I want to tell you a story about what men – not all men – do to women, so many women.
I’m telling you this story because it is happening right now in federal parliament and I fear the behaviour will be influential.
No, it’s not sexual harassment although we know how endemic that is. It’s gaslighting.
I asked a couple of young guys if they knew what gaslighting was. They were both reasonably familiar with the term but said that some people might not get it. Then I asked a room full of people at a talk, and only about half knew.
So, a brief description.
I can’t put it any better than Laura Thomas from Lancet Psychiatry published earlier this year. She says the concept comes from Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play, Gas Light.
“It tells the story of a man intent on convincing his wife she’s insane, in order that he might lay hands on some jewels she has inherited. At first the relationship is all sunshine, but small incidents of apparently inexplicable anger mount up. The husband hides a brooch and blames his wife for losing it, and moves a painting and tells her she did it without remembering. He tells her she is unwell—too unwell to go out. Increasingly cut off from friends and relatives, she notices that sometimes the gas lights in her room dim, as if somewhere in the house a new lamp has been turned on. When the servants tell her no new lamp has been lit, she begins to think perhaps she really is losing her mind.”
So, as Thomas puts it, gaslighting is used to explain a particular kind of psychological abuse.
And a range of male politicians – and even some women collaborators – are doing this right now. The worst is Prime Minister Scott Morrison. He told a range of people this week that bullying and harassment within the Liberal Party did not exist. In fact, when asked if he was 100 per cent confident bullying was not an issue within the federal parliamentary party, the prime minister replied: "I am."
Scott Morrison said he was 100 per cent confident bullying was not an issue in the Liberal Party.
He’s had Julia Banks decide not to recontest her seat. Ann Sudmalis won’t be recontesting either and she used parliament to name – although clearly not shame – the person she considers to have bullied her. The prime minister must have heard the comments from Julie Bishop where she welcomed a discussion on "bullying, intimidation, harassment and coercion" by federal politicians and "unfair unequal treatment of women". As she said: "I have seen and witnessed and experienced some appalling behaviour in Parliament, the kind of behaviour that 20 years ago when I was managing partner of a law firm of 200 employees I would never have accepted. Yet in Parliament it's the norm."
Does he think she’s talking about queues for the loo?
Even to an outsider, his claims of a bully-free zone are blatantly false. He’s had complaint after complaint and many more to come and, despite his denials, he has now set up a process which is a clear sign that even he knows what he is claiming is untrue. Otherwise why would he undertake to set up that process to investigate complaints.
Which brings me to Minister for Jobs and Industrial Relations and the Minister for Women Kelly O’Dwyer who bravely made some ambit claims about the process Morrison plans to set up.
She has high standards in a party which, when it comes to its treatment of women, has none. Last week O’Dwyer has called for the process to be independent.
“The standard to ensure that if people have concerns or complaints, that they can raise those complaints, knowing that it will be dealt with confidentially and independently and part of a rigorous process with the party organisation.”
And she said she thought processes and policies were key in fixing the problem, for problem it is.
Unfortunately, not all women in the Liberal Party recognise it’s a problem; and the collaborators with Morrison’s denials include at least two women, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells and Helen Kroger, both of whom say there is no culture of bullying.
Former Liberal frontbencher Sophie Mirabella.
I’d like to remind them both that one woman who might be said to be in their faction (although, yeah, no factions in the Liberal Party), had some harsh remarks about men in the Liberal Party a couple of years back. Former Liberal frontbencher Sophie Mirabella, unsuccessful in her campaign in the seat of Indi, said she believes senior – male – Liberals backgrounded against both her and assistant treasurer Kelly O'Dwyer on days one and two of the election campaign.
"If that's not orchestrated, what is? So many blokes, so little courage. This would be less objectionable if these people were geniuses but they had serious deficiencies, as you can see from the election result."
The denial of political women’s experiences is not just the usual spin we get from politicians – although there is some of that. This is the ultimate in gaslighting. It denies the reality of the lived experiences of the women within his party, the women who are deserting Scott Morrison and the Liberal Party in droves. It’s gaslighting. The only way to fix it is to deny these blokes, these folks, oxygen.
The reality needs to be confronted and changed. Gaslight's on. Someone has to be home to take responsibility.
Jenna Price is an academic at the University of Technology Sydney and a columnist for the Canberra Times.
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