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A note about Narrative, Gaslighting, and the Patriarchy.
"Gaslighting is the attempt of one person to overwrite another person’s reality." ‐ Everyday Feminism.

"Narrative : 4. a story that connects and explains a carefully selected set of supposedly true events, experiences, or the like, intended to support a particular viewpoint or thesis: " ‐ some random online dictionary.

Note that the first definition includes the notion that a person has their own reality. That may have been sloppiness on the part of the article writer at Everyday Feminism, or it may be an assumption of the second definition and that your reality is carefully selected to support a particular viewpoint or thesis.

...But how does that work when we can each have our own reality?

If your reality, if your carefully constructed narrative to support a thesis of patriarchy and oppression isn’t objectively true, have you gaslighted yourself? Have you?

...lately I’ve been seeing charges and claims of gaslighting made when someone has been led to question their social and political narrative and become uncomfortable. If your narrative is a lie, it may be uncomfortable for you to question it, but it’s not gaslighting.

If I argue that women have been almost universally encouraged in any career ambition, and given outward and constant support for at least 30 years, hand-held and helped and even had much of our educational system rearranged specifically to cater to female learning styles, and you’re led to question your reality... I am not gaslighting you. I’m describing the truth of American life. Not my truth. The truth.

If I explain the negative effects on boys of all this promotion of girls, I’m describing the truth and I wish you’d listen because the situation is destructive and cruel.If I argue that women have been almost universally encouraged in any career ambition, and given outward and constant support for at least 30 years, hand-held and helped and even had much of our educational system rearranged specifically to cater to female learning styles, and you’re led to question your reality... I am not gaslighting you. I’m describing the truth of American life. Not my truth. The truth.

If I explain the negative effects on boys of all this promotion of girls, I’m describing the truth and I wish you’d listen because the situation is destructive and cruel.

Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-09-04
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=496598