Nearly all of the research into sociopathy has involved evaluating the personality traits of adult men in prison. The reason for this is that researchers have easy access to adult prisoners and more prisoners are male. Think about it—how else would a researcher find sociopaths to study? The problem with studying sociopathy in male prisoners is that we learn nothing about sociopaths who never get arrested. We also don’t know if the research results apply to women.
There is actually very little research data available regarding sociopathy in non-criminals and in women. The little research that has been done reveals that sociopathy in women entails two or three main features that are similar to those found in men. Namely, female sociopaths lack empathy and enjoy manipulating and exploiting others. Violent and impulsive behavior is less common in sociopathic women. This fact may make them more dangerous, as they more easily blend in with the rest of society.
The key traits of sociopathic females
A recent study of adolescent girls in detention performed by Crystal L. Schrum, M.A. and Randall T. Salekin, Ph.D. of the University of Alabama and reported in Behavioral Sciences and the Law, revealed the core qualities that best described young female sociopaths. The teens were callous and lacked empathy, had a grandiose sense of self worth and were conning and manipulative. They were also likely to engage in impersonal sexual relationships. Importantly, the researchers revealed that female sociopaths did not necessarily have “shallow emotions.” Again the lack of impulsivity and shallow emotions may make a female sociopath more difficult to spot.
Please read the true Lovefraud story of Michelle Drake. Notice that female sociopaths victimize other women as well as men. This vignette illustrates many of the core qualities of a female sociopath. As I read this case, I was painfully reminded of the male sociopath who was once part of my life; so perhaps the similarities between male and female sociopaths are more important than the differences. What struck me about the story is the elaborate con she perpetrated for really very little money. This case illustrates something truly amazing about sociopaths—the degree to which they derive pleasure from conning others. Their hoaxes are often outlandish and grandiose.
A friend of mine, who was once in law enforcement, says that conning is the sociopath’s profession and that that he/she may not even do it for the money. Conning is instead the work they have a passion for. As my friend says, “When a sociopath wakes up and opens his eyes in the morning, it’s show time!” I can envision Michelle saying that to herself as she donned the fake pregnancy costume.
The public and the courts are sympathetic toward female sociopaths
The case of Michelle Drake also illustrates something else about female sociopaths. The courts are more likely to go easy on them. This attitude of the courts may reflect the fact that many people excuse the behavior of female sociopaths and feel sorry for them. Look at the cases of women in the news lately. We don’t know if the women involved are sociopaths, however, these cases do illustrate the double standard that exists in how we judge female as opposed to male antisocial behavior. Several women teachers have been found guilty of sexually exploiting students. They were treated very leniently for the same crimes that would have put a man in jail for many years.
The NASA astronaut arrested for attempted murder is another example of the way people treat women differently and don’t take their crimes seriously. This week, a restaurant owner in Florida held a benefit night to raise money for the astronaut’s family. News commentators have been quick to voice sympathy for the astronaut, yet I have not heard a one express sympathy for the victim. I remind you that it is alleged that the astronaut sprayed her victim with mace and planned to kill her.
In conclusion, sociopathy is less common in women. Women who are sociopaths may not appear as shallow as men who are sociopaths. They are also less angry and impulsive compared to men. Although violence is less commonly perpetrated by women, if you are the victim, these statistics don’t matter.
Yes, I know exactly what you mean. If it were ME, just being the stubborn witch that I am, I would use the hidden cameras and then prosecute her with the law, just to show the neighbors that SHE was the problem all along. But, that’s ME.
Maybe SHE will move then! When she is outed! LOL
Good luck!
Cameras and digital pocket audio recorder are a must. They have kept me out of jail on so many occasions I can not count them. My ex, on exchanges of our child, would call the police at least once a week. She would claim violence, threats, assaults, property damage, etc……. I had a video monitor system with a power inverter from Sam’s club in the trunk with the little cigarette packet sized camera mounted with velcro so that I could just stick it up no matter what the angle I parked. I would start the tape when I left home an hour and a half away and not turn it off until I got home. She would claim I would come to town early or leave late and stalk her, etc…..
I proved so many felony false reports and perjuries, my attorney quit counting. Nothing was done to her. But I was regularly being stopped by police, followed by police and in court bringing the tapes and recordings. The expenses were enormous but without them, I would be in jail like so many other innocent men.
OxDrover gave you the best advice ever and supported by four of my attorneys and more litigation psychologists than I ever wanted to know much less have to pay.
My ex even managed to make my self-protection tapes look like stalking and somehow “bad” that I used them to prove my innocence over and over again.
If she is really exposed, she may move out. These people are all about the image. How else can they maintain their scams.
Dear Patriot dad,
You are a man after my own heart! Good job with the tapes for the child custody and visitation!
My X-BF-P burned his prior girlfriend’s house, after I broke up with him I figured he might try something similar on mine, so I made sure he knew that I had video survelience AND that my two sons would seek revenge on him. I wouldn’t have let them even if they had wanted to, but the P didn’t know that so having him afraid of my kids didn’t hurt anything either. So he hasn’t burned my house! LOL I even told him that if lightening sturck my house and I SAW the strike, I would still blame HIM! LOL
Good job, dad! Maybe you can use the same tactics against the neighbor, EXPOSURE will take the acadamy award out of her performance. LOL
Dear Scout, I sympathise with you and it is so unfortunate that you are living next door to an anti social. It is a horrible feeling to be fearful of what you may find when you get home, or be afraid to leave your home for fear of damage.
Where I live we pray for rain, because that keeps the anti socials in, the darker evenings keeps the younger ones in. I have endured a fair amount of anti social behaviour where I live and we do not look forward to the long school summer holiday. I never go on holiday for more than a week, because I fear for my property. Alot of trouble is causing by a minority of the same teenagers and small children. Poor parenting I think is probably the root cause. There is one particular young man who lives a few houses up from me who has an ‘anti social behaviour order’ from the police. He doesnt go to school, his named is tagged on walls with drug pictures and because he is often up to tricks at night, speeding up and down at 3am on an unlicenced motorbike, he wakes everyone up. I have spoken to him and his mother on more than one occasion when he was lobbing bricks into my garden, but it is obvious that he cares not a jot. The geographical layout, where I live, makes it easy for them to get away with it. I have spoken to these children and their parents on many occasions about damage done to my property and I usually get abused. Most people here keep their heads down. There is a climate of fear, and I have spoken to people who have challenged and have also been abused, and this scares them off taking it further.
There is no community, so people are on their own. People here get away with behaviour that in more upper class areas, would not be tolerated at all. I think there were some articles written about anti social children in the UK – well I live in one such area and I have seen and experienced first hand, what they do and how they do it. I have my house for sale!
Dear Scout, In the UK, you would be advised to keep a log of events and pictures that you can show to the police. In my experience, I have tried ignoring anti socials, often they just move on, but if they feel like targeting my property, they just do it. So in my mind, either way is not a total solution, confronting them just inflames them and they will be sure to get you back another day – like anti socials do – they want to make you pay. If you ignore them, they step up the action. I used to work as a community worker and when people group together there is much more power. Unfortunately when one person is bearing the brunt of the trouble, neighbours will often not intervene. In the good old days, people would not have tolerated this kind of behaviour.
Well, Beverly, in some ways the “good old days” are here in my rural area–after the Crazy across the road SUED me for $50K$ for my husband “trespassing” on his land to DIE in the plane crash, the neighbors RAN HIM OUT OF THE COMMUNITY! The store wouldn’t serve him, the local veterinarian wouldn’t treat his animals, etc. so, sometimes the neighbors will help. Since my family has lived here since 1833 and he had only moved in here 10 yrs before, and had already alienated everyone anyway, the law suit for “HIS” DAMAGES–mental suffering! LOL
It never got to court of course, but my attorney told his attorney that IF IT DID there was not a jury in this county that would give him a dime, and there was a good chance they would TAR AND FEATHER him on the way out! I actually did have people offer to kill him for me! NO joke.
Of course in Scout’s situation HIS OX is the only one being “gored” so the neighbors who are NOT a “community” just keep their heads down. Which is a shame our society has come to that. One of the reasons I moved back here was I loved the SENSE OF COMMUNITY here, even now. Maybe not as much as it was when I was a kid, but still a sense of something besides a “house” among people you don’t know.
OxyD is that the guy who wouldnt pay you for renting your land? LOL yes, it is all crazy isnt it. It just shows you where people are at in their heads when they want to sue for a tragic accident on their land – where are their priorities??? We have a big suing culture here in the UK too. Some people make a living out of repeatedly tripping over paving stones in the street, so that they can sue the local council for compensation – even members of the same family have done the same thing!! LOL
Community is the one thing I mourn in its passing. People here have become very insular. Its is shame and also very dangerous. Things have changed alot.
patriotdad: thanks for the advice. your scenario with your ex sounds like an emotionally draining endeavour but it sounds like you have some good ways of disproving the lies.
beverley: when you say that confronting them inflames then and ignoring them causes them to step up the action…BINGO! there is no winning. this woman is hell-bent as i said on making life miserable. I have great difficulty understanding how anyone can be so mean spirited…it seems like such a waste of energy to spend time being so hostile and destructive. What is the satisfaction or payoff for her?
and no, i’m not moving. we built this house and i’ll be darned if anyone is going to run me out…but ignoring her doesn’t seem to help. beverley, how sad you’re moving because of nitwits interfering with your right to live in peace on your own property.
re: the camera suggestions: in canada we have privacy laws. i could only place the cameras to watch my property. she could continue to heave stuff over the fence without entering my property to do so and i would have no photo of her face, just the crap being flung over and be out the cost of the camera. any other ideas.
thanks again for your input, oxdrover, patriotdad and beverley.
Dear Scout. I understand and hear what you say. It is hard to say what the payoff for her is. Is she mentally ill? Was she living there before you built your home there? Do you have any dialogue with any of her family? Why is she so angry?
I have made my place into a lovely home and I have a beautiful garden. When people come to look at my place, they have all said, we like the house, but we dont like the area. For me, it is no good living in a beautiful house, if I feel under seige just over my wall. I value my peace of mind and contentment at the top of my wellbeing list, so I will just make another beautiful home somewhere else.
Here in the UK, if you report harrassment to the police, they will set up a camera. But I see your dilemma, but there is more than one way to skin a cat. There must be clauses to the privacy laws. The same here, local councils have cameras all over every town, I think the UK has a huge amount of cameras everywhere. The local councils had started to film people dropping litter, but they are not allowed to do that, because of peoples human rights.
Dear Scout–I thinnk I would figure out some way to GET A PHOTO of her doing it–then maybe confront HER directly and say, LOOK, if you do this again I will show this to all theneighbors—then if she threatens to take it to the police–when the police show up, say “WHAT FILM?”
I think that she is doing this for EXCITEMENT and malice, she has nothign better to do so she wants to create chaos–so if you can get proof, you can make her back off. That kind of person is soooooo careful of their “reputation” and if she knows you can expose her (even “illegally”) she should back off.
Just like me making my X-BF-P think that my kids would take revenge (like burning his house) as long as HE THOUGHT it, it put the brakes on him. SOMETIMES A GOOD BLUFF is all you need. You just have tomake sure that the person you are bluffing won’t CALL YOUR BLUFF. So picking your subject is important. your neighbor is doing this I think so she will have some “gossip” and some “sympathy” from the neighbors because her life is BORRRRRRING–she gets ATTENTION.
So if you can convince her that you will EXPOSE her for a FAKE to the neighbors—she will DO ANYTHING to keep that from happening—including LEAVING YOU ALONE.
It is the only way I can see that you can “win” in this one.
Beverly, no, this was NOT the same guy who wouldn’t pay the rent on the land, this was a neighbor who came in and bought land across the road from us. He was ADHD and very socially incompetent, he was a pest and a nuisence and was always over at our airport telling wild tales about what a “hero” he was, a CIA, NAvy SEal, FBI, 5,000 parachute jumps, etc. He didn’t even know enough to tell a believable lie, but he thought he would “impress” everyone and they would like him. Just a pest. I finally got to the point I would tell him to GO HOME, when the plane crashed he was the first person there besides me, my cousin and our hired hand, and he started asking questions and saying things like “I guess I better go call my insurance agent about all this damage” (there was $20 worth of damage and I paid that) He didn’t even offer to call 911 when people were on FIRE! I told him in NO uncertain terms to get the F**K away, and ran back to the house to call 911. HE WANTED TO BE THE CENTER OF ATTENTION at my husband’s death and the severe burning of three other people. I am sure he sued me to “get revenge” for my “embarassing” him at the scene of the crash.
When news of the suit got out (those things are published in the local paper) he DENIED that he had done it. Then when confronted about that lie, he said “Oh, I just turned it over to my ATTORNEY and HE did it” LIke an attorney will file suit for you and you don’t even know about it. LOL
I can laugh about it now, but at the time (a couple of days before the first anniversary of my husband’s death) when I was served with the papers I about LOST IT. Heck, WHY MINCE WORDS, I did lose it! LOL
It is nice that he is gone out of the neighborhood though. He still owns the land but it is up for sale and he has moved.
Sorry about the harassment about your home, I can definitely relate before the TH-P went to prison. At least they aren’t trying to kill you though, maybe that’s some consolation! LOL