There's a reason why they call it a Glasegian kiss I suppose. All I can say is perhaps the girls in Glasgow and the girls of the South West have slightly different forms of conflict resolution.

I was also a small, skinny and naturally gentle child and I have never physically fought with anyone. I have been punched once, but it was by a nine-year-old with a mean left hook. I was working in social work and hadn't done the necessary on-the-spot risk assessment for emotional outbursts. She would've scalped me and bitten my thumb off too I suspect.

I would say that your assertion is somewhat true - but years in social work have taught me that female to child sexual abuse is somewhat under-reported and harder to catch. Could be a case that you always find what you're looking for and not what you aren't. For the same reason we generally find all the poor people taking drugs and smacking their children around rather than lawyers, GPs and celebs. Society has very fixed ideas about people.

And to throw in some ad-hoc Psychology and social work experience there are also a whole host of children whose lives are destroyed by narcissistic maternal figures. Emotional abuse of this sort is not often discovered in child-protection cases and surfaces far later in life. Sexual abuse and physical abuse are easy to discover, turning your child into an over-reliant emotional crutch so they'll never leave you is harder to define in law and in practice.

When Mum is good, she's generally a protective factor against all ills. When she's bad, she's often very skilled at removing other protective factors from the equation. So whilst women may be less predatory, t I'd argue in some cases they're no less dangerous, but such dangers are more covert and take longer to play out.

Males can indeed be great gossips and girls can enjoy fighting. You have far more experience than me on such matters. Golders Green is an excellent part of London and everyone should come live here for at least part of their life. :o)