The Hite Report on the Family: Growing Up Under Patriarchy [Hardcover]

Shere Hite (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 3, 1996

In this major study, groundbreaking researcher Shere Hite challenges established views on the family, arguing that it is not collapsing--as advocates of traditional "family values" would have us believe--but instead shifting from a rigid, patriarchial formula to increasingly egalitarian, custom-tailored variations. "Revealing and moving reflections on family life."--Publishers Weekly.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hite's latest sex report, based on some 3000 questionnaires completed by children and adults in 16 countries (50% from the U.S.), focuses on the child's developing psychosexual identity and the impact of this process on adulthood. Her guiding theme is that the patriarchal family is outmoded, sexist and authoritarian and suppresses openness between children and parents about the body. Unlike critics who decry a breakdown of the traditional nuclear family, Hite argues that the rise of diverse new family structures signals a democratizing of the family and a growing concern for women's and children's rights. Her respondents' testimonies, organized around specific themes, touch on all manner of taboo subjects (e.g., the link between childhood spankings and adult sadomasochistic fantasies; parents' erotic feelings for their children; sexual play between boys). For most children, Hite claims, growing up in single-parent families is beneficial, particularly for boys raised by their mothers. A manifesto masquerading as a scientific report, her in-depth, unusually frank survey gives voice to some of the most closely guarded secrets and feelings of women, men, girls and boys struggling to define themselves sexually. 50,000 first printing; first serial to Ms. (March-April cover story); author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Hite, author of controversial reports on male and female sexuality, attempts to examine the contemporary family structure in this new study. Using data from 3000 questionnaires distributed in 16 countries, she concludes that the traditional family structure is a repressive patriarchy based on the Jesus-Mary-Joseph religious icon. Hite encourages democratization of this structure with equality for males and females, but the data, presented in narrative form as quotations from responses to the questionnaire, do not support her thesis well. Appendixes full of praise from colleagues make the study appear weak. Hite seems unaware of the many changes occurring in the family life; Stephanie Coontz's The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap (LJ 9/15/92) is a better view of this subject. Although the views on family relations and sexuality expressed in the questionnaires make interesting reading, there is little scholarship here. Still, libraries may want to add this title because of Hite's popularity.
-?Barbara M. Bibel, Oakland P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (April 3, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802134513
• ISBN-13: 978-0802134516
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,509,019 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Tool and Fascinating Read, June 19, 2000

By 

Shawna Lanne "Shawna" (San Jose, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Hite Report on the Family: Growing Up Under Patriarchy (Hardcover)

The Hite Report On The Family; Growing Up Under Patriarchy is a fascinating and well-researched look at women under a patriarchal system. This book was fifteen years in the making and 3000 women from around the world contributed to the findings in this book.

The report examines the inherent eroticism of children and how family members' parents and siblings relate and contribute to this. It also examines how the traditional model of the nuclear family has contributed to the disenfranchisement of each member of the family, not just women, but men as well.

This is a fantastically interesting book mainly I think because Shere Hite did not just pose questions and responses to those question on her questionnaire but used an essay format. This means that the readers don't just get the doctors idea of what acceptable responses are but real responses to her questions.

This book is is a fantastic reference for those who are interested in Women's Studies.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The family as the smallest political unit of society at large, February 13, 2009

By 

Guy Denutte "A concerned citizen" (Cali, Colombia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Hite Report on the Family: Growing Up Under Patriarchy (Hardcover)

Milgram is famous for his experiment, in which he showed that 2/3 of the people blindly obey to "authority", even when the order is straightforward killing another human being. I have always wondered why humans are so obedient. This book offers part of the answer, looking at the family as the smallest political unit of society at large. The majority of the adult population comes from a family in which the father was dominant, and where obedience, discipline and fear for punishment as a "value system" was imposed. Shere Hite discovered in her investigation that 81 percent of the testimonies on the father included the word "fear". In spite of this fear, children are expected to love their authoritarian fathers. "Children must feel gratitude ("after all, we brought you into this world, without us, you wouldn't be here") and so, in their minds, this gratitude is mixed with love." Power structures are thus enhanced through guilt. If something bad happens to you, then you are to blame, never the system. If you don't have a job, that's because you don't search enough, not because capitalism will always produce some level of unemployment. If you suffer cancer, that's because you lead an unhealthy way of life, not because corporations have poisoned our food chain and our environment with carcinogenic substances. If people in the third world have hunger, that's because they have too many children, not because they are underpaid and exploited, if they are lucky enough to have a job.

Now, it will cause no surprise that families in which fear prevails don't produce real happiness. Fathers consider they are "sacrificing" themselves making enough money in order for their families to function on a "social acceptable" level of material "welfare". But they don't express emotion, let alone love. "He always did his duty. But he didn't really know who any of us were - myself, my brothers and sisters, or my mother. Weird."

Those fathers head straight for a midlifecrisis. "By the age of fifty or so, according to The Hite Report on Men and Male Sexuality, many men express a great feeling of emptiness and anger : "I did what I was supposed to do, I denied myself all of my life, kept my feelings in check, provided for a family, worked at my job. Now, where is my reward ? Why don't I feel more fulfilled ? Why do I feel ripped off ? What does life mean, anyway?"

Mothers are probably worse off, the author says : "According to my research for this study, the majority of women coming from two-parent families feel great ambivalence and distress in relation to their mother : 73 per cent feel a deep love and tie, but also great disappointment or anger about her subservience, "passivity", or even "cowardice" in the face of her husband's domination."

If we want to improve societies, families will have to be based on other values. This is no utopy. It just requires a change of perspective, and the author shows some families already got on this road : "The love and affection I have for my children is deep and very gratifying. They were born out of an act of love and I love them. No matter how busy I am, I find time for my family. Another job I can find tomorrow. Another family is impossible to find."