37:50 minutes
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November 11, 2026
#48 Gaslighting at Work
When Reality Gets Rewritten
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About The Speaker
Paige Sweet is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Sociology at the University of Michigan. She studies gender and sexuality, knowledge, gender-based violence, health and illness, the state, and embodiment. She is interested in gendered and sexual forms of governance: how people’s identities and practices are shaped by state programs and medicalized categories. Her work focuses on how survivors of gender-based violence navigate systems that simultaneously help and harm them. Paige’s work has been published in American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Gender & Society, Social Problems, Sociological Theory, and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society, among others. Paige teaches courses on gender-based violence, body and embodiment, gender/sexuality, and sociological theory. She is currently writing a book on gaslighting with Princeton University Press.
Episode Description
Have you ever left a conversation at work wondering whether you were the problem? Gaslighting is a word many people have heard, but few have examined through the lens of institutional power. In this episode, we talk with sociologist Paige Sweet, whose research on domestic violence and workplace dynamics shows how gaslighting works: by making people doubt their own experience, often through the very hierarchies organizations take for granted. Paige explains why isolation is so central to the process, how social vulnerabilities shape who gets believed, and why a network of support can be the turning point. We also discuss what organizations and leaders can do to build cultures where concerns are heard rather than dismissed, and why Paige’s upcoming book is an important read for practitioners.
Additional inspirations from Paige Sweet
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-gaslighting-manipulates-reality/
