We have all heard the word 'gaslighting' being thrown around a lot lately, which makes sense, considering we just made Mango Mussolini the leader of the free world. Yet even with the prevalence of the term in our discussions, it seems that the etymology is getting lost. Most of us know the definition of gaslighting to be something along the lines of 'insisting that something that is blatantly a lie is the truth'. While that isn't technically speaking wrong, there's more to it than that.

The term 'gaslighting' comes from the 1928 play by Patrick Hamilton entitled gas light. The premise of the play a man who tries to convince his wife she is insane. He uses multiple tactics, but the centerpiece of his manipulation is by dimming all the lights in the house, then insisting that she is just imagining things when she brings it up. For a while, he manages to convince her that her narration of her own life is an unreliable one.

This term was adopted by the phycological community in order to label a certain sort of abusive behavior. Things like someone insisting that it's alright for them to check their partners phone because their partner is irresponsible, or telling their partner that they are petty and jealous when their partner brings up their conduct with other people. Mostly, it features insisting that legitimate concerns are illegitimate. While we obviously know that someone of any gender can be the victim of abuse, worldwide, domestic abuse is still something that is predominantly done to women, by men. So, while the term gaslighting plays an important role in our conversations surrounding the wet garbage administration, it would be remiss of us to not discuss the application of the action of gaslighting to women.

Gaslighting of women, in my experience, is highly adaptable. It goes beyond just the blatant and intimate and bleeds into our society on the whole. This sort of gaslighting is not just something we've all seen, it's something we've all done. It generally takes the form of insisting that a woman's emotions stem from her womanhood, her emotions, and her hormones, rather than from the facts. In the case of cisgender women, it most often comes in some form of the phrase 'are you sure you aren't PMSing?'

Of all the things you could say to a woman when she is telling you her point of view, this is quite possibly the most dehumanizing. It is also one of the most effective and humiliating. Not only because it lays the fault with her perceived womanness, not only because not all women have uteruses, and not only because it is a perverse act to bring up someone's genitals in an argument, but because it says that in spite of whatever the relationship you have, with her, no matter how capable she may be, or how many times she has proved herself competent, at the end of the day you still see her as something that is helpless to the whims of her reproductive system.

Even if someone was PMSing, that doesn't render one's point invalid. PMS causes emotional distress in some women. I don't know of a single case where it has caused someone to hallucinate or become deluded. A friend of mine once said that it wasn't that her families behavior was acceptable any other time of the month, it was simply that this week she has a lowered tolerance for it.

Another facet of the large scale gaslighting of women is how women are so often portrayed as being crazy when they are sad, or distrustful, or angry. This would be an entirely different issue if it only happened in romantic relationships, but this idea is everywhere. We get this message from birth. I remember being told that the only thing I needed to know to get through high school was that boys are stupid and girls are crazy, an idea that paint women as raving maniacs with unfounded arguments and men as idiots standing in the school yard, throwing rocks at one another. Neither of those things is even remotely true.

Think of how many times you've seen a male/female couple on TV that fought and made up. How often does that making up scene include the woman saying 'I've been acting crazy.' Sure, often enough, on soap operas, they are. But we see this as children. We internalize it. We are taught that women's concerns are just a result of zany, miswired brains.

While gaslighting so often acts as a tool to abuse women, this particularly 'women are crazy' thing puts men in danger too. I cannot believe the number of jokes I've seen and heard about a crazy girlfriend who is stalking someone, who makes death threats, who sabotages her birth control in an attempt to 'trap' someone. While it is true that these offenses are more often committed by men, that does not mean that they cannot be committed by women. All of the above-mentioned behaviors aren't cute 'crazy girl' behavior. They are not nuisance acts, they re illegal and abusive ones. They should be treated as such. Making a joke out of these actions undermines the danger of these sort of behaviors.

Gaslighting seems to come into play most often when anger is involved, and it is something we all internalize, particularly the women. It took me quite some time to learn that my feeling of anger isn't shameful or uncalled for. I do not have to be stone cold when I explain my point to someone. If something matters to me, it's alright for me to show it. Expressing anger is a part of that, and it does not undermine any of the points that I am making.

Gaslighting is an important word and one that I fear we will be using more and more over the course of the next four years. However, as we do, let's keep in mind that we don't just need to dismantle the systems that are being put into place in the news in our country a, but also the one's in our own relationships, in our own homes.