Female Aggression
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"This book represents a truly fantastic addition to the literature on female aggression. It covers a whole host of aggressive crimes from a very thoughtful and gender-informed perspective. This book is an absolute necessity for professionals working with or researching women who have offended. I've no doubt that this book is a landmark text which will springboard important future research and practice in this area." --Professor Theresa A. Gannon, University of Kent "Helen Gavin and Theresa Porter have written a brave and uncompromising book, one that is scholarly, firm, careful, and a bit daunting. They challenge our most cherished feminist beliefs about women as the more compassionate, cooperative, 'maternal,' and non-violent of the genders. Clearly, they are not only writing about teenage 'mean girls'; the authors are weighing the research on women, including mothers, who abuse and neglect children; batter their partners, both male and female, sexually assault (or join in group sexual assaults) of women, kill their babies, kill other adults. They refuse to minimize the importance of female aggression only because men are more violent and, to their credit, Gavin and Porter critique others for doing so. And why? Because the authors have treatment goals in mind, ways of helping anti-social mothers and/or of rescuing their children. An entirely laudable endeavor. This is a serious work and demands that the reader drop many preconceptions in order to benefit from the material presented. Brava for taking on this painful, difficult and important subject." --Phyllis Chesler, Author of Women and Madness and Woman's Inhumanity to WomanMore details
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Content
Acknowledgements xi
1 Theories, Research and Misconceptions about Female Aggression 1
Introduction 1
Aggression and Women 2
Violent Crime and Women 5
Theories of Aggression 8
Theories based on biological difference 8
Environmental factors 18
Psychological models 19
Measuring aggression 26
2 The Evolution of Aggression 29
Darwinism and Sociobiology 29
The Naked Ape - Was She in the Jungle or the Sea? 31
The Evolution of Aggression and the Archaeology of War 32
Intersexual vs Intrasexual Aggression 33
Conclusion 36
3 Indirect Aggression 38
Indirect Aggression in Girls and Teens 39
Women and Indirect Aggression 40
4 Child Abuse and Neglect by Women 44
Introduction 44
Prevalence 45
Mental Illness 48
Social Learning and Own Abuse History 49
Antisocial Mothers 50
Other Factors in Child Abuse 52
Failure to Protect 53
Abusive Mothers' Perspective on Their Children 54
Recidivism 57
Effects of Abuse on Children 57
Conclusion 59
5 Intimate Partner Violence by Women 61
Introduction 61
Prevalence of Women's Violence Against Heterosexual Partners 64
Prevalence of Women's Violence Against Homosexual Partners 67
Severity and Injury 67
Recidivism 68
Women's Intimate Partner Violence and Stalking 68
Intimate Partner Violence by Women Resulting in Homicide 69
Intimate Partner Violence Initiation vs Self-Defence 70
Anger, Communication and Control 71
Social Learning and Intimate Partner Violence by Women 72
Personality and Intimate Partner Violence by Women 73
Typologies 74
Reporting Issues by Victims 75
Witnessing Inter-Parental Violence 76
Treatment 77
Conclusion 78
6 Rape, Sexual Assault and Molestation by Women 80
Introduction 80
Rape, Sexual Assaults and Coercion: Beyond the Male Perpetrator-Female Victim Paradigm 80
The Prevalence of Female Sexual Assaults Based on Perpetrator Self-Report 81
Victim prevalence reports 82
Theories Regarding Sexual Assault by Women 83
Women Who Sexually Offend Against Children 85
Prevalence 85
Similarities and differences compared with male sex offenders (MSOs) 85
Typologies 87
Deviant arousal and mental illness 90
Past victimization 91
Child Pornography and the Internet 92
Victim Effects 93
Awareness, Gender Bias and the Social Construction of Women 94
Legal Issues 95
Assessment, Treatment and Recidivism 96
A Brief Note on Juvenile Female Sex Offenders 100
Conclusion 101
7 Filicide by Women 102
Introduction 102
Neonaticide 103
Pregnancy Concealment, Denial and Negation 104
Infanticide 107
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and Infanticide 108
Child Homicide by Women 109
Language, Filicide and Objectification 111
Gender and Filicide 112
Typologies 113
Mental Illness and Filicide 114
Serial Infanticide 117
Legalities 120
Conclusion 122
8 Homicide and Women 123
What Is Homicide? 123
Types of Homicide 124
Genocide 124
Mass murder 128
Mass murder for ideology 131
Murder 132
Killing for love 133
Women who kill from fear 134
Women who kill for money 136
Girls who kill 137
Manslaughter 142
Suicide 142
Conclusion 143
9 Serial Murder and Women 144
What Is Serial Murder? 145
Explanations for Serial Murder 146
Childhood 146
Psychiatric explanations 152
The role of psychopathy 153
The role of paraphilias 155
Neurological contributions 157
Female Serial Killers 158
Comfort serial killers 158
Couples Who Kill 160
Conclusion 163
10 Conclusion 165
References 169
Index 217
