Another method of psychological abuse that is applied to women on a social level is gaslighting. The essence of this method is to "out-of-sync" the intellectual and emotional perception of the situation, making it impossible to correctly interpret one's own emotions.
Gaslighting is a much wider range of manipulation than just the beliefs "you imagined it", "it didn't happen", "you're making it up".It can even include such seemingly harmless things as instilling optimism (“you need to look for the good in everything”), attributing false emotions (“I know that you like it”) and motives (“you do it to attract attention” ), a shift in focus from cause to effect ("take responsibility"), the denial of objectivity as such ("everyone has their own truth").
The general consequence of gaslighting is that the victim is given a picture of the world where she does not see the true source of her discomfort, and therefore cannot influence the situation. Gaslighting confuses and does not allow us to see the whole situation, forcing us to direct our efforts in the wrong direction.

How is this kind of psychological manipulation realized at the level of society?
First of all, the possession of women by men seems to be something normal, as is the violence associated with it. We encounter its manifestations everywhere - in advertising, books, movies, in the family, in company conversations, at school and at the university. The micro-humiliations and dangers we face all the time cause us to feel ashamed and fearful of being a woman.
However, gaslighting is not about that, but about everyone pretending that women and men in society are equal and can achieve the same social status and standard of living. No one says directly that women are a separate caste that exists for the use of men, and if someone does say, then they are called marginal. But women are still treated in accordance with this setting.
In particular, this applies to the sexuality. Women see sexualized violence committed against our gender, but we continue to be told that this is done "for mutual pleasure" and that we too could receive it if we allowed ourselves to. The myth of the vaginal orgasm is also a massive gaslighting that causes women to try to enjoy what they obviously don't like.
This also includes the myth of the maternal instinct, that claims that in fact children are happiness for a woman. The myth that women control men with their beauty and cunning. And many other myths, the purpose of which is to convince women that they themselves choose their fate and they like it, so that we set ourselves goals within the existing system and do not think about how to get out of it.

One of the most insidious forms of gaslighting is the “everything is changing for the better” mindset, which has greatly shaken third-wave feminism.
Today, we see the picture of the world that includes "bad" countries, where women are deprived of rights and are in slavery to men, and "good" countries, where feminism and tolerance flourish, while the world is steadily moving along the path of "progress" - that is, from the first to the second. You can often hear in femppublics such theses as "it's 21st century, and these men have a mindset of the Middle Ages!". They demonstrate the delusion of women, supposedly the situation is changing for the better, and soon the patriarchy will disappear by itself like a kind of atavism.

And this mindset, of course, is very beneficial for men to support, because women still have the illusion that a lot has already been achieved, and there are only some individual bugs in the system that need to be corrected. Using this, men continue to control the situation, and easily take away opportunities from women if such a need arises in connection with economic or political changes. We have seen how easily women's rights can be "rolled back" not only in countries like Iran or Afghanistan, or Russia, but also in progressive countries like the United States.

The truth is that no progress and humanization of society will protect us from male violence, because these are all temporary phenomena associated with a well-fed, prosperous life. Only we can protect ourselves. And for this we need to become strong, both individually and all together as a group. We need to get rid of illusions and the idea of hostility of the environment, no matter how discordant with our usual worldview. The most powerful weapon against lies is the truth, and we need to speak the truth to dispel the fog of delusion.


Author: Philosopher's Stone of Artémis
Translator: Yulia N.