Professor Dee Graham: The Psychologist Who Drove Feminists Crazy

Posted on | February 14, 2014 | 83 Comments

Remember the radfem blogger who says all heterosexual intercourse (PIV, penis-in-vagina) is rape? Sure you do.

Well, it turns out that her insane theories are secondhand madness, as it were, and one of her main sources of lunacy is a book published 20 years ago by a trio of feminists, the lead author being Dee Graham, a professor of psychology at the University of Cincinnati.

How I discovered this: Wednesday, on a hunch, I rooted around in my bookshelves and found Daphne Patai’s 1998 book Heterophobia: Sexual Harassment and the Future of Feminism. As I say, this was a hunch — hey, if radical feminists are declaring that heterosexuality is a myth and that all women are naturally lesbians, a book called Heterophobia might offer some clues. (Who says men aren’t intuitive, huh?) So, after briefly quoting Patai in a post Thursday, I continued reading and came across this on Page 174:

Dee Graham . . . claims to be able to explain the very existence of heterosexuality in women by invoking what she calls the “Societal Stockholm Syndrome.” In a 1994 book entitled Loving to Survive, Graham expounds her theory in minute detail. As in the famous Stockholm bank-hostage episode in 1973, in which four hostages bonded with their captors and came to see the police as their common enemy, women — so the argument goes — are eternally held hostage to men. . . . The point of all male behavior is domination . . . Heterosexual behavior thus becomes a “survival strategy” for women, as do “feminine” characteristics, which result from women’s need to ingratiate themselves with their “captors.” . . .
Graham’s thesis makes it impossible to distinguish in a meaningful way between situations of genuine abuse and the ordinary life of heterosexual women. And that is precisely the point. Men are women’s captors. Women are men’s hostages. Heterosexuality is the form of their subjugation.

Bizarre as it may seem, Graham’s theory has been widely embraced by feminists, and is cited by the radfem at Radical Wind:

In other words, the strategy is to program us to respond to men’s violence through dissociation and trauma-bonding, and cloak/rename these responses as “love” or “attraction” to men — so on the top of it they make us believe we want it.
Let’s recall what trauma-bonding is: if we look at Dee Graham’s work (p.4,Loving to Survive), for a woman to trauma-bond to a man:

she must perceive her captor — the man — as having powers of life and death over her
she must believe that she cannot escape, and that therefore her life depends on her captor
she must be isolated from outsiders so that his perspective is the only perspective available
she must feel as if her captor — the man — showed her some kindness or attention.

This situation of captor-to-hostage is the situation of all women to all men. (This is also the point that D.G. makes in her book). That is, all men hold all women captive. All women are prisoners and hostages to men’s world. Men’s world is like a vast prison or concentration camp for women. This isn’t a metaphor, it’s reality. Each man is a threat. We can’t escape men. We are forced to depend on men and male infrastructures for our survival. Men’s perspective (and men’s language that names their perspective) is the only perspective available and we are isolated from other women and woman-centered perspectives.

And the radfem blogger concludes:

[H]eterosexuality doesn’t exist and our “urges” to bond with [men] emotionally or sexually aren’t natural drives but normal PTSD reactions to years of abuse and mind-programming.

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen: Lesbian separatism as the only alternative to being captive to male violence — “Each man is a threat”! — an idea directly derived from a single book published 20 years ago that you probably never heard of, but which has been far more influential than anything published by Graham’s critics.

This intellectual theory is so easily refuted by common sense that it almost seems a waste of time to do so.

Two words: Voluntary cooperation.

For the vast majority of human history, and still for many millions of people today, simply surviving required voluntary cooperation between members of families, tribes and communities. My own grandparents, Alabama farmers, had to work sun-up to sundown six days a week merely to have the basics of life. It is only under conditions of widespread affluence that anyone would have the inclination — or the luxury of spare time — to look at male-female relationships and accuse men of exercising domination through violence against women, or to imagine that the pair-bonding of husbands and wives was the result of “PTSD reactions to years of abuse and mind-programming.”

To quote Orwell: “One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.”

Category: Feminism

Comments

83 Responses to “Professor Dee Graham: The Psychologist Who Drove Feminists Crazy”

Matt_SE
February 14th, 2014 @ 3:50 pm

“It is only under conditions of widespread affluence…”

Which fits in with my worldview nicely. Affluence, peace, prosperity…if these continue long enough, the newest generations come to think they are the natural state of things. They forget the lessons that led to the prosperity.

In this light, Obama isn’t the problem, he’s just a symptom. The real problem is the voters that thought putting an unrepentant socialist in power sounded like a good idea. (see also: New York City mayoral race)

But, I also say that “socialism is its own cure.” The political left is well along the road to removing any prosperity that America once had. Maybe Americans will even learn a lesson from it!
MartiniShark
February 14th, 2014 @ 4:01 pm

I’d love to hear them square the basic construct of biology. According to their elevated thinking, lesbianism is the only natural pairing – as well as the impending doom of the species, we presume.

There is something humorously desperate in this attempt to display a mindset superseding physiological reality. It brings us to items like the announcement FaceBook recognizes 50 gender categories. We are also lectured homosexuality is a condition set at birth, (although if heterosexuality is something coerced, it suggests a choice is made; huh.)
So we now are being told sexual orientation is actually genetic, but our biological gender based on 2 chromosomes is a choice.
Rob Crawford
February 14th, 2014 @ 4:03 pm

I think you’ll find they’re working on seWOMAN.
jody
February 14th, 2014 @ 4:29 pm

Look don’t over think this. these are just screwy ugly broads trying to get thru their sorry lives.
PhotoMan
February 14th, 2014 @ 4:29 pm

She was married to a homosexual man(who obviously had no interest in sleeping with her), and based on that, and her views on sex, I have a hunch there wasn’t a very big physical dimension to their relationship. Let’s just say, there arent a lot of normal heterosexual men that have any interest in sleeping with rad fems.

Dworkin’s completely irrational politics were the result of a diseased and very damaged mind. If you notice, anyone that takes her ideas seriously, is usually as damaged, or more, than her.
Dave Mears
February 14th, 2014 @ 4:31 pm

unsurprisingly, like most leftists, they behave in a fashion akin to hatred toward the object of their passion. After all, for their claims to hold water they require the belief that nearly all women are not only prisoners, but incapable in the information age of understanding that they are prisoners. Which is to say, for their claim to hold water, they have to believe in the pit of their black little hearts, that at least 98% of women are basically abused animals, not even human at all. If they were human, given that, in the very least, this country, they’re able to go out into the market and experience all sorts of conflicting ideas and work out for themselves which ones make the most sense, the only way they could rationally argue that despite thas ability, the majority fail, is for these feminists to claim that women are, by and large, not literate or rational, except for their small group of special women.
Which is to say, the majority of people treat women with far more respect than this particular group who complains they’re respected too little, including I’d wager, most of the examples of those who make “a woman’s place is in the home” sorts of claims.
In conclusion, this subset of feminists are, at best, misogynists.
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February 14th, 2014 @ 4:34 pm

[…] Professor Dee Graham: The Psychologist Who Drove Feminists Crazy […]
M. Thompson
February 14th, 2014 @ 4:45 pm

Funny!
Nan
February 14th, 2014 @ 5:17 pm

Remind me why secondhand smoke is a problem but secondhand madness isn’t?
tlk244182
February 14th, 2014 @ 5:18 pm

Brilliant!
Adjoran
February 14th, 2014 @ 5:22 pm

Listening to the thoughts of the radfems can be quite enlightening, giving insight into many things. For instance, the invention of the ball gag.
tlk244182
February 14th, 2014 @ 5:23 pm

Now THAT’S funny!
DaveO
February 14th, 2014 @ 5:53 pm

Some folks read L. Ron Hubbard, and fall to their knees to worship him. Some folks watch “Ancient Aliens” and fall to their knees to worship panspermia. Bill Clinton gets a Red Dress Award and feminists fall to their knees to worship Bubba’s attention. And then there’s the radfemz. They have hate, however gained. Only hate and “Professor” Dee Graham to provide them with a logic to justify their hate. What a way to exist.
ChandlersGhost
February 14th, 2014 @ 6:58 pm

Have you checked out the guy’s blog and Youtube page? He’s an interesting character.

Happy Valentine’s Day.
Kirby McCain
February 14th, 2014 @ 7:25 pm

She’s had a hard time understanding why her relationships with men never lasted. She’s a complainer, guys hate that shit.
Kirby McCain
February 14th, 2014 @ 7:32 pm

I denounce myself.
DaveO
February 14th, 2014 @ 8:45 pm

If I read your opening paragraph correctly, you are stating that radfemz are ultimately super-frustrated-heterosexual women who are consoling themselves with lies and young women, but weep with envy whenever they see The Rock onscreen.
cmdr358
February 14th, 2014 @ 9:27 pm

I know that I ought to know better but I googled Dworkin. Woof.
Whomever Ronny James Dio is you shouldn’t be so mean to him.
Taxpayer1234
February 14th, 2014 @ 9:52 pm

Daphne Patai realized the error of her ways in the book “Professing Feminism: Education and Indoctrination in Women’s Studies.” The book is co-authored by Noretta Koertge, a philosopher of physics (and my former boss). Both women were influential in the development of women’s studies but watched in horror as it turned from an academic field of study to the political and irrational blob of hysterical goo spewed by idiots like Dee Graham.

So there are a few rational feminists out there. Unfortunately, their voices are drowned out by the shrieking of the vaginas.
cmdr358
February 14th, 2014 @ 9:57 pm

Know thyne enemy!
Bob Belvedere
February 14th, 2014 @ 10:06 pm

There is no such thing as a ‘rational feminist’ because there is no such thing as a Rational Leftist.

To embrace Leftism is to reject Right Reason.
Taxpayer1234
February 14th, 2014 @ 10:24 pm

So a physicist and philosopher who happens to be a feminist can’t possibly be rational? I don’t agree. I’d also ask the same question about conservative feminists like Tammy Bruce.
David R. Graham
February 14th, 2014 @ 10:41 pm

When our daughter and I meandered the old US Highway system from East to West two years ago, I kept remarking on what I was seeing, “People have too much time, too much money.”
Quartermaster
February 15th, 2014 @ 11:45 am

Depends on what type of Feminist she is. If she’s a family feminist, then yes, she can be rational. If she is a radical feminist, then no, sh absolutely can not be rational.

Note that family feminism is quite compatible with, and indeed is a part of, heteronormative patriarchy.
darleenclick
February 15th, 2014 @ 1:08 pm

I would actually label it Equity Feminism v Gender Feminism. The former is based on the American principle that individuals have the right to pursue & succeed according to their own talents & choices. The latter is a just another collectivist scheme based on female supremacy.
Dana
February 15th, 2014 @ 3:17 pm

I denounce you, too!
Bob Belvedere
February 15th, 2014 @ 4:05 pm

I must disagree. All forms of Feminism are Leftist in origin, as Stacy has explained many times here [an example may be found here] and so have I over at my joint [an example may be found here].
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wbkrebs
February 16th, 2014 @ 12:38 pm

I believe their position is that gender itself (what I would call sex) is socially constructed and not a choice.
wbkrebs
February 16th, 2014 @ 12:42 pm

What I learned in school is that the geocentric explanations of planetary motion were based on epicycles – circles within circles. When Copernicus proposed a heliocentric system, that got rid of the epicycles; they were the unconvincing part.
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