Female abusers

I agree with Nautical, are you suggesting that women are sly creatures who actually abuse at the same rates as men?

The reason that men abuse in greater numbers isn't just that they are bigger and stronger, they are also socialised to feel superior to women. Women often earn far less and can be at home with young children, putting the male in charge of their finances.

Women and girls are raised to please, this all contributes to the way they are treated. Some women abuse and this can be emotional abuse but men abuse like this too often combining it with financial abuse.

OP you seem to assume that most EA is mostly perpetuated by females, why is that? Is it personal experience or statistics that show that?

I'm not aware of any studies showing that woman are more likely to be emotionally abusive than men.

I am sure that every person posting has their own frame of reference (from 'I have only ever been physically/mentally abused by women' to 'in my experience all abuse is perpetuated by men'), mine being towards most abuse being done by men, but I don't see how that proves anything.

Is the premise that if a woman is an abuser then she is more likely to be an emotional abuser? I just want to understand what we're discussing.

I think in terms of gender-based violence, the point is that it happens because of the ways society is structured to benefit men. That is, men earn more, women are expected to nurture and care and are often trapped financially and by fear, and by the idea that children are better off in households with two parents, regardless how these parents function.

There is no dispute about the impact of gender-based violence, someone upthread quoted the statistics of male on female violence. Women and children are overwhelmingly the victims.

What happens to the children in those situations? The overwhelming majority of domestic abuse is carried out by men. So, it depends on the mother, what she does. If she hits back, shouts and screams (i.e. responds in kind) she is also abusive. But she could also replicate the power structures by taking it out on the children, intentionally or otherwise. Or she could leave, and then there are financial, legal and emotional struggles.

If a mother is emotionally or physically abusive, where is the father? Both parents have responsibilities to ensure children are safe, as does society in general. I don't think it is a case of whether women are as bad as men, because that would assume men and women are operating on an equal footing. It is more a case of unpicking the dynamics at play.

My father was an alcoholic, my mother did a heroic job on little money. She was also emotionally cold and very controlling. It is not simple.

"emotional abuse is often present alongside other aggravating factors such as poverty/family breakdown/domestic violence/drug or alcohol abuse for example"

Where do you draw the line? Taking gender of the abuser away, you could substitute any form of abuse for emotional. I read something earlier about the cascade of abuse. Husband has a shitty day at work and yells at wife; wife takes it out on the kids; kids kick the dog; dog bites the cat. Any aggravating factor is no justification for any form of abuse.

Anecdotally, the bullying I received throughout high school - physical and emotional from males, emotional from females - the emotional scars ran far deeper.

Back when I was training, we had to attend a Child Protection workshop run by the NSPCC. The stats we were given showed that the majority of child abuse was committed by mothers. We were all quite shocked, but given that children tend to spend much more time with their mothers than anyone else, we shouldn't have been.

This has been borne out in my professional practice with adult survivors of child abuse, yet it is discussed infrequently as I think society struggles with the concept of mothers who abuse and victims suffer in silence and shame. After all they are told that mothers naturally and instinctively protect their children, so there must have been something wrong with them to cause the abuse.

suppressed - damn my poor spelling!

Also forgot to say that I was viciously bullied by girls at school while the boys were fine with me - apart from one who was a total perv who made yucky comments. But he was an exception.

So no,women are not as bad as men and will never be.

I'm not sure. Do you mean that women will never have the capacity to be as bad as men (as in they aren't physically capable of doing the same amount of damage but would if they could) or that they will never even have the same level of malicious intent as men?

If the latter, what would you base that conclusion on? Evolutionary psychology?

It's a tricky one.

I think women can have no less malignant characters than men. They just don't exhibit brutality as much because 1) they lack the power and physical capacity to do so and 2) are socialised to believe they are the kinder, weaker, subordinate sex so that any violent tendencies are supressed.

I used to work in a mixed secondary school and was struck by the difference in how boys and girls bullied. The boys tended to be overtly, physically violent, but girls bullied in a far more covert way - verbal abuse, humiliation, emotional tactics. And I think that's probably true more widely. Even in the rare cases when women physically and sexually abuse it will often take subtler or less demonstrative forms. Just guessing but that would make sense.

However, if you do want to discuss women being emotionally abusive, then a good starting point would be to acknowledge that emotional abuse is often present alongside other aggravating factors such as poverty/family breakdown/domestic violence/drug or alcohol abuse for example

True but you could say the same of male violence. In fact you could say those things potentialy influence any form of criminality or immorality.

The only person who has ever hit me was a woman. The only people who ever bullied me were female, but never mind. Women are so much nicer than men so it doesn't matter.

So no,women are not as bad as men and will never be

And your point is what exactly in a thread specifically about female abusers?

Men are abusive physically,emotionally,sexually and financially to both women and children. Sometimes all at once.
Women are killed by men at the rate of two per week.

Abuse by women can take all those forms too(never at the male rate),but some are highly unlikely or rare.All at once even rarer.

So no,women are not as bad as men and will never be.

However, if you do want to discuss women being emotionally abusive, then a good starting point would be to acknowledge that emotional abuse is often present alongside other aggravating factors such as poverty/family breakdown/domestic violence/drug or alcohol abuse for example

I think a good starting point would to acknowledge it happens before you immediately rush to look for excuses and mitigating factors.

Someone did say that,

"I'm starting to think that the female form of abuse is just as prevalent as the male form of abuse"

Nonetheless, I do feel speaking about emotionally and physically abusive mothers has appropriate times and places, and it would be nice to see this thread develop as a sensitive place for such a conversation.

Totally agree about sexist oppression itself being a major aggravating factor.

I did not say that on this thread posters are literally saying women are as bad as men. I said that the topic being discussed appears to suggest a line of argument in which male physical abuse can be diminished by the hint that women are as bad as men.

I guess it depends on the context on which it is discussed.. mothers being emotionally abusive to children? Partners being emotionally abusive to their partners? Women just being emotionally abusive in general?

No one has said women are as bad as men.

To be perfectly frank, this sounds very close to the "women do it too!" argument used by MRAs to detract from male physical abuse of women. It's another form of derailment which appears to acknowledge male physical violence against women but then diminishes it by arguing that women are still as a bad as men because they "emotionally" abuse. It's also part of the stereotype that women are verbally abusive - spiteful/bitchy etc whereas men use violence but it is provoked by such female wiles.

However, if you do want to discuss women being emotionally abusive, then a good starting point would be to acknowledge that emotional abuse is often present alongside other aggravating factors such as poverty/family breakdown/domestic violence/drug or alcohol abuse for example. Feminism often explores why these factors affect women more often and more disproportionately than they affect men as a result of the power imbalance in our patriarchal society.

The CPS guidelines do have direct ways you can evidence coercive control.

As regards female emotional abuse, I wonder if most of it is generational? So a woman who is disempowered herself may feel her children have to be a certain way or conform to certain norms for her and her family to be acceptable. Or the 'safe' outlet for anger and resentment is the children. I don't know, my mother was extremely damaging - both angry and controlling- and I grew up academically achieving and compliant. And went into an abusive marriage. But trying to unpick why she was like that? She had never taken the courage to walk away from her own unhappy marriage and loss of personal potential or sought therapy for her own unhappy childhood.

I don't know about now, but certainly growing up, and my M was an expert at both emotional and physical abuse.

My dad, as the enabler, was able enact his gaslight etc in the name of 'keeping the peace'. To this day he won't countenance the idea that she could deliberately set out to hurt someone (usually me,).

There was a lesser level of emotional abuse from many of my female relatives though, and the reason it was so effective was that I had no-one to protect me: 'Auntie Joan said I was ugly.' 'Don't he daft - she loves you to bits. She loves you like a daughter. I'm sure that's not what she meant'. And of course Auntie Joan is sweetness and light, apart from when she's delivering her stinging one liners, out of earshot, with a smile.

My mother was emotionally and sometimes physically abusive,brutally so.
She was full of internalised misogyny she never acted like a mother should when i needed her most. Well that's how others explain it. In my eyes..there's no excuse.
She also used to pitch me and my dad against each other depending on whom the offending party was at the time. Always playing the victim,with her tears and headaches and throwing up and shit.

This is such an important conversation. I don't think it is directly related to the conversation about male abuse of women though. I think it is less gendered, in that the victims are not specially selected in the same way. I'm expressing this badly..,

I also think that many people who are emotionally abusive - not all obviously - genuinely have no idea that they are.

This is the issue. General lack of recognition of EA, so that many people enable it and don't challenge it. The husband who says 'don't upset your mother', for example, or 'Now look what you've done, you've upset your mother!'

These people don't seek out someone to abuse, they just cannot recognise and maintain healthy relationships. If you disagree with my mother, you are 'sharper than a serpent's tooth', and get no end of grief about it. You are an unnatural daughter. It isn't her being oversensitive, oh no.

It is different from male violence against their parteners- though just as damaging,

Women are also physical abusers.

My ex used to put a knife to my throat.

I'm 6'3" and 18st and she was much smaller. I've been asked before why I didn't do anything physically to stop her, but the fear I felt just used to paralyse me. I'm sure it's the same for a woman being beaten by a man!

Can you divorce somebody on the grounds of EA?

Yes, but you refer to it as a type of 'unreasonable behaviour" - if someone is being subjected to emotional abuse, then its unreasonable to expect that person to have to put up with it - and therefore the person believes the marriage has irretrievably broken down

My mother emotionally blackmailed and abused my brother and to a lesser extent my grandfather.

I was the clever girl she wanted . He was the not academically bright boy she didn't want. I am 10 years older than him and left home at 17. He stayed and put up with her manipulation , erratic behaviour and blind rage until she died, with him at her bedside.

Yes there are laws against emotional abuse, cannot link as on phone but if you Google the CPS guidelines on coercive control, there is a law against it with clear guidelines as to what it constitutes. It was enacted December 2015

Emotional blackmail and manipulation is harder to prove and not breaking any laws, you need good boundaries and an ability to walk away.

One of the most damaging people in my life was my mother, so I get what you are saying

*abusive