According to the dictionary, “gaslighting” (besides the obvious meaning), is:
A common form of brainwashing in which an abuser tries to falsely convince the victim that the victim is defective, for any purpose whatsoever, such as making the victim more pliable and easily controlled, or making the victim more emotional and therefore more needy and dependent.
A form of psychological abuse in which false information is presented to the victim with the intent of making them doubt their own memory and perception.
The term originally came from a play (later adapted into a movie), where, in order to secure his wife’s fortune, a man basically convinced her that she was going crazy. The term has since been somewhat appropriated by the social justice community with the above meaning. For example, if a woman brings up something that she perceives as sexism and someone responds that it’s really not that big a deal, or that she’s overreacting, or that she’s just being silly, or that it was just a joke or similar, that’s interpreted as “gaslighting.” Thus, in a social justice context “gaslighting” is an attempt to make people believe that legitimate grievances are in fact not by repeatedly stating that the person raising the concern is overreacting.
Now, in the extreme, I certainly acknowledge that from the feminist perspective this is a huge problem. In cases where it’s backed up by some actual evidence, where someone’s saying, “It’s totally okay that you don’t get to vote, you’re just overreacting, it’s not a big thing, why do you care?”, sure. In many cases, though, it’s being used to lend weight to issues that truly aren’t legitimate. That’s not what we’re addressing here.
See, for all that feminists are very good at attacking others for what they do or don’t do or this or that, they’re very bad at practicing what they preach. As anyone who’s done so will know, whenever someone brings up a grievance that men have the instant reaction always seems to be “what about teh menz.” “Oh, well that’s just a side effect of how it hurts women.” “Oh, it’s not that big a deal.” “Oh, suck it up, be a man.” I’m sure you can think of some others, right? You’ve seen it. Hell, if you follow me, you’ve seen it a couple hundred times.
But wait, doesn’t that precisely fit the definition? I mean, when it comes to men’s issues, most of the time if we’re bringing something up, we’ve got citations! We can prove that violence against men is a bigger problem than violence against women, that there is bias in the courtroom….I mean, for Christ’s sakes, every man in the U.S. is forced, upon his 18th birthday or thereabouts to sign up to go get shot at if his country decides that’s what they want him to do, simply because he’s a man! What the fuck? And if he says no? He can legally be be thrown in jail and fined a quarter of a million dollars. It’s not a joke, and nobody with a brain is laughing. Sure, that might be “not so big a deal”. Yeah fucking right. These are not minor issues, and they’re literally happening with government sanction. If some asshole strangers yelling at you on the street is worthy of a campaign, fabricating statistics and blowing the whole thing very far out of proportion, these are sure as hell relevant and men are not overreacting.
There is reliable evidence, there is knowledge, we know for a fact that in these cases there is discrimination, and we have proof. We’re not talking about things that are the product of individuals, we’re not even talking about things that are social, or even just could just be isolated incidents. Most cases where feminists are claiming gaslighting are cases where it’s at least somewhat ambiguous. Sure, you were declined for the promotion, and the guy next to you was promoted over you, but we don’t know. Is it because you have breasts? Is it because you let slip to your boss that you’re planning to go on maternity leave? Let’s be honest here, he’s got to think about his business over you and he’s not going to promote the person who’ll promptly take six months off. Is it because the guy’s been putting in overtime and you haven’t? Is it because he’s just plain better at his job than you are? We don’t know, and you don’t know. In the cases that men are talking about, it’s generally discrimination that’s provable. It’s discrimination that’s backed up by scientific evidence, which hasn’t been tainted by feminist academic misconduct, something we all know exists (and if you’ve read any of my posts on the subject, you understand is pretty awesomely rampant).
So I put this out there: why the hell do feminists feel so comfortable bringing up the topic of gaslighting when it’s something that they, to a massive degree, are doing themselves?
Ask yourselves that.
