Female abusers

I was thinking about this on the way home today. I grew up in the 60s and 70s when corporal punishment was considered acceptable.

I certainly don't think I was abused, but it was part and parcel of life.

Since I've been on Mumsnet I have realised I was probably very lucky.

I just wanted to say my heart goes out to people like rebel and cocoa and anyone else who has to spend an unfair proportion of their adult life coming to terms with things.

Lloyd de Mauser if I recall correctly, is the author. Edward Ross Dickenson has also written on this. The harsh discipline you describe in late 19th century Germany was in schools and institutions, not at the hands of mothers. Not sure if you are implying that men abuse because of mothers beating them, but in the case you cite re Nazi Germans, you are talking about an education and institutional system run by men in the earlier decades.

I may have the authors wrong, several have written on the generational roots of National Socialism. There is an article that equally looks at the military experience of WW1 in the German context. The story is far too complex to put to one cause.

This whole thread is a credit to these forums, in places where men's rights are discussed I never see any self reflection on male abuse, so it's refreshing to see such discussed here.

I've made the case before that looking at abuse of children might be a fruitful avenue in the examination of male violence. I have no idea on EA, but I know little boys are more likely to be spanked than little girls, and again it's more likely to be the mother that does this. Interestingly the chances of spanking or hitting reduces by 3% each year the child reaches. In short the closer a child gets to being of a size they could realistically defend themselves the less likely they would be to get thumped. Abusers with a size advantage will use it in context of physical abuse seems to be ubiquitous.

As to looking at the context of why do women who abuse do it within a framework of gender discrimination may have some merit, but I think we must be cautious as it is crucial that men and women are both percieved to be equal as moral agents. Besides the whole line self detonates, as an overwhelming majority of abusers were abused themselves in someway be they male or female, so if women have the get out clause of patriarchy for their abuse then everyone has an excuse who can point to a troubled upbringing, be that at the hands of a man or woman.

I am a man, and I have thankfully grown up mostly free of abuse and the only two occasions that spring to mind were both by men. For that and other reasons I grew up with a pretty dim view of my own gender. If the genders had been flipped I may well have grown up with a very misgynistic view of women. I can see how a little boy having grown up being abused by his mother would have all of his adult relationships and general attitude towards women warped in the extreme and that coupled with a size differential and you have the ingredients for perpetuating the abuse.

I cannot speak with authority about much of the above. All I would suggest is some large scale studies of men imprisoned for varieties of abuse and mine down into their backgrounds and see what commonalities exist and then see where that rabbit hole leads.

I recall reading a psychoanalyis take of Nazi Germany, which examined the cultural practices of beating children in Germany and Austria pre-war, and I believe there were whole books written on the subject of how to and how severely to beat your child to instill discipline/cultural values (which was far in excess of even Victorian England's attitudes). The conclusion of that book was that something like the rise of Fascism, the Holocaust et al found their roots in childhood abuse and trauma.

Well, whatever an individual prejudiced social worker might think, there's no way they would dare to presume any such thing in care or supervision court proceedings. If I close my eyes, I can imagine the snarl building up on the faces of some of the judges.

I have no idea Laura, that is why I would like to know.

Also regardless of numbers and/or statistics one form of abuse is not worse or less than others. I do apologise if i came across as saying that.

Cocoa I would imagine there is more of a presumuption on the part of SS that the father is responsible for any abuse, in general.

What i meant to say is women as a class are less abusive than men as a class. Based mostly on anectdata so i could be wrong.

As for where my father was when my mum was abusive? At work(they worked shifts to cover childcare). He never saw the bruises,he never heard the words. I never told him about the sexual abuse that my mother never did anything about. And he'd come home to a crying woman,in bed complaining of migraines and that she's gonna throw up. Be told that the horrible child did x and y ,was rude and disrespectful again etc. He was the one that wanted to talk things through in the family. I never took him up on it. I didn't trust it. And in time he fell from grace and i stopped loving him,because of the times he "made" mum cry and have migraines and be sick. He never did stop loving me though.

On the question of how widely female abuse is recognised, my question would be which parent the majority of social service cases relate to? I think it will be the primary career, usually the mother, as it falls to that person to show they are keeping the child safe (even if the abuse is committed by the father). Or it will be the mother, who in some other way is failing to meet a child's needs or is indeed, abusive.

If the mother is seen to be protecting and keeping the child safe, there will be no further SS involvement in my experience. So, by extension, if the mother is seen to be failing here, social services will be involved. Not sure if that makes sense but surely most social services cases focus on women's ability to protect their children or not harm them?

Scallops I wouldn't say a failure to meet emotional needs constitutes abuse. Presumably what the OP means by emotional abuse is a form of sustained cruelty that is more intangible than the kind we asociate with men.

And I don't think anyone is saying that men don't emotionally abuse - or that women don't physically or sexually abuse. There are an awful lot of people in the world and there are examples of individuals of either gender doing everything.

But if we are discussing abuse in very broad brush generalities then it stands to reason that women tend to express cruelty in more covert, emotional forms than men.

So true scallop, also men are praised for doing so little. Often a woman will describe horrendous behaviour from a man, then label him a "great dad."

They need do very little to earn that title.

I think as well there is an expectation that the emotional needs of children will be met by women. When they aren't it is noticed more keenly. Men can totally withdraw their emotional support and it isn't judged abusive. They can disappear out of children's lives, fo example and it isn't judged abusive.

I was reading up on passive aggressiveness. It has an interesting back story. According to the things I have read, it seems to, like so many things, develop in childhood. Specifically, it is a reaction to a great sense of powerlessness, the feeling that the person cannot express truth, that it will do no good, and therefore other coping mechanisms are developed.

I disagree with the premise the male abuse is more widely recognized. The words manipulative, sly, bitchy, nagging, poisonous are all words used regularly to describe behaviour in women and all imply abusive tendencies. I think women are seen as emotionally manipulative, not so much as a default but certainly not unexpectedly.

On the other hand emotionally abusive tendencies of men can often not be recognised. There was the divorce case recently where the woman had cited the fact that her husband spoke to her as if she was a could and expected her to bend to gia will. This was not deemed sufficient for divorce. Yet excuses are made for men when they kill their spouse along the lines of she was 'nagging'. There is a level of abuse that is deemed acceptable for men on women. People don't even notice it is abusive.

I don't really want to derail this discussion on female abuse as I can appreciate it matters but I think CocoaX's point about socialisation and how it manifests itself in ways of abuse is valid. Socialisation also plays a part in how we recognise abuse.

Cocoa I agree - I think. All social dysfunction is shaped by environmental factors. To put it starkly, presumably there are lots of complex social and economic reasons why young men join terrorist organizations, and it is worthwhile to analyze them. But one obviously wouldn't employ them as justifications for bombings and beheadings. I'm sure you would agree and I'm sorry if I misread what you said.

Moreover I think it possible to both acknowledge that the majority of overt violence is committed by men (and loook at societal explanations for that) while at the same time paying heed to female abusers (particularly child abusers) and according equal legitimacy to their victims. The feminist position is not, imo, in conflict with the reality that individual women can be just as evil as men.

We know very little about female perpetrated child abuse. Very likely much of is unreported and there is little empirical study surrounding it while male abuse (which is more prevalent and does seem to take more overt forms) is something we hear about everyday.

So sorry to hear you've had a bad time.

Apologies, I am sorry for swearing, I think this thread is too close to home for me. I am sorry if anyone thought I was excusing abuse.

I also said society has a responsibility to ensure children are safe, as do both parents - that includes accountability etc. That does not excuse anything. We are all responsible for standing up when we see abuse, and teaching our children what it looks like and making sure they are safe. How that is excusing anything, I have no idea.

Yes, and I am fucked with the suggestion that I am excusing abuse as it is costing me tens of thousands to keep my children safe as social services deemed that they were safe with me and I was acting to protect them.

Laura I agree with what you say, yes. I would be the last person to condone abusive behaviour, I have minimal contact with my parents, my son has been abused by his father and I have left an abusive marriage, where post-separation abuse has made things very difficult.

I am not sure that trying to explain things at a societal level equates justification, for goodness sake. But men and women have different societal expectations and experiences, so surely that is a factor. I don't want to get into a women are just as abusive as men discussion, individual women surely can be, but at a societal level, women are put in a position of disadvantage in so many ways. It is perfectly reasonable to address how these factors shape interpersonal and intergenerational dynamics, without saying it is okay!

Woodside, you don't have to put up with that, make plans to end the relationship. Have a good look at finances and living arrangements, the longer you stay with an abuser the harder it is to leave.

How are you so sure that women are better than men when the abuse which they do indulge in is less recognised as abuse?

It's only recently that coercive emotional control was explicitly recognised in the law. How long before it's fully reflected in the practice of law enforcement or social services? How long before it's properly included in statistics? How long before the victims feel able to claim that they are in fact victims?

How long before the victims stop excusing their abusers as their defenders are so ready to do?

I was driven to the edge of suicide by my mother's emotional and, when I was a child, violent physical abuse. The reason my father, equally abused, equally living in a constant FOG, constantly excuses her behaviour is because of her harsh upbringing where she was abused by her grandmother.

This is a classic example of the way that some people are happy to internalise traditional sexism with regards to women being kinder or more nurturing when it suits their prejudices.

You should take his advice and walk, save yourself the pain and the abuse.

I'm in a verbal abuse marriage, which to be honest is killing me, he is drinking every day now and when I tell him he is drinking to much he says horrible things to me last night he called me a prick and that he's not drinking my money and he will do what he likes and if I don't like it I was to leave... The best of man when sober and would treat me like a queen but when drunk he's horrible I just don't know what to do anymore

It's not uncommon in an emotional abuse dynamic for one adult to be the abuser, and the other enables their partners abhorrent behaviour. There's a thread running atmo, the man is physically and emotionally abusive whilst the woman is the passive enabler.

Donna Jackson Nazakawa's "Childhood Disrupted" book details how men and women emotionally abuse in different ways. Her research shows men to be more overt. I have no idea on gender split between the two roles.

CocoaX it does read like you're making excuses for abusive women when there are plainly none. Lots of women are trapped in aversive domestic situations and do not abuse their children.

'Unpicking' the social dynamics surrounding child abuse is absolutely fine just so long as social explanations are not confused with justifications. Responsibility for any form of child abuse must reside unequivocally with the abuser. Statistics show that many abusers have had adverse experiences, including having been abused themselves. Yet again, as lots of people who have been abused do not become abusers we cannot proffer victimization as an excuse for victimizing.

Most abuse might be perpetrated by men, but it is important that the women who do abuse their children are held as accountable as male abusers - above all for the sake of their victims.