Red Flags of Narcissistic Women: An Overview
Written by Shahida Arabi, MA, trauma researcher and narcissism expert
Have you experienced these red flags in narcissistic women?
•Malicious envy and attempted sabotage of women they are jealous of. This can occur in the workplace, in female friendships, or within the family unit. The more talented, gifted, attractive, and popular the target is, the more a female narcissist will attempt to underhandedly sabotage them.
• Victim-shaming and blaming of women who expose predators and combat predatory behavior. Being an "ally" to perpetrators and enabling or directing them to harm women they're envious of. Female narcissists often support and enable serial abusers even when there is a history of clear violence or predatory actions.
•Deliberate manipulative mirroring and copying of other women. Stealing and copying the personalities, mannerisms, words, life stories, ideas, gestures, style, unique attributes of other women. They do this to try to gain clout, resources, or popularity that comes naturally to the victims they target. This is a form of psychological identity theft intended to capitalize on the natural positive qualities, insight, and talents of others due to a lack of these qualities and talents in the female narcissist.
• Relational aggression meant to exclude, persecute, scapegoat women they are jealous of (or targets that are threatening in general). This can include recruiting others to bully you by proxy or pitting people against each other. For example, a female narcissist jealous of attractive women will recruit other insecure, envious women like herself to attack you or spread gossip or mischaracterizations that aren’t true and are projections of their own qualities.
• Partner poaching, a serial pattern of flirting with and pursuing people already in relationships, including the partners of their friends, can happen when being in a relationship themselves. Studies show this is associated moreso with psychopathic traits. However, that doesn’t mean narcissistic women who have both narcissistic and psychopathic traits are exempt from this behavior.
•Sadistic pleasure exhibited when trying to provoke people. Covert put-downs dished out after a period of love bombing. Intrusive interrogations when first meeting you to collect, gather, weaponize personal information.