To think the high volume of male abusers means some people find it hard to see when a female is an abuser?

[BraykeDance]

Having experienced first hand fairly extreme abuse from a female, I feel a bit like even in 2023 some people struggle to believe women are capable of extreme psychological, emotional and even physical abuse.

I find often people want to victim blame by implying the man must have deserved it or driven her to it. Amber Heard being a great example of an abuser where I think if she were a man people would see much more clearly that she is an abuser.

I understand men (for reasons I don't understand) have a greater tendency to be abusers in the sense of power and control; but women do this too sometimes.

I found, as someone recovering from such am abuser, that many people minimised it and almost normalised behaviour that would certainly mean prison for a man.

Which made healing as a victim a lot harder. And also made it far easier for the abuser to continue.

AIBU to think we hold women to a different standard and sometimes reframe abusive behaviour or coercive control to fit with the idea of the female victim?

Here on MN I find the woman is excused, a PP I read the woman hit her DH in the face and ppl were falling over themselves to justify her actions, he pushed her, lazy selfish man etc LTB, it's appalling.
Man or woman, you should not be lifting your hands to anyone.
Women have killed their partners, it's not so rare.

I had an abusive marriage (with a man) so I know full well what male abuse looks like. When I left that marriage, I went through a 'all men are potential abusers' phase and was hyper alert for male abuse. Women were just not on my radar at all, probably because the physical abuse side is rare. Yes, women can give someone a punch or whatever, but typically female 'violence' is not something any of us need to worry about.

And then in my naivety, where all women are 'nice', I came across an actual crazy ex. It is hard to describe how utterly horrific she was. Her behaviour was so damaging it is hard to describe - she poisoned kids against their father, she posted lies on social media, she contacted my place of work to make accusations of abuse, she falsely accused rape, she sabotaged every holiday, she spammed with abusive text messages. For 3 years.

In some ways she was worse than my abusive ex, because at least his violence was recognised, but with her, there was nothing you could do. Police and solicitors cannot stop her while she is literally trying to ruin your life and all the while playing the victim.

I agree OP, it is massively massively unrecognised and it was really a shock to me at how bad women can behave - I just didn't believe it could be so bad. I still to this day cannot square how she fucked up her own children so badly without any remorse at all.

This ex was also very very similar to Amber Heard - once you see it, you see it. A bit like you do with abusive men.

I'm sorry this has happened to you

It sounds like you've been through an awful lot

Incorrect. Twelve separate assaults were proven to the civil standard and the claim Depp was a wifebeater was found to be 'substantially true'.

With respect, if you believe that only someone with a physical size advantage, or some other form of status, can be a perpetrator then you are wrong.

again, to be clear, I’m not saying that’s not true for the majority of cases. But to say it’s always the case is not correct

That’s not correct. The truth is an absolute defence to claims of libel. This is why the Sun won - because it was found that what it had printed, that Depp was a wife beater was substantially true.

We know.

But we also know that there are huge rates of domestic violence and sexual assault in lesbian couples.

And we know female perpetrators of domestic violence and CSA on males or females are undereported, but often for different reasons to why DV and CSA are more generally undereported.

Because female perpetrators are viewed differently, at the very least by the public but also by the authorities too.

So we really have no idea of the actual rates but I know a few years ago Childline reported a huge rise in calls from children who reported being sexually abused by a female. Which are not reflected in the Police reports, charges or conviction rates.

Yet, most of the public don't consider women to be a risk to them or their children. And when cases arise of serious sexual crimes against children committed by females including rape, usually as part of paedophile groups or interfamilial abuse, the assumption is that the women involved must have been forced into it by a man or have significant mental health problems, despite the testimony of child victims who report they were sexually tortured by women who seemed to be directing the abuse.

There is a lot of generalisation on this thread, as if men are always direct in their abuse ( hitting) and women are sly and manipulative to abuse ‘playing the victim’.

As someone who was the victim of a male relationship fraudster ( along with, as it turned out, very many other women at the same time), he was extremely skilled in his lying, deceiving manipulative narrative, and superb at portraying himself as vulnerable and a victim, even though he held all the control. Coercive control from men is also about manipulation.

You may be right OP that threats of female violence are not taken as seriously. Though I think responses to stalking in general are not dealt with well. I know a female who is long term stalked by a man and has to keep moving with her partner to try and escape him.

Civil standards are the balance of probability and note the "substantially" not "true" as in he may have done this on the balance of probabilities.

I don't think she's saying it's the only way someone can be a perpetrator, but that you can't say it has nothing to do with the dynamic if the abuser is in fact bigger and stronger.

Incorrect. Twelve separate assaults were proven to the civil standard and the claim Depp was a wifebeater was found to be 'substantially true'.

This is clutching at straws. It in no way demonstrates that Amber Heard was not an abuser. Like pp has highlighted - did you hear the tapes of the things she said to him? It is clear abuse, but that was not what was on trial.

The crazy ex of my partner once started screaming, crying and pushing him in a hotel corridor shouting "RAPE RAPE, he's just RAPED me". People find that hard to believe and probably think I am some sort of denial about my partner, but she was very pissed and very pissed off that he had wanted to leave the function and that was it, nothing more. Women exist like this, and my feel on JD and AH is that she pushed every button known to man, gaslighted if you like, and he occasionally flipped - no, I am not excusing that, but having been in an abusive relationship myself, part of the dynamic is that you are pushed quite regularly to nearly flipping out so they can then accuse you of what they are.

My DH was a victim of domestic violence. His ex fiancée was horrendous- violent, vicious, emotionally and financially abusive (she stole £10k from him), but he says he never felt afraid for his life the way I did when my violent ex tried to throw me down the stairs.

I also think the fact people are defending Depp and still trying to assign blame to Amber Heard, clearly demonstrates that male victims of domestic violence are taken seriously and believed and this really undermines the OP’s argument (although I would argue Depp isn’t a victim of domestic violence). I think men are more often believed these days when they say an ex was abusive and this is not minimised as the OP claims. unfortunately many abusive men know this and try to twist the facts to present themselves as victims - my abusive ex did, it was always the awful women who had treated him poorly, never that he was controlling and violent.

I don’t think any rational person believes that women can’t also be abusive. They can and they are but not usually to the same extent or intensity that men are.

You may be right. The previous post said size is irrelevant, when they probably should have said size CAN be irrelevant.

I think in some cases it can have nothing to do with it. In others it will. Blanket statements either way probably aren’t helpful

I mean size and strength wise yes there is a imbalance there but that depends on the person. A man that is large that is aggressive and utilizes that strength can cause more damage but that's not always the case, it comes down to the person.

Like a lot of people you may look at a small woman and think, there's no way she could be abusive or dangerous, especially not against a man who is larger and stronger.

In my case I was taller but I'm not large framed or built and I'm not aggressive, certainly not towards women but people would still look at it that I must be the problem. Wherein reality I wasn't the one being aggressive or violent behind closed doors and I wasn't the one neglecting or abusive towards our children.

As I said before I think you'll run into way more abusive men than women but they are out there, just rarer I think. I for one have found that all the behaviors women post about on here about abusive husbands or partners is the exactly same behavior I have received, it's strangely similar. I can relate to what people are experiencing and others here have helped me understand too.

It's just not seen or believed the same as it's not the norm. As I said I've only ran into one abusive woman in my time but plenty of abusive men.

Just like with abusive men, mine is still continuing now after separation. I am out but it is not over by a long shot.

And the substantive point of the original post was agreeing that yes, it’s not to the same extent and that can be what leads to the victims being disbelieved.

good lord, can we stop using JD/AH to derail the point of the thread. I couldn't give a flying fuck about either of them, and they're not what i'm here to discuss.

The amount of people that believed my ex when he said that all three of his exes (including me) were "crazy" and had banded together to make up all these allegations and take his children from him is madness. And they really truly believe him.

We know.

But that shouldn't equal that female on male violence should be minimised or excused and it so often is, including on MN.

I've seen threads on MN where a poster says they 'lost their shit' with their DP/DH and hit him, kicked him or threw something and you get a lot of responses saying "not great OP but it probably didn't hurt him, get some therapy but can you go somewhere to cool off?"

If a woman posts that her partner hit her, kicked her or threw something there are immediate calls to call the Police and get out now, run...LTB this will only get worse.

Which is good advice. But also should apply to a female poster admitting she's assaulted her male partner. And some posters will say that but many will also say "she's not an abuser FFS, she lost her shit because x, y, z, she feels bad about it so people need to stop making her feel worse"

Yes, it is irrelevant if the case is purely psychological abuse, but as soon as it turns physical or even just the threat of physical abuse it can massively affect the dynamics.

But victims aren’t disbelieved when they are male. We are, because of patriarchy inclined to believe men over women. Look at the worst rapist in British history, Reynard Singa, who is thought to have raped over 200 men. I never saw anything but sympathy and compassion for his victims (rightly so) despite many of them being incapacitated due to drugs and alcohol. In contrast, women victims of rape are routinely questioned and disbelieved because they drank, took drugs, were promiscuous or knew/had slept with their rapist previously. There is a horrendous double standard going on there.

YABU . Johnny Depp is an abuser, not a victim. And your example demonstrates how the bias in fact goes the other way. As for female stalking , why do you think the term “bunny boiler” is so popular and the film fatal attraction considered such a classic?

TLDR: YABU

I can't say I've ever seen a thread like that but I will take your word for it and in those cases yes it should be treated as an abusive situation. But it still matters that there's a physical power imbalance.

Exactly

The amount of people that believed my ex when he said that all three of his exes (including me) were "crazy" and had banded together to make up all these allegations and take his children from him is madness. And they really truly believe him.

That is a serious problem in all of this

Abusive men will blame their 'crazy ex's' and generally be pretty good at convincing people that they were indeed crazy

Men who have genuinely been subjected to a 'crazy ex' are then put in that category, or in my experience, are not very good at convincing people they were actually crazy, perhaps because they feel some shame?

And then you have the real 'crazy ex' woman playing the victim and smearing the non-abusive man, and generally being quite convincing

And we are all left wondering what the hell to believe!

In summary though, abusers tend to be quite good at convincing people it is the other person's fault. This is programmed into the operating system, and makes it all very difficult to work out what is going on

Someone mentioned abuse in lesbian couples so I had a look

And it seems to be a huge problem. One I wasn't aware of. Wow