From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Coined by English anthropologist, linguist, semiotician and cyberneticist Gregory Bateson.
double bind (plural double binds)
- A dilemma in which someone receives contradictory instructions and cannot act on either.
2021 September 3, Helen Lewis, “The Problem With Being Cool About Sex”, in The Atlantic[1], →ISSN:
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.”
- “double bind”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
- “double bind”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
- “double bind”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
- “double bind”, in Collins English Dictionary.
- “double bind” (US) / “double bind” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.