Meanings
plural double binds
- 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
Origin
Coined by English anthropologist, linguist, semiotician and cyberneticist Gregory Bateson.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
double bind. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/double%20bind
“double bind.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/double%20bind. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “double bind,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/double%20bind.
Source: double bind on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.