Studies in psychology have been accumulating evidence for decades. Domestic‑violence policy, meanwhile, is still driven more by slogans than research. Advocacy platforms – from the #MeToo movement to DVNSW – have entrenched a gendered script: men are aggressors, women and children are victims.
But the science tells a different story.
Men and women express aggression differently.
And the data tells another uncomfortable truth: Australia does not measure the female‑typical modes of aggression at all.
When men express aggression, they tend to use direct aggression – physical force, threats, confrontation.
When women express aggression, they tend to use indirect aggression – gossip, reputation damage, social exclusion, and other socially mediated forms of harm (Hess & Hagen 2006; Davis et al. 2019).
Now that coercive control has been criminalised in NSW (NSW Government 2024) – including systems abuse, where an abuser uses police, courts, or institutions to intimidate or destroy a partner – this difference in aggression style is no longer academic. It is now recognised in law as a form of domestic abuse.
And because indirect aggression works only when third parties believe it, a DV system built on the slogan “believe all women” becomes the perfect amplifier of the female‑preferred mode of aggression.
Below is what the science has shown for years – and what our DV architecture refuses to acknowledge.
Female aggression tends to be indirect, reputational, and socially mediated
Women disproportionately use indirect aggression: gossip, rumour‑spreading, subtle exclusion, character assassination, and reputation‑based attacks (Hess & Hagen 2006; Davis et al. 2019).
This is not a small difference – it is one of the most robust findings in social psychology.
Indirect aggression harms by shaping how others perceive the target. When translated into the DV context, this pattern maps naturally onto false allegations, strategic reputation attacks, and socially mediated forms of attack.
A system programmed to treat women as the presumptive victim automatically validates this aggression style and gives it institutional force – supercharging reputational injury and enabling vicarious harm via State institutions.
Gossip – especially “concern‑framed” gossip – is a preferred weapon
Women often present harmful gossip as “concern”, which allows them to destroy someone’s reputation while appearing compassionate (Reynolds et al. 2024).
The harm lands; the intent is hidden.
Male‑victim reports routinely describe false allegations framed as “concern for children”, or claims of violence delivered with trembling sincerity – masking an attack behind an appeal for compassion.
This does not mean most allegations are false. It means allegations must be tested, because indirect aggression can mimic genuine trauma disclosures perfectly.
Yet police understandably treat “concern‑framed” claims as credible trauma reports. That accelerates systems abuse.
Social exclusion is a key female aggression strategy
Women are more sensitive to exclusion cues – such as subtle expressions of disgust – and react more strongly to them (Krems et al. 2024).
They also use exclusion deliberately: shunning, freezing out, undermining social belonging, sabotaging reputation.
For male victims, this often looks like targeted reputation destruction, social isolation, engineered character smears, and false allegations of invented or fabricated “abuse”.
When exclusion is channelled through the State – AVOs, police narratives, child‑contact restrictions – social exclusion becomes State‑enforced exclusion, and in some cases, State‑sponsored violence.
When threatened: men use direct aggression; women use indirect attacks
Research on social rejection shows that when men retaliate, they tend to retaliate directly, while women tend to retaliate through displaced or indirect means – reputation, gossip, third‑party recruitment (Rajchert et al. 2022).
This is not about morality. It tells us about patterns, not universal rules.
But the DV system is designed almost entirely around detecting direct aggression (physical harm). Female‑mode aggression – indirect, reputational, third‑party‑dependent – is almost invisible, yet extremely effective.
We don’t measure it.
Police aren’t trained to recognise it.
Policy advocacy denies it exists.
Female‑centric aggression depends on third parties
Indirect aggression succeeds only when others pick up the narrative. Historically, those “others” were friends, neighbours, and local communities.
Today, the “other” is police, counsellors, courts, and child‑protection bureaucracies.
Once an unverified allegation is accepted at face value, indirect aggression becomes institutionalised aggression.
Reputational harm becomes legal peril.
A smear becomes State power.
“Believe all women” takes an evolved aggression strategy – gossip – and arms it with police authority.
Systems Abuse: the missing piece of coercive control
NSW’s coercive‑control offence recognises that abuse is patterned, non‑physical, and often executed through institutions (NSW Government 2024; England & Sercombe 2024).
One form is systems abuse – exactly the kind of aggression the psychology literature predicts is more common among women:
- Men → more likely to use physical violence
- Women → more likely to use indirect, third‑party‑dependent aggression
- Systems abuse → indirect aggression weaponised through institutional power
Yet Australia collects no data on:
- systems‑abuse prevalence
- gender patterns in reputational allegations
- false‑allegation rates
- who reported first
- misidentification trends
- attempted weaponisation of police or courts
(ABS 2023; AIHW 2025; BOCSAR 2025).
We are flying blind – and men disproportionately pay the price.
“Believe All Women” is dangerous policy
It is not trauma‑informed.
It is stereotype‑informed.
It rewards indirect aggression.
It encourages systems abuse.
It punishes men based on untested assertions.
It blinds the system to female‑mode violence.
It makes misidentification inevitable (ie. when police punish the victim).
If men are more likely to use physical violence, and women are more likely to use systems abuse, the justice system must detect both.
Right now, it detects only one.
A justice system that protects women from male violence must also protect men from female systems abuse, reputational attacks and false criminal allegations.
Investigate All Allegations
Different aggression modes require different detection strategies.
“Investigate all allegations” is the only approach that:
- recognises both aggression modes
- relies on evidence rather than gender
- detects systems abuse
- reduces misidentification
- protects real victims, irrespective of gender
This is not ideology.
It is the only policy consistent with the science and with the legal reality that coercive control is now a crime.
References
ABS (2023) Partner violence, 2021–22 financial year, Australian Bureau of Statistics.
AIHW (2025) FDSV summary; Intimate partner violence, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
BOCSAR (2025) Coercive Control Monitoring Report, June 2025, NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.
Davis, A., Vaillancourt, T., Arnocky, S. & Doyel, R. (2019) ‘Women’s Gossip as an Intrasexual Competition Strategy’, in The Oxford Handbook of Gossip and Reputation.
Hess, N.H. & Hagen, E.H. (2006) ‘Sex differences in indirect aggression’, Evolution and Human Behavior, 27(3), 231–245.
Krems, J.A., French, J.E., & Filip‑Crawford, G. (2024) ‘A secret language of aggression’, Frontiers in Social Psychology.
Rajchert, J. et al. (2022) ‘Direct and displaced aggression after exclusion’, Journal of Social Psychology.
Reynolds, T.A. et al. (2024) ‘Women’s gossip disguised as concern’, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (summary via PsyPost).
NSW Government (2024) Coercive control and the law.
England, M. & Sercombe, E. (2024) The new coercive control offence, NSW Bar News, Winter.