Women identifying as "Feminist" are more likely to be narcissistic study shows
Whenever you read female, and more likely feminist spaces, you will often come across woman who simply disagree with anything that people write. Anything that doesn't stick to the rigid script of men opressing women, patriarchy holding all women back is robustly rejected. It's almost lifted directly from the Russian propoganda play book: dimiss, deny, minimise.
Often it feels that you are talking to a cult member. Similar to socialists minimising that communism led to mass murder in Russia, Cambodia and other countries to name a few, feminists maintain that feminism is nothing but good and that misandry does not exist. Even though it's there, clear as day to anyone who reads feminist spaces, misandry is ultimately rejected as not even existing. A recent discussion on reddit brought the standard rejection that feminists are misandrist. Some even struggled to understand the term misandry even though they seem to have an adept grip of the opposite term, misogyny.
When you read these posts you wonder how any of these women can live in the real world. However a study from 2018 showed that women who identify as feminist are more likely to be narcissts and also score poorly on their ability to agree. It's not the only study, another study published in 2023 found further evidence that "Higher pathological narcissism is associated with greater involvement in feminist activism"
This will explain why feminist spaces do seem to show borderline personality disorders. The women posting have a higher rate of narcisstic personality disorder than non feminist spaces.
This mental health issue can cause problems for the person carrying it but it can also be extremely dangerous to anyone around them. If you are a man, and you are in a relationship with a woman who claims she is a feminist, you are running a higher risk she is a narcissist. This can lead to emotional abuse and men should absolutely avoid taking the risk of entering into a relationship with these women. It can end up badly, it can end in death. If you spot these traits in any partner, if she claims she is a feminist, then run, run, run as quickly as you can.
The best way to identify toxic or abusive traits is through smaller red flag behaviors, rhetorical strategies on online dating profiles as described by the Burned Haystack Dating Method blog (she mainly highlights profiles of men but the general rhetorical methods are the same) and there are also some blogs regarding narcissistic traits and how to deal with toxic people as well (I can’t find the one I was going to suggest, might add it later). I honestly don’t think it’s fair or even logical to say “If a woman tells you she is a feminist, run” because correlation does not equal causation.
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of women with abusive behaviors who aren’t feminist at all, could even be politically conservative or traditional or men’s rights activists (I know of one prominent woman influencer who fits the last category, sadly - sad because she claims to be a champion of men’s rights but is abusive to her own daughter). And there are also plenty of women who identify as feminist who do not display abusive characteristics.
Furthermore, the statement “Higher pathological narcissism is associated with greater involvement in feminist activism” is *not* the same thing as the implied claim of the last sentence that any woman claiming to be a feminist must also be a narcissist. The study did *not* say “there is a majority or large concentration of pathological narcissism within feminist spaces as a whole.” There are people with pathological narcissism and ASPD or other personality disorders found in any sort of leadership or authority including medicine, business, and I believe the entertainment industry.
But that doesn’t mean all doctors have ASPD or pathological narcissism and that you should never see a doctor.
i think it’s vital and of utmost importance to remember that it’s not one political viewpoint that indicates whether or not someone is abusive, it’s a combination of different factors and traits and that people with abusive behaviors can be found within any demographic. This is important as both a means of self-preservation and protection and in order to rationally/level-heatedly view and understand the subject at hand.
You don’t want to lose sight of what to watch out for as a whole or rule someone out for a friend just because they may have different life philosophy from you. Or at least, that will keep the ideas and discussions around you a lot more one sided and insular as a result.
Be aware of what to look out for and problematic behaviors and viewpoints to avoid to keep yourself safe, yes, I 100% agree. But I just hope some people know that in the original and ideal sense of feminism, the goal is to examine the harms of the kyriarchy on all people, men and women alike and the way in which gendered expectations cause imbalance and harmful impacts for everyone.