Gaslighting

[Definition:] A form of intimidation or psychological abuse, sometimes called Ambient Abuse where false information is presented to the victim, making them doubt their own memory, perception and quite often, their sanity.


The classic example of gaslighting is to switch something around on someone that you know they're sure to notice, but then deny knowing anything about it, and to explain that they "must be imagining things" when they challenge these changes.

It works in part because it feeds off hundreds, probably thousands of years of minimizing women’s real concerns by accusing them of being hysterical, or of making mountains out of molehills. Women have been told that we’re hysterical if we say that rape is traumatizing even when the rapist is an acquaintance. Even today, women are told that they’re blowing it out of proportion even when suffering violence at the hands of a spouse. Women are told we’re just imagining the wage gap or the pressure to support men’s ambitions over our own, and told that actually these inequities are a result of our own “choices.” Every step of the way, we’re told that our reactions to injustice are more about our inferiority as women, that women have an inability to perceive reality, and that things aren’t what they seem.