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?

Caroline Flack took her own life because of the absolute tidal wave of online abuse she got. That did not come from people excusing her behaviour.

The "incident" that was hitting her BF over the head with a lamp whilst he was asleep?

Yes, and she received a huge backlash for it and killed herself because of it. Hardly proving the point of the comment about her is it....

And after she died, the abuse was forgotten, in a way it most certainly would not have been if she had been a male abuser

I highly doubt it. Look at Johnny Depp.

Just pointing out that you are minimising what she did but not saying what it was and calling it the "incident"

I agree. My mother was abusive to my father- physically and emotionally. For decades. He left after he had an affair and everyone blamed him

I'm finding reading some of these responses quite hard to read :( A few saying it can't be as bad due to physical size, one saying this kind of abuse from a woman isn't as bad as you're not terrified for your life, and one saying this thread shows bias the other direction and that its female victims who aren't believed.

I realise how hard it's been for me over these years to process what I, and we, have been through because of these deeply held unconscious biases.

I know I felt terrified for my life. I know DP did. I know physical size made no difference at all to the terror inflicted or the damage caused. I know both of us developed PTSD and that what we've been through is every bit as serious as male directed abuse.

I don't feel able to openly share that story, as I feel people I real life don't get it, minimise it, or on some level think "it was just a bit of drama!" I hope over time society changes this view.

It's a shame the thread was derailed by Amber Heard, but at the same time I feel like it's a great example of how people will filter facts to create a woman victim narrative.

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 think that might be it. I feel genuinely physically ill by people defending Amber Heard because I've dealt with an Amber Heard style person. Everything she said and did was textbook. People are able to somehow twist the person quite literally hiding to escape, as the real abuser.

Likewise, when this happened to us, the woman had been violent, gaslit, threatened with weapons, committed online abuse, and truly terrorised us both - but she was able to (largely because we were frightened) put herself forward as the victim and unfortunately was believed.

I have sat on evidence for years. The texts, calls letters, details but never presented them. The AH thing makes me feel unable to. If I were to produce them I think people would still deny reality.

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 pushedquite regularly to nearly flipping out so they can then accuse you of what they are

I think this is what abusers do whatever gender. Engineer you into reacting and when you do, they use it to accuse you of what they are. The victim unravels and then they get called unstable.

I think ultimately all abusers, regardless of gender are very good at playing victim and lying and people need to be able to look beyond that to observe the cycle of power and abuse and observe which one was the abuser.

That is very true in my experience. I'm old enough to remember when the whole subject of domestic violence came into the public sphere in the 1970s. Prior to that domestic violence was largely ignored as a personal matter between partners (a domestic) but suddenly it was recognised for what it was as long as the victim was female and the perpetrator was male. Erin Pizzey's work in bringing it notice and her support was almost revolutionary. The way she was turned on when she came out and shock horror said women could be violent as well was pretty horrific.

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’

I think people eho are abusers want their victims to be frightened. If they can use physical size, they will. If they can't- they will use other methods to create fear.

Methods used by the woman who abused us were mostly threats to destroy our lives. Suicide threats were weekly. False allegations against us were weekly.

In a physical sense, she would wait outside our work, show she could always access us. Show she had power over us. I recall for example keeping my social media very private but she would still access it and send us defaced photos of me.

Yes I did genuinely believe she would perhaps kill one of us. She nearly ran him over once. I didn't leave the house for a time. I still regularly check her social media to ensure she hasn't moved any closer.

I also lived daily with the fear she would ruin our lives. I knew, for example that she would hit HERSELF (she did it in front of us) and send us photos saying "I haven't told anyone you did this yet".

We were fucking terrified. Her being less physically strong than DP didn't make me feel less terrified.

@BraykeDance your experience sounds horrific. It seems to me that your abuser was acting from a place where she was mentally ill- you said yourself that she was psychotic. Do you think that the average male abuser is mentally ill too. Please believe that I am not seeking to minimise your suffering. I'm just wondering whether men and women abuse from different places.

@CurlewKate

No, she was not mentally ill. She was a psychopath. A classic, run of the mill psychopath. She got off on, and enjoyed, power over others and used manipulation and fear to get it.

She met DP when he was quite vulnerable and lonely, and did what all abusers do: love bombed. Mirrored all his interests. Showered him with compliments. Insisted on moving in with him almost immediately. Then set about isolating him, increasingly having outbursts of rage, beginning the cycle of abuse.

The relationship only went on for 14 weeks in total! But the violence had started 8 weeks in and persisted for 18 months after it had ended.

He had no idea what to do once these outbursts of rage would occur, so tried to explain to her that he wanted to end the relationship but also wanted to help her to "get help". So he attended (with her) meetings with a psychologist. Because he was a kind man and she was telling him her behaviour was his fault.

During those meetings she would cry, act sheepish, minimise her behaviour, try and blame him. And DP had meetings alone with the psychologist who said she was a highly manipulative personality and went so far as to call her dangerous. She was not ill. She was an abuser.

He broke things off and still had to deal with stalking, harrasment, threats and the cycle of abuse long after he ended the relationship. When I came into the picture, I was her new target. If she couldn't have him, nobody could.

These people want power and control over others and if they don't get what they want they use fear. It's not mental illness.

Aside from the abusive ex (f) wife who I had the misfortune to cross paths with, I also have a female friend who I would class as abusive. I have known her my whole life but I have seen over the 49 years how she has manipulated her children, stalked her ex partner and generally been pretty horrendous to quite a lot of people. I am sure you will be asking why I am still friends with her, and I do find it hard to answer that given she has destroyed, deliberately, the relationship her children have with their father and the way in which her young adult children are now totally enmeshed with her, unable to spread their wings in the world (she sabotages them leaving home).

It says something that I am still friends with her, I often think that about it all. Why have I not cut her off? I am sure I would be still in that friendship if it was a classically abusive man. She is a classically abusive woman, yet I seem unable to be exactly clear that she is at fault. If I step back, like I am on this post, it is obvious she has been, there are many many things I could recount that are very 'off' . Maybe it is the drip dip nature of classic female abuse, the impact isn't immediate and in the moment, it can take years for the impact to be realised. A death by a thousand cuts type of situation.

On top of that you then you hear phrases like "oh right blame the mother' in the culture always said in a sarcastic way and it makes you think that it would be very wrong to blame the mother, you are supporting the patriarchy if you do, right? You traitor!

Then she gets them all diagnosed with ADHD, so you think to yourself, ok yeah, that's the reason things are pear shaped. Yet you also know they don't really have ADHD, you know they have just been fucked up by their situation and this is a cover.

But however you look at abusive women's behaviours, most of the impact is not immediate, and it would be a VERY difficult conversation to accuse someone like this of being abusive, it is just so easy for them to provide a 'satisfactory' comebacks.

For example, I might accuse her of sabotaging her son going to university, and she could very easily state that it was the school not recognising his ADHD and letting him down. That's not the case, but who is going to take on that battle? How would you even prove it? And if you did, a full on smear campaign would begin on me - victim mode ignited!

I'm writing this to ponder why female abuse is still not talked about, and maybe this lack of specifics and the general nature of it just makes it much more difficult to be concrete about accusations?

That's such an interesting post @hamstersarse . Having myself been a victim, I had so many times I'd question myself.

Is she that bad?
Maybe she just has a problem with drink?
Maybe she just thought she was in love?
Maybe she had a hard childhood?
Everyone ELSE seems to like her?

I had to work very hard to remind myself that none of those excuses explain why you'd go out of your way to frighten and abuse someone.

I imagine many people with abusive partners or parents find it very hard to acknowledge what is really happening?

@BraykeDance Fair enough. I would class being a psychopath as having a mental illness myself. Maybe I'm wrong.

@CurlewKate

I guess if that's the case then you'd say serial killers, paedophile etc. are mentally ill.

To me, a psychopath is an evil human being. Devoid of empathy.

Their reasons aren't really relevant to the impact on their victim :(

I feel physically ill that you are painting Jonny Depp a victim and participating in the gross theatre of misogyny that was the civil trial and the (social) media frenzy / discussion surrounding it 🤮🤮

@Tandora

Is it possible to let this one thread be supportive for victims of female abuse?

People are discussing their very real experiences and you're ignoring those to defend a B list celebrity you've never met.

Oh what bollox. If she were a man no one would have been interested enough for it even to get to the point of suicide.

Of course you should absolutely have support for your experience of abuse- regardless of the gender of your abuser.
But thats not what the thread is about is it really? Certainly not how you have presented it. You wanted to provoke a broader (doll whistle) conversation about gender, and I don’t agree with your narrative on that at all (and find it misogynistic and harmful).

*dog whistle

I'm not sure why you feel this discussion is misogynistic and harmful @Tandora ? Will you expand on it?

As a long term domestic violence social worker…..

i think the issues you refer to around disbelief of a victims experience, excuses for violence (mental health, drugs, trauma) and victim blaming (they must have done something to trigger it….) actually apply to both genders of victim.

academic research clearly demonstrates that the reasons for DFV perpetrated by the different genders are underpinned by different value based and experiences, typically M2F violence is underpinned by patriarchal values, male entitlement and control. F2M violence typically in retaliation, or as a way to seek control before violence occurs as the previous experience of victimisation is entrenched the brain physiology. Of course this is absolutely not the case in every case.

in addition, typically men have more access to natural and material resources, as well as more agency and social capital that makes leaving a violent, or unhealthy relationship more feasible (again, not true for all) - therefore the experience of F2M is made additionally less prevalent.

I think part of the reason men’s experience of violence is diminished is related to a societal view we still hold that women are still simply ‘less than’ men. Not as strong, not as powerful, not as capable. Their actions are weird or silly or ‘unhinged’. Society, generally speaking holds an unspoken assumption that women are ruled by their moods and struggle with logical cognition.

I think these go some way to explaining perhaps the lack of empathy and understanding you have been shown in your own situation. The experience of domestic violence is unique to every person who experiences it and it is incredibly difficult for anyone else, no wonder how well meaning, to see the situation from you perspective.

this should not have happened to you, or your partner, but trying to make sense of why she did what she did, or how other people interpret it will hold your recovery back. Create your own narrative of your experience, one which releases you from ‘why’ and start to rebuild back stronger and safer.

I know exactly that fear and it is a horrible, dark place to be and I'm truly sorry you've both had to deal with that.

I wondered for a while whether mine realized how she behaved and what she had done to me throughout the years. Until recently she set out to scapegoat me and become the victim and accused me of a lot of what she had done to me.

So now I see she did know what she was doing, almost like a confession in a way but putting it on me instead.