That could also be a definition of women. (Actually sociopathy, Borderline personality disorder, Narcissistic personality disorder, Anti-social personality disorder and Dissocial personality disorder all seem to overlap but they could all apply to most women).

There are male sociopaths and females like to follow them because they like being used and abused and want to learn new manipulation techniques.

But why are there so many more females that exhibit this behaviour?

My theory:

In pre-modern times, when violence was common and men had to protect their tribe from other tribes, you had to be able to trust the other men in your tribe. You’d be fighting alongside them and your life could be in their hands.

This video helps illustrate my point.

Since sociopaths can’t feel guilt they often break laws and codes of honor which shows people their treacherousness. In those days there was no time or mercy for them. So most sociopathic men were just killed, removing the sociopathic genes from the male gene pool.

But women were rarely killed, only raped, so the sociopathic genes were never removed from the female gene pool.

What do you think?

It is an interesting theory, but would that not indicate the requirement of an influx of male sociopaths in this age to accomodate for the lack of capital punishment, as every person inherits genetic traits from both parents, not just the one?

In a sexually dimorphic species not necessarily.

Take the long tailed widowbird for example. The males have extremely long tail feathers. The females do not, however they breed with the male who has the longest feathers. The long tail feathers have no advantage other than sexual selection. They are actually a hindrance so there is no reason why the females (who are the ones selecting their mates) would have those feathers. Thus even though male and female offspring get genetic material from male and female only the male expresses the long tail feathers.

If being manipulative sociopaths is advantagous to women but not to men sociopathy could have become a primarily female trait.

Hail the Y chromosome!

Please feel free to dissect or ignore my BS theory.