My young cat wont let me old cat near me!

I have two cats, one a tabby female (called Tiger) about 6 years old who found me and moved in aged about 3-4 months. As a result of what someone must have done to her before I came along she doesn't like most other people and women in particular, she isn't aggressive just very nervous. About 16 months ago I got a male burmese kitten (young Cooper) about half her size but very dominant and now Tiger is not allowed near me, if she tries Cooper will get up and give her a bat. Nothing aggressive but he is so dominant that now she wont approach me at all, clearly Cooper 'owns' me and doesn't want to share.

Does anyone have any ideas how I can redress the balance of power? It must be awfully lonely for poor Tiger. Other than this they get along fairly well, they share litterboxes, I only have one food bowl and they will occasionally cuddle up and share an armchair. Both are desexed

The role of "alpha cat" is always established by the cats themselves actually. Trying to alter it will, in most cases, simply increase the behavior as the current alpha tries to maintain his dominance.

One trick you might try is to give him more ways to "display" his dominance. Several cats trees or cat accessible shelves so that he can position himself "above" everyone else works quite well here.

The male will naturally want to assert him dominance anyway...you can discourage the behaviour by putting him off your lap when he is aggressive etc.