I wasn't sure which forum to start this topic, so I put it here in the Family Section thinking that possibly the discussion would include information about children and families.

In reading some of the literature about psychopathy I've seen statistics that state how the percentage of male psychopaths is greater than that of females. I wonder how the studies were done to come up with that information. For example, did they study women prison populations like they did men?

What are the differences or similarities in style and modus operendi between male and female psychopaths?

Just taking the main marker of a psychopath: lack of conscience and empathy. How does this manifest as regards the sexes? What about the differences in the way boys and girls are raised as children and what is considered "appropriate behavior".

I think that there may be more female psychopaths than have possiblly been calculated due to the fact that their violence may be so covert that it passes undetected. They may be the more "silent partner" in a family or business structure. Just food for thought.

Cherie

Cherie, I've read a number of the true crime books centering on female psychopaths. One fact I have come upon is that female murderer psychopaths, through time (a couple of centuries) have tended to commit their murders in the quiet, difficult detect manner of poisoning. I have read about several who got by with their murders for decades due to the fact that the deaths were murders going undetected. This fits with your theory that female psychopaths may operate in a more covert manner. This is not always the case, take for example, Dianne Downs, who shot her children at point blank range, then tried to say a person alongside the highway had done it.

However. I personally believe there are fewer female psychopaths than male ones. I think this has to do with innate gender differences. Psychopathy (in my view) is a total disconnection from the inner self, from feelings, conscience, soul, spirit. Women are notoriously "more in touch with their feelings" than men. Some of this is probably conditioning, but I think it goes deeper than that, into what a woman is, spiritually, and what a man is spiritually. And I think biology reflects these differences. Women are softer, men are harder. Women's sex points inward. Men's sex points outward. Women's biology creates urges to nest and nurture. Mens' testosterone-dominated biology creates urges to be aggressive, fight over territory, and mate many females. I just think men are more prone to psychopathy than women.

It is known there are female psychopaths. And probably they go undetected more often than male ones. But I do believe their numbers are less.

Cherie, I had some thoughts regarding gender and psychopaths in terms of my psychopathic husband. I think one reason he was/is so difficult to detect is that he has a very feminine personality. He liked to brag to me, that when he was a research assistant in the psych lab at his university (years ago), he was given the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, and scored remarkably high on female personality traits. He meant to point out to me how lucky I was, how sensitive his soul was, and how obviously at fault I was, for our problems, since I couldn't even get along with this very comapssionate man.

Psychopath did have feminine personality traits, but they were not the good ones. He was, hands down, the most subtle manipulator I have ever met, the most underhanded, covert soul imaginable. He also portrayed a range of subtle emotions, as women do (though he felt none of them). I have never seen anyone portray empathy more convincingly than Psychopath. He also could play emotionality as few men do, and did not back off from it as many men do, however, only when he chose, and when he chose, he always had an agenda.

However, Psychopath could not SPEAK the language of subtle emotion; he could only act it. His emotional speech was extrememly limited. he made up for the limitation with hyperbole: "I love you SOOOOOOOOO much! You are SOOOOOOOO beautiful!" This sort of superlative speaking works very well early in relationships. Later, when hurts and disappointments have piled up, the mate wants a different kind of reassurance that she is loved. She wants to know HOW she is loved since she can't figure it out...since words and behavior do not match. Psychopath could not say, "I love your thoughts and feelings." I love the way you pick up on how I am feeling." "I love your ironic sense of humor." It infuriated him when I asked him to expand on his stated feelings (I love you). He felt abused by it. "I said I love you, what more can I say? What more IS there to say? Why isn't that enough for you?" It is well-documented that a psychopath cannot speak subtle emotional language.

I would love to know how Psychopath scored on psychopathic traits on the test. But if anybody could beat this part of the test, he was/is the one.

Thanks for your replies, kris. I've been thinking about this for awhile. When my daughter was little (preschool age) she had trouble with being too pushy and aggressive especially with other children. And I was told by one of her teachers that if she had been a boy her behavior would have been more acceptable. So I don't know how or if that figures into this whole gender issue other than to think that there is a lot of aggression even within a pre-diagnosed psychopathic child. And now my daughter doesn't often exhibit this side of herself, however when she does, it's awful to experience because it has a raging quality to it.

These are my thoughts for now.

Cherie

Some more thoughts on the gender thing and psychopaths. I had a friend who became my friend during a time in my life when I was very ill and sad. I welcomed this friendship and was so GRATEFUL that this woman understood and sought me out during this time. I felt indebted to her and over time when I noticed things about her that were red flags (like she would really yell at her children for the slightest irritation that she felt, or that she was never really nice to me again like she was in the beginning of our friendship). In fact, it was all turned around. She was needy forever more and called upon me whenever she needed something from me. The friendship that I had initially felt was gone. And over time it got worse. She got increasingly needy and unavailable, sneaky, and then the cruelty and rage started to rear their ugly head. Sigh. As I've been writing this I am even more aware of what this woman was about. She unmasked as all the psychopaths that I've known have. Finally, when I could no longer make excuses to myself for her bad behavior and confronted the demon, she turned it all around and played the victim herself. I have a very strong instict that this woman is a psychopath. Looking back I can think of more events. Things that she did that hurt my feelings, or things that she did to her children. How manipulative she was and without conscience in her actions, but so sly and wih such slick speech.; but I had learned that if I ever spoke about my feelings or questioned her that it would get turned around into what a horrible person I was. Always. Of course, psychopaths never accept responsibility for anything that they say or do to cause pain.

I think I was more unaware, confused, and blindsided because she was a woman.
Cherie

Cherie, I've had some women in my life I suspect of being psychopathic, too. I can't say they were because I didn't have the kind of close and longterm relationships with them that I had my psychopath husband. But I can say that there were psychoapthic dynamics in those relationships. One of the earliest stands out in my mind.

J came from a very wealthy family, and was an only child. She lived on a trust fund. In the seventies when we were friends we both had small children and were in our twenties. J was ostensibly "a beautiful person". She was soft-spoken, extremely bright and articulate, and attuned to the higher or spiritual, in everything. For unknown reasons that left me utterly confused, she was simultaneosuly, one of the most selfish people I'd ever met.

Our husbands worked together, earned a similar salary, both of us were stay-at-home moms. J considered the salary so small, it was basically pocket money. But my family lived on ours. She knew we did. J didn't live in the housing provided by this organization, but I did. She bought a beautiful home to live in near the place her husband worked.

Our friendship started out lovely, then J began to ask me to babysit...alot. It got to be once a week. Then she would call, and tell me the days and times (3 or 4) she needed for the next week. I worked hard everyday to make it possible to live on my husband's salary. I was an old-fashioned wife, grew a big garden, canned and froze produce, used cotton diapers. It was hard enough watching my own kids, without J's, too. When she would call, I would tell her how busy I was, then she would proceed to tell me what days she needed me to watch her kids.

She blew my mind. I didn't know what to make of her.

She often asked me to sit her kids at her home. This involved driving 45 minutes across town. With my 2 babies. Then she would call at the last minute, and ask me to pick up some grocery items. She never reimbursed me. One of these days, I spent my last seven dollars. I needed the money to make it to the end of the week. I kept showing her the receipt. Eventually, she took it and it disappeared. She didn't give me the money.

After a few years, I distanced myself from J. But I remained confused as to whether or not my feelings were valid. Everybody thought J was wonderful. Other people did huge favors for her just to have her in their lives. People babysat her children for whole weeks, while she went to Maine to pick blueberries, or some other "worthy" cause. So J stayed on the periphery of my life.

She got me into a group that did re-evaluation couseling. This is where people work in pairs to encourage one another's talking about their feelings. I got paired with her one night, and she began sobbing deeply, telling me how hard she worked at getting my friendship, harder than she had ever had to work at getting anyone's friendship, how she still didn't feel she had it, and how much this hurt her. I wasn't honest, didn't tell her why. I was only 20-something, and I wasn't sure it WASN"T my fault. I mean, everybody else liked her, what was wrong with me?

I did get stronger through the years. This is why my marriage to a psychopath eventually hit a wall.

p.s. This J I am talking about had alot of extramarital affairs. I was given to understand that she needed to do this because she was so badly mistreated by her husband. Psychopath and I socialized with her and her husband, and I ALWAYS had the feeling that her husband was being baited, trapped, manipulated and sabotaged into acting badly (not really badly, more the appearance of badly), and/or being made to look like he was acting badly toward his wife when he wasn't. I always saw him as in a lot of pain, and suffering horrible low self-esteem. I vaguely recognized that I saw him that way because I felt the same way, in my marriage.

More reflections on J (woman friend). Another thing she did was to consistently invalidate my legitmate feelings, in my relationship. We talked about our marriages, as women do. When I told her that my husband, J, got angry if I wanted to wash the dishes after a meal, she said, "Well, I think it would be nice to spend time with him when he wants." But when I told her that J refused to grocery shop with me, when I asked (2 babies in a grocery is an ordeal), she said, "Well, he wants to have a division of labor. While you are doing that, he can be accomplishing something else. That's working together."

When I told her J had cheated on me during my pregnancy, her response was, "Pregnancies are horny times for men." This was actually malarky. I continued our sexual relationship up to the day I went to the hospital to give birth, and did not wait the 6 weeks after to resume it. In fact, husband J was "serviced" the day I got home from the hsopital each time. Husband J was never "horny", but I was because he ignored and rejected me for long periods. But I was so hurt by friend J's comment that I didn't respond. It just hurt me that she didn't relate to my deep pain over being worth so little during this fragile vulnerable and very special time between a husband and wife.

It's amazing how one can look at these p relationships, and identify the exact same dynamics in each. One of those things is consistent invalidation of the victim's feelings. Notice how in the first instance, she invalidated me based on a concept (spending time together as the highest principle), then reversed this truism (division of labor as the highest principle) in order to be consistent, in her invalidation of me. With a psychopath, you are always in the wrong, no matter your position, in any issue.

I know my life's journey has been about coming to awareness of truth, achieving clarity. I had these p relationships, all along the way, supporting Psychopath's view of reality, and denigrating my view of it. It was like a net around me. I really had to get clear on my own. So many of my relationships supported the psychopathic illusions. But God was merciful and did provide me some of the other kind, too, good, true friends who helped me find my way to the truth.

One more J story: During my second pregnancy, I learned that husband J had slept with almost all my friends. That pregnancy was horrible. I didn't think I was going to survive and give birth. I was actually friends with woman J during that pregnancy, and right after, told her all about what I'd been going through. I was a wreck, could barely eat or sleep, was dying while caring for an infant and 20-month old.

When the baby was maybe 2 months old, I made a plan to leave her with friend J while Psychopath and I went out. It would be my first outing alone with him. We dropped off the children. We were going to a play. Psychopath did what he did every single time we ever went out alone, got sick, and couldn't go to the play. We went back to friend J's house. I was expressing my deep disappointment to her, in the kitchen. Psychopath was somewhere else with her husband. Friend J said, "You need to not be so wrapped in YOUR feelings. I think J (my husband) is in alot of stress in his job."

Husband J had just cheated on me through my pregnancy, WITH MY FRIENDS. I'd just given birth while in emotional Hades, not eating or sleeping. Now, caring for 2 babies, still in emotional hell because of husband J's abuse, and I needed to care about HIS feelings, not mine!

You should have met this woman. She was the epitome of mother earth tender-hearted gentle wisdom. I just could never understand why the things she said hurt me so much. She was SO sweet! (and she said these things sweetly, with an air of tender mother earth wisdom)

You can't evaluate what is going on by the impression people make. You have to look deeper.

kris, from reading what you wrote about your "friend" and from what I've remembered about the woman I wrote about it makes me wonder more just how the percentage of female pyschopaths is arrived at. If its in prison populations, etc. With all the information that has been coming to light about the psychopaths that are not in prisons such as the corporate psychopaths, cult leaders, etc., it makes me think there may be more information also about female psychopaths.

Cherie