FEMINISM

LESBIAN

DANIELLE HERNANDEZ

BACKGROUND
Lyon and Martin The pre-Stonewall era yielded some rather underground organizations for homosexuals. The Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) was created by Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin in 1955 after the two felt that the Mattachine Society (1950) was exclusionary of lesbians. These women, like many lesbians of their time periods, had only guiltinflicting psychological and medical studies, or a few novels with sad endings like Well of Loneliness or Claudine l'cole to teach them about themselves.

BEGINNINGS
Second Wave Feminism The rise of the Second Wave of feminism in the early 60s coincided with the rising notability of the DOB. In 1960, they held their first national convention and had already been publishing their newsletter, The Ladder, since 1956. Their founding of the Council on Religion and the Homosexual (CRH) also added to their growing public image. Feminists were fighting against traditional family structure and sexual freedom (in relation to issues such as birth control). This seemed perfectly in line with lesbian causes. Stonewall Riots The Stonewall Riots of 1969, which is often considered the beginning of the modern Gay Lib movement, was contemporaneous with the rise of feminist activism.

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE

Woman or Gay? So with increasing support for feminism as well as Gay Lib, lesbians felt like their time had come but it was more complicated than that. Lesbians found themselves marginalized by the male homosexuals who dominated the Gay Lib movement and were considered a threat to the feminist movement. Not Right NOW The National Organization for Women was particularly antilesbian when lesbians first started coming out and wanting to take part in feminist organizations Much of this sentiment comes from their original leader, Betty Friedan who notoriously called lesbianism the lavender menace. She did not think lesbian issues counted as womens issues.

LESBIAN SEPARATISM
If You Cant Join Em Without the acceptance from either feminism or Gay Lib, lesbians created their own separate identity as lesbian feminists. They began calling themselves woman-identified women which is a term coined by the NYC Radicalesbian group. The Lesbian Choice Lesbianism became a political strategy for lesbian feminists. Everyone has the choice of lesbianism. Building a life around other women would be used as a separatist strategy because heterosexual relationships simply echo the lack of sex equality and intolerance that they, as feminists, want to conquer in society.

COMPULSORY HETEROSEXUALITY
Adrienne Rich Born to educated, middle-class, white parents, Rich had an education before even entering grade school. She became an acclaimed poet and, upon being praised for her meeting traditional standards, she felt good about going against the grain later on. Her essay Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence (1980) was an enormous influence on lesbian separatism. In this essay, she blames male-dominated society for conditioning her into being heterosexual and calls to women everywhere to employ lesbianism as a political strategy and extension of feminism.

LESBIAN NATION
Jill Johnston

Johnston was also a leader in the lesbian feminist movement and was very vocal about her beliefs. Her avant-garde art critique column in the Village Voice evolved into an autobiographical lesbian feminist call to action. In 1973, these collections of articles were compiled and published as a book titled Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution. Like Adrienne Rich, she also called for women to use lesbianism as a political tactic. Her writing was always blunt and straight forward. She declared that "all women are lesbians except those who don't know it yet. Johnston also put more emphasis on the political aspect of lesbianism rather than the actual sexual aspect.

INTERNAL CONFLICT
Fighting and Splintering

Lesbian feminists shared little common ground

Removal of sodomy laws had been important to them since DOB days Many seemed concerned with changing the image of lesbians and removing butch/femme roles Imposing lesbianism as a political tactic seemed strong amongst many and was the basis of some SMOs that developed such as Radicalesbians Womens sexual freedom/rights was a goal they held in common with feminism

However, there was a lack of collective identity and a main social movement that clearly dictated. As a result, there was a lot of splintering into numerous labels and fighting. A lot of the organizations were actually informal groups, such as Lavender Menace, a group composed of members who were primarily part of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) or NOW.

ANTAGONISM INSIDE AND OUT

Old vs. New

One of the biggest fights occurred between the Old lesbians (or bar lesbians) and the New lesbians. The bar lesbians felt that they were the real lesbians who were living homosexual lifestyles before it became political strategy. They felt that the New lesbians drained lesbian of its meaning as a sexual orientation. At the same time, the New lesbians criticized the bar lesbians for having heavily influenced butch/femme roles. They complained that they were mimicking heterosexuality. Redstockings
Radical feminists saw lesbianism as an aid to feminism but the radical Redstockings saw it as cowardice. Redstocking feminism emerged in 1969, just as Gay Lib was being born. It was contemporaneous to lesbian feminism but believed that lesbianism was an easy way to fix the sex inequality issue. Likewise, they believed that gay men were showing even more contempt for women than straight men by choosing to exclude women altogether.

AS THE MOVEMENT CONTINUES

New Stance for NOW In a 1971 NOW conference, there was an overwhelming vote to include lesbians in their organization. They broke the fight over whether to include lesbians or not by issuing a statement of solidarity. They decided that they are women and are therefore able to be included. They accepted the lesbian issue as a feminist issue. Progress 1962- Sodomy is no longer a felony in the United States 1972- APA removes homosexuality from its list of disorders

SOURCES
"Adrienne Rich." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 12 Apr. 2012. "Jill Johnston." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 12 Apr. 2012.

"Phyllis Ann Lyon and Del Martin." Gay & Lesbian Biography. Ed. Michael J. Tyrkus and Michael Bronski. Detroit: St. James Press, 1997. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. Antelope Publications, 1982., 1982. c1983., 1983.

Frye, Marilyn. The politics of reality : essays in feminist theory. Freedom, Calif.: Crossing Press,

Johnston, Jill. Lesbian nation; the feminist solution. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1973.

Radicalesbians. The Woman-Identified Woman. Pittsburgh: Know, Inc., c. 1970.

Redstockings. Redstockings Manifesto. New York, NY. c. 1969.

Rich, Adrienne Cecile. Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence Denver, Colorado: