I seriously doubt female sociopaths are rare. I know what you meant here: It's rare that they are so fully exposed.
I suspect female sociopaths fly under the radar more. Perhaps it has to do with the different strategies women use, ability to engage proxies more, or generally better talent at manipulation that doesn't often come out in overt violent or antisocial acts.
It's not that women sociopaths are rare, but, pure speculation here, women make more effective sociopaths and better escape detection.
Societal expectations play into it. I'm chronically annoyed by the assumptions of programs like ID's "Snapped". They do portray women who "snap" but some of the "snappers" are female serial poisoners that kill a string of husbands for insurance money. That's a weird idea of "snapping".
The other side of the coin of sexism is to put women, as a whole, on a pedestal, which often treats women are less than complete human beings, without agency and often as mental and moral children. You make excuses for children you never would for adults and that seems to be what's happening even here in this case when talking heads continue to women what it is Travis Alexander did to set her off, as if he's the only one with agency (and in a sense, responsibility) in the relationship.
I get a sense of that with the insistance that Travis Alexander was "using her for sex" or "thinking with his little head".
You know what Travis Alexander was? He was a nice, somewhat pudgy, sexually inexperienced guy who met a predator in a pretty shell, who he first thought was just the nicest girl in the world and that first impression persisted long after someone with the omniscience of hindsight would tell him to run like his life depended on it. The only thing I would fault him for was being basically a pitchman for a Multi-Level Marketing scheme. He was the guy who convinced you to sell for AmWay and was a "motivational speaker" in the same way Arias is described as a "photographer" rather than what she was, which was a waitress.
But that's the point: The preferred narrative trumps reality. Seriously, if I hear some talking head call Arias a photographer, like she ever got paid for it from someone who wasn't a friend or family, I will scream.
The Jodi Arias act is no different than Ted Bundy with a cast on his arm. Which sounds cunning and clumsy when Bundy did it, but it's own own societal attitudes and expectations that let Arias get away with her "poor little helpless me" predatory act.
It's as if we peer too hard at it, the whole apple pie facade will come apart.
Maybe we need a t-shirt made that reads "Women: Just as Evil as Men, Only in Nicer Pastel Colors".
lease:
