WS 43105310

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WS 4310/5310

• Notes for class discussion
• September 25, 2007

2
The Woman-Identified Woman

• Radicalesbiansa group that grew out of a protest
  of the invisibility of lesbians in NOW and other
  organizations, 1970
• What is a lesbian?

3
possibilities

• In "The Straight Mind," Monique Wittig asserts
  that "lesbians are not women" but rather a third
  sex which subverts the false dichotomy between
  heterosexual and homosexual.

4
possibilities

• In "The Straight Mind," Monique Wittig asserts
  that "lesbians are not women" but rather a third
  sex which subverts the false dichotomy between
  heterosexual and homosexual.
• In "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian
  Existence," Adrienne Rich claims that "all women
  are lesbians." Rich asserts that all women
  exist along a continuum that includes different
  forms of primary intensity between and among
  women.

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What elements to we take into consideration to
decide?

• biological sex

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What elements to we take into consideration to
decide?

• biological sex
• gender identity

7
What elements to we take into consideration to
decide?

• biological sex
• gender identity
• social sex role

8
What elements to we take into consideration to
decide?

• biological sex
• gender identity
• social sex role
• sexual orientation (self-description)

9
What elements to we take into consideration to
decide?

• biological sex
• gender identity
• social sex role
• sexual orientation (self-description)
• sexual practices

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• If I am born a woman, appear to be feminine,
  behave in ways considered to be masculine,
  describe myself as a lesbian, and have sexual
  relations with both men and women, what am I?

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• If I am born a woman, appear to be feminine,
  behave in ways considered to be masculine,
  describe myself as a lesbian, and have sexual
  relations with both men and women, what am I?
• Which of these components constitutes my
  identity, according to others, according to
  myself?

12

• From which component do I constitute an identity
  in order to build political strategy?

13

• From which component do I constitute an identity
  in order to build political strategy?
• How I define what constitutes identity or a
  position from which to build theory is a
  politicized act.

14

• Linda Alcoff claims that "the difference between
  feminists and antifeminists strikes me as
  precisely this, the affirmation or denial of our
  right and our ability to construct, and take
  responsibility for, our gendered identity, our
  politics, and our choices."

15
Radicalesbians

• How does this text define what a lesbian is?

16
Radicalesbians

• How does this text define what a lesbian is?
• What is her life experience?

17
Radicalesbians

• How does this text define what a lesbian is?
• What is her life experience?
• How is that life experience that of all women, or
  how is it different?

18
Radicalesbians

• How does this text define what a lesbian is?
• What is her life experience?
• How is that life experience that of all women, or
  how is it different?
• p. 240 Lesbian is the word, the label, the
  condition that holds women in line.

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Radicalesbians

• How does this text define what a lesbian is?
• What is her life experience?
• How is that life experience that of all women, or
  how is it different?
• p. 240 Lesbian is the word, the label, the
  condition that holds women in line.
• How do the reactions of heterosexual women to
  lesbians support the sex/gender system in place?

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• As long as the label dyke can be used to
  frighten a woman into a less militant stand, keep
  her separate from her sisters, keep her from
  giving primacy to anything other than men and
  familythen to that extent she is controlled by
  the male culture (240).

21

• As long as womens liberation tries to free
  women without facing the basic heterosexual
  structure that binds us in one-to-one
  relationship with our oppressors, tremendous
  energies will continue to flow into trying to
  straighten up each particular relationship with a
  man, into finding out how to get better sex, how
  to turn his head aroundinto trying to make the
  new man out of him . . . (242)

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53 Why OWL (Older Womens Liberation)? 1970

• Older defined as 30 and up
• How are older women viewed in mainstream U.S.
  society?
• What do older women bring to a womens movement?

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54 Is Female to Male as Nature us to Culture?
Sherry B. Ortner, 1974

• Secondary status of women in society a
  pan-cultural fact (243)
• Female subordination exists within every type of
  social and economic arrangement (243)
• Actual conditions and relative power of women
  varies considerably from culture to culture

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Ortner (cont.)

• What could there be in the generalized structure
  and conditions of existence, common to every
  culture, that would lead every culture to place a
  lower value upon women? (244)

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Ortner (cont.)

• Man/culture v. woman/nature
• Womens body and its functions

26
Ortner (cont)

• Ortner refers to one of the great puzzles of
  the woman problemwomans nearly universal
  unquestioning acceptance of her own devaluation
  (246).
• In what ways do women accept their/our own
  devalution?

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Ortner (cont)

• What are her conclusions?
• What are her suggestions for change?

28
Ortner (cont)

• What are her conclusions?
• What are her suggestions for change?
• Ultimately, both men and women can and must be
  equally involved in projects of creativity and
  transcendence. Only then will women be seen as
  aligned with culture, in cultures ongoing
  dialectic with nature (251-252).

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Not for Lesbians OnlyCharlotte Bunch, 1975

• Lesbian feminists leaving the womens movement
  because it had been made clear to us that there
  was no space to develop a lesbian-feminist
  politics and life-style without constant and
  nonproductive conflict with heterosexual fear,
  antagonism, and insensitivity (252).

30
Bunch (cont)

• Lesbianism is political

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Bunch (cont)

• Lesbianism is political
• Lesbianism is more than a question of civil
  rights and culture, although discrimination
  against lesbians is real.

32
Bunch (cont)

• Lesbianism is political
• Lesbianism is more than a question of civil
  rights and culture, although discrimination
  against lesbians is real.
• Lesbian-feminist politics is a political critique
  of the institution and ideology of
  heterosexuality as a cornerstone of male
  supremacy. It is an extension of the analysis of
  sexual politics to the analysis of sexuality
  itself as an institution. (253)

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Bunch (cont)

• Bunch raises many important questions about
  creating unity and coalition
• unity on what terms?
• with whom?
• and around what politics?

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• More than just a token reference to lesbians, but
  an acknowledgement of lesbian-feminist analysis
  as central to understanding and ending womens
  oppression (253).
• A recognition that heterosexuality as an
  institution and an ideology is a cornerstone of
  male supremacy (253).

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Bunch (Cont)

• Lesbian-feminism is based on a rejection of male
  definitions of our lives and is therefore crucial
  to the development of a positive woman-identified
  identity, of redefining who we are supposed to be
  in every situation, including the workplace
  (254).

36
Bunch on heterosexuality

• Heterosexuality means men first.
• It assumes that every woman is heterosexual that
  every woman is defined by and is the property of
  men.
• Heterosexual privilege
• Her assignment to live life as a queer for a
  week.
• How do women participate in continuing
  heterosexual privilege and male supremacy?

37
Lesbianism and class

• How are the two connected? What do they teach
  those in the womens movement?
• What does she say about survival v. idealism?