ABC Online's SCOTT MICHELS, SARAH NETTER, LAURA MARQUEZ and SABINA GHEBREMEDHIN seem to think the idea of a woman being a sexual perpetrator is far fetched.  Do you? I suspect most people find the idea rather rediculous.  In our culture women are, as Michels, Netter, Marquez and Ghebremdhin suggest, seen as nurturers and not violent or sexual perpetrators.
 
Throughout the article, Why Do Some Women Kill, they search for explanations as to why a woman could possibly become so strangely perverse as to do what Melissa Huckaby, a Sunday school teacher and the mother apparently did, which was to rape and kill one of her daughter's friends.  The authors of this article propose that maybe she is just covering up for her daughter having accidentally killed the girl, or maybe she just got carried away in the interrogation and said things that are not true.  Whether or not Ms Huckaby is guilty of the crimes, it is obvious from this incident that most of us will go to extraordinary lengths to rationalize that a woman could not possibly do what Ms Huckaby admitted to having done.

It’s ironic, too, because just today I read on UPI about a woman in Russia capturing a man trying to rob her beauty salon. Seems she tied him up with a hair dryer cord, fed him Viagra and forced him to have sex with her for two days until she was apprehended and charged with rape.

Both articles are evidence that women are indeed capable of doing things sexually perverted and acting as perpetrators of sexual abuse.  Does this shake up your belief system? I know it does for a lot of people.

The idea that women could do such horrendous acts was beyond my own belief until I began working with sexual abuse survivors more than 20 years ago.  Slowly but surely I began to accept the truth of what my clients were telling me.  In spite of what statistics will show us, I have every reason to believe that women perpetrate as much violence and sexual abuse on their children as do men.

I know it’s a radical statement to make and statistics being what they are, will not back me up.  But statistics rely on one important measure: self-report or outright evidence.  In my experience the victims of female perpetrated crimes will not admit to having been perpetrated by a woman for lots of socially understandable reasons.  In our culture, as the ABC article states are thought of as being the "nurturer" and to accept, even for ourselves, that what our mothers, sisters, aunts, and grandmothers did to us was abusive flies in the face of our most sacred beliefs about woman's role in society. This is also why, even when a victim risks ridicule, rejection and dismissal to tell someone of their abuse by a woman, they are exponentially less likely to be believed.

Until we can begin to look at what I firmly believe to be absolute truth, that women are as guilty of sexual, physical and verbal abuse and violence as are men, the cycle of abuse and violence that plagues our world will never be eradiated.

What do you think? Has a woman in your life ever beaten, hit, screamed at, emotionally, verbally, or sexually abused you in any way? Do you think it's impossible? Improbable? Comment below.  This is an incredibly important topic.