“Gaslighting” Is the Word of the Year. Women Already Know That

When we heard that "gaslighting" was Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year, our first thought was, What took them so long? Yes, we know that the dictionary came to this conclusion based on the number of times the definition of a word was searched on its site. Reportedly, searches for "gaslighting" rose by 1,740 percent in the last 12 months. It seems that thanks to political misinformation and misdirection on the Internet, the rest of the world is catching up with the psychological crap that women have endured over centuries. Because, let's face it, gaslighting has mainly been directed at women, until now.

The rest of the world is catching up with the psychological crap that women have endured over centuries.

Merriam-Webster defines gaslighting as “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone, especially for one’s own advantage.” But that's kind of general, and it doesn't fully capture the true sinister nature of gaslighting and the fact that the term originated from a story of a man intentionally trying to make a woman crazy.