For this reason, we are less likely to see the types of violence we see in males. The females simply to need violence to get what they want and destroy others. In my own experience, I see so much of this. The way people generally think of men being the aggressor, and women being the victims, makes their manipulative schemes incredibly easy to pull off by comparison, as it fits “society’s” model and beliefs. We need to find some way to really educate people, starting with or children about these predators. If we can shift the perspective a little closer to reality in terms of abuse, and social predators, they would lose alot of their strangle hold on society.
It’s been said that ignorance is bliss, and in many cases, I agree. However, on this this subject, this could not be further from the truth.
Female sociopaths definitely exist. I had the unfortunate experience of being associated with one for some four months prior to her arrest and then have been dealing with the fallout of those months over the last 2 and 1/2 years. My life has been changed from having a rather comfortable lifestyle with decent income and keeping all my bills paid up to date to having to improvise every other month on how to pay what is due, choosing to have this one, or that one to be paid late, and about to be facing bankruptcy head on as I’ve run out of resources and ways to legally keep everything current. She manipulated me into charging items on my credit cards that I couldn’t pay for all the while promising she had or would have the money to pay me back so I wouldn’t have to be behind long on these charges; having me use them to obtain cash from ATM’s each month until I could no longer use them for that purpose any more, then finally STOLE one credit card and maxed it out before it was cancelled. Although some of the charges were dropped from my bill, some remained and I think the interest and of course the late fees were kept intact. I have finally paid one off, and have two more to go plus a finance company that she coerced me into borrowing money from for her purposes. She tried everything from offering sex, marriage, and love to me to resorting to falsely implying she was pregnant with my child, to having breast cancer, and all sorts of medical problems of her mom and child that needed treatment. She produced a copy of a CD that appeared to be legitimate showing she had money she could cash in the month after I finally realized she was lying completely to me. Her final visit to me resulted in her stealing one of my credit cards while I went to the bathroom and when I realized she had it, she had charged over $9,000 on it above what I had already charged on it mostly for her benefit. She was finally arrested about 6 weeks later, charged and kept in jail for around 6 months before she somehow managed to have the charges dismissed, but I think was sent back to another state to serve out a sentence she was on probation for, and possibly one other where she had violated parole. I was told she would likely get some 6 years to serve here due to her past record, but the district attorney at the time had to resign due to sexual harrassment charges from his co-workers and whoever took his place apparently decided to dismiss the charges against her despite having clear evidence against her of using the card falsely and w/o permission. Not sure why they dismissed the charges and can’t find out. I was never called to testify in court against her though I did testify in a bail hearing in which her bail was set at $100,000. I couldn’t believe they didn’t at least contact me to let me know they were dismissing her charges. The point is; she was a very manipulative and evil person. She lied to everyone even about minor things that had no bearing on anything; her family had no idea what she was doing, her fiancee’ thought he was about to get a “perfect” wife, and her victims believed her enough to contribute heavily to well being, including myself. She came across as a decent girl who needed a little help, or break in life. She had been married twice, had two daughters, one she hadn’t seen since shortly after she was born, and both her ex-husbands had custody of their daughter with her. At least some court was smart enough to not allow her to raise her children. She had never had a regular job since graduating from high school, and even though the police were able to trace her life of prostitution with both male and female partners, conning older men mostly, scamming others, and using her “love” partners only for her own well being and then discarding them like used tissue if they didn’t get rid of her first. Of course, to her, both her exhusbands were terrible men who either beat her, or emotionally abused her–truth was she lied to them, carried on prostitution and such behind their backs and never truly loved anyone, not her family, nor her mates. She fits the mold of a sociopath almost perfectly other than as far as anyone knows, she was never violent with anyone.
Help! Im beginning to wonder if my boss is a female sociopath. I need advice, she is extremely envious and makes her move behind closed doors.
I have now complained about what she says to management and HR however her comeback as always is either ‘oh I was only joking’ -therefore I am the one who looks bad as I cant take a joke, or it was a miscommunication ie. I didnt understand what she said. PPPPPPPPLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEAAAAAASSSSSSSSEE what a frikken cop out. but management are choosing to listen to this and all the lies!!! What can I do?
I have recorded the conversations but since I didnt tell her Im not too sure how legal this would be. Its clear in the recordings that shes deliberately trying to play with my mind. Please any advice to help here would be good.
Im in my dream job but realise she is really showing sociopathic traits (like my ex which is how I discovered what they were!!) Now I know, I need to know how to deal with female sociopaths not just male ones like my ex!!!