Dictionary

double bind en · NOUN

Etymology

Coined by English anthropologist, linguist, semiotician and cyberneticist Gregory Bateson.

Meanings

1. A dilemma in which someone receives contradictory instructions and cannot act on either.
   • She is deciding, right then and there, if she wants to be seen naked on the internet, forever, an object of desire as well as derision. […] In a sense, as Angel notes, the scene dramatizes “the double bind in which women exist: that saying no may be difficult, but so too is saying yes.” 2021 September 3, Helen Lewis, “The Problem With Being Cool About Sex”, in The Atlantic, →ISSN:

Forms