The holy grail of personality disorders, psychopathy, sociopathy, ASPD or madness without delirium. Described by Harvey Cleckley in his book “The Mask of Sanity” as the insane that appear sane. Most of the research on this disorder has been done by Dr. Robert Hare using the populations of America’s prisons as his subjects. This lead to the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL) and then the next version the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R). Unsurprisingly the diagnosis of this disorder appears to favor men with up to 3 men being diagnosed as having ASPD for every woman. The symptoms in Hare’s checklist was developed almost exclusively by studying men, mostly the prison population, which may have affected the calibration of the tools. There are some questions among professionals that wonder if psychopathy have a lower incidence rate in women, or in fact there are issues with the diagnostic tools [4]. Either in the form that the disorder manifests differently as is the case with schizophrenia [5], or in that the psychologist may interpret behavior different.
From three different studies, the prevalence of anti-social personality disorder has a prevalence of 1% – 4.1% in the population. This is a fairly significant amount of people, as it comes out to 1 – 4 in 100. This means that most of us has probably interacted with quite a few psychopaths, and probably do so on a daily basis without realizing. The reason for why we do not realize, is that if predators were easy to spot, they would not be very good predators.
The DSM-5 Diagnostic criteria for Anti Social Personality Disorder
The DSM breaks down the diagnostic criteria into 3 parts, impairments to personality functioning, impairments in interpersonal functioning and finally pathological personality traits. These are 3 different series of traits that must be consistent over time in order for a diagnosis to be made. One of the criticisms by the British Psychological Society was that the diagnostic criteria [3] had issues stemming from having been made relative to the environment of the subject. This would from a perspective of reductio ad absurdum mean that if you were to evaluate a family of psychopaths, you may not be able to diagnose them as such, as their behaviors would not deviate markedly from their environment.
Impairments in Personality Functioning
Identity – ego centrism, self-esteem derived from personal gain, power or pleasure.
Given the past 40 years of the self-esteem movement, combined with a society that venerates self-marketing, “building your own brand“, and unbridled greed, I can see how that would shift what would be considered ego-centrism, and self esteem derived from personal gain, power or pleasure. However, isn’t the “self-actualization” movement among women an ego-centric focus where you derive your self-esteem from your own pleasure? Also consider the constant encouragement from among others the feminist movement for women to apologetically seek power by any means necessary, to land their CEO positions, board appointments or to build they life they want this embodied?
Self-direction – goal setting based on personal gratification, absence of prosocial internal standards associated with failure to conform to lawful or culturally normative ethical behavior.
I referenced “Eat, Pray, Love” earlier, but if any of the symptoms truly fit the author of this book, this would be it. The encouragement by the largely female driven feminist and social justice movement to amend pro-social standards and lawful behavior to better suit their agenda. For instance “Yes means Yes” laws and “Listen and Believe“.
One must consider that the past 40 – 50 years of feminism has been a battle for women to reject the pro-social standards and culturally normative ethical behavior that helped the Western World reach the peak of productivity, and innovation. Starting with Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” wherein the historical role of women as caregivers, the ones responsible for raising children and being the emphatic person within a household was identified as the enemy of a woman.
Impairments in Interpersonal Functioning
Empathy – Lack of concern for feelings, needs or suffering of others. Lack of remorse after hurting or mistreating another.
The constant encouragement that women “do them” and focus on their self-realization will encourage self-focus, which can lead to a lack of concern for others. Especially in extreme examples such as the case of “Eat, Pray, Love”. Lack of remorse after hurting or mistreating another, to use an example from earlier is often manifested when a woman branch swings to a new male, and in that process discards her old one. This also affects any children the couple might have. Often society will actually congratulate the woman after these actions.
A woman who abandons her children to engage in self-actualization is often congratulated, a man is a deadbeat dad who fails to perform the socially productive task that is required of him.
Intimacy – Incapacity for mutually intimate relationships as exploitation is the primary means of relation to others including deceit and coercion. Use of dominance or intimidation to control others.
The manosphere perspective is that any relationship between a male and a female is inherently transactional, in which case exploitation would be a relative term. The question is whether this has to be conscious and intentional behavior or if it can be subconscious behavior. In which case, one would be compelled to bring up the tendency for marriage to happen just as a woman hits the decline stage of her sexual market value. Furthermore, the pattern of females to engage in their party years only to consider a “nice guy” when they reach their epiphany phase and similar cases.
Depending on the approach, one could easily argue that heterosexual relationships between man and woman are inherently exploitative to some extent, in that the woman takes advantage of the man’s capacity to work and secure resources for her and her children. While the man takes advantage of the female’s ability to produce offspring for him. However, the latter is not deceitful or coercive, as it is a social assumption that a couple that stays together for a longer period of time, will eventually have children and/or marry. However, the social narrative is not that a woman seeks to shack up with a man to take advantage of his capacity to produce resources, it is “true love“, which I would argue as deceit on a societal scale. Secondly, once the man has entered into such a union, state sponsored coercion exists to enforce his role as provider/workhorse, both in terms of social conventions and the legal system.
Pathological Personality Traits
Manipulativeness: frequent use of subterfuge, to influence and control others. Use of seduction, glibness, charm or ingratiation to achieve desired ends.
While some studies [6], have shown women to be more inclined to the use of subterfuge in certain situations. It stands to reason that as they rarely will be able to bring about their ends as a result of physical force, will be more inclined to manipulative and psychologically dominate instead. One could wonder if women or men are more glib, prone to utilize seduction and charm as weapons. From the male perspective, female relationships often appear more glib, and superficial, in some regards than does those of men. Based on common knowledge, it tends to also be observed that while boys fight physically, females utilize rumor-milling, gossip, and ostracism as their means in a conflict.
Deceitfulness: Dishonesty and fraudulence, misrepresentation of self embellishment or fabrication when relating events.
One may debate this point, as both men and women have a habit of embellishment, fabrication and dishonesty when attempting to secure a partner. For a woman, the most socially acceptable dishonesty takes the form of grooming, make-up and similar methods to increase her physical attractiveness.
The male on the other hand, will often attempt to exaggerate his income and his social status. In fact much of the early PUA work done by people such as Neil Strauss and Mystery, is centered around being able to signal that you are a high status male.
However, while a woman being dishonest and misrepresenting herself through the use of methods to increase her physical attractiveness, is largely socially accepted and encouraged, a man doing the same is judged very harshly. In fact, one could see the entire “blue pill” mindset, as accepting and encouraging female deception, while rejecting and discouraging male deception. A man who engaged in the level of deception in regards to his social status, as women do every day with their appearance, would be regarded as a con-man.
Callousness: Lack of concern for feelings or problems of others. Lack of guilt or remorse about the negative or harmful effect of ones actions on others. Aggression and sadism.
From a diagnostic perspective, these traits may stick out more in a woman than in a man, because it deviates from the view most have of women as nurturing, emphatic and less aggressive than men. However, one must also take into account that a large part of the social narrative for the past 50 years has been about nurturing female aggression and ambition, two traits that tend to often translate into less concern and guilt about how one’s actions affects others.
Hostility: Persistent or frequent angry feelings. Anger or irritability in response to minor slights and insults. Mean, nasty or vengeful behavior.
I’m tempted to cite the video of the woman who just wants to go to the lake here. One could also cite the videos demonstrating how people respond to a woman beating a man in public as opposed to a man beating a woman in public [8]. To some extent, one is supposed to accept anger, and irritability from women, as this is a common part of our social narrative. TV-shows, and music videos all exist that show and celebrate women engaging in nasty, mean and vengeful behavior. Ranging from Carrie Underwood’s video “Before he cheats” to “Thelma and Louise” that celebrate two women going on a revenge motivated rampage. However, these displays of overt hostility fail to capture the full image of what interpersonal hostility actually entails. Things like gas lighting, psychological hostility, sleep deprivation, and constantly causing stress and drama are manifestations of hostility in a manner, which most would not easily identify.
Dis-inhibition
Irresponsibility: disregard for and failure to honor financial and other obligations or commitments, lack of respect for and lack of follow through on agreements and promises.
It is a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. Women with financial problems are on the rise, and more women now file for bankruptcy than do males. [7] one reporter in the Telegraph put this down to sneaky, small purchases and consumer debt. One could also argue that women file the majority of divorces, which is technically a failure to honor a commitment. However, that would be a stretch. Perhaps the more interesting observation that stems from the first sentence in this paragraph, is the social narrative that it is OK for a woman to disregard any obligation if it is a part of her self-actualization.
Impulsivity:
Risk Taking: Engagement in dangerous, risky and potentially self-damaging activities, unecessarily and without regard for consequences, boredom prone and thoughtless initiation of activities to counter boredom. Lack of concern for one’s limitations and denial of reality in the face of personal danger.
Risk taking conjures up an image of Evil Knievel jumping a string of buses, or someone doing bungee jumping. However, there are many manners in which risk taking may take place, such as refusing to seek medical attention, neglecting ones nutrition or physical needs or engaging in substance abuse. An example that came to me recently was engaging in infidelity, with a high chance of being caught, thus risking a marriage or other relationship.
Anti-Social Personality Disorder and Women
ASPD was the reason why I started this 3 part series of articles, because from my perspective if a diagnostic tool is calibrated on male inmates, they may have issues when utilized on the general public. After all, those who are in prison are by society labeled as people who are different from the non-prison population. Furthermore, if one looks at female and male communication from a red pill perspective, these differ quite substantially. The normal heuristics are among others:
- Women excel at covert communication, men excel at overt communication
- Women communicate emotions, men communicate facts.
If one looks at the pathological personality traits, both genders have the capacity for manipulation, however women are frequently much more apt manipulators than men. For them, covert interpersonal warfare is a hobby from the time they begin to play with other girls. Anecdotally, one can just observe two groups of children. One group of all boys and one group of all females. While the boys group will frequently have conflict, most of it is solved physically, and over quite quickly, the group then resumes play. If one observes the female group on the other hand, social shunning, gossip and other “social conflict” tools will be utilized. This may lead to females developing a penchant for dealing with problems utilizing manipulation rather than physical force. In addition, this would conceal the trait of hostility, as this would be covert and thus harder to observe.
This would also perhaps create a perception in society at large that a higher level of manipulative, deceitful and callous behavior from a woman is common, and thus the deviation required for diagnosis would be larger. Furthermore, perhaps the greatest assistance female psychopaths get from society is that as it is perceived as a disorder that affects very few women and many more men, most have an internal image of a psychopath as a male. Thus, when exposed to a female psychopath, most fall victim to bias and does not think of the woman in this manner.
If one looks at the impairments in interpersonal functioning, the two highlights are lack of empathy and capacity for intimacy. For a psychopath, all relationships are transactional, they are not based on mutually attempting to reach goals, they are there to facilitate the exploitation of the other by the psychopath. In our culture, there is a long history of transactional relationships between men and women. Such relationships started with males providing the female with protection and provision, while the female provided the male with progeny and nurturing. As our history has moved forward, with no-fault divorce being introduced, the social limitations on female hypergamy reduced and the social stigma associated with being a slut disappearing. The consequence is that it is now perfectly permissible for a woman to exploit an Alpha male for his genetics, and then a Beta male for his resources. Perhaps the most clear example comes in the form of the “orbiters” wherein a female keeps a man on the hook, doing things for her, without offering anything in return. This demonstrates both a lack of empathy but also a lack of intimacy as the relationship is exploitative in nature.
The impairments in personality functioning, the past 40 years of feminism has championed the perspective that women should seek power, pleasure and self-realization at any cost, this also adds to the self-direction aspect, with the most extreme example being “Eat, Pray, Love“. Nothing can hold back the self-actualization and realization of a female in the modern western world, it is her prerogative to change her mind, and act in accordance with her wishes and desires regardless of consequences.
Conclusions
One of the major hurdles with all cluster B disorders is perceiving what is actually taking place. In a sense, the mental images and public images of a cluster B disordered individual is often such, that “normal cluster B individuals” bypass our screening tests. For instance, the woman who tells you the story of being abused by all of her crazy exes, tends to elicit pity, very few people presented with such stories would ask “Is she is the abusive one?” This is a challenge faced by many who end up in relationships with woman who have these proclivities, because the abuse is insidious enough that few are able to identify that they are actually being manipulated.
The Snake in a Suit, is different from the Snake in a Prison Jumpsuit. When we picture a psychopath we think of Dexter Morgan, or perhaps Hannibal Lecter, we do not think of the old lady who has been widowed four times, and always seems to be making life hell for her neighbors.
All the cluster B disordered individuals are predators, and if prey can easily spot them, they will be unsuccessful. Identifying a borderline, a psychopath or a narcissist, is difficult, and even those trained to do so often fail. However, they all share certain traits in relationships. There will always be a love-bombing stage filled with gifts, adoration and compliments. There will always be a devaluation stage, where the love-bombing brutally ends. You will never feel balanced or present when dating a cluster b. The relationships will progress very quickly, and will be unlike every other relationship you have ever had. Even if you do not believe in the concepts of romantic love and soul mates prior to meeting a cluster B, you will during the love-bombing stage, because they become the female version of you, your perfect match.
Thus, if you actually feel like you’ve met your soul mate, then be concerned, be very concerned.
A note:
I recently launched a Patreon page where I will be posting additional content every month for those who support me and I will do a Google Hangout for the highest tier Patrons (limited to 10 people).
I’ve also had some requests for consults, which I’ve declined up until now, but due to demand I’ve chosen to open up for doing some consults on request. For details please check out my Consulting and Patreon Page
As always you can buy my book Gendernomics at Amazon.com as both paperback and Kindle
More Reading:
Dangerous personalities by Joe Navarro
Without a Conscience by Robert Hare
The Mask of Sanity by Harvey Cleckley
Sources:
[1] http://outofthefog.website/personality-disorder-statistics#pd1
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23544428
[3] BPS Response
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3379858/pdf/ijwh-4-257.pdf
[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6121620
[6] https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2014/06/17/are-men-or-women-more-manipulative/
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEZH6YSQvwA
