The mistreatment of gifted women
I think I just realized something absolutely terrible. I had been doing a lot of research into personality disorders like narcissism and borderline (because my mother has borderline and I had to heal myself from the C-PTSD from having grown up with her as a mother). People with personality disorders are abusive, because what they want from other people is completely insane and unreasonable. The person with narcissism wants endless narcissistic supply and wants to endlessly feel superior to other people. The person with borderline wants the other person to take away all their negative feelings, emptiness, despair, emotional dysregulation, etc., to the point that they would never feel any negative emotion ever again. These two demands are completely unreasonable and in itself emotionally abusive.
Next to the emotional abuse by my mother, I’ve unfortunately also been subjected to a lot of emotional abuse by my “peers” (fellow students, fake “friends”, etc.) who were resentful of my intelligence. I’ve shared some earlier posts specifically about the emotional abuse of gifted people by resentful non-gifted (or lesser gifted) people. These posts were highly controversial and divisive. My posts and my experiences seemed to resonate way more with other gifted women than with gifted men. Back then I wasn’t entirely sure why: it could be that gifted women are generally higher in emotional intelligence, so they pick up on the more subtle forms of emotional abuse way better. It could also be that there is a higher incidence of autism amongst gifted men, causing them to not notice the full extent of the actual emotional abuse taking place (e.g., facial micro-expressions of hatred/resentment/dislike). Or if the incidence of autism amongst gifted women is about the same as in men (and diagnosis rates just haven’t caught up with this), it is quite likely that autistic gifted women have spent a lot more time learning to interpret facial expressions and body language and vocal intonations than autistic gifted men.
It could also be the case that gifted women on average are treated a lot worse than gifted men. It could also be the case that all three statements are true, which I think is quite likely. But I have now grown to think that gifted women are on average treated a lot worse than gifted men, and this is the main factor that has caused my previous posts about the emotional abuse of gifted people to resonate way more with gifted women than with gifted men. I’ve realized this because after learning about the completely unreasonable demands of people with a personality disorder, I’ve noticed a similarity in the type of accusation.
My mother (whom I’m currently low contact with and will go no contact with in the future) has this “talent” to say something to me that on the surface seems neutral, but contains an accusation (as evidenced by her intonation). I’ve now learned that this accusation means: “You were supposed to make me happy and take all of my inner emptiness away forever, yet you didn’t”. People with narcissism have a similar kind of accusatory intonation, and with them it usually means something like: “You were supposed to make me look and feel superior, yet you didn’t” (and therefore you’re arrogant or whatever, and you “deserve” to be punished/humiliated/put in your place).
I’ve now noticed a similarity in this type of accusatory intonation. For decades, whenever I intellectually outshone another person, this was often met with some sort of accusatory vitriol. Revealing an underlying thought like: How dare you get a way better grade than I did. How dare you come across as the smartest person in the room. How dare you understand politics/philosophy/economy better than I do. “How dare you”, because there is some kind of underlying, tacit social contract that I was not supposed to, but I “willfully” engaged in a severe transgression of this tacit social contract. Which brings me to the topic of “completely unreasonable demands that are in itself emotionally abusive”. What if gifted women are on average treated A LOT worse than gifted men, because society/modern culture (both for lack of a better word here) has the completely unreasonable demand of gifted women to completely mask their giftedness and to self-sabotage to the extent that they lower their performance to an average level?
Women are socialized to do endless amounts of emotional labor, to “keep the peace”, to make sure other people feel good, and this is usually expected of women all of the time, in all of their social interactions. I think it is quite possible that this extends to the completely unreasonable demand that the smartest girl in the class should pretend to be of average intelligence, and should self-sabotage to the extent that all of her grades are average as well (or only slightly above average, but not top of the class). Anything else is her being “a show-off”, in violation of some unspoken social rule that is at the intersection of policed mediocrity on the one hand, and the demand of girls/women to always put the feelings of other people first on the other hand.
I think this is why my female giftedness (and the giftedness of many other gifted women) has so consistently been met with endless strings of accusations, verbal violence, and emotional abuse: People see me as the “initial aggressor”, because I was supposed to completely mask my giftedness and self-sabotage my intellectual outcomes to the point of policed mediocrity, but I dared to make another choice. I dared to make the choice to intellectually outshine other people, even though this makes them feel bad, and this constitutes a “social act of aggression/transgression” that should be heavily socially punished. Cue the accusations, the verbal abuse, the emotional abuse, the attempts at sabotage.
The demand of gifted women to fully mask their giftedness and sabotage themselves into mediocrity is completely insane and unreasonable. But the retaliation against gifted women (the accusations, the verbal abuse, the emotional abuse, the attempts at sabotage) only makes sense if this is indeed the underlying social dynamic, the underlying unwritten social rule.
There is only one other explanation for the retaliation against gifted women: the belief that women should not be gifted in the first place, and that gifted women are a monstrosity, an abomination of nature. I have encountered this very toxic view in a few men with personality disorders, but the vast majority of the accusations after I’ve accidentally revealed too much of my giftedness are accusations that I’m making a severe social transgression, not an existential transgression.
Gifted women of reddit, what is your experience with this? Gifted men of reddit, have you observed this dynamic for instance in the social treatment of your gifted female romantic partner, co-worker, sister, or daughter (or other gifted women in your life)? I really hope I’m wrong about all of this, but I got the dreadful feeling that I am not.