#TIL that #StockholmSyndrome was invented by #police and a bad psychologist to discredit a female hostage who didn't trust the cops after they did nothing to protect the captive employees during a bank heist.
Her "crime" was trying to negotiate with the criminals to protect her own life, while the police and the state preferred having dead hostages over closing any deal with the thieves.
@castarco The authorities wanted to spin a narrative discrediting the one accusing them of apathy/inaction. So they invented a 'disease' that they 'diagnosed' the 'victim' of having.
I'm not sure it mattered that the 'victim' was a woman as suggested by the article. They wanted to destroy the credibility of the 'victim'. They would've tried it one way or the other.
@famubu The mentioned narrative included, among other aspects, the idea that she felt sexual attachment towards her captors.
It was an explanation clearly tailored for women, and it sticked with us mostly because it fitted the wider narrative, preconceptions and prejudices of the time: women are weak and malleable.
Had it been a man who was in that same situation, he would had been labeled as a coward, perhaps even effeminate or something worse.
Extra point, if that said man had fought that discourse, he would have had much more chances of success than her.
For the record, I'm not saying that the point of these accusations was to further a sexist agenda.
But it is clear that sexism was used as a weapon.
It is also true that we believed a fake theory for decades because of how pervasive sexism is among us (Had it been a man, that belief would have been busted much earlier).
@castarco@famubu Stockholm Syndrome may have originated as a premise to discredit one person, but don't we see people displaying the symptoms, e.g. Republican voters identifying with the people who are harming them?
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