Merriam-Webster, the American publishing company behind the namesake dictionary, declared “Gaslighting” to be the word of the year for 2022. This cruel form of psychological manipulation, which causes the victim to become confused and question their own perception, is called “gaslighting.” It is named after Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play, “Gas Light”, in which the protagonist convinces his wife that she is going mad because she is the only one who sees the gas lights in their home being turned off. The term saw a +1750% increase in searches online this year. “Gaslighting” violence can also be found in the workplace, in politics, and home.
We spoke about it with Cristiana Falcone, Councillor and Member of the Related Parties Committee and the Sustainability Committee at TIM. “Gaslighting is one of the ways in which coercive control over a woman is exercised, dominating her daily life, psychologically violating her, and denying her access to financial independence,” emphasizes Cristiana Falcone, who is fighting to eliminate “gaslighting” from being one of the most searched terms online. “To do this,” she continues, “we can use philanthropy and offer financial independence to those (people) who are in coercive control, helping them to regain confidence in themselves.”
Gaslighting victims have difficulty understanding what is going on and expressing their own needs. In the workplace, this reduces the victim’s productivity, while at home, it leads to a violation of privacy and significant physical and psychological harm. “The victim’s state of humiliation and isolation from sources of support is viciously and dangerously linked to the phenomenon of domestic isolation. We must give importance to female empowerment once again and enable women to regain power and control over their lives, thereby gaining the ability to make strategic choices for themselves,” concludes Cristiana Falcone.
Thanks to her experience as an administrator of the JMCMRJ Sorrell Foundation, Cristiana Falcone has managed donations of considerable sums to support education and health. This year, she is collaborating with the King’s College London Control Coercive Program, available at https://reportandsupport.kcl.ac.uk. Developed in partnership with the Charity Commission of England and Wales, the program “Reverse the Trend on Coercive Control” aims to help save and improve people threatened by domestic abuse by creating a unique institutional focus on coercive control. This can be achieved by working with abuse survivors (“empowering survivors”), networking, and raising public awareness about the issue.
About Cristiana Falcone
Cristiana Falcone-Sorrell has over 20 years of international experience in strategy, change management, and business development for global corporations (SONY, Shell, Revlon), international governmental organizations (ILO, IFAD, FAO, UNDCCP, IADB), and the media (Radio Televisione Italiana, Gruppo Espresso, World Economic Forum, Univision), working with and advising the most senior leadership.
Through her role at the World Economic Forum, where she led the Media, Entertainment, and Information community, and as a non-executive director of four major companies (TIM, Revlon, SVF 3, and previously Viacom) Cristiana has established a reputation as a global leader in digital disruption and transformation to stay relevant in a rapidly changing world. She is committed to helping find financially viable paths to sustainability, including through her work as an independent director at the Global Fashion Agenda, the leading think tank promoting change in the fashion industry’s modus operandi through innovation and collaboration.
Since 2006, Cristiana has been CEO and trustee of the JMCMRJ Sorrell Foundation and has overseen the donation of very substantial amounts to various causes supporting education, health, and interfaith dialogue. Cristiana is a trustee at Tufts University, where she is working to develop new and innovative ways to improve humanitarian responses to complex emergencies; at the Paley Center for Media; at Internews, an international nonprofit organization committed to supporting journalists in more than 100 countries worldwide to deliver trustworthy news in their communities, Formiche and the Fondazione Guido Carli.
She is an executive education and MBA lecturer on Macro Trends & Strategy and Scenario Planning.
