The Underrated Threat

Women are often labeled as being soft, nurturing, always kind and supportive.

Since patriarchy has been on the rise for some time now, these overly generalised notions about our gender get a lot of support. The layers of misogyny are deeply interwoven in today’s society and it gave classic Feminism a major comeback over the last few year. It often may feel like women have been pushed in a permanent one-down position: we usually don’t earn the same, we are often pushed out of opportunities of any sort, we’re being belittled and objectified.

However, when it comes to abusing fellow human beings this generalisation of women as being the all time victim might be dangerous. We forget the female interspecies predator – the female psychopath. 

Whether it is a co-worker trying to disrupt your chances for a promotion, a best friend who has been sleeping with your boyfriend behind your back, while slipping in comments about how unattractive, unworthy and hopeless you are or the mother, who would molest her own son. Just like with all other abusers the severity of their attacks may differ. However, the female psychopath often manages to avoid detection. They will officially support your promotion but backstab you covertly. They will tell the world that you are their best friend and how they’d never hurt you, while enjoying your discomfort when they tell you in private that you really should not wear skirts with your legs and how sorry they are to inform you that your boyfriend might be cheating. And should  their qualities as a mother be questioned, they will start crying on cue and still touch their child in an inappropriate way behind closed doors. 

They will leave those invisible scars on their victims.

Our perception of the common narcissist or psychopath, especially through the media is dominated by their male versions. Psychology itself has largely accepted the notion that female psychopaths are way less common than their male counterparts. However, there is simply lot more data on male psychopaths, because they will end up in prison more often. Psychologists, therefore, seem to  have a tendency to label the female psychopath as a narcissists. 

They are simply much harder to find out. But nevertheless, statistics suggest  that one in a 100 people may be a psychopath and that, of course, includes women.

Their  abusive behaviour is usually more emotional than physical but the cold hard truth is that they are not  in any way to be considered less dangerous than male psychopaths – because they have no conscience. 

This is a vey hard concept for us to grasp, but you simply cannot assume that your way of thinking and feeling can be applied to them. Unfortunately, the prevailing dogma in society is that a woman is not truly capable of violence, coldness and heinous acts and this makes the female interspecies predator particularly dangerous. When their victims eventually figure out what is actually going on, it is often too late and the damage is done.

Just like their male counterparts, the female psychopath is superficially charming, manipulates while being free from empathy for their victims, loves a power play and relishes in observing the agony they leave their victims in. They wear a mask in every social interaction, even when they are with people close to them which allows them to seem normal. Their aggressive behaviour is usually way more covert and underhanded than that of the male psychopath. They have the stamina to go for the long haul and wear their victim down slowly. They will fake emotions and use sex to get a rich husband and have several lovers on the side. They have no restraint whatsoever abusing their own children in every possible way – they have no feelings for them. They will gaslight and triangulate their entire family and play each member like a puppet-master. 

Everyone who crosses paths with them will be forced in a one-down position and if you don’t go there willingly they will shame you, bully you and destroy your reputation by spinning a web of lies that you’ll only notice when it is too late. Often you lose people along the way, because others simply do not believe you.

Female psychopaths are extremely skilled in feigning emotions – those crocodile tears come easy to them. Like the male psychopath they study people and learn to mimic the appropriate reaction to all kinds of situations. Their performance is Oscar-worthy. And maybe because a little cattiness in women is often regarded as sexy and desirable, people don’t tend to see through the mask.

However, this mask does fall occasionally. This is your chance to see what’s really going on. When they feel unobserved they will stare at you with cold, emotionless reptilian eyes. And then you might start to notice, how they often seem to be overly sexual in very inappropriate situations, how emotionally unstable they are and how they can seem so heartbroken over something in one moment and be so joyful half an hour later.

Your best chance, however, to uncover a female psychopath is to react contrarily to their expectation. If they feel like they have miscalculated you or worse that you have stripped them of  their power and control over you – you will see a very different character.

Once you are on to them, you will notice more and more that there is something unsettling about them you cannot quite put your finger on. 

Please do not ignore those signs or your gut feeling and please be careful. 

These women can be downright dangerous and while their abuse may be more emotional – which is of course devastating enough – they are not above physical violence to get their way.