” In Loving to Survive she makes an analogy between femininity and the behaviour of hostages om situations of captivity and threat that has been named Stockholm syndrome. She explains that the idea of Stockholm syndrome comes from a hostage situation in Stockholm in which it because clear that hostages, instead of reacting with rebellion to their oppressors, were likely to bond with them. This bonding, in which hostages can come to identify the interests of their kidnappers as their own, comes from the very real threat to their survival that the kidnappers pose. Graham extends this concept to cover the behaviour of women, femininity, that is a reaction to living in a society of male violence in which they are in danger. Femininity represent societal Stockholm syndrome, “If one (inescapable) group threatens another group with violence but also – as a group – shoes the victimized group some kindness, an attachment between the groups will develop. […] (Graham, 1994, p.57)
Graham states unequivocally that, “masculinity and femininity are code words for male domination and female subordination” (1994, p.192). She says that women, like hostages, are afraid, and “use any available information to alter our behaviour in ways that make interactions with men go smoothly”(p.160). One of the things they [women] do is change their bodies in order to win men over. She lists the harmful beauty practices that are considered in this book, such as make up, cosmetic surgery, shaving and waxing body hair, high-heeled shoes and restrictive clothes, as examples. She says that these practices reflect:
1. The extent to which women seek to make ourselves acceptable to men,
2. The extent to which women seek to connect to men, and thus
3. the extent to which women feel the need for men’s affection and approval
4. the extent to which women feel unworthy of men’s affection and approval just as we are (unchanged). (Graham, 1994, p.162)”
From Beauty and Misogyny by Sheila Jeffreys. (p. 25-26)
Powerful stuff that makes difficult societal concepts more easily understood and more easily argued. Please feel free to reference this post when you’re trying to get across basic societal ideas to the next clueless dude who “knows what feminists are all about.”
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
4 comments
November 29, 2012 at 7:04 pm
Reneta Scian
Couldn’t this in some cases also apply to behavioral modification and sympathizing among men seeking the approval of other men who abuse them for their lack of masculinity, or failing patriarchal roles? The derision to downright assault and rape of men perceived as “effeminate” by patriarchal standards could also meet that standard, in my opinion. Being small, demure, or in any sense of the word, more like a woman or “unmanly” creates a “Blood in the water” scenario for these men, even if the effeminacy is only perceptual and not actual. And while I agree with the positions on masculine and feminine within the cultural framework, I believe that these words have meaning outside of the concepts that shanghaied them. However, if we lived in a gender equal society with more gender balance than exists currently, it is possible that masculine and feminine would not carry any meaningful defining content in their usage (just speculating here).
Gender is both, more complex than we characterize it, and more basic. The patriarchal framework mischaracterizes this intentionally. In that what I am saying, is that gender falls outside of any possibility to accurately characterize it in a binary fashion, but is so basic that one’s gender plays little role in our intelligence, potentials, and capacities. It’s been argued at times by some feminists that “Gender Identity = Biological Essentialism”, but it doesn’t and is part of the same misnomer. Gender Identity doesn’t determine your favorite colors, your IQ/EQ, your skills, your likes/dislikes, your strengths and weaknesses, or your sexuality. However, the patriarchy does attempt to use the existence of transsexual people to support oppositional sexism, while otherwise denying them autonomy, and coercing their “gendered behavior” on which they base this concept.
They thereby give gender identity traits it doesn’t possess in order to both subjugate the group they are mischaracterizing and silence opposition to, and justify the difference in treatment afforded to men verses women. In fact, gender identity does little more than establish the relationship between self and body (dysphoric or euphoric), and influences which people “via perceived gender” you internalize your behavior, role and expectations from. It is my position that there are many dynamics in which one could favor compliance, even sympathize with the enforcers of said compliance (mistaking non-abuse for kindness), so long as there is hostile enforcement of the standards therein. Furthermore, that this is not limited to one gender, but to any one of any gender found to be out of compliance with standards enforced via hostility.
LikeLike
November 30, 2012 at 12:25 pm
bj
and in more extreme cases, you get muslim women arguing that a man beating his wife is just, that women really do not deserve any rights, and so on
heck, you even get it in the USA where dumbass conservative women right columns on how the USA is going down the drain because the stupid wimmenz got the vote oh noez!
LikeLike
November 30, 2012 at 12:25 pm
bj
*right should be *write
LikeLike
November 30, 2012 at 5:15 pm
Reneta Scian
I think many women internalize misogynistic diatribes, and even can come to bash other women in the way that some men do. Especially in westernized culture, with the way that Judea-Christian religions and their very anti-women stance. And I have read some of those same articles by conservative women who think that God is “hating” America because women don’t want to do what God had intended for them.
LikeLike