Ack! Athena, the quotes about female psychopaths are pretty clearly messed up thinking.
I have to take issue with some of your generalizations about female wiring and evolution though, even if I'm not an NT and maybe you mostly meant female NTs.
Some female NTs are certainly as catty as you mention; they will tear other women down. The line of thinking that maybe that's how they get better mates could be accurate in some cases. Like many arguments that pin a stereotype about a group to a possible evolutionary reason, though, there are many other strategies that can work both among humans (incl. between human females) as well as between nonhuman primates. Nonhuman primates have a ton of different social structures and relationships between sexes... it is possible to cherry-pick from these to support all sorts of things one might want to convey about humans! Not saying you are doing this on purpose, some of the things are publicized more than others after all. However -- male scientists used to consider male lions to be the center of lion pride life, the leaders... um nope!
Scientists have done this with lots of other species too -- humans project their desired human social structure upon various animal species, then tout that "science" as evidence supporting the, naturalness?, of their desired human social structure.
Have you read about "bonobos" -- pygmy chimps? Totally different group / sex dynamics than the common chimps. They do lots of ... fun stuff! ... to get along. :-)
I'm not cherry picking. I am observing human behavior and seeing what it is they do.
Also, I was very clear that I was not speaking about all women. Strange that so many that are bothered by this article, seem to have missed key information and formulated their opinion based on something I never said.
Also also, I spoke specifically about female chimpanzees. I never said anything past that specific group.
You were very clear that you were speaking about such cattiness being TYPICAL OF women's overall behavior. You did not say "of some women's behavior." You later said that some women didn't do this, but that statement came much later. You even said right here, "I am observing human behavior and seeing what it is they do." And that to me sounds like a generalization of the exact sort that Yvonne is calling out, and that I was going to comment on except that Yvonne did it better than I would have.
I was disappointed to see this level of over-generalization from you. It seemed intellectually sloppy on your part, something I haven't before seen you do.
I recently finished reading a book entitled Bitch that I believe you would find interesting. It's about overlooked and casually dismissed behaviors of female animals of a huge range of different species. Bonobos are among the species described, as are hyenas, lemurs, and more than a sprinkling of non-mammals.
Yes, for the reasons I stated: the original version of this post (without the disclaimer at the front) contained what I felt were over-generalizations about "all women" and what I also believed was sloppy reasoning, which is quite different from Athena's usual prose. I had an expectation that was not met.
I definitely can miss things in writings esp. during the workday, apologies.
(Some of your phrasings do sound like "all women" to me, but people write differently -- putting the disclaimer once is reasonable. )
I took your discussion of female (common) chimps to mean, you are linking them to female humans. People often use chimp analogies to reflect on human inner workings, due to the close relationships of our species. If you weren't doing that, I might have expected picking a less close species than the one closest to us. Implication sort of thing, nothing definite though.
Also I didn't say you were cherry picking. I am talking about approaches to arguments that are often done; I'm curious what your intent was by using the chimp stuff.
I very much hope you will read about bonobos, it's fascinating how different they are from common chimps. I wish humans leaned more in that direction.
"it is possible to cherry-pick from these to support all sorts of things one might want to convey about humans! Not saying you are doing this on purpose..."
I never said all women, and said several times that this is the behavior of "some women", or stated "the women that are like this", and specifically referred to "mean girl syndrome".
I do not like arguing with my readers, but I also do not like when my writing or words are being misrepresented.
For me it’s that “standard female behavior”, “hardwired behavior” was contradictory to then saying it’s just some women. You also say in the comments that women who don’t do that exist, but they are an exception. I would either remove “some women” then or the whole narrative lol.
Sounds good. My internal flags go up about negative generalizations re. groups I'm in, usually, since NTs are so influenced by generalizations, without being consciously aware of it sometimes too. Autistics less but some per a study I read. Psychopaths -- no idea, probably no research on it too...
From my perspective, neither you nor I/we are intentionally misrepresenting. People can have subtle differences in interpretation even if we're all native English speakers etc..
I fall into the group of interpreting "women", without lots of disclaiming, meaning "all women". For me, a disclaimer at the beginning as well as one or two later - depending upon the length of the writing -- can help counteract this. I sort of skim and read very fast, I don't read every word (normally). I found when writing stuff about male humans who happen to be violent, that putting zillions of disclaimers about "not all men blah blah" helped stop the "you hate all men!!!" responses. Usually anyhow.
I think lots of people do this somewhat, based upon how often people miss stuff in my emails at work! :-)
My goals tend more towards determining what the intent was, even if a miscommunication occurs. I also geek out over animal behavior a lot!
I think my error was applying my own thinking to those that read my writing. I assume when I read something inaccurate about psychopathy, or something accurate but something that has nothing to do with me, that the inaccurate statement or that accurate statement is evaluated for whether or not I understand in the context of me and my experience. If it doesn't, it is disregarded as having anything to do with me, and I continue reading through that lens.
I applied this thinking to my readers. I just assumed that my readers would understand that this had nothing to do with them based on their own understanding of themselves, and because thought I had placed enough qualifiers in the piece to separate this from the broad understanding, and read it through that lens. I didn't consider that it might be upsetting regardless of whether it applied to them or not, and that I should have had more qualifiers to make that separation. It is a failure of my cognitive empathy.
Putting the disclaimer once way down in the essay is misleading. That sort of disclaimer is better put up front. Many of her phrasings also sounded to me like "all women".
Yes, despite that. You said "quite the opposite" only once (or maybe a couple of times; I had trouble finding them), and it was more than halfway down in the article.
Problem is, when one says something is typical behavior "of women", that does imply "of all women" unless one sticks a qualifier in there. "Of women" does not mean or imply "of many women" or "of some women" or "of occasional women" or "of women on random Tuesdays." It means "of women in general."
I agree with your critique, that Athena was over generalizing. She didn't say she was describing "some women". She said she was describing "female behavior" and said pretty straightforwardly it was typical of women. Which by implication would be of "all" women.
BTW, I bet you would enjoy the book entitled Bitch if you haven't already read it.
From my perspective it almost seems like the good Doctor is attempting to gaslight the entire female population. If you were a woman who took this seriously it could mess with your mind
Humans gaslight themselves. They see in themselves what they want to see, and cannot see themselves from an outside perspective. On top of that, they haven't anyone that is willing to provide that perspective to them, or if they do, they don't want to hear it. They like the version of themselves that they write for themselves. It's more comfortable to tell yourself a story about who you are than it is to truly know the reflection in the mirror, and the shadow you cast as well.
They do this with other issues as well, and many of those are directed at males. It isn't so much that they are sexist, it's much more that they are making incorrect assumptions about how people think, and then building a whole narrative around that. I suppose this wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if when they are challenged on it, especially by someone that might know better because they know how they think, they changed their opinion or took that information into account. The issue is that they not only refuse to do this, but they then will attack the person that is giving them the information.
James Fallon is an excellent example of this. He is a neurologist that has the brain scans showing the differences in his brain and his own behavioral patterns. However, there was an interview that he did with a psychologist, and the psychologist insisted he wasn't psychopathic, because psychopathy was defined by the traits that psychology, a soft science, had decided on, not what neurology, a hard science, could literally point to and say, here is what psychopathy looks like in the brain.
Because the psychologist didn't like the hard science disagreed with the soft science, he decided that Fallon was lying... for reasons...
I'm not sure I buy that the described female behavior is hardwired into women. I'm a woman who hates that kind of game-playing and s es eks out other ssd who feel the same way. Certainly the behavior you describe is common in women (and I accept that it's not psychopathic), but I don't find it to be universal among NT women.
I can relate to what you say, Curious Cat. I always hated gameplaying, and dishonesty in general. Not that I haven't missed stuff I was doing and been less than honest, but I try to work on it.
So the girls and women I met and tried to spend more time with, tended to be more like that, and perhaps they also had more friends like that... so maybe my sample set of females isn't totally random. :-) Maybe nobody's is...
One thing missing from all this discussion is the way some women can really "have your back" and be supportive. I suspect this involves trust and oxytocin, Athena, so it might be harder for you to pick up on? Not sure -- that is a question.
However the positives of my connections with some females, is different and feels deeper than with male friends, for me. Again - I'm pretty sure some of this involves oxytocin-based feelings rather than milder feelings like "interest". (I view that as a feeling too, not sure everyone does.)
About trying to do statistical analyses mentally based upon our own always limited experiences... :-). I have figured out over time various things about NTs and am pretty sure I missed tons of stuff about them over the decades; I can't go back and figure out more about what was going on, or worse, try to analyse the prevalence of stuff I missed back then... my memory isn't eidetic.
However this conversation has helped me figure out what was going on with a certain "friend" in high school! Ugh. Life is too short for that s**t. Thank you all for the great discussion, my cognitive empathy has been improved too here.
Great commentary on female behavior. As an Aspie I often don't understand white lies and tend to be very honest about the way I think. When people look at me like I'm a horrible person, I laugh because I'm sure most people have much worse thoughts than me, but they know how to hide them. Pathologizing normal behavior seems to be a defense mechanism as NTs don't like to recognize flaws in themselves but prefer to claim the moral high ground. Mental health professionals often fail to recognize normal vs abnormal behavior based on statistical data and instead use their morality to define normal. They're all fools. But I'm the biggest fool because I don't know when I should lie :)
There are a lot of undercurrents in female relationships. Since I don't participate in these behaviors as they aren't valuable to me, when I do have a rare female friend they have always brought up to me how different it is to be friends with me because all of that is missing. They have also stated that they had no idea how much of it there was, and how completely normal it was to have built in, that when it suddenly wasn't there, they didn't know what to think or how to feel about it.
I have now read several of your articles. Thank you for explaining how simple it is to understand the female psychopath as an individual with individual interests, not necessarily those of the predatory female. But when you go on to describe the dirty deads and behaviors of the predatory female, that are atributied to female psychopaths, as just traits of the female, I have to profoundly disagree. I myself am female and very empathic. I respect another man's wife and have never sought competition for another female's mate in order to prove myself. I am sure that these catty females exist but I think they are more of an exception than the norm. My ex (covert narcissist) friend was like this. It took a lot of pride and anxiety on her part, to form herself in this way. A very distastful person to be around. That's why she is an ex-friend.
Granted, you cite evolutioinary evidence for female agression in this way, but I think your argument is flawed. I believe I see a reliance on an atheistic background for your premise on "normal" female behaivior. My personal believe is that those who experience hurt and trauma in their life have a choice to make. Either become an asshole like the aggressor (imitatae them) or develop empathy and say, "Never again. At least not from me, will you experience what I had to go through." Maybe this choice does not present to a psychopath due to the brain not being wired for empathy. Or maybe it is a loack of belief in a loving God. Maybe the 'female psychopath' designation is not an automatic substitute for cruelty and ambition. But to say that the cruelty and ambition matrix is just the abode of being female, begs the question. Really? This is what all females are like? Not me. And not in my experience.
These aren't predatory females, they are competitive females. There is nothing predatory about being a mean girl, it's just a mate selection and dominance hierarchy strategy.
It doesn't matter how you view yourself. Many people think themselves to be one thing or another, and do not see their behavior as others do. I am not saying that you engage in any of this behavior, but many women do and they do not see it as predatory, they see it as the best option available to them.
I am not applying a spiritual nor a nonspiritual take on this as that has nothing to do with it.
I never said all females. I have gotten comments like this a number of times on this post which is interesting to me. People seem to be very upset by something I never said. If you had read what I wrote, you wouldn't be making the claim that I said "all women", as I was very clear as to my meaning.
"Females tear each other down and destroy the competition. That is the normal natural state of female relationships, especially when the females are of breeding age. I think that an overfire of this aspect is also why some women try to obtain a taken mate. It is in the wiring to prove to herself that she can take from another female. It reassures her that she is indeed a higher value mate over the competition." First I see your all encompasing statement about females. Then I see the idea slightly modified by the word. "some."
Females do do this. That is why there are long standing jokes, movies, books, television shows, routines by stand up comedians, documentaries, articles, studies specifically about this. Add to that of course, every female that I have ever known who has a plethora of stories about the underhanded things that females do to one another, and also what I have observed watching them my entire life. It is why I rarely have an interest in having female friends as there is a lot of drama that tends to come from that venture that doesn't interest me.
Are there females that are above all this? Of course. Are there scores that consider this normal and beneficial behavior for themselves? Absolutely. So much so that all the materials I have listed above exist. They aren't there because this is rare behavior. They exist because it is something that is very common.
There is a lot of jokes, books, tv shows etc about pretty much every stereotype, (though lately such content is slowly dying out) but that doesn’t mean that they are reflecting the reality of the group that they are about. Much like you can’t reference fiction in articles about psychiatric disorders, for example.
There are jokes about Arabs being terrorist and, I don’t know, all gay men liking make up, but are they a reliable validation for reality lol? For a small portion of it, yes, but definitely not for the these whole groups.
Similarly, your experience with women is your experience with women, much like mine is mine. There are too many women on earth to judge all of them from our experiences. If it was about some ethnic group, for example, that had like 1000 people total and you knew 100 of them, it would make sense, but in this case, it doesn’t.
>It is why I rarely have an interest in having female friends as there is a lot of drama that tends to come from that venture that doesn't interest me.
This also disproves that what you wrote in the post was about women only because you were comparing psychopathic women to NT women.
That wasn't what I was doing at all with this post. That was never my intention.
What this post is about is looking at how psychopathic females are being considered, and pointing out that the behaviors that they are calling "psychopathic" are very common, and very normal.
If I were to write a post comparing NT women and psychopathic ones, it would be a much more concentrated piece about that with a great deal of nuance. I would have talked about relationships, child bearing and interest, priorities, interactions and where I see differences in values.
This in no way was ever meant to speak to that even slightly. This was a reminder that the behaviors that are often considered as something that is removed from normal interaction are not removed at all. That they are normal and they are prevalent. As I said, pathologizing normative behavior is becoming very common, and it is not a good idea.
I rarely have an interest in female friends because there is a great deal of emotional drama that I have no interest in whatsoever. It likely isn't all that noticeable to females that share emotional experiences, but to me it is not something that I am willing to put up with. There are females that are outside of this. I am friends with a couple of them, but that is because they don't bring that into our interactions.
It is present in a large percentage of the female population. I was clear about there being exceptions however. This is a quote from the first thing that comes up when you search for "women tear each other down" on Google:
"As for the smattering of muckrakers who clearly got some sort of satisfaction out of raining on my parade, I began to wonder: Why do women tear each other down? Why not simply say “congratulations” and move on, or say nothing at all?
I think we all have been guilty of getting together with girlfriends and gossiping about that one woman in our social circle who happened to be absent. These gossip seshes can often be full of vitriol if not down right malicious. As I reflect on this, I have to ask myself: Why hang out with that person then if they’re so terrible?
We’ve also all had our own personal ‘mean girl’ experiences where a woman or group of women intentionally isolate, dismiss, belittle, or even socially torment us on social media or in public.
The bottom line is: Women are much crueler to each other than men.
According to Seth Meyers, Psy.D.: “Based on 15 years of clinical work with women who represent virtually every possible demographic variable, I can confidently report that the women I’ve worked with report more critical views of other women than the men do with their own male peers.”"
It may be an uncomfortable truth, many women tend to be extremely nasty to one another.
In fairness, I said women suck at friendships with other women, not that they don't have friendships. Often this is the case that many female friends spend more time as frenimies than real friends.
Yeah, everyone has perceptions. And it's true about almost anything that "some people do and some people don't." And you can take your psychoanalysis of someone you don't know and shove it somewhere.
Hi Donny, No I don't think this way. Why would I want to gaslight another woman to get rid of the copetition? I am confident and unafraid of the other women in this area.
And, Yes, you are correct. We see gas lighting done in movies and TV because it brings comedy and drama. Wihout conflict we dont have much of a story. But I myself am much more interested in another person's good than in competing with them. I want them to succeed and be happy, not climb on top of them at their expense.
There are the Amber Heards of the world. I do not call this just being female. I call this toxic Borderline Personality Disorder. Maybe Histrionic. I don't call it normal female even if the media shows us a lot of these, it is not normal.
If we see that we are being treated in this toxic way, then we need to disconnect from these people. I think we need to look for the good in others, express and model it. But if it goes no where because someone insists on gaslighting us back for love, well, walk away from that toxic person. Don't adopt toxicity for yourself and become another practitioner of it.
I don't mean that she doesn't use being a female to her advantage, she certainly does. Her problems however, are because she creates them for herself because she is toxic in her way of interacting with people. She would be toxic in a different way if she were male perhaps, but toxic all the same.
Indeed true, it is quite common. It is not the strategy employed by all women, but it is certainly normal enough that there is no point to try to pathologize it.
Thank you for this acknowledgement. I am going to acceed to your idea that it is not necessarily a pathology. And yet, gaslighting is included as a tenent of narcisissism. I would say that maybe in the natural, dog eat dog mentality, it is a strategy explored by many people, men and women. But I learned long ago as a grade school child, how much it hurt to be nicknamed. And how great it felt to accepted by the most popular girl in the school. I learned my lesson and decided to be on the side of good and right for all and not selfish bitch on wheels. I really hate the idea of the selfish bitch. If they do it to me, I will back off. But I have no need to inflict this destructive pride against another. There are other empaths like me, who want to love and encourage.
I don't think it is a dog eat dog kind of thing. Let me reiterate, I don't like this behavior at all. I find it exhausting. That said, it makes sense that females will compete with one another in such ways. They are disinclined to physically compete with one another much more broadly than say men are. That is not to say there aren't females that will compete and physically fight, it just isn't the usual tactic that they will select.
They do have other tools at their disposal. Women tend to be much more emotionally manipulative. People think that manipulation is automatically a bad thing, and I disagree with that notion entirely. It is simply a way of getting their wants and needs met. That is all this behavior really is. It negatively affects everyone involved It gets too toxic, but that doesn't change the fact that it is trying to ensure the hardwired needs of human existence are met.
I think these behaviors are more common now as well. The more people are interacting with the perception of someone else, such as online, or as I mentioned in the post through Potemkin village lives that they see on social pages, this is going to be a strategy used to gain the upper hand. Social media is a breeding ground for this kind of thinking, but the most toxic version of it. There really aren't winners in the playing grounds that we currently have. The damage will be profound.
Spot on Athena. There was nothing as disappointing as when my Doctorate put me into the presence of such rubes, greatly influencing me to join forces with administrators and those making money in the mental healthcare field. You would’ve loved the space😂 that I could have promised….😘
> Again… and I cannot stress this enough, this is called being female. And believe me, they aren’t puppet masters, they just look that way when you are all caught upin your feelings about the matter. It’s just a matter of directing the emotions and getting there first. By that I mean, females will believe the side of an argument delivered to them by the person that gets to them first. It’s completely lacking in critical thinking skills, but that’s how it is. If you want people on your side, you have to be the one with the fastest flapping gums and the most sympathetic story. If you have those, you have allies.
Isn’t that normal human behavior lol?
With journalism it works like that. Someone can write a sob article about a party/country/person that they hate, then other news agencies will steal it and most of their audience will believe it, especially if it is some party/country/person that they don’t care about or hate themselves. Then when the subject of the article will prove that what was written was wrong and post the proof it will never reach even 1/2 of the audience of the initial defamation.
You are annoyed that this woman is assigning to psychopaths what you call broader “female behavior”, but then you do the exact same thing. It is amusing, Subhanallah.
You seem to have very limited ideas of what women are like.
I found your blog after I read your interview that you have to a magazine. There you mentioned that you got diagnosed in your mid twenties. I imagine it was awhile ago, so you must be much older than me and so must be your social circle. Maybe it affects how you perceive women, because older women act like that much more often. I am female, I mostly talk to females and I can’t say that this behavior is exclusive to women. You can see it in both sexes.
There are a lot of logical, adequate women as well.
There are, and I noted that in the article. However, this behavior is very standard with women, and of course there are the outliers, but it is more common than it is not. I would say that you aren't very familiar with women. This is not necessarily seen by people unless they are expected to be around female groups for a large portion of their lives.
I find it amusing how many people are emotionally bothered by this article. So much so that they are either not reading very carefully, or they are deliberately misrepresenting my words.
I have found this behavior LESS common than not -- unless perhaps in high school.
I do not believe I am deliberately misrepresenting your words. I earned a living as an editor for several decades. I believe you are misunderstanding your own words.
My possibly favorite saying is "I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant." And perhaps what you typed is not what you meant either.
Every female that I have ever met has had dealings with this behavior with another adult female, usually in the form of bullying, undermining them at work, rumor spreading, and those are the normal ones. There is no shortage of adult females that stop maturing around the age of seventeen. It manifests in many ways, but is not uncommon in adults. The much more toxic version is stalking, calling child protective services and making false reports, it is mate stealing or targeting, it is a vicious neighbor that calls the police for nothing more than being offended by the victims existence.
Not only is this something every adult female that I have ever met dealt with this, I get messages all the time from women around the world for advice on how to deal with this sort of thing. Culture does not matter based on my observations. The same or similar behavior exists across the world.
Ahhh. Perhaps I now see the nature of the problem. Yes, I have had dealings of this nature with at least one, possibly more adult females. But I find it to be relatively uncommon -- less than 10%, possibly less than 5% of the women I've interacted with. So, sure, there's no shortage of females behaving this way. And yes there's a much more toxic version around as well. But I find it relatively uncommon, even back in my pre-menopause days. Annoying, but easily avoided since I rarely worked in offices where that 5-10% might pose a problem.
I can see that having lots of folks ask you for advice on how to deal with this would indeed make it sound very prevalent. And then again, I'm also an introvert. Maybe extroverts, who interact with a lot more people, would also experience more of this.
In any event, I was mostly kinda shocked to hear your language that seemed to imply that "all women" were like this, and that it's in our wiring (which would also mean that you share that wiring, BTW = LOL).
It's also true that women compete for mates somewhat differently from the ways men compete. Men have this "look Ma no hands" kind of show-off thing they do. In most cultures that I'm aware of, women are discouraged from being direct and up front, so we wind up using more ... I suppose "covert" is a good description. Things like wandering through the guy's line of sight. And most flirting is kinda covert.
Anyway, I've been reading your stuff since before you started Eye of the Storm, and this is the first time I've had a "say what?? Huh???" reaction. Bottom line, I just don't think this kind of nastiness is as prevalent as you think it is. So, I guess I'll just agree to disagree.
I also want to add that reading your points of view on stuff has widened my horizons on a lot of things, and I thank you for that. In particular, I find that trying on the question of "Why should I care?" about [various events] has been especially useful for looking at times when I overreact to [sundry junk] from other folks.
Men usually go after each other in different ways. It's less emotional in nature. They certainly go after each other though, and can be brutal in doing so.
That said, I have seen men who will destroy a females character when they didn't want to take responsibility for their actions, or for a child. I have seen men stalk of course, I have had six or seven of those. I'm not sure about one of them as I never actually saw them, so there is a possibility that that one was a woman.
Men tend to be much more direct. If there is a problem, they would rather get into each other's faces. Women who do this sort of thing tend to try to avoid the physical encounter. They go for the emotional strikes, whereas men will go straight for the jugular.
Just FYI, no, I'm not married, I do not have kids, I have not hated any women in high positions, in fact I have not hated any women, and I have worked to support myself my entire life. And frankly I don't care if my previous reply to your comment might have violated Quora-variety BNBR. Screw tact.
Yes, I have seen that, but you said that they are very rare and that I disagree with.
That is my case, I spend a lot of time around women, and from my experience such behavior is 1). Not that widespread 2). Not exclusive to women. Hence I find your description of women and the attraction theory rather unusual and odd.
Though the world is too large to make assumptions about such huge groups of people based solely on your own experience. You could have mostly come across toxic women, and I could have mostly come across adequate women. Which however returns us to my point that with most groups it’s often 50/50, stereotypes aren’t fully true, but still true to some extent.
I don’t think you have to be emotionally bothered by an article to disagree with it.
They are rare. This is a very common behavior, and no, it isn't that I am around toxic women, it is that I pay attention to women and their behaviors. You are making assumptions that have no basis in reality.
Are there perfectly reasonable and practical women? Of course. That isn't what the article is about.
Which assumptions? That is an existing behavior but not as common as you say it is?
The main thing that I disagree with you on is that you call it female behavior, while in my opinion it is human behavior, as I can see it at similar rates in both women and men.
> threaten self-harm, lie about pregnancies, make false accusations about abuse and rape, run absolute smear campaigns against a woman they don’t like, pure underhanded self-serving manipulation of friend groups and their friends’ friends to get people on their side, lie to make themselves look good, or make others look bad to gain their ends, etc.
All of that, aside from lying about pregnancies and rape is not exclusive to women. Actually, I, for example, have only known men who threatened to self-harm and kill themselves if their girlfriend left them and I have known like a dozen of such people. Plus with pregnancy lies, for obvious reason, men don’t lie about such things, but they lie about their partner cheating.
"You are annoyed that this woman is assigning to psychopaths what you call broader “female behavior”, but then you do the exact same thing."
"You seem to have very limited ideas of what women are like."
"You could have mostly come across toxic women"
This article isn't about men. It is specifically about women. I have no idea why you are bringing in outside things that have nothing to do with what I wrote. It's very odd. Interestingly, you are proving my point that these are normal behaviors, and that they are participated in by many humans. However, for this particular article, the humans I was discussing happen to be female.
I have thought about it now as a possibility, if you compare psychopathic women to other women specifically, that makes sense. But I have seen your other posts about women however, which made me think that you actually meant “female behavior”, not in this specific way.
Indeed. I have noticed this desire to make normal behaviors into some sort of social label that isn't needed.
I think that the move in that direction is for social conditioning. If you point to something and relate it to a negative thing like psychopathy or whatever diagnoses de jour that they are focused on, then people will subconsciously treat that behavior like it is a disease instead of seeing it for what it is.
Humans are animals. No matter how much that is ignored and people attempt to distance themselves from the idea that they are instinctually wired, it is still factual. Those instincts being understood is far more valuable than to try and squash them through making them into something that they are not. I find many instinctual behaviors to be silly, but me thinking so doesn't remove from it it's role in how humans have involved.
And I might add because of this kind of behavior . Seems like some of your readers have taken your statements to personally. Maybe because there is truth to what you wrote and they internalized it. Not sure.
I just know you didn't say all women, nor did I feel in anyway included in that kind of behavior.
It just confirmed my experience with other women as a rule, there are a few that aren't this way.
I would be very interested to read an article about what you think about men and women behavior. As a psychopath you don't feel biased towards one group or another. It would be very useful in situations like this one, where someone tried to classify a female psychopaths based on emotional behavior of a particular group of NT woman
Athena, you claimed that this catty behavior "it's in the female wiring" and is the "normal natural state of female relationships". I cannot even find where you said that some rare subset of women don't do this (using search for "some"). And you're surprised so many of us are taking issue with these statements? Claiming we are having some sort of emotional melt down that you, psychopathic as you are, are immune from?
I do totally agree with you that your critique of these descriptions of "the female psychopath" are utterly ludicrous, down the same/similar lines of your other critiques of writing about psychopaths in general and of male psychopaths. I am glad you are debunking these things. But when you start making broad generalizations of the type in this article, nope, I don't agree. Largely because it does not match my own experience of women, together with my experience of friendships with other women.
Sure, some female exes have behaved horribly. So have some male exes. To generalize from those does a disservice to everyone else.
I never said you were having an emotional meltdown, nor did I imply it because I never thought that was the case.
Yes, I am surprised so many are taking issue with the statements. I don't consider them inflammatory in any way. This isn't something that I have created out of whole cloth, it is a well known issue that many females are absolutely vicious towards other females they see as competition or they just don't like.
A simple search for "women tear each other down" on Google returns article after article about this behavior and how common and brutal it is. It isn't being spoken about in these articles like it is something that is a symptom of a disorder, but rather that it is a common strategy employed by females against other females. Stating this does not seem controversial at all to me.
Men have their own ways of interacting that aren't healthy as well. Those behaviors also should not be pathologized. They should be accepted as normal, and dealt with so they can become more healthy in nature. If the behavior is placed in the category of "other" especially when that "other" is considered untreatable by the very people making the claim that it should be ascribed to said other, then that behavior is never successfully dealt with and moved into a more healthy dynamic.
I updated my comment with more thoughts. I don't want you to think that I am sneaking comment changes in, and also give you a chance to respond if you would like.
I think that this is one of the places that psychopaths and neurotypicals really deviate. People constantly tell me what all psychopaths do, and while it is mildly annoying, I mostly find it funny. I don't get a rise from it, and there isn't a personal impact on me.
My cognitive empathy fails often, so yes, your perspective is odd for me. I assumed that mentioning a qualifier made it clear that this was not directed at people that it had nothing to do with. When there is something that a psychopath does that has nothing to do with me, there isn't anything that arises from that internally. It has nothing to do with me, and so it is like hearing about something someone I have never met did. If I cannot see that behavior in myself, I just assume they are talking about me. I applied that thinking to my readers. I just assumed that you didn't do these things, would know that, and wouldn't read it through that lens.
My apologies. Expect my cognitive empathy to fail from time to time, because I am constantly encountering new things that I lack context for.
Wow, this is awesome, and so illuminating about how this whole bru-ha-ha happened. I will re-read your post later with an eye towards revisions. As it's now past my bedtime.
And btw, I believe we all of us semi-constantly encounter new things we lack context for. Just perhaps usually don't recognize that's happening.
I would not tend to think you were "sneaking" anything at any time -- whether comment changes or whatnot. You appear to me to be one of the most honest people I have ever encountered. Well, perhaps with a few modifiers about context-situations. That is, I can see that the mask is a huge lie of sorts. But aside from that, you say what you think, and are remarkably open. Of course, there is also that factor of anonymity in places like Quora, and presumably none of your reader audience knows who "Athena Walker" truly is unless you tell them privately. But I'm glad you added that caveat. Clarifies stuff.
They aren't terrible per se, they are using a terrible but effective strategy. The problem is that effective strategies are often the ones chosen, regardless of whether they are principled decisions or not. If the intended outcome is successful, the behavior to get there is justified in the mind of the person utilizing it.
Likely her self worth was tied to how she felt people perceived her. If she was able to steal a boyfriend, she had more value. If a mate tries to leave it would be a direct assault on her worth and value, so she would do whatever she could to keep them in place regardless of whether she actually liked that mate or not.
I never bothered with this sort, but saw them and worse all the time. When things go bad in female relationships, it's amazing how vicious they can be towards someone that they thought of as family the week prior.
Ack! Athena, the quotes about female psychopaths are pretty clearly messed up thinking.
I have to take issue with some of your generalizations about female wiring and evolution though, even if I'm not an NT and maybe you mostly meant female NTs.
Some female NTs are certainly as catty as you mention; they will tear other women down. The line of thinking that maybe that's how they get better mates could be accurate in some cases. Like many arguments that pin a stereotype about a group to a possible evolutionary reason, though, there are many other strategies that can work both among humans (incl. between human females) as well as between nonhuman primates. Nonhuman primates have a ton of different social structures and relationships between sexes... it is possible to cherry-pick from these to support all sorts of things one might want to convey about humans! Not saying you are doing this on purpose, some of the things are publicized more than others after all. However -- male scientists used to consider male lions to be the center of lion pride life, the leaders... um nope!
Scientists have done this with lots of other species too -- humans project their desired human social structure upon various animal species, then tout that "science" as evidence supporting the, naturalness?, of their desired human social structure.
Have you read about "bonobos" -- pygmy chimps? Totally different group / sex dynamics than the common chimps. They do lots of ... fun stuff! ... to get along. :-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo
I'm not cherry picking. I am observing human behavior and seeing what it is they do.
Also, I was very clear that I was not speaking about all women. Strange that so many that are bothered by this article, seem to have missed key information and formulated their opinion based on something I never said.
Also also, I spoke specifically about female chimpanzees. I never said anything past that specific group.
You were very clear that you were speaking about such cattiness being TYPICAL OF women's overall behavior. You did not say "of some women's behavior." You later said that some women didn't do this, but that statement came much later. You even said right here, "I am observing human behavior and seeing what it is they do." And that to me sounds like a generalization of the exact sort that Yvonne is calling out, and that I was going to comment on except that Yvonne did it better than I would have.
I was disappointed to see this level of over-generalization from you. It seemed intellectually sloppy on your part, something I haven't before seen you do.
I recently finished reading a book entitled Bitch that I believe you would find interesting. It's about overlooked and casually dismissed behaviors of female animals of a huge range of different species. Bonobos are among the species described, as are hyenas, lemurs, and more than a sprinkling of non-mammals.
Yes, for the reasons I stated: the original version of this post (without the disclaimer at the front) contained what I felt were over-generalizations about "all women" and what I also believed was sloppy reasoning, which is quite different from Athena's usual prose. I had an expectation that was not met.
I definitely can miss things in writings esp. during the workday, apologies.
(Some of your phrasings do sound like "all women" to me, but people write differently -- putting the disclaimer once is reasonable. )
I took your discussion of female (common) chimps to mean, you are linking them to female humans. People often use chimp analogies to reflect on human inner workings, due to the close relationships of our species. If you weren't doing that, I might have expected picking a less close species than the one closest to us. Implication sort of thing, nothing definite though.
Also I didn't say you were cherry picking. I am talking about approaches to arguments that are often done; I'm curious what your intent was by using the chimp stuff.
I very much hope you will read about bonobos, it's fascinating how different they are from common chimps. I wish humans leaned more in that direction.
"it is possible to cherry-pick from these to support all sorts of things one might want to convey about humans! Not saying you are doing this on purpose..."
I never said all women, and said several times that this is the behavior of "some women", or stated "the women that are like this", and specifically referred to "mean girl syndrome".
I do not like arguing with my readers, but I also do not like when my writing or words are being misrepresented.
For me it’s that “standard female behavior”, “hardwired behavior” was contradictory to then saying it’s just some women. You also say in the comments that women who don’t do that exist, but they are an exception. I would either remove “some women” then or the whole narrative lol.
Sounds good. My internal flags go up about negative generalizations re. groups I'm in, usually, since NTs are so influenced by generalizations, without being consciously aware of it sometimes too. Autistics less but some per a study I read. Psychopaths -- no idea, probably no research on it too...
From my perspective, neither you nor I/we are intentionally misrepresenting. People can have subtle differences in interpretation even if we're all native English speakers etc..
I fall into the group of interpreting "women", without lots of disclaiming, meaning "all women". For me, a disclaimer at the beginning as well as one or two later - depending upon the length of the writing -- can help counteract this. I sort of skim and read very fast, I don't read every word (normally). I found when writing stuff about male humans who happen to be violent, that putting zillions of disclaimers about "not all men blah blah" helped stop the "you hate all men!!!" responses. Usually anyhow.
I think lots of people do this somewhat, based upon how often people miss stuff in my emails at work! :-)
My goals tend more towards determining what the intent was, even if a miscommunication occurs. I also geek out over animal behavior a lot!
I think my error was applying my own thinking to those that read my writing. I assume when I read something inaccurate about psychopathy, or something accurate but something that has nothing to do with me, that the inaccurate statement or that accurate statement is evaluated for whether or not I understand in the context of me and my experience. If it doesn't, it is disregarded as having anything to do with me, and I continue reading through that lens.
I applied this thinking to my readers. I just assumed that my readers would understand that this had nothing to do with them based on their own understanding of themselves, and because thought I had placed enough qualifiers in the piece to separate this from the broad understanding, and read it through that lens. I didn't consider that it might be upsetting regardless of whether it applied to them or not, and that I should have had more qualifiers to make that separation. It is a failure of my cognitive empathy.
It’s the same for me, but I compared what you wrote not only to my experience but to my understanding of women as a whole.
Putting the disclaimer once way down in the essay is misleading. That sort of disclaimer is better put up front. Many of her phrasings also sounded to me like "all women".
Despite the fact I said quite the opposite in the post?
Yes, despite that. You said "quite the opposite" only once (or maybe a couple of times; I had trouble finding them), and it was more than halfway down in the article.
Problem is, when one says something is typical behavior "of women", that does imply "of all women" unless one sticks a qualifier in there. "Of women" does not mean or imply "of many women" or "of some women" or "of occasional women" or "of women on random Tuesdays." It means "of women in general."
I will make another edit towards the top to be more clear. Will that suffice?
I agree with your critique, that Athena was over generalizing. She didn't say she was describing "some women". She said she was describing "female behavior" and said pretty straightforwardly it was typical of women. Which by implication would be of "all" women.
BTW, I bet you would enjoy the book entitled Bitch if you haven't already read it.
I should totally read that, I've heard other people recommend it too.
Just bought it on Nook!
I will add it to my list
Yup, book is awesome. Very readable and fascinating content.
:thumbs-up-emoji:
Oh, how I would love to see Athena debating this with Jordan Peterson. Er, I mean HEAR, what with the whole no-face-reveal thing.
It would be interesting to have a discussion with him.
From my perspective it almost seems like the good Doctor is attempting to gaslight the entire female population. If you were a woman who took this seriously it could mess with your mind
Indeed, it's messy.
right? That's my take, too.
Humans gaslight themselves. They see in themselves what they want to see, and cannot see themselves from an outside perspective. On top of that, they haven't anyone that is willing to provide that perspective to them, or if they do, they don't want to hear it. They like the version of themselves that they write for themselves. It's more comfortable to tell yourself a story about who you are than it is to truly know the reflection in the mirror, and the shadow you cast as well.
Trying to tear down success is such a common thing to see.
The whole business is incredibly sexist. My god.
They do this with other issues as well, and many of those are directed at males. It isn't so much that they are sexist, it's much more that they are making incorrect assumptions about how people think, and then building a whole narrative around that. I suppose this wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if when they are challenged on it, especially by someone that might know better because they know how they think, they changed their opinion or took that information into account. The issue is that they not only refuse to do this, but they then will attack the person that is giving them the information.
James Fallon is an excellent example of this. He is a neurologist that has the brain scans showing the differences in his brain and his own behavioral patterns. However, there was an interview that he did with a psychologist, and the psychologist insisted he wasn't psychopathic, because psychopathy was defined by the traits that psychology, a soft science, had decided on, not what neurology, a hard science, could literally point to and say, here is what psychopathy looks like in the brain.
Because the psychologist didn't like the hard science disagreed with the soft science, he decided that Fallon was lying... for reasons...
I'm not sure I buy that the described female behavior is hardwired into women. I'm a woman who hates that kind of game-playing and s es eks out other ssd who feel the same way. Certainly the behavior you describe is common in women (and I accept that it's not psychopathic), but I don't find it to be universal among NT women.
I didn't say that all women are like this, and specifically said that there are those that aren't.
I can relate to what you say, Curious Cat. I always hated gameplaying, and dishonesty in general. Not that I haven't missed stuff I was doing and been less than honest, but I try to work on it.
So the girls and women I met and tried to spend more time with, tended to be more like that, and perhaps they also had more friends like that... so maybe my sample set of females isn't totally random. :-) Maybe nobody's is...
One thing missing from all this discussion is the way some women can really "have your back" and be supportive. I suspect this involves trust and oxytocin, Athena, so it might be harder for you to pick up on? Not sure -- that is a question.
However the positives of my connections with some females, is different and feels deeper than with male friends, for me. Again - I'm pretty sure some of this involves oxytocin-based feelings rather than milder feelings like "interest". (I view that as a feeling too, not sure everyone does.)
About trying to do statistical analyses mentally based upon our own always limited experiences... :-). I have figured out over time various things about NTs and am pretty sure I missed tons of stuff about them over the decades; I can't go back and figure out more about what was going on, or worse, try to analyse the prevalence of stuff I missed back then... my memory isn't eidetic.
However this conversation has helped me figure out what was going on with a certain "friend" in high school! Ugh. Life is too short for that s**t. Thank you all for the great discussion, my cognitive empathy has been improved too here.
Great commentary on female behavior. As an Aspie I often don't understand white lies and tend to be very honest about the way I think. When people look at me like I'm a horrible person, I laugh because I'm sure most people have much worse thoughts than me, but they know how to hide them. Pathologizing normal behavior seems to be a defense mechanism as NTs don't like to recognize flaws in themselves but prefer to claim the moral high ground. Mental health professionals often fail to recognize normal vs abnormal behavior based on statistical data and instead use their morality to define normal. They're all fools. But I'm the biggest fool because I don't know when I should lie :)
"...BUT not everyone, of course." is something the NT world has taught me to add to all my sentences about any human behavior.
Something Jordan Peterson should say every time he speaks
I can see why that would be a problem.
My SO thought he was really going to piss me off when he said, ”All women secretly hate each other.” I said, Dude, you have no idea…” 😃
There are a lot of undercurrents in female relationships. Since I don't participate in these behaviors as they aren't valuable to me, when I do have a rare female friend they have always brought up to me how different it is to be friends with me because all of that is missing. They have also stated that they had no idea how much of it there was, and how completely normal it was to have built in, that when it suddenly wasn't there, they didn't know what to think or how to feel about it.
I have now read several of your articles. Thank you for explaining how simple it is to understand the female psychopath as an individual with individual interests, not necessarily those of the predatory female. But when you go on to describe the dirty deads and behaviors of the predatory female, that are atributied to female psychopaths, as just traits of the female, I have to profoundly disagree. I myself am female and very empathic. I respect another man's wife and have never sought competition for another female's mate in order to prove myself. I am sure that these catty females exist but I think they are more of an exception than the norm. My ex (covert narcissist) friend was like this. It took a lot of pride and anxiety on her part, to form herself in this way. A very distastful person to be around. That's why she is an ex-friend.
Granted, you cite evolutioinary evidence for female agression in this way, but I think your argument is flawed. I believe I see a reliance on an atheistic background for your premise on "normal" female behaivior. My personal believe is that those who experience hurt and trauma in their life have a choice to make. Either become an asshole like the aggressor (imitatae them) or develop empathy and say, "Never again. At least not from me, will you experience what I had to go through." Maybe this choice does not present to a psychopath due to the brain not being wired for empathy. Or maybe it is a loack of belief in a loving God. Maybe the 'female psychopath' designation is not an automatic substitute for cruelty and ambition. But to say that the cruelty and ambition matrix is just the abode of being female, begs the question. Really? This is what all females are like? Not me. And not in my experience.
These aren't predatory females, they are competitive females. There is nothing predatory about being a mean girl, it's just a mate selection and dominance hierarchy strategy.
It doesn't matter how you view yourself. Many people think themselves to be one thing or another, and do not see their behavior as others do. I am not saying that you engage in any of this behavior, but many women do and they do not see it as predatory, they see it as the best option available to them.
I am not applying a spiritual nor a nonspiritual take on this as that has nothing to do with it.
I never said all females. I have gotten comments like this a number of times on this post which is interesting to me. People seem to be very upset by something I never said. If you had read what I wrote, you wouldn't be making the claim that I said "all women", as I was very clear as to my meaning.
"Females tear each other down and destroy the competition. That is the normal natural state of female relationships, especially when the females are of breeding age. I think that an overfire of this aspect is also why some women try to obtain a taken mate. It is in the wiring to prove to herself that she can take from another female. It reassures her that she is indeed a higher value mate over the competition." First I see your all encompasing statement about females. Then I see the idea slightly modified by the word. "some."
Females do do this. That is why there are long standing jokes, movies, books, television shows, routines by stand up comedians, documentaries, articles, studies specifically about this. Add to that of course, every female that I have ever known who has a plethora of stories about the underhanded things that females do to one another, and also what I have observed watching them my entire life. It is why I rarely have an interest in having female friends as there is a lot of drama that tends to come from that venture that doesn't interest me.
Are there females that are above all this? Of course. Are there scores that consider this normal and beneficial behavior for themselves? Absolutely. So much so that all the materials I have listed above exist. They aren't there because this is rare behavior. They exist because it is something that is very common.
There is a lot of jokes, books, tv shows etc about pretty much every stereotype, (though lately such content is slowly dying out) but that doesn’t mean that they are reflecting the reality of the group that they are about. Much like you can’t reference fiction in articles about psychiatric disorders, for example.
There are jokes about Arabs being terrorist and, I don’t know, all gay men liking make up, but are they a reliable validation for reality lol? For a small portion of it, yes, but definitely not for the these whole groups.
Similarly, your experience with women is your experience with women, much like mine is mine. There are too many women on earth to judge all of them from our experiences. If it was about some ethnic group, for example, that had like 1000 people total and you knew 100 of them, it would make sense, but in this case, it doesn’t.
>It is why I rarely have an interest in having female friends as there is a lot of drama that tends to come from that venture that doesn't interest me.
This also disproves that what you wrote in the post was about women only because you were comparing psychopathic women to NT women.
That wasn't what I was doing at all with this post. That was never my intention.
What this post is about is looking at how psychopathic females are being considered, and pointing out that the behaviors that they are calling "psychopathic" are very common, and very normal.
If I were to write a post comparing NT women and psychopathic ones, it would be a much more concentrated piece about that with a great deal of nuance. I would have talked about relationships, child bearing and interest, priorities, interactions and where I see differences in values.
This in no way was ever meant to speak to that even slightly. This was a reminder that the behaviors that are often considered as something that is removed from normal interaction are not removed at all. That they are normal and they are prevalent. As I said, pathologizing normative behavior is becoming very common, and it is not a good idea.
I rarely have an interest in female friends because there is a great deal of emotional drama that I have no interest in whatsoever. It likely isn't all that noticeable to females that share emotional experiences, but to me it is not something that I am willing to put up with. There are females that are outside of this. I am friends with a couple of them, but that is because they don't bring that into our interactions.
Yes, plus “in the wiring” kinda implies that it is present in all or nearly all.
It is present in a large percentage of the female population. I was clear about there being exceptions however. This is a quote from the first thing that comes up when you search for "women tear each other down" on Google:
"As for the smattering of muckrakers who clearly got some sort of satisfaction out of raining on my parade, I began to wonder: Why do women tear each other down? Why not simply say “congratulations” and move on, or say nothing at all?
I think we all have been guilty of getting together with girlfriends and gossiping about that one woman in our social circle who happened to be absent. These gossip seshes can often be full of vitriol if not down right malicious. As I reflect on this, I have to ask myself: Why hang out with that person then if they’re so terrible?
We’ve also all had our own personal ‘mean girl’ experiences where a woman or group of women intentionally isolate, dismiss, belittle, or even socially torment us on social media or in public.
The bottom line is: Women are much crueler to each other than men.
According to Seth Meyers, Psy.D.: “Based on 15 years of clinical work with women who represent virtually every possible demographic variable, I can confidently report that the women I’ve worked with report more critical views of other women than the men do with their own male peers.”"
It may be an uncomfortable truth, many women tend to be extremely nasty to one another.
Yes, exactly this is the problem with Athena's phrasing. This and her statement that women don't form friendships with other women.
In fairness, I said women suck at friendships with other women, not that they don't have friendships. Often this is the case that many female friends spend more time as frenimies than real friends.
Where did I say all?
Where you didn't say some until way down in the article.
Fair enough
Thanks!
Yeah, everyone has perceptions. And it's true about almost anything that "some people do and some people don't." And you can take your psychoanalysis of someone you don't know and shove it somewhere.
Hi Donny, No I don't think this way. Why would I want to gaslight another woman to get rid of the copetition? I am confident and unafraid of the other women in this area.
And, Yes, you are correct. We see gas lighting done in movies and TV because it brings comedy and drama. Wihout conflict we dont have much of a story. But I myself am much more interested in another person's good than in competing with them. I want them to succeed and be happy, not climb on top of them at their expense.
There are the Amber Heards of the world. I do not call this just being female. I call this toxic Borderline Personality Disorder. Maybe Histrionic. I don't call it normal female even if the media shows us a lot of these, it is not normal.
If we see that we are being treated in this toxic way, then we need to disconnect from these people. I think we need to look for the good in others, express and model it. But if it goes no where because someone insists on gaslighting us back for love, well, walk away from that toxic person. Don't adopt toxicity for yourself and become another practitioner of it.
Amber Heard has many problems. The fact that she is a women is more an aside than a contributor.
I don't mean that she doesn't use being a female to her advantage, she certainly does. Her problems however, are because she creates them for herself because she is toxic in her way of interacting with people. She would be toxic in a different way if she were male perhaps, but toxic all the same.
Indeed true, it is quite common. It is not the strategy employed by all women, but it is certainly normal enough that there is no point to try to pathologize it.
Thank you for this acknowledgement. I am going to acceed to your idea that it is not necessarily a pathology. And yet, gaslighting is included as a tenent of narcisissism. I would say that maybe in the natural, dog eat dog mentality, it is a strategy explored by many people, men and women. But I learned long ago as a grade school child, how much it hurt to be nicknamed. And how great it felt to accepted by the most popular girl in the school. I learned my lesson and decided to be on the side of good and right for all and not selfish bitch on wheels. I really hate the idea of the selfish bitch. If they do it to me, I will back off. But I have no need to inflict this destructive pride against another. There are other empaths like me, who want to love and encourage.
I don't think it is a dog eat dog kind of thing. Let me reiterate, I don't like this behavior at all. I find it exhausting. That said, it makes sense that females will compete with one another in such ways. They are disinclined to physically compete with one another much more broadly than say men are. That is not to say there aren't females that will compete and physically fight, it just isn't the usual tactic that they will select.
They do have other tools at their disposal. Women tend to be much more emotionally manipulative. People think that manipulation is automatically a bad thing, and I disagree with that notion entirely. It is simply a way of getting their wants and needs met. That is all this behavior really is. It negatively affects everyone involved It gets too toxic, but that doesn't change the fact that it is trying to ensure the hardwired needs of human existence are met.
I think these behaviors are more common now as well. The more people are interacting with the perception of someone else, such as online, or as I mentioned in the post through Potemkin village lives that they see on social pages, this is going to be a strategy used to gain the upper hand. Social media is a breeding ground for this kind of thinking, but the most toxic version of it. There really aren't winners in the playing grounds that we currently have. The damage will be profound.
Spot on Athena. There was nothing as disappointing as when my Doctorate put me into the presence of such rubes, greatly influencing me to join forces with administrators and those making money in the mental healthcare field. You would’ve loved the space😂 that I could have promised….😘
> Again… and I cannot stress this enough, this is called being female. And believe me, they aren’t puppet masters, they just look that way when you are all caught upin your feelings about the matter. It’s just a matter of directing the emotions and getting there first. By that I mean, females will believe the side of an argument delivered to them by the person that gets to them first. It’s completely lacking in critical thinking skills, but that’s how it is. If you want people on your side, you have to be the one with the fastest flapping gums and the most sympathetic story. If you have those, you have allies.
Isn’t that normal human behavior lol?
With journalism it works like that. Someone can write a sob article about a party/country/person that they hate, then other news agencies will steal it and most of their audience will believe it, especially if it is some party/country/person that they don’t care about or hate themselves. Then when the subject of the article will prove that what was written was wrong and post the proof it will never reach even 1/2 of the audience of the initial defamation.
You are annoyed that this woman is assigning to psychopaths what you call broader “female behavior”, but then you do the exact same thing. It is amusing, Subhanallah.
You seem to have very limited ideas of what women are like.
I found your blog after I read your interview that you have to a magazine. There you mentioned that you got diagnosed in your mid twenties. I imagine it was awhile ago, so you must be much older than me and so must be your social circle. Maybe it affects how you perceive women, because older women act like that much more often. I am female, I mostly talk to females and I can’t say that this behavior is exclusive to women. You can see it in both sexes.
There are a lot of logical, adequate women as well.
There are, and I noted that in the article. However, this behavior is very standard with women, and of course there are the outliers, but it is more common than it is not. I would say that you aren't very familiar with women. This is not necessarily seen by people unless they are expected to be around female groups for a large portion of their lives.
I find it amusing how many people are emotionally bothered by this article. So much so that they are either not reading very carefully, or they are deliberately misrepresenting my words.
I have found this behavior LESS common than not -- unless perhaps in high school.
I do not believe I am deliberately misrepresenting your words. I earned a living as an editor for several decades. I believe you are misunderstanding your own words.
My possibly favorite saying is "I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant." And perhaps what you typed is not what you meant either.
Every female that I have ever met has had dealings with this behavior with another adult female, usually in the form of bullying, undermining them at work, rumor spreading, and those are the normal ones. There is no shortage of adult females that stop maturing around the age of seventeen. It manifests in many ways, but is not uncommon in adults. The much more toxic version is stalking, calling child protective services and making false reports, it is mate stealing or targeting, it is a vicious neighbor that calls the police for nothing more than being offended by the victims existence.
Not only is this something every adult female that I have ever met dealt with this, I get messages all the time from women around the world for advice on how to deal with this sort of thing. Culture does not matter based on my observations. The same or similar behavior exists across the world.
Ahhh. Perhaps I now see the nature of the problem. Yes, I have had dealings of this nature with at least one, possibly more adult females. But I find it to be relatively uncommon -- less than 10%, possibly less than 5% of the women I've interacted with. So, sure, there's no shortage of females behaving this way. And yes there's a much more toxic version around as well. But I find it relatively uncommon, even back in my pre-menopause days. Annoying, but easily avoided since I rarely worked in offices where that 5-10% might pose a problem.
I can see that having lots of folks ask you for advice on how to deal with this would indeed make it sound very prevalent. And then again, I'm also an introvert. Maybe extroverts, who interact with a lot more people, would also experience more of this.
In any event, I was mostly kinda shocked to hear your language that seemed to imply that "all women" were like this, and that it's in our wiring (which would also mean that you share that wiring, BTW = LOL).
It's also true that women compete for mates somewhat differently from the ways men compete. Men have this "look Ma no hands" kind of show-off thing they do. In most cultures that I'm aware of, women are discouraged from being direct and up front, so we wind up using more ... I suppose "covert" is a good description. Things like wandering through the guy's line of sight. And most flirting is kinda covert.
Anyway, I've been reading your stuff since before you started Eye of the Storm, and this is the first time I've had a "say what?? Huh???" reaction. Bottom line, I just don't think this kind of nastiness is as prevalent as you think it is. So, I guess I'll just agree to disagree.
I think that your perception is fair.
Thanks again.
I also want to add that reading your points of view on stuff has widened my horizons on a lot of things, and I thank you for that. In particular, I find that trying on the question of "Why should I care?" about [various events] has been especially useful for looking at times when I overreact to [sundry junk] from other folks.
Okay, to finally clarify misunderstandings that we might have, have you seen or heard of this behavior in men?
Men usually go after each other in different ways. It's less emotional in nature. They certainly go after each other though, and can be brutal in doing so.
That said, I have seen men who will destroy a females character when they didn't want to take responsibility for their actions, or for a child. I have seen men stalk of course, I have had six or seven of those. I'm not sure about one of them as I never actually saw them, so there is a possibility that that one was a woman.
Men tend to be much more direct. If there is a problem, they would rather get into each other's faces. Women who do this sort of thing tend to try to avoid the physical encounter. They go for the emotional strikes, whereas men will go straight for the jugular.
So you prefer make friends despite that because they are less emotional in your experience?
I think if everyone here understood Athena’s post this way, including people who agree with her, it’s on her that she didn’t word it normally lol
Just FYI, no, I'm not married, I do not have kids, I have not hated any women in high positions, in fact I have not hated any women, and I have worked to support myself my entire life. And frankly I don't care if my previous reply to your comment might have violated Quora-variety BNBR. Screw tact.
Yes, I have seen that, but you said that they are very rare and that I disagree with.
That is my case, I spend a lot of time around women, and from my experience such behavior is 1). Not that widespread 2). Not exclusive to women. Hence I find your description of women and the attraction theory rather unusual and odd.
Though the world is too large to make assumptions about such huge groups of people based solely on your own experience. You could have mostly come across toxic women, and I could have mostly come across adequate women. Which however returns us to my point that with most groups it’s often 50/50, stereotypes aren’t fully true, but still true to some extent.
I don’t think you have to be emotionally bothered by an article to disagree with it.
They are rare. This is a very common behavior, and no, it isn't that I am around toxic women, it is that I pay attention to women and their behaviors. You are making assumptions that have no basis in reality.
Are there perfectly reasonable and practical women? Of course. That isn't what the article is about.
Which assumptions? That is an existing behavior but not as common as you say it is?
The main thing that I disagree with you on is that you call it female behavior, while in my opinion it is human behavior, as I can see it at similar rates in both women and men.
> threaten self-harm, lie about pregnancies, make false accusations about abuse and rape, run absolute smear campaigns against a woman they don’t like, pure underhanded self-serving manipulation of friend groups and their friends’ friends to get people on their side, lie to make themselves look good, or make others look bad to gain their ends, etc.
All of that, aside from lying about pregnancies and rape is not exclusive to women. Actually, I, for example, have only known men who threatened to self-harm and kill themselves if their girlfriend left them and I have known like a dozen of such people. Plus with pregnancy lies, for obvious reason, men don’t lie about such things, but they lie about their partner cheating.
"You are annoyed that this woman is assigning to psychopaths what you call broader “female behavior”, but then you do the exact same thing."
"You seem to have very limited ideas of what women are like."
"You could have mostly come across toxic women"
This article isn't about men. It is specifically about women. I have no idea why you are bringing in outside things that have nothing to do with what I wrote. It's very odd. Interestingly, you are proving my point that these are normal behaviors, and that they are participated in by many humans. However, for this particular article, the humans I was discussing happen to be female.
I have thought about it now as a possibility, if you compare psychopathic women to other women specifically, that makes sense. But I have seen your other posts about women however, which made me think that you actually meant “female behavior”, not in this specific way.
Indeed. I have noticed this desire to make normal behaviors into some sort of social label that isn't needed.
I think that the move in that direction is for social conditioning. If you point to something and relate it to a negative thing like psychopathy or whatever diagnoses de jour that they are focused on, then people will subconsciously treat that behavior like it is a disease instead of seeing it for what it is.
Humans are animals. No matter how much that is ignored and people attempt to distance themselves from the idea that they are instinctually wired, it is still factual. Those instincts being understood is far more valuable than to try and squash them through making them into something that they are not. I find many instinctual behaviors to be silly, but me thinking so doesn't remove from it it's role in how humans have involved.
Love it. I agree with you about most female behavior. But I'm one of those who avoid other women.
Dealing with the nonsense gets tiresome. I know a lot of females that do the very same thing. They just do not have an interest in the drama.
Exactly
And I might add because of this kind of behavior . Seems like some of your readers have taken your statements to personally. Maybe because there is truth to what you wrote and they internalized it. Not sure.
I just know you didn't say all women, nor did I feel in anyway included in that kind of behavior.
It just confirmed my experience with other women as a rule, there are a few that aren't this way.
From what I have seen as well most are.
Indeed.
The whole mean girl thing would definitely fall under the aspd category better , I think people just cant wrap their mind around a female psychopath
I think you're right
this article alone is what i'm talking about Athena. you need a broader audience like now. change the world why not?
People find me when it is necessary for them to do so.
I would be very interested to read an article about what you think about men and women behavior. As a psychopath you don't feel biased towards one group or another. It would be very useful in situations like this one, where someone tried to classify a female psychopaths based on emotional behavior of a particular group of NT woman
Athena, you claimed that this catty behavior "it's in the female wiring" and is the "normal natural state of female relationships". I cannot even find where you said that some rare subset of women don't do this (using search for "some"). And you're surprised so many of us are taking issue with these statements? Claiming we are having some sort of emotional melt down that you, psychopathic as you are, are immune from?
I do totally agree with you that your critique of these descriptions of "the female psychopath" are utterly ludicrous, down the same/similar lines of your other critiques of writing about psychopaths in general and of male psychopaths. I am glad you are debunking these things. But when you start making broad generalizations of the type in this article, nope, I don't agree. Largely because it does not match my own experience of women, together with my experience of friendships with other women.
Sure, some female exes have behaved horribly. So have some male exes. To generalize from those does a disservice to everyone else.
I never said you were having an emotional meltdown, nor did I imply it because I never thought that was the case.
Yes, I am surprised so many are taking issue with the statements. I don't consider them inflammatory in any way. This isn't something that I have created out of whole cloth, it is a well known issue that many females are absolutely vicious towards other females they see as competition or they just don't like.
A simple search for "women tear each other down" on Google returns article after article about this behavior and how common and brutal it is. It isn't being spoken about in these articles like it is something that is a symptom of a disorder, but rather that it is a common strategy employed by females against other females. Stating this does not seem controversial at all to me.
Men have their own ways of interacting that aren't healthy as well. Those behaviors also should not be pathologized. They should be accepted as normal, and dealt with so they can become more healthy in nature. If the behavior is placed in the category of "other" especially when that "other" is considered untreatable by the very people making the claim that it should be ascribed to said other, then that behavior is never successfully dealt with and moved into a more healthy dynamic.
Okay, "melt down" was a tad excessive as a term. I was referring to your surprise that so many readers were having emotional reactions.
I updated my comment with more thoughts. I don't want you to think that I am sneaking comment changes in, and also give you a chance to respond if you would like.
I think that this is one of the places that psychopaths and neurotypicals really deviate. People constantly tell me what all psychopaths do, and while it is mildly annoying, I mostly find it funny. I don't get a rise from it, and there isn't a personal impact on me.
My cognitive empathy fails often, so yes, your perspective is odd for me. I assumed that mentioning a qualifier made it clear that this was not directed at people that it had nothing to do with. When there is something that a psychopath does that has nothing to do with me, there isn't anything that arises from that internally. It has nothing to do with me, and so it is like hearing about something someone I have never met did. If I cannot see that behavior in myself, I just assume they are talking about me. I applied that thinking to my readers. I just assumed that you didn't do these things, would know that, and wouldn't read it through that lens.
My apologies. Expect my cognitive empathy to fail from time to time, because I am constantly encountering new things that I lack context for.
Wow, this is awesome, and so illuminating about how this whole bru-ha-ha happened. I will re-read your post later with an eye towards revisions. As it's now past my bedtime.
And btw, I believe we all of us semi-constantly encounter new things we lack context for. Just perhaps usually don't recognize that's happening.
I would not tend to think you were "sneaking" anything at any time -- whether comment changes or whatnot. You appear to me to be one of the most honest people I have ever encountered. Well, perhaps with a few modifiers about context-situations. That is, I can see that the mask is a huge lie of sorts. But aside from that, you say what you think, and are remarkably open. Of course, there is also that factor of anonymity in places like Quora, and presumably none of your reader audience knows who "Athena Walker" truly is unless you tell them privately. But I'm glad you added that caveat. Clarifies stuff.
Have a good night
They aren't terrible per se, they are using a terrible but effective strategy. The problem is that effective strategies are often the ones chosen, regardless of whether they are principled decisions or not. If the intended outcome is successful, the behavior to get there is justified in the mind of the person utilizing it.
Likely her self worth was tied to how she felt people perceived her. If she was able to steal a boyfriend, she had more value. If a mate tries to leave it would be a direct assault on her worth and value, so she would do whatever she could to keep them in place regardless of whether she actually liked that mate or not.
I never bothered with this sort, but saw them and worse all the time. When things go bad in female relationships, it's amazing how vicious they can be towards someone that they thought of as family the week prior.