The Dark Tetrad in Women

This is an area of psychology I mostly know only secondhand. I have had patients both male and female who would weaponise their own children to get back at a spouse, especially around custody issues. I never stopped to tot up which there were more of. When you are working with live people, the specific case looms so large that generalising about the sex, seems inefficient. The Dark Tetrad In Women puts forth the claim that men start in the position of having to prove their safety and innocence while women enjoy an immediate advantage of the societal assumption that mothers are centered on the good of the child. Worse, during evaluations the same behaviors can be interpreted oppositely in the two sexes. 

This results in the same behaviours being described differently depending on sex. Male boundaries are “controlling”; female manipulation is “coping.” Male retaliation is “aggressive”; female retaliation is “defensive.” Male alienation is “abusive”; female alienation is “protective concern.” Her narrative is taken seriously by default, even when behaviour and outcome don’t match. The same actions acquire entirely different meanings depending on who performs them.

For me the problem is that I have heard too many accusations from people who clearly unreliable themselves. In acute psych, one learns too quickly and easily to be suspicious of or even disbelieve everyone.  It is interesting, and I think wise, that Dr. Hannah Spier advocates that we look at evaluating the behavior of women not in terms of what they feel but of what they have to gain.  We should train clinicians for it.