Word: herman
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Herman's feminist perspective suits her subject matter perfectly. The major biological, psychological and social theories of incest (she deals with them one by one) fail to account for the vast contrast between the sexually abusive behavior of fathers and mothers. According to Herman, father-daughter incest ultimately finds its best explanation in the male-dominated structure of society...
...Herman begins by identifying the brutality as widespread. Five surveys since 1940 have asked about sexual encounters between female children and adults (including the famous Kinsey report). Two of them show 15.8 percent and 14.4 percent of the women surveyed to have been involved in a sexual encounter involving physical contact with an adult. One estimate based on the five surveys conservatively concludes "that somewhere in the neighborhood of one million American women have been involved in incestuous relations with their fathers, and that some 16,000 new cases occur each year." Herman stresses that reports of sexual aggression...
Male dominated culture not only results in predatory sexual behavior by fathers, it also lays blame on the victims, or on an outdated morality. Herman recounts how Freud, when faced with claims by women of paternal sexual abuse during their childhood at first falsified his cases by attributing the role played by fathers to "uncles" He later dismissed the women's accounts altogether as their own incestuous fantasies, with the explanation that "it was hardly credible that perverted acts against children were so general...
FATHER DAUGHTER INCEST documents the impact of incest on the female victims Excerpts from the conversations of 40 women who talked with Dr. Herman and her associates piece together the shared experience of brutality. Ten percent of the women had father who began imposing sexual demands before the girls were five years old. The legacy of their abuse--inevitably remaining with them for life, includes suicidal tendencies, depression promiscuity, alcohol and drug abuse, the utter debasement of self-image, and a host of other pathologies...
...Herman suggests changing the way incest is perceived as the first step towards making many needed reforms. Incest laws should alter the rules of procedure, she says, since eyewitness are obviously rare. Abused children usually remain under their father's roof (and power) while the father is being tried. Mothers and daughters, estranged in incestuous families, must be re-united. Therapists must recognize the cultural taboos surrounding incest and develop new methods of treating victims...