I have been in relationships with women that frequently became crazed about stuff that I would consider relatively minor inconsequential bullshit, in these relationships I suppose I did "gaslight," but in the medium term what I did was break up with them because I don't really care for dramatic hysteria. It's hard to deal with someone who is freaking out, crying and seething over seating at a wedding or not getting the work assignment they thought they deserved, a natural reaction for me to that kind of hullabaloo is to to suggest that such a person chill the fuck out, and try to make some adult choices and have an adult reaction. I would say that in my current relationship (marriage) my wife and I have irrational freakouts at about the same rate, which probably means that I have more irrational freakouts ( pretty sure I'm biased toward my own healthy mental state). Because one of the major factors that has kept us together and our relationship strong is that neither of us generally gets hung up on bullshit, I think we are relatively tolerant when the other has some kind of rare mental breakdown. This might include at some point stating that either of us might be blowing this something out of proportion, and taking the time to break a problem down, finding out why we are so bent out of shape and considering a healthier response. Some stages of this could be considered "gas-lighting" but really sometimes irrational behavior needs to be called out, I don't think we do this in an unkind or unproductive way. I think to some extent women have culturally been programed to act "hysterically." For a long time women were forced to take the role of the weaker sex, chained to the children and the stove, kept form careers and money of their own. When you don't have control over your life, and the dominant member of a relationship maintains control by demeaning your intellect, emotional control and ability to be an important human being unhealthy emotional outburst are probably par for the course, ala "yellow wallpaper." To some extent female irrationality has been fashionable historically, while I can not claim any real scholarship in this field, I can think of cases when strong stimuli are famed to have caused fainting women of the higher classes. It was a mark of their fineness and quality that course stimuli would cause them to collapse. It was said that Marie Antoinette would faint at the mere picture of a lobster, but she was one of the great bullshitter manipulators of her age, I'm pretty sure that it was all an act, but an act put on to show her fine qualities. Now that I am aware of gas-lighting I will use it against feminine antagonists when the gloves come off. It's a pretty impressive and easy way to gain an slight advantage, and no not against my wife or daughter, but against the random person that has decided they will lock horns against me, the lady who cuts in line, or the "customer" that has decided to define what my job is ect...
That said, sometimes I do get in trouble for focusing solely on the topic at hand, and not the feelings underneath. I honestly think that men are worse (in general) at picking up on emotional communication, and this can lead to misunderstandings that result in gaslighting. Interesting.
For some men, this might come across as being overly "emotional" or "needy" when in fact, it's just the way women are wired. Conversely, men are not wired to be as emotionally expressive as women. This means we "guys" come across as being more reserved or worse "listeners", when in fact it's not the "listening" we are bad at, it's the "sharing". This being said, there is no excuse for comments like "can't you do anything right?", -That's not being a "guy", that's being a "dick".
What I wanted to accomplish by sharing this article is simply to make others more aware of how women respond to such comments. Obviously, people are nowadays more knowledgeable on differences in communication styles. However, what you mention isn't entirely relevant to the original article. The message the author is trying to convey is how people use their words, not how often. After all, "You're too sensitive, relax" is not a typical response to a woman who's talking too much (which is what you reference). This isn't an issue of sharing too much or too little, it's a matter of how people - even women - view women - which seems to be needy, irrational, emotional, and on. Yet because of these views, which people may not even know that they believe, women are often put down and, even worse, they blame themselves for it by simply attributing it to their own nature. They are effectively unable to do anything in an environment which overwhelms them with the idea that they are not in control of their own emotions. Sounds a bit like brainwashing, doesn't it? Therefore, one solution to this problem that I see is to make people more aware of it, since then you can consciously catch yourself in the act and, hopefully, stop doing it over time. I believe that the welfare of humanity depends on the happiness people derive from creativity and their expression. If people are happy and fulfilled, they will create more and increase happiness for others in general. So, in my mind, why foster negative viewpoints and perpetuate negative stereotypes, which seem so redundant and hamper the development of humans? The last thing I want to say is that I hope no man takes this as an attack on men. I myself have often "gaslighted" girls. Even now, I am aware that my own view is biased negatively in subtle ways towards women...which seems sad to me, considering that I am one.
I think you were right in posting the article to try and foster awareness of behaviors. As I stated previously, I have been guilty of it before... I'm not proud of it, but I'm sure it's occurred. I will be more aware moving forward, thanks to this post. Appreciate it :)
"Hey. You're being a dick. Knock it off." "Excuse me, but I don't think that was called for. I understand that you're feeling upset because I didn't acknowledge your email yesterday, and I apologize for that, but I don't think that name-calling is warranted here. Can we talk about this?" Can you hear many women saying the first, or many men saying the second? Why is that, do you think? Numerous possible explanations exist, but I would posit that the woman is "covering her tracks" and pre-emptively apologizing and acknowledging the validity of the (probably male) other person's feelings BECAUSE she is accustomed to being gaslighted when she expresses displeasure. This could easily extend to other scenarios -- extra word use when giving an opinion to ensure that she's acknowledging that others may have different opinions, extra word use when making a decision to guard against being told that her decision is crazy...
As another member of the female persuasion, I can see me saying both of these. The first if I'm out at a bar with friends, the second if I'm in a work environment. Context really matters here. I also happen to be relatively foul-mouthed and blunt in person/conversationally. Typing, I think I tend to be a little verbose.
I have a 9month old daughter and she spends a lot of time with our friends son who is also 9mo old. He is a fantastic little boy and he is very adept at crawling/standing etc but when it comes to verbal skills... .he's got nothing on her. She is chatty, chatty, chatty. This is not an uncommon scenario. I'm not a big "gaslighter" but I'm even less of one since having a daughter. She is amazing...YOU ladies are amazing. Every guy should have a daughter. -Best thing that ever happened to me. I posted this a while back and thought it was apropos (please disregard the creepy cover art)
There certainly are intrinsic differences (to deny that is erasure of transgendered individuals; if no differences are innate, then who would feel like the "wrong" gender from early childhood, and why?) but I think it is important to consider early nurturing rather than simply writing things off as nature. Too much emphasis of nature over nurture leads to things like, "Well, my daughter is just less interested in math--the sexes are different!" when the real problem may be that the daughter has no female role models with an interest in math.
The results from this study may help explain why men and women excel at different types of tasks, said co-author and neuropsychologist Rex Jung of the University of New Mexico. For example, men tend to do better with tasks requiring more localized processing, such as mathematics, Jung said, while women are better at integrating and assimilating information from distributed gray-matter regions of the brain, which aids language skills. This in no way means women can't be as good (or better) at tasks requiring "localized" processing. It just means that our brains have evolved differently. It's fantastic. I realize that "infants understand more than they are able to vocalize". I am around two 9 month old kids every day. My daughter talks equally to both my wife and myself. I don't see her "mimicking" one more than the other. Her brain is just engineered differently than the little boys, by design. It's not better/worse, it just is. (actually.. I think it's better but I'm very biased) btw, my wife is fantastic at math and is FAR better at "localized processing" than I am. I am much better with language etc. -So anomalies do occur. source: http://www.livescience.com/3808-men-women-differently.html
I don't dispute that certain innate differences exist; however, as Pearlson cautions, it is unwise to assume that we can differentiate between the capabilities of individuals in the same way the we can predict patterns of ability in very large populations. Nor does it mean social factors don't play a role--women may be better (statistically, in very large populations) at language skills and empathy, but how many women psychologists or authors were there at a time when the employment of women in fields outside nursing or teaching was socially unacceptable? There's a relevant XKCD I'm sure you've seen -- "You're really bad at math!" vs. "Women are really bad at math!" I think you're doing a little bit of the same thing here: "My daughter proves that women are inherently more talkative!" rather than, "My daughter is very talkative! On average, when studying large populations, women are much more talkative." Not nearly as dangerous, but again I would caution you to keep Dr. Pearlson's statements in mind when generalizing about gender differences. In nearly all cases, individual differences (like your difference from your wife) will be greater than the difference between the averages of large populations. It is unlikely that any individual's abilities in any area can be meaningfully judged based on studies dealing with an average of thousands or millions who happen to share their gender. Source: http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n11/mente/eisntein/cerebro-ho...