Female
Psychopaths: Quotations / Notes on a
major, and long overlooked, area of scientific study.
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QUESTION:
Why are more men diagnosed as “psychopath” than women?
ANSWER:
The criteria for measuring “psychopathy” (as is the case with the profile of
the “serial killer”) is based upon the study of the male brain, which has a
different neuroanatomy structure than the female brain. Further, much less
research as been done on female that male aggression, leading to a failure – in
law enforcement, criminal justice, forensics, psychology practice and everyday
life – to understand and identify severe female aggression.
***
1) Gynocentrism, Chivalry
•
MYTH: “Violence is masculine. Men are the cause of it, and women and children
the ones who suffer. . . . Though the
evidence may contradict the statement, the consensus runs deep. Women from all
walks of life, at all levels of power – corporate, political, or familial, women
in combat and on police forces – have no part in violence. It is one of the
most abiding myths of our time.” [Patricia Pearson, When She Was Bad: Violent
Women and the Myth of Innocence, 1997, Viking Press, p. 7]
•
“The message being conveyed is that women, being blameless, are entitled to
victimize without consequence.” [Patricia Pearson, When She Was Bad: Violent
Women and the Myth of Innocence, 1997, Viking Press, p. 232]
•
“There’s a common erroneous assumption that because females are “nurturing,”
they won’t be violent. But we’ve had female serial killers who have shot,
stabbed, smothered (with her enormous weight), and even used chain saws and ice
picks.” [Katherine Ramsland Ph.D., “What Do You Say to a Teenage Murderess?”
Psychology Today, Jan. 27, 2012]
•
“Dana Crowley Jack (Behind the Mask: Destruction and Creativity in Women’s
Aggression, 1999, Harvard UP) commented on the issue: Almost all of what
psychologists have thought and felt about aggression has been shaped by a
predominantly male perspective. This position is supported by the facts that
much of the research conducted on female aggression has been associated with
domestic violence or violence perpetrated on a significant other and that many
in the social and behavioral sciences communities were unwilling to accept that
women could be violent—and men the victims—when researchers examined the
evidence of female on male aggression (Beckner, 2005).” [Frank S. Perri, J.D.,
Terrance G. Lichtenwald, Ph.D. “Last Frontier: Myths and the Female
Psychopathic Killer,” Forensic Examiner, V:19, Iss: 2.,
Summer 2010, pp. 50-67. p. 53]
2) Failure of Academic Research to Study Female Aggression
• “The
study of female aggression is a
phenomenon in itself has only recently begun to receive due attention.
Buss
(1961) claimed that women are so seldom aggressive, that female
aggression is
not worth the trouble to study. Aggression is, accordingly to his view
(at that
time), a typically male phenomenon. Olweus (1978), who investigated
bullying,
i.e., aggressive harassment, among adolescent school children, was of
the
opinion that bullying occurs so rarely among female adolescent that he
excluded
girls as subjects from his research. Later, he has changed his opinion,
and he is now investigating bullying also among girls (e.g., Olweus,
1986). Frodi,
Macaulay, and Thome (1977) reviewed 314 studies on human aggression, and
found
that 54% of these concerned men only, and only 8% women. These facts are
certainly revealing.” [Kaj Björkvist. Sex Differences in Physical, Verban, and Indirect Aggression:
A Review of Recent Research. Sex Roles. Vol. 30, Nos. 3/4. 1994.]
•
“So, what can one say to a teenage girl who either wielded a weapon or
masterminded a slaughter? So far, we have solid data on treatments only for
boys at risk for adult psychopathy.” [Katherine Ramsland Ph.D., “What Do You
Say to a Teenage Murderess?” Psychology Today, Jan. 27, 2012]
• In
2013, British Forensic psychologist Zoe Stephenson noted more generally that
there was still a “dearth of gender-specific research” on violent juveniles and
in her study, “Sex differences in predictors of violent and non-violent
juvenile offending,” concluded that “more attention needs to be paid to the
mental health of female offenders.” [Zoe Stephenson et al., Sex differences in
predictors of violent and non-violent juvenile offending. Aggressive Behavior.
Volume 40, Issue 2, March/April 2014. pp. 165-177.]
•
“So, what can one say to a teenage girl who either wielded a weapon or
masterminded a slaughter? So far, we have solid data on treatments only for
boys at risk for adult psychopathy.” Katherine Ramsland Ph.D. “What Do You Say
to a Teenage Murderess?” Jan 27, 2012]
•
“When women act violently, the only explanations frequently offered have been
that it is either involuntary, self-defense, the result of mental illness, or
hormonal imbalances inherent in female physiology. This article’s review of
relevant research, however, shows that homicides committed by women stem from
diverse motives, including the offender’s psychopathic traits that spawn a motive
for the homicide. . . . the authors
caution forensic examiners and law enforcement personnel to avoid acting on
misconceptions of gender-based violence when interacting with female
psychopaths.” [Abstact, Frank S. Perri, J.D., Terrance G. Lichtenwald, Ph.D.
“Last Frontier: Myths and the Female Psychopathic Killer,” Forensic
Examiner V:19 Iss:2. Summer 2010, pp. 50-67.]
•
“Female serial killers … haven’t received anywhere near the same amount of
attention from the media or from criminologists as males have. Even researchers
on psychology have tended to focus on male populations. There’s a common
erroneous assumption that because females are “nurturing,” they won’t be
violent. But we’ve had female serial killers who have shot, stabbed, smothered
(with her enormous weight), and even used chain saws and ice picks.” [D. P.
Lyle, MD, “Forensic Psychologist Dr. Katherine Ramsland Talks About Serial
Killers,” The Writer’s Forensics Blog,
June 25, 2009]
•
“Our belief in the intrinsic, non-threatening nature of the feminine is
deceiving to both genders and actually exposes both to homicidal risks that are
ignored because of long-internalized myths about female criminality. As we
shall see in the next section on female psychopathy, some of the societal
perceptions of female aggression may have influenced the lack of research on
female psychopathy because it has not been seriously explored until recently.
We will also look at how the myths that still surround female aggression are
used by female psychopaths in what Dr. Robert Hare refers to as “impression
management.” [Frank S. Perri, J.D., Terrance G. Lichtenwald, Ph.D. “Last
Frontier: Myths and the Female Psychopathic Killer,” Forensic
Examiner V:19 Iss:2. Summer 2010, pp. 50-67. p. 53]
•
“[E]mpirical research explicitly examining gendered relationships between BPD
[Borderline Personality Disorder] and psychopathy factors is lacking. . . .
[The study’s] results suggest that BPD and psychopathy, at least as they are
measured by current instruments, overlap in women and, accordingly, may reflect
gender-differentiated phenotypic expressions of similar dispositional
vulnerabilities.” ] Sprague, J., Javdani, S., Sadeh, N., Newman, J. P., &
Verona, E. (2012). Borderline personality disorder as a female phenotypic expression
of psychopathy? Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 3(2),
127-139.]
***
3) Myth of Absence of Agency
• “It
is a common but mistaken belief among law enforcement and forensic
professionals that people who commit violent, incomprehensible crimes must be
crazy, psychotic, or they “just snapped.” This perception is reinforced in the
media (Herve & Yuille, 2007).” [Frank S. Perri, J.D., Terrance G.
Lichtenwald, Ph.D. “Last Frontier: Myths and the Female Psychopathic Killer,”
Forensic Examiner V:19 Iss:2. Summer 2010, pp. 50-67. p.
54]
•
“[T]he study of female criminality (as opposed to the study of male
criminality) has only recently been linked to antisocial behaviors instead of
relying on socio-cultural explanations.” [Frank S. Perri, J.D., Terrance G.
Lichtenwald, Ph.D. “Last Frontier: Myths and the Female Psychopathic Killer,”
Forensic Examiner V:19 Iss:2. Summer 2010, pp. 50-67. p.
52]
4)
Relational Aggression; Getting Away With Psychopathy
• “If
a woman is a psychopath, she can be just as dangerous as a male
psychopath—perhaps more so because, based on social conventions, we're
less likely to see her coming.” [Seth Meyers PhD, “The Field Guide to the
Female Psychopath . . . and why we rarely see her coming,” Psychology Today, Aug. 10, 2015]
•
“For years, the research has told us that psychopaths are usually male.
Research on psychopaths largely stems from studies conducted from prison
samples, but remember that those in prison are there because they have been
caught. We will never truly know the exact prevalence for male or female
psychopaths because many only come to light once they have been arrested for a
crime. (Robert Hare estimates that approximately 1% of the population are
psychopaths.) Is it possible that women can get away with certain crimes more
than men because society is less likely to expect certain antisocial or violent
behaviors among them?” [Seth Meyers PhD, “The Field Guide to the Female
Psychopath . . . and why we rarely see her coming,” Psychology Today, Aug. 10, 2015]
• “Other research has examined the importance of relational aggression among
females, suggesting that women may display aggression differently than their
male counterparts. Crick and Grotpeter (1996) studied
relational aggression,
also known as covert aggression, which is a type of aggression in which harm is
caused by damaging someone's relationships or social status—and it’s different
from the type of aggression (typically, physical) that males show each other.
Relational aggression tends to be more subtle and manipulative. /// It may be
that while many male psychopaths act in traditionally aggressive, socially
-constructed ways which can eventually lead them to be incarcerated (and
evaluated for psychopathy), female psychopaths operate in more nuanced, less
overtly physically aggressive ways, though they can ultimately lead to equally
destructive outcomes. Think of a seemingly kind older female nurse who cares
for a sick man. This woman could well be a psychopath but her presentation as an
older woman in a helping profession causes others to see her in a benevolent
light.” [Seth Meyers PhD, “The Field Guide to the Female Psychopath . . . and
why we rarely see her coming,”
Psychology Today, Aug. 10, 2015]
***
5) Relational Aggression
•
False Accusations frequently destroy lives and sometimes lead to the suicide
of the victim. Oddly the press – after years of being fed fake theories, fake
statistics and fake pseudo-psychology – still refers to criminals who make
false rape accusation as “the victim” (unless the false rape accuser is a
male). [Robert St. Estephe, Jul. 27, 2018]
***
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