In the first instalment of our poignant, hard-hitting series: Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss; Hannah and Maia breakdown "gaslight" and its terrible evolution. From a 1944 psycho-thriller starring Ingrid Bergman about a woman being tormented by her greedy husband, to a catchall for anytime anyone is ever unfriendly to us - the term "gaslight" is now a spectre of what it used to be. In this little series we ask - is this a natural linguistic evolution, or is the cultural abstraction of these words more damaging than we think?

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Intro and outro song produced by our talented friend Ian Mills:

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SOURCES:

Caleb Madison “Are You Using Gaslight Correctly?” (2022), The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/04/are-you-using-gaslight-correctly/629522/

Ella Feldman, “‘Gaslighting’ Is Merriam Webster’s Word of the Year”, (2022) Smithsonian Magazine https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/gaslighting-merriam-webster-word-of-the-year-180981203/

Paige L. Sweet, “The Sociology of Gaslighting” (2019), American Sociological Review https://www.jstor.org/stable/48602118

Daniel Kurtzleben, “When Republicans Attack ‘Cancel Culture’ What Does It Mean?" (2021), NPR https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/965815679/is-cancel-culture-the-future-of-the-gop

Ben Zimmer (2017) https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2017-January/145910.html

Julie Beck, “The Concept Creep of Emotional Labor” (2018), The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/11/arlie-hochschild-housework-isnt-emotional-labor/576637/

"What is Gaslighting?”, National Domestic Violence Hotline https://www.thehotline.org/resources/what-is-gaslighting/

Chi Luu, “Do You Even Language, Bro? Understanding Why Nouns Become Verbs” (2016), JSTOR Daily https://daily.jstor.org/in-which-we-science-why-nouns-become-verbs-because-language/