Emma Weston, co-founder of AgriDigital, which makes supply chain software, believes half of women won’t know what gaslighting is, but most will recognise the behaviour.

“Because it is so subtle, it is very easy to dismiss,” she says. “It doesn’t have the obvious hallmarks of harassment or bullying and other workplace infringements. But it can be equally devastating to the people involved.”

Marisa Warren, co-founder of Elevacao, which guides female entrepreneurs through capital-raising processes, says every woman who has come through the training program “has some negative experience around sexist or gaslighting behaviour”.

“I don’t think it’s talked about enough and that is part of the reason I want to talk about it,” Warren says. Green, Weston and Warren approached AFR BOSS magazine in the hope it will help other women – and men – to identify gaslighting in workplaces and stamp it out.

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins says gaslighting is a growing concern. Alex Ellinghausen

Kate Jenkins, Sex Discrimination Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission, says gaslighting is a growing concern, and applauds the three for telling their stories to increase awareness.

“The terminology of gaslighting is not well understood and the conduct is quite subtle and can be quite difficult to identify,” Jenkins says. “More women are saying they don’t want a scalp but [want] to tell their story, so organisations unpick the things that are standing in the way.”

Green had to manage a gaslighter last year after one of her female staff, who was hired because of her outstanding qualifications and expertise in an area relating to an important project, faced a male manager who didn’t fully understand the technical requirements.

The younger staff member’s brief changed daily, with the excuse that she had “failed” in the task. She was being undermined in chatter with other employees on the open-plan floor.

“The incident highlights how easy it is for someone to undermine the confidence of another employee in the workplace,” Green says. She ensured the perpetrator was removed, but Warren and Weston – who have both been victims of gaslighting – were forced out of their companies.


Warren worked at a global technology company running the channel business for the southern region of Australia. She was well qualified and experienced, and regularly exceeded her targets.

But “as a way to keep me down, my boss would say things like ‘you are too driven, too ambitious, not a team player, you need to spend three years in the role before applying for a promotion’”, she says.

“He didn’t like me questioning things and would reply without explaining, saying ‘This is the way we are doing it.’ There was a challenging quarter where he wanted me to recognise revenue without a confirmed order. I refused to do this, as it was not ethical.”

She was made redundant and reckons she was made scapegoat. “My colleagues were shocked and said things like, ‘If this can happen to Marisa, none of us are safe.’

“It certainly shook my confidence. I didn’t take it any further because I still had a lot of my career ahead of me. But for six months, I couldn’t even think about getting another job.”

Marisa Warren says she was forced out of a previous job after questioning decisions. Brook Mitchell

Weston’s gaslighting experience, also about a decade ago, occurred after she identified operational problems in an agricultural company involving contracts negotiated before her arrival.

She tried to persuade the board and major shareholders about the serious commercial issues. But “suggestions were made to me that I was having trouble coping with my executive position and responsibilities and that I was obsessing emotionally or neurotically over minor details because my judgment was clouded and I was unable to differentiate between work and personal matters”, Weston says.

“I was in my 30s and lacked the experience to see this for what it was ... I started to believe that my decision-making was being affected. I started to listen to myself second and others first. I started to perceive myself as weak. I started to believe what I was told.”

Weston offered her resignation, which was accepted. Only much later did it dawn on her that she’d done nothing wrong.


Like Green and Warren, Weston doesn’t want to name the perpetrators or the companies involved. “It’s not about raking a company or individuals over the coals,” she says. “It’s about calling out behaviours that are not conducive to the type of society we want to have.”

Lawyers say gaslighting is a form of workplace bullying and intimidation that could trigger workplace laws. The Sex Discrimination Act (1984) prohibits direct and indirect discrimination, and fair work and safety regimes can also respond to repeated and unreasonable behaviour that creates a risk to a worker’s safety, which includes mental and physical.

Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman in a scene from the film Gaslight. Supplied

King & Wood Mallesons partner Philip Willox says gaslighting cases would be complex to bring because the subtle and psychological nature of the conduct makes it difficult to identify, call out and prove. But he says workplaces should be attuned to the activity, and could use their codes of conduct to protect staff facing the harassment.

“If someone is engaging in that conduct and someone says this is not right and impacting me, the regimes and codes most companies have are sufficient to pick it up,” Willox says. “If someone is deliberately, or even subconsciously, undermining somebody in this way, that fits within bullying and harassment regimes.”

The three women who spoke to BOSS say education and communication in the workplace, in sports and at schools, universities, clubs, boards and politics should be the starting point for tackling the epidemic.

“If we want truly great leadership we must find a way to combat and bring to account gaslighting, and support the women facing it,” Green says. “If we want diverse workplaces, we need to do better.”

What is gaslighting?

Gaslighting is a form of manipulation and control where a person presents false information to a victim to alter how they perceive themselves.

The term derives from a 1938 play, Gas Light, and its 1944 film adaptation, Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman. In the film, the new husband of Bergman’s character seeks to have her certified insane to get his hands on her jewellery collection.

To do this, he makes the gas lights in their home flicker and dim for no apparent reason. When she reacts, he tells her she’s seeing things. Bergman’s character ends up doubting her memory, perception and sanity.

The techniques of gaslighting can vary but essentially involve the subtle undermining of the victim’s confidence. Men and women can be victims, but they’re typically women. Men and women can be perpetrators, but they’re typically men.

Gaslighting is cross-generational, yet appears more common against younger women. It is also cross-sectoral, but perhaps more prevalent in male-dominated industries such as engineering, agriculture and technology.