How Gender Dynamics Influence Abuse Dynamics

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This blog is written for female survivors of male perpetrators.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that character disorders such as narcissism and psychopathy explained every instance of bad behaviour under the sun. Because writers on the subject tend to weave their own lived experience case study into their professional narratives. We’re human after all.

And there are people out there with pretty weird ideas about what constitutes abuse. The actual character disorders are clearly spelt out in western psychology literature. There are as many different ways in which such disturbed characters manifest these shared traits as there are people in the category.

Before we go casting every person we know as highly narcissistic, we need to discern the difference between character disorder and seasonal mental illness. Because any one of us could suffer from depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress at times in our lives. And during those times when we are “not in our right minds”, our behaviour can manifest as less than perfect!

Mental illness like these come for a time and then pass. Some even come back again and again - a fact which is used to differentiate between mood depression and clinical depression, for example. These mental illnesses or mind states can be caused by fluctuations in body chemistry or overwhelming stress – the kind of stress that living with a narcissist (no empathy, manipulative exploitative behaviour, massive entitlement) can induce.

Character disorders, by way of contrast, are characterised by the way they inform and influence every day-to-day of a person’s lifetime. And there is good reason why psychopaths and narcissists are frequently referred to as “wolves in sheep’s clothing”. Because their cleverly constructed public personae are hollow, inauthentic and shallow, and give way when their hidden agenda - using people- is fulfilled. This is why so many victims only see what’s happened to them in hindsight - when they have been discarded and destroyed.

There are also plenty of men pushing an agenda of having been abused by women. Of course there are women who abuse. But if you dig a little deeper into the behaviours some of these men experienced, you’ll find that their assessment of “abuse” is rooted in outdated but persistent patriarchal notions of gender.

For example, they complain that their partner got angry from time to time; as if women should never experience anger, let alone allow herself to express it in any way. They will decry the fact that she disobeyed him or ‘answered back’ (called him out on his own bad behaviour), revealing underlying beliefs rooted in gender entitlement that demands subservience.

These men are deeply wounded by the fact that their female partner disagreed with them, used the wrong tone of voice, stood up to them when they tried to enforce their controlling ways, responded with assertiveness instead of submission. They are offended if their female partner calls out the fact of their not contributing equally to household chores, having no real comprehension of the amount of invisible physical and emotional work their partners do to keep the household running smoothly. They scoff at the idea that consistently talking down to their womenfolk is any more destructive to a person than a woman calling him “fatty” a few times in a ten year long relationship, or reminding him that he’s not really very good with DIY.

There are many entitled jerks like this still out there. Our culture is still patriarchal, still blocks women from power, still blames women for everything. Such men become furious and aggressive when their insistence that they’ve experienced “abuse” is challenged - especially by another woman. They usurp the women’s abuse agenda for themselves and then cry victim. And these cries of abuse are the second line of attack employed by narcissists in divorce proceedings.

The first attack is almost always that the woman is some kind of crazy. They always re-write history to make themselves look like the hero and their victims look like the perpetrator. And people believe them precisely because of outdated patriarchal unconscious beliefs still dictating the narrative of the male breadwinner and the dependent woman. These beliefs are still held by many police, lawyers, mediators, judges, friends, family – people we rely on to protect us from annihilation by the narcissist.

It is commonly held ethically that psychiatrists and psychologists are forbidden from diagnosing someone as a psychopath or narcissist unless they are personal clients. So the victim’s insistence that their abusive ex has a character disorder, if even acknowledged, will not be permissible as evidence in legal proceedings. However, the narcopath’s dishonest smears about his ex partner being crazy, abusive, alcoholic, criminal or violent will enter the court’s evidence without a hitch. Underlying this are the archetypes of the “woman scorned” and “men being taken to the cleaners”.

Bias enters the proceedings without even being noticed – except by the victim. Being traumatised and unable to articulate the complex manipulative behaviours of the male, nor having anyone present who can defend her against the vindictive slurs of the narcopath, the victim can have utter devastation forced on her again by the court. The betrayal and injustice are too much for many women to bear.

So the narcopath wins – not only in taking the shirt off the woman’s back, but in breaking her spirit.

That is why recovery, both emotionally and logistically, takes longer than normal break-ups.

But take heart. Help is out there. Deep understanding and appropriate mental health support for Narcissistic Abuse is out there. Survivors know what they have gone through, and counselling support needs to be centered around the survivor’s beliefs and values – not the counsellor’s!

If you’ve shopped around for the right shrink and still feel misunderstood and invalidated, please, reach out to me. We might be of different generations or different cultures, but at the very least, I “get it”. And I know you will find your way through this maze your own way. I know recovery is possible. And I know how to support you while you figure it all out.

© Margot MacCallum