October 2018
In
September’s issue of the Nimbin Good
Times, I wrote of why
gaslighters gaslight. In this article I explore the subject a little deeper in
order to understand how and why a person may acquiesce to being gaslighted.
Gaslighting
is a popular term used to describe a co-dependent
dysfunctional relationship where the gaslighter attempts to control the sense
of reality of the other person so that they come to doubt their sanity. Gaslighting
is abuse, plain and simple, but its existence is bound to a cultural way of
thinking about male/female differences.
A gaslighter does what he, or she wants (gaslighters
can be either gender, but for the sake of simplicity, I’m using “he”) as strategy is an attempt to silence the
other person, to belittle her, and thus to prove his idea of male superiority
(superior, dominant, more intelligent, more rational, or whatever).
Women are often conditioned to collaborate
and empathize and this makes her want to appease her partner when he pulls the
“superiority” card. She’ll embark on a sort of iterative mouse wheel of explaining,
complaining, crying, begging, pleading, etc. which reinforces his belief
in his supposed rational superiority.
Gaslighting is a major
obstacle to forming a healthy sexual relationship. It’s hard
for women, for anyone really to maintain an interest in sex when their sense of
safety is destroyed. It is not uncommon for a woman’s body to simply stop
responding and, at that point, for the man to start forcing her into sex that
hurts. I say to the gaslighted, listen to your body, your body knows something
is wrong. Get out and find your own life again.
Sociologically, an examination of gaslighting reveals a lot
of social conditioning and cultural beliefs about what it means to be male or
female. That baggage contains ideas that have little to do with actual
biological differences, a fact revealed when softer men are described in
feminine terms. The language surrounding male-femaleness says a lot. You’ll
hear in there the idea that women are weaker than men, that their opinions are
irrelevant, that her wants are not legitimate nor should be listened to, etc.
Gaslighting is thought control and it’s
done by the gaslighter to avoid feeling vulnerable and open to emotional pain,
to avoid feeling “feminine”. It is significant that with this
closed-heartedness comes lack of empathy and, quite often, cruelty to self,
others, and animals. Gaslighters are frequently hard-nosed, no nonsense, driven
men who fight tooth and nail to get what they want. They are resistant to
change, narcissistic, and often, sociopathic, and cannot bear the idea of a
relationship based on mutual respect, intimacy and equality.
Traditionally, many of us in the West are
brought up to believe that women’s role is to make men happy. Again, I’m not
just referring to actual women, but the idea that in a relationship of any kind
there has to be a strong, rational masculine person and a weak, irrational
feminine one who clings to the man of the house for her very life. Women who
identify more strongly with this paradigm often stay in a gaslighting
relationship because they don’t know what else to do, how else to be. He has
the financial stability, she has never learned to manage her finances. He has
the house, she will be homeless on her own. He says he loves her, while telling
her she is worthless. Maybe it isn’t all bad, and so she stays – to risk her
own sense of reality, her own sanity.
And so the light flickers, goes out,
comes back on, flickers again. Nothing is safe, nothing is predictable, and she
doesn’t know herself anymore. Maybe if she gave up everything that she is,
he’ll truly love her, maybe not.
Fortunately many in this weakened position
do get enough clues to see what is being done to them and how they agree to it,
at some level, and they get out. This is the beauty of the power of information
about gaslighting. We can now see it for what it is and reclaim our own
identity, our own truth, and be gaslighted no longer.
