“Women have been driven mad, “gaslighted,” for centuries by the refutation of our experience and our instincts in a culture which validates only male experience. The truth of our bodies and our minds has been mystified to us. We therefore have a primary obligation to each other: not to undermine each others’ sense of reality for the sake of expediency; not to gaslight each other. …
Women have often felt insane when cleaving to the truth of our experience. Our future depends on the sanity of each of us, and we have a profound stake, beyond the personal, in the project of describing our reality as candidly and fully as we can to each other.”
― Adrienne Rich, “On Lies, Secrets, and Silence. Selected Prose 1966-1978”
Oh yeah, I feel you on that, girl. There’s nothing more un-fun than having your sense of self, your story, your experience/s denied, automatically refuted, disfavored, ignored, dismissed, denigrated, used against you, because ‘woman’. Once, when I was ten or eleven years old, my little sister decided to gaslight me for reals, refusing to talk to or play with me because – as she put it “you’re crazy”. I don’t remember how long this went on, although I do recall one of her friends coming over during that period, and the whole act or whatever it was truly freaking that young lady out. You’re not the only one, Sally, it freaked me out, too.
More freaky still is having your actual, lived experience questioned and disappeared; this makes a person doubt themselves; how could it not? Also crazy-making is having multiple persons then believe the lie or the extension of the lie embodied in you, your madness, your over-reacting, your incorrect, mistaken, wrong, upsetting, contrary to their beliefs narrative. How dare you question him/them – how dare you?! I have often wished, when people have told me how much my mother loved me, or what a wonderful woman she was, or how every mother loves her children, that I had cigarette burn scars on my legs and arms, or the scars of a whip on my back to contradict that universally accepted truth of mother love, a truth that is simply not universally applicable.
The truth is my mother was literally driven mad by the very system she spent so much of her time upholding, and attempted to forcibly mold her three daughters into upholding and living out as well. The truth is my mother, who was brilliant and powerful in and of herself, was driven mad by the culture and religion into which she was born; this boxed her up within a set of boundaries that required her to kill her ambition, her dreams, her desires, quashing and self-murdering her native born, natural temperament. And, she was 100% on board with that killing, embraced dying to her authentic self because ‘appropriate’ and ‘acceptable’ and ‘conventional’ and ‘good Catholic’ and and ‘good daughter’ and ‘good wife’ – except – in her marrow, in the pain of her almost constant migraines, in her volatility and intensity – she raged, internally kicking and screaming, occasionally bubbling over, when her rage was projected outward at that which was closest to hand: me.
It was impossible for my mother to break free. Her chains were the family and culture she loved, betrayal was not possible, despite what that same family, religion, and culture was doing to absolutely fuck her up. It is difficult if not impossible to shake or change belief in any universally or personally accepted ‘truth’, which includes the still present ‘women are hysterical’ and less trustworthy than men by virtue of the female nature, a sexist myth and foundational building block of the patriarchy. How can women choose to be our authentic selves in a world in which we are told our own desires, ambitions, goals and even activities (women’s work, women’s interests, women’s TV, women’s sports) as well as our points of view are by definition less than.
The world, and its laws, have been designed by men to benefit men and those in power, which are – mostly – men. ‘Power corrupts, and absolutely power corrupts absolutely’ – Lord Acton. Depending on men in power, depending on anyone in power to be good, to live out the values of decency and kindness, is a risk. Even questioning men in power is a risk, because despite clear evidence of abuse, bad behavior, and illegality an entire structure and set of ingrained beliefs exist to bury allegations of same; institutions of power and the people in them will inevitably rally round, protecting the ‘principal’, whoever he (it is, inevitably, a he) is.
Women are better humans than men. We are; we’ve had to be. Maybe, one day, that will be a universally accepted truth. We can only hope. *Women (*western, privileged women) are not mad; we’re simply righteously pissed off – and in those places where women are still being denied agency, yes, women are still being driven mad, and until all women are free, none of us are. GACK.
“A feminist therapist believes that women need to hear that men “don’t love enough” before they’re told that women “love too much”; that fathers are equally responsible for their children’s problems; that no one—not even self-appointed feminist saviors—can rescue a woman but herself; that self-love is the basis for love of others; that it’s hard to break free of patriarchy; that the struggle to do so is both miraculous and life-long; that very few of us know how to support women in flight from—or at war with—internalized self-hatred.” – Phyllis Chesler, Women and Madness