Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1, 1997, page 25
woman, you must hide what you know and refrain from questioning. This is unlike the
training to be male, which includes encouragement to be a maverick and to embrace and
express their grandiosity and entitlement (Kaschak, 1992, pp. 62-65).
The power differential in cults mirrors this difference between men and women. Cult leaders
take liberties to ask members all about their lives and then make judgments about the
personal information acquired. Meanwhile, cult members are discouraged from asking
questions and are rewarded for not doing so. Leaders use group ideology to stifle question-
ing and enforce blind loyalty to the cult. Questioning-members of Hindu cults are told that
they are listening too much to their mind, as if mind is a dirty word. Questioning-members
of neo-Christian groups are told that they lack faith. Those in mass therapy groups are told
they are not taking responsibility for creating their own confusion, and so on.
Reading the Cues of Manipulation
Women are not only trained to speak deferentially in our culture, but also are socialized to
listen more keenly to what men say than to their own feminine voice. Studies by Deakins
(cited in Tannen, 1990) demonstrated that in mixed-gender groups, women adopted the
manner in which men speak. In addition, both men and women talked more about the
topics men discussed in all-male groups than the topics women discussed in all-female
groups. Therefore, women are more accustomed to adjusting to the linguistic style and
content of the dominant group than are men.
At the moment that Paul, in the earlier example, was describing to Cara his version of why
she was distressed, Cara was focused on understanding and internalizing Paul‟s narrative
rather than listening to her own inner voice. Her confusion was indicating that “something is
not right here,” but her impulse was to pay closer attention to what Paul was
communicating.
Leaving the Cult
The interpersonal process that keeps people in cults is a cyclical one. Cult members feel
anxious, depressed, dissociated, exhausted, and overwhelmed with confusion. They try to
get help within the group and talk to either the leader, the elder, or another dedicated
member. Like Cara, they may question practices that contradict group doctrine, or they may
express doubts about continuing in the group. Invariably, the leader, elder, or other cult
member will provide a narrative to describe (and reframe) the distress. These stories are
often convoluted and blaming. In Cara‟s case, Paul brought up what he had previously
judged and labeled as Cara‟s “uptightness,” which bore a resemblance to judgments Cara
had made about her own family. Cara felt unsatisfied by the interpretations, but they were
intellectually convincing.
Cult leaders are thus armed with three powerful manipulative tools to keep people from
leaving cults. They can use narratives based on information gathered during ritualized
confessions, they can invoke cult ideology to criticize questioning, and they can criticize a
member‟s ability to maintain commitments. The latter is particularly powerful in
manipulating women who, unlike men, are raised to believe that their success is
synonymous with maintaining relationships and affiliations. For example, it is estimated that
9 out of 10 women stay with an alcoholic spouse, while 9 out of 10 men do not (Kinney &
Leaton, 1978).
When a woman‟s relationship feels unsatisfying, she blames herself. “Women may wonder
why they can‟t control relationships so that they meet all their needs, so that they turn out
well, so that they last. It feels like a personal failure when a relationship fails” (Kaschak,
1992, p. 181). Therefore, women will work as hard as they can to stay in relationships and
make them last, even if this includes not attending to, or blaming themselves for, the pain.

Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1, 1997, page 26
Conclusion
In the long-standing and somewhat covert debate about the meaning of cult involvement,
people tend to see cult affiliation in one of two ways. Cult members are seen either as
“pathological,” “vulnerable,” “in need of a crutch,” or “going through a phase” --all terms
that suggest weakness, or fragility. Or cults are seen as so all-powerful that anyone can be
sucked up and brainwashed if they are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
My own view, elucidated here, is that women today become involved in cultic groups
because they are interested in the promise that these groups advertise, are drawn to
elements of cultic life that appeal to wishes that might be unconscious, and lack skill in
understanding the complexities of certain social communications. In essence, I believe that
women who join cults do so because they are strong, hopeful, and saddled by cultural
dilemmas. Because women, like most of us, are unable to tease out a particular set of
complicated, manipulative communications, they are at risk of being seduced by cultic
groups. For a woman to become more competent in discerning the deception and control,
and then to leave a cult, puts her at odds with the dominant social values defining her as a
successful woman.
Notes
1 When referring to women and their relationships to men or the dominant culture, I am
addressing women‟s gender role not their sex per se nor their sexual preference. I
define gender role as the category assigned to a person at birth based on his or her
genitalia. Once given this category, a person is socialized to behave in particular ways in
relation to members of the opposite sex and to the culture at large (including in relation
to the self).
2 All case studies are composites, and all names are pseudonyms.
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