How Gaslighting Echoes the Weaponization of Insanity Against Women
Introduction: When Doubt Becomes a Tool of Control
Imagine being told your thoughts aren’t real.
Imagine being told your emotions, your words, your truth — are symptoms of madness.
Some of you reading this might not have to imagine it, because it’s happened to you. But in the 19th century, those accusations could land a woman in an asylum. Today, the accusations appear in different ways — a partner dismissing her concerns as “overreacting,” a boss labeling her as “too emotional,” or an online mob calling her “crazy” for speaking out.
The term gaslighting describes the psychological manipulation of making someone doubt their own reality. But as our November 2025 Book of the Month, Kate Moore’s The Woman They Could Not Silence, reveals — gaslighting isn’t new. It has deep historical roots in how women’s sanity was weaponized to maintain patriarchal control.
Through the story of Elizabeth Packard, a wife unjustly institutionalized by her husband in 1860, Moore exposes the chilling history of a tactic that has evolved but never disappeared (freaked out yet?). Her book isn’t just history; it’s a mirror held up to modern society, showing how far we’ve come — and how much remains painfully familiar.
When Madness Was a Label of Convenience
Elizabeth Packard’s ordeal began in a seemingly ordinary home. Her husband, Theophilus Packard, was a strict Calvinist minister who viewed his wife’s growing independence — her theological questioning, her intelligence, her refusal to fully submit to him — as rebellion.
Under state law at the time, he didn’t need evidence, a trial, or a medical opinion to declare her insane, because, as her husband, he had the legal right to have her committed to an asylum based solely on his declaration of her insanity. Why would he want to do this? She disagreed with his religious views. He fought back by labeling her defiance as madness.
Inside the asylum, Elizabeth found herself surrounded by other women whose “insanity” was similarly suspect. Some were institutionalized for “reading too much,” others for “disobedience,” “nervousness,” or “domestic disagreement.” As Moore describes, the asylum functioned as a social tool, not a medical institution — a place where nonconforming women were ignored, hidden, punished, and silenced under the guise of “treatment.”
This is the heart of the weaponization of insanity: the fear of female autonomy causing loss of control.
And it’s the same psychological maneuver at the core of gaslighting — making women doubt the legitimacy of their own thoughts, shattering confidence and leaving them questioning their own intelligence.
The Psychology of Silencing
The silencing of women is an insidious objective that is often disguised as concern.
In The Woman They Could Not Silence, Theophilus Packard insists he institutionalized Elizabeth for her own good — to “protect” her from the consequences of her behavior. Similarly, many Victorian-era doctors justified keeping women quiet by diagnosing them with “hysteria” or “nervous disorders.” Throughout history, the implication was clear: women’s emotions made them unfit for rational thought.
The same dynamic exists today in modern discourse. Women’s public speech is still framed through a woman’s tone, not her ideas. If she’s assertive, she’s too emotional, too angry, too soft, too shrill. If she’s calm, she’s meek. Either way, we should be “concerned” and silence her to “protect” her. But the critique isn’t about content or safety; it’s about control.
By defining how a woman “should” speak, society continues to dictate when and whether she can be heard at all.
The Anatomy of Gaslighting — Then and Now
Gaslighting operates on three levels: control, invalidation, and erasure. These dynamics were embedded in the 19th-century system that imprisoned women like Elizabeth and are still in use today.
1. Control Through “Concern”
Gaslighters often frame domination as care. Theophilus Packard claimed to be acting out of “concern for his wife’s mental and spiritual health.” His decision to confine her was, he claimed, a moral duty.
Modern abusers use similar language. “I’m just worried about you,” or “You’re acting crazy” — words that masquerade as care while stripping the other person of agency.
Moore’s retelling exposes this hypocrisy: the illusion of benevolence disguising coercion. The asylum was said to “protect” Elizabeth from herself. In truth, it was meant to break her spirit and destroy her individuality.
2. Invalidation of Reality
The system, whether personal or institutional, is rigged to confirm the abuser’s narrative. The more a victim tried to defend herself, the “crazier” the person manipulating her says she is.
Once institutionalized, Elizabeth’s every attempt to assert her sanity was dismissed as further proof of delusion and madness. When she spoke logically, she was accused of “arguing.” When she expressed emotion, she was labeled “hysterical.” Her protests were reinterpreted by her captors through the lens of insanity — a closed loop of invalidation that left her powerless to prove her own truth.
This is perhaps the most insidious echo of gaslighting today. You’re insane, so anything you say thereafter is further proof of insanity.
3. Erasure of Voice
Lastly, the ultimate goal is to silence the victim into quiet obedience.
While confined, Elizabeth’s letters were censored, her words ignored and belittled. She was told that no one would believe her — and for a long, long time, no one did. She was essentially being erased.
This erasure mirrors how modern gaslighting isolates victims, convincing them that their perspective doesn’t matter or will be interpreted as crazy. The message — “No one will believe you” — is timeless.
In both eras, the goal isn’t simply to silence women, but to make them silence themselves in fear.
Gaslighting as a Continuum of Patriarchal Power
What makes The Woman They Could Not Silence so powerful is how clearly it traces the lineage of emotional manipulation from the 19th century to the present.
Gaslighting, Moore suggests implicitly through her storytelling, isn’t merely a personal behavior — it’s a social inheritance. It grows out of historical systems that taught men to define women’s reality for them.
The 19th century had its legal codifications: coverture laws that erased women’s identities, medical diagnoses like “hysteria,” and asylum systems that institutionalized female independence.
The 21st century has its linguistic ones: words like “crazy,” “dramatic,” or “unstable” still used to dismiss women’s experiences in homes, workplaces, and politics.
The tactics have changed form, but the function remains identical — to make women doubt their perception and defer to authority. In other words, women shut up and comply to avoid the negative scrutiny.
From Asylum to Hashtag: The Enduring Struggle for Credibility
When Elizabeth Packard was finally released, she faced a society that still doubted her. Many saw her activism as evidence that she remained unstable. Yet she persevered and persisted — publishing her account, speaking publicly, and pushing for reform laws that gave women the right to a trial before commitment.
Today, in the age of social media, women who share their experiences of abuse, discrimination, or injustice often face the same discrediting language Elizabeth did over a century ago. Women are still told they’re “making things up,” “too sensitive,” or “imagining it.” The method of silencing has evolved, but the goal is the same: to reclaim control over a woman’s narrative by questioning her sanity.
Elizabeth’s defiance offers a model of resistance. She didn’t just reclaim her freedom — she reclaimed her credibility, and in doing so, she challenged the entire framework that equated womanhood with irrationality. And won.
Reclaiming Sanity: The Feminist Act of Believing Yourself
One of the most powerful insights Moore offers is that sanity itself is political.
Who decides what’s “rational”? Who decides what counts as truth?
In Elizabeth Packard’s world, the answer was simple: men did.
By refusing to accept their definition of sanity, she performed a radical act — one that every survivor of gaslighting will recognize. She believed herself when no one else would.
That self-belief, Moore shows, was Packard’s salvation. It allowed her to document, to speak, and ultimately to rewrite the narrative that had confined her.
It’s a message that transcends time: to reclaim your sanity is to reclaim your story.
Lessons for the Modern Reader
What does Elizabeth Packard’s story teach us about gaslighting today?
1. Naming It Is Power
In Elizabeth’s time, there wasn’t even a vocabulary for what was being done to her. The word “gaslighting” wouldn’t appear until almost a century later. By giving the phenomenon a name today, we make it visible — and visibility is the first step to dismantling it.
2. Institutions Can Gaslight Too
Gaslighting isn’t confined to relationships. Workplaces, media, and governments can all manipulate truth to control perception — just as the asylum system did. Always question who benefits when someone’s credibility is attacked.
3. Listening Is Liberation
When we believe women — truly listen — we break the centuries-old pattern that equates their testimony with hysteria. Elizabeth’s voice was almost lost to history because no one listened soon enough. Moore’s retelling restores that voice and invites us to do better in our time.
Conclusion: The Light That Can’t Be Dimmed
In The Woman They Could Not Silence, Kate Moore resurrects the story of one woman who refused to let others define her reality. Elizabeth Packard’s life is both a warning and an inspiration — a testament to how easily truth can be distorted, and how powerfully it can endure when spoken aloud.
Gaslighting, whether in a Victorian asylum or a modern home, thrives on doubt. It feeds on the silence of its victims and the complicity of those who look away. But even the smallest act of self-belief — the quiet insistence that I know what I saw, I know what I feel — is revolutionary.
Today, Elizabeth’s voice still echoes — steady, rational, unbroken — a beacon against every effort to make women question their own minds.
