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?
quest: Funny … women can spot a psycho female, and men can spot the male psycho … it’s when “they”, the psychos want to put their hands on the individual … alone, is when we can not see.
In platonic situations (e.g., work, shopping, hanging out with friends, stopping in to an eatery for a bite to eat) I can spot them a mile away.
Then I think when we a vulnerable, that’s when they pounce, working their magic playing us right from the beginning.
I remember when I met my EX … I told him, sorry, but I’m really burnt out over the dating scene and want to be on my own for a while. Me too, he said. I feel exactly the same … I just didn’t want to tell you that in case I offended you. I said great. No offense taken. We can just be platonic friends. You always can use new friend in your life.
That’s how my relationship with the monster started. Thinking I had found another adult that was amazed at all the selfish individuals out there … that he too was taking a breather from dating.
Quest … I know too many women like your EX. I always wondered why men would ever want to date a woman like that. They are so transparent to real women … and now I know how they can con and manipulate all at will … who ever, when ever, what ever they want. Just by letting your guard down for one spit second, that’s all it takes … not paying attention that you (we) are in grave danger… for they are death … death to your soul.
One of the ultimate psychopathic fem fatales that I worked with … the carbon copy of Scarlette … from Gone with the Wind … started dating her boyfriends friend from childhood … her boyfriend is no longer with us and his childhood friend is doing life for murder … and she doesn’t feel a thing. To this day, she’ll boo-hoo … all about what happened, but is absolutely clueless to how it all happened … or why it happened.
I felt like screaming Chic … look in the mirror! No matter how much I tried to explain the ramifications of her actions, she sat their totally innocent and clueless. She’s another one that should be incarcerated in the cell next to the childhood friend that shot his friend as he slept, right in his face. Closed casket, for their was nothing left from his shoulders up.
Peace.
Well , why do guys go for psychopathic women . They seem to be more woman than most woman , at the start . The sex was great , at the start . I guess some of us men are easy marks . What I have noticed for myself is that , up untill now I have been basically attracked to psychopathic women . Not only that but these same kind of women are attracked to me . I should rephrase that . Psychopathic women like to hunt me like a lion hunts a wilder beast . What the hell is going on . Of coarse now I see things in a whole new light . Instead of me thinking love at first sight , I’m thinking yikes the devil is in the room , run…..fast . I have run into quite a few psychopathic women lately . The creepyist being one that said she had been married twice , to two men who were both psychopaths , at different times of coarse . Both husbands had died of prostate cancer , apparently . I was not about to hang arround to find out what her definition of prostate cancer was . Another one I met through a friend while we were at the bar . She was dating a psychologist . By the end of the evening I new she was a psychopath and that her psychologist boyfriend did not have a clue what he was dating . We even talked about psychopaths during the evening and how her X was a psychopath . The psychologist even agreed with her . Here was a woman that was over 50 and could have easily passed for 30 . I’m almost at the point where if a woman looks way younger than her age the alarm bells are going off . If she also has one of those exaggerated halloween laughs , thats it , I’m out of here .
Today as I was driving to work it dawned on me that psychopaths are not as unrational as the books would have us believe . Whats confusing is that psychopaths have an agenda . It is the agenda that is not rational to normal people . To a psychopath that agenda is rational and what they then do to achieve that agenda is calculated right down to the last detail . This is not the symptoms of an irrational person . I think that once a normal person realises what the game is , it suddenly begins to make some kind of sense . The agenda of the psychopath , I believe , is the taking of someones soul or essense so that they can no longer think for themselves . You then have a zombie toy slave , if you will . Whats the point you may ask . Well that I am not sure of . Maybe they like to collect things or maybe they feel that if they take your soul away you won’t leave them . You are then their psycological prisoner . Whatever the agenda it sure as hell aen’t nice for someone on the recieving end .
quest: Make NO mistake, she only made you believe that you picked her up. She sized you up before you knew she was there … and you were going to be captured by her anyway she wanted to capture you.
Made your head spin, didn’t it.
Did you ever hear or read how Leona Helmsley got her future husband (who was married when they met) to propose to her? She bought herself dozens of red roses and sent them to herself … the day or night she knew Harry Helmsley was showing up at her apartment. Harry was so jealous that another made had affections for Leona, he proposed right there and then. Of course she accepted, she played him right to the T … and his loving faithful wife of over 40 years … was no more after that evening that Leona played her hand so great. Harry never knew what hit him.
Peace.
Dear Quest,
They have several agendas, for some it is your money, for others it is your soul, for some it is the sex (many are sex addicts.)
I actually think that the sex “addicted” ones know that WE (non-Ps) have something in sex that they don’t have, and by using different people (sometimes hundreds) they keep hoping to find that “elusive” something that they sense we get and they don’t.
Of course, with normal people, sex is a bonding ritual between people who care about each other, not a “bam, bam, thank you, mam” coupling. With the psychopath it is simply an animalistic coupling, nothing more.
Psychopaths who are physically attractive have more chances to “score” than people who are not so physically attractive, so they get a better chance to find more victims. (especially women) But ultimately, we all age so eventually even that “edge” will fail them and they will not be able to find as many victims, unless they are quite wealthy. Money and power are great “come ons” to attract others of the opposite sex. Anyone who thinks Anna Nichole Smith married her 90+ yr old “husband” for his charm or looks just doesn’t know what the “coin” of the relm can buy. You don’t see many men his age that are POOR with a 20-something bride. LOL
That “Clark Rockefeller” guy had enough charm, I understand, that he managed though he wasn’t all that “attractive” physically, and obviously had no money, just the “appearance” of it. The homeless guy that bilked the woman out of money for gambling by pretendig to be a millionaire is another one. He hung out the “carrot” of being “rich” to someone who was vulnerable, and then took HER MONEY.
Our own psychopaths hung out a “carrot” for each of us, and then we trotted along after the carrot like a donkey reaching for the prize. Sometimes the carrot was “love” and other times “a lifestyle” or whatever our dreams were–they made a carrot for us to follow. But in the end, like Aloha says “a carrot made of chit, still tastes like chit.”
Yeah Oxy and some of us were busy getting beat up by other psychopaths to the point of exhaustion … and couldn’t see because the psychopath pretended to be there for her (meaning me).
I know none of this would have gotten so out of control if it were just my EX and I … but I didn’t not have the luxury of being a one on one relationship, for many people worked on my downfall and my EX was either a ringer for them or smart enough to play me for what he could get at my most vulnerable.
Everything … from the loans to my possessions to my vehicles, were all played by everyone involved. Let me see, I’d say … the attorneys and their junior attorneys and my managers and their cronies, then personnel, affirmative action, the union … hhmmmmmmmmm … my best estimate is 70 people every day working on me … versus me (solo).
And Oxy, I did the best that I could do. I didn’t lie, I didn’t con, I didn’t pull in reinforcements … I did this solo, on my own.
Maybe my situation doesn’t look good on the human level … but then there is God’s time frame … not mine. Until God judges and decides, I consider the ultimate verdict still has yet to come.
So it’s up to me to change my perceptions of all that happened … that being … stop looking at it from the human perspective and realize it only matters on the spiritual perspective.
There is a reason that God has any of what happened to us, happen. God uses his children in ways that we can’t even fathom, never mind question.
Peace.
Oh, yes, kick you when you are down! How well I know that scenario! As I lay on the ground, my legs splayed out like a donkey with 2,000 weight on it’s back and couldn’t get up, my P son wrote me a letter and told me to “Get up, Mom, you’re just not trying!” LOL OMG how that hit me between the eyes!
At least I can laugh about it now, but at the time I sure couldn’t. I felt like I was surrounded by hostile terrorists all with spears poking them at me through the brush! I didn’t know which way to turn. But speaking of “turn” I think it is time for me to TURN IN! Nite nite guys! Sleep well and peacefully!
Oxy: I am guilty of loving my EX and trusting my EX. I am guilty of giving my bosses respect and more credit than how they actually acted. I did give my attorneys credit and respect that they were officers of the court, took those vows seriously and knew they were sacred to their profession, as well as to God and all God’s childrens.
Never in my wildest imagination did I believe that people could have their minds, hearts and souls clouded by so much vice.
As for me, all I can do is forgive, keep peace in my heart, maintain my serenity and love people in a positive and harmonious way … and step out of the way when they want to throw their shoe on top of my head.
I do believe in God and I do believe that we all have good inside of us … it just gets clouded by earthly vice and their own harbored anger.
Peace.
Quest
The Agenda was Chaos!
Like a having your entire body covered in TICKS to Suck every drop of life from you and then walk away to feed off another.
From my research I was very lucky! My Psyco was not able to control himself and was and is Unstable! BUT that lure of sex controled me for 6yrs. He is Beautiful!
Ya know what , I knew this would be my undoing I tryed to warn myself but I was Hooked with a Triple ( trible ) Barbed titanium hook. LOVE JJ
Speaking of God and Jesus. I was always very moved by the cruxifiction scene, and since I was 6 year old I read in my children’s bible and I had to cry every time on Good Friday. I could SO relate to Jesus hanging on the cross saying “My Father why have You abandoned me???” He also did everything “from the book”, according to scriptures, and in the end he was abandoned and left in misery. Even the sky darkened, and there was an earthquake. It was exactly like I felt. I just did not know WHY I felt this way. Just this summer when I was driving alone through the wast Swedish forests on my holidays it dawned to me and I could cry the same tears of the 6 year old and KNOWING AND FEELING THE SAME TIME why. Jesus was also idealized by his followers, then he also was devalued and discarded, he had to take the blame and stayed and it got worse, he was denied even by Peter, and in the end he had to go to hell, but he did resurrect and left everything behind. I had LOTS of difficulties accepting “God father’s plan” with Jesus. Did God (Father!!! I was relating this to MY father whose name is also Peter) have an agenda too putting my hero Jesus through such unspeakable horror????? I started to question the whole concept, at age 6. I still do sometimes. And when I see today my Ps at the workplace who go effortlessly from gaslighting me to their weekly prayer group I just feel sick.
The jouney between the brain and the heart, 30 centimeters, took me 46 years. I KNEW and FELT it since I was 4-5 years old, that it was not right how I got treated, but I refused/ could not connect feeling and thinking together. It was too horrible to admit that the parents do not love us children, making us feeling abandoned. I took over some of the parent’s duties to give parent’s feelings to my younger siblings, caring for them, not abandoning them. I failed of course. I was also “counseling” (at age 12) my parents in their difficult “relationship” (my father is a P and my mother is a N). I failed too.
Last week I decided to give up medicine as I realized that it was my mother’s wish that I became an MD. (she was at the time not allowed to study, and then she was far too lazy to go for it; she even wanted me to go into plastic surgery!!!). I want to study psychology. I am really cleaning up my life. For the first time in a long time I could sleep very well, and I can breathe better, as if a cast has gotten off my chest. I told two of my friends about my decision, and to my great astonishment both said “Finally! Congratulations!” As they said to me finishing the relationship with the P. Samuel Beckett said: ‘No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’ Very accurate. I am an expert at “failing better”. And I am starting to enjoy it, and see myself “falling up the stairs”. I wish you all a very pleasant weekend!
Dear Libelle,
WONDERFUL!!!! I am so happy for you!!! What wisdom in Beckett’s saying! “No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail Better.”
That so applies to my life, I have failed and failed, and now I am “failing better”
Keep us posted on where you go from here in your healing journey. I love your posts and your wisdom. (((hugs))))