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The Woman Identified Woman by
RADICALESBIANS (1970)
(Editors Note: This manifesto originally appeared in Notes from the
Third Year, a collection of feminist writings that was very influential
at the time.)
What is
a lesbian? A lesbian is the rage of all women condensed to the point
of explosion. She is the woman who, often beginning at an extremely
early age, acts in accordance with her inner compulsion to be a more
complete and freer human being than her society - perhaps then, but
certainly later - cares to allow her. These needs and actions, over
a period of years, bring her into painful conflict with people, situations,
the accepted ways of thinking, feeling and behaving, until she is in
a state of continual war with everything around her, and usually with
her self. She may not be fully conscious of the political implications
of what for her began as personal necessity, but on some level she has
not been able to accept the limitations and oppression laid on her by
the most basic role of her society--the female role. The turmoil she
experiences tends to induce guilt proportional to the degree to which
she feels she is not meeting social expectations, and/or eventually
drives her to question and analyze what the rest of her society more
or less accepts. She is forced to evolve her own life pattern, often
living much of her life alone, learning usually much earlier than her
"straight" (heterosexual) sisters about the essential aloneness
of life (which the myth of marriage obscures) and about the reality
of illusions. To the extent that she cannot expel the heavy socialization
that goes with being female, she can never truly find peace with herself.
For she is caught somewhere between accepting society's view of her
- in which case she cannot accept herself - and coming to understand
what this sexist society has done to her and why it is functional and
necessary for it to do so. Those of us who work that through find ourselves
on the other side of a tortuous journey through a night that may have
been decades long. The perspective gained from that journey, the liberation
of self, the inner peace, the real love of self and of all women, is
something to be shared with all women - because we are all women.
It should
first be understood that lesbianism, like male homosexuality, is a
category of behavior possible only in a sexist society characterized
by rigid sex roles and dominated by male supremacy. Those sex roles
dehumanize women by defining us as a supportive/serving caste in relation
to the master caste of men, and emotionally cripple men by demanding
that they be alienated from their own bodies and emotions in order
to perform their economic/political/military functions effectively.
Homosexuality is a by-product of a particular way of setting up roles
( or approved patterns of behavior) on the basis of sex; as such it
is an inauthentic ( not consonant with "reality") category. In a society in
which men do not oppress women, and sexual expression is allowed to
follow feelings, the categories of homosexuality and heterosexuality
would disappear.
But lesbianism
is also different from male homosexuality, and serves a different function
in the society. "Dyke" is a different kind of put-down from
"faggot", although both imply you are not playing your socially
assigned sex role. . . are not therefore a "real woman" or
a "real man. " The grudging admiration felt for the tomboy,
and the queasiness felt around a sissy boy point to the same thing:
the contempt in which women-or those who play a female role-are
held. And the investment in keeping women in that contemptuous role
is very great. Lesbian is a word, the label, the condition that
holds women in line. When a woman hears this word tossed her way,
she knows she is stepping out of line. She knows that she has crossed
the terrible boundary of her sex role. She recoils, she protests,
she reshapes her actions to gain approval. Lesbian is a label invented
by the Man to throw at any woman who dares to be his equal, who
dares to challenge his prerogatives (including that of all women
as part of the exchange medium among men), who dares to assert the
primacy of her own needs. To have the label applied to people active
in women's liberation is just the most recent instance of a long
history; older women will recall that not so long ago, any woman
who was successful, independent, not orienting her whole life about
a man, would hear this word. For in this sexist society, for a woman
to be independent means she can't be a woman - she must be a dyke.
That in itself should tell us where women are at. It says as clearly
as can be said: women and person are contradictory terms. For a
lesbian is not considered a "real woman. " And
yet, in popular thinking, there is really only one essential difference
between a lesbian and other women: that of sexual orientation -
which is to say, when you strip off all the packaging, you must
finally realize that the essence of being a "woman" is
to get fucked by men.
"Lesbian"
is one of the sexual categories by which men have divided up humanity.
While all women are dehumanized as sex objects, as the objects of men
they are given certain compensations: identification with his power,
his ego, his status, his protection (from other males), feeling like
a "real woman, " finding social acceptance by adhering to
her role, etc. Should a woman confront herself by confronting another
woman, there are fewer rationalizations, fewer buffers by which to avoid
the stark horror of her dehumanized condition. Herein we find the overriding
fear of many women toward being used as a sexual object by a woman,
which not only will bring her no male-connected compensations, but also
will reveal the void which is woman's real situation. This dehumanization
is expressed when a straight woman learns that a sister is a lesbian;
she begins to relate to her lesbian sister as her potential sex object,
laying a surrogate male role on the lesbian. This reveals her heterosexual
conditioning to make herself into an object when sex is potentially
involved in a relationship, and it denies the lesbian her full humanity.
For women, especially those in the movement, to perceive their lesbian
sisters through this male grid of role definitions is to accept this
male cultural conditioning and to oppress their sisters much as they
themselves have been oppressed by men. Are we going to continue the
male classification system of defining all females in sexual relation
to some other category of people? Affixing the label lesbian not only
to a woman who aspires to be a person, but also to any situation of
real love, real solidarity, real primacy among women, is a primary form
of divisiveness among women: it is the condition which keeps women within
the confines of the feminine role, and it is the debunking/scare term
that keeps women from forming any primary attachments, groups, or associations
among ourselves.
Women in
the movement have in most cases gone to great lengths to avoid discussion
and confrontation with the issue of lesbianism. It puts people up-tight.
They are hostile, evasive, or try to incorporate it into some ''broader
issue. " They would rather not talk about it. If they have to,
they try to dismiss it as a 'lavender herring. " But it is no side
issue. It is absolutely essential to the success and fulfillment of
the women's liberation movement that this issue be dealt with. As long
as the label "dyke" can be used to frighten women into a less
militant stand, keep her separate from her sisters, keep her from giving
primacy to anything other than men and family-then to that extent she
is controlled by the male culture. Until women see in each other the
possibility of a primal commitment which includes sexual love, they
will be denying themselves the love and value they readily accord to
men, thus affirming their second-class status. As long as male acceptability
is primary-both to individual women and to the movement as a whole-the
term lesbian will be used effectively against women. Insofar as women
want only more privileges within the system, they do not want to antagonize
male power. They instead seek acceptability for women's liberation,
and the most crucial aspect of the acceptability is to deny lesbianism
- i. e., to deny any fundamental challenge to the basis of the female.
It should also be said that some younger, more radical women have honestly
begun to discuss lesbianism, but so far it has been primarily as a sexual
"alternative" to men. This, however, is still giving primacy
to men, both because the idea of relating more completely to women occurs
as a negative reaction to men, and because the lesbian relationship
is being characterized simply by sex, which is divisive and sexist.
On one level, which is both personal and political, women may withdraw
emotional and sexual energies from men, and work out various alternatives
for those energies in their own lives. On a different political/psychological
level, it must be understood that what is crucial is that women begin
disengaging from male-defined response patterns. In the privacy of our
own psyches, we must cut those cords to the core. For irrespective of
where our love and sexual energies flow, if we are male-identified in
our heads, we cannot realize our autonomy as human beings.
But why
is it that women have related to and through men? By virtue of having
been brought up in a male society, we have internalized the male culture's
definition of ourselves. That definition consigns us to sexual and
family functions, and excludes us from defining and shaping the terms
of our lives. In exchange for our psychic servicing and for performing
society's non-profit-making functions, the man confers on us just one
thing: the slave status which makes us legitimate in the eyes of the
society in which we live. This is called "femininity" or "being
a real woman" in our cultural lingo. We are authentic, legitimate,
real to the extent that we are the property of some man whose name we
bear. To be a woman who belongs to no man is to be invisible, pathetic,
inauthentic, unreal. He confirms his image of us - of what we have to
be in order to be acceptable by him - but not our real selves; he confirms
our womanhood-as he defines it, in relation to him- but cannot confirm
our personhood, our own selves as absolutes. As long as we are dependent
on the male culture for this definition. For this approval, we cannot
be free.
The consequence
of internalizing this role is an enormous reservoir of self-hate. This
is not to say the self-hate is recognized or accepted as such; indeed
most women would deny it. It may be experienced as discomfort with
her role, as feeling empty, as numbness, as restlessness, as a paralyzing
anxiety at the center. Alternatively, it may be expressed in shrill
defensiveness of the glory and destiny of her role. But it does exist,
often beneath the edge of her consciousness, poisoning her existence,
keeping her alienated from herself, her own needs, and rendering her
a stranger to other women. They try to escape by identifying with the
oppressor, living through him, gaining status and identity from his
ego, his power, his accomplishments. And by not identifying with other "empty vessels" like themselves. Women resist relating on
all levels to other women who will reflect their own oppression, their
own secondary status, their own self-hate. For to confront another woman
is finally to confront one's self-the self we have gone to such lengths
to avoid. And in that mirror we know we cannot really respect and love
that which we have been made to be.
As the source
of self-hate and the lack of real self are rooted in our male-given
identity, we must create a new sense of self. As long as we cling to
the idea of "being a woman, '' we will sense some conflict with
that incipient self, that sense of I, that sense of a whole person.
It is very difficult to realize and accept that being "feminine"
and being a whole person are irreconcilable. Only women can give to
each other a new sense of self. That identity we have to develop with
reference to ourselves, and not in relation to men. This consciousness
is the revolutionary force from which all else will follow, for ours
is an organic revolution. For this we must be available and supportive
to one another, five our commitment and our love, give the emotional
support necessary to sustain this movement. Our energies must flow toward
our sisters, not backward toward our oppressors. As long as woman's
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 how to get
better sex, how to turn his head around-into trying to make the "new
man" out of him, in the delusion that this will allow us to be
the "new woman. " This obviously splits our energies and commitments,
leaving us unable to be committed to the construction of the new patterns
which will liberate us.
It is the
primacy of women relating to women, of women creating a new consciousness
of and with each other, which is at the heart of women's liberation,
and the basis for the cultural revolution. Together we must find,
reinforce, and validate our authentic selves. As we do this, we confirm
in each other that struggling, incipient sense of pride and strength,
the divisive barriers begin to melt, we feel this growing solidarity
with our sisters. We see ourselves as prime, find our centers inside
of ourselves. We find receding the sense of alienation, of being cut
off, of being behind a locked window, of being unable to get out what
we know is inside. We feel a real-ness, feel at last we are coinciding
with ourselves. With that real self, with that consciousness, we begin
a revolution to end the imposition of all coercive identifications,
and to achieve maximum autonomy in human expression.
This document was obtained by the Herstory Project from the Women's
Studies Resources | Duke Special Collections Library-A project of The
Digital Scriptorium, Special Collections Library, Duke University.
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm
. Please contact this collection for information about reproducing this
article.
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