Lesbian Histories and Cultures

Garland Refrence Library of the Social Sciences (Vol. 1008)

Advisory Board

Gloria Anzalda Sally R.Munt

Santa Cruz, California University of Brighton, England

Evelyn Blackwood Vivien Ng

Purdue University University at Albany, State University of New York

Ellen Broidy Ruthann Robson

University of California, Irvine City University of New York School of Law

Charlotte Bunch Judith Schuyf

Douglass College, Rutgers University University of Utrecht, Netherlands

Carolyn Dinshaw Barbara Smith

University of California, Berkeley Albany, New York

Oliva M.Espn Verta Taylor

San Diego State University Ohio State University

Lillian Faderman Martha Vicinus

California State University, Fresno University of Michigan
Encyclopedia of Lesbian and Gay Histories and Cultures
Volume I

Lesbian Histories
and Cultures:
An Encyclopedia

Bonnie Zimmerman
Editor

Garland Publishing, Inc.

A member of the Taylor & Francis Group
New York and London
2000
Published in 2000 by
Garland Publishing Inc.
A Member of the Taylor & Francis Group
19 Union Square West
New York, NY 10003

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.

Copyright 2000 by Bonnie Zimmerman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or here
after invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage
or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lesbian histories and cultures: an encyclopedia/Bonnie Zimmerman, editor.

p. cm.(Encyclopedia of lesbian and gay histories and cultures; v. 1) (Garland
reference library of the social sciences; vol. 1008)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8153-1920-7 (alk. paper)
1. LesbianismEncyclopedias. 2. LesbiansEncyclopedias. I. Series. II. Zimmerman,
Bonnie.

HQ75.5.L4395 1999
306.766303 21dc21 99045010

ISBN 0-203-48788-5 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-79612-8 (Adobe eReader Format)

ISBN 0-8153-3354-4 (Print Edition)
Contents

ix Introduction

xvii Contributors

xlvii Subject Guide

1 The Encyclopedia

831 Index

CONTENTS V
 This book is dedicated to

Barbara Grier, J.R.Roberts, the founders of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, and the memory
of Jeannette Foster for their pioneering work in creating and promoting lesbian scholarship.
Introduction

Bonnie Zimmerman and George E.Haggerty

The Encyclopedia of Lesbian and Gay Histories versiona term that signified a range of
and Cultures in two volumes is the latest, and we behaviors and attitudes that would later be
hope the richest, in a long line of publications classed under the term homosexuality. Inversion
that attempt to open up for contemporary read- redefined same-sex desire as an aspect of human
ers the complex history and wide cultural diver- personality or essential being, not a sin-laden act
sity of lesbian and gay life. Unlike earlier against nature. Many of the most prominent fig-
endeavors, however, which tended to limit the ures of early sexologysuch as Richard von
kinds of questions that could be asked about the Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellisdescribed the
past, these volumes try to avoid the stigma con- invert, or homosexual, in excruciating and, from
ventionally attached to homosexuality and look the perspective of today, stigmatizing or, as con-
instead at examples of same-sex desire in differ- temporary lesbian scholar Lillian Faderman put
ent cultures at different times. They are the prod- it, morbidifying, detail. A century later, the
uct of an age in which self-definition is challenged prominent French historian and theorist Michel
by cultural urgency of various kinds and when Foucault would point to this construction of the
lesbian and gay concerns have moved out from modern homosexual as a signal moment in the
the shadows into the bright light of national and history of sexuality.
international politics. What better moment to Although homosexuality became known as the
undo the misconceptions of the past and to re- love that dare not speak its name, in fact, even in
claim the histories and cultures that have been the nineteenth century there were many names used
denied us? In doing so, we hope to be seen not as for homosexuality: some, like bugger, sodomite,
appropriating the past but rather as making it and tribade, referring to the specific sexual
available for all sorts of purposes, including but behaviors that men and women performed with
not limited to an increase in present-day aware- members of their own gender, and others, like ho-
ness. Too often we have been told by others who mosexual, invert, and Urning, referring to the iden-
we are or where we came from. It is time not just tities that were being constructed around these
to claim our place in history and culture but also behaviors. The shift from behavior to identity was
to negotiate with the histories and cultures to also to have an unexpected impact: the beginnings
which we might most closely relate. of a political movement based upon that identity.
Among the early generations of sexologists were
several individuals who themselves identified as
History homosexuals and directed their scholarly activity
The study of homosexuality can be said to have toward both the elimination of prejudice and dis-
begun in 1869, when a generation of medical crimination and the demand for equal human
doctors established the profession of sexology, rights. These individualsincluding Karl Maria
the medical and supposedly scientific study of Ulrichs, Edward Carpenter, Magnus Hirschfeld, and
sex. Among its earliest objects of study was in- Anna Rulingwere pioneers in uniting scholarship

INTRODUCTION IX
and activism, as their descendants would do sev- ably in closets within the ivory towers; however,
eral generations later. the growing gay and lesbian movement impelled
The period between roughly 1900 and 1930 some professors and graduate students to begin
was one of considerable intellectual activity in the to organize within professional institutions and
areas of sexology and literature, particularly. But associations.
economic crisis and political repression in the Gay and lesbian scholars first began to or-
United States and Europe would drive nascent gay ganize caucuses within professional associations
and lesbian communities, with their potential for in the early 1970s. For example, the gay caucus
scholarly research and creative activity, under- of the Modern Language Association first met
ground. Although individuals produced monu- in 1973 and soon organized large and enthusi-
mental work, in general academic institutions gen- astic sessions at the annual MLA meetings
erally avoided and suppressed gay and lesbian throughout the 1970s. Caucuses were also
scholarship. These individuals have become he- formed in 1974 in the American Anthropologi-
roic role models: Alfred Kinsey, for example, with cal Association and the American Sociological
his groundbreaking sexological studies, and Association. The Lesbian and Gay Caucus in the
Jeannette Foster, who self-published an extraor- MLA and its more scholarly counterpart, the Gay
dinary study of lesbianism in literature. With the Studies Division, continue to thrive, as do the
exception of Kinsey, these figures were unable to caucuses of the AAA and the ASA. Similar cau-
generate an ongoing academic movement or pro- cuses and divisions exist within the professional
duce individual scholars to carry on their work. associations of historians, musicologists, art his-
Before lesbian and gay studies could become a torians, psychologists, and so on. These caucuses
reality, something else needed to happen. That and divisions have played an important part in
something else was the gay liberation move- opening up the academic profession to new schol-
ment, which burst into public consciousness in arship and new ways of thinking, thus being di-
1969 when the patrons of the Stonewall Inn in rectly responsible for much of the knowledge
New York Citys Greenwich Village fought back collected in this encyclopedia.
against a police raid. Although political activism A second important source of knowledge
and organizing had existed throughout the 1950s came from outside formal academic institutions.
and 1960s and had accelerated at the end of the From the early 1970s until the present, ground-
latter decade, the three nights of what has become breaking work has been done by scholars and
known as the Stonewall Rebellion galvanized a writers not affiliated with any institutions. These
new generation. Inspired by the civil rights move- independent scholars worked without financial
ment in particular, and with experience in that resources or public recognition, at least until their
movement as well as in the student, antiwar, and books and articles were finally published. For
womens liberation movements, gay and lesbian some, the Gay Academic Union, founded in New
activists organized and mobilized their own move- York City in 1974, provided solidarity and sup-
ment to end the social, political, and cultural op- port. The GAU, while ostensibly open to both
pression of homosexuals. men and women, did, like many other political
Many of these activists were students in uni- groups, became a primarily male organization.
versities. They sought to bring their academic Lesbians turned to other venues, including les-
work to the service of activism and to apply their bian feminist collectives, womens studies pro-
political consciousness to their scholarly work. grams, and feminist newspapers and journals, to
In the same way that African American studies produce their work.
grew out of the civil rights and black power move- By the mid-1970s, both gay men and lesbians
ments, and womens studies out of the womens in the United States had produced a substantial
liberation movement, so did gay and lesbian stud- body of important work. Jonathan Ned Katz had
ies have its beginnings in the gay liberation move- published Gay American History, a collection of
ment. At that time, very few academics had the primary documents that would shape a genera-
psychological and material security to be openly tion of scholars; Beth Hodges had produced two
gay or lesbian and to focus their scholarly work journal issues on lesbian writing and publishing
on the study of homosexuality. Lesbian and gay (one in Margins and the other in the influential
professors had long lived more or less comfort- lesbian feminist journal Sinister Wisdom); and

X INTRODUCTION
under the leadership of John deCecco, the Jour- is growing in strength throughout Europe, Aus-
nal of Homosexuality had been established as tralia, and New Zealand.
the first scholarly journal in Gay and Lesbian In the United States, at the turn of the millen-
Studies. By 1981, we would also have seen nium, gay and lesbian scholarship is growing in
Carroll Smith-Rosenbergs paradigm-building all fields of academic endeavor. It is no longer
article, The Female World of Love and Ritual marginal but now occupies a central place in aca-
(published in the first issue of what would be- demic publishing, curricula, and conferences.
come the premier feminist scholarly journal, Not only are lesbian and gay scholars increas-
Signs), John Boswells rewriting of the history ingly able to identify as such in the classroom
of oppression, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and and in scholarly work, but lesbian, gay, bisexual,
Homosexuality, independent scholar and queer ideas and theories are addressed with
J.R.Roberts Black Lesbians: A Bibliography, and respect by heterosexual colleagues. Lesbian and
Lillian Fadermans Surpassing the Love of Men. gay studies programs have emerged at several
Lesbian and gay scholarship was making its mark prominent institutions, and students there are as
on the map. likely to take a course on the homosexual as
This energy emerged in several places at once, on the heterosexual past. Like ethnic studies
not only in the United States. French social and and womens studies previously, lesbian and gay
cultural theorists like Michel Foucault and Guy studies has left an indelible mark on what we
Hocquenghem used the political urgency of the are permitted to know.
student uprisings of 1968 to retheorize gay lib- This encyclopedia offers accounts of the most
eration from a post-Marxist perspective, while important international developments in lesbian
Luce Irigaray and Monique Wittig revised and gay history and attempts to assess the state
Lacanian psychoanalysis in ways that offered new of lesbian and gay culture around the world. This
paradigms for discussing gender and sexuality in makes it possible to see what kinds of issues and
a cultural context. The Australian Dennis Altman concerns lesbian and gay scholars have had in
published Homosexual Liberation and Oppres- common around the world. It also suggest how
sion, which investigated the social and personal deeply varied has been the experience of those
consequences of internalized homophobia. In who are attracted to members of their own gen-
England, Mary McIntosh and Kenneth Plummer der at different times and in different cultures.
considered the ways in which homosexual identi- From one perspective, these differences are so
ties are socially constructed; at the same time, great that no term like gay or queer or even ho-
Jeffrey Weeks traced the emergence of lesbian and mosexual can encompass them. To see sexual
gay identities. All produced foundational work identity as a lens through which to view an im-
that helped to give direction to the early gay lib- possibly broad range of human experience is to
eration movement as well as to academic inquiry risk obscuring specific and very important dif-
in the area of lesbian and gay studies. At the same ferences; but not insisting on this perspective is
time, artists, writers, and filmmakers throughout to be in danger of overlooking profoundly sug-
North America, Europe, and beyond were pro- gestive similarities that make connections across
ducing impressive accounts of lesbian and gay time and space.
experiences, as dozens of entries in these volumes
will attest.
In the 1980s, lesbian and gay scholarship would Methodology
become formalized as a field of study in the United For many readers of these volumes, an immediate
States, Canada, and a number of European coun- question may be raised as to why there are sepa-
tries, most particularly the United Kingdom and rate volumes on lesbian histories and cultures and
the Netherlands. At times Europe has taken the gay histories and cultures. Some encyclopedias and
lead: indeed, the conference Homosexuality, reference works are co-sexual, while others have
Which Homosexuality? held in Amsterdam in focused on either one or the other, most often con-
1987 holds the distinction of being the first inter- centrating on lesbian issues separately from gay
national lesbian and gay academic conference of male. For this publication, the editors chose to
the contemporary era. Gay and lesbian studies is develop separate volumes, edited independently but
thoroughly institutionalized in the Netherlands and with close cooperation and communication.

INTRODUCTION XI
 Why should lesbian and gay histories and cul- alliance that exists in many contexts, especially
tures be organized and written as separate volumes? in North America, between lesbian, gay,
We have done so first because this assures that both bisexual, and transgender identities, or to
histories receive full and unbiased attention. His- the reconditioned umbrella term queer, which has
torically, lesbianism has not always been addressed preoccupied both the academy and many out-
equally within gay studies. It has been assumed that side it over the last ten years? It would be disin-
lesbianism is more difficult to identify historically, genuous for the editors to say that the question
more hidden and silenced, less accessible to the of sexual behavior and self-definitionthat is,
scholar. While it is true that chroniclers and histo- did she or didnt hedid not often influence in-
rians have addressed female lives less thoroughly clusion or that the issue of sexual identity did
in general than male lives, these assumptions may not figure prominently in the entry lists suggested
flow less from what exists than from what we have and reviewed by advisory editors and by special-
looked for and the questions we have asked. Fo- ists in certain fields. But neither editor sees ho-
cusing an entire volume on lesbian histories and mosexuality as a transhistorical or transcultural
cultures assures that full attention be paid to re- condition that can be analyzed in, say, classical
covering and collecting a full range of information Greece, modern Japan, and the last twenty-five
that currently exists. years in this history of the United States in any-
Moreover, as these two volumes will demon- thing like similar terms. In fact, one of the inten-
strate, the difference of gender has always been sig- tions of the entries included is to demonstrate
nificant in the conceptualization and experiences the range of difference within what we loosely
of lesbianism and male homosexuality and in the call lesbian history and culture and gay history
experiences of individuals and communities. Les- and culture.
bians and gay men have shared many aspects of At the same time, none of us can ignore that
lifethose that flow from self-affirmation and we live in a culture in which the past has been
those that flow from resistance to heterosexism and appropriated to various ends. Those of us who
homophobiabut they have also developed in pro- are lesbian and gay have participated in this ap-
foundly different ways. Lesbians are marked as propriation as much or as little as our nonlesbian
female and gay men as male, no matter what the and nongay contemporaries. The effect of this
rhetoric about inversion, and in patriarchal sys- appropriation is that for better or worse we have
tems, gender matters. Feminism, in particular, has a very rich lesbian and gay heritage that itself
been a potent force in lesbian lives from at least needs to be documented in a volume such as this.
the nineteenth century to the present. The more In other words, while there may be no proof that
public presence of male homosexuality has often Alexander the Great or Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz
led to different emphases within legal and political were what we would call gay or lesbian,
movements. The degree to which male lives are gay culture and lesbian culture in the twentieth
recorded while female lives are ignored or sup- century has used such figures in defining itself
pressed affects the historical record. The fields of and it would be a mistake to ignore this rich lay-
lesbian studies and gay studies have, until very re- ering of historical detail. In this sense, the ency-
cently, developed in an independent, though related, clopedia is archaeological: a figure, a movement,
fashion. For these reasons, and many others, we or a sexual practice might be included for its own
believe that at this time readers will be best served sake or an account of its own sexual practice, of
by separate volumes. In the future, editors may course, but it might also be included because it
choose a different strategy. has been central to lesbian or gay history and
mythology. This is not the same dynamic as stra-
tegic essentialism, whereby historical under-
Definitions standing is sacrificed for an urgent political end;
The most difficult question, of course, is that of rather, it is a practical constructionism, which
definition. What do we mean by gay and les- tries to use historical and cultural difference to
bian? Are we only documenting evidence of ho- tell the story of lesbian and gay culture today as
mosexual behavior? Are there rules of inclusion/ well as other stories about other cultures at other
exclusion for different kinds of sexual behavior times.
or identity? How do we relate to the state of For a similar reason we do not call this an

XII INTRODUCTION
encyclopedia of queer culture. Queer has had tives. In particular, the authors and editors have
an important recent function in challenging the worked hard to pay close attention to the inclusivity
notion of sexual identity and insisting on a coa- of race, class, and ethnicity.
lition between and among lesbian, gay, bisexual, The editors are particularly proud of the excep-
and transgendered subjects, as well as people of tional group of authors who have contributed en-
color, sympathetic straights, and others. At the tries to these volumes. These include some of the
same time, it has created political difficulties of most famous names in the field of lesbian and gay
its own. For some, it suggests that sexual iden- studies as well as junior faculty and graduate stu-
tity is the only basis from which to resist dents who will carry it forth into the future, inde-
hegemonic culture. For others, it seems to dis- pendent scholars and writers like those who initi-
miss the possibility of those gay and lesbian iden- ated this field, and the political and community
tities that have produced a rich intellectual and activists who have maintained the important con-
political culture. Queer theory, which was hailed nection between scholarship and activism. These
as an answer to the seeming dead end of identity authors position themselves everywhere along the
politics, has had to be rethought in light of chal- continuum of sexualities: lesbian, gay, bisexual,
lenges from grassroots activists as well as the rig- heterosexual, transgender, and queer. Readers will
orous self-questioning of the theorists themselves. find both similarities and differences in the selec-
Many of these issues are discussed in entries col- tion and treatment of topics in the two volumes.
lected herein. It seems to us, however, that as In a minority of cases, entries may overlap. The
happy as we might be to queer the past, we editors suggest that in the case of general topics
have not yet reached the point at which the dif- for example, sexology or history or individual
ferences that lesbian and gay imply can be countriesreaders turn to the entries in each vol-
completely ignored. On the other hand, in an- ume for a full treatment. It will prove instructive
swer to queer theorists like Michael Warner and to see how a topic remains similar, or changes sub-
others who argue against the minoritizing stigma tly, depending on who writes the entry and from
of lesbian and gay identity and suggest queer what perspective. Other topics may appear in one
as an alternative identity that can resist institu- volume and not the other: this is not necessarily a
tionalization and various separatist or assimila- sign that an entry is only of interest to one group
tive moves in an aggressively generalizing attempt or the other. The editors found that to limit certain
to challenge the ascendancy of the normal, we topics to one entry allowed them to cover many
offer this encyclopedia. If it does anything, it more topics over the range of two volumes. In every
shows that the normal is nothing more than a case, the editors hope that the two volumes are
fiction that has been challenged in various ways complementary in ways that will benefit users of
in various cultures at various times with varying either volume.
success. In this sense, then, it is an encyclopedia The reader will find that in the places where
of queer histories and cultures after all. topics overlap, the entries together create a quilt
or web of knowledge, one entry bordering on or
leading to many others. For the student who is fo-
How to Use the Encyclopedia cused on one very specific question, each entry gives
This encyclopedia is intended for a wide audience, a general overview; for the browser it will lead to
including students, scholars in all fields, and the many additional topics and questions to be ad-
general public, who is interested in the state of les- dressed in other entries.
bian and gay research. All efforts have been made To assist the reader in seeing the connections
to write entries in user-friendly language, avoid- among the various entries included here, each is
ing jargon and technical language that would place followed by a list of cross-referenced entries that
a barrier between the experts and their readers. At relate to or expand it. In addition, each entry in-
the same time, the authors have maintained a high cludes a bibliography with the most important and
level of scholarship, incorporating both passion- easily accessible titles. In the case of biographies,
ate engagement and scholarly objectivity. The en- these include secondary rather than primary texts.
cyclopedia addresses areas of academic and politi- Complete books are listed where possible; in addi-
cal controversy, attempting always to address mul- tion, major articles are included. It is possible to
tiple points of view and varied theoretical perspec- use the book to study various topics in lesbian and

INTRODUCTION XIII
gay studies. To assist the reader, we include a guide these volumes to codify knowledge in the fields of
to the entries by topic. We also think, however, lesbian and gay history and culture. These are by
that these are volumes in which to browse: what their natures ever-changing, and there will always
better way to spend a few hours than to wend a be debate about what constitutes them as fields
path through a past (or a present) that is both for- and how they are best represented historically. We
eign and familiar. hope that these volumes will participate in these
Readers will note that the encyclopedia does not debates and even provoke them. Of course, we also
insist upon rigid consistency in the use of certain think that the debates will be more informed as
terms. Authors have been free to use lesbian, gay, the result of the wealth of material that is included
homosexual, bisexual, or queer as is appropriate here. There will always be a certain amount of frag-
to the particular requirements of their topics. En- mentation of information and gaps in the knowl-
tries may also use cultural designations interchange- edge of these fields precisely because secrecy re-
ably, either because of personal preference or his- sulting from persecution and ignorance masquer-
torical and political context. Different entries on ading as science have been so strong a part of their
related topics may emphasize different aspects of representation historically. If lesbian and gay his-
the subjects; once again, the editors have insisted tory and culture as told by lesbian and gay sub-
upon factual consistency and accuracy while per- jects (or those who identify with them) has had to
mitting individuality and even a touch of struggle to find its place in contemporary letters,
idiosyncracy. then this encyclopedia represents a new stage, at-
No encyclopedia can be truly comprehensive. tempting as it does to open up questions that pre-
We could not include every topic, survey every his- vious encyclopedias of homosexuality considered
torical period and every region of the world, or closed.
include every individual whose life included same-
sex relationships. Biographical entries, in particu-
lar, needed to be selective, especially since we have Acknowledgments by Bonnie Zimmerman
included living figures. There has been an explo- The editor gratefully acknowledges support from
sion of prominent figures who have come out of research, scholarship, and creative-activity grants
the closet in recent years, and were everyone to and a College of Arts and Letters minigrant, both
be included, this encyclopedia would be seriously at San Diego State University. The Research Com-
imbalanced toward the present. Moreover, it is dif- mittee of the College of Arts and Letters graciously
ficult to know who will have a long-lasting influ- bent its rules to provide support for the entire
ence in the future. In considering these problems, three-year life of this project. I thank them, espe-
the editors have chosen those figures who were the cially the chair, Joanne Ferraro. I also thank the
first in their particular fields, or who have already Department of Womens Studies and its faculty
had unquestionable influence and notoriety. The for the support, resources, and understanding
editors recognize that our choices will be contro- extended to me.
versial, that while anyone will have chosen certain This work could not have been completed with-
figures, in other cases, different choices might have out the assistance of two excellent research assist-
been made. ants, Sue Dunlap and Anna Andrade, whose com-
The entries as a group move across the disci- mitment and diligence were exemplary. I particu-
plines, across historical periods, and across cultures larly thank Anna, who nurtured this volume as her
and nations. Some are general and expansive, oth- own project and who gave selflessly of her time
ers limited and particular. The editors have worked and intelligence.
hard with the members of the advisory board to The editor owes a debt of thanks to many in-
make the selections comprehensive, and both the dividuals for their advice in constructing the en-
range of fields and the entries within various fields try list and identifying and locating contributors.
have been the product of much thought and de- First, thanks is due to the superb scholars who
bate. The contributors have also worked to expand served on the advisory board: Gloria Anzalda,
fields and define areas in a way that has made our Evelyn Blackwood, Ellen Broidy, Charlotte
work easier. We are grateful for the tireless efforts Bunch, Carolyn Dinshaw, Oliva M.Espn, Lillian
of everyone involved with this project. Faderman, Sally R.Munt, Vivien Ng, Ruthann
Neither the editors nor the contributors intend Robson, Judith Schuyf, Barbara Smith, Verta

XIV INTRODUCTION
Taylor, and Martha Vicinus. Their advice was valuable as resources were the E-Directory of
invaluable in every way, from modifying the en- Lesbigay Scholars, maintained by Louie Crew of
try list to counseling me on scholarly and ethical Rutgers University; the Lesac list, maintained by
issues. Amy T.Goodloe; and the WILD-List, maintained
I also thank Wayne Dynes for his work on the by Eva Isaksson. I particularly thank these Internet
Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, which provided pioneers for their contribution to the infrastruc-
a starting point for the current edition. ture of lesbian and gay scholarship.
Many individuals provided advice about dif- To all of the contributors, whose names appear
ferent aspects of the project, from how to organ- in a separate list, I owe a special debt for sharing
ize entries on the sciences or religion to how to their expertise and goodwill. I am also grateful to
locate writers for particularly difficult entries. a number of individuals who helped me in the ed-
Among these distinguished individuals are Judith iting process, including Jane Gurko, Laurie
Mayne, Martha Mockus, Karla Jay, Lepa Hatfield, Anna Andrade, Edith J.Benkov, and Holly
Mladjenovich, Leila J.Rupp, Sandra Harding, Ransom. In addition, a number of students assisted
Susan E.Cayleff, Elizabeth Say, Terry Castle, in locating missing data for various entries, includ-
Estelle Freedman, and Marcia Hermansen. I am ing Anna Andrade, Dawn Comeau, Andrea
particularly grateful to those individuals who Dottolo, Melanie Green, Jennifer Higley, Patricia
helped me locate writers for international entries. R.Hoban, and Claire H. Jackson.
They include Robert Howes, Judith Schuyf, Kati I also thank the translators: Holly Ransom, Jutta
Mustola, and Pere Cruells, as well as the editors Bailey, Pina Sylvers, Robert Garca, Ann Puntch,
of a number of booksincluding Magda Mueller, and Roma Ciesla.
Kate Griffin, Monika Reinfelder, and Peter I have been particularly fortunate to have as a
Druckerwho shared the names and addresses coeditor George Haggerty, University of Califor-
of many of their contributors. nia, Riverside. I am privileged to have worked with
I am fortunate to have worked with the sup- him on a previous project, and his wisdom and
portive staff of Garland Publishing, beginning with collegiality have been inspirational. Although we
my first editor, Gary Kuris (whose departure was prepared our volumes separately, we consulted and
deeply saddening but, fortunately, not disastrous), commiserated with each other in ways that made
and continuing with Marianne Lown, Leo Balk, the production of an encyclopedia a pleasure, as
Richard Steins, and Joanne Daniels. I am also grate- well as a responsibility.
ful for the help I received from Jason Goldfarb and Finally, no acknowledgment would be com-
from another of Garlands encyclopedia editors, plete without a tribute to the thousands of un-
Sally Mitchell. sung heroes in and out of academia and the les-
I received valuable assistance in obtaining il- bian and gay movement whose courageous and
lustrations for this volume from many of my con- often lonely efforts to battle the prevailing taboos
tributors. I also want to thank Tee A.Corinne, against research into, and open discussion of, les-
Morgan Gwenwald, and Lynda Koolish for their bianism have at last succeeded in making this work
generous donations of photographs from their possible.
own collections. In conclusion, I thank my life partner, Berlene
Identifying and locating contributors was made Rice, for her forbearance in enduring my long hours
considerably easier due to the existence of the at the office and equally long hours of obsession
CLAGS Directory of Lesbian and Gay Studies, and anxiety. Without her support and reassurance,
compiled by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Stud- I would not have been able to complete this work,
ies of the City University of New York. Also in- or any other.

INTRODUCTION XV
Contributors

Jennifer Abod has trained women in broad- Ilene D.Alexander, while developing essays from
casting, established feminist radio programs her dissertation in American studies at the Uni-
on community radio, and worked as a fea- versity of Iowa, Learning in Other Ways: A
ture reporter, moderator, talk show host, and History of a Feminist Pedagogy in the US, also
news anchor on commercial and public ra- works on Never Say Uncle, a memoir of the life
dio. She is the producer of A Radio Profile and search for her gay uncle, now gone miss-
of Audre Lorde and was cofounder and ing for twenty-five years. She teaches college
singer of the New Haven Womens Libera- writing and literature courses at the University
tion Rock Band (19701976). of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

Julie Abraham, an Australian citizen living in Christina Allan is an assignment editor for Out-
the United States, teaches English and womens word.
studies at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.
She is the author of Are Girls Necessary? Les- Davida J.Alperin is an associate professor of po-
bian Writing and Modern Histories (1996), the litical science at the University of Wisconsin,
editor of Diana: A Strange Autobiography River Falls. Her research interests include black-
(1995), and writes reviews for the Nation and Jewish relations, coalitions building, the politi-
the Womens Review of Books. cal significance of collective memory, and gay
and lesbian politics. She lives with her life part-
Kate Adams holds a Ph.D. in American studies ner and their son in St. Paul, Minnesota.
from the University of Texas, Austin, where she
wrote a dissertation entitled Paper Lesbians: Rebecca T.Alpert is the codirector of the Wom-
Feminist Publishing and the Politics of Lesbian ens Studies Program and assistant professor of
Identity, 19501990. Her essays can be found religion and womens studies at Temple Univer-
in Lesbian Texts and Contexts (1990), Tilting sity, Philadelphia. Her most recent book is Like
the Tower (1994), Listening to Silences (1994), Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and
and the Journal of Homosexuality. the Transformation of Tradition (1997). Alpert
was ordained a rabbi from the Reconstructionist
Lisa Albrecht is associate professor of writing Rabbinical College in 1976.
at the General College of the University of Min-
nesota, Minneapolis, where she teaches under- Meryl Altman, associate professor of English and
prepared students. She also teaches womens womens studies coordinator at DePauw Univer-
studies. She coedited (with Rose M.Brewer) sity, Greencastle, Indiana, was educated at
Bridges of Power: Womens Multicultural Alli- Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and also at-
ances (1990). She is vice chair of the Minneapolis tended Columbia University, New York City. She
Commission on Civil Rights. is working on a book about sexuality and politics
CONTRIBUTORS XVII
in the work of Simone de Beauvoir, Doris Lessing, Gay, and Transgender Communities (1998), was
and other presecond wave women writers. the founder and director (19881994) of the
Body Image Task Force (BITF), and has pre-
Deborah P.Amory received her Ph.D. in anthro- sented more than one hundred body-image
pology from Stanford University, Stanford, Cali- workshops. She is a Ph.D. candidate in anthro-
fornia, in 1994. Her research explores identity pology at the University of Iowa, Iowa City.
politics in Swahili-speaking societies; popular
culture and lesbian identity in the United States, Rosemary Auchmuty is chair of the Department
and homosexuality in Africa. She teaches at of Academic Legal Studies at the University of
Purchase College, State University of New York. Westminster, London, England. She writes on
lesbian history and lesbian law and has taught
Irene Anderson, M.Ed., is the director of the lesbian studies courses for many years. Among
Oasis Center for Sexual Assault and Relation- her publications is A World of Girls: The Ap-
ship Violence at the University of Arizona, peal of the Girls School Story (1992).
Tucson, and serves as the cochair of the Wing-
span Domestic Violence Project, which provides Paris Await received her B.A. in Italian from
outreach to, and services for, the lesbian, gay, the University of California, Berkeley, and is
bisexual, and transgender community in Tucson. in the Ph.D. program in comparative litera-
ture at the University of California, Los An-
Harriette Andreadis is an associate professor of geles. She teaches English as a second lan-
English at Texas A&M University, College Sta- guage at the American Language Institute at
tion. She has published on the reception of San Diego State University.
Sappho in early modern England and is prepar-
ing an edition of the poems of Katherine Philips Margot Gayle Backuss articles on Ann Sexton,
and completing a book-length study of same- Judy Grahn, and Radclyffe Hall have appeared
sex female erotics in early modern England. in the Journal of Homosexuality, Signs, and
Tulsa Studies in Womens Literature. Her first
Ghazala Anwar was born in Pakistan and re- book is The Gothic Family Romance: Compul-
sides in the United States. She has a Ph.D. in sory Heterosexuality in the Anglo-Irish Settler
comparative religion from Temple University, Colonial Order (forthcoming).
Philadelphia, and has taught at several colleges.
She is the director of education equity at the Holly A.Baggett is an assistant professor at
Philadelphia Lesbian and Gay Task Force. Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield.
She is writing a dual biography of Jane Heap
Janni Aragon is a Ph.D. candidate in political sci- and Margaret Anderson, as well as editing the
ence at the University of California, Riverside. letters of Jane Heap.
Aragon is working on her disseration about the
theoretical politics surrounding the second wave Laurie J.Baker graduated from North Dakota
feminist movement. Her areas of interests are femi- State University, Fargo, and works with the
nist theory, popular culture, womens sexuality, Fargo Youth Commission.
Chicana/Latina feminisms, and ethnic studies.
Christie Balka is an activist and scholar who
Katherine Arnup teaches womens studies and directs the Bread and Roses Community Fund
Canadian studies at Carleton University, Ot- in Philadelphia. A Ph.D. candidate in history at
tawa, Ontario. She is the author of Education Temple University, Philadelphia, she is writing
for Motherhood: Advice for Mothers in Twen- her dissertation on Greenwich Village lesbians
tieth Century Canada (1994) and the editor of in the 1920s and 1930s. She coedited (with Andy
Lesbian Parenting: Living with Pride and Preju- Rose) Twice Blessed: On Being Lesbian, Gay,
dice (1995). and Jewish (1989).

Dawn Atkins is the editor of Looking Queer: Jane R.Ballinger, assistant professor of commu-
Body Image and Identity in Lesbian, Bisexual, nication at California State Polytechnic Univer-
XVIII CONTRIBUTORS
sity, Pomona, teaches journalism, public rela- Linda A.Bernhard is associate professor of
tions, and media studies. She received her Ph.D. nursing and womens studies at Ohio State Uni-
in journalism at the University of Texas, Aus- versity, Columbus. She teaches, conducts re-
tin. Her research interests include analysis of the search, and is involved in activist work on
relationships between social movements and the womens health. She and her partner enjoy sing-
mainstream news media. ing in the Columbus Womens Chorus and
watching womens basketball.
Ian Barnard teaches in the Department of Rheto-
ric and Writing Studies and the Department of Robin Bernstein coedited (with Seth Clark
English and Comparative Literature at San Di- Silberman) Generation Q (1996), an anthology
ego State University. He is completing a book, of essays by young queers. She is an editor of
Queer Race: Cultural Interventions in the Ra- Bridges, a biannual journal of Jewish feminist
cial Politics of Queer Theory. His articles have culture and politics.
appeared in the journals Womens Studies, Femi-
nist Teacher, Genders, and Socialist Review. Corinne E.Blackmer teaches American and gay
and lesbian literature at Southern Connecticut
Nan Bauer-Maglin is academic director of the State University, New Haven. Coeditor with
City University of New York (CUNY) Bacca- Patricia Juliana Smith of En Travesti: Women,
laureate Program of the Graduate School and Opera, Gender Subversion (1995), she recently
University Center, CUNY. She has written more completed her first book, African/Mother: Cul-
than thirty articles on womens writing and tural Origins in theAmericas (1998), and is
teaching and coedited two books: (with Donna writing a book of essays on sexuality, class, and
Perry) Bad Girls/Good Girls: Women, Sex, identity politics.
and Power in the Nineties (1996) and Women
and Stepfamilies: Voices, Anger, and Love Evelyn Blackwood is assistant professor of wom-
(1989). ens studies and anthropology at Purdue Uni-
versity, West Lafayette, Indiana. Her publica-
Evelyn Torton Beck is a professor of womens tions include work on Native American female
studies and an affiliate of comparative litera- two-spirits, tomboys in Indonesia, and essays
ture and Jewish studies at the University of on culture and female same-sex sexuality and
Maryland, College Park. Among her books are transgender practices. She is the editor of The
Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology (1982/ Many Faces of Homosexuality: Anthropology
1989), The Prism of Sex: Essays in the Sociol- and Homosexual Behavior (1986).
ogy of Knowledge (1979), and Kafka and the
Yiddish Theater (1971). She is at work on psy- Lucy Bland is a senior lecturer in womens stud-
choanalytic perspectives on the writings of ies at the University of North London. She is
Franz Kafka and the art of Frida Kahlo. the author of Banishing the Beast: English
Feminism and Sexual Morality, 18851918
Edith J.Benkov is professor of French at San Di- (1995) and coeditor (with Laura Doan) of Sex-
ego State University. She has published on me- ology in Culture: Labelling Bodies and Desires
dieval theater, Chrtien de Troyes, women and (1998) and Sexology Uncensored: The Docu-
language, cross-dressing, Christine de Pizan, and ments of Sexual Science (1998).
Louise Lab. She is completing a monograph
on Lab and is researching lesbians and the law. Elyse Blankley is professor of English and wom-
ens studies at California State University, Long
Rhona J.Berenstein is an associate professor and Beach. Her scholarly publications have included
director of film studies at the University of Cali- studies of modernist literature and contempo-
fornia, Irvine. She is the author of Attack of the rary American fiction and poetry.
Leading Ladies: Gender, Sexuality, and
Spectatorship in Classic Horror Cinema (1996) Richmod Bollinger earned her Ph.D. in Japa-
and is producing a video documentary entitled nese studies at Freie Universitaet Berlin in 1997.
100 to Infinity. She has published on the Japanese modern girl
CONTRIBUTORS XIX
during the 1920s and 1930s, as well as on Japa- Virginia Woolf, and the Working of Common
nese women writers. She has also done research Land (1991) and Keepers of History: The
on the phenomenon of assumed gender in Japa- Novels of Maureen Duffy (1990).
nese literature.
Christina Brinkley, applied social scientist and
Marie-Jo Bonnet is the author of Un choix sans demographer-sociologist, is chair of the De-
quivoque, a study of love between women in partment of African American and African
France, which was her Ph.D. thesis in history at American Womens Studies at Simmons Col-
the Universit de Paris VII. An activist in the lege, Boston. Her research includes feminist/
womens and gay liberation movements since womanist theory and activism, gendered rac-
1971, she is extending her study of lesbians in ism in higher education, U.S. women of color
cultural history. in the military, and public policy and quanti-
tative/qualitative research methods.
Miriam Bottassi, born in So Paulo, Brazil, is
a librarian and documentalist and has been a Kendal L.Broad has a Ph.D. in sociology from
lesbian feminist activist since 1976. She was a Washington State University, Pullman. She has
member of the Center for Womens Informa- done research on hate crimes, the lesbian and
tion (CIM), the only feminist documentation gay movement, the contemporary U.S. wom-
center in Brazil, from its founding in 1979 un- ens movement, and the transgender move-
til 1995. ment. She holds a joint appointment in the
Center for Womens Studies and Gender Re-
Angela Bowen is an assistant professor of wom- search in the Department of Sociology at the
ens studies and English at California State Uni- University of Florida, Gaines ville.
versity, Long Beach. She emphasizes the lives and
writing of people of color in both areas of her Ellen Broidy is a librarian at the University of
teaching; in her research, she focuses on the lives California, Irvine, and a lecturer in UCIs Pro-
of black lesbian feminists, past and present. gram in Womens Studies. Her research and
teaching focus on the impact of new informa-
Nan Alamilla Boyd has a Ph.D. from Brown tion technologies on women and womens
University, Providence, Rhode Island. She studies and the related issues of gender and
teaches queer studies, Latina studies, and U.S. the politics of information.
womens history in the Womens Studies Pro-
gram at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Carellin Brooks lives in Vancouver, British Co-
where she also chairs the Program in Lesbian, lumbia.
Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies. She is
the author of Wide Open Town: San Francis- Bernadette J.Brooten is the Robert and Myra
cos Lesbian and Gay History (forthcoming). Kraft and Jacob Hiatt Professor of Christian
Studies at Brandeis University, Waltham, Mas-
Kathryn A.Brandt graduated from Bermington sachusetts. Her publications include Women
College, Bennington, Vermont, then pursued her Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue: Inscriptional
activist leanings in New York City. Academi- Evidence and Background Issues (1982) and
cally, she is inclined toward postmodernism, Love Between Women: Early Christian Re-
queer and feminist theory, and civil rights work. sponses to Female Homoeroticism (1996).
She is a television writer and producer and takes
graduate courses in American studies at the Jayne Relaford Brown is a poet and writer
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. who teaches writing courses in Pennsylvania.
Her work has appeared in a number of an-
Lyndie Brimstone is a senior lecturer at thologies, including Tomboys! Tales of Dyke
Roehampton Institute, London, where she Derring-Do (1995).
convenes the multidisciplinary Womens Stud-
ies Programme. Her publications include To- Victoria Bissell Brown received her Ph.D. in
wards a New Cartography: Radclyffe Hall, American history from the University of
XX CONTRIBUTORS
California, San Diego, in 1985. She taught in Francesca Canad Sautman is a professor at
the Womens Studies Department at San Diego Hunter College and the Graduate School of the
State University from 1981 to 1989. She is an City University of New York, teaching in sev-
associate professor of history and chair of gen- eral fields. She has published on medieval and
der and womens studies at Grinnell College, modern folk culture and on womens cultural
Grinnell, Iowa, and is writing a biography of history in France, Italy, the Maghreb, and the
Jane Addams. United States. She is completing a book on les-
bian working-class culture in France, 1880
Diana L.Burgin is a professor of Russian at the 1930.
University of Massachusetts, Boston, and an
associate of the Russian Research Center at Jane Caputi is the author of The Age of Sex
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachu- Crime (1987) and Gossips, Gorgons, and
setts. Crones: The Fates of the Earth (1993). She col-
laborated with Mary Daly on Websters First
Kate Burns is a Ph.D. candidate in literature New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English
and culture studies at the University of Cali- Language (1987).
fornia, San Diego. Her dissertation traces a
genealogy of the woman outlaw from the early Claudia Card, a Fully Revolting Hag with ten-
republic to the twentieth century in U.S. litera- ure in the Department of Philosophy at the Uni-
ture and culture. She also writes and teaches versity of Madison, Wisconsin, is the author of
about lesbian and queer studies, zines, comic The Unnatural Lottery: Character and Moral
books, and cyberspace culture. Luck (1996) and Lesbian Choices (1995) and
the editor of Adventures in Lesbian Philosophy
Stephanie Byrd has written reviews in the Les- (1994) and Feminist Ethics (1991).
bian Review of Books, the Harvard Gay and
Lesbian Review, the Lambda Book Report, and Erin Carlston received her Ph.D. in modern
Sojourner and poetry in Whiskey Island, thought and literature from Stanford Univer-
Kenyon Review, Common Lives/Lesbian Lives, sity, Stanford, California. She teaches in
Sinister Wisdom, and American Voice. She is Stanfords Introduction to the Humanities and
an M.A. candidate in English at Cleveland State Continuing Studies programs and has written
University in Ohio. on topics in comparative literature, fascist cul-
tural studies, and the history of sexuality. She
Karen Cadora received her Ph.D. from Stanford is the author of Thinking Fascism: Sapphic
University, Stanford, California. She has an M.S. Modernism and Fascist Modernity (1998).
in astrophysics and works as a software engi-
neer. Her short fiction has been published in Glynis Carr is an associate professor of English
Yellow Silk (1993), her critical work in Science at Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylva-
Fiction Studies (1995), and her first novel, Star- nia. She has written essays on U.S. women writ-
dust Bound (1994), by Firebrand. ers and edited a volume of feminist theory,
Turning the Century (Bucknell Review 36[2],
Elizabeth Cahn is a lesbian architect and art 1992). She is working on a second edited vol-
therapist who works with women, lesbians, and ume of ecofeminist literary criticism.
other members of the sexual-minority commu-
nity. Susan E.Cayleff is a professor and chair of the
Department of Womens Studies at San Diego
Luz Calvo is a Ph.D candidate in the History of State University. She is the author of Wash and
Consciousness Program at the University of Cali- Be Healed: The Water-Cure Movement and
fornia, Santa Cruz. She is working on her dis- Womens Health (1987) and Babe: The Life and
sertation, Border Fantasies: Sexual Anxieties Legend of Babe Didrikson Zaharias (1995) and
and Political Passions in the Mexico-US. Bor- coeditor (with Barbara Bair) of Wings of
der. Her academic interests include psychoa- Gauze: Women of Color and the Experience
nalysis, queer theory, and critical race studies. of Health andIllness (1993).
CONTRIBUTORS XXI
Line Chamberland has been active in the les- Love (1993), and is completing her fifth manu-
bian and feminist movements since the 1970s script, entitled Corridors of Nostalgia.
and teaches sociology at Maisonneuve College,
Montreal, Qubec, where she works on lesbian Diana Collecott grew up near London and
history in Qubec. She directed a special issue teaches British and American literature at Dur-
of the French periodical Sociologie et socits: ham University in northeast England. She has
Homosexualities: Scientific and Activist Is- traveled widely and held research fellowships
sues (29[1], 1997). in Japan and the United States. She broadcasts
on poetry for the British Broadcasting Corpo-
Wendy Chapkis is an associate professor of so- ration (BBC) and is the author of H.D. and
ciology and womens studies at the University Sapphic Modernism (1999).
of Southern Maine, Portland. She is the author
of two books: Beauty Secrets: Women and the Elizabeth Colwill, an associate professor of his-
Politics of Appearance (1986) and Live Sex Acts: tory at San Diego State University, specializes in
Women Performing Erotic Labor (1997). the history of gender, sexuality, and colonial-
ism. Her publications include articles on female
Anne Charles teaches English and womens stud- authorship, pornography, and the political cul-
ies at the University of New Orleans. She is com- ture of the French and Haitian revolutions. She
pleting a manuscript on Sapphic modernism and is working on a book entitled Sex, Savagery, and
the novels of Djuna Barnes. Slavery in the French and Haitian Revolutions.

Mary C.Churchill is an assistant professor of Nerida M.Cook has undertaken several peri-
womens studies at the University of Colorado, ods of research in Thailand as part of her so-
Boulder. She received her Ph.D. degree in reli- cial anthropological training. She is engaged
gious studies from the University of California, in funded fieldwork on womens sexual sub-
Santa Barbara, specializing in the study of Na- cultures in Thailand, centered in Bangkok. She
will incorporate the findings in publications
tive American religious traditions.
and in her teaching in a course on love and
sexuality cross-culturally.
Nan Cinnater has an M.A. in American wom-
ens history from Sarah Lawrence College,
Tee A.Corinne has been involved with the visual
Bronxsville, New York. Formerly public edu-
arts all of her life but often writes for a living.
cation coordinator of Senior Action in a Gay
She loves to review art books. Her own books
Environment (SAGE), she is co-owner of Now
include The Cunt Coloring Book (1975), Yantras
Voyager, the lesbian and gay bookstore in
of Womanlove (1982), Dreams of the Woman
Provincetown, Massachusetts. She has never
Who Loved Sex (1988), and Mama, Rattle-
hopped a freight in her life.
snakes, and Key Lime Pi (1995).
Bev Clark was a part of the first lesbian sup-
Becca Cragin is a Ph.D. candidate at the Insti-
port group in Harare, Zimbabwe, and was ac-
tute for Womens Studies at Emory University,
tively involved in Gays and Lesbians of Zim-
Atlanta. She has had articles published on femi-
babwe (GALZ) from 1989 to 1997. With her
nist cultural studies and on representations of
longtime partner, Brenda Burrell, she has been lesbian feminism in academic and popular me-
instrumental in the fight for gay and lesbian dia. She is writing a dissertation on gay and les-
equality in Zimbabwe. bian viewers of daytime talk shows.

Cheryl Clarke, black lesbian feminist poet, has Julie Crawford received her Ph.D. in English lit-
been a student of African American literature erature from the University of Pennsylvania,
since 1968. She is the author of four books of Philadelphia. Her dissertation is on early mod-
poetry, Narratives: Poems in the Tradition of ern popular literature. She is also interested in
Black Women (1982), Living as a Lesbian the history of female homosociality and lesbi-
(1986), Humid Pitch (1989), and Experimental anism and the history of cross-dressing and other
XXII CONTRIBUTORS
gender-subversive women. She is an assistant Ann David is a historian and lesbian activist,
professor of English and comparative literature who knows the Belgian situation through expe-
at Columbia University, New York City. rience and studies. She is a volunteer in an oral-
history project on older lesbians in Belgium.
Jason Cromwell, Ph.D., is a cultural anthropolo-
gist and the author of numerous articles and a Nancy D.Davis, M.D., is a retired psychiatrist.
forthcoming book on Transmen/FTM (female to
male). A longtime member of the transcommunity, Gwendolyn Alden Dean lives in Atlanta and is
he has served on the boards of several organiza- an adjunct professor of liberal arts at the At-
tions and is a cofounder of the FTM Conference lanta College of Art and a Ph.D. student at the
and Education Project/ Spectrum. Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts at Emory
University, Atlanta. She completed a B.A. in
Diane Griffin Crowder is a professor of French drama and an M.F.A. in studio art/performance
and womens studies at Cornell College, art at the University of California, Irvine.
Mount Vernon, Iowa. She has published ex-
tensively on the works of Monique Wittig, les- Juanita Daz-Cotto, a black, Puerto Rican, lesbian
bian and feminist theory, lesbian and feminist feminist socialist, is editor of Compaeras: Latina
Utopian literature, lesbian body presentation, Lesbians (An Anthology) (1987) under the
and the works of Colette. She is also inter- psuedonym Juanita Ramos. Author of Gender, Eth-
ested in weaving and fiber arts. nicity, and the State: Latina and Latino Prison Poli-
tics (1996), she is an associate professor of sociol-
Margaret Cruikshank teaches womens studies ogy, womens studies, and Caribbean studies at the
at the University of Maine, Orono. She is the au- State University of New York, Binghamton.
thor of The Gay and Lesbian Liberation Move-
ment (1992) and the editor of The Lesbian Path Mildred Dickemann, who received her Ph.D.
(1980), New Lesbian Writing (1984), Lesbian in anthropology from the University of Cali-
Studies (1982), and Fierce with Reality: An An- fornia, Berkeley, has taught at Merritt Col-
thology of Literature About Aging (1995). lege, the University of Kansas, and Sonoma
State University. She has published on educa-
Cynthia Cruz is a Ph.D. student in education at tional anthropology, biosocial anthropology,
the University of California, Los Angeles. Her gender, and homosexuality. She is also politi-
research interests focus on queer theory, cally active in racial justice, environmental,
postcolonial pedagogies, writing and autobiog- and gay and transgender areas.
raphy, and Chicana lesbian feminism. Her pub-
lished work appears in the International Jour- Judy Dlugacz is president and founder of Olivia
nal of Qualitative Studies in Education. Cruises and Resorts. She was instrumental in
the creation of the cultural phenomenon called
Paisley Currah teaches political science at womens music and later developed exclusive
Brooklyn College of the City University of New vacations for women. She also manages actor/
York, and is working on a book on identity comedian Suzanne Westenhoefer.
fundamentalisms and the rights of sexual mi-
norities in the United States. Laura Doan, a professor of English at the State
University of New York, Geneseo, has edited The
Ann Cvetkovich is an associate professor of Eng- Lesbian Postmodern (1994), and coedited (with
lish at the University of Texas, Austin. She is the Lucy Bland) Sexology Uncensored: The Docu-
author of Mixed Feelings: Feminism, Mass Cul- ments of Sexual Science (1998) and Sexology in
ture, and Victorian Sensationalism (1992). She Culture: Labeling Bodies and Desires (1998). She
has published articles on lesbian culture in a is working on Fashioning Sapphism: The Ori-
number of collections and in the journal GLQ. gins of a Modern English Lesbian Culture.

Violetta Cywicka is an activist with the Asso- Gunilla Domellf, D.Ph., is director of the De-
ciation of Lambda Groups in Krakow, Poland. partment of Information and Culture at Ume
CONTRIBUTORS XXIII
University, Sweden. Her thesis is on Karin Boye ate School and taught her first womens stud-
as a critic and modernist prose writer. Through ies course in 1972. She lives in Manhattan and
her publications, she is engaged in reevaluating the Catskills with Brenda Goodman, a painter,
Karin Boyes authorship. and their Australian shepherd.

Emma Donoghue is a novelist, playwright, and Cathie Dunsford, Ph.D., teaches writing and
historian. Her first play, I Know My Own Heart publishing at Auckland University in New Zea-
(1993), was based on Anne Listers diaries. She land and is director of Dunsford Publishing Con-
followed up Passions Between Women: British sultants (160 authors published, including
Lesbian Culture, 16681801 (1993) with the an- twenty-eight Pacific lesbian authors). She is the
thology Poems Between Women: Four Centu- editor of five Pacific womens anthologies, the
ries of Love, Romantic Friendship, and Desire author of three novelsCowrie (1994), The
(1997) and a biography of two lesbian poets, Journey Home (1997), and Heart Warrior
We Are Michael Field (1998). (1999)and on the editorial board of the Les-
bian Review of Books.
Julie Dorf is the founder and executive director
of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Elana Dykewomon has written Riverfinger
Rights Commission (IGLHRC), a nonprofit, Women (as Elana Nachman, 1974), Nothing
U.S.-based organization that monitors human Will Be as Sweet as the Taste (1995), and the
rights violations based on sexual orientation, Jewish lesbian historical novel Beyond the Pale
gender identity, and HIV status. She worked with (1997). She was an editor of Sinister Wisdom, a
dissident movements in the former Soviet Un- journal of arts and politics for the lesbian im-
ion for more than eight years before launching agination, from 1987 to 1995.
the IGLHRC.
Vicki L.Eaklor is a professor of history at Al-
Christine Downing, professor emerita of re- fred University, Alfred, New York, where she
ligious studies at San Diego State University, teaches courses in American history and wom-
teaches in the Mythological Studies Program ens studies, including gay American history. She
at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa also is cochair of the Committee on Lesbian and
Barbara, California. Her nine books include Gay History, a national affiliate of the Ameri-
The Goddess (1981) and Myths and Myster- can Historical Association.
ies of Same-Sex Love (1989).
Deborah A.Elliston holds a Ph.D. in anthro-
Jennifer Doyle received her Ph.D. in literature pology from New York University. Her re-
from Duke University, Durham, North Caro- search in the Society Islands of French Poly-
lina. She is coeditor (with Jonathan Flatley and nesia provides the ground for her analyses of
Jos Esteban Muoz) of Pop Out: Queer female same-sex sexuality among these
Warhol (1996). Polynesians, as well as for her dissertation.
Her article Erotic Anthropology: Ritualized
Kimberly Dugan is a Ph.D. candidate in sociol- Homosexuality in Melanesia and Beyond
ogy at Ohio State University, Columbus, com- appeared in American Ethnologist (1995).
pleting her dissertation on the dynamics between
the Religious Right and the gay, lesbian, and Oliva M.Espn is a professor of womens stud-
bisexual movement. Her research interests in- ies at San Diego State University. She is a past
clude social movements, sexuality politics, gen- president of the Society for the Psychological
der, and race. Studies of Lesbian and Gay Issues, a division of
the American Psychological Association. She is
Linda Dunne, director of the Bachelor of Arts the author ofLatina Realities: Essays on Heal-
Program at the New School for Social Re- ing, Migration, and Sexuality (1997) and
search, New York City, earned her Ph.D. in Women Crossing Boundaries: A Psychology of
literature and a certificate in womens studies Immigration and Transformations of Sexuality
from the City University of New York Gradu- (1999).
XXIV CONTRIBUTORS
Kristin G.Esterberg is an assistant professor of Women Regionalists, 18501910 (1992). She is
sociology at the University of Massachusetts, working on a critical study of the writers in-
Lowell. She is the author of Lesbian and Bisexual cluded in that anthology.
Identities: Constructing Communities, Con-
structing Selves (1997). Heather Findlay received her B.A. in womens
studies from Brown University, Providence,
Paula L.Ettelbrick is the legislative counsel for Rhode Island, in 1986 and her Ph.D. in English
the Empire State Pride Agenda and cochairs a from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, in
national network of lesbian and gay statewide 1992. She edited A Movement of Eros: Twenty
political groups. As an adjunct professor of Years of Lesbian Erotica (1996), and her most
law, she teaches sexuality and the law at the recent academic publication is Queer Dora,
University of Michigan Law School, Ann Ar- in GLQ (Winter 1994). She is the editor in chief
bor, and New York University Law School, of Girlfriends magazine.
New York City. She lives with her partner and
son in Manhattan. Mary Margaret Fonow is an assistant professor
of womens studies at Ohio State University,
Leyla Ezdinli has taught French at Smith Col- Columbus. Her research and teaching interests
lege, Northampton, Massachusetts. She works are feminist methodology, theorizing diversity,
on French and Francophone women writers and political economy. She is coauthor (with
and is completing a manuscript, Prefatory Judith A.Cook) of Beyond Methodology: Femi-
Transgressions: The Cultural Politics of Ro- nist Scholarship as Lived Research (1991) and
mantic Authorship. the editor of Reading Womens Lives: An Intro-
duction to Womens Studies (1996).
Lillian Faderman is the author of several pub-
lications in lesbian studies, including Odd Girls Jacqueline Francis is a Ph.D. candidate in art
and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life history at Emory University, Atlanta, and the
in Twentieth-Century America (1991) and Sur- 19971999 Andrew Wyeth Fellow in American
passing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship Art at the Center for Advanced Study in the
and Love between Women from the Renaissance Visual Arts, Washington, D.C.
to the Present (1981). She is a professor of Eng-
lish at California State University, Fresno. Liz Frank is an educator by profession and a
writer and photographer by passion. Her motto
Marilyn R.Farwell is a professor of English at is to undermine patriarchy through laughter. She
the University of Oregon, Eugene. Her areas of has lived and traveled in many countries, but
specialization are women writers, feminist and her lesbian feminist heart and mind, body and
lesbian theory, and narrative theory. She has soul are now firmly settled in Namibia, where
written articles on Virginia Woolf, Adrienne she lives a fulfilled, if sometimes too full, life
Rich, and John Milton and a book, Heterosexual with her partner and her son.
Plots and Lesbian Narratives (1996). Her most
recent work is on opera and lesbian writers. Miriam Frank is Master Teacher of Humanities
in New York Universitys General Studies Pro-
Marisa Fernandes of So Paulo, Brazil, a histo- gram. She has worked in Detroit, the Bay Area,
rian, activist, and lesbian feminist since 1978, is and New York City as a labor educator. Since
coordinator of the Collective of Lesbian Femi- 1995, she has been developing Out in the Un-
nists in So Paulo. ion, an oral history of lesbian and gay union
activists.
Judith Fetterley, a professor of English and wom-
ens studies at the University at Albany, State Trisha Franzen is the director of the Anna
University of New York, is the author of The Howard Shaw Center for Womens Studies and
Resisting Reader and Provisions: A Reader from Programs at Albion College, Albion, Michigan.
19th-century American Women (1978) and co- She is the author of Spinsters and Lesbians: In-
editor (with Marjorie Pryse) of American dependent Womanhood in the United States
CONTRIBUTORS XXV
(1996) and is working on a biography of Anna 1982 and conducting a national longitudinal
Howard Shaw. Along with other community lesbian family study since 1986. She is the edi-
involvements, she serves on the Albion Board tor of Bringing Ethics Alive: Feminist Ethics for
of Education. Psychotherapy Practice (1994).

Susan K.Freeman is completing her Ph.D in his- Alicia Gaspar de Alba, a first-generation
tory at Ohio State University, Columbus. She Chicana, is an assistant professor of Chicana/o
has done research on the lesbian community in studies at the University of California, Los An-
Cincinnati, Ohio, and is studying how girls have geles, and holds a Ph.D. in American studies.
been taught about their bodies and sexuality Her most recent publication is Chicano Art In-
through sex education in U.S. public schools dur- side/Outside the Masters House: Cultural Poli-
ing the twentieth century. tics and the CARA Exhibition (1998), and she
has completed a historical novel on Sor Juana
Constance M.Fulmer is a professor of English Ins de la Cruz entitled Sor Juanas Second
at Pepperdine University, Malibu, California. Dream (1999).
She enjoys living, walking, reading, and camp-
ing on the beach. She was born in Alabama and Barbara W.Gerber is a Distinguished Service Pro-
has taught in Tennessee and Kentucky and re- fessor Emerita at the State University of New
ceived her Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University, Nash- York, Oswego, and the 19971998 president of
ville, Tennessee, where her lifelong interest in the National Womens Studies Association. She
George Eliot began. is a counselor, educator, and sometime adminis-
trator who loves to canoe, camp in the wilder-
Greta Gaard is the author of Ecological Poli- ness, and be exploring.
tics: Ecofeminists and the Greens (1998), the
editor of Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Na- Zsa Zsa Gershick works as a writer and an edi-
ture (1993) and coeditor (with Patrick tor for the University of Southern California,
D.Murphy) of Ecofeminist Literary Criticism Los Angeles, and teaches writing at Pasadena
(1998). She is a professor of humanities at City College. She is a former journalist and the
Fairhaven College/ Western Washington Univer- author of Gay Old Girls: Lesbians over 60 Dis-
sity, Bellingham. cuss Their Lives (1998).

Carolyn Gage is a lesbian feminist playwright, Masha Gessen, Moscow journalist and activist,
author, and activist. She toured nationally in her is the author of Dead Again: The Russian Intel-
one-woman show, The Second Coming of Joan ligentsia After Communism (1997) and The
of Arc, and has written the first manual on les- Rights of Lesbians and Gay Men in the Russian
bian theater, Take Stage! How to Direct and Federation (1994) and the editor and translator
Produce a Lesbian Play (1997). of Half a Revolution: Short Fiction by Contem-
porary Russian Women (1995) and other books.
Linda Garber is the author of Identity Poetics:
Lesbian Feminism, Diversity, and the Rise of Margaret Gibson is an independent scholar in the
Queer Theory (forthcoming) and Lesbian history of medicine and sexuality. She graduated
Sources: A Bibliography of Periodical Articles, from Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachu-
19701990 (1993) and the editor of Tilting the setts, with a B.A. in the history of science and has
Tower: Lesbians/Teaching/Queer Subjects (1994). published several works on the medical construc-
She is an assistant professor of womens studies tion of lesbian bodies. She is researching a book
at California State University, Fresno. on American medical writing about lesbianism.

Nanette K.Gartrell, M.D., the first out lesbian Amy Gilley specializes in theater, dramatic lit-
on the Harvard Medical School faculty, is asso- erature, and popular culture.
ciate clinical professor of psychiatry at the Uni-
versity of California, San Francisco. She has been Margaret Rose Gladney, a native of Homer,
documenting sexual abuse by physicians since Louisiana, is an associate professor of Ameri-
XXVI CONTRIBUTORS
can studies at the University of Alabama, Amy T.Goodloe created and maintains the
Tuscaloosa, where she teaches courses on www.lesbian.org Web site and manages five les-
women in the South and the civil rights move- bian discussion lists. She has written and spo-
ment. She and her partner, Marcia Winter, ken about lesbian visibility on the Internet in a
cofounded the Tuscaloosa Lesbian Coalition. number of venues over the past several years.

Elena Glasberg is an assistant professor of lib- Debbie Gould was a member of ACT UP/ Chi-
eral studies at California State University, Los cago and has been involved in a number of ac-
Angeles. She has essays in Political and Legal tivist groups. She is a Ph.D. student in political
Anthropological Review (1998) and the collec- science at the University of Chicago and is writ-
tion The Postcolonial U.S. (1999). She is writ- ing her dissertation on the emergence and de-
ing a manuscript on the study of Antarctica and cline of ACT UP, focusing on the relationship
the geopolitical imagination. between shifting understandings of the AIDS
epidemic and political mobilization.
Judith Glassgold, Psy.D., is a psychologist in
New Jersey specializing in the psychology of Jaime M.Grant is a writer-activist who has been
women; lesbian, gay, and bisexual issues; and involved in feminist, antiracist, and queer lib-
abuse survivors. She is a contributing faculty eration work since the 1980s. She directs the
member at the Graduate School of Applied and Union Institute Center for Women, an academic
Professional Psychology at Rutgers University. womens center in Washington, D.C., dedicated
Glassgold is coeditor (with Suzanne Iasenza) of to coalition work. She is a recovering addict who
Lesbians and Psychoanalysis: Revolutions in frequently writes about feminism, racism, and
Theory and Practice (1995). sex.

Barbara Godard, teaches English and womens Mary Jean Green is Edward Tuck Professor of
studies at York University, North York, Ontario. French at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New
She has translated fiction by Qubec feminists, Hampshire, where she has directed the Wom-
including Nicole Brossard. Her books include ens Studies Program. She has written extensively
Talking About Ourselves: The Cultural Produc- on women writers of the francophone world and
tions of Canadian Native Women (1985) and edited Postcolonial Subjects (1996) and critures
Audrey Thomas: Her Life and Work (1989). In de femmes (1996). She is the author of Marie-
addition to editing several collections, she is a Claire Blais (1995) and is completing a study of
founding coeditor of Tessera, a feminist literary womens writing in Qubec.
theory periodical.
Beverly Greene is a professor of psychology at
Susan Gonda completed her Ph.D. in U.S. his- St. Johns University, Jamaica, New York, and
tory, womens history, and the history of law a clinical psychologist in private practice. A fel-
and sexuality at the University of California, Los low of the American Psychological Association,
Angeles. She teaches at San Diego State Univer- she is the recipient of numerous national awards
sity and Grossmont College, El Cajon, Califor- for publications and pioneering contributions
nia. Her dissertation is entitled Strumpets and to the psychological literature and for distin-
Angels: Rape, Seduction, and the Criminal guished professional contributions to teaching,
Boundaries of Sexuality in the Nineteenth-Cen- training, and clinical practice.
tury Northeastern U.S.
Pat Griffin teaches in the Social Justice Edu-
Mara C.Gonzlez is an associate professor of cation Program at the University of Massa-
English at the University of Houston in Texas, chusetts, Amherst. Her research and writing
where she teaches Mexican American literature interests focus on education and athletics, with
and feminism. She is the author of Contempo- a particular interest in womens sports. She is
rary Mexican American Women Novelists: To- coeditor (with Maurianne Adams and Lee
ward a Feminist Identity (1997) and is working Anne Bell) of Teaching for Diversity and So-
on Chicana queer theory. cial Justice: A Sourcebook for Teachers and
CONTRIBUTORS XXVII
Trainers (1997) and the author of Strong stitute, an arts-community networking initiative,
Women, Deep Closets: Lesbian and Homo- and manages an e-mail list for Korean Ameri-
phobia in Sports, Human Kinetics (1998). can dykes.

Hanna Hacker lives mostly in Austria. She is a Lisa Handler is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology
sociologist and a historian, a university lecturer, and womens studies at the State University of
and a cofounder of the Feminist Archives in Vi- New York, Stony Brook. She is finishing her dis-
enna. She has published several studies on the sertation, which explores young womens friend-
construction of female homosexualities in fin de ships as a site of resistance to, and reproduction
sicle Europe; on gender, violence, and trans- of, gender and sexuality.
gression; and on Austrias womens movements.
Gillian Hanscombe has written Figments of a
Judith Halberstam is an associate professor of Murder (1995), which is set in the lesbian femi-
literature at the University of California, San Di- nist community of London in the 1970s and
ego. She is the author of Skin Shows: Gothic 1980s and was recently translated into German.
Horror and the Technology of Monsters (1995), She is director of the Centre for Womens Stud-
Female Masculinity (1998), and (with Monika ies at the University of Exeter, England.
Treut) The Drag King Book (1999).
Nancy A.Hardesty is an associate professor of
Marny Hall is the author of The Lavender Couch: religion at Clemson University, Clemson, South
A Consumers Guide to Psychotherapy for Les- Carolina. She is the author of Inclusive Lan-
bians and Gay Men (1985) and The Lesbian Love guage in the Church (1987) and Women Called
Companion: How to Survive Everything from to Witness: Evangelical Feminism in the Nine-
Heartthrob to Heartbreak (1998). Since the teenth Century (1984) and coauthor (with Letha
1970s, she has worked as a lesbian couples Dawson Scanzoni) of All Were Meant to Be:
counselor in the San Francisco Bay Area. Biblical Feminism forToday (1974, 1994). She
is active in the Metropolitan Community Church
Ruth Hall, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist and of Greenville, South Carolina.
an associate professor in the Department of Psy-
chology at The College of New Jersey, Ewing. Sabine Hark is a sociologist by training and de-
She maintains a private practice and consults gree and a lesbian theorist by passion. She
for various organizations. Her research interests teaches at University of Potsdam, Germany. She
include women of color and athletes. She is the is widely published on issues of lesbian identity
author of Friendships between African Ameri- politics and on the history of German lesbian
can and White Lesbians (1996), which exam- feminism. She is working on a book tentatively
ines cross-racial experiences within the lesbian entitled Contested Territories of Knowledge:
community. Feminism Meets Queer Theory.

Harmony Hammond, a pioneer of the feminist Laura Alexandra Harris is an assistant profes-
art movement, cofounded A.I.R., the first wom- sor of English and black studies at Pitzer Col-
ens cooperative gallery, and Heresies magazine. lege, Claremont, California. She is the editor
Her work has been exhibited internationally and of the collection Femme: Feminists, Lesbians,
is represented in many museum collections. A and Bad Girls (1997) and is conducting re-
professor at the University of Arizona, Tucson, search on literature and writers of the Harlem
Hammond is the author of Lesbian Art in Renaissance.
America: A Contemporary History (1999). She
lives and works in Galisteo, New Mexico. Nett Hart is a former academic with a wild at-
tention span who found her calling as a farmer
Ju Hui Judy Han has done research in queer who writes, publishes, designs and builds eco-
Korean American issues, labor, feminism, and logically, grows sustainably, and researches and
activism. She serves on various boards for the prepares medicinal plants. She founded the
Los Angeles Culture Net/Getty Information In- nonprofit Lesbian Natural Resources to promote
XXVIII CONTRIBUTORS
and sustain landyke culture and Word Weavers anthologies and is on the editorial board of the
Lesbian Publishing. Lesbian Review of Books.

Susan Hawthorne is a writer, publisher, academic, Melissa S.Herbert is an assistant professor of

and aerialist Her recent work focuses on issues sociology at Hamline University, Saint Paul,
as diverse as lesbian culture, hypertext, poetry, Minnesota, where she teaches gender, sexuality,
and economics. She is the author of a novel, The and social psychology. She is the author of Cam-
Falling Woman (1992), and the coeditor (with ouflage Isnt Only for Combat: The Manage-
Cathie Dunsford and Susan Sayer) of Car Main- ment of Gender and Sexuality Among Women
tenance, Explosives and Love (1997), and other in the Military (1998).
contemporary lesbian writings.
Carter Heyward, a lesbian feminist theologian
Shevy Healey, Ph.D., is a retired psychologist and Episcopal priest, is a professor of theol-
with a clinical practice specializing in women, ogy at the Episcopal Divinity School, Cam-
lesbians, and people with disabilities. She is a bridge, Massachusetts. An author of numer-
founding member of both the First West Coast ous books on theology, ethics, and social
Conference by and for old lesbians and Old Les- change, Heyward is also a poet and a found-
bians Organizing for Change (OLOC). She ing member of a writers and activists com-
writes, speaks, and does workshops on ageism, munity in the mountains of North Carolina.
aging, homophobia, and sexism.
Kathleen Hickok is an associate professor of
Eloise Klein Healy is the author of four books English and womens studies at Iowa State Uni-
of poetry and associate editor of the Lesbian versity, Ames. Her book Representations of
Review of Books. Her collection Artemis in Women: Nineteenth-Century British Womens
Echo Park (1991) is also available on CD and Poetry (1984) helped revive interest in many
audiotape. She directs the low-residency Victorian women poets. Hickok teaches Victo-
M.F.A. in Creative Writing Program at rian literature, womens literature, and woman-
Antioch University, Los Angeles. identified literature. She and her partner have
two children.
Michelle Heffner Hayes is the artistic director of
the Colorado Dance Festival in Boulder, Colo- Liz Highleyman is editor of Cuir Underground
rado. She received her Ph.D. in dance history and newspaper and associate editor of Bisexual
theory University of California, Riverside. She Politics: Theories, Queries and Visions (1995).
lectures and writes about feminist issues in fla- Her work has appeared in the anthologies Bi
menco history and contemporary dance perform- Any Other Name (1990), The Second Com-
ance. She danced with choreographers Susan ing (1996), and Whores and Other Feminists
Rose and Stephanie Gilliand, among others. (1997). She has been active in the bisexual
movement since the 1980s.
Dana Heller is an associate professor of English
at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia. Claudia Hinojosa is one of the first voices of the
She is the author of The Femination of Quest- lesbian feminist movement in Mexico. Her early
Romance: Radical Departures (1990) and Fam- activism led her to many years of journalisn and
ily Plots: The De-Oedipalization of Popular independent scholarship. Mother of one son, she
Culture (1995) and the editor of Cross Purposes: is involved in a project of cultural translation, on
Lesbians, Feminists, and the Limits of Alliance the topic of womens human rights, for the Center
(1997). for Womens Global Leadership at Rutgers Uni-
versity, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Lois Rita Helmbold, an intellectual, political
activist, teacher, martial artist, writer, lover, his- Lisa Maria Hogeland is an associate professor
torian, and quilter, coordinates the Womens of English at the University of Cincinnati, where
Studies Program at San Jose State University. she also teaches in the Womens Studies M.A.
She has published in numerous journals and Program. She is the author of Feminism and Its
CONTRIBUTORS XXIX
Fictions: The Consciousness-Raising Novel and courses. She has written in the areas of femi-
the Womens Liberation Movement (1995). nism and the death penalty, race and innocence,
and lesbian legal history.
Sharon P.Holland is a native of Washington,
D.C., and an assistant professor of English at Lynne Huffer is an associate professor of French
Stanford University, Stanford, California. She at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
recently finished a book manuscript entitled She is the author of Another Colette: The Ques-
Raising the Dead: Death and (Black) Subjectiv- tion of Gendered Writing (1992) and Mater-
ity in Twentieth Century American Literature nal Pasts, Feminist Futures: Nostalgia, Ethics,
and Culture and is working on a novel entitled and the Question of Difference (1998). She is
How Bubba the Socrates Got to Be Neither. also the editor of a special issue of Yale French
Studies entitled Another Look, Another
Alice Y.Hom, a Ph.D. candidate in history at Woman: Retranslations of French Feminism
Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, Cali- (1995).
fornia, is completing her dissertation on a com-
parative history of activism and organizing by Mary E.Hunt, Ph.D., is a feminist theologian
lesbians of color in Los Angeles and New York who teaches in the womens studies program at
from 1969 to the present. She coedited (with Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. She
David L. Eng) Q & A: Queer in Asian America is codirector of the Womens Alliance for The-
(1998). ology, Ethics, and Ritual in Silver Spring, Mary-
land, and the author of Fierce Tenderness: A
rene c.hoogland is an assistant professor of Feminist Theology of Friendship (1991).
lesbian studies at the University of Nijmegen,
the Netherlands. She is the author of Elizabeth Karla Hynkov is a graduate of the Faculty of
Bowen: A Reputation in Writing (1994) and Philosophy, Charles University, Prague, Czech
Lesbian Configurations (1997). She has pub- Republic. After the November 1989 revolution,
lished extensively on feminist theory, she became a cofounder and activist in the les-
postmodernism, psychoanalysis, sexuality, and bian club Lambda and a member of the Czech
representation and is researching fantasy and homosexual organization, SOHO, and of the
embodiment. International Lesbian and Gay Association
(ILGA). She works as a freelance translator of
Elizabeth Rosa Horan has published on Gabriela computer-related materials.
Mistral, Emily Dickinson, Marjorie Agosin, Car-
men Lyra, and other women writers of the Prue Hyman is the only English-born Jewish
Americas. She is an associate professor of Eng- lesbian feminist academic economist in
lish and womens studies at Arizona State Uni- Aotearoa/ New Zealand (and could drop sev-
versity, Tempe, where she directs the Compara- eral components and still be the only one!).
tive Studies in Literature program. She is the author of Women and Economics:
A New Zealand Feminist Perspective (1994)
Judith A.Howard is a professor of sociology at and the coeditor (with Lee Badgett) of a les-
the University of Washington, Seattle. She is also bian and gay economics symposium for the
coeditor of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture journal Feminist Economicsas well as en-
and Society and of the Gender Lens book series joying her beach, animals, and friends.
for Sage Publications. She teaches and studies
how cognitionsstereotypes, attitudes, attribu- Sherrie A.Inness is the author of Intimate Com-
tionsshape and are constrained by social in- munities: Representation and Social Transfor-
teractions and institutions. mation in Womens College Fiction, 18951910
(1995); The Lesbian Menace: Ideology, Iden-
Joan W.Howarth is a law professor at Golden tity, and the Representation of Lesbian Life
Gate University, San Francisco, where she (1997); and Tough Girls: Women, Popular Cul-
teaches constitutional law, women and the law, ture, and the Gendering of Toughness (1998),
and sexual orientation and the law, among other as well as the editor of several collections.
XXX CONTRIBUTORS
Janice M.Irvine is on the sociology faculty at the Christine Jenkins is a member of the faculty
University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She has of the Graduate School of Library and Infor-
written in various areas of sexuality studies. mation Science, University of Illinois, Urbana-
Champaign, where she teaches courses in
Eva Isaksson is a Finnish writer and works as youth services, young adult (YA) literature,
an astronomy librarian at the University of Hel- and gender issues. Her research on gay and
sinki Observatory. Her writings include a his- lesbian content in YA fiction has appeared in
torical study (in Finnish) of womens work in several library publications. She also was a
the exact sciences. She has also done research school library media specialist with the Ann
in the history of physics. As a lesbian activist, Arbor, Michigan, public schools.
she has been involved with the International
Lesbian Information Service (ILIS) and lately Valerie Jenness is an assistant professor in the
with networking through the Internet. Department of Criminology, Law, and Society
and the Department of Sociology at the Univer-
Peter Jackson, Ph.D., is Research Fellow in sity of California, Irvine. She has published
Thai History at the Australian National Uni- books and articles on the politics of prostitu-
versity, Canberra, where he is writing a book tion, AIDS and civil liberties, hate crimes and
on gay and lesbian history in Bangkok. His hate-crime law, and the gay and lesbian and
book Dear Uncle Go: Male Homosexuality womens movements in the United States.
in Thailand (1995) was the first major study
of male homoeroticism in the Southeast Asian Karleen Pendleton Jimnez is a Chicana lesbian
kingdom, and his novel The Intrinsic Quality writer from Rosemead, California. She was a
of Skin (1994) deals with interracial gay rela- lecturer in Chicana/o studies at San Diego State
tionships. University and the director of Queer Players, a
creative writing and performance group for
Huda Jadallah is a Palestinian lesbian, born and queer youth in the San Diego community. She
raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a currently resides in Toronto, Canada.
graduate student in sociology at the University
of California, Santa Barbara. Her current re- Mary M.Johnson is an M.A. candidate in lib-
search is tentatively titled Hidden Families: eral arts emphasizing womens studies at San
Arab Lesbians in the U.S. Speak. She is editing Diego State University, from which she received
an anthology of writings by and about Arab les- her B.A. in liberal studies. Her primary areas of
bian and bisexual women. research and interest are women in sports and
women and HIV/AIDS.
Janet R.Jakobsen is an assistant professor of
womens studies and religious studies and Sonya Jones is professor of English at Allegheny
cocoordinator of the Committee for Lesbian, College, Meadville, Pennsylvania. She is the au-
Gay, and Bisexual Studies at the University of thor of History and Memory: Gay and Lesbian
Arizona, Tucson. She is the author of Working Literature Since World War II (1998) and is
Alliances and the Politics of Difference: Diver- editing A Sea of Stories: The Shaping Power of
sity and Feminist Ethics (1997) and has worked Narrative in Gay and Lesbian Cultures. A long-
as a policy analyst, lobbyist, and organizer in time activist, she was instrumental in shaping
Washington, D.C. Alleghenys lesbigay minor.

Karla Jay has written, edited, and translated nine Miranda Joseph is an assistant professor of
books, the most recent of which are Dyke Life womens studies and comparative cultural and
(1995) and Lesbian Erotics (1995). She is the literary studies at the University of Arizona,
editor of New York University Presss series The Tucson. Her article The Perfect Moment: Gays,
Cutting Edge: Lesbian Life and Literature and Christians, and the National Endowment for the
has written for many publications, including Ms Arts appears in Socialist Review (1998), and
magazine, the New York Times Book Review, The Performance of Production and Consump-
and the village voice. tion is in Social Text (1998).
CONTRIBUTORS XXXI
Tuula Juvonen is a Ph.D. candidate in social theory, feminist theory, canonical American writ-
policy at the University of Tampere, Finland. Her ers, Latina/Chicana writers, multiculturalism,
thesis, Shadow Lives and Public Secrets, will and pedagogy.
study how the silence around female and male
homosexuality was broken in a Finnish town Anne B.Keating teaches at New York Univer-
during the 1950s and 1960s. sity. She holds a Ph.D. in American studies from
the University of Maryland, College Park.
Ruti Kadish is an Israeli American Ph.D. stu-
dent in the Department of Near Eastern Studies Rosemary Keefe (formerly Curb) has a Ph.D. in
at the University of California, Berkeley. She is English from the University of Arkansas,
writing her dissertation on Israeli queer identity Fayetteville. She is professor of English and has
and community. articles, reviews, and essays in books and jour-
nals. She edited Amazon All Stars: Thirteen Les-
Mary C.Kalfatovic is a writer in the Washing- bian Plays (1996), a finalist for Lambda Liter-
ton, D.C., area specializing in the performing ary Award, and coedited (with Nancy Manahan)
arts. She is the author of numerous articles and Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence (1985), which
reviews and of the book Montgomery Clift: A was translated into seven languages.
Bio-Bibliography (1994).
Kendall earned her Ph.D. in drama from the Uni-
Elizabeth Kaminski is a Ph.D. student in the versity of Texas, Austin, in 1986 with a disserta-
Department of Sociology at Ohio State Uni- tion on the Queen Anne period and subsequently
versity, Columbus. Her research interests in- taught at Smith College, Northampton, Massachu-
clude lesbian health (the subject of her M.A. setts. She was a Fulbright Scholar at the National
thesis), social movements, and the construc- University of Lesotho and in 1995 moved to South
tion of lesbian identities. Africa, where she heads the Drama Department at
the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg.
Venetia Kantsa is a Ph.D. candidate in social
anthropology at the London School of Econom- Jean E.Kennard is a professor of English and
ics, University of London. Her research focuses womens studies at the University of New Hamp-
on the articulation of female homosexual dis- shire, Durham. She is the author of Number and
courses in contemporary Greece. She has pub- Nightmare (1975), Victims of Convention
lished articles on the construction of a lesbian (1978), and Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby
community in Eressos Lesvos and the expres- (1989). She is working on a book on Virginia
sion of politicized lesbian discourse in early Woolf, sexuality, and narrative.
1980s.
Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy was a founder
J.Kehaulani Kauanui is a Ph.D. candidate in the of womens studies at the State University of
history of consciousness at the University of Cali- New York, Buffalo, and is a professor of
fornia, Santa Cruz. Her dissertation examines the womens studies at the University of Arizona,
connection between U.S. federal blood quanta Tucson. She is the coauthor (with Ellen Carol
policies and biometric studies on Hawaiian hy- D u b o i s , G a i l P a r a d i s e K e l l y, C a r o l y n
brids in defining Hawaiian indigeneity and the W.Korsmeyer, and Lillian S.Robinson) of
legal practices of land dispossession, race classi- Feminist Scholarship: Kindling in the Groves
fication, and property status. of Academe (1985) and (with Madeline
Davis) of Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold:
AnaLouise Keating is an associate professor of The History of a Lesbian Community (1993),
English at Eastern New Mexico University, as well as the author of numerous articles.
Portales, where she teaches U.S./American lit-
erature and womens studies. She is author of Didi Khayatt is the author of Lesbian Teachers:
Women Reading Women Writing: Self-Invention An Invisible Presence (1992), in addition to a
in Paula Gunn Allen, Gloria Anzalda, number of articles dealing with sexuality. She
andAudre Lorde (1996) and essays on queer has been engaged for several years in research
XXXII CONTRIBUTORS
in Egypt. She lives in Toronto and teaches at the mother, a social activist, and a former profes-
Faculty of Education at York University, North sor of womens studies.
York, Ontario.
Dorelies Kraakman is a lecturer in gay and les-
Celia Kitzinger is director of womens studies bian studies with the Department of Sociology
and reader in lesbian and feminist psychology at the University of Amsterdam in the Nether-
in the Department of Social Sciences, Lough- lands. She has degrees in international law and
borough University, Great Britain. She has pub- in ancient history. Since 1987, she has special-
lished eight books and nearly one hundred ized in historical and theoretical problems of
chapters and articles on lesbian and feminist sexuality. Her dissertation is on various aspects
issues, including The Social Construction of of sexual difference in eighteenth- and nine-
Lesbianism (1987), Changing Our Minds teenth-century French erotic literature.
(1993), and Heterosexuality (1993).
Karen Christel Krahulik is a Ph.D. candidate in
Alisa Klinger is an assistant professor of Eng- American history at New York University. Her
lish at York University, North York, Ontario. dissertation, Queering the Cape: Gender and
She specializes in cultural and gender studies and the Politics of Race, Sex, and Class in
has published pieces on lesbian-movement poli- Provincetown, Massachusetts, 18981998, will
tics, multiethnic lesbian print culture, lesbian eth- be finished in 1999. She lives in Boston and Prov-
nography, and queer campus organizing. She is ince-town.
completing a book on North American lesbian
print activism and cultural formation. Victoria Krane is an associate professor at the
School of Human Movement, Sport, and Lei-
Marcy Jane Knopf is a Ph.D. candidate at Mi- sure Studies at Bowling Green State University,
ami University, Oxford, Ohio. She is the editor Bowling Green, Ohio. Her area of specializa-
of The Sleeper Wakes: Harlem Renaissance Sto- tion is sport psychology, and her primary re-
ries by Women (1993) and Jessie Fausets The search focus is lesbians in sport, particularly the
Chinaberry Tree (1995). impact of homophobia and coping with homo-
phobia.
Judith C.Kohl, professor emeritus of English
and humanities at Dutchess Community Col- Linda A.Krikos is the head of the Womens Stud-
lege, Poughkeepsie, New York, and visiting ies Library and an assistant professor of library
p ro f e s s o r a t Vassar Col l e ge , al so i n science at Ohio State University, Columbus. Her
Poughkeepsie, has taught contemporary work has been published in Reference Services
drama, recent American literature, interna- Review, Serials Review, and Research Strategies.
tional literature, and autobiographies of She is coediting (with Cindy Ingold) an update
marginalized Americans. Her current work of the book Womens Studies: A Recommended
includes a study of Ezra Pound and Venice. Core Bibliography, 19801985 (1987).

Ilse Kokula has worked for the lesbian and gay Juliana M.Kubala received her Ph.D. from the
and womens liberation movements for more Institute of the Liberal Arts at Emory Univer-
than twenty years. She has published books and sity, Atlanta.
articles on history and the current situation of
lesbians. She received her Ph.D. at the Univer- Marie J.Kuda is an independent scholar, free-
sity of Bremen in Germany and in 19851986 lance writer and reviewer, lecturer, and archi-
was a professor at the University of Utrecht in vist.
the Netherlands, teaching socialization and so-
cial history of lesbians. Colleen Lamos is an associate professor of Eng-
lish at Rice University, Houston, Texas. Her
Gina Kozik-Rosabal is the assistant director of book, Modernism Astray: Sexual Errancy in T.S.
the Womens Resource Center, University of Eliot, James Joyce, and Marcel Proust, was pub-
Colorado, Boulder. She is a Latina lesbian lished in 1998. Her articles have appeared in
CONTRIBUTORS XXXIII
Novel, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and munity for women on the World Wide Web.
Society, Contemporary Literature, the James WWWomen has been featured in publications
Joyce Quarterly, the NWSA Journal, the Les- such as U.S. News and World Report, the San
bian and Gay Studies Newsletter, and in The Francisco Chronicle, and Glamour magazine as
Lesbian Postmodern (1994), Lesbian Erotics one of the top destinations for women on the
(1995), and Quare Joyce (1998). Web.

Cassandra Langer has a Ph.D. in art history Ellen Lewin is an associate professor of wom-
and criticism from New York University and ens studies and anthropology at the University
more than twenty years experience as a uni- of Iowa, Iowa City. She is the author of Recog-
versity professor. Her most recent book is A nizing Ourselves: Ceremonies of Lesbian and
Feminist Critique (1996); she also founded Gay Commitment (1998) and Lesbian Moth-
(with her partner, Irene Javors) Private Eye: ers: Accounts of Gender in American Culture
Noir Arts Ltd., New York Citys only gallery (1993), the editor of Inventing Lesbian Cultures
dedicated to a noir aesthetic. in America (1996), and coeditor (with William
L.Leap) of Out in the Field: Reflections of Les-
Ruth Largay, managing editor of Signs: Jour- bian and Gay Anthropologists (1996).
nal of Women in Culture and Society, is a Ph.D.
candidate in mass communication at the Uni- Reina Lewis is senior lecturer in the Department
versity of Georgia, Athens. Prior to returning of Cultural Studies at the University of East Lon-
to academia, she worked as a writer and an don, England. She is the author of Gendering
editor in news media and public relations for Orientalism: Race, Femininity and Representa-
more than fifteen years. tion (1996) and coeditor (with Peter Horne) of
Outlooks: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities and
Alison J.Laurie, senior lecturer in womens stud- Visual Culture (1996). She is working on Ori-
ies at Victoria University of Wellington, ental women writers and on queer aesthetics.
Aotearoa/New Zealand, has been involved in
lesbian, gay, and feminist politics as an activist, Yolanda Chavez Leyva is a Chicana historian in
writer, and broadcaster since the 1960s. She the Division of Behavioral and Cultural Sciences
started the first A/NZ lesbian studies courses and at the University of Texas, San Antonio. Her
was a founder of the first lesbian magazine and research interests include the creation of ethnic
radio program and lesbian studies conferences. identities and the ways in which ethnicity and
sexuality intersect.
NTanya R.Lee received her B.A. from Brown
University, Providence, Rhode Island, magna Karin Lindeqvist has been part of the feminist
cum laude. As a Ph.D. student in American and lesbian movement in Sweden since the early
studies at Yale University, New Haven, Con- 1980s. She has a degree in law, and she lives
necticut, she has focused her research prima- and works in Stockholm with her longtime lover
rily on the politics of black sexuality. Her pub- and favorite author, Anna-Karin Granberg, and
lications include Transforming the Nation: their stunningly beautiful Neapolitan mastiff.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered US
Histories, 19451995 (1998). Anna Livia is the author of four novels and two
collections of short stories and coeditor (with
Gary Lehring is an assistant professor of politi- Kira Hall) of Queerly Phrased: Language, Gen-
cal theory in the Department of Government at der, and Sexuality (1997). Her most recent novel
Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts. is Bruised Fruit (1999). Born in Dublin, Ireland,
His book Officially Gay: Politics and the Pub- she moved to the United States in 1990 and
lic Construction of Sexuality is forthcoming in makes her home in Berkeley, California.
the Utopian socialist future.
Christoph Lorey, a professor of German at the
Sue Levin is president of WWWomen Incorpo- University of New Brunswick, Fredericton,
rated, a leading developer of content and com- Canada, is the editor of the International
XXXIV CONTRIBUTORS
Fiction Review and coeditor (with John L.Plews) Jeanne M.Marrazzo is an assistant professor
of Queering the Canon: Defying Sights in Ger- in infectious diseases at the University of
man Literature and Culture (1998). His recent Washington, Seattle. She is the medical direc-
book publications include Lessings Familienbild tor of the Seattle STD/HIV Prevention and
(1992) and Die Ehe im klassischen Werk Training Center and the principal investiga-
Goethes (1995). tor of a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-
funded study of sexually transmitted diseases
Dana Luciano received her Ph.D. from the De- and cervical neoplasia in lesbian and bisexual
partment of English at Cornell University, women.
Ithaca, New York, in 1999. Her teaching and
research interests include American literatures, Yvonne Marshall is an archaeologist and femi-
public health, feminism, and queer theory. She nist. She is engaged in a research project that
has published work on seduction and discipline investigates how the study of nonhuman primate
in early American fiction and is working on a behavior can contribute to the development of
study of illness and authority in the nineteenth less mechanistic and more feminist models of
century. human evolution.

Judy MacLean is a writer and editor in San Fran- Madeleine Marti, D.Phil., Zurich, Switzerland,
cisco, freelancing with progressive nonprofit or- wrote her dissertation about lesbians in German
ganizations. Her fiction has appeared in antholo- literature from 1945 to 1990 (Hinterlegte
gies, including Lesbian Love Stories II (1991), Botschaften). She is coeditor (with Marianne
Queer View Mirror (1995), and Pillow Talk Ulmi) of a literary anthology about lesbians in
(1998). Her humor has appeared in the San Europe, Sappho ksstEuropa (1997), and works
Francisco Chronicle., the Washington Post, The as a teacher for adults.
Best Contemporary Womens Humor (1994),
and other publications. Elena M.Martnez is an associate professor of
Spanish at Baruch College, City University of
Harriet Malinowitz is an associate professor of New York. She is the author of Lesbian Voices
English and director of womens studies at Long from Latin America: Breaking Ground (1996).
Island University, Brooklyn. She is the chief Her articles and book reviews have appeared in
writer of standup comic Sara Cytrons shows A the United States, Latin America, and Spain.
Dyke Grows in Brooklyn and Take My Domes-
tic PartnerPlease!, which have been performed Jacqueline M.Martinez is an assistant profes-
extensively across the country. sor of communication and womens studies at
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana,
Nancy Manahan, Ph.D., coedited (with Rose- where she teaches courses in semiotics, phe-
mary Curb) Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence nomenology, feminist theory, and intercultural
(1985). Her writing has also appeared in communication. Her primary interests concern
Mother Jones, Womens Studies Quarterly, and persons lived experience of race, class, and
Common Lives/Lesbian Lives and in the an- sexuality as they emerge in particular social,
thologies American Notes and Queries, The historical, and cultural contexts.
Lesbian Path (1980), and Lesbian Studies
(1982). She teaches writing and literature at Elizabeth L.Massiah has been involved in social
Minneapolis Community and Technical Col- and political action within the lesbian and gay
lege in Minnesota. community since the 1980s. As a clinical social
worker, she has a private practice as a therapist.
Phyllis F.Mannocchi teaches English, womens She is an active member of the Edmonton, Al-
studies, and lesbian and gay studies at Colby berta, Canada, community at large, participat-
College, Waterville, Maine. She is preparing an ing as a consultant to Corrections Canada, and
edition of the letters of Vernon Lee and hopes is involved in the funding allocation process of
next to write Lees critical biography. the local United Way.

CONTRIBUTORS XXXV
Sidney Matrix is a Ph.D. candidate in compara- Lisa Merrill is a professor of speech communi-
tive studies in discourse and society at the Uni- cation and performance studies at Hofstra Uni-
versity of Minnesota, Minneapolis. versity, Hempstead, New York. Her research
focuses on the construction and performance of
Judith Mayne teaches French and womens stud- notions of gender and sexuality on the nine-
ies at Ohio State University, Columbus. She is teenth-century stage. Her latest book is When
the author of several books on film, including Romeo Was a Woman: Charlotte Cushman and
The Woman at the Keyhole: Feminism and Her Circle of Female Spectators (1998).
Womens Cinema (1990) and Directed by
Dorothy Arzner (1994). Melinda R.Michels is a Ph.D. student in anthro-
pology at American University, Washington,
Jodee M.McCaw is a psychotherapist in Toronto, D.C. She is writing her dissertation on the geog-
Canada. She received her Ph.D. in clinical psy- raphy of lesbian experience in Washington, D.C.,
chology from the University of Windsor; her dis- during the 1970s, especially in relation to grass-
sertation research explored the variety of means roots activism and race. She also coordinates
by which people of all sexual orientations become the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and
queer-positive in a queer-negative society. Ally Resource Center at American University.

Judith McDaniel is a poet and activist who lives Nerina Milletti was born in Florence, Italy,
in Tucson, Arizona. Her recent publications in- where she lives and where she received her
clude an edited book of Barbara Demings po- Ph.D. in systematic botany. Active from the
etry, I Change, I Change (1996); a novel, Yes I mid-1970s in the feminist movement, she
Said Yes I Will (1996); and The Lesbian Cou- started a bibliographic research project (and
ples Guide (1995). She teaches womens studies wrote papers) on lesbian Italian history. She
at the University of Arizona, Tucson, and is ac- now maintains a lesbian Web page.
tive in feminist issues connected to immigration
and welfare. Lepa Mladjenovic, a radical feminist lesbian liv-
ing in Belgrade, Serbia, has been active in femi-
Toni A.H.McNaron is a professor of English and nist groups, Women in Black Against War, and
womens studies at the University of Minnesota. a lesbian rights group, Labris. She works as a
Her publications include Voices in the Night: feminist counselor and a lecturer in womens
Women Speaking About Incest (1982), I Dwell studies. In 1994, she received the Felipa De Souze
in Possibility: A Memoir (1991), Poisoned Ivy: Award from the International Gay and Lesbian
Lesbian and Gay Academics Confronting Human Rights Commission.
Homophobia (1997), and The New Lesbian
Studies: Into the 21st Century (1996), coedited Martha Mockus earned her Ph.D. in compara-
with Bonnie Zimmerman. tive studies in discourse and society at the Uni-
versity of Minnesota, Minneapolis. She is a pro-
Denise McVea is a freelance writer living in fessional pianist and has published essays and
Dallas, Texas. A graduate of Texas Womans book reviews on lesbians in country music, op-
University, Denton, McVea has written for nu- era, and popular music.
merous publications, including the Oregonian,
the Dallas Morning News, Our Texas magazine, Akilah Monifa is a lesbian of African descent
and ONYX magazine. She is conducting re- who is a professor of law at New College of
search in the area of Texas myth. California, San Francisco. She is also a freelance
writer.
Deborah T.Meem is a professor of English and
womens studies at the University of Cincinnati Irene Monroe is a Ford Foundation Fellow and
in Ohio. Her current research interests are the Ph.D. candidate in the Religion, Gender, and
rise of lesbian consciousness during the last half Culture program at Harvard Divinity School,
of the nineteenth century and contemporary les- Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is a graduate of
bian popular culture. Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, and
XXXVI CONTRIBUTORS
Union Theological Seminary, New York City, Brighton, England. She is the author of Heroic
and the author of Louis Farrakhans Ministry Desire: Lesbian Identity and Cultural Space
of Misogyny and Homophobia in The (1997), the editor of Butch/Femme: Inside Les-
Farrakhan Factor (1998). bian Gender (1997), and coeditor (with Andy
Medhurst) of Lesbian and Gay Studies: A Criti-
Lisa Moore, an associate professor of English cal Introduction (1997).
at the University of Texas, Austin, is the author
of Dangerous Intimacies: Toward a Sapphic His- Suniti Namjoshi has written Building Babel, which
tory of the British Novel (1997). has a building site on the Internet. She suggests
that you check it out and contribute to it if you
Dee Mosbacher, M.D., Ph.D., is a psychiatric feel like it. The URL is http://www.peg.apc.org/
consultant, lesbian activist, and filmmaker. Her ~spinifex/babelbuildingsite.html.
award-winning films include Out for a Change:
Homophobia in Womens Sports, All Gods Nancy A.Naples is an associate professor of
Children, and the Academy Award-nominated sociology and womens studies at the Univer-
film Straight from the Heart. Her next film is sity of California, Irvine. She is the author of
on the history of lesbian/womens music. Grassroots Warriors: Activist Mothering,
Community Work, and the War on Poverty
Manuela Mouro is an assistant professor of (1998) and the editor of Community Activ-
English at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, ism and Feminist Politics: Organizing Across
Virginia. She has published essays on Anne Race, Class, and Gender (1998).
Thackeray Ritchie, Portuguese women writers,
the representation of female desire in early-mod- Joan Nestle is an essayist, editor, poet, histo-
ern pornography, and nuns in Gothic fiction. rian, teacher, and cofounder (with Deborah Edel)
She has completed Altered Habits: (Re)Figuring of the Lesbian Herstory Archives in New York
the Nun in Fiction, a book-length study of the City. Her anthologized essays in A Restricted
representation of nuns in European literature. Country (1987) and edited collection of femme-
butch writings in The Persistent Desire (1992)
Marie Marmo Mullaney earned her Ph.D. in are crucial texts in lesbian history.
history from Rutgers University, New Bruns-
wick, New Jersey. She is a professor of history Caryn E.Neumann is a Ph.D. candidate in his-
and chair of the Department of History and tory at The Ohio State University, Columbus. A
Political Science at Caldwell College, Caldwell, former managing editor of the Journal of Wom-
New Jersey, and the author of Revolutionary ens History, she is completing a study of the
Women: Gender and the Socialist Revolution- responses of traditional womens groups to the
ary Role (1983), as well as numerous articles rise of feminism in the United States.
in the area of womens history.
Esther Newton is professor of anthropology at
Marcia Munson has been a sex educator since Purchase College, State University of New York,
1987. Her articles have appeared in the antholo- and a founder of queer studies in the mid-1960s.
gies Dyke Life (1995), Sexualities (1996), and She is author of Mother Camp (1979). Her cur-
Lesbian Friendships (1996), and she is coeditor rent projects are a collection of essays (Too
(with Judith Stelboum) of The Lesbian Queer for College) and a memoir (My Butch
Polyamory Reader: Non-Monogamy, Open Career).
Relationships, and Casual Sex (1999). She has
a B.S. in biology and is certified as a sexological Vivien Ng is an associate professor and chair of
instructor/advisor of AIDS/STD prevention by the Department of Womens Studies at the Uni-
the Institute for Advanced Study of Human versity at Albany, State University of New York.
Sexuality. She was president of the National Womens
Studies Association in 19931994 and served
Sally R.Munt is a senior lecturer in media rep- on the board of the Center for Lesbian and Gay
resentation and analysis at the University of Studies at the City University of New York.
CONTRIBUTORS XXXVII
Kathleen E.Nuccio, M.S.W., Ph.D., is an asso- writing, and she is writing her dissertation on
ciate professor and the coordinator of the Child new women writers in Ireland and Britain.
Welfare Training Project, in the Graduate Pro-
gram in Social Work at the University of Min- Dorothy (Dottie) Painter received her Ph.D. in
nesota, Duluth. Nuccio received her doctorate communication and her J.D. from The Ohio
in social work from Bryn Mawr College, Bryn State University, Columbus. She practices law
Mawr, Pennsylvania, where her dissertation was in Columbus and teaches part-time for the De-
awarded the Susan B.Anthony Prize. partment of Womens Studies at OSU.

Jodi OBrien is an associate professor of soci- Connie (Concetta) Panzarino was born in
ology at Seattle University in Washington Brooklyn, New York. She is a lesbian with spinal
state. Her teaching and research interests in- muscular atrophy type II. She holds an M.A. in
clude communities, inequalities, sexual poli- art therapy from New York University. She wrote
tics, and social psychology. She is the coau- her autobiography, The Me in the Mirror (1994),
thor (with Peter Kollock) of Production of and has also written three childrens books.
Reality (1997), coeditor (with Judith Howard)
of Everyday Inequalities: Critical Inquiries Charlotte J.Patterson, professor of psychology at
(1998), and author of Social Prisms (1999). the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, is a de-
velopmental psychologist who has conducted re-
Robyn Ochs is a teacher, writer, activist, and search with lesbian mothers and their children.
speaker who has taughtat MIT, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, and at Tufts University, Medford, JoAnn Pavletich is an assistant professor of
Massachusettscourses on bisexual identity and English at the University of Houston, Down-
on the emergence of gay, lesbian, and bisexual town. Her areas of research and teaching in-
cultures in the United States and Canada. She is clude late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-cen-
the editor of the Bisexual Resource Guide (3rd tury U.S. culture, with an emphasis on Afri-
ed., 1999) and the International Directory of can American literature.
Bisexual Groups (11th ed., 1994).
Rosa Mara Pegueros is an assistant professor
Karen Lee Osborne is the author of the novels of Latin American history at the University of
Carlyle Simpson (1986) and Hawkwings (1991), Rhode Island, Kingston, with a joint appoint-
the editor of The Country of Herself: Short Fic- ment in womens studies. Her lesbian writings
tion by Chicago Women (1993), and coeditor have appeared in Common Lives/Lesbian Lives
(with William J.Spurlin) of Reclaiming the and in the Lesbian News (Los Angeles).
Heartland: Lesbian and Gay Voices from the
Midwest (1996). Ann Pellegrini is an assistant professor of
English and American literature and language
Nancy Seale Osborne is a librarian emerita and at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massa-
archivist at the State University of New York, chusetts. She is the author of Performance
Oswego. She was coordinator of special collec- Anxieties: Staging Psychoanalysis, Staging
tions and library instruction and served as li- Race (1997) and coeditor (with Daniel
brary liaison to the Department of Art and to Boyarin and Daniel Hzkovitz) of Queer
the womens studies program minor. She is a Theory and the Jewish Question (2000).
mother, grandmother, canoeist, and fiction Once upon a time, she was a classicist.
writer.
Julia Penelope lives in Lubbock, Texas, and is
Tina OToole, received her M.A. in womens self-employed as a freelance lexicographer and
studies at University College, Dublin, Ireland. copy editor.
She is a tutor in the English Department at Uni-
versity College, Cork, where she is a Ph.D. stu- Andrea L.T.Peterson is a freelance writer based
dent and also teaches in the womens studies in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. Her
program. Her research area is Irish womens work has appeared in Gay and Lesbian Litera-
XXXVIII CONTRIBUTORS
ture (1998), Gay and Lesbian Biographies of the coordinators of queer studies at the Uni-
(1997), vol. 2, and dozens of publications in the versity of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
United States and abroad, including Lesbian
Review of Books, Harvard Gay and Lesbian Nicole C.Raeburn is a Ph.D. candidate in soci-
Review, Update, Front Page, the Advocate, and ology at The Ohio State University. Her disser-
Curve. tation is entitled The Rise of Lesbian, Gay,
and Bisexual Rights in the Workplace. Com-
Shane Phelan is director of womens studies and bining institutional and social-movement theo-
an associate professor of political science at the ries, her study of Fortune 1000 companies ex-
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. amines the adoption of gay-inclusive policies,
Among her most recent publications are Play- such as nondiscrimination protection, diversity
ing with Fire: Queer Politics, Queer Theories training that includes sexual orientation, and
(1997) and We Are Everywhere: A Historical domestic-partner benefits.
Sourcebook of Gay and Lesbian Politics
(1997). Jo Reger received her Ph.D. in sociology at Ohio
State University, Columbus. She is affiliated with
Anne Marie Pois is an instructor in the wom- the University of Albany, State University of New
ens studies program and the history department York. She is the coauthor (with Abigail Halcli)
at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She of an article on the gendered experiences of
teaches courses on the history of U.S. womens women politicians in Britain and the United
social activism and focuses on womens peace States and recently completed a study examin-
history in her research. She is working on a bi- ing the continuity of chapters of the National
ography of Emily Greene Balch. Organization for Women.

Nancy Polikoff is a professor of law at Ameri- Renate Reimann received her Ph.D. in sociol-
can University Washington College of Law, ogy from the Graduate School of the City Uni-
Washington, D.C. Since the 1970s, she has liti- versity of New York and holds graduate de-
gated, written about, and taught about cases in- grees in sociology and Protestant theology
volving lesbian and gay parenting. from the University of Hamburg, Germany.
She is visiting assistant professor of sociology
Christy M.Ponticelli is an assistant professor at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York.
of sociology at the University of South Florida, Her coedited volume (with Mary Bernstein)
Tampa. She is the author of Gateways to Im- will be published by Columbia University
proving Lesbian Health and Health Care Press in 2000.
(1998) and articles on conducting field re-
search and the construction of identities within Kristen A.Renn received her Ph.D. in higher edu-
religious communities. cation at Boston College in Massachusetts and
is an associate dean of student life at Brown Uni-
Marjorie Pryse is a professor of English and versity, Providence, Rhode Island, where she
womens studies at the University at Albany, oversaw programs and services for lesbian, gay,
State University of New York. Her recent publi- bisexual, and transgender students. She received
cation on Sarah Orne Jewett, Sex, Class, and her bachelors degree in music from Mount
Category Crisis: Reading Jewetts Transitivity, Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts.
is in American Literature (1998). She is coedi-
tor (with Judith Fetterley) of American Women Yolanda Retter is a lesbian history and visibility
Regionalists (1992), a Norton anthology. activist of Peruvian and German descent and a
lifelong lesbian. She received her Ph.D. in Ameri-
Mara Rachid is a lesbian feminist activist in Bue- can studies at the University of New Mexico,
nos Aires, Argentina, and a member of the Albuquerque. She manages a lesbian archive in
groups Musas de Papel, Amenaza Lsbica, and Los Angeles and compiled the Lesbian History
COFEM (Feminist Communication). She is the Project Web site, URL: http://www-lib.usc.edu/
editor of the lesbian magazine La Rara and one ~retter/main.html.
CONTRIBUTORS XXXIX
Lisa Rhodes is a Ph.D. candidate in American of Reproductions: Imaging Symbolic Change
studies at the University of Texas, Austin. She is (1996), and A Lure of Knowledge: Lesbian
an associate professor of cultural, social, and Sexuality and Theory (1991) and coeditor (with
literary studies at National University, La Jolla, Robyn Wiegman) of Who Can Speak? Author-
California. ity and Critical Identity and (with Richard
Feldstein) Feminism and Psychoanalysis
Molly Rae Rhodes received her Ph.D. from the (1989).
Department of Literature at the University of
California, San Diego. Suzanna Rose, Ph.D., is a professor of psychol-
ogy and womens studies at the University of
Consuelo Rivera Fuentes is a Chilean poet, femi- Missouri, St. Louis. Her research interests con-
nist lesbian, and founder and member of the Chil- cern how gender, sexual orientation, and race
ean lesbian group LEA. Her recent publications affect friendship and romantic relationships,
include Two Stories, Three Lovers, and the Crea- with a special emphasis on lesbian love scripts
tion of Meaning in a Black Lesbian Autobiogra- and how lesbians and gay men cope with hate
phy: A Diary in Black British Feminism: A Reader crimes and same-sex domestic violence.
(1997) and The Bra Collection, a book of short
stories about womens clothes (forthcoming). Becki L.Ross teaches sociology and womens
studies at the University of British Columbia,
Jennifer E.Robertson is a professor of anthro- Vancouver, Canada. Her recent publications in-
pology at the University of Michigan, Ann Ar- clude The House That Jill Built: A Lesbian Na-
bor. Among her publications are Native and tion in Formation (1995) and a chapter in Bad
Newcomer: Making and Remaking a Japanese Attitude/s on Trial: Feminism, Pornography,
City (1991) and Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and and the Butler Decision (1997). She is research-
Popular Culture in Modern Japan (1998). She ing the world of sexual entertainment (bur-
is writing a book on Japanese colonial cultures. lesque, go-go, striptease) in post-World War II
Vancouver.
Christine Robinson is a Ph.D. student and gradu-
ate instructor in the Department of Sociology at Sue V.Rosser received her Ph.D. in zoology from
the University of Kansas, Lawrence. She has pub- the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1973.
lished articles on social control, sexuality, and She is director of the Center for Womens Stud-
social inequality. ies and Gender Research at the University of
Florida, Gainesville, where she is also a profes-
Ruthann Robson is a professor of law at the sor of anthropology. She has edited collections
City University of New York (CUNY) School and written more than sixty journal articles on
of Law, one of the very few progressive law women and science and womens health and six
schools in North America. She is the author of books.
Lesbian (Out)Law: Survival Under the Rule of
Law (1990) and Sappho Goes to Law School Rebecca Ann Rugg is a student in the drama-
(1998), as well as two volumes of short stories turgy and dramatic criticism program at the
and two novels. Yale University School of Drama, New Ha-
ven, Connecticut.
Catherine Roma, D.M.A., became one of the
founding mothers of the womens choral move- Maria Angeles Ruiz Torralba has worked in
ment when she started Anna Crusis Womens Spain with the federation of associations known
Choir in her native Philadelphia in 1975. She is as Coordinadora Gai-Lesbiana and was a
founder and director of MUSE Cincinnatis Wom- founder member of its womens group (Group
ens Choir and is an assistant professor of music Lesbos).
at Wilmington College, Wilmington, Ohio.
Leila J.Rupp teaches womens history and the
Judith Roof is the author of Come As You Are: history of same-sex sexuality at The Ohio State
Sexuality and Narrative (1996), Reproductions University, Columbus. Among her recent books
XL CONTRIBUTORS
are Worlds of Women: The Making of an Inter- Explosives, and Love (1997), the latter coed-
national Womens Movement (1998) and A ited with Cathie Dunsford and Susan
Desired Past: Same-Sex Love and Sexuality in Hawthorne. A Ph.D. candidate in anthropol-
the United States (1999). ogy at the University of Waikato, New Zea-
land, she wrote her dissertation on The
Paula C.Rust, Ph.D. sociology, studies sexual Postcolonial Lesbian Text: Readings of Four
identities and politics, with an emphasis on bi- Novels by Rene.
sexuality. She is an associate professor at Ham-
ilton College, Clinton, New York. She reached Claudia Schaefer is a professor of Hispanic lit-
political consciousness during the height of erature and culture at the University of Rochester
1970s lesbian feminism, identifies as a garden- in New York. She is the author of numerous
variety lesbian, and lives with her partner, studies on twentieth-century Spain and Latin
Lorna, and their two chidren. America; among her recent books is Danger
Zones: Homosexuality, National Identity, and
Montserrat Sagot, a Costa Rican sociologist Mexican Culture (1996).
and anthropologist, has a Ph.D in sociology
from American University, Washington, D.C. Susan Schibanoff has published numerous stud-
She was a founding member of the antiviolence- ies of medieval and early-modern literature that
against-women movement in Costa Rica. She use feminist and gay and lesbian approaches.
is an associate professor of sociology at the She has completed articles on same-sex desire
Universidad de Costa Rica, San Jose, and chair in Hildegard of Bingen and Richardis of Stade
of the Regional Masters Program in Womens and on poetry and male sodomy in twelfth-cen-
Studies. tury literature. She is working on a book on
Chaucers queer poetics. She teaches at the Uni-
Nancy San Martn is a Ph.D. candidate in the versity of New Hampshire, Durham.
history of consciousness at the University of Cali-
fornia, Santa Cruz. Her work focuses on popu- Claudia Schoppmann, a historian, lives in Ber-
lar cultural narratives of nationalisms and same- lin, Germany. Her dissertation on Nazi politics
sex sexualities in the United States. and female homosexuality was published in
1991. She has written and coedited several books
Ronni L.Sanlo, Ed.D., is the director of the Uni- on German womens history, including Jewish
versity of California, Los Angeles, Lesbian Gay women, lesbians, and women in exile.
Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) Campus Resource
Center. She is a founding member of the Na- Marilyn R.Schuster received her Ph.D. from Yale
tional Consortium of LGBT Campus Resource University, New Haven, Connecticut. She is a
Center Directors and the national chair of the professor of French and womens studies at
Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Issues Net- Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts.
work of the National Association of Student Her major publications are Womens Place in
Personnel Administrators (NASPA). the Academy: Transforming the Liberal Arts
Curriculum (1985) (with Susan Van Dyne),
Alejandra Sarda is an activist out of passion and Marguerite Duras Revisited (1993), and Passion-
a clinical pyschologist for a living. She is com- ate Communities: Reading Lesbian Resistance
mitted to ending binary thinking and fundamen- in Jane Rules Fiction (1999).
talism in all of its manifestations, even in les-
bian, gay, transgender, and bisexual circles. She Judith Schuyf received her Ph.D. in history from
is polyamorous, glad to be alive, and proudly the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. She
Latin American. is a founding member of the Lesbian and Gay
Studies Centre of Utrecht University in the Neth-
Susan Sayer writes fiction and nonfiction. Her erlands. She has written about lesbian history,
short stories appear in The Exploding Frangi- political culture, and senior gays and lesbians,
pani (1990), Subversive Acts (1991), Me and and is a senior researcher at the National Dutch
Marilyn Monroe (1993), and Car Maintenance, Institute for War Victims.
CONTRIBUTORS XLI
Dana R.Shugar is an associate professor of Eng- 1982. She teaches U.S. and Canadian womens
lish and womens studies at the University of history and the history of sexuality at the Uni-
Rhode Island, Kingston. She teaches Roman- versity of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada,
tic and Victorian literature, leftist womens lit- where she lives with her partner and two sons.
erature, Utopian fiction, lesbian studies, and
studies in race, gender, class, and sexuality. Her Caroline Chung Simpson received a Ph.D. in
research interests include lesbian separatism, American studies from the University of Texas,
queer theory, lesbian literature, and Austin, and teaches courses in Asian American
ecofeminism. studies and postwar culture in the English de-
partment at the University of Washington,
Patricia Sieber has a Ph.D. in Chinese from the Seattle. She is completing a book on the rela-
University of California, Berkeley. She is an as- tionship between popular discourses on Japa-
sistant professor in the Department of East Asian nese and Japanese American culture and iden-
Languages and Literatures at Ohio State Uni- tity and definitions of the postwar U.S. nation.
versity, Columbus. Her research focuses on is-
sues of print, performance, gender, and sexual- Patricia Juliana Smith is visiting assistant pro-
ity in Chinese drama and fiction from the six- fessor of English at the University of California,
teenth through the twentieth centuries. Los Angeles. She is the author of Lesbian Panic:
Homoeroticism in Modern British Womens Fic-
Gina M.Siesing completed her Ph.D. in Women, tion (1997) and coeditor (with Corinne
Gender, and Literature in the English department Blackmer) of En Travesti: Women, Gender Sub-
at the University of Texas, Austin. Her disserta- version, Opera (1995).
tion is entitled Fictional Democracies: The For-
mation of Lesbian Literary Publics. Carroll Smith-Rosenberg is the author of the es-
say The Female World of Love and Ritual
Maria Josefina Silva is coeditor of the Portuguese (1975), one of the first efforts to historically
magazine Lils. She is a specialist in lesbian cul- contextualize love among women. Her Disorderly
ture in Portugal in the twentieth century. Conduct (1985) examines women sexual reform-
ers, medical representations of women, and the
Noenoe K.Silva, a Kanaka Maoli (native Ha- emergence of independent women. She is explor-
waiian), has a B.A. in Hawaiian language ing the interface of race, gender, and colonialism.
and a masters in library and information
studies. She is a Ph.D. candidate in political Cherry Smyth is a writer, journalist, and cura-
science at University of Hawaii, Manoa; her tor. She is an active member of the Irish diaspora,
dissertation, using Hawaiian language living between London and her love interest in
sources, focuses on Kanaka Maoli womens America. She is the author of Queer Notions
forms of resistance to colonialism. (1992) and Damn Fine Art by New Lesbian
Artists (1996), the first international collection
Sharon Silverstein graduated from Stanford Uni- of its kind.
versity, Stanford, California, with a B.A. in femi-
nist studies, and from Harvard Business School, Jane McIntosh Snyder is professor emeritus of
Cambridge, Massachusetts, with an M.B.A. She classics at The Ohio State University, Columbus.
and Annette Friskopp celebrated a ceremony of Her books include The Woman and the Lyre:
commitment in 1992 and coauthored the book Women Writers in Classical Greece and Rome
Straight Jobs, Gay Lives (1995). Sharon gave (1989) and Lesbian Desire in the Lyrics of
birth to their son in 1996. Sappho (1997). She is a professional violinist
with the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra of
Christina Simmons grew up in Indiana, gradu- Columbus and the Chamber Orchestra of
ated from Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Mas- Albuquerque.
sachusetts, became a feminist in 1970, and re-
ceived a Ph.D. in American civilization from Birgitte Soland teaches European womens his-
Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, in tory at The Ohio State University, Columbus.
XLII CONTRIBUTORS
She holds a cand.mag. degree from the Univer- Non-Monogamy, Open Relationships, and
sity of Aarhus, Denmark, and a Ph.D. in his- Casual Sex (1999).
tory from the University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis. She has conducted research on gay Lisbeth Stenberg, a Ph.D. candidate in the De-
and lesbian history and published A Queer partment of Literature at the University of
Nation? The Passage of the Gay and Lesbian Gothenburg, Sweden, is writing a dissertation
Partnership Legislation in Denmark, 1989 in on Selma Lagerlfs early work, focusing on the
Social Politics (1998). thematics of gender and creativity analyzed from
a contextual perspective.
Alisa Solomon is an associate professor of Eng-
lish at Baruch College, City University of New Linnea A.Stenson is a visiting assistant profes-
York (CUNY), and of English and theater at the sor of womens and gender studies at Macalester
CUNY Graduate Center. She is a staff writer at College, St. Paul, Minnesota. She is working on
the Village Voice and the author of Re-Dressing a book-length manuscript about pulp novels.
the Canon: Essays on Theater and Gender
(1997). Christy Stevens received an M.A. in womens
studies at San Diego State University and is a
Bonnie B.Spanier received her Ph.D. in micro- Ph.D. student in English at University of Cali-
fornia, Irvine. Her thesis constructs a lesbian
biology and molecular genetics from Harvard
intertextual analysis of Jeanette Wintersons
University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her re-
1992 novel, Written on the Body.
cent publications include Im/partial Science:
Gender Ideology in Molecular Biology (1995),
Arlene M.Stiebel earned her Ph.D. in English
and Biological Determination of Homosexu-
and comparative literature from Columbia
ality in the NWSA Journal (1995). She is an
University, New York City. Formerly an ad-
associate professor in the womens studies de-
ministrator at Brown University, Providence,
partment at the University at Albany, State Uni-
Rhode Island, and editor of the Huntington
versity of New York.
Library Quarterly, she has most recently been
a professor of English at California State Uni-
Arlene Stein is an assistant professor of soci- versity, Northridge. Her publications include
ology at the University of Oregon, Eugene. She articles in the Gay and Lesbian Literary Her-
is the editor of Sisters, Sexperts, Queers: Be- itage (1994) and in Homosexuality in Renais-
yond the Lesbian Nation (1993) and the au- sance and Enlightenment England (1992).
thor of Sex and Sensibility: Stories of a Les-
bian Nation (1997). Elizabeth Stuart holds the chair of Christian
theology at King Alfreds College, Winchester,
Marc Stein received his Ph.D. from the Uni- United Kingdom. She is the editor of the aca-
versity of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, taught demic journal Theology and Sexuality and the
at Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsyl- author of a number of books on Christianity
vania, and Colby College, Waterville, Maine, and sexuality, including Just Good Friends:
and is an assistant professor of history at York Towards a Lesbian and Gay Theology of Re-
University in Toronto, Canada. A former edi- lationships (1995), People of Passion (1996),
tor of Gay Community News, he is complet- and Religion Is a Queer Thing (1997).
ing City of Sisterly and Brotherly Loves: The
Making of Lesbian and Gay Communities in Darlene M.Suarez is a Ph.D. student in cultural
Greater Philadelphia, 194572. anthropology at the University of California,
Riverside. Her research interests focus on Na-
Judith P.Stelboum teaches English, womens tive American political culture, concepts of co-
studies, and lesbian studies at the College of lonialism and nationalism, and the politics of
Staten Island, City University of New York. Her sovereignty, identity, and Indian nationhood.
essays, fiction, and poetry have appeared in sev-
eral anthologies. She is coeditor (with Marcia Susan Talburt teaches curricular, poststructural,
Munson) of The Lesbian Polyamory Reader: and feminist theories, social and cultural

CONTRIBUTORS XLIII
foundations of education, and anthropology of Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, is a
education in the Department of Educational study of feminism, welfare rights, civil rights,
Policy Studies at Georgia State University, At- and lesbian feminism in Washington, D.C., in
lanta. She is writing a book about lesbian fac- the 1960s and 1970s. Her scholarly and teach-
ulty in higher education. ing interests include oral and public history, so-
cial movements, and African American commu-
Bette S.Tallen is a Jewish lesbian feminist work- nities in the segregated South.
ing with the office of University Initiatives at
the University of Central Florida, Orlando. She Annette Van Dyke is an assistant professor of
also develops community workshops on Teach- interdisciplinary studies and womens studies at
ing Diversity as a Skill. the University of Illinois, Springfield, where she
directs the individual option and liberal studies
Verta Taylor is a professor of sociology at Ohio programs. She is the author of The Search for a
State University, Columbus. She is the coauthor Woman-Centered Spirituality (1992), Hooded
(with Leila J.Rupp) of Survival in the Doldrums: Murder (1996), and essays in SAIL and MELUS,
The American Womens Rights Movement, 1945 among others.
to the 1960s (1987), the coeditor (with Laurel
Richardson and Nancy Whittier) of Feminist Linda Van Leuven is a Ph.D. candidate in soci-
Frontiers (4th ed., 1997), and the author of ology at the University of California, Los Ange-
Rock-a-By Baby: Feminism, Self-Help, and Post- les. She studies sexualized interactions and how
partum Depression (1996). people manage relational boundaries in body-
and image-oriented service occupations. Her
Giti Thadani is a founding member and coordi- dissertation is titled When Frames Collide: Per-
nator of Sakhi, the Lesbian Resource Centre in sonal Service Work and the Negotiation of Re-
New Delhi, India. She is a writer and photogra- lational Boundaries.
pher who travels extensively in India, document-
ing archetypes of the cosmic Feminine, and the Marieke Van Willigen is an assistant professor
author of Sakhiyani: Lesbian Desire in Ancient at East Carolina University, Greenville, North
and Modern India (1996). Carolina. Her research investigates the effect of
activism and self-help activities on individuals
Polly Thistlethwaite is a reference librarian at well-being. She is also examining the differen-
Colorado State University, Fort Collins. She tial effects of education on well-being for men
worked with the Lesbian Herstory Archives col- and women. Her interests cut across social move-
lective in New York City from 1987 to 1997, ments, gender, and medical sociology.
actively participating in the effort to establish
the collection in its Brooklyn townhouse. Paul L.Vasey received his Ph.D. in anthropol-
ogy from the University of Montreal, in 1997.
Suzana Tratnik is a sociologist and writer, in He has studied female homosexual behavior in
Ljubljana, Slovenia, where she focuses on so- Japanese macaques since the early 1990s. His
ciological aspects of gay, lesbian, feminist, and research focuses on nonreproductive sexual
minority movements and subcultures. behavior in animals.

Valerie Traub teaches English and womens stud- Blakey Vermeule writes on eighteenth-century
ies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. British literature and moral psychology. She
She is the author of Desire and Anxiety: Circu- teaches in the English department at Yale Uni-
lations of Sexuality in Shakespearean Drama versity, New Haven, Connecticut.
(1992) and The Renaissance of Lesbianism
in Early Modern England (forthcoming). Giney Villar is the chair of the Womyn Support-
ing Womyn Centre, a lesbian organization based
Anne M.Valk is an assistant professor of his- in the Philippines. She coauthored (with Aida F.
torical studies at Southern Illinois University, Santos) the first out Filipina lesbian book,
Edwardsville. Her dissertation, completed at Woman to Woman: Essays, Poetry, and Fiction
XLIV CONTRIBUTORS
(1994). She was born in Manila, has a B.S. in Saskia E.Wieringa is a senior lecturer in wom-
psychology, and is an M.A. student in humani- ens studies at the Institute of Social Studies,
ties and womens studies at St. Scholasticas The Hague, Netherlands. She has published a
College, Manila. lesbian travelog and written on womens or-
ganizations in Indonesia, sustainable develop-
Elizabeth Wahl received her Ph.D. in compara- ment, feminist politics, and womens same-sex
tive literature from Stanford University, relations. She is involved in a research project
Stanford, California, where she teaches litera- on cross-cultural gender indicators.
ture courses. She is the author of Invisible
Relations: Idealized and Sexualized Represen- Maxine Wolfe is a coordinator at the Lesbian
tations of Female Intimacy in England and Herstory Archives, New York City, a cofounder
France, 16001760 (1999). of the Lesbian Avengers, a member of ACT-UP
New York since 1987 and cofounder of its Wom-
Linda D.Wayne is a Ph.D. candidate in com- ens Committee, and a professor emerita of en-
parative studies in discourse and society at the vironmental psychology at the City University
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. She has of New York Graduate School.
published in Women and Language, RFR/DRF,
and Transforms. Susan J.Wolfe is a professor and chair of the
English department at the University of South
Alice R.Wexler is the author of three books; Dakota, Vermillion. Her research and teaching
Emma Goldman in America (1984), Emma interests include work in historical linguistics,
Goldman in Exile (1989), and Mapping Fate: A stylistics, and lesbian studies. With Julia
Memoir of Family, Risk, and Genetic Research Penelope, she coedited The Original Coming
(1995). She is a research scholar at the Center Out Stories (1980), Lesbian Culture: An Anthol-
for the Study of Women at the University of Cali- ogy (1993), and Sexual Practice/Textual Theory:
fornia, Los Angeles. Lesbian Cultural Criticism (1993).

Vera Whisman is an assistant professor of so- Merle Woo is a socialist feminist activist, edu-
ciology at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, cator, and writer. She is the education coordina-
Geneva, New York. She studies the social con- tor for Bay Area Radical Women (San Francisco,
struction of lesbian, gay, and bisexual identi- California), an international Trotskyist feminist
ties and is the author of Queer By Choice organization.
(1996).
Mary E.Wood is an associate professor of Eng-
Gillian Whitlock is an associate professor of lish at the University of Oregon, Eugene.
humanities at Griffith University, Nathan,
Australia. She is author of The Intimate Em- Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano is a professor of Span-
pire: Reading Womens Autobiography ish and chair of Chicana/o studies in the Center
(1999), a study of autobiography and coloni- for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity
alism. She has edited a number of books in Program at Stanford University, Stanford, Cali-
Australian studies and womens writing, in- fornia. She is the author of Feminism and the
cluding Autographs: Contemporary Austral- Honor Plays of Lope de Vega (1994) and coedi-
ian Autobiography (1996). tor (with Richard Griswold del Castillo and
Teresa McKenna) of Chicano Art: Resistance
Robyn Wiegman teaches feminist theory, with a and Affirmation (1991), and a forthcoming col-
special emphasis on race and sexuality, at the lection of essays on Cherre Moraga.
University of California, Irvine, where she di-
rects the Program in Womens Studies. She is Willa Young is director of Student Gender and
the author of American Anatomies: Theorizing Sexuality Services at Ohio State University,
Race and Gender (1995) and the editor of three Columbus. A lecturer in the Department of Wom-
anthologies, including AIDS and the National ens Studies, she teaches courses on American
Body: Essays by Thomas Yingling (1997). womens movements and feminist perspectives
CONTRIBUTORS XLV
on women and violence. She also facilitates a Jacqueline N.Zita holds a Ph.D. in philosophy
course on violence in society for physicians in and is chair of the womens studies department
the College of Medicine. at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. She
has published widely in the areas of sexuality,
Yvonne Zipter is the author of Ransacking the gender, corporeal philosophy, and feminist epis-
Closet (1995; essays), The Patience of Metal temology and pedagogies. Her latest book is
(1990; poems), Diamonds Are a Dykes Best Body Talk: Philosophical Essays on Sex and
Friend (1988; nonfiction study), and the na- Gender (1998), which explores social construc-
tion-ally syndicated column Inside Out. She tions of the body across race, class, gender, and
holds an M.F.A. in writing from Vermont Col- sexuality.
lege, Montpelier, and received a Sprague-Todes
Literary Award in 1997.

XLVI CONTRIBUTORS
Subject Guide

Anthropology Girl Scouts

International Organizations
Anthropology Lesbian Avengers
Balkan Sworn Virgins National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF)
Benedict, Ruth National Organization for Women (NOW)
Colonialism
Queer Nation
Evolution and Human Origins
Radicalesbians
Harems
Indigenous Cultures
Mh
Oral History Biography

Addams, Jane
Allan, Maud
Art Allen, Paula Gunn
Anderson, Margaret Carolyn
Architecture
Anne, Queen of England
Art, Contemporary European
Anthony, Susan B.
Art, Contemporary North American
Art, Mainstream Anzalda, Gloria E.
Austen, Alice Arnold, June
Bonheur, Rosa Arzner, Dorothy
Brooks, Romaine Austen, Alice
Cartoons and Comic Books Bannon, Ann
Gluck (Hannah Gluckstein) Barnes, Djuna Chappell
Kahlo, Frida Barney, Natalie Clifford
Lee, Vernon Bates, Katharine Lee
Lewis, Mary Edmonia Beach, Sylvia
Millett, Kate Beauvoir, Simone de
Photography Behn, Aphra
Benedict, Ruth
Bentley, Gladys
Associations and Organizations Bishop, Elizabeth
Blais, Marie-Claire
Asian Lesbian Network
Blaman, Anna
Associations and Organizations
Combahee River Collective Bonheur, Rosa
Daughters of Bilitis Bowen, Elizabeth
Encuentros de Lesbianas Bowles, Jane Auer
Furies, The Boye, Karin

SUBJECT GUIDE XLVII

Brittain, Vera Mary Ladies of Llangollen
Brooks, Romaine Lagerlf, Selma
Brossard, Nicole Landowska, Wanda
Brown, Rita Mae lang, k.d. (Kathryn Dawn)
Bryher Leduc, Violette
Gather, Willa Lee, Vernon
Chambers, Jane Lewis, Mary Edmonia
Charke, Charlotte Lister, Anne
Christina of Sweden Lorde, Audre
Colette Lowell, Amy Lawrence
Compton-Burnett, Ivy Mansfield, Katherine
Cornwell, Anita Marie Antoinette
Cruikshank, Margaret Louise Martin, Del, and Lyon, Phyllis
Cushman, Charlotte McCullers, Carson
Davis, Katherine Bement Mew, Charlotte
Delarus-Mardrus, Lucie Michel, Louise
Deming, Barbara Millay, Edna St. Vincent
Dickinson, Emily Millett, Kate
Didrikson, Mildred Ella Babe (Zaharias) Mistral, Gabriela
Dietrich, Marlene Mitchell, Alice
Duffy, Maureen Patricia Miyamoto Yuriko
Dunbar-Nelson, Alice Moraga, Cherre
Erauso, Catalina de Navratilova, Martina
Faderman, Lillian Nestle, Joan
Field, Michael Nin, Anais
Planner, Janet Noble, Elaine
Foster, Jeannette Howard OBrien, Kate
Fuller, Margaret Parker, Pat
Garbo, Greta Parnok, Sophia
Gidlow, Elsa Parra, Teresa de la
Gittings, Barbara Penelope, Julia
Gluck (Hannah Gluckstein) Philips, Katherine
Goldman, Emma Pirie, Jane, and Woods, Marianne
Grahn, Judy Rainey, Gertrude Ma
Grier, Barbara Raucourt, Franoise
Grimk, Angelina Weld Renault, Mary
Hall, Radclyffe Rich, Adrienne
Hamilton, Edith Roosevelt, Anna Eleanor
Hampton, Mabel Routsong, Alma
Hansberry, Lorraine (Vivian) Rukeyser, Muriel
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) Rule, Jane Vance
Hildegard of Bingen, Saint Ruling, Anna
Holtby, Winifred Sackville-West, Vita
James, Alice Sand, George
Jay, Karla Sappho
Jewett, Sarah Orne Sarton, May
Jewsbury, Geraldine Scudder, Vida Dutton
Joan of Arc (Jeanne dArc) Shockley, Ann Allen
Johnston, Jill Simcox, Edith Jemima
Juana Ins de la Cruz, Sor Smith, Barbara
Kahlo, Frida Smith, Bessie
King, Billie Jean Moffitt Smith, Lillian Eugenia

XLVIII SUBJECT GUIDE

Smyth, Dame Ethel Mary Bookstores
Solanas, Valerie Businesses, Lesbian
Stein, Gertrude Class
Taylor, Valerie Collectives
Teresa of Avila Colonialism
Thomas, M.Carey Demography
Toklas, Alice B. Domestic Partnership
Tsvetaeva, Marina Ivanovna Economics
Vargas, Chavela Labor Movement
Vivien, Rene
Land
Walker, Alelia
Olivia
Walker, Mary Edwards
Sex Work
Warner, Sylvia Townsend
Sexual Harassment
Weirauch, Anna Elisabet
Socialism
Wilhelm, Gale
Winsloe, Christa Tourism and Guidebooks
Wittig, Monique Work
Wolff, Charlotte
Woolf, Virginia
WuZao Geography
Yosano Akiko Argentina
Yoshiya Nobuko Australia
Yourcenar, Marguerite Austria
Belgium
Berlin
Cultural Identities Brazil
African Americans Buffalo, New York
Arab Americans Canada
Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Caribbean
Balkan Sworn Virgins Central America
Bisexuality Cherry Grove, New York
Butch-Femme Chicago, Illinois
Disability Chile
Drag Kings China
Fat Liberation Czech Republic
Identity
Denmark
Identity Politics
Egypt
Judaism
Finland
Latinas
France
Leather
Germany
Mestizaje
Native Americans Greece
Passing Women Greenwich Village
Sadomasochism Harlem
Situational Lesbianism Hawaii
Subculture Immigration
Transgender India
Women of Color Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
Economics Italy
Advertising and Consumerism Japan
Bars Korea, South

SUBJECT GUIDE XLIX

Lesbos, Island of Scholars
Lesotho Sex Education
London Sororities
Los Angeles, California Students
Mexico Teachers
Namibia Thomas, M.Carey
Netherlands Womens Studies
New Zealand
Pacific Islands
Paris Health
Philippines AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency
Poland Syndrome)
Portugal Alcohol and Substance Abuse
Provincetown, Massachusetts Body Image
Qubec Health Medicine
Russia Nursing
San Francisco, California Recovery Movement
Slovenia Safer Sex
Small Towns and Rural Areas Self-Help
South Africa Sex Education
Spain Sexually Transmitted Diseases
Sweden Suicide
Switzerland Vegetarianism
Taiwan Walker, Mary Edwards
Thailand
United Kingdom
United States
History
Washington, D.C.
Addams, Jane
Yugoslavia, Former
Amazons
Zimbabwe
Anne, Queen of England
Anthony, Susan B.
Antiquity
Education
Autobiography
Anthologies
Biography
Archives and Libraries
Boston Marriage
Athletics, Collegiate
Brittain, Vera Mary
Bibliographies and Reference Works
Christina of Sweden
Boarding Schools
Colonialism
Colleges, Womens
Companionate Marriage
Computer Networks and Services
Deming, Barbara
Cruikshank, Margaret Louise
Diaries and Letters
Davis, Katherine Bement
Faderman, Lillian Enlightenment, European
Foster, Jeannette Howard Erauso, Catalina de
Gittings, Barbara Europe, Early Modern
Hamilton, Edith Female Support Networks
High Schools, Lesbian and Gay Fuller, Margaret
Jay, Karla Gay Liberation Movement
Lesbian Herstory Archives Goldman, Emma
Lesbian Studies History
Librarians Hoboes
Physical Education Joan of Arc (Jeanne dArc)

L SUBJECT GUIDE
Ladies of Llangollen Ideology
Lister, Anne Invisibility
Marie Antoinette Labeling
Michel, Louise Language
Middle Ages, European Lesbian
Mitchell, Alice Lesbian Continuum
Nazism Lesbian Feminism
New Left Lesbian Nation
New Right Liberalism
New Woman Literary Images
Norton Sound Incident Mestizaje
Oral History Misogyny
Parker-Hulme Murder Case Oppression
Passing Women Patriarchy
Passionlessness Performativity
Peace Movement Phallus
Pirie, Jane, and Woods, Marianne Postmodernism
Raucourt, Franoise Prejudice
Romantic Friendship Queer Theory
Roosevelt, Anna Eleanor Race and Racism
Ruling, Anna Separatism
Sapphic Tradition Sexism
Scudder, Vida Dutton Sexual Orientation and Preference
Smashes, Crushes, Spoons Sisterhood
Spinsters Situational Lesbianism
Suffrage Movement Slang
Walker, ALelia Social-Construction Theory
Walker, Mary Edwards Stereotypes
Witches, Persecution of Stigma
Yoshiya Nobuko Subculture
Symbols
Tolerance
Language, Terms, and Concepts Woman-Identified Woman
Androgyny Womanist
Bulldagger Women of Color
Butch-Femme
Class
Closet Law
Coming Out Adoption
Compulsory Heterosexuality Censorship
Consciousness Raising Crime and Criminology
Dyke Custody Litigation
Essentialism Discrimination
Feminism Domestic Partnership
Gender Donor Insemination
Gossip Human Rights
Heroes Immigration
Heterosexism Law and Legal Institutions
Heterosexuality Legal Theory, Lesbian
Homophobia Lesbian Impunity, Myth of
Homosexuality Mitchell, Alice
Identity Norton Sound Incident

SUBJECT GUIDE LI
Parker-Hulme Murder Case Penelope, Julia
Pirie, Jane, and Woods, Marianne Race and Racism
Prisons and Prisoners Radicalesbians
Privacy Rich, Adrienne
Rights Self-Defense
Sexual Harassment Separatism
Witches, Persecution of Sex Wars
Smith, Barbara
Solanas, Valerie
Lesbian Movement Transgender
Activism Vegetarianism
Ageism Woman-Identified Woman
Amazons
Antisemitism
Anzalda, Gloria Literature
Asian Lesbian Network African American Literature
Bars Allen, Paula Gunn
Bisexual Movement American Literature, Nineteenth Century
Black Feminism American Literature, Twentieth Century
Butch-Femme Anderson, Margaret Carolyn
Class Anthologies
Collectives Anzalda, Gloria
Combahee River Collective Arab Literature, Modern
Community Centers Arnold, June
Consciousness Raising Bannon, Ann
Cornwell, Anita
Barnes, Djuna Chappell
Cruikshank, Margaret Louise
Barney, Natalie Clifford
Daughters of Bilitis
Bates, Katharine Lee
Deming, Barbara
Beach, Sylvia
Demonstrations and Actions
Behn, Aphra
Disability
Biography
Encuentros de Lesbianas
Bishop, Elizabeth
Fat Liberation
Blais, Marie-Claire
Feminism
Furies, The Blaman, Anna
Gay Liberation Movement Bowen, Elizabeth
Gittings, Barbara Bowles, Jane Auer
Grier, Barbara Boye, Karin
Hampton, Mabel Brossard, Nicole
Identity Politics Brown, Rita Mae
Invisibility Bryher
Jay, Karla Gather, Willa
Johnston, Jill Chinese Literature
Ladder, The Classical Literature
Leather Colette
Lesbian Avengers Coming Out Stories
Lesbian Feminism Compton-Burnett, Ivy
Lesbian Nation Delarue-Mardrus, Lucie
Lorde, Audre Diaries and Letters
Marches and Parades Dickinson, Emily
Martin, Del, and Lyon, Phyllis Duffy, Maureen Patricia
Moraga, Cherre Dunbar-Nelson, Alice
Nestle, Joan English Literature, Eighteenth Century

LII SUBJECT GUIDE

English Literature, Nineteenth Century Rule, Jane Vance
English Literature, Twentieth Century Sackville-West, Vita
Fiction Sand, George
Field, Michael Sapphic Tradition
Foster, Jeannette Howard Sappho
French Literature Sarton, May
German Literature Science Fiction
Gothic Shockley, Ann Allen
Grahn, Judy Smith, Lillian Eugenia
Grimk, Angelina Weld Spanish Literature
Hall, Radclyffe Stein, Gertrude
Hansberry, Lorraine (Vivian) Taylor, Valerie
Harlem Renaissance Toklas, Alice B.
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) Tsvetaeva, Marina Ivanovna
Holtby, Winifred Utopian Literature
James, Alice Vivien, Rene
Jewett, Sarah Orne Warner, Sylvia Townsend
Jewsbury, Geraldine Weirauch, Anna Elisabet
Johnston, Jill Wilhelm, Gale
Juana Ins de la Cruz, Sor Winsloe, Christa
Lagerlf, Selma Wittig, Monique
Latin American Literature Woolf, Virginia
Latina Literature WuZao
Leduc, Violette Yosano Akiko
Literary Criticism Yourcenar, Marguerite
Literary Images
Lorde, Audre
Lowell, Amy Lawrence Media and Popular Culture
Mansfield, Katherine Advertising and Consumerism
McCullers, Carson Amazons
Mew, Charlotte Camp
Millay, Edna St. Vincent Cartoons and Comic Books
Millett, Kate Comedy, Standup
Mistral, Gabriela Cultural Studies
Miyamoto Yuriko Drag Kings
Modernism Planner, Janet
Moraga, Cherre Furies, The
Mystery and Detective Fiction Heroes Humor
Nin, Anais Johnston, Jill
OBrien, Kate Journalism
Pacific Literature Ladder, The
Parker, Pat Lesbian Connection
Parnok, Sophia Mystery and Detective Fiction
Parra, Teresa de la Naiad Press
Philips, Katherine Periodicals
Poetry Publishing, Lesbian
Pulp Paperbacks Pulp Paperbacks
Renault, Mary Radio
Rich, Adrienne Recreation
Routsong, Alma Science Fiction
Rukeyser, Muriel Slang

SUBJECT GUIDE LIII

Style Immigration
Television Labor Movement
Tourism and Guidebooks Liberalism
Vampires Marches and Parades
Zines Military
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF)
National Organization for Women (NOW)
Music and Dance New Left
New Right
Allan, Maud
Noble, Elaine
Bentley, Gladys
Peace Movement
Blues Singers
Political Theory
Choruses, Womens
Roosevelt, Anna Eleanor
Composers
Rling, Anna
Dance
Hampton, Mabel Scudder, Vida Dutton
Hildegard of Bingen, Saint Simcox, Edith Jemima
Johnston, Jill Socialism
Landowska, Wanda Suffrage Movement
lang, k.d. (Kathryn Dawn) Womens Liberation Movement
Music, Classical
Music Festivals
Music, Popular Psychology
Music, Womens Adolescence
Opera Androgyny
Rainey, Gertrude Ma Body Image
Smith, Bessie Children
Smyth, Dame Ethel Mary Coming Out
Vargas, Chavela Friendship
Homophobia
Identity
Politics Immigration
Incest
Activism Invisibility
Anthony, Susan B. Love
Bisexual Movement Phallus
Black Feminism Psychiatry
Censorship Psychoanalysis
Class Psychology
Coalition Politics Psychotherapy
Collectives
Recovery Movement
Colonialism
Relationship Violence
Community Organizing
Sexology
Deming, Barbara
Sexual Orientation and Preference
Demonstrations and Actions
Suicide
Domestic Partnership
Wolff, Charlotte
Electoral Politics
Fat Liberation
Feminism
Gay Liberation Movement Relationships
Goldman, Emma Boston Marriage
Human Rights Butch-Femme
Identity Politics Children
Ideology Companionate Marriage
Couples
LIV SUBJECT GUIDE
Domestic Partnership Science
Donor Insemination Sexology
Family Technology
Female Support Networks
Friendship
Gossip Sexuality
Love Bisexualiry
Marriage Ceremonies Clitoris
Monogamy and Nonmonogamy Erotica and Pornography
Mothers, Lesbian Heterosexuality
Relationship Violence Homosexuality
Romantic Friendship Incest
Sadomasochism Kinsey Institute
Safer Sex Leather
Sex Practices Libertinism
Sexually Transmitted Diseases Masturbation
Singles Passionlessness
Smashes, Crushes, Spoons Phallus
Sadomasochism
Safer Sex
Religion Sex Education
Antisemitism Sex Practices
Black Church, The Sex Toys
Catholicism Sex Wars
Christianity, Early Sex Work
Churches, Lesbian and Gay Sexology
Goddess Religion Sexuality
Hildegard of Bingen, Saint Sexually Transmitted Diseases
Islam Tribade
Juana Ins de la Cruz, Sor
Judaism
Mythology, Classical Sociology
Mythology, Nonclassical Adolescence
Protestantism Ageism
Religious Communities Aging
Saints and Mystics Body Image
Spirituality Children
Synagogues Class
Teresa of Avila Coming Out
Two-Spirit Community
Womanist Couples
Demography
Disability
Science Discrimination
Animal Studies Family
Biological Determinism Food
Computer Networks and Services Friendship
Ecology and Ecofeminism Gender
Gossip
Etiology
Heterosexism
Evolution and Human Origins
Homosexuality Homophobia
Kinsey Institute Identity

SUBJECT GUIDE LV
Immigration Dietrich, Marlene
Labeling Documentaries
Love Drag Kings
Military Film, Alternative
Oppression Film, Mainstream
Patriarchy Garbo, Greta
Prejudice Hansberry, Lorraine (Vivian)
Prisons and Prisoners Hollywood
Race and Racism Moraga, Cherre
Recreation Performance Art
Relationship Violence Raucourt, Franoise
Sexism Theater and Drama, Contemporary
Singles Theater and Drama, History of
Situational Lesbianism Video
Slang
Social Work
Theory and Philosophy
Sociology
Anzalda, Gloria
Stereotypes
Beauvoir, Simone de
Stigma
Black Feminism
Style
Combahee River Collective
Subculture
Critical Theory
Suicide
Ecology and Ecofeminism
Symbols
Enlightenment, European
Tolerance
Essentialism
Tomboy
Ethics
Violence Feminism
Fuller, Margaret
Ideology
Sport Legal Theory, Lesbian
Athletics, Collegiate Lesbian Feminism
Didrikson, Mildred Ella Babe (Zaharias) Liberalism
Gay Games Lorde, Audre
King, Billie Jean Moffitt Moraga, Cherre
Navratilova, Martina Nestle, Joan
Physical Education Penelope, Julia
Recreation Philosophy
Sports, Professional Political Theory
Tomboy Postmodernism
Psychoanalysis
Queer Theory
Theater and Film Rich, Adrienne
All-Female Reviews (Japan) Separatism
Arzner, Dorothy Smith, Barbara
Behn, Aphra Social-Construction Theory
Chambers, Jane Solanas, Valerie
Charke, Charlotte Wittig, Monique
Cross-Dressing Womanist
Cushman, Charlotte

LVI SUBJECT GUIDE

A
Activism works and organizational skills developed through
Participation in a wide array of political actions participation in churches and social clubs to pro-
designed to support a social movement or a par- mote and support the U.S. civil rights movement,
ticular political cause, which may include, but is among other campaigns for social justice and eco-
not limited to, participation in political parties (as nomic security. Women of color in the United States
in political party activism). Activism, or doing have a long tradition of activism designed to pro-
politics, can be defined as any struggle to gain tect and improve the lives of their communities.
control over definitions of self and community, to Working-class women of all racial-ethnic back-
augment personal and communal empowerment, grounds have played significant roles in labor or-
to create alternative institutions and organizational ganizing that only recently has received sustained
processes, and to increase the power and resources attention.
of ones variously defined community. Womens activism in womens movements has
Feminist analyses of womens political partici- included reform-oriented political work to gain
pation have expanded the definition of the term passage of womens right to vote, reproductive-
politics to include a diversity of activities that rights legislation, protection for battered women,
are frequently rendered invisible when only par- pay equity, and laws against sexual harassment and
ticipation in traditional political parties is counted. sex-discrimination policies, among other legal
For example, since womens political actions were measures. Womens movement activists of the
frequently tied to their role as mothers or to their 1970s in the United States were not always in agree-
identities as community caretakers, their political ment about what constitutes the primary target and
participation was often seen as a normal extension the most effective strategies for political action.
of their gender identities. In addition, some women Splits occurred over pornography legislation, sexu-
drew upon their gendered identities to justify pub- alities, working in separate or gender-integrated
lic roles in advocating for social welfare and social organizations, and working within the existing
justice, thereby differentiating their civic work political system.
or social housekeeping from politics. How- Many women of color and working-class
ever, as a result of feminist theorizing and analysis women did not think that the 1970s U.S. womens
of womens activism, womens community-based movement represented their interests and formed
struggles to improve their childrens education or racial-, ethnic-, or class-specific feminist organiza-
health and safety and to fight police harassment tions and networks. As in other political move-
and toxic waste are now understood as significant ments, the diversity of womens activism reflects a
forms of political behavior. broad spectrum of political perspectives, social
With this broadened view of activism, feminist experiences, and class divisions. Womens class,
social historians have also demonstrated the sig- race, ethnicity, country of origin, sexuality, and
nificance of womens central roles in diverse social geographic location intersect to produce a vantage
movements and labor struggles. For example, Af- point, a site from which women experience
rican American women drew upon their social net- different social problems in different ways. This,

ACTIVISM 1
 in turn, creates diverse grounds for the develop- Lesbians in countries around the world have
A ment of womens activism.
Social-movement theorists were particularly in-
joined to counter homophobia and discrimination
in their communities. In many countries, lesbian
terested in explaining what contributes to the conti- activists who speak out risk public censure and im-
nuity of radical political activism. This has been a prisonment. A turning point in bringing worldwide
central thread in the literature on lesbian feminist attention to the issues of concern to lesbians oc-
activism. Taylor and Rupp (1988) discuss the ways curred during the 1995 Nongovernmental Organi-
in which womens-movement activists reproduce zations (NGO) Conference on Women held in
political identities through their everyday lives and, Hairou, China, alongside the United Nations Con-
by extension, help sustain social-movement goals ference on Women in Beijing, China. Women from
and analyses when a social movement is in a period different countries marched in support of lesbian
of abeyance. Arguing against constructions of so- rights and against anti-gay violence, and the ses-
called cultural feminism (a political perspective that sions on lesbian concerns were well attended by a
emphasizes the creation of an alternative womens diversity of women. Despite the concerted efforts
culture) as apolitical, they demonstrate the political of activists at these meetings, a resolution on les-
significance of female values, separatism, the pri- bian and gay rights was not included in the final
macy of women relationships, and feminist ritual. Platform for Action passed by the representatives
Through private rituals and creation of sepa- at the U.N.conference. Nancy A.Naples
rate social spaces and fictive kin networks, lesbi-
ans in varying regional contexts have established Bibliography
the sense of community and solidarity needed for Echols, Alice. Daring To Be Bad: Radical Femi-
collective action. Antigay violence, discrimination nism in America, 19671975. Minneapolis:
in employment and housing, denial of parental and University of Minnesota Press, 1989.
adoption rights, antigay legislation, and AIDS have Naples, Nancy A. Activist Mothering: Cross-
mobilized lesbian activists to join forces with gay Generational Continuity in the Community Work
men in local organizing efforts in cities and towns of Women from Low Income Neighborhoods.
across the United States. From another perspec- Gender and Society 6:3 (1992), 44163.
tive, Stein (1992) worries that the development of Phelan, Shane. (Be) Coming Out: Lesbian Iden-
numerous groups and organizations, such as sup- tity and Politics. Signs: Journal of Women in
port groups for lesbian mothers and women fac- Culture and Society 18:4 (1993), 764790.
ing life-threatening diseases and organizations for Schulman, Sarah. The Lesbian Avenger Handbook:
lesbian professionals, among other projects, frag- A Handy Guide to Homemade Revolution. New
ments lesbian activism. York: Self-Published, 1993.
In keeping alive a more radical tradition of or- Stein, Arlene. Sisters and Queers: The Decentering
ganizing, the Lesbian Avengers, established in 1992 of Lesbian Feminism. Socialist Review 22
by activists in New York City, have waged campaigns (1992), 3355.
against violence against gays and lesbians, homo- Taylor, Verta, and Leila Rupp. Womens Culture and
phobia in education and housing, and heterosexism Lesbian Feminist Activism: A Reconsideration of
in public spaces. Contemporary lesbian activism has Cultural Feminism. Signs: Journal of Women in
also been influenced by the critique of identity poli- Culture and Society 19:1 (1988), 3261.
tics, namely, that the bipolar gay/ straight or homo-
sexual/heterosexual designation only reproduces See also Coalition Politics; Electoral Politics; In-
dominant social relations both within and across ternational Organizations; Lesbian Avengers;
identity categories. Some lesbian activists involved Womens Liberation Movement
in radical political activism during the 1990s have
adopted the term queer to refer to a broad array
of identities and sexualities. Phelan (1993) rec- Addams, Jane (18601935)
ognizes the dilemma of identity politics but argues Born Laura Jane Addams, she was the founder of
that one can draw upon constructed identity cat- Hull House Settlement in Chicago, Illinois, and the
egories in strategic ways to enhance political mobi- Womens International League for Peace and Free-
lization and build more effective coalitions that are dom, and the first American woman to be awarded
not based on social identities. the Nobel Peace Prize.
As the favored, youngest daughter of a promi-
2 ACTIVISM
 tige came easily to Addams, and she did not enjoy it
in saintly solitude. From the time of her girlhood at
Rockford Female Seminary until her death, Addams
was the charismatic center of a circle of female
friends. Though Addamss temperamental reserve
made her disdainful of the sentimental smashes
common among college girls of the day, she did form
a close bond with Starr. Starr was Addamss key
confidante during her twenties. Starrs vision of a
future in which the two would work well together
emboldened Addams to extricate herself from fam-
ily demands and serve, instead, as the head resident
of an urban settlement. Within just a few years at
Hull House, Addams had created an extended fam-
ily of extraordinary women whose primary bonds
were to one another and to their common political
purpose. They shared the daily burdens of health
and family and finances as naturally as they shared
their writing, lobbying, and convictions.
Addams never treated her bond with Starr as a
romantic one. It was not until she met the young
and beautiful Mary Rozet Smith (18681934) in
1890 that Addams could declare she had been vis-
ited by delivering love. While she and Starr drifted
apart emotionally and politically, Addams and Smith
Jane Addams. Jane Addams Memorial Collection,
grew ever closer. Addams had her own room at
Special Collections, The University Library, The
University of Illinois at Chicago. Smiths Chicago mansion; they bought a vacation
home together in Bar Harbor, Maine; and when the
nent Republican businessman and state senator two women took trips together, Addams wired ahead
from Cedarville, Illinois, Jane Addams was part of for one room with two double beds. Smiths wealth
the elite, first generation of college women in made possible much of the physical and program-
America. Like thousands of her cohorts, Addams matic expansion of Hull House and funded the ex-
had the wealth and the education to live outside tensive travel that positioned Addams for leader-
the bonds of Victorian matrimony. She created both ship in the international peace movement. At the
a career and a home for herself when, in 1881, she same time, Smiths unflagging emotional support
joined with her close friend, Ellen Gates Starr was vital to Jane Addamss tireless public endeavor.
(18591940), in opening Hull House, the second Over the course of their forty-year partnership,
settlement house in the United States. A settle- Smith became the fierce guardian of Addamss
ment was a house in a working-class neighborhood health and privacy. When Smith died in 1934,
where middle-class residents lived and provided a friends wrote poignant letters about the couples
variety of educational, health, recreational, and beautiful friendship and worried openly about
cultural programs for their neighbors. Settlement whether Addams, in frail health, could survive the
houses were often a neighborhoods locus for po- loss. She could not. Addams died fifteen months
litical, ethnic, and union activity as well. Addams later, but not before destroying more than half of
quickly rose to national prominence as a leading her correspondence with Smith because, as she put
figure in the Progressive Eras movements for eco- it, the letters were much too intimate to be used
nomic, sexual, and racial justice and, for the next in a biography. What remains from that corre-
half-century, enjoyed greater influence than any spondence, and from Addamss correspondence
other American woman of her day. One popular with her other female friends, paints a clear pic-
magazine in 1909 called Addams the first saint ture of female-centered love and devotion lived out
America has produced. in historic dimensions. Victoria Bissell Brown
Contrary to myth, none of this glory and pres-

ADDAMS, JANE 3
 Bibliography for financial support. That can, in the case of some
A Addams, Jane. The Second Twenty Years at
HullHouse. New York: Macmillan, 1930.
educational experiences (medical or law school fol-
lowing college, for example), extend adolescence well
. Twenty Years at Hull-House with Autobio- into what has been defined as young adulthood.
graphical Notes. New York: Macmillan, 1910. There is little contentiousness among social and
Linn, James Weber. Jane Addams: A Biography. behavioral scientists about the fact that adolescence
New York: Appleton-Century, 1935. is a period of dramatic change. Making the transi-
Sklar, Kathryn Kish. Hull House in the 1890s: A tion from childhood to young adulthood involves
Community of Women Reformers. Signs: Jour- physiological, cognitive, emotional, social, moral,
nal of Women in Culture and Society 10 (1985), and vocational experiences and issues. Individuals
658677. in the adolescent age range are typically represented
as immature and incapable of making adult deci-
See also Female Support Networks; Peace Move- sions, and these assertions are often accepted as
ment; Social Work true by the adolescents themselves. Schools and
parents alike expect and tolerate the adolescents
immature behavior and raise strong proscriptions
Adolescence against adultlike behaviors, especially in the sexual
The concept of adolescence is relatively new in realm. In U.S. culture sexual behavior is reserved
human history. Before the Industrial Revolution for heterosexual, married adults; adolescents dis-
in Europe and North America in the nineteenth playing such behaviors are sanctioned by the adult
century, one was accorded the status of adulthood world up to, and including, involvement in the le-
at the time of physical maturity. Individual transi- gal system in attempts to control such practice.
tions from childhood to adulthood were relatively Precocious sexual behavior, especially among fe-
quick and accompanied by differential behavioral males, has been treated harshly (resulting in insti-
expectations. Clearly, while adolescence may be tutionalization, for example), most likely because
concretely defined in terms of chronological age females are assumed to be under their familys con-
and physiology, it is of social construction and, as trol until marriage. Girls who participate in any
such, must be regarded as intimately tied to the sexual activities with males or females are looked
culture, as distinguished from being a condition upon as deviant, out of control, and, therefore,
that exists across time and geography. This ap- subject to increased behavioral supervision.
proach to understanding human behavior is known Adolescents recognize and define themselves as
as developmental-stage theory. Social and different from, sometimes the opposite of, adults,
behavioral scientists have described a series of tasks appearing to some parents as purposefully contrary.
that are appropriate to each stage, against which This extends particularly into the arena of sexual
people are assessed as normal, delayed, or, on oc- behavior, in which young people assess themselves
casion, precocious in developmental age. as ready to participate long before the adult world
In the twentieth century, adolescence is defined would agree. However, proscriptions against homo-
by Western social scientists as the transition time sexuality remain strong in the adolescent world, es-
during which individuals are expected to adapt the pecially for early adolescence. Adolescent lesbians,
behaviors of childhood into adult ways acceptable who recognize their affectional/sexual orientation,
to the culture in which they live. Often, this period often have intense conflicts with parents, siblings,
is assumed to begin at puberty and end with sec- and peers in their home and school environment;
ondary-school completion, but, because the age those who hide the fact from others expend enor-
range at which puberty begins is between eight and mous amounts of energy monitoring their behavior
eighteen, the specific age at which adolescence be- in public. In many instances of conflicts with par-
gins or ends for anyone remains problematic. It is ents, in the past, as well as now, adolescent lesbians
safe to assert at the end of the twentieth century in have been summarily placed in psychiatric institu-
North America that there is general acceptance of tions for treatment as if they were actually psychotic,
adolescence as corresponding roughly with grades rather than simply not living up to their parents
seven through twelve, although, for some, the pe- expectations of appropriate behavior.
riod extends into the college years. This is due to Research on lesbian life-span development, of
the dependence of young people on their families which adolescence is but one area, has a relatively

4 ADDAMS, JANE
short history; the first reports have publication dates possible differences within those categories. There
in the 1980s. Very few studies have been conducted may have been an assumption made that the expe-
on issues associated with puberty and lesbianism, riences and needs of lesbians are not significantly
and the majority of those were combined studies of different from the general female population. At this
both males and females. It is likely that the ethical point, the topic of lesbians and work is largely un-
issues associated with conducting research on chil- explored. Data are sparse and hard to obtain. Re-
dren and teenagers, the need for informed consent searchers must depend upon the willingness of adult
of subjects being the major one, has steered research- lesbians to self-identify and to be receptive to par-
ers into the adult population for subjects. Informed ticipation in their study. As more data become avail-
consent in the case of minors must be given by a able, making informed educational and vocational
parent or guardian; in a homophobic society, such choices will be made more specific for lesbians.
consent is difficult to obtain. Teenagers seldom wish Barbara W.Gerber
to discuss sexual issues of any sort with parents,
and issues of affectional/sexual orientation, due to Bibliography
societal and internalized homophobia, are even more Fassinger, Ruth. Adolescence: Options and Opti-
likely to be avoided. Therefore, most data regard- mization. Counseling Psychologist 24:3
ing female adolescents sexuality, level of informa- (1996), 49197.
tion, or practices are gathered retrospectively, after Gonsiorek, John C. Mental Health Issues of Gay
the age of eighteen, when one is assumed to be able and Lesbian Adolescents. In Psychological Per-
to give informed consent. spectives on Lesbian and Gay Male Experiences.
Among lesbian teenagers, there may be a reluc- Ed. Linda D.Garnets and Douglas C. Kimmel.
tance to participate actively in social experiences, New York: Columbia University Press, 1993,
parties, and dating in particular. Opposite-, as well pp. 469485.
as same-sex, socializing may be fraught with ten- Morgan, Kris S., and Laura S.Brown. Lesbian
sion and anxiety due to heterosexist expectations Career Development, Work Behavior, and Vo-
and both societal and internalized homophobia. cational Counseling. Counseling Psychologist
This reluctance would best be described as normal 19:2 (1991), 273291.
in U.S. culture, as distinguished from evidencing
what mental-health practitioners as early as the See also High Schools, Lesbian and Gay; Students
1920s labeled delayed sexual development. Some
adolescent lesbians may focus their attention on
sports, the arts, clubs, or community organizations Adoption
for social support; others may concentrate on do- The legal procedure for creating the relationship
ing well in school or holding a part-time job and of parent and child between the adopter and the
ignore peer socializing. adoptee. In the United States, adoption law and
The issue of personal civil rights became a facet procedure are established by individual states and
of the youth movement in the early 1990s. This can vary dramatically from one state to another.
movement is more clearly articulated than was ei- Although the term adoption usually calls to mind
ther the drug or the antiwar movement, with which the addition of a minor child to a family, adoption
older people were equally strongly allied. This historically served the principal purpose of facili-
youth movement is focused, fueled, and run by tating the descent of property when a man would
youth, almost exclusively. For all youth, the issue otherwise die without an heir. In those instances, a
of self-determination is central and includes an in- person would adopt an adult who would carry on
sistence on being free of arbitrary parental con- the family name.
trol. An example of arbitrariness is the young les-
bian who has been involuntarily placed in an insti- Adoption of Adults
tution by parents who disapprove of her actions. Adult adoption remains available today and has
Adolescence is, for all, a time to give serious con- played a distinctive role among gay men and lesbi-
sideration to both educational and vocational ans. Because marriage has not been available to gay
choices for the future. While there is general con- men or lesbians, some couples have used adult adop-
sensus that career development for males and fe- tion to create a legally recognized relationship be-
males is different, little notice has been made of the tween them. The creation of such a relationship

ADOPTION 5
 was thought especially important when one part- intact the childs relationship with the biological
A ner had sufficient assets that his or her family mem-
bers would be expected to challenge a will leaving
parent. Lesbian couples seeking second-parent
adoption must convince a court to treat their re-
those assets to his or her surviving partner. An quest as a stepparent adoption, even though the
adoption of one partner by the other would assure partners are not married to each other.
not only property distribution, but also the ability Both joint adoptions and second-parent adop-
to make decisions concerning such matters as health tions have been granted to lesbian couples in some
care and burial that are customarily within the jurisdictions. As of 1998, appellate courts had ap-
authority of the next of kin. Although some courts proved one or both of these types of adoptions in
have approved adoptions, knowing that the cou- the District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Massa-
ple was in a gay or lesbian relationship, others have chusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Vermont. In
determined that such a relationship was not a more than a dozen other states, trial court judges
proper use of adoption statutes. Attorneys have had granted such adoptions, but no appeals court
cautioned couples considering this approach that, had ruled on the issue. In two states, Colorado and
unlike marriage, an adoption cannot be terminated Wisconsin, appeals courts had ruled that such
or revoked if the partners later separate. adoptions are not permissible.
Without a joint or second-parent adoption, the
Adoption of Children child being raised by a lesbian couple has only one
An unmarried adult is permitted to adopt a child in legally recognized parent. This can have serious
every American jurisdiction. As of 1998, only two ramifications. If the couple separates, the legally
states, Florida and New Hampshire, had statutes recognized parent has the right to custody of the
that prohibit a lesbian or a gay man from adopting child and, in most states, can cut off all contact
a child. An adoption decree must be signed by a between the child and her former partner. If the
judge and customarily requires an investigation by legally recognized parent dies, her parents or other
a social worker or other professional to determine relatives may be able to remove the child from the
the suitability of the adoptive placement. Social surviving partner. If the legally unrecognized par-
workers often do not ask a prospective adoptive ent dies, the child will be denied survivors benefits
parent about her sexual orientation. When they do, or the right to inherit in the absence of a will. Thus,
attorneys caution applicants not to lie. At least one joint and second-parent adoptions are an impor-
court has revoked an adoption after discovering that tant component of building secure lesbian fami-
the parent had lied about his sexual orientation. lies. Nancy Polikoff
Because adoption records are sealed and adoption
proceedings vary both from state to state and from Bibliography
county to county, no one knows how many lesbi- Achtenberg, Roberta, and Karen Moulding, eds.
ans have adopted children, or been denied the abil- Adult Adoption. In Sexual Orientation and
ity to adopt children, as single adults. the Law. Deerfield, 111.: Clark, Boardman,
Lesbian couples who wish to jointly parent a Callaghan, 1994, 186192.8.
child face distinctive adoption issues. They may Martin, April. The Lesbian and Gay Parenting
wish to adopt a child as a couple, a practice com- Book. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993.
monly referred to as joint adoption. In the alter- Ricketts, Wendell, and Roberta Achtenberg.
native, one partner may give birth to a child, and Adoption and Foster Parenting for Lesbians
the other partner may then seek to become the and Gay Men: Creating New Traditions in Fam-
childs adoptive parent. This practice is commonly ily. In Homosexuality and Family Relations.
referred to as second-parent adoption. The le- Ed. Frederick W.Bozett and Marvin B.Sussman.
gal issue faced by lesbian couples seeking joint New York: Harrington Park, 1990, 83118.
adoption is whether any unmarried couple may
adopt a child together in that state. Second-parent See also Custody Litigation; Law and Legal Insti-
adoption raises a different legal issue. Adoption tutions
customarily extinguishes the legal relationship be-
tween a child and her biological parents. Often,
the only statutory exception to this rule is a Advertising and Consumerism
stepparent adoption, in which a biological parents Lesbian (and gay) community as a consumer mar-
husband or wife may adopt the child while leaving ket. In a capitalist market economy, lesbians

6 ADOPTION
produce and consume commodities, defined as has argued, in describing the emergence of the Tav-
products made to be exchanged in a marketplace ern Guild, a self-protection and -promotion organi-
for a profit. Businesses, such as bars and book- zation of gay and lesbian bar owners and bartend-
stores, catering to lesbian and gay consumers have ers in San Francisco in the 1960s, that a gay mar-
historically been, and continue to be, the sites of ketplace can generate, as well as result from, a so-
gay community and social activism. A vast array cial/political movement. Gays and lesbians have
of businesses, including media, merchandise since expanded beyond bars to many other sorts
catalogs, and travel, legal, medical, financial, and of businessesbookstores, travel agencies, cloth-
communications services, target lesbians as an iden- ing stores, arts organizationsaimed at lesbian and
tifiable, distinct consumer market (market, in this gay consumers, located in gay ghettos, serving pri-
sense, meaning a field of potential buyers, rather marily gay clientele, providing services or products
than a space of exchange). of particular interest to gay consumers and ben-
The particular attention paid to gays and lesbi- efiting gay and lesbian entrepreneurs. Freeman
ans as a target market has been part of a larger (1995) has pointed out that the development of
trend in late-twentieth-century capitalism toward print capitalism and, more recently, electronic me-
target, or niche, marketing. Attention to the gay diathe circulation of gay newspapers, magazines,
market has been described as both resulting from and direct-marketing materials such as catalogs and
the gay and lesbian movement, which has given card packshas generated a nonlocal space with
gays and lesbians visibility as a potential market which gays and lesbians can identify.
segment, and producing gay and lesbian commu-
nity and identity through its imaging and address- Advertising to Lesbians
ing of gays and lesbians. There is much debate in Print media have been extremely important organs
the gay and lesbian community over the political for advertising aimed at gays and lesbians. The most
value of such market recognition; while positively important recent development in advertising ad-
valued for giving gays and lesbians a sense of so- dressed to gays and lesbians has been the partici-
cial legitimacy and recognition and presenting posi- pation of mainstream corporations selling main-
tive images of gays and lesbians to a mainstream stream products. Gay and lesbian media, as well
audience, it is criticized for erasing those segments as Gay Pride parades, sporting events, and resorts,
of the community that do not have as much money have deliberately tried to attract mainstream ad-
to spend (women, lesbians, and gays of color) or vertisers. It has been argued that, while many gay
are less appealing to the mainstream (practitioners magazines, especially those aimed at men, were
of sadomasochism or drag queens). Pealoza once filled with personal and sex ads, in order to
(1996) states that in the contemporary U.S. con- attract mainstream advertisers some have given up
sumer culture, the marketplace is an important both the ads and the editorial discussion of sex,
arena in which lesbians and other groups can strug- especially leather and sadomasochistic sex, choos-
gle for social and political inclusion. ing instead to portray gays and lesbians as normal,
family oriented, and politically moderate, seeking
Capitalism Enables Lesbian Community only to be treated like straights.
Social space for groups of people to live as gay or National gay magazines (the Advocate and Out)
lesbian was created by the development of indus- and some gay marketing and research firms (Over-
trial capitalism, which enabled individuals to live looked Opinions, Simmons Market Research Bu-
outside of family units. The cultural space for les- reau, Mulryan/Nash, Yankelovich) have done sur-
bians to existeconomic freedom from depend- veys showing the consuming abilities of gays and
ence on menis, in part, the result of the war-based lesbians and promoting gays and lesbians as a po-
economy of the first half of the twentieth century, tent market niche with higher-than-average dispos-
during which time women replaced men in indus- able income. There is tremendous debate over the
trial production. As a result of the freeing of labor accuracy of the figures generated and the claims
from its familial and rural contexts, gays and les- made by various groups. These surveys frequently
bians were able to create communities in urban generate their income and consumption statistics
areas. These communities were often communities based on the readership of a particular magazine
of consumers, in that much of the life of the com- or on the voluntary participation of self-identified
munity frequently took place in bars. Boyd (1975) gays and lesbians. Such methods of creating the

ADVERTISING AND CONSUMERISM 7

 survey sample have been criticized as producing a ers about the gay market, seeing it as at once lucra-
A picture of gays and lesbians as significantly more
affluent and more white than a more accurate pic-
tive and dangerous.) To avoid these dangers a third
approach is quite popular: Advertisers create ads
ture of a gay and lesbian population would. Those that allow or encourage gay identification but do so
who purchase gay and lesbian magazines and those in a coded form that straights will not recognize.
who self-identify as gay or lesbian are likely to feel For example, Clark (1991) describes a fashion lay-
able to do so because they have a degree of eco- out that appeared in Elle magazine, a mainstream
nomic and social security not experienced by other fashion magazine, featuring a short-haired model
people (poor, non-white, female) who express or dressed in man-style attire (jacket and tie), leaning
experience homosexual desire in some form. The on a motorcycle. Clark points out that this image
surveys describing gays and lesbians as more can be read by lesbians as the image of a butch les-
wealthy than straights have been used by right- bian; the swaggering recommended in the ad copy
wing, antigay forces to argue that gay people do and enacted by the model can likewise be seen as
not need civil rights protection such as protection, the cruising dyke.
from employment discrimination, since gays and
lesbians are apparently already an economically Implications for Lesbian and
privileged group. Recent studies by academics, as Gay Rights Movements
well as the Yankelovich survey, tell a different story: Both the second and third approaches assume that
They show that gays and lesbians earn less than gays and lesbians constitute a distinct culture, with
their heterosexual counterparts. However, it is pre- its own codes, sets of meanings, and concerns. The
cisely those white, wealthy, and, to a large extent, covert use of lesbian and gay codes in mainstream
male gay consumers who are of primary interest to adsa style may be marketed to straights as sim-
advertisers, though, as women, in general, become ply the new fashionmay be experienced by gays
wealthier, lesbians become a more attractive mar- and lesbians not as an appeal, but rather as ex-
ket segment. And so in advertising that features ploitative. As Freeman and Berlant (1993) point
gays and lesbians, they are likely to appear to be out, while the advertisements erotic or exotic
exclusively white and wealthy, making it harder charge depends on its unacknowledged roots in
for those who are neither to feel that gay or les- lesbian and gay culture, the lesbian and gay cul-
bian identity and community are relevant to them. tural creativity that produced such a style is erased
Mainstream advertisers have taken three ap- and the lesbian- and gay-specific meaning of the
proaches to reaching the gay and lesbian market. style is eroded.
First, they have placed ads that are part of their regu- Advertisers also assume that those communal
lar campaign in gay media; Absolut Vodka is a well- codes and concerns can be used to create individual
known example of a company that has placed simi- consumer desires; hence, they address gays and les-
lar ads in gay and nongay publications. Second, they bians as individual consumers. Clark argues that
have developed special ad campaigns for gay out- such an individual address may undermine the com-
lets that explicitly invite gay identification; an ex- munal and political aspects of gay and lesbian iden-
ample of an advertisement geared to the lesbian con- tification. Oppositional political rhetoric is trans-
sumerplaying on one self-stereotype current formed into a slogan for a product. Chasin (1995)
among lesbiansis a 1996 Subaru of America ad suggests that, in place of an identification with a
that states: It loves camping, dogs, and long-term lesbian and gay political movement, both the adver-
commitment. Too bad its only a car. Some com- tisements and the survey techniques invite identifi-
panies, notably, K-Mart and Ikea, have placed such cation with U.S. nationalism. The treatment of the
gay-oriented advertisements on television. However, lesbian and gay community as a market niche may,
many companies are wary of doing this, and even as Chasin argues, undermine the movement for civil
of placing ads in gay publications, for fear that their rights for sexual minorities. Miranda Joseph
products will become identified as gay or lesbian
and, therefore, not be appealing to the heterosexual Bibliography
market or even draw a boycott from antigay forces Boyd, Nan Alamilla. Shopping for Rights: Gays,
such as the Religious Right. (A number of articles in Lesbians and Visibility Politics. Denver Uni-
marketing and business publications in the mid- versity Law Review 75:4 (Fall 1998), 1361
1990s have described the ambivalence of advertis- 1373.

8 ADVERTISING AND CONSUMERISM

Chasin, Alexandra. Selling Out: The Gay/Lesbian Copeland (1970), Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye
Market and the Construction of Gender. (1970), and Toni Cade (Bambara)s anthology The
Sojourner 22 (1997), 1415. Black Woman (1970)challenged the predomi-
Clark, Danae. Commodity Lesbianism. Camera nantly male canon and critical establishments, both
Obscura 2526 (1991), 180201. Reprinted in black and white.
The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Ed. Henry In Toward a Black Feminist Criticism (1977),
Abelove, Michle Aina Barale, and David black lesbian feminist Barbara Smith (1946)af-
Halperin. New York: Routledge, 1993, 186201. ter taking white female, white male, and black male
Freeman, Elizabeth. Queer Bonds. Paper pre- critics to task for their insensitivity to the literary
sented at a meeting of the American Studies strivings of black women writerscalled for a black
Association, Pittsburgh, October 1995. feminist criticism embodying the daring spirit
Freeman, Elizabeth, and Lauren Berlant. Queer of the literary works themselves. Smiths notion of
Nationality. In Fear of a Queer Planet. Ed. daring included the lesbian as a category of
Michael Warner. Minneapolis: University of analysis, as a subject of inquiry, as an object of
Minnesota Press, 1993, pp. 193229. desire, and as a political entity. Smiths hallmark
Lukenbill, Grant. Untold Millions: Positioning Your article inspired an entire school of black feminist
Business for the Gay and Lesbian Consumer critics to chart new trajectories for reading the lit-
Market. New York: Harper Collins, 1995. erary expression of African American women, in-
Pealoza, Lisa. Were Here, Were Queer, and cluding searching for the meaning of lesbian in
Were Going Shopping: A Critical Perspective the African American literary tradition.
on the Accommodation of Gays and Lesbians
into the U.S. Marketplace. Journal of Homo- History
sexuality 31:12 (Summer 1996), 941. Prior to the 1970s, black lesbian writers had been
silent since the demise of the New Negro Renais-
See also Bars; Bookstores; Businesses, Lesbian; sance, which claimed Harlem, in New York City,
Community; Demography; Economics; Journalism as its home. During this period (19171935), Af-
rican Americans were able, for the first time, to
reflect upon their contributions to American life
African American Literature and culture. One of its leaders, Alain Leroy Locke
Creative writing by African American lesbians, in- (18861954), was decidedly homosexual and ex-
cluding poetry, fiction, and drama. Also referred ercised a profound and perturbing influence on the
to as Afro-American, black, and Negro literature. cultural production of African Americans when the
In the 1960s, African American literature oc- Negro was in vogue. Love between women
cupied a place of quaint honor in historically black the sapphic cult of love, as Locke termed lesbi-
institutions of higher learning. One course would anismwas celebrated in life and poetry during
be offered once a year, usually during summer the New Negro Renaissance.
school sessions; and that one course would survey Because they validated sexuality, resistance, and
the whole tradition, from Lucy Terry (1730?) to autonomy, performers like Ma Rainey (1886
Amiri Baraka (1934). By the end of the twentieth 1939) and Bessie Smith (1894?1937) assumed
century, African American literature has become a legendary status within black poor, working-class,
vibrant and contested field of study, its texts occu- and bohemian and avant garde communities; both
pying whole sections of bookstores, winning ma- were lesbian or bisexual. Raineys Prove It on Me
jor literary honors, and changing the way readers Blues, recorded in 1928, is one example of the
understand the world. Black male writers, schol- bold lesbianism of black women in the so-called
ars, and social activistssuch as Malcolm X (1925 Jazz Age. Mae V.Cowdery (19091953) was an
1965), Frederick Douglass (18171895), Martin open lesbian, said to wear suits and ties, cut her
Delany (18121885), W.E.B.DuBois (18681863), hair short, smoke cigarettes publicly, and frequent
and Eldridge Cleaver (19351998)became cul- Greenwich Village rather than Harlem. Before com-
tural icons who embodied the aspirations and pas- mitting suicide at the age of forty-two, she wrote a
sions of the whole race, or so it was said. But in number of poems whose love object was female.
the 1970s, writing by African American women The coded lesbian lyrics of Angelina Weld Grimk
such as Alice Walkers The Third Life of Grange (18801958) were not deciphered until 1979, when

A F R I C A N A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E 9
 critic Gloria (Akasha) Hull speculated about lesbianism in an African context, explore the Afri-
A Grimks secret sapphic desire. Critic Deborah
McDowell has also discussed the lesbian subtext
can sources of what is called lesbianism in West.
In her poetry and nonfiction, Lorde draws upon
of Nella Larsens (18911964) Passing (1927). mythic and historical figures like the Coniagui
In his eulogy to the great American writer James Women, the Women of Dan, Yemanja, the
Baldwin (19241987), Amiri Baraka said Baldwins Amazon legions of Dahomey and the Zamis
Blues for Mister Charlie (1964), a stark play that [a] Carriacou name for women who work together
reimagines the lynching of Emmet Till, announced as friends and lovers. Lordes evocations of a black
the Black Arts Movement. However, others claim (non-European) lesbian past served to establish a
that Barakas own short-lived project, the Black lesbian or woman-loving-woman mythos of the
Arts Repertory, ushered in this new era in the tra- African diaspora, linking Africa, the Caribbean,
dition of black letters. The Black arts movement and North America.
was certainly emboldened by people like Baraka Lorde, influenced by the Black Arts movement
and Baldwin and was initiated in public venues, of the 1960s, understood writing as instrumental
including the theater, the jazz set, and the poetry to liberation and the writer as agent of change. This
reading. More important, the Black arts movement daring established Lorde as a signal black lesbian
was the angry offspring of what came to be seen as feminist, whose poetry, fiction, journals, speeches,
the assimilationist civil rights movement. The Black and essays continue to illuminate the work to be
arts movement was also the cultural kin of the Black done by black lesbian feminist writers.
Power movement, which came into being in 1966 Pat Parker (19441989), a native Texan and
with the concept Black Power, propounded by migrant to California, spoke in a different poetic
leaders of organizations such as the Student Non- voice than the first-generation, Caribbean New
violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Yorker Lorde. Parkers lesbian voice was decidedly
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The Black street, butch, and oral. Her first three books of
arts movement rejected Western models, reified poetry, Child of Myself (1971), Pit Stop (1973), and
black folk culture, and renounced, as would the Womanslaughter (1978), explored a range of iden-
Black Power movement, integrationist themes. Both tity and relationship issues, including autonomy and
movements nodded to Malcolm X as the exemplar self-definition as a black lesbian feminist. The poem
of black integrity and resistance. Manhood, het- Womanslaughter, from the volume of the same
erosexuality, and militancy characterized the Black name, is a raw indictment of violence against women
Arts Movement, and black women played a vital and the systems that aid and abet it, not least of all
role in the perpetuation of race ideology and race the criminal justice system, which in its language,
mythology. manslaughter, makes women invisible victims (or
perpetrators). Her performance poem Movement
Major Figures in Black is a historical excursion into the lives of
Although African American literary expression in African women in the New World; while Where
the 1960s was dominated by heterosexual longing Will You Be ironically addresses the questions of
and nostalgic nationalism, in the 1970s black les- who will be allies of those oppressed by racist, sex-
bian voices began to emerge. Philadelphian Anita ist, and heterosexist systems.
Cornwell (1923), black lesbian polemicist and Although poetry was the most influential genre
writer for The Ladder (est. 1956), published arti- of the 1970s, one novelist did emerge: Ann Allen
cles in lesbian feminist journals and anthologies. Shockley (1927), whose Loving Her (1974), The
Cornwell claims that racism and sexism made her Black and the White of It (short stories, 1980),
a feminist, from which vantage point she critiques and Say Jesus and Come to Me (1981) were among
racism in the white lesbian community and homo- the first conscious fictional ventures to place black
phobia and heterosexism in the black community. lesbian characters at the center of the narrative,
By the late 1970s and early 1980s, Audre Lorde although some consider her characterizations nei-
(19341992), black, lesbian, feminist poet, mother, ther artful nor credible.
socialist, and author of more than ten books of
poetry, had written The Black Unicorn (1978) and The Emergence of a Movement
her self-styled biomythography Zami: A New In 1979, Barbara Smith and Lorraine Bethel, two
Spelling of My Name (1982). Both texts historicize prominent black lesbian feminists, guest-edited

10 A F R I C A N A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E
Conditions: Five, The Black Womens Issue, for black writers. This attitude also can be seen in
which showcased the writings of contemporary several works by ostensibly heterosexual writers
black feminists. This issue was a road map for black Ed Bullins Claras Ole Man (1968), Gayl Joness
feminists who wanted to be lesbians, just as Toni Evas Man (1976), and Paule Marshalls The Cho-
Cade (Bambara)s The Black Woman was for het- sen Place, Timeless People (1969)which present
erosexual black women who wanted to be femi- lesbianism as having a marginal place in, and some-
nists. It was widely and favorably reviewed, by none what corrupting effect on, black communities. On
other than Alice Walker (1944) in one case. In the other hand, works such as Rosa Guys Ruby
keeping with the editorial practice of Conditions (1976), Gloria Naylors The Women of Brewster
(founded in 1976) to be a magazine of writing Place (1982), and, most celebrated of all, Alice
for women with an emphasis on writing by lesbi- Walkers The Color Purple (1982) portray lesbi-
ans, this issue was the first publication in the Af- anism with more complexity and empathy.
rican American tradition and in the tradition of
lesbian writing to emphasize black lesbian writ- From Margin to Mainstream
ers. Conditions: Five also represented a new era in The deaths from cancer of Pat Parker in 1989 and
womens political organizing. The lesbian feminist Audre Lorde in 1992 were sadly emblematic of an
movement was in the process of self-criticism for era capped by untimely deaths from cancer and
the evident whiteness of its leadership, its subtle AIDS of many in the black and queer communi-
and not so subtle elitism, and its social and eco- ties. Black lesbian writers, like all whose work was
nomic privilege. Lesbian feminist organizations, as embraced by radical political movements and al-
well as journals (like Conditions), and newspapers, ternative presses, faced new challenges regarding
magazines, and newsletters, committed themselves the publication of their work. The closing of alter-
to producing a multiracial, multicultural leadership. native presses, the flagging of book sales, the cor-
Indeed, the women-in-print movement began to porate takeovers of publishing companies, the chain
capitalize on the writings and the bodies of black bookstores conquests of independent womens and
lesbian feminists in the United States and interna- gay bookstores more open to stocking alternative-
tional communities. The literary reading took on a press publications, and the changing tastes of au-
particular significance in lesbian communities across diences all threatened lesbian writers with erasure.
the country as it had during the Black Arts move- On the other hand, Michelle Cliff (1946) and
ment, with poets playing key roles in educating, en- Sapphire, both self-identified black lesbian writers
lightening, and politicizing the lesbian public. Older and both mentored by the black lesbian literary
and more seasoned writers like Parker and Lorde movement, succeeded in the 1990s in reaching be-
were joined by newer voices, including Cheryl Clarke yond lesbian audiences via major-press publication.
(1947), Jewelle Gomez (1948), and Terri Jewell Cliff, along with Adrienne Rich (1929), was at
(19541995), as well as by fiction writers Sapphire one time an editor of Sinister Wisdom, a lesbian
(1950), Evelynn Hammonds (1953), Becky Birtha feminist journal established in 1976, and had pub-
(1948), Barbara Banks (1948), and Shay lished two books with an alternative press before
Youngblood (1959). Their work was published in Dutton published second and third novels, No
numerous literary journals and anthologies, as well Telephone to Heaven (1987) and Free Enterprise
as in local lesbian and feminist newspapers. (1993). Sapphire, a performance poet and writer,
Even writers who did not identify with the poli- published two books of poetry, one under her own
tics of lesbianism were influenced by its new open- imprint and the second for an alternative press,
ness. Alexis De Veaux (1948), author of a cryptic before her novel Push was published by Knopf in
1974 novel, Spirits in the Street, became more ex- 1996. Although both writers maintained their in-
plicitly woman centered, if not necessarily lesbian, tegrity as lesbians, their later work was not directed
in her 1981 play, No, a political, erotic-romantic, at lesbian audiences specifically, and their former
woman-identified poetic evocation of negritude. lesbian feminist affiliations not acknowledged by
Despite her reticence, a reviewer for the Amster- the promotional apparatus of their publishers.
dam News, a black publication in New York City, The publication of Does Your Mama Know? An
noted for its homophobic commentary, attacked Anthology of Coming Out Stories (1997), edited
DeVeauxs work for its use of lesbian themes, by Lisa C.Moore, and Afrekete: An Anthology of
which, according to the review, was not a fit topic Black Lesbian Writings (1995), edited by Catherine

A F R I C A N A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E 11
 E.McKinley and L.Joyce DeLaney, both by alterna- has not been monolithic or historically constant, a
A tive presses, is a further sign of the continuing vital-
ity of black lesbian writing, writers, and readership.
few generalizations can be made that place African
American lesbian history in its appropriate context.
The study of writing by lesbian feminists, black femi- Since African American womens arrival in the New
nists, and women of color in literature and wom- World as slaves, their lives have been primarily
ens studies programs in colleges and universities shaped by the forces of racial and class oppression,
across the United States and elsewhere is another by African American peoples strategies of survival
signal of the perpetuation of black lesbian writing. and resistance, and by the particular values and in-
On the other hand, few African American studies stitutions of African American communities. Sur-
programs integrate the writings of black lesbians vival needs, gender inequality, and an ethic of col-
and black gay men into their curricula. lective responsibility have required almost all Afri-
Black lesbian writers and writing continue to can American women to prioritize their economic
engage and instruct their audiences into the new and caregiving responsibilities within kin networks
millennium. As Adrienne Rich, an inveterate pro- over their personal needs for the time, liberty, and
moter of the work of women of color, claimed, the private space to explore passions considered uncon-
meaning of love between women must ever be ex- ventional. Thus, while some African American
panded. Black lesbian writers, like black women women have identified themselves as sexually dif-
writers throughout the literary diaspora, are ex- ferent and formed alternative lesbian communities,
panding those boundaries. Cheryl Clarke the majority have maintained traditional identities
as married or unmarried family caregivers and pro-
Bibliography viders and have loved women in ways as yet unrec-
Bethel, Lorraine, and Barbara Smith, eds. Condi- ognized by late-twentieth-century historians.
tions: Five, The Black Womens Issue 2:2 Historians have documented African American
(1979) (Special Issue). womens same-sex relationships since the mid-nine-
Cornwell, Anita. Black Lesbian in White America. teenth century and urban African American les-
Tallahassee, Fla.: Naiad, 1983. bian communities in the North since the Great
Gates, Henry Louis Jr., and Nellie Y.McKay, eds. Migration (19151940), particularly in Jazz Age
The Norton Anthology of African American Harlem. Those communities grew in numbers and
Literature. New York: Norton, 1997. complexity in the post-World War II decades. The
Guy-Sheftall, Beverly, ed. Introduction. Words movement sparked by the Stonewall Rebellion
of Fire: An Anthology of African American (1969) followed the black liberation struggle, and,
Feminist Thought. New York: New Press, 1995, together, both fundamentally changed African
pp. 122. American lesbian life, forging new identities and
Hull, Gloria T. Color, Sex, and Poetry: Three identity politics. Yet large gaps remain in our
Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance. knowledge of African American lesbian history; for
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. example, despite the fact that, until the mid-twen-
Smith, Barbara. Toward a Black Feminist Criti- tieth century, the center of African American cul-
cism. Conditions: Two 1:2 (1977), 2543. ture was in the rural South, almost nothing is
Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mothers Gardens: known of African American homosexuality there.
Womanist Prose. New York: Harcourt Brace These gaps are largely the result of persistent ne-
Jovanovich, 1983. glect by scholars of lesbian and gay and African
American history. In addition, lack of time, literacy,
See also African Americans; Black Feminism; Blues or inclination has prevented most poor and work-
Singers; Cornwell, Anita; Grimk, Angelina Weld; ing-class African American women from keeping
Harlem Renaissance; Lorde, Audre; Parker, Pat; written records of their life in diaries or letters, lead-
Rainey, Gertrude Ma; Shockley, Ann Allen; Smith, ing to a paucity of sources that illuminate their daily
Barbara; Smith, Bessie; Womanist thoughts and experience; documents that explic-
itly record lesbian relationships are even more
scarce. These difficulties are especially acute for the
African Americans documentation of slave life; slave narratives, slave
While the experience of African American women owners accounts, and white Northerners obser-
who have expressed erotic interest in other women vations each pose their own interpretive problems.

12 A F R I C A N A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E
The Civil War to the Great Migration ily bounds. As a new African American urban
Before the Great Migration, African American working class emerged in the North, women expe-
women were involved in same-sex relationships in rienced greater personal freedom than at any other
a number of settings, although the evidence lacks time, and a small but significant number of mi-
broader historical context. The letters between grants found jobs that gave them financial inde-
Rebecca Primus (18361932) and Addie Brown pendence from men and kin and the personal lib-
(1841?), two free women living in Connecticut erty to fashion a lesbian life. In the 1920s, urban
(Primus was a schoolteacher, Brown was a domes- African American lesbian networks and commu-
tic worker), between 1859 and 1869, are a rare his- nities emerged out of these unique historical forces.
torical record of nineteenth-century same-sex pas- Along with the politics and high culture of
sion by African American women. According to the New Negro movement and the Harlem Ren-
Hansen (1996), a historian, Brown and Primuss aissance, African American women occupied center
bond surpassed that of a romantic friendship, for stage in the African American entertainment in-
their letters reveal a long-term, loving friendship and dustry. Women who sought sexual autonomy were
sisterhood that also involved explicitly sexual rela- especially attracted to the wages and freedom of
tions that Hansen termed bosom sex. While the show business life, and lesbian relationships de-
Brown-Primus relationship was well known within veloped among the dancers, musicians, comics,
their family and social networks, the letters make actresses, and blues singers as they traveled
clear that they were, nonetheless, expected to marry, throughout the country performing in musicals,
and both eventually saw it socially and economi- cabarets, speakeasies, and minstrel and vaudeville
cally necessary to do so. Another nineteenth-cen- shows. Despite their marriages and heterosexual
tury example is the Wichita Tribunes report (Sep- public images, some of the finest and most promi-
tember 17, 1898) of a Queer Love Affair between nent performers had lesbian relationships, includ-
Adele Densmore and Ruth Latham, two African ing Gertrude Ma Rainey (18861939), Bessie
American women living in St. Joseph, Missouri. Due Smith (1894?1937), Ethel Waters (18961977),
to a lovers quarrel, Densmore was threatening Alberta Hunter (18951984), Gladys Bentley
to enlist as a man in the United States Army. The (19071960), and Jackie Moms Mabley (1897
two were said to be deeply in love, and Densmore 1975). Mabel Hampton (19021989), a working-
play[ed] the part of the man. The Tribune found class lesbian from the South who was a dancer and
their love strange yet admired the tenderness and an actress in New York City, recalls that Jackie
grace with which [Densmore] imprints on the cheeks Mabley was known to throw large parties to which
and lips of her girl sweetheart seals of affection. all the girls in the show would go in the 1920s.
Finally, African American womens involvement in Hampton also recalls meeting lesbians in the room-
same-sex relationships in all-female reform schools ing house where she lived and going to African
and prisons have been documented as well. In 1913, American lesbian rent parties and pay parties
Margaret Otis published an article in the Journal of independent of the entertainment industry.
Abnormal Psychology alerting readers to the pas- The degree to which a few African American les-
sionate and sometimes intensely sexual homo- bians self-consciously disregarded respectable fe-
sexual relations between young African American male behavior reveals what became possible during
and white women in a Northern reform school. this time, if not what came to be the norm. Gladys
Bentley, for example, gained international fame in
The Jazz Age, the Harlem Renaissance, the 1920s as a male impersonator who cultivated
and the New African American Working an image as a bulldagger; she wore mens clothes
Class up North on stage and on the street and had a female wife.
African American lesbians were among the hun- In a similarly bold move, Ma Rainey sang Prove
dreds of thousands of Southern men and women It on Me Blues for a landmark 1928 recording that
who moved north during the Great Migration. In defiantly stated her sexual preference for women.
addition to powerful economic and racial motives Black lesbians were visible in the lyrics of various
for quitting the South, many lesbians were also flee- BD blues (bulldagger blues) song recordings of
ing sexual and physical abuse from white men and this period. Male impersonation and gender inver-
African American men and from community norms sion were prominent cultural images of lesbianism
that frowned upon women who lived outside fam- during the 1920s and early 1930s; drag balls

AFRICAN AMERICANS 13
 featuring hundreds of male and female impersona- alone or with a lover. In mid-to large-sized cities,
A tors drew thousands of spectators and extensive
coverage from the African American press.
African American lesbians increased the number,
quality, and scope of lesbian-only settings in which
Internationally acclaimed classic blues singer they could gather. They held open-house parties,
Alberta Hunter was perhaps more typical of those formed social clubs, organized formal dances and
who sought middle-class status and acceptance other social functions, joined softball leagues, and
from the mainstream African American commu- began patronizing formerly all-white bars. African
nityshe took great care to conceal her lesbian American butch-femme couples (studs, papas,
relationships. Similarly, Angelina Weld Grimk or lady-lovers, with their ladies mamas, or
(18801958) was an elite poet of the Harlem Ren- wives) braved city streets together despite ram-
aissance and was presumed to be heterosexual, yet pant police violence in black neighborhoods. Afri-
she wrote love poetry that addressed women and can American lesbians fought to defend and expand
had at least one clearly lesbian relationship. Lit- their lesbian-only social territory in many ways; this
erary scholar Gloria (Akasha) Hulls research on sometimes involved preventing straight men from
writer and community activist Alice Dunbar-Nel- entering a party or a bar, through physical force
son (18751935) revealed that, along with Dunbar- when necessary. At the same time, considerable so-
Nelsons heterosexual relationships, including cial pressure was placed on African American
marriage to poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar (1872 women (through the pages of Ebony magazine, for
1906), her passionate life also included affairs with example) to help legitimize African American de-
several other prominent African American women. mands for equality by conforming to the ideal
For the most part, African Americans have been middle-class American woman: heterosexual, femi-
ambivalent about homosexual behavior that does nine, committed to the nuclear family and the
not threaten family survival or kin networks, re- American way of life. Finally, narratives of life in
garding that behavior as odd, funny, or even sin- Buffalo, New York, San Francisco, and New York
ful but not a basis for exclusion from community City suggest that government discrimination, police
life. Yet women who have dared to establish un- raids, and harassment of lesbians and gays increased
married and childless lives outside of family bounds during this period.
have been harshly judged as selfish, immoral, and Most African American lesbians living in urban
decadent. During the 1920s and throughout sub- areas in the 1950s and 1960s preferred to socialize
sequent decades, one space in which homosexual at house parties held in apartments or homes in
behavior seems to have been tolerated was in the African American neighborhoods and advertised by
underground economy and subculture of sex work- word of mouth. After paying a small cover at the
ers, hustlers, pimps, and gamblers. This primarily door, one could socialize with friends, dance, drink,
heterosexual sporting life included all of those and eat plenty of home-cooked food. Because same-
who resisted dominant norms and laws about sex, sex dancing was illegal in public places, dancing was
gender, work, and family responsibility. especially important. Thorpe (1996) reports that
How the Depression specifically affected black Ruth Ellis and her partners Detroit home was
lesbian life is unclear; economics may have required known as the gay spot throughout the 1950s;
more women to live with kin or encouraged more dozens of African American women and some gay
couples to live together. Unlike white women, very men traveled from as far away as Cleveland and
few African American women served in the mili- Dayton, Ohio, to attend. (Ellis had also attended
tary or received the temporary well-paying jobs gatherings of African American lesbians and gays
created by World War II industrial production. By in her native Springfield, Illinois, in the 1930s.) By
1949, a full 40 percent of African American work- the late 1960s, some women were able to turn host-
ing women still labored in domestic-service jobs. ing parties into a profitable business venture.
For African American women involved in les- Public bar life was not as prominent in African
bian relationships and community life, the time be- American lesbian communities as it was for work-
tween World War II and the Stonewall Rebellion of ing-class white lesbians. In part, this was because,
1969 was a contradictory period of significant until the late 1960s, there were few bars or clubs
progress and repression. Racial barriers in employ- that welcomed African American lesbian patronage.
ment were slowly broken, and more African Ameri- Most white lesbian bars were either alienating or
can women earned enough to maintain a residence notoriously racist. Few African American lesbians

14 AFRICAN AMERICANS
had the capital or political connections to have their Homophile Organizations controversial picketing
own liquor licenses and establish their own bars. of federal buildings and the White House in 1965.
There were, however, some clubs that catered solely The gay liberation movement that began with the
to African American lesbians at separate times or in Stonewall Rebellion in 1969 affected the conscious-
separate spaces. In the 1950s, for example, the ness of thousands of African American lesbians,
Wellsworth in Harlem was a straight bar in front although few formally joined organizations;
and a lesbian bar in back. Yet bars carried the risk Candice Boyce, for example, was attracted to New
of legal trouble, public exposure, and harassment Yorks Gay Activist Alliance (GAA) but left because
from straight men, so many women avoided them. she found the daily survival needs of African Ameri-
During this and later periods, African Ameri- can lesbians more urgent than the concerns of
can lesbians also participated in mainstream insti- GAAs white male members.
tutions of the African American community. For Deeply affected by African American and Third
example, lesbians attended church despite its con- World liberation politics, and committed to lesbian
demnation of homosexuality because the church and feminist organizing, African American lesbians
was the central social, spiritual, and political insti- like Anita Cornwell, Margaret Sloan, Joan Gibbs,
tution of African American life. Church could also and Gwendolyn Rogers organized during the 1970s
provide a covert opportunity to meet women; against pervasive racism in the predominantly white
Debra, for example, recalls meeting her first les- womens movement. At the same time, African
bians in Buffalo at church after migrating from the American lesbians struggled within the emerging
South in 1938. African American feminist movement in efforts like
the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO).
The Civil Rights Movement
The sexual identity of the thousands of lesbian par- Independent Politics
ticipants in the African American civil rights move- As a result of womens experiences in these move-
ment was invisible to that movement and remains ments, autonomous African American lesbian and
so to most historians. In the years before gay libera- lesbian of color organizations were founded in the
tion made coming out a conscious political act, 1970s and early 1980s. Elandria Hendersons 1971
many African American lesbians took their invis- statement on The Black Lesbian in Chicagos
ibility for granted, despite the personal discomfort Lavender Woman was one early articulation of the
and alienation they felt in their relations with move- frustration, disappointment, rage, and sense of
ment activists and organizations. Yvonne Flowers betrayal that led to the formation of separate
(1932) was one of 250,000 at the landmark 1963 groups. The Combahee River Collective was
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and founded by Boston-based lesbians in 1974 as a radi-
was active in the struggle for African American com- cal, African American feminist group whose multi-
munity control of schools in Brooklyn, New York, issue organizing included lesbian and gay politics.
but she refrained from greater involvement because Salsa Soul Sisters, which began in New York City
she was not willing to pass as straight, which she in 1976 under the leadership of the Reverend
saw as a requirement for a publicly visible leader- Delores Jackson, seems to have been the first inde-
ship role. The noted playwright Lorraine Hansberry pendent African American or Latina lesbian organi-
(19301965) was a prominent activist in civil rights zation, followed by groups in almost every major
and left-wing causes; yet the fact that Hansberry city by 1981. Several African American lesbian
wrote a series of letters anonymously to the lesbian conferences in the early 1980s grew out of the first
magazine The Ladder in 1957 indicates that she was National Conference of Third World Lesbians and
concerned about public exposure. Gays in Washington, D.C., in 1979, including the
First Black Lesbian Conference of the Western
Gay, Lesbian, and Womens Liberation Regional States held in San Francisco in 1980.
Ernestine Eckstein (pseud.) was one of the few Af- As authors and critics, African American les-
rican American women involved in the pre-Stone- bian writers such as Cheryl Clarke (1947), Jewelle
wall lesbian and gay homophile movement. Al- Gomez (1948), Audre Lorde (19341992), and
ready involved in civil rights politics, Eckstein be- Barbara Smith (1946) have played a particularly
came a leader within Daughters of Bilitis (New York central role in the development of African Ameri-
chapter) and helped organize the East Coast can feminist theory and literature and of a collective

AFRICAN AMERICANS 15
 identity among African American lesbians. They During this period, African American lesbians also
A established independent women of color writing
collectives, conferences, publications, and publish-
became more active in lesbian and gay and AIDS
politics, which significantly heightened their vis-
ing institutions, including Azalea collective and ibility in local and national media. Together, these
magazine (fl. 1977); Kitchen Table: Women of developments helped make it possible for many
Color Press (fl. 1981); Conditions: Five, The Black more young and old African American women to
Womens Issue (1979); the Aint I a Woman come out proudly as lesbians, even as they organ-
issue of off our backs (1979); and Home Girls: A ized against antigay political forces that threatened
Black Feminist Anthology (1983). At the same time, their civil and human rights. NTanya R.Lee
many of these women were raising the issues of
sexism and homophobia in broader African Ameri- Bibliography
can community contexts such as the pages of Black Carby, Hazel. It Just Bes Dat Way Sometime: The
Scholar and Essence. Sexual Politics of Womens Blues. In Unequal
Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Womens
A National Movement and National Visibility History. 2nd ed. Ed. Vicki L.Ruiz and Ellen Carol
A number of themes characterize the late 1980s Dubois. New York: Routledge, 1994, 330341.
and the 1990s. First, coalitions of African Ameri- Garber, Eric. A Spectacle in Color: The Lesbian
can lesbians and gay men emerged, including the and Gay Subculture of Jazz Age Harlem. In
National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays, Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and
the National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Lesbian Past. Eds. Martin Duberman, Martha
Forum, local groups like Detroits James Baldwin Vicinus, and George Chauncey, Jr. New York:
and Pat Parker Society, and the 1995 Black Na- Meridian, 1990, pp. 318331.
tions?/Queer Nations? conference in New York Hansen, Karen V. No Kisses Is Like Youres: An
City. Second, the number of African American les- Erotic Friendship Between Two African Ameri-
bian organizations grew, often moving away from can Women During the Mid-Nineteenth Cen-
the ideological liberation politics of the 1970s and tury. In Lesbian Subjects: A Feminist Studies
putting greater focus on support for coming out. Reader. Ed. Martha Vicinus. Bloomington: In-
Third, the cultural work of African American les- diana University Press, 1996, pp. 178207.
bian and bisexual musicians, poets, African drum- Hine, Darlene Clark, Wilma King, and Linda Reed.
mers, singers, video/filmmakers, and artists flour- We Specialize in the Wholly Impossible: A
ished, helping to strengthen local African Ameri- Reader in Black Womens History. Brooklyn:
can lesbian communities, national networks, and Carlson, 1995.
pride. Fourth, growing political, cultural, regional, Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, and Madeline D.
and class differences among African American peo- Davis. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The
ple led to a wider range of African American les- History of a Lesbian Community. New York:
bian communities with their own traditions, insti- Routledge, 1993; Penguin, 1994.
tutions, and notions of lesbian identity. On the West Lorde, Audre. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name.
Coast, the Bay Areas NIA collective instituted an Watertown, Mass.: Persephone, 1982; Freedom,
annual African American lesbian retreat; on the Calif.: Crossing, 1994.
East Coast, many young African American lesbi- Robert, J.R. Black Lesbians: An Annotated Bibli-
ans established and embraced new pro-sex public ography. Tallahassee, Fla.: Naiad, 1981.
spaces for lesbian night life like the Clit Club in Thorpe, Rochella. A House Where Queers Go:
New York City. Finally, the growing national vis- African American Lesbian Nightlife in Detroit,
ibility of individual African American lesbians (and 19401975. In Inventing Lesbian Culture in
gay men) opened up space in the 1980s and 1990s America. Ed. Ellen Lewin. Boston: Beacon,
for the legitimate discussion of homosexuality and 1996, pp. 4061.
homophobia in the African American community.
These individuals include the poet and activist See also Bentley, Gladys; Black Feminism; Blues
Audre Lorde, Essence magazine Executive Editor Singers; Buffalo, New York; Bulldagger; Combahee
Linda Villarosa, musician Meshell Ndegeocello, River Collective; Cornwell, Anita; Dunbar-Nelson,
and Seattle City Council member Sherry Harris (the Alice; Grimk, Angelina Weld; Hampton, Mabel;
first out African American lesbian elected official). Hansberry, Lorraine (Vivian); Harlem; Harlemi

16 AFRICAN AMERICANS
Renaissance; Lorde, Audre; Rainey, Gertrude ter a lifetime of sexism, women receive fewer Social
Ma; Smith, Barbara; Smith, Bessie Security and pension funds than men, or none at
all. They are subject to discriminatory and rationed
medical care (a cutoff age for some services) designed
Ageism to save money. They may be abused both at home
Term coined by Robert Butler, M.D. (1975), a noted and in institutions as government money pours into
geriatric psychiatrist, when referring to discrimina- nursing homes instead of into independent living.
tion by younger people against older people. Old An old man in heterosexual circles can be respected
people are categorized as senile, rigid in thought and for his life experience and sought as a sexual part-
manner, old fashioned in morality and skills. ner. An old woman, no longer useful as a repro-
Ageism allows the younger generations to see older ducer or a sexual object to men, has no further value.
people as different from themselves; thus they sub- Old women also threaten younger women by show-
tly cease to identify their elders as human beings. ing them their future, for, as they become the old
This sets the stage for the systematic and institu- women they so dread, they, too, face the same ageist
tionalized oppression of, and discrimination against, battering to their self-esteem.
the old, which is even more rampant at the end of Old women especially arent allowed the sense
the twentieth century than thirty years before. of individuality, dignity, and respect to which their
As the numbers of old grow larger and the per- life experience and accomplishments should enti-
ceived economic burden of their care grows, the tle them. This occurs in subtle ways, from address-
younger population increasingly believes that care ing them as children to complimenting them on
of the elderly is a luxury it cannot afford. With the not looking their age. The ageist slings in birthday
greatest disparity between rich and poor in history, cards, magazine ads, and television commercials
intergenerational conflict and scapegoating the old are supposed to be borne without comment to
have become a prime way to distract the young avoid being labeled an old witch. To grow old
from the bleak economic realities of their lives. graciously, women must not challenge the ageist
Negative attitudes toward the old also serve to status quo. For lesbians, there is the additional risk
avoid disturbing thoughts of ones own aging and of provoking homophobic reprisals by speaking
dying. Contemporary culture seeks to nullify even- out against ageism. It is small wonder that most
tual death by refusing to look at anything connected old women feel invisible and powerless.
to death or even to use the word. People do not die; In some respects, old lesbians fare better than
they pass on or away. The faces of the old serve old heterosexual women, who are used to depend-
as a fearful reminder that aging is the prelude to ing upon their men. Old lesbians suffer the same
debilitation and death. Growing old is dreaded as devaluation by the society that all women do, but,
the bleak season of perpetual loss, sickness, and never having relied on men in the first place and
depression with only death ahead; this, despite cur- having had to negotiate life in a homophobic world,
rent medical research and personal testimonies show- they have had to learn to be resourceful and self-
ing the increasing likelihood of good health and an reliant, coping skills that have made them true sur-
active, even vigorous, life until shortly before death. vivors. Both old and young lesbians, by their very
Both science and culture focus on the physical as- existence, challenge the power of the patriarchy
pects of aging while ignoring the attributes that can and are, therefore, reviled, but when old lesbians
come with life experience: maturity, wisdom, spir- experience ageism from their own community, that
ituality, and freedom from earlier life constraints. is particularly painful.
The fact that most old people enjoy their independ- Younger lesbians, subject to the same ageist ide-
ent lives with loving and often sexual relationships ology as the rest of society, may share the patriar-
seems to have escaped the notice of most, or, if no- chal view about old women and collude with the
ticed, is seen as the exception. patriarchy to marginalize old lesbians within femi-
In the United States, youth is revered and en- nist and lesbian circles. Macdonald and Rich (1991)
dowed with admired and desirable qualities, while first called attention to this phenomenon of invis-
the old are denigrated and relegated to inferior sta- ibility. Macdonald tells about being ignored in her
tus. While this affects all old people, men are less old age by the same lesbian and feminist groups
affected than women because they have always been who called her sister when she was younger. She
considered more valuable in patriarchal society. Af- deplores the fact that social workers who are dedi

AGEISM 17
 cated to helping the old are themselves rampantly on the effects of aging on lesbians. Some research
A ageist. Playing the role of expert, they frequently
treat their clients as children.
has been done in the United States and in the Neth-
erlands, but samples have been small and tend not
Copper (1988) also addresses the shunning of to show much social or racial variation. Results
the old within the society of women. She tells her demonstrate, however, that the position of aging
personal story of how it feels to be ignored by lesbians is, to a large extent, determined by the
younger women, including lesbians and feminists, position of women and of homosexuality within
and speaks to the difficulty of getting them to see society at large.
the ageist nature of their words and actions. She
contends that this is a result of age passing, which Demographic Factors
promotes denial about their own ageism. The The process of biological aging runs along a prede-
young and middle aged cannot accept that they termined course, although the interval of time be-
are ageist and seek to explain it all away by saying, tween different stages depends on the general level
I didnt mean it that way! of health in the societies concerned. In many coun-
Contemporary society is becoming increasingly tries, the official retirement or pension age of
ageist and homophobic, and this is becoming more sixtyfive marks the onset of socially recognized old
of a problem to old lesbians. Macdonald and Cop- age. In some societies, women over fifty-five are re-
per call attention to this and call for confronting garded as young old. In Western societies, seri-
ageism in all of its subtleties as the only viable ous health problems usually start at about seventy-
course of action for old lesbians. five to eighty years, leaving pensioners, in theory,
Taking the lead in this struggle is Old Lesbians about ten years of relative good health. From sev-
Organizing for Change (OLOC), a national organi- enty-five to eighty, the old old start to get health
zation of lesbians over sixty whose mission is to afflictions, such as mobility problems, that tend to
confront ageism wherever it exists as it strives to affect their normal functioning adversely. Women
empower old lesbians to become a visible, vocal tend to have more chronic diseases than men.
force. Nancy D.Davis Many Western societies have experienced a dra-
Shevy Healey matic increase in the number of individuals who
survive to old age. In most countries, for a variety
Bibliography of reasons, men die a few years earlier than women,
Butler, Robert. Why Survive: The Old in America. which makes for an unequal male/female ratio that
New York: Harper and Row, 1975. can rise as high as 1:4 for the eighties age group.
Copper, Baba. Over the Hill: Reflections on Ageism The result of this is that there are probably more
Between Women. Freedom, Calif.: Crossing, old lesbians than old gay men, although old lesbi-
1988. ans tend to be more invisible. Nevertheless, even
Friedan, Betty. The Fountain of Age. New York: populous countries may have a low density of les-
Simon and Schuster, 1993. bians, which makes it difficult to organize regular
Macdonald, Barbara, with Cynthia Rich. Look Me neighborhood meetings in many places.
in the Eye: Old Women Aging and Ageism. San Each generation of people experiences different
Francisco: Spinster Ink, 1991. events that greatly affect the life history. These co-
Old Lesbians Organizing for Change (OLOC), PO hort effects are similar for many people within that
Box 980422, Houston, TX 77098, an organi- generation and different for people of other genera-
zation for lesbians sixty and older. tions. Some of these events affect all people of that
generation; others are peculiar to lesbians and gays
See also Aging only. For example, the generation of people reach-
ing old age at the end of the twentieth century was
born between 1910 and 1930. They experienced
Aging economic crises in their adolescence, World War II
Biological process of maturation that affects eve- in their early adulthood, and the beginning of the
ryone sooner or later. Aging involves many differ- liberation of homosexuality in their early middle age.
ent factors, some of which are the same for every- In the 1950s, the United States went through a pe-
one regardless of sexual orientation, while others riod dominated by the reactionary politics of Sena-
are specific to lesbians. Little research has been done tor Joseph McCarthy, which made homosexuality

18 AGEISM
an un-American activity. In European countries, mitment to a dyadic relationship have been shown
the conservative backlash after the war and its re- to be the happiest and best adjusted.
turn to traditional values meant the forced re- Many women of this generation have been mar-
turn of women into the home under strong social ried and have children (and grandchildren). Many
pressure to marry. In countries such as the Nether- have been through a divorce, while others are wid-
lands, participation of women in the labor market ows. They came in mid-life to lesbianism through
was very low, leaving only low-paid part-time jobs feminism in the 1970s. Although many women still
with no pension scheme for many women. recognize some difference in role between partners,
There have been great changes in the social posi- strict butch-femme roles seem to have gone out of
tion of homosexuality during the life course of many fashion. Age differences between partners are com-
people. In experiencing these changes, they differ mon, however.
both from the generation before them, who lived all Many aging lesbians live alone or have living-
of their lives in total invisibility about their lesbian- apart relationships. Living alone affects their lives
ism, and from the generation after them, who were to a large extent: in the amount of care they might
confronted with more openness about sexuality in need and in their financial and mental-health situ-
general and the possibility of coming out. ation. These women usually lived a life of serial
Early research into the position of aging lesbians monogamy, which has now come to an end. In con-
portrayed them stereotypically as lonely and pa- trast to gay men, lesbians tend to establish their
thetic freakish figures, rejected by their families and sexuality through a love relationship and change
hiding out of shame (Kehoe 1988). The emphasis partners every four to seven years; gay men tend to
on youth culture supposedly produced a process of separate sex from intimacy and emotional attrac-
accelerated aging when youth could no longer be tion and are usually in long-term, nonmonogamous
maintained. In fact, many researchers since have relationships.
stressed that life development is not affected by There is not much literature available on the sexu-
sexual orientation per se but by social stigma. Cop- ality of aging women, and what is available is by no
ing with stigma seems a good predictor for success- means unequivocal about the influence of the aging
ful aging. Furthermore, most literature suggests that process on sexuality of women. According to some
gender exerts a greater influence on behavior than authors, sexuality increases after menopause; accord-
does sexual orientation. In other words, the salient ing to others, it diminishes. Probably some changes
factor in the aging of lesbians may be that they are do occur as the result of physiological changes, but
women, not that they are homosexual. factual changes are the result of social circumstances
and gender-specific life patterns. Those who always
Aging Lesbians in Contemporary Societies have been sexually active will probably continue to
Research done on aging lesbians in the United States be so. The fact that many aging lesbians are not able
suggests that most lesbians have been highly edu- to find a partner, however, is instrumental in them
cated and were, therefore, employed mainly in pro- not having sex. Kehoe found that 53 percent of her
fessional jobs with concomitant incomes. This may research group had not had any sexual contact dur-
be, in part, a research bias since those who are more ing the previous yearmost of them unwillingly
highly educated tend to be more organized and out- against only 6 percent of a gay male sample.
spoken in surveys. In many countries, the socioeco- Although many aging lesbians believe that they
nomic position of women throughout the twentieth have lived active lives, in the Netherlands many
century was such that, although they might have also reported feeling restless and depressed. This
been self-supporting for most of their lives, in fact reflects the fact that they have difficulty in adjust-
single women have a substantially lower income than ing to living alone with little money rather than
men or married women. Women typically earned not being able to cope with old age as such.
30 percent less than men; pension schemes were The reduction of loneliness and isolation, there-
usually not geared toward single women, who lack fore, seems of prime concern for aging lesbians.
the husbands pension that married women have. Much importance must be attached to friendships
In the Netherlands, 25 percent of aging lesbians live and support networks, which usually serve as sub-
on or under the social minimum. stitutes for traditional families. Many lesbians do
Elderly lesbians and elderly gay men tend to not get on very well with their families nor with
associate mainly with others like themselves. their heterosexual surroundings. They are not in-
Closed-coupled homosexuals with a strong com- terested in senior programs. Although most lesbians

AGING 19
 rely heavily on their personal networks of (lesbian) Thorp Tully, C. What Do Midlife Lesbians View
A friends for emotional, social, and instrumental sup-
port, these networks can be small and one sided
as Important? Journal of Gay and Lesbian
Psychotherapy 1 (1989), 87103.
and are, therefore, vulnerable.
The invisibility of old lesbians also leads to prob- See also Ageism
lems when care is needed. In the United States, old
lesbians indicated that they wanted more recogni-
tion and support from official organizations, espe- AIDS (Acquired Immune
cially medical institutions. Most women rely on care Deficiency Syndrome)
provided by their closest friends, when available. An incurable disease that first appeared in the
Shifts in the national care systems from institutional United States in 1978 and killed more than 400,000
care to care by friends and neighbors and back again Americans during the next twenty years.
affect their ability to cope to a large extent. AIDS is caused by the human immunodeficiency
When asked about their housing preferences in virus (HIV), which destroys the bodys defense sys-
later life, many lesbians will suggest some form of tem against bacteria, viruses, and cancers. A per-
communal housing. Experiments with this have not son infected with HIV usually develops antibodies
proved very successful. Differences in money and within six months; a positive HIV test means that
antibodies to HIV are present. An HIV-positive
the effects of official regulations on housing all seem
person can remain healthy for many years before
to thwart initiatives.
developing any of the numerous opportunistic in-
fections, tumors, or neurological diseases that lead
Successful Aging
to a diagnosis of having AIDS.
The term successful aging refers to those proc-
At first, Karposis sarcoma (KS) and Pneumo-
esses of adaptation that contribute to optimal de-
cystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) were the primary
velopment in later life. Successful aging is de-
indicators of AIDS, but, by the late 1980s, dozens
pendent upon acceptance of homosexuality. The
of other infections were associated with AIDS. Be-
more positively homosexuality is integrated into cause AIDS first appeared in the United States in
the lifestyle, the more successful aging usually is. intravenous-drug users and gay and bisexual men,
Most researches show a general acceptance of the conditions that most commonly affected men were
aging process by lesbians. Flexibility of sex roles is first recognized. Lesbian pressure led the Centers
regarded as an asset in the process of coping with for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, to
aging. In the United States, a high level of involve- recognize infections common in HIV-positive
ment in the gay community is seen as instrumental women as indicators of AIDS.
in this process. Judith Schuyf Early in the AIDS epidemic, a positive HIV test
was considered a nearly certain prediction of de-
Bibliography veloping AIDS and dying within ten to fifteen years.
Kehoe, Monika. Lesbians over 60 Speak for Them- By the late 1990s, protease-inhibiting drugs and
selves. New York and London: Harrington, 1988. other treatments significantly extended the life ex-
Lee, John Alan, ed. Gay Midlife and Maturity. pectancy of some HIV-positive people, to the point
Journal of Homosexuality 20:34 (1990) (Spe- that AIDS was no longer considered necessarily
cial Issue). fatal. However, these drugs were very expensive,
Reid, James D. Development in Late Life: Older not universally available, and not always effective.
Lesbian and Gay Lives. In Lesbian, Gay, and Research late in the 1990s suggested that a vaccine
Bisexual Identities Over the Lifespan: Psycho- against HIV infection might someday be developed.
logical Perspectives. Ed. Anthony R. dAugelli
and Charlotte J.Patterson. New York: Oxford HIV Transmission
University Press, 1995, pp. 215240. HIV is present in certain body fluids (blood, semen,
Rossi, Alice S., ed. Sexuality Across the Life Course. and vaginal fluid) of an infected person in sufficient
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. quantities to spread the disease if this body fluid
Schuyf, J. Oud Roze: Homoseksuele Ouderen in gets into the bloodstream of another person. (Also,
Nederland (Old Rose: The Position of Aging breast milk plays a role in transmitting HIV from
Gays and Lesbians in Dutch Society). Utrecht: an infected mother to her baby.) HIV can travel
Homostudies Utrecht, 1996. through intact mucous membranes and through cuts

20 AGING
in the skin. It dies quickly when exposed to air or and sex with bisexual men. (However, many lesbi-
temperature changes, and immunoglobulin A in sa- ans were skeptical of the CDC studies on woman-
liva has a neutralizing effect on HIV. Anal intercourse to-woman HIV transmission because, in its first
and sharing of injection-drug needles are the most four studies, the CDC defined lesbian as a
common methods of spreading HIV infection. woman who had sex only with women since 1978.
Penisvagina intercourse also poses high risk for While this was an important distinction for scien-
spreading HIV. (AIDS is more easily sexually trans- tific purposes, it did not match the common, much
mitted from a man to a woman than from a woman broader, definition of lesbian.)
to a man.) Other sexual activities that might get body In the 1990s, AIDS was no longer tightly clus-
fluid from an HIV-infected person into the body of tered in subgroups of the U.S. population, and in-
a partner can also be risky. Some health-care work- creasing numbers of women had a friend, lover, co-
ers have been infected with HIV through accidental worker, client, child, or parent infected with HIV
needle pricks. A few cases of HIV transmission There was no longer division in the lesbian commu-
through cuts, scratches, and bloody fistfights have nity between those involved with AIDS and those
been documented, and a few cases of suspected not, because the epidemic touched everyones life.
woman-to-woman sexual transmission of HIV have Many early AIDS activists moved on to other work,
also been reported but not proven. while many lesbians who had previously avoided
To prevent the spread of AIDS, safe-sex cam- AIDS work found that their career paths or personal
paigns in the 1980s encouraged gay men and oth- lives were affected by the epidemic in the 1990s.
ers to use condoms, and injection-drug users were Some lesbians say that working with gay men
taught to use bleach to clean shared needles. By on AIDS issues improved lesbians sex lives, be-
the 1990s, safer-sex messages included awareness cause mens uninhibited, playful, and abundant
of other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and sexual energy was a welcome contrast to the mor-
various safer-sex behaviors, but latex condoms re- alistic just say no message that dominated the
mained the most important tool for preventing the American response to STDs in the 1980s. Safer-
spread of AIDS. sex education encouraged women and men to talk
explicitly about sexual activity and to experiment
Lesbians and AIDS with new sexual styles. However, fear of AIDS put
Since early in the AIDS epidemic, many lesbians a damper on many womens sex lives, particularly
contributed strong leadership in providing services those confused about how transmission might oc-
to AIDS patients, doing political organizing to se- cur. Sexologists note that the beginning of the AIDS
cure funding for research and education, and build- epidemic marked the end of the sexual revolution
ing coalitions among gay men, injection-drug us- of the 1960s and 1970s, that brief period in hu-
ers, people of color, prisoners, and other groups man history when all common STDs were curable,
heavily affected by the disease. or at least treatable, with modern medicine.
Noting early research that indicated that HIV AIDS activism had a unifying effect on the gay
was unlikely to be spread by woman-to-woman community late in the twentieth century. In the
sex, other lesbians saw AIDS as primarily a gay 1970s, most lesbians and gay men existed in very
male concern and focused their energies on issues different political and social circles. Gay rights ac-
more directly affecting women, such as breast can- tivism after the Stonewall Rebellion (1969) was
cer, ecofeminism, equal employment opportunity, dominated by men, while 1970s political lesbians
and ending violence against women. In the 1980s were primarily immersed in feminist causes. By the
and 1990s, many more women became involved late 1990s, many gay organizations had gender-bal-
in gay politics and culture, partly as a result of the anced memberships and leadership. This was partly
gaps left by gay men who were dying from or fight- the result of gay women and men learning to work
ing AIDS. together during the first two decades of the AIDS
In the 1990s, research confirmed that woman- epidemic, and the feminist consciousness that many
to-woman sex was not a common way of spread- lesbians brought to that work. Marcia Munson
ing HIV, but other research showed that certain
groups of women who have sex with women Bibliography
(WSW) were at risk of HIV infection because of McIlvenna, Ted, ed. The Complete Guide to Safer
their high rates of injection-drug use, sex for money, Sex. Fort Lee: Barricade, 1992.

AIDS (ACQUIRED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY SYNDROME) 21

 Merrifield, Margaret, M.D. Come Sit by Me. To- rather than from the population at large. This fact,
A ronto, Ont.: Womens Press, 1990.
Schneider, Beth, and Nancy Stoller. Women Resist-
together with the often very small sample used in
such studies, has skewed research results in certain
ing AIDS. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, predictable ways.
1995. Hughes and Wilsnack cite a 1989 study by D.J.
Shilts, Randy. And the Band Played On: Politics, McKirnan and P.L.Peterson in which 748 lesbians
People, and the AIDS Epidemic. New York: St. and 2,652 gay men took part. Their findings point
Martins, 1987. to three possible generalizations. First, while lesbi-
Stoller, Nancy. Lessons from the Damned. New ans and gay men were not overrepresented among
York: Routledge, 1998. heavy drinkers in general, they reported rates of
alcohol problems that were almost twice as high
See also Activism; Community Organizing; Health; as those reported by the general population. (One
Safer Sex; Sexually Transmitted Diseases might speculate that at least one reason for this
high level of reporting might come from the gen-
eral support within lesbian and gay communities
Alcohol and Substance Abuse for recovery of all sorts. Such an atmosphere might
Generally understood to be a state of uncontrollable well facilitate a persons self-definition of various
dependency on liquor. Some of the most common problematic behaviors.) Second, levels of alcohol
characteristics of an alcoholic are use of alcohol to problems among homosexuals were similar across
blunt negative feelings and to heighten positive feel- sexes. Third, alcohol problems for lesbians and gay
ings; a gradual but inevitable increase in amounts men did not decline with age, a finding similar to
drunk and frequency of use; loss of concentration; the pattern described in the National Lesbian
depression; inability to form intimate relationships Health Care Survey conducted by Caitlin Ryan and
with people (because ones intimate relationship is Judith Bradford and published in 1987 by the
with ones bottle); blackouts or failures of memory National Gay and Lesbian Health Foundation.
for periods of time; and general loss of interest in Hughes and Wilsnack argue that future research
usual social and recreational activities. The same char- on the subject of lesbians and alcoholism (or drug
acteristics are used to describe individuals whose de- abuse) could be strengthened by including ques-
pendency is on drugs rather than alcohol. tions about sexual orientation in all health surveys
for women to determine similarities and differences
Research on Lesbians and Alcoholism between lesbians and heterosexual women. Addi-
The most common understanding about lesbians tionally, future studies must be based on larger,
and alcoholism is that a disproportionate percent- more representative samples of lesbians (for exam-
age of lesbians in the United States have histories ple, different age groups, income and education
of abusing alcohol (and other drugs). This fact of- levels, and ethnic minorities). Finally, such studies
ten adds grist to the mills of those who disapprove should explore lesbians patterns of alcohol use
of lesbianism as a way of life. They conclude either over time so as to detect any apparent differences
that lesbianism is so debilitating that it drives its in drinking patterns between older lesbians and
practitioners to drink or that the high incidence of older heterosexual women.
alcoholism and drug dependence within lesbian What this list of historically unaddressed research
communities signals the immorality of such a life. variables makes clear is just how little is truly known
In an article entitled Research on Lesbians and about lesbians use and abuse of alcohol and other
Alcohol: Gaps and Implications, Hughes and drugs. But, even allowing for the dubiety currently
Wilsnack (1994) argue that such data are ques- associated with pronouncements that as many as
tionable. Not only have almost all studies focusing one-third of lesbians studied drink heavily or are
on women and alcoholism until very recently used outright alcoholics, it remains the case that the
male alcoholics as the basis for interpreting data, societal context within which women discover their
but virtually no such studies distinguish between lesbianism remains critical, if not dangerously re-
heterosexual and lesbian women with histories of pressive. It also remains the case that large numbers
alcohol and/or drug abuse. Furthermore, women of such women hide their lesbianism from self and
surveyed for such studies most often have been others out of well-grounded fears, ignorance, and
drawn from populations in drug treatment centers uncertainties. Therefore, attention must be paid to

22 AIDS (ACQUIRED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY SYNDROME)

the psychosocial and historical realities faced by itself than with whether the people involved are
women dealing with issues of lesbian identity. lesbian or heterosexual. Comparable research deal-
ing with heterosexual battery yields similar or even
Cultural Context higher degrees of correlation between the abuse of
Rather than take such an individualistic approach, alcohol and other drugs and the abuse of ones
which inevitably blames the victim, one might partner, girlfriend, or spouse.
analyze this perception systemically, looking to the In the 1970s, with the emphasis on lesbian cul-
social and cultural context within which lesbians ture and pride, much emphasis began to be placed
attempt to make lives and careers. Many people lead- on recovery from alcoholism. Special treatment
ing a secret life, hiding integral aspects of their emo- programs in which lesbian sexuality, history, and
tional and/or sexual identities, resort to some kind achievements were celebrated sprang up across the
of numbing device to manage the pain of such country; lesbian meetings of Alcoholics Anony-
choices. For many lesbians, historically, this numb- mous (AA) began to flower in most metropolitan
ing process has involved an overuse of alcohol (and, centers; and lesbian communities themselves sought
more recently, other drugs as well). In U.S. culture, alternative locations to the bars for social contact.
alcoholism in the general population has reached A pioneering center for this recovery movement
alarming proportions. Available at every turn, alco- was Minneapolis, Minnesota, which in 1972
hol seems almost required as part of usual social opened one of the first lesbian and gay treatment
contact. The dangers of this tacit sanction of drink- centers (Christopher Street by name) and which
ing for women trying to handle homoerotic feelings still operates a private agency, Pride Institute, to
is obvious. If the individual lesbian is out to herself which lesbians from all over the United States come
but to no one else, alcohol is an easily available route to sober up. Similar programs elsewhere remain
to feeling less torn and frightened about her se- viable sites within which lesbians can begin the long
cret. If she is not out to herselfthat is, if she de- and painful process of detachment, first from al-
nies her feelings for women out of a need to behave cohol and other addictive chemicals and, eventu-
as all of the institutions in her world expect her to ally, from the harmful internalized messages about
alcohol supplies the fog within which to continue themselves as human beings.
her living her heterosexual charade. Alcohol also In conclusion, while it is clear that many re-
can make it easier for her to engage in heterosexual search findings are unrealiable, it is equally clear
relationships, since having a few drinks can blunt that discovering and living out a lesbian sexuality
feelings enough to permit the requisite interactions and politics are fraught with enough social stigma
between her and her latest male partner. and disapprobation to make numbing ones feel-
A measure of the place of alcohol within lesbian ings through the use of alcohol a genuine option
life can be found through a study of lesbian fiction for too many women. Toni A.H.McNaron
since 1940. In a majority of such novels, lesbians
drink (and smoke) with regularity and frequency. Bibliography
The beverage of choice and the locations in which Hall, Joanne M. Lesbians and Alcohol: Patterns
they are consumed vary according to the class and and Paradoxes in Medical Notions and Lesbian
personality of the characters involved. At times, the Beliefs. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 25:2
scene is a dark, smoke-filled bar owned often by (1993), 109119.
voyeuristic and prejudiced men. At other times, les- Hughes, Tonda L., and Sharon C.Wilsnack. Re-
bian characters dressed in tailored slacks and open- search on Lesbians and Alcohol: Gaps and Im-
necked silk shirts sip cocktails or mixed drinks in plications. Alcohol Health and Research World
one anothers homes. If people find role models in 18:3 (1994), 202205.
the literature they read, then women certainly are Nicholoff, Lee K., and Eloise A.Stiglitz. Lesbian
encouraged to take up a glass, a bottle, or a can of Alcoholism: Etiology, Treatment, and Recovery.
something alcoholic as part of becoming a lesbian. In Lesbian Psychologies. Urbana and Chicago:
Researchers studying battery and other forms University of Illinois Press, 1987, pp. 283293.
of physical abuse within lesbian relationships find Schilit, Rebecca, Gwat-Yong Lie, and Marilyn
a high degree of correlation between violence and Montagne. Substance Use as a Correlate of
the overuse of alcohol. Once again, however, this Violence in Lesbian Relationships. Journal of
statistic has more to do with the nature of violence Homosexuality 19:3 (1990), 5165.

A L C O H O L A N D S U B S TA N C E A B U S E 23
 Underbill, Brenda L. Recovery Needs of Lesbian be enormously popular from the beginning, with
A Alcoholics in Treatment. In Feminist Perspec-
tives on Addiction. Ed. Nan Van Den Bergh.
annual audiences totaling in the millions, although
only the former continues to stage year-round re-
New York: Springer, 1991, pp. 7386. vues. All-female revues have stimulated the organi-
Weathers, B. Alcoholism and the Lesbian Com- zation of hundreds of fan clubs, most of which are
munity. In Alternative Services for Women. Ed. segregated by sex. Contrary to the prevailing view,
Naomi Gottlieb. New York: Columbia Univer- male fans make up a significant percentage of the
sity Press, 1980, pp. 158169. adoring audience, although the majority of, and
the most visible and problematic, fans are fe-
See also Recovery Movement males, from teenagers to senior citizens. Many all-
male fan clubs double as powerful business net-
works. Fan clubs often stage their own revues
All-Female Revues (Japan) modeled after Takarazuka and, in this capacity,
Eclectic type of musical-theater performance charac- provide members with an opportunity to experi-
terized by montage, or the linkage of apparently un- ment freely with different gender roles without any
sexual or political strings attached.
related events and phenomena. The public spectacle
Takarazuka productions include Japanese-style
of all-female revues has simultaneously disturbed and
classical dramas and historical subjects, such as the
reinforced the dominant sex-gender system across
Tale of Genji; European-style and Broadway-based
cultural areas since the late nineteenth century. In
performances, such as Mon Paris and West Side
Japan, the all-female Takarazuka Revue has fueled
Story; and folk dances from all over the world. In
the heated debate concerning the relationship among
their roles as men and women, the actors both up-
sex, gender, and sexuality since its first performance
hold the dominant ideal of heterosexuality and in-
in 1914, and continues to mediate the tension be-
form a lesbian (butch-femme-like) subcultural style.
tween a normative (hetero)sexual text and an uncon-
The revue continues to attract the attention of the
ventional (homo)sexual subtext. Inspired at home by mass media, although the charges leveled at the ac-
the nearly four-hundred-year-old all-male Kabuki tors of moral depravity and abnormal sexual
theater and the girls and boys bands that entertained desire are much more muted than they were in the
customers at the larger department stores, Takarazuka first half of the twentieth century, reflecting not a
founder Kobayashi Ichiz (18731957) was also in- greater acceptance of lesbianism, but the revues
fluenced by the chorus girls in Europe and the stricter conditions for media coverage. Takarazuka
United States. These included the English burlesque has influenced the emergence and popularity of vari-
pantomimes, with their cross-dressed cast of young ous all-female performing-arts groups active in Ja-
women, and the Gaiety Girl, who flourished between pan today, including drumming ensembles, Kabuki
the late 1860s and 1910 and who was joined by the troupes, alternative and feminist theaters, and
Tiller Girls and the Bluebell Girls, two long-lasting palanquin-shrine (mikoshi) bearers. Most of these
troupes that specialized in vigorous, tightly coordi- groups are able to challenge the status quo more
nated line dances. The French can-can dancers and consciously than did or does the revue itself.
risqu performers of the Folies Bergre also influenced Jennifer E.Robertson
the Japanese impresario. They, along with the
Hoffman Girls and the Blackbirds, a troupe of black Bibliography
artistes in France, added to the cachet of naughti- Robertson, Jennifer E. Takarazuka: Sexual Poli-
ness attached to all-female stage shows. Kobayashis tics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan.
familiarity with Western theater extended to the Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
American Ziegfeld Follies, whose opulent revues
opened in July 1907, and today comparisons are See also Cross-Dressing; Japan
drawn between Takarazuka and the high-kicking
Radio City Rockettes, formed in 1925.
Takarazuka, Japans premier all-female revue, Allan, Maud (18731956)
spawned more than a dozen copycat troupes, most Modern dance pioneer. Born Maud Durrant in
notably the Shchiku Revue, founded in 1928, Canada, she moved with her family to California
which quickly became Takarazukas main rival in six years later. In the early twentieth century, she
every respect. Takarazuka and Shchiku proved to danced throughout Europe, Asia, Australia, and

24 A L C O H O L A N D S U B S TA N C E A B U S E
North America, but with greatest success in Eng- Verna Aldrich (ca. 1890s1970), her secretary/com-
land. In 1908, she gave more than 250 perform- panion, with whom she lived for at least ten years.
ances in London, including her Vision of Salome. In 1941, she returned to the United States, where
Her fame briefly exceeded that of Isadora Duncan the New York Times identified her as the dancer
(18781927), to whom she was compared fre- whose Salome was once considered sensational.
quently. She was patronized by high society, in- Lucy Bland
cluding royalty, Prime Minister Herbert Asquith
(18521928), and his wife, Margot (18641945). Bibliography
Margot Asquith had a close relationship with Bland, Lucy. Trial by Sexology? Maud Allan,
Maud Allan, paying for her expensive London Salome, and the 1918 Cult of the Clitoris
apartment for many years. Case. In Sexology in Culture: Labelling Bod-
In 1918, Allan brought a libel case against the ies and Desires. Ed. Lucy Bland and Laura
independent Member of Parliament Noel Pemerton- Doan. London: Polity, 1998, pp. 183198.
Billing (18811948). In January of that year, with Cherniavsky, Felix. The Salome Dancer: The Life
World War I still under way, his newspaper had and Times of Maud Allan. Toronto: McClelland
announced that the Germans held a Black Book
and Stewart, 1991.
containing the names of 47,000 British citizens who,
Hoare, Philip. Wildes Last Stand: Decadence,
as sexual perverts, were open to blackmail. In
Conspiracy, and the First World War. London:
February, he printed an article headed The Cult of
Duckworth, 1997.
the Clitoris that suggested that many of those would
Kettle, Michael. Salomes Last Veil: The Libel Case
be attending a forthcoming private performance of
of the Century. London and New York: Gre-
Oscar Wildes (18541900) play Salome and that
nada, 1977.
named Allan as the central performer. Allan took
Travis, Jennifer. Clits in Court: Salome, Sodomy,
the reference to the clitoris as implying that she
and the Lesbian Sadist. In Lesbian Erotics.
was a lesbian.
During the trial, Allan was discredited in a Ed. Karla Jay. New York: New York University
number of ways. A history of two sexual murders Press, 1995, pp. 147163.
committed by her brother more than twenty years
earlier was presented as evidence of hereditary See also Clitoris; Sadomasochism
sadism. Moreover, since the play involves Salomes
unrequited obsession with the imprisoned John the
Baptist (called Johannan in Wildes version) and her Allen, Paula Gunn (1939)
demand for his head, it was argued that any woman Native American scholar, poet, and novelist. Allen
acting the part of Salome would have to be a sadist. is one of the most important American Indian intel-
Allans knowledge of certain terms, in particu- lectuals and writers of the twentieth century. Her
lar clitoris and sadism, further discredited her, scholarship on Native American understandings of
since possession of such knowledge was taken as a two-spirits (American Indians who are lesbian,
sure sign of sexual perversion. Although the rela- gay, bisexual, or transgendered) represents some of
tionship between the clitoris and lesbianism was the most significant work on the subject, laying the
never made explicit, one defense witness described groundwork for more accurate and culturally rel-
the clitoris as a superficial organ that, when un- evant research in this area. Her poetry and fiction
duly excited or overdeveloped, possessed the most occasionally feature gay and lesbian themes as well.
dreadful influence on any woman. By implication, Born Paula Marie Francis in Cubero, New
lesbianism or sadism could be the result. Mexico, Allen is of Laguna, Lakota, Scottish, and
Toward the end of the trial, Pemberton-Billing Lebanese heritages. At the University of Oregon,
suddenly denied that he had called Allan a lesbian. she earned a B.A. in literature in 1966 and an
He now claimed that all he had meant was that M.F.A. in creative writing two years later. She went
she consorted with sexual perverts. The jury voted on to attain a Ph.D. in American studies from the
in Pemberton-Billings favor, and Allan was con- University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, in 1975.
demned not as a lesbian, but as a sadist. The trial A professor of Native American studies, womens
did not advance the British publics understanding studies, and English, she has taught at several uni-
of lesbianism. versities, most notably, the University of Califor-
In the late 1920s, Allan became the lover of nia at Berkeley and at Los Angeles.

ALLEN, PAULA GUNN 25

 tion in gay and lesbian communities on the West
A Coast, where she has lived on and off for many
years. That Allen has been married to both men
and women is not surprising in light of the cul-
tural understandings of many Native communities.
As she herself has written, in Intricate Passions: I
am not especially defined by my sex life, nor com-
plete without it. Mary C.Churchill

Bibliography
Donovan, Kathleen M. Feminist Readings of Na-
tive American Literature: Coming to Voice.
Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1998.
Hansen, Elizabeth. Paula Gunn Allen. Boise, Idaho:
Boise State University Press, 1990.
Holford, Vanessa. Re-Membering Ephanie: A
Womans Re-Creation of Self in Paula Gunn
Allens The Woman Who Owned the Shadows,
Studies in American Indian Literatures 61
(Spring 1994), 99113.
Keating, AnaLouise. Women Reading Women
Paula Gunn Allen. Photo by Tama Rothschild. Used Writing: Self-Invention in Paula Gunn Allen,
with permission of Paula Gunn Allen.
Gloria Anzalda, andAudre Lorde. Philadel-
phia: Temple University Press, 1996.
As a scholar, Allen is probably most well known
Van Dyke, Annette. The Journey Back to Female
for two groundbreaking books: Studies in Ameri-
Roots: A Laguna Pueblo Model. In Lesbian
can Indian Literature: Critical Essays and Course
Texts and Contexts: Radical Revisions. Ed.
Designs (1983), which she edited, and The Sacred
Karla Jay and Joanne Glasgow. New York: New
Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian
York University Press, 1990, pp. 339354.
Traditions (1986). Her work as a creative writer in-
cludes one novel, The Woman Who Owned the See also Native Americans; Two-Spirit
Shadows (1983), and seven collections of poetry.
In both nonfiction and fiction, Allen has ad-
dressed Native American lesbian and gay ways of Amazons
life. Her essay Hwame, Koshkalaka, and the Rest: A matriarchal tribe of warrior women first repre-
Lesbians in American Indian Cultures published sented in ancient Greek myth and rewritten in the
in The Sacred Hoop remains an important contri- contemporary era by feminists and lesbians as an
bution to the field. She also has written several po- identity opposed to patriarchy and an original sepa-
ems with lesbian and gay themes, including ratist culture. The historical status of Amazons
Koshkalaka, Ceremonial Dyke and Never Cry whether they existed as real women in the ancient
Uncle, Some Like Indians Endure, and Beloved Greek world or were a fantastic patriarchal crea-
Women. Ravens Road, a novel in progress, also tionremains a point of scholarly and feminist
features a Native American lesbian character. Chap- contention. This has not prevented strong identifi-
ters of this novel have appeared as Deep Purple cations within lesbian feminist circles.
(Spider Womans Granddaughters: Traditional First named in Homers Iliad (ca. 750700
Tales and Contemporary Writing by Native Ameri- B.C.E.), Amazons proliferated in the official histo-
can Women [1989]), Selections from Ravens ries and geographies of the ancient Athenian city-
Road (Living the Spirit: A Gay American Indian state, as well as in its poetry, vase painting, and
Anthology [1989]), and The Medicine Song of architecture. Feminist scholars read these myths as
Allie Hawker (Intricate Passions: A Collection of serving a patriarchal project of the colonial expan-
Erotic Short Fiction [1988]). sion of ancient Athens. They managed citizen-mens
Allen is important not only because of her writ- fears of potential uprisings among their women
ing on two-spirits, but also because of her participa- and slaves, by showing the Athenian male hero

26 ALLEN, PAULA GUNN

always killing or marrying the barbarian, sexu- Healy, Eloise Klein. This Place Named for
ally deviant Amazons. Similarly motivated Califia. In Artemis in Echo Park. Ithaca, N.Y.:
regenerations of Amazon myths appear through- Firebrand, 1991, p. 37.
out Western history, especially during European Johnston, Jill. Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solu-
discoveries of the New World. Small (1991) tion. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973.
writes of Amazons spotted by Christopher Montrose, Louis. The Work of Gender in the
Columbus (14511506) and other Spanish explor- Discourse of Discovery. Representations 33
ers, and Montrose (1991) examines how and why (Winter 1991), 141.
the British Empire had explorers mapping Ama- Salmonson, Jessica Amanda. The Encyclopedia of
zons during Queen Elizabeth Is reign (15581603). Amazons: Woman Warriors from Antiquity to
Despite scholarly historical alignment of Ama- the Modern Era. New York: Doubleday, 1991.
zons with patriarchal myth, contemporary lesbi- Small, Deborah with Maggie Jaffe. 1492: Whats
ans have identified with the Amazon. Hers is a fe- It Like to Be Discovered? New York: Monthly
male body that suggests distinctly different quali- Review Press, 1991.
ties from the dominant cultures insistence on wom- Zeitlin, Froma. The Dynamics of Misogyny: Myth
ens natural dependence on men and the hetero- and Myth Making in the Oresteia. In Women in
sexual family. Seen as a strong, independent war- the Ancient World: The Arethusa Papers. Ed. John
rior, the Amazon counters the traditional, passive Peradotto and J.P.Sullivan. Albany: State Univer-
feminine body, often being depicted as an athletic sity of New York Press, 1984, pp. 159194.
or androgynous figure.
The tribal, nationalist aspect of classical Ama- See also Brossard, Nicole; Johnston, Jill; Wittig,
zons has well suited separatist arrangements of Monique
woman-identified culture set apart from men. The
phrase Amazon nation has broadly circulated
since the mid-1970s to describe lesbian subculture, American Literature, Nineteenth Century
as the woman-only culture of the Amazons is seen Because open expression of lesbian emotion was
as an original example of lesbian separatism. even less acceptable in the nineteenth century than
Johnston (1973) suggests the need for a return to it has been in the twentieth, affecting not only what
the harmony of statehood and biology through the could be published but censoring presumably pri-
remembered majesties of women, in her last chap- vate documents such as letters and diaries, ques-
ter, Archdykes and Amazons. Writers often ex- tions of evidence surround any discussion of the
press this separatist vision through the mythic link imaginative record of its representation. While the
between Amazons and islands, mapping the neces- work of sexologists such as Richard von Krafft-
sity of separation from dominant culture. Qubec Ebing (18401902) and Havelock Ellis (1859
author Nicole Brossard (1943) and French novel- 1939), by creating the category of the homosexual,
ist Monique Wittig (1935) favor the island meta- may have produced a certain self-consciousness in
phor in their important poetic fictions. And in This the portrayal of relations between women in the
Place Named for Califia, poet Healy (1991) takes last quarter of the nineteenth century, one must
over the Spanish and American mythology that first remember that they aimed at codifying and
imagined California as ruled by a black Amazonian analyzing identities and behaviors understood to
queen, Califia: that island, floating like the leg- be already in existence. Thus, though the record is
ends ahead of an exploring army./The story of the clearer for the second half of the century than for
women beyond/the river, the fall, or like this/ place, the first, if one invokes aggressive reading strate-
the island of women/living without men just beyond/ gies as a justifiable approach to decoding the se-
the mist, beyond this weatheran island real enough verely censored, it is possible to trace a lesbian pres-
to be necessary, a kind of woman/necessary enough ence throughout nineteenth-century American lit-
to be real. Molly Rae Rhodes erature.

Bibliography Early Expressions of Attachments

DuBois, Page. Centaurs and Amazons: Women and Between Women
the Pre-History of the Great Chain of Being. Charles Brockden Browns Ormond (1798) provides
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1982. an early treatment of passionate attachment between

A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E , N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U RY 27
 women. Written in reaction to Samuel Richardsons passionate attachment to an older English lady
A Clarissa (17471748), Ormond replaces Richard-
sons plot of seduction, rape, and suicide with
whose departure left her in a depression that she
recognized to be out of thenatural course. In
Constantias successful, and lethal, repulse of 1842, Fuller published her translation of the Corre-
Ormond and ends happily with her reunion with spondence of Fraulein Gunderode with Bettine Von
her beloved Sophia who has traveled twenty-four Arnim and her meditations on the significance of
miles, the last three on foot, to rescue her. Brown their passionate attachment. Later, Fuller would
(17711810) contextualizes the nature of their re- write about George Sand (18041876), flamboy-
lationship through his portrait of the cross-dressing ant symbol of the sexually deviant woman, whom
and androgynous Martinette, who shows that it is she insisted on meeting when she went to Paris in
possible to be imbued with a soul that was a 1846. In the story of Marianna, included in Sum-
stranger to the sexual distinction. An early femi- mer on the Lakes (1843), Fuller offers a portrait of
nist, Brown offers Constantia as a model for the the emotionally charged environment of the female
woman of the new American republic and links her boarding school, one of the more likely settings in
independence and self-love to her relation to Sophia. American (and continental) literature for the repre-
Unfortunately, Browns interest in the radical sentation of passions between women.
potential of love between women was not immedi-
ately pursued. Instead, writers such as James Lesbian Texts and Authors
Fenimore Cooper (17891851) chose to present love Specifically lesbian texts and authors, as well as
between women in the context of the relationship modes of writing conducive to the representation
of sistersCora and Alice in The Last of the of lesbian emotion, begin to appear in the second
Mohicans (1826); Judith and Hetty in The half of the nineteenth century. As Terry Castle has
Deerslayer (1841). Catherine Sedgwicks Hope argued in The Apparitional Lesbian (1993), the
Leslie (1827) is radical in its creation of an inde- ghost story in which the beloved is dead offered
pendent, aggressive heroine who defies patriarchal women writers a safe way to represent the haunt-
efforts to imprison her in a conventional marriage, ingly intense passion of women for women. Eliza-
but it follows Coopers model for presenting attach- beth Stuart Phelps (18441911), whose Since I
ment between women. Hopes passionate search for Died (1873) is included in Susan Koppelmans Two
her biological sister, from whom she has been sepa- Friends (1994), a collection of nineteenth-century
rated since childhood, parallels her search for her American lesbian stories, deserves mention for con-
Indian sister, Magawisca, and both attachments structing a significant variation of the ghosting
are thus conventionally acceptable. Though Hope of lesbian emotion. In The Story of Avis (1876),
Leslie contains a cross-dressing woman whose Phelps locates emotional intensity in the passionate
strange encounters with Hope provide the texts sole attachment of narrator for character, expressed
erotic element, Sedgwick (17891867) presents pas- through the erotics of watching. This strategy al-
sion of any kind as dangerous to women. lows her novel to serve as a public space in which it
In The Blithedale Romance (1852), Nathaniel is possible for one woman to openly admire another
Hawthorne (18041864) adopts a similar strategy because the eroticism is disembodied. Phelpss una-
when he reveals the mysterious relationship between bashed adoration of the extraordinarily sensual Avis
Priscilla and Zenobia to be that of half-sisters, has disturbed readers, as has her uncompromisingly
though, until this revelation, he allows some specu- negative treatment of Philip, the lover turned hus-
lation about the nature of Priscillas adoration of band turned cad who dies by novels end. If, as Cas-
the older, erotic Zenobia. Zenobia, whose suicide tle has also suggested, the lesbian novel requires a
reinstates the theme of seduced and abandoned man who has been sacrificed, then both the narra-
as preferable to any hint of deviant sexuality, has tors attachment to Avis and her hostility to Philip
reminded many readers of Margaret Fuller (1810 mark this text as lesbian.
1850), herself a feminist who had intense romantic Another mode of writing that emerged in the
relations with other women. In her brief autobio- second half of the nineteenth century and proved
graphical memoir, originally published in 1852, and conducive to the expression of lesbian emotion is
subsequently reprinted as Autobiographical literary regionalism. Two Friends contains fiction
Sketch in The Portable Margaret Fuller (1994), by several regionalists, including Rose Terry Cooke
Fuller provides an account of her first feeling, a (18271892), Sarah Orne Jewett (18491909),

28 A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E , N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U RY
Mary Wilkins Freeman (18521930), Kate Chopin ment in favor of girls and against compulsory het-
(18511904), and Alice Brown (18561948). With erosexuality.
its focus on the self-consciously marginal woman, Freeman, who lived for twenty years with her
odd and even deviant, frequently living in a pre- friend, Mary John Wales (d. 1916), and married
dominantly female community, regionalism presents only late in life, exhibits an awareness of deviance
characters who are free to say they dont like boys that makes her perhaps even more recognizable as
and free to say they do like girls. The potential of a lesbian to twentieth-century readers than Jewett.
regionalism to create a space for the odd woman In The Long Arm (1895), Phoebe Dole murders
can be seen as early as Catherine Sedgwicks Red- the man who plans to marry Maria Wood, the
wood (1824), in which the regional character, woman with whom she has lived for more than
Deborah Lenox, is described as a six-foot Amazon forty years, and she justifies her act by claiming
who might be mistaken for a grenadier. Possibly that there are other ties as strong as the marriage
based on the historical figure of Deborah Sampson one. Phoebes unusually long arm, the key to
(17601827), who cross-dressed to fight in the unraveling the mystery, signals her deviance and
American Revolution and had relations with other places her within a category recognizably lesbian
women, Sedgwicks Deborah is a self-avowed spin- to late-nineteenth-century readers, that of the mas-
ster who successfully rescues a younger woman from culine woman. By The Light of the Soul (1906)
rape. Similarly, Harriet Beecher Stowe (18111896), deserves particular mention among Freemans later
in The Pearl of Orrs Island (1862), creates the ec- novels, which frequently focus on obsessive rela-
centric Aunt Roxy, who, on hearing of the proposed tionships between women, for its re-eroticizing of
marriage between Mara and Moses that others be- the relation between half-sisters, as well as for the
lieve will be the salvation of Moses, declares that explicit decision of one sister to choose life with
she is not one of the sort that wants to be a-usin another woman over marriage. In her earlier short
up girls for the salvation of fellers. fiction, Freeman treated the passionate attachment
Jewett, who traced her origins as a writer to of women to each other more positively, though
Stowes Pearl, must figure prominently in any treat- still acknowledging that it falls outside the norm.
ment of lesbianism in nineteenth-century American In Two Friends (1887), Sarahs love for Abby
literature. Deephaven (1877), the first text since exceeds that of men for women and, as the storys
Ormond to present love between women as the ba- conclusion makes clear, marks the lesbian choice
sis for a story, describes the experience of Helen and as superior to the heterosexual alternative.
Kate, who spend a summer in a small town in Maine Perhaps the most open portrayal of a lesbian
and set up housekeeping together, the region pro- relationship in nineteenth-century American litera-
viding a space in which such choices are at least ture occurs in Henry Jamess (18431916) The
temporarily possible. Imagining such a relationship Bostonians (1886). A classic treatment of one kind
in fiction may have made it possible for Jewett to of lesbian triangle, The Bostonians records the
form her own Boston Marriage with Annie Fields struggle of Olive Chancellor and Basil Ransom for
(18341915). Jewetts stories take up such issues as possession of Verena Tarrant, a struggle Basil
cross-dressing (An Autumn Holiday [1880]) role wins not so much because he possesses phallic
reversal (Toms Husband [1882]) and the love of force as because Olive doubts the legitimacy of her
one woman for another across class and time and claim on Verena. Despite the suggestion that her
space (Marthas Lady [1897]). A White Heron attraction to feminism stems from her rivalry with
(1886) records a young girls rejection of aggressive men over women, Olive emerges as a heroic fig-
male sexuality in favor of a life with nature in which ure. Yet Verena, whose future with Ransom James
birds are not killed, stuffed, and studied but allowed, acknowledges to be grim, is no less a lesbian than
like herself, to fly free. In the context of the bad Olive for, as Emma Donaghue, in Passions Between
boy literature of the 1870s and 1880s, which idol- Women (1993), asks, How can there be a female
ized boys and licensed their behavior particularly as husband without a female husbands wife? By
it disrupted feminine spaces (e.g., Mark Twains Tom acknowledging Verenas attachment to Olive as
Sawyer [1876]), fiction such as A White Heron well as Olives to Verena, James counters the idea
and Cookes Miss Beulahs Bonnet (1880), whose that only the masculine woman is a true lesbian.
character finally declares herself free to say I never No account of lesbianism in nineteenth-century
did like boys, may be read as an alternative argu- American literature would be complete without

A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E , N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U RY 29
 reference to Louisa May Alcotts Little Women Barker and poetry by such writers as Celia Thaxter
A (1868), for Jo March has offered generations of
readers a compelling model of the adolescent tom-
(18351894), Annie Fields, and Sophie Jewett
(n.d.), part of an intimate circle at Wellesley Col-
boy. Unable to get over her disappointment at not lege that included Katharine Lee Bates (1859
being a boy, Jo hates visits and being nice to old 1929), author of America, the Beautiful, and
ladies and prefers a run in the fields or, like Full- Florence Converse (18711967), whose Diana
ers Marianna, those amateur theatrics that give Victrix (1897) Faderman (1981) has labeled a les-
her a chance to dress up in doublet and hose and bian novel. Faderman would add to this list Adah
play suitor to the sisters she wishes she could marry. Isaacs Menken (18351868), cross-dressing friend
Though Alcott (18321888) capitulated to public of George Sand, although, as Foster (1975) notes,
pressure for a happy heterosexual ending, she little of what might be called lesbian finds its way
refused to marry Jo to Laurie, insisting that the into the poetry collected in Infelicia (1868).
charm of the relationship for Jo lies in its lack of Among African American writers, identifiably les-
erotic content. By resisting this particular hetero- bian texts and authors do not appear until the twen-
sexual plot and by marrying her to a man more a tieth century, though Hansen (1996) has recovered
father than a lover, Alcott preserves Jos tomboy
the record of lesbian emotion in the nineteenth cen-
identity into adulthood. In Alcotts Work (1872),
tury through letters. According to Gilman (1985), by
Christie Devon forms her first and most lasting
the eighteenth century the sexuality of black women
emotional relationship with a woman who turns
(and men) was an icon for deviant sexuality in gen-
out to be the sister of the man she marries just
eral; and Donoghue (1993) notes the pornography
hours before he leaves for the Civil War. Davids
of a 1745 medical treatise which features a hugh
death shortly thereafter leaves Christie and Letty
centrefold-style engraving of the vulva of a hermaph-
to make a life together that is also the center of a
roditical Angolan woman sold into slavery in
female and feminist community.
America. The pathologizing of black womens sexu-
Though critics have searched for evidence of a
failed heterosexual romance to explain the work ality was intensified in the nineteenth century through
of Emily Dickinson (18301886), her letters pro- the figure of the Hottentot Venus, whose abnor-
vide ample evidence of her passionate attachment mal and deviant genitalia and body shape pro-
to Sue Gilbert, the woman who would later marry vided the central image for the period. Given this his-
her brother, Austin. While Dickinson wrote poetry tory, in which racism, sexism, and homophobia rein-
that explores the psychological effect on women of forced and justified one another, it is not surprising
heterosexual passion, according to Bennett (1990), that nineteenth-century African American writers
her most important and characteristic erotic po- sought to portray women in terms that would be rec-
etry is written in a homoerotic mode and cel- ognized as unmistakably normal. However, since
ebrates the pleasures and pains of a passion recog- there obviously were African American lesbians in
nizably lesbian to twentieth-century readers. Addi- the nineteenth century, it is quite likely that further
tionally, one can read Dickinsons fascination with research will produce literary texts that reflect their
the tiny tale, the form her poetry takes and the experience more directly.
theme of many of her poems (It would have starved Judith Fetterley
a Gnat/To live so small as I), as a mode of lesbian
eroticism in which the ironic exaggeration of the Bibliography
small serves to celebrate the explosive force of a fe- Bennett, Paula. Emily Dickinson, Woman Poet.
male sexuality conventionally seen as insignificant. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1990.
In any discussion of Dickinson, it is important Castle, Terry. The Apparitional Lesbian: Female
to remember that her poetry was unpublished dur- Homosexuality and Modern Culture. New
ing her lifetime. As Bennett has noted, Generally York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
speaking, poetry was more conservative than fic- Donoghue, Emma. Passions Between Women: Brit-
tion in the period, and, indeed, the poetry pub- ish Lesbian Culture, 16681801. London: Scar-
lished by American women during the nineteenth let Press, 1993.
century provides little record of lesbian experience. Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men:
Still, Bennett has begun the work of recovering Romantic Friendship and Love between Women
nineteenth-century American lesbian poetry, a tra- from the Sixteenth Century to the Present. New
dition that would include Fullers verses to Anna York: William Morrow, 1981.

30 A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E , N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U RY
Foster, Jeannette. Sex Variant Women in Litera- lesbian and nonlesbian writing. Stein, too, may be
ture. [n.p.]: Vantage, 1956. 2nd ed. Baltimore: most familiar through her public persona, especially
Diana, 1975. as expressed through her most accessible work, The
Gilman, Sander. Black Bodies, White Bodies: To- Autobiography of Alice B.Toklas (1932). Stein and
ward an Iconography of Female Sexuality in Toklas (18771967) form an iconic lesbian couple,
Late Nineteenth-Century Art, Medicine, and and Steins relationships with such visual artists as
Literature. In Race, Writing, and Difference. Paul Cezanne (18391906), Henri Matisse (1869
Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Chicago: University 1954), and Pablo Picasso (18811973), and her in-
of Chicago Press, 1985, pp. 223261. fluence on younger American writers, especially
Hansen, Karen V. (No Kisses Is Like Youres): An Ernest Hemingway (18991961), are well known.
Erotic Friendship Between Two African Ameri- But she should also be credited as a major figure in
can Women During the Mid-Nineteenth Cen- the reinvention of literary language now called
tury. In Lesbian Subjects. Ed. Martha Vicinus. modernism. Her most serious and experimental
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996, writing presents a challenge to conventional realist
pp. 178207. narrative, a questioning of the very ability of words
Koppelman, Susan, ed. Two Friends. New York: and sentences to represent the world. Much of her
Penguin, 1994. writing is highly demandingthe reader must make
meaning as the viewer of a Cubist painting does.
See also Bates, Katharine Lee; Boarding Schools; Such works as As a Wife Has a Cow: A Love Story
Boston Marriage; Cross-Dressing; Dickinson, and Lifting Belly (19151917) have been inter-
Emily; Fuller, Margaret; Jewett, Sarah Orne; Liter- preted as coding lesbian sexuality, but they never
ary Images do so through simple allegories or one-to-one cor-
respondences. The term code can only hint at
Steins ambitious attempt to address the inadequacy
American Literature, Twentieth Century of literary convention for expressing lesbian exist-
Like the story of twentieth-century American lit- ence by exploding and reinventing language entirely.
erature generally, the story of twentieth-century (One early realist novel, Q.E.D.; or, Things as They
lesbian American literature begins in Paris, with Are, about a lesbian love triangle, was written in
the salon of Natalie Barney (18761972), who 1903 but remained unpublished until 1950.)
gathered important French and expatriate writers Because of the hunger for clear and positive rep-
and formed the nucleus of an unabashed lesbian resentation in an economy of scarcity, it has some-
community. Barney is also remembered for her times been hard for lesbian readers to value Steins
many intense and operatic erotic activities (the work. The same has been true for Djuna Barnes,
word is Karla Jays), especially her love affairs with whose best novel, Nightwood (1936), displays the
painter Romaine Brooks (18741970) and Eng- devastating end of a love between two women
lish-born poet Rene Vivien (Pauline Mary Tarn against the nightmarish background of a Paris full
[18771909]). Few now read the formally con- of deviance, desire, and grotesque beauty.
servative verse (often based on fragments from Nightwood is more open and direct about the sexu-
Sappho) of Barney and Vivien, or Barneys epigram- ality of its characters than Steins experimental
matic memoirs, partly because both chose to write work, but some readers find its torrent of images
in French. Novelist Djuna Barnes (18921982) unmanageable, and some critics also find Barness
immortalized this community, and particularly work unacceptably dark or lurid or too depend-
Barneys larger-than-life sexual persona, in The ent on sexological stereotypes of perversion. More
Ladies Almanack (1928). recently, critics have seen her as writing in produc-
tive tension with those stereotypes and have re-
Expatriate Writing valued her other novel, Ryder (1928), and her play,
While the writings of the Paris group may be for- The Antiphon (1958), which deal strongly with the
gotten, they became lesbian icons (as Sappho was sexual exploitation of women and girls. Barnes
for them) for later generations, based upon their greatly influenced some later lesbian writers, such
elegant style and visibility, more than for anything as novelist Bertha Harris, who have continued to
they ever wrote. On the other hand, the richer work explode the confines of narrative in search of a
of three expatriates, Barnes, H.D. (18861961), and new language to express a lesbian world. Writers
Gertrude Stein (18741946), continued to inspire more concerned with reaching a broad audience

A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E , T W E N T I E T H C E N T U RY 31
 and/or providing positive images have tended in- features as an interest in male homosocial couples
A stead to follow the conventionally realist path of
British novelist Radclyffe Hall (18801943), au-
and homoerotic bonds between men; decentering
or refusal of heterosexual plots; and an erotic gaze
thor of The Well of Loneliness (1928), who is cred- directed at a female character by the author and im-
ited with introducing the butch character to litera- plicitly by the female reader. Like the question of
ture and inventing the coming out story. Steins codes, Cathers work raises interesting
Hilda Doolittle (18861961), who wrote un- theoretical issues about naming and secrecy: Who
der the name H.D., was a prolific and experimen- is a lesbian writer? What does lesbian writing mean?
tal writer in many genres, including poetry, fiction,
drama, and autobiographical memoir, the distinc- Varieties of Lesbian Writing
tion among these genres often being blurry. As a As these examples show, a wide variety of style
poet, she was a founding member of the Imagist and approach characterizes early-twentieth-century
group, which emphasized clarity and concreteness, lesbian writing: There was (and, indeed, still is) no
hated sentimentality, andin the words of Ezra one way of writing lesbian. Lesbian literature
Pound (18851972), to whom H.D. was at one was not isolated from the main currents of mod-
time engagedbroke the pentameter, establish- ernist writing, nor did it simply imitate or react to
ing free verse as the literary norm and, in a sense, those innovations and trends; lesbian writing was
inventing modernism. (Amy Lowell [18741925], central and formative to the mainstream tradition.
poet and wealthy patron, was also for some time a Also, the history of American literature would be
member of this group, though less formally inven- incomplete without mention of the portrayal of
tive: A few of her poems have explicit lesbian con- lesbianism in the fiction of nonlesbian writers, and
tent.) Unsurprisingly, the fiction that remained un- particularly such mainstream male modernist writ-
published until after H.D.s death in 1961 is the ers as Hemingway, William Faulkner (18971962),
most explicitly lesbian, recounting her important John Dos Passes (18961970), and William Carlos
attachments to women throughout her life. The Williams (18831963). Lesbian characters or
work she chose to publish gives a much more het- themes could function as scapegoats to counter
erosexual impression, both through the autobio- mens fear of women writers or simply as a daring
graphical elements and the large-scale religious sym- sign of the modern, white male writers of various
bolism of her later works. sexualities particularly invoked the exotic, freer,
H.D. shared with Barney and Vivien the use of and sexually ambiguous atmosphere of Harlem in
classical material and a particular veneration for this way. Finally, modernism generally would look
ancient Greece. Her gift was greater, and so her quite different without the crucial contributions
use of this material ranged from straight transla- of such lesbians as bookseller and publisher Sylvia
tion to adaptation to historical novel to the crea- Beach (18871962), whose English-language book-
tion of a spiritual symbol system that dovetailed shop in Paris was an important gathering place for
with Freudian analysis (she was analyzed by the expatriate community, or Margaret Anderson
Sigmund Freud [18561939] himself in the 1930s). (18861973) and Jane Heap (18871964), editors
In the 1970s, feminist criticism rescued H.D.s work of the Little Review, an early little magazine in
from undeserved oblivion, and she is now recog- which many key texts first appeared.
nized as a major modernist writer. Later lesbian Ironically, however, the experimental nature of
writers, especially Adrienne Rich (1929), honor work by Stein, Barnes, and H.D., and Cathers self-
H.D. as a forebear. protective privacy, meant that their lesbian con-
One writer of that generation who never expa- text was not discovered until the advent of femi-
triated herself was Willa Gather (18731947), a re- nist and lesbian criticism in the 1970s. That para-
alist novelist with a commitment to history. Often digm shift has also led to rereadings of other im-
marginalized unfairly as a regionalist writer (some portant and innovative American writingsuch as
of her work deals with her native Nebraska), she is the novels and stories of Carson McCullers (1917
better seen as a moralist concerned with the preser- 1967) and Jane Bowles (19171973) and the po-
vation of enduring human values in diverse local etry of Elizabeth Bishop (19111979) and Muriel
settings. Gather lived a lesbian life (though very pri- Rukeyser (19131980)with attention to the les-
vately); in her work, however, one must trace lesbi- bian aspects of their lives and their creative visions.
anism more delicately and indirectly through such The critical rewriting of the Harlem Renaissance

32 A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E , T W E N T I E T H C E N T U RY
has also enabled us to recognize and value lesbian ferent layerings of narrative in Confessions of
experience in largely unpublished work by such Cherubino (1972) and Lover (1976), and June
well-respected writers as Angelina Weld Grimk Arnold (19261982), through the invention of a
(18801958) and Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1875 nongendered pronoun and other suspensions of
1935) and to identify lesbian themes and subtexts realist conventions, in The Cook and the Carpen-
in important, complex works like Nella Larsens ter (1973) and Sister Gin (1975). Others seemed
(18911964) Passing (1929). But recognizably les- more concerned to find, imagine, or reinvent a
bian fiction tended to follow a more convention- safe space for lesbian community, whether through
ally narrative path. a mythologized past, a science-fiction alternative
future, or political struggle in the present: Patience
The 1950s and Sarah (1972) by Isabel Miller (Alma
During the 1950s, representation of lesbians was Routsong), first self-published as A Place for Us
hard to come by outside of pulp paperback fic- in 1969; Sally Gearharts The Wanderground
tion. Often written by men to titillate a presump- (1978); Joanna Russs The Female Man (1975);
tively male audience, with loud and lurid covers and Riverfinger Woman (1974) by Elana
and tortured prose, these cheap novels came with Nachmann (later Elana Dykewomon). Still oth-
endings designed to reassure the normal reader ers examined the complexities of lesbian identity
(and distract the censor): the suicide of the real discovered against the background of racial, eth-
lesbian and/or the conversion by marriage of the nic, or class differences, as in Alice Blochs The
more feminine lesbian. Sometimes they were pack- Law of Return (1983) (Judaism and Zionism),
aged as medical literature, with an authenticating Paula Gunn Allens The Woman Who Owned the
doctors preface or afterword to reiterate that the Shadows (1983) (Native American), Ann Allen
deviant behavior inside was not being advocated. Shockley Loving Her (1974) and Say Jesus and
Still, in a time of scarcity and censorship, many Come to Me (1982) (African American), and
lesbian readers and some lesbian writers turned to Maureen Bradys Folly (1982) (set among work-
this genre for images of desire between women and ers in a Southern textile mill). Rita Mae Brown
female strength, reading (or writing) against the broke through to a large mainstream audience
grain. The work of Valerie Taylor (19131997) and with her comic picaresque Rubyfruit Jungle
Ann Bannon (1937) was reprinted by feminist (1973).
presses in the 1970s (though with plain covers!). Much 1970s writing was inspired by a political
The pulps have also had an afterlife in the responses impulse to break silence and tell the truth
of younger lesbian writers and visual artists. about lesbian existence. Even when the truth was
As Abraham (1996) writes, The Price of Salt complicated or unprettyas, for example, in Kate
(1952) by Patricia Highsmith (19211995) writ- Milletts free-form autobiographies, Flying (1974)
ing as Clare Morgan is often referred to as a break- and Sita (1977)it seemed important to tell as
through text because of its happy ending. Another much of it as possible. No life was too ordinary to
early pioneer was Canadian writer Jane Rule become literature. The title of Michelle Cliffs 1980
(1931), best known for Desert of the Heart poetic meditation, Claiming an Identity They
(1964). Rules well-made realist stories and nov- Taught Me To Despise, could stand for this whole
els, which testify that lesbians are complex, real, generation. No one had more to do with these de-
and moral creatures, began appearing when these velopments than two poets, Adrienne Rich and
were brave assertions. But it took the political Audre Lorde (19341992).
breakthroughs of feminism and the Stonewall Re- Rich and Lorde defined an aesthetic of honesty,
bellion (1969) and the creation of women-owned openness, and commitment, and set the highest lit-
and lesbian-owned presses and bookstores (now erary standards, both in their poems and in such
mostly gone) to enable a true burgeoning of overtly essays as Richs When We Dead Awaken: Writ-
lesbian feminist literature in many genres and styles. ing as Re-Vision (1971) and Women and Honor:
Some Notes on Lying (1975) and Lordes Cancer
Lesbian Feminist Literature and Beyond Journals (1980) and The Uses of the Erotic
Within fiction, some writers continued to push (1978). Their writing helped inspire parallel move-
the limits of what could be said: Bertha Harris ments in literary criticism as women and lesbians
(1937), through a rich intertextuality and dif- moved into the academy in greater numbers and

A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E , T W E N T I E T H C E N T U RY 33
 with greater visibility. Richs call, in her Tran- sciously crafted to evoke the readers desire and
A scendent Etude (1978), for a whole new poetry
beginning here, was, in a way, answered by a co-
deliberately written by lesbians for lesbians, though
some of it works with conventions familiar from
hort of poets beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, male pornography; science fiction and fantasy. The
including Pat Parker, Judy Grahn, Robin Morgan, use of lesbian characters in fiction by women not
June Jordan, Olga Broumas, Minnie Bruce Pratt, publicly identified as lesbians, ranging from Alice
Irena Klepfisz, Joy Harjo, Cheryl Clarke, Cherre Walkers The Color Purple (1982) to the most ex-
Moraga, and countless others in movement jour- ploitive versions of lesbian chic, has also risen stead-
nals, workshops, and anthologies. Most of these ily. As encouraging developments, one might sig-
poets wrote in a free-form wayRich saw her own nal the publication of serious lesbian fiction, such
breaking free from patriarchal standards going as Margaret Erharts Unusual Company (1987),
along with her liberation from traditional verse by mainstream publishing houses; increasing study
formsbut the work of Marilyn Hacker and oth- of lesbian literature within the academy, especially
ers to transform more formal verse from within in womens studies classes; and a continuing inter-
shows this connection was not inevitable. Richs est in the 1990s in experimental fiction by such
essay Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian writers as Sarah Schulman and Rebecca Brown.
Existence (1980) and Lordes biomythography, Meryl Altman
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982), would
capture both the power and the pain of struggles Bibliography
over lesbian, feminist, and racial identity politics Abraham, Julie. Are Girls Necessary? Lesbian
through the 1980s, and both became cornerstones Writing and Modern Histories. New York and
of womens studies teaching. London: Routledge, 1996.
During the 1980s, specifically sexual self-expres- Hull, Gloria T.Color, Sex, and Poetry: Three
sion became an explosive issue. Some writers, in- Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance.
cluding some who consciously identified as bisexual Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
or as members of sadomasochist (S/M) subcultures, Jay, Karla, and Joanne Glasgow, eds. Lesbian Texts
reacted against what they saw as feminist censor- and Contexts: Radical Revisions. New York:
ship, with, for example, such explicitly confronta- New York University Press, 1990.
tional S/M writing as that contained in the anthol- Munt, Sally, R. ed. New Lesbian Criticism: Liter-
ogy Coming to Power (1982) and the magazines ary and Cultural Readings. New York: Colum-
Bad Attitude and On Our Backs and the work of bia University Press, 1993.
Pat Califia, Artemis Oakgrove, and Susie Bright. Smith, Barbara. Toward a Black Feminist Criti-
Other writers, such as Andrea Dworkin, reaffirmed cism. In The New Feminist Criticism: Women,
combating violence against women as a prior, and Literature, and Theory. Ed. Elaine Showalter.
deeper, lesbian and feminist commitment. While New York: Pantheon, 1985, pp. 168185.
much of this debate focused on visual images, fic- Stimpson, Catharine R. Zero Degree Deviancy:
tion also mattered: The status of fantasy and the The Lesbian Novel in English. In Where the
nature of authentic experience were put into ques- Meanings Are: Feminism and Cultural Spaces.
tion, as was the responsibility of the writer to her- New York: Methuen, 1988, pp. 97110.
self and her community within a wider world still Wolfe, Susan J., and Julia Penelope, eds. Sexual
hostile to lesbians and still prone to stereotype. A Practice, Textual Theory: Lesbian Cultural
related resurgence of interest in butch-femme lives, Criticism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.
which 1970s lesbian feminism had downplayed, Zimmerman, Bonnie. The Safe Sea of Women: Les-
gave rise to such novels as Leslie Feinbergs Stone bian Fiction, 19691989. Boston: Beacon,
Butch Blues (1993) and the work of Lee Lynch. 1990.
Important writers to whom these debates gave voice
included Joan Nestle and Dorothy Allison, whose See also African American Literature; Allen, Paula
1992 novel, Bastard Out of Carolina, was nomi- Gunn; Anderson, Margaret Carolyn; Arnold, June;
nated for a National Book Award. Asian American Literature; Bannon, Ann; Barnes,
In sheer number, the 1990s seem dominated by Djuna Chappel; Barney, Natalie Clifford; Beach,
several sorts of genre fiction: formulaic romances; Sylvia; Bishop, Elizabeth; Bowles, Jane Auer;
detective stories; erotically stimulating stories, con- Brown, Rita Mae; Cather, Willa; Grahn, Judy;

34 A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E , T W E N T I E T H C E N T U RY
Harlem Renaissance; H.D. (Hilda Doolittle); Latina 1941, Anderson returned to America, where she
Literature; Lorde, Audre; McCullers, Carson; began a ten-year relationship with Dorothy Caruso
Millett, Kate; Moraga, Cherre; Parker, Pat; Pulp (18931955), widow of Enrico. In her post-Little
Paperbacks; Rich, Adrienne; Routsong, Alma; Review years, Anderson wrote three autobiographies
Rukeyser, Muriel; Rule, Jane Vance; Shockley, Ann and a lesbian novel entitled Forbidden Fires, which
Allen; Stein, Gertrude she failed to have published in her lifetime. Anderson
died in France in 1973. Holly A.Baggett

Anderson, Margaret Carolyn (18861973) Bibliography

A publisher and editor, Margaret Anderson was the Baggett, Holly A. Aloof from Natural Laws:
founder of the Little Review (19141929), one of Margaret C.Anderson and the Little Review,
the most prominent literary journals of the twenti- 19141929. Ph.D. diss., University of Dela-
eth century, and was in the vanguard of artistic ware, 1992.
modernism and sexual radicalism. Born to middle- Bryer, Jackson. A Trial-Track for Racers: Margaret
class parents in Indiana, Anderson rebelled early in C.Anderson and the Little Review Ph.D. diss.,
life and moved to Chicago in 1909. There she sup- University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 1965.
ported herself as a book reviewer and an assistant
on the Dial. Starting her own magazine, the Little See also Barnes, Djuna Chappell; Stein, Gertrude
Review, in 1914, Anderson engaged controversy by
promoting anarchism, imagism, psychoanalysis,
feminism, and sexual liberation. During this period, Androgyny
she published the early works of T.S.Eliot (1888 A term for the union of male and female qualities
1965), H.D. (18861961), Sherwood Anderson psychological, literary, or physicalthat at times has
(18761941), and Amy Lowell (18741925). Her been equated with homosexuality. Androgyny is a
1915 editorial attacking intolerance toward inver- classic term that denotes the union of male (andro)
sion has been deemed the earliest defense of ho- and female (gyne) characteristics. This union has
mosexuality by a lesbian in the United States. been described in a number of ways, usually Uto-
In 1916, Anderson met Jane Heap (18871964), pian. In psychology, it may be the balance of reason
a cross-dressing artist who became her lover and and emotion or assertion and vulnerability in one
coeditor. The following year, the two women moved person; in literature, it may be the writer or the char-
to New York City, where they published Ezra acter accessing her or his opposite-gendered side.
Pound (18851972), Djuna Barnes (18921982), Physical androgyny most often means cross-dress-
Gertrude Stein (18741946), Dorothy Richardson ing, for, while an androgyne may display both male
(18731957), and Mina Loy (18821966), among and female bodily characteristics, one who does so
others. Many of the short stories and prose pieces is usually termed a hermaphrodite. The term an-
contributed by women during this period contained drogyny is also associated with, and sometimes
homoerotic themes. By the 1920s, the Little Re- equated with, homosexuality because both positive
view became increasingly experimental, turning to and negative definitions of the homosexual have
surrealism, dada, Machine Age aesthetics, and assumed that the lesbian or gay man crosses the gen-
avant-garde theater. Andersons most daring effort der norms of her or his culture.
was the serialization of James Joyces Ulysses. She Androgyny is an ancient, although not always
and Heap were convicted in 1921 on obscenity a neutral, concept in both Eastern and Western cul-
charges and fined. tures. The Chinese principles of yin and yang have
The trial led to both financial and personal strains been considered a version of androgyny.
for Anderson. She became enthralled by the teach- Aristophanes (448?380? B.C.E.) in Platos (427?
ings of George Gurdjieff (18721949), a Russian 347? B.C.E.) Symposium defines love through a
mystic who had a small following among New York myth in which the first humans become divided
intellectuals and the expatriate community in Paris. parts of a whole, each seeking the other: males seek-
She left Heap and the Little Review and traveled to ing males, females seeking females, and men and
France to study with Gurdjieff. Accompanying women seeking each other. Iconoclastic views of bib-
Anderson was her new lover, opera singer Georgette lical creation assume that Adam was an androgyne
Leblanc (18691941), with whom she would live before the fall. Although Platos myth allows for
for the next twenty years. When LeBlanc died in homosexual desire, many symbolic versions of

ANDROGYNY 35
 androgyny emphasize the heterosexual model of Heilbrun, Carolyn G. Toward a Recognition of
A male-female union, such as the theory of creativity
that idealizes the artist accessing his or her psy-
Androgyny. New York: Harper Colophon, 1973.
Weil, Kari. Androgyny and the Denial of Differ-
chologically opposite-gendered side in order to ence. Charlottesville: University Press of Vir-
birth a work of art (Carl Jung [18751961]). ginia, 1992.
Because both the Wests and the Easts symbolic
systems associate male with light and reason and See also Anzalda, Gloria; Butch-Femme; Cross-
female with dark and body, and because most theo- Dressing; Grahn, Judy; Queer Theory; Rich,
ries presuppose the essential nature of male and Adrienne; Two-Spirit; Woolf, Virginia
female characteristics, the combination often re-
sults in a hierarchical and heterosexual model.
Androgyny is also closely bound up with homo- Animal Studies
sexuality and feminism. Sexologists of the late nine- It is probably incorrect to speak of lesbian animals
teenth century, such as Richard von Krafft-Ebing because virtually nothing is known about the cog-
(18401902), described homosexuality as a pathol- nitive aspects of sexuality in nonhuman species (here-
ogy of crossing social and physical gender bounda- after, animals). In contrast, female homosexual
ries. Virginia Woolf (18821941) used the term behavior involving courtship, pair bonding, mount-
positively in her version of female creativity in A ing, and other forms of genital contact has been
Room of Ones Own (1929). Woolfs ideal artist is noted in many animal species. Isolated anecdotes
the person in whom neither male nor female char- concerning female homosexual behavior exist for
acteristics predominate, and, if read as a code word numerous species, but very few studies have focused
for the homosexual, Woolfs androgyny is a happy on this behavior and attempted to place it within a
revision of the sexologists theories. In the 1970s, larger constellation of social and sexual behaviors.
literary and psychological feminist theories ideal- As of the late 1990s, the most detailed studies of
ized androgyny as a means to go beyond stereotypi- female homosexual behavior in animals had been
cal gender roles. Lesbians have exhibited conflict- on birds, primates, and domestic livestock.
ing responses to this concept. In the 1970s, lesbian There is a long history of interest in female ho-
feminists Adrienne Rich (1929) and Mary Daly mosexual behavior in animals dating back to, at
(1928) first hailed this term as Utopian but, shortly least, the Middle Ages, when zoologists equated
after, denounced it as male dominated and hetero- natural sexual behavior with reproduction. Mud-
sexual. Other feminist and lesbian writers, such as dled notions about homosexual behavior in animals
Judy Grahn (1940) and Gloria Anzalda (1942), such as pigeons were used by medieval zoologists to
implied androgyny in their descriptions of early cast lesbianism as anathema. While the logic that
Native American cultures that honored as spiritu- equates all that is natural with all that is socially
ally superior cross-dressing (and, likely, homosexual) desirable is flawed, its popular appeal is undeniable,
males or females. In the 1990s, postmodern queer even in the late twentieth century.
theory redefined androgyny as an image of Some of the first systematic studies of female
undecidability. In queer theory, the privileged ho- homosexual behavior in animals were conducted
mosexual figure, such as the butch-femme couple, in the late Victorian era. The use of caged subjects
enacts an androgyny that questions the naturalness was prevalent and meant that these interactions
and essentialism of gender categories. were invariably characterized as abnormal prod-
Depending on its definition, then, androgyny ucts of captivity, unlikely to be found in nature.
has been a useful or a problematic concept for les- During the 1890s, research on pigeons argued that
bians. Marilyn R.Farwell an absence of opposite-sex partners and artificial
confinement could force females to choose same-
Bibliography sex mates. Thus, female choice of same-sex mates
Anzalda, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The was seen as a Hobsons choicethat is, a choice
New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute, 1987. made for want of any male alternatives. This per-
Bazin, Nancy. Virginia Woolf and the Androgy- spective is still common.
nous Vision. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Later studies of domestic livestock argued that
University Press, 1973. artificial effects of domestication produced fe-
Grahn, Judy. Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, male homosexual behavior. The economic benefits
Gay Worlds. Boston: Beacon, 1984. associated with livestock reproduction may have

36 ANDROGYNY
further promoted the view of female homosexual presence of courting males. In Ugandan kobs (an
behavior as an undesirable problem. For exam- African ungulate) and Japanese macaques, females
ple, a 1948 study of mounting between domestic engage in aggressive competition with males for
hens (one of the first to treat this subject as worthy female mates. Although many zoologists resort to
of investigation in its own right) concluded that elaborate and speculative explanations for the pres-
the behavior was aberrant. This study and oth- ence of female homosexual behavior, in numerous
ers focusing on domestic livestock were clearly instances it appears that it is simply sexual stimu-
undertaken to eliminate female homosexual lation that motivates animals to engage in the
behavior rather than attempt to understand it as behavior. Paul L.Vasey
an integral part of the species repertoire.
By the beginning of the 1960s, a link between Bibliography
hormonal imbalances and homosexual mount- Boswell, J. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Ho-
ing was sought, using female rodents and macaques. mosexuality. Chicago: University of Chicago
Where previous research had focused on the envi- Press, 1980.
ronmental context in which homosexual behavior Dagg, Anne I. Homosexual Behaviour and Fe-
occurred, hormonal studies emphasized a biologi-
male-Male Mounting in Mammals: A First Sur-
cal basis for the behavior. Once again, this perspec-
vey. Mammal Review 14 (1984), 155185.
tive echoed the notion of homosexual behavior as
Vasey, Paul L. Homosexual Behavior in Primates:
an abnormality.
A Review of Evidence and Theory. International
With the emergence of sociobiology in the late
Journal of Primatology 16 (1995), 173204.
1970s, a paradigmatic shift occurred, which resulted
in female homosexual behavior being viewed not as
See also Biological Determinism
an abnormality, but as an adaptation that could in-
directly facilitate reproductive success. For exam-
ple, some researchers suggest that cows engage in
homosexual behavior in order to attract bulls to Anne, Queen of England (16651714)
copulate with them. Other researchers studying gulls, Member of the house of Stuart and queen of Eng-
terns, and snow geese argue that, if females are land (17021714). During her lifetime, it was fash-
abandoned by their male mates, they form ho- ionable for upper- and upper-middle-class British,
mosexual pair-bonds and help brood and raise each Scottish, and Irish women to form, as she did, close
others young. It is noteworthy that the notion of romantic and sometimes erotic relationships with
female homosexual behavior as abnormal was dis- other women. Feminism flourished in the writings
carded only when a paradigm emerged that indi- of Mary Astell (16661731), Judith Drake (n.d.),
rectly linked the behavior with reproduction. and a host of women poets, many of whom praise
The perspective that homosexual behavior has Queen Anne as a model of womanly excellence,
some adaptive function may have promoted the reason, and leadership. There was also a move-
view that it serves various social roles. For exam- ment of women playwrights, and, in most of their
ple, homosexual behavior appears to be a tension- plays, some dedicated to the queen and many oth-
reduction mechanism that female pygmy chimpan- ers dedicated to The Ladies, loving relationships
zees employ during feeding competition. In Euro- between women feature centrally.
pean rabbits, homosexual mounting seems to con- A tomboy in her youth, Anne was more inter-
tribute to the establishment and maintenance of ested in politics and history than in needlework.
the dominance hierarchy. Social functions are of- She played the guitar, was a capable horsewoman,
ten interpreted by zoologists as the primary reason had an unusually low speaking voice, and was in-
for homosexual interactions, thus negating any different to male suitors. Her mother, aunt, and
sexual component to this behavior. grandmother had all died by the time she was six,
A number of observations suggest that female and she detested her father, King James II (1633
homosexual behavior in animals is sexual. For ex- 1701), who separated her from her sister and
ample, in domestic hens, bonobo chimpanzees, and moved her about through her youth in an effort to
pukekos (a New Zealand swamp bird), female ho- thwart her rise to leadership.
mosexual behavior can involve genital contact and But Anne developed passionate attachments to
stimulation. In species such as cows and pigeons, girls. She conducted a love affair through letters with
females will remain with female mates, despite the Frances Apsley (n.d.) before falling deeply in love at

ANNE, QUEEN OF ENGLAND 37

 thirteen with Sarah Jennings (16601744), later such as poetry, the novel, and essay writing, contin-
A Churchill and Marlborough. The attachment of
Anne and Sarah continued into their adult lives and
ued among women, an age of fashionable feminism
and lesbianism seems to have ended by the time the
was disturbing to members of the royal family, who queen died in 1714.
found it an immoderate passion and demanded It must be noted that despite the queens incli-
it be cut off. Anne refused to end her relationship nations, one of her primary jobs as monarch was
with Sarah, and once she became queen, she elevated to bear an heir to the Stuart line. She was married
Sarah to the post of first lady of the bedchamber, at the appropriate time to a suitably pedigreed but
which allowed them to share adjoining bedrooms. dull-witted man with syphilis. Not realizing that
The queen bestowed many gifts on her beloved and his disease rendered the possibility of bearing a
her beloveds husband, John Churchill, the first duke healthy child impossible, poor Queen Anne, as
of Marlborough (16501722), the most extravagant she was often called, spent her entire adult life preg-
being Blenheim Palace. nant or recovering from childbirth. She bore about
Catharine Trotter (16791749) was one of the twenty children (counts vary, according to whether
successful women playwrights of Queen Annes time. early miscarriages are included or not), only one
Trotter had a passionate relationship with Lady of whom survived infancy, only to die at the age of
Sarah Piers and wrote what is arguably the first les- eleven. Thus, Anne was the last of the Stuart mon-
bian play in English, Agnes de Castro (1695), dedi- archs.
cated to Piers. Another playwright, Delarivier Kendall
Manley (1671?1724), voraciously heterosexual by
her own accounts, wrote several novels that ridi- Bibliography
cule lesbianism in general and openly attack the Cotton, Nancy. Women Playwrights in England,
queens favourite, Sarah Churchill. Manleys Se- c. 13631750. Lewisburg, Penn.: Bucknell Uni-
cret Memoirsfrom the New Atalantis (1709) in- versity Press, 1980.
cludes a scurrilous account of what Manley called a Green, David. Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough.
cabal of fashionable lesbians and makes vicious New York: Scribner, 1967.
fun of Catharine Trotter and a number of other Gregg, Edward. Queen Anne. London: Routledge,
prominent women for their relationships with each 1980.
other. However, in some of Manleys plays written Kendall. Finding the Good Parts: Sexuality in
just before and during Queen Annes reign, as in Womens Tragedies in the Time of Queen
popular plays by five other women, loving relation- Anne. In Curtain Calls: British and American
ships between women feature centrally. Women and the Theatre, 16601820. Ed. Mary
After about twenty-five years of intimacy, the Anne Schofield and Cecilia Macheski. Athens:
queen and Sarah Churchill began to disagree, espe- Ohio University Press, 1991, pp. 165176.
cially about politics, and, by 17051708, their rela- Morgan, Fidelis. A Woman of No Character: An
tionship had soured. The queen developed a new Autobiography of Mrs Manley. London: Faber
relationship with a young relative of Sarahs named and Faber, 1986.
Abigail Hill (d. 1734), later Masham. Sarah, enraged
by the queens new attachment and insecure regard-
ing her own political power, asserted to the queen, Anthologies
and to the public, her belief that Annes intimacy Any compilation of writings by and about lesbi-
with Abigail amounted to an obsessive passion ans, on a more or less cohesive theme; sometimes
unbefitting a monarch. Cruel pamphlets and songs collectively undertaken, most often edited by a few,
were published, accusing Queen Anne of being a frequently published by womens presses. In many
female Edward II and Abigail her Gaveston. Sarah anthologies, significant lesbian content appears
castigated Anne for having no inclenation [sic] for under a broader feminist, queer, or lesbian,
any but of ones own sex. The scandal coincided gay (male), bisexual, and transgender rubric.
with a decrease in production of plays by women
and a sudden disappearance of female-friendship Characteristics
themes in womens plays that were produced. No Since the 1960s, there has been an explosion of les-
plays by women were staged in 17071708, when bian and feminist expression in all areas and taking
the scandal peaked, and, though less public genres, myriad forms, from womens studies departments

38 ANNE, QUEEN OF ENGLAND

to zines, from film and performance art to public Farmer (1976), edited by Sherry Thomas, which
policy challenges and direct-action tactics. Impelled chronicled the development of the womens land
by these changes, anthologies have proliferated, be- movement. Equally significant were works such Our
coming a staple product of mainstream and alter- Right to Love: A Lesbian Resource Book (1978,
native publishers and finding a secure place on les- rev. 1996), edited by Ginny Vida, and The Lesbian
bian bookshelves. The broad spectrum of opinion Path (1980), edited by Margaret Cruikshank. In
to which an anthology can give voice provides a 1972, Karla Jay and Allan Young edited Out of the
powerful lens for investigating and, indeed, defin- Closets, the first of several anthologies to bring to-
ing lesbian cultural expression across changing times, gether essays on lesbian and gay male life. Such writ-
politics, and cultures. Collections of short personal ings have empowered lesbians to speak from previ-
narratives arose, posits Zimmerman (1984), out of ously silenced locations on the margins of main-
the consciousness-raising groups of the 1960s and stream culture, both debunking conventional wis-
early 1970s; grouping many short pieces in anthol- dom and creating community and solidarity through
ogy form may have arisen to reflect a democratic shared experience and growing consciousness.
impulse toward publishing nonprofessional writers,
as well as the prevalence of journalistic writing in Varieties of Anthologies
the early years of the modern womens movement. Among the most popular anthologies are those that
Anthologies also provide a conversational space that collect personal narratives, often focusing on lesbian
tends to support the idea of coming out as a con- coming out stories. The earliest of these is the classic
tinual process. In their foregrounding of identity is- collection, The Coming Out Stories (1980), edited
sues, lesbian personal narratives wield historical and by Susan Wolfe and Julia Penelope Stanley. Through
political significance, suggests Zimmerman, who each funny, painful story, it built community one les-
notes also that, in terms of the lesbian feminist move- bian at a time and subsequently was widely emulated.
ment, they have charted individual as well as collec- The coming out genre now encompasses general col-
tive development. And, over the years, they have lections, as well as those focused around specific iden-
embodied the tension between claims for unity and tities, experiences, or cultures.
for diversity in lesbian feminist politics, the ambiva- Most of the early coming out anthologies had a
lence between conceptions of a monolithic lesbian predominantly white, middle-class focus, reflect-
identity and claims of specificity from groups ing the makeup of second wave feminism and
marginalized even within lesbianism, such as lesbi- its writings. In response, lesbians of color addressed
ans of color or working-class lesbians. their invisibility and the contradictions in their
experience as members of diverse communities in
Early Anthologies the pivotal This Bridge Called My Back: Writings
Before the 1970s, lesbians could publish their writ- by Radical Women of Color (1981), edited by
ing in nonspecific collective volumes, but not until Cherre Moraga and Gloria Anzalda. This attempt
1973, with the publication of Amazon Expedition: to redress a significant cultural lack through pro-
A Lesbian Feminist Anthology, edited by Phyllis ducing new texts and a new politics, and through
Birkby, was the lesbian anthology in its own right claiming multiple marginal identities, was a
born. In 1976, The Lesbians Home Journal: Stories transformative event in lesbian culture. Home Girls:
from The Ladder, edited by Barbara Grier and A Black Feminist Anthology (1983), edited by
Coletta Reid, collected fiction written for the pio- Barbara Smith, was another important collection
neering lesbian journal since 1956. Lesbian separa- published by Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.
tism, as well as awareness of classism and racism Later, Anzalda edited Making Face, Making Soul/
within the womens movement, were espoused by Haciendo Caras /Creative and Critical Perspectives
the Furies, who published several anthologies of by Feminists of Color (1990). In addition to nu-
articles from their newspaper of the same name, in- merous other anthologies on African American,
cluding Class and Feminism (1974) and Lesbian- Latina, Asian, Native American, and Jewish lesbi-
ism and the Womens Movement (1975), all with ans, international anthologies bring together con-
Diana Press. Other pivotal works include The Les- tributions from lesbians of many nationalities,
bian Reader: An Amazon Quarterly Anthology ethnicities, and religious backgrounds.
(1975), edited by Gina Covina and Laurel Galana, In the 1980s and 1990s, the lesbian anthology
and Country Women: A Handbook for the New as a genre gained momentum and popularity and

ANTHOLOGIES 39
 established an important place in lesbian move- attempted to define the parameters of lesbian stud-
A ments and communities. Thematic anthologies ex-
pressed the blossoming of lesbian culture in all di-
ies was Tilting the Tower (1994), edited by Linda
Garber. In addition, numerous anthologies of les-
rections, including sexuality and erotica, poetry and bian, gay, and queer scholarship have appeared since
fiction, politics, families, and academic scholarship. 1990, some providing an overview of the field, and
The anthologies produced by the end of the 1990s others specific to lesbian, gay, and queer studies in
are far too numerous to be listed here. history, literature, anthropology, political theory,
Erotica has proved to be one of the most popu- social theory, and other fields.
lar anthology types, ranging from the controver- In the late 1990s, anthologies engaged questions
sial collection of writings on sadomasochism, Com- of identity and community for lesbians who are
ing to Power, edited by the Samois collective (1982), sisters, mothers, daughters, poets, rebels, Jewish,
to widely read collections of soft-core stories, Christian, Canadian, Australian, Israeli, differently
poems, and graphics. As the varieties of sexual ex- abled, transgendered, vampires, and lovers of
pression and experience became more public in les- Southern cooking. Writings on commitment cer-
bian communities, anthologies captured those re- emonies, religion, and parenting gather together
alities, including bisexuality and butch-femme iden-
various perspectives on lifes milestones, while other
tities. Other anthologies provide a place for spe-
collections help define and create the varieties of
cific communities of lesbians, such as women with
lesbian communities.
disabilities or survivors of violence, to collect a di-
Lesbian writing and publishing efforts are as vi-
verse body of personal narratives and analyses.
tal to the creation and recording of lesbian culture
Literary anthologies have played a significant
as are activism, art, and policy. In their increasingly
role in the development of lesbian culture since
varied scope, lesbian anthologies are uniquely able
1975, with the publication of a slim volume titled
to express the sweeping range of opinion held by
Amazon Poetry, edited by Elly Bulkin and Joan
lesbians about the issues important to their lives and
Larkin. This became the nucleus of Lesbian Po-
etry (1981), also edited by Bulkin and Larkin, survival. And, as Zimmerman argues, collections of
which was published with a companion volume, multiple voices can inform a politics that, rather than
Lesbian Fiction, edited by Bulkin. Subsequently, limit itself to either individual or collective lesbian
collections of lesbian short stories became a staple identities, can grapple with the need for unity as
with alternative presses, and, by the 1990s, main- well as diversity and effect concrete changes in les-
stream publishers realized the marketing potential bian lives. Kathryn A.Brandt
of such anthologies. Penguin has been a leader in
this field, with a series of short-story anthologies Bibliography
edited by Joan Nestle and Naomi Holoch under Zimmerman, Bonnie. The Politics of Translitera-
the title Women on Women, the first one appear- tion: Lesbian Personal Narratives. Signs: Jour-
ing in 1990. Subsequent anthologies include The nal of Women in Culture and Society 9:4 (1984),
Penguin Book of Lesbian Short Stories (1993), pp. 663682.
edited by Margaret Reynolds, and Chloe Plus
Olivia: An Anthology of Lesbian Literature from See also Coming Out Stories; Lesbian Studies; Pub-
the Seventeenth Century to the Present (1994), lishing, Lesbian
edited by Lillian Faderman.
From university course offerings to conferences
and journals, lesbianism became an important field Anthony, Susan B. (18201906)
of study in the academy, and scholarly anthologies American feminist and womens rights advocate.
played an important role in the development of les- Born February 15, 1820, in a small rural town in
bian studies within programs of womens studies Massachusetts, Susan Brownell Anthony became one
and queer studies. The first anthology to articulate of the most famous and enduring champions of
the premises of the field was Lesbian Studies: Present equal rights for women in U.S. history. Anthony grew
and Future (1982), edited by Margaret Cruikshank; up in a plain, hardworking Quaker family, whose
this groundbreaking anthology was revised and ex- patriarch, Daniel Anthony, opposed taxes and slav-
panded in 1996 as The New Lesbian Studies: Into ery and ardently believed in the education of females.
the 21st Century, edited by Bonnie Zimmerman and After receiving a good education, Anthony felt
Toni McNaron. Another collection of essays that compelled to teach and, in 1845, went off to teach

40 ANTHOLOGIES
in the Academy in Canandaigua, New York. In lasted fifty years. In 1892, she became president of
1849, she gave up teaching to work in the temper- the NAWSA and held office until she was eighty
ance movement, at which time she became inter- years old. She died in 1906 at the age of eighty-six.
ested in the abolition of slavery and the advance- Denise McVea
ment of womens rights. She fostered friendships
with several prominent womens rights advocates Bibliography
of the time, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815 Barry, Kathleen. Susan B.Anthony: A Biography
1902), Lucretia Mott (17931880), and Lucy Stone of a Singular Feminist. New York: New York
(18181893). Stanton had called the first American University Press, 1988.
womens rights convention in 1848 in Seneca Falls, Harper, Ida Husted. Life and Works of Susan
where she had demanded the right to vote. By 1852, B.Anthony. New York: Arno, 1969.
Anthony had joined Stanton, and the two became Katz, Jonathan. Gay American History. New York:
intimate and enduring friends. Biographer Barry Harper and Row, 1976.
(1988) called Stanton and Anthony one of the Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, and Susan B.Anthony.
greatest couples of the nineteenth century. History of Woman Suffrage. New York: Fowler
By 1869, Anthony had organized the National and Wells, 1881.
Womens Suffrage Association. In 1890, this group Wheeler, Marjorie Spruill. One Woman, One Vote.
joined the American Woman Suffrage Association Troutdale, Oreg.: New Sage, 1995.
to form the National American Woman Suffrage
Association (NAWSA). The white suffragist group, See also Suffrage Movement
however, largely excluded black women suffragists.
Anthony, who needed the support of the Southern
states in pushing for woman suffrage, capitulated Anthropology
under the racism of her white compatriots. At one Social science devoted to the study of culture, or
point, Anthony asked her longtime friend, black whole ways of life of people around the world.
abolitionist and feminist Frederick Douglass The discipline is defined by its central methodol-
(18171895), not to attend the 1895 NAWSA con- ogy, known as fieldwork, which involves living
vention in Atlanta, Georgia, believing his presence with, studying, and observing a group of people,
would offend the Southerners. typically in the developing world. The published
When the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend- result of an anthropologists fieldwork, the ethnog-
ments to the Constitution were proposed to ex- raphy, consists of a detailed account of the lives
tend the vote to African American males, Anthony and the culture of the people so studied.
demanded the same rights for women. She was
unsuccessful, and, in 1872, she voted anyway, in Characteristics and Critiques
an election for U.S. representatives. Anthony was The academic discipline of anthropology has been
indicted after posting the ballot. Hoping to get ar- described by many, including some anthropologists,
rested so that she could test her tactic in the courts, as fundamentally masculinist and white. That is,
she was instead fined $100. She never paid it. the anthropologists quest for knowledge is (some-
One of Anthonys most passionate friendships was times consciously) styled after nineteenth-century
with fellow suffragist Anna Dickinson (18421932). Euro-American explorers adventures of discov-
Although recognizing her affections for Dickinson as ery in the primitive wilderness of Africa or the
elderly sister love, Anthony nonetheless invited Pacific islands. Not surprisingly, early anthropo-
Dickinson to share her bed and ardently urged her logical research often reflected only the points of
not to marry a man. Anthony had several similar re- view of men in other cultures. As a science, it was
lationships with other women. A woman sharing such also often financially supported by, or useful to,
a friendship with Anthony would invariably refer to colonial governments.
herself as Anthonys niece. Since the 1960s, various critiques of anthropol-
When Anthony first began her crusade, women ogy have emerged, all with important consequences
had few legal rights. Due to her work and the ef- for the anthropology of lesbians and lesbian anthro-
forts of her associates, women now have opportu- pologists. The imperialism of white Euro-American
nities for higher education, property rights, the right anthropology has been criticized by postcolonial
to hold office, and the right to vote. Her campaign scholars. With the rise of 1970s feminism in the

ANTHROPOLOGY 41
 United States, feminist anthropology emerged as a and, largely because there is so little information
A powerful critique of anthropology and as a source
of theoretical insight. Studies of lesbians and gay
available on the topic, fail to adequately theorize
womens sexualities and lives.
men also started to emerge at that time, due partly There are several reasons for the absence of cross-
to the growth of the post-Stonewall (1969) gay lib- cultural studies of womens sexualities. Two of the
eration movement and partly to the success of femi- most important sources of historical information for
nist anthropology. By the 1990s, lesbian studies nonliterate societies, nineteenth-century (and earlier)
within anthropology began to make important con- travelers accounts and colonial records, rarely dis-
tributions to the discipline as a whole, notwithstand- cuss womens lives. In literate non-Western socie-
ing the continued marginalization of lesbians and ties (such as Japanese or Muslim societies), literacy
other women and the dismissal of community-based also often remained a male prerogative. Most im-
studies in the United States as unimportant and portant, the category of lesbian is a historically
not real anthropology. specific, Euro-American term, which means it may
There is a clear connection between the silencing not reflect categories used in non-Western societies,
and marginalization of women within professional although women in those same societies might re-
anthropology, lesbian invisibility in society at large port important erotic and/or sexual ties with each
and particularly within professional settings, and the other. Typically, they also marry and bear children,
history of lesbian anthropology and lesbian anthro- and, perhaps most important, their identities are sim-
pologists. The great irony is that the two most fa- ply not defined by their sexual behaviors in the
mous American anthropologists of the twentieth Western sense of the term lesbian.
century were Margaret Mead (19011978) and An important exception to this rule of womens
Ruth Benedict (18871948), who were also some- invisibility in lesbian and gay anthropology lies in
times lovers. This fact is still rarely recognized in descriptions of women who cross-dressed. Evidence
the discipline and has yet to be critically explored. of female transvestites, or cross-dressers, who also
It also provides evidence that the problems of homo- inhabited different social roles than other women,
phobia and discrimination plague anthropology as exists in several Native American societies and in
any other profession. But lesbians have been active the nineteenth-century Balkans, for example. The
(and successful) anthropologists throughout the question of these cross-dressing womens sexuality
twentieth century, although they typically have been is more ambiguous, for the reasons outlined above.
denied important academic jobs. And, beginning in More recently, some women in postcolonial con-
the 1980s, compelling ethnographies of lesbian com- texts reject the label of lesbian precisely because
munities were being written, often (and unusually of its genesis in Western, imperialist cultures. Thus,
for anthropology) focusing on communities in the some Native American women identify as two-
United States. The remainder of this entry addresses spirit, emphasizing an indigenous tradition for
both of these distinct, but related, issues: lesbian an- cross-dressing women in their societies.
thropologythat is, anthropological studies that These difficulties of naming and interpretation
focus on lesbiansand the professional lives of les- also arise in several classic ethnographies that men-
bian anthropologists. tion or address the phenomenon of woman-woman
marriage in Africa. Such marriages are reported in
The Anthropology of Lesbians more than thirty African ethnic groups, from Ni-
Relatively little has been written about lesbians cross- geria in the west, to Kenya and the Sudan in the
culturally, as Blackwood (1986) noted in an impor- east, and in southern Africa. Most anthropologists
tant and early discussion of how anthropological in the first half of the twentieth century simply as-
research constructs lesbianism. Almost ten years sumed that, in these cases, women became hus-
later, Westons (1993) review of lesbian and gay an- bandsthat is, married other womenin an at-
thropology highlights the discrepancy between cross- tempt to establish political and economic ties be-
cultural studies of homosexuality and anthropologi- tween groups of people; they evidently never won-
cal research conducted in U.S. lesbian communities. dered, or asked, if the marriages also might have
As these authors note, there is an important branch included erotic and/or emotional dimensions. By
of gay and lesbian studies within anthropology that the 1990s, scholars were only beginning to research
specifically seeks to document the range of sexual how women in Africa describe and understand the
behaviors and identities around the world. How- important emotional, and sometimes sexual, ties
ever, most of these studies focus on mens sexuality that they share with other women.

42 ANTHROPOLOGY
 In distinct contrast to the lack of cross-cultural Color (1983), edited by Cherre Moraga and Gloria
studies, some important ethnographic studies of Anzalda. For many radical women of color, the
lesbians in the United States have been published, effects of racism and economic oppression and the
beginning in the 1980s. There are several answers centrality of their cultural, racial, and class identi-
to the question of why the anthropology of lesbi- ties make it impossible to identify primarily or solely
ans has been far more successful in the United States as lesbian. It was not until the late 1990s that
than overseas. Critiques of anthropology as a anthropologists began to explore these issues in their
colonialist and imperialist project, and demands research. Kath Westons Render Me, Gender Me
by marginalized communities to document their (1996) provides a rare example of how lesbians of
own lives, have led to a growing commitment color and white lesbians describe (and theorize) the
among some anthropologists to conduct research complexity of their multifaceted identities.
in their home communities. The 1980s boom in
publishing for lesbian and gay markets has also The Lesbian as Anthropologist
certainly provided an outlet for these studies, which Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead were the found-
otherwise would receive little formal academic vali- ing mothers of American anthropology, and, al-
dation. Finally, organizing within the discipline of though they never explicitly wrote about lesbians,
anthropologythrough the Society of Lesbian and much of their work can be read as a plea for toler-
Gay Anthropologists (SOLGA)has helped pro- ance of alternative sex/gender arrangements. Ben-
vide some support for scholarship on lesbian is- edicts pioneering work in psychological anthro-
sues and for lesbian scholars. pology, in particular, reflects the growing domi-
Anthropological studies of lesbians in the United nance of psychoanalysis in the United States be-
States explore a number of different topics. For ex- tween the world wars, even as that discipline
ample, Weston (1991) considers the ways in which pathologized homosexuality. In her writings, and
gays and lesbians in San Francisco bend the rules in lectures delivered throughout the country, Mead
of kinship to establish their own families that in- often tried to demonstrate that alternative gender
clude both biological and nonbiological kin or rela- arrangements were possible by invoking the classi-
tives. Lewin (1993) explores how lesbians in the cal anthropological rhetoric of cultural relativism.
Bay Area negotiated meanings of motherhood dur- The difficulties facing lesbian anthropologists are
ing the beginnings of the lesbian baby boom in the many. In the 1980s, anthropology students were
early 1980s. Kennedy and Davis (1993) develop a discouraged from conducting research on lesbian
detailed and compelling portrait of lesbian lives in topics because of the difficulty of finding a job, as
Buffalo, New York, from the 1930s through the an employment crisis in the academic job market
1950s. Based on oral histories of women in Buf- intensified and particularly affected women. Sexual
falo, this work offers a much deeper understanding harassment, homophobia, racism, and antisemitism
of 1950s butch-femme than was previously possi- form a central part of academic life and life in the
ble and suggests that the political origins of the gay field, as anywhere else. But a few lesbian anthro-
liberation movement also lie in working-class cul- pologists have been out in the discipline and have
tures. These three ethnographies, in particular, rep- written important anthropological studies. In addi-
resent the promise of lesbian anthropology that is tion to the authors and studies mentioned above,
also demonstrated in Lewins 1996 volume, Invent- Esther Newton published the earliest full-length eth-
ing Lesbian Cultures in America. nography of a gay subculture, Mother Camp (1972),
Although each of the studies mentioned above exploring the lives of pre-Stonewall drag queens.
contains important information about the lives of Newtons later work considers the historical devel-
lesbians of color, there is a noticeable lack of an- opment of the gay resort of Cherry Grove on Fire
thropological studies that focus on lesbians of color Island, including the role that lesbians played there.
in the United States. Instead, lesbian anthropology Following feminist anthropology and critiques
and feminist anthropology have relied importantly of the objective, neutral stance of the anthro-
on the literary and cultural work of radical women pological observer, anthropologists have begun to
of color whose analyses center on the inextricable examine how ones personal identity is related to
ties among race, class, gender, and sexuality such as the work one does. This question is particularly
demonstrated by the landmark volume This Bridge important because of anthropologists experiences
Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of of fieldwork. The 1996 volume Out in the Field:

ANTHROPOLOGY 43
 Reflections of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists Jewish lesbians experience antisemitism in all
A marks an important point in the coming out of
gays and lesbians in anthropology, as authors wrote
of the ways nonlesbians do; however, antisemitism
particularly affects lesbians in two additional ways.
about their experiences during fieldwork and in First, lesbians encounter antisemitism within les-
the discipline as a whole. This volume challenges, bian communities. Second, antisemitism overlaps
for the first time, the widespread invisibility of les- and connects with lesbophobia.
bians and gay men in anthropology and demon- Lesbian feminism espouses a commitment to
strates the complex interactions among anthropolo- ending all oppressions; when listing particular op-
gists personal identities, professional lives, and pressions, however, lesbian feminists often omit
choices of research topics. Deborah P.Amory antisemitism. Many lesbian feminists do not rec-
ognize antisemitism because they believe it does
Bibliography not exist, or no longer exists, or exists but is less
Blackwood, Evelyn. Breaking the Mirror: The Con- important or serious than racism or homophobia.
struction of Lesbianism and the Anthropological This unwillingness to acknowledge or oppose
Discourse on Homosexuality. In The Many Faces antisemitism is itself antisemitic.
of Homosexuality. Ed. Evelyn Blackwood. New As antisemitism is often rendered invisible within
York: Harrington Park, 1986, pp. 118. lesbian communities, so, too, are Jewish lesbians.
Jacobs, Sue-Ellen, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine Jews or Jewish issues are routinely excluded from
Lang, eds. Two-Spirit People: Native American lesbian anthologies. Margaret Cruikshank (1940
Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality. Ur- ), in an attempt to excuse the lack of Jews in her
bana: University of Illinois Press, 1997. anthology, The Lesbian Path (1980), explained that
Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, and Madeline D. several stories by Jewish lesbians had been pub-
Davis. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The lished elsewhere; therefore, she saw no need to in-
History of a Lesbian Community. New York: clude any. Current lesbian anthologies seldom ex-
Routledge, 1993. clude Jewish contributors; however, Jewish content
Lewin, Ellen. Lesbian Mothers: Accounts of Gen- is routinely omitted, even from anthologies with a
der in American Culture. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell stated multicultural stance. Jewish lesbians also may
University Press, 1993. be rendered invisible or irrelevant through the sched-
, ed. Inventing Lesbian Cultures in America. uling of lesbian events on major Jewish holidays or
Boston: Beacon, 1996. by the assumption that all lesbians celebrate Christ-
Lewin, Ellen, and William L.Leap, eds. Out in the mas. As Evelyn Torton Beck writes in the introduc-
Field: Reflections of Lesbian and Gay Anthropolo- tion to Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology (3rd
gists. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996. ed., 1989): Jewish invisibility is a symptom of anti-
Weston, Kath. Families We Choose: Lesbians, Semitism as surely as lesbian invisibility is a symp-
Gays, Kinship. New York: Columbia Univer- tom of homophobia.
sity Press, 1991. Ironically, although antisemitism renders Jews
. Lesbian/Gay Studies in the House of An- invisible when lesbians plan events or anthologies,
thropology. Annual Review of Anthropology antisemitism causes Jews to become an overly vis-
22 (1993), 157185. ible target for scapegoating. This apparent contra-
. Render Me, Gender Me: Lesbians Talk Sex, diction is not unique to antisemitism; rather, it ap-
Class, Color, Nation, Studmuffins. New York: plies to most oppressions. Traditional antisemitism
Columbia University Press, 1996. scapegoats Jews as killers of Christ; in a slight
variation, some lesbians have scapegoated Jews as
See also Benedict, Ruth; Indigenous Cultures; Native killers of the Goddess. Similarly, rather than blame
Americans; Oral History; Transgender; Two-Spirit Jews for the advent of communism or capitalism,
some lesbians have claimed that Jews invented
patriarchy. Rather than accuse Jews of controlling
Antisemitism the international economy, some lesbians allege that
The hating, stereotyping, or scapegoating of Jews; Jews have taken over the lesbian movement.
also, causing or perpetuating Jewish invisibility; im- Stereotyping simultaneously makes real Jews
posing social sanctions against Jews. In the most ex- invisible and slanderous images overly visible.
treme cases, antisemitism leads to acts of genocide. Becks introduction to Nice Jewish Girls explores

44 ANTHROPOLOGY
antisemitic stereotypes in classic lesbian literature, example, the Religious Right trumpets the stere-
such as Rita Mae Browns Rubyfruit Jungle (1973), otype of lesbian and gay couples as DINKs (dou-
in which a Jewish character is described as sexu- ble income/no kids) with enormous spending
ally inappropriate and foul smelling. powernot unlike familiar antisemitic stereotypes.
Trivialization of the Holocaust constitutes an- Perhaps most striking, both Jews and gays have
other form of antisemitism. For example, some les- been accused of abducting and abusing children
bians play out Nazi/Jew scenarios during sado- Jews to use childrens blood to make matzoh, gay
masochistic (S/M) sex. Some lesbians wear swasti- men and lesbians to brutalize them sexually. In each
kasboth during sex and in daily lifein an at- case, this libel has justified the bloodiest violence
tempt to proclaim their sexual desires or to trans- against the group.
form the symbol. As Hoagland (1982) points out, The stereotype of the politically correct lesbian
these women often claim that such practices parody feminist overlaps strikingly with those of the Jewish
rather than glorify Nazism. However, parody still mother and the Jewish American princess (J.A.R).
validates nazism by perpetuating the language All three are maligned as loud, nagging, whiny,
game, the conceptual framework. pushy, hostile, coarse, rude, clannish, and physically
Some lesbians find the S/M practice of eroticiz- ugly. All supposedly use guilt to manipulate others.
ing differences in power to be inherently oppres- In addition, lesbian feminists and Jewish mothers
sive and antisemitic. Reti (1986) argues that the are labeled oversensitive, hysterical, paranoid, and
Holocaust was stimulated at least partially by the cheap. Lesbian feminists and J.A.P.s are accused,
Nazis appeal to sexual sadomasochism. For les- paradoxically, of both promiscuity and frigidity (for
bians to re-enact [these] power dynamicsnot for example, lesbians purportedly suffer from bed
educational or dramatic impact, but for sexual death, while J.A.P.s supposedly withhold sex from
entertainment, seems to me an incredible their husbands). Lesbian feminists and J.A.P.s are
trivialization of the suffering and deaths of mil- also accused of poor fashion senselesbians are said
lions of human beings (emphasis in original). to wear plain, mannish clothes and no makeup;
Lesbian communities are no more antisemitic J.A.P.s, to favor garish dress and too much makeup.
than the larger world; however, because of lesbian Jewish lesbians have responded to antisemitism
feminisms stated goal of eliminating oppression both inside and outside lesbian communities by
and providing safe space for all lesbians, organizing and writing about their experiences.
antisemitism can seem more shocking and painful Lesbians first publicly discussed the issue during
in this context. Some writers have suggested that, the 1970s, when several magazines and journals
because of the small size of lesbian communities, published scattered articles about antisemitic inci-
Jewish lesbians may be more likely than Jewish dents within lesbian communities. The subject,
nonlesbians to form friendships and romantic re- however, did not reach a broad audience until the
lationships with gentiles; therefore, lesbians may 1982 publication of the first edition of Nice Jew-
encounter more direct antisemitism. Furthermore, ish Girls, which included numerous essays and
lesbian feminists who already have a conceptual poems documenting antisemitism among lesbians.
framework for identifying and combating oppres- Partly in response to the book, many Jewish lesbi-
sion may be more likely to confront antisemitism ans formed political and social groups during the
and thus make it more visible. 1980s to combat antisemitism and to explore Jew-
Outside of lesbian communities, Jews and ho- ish lesbian identity. By the 1990s, Jewish lesbians
mosexuals are often persecuted in tandem, as dur- began deliberately to explore and depict
ing the Nazi Holocaust or U.S. Senator Joseph antisemitism in fiction. Outstanding examples in-
McCarthys anti-Communist hearings in the 1950s. clude Jyl Lynn Felmans Crisis (1990), Melanie
Antisemitism and homophobia are also conceptu- Kaye Kantrowitzs My Jewish Face (1990), and
ally linkedJews and lesbians are often used to S.Naomi Finkelsteins McRunes and Mazdas
symbolize the other in similar ways. (19941995). As a result of this work, antisemitism
Jews, lesbians, and gay men share accusations both inside and outside lesbian communities has
of conspiratorial clannishness, political subver- gained attention and acknowledgment, although
siveness, and wealth (bigots usually do not distin- many lesbians still believe antisemitism to be non-
guish between gay men and lesbians, despite real existent or unimportant.
socioeconomic differences between the two). For Robin Bernstein

ANTISEMITISM 45
 Bibliography Because the ancient world viewed lesbian women
A Beck, Evelyn Torton, ed. Nice Jewish Girls: A Les-
bian Anthology. 3rd ed. Boston: Beacon, 1989.
through a male lens, which identified sexuality with
penile penetration, most references to female ho-
Hoagland, Sarah. Sadism, Masochism, and Les- mosexuality assume that one partner (endowed with
bian-Feminism. In Against Sadomasochism: A an unusually enlarged clitoris or making use of a
Radical Feminist Analysis. Ed. Robin Ruth dildo) plays the active masculine role. Female
Linden, Darlene R.Pagano, Diana E.H.Russell, homoeroticism is represented as occurring between
and Susan Leigh Star. San Francisco: Frog in two adult women, rather than as conforming to the
the Well, 1982, pp. 153163. male model of paiderasteia (love of an older male,
Reti, Irene. Remember the Fire: Lesbian Sadomaso- usually in his twenties, for an adolescent youth), the
chism in a Post Nazi-Holocaust World. Santa socially validated form of male homoeroticism. The
Cruz, Calif.: Herbooks, 1986. cultural acceptance of paiderasteia was not extended
Zahava, Irene, ed. Speaking for Ourselves: Short to include female-female love, which, especially in
Stories by Jewish Lesbians. Freedom, Calif.: the Hellenistic period, was almost uniformly casti-
Crossing, 1990. gated as unnatural and shameful. The negative
judgment applies to both participants in a lesbian
See also Israel; Judaism; Race and Racism; Sado-
relationship, since the presumably feminine re-
masochism
ceptive partner, in not allowing herself to be pen-
etrated by a man, is also acting unnaturally.
The understanding of female homoeroticism in
Antiquity
antiquity derives from a variety of sources: mythol-
Same-sex love among women in classical and Hel-
ogy, visual art (particularly vase paintings), erotic
lenistic Greece, in Rome, and elsewhere in the an-
poetry, philosophical texts, comedy, dream books,
cient Mediterranean world. Except for Sapphos
elite Hellenistic literature, astrological texts, medi-
(ca. 600 B.C.E.) poetry, there is no direct testimony
cal texts, and love spells. Responsible interpreta-
by a woman of how women in antiquity experi-
enced love between women or of how they viewed tion of this material requires careful distinguish-
its role in their lives. Thus, the available evidence, ing by region and period.
based on a belief that male sexuality is naturally
active and female sexuality naturally passive and Ancient Greece
on a hierarchical distinction between active and Except for Homeric references to the Amazons, there
passive sexual roles, expresses male views about are no allusions to female-female love in early ar-
women and about female sexuality. chaic Greek literature (750600 B.C.E.). The early
The Greek and Latin terminology used to des- sixth century offers not only Sapphos poetry and
ignate female homosexuals does not include les- its evocation of a fully reciprocal, unabashedly sen-
bian, which, in the ancient world, refers to fella- sual love between women, but also the poetry of
tio. In the Symposium, Plato (427?347? B.C.E.) her near contemporary, the Spartan poet Alcman
calls women sexually drawn to other women (mid-seventh century B.C.E.), who composed cho-
hetairistriai, meaning female companions of ral lyrics written for performance by parthenai (un-
women. The more frequently used Greek term is married girls). Alcmans parthenai express the girls
tribas; it and its Latin equivalent, fricatrix, both longings for intimate relations with one another and
probably derive from verbs meaning to rub. contain hints that some were involved in affairs with
Latin authors often used the Greek word tribas, older married women. Indeed, there is evidence that,
instead of fricatrix, as a way of suggesting that fe- in ancient Sparta, where unmarried girls were given
male homosexuality is essentially a foreign phe- public education and trained as athletes as nowhere
nomenon. The Latin word, virago, meaning a mas- else, female-female relationships were given public
culine woman, focuses on the way in which lesbi- endorsement. According to Plutarch (ca. A.D. 46
anism represents gender-role transgression. ca. 127), in Sparta respectable adult women had
The tendency of much scholarship on homosexu- love affairs with unmarried girls in relationships
ality in antiquity either to omit female experience accorded the same educational function as those
or to not clearly differentiate it from male experi- attributed to male paiderasteia.
ence has encouraged an assumption of a greater ac- Some scholars believe that, elsewhere in the sev-
ceptance of lesbianism than the evidence allows. enth and sixth centuries B.C.E., the Greeks accepted

46 ANTISEMITISM
the involvement of young girls in homoerotic rela- sible exception is the third-century B.C.E. Italian
tions during a period of segregation in all-female woman poet Nossis of Locri, who wrote erotic po-
communities called thiasoi, as in Sapphos school ems that may have referred to lesbian relationships.
or Artemiss temple at Brauron. This may have in- Almost all extant Roman-period sources (except for
cluded relations between teachers or priestesses and Plutarchs nonjudgmental description of female-fe-
students (as in the male pattern), but also (unlike male love in archaic Spartaand he was not talk-
that pattern) between the girls themselves. One of ing about his own world) condemn lesbian relations,
Alcmans lyrics has been interpreted as describing even though many condone particular forms of male
an exclusive bonding between two such girls, vali- homoeroticism. Women engaged in same-sex erotic
dated not for its initiatory value but simply as an relationships are viewed as trying to play male roles
expression of mutual attachment. and claim male privilege and, thus, judged as acting
Whereas two out of the three earliest Greek lyric against naturethat is, against the cultural norms.
poets (Sapphos contemporary Alcaeus is the third) The first critical references to Sapphos
wrote poems referring to female homosexuality, in homoeroticism appear at this time.
the classical period (fifth and fourth centuries
B.C.E.)when the thiasoi had disappeared, and Rome
women were confined to the domestic sphereit Nothing is known of the language of affection used
seems to have become a taboo subject, at least in by Roman women nor whether same-sex eroticism
Athens. Therefore, it is not known if wives of citi- occurred among unmarried girls. Much of the evi-
zens turned to one another for the intimacy and dence concerning Roman women applies only to
passion they were unlikely to find in heterosexual the wives of citizens who were not secluded in their
marriages with men whose own eroticism seems homes as women in classical Greece were, although
mostly to have been directed into paiderastic rela- they and their sexuality were still seen as needing
tionships. Accounts of female-female lovemaking to be controlled by men. A married womans sexual
between heterai (courtesans) probably refer to involvement with another woman was defined as
scenes designed to titillate male customers, but these adultery. For an elite woman to engage in lesbian
women may also have engaged in freely chosen sex was unpardonable, though slaves or prostitutes
sexual relationships with one another. may have been encouraged to do so to titillate male
Vases dating from the late sixth and early fifth voyeurs.
centuries B.C.E. in Corinth or Boetia depict erotic Roman-period (ca. 200 B.C.E.A.D. 200) litera-
encounters between adult women, not between ture testifies to a general familiarity with the con-
women and girls. One shows a kneeling woman cept of female homoeroticism. The earliest extant
fingering the genitals of another; some show women Latin reference to female homosexuality appears in
with dildoes, including a two-ended dildo. Visual a second-century B.C.E. comedy by Plautus (ca. 254
art, particularly vase painting, tends to be more 184 B.C.E.), in which a female slave is represented
explicit in its rendition of female-female eroticism as forcing sexual intercourse upon her mistress.
than literary texts. Toward the beginning of the first century B.C.E.,
There are few literary references. A Pindar (518 Seneca (55 B.C.E.A.D. 40?) presents a fictitious
438 B.C.E.) fragment from the first half of the fifth legal case centering on a man who finds his wife in
century speaks of the erotic response one woman has bed with another woman and kills them both, after
to the beauty of another. The fifth-century philoso- first looking to see if the partner was a man with a
pher Parmenides wrote that activethat is, mascu- penis of his own or a woman with an artificial one.
linewomen and passive (feminine) men result from In the first century A.D., the poet Phaedrus com-
the male and female seeds at conception not melding posed a fable about the origin of the active partici-
properly. The conditions are thus congenital, not cur- pants in lesbian sex and the passive partners in male
able, and lifelong. In the fourth century B.C.E., Pla- homosexuality; his tale describes Prometheus, re-
tos Symposium describes lesbian love originating (just turning to the creation of humans after having too
as heterosexual and male homosexual love do) from much to drink, accidentally putting female sexual
the splitting of the original round people. organs on some male bodies and male genitals on
After Plato, there is a long silence that extends some female bodies. During the same period,
until the beginning of the Augustan age (late first Petroniuss Satyricon portrays two married women
century B.C.E. into the first decade A.D.). One pos- at a banquet getting drunk and beginning to fondle

ANTIQUITY 47
 each other; that one is an ex-prostitute and that aid of underworld spirits to attract other women.
A neither is really respectable is made inescapably clear.
Martial (ca. A.D. 40ca. 104) writes of a matron
Extant examples of such spells (probably composed
by men) provide the names of the women who
viewed as utterly respectable because she is reported purchased them and of the women whose love they
to have never taken on any lovers, until it is discov- sought to compel. The formulaic language of these
ered that, in imitation of men, she has a female be- spells assumes a male model of domination and
loved. The second-century A.D. Syrian Iamblichos conquest and leaves unclear whether the aim is a
wrote a popular novel about a marriage between an long-term public relation or a clandestine affair.
Egyptian princess and a female subject. Lucians (ca. Several different sourcessome of these spells,
A.D. 115?ca. 180) Dialogues of the Courtesans several of the novels cited above, the writings of
describes a marriage between two courtesans, one the Alexandrian astrologer Ptolemy (fl. A.D. 121
of whom, claiming to have been born just like other 151)suggest that, at least in Egypt and Syria,
women but with the mind and desires of a man, long-term relations between women were some-
takes on a mans name and dress. She boasts that times understood in relation to the model of het-
she can give pleasure as well as any manand erosexual marriage. Since, in the Roman-ruled
doesnt need a penis to do so. world, official matrimony was available only to
Astrological texts, an important source for citizens and marriage otherwise meant only cohabi-
nonelite Roman-period attitudes toward lesbian- tation (perhaps sanctified in a private ceremony),
ism, present female homoeroticism as the result of two women living together might well have con-
being born under a particular configuration (usu- sidered themselves married. Although the early
ally one in which Venus appears in what was re- Christian father Clement of Alexandria (ca. A.D.
garded as a masculine house) and, thus, as a life- 150ca. 214) speaks of women who marry other
long orientation. These texts often lump together women (using both the active and the passive form
homoerotic, adulterous, and promiscuous women of the verb to marry) as an unspeakable prac-
because all take on an active sexual role, or lump tice, he nonetheless describes their relation in terms
lesbians with passive males because both refuse to of a socially accepted institution.
conform to sanctioned gender roles. Though caused
by the stars, lesbianism is viewed negatively; yet Jewish and Early Christian Texts
astrologers seem to aim at helping women accept Postexilic (ca. 100 B.C.E.A.D. 70) biblical texts
their fate rather than change it. prohibit male anal intercourse (though Roman-
Artemidoross Oneirokritika (second century period rabbis permitted anal intercourse in mar-
A.D.), the most influential Hellenistic book about riage) but make no reference to female homosexu-
the classification of dreams, assumes a dominat- ality. Hellenistic-period Jewish texts represent
ing, penetrating model for female-female sexual love between women as not just a practice
homoeroticism. If a woman dreams that she pos- of foreigners, but as something that also occurs
sesses another woman, it means she will share her within Judaism. Talmudic rabbis disagree as to
secrets with that woman; if she dreams she is pos- whether lesbianism is to be construed as harlotry.
sessed by another woman, she will be divorced or The school of Hillel is said to allow women who
widowed; if she dreams of making love with a fe- rub with each other to marry priests, while the
male stranger, she will attempt futile projects. school of Shammai does not. These discussions of
Medical texts from the Roman period that deal lesbian sexuality make no distinction between ac-
with lesbians also take for granted the dominant tive and receptive partners and assume that the
phallic assumptions. Viewing healthy female sexu- women involved would also marry men.
ality as passive, they recommend either mind con- Early Christian literature views homoeroticism
trol or surgery to correct the pathology of the pre- somewhat differently from other Roman-period
sumed active partner: surgery to remove an sources. Like his gentile contemporaries, Paul (d. A.D.
overlarge clitoris or psychological treatment to deal 67) sees womens love of women as unnatural be-
with the lack of ethical restraint on lust cause it challenges gender boundaries, but, unlike
those contemporaries, he groups female homosexu-
Hellenistic Egypt als and male homosexuals in the same category and
In Hellenistic Egypt (ca. 300 B.C.E.A.D. 300), condemns not only the receptive, but also the active,
women commissioned love spells, which invoke the partner in male-male love. Early Christian

48 ANTIQUITY
apocalyptic writings put male and female homosexu- dyke to investigate the destructive effects of exter-
als in the same pit in hell. Christine Downing nally imposed labels, homophobia and sexism, and
conflicts among women of all colors. She calls for
Bibliography multicultural feminist communities and maintains
Brooten, Bernadette J. Love Between Women: Early that alliance work requires the flexibility to shift
Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism. between identities.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
Cantarella, Eva. Bisexuality in the Ancient World. (1987) represents Anzaldas most extensive at-
New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992. tempt to mediate between diverse cultures. This
Dover, K.J. Greek Homosexuality. Cambridge, collection of essays and poems defies easy classifi-
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978. cation but can perhaps be best described as cul-
Perry, William Armstrong, III. Pederasty and Peda- tural autobiography, for Anzalda blends personal
gogy in Archaic Greece. Chicago: University of experience with history and social protest with
Chicago Press, 1996. poetry and myth to (re)construct her individual and
Richlin, Amy. The Gardens of Priapus: Sexuality collective identities. In blurring the boundaries
and Aggression in Roman Humor. New Haven, between apparently distinct categories, her concepts
Conn.: Yale University Press, 1983. of the Borderlands and mestiza consciousness have
Winkler, John J. The Constraints of Desire. New made a significant impact on twentieth-century
York: Routledge, 1990. cultural theory.
Anzaldas poetry and fiction employ code
See also Christianity, Early; Classical Literature; switching, surrealistic description, and mythic im-
Judaism; Sappho agery to challenge conventional literary standards.
By exploring diverse issues simultaneously, includ-
ing lesbian sexuality, butch-femme roles, bisexual-
Anzalda, Gloria E. (1942) ity, homophobia and sexism, altered states of real-
Chicana-tejana poet, fiction writer, and cultural ity, and hetero-/homosexual relationships,
theorist. Born in the Rio Grande Valley of south Anzalda expands existing definitions of lesbian
Texas to sixth-generation mexicanos, Anzalda has and Chicana identities. El Paisano Is a Bird of
won numerous awards, including the Before Good Omen (1983), for example, depicts Andrea,
Columbus Foundation American Book Award, the a Chicana dyke with heightened spiritual powers,
Lamda Lesbian Small Book Press Award, an NEA on the eve of her wedding to Zenobio, a gay
Fiction Award, and the Sappho Award of Distinc- Chicano.
tion. As one of the first openly lesbian Chicana For Anzalda, sexuality cannot be separated
writers, Anzalda has played a major role in rede- from ethnicity, class, culture, gender, or other sys-
fining lesbian and Chicano/a identities. And as tems of difference. By emphasizing the cultural-
coeditor of This Bridge Called My Back: Writings and class-specific dimensions of her sexuality,
by Radical Women of Color (1981) and editor of Anzalda destabilizes monolithic definitions of
Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Crea- homosexuality and exposes the ethnocentricity of
tive and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color academic queer theory. This emphasis on mul-
(1990), Anzalda has played an equally vital role tiple systems of difference enables her to go be-
in developing an inclusionary feminist movement. yond definitions of homosexuality that focus pri-
Anzaldas writings synthesize autobiography marily on gender, sexual-object choice, and sexual
with political and spiritual issues to explore multi- desire. In her work, sexuality represents a com-
ple overlapping themes, including Nahuatl mythic ponent in a constantly shifting process of identity
traditions, U.S. white supremacy, and the interlock- (re)formation and political activism. As she ex-
ing systems of oppression that marginalize people plains in To(o) Queer a Writer in Inversions
whobecause of their sexuality, gender, ethnicity, (1991), the new mestiza queers she envisions
and/or economic statusdo not belong to domi- have the ability, the flexibility, the amorphous
nant cultural groups. In essays such as Speaking quality of being able to stretch this way and that
in Tongues (1979), La Prieta (1981), and En way. We can add new labels, names and identities
Rapport, in Opposition (1987), Anzalda draws as we mix with others.
on her own experiences as a working-class Chicana AnaLouise Keating

ANZALDA, GLORIA E. 49
 Bibliography other women, although they may not have person-
A Keating, AnaLouise. Women Reading Women
Writing: Self-Invention in Paula Gunn Allen,
ally or publicly identified as lesbian. Although the
history of Arab lesbians in the United States is un-
Gloria Anzalda, and Audre Lorde. Philadel- documented, this does not mean that they do not
phia: Temple University Press, 1996. have a long history. It merely means that it has
Lugones, Mara. On Borderlands/La Frontera: An been rendered invisible due to the necessity for se-
Interpretive Essay. Hypatia 7 (1992), 3137. crecy in order to remain a part of the Arab com-
Warland, Betsy, ed. Inversions: Writing by Dykes, munity and survive.
Queers & Lesbians. Vancouver: Press Gang, 1991. The visible Arab lesbian community formed as
Zimmerman, Bonnie. The Safe Sea of Women: Les- part of a larger movement of people coming into
bian Fiction, 19691989. Boston: Beacon, 1990. their identity as lesbians of color. Lesbians from
different ethnicities and races formed separate or-
See also Latina Literature; Mestizaje ganizations. The first publicly visible Arab lesbian
group, the Arab Lesbian Network, was formed in
the United States in May 1989 in Berkeley, Cali-
Arab Americans fornia, by Huda Jadallah, a Palestinian lesbian born
Diverse ethnic group that includes people who have and raised in the United States. The first gathering
emigrated from, or whose descendants have emi- included five Arab lesbians. The group grew in size
grated from, Arab countries, including those in and became part of a developing international net-
Southwest Asia and North Africa. Arab Americans work of self-identified Arab lesbians. The Arab
also include people of mixed ethnic heritage. Be- Lesbian Network changed its name in the course
cause immigration is partly due to political climate of its development to include bisexual women
in the country of origin, immigration patterns vary (Arab Lesbian and Bisexual Womens Network).
among Arab people from different regions. Thus, There was also a group that included men called
Arabs from certain countries have longer histories the Arab Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Network.
of immigration to the United States than Arabs from These organizations were both social and po-
other countries. Arab Americans occupy a variety litical. In 1990, the Arab Lesbian and Bisexual
of jobs and come from diverse class backgrounds. Womens Network marched for the first time with
Arab Americans experience racism in many a banner in the San Francisco Freedom Day Pa-
ways, including the perpetuation of stereotypes rade. During the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 1991, the
about submissive Arab women who are treated networks organized actively to educate the public
poorly by men. The discrimination and marginal- about the war and to raise funds for survivors in
ity that Arabs experience has caused Arab Ameri- Iraq. Although the Arab Lesbian and Bisexual
can families and communities to maintain strong Womens Network disbanded as a formal group
bonds. in 1992, informal gatherings continued.
Arab family structure is patriarchal and based At the same time that the Arab Lesbian and Bi-
on extended kinship networks. Obligation and sexual Womens Network was forming on the West
duty to the family are expected, subsuming indi- Coast, the Gay and Lesbian Arabic Society (GLAS)
vidual desires. This is in direct contrast to the was forming on the East Coast. This organization
dominant individualistic attitude emphasized in was dominated by men but did include a few
the United States, which poses a unique set of women. GLAS formed several branches during the
conflicts for Arab lesbians in that country. In Arab 1990s, including Washington, D.C. (the original
culture, a mans honor resides in the women of group), Los Angeles, and New York City. The Les-
the family, particularly in womens sexuality. bian Arab Network (LAN) held its first meeting at
Thus, womens sexuality is tightly controlled ac- the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center
cording to accepted cultural norms to protect in New York City on June 10, 1990. LANs main
mens honor. Coming out as a lesbian, then, may function was to serve as a social support group; it
be seen as a negative reflection and a shame upon had seven members at its peak and ceased to exist
the family and a manifestation of a womans lack formally by the end of 1991, although the infor-
of familial duty and concern. mal network of Arab lesbians continued to expand.
For as long as there have been Arabs in America, In March 1996, the first Arab lesbian, bisexual,
there have been Arab American women who loved and transgender womens e-mail list was formed

50 ANZALDA, GLORIA E.
by Katherine Sherif. Although the members of the erature. In discussions of same-sex relations in Arab
list group were mainly from the United States, literature, one cannot assume the existence of an
there were also members from other countries. immutable, monolithic Arab or Islamic
Queer-Arabs, an e-mail list group formed by Sherif ahistorical reality that allows generalizations, nor
at the same time is open to men and women, Ar- that hostility to lesbianism is particularly Muslim
abs and non-Arabs, queers and nonqueers. Al- (as opposed to Christian or Jewish). Many Arab
though dominated by men, there are some Arab authors, regardless of gender or sexual orientation,
lesbians on the list. have represented lesbian situations and characters
Arab lesbians in the United States created a vis- in their writings, particularly in works of fiction.
ible network of social support during the 1990s. A number of ostensibly heterosexual authors, as
In 1991, they had a visible presence at the First well as others who may have to code their sexual
National Lesbian Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. identity, have used lesbianism as a narrative or
In August 1997, the First National Queer Arab poetic tool or as an escape into the safety of the
Womens Gathering took place in Marin, Califor- female. In its most superficial form, lesbianism is
nia, where plans were laid for ongoing activities. part of a system of transgression against an op-
pressive moral order. In more feminist versions, rep-
Huda Jadallah
resentations of lesbianism are allegorical of mili-
tant protest by women against an alienated condi-
Bibliography
tion and an act of ultimate defiance against a male-
Aswad, Barbara C., and Barbara Bilge. Family and
dominated and brutal social order.
Gender Among American Muslims: Issues Fac-
The rise of Arab feminism in the late nineteenth
ing Middle Eastern Immigrants and Their De-
and early twentieth centuries provides an impor-
scendants. Philadelphia: Temple University
tant backdrop for understanding lesbian represen-
Press, 1996.
tation. It was very strong in Egypt, for instance,
Jadallah, Huda, and Pearl Saad. A Conversation
where the first womens demonstration took place
About the Arab Lesbian and Bisexual Womens in 1919, under the leadership of Huda Sharawi
Network. In Plural Desires: Writing Bisexual (18791949). In 1949, Durriyah Shafiq (1908
Womens Realities. Ed. The Bisexual Anthol- 1975) led a more militant feminist movement called
ogy Collective. Toronto: Sister Vision, 1995. the Nile Daughters Party, which demanded the
Kadi, Joanna. Food for Our Grandmothers: Writ- abolition of polygamy, the institution of European-
ings by Arab-American and Arab-Canadian type divorce laws, and the right to vote and be
Feminists. Boston: South End, 1994. elected in Parliament. In 1951, Shafiqs party
marched on Parliament, demanding equal rights
See also Immigration for women and to present a petition, its demands
written in blood, to the king.
How does one locate lesbian characters and
Arab Literature, Modern situations in Arab literature, since decoding latent
Twentieth-century writing, primarily produced af- homosexual behavior through the homosocial does
ter the various independence movements shook not fit the culture of the Arab world? There is, in
colonial rule across Africa and Asia after the end effect, fairly little discomfort at discussing and rep-
of World War II, and again in the 1950s and 1960s. resenting male homosexuality in the literature of
Colonialism brought with it the widespread use of the Arab world, albeit not necessarily sympatheti-
French, in particular, primarily in the Maghrib cally. Naguib Mahfouz (1911), Gamal Ghitany
(Northwest Africa) and in Lebanon. A rich (1945), Mouloud Mammeri (19171989), Rachid
Francophone (French-language) literature thus Boudjedra (1941), and Rafik Ben-Salah (n.d.),
came to life, which must be included in a discus- among others, have all spoken, in different ways,
sion of Arab literature. While Arabic and French of male homosexuality, and Rachid O. (n.d.) has
have marked stylistic differences, and different ways openly written about his own homosexuality.
of encoding culturally specific situations, the themes On the other hand, love between women is not
and the cultural fabric of Arab literature in all lan- as obvious in literary works, for a number of rea-
guages remain similar. sons. Gender codes vary considerably between the
Lesbians and lesbianism are not frequently West and the Arab world. Assuming maleness as a
discussed topics in critical works about Arab lit- preferable gendered identity is not uncommon

A R A B L I T E R AT U R E , M O D E R N 51
 among assertive (often heterosexual) women, fic- Sand Child (1987), in which a girl is made to pass
A tional and real, who suffer from the very restrictive
and negative expectations placed on their social and
as a boy from childhood because her father cant
abide the birth of another daughter. S/he is then
sexual roles. As a result, women have, for instance, married to her cousin, an ailing young girl strug-
written poetry ostensibly addressed to other women gling with physical challenges, with whom s/he has
in ambiguous modes. In the modern period, Zeidan a strongly sadomasochistic rapport, at once
(1996) claims that the Lebanese Wardah al-Yaziji complicit and hostile. Yet, in the end, Zohras
(18381924) addressed another woman in her love transgendered life fails, and a return to her female
poetry purely as a covering device, although Ahmed self results in molestation and destruction.
(1992) has contested that restrictive interpretation. Lesbians appear in trace form in several works
Al-Yaziji used the technique more aggressively when by well-known male authors. In Rachid Boudjedras
writing to cAishah Taymur, evoking a famous love La Rpudiation (1969), famous for its depiction of
story of the seventeenth century with the verse You male homosexuality, the French slang word gouine
are unique among women. So how could I but/love (dyke, loosely) appears in a description of hetero-
a peerless lover? cAishah Taymur (18401902) was sexual fantasies and dysfunction. The Syrian Nizar
Qabbani (1923), who has been called the most
an aristocratic woman poet, with strong links to
popular modern poet in the Arab world, has on
the Egyptian khedives (royal family). After she be-
occasion evoked womens right to pleasure, includ-
came a widow, she actively engaged in her poetic
ing, according to Khairallah (1995), a joyful and
career, interrupted by seven years of mourning for
positive rendering of a love scene between two les-
her eldest daughter. Her love poetry had many dar-
bians in his Al-Qasida al-shirrira (The Evil
ing aspects; in her book of poems, she included po-
Poem, 1971). The Egyptian Majd Tubiyas (1938
ems in colloquial Arabic, something quite unortho-
) novel Rm Tasbugh Shacrah (Rm Dyes Her Hair
dox at the time, and used a male persona, writing
[1982]) contains an allusion to same-sex relations.
love poetry to a recipient identified by feminine
In none of these cases, however, are lesbians the
grammatical forms. For the Egyptian feminist Mayy real focus of the passage.
Ziyadah (18861941), this was merely a technique Love between women is, not surprisingly, most
in response to the social unacceptability of female narratively developed in the works of several women
public expressions of emotions and in accord with writers. Nawal El Saadawi (1931), in Imraacind
Taymurs tendency to imitate male literature. Yet Nuqtat al-Sifr (Woman at Point Zero [1979]), par-
what is important in these female voices borrowing allels Firdaouss love for her teacher, Miss Iqbal, a
a male persona is less whether these poets truly ex- form of extreme longing and passion that is never
perienced same-sex love, than the ways in which actualized, with the love pangs felt for the man with
classical Arabic poetry allows publicly entertaining whom she will fall in love. While the Western-de-
ambiguity about gender and the object of love. The fined term lesbian, or an Arabic equivalent, is not
tradition of a woman writer addressing words of present in most authors work, a noteworthy ex-
love to an unidentified person, revealed to be a ception is found in Nawal El Saadawis Jannt wa-
woman, is continued by the Lebanese Etel cAdnan Ibls (Innocence of the Devil [1992]). Here, a woman
(1925). Her Love Poems, which were written in with an ambiguous status with respect to gender,
English, are discreetly but clearly addressed to a honor, and power confronts the patriarchal order.
woman. The woman works for the director of a facility, car-
Gender ambiguity is one way writers have ries out his orders, and is treated by him like a sexual
broached the topic of female transgression of sexual object. She finally rebels, affirms that she hates him
boundaries without explicitly speaking of lesbian and all men, and, in fact, loves women. The crucial
behavior. For instance, in Tahar Ben Jellouns element in this confrontation is the directors attempt
(1944) poetic narrative Harrouda (1971), the at mustering religion against her (You will go to
mysterious woman Harrouda, witch and beggar, Hell with the people of Lot, Lesbianism is haram
transgresses all taboos, religious, social, and sexual, [forbidden]) and her own resistance on the very plane
and escapes all definition; her many disguises make of theology: No, Sir! It is not mentioned in the
her a mythical figure, and, in one of them, she is Book of God.
seen brandishing a gigantic plastic penis. Ben In Assia Djebars (1936) short story Femmes
Jelloun explored the crossing over of a woman dAlger dans leur appartement (Women of Algiers
into a forbidden identity in greater detail in The in Their Apartment) (1980), Sahrah feels a sudden

52 A R A B L I T E R AT U R E , M O D E R N
rush of desire for a woman friend who is lying ill in theories on architecture are just becoming visible
the hospital, but the feelings are not acted upon. in the professions public discourse.
Yet this attraction is built up throughout the story One of the most prolific twentieth-century ar-
by allusions to her ambiguous rapport with her other chitects, Julia Morgan (18721957), was the first
women friends, and some of their improper gender American woman to receive a certificate from the
behaviorsfor instance, one of them practices judo. prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Although
The possibility that such relationships could fully Morgan never married, and scholarship remains
take place has been detailed in several works. The mute on her intimate relationships, she was part
Syrian Alfa Rifcat, in a short story titled Sadqat of a large network of wealthy and professional
(My Girlfriend, or Female Friend [1981]), and, most women of the first half of the twentieth century
notably, the Lebanese Hann Al Shaykh (1945), who were the clients for many of her architectural
in Women of Sand and Myrrh (1989), have both commissions, which included private residences,
developed the theme of love between women. In womens schools, womens clubs, and the YWCA.
Hanan al Shaykhs novel, two married women liv- Scholarship on modern architecture revived in-
ing in Saudi Arabia, where they are increasingly terest in another influential female architect, Eileen
confined and feel like prisoners who want to escape Gray (18781976). Born in Scotland, Gray produced
from the country, experience a passionate but short- lacquer work, furniture, and interior-design projects
lived affair. The novel brings together the many prior to her self-taught practice in architecture. Al-
strands that compose recognizable themes in Arab though only a few of the buildings that she designed
writing by women about women in a tender and were built, she was a founding member of UAM
powerful depiction of the overwhelming possibili- (Union des Artists Modernes), an important asso-
ties that exist for love between women. ciation of modern architects and planners. By the
Francesca Canad Sautman 1950s, Grays most famous house, E.1027, was er-
roneously attributed to Le Corbusier (18871965),
Bibliography in part because he had covered the walls with mu-
Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam: His- rals of his own design during a visit there.
torical Roots of a Modern Debate. New Ha- In his biography of Gray, Adam (1987) pur-
ven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992. posely refrained from probing too deeply into the
Khairallah, Asad E. Love and the Body in Modern private lives of those who were at times her most
Arabic Poetry. In Love and Sexuality in Modern intimate friends but reported that Gray had sev-
Arabic Literature. Ed. Roger Allen and Hilary eral affairs with men and women and traveled in
Kilpatrick. London: Saqi, 1995, pp. 210223. a social circle that included Natalie Barney (1876
Malti-Douglas, Fedwa. Men, Women, and Gods: 1972), Gertrude Stein (18741946), and Romaine
Nawal El Saadawi and Arab Feminist Poetics. Brooks (18741970).
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. The education of women in architecture in the
Zeidan, Joseph T. Arab Women Novelists. Albany: United States was fostered by the Cambridge School
State University of New York, 1996. of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, which
existed from 1915 to 1942 and provided profes-
See also Egypt; Islam sional design education for women, who were ex-
cluded from attending existing institutions. Histo-
ries of the school do not provide direct informa-
Architecture tion about the sexual or affectional orientation of
In architecture, as in many male-identified and the female students or teachers. However, the
male-dominated professions, lesbians and lesbian schools existence supported the development of
perspectives must be investigated indirectly. In both extensive, supportive networks of women design
historic and contemporary contexts, the lesbian practitioners for many decades.
presence is often shadowy and can be discovered The most widely known architect associated
by locating woman-identified women and wom- with the Cambridge School is Eleanor Raymond
ens networks. While acceptance of lesbians as prac- (18871989). In 1931, her Raymond House was
titioners is beginning, there is little awareness of featured in Architectural Forum as the first home
lesbian or bisexual female architects in history (with in the International Style to be built in New England.
the possible exception of Eileen Gray), and lesbian In 1948, Raymond and Dr. Maria Telkes received

ARCHITECTURE 53
 wide recognition for their Dover Sun House, heated Bunch, Charlotte, and Sandra Pollack. Learning
A exclusively by solar energy. Raymonds professional
and personal life was inscribed within a circle of
Our Way: Essays in Feminist Education.
Trumansburg, N.Y.: Crossing, 1983.
women colleagues and clients, including her friend Cole, Doris. Eleanor Raymond: Architect. Phila-
and companion, Ethel Power, editor of House delphia: Art Alliance and East Brunswick, N.J.:
Beautiful. Associated University Presses, 1981.
The second wave of feminism in the United Fowler, Pauline. Women Building Culture: Archi-
States stimulated development of new perspectives tecture for Feminists. In Work in Progress: Build-
on women and architecture, although most groups ing Feminist Culture. Ed. Rhea Tregebov. Toronto:
and publications still addressed the issue of sexual The Womens Press, 1987, pp. 129147.
orientation indirectly. In the early 1970s, seven Lew, Margaret. Relocating the Hedge Transforms
women architects and planners collaborated to de- the House: Monique Wittig and Pueblo Archi-
velop the Womens School of Planning and Archi- tecture. Trivia: A Journal of Ideas 12 (Spring
tecture (WSPA), which held summer sessions from 1988), 635.
1975 until 1981. Leslie Kanes Weisman and Noel
Phyllis Birkbys essay on the WSPA in Learning Our
See also Barney, Natalie; Brooks, Romaine; Stein,
Way (1983) describes an implicit lesbian agenda in
Gertrude; Wittig, Monique
listing intentions and goals such as to offer women
a separatist experience and to explore the possi-
bilities for designing and building new environments
Archives and Libraries
for an evolving womens cultureincluding les-
Since the 1970s, archives and libraries have served
bian centers. However, a decade later, Weismans
as critical components in efforts to preserve and
book Discrimination by Design: A Feminist Critique
document lesbian lives and experiences. Whether
of the Man-Made Environment (1992) mentions
independently organized and staffed or function-
lesbians only once, as potential victims of housing
discrimination in suburbs. ing as a subset of a larger academic, public, or spe-
In 1987, Pauline Fowler reiterated the goal of cial library, these collections of books, journals,
developing spaces for womens culture in Women ephemera, and artifacts share the goal of collect-
Building Culture: Architecture for Feminists. This ing, protecting, and making available both the pri-
was followed by Margaret Lews 1988 essay in the mary and secondary sources essential to an inves-
journal Trivia, in which she undertook an archi- tigation and examination of lesbianism.
tectural exploration of an emerging reality found in
the work of lesbian poets and theorists. Her project Characteristics and Development
combined a spatial analysis of Pueblo architecture Archives and libraries are not necessarily identical
with excerpts from the writings of Monique Wittig in either their mission or their organization. Li-
(1935), Mary Daly (1928), and other radical les- braries collected, however grudgingly or in some
bian feminists. In response to Fowlers call for a cases unwittingly, materials by and about lesbians
new narrative combining new, woman-centered well before the advent of the first archive organ-
forms to create spaces for womens culture, Lew ized around and focused on lesbianism. Authors
called attention to the difficulty of trying to cri- widely known as lesbian have been well represented
tique a material reality without questioning the cul- in most library collections. With the development
tural definition of woman embedded in it. Despite of womens studies and then lesbian, gay, and queer
the growing body of feminist scholarship in archi- studies, libraries, particularly in the academic sec-
tecture during the 1990s, lesbians and lesbian per- tor, have needed to reassess their acquisitions poli-
spectives continue to be marginalized. cies and begin consciously to build collections in
Elizabeth Cahn support of these emerging dynamic disciplines. No
longer relegated to the fiction or psychology sec-
Bibliography tions or hidden away in a protected collection,
Adam, Peter. Eileen Gray: Architect/Designer. New most academic and many large public libraries ac-
York: Abrams, 1987. tively and openly collect lesbian materials, includ-
Boutelle, Sarah Holmes. The Womens Network. ing monographs, journals, and media. With almost
In Julia Morgan: Architect. New York: seven hundred different subject headings covering a
Abbeville, 1988, pp. 83127. broad spectrum of lesbian-related topics (everything

54 ARCHITECTURE
from Lesbian Avengers to Lesbian Heroes), the wall at its main branch on Forty-second Street and
ability to identify and locate library materials has Fifth Avenue. With materials drawn largely from
improved markedly. Specialized bibliographies, its own archival collections, including oral histo-
until fairly recently available only in limited runs ries, the New York Public Library recognized and
from alternative presses, now appear on the publi- celebrated the significant contributions of lesbians
cations lists of mainstream academic and trade pub- and gay men to the cultural, intellectual, and po-
lishers. Beginning with such groundbreaking titles litical life of New York City. The opening of the
as Jeannette Fosters Sex Variant Women in Lit- San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) at the Civic
erature (F. Muller, [1958]) and Black Lesbians: An Center in April 1996 marked another milestone in
Annotated Bibliography, compiled by J.R.Roberts the relationship of lesbian and gay materials and
(Naiad, 1981), and continuing with significant libraries. The James C.Hormel Lesbian and Gay
additions to reference collections, such as Clare Center became the first dedicated space for lesbian
Potters groundbreaking Lesbian Periodicals Index and gay materials in a major public library in the
(Naiad, 1986), Contemporary Lesbian Writers of United States. Anchored by a beautifully designed
the United States: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical reading room and exhibit space, the Hormel Center
Sourcebook (Greenwood, 1993) and Lesbian serves as the point of entry to the SFPLs impres-
Sources: A Bibliography of Periodical Articles, sive collection of lesbian and gay materials, which
19701990 (Garland, 1993), library reference features, among other treasures of particular inter-
materials have literally come out of the closet. In est to lesbians, the archives of Naiad Press.
addition, several respected presses, such as The oral histories at the New York Public Li-
Routledge and Columbia University Press, have brary and the archival and manuscript collections
developed monographic series focusing on lesbian at the San Francisco Public Library provide two
and gay issues. examples of major institutions assuming responsi-
One possibly unavoidable result of the enhanced bility for collecting, organizing, and making avail-
visibility and availability of materials on lesbian top- able lesbian materials. Other large libraries, both
ics has been a steady increase in the number of at- academic and public, have also begun the slow and
tempts to censor or remove these materials from often painstaking work of tracking down archival
school and community libraries. Religious conserva- and manuscript sources. The University of Cali-
tives have targeted the childrens book Heather Has fornia, Berkeley, and Duke University, Durham,
Two Mommies (1989) for removal both from school North Carolina, are examples of major university
curricula and library shelves, and the young-adult libraries that have determined that they have a duty
novel Annie on My Mind (1982) has sustained simi- to collect and preserve lesbian history.
lar attacks. Although lesbian collections in academic
libraries are not free from the threat (and reality) of Lesbian Archives
malicious vandalism, these materials have a relatively Individual and community-based archival initia-
safe haven in college and university libraries, par- tives remain far ahead of either academic or public
ticularly those on campuses with active womens libraries in the attempt to collect and make acces-
studies programs. The safety and the availability of sible materials of particular interest to lesbians.
lesbian materials in public and school libraries are Supported by individual, as opposed to government
less assured. Books and videos that speak to youth, or corporate, contributors, heavily dependent on
whether providing young people with information donations of materials in lieu of acquisitions budg-
about their own feelings and inclinations or offer- ets, and staffed largely by volunteers, lesbian ar-
ing the children of lesbian and gay families the op- chives are often more successful in documenting
portunity to see the reality of their lives reflected in and reflecting the history and needs of a particular
a book on a library shelf, remain an endangered community or locale than are more traditional li-
species in many school and community libraries. brary organizations. Open to a wider range of
Some communities, however, have made major materials and less constrained by archival or bib-
strides with respect to the visibility of lesbians in liographic conventions, important lesbian archives
libraries. In 1994, to commemorate the twenty-fifth have survived the vicissitudes of lesbian politics,
anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, the New personal and professional disagreements, and, most
York Public Library sponsored a major exhibit significant, competition for collections resources
entitled Becoming Visible: The Legacy of Stone- from academic and public libraries.

ARCHIVES AND LIBRARIES 55

 It is, however, difficult to get an accurate count libraries and archives. Collections are no longer
A of the number of lesbian archives operating in the
United States and internationally. Many of them
bound by the four walls of a physical space called
a library or an archive but can exist instead in a
operate under the umbrella of a gay and lesbian virtual space, facilitating access twenty-four hours
archive, while others consist of a few cartons of a day, seven days a week. Lesbians have begun to
precious materials stored in a community center venture into this brave new world of cyberspace,
storage cabinet or the basement of someones home. creating new forms of communication and new
No discussion of lesbian archives and libraries definitions of community. Archives and libraries
would be complete, however, without mention of play an important role in this emerging virtual com-
two U.S.-based archives, New Yorks Lesbian munity. The Mazer Collection, for example, inau-
Herstory Archives and the June L.Mazer Lesbian gurated Mazer On-Line in the spring of 1996, with
Collection in Los Angeles, California. Each serves the publication of its homepage on the World Wide
as a model of how a combination of personal ini- Web (http://www.lesbian.org/mazer), which fea-
tiative and community involvement can establish tures a listing of upcoming events of interest to the
and maintain important community-based archi- community, a description of the collections hold-
val collections outside the structures and strictures ings, an article on the development of the collec-
tion by Lillian Faderman, and issues of In the Life,
of formal library organizations.
the Mazer Collection newsletter.
The women who founded the Lesbian Herstory
New information technologies enhance but will
Archives determined from the outset to collect, pre-
not, at least in the foreseeable future, replace librar-
serve, and make available all forms of print mate-
ies and archives, especially those dedicated to col-
rial about lesbian lives. With a prescient understand-
lecting and preserving lesbian materials. As exciting
ing of the significance of artifacts and ephemera in
as the new technology might be to some, others are
the documenting and retelling of lesbian history, the
far more taken with the possibility of actually visit-
archives, from the very beginning, collected photo-
ing a collection devoted to lesbian history, culture,
graphs, buttons, T-shirts, posters, and the like, in
and community and seeing, reading, and touching
addition to printed and manuscript materials. Al- materials thoughtfully acquired and lovingly pre-
though none of the original founders were librar- served. Libraries and archives help foster a sense of
ians or professional archivists, the group discovered history and community. The Internet, however, does
early on the necessity of adhering to basic guide- have the potential for broadening the definition of
lines of archival preservation. Collective member community and ensuring that lesbian materials ex-
Judith Schwarzs 1986 pamphlet, Preserving Your ist in the virtual, as well as the real, world.
Individual and Community History, helped spread Ellen Broidy
the word about the importance of careful handling
of papers, photographs, and other documents. Bibliography
The June L.Mazer Lesbian Collection first came Gough, Cal, and Ellen Greenblatt, eds. Gay and
into being in 1981 in Oakland, California, as the Lesbian Library Service. Jefferson, N.C.:
West Coast Lesbian Collections. In 1987, McFarland, 1990.
Connexxus Womens Center/Center de Mujeres Nestle, Joan. The Will to Remember: The Les-
brought the collection to Los Angeles. After the bian Herstory Archives of New York. Femi-
death of Mazer, a community activist and avid sup- nist Review 34 (1990), 8693.
porter of the collection, the archive was renamed Thistlethwaite, Polly. The Lesbian and Gay Past:
in her memory. In addition to such standard library An Interpretive Battleground. Gay Commu-
fare as published materials, including monographs nity News 20:4 (1995), 1013.
and feminist and lesbian periodicals, including a
complete run of Vice Versa, an early (19471948) See also Bibliographies and Reference Works; Com-
Los Angeles-based lesbian newsletter, the Mazer puter Networks and Services; Lesbian Herstory
Collection has acquired a number of significant Archives; Librarians; Naiad Press
archival and manuscript sources tracing both per-
sonal and organizational history.
The increasing popularity and accessibility of Argentina
the World Wide Web has profoundly altered how Large South American country, colonized by Spain
we think about, understand, and conceptualize in the sixteenth century. Established Indian cultures

56 ARCHIVES AND LIBRARIES

were exterminated to an extent that surpasses, by circles, popular in middle-class circles, and resisted
far, all other Latin American countries. Blacks, yet present in upper-class and feminist circles. Code
brought as slaves in colonial times, were also exter- words for butch included bombero (literally fire-
minated through a policy of placing them in the front fighter, equivalent to bulldyke; still in use) and ce-
lines during independence and civil wars. By the late leste (light blue); for femmes: mucama (house maid)
1880s, inmigration was open to Europeans, result- and rosa (pink). Nonfeminist middle- and upper-
ing in a predominantly white society. Once a class lesbians called themselves better and gay
model Latin American country with prestigious (both in English), while feminists began to use the
universities, a large middle class, and a strongly word lesbianas. Later, torta (dyke) and trola
unionized working class, decades of corrupt man- (lezzie) would come into use.
agement and military dictatorships have devastated In the early 1970s, feminism was revived with
the countrys economy and political culture. the establishment of the Feminist Union of Argen-
No research has been done yet on lesbians in tina (UFA). Most political lesbians chose to work
the ancient Indian cultures, the Colonial Era, or within it on womens issues, while remaining clos-
the Independence Era. By the end of the nineteenth eted as lesbians. In 1972, the first lesbian political
century, the first wave of the feminist movement group, Safo, was created, and it became the only
helped teachers, doctors, and women rights advo- lesbian member of the FLH (Homosexual Libera-
cates, most of them socialists, live independently tion Front), established in 1971. Members of Safo
from men similar to their European and North and a few others took to the streets with the FLHs
American counterparts. There were also militant gay male constituency to defy the strong homo-
an-archists who were union leaders and free-love phobic tendencies of the general public and the left-
advocates. Although it is still unknown whether ist parties in the years 19731975.
any of those women were lesbians, they opened In 1976, the military took over the government
womens access to the workplace and a self-deter- by force. During its rule, an estimated thirty thou-
mined life, prerequisites for lesbian visibility. sand people were kidnapped from their homes in
Between 1920 and 1959, lesbians from the up- the middle of the night, kept in concentration
per classes profited immensely from a rite of pas- camps, tortured, and finally killed. None of them
sage consisting of a European sojourn, where they received a fair trial; no one ever knew how, when,
discovered the lesbian communities of Paris and or where they died. In Argentina, they are called
London. Although many were later forced into the disappeared. This crudest period in contem-
marriage by their families (some married gay men porary Argentinean history, which also included
of their class, for mutual protection), others resisted the devastation of the countrys economy, forced
and lived their lives as artists or professionals. Mid- lesbians back into their closets. The FLH was dis-
dle- and working-class women entered the membered, as was the UFA and other feminist
workforce in large numbers, permitting lesbians groups; most of the members went into exile. In
to earn their own living and avoid marriage. With- place of political activity, most lesbian feminists
out a visible community, relationships were sub- devoted themselves to study groups, with strong
ject to the strain of clandestine encounters. Lesbi- security measures. There are no reports of lesbians
anism was not a subject in the arts or the media; having disappeard for being such, but, given the
most lesbians only mirror of their lives came brutal and fascistic tendencies of the military, it is
through foreign works, such as Radclyffe Halls possible that, if a prisoner was suspected or known
The Well of Loneliness (1928). Gender codes were as a lesbian, her hardships would only be worse
strictly enforced, and lesbians were very skillful in (and rape was the first and most repeated torture
keeping a feminine appearance when exposed applied to female prisioners).
to heterosexual eyes. The return of democracy and lesbian exiles
In the 1960s, women entered the university in changed the situation dramatically. In 1984, the
large numbers. It was a time of strong leftist pres- CHA (Argentinean Homosexual Community) was
ence in the cultural and everyday life of the coun- created; although gay men outnumbered lesbians in
try, with guerrilla actions and an increasing mili- the group, lesbians have served as the organizations
tary repression. Lesbian social circles, separated by spokespersons. In the same year, the feminist organi-
class and professional interests, were widespread. zation Lugar de Mujer sponsored lesbian-themed
Butch-femme codes were strict in working-class workshops, through which lesbian artists and

ARGENTINA 57
 thinkers produced valuable work until internal dif- nist Movement in the 1970s). Revista Todo es
A ferences and homophobia ended the experience.
Slowly, lesbian bars and discos started to open.
Historia 64 (1986), 8593.
Fuskova, Use, and Claudina Marek. Mujeres que
National Womens Conferences and the Latin se aman (Women Who Love Women). Buenos
American Feminist Encuentros (Conferences) helped Aires: Sudamericana, 1995.
many lesbians come out to themselves and/or find Henault, Mira. Las inmigrantes (The Immigrants).
kindred spirits. In 1987, Cuadernos de Existencia Revista Todo es Historia 64 (1986), 5561.
Lesbiana, a lesbian magazine and group, made the Hernando, Sil, and Alejandra Sarda. Better: Oral
lesbian presence public for the first time, during an Life Stories by Argentinean Lesbians, 1930
International Womens Day celebration. In 1995, 1976. Toronto: Womens Press, 1997.
Las Lunas y las Otras (The Moons and Others) Kohn Loncarica, Alfredo, Argentine J.Landaburu,
opened a lesbian feminist house, offering a bar and Elena Pennini. Cecilia Grierson y el Primer
and workshops, movies, and parties, while the les- Congreso Femenino Internacional. Revista
bian action group Lesbianas a la Vista employed Todo es Historia 64 (1986), 6267.
street-theater techniques to make lesbian existence
visible in Buenos Aires and also opened their own See also Encuentros de Lesbianas
house in 1997, shared with Escrita en el Cuerpo
(archives and library). Beginning in 1996, most les-
bian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Argentinean
Arnold, June (19261982)
groups began to meet at yearly national conferences
Twentieth-century American lesbian feminist nov-
taking place in different provinces each year. Pride
elist and publisher. June Arnold was an important
parades have taken place in Buenos Aires since 1992;
figure in the lesbian feminist literary movement of
lesbians were at first reluctant to participate in them,
the 1970s in the United States. In addition to writ-
but that has changed; after 1996, lesbians were as
ing four novels, two of which have been reprinted
active and visible as other groups.
and are considered classics of lesbian literature, she
In the 1990s, lesbians from Buenos Aires ob-
tained advantages unknown to their predecessors: was the cofounder of the feminist publishing com-
meeting places, political groups, libraries, magazines pany Daughters Inc.
(one of them with mainstream circulation), pubs and Arnold was born on October 27, 1926, in
discos, and visible images of themselves. The cities Greenville, South Carolina. Her parents were mem-
of Buenos Aires and Rosario include sexual orien- bers of prominent and wealthy Southern families.
tation in their antidiscrimination statutes. After her fathers death, she moved with her mother
Despite these improvements, lesbians are harassed and older sister back to her mothers native city,
by the police in bars and in the streets, arbitrarily Houston, Texas. In Houston, Arnold led the privi-
arrested, and sometimes fired when their lesbianism leged life of a wealthy white Southern belle, at-
is revealed to their employers (a fact that keeps most tending the best private schools and coming out as
lesbians in the closet, given the high unemployment a debutante. Like most other young women of her
rates in the country). Lesbian mothers are forced into generation and class, Arnold followed her gradua-
unfair private agreements with their husbands to tion from Rice University in 1948 by marrying and
avoid the almost certain loss of their children in court. having childrenfive altogether, one of whom died
Violence against lesbians is the norm in the most con- at an early age. Unlike most of her peers, she also
servative areas of the country. In 1992, Erica Videla returned to Rice to complete an M.A. in English.
was murdered in the city of Mendoza for being a When her marriage failed, Arnold moved her-
lesbian; beatings, insults, and property damage by self and her children to New York Citys Green-
neighbors or family members are everyday affairs. wich Village, where she wrote her first novel,
Lesbian and gay organizations have begun in several Applesauce, which was published in 1967 by
parts of the country to fight those inequities, but the McGrawHill, and became a militant feminist. In
struggle is only beginning. January 1971, when the city of New York tried to
Alejandra Sarda evict a group of women who had converted an
abandoned city-owned building on East Third
Bibliography Street into a womens building, Arnold was among
Cano, Ines. El movimiento feminista argentino those who refused to leave until arrested by force.
en la decada del 70 (The Argentinean Femi- According to author Bertha Harris (1937), this

58 ARGENTINA
was when Arnold met her future lover and busi- Sandra Pollack and Denise D. Knight. Westport,
ness partner, Parke Bowman (1933/19341992), Conn.: Greenwood, 1993.
who was one of the lawyers who came to get the Gould, Lois. Creating a Womans World. New
women out of jail. The action also formed the core York Times Magazine (January 2, 1977), 10
event of The Cook and the Carpenter, Arnolds 11, 3537.
second novel, which was published in 1973 by Harris, Bertha. Introduction. Lover. New York:
Daughters Inc., which she and Bowman founded New York University Press, 1993.
the same year. By this time, Arnold and Bowman Zimmerman, Bonnie. The Safe Sea of Women: Les-
were living together and spending most of their bian Fiction, 19691989. Boston: Beacon, 1990.
time in Arnolds house in Vermont.
Even if she had never been a writer herself, the See also Brown, Rita Mae; Fiction; Publishing,
contribution Arnold made through Daughters Inc. Lesbian; Separatism; Wittig, Monique
would have established her as a significant figure
in the history of lesbian literature in the twentieth
century. During the five years of its existence, Art, Contemporary European
Daughters Inc. published, in most cases for the first Painting, sculpture, photography, and multimedia
time, twenty-two books by eighteen women, in- installations by lesbian- or queer-identified artists
cluding M.F.Beal (1937), Blanche Boyd (1945), in Europe from 1985 to the end of the twentieth
Rita Mae Brown (1944), Bertha Harris (1937), century. Although lesbian art in Europe has largely
Elana Nachman (Dykewomon, 1949), Joanna followed the pattern in North America, the number
Russ (1937), and Monique Wittig (1935). Arnold of lesbian artists exhibiting in the mainstream is
herself published three novels: The Cook and the smaller and less cohesive. Artists in the United King-
Carpenter (1973), Sister Gin (1975), and a reprint dom tend to look to developments in the United
of Applesauce (1977). During this period, Arnold States rather than to other Europeans. Notoriously
became a public advocate of the lesbian separatist bound by white, upper-class privilege, the art world,
movement, speaking in 1976 at both the national in the United Kingdom, at least, has shifted mark-
Modern Language Association Convention and the edly since 1994, partly due to lesbian and gay ac-
separatist Women in Print Conference, which she tivism, but also because younger lesbians demand
organized. In 1977, Daughters Inc. was featured to be taken seriously, without compromising their
in the New York Times magazine in an illustrated content or being closeted.
article on the lesbian separatist movement by Lois
Gould. Believing, like many of her contemporar- Historical Development
ies, in the possibility of a full-scale feminist revolu- Lesbian art was marginalized or simply excluded
tion, Arnold stressed the importance of establish- by heterosexual feminist art in the 1970s. Artists
ing an independent communications network, free who were lesbian dealt with the silence surround-
from patriarchal power, and she took a strong stand ing lesbianism in three main ways. Some saw them-
against lesbians who published with male-domi- selves as artists, competing within the male art
nated presses. world, and ignored their own sexuality as subject
After Daughters Inc. folded in 1978, Arnold matter. Others saw their art as part of the wider
moved back to Houston, with Bowman, and began feminist aims of the womens movement. Still oth-
working on her final novel, based on the life of her ers made their lesbianism the central focus of their
mother. Before she was able to finish the work, she work and developed a theoretical discourse around
was diagnosed with brain cancer. Despite several the questions of lesbian representation. It was this
operations and radiation treatment, she died on latter group that was responsible for the growing
March 11, 1982, at the age of fifty-five. Baby Hou- presence in the 1980s of documentary photo-
ston was edited after her death and published in graphic images to assert the visibility of ordinary
1987 by Texas Monthly Press. Linda Dunne lesbians in a positive way. Increasing homopho-
bia, censorship, and promotion of family values
Bibliography by right-wing groups culminated in Section 28 of
Dunne, Linda. June Arnold (19261982). Con- the Local Government Act in 1988 (known as
temporary Lesbian Writers of the United States: Clause 28 before the Act was passed), which pro-
A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Ed. hibited any funding of material that could be seen

A R T, C O N T E M P O R A R Y E U R O P E A N 59
 to promote homosexuality. This spurred artists artists who could no longer accept the complacency
A to defy its premise and led to a burst of lesbian and
gay political and cultural activity.
and homophobia of the art world. If sexism and
racism were no longer tolerated, why were homo-
Photography dominated lesbian representation phobia and heterosexism?
in the 1980s, and Della Graces Love Bites (1991), While feminism located gender oppression as
a collection exploring lesbian sadomasochism, and the primary category for understanding the world,
Stolen Glances (1991), a theoretical anthology of queer defined sexual oppression as the primary site
images and texts, initiated a valuable discussion from which to contest inequality. However, by as-
around lesbian photography in the United King- serting that gender or sexuality alone constitutes
dom. Meanwhile, in Amsterdam, Diana Blok and identity, each risked erasing the importance of class,
Mario Broekmans were producing extraordinarily ethnicity, race, age, and ability.
fine erotic photographs that explored intense rela- In the United Kingdom in the late 1990s, queer
tionships between women using allegory and lyri- has largely been derided as a crass marketing de-
cal symbolism. vice for commodifying white gay male culturein
It was not until 1992 in London, when Expos- London, for example, a gay male club was named
ing Ourselves, an exhibition of more than 150 Call Yourself Queer. Nonetheless, queer did and
works by fifty-four lesbian artists, introduced paint- continues to inspire work, from the frank, outra-
ers, such as Sue McMorran, and sculptors, such as geous photography of Del LaGrace Volcano (for-
Svar Simpson, and confronted the invisibility of merly Della Grace) the grotesque cat-skin sculp-
out lesbians in the art world. tures of Christina Berry, and the camp, ironic paint-
ings of Sadie Lee and Dawn Mellor (all United King-
Queer Influences dom) to the adventurous CD-ROM art of Linda
While figurative art (art that depicts human fig- Dement and Venus Matrix in Australia.
ures) remains the common denominator in the late One of the most significant aspects of queer
1990s, the influence of queer theory and politics, culture is address: Art, performance, music, and
camp practices, and new technologies has made text are addressed to the potential queer audience
the expression of the new lesbian subject diverse. as opposed to the assumed heterosexual audience.
Queer has been one of the most influential and This work is not designed to tell the straights how
hotly contested political strategies and theorizations queers live and love to gain their acceptance, but
of the decade. Its antihomophobic, media-savvy speaks to queers themselves with their own self-
strategies speeded up the demand for parliamen- referential irony and humor, regardless of whether
tary reform in the United Kingdom with staged the heterosexuals get it or not. It is not coming
provocative actions, such as a mass queer wedding out to them, it is coming on to themselves. Queer
ceremony and a kiss-in in the heart of London. lesbian artists revel in their alienation, creating
It aims to render redundant the binary terms of works that testify to their sense of disenfranchise-
hetero- and homosexuality and to establish queer ment from mainstream, heterosexual culture. While
as a term inclusive of any sexual practice that would lesbian feminist artists tried to cohere around a
make the heterosexual norm strange. It claims to fixed notion of sexual identity in the 1970s and
be free of the dominant prejudices around race and 1980s, many contemporary queer artists are located
gender in imagining a queer world in which the around an agreed sense of the mutability of iden-
category of normal would no longer have domi- tity and gender, a questioning of what dyke is,
nance. Many urban lesbian activists and artists was, and will become. If lesbian feminist art was
rallied under the queer banner in the United King- characterized by being serious, affirmational,
dom, in the hope of moving beyond the sexism rife straightforward, confessional, and didactic, queer
among gay men and the perceived antisex prescrip- dyke art is conspiratorial, lying, allusive, and ironic.
tiveness of some lesbian feminism. It brought an
urgency and confidence to lesbian representation Developments at the End of the 1990s
and a defiant in-your-face attitude. Just as ACT The emergence of a younger generation of black and
UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) has been asian artists in the United Kingdom encouraged
dubbed a university for AIDS activists who gradu- black and Asian lesbians to create work, but, as of
ated into all branches of health advocacy, so queer 1998 only two, Ingrid Pollard and Lola Flash, had
theory and politics fired up a generation of lesbian had solo representation. While Flash is known for

60 A R T, C O N T E M P O R A R Y E U R O P E A N
The Dodge Brothers by Del LaGrace, 1997. Courtesy of Del LaGrace.

her distinctive reverse color style (printing the nega- tablished concepts of what constitutes art and
tive rather than the positive image) and prosex con- what constitutes lesbian art. Artists have used
tent, Pollard is reluctant to be viewed as a lesbian materials considered unsuitable for art, such as
artist, since her work prioritizes race, rather than rubber and latex, and have reconstructed as art
gender and sexuality, in a white, dominant culture. some objects that were formerly seen as porno-
The politics of race also informs the work of graphic or obscene. British conceptual sculptor
British Asian photographer Perminder Sekhon. Andy Cohen created pure silicon buttplugs, colored
When she situated Four Asian Butches (of the 1997 by nontoxic pigment or with high-minimalist
photograph of that name) outside a Cash and blocks of color, to aestheticize what is normally
Carry grocery store, she was referencing the socio- seen as functional and highly private. Blurring the
economic realities for many Asians in Britain, whose line between art and product, Cohen also makes a
livelihood relies on wholesale merchandizing, as well wry comment on the way sex toys have been cast
as commenting on the exclusion of these women as too low to be worthy of critical attention.
from the male-run family business, despite their In the mid-1990s, lesbian codes gained a wider
sharp suits and ties. In a culture in which gender is currency, and irony flourished in the energy of a
heavily encoded in traditional clothingsuits and knowing humor, which engaged a more popular
saristhe butches transgression is more marked. audience beyond the queer ghettos. When painter
While queer may have lost its radical potential, Sadie Lee took the classic Mona Lisa and repainted
the energy that sparked its provenance is still evi- it, inserting an exquisitely dressed butch as the cen-
dent in much art by lesbians in the late 1990s, tral figure, and called it Bona Lisa (1992), this was
which ranges from genderfuck (playing with gen- dyke camp. All viewers got the joke, but lesbians
der expectations) to genrefuck (parodying tradi- laughed loudest. As gay male camp became increas-
tional art genres), stealing heterosexual icons, pil- ingly sanitized and televized, dyke camp (for want
laging the art-historical canon, challenging the es- of a better word) provided a sharper subversive edge

A R T, C O N T E M P O R A R Y E U R O P E A N 61
 since women remain culturally denigrated. Turning
A straight cultures artifacts into double entendres and
pitting self-deprecation against glorious abjection
can be significantly more radical. Frustrated by end-
less gay parodies of female stars, painter Dawn
Mellor sought to reclaim camp and become part of
it on her own terms. Her portraits of Judy Garland,
Bette Davis, and Marilyn Monroe, among others,
seriously disrupt the iconic image of the untouch-
able female star. Several of these explore mother-
hood, showing the star replicating her thoughtless,
unseeing collusion with passive stardom in her child.
One shows a woman with a child up her skirt, in a
direct paralleling of the work of New York artist
Carrie Moyer. Another shows the baby incorporated
into the mothers breast as though the artist envies
its proximity to the female stars body.
Themes around gender bending, gender blend-
ing, and transgender, evident in North American art,
have been just as prominent in art in Europe and
have exerted a huge influence on how lesbian art
and the gender continuum are discussed. Greek art-
ists Katerina Thomadaki and Maria Klonaris, liv-
Feeding Time by Dawn Mellor, 1997. Courtesy
ing in Paris, have been working since 1985 on The
Dawn Mellor.
Angel Cycle, which started from a medical photo-
graph of a case in intersexuality, a subject whose
sex cannot be defined within the male/female di- called queer before their time. McCartins work could
chotomy and whose body becomes a powerful meta- also be dubbed outsider art, since her socialist sat-
phor for the collapse of gender. It includes up to ire is out of line with the neoconceptual and ironic
twenty works that have been shown internation- figuration in contemporary gallery vogue.
ally, consisting of multimedia performances, photo- Most artists who are lesbians showing in major
sculptures, sound pieces, radio broadcasts, compu- galleries in Europe, such as Natascha Kassner in
ter animations, and videos, which layer and reinvoke Berlin, Jaya Schurch in Italy and Switzerland,
the image, drawing out its erotic and shape-shifting Patricia Hurl and Therry Rudin in Dublin, Ange et
possibilities. They, too, are skeptical about the use Damnation in Paris, and Sadie Lee and Dawn
of the label lesbian art about their work, which Mellor in London and Manchester, are aware of
destabilizes stereotypes, including lesbian. treading a thin line between success and co-option.
Del LaGrace Volcano (formerly Della Grace), an They are all concerned about the danger of becom-
American photographer living in London, has docu- ing invisible as lesbians the moment they gain vis-
mented the citys drag king scene since 1992 and in- ibility as artists. Sadie Lee faced rumors of censor-
creasingly considers the term lesbian a misnomer. ship when her (1997) solo show in Londons Na-
Having identified as lesbian for more than twenty tional Portrait Gallery exhibited a series of scant-
years, Grace prefers to be described as transgender ily clad, former burlesque dancers, despite a tradi-
or as, her/his invented term, hermaphrodykein- tion of female nudes on those venerable walls.
tersexual as opposed to transsexual. At the end of the millennium, some argue that
Some artists have refuted the queer rubric. The there is no such thing as lesbian or gay artor
work of working-class painter Mandy McCartin, who transgendered or queer art. There is art made by
has been portraying Londons urban nightlife since lesbians, gay men, transgendered, and queer-identi-
the mid-1980s, has not been radically affected by the fied artists, and there is work that represents texts
queer aesthetic. Her gritty, graffiti-laden images of or figures that can be said to operate within these
mean-mouthed skinheads and tough sex workers identities. An exhibition of works by lesbians seeks
were uncompromising from the outset and could be to expose the heterocentricity of the mainstream art
62 A R T, C O N T E M P O R A R Y E U R O P E A N
world, most visible at its margins, and to continue 1970s to a more sexually based definition in the
to assert the existence of lesbian artists and celebrate 1980s and 1990s, imagery in lesbian art shifted
their diversity. But for many, it is no longer enough. from an abstraction based on organic forms that
Given the choice, most European lesbian artists de- symbolically suggested womens genitalia and les-
sire that their work also be positioned within a bian sexuality to realistic paintings of cunts or
mainstream context to challenge its confines and women engaged in explicit lesbian sexual activi-
determine critical recognition and financial success. ties. The art moved from a celebration of same-
Cherry Smyth ness to a flaunting of difference.
Is the quality lesbian embodied in the art
Bibliography object, the sexuality of the artist, the sexuality of
Ashburn, Elizabeth. Lesbian Art: An Encounter the viewer, or the viewing context? This question,
with Power. An Art and Australia Book. Syd- which assumes and proposes difference from art
ney: Craftsman House, 1996. by men or straight feminists, circulates around all
Boffin, Tessa, and Jean Fraser. Stolen Glances: Lesbi- discussions of lesbian art and refuses an easy an-
ans Take Photographs. London: Pandora, 1991. swer. It can be any or all of the above. Lesbian art
Cooper, Emmanuel. The Sexual Perspective: Ho- is not a stylistic movement, but rather art that
mosexuality and Art in the Last 100 Years in comes out of a feminist consciousness and repre-
the West. London: Routledge, 1986. 2nd ed. sents the experience of being a lesbian in patriar-
London: Routledge, 1994. chal culture. This consciousness may be implicitly
Grace, Della. Love Bites. London: Gay Mens Press, or explicitly articulated. It may vary in style, im-
1991. agery, materials used, concept, or content and can
McCartin, Mandy. From the Street: Paintings and be figurative, symbolic, abstract, or conceptual.
Drawings by Mandy McCartin. London: Gay
Mens Press, 1996. Art of the 1970s
Smyth, Cherry. Damn Fine Art by New Lesbian As lesbian feminism was considered an extension
Artists. London: Cassell, 1996. of feminism (feminism is the theory; lesbianism,
the practice), lesbian art was considered an ex-
See also Art, Contemporary North American; tension of feminist art. Because lesbian definitions
Camp; Photography; Queer Theory; Video were broadened to include any woman-identified
woman, female space depicted symbolically,
through landscape, fruit, and flower imagery, was,
Art, Contemporary North American by extension, considered lesbian, especially if the
Visual representations by self-identified feminist artist was lesbian identified. Themes that
artists after 1970. There have always been lesbi- reoccurred frequently were anger, concealment,
ans who made art and artists who were lesbian, secrecy, guilt, coming out, celebrating the female
but the category lesbian art did not exist until 1970. body, referencing historical lesbian writers and art-
In the United States, the gay and womens libera- ists, and picturing lesbians in the workplace or
tion movements, based respectively on sexual ori- domestic environment. Portraits were common but
entation and gender, led to the newly formed iden- decontextualized and avoided representing lesbi-
tity lesbian feminist and her cultural counterpart, ans in subcultural spaces, such as bars. With the
the lesbian artist, who was assumed to be feminist. feminist position of not representing or objectifying
womens bodies and downplaying sexuality, there
Definitions of Lesbian Art were abstract images of cunts, clitorises, breasts,
While there is no agreement as to what constitutes and vaginas or two women being warm and affec-
lesbian art, it is generally thought to reflect lesbian tionate with each other (the second woman being
identity and to contribute to the development of the lesbian signifier), but the work almost never
that identity. However, just as there is not one les- displayed them doing it. Lesbian sexuality was
bian identity, there is no single lesbian aesthetic. hinted at, but rarely shown, or was humorously
Both vary with class, race, age, and geography. Both related to food.
change with the times. For instance, as lesbian iden- With the proliferation of movement publications,
tity shifted from a gender-based definition of les- there was a demand for images of lesbians by lesbi-
bianism rooted in radical lesbian feminism of the ans. It was not long before art was found on the

A R T, C O N T E M P O R A R Y N O R T H A M E R I C A N 63
 walls of womens centers, bars, coffee shops, res-
A taurants, and bookstores. Additionally, there was a
strong and growing lesbian presence in feminist art
projects that ranged from small consciousnessraising
art groups to womens cooperative art galleries and
art programs. Occasionally, lesbians exhibited with
gay men. By the mid-1970s, there were a number of
exclusively lesbian art exhibitions, publications, and
projects. However, due to homophobia in ethnic
communities and racism within feminist communi-
ties and the fact that most early feminist and lesbian
art projects were organized by collectives composed
almost entirely of white women, lesbian artists of
color were absent from most early lesbian art
projects. In the 1970s, the focus was on the shared
experiences of women. Differences due to race, class,
and sexuality were not easily dealt with or reflected
in art. While lesbians in the United States were aware
of art by lesbians in other countries, such as Canada,
Mexico, England, Ireland, France, Italy, Germany,
Australia, and New Zealand, there was not much
exchange or influence except through feminist maga-
zines.
In New York City, Heresies: A Feminist Publi- Poster for the issue Lesbian Art and Artists (Fall
cation on Art and Politics published Lesbian Art 1977) of Heresies: A Feminist Publication of Art &
and Artists (1977). Focusing exclusively on les- Politics. Courtesy of Harmony Hammond.
bian creative work, Lesbian Art and Artists was
the first step in filling the historical and theoretical Lesbian artists of the 1970s include Judith F.
silence around lesbian art and artists and placed Baca, Joan E.Biren (Jeb), Janet Cooling, Tee A.
contemporary art in a continuum of lesbian cul- Corinne, Betsy Damon, Maxine Fine, Louise
ture. A Lesbian Show (1978), curated by Harmony Fishman, Nancy Fried, Harmony Hammond,
Hammond at the 112 Greene Street Workshop, was Debbie Jones, Lili Lakich, Bettye Lane, Kate Mil-
the first exhibition of lesbian art in New York. let, Hollis Sigler, Joan Snyder, and Fran Winant.
While no lesbian aesthetic or sensibility emerged
from the art, the exhibition, which presented work Art of the 1980s
by eighteen artists willing to be out in this context, The 1980s started off with numerous projects and
was important in that it created a lesbian presence exhibitions of lesbian art that continued the momen-
and stimulated dialogue in the mainstream and tum generated by the gay and womens liberation
feminist art worlds and generated an art conscious- movements of the previous decade and culminated
ness in lesbian communities. in two major exhibitions: the Great American Les-
In California, Arlene Raven, one of the found- bian Art Show (GALAS) at the Womans Building in
ers of the Los Angeles Womans Building, initiated Los Angeles (1980), and Extended Sensibilities: Ho-
a series of lesbian-based projects within the struc- mosexual Presence in Contemporary Art at the New
ture of the Feminist Studio Workshop (FSW): the Museum in Manhattan (1982). GALAS, organized
Los Angeles League for the Advancement of Les- by a collective of artists from the FSW, was notewor-
bianism in the Arts (LALALA) exhibition and cel- thy for its innovative curatorial structure: a national
ebration in 1975; the Natalie Barney collective that exhibition honoring the work of ten out artists
focused on historical research and documentation who were role models for other lesbian artists, a net-
of lesbian artists; and the Lesbian Art Project (LAP), work of more man two hundred regional sister
a three-year program of workshops, salons, and exhibitions, and archives that documented the whole
art presentations started in 1977 and continued project. GALAS also marked the first time that lesbi-
with Terry Wolverton. ans of color participated in a major exhibition of

64 A R T, C O N T E M P O R A R Y N O R T H A M E R I C A N
lesbian art. Extended Sensibilities, the first museum Lesbian artists of the 1980s include Laura
exhibition in the United States to address the subject Aguilar, Catherine Allport, Virginia Benavidez,
of homosexuality in contemporary art, included work Deborah Bright, Kaucyila Brooke, Gaye Chan,
by eight lesbian artists who had been out in the 1970s. Lenore Chinn, Heide Fasnacht, Del LaGrace,
The work in both of these exhibitions, like that in Carole Hepper, Deborah Kass, Ester Hernandez,
Heresies and A Lesbian Show, was diverse and non- Caroline Hinkley, Ann Meredith, Mary Patten,
sexual. Marcia Salo, Connie Samaras, Susan Silton,
After Extended Sensibilities, there was an eight- Margaret Stratton, and Millie Wilson; Canadian
year hiatus of projects in the art world that fo- artists G.B.Jones, Lyne Lapointe; Martha Fleming,
cused on lesbian art or artists. Lesbians continued and the Kiss and Tell Collective, who have exhib-
to make and exhibit all kinds of art during this ited extensively in the United States.
period, but there were no highly publicized exhi-
bitions. This was primarily due to the media-gen- Art of the 1990s
erated backlash against feminism that combined While the privileging of theoretically oriented femi-
with the postmodern criticism and dismissal of nism contributed to the dearth of visible art by les-
1970s essentialist feminism and any art that came bians throughout much of the 1980s, it also pro-
out of it. Postmodern feminism positioned hetero- foundly affected the work that did emerge at the
sexual feminism as the norm from which to dis- end of the decade and developed in the 1990s. In-
cuss the construction and representation of all formed by postmodern theory, the work dealt with
women, thereby denying the potential of lesbian the self-representation of lesbian sexual and
subjectivity. While the so-called sex wars sexualized activities; the development of a lesbian
reestablished lesbians as sexual beings, the sexual erotic art; family values; the occupation of sites of
lesbian was not visually represented in fine art un- masculinity; the destruction of binary constructions
til the end of the decade, when lesbian artists as- of gender by way of drag, cross-dressing, perform-
serted their sexuality in response to the AIDS crisis ance, and surgically or hormonally altering the body;
and right-wing censorship of the National Endow- and the invasion of male-dominated fields, such as
ment for the Arts funding of projects by artists of painting, cultural displacement, and activist art.
color and those of a different sexuality. This Despite the supposed gender-free territory of
burst of creative activity signaled a growing les- queer theory that many lesbians embraced, the les-
bian, gay, and queer renaissance in the art world. bian artist was not welcome when it came to occu-
Favored over painting and sculpture for its sup- pying queer exhibition spaces. To paraphrase his-
posed authenticating properties, photography be- torian Cassandra Langer, lesbians, caught between
came the medium of choice for self-representing straight feminists and the gay male agenda, often
difference or negotiating multiple identities. Most did not exist at all or were deprived of a political
of the work relied on mechanical reproduction and existence by their inclusion as female versions of
was cool, detached, and disembodied. Reoccurring male homosexuality. Being lesbian is being mar-
themes included deconstructing scientific, patho- ginal in an already marginal network.
logical, and medical definitions and representations It was not until the all-lesbian exhibition All But
of lesbians and the resulting stereotypes; appro- the Obvious (ABO), curated by Pam Gregg for the
priating fine-art and media images for lesbian pur- Los Angeles Center of Exhibitions (LACE) in 1990,
poses; abstract references to the lesbian body as a that a strong lesbian presence was asserted within
sexual and gendered social site; scrambling or the queer visual field. ABO identified a new group
queering signifiers of gender and sexuality; of lesbian artists and influenced the direction that
deconstructing masculinity; and reconstructing les- lesbian art would take throughout the 1990s. In-
bian sexual identities. Lesbian queer activism com- tended as a challenge to the reductive and asexual
bined with sex-radical imagery that had been de- aesthetics advanced by many lesbian artists of the
veloping separately throughout the 1980s in les- 1970s, ABO raised questions about the relationship
bian sex journals and zines. Gone was the good of representation to the construction of sexual iden-
girl, politically correct lesbian of the 1970s. The tity. Most of the work was either photography or
new lesbian artist was interested in exploring and photo baseda reflection of its roots in postmodern
representing sexually charged spaces, activities, and feminism of the 1980s. The major difference between
identities that were previously taboo, such as butch- ABO and earlier exhibitions was its inclusion of
femme and S/M exchange. sexually explicit lesbian images.

A R T, C O N T E M P O R A R Y N O R T H A M E R I C A N 65
 The 1990s witnessed a number of significant Cronin, Patricia, ed. Representing Lesbian
A events for lesbian artists. In 1990, Lesbian Visual
Artists (LVA), an organization that sponsors exhi-
Subjectivities. Art Papers 18:6 (November/
December 1994) (Special Issue).
bitions and symposiums, was founded in San Fran- Hammond, Harmony. A Space of Infinite and
cisco. There were important exhibitions in Boul- Pleasurable Possibilities: Lesbian Self-Represen-
der, Colorado; Chicago, Illinois; Houston and San tation in Visual Art. In New Feminist Criti-
Antonio, Texas; Irvine, California; Atlanta, Geor- cism: Art, Identity, Action. Ed. Joanna Frueh,
gia; Seattle, Washington; and other places, in ad- Cassandra Langer, and Arlene Raven. New
dition to New York City, Los Angeles, and San York: Icon Editions, 1994, pp. 97131.
Francisco. Lesbian artists were well represented in Rando, Flavia, and Jonathan Weinberg, eds. Were
the many 1994 exhibitions celebrating the twenty- Here: Gay and Lesbian Presence in Art. Art
fifth anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. In A Journal 55:4 (Winter 1996) (Special Issue).
Different Light (1995), a survey of queer sensibil- Lesbian Art and Artists. Heresies: A Feminist
ity at the University of California, Berkeley, was a Publication on Art and Politics 3 (Fall 1977)
historical attempt to situate lesbian, gay, and queer (Special Issue).
art making in twentieth-century art.
Lesbians artists of the 1990s include Kim Anno, See also Art, Contemporary European; Photogra-
Judie Bamber, Tammy Rae Garland, Patricia Cronin, phy; Video
Deborah Edmeades, Nicole Eisenman, Joy Episalla,
Donna Evans, Maria Elena Gonzalez, Mary Klein,
Julia Kunin, Zoe Leonard, Monica Majoli, Linda Art, Mainstream
Matalon, Marlene McCarty, Carrie Moyer, Mainstream art generally refers to art considered
Catherine Opie, Hanh Thi Pham, Sarah Rapson, important by the society in question. Historically, it
Elizabeth Stephens, Nicola Tyson, Fan Warren, is a confusing designation because art that was con-
Carrie Yamaoka, and activist art by Dyke Action sidered mainstream in the era of its creation may
Machine (DAM), Fierce Pussy, Lesbian Avengers, not be the artwork of the period studied or taught
and Oral Majority. Most lesbian artists who emerged currently. For example, twentieth-century art his-
in the 1970s and 1980s are also artists of the 1990s. tory emphasizes the art of the Renaissance that was
In the 1990s, lesbian art was produced and cir- important during that period. However, regarding
culated primarily within lesbian communities and the nineteenth century, art-historical interest focuses
feminist art spaces, although the art world bestowed on formal innovation, prioritizing the impression-
momentary visibility on a few lesbian artists, and ists, the pointillists, and the postimpressionists. In
lesbian work was included in exhibitions at com- that time period, such work was considered rela-
mercial galleries and museums. Once discovered, tively marginal, while academic or salon painting,
lesbian artists had to step carefully to get the atten- which is now considered of little importance, held
tion due their work without being co-opted in the the highest status. Further, media and subject mat-
process. Ultimately, it has been, and remains, the ter are designated as higher or lower art forms
insistence on self-identification, self-representation, in various eras. Classical Greek vase painting is con-
and the unruly diverse nature of lesbian art itself, sidered art, while most ceramics of later periods
both the production and the surrounding discourse, are considered crafts or possibly decorative arts.
that has the power to resist cultural commodification Photography continues to occupy a contested space
while combating the invisibility and erasure of les- somewhere between art and craft. From the Renais-
bians and lesbian content in fine art. sance on, easel painting and freestanding sculpture
Harmony Hammond have been the media most generally considered
mainstream art in European-American cultures.
Bibliography
Blake, Nayland, Lawrence Rinder, and Amy Representation of Lesbians
Scholder, eds. In a Different Light: Visual Cul- The representation of lesbians is a complex issue.
ture, Sexual Identity, Queer Practice. San Fran- The first complication arises from the difficulty of
cisco: City Lights Books, 1995. identifying the subject matter of a representation as
Cotter, Holland. Art After Stonewall: 12 Artists In- a lesbian. Basically, the subject matter of a represen-
terviewed. An in America 82 (June 1994), 5665. tation is identified as a lesbian in one of four ways.

66 A R T, C O N T E M P O R A R Y N O R T H A M E R I C A N
First, the representation is of two or more unclothed ity, though depictions of heterosexual and male
female figures. The figures need not be engaged in same-sex activity are found more frequently. It is
explicitly sexual interaction, as the state of naked- unclear whether these ancient cultures produced
ness generally signifies eroticism in a Western cul- few representations of female same-sex activity or
tural context. Second, the representation is of a fe- whether such depictions were destroyed in later pe-
male couple somehow breaking the social norms for riods. Much of the work of Sappho of Lesbos, the
acceptable behavior between women. Third, the rep- famous female poet of the Greek classical period
resentation participates in a stereotypical view of whose poems often described love between women,
lesbian appearance, such as the butch, the cross- was destroyed in the early Christian era, and it
dresser, the 1970s flannel-shirted androgyne, or the seems probable that sexually explicit visual repre-
1990s shaved-head, tattooed, pierced urban dyke. sentations would have been equally, or more, likely
Fourth, the representation is defined as that of a to be destroyed. Portraits of Sappho also exist, al-
lesbian by extrapictorial information, either in the though they were created several centuries later;
title (for example, The Lovers) or in the viewers no contemporary portraits have been found.
knowledge that the figure represented, historical or Possible female homoerotic subtexts exist in some
fictional, had same-sex relationships, such as Sappho popular themes of Renaissance art, particularly de-
(ca. 600 B.C.E.) or Gertrude Stein (18741946). pictions of witches and the three Graces. Witches
Clearly, there are limitations to all of these de- were frequently portrayed nude and in all-female
fining factors. The first reduces the lesbian to sexual groups, which is sexually suggestive, given that
behavior; the second recognizes the lesbian only as witches were often described as participating in
a dyad, not as an individual. The third participates sexual debauchery. Hans Baldung Griens (14847
in very limited social assumptions about style 14851545) The Three Witches (1514) depicts the
choices as identifiers of the lesbian, and the fourth women in spread-legged positions, focusing on the
requires specialized information to recognize the buttocks and genitals while touching themselves and
lesbian. All four are culturally specific to European- one another. Albrecht Durers (14711528) The
American cultures, as is the contemporary defini- Four Witches (1497) portrays the women in much
tion of lesbian. Further, it is not terribly diffi- more conventionally demure, standing positions, and
cult to imagine representations that fit one or more the spatial relations and positioning make it diffi-
of the above criteria and are not, in fact, represen- cult to tell whether the figures are in physical con-
tations of lesbians. However, discussions of repre- tact. In addition, although the figures are unclothed,
sentations of lesbians in art invariably use these two of them wear head coverings that suggest they
criteria, even when addressing representations pro- are servants or working-class women, while the
duced in non-European-American cultures. headdresses of the other two suggest that they are
Further complications in the discussion of rep- upper class. This contrast may have been suggestive
resentations of lesbians in art are found in issues of inappropriate crossings of class boundaries that
of reception and interpretation. Lesbian studies as support a homoerotic subtext. Since Durer also pro-
a field is divided on the interpretation of represen- duced work with explicit male homoerotic themes
tations of lesbians. Some scholars argue that rep- and there is biographical information to suggest that
resentations of lesbians produced by male artists he was involved in same-sex activities and relation-
or male-oriented female artists are strictly male- ships, it is likely that the female homoeroticism of
oriented fantasies, controlled by stereotypical as- his Witches was deliberate.
sumptions, and laden with negative implications The positioning of the figures of the three Graces
and have nothing to do with real lesbians. Oth- in Sandro Botticellis (1444/14451510) Primavera
ers maintain that any representations of lesbians (1478) is similar to Durers positioning of his
contribute to greater visibility and promote diverse witches. Whether Renaissance culture equated the
understandings of lesbians and that even nega- paganism of the ancient Greek Graces with the
tive representations can have transgressive effects. contemporary notion of pagan witches is unclear.
Though Durers witches are far more restrained
History and conventionally feminine than Griens, they are
Sexually explicit representation is often seen in ar- far less romanticized than Botticellis Graces. Like
tifacts of ancient Greek and Roman culture, in- Durer, Botticelli also produced male homoerotic
cluding some depictions of female same-sex activ- representation and was probably involved in

A R T, M A I N S T R E A M 67
 same-sex relationships. The Three Graces (1636 ganized for the sexual service of men. Paintings
A 1640) of Peter Paul Rubens (15771640) is less
ambiguous than either Durers witches or
did not represent lesbians in boarding schools or
convents, though such locales were common con-
Botticellis Graces. In Rubenss version, the un- texts for the representation of lesbians in literature
clothed female figures are clearly touching and and erotica.
embracing one another. Rubenss interest in the The harem representations were situated within
depiction of nude female figures in affectionate and the genre of painting known as Orientalism.
intimate contact extended beyond his repetition of Orientalism describes the European fascination with
the popular theme of the three Graces. In both The studying and representing the Orient, which de-
Arrival of Marie de Medici in Marseilles and The scribed South Asia, North Africa, Turkey, and the
Education of Marie de Medici of the Medici series Persian Gulf countries. Although purported to be
(16221625), there are groupings of nude female objective scholarship, Orientalism viewed the non-
figures touching and caressing one another. It is Western cultures in question through assumptions
possible that these representations are connected of European dominance and superiority and was
thematically to the paganism of the witches and conceptually tied to imperialism and colonialism.
the Graces, since rumors circulated that Marie de Orientalist depictions usually represent lesbians
Medici was involved in witchcraft. through sexualized nudity, sometimes with explicit
In the eighteenth century, explicit depictions of physical contact, such as Jules-Robert Augustes
female same-sex activities and female autoerotism (17891850) The Lovers (1820s) or Jean-Auguste-
became more common. Representations of both Dominique Ingress (17801867) The Turkish Bath
behaviors sometimes included the use of dildos. Pri- (1863), and sometimes without, such as the bath-
marily, these were illustrations for erotic novels such ing scenes of Jean-Lon Grme (18241904) and
as Therese Philosophe (1780), attributed to Denis Edouard Debat-Ponsan (18471913).
Diderot (17131784) among others, the Marquis de Some scholars have asserted that harems and
Sades (17401814) various works, The Memoirs of mixed-race female couples were so closely associ-
Casanova (18261838), and numerous anonymously ated with lesbianism that all representations of a
published epistles. Such depictions also occurred in black woman and a white woman would have been
political propaganda around the French Revolution, read as lesbian. Similarly, scholars have asserted
particularly in reference to Marie Antoinette (1755 that nudity was so closely associated with prosti-
1793) and her alleged sexual relationship with the tution that all female nudes in European contexts
Princesse de Lamballe (17491792). Although illus- would have been read as prostitutes. Clearly, these
trations and political pamphlets are not usually con- connections among the harem, the brothel, and
sidered to be part of mainstream art, the prolifera- the lesbian indicate that French nineteenth-cen-
tion of such images is worth noting. Given the tury culture had shared concerns around the three
marginalization of same-sex activities in many his- that probably related to race, class, and the role of
torical periods, it is not surprising that more repre- women as sites of social disorder. British and some
sentations are available in forms meant for private American representations of lesbians in the nine-
viewing rather than for public, mainstream display. teenth century share similar conventions, but, since
the British and American representations occur pre-
The Nineteenth Century dominantly at the end of the century, it is uncer-
By the nineteenth century, representations of lesbi- tain whether they shared similar cultural concerns
ans proliferate, particularly in France. Well-estab- with the French or were simply influenced by the
lished conventions dictated representations of les- visual conventions. Portraits of Sappho were pro-
bians, and similar conventions persisted into the duced in France and Britain in the eighteenth and
twentieth century. These conventions substitute nineteenth centuries, but her relations with women
other markers of difference for the heterosexual were deemphasized or ignored in order to depict
male/female dyad. Differences in coloring, race, age, her as an acceptable literary icon, and it is not cer-
or status substitute for gender difference. Lesbians tain that most viewers would have identified her
were also placed in specific environments; in French as a lesbian historical figure.
painting, for example, the lesbian appears most Gustave Courbet (18191879) produced two of
often in the context of the harem or the brothel, the most striking images of lesbians in the nineteenth
both all-female living arrangements explicitly or- century, The Awakening or Venus and Psyche (1864)

68 A R T, M A I N S T R E A M
and Sleep (1866). Although both paintings partici- louse-Lautrec was a popular painter in his own
pate in some of the conventions of lesbian represen- erathat move lesbians out of private, sexualized
tation, they lack the more overt substitutions of het- contexts and into public life.
erosexual difference. In the Awakening, a dark-
haired woman is leaning over a sleeping fair-haired Lesbian Artists
woman, holding a flower over her face. In the later It is also in the last decades of the nineteenth cen-
version of the painting, the figures are half-length tury that lesbian artists began to create representa-
and nude to the waist. An earlier version, now lost tions of lesbians. American painter Anna Klumpkes
and assumed destroyed, is believed to have had full- (18561942) 1898 portrait of her lover, the French
length life-size figures. In the smaller version, the artist Rosa Bonheur (18221899), is probably the
cropping of the frame emphasizes the passionate best known and most mainstream of these images;
intensity of the gaze of the dark-haired figure. Sleep it hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
portrays two entwined, full-length, nude, female fig- York City. Another French artist, Louise Abbma
ures, one blonde and the other brunette. Both are (18581927), conducted a long, passionate relation-
asleep; the blondes head is resting on the brunettes ship with the flamboyant actress Sarah Bernhardt
shoulder, with her lips near the others breast. The (18441923), producing her first portrait of her in
brunette figures leg is thrown over the blonde fig- 1875 and her last in 1922. The turn-of-the-century
ures waist, and the blonde figure rests her hand on American photographer Alice Austen (18661952),
the calf of the leg. While the eroticized portrayal of who specialized in documenting the lives of the
Courbets images certainly participates in the de- working classes, also documented the lives of her
piction of lesbians for consumption by male view- lovers and friends, including humorous images of
ers, the intensity and the sensuality of the represen- them three to a bed at a slumber party and cross-
tations appeal to many twentieth-century lesbian dressed as men, complete with mustaches.
viewers. Courbets lesbians are the subject of much By the 1920s, lesbian social circles flourished
scholarly debate. in a number of cities. Romaine Brooks (1874
Except for the portraits of Sappho, which may 1870) was a member of the Paris group that in-
not definitely have been interpreted as lesbian, the cluded writer Natalie Barney (18761972),
representations discussed above fall into the first Brookss lover of many years, and Radclyffe Hall
category of lesbian subject matter: the sexualized (18801943), author of The Well of Loneliness
nude. It is not until the last decade of the nine- (1928). Brooks painted portraits of Barney and
teenth century that other categories of lesbian rep- Halls lover, Una Troubridge (18871963).
resentation appear. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrecs Troubridge wears mens clothing in her portrait,
(18641901) series of depictions of lesbians is re- as does Brooks in her self-portrait. Along with her
markably free of the established conventions. Al- portraits of well-known lesbians, Brooks produced
though many are part of his brothel series of the numerous paintings of pale, ethereal, androgynous
1890s, which depicted the lives of prostitutes and, women. Hannah Gluckstein (18951978), known
thus, participate in the conventional location of as Gluck, was an English painter who shared
the lesbian in a sexual milieu designed for male Brookss interest in themes of androgyny. She also
use, these representations are much less sexualized cropped her hair, wore mens clothes, and painted
than those of earlier artists, and physical differ- her self-portrait in this attire but avoided the chic
ence between the women is not exaggerated to sub- social circles of the Paris lesbians, although she also
stitute for gender difference. Toulouse-Lautrecs came from a wealthy family. Brooks painted a por-
portrayals utilize the second category of identifi- trait of Gluck, but Glucks portrait of Brooks was
able lesbians: a female couple whose interactions never completed because Brooks so disliked the
contravene social norms for same-sex interactions. image after the initial sitting that she refused to sit
His lesbian couples embrace, recline, lay a head on for another session, and the portrait was never
the others shoulder, and are not unclothed. Other completed. Coincidently, Hall and Troubridge had
pictures in the series, depicting nightlife in Mont- also disliked Brookss portrait ofTroubridge.
martre, rupture the conventions even more radi- Another member of the Paris circle was the
cally by portraying lesbian couples at the theater American writer and artist Djuna Barnes (1892
and dancing in nightclubs. These are the first rep- 1982), who included caricatures of her lesbian
resentations of lesbians in mainstream artTou- friends and acquaintances in her illustrated books

A R T, M A I N S T R E A M 69
 The Book of Repulsive Women (1915), Dijkstra, Bram. Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of
A LadiesAlmanac (1928), and Ryder (1928). She and
her lover, the American sculptor Thelma Wood
Feminine Evil in Turn-of-the-Century Culture.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
(19011970), were both photographed in 1922 by Faunce, Sarah, and Linda Nochlin, eds. Courbet
Berenice Abbot (18981991), an American pho- Reconsidered. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univer-
tographer who photographed many of the lesbian sity Press, 1988.
and gay artistic figures of New York City. Nret, Gilles. Erotica Universalis. Kln, Germany:
Both the Polish painter Tamara de Lempicka Benedikt Taschen, 1994.
(18981980) and the Argentinean-born Leonor Webb, Peter. The Erotic Arts. New York: Farrar,
Fini (19081996), who began painting in the 1920s Straus, and Giroux, 1983.
and 1930s, respectively, included images of lesbi-
ans among their many paintings of women. Unlike See also Antiquity; Austen, Alice; Barnes, Djuna
their contemporaries, their images are explicitly Chappell; Barney, Natalie; Bonheur, Rosa; Brooks,
sexual and depict female same-sex desire as pas- Romaine; Gluck (Hannah Gluckstein); Harems;
sionate and powerful. Probably the most prolific Marie Antoinette; Sappho
lesbian producer of lesbian images in the 1920s
and the early 1930s was the German artist Jeanne
Mammen (19101976). Under the relative freedom Arzner, Dorothy (19001979)
of the Weimar government, a diverse lesbian sub- U.S. film director. The most successful woman di-
culture flourished in Berlin. Mammen illustrated rector in Hollywood during the 1930s, she had a
lesbian-and gay-oriented publications, pamphlets, career that spanned three decades. Dorothy Arzner
and brochures, in addition to producing her own was the great exception in Hollywooda woman
drawings and paintings that depicted many aspects director who endured and whose career bridged the
of lesbian culture. transition from silent to sound film. Arzner was born
As more scholarship focused on the representa- in San Francisco and moved to Los Angeles at a
tion of women and of lesbians is produced, a more young age. She began her career in motion pictures
nuanced understanding of the historical conventions after disillusionment with her planned career of
regarding the representation of lesbians will prob- medicine. Determined to learn all there was to know
ably develop. Feminist art scholarship remains a about motion-picture production, she started as a
fairly new field, and research specifically focused script typist, then moved on to become a cutter, an
on lesbian themes has an even shorter history. Since editor, and a screenplay writer. Arzner directed her
feminist art historians often display discomfort and first film, Fashions for Women, for Paramount Stu-
unease when discussing lesbian content, it is dios, in 1927. She remained at Paramount until
unsurprising that mainstream-art historians have 1932, then continued to work as an independent
more or less ignored the subject. Even given this director until 1943, when she directed her last film,
lack of attention, late-twentieth-century scholarship First Comes Courage. Throughout her career, Arzner
already demonstrates that female same-sex activi- was known as a starmaker, as a director particu-
ties, orientations, and relationships between women larly adept at fashioning careers for her stars, espe-
have been represented since the Renaissance in West- cially her female stars. Paramounts most valuable
ern mainstream art. Gwendolyn Alden Dean and successful star in the 1920s was Clara Bow
(19051965), and the fact that Paramount entrusted
Bibliography Arzner with Bows first sound film (The Wild Party
Bernheimer, Charles. Figures of Ill-Repute: Repre- [1929]) indicates the respect Arzner commanded.
senting Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Among those actresses who completed early (and,
France. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University in some cases, their first) starring roles with Arzner
Press, 1989. were Katharine Hepburn (1907), Ruth Chatterton
Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Power. Lon- (18931961), and Rosalind Russell (19111976).
don: Thames and Hudson, 1996. After leaving Hollywood, Arzner worked on a
Cooper, Emmanuel. The Sexual Perspective: Ho- number of projectsshe had a radio show, directed
mosexuality and Art in the Last 100 Years in television commercials, and taught filmmaking.
the West. New York: Routledge, 1986.2nd ed. Like most gay men and lesbians in Hollywood,
London: Routledge, 1994. Arzner was officially in the closet. But Arzners style

70 A R T, M A I N S T R E A M
(tailored suits, short hair, thick eyebrows) suggested ment of Asian American feminism were important
what was officially hidden, and her butch ap- influences on the emergence of literary work by
pearance was often noted by writers and commen- and about Asian American lesbians.
tators of her time. Her lifelong companion was Asian Americans did not begin to settle in the
Marion Morgan, with whom she lived from 1930 United States until the mid-nineteenth century. Yet
until Morgans death in 1971. Morgan was a cho- they were producing literary work as early as the
reographer and a dancer, and the two met when late nineteenth century, when the Eurasian jour-
Morgan choreographed dance sequences in early nalist Edith Maud Eaton (18651914) began pub-
silent films directed by Arzner. The importance of lishing under the pseudonym Sui Sin Far. Although
dance in several of Arzners films (especially Dance, Eatons work languished in obscurity for many
Girl, Dance [1940]) reflects Morgans continuing years, she was rediscovered in 1976, and her work
influence on Arzners career. was later republished in Mrs. Spring Fragrance and
Arzners most successful films explored wom- Other Writings (1995) by Asian American femi-
ens friendships and womens communities, from nists Amy Ling and Annette White-Parks. As Sui
the womens college and the close bond between Sin Far, Eaton championed the cause of Chinese
Americans against prejudice and often adopted the
schoolmates in The Wild Party to the rivalry be-
point of view of female characters who rebelled
tween two women performers in Dance, Girl,
against marital and domestic expectations. This
Dance. Lesbian themes appear indirectly in her
perspective derived from Eatons personal experi-
work, from the critique of marriage (in Christopher
ence as a child of interracial marriage and later from
Strong [1933] and Craigs Wife [1936]) to the in-
her own choice to forgo marriage in favor of a lit-
dependent woman, often a character who bears a
erary career. She believed that her own experience
resemblance to Arzner herself (Maria Ouspenskaya
as a serious and sober-minded spinster of multi-
[18761949] as Madame Basilova in Dance, Girl,
racial origins gave her insights into the foibles of
Dance). Arzners career was largely forgotten un-
her society. Eaton used this perspective to enlighten
til feminist critics and filmmakers in the 1970s re- others about the problems and complexities of
discovered her films. The Wild Party, Christopher Asian American life. As the first Asian American
Strong, Craigs Wife, and Dance, Girl, Dance con- to be published, Edith Maud Eaton provided a
tinue to be film-festival and classroom favorites. model for later Asian American writers, particu-
Judith Mayne larly women, who have generally followed her prac-
tice of using literature to comment on and correct
Bibliography social and cultural ignorance.
Johnston, Claire, ed. The Work of Dorothy Arzner: Asian American literature did not begin to gain
Towards a Feminist Cinema. London: British a substantial national audience until after World
Film Institute, 1975. War II, when writers such as Carlos Bulosan (1911
Mayne, Judith. Directed by Dorothy Arzner. 1956), Toshio Mori (1910), Louis Chu (1915),
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. and Hisaye Yamamoto (1921) attracted critical
. The Woman at the Keyhole: Feminism and attention. Hisaye Yamamotos work during this
Womens Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana Uni- period is noteworthy for exploring the effects of
versity Press, 1990. racism and sexism on Japanese American wom-
ens lives. In short stories from the 1950s, such as
See also Film, Mainstream; Hollywood Seventeen Syllables, Yonekos Earthquake,
and The High-Heeled Shoes: A Memoir,
Yamamoto reveals the problems that occur when
Asian American Literature womens personal desires conflict with social ex-
Written works of persons of Asian ancestry living pectations. Her work pays particular attention to
in North America. Only since the 1970s has Asian the fierce intimacies of mother-daughter relation-
American literature included lesbian themes and ships as an important grounds for working through
works by openly lesbian authors. The absence of those expectations. Yamamotos focus on Asian
lesbian voices in Asian American literature is re- American womens lives was later taken up by work
lated to the historical struggle of Asian Americans in the 1970s, including Maxine Hong Kingstons
to gain literary acceptance. The appearance of landmark book, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs
Asian American women writers and the develop- of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (1976).

A S I A N A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E 71
 Part autobiography, part biography, and part fic- turies of silence. Her project was shared by Kim,
A tion, The Woman Warrior tells the story of one sec-
ond-generation Chinese American girl trying to sort
whose early poetry reflected many of the same con-
cerns. In time, though, Kim began to develop as a
out the legacy of Chinese American culture for her- novelist and became known for a series of lesbian
self. Kingston emphasizes the contradictions of the adventure novels, Dancer Dawkins and the Cali-
stories her mother told her, which celebrate fornia Kid (1985) and the sequel Dead Heat (1988).
swordswomen and female avengers even as they Younger writers whose work continues to ex-
admonish girls to be submissive and avoid danger: plore the lesbian issues first addressed by Tsui and
She said I would grow up a wife and slave, but she Kim are Chea Villanueva in China Girls (1991)
taught me the song of the warrior woman, Fa Mu and Tamai Kobayashi and Mona Oikawa in All
Lan. I would have to grow up a woman warrior. Names Spoken (1993). Although Sky Lees first
The Woman Warrior is the story of a young Asian novel, Disappearing Moon Cafe (1990), was well
American girl struggling to assert her own power in received, it did not include any lesbian characters
a world of restrictions for Asian Americans and or themes. It remains to be seen whether the 1980s
women alike. It was received with both critical and flowering of Asian American lesbian writing will
commercial success and has since become a part of
result in further success for the next generation.
the curriculum at many colleges and universities. The
Caroline Chung Simpson
success and acceptance of Kingstons book as an
articulation of Asian American womens alienation
Bibliography
in U.S. culture helped encourage the development
Aguilar-San Juan, Karen. Landmarks in Litera-
of work by Asian American lesbians.
ture by Asian American Lesbians. Signs: Jour-
In the 1970s, a number of Asian American femi-
nal of Women in Culture and Society 18 (Sum-
nists and lesbians began to publish in small maga-
mer 1993), 936943.
zines and journals dedicated to feminist or lesbian
Leong, Russell, ed. Asian American Sexualities:
work. This group included poets such as Janice
Mirikitani, Nellie Wong, Willyce Kim, Kitty Tsui, Dimensions of the Gay and Lesbian Experience.
and Merle Woo, as well as the playwright Canyon New York: Routledge, 1996.
Sam. Lesbian poets such as Kim, Tsui, and Woo
adhered to feminisms belief that the personal is See also Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders
political in order to articulate the political mean-
ing of their lives as lesbians. They connected their
efforts as lesbians to earlier Asian American efforts Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders
to overcome the effects of anti-Asian prejudice or Asian American lesbians identify themselves in
racism. In doing so, they not only challenged white terms of both their racial/ethnic background and
feminists, but also called on Asian Americans to their sexuality. Asian American is a political term
recognize the connections between lesbian and that was coined in the early 1970s in the context
Asian American struggles. Among this group of of the Asian American movements desire for self-
writers, Kitty Tsui and Willyce Kim emerged as the definition and self-determination. The term ex-
most influential Asian American lesbian writers. presses the collective consciousness of a uniquely
The appearance of Tsuis The Words of a hybrid culture that is Asian American. The Asian
Woman Who Breathes Fire (1983) is generally con- American movement called for racial equality, so-
sidered a pivotal event in Asian American lesbian cial justice, and political empowerment.
literature, establishing Tsui as a leading figure Other terms used in the 1980s and 1990s in-
among Asian American lesbian writers. Like King- clude Asian Pacific Islander (API), Asian Pa-
stons book, Tsuis work is a combination of liter- cific American, and Asian American and Pacific
ary genres, including prose and poetry. It draws on Islander. Asian and Pacific Islander is originally
the formative themes of both Kingston and Eaton a United States Census category that describes more
to express the necessity, as well as the danger, of than thirty diverse ethnic groups from South Asia,
Asian American womens presence in a culture that Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Pacific Rim, and
finds orientals so hard to tell apart. Tsui pro- the Pacific Basin. These terms are often used inter-
motes the significance of telling our experiences changeably, but there is much disagreement within
as Asian American women, /workers and poets, / Asian American and Pacific Islander communities
cutting the ropes/that bind us, /breaking from/cen- about their appropriateness.

72 A S I A N A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E
 The terms have their critics. After the change of ing by Asian and Pacific Islander Lesbian and Bi-
immigration laws with the Immigration Act of sexual Women (1994). Writers, poets, artists, and
1964, the population of foreign-born Asians now critics since the 1970s include Lisa Asagi, Mi Ok
constitutes the majority of Asians in America, and Bruining, Connie Chan, Karin Aguilar-San Juan,
many immigrants who feel less identified with Gayatri Gopinath, Alice Y.Hom, Willyce Kim,
American culture do not accept the term Asian Larissa Lai, Shani Mootoo, Barbara Noda, Trinity
American. The categories are also criticized for Ordona, Jasbir Puar, Nina Revoyr, Nice Rodriguez,
their potential to be taken as a homogenizing and Canyon Sam, Indigo Som, Kitty Tsui, Merle Woo,
monolithic category that erases the specificity of Denise Uyehara, and Chea Villanueva. In addition,
each ethnic group. Additionally, some question the Eileen Lee and Marilyn Abbink (Women of Gold
inclusion of Pacific Islanders in Asian Pacific Is- [1990]); Hima B. (Straight for the Money [1994]
lander and the Asian Pacific American catego- and Coming Out, Coming Home: Asian and Pa-
ries, pointing out that Pacific Islanders are often cific Islander Family Stories [1995]), Shu Lea
underrepresented and marginalized. Cheang (Fresh Kill [1993] and Fingers and Kisses
These dynamics play an important role for many [1995]), Kris Lee (now Christopher Lee) (APLBN
Asian American individuals and organizations who [1996]), and Pratibha Parmar (Khush [1991], Sari
use these labels to name themselves and mobilize Red [1988], and Double Trouble [1992]) have pro-
around the politics of identity. For instance, women duced films and videos that have played in both
from East Asian backgrounds usually dominate Asian American and gay and lesbian film festivals.
Asian Pacific Islander groups and can These publications, performances, and other cul-
marginalize Pacific Islander and South Asian tural works have contributed to the increased vis-
women and their issues. Some community activ- ibility of Asian American and Pacific Islander les-
ists and theorists have called for destablization of bian and bisexual women.
these terms and a fundamental change in the way
we think about identity and practice. Historical Background
Many Asian American and Pacific Islander lesbian
Cultural Activism and bisexual women have participated in activist
There is little dispute that Asian American and groups and lesbian communities since the 1960s,
Pacific Islander lesbians and bisexual women face and probably earlier as well, but it will be only
a combination of discrimination based on sexism, through oral histories and careful reconstruction
racism, homophobia, heterosexism, and classism. of primary and secondary historical sources that
These interlocking oppressions have kept the voices one will be able to definitively name these women.
and experiences of Asian American and Pacific Is- Based on some extant sources, one can identify a
lander lesbian and bisexual women on the mar- number of early activists who made an impact on
gins of history. Recovering and reconstructing Asian American lesbian and gay rights. One of
Asian American and Pacific Islander womens his- them, Michiyo Fukaya (19531987), also known
tories remains a challenging project. as Michiyo Cornell, attended the First National
With the rise of the civil rights, womens libera- Third World Lesbian and Gay Conference that
tion, and gay and lesbian liberation movements and coincided with the first March on Washington for
the concomitant rise in the academic studies of these Gay and Lesbian Rights in 1979. Fukaya, as the
groups, Asian American and Pacific Islander les- representative of the Lesbian and Gay Asian Col-
bian and bisexual womens writings have been pub- lective that formed during that conference, gave a
lished in anthologies and other volumes. Major speech titled Living in Asian America: An Asian
publications include: Willyce Kim, Curtains of American Lesbians Address Before the Washing-
Light (1971), Eating Artichokes (1972), and ton Monument. She identified the difficulty of liv-
Dancer Dawkins and the California Kid (1985); ing in America as a poor woman of color who has
Barbara Noda, Strawberries (1979); Kitty Tsui, The to deal on the many fronts of racism, classism, and
Words of a Woman Who Breathes Fire (1983); heterosexism, and she called for a recognition of
C.Chung, A. Kim, and A.K.Lemeshewsky, eds., the shared and different oppressions that divide
Between the Lines: An Anthology by Pacific/Asian Third World gays, lesbians, and straight people.
Lesbians of Santa Cruz (1987); and Sharon Lim- Fukaya pointedly remarked on the racism in the
Hing, ed., The Very Inside: An Anthology of Writ- predominantly white lesbian and gay movement.

ASIAN AMERICANS AND PACIFIC ISLANDERS 73

 The issues that Fukaya spoke eloquently about need for such an organization. They determined that
A were the same issues that led a small number of
Asian American and Pacific Islander lesbians and
it was time to consolidate and systematically organ-
ize the already-existing personal and informal net-
bisexual women in various cities to form groups works of friends and newsletter exchanges.
such as Asian Lesbians of the East Coast (ALOEC) After these two historical events in 1987, in
in New York City, Asian Pacifica Sisters (APS) in conjunction with the previous decade of organiz-
San Francisco, California, Asian Pacific Lesbians ing, a few women on the West Coast and the East
and Friends (APLF) in Los Angeles, California, and Coast believed that it was possible to implement
D.C. Asian Lesbians (D-CALS) in Washington, their hope for a national network, which they
D.C., in the early 1980s. Many of the women who named the Asian Pacific Lesbian Network (APLN).
founded these organizations had worked in other In the beginning, the network consisted of an ad
Asian American organizations or lesbian organi- hoc steering committee of representatives in differ-
zations and groups and thought that Asian Ameri- ent parts of the country. With seed money from
can and Pacific Islander womens issues were not the National March on Washington office, they
being adequately addressed. They believed that they were able to sponsor the first national Asian Pa-
needed a space where they could come for social cific Lesbian retreat, Coming Together, Moving
gatherings, cultural support, and political action. Forward, in Santa Cruz, California, September
The late 1980s saw conferences that encouraged 14, 1989. The retreat heralded the historic attempt
Asian American and Pacific Islander lesbians, bi- to organize and bring together Asian American and
sexuals, and gay men to meet with one another: In Pacific Islander lesbian and bisexual women from
1987, Breaking Silence, Beginning the Dialogue, across the United States. The retreat gave Asian
the first meeting for Asian American and Pacific American and Pacific Islander lesbian and bisexual
Islander lesbians and gay men in Southern Califor- women the opportunity to discuss experiences and
nia, met in Los Angeles; in 1988, Unity Among concerns that are rarely represented in mainstream
Asians, the first North American conference for gay and lesbian communities, and it provided a
Asian lesbians and gay men, gathered in Toronto, forum to define their own history.
Ontario, Canada. Two other gatherings in 1987
also helped increase networking between Asian Activism at the End of the
American and Pacific Islander lesbian and bisexual Twentieth Century
womens groups around the Unites States. One such In a West Coast regional APLN retreat in 1993,
event was the first West Coast retreat for Asian the steering committee renamed the group as Asian
American and Pacific Islander lesbian and bisexual Pacific Lesbian and Bisexual Network (APLBN)
women, in Sonoma, California, in May 1987. More to address the participation of bisexual women in
than eighty women attended the retreat and con- the organization. In 1995, a group of women in
tributed to organizing Asian American and Pacific the Midwest sponsored a regional APLBN retreat
Islander lesbian and bisexual women beyond small in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The second national
and regional social gatherings. conference was held in 1998 in Los Angeles.
The second was the March on Washington for In addition to a number of groups that have
Lesbian and Gay Rights on October 11, 1987, in restructured or disbanded in the 1990s, a steady
which more than 150,000 gay men, lesbians, bisexu- stream of new groups have also organized with an
als, and supporters marched to affirm and to pro- ethnic-specific focus. Among them are the Asian
mote the visibility of people with same-sex orienta- Lesbian Bisexual Alliance (ALBA) in Seattle, Wash-
tion. Groups such as ALOEC and the Boston Asian ington; the Asian Pacific Lesbian Bisexual
Gay Males and Lesbians (BAGMAL) helped make Transgendered Network (APLBTN), in Atlanta,
the Asian American and Pacific Islander presence Georgia; the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Islander
felt. Included were two hundred or more Asian Sisters (LAAPIS) in Los Angeles; the South Asian
American and Pacific Islander gay men and lesbians Lesbian and Gay Association in New York City
who marched together under the banners of Gay, (SALGA); Chingusai, a Korean American gay, les-
Asian, and Proud. There, Asian American and Pa- bian, and bisexual group in Los Angeles; Kilawin
cific Islander lesbian and bisexual women began to Kolektibo, a Pilipina group in New York City; O
talk of forming an official national group, recogniz- Moi, a Vietnamese group in Los Angeles and Orange
ing that there were enough numbers, energy, and County, California; KoALA, a Korean American

74 ASIAN AMERICANS AND PACIFIC ISLANDERS

lesbian and bisexual group in Chicago, Illinois; a ber 1990. Organized by Anjaree, a Bangkok les-
Malaysian womens group in the San Francisco Bay bian organization, the conference was attended by
Area; and Older Asian Sisters in Solidarity (OA- fiftyfour lesbians, nine of whom were non-Asian.
SIS) in San Francisco. The second conference was held in Tokyo, Ja-
There is also an increasing number of Asian pan, in May 1992. With an attendance of more
American and Pacific Islander lesbian and bisexual than 170 lesbians from thirteen countries, the four-
women who traverse national and geographical day conference was the largest ALN gathering to
boundaries, making significant connections and date. ALN-Nippon, the organizers of the confer-
alliances among women in the United States and ence, included a broad range of activities, such as
other nations. Information technology, such as elec- workshops, concerts, cultural activities, and video
tronic mailing lists, Web sites, and virtual chat presentations.
rooms, has been used widely to disseminate and The third conference was held in Wulai, Tai-
gather information for such purposes. Electronic wan, in August 1995. This conference was signifi-
media offer additional opportunities and challenges cant because the First Constitution Conference was
for Asian American and Pacific Islander lesbian and also held at this time. More than 140 lesbians from
bisexual women, who continue to express their eight countries attended the four-day conference.
diversity, engage in politics, and organize across Based on the ALN working constitution, the
ethnic and geographic boundaries. Alice Y.Hom ALN structure has three components: the Secretariat,
primarily responsible for financial matters, mem-
Bibliography bership, and the production of the newsletter; the
Eng, David L., and Alice Y.Hom, eds. Q & A: Working Group, which decides on policy and prac-
Queer in Asian America. Philadelphia: Temple tices, acceptance of members, organizational repre-
University Press, 1998. sentation, and disbursement of funds; and the gen-
Leong, Russell, ed. Asian American Sexualities: eral membership. The working constitution was pre-
Dimensions of the Gay and Lesbian Experience. sented for ratification during the fourth ALN con-
New York: Routledge, 1996. ference, held in Quezon City, Philippines, in 1998.
Lim-hing, Sharon, ed. The Very Inside: An Anthol- Issues that have been raised in the ALN can be
ogy of Writing by Asian and Pacific Islander divided into two categories: structure and govern-
Lesbian and Bisexual Women. Toronto: Sister ance, and identity and politics. The fluid structure
Vision, 1994. and lack of clear policies regarding membership
Ratti, Rakesh, ed. A Lotus of Another Color: An and participation became a cause of concern dur-
Unfolding of the South Asian Gay and Lesbian ing the second ALN conference. While the first
Experience. Boston: Alyson, 1993. ALN conference did not include non-Asians, dur-
Shervington, Gwendolyn L., ed. A Fire Is Burning, ing the second conference a parallel gathering of
It Is in Me: The Life and Writings of Michiyo non-Asians, called Lesbians Affirming Lesbians
Fukaya. Norwich, Vt: New Victoria, 1996. in Asia (LALA), was held. Following several dis-
cussions, it was decided that the host country would
See also Asian American Literature have to make a policy regarding the participation
of non-Asians. In December 1993, ALN-Taiwan
hosted a preconference meeting to discuss the struc-
Asian Lesbian Network ture of the ALN and to settle policies before the
Organization begun during the International Les- third conference. Due to financial constraints, only
bian Information Service (ILIS) Conference in Ge- lesbians from Japan were able to participate in the
neva, Switzerland, in March 1986. Asian lesbians meeting. Together, the Japanese and Taiwanese les-
from Bangladesh, India, the United States, Japan, bians drafted a constitution for the ALN. How-
and Thailand organized an Asian lesbian work- ever, it was not resolved as to how this constitu-
shop during the conference, noting the necessity tion could be ratified. Thus, ALN-Taiwan, then
to strengthen and expand the Asian lesbian net- incoming conference host, deemed it better to leave
work of support. the organizations structure loose until the consti-
Three conferences have been held by the Asian tution conference could be held. A new working
Lesbian Network (ALN) since 1990. The first con- constitution was thus drafted during the third con-
ference was held in Bangkok, Thailand, in Decem- ference in Taiwan.

ASIAN LESBIAN NETWORK 75

 The second category of issues includes those that lasting, exclusively lesbian, national organizations
A deal with the participation of non-Asians, the defi-
nition of lesbian, the definition of Asian, the ALN
have been relatively unsuccessful, local and regional
lesbian organizations have flourished. National femi-
vision, local and regional concerns, and the phi- nist groups that include both lesbians and hetero-
losophy and substantive issues that bind the or- sexual women (such as the National Organization
ganization. for Women, which began welcoming open lesbians
The main accomplishment of the ALN has been after much conflict in the early 1970s) and mixed-
the creation of a space wherein Asian lesbians could sex gay and lesbian groups (such as the National
come together to learn from one another and es- Gay and Lesbian Task Force, founded in the early
tablish links. It has also contributed to an increased 1970s) have been relatively more enduring.
awareness and discussion of Asian lesbian issues The Nucleus Club was one early secret social
in both local and international forums and has club. Organized in New York City in the 1930s, it
served as an impetus for Asian lesbian organizing. held weekly parties in private homes for lesbians
The diverse cultural, economic, and political back- and gay men. Another early womens organization
grounds of ALNs membership provide the organi- that included lesbians among its members was Het-
erodoxy, a group of radicals and feminists in Green-
zation with its challenges, dynamism, and strength.
wich Village in New York City. Founded in 1912,
Giney Villar
the club for unorthodox women included a
number of lesbians among its members during its
Bibliography
thirty-year existence. More common during the first
Asian Lesbian Network. The Third ALN Confer-
half of the twentieth century, lesbians met informally
ence Taiwan, 1995, ALN-Taiwan, P.O. Box
at private parties or, after World War II, in bars rather
7760, Taipei, Taiwan.
than in formal organizations or associations.
ALN-Nippon. The Report of the Second ALN
Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) was the first national
Conference, July 1995. Regumi Studio Tokyo,
lesbian organization in the United States. Founded
JOKI, Nakazawa Bldg. 3F 23, Araki-cho, in San Francisco in 1955, it was established origi-
Shinjuku, Tokyo 160, Japan. nally as a private social club and an alternative to
the bar scene, though it quickly became a social
See also International Organizations and political organization for lesbians. When the
DOB joined the early gay rights movement with
Mattachine Society and One, Inc.two predomi-
Associations and Organizations nantly male groups in the homophile movement
Lesbians have joined together in a number of for- one of its founders left to form two other secret
mal and informal groups and organizations. Some social clubs for lesbians, Quatrefoil and Hale
organizations are primarily social in purpose; oth- Aikane. At its height, the DOB had chapters in a
ers, political. Although relatively few lesbian or- number of cities and countries, including Chicago,
ganizations existed prior to the 1960s in the United Illinois; San Diego, California; Boston, Massachu-
States, since the 1970s a wide variety of lesbian setts; Denver, Colorado; and Melbourne, Australia.
organizations and associations have flourished. By the 1970s, when many embraced a more radi-
cal lesbian politics, most chapters had folded; in
Early Organizations the 1990s, one chapter, in Boston, remained.
Prior to the late 1960s, there were relatively few
formal organizations or associations that lesbians Gay Liberation and Feminism
could join. Although secret social groups and friend- It was not until the late 1960s and early 1970s,
ship circles have been documented as early as the with the growth of the gay liberation and feminist
1920s and 1930s, in places such as Salt Lake City, movements, that a variety of other lesbian organi-
Utah, it was not until long after the establishment zations began to flourish. Many early lesbian or-
of Daughters of Bilitis in San Francisco, California, ganizations had a political focus. Radicalesbians,
in 1955 that formal organizations for lesbians in which put forth the influential position paper The
the United States began to arise in any number. In Woman-Identified Woman, was formed (1970)
the late 1960s and 1970s, lesbians created a diverse in New York City by lesbians from a number of
array of formal organizations and associations at existing womens and gay male groups in 1969 and
both the local and the national level. Although long the early 1970s. Members included Rita Mae

76 ASIAN LESBIAN NETWORK

Brown, Lois Hart, Ellen Bedoz, and others. Al- Custody Action for Lesbian Mothers (Narberth,
though Radicalesbians was not a long-lasting Pennsylvania), and Gay and Lesbian Parents Coali-
group, its position paper on lesbian feminism, tion International (based in Washington, D.C.). The
which proclaimed, A lesbian is the rage of all Lesbian Mothers National Defense Fund, based in
women condensed to the point of explosion, has Seattle, Washington, publishes information about
been widely circulated and very influential. custody cases and similar concerns.
The Washington, D.C.based Furies Collective, Organizations devoted to the production of les-
founded in 1971 by Charlotte Bunch, Rita Mae bian culture also proliferated in the 1970s. Nation-
Brown, Ginny Berson, Joan E.Biren, and others, was ally, Olivia Music was formed by a group of les-
another short-lived but influential radical lesbian bian feminists in 1973 to provide women with a
feminist collective that published a newspaper called chance to create and disseminate music. For years,
The Furies. Other lesbian feminist groups of the the best-known producer of womens (lesbian)
1970s included Lesbian Feminist Liberation (New music, Olivia artists toured the United States, and
York City), Gutter Dykes Collective (Berkeley, Cali- local womens music production companies, such
fornia), and the C.L.I.T. (Collective Lesbian Inter- as Allegra in Boston, formed to produce local con-
certs. Other organizations created coffeehouses,
national Terrors) Collective (New York City).
restaurants, bookstores, food cooperatives, and a
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, lesbian or-
panoply of other lesbian enterprises.
ganizations flourished across the United States.
In the late 1980s and into the 1990s, many les-
Many lesbians sought to create groups that would
bians participated in mixed gay and lesbian AIDS
be specific to their own needs and activities, apart
education and service organizations, as well as di-
from either mixed gay and lesbian organizations
rect-action groups such as ACT UP (AIDS Coali-
or feminist organizations that also included het-
tion to Unleash Power) and Queer Nation. Chap-
erosexual women. Regional groups such as the
ters of Lesbian Avengers, known for their creative
Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance (Atlanta, Geor-
protests, mushroomed in the mid-1990s.
gia) and the Central Ohio Lesbians (Columbus) Many lesbians of color have also organized in
served a variety of purposes, including social sup- autonomous groups. In the 1970s, black women
port and participation in political activities. Many formed groups such as the Combahee River Collec-
lesbians attempted to work collectively and in co- tive, a black feminist collective in Boston, Massa-
operative organizations. Although not all lesbian chusetts, that included many lesbians, and Sapphire
organizations have done so, many have pioneered Sapphos, a black lesbian group in Washington, D.C.
the use of consensusbased decision making and Lesbians were active participants in the 1974 found-
nonhierarchical organizational forms. Consensus ing of the National Black Feminist Organization and
decision making is often slow and tedious; still, the 1978 formation of the National Coalition of
lesbian organizations that use it believe that the Black Lesbians and Gay Men. The National Black
process is more democratic and allows for greater Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum was established
participation by all group members. one decade later, in 1988. Salsa Soul Sisters Third
Some lesbian organizations have formed around World Womyn, Inc., formed an umbrella organiza-
specific activities or interests. Early lesbian moth- tion for women of color in New York City, and
ers groups, such as Dykes and Tykes in New York Latina lesbians have been active in Llego, the Latino/
City and the Lesbian Mothers Union in San Fran- a Lesbian and Gay Organization, formed at the 1987
cisco, formed in the 1970s. The Lesbian Rights March for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Washington,
Project (later renamed the National Center for Les- D.C. In the 1980s, a number of Asian lesbian or-
bian Rights) was founded by attorney Donna Kitch- ganizations were formed. Trikone, one of the long-
ens in 1977 in San Francisco, California, and has est-standing groups for lesbian and gay South Asians,
worked to protect the rights of lesbian mothers, in was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1986;
addition to assisting lesbians on other legal issues. other groups have included the New York City-based
The 1980s saw an explosion of local lesbian moth- Asian Lesbians of the East Coast and Chicago Asian
ers groups in many cities and towns, including Par- Lesbians Moving.
ents and Gonna Be Parents (Kansas City, Missouri),
Lesmos (West Hempstead, New York), Lesbians National Organizations
Choosing Children Network (Arlington, Maryland), Although there have been a number of attempts to
Our Family (San Francisco Bay Area, California), form enduring national lesbian organizations, these

A S S O C I AT I O N S A N D O R G A N I Z AT I O N S 77
 have not been entirely successful. In 1978, follow- See also Combahee River Collective; Daughters of
A ing the National Womens Conference of 1977 in
Houston, Texas, a group of lesbians in Los Angeles
Bilitis; Furies, The; International Organizations;
Lesbian Avengers; National Gay and Lesbian Task
attempted to form a National Lesbian Feminist Or- Force (NGLTF); National Organization for Women
ganization (NLFO). Although a steering committee (NOW); Olivia; Queer Nation; Radicalesbians
and several chapters were formed, the NLFO never
became a national organization. In 1988, the Na-
tional Organization for Women (NOW) sponsored Athletics, Collegiate
a National Lesbian Rights Conference to develop a Women have participated in intercollegiate athletics
national lesbian agenda, and in 1991 Atlanta hosted since the beginning, of the twentieth century. From
the National Lesbian Conference. Still, no national the beginning, women athletes faced strong cultural
lesbian organization came out of these conferences. opposition to the notion of athletic females. Athlet-
Many lesbians have taken leadership roles in ics was defined as a masculine activity, and male phy-
national lesbian and gay organizations, such as the sicians, social commentators, and college presidents
National Lesbian and Gay Task Force and the Gay expressed concern over the masculinizing effects
and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, and in of womens participation in competitive athletics and
feminist groups such as the National Organization damage to the frail female constitution. Women
for Women NOW On an international level, the physical educators, who controlled college womens
International Gay and Lesbian Alliance, based in sports, responded to critics by developing separate
Stockholm, Sweden, represents gay and lesbian and womens rules and stressing the health benefits of
AIDS activist groups in fifty countries on all conti- sport participation and the importance of feminine
nents. Although lesbians have been less visible than appearance and behavior among women athletes.
gay men in international organizations, lesbian and Varsity competition was deemphasized in favor of
gay national organizations have formed in coun- playdays focused on participation and socializing.
tries such as Finland, Iceland, Austria, and Greece. By the 1950s, most women physical education
Lesbians have long been active in organizations in professional groups strongly discouraged intercol-
Canada, England, and the Netherlands and, since legiate and high school athletic competition for
the 1970s and 1980s, in a number of Latin Ameri- women. This philosophy dominated womens ath-
can countries as well. Kristin G.Esterberg letics well into the 1960s. The 1972, passage of Ti-
tle IX, however, ushered in a new era for womens
Bibliography intercollegiate athletics. Title IX is a federal law pro-
Abdulahad, Tania, Gwendolyn Rogers, Barbara hibiting sex discrimination in education programs.
Smith, and Jameelah Waheed. Black Lesbian/ Capitalizing on this new legislative tool and the in-
Feminist Organizing: A Conversation. In creasing strength of the feminist movement, wom-
Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology. Ed. ens sport advocates have pushed for augmented
Barbara Smith. New York: Kitchen Table, 1983, resources and development of womens intercollegi-
pp. 293319. ate athletic programs. Though not yet on equal foot-
Adam, Barry. The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian Move- ing with mens intercollegiate athletics, the success
ment. Boston: Twayne, 1987. of Amercan women athletes in the 1996 Summer
Echols, Alice. Daring To Be Bad: Radical Femi- Olympics attests to the change in social attitudes
nism in America, 19671975. Minneapolis: toward womens athletics and to the development
University of Minnesota Press, 1989. of world-class athletes in a variety of sports.
Faderman, Lilian. Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers:
A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Cen- Lesbians in Collegiate Athletics
tury America. New York: Columbia University For the better part of the twentieth century, lesbi-
Press, 1991. ans have played an integral role in the develop-
Martin, Del, and Phyllis Lyon. Lesbian/Woman. ment of, and advocacy for, womens collegiate ath-
Twentieth Anniversary Edition. Volcano, Calif.: letics. Since the early 1970s, lesbian coaches, ath-
Volcano, 1991. letes, and sport administrators have been among
Radicalesbians. The Woman Identified Woman. the women who lobbied for passage of Title IX
In Notes from the Third Year. Ed. Anne Koedt and have resisted legislative attempts to scale back
and Shulamith Firestone, 1971, pp. 8184. the effects of this important sex-discrimination law.

78 A S S O C I AT I O N S A N D O R G A N I Z AT I O N S
In addition, lesbian athletes and coaches are part letes in a hostile environment are careful to pro-
of many national championship teams and repre- tect then-identities from anyone who might be in a
sent the United States in international competitions position to discriminate against or harass them. In
such as the Olympic Games. Moreover, athletics a hostile environment lesbians who are discovered
serve as important support and social networks for experience blatant and direct discrimination.
many lesbians, who, in the face of hostility from Coaches are fired, and athletes are dismissed from
family or friends, find their first community among teams or have their playing time severely dimin-
other lesbian teammates and coaches. Lesbians ished. Sometimes, athletes are ostracized by
whose gender expression challenges boundaries of teammates or pressured to leave the team. The per-
traditional femininity find in athletics a place to formance of lesbian coaches is often carefully scru-
explore and enjoy their passions for competition tinized to identify other, less controversial justifi-
and the development of physical competence. cations for firing: a losing season or team com-
Despite growing societal acceptance of women plaints, for example. Occasionally, a team in a los-
as athletes, this acceptance is contingent on their ing season will complain to administrators about
ability and willingness to present a heterosexual a lesbian coach. Some coaches engage in negative
and feminine appearance. The early-twentieth-cen- recruiting by telling parents of prospective ath-
tury association between sports and masculinity letes that there are lesbians on rival teams or that
and between masculinity and lesbians continued their coach is a lesbian in an effort to steer an ath-
to haunt women athletes at the close of the cen- lete away from that program. Some coaches also
tury. These associations serve an important func- tell recruits and their parents that lesbians are not
tion in a sexist society. Societal hostility to lesbians allowed on the team, tapping into fears about les-
and the association of lesbians with athletics are bians. Young athletes struggling with their own
deterrents to womens participation in sports and sexual identities can be the most hostile to lesbian
warn women athletes and coaches that they are teammates or coaches as they try to distance them-
stepping out of appropriate gender boundaries. selves from an identity they fear. In a hostile envi-
As long as lesbians are stigmatized, the lesbian la- ronment, lesbian athletes and coaches, by neces-
bel can be used to intimidate and control the de- sity, mask their identities by lying or maintaining a
velopment of womens sports and the participa- strict silence about their identities.
tion of women in sports. Fear and intolerance of The most publicized example of this hostility
lesbians in a heterosexist and sexist society act as to lesbian athletes occurred in 1991, when it was
boundary markers to warn women who stray from revealed in a newspaper article that Rene Portland,
expected norms of feminine heterosexuality and the Pennsylvania State University womens basket-
who challenge male privilege. For men, sports are ball coach, had a no lesbian policy. The public
an important arena for the development of domi- outcry and barrage of negative publicity directed
nant masculinist values. Womens participation in at Penn State resulted in passage of an amendment
sports challenges the exclusivity of sports and their to its nondiscrimination policy to include sexual
role in socializing men and boys into their domi- orientation. Portland, after several months, agreed
nant social roles in a sexist society. As a result, most to abide by the new policy.
lesbians in college athletics attempt to keep their In a conditionally tolerant environment, lesbian
identities hidden rather than jeopardize their op- visibility is identified as a problem, but lesbian
portunity to compete or coach. coaches and athletes are tolerated as long as they
maintain a public silence about their identities. In
Climates for Lesbians such an environment, lesbian athletes are admon-
The climate for lesbians in college athletics can ished by their teammates (and sometimes their
range from hostile to conditionally tolerant to open coaches) to avoid association with campus lesbian-
and affirming. Generally, the more public atten- identified groups and stay away from places asso-
tion focused on the sport and the bigger the school, ciated with lesbians, such as bars, clubs, or com-
the more hostile the athletic environment tends to munity sport teams. Heterosexual athletes some-
be. Also, team sports are often more hostile than times warn lesbian teammates to keep their hair
individual sports. long and not to talk about their partners or make
In a hostile environment, lesbian presence is their identity visible in any way. Often, whole teams
identified as a problem. Lesbian coaches and ath- know that the coach is a lesbian, but, as long as

A T H L E T I C S , C O L L E G I AT E 79
 she never makes her identity explicit, she is toler- fluence on womens athletics to present a noncontro-
A ated. Lesbian coaches and athletes in a condition-
ally tolerant environment must monitor their
versial feminine, heterosexual image to the public in
association with their products.
behavior carefully to avoid over-stepping the zone
of tolerance implicitly agreed to. Changing the Climate
In an open and affirming environment, discrimi- A professional dialogue about homophobia and
nation and harassment of lesbians are identified heterosexism in collegiate athletics has begun in some
problems. Lesbian athletes and coaches disclose collegiate coaches associations and among some
their identities with reasonable expectations that college athletic depatments. Moreover, academic
they will not be penalized for their openness. disciplines, including womens studies, sport psy-
Coaches can bring partners to games, introduce chology, sport history, and sport sociology, are now
them to athletes and parents, and talk about their addressing heterosexism and homophobia in ath-
personal lives. Lesbian athletes can talk with letics in research and professional writing, thereby
teammates about homophobia and their relation- increasing understanding of these issues. Womens
ships and bring dates to team social events. Het- sports advocacy organizations, such as the Wom-
erosexual teammates speak out against antilesbian
ens Sports Foundation, are taking a public stand
prejudice and help socialize younger teammates
against discrimination against lesbians in athletics
into the open and affirming environment. Athletes
and providing education resources for coaches and
who are questioning their sexual identity can count
administrators. In addition, an educational video,
on coaches to support them in this process.
Out for a Change: Addressing Homophobia in
Unfortunately, as the twentieth century draws
Womens Sports, and an accompanying study guide
to a close, most athletic climates in the United States
are available from Woman Vision (San Francisco,
are either hostile or conditionally tolerant. Few les-
California) for coaches and teachers.
bian athletes, coaches, or athletic administrators
Though the day when most collegiate athletic
publicly identity themselves. To the contrary, many
coaches and athletes in the public eye go to great environments will be described as open and affirm-
lengths to highlight their feminine heterosexuality ing for lesbian athletes and coaches is perhaps in
in their appearance (long hair, makeup, high heels, the distant future, it is possible to imagine that time.
and dresses) and in the visibility of their husbands The process of change in the larger culture is also at
or boyfriends and children. The media focus on work in collegiate athletics. Perhaps the next gen-
women athletes who are able to provide such evi- eration of lesbian athletes and coaches will be free
dence of their feminine heterosexuality reinforces to make their important contributions to womens
the perception that lesbians and heterosexual athletics openly and honestly, without feeling the
women who do not conform to traditional notions need to mask and protect their sexual identities out
of femininity must be hidden. of fear of discrimination or harassment. This future
A number of pressures work against the develop- day will be a big step forward for all women in sports
ment of an open and affirming environment. In gen- to be able to pursue athletic goals without the con-
eral, coaches and administrators in collegiate athlet- straints imposed by restrictive boundaries of accept-
ics are not interested in placing themselves on the able feminine heterosexuality. Pat Griffin
cutting edge of social change on any issue. In colle-
giate athletics, much of the fear of association with Bibliography
lesbians is due to the pressure to recruit talented ath- Blinde, Elaine, and Diane Taub. Homophobia and
letes. Many collegiate coaches assume that most high Womens Sports: The Disempowerment of Ath-
school athletes and their parents will avoid programs letes. Sociological Focus 25 (1992), 151166.
that publicly acknowledge the presence of lesbian Bryson, Lois. Sport and the Maintenance of Male
coaches or athletes. Few coaches are willing to risk Hegemony. Womens Studies International
losing recruits to test this assumption. Also, as sports Forum 10 (1987), 349360.
such as basketball and volleyball receive more media Cahn, Susan. Coming on Strong: Gender and Sexu-
attention and public spectator interest increases, ad- ality in Twentieth Century Womens Sport. New
ministrators and coaches become more image con- York: Free Press, 1994.
scious. Moreover, as commercial sponsorship of wom- Griffin, Pat. Strong Women, Deep Closets: Lesbi-
ens collegiate athletics increases, the traditional con- ans and Homophobia in Sport. Champaign, Ill.:
servatism of corporate executives also exerts an in- Human Kinetics, 1998.

80 A T H L E T I C S , C O L L E G I AT E
Krane, Vikki. Lesbians in Sport: Toward Ac- to show her contemporaries playing tennis, bicy-
knowledgement, Understanding, and Theory. cling, swimming, and picnicking. She photographed
Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology 18 commuters on the Staten Island Ferry, laborers, and
(1996), 237246. immigrants newly arrived from Europe. Austens
Lenskyj, Helen. Power at Play: Gender and Sexu- photographs are unique among art images made by
ality Issues in Sport and Physical Activity. In- lesbians of her era in that she conveyed her involve-
ternational Review for the Sociology of Sport ment with women in very graphic terms, such as
25 (1990), 235245. showing herself and her friends embracing, in bed,
or cross-dressing as men. Around 1917, Gertrude
See also Physical Education; Sports, Professional Amelia Tate (ca. 18711962), already her lover for
eighteen years, moved in with Austen.
An independent income allowed Austen to pur-
Austen, Alice (18661952) sue her photographic interests without the need to
American photographer. Alice Austen spent most of sell her work. This changed when the stock market
her life in her familys comfortable, upper-middleclass crashed in 1929, taking with it much of her capital.
home on Staten Island, New York, across the bay Thinking the crisis would soon pass, Austen mort-
from Manhattan, although she traveled around the gaged her house and traveled in Europe with Tate.
northeastern United States and to Europe. Her uncle On their return, they ran a tea room on the front
taught her to use a large-format camera when she lawn during summer months and struggled to live
was ten years old, and she used herself, family, friends, on money Tate earned teaching ballroom dancing
and neighbors as primary subjects. and deportment, but in 1945 the house was lost.
Most active as a photographer between the 1880s After a few years in a small apartment, Tate went to
and the 1920s, Austen used a clear, uncluttered style live with family members, who disapproved of her

The Darned Club from Alices World: The Life and Photography of an American Original: Alice Austen, 1866
1952 by Ann Novotny (Old Greenwich, Conn.: The Chatham Press, 1976). Courtesy The Chatham Press.

AUSTEN, ALICE 81
 relationship with Austen. Austen moved from one rage in Melbourne in 1919; Freda Du Faur (1882
A nursing home to another, then into the Staten Is-
land Farm colony, a home for paupers, in 1950.
1935), mountain climber (two of New Zealands
South Island peaks are named for her and her lover,
Many of Austens negatives were purchased by Muriel Cardogan); Joan Hammond (19121996),
the Staten Island Historical Society. Ultimately, they opera singer; and Montie (who lived to be one
came to the attention of a publisher who arranged hundred and six years old) are among the most
for the exhibition and sale of prints. The money thus famous. Marion/Bill Edwards, who lived as a
earned allowed Austin to move to a comfortable resi- man for fifty years after his female identity be-
dence for the last year of her life. Tee A.Corinne came known (s/he was arrested for burglary in 1906
and died in 1956), has also drawn significant at-
Bibliography tention from scholars. It was only in the 1980s that
Grubler, Mitchell. Alice Austen: A Commemorative famous women who were lesbians began to be ac-
Journal. New York: Alice Austen House, 1986. knowledged in historical accounts of their lives.
. The Larky Life. New York: Alice Austen There are many more names to unearth.
House, 1991. Since the late 1960s, there has been an explo-
Kaplan, Gaile. Fine Day. Exhibition Catalog. Staten sion of organizations and events established by, and
Island: Alice Austen House, 1988.
run for, lesbians. In 1970, the Australian chapter
Novotny, Ann. Alices World: The Life and Pho-
of Daughters of Bilitis, Australias first openly ho-
tography of an American Original: Alice Austen,
mosexual organization, was formed. Other organi-
18661952. Old Greenwich, Conn.: Chatham,
zations were soon to follow throughout the 1970s
1976.
and onward.
See also Photography
The Formal Political Culture
Australia in the 1950s and 1960s was extremely
conservative, with institutionalized racist policies,
Australia
such as the White Australia Policy, and the removal
Island continent located in the Southern and East-
ern hemispheres, but culturally dominated by the of Aboriginal children from their mothers. With
Northern and Western hemispheres. The oldest con- the granting of citizenship to Aboriginal people in
tinent, whose indigenous peoplesthe Aborigi- 1967, the Viet Nam War (19651972), and the
nalshave the oldest continuous culture in the emergence of progressive social movements came
world, it is yet one of the newest nations in the world. a period of widespread change. The changes that
From these contradictory elements, Australias small have taken place in Australian culture since then
population of eighteen million has produced a di- have also changed the nature of lesbian identity
versity of cultures, among them lesbian culture. and visibility. The changes are largely due to femi-
nists, progressive politicians, and that peculiarly
Context Australian invention, the femocrat (a feminist
White Australian culture has a short history, a lit- who works in governmental positions).
tle over two hundred years in contrast to more than Although Australian culture is heavily influ-
one hundred thousand years of Aboriginal culture. enced by U.S. culture, it is by no means an exact
Evidence of lesbian culture in either of these set- replica. Australians, on the whole, are irreverent,
tings is still rare prior to the emergence of radical informal, and inventive. Women, Aboriginals, and
and womens movements in the late 1960s. migrants first became part of the mainstream po-
There is a small representation of women who litical agenda in 1972, when the Labor Party (left-
broke with traditioncross-dressers, women with to-center political party) leader, Gough Whitlam,
lifelong companions, and outlawsbut there has was elected prime minister on a wave of political
been no sustained book-length work in this area, enthusiasm. In many ways, he set the political
although a small traveling exhibition exploring the agenda of Australia for the following decades. He
lives of lesbians from 1900 to the 1990s opened in was ousted in 1975 in what many commentators
Melbourne in 1996. Margaret Catchpole, a horse have described as a coup. A Liberal Party (center-
thief and convict; Mary Reibey, one of Australias to-Right political party) government ran the coun-
earliest business women (depicted on the twenty try for the next seven years, and, from 1983, a re-
dollar note); Alice Anderson, who opened a ga- turned Labor government held power for thirteen

82 AUSTEN, ALICE
years. In 1996, the Liberal Party won back power Clitoris (pronounced with the emphasis on the sec-
and reintroduced conservative political and social ond syllable) was popular; and the Shameless Hus-
policies. sies came out of Adelaide. These bands, like a con-
The governmental structures put in place be- siderable portion of the feminist artistic and po-
tween 1972 and 1975 were critical in giving litical movement, were predominately composed
women, including lesbians, a voice; making it pos- of lesbians. After that period, a number of lesbian
sible for them to rise up the public-service ladder, singer/songwriters became well known, in particu-
thereby affecting subsequent governmental policy; lar, Robin Archer and Judy Small, as well as nu-
and including on the political agenda issues such merous bands that formed and reformed.
as child care, maternity leave, equal pay, antiracist Festivals are as important to the gay and les-
legislation, affirmative action, and antinuclear, bian community as to the rest of the population.
peace, and environmental policies. The Labor gov- Mardi Gras is Australias best-known gay and les-
ernment formalized many important issues that bian event. Held in Sydney during February and
lesbians have fought for and introduced some leg- March, Mardi Gras highlights the diversity of gay
islation that protects lesbians. and lesbian culture, from readings to theater to the
huge street parade and party that brings it to a
Lesbian Feminist Culture close. This event attracts more overseas visitors to
In 1973, the first national lesbian conference was Australia than any heterosexual event. Melbourne
held at Sorrento, a seaside suburb about fifty miles holds its Midsumma Festival during February with
from central Melbourne, run by a group calling a similar range of events. The Lesbian Festival has
itself Radicalesbians. It produced badges, debated become an annual national event, held in a differ-
theory, and published a pirated edition of U.S. ent state each year.
writer Robin Morgans collection of poems, Mon- An institution that appears to be peculiarly Aus-
ster (1972). Lesbian cultural life in Australia was tralian are womens and lesbian circuses. Melbourne
quickly enriched by the work of feminists from boasts the Womens Circus, with a membership of
other countries, mostly the United States and the approximately one hundred women (many of them
United Kingdom. But Australian lesbians also de- lesbians), as well as the POW (Performing Older
veloped a rich culture of their own, including lit- Womens) Circus, an entirely lesbian circus made
erature, theater, music, visual arts, and film. Also up of performers and musicians between the ages of
important has been the development of feminist forty and sixty-seven. The women in these circuses
and lesbian radio and, more recently, video, cir- play music, do acrobatics and aerials, juggle, direct,
cus, and home pages on the Internet. teach, and train novices. The 1996 International
Poetry and music very quickly became impor- Womens Day March included performances by both
tant, including the works of U.S. writers and musi- circuses before and after the march.
cians. Local songwriters sometimes adapted the In literature, Elizabeth Rileys All That False
words of Australian folk songs to their own needs. Instruction (1975) was one of the first novels pub-
The flowering of poetry was reflected in the first lished in Australia to focus on the lives of lesbians
national anthology of womens writing, Mother Im in a positive way. The author, Kerryn Higgs, pub-
Rooted (1975), edited by Kate Jennings, one of lished under a pseudonym due to legal pressure
the first widely available books with a substantial from her family. Finola Moorheads Remember the
contribution from lesbian writers. Tarantella (1987) depicts lesbian lives of the 1970s
The Womens Theatre Group (mostly lesbians and 1980s, in Australia. In the 1990s, lesbian fic-
throughout its life) put on its first performance, tion and poetry were widely published, circulated,
The Love Show, in 1973, with others to follow and reviewed, and many Australian lesbian writ-
over the next four years, ending with Edges in 1977. ers have been recipients of mainstream awards or
Songs, poetry, and womens bands played a large have been published to acclaim and widespread
part in the development of a lesbian culture. popularity overseas.
Theater flourished through the combined energies The Australian literary scene has been boosted by
of playwrights, comedians, directors, actors, tech- a number of festivals that focus specifically on writ-
nicians, publicists, and reviewers. ing, including the Australian Feminist Book Fort-
In the mid-1970s, the Womens Electric Band nights, held across the nation in 1989 and 1991. These
(known as WEB) played in Melbourne; in Sydney, culminated in the Sixth International Feminist Book

AUSTRALIA 83
A

Womens Circus, Melbourne, Australia, 1995. Photo by Susan Hawthorne.

Fair in Melbourne in 1994. It is lesbians, by and large, many wild and solitary places. In recent years, a
who run the womens bookshops that make these number of women-run travel companies have been
books available. Similarly, most feminist and lesbian established to provide women-only tours to some
publishing in Australia has been generated by lesbi- of these inaccessible places. Many individuals, part-
ans, including Sybylla Feminist Cooperative, Redress ners, or small groups travel on weekends and holi-
Womens Press, Tantrum, and Spinifex. In the 1990s, days into the Australian bush. In addition, there
a number of joint gay and lesbian anthologies were are a number of lesbian-run holiday houses in coun-
published; this appears to be a more financially vi- try locations.
able format for mainstream publishers. Communication is an important issue in a coun-
In the visual arts, many lesbians are breaking try as geographically and demographically scattered
new ground. Among them, photographer Destiny as Australia. Lesbian Network, with a readership
Deacon produces irreverent, confrontational, and of near five hundred, has kept lesbians around Aus-
startling pictures, many of which use small black tralia informed since 1984. Similar magazines ex-
dolls to represent the place of Aboriginal people in ist in most states. They focus on news, events, and
Australian culture. Her work, widely exhibited in profiles of lesbians in their communities and ad-
Australia and overseas, is a significant contribu- vertise lesbian health, legal, entertainment, and
tion to contemporary Koori (Aboriginal) culture. business services. Programs on community radio
Suzanne Bellamys porcelain sculpture landscapes around Australia serve the same purpose. Bent TV,
are held in many private collections around the an arm of community television, produces pro-
country and have appeared on covers of books and grams that focus on lesbian endeavors in the arts,
journals. Megeara, a painter, has developed a se- sports, and politics.
ries of works that depict women, ranging from Sports, too, play an important part in the lives
Amazons to old women and big women. Among of many women, and some of Australias greatest
young painters, the surreal work of Jackie Stockdale sportswomen have been lesbians. Their ranks in-
draws on images of imagined historical women. clude swimmers, runners, and individuals and team
The Australian continent is relatively benign, players in cricket, netball, hockey, tennis, and golf.
with beaches, mountains, deserts, rain forests, and Some all-lesbian teams have been established, such

84 AUSTRALIA
as the Radclyffe Runners (a softball team) and the Hawthorne, Susan. The History of the Contem-
Fairfield Falcons (a footballAustralian rules porary Australian Womens Movement. Jour-
team). Lesbian dances and balls have been a regu- nal of Australian Lesbian Feminist Studies 2:1
lar occurrence since the early 1970s, with as many (1992), 7179.
as two thousand women attending. Some, like the Hurley, Michael, ed. A Guide to Gay and Lesbian
Silk and Satin Ball held annually to raise money Writing in Australia. Sydney: Allen and Unwin,
for Matrix Guild (a project to establish a home for 1996.
old lesbians), provide a program with comedy or a Reekie, Gail. She Was a Loveable Man. Journal
circus performance in addition to bands. of Australian Lesbian Feminist Studies 4 (June
1994), 4350.
Lesbian and Feminist Political Action
Lesbians are at the forefront of political action and See also Pacific Literature
are always visible when mainstream politics takes a
conservative turn. A few openly gay and lesbian can-
didates have stood for parliament on explicit gay and Austria
lesbian platforms. Some have been successful, among Small country located in middle Europe. Until
them Clover Moore in Sydney. The Australian gov- 1918, Austria was a great and multinational mon-
ernment recognizes gay and lesbian relationships, archy; in the years 19381945, it was part of Nazi
which are considered on an equal footing with het- Germany. During the nineteenth and twentieth cen-
erosexual married and common-law relationships. turies, the social and cultural history of lesbians in
However, same-sex couples without wills cannot au- Austria resembled, in many aspects, that of other
tomatically leave their property to their partners. Western industrial countries. Especially remarkable,
Lesbians have also been important agitators however, is the difficult penal situation of lesbian
as activists, public servants, and femocratsfor love and politics.
sweeping political changes. They have been active The last decades of the monarchy are one pos-
in campaigning for such issues as child care, abor- sible starting point for Austrian lesbian history and
tion, racism, maternity and paternity leave, ecol- culture. Around 1900, many women in public life
ogy, land rights for Aboriginals, violence against cultivated romantic friendships, and many com-
women, and expanded services and equal treament bined their women-oriented eroticism with femi-
for poor women, women from non-English-speak- nist politics. Irma von Troll (18471912), one of
ing backgrounds, and Aboriginal women. the first Austrian women to write about prostitu-
The lesbian community in Australia is as diverse tion, lived in Salzburg with her female friend, and
as in any other large, industrialized country. Les- Auguste Fickert (18551910), the prominent
bians may not agree on everything, but the com- cofounder of the radical womens movement in
munity also tends not to fragment easily, perhaps Vienna, also shared her life with a woman. The
because its sheer numbers are still not large enough bourgeois feminist Marie von Najmjer (1844
to be able to do so. The Australian lesbian com- 1904), of Hungarian descent, expressed the wish
munity includes radical lesbian feminists, career- that the daughters of the twentieth century could
oriented lesbians, sadomasochist lesbians, business- experience the tender woman love that she called
women, artists, rural lesbians, and lesbians who my lifes most beautiful content. In a 1905 pam-
do not join lesbian communities at all. phlet, the Austrian philosopher Helene von
Susan Hawthorne Druskowitz (18561918), who received her doc-
toral degree in Switzerland, declared man to be the
Bibliography curse of the world and urged women consist-
Chesser, Lucy. Australasian Lesbian Movement, ently and militantly to the preference for their own
Claudias Group, and Lynx: Non-Political sex. Even the Empress Elisabeth (18371898) was
Lesbian Organisation in Melbourne, 1969 allegedly highly susceptible to female erotic beauty.
1980. Hecate 22:1 (1996), 6991. Physicians practicing in Austria played an active
Ford, Ruth, Lyn Isaacs, and Rebecca Jones. For- and, for many Western countries, a determining role
bidden Love: Bold Passion, Lesbian Stories, in defining female homosexuality. The psychiatrist
1900s1990s. Exhibition Catalog. Melbourne: Richard von Krafft-Ebing (18401902) systematized
History Inverted, 1996. cases that he had treated under the designation

AUSTRIA 85
 female contrary sexuality (or inversion) in his public presence and become politically active. The
A main work, Psychopathia Sexualis, which appeared
in more than a dozen editions after 1886. The psy-
autonomous womens movement in the 1970s
swirled with controversies over lesbians defining
choanalytic paradigm was formulated by Sigmund themselves as the radical avant-garde. The 1980s
Freud (18561939) in his study Psychogenesis of then saw a broad and consistant increase of various
a Case of Homosexuality in a Woman (1920). initiatives by lesbians. Austrian lesbian meetings took
After World War I (19141918), larger or more place on a regular basis, and the Lesbenrundbrief
strongly visible lesbian (sub)cultures came into be- (Lesbian Circular Letter) was published as a me-
ing. The androgynous, sexually ambiguous figures dium of its own. Women became involved with
of the New Woman, the Flapper, and its Euro- mixed lesbian and gay projects, such as the residen-
pean version, the boyish Garonne, entered the tial building Rosa Lila Villa (Pink-Lavender Villa)
social imaginary, including texts by Austrian authors and Homosexuelle Initiative (Homosexual Initia-
such as Stefan Zweig (18811942) and Joseph Roth tive), the largest mixed organization, which pub-
(18941939). Women of the Third Gender (a lished the magazine Lambda-Nachrichten (Lambda-
commonly used phrase) organized themselves in the News) and established groups in several Austrian
Austrian branches of the two large German homo- towns. A lesbian and gay research group organized
sexual organizations, Deutscher Freundschaftsver- symposiums and lecture series, and Stichwort (Key-
band (German Friendship Association) and Bund word), a large feminist archive, began to take ex-
fr Menschenrecht (Union for Human Rights). plicit care of the documentation of lesbian politics.
Employed women of the lower middle class in the Other projects important to the development of les-
capital Vienna, as well as in the country subscribed bian culture(s) included the bookstore and caf
to the German magazines Frauenliebe (Woman Frauenzimmer (Womens Room), the feminist maga-
Love) and Die Freundin (The Woman-Friend), and zine An.Schlge (Keystrokes), and the womens
so became part of a lesbian communication network. centers and gay and lesbian centers in the cities of
They composed short stories, poems, and letters for Graz, Innsbruck, and Linz.
the magazines and discussed best-sellers like the In the 1990s, the international discussions about
German lesbian novel The Scorpion by Anna identity politics also spread across large parts of the
Weirauch (18871970) and the translation of The Austrian lesbian scene. Media and popular culture
Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (18801943) eventually discovered lesbians as a popular commer-
that was published in 1929. cial topic; there were also widespread debates over
For many years, the restrictive legal situation controversial questions such as homosexual mar-
influenced the scope of action of lesbian women. riages and the outing of prominent homosexual
Unlike in most European countries, same-sex sexual persons. In 1996, the Austrian parliament abolished
activities were forbidden between women, as well the criminal law banning positive publicity about
as between men, and were punished with incar- same-sex love that had existed since 1972 and the
ceration up to five years. This law, originating in ban against homosexual organizations.
the middle of the nineteenth century, was repealed Hanna Hacker
only in 1972; one striking argument for its aboli-
tion was that, in regard to women, it was suppos- Bibliography
edly difficult to distinguish between sex and as- Geber, Eva, Sonja Rotter, and Marietta Schneider
sistance with personal hygiene. Under National eds. Die Frauen Wiens: Ein Stadtbuch fr Fanny,
Socialist rule, the Austrian legal code was assimi- Frances, und Francesca (The Women of Vienna:
lated into that of Germany. Paradoxically, that A City Book for Fanny, Frances, and Francesca).
meant that female homosexuality in Austria had Vienna: Apfel, 1992.
less significance in criminal law than before. Les- Geiger, Brigitte, and Hanna Hacker. Donauwalzer
bian women were, however, sent to National So- Damenwahl: Frauenbewegte Zusammenhange
cialist concentration camps with the verdict anti- in sterreich (Blue Danube Waltz Ladies
social, wearing the black triangle that came with Choice: Feminist Contexts in Austria). Vienna:
it. Exile and deportation further disrupted lesbian Promedia, 1989.
sub-and countercultural organization. Hacker, Hanna. Frauen und Freundinnen: Studien
Only in the course of the feminist movements zur weiblichen Homosexualitt am Beispiel
after 1968 did lesbian groups once again gain a sterreich, 18701938 (Women and Women-

86 AUSTRIA
Friends: Studies in Female Homosexuality and ciding whether or not to include intimate details
the Example of Austria, 18701938). about her sexual practicesit is common for het-
Weinheim-Baswel: Beltz, 1987. erosexual authors to choose not to reveal informa-
Handl, Michael, Gudrun Hauer, Kurt Krickler, tion about the sexual aspects of their lives. How-
Friedrich Nussbaumer, and Dieter Schmutzler, ever, in a society in which heterosexuality is assumed
eds. Homosexualitt in sterreich (Homosexu- to be normal, the effect of omitting or obscuring
ality in Austria). Vienna: Junius, 1989. information about the authors sexuality is that the
Hauer, Gudrun, and Schmutzer, Dieter, eds. reader is allowed to assume that the author is het-
Lambdalesebuch: Journalismus andersrum erosexual. When the author is not, the expectation
(Lambda-reader: Journalism the Other Way of truthfulness has been clearly violated. In other
Round). Vienna: Regenbogen, 1996. words, a closeted autobiographer lies as much
through omission as through outright denial.
See also Nazism; Sexology Omission or distortion of the authors sexual
identity was especially prevalent in autobiographies
written by lesbians prior to the 1970s. With the
Autobiography exception of a few pockets of artists and intellectu-
Twentieth-century literary genre. Autobiographies als, most lesbians prior to the 1970s were caught in
by lesbian authors have played an important role a social and psychological environment that bred
in defining and changing lesbian identity, provid- internalized guilt and shame. For all but the most
ing a way for lesbians to rewrite the stories of their flamboyant, lesbian life was marked by silence and
lives and, in doing so, to change those lives them- secrecy. Many well-known lesbians published mem-
selves. However, as important as autobiography oirs and autobiographies, but few were completely
has been in constructing lesbian identity, it is a honest about their private lives, and fewer still wrote
complex and problematic genre, one that has about their sexuality. Some writers were able to cre-
changed over the decades as it has reflected the ate an illusion of intimacy with their readers while
social and intellectual world in which it is written. managing to omit any details about their private
lives that might reveal characteristics that would
Characteristics subject them to suspicion of being lesbian. Others,
It is commonly thought that a key characteristic of who were able or willing to take greater risks, ex-
autobiography is an understanding between the pressed their sexuality by using codes and signs that
author and the reader that the author sincerely would be understood only by those familiar with
believes that what she says about herself is the truth. gay and lesbian culture. This approach was designed
In other words, the reader of an autobiography to keep the hostile straight world in the dark while
assumes that the author will be as open and hon- revealing the truth to those who would be less
est about her life as she is able to be. This expecta- likely to condemn. Coded language and oblique ref-
tion does not always hold up in autobiographical erences to gay and lesbian culture were used in most
writings by lesbians. Because of the often hidden of the autobiographies and memoirs written during
nature of lesbianism, the acts of writing and read- the twentieth century as ways of protecting not only
ing autobiography require a complex set of nego- the writer, but also those being written about, for,
tiations between author and reader, both hetero- even if the author of an autobiography was willing
sexual and lesbian. In place of an assumption that to be identified as a lesbian, she could not assume
the author will tell the truth, there is often the ex- that her friends and family members were as willing
pectation, when the author is a lesbian, that she to be open. In a homophobic environment, it was
will, and should, distort the truth through omis- necessary for lesbians to protect each other as well
sion, half-truths, and the use of language that is as themselves. Discretion, in such a society, could
coded so that only those who are in the know have more social value than truth.
will understand what her words really mean.
One of the things that makes lesbian autobiog- Lesbian Autobiographies
raphy different from autobiographies by other kinds To varying degrees, lesbian writers such as Margaret
of writers is that a lesbian author must make a choice Anderson (18861973), Sylvia Beach (18871962),
to either reveal, hide, or distort the nature of her Ethel Smyth (18581944), and Janet Planner
sexuality. This is not just a matter of an author de- (18921978), each of whom published essays and

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 87
 books with autobiographical content, described nist movement of the twentieth century, Rich called
A their relationships with women in ways that made
it possible for straight readers to ignore or over-
upon lesbian writers and scholars to stop hiding
their sexual identities and colluding in maintain-
look the true nature of those relationships and, ing the invisibility of lesbians of the past. Rich ar-
consequently, to maintain the illusion of the au- gued that, instead of being a way to ensure safety,
thors heterosexuality. Authors such as these were silence was a way to perpetuate oppression, be-
assumed by both academic critics and the popular cause, she pointed out, whatever remains unspo-
media to have been sexually frustrated unmarried ken will eventually become unspeakable.
spinsters, despite the fact that they had important, Richs speech reflected the thoughts of many les-
and often public, relationships with women. bians during the 1970s, who encouraged other les-
There were, of course, exceptions. Even during bian writers and scholars to publicly speak the truth
the first half of the twentieth century, a few autobi- about their own lives and to reveal the lesbianism
ographies were published by women otherwise un- of earlier generations of writers in critical analyses
known to the general public that focused attention and biographies. A rallying cry was sounded that
on their sexual deviance in sensationalistic ways. The preceded an outburst of autobiographical writings
Story of Mary MacLane (1902) and I, Mary by lesbians that formed an important literary
MacLane (1917) were written by an unknown subgenre during the final quarter of the twentieth
young woman from Montana whose eccentric life century. Autobiography provided one of the most
story, with its suggestions of lesbianism, was her only immediate and apparently unmediated vehicles for
claim to fame. Another autobiographical book that revealing and redefining lesbian identity. During the
created a sensation because of the explicit self-iden- 1970s and 1980s, a steady stream of autobiographi-
tification of the author as a lesbian was Diana: A cal works by lesbians became available. The range
Strange Autobiography (1939), supposedly written of these works was wide, from the often shocking
by a college professor named Diana Frederics. While personal essays of Jill Johnston (1929) that ap-
both MacLane and Frederics claimed to be writing peared weekly in the Village Voice and in her books,
their life stories to provide a model of honesty and Lesbian Nation (1973) and Gullibles Travels
openness, both autobiographies suggested that les- (1974), to the quiet and contemplative journals of
bianism was a tragic condition that was likely to the novelist May Sarton (19121996), who was at
lead to misery and alienation. first as reticent about her sexuality as early autobi-
The Autobiography of Alice B.Toklas (1933) ographers had been, but who gradually became more
by Gertrude Stein (18741946) is a very different open until, at her death, she was one of the most
kind of autobiography. Purposefully disconnect- widely recognized lesbians in the world. Another
ing the autobiographical author, narrator, and sub- major change during this period was the appear-
ject by playing with the most fundamental premise ance of published writings by a broader range of
of autobiographical writingthat the author and lesbians, including women of color, such as Audre
the subject are identicalStein pretends to disguise Lorde (19341992), whose biomythography,
her own autobiography as the autobiography of Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982), has be-
her lover, Alice B.Toklas (18771967). By using come a classic in the genre, and the women who
Toklass voice to focus on the real subject, herself, contributed to important anthologies like This
Stein forces the reader to implicitly accept the na- Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women
ture of her relationship to Toklas. Yet her approach of Color (1981), edited by Cherre Moraga and
is so subtle that even the otherwise perceptive femi- Gloria Anzalda.
nist critic Carolyn Heilbrun admitted to having read
The Autobiography of Alice B.Toklas without un- The Coming Out Story
derstanding that Stein and Toklas were lesbians. As lesbians began to speak out more, a new type
As the feminist movement of the 1970s gained of lesbian autobiography developed, the coming
strength, there was a reaction against the silence out story, in which the author, who was most
that preceded it. In 1976, at the annual meeting of commonly not a well-known figure, told the story
the Modern Language Association, the American of how she discovered her lesbianism and how she
poet Adrienne Rich (1929) called for an end to made her identity known to others. Unlike in ear-
the erasure of lesbianism. In a talk that has be- lier autobiographies by lesbians, in which intimate
come one of the benchmarks of the lesbian femi- relationships were hidden by omission and coding,

88 AUTOBIOGRAPHY
the authors of these new personal narratives influence of poststructuralist and queer theory,
proudly declared their sexuality. The coming out which challenged the notion that there can be any
story was an extremely popular and useful objective truth or fixed personal identity. Accord-
subgenre, with seven anthologies published be- ing to queer (a term often preferred to lesbian,
tween 1977 and 1982 alone. In many ways, the gay, or homosexual) theorists, all forms of gen-
coming out stories of the 1970s and 1980s were der are constructed within a social context rather
an ideal response to the problem of the than being a fixed or essential aspect of the self.
unspeakability of lesbianism. One of the most im- Along with this new theoretical model has come
portant things needed by the newly emerging les- a new appreciation for those members of the gay
bian community was a positive self-image to coun- and lesbian community, such as drag queens and
ter the years of demonization that had defined and butch dykes, who insist on expressing and acting
silenced lesbians, and these autobiographies pro- out their gender identities, no matter how ex-
vided an accumulation of successful life stories from tremely they deviate from the norm. This gen-
which such an image could be drawn. In very im- der bending, as it is called, is seen as being as
mediate and direct ways, the coming out story re- authentic as identities that conform with societys
wrote the lesbian story for the entire community. view of what it means to be male and female. In
In an important review essay of anthologies of com- this environment, autobiographical writing could
ing out stories, Zimmerman (1984) wrote that no longer be judged on the basis of its adherence
speaking, especially naming ones self lesbian, is to truth or the degree of an authors honesty, be-
an act of empowerment[that] not only empow- cause it is assumed that every writer of autobiog-
ers the speaker but also, when communicated raphy is engaged in a process of creating identity
through the text, provides alternative role models rather than either revealing or hiding it. The lines
for lesbians still speechless and powerless. between fiction and truth are blurred when both
However, this new emphasis on speaking out as a are seen as performances. Linda Dunne
way to build the lesbian community had an inhibit-
ing effect as well as a liberating one. For the lesbian Bibliography
author to be empowered and to empower others, she Benstock, Shari, ed. The Private Self: Theory and
had to appear to be powerful and confident about Practice of Womens Autobiographical Writ-
her lesbian identity. In the context of the 1970s and ings. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
1980s, a lesbian writer had to be seen as woman iden- Press, 1988.
tified and unflaggingly positive about her sexuality if Brokzki, Bella, and Celeste Schenck, eds. Life/Lines:
she were to be accepted as authentic. She could not Theorizing Womens Autobiography. Ithaca,
be victimized by internalized homophobia that mani- N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988.
fested itself in feelings of shame and self-hatred, nor Gilmore, Leigh. Autobiographies: A Feminist
could she admit to feeling identification with men or Theory of Womens Self-Representation. Ithaca,
masculinity. The new autobiographical pact between N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994.
the lesbian author and the lesbian reader seemed to Rich, Adrienne. It Is the Lesbian in Us. In
require something other than complete honesty, at On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose,
least when the actual experience of the author did 19661978. New York: Norton, 1979, pp.
not conform to the need for a positive lesbian image. 199202.
A writer such as Kate Millett (1934), for example, Stanton, Domna C., ed. The Female Autograph.
whose autobiographical works Flying (1974) and Sita Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
(1977) were painful in their description of the au- Zimmerman, Bonnie. The Politics of Translitera-
thors mental illness and unhappy love affairs, was tion: Lesbian Personal Narratives. In Signs:
met with harsh criticism from lesbian and feminist Journal of Women in Culture and Society 9:4
critics, not for having been written poorly or for be- (1984), 663682.
ing dishonest, but for being negative.
During the 1990s, the nature and function of See also Biography; Coming Out Stories; Rich,
lesbian autobiography changed again under the Adrienne; Stein, Gertrude; Toklas, Alice B.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 89
B
Balkan Sworn Virgin hood cross-gender identity played roles in some
Traditional European female-to-male transgender. cases. In addition, the gain in status may have been
The Balkan sworn virgin is a traditional status, a factor, as women held very low status in these
role, and identity by which genetic females be- groups. Lacking heirs, the sworn virgin could not
come social men, the only such socially recognized continue the family line by direct descent; how-
transgendered status in modern Europe. Clover ever, there are cases in which he assumed leader-
(1986) proposed that this may be a survival of a ship of an extended family through accretion of
more widespread pre-Christian European status. relatives or through the marriage and procreation
Reported in travel accounts since the early 1800s, of a later-born male sibling. In some cases, sworn
in mountain areas of South Serbia (including virgins acceded to a seat in the all-male village or
Montenegro), Macedonia, and Albania, sworn vir- lineage council, though this opportunity varied,
gins still existed, primarily in northern Albania, depending on local custom. In general, they seem
in the 1990s. Traditionally, the status was formally to be and to have been respected by male associ-
assumed at puberty (the time of marriage for ates and society at large.
women) by the ratification of lineage elders be- Although much of the descriptive literature ig-
fore whom the young woman swore never to
nores the sexuality of these men-women, most were
marry. Thereafter, he assumed masculine dress and
probably chaste. There are reports of occasional
social privileges, such as smoking and drinking,
heterosexual activity, but tradition prescribed burn-
could carry a gun, participated in mens labor and
ing or stoning to death as punishment for such rela-
intertribal feuding, and associated with men, in
tions. The first researcher to directly address sexu-
these sex-segregated societies. Referred to by a va-
ality, Grmaux, reports some sworn virgins express-
riety of local and regional terms (for example, Al-
ing sexual attraction to women without consum-
banian vergineshe, Serbo-Croatian harambasa
mating their desires, and two recent cases of liai-
[woman-man]), most of these transgendered fe-
sons with women, termed lesbian by neighbors.
males assumed a masculine cognomen and were
Many shared the misogynist views customary among
addressed and referred to with masculine-
gendered terms, though there was individual vari- men in these extremely male-dominant, patrilineal
ation. Similarly, some sworn virgins were buried societies. It appears possible that females living as
in masculine dress with male rites, but others were men in the 1990s were gradually being redefined as
denied such privileges. The status was almost al- lesbians as traditional tribal groups were absorbed
ways held for life. into modern industrial society and exposed to pan-
Common rationales for assumption of this sta- European norms. Mildred Dickemann
tus were to avoid an unwanted arranged marriage
or to assume the family patrimony in the absence Bibliography
of a male heir. However, it is clear from personal Bullough, Bonnie, Vern Bullough, and James Elias,
accounts (see especially Durham [1987] and eds. Gender Blending. Amherst, N.Y.:
Grmaux [1994]) that personal choice and child- Prometheus, 1997.

BALKAN SWORN VIRGIN 91

B

Sokol on horseback. Photo by Antonia Young.

Clover, Carol J. Maiden Warriors and Other otypes of perversion. This gained Bannon a devoted
Sons. Journal of English and Germanic Phi- lesbian audience, who relished her more positive
lology 85 (1986), 3549. portrayals of lesbian life.
Dickemann, Mildred. The Balkan Sworn Virgin: Bannon was married at the time she began to
A Traditional European Transperson. In Gen- write the novels; her experience at the University
der and Transgender Issues. Ed. Bonnie Bullough, of Illinois provided the fodder for her first novel,
Vern Bullough, and James Elias. Amherst, N.Y.: Odd Girl Out (1957). Set at a college, the book
Prometheus, 1997, pp. 248255. introduces sorority sisters Laura and Beth, two
Durham, Mary Edith. High Albania. Boston: Bea- central characters of Bannons six-novel series.
con, 1987. While their relationship does not last, the series
Grmaux, Ren. Woman Becomes Man in the Bal- follows Laura to Greenwich Village in New York
kans. In Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual City in I Am a Woman (1959). There, with the
Dimorphism in Culture and History. Ed. Gilbert help of Jack Mann, a gay male friend, Laura learns
Herdt. New York: Zone, 1994, pp. 241281. to negotiate the gay world and falls in love with
Beebo Brinker. In Women in the Shadows (1959),
See also Amazons; Transgender Laura ends her burdensome relationship with
Beebo and makes a successful go of a compan-
ionate, nonsexual relationship with Jack and be-
Bannon, Ann (1937) comes pregnant with his child through artificial
American novelist. Ann Bannon (a pseudonym) insemination. In The Marriage (1960), Laura and
wrote the Beebo Brinker series, now considered a Jack reappear as minor characters in a basically
classic collection of lesbian pulp paperbacks. What heterosexual story. Journey to a Woman (1960)
distinguishes Bannons work from the literally brings the storyline back to Beth, who has left
thousands of pulps published in the 1950s and early her husband to search for her long-lost love,
1960s is her insistence on empathetic lesbian char- Laura. Laura and Beth become friends, and Beth
acters who rebel against social prejudice and stere- falls in love with Beebo. The final novel of the

92 BALKAN SWORN VIRGIN

series, Beebo Brinker (1962), chronologically pre- Paris, where she met Thelma Wood (19011970), a
dates the other fives narratives and tells the story silverpoint artist from St. Louis, Missouri, who, by
of its eponymous hero and how she came to all accounts, was to become the most intense love
Greenwich Village. All (with the exception of The interest of Barness life. After the pair settled together
Marriage, which is tangentially lesbian themed) in Paris, Barnes brought out two novels, Ryder
were reissued by Naiad Press in the early 1980s. (1928), a novelistic account of her unconventional
Bannons novels continue to captivate lesbian childhood, and Ladies Almanack (1928), a humor-
readers with characters who feel familiar and navi- ous depiction of the circle of lesbians surrounding
gate through a prejudiced world with grit and de- the wealthy expatriate Natalie Barney (18761972).
termination. Linnea A.Stenson Ryder appeared briefly on best-seller lists; Ladies
Almanack, written as a lark, was privately printed.
Bibliography Both novels appeared during the height of the artis-
Tilchen, Maida. Ann Bannon: The Mystery tic movement known as literary modernism. Virginia
Solved! Gay Community News (January 8, Woolfs (18821941) playful tale of gender trans-
1983), 812. formation, Orlando, was published in the same year,
Walters, Suzanna Danuta. As Her Hand Crept as was Radclyffe Halls (18801943) lesbian clas-
Slowly up Her Thigh: Ann Bannon and the Poli- sic, The Well of Loneliness. In fact, a character
tics of Pulp. Social Text: Theory/Culture/Ide- modeled on Hall appears in Ladies Almanack.
ology 23 (Fall/Winter 1989), 83101. After eight tempestuous years marked by infi-
Weinstein, Jeff. In Praise of Pulp: Bannons Lusty delity and alcohol abuse, Barnes and Wood sepa-
Lesbians. Voice Literary Supplement (October rated in 1929. Some of their difficulties are depicted
1983), 89. seven years later in Barness most celebrated novel,
Nightwood (1936), which also expresses the spirit
See also Naiad Press; Pulp Paperbacks of alienation and loss often characteristic of literary
modernism. Presenting a cross-section of the disen-
franchised wandering through its pages seeking vari-
Barnes, Djuna Chappell (18921982) ous illusory goals, the novel became an underground
U.S. writer. Born in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New classic for several decades after publication. T.S.
York, Djuna Barnes was the second of five children Eliots (18881965) introduction to the US edition
in the household of a British mother and a bohe- highlights Nightwoods poetic qualities.
mian U.S. father. When Djuna was five, her fathers In 1940, Barnes returned from Europe to spend
mistress moved in with her family and began also to the last half of her life in a Greenwich Village stu-
have children with Barness father. Both families lived dio apartment in increasing ill health and
together with Barness paternal grandmother, Zadel reclusiveness. The year 1958 marked the publica-
Barnes, for fifteen years until Barness parents di- tion of Barness last major work, The Antiphon, a
vorced in 1912. Evidence points to a violent sexual verse drama depicting autobiographical and famil-
experience when Barnes was sixteen with a friend ial themes. Barness three novels and many short
of her father, with the older brother of Barness fa- stories, drawings, poems, plays, and journalistic
thers mistress, or with Barness father himself. Cor- pieces have been reissued to increased critical rec-
respondence may indicate an incestuous relation- ognition in the late twentieth century. She died in
ship between the writer and her grandmother as well. her New York City apartment at the age of ninety.
After a brief marriage and a short enrollment at Anne Charles
the Pratt Institute, Barnes moved to Greenwich
Village in 1915 and began a career in freelance jour- Bibliography
nalism. She also began acting in and writing plays Broe, Mary Lynn, ed. Silence and Power: A
for the newly established Provincetown Playhouse. Reevaluation of Djuna Barnes. Carbondale:
Though involved with men and women during this Southern Illinois University Press, 1991.
period, Barnes brought out The Book of Repul- Field, Andrew. Djuna: The Formidable Miss
sive Women (1915), eight poems and five draw- Barnes. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983.
ings featuring lesbian themes and including the Herring, Phillip. Djuna: The Life and Work of
writers illustrations. Djuna Barnes. New York: Viking, 1995.
Barness journalistic work sent her, in 1921, to Levine, Nancy J., and Marian Urquilla, eds. Djuna

BARNES, DJUNA CHAPPELL 93

 Barnes Centennial Issue. Review of Contem- Mardruss LAnge et les pervers (The Angel and
B porary Fiction 13:3 (Fall 1993) (Special Issue).
ONeal, Hank. Life Is Painful, Nasty & ShortIn
the Perverts, [1930]). Although each portrait shows
a rather different side of Barneys multifaceted per-
My Case It Has Only Been Painful and Nasty: sonality, these characters share an indomitable
Djuna Barnes, 19781981, An Informal spirit, an imperious way with words, and a pro-
Memoir. New York: Paragon House, 1990. found commitment to lesbianism.
Barneys participation in the artistic milieu of
See also American Literature, Twentieth Century; Paris was active as well as contemplative. At the age
Barney, Natalie; Greenwich Village; Hall, Radclyffe; of twenty-four, she published her first collection of
Modernism; Woolf, Virginia poetry, Quelques portraits sonnets de femmes (Some
Sonnet Portraits of Women [1900]), followed by two
collections of plays. Although this early work is un-
Barney, Natalie (18761972) remarkable, her memoirs and literary portraits,
American writer, salon hostess, and renowned lover. which include Aventures de lesprit (Adventures of
Born in Dayton, Ohio, Barney moved to Paris at the Mind [1929]) and Souvenirs indiscrets (Indis-
the age of twenty-four, making it her principal resi- creet Memories [1960]), are lively, sometimes gos-
dence until her death. As heiress to a railroad for- sipy, insightful accounts of the people she knew and
tune valued at more than a billion dollars and the a commentary on many of the social questions of
daughter of liberal parents, Barney was free to fol- the day. She argues with characteristic humor and
low her passion for women in prose, in verse, and elegance that homosexuality is a godsend in a cen-
in bed. tury facing overpopulation. Her defense of breasts
Barney is perhaps best known for her theatrical is unsurpassed in its originality and passion:
love affairs with the famous women of her day, Breasts: passions accelerator, electric lead, guide
including Liane de Pougy (18691953), the Paris- to femininity wherein the first signs of arousal
ian courtesan; Rene Vivien (18771909), the Eng- dwell. It is, however, in her epigrams in
lish poet; Lucie Delarue-Mardrus (18741945), the Eparpillements (Scatterings [1910]), Penses dune
French novelist; and Romaine Brooks (1874 amazone (Thoughts of an Amazon [1920]), and
1970), the American painter. Her methods of court- Nouvelles penses de lamazone (Further Thoughts
ship were imaginative, to say the least. On one oc- of the Amazon [1939]) that she shows a real and
casion, she had herself delivered to her lovers bed- original talent for summing up a social situation or
room stark naked and surrounded by white lilies acquaintance in a brief, pithy turn of phrase.
lying in a glass coffin made by Lalique. At another Because of her outspoken commitment to les-
time, she hired a famous opera soprano to sing bianism and her passionate affairs, Barney has be-
under the balcony of a lover who had recently left come something of a heroine to many lesbians in
her for someone less dramatic and more faithful. Europe and North America since the 1970s. A less
Barney was also renowned as a society hostess and well-known aspect of Barneys life is her intellec-
held a weekly salon in her home at 20 rue Jacob tual flirtation with fascism and antisemitism dur-
that continued for more than fifty years. This sa- ing World War II, which she spent with Romaine
lon was attended by major literary and artistic fig- Brooks in Italy, in a villa just outside Florence.
ures, including Colette (18731954), Andr Gide Before the war, Barney had entertained many Jew-
(18691951), Gertrude Stein (18741946), Djuna ish friends and boasted of her own Jewish ancestry
Barnes (18921982), Oscar Wilde (18541900), (her maternal grandfather was Jewish). After Benito
Auguste Rodin (18401917), Paul Valry (1871 Mussolinis (18831945) rise to power, however,
1945), and Mata Hari (18761917). Barney became a sympathizer of the Italian Fascist
Philosophically committed to nonmonogamy Party. She and Brooks were close friends of the poet
and the pursuit of pleasure, Barney inspired a large Ezra Pound (18851972)he who gave Musso-
number of literary portraits, such as that of Flossie lini the name of II Duce, the leader. Barney
in de Pougys Idylle Sapphique (Sapphic Idyll bought Pound his first radio, from which he was
[1901]); Miss Flossie in Colettes Claudine sen va to make pro-fascist broadcasts during the war. Since
(Claudine and Annie [1903]); Valerie Seymour in Barneys house in the rue Jacob was searched by the
Radclyffe Halls (18801943) The Well of Loneli- Gestapo who asked for her by name, it is possible
ness (1928); and Laurette Wells in Delarue-

94 BARNES, DJUNA CHAPPELL

that Barney was acting preemptively to stop any areas. Although small, this bar culture flourished
questions being asked about herself. after World War I and solidified during Prohibi-
Barney returned to Paris after the war and, since tion (19201933). It grew despite public attacks
her personal fortune had not been adversely af- against women pacifists as lesbians and Bol-
fected by events in Europe, was able to continue sheviks, and despite the fact that the heterosexual
her affairs much as before. She made her last amo- revolution (symbolized by the flapper and sexual
rous conquest on a park bench in Nice at the age fulfillment within marriage) defined feminists,
of eighty-two. Anna Livia female friends, spinsters, and lesbians as
sick and pathetic.
Bibliography Nevertheless, as womens sexual desire was ac-
Barney, Natalie. A Perilous Advantage. Trans. Anna knowledged, lesbians could exist more freely in
Livia. Norwich, Vt.: New Victoria, 1992. speakeasies (illegal drinking places) along with
Jay, Karla. The Amazon and the Page. Bloomington heterosexuals, who were also breaking the law and
and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, moral convention. In Greenwich Village, at Eves
1988. Hangout, a sign up front said: Men admitted but
not welcome. Opened in 1925 by Eva Kotchever,
Wickes, George. The Amazon of Letters: The Life
a lesbian Jewish immigrant, it was raided by police
and Loves of Natalie Barney. New York:
in 1926. In Harlem, the butch-femme lesbian cou-
Putnams, 1976.
ple was highly visible. Black lesbians and gay men
met in cabarets and clubs, like the Hot Cha, which
See also Barnes, Djuna Chappell; Brooks, Romaine;
also attracted white lesbians and gay men and
Colette; France; French Literature; Hall, Radclyffe;
heterosexuals. Lesbians also patronized buffet/
Paris; Stein, Gertrude; Vivien, Rene
party flats (apartment speakeasies), which, al-
though safer, were also raided.
The Depression of the 1930s had an economic
Bars impact on lesbians, but bar culture was likely af-
One of the first and, worldwide, the most prevalent fected more by the antihomosexual backlash
and often only public gathering places for lesbi- brought on by the end of Prohibition in 1933. Bars
ans. In most areas, bars are also the only places, where lesbians and gay men openly gathered were
outside of private homes, where lesbians can be who denied licenses, raided, and closed. For several years
they are socially and sexually. Most lesbians, espe- in the 1930s, there were no gay bars in Buffalo,
cially working-class lesbians, come out in bars. New York; the Roselle and Twelve-Thirty, clubs in
Evidence of lesbians using bars raided by police Chicago, were closed because women dressed in
dates to the early 1800s in France. In the United male clothing. Bars had a short life, and owners
States, accounts appear in 1890, when antivice re- monitored patrons behaviors, relegating socializ-
formers saw mannish women in degenerate ing and dancing to the back rooms. As police
working-class fairy resorts on the Bowery, a center payoffs and crime-syndicate protection, holdovers
of New York Citys vice district. Since women from Prohibition, became features of lesbian bar
were considered asexual, lesbians were publicly life in the late 1930s, bars began opening again
scorned as inverts and sexual pervertswomen throughout the United States.
who were masculine and had male sexual desire. The military and war-related work of World War
But women couples, only one in male evening at- II brought isolated lesbians to cities with bar com-
tire, danced together at fairy balls held in rented munities. Outside the military, there was greater free-
halls attached to saloons. Antivice campaigns, fo- dom for working-class lesbians. Many women were
cused first on prostitution and later on homosexu- on the streets, even at night because of shift-work,
ality, closed most of these venues by 1920. and were wearing pants for wartime work. More
In 1920, poor and working-class never mar- lesbian-only bars opened. In Los Angeles, Califor-
ried women accounted for 20 percent of the ur- nia, lesbians went to the IF Club; in Harlem, lesbi-
ban paid-labor force. They lived in furnished-room ans went to Archers, a womens buffet flat. In Buf-
districts, on the South and Near North Sides of falo, lesbians created bars (most short lived) by go-
Chicago, Illinois; in Greenwich Village and Harlem ing in groups to heterosexual bars with few cus-
in New York City; and in other cities. Between 1900 tomers. Bar hopping became a weekend activity, and
and 1920, a lesbian bar culture emerged in these friendship groups formed. Buffalo lesbians even

BARS 95
 picketed a bar when a patron was treated negatively violent attacks against bars and their culture re-
B by the owner. From the end of the war through the
1960s, the number of lesbian bars grew in different
mained. For example, Mor or Les, a bar in St.
Louis, Missouri, was firebombed in 1979 during
parts of the United States. The Lighthouse opened the nationwide Save Our Children antigay cam-
in Lynn, Massachusetts; the BRA House, in paign. In the early 1980s, bars became the site of
Kalamazoo, Michigan. A cohesive bar life and cul- the pro-sex lesbian movement, and some activist
ture developed, predominantly working class and lesbians began to identify as butch-femme. In the
young, and became a nightly phenomenon. At its 1980s, in larger cities, bar cultures diversified.
center was butch-femme, a way of living and lov- However, as Greenwich Village attracted more af-
ing, as well as dressing. A much smaller and dis- fluent residents, two bars used by working-class
creet affluent lesbian bar culture developed as well. lesbians and lesbians of color had their licenses
In 1948, the Kinsey Report made sexuality, in- revoked for excluding men, although gay male bars
cluding lesbianism, a daily news topic and helped exclude women with impunity. Smaller cities often
unleash a government-sanctioned reign of terror. have only mixed-sex bars, although bars have been
With the push for family normalcy and the anti- largely racially segregated everywhere. There have
Communist McCarthy hearings in Congress, lesbi- always been more gay male than lesbian bars, re-
ans and gay men were vilified as perils to national flecting gender inequities in owning businesses,
security because of their supposed emotional insta- income, and safety at night on public streets.
bility. Police all over the country declared war on From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, as an
bars. In 1958, in New Orleans, Louisiana, one bar outgrowth of AIDS and lesbian and gay political
was raided seventy-eight times. Everywhere, large organizing, mixed-sex activist groups socialized
numbers of lesbians were arrested, charged with together in male venues. In the Castro and Mis-
impersonating a man if they did not have on three sion districts of San Francisco, California, older
pieces of womens clothing, for lewd and lascivi- and exclusively lesbian bars closed. In the mixed-
ous acts if holding hands or dancing, or for no sex, young, cosmopolitan queer culture, lesbi-
visible means of support if unemployed. Lesbians ans frequent mixed lesbian, gay male, and hetero-
names were published in newspapers; many lost jobs; sexual dance bars. Womens nights may be held
families threw them out or sent them, involuntarily, at gay male or heterosexual bars.
to psychiatric hospitals. Bar owners humiliated Around the United States in the late 1990s, most
women by, for example, allowing only one woman bars still catered largely to working-class lesbians and
at a time into the bathroom. Bar raids were unpre- were still located on the edges of towns or in indus-
dictable, orchestrated in collusion with owners for trial or commercial areas unpeopled at night, shared
political gain or intimidation. The stress of a hostile with heterosexual sex clubs and other adult enter-
society, the constant pressure to buy drinks, the men tainment. In the context of right-wing attacks on les-
who entered bars just to provoke fights, pushed bians and gay men, it is possible that there will again
many lesbians to suicide, alcoholism, or out of pub- be strong moves to push bar culture out of sight even
lic life. Yet others publicly identified as gay and in large cities, as sex-zoning legislation attempts to
fought back physically in the bars and when taunted do. However, lesbian bar culture has proven to be
on the streets. Finally, in 1969, in the context of the incredibly resilient. That more lesbians go to bars than
civil rights and Black Power movements, a reporter to any other lesbian venue emphasizes the major role
credited a bar dyke with resisting arrest during a they continue to play in lesbian life. In a homopho-
raid on the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, thus bic world, their continued existence speaks to the
sparking the rebellion considered the beginning of needs and desires for lesbians to have places that vali-
the modern lesbian and gay movement. date the reality of lesbians social and sexual exist-
During the 1970s, lesbian activists promoted ence. Maxine Wolfe
other venues as an alternative to the bars. The
androgyny of lesbian feminism excluded and al- Bibliography
ienated many butch-femme lesbians, just as the Bulkin, Ellie. An Old Dykes Tale: An Interview
butch-femme bar culture of the 1950s and 1960s with Doris Lunden. Conditions: Six, 2:3 (Sum-
alienated many lesbians who, nevertheless, found mer 1980), 264.
in it their only community. Lesbian bar raids would Chauncey, George. Gay New York: Gender, Urban
disappear in the United States (although not in Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World,
other countries) during the next twenty years, but 18901940. New York: Basic Books, 1944.

96 BARS
Garber, Eric. A Spectacle in Color: The Lesbian returned to Wellesley and received her M.A. for
and Gay Subculture of Jazz Age Harlem. In her work in English literature. She became profes-
Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and sor and permanent head of the Wellesley English
Lesbian Past. Ed. Martin Duberman, Martha literature department in 1891. Under her guidance,
Vicinus, and George Chauncey, Jr. New York: the department developed into a well-balanced pro-
New American Library, 1989. gram with highly respected and distinguished in-
Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, and Madeline D. structors.
Davis. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The Bates enjoyed a nearly twenty-five-year relation-
History of a Lesbian Community. New York: ship, beginning in 1890, with fellow Wellesley pro-
Routledge, 1993. fessor and administrator Katharine Coman (1857
Wolfe, Maxine. Invisible Women in Invisible 1915). In the nineteenth century, romantic friend-
Places: The Production of Social Space in Les- ships, or Boston marriages as they were termed,
bian Bars. In Queers in Space: Communities/ were respected social institutions, and it was widely
Public Places/Sites of Resistance. Ed. Gordon accepted for women to have close, passionate, and
Brent Ingram, Anne-Marie Bouthillette, and romantic relationships. The two women most likely
Yolanda Retter. Seattle, Wash.: Bay Press, 1997, would not have termed themselves lesbian, since
pp. 301324. that term didnt come into use until the twentieth
century. Nonetheless, they were a devoted couple
See also Butch-Femme; Buffalo, New York; Chi- and held each other as the emotional, spiritual, and
cago, Illinois; Greenwich Village; Harlem; Law and passionate centers of their inner lives.
Legal Institutions; Recreation; San Francisco, Cali- Coman appears frequently throughout Batess
fornia poetry and other writings. Batess final volume of
poetry, Yellow Clover (1922), was written in honor
of her longtime companion, friend, and lover. Its
Bates, Katharine Lee (18591929) pages are filled with romantic and passionate devo-
American author, poet, and educator. She earned tion celebrating their lives together. Paris Await
national acclaim in 1895 as the author of the pa-
triotic and idealistic poem America the Beauti- Bibliography
ful. It was later set to music and, in the twentieth Burgess, Dorothy. Dream and Deed. Norman:
century, has become the unofficial national anthem. University of Oklahoma Press, 1952.
Bates was a prolific author, publishing prose, po- Schwarz, Judith. Yellow Clover. Katharine Lee
etry, travel books, childrens stories, and scholarly Bates and Katharine Coman. Frontiers: A Jour-
texts, many of which earned awards. For more than nal of Women Studies, 4:1 (1979), 5967.
thirty years she was chair of the English literature
department of Wellesley College. See also Boston Marriage; Colleges, Womens;
Bates was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts, the Romantic Friendship
fifth and last child of the Reverend William and
Cornelia Frances (Lee) Bates. Her father died three
weeks after her birth, leaving the family in eco- Beach, Sylvia (18871962)
nomic need. American expatriate bookshop owner and pub-
Bates received the best education available to lisher. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Nancy
middle-class women in the late nineteenth century, Woodbridge Beach (or Sylvia, a name she adopted
attending both the Wellesley and the more ad- in her teens) was the daughter of an orthodox
vanced Newton High Schools. She received her B.A. Presbyterian minister and his free-spirited wife,
from Wellesley College in 1880, having studied Eleanor, who taught her three daughters to love
English and Greek. In 1878, while Bates was still a Europe, to seek pleasure and individual freedom,
sophomore in college, renowned American poet to admire bold and creative artists, and to shun
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (18071882) sin- sexual contact with men. Sylvia was a frail and
gled out her published poem Sleep for praise. unhealthy child, who often stayed home from
In 1885, she joined the English literature de- school and church. Alone, she sought the com-
partment at Wellesley College as an instructor. Af- pany of books, an escape that yielded an educa-
ter studying at Oxford University in England, she tion and a vocation.

B E A C H , S Y LV I A 97
 As a young woman, Beach lived in France, Italy,
B and Spain for periods, working as a translator, a
farmhand, and a freelance writer and serving as a
Beauvoir, Simone de (19081986)
French existential philosopher, socialist, and writer.
Beauvoir was most noted for her book The Second
secretary with the American Red Cross in war-rav- Sex, which was published in France in 1949 and
aged Serbia before settling in Paris in 1919. There translated into English in 1952.
she discovered the three loves of her life: Adrienne Born January 9,1908, Beauvoir had the oppor-
Monnier (18921956), James Joyce (1882 tunity to attend elite educational institutions, includ-
1941), and the bookshop Shakespeare and Com- ing the Sorbonne in Paris, from which she received
pany. Monnier, a young writer and publisher, en- her Ph.D. in philosophy in 1929. She was the daugh-
couraged Beachs dream of starting her own mod- ter of Georges Bertrand de Beauvoir, a dictatorial
est bookstore, and, in November 1919, Shake- and overbearing father, and Francoise Brasseur de
speare and Company opened its doors on the Left Beauvoir, a cold and detached mother. Observing
Bank. For Monnier and Beach, it was the opening her parents marriage, Beauvoir noted the juxtapo-
chapter of a literary life together that, for thirty- sition between men and culture, and women and
eight years, would nurture two generations of nature, and developed her description of women as
American, French, and English writers. the Other. She became aware at an early age that
From 1919 to 1941, when the Nazis forced its men had more control over their destinies than
closing and sent Beach into hiding, Shakespeare women did. She, therefore, decided to place prime
and Company was a meeting place, a clubhouse, a importance on acquiring male qualities, such as in-
post office, a money exchange, and a reading room tellectual order, logic, and rationality. Because of this,
for the famous and the soon-to-be famous of the some feminist theorists have criticized her work and
avantgarde: Joyce, Ernest Hemingway (1899 style of feminism as being shaped by patriarchal
1961), Ezra Pound (18851972), Paul Valry values and habits and, in particular, by her lifelong
(18711945), Andr Gide (18691951), T.S.Eliot relationship with the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre
(18881965), John Dos Passos (18961970), and (19051980), the leader of the existential movement
Thornton Wilder (18971975) among them. in post-World War II France. Beauvoir herself
A love of books, a tough, enthusiastic spirit, claimed that her work always reflected her own vi-
and an interest in people were Beachs assets, and, sion, one she had long before she met Sartre.
in 1922 she devoted her considerable energies to Her relationship with Sartre was conflicted.
the publication, sale, and distribution of Joyces While it involved mutual trust and respect, she disa-
Ulyssesconsidered obscene by somesoliciting vowed feelings of jealousy against the other women
subscriptions, writing letters, hiring typists, correct- with whom he had been actively involved. A
ing endless proofs, and underwriting the financial number of her own relationships, mentioned in her
needs of the authors family. journals and letters dating back to 1938, have led
Beach, however, emerged from World War II a to questions concerning Beauvoirs ambiguous gen-
changed woman. The frugality and hardship of Shake- der identity and her connection with lesbianism.
speare and Companys start-up years, combined with Most notable is the love of her youth, Elizabeth Le
the wars privations, including a sixth-month intern- Coin, and her long-term adult relationship with
ment by the Gestapo, had taken their toll. She was Sylvie le Bon, whom she later adopted to carry her
never to reopen her beloved bookshop. During her name and to legally have authority over her care.
remaining years, Beach devoted her time to charity In addition, Bianca Lamblin stated in her Mmoires
work, personal writing, and translating, and, in 1959, dune jeune fille drange (Memoirs of a Crazed
published her autobiography, Shakespeare and Com- Young Girl [1993]) that Beauvoir hid affairs with
pany. In 1962, at age seventy-five, she suffered a fatal women. Beauvoir was also a strong supporter of
heart attack. Zsa Zsa Gershick the lesbian writer Violette Leduc (19071972),
who, in turn, idolized her. Beauvoir herself refused
Bibliography a lesbian identity and in no way wanted to be in-
Fitch, Noel Riley. Sylvia Beach and the Lost Gen- volved in the practices of identity politics. Never-
eration: A History of Literary Paris in the Twen- theless, she included the lesbian in her monu-
ties and Thirties. New York: Norton, 1983. mental study, The Second Sex (1949).
According to Beauvoir, female homosexuals are
See also Paris not undeveloped women, and lesbianism, or, as

98 B E A C H , S Y LV I A
she coins it, invert sexuality, is not determined also wrote the first real novel in English, Love Let-
by any anatomical fate; rather, it is a decision ters Between a Nobleman and His Sister (1682
arrived at in a total, complex situation, an attitude 1685). Considered a scandal in her life and her writ-
that is authentically motivated and freely chosen. ings, Behn was known for her close friendship with
A lesbian is an autonomous subject, not an object, the kings mistress, Nell Gwyn (16501687), and for
and to classify her virility as an imitation of the her long-standing liaison with John Hoyle (d. 1692),
male is to mark her as inauthentic. Between women, himself notorious for his gay affairs. Most of her
there is no notion of possession, but a re-creation poetry, originally published in two collections, deals
of the self through each other, and, through reci- with her own lesbian relationships, as well as hetero-
procity, each becomes at once subject and object. sexual romances and such taboo subjects as rape,
Beauvoirs work continues to be widely studied impotence, and male homosexuality.
and debated in an attempt to refine feminist theory Relationships among women are sometimes pre-
and politics. She died of pulmonary edema on April sented in Behns verse in terms of the standard con-
14, 1986, with Sylvie le Bon by her side, and was ventions of heterosexual courtship. Behns explic-
buried next to Sartre. Darlene M.Suarez itly lesbian love poem, To the fair Clarinda, who
made Love to me, imagind more than Woman,
Bibliography portrays a sexual attraction based on androgynous
Ascher, Carol. Simone de Beauvoir: A Life of Free- desire in which the speaker is the wooer. To obscure
dom. Boston: Beacon, 1981. her passion, the female speaker presents herself as
Bair, Deirdre. Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography. loving the masculine part of Clarinda and offer-
New York: Summit Books, 1990. ing friendship to the feminine half. She maintains,
Moi, Toril. Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an therefore, that their love is innocent and should not
Intellectual Woman. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994. be resisted. Further, she asserts, since women do not
Simons, Margaret A. Lesbian Connections: have the physical feature necessary to complete what
Simone de Beauvoir and Feminism. Signs: Jour- society defines as the sex act, they are not to be con-
nal of Women in Culture and Society 18:1 (Au- demned for their love since, by definition, it must
tumn 1992), 136161. be pure. Clarinda, to whom the poem is addressed,
is presented as a hermaphrodite, a beauteous Won-
See also France; Leduc, Violette der of a different kind, /Soft Cloris with the dear
Alexis joind. But she is also an initiator of their
lovemaking, as the title states. So the poems eroti-
Behn, Aphra (1640?1689) cism is the reciprocal attraction of two women with
Seventeenth-century English poet, novelist, and clear gender-transgressing qualities.
playwright. Probably born in Wye, in 1640; her Behn also writes in her own voice about her physi-
exact parentage is unknown. At a young age, she cal attraction to another woman in Verses designd
went to the West Indies, where she had the experi- by Mrs. A.Behn to be sent to a fair Lady, that desird
ences on which her best-known novel, Oronooko; she would absent herself to cure her Love. Left Un-
or, The Royal Slave (1688), is based. She returned finished. The content and the title of the poem in-
to England in 1664 and established a liaison with dicate that the love is erotic and unrequited: The
a Dutch merchant, whose name she took. He died more I strugld to my Grief I found/My self in Cu-
a year later, leaving her without money, and she pids chains more surely bound.
became a spy abroad for King Charles II (1630 As a champion of women openly allied against
1685). Forced to borrow money for her passage men in the war between the sexes, Behn writes
home and unable to repay the loan, she was thrown autobiographically to Carola, Lady Morland at
into debtors prison. Determined to be self-support- Tunbridge, warning her about an unfaithful lover
ing, upon her release she became one of the peri- and advising her friend that only a sexually inex-
ods foremost writers, with more than twenty pub- perienced and, therefore, uncompromised man
lished plays produced on the London stage. would be an appropriate partner for her.
Frequently cited as the first woman in England to Women coming together after betrayal by faith-
earn her living by writing, and known as the Eng- less male lovers is the theme of Behns entertain-
lish Sappho for her poems, Behn was a major drama- ment Selinda and Cloris. The two praise each
tist when there was no other woman playwright. She other in terms of both physical and intellectual

BEHN, APHRA 99
 attraction, friendship, and sexuality. Their joy to- had no groups with members and activities, mak-
B gether is presented as a wedding celebration that
emphasizes the eroticism of their relationship.
ing a small country even smaller.
The lesbian movement consists of groups in dif-
Behns poems depict a variety of sexual pair- ferent cities that organize social activities and set up
ings, some of which are shown to be physically structures to welcome new members, such as women
satisfying. But, in her work, spiritual friendship who are taking their first steps in the lesbian world.
is reserved for same-sex couples, among which the Although these groups are political through their
lesbian relationships are presented as the most com- existence and the work they do, they emphasize so-
plete and rewarding. Arlene M.Stiebel cial issues, and only some of the most active mem-
bers have explicitly political goals. In addition, the
Bibliography Artemys Bookshop in Brussels stresses its lesbian
Duffy, Maureen. The Passionate Shepherdess. Lon- character, and the group Lesbies Doe-Front (Les-
don: Cape, 1977. bian Action Group) organizes a national lesbian day.
Goreau, Angeline. Reconstructing Aphra. New In 1997, the Lesbian Table, a monthly gathering of
York: Dial, 1980. all lesbian groups in Belgium, was formed. In addi-
Sackville-West, Vita. Aphra Behn: The Incompara- tion to their political goals, the members want to
ble Astrea. New York: Viking, 1928. make communication between the groups better.
Stiebel, Arlene. Aphra Behn. In Dictionary of In the 1980s, many lesbians had connections
Literary Biography, vol. 131, 3rd series. Detroit, with the feminist movement, but this declined in
Washington, D.C., and London: Bruccoli Clark the 1990s because of the heterosexism of the Bel-
Layman, 1993, pp. 716. gian feminist movement. There is also a difficult
. Aphra Behn. In Gay and Lesbian Literary relationship with the gay male movement, although
Heritage. Ed. Claude J.Summers. New York: many lesbian groups are members of the mixed
Henry Holt, 1995, pp. 5356. Federatie Werkgroepen Homoseksualiteit (Federa-
. Not Since Sappho. In Homosexuality in tion of Workgroups on Homosexuality [FWH]),
Renaissance and Enlightenment England. Ed. an umbrella organization founded in the 1970s that
Claude J.Summers. Binghamton, N.Y.: lobbies politicians and the press.
Haworth, 1992, pp. 153171. Lesbians and gays are not prosecuted by law, al-
though in 1996 a woman lost custody of her chil-
See also Poetry dren in a divorce case because of her lesbianism. The
law is particularly discriminatory in the areas of part-
nership and/or marriage legislation and lesbian and
Belgium gay parenthood. Many lesbians argue that it is better
Small country between France, Germany, the Neth- to work together with gay men on these matters, de-
erlands, and the North Sea that gained independ- spite the problems of working together with men who
ence in 1830. Throughout history, the territory was have a very different position in society. Some lesbian
a battlefield and an occupied land. There is a strong groups work independently and want to work only
Catholic influence. Belgian women have voted only for lesbians. They put their energy into building up a
since 1948 and are not well represented in politi- lesbian movement and community that is fully occu-
cal life. Many women are employed in Belgium, pied with lesbian politics and women-oriented goals.
but here, too, women are badly represented in the The 1990s saw a growing movement of young lesbi-
higher positions, and lesbians who have succeeded ans and gays who are very open and continue to reach
are mostly in the closet. In the 1990s, Belgium be- more, and ever younger, people.
came a federal state: Flemish speaking in the north, There is no organized program of lesbian stud-
French speaking in the south, and German speak- ies, and what does exist is sustained by volunteer
ing in the southeast, while its capital, Brussels, is work. Very little historical information has been
bilingual (Flemish and French). Tourists come to discovered, although the 1618 trial records in the
visit war graves, medieval towns, the sea, and the city of Bruges of two working-class women,
Ardennes and to enjoy Belgian cuisine and more Mayken and Leene, who loved each other and other
man one hundred kinds of good Belgian beer. women, suggest areas of potential research.
In the 1990s, the lesbian and gay movement was A few students have written masters theses on
situated in the north and in Brussels. The south specific aspects of lesbianism, while some women

100 BEHN, APHRA

are studying the groups that existed since the 1970s audience. Believing that cultures could change,
(Sappho in Ghent was the first, in 1974), and an Benedict argued in Patterns of Culture that a soci-
oral-history project has begun on older lesbians. etys narrow definitions penalize or give preference
The year 1996 saw the birth of a gay and lesbian to certain innate capacities, and, thus, those who
archives, the Suzan Daniel Fonds, named after the do not fit in do not suffer from abnormal traits
pseudonym of a woman who was the first-known but rather from societys lack of support for their
activist in the 1950s. In the 1990s, research began native responses. Benedicts emphasis on culture
in the fields of health, therapy, and law, although anticipated late-twentieth-century cultural studies.
these projects are neither organized nor funded. Mead married three times. She continued her study
Ann David of race, sex, and aggression. In 1935, she published
Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies,
Bibliography and, in the years 19261969, she moved through the
Debeuckelaere, Geert. Mayken en Leene, een curatorial ranks at the American Museum of Natu-
lesbische geschiedenis in Brugge uit 1618 ral History in New York City. For Benedict, her inti-
(Mayken and Leene: a Lesbian Couple in Bruges macy with Mead was a revelation, and she re-
in 1618). Homokrant (May 1983), 35. mained a woman-loving woman the rest of her
De Gendt, Lies. Lesbiennegroepen in Vlaanderen life, according to Caffrey (1989). Divorced, Benedict
tussen 1974 en 1994 (Lesbian Groups in Flan- lived happily with Natalie Raymond for nearly a dec-
ders Between 1974 and 1994). Masters thesis, ade and then, from the early 1940s, with the clinical
University of Leuven, 1995. psychologist Ruth Valentine.
Meyntjens, Mips, and Ann David, Project Oudere Recognized by professional journals as one of the
Lesbiennes, c/o Impuls, Leuvensesteenweg 47, countrys leading scientists, Benedict worked hard for
3200 Aarschot, Belgium. racial equality, speaking out and writing about race
and racism, particularly while engaged in the war ef-
See also Early Modern Europe fort. She believed that cultural understanding was the
key to peace. Her 1943 pamphlet The Races of Man-
kind sold nearly a million copies. In 1944, as an ana-
Benedict, Ruth (18871948) lyst in the Office of War Information, she began the
American poet, educator, anthropologist. Gradu- research that led to her influential work The Chry-
ated from Vassar College (1909) and dissatisfied santhemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese
as a housewife, in 1918 Benedict enrolled at Co- Culture (1946), an explanation of Japanese behavior
lumbia University to study anthropology under that helped shape national policy. In the late 1940s,
Franz Boas (18581942). She remained affiliated Benedict and Mead collaborated again, heading up
with Columbia until her death, chairing the De- the Columbia University Research in Contemporary
partment of Anthropology and becoming the first Cultures, a federally funded study of national char-
woman to hold the rank of full professor in the acter and foreignorigin groups in the United States.
Faculty of Political Science. In 1922, while assist- In 1947, Benedict served as the first woman presi-
ing Boaz, Benedict met Margaret Mead (1901 dent of the American Anthropological Association.
1978), then a student at Barnard College. Mead Benedict and Meads lifelong mutual depend-
became Benedicts first graduate student at Colum- ency changed the study of anthropology; their
bia. Meanwhile, Benedict was publishing poetry now classic writings reshaped societys general at-
under the pseudonym Anne Singleton. titudes toward culture. Benedict herself shattered
Benedict and Mead were briefly lovers in the mid- stereotypical images of the woman academic.
1920s, and their early professional field research led Judith C.Kohl
to intense discussions and theories about deviancy
in cultures; in their writings, they deliberately tried Bibliography
to change societys homophobic attitudes. Meads Benedict, Ruth. Patterns of Culture. New Preface
Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) includes their by Margaret Mead. Sentry Edition. Boston:
defense of unconventional behavior; Benedicts An- Houghton Mifflin, 1959.
thropology and the Abnormal (1934) and, espe- Caffrey, Margaret M. Ruth Benedict: Stranger in
cially, Patterns of Culture (1934) carried their al- This Land. Austin: University of Austin Press,
ternative standard theory to a wide international 1989.

B E N E D I C T, R U T H 101
 Mead, Margaret. An Anthropologist at Work: lesbian persona as part of her attraction. In daily
B Writings of Ruth Benedict. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1959.
life and performance, Bentley proudly displayed
her bulldagger image; her gender performance was
Modell, Judith Schactner. Ruth Benedict: Patterns well received by the gay and lesbian subculture of
of a Life. Philadelphia: University of Pennsyl- the Harlem Renaissance period. In later life, Bent-
vania Press, 1983. ley struggled with discrimination against her im-
age as a black lesbian blues artist. In her own right,
See also Anthropology Bentley was a gender warrior in the battles over
black female/lesbian sexuality.
Laura Alexandra Harris
Bentley, Gladys (19071960)
U.S. entertainer. Gladys Bentleys career bridges Bibliography
classic blues and lesbian history during the 1920s Bentley, Gladys. I Am a Woman Again. Ebony
Harlem Renaissance. Bentleys first success was as 7 (August 1952), 9298.
a singer and piano player in the underground sport- Carby, Hazel. It Jus Bes Dat Way Sometimes: The
ing life of Harlem parties. In this underground Sexual Politics of Womens Blues. In Unequal
milieu, she was acclaimed for her mannish appear- Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Wom-
ance and homosexual renditions of popular lyrics. ens History. 2nd ed. Ed. Vicki L.Ruiz and Ellen
In August 1928, Bentley embarked on a recording Carol DuBois. New York: Routledge, 1994, pp.
career with Okeh Recording Company. Accompa- 330341.
nying herself on the piano, she recorded blues songs Garber, Eric. Gladys Bentley: The Bulldagger
such as How Long, How Long Blues. More than Who Sang the Blues. Outlook 1 (Spring
a recording blues artist, Bentleys success as a per- 1988), 5261.
former was to be found in Harlem nightclubs, such . A Spectacle in Color: The Lesbian and Gay
as the Clam House and Cotton Club. Bentleys Subculture of Jazz Age Harlem. In Hidden
forthright and outrageous public lesbian persona from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian
was used for fictional portrayals by such writers Past. Ed. Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus,
as Carl Van Vechten (18801964) and Clement and George Chauncey, Jr. New York: Penguin,
Wood (19251994). Sybil, a Black lesbian singer 1989, pp. 318331.
in Blair Niles gay novel Strange Brother (1931),
was inspired by Bentley. In the final stages of her See also African Americans; Blues Singers;
career, she lived on the West Coast, performing Bulldagger; Harlem
often at Hollywoods Rose Room.
Headlining at the Clam House for several years
brought Bentley success as a special event in Harlem Berlin
nightlife. In his memoir, The Big Sea, Langston Largest city and current capital of the reunited
Hughes (19021967) describes Bentleys fascinat- Germany. Since the late nineteenth century, Berlin
ing performances: has been an Eldorado for lesbian women, and
not only German ones. The first testimonies to the
But for two or three amazing years, Miss Bent- existence of lesbians in this city, however, were
ley sat, and played a big piano all night long, written by men. In the Archiven fr Psychiatrie und
literally all night, without stopping. Miss Nervenkrankheiten (Archive for Psychiatry and
Bentley was an amazing exhibition of musical Mental Diseases) (1869), the well-known Berlin
energya large, dark, masculine lady, whose professor Carl Westphal (18391890) documented
feet pounded the floor while her fingers the story of a young woman, Miss N., who suf-
pounded the keyoarda perfect piece of Afri- fered since her eighth year from a rage to love
can sculpture, animated by her own rhythm. women and, besides kissing and joking, to engage
in masturbation with them. Westphal interpreted
Like Ma Rainey (18861939) and Bessie Smith this as an innate inversion of sexual orientation, a
(1894?1937), Bentley broke new ground for black symptom of a neuropathic (psychopathic) condi-
women as artists in the 1920s Jazz Age. Bentleys tion rather than a vice or an otherwise acquired
success was unique as a blues singer with a public characteristic. The liberation of lesbian love from

102 B E N E D I C T, R U T H
religious judgment began with this establishment organizations, such as the German Friendship As-
of psychiatric categories, a process that has con- sociation and the Alliance for Human Rights. The
tinued throughout the twentieth century. In the latter, with 48,000 members, had its seat in Berlin.
foundational manifesto of the lesbian and gay Novels were published, plays were performed, and
movement, Sappho und Sokrates (1896), the Ber- movies, such as Mdchen in Uniform [Girls in
lin doctor Magnus Hirschfeld (18681935) argued Uniform] (1933), based on a play by Christa
that homosexuality was a natural and innate Winsloe (18881944), were produced. The Insti-
behavior, a mistake by Mother Nature, so to speak, tute for Sexual Science, founded in 1919, offered
akin to a harelip. What causes sickness is the se- lectures and opportunities for counseling.
crecy, not the homosexuality itself. In 1933, the National Socialists (Nazis) seized
At the turn of the twentieth century, Berlin had power and immediately closed down all lesbian and
a pronounced and distinct lesbian subculture with gay bars. New guidelines and ordinances stifled the
numerous bars, cafs, parties, balls, events, and existing lesbian subculture. Homosexual and femi-
organizations. The association of Berlin female nist organizations were forbidden, and the Institute
artists organized a dance on the night of New Years for Sexual Science was looted in May 1933. Lesbians
Eve 1899, at which 2,500 women showed up as became invisible, either moving to other parts of town
where they were unknown, leaving Berlin entirely,
couples in mens and womens clothes and flirted.
or, in some cases, marrying for protection. The time
Also well known was a bowling club for lesbian
of masquerade did not end even after the defeat of
women, which undertook trips into the environs
the Nazi dictatorship in 1945. The Cold War divided
around Berlin. The press reported on police raids
Berlin, resulting in distinct, but secret, subcultures in
in bars and on divorces caused by intimate con-
the western and eastern parts of the city.
tacts in the clubs. In personal testimonies, reports
In 1971, following the eruption of the student
about the subculture, and writings about women-
movement, the first group of lesbian women to ad-
loving women before and after the turn of the cen-
vocate openly in (West) Germany for social emanci-
tury, sexually inverted women were not por-
pation came into being. These women founded in
trayed as unhappy, sick creatures but as women West Berlin the first German womens center, wom-
proclaiming the positive values of their lives. ens bookstore, and womens publishing house. The
Women also were able to practice a lesbian life- German womens movement was, thus, from its
style in the associations, living collectives, and com- beginning, strongly influenced by lesbians. With the
munication projects of the womens movement that unification of Germany in 1989, a unified Berlin
flourished at the turn of the century. In 1904, Anna continued to have a diverse range of groups, politi-
Ruling (n.d.) pointed to the merits of the homo- cal initiatives, networks, bars, counseling, and com-
sexual women active in the womens movement munication centers, as well as magazines from and
but complained, nonetheless, that the great and for lesbian women in both western and eastern sec-
influential organizations of this movement have not tions of the city. Ilse Kokula
moved a finger until today to create for the not
insignificant number of its uranian members their Bibliography
rightful standing in state and society. Hirschfeld, Magnus. Berlins Third Gender. Berlin
The collapse of the German Empire in 1918 and Leipzig: Oswald, Verlag von Hermann
brought with it a new freedom of press and assem- Nachfolger, 1905.
bly and an atmosphere of joyful, enthusiastic art Kokula, Ilse. Forms of Lesbian Subculture. Berlin:
and culture. Within this, the lesbian subculture Publishing House Rosa Winkel, 1983.
flourished in a manner unprecedented in history. . Weibliche Homosexualitat um 1900
Despite mass poverty, lesbian life pulsated in bars inzeitgenossischen Dokumenten (Female Ho-
and at dances. The favorable exchange rate for in- mosexuality Around 1900 in Contemporary
ternational currencies also motivated many female Documents). Munich: Publishing House Wom-
foreigners to live in Berlin for a while. Magazines ens Offensive, 1981.
for lesbian women frequently reported events and Ruling, Anna. What Interest Does the Womens
festivities in the approximately fifty bars and clubs. Movement Have in the Homosexual Ques-
The women organized or met in many ladies tion? In Lesbians in Germany: 1890s1920s.
clubs with up to four hundred members and, to- Ed. Lillian Fuderman and Brigitte Eriksson.
gether with homosexual men, in human rights Tallahassee, Fla: Naiad, 1980, pp. 8394.

BERLIN 103
 See also Germany; Nazism; Ruling, Anna; Winsloe, analyzing literature through the ages, particularly
B Christa in English, German, and French. She also includes
an extensive bibliography of primary, secondary,
and scientific/ psychiatric materials. Reissues of the
Bibliographies and Refrence Works work by Diana Press (1975) and Naiad Press
Texts that provide background information and (1985) provide some updated material and attest
lead researchers to more specific or in-depth mate- to the importance of this work.
rials on their topics. Book-length bibliographies, a Other early efforts were made by Marion
distinct class of reference work, list books, journal Zimmer Bradley, who compiled two unofficial
articles, dissertations, chapters, and other sources supplements to Foster entitled Astras Tower
on a subject, time period, or person, often with Special Leaflets in 1958, and Barbara Grier
descriptive or critical notes for each source. Other (pseud. Gene Damon), a book review editor for
kinds of reference works include encyclopedias, dic- The Ladder. Together they produced a
tionaries, directories, indexes, handbooks, alma- mimeographed bibliography called The Check-
nacs, chronologies, and other sources that contain list in 1960 and issued supplements in 1961 and
1962. The San Francisco Daughters of Bilitis (DOB)
facts, definitions, and other useful information.
published the first edition of The Lesbian in Lit-
Researchers usually consult such sources at the
erature (1967), compiled by Gene Damon and Lee
beginning of their projects to help refine, focus, or
Stuart, which listed approximately three thousand
narrow them or to find specific information. In
mostly literary titles published through 1965. The
short, most reference sources are designed to be
book uses a coding system to indicate the amount
consulted rather than read from cover to cover.
of lesbian content and the quality of writing for
each title. The second edition (1975) drops entries
Background
deemed trash and includes many more bio-
Until the last few decades of the twentieth century,
graphical and autobiographical titles and a sub-
lesbianism had not received the same amount of stantial number of nonfiction titles. Naiad pub-
attention given to male homosexuality. Though the lished a third edition in 1981 that lists approxi-
work of many researchers documents the cross- mately seven thousand titles through 1980.
cultural, historical existence of women who loved
women, often the phenomenon went unrecognized The Late 1960s and the 1970s
or was inconsistently defined or named. The term Lesbian publishing on contemporary lesbian issues,
lesbianism in the modern sense did not enter the politics, and awareness exploded, but the era still
popular vocabulary until the late nineteenth cen- produced only a few reference titles. An example
tury and did not appear in American library is the short pamphlet entitled Women Loving
catalogs until 1954. The term lesbians to specify Women: A Select and Annotated Bibliography of
a class of persons did not appear until 1976. Women Loving Women in Literature (1974), ed-
As of 1998, a comprehensive bibliography on ited by Marie J. Kuda, published by Lavender Press
lesbianism has not been published. With few ex- to coincide with the 1974 Lesbian Writers Confer-
ceptions, bibliographies and reference works re- ence. This title focuses on fiction, poetry, biogra-
lating exclusively to lesbians other than medical or phy, and autobiography and also includes a brief
psychological did not appear until the 1950s. The list of useful reference sources.
first publication by a woman to treat lesbianism as One of the first nonbibliographic reference ti-
a general phenomenon may be Anna von den tles on lesbianism is Our Right to Love: A Lesbian
Ekens Mannweiber-Weibmanner und der Para. Resource Book (1978), edited by Ginny Vida. A
175: Ein Schrift fur denkende Frauen (Masculine collective effort, this book celebrates the spectrum
Women-Feminine Men Under Paragraph 175: A of lesbian existence and contains forty essays that
Booklet for Thinking Women [1906]). cover identity, relationships, health, law, activism,
theory, sexuality, the media, culture, research, age,
The 1950s and Early 1960s class, race, and religion. The long-awaited revision,
Jeannette Foster made the pioneering effort in les- The New Our Right to Love: A Lesbian Resource
bian bibliography with her Sex Variant Women in Book (1996), again edited by Vida, presents more
Literature (1956). Foster attempts to document than sixty new essays, many reflecting develop-
lesbian history, beginning with Sappho, by ments and changes in emphasis that took place since

104 BERLIN
the first edition. These include safe sex and HIV/ tions of Alternative Insemination and Reproduc-
AIDS, the military, sports, and many more contri- tive Technologies.
butions by lesbians with disabilities and lesbians Dolores Maggiores Lesbianism: An Annotated
from various racial and ethnic communities. Bibliography and Guide to the Literature, 1976
In Lesbian Peoples: Material for a Dictionary 1986 (1988) focuses on books, chapters, articles in
(1979), published originally as Brouillon pour un scholarly journals, and dissertations and arranges
Dictionnaire des Amantes (1976), Monique Wittig them into six broad sections: the individual lesbian,
and Sande Zeig mix fact, fiction, and myth in minorities within a minority, lesbian families, op-
dictionarylike entries to create an exclusively les- pression, health, and resources. Each section con-
bian world. Though not a dictionary in the formal tains several subsections covering such topics as iden-
sense, this title is a fine example of the reinvention tity throughout history, lifestyles, couples,
of traditional formats for innovative purposes. heterosexism in theory and practice, alcoholism,
With the growth of feelings of identity, many counseling and mental health, lesbians of color/Third
women recognized the need to preserve lesbian cul- World lesbians, aging, youth, and the differently
ture. Joan Nestle and Deborah Edel founded the abled. Maggiore compiled a second edition (1992)
of this title that updates coverage through 1991.
Lesbian Herstory Archives in 1973, and the DOB
Claire Potters Lesbian Periodicals Index (1986)
issued all sixteen volumes of The Ladder on mi-
provides wide-scale access to the unique informa-
cro-film in 1975 with a print index. Additionally,
tion published during the 1960s and 1970s in ac-
Naiad and Diana released compilations from The
tivist lesbian periodicals that created community
Ladder and The Furies.
with every word put on paper. The first section of
the index provides an author-subject guide to forty-
The 1980s
two publications that represent geographic, racial,
Naiad published the groundbreaking title Black
political, class, and cultural differences within les-
Lesbians: An Annotated Bibliography (1981), com-
bian communities. Potter recognized the importance
piled by J.R.Roberts (pseud. of Barbara Rae of creative works and includes sections in the index
Henry), to counteract the overwhelming white- for diary and journal entries, poetry, stories, humor
ness of lesbian and womens studies research. The and satire, book reviews, and visual art.
bibliography gathers materials about black lesbi- Finally, historians and other researchers, many
ans in the United States beginning with early leg- of them self-identified lesbians, turned efforts to
ends and continuing through the black and Third their own history beginning in the 1970s. Such
World gay rights movements of the 1970s. The authors as Caroll Smith-Rosenberg, Blanche
book includes primary and secondary sources; cov- Wiesen Cook, Martha Vicinus, Judith Schwarz,
ers lifestyles, oppression, literature and criticism, Lillian Faderman, and Susan Cavin have produced
music and musicians, and periodicals; and provides articles and books in English that contain exten-
an appendix relating to a lesbian witch-hunt in sive notes and lists of sources, which arguably can
1980 aboard the Navy ship USS Norton Sound be viewed as important contributions to Western
Though bibliographies on black lesbians and other lesbian historical bibliography. Similar titles from
lesbians of color can be found in books, journals, Europe include Ilsa Kokulas Weibliche
and anthologies, a stand-alone update has yet to Homosexualitat um 1900 inzeitgenossischen
be published. Dokumenten (Female Homosexuality Around
The Lesbian Rights Project published two edi- 1900 in Contemporary Documents [1981]) and
tions of Lesbian Mothers and Their Children: An Marie-Jo Bonnets Un Choix sans equivoque:
Annotated Bibliography of Legal and Psychologi- recherches historiques sur les relations amoureuses
cal Materials (1980 and 1983) to help lesbians with entre les femmes, XVIeXXe siecle (An Unequivo-
custody issues. This group, renamed the National cal Choice: Historical Research on Love Relation-
Center for Lesbian Rights in 1989, also published ships Between Women, Sixteenth-Twentieth Cen-
two editions of Lesbians Choosing Motherhood: turies [1981]). A new edition of Bonnets work was
Legal Implications of Donor Insemination and published in 1995 with the title Les Relations
CoParenting (1984 and 1991), which highlight the amoreuses entre les femmes, du XVIe au XXe
potential problems faced by lesbians contemplat- sicles: essai historique (Love Relationships Be-
ing pregnancy and motherhood. A third edition tween Women, from the Sixteenth to the Twenti-
appeared in 1996 with the subtitle Legal Implica- eth Centuries: A Historical Essay).

BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND REFERENCE WORKS 105

 The 1990s Another subject-oriented title, Lesbian Health
B Dell Richardss Lesbian Lists: A Look at Lesbian
Culture, History, and Personalities (1990) appears
Bibliography (1994), edited by Lisa Rankow, cov-
ers breast cancer, mental health, HIV/AIDS, and sev-
at first glance to fall in the fun category. In real- eral other topics. A second edition, published in
ity, it gathers scattered information from a variety 1995, increases the number of citations to almost
of scholarly sources and serves as a quick reference eight hundred and adds several new sections, in-
to pre-Stonewall (1969) lesbian history. The Les- cluding transgender/transsexuals and bisexuality.
bian Almanac (1996), compiled by The National In Lesbians in Print: A Bibliography of 1,500
Museum & Archive of Lesbian and Gay History in Books with Synopses (1995), Margaret Gillon com-
New York City, provides comparatively more in- piles titles that reflect the variety of lesbian-posi-
depth information on both historical and contem- tive ideas and perspectives. It lists books alpha-
porary lesbian life, using chronologies, quotes, and betically by title and provides the publisher, sub-
brief biographies. It includes profiles of important ject category, price, and other information, in ad-
individuals, organizations, and programs, as well dition to a brief description. Gillon also provides
as statistics, lists of resources, and Internet sites. useful indexes and a list of feminist and lesbian
Shelley Andersons directory Out in the World: and gay bookstores in the United States.
International Lesbian Organizing (1991) provides
brief background information about lesbian rights Electronic Sources
movements throughout the world. Arranged by By the mid-1990s, publishers had begun to develop
continent and subdivided by country, this direc- CD-ROM (compact disk-read only memory) and
tory lists contemporary lesbian organizations with other electronic versions of print sources, most
addresses and phone and fax numbers. Not since notably indexes, encyclopedias, and dictionaries.
the magazine Connexions published its two Glo- Electronic versions add the flexibility of keyword
bal Lesbianism issues (no. 3 [1982] and no. 10 searches, allow the combination of a number of
[1983]) has so much international information been concepts, and enable multiple-year searches. The
available in one source. Womens Resources International, Women s Stud-
Where Potters index focused on ceased lesbian ies on Disc, and the Alternative Press Index all pro-
activist periodicals, Linda Garbers Lesbian vide access to substantial information by lesbians.
Sources: A Bibliography of Periodical Articles, The development of the Internet revolutionizes
19701990 (1993) concentrates on sixty-four communications and publishing even more.
widely distributed womens studies, lesbian, gay, Listservs, newsgroups, gophers, Web pages, and
and feminist journals. Garber uses 162 subject other resources facilitate networking among many
headings to access literature covering the myriad lesbians around the world, and several journals are
aspects of lesbian life and culture. This contrasts now available in full-text electronic format.
sharply with many library catalogs and standard Obviously, the proliferation of materials pro-
indexes, which tend to lump lesbian materials into duced by lesbians, in all formats, warrants increased
a few categories. Most welcome are the sections efforts toward bibliographic control. Anthologies
on women of color, lesbians around the world (sub- by Jewish, Latina, African American, American In-
divided by region and country), African Americans, dian, and Asian American lesbians exist, but more
and other racial and ethnic groups. reference titles pertaining to lesbians of color need
Sandra Pollack and Denise D.Knight fill a gap to be compiled and disseminated. The same is true
in the literature with their Contemporary Lesbian for materials produced by or about lesbians in Af-
Writers of the United States: A Bio-Bibliographi- rica, Asia, and the Middle East. Titles need to be
cal Critical Sourcebook (1993). It covers one hun- translated whenever feasible (and safe for the au-
dred writers of fiction, poetry, and drama active thors), and information about lesbian organizations
from 1970 to 1992. Each essay uses the same for- needs to be collected on a regular basis. Hopefully,
mat, consisting of five parts: biographical infor- the Internet and electronic publishing will, in time,
mation, a discussion of major works and themes, make this easier. Though lesbianism goes through
the critical reception, a list of works by the author, hot cycles in mainstream publishing, history
and a list of works about the author. The book shows that lesbians themselves must be the ones to
also includes lists of publishers and periodicals and make continuing efforts to produce, collect, and
a nine-page bibliography of nonfiction titles. preserve their own culture. Linda A.Krikos

106 BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND REFRENCE WORKS

Bibliography Defining a Lesbian Life
Allen, Jane, Linda Kerr, Avril Rolph, and Marion Historians of womens lives have contributed to
Chadwick, comps. Out on the Shelves: Lesbian rendering invisible lesbian lives and identity.
Books into Libraries. Newcastle-Under-Lyme, Carroll Smith-Rosenbergs (1975) path-breaking
U.K.: Association of Assistant Librarians, 1989. essay centered intimacy among women as a main-
Arnup, Katherine, Gloria Geller, Amy Gottlieb, and stay of nineteenth-century middle-class Anglo-
Jeri Wire, guest eds. Etre Lesbienne (The Les- American culture. Yet it also denied the sexual
bian Issue). Documentation sur la Recherche aspects of womens bonds and sheltered same-sex
Feministe 12, 1 (1983) (Special Issue). partners under the veil of actual or possible con-
Bullough, Vern, W.Dorr Legg, Barrett W.Elcano, current heterosexuality. These sensual, emotion-
and James Kepner, eds. An Annotated Bibliog- ally intimate bonds among women were charac-
raphy of Homosexuality. 2 vols. New York: terized by Smith-Rosenberg as romantic friend-
Garland, 1976. ships only. While this posited a woman-centered
Dynes, Wayne R. Homosexuality: A Research model, it also denied the lesbian behavior of these
Guide. New York: Garland, 1987. women because they lacked lesbian self-identity.
Freedman, Estelle B., Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi, Smith-Rosenbergs argument framed the debate
Susan L.Johnson, and Kathleen M.Weston, eds. about what is a lesbian life for years. By arguing
The Lesbian Issue. Signs: Journal of Women that it is important to place the discussion of
in Culture and Society 9:4 (Summer 1984) (Spe- homosexuality within its historical perspective,
cial Issue). she denied the possibility of lesbian behavior be-
The Lesbian History Issue. Frontiers: A Journal fore the term was constructed by European sex-
of Womens Studies 4:3 (1979) (Special Issue). ologists and medical writers in the 1880s.
Gough, Cal, and Ellen Greenblatt, eds. Gay and Many biographers since then have struggled
Lesbian Library Service. Jefferson, N.C.: with the question of what is/was a lesbian life.
McFarland, 1990. Blanche Wiesen Cook, in her review of the homo-
Lesbian History Group. Not a Passing Phase: Re- phobic and distorted biography of Mary Woolley
claiming Lesbians in History, 18401985. Lon- (18631947), president of Mt. Holyoke College,
don: Womens Press, 1985; reprinted and up- and her life partner, Jeannette Marks (18751964),
dated, London: Womens Press, 1993. professor of English at the same school, argued that
their biographer, Anna Mary Wells, obscured and
See also Anthologies; Archives and Libraries; Com- trivialized their intimacy, despite ample evidence
puter Networks and Services; Foster, Jeannette attesting to their devotion. Specifically, because
Howard; Grier, Barbara; Naiad Press; Periodicals; Wells denied the possibility of sexuality shared
Publishing, Lesbian between them, she diminished the quality of their
life together. Another scholar, Lillian Faderman,
contributed to this debate on what constitutes a
Biography lesbian life. Faderman defined lesbianism as a re-
Modern (A.D. 1600 ff.) literary genre that narrates lationship wherein two womens strongest emo-
the story of an individual life. Biographers of tions and affections are directed toward each other.
women who were and are lesbian face numerous Sexual contact may be part of the relationship to a
difficult tasks. Their subject, if deceased, may have greater or lesser degree, or it may be entirely ab-
gone to great effort to conceal her lesbianism dur- sent. Heterosexual couples, Faderman points out,
ing her lifetime, or she may have shunned the label are not asked to provide genital proofs of their
lesbian despite her lived life. This forces the bi- intimacy, and neither should lesbians.
ographer to assign an identity to her that may con- Several other scholars contributed to the early
tradict the subjects own self-definition. It also debate on these issues. Frances Doughty described
raises ethical issues of disclosure if the subject con- how lesbian history is unique in that, unlike black
sciously strove to mask or deny her lesbianism. Yet or womens history, the very existence of lesbian-
the biographers power to name sexual orienta- ism must first be proven. Since there are no ac-
tion in anothers life can be a posthumous source cepted criteria, historiography focuses more often
of empowerment for the subject, whose own era on the legitimacy of narrating a lesbian existence
necessitated the denial of lesbianism for survival. than on the actual life and events of the subject at

BIOGRAPHY 107
 hand. Adrienne Rich has argued that biographies underscore these difficulties. Also, as Cook learned
B would be more accurate and powerful if the biog-
raphers handled lesbian existence as a reality. She
when researching same-sex intimacies in the life of
Eleanor Roosevelt (18841962), documents have
suggested that heterosexuality be viewed as a po- been intentionally destroyed by a subjects lovers
litical institution that a lesbian life challenges. and friendsrather than reveal a lesbian bond.
After Roosevelts death, Lorena Hickok (1892
Class, Race, and Sexuality 1968) and Esther Lape (18811981) spent hours
The implications of a biographer naming a sub- burning letters between themselves and Roosevelt.
ject lesbian are compounded by issues of race, so- This obliterated the documentary record and forced
cial class, region, and era. Lesbian biographers, in the biographer to realize that it was a calculated
particular, learn to read coded messages and denial of Roosevelts passionate friendships.
subtexts in order to determine the sexual orienta- Given these intentional omissions, denials, and
tion of their subject. fabricated pasts, biographers of lesbian subjects
Yet demographic markers may mislead the biog- must rely on deciphering coded language, poign-
rapher if she insists on reading through a predomi- ant innuendoes, and other veiled signals. A helpful
nantly middle-class, Anglo lens. For example, in craft- suggestion was made by historian Susan Ware
ing a biography of the working-class ethnic south- (1987). She suggested reading photographs as
east Texan athlete Babe Didrikson Zaharias (1911 historical sources that might illuminate lesbian
1956), it was vital not to misinterpret social-class lives. Yet this, too, may be deceptive if the subject
behaviors or her ethnic communitys appreciation for has devoted herself to leaving little or no visual
female athletes too broadly. These factors were com- record of her same-sex intimacy.
pounded by a six-year live-in relationship with a Postmodern interpretations have stressed the
woman whose oral history illuminated her personal notion of multiple identities that may, in fact, shift
life with Didrikson. Together, these can be taken as over time; other authors stress the cultural posi-
proof of lesbian life, if not lesbian self-identity. tioning of a subject in relationship to her histori-
cal context. Yet even these provisos were not pre-
Closeting Lesbian Identities cise enough for Nell Irvin Painter as she reviewed
For women who sought fame, acceptance, or eco- three texts on the writing of biography. Painter
nomic reward from a critical American public, it is urged that biographers include and center the in-
painful at times to see them construct appropriate dividual consciousness that makes each person
heterosexual pasts to blur their adult lesbian lives. uniqueto transcend identity politics in defining
Sometimes, closeted autobiographers create fictitious their subjects and instead work at illuminating the
memories of themselves. In so doing, they sacrifice personal meaning of their subjects experiences.
authenticity and avoid disruptive truths in favor of As Rupp (1980) argued, the biographer of a les-
a harmonious, normal, and consistent life history. bian life has the demanding tasks of differentiating
Through oral histories, the subjects friends and between intimate and supportive friendships, cou-
surviving family members often help in creating this ple relationships, and the in-love feelings expressed
facade. Oral histories from those who knew the sub- by othersall without denying their significance or
ject, as well as printed source materials, can either fixing them into rigid categories. Whether these
corroborate or contradict the facts of a life. women embraced or shunned self-identification as
Yet oral histories can also echo the legend and lesbians, she concluded, the biographer must not
fabricated version of a life; respondents can choose blur the distinctions among these different types of
to create a representation of the subjects life that relationships. The biographers ability to name is
is in keeping with their own set of truths or si- quite powerful: The assignation of lesbian to a
lences. They may also be unwilling to reveal a sub- womans life at once centers her in intimacy with
jects lesbianism from a position of loyalty to the women and casts her outside the heterosexual norm.
image she crafted and fostered. This necessitates This placement forms the very way in which we in-
constant filtering on the biographers part. The terpret her life, relationships, relationship to the
legend-building aspects of oral histories need to be public, and self-perceptions. It is a profound step
constantly weighted and analyzed for continuities, toward (re)constructing a nonhomophobic identity
choices, pain, silences, voices, and the articulation for women who chose to devote themselves to other
of legitimate identity. Numerous feminist scholars women. Susan E.Cayleff

108 BIOGRAPHY
Bibliography wider range of interest in same-sex activities shown
Cook, Blanche Wiesen. Female Support Networks by late-twentieth-century heterosexual women,
amd Political Activism: Lillian Wald, Crystal compared to heterosexual men, some scientists
Eastman, Emma Goldman. Chrysalis 3 (1977), propose different gay genes for women and for men;
4361. since organisms evolve as a species, that idea runs
. The Historical Denial of Lesbianism. Radi- counter to evolutionary theory.
cal History Review 20 (Spring/Summer 1979),
6065. Historical Context
Doughty, Frances. Lesbian Biography, Biography With political concern (both for and against) about
of Lesbians. Frontiers: A Journal of Women gay and lesbian civil rights in the United States and
Studies 4:3 (Fall 1979), 7679. around the world running high, scientific claims
Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men: about inherent and, thus, unavoidable homosexu-
Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women ality are embraced by some lesbian and gay activists
from the Renaissance to the Present. New York: and attacked by most antigay religious conserva-
William Morrow, 1981. tives. Published studies of genetics and sexual iden-
. Who Hid Lesbian History? Frontiers: A tity of twins and siblings, as well as of differences in
Journal of Women Studies 4:3 (Fall 1979), size or shape of certain parts of the brains of homo-
7476. sexual as compared to heterosexual (mostly) men,
Rupp, Leila J. Imagine My Surprise: Womens are compelling and can be convincing to scientist
Relationships in Historical Perspective. Fron- and nonscientist alike. However, historical and sci-
tiers: A Journal of Women Studies 5:3 (Fall entific analyses of such claims reveal significant flaws
1980), 6170. in the assumptions, logic, and methods of the stud-
Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. The Female World of ies, and many of the conclusions are not supported
Love and Ritual: Relations Between Women in by the data in the studies themselves.
Nineteenth-Century America. Signs: Journal First, history shows that claims of biology de-
of Women in Culture and Society 1:1 (Autumn termining female and male homosexual behavior and/
1975), 130. or identity are part of a long heritage of Western (white
Ware, Susan. Partner and I: Molly Dewson, Femi- male-dominated) scientific assertions that human bi-
nism, and the New Deal Politics. New Haven, ology determines human behavior, characteristics,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987. and, consequently, ones natural status in society.
The long history of scientific claims, often by reputa-
See also Autobiography; Didrikson, Mildred Ella ble scientists, about differences of concern to society
Babe (Zaharias); Faderman, Lillian; History; (mainly class, race, and sex) includes nineteenth-cen-
Oral History; Romantic Friendship; Rich, tury assertions that blacks and whites were separate
Adrienne; Roosevelt, Anna Eleanor races and so could be treated differently under the
law; that womens brains were smaller than mens,
accounting for womens inferior rationality, for which
Biological Determinism citizenship rights could be denied; that womens re-
Belief that human behavior is explained and deter- productive physiology (but not mens) would be im-
mined by our biology, in terms of our genetics, paired by higher education, and, so, for the sake of
hormone levels, or brain structures. Since the mid- future generations, young women should not be al-
1980s, the United States has witnessed a set of lowed to go to college; and that non-English-speak-
claims that male (and perhaps female) homosexu- ing immigrants to the United States were inherently
ality derives from particular brain structures and retarded because they could not pass intelligence tests
one or more gay genes. While most of the research given in English.
about biology and human homosexuality has been Healthy scientific and political skepticism has
done with male subjects, attention turned, in the arisen, therefore, from a consistent history of po-
1990s, to female homosexuality, with studies based litical claims that are based on then-current bio-
on the same assumptions, and with the same meth- logical theories, claims that are subsequently ei-
odological flaws built into them, as studies of males. ther disproven or abandoned due to inconsistent
To account for sex differences in the percentage logic, exposure of outright fraud, lack of confirm-
deemed truly homosexual and for the apparently ing evidence, or political shifts.

BIOLOGICAL DETERMINISM 109

 History also shows that Western culture has In this view, heterosexuality is not a conscious choice
B changed from viewing homosexuality as a behavior
by individuals to believing that homosexual iden-
in our culture for either women or men.
However, the womens, lesbian feminist, and gay
tity is embodied in the physical being of the indi- liberation movements from the 1960s onward, as
vidual. Biological studies of sexual preference pre- well as the gay activism in response to the AIDS
serve sexist and heterosexist assumptions from the epidemic, have brought lesbian and gay rights is-
nineteenth century (and earlier) that sexuality is sues to the public eye at the same time that society
about reproduction and that femaleness and male- has increasingly accepted previously male-associ-
ness exist in human nature as primary, dichoto- ated behaviors (smoking, promiscuity) and cloth-
mous, and opposed states of being that form the ing (pants rather than skirts or dresses) for all
basis for gender differences. women. However, it is still not normal for men
Contrary to most of the scientific claims about to wear skirts and dresses (they are considered
sex and race differences, research in the late twen- cross-dressing tranvestites); boys are still called sis-
tieth century suggesting that brain differences and sies and faggots for playing with dolls or acting in
gay genes account for inherent homosexuality female-associated ways; and the greatest put-down
comes from pro-gay scientists (the majority of among supposedly heterosexual males is to call a
whom are male, such as Simon LeVay, Richard male a girl or a woman. Thus, social factors im-
Pillard, J. Michael Bailey, and Dean Hamer) who pact differently on males and females when the
argue, much as sexologists at the end of the nine- meaning of homosexuality is considered for each
teenth century did, that homosexuality is inborn, sex, so that feminist theorizing can account for
and, therefore, homosexuals cannot be blamed for observed sex differences in rates and descriptions
it. While many gay rights advocates welcomed those of homosexual identity without resorting to bio-
recent scientific claims, particularly in the face logical explanations. In contrast, one of the twin-
of vocal antigay religious conservatives, who as- studies researchers (J.Michael Bailey) is reported
sert that homosexuality is an immoral choice that by Wheeler (1993) to have said: In talking to
must and can be eliminated by a commitment to women who call themselves straight, it strikes me
what is moral (heterosexuality), legal scholars such that many of them will admit to being attracted to
as Halley (1994) argue that immutability is not a women even if they have no desire to act on it. You
sufficient condition for civil rights in the U.S. legal can hardly ever get [straight] men to admit to that.
tradition. The history of the struggle for citizen-
ship and rights for Americans of African heritage, Scientific Research and Its Critique
where skin color and heritage are used to trace lin- At the end of the twentieth century, theories of bio-
eage, illustrates the latter argument well. logical determination or influence on sex (male-
female) and sexual preference propose that andro-
Feminist Interpretations gens (certain male hormones) masculinize the
Feminist attention to women and to the social ele- brain of the human fetus to produce male-typical
ments of gender has been nearly absent from most behaviors and desires (including heterosexual de-
studies seeking to identify biological determinants sires for females) as compared to the
of sexuality. The studies have originated with male nonandrogenized, feminized brain and its fe-
scientists who are either themselves gay or openly male-typical behaviors and desires (heterosexual
for gay rights and who evince little familiarity with desires for males), while a gay gene or genes deter-
feminist perspectives that point to the influence of mines or influences the degree of masculinization
culture, rather than biology (often cast as na- or feminization of male or female, resulting in
ture versus nurture), on human sexual relations. (feminized) males who desire males and
Second wave feminists have analyzed their (masculinized) females who desire females.
sexual experiences, desires, and social arrangements Critics of biological-determinist claims for sexual
with an understanding of the constraints of sexism preference point to serious methodological flaws in
and have pointed to the political, social, and eco- the scientific studies themselves. Like most of the
nomic influences on being a lesbian, bisexual, or earlier studies of sex and race differences, research
heterosexual woman, often at different times in the on biology and sexuality is frequently inadequate
same life. Adrienne Rich wrote in 1980 of com- by strict scientific standards: The size of the sample
pulsory heterosexuality as a cornerstone of sex- is too small; the sample is not representative of the
ism, part of a system of social control over women. population at large; the samples lack proper

110 BIOLOGICAL DETERMINISM

controls; contradictions among the studies are not the studies are promising and that only more and
accounted for sufficiently; and identification of better research is needed to confirm the theories.
sexual orientation of the individuals studied is not
clear. For example, the research looking for genetic Research Assumptions
evidence for being lesbian (or gaythe studies on The following are presuppositions of the research,
males were done first) is now focused on twin and assumptions that critics of biological determinism
sibling studies. Bailey and Pillard have said that they of sexuality say are at least questionable and at
find a much higher incidence of an identical twin most incorrect. First, sexual behavior is viewed as
also being lesbian or gay as compared to lower con- mechanically driven by a physical entity and in-
cordance for a fraternal twin, a nontwin biologi- volving genital manipulation and copulatory ac-
cal sibling, or an adoptive sibling. Without even tivity, rather than unconsciously acquired behavior
exposing the serious limitations of their actual data, learned from the socializing environments of fam-
the studies are questionable scientifically because the ily, culture, and society. Sexual preference is re-
samples are not random. Rather, the researchers jected for sexual orientation, a biological con-
place ads in lesbian and gay newspapers asking for dition that inheres in the body to steer sexual
lesbian and gay volunteers who were cotwins or had behavior toward one sex or away from the other.
adoptive siblings. With the media coverage about Evidence countering this assumption is cross-cul-
the biology of being gay, it is not a surprise that tural and historical, showing a wide range and com-
many more lesbians and gay males with lesbian or bination of human sexual behaviors that are taken
gay cotwins and siblings come forward to be part as normal in different cultures at different times.
of these studies. Indeed, the one consistent result is Dramatic changes in sexual behavior have occurred
that the studies show higher proportions of lesbian with social and political changes, such as the sec-
or gay siblings than in the general population. De- ond wave (post-1969) of feminism.
spite the skewed samples on which their studies are A second key and questionable assumption of
based, the researchers do not consider alternative the studies is that homosexuality and heterosexual-
explanations for a (possibly) high concordance of ity are mutually exclusive conditions, such that cer-
identical twins being lesbian or gaythat is, the well- tain biological characteristics (the size of shape of
documented unique closeness of identical twins certain brain structures or the information in cer-
brought up together. tain genes) of homosexuals are different from those
In another example, in some studies if a person of heterosexuals. Countering this assumption is his-
did not self-identify as gay, he was classified as torical evidence that the concept of the homo-
heterosexual. In some studies persons engaged in sexualan individual with a set identity, rather than
both homosexual and heterosexual activities were an individual who engages in homosexual behaviors
classified as homosexual, while in other studies only at different times or in different circumstances in
truly homosexual individuals (those who never his or her lifeemerged in Western culture only in
engaged in, or desired, sexual activity with the other the eighteenth century and was institutionalized in
sex) were considered homosexual. The pronoun nineteenth-century medicine, and is, thus, a cultural
he is appropriate here, because most of the stud- creation rather than a biological given. At different
ies have been on males. As more attention is given times in history and in different cultures, homosexual
to women, the problem noted above by Bailey activity did not in any way preclude the possibility
that women seem (or are more willing to say they of heterosexual activity at the same moment in time
are) more fluid in their sexual interest with regard or in the future.
to genderhas generated the conclusion by some A third key presupposition to be questioned is
researchers that only 1 percent of women are truly that true homosexuality is associated with femi-
homosexual as compared to at least 3 percent of nine behavior and appearance in men and the re-
men; further, female homosexuality is somehow dif- verse in women, linking assumed attributes of
ferent biologically. The concept of the true ho- maleness and femaleness with sexual orientation
mosexual reproduces the fallacious belief that or preference. In the 1950s, Money and Ehrhardt
biology is true human identity, while culture is (1972) studied girls who had been exposed in utero
merely layered over biology. Thus, unless questions to high levels of androgens (male hormones).
are raised about the presuppositions on which stud- The researchers claimed that the masculinization
ies are based, researchers will simply assert that of the female fetuses brains produced the following

BIOLOGICAL DETERMINISM 111

 results (remember this was the 1950s): wearing Money, John, and Anke A.Ehrhardt. Man and
B pants rather than dresses, wanting careers more
and babies less, higher IQs, and (subsequently) les-
Woman, Boy and Girl. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1972.
bian identity. The claim for higher IQs as a result Spanier, Bonnie. Biological Determinism and
of being masculinized was dropped when the higher Homosexuality. NWSA Journal 7:1 (Spring
socioeconomic class of the families, and, thus, 1995), 5471.
higher measured IQs generally, was taken into ac- . Im/Partial Science: Gender Ideology in Mo-
count. The researchers did not factor in, however, lecular Biology. Bloomington: Indiana Univer-
the effects on the girls of genital surgery several sity Press, 1995.
times or the attention given them for their prob- Terry, Jennifer. Lesbians Under the Medical Gaze:
lem (which might include infertility) by their par- Scientists Search for Remarkable Differences.
ents and doctors, influences that surely could have Journal of Sex Research 27 (1990), 317340.
turned a girl away from traditionally feminine ac- Wheeler, David L. Studies of Lesbians Rekindles
tivities. A new version of that stereotype that con- Debate Over Biological Basis for Homosexual-
founds male-female gender with sexual orientation ity. Chronicle of Higher Education (March 17,
is found in the association of male gayness with
1993).
the female-associated X chromosome. Geneticist
Dean Hamer claims to have found a gay gene in
See also Animal Studies; Compulsory Heterosexu-
males, located on the X chromosome, which, in
ality; New Right; Sexology; Sexual Orientation and
males, must come from the mother since males are
Preference
XY and females are XX.
A common assumption of pro-gay researchers
is that studies showing the biological basis of ho-
Bisexual Movement
mosexuality will lead to full civil rights for lesbi-
Though there have been in the past communities
ans and gays because society will understand that
it is not an issue of choice. Countering this is the and individuals who were known to have lived a
history of Jews and gays in Nazi Germany and that bisexual lifestyle (for example, the Bloomsbury
of Americans of African descent. Furthermore, this artists community, the Harlem Renaissance com-
argument apparently would allow discrimination munity, and Frida Kahlo [19071954] and her cir-
against those who admit to choosing lesbian expe- cle), the 1970s marked the beginning of the mod-
riences and relationships over heterosexual ones ern bisexual movement. The bi movement today
for political, social, or other reasons. consists of social, support, and political groups
As more female researchers engage in biologi- throughout the United States and other parts of
cal studies and more studies are done with women, the world.
and as U.S. society continues to look to genetics to
explain human behavior, more claims will emerge. The Early Years
To evaluate them fully, they must be understood in The earliest bisexual organizations in the United
the context of the long history of subsequently re- States grew out of the sexual liberation movement,
jected assertions about the biological basis of sexu- or sexual revolution, which was, in turn, fueled
alityand other culturally shaped behaviors. by the womens liberation movement, the gay lib-
Bonnie B.Spanier eration movement, and the legalization of, and in-
creased access to, birth control. A number of bi-
Bibliography sexuals were active in the formation of various
Burr, Chandler. A Separate Creation: The Search chapters of the Sexual Freedom League. The Na-
for the Biological Origins of Sexual Orienta- tional Bisexual Liberation Group was founded in
tion. New York: Hyperion, 1996. 1972 in New York City. The Bi Forum, also in New
De Cecco, John P., and David Allen Parker, eds. Sex, York City, began in 1975. The Bisexual Center in
Cells, and Same-Sex Desire: The Biology of San Francisco, California, formed in 1976, and Bi
Sexual Preference. New York: Haworth, 1995. Ways in Chicago, Illinois, began in 1978.
Halley, Janet E. Sexual Orientation and the Poli- These years spanned the era of bisexual chic,
tics of Biology: A Critique of the Argument from in which popular media publicized the bisexuality
Immutability. Stanford Law Review 46 (Feb- of rock stars and artists. The earliest bisexual
ruary 1994), 503568. groups were primarily social in focus, although

112 BIOLOGICAL DETERMINISM

some included a political element as well. The to add lesbian, did the same in the 1980s with
1970s also saw the publication of several books bisexual (and, increasingly, in the 1990s with
about bisexuality. Janet Bodes View from Another transgender). In some areas of the country, inter-
Closet (1976) was perhaps the first, followed by community relationships, particularly between some
Charlotte Wolffs Bisexuality: A Study (1977), and lesbians and bisexual women, were tense; in other
Fritz Kleins The Bisexual Option: A Concept of areas, bisexuals were more readily welcomed.
One Hundred Percent Intimacy (1978).
Bis Organize More Widely
The Second Wave In 1987, in conjunction with the March on Wash-
Many bisexuals were active within the gay libera- ington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, two women
tion, and later the lesbian and gay, movement. from Boston distributed a flyer entitled Are We
However, several factors, including an increased Ready for a National Bisexual Network Yet? The
focus on identity politics and hostility and rejec- result of this flyer was the first national bisexual
tion by some lesbians and gay men, led some bi- contingent at the march and the birth of a national
sexuals to create separate bisexual organizations. bisexual organization. The first International Di-
The second wave of bisexual organizing, be- rectory of Bisexual Groups was produced the same
ginning in the early 1980s, was largely women led, year in an attempt to facilitate national and inter-
and was strongly influenced by feminism. Many national organizing.
of the women involved in bisexual organizing in In June 1990, San Franciscos BiPol organized
the 1980s had been, and were still, active in the the first national conference on bisexuality, with a
gay, lesbian feminist, and womens movements. focus on consolidating a nationwide bi organiza-
Feminist bisexual womens organizations were tion, then known as the North American
formed in Boston, Massachusetts (1983); Chicago Multicultural Bisexual Network. In 1991, at a
(1984); New York City (1983); and Seattle, Wash- meeting in Seattle, the organization was renamed
ington (1986). While in the 1970s most bi groups BiNet (Bisexual Network of the USA). The second
were of mixed gender, in the 1980s a number of U.S. national conference took place in 1993 in con-
women-only bi groups and a smaller number of junction with the March on Washington for Les-
bisexual mens groups formed. bian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation, the
The bisexual groups of the 1980s focused on first national march to mention bisexuals by name.
providing support and social opportunities, and a The first U.S. regional conference on bisexual-
number became increasingly involved in political ity was held in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1984. By
organizing as well, especially in the wake of the the early 1990s, there were regional conferences
AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s. The number of taking place annually in the Northwest, the South-
bi groups continued to grow throughout the 1980s west, Southern California, the Midwest, and the
in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Neth- Northeast. The first International Conference on
erlands, Germany, Scandinavia, Canada, Australia, Bisexuality was held in Amsterdam in 1991. Other
and New Zealand. The mid-1980s saw the first international conferences have been held in Lon-
bisexual groups devoted to political activism (San don (1992), New York City (1994), Berlin (1996),
Franciscos BiPoL, and Bostons Bisexual Commit- and Boston (1998).
tee Engaging in Politics [BiCEP]), and the first re-
gional bisexual networks (the East Coast Bisexual Bisexuality in Literature and Academia
Network and the Bay Area Bisexual Network). The 1990s saw an increase in the participation of
While some bisexuals focused on the creation of college students in the bi movement and greater
organizations for and by bisexual people, others bisexual visibility in literature and academia. There
were organizing within lesbian and gay communi- was another wave of books about bisexuality, this
ties. A major focus of the bi movement in the 1980s time including many anthologies that focused on
was to seek inclusion and recognition for bisexuals personal experiences, such as the influential Bi Any
within lesbian and gay groups. Some formerly les- Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out (1990).
bian and gay organizations changed their titles or The record-setting year was 1995, which saw
their statements of purpose to include bisexual peo- the publication of numerous studies and antholo-
ple, while others chose not to. This was especially gies by both mainstream and alternative presses,
evident on college campuses, as many campus including the Bisexual Resource Guide (Bisexual
groups, which in the 1970s had changed their names Resource Center). The first national bisexual

BISEXUAL MOVEMENT 113

 magazine, Anything That Moves: Beyond the of the confusion surrounding the term bisexual
B Myths of Bisexuality, had begun publication in
1991. Computer newsgroups, electronic mailing
is that it has many different meanings. It may de-
scribe a persons historic behavior or attractions:
lists, and chat lines helped connect bisexuals across someone who, in her or his past, has been attracted
geographic lines. The first college course focusing to, and/or involved with, at least one man and one
on bisexuality was taught at the University of Cali- woman. It may describe ones current behavior and/
fornia, Berkeley, in 1990, followed by a course the or attraction: someone who is currently attracted
next year at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- to, and/or involved with, at least one man and one
nology, and several more in subsequent years at woman. It may describe an individuals potential
Tufts University. range of romantic and/or sexual attraction, or it
may refer to a persons self-definition. It is not nec-
Conclusion essary for a person to meet all of the above criteria
Not unlike lesbian and gay organizations, bisexual to be considered bisexual. To understand bisexu-
organizations in the 1990s developed in a number ality, it is important to distinguish between iden-
of different directions. Some bisexual people fo- tity and behavior. Like her heterosexual or lesbian
cused on organizing for, and with, other bisexual counterpart, a bisexual woman may be monoga-
people. Others focused on working within les- mous, nonmonogamous, or celibate. She may never
bian and gay, lesbian, gay and bisexual, les- have had sex with men, with women, or with any-
bian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered, or queer one at all. And, conversely, many, if not most, peo-
organizations to educate heterosexuals, fight homo- ple whose historical or current behavior and/or
phobia, advocate for civil rights legislation, and attractions are bisexual do not identify as such.
build community. Still others were interested in
creating a broad sex and gender liberation move- Characteristics
ment that is not focused on identity politics. And, This reluctance may be a result of the negative stere-
like many lesbians and gay men, many bisexual otypes attached to the word; of the strong societal
people were not involved in any organizations or pressures to choose either a heterosexual or a homo-
movements at all, choosing instead to focus their sexual identity (usually in correspondence with the
energies on their individual lives. Robyn Ochs sex of ones current romantic partner); of the pres-
Liz Highleyman sures of homophobic culture, which make it difficult
for anyone to proudly claim her same-sex attractions;
Bibliography and of tendencies to write life histories backward from
Bisexual Anthology Collective, ed. Plural Desires: the present, omitting or discounting facts that do not
Writing Bisexual Womens Realities. Toronto: fit the writers current understanding of herself.
Sister Vision, 1995. Some attempts have been made to identify types
Hutchins, Loraine, and Lani Kaahumanu, eds. Bi of bisexuality. A few of these are self-identified bi-
Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out. sexuality (any woman who calls herself bisexual);
Boston: Alyson, 1990. experimental bisexuality (a woman who is basi-
Off Pink Collective. Bisexual Lives. London: Off cally lesbian or heterosexual but who has experi-
Pink Publishing, 1988. mented heterosexually or homosexually);
Rose, Sharon, et al., eds. Bisexual Horizons: Poli- situational bisexuality (someone who is usually
tics, Histories, Lives. London: Lawrence and heterosexual but who has homosexual relation-
Wishart, 1996. ships while in a sex-segregated environment, such
Tucker, Naomi, eds. Bisexual Politics: Theories, Que- as a girls school, a prison, or the military); histori-
ries, and Visions. New York: Haworth, 1995. cal bisexuality (someone who in the past has had
attractions and/or experiences with people of more
See also Bisexuality; Kahlo, Frida; Identity; Iden- than one sex, regardless of their current behavior
tity Politics; Wolff, Charlotte or self-identification); defense bisexuality (some-
one who is homosexual but continues other-sex
relationships as a cover for their homosexuality);
Bisexuality and technical bisexuality (for example, a sex worker
The capacity to be romantically and/or sexually who is attracted to people of one sex but sleeps
attracted to individuals of more than one sex. Part with people of another for money).

114 BISEXUAL MOVEMENT

 While bisexuality has received far less attention often had their integrity and their commitment to
than heterosexuality and homosexuality, sexologists feminism questioned. A study conducted in the late
and other scientists and scholars have taken some 1980s by sociologist Paula Rust found that most
notice. Sigmund Freud (18561939), for example, lesbian respondents held far more negative than
believed that all human beings are born bi-sexual positive views of bisexuality, though she empha-
that is, without gendered-object choice. He wrote sizes that lesbians are by no means unanimous in
in the 1915 edition of Three Essays on the Theory their views, with some holding positive opinions
of Sexuality that psychoanalysis considers that a about bisexual women. Political shifts in the 1990s
choice of an object independently of its sexfree- have doubtless shifted the landscape of opinion to-
dom to range equally over male and female objects ward a greater acceptance of bisexuality.
as it is found in childhood, in primitive states of In the 1990s, increasing numbers of women
society and early periods of history, is the original began to identify as bisexual. On college campuses,
basis from which, as a result of restriction in one it was not uncommon for bisexually identified
direction or the other, both the normal and the in- women to make up the majority of women active
verted [homosexual] types develop. Alfred Kinsey in a campuss lesbian, gay, and bisexual student
(18941956) put forth the idea that human sexual- group. (Interestingly, this does not hold true for
ity does not consist of two mutually exclusive cat- male students). Bisexual groups, including a
egories, heterosexual and homosexual, but rather is number of women-only groups, have increased in
best understood as existing on a continuum. He numbers in the United States and other countries
argued that it is the human mind that forces sexual since the early 1980s. In addition, many lesbian
behavior into separate pigeonholes. He rejected the and gay and queer groups recognized that bisexu-
widely held idea of homosexual and hetero- als were included in their membership, and some
sexual types of individuals, and argued for the changed their names to be more welcoming to bi-
conceptualization of people as individuals with cer- sexuals. The term lesbigay became commonplace
tain amounts of homosexual and heterosexual ex- throughout the United States.
perience. Anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901 To understand bisexuality, one has to remem-
1978), who was herself bisexual, believed that bi- ber that human lives are not unidimensional, fixed
sexuality was far more widespread than we realize. objects, but rather exist on many planes: past,
She (1975) wrote: We shall not really succeed in present, future; in action and in imagination. Thus
discarding the straight jacket of our own cultural bisexuality, like life, is complex. Robyn Ochs
beliefs about sexual choice if we fail to come to terms
with the well-documented, normal human capacity Bibliography
to love members of both sexes. Bi Academic Intervention. The Bisexual Imaginary.
London: Cassell, 1996.
Bisexuality and Lesbians Bode, Janet. View from Another Closet. New York:
Bisexuality has been a controversial subject within Hawthorn, 1976.
lesbian circles, and the place of bisexual women Garber, Marjorie. Vice Versa: Bisexuality and the
within womens communities has often gener- Eroticism of Everyday Life. New York: Simon
ated heated debates. Some lesbians believe that all and Schuster, 1995.
women who have the potential to love other women George, Sue. Women and Bisexuality. London:
have an obligation to do so and a political obliga- Scarlet, 1993.
tion to identify as lesbian and cease interacting with Klein, Fritz. The Bisexual Option: A Concept of
men. Others believe that the compulsory nature of One Hundred Percent Intimacy. 2nd ed. New
heterosexuality in our cultures precludes the pos- York: Haworth, 1993.
sibility of a woman freely choosing a hetero- Mead, Margaret. Bisexuality: Whats It All About?
sexual relationship, some going so far as to believe Redbook 144:3 (January 1975), 2931.
that, due to the negative pressures on people in Rust, Paula. Bisexuality and the Challenge to Les-
same-sex relationships and the positive benefits bian Politics. New York: New York University
attached to opposite-sex relationships, a bisexual Press, 1996.
woman will inevitably end up leaving a woman Wolff, Charlotte. Bisexuality: A Study. Revised
partner for one of the other sex. As a result of these and expanded edition. New York: Quartet
lines of thought, bisexually identified women have Books, 1979.

BISEXUALITY 115
 See also Bisexual Movement; Identity; Situational ship and self-disclosure. Bishop takes her place as
B Lesbianism a lyric poet alongside Emily Dickinson and has
proven an inspiration to lesbian poets from vari-
ous cultural backgrounds. Corinne E.Blackmer
Bishop, Elizabeth (19111979)
American poet and memoirist, born in Worcester, Bibliography
Massachusetts. Bishops father died when she was Fountain, Gary, and Peter Brazeau. Remembering
eight months old, and her mother was permanently Elizabeth Bishop: An Oral Biography. Amherst:
institutionalized four years later. The orphaned child University of Massachusetts Press, 1994.
was raised by relatives in Boston, Massachusetts, and Giroux, Robert, ed. One Art: Selected Letters of
Nova Scotia. She attended Walnut Hill School and Elizabeth Bishop. New York: Farrar, Straus, and
later Vassar College, where she met the poet Marianne Giroux, 1994.
Moore (18871972), who became her mentor. Harrison, Victoria. Elizabeth Bishops Poetics of
Bishop traveled widely and lived in the tropics Intimacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University
for most of her adult life; first in Key West, Florida, Press, 1993.
with Louise Crane (1909?) and later in Brazil with Kalstone, David. Becoming a Poet: Elizabeth
her lover Lota de Macedo Scares (19101967), with Bishop with Marianne Moore and Robert
whom Bishop enjoyed her happiest years. Her sense
Lowell. Ed. Robert Hemenway. New York:
of outsiderhood as a lesbian, her impatience with
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux , 1989.
the confinement of womens experience, and her
Millier, Brett C. Elizabeth Bishop: Life and the
concern with how abstract symbols distort human
Memory of It. Berkeley: University of Califor-
experience inspired her to write poems that con-
nia Press, 1993.
template the nature of travel, intimacy, and cross-
cultural vision, and that are characterized by pre-
See also Brazil; Poetry
cise observation, conversational voice, uncanny
mysteriousness, and the transition from one realm
of experience to another.
Lesbian themes and modes of vision infuse most Black Church
of the poems in Bishops four published volumes. In general usage, the variety of black Christian
Notable in this respect are The Gentleman of churches in the United States. These congregations,
Shalott, The Weed, and Roosters from North which are often called storefront churches, are
and South (1946); A Cold Spring, Insomnia, not offically affiliated with the historical black de-
Four Poems, and The Shampoo from A Cold nominations but are made up of African American
Spring (1955); Song for the Rainy Season from Christians who worship in the traditional black
Questions of Travel (1965); and In the Waiting Church style. The formal usage The Black
Room, Crusoe in England, and One Art from Church refers to those historical and independ-
Geography III (1976), her last and most autobio- ent black Protestant denominations that were
graphical collection. In recent years, scholars have founded after the Free African Society in 1787, in-
unearthed unpublished poems, particularly It is cluding the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E)
marvelous to wake up together, which deal with Church; the African Methodist Episcopal Zion
lesbian erotic experience with great sensuous depth (A.M.E.Z) Church; the Christian Methodist Epis-
and psychological insight. Bishops closeted exist- copal (C.M.E.) Church; the National Baptist Con-
ence, her sense of homelessness, and her battles vention, U.S.A., Incorporated (NBC); The National
with alcoholism contributed to several tragedies in Baptist Convention of America, Unincorporated
her life, including De Macedos suicide in 1967 and (NBCA); the Progressive National Baptist Conven-
the subsequent loss of her homes in Brazil. Yet tion (PNBC); and the Church of God in Christ
Bishop, always resilient, enjoyed a stable relation- (COGIC).
ship late in life with Alice Methfessel (1944), The Black Church is a complex institution that
whom she met while teaching poetry at Harvard operates as a social, political, and religious institu-
University. Sonnet, one of Bishops last poems, tion. It has taken both accommodating and resist-
speaks of a creature divided that finally breaks ing stances on civil rights issues. Whereas the Black
free to fly wherever it feels like, gay! and is a Church has taken a resisting stance on racism, it
fitting tribute to her lifelong struggles with censor- has taken an accommodating stance on sexism,

116 BISEXUALITY
heterosexism, and homophobia. Its evangelical-con- sexual women high visibility and prestige but only
servative theology and biblical fundamentalism es- nominal, if any, power within the governing and
tablish a sexual orthodoxy that promotes hetero- administrative hierarchy of the church. In some in-
sexuality. Therefore, the Black Church, like most stances, their high visibility, such as Mother of
Christian churches in the United States, opposes the Church and/or wife of the pastor, are fixed
homosexuality. However, heterosexuality is con- female-gender positions whose prestige is gleaned
doned only within the constraints of marriage and from their titles and whose power is gleaned from
for the purpose of procreation. Homosexuality is their association with the pastors social circle.
viewed as a perversity that defiles the flesh, desecrates African American womens depiction as the back-
the sanctity of marriage, and destroys the traditional bone of the Black Church is meant as a compli-
composition of the nuclear family. Because AIDS ment for their dedication to the church. However,
was first associated with homosexual behavior, and this adulation also highlights the limited roles and
is now, in conservative circles, associated with both duties allotted to African American women and
homosexual and heterosexual perversity, most black their low, but necessary, status and function in the
churches do not have outreach ministries in their Black Church for its survival and stability.
communities to address this epidemic. On the other hand, African American lesbians
Aside from the Black Churchs evangelical-con- are not represented in any of the churchs ecclesi-
servative theology and biblical fundamentalism, its astical positions, which contributes to their low
antihomosexual stance is also reflected in its eccle- attendance in the Black Church. Those lesbians
siastical positions. Embedded in the ecclesiastical who enter the Black Church are closeted, and those
positions, which are sometimes called commit- lesbians who engage in the life of the church take
tees, are prescribed gender roles for males and backbone positions along with their heterosexual
females. For example, the kitchen ministry is run sisters.
by women, whereas the ordination is run by men. The gay black churches, which are springing up
These ecclesiastical positions assume a heterosexual mainly in large urban cities, serve as an alternative
orientation, thus keeping heterosexism in place. worship space to the traditional Black Church.
The homophobia in the Black Church is also Although these churches do not discriminate on
linked to misogyny and is based on antifemale sen- the basis of sexual orientation, they do discrimi-
timent rather than an antihomosexual one. For ex- nate on the basis of gender, thus replicating the
ample, an ecclesiastical position for a gay male in patriarchal structure found in the traditional Black
the Black Church is the choirmaster or the minister Church. In these alternative gay black churches,
of music. Although it seems paradoxical for the Black replacing heterosexual patriarchy with homosexual
Church to have an acknowledged gay-friendly patriarchy relegates lesbians once again to back-
position, the choirmaster is a nonthreatening posi- bone positions in the church for the churchs sur-
tion within its ecclesiastical structures. Choirmas- vival and stability. Irene Monroe
ter, or choirmistress or choirqueen as gay male
choir leaders are sometimes called, is a nongendered Bibliography
position that may also be filled by women. Although Frazier, E.Franklin. The Negro Church in America.
an important leadership position within the church, New York: Schocken, 1964.
and central in the churchs liturgy, it is not within Lincoln, E.Eric. The Black Church Since Frazier.
the churchs governing and administrative hierar- New York: Schocken, 1974.
chy and, therefore, does not endanger the sexual Lincoln, E.Eric, and Lawrence H.Mamiya. The
integrity of the church. Heterosexual men hold most Black Church in the African American Experi-
positions of authority and power. Although the ence. Durham, N.C., and London: Duke Uni-
choirmaster position is a visible entry point into the versity Press, 1990.
fold of the church, gay men assume this role at a
tremendous cost to their personhood. See also Protestantism
African American women outnumber their men
by three to one in most black churches. These num-
bers give the impression that the Black Church is Black Feminism
run by women. However, the Black Churchs insti- The active engagement of black women in liberat-
tutional sexism gives African American hetero- ing themselves from all forms of hegemony and

BLACK FEMINISM 117

 patriarchy, public and private, including personal short-lived NBFO held few meetings, the organiza-
B interactions and internalized oppression; the rec-
ognition of the simultaneity of black womens op-
tion was hugely important in establishing lasting
networks among early black feminists.
pression by racism, sexism, classism, and As the Combahee collective did, black and
heterosexism; the use of theory, political action, Latina New York feminists also began meeting in
education, writing, visual and performing arts, 1974; by November, they formally incorporated
speechmaking, and other means to initiate change as Third World Women Inc., later changing the
in black womens position and condition. name to Salsa Soul Sisters (SSS). Emphasizing black
and Latin culture, they formed a drumming group
First Wave History and a writers group, published a magazine, the
The long history of black feminism began with the Gayzette, and, in 1977, began holding annual
first wave of feminism in the nineteenth century womens Kwanzaa celebrations. After Latina les-
when black women were sounding the same themes bians left the group, SSS changed names twice, fi-
as they did during the second wave of womens nally becoming Ancestral Lesbians United for
movements, beginning in the middle 1960s. First Societal Change. They have met every Thursday
wave black feminists include Maria Stewart since their inception and are housed at New York
(18031879), the first woman of any race to speak Citys Lesbian and Gay Community Center.
publicly in the United States; educator Anna Julia Black lesbian publishing ventures of second
Cooper (1758?1864); and the most renowned wave feminism include the radical lesbian collective
black feminist of all time, Sojourner Truth (1797 Azalea, which began in the late 1970s with a mission
1883), whose Aint I a Woman (1851) speech is to publish unedited works by women of color and
legendary. ended in the early 1980s. Consistent contributors were
First wave black feminists challenged white Anita Cornwell (1923) and Audre Lorde. Ache, a
feminists to understand that black womens op- magazine produced in Oakland, California, by black
pression extended beyond sex to race and class, lesbian feminists, began in the late 1980s and lasted
and black men to understand that black women for approximately four years. Conditions: Five, The
were oppressed by sex, as well as by race and class. Black Womens Issue (1979), edited by Lorraine
However, it was second wave feminists, among Bethel and Barbara Smith, was one of the most popu-
them lesbian activist writers Audre Lorde (1934 lar editions of the long-lived feminist magazine, which
1992), Pat Parker (19441989), and Barbara Smith emphasized writing by lesbians. Included in the edi-
(1946), who brought sexual orientation equal vali- tion was Gloria Hulls Under the Days: The Buried
dation. Although the latter category has yet to be Life and Poetry of Angelina Weld Grirnk. The tragic
accorded the same importance by all black women story of Grirnk (18801958), a hidden black les-
who call themselves feminists, consciousness of the bian who lived in isolation well into the twentieth
importance of support for lesbianism (not merely century, inspires black lesbians to speak out. Smith
tolerance of, and/or support for, ones lesbian used Conditions Five as the foundation of her Home
friends) continues to grow. Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (1983), which was
Although first wave black feminists expressed published by Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.
in various ways the idea of simultaneous oppres- The press was launched in 1980 by Audre Lorde and
sion by race, sex, and class, it was the Combahee Barbara Smith.
River Collective, a group of predominantly lesbian Lorde and Smith expanded their lesbian political
black feminists in Boston, Massachusetts, who first work into gay politics by serving together on the board
theorized the concept, after expanding it to include of the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays,
sexual orientation. The Combahee River Collec- an organization that grew out of the first Third World
tive Statement (1977) has become a bedrock foun- Conference for Lesbians and Gays in Washington,
dation of black feminist theory. D.C., in 1979, for which Lorde was the keynote
speaker. Black lesbians, sharing with black gay men
Second Wave History oppressions specific to their blackness, chose to work
The Combahee began as a chapter of the National together politically; in that process, and, through read-
Black Feminist Organization (NBFO), which held a ing and hearing Lorde, many black gay men embraced
regional meeting in 1973 and its first national con- and pass along to younger men the concept of black
ference in New York City in 1974. Although the feminism. Angela Bowen

118 BLACK FEMINISM

Bibliography but in Les Nuits de lUnderground there appears,
Guy-Sheftall, Beverly. Words of Fire. New York: for the first time, the countervailing vision of a
New Press, 1995. community of mutual caring among women, a vi-
Hull, Gloria. Under the Days: The Buried Life of sion that, extended beyond the lesbian community,
Angelina Weld Grirnk. In Conditions: Five, comes to dominate Blaiss later writings. However,
The Black Womens Issue 2:2 (1979), 1725. in a 1989 novel set in a lesbian commune, LAnge
de la solitude (The Angel of Solitude), Blais shows
See also African Americans; Combahee River Col- greater pessimism about the future of a younger
lective; Cornwell, Anita; Grimk, Angelina Weld; generation in a world infected with AIDS.
Latinas; Lesbian Feminism; Lorde, Audre; Parker, Pat; While lesbian characters are foregrounded in
Race and Racism; Smith, Barbara; Women of Color only two of Blaiss novels, much of her work testi-
fies to the power of relationships among women.
Mary Jean Green
Blais, Marie-Claire (1939)
Qubec novelist and playwright. When she was Bibliography
barely twenty, Marie-Claire Blais gained critical rec- Green, Mary Jean. Marie-Claire Blais. New York:
Twayne, 1995.
ognition for her first novel, La Belle bte (Mad Shad-
Meigs, Mary. Lily Briscoe: A Self-Portrait. Van-
ows). She was soon discovered by American liter-
couver: Talonbooks, 1981.
ary critic Edmund Wilson (18951972), who helped
her come to the United States on a Guggenheim Fel-
See also Deming, Barbara; Qubec
lowship and introduced her to the artist Mary Meigs
(1917), who would become Blaiss lover and life-
long friend. She soon joined Meigs and her partner,
Blaman, Anna (19051960)
writer Barbara Deming (19171984), in their home
Pen name of Dutch novelist Johanna Petronella
on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, entering into a life
Vrugt. Born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, the
that was both a liberation and an education after a
daughter of a bicycle repairer and dealer, Anna
Qubec Catholic childhood shaped by poverty and Blaman suffered from frail health and lived with
sexual repression. Under the tutelage of Meigs, Blais her mother all of her life. Although she trained to
explored literature, art, and music; through be a teacher, she never was able to work for any
Demings militant activism, she was introduced to extended period. When she was about sixteen, she
the American protest movements of the 1960s, these became aware of her homosexuality but did not
new images of violence and oppression deeply af- think a big deal about it. At twenty-eight and al-
fecting a sensitivity already painfully attuned to the ready suffering from the strain of her temporary
suffering of others. In 1965, Blais published a sa- teaching jobsshe could not get tenure because
tiric analysis of oppression in her own Qubec soci- she never was able to fulfill the needlework quali-
ety in her novel Une Saison dans la vie dEmmanuel ficationshe began a career as a writer. In 1936,
(A Season in the Life of Emmanuel), immediately she became so seriously ill that people feared for
hailed as a classic because of its dark parody of the her life. She miraculously recovered with the help
long-idealized rural family. of what turned out to be the great love of her life,
Although Blais was able to live openly as a les- Alie Bosch (known as Nurse B.). Bosch did not
bian after leaving Qubec, to which she returned return her love in the way she wanted, so Blaman
only in the late 1970s, it was not until 1976 that (who around that time adopted the pseudonym,
lesbian experience made its first appearance in her the exact meaning of which has remained a mys-
writing, in a monologue she contributed to La Nef tery) turned to a number of sexual relationships
des sorcires (Ship of Witches), a collective femi- with other women, including lesbian writer Marie-
nist dramatic production. The lesbian community Louise Doudart de la Gre (19071981).
evoked in the monologue becomes the subject and Vrouw en Vriend (Woman and Friend),
the central character of Blaiss 1978 Les Nuits de Blamans first novel, was published in 1941. Her
lUnderground (Nights in the Underground), her first literary success came with Eenzaam Avontuur
first novel grounded in lesbian experience. In all of (Lonely Adventure) in 1948. It received a prestigious
Blaiss work, relationships within the couple, les- literary prize from the city of Amsterdam but was
bian or heterosexual, are fraught with difficulty, condemned by the general public for its amorality

BLAMAN, ANNA 119

 and emphasis on sexuality as the basis for rela- dation for every form of popular music to follow.
B tionships. Rumors of Blamans lesbianism, as well
as the inclusion of a lesbian character, precipitated
Of the blues singers who performed as professional
artists and commanded large-scale audiences in re-
a scandal around the book. It finally was con- vival-like gatherings (at the same time as male min-
demned by a well-publicized literary tribunal isters were becoming a professional caste), Gertrude
conducted in Rotterdam in 1949. Blaman never Ma Rainey (18861939) and Bessie Smith
fully recovered from this, although she kept on (1894?1937) were the most widely known. When
writing well-received books, such as De they preached about sexual love, they were articu-
Kruisvaarder (The Crusader) (1950) and Op leven lating a collective experience of freedom, which, for
en dood (To the Death) (1951). In 1956, she be- many African American people, was the most pow-
came the first woman to receive the prestigious P.C. erful evidence that slavery no longer existed. Sexu-
Hooftprize for literature. She died, age fifty-five, ality in the blues sounded dramatically different from
of a cerebral embolism. Her unfinished posthumous the highly idealized versions of romantic love in turn-
novel, De Verliezers (The Losers), published in of-the-century white popular music. The prevailing
1961, was the first to include two lesbian charac- ideology of domestic bliss within the confines of mar-
ters, instead of a heterosexual couple. riage and motherhood was largely irrelevant to Af-
Blamans work was influenced by French exis- rican American women. The blueswomen were in-
tentialism, and it was its modernity that shocked tensely critical of marriage in their songs, and they
most of her critics. The failure of romantic love adopted rhetorical stances that were independent,
and its replacement by sexuality are its main unorthodox, challenging, and sexually adventurous.
themes, with subthemes of illness and health. The Musically, the blues relied on a twelve-bar har-
publication of many of her letters in 1988 and 1990 monic pattern that facilitated the delivery of each
revealed how much of her own life was reflected in verse in a song; the twelve-bar cycle was repeated
her work. Blamans perception of her homosexu- several times throughout, depending on the number
ality as innate and masculine is projected into of verses or instrumental solos. Many blues songs
the male character, who usually suffers from frus- vary this structure, and others depart from it alto-
trated love for a woman representing Annas lov- gether. Most blues songs also followed an AAB text
ers, primarily Alie Bosch. Judith Schuyf format, in which the B line resolved the issue ad-
dressed in the A lines. Accompaniments ranged from
Bibliography a simple piano or guitar to a full-blown jazzband
Struyker Boudier, Henk. Speurtocht naar een arrangement. In performance, the accompaniment
Onbekende. Anna Blaman en haar Eenzaam would play off the vocalist at the end of each line,
Avontuur (Quest for an Unknown: Anna forming an internal call and response between singer
Blaman and Her Lonely Adventure). Amster- and instrumentalists and adding to the meaning of
dam: Meulenhoff, 1973. the texts, laced with double entendres.

See also Netherlands Blues Queens

Many of the blues queens were lesbian or bisexual.
Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith had affairs with the
Blues Singers women who performed in their shows, and it is quite
Musical genre that developed in the late nineteenth possible they were lovers with each other. Gladys
century and was rooted in African American Bentley (19071960) was an openly lesbian per-
spirituals and field hollers. Davis (1995) argues that, former who sported a bulldagger image. Alberta
during the Reconstruction period, the personal sta- Hunter (18951984) was successful in the more
tus of African Americans transformed in three glamorous cabaret circuit and among European
signficant ways: individual travel, education, and audiences. In the mid-1950s, she retired and
sexuality that could be explored freely by individu- worked as a nurse for twenty years in New York
als who now could enter into autonomously cho- City. She made a celebrated comeback in 1977 at
sen personal relationships. African American the age of eighty-two. Hunter took great pains to
women were central figures in creating and refining conceal her lesbianism. After a brief marriage, she
the classic blues (distinct from country blues, was lovers with Carrie Mae Ward (n.d.), and she
a predominantly male genre), which laid the foun- had a long-term relationship with Lottie Tyler (n.d,

120 BLAMAN, ANNA

the niece of Bert Williams [18741922]), with whom (1931) by Blair Niles and Shug in Alice Walkers
she shared her apartment. Hunters biographer, The Color Purple (1982) are both based on the fig-
Taylor (1987), writes that Alberta recoiled every ure of the worldly blues singer. Martha Mockus
time a lesbian performer like Ethel Waters fought
with her girlfriends in public. Waters (18961977), Bibliography
known as Sweet Mama Stringbean, popularized Carby, Hazel. It Jus Bes Dat Way Sometimes: The
the songs Stormy Weather and Dinah. Taylor Sexual Politics of Womens Blues. In Unequal
claims she was lovers and longtime friends with Ethel Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Wom-
Williams (1909?), who occasionally danced in ens History. Second Edition eds. Vicki L. Ruiz
Waterss shows. Waters raised Algretta, Williamss and Ellen Carol DuBois. New York: Routledge,
daughter, until the girl was twelve. 1994, pp. 330341.
Several blues songs address lesbianism. Ma Davis, Angela Y I Used To Be Your Sweet Mama:
Raineys Prove It on Me Blues (1928) is the most Ideology, Sexuality and Domesticity in the Blues
direct expression of lesbian sexuality and defiance. of Gertrude Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. In
Carby (1994) observes that this song vacillates Sexy Bodies: The Strange Carnalities of Femi-
between the subversive hidden activity of women nism. Ed. Elizabeth Grosz and Elspeth Probyn.
loving women [and] a public declaration of lesbian- New York: Routledge, 1995, pp. 231265.
ism. The words express a contempt for a society Garber, Eric. A Spectacle in Color: The Lesbian
that rejected lesbians. But at the same time the and Gay Subculture of Jazz Age Harlem. In
song is a reclamation of lesbianism as long as the Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and
woman publicly names her sexual preference for Lesbian Past. Ed. Martin Duberman, Martha
herself. In the Paramount advertisement for this Vicinus, and George Chauncey, Jr. New York:
song, Rainey wears mens clothing and flirts with Penguin, 1989, pp. 318331.
two feminine women on a street corner while a po- Harrison, Daphne Duval. Black Pearls: Blues
liceman looks on. Rainey states the possibility that Queens of the 1920s. New Brunswick, N.J.:
some prostitutes may be lesbians, in her Shave Em Rutgers University Press, 1988.
Dry Blues (1924). Lucille Bogans (also known as Taylor, Frank C. Alberta Hunter: A Celebration in
Bessie Jackson [18971948]) recording of B.D. Blues. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987.
Womens Blues (1935) proudly asserts that
bulldaggers can lay their jive just like a natural man/ Recordings
B.D. women sure is rough; they drink up many a AC/DC Blues: Gay Jazz Reissues (Stash ST106).
whiskey and sure can strut their stuff. There were
several variants of this lesbian song, recorded as See also African Americans; Bentley, Gladys; Bi-
B.D.s Dream or B.D. Women. Bertha Idahos sexuality; Harlem; Harlem Renaissance; Rainey,
Down on Pennsylvania Avenue depicts the sexual Gertrude Ma; Smith, Bessie
variety found in Baltimore, where Some freakish
sights youll surely see, /You cant tell the hes from
the shes. A few mens songs also mention lesbian- Boarding Schools
ism. In Bad Girl Blues, Memphis Willie B.Borum English girls boarding schools have been associated
sings: Women loving each other and they dont with lesbianism since Havelock Ellis (18591939)
think about no man/They aint playing no secret no warned (in Studies in the Psychology of Sex [1901])
more, these women playing it a wide open hand; that places where women lived and slept together,
in Boy in the Boat (1930), George Hanna muses: and men were absent, were breeding grounds for
When you see two women walking hand in hand, lesbian seduction. Prior to the sexologists, close
just shake your head and try to understand. friendships between girls and women had been
Long before the second wave of womens and smiled upon. But, by the end of the nineteenth cen-
lesbian and gay liberation in the 1960s, these blues tury, girls schools were moving away from the ear-
singers and their songs cleared an important space lier kind of small, family-style institution, which
for lesbian sexuality within a relatively tolerant aimed to turn out accomplished ladies, and increas-
social context of African American urban culture. ingly modeled themselves upon boys public (i.e.,
Finally, the phenomenon of the lesbian or bi- private) schools, which were widely known to be
sexual blues queen is immortalized in at least two places where homosexual experimentation flour-
novels. The characters of Sybil in Strange Brother ished. Fear that girls schools might adopt this along

BOARDING SCHOOLS 121

 with the academic curriculum, competitive games, sources for lesbian content. While rarely con-
B and codes of honor was accompanied by suspicion
of the all-women worlds of the girls schools and
sciously engaging with lesbian feelings, girls-school
stories often tackled the crush and presented
colleges and, particularly, of the strong-minded, in- quite positive views of love between girls (for ex-
dependent women who had risen to positions of ample, Elsie J.Oxenhams [18801959] Abbey
considerable power and influence as schoolmis- books). Even in the 1950s and 1960s, widely read
tresses. Clemence Danes (18881965) repellent writers for children, such as Enid Blyton (1897
novel Regiment of Women (1919) depicts the preda- 1968) and Elinor M.Brent-Dyer (18941969), were
tory lesbian schoolmistress who was to typify depicting schoolmistresses who seem obvious les-
antilesbian imagery in the years between the world bians to the adult reader, either because of their
wars. Schoolgirl crushes, hitherto considered in- masculine presentation (Miss Peters in Blytons
nocent and even character building, became the sub- Malory Towers series) or because they are in ac-
ject of warning addresses by headmistresses at such cepted couple relationships with another mistress
institutions as Cheltenham, Downe House, and (Nancy Wilmot and Kathie Ferrars in BrentDyers
Roedean. Antilesbianism fed into the campaign Chalet School series).
against single-sex schools that gathered pace after The girls boarding-school story, like the girls
World War II. Lamb and Pickthorns study of girls boarding school itself, fell victim to the prevailing
schools, Locked-Up Daughters (1968), refers sev- heterosexism of the 1960s: Reprints of earlier nov-
eral times to the dangers of lesbianism in boarding els were drastically edited, with references to kisses
schools (emotional involvement and Lesbianism and shared beds expunged. Publishers closed their
have always been a latent streak in the single sex school-story lists, replacing them with mixed-sex
school. We like to think thatthese unhappy as- adventure tales and career novels (nurse, secre-
pects of community life occur today much less). tary, air hostess, each with obligatory boyfriend).
There is truth in Elliss statement that, where A rare feminist-era example of a lesbian novel set
women are gathered together, there lesbians will in a boarding school is Elana Nachmans (1949)
be found. And, though only a small proportion of Riverfinger Women (1974). While there was a re-
girls have ever attended a boarding school, those vival of critical interest in girls-school stories in
who have often recall lesbian teachers or lesbian the 1980s, largely thanks to the feminist revaluing
affairs; some date their lesbian initiation to their of womens experience, both boarding-school sto-
school days. Historians Vicinus (1991) and ries and boarding schools themselves are in decline:
Edwards (1995) have uncovered clear evidence of Social realism and coeducational day schools are
lesbian relationships among school and college considered more natural and healthy. Those
mistresses, while novelists have depicted early ex- women who attended boarding schools rarely re-
periences of lesbian love in fictionalized accounts member them with much pleasure, but many read-
of their own school days: love for a teacher ers of boarding-school stories found in the all-girl
(Dorothy Bussy [18661960], Olivia [1949]) or settings a rich fantasy world whose influence ex-
for a fellow student (Lucy Kinlock [1899?1995], tended into adulthood. Rosemary Auchmuty
A World Within a School [1937]). Adult novels
about boarding-school lesbianism, such as Rose- Bibliography
mary Mannings The Chinese Garden (1962) or Auchmuty, Rosemary. A World of Girls: The Ap-
the unpleasant No Talking After Lights (1990) by peal of the Girls School Story. London: Wom-
Angela Lambert, (c. 1940s) tend to be negative in ens Press, 1992.
tone. But Nancy Spain (19171964), well-known Avery, Gillian. The Best Type of School: A History
British broadcaster and writer who, like Manning of Girls Independent Schools. London: Andre
(19111988), was herself a lesbian, wrote an amus- Deutsch, 1991.
ing spoof detective novel, Poison for Teacher Edwards, Elizabeth. Homoerotic Friendship and
(1949), which she set in a school she called Radcliff College Principals, 18801960. Womens His-
Hall, modeled on Roedean, the school she had at- tory Review 4:2 (1995), 149163.
tended. Lamb, Felicia, and Helen Pickthorn. Locked-Up
Novels for girls about boarding-school life, Daughters: A Parents Look at Girls Educa-
which formed a significant body of British juvenile tion and Schools. London: Hodder and
fiction between 1880 and about 1970, are good Stoughton, 1968.

122 BOARDING SCHOOLS

Vicinus, Martha. Distance and Desire: English jects, they should be able to escape the negative
Boarding-School Friendships, 18701920. In body image heterosexual women suffer. Yet some
Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and argue that lesbians, too, accept patriarchal stand-
Lesbian Past. Ed. Martin Duberman, Martha ards of beauty or institute their own standards that
Vicinus , and George Chauncey, Jr. London: are equally restrictive, such as clothes, short hair
Penguin, 1991, pp. 212229. styles, mannerisms, and physical strength.
As surveyed in the introduction to Looking
See also Colleges, Womens; Smashes, Crushes, Queer (Atkins, 1998), the first quantitative stud-
Spoons ies on lesbian body image were not published until
1990. Six studies done between 1990 and 1997
compared the body image of lesbians and hetero-
Body Image sexual women (some comparing with gay and
A persons experiences of, and attitudes toward, the straight men as well) and indicate a complex inter-
body. This has included such areas as attitudes to- action between gender and sexual orientation. For
ward physical appearance, eating disorders, weight example, four studies found significant differences
obsession, size, and other forms of appearance between lesbian and heterosexual women that seem
discriminations. For many years, clinicians assumed to confirm the assertion that lesbians have fewer
that body-image difficulties among women prima- body-image difficulties. The other two found no
rily involved, or were a result of, their reaction to significant differences. All of those that involved
the male gazethe result of seeking to attract men. men found that heterosexual men had the fewest
In this view, lesbian body-image concerns were not body-image concerns. Yet, they differed on whether
even considered by academic and clinical experts. gay men had fewer or more body-image concerns
Yet body image has been an important issue from than women of any sexual orientation.
an early point in the second wave of the womens Many problems exist with these studies. One
movement and lesbian feminism. damaging bias is that the researchers collapsed
Some feminists, especially lesbian and bisexual sexual orientation and sexual behavior, assuming
women, initially identified womens appearance that women who identify as lesbians are not af-
norms (and resulting body-image problems) as a fected by relations with men. Any woman who
function of patriarchal control and sought quite identified as bisexual was excluded from the stud-
explicitly to challenge beauty norms. The earliest ies; yet, some lesbians who indicated they may be
publications on lesbian experience of body image attracted to men as well were included. This would
came out of the fat womens liberation movement make it difficult to tell what, if any, impact attrac-
in the early 1970s. According to Vivian Mayer, in tion to men might have. And even though some of
the introduction to Schoenfielder and Wieser the studies mention the importance of lesbian cul-
(1983), the movement was a blending of radical ture, they do not take age or length of time in the
feminism and radical therapy. Early writings spoke community into consideration. For instance, if
to the issues of weight discrimination in general, adoption of lesbian cultural values were more im-
but also within the lesbian feminist communities. portant than gender attraction, lesbian and bisexual
In an early theoretical work in Lesbian women who are part of that value system might
Psychologies (1987), therapist Laura S.Brown in- differ from women who are new to the commu-
dicated that lesbians appeared less likely to have nity or do not share the appearance values.
eating disorders than straight women. She specu- In trying to understand these complex and some-
lated that, since lesbians were very involved in fat times contradictory results, Rothblum (1994) took
liberation, the community seemed more accepting a cultural approach when she analyzed the ways
of a diversity of sizes. She outlined the parallels in which appearance affects lesbians, including the
between attitudes toward fat women and lesbians influences of traditional attitudes and institutions,
and suggested that patriarchy forbids women to the effect of homophobic stereotypes, the process
love other women because it would lead them to of identifying with lesbian culture, the invisibility
love and value themselves. She further speculated of lesbians who are also part of other oppressed
the a lesbians own internalized homophobia would groups, and the changing physical-appearance
play a part in her body image. norms within the lesbian community.
One would expect that, since lesbians do not To combat lesbian invisibility within the domi-
think of themselves as objects defined by male sub- nant society, lesbians may need to adopt specific

BODY IMAGE 123

 appearance norms to be able to recognize and be Psychologies. Ed. Boston Lesbian Psychologies
B recognized by other lesbians. These lesbian norms
can become markers of identity, but they also can
Collective. Chicago: University of Illinois Press,
1987, pp. 294310.
be restrictive and exclusionary, leaving out those Dworkin, Sari H. Not in Mans Image: Lesbians
who cannot or do not wish to conform. Yet they and the Cultural Oppression of Body Image.
also provide a measure of support in recovering Women and Therapy 8 (1989), 2739.
from, and resisting, the dominant culture ideals that Rothblum, Esther D. Lesbians and Physical Ap-
have resulted in widespread eating disorders. pearance: Which Model Applies? Psychologi-
In A Hunger So Wide and So Deep (1995), femi- cal Perspectives on Lesbian and Gay Issues 1
nist sociologist Becky W.Thompson was the first (1994), 8497.
to directly address eating disorders and other body- Schoenfielder, Lisa, and Barb Wieser, eds. Shadow
image issues among both women of color and les- on a Tightrope: Writings by Women on Fat
bians. She shows how internalized racism and Oppression. Introduction by Vivian Mayer.
homophobia play directly into the body-image Iowa City: Aunt Lute, 1983.
problems of the women in her work, and she notes Thompson, Becky W. A Hunger So Wide and So
that lessons about heterosexuality often went Deep. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
hand in hand with lessons about weight and diet- Press, 1995.
ing. Most lesbians found coming out as a begin-
ning, not an end, to the healing process. See also Fat Liberation
Newer work collected in Atkins (1998) suggests
that lesbian and bisexual women may be at greater
risk of eating disorders than heterosexual women Bonheur, Rosa (18221899)
unless they have the support of a feminist commu- French painter. Born Marie-Rosalie Bonheur on
nity. In addition, racism, ageism, and ableism March 16, 1822, in Bordeaux, France, to Sophie
within both the dominant culture and lesbian com- Marquis and Raimond Oscar-Marie Bonheur, Rosa
munities may lessen the protective effects. More Bonheur became one of the most successful and
work needs to be done that explores the complex honored artists of her era. After receiving her initial
ways early childhood, family pressures, lesbian training from her father, she refined her skills by
values and norms, and feminism all compete in the copying famous paintings in the Louvre. Her most
body-image conceptions of lesbian and bisexual
women.
What these earlier and newer works combined
indicate is that lesbian culture may provide a place
for women to resist sexist and heterosexist appear-
ance normsbut that sexual orientation alone is
not protective. And as lesbian and bisexual women
become more assimilated into mainstream culture,
they may be more at risk of conforming to domi-
nant appearance ideals for women. If a feminist cul-
ture of resistance has been central to the develop-
ment of positive body image among lesbians and
bisexual women, it is important to change the domi-
nant cultural norms, as well as fight for acceptance
of diverse sexual orientations. Dawn Atkins

Bibliography
Atkins, Dawn, ed. Looking Queer: Body Image
and Identity in Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and
Transgender Communities. New York:
Harrington Park, 1998. Rosa Bonheur, by Anna Elizabeth Klumpke. The
Brown, Laura S. Lesbians, Weight, and Eating: Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of the artists in
New Analyses and Perspectives. In Lesbian memory of Rosa Bonheur, 1922 (22.222).

124 BODY IMAGE

common subjects were animals, initially domestic etery in the same crypt as Nathalie Micas. In 1945,
livestock, particularly horses, then, later, panthers, Klumpkes ashes were also interred there. The epi-
lions, and tigers. Her works also included portraits taph reads: Friendship is divine affection.
and scenes of rural life. Bonheur never publicly identified as lesbian and
In 1841, at the age of nineteen, she saw her first made somewhat ambiguous comments regarding her
works accepted by the jury of the Paris Salon, where sexual and romantic interests and her relationships
she exhibited regularly for the next fifteen years, with Micas and Klumpke. Although she said, My
collecting awards and critical acclaim. As her suc- private life is nobodys concern and described Mi-
cess at the Salon indicated, Bonheur was not an cas as her friend and their relationship as sis-
avant-garde painter; her animal paintings and genre terly, in a few letters to very close friends she de-
scenes were consistent with, and considered exem- scribed Klumpke as her wife. An oft-quoted re-
plary of, the mainstream academic standards of the markThe fact is, in the way of males, I like only
period. She was elected to fine-arts societies in the bulls I paintindicates a rather distinct disin-
England, the United States, and various European terest in men that she seemed comfortable express-
countries and principalities; received honors from ing. Regardless of self-identification, the circum-
the heads of state of Belgium, Spain, Mexico, and stances of Bonheurs life have led many
France; and was the first woman to achieve the latetwentieth-century biographers and art histori-
rank of Officier de la Lgion dHonneur. With her ans to identify her as oriented toward her own sex.
sister, Juliette, she directed the School of Drawing Gwendolyn Alden Dean
for Young Girls in Paris from 1849 to 1860.
Bonheur flouted convention by wearing male Bibliography
clothing like her famous literary contemporary, Ashton, Dore. Rosa Bonheur: A Life and a Leg-
George Sand (18041876). She received official per- end. New York: Viking, 1981.
mits from the Paris police to wear male attire and Collis, Rose. Portraits to the Wall: Historic Les-
maintained that her trousers and jackets were neces- bian Lives Unveiled. London: Cassell, 1994.
sary because she studied animal anatomy in slaugh- Stanton, Theodore, ed. Reminiscences of Rosa
terhouses. Bonheur ridiculed women who donned Bonheur. New York: Hacker Art Books, 1976.
such attire in social settings, saying, If you see me
dressed as I am, it is not for originalitys sake, as too See also Art, Mainstream; France; Sand, George
many women do, but simply to facilitate my work.
It is surprising, given the hostility engendered by Sand
and feminists such as Flora Tristan (18031844), that Bookstores
neither Bonheurs dress nor her public relationships Even though feminist and lesbian and gay book-
with female partners interfered with her popularity. stores emerged at different times, they share the
Bonheur had known her first partner, Nathalie same goal of providing information to communi-
Micas (18241889), since childhood. After her ties often ignored by the mainstream.
fathers death, when she was twenty-seven,
Bonheur moved in with the Micas family. In 1853, Emergence of Bookstores
Bonheur and Micas moved in together in Paris. In the late 1960s, there were no feminist bookstores
Seven years later, they purchased the Chteau de in existence in the United States and only one gay
By near the Forest of Fontainebleau and lived there and lesbian bookstore, the Oscar Wilde Memorial
with Micass mother. Bookshop in New York City. The rebirth of the wom-
Micas, whose health was always delicate, died ens movement in the 1970s brought with it an in-
in 1889. In 1898, Anna Elizabeth Klumpke (1856 creased need for literature, music, and information
1945), an artist from the United States whom on womens lives. Emerging from the radical wom-
Bonheur first met the year Micas died, moved in ens movement, bookstores began to appear in com-
with her. Bonheur commissioned Klumpke to write munities after the 1976 Women in Print Conference
her biography and made a will leaving her entire that brought together women interested in publish-
estate to her new partner. (Bonheur and Micas had ing, selling, and printing information about lesbian-
both had wills designating each other sole benefi- ism and feminism. Many bookstores grew out of com-
ciary.) Bonheur died the following year, on May munity organizations, such as the Womens Action
25, 1899. She was buried in Pre Lachaise cem- Collective of Columbus, Ohio. Reflecting their

BOOKSTORES 125
 activist roots, bookstores were run by collectives of tions folded, but the womens bookstore remained
B women, with no distinct owners or managers and
operated on a nonprofit basis. By the 1990s, 140
a haven connecting and rejuvenating activists.
While lesbian, gay, and feminist movements are
feminist bookstores existed in the United States. in different stages of development across the globe,
Gay-, lesbian-, and bisexual-oriented bookstores bookstores with lesbian or feminist sections are evi-
also have their origins in the movement, and, as gay dent in many countries. In Johannesburg, South
rights gained momentum in the 1980s and 1990s, Africa, for example, four bookstores advertise les-
bookstores appeared across the country. At the time bian and gay offerings. Two womens bookstores
of the Stonewall Inn Riot in 1969, the Oscar Wilde are also established in Kyoto and Osaka, Japan.
Memorial Bookshop in New York City was the only Bookstores catering to women, gays, or lesbians
gay bookstore in the United States. By 1994, there can be found in parts of Asia, Europe, the Middle
were forty-five lesbian and gay bookstores. East, Australia and New Zealand, Canada, and
Celebrating lesbian lives and culture is an im- Latin America. Jo Reger
portant element for both types of bookstores. By
carrying classic literature, such as Radclyffe Bibliography
Halls The Well of Loneliness (1928), contempo-
Corrigan, Theresa. Feminist Bookstores: Part of
rary fiction, or nonfiction works on such topics as
an Ecosystem. Sojourner: The Womens Fo-
lesbian commitment ceremonies or legal rights,
rum 19:3 (1993), 14.
these bookstores provide valuable information as
Summer, Bob. Bookselling as Cultural Politics.
well as affirm a lesbian lifestyle. Bookstores sup-
Publishers Weekly (June 27, 1994), 2931.
port lesbian identity by selling historical symbols
Taylor, Verta, and Leila J.Rupp. Womens Cul-
of lesbianism, such as black triangle pins, selling
ture and Lesbian Feminist Activism: A Recon-
music by lesbian musicians, and celebrating Les-
sideration of Cultural Feminism. Signs: Jour-
bian and Gay Pride events. They also provide les-
nal of Women in Culture and Society 19:1
bian artists, craftswomen, and writers a space to
display and sell their work. (1993), 3261.
Whittier, Nancy. Feminist Generations: The Per-
Bookstores and Communities sistence of the Radical Womens Movement.
Because of these roles, bookstores are an essential Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995.
part of the ecosystem supporting lesbian commu- Wolf, Deborah Goleman. The Lesbian Community.
nities. This ecosystem is a connected network of ac- Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.
tivists, organizations, and institutions. By doubling
as community centers, bookstores offer meeting places See also Businesses, Lesbian; Collectives; Commu-
for activist and support groups and gathering places nity; Publishing, Lesbian
for lesbians seeking information on community
events. Stores also offer referrals for social services,
provide bulletin boards for a variety of needs, such Boston Marriage
as roommates wanted, car repair, and child care. They The term Boston marriage was used in late-nine-
may also serve as safe places for women to explore teenth-century New England to describe a longterm
what it means to be lesbian or bisexual. monogamous relationship between two otherwise
Booksellers take an active role in their commu- unmarried women. The women were generally fi-
nities by participating in area organizations and nancially independent of men, either through inher-
activities, such as providing sensitivity training on itance or because of a career. They were usually femi-
gay, lesbian, and bisexual issues in corporations or nists, New Women, often pioneers in a profession.
speaking on activist issues at area high schools. They were also very involved in culture and social
Because of their connections to the lesbian com- betterment, and these female values formed a strong
munity, many bookstores use volunteers to staff basis for their life together. As described by Bostonian
the store or attend special events. Mark DeWolfe Howe, a nineteenth-century Atlan-
As a part of these ecosystems, bookstores have tic Monthly editor who had social contact with a
helped lesbian communities survive and thrive dur- number of these women, including Sarah Orne
ing times of political backlash. A case study in Jewett (18491909), who had a Boston marriage
Columbus, Ohio, found that, during an with Annie Fields (18341915), their relationships
antifeminist backlash, many community organiza- were, in every sense, a unionthere is no truer

126 BOOKSTORES
word for it. Whether these unions sometimes or moved semipermanently to England, where she es-
often included a sexual relationship cannot be tablished herself as an influential literary figure in the
known, but it is clear that these women spent their artistic circles of Oxford and London.
lives primarily with other women; they gave to other Having married Alan Cameron in 1923, Bowen
women the bulk of their energy and attention; and entertained intense relationships with both men and
they formed powerful emotional ties with other women, including Carson McCullers (19171967)
women. If their personalities could be projected to and May Sarton (19121996). It is in this context
contemporary times, it is probable that they would that she found an appropriate outlet for what she
see themselves as women-identified women regarded as her farouche (irascible) tempera-
what would be called lesbiansregardless of the ment, a trait she traced back to her Irish heritage
level of their sexual interests. but that can be equally attributed to her most
Henry James (18431916) intended his novel memorable characters, regardless of nationality.
The Bostonians (1885), which he characterized as Beginning with her first novel, The Hotel (1927),
a very American tale (the italics are Jamess), to Bowen focused on female pre-adulthood, with her
be a study of just such a relationshipone of those characters often connected to the figure of a pow-
friendships between women which are so common
erful older woman, set against the background of
in New England, he wrote in his Notebook.
stultifying English middle-class life.
Jamess sister Alice (18481892) had a Boston mar-
Although Bowen was often regarded as a writer
riage with Katharine Loring (18491949) in the
of sensibility, her sharply satirical wit and her
years before Alice Jamess death.
interest in unpredictable characters make them-
The term Boston marriage was reintroduced
selves felt in each of her ten novels and in the ma-
by Rothblum and Brehony (1993) to describe ro-
jority of her almost eighty short stories. Develop-
mantic but asexual relationships among lesbians
ing a prose style that was highly wrought and elu-
of the contemporary era. These women, the au-
sive, while simultaneously sharply-edged and funny,
thors noted, considered themselves couples in every
way except that they were not currently involved Bowen earned an international reputation with The
sexually with each other and may never have been. Last September (1929) and To the North (1932);
Their research was presented as a challenge to the her best-known work, The Death of the Heart, was
idea that sex is what constitutes a lesbian relation- published in 1938.
ship. Questions do remain, however, about how Bowens influence waned in the postwar years.
useful the notion or term Boston marriage is in Throughout the 1950s, she spent considerable time
the contemporary era and to what extent internal- teaching in the United States, where she maintained
ized homophobia may account for the lack of sexu- an ardent friendship with Eudora Welty (1909). Her
ality in these relationships. Lillian Faderman last two novels, The Little Girls (1964) and Eva Trout
(1969), represent radical departures from earlier sty-
Bibliography listic and narrative methods. These texts also explic-
Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men: itly address what hitherto had lingered under the sur-
Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women face, the disruptive operations of female same-sex de-
from the Renaissance to the Present. New York: sire. Presenting what she called life with the lid off,
William Morrow, 1981. Bowen abandoned the ostensibly straight narratives
Rothblum, Esther D., and Kathleen A.Brehony. that had formerly served as a proper backdrop for
Boston Marriages. Amherst: University of Mas- her disconcerting fantasies. Not surprisingly, these nov-
sachusetts Press, 1993. els alienated both the literary establishment and con-
ventional readers. Rediscovered by lesbian feminists
See also Couples; James, Alice; Romantic Friend- in the early 1990s, Bowen can be regarded as not only
ship a prominent figure on the scene of English letters, but
also as one of the most outstanding contributors to
twentiethcentury lesbian literature. rene c.hoogland
Bowen, Elizabeth (18991972)
Anglo-Irish novelist and short story writer. Born in Bibliography
Dublin, Ireland, and partly educated in England, Eliza- Glendinning, Victoria. Elizabeth Bowen: Portrait
beth Bowen lived most of her life in self-imposed ex- of a Writer. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977,
ile from her native Ireland. In her early twenties, she 1985.

BOWEN, ELIZABETH 127

 hoogland, rene c. Elizabeth Bowen: A Reputation Cherifa (c. 1928?), a Moroccan working-class les-
B in Writing. New York: New York University
Press, 1994.
bian. In the 1950s, Bowles concentrated on writ-
ing and seeing her first play, In the Summer House
(1951, 1953), into production. It was her last fin-
See also English Literature, Twentieth Century ished piece of literature. In 1955, two collections
of Bowless fiction were compiled in the United
Kingdom and in the United States, Plain Pleasures
Bowles, Jane Auer (19171973) and The Collected Works of Jane Bowles.
American writer. Born in Woodmere, Long Island, During the last few years of her life, Bowles
New York, on February 22, 1917, in a community moved out of her home with Paul and into an apart-
and a family made up of first- and second-genera- ment with Cherifa, who cared for her as she be-
tion white middle-class Jewish Americans, Jane came increasingly ill. Off and on between 1967
Auer Bowles was primarily known as the wife of and 1973, she was admitted to a psychiatric insti-
expatriate writer Paul Bowles (1910), and his tution for women in Mlaga, Spain, where she
writing largely overshadows hers. eventually died and is buried. Many Jane Knopf
As a young schoolgirl, Bowles developed
smashes on older women, particularly torch sing- Bibliography
ers. At eighteen, she frequented Greenwich Village Dillon, Millicent. A Little Original Sin: The Life and
in New York City to meet other lesbians. Bowles Work of Jane Bowles. New York: Anchor, 1990.
carried on love relationships with young women Dillon, Millicent, ed. Out in the World: Selected
in her late teen years; she also developed similar Letters of Jane Bowles, 19351970. Santa Rosa,
relationships with men. In a letter, Bowles writes Calif.: Black Sparrow, 1990.
about her burgeoning sexuality in response to her Knopf, Marcy Jane. Bi-nary Bi-sexuality: Jane
mothers accusation that being a lesbian was just Bowles Two Serious Ladies. In Representing
an adolescent phase: If I really were a Lesbian Bisexualities: Subjects and Cultures of Fluid De-
theyd get up a fund for me and send me down to sire. New York: New York University Press, 1996.
the village in my own private bus. But I really
wasnt one, so they couldnt let me go to my ruin! See also American Literature, Twentieth Century;
When she met Paul Bowles in 1937, they both Bisexuality; Greenwich Village
openly discussed their equally bisexual desires. She
became conscious about the pressures of making a
choice about her sexuality. Before marrying on Boye, Karin (19001941)
February 21, 1938, Paul and Jane mapped out a Swedish poet, prose writer, critic, teacher, and trans-
nonmonogamous relationship so that they would lator. Born to an upper-middle-class family, Karin
both be able to continue carrying on relationships Boye grew up in Stockholm, where she graduated
with men and women. and trained herself to become an elementary-school
After the wedding, Bowles began work on her teacher. After a crisis during which she replaced
novel, Two Serious Ladies, which was finally pub- her Christian faith with a secular trust in life, she
lished in 1943 and typically categorized as a les- took up academic studies in languages, literature,
bian novel. During the course of writing this au- and history. As a student, she joined the socialist
tobiographical narrative, Bowles met Helvetia Clart Society.
Perkins (1895?1965), who would become her first Boye published three collections of poetry in
extramarital lover, in Taxco, Central America. Piec- the 1920s and started an avant-garde journal, Spec-
ing together the predicament of simultaneous rela- trum, for which she wrote influential essays. In the
tionships with Perkins and her husband, Bowles early 1930s, she was the leading cultural critic and
worked through bisexual desire in her writing. introducer of European modernism in a country
The Bowles marriage was largely characterized that, at the time, was dominated by a conservative
by frequent trips abroad, until the couple finally cultural tradition. She opposed the German Nazi
settled as expatriates in Tangier, Morocco, in 1948. ideology and took part in the international strug-
Bowles published several short stories after re- gle to create a new social ethics and a democratic
locating to Tangier and it was there that she be- alternative to fascism. Under the influence of psy-
came involved with her second long-term lover, choanalytic theory, she developed her early poetry,

128 BOWEN, ELIZABETH

based on already-existing ideas, into a modernis- . Karin Boye och den revolutionra
tic writing directed toward a revision of the funda- humanismen (Karin Boye and the Revolution-
mental values of her contemporary society. Boye ary Humanism). In Kulturradikalismen: Det
combined a fight against totalitarian claims in poli- moderna genombrottets andra fas (Cultural Radi-
tics and in aesthetics with an ethos in which a new calism: The Second Phase of the Modern Break-
understanding of humanity was central. She through). Ed. Bertil Nolin. Stockholm: Brutus
strongly criticized a polarized and rigid gender-iden- stlings Frlag, Symposion, 1993, pp. 171203.
tified sexuality and pointed out the necessity of sub-
stituting new forms of social life for the traditional See also Modernism
family institution and the morals associated with
it. Swedish literary historians reduced the impor-
tance of Boyes authorship by seeing it as a testi- Brazil
mony to personal, private inner struggles, which Largest country in South America, with more than
she could not solve and which eventually led to 8,000 square kilometers and, according to the 1995
her suicide. Only since the 1980s has this picture census, approximately 150 million people. Its origi-
been supplemented by a feminist and lesbian ap- nal and immigrant peoples have, through intermar-
proach to her life and work. riage, intermingled their different cultures, result-
Boyes 1934 novel, Kris (Crisis), is an autobio- ing in a population that, to an unusual degree, as-
graphical fiction, a revision of her youthful crisis similates new ideas and behaviors. Brazil has main-
when the death of God also meant the loss of the tained its traditions of cultural and sexual liberal-
language she had known. She wrote several other ity despite its standing as the worlds largest Catho-
novels including Astarte (1931), Merit Vaknar lic country. It preserves conservative and punitive
(Merits Awakening, 1933), Fr lite (Too Little, attitudes against lesbians at the same time that les-
1936), and Kallocain (1940), but Kris is her only bians survive and retain a strong identity as women.
novel with a lesbian theme. Celebrating her love
for a young woman, the protagonist finds an ideal History
that helps her partake in the creation of a new view The Portuguese chronicler Pero de Magalhes tells
of life and reality. At the same time, the novel de- of Indian women at the time of Francisco Orellanas
scribes the social and ideological crises and the sixteenth-century expedition down the Amazon
redefinition of values that were occurring in Eu- River. He describes women who decided to remain
rope at the time. chaste and to have no interaction with men, refus-
Boye broke the law by living openly in a les- ing to consent even when refusal meant death. They
bian relationship, and she broke with literary tra- abandoned womens traditional duties and fol-
dition and conventions in her writing. She man- lowed male pursuits: cutting their hair like men,
aged to connect her deepest quest for a new under- making war with bows and arrows, and pursuing
standing of humanity and for a society based on game. Each woman had another woman to whom
responsibility for oneself and others with the cul- she considered herself married.
tural reorientation between the two world wars. Following the Portuguese conquest, sixteenth-
With each new generation, she finds new readers. century Brazil was swept by the tribunals of the
Gunilla Domellf Inquisition, which, between 1591 and 1595 in the
northeast region, interrogated twenty-nine women
Bibliography accused of having lesbian relationships.
Domellf, Gunilla. Den erotiska frigrelsen i
Karin Boyes roman Kris (Erotic Emancipation Political Organizations
in Karin Boyes Novel Crisis). Lesbian organization in the late twentieth century
Kvinnovetenskaplig tidskrift (Journal of Wom- began in the struggle against the rightist military
ens Studies) 4 (1995), 3747. dictatorship that took over in 1964 and lasted
. I oss r en mngfald levande: Karin Boye nearly thirty years. After a period of repression,
som kritiker och prosamodernist (Within Us imprisonment, and death, new politically active
a Multiplicity Is Living: Karin Boye as a Critic groups began to arise. At first, they fought the dicta-
and a Modernist Prose Writer). Ph.D. diss., torship in general, beginning with women who strug-
University of Ume, 1986. gled for political amnesty; later, in the mid-1970s,

BRAZIL 129
 specific groups of women and homosexuals began Mara Herzer produced a collection of poems and
B to assert their rights.
In 1979, the first homosexual newspaper,
depositions, Uma queda para o alto (An Upward
Fall [1992]). The contribution of Cassandra Rios
Lampio de Esquina (Light at the Corner), was to lesbian literature cannot be overlooked; from
published by the gay and lesbian SOMOS group of the 1960s onward she has authored more than
So Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. That same year, the twenty titles.
womens group of SOMOS separated and founded Noteworthy among the research projects un-
its own paper, Chanacomchana. Its editorial stated: dertaken are Denise Portinaris O discurso da
It was the first leap out of conformity and into homossexualidade feminina (Discourse on Female
participation. Our newspaper is our bridge. The Homosexuality [1989]) and Carmen L.Oliveiras
word chana cannot be summarily defined as a fe- Flores Raras e Banalssimas (Rare and Very Banal
male sexual organ. It is something so much Flowers [1995]), a novelized re-creation of the ro-
broaderas big as the counterpoints of existence. mance between American poet Elizabeth Bishop
In 1980, the First Conference of Organized (19111979) and her Brazilian lover, Lota de
Homosexuals took place in So Paulo, and thirty- Macedo Soares (19101967), during the 1950s and
three lesbians were among the 166 persons who 1960s in Rio de Janeiro.
attended. The national homosexual conferences, In the 1990s, Norma Benguel, Renata Sorrah,
later called the National Conference of Lesbians and Florinda Bolkan were publicly identified lesbi-
and Homosexuals, continued into the late 1990s, ans who worked in theater, television, and motion
and caucuses of lesbians and gay men exist within pictures. Lesbian singers had a marked presence in
several political parties. music, including such well-known figures as Leci
In the late 1990s, the lesbian groups active in Brando, Angela Ror, Cssia Eller, Zlia Duncan,
Brazil included Coletivo de Feministas Lsbicas (Col- Marina Lima, Maria Bethnia, and Gal Costa.
lective of Lesbian Feminists), Rede Informao um During the International Lesbian and Gay As-
Outro Olhar (Information Network Another View), sociation (ILGA) meeting in Rio de Janeiro in 1995,
Grupo Sapho (Sappho Group), and AFINS in So lesbians organized an Exposition of Lesbian Vis-
Paulo; Coletivo de Lsbicas (Lesbian Collective) in ibility, which displayed some of the cultural and
Rio de Janeiro; and Grupo Lsbico (Lesbian Group) artistic productions of lesbians and their activism.
in Bahia. Publications included the bulletin Rede Activities such as seminars and conferences were
Outro Olhar and the magazine Femme. organized in the late 1990s in Rio de Janeiro, So
Paulo, and Salvador, Bahia. Miriam Bottassi
Contemporary Conditions Marisa Fernandes
In late-twentieth-century Brazilian legislation, ho-
mosexuality was not criminalized, although an ex- Bibliography
press prohibition against discrimination due to Bottassi, Miriam. Die Rurne der Amazonen:
sexual orientation existed only in the municipal leg- Lesben in Sdamerika (The Space of the Ama-
islation of three states. Legislative proposals to ban zons: Lesbians in South America). In
discrimination on the basis of sexual preference were Sdamerika der Frauen (Women of South
introduced at the city, state, and federal levels in the America). Ed. Danda Prado. Munich:
late 1990s. In 1997, a federal proposal to allow reg- frauenoffensive, 1993, pp. 5163.
istered civil partnership between couples of the same Cavin, Susan. Lesbian Origins. San Francisco: ISM,
sex was considered by the Congress. 1985.
Beginning in the 1980s, interest in lesbian Fernandes, Marisa, coord. Lsbicas no Brasil:
themes intensified, resulting in an increase in liter- contribuio para avaliao da dcada da
ary and academic publications. In literature, mulher, 1985/1995 (Lesbians in Brazil: A Con-
Conceio Couto Neto organized a collection of tribution to the Evaluation of the Decade for
personal narratives and letters, Pele de Gaia (Skin Women, 19851995). So Paulo: Coletivo de
of Gaia) (1994); Bebeti do Amaral Gurgel published Feministas Lsbicas, 1994.
two novels, A quem interessar possa (To Whom It Vainfas, Ronaldo. Homoerotismo Feminino e o
May Concern [1993]) and Pecados Safados Santo Officio (Female Homoeroticism and the
(Sapphist Sins [1995]); Myriam Campello authored Holy Office). In Histria das Mulheres no Brasil
the novel So Sebastio Blues (1993); and Sandra (History of Women in Brazil). Ed. Mary Del

130 BRAZIL
 Priore, So Paulo: Editora Contexto, 1997, pp. and Honourable Estate (1936). Her finest novel,
115140. Honourable Estate, contains the only lesbian rela-
tionship in her fiction, that between dramatist
See also Bishop, Elizabeth Gertrude Campbell and Janet Rutherston, a char-
acter based on her husbands mother.
In the latter years of her life, Brittain wrote two
Brittain, Vera Mary (18931970) other novels; a sequel to Testament of Youth titled
British novelist, journalist, and poet. Born into a Testament of Experience (1957); a discussion of
middle-class Midlands industrial family, Vera Brit- the trial of Radclyffe Halls (18801943) lesbian
tain is best known for her autobiography of World novel, The Well of Loneliness (1928); and much
War I, Testament of Youth (1933), which recounts pacifist and feminist nonfiction. She worked tire-
her resistance to her provincial upbringing in lessly for pacifist causes, even during World War II
Buxton, her successful campaign to go to Oxford when it was unpopular to do so. Jean E.Kennard
University, her war work as a nurse, and the deaths
at the front of her fiance, Roland Leighton, her Bibliography
brother Edward, and two of their close friends. It Bailey, Hilary. Vera Brittain. London: Penguin,
1987.
also describes Brittains struggle to survive the hor-
Berry, Paul, and Mark Bostridge. Vera Brittain: A
rors she had endured and the beginning of her re-
Life. London: Chatto and Windus, 1995.
lationship with Winifred Holtby (18981935), a
Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men:
fellow student who helped her recover.
Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women
Hoping to forge careers as writers, Brittain and
from the Sixteenth Century to the Present. New
Holtby shared an apartment together in London.
York: William Morrow, 1981.
Despite Brittains subsequent semidetached mar-
Gorham, Deborah. Vera Brittain: A Feminist Life.
riage to political scientist George Catlin (1896
Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.
1979), her relationship with Holtby, who lived with
Kennard, Jean E. Vera Brittain and Winifred
them until her death in 1935, was considered les- Holtby: A Working Partnership. Hanover: Uni-
bian by many. To some, the two women were vir- versity Press of New England, 1989.
tually interchangeable; Brittain was once intro-
duced to an audience as Miss Vera Holtby. The See also Hall, Radclyffe; Holtby, Winifred
gossip about them elicited Brittains vigorous de-
nials, particularly in her book about Holtby, Tes-
tament of Friendship (1940). Her biographers Berry Brooks, Romaine (18741970)
and Bostridge (1995) also insist that the relation- American artist. Romaine Brooks was born Beatrice
ship was not lesbian, quoting a scribbled note Berry Romaine Goddard, the youngest of three children,
found among her papers: I loved Winifred but I to Major Henry Goddard and Ella Mary
was not in love with her. Waterman. She experienced a difficult childhood
Despite the lack of evidence of any physical in- due to rejection by her mother. Later, Brooks would
timacy between Brittain and Holtby, it is difficult, write that her mother, even in death, was an obsta-
as Faderman (1981) says, not to see this relation- cle between herself and life.
ship as lesbian. The intensity of their commitment, After making an initial break with her family in
the endearments in the correspondancedarling, 1896, she studied at Le Scuola Nazionale in Rome
sweetieheart, and beloved are common though and later at Academie Colarossi in Paris. In the
edited out at publicationand Brittains frequent summer of 1899 she, like many artists and writers
comparison of her partnership with Holtby to her of the period, went to live in Capri and began ex-
marriage (I am sure I love you best) all suggest a perimenting with vivid colors and light. Despite
relationship that is more than friendship. this relaxing and liberating influence on her life
The primary bond between the two women was and art, which Brooks would later recall as her
their support for each others work. Both earned happiest time, she felt that this use of color failed
money as journalists, and Brittain did her best work to express her nature as an artist. In 1904, she
while they lived together. In addition to Testament moved to London and rented a studio on Tite
of Youth, she wrote three novels during this period: Street, as artist James Whistler (18341903) had
The Dark Tide (1923), Not Without Honour (1924), done years before her, attesting to his influence on

BROOKS, ROMAINE 131

 tions at the National Museum of American Art,
B and in France in the 1970s and 1980s, Brookss
portraits of isolated women have generated a great
deal of controversy. For example, the style of her
Self-Portrait (1923)with its limited palette of
grays, black, and white and precise outlining and
atmospheric backgrounddeliberately resurrected
the visual language of symbolist decadence with
its fascination for eroticism, decay, and death. Since
the trials of Oscar Wilde (18541900), this style
had been considered pass and quiet unfashion-
able. Yet Brooks continued to work in this genre.
Brooks grew up in the World War I period, and
her style matured in the 1920s, a period of sexual
experimentation and self-expression. She and her
lover, Barney, grasped the profoundly complex
nature of the two sexes, becoming deeply interested
in the concept of androgyny and its application to
modern life. Being female meant that there was a
female body with female genitalia, breasts, and the
potential to become pregnant. These were consid-
ered biological imperatives. Barney and Brooks
disagreed with the theory that biology is destiny,
as well as the notion that it is natural for men to
dominate and control womens life choices.
Brooks presents the self as a series of often con-
tradictory roles and identities coexisting within an
individual, rather than some fixed entity. In this
respect, it is valuable to consider the ways she chal-
Romaine Brooks, Self-Portrait. National Museum of Amer- lenges gender stereotypes in her imagery, using cos-
ican Art, Smithsonian Institution, gift of the artist.
tume, for example, to free the sitter, the viewer,
and herself from the tyranny of categorization and
her work despite his prior demise. However, it was stereotyping.
not until her move to the Cornish coast, later the Brooks deliberately invoked the cultural mark-
same year, that she experimented with subtle color ers of marginal, deviant, and illegal sexuality. She
and shades of gray, which would become charac- wanted to break out of the prison of conformity
teristic of her art. and demonstrate the sexual multidimensionality of
Her relationship with John Ellingham Brooks, women and men. She dared to present the lesbian
whom she divorced after a year of marriage, was body openly and, in so doing, challenge modern-
typical of her liaisons with other men, such as isms representation of women as subjects for art
Gabriele dAnnunzio (18631938), with whom she rather than producers of art. Cassandra Langer
wished to maintain a friendship without the
objectification of desire. Disillusioned with their Bibliography
inability to do so, she concluded that her most sig- Breeskin, Adelyn D. Romaine Brooks. Washing-
nificant relationships would be with women. ton, D.C.: National Museum of American Art,
Shortly before World War I, after several romantic Smithsonian Institution, 1986.
liaisons with women, such as Ida Rubinstein Langer, Cassandra. Transgressing Le Droit Du
(18851960), she met Natalie Barney (1876 Seigneur: The Lesbian Feminist Defining Her-
1972), beginning a fifty-year relationship. Brooks self in Art History. In New Feminist Criticism:
died on December 7, 1970, in Nice, France. Art-Identity-Action. Ed. Joanna Frueh,
From their first showings in 1910 at Galeries Cassandra Langer, and Arlene Raven. New
Durand-Ruel in Paris to her posthumous exhibi- York: HarperCollins, 1994, pp. 306326.

132 BROOKS, ROMAINE

Secrest. Meryle. Between Me and Life: A Biogra- bian eroticaespecially in Sous la langue/Under
phy of Romaine Brooks. New York: Doubleday, Tongue (1987), in which the soundplay and word-
1974. play call attention to the material surface (skin)
of the text and the sensual excitation of the tongue.
See also Art, Mainstream; Barney, Natalie; Mod- An erotic relation is also established through les-
ernism bian intertextuality, the spiral of books written
by women. For example, Amantes (1980;
Lovhers, 1986) quotes key erotic passages from
Brossard, Nicole (1943) Adrienne Richs TwentyOne Love Poems (1978)
Qubec poet, novelist, and theorist. Born in and Djuna Barness Nightwood (1928). My Con-
Montral and educated at the Universit de tinent, as Brossard calls the list of lesbian writ-
Montral, Nicole Brossard has been a leading fig- ers in the final poem, is both a historical monu-
ure in postmodern writing since 1965, making is- ment to lesbian creativity and an aerien (no-
sues of gender and language central to Qubec space) in which to invent new forms of loving and
poetics. She is the recipient of prestigious awards, living. Brossard has also worked with Qubec les-
including the Governor-Generals Award (1974, bian and feminist writers on many collective
1984) and the Prix Athanase-David du Qubec projects. She lives with her lover of many years in
(1991). Internationally, her reputation as a lesbian
Montral. Barbara Godard
theorist has grown with translation of her work.
Brossards early focus on (hetero)sexuality as
Bibliography
consciousness, and then on language-centered po-
Dupr, Louise. Stratgies du vertige: Trois potes,
etry, changed to a lesbian feminist critique of pa-
Nicole Brossard, Madeleine Gagnon, France
triarchy for its appropriation of womens desire.
Thoret (Vertiginous Strategies). Montral: Les
In French Kiss (1974, 1986), the first of her les-
Editions remue-mnage, 1989.
bian texts, a lesbian kiss constitutes a sapphic
Godard, Barbara. Producing Visibility for Lesbi-
semantic chain that makes the erotic body cen-
tral to creative production and the public sphere. ans: Nicole Brossards Quantum Poetics. Eng-
If it werent lesbian, this text would make no lish Studies in Canada 21:2 (1995), 125137.
sense, Brossard wrote in LAmr ou le chapitre Huffer, Lynne. Interview with Nicole Brossard.
effrit (1917; Theseourmothers, 1983). In more Yale French Studies 87 (1995), 115121.
than twenty texts, she displaces the patriarchal Parker, Alice. Nicole Brossard: A Differential Equa-
structures of meaning-making and inserts the les- tion of Lesbian Love. In Lesbian Texts and Con-
bian subject into the body politic, and into history, texts: Radical Revisions. Ed. Karla Jay, Joanne
by reworking rules of syntax and genre. Her fic- Glasgow, and Catherine R.Stimpson. New York:
tion-theory oscillates between poetry and mani- New York Univerisy Press, 1990, pp. 304329.
festo and spirals around images or sounds in
plotless, layered forms. A woman subject emerges See also Barnes, Djuna Chappell; Qubec; Rich,
in a Utopian and erotic moment when another Adrienne
womans desire as she reads makes this subject real
within a lesbian community. Reinventing the forms
and rituals of language, literature, and culture is Brown, Rita Mae (1944)
highly political, Brossard writes in La lettre arienne American author. Rita Mae Brown was raised in
(1985; Aerial Letter, 1988): A lesbian is radical Hanover, Pennsylvania (just north of the
or she is not a lesbian. A lesbian who does not MasonDixon line), and Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
reinvent the [wor(1)d] is a lesbian in the process of Expelled from the University of Florida for civil
disappearing. Brossard uses fiction as virtual rights activities, she moved in 1963 to New York
reality to image the unthinkablethe pleasure of City, where she attended New York University and
lesbian sexualityand so change everyday reality Columbia University and joined the embryonic gay
in Picture Theory (1982, 1991), Le dsert mauve rights movement. However, she was soon disillu-
(1987; Mauve Desert, 1990), and Baroque daube sioned with male sexism within gay rights organi-
(1995; Baroque at Dawn, 1997). zations and transferred her energies to womens
Brossard eroticizes the texts body and the liberation. She joined the National Organization
bodys text in her poetrysome of the finest les- for Women (NOW) and became editor of NOWs

B R O W N , R I TA M A E 133
 New York newsletter. But, in 1969, NOW Presi- tion writers manual. Her earlier essays and nov-
B dent Betty Friedan (1921) referred to growing les-
bian visibility as a lavender menace, and Brown
elsand her lifeprofoundly inspired a genera-
tion of women who sought validation for their les-
was relieved of her duties as newsletter editor. bian identity. Her later writing has deemphasized
Stung, she resigned from NOW and cofounded the lesbian consciousness in favor of historical ro-
lesbian feminist activist group Lavender Menace. mance, mystery, and Southern regionalism. Refus-
With its daughter organization, Radicalesbians, ing labels, Brown has consistently insisted on her
Brown helped write and publish the influential right to set her own literary, political, and personal
position paper entitled The WomanIdentified agenda.
Woman (1970). She also cofounded the short- Deborah T.Meem
lived Furies collective, a revolutionary lesbian femi-
nist cell in Washington, D.C. The Furies were in- Bibliography
fluential because they succeeded in positioning les- Abel, E., M.Hirsch, and E.Langland, eds. The Voy-
bianism as the locus of meaningful change for age In: Fictions of Female Development. Hano-
women. They also published Class and Feminism ver, N.H., and London: Dartmouth College and
(1974), the first penetrating critique of class dy- the University Press of New England, 1983.
namics within the feminist movement; Browns Boyle, Sharon D. Rita Mae Brown. In Contem-
essay The Last Straw represented an important porary Lesbian Writers of the United States: A
part of that critique. Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Ed.
The Furies disbanded in 1972, and, since that S.Pollack and D.Knight. Stamford, Conn.:
time, Brown has focused primarily on writing po- Greenwood, 1993, pp. 94105.
etry, essays, screenplays, but mostly novels. Her Mandrell, James. Questions of Genre and Gen-
first and most famous novel was Rubyfruit Jungle der: Contemporary American Versions of the
(1973), a semiautobiographical Bildungsroman fea- Feminine Picaresque. Novel: A Forum on Fic-
turing young lesbian Molly Bolt. Rubyfruit Jungle tion 20:2 (Winter 1987), 149170.
was originally published by Daughters Inc., a femi- Zimmerman, Bonnie. The Safe Sea of Women: Les-
nist press, and it achieved considerable notoriety bian Fiction, 19691989. Boston: Beacon,
among alternative readers. Then, in 1977, it was 1990.
reissued by Bantam as a mass-market paperback,
with immediate and overwhelming results: It sold See also American Literature, Twentieth Century;
over a million copies and catapulted Rita Mae Furies, The; National Organization for Women
Brown into overnight fame and the unofficial po- (NOW); Radicalesbians; Woman-Identified
sition of spokeswoman for American lesbians. Woman; Womens Liberation Movement
Rubyfruit Jungle is a novel in the tradition of
British novelist Henry Fielding (17071754); Molly
Bolt is a kind of female Tom Jones, romping Bryher (18941983)
through a series of humorous sexual escapades with British novelist, poet, publisher, and patron. Bet-
never a self-doubt. Rubyfruit Jungle represented ter known for her relationship with H.D. than for
an astonishing validation of lesbian existence. For her own writing, Bryher was a benefactor of film
lesbian readers, especially, Molly Bolt was a tonic. education, hellenism, literature, and psychoanaly-
Her boundless self-confidence contrasted mightily sis. Available material on Bryher does scant justice
with the angst of Stephen Gordon, heroine of to her lesbianism or her role as a facilitator of
Radclyffe Halls (18801943) The Well of Loneli- modernism.
ness (1928), the only earlier lesbian novel to gain a The elder child of financier Sir John Ellerman,
wide mainstream readership. Rubyfruit Jungle she was named Winifred Ellerman but later legal-
awakened the general public to the existence of ized her pseudonym Bryher. Her autobiographical
lesbianism and also painted a portrait of a well- novels, Development (1920) and Two Selves
adjusted, empowered lesbian woman. (1923), depict her frustration with femininity and
In addition to Rubyfruit Jungle, Rita Mae her need for masculine freedoms. She consulted
Brown has written eight novels, four mystery sto- Havelock Ellis (18591939) about her sexual iden-
ries (coauthored by her cat, Sneaky Pie Brown), tity and later wrote her desire to be a boy into a
two books of essays, a book of poetry, and a fic- series of historical novels with young male

134 B R O W N , R I TA M A E
protagonists, notably The Fourteenth of October Buffalo, New York
(1952) and The Players Boy (1953). This fiction Mid-size industrial city with a well-documented
avoids heterosexual romance and foregrounds working-class lesbian bar culture. Buffalo presents
same-sex relationships. a vivid example of lesbian life outside the coastal
Bryhers meeting with Hilda Doolittle Aldington cosmopolitan cities and suggests the importance
(18861961) was vital to her survival; she ex- of the industrial heartland in shaping twentieth-
pressed her devotion in Hellenics (Poetry, century gay and lesbian movements.
[1920]), Gate to the Sea (1958), and The Heart to At the turn of the twentieth century, Boston
Artemis (1962). H.D. reciprocated with such po- marriages were fairly common in Buffalo, as evi-
ems as Halcyon, Hyacinth and To Bryher denced by obituaries that name lifelong female part-
(Palimpsest [1926]), while At Baia implies a pro- ners and stories in the publications of womens clubs.
found platonic bond: Lover to lover, no kiss, /no In 1903, Harry Gorman, a Buffalo resident who
touch, but forever and ever this. worked as a railroad cook, was discovered to be a
Bryher gave H.D. financial security and brought female; Gorman socialized with a group of similar
up her only daughter. As a friend of Natalie Barney friends, all of whom successfully worked as men on
the railroad. Mabel Dodge Luhans (18791962)
(18761972), Sylvia Beach (18871962), and
memoirs suggest that, during this same time period,
Gertrude Stein (18741946), Bryher was also
some Buffalo women were willing to explore erotic
H.D.s link with lesbian Paris and Berlin. During
interests in women, as well as with men. In the 1920s,
the 1920s, she made two marriages of convenience:
several groups of woman-identified women played
with the American writer Robert McAlmon (1896
a prominent part in the citys cultural life, founding
1956), funding his Contact Editions; then with the
such organizations as the Buffalo Musical Arts So-
British filmmaker Kenneth Macpherson (1902
ciety and the Buffalo Music Foundation.
1971), with whom she created Pool Productions
As early as the 1930s, oral histories reveal that a
and the magazine Close-Up.
few gay and lesbian bars existed in Buffalo. Work-
With the fortune she inherited in 1933, Bryher ing-class lesbians searched for and found them in
acquired Life and Letters To-Day, publishing new order to be with others like themselves. Some lesbi-
work by H.D., Dorothy Richardson (18731957), ans also felt comfortable in the entertainment clubs
and Edith Sitwell (18871964). During World War in the black section of the city; these clubs were not
II, she shared H.D.s London flat, instigating a lit- lesbian but were lesbian friendly. By the 1940s, bars
erary circle. She also aided refugees from the Na- were more concentrated in the downtown section
zis, including psychoanalyst Hanns Sachs (1881 of the city and easier to find. The important bars
1947). After the war, she established a Foundation for lesbians were Ralph Martins, a gay male and
for Hellenic Studies and a travel fund for young lesbian bar, and Winters, an all-womens bar, both
writers like Laurie Lee (19141997) and promoted of which were open for the majority of the decade.
H.D.s reputation with the help of Yale Professor Some Native American women socialized regularly
Norman Pearson (19091976). Diana Collecott in these predominantly white bars. African Ameri-
can women, however, were rare visitors, feeling more
Bibliography comfortable at their own house parties. In bars and
Collecott, Diana. Bryhers Two Selves as Lesbian house parties during the 1940s, Buffalo working-
Romance. Romance Revisited. Ed. Lynne class lesbians began to forge a culture of resistance
Pearce and Jackie Stacey. London: Lawrence built around butch-femme roles. They supported one
andWishart, 1995, pp. 12842. another to keep jobs, to find partners, to build rela-
Guest, Barbara. Herself Defined: The Poet H.D. tionships, and to take the risks of going out every
and Her World. New York: Doubleday, 1984. weekend.
Hanscombe, Gillian, and Virginia Smyers. Writing The witch-hunting of gays and lesbians in the
for Their Lives: The Modernist Women, 1910 1950s did not destroy the incipient communities
1940. London: Womens Press, 1987. of the 1940s; rather, they expanded and became
Taylor, James. Ellermans: A Wealth of Shipping. more defiant, manifesting a pride that presaged
London: Wilton House Gentry, 1976. lesbian and gay liberation. Butches wore their mas-
culine clothing as much as possible and engaged in
See also H.D. (Hilda Doolittle); London; Modern- physical fights to defend their space. In some con-
ism; Paris texts, this process led to greater unity among

B U F FA L O , N E W Y O R K 135
 lesbians; in others, to greater division. The Buffalo A curious confraternityor sorosis. In Gay
B bar communities were desegregated by African
American butches and femmes in the 1950s, even
American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the
U.S.A. New York: Crowell, 1976, pp. 249250.
though they maintained their tradition of open Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, and Madeline D.
house parties. It is as if the growing lesbian con- Davis. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The
sciousness of kind overrode the divisions of race. History of a Lesbian Community. New York:
At the same time, the bars became class stratified. Routledge, 1996.
Upwardly mobile lesbians did not want to associ- Luhan, Mabel Dodge. Intimate Memories, vol. 1:
ate with the brazen masculine attire and manner- Background. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1933.
ism of the rough-and-tough butches. This put them
at too much risk for exposure to their families and See also Bars; Boston Marriage; Butch-Femme;
work. Oral History
In 1958, Nelson Rockefeller (19081979) ran
for governor on a strong antivice platform, and
his election led to a grim period in Buffalo lesbian Bulldagger
social life. Although the governors concerns were Also bulldyke, bulldiker, bulldyker, bull bitch, bull
not specifically related to lesbian life, Buffalo les- dicker, and diesel dyke. A tough, extremely butch les-
bian and gay bars, like most other bars in the city, bian, usually a lower-class woman who lives publicly
were under constant surveillance by the State Liq- in the masculine role, expressed through clothing,
uor Authority. By 1962, most of the hangouts for gesture, and attitude, openly resisting heterosexist
butches and femmes during the 1950s had been definition and confinement; one who assumes the
raided regularly and closed, and no lesbian or gay male sexual prerogative and conventionally plays the
bar remained open for more than several years. male role in lovemaking. Bulldagger has been in use
While the most common cause of harassment was at least throughout the twentieth century in the United
a citation for serving alcohol to a minor, some bars States and almost always refers to African Ameri-
were cited for having lesbian and gay patrons, the cans, while bulldyke and other variations are not race
mere presence of whom was interpreted by the State specific. When used derogatorily by homophobes,
Liquor Authority as permitting disorderly conduct. bulldagger implies an unnatural woman, a castrator,
The pressure on gay bars was so great during the and a manhater, connotations sometimes shared by
1960s that there were periods without any gay bars lesbians as well. However, bulldagger has been re-
at all. In late 1969, during one such period, the claimed as an honorific term through the twentieth
Mattachine Society of the Niagara Frontier was century, by blues singer Bessie Jackson (18971948)
formed, with many members coming from the frag- in her 1935 song, B-D Woman, and by SDiane
mented bar communities. At about the same time, A.Bogus and Judy Grahn, who celebrate her as a cou-
Buffalo Radical Lesbians formed as an outgrowth rageous and proud resister of oppression and an es-
of the womens liberation movement. Together, these sential connection, as Bogus (1994) avers, to the an-
organizations marked a new era in Buffalo lesbian cient and recent black woman-loving past. She is an
life. From that point on, there were public spaces avatar of black female sovereignty, linked mythically
for socializing outside the bars. In the 1970s, 1980s, to Dahomean Amazons and Queen Califia, name-
and 1990s, Buffalo developed an active lesbian com- sake of California.
munity supporting poets, writers, educators, and The origin of the term bulldagger is unclear,
performers, as well as a variety of community or- although it is related to dike and bulldyker. The
ganizations. Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy San Francisco Lesbian and Gay History Project
(1989) writes that, in the 1870s, the word dike
Bibliography was used for a man who was all dressed up for a
Feinberg, Leslie. Stone Butch Blues: A Novel Ithaca, night on the town and that, by 1900, the word
N.Y.: Firebrand, 1993. bulldyker was being used in the prostitution dis-
Kanes, Candace A. Swornest Chums: Buffalo trict of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to refer to les-
Women in Business and the Arts, 19001935. bian lovers. Historically, many prostitutes have had
Masters thesis, University of Buffalo, 1992. lovers who were bulldaggers.
Katz, Johnathan, ed. 1903: Edward I.Prime Grahn (1984) speculates that the word
Stevenson (Xavier Mayne, pseud.); Harry German, bulldagger is related to Boadicea, a first-century

136 B U F FA L O , N E W Y O R K
A.D. Celtic queen who led a revolt against the Katz, Jonathan, ed. Gay/Lesbian Almanac: A New
Roman invasion of Britain and who might have Documentary. New York: Harper and Row,
participated in ceremonial bull-slaying. Bogus 1983.
(1994) traces bull mythos from ancient Egypt to San Francisco Lesbian and Gay History Project.
Bill Pickett, cowboy extraordinaire who introduced She Even Chewed Tobacce: A Pictorial Nar-
bulldogging (subduing bulls) as a rodeo event rative of Passing Women in America. In Hid-
and was featured in the 1923 movie The Bulldogger. den from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Les-
Bogus deems it likely that it was Picketts reputa- bian Past. Ed. Martin Duberman, Martha
tion that brought the word bulldogger into black Vicinus, and George Chauncey, Jr. New York:
culture, which, in time, mutated into bulldagger. Penguin, 1989, pp. 183194.
Famous bulldaggers include Gladys Bentley
(19071960), a cross-dressing blues singer who at- See also Bentley, Gladys; Butch-Femme; Dyke;
tained high fame in the Harlem cabaret scene in the Rainey, Gertrude Ma; Shockley, Ann Allen;
1920s and 1930s. Langston Hughes (19021967) Smith, Bessie
described Bentley as a large, masculine lady. She
performed in flashy mens attire and wore her hair
short and slicked back. Gertrude Ma Rainey Businesses, Lesbian
(18861939) sang Prove It on Me Blues (1928) Those businesses that market exclusively to lesbi-
dressed in the character of a coat-and-tie-wearing, ans. Businesses owned by lesbians that do not ex-
man-disdaining bulldagger. Bessie Jacksons song B- clusively target lesbians as their market are not in-
D Woman honors the bulldagger and warns cluded in this category.
straight men that they had better stop using and As late as 1995, there were no studies on gay or
abusing women, for they are dispensable: Comin lesbian businesses. In 1995, a survey of approxi-
a time, B-D women aint gonna need no men and mately 650 gay and lesbian businesses was con-
BD women, they can lay their claim. ducted for In The Pink: The Making of Successful
Fictional representations of bulldaggers, or Gay and Lesbian Businesses. The number of les-
Queen Bs, based upon Bentley, Rainey, and Bessie bian businesses in the study was seventeen, approxi-
Smith (1894?1937), appear in the novels of mately 2.5 percent of the total sample. Lesbian busi-
Claude McKay (18891948) and Carl Van Vechten nesses in the study operated in the following U.S.
(18801964). Ann Allen Shockley (1927) presents states: California, Colorado, Florida, Oregon, New
a number of fictional portraits of bulldaggers, fre- Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Massachusetts,
quently musicians, in her contemporary novels. Vermont, and Virginia.
Both Bogus and Grahn call for a reclamation of All of the lesbian businesses were service busi-
the history of the bulldagger and recognition of nesses. Half were in the publishing industry, pro-
her archetypal powers and presence, signifying ducing, printing, or selling lesbian-oriented printed
Amazonian, warriorlike, dangerous, proud, inde- material. The largest business in the sample was
pendent, matriarchal, rebellious, and sovereign les- Olivia Records and Travel, with thirteen employ-
bian resistance. Jane Caputi ees and 1995 annual revenues in excess of $5 mil-
lion. The oldest lesbian businesses in the sample,
Bibliography Olivia Records and Travel and Naiad Press, were
Bogus, SDiane A. The Myth and Tradition of the both founded in 1973.
Black Bulldagger. In Dagger: On Butch
Women. Ed. Lily Burana Roxxie, and Linnea Marketing to Lesbians
Due. San Francisco, Calif.: Cleis, 1994, pp. 29 The self-identified lesbian market in the United
36. States was estimated to be 6.2 million by the mid-
. The Queen B Figure in Black Literature. 1990s. This estimate was derived from the
In Lesbian Texts and Contexts: Radical Revi- Yankelovich MONITOR study described in Un-
sions. Ed. Karla Jay and Joanne Glasgow. New told Millions (1995), which stated that the total
York: New York University Press, 1990, pp. number of self-identified gays and lesbians in the
275290. United States sixteen years of age or older was 6 per-
Grahn, Judy. Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, cent of the population, somewhere between the per-
Gay Worlds. Boston: Beacon, 1984. centages reported in other studies. The 6 percent

BUSINESSES, LESBIAN 137

 figure was then applied to the latest U.S. Census Lukenbill, Grant. Untold Millions. New York:
B Bureau data to derive the total number of self-iden-
tified lesbians in the United States. The reasons for
HarperBusiness, 1995.

using this studys estimate are twofold. First, the See also Advertising and Consumerism; Econom-
Yankelovich MONITOR study was conducted with ics; Naiad Press; Olivia
minimal bias so that its results can be generalized
to total populations. Second, unlike other studies
that test solely for individuals who engage, or have Butch-Femme
engaged, in homosexual sexual activities, the Also spelled butch-fem. Butch-femme relationships
Yankelovich MONITOR study tested for individu- are a style of lesbian loving and self-presentation
als who self-identify with a gay or lesbian lifestyle. that, in the United States, can be traced back to the
Lesbian businesses have used a variety of tech- beginning of the twentieth century; historical coun-
niques successfully in communicating with the les- terparts can be found even earlier. Butches and
bian market. Those in the In the Pink study stated femmes have separate sexual, emotional, and so-
that word of mouthreferrals from lesbians to cial identities outside of the relationship. Some
other lesbians to their companywas the most ef- butches believe that they were born different from
fective method of getting lesbians to do business other women; others view their identity as socially
with them. Additionally, some businesses sponsored constructed.
womens sports teams, such as softball or soccer, While no exact date has been established for the
as a way of promoting their products to the les- start of the use of the terms butch and femme
bian market. Mailing to lesbians on a list that the or fem, oral histories do show their prevalence
company developed itself or to a list of names from from the 1930s on. The butch-femme couple was
an outside organization was also used. Finally, les- particularly dominant in the United States, in both
bian businesses advertised in national and local gay black and white lesbian communities, from the
and lesbian publications. 1920s through the 1950s and early 1960s.

Lesbian-Market Challenges Basic Features

Those interviewed for the In the Pink study said Because the complementarity of butch and femme
the lesbian market was an extremely difficult one is perceived differently by different women, no sim-
to target, for a variety of reasons. Lesbians, rela- ple definition can be offered. When seen through
tive to gay men, were said to go out socially to outsiders eyes, the butch appears simplistically
bars and clubs less often and to be more closeted, masculine, and the femme, feminine, paral-
making communication to the group as a whole leling heterosexual categories. But butches and
more difficult. Additionally, lesbians, relative to femmes transformed heterosexual elements, such
heterosexual couples, and gay male couples, tend as gender attitude and dress, into a unique lesbian
to make less money; the 1995 Yankelovich MONI- language of sexuality and emotional bonding.
TOR study found lesbians mean personal income Butchfemme relationships are based on an intense
to be $13,300 versus $22,500 for gay men. erotic attraction with its own rituals of courtship,
Finally, creating a product or a service that ap- seduction, and offers of mutual protection. While
peals to all lesbians is a challenge because, as a the erotic connection is the basis for the relation-
group, lesbians are extremely diverse. There are ship, and while butches often see themselves as the
older lesbians, rich and poor lesbians, lesbians of more aggressive partner, butch-femme relation-
color, lesbians of different nationalities and reli- ships, when they work well, develop a nurturing
gions. Generally, businesses segment their markets balance between two different kinds of women,
relative to these traits. For those who have lesbian each encouraging the others sexual-emotional
businesses, it is necessary to find the commonalties identity. Couples often settle into long-term domes-
in the group rather than stratify it. Sue Levin tic relationships or engage in serial monogamy, a
practice Elizabeth Kennedy and Madeline Davis
Bibliography (1993), in a study of a working-class black and
Levin, Sue. In The Pink: The Making of Successful white butch-femme community in Buffalo, New
Gay and Lesbian Businesses. Binghamton, N.Y.: York, from 1940 to 1960, trace back to the 1930s,
Haworth, 1998. and one they view as a major lesbian contribution

138 BUSINESSES, LESBIAN

to an alternative for heterosexual marriage. In the were often initiated into the community by older,
streets of Buffalo in the 1950s, butch-femme cou- more experienced women who passed on the ritu-
ples were a symbol of womens erotic autonomy, a als of expected dress, attitude, and erotic behavior.
visual statement of a sexual and emotional accom- This sense of responsibility to each other stood the
plishment that did not include men. women in good stead when police raided their bars
Butch-femme relationships are complex erotic or when groups of men threatened them on the
and social statements, filled with a language of streets.
stance, dress, gesture, and comradeship. Both Bars were the social background for many work-
butches and femmes carry with them their own ing-class butch-femme communities, and it was in
erotic and emotional identities, announced in dif- their dimly lit interiors that butches and femmes
ferent ways. In the 1950s, butch women, dressed could perfect their styles and find each other. In
in slacks and shirts and flashing pinky rings, an- the 1950s, sexual and social tension often erupted
nounced their sexual expertise in a public style that into fights, and many butches thought that they
often opened their lives to ridicule and assault. had to be tough to protect themselves and their
Many adopted mens clothes and wore short DA women, not just in the bars but on the streets as
hair cuts so that they would be comfortable and well.
their sexual identity and preference would be clearly Butch-femme is not a monolithic social-sexual
visible. As Kennedy and Davis have pointed out, category. Within its general outline, class, race, and
the butch woman took as her main goal in love- region give rise to style variations. In the black les-
making the pleasure she could give her femme part- bian community of New York City, for instance,
ner. This sense of dedication to her lover, rather the terms bulldagger and stud were more com-
than to her own sexual fulfillment, is one of the monly used than butch. A fem would be my
ways a butch is clearly distinct from the men she is lady or my family. Many women of the lesbian
assumed to be imitating. literary world and of the upper classes also adopted
The femme woman, who can often pass as a this style of self-presentation. In the 1920s,
straight woman when not with her lover, actively Radclyffe Hall (18801943), the author of The
sought to share her life with a woman others labeled Well of Loneliness (1928), called herself John in
a freak. Before androgynous fashions became popu- her marriage to Lady Una Troubridge (1887
lar, many femmes were the breadwinners in their 1963). Butchfemme style also shows the impact of
homes because they could get jobs open to tradi- changing social models and politics. Feminism, for
tional-looking women, but they confronted the instance, as well as open relationships and
same public scorn when appearing in public with nonmonogamy, were incorporated into butch-
their butch lovers. Contrary to gender stereotyp- femme life of the 1970s and 1980s.
ing, many femmes were and are aggressive, strong With the surge of lesbian feminism in the early
women who take responsibibity for actively seek- 1970s, butch-femme women were often ridiculed
ing the sexual and social partner they desire. and ostracized because of their seeming adherence
to heterosexual role playing. In the 1980s, how-
Community Aspects ever, a new understanding of the historical and
Particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, the sexual-social importance of butch-femme women
butchfemme community became the public face of and communities began to emerge. Controversy still
lesbianism when its members formed bar commu- exists about the value of this lesbian way of loving
nities across the country and, thus, became targets and living, however. Members of such groups as
of street and police violence. Women Against Pornography depict butch-femme
In earlier decades, butch-femme communities as a patriarchal, oppressive, hierarchical way of
were tightly knit, made up of couples who, in some relating.
cases, had long-standing relationships. Exhibiting In the 1990s, queer theory turned its eyes on
traits of feminism before the 1970s, butch-femme butches and femmes, seeing performance where
working-class women lived without the financial once was seen identity. Writings by authors such
and social securities of the heterosexual world, as Judith Butler, Judith Halberstam, and Sue-Ellen
caring for each other in illness and death, in times Case explore butch-femme in the light of con-
of economic depression, and in the face of the ram- structed gender, parody, and play. What is clear
pant homophobia of the 1950s. Younger butches from these shifting perspectives is that butch and

BUTCH-FEMME 139
 femme is a persistently intriguing sexual, histori- Butch Support Group for help in preparing this
B cal, and theoretical subject.
The American lesbian community is now marked
entry.] Joan Nestle

by a wide range of relational styles; butch-femme is Bibliography

just one of the ways to love, but the butch-femme Bulkin, Elly. An Old Dykes Tale: An Interview
community does carry with it the heritage of being with Doris Lunden. Conditions: Six 2:3
the first publicly visible lesbian community. (1980), 2644.
Case, Sue-Ellen. Toward a Butch-Femme Aes-
Related Terms thetic. Discourse 11:1 (Fall/Winter 1988), 55
Stone butch: a butch woman who does not al- 73.
low herself to be touched during lovemaking, but Jeffreys, Sheila. The Lesbian Heresy: A Feminist
who often experiences orgasm while making love Perspective on the Lesbian Sexual Revolution.
to her partner. This was a sexual style prevalent in North Melbourne: Spinifex, 1993.
the 1940s and 1950s. Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, and Madeline D.
Baby butch: a young-looking butch woman Davis. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The
with a naive face who brings out the maternal, as History of a Lesbian Community. New York:
well as the sexual, longings of femme women. Routledge, 1993.
Kiki: a term used from the 1940s through Lorde, Audre. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name.
the 1960s for a lesbian who could be either butch Trumansburg, N.Y.: Crossing, 1982.
or femme. A publicly kiki woman in the 1940s and Nestle, Joan, ed. The Persistent Desire: A
1950s was often looked upon with suspicion, FemmeButch Reader. Boston: Alyson, 1992.
though, in the privacy of butch-femme homes, dif- . A Restricted Country. Ithaca, N.Y.: Fire-
ferent sexual positions were often explored. brand, 1987.
Passing woman: a woman who works and Newman, Leslea, ed. The Femme Mystique. Bos-
dresses like a man; this style of self-presentation ton: Alyson, 1995.
was often used in the past to transcend the gender Newton, Esther. The Mythic Mannish Lesbian:
limitations placed on women. Many working-class Radclyffe Hall and the New Woman. Signs:
women passed in order to hold down the jobs Journal of Women in Culture and Society 9:4
they wanted without harassment; in earlier dec- (Summer 1984), 557575.
ades, passing women often married other women.
Passing women have their own sexual identity. See also Androgyny; Bars; Buffalo, New York;
[The author wishes to extend special thanks to Bulldagger; Hall, Radclyffe; Passing Women; Queer
Deborah Edel, Lee Hudson, and the New York Theory

140 BUTCH-FEMME
C
Camp lesbian camp. Such approaches have had to respond
A cultural style or taste associated with theatrical- to a strong feminist resistance to drag on the
ity, humor, artifice, and appropriation, often un- grounds that it is misogynist, as well as to accounts
derstood to be a covert way of expressing gay male of the historical differences between gay male and
identity. The question of whether there are specifi- lesbian cultures. For example, in Boots of Leather,
cally lesbian forms of camp has been the subject of Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Com-
complex debate. Camp itself has been notoriously munity, which looks at Buffalos butch-femme bar
difficult to define because, understood as a style or culture in the 1940s and 1950s, Elizabeth Lapovsky
sensibility, it cannot simply be located within a Kennedy and Madeline Davis argue that butch-
specific class of object or practice. Instead, camp is femme roles are not a form of camp performance
in the eye of the beholder, a means by which, because they do not display the humor and play-
through strategies of reception and appropriation, fulness of gay male drag traditions. In contrast,
straight culture can be rendered queer. Further- theorists influenced by poststructuralism, such as
more, although camp has strong, even Sue-Ellen Case and Judith Butler, have argued that
foundational, ties to gay male culture, including butch-femme exemplifies a camp cultural practice
fan cultures and the drag theatrical traditions of that undermines traditional gender roles. For ex-
men cross-dressing as women, its relations to les- ample, Butler (1990) counters the charge that
bian culture have been less evident. butch-femme is an imitation of heterosexuality by
Histories of gay and lesbian culture suggest that, deconstructing the opposition between heterosexu-
within pre-Stonewall (1969) cultures, camp provided ality as origin and homosexuality as copy. Butlers
a mechanism for the oblique expression of sexual conception of gender and sexual identity as per-
identities, appearing in such guises as the aristocratic formative and Cases (1988) analysis of theatrical
and arcane tastes of Oscar Wilde (18541900) and uses of butch-femme link the artifice of camp to
other aesthetes, fan cultures around Hollywood stars the denaturalization of categories of social iden-
and opera divas, and traditions of drag perform- tity and, thus, widen camps embrace to encom-
ance. With the development of social movements in pass a range of cultural practices, including les-
the 1970s, camp was often seen as a culture of the bian ones, that expose norms of gender and sexu-
closet that gay liberation would render obsolete. In ality.
the 1990s, new accounts, such as those published In addition to being integral to histories of
in David Bergmanns collection Camp Grounds: sexual identity, camp has important connections
Style and Homosexuality (1993), embraced camps to the history of mass culture. Andrew Rosss No
pregay-liberation forms as a significant cultural crea- Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture (1989)
tion and as a resource for contemporary queer cul- shows how camp played a role in the dialogue be-
tural practices ranging from lesbian drag kings to tween marginal and mainstream cultures in the
fan cultures and AIDS activism. 1960s. This was the period during which Susan
The enthusiasm for camp as a boldly queer aes- Sontags Notes on Camp (1966) popularized
thetic has inspired new ways of conceptualizing the concept for mainstream audiences (at the price

CAMP 141
 of effacing its ties to specifically gay culture). For stereotypes of the maid and mammy in her film Wa-
C Ross and other critics of popular culture, camp is
a mechanism by which consumers express their
termelon Woman (1996). Lesbian camp reclaims
rather than rejects the stereotyped images of women
identities and tastes through the recirculation of that are so pervasive in mass culture.
popular styles and idioms, appropriating older Debates about whether camp is subversive are
styles as they become available for new meanings. ongoing, but it may not be possible to determine
Camp thus serves as an important register of the the politics of camp in general since its specific in-
intersections of consumer cultures and sexual cul- stances are so varied. That the appropriation of mass
tures and provides further evidence of ties between culture is a creative possibility for lesbians has, how-
capitalism and gay identity. ever, itself been a productive insight for fans, critics,
Understood in this broad sense, camp becomes and producers of culture. Ann Cvetkovich
relevant to lesbian cultures, especially responses to
mass culture. Lesbian camp is articulated through Bibliography
the vicissitudes of fashion and style, including Bergman, David, ed. Camp Grounds: Style and
highmodernist practices, working-class bar cultures, Homosexuality. Amherst: University of Massa-
and drag king performances. The cultures of fandom
chusetts Press, 1993.
are central to lesbian camp, including the worship
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the
of mainstream stars such as Bette Davis (19081989)
Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge,
and Madonna (1958), lesbian celebrities such as
1990.
k.d. lang (1961) and Martina Navratilova (1956
Case, Sue-Ellen. Toward a Butch-Femme Aesthetic.
), and more obscure character actresses and cult fig-
Discourse 11:1 (Fall/Winter 1988), 5573.
ures. Especially visible in performance, camp is a
Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, and Madeline D.
useful category for analyzing the butch-femme dy-
Davis. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The
namics of Lois Weavers and Peggy Shaws perform-
History of a Lesbian Community. New York:
ances with Split Britches Theater (beginning in
1981); the Five Lesbian Brothers play Brave Smiles Routledge, 1993.
another lesbian tragedy (1992), which restages Ross, Andrew. No Respect: Intellectuals and Popu-
the tragic endings of Christa Winslows Mdchen lar Culture. New York: Routledge, 1989.
in Uniform (Girls in Uniform) (1933) and Lillian Sontag, Susan. Notes on Camp. In Against In-
Hellmans (19051984) The Childrens Hour (1934) terpretation. New York: Farrar, Straus, and
as a source of humor rather than the regrettable sign Giroux , 1966.
of homophobia; and Sandra Bernhards (1955)
recycling of a vast array of popular idioms in With- See also Butch-Femme; Cross-Dressing; Drag
out You Im Nothing (1988). The recovery of 1950s Kings; Humor; Performance Art; Performativity;
and 1960s lesbian pulp fiction, including its lurid Pulp Paperbacks; Winsloe, Christa
covers, as queer artifact is a camp gesture. The ac-
tivist group the Lesbian Avengers (founded in 1992)
has borrowed images of Superman and 1970s Canada
blaxploitation film star Pam Grier (1949) for its An officially bilingual, multicultural, liberal demo-
flyers, and the band Two Nice Girls borrowed from cratic nation of thirty million people, made up of-
country music in the song I Spent My Last $10 on ten provinces and two territories. It is the country
Birth Control and Beer (1984). with the largest physical land mass in the world; it
Camp is by no means an exclusively sits directly north of the United States; and each
EuroAmerican phenomenon, although the complex region sports a minimum of four distinct seasons.
intersections of gender and race in popular culture,
and especially of cross-racial appropriation and iden- Pre-Stonewall (1969) Histories
tification, demand further analysis. In the 1980s and Knowledge of female homoerotic relations and
1990s, Chicana artists such as Ester Hernandez and experiences in the Canadian past is sketchy and
Yolanda Lopez reworked the image of the Virgin of incomplete. Before European colonization,
Gaudalupe; in the 1990s, Cuban American perform- twospirited peoples of the First Nations in Canada
ance artist Carmelita Tropicana camped on the im- had same-sex lovers and were the visionaries and the
age of 1940s film star Carmen Miranda (1913 medicine people or healers of their nation. From the
1955), and Cheryl Dunye explored the Hollywood early 1900s on, lesbian culture and communities

142 CAMP
seem to have emerged gradually, unevenly, and yet nick-nacks (bisexuals) in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s
steadfastly across Canada. Romantic friends defied gender and heterosexual prescriptions by de-
Victoria Hayward (18761956), a journalist, and fending queer spaces, sporting tattoos, and raising
Edith Watson (18611943), a photographer, lived children together while embattled with Childrens Aid
and worked together in numerous Canadian cities Societies. Some of the butches assumed male identi-
from 1912 to 1943, the year of Watsons death. ties and sought out gender-reassignment operations
American-born sculptors Frances Loring (1887 at Torontos Clarke Institute of Psychiatry.
1968) and Florence Wyle (18811968) happily Whether as working-class women in offices and
shared their craft, their income, and their converted factories, or middle-class teachers, secretaries, and
church/ home in Toronto for fifty years, from 1917 nurses, gay women in Canada lived with the fear of
to 1967. Canadian Writer Mazo de la Roche losing friends, jobs, families, and housingthey
(18791961), who gained fame through her Jalna faced enormous risks and no political movement
novels, was involved in an intimate relationship within which to agitate for social change. They were
for more than seventy years with her adopted sis- haunted by Canadian psychiatrist Daniel Cappons
ter, Caroline Clement. British-born Elsa Gidlow contribution to the medicomoral discourse of ho-
(18981986), who grew up in Montreal, had her mosexual pathology in 1965, which constructed
book of homoerotic love poems, On a Grey homosexuality as a destructive disorder that could
Thread, published in 1923. be cured. Between 1958 and 1964, some gay women
As subterranean gay networks began to flourish were purged from their jobs in the federal civil serv-
in the 1920s, Canadian gay women found each other ice, including the National Film Board, because they
by frequenting downtown bars in major urban were suspected or confirmed homosexuals and were
centers, by placing personal ads in the pulp tabloids classified as national security threats.
Flirt and Frivolo (Montral) and Tab, Flash, and
Hush (Toronto), and by joining competitive base- 1960s Uprisings
ball, basketball, ice hockey, and curling leagues. In the late 1960s, a constellation of social move-
Canadian women made up approximately 10 per- ments in Canada seeded the ground for the emer-
cent of the players in the All-American Girls Profes- gence of feminist and lesbian political action and
sional Baseball League (19431954), and a number consciousness. The province of Qubecs nation-
were known to be lesbians. In the post-World War alist emphasis on French culture and language in
II period, gay women met in hostels for street the 1960s, heightened by the FLQ (Front de
women, such as Torontos Street Haven; in training Libration du Qubec) crisis in 1970, raised aware-
schools; in the Kingston Prison for Women; in ness among Anglophone activists, including lesbi-
nurses residences; at teachers colleges; and at sub- ans, of the historic struggles waged by
urban house parties. They socialized where they Francophones (inside and outside Qubec) against
found small queer colonies: on the islands of the Anglophone domination. Some Canadian femi-
Gulf Stream off the west coast of British Columbia, nists, bom straight and lesbian, sharpened their
at summer resorts on the shore of Lake Erie, on the political teeth in the course of Third World soli-
islands in the Toronto harbor, in Hogens Alley (a darity work with Latin American, Chinese, and
turn-of-the-century African Canadian settlement in Cuban Canadian organizations. At the same time,
Vancouver), and in the farming hamlets of Nova members of Canadas First Nations intensified their
Scotias Annapolis Valley. protests against the historic racism and sexism of
Often introduced to the demimonde via the the federal governments Indian Act (1869) and
notorious lesbian pulp novels of the 1950s, adven- their fight for economic, spiritual, and cultural self-
turous gay women who had money traveled across determination. The New Leftin particular, the
the Canada-U.S. border to Provincetown, Massachu- Student Union for Peace Action (SUPA), the Cana-
setts; Marthas Vineyard; New York City, Syracuse, dian Union of Students, and the militant left of the
Rochester, and Buffalo, New York; Detroit, Michi- New Democratic Party (NDP)provided training
gan; and Seattle, Washington. Many left small, re- for largely white, middle-class women who
mote towns and villages, agricultural communities, catalyzed the second wave womens liberation
and mining outposts in search of employment and movement in English Canada with abortion rights,
sexual partners from St. Johns, Newfoundland, to sex stereotyping, equal pay, birth control, and day
Victoria, British Columbia. Butches, femmes, and care atop the agenda.

CANADA 143
 Lesbian Cultural and Political Independence bian writers of notable repute in the 1980s and 1990s
C Canadian lesbians were active in all of these radical
initiatives, and they were prominent members, along-
heeded the example of Jane Rule (1931), an expa-
triate American whose Desert of the Heart was pub-
side gay men, of the first gay homophile/liberation lished in Canada in 1964. These writers include
groups: the Association for Social Knowledge (Van- Dionne Brand, Beth Brant, Anne Marie MacDonald,
couver), the University of Toronto Homophile As- Marie-Clarie Blais, Eve Zaremba, Betsy Warland,
sociation, Gay McGill (Montral), the Community Nicole Brossard, Daphne Marlatt, Vinita Srivastava,
Homophile Association of Toronto, and the Van- Mary Meigs, and Julia Creet.
couver Gay Liberation Front. However, they did not
begin to organize as lesbian feminists until the mid- Grass-Roots Politics
1970s, almost five years after the start of American In terms of conventional political action, Canadian
lesbian movement. Mostly white, middleclass lesbi- lesbian organizing did not manifest itself in identi-
ans across Canada defended their desire to form les- cal ways from coast to coast. In small communi-
bian groups based on the double critique of gay tiessuch as Brandon, Manitoba; Grand Prairie,
mens sexism and the heterosexism of straight femi- Alberta; Stephenville, Newfoundland; and London,
nists. Across English Canada, American lesbian femi- Ontarioregular dances, coffeehouses, potluck din-
nist writing and cultural-production magazines, ners, and socials were gradually put in place as strat-
book publishing, record companies, and large-scale egies of survival. In Vancouver in the 1970s, the
music festivals had an intense, immediate influence. ideology and program of lesbian nationalism did
American ideas and plans were read in publications not take root officially and practically in the ways it
purchased at womens bookstores across the coun- did in large American cities. It seems that the sheer
try, reprinted, and tested by Canadian lesbians in physical distance from New York City, the strong
their own milieux. The Canadian nationalists among presence of working-class lesbians, and a powerful
them were openly leery of American imperialism, provincial organizationthe British Columbia Fed-
yet they were inspired by the first lesbian-authored eration of Womenworked to engender the col-
tracts. Lesbians across Canada launched their own laboration of lesbian and straight feminists.
newsletters and periodicals, including Long Time Toronto-based lesbian feminists in the 1970s
Coming (Montreal), LOOT Newsletter (Toronto), seemed more attuned to developments in the United
Pedestal (Vancouver), and Web of Crones (Hornby States; however, a kind of radical lesbian praxis
Island, British Columbia), and later, in the 1980s collective and vegetarian living, zaps in public (quick,
and 1990s, Pink Ink (Toronto), Rites (Toronto), small-scale political actions), nonmonogamous
Diversity (Vancouver), Swerve (Winnipeg), Gayzette sexual relations, and concerted distrust of the man
(Halifax), Angles (Vancouver), Dimensions and the male Leftcoexisted with competing ideo-
(Saskatoon), Da Juice! (Toronto), Sami Yoni (To- logical currents. Anarchism, gay liberation, and vari-
ronto), Lezzie Smut (Vancouver), Lickerish (To- ous versions of socialism weakened the desire for,
ronto), and X-tra! (Ottawa, Vancouver, and To- and the commitment to, full-fledged lesbian separa-
ronto). tism. It is conceivable that lesbian activists north of
Lesbians in Canada formed their own musical the forty-ninth parallel had heard tales of acrimony
groups in the 1970s: Mama Quilla I and II, Beverly and lesbian separatist burnout south of the border
Glenn Copeland, Ferron, Heather Bishop, Equis, and had elected to proceed, Canadian style, with
Sherry Shute, Carol Pope and her band Rough Trade. caution and moderation. Moreover, in most Cana-
The tradition continued in the 1980s and 1990s with dian locales, the number of out, activist lesbians was
k.d. lang and members of the bands Heretix, the Red too small to support vibrant, self-sustaining splin-
Berets, Demi-Monde, Seven Cent Posse, Women With ter groups. In rural regions, lesbians worked shoul-
Horns, Mother Tongue, Bratty and the Babysitters, der to shoulder with gay men and other likeminded
Parachute Club, Two Penny Opera, and Mother of progressives. Even in Toronto, where a radical femi-
Pearl. Internationally exhibited lesbian visual artists nist agenda held sway among the majority of politi-
made their mark, among them Shonagh Adelman, cal dykes in the 1970s, debates erupted constantly
Kiss & Tell, Stephanie Martin, Midi Onodera, about what such a program meant, how it could be
Marusia Bociurkiw, Jennifer Gillmor, Aerlyn achieved, and whom it excluded.
Weissman, Lynne Fernie, Patricia Rozema, Sara Dia- In the late 1970s and into the 1980s, lesbian
mond, Shawna Dempsey, and Lorna Boschman. Les- activist energy shifted to introducing an

144 CANADA
antiheterosexist perspective to coalition building. protests against the injustices galvanized forces,
Socialist feminist lesbians in Toronto, Saskatoon, politicized thousands, and brought gay men and
Vancouver, Halifax, and Winnipeg strove to build lesbians together to form alliances that would later
links with labor unions and members of anti-im- spawn gender-mixed AIDS activism.
perialist liberation struggles, antinuclear activism, In the mid-1980s, anticensorship activity was
the sex trade, reproductive rights, antipoverty, and reignited in response to charges leveled against les-
anti-free trade groups. Efforts were made at bina- bian and gay bookstores for importing and selling
tional lesbian conferences in Montreal, Toronto, obscene material, including the American lesbian
and Vancouver to provide simultaneous transla- magazine Bad Attitude. (The Bad Attitude trial
tion as a way of bridging the English/French lin- marked the second lesbian pornography trial in
guistic divide. It was the Ontario Coalition for Canada, the first being in Ottawa in 1952.) The trial
Abortion Clinics, with a large lesbian membership, resulted in the 1992 conviction of the owner and
that played a major role in the Canadian Supreme manager of Glad Day Bookshop (Toronto) for the
Courts 1988 decision to strike down the federal possession and sale of obscenity. Glad Day,
abortion law as an indefensible barrier to a wom- LAndrogyne (Montral), and Little Sisters Book
ans right to control her body. and Art Emporium (Vancouver) have all weathered
In the 1990s, lesbians continued to work for the escalation of detentions and seizures of books
social change in the context of feminist, antiracist, at the Canada-U.S. border. Little Sisters argued
labor, environmental, and antipoverty politics, as against the homophobic practices of Customs offic-
well as in lesbian-centered initiatives. Challenges ers during a month-long trial in the British Colum-
to the legacy of white, middle-class lesbian leader- bia Supreme Court in 1994. Two years later, the
ship yielded to groups that held on to the value of bookstore was awarded 75 percent of its legal costs;
identity-based organizing but that abandoned the the judge recognized the discriminatory targeting of
dream of a unified lesbian subject and all illusions lesbian and gay materials by Customs agents. How-
of a coherent lesbian movement. Bisexual women ever, because he did not declare the obscenity guide-
in groups such as BiFace (Vancouver) and lesbian- lines unconstitutional and a violation of the Cana-
and bi-identified transgenders and transsexuals dian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the book-
furthered the need to deconstruct the constrictive store turned to the British Columbia Court of Ap-
binaries of homo/hetero and male/female on the peal in an effort to abolish Customs harassment
road to gender and sexual pluralism. altogether. In 1998, the bookstore lost the appeal
decision, 21, and was in the process of taking the
State Policing and Regulation case to the Supreme Court of Canada.
From the early 1970s on, brutal collisions with
police forces made lesbian feminists aware of the Legislative Reform
power of state repression and contributed to the One arm of lesbian and gay activism has sought to
distinctiveness of lesbian and gay politics in redress legal inequalities through inclusion of sexual
Canada. In 1974, four lesbians were arrested at a orientation within antidiscriminatory statutes and
Toronto bar for causing a public disturbance and extension of social benefits (medical, health, survi-
were later roughed up in police custody. In 1977 vor, inheritance, and pensions) to lesbian and gay
in Toronto, the office of the Body Politic, a gay couples. Since the 1970s, civil rights strategies have
news journal with an international readership of been mobilized by strong provincial coalitions, such
ten thousand, was raided by Project P, an as the Ontario Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights,
antipornography morality squad, and charged with the Saskatchewan Gay Coalition, and the national
distributing scurrilous materials. Lesbian journal- body EGALE (Equality for Gays and Lesbians Eve-
ists at the Body Politic and lesbian activists across rywhere). By 1998 the majority of provinces and ter-
Canada were part of a defense campaign that per- ritories included antidiscrimination protection in their
severed until the papers eventual acquittal in 1983. Human Rights Codesthe exceptions were Prince
Antigay and antilesbian policies at the Vancouver Edward Island and the Northwest Territories. Other
Sun, the Toronto Star, and Vancouvers YWCA and legal victories include a 1992 Supreme Court deci-
the high-profile firings of lesbian and gay workers sion to ban discrimination against homosexuals in
and soldiers in the mid-1970s further exposed the the Canadian Armed Forces and the Supreme Courts
depth of discrimination and societal hostility. Mass 1993 decision to grant refugee status to those immi-

CANADA 145
 grants who fear homosexual-based persecution in Bisexual, and Transgender Studies sponsors numer-
C their home countries. In 1995, an Ontario judge ruled
that nonbiological lesbian parents have the legal right
ous events, awards, and community-based courses
and operates as a countrywide clearinghouse, Cen-
to adopt the child/ren they coparent; in 1996, British tre/Fold, for queer research and scholarship. The
Columbia followed suit. In 1995, in R.v.Egan, the wealth of cultural, political, and intellectual re-
Canadian Supreme Court ruled that same-sex cou- sources would have been unimaginable in the
ples did not have the right to spousal pension ben- 1950s. In the late 1990s, struggles for lesbian vis-
efits under the Old Age Security Act. Lesbian and ibility, support for women-only spaces, and the
gay marriage is not legal, nor does Revenue Canada dismantlement of institutionalized heterosexism
recognize lesbian and gay couples for income tax and homophobia remained relevant and pressing
purposes, although the Ontario Court ruled in 1998 in Canada, though the definition of a determinate
that the heterosexist definition of spouse in the lesbian politics was unclear. A Canadian con-
Income Tax Act is unconstitutional. The Immigra- tingent contributed to international negotiations
tion Act does not specify the inclusion of non-Cana- concerning sexual orientation and womens sexu-
dian partners of lesbians and gay men; however, citi- ality at the 1995 Womens Conference in Beijing,
zenship has been awarded to queer immigrants on a Chinaan indication of one direction of mature,
case-by-case basis. In May 1996, Bill C-33an robust lesbian feminist energy at work both inside
amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Act de- and outside Canadas borders. Becki L.Ross
signed to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientationwas passed by the House of Commons. Bibliography
In 1998, both Nova Scotia and British Columbia in- Bannerji, Kaushalya, Margot Francis, Denyse
troduced legislation extending pension benefits to the Hayoun, Didi Khayatt, Susanne Lubmann,
same-sex partners of public employeesthe first prov- Kathleen Rockhill, Caridad Silva, Mary Lou
inces in Canada to take this step. Soutar-Hynes, and Eve Zaremba, eds. Lesbi-
Though decisions overall have been contradic- ans and Politics. Canadian Woman Studies
tory, and some queers have criticized the 16:2 (Spring 1996) (Special Issue).
assimilationist thrust of the lesbian and gay move- Chenier, Elise. Tough Ladies and Troublemakers:
ments we are family campaign (i.e., the cam- Torontos Public Lesbian Community, 1955
paign for recognition of their families as equiva- 1965. Masters thesis, Queens University, 1995.
lent in value to those of heterosexuals), there is Fuller, Janine, and Stuart Blackley. Restricted En-
agreement among Canadian activists that legal try: Censorship on Trial. Vancouver: Press Gang,
gains have been more numerous and substantial 1995.
than those in the United States. In part, they point Herman, Didi. Rites of Passage: Struggles for Les-
to a much less powerful Christian fundamentalist bian and Gay Legal Equality. Toronto: Univer-
right wing in Canada, the pro-gay efforts of the sity of Toronto Press, 1994.
left-leaning New Democratic Party to redefine Kinsman, Gary. The Regulation of Desire: Homo
family and spouse both provincially and fed- and Hetero Sexualities in Canada. 2nd ed.
erally, the cross-provincial coordination of lesbian Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1996.
and gay lobbying via EGALE, and a long, social- Ross, Becki. The House That Jill Built: A Lesbian
ist-inspired tradition of welfare-state provisions. Nation in Formation. Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1995.
Culture and Politics Stone, Sharon Dale, ed. Lesbians in Canada. To-
In 1998, Torontos Lesbian and Gay Pride Day ronto: Between the Lines, 1990.
Parade attracted over 700,000 people, the second
largest of its kind worldwide after San Franciscos. See also Blais, Marie-Claire; Brossard, Nicole;
Cities from coast to coast host Pride days, film and Gidlow, Elsa; Qubec; Rule, Jane Vance; Two-
video festivals, and are home to queer theater com- Spirit; United States
panies, art collectives, and counseling centers. The
Canadian Lesbian and Gay Studies Association was
formally constituted as a learned society in 1994, Caribbean
when it began meeting alongside all other academic Sea that gives its name to the region located east of
disciplines. The Toronto Centre for Lesbian, Gay, the Central American isthmus and between the

146 CANADA
North and South American continents. The Carib- tions of life in Cuba. Gays and lesbians had been
bean is home to many islands, including the Greater active on the Left and in the anti-Batista move-
An-tillesCuba, Hispaola, and Puerto Rico. Cuba, ments, but they would not enjoy recognition in the
often called the Pearl of the Antilles, is the largest new order. To their surprise and dismay, their as-
island in the Caribbean Sea and is surrounded by pirations for liberation were lost as the government
fifteen hundred tiny islands. It is a mere ninety miles turned toward a Marxist communist model. Within
from Miami, Florida. Other major islands of the a short time after the revolution in Cuba, the Castro
Caribbean include Puerto Rico and Jamaica. regime cracked down on gay men and, to a lesser
extent, on lesbians, arresting them and sending
Cuba them off to reeducation camps, where they were
Cubas treatment of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and coerced into conforming to rigid gender stere-
transgendered people shifted dramatically during the otypes, or imprisoning them.
twentieth century. The last colony to win its inde- Castro himself has said little about his early
pendence (1898) from Spain, after a decade-long treatment of gays and lesbians. In a rare interview
struggle, Cuba maintained the conservative attitudes in which he discussed the subject (excerpted in
of its Spanish-Catholic colonial legacy toward queer Improper Conduct, a 1984 documentary film di-
people throughout the first years of independence, rected by Nestor Almendros and Orlando Jimenez
which were marked by U.S. domination of the na- Leal), he said he believed that homosexuality was
tion. Cubas Catholic culture had little tolerance for a matter to be studied (no such study was ever con-
gay and lesbian sexual or gender-bending behavior. ducted) and that it weakened men. He also asserted
However, even though the Catholic Church exercised that homosexuals should not be in positions in
considerable influence in the years before the revolu- which they could influence young people. He made
tion by the forces of Fidel Castro, it did not have the no mention of lesbians, but they, too, were arrested
power to control public mores that it had in other for what he characterized as improper conduct.
Latin American countries. Prerevolutionary Havana, In fact, for most of the era following his coming to
the capital of Cuba, was the playground of the West- power, gays and lesbians have been systematically
ern world. Much of its economy depended on tour- persecuted. Improper Conduct also includes inter-
ism from the United States and on the sin indus- views with an array of intellectuals and homosexu-
trygaming, prostitution, and nightclubs, includ- als who have suffered under the Castro regime.
ing a vast network of gay bars. During its domina- In 1980, when the United States and Cuba ne-
tion by the United States, Havanas nightlife provided gotiated the Mariel Boatlift for political prisoners
middleclass and wealthy Americans with a welcome from Cuba, Castro emptied his prisons, sending
release from Prohibition and the general misery of hundreds of convicted felons, including a large
the Great Depression. But homosexuality was not number of gays and lesbians, to the United States.
confined to these sectors of society. Gay men were The resettlement of those refugees, the Marielitos,
present throughout Cuban society, on the farms as was delayed for years, due, in part, to U.S. policies
well as in the urban areas. A man with effeminate of exclusion of gay immigrants.
mannerisms or cross-dressing tendencies could be- When the Soviet bloc collapsed in the 1990s,
come a loca (queen); the word literally means a crazy Cuba lost the subsidy that the Soviets provided its
one. While there was no gay community docu- economy. Forced by that loss, and the continuing
mented in that era of Cubas history, the existence of trade embargo imposed by the United States, to con-
gay men was acknowledged; they had a place, albeit sider alternative funding sources, Castro relaxed the
a marginal one, in the social structure. Lesbians, how- iron hold he once had on Cuban culture. A new
ever, were virtually invisible. The relationship of Cu- wind of openness swept through the island as Castro
ban anthropologist Lydia Cabrera (18991991) with permitted foreign investment and the revival of the
Venezuelan writer Teresa de la Parra (1888/1890 tourist industry. Improvements in the lives of lesbi-
1936), for example, has consistently been described ans and gay men, however, have been slow to come
as a friendship, but Parras published letters suggest even slower than for heterosexual women.
that it was a lesbian relationship. While the Castro regimes maltreatment of gay
In 1959, Fidel Castro (1926/1927) and his rul- men has been well documented, little has been writ-
ing junta overthrew the government of Fulgencio ten about lesbians in Cuba. Saddled with the tradi-
Batista, an event that changed many of the condi- tions of machismo (an exaggerated belief that men

CARIBBEAN 147
 are physically and intellectually superior to women) not the only foreign influences on Caribbean cul-
C and marianismo (which relegates women to the dia-
metrically opposed roles of virgins or whores),
ture. England, France, and the Netherlands all had
established presences in the Caribbean during the
women were particularly constrained by the rigid colonial era; Caribbean culture today tends to re-
gender roles. Even access to education was denied flect the legal and social policies of a diversity of
to them. Schools for women did not open until the European powers, as well as forces unique to slav-
1870s, scarcely two decades before independence. ery and the African diaspora.
Yet the continuing ideology of marianismo, which Silvera (1996) writes that words like man
privileges the traditional heterosexual roles of moth- royal and sodomite were used in Jamaica to
erhood and marriage for women, makes lesbian describe women who had sex with other women.
gender transgression particularly suspect and egre- These words implied that women in such relation-
gious. Thus, lesbian invisibility remains very prob- ships were imitating men, as no authentic
lematic for Cuban women. woman-woman relationship could be recognized.
Still, in the new atmosphere of openness, gays The use of sodomite to refer to women, she ar-
and lesbians have begun to emerge from the shad- gues, is unique to Jamaica, indicating the legacy of
ows, and a nascent film industry has begun to make missionaries and the importance of the Judeo-
its presence felt. The 1994 film Strawberry and Christian Bible in Afro-Caribbean culture. Audre
Chocolate, directed by Tomas Gutierrez Alea, Lorde, in Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
chronicled the warm friendship between a gay man (1982), refers to the legendary relationships be-
and a young leftist activist. While it was contro- tween women on Carriacou, an island near Gre-
versial in Cuba, it did not incur the censure that an nada, identified by the words Madavine.
earlier effort might have. Furthermore, it gained Friending. Zami. For Lorde and other English-
the distinction of being the first Cuban film to be speaking Afro-Caribbean lesbians, Zami, in par-
nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar. ticular, has come to signify a particular
AfroCaribbean lesbian history and identity.
Puerto Rico Rosa Maria Pegueros
While the Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries tend
to share the ideologies of machismo and marianismo Bibliography
with Cubaand, with them, the attendant pressures Braulio, Mildred. Challenging the Sodomy Law
on lesbiansother countries more closely reflect the in Puerto Rico. NACLA 31:4 (January/Feb-
ideologies of their colonizing forces. While Puerto ruary 1998), 3334.
Rico and Cuba both were taken from Spain in the Dore, Elizabeth, ed. Gender Politics in Latin
Spanish-American War, Puerto Rico became a terri- America: Debates in Theory and Practice. New
tory of the United States. It adopted some tenden- York: Monthly Review Press, 1998.
cies, such as the criminalization of lesbian and gay Melhuus, Marit, and Kristi Anne Stolen, eds.
sexuality, that more closely resemble U.S. rather than Machos, Mistresses, Madonnas: Contesting the
Central or South American policies. In fact, Puerto Power of Latin American Gender Imagery. New
Ricos antihomosexual laws, instituted in 1902, were York: Verso, 1998.
based almost exclusively on California state laws. No Molloy, Sylvia. Disappearing Acts: Reading Les-
other Caribbean country carries such statutes on its bian in Teresa de la Parra. In Entiendes?
books. While the laws are rarely enforced, the ideo- Queer Readings, Hispanic Writings. Ed. Emilie
logical lines are drawn between those who believe L.Bergmann and Paul Julian Smith. Durham,
that they should be kept on the books to send a mes- N.C.: Duke University Press, 1995.
sage that the state does not encourage homosexual Silvera, Makeda. Man Royals and Sodomites: Some
conduct, and the lesbian activist groups who, like Thoughts on the Invisibility of AfroCaribbean
their gay, lesbian, and transgendered counterparts in Lesbians. In Lesbian Subjects. Ed. Martha
the United States, are aligning themselves with other Vicinus. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
sexual minorities to combat these repressive policies. University Press, 1996, pp. 230256.
Stoner, K.Lynn. From the House to the Streets:
Other Islands The Cuban Womans Movement for Reform,
Despite their strong influence on Puerto Rico and 18981940. Durham, N.C.: Duke University
Cuba, the United States and Spain were and are Press, 1991.

148 CARIBBEAN
Young, Allen. Gays Under the Cuban Revolution. A crusade that claimed that comic books con-
San Francisco: Grey Fox, 1981. tributed to child delinquency culminated in 1954
in the institution of a restrictive code that embod-
See also Central America; Lorde, Audre; Mexico; ied a rigorously conservative political position.
Parra, Teresa de la Since then, most comic books involving sex, vio-
lence, and attacks on authority have been denied
access to major distribution networks in the United
Cartoons and Comic Books States. Underground and independent publishers
Drawings intended as humor, caricature, or satire. that developed in the 1960s and 1970s in reaction
Comic strips and books often feature consistent to such restrictions provided a space for artists who
characters involved in continuous stories. From the embraced political and sexual issues and/or drew
emergence of the comic strip industry in the late outside the superhero formula. Yet most of these
nineteenth century, through the comic-book boom presses did not welcome work by women any more
era in the United States (1940s1950s), and up to than the major publishers did. Therefore, by the
the 1990s, women rarely were employed by major mid-1970s, women were publishing their own
work independently or through collective efforts.
publishers except as occasional inkers or colorists
The first such comic book, dedicated to wom-
unless their work conformed to the popular
ens liberation as its front page declared, was It
superhero genre. As Sabin (1993) notes in his study
Aint Me, Babe (1970), compiled by women on the
of women and adult comics: The first adult com-
staff of Californias first feminist newspaper by the
ics of the nineteenth century set the tone for the
same name. While this collection of work by
industry ever sincethey were produced prima-
women did not address lesbianism specifically, it
rily by men, for men, and were about male sub-
did present a vision of female collective action by
jects. Therefore, getting published has been dif-
portraying a sort of consciousness-raising gather-
ficult for women cartoon and comic-book artists,
ing of girl and women comic-book characters such
more so for women who draw lesbian characters. as Betty and Veronica from Archie comics, Petu-
nia Pig, and Wonder Woman. More womens
comix followed, and some, such as Dyke Shorts,
Come Out Comics, and the ongoing Tits n Clits
and Wimmens Comix (renamed Wimmins Comix
in 1992), have included lesbian strips.
Some readers and critics have located lesbian el-
ements in issues of Wonder Woman (1940) that
trace her origins to Paradise Isle, an exclusive com-
munity of women. More explicitly lesbian cartoons
and comic strips created before the early 1970s likely
were distributed informally and passed around
among friends. Roberta Gregory is credited as the
first published artist to deal directly with lesbian
themes in a comic book. Her strip, A Modern
Romance, narrates the story of Anne, a young
woman starting college who feels alienated from
most of her peers and eventually acknowledges her
love for women. Although Gregorys work initiated
a respectable history of lesbian comic-book art, it is
significant that A Modern Romance did not ap-
pear until 1974 in Wimmens Comix. Gregory also
created Dynamite Damsels in 1976, the first single-
handedly self-published comic book by a woman
that addressed lesbianism.
Although many publications of the first phase
No guilt from Hothead Paisan Homicidal Lesbian
of womens comix faded by the end of the 1970s,
Terrorist. Illustration by Diane DiMassa. Courtesy
Stacy A.Sheehan. lesbian cartoons and comic strips found a venue in

CARTOONS AND COMIC BOOKS 149

 the many feminist, lesbian, and gay newspapers and thority and Mass Culture in the 20th Century.
C magazines; anthologies that welcomed women car-
toonists; and the emerging lesbian and queer zine
In Doing Cultural Studies of Science, Technol-
ogy, and Medicine. Ed. Roddey Reid and Sharon
culture. Humor collections and comic books of the Traweek. New York: Routledge, 1999.
1980s and 1990s, such as Womens Glibber, Gay Robbins, Trina. A Century of Women Cartoon-
Comix, Strip AIDS USA, What Is This Thing ists. Northhampton, Mass.: Kitchen Sink, 1993.
Called Sex?, Real Girl, Weenietoons, Artistic Li- Robbins, Trina, and Catherine Yronwode. Women
centiousness, The Best Contemporary Womens and the Comics. Forestville, Calif: Eclipse, 1985.
Humor, StrangeLooking Exile, and Dyke Strippers, Sabin, Roger. Adult Comics: An Introduction. New
featured lesbian work. The increase in artists and York: Routledge, 1993.
their audiences generated the Lesbian Cartoonists Warren, Roz. Dyke Strippers: Lesbian Cartoonists
Network, an organization headquartered in Santa A to Z. Pittsburgh: Cleis, 1995.
Cruz, California. Outside the United States, con-
temporary lesbian cartoonists have included Leanne See also zines
Franson and Cath Jackson of London, England;
Rona Chadwick of Perth, Beck Main of Kings
Cross, and Barbary OBrien of Middleton, Aus-
Cather, Willa (18731947)
tralia; Wendy Eastwood of Serbia (former Yugo-
American writer. Although she was born in Back
slavia); Jo Nesbitt of Amsterdam, Holland; and
Creek, Virginia, Willa Gather is most frequently
Noreen Stevens of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
associated with the Great Plains of Nebraska. Her
Alison Bechdel and Diane DiMassa are two of
family moved there in 1883, and two of her
the better-known artists of the 1980s and 1990s.
bestknown novels are set there. Cathers career as
New York Citys feminist newspaper Womanews
a writer was both long and distinguished. Her first
began running Bechdels now famous Dykes to
novel, Alexanders Bridge, was published in 1912,
Watch Out For in 1983. The strips popularity
skyrocketed, and the familiar characters of Mo, Lois, and her last novel, Sapphira and the Slave Girl,
Sparrow, Ginger, and others appeared on calendars, appeared in 1940. She received considerable popu-
postcards, and T-shirts, as well as in more than forty lar and scholarly acclaim for novels such as O Pio-
newspapers throughout the United States, Canada, neers! (1913), My ntonia (1918), The Song of
and the United Kingdom by 1995. DiMassa formed the Lark (1915), and Death Comes for the Arch-
Giant Ass Publishing in 1991 with partner Stacy bishop (1927). Among her many awards and hon-
Sheehan to create the comic zine HotHead Paisan, orary degrees is a 1923 Pulitzer Prize for One of
Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist. As was true of Ours (1922).
Bechdels experience with Dykes, DiMassas As an adult, Gather was not a social rebel. In
HotHead audience soon dramatically expanded, and her later years, she embraced a conservative Ro-
Giant Ass released more than twenty issues and two man Catholicism. As an adolescent, however, the
book-length collections by the late-1990s, along with young Cather created a stir in her hometown of
its share of T-shirts, coffee mugs, hats, and posters. Red Cloud, Nebraska, when, at the age of four-
While Bechdel draws characters of many races teen, she began to dress as a young man. For four
and ethnicities and DiMassa gave HotHead an Ital- years, Gather played with a masculine persona. She
ian American identity, many lesbian strips focus on gave herself a crew cut, dressed in male attire, and
white characters and their viewpoints. Cartoons and named herself William Gather Jr. Her refusal to
comics addressing specific lesbian constituencies accept feminine norms became legendary in Red
have been published in zines such as Girljock for Cloud. As a student at the University of Nebraska
sports enthusiasts and Brat Attack: The Zine for from 1890 to 1895, Cather greatly modified, but
Leatherdykes and Other Bad Girls. Lesbian cartoons did not entirely abandon, her male attire.
and comic books likely will continue to flourish and Cather never explicitly named herself a lesbian
expand their scope as long as avenues for publica- and went to considerable lengths to protect her
tion continue to proliferate. Kate Burns personal privacy. However, it is clear that she lived
in a world of intimate female relations, some of
Bibliography which were deeply passionate, if not sexual. At the
Rhodes, Molly. Wonder Woman and Her Discipli- University of Nebraska, Gather met and fell in love
nary Powers: The Intersection of Scientific Au- with Louise Pound (18721958). She complained

150 CARTOONS AND COMIC BOOKS

to Pound that it was unfair that feminine friend- often regarded as being especially unjust to lesbi-
ship should be unnatural, even while she agreed ans, even though some of its best and brightest
that it was. They parted company in 1894. members identify as such. Since women cannot be
Two other important women in Cathers life ordained, and since ordination is necessary to par-
were Isabelle McClung (d. 1938) and Edith Lewis ticipate in most decision making, the leadership of
(18821972). McClung seems to have been the the Roman Catholic Church is necessarily devoid
great inspiration of Cathers life. Gather once told of lesbians. However, lesbian women are thought
a friend that all of her books were dedicated to to have been part of the Catholic Church from its
McClung. For five years, Gather lived with her in beginnings and are among the most vocal and ef-
the McClung family home in Pittsburgh while she fective of its feminist challengers.
worked on a womens magazine and her own fic- The tradition can be divided into its kyriarchal
tion. After Gather moved to New York City and expression, the Roman Catholic Church as an in-
made it her permanent home in 1906, the two stitution, and its progressive members, who seek
women visited often and took long vacations to- to transform that pyramidal structure into an egali-
gether. When McClung married in 1916, Gather tarian community. These two groups have diver-
was devastated; however, they remained close un- gent positions on homosexuality. Kyriarchy is op-
til McClungs death in 1938. posed, although it is widely believed that many of
For almost forty years, Cather shared her life its clergy members are gay. The progressive sector
with Edith Lewis, whom she met in 1903. The two ranges from tolerant to enthusiastic.
set up house together in 1908 and remained to- The institutional, kyriarchal form of church
gether until Cathers death in 1947. Cather never made its contemporary position clearest in a Let-
dedicated a book to Lewis, who devoted herself to ter to the Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church
Cathers life and work. However, it was Cathers on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, is-
wish that the two be buried together in Jafrrey, sued by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine
New Jersey, the town where they frequently spent of the Faith in 1986. It stated that an inclination
long summer vacations. to homosexual activity is a tendency toward an
Cathers fiction does not contain clear and unam- intrinsic moral evil and that actual homosexual
biguous lesbian narratives. Nevertheless, both her activity is immoral.
writing and her life are richly suggestive of a com- Such a pronouncement leaves little room for
plex homoerotic and homosocial world. She remains discussion, even less for inclusion. Catholic theol-
an important figure in lesbian history, as well as in ogy is patriarchal, meaning that mens experiences
twentieth-century fiction. JoAnn Pavletich hold sway. Thus, when it comes to homosexuality,
this position assumes that gay mens, and not les-
Bibliography bian womens, experiences are normative. Blanket
Bennet, Mildred. The World of Willa Gather. Rev. condemnations in church documents apply equally
ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961. to women, despite the fact that their experiences,
Lewis, Edith. Willa Cather Living. New York: while different, are erased. Pastoral practice is
Knopf, 1953. sometimes friendly, at least covertly. But some bish-
OBrien, Sharon. Willa Cather: The Emerging ops encourage secular legislation such as that pro-
Voice. New York: Oxford University Press, hibiting adoption of children by lesbian, gay, bi-
1987. sexual, and transgendered people.
Woodress, James. Willa Cather: Her Life and Art. Progressive sectors of Catholicism, especially in
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970. the United States and Western Europe, include
many persons and groups that support civil and
See also American Literature, Twentieth Century religious rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgendered people. Dignity is the largest such
organization, with dozens of chapters and thou-
Catholicism sands of members who are out and Catholic.
A major Christian religious tradition and denomi- The Conference for Catholic Lesbians is a group
nation that reaches across the globe. Catholicism of several hundred members who meet in small base
is widely regarded as opposed to homosexuality communities for prayer and sisterhood. Some Catho-
and unjust in its treatment of women. Thus, it is lic lesbians also belong to Christian Lesbians

C AT H O L I C I S M 151
 Out Together (CLOUT), an ecumenical group in- values of their faith tradition in a thoroughly in-
C cluding many ordained lesbian pastors. New Ways
Ministry provides services for parents and friends
clusive way. Mary E.Hunt

of Catholic lesbian and gay people; Communica- Bibliography

tions Ministry focuses specifically on nuns and Brooten, Bernadette. Love Between Women: Early
priests who are lesbian and gay. Many religious Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism.
orders have informal lesbian or gay caucuses. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Catholic lesbians are unearthing their history Brown, Judith C. Immodest Acts: The Life of a
as part of feminist studies in religion. Bernadette Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy. New York:
Brootens (1996) work on female homoeroticism Oxford University Press, 1986.
in Christian scripture begins the revisionist work Curb, Rosemary, and Nancy Manahan, eds. Les-
on women in the early church. Judith C.Brown bian Nuns: Breaking Silence. Tallahassee, Fla.:
(1986) documents seventeenth-century nuns Naiad, 1985.
Benedetta Carlini and Bartolomea Crivelli, whose Hunt, Mary E. Lovingly Lesbian: Toward a Femi-
relationship caused a scandal in their convent. nist Theology of Friendship. In A Challenge
Current and former nuns tell stories of their par- To Love: Gay and Lesbian Catholics in the
ticular friendships and the deeply ingrained pro- Church. Ed. Robert Nugent. New York:
hibition against them. Despite this, Catholic lesbi- Crossroad, 1987, pp. 135155.
ans abound both in and out of convents. Zanotti, Barbara, ed. A Faith of Ones Own: Ex-
The patriarchal nature of Catholicism means plorations by Catholic Lesbians. Trumansburg,
that all women are marginalized. Since sexuality is N.Y.: Crossing, 1986.
seen as an integral dimension of spirituality and
ethics, women are prohibited from acting freely on See also Christianity, Early; Religious Communities
the basis of their own insights. Rather, roles and
behaviors are prescribed by the kyriarchal church.
Lesbian women experience this in slightly differ- Censorship
ent ways from heterosexual women, who, for ex- As defined in this entry, censorship refers to the su-
ample, are prohibited from using most effective pervision and assessment of the actions, practices,
forms of birth control and having abortions. Les- and ethics of women for the purposes of control-
bian women, far from being praised for the natu- ling their social-sexual relations, self-representation,
ralness of their birth control and the fact that their and, ultimately, self-determination. Sociopolitical
sexual expression does not usually tempt them control of lesbianism dates from early religious writ-
to abort, are either ignored entirely or lumped with ings that sought to regulate the sexuality of women.
gay men. Catholic lesbian mothers are looked down In most countries, assessment and censorship of
upon. Marriage remains a sacrament reserved to womens sexual activities in the service of institu-
heterosexuals. tionally endorsed male sexual privilege continue
Catholic lesbian women are in the leadership through a combination of state legislation and reli-
of many of the church reform efforts, including gious edicts. Importantly, the word lesbian is
the movement for the ordination of women to the rarely explicitly stated within legislation or moral
priesthood. Many are involved in the development decrees but, instead, is implied through the use of
of egalitarian models of church, the women- code terms such as sexual deviance, perversion,
church movement. Likewise, Catholic lesbian indecency, and immoral conduct. Dominant
women are well represented among secular social social and political bodies interpret and judge the
activists and are leading human rights organiza- applicability of these terms to lesbians through the
tions, writing for lesbian and gay publications, lenses of institutionalized heterosexism. The assess-
running for elective office, and in virtually every ment and control of lesbian practices and represen-
other role for which they prepared so well in tation occur as an unspecified aftereffect of regula-
Catholic schools. Central to their training is the tory systems within which lesbians are, in every other
Catholic emphasis on love and justice, despite the way, completely absent.
efforts of church officials to place gender-specific In the Western world, for example, the surveil-
restrictions on same. Far from being a contradic- lance of prostitutesinitiated by legislation man-
tion in terms, Catholic lesbians live out the core dating examinations for venereal disease (1802,

152 C AT H O L I C I S M
Paris)was a critical step in institutionally regulat- Bibliography
ing the sexual practices of single women, including Assiter, Alison, and Carol Avedon, eds. Bad Girls
lesbians. State and religious authorities rationalized and Dirty Pictures: The Challenge to Reclaim
increased policing through their stated concern for Feminism. London: Pluto, 1993.
public safety while creating public suspicion of clan- Burstyn, Varda, ed. Women Against Censorship.
destine vice and female sexual deviance. The social Toronto: Douglas and Mclntyre, 1985.
organization and legislation of prostitution, devi- Censorship. Fuse 16:2 (Winter 1992) (Special
ance, and eroticism left lesbians, who were usually Issue).
also poor, unwed, and/or racially or ethnically iden- Chester, Gail, and Julienne Dickey, eds. Feminism
tified, vulnerable to molestation and police perse- and Censorship: The Current Debate. Bridport,
cution, even as it protected the male-produced por- Dorset: Prism, 1988.
nographic images of lesbian sex that circulated Duggan, Lisa, and Nan D.Hunter, eds. Sex Wars:
within middle-to-upper-class male circles. Sexual Dissent and Political Culture. New York:
In England, first wave feminists (late 1800s) Routledge, 1995.
identified the misogyny behind the officially sanc- Kinsman, Gary. The Regulation of Desire: Sexual-
tioned sexual hierarchy that stigmatized women. ity in Canada. Montreal: Black Rose, 1987.
However, this concern was eclipsed by the grow- Parmar, Pratibha. Rage and Desire: Confronting Por-
ing movement for the protection of women, result- nography. In Out the Other Side: Contemporary
ing in the reinscription of deviance in laws that Lesbian Writing. Ed. Christian McEwen and Sue
criminalized same-sex acts between consenting OSullivan. London: Virago, 1988, pp. 276287.
adults. This oppressive situation became more com-
plex when second wave feminists (19681980) See also Sex Work
reclaimed the category of sexual deviance to at-
tack pornographic representation without recon-
sidering that this category had been used histori- Central America
cally to criminalize lesbians, prostitutes, poor, and Territory bridging North and South America and
non-white women. comprising seven countries (Guatemala, Hondu-
Administrated censorshipsupported by state ras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama,
bodies such as the Meese Commission on Pornog- and Belize) that have unique, although related, his-
raphy (1985, United States) and extrastate bod- tories and cultures. One of the main characteris-
ies such as the Vatican and the World Health Or- tics of these nations is the mixture of peoples de-
ganizationincreased throughout the 1970s and rived from a variety of cultures: Spanish, as well as
1980s and has authorized police raids on gay and several Indian cultures, Afro-Caribbean cultures,
lesbian bookstores and bars and the seizing of les- and Anglo-Saxon culture.
bian books, magazines, and videos in Canada, the
United States, and the United Kingdom. Oppres- History
sive legislation and court rulings, such as Section Prior to the Spanish Conquest in the sixteenth cen-
28 of the Local Government Act of 1988 (known tury, Central America was inhabited by Indian soci-
as Clause 28 before the act was passed) in Eng- eties, from both the Mesoamerican and South Ameri-
land and the Butler decision (R.v.Butler, 1992) in can traditions. Although there are no studies that
Canada have facilitated attacks on educational fully document the practice of lesbianism in
and health institutions distributing nondiscrimi- Precolumbian times, a few references from the com-
natory information on reproductive choice, safe pilation of texts written to document the Conquest
sex, and sexual orientation, thus proving Pratibha (known as the Spanish Chronicles) seem to suggest
Parmars (1988) observation that censorship of the existence of homosexual females among the In-
any kind has always had disastrous and repres- dian cultures of the region. Moreover, the presence
sive effects for communities without access to of the goddess Xochi-quetzal in the Mesoamerican
power. This repression has been challenged by pantheon suggests that lesbianism and male homo-
gay and lesbian liberation movements and sexuality were actually part of the ideological mean-
anticensorship organizations, such as Feminists ings of some of these Indian groups. This goddess,
for Free Expression (United States) and embodying both female and male features, was the
CENSORSTOP (Canada). Linda D.Wayne representation of nonprocreative sexuality and love.

CENTRAL AMERICA 153

 The reality of woman-to-woman love during the Central America, privacy is largely unknown, ex-
C colonial period (15401821) in Central America is
revealed by some references found in the National
cept for the members of the very small upper classes.
The high levels of unemployment, resulting from
Archives of Costa Rica to women publicly accused the critical social conditions, make it almost im-
by husbands or male partners of unnatural con- possible for many lesbians, particularly young ones,
duct with other women. Due to the lack of research to find jobs that would allow them to live inde-
on the subject, the existing information is insufficient pendently. Furthermore, the lack of adequate hous-
to draw conclusions about the fate of these women; ing, which in some countries affects up to 70 per-
however, considering the rigid Catholic values and cent of the population, makes it very difficult for
morals that prevailed in the region, most likely those lesbians to find or afford housing of their own.
accusations had severe social consequences for them. Often lesbians must remain embedded in family
During the first decades of the twentieth century, life and, therefore, practically unable to avoid su-
the intellectual classes in Central America opened pervision.
up for the first time to lesbian expressions in the As a result of the lack of privacy, on occasion
arts and literature. In the 1920s and 1930s, even the family and even the neighbors are aware of
the well-reputed journal Repertoria Americano someones lesbianism, and she might be allowed
(American Repertoire)published in Costa Rica but to bring female friends to the house. Yet, in the
widely distributed in all Latin Americafeatured majority of these cases, the situation is unofficial
essays and poems with very open lesbian content. and unspeakable, and open expressions of affec-
Thus, in this so-far unique historical period, lesbian tion are overtly censored. Very often, revelation of
artists and intellectuals found a space to discuss their lesbianism is the basis for expulsion from the home.
lifestyle and express their love for other women. This is a critical and contradictory issue. On the
This situation did not last very long, however. one hand, the family is one of the primary sources
For most of the twentieth century, Central America of oppression for lesbians in Central America, but,
experienced a severe political and economic crisis, on the other, in these societies the family is a cen-
and the vast majority of the populationwith the tral economic unit and relevant for the survival of
exception of that of Costa Ricahas been denied its members, particularly in times of economic and
minimal civil and democratic rights. During the political crisis. Thus, while expulsion from the
1970s and 1980s, countries such as Nicaragua, El home provides lesbians with more freedom to live
Salvador, and Guatemala were torn by war and vio- their lives openly, it also implies the loss of the so-
lence. Honduras was occupied by three nonnational cial security that the family offers.
armies; Panama was invaded by the United States Other important sources of oppression for les-
Army; and the Costa Rican economy drastically bians in this region are the Catholic Church and
deteriorated as a result of the political conditions in traditional gender roles that operate very strongly
the region. The conflicts and widespread violation in the local culture. Furthermore, in spite of mod-
of human rights in much of Central America per- ern psychology, lesbians must still face the myth
sisted well into the 1990s. Yet, by the mid-1990s, a that their sexual orientation and lifestyle are patho-
wave of democratic elections and the signing of peace logical. The intolerance and prejudice that prevail
accords in countries such as El Salvador and Guate- in Central America might be reinforced by the fact
mala restored a climate of political calm in the area. that, until the 1990s, the issue of lesbian rights was
not part of the local political culture, not even
Contemporary Conditions among feminists, in most cases. Even more, some
In spite of the harsh political environment, lesbian political parties, including leftist ones, openly pro-
life and lesbian communities exist in every coun- hibit lesbian and homosexual participation in their
try. The size and complexity of these communities organizations. Other progressive parties and
are closely related to the size and complexity of revolutionary movements tolerate the presence of
the society itself. In that sense, Costa Rica has a lesbians as long as they keep their sexual orienta-
larger and more complex lesbian community than tion a private matter. While some lesbians have
the other countries. The economic and political occupied high-ranking positions in public office in
climate has, nevertheless, made it very difficult for Central America, their sexual identity is never dis-
lesbians in every country to create and develop their closed, which makes them invisible as lesbians to
communities and to have an independent life. In the general public.

154 CENTRAL AMERICA

 Lesbian life is, therefore, mostly contained within cret location. Although the meeting was held, it
small circles, whose boundaries are clearly defined ended chaotically a day early when the place was
by class and ethnicity. But despite their social-class attacked by men in the middle of the night. Thus,
or ethnic backgrounds, lesbians in Central America not only were the lesbians denied the right to
lack open social spaces to meet. The few predomi- meeta right that is granted in the Costa Rican
nantly lesbian bars that exist in the region are con- Constitutionbut they also suffered overt repres-
centrated in San Jose, Costa Rica. Outside San Jose, sion. Nobody was injured in the attack, but the
there is only one lesbian-friendly bar in Tegucigalpa, intimidation produced such levels of fear and inse-
Honduras, but it is a closed-door place, located in a curity among the members of Las Entendidas that
dangerous area, and opens only during the week- the group disintegrated shortly after the conference.
ends. In general, lesbian bars cannot be considered Despite the adverse conditions, lesbians continue
completely secure places in Central America. Even to form groups in practically every country. For
in Costa Rica, where lesbian bars have existed since the most part, these groups remain small and out-
the 1980s, they are still the constant targets of po- side the public arena. Nonetheless, showing a new
lice harassment. In a single night, uniformed and development in the process of building organiza-
nonuniformed police officers may come into a bar tion, the first network of gays and lesbians of Cen-
up to three or four times. Even if they do not do tral America was created in 1996 in a meeting held
anything, their presence in the bar is threatening. in Guatemala City. The main goals of this network
As a result of the lack of open and safe social spaces, (Asociacion Regional Centroamericana de Gays y
informal networks sustain most lesbian life and con- Lesbianas: ARCEGAL) are the promotion of les-
stitute the primary basis of support and affirmation bian and gay rights in the region and the construc-
for lesbians. Many lesbians rely mainly on those tion of a better social and political environment
networks to establish their relationships and to meet for gays and lesbians. Montserrat Sagot
with their friends.
In the 1980s, as a result of the growing feminist Bibliography
movement in the region and the influence of for- Cruz, Paquita. The Lesbian Feminist Group Las
eigners or nationals who had lived abroad, lesbi- Entendidas. In The Costa Rican Womens Move-
ans began to form the first organized groups. In ment: A Reader. Ed. Use Leitinger. Pittsburgh:
general, these groups were small and took the form University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997, pp. 147152.
of consciousness-raising or support groups. That Las Entendidas. Memoria de un Encuentro
is, they did not develop into a social movement for Inolvidable: Segundo Encuentro Lesbico-
lesbian rights. As stated before, the conditions in Feminista de America Latina y el Caribe (Mem-
Central America are difficult for lesbians and even oirs of an Unforgettable Meeting: Second Latin
more difficult for such a movement to arise. Even American and Caribbean Lesbian Feminist
in Costa Rica, the most advanced democracy in Meeting). San Jose, Costa Rica: Imprenta
the area, lesbians attempts to organize politically Carcemo, 1991.
have been shattered. In 1990, the only local les- Quesada, Noemi. Erotismo en la Religion Azteca
bian group at the time, Las Entendidas (Those Who (Eroticism in the Aztec Religion). Revista
Understand), directly experienced the negative con- Universidad de Mexico 28 (1974), 1619.
sequences of hosting a regional meeting of lesbian
feminists in Costa Rica. Confident in the countrys See also Encuentros de Lesbianas
democratic discourse, Las Entendidas agreed to
organize the Second Latin American and the Car-
ibbean Lesbian-Feminist Encuentro (meeting). Chambers, Jane (19371983)
When the news about the meeting came out, pub- American playwright and pioneer in writing theat-
lic outrageorchestrated by the Catholic Church rical works with openly lesbian characters. Born
and right-wing groupsprompted the government Carolyn Jane Chambers in Columbia, South Caro-
to prohibit the conference and to ban lesbians from lina, she was brought up in Orlando, Florida, at-
entering the country. The meeting was not canceled, tended Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, for
but the governments discriminatory and two years, and studied acting for one year at the
antidemocratic stand obliged the organizers to Pasadena Playhouse in California. In 1956, she
change the meetings dates and to move it to a se- moved to New York City, where she landed roles

CHAMBERS, JANE 155

 in off-Broadway productions and worked as a re- Landau, Penny M. Jane Chambers. In Notable
C porter for theatrical trade papers. From 1964 to
1966, Chambers was employed as a writer and on-
Women in the American Theatre. Ed. Alice M.
Robinson. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1989,
air personality at WMTW-TV in Poland Spring, pp.117119.
Maine. She stayed in Maine for two more years as . Jane Chambers: In Memoriam. Women
the director of avocation at the Poland Spring Job and Performance 1:2 (Winter 1984), 5557.
Corps Center. Returning to the New York area in Sisley, Emily L. Notes on Lesbian Theatre.
1969, Chambers continued working for the Job Drama Review 25:1 (March 1981), 4756.
Corps and enrolled in an independent study pro-
gram run by Vermonts Goddard College, from See also Theater and Drama, Contemporary
which she received a bachelors degree in 1971.
While in the Goddard program, she met Beth Allen,
who became her lifelong companion and manager. Charke, Charlotte (17131760)
Chamberss writing began attracting attention English author. Charlotte Charke was also famous
in the early 1970s. Her civil rights play Christ in a for performing male roles onstage and frequently
Treehouse was broadcast on Connecticut Educa- cross-dressed in private life. Estranged from her
tional Television in 1971. The following year, her father, Colley Cibber (16711757), Charke sup-
play Tales of the Revolution and Other American ported herself as an actress but also worked in male
Fables was produced at the Eugene ONeill Thea- guise as a valet, a waiter, and a pastry cook. She is
tre in New London, Connecticut. Chambers was a best known for A Narrative of the Life of Mrs.
founding member of the Womens Interart Center Charlotte Charke (1755), Henry Dumont (1756),
in New York City, where her plays Random Vio- and The Art of Management (1735).
lence (1973), Mine! (1974), and The Wife (1974) Charke wrote in her Narrative. I confess my-
were first presented. Another Chambers play, A self an odd mortaland I am certain there is no one
Late Snow (1974), a comedy about five women in the world more fit than myself to be laughed at.
snowbound in a mountain cabin, was produced at Her oddity, her rejection of conventional femi-
Playwrights Horizons in New York City. Gener- nine behavior, and her delight in jokes, such as ap-
ally considered Chamberss best play is Last Sum- ing her fathers mannerisms upon the stage, got her
mer at Bluefish Cove (West Side Mainstage, New into trouble throughout her life. At seventeen, she
York City, 1980), a portrait of a tightly knit sum- married Richard Charke, who deserted her and her
mer community of lesbian friends. Though suffer- infant daughter to immigrate to Jamaica. Charke
ing from a brain tumor that would eventually take was hard pressed to support her child, although she
her life, Chambers wrote and directed the comedy enjoyed success on the stage until the Licensing Act
My Blue Heaven (Shandol Theatre, New York City, of 1737 made it difficult for actors to find work.
1981). Her play The Quintessential Image was Faced with mounting debts, Charke called herself
produced posthumously on a double bill with In Mr. Brown, explaining that she was then, for some
Her Own Words, a biographical portrait compiled substantial reasons, en Cavalier. She married John
from her writings (Courtyard Playhouse, New York Sacheverell in 1746 but makes no mention of living
City, 1989). with him. Around 1747, she began to travel with
Chambers wrote for a general audience and another woman. They appeared together as Mr. and
thought that the use of homosexual characters did Mrs. Brown, and Charke referred to her sincere
not diminish the universal applicability or emo- Friendship for her companion. It is not clear how
tional truth of her plays. She was also the author long this relationship lasted, but Charke seems to have
of two novels (Burning [1978], and Chasin Jason died alone and in extreme poverty.
[1987]) and a collection of poetry (Warrior at Rest Scholars have disputed the reasons for Charkes
[1984]) and was a staff writer for the television cross-dressing. Charke considered becoming a fe-
daytime drama Search for Tomorrow (1973 male husband, explaining how a young heiress
1974). Mary C.Kalfatovic would have married her, but she claimed that con-
science determined her not to go through with the
Bibliography hoax. When another female employer fell for her as
Hoffman, William, ed. Gay Plays: The First Col- Mr. Brown, Charke treated it as a joke. Faderman
lection. New York: Avon, 1979. (1981) questions her for taking this stance only a

156 CHAMBERS, JANE

few years after a real female husband, Mary Hamil- of lesbians known as ladies were outnumbered
ton, was whipped and imprisoned for fraud. Straub by men of similar upper-middle-class backgrounds
(1991) argues that Charke is somewhere else on by at least five to one yet still played important
the field of sexual possibility, but cannot or will not roles as hostesses and in the community theater.
specify where. Yet Moore (1991) argues that, for Both genders shared a common identification with
Charke, the pleasures and powers of cross-dress- the theater, but women were jokingly referred to
ing become more explicitly sexualized and that her (and referred to themselves) as Lithuanians, sug-
impoverished representation of the relationship gesting an exotic group from some faraway land.
with Mrs. Brown invitesor coercesus to read As capital and infrastructure made the Grove a
between the lines to discern a lesbian sensibility. more accessible resort, a diverse population of gay
Maureen Duffy (1933) cites Charkes Narrative in men flooded in. The ladies retreated, and a new
her lesbian novel, The Microcosm (1966). group of working-class dykes and their femmes
Elizabeth Wahl constituted a small and rather beleaguered minority
from 1960 to about 1973. During this period of grow-
Bibliography ing gay nationalism, promiscuous and ubiquitous
Donoghue, Emma. Passions Between Women: Brit- male-male sexual desire was increasingly seen as the
ish Lesbian Culture, 16681801. London: Scar- common bond between gays, a formulation that ex-
let, 1993, 97100, 164167. cluded lesbians far more than their being Lithua-
Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men: nians had done. Yet, during the 1970s and 1980s,
Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women lesbians gained footholds, and, by 1987, in a gritty,
from the Renaissance to the Present. New York: gradual, and individual process, they had become
Morrow, 1981. business and home owners, theater technicians and
Mackie, Erin. Desperate Measures: The Narra- actors, and leaders in the volunteer fire department.
tives of the Life of Mrs. Charlotte Charke. As queens (in-group slang with connotations of
English Literary History 58 (1991), 841865. both effeminacy and grandeur), gay men assumed
Moore, Lisa. She Was Too Fond of Her Mistaken the subject position in a coherent camp sensibility
Bargain: The Scandalous Relations of Gender that acted to marginalize, or even obliterate, lesbi-
and Sexuality in Feminist Theory. Diacritics ans symbolically: Lesbians were rarely allowed any
21 (1991), 89101. representation as a group within the community and
Morgan, Fidelis, with Charlotte Charke. The Well- were virtually never allowed to represent the com-
Known Troublemaker: A Life of Charlotte munity as a whole. This exclusion was effected by
Charke. London: Faber and Faber, 1988. gay mens far greater numbers and power, by social
Straub, Kristina. The Guilty Pleasures of Female pressure, and by outright discrimination. Given the
Theatrical Cross-Dressing and the Autobiogra- overwhelming hostility of the surrounding straight
phy of Charlotte Charke. In Body Guards: The world and, during the 1970s and 1980s, of lesbian
Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity. Ed. Julia feminism toward the butch-femme system, which
Epstein and Kristina Straub. New York and predominated in the Grove, lesbians were glad to
London: Routledge, 1991, pp. 142166. be tolerated in a physically safe space that supported
the existence of same-gender love, and they accepted
See also Cross-Dressing; Passing Women playing second fiddle.
Around 1988, as gay male predominance was
being undermined by illnesses and deaths from
Cherry Grove, New York aging and from AIDS, lesbians began coming in
Summer community in the New York metropoli- very large numbers. In general, these newer arriv-
tan area that is different from every other resort in als were younger and had a more aggressive atti-
the world in that gay men and lesbians are the tude toward gender equality. By the mid-1990s,
majority. Located on an Atlantic barrier beach lesbians had become at least half of all renters,
called Fire Island, the Grove consists of about prompting tensions between women and men that
275 houses, a small commercial center, and a rug- culminated in the election of Joan Van Ness, a
gedly beautiful ocean beach. homeowner prominent in community affairs, as
Lesbian numbers and power in the gay male- Homecoming Queen, a post that had always been
dominated Grove have fluctuated. From the 1930s held by a gay man in drag. At the end of the cen-
to the 1960s, a distinguished and well-off group tury, the Grove seemed to be moving toward greater

C H E R RY G R O V E , N E W Y O R K 157
 inclusion of women and people of color, within a movement would be patterned on Hull House, the
C free-market framework.
Esther Newton
pioneer efforts of social reformer and Nobel laure-
ate Jane Addams (18601935). Willa Gather (1873
1947) lived in Chicago long enough to be able to
Bibliography write of the city in two novels, including The Song
Newton, Esther. Cherry Grove, Fire Island: Sixty of the Lark. Margaret Anderson (18861973) be-
Years in Americas First Gay and Lesbian Town. came a leader of the modernist movement during
Boston: Beacon, 1993. the waning years of the Chicago Renaissance as she
. Dick (less) Tracy and the Homecoming and her lover, Jane Heap (18871964), made the
Queen: Lesbian Power and Representation in Little Review the magazine of anarchy, art, and free
Gay Male Cherry Grove. In Inventing Lesbian verse. In 1915, Edith Lees Ellis (18611916) gave a
Cultures in America. Ed. Ellen Lewin. Boston: lecture at Orchestra Hall that is likely the first pub-
Beacon, 1996, pp. 161193. lic defense of homosexuality in the United States.
. Just One of the Boys: Lesbians in Cherry Loie Fuller (18621928), called the Electric Fairy,
Grove, 19601989. In The Lesbian and Gay danced at Louis Sullivans (18561924) magnificent
Studies Reader. Ed. Henry Abelove, Michle Auditorium Theater, where decades later lesbians
Aina Barale, and David M.Halperin. New York: in the military would swing together when it was
Routledge, 1993, pp. 528541. converted to a USO in World War II. Oak Park resi-
dent Jeannette Foster (18951981) came to study
See also Camp; Recreation; Tourism and Guide- and get her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago
books before writing her magnum opus, Sex Variant
Women in Literature (1956).
In the 1920s, African American lesbians mostly
Chicago, Illinois partied in private homes; passing women would take
Major midwestern metropolis with a long and dis- their partners to the African American
tinguished lesbian and gay history, including the neighborhood, Bronzeville, and Black Belt jazz
first homosexual rights organization in the United clubs. Trumpeter Tiny Davis (n.d.) and her lover
States (1924). would open The Gay Spot, where hot music thrived
Chicagos documented history of women-loving- until the club was demolished to make room for the
women dates to within twenty years of its incorpo- crosstown expressway. Later, women such as Pat
ration as a city in 1832. Passing women served in McCombs (n.d.) would host floating parties at pri-
the government and in the military, and some mar- vate clubs, bars, or hotels for women of color and
ried other women. Nineteenth-century police their friends. In the 1950s, Lorraine Hansberrys
records, sporting-life journals, and court documents (19301965) father challenged Chicagos racially
note lesbians among the madams and working girls restrictive housing covenants, providing her with
in the bordellos and parlor houses of the wide-open material for her play, A Raisin in the Sun (1959).
red-light districts of the Levee, the Patch, and Cus- By the 1930s, white women who preferred
tom House Place, which flourished until prostitu- mens attire partied at private clubs, bars (some-
tion was made illegal in 1910. Private papers of times raided), and predominately male drag balls.
doctors and medical journals record society matrons, Some even were reported to have been married by a
servants, and young women of higher education Bronzeville minister. Their more conservatively clad
involved in passionate physical relationships. counterparts opened galleries, bookstores, and tea
The Worlds Columbian Exhibition of 1893 shops in the bohemian Towertown area. The De-
made Chicago a cultural capital. Lesbian artists, pression Era saw a proliferation of rent parties,
writers, and inventors exhibited at the fair, includ- which would continue into the 1960s as private
ing the worlds foremost woman sculptor, Harriet gatherings among friendship groups. Couples who
Hosmer (18301908). Her statue of Isabella, came to the city in the 1930s and 1940s to attend
Columbuss queen, was at the center of a storm universities or work in defense plants tell of partying
created by suffragists, who refused to exhibit wom- with close gay male friends rather than expose their
ens work separately from their male counterparts relationships to the challenges of all-women soirees.
in the Womens Building. Civil rights attorney and law Professor Pearl
Many prominent women are associated with Chi- Hart (18901978) and lesbian novelist Valerie
cagos lesbian past. The national settlement-house Taylor (19131997) were among the founding

158 C H E R RY G R O V E , N E W Y O R K
members of Mattachine Midwest, incorporated in In 1991, the City of Chicago inaugurated the
1965. A small suburban Daughters of Bilitis chap- countrys first Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame, into
ter met briefly, but Mattachine Midwest was the which the mayor inducts yearly an average of five
only functioning, proactive rights group in the women and five men who have made a signifi-
Midwest until the emergence of the gay liberation cant contribution with far reaching effects on the
movement in the late 1960s. Attorney Renee Hano- quality of life for Chicagos lesbian and gay com-
ver (1926), Harts student and later law partner, munity and the City of Chicago.
fought and won dozens of gay and lesbian rights In the 1990s, womens health issues were taken
cases beginning in the 1960s. on by lesbians in the Howard Brown Memorial
By the time the civil rights movement and wom- Clinic; the Lesbian Community Cancer Project was
ens liberation took hold in the city, in the second formed; and more than one hundred leaders of the
half of the 1960s, an active lesbian bar culture had lesbian community met to create the Lesbian
developed. Lesbians in the Womens Caucus of Agenda, pushing for visibility in political, health,
Chicago Gay Liberation challenged the racism and and rights organizations.
antiactivist stance of most bars with boycotts and In October 1997, Chicago neighbor Oak Park
legal action. In 1971, a wholly independent group, became Illinoiss first municipality to enact a do-
Chicago Lesbian Liberation, was drawing seventy mestic partnership registry; this followed the April
or more women to each meeting. In that year, the election of longtime Illinois, Cook County, and
newspaper Lavender Woman began, later gaining Chicago activist Joanne Trapani (1949) to the Vil-
national circulation until its demise in 1976. lage Board of Managersthe first open lesbian to
The 1970s was Chicagos lesbian decade. The win municipal office in the state. In 1994 Oak Park,
Lesbian Feminist Center housed a bookstore, a and in 1997 the City of Chicago, granted domestic
counseling and referral service, and the New Alex- partnership benefits to their municipal employees.
andria Library for Lesbian Wimmin (founded by Marie J.Kuda
librarian and bibliographer J.R.Roberts). From 1974
through 1978, the annual Lesbian Writers Confer- Bibliography
ence drew participants and presenters from all over Brody, Michal, ed. Are We There Yet? A Continu-
the country and Canada. The first annotated bibli- ing History of Lavender Woman, a Chicago
ography on lesbian literature, Women Loving Lesbian Newspaper, 19711976. Iowa City:
Women, was an outgrowth of the conference. Col- Aunt Lute, 1985.
leen Monahan and Elaine Jacobs produced the first Darnell, Don. Martie. Chicago Tribune Maga-
nationally distributed lesbian documentary film, zine (June 20,1991), 2022,
Lavender, in 1971. Mountain Moving Coffeehouse Katz, Jonathan. Gay American History. New York:
brought every major lesbian musician, comic, and Crowell, 1976.
storyteller to the community from the mid-1970s Kuda, Marie J. Chicago Gay and Lesbian His-
throughout the 1990s. Restaurants, presses, a theater tory: From Prairie Settlement to WWII. Out-
group, newspapers, and a dozen lesbianowned busi- lines 8:1 (1964), 2532.
nesses all thrived during this decade. . Chicago Gay and Lesbian History: Special
The growing distance between the principally Pull-Out Section. Outlines 9:2 (1995), 2730.
separatist lesbian community and the older, mostly Sutton, Roger. Renee Hanover. In Hearing Us
male groups working on city and state gay rights Out: Voices from the Gay/Lesbian Community.
initiatives came to a head when two suburban Boston: Little, Brown, 1994, pp. 93101.
women applied for a marriage license and were ar-
rested after staging a sit-in at the County Clerks See also Addams, Jane; Anderson, Margaret Carolyn;
Office in October 1975. Considering the action del- Bars; Cather, Willa; Daughters of Bilitis; Female Sup-
eterious and ill timed, the old-line groups denounced port Networks; Foster, Jeannette Howard; Hansberry,
it in the mainstream press. The resulting discourse Lorraine (Vivian); Taylor, Valerie
between mens and womens groups, political activ-
ists and separatists, resulted in the formation of the
Chicago Coalition, an inclusive, broad-based rep- Children
resentation of businesses and organizations with a Although prevalent stereotypes suggest that lesbi-
clear agenda aimed at gay rights legislation. ans do not become mothers, there are almost

CHILDREN 159
 certainly millions of lesbian mothers in the United duced no evidence that the development of chil-
C States today. Most became parents in the context
of heterosexual marriages before coming out as
dren with lesbian mothers is impaired in any
signficant way relative to that among children of
lesbians, but increasing numbers are also believed heterosexual parents in otherwise comparable cir-
to be becoming parents after having come out. cumstances. Indeed, the available evidence suggests
Though other routes to parenthood, such as adop- that home environments provided by lesbian moth-
tion and foster care, are also involved, the largest ers are as likely as those provided by heterosexual
increases in numbers of lesbians who are becom- parents to support and enable childrens social and
ing parents have occurred through donor insemi- psychological growth.
nation. This trend has been seen as significant
enough by some observers that it has been termed Children in Lesbian Families
a lesbian baby boom. In contrast to the stere- There is tremendous diversity among families headed
otype, then, the numbers of lesbian mothers, al- by lesbian mothers. Sources of diversity include eco-
ready substantial, seem to be on the rise. nomic circumstances and the racial, ethnic, religious,
and cultural identities of lesbian mothers and their
Issues in Child Custody children. Other significant sources of diversity may
Judicial and legislative bodies both in the United States include the circumstances of a childs conception,
and abroad have often denied child custody and visi-
the social and legal climate of the environment in
tation rights on the basis of parental sexual orienta-
which a child grows up, and the degree to which the
tion. Courts, in particular, have sometimes assumed
family configuration into which a child was born or
that lesbians are mentally ill and, hence, not fit to be
adopted has remained intact or undergone change
parents, that lesbians are less maternal than hetero-
throughout the childs lifetime. Thus, factors such
sexual women and, hence, do not make good moth-
as parents psychological well-being, parents in-
ers, and that lesbians relationships with sexual part-
volvement in stable romantic relationships, and the
ners leave little time for parenting behavior.
degree of conflict among important adults in a childs
Findings from systematic research have failed
to confirm any of these judicial concerns. The idea life might all be expected to be important predic-
that homosexuality constitutes a mental illness or tors of childrens adjustment in homes that are
disorder has long been repudiated by every major headed by lesbian mothers.
psychological and psychiatric professional organi- The scant social-science literature devoted to di-
zation. Lesbian and heterosexual women have been versity among children with lesbian mothers suggests
found not to differ markedly either in their overall that children of lesbian mothers, like other children,
mental health or in their approaches to child rear- are better off when their parents are in good mental
ing, nor have lesbians romantic relationships been health, when they live in a supportive milieu, and
found to detract from their ability to care for chil- when they are in regular contact with grandparents
dren. Thus, empirical studies have revealed no as- and other adults outside their immediate household.
sociation between sexual orientation and psycho- Among children with two lesbian mothers, available
logical characteristics relevant to parenting. evidence suggests that those whose parents have a
Judicial decision making and public policies in harmonious and satisfying couple relationship, little
many jurisdictions have also sometimes reflected vari- interparental conflict, and a relatively even division
ous concerns about the well-being of children raised of child-care responsibilities are likely to show the
by lesbian mothers. Judges have voiced fears about most favorable development.
the development of childrens sexual identity, about From the standpoint of social-science research,
other aspects of childrens personal and social devel- much remains to be done to understand similarities
opment, and about the relationships of children reared among, as well as differences between, families
by lesbian mothers. Reflecting common prejudices, headed by lesbian and heterosexual parents and to
judges have sometimes even expressed concern that comprehend the impact of such factors on child
children living with lesbian mothers would be at development. Information is needed about the many
heightened risk of sexual abuse or be more likely to forms of diversity among families headed by lesbian
grow up to be gay or lesbian themselves (an outcome mothers and about the ways in which mothers and
that such judges apparently view as negative). children manage the multiple identities available to
There is a substantial body of social-science re- them. Information is also needed about the nature
search relevant to these concerns, but it has pro- of stresses and supports encountered by children of

160 CHILDREN
lesbian mothersin the parents families of origin See also Adopton; Custody Litigation; Donor In-
(with grandparents and other relatives), among par- semination; Law and Legal Institutions; Mothers,
ents and childrens friends, at school, and in their Lesbian
larger communities. Research is needed to explore
the pains and pleasures of growing up in a
lesbianheaded home and to identify the costs and Chile
benefits of court-ordered separations between chil- Country in the southwest of South America with a
dren and their lesbian mothers. In addition, it would population of about twelve million. A large major-
be useful to learn more about the ways in which ity of lesbians and gay men are closeted somewhere
effects of heterosexism and homophobia are felt by in the thick fabric of heterosexual expectations still
lesbian mothers and their children, and about the present in Chilean society. However, this has not
ways in which they cope with ignorance and preju- meant silence or passivity on the part of many gay
dice that they encounter. Although many of these men and lesbians who have decided to come out,
topics have been discussed in first-person narratives challenging in this way the public panic over moral
about life in families headed by lesbian mothers, they issues created not only by religious institutions, but
had not, as of the late 1990s, been the subject of also by the state, formal education, and the media.
much systematic research. It was in this context of defiance and resistance
Research on children of lesbian mothers can be that the first publicly known Chilean lesbian or-
seen as having come to a significant turning point. ganization, Colectiva Lesbica Feminista Ayuquelen
Having begun to address heterosexist and homo- (Lesbian Feminist Collective Ayuquelen: a Mapuche
phobic concerns represented in psychological theory, [indigenous] name meaning, roughly, to be happy),
judicial opinion, and popular prejudice, researchers was born in 1980 in the capital, Santiago. It started
are now in a position also to explore a broader range in reaction to the homophobic attitudes and pub-
of issues raised by lesbian-mother families. Results lic indifference that had led to the killing of a
of future work in this area have the potential to tortillera (a derogatory label for lesbian women in
increase our knowledge about children growing up Chile but adopted by some as a challenge to homo-
in nontraditional families, stimulate innovations in phobic language) by a man who had kicked her to
theoretical understanding of human development, death with total impunity.
and inform legal rulings and public policies relevant The fact that a handful of women created a les-
to children of lesbian mothers. bian feminist group would probably be considered
Charlotte J.Patterson an ordinary event by other similar groups around
the world were it not that this happened in the
Bibliography 1980s, during political and social riots against the
Patterson, Charlotte J. Children of Lesbian and military dictatorship that had come to power in
Gay Parents. Child Development 63 (1992), 1973. Ayuquelen was advertised nationally, in part
10251042. through the controversy created by the public com-
. Children of the Lesbian Baby Boom: Behavioral ing out of their two leaders on television. For some
Adjustment, Self-Concepts, and Sex-Role Identity. time, Ayuquelen contributed to the Chilean wom-
In Contemporary Perspectives on Gay and Les- ens movement by sponsoring workshops and gen-
bian Psychology: Theory, Research, and Applica- erally helping create awareness of issues of gender
tions. Ed. Beverly Greene and Gregory Herek. and sexuality within feminist and other politically
Beverly Hills, Calif: Sage, 1994, pp. 156175. active womens groups. The presence of Ayuquelen
. Families of the Lesbian Baby Boom: Par- added another dimension to these organizations.
ents Division of Labor and Childrens Adjust- However, differences in political beliefs and strate-
ment. Developmental Psychology 31 (1995), gies between Ayuquelen and the more powerful
115123. feminist organization La Morada (The Shelter or
Rafkin, Louise, ed. Different Mothers: Sons and Home) resulted in the gradual marginalization of
Daughters of Lesbians Talk About Their Lives. the former. This marginalization happened not only
Pittsburgh: Cleis, 1990. within explicitly feminist groups, but also within
Tasker, Fiona, and Susan Golombok. Adults Raised other womens organizations. As a result,
as Children in Lesbian Families. American Jour- Ayuquelen finally stopped its public actions, al-
nal of Orthopsychiatry 65 (1995), 203215. though two members maintained an address for

CHILE 161
 other lesbians to contact them from different parts Rivera Fuentes, Consuelo. They Do Not Dance
C of Chile.
The fact that their postal box continued to be
Alone: The Womens Movements in Latin
America. In Women, Power, and Resistance:
advertised helped other lesbians realize that they An Introduction to Womens Studies. Ed. Tess
were not alone and, although in the closet at first, Cosslett, Alison Easton, and Penny Summer-
a second group was created in 1990, this time in field. London: Open University Press, 1996, pp.
Concepcin, an industrial and university city south 250262.
of Santiago, where Ayuquelen had been born. This . Todas Locas, Todas Vivas, Todas Libres:
new group, called LEA (Lesbianas En Accion: Les- Chilean Lesbians, 19801995. In Amazon to
bians in Action), attracted women from different Zami: Towards a Global Lesbian Feminism. Ed.
educational, class, and cultural backgrounds. Their Monika Reinfelder. London: Cassell, 1996,
initial purpose was not only to break out of their pp.138151.
isolation, but also to discuss violence between les-
bian couples. These initial aims expanded to other See also International Organizations
topics of interest to lesbians within a society badly
damaged by the physical and ideological enforce-
ment of military rule. LEA shared its political China
growth with a group of young gay men, Taller Ser Largest country in Asia, and most populous in the
(Workshop on Selfhood), who had been meeting world, with a cultural tradition thousands of years
for some time within the safe confines of a old. Until the late nineteenthth century, when the
nongovernmental agency (NGO) that had as a pri- threat of cultural extinction at the hands of West-
mary aim the prevention of sexually transmitted ern imperialist powers motivated Chinese reform-
diseases such as AIDS. This organization, CEPSS ers to advocate formal education for women for
(Centro de Educacion y Salud Social y Sida: Center the sake of national salvation, literacy for women
for Education, Social Health, and AIDS), along with was not considered a virtue in Chinawhereas filial
LEA and Taller Ser, organized the first Encuentro piety, absolute devotion to family, and chastity were
Nacional de Homosexuales (National Homosexual given full state and societal support and promo-
Conference) in 1991 in Coronel, a mining town tion. Thus, in Chinas long history as a center of
near Concepcin. Two groups of gay men from civilization in East Asia, with a few notable excep-
Santiago were also among the people who attended tions Chinese women did not (and were not able
this Encuentro, at the same time that a national to) leave behind written records of their lives and
Feminist Encuentro was being held in the seaside thought.
city of Valparaiso.
In June 1992, LEA and Colectiva Ayuquelen History
(which at that point had reorganized itself and was Writing a history of lesbian existence in China before
active once more) held their first Encuentro the twentieth century is, therefore, difficult. There is
Nacional de Mujeres Lesbianas (National Lesbian no lesbian counterpart to the richly documented male
Conference) in the suburbs of Santiago. This highly homosexual tradition in China; however, Kos (1994)
successful Encuentro was attended by women from study of erotically evocative poems about female
all over the country and marked an important point bodies written by several seventeenth-century women
in lesbian history. Since then, both LEA and poets suggests the existence of a female homoerotic
Colectiva Ayuquelen, in conjunction with gay mens sensibility. The poets were married women of the
organizations and groups, have been active in the gentry class, and many of their objects of desire were
promotion and defense of gay and lesbian rights in courtesans and entertainers. This tradition continued
Chile. Consuelo Rivera Fuentes into the nineteenth century, as evidenced by the po-
etry of Wu Zao (ca. 1800s).
Bibliography Shen Fu (1763?), an eighteenth-century scholar,
Gaviola, Edda, Eliana Largo, and Sandra Palestro. recorded in his autobiographical work, Six Chapters
Una Historia Necesaria: Mujeres en Chile, of a Floating Life (1983), the strong affectional bond
19731990 (A Necessary History: Women in between his late wife and a singsong girl with whom
Chile, 19731990). Santiago: Aki and Aora, he had also become infatuated. When he teased his
1994. wife with Are you trying to imitate Liwengs

162 CHILE
Pitying the Fragrant Companion? he was alluding they stay in their own families, where they
to a play of the same name by maverick seventeenth- enjoy few restrictions. They do not want to
century writer Li Yu. It is a story about two women return to the husbands family, and some, if
(one of whom was married) who love each other so forced to return, commit suicide by drown-
much that they perform a wedding ceremony for ing or hanging.
themselves. The married woman conspires success-
fully to have her husband accept her lover as a con- Their defiance of traditional roles incurred the
cubine, and the two women live together happily ever wrath of conservative moralists. The 1904
after. Shens reference strongly suggests that, at least antireform tract Canon for Women included a de-
among the gentry class, the play had become closely nunciation of the women of Golden Orchid (the
identified with lesbian desire. compilers commentary is indicated here by the use
Looking for lesbians in Chinese history, one of brackets):
promising area of investigation is the nature of
friendships that bonded together many of the early Recently, there has developed a custom
Chinese feminists. One notable example is that [this custom is deplorable] that is passed
between anti-Manchu revolutionary Qiu Jin on from woman to woman. [Imitating and
(1875? 1907) and Wu Zhiying (active ca. 1900 learning every step; forming Golden Or-
1910), who was a poet, renowned calligrapher, and chid bonded sisterhood.] These women
reformer in her own right. In 1904, on the seventh practice celibacy, vowing never to marry.
day of the Chinese New Year, Qiu Jin and Wu [Blasphemous!] They refer to the hus-
Zhiying exchanged a formal pledge of eternal bands family as cocoons. [They believe
friendship, an occasion that Qiu marked with a that father-in-law, mother-in-law, husband,
poem called Orchid Verse. The enterprising his- children, etc. bind their bodies and deprive
torian might want to consider the meaning of Or- them of their freedom. The analogy co-
chid Verse, asking if the title was inspired by the coon therefore signifies suffocating bond-
Golden Orchid sworn sisterhood of marriage re- age until death!]
sisters in South China.
It was female bonding that made marriage re-
Marriage Resisters sistance deplorable to its critics. And it was les-
As a social phenomenon, marriage resistance arose bian sexuality and the possibility of an alterna-
from the mid-nineteenth century through the 1930s tive family construction that frightened the mor-
in three districts of the Pearl River Delta, a region alists. The 1933 edition of the Gazetteer of Chi-
in South China, near the city of Guangdong (Can- nese Customs included the following in the en-
ton). Anthropologist Topley (1975) has character- try on Shunde womens Golden Orchid Sworn
ized it as a movement. It has been estimated that, Sisterhood:
at its height in the early twentieth century, the
number of marriage resisters neared one hundred Although the two women living together
thousand. The origin of marriage resistance is un- cannot be said to have the form/equipment
clear, but Stockards research (1986) suggests that of a man and a woman, they nonetheless
it might have evolved from the custom of delayed enjoy the pleasure of male-female [inter-
transfer marriage that permits brides to continue course]. Some say that they use friction or
to reside in their natal homes for a period of time rubbing force, others say they use me-
after the wedding ceremony. This custom was also chanical devices.They adopt a daugh-
peculiar to the Pearl River Delta area. ter to inherit their property. When the
An entry in the 1853 edition of Shunde County adopted daughter also forms Golden Or-
Gazetteer reveals the length to which Golden Or- chid sworn sisterhood with another
chid members resisted living with their husbands woman, the woman is treated like a daugh-
or marriage altogether: ter-in-law.

Girls in the county form very close sister-

hood with others in the same village. They It is important to point out that the vow of celibacy
do not want to marry, and if forced to marry, was not intended to last a lifetime, nor was the vow

CHINA 163
 necessarily taken in favor of lesbian sex. Sankars fear harassment by the police. Although Faison
C (1985) research shows that some of the women
yearned to join their husbands but feared their sworn
mentions lesbians here and there in the news story,
the report focuses primarily on gay men. It remains
sisters wrath, as seen in a song sung by many of her uncertain whether and when a thriving lesbian sub-
informants, titled The Lament of a Mh Lohk Ga culture, like the one that exists in Taiwan, will come
Woman from Shun-te. Nonetheless, sexual rela- into its own in China. Vivien Ng
tionships did develop among some of the sisters,
and larger sisterhoods might have several couples. Bibliography
Although marriage resistance as a movement dis- Faison, Seth. Door to Tolerance Opens Partway
sipated in the 1930s in China, Golden Orchid sis- as Gay Life Is Emerging in China. New York
ters worked as domestic servants and nannies in Times, September 2, 1997.
Hong Kong and other Southeast Asian Chinese com- Ko, Dorothy. Teachers of the Inner Chamber:
munities into the 1960s and even the 1970s. Often, Women and Culture in Seventeenth Century
upon retirement, they would live with other sisters China. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University
in group homes that functioned like lay convents. Press, 1994.
Golden Orchid sworn sisterhood continues to Ruan, Fang-fu. Sex in China: Studies in Sexology
occupy a place in popular imagination. Twin Brace- in Chinese Culture. New York: Plenum, 1991.
lets (1986?), a much-touted Chinese lesbian Sankar, Andrea. Sisters and Brothers, Lovers and
story, is set in Weian County in Fujian Province. Enemies: Marriage Resistance in Southern
It describes a particular relationship between two Kwangtung. Journal of Homosexuality 11:3
women that is based partly on the marriage custom 4 (1985), 6981.
that, according to the author, is peculiar to the area. Shen, Fu. Six Chapters in a Floating Life. New
However, Twin Bracelets, in spite of the enthusi- York: Penguin, 1983.
astic response to it from lesbians of Chinese ances- Stockard, Janice. Daughters of the Canton Delta:
try in the United States, is not a lesbian-positive story: Marriage Patterns and Economic Strategies in
Not only did one of the women commit suicide at South China, 18601930. Stanford, Calif:
the end of the story, but the postscript also reveals Stanford University Press, 1986.
the authors own homophobic position. Topley, Marjorie. Marriage Resistance in Ru-
ral Kwangtung. In Women in Chinese Soci-
Contemporary Conditions ety. Ed. Margery Wolf and Roxanne Witke.
It is perhaps not surprising that, even in the late Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press,
1990s, there had yet to emerge a lesbian-positive 1975, pp. 6788.
literature in contemporary China. One notable ex-
ception is Anchee Mins Red Azalea (1994), in which See also Chinese Literature; Taiwan; Wu Zao
she recalls with great poignancy her relationship with
Yan, her company leader at a labor collective dur-
ing the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s. Ruan Chinese Literature
Fang-fu, a sexologist who has done research on sexu- While less conspicuous than the extensive litera-
ality in China, characterizes the situation in the late ture on male homosexuality, writings on same-sex
twentieth century as the dark age of homosexual- love between women have, nonetheless, formed
ity in modern China. He finds that lesbians in China part of the Chinese literary tradition from at least
are even more closeted than gay men and concludes: the seventeenth century onward. In surveying these
It is clear that many Chinese lesbians do live pain- varied writings, one can distinguish between three
ful lives, marred by fear and jealousy. But it is im- different periods, roughly 16001900 (early mod-
possible to develop a complete and balanced pic- ern), 19001980 (modern), and 1980 onward (con-
ture of their lives under current conditions. temporary). At the beginning of each period, pro-
There are signs that conditions may be changing found socioeconomic changes reconfigured dis-
for the better at the end of the 1990s for lesbians courses on power, gender, and sexuality, which, in
and gay men in China. Faison (1997) of the New turn, affected the literary representation of female
York Times reports a nascent, but increasingly open, homoeroticism.
gay life in major urban centers in China, where pa- Seventeenth-century China, especially the in-
trons of places that cater to gay men do not seem to creasingly urbanized area around the lower reaches

164 CHINA
of the Yangtze, witnessed the increase in the number orate China politically and culturally. Such ideali-
of affluent, educated, and leisured people. As it zation of heterosexual love was buttressed by the
became a fashion among gentry families to edu- concurrent pathologization of same-sex intimacy.
cate their daughters, the number of women among In the 1910s and 1920s, Western sexological dis-
the ranks of these sophisticated urbanites rose, with course was translated and embraced as scientific
some women pioneering new careers, including itin- truth among the urban intelligentsia. In this con-
erant teaching and commercial painting. A vibrant text, female homosexuality was not only invented
publishing industry catered to an expanding read- as a Chinese linguistic category, but was also con-
ership, supplying everything from sexually explicit stituted as a psychological or sexual perversion.
fiction to collections of womens poetry. However, Such a negative appraisal in popular and scientific
as sexuality continued to be phallocentrically struc- venues also affected literary representations.
tured, female homoeroticism remained invisible: It Women authors, including Ding Ling (19041986)
was neither named through a proper noun nor and Ling Shuhua (19041990), explored roman-
symbolized through reference to a classical figure tic friendships among New Women (urban, mid-
(as was male homosexuality). The literary tradi- dle-class intellectuals), particularly in the context
tion conventionally portrayed women as mutual of newly founded womens schools, even as they
antagonists or fixated on mostly absent males; carefully distanced their protagonists from intima-
however, some innovative male-authored fiction tions of physical passion. By contrast, male authors
did allow for the possibility of mutual fondness primarily represented lesbian sex as a form of titil-
among women. In such fictional portrayals, same- lating depravation, thus delineating the sanctioned
sex love between women could be figured in vari- limits of New Womanhood.
ous ways: as harmless physical play between In the period following the anti-Japanese and
women in anticipation of relations with a man, as civil wars, post-1949 governments in both the Peo-
a celebration of polygamous harmony among mu- ples Republic of China and Taiwan exerted tight
tually infatuated female members of the same control over the publication of anything that
household, or as a fantasy of an all-female king- smacked of disloyalty to state and family. Only after
dom reproducing itself through magical dildos. political and economic liberalization in the 1980s
By contrast, the vast majority of early-modern and 1990s transformed the material and mental
Chinese women writers wrote in the classically re- landscape of Chinese cities did representations of
spectable genre of autobiographical poetry. Among lesbianism resurface. While conservative sexology
such female-authored poems, letters, and inscribed and family-centered values continued to dominate
paintings (by, for example, Xu Yuan, Lu Qingzi, popular conceptions of lesbianism, feminist and
and Xue Susu [all late sixteenth-early seventeenth lesbian activists began to circulate alternative per-
century]), passionate avowals of friendship among spectives, especially in Taiwan. There, a genera-
gentry women and, occasionally, between gentry tion of self-avowedly lesbian writers, such as Hong
women and courtesans outline another aspect of Ling (1971) and Chen Xue (1970), began to
same-sex love. These writings appropriated the lan- experiment with new representations of lesbian
guage derived from heterosexual romance to de- existence. Their short stories, novellas, and novels
scribe emotional and aesthetic appreciation of fe- are stylistically diverse, ranging from avant-garde
male friends. cyberpunk, to magic realism, to everyday docu-
In the period after 1900, China was profoundly mentation. While extremely varied in their ap-
transformed through a variety of political devel- proaches, these writers nonetheless seem intent on
opments. In 1911, the emperor was dethroned and testing the limits of the collective imagination.
a republic declared. However, beset by internal di- While their writings are commodified through a
visions and colonial exploitation, China faced a mass market intent on sensational novelty, these
profound identity crisis. The status of women be- literary texts appear to have succeeded in writing a
came the subject of intense debate, as womens complex, sympathetic, and material Chinese les-
subordination and gender segregation in pre-1911 bian subject into existence. Patricia Sieber
China came to be understood as one of the causes
for Chinas weakness as a nation-state. Accordingly, Bibliography
the implementation of heterosexual relations in- Ko, Dorothy. Teachers of the Inner Chambers:
formed by love and intimacy was thought to invig- Women and Culture in Seventeenth Century

C H I N E S E L I T E R AT U R E 165
 China. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University gin when a group of women gather to sing; others
C Press, 1994.
Sang, Tze-lang D. The Emerging Lesbian: Female
are founded by a single woman director or by a
group of planners; in still other cases, a mens cho-
Same-Sex Desire in Modern Chinese Literature rus in the area proves eager to have a partner cho-
and Culture. Ph.D. diss., University of Cali- rus. Womens choruses vary in structure: Some use
fornia, Berkeley, 1996. clear democratic majority rule, while others oper-
Sieber, Patricia, ed. Red Is Not the Only Color: ate by consensus. Some choruses choose to stay a
Contemporary Chinese Writing on Love Be- certain size, while others put no limit on how many
tween Women. San Francisco: Cleis, 1998. may join. Some hold auditions; others are open to
Vitiello, Giovanni. The Fantastic Journey of an any woman who wants to sing. Some sing a
Ugly Boy: Homosexuality and Salvation in Late popularstyle repertoire, while others sing a wide
Ming Pornography. Positions: East Asia Cul- variety of music. Some have no trouble deciding
tures Critique 4:2 (1996), 291320. what to wear for concert garb; others have their
most heated debates over dress.
See also China; Taiwan; Wu Zao In the mid-1970s, when many of these choirs
began, their members were involved in reproduc-
tive-health issues, abortion rights, equal pay and
Choruses, Womens workplace issues, the Equal Rights Amendment,
In the mid-1970s, grass-roots womens choruses the post-Stonewall movement for gay and lesbian
began to form, influenced by the second wave civil rights, and/or the international peace move-
of feminism, the womens music movement, the ment. Thus, the choirs became the musical arm of
folk revival of the 1960s, and gay and lesbian lib- the political activism of the singers. Their multi-
eration. Motivated by a strong desire to sing, cou- faceted mission statements speak of musical excel-
pled with an urgency to create community and lence and social change as complementary goals
become politically active on the local level, these and objectives.
choruses attracted both lesbian and heterosexual The repertoire of womens choruses is one of
women. In North America, Europe, and Australia, the most unusual characteristics of the whole move-
more than seventy such choirs are active. ment. Music by women composers, ignored for
All of the early womens choirs were created many years, began to be unearthed by directors
under the nurture and guidance of lesbians. To- and musicologists. Some works were easily dis-
day, the choruses differ widely in makeup and di- carded because the texts proved to be inappropri-
versity, and leadership and direction are shared by ate; others were meant for unchanged voices
heterosexual and lesbian women. Some choirs have (boys) or for children. There has been a dearth of
started and dissolved; many more are part of a dramatic, moving, feminist texts set to music for
loosely organized group called the Sister Singers the mature womens chorus. The womens choral
Network. Some of the choruses are also a part of movement has begun to change this situation: Suit-
the GALA (Gay and Lesbian Association) Choruses able works have been discovered and performed,
network, an organization of mens, womens, and and many choruses have commissioned contem-
mixed choruses in North America that formed in porary women composers to write for them.
the early 1980s. Womens choruses also demonstate a commit-
The first womens choirs were started on the ment to the music of varied cultural traditions, in-
coasts. Roberta Kosses Women Like Me (New cluding those of African Americans, South and West
York City) performed music exclusively by the Africa, Central and South America, and Eastern
young composer. Anna Crusis Womens Choir Europe. The full-voice sound of these traditional
(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), still active in the late musics moves choral singers into a new vocal and
1990s, was started in fall of 1975 by Catherine political stance. Bernice Johnson Reagon and Ysaye
Roma, and the LA Community Womens Chorus Barnwell, both of the African American vocal en-
(Los Angeles, California) was started in early 1976 semble Sweet Honey in the Rock, have offered
by Sue Fink. workshops to teach techniques, style, and perform-
There are all kinds of choirs in the womens ance practices of spirituals, gospel, and some South
choral movement, and the impulse that starts and and West African music. Both women have pub-
sustains them varies from place to place. Some be- lished dynamic original choral compositions and

166 C H I N E S E L I T E R AT U R E
arrangements that make womens voices sound but not between females. Some have argued that
strong by the way they are set for the voice. Ruth had a lesbian relationship with her mother-
Another striking feature of womens choir pro- in-law, Naomi (see Ruth 1:14, Ruth clung to her
grams is the way stylistically disparate pieces are [i.e., Naomi]), but this is speculation, and Ruth
juxtaposed with one another. Sometimes, concerts did marry a man, Boaz (Ruth 4:13).
have themes that weave vastly different pieces into
a coherent whole and provide clues to the meanings The New Testament
of the pieces programmed. Groups of pieces may be Within the New Testament, the gospels do not
introduced by individual choir members; texts are present Jesus as addressing the question of same-
read aloud; material related to the work at hand sex sexual expression, but the apostle Paul does
may be offered; or, sometimes, extensive program condemn relations between both females and males.
notes can be read by the audience. Concerts may be In his Letter to the Romans, Chapter 1, Paul states
interpreted in sign language for the benefit of deaf that idol worshipers could have known God through
and hearing-impaired audience members. observing Gods created works. He argues that God
The womens choral communities share a vi- punished idol worshipers by giving them up to the
sion that encourages women to find and use their lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of
own voices and to honor and understand the voices their bodies among themselves (Romans 1:24), and
of varied musical cultures. Catherine Roma that God gave them up to degrading passions. Their
women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatu-
Bibliography ral, and in the same way also the men, giving up
Vukovich, Dyana. The Anna Crusis Womens natural intercourse with women, were consumed
Choir. Women and Performance: A Journal of with passion for one another (Romans 1:2627).
Feminist Theory 47:1, 5063. Such persons deserve to die (Romans 1:32).
Some have argued that Romans 1:26 refers to
See also Composers; Music, Classical; Music, (1) intercourse between a woman and an animal
Womens (prohibited in Leviticus 18:23; 20:16); (2) inter-
course during a womans menstrual period (prohib-
ited in Leviticus 18:19); or (3) anal intercourse be-
Christianity, Early tween a woman and a man (not prohibited in the
Term generally referring to the churches of the an- Jewish Bible and allowed by the majority of ancient
cient Mediterranean from the first through the fifth Jewish rabbis). Romans 1:27, however, introduces
centuries A.D. Those early Christian writers who sexual relations between males with the term in
commented on sexual love between women op- the same way, thereby specifying that the females
posed it. They argued variously that it was unnatu- unnatural intercourse was of the same type as that
ral, impure, dishonorable, shameful, sinful, and of the males. Further, other ancient sources also de-
rendered the participants deserving of punishment picted sexual relations between women as unnatu-
in hell. Early Christian condemnations of female ral (Plato [4277347? B.C.E.], Seneca the Elder [55
homoeroticism resemble those of their pagan coun- B.C.E.A.D. ?40], Martial [A.D. ca. 40ca. 104],
terparts both in terminology and in their Ovid [43 B.C.E.A.D. 17 or 18], Ptolemy [fl. A.D.
understandings of femaleness and maleness. The 121151], Artemidoros [second century A.D.], and
apostle Pauls (A.D.?ca. 67) condemnation of fe- probably Dorotheos of Sidon [first century A.D.]).
male homoeroticism provided the foundation for The best context for understanding Pauls con-
early church teachings on the subject and remains demnation of sexual relations between women is
influential in the twentieth century. his own culture and its assumptions about sexual
While this entry focuses on erotic relations be- relations. While Roman-period pagan writers disa-
tween women, Mary Rose DAngelo (1990) has gree on whether to condone sexual relations between
applied Adrienne Richs (1929) concept of a les- males, nearly all of them condemn sexual relations
bian continuum to early Christianity to denote between women. Against the background of the
bonding between female partners, regardless of common cultural assumption that sexual relations
erotic involvement (for example, Romans 16:12; should naturally occur between two unequal par-
Philippians 4:11). The Jewish Bible prohibits sexual ties (a man and his wife, a male slave owner and his
relations between males (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13) male or female slave, a man and his mistress, a man

C H R I S T I A N I T Y, E A R LY 167
 and a prostitute), such writers as Seneca the Elder, the background of the gendered cultures of the Ro-
C Martial, Soranos (first-second century A.D.), and
Lucian (A.D. ca. 115?ca. 180) depicted women who
man world, Pauls earliest readers saw him as con-
demning men who had relinquished the honor due
had sexual relations with other women as having to the male sex and had become effeminate and
become like men. They applied the term tribades women who did not conform to Pauls model of the
(cf. the later term tribadism) to such women and man as head of woman.
represented them as trying to transcend the passive, Paul used the word exchanged to indicate that
subordinate role accorded to them by nature and to people knew the natural sexual order of the uni-
take on a dominating, penetrating role. Ancient verse and left it behind. Some interpreters today
medical writers went as far as to prescribe a selec- argue that Paul was referring to heterosexual per-
tive clitoridectomy, apparently for women whose sons committing homosexual acts, rather than to
clitorises were ostensibly capable of penetration lesbian and gay persons (for example, Boswell
(Soranos, as excerpted in Caelius Aurelianus [fifth [1980]) or that he did not have a concept of sexual
century A.D.], Mustio [perhaps fifth or sixth cen- orientation at all (for example, Goss [1993]). While
tury A.D.], and Paulus of Aegina [seventh century ancient constructions of the erotic differed from
A.D.]). Pauls condemnation fits in well with the
contemporary ones, both ancient astrological and
greater awareness of sexual love between women
medical texts attest to the concept of lifelong erotic
documented in the Roman world. Pauls earliest
orientations, caused, for example, by the constel-
readers, the early church fathers, read Paul as a man
lation under which one was born, by the male and
of his time; they saw him as condemning
female seed not mingling well at conception, or by
homoeroticism for the same reasons that others of
inheritance. Thus, Paul could well have been fa-
their culture did. Paul used the terms impurity,
miliar with the concept of erotic orientation, with-
to degrade, to exchange, natural, and un-
out accepting that as a valid reason for homoerotic
natural in the ways that others in the ancient world
expression. Similarly, astrologers saw female
employed these terms.
In ancient Mediterranean culture, impurity homoerotic orientation as astrally determined but,
meant a blurring of boundaries, in this case, of the nevertheless, unnatural (for example, Ptolemy).
boundaries between femaleness and maleness. Just If one reads Romans 1:2627 against the back-
as, according to the Book of Leviticus, impure ani- drop of a broad range of ancient sources, natural
mals were those that did not conform to deline- intercourse means penetration of a subordinate per-
ated categories, the people about whom Paul was son by a dominant one. Other Pauline texts show
speaking were not maintaining the clear gender that Paul shared common cultural assumptions of
polarity and complementarity necessary for a spe- the Roman world: Romans 7:2, in which Paul speaks
cific social order. Thus, taking seriously Pauls de- of a married woman as under a man, and 1
scription of homoeroticism as impurity shows Corinthians 11:23, in which Paul calls man head
it to be a societal, rather than a private, concern. of woman. The shapers of Pauls culture saw any
The term Paul uses for degrade can also be type of vaginal intercourse, whether consensual or
rendered dishonor. For Paul, treatment of female coerced, as natural (including, for example, between
and male bodies should differ, especially with re- a man and his slave). The natural intercourse that
spect to honor. Paul asks in his First Letter to the the females of Romans 1:26 gave up thus includes
Corinthians 11:14: Does not nature itself teach you such forms of vaginal intercourse as marital rela-
that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him? tions, adultery, rape, incest, prostitution, and sexual
This required gender differentiation in hair length relations between an adult male and a minor girl.
points to bodily appearance as a primary basis for These understandings of natural intercourse
distinguishing between women and men. Accord- derive from ancient understandings of nature gen-
ing to 1 Corinthians 11:3, the man is head of woman. erally. Two principal ways of conceptualizing na-
Short hair and the lack of a veil signify the male ture were available to Paul: (1) nature as the order
body, as Gods image and glory (1 Corinthians 11:7); of creation, which would refer to the naturalness
the opposite conditions, long hair and a veil, apply of marriage between women and men, based on
to the female body, marking the womans subordi- Genesis 2, according to which God created woman
nate status as the glory of man (1 Corinthians 11:7). from man (see Pauls use of Genesis 2 in 1
In this hierarchical framework, a noncompliant Corinthians 11:216); or (2) the ancient concept
woman brings shame upon her husband. Against that women have a nature different from men.

168 C H R I S T I A N I T Y, E A R LY
Either concept entails a gender hierarchy. Accord- about an unspeakable mystery of blessed pleas-
ing to either concept, sexual relations between ure (The Refutation of All Heresies).
women are unnatural, because a sexual encoun- John Chrysostom (d. A.D. 407) argues that fe-
ter necessarily includes an active and a passive part- male homoeroticism is far more disgraceful than
ner, and women cannot naturally assume the ac- male homoeroticism, since they ought to feel more
tive role, thus rendering natural sexual relations shame than men. Chrysostom, arguing that women
between women impossible. have a nature different from men and that, by na-
Early Christian apocalyptic visions of hell echo ture, woman is commanded to be mans helper, sees
Pauls teaching that these women deserve to die homoeroticism as overturning the social order, which
(Romans 1:32). These include images of homoerotic is protected by nature: Nature knows her own
women suffering torture in hell for their sin: being boundaries. Chrysostom attacks homoeroticism
forced to cast themselves off a cliff (Apocalypse of with such invectives as Whatever transgression you
Peter [second century A.D.]), burning in hell (Acts of speak of, you will name none equal to this lawless-
Thomas [third century A.D.]), and running in a river ness; There is nothing more irrational and griev-
of fire (Apocalypse of Paul [third century A.D.]). ous than this outrage; and How many hells will
Tertullian of Carthage (A.D. ca. 160ca. 225)
suffice for such people? (Homilies on Romans).
derides homoerotic women as outsiders to polite
Early Christians vehemently opposed
society, associating them with prostitutes, and states
homoeroticism at the same time that they created
that one would not want even to take a sip from
homosocial environments in which it could occur.
such a womans cup (On the Pallium; On the Res-
Shenute of Atripe in Egypt (fourth-fifth centuries
urrection of the Flesh).
A.D.) warns nuns against same-sex sexual contact
(On the Monastic Life), as does Augustine of Hippo
Homoeroticism in Early Christianity
(A.D. 354430), who instructs nuns to go out in
In spite of tremendous opposition by Christians and
groups of three (Epistles).
others, women in this period engaged in the prac-
These early Christian teachings have had great
tice of woman-woman marriage. Clement of Alex-
andria (A.D. ca. 150ca. 214) responds to women influence in history. For example, an American Co-
who had long-term relationships with other women lonial statute in New Haven, Connecticut, placed
that they defined as marriage (Instructor). Ptolemy, sexual love between women under the death pen-
Lucian, the rabbinical commentary known as the alty, explicitly quoting Romans 1:26 as support
Sifra (before A.D. ca. 220), Hephaistion of Thebes (New Haven s Settling in New England: And Some
(fourth-fifth centuries A.D.), and possibly Iamblichos Lawes for Government). These teachings also re-
(second century A.D.) also refer to woman-woman main foundational for Christianity in the twentieth
marriage. Further, in a papyrus letter from Egypt century. Thus, conservative Christians often quote
(probably third century A.D.), a mother refers to Romans 1:2627 in opposition to lesbian, gay, and
her daughters wife (Papyrus Oxyrhynchos 4340). bisexual civil rights or to same-sex marriage.
Clement argues that such marriages are unnatural Bernadette J.Brooten
because (1) they defy God, who created woman from
man in order for her to receive mans seed and to Bibliography
help him; (2) they prevent the male seed from find- Boswell, John. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and
ing a proper field; (3) the uteri of the two women Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe
are calling out to be filled with the male seed; (4) from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the
humans should not imitate such lascivious animals Fourteenth Century. Chicago: University of
as the hare; and (5) Paul called female homoeroticism Chicago Press, 1980.
unnatural in Romans 1:2627. Brooten, Bernadette J. Love Between Women: Early
Hippolytos of Rome (second-third centuries Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism.
A.D.) reports on a group of Gnostic Christians, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
called the Naassenes (defined by Hippolytos as DAngelo, Mary Rose. Women Partners in the
heretical), who rejected natural intercourse be- New Testament. Journal of Feminist Studies
tween women and men in the belief that androgyny in Religion 6:1 (1990), 6586.
characterized the world above. It is not known Goss, Robert. Jesus Acted Up: A Gay and Lesbian
whether they promoted same-sex love, but they did Manifesto. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco,
interpret Paul in Romans 1:2027 as speaking 1993.

C H R I S T I A N I T Y, E A R LY 169
 Hallett, Judith P. Female Homoeroticism and the a manmaking her mark in France and in Rome.
C Denial of Roman Reality in Latin Literature.
Yale Journal of Criticism 3 (1989), 209227.
In November 1655, she made a formal profession
of her new faith, Catholicism. Her interest in poli-
tics, however never waned. She sought the throne
See also Antiquity; Classical Literature; Clitoris; of Naples a year or so later but did not succeed.
Lesbian Continuum; Tribade She had the man she held responsible for that fail-
ure murdered, an act that would ruin her later at-
tempt to gain the throne of Poland and earn her
Christina of Sweden (16261689) the reputation of being bloodthirsty.
Queen of Sweden. At the age of six, when her fa- Her travels and political ambitions ended in
ther, King Gustav II Adolf, died, Christinathe 1668 in Rome, where she spent the final decades
only child born to the king and his wife, Eleonora, of her life. She suffered a stroke in 1689 and died
to survive her first yearascended to the throne. shortly after.
She was said to have been especially masculine, and She was portrayed by Greta Garbo (1905
she was rumored to have had affairs with young 1990)another of Swedens androgynous figures
women, as well as young men. who was subject of much rumor and speculation
Both her parents had hoped for a male heir to in the film version of her life, Queen Christina
Swedens throne, and, upon her birth, Christina was (1933). Andrea L.T.Peterson
thought to be a boy. But she was nota fact that
she believed gave her mother cause to hate her. Her Bibliography
father bestowed on young Christina all of the honors The Alyson Almanac. 19941995 ed. Boston:
due a prince, in spite of her gender, and, in 1630, Alyson, 1993.
when she was just four years old, he made her his Magill, Frank N., ed. Great Lives from History:
heiress. Two years later, she became queen, although Renaissance to 1900 Series, vol. 1: A-Cov.
she did not actually rule until she was eighteen. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem, 1989.
Her intellect was thought to be unusual for a
girl, but she was not dissuaded from her number- See also Androgyny; Garbo, Greta; Sweden
one interest: studying. This, together with her man-
nish gait, her booming voice, and her lack of
interest in fine clothing, made her a bit of an Churches, Lesbian and Gay
anomaly. Rumors abounded about affairs between Organized bodies of openly lesbian and gay Chris-
Christina and courtiers, as well as women in her tian believers. The concept of lesbian and gay
court. It did not help that, to the dismay of many churches is foreign to some because, traditionally,
in her court, the queen referred to her maid in religions have viewed homosexuality as an abomi-
waiting, Countess Ebba Sparre, as her bedfellow. nation. The first gay church, an Anglican-derived
During her reign, Sweden prospered culturally. Liberal Catholic Church, was founded in Sydney,
She brought impressive libraries to her country and Australia, by Charles Webster Leadbeater in 1916.
was, throughout her life, a patron of the arts. Long Thirty years later, in 1946, George Hyde, a youth
after leaving Sweden, she founded the Accademia minister in the independent Catholic movement,
Reale in Rome (in 1674). Politically, she also had formed a church in Atlanta, Georgia, that is believed
her successes. In particular, under her rule the Treaty to have been the first North American church or-
of Westphalia was signed, ending the Thirty ganized primarily for homosexuals. The Church of
YearsWar. ONE Brotherhood was founded in 19561957 in
Christina withstood rumors of affairs and of Los Angeles, California, by Chuck Rowland. How-
lesbianism and even allegations that she was a her- ever, it was in 1968 in Los Angeles, California, that
maphrodite. It was her strong desire to travel and the contemporary gay church movement really be-
her desire to convert from Lutheranism to the then- gan, when the Rev. Troy Perry (1940), a Pentecos-
illegal (in Sweden) Catholicism that led Christina tal minister who had been ousted from his church
to leave her throne and her homeland after twenty- when his homosexuality became known, founded
two years as its ruling monarch. the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Commu-
After abdicating the throne at age twenty-eight, nity Church (UFMCC), a nondenominational Chris-
she traveled throughout Europeoften dressed as tian church for lesbian and gay people.

170 C H R I S T I A N I T Y, E A R LY
 UFMCC is a Christian body, adhering to the Bibliography
historic Nicene Creed, although it also welcomes Blumenfeld, Warren J., and Diane Raymond. Look-
Unitarians, Jews, and those of other faiths and ing at Gay and Lesbian Life. Boston: Beacon,
creeds into its membership. Although it has a spe- 1993.
cial ministry to lesbians and gay men, all people Cruikshank, Margaret. The Gay and Lesbian Lib-
are welcome. By the late 1990s, the fellowship had eration Movement. New York: Routledge, 1992.
more than three hundred churches in eighteen coun- Perry, Troy D., and Thomas L.Swicegood. Dont
tries, with a membership of more than 32,000. Be Afraid Anymore: The Story of Revered Troy
Slightly more than half of all UFMCC clergy are Perry and the Metropolitan Community
women, almost all of them lesbians. Indeed, Churches. New York: St. Martins Press, 1990.
UFMCC offers more opportunities than any other
Christian body for lesbians to exercise a full range See also Protestantism; Synagogues
of ministries, including full ordination. Of the seven
ruling elders in 1998, two were women. Most
prominent is Nancy Wilson (1950), pastor of the Class
mother church in Los Angeles, who has worked Traditionally defined as a social stratum sharing
tirelessly as the fellowships liaison with the Na- economic, political, and cultural characteristics.
tional Council of Churches and the World Coun- Denial of class permeates American culture. The
cil of Churches. In 1998, half of the district coor- belief that everyone is middle class constitutes a
dinators, who oversee regional groups of churches, major obstacle to class consciousness. When class
were women. is acknowledged, usually race is equated with class,
In 1972, a few people from Los Angeles MCC and the lowest rungs of the economic and status
who were Jewish held their first service at Beth ladders are assigned to people of color, archetyp-
Chayim Chadashim. The synagogue was chartered ally black single mother welfare recipients. Despite
in 1974 by the Union of American Hebrew Con- the assumption of classlessness, people do talk
gregations and was the first gay religious organi- about class. Common parlance and academic so-
zation of any kind to be officially recognized by a ciological analysis alike concentrate on social and
national body. economic status. Marxist analysis, never popular
In addition to exclusively and primarily sepa- or even adequately taught in the United States, dis-
rate lesbian and gay churches and synagogues such cusses relationship to the means of production. But
as MCC and Beth Chayim Chadashim, in the 1990s if blue-collar/white-collar dichotomies between
there were numerous other gay and lesbian reli- manual and mental labor are less than useful for
gious groups, including Roman Catholic Dignity, understanding women (who mostly are often pink-
Julian Fellowship (for Catholic Women), New Ways collar workers, segregated into so-called female jobs
Ministry (for lesbian and gay Catholics), Episco- in service, clerical, and professional fields), the dra-
palian Integrity, Kinship for Seventh Day Advent- matic changes caused by deindustrialization and
ists, United Methodist Affirmation, Affirmation the possibility of upward mobility further compli-
Gay and Lesbian Mormons, American Baptists cate the issue. While discussing class as wealth and
Concerned, Brethren/Mennonite Council for Les- material possessions yields an inadequate analy-
bian and Gay Concerns, Friends for Lesbian and sis, understanding the structures of capitalism and
Gay Concerns (Quaker), Odinshof (heathen reli- locations on the class spectrum is essential. Hence,
gious and educational charity), Presbyterians for the traditional definitions must be expanded to
Lesbian and Gay Concerns, Unitarian/Universalists include analysis of dominance and subordination.
for Lesbian and Gay Concerns, United Church The topic of class is fraught with emotional and
Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Concerns, Lesbian political complexity for many lesbians, particularly
and Gay Christian Movement, and Hineinu (a Jew- feminists and/or political activists. Lesbians come from
ish organization)all of which eschew the implicit every class background, share the dominant culture,
or explicit condemnation of lesbians and gays and have absorbed its misunderstandings and obsta-
found in some traditional religions. cles to class consciousness. To these, some have added
[The author thanks Nancy Hardesty for infor- guilt for class privilege. Lesbians also analyze class,
mation about the role of lesbians in UFMCC.] write about it, and take political action to remedy
Akilah Monifa class inequalities and economic injustice.

CLASS 171
 Class differences and antagonisms characterize Pat Parker, scholars such as Madeline Davis and
C lesbian communities. Economically and socially
privileged lesbians (such as the Natalie Barney cir-
Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, and writers of essays
and journalism in the proliferation of lesbian pub-
cle in Paris in the 1920s and tennis star Martina lishing also added their voices. The literary jour-
Navratilova in the 1990s) are not only the most well nal Common Lives/Lesbian Lives explicitly gave
known, but often set the tone and lead the lesbian voice to ordinary lesbians in its commitment to
community. Yet working-class lesbians, struggling publishing diverse voices, including those of poor
to create public lesbian space in the bar cultures of and working-class lesbians. Most lesbians who have
the 1930s1960s, were leaders in politicizing and brought attention to class issues come from poor
opening up new space for lesbians. In the 1970s, or working class backgrounds, although frequently
the second wave of feminists harshly judged it is their upward mobility via college education
butch-femme working-class lesbians. Womens lib- that enables their voices to be heard and their ideas
eration activists challenged such roles as male-iden- published. Writers of color consistently interweave
tified and antiwoman and enshrined a new androgy- race and class issues, but their ideas are often cat-
nous standard. While feminists framed this critique egorized as racial/ethnic issues. Consequently, class
in terms of gender, it was also a covert attempt to analysis is sometimes seen as the arena of white
rid feminist culture of embarrassing working-class working-class women whose race is assumed and,
elements. When lesbians began to champion butch- thus, invisible. Likewise, when lesbians of color
femme roles in the 1980s, they explicitly recognized discuss race and class, race takes center stage and
and redefined lesbian eroticism, but far less fre- class becomes invisible. Thus, the publication of
quently acknowledged the class implications of roles. numerous anthologies about class by lesbians and
Thus, the rise, fall, and resurrection of butch-femme nonlesbians alike in the 1990s was encouraging
style can serve as a template for understanding the because it demonstrates that the work of develop-
complexities of class for lesbians. When class is ac- ing class consciousness is expanding.
knowledged, it is often masked under other issues Politically active lesbians have recognized class
in this case, erotic styles. differences, tried to defuse their power, and have
An institution that has facilitated lesbian lives, also resisted class consciousness. One source of re-
albeit deeply closeted, is the military. Historically luctance to examine class stems from the fact that
and contemporarily, the military has offered work- the male-dominated Left has, for the most part,
ing-class people a source for steady work, adven- looked at neither women nor culture in its class
ture, travel, and the ability to escape their home- analysis, but only at economic relations at the point
town. The military has also persecuted lesbians and of production. Lesbian and feminist class analysis
has been criticized by lesbians of all classes for its most often examines culture. Consequently, some
oppressive role in war and propping up capitalism. separatists have derided class as a useless male con-
Class has also played a major role in lesbians struct. On the other hand, lesbian activism usually
ability to be out. Class privilege insulates some does not target production, but rather tries to change
lesbians from harsh consequences for visibility, but systems of distribution. Sliding-scale fees for cultural
many working-class women have been more out events, services, and conferences are common. Some
than middle-class women. In the late twentieth cen- lesbians have organized funds to financially aid des-
tury, organizations of corporate lesbians take a very titute or disaster-stricken lesbians, and a few lesbi-
low profile, while countercultural lesbian activists ans with inheritances work together to figure how
of all classes are more physically visible. to use their resources responsibly. When lesbians
Despite official ideologies of classlessness, les- have organized around production, unions and com-
bian writers have been leaders in the contempo- munity groups have been the most common ven-
rary exploration of class. In the early 1970s, the ues, rather than lesbian organizations.
Furies, a Washington, D.C., area collective, pub- Lois Rita Helmbold
lished class analyses, but the topic later disappeared
from lesbian publishing for the most part. In the Bibliography
late twentieth century, most explicitly class-con- Kadi, Joanna. Thinking Class: Sketches from a
scious lesbian writing took the form of storytell- Cultural Worker. Boston: South End, 1996.
ing or memoir. Novelists such as Dorothy Allison Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, and Madeline D.
and Leslie Feinberg, poets such as Judy Grahn and Davis. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The

172 CLASS
 History of a Lesbian Community. New York: lifelong erotic orientations remains a source of
Routledge, 1993. great dispute among twentieth-century historians
Moraga, Cherre, and Gloria Anzalda, eds. This of sexuality.
Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Although the ancients certainly recognized the
Women of Color. Watertown, Mass.: phenomenon of sexual activity between persons of
Persephone, 1981. the same sex, they did not categorize the partici-
Penelope, Julia, ed. Out of the Class Closet: Lesbi- pants as particular kinds of persons on that basis
ans Speak. Freedom, Calif.: Crossing, 1994. alone. Ancient Mediterranean societies tended to
Raffo, Susan, ed. Queerly Classed: Gay Men and Les- sort out sexual actsand sexual actorsnot on
bians Write About Class. Boston: South End, 1997. the basis of the anatomical sex of the participants
Rose, Stephen J. Social Stratification in the US: The but on the degree to which the sexual acts did or
American Profile Poster Revised and Expanded. did not correspond to each participants gender
New York: New Press, 1992. identity and social status. In brief, the fundamen-
Zandy, Janet, ed. Calling Home: Working-Class tal operative distinction for proper sexual relations
Womens Writings. New Brunswick, N.J.: was not male/ female, but active/passive, not the
Rutgers University Press, 1990. anatomical sex of the sexual partners, but the so-
cial genders (the degree to which their sexual roles
See also Androgyny; Barney, Natalie; Bars; Butch- did or did not correspond to their respective posi-
Femme; Economics; Furies, The; Grahn, Judy; tions in a rigid social hierarchy). Gender was not a
Hoboes; Labor Movement; Military; Navratilova, matter of anatomical sex so much as an issue of
Martina; New Left; Parker, Pat; Socialism; Work social status. One achieved proper gender by as-
suming or asserting the proper role. This was a
social universe in which citizenship was limited to
Classical Literature malesand to a very small subset of malesand
Literature of ancient Greece and Rome. This lit- in which sex was not imagined as an activity of
erature contains few references to same-sex sexual mutuality or reciprocity between persons but was
relations between women. Moreover, with the ex- something one person did to another.
ception of Sappho (ca. 600 B.C.E.), whose poetry Sexual encounters required a polarization of the
dates to the archaic period and survives in frag- participants into penetrator and penetrated, and the
ments only, and perhaps also of the Hellenistic poet sexual roles assumed into active and passive.
Nossis of Locri (ca. 300 B.C.E.), literary represen- These distinctions, in turn, articulated some other
tations of female homoeroticism from antiquity are social distinctions: of sex (male/female), gender (mas-
all male authored. The extant evidence for desire culine/feminine), age (older male/adolescent of ei-
or love between women, then, does not offer a ther sex), and class (social superior/social inferior).
window onto the experiences of ancient women Paiderastia (pederasty) was the idealized cultural
so much as the satiric jests, insults, fantasies, or form for sexual relations between males; in it, the
hostile moral judgments of ancient male authors. acts the older male was permitted to perform on or
By contrast, the literature of classical Greece and with the younger male were very carefully scripted,
late-republican and imperial Rome offers copious although what people actually did may have dif-
references to sexual relations between men. fered from what they were supposed to be doing.
With rare exceptions, female homoeroticism is not
Identities and Orientations represented as taking a pederastic form. There are
If the asymmetry of the ancient sources represents intimations of a female paiderastia in Sappho, when
one difficulty for assessing the meaning of female the I (cf. fragment 102), for example, refers to a
homoeroticism in classical antiquity, a further in- desire for a beautiful pais (boy), or in the sensuous
terpretive difficulty is presented by the wide gulf depictions of comely young maidens elsewhere in
between ancient Mediterranean conceptions of Sapphos lyrics, as well as in the lyric poetry of her
sexual practices, gender, and their relation to cat- near-contemporary Alcman. Moreover, in Sappho
egories of person, and nineteenth- and twentieth- 1, the poems Iwho is directly addressed in the
century conceptions of homosexual and hetero- poem as Sapphobeseeches the goddess
sexual persons. Whether or to what extent an- Aphrodite to make the woman of her dreams think
cient Mediterranean societies had a category for Sappho is the woman of hers. The poem is

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R AT U R E 173
 striking in at least two regards. First, the poem an- period reference to female homoeroticism also oc-
C ticipates, in tone and wished-for effect, magical pa-
pyri, found in Egypt and dating to the second cen-
curs in Plato, in this case his Nomoi, or Laws. In a
passage rare for its condemnation of male peder-
tury A.D., that record erotic spells commissioned asty, Plato also condemns female homoeroticism
by women and intended to make one woman fall in as unnatural (636bc).
love with the spells female initiator. Second, the Thus, the nonjudgmental tone Plutarch strikes
poems protagonist may be positioning herself as in the Life of Lycurgus, describing sexual liaisons
an erastes (lover) in pursuit of an unwilling eroumene between married women and unmarried adoles-
(to use the feminine noun for beloved). To be sure, cent girls in Sparta, is unusual. But the customs he
such depictions may be conventional; the Greeks is narrating are kept safely at a distance, both
idealized youth. Or they may indicate, as some schol- chronologically and culturally. This distancing tech-
ars have argued, that Sapphos school for girls (on nique is an example of a larger trend in Roman-
the isle of Lesbos) may have offered a structured period representations of women who desire or love
site for the expression of female-female desire. Later, other women, namely, a tendency to depict such
in his Life of Lycurgus, Plutarch (A.D. ca. 46ca. women as either belonging to the pastpreferably
127) describes what may be institutionalized female the Greek pastor originating somewhere else.
pederasty in ancient Sparta. Seneca the Elder (ca. 55 B.C.E.A.D. 40?) literalizes
this preference in one of his fictitious legal cases
Female Same-Sex Relations (Controversiae 1.2.23); at the moment he intro-
The available literary evidence offers no reason to duces the tale of a husband catching his wife in
suppose that the qualified social approval granted flagrante with another woman, he switches from
some forms of same-sex sexual relations between Latin into Greek. This passage is also significant
males extended to same-sex sexual relations be- for being one of only two instances in which the
tween females. An exception is a passage from Pla- literary source may refer to both womenand not
tos (427?347? B.C.E.) Symposium (191e), which simply the masculinized and, presumptively, active
was composed early in the fourth century B.C.E. partneras tribades, or tribads (cf. Asclepiades 7).
In that passage, the figure of Aristophanes tells his
drunken male companions that humans initially Tribades
came in three sexesmale, female, and andro- Of the terms used to name women who desired other
gyneand that each of these original sexes had women, tribas (and its less frequent but still service-
eight limbs and two heads. Zeus split these crea- able Latin equivalent, frictrix) had the longest life;
tures in two, and from these half-selves are de- other words that encode female homoeroticism are
scended women who desire women, men who de- virago and, possibly, meretrix (prostitute). The first
sire men, and women and men who desire each attestation of tribas, which is derived from the Greek
other. Platos Aristophanes refers to women in verb to rub, occurs as a loan word in Latin texts
search of their missing female half as hetairistriai, of the first century A.D. (Senecas Controversiae and
a word that implies both comrade and a jesting fable by Phaedrus). Its first appearance in a
courtesan. At minimum, it seems wise to resist Greek text occurs a century later.
taking this passage from the Symposium as evidence Because classical-period Greeks and Romans
that the Greeks recognized lifelong erotic disposi- conceptualized sex as occurring between a
tions roughly equivalent to modern categories of superordinate, phallic actor and his subordinate
heterosexual, homosexual, and lesbian. As (socially inferior, whether in terms of gender or civic
Halperin (1998) argues, Platos Aristophanes was status) object of desire, the male-authored sources
making mischief with his myth of origins. could not see and represent female same-sex eroti-
Despite the best efforts of scholars, however, cism except by making female-female eroticism fit
the meaning of hetairistriaiand the force of Pla- the bill of active/passive, penetrator/penetrated.
tos jokecannot be fully retrieved. The Sympo- Thus, sexual activity between women, to the ex-
sium represents the first attested usage of this term, tent that it was even conceivable, was almost in-
which disappears from Greek literature for five variably represented as involving a masculinized
hundred years, reappearing only once, in Dialogues partner, who penetrated her female beloved with a
of the Courtesans, a satire by Lucian of Samosata phallus substitute of some sort, either an olisbos
(A.D. ca. 115?ca. 180). The only other classical- (dildo) or an unusually large clitoris, which might

174 C L A S S I C A L L I T E R AT U R E
penetrate females or even males. Thus, Martial (first Dover, Kenneth. Greek Homosexuality. Cam-
century A.D.) describes Philaenis as a tribas who bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978.
both fucks boys (pedicat pueros) and eats out the Hallet, Judith P. Female Homoeroticism and the
middles of girls. Figured as a swaggering gym dyke Denial of Roman Reality in Latin Literature.
before the name (or the category), Philaenis pur- Yale Journal of Criticism 3 (1989), 209227.
sues masculine activities with a vengeance, seeking Halperin, David M. One Hundred Years of Ho-
to outlift, outdrink, and outdo manliness itself. The mosexuality. New York: Routledge, 1990.
masculinizing turn is also seen in Lucians Dia- . Response to Bernadette Brootens Love
logues of the Courtesans, in which the hetairistria, Between Women. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian
Megilla, transgenders her name to Megillos, crops and Gay Studies 4:4 (1998), 559578.
her hair, and seduces Leaina. In all other respects, Skinner, Marilyn B. Sapphic Nossis. Arethusa
Leaina is represented as an ordinary girl; indeed, 22 (1989), 518.
she may just be an ordinary girl. It is Megilla/os, Winkler, John J. Constraints of Desire. New York:
the mannish seducer, at whom Lucian takes aim. Routledge, 1990.
Even in those texts that treat tribadism as a
medically problematic deviation, such as the sec- See also Antiquity; Clitoris; Lesbos, Island of;
ond-century A.D. astrological study of Ptolemy Sappho; Tribade
or Caelius Aurelianuss fifth-century A.D. medi-
cal text On Chronic Diseases, the diagnosis passes
over the woman the tribas desires and focuses its Clitoris
attention on the masculine woman only, the An organ or area of the female genitalia frequently
tribad. Moreover, the texts concentrate not on the linked to sexual excitement. The clitoris has been in-
same-sex sexual orientation of the tribad so much timately connected to historical images of lesbians
as on her gender inversion. Among other things, and lesbianism. As long ago as ancient Greece,
this suggests that what the ancients stigmatized tribades were thought to use their enlarged clito-
when they stigmatized women who desired other rises to sexually stimulate or even penetrate their fe-
women was not same-sex sexual contact, or even male partners. This sexual technique, called tribad-
the wish for such contact, per se, but the gender ism, was associated with woman-to-woman sex
inversion or deviance the masculinity of the through the pornography, anthropology, and mari-
active partner represented. The diagnosis cum tal manuals from early-modern Europe through the
accusation tribas seemed to have been reserved nineteenth century, as was the image of an oversized
for the active, masculinized partner; the ancient lesbian clitoris. When European and American doc-
sources do not stop to problematize or categorize tors started to classify female inversion (a termi-
the passive woman desired by the tribasi. Ei- nological precursor of homosexuality) in the late nine-
ther she did not represent a problem to the bi- teenth century, they incorporated accounts of inverts
nary scheme of sex and gender, because she re- hypertrophied or enlarged clitorises, a connection
mained in placepassive, sexually receptiveor that persisted well into the twentieth century.
she was not fully thinkable as a possibility. The The clitoris has been described as analogous or
passive partners desire for another woman did homologous to the penis at least since the early-
not appear to signify at all. What distinguished modern period, up to the late twentieth century.
the tribad from other womenfrom real The image of the clitoris as a female penis has
womenwas less her desire for other women than been essential in connecting the hypertrophied
her departure from norms of femininity (in other and, consequently, hermaphroditic lesbian clitoris
words, her gender trouble). of pornographic and medical repute to lesbians
[The author wishes to thank David M.Halperin supposed excess masculinity, as well as to their as-
and Bernadette Brooten for conversations and chal- sumed hypersexuality. Other marginalized groups,
lenges.] Ann Pellegrini such as women of color, prostitutes, and working-
class women, have also traditionally been associ-
Bibliography ated with enlarged clitorises and hypersexuality.
Brooten, Bernadette. Love Between Women: Early Freudian psychoanalytic theory identified the
Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism. clitoris as a contributing cause of lesbianism. While
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Sigmund Freud (18561939) claimed that all

CLITORIS 175
 people were bisexual in early development, persist- Moore, Lisa Jean, and Adele E.Clarke. Clitoral
C ent female homosexuality resulted from a failure
to transfer the center of sexual excitement from
Conventions and Transgressions: Graphic Rep-
resentations in Anatomy Texts, c 19001991.
the infantile, masculine clitoris to the adult, Feminist Studies 21 (1995), 255301.
feminine vagina, a transition that should coin- Park, Katherine. The Rediscovery of the Clitoris:
cide with the transfer of affection from a mother French Medicine and the Tribade, 15701620.
figure to a father figure. Therefore, a lesbian was In The Body in Parts: Discourses and Anato-
attracted to women because she maintained the mies in Early Modern Europe. Ed. Carla Mazzio
primacy of her male organ of the clitoris and and David Hillman. New York: Routledge,
never developed beyond infantile homosexuality 1997, pp. 170193.
and mother attachment. Traub, Valerie. The Psychomorphology of the
In the wake of the Kinsey report on female sexu- Clitoris. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay
ality in 1953 and the feminist movements of the Studies 2 (1995), 81113.
1970s, the Freudian model of the clitoris fell into
disrepute, especially within lesbian feminist circles. See also Kinsey Institute; Phallus; Psychoanalysis;
As feminist revisionists reclaimed the clitoris as the Sex Practices; Sexology; Tribade
central source of sexual excitement, they emphasized
the organs complexity, dividing it into labeled parts.
Feminist sex manuals of the 1970s through the Closet
1990s also used the similarities of the clitoris and Mythical place where ones sexual identity was
the penis in their arguments for the legitimacy of concealed in response to societys homophobia and
female sexuality. As a result of this reclamation persecution. Until recently, lesbians were compelled
of the clitoris, some lesbians of the 1970s and 1980s by society to cloak particular mannerisms, cross-
believed that penetration and vaginal sex were more dressing preferences, and their most intimate rela-
heterosexist than clitoral stimulation. While clito- tionships from the vengeful gaze of disapproving
ral sexuality represented the separateness of a sup- parents, employers, and other authority figures. The
posedly less phallocentric lesbian sexuality to some, consequences of failing to do so ranged from ex-
this position was by no means universal. For exam- clusion from employment, housing, or opportuni-
ple, while lesbian sex manuals of the 1980s gener- ties for education, to gay-bashing (being beaten
ally described the clitoris as a central sexual loca- solely because one is perceived to be queer), forced
tion, they began to include the G-spot, or psychoanalytic treatment, electroshock therapy,
Grafenberg spot, as an additional, vaginal site of and imprisonment.
sexual arousal and orgasm. The controversies sur- The notion of the closet combines conven-
rounding clitoral or vaginal sexuality frequently fo- tional definitions of privacy, seclusion, claustropho-
cused on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of dildos and bia, and retirement with those of hiding, secrecy,
formed part of broader debates about sex in the and concealed troubles that, according to the Ox-
1980s lesbian community. Margaret Gibson ford English Dictionary, are ever present, and ever
liable to come into view. From these various defi-
Bibliography nitions, theorists such as D.A.Miller (1988) and Eve
Bennett, Paula. Critical Clitoridectomy: Female Kosofsky Sedgwick (1990) have developed the no-
Sexual Imagery and Feminist Psychoanalytic tion of the open secret and the epistemology of
Theory. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture the closet. In other words, the closet represents the
and Society 18 (1993), 235259. secret of homosexuality, which always threatens to
Gibson, Margaret. Clitoral Corruption: Body Meta- be exposed and must be constantly and vigilantly
phors and American Doctors Constructions of silenced and rendered invisible. A lesbian or a gay
Female Homosexuality, 18801900. In Science man must repeatedly decide whether or not to come
and Homosexualities. Ed. Vernon Rosario II. New out of the closet, or, in other words, reveal the se-
York: Routledge, 1996, pp. 108132. cret of homosexual identity. Any lesbian or gay in-
Laqueur, Thomas. Amor Veneris, Vel Dulcedo dividual will be simultaneously in and out of the
Appeletur. In Zone: Fragments for a History closet, if only because heterosexuality is almost al-
of the Human Body: Part Three. Ed. Michael ways presumed unless and until the secret is revealed,
Feher. New York: Urzone, 1989, pp. 90131. and the closet door opened.

176 CLITORIS
 Sedgwick points out that, as a metaphor, the and won, the legal right to coparent their daughter.
closet has been used since roughly the 1970s to re- In Hawaii, a lesbian couple demanded, and won,
fer to the open communication of any previously sup- the right to marry, only to have the courts impose
pressed information or public revelation of a stigma- an injunction against the marriage until the legal
tized identity (for example, coming out as black or as issues could be resolved. Comedian Ellen DeGeneres
a fat woman). She goes on to say, however, that the threw open the doors in the television industry when
closet has been the defining structure for gay oppres- she came out on her television sitcom, Ellen. Chas-
sion in the twentieth century. This is because lesbian tity Bono, daughter of singers Sonny Bono and Cher,
and gay oppression is based upon a stigma that is came out of the closet and emerged as a leader in
typically not visible, unlike the stigmas based on race, the lesbian movement. Candace Gingrich, sister of
sex, or size. Because lesbians and gay men can pass as Newt Gingrich, the Republican Speaker of the
heterosexual, being in or out of the closet is always a United States House of Representatives, openly pro-
salient issue. Even those identities that also are not tested her brothers antigay and antilesbian policies
immediately recognizablesuch as Jewish or Gypsy, and thus reluctantly took her place on the front lines.
to use Sedgwicks examplesdiffer from lesbian and But the closet also was used by gays and lesbians
gay identity, since they rest, to some degree, in ances- against each other in the 1990s, as the controversial
tral lineage and cultural identity. One can certainly practice of outing attests.
come out as a Jew or a Gypsy (in a manner that While the opportunities for living openly as a
makes more sense than coming out as black or lesbian have increased dramatically since the 1960s
female), but the closet has a unique relevance for in most urban areas of the United States, the back-
the particular ambiguity of lesbian and gay identity. lash against lesbian and gay rights bills, the rever-
Among the most interesting ideas about the sals in state legislatures, and the upsurge in bash-
closet is that it is a way of knowing and being ing ensure that, even though the door is open, the
knownhence, the epistemology of the closet closet is still occupied. Rosa Mara Pegueros
that is crucial to all of Western culture at least since
the Enlightenment. Sedgwick suggests that oppo- Bibliography
sitions such as between secrecy and disclosure, pri- Miller, D.A. The Novel and the Police. Berkeley:
vate and public, ignorance and knowledge have University of California Press, 1988.
become per-meated by the opposition between Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Epistemology of the
homosexuality and heterosexuality and that this is Closet. Berkeley: University of California
captured in the concept and image of the closet. Press, 1990.
Since lesbigay people so often have been forced
by society to conceal their true identities, acknowl- See also Coming Out; Homophobia; Invisibility;
edging it, even to oneself, has been fraught with Stigma
anxiety. Coming out of the closet has taken many
shapes and strategies across time. Because lesbigay
oppresson is caught up in issues of invisibility, some Coalition Politics
of these have aimed explicitly at rendering lesbian- Method of political organizing, also called alli-
ism visible. During the 1940s and 1950s, for ex- ance politics, that has not been used regularly or
ample, lesbians made the first forays outside of the with great success in lesbian social movements of
closet by cross-dressing (wearing items of clothing the twentieth century.
usually worn by members of the opposite sex). This Coalitions are often viewed as short-term solu-
was not without its dangers, however. Women tions by which autonomous organizations or indi-
found to be wearing less than three articles of wom- viduals work together on a single issue. Alliances
ans clothing could be jailed. In the 1990s, women feature longer-standing and deeper connections, in
are far less likely to be jailed for cross-dressing, yet which organizations or individuals work on mul-
leaving the closet is no less fraught with emotional, tiple fronts and develop more trusting political re-
physical, and economic turmoil. lations over long periods of time. Both coalitions
In the mid-1990s, a number of highly publicized and alliances involve developing alternative con-
events opened the closet door wider than ever be- ceptions of feminist leadership and power.
fore. Lesbian surgeon Susan Love and her partner, Lesbian political social movements of the late
Helen Cooksey, sued the state of Massachusetts for, twentieth century have been characterized primarily

COALITION POLITICS 177

 by single-issue organizing. Lesbians have created coalition between lesbians and the disability rights
C autonomous groups in which gender and sexual
orientation have been the key areas of focus. The
movement. In 1983, Sharon Kowalski, a closeted
lesbian in rural Minnesota, was involved in a car
first lesbian political organization formed in the accident and left with severe physical injuries.
United States, the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), which Kowalskis family did not allow her lover any ac-
started in San Francisco, California, in 1955, was cess to her. A lengthy, but ultimately successful,
built upon that model. In the mid-1980s, the Les- legal battle ensued, built upon a coalition between
bian Avengers, a direct-action political group, con- disabled and lesbian activists. Again, after the vic-
tinued the tradition of lesbians organizing outside tory, there was no continued work between lesbi-
of coalitions. ans and disabled activists.
There is a history of individual lesbians work- In the late 1990s, lesbians continued to organ-
ing in other social movements in coalition; how- ize into smaller and smaller identity-based groups,
ever, as a group, lesbians tend not to work easily in by race, by class, by ability, by age, by religion, by
coalition. Lesbian separatism, a social politic of the culture, by sexual desire, and so forth. These groups
1970s, emerged primarily among white lesbians help lesbians understand themselves based on a
who were challenging straight womens leadership shared common identity; however, it is a limited
in the womens movement. By the late 1970s, white political strategy for larger social change. Lesbi-
lesbian separatists were criticized by lesbians of ans, like all people, have multiple identities; there-
color for racist exclusion. fore, there is not a singular or universal lesbian
Racism and sexism have often been the main ob- identity. If coalition and alliance are to be viable
stacles to coalition building among lesbians. The gay social-change strategies for lesbians into the twenty-
and lesbian liberation movement of the late twenti- first century, lesbians need to develop better ways
eth century has been dominated by white people, and to bridge differences. Lisa Albrecht
men in particular. This has led to internal division
within the movement and to the rise of visibility of Bibliography
gay and lesbian people of color and progressive whites Albrecht, Lisa, and Rose.M.Brewer, eds. Bridges
willing to challenge racism and sexism. Alliances of Power: Womens Multicultural Alliances.
within the gay and lesbian movement have been prob- Philadelphia and Gabriola Island, B.C.: New
lematic, as have alliances between gays and lesbians Society, 1990.
and other social-justice movements. By the 1980s, Pharr, Suzanne. In the Time of the Right: Reflections
lesbians were in leadership positions in U.S. main- on Liberation. Berkeley, Calif.: Chardon, 1996.
stream gay and lesbian organizations; however, sex- Reagon, Bernice Johnson. Coalition Politics: Turn-
ism continued to be a point of contention between ing the Century. In Home Girls: A Black Femi-
lesbians and gay men. Racism has been a more divi- nist Anthology. Ed. Barbara Smith. New York:
sive issue; a good example has been the emergence Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983,
throughout the 1980s of many race-specific AIDS pp.356368.
organizations that specifically served people with Thompson, Karen, and Julie Andrzejewski. Why
AIDS in communities of color. These groups are proof Cant Sharon Kowalski Come Home? San Fran-
that the gay and lesbian movement has yet to ad- cisco: Spinsters/Aunt Lute, 1988.
equately address racism internally. Lesbians have been Vaid, Urvashi. Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming
active in AIDS political organizing with men but of- of Gay and Lesbian Liberation. New York:
ten work within specific racial groups. Anchor, 1995.
Examples of lesbians working in coalition with
other social-justice movements are few. Briefly in See also Activism; Daughters of Bilitis; Disability;
the mid-1980s, gay and lesbian groups and civil Lesbian Avengers; National Gay and Lesbian Task
rights groups worked together to pass the federal Force (NGLTF)
Hate Crimes Statistics Act, which included adding
sexual orientation to its categories of hate crimes.
However, after its passing in 1987, gays and lesbi- Colette (18731954)
ans did not continue alliance work with any civil French writer. Born in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, a
rights organizations. Another example of cross- small Burgundian village 120 miles south of Paris,
movement organizing in the 1980s was the brief Colette moved to Paris at the age of twenty after

178 COALITION POLITICS

marrying Willy (Henri Gauthier-Villars [1859 times performed as a dancer in the garden on the
1931]), a leading figure in the social and literary rue Jacob where Barney held soirees celebrating
salons of the period. Primarily a journalist, editor, the mythic cult of Lesbos.
and critic, Willy built his reputation as an impre- After Colette left Missy, she married Henri de
sario for other writers, signing and claiming their Jouvenel (18761935), with whom she had a
work as his own. Colette was exploited as one of daughter, Colette de Jouvenel, in 1913, and then
Willys ghost-writers as well, and she insists in her Maurice Goudeket (18891977), with whom she
memoirs that, were it not for Willy, she never would lived until her death in 1954. The relatively brief
have become a writer at all. and theatrical nature of Colettes forays into erotic
Colettes first book, signed Willy, was pub- relationships with women has led many biogra-
lished in 1900 as Claudine lcole (Claudine at phers and critics to question the authenticity of her
School). Much of the novels stupefying success was lesbianism, and there is much disagreement as to
due to its implicitly lesbian content in the guise of whether Colette can rightly be considered a les-
erotic relationships between adolescent girls at a bian writer. While a number of Colettes books,
provincial boarding school. Capitalizing on the al- such as Les Vrilles de la vigne (The Tendrils of the
lure of the novels heroine, Claudine, Willy helped Vine [1908]) and La Vagabonde (The Vagabond,
orchestrate a Claudine vogue: Lotions, soaps, [1911]), contain descriptions of lesbian eroticism,
cigarettes, perfumes, and collars bore the name of Colettes most important lesbian work is undoubt-
Claudine, and Claudine haircuts and outfits sud- edly Le Pur et limpur (The Pure and the Impure,
denly came into style. One of Willys best-known [1941]), a book that she herself thought might one
gestures was that of dressing his wife and another day be recognized as her best. Lynne Huffer
actress in twin outfits and parading them around
Paris, thereby constructing lesbianism as a public Bibliography
spectacle through which he might promote his own Huffer, Lynne. Another Colette: The Question of
scandalous reputation. Colette wrote three more Gendered Writing. Ann Arbor: University of
Claudine novels while married to Willy and contin- Michigan Press, 1992.
ued the tradition of titillating sexual scenes, many Jouve, Nicole Ward. Colette. Bloomington: Indi-
of which were reportedly included at Willys behest. ana University Press, 1987.
Colettes clearest association with lesbianism Marks, Elaine. Colette. New Brunswick, N.J.:
dates from the time of her divorce from Willy in Rutgers University Press, 1960.
1906 and her growing financial, emotional, and Sarde, Michle. Colette, libre et entrave. Paris: Stock,
physical attachment to Missy, ne Mathilde de 1978. Colette Free and Fettered. Trans. Richard
Morny, the Marquise de Belbeuf (also Belboeuf Miller. New York: William Morrow, 1980.
[18631944]). Missy, a well-known figure of the
Parisian lesbian milieu with an aristocratic herit- See also Barney, Natalie Clifford; French Litera-
age and considerable wealth, became Colettes lover ture; Vivien, Rene
and protector until Colettes second marriage in
1912. During this period, Colette continued to
write, but also became a dancer, an actor, and a Collectives
mime artist. Colette and Missy performed together, Developed as the creation of womens communi-
theatrically displaying themselves as a couple, with ties for the purpose of living together and/or op-
Missy cross-dressing and playing the masculine role erating a business. In practice, womens collec-
opposite Colette. The tabloids and magazines of tives have existed in the United States since at least
the period often responded with malice and shock the mid-nineteenth century, when the Womans
to the couples public displays of affection; a scene Commonwealth was founded in Belton, Texas.
from the 1907 premiere of a mimodrama called The desire for womens community can be seen
Rve dEgypte (Dream of Egypt), in which Missy as early as 1762 in English author Sarah Scotts
and Colette exchanged a long kiss, became par- fantasy novel, Millenium Hall; these dreams were
ticularly notorious. During her years with Missy, not unique to European women, as the publica-
Colette also befriended the lesbian poet Rene tion of Rokeya Hossains Utopian novel Sultanas
Vivien (18771909) and her lover, the American Dream (1902) about an Indian womens commu-
patron Natalie Barney (18761972), and she some- nity illustrates.

COLLECTIVES 179
 Characteristics for disabled women. But even these collectives did
C Womens interest in collectives in the United States
and abroad heightened considerably during the
not necessarily escape division over differences, as
Juana Maria Pazs autobiography, La Luz Journal
1960s and 1970s with the advent of contempo- (1980), attests.
rary feminism. Although the origins of these col- Participation in collectives thus waned in the
lectives varied (from womens participation in hip- late 1970s and early 1980s. By the mid-1990s,
pie communes, to the development of lesbian sepa- however, some indication of a renewed interest in
ratist politics, to womens desire to train for tradi- collective formation appeared, evident in inquiries
tionally male-dominated professions, for example), and calls for discussion posted in periodicals such
women usually joined them as a way to put their as Lesbian Connection and on numerous electronic
politics into practice. Collectives centered on four mailing lists. Dana R.Shugar
basic goals: (1) to create a safe space for women;
(2) to develop a viable feminist economy; (3) to re- Bibliography
create female identity free from patriarchal influ- Andreadis, A.Harriette. The Womans Common-
ence; and (4) to dismantle the patriarchy through wealth: Utopia in Nineteenth-Century Texas.
separatism. In Women in Search of Utopia: Mavericks and
While features of collectives varied from com- Mythmakers. Ed. Ruby Rohrlich and Elaine H.
munity to community, two basic forms emerged Baruch. New York: Shocken, 1984, pp. 8698.
during the mid-to-late 1970s. Business collectives, Bloodroot Collective. Bloodroot: Brewing Vi-
often located in cities, organized to produce and sions. Lesbian Ethics 3:1 (Spring 1988), 322.
market womens products and material culture. They Brody, Michal, ed. Are We There Yet? A Continu-
were partly responsible for the development of wom- ing History of Lavender Woman: A Chicago
ens music and periodicals as large, alternative in- Lesbian Newspaper, 19711976. Iowa City:
dustries. Residential collectives, in contrast, gener- Aunt Lute, 1985.
ally were rurally located and often formed to pro- Cheney, Joyce, ed. Lesbian Land. Minneapolis:
vide part- or full-time living arrangements for Word Weavers, 1985.
women. While residential collectives also developed Paz, Juana Maria. La Luz Journal. Fayetteville,
ways for women to make a living, these usually were Ark.: Paz, 1980.
only one focus of the collectives existence. Shugar, Dana R. Separatism and Womens Com-
munity. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
Issues and Controversies 1995.
Collective experience encompassed both the best and
the worst effects of lesbian politics. Collectives were See also Businesses, Lesbian; Community; Furies,
often the center of exciting, effective feminist activ- The; Lesbian Connection; Lesbian Nation; Sepa-
ism and certainly fostered much of contemporary ratism; Utopian Literature
lesbian theory and literature. It is difficult to over-
state the feelings of excitement and power women
found in their commitments to collective action. Yet, Colleges, Womens
because most collectives either developed from, or Intimate relationships between women have existed
took up, separatist politics, problems within sepa- throughout the history of womens colleges in the
ratist theory carried into collective experience. Basi- United States. Early leaders in womens higher edu-
cally, separatisms reliance on sexism as the primary cation lived publicly with other academic women
oppression in human society left women with an until the 1920s, when the stigma surrounding les-
inadequate theoretical framework to address the bianism increased. Lesbian relationships persisted
mechanisms of difference (ethnicity, class, sexuality, on campuses throughout the twentieth century and
physical ability, and the like) among women them- remain visible at many of the remaining womens
selves. Little prepared for the divisions that devel- colleges. Some campuses have institutionalized les-
oped because of womens own oppressive behaviors, bian studies programs and support services for les-
collectives often dissolved or moved into private bian students and faculty.
ownership. Occasionally, collectives separated along Before Mary Lyon (17971849) founded
further lines of identity differences: Some existed for Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1837 as the
women of color only; others developed specifically first postsecondary institution for women, she had

180 COLLECTIVES
established an intimate friendship with another among women, several colleges redesigned student
woman educator. Later in the nineteenth century, residences to provide single bedrooms for all.
womens colleges were seen as more wholesome Despite growing antilesbian sentiment, there is
environments than coeducational schools, since a evidence that intimate friendships continued on
woman was less likely to develop an unwise friend- several campuses into the 1920s and that there re-
ship with a college man. A college education ena- mained on some campuses significant ignorance
bled some white, middle-class women to move of the stigma surrounding lesbianism. A 1920
outside the domestic setting and to establish rela- Oberlin yearbook features the Oberlin Lesbian
tionships of their own choosing, thus paving the Society, a group devoted to writing poetry, and a
way for the establishment of womens communi- senior essay from Bryn Mawr in 1921 describes
ties in the womens colleges and settlement houses the passion that students had for one another. Mary
of the Progressive Era. McCarthys (19121989) novel The Group (1963),
The academic New Women of the late nine- told the story of a group of Vassar women in the
teenth century created a network of relationships 1930s who discover that their leader is a lesbian.
among teachers and students at the womens col- After World War II, when many women in the
leges. Katharine Lee Bates (18591929) and United States returned to their prewar roles of wife
Katherine Coman (18571915) were a well-known and mother, a college education gained renewed
Wellesley College faculty pair from the 1880s on. importance as a means for women to live independ-
M.Carey Thomas (18571935) assumed the presi- ently or in relationships with other women. At the
dency of Bryn Mawr in 1894, living first in a pas- same time, womens colleges were easy targets for
sionate relationship with Mamie Gwinn (1861?) McCarthyite accusations of harboring lesbians.
and later with Mary Garrett (18391915). Mary Through the 1950s and 1960s, women were some-
E.Woolley (18631947) was president of Mount times expelled from college for being too intensely
Holyoke College from 1901 to 1936 and lived in involved with one another, but womens liberation
the presidents house with former student and and the growing gay rights movement eventually
Mount Holyoke faculty member Jeannette Marks gave rise to organized communities of lesbians on
(18751964). Biographers disagree about how to campuses.
describe these womens relationships, but they con- When elite mens colleges began accepting
cur that romantic friendships were not considered women in the 1970s, womens colleges came under
uncommon or unseemly among women academics attack again for being havens for lesbians. Economic
until after the turn of the twentieth century. pressure and declining enrollments required many
The prevalence of student smashes, or womens colleges to close or become coeducational
crushes, at womens colleges provides further evi- in the last quarter of the twentieth century: In 1969,
dence of womens passion for one another on cam- there were 228 womens colleges; in 1997, there were
pus. Students who engaged in smashes courted the eighty-four. Many of these campuses have organ-
object of their emotions, usually an older student ized groups for lesbian, bisexual, or queer-identi-
or a young teacher, with flowers, poems, and candy. fied women, and some have specialized groups for
Documented as early as the 1870s at Vassar, women of color or other self-identified communi-
smashes were considered normative behavior, in- ties. Very few womens colleges offer administrative
nocuous to the participants except in their tendency support services specifically for lesbian and bisexual
to disrupt campus life. women, though several offer domestic-partner ben-
The pathologizing of lesbians early in the twen- efits to lesbian and gay employees. Lesbian, lesbian
tieth century interrupted the pattern of womens and gay, or queer studies curricula appear at wom-
relationships in academe. Womens colleges and ens colleges at about the same rate as they do at
girls boarding schools in the United States and coeducational liberal-arts institutions.
Britain were specifically cited as environments likely Kristen A.Renn
to interfere with heterosexual development. In
1911, Jeannette Marks wrote that sentimental Bibliography
friendships were a detriment to a students health Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Alma Mater: Design
and education. The YWCA visited womens col- and Experience in the Womens Colleges from
leges to give talks on problems such as homo- Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the
sexuality, and, in an attempt to prevent intimacy 1930s. New York: Knopf, 1984.

COLLEGES, WOMENS 181

 . The Power and the Passion of M.Carey Tho- lands, promiscuous and savage were the earli-
C mas. New York: Knopf, 1994.
MacKay, A., ed. Wolf Girls at Vassar: Lesbian and
est labels applied within colonial contexts. Promis-
cuity, in this example, was marked as a characteri-
Gay Experiences. New York: St. Martins, 1992. zation of Pacific female gender and sexuality as spe-
cifically different from the gender and sexuality of
See also Bates, Katharine Lee; Boarding Schools; European women. In turn, policies of regulation,
New Woman; Romantic Friendship; Smashes, spacial separation, and access were shaped by such
Crushes, Spoons; Thomas, M.Carey notions. Pacific womens gender and sexuality were
racialized, marked as different from those of Euro-
pean colonials by virtue of their difference, and
Colonialism their racialization was gendered and sexualized as
Process by which people settle in a new country different from Pacific men, who were, more often
often remaining subject to their country of origin than not, described as savage, whether noble or
by way of appropriating land and incorporating bestial. Stoler notes that, even while sexual domi-
indigenous people as part of a new nation or soci- nation has been carefully considered on a symbolic
ety through force and/or violence, such as conquer- level as part of colonialism, it has rarely been treated
ing, enslaving, and otherwise pressuring them into as the substance of imperial policy. She further ar-
movement. gues that sexual control was more than a metaphor
Westerners, through various forms of coloniza- for colonial dominationit fundamentally worked
tion, distorted the sexuality and gender construc- to mark class and racial differences and was impli-
tions of colonized peoples. Lesbianism, as the mod- cated in a wider set of relations of power. For exam-
ern West defines it, is not the only way same-sex ple, the governing and ordering of sexual relations
experience has been understood. The profound was central to the development of particular kinds
impact of Western sexual ideology on colonized of colonial settlements and to the assigned economic
peoples has helped create a complex spectrum of activity within them.
identities. For many peoples, the discrete analyti- Lesbian identity, in contrast to sexual behavior
cal category of sexuality itself is a colonial imposi- between women, is a modern phenomenon that is
tion that addresses the realities of only a small part often predicated on the ability of women to break
of the spectrum of women who have sexual and from kinship ties and autonomously support them-
love relationships with other women. Many selves. In many cultures, there may be no concept
worldviews entail cosmologies in which sexuality of lesbianism as a separate lifestyle even though
is an integral force of life and not a separate cat- there may be same-sex intimacy, because people
egory of existence or identity. may not define themselves outside of kinship or
A preoccupation with sexual deviance is a have the means or desire to be economically au-
recurrent theme in colonial writings; from first tonomous. This link between individualism and
contact, Western concepts of indigenous sexuali- lesbian identity has led many women who struggle
ties have consistently distorted, misrepresented, and with the persistence of colonial legacies to resist
degraded the experiences they attempted to de- the contemporary categorization of lesbian, a
scribe. M.Jacqui Alexander has argued that the resistance that is often presumed by dominant les-
racialization and sexualization of morality provided bian communities to be a desire to hide same-sex
the foundation upon which the identity and au- sexual behavior. Lesbians reckoning with legacies
thority of colonialism rested. For these reasons, sex of both colonialism and anticolonial nationalist
as a category of colonial control is a fundamental struggles, which often turned Western constructions
consideration when exploring lesbianism in a his- back on themselves and restigmatized lesbianism,
torical context. are redefining their identities and practices in their
Stoler (1991) asserts that colonial and imperial own terms and constructions within postcolonial
authority and racial distinctions were fundamentally formations.
structured in terms of gender difference. In other A number of theorists have developed the rela-
words, gender and sexuality were racialized, and tionship between colonialism and lesbianism in
racialization was both gendered and sexualized specific cultural contexts. In relation to American
within the larger processes of colonialism and im- Indian women, Paula Gunn Allen (1986) has writ-
perialist expansion. For example, in the Pacific Is- ten about Native lesbianism as distinct from

182 COLLEGES, WOMENS

modern American identities because it exists within transgender Hawaiins concerned connecting strug-
a larger and spiritual tribal context. She suggests gles for Hawaiin sovereignty with civil rights, in-
that one connection between the conquest of Na- cluding same-sex marriage.
tive America and the influence of Christianity lies Evelynn M.Hammonds (1995) has described the
in the brutal suppression of medicine peoples and problematic of silence in her delineation of a
womens authority and in redefining notions of genealogy of black female sexuality within the
proper sexual behavior according to European United States, which begins with the colonizing of
practices and regulations of sexual access and re- black womens bodies. Within systems of American
production. Other Native American Indian writ- enslavement, whites domination over, and owner-
ers, such as Jaimes and Halsey (1992), counter that ship of, African peoples entailed, among other bru-
Allens approach aids in the reinforcement of cul- tal realities, the common practice of rape, as well as
tural appropriation and distortion of indigenous enforced and controlled sexual reproduction. This
traditions concerning homosexuality by the domi- lineage has complicated black womens attempts at
nant mainstream in a context of continued claiming sexual agency. Silvera (1991) notes that
neocolonialism. For example, the invocation of many Afro-Caribbean lesbians are in a position of
Native religions by white shamans is often a continued imagining and discovery of their exist-
business in which individuals profit at the expense ence in both the past and the present. In that search,
of American Indian peoples, whose traditions are Silvera notes, the Bible plays an important part in
still unprotected and largely threatened. Afro-Caribbean culture, and she argues for its rec-
Writing about Chicanos within the United ognition in order to understand the historical and
States, Moraga (1993) theorizes the cultural and political contexts for the invisibility of
sexual colonization of an occupation that contin- AfroCaribbean lesbians. She also discusses the var-
ues today. She critiques the forms of sexism and ied effects of Christian values in slave colonies as a
homophobia that persist in Chicano nationalist force in resistance and hope, as well as racism and
politics and argues that, because womens bodies misogyny. Alexander (1991, 1997) has documented
and those of men and women who transgress gen- the criminalization of lesbianism by the postcolonial
der roles have been regarded as territories to be state governments of the Bahamas and Trinidad and
conquered, they are also territories to be liberated. Tobago. She theorizes the redrafting of morality
Moraga maps the possibilities in a Queer Aztlan, as a continued legacy of British colonialism in the
the spiritual-geographical Mexican territory where role of developing legislation that targets lesbians
sexual freedom and agency are part of expressing as a contemporary politics of recolonization by
fuller self-determination as a people. the now independent nations. Alexander argues that
As Lisa Kahaleole Chang Hall and J.Kehaulani erotic autonomy can enable a politics of
Kauanui (1996) describe, outsiders formed a legacy decolonization in a fuller sense.
of control and commodification of Pacific sexual- Writing about South Asian identities, Shah (1993)
ityfrom the explorers who decided the women has pointed out that, in attempts to resolve the com-
were whores and the men weak in their lack of mon conflict between national and racial identity
control over their women to missionaries who and sexual identity, some South Asian queers have
recorded with appalled horror their views of na- searched for their very own gay tradition, includ-
tive sexualitythat endures in the modern world. ing the rigorous study of past cultural forms and
Because Pacific cultures had oral rather than writ- relics to locate lesbian activity in many Hindu texts
ten historical traditions, the written history that and manuals and the linking of British colonialism
survives was filtered through the censorship of with the destruction of same-sex images and homo-
those literate and horrified missionaries. The con- sexual expression. Shah critically argues that the past
temporary context of same-sex love for Pacific is not a thing waiting to be discovered and recov-
women grows out of a deliberate colonial destruc- ered, that a past regained or saved cannot secure or
tion of indigenous languages and traditions; its fix an identity for eternity. Rather than rigid, the
potential for resistance is influenced by feminist, relationships between identities and histories are
lesbian, and decolonization movements and ide- fluid and constantly shifting. Shah argues that gay
ologies. A prime example of this activism is the South Asians use the past by employing ancient
liberatory organizing of Na Mamo o Hawaii, an texts and sculptures to shade contemporary mean-
indigenous group of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or ings of sexual practices.

COLONIALISM 183
 These are just few examples of attempts to main- Colour Anthology. Ed. Makeda Silvera. Toronto:
C tain control over the meaning and interpretation
of same-sex desires and relationships between
Sister Vision, 1991, pp. 1426.
Stoler, Ann Laura. Carnal Knowledges and Im-
women, given the various histories of colonialism, perial Power: Gender, Race, and Morality in
the politics of anticolonial nationalism, and the Colonial Asia. In Gender at the Crossroads of
struggle for decriminalization and civil rights. Knowledge: Feminist Anthropology in the
J.Kehaulani Kauanui Postmodern Era. Ed. Micaela di Leonardo.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991,
Bibliography pp. 51101.
Alexander, M.Jacqui. Erotic Autonomy as a Poli-
tics of Decolonization: An Anatomy of Feminist See also Hawaii; Indigenous Cultures; Native
and State Practice in the Bahamas Tourist Americans
Economy. In Feminist Genealogies, Colonial
Legacies, Democratic Futures. Ed. M.Jacqui Al-
exander and Chandra Tapalde Mohanty. New Combahee River Collective
York and London: Routledge, 1997, pp. 63100. One of the earliest black feminist direct-action
. Redrafting Morality: The Postcolonial State groups in the nation, formed in 1974 by a small
and the Sexual Offences Bill of Trinidad and group of Boston-based black lesbians following the
Tobago. In Third World Women and the Poli- eastern regional National Black Feminist Organi-
tics of Feminism. Ed. Chandra Tapalde Mohanty, zation conference in 1973. Named for the river
Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres. Bloomington: along which Harriet Tubman (18231913) led
Indiana University Press, 1991, pp. 133152. hundreds of slaves to freedom, the collective came
Allen, Paula Gunn. The Sacred Hoop: Recovering together at a time when many of its members were
the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. struggling to define a liberating feminist practice
Boston: Beacon, 1986. alongside the ascendance of a predominantly white
Hall, Lisa Kahaleole Chang, and J.Kehaulani feminist movement, and a Black Nationalist vision
Kauanui. Same-Sex Sexuality in Pacific Litera- of women deferring to black male leadership.
ture. In Asian American Sexualities. Ed. Russell Early collective members included renowned
Leong. New York and London: Routledge, black feminist writer and activist Barbara Smith,
1996, pp. 113118. then in her late twenties and teaching at Emerson
Hammonds, Evelynn M. Toward a Genealogy of College and the University of Massachusetts, Bos-
Black Female Sexuality: The Problematic of Si- ton; her twin sister, Beverly, a masters candidate
lence. In Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Lega- at the Yale School of Public Health; Demita Frazier,
cies, Democratic Futures. Ed. M.Jacqui Alex- also in her twenties and a social worker for juve-
ander and Chandra Mohanty. New York: niles in Boston; and Sharon Burke, an experienced
Routledge, 1997, pp. 170182. writer and activist in her mid-forties. All four
Jaimes, M.Annette, with Theresa Halsey. Ameri- women identified as black lesbian feminists.
can Indian Women at the Center of Indigenous Throughout the mid-1970s, the collective met
Resistance in Contemporary North America. weekly at the Cambridge Womens Center. The
In The State of Native America: Genocide, Colo- group encouraged any black woman interested in
nization, and Resistance. Ed. M.Annette Jaimes. raising her consciousness around womens issues
Boston: South End, 1992, pp. 311344. to attend. Together, collective members engaged one
Moraga, Cherre. The Last Generation. Boston: another on definitive questions for a black femi-
South End, 1993. nist movement: What are black womens issues?
Shah, Nayan. Sexuality, Identity, and the Uses of What perspectives do black women bring to
History. In A Lotus of Another Color: An broader issues within and beyond the black com-
Unfolding of the South Asian Gay and Lesbian munity? Who can be identified as allies? Out of
Experience. Ed. Rakesh Ratti. Boston: Alyson, this work, in 1977 the collective first published
1993, pp. 113132. The Combahee River Collective Statement,
Silvera, Makeda. Man Royals and Sodomites: Some which has become one of the strongest, earliest,
Thoughts of the Invisibility of AfroCaribbean and most often reprinted manifestos of feminist
Lesbians. In Piece of My Heart: A Lesbian of identity politics in the United States:

184 COLONIALISM
 We are actively committed to struggling See also Black Feminism; Coalition Politics; Smith,
against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class Barbara
oppression and see our particular task the
development of integrated analysis and prac-
tice based upon the fact that the major sys- Comedy, Standup
tems of oppression are interlocking. The syn- Lesbian standup comedy first flourished in the 1980s
thesis of these oppressions creates the condi- due to the confluence of two factors: the increased
tions of our lives. As Black women, we see visibility of the lesbian and gay rights movement
Black feminism as the logical political move- and the emergence of standup comedy as a cultural
ment to combat the manifold and simultane- phenomenon in the United States. However, it had
ous oppressions that all women of color face. its origins in the 1970s, most notably through the
work of Robin Tyler and Maxine Feldman. Tyler,
In addition to developing early black feminist poli- often with her partner, Patty Harrison, cut albums,
tics and theory, Combahee River Collective mem- made television appearances, played the college cir-
bers took these new perspectives into their activ- cuit, and appeared in a USO tour of Vietnam (they
ism across the city. Into the late 1970s, collective were thrown out of the show for kissing onstage).
members were active in the struggle for desegrega- Though lesbian comic Lea Delarias 1993 appear-
tion of the Boston public schools, in community ance on Arsenio has been widely cited as the first
campaigns against police brutality in black out lesbian (or gay) performance on national tel-
neighborhoods, and on picket lines demanding evision, that credit, in fact, belongs to Tylers 1979
construction jobs for black workers. They sup- spot on The Phyllis Diller Show.
ported Kenneth Edelin, a black doctor at Boston While gatherings such as the National Wom-
City Hospital who was charged with manslaugh- ens Music Festival and the Michigan Womyns
ter in the performance of an abortion, and Ella Music Festival became, in the 1980s and 1990s,
Ellison, who was arrested for murder for simply well-known venues for lesbian comedie acts, they
being seen in the area in which a homicide had were devoted strictly to music when they began
been committed. operating in the early and mid-1970s. By the late
Finally, in 1979, when a series of murders 1970s, however, festival organizers found the idea
against black women were committed in Bostons of womens music too restrictive, and the
black neighborhoods, Combahee played a pivotal broader concept of womens culture invited the
role in bringing together mainstream black com- participation of writers and other sorts of artists.
munity forces, white feminists, and progressive Left Lesbian standups both performed their own acts
activists in Boston to combat the violence. This kind and were frequently used as emcees.
of collaborative work was made possible by the Kate Clinton, for many years the preeminent les-
long-standing relationships the collective had cul- bian standup, began her career in 1981, building a
tivated over years of activist work in black, femi- national reputation from a grass-roots base of wom-
nist, and progressive communities. ens clubs and coffeehouses. By the mid-1980s,
The emergence of coalition politics in the late standup generally exploded on the American scene
1970s and early 1980s can be directly attributed to via the growth of cable television and the prolifera-
the work of the Combahee River Collective (as well tion of comedy clubs. While out performances in
as other important grass-roots feminist collectives), mainstream sites were rare, the popularity of standup
which demonstrated the key roles that progressive as an entertainment form, combined with the exist-
feminists of color can play in acting as bridges be- ence of numerous organizations, clubs, and events
tween diverse constituencies while also creating new spawned by a rapidly expanding lesbian and gay
possibilities for change within deeply divided com- movement, created a huge demand for lesbian and
munities such as Boston. Jaime M.Grant gay performers and emcees. Inspired by the exam-
ple of their predecessors, more lesbians embarked
Bibliography on standup careers in the mid-to-late 1980s; many
Barbara Smith, ed. Combahee River Collective of these combined lesbian with ethnic humor, as in
Statement. In Home Girls: A Black Feminist the cases of Lea Delaria (Italian American), Karen
Anthology, pp. 272282. New York: Kitchen Williams (African American), Sara Cytron (Jewish),
Table: Women of Color Press, 1983. and Marga Gomez (Latina). This generation of

C O M E D Y, S T A N D U P 185
 comics could rely on regular work in urban gay There is no consensus regarding exactly what
C ghettos and vacation meccas and soon became fa-
miliar faces in Provincetown, Massachusetts, clubs;
constitutes lesbian standup comedy. Some of the
comics of the 1990s include pointed political com-
establishments such as Josies Cabaret and Juice Joint mentary in their acts, while others focus mainly on
in San Francisco, California; Club Med-type resorts; sex, relationships, and coming out. Most agree that
and on cruises at sea. their humor is connected to, and derives from, pain-
Whereas 1970s lesbian feminists had been re- ful feelings and experiences. At least two general
puted to lack humor, the 1990s lesbian was con- subjects constitute the majority of lesbian standups
ceived of as chic and playful. Lesbian comics were material: (1) the absurdity of a homophobic world
heard by the nation as they emceed the 1993 Na- that cannot fathom or adapt to lesbian existence;
tional March on Washington (covered live on C- and (2) the nature of the lesbian subculture, includ-
SPAN), appeared on network talk shows and Com- ing its behaviors, rituals, beliefs, desires, fears, and
edy Centrals Out There specials, and were fea- representations of itself in art and everyday life.
tured in news segments. Suzanne Westenhoeffer, a Harriet Malinowitz
younger comic who appeared in the early 1990s,
was in 1994 the first out lesbian to be featured in an Bibliography
hour-long HBO Comedy Special. A lesbian and gay Flowers, Charles, ed. Out, Loud, and Laughing:
variety show, In the Life, was aired on public televi- A Collection of Gay and Lesbian Humor. New
sion stations around the country and included sev- York: Anchor/Doubleday, 1995.
eral lesbian standups. Annually recurring events, Geduldig, Lisa. Laughing Themselves into the
such as the National Womens Comedy Conference Mainstream. Advocate 592 (December 17,
in Ohio and All Women, All Comedy on the West 1991), 7881.
Coast, showcased lesbian comedie talent for sellout Jones, Anderson. Standup Comics Ride the Wave
audiences. As previously unimaginable levels of rec- of Lesbian Chic. New York Newsday (Janu-
ognition became possible, lesbian performers strove ary 23, 1994), Sunday edition.
for ever-greater visibility through sitcoms, films, and Martin, Linda, and Kerry Segrave. Women in Com-
comedy-writing contracts. As of the mid-1990s, with edy. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel, 1986.
the exception of Delaria, mainstream media appear Walker, Nancy A. A Very Serious Thing: Womens
to have courted the less ethnic and more straight- Humor and American Culture. Minneapolis:
appearing lesbian and gay talenta practice that University of Minnesota Press, 1988.
contrasts sharply with the traditions of womens Warren, Roz, ed. Revolutionary Laughter: The
community events and festivals, where diversity is World of Women Comics. Freedom, Calif.:
valued and homophobic stereotypes lack currency Crossing, 1995.
in programming.
Many lesbian comics believe that, even before See also Camp; Humor; Music Festivals
lesbian humor was out, covert forms of it ap-
peared in the wider culturethe work of Lily Tomlin
(1939) and Jane Wagner (1935) and the charac- Coming Out
ter of Miss Jane Hathaway on the television show One of the most widely used terms among lesbians
The Beverly Hillbillies are often cited. Self-defined and gay men in the contemporary United States.
lesbian humor, when it appeared, punctured the Its meanings are various: One can come out (or be
myth of lesbian nonexistence; it was largely about brought out) through ones first sexual experience
societys elision (or adamant nonrecognition) of les- with another woman, come out into a lesbian com-
bians in the psychosexual human landscape. Het- munity, come out of the closet, or come out to a
erosexual societys naive act of not seeing lesbi- range of audiences, including oneself, as well as
ans was itself the humorous subject. Within that friends, family, employers, and the public.
context, it was funny for lesbians to hear the details
of their own livesgenerally consigned to the pri- History
vate realmdiscussed publicly. Later, out les- Over the course of the twentieth century, use of the
bian experience came to occupy much broader public last two meanings (coming out of and to) has over-
space, and out lesbian humor came to assume a taken the first two (coming out through and into).
wider audience that could laugh with the comic. Gay use of the term seems to have originally referred

186 C O M E D Y, S T A N D U P
 meanings of the term coexist with new ones, par-
ticularly in working-class communities of color,
where lesbians and gay men may come out into
the life.

Lesbian and Gay Culture

Coming out has continued to enjoy an important
place in lesbian and gay politics and cultures. The
late 1980s saw the establishment of National Com-
ing Out Day (NCOD), a nationwide holiday for les-
bians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered people.
Originally an outcome of the War Conference, a
gathering of activists that followed on the heels of
the 1987 March on Washington, NCOD is now part
of the National Coming Out Project, sponsored by
the Human Rights Campaign. NCOD, October 11,
is observed by lesbian and gay groups across the
United States, particularly on college campuses. Its
official logoa Keith Haring drawing of a person
National Coming Out Day logo. Design by Keith kicking open a closet dooris a widely recognized
Haring. Courtesy Human Rights Campaign.
symbol of coming out, and one that explicitly refers
to the post-Stonewall meanings of the term.
to the practice whereby a young woman (often,
In the early 1990s, nonconsensual coming out
though not necessarily, an upper-class debutante)
outingwas debated in queer communities and
was introduced to a community of her peers at a
media. This practice of bringing someone elsegen-
coming out party. As gay men used the term in
erally a celebrity or politicianout of her or his
the early twentieth century, one could come out closet, was seen by some as vital political strategy
into the gay world, underworld, or demimonde, in and by others as an implicitly homophobic tactic
a parallel fashion. Lesbians were using the term in (relying for impact on the continued stigmatization
this same sense at least by mid-century, when a of homosexuality). Queer newsmedia, notably New
woman could come out into the (largely white) bar York Citys Out Week, practiced outing enthusias-
scene or into the (mostly black) house-party cir- tically for a short time, as did poster-pasting mem-
cuit. This process might precede or follow ones bers of Queer Nation. Among the women targeted
sexual coming out, generally helped along by a were actresses Sandra Bernhard (1955) and Jodie
more experienced (though not necessarily older) Foster (1962), singers k.d. lang (1961) and
woman. Michelle Shocked (1962), and gossip columnist Liz
Post-Stonewall (1969) generations, however, Smith (1923). Specifically lesbian publications and
have emphasized a new trajectory of coming out; groups rarely took a positive stance toward outing,
rather than coming out into a new social world, and lesbians operating within mixed lesbian, gay,
one comes out of the isolation and invisibility of and bi institutions and organizations held a range
the closet. This newer concept implicitly makes of opinions of the practice.
the claim that it is not only healthier and more Most lesbians, of course, are not celebrities or
satisfying to step out of the closet, it is also more public figures and relate to coming out in more
responsible. To hide ones homosexuality, by this personal terms. Of particular importance to many
reasoning, is to contribute to ones own stigmati- is the act of coming out to ones parents and other
zationand, by extension, to the continued stig- family members. Here again, the phenomenon is
matization of other lesbians and gay men. March- much more common among younger lesbians than
ers at the early Gay Pride parades chanted Come among those who came out before Stonewall. The
out, come out, simultaneously imploring sidewalk latter more often see themselves as living simulta-
observers to come out of hiding and gay bar neously in two worlds, gay and straight, and often
habitus to come out onto the streets. In its late- feel no need to mix the two by telling their
twentieth-century usage, coming out is a core straight families about their gay lives. Weston
concept of identity politics. Nonetheless, older (1991) points out that coming out to ones

COMING OUT 187

 parents, siblings, and other family members is part One frequently reads, therefore, that lesbians tend
C of the process of creating ones own chosen fam-
ily. By revealing oneself, to a parent, for example,
to first recognize their homoerotic feelings and
participate in their first sexual experience with a
one also causes the true nature of the parent-child same-gender partner at later ages than gay men,
relationship to reveal itself. (Does my parent love but rarely sees gay mens experiences compared
me truly or only on condition than I be hetero- to a lesbian norm. More recent work on lesbian
sexual?) Complete rejection by parents is relatively coming out processes recognizes that, while an
uncommon, but the fear of it structures the experi- initial process of self-labeling is a crucial milestone,
ence for many lesbians as they come out to their coming out in some sense continues throughout
parents. Some evidence suggests that lesbians may ones life, so that a lesbian identity is never en-
encounter more negative responses from parents, tirely a finished product.
particularly from mothers, than do gay men. Nonetheless, the early process of recognition
A public coming out, whether precipitated by and naming tends to become ones coming out
oneself or others, presupposes that the individual story. These stories are told and retold, in what
has come out to herself. Individual experiences of has been identified as a common ritual of lesbian
coming out at this level continue to be extremely and gay community life, particularly as a way of
important, and widely varied, processes. Many getting to know an acquaintance. Fictional treat-
observers have suggested that the average age of ments have been extraordinarily popular in lesbian
coming out has dropped, as more lesbians and gay literature, and nonfiction collections, such as The
men began coming out in their teens in the late Coming Out Stories (Penelope and Wolfe 1980),
1980s and early 1990s. Statistics are impossible to remain widely read. The appeal of these narratives
come by, but burgeoning, and increasingly younger, is apparently not limited to a lesbian and gay audi-
membership in lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth ence: On April 30, 1996, more than forty million
organizations suggests the presence of such a trend. television viewers watched Ellen Morgan, the lead
And college campuses, often a location where one character in the ABC sitcom Ellen come out to
may come out for the first time, are seeing more herself, her therapist, and her closest friends (be-
students who have already come out to themselves coming then the first lesbian or gay lead character
when they arrive on campus for their first year. on a continuing network program, although the
show was canceled in 1998).
Coming Out Process Vera Whisman
Scholars and therapists have attempted to iden-
tify a common coming out process, or trajectory, Bibliography
with mixed success. Such stage-sequential mod- Cass, Vivienne. Homosexual Identity Formation:
els identify as few as four or as many as eight A Theoretical Model. Journal of Homosexu-
stages, or change points, and generally describe a ality 4 (1979), 219235.
process that moves from discovery to acceptance Eliason, Michele. An Inclusive Model of Lesbian
to announcementthat is, through a series of Identity Assumption. Journal of Gay, Lesbian,
comings out. Troidens (1988) summary points and Bisexual Identity 1 (1996), 319.
out that such models are ideal types and that Muller, Ann. Parents Matter: Parents Relationships
individuals may order the steps differently or skip with Lesbian Daughters and Gay Sons.
some steps entirely. Perhaps the best known of Tallahassee, Fla.: Naiad, 1987.
these models is that of Vivienne Cass (1979). Her Penelope, Julia, and Susan Wolfe. The Coming Out
six-stage sequence predicts that individuals will Stories. Freedom, Calif: Crossing, 1980.
move from identity confusion, through identity Troiden, Richard. Gay and Lesbian Identity: A
comparison, tolerance, acceptance, and pride, to Sociological Analysis. Dix Hills, N.Y.: General
the ultimate goal of identity synthesis. Many at- Hall, 1988.
tempts to develop models that are applicable to Weston, Kath. Families We Choose: Lesbians,
both lesbians and gay men (models that treat bi- Gays, Kinship. New York: Columbia Univer-
sexuality identity formation are exceedingly rare) sity Press, 1991.
are problematic, as they tend to treat experiences
common to gay men as normative and experiences See also Closet; Coming Out Stories; Family; His-
common to lesbians as departures from the norm. tory; Identity; Identity Politics; Psychology

188 COMING OUT

Coming Out Stories reviewers criticize them for this lack of profession-
Personal narratives or life histories, both written alism, others praise them as authentic, moving tes-
and spoken, that recount the process of self-reali- timonies of real women. Many coming out narra-
zation, acceptance, and articulation of same-sex tives describe the effect of the silencing and con-
desire. There are as many versions of coming out tinuous sociopolitical erasure of lesbian history and
stories as there are lesbians, since coming out is at experience and the struggle to break the silence
once a personal coming-to-consciousness, an oral imposed on same-sex love. As one woman writes
narrative, and, for many, an autobiography set into in The Coming Out Stories: I did not have the
writing. Some women define what it means to come word for lesbian when I was nine years old. I
out around their first sexual experience with an- did not know that I was coming out. Due to the
other woman, or when they first realized that de- censorship of lesbian expression, coming out sto-
sire, or when they voiced that desire and claimed a ries are valuable insofar as they offer representa-
lesbian identity. Certain lesbians consider their tions of the rich diversity of lesbian experiences
sexual identity essential to their self, something and, as such, are an important resource for con-
innate, while others explain their lesbianism as a structing and explaining lesbian identification.
choice, perhaps even a political one. Many women They are also useful as models for coming out in
experience a heightened sensitivity to oppression different social and interpersonal contexts.
once they leave their privileged affiliation with so- Part of the coming out process, as expressed in
cially sanctioned straight culture. the coming out story, is a reevaluation of the events
The coming out story as a literary narrative and of ones past in light of ones new group identity.
an event in contemporary lesbian history can be Events that heterosexual socialization overlooks as
traced specifically to the publication of The Com- irrelevant to the development of a healthy desire
ing Out Stories (1980), edited by Julia Penelope and for the opposite sex, such as early crushes on other
Susan Wolfe, and The Lesbian Path (1980), edited women, achieve newfound importance in light of
by Margaret Cruikshank. Previously, collections of the discovery of lesbianism and the construction of
interviews had been publishedThe New Lesbians an alternative life story. For some critics, such as
(1977), edited by Laurel Galana and Gina Covina, Marilyn Frye (1980), the stories do threaten to fal-
and Were Here (1977), edited by Angela Stewart- sify the past, eliminating experiences and feelings
Park and Jules Cassidybut The Coming Out Sto- that do not conform to the newly adopted lesbian
ries and The Lesbian Path were the first to fore- identity. In other words, coming out stories have a
ground life histories written by lesbians themselves. narrative structure and political role that shapes les-
As various theorists have noted, by bringing together bian identity in strictly limited ways.
in one place the personal narratives of women who Hence, the most potent critique of the first gen-
did not know that there was a group to belong to, eration of coming out stories was that they identi-
these books gave form to a moment in lesbian his- fied only a narrow range of lesbian experiences:
tory when certain previously scattered individuals specifically, those of white, middle-class, able-bod-
became a group. Although written in isolation, these ied lesbians. They did not necessarily recognize that,
personal narratives of primarily white and middle- added to the pressure of coming out as lesbian,
class women have a striking similarity of theme, many women face the pressure to conform to
experience, and language. This similarity struck some heterosexist norms from their ethnic and religious
reviewers as repetitive and boring. But to others, community and fear being ostracized and isolated
the significance of the repetition was to produce a from their families if they choose to affiliate with
sense of lesbian group identity. In this way, coming a lesbian community over the familial one. The
out stories have been related to the rituals or rites of groundbreaking anthology This Bridge Called My
passage that establish cohesive values and identities Back (1981), edited by Cherre Moraga and Gloria
for a particular culture. Anzalda, included a number of personal narra-
Of crucial importance to the coming out story tives by lesbians of color. Following its publica-
is the availability of language to aid the initial com- tion, new collections of lesbian life narratives, such
ing out process, in order for women to adequately as Nice Jewish Girls (1989), edited by Evelyn
understand and articulate their desires. Hence, it Torton Beck; Compaeras: Latina Lesbians (1994),
is significant that many coming out stories are raw, edited by Juanita Ramos; Out of the Class Closet
unedited, awkward pieces of prose. While some (1994), edited by Julia Penelope; and Afrekete

COMING OUT STORIES 189

 (1995), edited by Catherine E.McKinley and Margaret Louise; Identity; Lorde, Audre; Moraga,
C L.Joyce DeLaney added to the narrative model
considerations in coming out for women who iden-
Cherre; Nestle, Joan; Penelope, Julia

tify their selves ethnically and racially as well as

sexually. In the 1990s, some women began to adopt Community
the term queer instead of lesbian, since it al- Social network providing solidarity and compan-
lows for the articulation of multiple and shifting ionship. Lesbian community refers to a group of
identifications across lines of race, gender, ethnic- persons and/or spaces that affirm same-sex sexu-
ity, class, and sexuality, refusing to prioritize any ality and love between women. Immersed in a
one aspect of the self. homophobic and heterosexist society, a lesbian
Many lesbian coming out narratives are partly community is a subset of the larger society, prem-
fictionalized or theorized and written through nov- ised on a collective resistance to societal expecta-
els, poetry, and essays. Michelle Cliffs Claiming tions and cultural norms of gender and sexuality.
an Identity They Taught Me To Despise (1980), Communities based on neighborhoods, race, eth-
Audre Lordes Zami (1983), Cherre Moragas nicity, age, intellectual or artistic interests, and
Loving in the War Years (1983), Mab Segrests My political movements play important roles in some
Mamas Dead Squirrel (1985), Gloria Anzaldas lesbians lives, but the more common connotation
Border-lands/La Frontera (1987), Joan Nestles A of lesbian community is an affinity that has been
Restricted Country (1987), Nicole Brossards The forged around gender and sexual identities.
Aerial Letter (1988), Leslie Feinbergs Stone Butch
Blues (1993), and Dionne Brands Bread Out of Characteristics
Stone (1994) are just a few of the many texts based A lesbian community fundamentally consists of
on lesbian life narratives and coming out stories. women who similarly claim the identity lesbian.
Through coming out and self-naming, lesbians Sociologists, drawing on new social-movement
gain empowerment and visibility. The next step in theory of the late twentieth century, have noted
the validation, legitimation, and celebration of les- the importance of a collective identity in organ-
bian lives, according to Bonnie Zimmerman (1985), izing movements for social change. Yet scholars and
is to inscribe personal experience onto a body poli- activists have demonstrated how the concept of a
tic that can then take part in reconstructing the public common lesbian identity is problematic, in that
and private institutions that presently control our lesbians identities differ across time, nationality,
lives. To preserve and pass on the myriad experi- region, race, age, class, sexual practice, and politi-
ences of what it means to come out and live as a cal perspective.
lesbian, dyke, or queer, autobiographical stories and Disagreement regarding whom community in-
life narratives are an integral resource for theory, cludes and what community represents to lesbians
politics, history, and future generations of women. persists. While some understand community as a
Sidney matrix union of those who are similar, others point out
the radical diversity among women identified as
Bibliography lesbians. Another viewpoint on lesbian community
Frye, Marilyn. Review of The Coming Out Sto- is that it validates a select group of lesbiansin
ries. Sinister Wisdom 14 (1980), 9798. the United States, white, middle-class lesbian femi-
Martin, Biddy. Lesbian Identity and Autobio- nistswhile excluding those who do not fit a cer-
graphical Difference(s). In Life/Lines: Theo- tain mold. Femmes, butches, lesbians of color, and
rizing Womens Autobiography . Ed. Bella poor and working-class lesbians have challenged a
Brodzki and Celeste Schenck. Ithaca, N.Y.: model of community that assumes sameness,
Cornell University Press, 1988, pp. 77103. commonality, and unity. There are few, if any,
Zimmerman, Bonnie. The Politics of Translitera- agreed upon criteria for establishing who belongs
tion: Lesbian Personal Narratives. Signs: Jour- or does not belong to a lesbian community, and
nal of Women in Culture and Society 9:4 (1984), standards and ideals vary from person to person.
663682. The nuances between a lesbian community and
the lesbian community are significant; the former
See also Anzalda, Gloria E.; Autobiography; suggests that multiple communities exist, while the
Brossard, Nicole; Coming Out; Cruikshank, latter generally indicates a single, encompassing en-

190 COMING OUT STORIES

tity. In a particular city or town, the lesbian com- Southeast Asia, lesbian organizations have estab-
munity often refers to lesbians in that location lished a public presence in the late twentieth cen-
rather than globally. When not qualified as a bar tury. Slang, Kitty Kitty, and Queer Sisters invite
community, a jock community, or otherwise, the lesbians to join in social and group activities in
lesbian community usually corresponds to a po- Singapore, Korea, and Hong Kong, respectively.
liticized lesbian feminist community. Lesbians and Informal groups are common in areas where lesbi-
feminists since the 1970s have referred to the wom- ans suffer greater social or economic
ens community as synonymous with the lesbian marginalization. For example, Swahili lesbians in
feminist community. In some instances, a lesbian or Mombasa, Kenya, gather in groups in the Old
womens community refers more specifically to a Town and in the suburbs.
communal-living arrangement or environment. Outside large cities in the United States, festivals
One sense of community prevalent in the twen- and conferences temporarily attract lesbians to ru-
tieth century emerges from the supposition that ral campgrounds and college campuses. Since 1975,
there are lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals every- the Michigan Womyns Music Festival has offered
where, united in theory because of their sexual lesbians a yearly week-long community built entirely
orientation. There is some overlap between the lives by women. Socializing, workshops, and entertain-
and experiences of lesbians and gay men; however, ment allow for networking internationally and learn-
lesbian communities have developed apart from ing skills in an environment in which lesbians are
male-dominated gay communities. the norm. Lesbian feminists make festivals, confer-
ences, and womens events more accessible by es-
Institutions tablishing sliding-scale admission costs, providing
Institutional bases for lesbian communities include child care, and recognizing the needs of women with
feminist bookstores, coffeehouses, dance clubs, disabilities. Barriers, nonetheless, remain, so that
womens centers and womens studies departments, many lesbians choose not to participate in lesbian
and activist and support groups. Bookstores owned feminist or womens culture.
and run by lesbians are resources for books, maga-
zines, music, and gifts, as well as announcements, Historical Communities
book readings, and meetings. Likewise, Published evidence of lesbian communities most
coffeehouses and dance clubs provide venues for often represents the experiences of women in in-
lesbians to socialize. Lesbian feminists have been dustrialized Western countries. The preconditions
instrumental in the establishment of womens stud- for forming lesbian identities and communities may,
ies programs and womens centers at universities in fact, correspond to certain trends of industriali-
throughout the world, attracting lesbian students zation and urbanization, taking place in the West
and faculty. Finally, lesbian communities comprise at an earlier date than elsewhere in the world. The
a variety of groups, including ones that are gener- best-known historical lesbian communities have
ally for lesbians of a particular locale, such as arisen around bars and social-movement activity,
Lesbianas a la Vista in Argentina, and those formed peopled by lesbians who seek the companionship
around more specific identities and interests, such of other lesbians. While community was not al-
as lesbian mothers, lesbian Alcoholics Anonymous, ways the word used to describe these historical
and lesbians of color in the United States. networks, the concept of finding and joining with
Lesbian communities tend to thrive in particu- my people resembles what was later described
lar geographical locations in countries throughout as creating community.
the world. Lesbians migrating from rural areas and The first recorded glimpses of lesbians visibly
small towns to larger cities are likely to find an occupying public space include a Parisian lesbian
environment less hostile to same-sex sexuality, al- restaurant and lesbians dancing in New York City
though not all urban areas sustain visible lesbian in the late 1800s. Some lesbians found a place in
communities. Cities known for their high concen- the sexual underworld, mixing with prostitutes
tration of out lesbians include ones whose histo- and homosexual men in the red-light districts of
ries have been documentedfor instance, San Fran- urban areas. However, few nineteenth-century
cisco, California, and New York City in the United models of lesbian community existed in a time
States and Toronto in Canada. But lesbian com- period when lesbian was newly articulated as
munities are emerging in a variety of locations. In an identity. Women in romantic friendships loved

COMMUNITY 191
 women and were surrounded by women and, and womens radio shows, published newsletters,
C therefore, did form a type of community. Because
these women also maintained their positions in
circulated books and music, and made appear-
ances in classrooms and on television, attempting
the heterosexual order, their bonds have not been to end isolation and to demystify lesbian experi-
described by their contemporaries or historians ences for the general public. What was histori-
as lesbian communities. cally distinct about these acts was that they were
During the twentieth century, lesbian communi- done by women who spoke as, and spoke for, les-
ties became more prevalent in industrial and urban bians, naming themselves the lesbian commu-
locales, though much of this history is yet to be writ- nity. Lesbians have continued this tradition of
ten. For instance, historians have noted the existence claiming space and sponsoring events for the ben-
of large numbers of lesbian bars and clubs in Ger- efit of lesbian communities into the final decades
many in the 1920s. In Paris, the literary and artistic of the twentieth century. Susan K.Freeman
salons, notably those of Natalie Barney (18761972),
attracted affluent French and expatriate lesbians in Bibliography
the early twentieth century. In the era of Prohibition Adam, Barry. The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian Move-
and the Harlem Renaissance in the United States, ment. Boston: Twayne, 1987. Rev. ed. New
African American lesbians convened at buffet flats, York: Twayne, 1995.
house parties taking place in the black neighborhoods DEmilio, John. Sexual Politics, Sexual Communi-
of Chicago, Illinois; Detroit, Michigan; and Harlem ties: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in
in New York City. The environment filled with liq- the United States, 19401970. Chicago: Uni-
uor, gambling, and explicit sexuality incorporated versity of Chicago Press, 1983.
homoeroticism was best captured by the lyrics of les- Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, and Madeline D.
bian and bisexual blues singers. Davis. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The
In the early twentieth century, bars and house History of a Lesbian Community. New York:
parties were the predominant locations in which Routledge, 1993.
lesbians made acquaintances with other lesbians. Phelan, Shane. Getting Specific: Postmodern Les-
In the Northern, urban United States, the number bian Politics. Minneapolis and London: Uni-
of lesbian bars increased following World War II, versity of Minnesota Press, 1994.
commonly segregated in terms of race and class Ross, Becki. The House That Jill Built: A Lesbian
and invariably consisting of butches and femmes. Nation in Formation. Toronto: University of
Buffalo, New York, for instance, sustained at least Toronto Press, 1995.
three pub lic, working-class lesbian communities Weiss, Penny A., and Marilyn Friedman, eds. Femi-
by the 1950s, each revolving around bars and par- nism and Community. Philadelphia: Temple
ties; they were divided into upwardly mobile, tough University Press, 1995.
black, and tough, primarily white communities. It
is assumed that working-class bar communities See also Bars; Blues Singers; Buffalo, New York;
emerged and flourished in large and middle-size Chicago, Illinois; Collectives; Coming Out; Com-
Western cities during the twentieth century, while munity Centers; Harlem; Harlem Renaissance; Iden-
local and national attitudes and laws produced tity; Identity Politics; Lesbian Feminism; Separatism
variation across space and time.
With the emergence of feminist and gay lib-
eration movements in the late 1960s, social-move- Community Centers
ment-oriented communities began to attract num- Community-based public places used for social,
bers of lesbians comparable to the bars. From this cultural, and political activities, sometimes provid-
period, there remains abundant written and re- ing social services and health care.
corded evidence chronicling the existence of pub-
lic lesbian communities. A central tenet of the late- History
twentieth-century lesbian and gay movement has The first self-described gay community center
been the importance of coming out, facilitat- was opened by the Society for Individual Rights in
ing middle-class lesbians ability to recognize and 1966 in San Francisco, California. Approximately
find one another. Beginning in the late 1960s, les- 10 percent of its members were lesbians. The wom-
bians advertised all-women dances, hosted lesbian ens liberation and gay liberation movements in

192 COMMUNITY
1968 and 1969 spurred the widespread creation bases eroded over arguments about maintaining
of, first, womens centers, then centers initially women-only and lesbian-only spaces and about
dscribed as gay womens and gay. These were how to deal with issues of racism, sexual practices,
open for use by nonmembers and publicized their and pornography. In this context, the economic
events. Lesbians participated as founders, admin- situation of centers, reliant on donations and al-
istrators, and users of each type. The term les- ways tenuous, worsened. The elimination of fed-
bian center was first used in 1971. In 1972, some eral funding for community groups in 1981, which
began describing themselves as lesbian feminist. had kept some centers economically viable, also
Most gay centers eventually added lesbian to took its toll. By 1985, there were only four lesbian
their names during the 1980s; in the 1990s, a few centers in the United States. Then, slowly, new les-
added bisexual or transgendered. Also in the bian centers began opening.
1990s, some centers were created by and for lesbi-
ans and gay men of color. Characteristics
Between 1971 and 1996, forty-three centers in Most lesbian centers have served as space resources,
twenty-two states identified specifically as gay depending upon users to organize activities and
womens, lesbian, or lesbian feminist. Ap- work as staff. They have been located in houses,
proximately 30 percent of these opened between offices, storefronts, industrial buildings, and
1971 and 1974, reflecting and creating increased churches. Only a few have owned their own spaces.
lesbian visibility and organizing within the wom- In addition to public social space, they have pro-
ens and gay movements. They were formed in re- vided emergency food and housing, job and legal
sponse to lesbians experiences of homophobia in referrals, classes, libraries, crisis and information
the former and sexism in the latter and lesbians telephone lines, and coming out, recovery, and
desires for places focused on their issues and needs. youth groups. Political groups, video collectives,
The Gay Womens Services Center, which speakers bureaus, archives, health clinics, publish-
opened in March 1971 in Los Angeles, California, ers, and theater companies were founded in their
was described as the first social-services center for spaces, often becoming independent entities. Their
lesbians. That spring, the Daughters of Bilitis coffeehouses offered venues for writers and musi-
Center in New York City was renamed the Les- cians. Center newsletters have provided local, na-
bian Center, reflecting a broadened constituency tional, and international forums for discussion of
and governance. The Gay Womens Resource political and personal issues and information about
Center, founded in Seattle, Washington, in March lesbian activities worldwide. One early newsletter,
1971, opened in October. It was renamed the Les- Lesbian Connection, is still mailed to more than
bian Resource Center (LRC) in 1974 and is the 18,000 households. It outlives the center that
oldest continuing lesbian center in the United States. housed it for twenty yearsthe East Lansing Les-
In 1972, Karen Browne founded the LRC in bian Center-which closed in 1994, as did ALFA
Minneapolis, Minnesota, and, in Georgia, the At- House in Atlanta. Both attributed their closings to
lanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance (ALFA) opened waning interest due to new, diverse venues for the
ALFA House. In 1973, lesbian centers were also social and political activities they had offered.
located in Denver, Colorado; Iowa City, Iowa; After 1990, several new lesbian centers opened,
Eugene, Oregon; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. including the Central Minnesota Lesbian Center in
In 1974, the Chicago Womens Center renamed St. Cloud and Shades of Lavender in Brooklyn, New
itself the Lesbian Feminist Center; other lesbian York, which began as a center for HIV-infected les-
centers formed in Baltimore, Maryland, and East bians but subsequently opened to all lesbians. Les-
Lansing, Michigan. bian-only centers exist in other countries as well,
New centers continued to open between 1975 including the Camden Lesbian Center and Black
and 1979, but by 1980 only nine of thirty centers Lesbian Group in London, England; Lesbenzentrum
formed since 1971 were still functioning, and more in Hanover, Germany; Cafe Biblio Labyris in
closed between 1980 and 1985. This was a period Montral, Qubec; and the Vancouver Lesbian
of renewed right-wing attacks on lesbians and gay Center in British Columbia. The continued exist-
men, people of color, and women; one lesbian ence of lesbian-only centers even in cities that also
center was firebombed. These attacks exacerbated have a womens center and a lesbian and gay center,
political differences among lesbians. Volunteer as well as the designation of lesbian-only space within

COMMUNITY CENTERS 193

 these, indicates that some lesbians still have a desire Miss Saigon in 1991. The coalition, forged by les-
C for a space of their own. And, although most les-
bian and gay centers have always served as venues
bian and gay Asians and Pacific Islanders to pro-
test the play because it perpetuated racist and sex-
for activities and services for bisexual and ist stereotypes, crossed lines of gender, class, race,
transgendered people, the addition of these terms and sexual orientation, grew to include more than
to the names of a few centers cannot yet be called a twenty-two groups, and finally succeeded in hav-
trend. Many new centers still use only lesbian and ing one fund-raiser canceled.
gay in their names; however, their literature is more In the first half of the twentieth century, lesbian
likely to refer explicitly to bisexual and community organizing focused on creating a
transgendered people as well. Maxine Wolfs counterculture and building safe gathering places. For
example, the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and
Bibliography 1930s provided a safe haven not only for writers and
Gay and Lesbian Historical Society, P.O. Box 1258, artists, but also for lesbian patrons seeking a place to
San Francisco, California 94142. Organizations, be themselves. Lesbian and gay communities were
subject and newsletter files; newspapers. formed in private parties, social clubs, racially inte-
June L.Mazer Lesbian Collection, 626 grated softball leagues, and in the emerging lesbian
N.Robertson Blvd., West Hollywood, Califor- bars. By the early 1940s, the lesbian bar culture had
nia 90069. Organizations, subject, and news- become a central component in lesbian identity and
letter files; newspapers. community, with strict codes of confidentiality,
Lesbian Herstory Archives, P.O. Box 1258, New behavior, and dress, and making clear contributions
York, New York 10116. Organizations, sub- to the liberation movement that followed.
ject, centers, and newsletter files; newspapers; By the 1950s, lesbian community organizing
unpublished papers. expanded to include a more overtly political
agenda. Paradoxically, the emergence of a
See also Community homophile movement that lay the foundation for
the liberationist perspective of the late 1960s and
into the 1970s coexisted with internalized homo-
Community Organizing phobia, apologetic pleas for acceptance, and efforts
The mobilization of everyday individuals at the to prove to heterosexuals that lesbians were just
grass-roots level to build a power base and engage in like them. Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) urged its
collective action toward a common goal. Local com- members to dress neatly and appropriately for
munity actions often serve as a springboard for other meetings and published articles about how to or-
forms of national and international activism. Com- ganize without alienating heterosexuals. Fear of
munity organizing is diverse in scope, tactics, and charges of child molestation led the DOB to forbid
composition, may be proactive or reactive, and may minors from joining. At the same time, DOBs pub-
seek inclusion in existing institutions or the building lication The Ladder proved an invaluable tool in
of alternative ones. Key principles of community or- extending the lesbian community to those who
ganizing include personal empowerment, conscious- dared not attend a meeting in person, and it often
ness raising, participation of community members at took on discussions of controversial issues.
all levels of planning, attention to both task comple- In the 1960s, there was a shift to a more radical
tion and process, and leadership development. and self-embracing ideology of gay liberation. Les-
Historically, lesbian community organizing has bian and gay newspapers proliferated, and, in April
focused on issues of place and counterculture, as 1966, the first Gay Community Center in the
well as on broader and more visibly political is- United States opened in San Francisco, California.
sues. Two central debates concern inseparable ques- Lesbian organizers discussed the need to contest
tions: whether or not lesbians actually constitute a police practices and halt raids. Many lesbians were
community, and what role identity politics plays politicized by the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion and
in organizing struggles. When identity politics gives by the emerging philosophy of lesbian feminism,
birth to strong coalitions, lesbian community or- shifting their focus to fighting for political and eco-
ganizing is at its best. An excellent example can be nomic power, inclusion in womens organizations
seen in the coalition approach to two protests as visible lesbians, and challenging sexism in gay
against benefit performances of the Broadway play male organizations.

194 COMMUNITY CENTERS

 Lesbian community organizing flourished in the ized a national conference in Atlanta, Georgia, in
1970s with the building of lesbian separatist com- 1991 and in 1992, formed a radical, confronta-
munities and spaces, the growth of the womens music tional, activist group, the Lesbian Avengers Inter-
(and festival) industry, lesbian leadership in the wom- national. Definitions of community were
ens health movement, the growth of lesbian femi- stretched further than ever before with the use of
nism, and the establishment of archives to preserve the World Wide Web as an organizing tool. Three
lesbian history and culture. Lesbians fought to gain central areas of lesbian organizing were gaining
civil rights protections, losing the battle to keep Dade family rights, fighting antigay initiatives, and in-
County, Florida, from repealing its gay rights ordi- cluding sexual orientation in the multicultural cur-
nance in 1977, for example, but winning the defeat riculum in the schools. A common element in these
of the Briggs Initiative in California in 1978, which three struggles was the growing success of the New
would have banned gay teachers. Lesbians, active Right in framing public debates in the rhetoric of
behind the scenes in the National Organization for family values and special rights.
Women (NOW), were referred to as the lavender In the arena of family rights, central goals in-
menace by founder and then president Betty Friedan cluded domestic-partnership benefits, same-sex
(1921). A group of lesbians split from the Gay Lib- marriage, adoption, and custody. The most far-reach-
eration Front (GLF), took the name Radicalesbians, ing antigay initiatives of the decade were both in
and began organizing on their own. In a dramatic 1992: Colorados Amendment 2 (invalidating any
stage takeover at the 1970 second Congress to Unite civil rights protection based on sexual orientation
Women, they forced NOW to address its homopho- and forbidding the passage of any new protection)
bia, and the organization changed its official posi- and Oregons Proposition 9 (much broader in scope
tion the following year. Lesbian separatists began or- than Amendment 2). The former was passed, kept
ganizing on their own as well. While some people from going into effect by injunction, and later de-
simplistically dismiss lesbian separatists as Utopian clared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme
and extremist, their organizing and community build- Court. The latter failed to pass. However, in 1993,
ing lay the foundation for many of the gains now antigay ballot measures were passed in three other
enjoyed by all women. U.S. cities. Finally, on the issue of curriculum in
In the 1980s, the growth of the New Right in schools, efforts ranged from introducing rainbow
voice, membership, and power mobilized lesbian curricula to fighting off initiatives that keep
and gay activists around issues of discrimination counselors from providing queer-positive referrals
in housing, employment, tax equity, public serv- for queer or questioning youth.
ices and accommodations, immigration, military Lesbian community organizing has made re-
discrimination, hate crimes, and the repeal of sod- markable strides and created a number of institu-
omy laws. Lesbians of color began organizing sepa- tions and national groups from which future or-
ratelyboth as a group and as specific identity ganizers can gain resources, strategies, and histori-
groups within that larger rubric. Jewish lesbians cal perspective even as they maintain local au-
gained visibility, as did lesbian mothers. But the tonomy. Some of the biggest challenges that lie
most visible form of community organizing in the ahead are improved coalition building and inclu-
1980s was around the issue of Acquired Immune sive organizing, framing lesbian issues rather than
Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), initially known as allowing the religious right to frame them, and link-
Gay Related Immune Disorder (GRID). ing local struggles with national and global ones.
Despite disagreement in the lesbian community Gina Kozik-Rosabal
about their role in the AIDS crisis, many lesbians
responded by creating gay mens (and later lesbi- Bibliography
ans) health organizations and centers, fundraising, Abbott, Sidney, and Barbara Love. Sappho Was a
donating blood, and providing direct care to men Right-On Woman: A Liberated View of Lesbi-
who were living with AIDS. Lesbians also worked anism. New York: Day, 1978.
to increase visibility, improve educational oppor- Blasius, Mark, and Shane Phelan, eds. We Are Eve-
tunities for lesbian and gay youth, and gain rywhere: A Historical Sourcebook of Gay and
statewide civil rights protection. Lesbian Politics. New York: Routledge, 1997.
In the 1990s, AIDS activism and efforts to gain Shugar, Dana. Separatism and Womens Commu-
statewide civil rights continued. Lesbians organ- nity. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.

COMMUNITY ORGANIZING 195

 Vaid, Urvashi. Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming 1910s. First radicals, then others, claimed womens
C of Gay and Lesbian Liberation. New York:
Anchor, 1995.
right to birth control and sexual pleasure.
In his book The Companionate Marriage
Yoshikawa, Yoko. The Heat Is On Miss Saigon (1927), Denver Judge Ben B.Lindsey applied the
Coalition: Organizing Across Race and Sexual- term to the early period of a marriage, during which
ity. In The State of Asian America: Activism he proposed that a couple educated about sex
and Resistance in the 1990s. Ed. Karen Aguilar- should employ birth control and test the solidity
San Juan. Boston: South End, 1994. of their relationship before having children. Should
the partners prove incompatible, Lindsey argued,
See also Activism; Coalition Politics; Daughters of divorce by mutual consent should be possible. So-
Bilitis; Harlem Renaissance; Identity Politics; Les- cial conservatives accused Lindsey of advocating
bian Avengers; National Organization for Women free lovethat is, of opposing traditional mar-
(NOW); Radicalesbians riagebut he saw himself as saving marriage by
altering its rigidities, allowing people to marry
younger, and ending unhealthy sexual repression.
Companionate Marriage Following Lindsey, in the 1920s and 1930s a
A term used by historians and sociologists for group of reformers and social-scientific and medi-
marriage that emphasizes companionship of cal professionals began defensively to promote com-
spouses, especially sexual companionship, over the panionate marriage as the cultural ideal in opposi-
functions of economic partnership, childbearing, tion to threats perceived to be coming from Victo-
or passing on of family property, and whose pro- rian prudery and bohemian or radical free love.
motion as an ideal in the early-twentieth-century Prudery and free love contained the danger of fe-
United States involved intensification of male independence from, and resistance to, the in-
heterosocial and heterosexual prescriptions and the tense heterosexuality and/or continued male domi-
stigmatization of homosocial and lesbian relations. nance of companionate marriage. By the late 1920s,
Historian Lawrence Stone (1979) uses the term as public discussion made lesbianism a more ac-
companionate for marriages among English prop- knowledged concept, companionate-marriage re-
ertied families from the seventeenth century on in formers began to identify it as the real cause of
which love, as opposed to economic gain for the part- female resistance to marriage or marital mal-ad-
ners families, formed a central value. He argues that justment. Same-sex institutions and womens
such marriages represented a decline in parents and friendships were attacked as detrimental to the for-
husbands patriarchal authority over women. mation of normal heterosexual attachments. The
The more common use of companionate mar- renewed valuation of sexual activity in the new
riage refers to an emerging model of American companionate marriage helped make lesbianism a
marriage among the dominant White Anglo-Saxon sexualized symbol for female autonomy or assert-
Protestant groups in the late nineteenth and early iveness in any formfeminism, careers, not mar-
twentieth centuries. This version also carries the rying, or resistance to male sexual dominance.
connotation of increased power for women but Sexual-advice literature, the marriage-education
emphasizes the sexual component of marital com- movement, and popular medical writings in the
panionship. 1930s propagated the companionate model and
As a practice and a code, companionate marriage demonized lesbianism. By the 1940s, companion-
stemmed from the emergence of the New Woman ate marriage had become the dominant national
and from a cultural and economic shift from frugal- discourse about marriage in the United States.
ity and production to pleasure and consumption. Christina Simmons
Womens wage earning, education, and activism in
reform and suffrage movements boosted their sense Bibliography
of social power and entitlement in marriage and Bailey, Beth L. From Front Porch to Back Seat:
eroded the Victorian sense of sacrifice on behalf of Courtship in Twentieth-Century America. Bal-
men and children as the essence of marriage for timore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.
women. In the context of a growing consumer Ditzion, Sidney. Marriage, Morals, and Sex in
economy, a sexual revolution, in which sexual America: A History of Ideas. New York:
knowledge and pleasure gained value, began in the Bookman, 1953.

196 COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

May, Elaine Tyler. Great Expectations: Marriage tant music patron to whom Maddison dedicated her
and Divorce in Post-Victorian America. Chi- Deux Melodies in 1893. After Frederick Maddisons
cago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. death in 1909, Adela Maddison maintained a life-
Rothman, Ellen K. Hands and Hearts: A History long friendship with Marta Gertrud Mundt of Ber-
of Courtship in America. New York: Basic lin, who worked as secretary to the Princess de
Books, 1984. Polignac (18651943) and was the beneficiary and
Simmons, Christina. Companionate Marriage and coexecutor of Maddisons will; Maddison and
the Lesbian Threat. Frontiers: A Journal of Mundt may very well have been lovers. Dame Ethel
Women Studies 4:3 (1979), 5459. Smyth (18581944) is perhaps the most famous pre-
Stone, Lawrence. The Family, Sex, and Marriage Stonewall lesbian composer. She wrote six operas,
in England, 15001800. Abr. and rev. ed. To- all of which were performed in her lifetime, and nine
ronto: Penguin, 1979. volumes of autobiography. A committed feminist
and activist in the British suffrage movement, Smyth
See also New Woman fought with great vigor and panache against sexist
prejudice in the music world.

Composers Post-Stonewall Composers

Lesbians who have composed classical music, or In the post-Stonewall era, several lesbian compos-
music in the Western art tradition, have risked eras- ers have managed to stand up and be counted, al-
ure from official histories of music. The world though some are reluctant to be so identified. The
of composition classes, commissions, perform- following composers hold wide-ranging views on
ances, recordings, and reviews is fiercely male domi- the intersections of feminism, lesbianism, identity,
nated and daunting for women composers, but and creative work. While some do not perceive a
especially so for lesbians. direct connection between sexuality and music,
others cultivate a compositional aesthetic based on
Pre-Stonewall Composers their worldview as lesbians.
For research on women composers of the nineteenth Pauline Oliveros (1932) earned international
century and the twentieth century prior to the Stone- recognition for her pioneering work with improvi-
wall Rebellion (1969) who may have been lesbians, sation, electronic music (digital delay and the ex-
several important biographical factors require con- panded accordion), audience participation, and
sideration. The absence of marriage, a troubled music theater. From 1967 to 1981, she was profes-
marriage, or devoted friendships with women while sor of music at the University of California, San
married may all indicate lesbian inclinations, as Diego. She resigned in 1981 to pursue independent
might virulent homophobia or friendships with gay work as a composer, and in 1985 she founded the
men. The turn of the twentieth century in Europe Pauline Oliveros Foundation, based in Kingston,
and North America is an especially significant pe- New York. Oliveros is a committed feminist and
riod for the investigation of lesbian composers (al- came out publicly in 1971 upon publishing her Sonic
though use of the term lesbian at that time would Meditations in Source, an avant-garde music jour-
have been unlikely), as women from diverse back- nal. The Sonic Meditations are a collection of twenty-
grounds challenged social prejudice and pursued five short recipes for guided improvisation in in-
successful careers as composers. Sophie Fuller (1994) dividual or group settings that Oliveros created in
states that women composers such as Rosalind 19701972 as a women-only project with The
Ellicott (18571924), Margaret Ruthven Lang [Womens] Ensemble. These pieces require no for-
(18671972), Oliveria Prescott (18421919), and mal training in music and involve making sounds,
Emma Steiner (18521929) never married, which actively imagining sounds, listening to present
suggests the possibility of lesbianism. Furthermore, sounds, and remembering sounds. Oliveros enjoys
in her work on Adela Maddison (18661929), Fuller collaborative projects in a theatrical setting and has
(1996) notes that, although this composer married often worked with other lesbian and bisexual art-
Frederick Brunning Maddison at age sixteen, she ists, such as Linda Montano (performance art),
formed a close friendship with Mabel Veronica Bat- Deborah Hay and Paula Josa-Jones (dance), and lone
ten (1857?1916), the first lover of Radclyffe Hall (theater). She has recorded a number of accordion
(18801943) and a sometime composer and impor- works on compact discs, including The Roots of

COMPOSERS 197
 the Moment (1988), Deep Listening (1989), Crone tion, The Voice in Rama (1996), is created as mem-
C Music (1989), Troglodytes Delight (1990), and The
Ready Made Boomerang (1991).
bers of the audience pass by motion detectors and
thus reflect their movement through sonic space.
Sorrel Hays (1941) won recognition in the early Sheila Waller (1951), a largely self-taught com-
1970s for her interpretations of Henry Cowells poser living in Colorado, initially enjoyed success
(18971965) piano works and then focused on com- in the 1960s and 1970s as a professional folk mu-
posing her own music while producing a series of sician with nearly three hundred original songs to
concerts and lectures on women composers for the her credit. After formal lessons in classical theory
New School for Social Research in New York City. and composition, she went on to write chamber
Her most ambitious work is her opera, Mapping pieces and large-scale works for traditional Celtic
Venus, commissioned by West German Radio Co- instruments, orchestra, and voices. Themes of fan-
logne in 1995. Inspired by the NASA (National tasy and enchantment run throughout her compo-
Aeronautics and Space Administration) Magellan sitions, such as her two-act opera, The Faerys
Project to map Venus with womens names and by Daughter (1992), which is based on an Irish fairy
her own feminist ideas about linguistic possession tale. Waller believes that lesbian composers, her-
of the world, Hayss libretto draws from texts by self included, are uniquely positioned to pursue
Hildegard von Bingen (10981179), Gertrude Stein their creativity with purpose and determination.
(18741946), Simone de Beauvoir (19081986), Naomi Stephan (1938) is a vocalist, composer,
Bella Akhmadulina (1937), Sojourner Truth (1797 choral conductor, and director of the Asheville
1883), Rosala de Castro (18371885), and others Womens Ensemble in North Carolina. The recipi-
and includes twelve languages. The work is scored ent of many awards and grants, she composes cho-
for womens and girls choruses, eight female solo- ral music almost exclusively. Her musical style is
ists, tape, strings, brass, synthesizer, and percussion lyrical, neomedieval, and neoromantic. As a les-
ensemble. Dream in Her Mind forms the basis of bian composer, she prefers to set texts by lesbian
the one-act stage version, Mapping Venus, still await- and women poets and compose for female voices.
ing production as of 1998. Hays works closely with For example, Na Maria for soprano soloist or
her partner, Marilyn Ries, one of the first women soprano choir, viola, bell, and percussion uses a
audio engineers in the recording industry. text by the thirteenth-century trobairitz (female
Jane Frasier (1951), based in Colorado, taught troubadours) Bieris de Romans, and Hodie and
music in its public school system. She runs her own Ideo for womens chorus both use poems by
music copying company, the MusicPrinter, and was Hildegard von Bingen.
chosen as an Associate of the Rocky Mountain The music of Kay Gardner (1941) has crossed
Womens Institute for 19841985. Frasier writes over between classical and womens music. In the
primarily for acoustic instruments and voices, and classical realm, she has worked as a professional
her Joy, Peace, and Singing (1981) and Seabird flautist, composer, conductor, and cofounder of the
(1993) for womens chorus were premiered by the New England Womens Symphony. Her musical
Anna Crusis Womens Choir (Philadelphia, Penn- style is highly melodic and relies on modal scales
sylvania) and the Atlanta Feminist Womens Cho- for its shifts in color. In the 1970s, she researched
rus, respectively. the notion of a womans form in music and theo-
Linda Dusman (1956), a professor of music at rized that cyclical and circular forms (rounds, pal-
Clark University (Worcester, Massachusetts), has indromes), climax at the center (rather than near
won numerous prizes and grants for her work with the end), use of treble instruments, and natural
electroacoustic media, computer music, and sonic imagery all constitute a feminine aesthetic employed
installation and has published her theoretical work by women musicians in Western culture. Among
in Interface (1988) and Perspectives of New Mu- her numerous recordings of original compositions
sic (1994). In addition to setting texts by Adrienne are A Rainbow Path (1984), Mooncircles (1990),
Rich (1929), Sappho (ca. 600 B.C.E.), and and Ouroboros: Seasons of LifeWomens Pas-
Gertrude Stein, Dusman connects her lesbianism sages (1994); the latter recording is New Age heal-
and her work as a composer by creating forms that ing and meditation music. Gardner is also the au-
embody marginality and seek a reality that frees thor of Sounding the Inner Landscape: Music as
the listener from stereotypical patterns of audition. Medicine (1990) with accompanying tape. In 1971,
The music in her highly unusual sonic installa- she came out as a lesbian and became active in the

198 COMPOSERS
newly emerging genre of womens music. She tutoring, she attended Addiscombe Day School in
played in Alix Dobkins band, Lavender Jane, and Hove and then read classics at Royal Holloway
formed Wise Women Enterprises record company College (19021907). Family difficulties marked
with Marilyn Ries. Gardner is a regular contribu- much of her early life, beginning with her fathers
tor to Hot Wire: The Journal of Womens Music death in 1901; her mothers fatal illness in 1911
and Culture. precipitated Compton-Burnetts becoming the harsh
Laura Karpman (1959) is one of the few les- head of household; in 1917, two sisters committed
bian composers who works exclusively in film and suicide. The deaths of her beloved brothersGuy
television. Based in Los Angeles, California, she in 1905 and younger Noel at the Somme in 1915
has composed scores for the NBC miniseries A quite smashed my life up, she lamented.
Woman of Independent Means, the TBS documen- Biographer Spurling (1984) credits Margaret
tary A Century of Women, the Showtime docu- Jourdain (18761951) with restoring Compton-
mentary Sex, Censorship, and the Silver Screen, and Burnetts emotional balance; they met in 1916. De-
the Fox gay-themed Doing Time on Maple Drive. scribed as a New Woman, Jourdain, a writer and an
[The author is extremely indebted to Sophie expert on English furniture and interiors (as Francis
Fuller for sharing her work. Thanks also to Linda Lenygon), decorated the series of apartments they
Dusman, Jane Frasier, Sorrel Hays, Naomi Stephan, shared for more than three decades, while affection-
and Sheila Waller for generously sending their bio- ately pampering and protecting Ivy, often explain-
graphical and musical materials.] Martha Mockus ing, Shes like a child, or noting, Ivy lives in the
past, and nothing after 1914 has any reality for her.
Bibliography Indeed, the 18901910 milieu dominates
Fuller, Sophie. I Have Too Much Music & Re- Compton-Burnetts fiction. Her immature Dolores
ally Have Nothing Else: Reconstructing the (1911) describes village relations and school settings
Worlds of Adela Maddison (18661929). Pa- resembling Royal Holloway; fourteen years later,
per presented at the British Musicology Con- Compton-Burnett published what she considered her
ference, Kings College London, April 1996. first novel, Pastors and Masters (1925), developed
. The Pandora Guide to Women Composers: through her technique of scant description and co-
Britain and the United States, 1629Present. pious dialogue. Brothers and Sisters (1929), a mi-
London: Pandora, 1994. nor sensation with its theme of incest and resulting
Kimball, Gayle. Female Composition: Interview comic complexities, contains disguised family por-
with Kay Gardner. In Womens Culture: The traits and signature Compton-Burnett characteris-
Womens Renaissance of the 70s. Ed. Gayle tics: the Victorian drawing room, the distanced fa-
Kimball. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1981, pp. ther, a female tyrant amidst family upheaval and
163176. crime. More Men Than Women (1933) and A House
Morton, Brian, and Pamela Collins, eds. Contem- and Its Head (1935) complete this family group.
porary Composers. Chicago and London: St. Later novels acutely portray desperate children and
James, 1992. usually juxtapose groups. For instance, in Manserv-
Oliveros, Pauline. Software for People: Collected ant and Maidservant (1947) (United States, Bullivant
Writings 196380. Baltimore: Smith, 1984. and the Lambs [1948]), the domineering Horace
Sadie, Julie Anne, and Rhian Samuel, eds. The Lamb, his wife, and children balance the downstairs
Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Compos- servants headed by the butler Bullivant. Two Worlds
ers. London: Macmillan, 1995. and Their Ways (1949), a favorite of Compton-
Burnetts, pairs the manor house against the
See also Choruses; Womens Music, Classical; schoolroom.
Music, Womens; Smyth, Dame Ethel Mary In 1951, Jourdains death overshadowed the
honor of the Order of the British Empire. Pro-
foundly lonely and dependent on her maid, Mary,
Compton-Burnett, Ivy (18841969) in the years following, Compton-Burnett published
British novelist. Described as novelists novels, eight additional novels, tended her balcony gar-
Compton-Burnetts works record the oppressive, den, and, never losing her taste for sweets, entertained
isolated Victorian household in which she was raised, at tea, a custom since Holloway days, until her death
the eldest of her fathers second family. After home following a bout of bronchitis. Paradoxically,

C O M P T O N - B U R N E T T, I V Y 199
 Compton-Burnett maintained a lifelong Victorian assumed that Rich was claiming that no hetero-
C persona, yet critics hail her novels as modern and
subversive. Judith C.Kohl
sexual relationship can ever be authentic. She ad-
dresses this issue at the end of her essay by ex-
plaining that it is not her intention to judge indi-
Bibliography viduals on their personal lives, but rather to exam-
Baldanza, Frank. Ivy Compton-Burnett. New York: ine heterosexuality on a structural level, as an in-
Twayne, 1964. stitution that reinforces male supremacy. If femi-
Greig, Cicely. Ivy Compton-Burnett: A Memoir. nists assume that heterosexuality is simply a natu-
London: Garnstone, 1972. ral orientation that some women share, they will
Liddell, Robert. The Novels of Ivy Compton- miss the opportunity to analyze one of the central
Burnett. London: Gollancz, 1955. ways that womens freedom is limited, through the
Spurling, Hilary. The Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett. imperative that they form relationships with men.
New York: Knopf, 1984. In this essay, Rich was the first to articulate the
coercive aspects of heterosexism. Before this, radi-
See also English Literature, Twentieth Century cal feminists explained that the reason women stayed
in unequal relationships with men was because of
the (primarily economic) privilege they received.
Compulsory Heterosexuality That explanation probably grants too much agency
The enforcement of male-female relationships as a to women, overestimating the degree of conscious
social norm. In the influential essay Compulsory thought put into heterosexuality. By highlighting the
Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence (1980), intensity of the cultural conditioning, the erasure of
Adrienne Rich (1929) suggests that heterosexu- lesbian history, and the psychological and economic
ality is not simply the result of a natural attraction penalties lesbian women face, Rich challenged femi-
between men and women but is, in fact, an institu- nists to reconceptualize the degree to which hetero-
tion that is forced upon people, through various sexuality is simply a natural sexual orientation
forms of psychological, physical, legal, economic, or a calculated, free choice.
and cultural coercion. Becca Cragin
In societies in which same-sex relationships are
taboo, there are many penalties that gay and bisexual Bibliography
people face. Similarly, there are many pressures put Keohane, Nannerl, Michelle Rosaldo, and Barbara
on all people to form heterosexual relationships. Gelpi, eds. Feminist Theory: A Critique of Ideol-
Compulsory heterosexuality can be seen in laws ogy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
forbidding same-sex sexual contact, in films and Rich, Adrienne. Compulsory Heterosexuality and
television programs that fail to represent gay and Lesbian Existence. Signs: Journal of Women
bisexual people or that represent them negatively, in Culture and Society 5:4 (1980), 631660.
in antigay violence, even in the way children are of- Thompson, Martha. Comments on Richs Com-
ten taught to imagine their futures as containing pulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Exist-
heterosexual partnerships. That some people face ence. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and
severe sanctions for not being heterosexual suggests Society 6:4 (1981), 790794.
that heterosexuality is enforced as a norm for all,
which raises questions about the naturalness of any See also Heterosexuality; Rich, Adrienne
individuals sexual orientation. Feelings of attrac-
tion and affection toward men that are not simply
the result of fear or coercion do exist in many Computer Networks and Services
women. It becomes almost impossible to know, Lesbians on the Internet. As long as computer net-
however, what part of these feelings is genuine and works have been in operation, lesbians have been
self-generated and what part is a response to the using them to connect with one another. Starting
social conditioning into heterosexuality. with the Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) of the 1980s
This aspect of Richs argument has been con- and continuing through the phenomenal popular-
troversial. Because she was writing as a lesbian femi- ity of e-mail and the Web in the 1990s, lesbians
nist about the ramifications of compulsory hetero- have used the Internet to share their stories, build
sexuality for women and for feminism, many have community, find partners and friends, agitate for

200 C O M P T O N - B U R N E T T, I V Y
political reform, and discover what it means to be been run by Colleen Hawk since 1994, as well as
lesbian. those that address a specific area of interest, such
as the moms list, which Dorsie Hathaway founded
Newsgroups in 1992 as a resource and discussion network for
One of the oldest forms of group communication on lesbian mothers.
the Internet is the newsgroup, which functions much The real boom in lesbian lists happened in 1994,
like an interactive bulletin board on which users can when nearly a dozen new lists appeared on the scene,
post messages for other users to see and respond to. focusing on a variety of topics and issues, many evi-
The first newsgroup to attract lesbian participation dent in the lists name: ba-cyberdykes, kinky-girls,
was net.motss, later known as soc.motss, which was boychicks, dykenet-1, lesbian-studies, lesac-net, and
founded by Steve Dyer in 1983. The groups name cleis, named after Sapphos daughter. Many of these
was chosen to be deliberately obscure, to protect it lists were founded by Amy Goodloe or Dorsie
from the attention of those whose intentions toward Hathaway in response to the growing need for online
gays and lesbians would be less than friendly, but the spaces that matched the diversity of the lesbians using
use of the acronym MOTSS (members of the same them, and both women have continued to create
and maintain a variety of lesbian networks. Eva
sex) continues through the 1990s, even when new
Isaksson of Finland has also been instrumental in
groups have emerged with the words gay and les-
creating lesbian networks for women outside the
bian spelled out in the name. Among the most popu-
United States, including the sapfo-list for Finnish
lar and active lesbian newsgroups are (the semico-
lesbians, founded in 1993, and euro-sappho,
lons at the end are not part of the address)
founded in 1994.
alt.shoe.lesbians; alt.lesbian.feminist.poetry; and
soc.women.lesbian-and-bi. Most of the commercial
Chat Rooms
online services, such as America Online (AOL), also
The history of lesbian chat is perhaps the most diffi-
have message-board areas for lesbians that function
cult to trace, as the medium itself consists of fleeting
much like newsgroups.
conversations, very few of which are archived or made
publicly accessible. The word chat is used to de-
E-mail Discussion Lists scribe a real-time text-based conversation between
The most popular form of online networking is the two or more users, which typically takes place in tem-
e-mail discussion list, which operates in a manner porary rooms or channels set up on commer-
similar to newsgroups; the main difference is that cial online services, such as AOL, or on a wider
messages are sent via e-mail rather than posted to a Internet network known as IRC (Internet Relay Chat).
publicly accessible space, thus providing a greater Most of these channels are active only when there
degree of privacy and making it possible for even those are participants involved, but some have developed a
with the barest of Internet connections to participate. persistent identity beyond planned periods of use,
Discussion lists are typically members only spaces, becoming permanent channels with their own set of
with specific sets of criteria for joining, ranging from customs, personalities, and rules of conduct.
simply being female to more detailed requirements One of the first lesbian chat spaces to evolve on
like being a scholar of lesbian studies or a practi- AOL was an invitation-only room called clitchat,
tioner of women-on-women S/M sex. which was active in the early 1990s. In 1992, the
One of the first lesbian discussion lists was Gay and Lesbian Community Forum on AOL es-
Sappho, which was founded by Jean Marie Diaz tablished a persistent chat space for women called
(also known online as AMBAR) in 1987 and con- Womenspace. By 1993, lesbians were also active
tinued in operation through the 1990s. From its and visible on IRC and had established a persist-
inception, Sappho has been a place for all women ent channel called #sappho, which existed in con-
to gather online and discuss issues of interest to junction with the list by that name; by the late
lesbians and bisexual women, such as coming out 1990s, dozens of lesbian-themed chat rooms were
to family members, safer sex between women, regularly available to IRC users.
online dating, and lesbian life in general.
Sappho has also spawned a number of smaller Web Sites
lists, including those focused on geographic regions, While tools like newsgroups, mailing lists, and chat
such as the San Francisco-based ba-sappho, which rooms facilitate the immediate exchange of news,
was founded in 1991 by Ann Mei Chang and has ideas, and resources, only the Web offers the ability

C O M P U T E R N E T W O R K S A N D S E RV I C E S 201
 to publish information in a relatively permanent Studies. Ed. Bonnie Zimmerman and Toni A.H.
C form, so that users can access it easily and on de-
mand.
McNaron. New York: Feminist Press, 1996, pp.
203207.
The Web has long been used by academics and Correll, Shelley. Ethnography of an Electronic Bar:
computer professionals to exchange information, The Lesbian Cafe. Journal of Contemporary
but it didnt really capture the imagination of the Ethnography 24:3 (October 1995), 270298.
general public until 1994, when graphical applica- Hall, Kira. Cyberfeminism. In Computer-Mediated
tions for viewing the Web became popular. In early Communication: Linguistic, Social, and Cross-
1995, only a handful of Web sites contained infor- Cultural Perspectives. Ed. Susan Herring. Amster-
mation of interest to lesbians, but, by the summer dam: John Benjamins, 1996, pp. 147170.
of that year, more than a hundred new lesbian Web Haskel, Lisa. Cyberdykes: Tales from the
sites had emerged, including a metasite of links and Internet. In Assaults on Convention: Essays
information called lesbian.org, which has grown on Lesbian Transgressors. Ed. Nicola Godwin,
to become the most comprehensive source for les- Belinda Hollows, and Sheridan Nye. London:
bian information on the Internet. Cassell, 1996, pp. 5061.
While many of the new lesbian Web sites were
Wakeford, Nina. Sexualised Bodies in
simply small collections of links or personal bios,
Cyberspace. In Beyond the Book: Theory,
a few stand out as making original contributions
Text, and the Politics of Cyberspace. Ed. War-
to lesbian life and visibility online, such as Alix
ren Chernaik, Marilyn Deegan, and Andrew
Norths The Isle of Lesbos, Indina Beuches A
Gibson. London: University of London Press,
Dykes World, and lesbian.orgs Sapphic Ink,
1995, pp. 93104.
a lesbian literary journal on the Web.

See also Technology

Problems and Issues
Maintaining lesbian spaces on the Internet is no easy
task, given the faceless, nameless aspect of online
identity. Anyone who claims to be both female and Consciousness Raising
dyke-identified can get into almost any lesbian online Feminist practice of collecting and analyzing per-
space, although the gatekeepers for many of these sonal experiences and narratives to uncover their
spaces are beginning to devise more complicated political meanings. Historians of second wave
means of entry, such as asking the potential new- feminism point to a variety of sources from which
comer a series of questions supposedly designed to radical feminists developed the practice of conscious-
verify both her gender and her sexual identity. ness raising (CR), including the U.S. civil rights
While the results are questionablehonest women movement, the Chinese revolution, peasant rebel-
just coming to terms with their lesbian identities can lions in Guatemala, the New Left, and womens own
be left out, while men who have glanced through a conversational style. The practice itself consisted of
couple of lesbian magazines can pass the testthe meeting in small groups in which women shared
evidence of such tests points to both the ongoing and analyzed stories about their lives, searching out
importance of lesbian-only spaces and the difficulty the commonalities and connections that enabled
of constructing a lesbian identity in cyberspace, them to see their experiences as political rather than
where the textual production and performance of merely personalthat is, womens individual expe-
identities takes on a whole new dimension. riences were identified as socially conditioned, as
For additional information on the resources taking shape in relations of power, and as poten-
mentioned here, see http://www.lesbian.org. [The tially subject to political intervention.
author wishes to thank Dorsie Hathaway, Eva One of the most powerful issues for members
Isaksson, Dana Bergen, Lisa Marshall Bashert, of CR groups was sexuality. As Shulman (1980)
Colleen Hawk, Ann Mei Chang, and countless oth- has argued, women used their sexual discontents
ers for communicating the tales of early lesbian life to understand how the power relations between
on the Net.] Amy T.Goodloe women and men operated, how sexuality itself was
constructed and practiced to womens disadvan-
Bibliography tage, and how alternatives might be envisioned. CR
Broidy, Ellen. Cyberdykes, or Lesbian Studies in often had particular importance for lesbian women.
the Information Age. In The New Lesbian Critiques of sexual practices and ideas begun in

202 C O M P U T E R N E T W O R K S A N D S E RV I C E S
CR could open out to larger critiques of hetero- Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Soci-
sexuality as an institution, while the valuing of truth ety 7:3 (1982), 515544.
and trust in the groups could make them relatively Shulman, Alix Kates. Sex and Power: Sexual Bases
safe places for lesbians to come out. of Radical Feminism, Signs: Journal of Women
CR had dual intentions from the start: It was a in Culture and Society 5:4 (1980), 590604.
practice designed both to assemble knowledge
about womens lives as a basis for feminist theory See also Feminism; Womens Liberation Movement
and to redress the isolation, alienation, and self-
doubt that women experienced because of the
mixed messages about them from patriarchal cul- Cornwell, Anita (1923)
ture. As CR filtered out of the small groups of radi- U.S. Black lesbian feminist writer. Anita Cornwell
cal feminism, such as Redstockings and New York was born in Greenwood, South Carolina, on Sep-
Radical Women, into more mainstream organiza- tember 23, 1923. In August 1939, she accompa-
tions like the National Organization for Women nied her grandmother to the New York Worlds Fair,
(NOW), it tended to emphasize the latter inten- after which they went to Yeadon, Pennsylvania, a
tion, most obviously when therapists were enlisted suburb of Philadelphia, to visit her mothers older
to facilitate CR groups. sister, who urged her to stay. Cornwells mother soon
By the early 1980s, CR was widely understood joined her, and, two years later, she and her mother
to be the central method of feminist analysis, as moved permanently to Philadelphia.
theorists such as MacKinnon (1981) argued that After graduating from Temple University in
CR provides feminism with its politics, its episte- 1948 with a B.S. in journalism and the social sci-
mology, and its mode of social transformation. At ences, Cornwell worked for local weekly newspa-
the same time, however, the formal group practice pers and did clerical work for city, state, and fed-
of CR itself was on the decline, so that the term eral government agencies for several years. In 1958,
increasingly figured as a metaphor for all of the after participating in a summer Ford Foundation
various ways that women might learn about wom- training program, she tried teaching in a minority
ens oppression or about feminism. Formal CR was school but resigned after two weeks, frustrated with
also reconfigured in the early 1980s as an antiracist the behavior of her adolescent students.
teaching tool and has been similarly used to teach
against homophobia. CR techniques were used in
unlearning-racism workshops in the 1980s, to as-
semble and interrogate stories and experiences
about racial difference, racial oppression, and the
sources of racist beliefs. These latter developments
demonstrate CRs flexibility: Whereas in the late
1960s CR emphasized womens commonality, in
the 1980s it emphasized womens diversity.
Lisa Maria Hogeland

Bibliography
Cross, Tia, Freada Klein, Barbara Smith, and Beverly
Smith. Face-to-Face, Day-to-Day-Racism CR.
In All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are
Men, but Some of Us Are Brave: Black Wom-
ens Studies. Ed. Gloria T.Hull, Patricia Bell Scott,
and Barbara Smith. Old Westbury, N.Y.: Femi-
nist Press, 1982, pp. 5256.
Koedt, Anne, Ellen Levine, and Anita Rapone, eds.
Radical Feminism. New York: Quadrangle,
1973.
MacKinnon, Catherine A. Feminism, Marxism,
Method, and the State: An Agenda for Theory Anita Cornwell. Photo by Tee A.Corinne.

C O R N W E L L , A N I TA 203
 After 1961, with financial assistance from her
C mother, she supported herself as a freelance writer
of short stories, essays, articles, interviews, book
reviews, prose poems and plays, and two books:
The Girls of Summer (1989), a young-adult novel,
and Black Lesbian in White America (1983), a
book of essays that contains an interview with
Audre Lorde.
Her work has been published in journals, in-
cluding Liberator, Los Angeles Free Press, Hera,
Essence, Sinister Wisdom, Azalea, Feminist Review,
Motheroot, Feminary, National Leader, Labrynth,
New York Native, Welcomat, New Directions for
Women, Philadelphia Gay News, Griot, Black
Maria, Phylon, and Elegant Teen.
It has also appeared in anthologies, including The
Romantic (1993), For Lesbians Only (1988), Top
Ranking: An Anthology on Racism and Classism in
the Lesbian Community (1980), Lavender Culture
(1979), and The Lavender Herring (1976).
Her short story A Sound of Crying, origi-
nally published in Negro Digest in 1964, was reis-
sued in a 1995 anthology, Revolutionary Tales:
African American Womens Short Stories from the
First Story to the Present. Angela Bowen
Dee andNancette in Colorado, 1984. Photo byJEB
See also African Americans; Black Feminism; (Joan E.Biren).
Lorde, Audre

became known as Boston marriages in the United

Couples States.
Primary relationship between two women that
blends social, psychological, sexual, and emotional The Twentieth Century
elements. Though couple bonds between women By the end of the nineteenth century in Europe and
were invisible, unnoticed, and unnamed through the United States, the writings of medical doctors
most of recorded history, such unions became sali- and sexologists caused same-sex bonds increasingly
ent enough in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- to be perceived as aberrations of nature. Exempli-
turies to acquire a range of special labels. For ex- fying this new form of perversion was the doomed
ample, romantic friendship was the preferred relationship between Stephen, the tormented, man-
label for same-sex intimacies in eighteenth-century nish invert, and Mary, the wavering heterosexual,
England. Some women passed as men, in part depicted in Radclyffe Halls classic novel The Well
because that allowed female working-class lovers of Loneliness (1928). Personal accounts from the
to cohabit without scrutiny; in addition, one mem- first half of the twentieth century suggest that les-
ber of the couple was then able to gain access to bians were not deterred from establishing emo-
the male-only world of work. In pre-Maoist China tional and sexual ties with each other despite the
(before 1950), female intimates unrelated by blood widespread perception that same-sex bonds were
ties were known as sworn sisters. Anthropologists, abnormal. Such woman-woman unions were
encountering female pair bonds in certain parts of labeled lesbian couples, and the process of form-
Africa, dubbed them woman-woman marriages. ing and maintaining such a couple was often closely
And, following the 1885 publication of The linked with, and sometimes synonymous with,
Bostonians, Henry Jamess (18431916) novel partners individual lesbian identities. Because of
about two cohabiting spinsters, such relationships the hostility and rejection they would face if their

204 C O R N W E L L , A N I TA
orientation came to light, however, prior to gay advertisements that appeared in gay and lesbian
liberation lesbians took great pains to hide their periodicals promoted everything from couples-only
relationships. As a result, their partnerships were cruises to real-estate agents who understand.
usually visible only to the members of an under- By the end of the twentieth century, however,
ground network of like-minded friends, to the other the mainstreaming of lesbian couples was by no
patrons of lesbian bars they frequented, or, in many means complete. Despite their new level of visibil-
cases, only to the partners themselves. ity, or perhaps because of it, many lesbian partners
In the second half of the twentieth century, the continued to experience hostility and discrimina-
status of lesbian couples depended largely on their tion. Still other couples, because of their minority
place of residence. In many countries, particularly ethnic status, queer politics, or radical sex prac-
where religious fundamentalism was firmly en- tices, felt doubly marginalizedoutside both the
trenched, lesbian partners continued to be subject dominant culture and the new lesbian mainstream.
to ostracism, physical abuse, and, in some instances,
imprisonment or death. In Europe and North Psychological Profiles
America, however, the overall status of lesbian cou- According to surveys conducted in the 1970s, les-
ples gradually improved. bian couples tended to be closer, more egalitarian,
In the 1960s and 1970s, the new awareness of and, after the second year together, significantly
social injustice that sparked the civil rights strug- less sexual than either gay male or heterosexual
gle also kindled the battle for gay rights. Despite married couples. Survey data also showed that
the new gay liberation message that same-sex cou- womens partnerships did not last as long as those
ples were entitled to legal and social parity with of other couples. In American Couples (1983), a
heterosexual couples, many lesbian couples re- study of more than 1,500 lesbian couples, for ex-
mained secretive, resigned to their marginal sta- ample, the average length of time the respondents
tus. Others, however, experienced a new sense of had cohabited was 3.7 years. In a follow-up to the
pride in their partnerships. As a result, announc- study two years later, almost half of these lesbian
ing their unions to family and friends, and even partnerships had dissolved. In an attempt to ex-
public, ceremonial affirmations of commitment, plain the relatively rapid emotional and sexual
became common practices. burnout rates among lesbian couples, psychologists
The feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s theorized that the need to unite against an often-
also left an indelible stamp on lesbian relationships. hostile outside world reinforced womens
Determined not to replicate the unequal power re- socialization to bond closely. As a result of too
lations that characterized many heterosexual rela- much psychological and physical togetherness, les-
tionships, lesbians made a conscious effort to main- bians tended to become emotionally fused with
tain egalitarian partnerships. Partners often shared each other. Once enmeshed, sex might seem redun-
chores, pooled resources, and tried to correct im- dant, or even incestuous. As a result, partners were
balances based on differences in race, class, income, more likely to be receptive to new love interests.
or sex-role conditioning. In the last decade of the twentieth century, the
In the 1980s and 1990s, the push for parity merger theory of lesbian coupling was challenged
continued on other fronts. Lesbian partners who by theorists from several disciplines. Feminist psy-
resided in certain regions or worked for particular chologists pointed out that the criticism of lesbians
companies began to lobby for and receive some of fused relationships was based on an overvaluation
the recognition and benefits typically accorded le- of the individuality and autonomy often exhibited
gally married spouses. Same-sex couples also gained by male partners in heterosexual and homosexual
access to many of the services available to their relationships. These theorists argued that the mutu-
heterosexual counterparts. Lesbian partners who ality and rapport so often displayed by women part-
lived in or near urban areas, for example, could ners indicated a positive, rather than a negative, form
consult with lesbian-and-gay-friendly attorneys, of closeness. In fact, subsequent research studies
physicians, therapists, and, if lesbian couples de- showed that many lesbian couples enjoyed high lev-
cided they wanted to start a family, they could even els of relationship satisfaction.
use the services of gay-friendly sperm banks. Full- The research methodology used in the early sur-
length feature films, books, and plays depicted the veys also came under attack. Psychologists noted
triumphs and tribulations of women partners. And that standard yes/no questions about sex were

COUPLES 205
 based on the model of heterosexual intercourse and, Crime and Criminology
C therefore, could not accurately measure sexuality
between females. Finally, sociologists found that
Lesbian relationships with crime, criminology, and
criminal justice systems are multiple and complex.
the surveys focused overwhelmingly on white, mid- First, lesbian sexual expression itself has been, and
dle-class respondents. Later studies on different continues to be, criminalized, thus rendering lesbi-
ethnic groups did, in fact, turn up different psy- ans who are sexually active criminals. Second,
chological profiles and problems. In contrast to lesbians can be the victims of crimes, often because
their white counterparts, for example, African of bias against lesbians, women, or any of the other
American lesbians were more likely to have chil- groups to which individual lesbians may belong.
dren and more likely to depend on their families of Third, lesbians may be the perpetrators of crimes, a
origin for support. Because African American fami- stereotype that is prevalent in popular culture and
lies tended to be more conservative in their atti- that engenders bias in the criminal justice system.
tudes toward homosexuality, many black couples
could not risk disclosing the nature of their part- History
nerships. Because, however, African American com- The criminalization of lesbian sexuality is ancient
munities were accepting of homosocial relation- and long standing. The historical criminalization of
ships between women, black lesbian couples often lesbian sexuality is difficult to uncover because the
chose to masquerade as girlfriends or sisters. crime itself was considered unmentionablea six-
Consequently, these couples felt yet more invisible teenth-century Swiss jurist advised that only the
than their white counterparts. death sentence be read aloud and that the custom-
By the end of the century, new studies began to ary reading of the crime be omitted in cases of sex
reflect these critiques of earlier surveys. Rather than between women. While it was once believed that
gathering data that reduced lesbian couples to one lesbian sexuality, especially as contrasted with gay
generic profile, new research began to measure the male sexuality, was not criminalized, historians, such
ways in which differences in economic status, eth- as Louis Crompton in his groundbreaking article,
nicity, age, sex-role conditioning, exposure to The Myth of Lesbian Impunity (1980), have dem-
homophobia, and access to support contributed onstrated otherwise. Throughout Western history,
to the enormous diversity among lesbian couples. women suspected of engaging in sexual relations
Marny Hall with other women have been burned, hanged, and
banished, sometimes publicly and sometimes pri-
Bibliography vately by their male relatives. Many scholars con-
Blumstein, Philip, and Pepper Schwartz. American nect the witch crazes in medieval Europe with les-
Couples. New York: William Morrow, 1983. bian sexual activity, and femina cum feminus
Laird, Joan, and Robert-Jay Green. Lesbians and (woman with woman) was a commonplace accusa-
Gays in Couples and Families. San Francisco: tion in witch trials. Records discovered of a 1721
Jossey Bass, 1996. German trial show jurists pondering the legal effect
Mays, Vickie, Susan Cochran, and Sylvia Rhue. of evidence concerning a leather instrument that
The Impact of Perceived Discrimination on the the defendant Catharina Margaretha Linck appar-
Intimate Relationships of Black Lesbians. Jour- ently used when having sexual relations with a
nal of Homosexuality 25:4 (1993), 114. woman. The use of the instrument implicated the
Peplau, L.A. Lesbian and Gay Relationships. degree of sodomy, which, in turn, would determine
In Homosexuality Research Implications for the execution of the death sentence: being hung and
Public Policy. Ed. J.C.Gonsiorek and the body burned afterward, or being burned alive,
J.D.Weinrich. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, or being put to death by the sword.
1991, pp. 177196. The myth of lesbian impunity is largely attribut-
Raymond, Janice. A Passion for Friends: Toward able to nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century no-
a Philosophy of Female Affection. Boston: Bea- tions of female sexual purity. In 1921, for example,
con, 1986. the British Parliament specifically chose not to in-
clude gross indecency between women as a crime
See also Boston Marriage; Friendship; Monogamy because the parliamentary ministers believed that
and Nonmonogamy; Romantic Friendship; Sex mentioning lesbianism in the criminal code would
Practices; Sexology alert otherwise sexually innocent women to lesbian

206 COUPLES
possibility. In a famous nineteenth-century British was motivated by hate or bias toward the victim
libel case, two Scottish schoolteachers argued that because of the victims group identity, including
the charge against them for being involved in the sexual orientation, race, national origin, religion,
infamous crime of venus nefada, unnatural lust, and sometimes gender. In many other states, as well
was untrue. The judges agreed that the two Scot- as the federal system, hate crimes do not merit en-
tish, Christian schoolteachers could not physically hanced sentencing but only require the collection of
or morally be sexually intimate, reserving such pos- statistics. Since the 1970s, many nongovernmental
sibilities for women of other classes or continents. antiviolence groups have documented the level of
Thus, the notion of female sexual purity could pro- hate crimes against lesbians and gay men.
tect women of higher classes who would otherwise Many well-known cases in the United States
be suspected of lesbianism. Nevertheless, as many have demonstrated that lesbians can be the targets
scholars have demonstrated, in Europe, as well as of hate crimes. For example, in 1988 Rebecca
in the United States, women of lower classes, women Wight was murdered and her lover, Claudia Bren-
of color, and immigrant women suspected of lesbi- ner, injured while the couple were camping on the
anism would be charged with vagrancy or prostitu- Appalachian Trail. The man charged with shoot-
tion and often sentenced to prison. ing at the women with his rifle attempted to argue
that he was provoked by witnessing their lesbian
United States lovemaking. The judge rejected such a defense, and
In the United States, the Supreme Court has up- this rejection was upheld upon appeal. Many other
held state statutes regulating lesbian sexual prac- well-known cases of violence against lesbians be-
tices against constitutional challenges. As recently cause of their lesbianism have occurred, including
as 1968, every state in the United States had a stat- assaults on other campers, assaults against the
ute that would render lesbian sexual expression women and property at Camp Sister Spirit in Mis-
criminal. In 1998, a little less than half the states sissippi, and various rapes. In a few cases, pros-
had criminal statutes. These criminal statutes fell ecutors have sought to introduce evidence that a
into three general categories: those that criminalize rape victim is a lesbian to counter a defendants
unnatural acts; those that are anatomically spe- claim that the victim consented to have sex with
cific, including prohibiting oral-genital contact; and him, but such attempts can be problematic under
those that are gender specific, prohibiting sexual rape-shield statutes, which prohibit use of a vic-
contact between persons of the same gender. Addi- tims sexual history.
tionally, most states criminalize public sex, which Most crimes against lesbians, however, seem to
not only includes sexual contact in public places, occur in private. Statistics demonstrate that lesbi-
such as parks, but also has been applied to closed ans, similar to other women and contrasted with
stalls in restrooms and even private homes if the gay men, are more likely to experience violence
persons can be viewed by a passerby on the street from family and household members than from
through an open window. While these statutes are strangers. Younger lesbians are most at risk, expe-
not routinely enforced against lesbians, their en- riencing violence from male relatives who disap-
forcement does pose a danger to many lesbians. prove of their sexual choices.
For example, in late 1996 a military woman was Lesbians are also the victims of crimes perpe-
charged with violating the militarys criminal-sex trated by other lesbians. The issue of lesbian do-
statute based upon the testimony of her former mestic violence has begun to receive legal recogni-
lover. Additionally, sex statutes can be the linch- tion. In many states, statutes that provide for or-
pin that supports other types of discrimination, ders of protection in cases of domestic violence now
most notoriously in lesbian child-custody cases. extend to same-sex partners, although this remains
The criminalization of lesbian sexuality is often the exception rather than the rule. Even in states
linked to another type of crimecrimes against les- that allow such orders of protection, however,
bians because of their sexuality. Such crimes, con- judges trained about male-female domestic violence
sisting of assault, battery, sexual assault, and mur- often have a difficult time in cases involving two
der, are generally known as hate, or bias, crimes. In women. Deciding which woman is the batterer and
some states in the United States, hate crimes merit which woman is the victim deserving of an order
enhanced sentencing. To prove a hate crime, the of protection without reference to gender stere-
prosecution must prove that the defendants crime otypes can be difficult, and judges often impose

CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY 207

 stereotypical views of gender on the women (thus tiple murders of men who sought to use her sexual
C deciding that the more male-appearing partner
is the aggressor) or simply abandon the task (thus
services. Similarly, in the 1992 case of Anna
Cardona, the prosecution also subtly used the de-
declining to enter an order of protection or enter- fendants lesbianism, also introduced by the states
ing a mutual order of protection). star witness and the defendants lesbian lover, to
In situations in which domestic violence esca- dehumanize her and explain her crime. In 1998,
lates into a fatality, a lesbian accused of killing her Anna Cardona was on death row for the child-
lover may have a battered woman defense. In abuse murder of her son, and many scholars note
1989, a Florida court held that the battered-woman that the only mother given the death penalty for
defense, previously held to be applicable only in child abuse is a lesbian.
cases in which a woman had murdered her hus-
band, would be available to Annette Greene, ac- Global Cases
cused of murdering her lover, Ivonne Julio. Despite The United States has not been the only location of
the evidence that Greene had been battered by Julio, notorious cases in which the implication of lesbian-
resulting in a broken nose and broken ribs, and ism is inextricably bound with the legal (and media)
had been shot at by Julio, the jury took only a short treatment of the crime. In 1991, a twenty-five-year-
time to reject the defense and return a verdict find- old Australian woman quickly became known as the
ing Greene guilty of murder. While certainly not lesbian vampire killer, based upon an accusation
always successful in traditional wife-husband cases, that she and her lover, as well as another lesbian cou-
the battered-woman defense appears to be even less ple, had picked up a man and lured him to his death
successful when two women are involved. by stabbing. Although it appeared that all four women
Lesbians as perpetrators of crimes do not neces- had participated, three of them testified in their own
sarily target lesbian victims. Like other persons, les- trials of their beliefs that Tracey Wigginton had drunk
bians can participate in a wide array of criminal the victims blood and had cast a vampiric spell on
activity, including issuing checks for insufficient them. Wigginton, diagnosed with multiple personal-
funds, public assistance fraud, possessing or selling ity disorder, pleaded guilty, received a nine-minute
drugs, shoplifting, assault, burglary, and murder. trial, and was convicted. In 1955 in New Zealand,
Although there is little documentation, Brownworth two adolescent girls, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme,
(1992) and Robson (1992, 1998) tend to support presumed to be involved in a lesbian relationship
the thesis that lesbians are discriminated against in based upon one of the girls diaries, were convicted
the criminal-justice system. Thus, being a lesbian of murdering Pauline Parkers mother. Upon convic-
would be a factor, similar to racial and economic tion, the girls were sent to separate prisons; when
factors, that would make it more likely that a woman subsequently released, they had as a condition of their
would be prosecuted, convicted, sentenced to a jail parole that they have no contact with each other. And
term, and, once in jail, serve a longer sentence. in 1933 in France, the supposedly incestuously in-
The situation of lesbians on death row is illus- volved Papin sisters, employed as maids, were con-
trative. According to lesbian journalist Brownworth victed of murdering and mutilating their female em-
(1992), of the forty-one women then on death row, ployer and her adult daughter.
seventeen, or roughly 40 percent, were implicated
as lesbians during their trials and sentencings. In Conclusion
many cases, the prosecutors used the defendants The real cases of lesbian criminal defendants, es-
lesbianism to dehumanize her; the dehumanization pecially those charged with murder, occur in the
process is generally believed to be an essential strat- shadow of cultural and media representations of
egy to enable members of a jury to convict and lesbians as aggressors. Scholars such as Lynda Hart
recommend a sentence of death. For example, in have explored the cultural representations of les-
the notorious 1992 Florida case of Aileen Wuornos, bians as killers in such popular movies as Single
often known incorrectly as the first female serial White Female (1992) and Basic Instinct (1992),
killer, her status as a lesbian and a prostitute com- demonstrating how these cultural representations
bined to dehumanize her. Her lesbianism, intro- positing lesbians as threats to man and family ulti-
duced into evidence by the states star witness, her mately infect the trials of real women such as
former lover, also enabled the prosecutors to sub- Wuornos. Further, media representations draw
tly explain their version of her crimes: her mul- upon true stories, including the 1990s films

208 CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY

Sister My Sister (based upon the Papin sisters) and with hostility or indifference, opting to invoke
Heavenly Creatures (based upon Parker and theory more informally as the political critique
Hulme), to authenticate the cultural stereotype of of the naturalness of certain cultural institutions
lesbians as pathological and violent, recycling back especially heterosexuality, femininity, and the fam-
to the trials of contemporary lesbians accused of ilyand to borrow from more domestic intellec-
murder or other crimes. tual sources.
Given the various ways in which lesbians are
affected by criminal-justice systemsas sexual History
outlaws, as victims of violent crimes, and as perpe- Originally, the appeal of structuralism to an increas-
trators of actual and imaginary crimesa simple ingly politicized academic audience lay in its aim to
approach to the relationships between lesbians and examine not the meaning of textsunderstood very
criminal justice is impossible. Although there is broadly as anything articulated through language,
some theoretical work that attempts to integrate including film or ritualbut the structures that pro-
these complexities, by the late 1990s there was no duce meaning itself. This so-called structuralist in-
comprehensive lesbian theory of criminal justice. sight proved valuable to lesbian critics who were
Ruthann Robson trying to articulate how, for instance, the meaning
of woman is not a given but a construct, a prod-
Bibliography uct of various, and variable, social structures, such
Brownworth, Victoria. Dykes on Death Row. as patriarchy, economic class, or colonialism.
Advocate (June 15, 1992), 6264. The attraction, however, was neither mutual nor
Crompton, Louis. The Myth of Lesbian Impunity. free of conflict, even for early French feminist theo-
Journal of Homosexuality 6 (1980), 2748. reticians. After Luce Irigaray (1930), for example,
Hart, Lynda. Fatal Women: Lesbian Sexuality and was expelled in 1974 from Jacques Lacans (1901
the Mark of Aggression. Princeton, N.J.: 1981) cole Freudienne, she went on to write This
Princeton University Press, 1994. Sex Which Is Not One (1985), influential among
Robson, Ruthann. Lesbian (Out) Law: Survival lesbians both for its attack on Lacan and its Sap-
Under the Rule of Law. Ithaca, N.Y.: Firebrand, phic overtones. For her part, author and activist
1992. Monique Wittig (1935) drew on anthropologist
. Sappho Goes to Law School: Fragments in Claude Lvi-Strausss (1908) work to claim in The
Lesbian Legal Theory. New York: Columbia Straight Mind (1992) that, because lesbians are
University Press, 1998. exempt from the marital exchanges so basic to kin-
ship structures, lesbians are not women. Never-
See also Law and Legal Institutions; Lesbian Im- theless, the same essay includes a devastating cri-
punity, Myth of; Parker-Hulme Murder Case tique of the heterocentrism of French theory.
In post-1960s Britain, meanwhile, the works of
Karl Marx (18181883) and Michel Foucault
Critical Theory (19261984) were inspiring theoretically informed
Term used broadly by American academics to de- research into lesbian and gay history. At the center
scribe criticism (particularly in literature, history, of this research were Foucaults claims that sexual
anthropology, and interdisciplinary studies, includ- practices and identities are produced and regulated
ing lesbian and gay studies) that contributes to, is by regimes of power-knowledge-pleasure and
informed by, or is positioned as a serious critique that sodomy changed (mainly due to the impact of
of theory The latter is a highly contested term late-nineteenth-century sexological discourses)
but generally refers to structuralist and from a random, sinful practice into a new, unique
poststructualist theories (most significantly, species, the homosexual. Most of these contri-
deconstruction, Marxism, psychoanalysis, and butions to critical theory dealt with male homo-
Michel Foucaults geneologies), all of which sexuality, but historian Judith Walkowitzs work
proved influential to American thinkers during the (1980) would have an impact on future analyses
decades following the political upheavals of the of deviant female sexuality in Western history.
1960s. Although lesbian authors and topics have Rather than look to France, U.S. lesbian critics
never been absent from the continental tradition, in the 1960s and 1970s derived their theoretical
American lesbian scholars have tended to regard it perspectives from their experiences in and out of

C R I T I C A L T H E O RY 209
 the American womens movement. Jill Johnstons bian identity as an unchanging essence that can
C Lesbian Nation (1973) was typical of the era to
the extent that it defined lesbianism not as a sexual
be detected across cultural and historical divides,
and those who insist that identity is socially con-
practice per se, but as a political resistance to pa- structedthat is, produced in different ways by
triarchy, encapsulated in Johnstons conviction that, social structures that are historically shifting and
potentially, every woman is a lesbian. Other com- subject to change. Constructionist historians
mon tenets of American lesbian theory were sepa- have raised questions, for example, as to the vi-
ratism from men, nonmonogamy, and antiracism. ability of describing premodern women and texts
The latter topic was thoroughly investigated by as lesbian when premodern societies were char-
such classics as This Bridge Called My Back (1981), acterized by radically different conceptions about,
edited by Gloria Anzalda and Cherre Moraga. and practices of, female homosexuality.
Feminisms dominance over lesbian theory was A helpful twist on the essentialism debate was
challenged in significant ways in the 1980s when provided by Eve Sedgwicks Epistemology of the
some lesbian thinkers began to question whether Closet (1990), which recasts the divide to span
homosexuality could be adequately described by a minoritizing versus universalizing discourses
set of theories about gender. Gayle Rubins Think- about homosexuality. For Sedgwick, the first camp
ing Sex: Notes Toward a Radical Theory of Sexual bases its agenda on the idea that gays constitute a
Politics (1984) called for the development of a discrete grouping, a minority that, like a racial
theory that could explain oppression on the basis, minority, is marked by certain transhistorical and
specifically, of sexuality and insisted that the sub- cross-cultural features. In contrast, a universalizing
jects of such a theory must be lesbians, gay men, discourse of homosexuality is based on the sup-
and other sexual outlaws. Meanwhile, other crit- posed protean mobility of sexual desire and the
ics were turning toward psychoanalysis, which potential bisexuality of every human creature.
despite Sigmund Freuds (18561939) reputation
among American feminists as a sexiststruck some Critique of Identity Politics. Critical theory is also
critics as a powerful theory of sexuality and sexual the origin of widespread attacks on the personal
repression. Generally, the advent in the 1990s of is politicalthe emphasis in lesbian feminism on
queer theory was accompanied by a greater af- a politics of identity. The notion of an authentic
finity between lesbian scholars and continental or unified self was, in stark contrast, reconceived
theory. as the ideological centerpiece of heterocentrism.
Most influential in this shift is Judith Butlers Gen-
Major Paradigms der Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Iden-
Compulsory Heterosexuality. The most influential tity (1990), which understands all gender and
essay to come out of American lesbian feminism is sexual identities as unstable, shifting, and produced
undoubtedly Adrienne Richs Compulsory Het- by various hegemonic regimes, including the
erosexuality and Lesbian Existence (1980). Richs heterosexual matrix. Borrowing from structural-
commitment to a specifically, if not explicitly, struc- ist linguistics, Butler argues further that lesbian
tural account is evident in her claim that feminist politics should be reconceived as performative
theory has been weakened by its undertheorization that is, based on the subjects subversive repetition
of heterosexualitythat is, by its persistence in of heterosexual norms. Meanwhile, other lesbian
seeing heterosexuality as a mere orientation. By theorists have suggested that the most powerful
describing heterosexuality as an institution imposed critique of identity politics lies in lesbian antiracist
on all women, Compulsory Heterosexuality ef- discourse, which assumes a radical subjectivity
fectively describes not what women are, but the multiply constituted by racial and class differences.
system that has produced them as what they are.
Rich also elaborates on the lesbian feminist claim Objections to Critical Theory
that any woman is potentially a lesbian by placing Throughout its rise, many scholars have objected
all women on a lesbian continuum stretching both to the style and the content of critical theory.
from close female bonds to sexual relationships. Some criticize the institutional power and allure held
by critical theorists, as well as the inability of the
Essentialism Versus Social Constructionism. This genre to distinguish itself from academic
debate has been staged between those who see les- Eurocentrism at large. Others simply find the dis-

210 C R I T I C A L T H E O RY
course unnecessarily obfuscating and male. Per- playing male parts for as long as women have per-
haps the most spectacular attack has been by les- formed in public.
bian art critic Camille Paglias Sex, Art, and Ameri-
can Culture (1992), in which lesbian feminism is History
decried for its Puritanism, poststructuralism for To some extent, objection to, and discomfort with,
its Francobabble, and critical theorists themselves the theatrical enterprise has always reflected both
for their privilege and vapidity. Heather Findlay anxieties about cross-dressing and questions about
the stability of gender roles. Since at least the
Bibliography time of Terrullian (ca. A.D. 200), religious injunc-
Anzalda, Gloria, and Cherre Moraga. This Bridge tions against acting as a form of deception or falsi-
Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women fication of an individuals identity cited the pro-
of Color. Watertown, Mass.: Persephone, 1981. hibition in Deuteronomy 22:5: Woman shall not
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither
Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, shall a man put on a womans garment. While all
1990. actors portray persons other than themselves, be-
Irigaray, Luce. This Sex Which Is Not One. Ithaca, cause women were banned from appearing on the
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985. professional stage for hundreds of years, female
Johnston, Jill. Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solu- characters were necessarily depicted by cross-
tion. New York: Touchstone, 1973. dressed men. Thus, objections to the immoral-
Paglia, Camille. Sex, Art, and American Culture. ity of the English-speaking theater dating from
New York: Vintage, 1992. before the Renaissance through the Puritans often
Rich, Adrienne. Compulsory Heterosexuality and drew upon the presumed unnaturalness of the
Lesbian Existence. Signs: Journal of Women predominantly male audiences potential
in Culture and Society 5:4 (1980), 631660. homoerotic response to effeminate boy actors
Rubin, Gayle. Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical portraying women, and the dangers of calling into
Theory of the Politics of Sexuality. In Pleasure question what were thought to be the natural
and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality. Ed. and mutually exclusive provinces of gender.
Carole S.Vance. Boston, London, Melbourne, Despite the absence of actual female performers
and Henley, U.K.: Routledge and Kegan Paul, on the professional stage in England, there was a tra-
1984, pp. 267319. dition of women who cross-dressed offstage, whether
Sedgwick, Eve. Epistemology of the Closet. female saints who dressed as men to enter monaster-
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. ies or other Englishe gentle-women, according to
Walkowitz, Judith R. Prostitution and Victorian Puritan William Prynne, who were soe fair past
Society: Women, Class, and the State. Cam- shame, past modesty, grace and nature, as to clipp
bridge and New York: Cambridge University their hayre like men and weare the breeches. Play-
Press, 1980. wrights Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker
Wittig, Monique. The Straight Mind and Other depicted this practice in their 1610 play, The Roar-
Essays. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992. ing Girl, based on the life of Moll Frith, who had
passed as a man. However, as with William Shake-
See also Compulsory Heterosexuality; Cultural speares (15641616) cross-dressed female charac-
Studies; Essentialism; Identity Politics; Ideology; ters in As You Like It and Twelfth Night, for exam-
Johnston, Jill; Lesbian Continuum; Philosophy; ple, early portrayals of women who were passing
Political Theory; Psychoanalysis; Queer Theory; as men were originally played by male actors.
Rich, Adrienne; Wittig, Monique After the Restoration in England, the first ac-
tresses appeared on the professional stage as a re-
sult of a decree from Charles II (16301685) in
Cross-Dressing 1660. Unlike the all-male homoerotic court and
Women who impersonate men onstage, who wear theater of his grandfather James I (15661625),
mens clothing, and who appear as male charac- Charles felt that women performers were neces-
ters are engaging in the performance practice of sary for useful and instructive representations of
cross-dressing, known in earlier eras as perform- human life to be seen onstage. Yet the widespread
ing breeches roles. Evidence exists of women popularity of female characters disguised as men

CROSS-DRESSING 211
 continued and grew once these parts were played vals, masques, costumed balls, and pantomimes
C by women. Several of the earliest English women
playwrights, Aphra Behn (1640?1689), Susanna
also offered women the opportunity to cross-dress.
The possibility that women in male attire might
Centlivre (16671723), and Catherine Trotter appeal to, or be drawn to, other women haunted
(16791749), wrote plays in which female charac- the fringes of such masquerades, just as it did the
ters cross-dress. Behns The Widow Ranter (1689), professional theater. In 1719, the Freethinker
Trotters The Revolution of Sweden (1706), and warned readers about the danger of seduction
Centlivres The Perjurd Husband (1700) contained at masquerades when a Countess listens to the
female characters who masquerade as men, often Gallantry of a Chamber-Maid. Since female cross-
to escape repression or to gain some freedom or dressers convincingly performed social roles for
power denied them as women. Centlivre was her- which they were considered naturally unsuited,
self an actress who, in her youth, passed as a costumed festivities at which women cross-dressed
man to gain an education. Nearly one-third of all threatened to undermine social class as well as gen-
new plays written between 1660 and 1700 con- der, distinctions.
tained parts in which women dress as men.
But the earliest English-speaking women on the The Eighteenth-Nineteenth Centuries
stage did not limit their male portrayals to the de- Eighteenth-century theater audiences flocked to see
piction of female characters who assumed male Peg Woffington (ca. 17181760), who first ap-
disguise for some pragmatic reason and then re- peared in London as Macheath in John Gays The
vealed themselves to be women, thereby providing Beggars Opera (first performed 1728). Woffington
a heterosexual resolution to the erotic tension was so successful in her cross-dressed roles, most
they had created. Actresses such as Nell Gwyn notably as Sir Harry Wildair in George Farquhars
(16501687) and Nance Oldfield (16831730) The Constant Couple (first performed 1699), that
performed some of the leading male dramatic roles no male actor attempted the part for years. Cer-
as well, thus inaugurating the theatrical conven- tain male characters such as Macheath, Wildair,
tion referred to as playing a breeches part. and Lothario in Nicholas Rowes The Fair Peni-
Gwyns most successful breeches character was tent (first performed 1703), which Woffington also
Florimel in John Drydens Secret Love (1667); played, became part of a corpus of male roles fre-
Charles II was said to have been so taken by Gwyns quently performed by other women who special-
cross-dressed performances that she became his ized in breeches parts. Charlotte Charke (1713
mistress. 1760), for example, depicted many of these same
The eroticism of women playing leading male male characters and was known to cross-dress in
roles resonated at several different levels with dif- her offstage life as well.
ferent audiences. Heterosexual male spectators fre- Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
quently responded favorably to performances in turies, Hamlet became part of the standard reper-
which women clothed in mens tight breeches dis- toire of female performers. Some claimed the char-
played more of their female bodies, particularly acter was inherently androgynous and best played
their legs and buttocks, to their audience than by a woman. Sarah Kemble Siddons (17551831),
womens dress would reveal. Further, the supposed the most highly acclaimed actress of her time, first
independence of a woman wearing male clothes played Hamlet in 1776 and continued playing the
could be read as a sign of her sexual availability. part, along with other female roles, for the next
Some viewers were intrigued by the androgynous twenty-five years. Another Hamlet, actress and
erotic energy of an active, assertive woman dressed writer Elizabeth Inchbald (17351821), was highly
like a virile young man and found the incongru- regarded in a range of breeches roles and known
ity appealing. Inevitably, some female spectators to attend masquerades cross-dressed as well.
who witnessed cross-dressed female performers By the early nineteenth century, popular actress/
wooing other women onstage recognized these fe- manager Eliza Vestris (17971856) became so re-
male suitors as potential objects of their own de- nowned for her breeches performances that she is
sire, wanting either the freedom to be like such credited with furthering the practice of women ap-
women or to be desired by them. pearing cross-dressed as the principal boy char-
Since at least the time of Henry VIII (1491 acter in pantomime and music hall performances.
1547), popular entertainments such as the carni- For all the eroticism of her performances, Vestriss

212 CROSS-DRESSING
male characterizations, rather than threatening to formers have adopted male clothing or under-
upset the social order, served to reinforce it, as many taken the depiction of male characters to indicate
male spectators associated her masculine clothes and their resistance to being seen according to hetero-
independence with heterosexual licentiousness. sexual norms for womens appearance.
In the United States in the nineteenth century,
the preeminent breeches actress was Charlotte The Twentieth Century
Cushman (18161876), who appeared as Romeo Womens cross-dressing has been sporadic on the
and as scores of other male characters, including mainstream twentieth-century stage. A few male
Hamlet and Wolsey. Unlike Vestris, whose follow- or boyish roles, such as James Barries (18601937)
ers were mostly adoring male spectators, Cushman, Peter Pan, have been routinely performed by
who lived with women offstage, neither excited the women, such as Eva La Gallienne (18991991) and
passions of men nor wished to be seen as desirable Mary Martin (19131990). Shakespearean produc-
by them. She presented audiences with an embodi- tions, such as Le Galliennes Hamlet, are still occa-
ment of male romantic characters whose public sionally the sites of cross-dressing. Contemporary
performance of desire for their female costars ex- feminist and lesbian plays, such as Eve Merriams
cited the fervent responses of some of her female The Club (1976) and Split Britchess Belle Reprieve
spectators. Ironically, the eroticism lesbian perform- (1991), have intentionally deployed cross-dressing
ers such as Cushman manifested when cross- to reveal the artifices of clothing, gesture, and
dressedwhile legible to those spectators who rec- demeanor through which gender is constructed and
ognized the possibility of lesbian desirewas gen- performed. Lisa Merrill
erally acceptable only because a woman acting
opposite another woman was considered by many Bibliography
other spectators as incapable of experiencing the Case, Sue-Ellen. Feminism and Theatre. New York:
emotions she performed. Yet some could see the Methuen, 1988.
transgressive possibilities in a woman playing a Castle, Terry. The Female Thermometer. New York:
male role. Contemporary costar George Oxford University Press, 1995.
Vandenhoff criticized Cushmans male perform- Ferris, Lesley, ed. Crossing the Stage: Controversies
ances as epicene, and, according to actor John on Cross-Dressing. London: Routledge, 1993.
Coleman, Cushmans desire to disport herself in Garber, Marjorie. Vested Interests: Cross Dressing
masculine attire led to indecorous speculations. and Cultural Anxiety. New York:
Later in the nineteenth century, Sarah Bernhardt HarperCollins, 1993.
(18441923) performed at least twenty-five male Merrill, Lisa. When Romeo Was a Woman: Char-
roles, the best known of which were Hamlet and lotte Cushman and Her Circle of Female Spec-
Duc de Reichstadt in Edmond Rostands LAiglon tators. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
(1900). Both women and men responded to 1998.
Bernhardts male portrayals, and, offstage, Senelick, Laurence. The Evolution of the Male
Bernhardt had long-term passionate relationships Impersonator on the Nineteenth-Century Popu-
with women and men. lar Stage. Essays in Theatre 1:1 (1982), 3044.
In the nineteenth century, cross-dressing ex-
panded from the mainstream theater to the music See also Behn, Aphra; Charke, Charlotte;
halls, where popular female performers such as Cushman, Charlotte; Passing Women; Theater and
Annie Kindle (ca. 1847) and Vesta Tilley (1864 Drama, History of
1952) sang comic songs in the persona of male char-
acters costumed in military uniforms or as various
male types, such as the dandy. Hindle came to Cruikshank, Margaret Louise (1940)
New York City from England in 1867 and was billed American educator and writer. Cruikshank played
as the first out-and-out male impersonator New a central role in establishing the importance of les-
Yorks stage had ever seen. In 1886, passing as bian studies within both womens studies and the
Charles Hindle, she married another woman, academy through the publication of her edited
Annie Ryan, retired, and lived with Ryan for the anthologies The Lesbian Path (1980), Lesbian
remainder of her life. While cross-dressing is not a Studies: Present and Future (1982), and New Les-
signifier of the wearers sexuality, some lesbian per- bian Writing (1984).

CRUIKSHANK, MARGARET LOUISE 213

 addition, Cruikshank describes the characteristics
C of gay and lesbian culture and community, the shap-
ing role of lesbian feminism and lesbian separa-
tism, and the debates and conflicts experienced
within gay communities.
Cruikshanks recent Fierce with Reality (1995)
focuses on aging and includes essays by several les-
bian authors. Founding director of womens stud-
ies at Mankato State University in Minnesota, af-
filiate scholar at the Center for Research on Women
at Stanford University, and visiting teacher of les-
bian studies at the University of Maine, Cruikshank
taught English and gay and lesbian studies at City
College of San Francisco from 1981 to 1997, after
which she moved permanently to Maine.
Greta Gaard

Bibliography
Cruikshank, Margaret. A Slice of My Life. In
The Lesbian Path. San Francisco: Grey Fox,
Margaret Cruikshank. Photo by Barbara Giles. 1980, 1985, pp. 5863.
Jurgens, Jane. Margaret Cruikshank. In Gay and
Approximately a decade after Stonewall (1969), Lesbian Literature. Ed. Sharon Malinowski.
lesbian culture and lesbian studies developed an iden- Detroit: St. James, 1994, p. 101.
tity connected to, yet distinct from, both the gay
movement and the womens movement. As the first See also Gay Liberation Movement; Lesbian Studies
book made up entirely of short personal narratives
by lesbians, The Lesbian Path depicted that cul-
ture by offering autobiographical articles on ro- Cultural Studies
mance, coming out, combating lesbophobia, discov- An interdisciplinary approach to the study of hu-
ering and preserving lesbian literature, teaching, mans in their social environments. As practiced in
publishing, aging, and other concerns by well-known the late twentieth century, cultural studies pays a
lesbian writers. As Cruikshanks preface explains: great deal of attention to mass-mediated technolo-
announcing our existence is still a political act. gies and their impact on a range of issues, includ-
Lesbian Studies describes the experiences of les- ing representation, economics, gender, race, poli-
bians in the academy and explores the implications tics, communication, global wealth, and ideology.
of articulating a lesbian perspective in teaching and And yet, because the terms culture and study
research. It asserts the importance of studying les- might describe just about any intellectual project
bians in history, literature, and culture and offers in or out of the academy, even practitioners of cul-
both course syllabi and bibliographies. A testimony tural studies disagree on its fundamental charac-
to the enduring significance of Cruikshanks work, teristics. Not a traditional discipline with an insti-
Lesbian Studies was updated and reissued in 1996. tutional history, nor a method of securing evidence
Cruikshanks third anthology, New Lesbian Writ- and truth, nor a field of study attached to a par-
ing, combines fiction and nonfiction from lesbian ticular archive, cultural studies has been most use-
writers around the world, exemplifying both the fully understood in relation to broad historical and
diversity and the coherence of lesbian literature. intellectual trends: the decentering of European
As part of the Routledge series Revolutionary geopolitical power after World War II; the rise of
Thought/Radical Movements, Cruikshanks The myriad social movements in the 1950s and 1960s
Gay and Lesbian Liberation Movement (1992) in Europe and the United States, including the gay
provides an overview of the movement from vari- and lesbian liberation movement; the attendant
ous perspectivesas a sexual freedom movement, focus on Marxist social criticism in the academy
a political movement, and a movement of ideas. In and, with it, the legitimation of the study of

214 CRUIKSHANK, MARGARET LOUISE

popular culture; and the emergence of identity people not only used and interpreted, but also de-
politics as a means of repairing structural inequali- rived pleasure from, mass-produced entertainment
ties, including heterosexism, white supremacy, and forms (romance novels, popular film, or television).
male domination, in democratic social systems. By emphasizing all forms of culture, cultural stud-
While the lesbian as such is not always central in ies linked telecommunications, film studies, literary
each of these arenas, her critical sojourn as an ob- studies, media studies, and journalism to anthropo-
ject of study in the academy has been widely influ- logical and sociological analysis, thereby securing
enced by the transformations wrought by cultural its interdisciplinary agenda.
studies as an interdisciplinary field. But even as the foundational texts of British
cultural studies (Raymond Williams, Culture and
Theoretical Basis Society [1963], Richard Hoggart, The Uses of Lit-
At its most general, cultural studies draws its theo- eracy [1969], and E.P.Thomson, The Making of
retical perspective from Marxist analysis, inquir- the British Working Class [1968]) focused equally
ing into power relations and the social operations on issues concerning the working class and the re-
that produce consent and resistance. Because much lationship between high culture and ruling-class
of its scholarship originated from researchers in- power, it was primarily the latter that became cen-
terested in British working-class life, cultural stud- tral to cultural studies scholarship as it was ex-
ies takes seriously the everyday experience of indi- ported to other Western locations. The U.S. brand
viduals and has helped break down the class as- of cultural studies that has subsequently developed
sumptions that associate culture with high cul- is marked by a less rigorous attention to Marxist
tural products of sanctioned art and literature, in- foundations, which has no doubt facilitated its
stead generating important work on mass culture, popularization in U.S. English departments, where
media, and other cultural products of the immedi- it has provided a necessary defense of the study of
ate moment. In its orientation toward the every- popular culture, nonprint text technologies, and
day life of individuals, cultural studies tacitly cri- non-literature-based literacies.
tiques social-scientific inquiry based on quantita-
tive methods and so-called objective knowledge, Feminist and Lesbian Cultural Studies
and it does so by paying attention to the specific In its ability to provide more adequate methods
historical and local circumstances within which for thinking through lived experience, resistance,
both individuals and knowledges are produced. and popular culture, cultural studies as practiced
Cultural studies can thus be characterized by its in the United States became especially useful to
refusal to treat any object of study independently feminist scholars, many of them lesbians, in the
from the economic (or, in Marxist terminology, 1980s. Influenced by postmodernist critiques of the
material) conditions that produce it or from the stability of all identity categories, including that of
questions that have been brought to bear by schol- woman and of lesbian, feminist cultural stud-
ars, who are themselves socially created actors. ies has contributed to the ongoing conversation
In its critique of the academic focus on high cul- about the promise and the limits of experience as a
ture, cultural studies challenges the disciplines of basis for social knowledge and for epistemological
English, comparative literature, philosophy, and all truth. While it would be imprecise and misleading
of the European language and culture programs to discuss lesbian cultural studies as a field, the
(German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portugese) historical intersection of a cultural studies approach
to rethink their structural support of the ruling and the development of a body of knowledge con-
classes. Rejecting the idea that the literature and arts structed around the lesbian has produced some key
produced by the elite classes are examples of civili- texts. The cultural studies tradition of analyzing
zation, founding scholars in the field at the Birming- popular culture such as advertisements not only
ham, England, Center for Contemporary Cultural for the preferred or dominant reading, but also
Studies reinvigorated Marxs attention to the ideo- for negotiated and resistant readings lends
logical spheres of social life. Under the directorship itself to the thesis of a widely reprinted article by
of sociologist Stuart Hall, Birmingham School schol- Danae Clark, Commodity Lesbianism (1991).
ars posited the working class not simply as duped, In this essay, Clark argues that advertising images
but as active players in the social world. This per- that do not mark themselves as lesbian in so
spective meant studying the way that working-class many words are, nevertheless, open to be read as

C U LT U R A L S T U D I E S 215
 such by lesbian subjects, in negotiated readings. investments of queers, gay men, and lesbians by
C Further, Clark maps the lesbian as a subject con-
structed through the commodity form, one that is
forging analytical links that go beyond the easy
dismissal of popular culture as the commodified
neither historically unchanging nor a heroic or sepa- realm of late-twentieth-century oppression.
rate identity able to transcend her situatedness in Two other texts in the late 1990s develop the
capitalist economic structures. Such a reading pro- queer cultural studies project defined by Probyn,
motes the antiessentialist practice of cultural stud- each with its own degree of specificity about the
ies and avoids an overly simplistic insistence on lesbian. Camilla diggers Becoming-Woman (1997)
the lesbians self-produced agency, which, Clark adds to the growing body of postmodern and queer
asserts, mars much contemporary analysis of les- scholarship that sees the lesbian as an ensemble of
bian and popular culture. images proliferating within technologies of femi-
Perhaps the most important recent text that dem- ninity, advertising, capitalism, and the state.
onstrates the influence of cultural studies on lesbian Griggers rehearses the familiar double bind of a
feminist scholarship is Sue-Ellen Cases The Domain- lesbian consciousness produced under specific his-
Matrix: Performing Lesbian at the End of Print torical conditions that must somehow struggle to
Culture (1996). Case hooks up the lesbianas critique the very conditions of her creation. Be-
material-historical subject, body, representation, and coming-Woman hinges its political hopes on mak-
technologyto the matrix of culture in ways that ing productive the lesbian bodys contemporary
defy distinctions between the material and the theo- dis-organization, what Griggers thinks of as the
retical, flesh and image, science fiction and social lesbians being everywhere and nowhere at once.
science, and the category of the lesbian and other In a different kind of theoretical text, Lauren
social identities. While it does not directly address Berlants The Queen of America Goes to Washing-
the theoretical link to cultural studies, The Domain- ton City (1997) assembles a series of essays on sex
Matrix nonetheless evinces in its intellectual and and citizenship to think through the contemporary
political obsessions a specifically lesbian contribu- crisis in political activism in the United States. Frankly
tion to cultural studies as an interdisciplinary analysis longing for a return to the revolutionary possibilities
of social power, mass-mediated technologies, and of the social movements of the 1960s, Berlant reviews
the material realities of late capitalism. the conservative revolution of Ronald Reagans
While Case culls her texts from the archive of regime in the 1980s. Employing an archive of
performance and popular culture, Canadian soci- determinately ephemeral, popular, and even marginal
ologist Elspeth Probyn, in Outside Belongings texts (pro-life videos, sitcoms, even lesbian zines),
(1997), directly engages cultural studies as a dis- Berlant takes up the sociological notion of sexual
course within the academy that she uses to articu- citizenship, or the ways that sexual identities under-
late the lesbian into bodily, national, and philo- write the category of the citizen to produce both deeply
sophical meanings, or what she calls belongings. alienating forms of national identity and their neces-
For Probyn, belonging is a critical term aimed at sary resistant counterpossibilities. In its broadest scope
understanding the way traditional disciplines and a reading of the American nation as increasingly pri-
forms of government, as well as identity categories vatized, even injured, The Queen of America offers a
themselves, create insiders, those who have in- compelling example of the intellectual possibilities of
ternalized the codes, definitions, and boundary cultural studies thought through the political lens of
distinctions of a group, discipline, or nation in or- queer analysis.
der to claim membership within it. Probyn rigor- Elena Glasberg
ously resists the lure of insider status, even for iden-
tities such as the lesbian that elsewhere are out- Bibliography
side circles of power. Rather, she theorizes the Berlant, Lauren. The Queen of America Goes to
position of hyperconsciousness offered by out- Washington City: Essays on Sex and Citizen-
side belonging to argue against a neo-Marxist ship. Durham and London: Duke University
economic determinism that refuses to examine the Press, 1997.
complexities of pleasure or the mobility of sexual- Blundell, Valda, John Shepherd, and Ian Taylor,
ity and desire. In fruitful ways, Probyn demon- eds. Reheating Cultural Studies: Developments
strates the promise of cultural studies for realign- in Theory and Research. New York and Lon-
ing the often distinct and even contentious social don: Routledge, 1993.

216 C U LT U R A L S T U D I E S
Case, Sue-Ellen. The Domain-Matrix: Performing Grace Greenwood; [18231904]); and her ultimate
Lesbian at the End of Print Culture. relationships with women, including Hays, the poet
Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana Univer- Eliza Cook (18181889), and, from 1856 on, the
sity Press, 1996. sculptor Emma Stebbins (18151882). Elizabeth
Clark, Danae. Commodity Lesbianism. Camera Barrett Browning (18061861) called Cushmans
Obscura 2526 (1991), 180210. relationship with Hays a female marriage. When
During, Simon, ed. The Cultural Studies Reader. Cushman died, Stebbins edited her letters and pa-
London and New York: Routledge, 1993. pers, recording that, throughout Cushmans life,
Griggers, Camilla. Becoming-Woman. Minneapolis her friendships were of the nature of passions.
and London: University of Minnesota Press, Among Cushmans American friends and ad-
1997. mirers were Nathaniel Hawthorne (18041864),
Grossberg, Lawrence, Gary Nelson, and Paula Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (18071882), Julia
Triechler, eds. Cultural Studies. New York and Ward Howe (18191910), Harriet Beecher Stowe
London: Routledge, 1992. (18111896), and Walt Whitman (18191892),
Probyn, Elspeth. Outside Belongings. New York who asserted that Charlotte Cushman is prob-
and London: Routledge, 1996. ably the greatest performer on the stage in any
Warner, Michael, ed. Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer hemisphere. Cushman became manager of Phila-
Politics and Social Theory. Minneapolis: Uni- delphias Walnut Street Theatre in 1843 and set
versity of Minnesota Press, 1993. out for the English stage in 1844. She was a suc-
cess, earning the esteem and friendship of Thomas
See also Critical Theory; Feminism; Identity; Lib- (17951881) and Jane Carlyle (18011866),
eralism; Postmodernism; Queer Theory; Social- Robert (18121889) and Elizabeth Barrett Brown-
Construction Theory; Subculture ing, and Geraldine Jewsbury (18121880), who
based a character in her feminist novel The Half
Sisters (1848) on Cushman.
Cushman, Charlotte (18161876) Cushman spent the rest of her life in England and
U.S. actress. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Char- in Rome, where she championed the work of women
lotte Cushman, a tomboy according to her briefly sculptors such as Hosmer, Stebbins, and Edmonia
kept diary, began acting at eighteen. Famous for such Lewis (ca. 1843after 1911), returning occasionally
roles as Meg Merrilies in Scotts Guy Mannering, to perform in America. She formally and grandly re-
Lady Gay Spanker in Boucicaults London Assur- tired from the stage in New York City in 1874 and
ance, and Lady Macbeth (which she played oppo- died of cancer in 1876. Julie Crawford
site Edwin Forrest [18061872], Edwin Booth
[18331893], and, in 1863, John Wilkes Booth Bibliography
[18381865]), Cushman is most famous for play- Cushman, Charlotte. Charlotte Cushman: Her
ing breeches, or mens, parts, including roles in Letters and Memories of Her Life. Ed. Emma
Ladies At Home, or Gentlemen We Can Do With- Stebbins. Boston and New York: Houghton
out You, and Orlando in As You Like It, both all- Mifflin, 1900.
female productions. She also played Hamlet and, Merrill, Lisa. When Romeo Was a Woman: Charlotte
notoriously, Romeo to her sister Susans Juliet. Al- Cushman and Her Circle of Female Spectators. Ann
though reviewers sometimes criticized Cushmans Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998.
acting as hybrid, Amazonian, and even as am- Puknat, Elisabeth M. Romeo Was a Lady: Char-
phibious in point of sex, she was also hailed by a lotte Cushmans London Triumph. New York
British reviewer in 1843 as undoubtedly the best Theatre Annual 9 (1951), 5969.
breeches figure in America. Shafer, Yvonne. Women in Male Roles: Charlotte
Cushman also challenged gender roles through Cushman and Others. In Women in American
her masculine dress, which earned her nicknames Theatre. Ed. Helen Krich Chinoy and Linda
like Charley de Boots; her associations with Walsh Jenkins. New York: Theatre Communi-
women, such as the party of jolly female bach- cations Group, 1987, pp. 7480.
elors she formed in Rome with Matilda Hays
(18201897), sculptor Harriet Hosmer (1830 See also Cross-Dressing; Jewsbury, Geraldine;
1908), and journalist Sara Jane Clarke (pseud. Lewis, Edmonia

CUSHMAN, CHARLOTTE 217

 Custody Litigation basis of a parents sexual orientation, in and of it-
C The dispute, in court, over the control and care of
children. The dispute may be between a childs
self. In other jurisdictions, however, myths and preju-
dice have been, and continue to be, used to deny
mother and father upon divorce or between a lesbian mothers custody of their children. Thus, in
childs mother and father if they were never mar- some states a mothers lesbianism, by itself, can be a
ried to each other. It may also arise between a childs basis for denying custody, while in others the court
parent and a third party, such as a grandparent. will claim that it is looking at the impact of the
Of recent concern to lesbians, custody litigation mothers lesbianism on the child but will actually
may develop between a childs biological mother base the denial of custody on speculation rather than
and the nonbiological comother upon the dissolu- on evidence presented in court. Court decisions have
tion of the couples relationship. reflected concerns that lesbians are emotionally un-
healthy or immoral and that children will be harmed
Early Legal Literature in a variety of ways, including by becoming lesbian
The legal literature began addressing lesbian- themselves, if they live with their lesbian mothers.
mother custody disputes in the early 1970s. At that
time, it was necessary to explain that lesbian Advocacy for Lesbian Mothers
mother was not an oxymoron. Lesbian mothers Advocates for lesbian mothers have recognized
during that period were almost entirely women who from the beginning that evidence of the well-being
had given birth to children in the context of het- of children raised by lesbian mothers would be a
erosexual marriages; they were either unaware of critical component of educating judges in custody
their lesbianism at the time they married or they litigation. Research beginning in the mid-1970s has
suppressed their lesbian feelings, hoping that they consistently demonstrated that lesbians are as emo-
would adapt to more socially accepted lives as tionally healthy and socially well adjusted as their
married women and mothers. When such women heterosexual counterparts; that no causal connec-
later divorced, their ability to raise their children tion exists between the sexual orientation of par-
could be challenged either by their former husbands ents and that of their children; that little difference
or by other relatives. The legal hurdles faced by exists in the overall mental health of children raised
lesbian mothers became the first distinctively les- in lesbian-mother households and those raised in
bian legal issue of the 1970s. Although the climate heterosexual-mother households; and that the qual-
for coming out at an earlier age has improved since ity of parenting, not the parents sexual orienta-
the 1970s, and although, since the early 1980s, tion, is the most crucial factor for a childs healthy
lesbians have been openly raising children without growth and development. Judges who accept this
first bearing them within a marriage, many women body of literature are more likely to rule in favor
who are unaware of their lesbian feelings or who of a lesbian mother. For example, the Alaska Su-
hope that those feelings will pass still get married preme Court in 1985 overturned a trial-court de-
expecting to raise children within those marriages. cision to award custody to a heterosexual father
Thus, custody disputes between a lesbian mother over a lesbian mother because the decision was
and the childs heterosexual father when those based upon the trial judges unsupported conjec-
marriages dissolve remain the principal category ture that lesbian relationships were unstable.
of custody litigation facing lesbians. Lesbian mothers have also been tainted by the
Because the legal standards for resolving custody myth that gay men prey on children, either because
disputes are established on a state-by-state basis, the a judge will group lesbians and gay men together
fate of a lesbian mother and her children often de- or because a lesbian might be expected to have gay
pends on the state in which she lives. As early as the male friends who would be in the presence of her
1970s, some states considered lesbian mothers to children. Therefore, advocates must often present
be acceptable custodial parents; in those states, a to judges the research literature demonstrating that
judge would be required to find a specific adverse heterosexual males commit the vast preponderance
impact on the child of the mothers lesbianism be- of sexual assaults on children.
fore her sexual orientation could be a basis for de-
nying her custody. In 1976, the District of Colum- Conditions for Custody
bia became the only jurisdiction to enact a statute In custody disputes between two parents, courts pri-
prohibiting judges from determining custody on the marily apply a best interests of the child standard,

218 C U S T O D Y L I T I G AT I O N
in which neither parent is favored over the other. years of demonstrated conduct and therapy, she
When a parents custody is challenged by a third could show that she was no longer living a life of
party, however, the parent is customarily presumed abomination. Lesbian mothers concerned about
to be the appropriate custodian. Often, the third their legal rights must always seek the opinion of an
party must show unfitness in order to prevail over attorney within their state, although the National
the parent. Since the 1970s, there have been many Center for Lesbian Rights, the only organization in
custody disputes in which a third party, usually the country devoted to the legal issues affecting les-
one of the childs grandparents, has challenged a bians, maintains materials on lesbian custody liti-
lesbian mothers right to raise her child. One of gation throughout the country.
the most highly publicized cases of this nature took
place in the mid-1990s in Virginia between Sharon Contemporary Issues
Bottoms, a divorced lesbian mother, and Sharons In recent years, a new type of lesbian custody litiga-
mother, Kay Bottoms, who sought custody of tion has developed. In the late twentieth century, les-
Sharons son, Tyler. The trial judge placed Tyler bians were choosing to have children through adop-
with his grandmother, ruling that Sharon was un- tion or through conception by donor insemination.
fit because she lived with her partner, April Wade, These planned lesbian families have raised novel le-
and because her sexual conduct was illegal in Vir- gal issues when a dispute arises either within the les-
ginia and immoral in the opinion of the judge. Al- bian couple when they separate or between the cou-
though a Virginia appeals court reversed the cus- ple and a known semen donor if he initiates litiga-
tody order, it was later reinstated by the Virginia tion to determine his parental rights. Although many
Supreme Court. such families have written agreements concerning their
In many cases, trial judges have granted cus- child-rearing intentions, courts have, for the most part,
tody to a lesbian mother, but only if she adheres to refused to enforce such agreements, falling back upon
certain conditions. These conditions have included a traditional definition of parenthood in which biol-
living separately from her partner, not permitting ogy (or legal adoption) is both necessary and suffi-
her partner to spend the night in her home when cient to confer parental status.
her children are present, and not taking her chil- When a lesbian couple decides to raise a child
dren to any gatherings where there are other gay together, usually only one can legally adopt, and, in
men and lesbians, including predominantly gay the case of donor insemination, only one can be the
churches. When a lesbian mother loses custody of biological mother. If the couple separates, the child
her child and is awarded visitation rights, those is at serious risk of losing one of his or her parents,
rights may also be restricted by the above condi- as the court system will not consider the
tions. For example, in the Bottoms case, Sharon nonbiological or nonadoptive mother to be a legal
Bottoms was denied overnight visitation with her parent. The one legal parent will then have com-
son; she was also prohibited from having her son plete control over the extent of contact, if any, be-
in the home she shares with her partner and from tween the child and the other parent. Appellate
having her partner present during visitation. Some courts in both New York and California have re-
appeals courts have lifted such restrictions, while jected the ability of a nonbiological or nonadoptive
others have upheld them. mother to obtain either custody or visitation rights
It is impossible to overstate the range of judicial over children jointly planned for and raised by the
decisions concerning lesbian custody throughout the couple. Such a result can be avoided only if the cou-
fifty states. At one end of the spectrum, a New Jer- ple completes a joint or second-parent adoption.
sey appeals court articulated the benefits that chil- Just as courts have been unwilling to confer
dren may enjoy being raised by a lesbian mother, parental status in the absence of biology or adop-
including the ability to better perceive that the ma- tion, they have been, for the most part, unwilling
jority is not always correct, to better search out their to deny parental rights to known semen donors,
own standards of right and wrong, and to better even when the donor has agreed before concep-
understand how to form beliefs based on reason tion and birth never to assert parental rights. Al-
and tested knowledge rather than popular sentiment though some states have statutes that deny pa-
and prejudice. On the other hand, a South Dakota rental rights to semen donors, most states apply
appeals judge reasoned that a lesbian mother should these statutes only when the recipient is married
be denied even visitation with her children until, after to another man. Thus, a lesbian mother is always

C U S T O D Y L I T I G AT I O N 219
 vulnerable to the claim by a known semen donor In the former Czechoslovakia, organized groups
C that he should receive parental rights, which
would entitle him to request visitation or even
were formed as late as 1989 and formally regis-
tered at the beginning of 1990. Lambda Union,
custody. The only complete protection against originally operating in the Czech Republic, later
such a claim would be the legal termination of split into regional groups in larger cities. In 1991,
the donors parental rights, something that can individual organizations came together as SOHO
usually be accomplished only in the context of a (Sdruzen organizac homosexulnch obcan, the
second-parent adoption of the child by the bio- Association of Organizations of Homosexual Citi-
logical mothers partner, and that would custom- zens). It resembles a democratic parliament that
arily require the consent of the donor. In states evaluates and accepts proposals, coordinates ac-
that permit such adoptions, this is the suggested tivities of individual groups, and represents them
course of action to prevent future custody and to society and its authorities. Among its members
visitation disputes. Nancy Polikoff are two lesbian-only groups in the capital, Prague;
in other cities, women organize within the local
Bibliography mixed (gay and lesbian) groups. SOHO is a mem-
Benkov, Laura. Reinventing the Family: The Emerg- ber of the worldwide organization ILGA (Interna-
ing Story of Lesbian and Gay Parents. New
tional Lesbian and Gay Association).
York: Crown, 1994.
SOHOs activies include a campaign for creat-
Kendell, Kate, ed. Lesbians Choosing Motherhood:
ing a positive image of lesbians and gay men as
Legal Implications of Alternative Insemination
committed and responsible citizens, a lobbying ef-
and Reproductive Technologies. San Francisco:
fort for a domestic-partnership law, and a contri-
National Center for Lesbian Rights, 1996.
bution to AIDS prevention that has been recog-
(Available for purchase from NCLR, 870 Mar-
nized by the World Health Organization, as well
ket Street, Suite 570, San Francisco, CA 94102.)
as Czech health-care authorities. It also works to
Lesbian Mother Litigation Manual. 3rd ed. San
create clubs, social events, and meeting places for
Francisco: National Center for Lesbian Rights,
1996. (Available as above.) lesbians and gay men.
Rubenstein, William B. Cases and Materials on The situation of lesbian women and the extent
Sexual Orientation and the Law. St. Paul, of their commitment to the movement reflects the
Minn.: West, 1997. situation of Czech women in general. When Presi-
Shapiro, Julie. Custody and Conduct: How the dent Vclav Havel presented his first political pro-
Law Fails Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their gram, the third item was protection of the disad-
Children. Indiana Law Journal 71 (1996), 623. vantaged: children, old people, women, the sick,
manual workers, and ethnical minorities (empha-
See also Adoption; Children; Donor Insemination; sis added).
Law and Legal Institutions; Mothers, Lesbian In the former Czechoslovakia, lesbian women
did not exist. Until the revolution in 1989, no-
body knew, spoke, or wrote about them. The only
Czech Republic books concerning the topic were Radclyffe Halls
Republic situated in central Europe; formerly part novel The Well of Loneliness (1928; translated into
of Czechoslovakia. After the Communist takeover Czech before World War II) and Gertrude Steins
in 1948, the policy was to present the country to The Autobiography of Alice Toklas (1933; trans-
the outer world as an ideal place to live, lacking lated in the 1970s). Women who were not able to
any deviant groups, such as handicapped peo- cope with their problem and had the courage to
ple, prostitutes, or homosexuals. In 1993, the coun- visit a psychiatrist or a sexologist were, with few
try split into two independent states, the Czech exceptions, seen as transsexuals and offered the
Republic and the Slovak Republic. alternative of changing their sex surgically.
Homosexuality as such was decriminalized in With the end of Communist rule, the situation
1961. The last explicitly discriminating clause in changed significantly. Lesbian women began to
the penal code was abolished in 1991. However, have the opportunity to meet one another and to
the almost total silence around this topic in the see professionally successful women and stable cou-
past has made it difficult for individuals to come ples, as well as women, who, with little success,
to terms with their orientation. had tried to find their real identity in marriage.

220 C U S T O D Y L I T I G AT I O N
Prior to this, they had no name for their identity young women who have problems coming out. The
nor role models to provide support. Slowly, it be- magazine contains legal and psychological consult-
came possible to find meeting places, although, just ing, reviews of books and films, short stories, poetry,
as new pubs and bars emerged, they disappeared advertisements, and news from the lesbian and gay
for economic reasons. As late as 1997, there was community. In 1997, four books were published by
no exclusively lesbian bar in Prague; women mostly ALIA, including a study of the social status of les-
met in a gay bar where one night was reserved for bian women in the Czech Republic.
them. Other lesbian groups, such as in the city of The association Promluv (Speak Out) was
Brno, successfully organized social events, mostly founded at the beginning of 1994. It sponsors ac-
disco nights, exclusively for women. tivities to support the rights and culture of women,
In Prague, there are two independent lesbian primarily lesbian and bisexual, and fights against
groups, both of which are members of SOHO. L- social discrimination; it publishes a bimonthly
klub Lambda, which split from the mixed G/L magazine, Promluv, with each issue devoted to a
Lambda, is a voluntary community of women with specific topic. The association organizes a national
homosexual orientation and their sympathizers. Its weekend for lesbian mothers and a lesbian cultural
activities include consciousness raising, cultural festival. It is also engaged in developing a womens
events, and sports. center, NORA, to be located on its own premises
L-klub Lambda publishes a magazine, ALIA in Prague, which will provide information and
(other or different), for lesbian women, espe- space for womens activities. Karla Hynkov
cially those who cannot meet in bars, married women
who discovered their real orientation later in life, and See also International Organizations

CZECH REPUBLIC 221

D
Dance established in ballet. While modern dance, unlike
Despite the past contributions by, and continuing ballet, allowed some women to assume the artistic
presence of, innumerable gays and lesbians in the directorship of major companies and produced fe-
history of ballet and modern dance from Western male characters of great depth, the aesthetic fo-
Europe and the United States, scholarly discussions cused on the shared experience of humanity, and
surrounding the articulation of homosexual desire one of its best-loved metaphors was the model of
are few. Since the 1980s, dance historians have heterosexual romantic courtship.
made public speculations on the private lives of The Romantic spectacle of ballet and the narra-
gay male figures such as Vaslav Nijinsky (1890 tive conventions of modern dance determined the lim-
1950), Ted Shawn (18911972), and Jerome ited possibilities for the female form on the pro-
Robbins (1918), while choreographers of the scenium stage as either the unattainable object of the
1980s and 1990s like Bill T.Jones, Mark Morris, heterosexual male viewers desire or the necessarily
Michael Clark, and Stephen Petronio, to name only heterosexual embodiment of the human condition
a few, have treated the subject of male homosexu- for the liberal modern dance audience. It wasnt
ality as a central theme in their works. However, a until the late 1960s, when avant-garde postmodern
lesbian presence in the history of dance is consid- choreographers questioned the dance performance
erably more difficult to trace, and the articulation as a theatrical and political event, that the codes of
of a lesbian sensibility in contemporary choreog- sexual difference and the chain of underlying assump-
raphy is still more challenging to define. tions that support them were disputed and divorced
While a gay male choreographer can strike a from one another. Perhaps most important, male and
threatening undercurrent of homoerotic desire by female dancers performed roles interchangeably, and
simply creating an opportunity for two men to these bodies touched, supported, and were supported
touch on the stage, the image of two women danc- outside of the model of heterosexual romantic court-
ing together does not necessarily create the same ship. These characteristics developed further during
result. This curious double standard has its his- the 1970s and 1980s in the context of contact im-
torical precedents. In the mid-to-late-nineteenth provisation. Untrained bodies from a group of par-
century, cross-dressed female dancers politely ticipants who were both spectators and performers
partnered ballerinas on the stages of the Paris Op- temporarily merged in unplanned shapes to share
era and provided their male spectators with a hu- weight and support one another.
morous and voyeuristic thrill as they danced. Dur- Young choreographers entering the world of
ing the first half of the twentieth century, large en- concert dance in the 1980s had all of these tools at
sembles of women moving in unison dominated their disposal: leggy pyrotechnics and
the stage in the master works of the early moderns, presentational silhouettes from ballet; epic narra-
such as Doris Humphrey (18951958) and Martha tive structures and the rebounding qualities of
Graham (18941991), but their most threatening weight and momentum that characterized early
possibility lay in their rebellion against the accepted modern dance; pedestrian movements and the ab-
standards of female beauty and artistic authority stract structures of postmodern dance; and the

DANCE 223
D

Jill Togawa, Prayer for My Brother. Photo by

Marion Gray.

nonnarrative, nongendered couplings of various 1996 season at the Joyce Theater in New York City.
body types featured in contact improvisation. The The premiere of this work represented one of the
1980s also bore witness to the inclusion of artistic first unabashedly lesbian portrayals of desire in a
voices from different ethnic backgrounds. While mainstream concert dance venue.
distinguished choreographers like Katherine For the most part, though, lesbian choreogra-
Dunham (1910), Arthur Mitchell (1934), and phers working within the genre of contemporary
Alvin Ailey (19311989) incorporated African and concert dance present their work in more experi-
black vernacular dance forms into traditional bal- mental venues, and they do not enjoy the kind of
let and modern vocabularies from the late 1930s national recognition that straight female or male
onward, their contributions to the mainstream choreographers, gay and straight, do. Out les-
stage were categorized as Black Dance, separate bian performers who address sexuality in their
from mainstream trends in concert dance. In the work often find more success in obtaining an au-
mid-1980s, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, artistic direc- dience in dance/theater or performance art circles.
tor of the Urban Bush Women, borrowed from However, in September 1996, San Francisco, Cali-
various traditions in dance and theater to create fornias, first Gay and Lesbian Dance Festival pre-
works that riveted American dance audiences with miered at the Brady Street Dance Centre. Krissy
their eclectic movement vocabulary and often Keefer, artistic director the Bay Areas Dance Bri-
overtly political content. Interestingly, it was Zollar, gade, and choreographer Anne Bluethenthal pre-
who identifies as a straight woman, who created sented works of their own and those of other les-
Bones and Ash, a work based on The Gilda Sto- bian choreographers, such as Jill Togawa of the
ries by novelist Jewelle Gomez (1948), for the Purple Moon Dance Project, for this festival.

224 DANCE
 The difficulty of a lesbian artist attaining main- named after the lesbian-themed poems of Pierre
stream acceptance of her politicized and/or Louys (18701925), Songs of Bilitis.
homoerotic dances reflects the enduring legacy of Shortly after DOBs founding, several of its
established concert forms. The signifying capacity members came into contact with the early
for the dancing female body as heterosexualized homophile movement and organizations such as
erotic object and the decidedly straight conventions Mattachine and One, Inc., whose members were
of traditional narrative force the lesbian choreog- attempting to improve conditions for homosexu-
rapher to contend with the limits of structure and als and wanted DOB to work toward improving
content in mainstream dance. Those who manage social acceptance for lesbians. Within the first year,
to obtain a kind of transgressive, self-conscious play DOB split into two organizations, roughly along
within these limitations must then face the almost class lines. Working-class women formed a secret
insurmountable costs of presenting their work in social club (Quatrefoil), and middle-class women
mainstream venues. As a result, though, the les- developed DOB into a public social and political
bian presence in dance resists a singular definition organization. Del Martin became the first presi-
of what it is to live and love as a woman-identified dent, and Phyllis Lyon became the first editor of
woman. It may be that these artists are in a unique The Ladder, published from 1956 to 1972.
position to provide choreographic models in which Daughters of Bilitis was incorporated as a wom-
gender is embodied across a large spectrum of quali- ens social club by the state of California in 1957;
ties and the possibilities for narrative and desire fit the following year, two additional chapters, in Los
any number of configurations. Michelle Heffner Angeles, California, and New York City, were
formed. At DOBs height, chapters emerged in a
Bibliography number of cities and countries, including Chicago,
Banes, Sally. Terpsichore in Sneakers. Middletown, Illinois; San Diego, California; Boston, Massachu-
Conn.: Wesleyan University Press and Scranton, setts; Denver, Colorado; and Melbourne, Australia.
Penn.: Harper and Row, 1987. By the 1970s, most chapters had folded; in the
Daly, Ann. Of Hummingbirds and Channel 1990s, one chapter, in Boston, remained.
Swimmers. Drama Review 31 (Spring 1987), Typical activities included Gab n Java discus-
821. sion sessions held at members homes, social activi-
Foster, Susan. The Ballerinas Phallic Pointe. In ties such as bowling and parties, and public panels
Corporealities: Knowledge, Culture, and Power. and forums. DOB sought professional speakers, in-
Ed. Susan Foster. London and New York: cluding psychiatrists, lawyers, and clergy, who would
Routledge, 1996, pp. 124. address the group; its members also sought to par-
Koegler, Horst. Dancing in the Closet: The Com- ticipate in academic research on lesbians. As the or-
ing Out of Ballet. Dance Chronicle 18 (1995), ganization became larger, it held national conferences
231239. and participated in other national homophile activi-
Novak, Cynthia. Sharing the Dance: Contact Im- ties. For many years, DOB was the only organization
provisation and American Culture. Madison: that provided a voice for lesbians.
University of Wisconsin Press, 1990. In its early years, Daughters of Bilitis empha-
Siegel, Marcia B. The Shapes of Change: Images of sized the integration of lesbians into the larger het-
American Dance. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Uni- erosexual society. The groups mission included
versity of California Press, 1985. education of the female homophile to enable her
See also Cross-dressing to make her adjustment to society; public edu-
cation, which DOB members hoped would lead
eventually to a breakdown of taboos and preju-
Daughters of Bilitis dices; participation in research projects by psy-
First national lesbian organization in the United chologists and other recognized experts; and in-
States. Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) was founded in vestigation of the penal code. One DOB strategy
San Francisco, California, in 1955 by four lesbian was to encourage appropriate dress and appear-
couples, including Del Martin (1921) and Phyllis ance in order to minimize the boundaries between
Lyon (1924), who went on to become lifelong lesbians and heterosexual women. Members also
activists. Originally intended as a social organiza- believed that lesbians would feel better about them-
tion and an alternative to the bar scene, DOB was selves if they conformed to dominant ideals for

DAUGHTERS OF BILITIS 225

 dress and behavior. By improving individual lesbi- ans in the Homophile Movement. Gender and
D ans appearance and self-esteem, the Daughters
thought that society would eventually become more
Society 8 (1994), 424443.
Faderman, Lillian. Odd Girls and Twilight Lov-
accepting. ers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-
Because of the severe stigma attached to ho- Century America. New York: Columbia Uni-
mosexuality in the 1950s and womens real fears versity Press, 1991.
of losing their jobs simply for being suspected of Martin, Del, and Phyllis Lyon. Lesbian/Woman.
lesbianism, recruitment to the organization was Twentieth Anniversary Edition. Volcano, Calif:
difficult, and numbers remained small. Despite re- Volcano, 1991.
assurances that members names were safe, that
both homosexuals and heterosexuals were included See also Ladder, The; Martin, Del, and Lyon,
as members, and that women could not lose their Phyllis; Womens Liberation Movement
jobs simply for belonging, many of the middle-class
lesbians who were DOBs primary audience feared
joining. Given the police harassment, arrests, and Davis, Katherine Bement (18601935)
loss of jobs homosexuals in the 1950s and 1960s American social reformer and scholar. Katherine
faced, these fears were not ungrounded. And, in Bement Daviss contribution to lesbian history and
fact, DOB came under police and FBI surveillance. culture is her 1929 study, Factors in the Sex Life of
In the mid-1960s, DOB flirted with an alliance Twenty-Two Hundred Women. Twelve hundred of
with the more militant segments of the homophile the women included in her study were unmarried.
movement. The Ladder published editorials sym- She asked women not only about their sexual ac-
pathetic to tactics then considered radical, such as tivities with men, but also about their sexual desires
picketing, and debated the contentious notion that for, and activities with, women. This work, sup-
homosexuality was not an illness but instead a sim- ported by the Rockefeller Foundation, capped a long
ple human variation. career in social reform. It should be seen as heroic
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, many DOB because it cost Davis her professional life. Cut off
members and leaders sought an alliance with the from her funding as a result of the study, she was
womens liberation movement. Although DOB had forced into retirement when it was completed.
always been sympathetic to what would later be Davis was born into an old, middle-class family
called a feminist point of view, by the late 1960s in Buffalo, New York, in 1860. She taught school
this view became even more prominent. Some even before entering Vassar College at the age of thirty.
suggested that gay men might be more adamant At the age of thirty-seven, after working in reform
foes of womens rights than heterosexual men once and settlement work in New York City and Phila-
the goals of the male homophile movement had been delphia, Pennsylvania, she entered the graduate pro-
achieved. But the shift to an alliance with the wom- gram at the University of Chicago. In 1900, she re-
ens movement also proved divisive. By this time, ceived her Ph.D. in political economy cum laude.
many younger lesbians were attracted to the more Davis became the superintendent of the new
radical social-change movements of the decade, and Bedford Hills, New York, Reformatory for Women
many of the older members were split about the di- in 1901. Her tenure there lasted until 1913, dur-
rection of the organization. By the early 1970s, DOB ing which time she instituted progressive and in-
was no longer a national organization. All chapters novative programs addressing the womens educa-
became autonomous, and The Ladder became an tional and vocational needs. Her work was recog-
independent womens liberation paper. nized and supported by John D.Rockefeller (1839
Kristin G.Esterberg 1937). In 1914, with an outstanding reputation in
the field of criminology, she became commissioner
Bibliography of corrections for New York City, the first woman
DEmilio, John. Sexual Politics, Sexual Communi- to hold a cabinet-level post in that municipality.
ties: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in Davis was a supporter of womens rights and an
the United States 19401970. Chicago: Univer- active suffragist. In the 1920s, through work on is-
sity of Chicago Press, 1983. sues of prostitution and deviance, she recognized
Esterberg, Kristin. From Accommodation to Lib- the need for research on normal womens sexual
eration: A Social Movement Analysis of Lesbi- attitudes and behaviors. Her findings, especially

226 DAUGHTERS OF BILITIS

those on masturbation and homosexuality, chal- first reading, they are not apparently lesbian, for
lenged popular and academic beliefs about wom- they speak more of the emotions involved than of
ens sexuality. Trisha Franzen the women who enflamed them. Her earliest po-
ems, Occident (1901) and Ferveur (1902), were
Bibliography written just after her marriage, but the passion they
Davis, Katherine Bement. Factors in the Sex Life describe was for Impria de Heredia, as Delarue-
of Twenty-Two Hundred Women. New York: Mardruss memoirs make clear.
Harper, 1929. Although the young Delarue-Mardrus was
Fitzpatrick, Ellen. Endless Crusade: Women Social honored by kings, sultans, painters, and poets, in
Scientists and Progressive Reform. New York: her seventies she was unable to get her work pub-
Oxford University Press, 1990. lished due to Nazi censorship. Her lover, Germaine
. Katherine Bement Davis, Early Twentieth- de Castro, was sought by the Gestapo, who, dis-
Century American Women, and the Study of covering that de Castro had fled, threatened to take
Sex Behavior. New York: Garland, 1987. Delarue-Mardrus in her place. The Socit des Gens
des Lettres provided her with a pension and sold
See also Sexology the film rights to one of her novels, but Delarue-
Mardrus died at the end of the war in near penury.
Anna Livia
Delarue-Mardrus, Lucie (18741945)
French novelist and poet. Lucie Delarue-Mardrus Bibliography
was a prolific writer, publishing more than Engelking, Tama Lea. LAnge et les Pervers: Lucie
fortyseven novels and twelve collections of poetry. Delarue-Mardruss Ambivalent Poetic Identity.
She was one of the most popular authors of the Romance Quarterly 39:4 (November 1992),
1920s, and many of her novels began as serials in 45166.
such widely read newspapers as the Journal and Livia, Anna. Lucie Delarue-Mardrus and the Phre-
Revue de Paris. netic Harlequinade. In Introduction to The
Delarue married Joseph-Charles Mardrus Angel and the Perverts by Lucie Delarue-
(18681949), the Franco-Egyptian translator of the Mardrus. New York: New York University
Arabian Nights, and it was he who introduced her Press, 1995.
to the literary and artistic opinion-makers of the Waelti-Walters, Jennifer. Feminist Novelists of the
day, including Auguste Rodin (18401917), Sarah Belle Epoque: Love as a Life Style. Bloomington:
Bernhardt (18441923), Andr Gide (18691951), Indiana University Press, 1990.
and Colette (18731954). Despite this high-pro-
file marriage, Delarue-Mardrus reserved her pas- See also Barney, Natalie; Colette; France; French
sion for women. Natalie Barney (18761972) in- Literature
troduced her to the lesbian aristocracy of Paris,
and she was a frequent visitor at Barneys salon.
Although most of Delarue-Mardruss fiction re- Deming, Barbara (19171984)
volves around popular heterosexual themes such as American writer and activist. Born in New York
unwed mothers, Norman fishermen, and war-torn City, Barbara Deming was the second of four chil-
romance, LAnge et les Pervers (The Angel and the dren, the only girl. During her teenage years, the
Perverts [1930]) tells the story of the hermaphro- family owned a home across the river from New
dite Mario/n and his/her forays into the gay and York in a country neighborhood where friends in-
lesbian milieu of the 1920s. Elsewhere, love between cluded Norma Millay and her sister, poet Edna St.
women is veiled behind a heterosexual front. Une Vincent Millay (18921950). In this free and some-
Femme mre et lamour (Love and the Mature what bohemian setting, Deming began to write
Woman) (1935), otherwise closely based on Delarue- poetry and, at the age of seventeen, had a passion-
Mardruss relationship with the Jewish opera singer ate and formative love affair with Norma Millay
Germaine de Castro, centers on the love of the singer (18931986).
for her Catholic brother-in-law. Delarue-Mardruss Deming received her bachelors degree from
poetry records the longings, desires, joys, and de- Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont, in
spairs she experienced for the women she loved. At 1938 and a masters degree from Case Western

DEMING, BARBARA 227

 Deming became interested in the work of Gandhi
D (18691948) on nonviolence. She realized that I
was in the deepest part of myself a pacifist, and
her life began to move from a personal search for
truth to a political commitment to truth and jus-
tice. A spontaneous interview with Fidel Castro
(1926/1927) during a trip to Cuba in March 1960
put her in touch with the Committee for Nonvio-
lent Action and the Peacemakers. Meeting them,
she said, felt like finding a long-lost family. Sub-
sequently, she joined some of the first protests
against nuclear-weapons testing. On an integrated
peace walk in the U.S. South, Deming was jailed
for civil rights protests in Birmingham, Alabama,
and Macon and Albany, Georgia, during 1963
1964. Prison Notes (1966) is an account of these
imprisonments. Her following book, Revolution
and Equilibrium (1971), detailed the anti-Vietnam
War movement, particularly Demings travels to
North Vietnam, where she witnessed and experi-
enced the U.S. bombing of Hanoi.
Demings commitment to human freedom and
individual dignity eventually brought her to strug-
gles that touched her own life most directly: femi-
nism and gay and lesbian rights. After years of sup-
Barbara Deming at Seneca Womens Peace Encamp- pressing her secret life, in 1971 Deming faced
ment, July 1983. Photo by Judith McDaniel. her fear of being known as a homosexual, facing
always the threat of being despised for that. Since
1969, Barbara Deming had been living with her
Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1940. During her third lover and companion, Jane Gapen (1919
time at Bennington, Deming met Vida Ginsberg 1992), whose ex-husband had threatened to never
(1920), with whom she was lovers for seven years let her see her two children again. It took them
and who was the first of three significant partner several years to resolve the custody issue.
relationships during Demings lifetime. Books from her lesbian feminist period include
During World War II, Deming worked for the We Cannot Live Without Our Lives (1974) and Re-
Library of Congress national-film-library project membering Who We Are (1981). In 1983, Deming
based at New York Citys Museum of Modern Art. was part of a Womens Encampment for a Future of
Her film reviews led to the writing of her first book, Peace and Justice demonstration near the Seneca Army
Running Away from Myself: A Dream Portrait of Depot, near Seneca Falls, New York, during which
America Drawn from the Films of the 40s (1969). she was arrested. Her essay about this last protest is
A bequest in the early 1950s allowed Deming to included in a reprinting of Prison Notes.
travel in Europe, where she began writing the sto- Judith McDaniel
ries collected in Wash Us and Comb Us (1974)
and also began a novel, A Humming Under My Bibliography
Feet: A Book of Travail (1985). Deming, Barbara. A Humming Under My Feet: A
In 1954, Deming met artist Mary Meigs (1917 Book of Travail. London: Womens Press, 1985.
); the two became companions almost immediately, . Prisons That Could Not Hold. Athens: Uni-
settling in a house in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, versity of Georgia Press, 1995.
where Mary painted and Barbara wrote poems, McDaniel, Judith. Introduction: The Women She
stories, and essays which she published occasion- Loved. In I Change, I Change: The Poetry of
ally in the New Yorker and the Partisan Review. In Barbara Deming. Norwich, Vt.: New Victoria,
1959, Deming and Meigs traveled to India, where 1996.

228 DEMING, BARBARA

Meyerding, Jane, ed. We Are All Part of One An- in cities with one million or more persons, are sig-
other: A Barbara Deming Reader. Philadelphia: nificantly affected by internal migration. Mortal-
New Society, 1984. ity is concerned with health, death rates, and
Silent Pioneers. Interviews with Gay and Lesbian causes of death. And fertility is concerned with
Elders. Produced by Pat Snyder, Harvey Marks, behaviors of sexuality, contraception, and the
and Lucy Winer; originally shown on PBS in number of persons born. For lesbian history and
Fall 1984. culture, the demographic perspective is critical in
addressing questions of growth, organization, con-
See also Peace Movement tinuity, and much more. In one way or another,
each question is affected by demographic factors.
Demography is a way of knowing and a per-
Demography spective. It is interdisciplinary and quantitative. For
Study of the size, structure, and spatial distribution example, whether or not a lesbian community ex-
of a population that is time and geographic specific. ists visibly is dependent, in part, upon the size of its
Size refers to the number of persons in a country, population. Whether or not shops, schools, or health
city, organization, occupation, or local community. services are sensitive to lesbian needs is related to
Structure refers to the composition of a group the size and structure of the population. Both inter-
that has been divided according to one or more its nal organization and external sensitivities may in-
characteristics, such as age, ethnicity, or religion. crease with the recognition of increased numbers
Spatial distribution refers to the geographic loca- and empowerment. In this hypothetical scenario, it
tions and movement of a population of individuals, is the demographic factor of size that produces
services, and/or businesses. Lesbian identity is not greater visibility, potentially affecting economic
typically considered a relevant factor in demographic needs, services, and lesbian-community initiatives.
studies. Yet all conventional demographic questions The scenario has included demographic factors that
are affected when sexual identity is taken into con- affect, or were affected by, nondemographic factors.
sideration; similarly, demography is necessary for a Factors such as ethnicity, education, and income are
full understanding of lesbian and gay communities. not demographic factors per se but certainly are af-
The movement of persons both within and be- fected by, and affect, births, deaths, and movers.
tween countries may affect the population size and Such reciprocal relationships are examined in de-
the structure of the geographic areas of origin and mographic analysis.
destination. Population size, structure, or spatial Each demographic area of study includes numer-
distribution are primarily affected by the number ous concepts and terms, usually with correspond-
of births (fertility), deaths (mortality), and mov- ing measures, such as rates, proportions, and other
ers (migration). The study of these relationships measures, that are specific to one or more calendar
constitutes a demographic perspective on the years and geographic areas. Such rates enable a
nature of societal organization and change. Births, reader to judge potential sources of change in their
deaths, and movers are demographic events, and community and beyond. Similarly, demographic
processes. In San Francisco, California, for exam- rates are used by market researchers to target adver-
ple, the proportion of lesbians in the population tising toward lesbian communities and can be used
can generate changes in the structure and forms of by lesbians for community planning and design.
relationships, partnership- and family-formation Demography depends for its information pri-
processes, and birth rates. The size of San Francis- marily upon population censuses and large-scale
cos lesbian and gay population is dependent upon surveys. Often it uses its census or survey results in
its birth, death, and migration rates. the calculation of various rates, such as projections
Each demographic processmigration, fertil- about the future population and its structure. As a
ity, and mortalityincludes numerous concepts. research method, it transcends gender categories
Emigration and immigration refer, respec- that is, it is a method appropriate to researching
tively, to movement from ones country of birth to populations who have multiple and different la-
another country. Internal migration refers to bels, locations, and mobility.
movement from one geographic area to another Demography is a key component of public-policy
within the same country. The San Francisco les- analysis and the assessment of program services. It
bian population, and generally lesbian populations provides a basis for action and decision making in

DEMOGRAPHY 229
 education, housing construction, market analysis, lenges the status quo in one geographic location or
D tax issues, election campaigns, and community build-
ing. In an information age, one must constantly as-
at a particular historical moment might not be as
challenging if done someplace else or at another time.
sess what is factual and what is less than true. De- Similarly, an organizations position in the extant
mography is one of several analytical lenses, or, ways race, class, gender, sexuality, and nationality hierar-
of knowing, through which history and culture may chies may influence the degree to which it is willing,
be studied. Sometimes it produces fanciful results, or able, to take risks or challenge the established
but, most often, it is a valid lens. order. Breaking with the more accommodationist
Christina Brinkley and discrete approaches advocated by other mem-
bers of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) and the
Bibliography Mattachine Society, these first collective actions by
Pressat, Roland. Demographic Analysis: Methods, homosexuals were, on the one hand, relatively risky
Results, Applications. Paris: Presses (participants risked losing jobs, friends, and family)
Universitaires de France, 1961. Trans. Judah and confrontational (they focused on changing so-
Matras. Chicago: Aldine Atherton, 1972. ciety rather than helping individual homosexuals
adjust to society). Their actions provoked clashes in
See also Advertising and Consumerism; Econom- their homophile organizations over tactics and goals.
ics; Immigration On the other hand, in contrast to the civil disobedi-
ence, freedom rides, and large demonstrations en-
gaged in by civil rights activists prior to, and dur-
Demonstrations and Actions ing, the same period, these early homophile actions
Public, confrontational, collective political activ- were tame. Ernestine Eckstein (pseud.), a veteran of
ism, including marches, zaps, disruptions, sit-ins, the black civil rights movement and a member of
guerrilla street theater, strikes, and civil disobedi- DOB, believed in 1965 that picketing was almost a
ence. Scholars and activists often contrast demon- conservative activity.
strations and actions with more individualized Just four years later, the Stonewall Rebellion in
forms of resistance and with activism that occurs New York City and subsequent emergence of the
within more legitimate political channels, such Gay Liberation Front (GLF) made these earlier, or-
as lobbying, letter writing, and political-party work. derly pickets seem even more timid and staid. When
As social-movement theorists have argued, dem- the police conducted a raid of the Stonewall Inn on
onstrations and other contentious political actions June 27,1969, drag queens, butch dykes, street hus-
reveal participants dissatisfaction with the status tlers, and street youthmany of them black or
quo and willingness to challenge existing power re- Latino and working classrefused to quietly com-
lations. People involved in such activism have rec- ply and instead threw coins, bottles, garbage, and
ognized the systemic nature of what they might have bricks at the police. Nights of riots and invocations
previously viewed as individual problems and have of Gay Power! were followed by the formation
acted on the conviction that they have a common of GLF in New York City and later around the
purpose and must engage in collective oppositional United States. Ultimately, gay liberation groups
politics to change their situation. Rather than com- emerged in Canada, Australia, and Western Europe.
placent victims of social forces, collective action U.S. lesbian and gay liberationists argued for
shows people to be agents of change. sexual liberation in the context of broader societal
Homosexuals in the United States may have en- transformation. As gay liberationists, they partici-
gaged in public confrontational actions prior to 1965, pated in antiwar demonstrations, rallies in support
but the earliest documented demonstrations occurred of imprisoned Black Panthers, and womens-move-
that year. Inspired by earlier actions of the civil rights ment actions. Inspired by the confrontational tac-
movement, small groups of lesbians and gay men tics of other movements, liberationists engaged in
marched in front of the United Nations, the White militant actions that focused specifically on the
House, the Civil Service Commission, Independence oppression of lesbians and gays. Among other ac-
Hall, the Pentagon, and the State Department, tar- tions, activists marched against bar raids and po-
geting the governments discriminatory treatment. lice harassment; occupied the offices of the Village
Demonstrations and actions have different mean- Voice and Harpers to protest antigay coverage;
ings in different contexts. An action that deeply chal- invaded the American Medical Associations 1970

230 DEMOGRAPHY
convention in Chicago, Illinois; and the American Initially spurred by the AIDS crisis, beginning in
Psychiatric Associations annual meeting in San the late 1980s lesbians and gay men in the United
Francisco, California; and held a dance-in at a States again participated in radical activism. Lesbi-
straight bar in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after two ans, many of whom had experience in leftist and femi-
lesbians were evicted for dancing together. nist organizations, played a prominent role in ACT
Actions by lesbian and gay liberationists were UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power), a direct-ac-
not only directed externally at societys homopho- tion organization famous for die-ins, disruptions,
bic institutions. GLF lesbians in T-shirts emblazoned street theater, and demonstrations targeting the sci-
with Lavender Menace disrupted the National entific-medical establishment and the government.
Organization for Womens Congress to Unite Lesbians initiated numerous actions focusing on the
Women (New York City) in 1970 to protest the issues faced by women with AIDS. Some lesbians in
homophobia of the womens movement. That same ACT UP/New York, wanting to do more activism
year, when a lesbian bar in Oakland, California, about womens health, formed Womens Health Ac-
refused to let women post a flier about a gay wom- tion Mobilization (WHAM!). ACT UP/NY and
ens liberation meeting, lesbians who frequented the WHAM! joined in a militant demonstration in New
bar organized a protest and boycott.
York City against the Catholic Churchs opposition
DEmilio (1992) has pointed out that, as other
to safe sex, homosexuality, and abortion. In the early
movements from the 1960s declined, the U.S. gay
1990s, Queer Nation groups emerged in the United
liberation movement was eclipsed by a movement
States, Canada, and Australia. They sponsored kiss-
focused solely on lesbian and gay rights rather than
ins at suburban malls and large marches protesting
overall societal transformation. Simultaneous with
violence against gays and lesbians. OutRage formed
this shift in vision and agenda, and perhaps partly
in London in 1990 and also engaged in direct action
as a result of it, white lesbians and lesbians and
to protest homophobia. The Lesbian Avengers
gay men of color who were alienated by the racism
emerged in the United States in 1992, holding zaps
and sexism of the movement began to organize au-
tonomously. New groups that formed included (quick, small-scale political actions), demonstrations,
Radicalesbians, Third World Gay Revolution, Salsa and annual Dyke Marches to increase lesbian visibil-
Soul Sisters, the Furies, Gay Womens Liberation, ity and fight lesbian oppression. Groups in Oregon,
and the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Colorado, Maine, Iowa, and elsewhere formed to
Gay Men. fight the Religious Rights antigay referenda.
In the late 1970s, proliferating lesbian and gay By the mid-1990s in the United States, many of
activist organizations (as well as hundreds of unaf- these direct-action groups had disappeared, and
filiated individuals) in the United States participated lesbian and gay activism inclined toward more con-
in many actions, including demonstrations against ventional politics to secure access to the U.S. mili-
the antigay Save Our Children campaign (1977), tary and the right to marry.
the Briggs initiative to ban lesbian and gay teachers Identities are commonly perceived to exist prior
from Californias schools (1978), and the light sen- to collective action, but demonstrations and ac-
tence given to Dan White, murderer of San Fran- tions themselves play a large role in deconstruct-
cisco City Commissioner Harvey Milk (19301978). ing, reconstructing, and transforming the identi-
Throughout the 1980s, lesbians and gay men ties of participants and the communities from
around the world protested their oppression. For which they come. The actions of DOB, GLF,
example, in 1980 in Brazil, more than one thou- Radicalesbians, Salsa Soul Sisters, and OutRage,
sand lesbians and gay men protested police round- among others, have all affected the meaning of
ups. The group Comunidad Homosexual Argen- lesbian. Debbie Gould
tina participated in a massive demonstration for
justice in 1984 after the end of the military dicta- Bibliography
torship in Argentina. In 1988, ten thousand lesbi- Adam, Barry D. The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian
ans and gay men demonstrated in London against Movement. Rev. ed. New York: Twayne, 1995.
Section 28 of the Local Government Act (known DEmilio, John. Making Trouble: Essays on Gay
as Clause 28 before the act was passed), a bill pro- History, Politics, and the University. New York:
hibiting the teaching of homosexuality. Three les- Routledge, 1992.
bians used a rope ladder to invade the House of . Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The
Lords in protest of the clause. Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United

D E M O N S T R AT I O N S A N D A C T I O N S 231
 States, 19401970. Chicago: University of Chi- women that feminist historians have dubbed ro-
D cago Press, 1983.
Faderman, Lillian. Odd Girls and Twilight Lov-
mantic friendships were understood also in Den-
mark as natural expressions of womens tender,
ers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth- emotional nature, and for two unmarried women
Century America. New York: Columbia Uni- to live together was a perfectly legitimate, even re-
versity Press, 1991. spectable, choice. Especially in the second half of
Gomez, Jewelle. Out of the Past. In The Question the nineteenth century, when new employment
of Equality: Lesbian and Gay Politics in America opportunities paved the way for female economic
Since Stonewall. Ed. David Deitcher. New York: independence, a number of urban middle-class
Simon and Schuster, 1995, pp. 1865. women chose to share their private lives with a
female companion. Natalie Zahle (18271913), for
See also Activism; AIDS (Acquired Immune Defi- example, the founder of the highly successful Miss
ciency Syndrome); Daughters of Bilitis; Furies, The; Zahles School for girls, built a home with Ingeborg
Gay Liberation Movement; Lesbian Avengers; Vinderen (18501924) from 1879 until her death
National Organization for Women (NOW); Queer in 1913. Other pioneers of female education, in-
Nation; Radicalesbians; Womens Liberation cluding Augusta Fenger (18441931) and Marie
Movement Topse (d. 1894), and Thusnelda Moltke (1843
1928) and Elise Bay (18421916), formed similar
long-term domestic partnerships.
Denmark It was only from the end of the nineteenth cen-
Scandanavian nation with an international reputa- tury that changing understandings of sexuality threw
tion for exceptional tolerance of gay men and lesbi- into question the respectability of such female cou-
ans. In 1989, Denmark became the first country in ples. In the 1890s, the prominent physician Chris-
the world to legally recognize homosexual relation- tian Geill (18601938), inspired by German sexual
ships; this legislation, combined with laws barring science, first introduced the notion of the homo-
discrimination based on sexual orientation, has sexual individual in Danish medical circles. By iden-
made Denmark a world leader in granting equal tifying those people whose sexual desires were aimed
rights to gay and straight citizens. Moreover, the at persons of the same sex as inverts or homo-
tone of public discourse on homosexuality is gener- sexuals, he and other medical experts contributed
ally cordial rather than strident, and popular senti- to creating a new understanding of homosexuality
ments are more frequently characterized by accept- as an innate condition rather than a particular form
ance and a laissez-faire attitude than overt hostility. of immoral or sinful behavior. Although most at-
Still, Denmark cannot claim a particularly long- tention was paid to male homosexuality, experts
standing liberal tradition in its view or treatment of frequently suggested that women who violated gen-
homosexual citizens, and research on the lives and der norms by acting or appearing masculine pos-
history of Danish lesbians suggests many similari- sibly possessed sexual instincts similar to those of
ties with patterns found in other Western nations. men and, therefore, merited inclusion in the newly
developed category of sexual abnormality.
History
As was the case in many other European countries, The Twentieth Century
the earliest efforts to control sexual behavior and In the early years of the twentieth century, this new
contain it within reproductive family units resulted belief in homosexuality as a congenital disposition
in the prohibition of sodomy with the Danish Law prompted the leading Danish psychiatrist, Profes-
Code of 1683. Until 1930, when sexual acts be- sor Alexander Friedenreich (18491932), to argue
tween consenting adult men were finally for the decriminalization of sodomy between con-
decriminalized, male homosexuality was, therefore, senting adults. Ultimately, the scientific
punishable by law. Because sodomy was defined reconceptualization of homosexuality that in-
as nonprocreative, penetrative sex, same-sex sexu- formed Friedenreichs arguments contributed to a
ality between women was never encompassed by revision of the penal code, freeing homosexual men
any form of regulation. from the risk of legal prosecution. The impact on
On the contrary, at least in the nineteenth cen- womens relationships was more ambiguous: While
tury, the kind of loving relationships between acknowledging the possibility of sexual desire

232 D E M O N S T R AT I O N S A N D A C T I O N S
between women, it slowly began to erode the moral Over the years, many lesbians found compan-
propriety of same-sex couples. ionship and community in the Association of 1948
In 19061907, a series of highly publicized sexual (since 1978 known by the more candid name, the
scandals involving male prostitution functioned to National Organization of Gay Men and Lesbians).
spread public knowledge of male homosexuality. In Yet, in spite of its mixed-gender membership, both
comparison, awareness of same-sex sexuality among the rank and file and the elected leadership of the
women was much slower to seep into popular con- organization were consistently dominated by men.
sciousness. Even in the 1920s and 1930s, when pri- There is little evidence that this was a bone of con-
vate networks contributed to the creation of a les- tention in the 1950s and 1960s, but, in retrospect,
bian subculture in Copenhagen, the continued ac- many female members recall experiences of mar-
ceptance of cohabitating female couples suggests that ginality and second-class status in the organization.
notions of sexual deviance had not yet rendered As elsewhere in society, women were often assigned
emotional and physical intimacy between women only tedious tasks and trivial responsibilities, while
entirely suspect. As Ina Holm, a lifelong lesbian and men determined organizational priorities and po-
feminist, told Jensen (1989): It was not as difficult litical strategies. It is hardly surprising, then, that
to be a lesbian in the 1930s as it got to be later. the Association of 1948 seemed a less than attrac-
Because at that time, not many people knew the tive organizational home to those women who were
concept of homosexuality. not only lesbians, but also part of the new wom-
World War II marks a turning point in lesbian ens movement that emerged in the early 1970s.
history in many Western nations, but its impact on
Danish lesbians remains unclear. However, the fact The Lesbian Movement (1970)
that the first official homosexual organization, dis- Bent on changing social and sexual structures in
creetly named the Association of 1948, was formed society, lesbian feminists quickly disassociated
in its immediate aftermath suggests the existence of themselves from what were perceived as pathetic
a sizable, self-conscious gay and lesbian community. and politically misguided attempts at social accept-
From its founding, the organization was intended ance. Instead, the loosely organized group Lesbian
as a national interest group promoting tolerance, Movement, founded in Copenhagen in 1974, was
understanding, and equality for gay men and lesbi- based on a critique of capitalism, patriarchy, and
ans. In addition, it was envisioned as a forum for compulsory heterosexuality, and, rather than par-
community building and mutual support and as a take in a male-dominated hierarchical organization
social club offering entertainment for its mixed-gen- striving for legal reform, the movement created its
der membership. Though headquartered in Copen- own spaces and institutions, such as the folk high
hagen, the organization sought to reach gay men school Kvindehjskolen, the conference center
and lesbians across the country through its mem- Skrkkenborg, and annual summer camps on the
bership publication, originally entitled Vennen (The island of Fem, open to women only.
Friend), but since 1954 published as PAN. After flourishing in the 1970s and the early
Promoting tolerance and equal rights for ho- 1980s, the lesbian movement all but vanished from
mosexuals proved a difficult task in the 1940s and the political scene. While some women shifted their
1950s. Media-generated images of homosexuals as energies toward other forms of women-centered
lurking seducers of innocent youths vilified gay men activism, such as rape prevention and crisis centers,
and lesbians, and rigorously enforced police regu- and others withdrew into private networks, the
lations against disturbance of public order and vio- renamed National Organization of Gay Men and
lations of public decency kept them the constant Lesbians once again became the center for politi-
targets of harassment and persecution. Such pres- cal organizing among homosexuals from the mid-
sures led to a dramatic decline in organizational 1980s. Though the membership never grew to more
membership: In 1950, the Association of 1948 than 3,500, the organization nevertheless won its
counted 1,600 members; only five years later, that greatest political victories in the 1980s. Beginning
number had plummeted to sixty-two. It was not with the removal of homosexuality from the offi-
until the mid-1960s that public fears of homosexu- cial list of psychological disturbances in 1980, the
ality waned, and only then that the organization following years were characterized by considerable
was able more successfully to pursue its political improvements in the legal status of gay men and
goal of assimilation and equal rights. lesbians. In 1986, homosexual couples were

DENMARK 233
 granted the right to inherit from each other on the Ltzen, Karin. At prve lykken. 25 lesbiske
D same conditions as married, heterosexual couples.
The following year, sexual orientation was added
livshistorier (Trying Your Luck: 25 Lesbian Life
Stories). Copenhagen: Tiderne Skifter, 1988.
to the existing antidiscrimination law. Finally, in . Hvad hjertet begrer. Kvinders krlighed til
1989, after years of intense lobbying, the Danish kvinder, 18251985 (What the Heart Desires:
Parliament passed, with a considerable majority Womens Love for Women, 18251985). Co-
of votes, the Law on Registered Partnership Be- penhagen: Tiderne Skifter, 1986.
tween Two Persons of the Same Sex, thereby offer- Rosenbeck, Bente. Kvindekn. Den moderne
ing homosexual couples the option of legal recog- kvindeligheds historie, 18801980 (The Female
nition of their private unions. Gender: The History of Modern Womanhood,
Lesbian responses to the legislation were mixed. 18801980). Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1987.
While most applauded its symbolic significance,
radical lesbians questioned whether the right of ho- See also Domestic Partnership; Romantic Friendship
mosexuals to enter into the socially conservative
institution of marriage was an objective worth pur-
suing. Others found that the legislation did not go
Diaries and Letters
far enough. The fact that registered couples were
The letters women wrote to one another, the dia-
specifically excluded from adopting children, in-
ries they kept for themselves or to share with
cluding those of a partner, certainly put a damper
friends, almost never with any thought of publica-
on the enthusiasm among many lesbians. Others
tion or public exposure, constitute one of wom-
regretted that the legislation precluded the option
ens principal sources of information about wom-
of having a religious wedding ceremony in the Lu-
ens lives, thoughts, language, and, especially, their
theran state church, and that registered lesbian
feelings for one another.
couples, unlike straight married couples, were de-
Letters and diaries are cultural artifacts that com-
nied the right to artificial insemination through the
public healthcare system. Given this range of res- municate as much about the culture that produced
ervations about the legislation, it is symptomatic them as about the individual women who wrote
that, even five years after its passage, lesbians con- them. They exist especially in literate cultures that
stituted a minority (25 percent) of those couples emphasize the importance of the written, rather than
who had taken advantage of the legislation. the spoken, word and in cultures that conceive of
While the 1980s significantly improved the civil an individuals sense of self as a private, introspec-
and legal rights of homosexuals, the 1990s were, in tive experience, rather than a public and performa-
many ways, difficult years for the National Organi- tive act. Letters, in particular, mark a society that
zation of Gay Men and Lesbians. Financial difficul- both valorizes the individual voice and separates the
ties and membership decline all but decimated the individual from kin, friends, and associates, requir-
organization. New political goals were difficult to ing the exchange of letters in order to maintain rela-
define. Invisibility, belittling, and marginalization tions and communicate information. Who writes
continued to be common experiences of gay men letters, and to whom, and who keeps diariesthis
and lesbians, but determining strategies to counter- information about the common facts of everyday
act normative heterosexuality and create a truly di- lifereveal a great deal about that culture, as does
verse and inclusive society remained a daunting, and the content of those letters and diaries. The feelings
still unaccomplished, task. Birgitte Soland expressed, the words used, and the meanings given
those words (words such as love, sex, desire)
Bibliography are equally products of the national culture to which
Bech, Henning. Report from a Rotten State: Mar- the women belong and the specific female culture
riage and Homosexuality in Denmark. In women themselves construct. Indeed, they mark a
Modern Homosexualities: Fragments of Lesbian key point where those two cultures interact.
and Gay Experience. Ed. Kenneth Plummer.
London and New York: Routledge, 1992, pp. History and Development
134147. Womens letters and diaries emerged as a major fe-
Jensen, Mona Bager. Je ne Regrette Rien (No male cultural endeavor in early-modern Europe (six-
Regrets). Interview with Ina Holm. PAN 5 teenth and seventeenth centuries) and its North
(1989), 1617. American colonies. Literacy and individualism were

234 DENMARK
valued, separation was frequent, and communica- Most Southern states made literacy among enslaved
tive skills were essential. Aristocratic women, women African Americans a crime; educational opportuni-
from ruling elites and commercial families, fre- ties in the North were poor. However, the corre-
quently assumed the role of family secretary, com- spondence of Addie Brown and Rebecca Primus,
municating critical political and economic informa- two African American women who grew up together
tion to distant husbands, fathers, and other kin. in Hartford, Connecticut, in the mid-nineteenth cen-
Women recorded daily events, domestic and com- tury, does exist (Hansen 1996). These letters quite
munity rituals, the birth and nurturing of children, openly expressed the deep love the women felt for
spiritual concerns. During the nineteenth century, each other and their commitment to their relation-
well-to-do women, especially urban women, con- ship. They also offer insights into the pressures family
tinued their extensive correspondences. Middle-class and economic need placed on working-class women
girls wrote frequent letters on leaving home to at- to marry men and grow apart.
tend boarding school or, later in the nineteenth cen-
tury (1870s and onward), womens colleges. The Characteristics
letters written by women teachers and professors What womens letters and diaries demonstrate more
describe the life of the woman intellectual and edu- than anything else is the central role women played
cator. The letters and diaries of women reformers in one anothers lives and the frequency with which
and suffragists (for example, Elizabeth Cady Stanton women expressed love and devotion to one another.
[18151902], Susan B.Anthony [18201906], Anna The letters and diaries of eighteenth- and nineteenth-
Howard Shaw [18471919], and Florence Night- century women reveal the existence of a female world
ingale [18201910]) reveal lives filled with rich per- of great emotional strength and complexity. It was a
sonal, professional, and political commitments. world of intimacy, love, and erotic passion. Uniquely
During these years, literacy began to spread across female rituals drew women together during every stage
class, ethnic, and racial divides. The rich or famous of their lives, from adolescence through courtship,
were no longer the only women to keep diaries and marriage, childbirth, child rearing, death, and mourn-
write letters. On the pages of their diaries and letters, ing. Women revealed their deepest feelings to one
poor farming women from the Great Plains or Mor- another, helped one another with the burdens of
mon Utah expressed their most secret fears and fought housewifery and motherhood, nursed one anothers
the dread sense of isolation and loss of all they had sick, and mourned for one anothers dead. It was a
known and held dear. One womans diary, kept in world in which men made only a shadowy
the 1850s during her over-land trip to California, appearnace. Living in the same society, nominally part
contained but two types of notation: the number of of the same culture (bourgeois, farming, or working
water holes the wagon train passed and the number class), certainly members of the same family, women
of graves it passed. Young girls diaries were usually and men experienced their worlds in radically differ-
more lively. One teenage girl, just moved to Oregon, ent ways. Female rituals rigorously excluded male
detailed the country dances she attended, remarking relatives, rituals so secret that men had little knowl-
that she and her sisters always walked barefoot to edge of them and so pervasive that they patterned
the dances, carrying their stockings and shoes to save womens lives from birth to death.
them from wear and tear. Another reported that keep- Womens diaries, such as those of Lady Eleanor
ing a diary permitted her intimacies with other young Butler (17391829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755
girls: I esteem it [exchanging diaries] a very great 1831)the Ladies of Llangollenor Anne Lister
privilege indeedas we lay our hearts open to each (17911840), reveal the emotional and sexual inti-
other, it heightens our love & helps to cherish & keep macies of womens lives together. Womens letters
alive that sweet soothing friendship and endears us frequently convey erotic, sensual feelings; they also
to each other by that soft attraction (Smith- speak of physical pleasures. Women wrote to each
Rosenberg 1986). The letters immigrant women other about exchanging bittersweet kisses and pas-
wrote home to female kinbe that home in Ireland, sionate embraces, of nights spent in each others arms,
Scandinavia, Poland, or Germanyform one of the of dancing together, of swimming naked together in
most important sources of information on the immi- the moonlight, of burning jealousies. They dreaded
grant experience. separation and reveled in each others company. One
It is unusual to find correspondence among Af- young woman, in her mid-twenties in the 1840s,
rican American women in the nineteenth century. wrote a friend, dear since their teenage years together:

DIARIES AND LETTERS 235

 Dear darling Sarah! How I love you & how happy bian, or sexual invert, was developed in the late
D I have been! You are the joy of my life. I cannot tell
you how much happiness you gave me, nor how con-
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It appears
that, for these critics, lesbianism is more an identity
stantly it is all in my thoughts. My darling how I than a behavioral category, more a political than a
long for the time when I shall see you (Smith- sexual choice. Still others focus on the passion
Rosenberg 1986). Another confessed her love after a women expressed in their letters, the physically ex-
minor tiff: I wanted so to put my arms round my plicit nature of many of their activities. These schol-
girl of all the girls in the world and tell herI love ars conclude that erotic, passionate relationships
her as wives do love their husbands, as friends who between women were common, certainly in the nine-
have taken each other for lifeand believe in her as teenth century and undoubtedly before. That women
I believe in my God. You cant get away from [my] related passionately to one another surprises these
love. Later, when the other woman married, the first critics far less than the apparent acceptance hetero-
wrote: You know my dear Helena, I really was in sexual society accorded their relationshipsbefore
love with you. It was a passion such as I had never the twentieth century, that is. They focus on two
known until I saw you. I dont think it was the no- aspects of the phenomenon of womens loving let-
blest way to love you. She addressed the groom in a ters: the issues it raises concerning the nature of
far different tone: Do you know sir, that until you womens eroticism and the ways women have of
came along I believe that she loved me almost as girls expressing eroticism, and what sociopolitical fac-
love their lovers. I know I loved her so. Dont you tors might have contributed to the effacement of
wonder that I can stand the sight of you. Thirty the female world of love and ritual.
years later, this same woman wrote Helena: It isnt Carroll Smith-Rosenberg
because you are good that I love youbut for the
essence of you which is like perfume (Smith- Bibliography
Rosenberg 1986). Davis, Natalie Zemon. Women on the Margins:
Historians have found similar letters in the cor- Three Seventeenth-Century Lives. Cambridge,
respondence of women college presidents M.Carey Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995.
Thomas (18571935) and Mary Wooley (1863 Hansen, Karen V. No Kisses Is Like Youres: An
1947), reformers Francis Willard (18391898) and Erotic Friendship between Two African-Ameri-
Eleanor Roosevelt (18841962), and writers and can Women during the Mid-Nineteenth Cen-
journalists Virginia Woolf (18821941), Natalie tury. In Lesbian Subjects. Ed. Martha Vicinus.
Barney (18761972), and Lorena Hickok (1893 Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana Univer-
1963). What is most striking to historians today is sity Press, 1996, pp. 178207.
that the women who wrote so lovingly to and about Mavor, Elizabeth. A Year With the Ladies of
other women frequently shared these letters with Llangollen. New York: Viking Penguin, 1984.
husbands (if married), other friends, and relatives. Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. Disorderly Conduct:
There is every indication that these women and their Visions of Gender in Victorian America. New
families considered such love both socially accept- York: Knopf, 1986.
able and compatible with heterosexual marriage. Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Susan B.Anthony: Correspondence, Writings,
Historical Interpretations Speeches. Ed. Ellen DuBois. New York:
Historians debate how to interpret these letters. Schocken, 1981.
Some, such as Lillian Faderman in her detailed study Thomas, M.Carey. The Making of a Feminist: Early
Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship Journals and Letters of M.Carey Thomas. Ed.
and Love Between Women From the Renaissance Marjorie Dobkin. Kent, Ohio: Kent State Uni-
to the Present (1981), or Marjorie Dobkin in her versity Press, 1979.
introduction to M.Carey Thomass (18571935) Vicinus, Martha. Independent Women: Work and
teenage diary, argue that these womens letters do Community for Single Women, 18501890.
not, in fact, suggest sexual involvement, that their Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.
passions were platonic. Other lesbian commenta-
tors claim that women can only be considered lesbi- See also Anthony, Susan B.; Autobiography; Barney,
ans if they self-consciously chose to define them- Natalie; Ladies of Llangollen; Lister, Anne; Roosevelt,
selves as lesbiansthat is after the category les- Eleanor; Thomas, M.Carey; Woolf, Virginia

236 DIARIES AND LETTERS

Dickinson, Emily (18301886) tin Dickinson (18291895), later refers to Dickinsons
American poet. After brief periods at Amherst letters to Gilbert as nothing less than love letters.
Academy and Holyoke Female Seminary, she set- All of these writers cite ostensibly lesbian poems
tled into an outwardly uneventful life keeping house to support their biographical narrative. Dickinsons
for her family. Dickinson never married. The real homoerotic poetry seems to span the entire length
events in her life are her writings, which have as- of her literary career, from one of her first poems,
sumed classic status in American literature. written in 1854 (I have a Bird in spring) to one of
Dickinsons letters to several of her female ac- her very late poems, written in 1883 (To see her is
quaintances are evidence that, throughout her life, a picture in the third variant). While the subject of
she had strong emotional attachments, which may these poems is sometimes identifiable (it is frequently
be described as love relationships, with other women. Gilbert), most often she is not. This is not surpris-
A comparison of such love letters with letters she ing, since, as several scholars have observed, only
wrote at about the same time to women who were about one-tenth of the letters Dickinson wrote and
merely good friends indicates that her impassioned less than one-thousandth of those written to her are
language was not simply sentimental rhetoric of the extant. But, while there is no way to know who the
period and that these involvements, while probably persons were who evoked some of Dickinsons most
nongenital, were clearly homoerotic. Those letters moving love lyrics, one thing is certain: Many of
help explain the forty or fifty poems in the Dickinson them were women.
canon that cannot be understood unless recognized The speaker in Dickinsons homoerotic poems
as love poems from one woman to another. is usually the lover and pursuer in the relationship.
Certainly, Dickinson had heterosexual interests Such a relationship is often represented by the sym-
as wellthe letters addressed to an unidentified bol of a nest in which the speaker finds (or at least
Master, those to Judge Otis Lord (18121884), and expects to find) comfort and home with the other.
many of her poems are irrefutable proof. But it is But she recognizes that she cannot expect perma-
impossible to doubt the intensity of her involve- nence in her love, not because it is an inherently
ment with women when one reads letters, espe- flawed kind of love but generally because the be-
cially those to the woman who became her sister- loved other woman will eventually marry, as it was
in-law, Susan Gilbert (18301913), with whom, if assumed most women would in the nineteenth cen-
her letters and notes are any proof, she ostensibly tury, since they were without an independent source
had the most intense and enduring emotional rela- of income or a profession that would make them
tionship of her life. self-sufficient. The speaker accepts the reality of this
Several biographers, most notably Rebecca situation but not without difficulty. What is much
Patterson, John Cody, and Richard Sewall, have more difficult for her to accept, of course, is a be-
dealt with Emily Dickinsons lesbianism. Patterson, loved womans cruelty that has no basis in custom
in fact, suggests as a major thesis in her book, The or pragmatism. In such a situation, the speaker usu-
Riddle of Emily Dickinson (1951), that Dickinson ally cries out bitterly against the other woman, but
had a love affair with Kate Scott Anthon, which, she is willing to return to her and, apparently, to be
at its conclusion in the 1860s, crushed Dickinson hurt again. She is frequently self-pitying. Only oc-
and accounted for her peculiarities during the casionally does she perceive herself victorious in love,
remaining twenty-odd years of her life. and then it is a poor victory, having conquered the
Cody (1971) adopts a Freudian approach and other woman by arousing her pity. These homoerotic
argues that, while Dickinsons Puritan heritage poems are never joyous, but that is to be expected
would not have permitted her to indulge in homo- in a society in which heterosexual marriage was
sexual lovemaking, she had no wish to fulfill a fe- believed virtually inevitable and in which there was
male role since she despised her weak mother and little possibility of two unrelated women establish-
feared her tyrannical father; thus, well into adult- ing a life together if they were not wealthy through
hood she experienced pre-pubescent crushes on independent inheritance. Lillian Faderman
other women, particularly Gilbert, who served as
a mother-surrogate to Dickinson. Bibliography
Sewall (1974), while seeming at first to reject Cody, John. After Great Pain: The Inner Life of
Codys suggestion that Dickinson was in love with Emily Dickinson. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
Gilbert and hurt and upset when she lost her to Aus- University Press, 1971.

D I C K I N S O N , E M I LY 237
 Patterson, Rebecca. The Riddle of Emily Before completing high school, Babe played semi-
D Dickinson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1951.
Sewall, Richard. The Life of Emily Dickinson. New
professional basketball for Employers Casualty In-
surance Company (ECC) in Dallas, Texas, within an
York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1974. all-womens company-sponsored league. She vexed
Smith, Martha Neil. Rowing in Eden: Rereading her teammates, excelled on the court, and, as a two-
Emily Dickinson. Austin: University of Texas time All-American star, led her team to a national
Press, 1992. title (19301931). She dominated the 19301931
Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) meets with U.S. and
See also Diaries and Letters; Poetry; Romantic world records in the eighty-meter hurdles, the broad
Friendship jump, the baseball throw, and the javelin. Self-pro-
motion and lack of team play values estranged her
from the larger female athletic community.
Didrikson, Mildred Ella Babe (Zaharias) As a one-woman team representing ECC, she
(19111956) single-handedly won the AAU meet and qualified
Norwegian-American athlete and medical humani- for the Los Angeles Olympics (1932). There she
tarian. Born the sixth of seven children to poor im- won two golds (hurdles and javelin) and one half-
migrant parents in Port Arthur, Texas, who soon gold, half-silver medal due to her controversial style
moved to Beaumont, Texas, she was nicknamed in the high jump. Media attention exploded. She
Babe for baden (baby) in Norwegian. She later spoke rowdily and postured aggressively. This pe-
claimed it was an analogy to slugger Babe Ruth riod, 19321937, brought the crudest scrutiny. The
(18951948). The toughest ruffian in her working- publics tolerance for Babes tomboyishness evapo-
class neighborhood, Babe excelled at all boys com- rated as she eschewed heterosexual liaisons and
petitive games from marbles to racing; she ridiculed prescribed femininity. National sportswriter Paul
and shunned all girls pursuits. Her parents en- Gallico dubbed her a Muscle Moll and member
couraged her athleticism in a backyard rustic gymna- of the Third Sex in Vanity Fair (1932), which
sium. As a teen, Babe elicited confusion and condem- solidified her oddity status.
nation from peers and the press for her appearance After a series of stunt exhibitions, Babe trans-
and mannerisms, which blurred gender boundaries. formed her image into that of a ladylike, genteel
golfer. She purposefully flaunted female clothing
and makeup, flirted with men, and constructed a
fictitious heterosocial youth. In 1938, Babe mar-
ried George Zaharias (19081983), professional
wrestler, and tried to retreat into normalcy. There
was genuine affection between them at first. In the
1940s, they helped cofound the Ladies Professional
Golf Association (LPGA)largely to increase
Babes opportunities.
In 1950, Babe met twenty-year-old Betty Dodd
(19301993), a golf protge from San Antonio,
Texas, beginning a six-year intimate relationship.
Never admittedly lesbian, it was clearly physical
and emotionally sustaining. Dodd cohabitated with
the Zahariases from 1950 to 1956, while Babes
intimacy with George apparently ceased. Dodd
cared for Babe during a recurring bout with can-
cer in 1953 and 19551956. Their bond was made
invisible by them, the press, and sports peers. Babes
own fear of public condemnation caused her disa-
vowal of her love of Dodd. She died at age forty-
Babe Didrikson Zaharias. John Gray Library, Lamar five of colon cancer turned systemic.
University Special Collections, Beaumont, Texas. Babe Didrikson was the most decorated athlete
Courtesy of Susan E.Cayleff. of her century, winning Female Athlete of the Year

238 D I C K I N S O N , E M I LY
six times, Female Athlete of the Half-Century (1930) made a documentary about Dietrich
(1950), and more than four hundred trophies and (Marlene) that explores the legendary persona.
medals. She was LPGA president, top LPGA money Dietrich has had long-standing popularity
winner, and winner of thirteen consecutive ama- among lesbian audiences. She often cross-dressed
teur golf tournaments. Susan E.Cayleff in her films; in Blonde Venus and Morocco, she
appears on stage in the famous costume (top hat
Bibliography and tuxedo) that has been immortalized in the
Cayleff, Susan E. Babe: The Life and Legend of photograph collections of many lesbians. Dietrichs
Babe Didrikson Zaharias. Urbana: University seductive appeal may have been directed primarily
of Illinois Press, 1995. at the men in her films, but her appeal to women
Didrikson, Babe Zaharias, as told to Harry Paxton. was often suggested as well. The air of detachment
This Life Ive Led: My Autobiography. New vis-vis heterosexual romance surrounding the
York: A.S.Barnes, 1955. Dietrich persona contributed to her lesbian appeal.
Johnson, Oscar, and Nancy Williamson. The most famous example of Dietrichs cross-gen-
WhattaGal: The Babe Didrikson Story. Bos- der appeal occurs in Morocco, in which, as Amy
ton: Little, Brown, 1975. Jolly, she appears on stage in a tux and proceeds to
kiss a female member of the audience on the mouth.
See also Sports, Professional To be sure, the scene is framed by Dietrichs rela-
tionship to male lead Gary Cooper (19011961),
but this moment exemplifies Dietrichs lesbian ap-
Dietrich, Marlene (19011992) peal throughout her career.
Film actress, singer, and performer. Marlene Dietrich Rumors about Dietrichs bisexuality circulated
was born and grew up in Germany. After several throughout her life. In 1955, the gossip magazine
years of working in films and cabarets in the 1920s, Confidential published a story about Dietrichs
she landed her breakthrough role in The Blue An- secret life, detailing relationships with several
gel (1930), directed by Josef von Sternberg (1894 women. Biographies of Dietrich published after her
1969). Dietrich played the role of Lola Lola, a caba- death have confirmed the rumors. Dietrich was
ret singer and femme fatale who is irresistible to men. married, but she and her husband lived apart dur-
Dietrich was seductive in the role of Lola Lola, but ing most of their marriage, and Dietrich engaged
she also possessed another quality: She seemed to in affairs with women, including Mercedes de
be watching herself as if studying a performance, Acosta (18931968), who was also Greta Garbos
slyly winking to the audience, contemptuously ob- (19051990) lover. Judith Mayne
serving the men who were drawn to her like moths
to a flame. After the international success of The Bibliography
Blue Angel, Dietrich and Von Sternberg came to Martin, W.K. Marlene Dietrich. New York and
Hollywood, where their collaboration continued Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1995.
with five more films: Morocco (1930), Dishonored Riva, Maria. Marlene Dietrich. New York: Knopf,
(1931), Shanghai Express (1932), Blonde Venus 1993.
(1932), and The Devil Is a Woman (1935). Dietrichs Spoto, Donald. Blue Angel: The Life of Marlene
ironic, knowing performance style developed Dietrich. New York: Doubleday, 1992.
throughout her collaboration with von Sternberg Weiss, Andrea. Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in
and beyond. When their collaboration ended, the Cinema. London: Jonathan Cape, 1992.
Dietrich continued a successful acting career until
her final film, Just a Gigolo (1978). In addition, See also Cross-Dressing; Film, Mainstream; Garbo,
Dietrich was a singer and a stage performer; during Greta
World War II, she entertained the U.S. troops abroad,
and she had a very successful one-woman show in
the 1970s. Dietrich had a remarkable ability to Disability
reinvent herself, and, even when she was no longer One of many terms used to describe people with
one of the top stars in Hollywood, her personaas physical or mental limitations. The lesbian com-
the cooly detached, self-mocking, always seductive munity often uses the term differently abled, first
performerendured. In 1983, Maximilian Schell coined in 1976 at the Michigan Womyns Music

DISABILITY 239
 Festival in an attempt to make disability more ac- this emerging aspect of feminism into their lives.
D cepted. However, no matter what term one uses to
define a person with physical limitation, handicap,
While many women were working to redefine the
image of their sexuality, women with disabilities
or disability, the fact is that difference is viewed were still longing just to be seen as sexual. Tradi-
negatively. The modern world has been altered for- tionally, women with disabilities have been re-
ever by the Industrial Revolution and the resulting garded as asexual, and, since lesbian defines
change in emphasis from unique handcrafted items ones sexuality or sexual preference, lesbians with
that were functional, yet not all the same, to items disabilities were regarded as an impossibility.
that were mass-produced and identical. This change Lesbians with disabilities have been raped and
affects how people view themselves and others; beaten because they cannot be as easily closeted, are
there is a cultural expectation that people should more helpless, and are, therefore, more targeted for
look and act the same. In addition, the prejudice abuse. From 1980 to 1989, the Disabled Lesbian
against difference is variable. A person who is to- Alliancea network of three hundred to four hun-
tally paralyzed and in a wheelchair may experi- dred lesbians with disabilities across the United
ence less oppression than a person with severe fa- Statessupported one another and worked on ac-
cial disfigurement, even though the disfigured per- cessibility issues in the lesbian community. Hundreds
son might not be handicapped at all. of calls were received from anonymous lesbians liv-
In conjunction with the term differently abled, ing at home or with homophobic caretakers. Blind
ableism was initially coined to define the particu- lesbians were forced to rely on readers who reacted
lar methodology of oppression used traditionally against the gay and lesbian literature they were hired
against people with disabilities. In its broadest sense, to read. The difficulty of homphobia for a lesbian in
ableism was seen as a system of assigning value in a wheelchair who hires caregivers is similarly intense.
which people are measured against an inflexible, More easily trapped and isolated, for many years they
standardized definition for the purpose of dismiss- were prevented from participating in lesbian com-
ing those who could be perceived as having lesser munity events because of physical inaccessibility.
abilities. This model of disability definition is a As difficult as it is to find places to hold lesbian
cornerstone of patriarchy. To be branded disabled events, it is even more difficult to find places that
is to be precluded from full, validated participation are physically accessible to the disabled. While the
in a society. Disabilities can be physical or emotional lesbian community would never think of holding
or can be based on class, sex, or race. Traditionally, a concert in a building that lacked a bathroom, it
men have defined women as less able and created a would use one without a ramp. But this robs the
system that essentially determines that their efforts entire community of rich experiences. Women with
will be less effective in the public arena. People can disabilities bring not only a wealth of knowledge
be economically oppressed by their size; for exam- and information with them, but also an accept-
ple, a fat woman may not be hired for a job, a short ance of themselves that is rare in any oppressed
person is seen as ineffective, or a tall person may be group. Women, especially lesbians, with disabili-
seen as threatening. The mutations are seemingly ties have had to work very hard on their self-image
endless. and on their internalized self-hatred. This provides
Women with disabilities are statistically more a model for all women and lesbians.
disadvantaged than men with disabilities, and les- Fear is a great divider. Some lesbians who have
bians with disabilities are the most disadvantaged broken from traditional roles such as mothering
of all. While women are often seen as weaker than or caregiving may avoid becoming involved with
men, they also are seen as caretakers. If a woman women with disabilities, for fear that they will have
has a disability, she is considered to be unable to to take care of them. Others feel that something
take care of others, bear children, or look physi- mights happen to them, and that they, too, might
cally pleasing to enhance the image of her man. become disabled.
As the feminist movement encouraged women to At the disabled lesbian conference in 1981 held
be stronger, go to the gym, build their bodies, and on the grounds of the Michigan Womyns Music
eat healthier, it created a different kind of oppres- Festival, the term temporarily able bodied was
sion for women with disabilities. These women used to define women who had no disabilities. As
could not compete with women who could build most people grow older, they lose various bodily
their bodies and, thus, had no way to incorporate functions. Eventually, everyone becomes disabled

240 DISABILITY
in some way or other, just as every woman is disa- about Women with Disabilities. New York:
bled by patriarchy. Feminist Press, 1987.
Lesbians with disabilities want the same rights Tremain, Shelley, ed. Pushing the Limits: Disabled
and privileges as their sisters, including the ability Dykes Produce Culture. Toronto: Womens
to attend a potluck, a bar, a march, or a festival. Press, 1996.
Increasing numbers of lesbians are affected with
environmental illness, which require an even deeper See also Music Festivals
level of awareness of disabled womens needs. Some
progress has been made so that many lesbians are
willing to put in a ramp so women in wheelchairs Discrimination
can come to an event, or hire sign-language inter- Legal term that refers to making a distinction be-
preters, or provide braille programs and sighted tween groups of people that is unjustified, unrea-
guides so that blind women can find the bathroom. sonable, or irrelevant. Governments have a long
But it is more difficult to ask women who attend history of discriminating against lesbians on the
events to refrain from wearing perfume, sprays, or basis of their lesbianism, as do religions and other
newly dry-cleaned clothing so that women with en- organized groups and individuals. As the explicit
vironmental illness can attend. Some temporarily laws against lesbians and lesbianism are slowly
able-bodied lesbians resist exercising this kind of being repealed, or enforced less often, discrimina-
restraint. Nevertheless, with the increase in asthma tion by individuals has come to be more important
and environmental illness in the late twentieth cen- in policing lesbians lives.
tury, more people will have these problems.
It is important to note that although some Laws and Rules About Sexual Behavior
women with disabilities normally attend most large, Perhaps the most blatant example of discrimination
accessible events, 20 percent of the general popu- against lesbians and bisexual women are statutes
lation has some form of disabilitya number not that define as crimes common consensual lesbian
seen at lesbian events. Most women with disabili- sexual behaviors. In the United States in the mid-
tiesmental disabilities, for exampleare ware- 1990s, approximately half of the states defined as
housed in institutions, and the fact that they are criminal some consensual lesbian sexual behavior,
lesbians is held against them. Most lesbians have most often oral sex. (These statutes are typically
shared, at one point or another in the coming out called sodomy statues because they are most
process, the fear of being crazy or being labeled as widely known for criminalizing sodomy, or anal
such by their families. It is the responsibility of the intercourse.) Some states have criminalized sexual
lesbian community to reach out to those women behaviors between two persons of the same sex that
who have suffered this fate in reality. are not crimes if performed by a man and a woman.
Being lesbian may mean rejecting some societal Robson (1992) gives an entertaining discussion of
values, but not one another in the name of inde- various lesbian sexual behaviors and precisely where
pendence. Being truly independent is being inter- these would and would not be crimes.
dependent and making choices that are right for In Canada, lesbian sex was decriminalized in
oneself in the context of community. Women with 1967. In the United Kingdom, consensual lesbian
disabilities highlight that issue for the lesbian com- sex is not a crime, although there is a gross-inde-
munity. Connie Panzarino cency statute that applies only to gay men.
Criminalizing of lesbian and gay sex was often
Bibliography adopted in non-Western countries as a part of
Browne, Susan E., Debra Connors, and Nanci colonialization; some of these statutes were still
Stern, eds. With the Power of Each Breath. Pitts- being enforced at the end of the twentieth century.
burgh and San Francisco: Cleis, 1985. Less formal rules about sexual behavior also
Keith, Lois. What Happened to You? Writing by have a significant impact on lesbians lives. Public
Disabled Women. New York: New Press, 1996. displays of affection that are encouraged for het-
Panzarino, Connie. The Me in the Mirror. Seattle: erosexual couples are most often actively discour-
Seal, 1994. aged for lesbiansby uncomfortable glances, hos-
Saxton, Marsha, and Florence Howe, eds. With tile stares, negative comments, verbal abuse, and
Wings: An Anthology of Literature by and overt violence.

D I S C R I M I N AT I O N 241
 Areas of Discrimination ticipation in lesbian relationships and/or commu-
D Lesbians have reported, and continue to report,
extensive discrimination in employment. In the
nities to keep custody. For example, some judges
have told lesbians who want custody of their chil-
United States, the most notoriously discriminatory dren that, if they choose to live with a lover, their
employer is the military, from which women are custody would be revoked.
frequently discharged for lesbian sexual activity or This prejudice against lesbian relationships as real
for being lesbian. Women seem to be targeted more relationships, equal in importance to heterosexual
for this persecution than are gay men, and women relationships, is widely shared. Families routinely
of color are targeted disproportionately often. expect their members to get married and incorporate
Lesbians and bisexual women also report be- the new husband or wife into the family, but lesbian
ing fired from employment or otherwise punished family members are often pressured not to upset oth-
for their sexual orientation by private employers ers by including their partner in family gatherings.
and other governmental agencies. As a result, many
do not acknowledge their sexual orientation at Protection from Discrimination
work, and some feel forced to make up elaborate In 1998 in Canada, eleven of thirteen jurisdictions
heterosexual identities to pass on the job. provided some legal protection against discrimina-
Gaybashing (physical violence directed against tion for lesbians in their human rights legislation
lesbians and gay men because of their sexual ori- (the exceptions being Prince Edward Island and
entation) became increasingly acknowledged in the Newfoundland), although, in some instances, this
1990s as a form of discrimination. Lesbians also protection was read in by the courts rather than
experience the sexual violence directed against explicitly legislated. This protection was greatly lim-
women, which is so common. Moreover, men are ited by laws that restricted family and/or sexual-
less likely to be held responsible for rape or other partner benefits to heterosexual couples (see above).
sexual assaults if their victim is seen as in some In the United States, the Constitution guarantees
way provoking the attack, as lesbians have some- equal protection of the laws but does not extend
times been assumed to do, solely on the basis of this protection to lesbians who are discriminated
their sexual orientation. against on the basis of their lesbianism. In 1998,
One of the most important areas in which les- ten states (California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Mas-
bians experience discrimination is with respect to sachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jer-
their partner relationships and any children they sey, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin) and
might have. In the United Kingdom, these relation- many cities and towns (about 165 in 1998) also
ships have been called pretended family relation- outlawed discrimination on the basis of sexual ori-
ships by conservative governments, which appar- entation. New in the 1990s were so-called family
ently believed that only heterosexuals can have values campaigners, who saw lesbians, gay men, and
real families. bisexuals as a threat to the American family. They
Lesbian couples are routinely denied the benefits worked to enshrine in law an explicit right to dis-
that are given to married heterosexual couples and, criminate on the basis of sexual orientation in order
increasingly, to unmarried heterosexual couples to preserve the (heterosexual) family.
immigration rights, medical and other employment
benefits, pension benefits, inheritance rights, pref- Future Directions
erential status within the taxation system, and next- Arguing that lesbians are discriminated against on
of-kin status. If a lesbian is critically injured in an the basis of their sexual orientation became a widely
accident, her life partner has no automatic right to used tactic in the 1990s for pressing for the expan-
visit her in the hospital or to make any choices on sion of lesbians right to live how they choose. In
behalf of the injured lesbian, including with regard April 1993, 300,000 lesbians, gay men, bisexuals,
to treatment. In the absence of a legal power of at- and heterosexuals marched on Washington, D.C.,
torney which states otherwise, the law decrees that to demonstrate for an end to oppression on the
a member of the womans real family, her bio- basis of sexual orientation, arguing that it is a sim-
logical family, should act as her guardian. ple matter of justice to end such discrimination.
Many lesbians who have children have been Some theorists have cautioned that a reliance on
denied custody of their children because of their antidiscrimination as a political strategy may not be
lesbianism or have been required to limit their par- the best option for gays and lesbians, prompting an

242 D I S C R I M I N AT I O N
extensive debate about the merits and risks of such and the rise of gay mens and co-gender film produc-
a strategy. tions. Feminists were attempting consciousness rais-
Jodee M.McCaw ing through self-exploratory documentaries, while
feminist film theory was questioning the nature of
Bibliography the male gaze, or point of view, in filmmaking.
Dynes, W.R., and S.Donaldson, eds. Homosexual- Jan Oxenbergs 1972 film Home Movie can be
ity: Discrimination, Criminology, and the Law. considered the germinal lesbian documentary, pro-
New York: Garland, 1992. viding a point of departure for future filmmakers.
Hunter, Nan D., Sharryl E.Michaelson, and Tom The gay and lesbian co-gender productions of this
B. Stoddard. The Rights of Lesbians and Gay period, exemplified by the film Word Is Out (1978),
Men: The Basic ACLU Guide to a Gay Persons were also greatly influential during the early years
Rights. 3rd ed. Carbondale, Ill.: American Civil of the lesbian and gay movement. Three of the film-
Liberties Union, 1992. makersBarbara Hammer, Frances Reid, and
Majury, Diana. Refashioning the Unfashionable: Greta Schillerwho began in this early period of
Claiming Lesbian Identities in the Legal Con- independent social-change documentaries, have
text. Canadian Journal of Women and the Law had prodigious careers.
7 (1994), 286311. Barbara Hammer is not considered a traditional
Robson, Ruthann. Lesbian (Out)law: Survival documentary filmmaker; however, her films have
Under the Rule of Law. Ithaca, N.Y.: Firebrand, a self-revelatory aesthetic to them. Among the top-
1992. ics Hammer explored in the series of eight films
Wilson, Angelia, ed. A Simple Matter of Justice? she made between 1974 and 1979 were the sexual
Theorizing Lesbian and Gay Politics. London: nature of lesbians in Dyketactics (1974); the ta-
Cassell, 1995. boo of menstruation in Menses (1974); and lesbi-
ans, mothers, and goddesses in Moon Goddesses
See also Custody Litigation; Electoral Politics; Hu- (1976). Also among this series of productions was
man Rights; Law and Legal Institutions; Legal Theory, Home (1978), a film that documented her child-
Lesbian; Prejudice; Rights; Tolerance; Violence hood, and Double Strength (1978) and Available
Space (1978), two films documenting the stages of
her romantic relationship. Nitrate Kisses (1992), a
Documentaries very accessible and successful narrative history of
Typically defined as a film portraying actual events lesbian and gay life from the 1920s through the
or histories in a factual way, in contrast to narra- 1990s, maintains Hammers experimental nature
tive films that tell an imaginative story. A precise by using clips of overt lesbian sexual activity.
definition, however, is both controversial and elu- Unlike Hammer, Greta Schiller pursued a more
sive, raising a number of questions. Can aspects of traditional form of documentary filmmaking and
documentaries be staged? Can they openly promote has produced a body of work that attempts to docu-
or advocate a viewpoint or an ideology, or should ment the past. Greta s Girls (1976), a short film
they merely observe? Must all documentary films exploring an interracial lesbian relationship, is gen-
be issue oriented? Can a documentary film be po- erally acknowledged as one of the very first les-
etic, artistic, or personal? Although an agreed-upon bian documentaries. A few years later, Schiller
definition is hard to pinpoint, the history of les- joined Lucy Winer, Frances Reid, and Robert
bian documentary film can be recounted. Epstein to make Greetings from Washington, D.C.
Lesbian documentary filmmaking can be con- (1981), the co-gender production that documented
sidered from different perspectives: lesbians mak- the first major gay and lesbian march on Washing-
ing films about lesbians, lesbians making films ton, D.C., in 1979. Schillers 1985 film, Before
about other subjects, and nonlesbians making films Stonewall, codirected with Robert Rosenberg and
about lesbians. These three classifications broadly researched by her partner in many productions,
define lesbian documentary film. Andrea Weiss, is one of the most significant film
portraits of homosexual history. Schiller and Weiss
Historical Development teamed up to make International Sweethearts of
Lesbian documentary filmmaking developed in con- Rhythm (1986), a film that documents the world
junction with the feminist movement of the 1970s of black women musicians during the 1930s and

D O C U M E N TA R I E S 243
 1940s, and the love story Tiny & Ruby: Hell Freelowe, Mosbacher, and Cheryl Dunye, to be-
D Drivin Women (1988). Their Paris Was a Woman
(1996) details the world of lesbian artists, writers,
come filmmakers.
Freelowe produced one of the first videos to ex-
editors, and stylesetters of Paris of the 1920s. plore the African American gay and lesbian experi-
Frances Reid is another pioneer filmmaker whose ence in Black Nations/Queer Nations (1996).
career has spanned the course of feminist and gay Mosbacher, another representative of this genera-
and lesbian documentary making. Her 1977 film, tion of lesbian filmmakers, began her filmmaking
In the Best Interest of the Children, was the first career when she produced the video documentaries
American documentary to address the subject of Closets Are Health Hazards (1984) and, with Joan
lesbian mothers and child custody. This film was Biren, Lesbian Physicians on Practice, Patients, and
significant due to its length, fifty-three minutes, and Power (1991). Both deal with the issue of homo-
its use of the traditional narrative form to enhance phobia in a medical setting. In addition to Straight
viewer accessibility. Reid was the cinematographer from the Heart and All Gods Children, Mosbacher
on the Academy Award-winning documentary The produced and directed Out for a Change: Address-
Life and Times of Harvey Milk (1984) and produced ing Homophobia in Womens Sports (1995), a film
and directed The Changer: A Record of the Times that exposes the devastating emotional impact of
(1991), a biography of singer Cris Williamson and homophobia on all women athletes.
the history of womens music. She also coproduced Dunye, not unlike Hammer, has produced films
two films with Dee Mosbachers production com- that challenge conventional definitions by inter-
pany, Woman Vision. Straight from the Heart (1994) weaving narrative fiction with personal reflection.
received a 1995 Academy Award nomination. All Watermelon Woman (1996) further extended this
Gods Children (1996), made in collaboration with format when it convinced audiences that a fictional
Sylvia Rhue, has received multiple awards, includ- Negro film star of the 1930s known as the Wa-
ing Best Documentary at the 1996 National Black termelon Woman really existed.
Arts Festival and Best Film on Matters Relating to Among internationally acclaimed lesbian film-
the Black Experience at the 1996 Black Interna- makers, Pratibha Parmar, a British filmmaker of
tional Cinema Competition. South Asian heritage, is perhaps the best known.
In the 1980s, two events had a profound im- Her works include Memory Pictures (1989), Flesh
pact on lesbian documentary making: the AIDS and Paper (1990), and Khush (1991), all of which
epidemic and the advent of video technology. Reid explore lesbian-of-color identities. Parmar also
was the cinematographer on several AIDS-related joined U.S. author Alice Walker to make Warrior
productions, including Living with AIDS (1986) Marks (1993), a controversial film that addressed
and The Face of AIDS (1991). The latter is one of the issue of ritual female genital mutilation in some
the few documentaries to look at the AIDS epi- African tribal cultures.
demic in Africa. Parmar, like many other British filmmakers, has
received significant governmental support for her
The 1990s work through Britains Channel Four. Channel
Among the young filmmakers whose careers began Four also funded A Bit of Scarlet (1996) by Ameri-
while documenting the course of the epidemic are can Andrea Weiss, a film that explores the history
Jean Carlomusto and Ellen Spiro. Spires ACT UP at of homosexuality in British films from the 1920s
the FDA (1988) captured one of the important bat- onward.
tles for AIDS drug-treatment access. She also made German filmmaker Monika Treut, better known
the well-received Greetings from Out Here (1993), for her narrative films, produced Female
an autobiographical journey exploring the lesbian Misbehavior (19831993), a series of four short
community of the southern United States. Carlomusto films that deal with U.S. pornography and perform-
produced the lesbian safe-sex video Current Flow ance artist Annie Sprinkle, lesbian female-to-male
(1990) and L Is for the Way You Look (1991), an transsexualism, U.S. author Camille Paglia, and
irreverent look at lesbian history and images. sadomasochistic breast torture.
Educational videos have also been part of this One of the largest obstacles faced by female film-
new wave of feminist filmmaking, spawned, in part, makers has been distributiongetting their woman-
by the cost effectiveness of video production. This, centered films to their intended audiences. In 1972,
in part, enabled more women, among them Sherry Women Make Movies was founded with a mission

244 D O C U M E N TA R I E S
of promoting a positive and accurate image of discriminated against unmarried employees who
women in media. This nonprofit distribution com- have long-term partners. Since employment ben-
pany provides not only distribution services for more efits constitute approximately 36 percent of a full-
than 350 films by and about women, but also pro- time employees compensation, and since health-
duction assistance, workshops on grantwriting, and care costs are a major portion of that, unmarried
fund-raising. Dee Mosbacher employees were denied equal compensation for the
work they performed. Thus, the genesis of domes-
Bibliography tic-partnership advocacy was to challenge an em-
Hammer, Barbara. Lesbian Filmmaking: Self- ployers rationale for paying married employees
Birthing. Film Reader 5 (1982), 6066. more than unmarried employees.
Jump Cut 2425 (1981). (Special Section), 1755. The Village Voice newspaper in New York City
Lesbians and Film. and the City of Berkeley, California, were among
Lebow, Alisa. Lesbians Make Movies. Cinaste the first employers to extend health-insurance ben-
20:2 (1983), 1823. efits to the partners of unmarried employees. By
Lesage, Julia. The Political Aesthetics of the Femi- the late 1990s, hundreds of municipalities, univer-
nist Documentary Film. Quarterly Review of sities, private employers, and at least two state
Film Studies 3:4 (1978), 507523. governments (Vermont and New York) extended
Olson, Jenni, ed. The Ultimate Guide to Lesbian some, if not all, benefits to domestic partners. Some
and Gay Film and Video. New York: Serpents of the larger employers who extend some form of
Tale, 1996. partner benefits are Levi Strauss, Disney, IBM, New
York City, the cities of San Francisco, California,
See also Film, Alternative; Video and Seattle, Washington, the University of Iowa,
and Stanford University, Stanford, California.
While the definitions of domestic partner vary
Domestic Partnership widely, the most basic requirements of two people
Relationship of two people who share a long-term who claim they are domestic partners is that they
personal commitment to each other but are not reside together and that they attest to the fact that
related by blood, marriage, or adoption. Gener- they share a long-term, committed relationship. Some
ally, lesbian and gay couples, who cannot legally employers, such as the University of Chicago, use
formalize their relationships through marriage or exceedingly onerous requirements by demanding, for
other means, and straight couples who choose not example, that the couple produce mutual wills or
to marry may refer to themselves or be recognized other legal documents leaving each other as prime
as domestic partners. In addition, under some cir- beneficiaries as proof of their partnershipstandards
cumstances, people who do not share a romantic that deprive domestic partners of freedom to take
relationship but who share other attributes of a into account their entire family in their estate plan-
familial relationship may be recognized as domes- ning. Most private employers limit domestic-partner
tic partners. For example, some municipal domes- benefits only to the partners of lesbian and gay em-
tic-partnership policies would include two elderly ployees, on the theory that the discrimination they
women who live together for economic, compan- face is more burdensome because they have no op-
ionship, or other purposes indicative of their com- tion to legally marry. Public employers and many
mitment of mutual caretaking even if they do not universities, on the other hand, have been much more
share a romantic relationship. open to the diversity of families and relationships their
The term domestic partner was coined origi- employees share and have extended benefits to un-
nally in the early 1980s by advocates who sought married gay and straight partners and their families.
to challenge employment-benefits policies that rou- While domestic-partnership advocacy was ini-
tinely provided costly benefits and significant privi- tiated as a means of challenging discrimination in
leges, such as health insurance, family medical, the workplace, the term has been incorporated into
parenting, and bereavement leave, and tuition re- the vernacular of the United States. As a policy
imbursement to married employees and their fami- matter, the concept of domestic partnership has
lies but not to unmarried employees with families. extended beyond its role in distinguishing long-term
Because health care, for instance, was available only committed relationships from roommate relation-
to employees and their legal spouses, the policies ships for purposes of benefits. For instance, some

DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP 245

 cities, including San Francisco, Albany, New York, acknowledgment that certain family relationships
D and Ann Arbor, Michigan, have established domes-
tic-partnership registries that allow couples to pub-
exist in U.S. culture that have not traditionally re-
ceived legal attribution or the support of benefits or
licly certify their relationships. While few benefits privileges extended to formally recognized families.
beyond the guarantee of hospital and jail visita- Through domestic-partnership and family-relation-
tion in city facilities are attached, it is significant ship advocacy, prompted primarily by the experi-
that a growing number of municipal governing ences of lesbian and gay families, the concept that
bodies are extending formal recognition and re- family status turns more on love and commitment
spect to nonmarital family relationships. For ex- than on formalistic relationships defined by the state
ample, in 1998 New York City passed a law re- appeared to be gaining ground in the last decade of
quiring the city to provide the same benefits, privi- the twentieth century. Paula L.Ettelbrick
leges, access, and acknowledgment to citizens and
employees in domestic partner relationships that Bibliography
it does to those in marital relationships. As such, Ettelbrick, Paula L. Wedlock Alert: A Comment
New York City is the first governmental entity to on Lesbian and Gay Family Recognition. Jour-
extend equal treatment to domestic partners be- nal of Law and Policy 5:1 (1996), 107.
yond the employment context. Leonard, Arthur S. Mayor Giuliani Proposes His
Likewise, beyond their role as employers, busi- Domestic Partnership Policy. NYLS City Law
nesses have begun to treat domestic partners as 4:3 (1998), 49.
spousal equivalents. Where once an unmarried
couple had to pay two individual premiums to in- See also Couples; Economics; Marriage Ceremonies
sure the contents of their home, many property
insurers now charge the single family premium
extended to married couples. Family has been re- Donor Insemination
defined to include domestic partners in areas as Medical procedure to inject semen into the uterus for
diverse as frequent-flyer companion awards, mu- the purpose of becoming pregnant. It is also known
seum memberships, and reduced car rental charges as alternative insemination or artificial insemina-
for an extra driver. By extension, courts, legisla- tion. In the past, donor insemination was viewed as
tures, and employers have also begun to recognize a medical procedure to respond exclusively to male
that parent-child relationships within infertility in heterosexual married couples. Starting
nontraditional family structures are not so easily in the late 1970s, as a result of the womens health
defined simply by biology or the marital status of movement, lesbians and heterosexual single women
the parents. Thus, the child of a lesbian couple, began to appropriate this method to conceive out-
having one biological mother and one side the confines of heterosexual relationships.
nonbiological mother, is increasingly considered the Although regularly discussed under the umbrella
legally recognized child of both. of reproductive technology, donor insemination is
There also has been movement on the concept surprisingly easy and does not require much knowl-
of domestic partnership internationally, most no- edge or equipment. Women without fertility prob-
tably in Scandinavian countries. The concept, how- lems simply need sperm and some type of syringe
ever, is entirely different in Europe, where most to inject the semen into the vagina. Nowadays,
employees have state-provided health benefits. In many women perform this procedure in the com-
the United States, the primary motivation for do- fort of their own homes, while others continue to
mestic-partnership advocacy is to achieve equal prefer professional medical assistance.
pay for equal work. But in countries such as Nor- With the advent of AIDS in the 1980s, thor-
way, Sweden, and Denmark, domestic partner- ough screening of donated sperm became critical,
ship is more akin to discussions about marriage increasing the importance of sperm banks, which
than about equalizing employment benefits. test donors for HIV antibodies and other sexually
The purpose of domestic-partnership advocacy transmitted diseases.
has always been to recognize nonmarital family re- Many sperm banks and doctors in the United
lationships. It has never been intended as a second- States offer their services to lesbians. However, oth-
ary substitute for, or stepping stone to, marriage for ers continue to assist only married couples. In coun-
lesbian and gay couples. Its value has been in the tries such as Germany, sperm banks are legally

246 DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP

prohibited from providing sperm to unmarried The potential negative impact of donor anonym-
women. The routine shipment of frozen sperm, ity on the child prompts many prospective mothers
however, has dramatically increased access to safer to opt for known donors. Choosing a known do-
donor insemination. nor, however, creates a different set of concerns.
If using fresh sperm, it is imperative to know Prospective birth mothers, coparents, and donors
about the donors sexual history and to test for need to negotiate the extent of the donors involve-
sexually transmitted diseases. In addition, infor- ment in the childs life. It can range from having no
mation about the donors medical history and ge- contact to taking on a parental role. In cases of legal
netic heritage can prove important. Unfortunately, conflict over parental rights, however, these nuances
with increased awareness of health risks, donor in the degree of donor involvement become irrel-
insemination has become more costly, and its safe evant. A sperm provider is defined as either a donor
use less accessible to low-income women. or a father, the donor having no legal claims, and
In addition to health considerations, legal, so- the father assuming all paternal rights and respon-
cial, and psychological issues require attention. Two sibilities. It is vital to the family unit to be abso-
principal concerns govern the debate: What is the lutely clear about the potential legal and personal
role of a donor in the life of the child? How does consequences of choosing a known donor.
donor insemination affect the well-being of chil- Donor insemination has become a viable op-
dren? tion for many lesbians to conceive a child without
Determining the role of the donor in the childs direct contact with a man. Unfortunately, the legal
life is one of the most consequential decisions when approach to donor insemination still reflects its
using donor insemination. For fear of legal inter- early restricted medical use within the context of
vention, many women decide to use sperm banks heterosexual marriage. Thus, a twofold strategy of
or doctors offices that provide services to lesbians creating laws that reflect the new realities and in-
and/or single women. In most states, donors le- creasing public awareness of diverse family forms
gally relinquish their paternal rights and duties is needed. Renate Reimann
when providing their sperm to a bank or a doctor.
Typically, such a donor would remain anonymous Bibliography
forever. A few sperm banks, however, have insti- Clunis, D.Merilee, and G.Dorsey Green. The Les-
tuted programs that, with the consent of the do- bian Parenting Book: A Guide to Creating Fami-
nor, allow children to contact their genetic father lies and Raising Children. Seattle: Seal, 1995.
at age of majority. Patterson, Charlotte. Children of Lesbian and Gay
Little is known about the impact of donor in- Parents. Child Development 63 (1992), 1025
semination with sperm from unknown sources on 1042.
childrens psychological and social adjustment. The Rafkin, Louise, ed. Different Mothers: Sons and
widely publicized efforts of adult adoptive children Daughters of Lesbians Talk About Their Lives.
and those conceived by donor insemination to find Pittsburgh: Cleis, 1990.
their genetic parents have sensitized the public to Rubenstein, William B., ed. Lesbians, Gay Men,
the importance of knowing ones genetic heritage. and the Law. New York: New Press, 1993.
However, traditionally advocated secrecy in these
cases might account for much of the distress in See also Adoption; Children; Couples
adults who find out about their origins later in life.
Unlike heterosexual couples, lesbian mothers
using this method rarely have the option of secrecy. Drag Kings
Rather, donor insemination provides an opportu- Females (usually) who dress up in recognizably
nity to explain why there is no traditional father in male costume and perform theatrically in that cos-
their lives. Little is known about the specific im- tume. Historical and categorical distinctions exist
pact of donor insemination on children in lesbian between the drag king and the male impersonator.
families. However, in general, studies of the psy- Male impersonation has been a theatrical genre for
chological and social adjustment of children grow- at least two hundred years, while the drag king is a
ing up in lesbian families do not show any signifi- recent phenomenon. While the male impersonator
cant differences between them and children grow- attempts to produce a plausible performance of
ing up in heterosexual families. maleness as the whole of her act, the drag king

DRAG KINGS 247

 performs masculinity (often parodically) and makes untheatrical and, indeed, real. white men de-
D the exposure of the theatricality of masculinity into
the mainstay of her act. Both the male impersona-
rive enormous power from assuming and confirm-
ing the nonperformative nature of masculinity. For
tor and the drag king are different from the drag one thing, if masculinity adheres naturally and
butch, a masculine woman who wears male attire inevitably to men, then masculinity cannot be
as part of her daily gender expression. Furthermore, impersonated. For another, if the nonperformance
while the male impersonator and the drag king are is part of what defines white male masculinity,
not necessarily lesbian roles, the drag butch most then all performed, theatrical masculinities stand
definitely is. out as suspect and open to question. For exam-
In the 1990s, drag king culture became a sub- ple, gay male macho clones so strongly exag-
cultural phenomenon. Queer clubs in most major gerate masculinity (through the use of leather and
American cities featured drag king acts; for exam- denim) that, in them, masculinity tips into femi-
ple, the regular weekly drag king club in New York nine performance. And the black gangsta rapper
City, Club Casanova, has as its motto the club who bombastically proclaims his masculinity also
where everyone is treated like a king! Other ex- displays what appears to be an overstated form
amples include a monthly club in London called of maleness. These clear differences between ma-
Club Geezer and a quarterly club in San Francisco, jority and minority masculinities make the drag
California, called Club Confidential. king act different for different women. For the
Some scholars have traced the use of the word white drag king whose stage act consists of per-
drag in relation to men in womens costume back forming conventional heterosexual maleness,
to the 1850s, when it was used for both stage ac- masculinity has first to be made thoroughly the-
tors playing female roles and young men who liked atrical before it can be performed because so many
to wear skirts. Male impersonation as a theatrical white male icons (Paul Newman [1925] or Clint
tradition extends back to the seventeenth-century Eastwood [1930], for example) are defined by
Restoration stage, but, more often than not, the an understated form of cool. Thus, white drag
trouser role was used to emphasize femininity kings tend to pick on icons like Elvis Presley
rather than to mimic maleness. The theatrical tra- (19351977) rather than male movie stars like
dition of male impersonation flourished for the first Tom Cruise (1962) and Bruce Willis (1955).
two decades of the twentieth century and then de- But, since masculinities of color and gay
clined in popularity. Some critics have traced the masculinities have already been rendered visible
careers of one or two male impersonators, such as and theatrical in their various relations to domi-
Storme DeLaverie, to show that pockets of male nant white masculinities, the performance of these
impersonation still existed within subcultural gay masculinities presents a somewhat easier theatri-
male drag culture between the 1930s and the 1960s. cal task. A black drag king might take on a rap-
However, there is general agreement that no ex- per persona like Ice Cube (1969) or a soul per-
tensive drag king culture developed within lesbian sona like Marvin Gaye (19391984). A drag king
bar culture to fill the void left by the disappear- who wants to perform as a gay man could take
ance of male impersonators from the mainstream on any number of gay masculine roles like the
theater. Indeed, Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and leather daddy or the biker boy. Furthermore,
Madeline D.Davis comment in their oral history while white masculinity seems to be readily avail-
of the lesbian community in Buffalo, New York, able for parody by the drag kings, black
that the masculinity constructed by butches in the masculinities or queer masculinities are often per-
1940s and 1950s was accompanied by a puzzling formed by drag kings in the spirit of homage or
lack of campthat is, it lacked the element of tribute rather than humor.
parody characteristic of drag king culture. At the end of the twentieth century, drag kings
While it seems likely that the lack of a lesbian like Mo B.Dick, Dred, and Murray Hill in New
drag tradition has much to do with the need for York City, Elvis Herselvis and the Dodge brothers
butches to pass in the world as men, the fact that in San Francisco, California, and Del LaGrace Vol-
male impersonation did not achieve any general cano and Jewels in London were transforming
currency within lesbian bar culture must also be masculinity and exposing its theatricality with pro-
attributed to mainstream definitions of white male found results.
masculinity as nonperformativethat is, totally Judith Halberstam

248 DRAG KINGS

Bibliography and underpins many of the stylistic devices she
Davy, Kate. Fe/Male Impersonation: The Dis- employs. Most of her novels include characters who
course of Camp. In The Politics and Poetics are lesbian, homosexual, or, as with Al in Lon-
of Camp. Ed. Moe Meyer. New York: doners: An Elegy (1983) and Kit and Ajax in Love
Routledge, 1994, pp. 130148. Child (1971), characters whose gender remains
Drorbaugh, Elizabeth. Sliding Scales: Notes on ambiguous. In addition to her poetry, her most
Storme DeLaverie and the Jewel Box Revue, the explicit treatments of lesbian sexuality and social
Cross-Dressed Woman on the Contemporary identity are Rites (1969), a play set in a public lava-
Stage, and the Invert. In Crossing the Stage: tory, and The Microcosm (1966), a novel devel-
Controversies on Cross-Dressing. Ed. Lesley oped from a series of interviews with lesbians liv-
Ferris. London and New York: Routledge, ing in London in the early 1960s. While the former
1993, pp. 120143. focuses on a single, acutely condensed example of
Halberstam, Judith. Drag Kings: Masculinity and societys irrational and frequently violent reaction
Performance. In Female Masculinity. Durham, to women who dont fit into accepted sex/gender
N.C.: Duke University Press, 1998. categories, the latter uses heterogeneous lesbian
Murray, Sarah. Dragon Ladies, Draggin Men: voices to create a kaleidoscopic impression of the
Some Reflections on Gender, Drag, and Homo- subculture that revolved around the only bar for
sexual Communities. Public Culture 6:2 (Win- gay women in the city at that time.
ter 1994), 343363. Duffy has written more than a dozen novels,
Newton, Esther. Dick(less) Tracy and the Home- including The Single Eye (1964), The Paradox Play-
coming Queen: Lesbian Power and Represen- ers (1967), Wounds (1969), I Want to Go to Mos-
tation in Gay Male Cherry Grove. In Invent- cow: A Lay (1973), Capital (1975), Housespy
ing Lesbian Cultures in America. Ed. Ellen (1978), Gor Saga (1981), Change (1987), Illumi-
Lewin. Boston: Beacon, 1996, pp. 161193. nations (1991), and Occams Razor (1993). Her
plays include The Lay Off (1962), The Silk Room
See also Butch-Femme; Camp; Cross-Dressing (1966), A Nightingale in Bloomsbury Square
(1974), and Henry Purcell (1995). She has pub-
lished poetry collections titled Lyrics For the Dog
Duffy, Maureen Patricia (1933) Hour (1968), The Venus Touch (1971), Evesong
English poet, novelist, playwright, critic, and Fel- (1975), Memorials of the Quick and the Dead
low of the Royal Society of Literature. Maureen (1979), and Collected Poems (1985).
Duffy was the first contemporary British author to Duffy is also the author of a number of nonfic-
write openly about her lesbianism in her novels, tion works, including two biographiesThe Pas-
poetry, and plays. sionate Shepherdess (1977), about Aphra Behn,
Born in Worthing, Sussex, she was the only child and Henry Purcell (1994)The Erotic World of
of Grace Rose Wright, who died of tuberculosis when Faery (1972), a critical study; Inherit the Earth
Duffy was fourteen years old. Her first novel, Thats (1980), a social history; and Men and Beasts: An
How It Was (1962), represents a factually accurate Animal Rights Handbook (1984).
account of the authors childhood and adolescence A leading figure in numerous human and ani-
and pays tribute to the mother who, with little more mal rights campaigns in Europe, Duffy was ap-
than her indomitable will to assist her, was determined pointed honorary president of the Gay and Lesbian
that her daughter would do more than survive the Humanists Society in 1989. Lyndie Brimstone
poverty of her origins and the deprivations of war.
Awarded a degree in English at Kings College, Lon- Bibliography
don, Duffy was among the first generation of British Brimstone, Lyndie.Keepers of History: The Nov-
working-class children to gain access to higher edu- els of Maureen Duffy. In Twentieth Century
cation through the scholarship system. Lesbian and Gay Writing. Ed. Mark Lilly. Lon-
Her output is prolific and markedly wide rang- don: Macmillan, pp. 2346.
ing in both form and content. Concern for unnec- Rule, Jane. Lesbian Images. New York: Crossing
essary human and animal suffering, so often rooted Press, 1982, 1975.
in the ideological imposition of divisions, labels,
and classifications, is a constant feature of her work See also English Literature, Twentieth Century

D U F F Y, M A U R E E N P A T R I C I A 249
 Dunbar-Nelson, Alice (18751935) Bibliography
D African American writer, educator, and activist.
Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on July 19, 1875,
Hull, Gloria T. Color, Sex, and Poetry: Three
Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance.
into a middle-class family of white, black, Ameri- Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
can Indian, and Creole ancestry, Alice Dunbar stud-
ied at Straight College in 1892 and taught in New See also African American Literature; American
Orleans; she continued her scholarship at Cornell Literature, Twentieth Century; Bisexuality; Harlem
University, Columbia University, and the Univer- Renaissance
sity of Pennsylvania. Her first published work, Vio-
lets and Other Tales (1895), is a collection of
sketches and poetry. Her second book, a collec- Dyke
tion of short stories, The Goodness of St. Rocque American English slang term signifying a female
(1898), was published the year she married Paul homosexual. Throughout much of the twentieth
Laurence Dunbar (18721906). Their marriage century, the word dyke (also spelled dike) has
was short lived; they separated in 1902. been used primarily as a pejorative, signifying a
Dunbar-Nelson taught English in Wilmington, masculine woman, a definition that has tradi-
Delaware, at the all-black Howard High School, tionally been conflated with lesbianism. The first
where she became head of its English Department. references to this usage date back to the 1920s and
She was also active in a network of African Ameri- 1930s. In the 1940s, dyke first appeared in slang
can club women. Her activism led her, in 1920, to dictionaries and was defined as a masculine
become the first African American woman elected woman, a definition that persisted throughout the
to the Delaware Republican State Committee. 1950s and 1960s. When used in African American
Dunbar-Nelson married her second husband, black slang, dyke was usually preceded by bull; bulldyke
journalist Robert Nelson (18731949), in 1916. signified an aggressive female homosexual. Varia-
Together they published the Wilmington Advocate, tions of this term, such as bulldagger, boondagger,
a newspaper dedicated to African American ad- and bulldiker, were also commonly used within
vancement. During this marriage, Dunbar-Nelson African American slang.
wrote in her diary about her lesbian relationships Although the definition of dyke as a masculine
with Fay Jackson Robinson and Helene London; lesbian is similar to the definition of butch, dyke
although she veiled what she wrote, her husband was more frequently used as a derogatory epithet
read her diary and was uncomfortable with her employed to ridicule lesbians, whereas butch appears
lesbianism. Dunbar-Nelsons novellas and several to have been the preferred term of self-identifica-
poems contained evidence of her lesbianism, though tion within the lesbian working-class bar culture of
she destroyed most of this literature before her the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, which tended to be
death. In her diary, spanning 19211931, she wrote characterized by butch-femme roles. Some women
about her various affairs with women and included may have worn the term dyke with pride, but,
lines from lesbian poems later destroyed. for the most part, it was not until the 1970s that
In Dunbar-Nelsons writings, there are three dyke began to be widely used within lesbian femi-
lesbian relationships that can be accounted for nist communities as a positive term signifying gay
with Edwina B.Kruse, London, and Robinson, pride and political resistance to compulsory hetero-
all during her second marriage. There is evidence sexuality. Lesbian feminists attempts to resignify
of both the physical and the emotional aspects dyke sparked critical interest in its etymological ori-
of these relationships, as well as of her own at- gins, resulting in searches for more affirming usages
tempt to find a space for herself in, and between, of the term. Some speculate that the word dyke
these two communities: the network of black, may have originated from the Greek word dike, iden-
married club women and her marriage to Nel- tified with Athena, the man-woman, while oth-
son. In her marriage, Dunbar-Nelson received ers theorize that dyke evolved from hermaphrodite
support from Nelson both emotionally and po- through a linguistic process in which the initial part
litically, in the sense that they wrote political of the word was dropped, and the remaining sylla-
articles and attended political activities together. ble, dite, was mispronounced, becoming dike. An-
She eventually died of a heart ailment in Phila- other theory traces dyke back to the late-nineteenth-
delphia in 1935. Marcy Jane Knopf and early-twentieth-century American usage of dike

250 DUNBAR-NELSON, ALICE

as denoting a man in full dress, or the set of male independent lesbian, a definition that poses a chal-
clothing. This definition may have evolved from lenge to the regulatory regimes of gender and sexu-
the Old English dight, meaning to dress, clothe; to ality. Christy Stevens
adorn, deck oneself. Through time, the definition
of dike slowly shifted from a neutral male word to a Bibliography
derogatory slang term used to deride women who Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter. New York and
dressed in male attire.
London: Routledge, 1993.
Since the 1970s, the definition of dyke within
Dever, Carolyn. Obstructive Behavior. In Cross
lesbian communities has begun shifting away from
Purposes: Lesbians, Feminists, and the Limits
the notion of the masculine lesbian. Some simply
of Alliance. Ed. Dana Heller. Bloomington: In-
consider it to be synonymous with lesbian, regard-
less of gender identification, while others view diana University Press, 1997, pp. 1941.
dyke as signifying a woman who blurs the bounda- Grahn, Judy. Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words,
ries between masculinity and femininity. Although Gay Worlds. Boston: Beacon, 1984.
dyke remains a derogatory term within dominant- Roberts, J.R. In America They Call Us Dykes:
culture discourses, functioning as a threat that Notes on the Etymology and Usage of Dyke.
compels women to perform prescribed feminine Sinister Wisdom 9 (1979): 311.
roles and behaviors, many lesbians consider dyke
a positive appellation describing a strong and See also Bulldagger; Butch-Femme; Slang

DYKE 251
E
Ecology and Ecofeminism nature in poems such as Music, The Honey
Branch of biology dedicated to exploring not indi- Tree, and The Gardens.
vidual species, but rather the relationships of plants This celebration of the woman-nature relation-
and animals to each other and to the environment. ship may provide the conceptual foundations for
Ecology has attracted many lesbians; however, what both the lesbian back-to-the-land movement and
began as a lesbian delight in ecology and womens the lesbian association with wilderness. In the
seeming closeness to nature grew into an 1970s, lesbians left the cities in droves, seeking rural
ecofeminist political engagement as lesbians spaces for building lesbian communities free from
reconceived the woman-nature connection in the male domination. The lesbian land movement gen-
1980s. Ecofeminists believe that the subordination erated such journals as Maize: A Lesbian Country
of women is fundamental to militarism and capi- Magazine and Country Woman, and the book Les-
talism and intimately connected to the subordina- bian Land (1985).
tion of nature, people of color, animals, and the Whether they were planning to settle in wild
erotic. spaces or just to visit there, lesbians have been lead-
Radical feminist critiques of patriarchal thought ers in restoring womens relationship with wild
reveal that women have long been associated with nature. Ann Bancroft, leader of the 1992 Ameri-
nature, emotion, nurturance, and fertility, just as can Womens Antarctic Expedition (AWE), became
men have been associated with culture, reason, vio- the first woman and the first lesbian to bring an
lence, and militarism. Whereas patriarchy values all-woman team to the Antarctic, and she accom-
the properties associated with men, radical femi- plished this feat in an ecologically respectful man-
nists offered an alternative view by valuing the ner, packing out all trash generated from the trip,
properties associated with women. Thus, popular as well as trash left by male explorers. Judith Niemi,
texts of radical cultural feminism, such as Sally coeditor of Rivers Running Free: Stories of Adven-
Gearharts lesbian Utopia The Wanderground turous Women (1987), founded both
(1978), Mary Dalys manifesto Gyn/Ecology: The Woodswomen and Women in the Wilderness, two
Metaethics of Radical Feminism (1978), and Susan of many lesbian-led organizations dedicated to
Griffins Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside teaching women how to travel safely and
Her (1978), document patriarchys assault on both sustainably in wild nature. Lesbian
women and nature and locate lesbian feminist cul- outdoorswomen often articulate ecological theo-
ture as thriving particularly in relationship with ries connecting the liberation of women, lesbians,
nature, often in rural or wild surroundings. Both and nature through their actions.
Gearhart and Griffin depict a sympathetic connec- Along with the lesbian land movement, garden-
tion between women and nature that has the po- ingand, more recently, organic gardeninghas
tential to transcend physical boundaries and merge also been a theme in lesbian popular culture, though,
their identities in ecstatic union and telepathic com- as the editors of Garden Variety Dykes (1994) as-
munication. Lesbian poet Mary Oliver (1935) has sert, lesbian gardeners have been largely
explored the erotics of woman loving a feminized unphotographed, untheorized, and unacknowledged

ECOLOGY AND ECOFEMINISM 253

 in both gardening literature and lesbian literature. by radical feminists. Ecofeminists point out that the
E Yet gardening has been a vehicle for art, erotic ex-
pression, self-healing, lesbian livelihoods, and re-
oppression of lesbians is based on the patriarchal
definition of sexuality and the erotic as both opposed
establishing or strengthening bonds with the earth to reason and associated with the body, animals, and
and with the cycles of nature. Through gardening nature. Lesbian ecofeminists suggest that, just as
and its related concerns with pest control, soil fer- women and people of color are animalized, eroticized,
tility, local seeds, and crop rotation, lesbians work and naturalized, so, too, has nature been feminized,
out the ethical dilemmas of their relationship with raced, and eroticized. Through these conceptual as-
the earth and with other animals. As Norwood sociations, all of these forms of oppression are linked
(1993) suggests, womens historic work as garden- and rationalized in patriarchal thought.
ers has laid the pathway to more aggressive involve- With this insight, lesbian ecofeminists have ex-
ment in the environmental movements of the late amined the rhetoric of European colonialism in the
twentieth century. Americas and found the same logic at work: By
The ecological, Utopian vision of lesbian sepa- describing the indigenous people as feminine, ho-
ratism was soon challenged both by experiences of mosexual, animalistic, and closer to nature, white
women within those communities and by larger Western colonizers rationalized the invasion of the
events, such as the near meltdown of the nuclear re- Americas. Lesbian and Laguna Pueblo poet Paula
actor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania (1979) Gunn Allen (1939) has compared the white
and the discoveries of toxic exposure at Love Canal heteropatriarchal colonization of women, lesbians,
in New York State (1978). In April 1980, a confer- indigenous people, and the earth in her poem
ence called Women and Life on Earth: Eco-Femi- Some Like Indians Endure.
nism in the 1980s drew attention to the connec- Lesbians who developed ecofeminist critiques
tions between the structures of male violence against in the 1980s and 1990s include Lynda Birke,
women and violence against the earth, and activists Christine Cuomo, Greta Gaard, Lori Gruen, Chaia
from the conference organized a Womens Penta- Heller, Marti Kheel, and Linda Vance. They and
gon Action that drew roughly three thousand other lesbians have contributed significantly to the
women (the majority of whom were lesbian) to en- understanding of ecofeminism as a movement com-
circle the Pentagon that November. A key organizer mitted to the liberation of women, people of color,
of both events, and coauthor of the Unity Statement queers, animals, and the earth. Greta Gaard
of the Womens Pentagon Action, lesbian theorist
and activist Ynestra King refrained the woman-na- Bibliography
ture connection in an essay published in 1982. Ac- Cheney, Joyce, ed. Lesbian Land. Minneapolis:
cording to King, there were three possible responses Word Weavers, 1985.
to the alleged woman-nature connection created by Collard, Andre, and Joyce Contrucci. Rape of the
patriarchal thought: (1) it could be embraced and Wild: Mans Violence Against Animals and the
valued, as radical cultural feminists had done; (2) it Earth. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
could be rejected as a source of womens oppres- 1989.
sion, a view taken by both radical rationalist femi- Gaard, Greta. Toward a Queer Ecofeminism.
nists and socialist feminists; or (3) it could be used Hypatia 12:1 (Winter 1997), 114137.
strategically. The first two responses do not chal- King, Ynestra. Feminism and the Revolt of Na-
lenge the authenticity of the woman-nature connec- ture. Heresies 13 (Fall 1982), 1216.
tion, King argued, but only differ on whether to Norwood, Vera. Designing Nature: Gardeners and
accept or reject it. The third response, which views Their Gardens. In Made from This Earth:
women as part of both culture and nature and ar- American Women and Nature. Chapel Hill:
gues that any alleged woman-nature connection can University of North Carolina Press, 1993, pp.
be used as a strategic vantage point, marks the be- 98142.
ginnings of ecofeminism. Reti, Irene, and Valerie Jean Chase, eds. Garden
The conceptual connection between lesbianism Variety Dykes: Lesbian Traditions in Garden-
and ecofeminism can be seen by returning to the as- ing. Santa Cruz, Calif.: HerBooks, 1994.
sociation of man/human/culture/reason as defined in
opposition to woman/animal/nature/emotion See also Ethics; Land; Peace Movement; Utopian
dualisms of patriarchal thought originally recognized Literature; Vegetarianism

254 ECOLOGY AND ECOFEMINISM

Economics ism lying in its demonstration that women dont
Lesbian and gay economics emerged during the need men, personally at least. Once the romanti-
1980s and 1990s as an identifiable area, particu- cism and emotional mythology of heterosexuality
larly in the United States. Lesbian critiques of the is challenged, they argued, women would become
heterosexist biases in feminist economic analysis free to see the oppression that it obscures.
have also grown during this time period. However, The increasing opportunities for education, entry
this significant lesbian writing on economics has to the job market, and economic independence were
proceeded without any clearly agreed understand- essential to the emergence of separate lesbian cultures
ing of the term lesbian economics. and identity in Western societies. Cultural and ethnic
Gender, race, class, and sexuality are all largely differences in the social construction of gender and
economic issues. The control of power and re- sexuality mean that lesbian identities and economics
sources and the ability to exclude groups defined will differ across societies. Prior to the opportunities
as other support attitudinal prejudice in perpetu- for economic independence, only some women from
ating lesbophobia (fear of lesbianism) and the upper classes with personal wealth could estab-
heterosexism, as well as patriarchy and capitalism. lish comfortable lives separate from men. Some work-
Hence, lesbian economics consists of document- ing-class and ethnic-minority women with fewer op-
ing discrimination, pointing out its economic, so- tions cross-dressed and/or passed as men, at work
cial, and psychological costs to individuals and to and, in some cases, in relationships with women.
society and working for change, as well as devel- However, feminist economists frequently ignore the
oping lesbian communities, organizations, and fact that the emergence of lesbian politics and com-
economies and creating lesbian theory, ethics, val- munity, by demonstrating the possibility of independ-
ues, and philosophy. ence from men, in turn strengthened the attempt of
heterosexual feminists to change both their individual
Feminist Economic Analyses roles in relationships with men and the overall gen-
Feminist economists have analyzed problems aris- der-biased structures in society.
ing from orthodox (neoclassical) economic argu-
ments and errors perpetuated by splitting the public Lesbian Economic Analyses
and private spheres. They have exposed models of Lesbians engage in documenting and analyzing eco-
gender divisions of labor that perpetuate economic nomic situations, the extent and impact of discrimi-
dependence for many women and have questioned nation, and, generally, the varieties of lesbian lives.
the supposed value freedom and objectivity of these Whether lesbians want to be visible in official sta-
models. However, most of these feminist critics have tistics is a complex issue. Any official census or sur-
attempted to improve neoclassical analysis and vey will considerably undercount lesbians and gay
policy within the context of nuclear, sole-parent, or men, which could provide protection from those
extended families, with an unstated assumption that seeking to increase repressive treatment or deny
heterosexuality is the norm or only pattern. Hence, equal rights. On the other hand, without visibility,
feminist economics seeks to reduce womens eco- the realities of discrimination can be dismissed and
nomic dependence on men, while lesbian econom- the need for policies to reduce it discounted.
ics attempts more radically to cut that dependence. A review by Larson (1994) of survey-based stud-
Patriarchy and capitalism are based on gender, ies on lesbian life suggests that lesbians may have
class, and race divisions of labor in both hetero- different economic profiles than heterosexual
sexual households and the paid labor force, with women in terms of labor-force participation, level
male White heterosexual capitalist power repro- of education, level of household income, demand
ducing itself on the backs of women. The restric- for children, and division of labor on household
tion of women to low-paid jobs promotes and even tasks. Higher average levels have been found among
necessitates heterosexuality. The framework of lesbians on each of the first three variables, al-
heterosexually based gender specialization between, though caution is necessary, with white economi-
and within, paid and unpaid work reinforces and cally advantaged lesbians likely to be
justifies the status quo. In 1978, the Lesbians Ig- overrepresented in the samples and with many les-
nite Fire Brigade, a New Zealand group, argued bian mothers in severe poverty. More egalitarian
that lesbianism is an important challenge to patri- distribution of household tasks than among het-
archy, with the threat of even nonpolitical lesbian- erosexual couples has also been reported.

ECONOMICS 255
 Badgett (1995) has used the U.S. General So- Access to partner benefits may seem an obvi-
E cial Survey (which asks questions about same-sex
sexual experiences) to examine whether earnings
ous demand, but it has a negative side. Full recog-
nition of lesbian relationships would presumably
discrimination exists against lesbian, gay, and bi- mean that, where the benefit system is based on
sexual workers. She found that, standardizing for couples, the rules would apply equally, meaning
age, education, occupation, marital status, and re- loss of income for some lesbians. On the other
gion, self-identified gay and bisexual men earn from hand, it can be argued that all adult benefits should
11 to 27 percent less than their straight counter- be based on the individual, removing the expecta-
parts, while lesbian and bisexual women earn 5 to tion of dependence on a spouse.
14 percent less. For women, the difference is not
statistically significant, but lesbians are inclined to Lesbian Markets and Economies
be in lower-paid occupations than gay men and The resurgence of a more market-based, libertar-
heterosexual women. ian, individualist orthodoxy in many Western coun-
The issue of equality versus difference, which tries has affected lesbian communities. Rampant
has been important in theoretical and policy de- consumerism and an emphasis on the individual
bates on gender, arises also with respect to lesbian at the expense of the collective have led to exploi-
and gay identity and rights. For example, impor- tation of the emerging lesbian and, in particular,
tant issues in the lesbian community include the gay male markets, both by gay and straight entre-
differences and similarities between lesbian and preneurs. Libertarian trends also sit well with some
heterosexual couple relationships and the degree interpretations of postmodernism, which, in some
of similarity with which they are to be treated by formulations, can lead to the absence of real chal-
society. Many argue that lesbian relationships are lenges to current power structures.
different from, and have the potential to be better Separatist lesbian communities, which include
than, heterosexual ones, particularly in terms of businesses, volunteer services, and land, are all as-
power dynamics. There may be greater variety of pects of an independent lesbian economy. So, too,
household types, more flexibility in lesbian family are household types, financial arrangements, and
structure, and less specialization of roles. Lesbians the sharing of tasks. Lesbian culture, including
with these political perspectives find unappealing music, books, magazines, and crafts, maintained
the strategy of stressing the similarity with through independent publishing houses, book-
heterosexuals, often allied in campaigns for equal- shops, printers, clubs, and entertainment, has been
ity with the view that sexual orientation is a ge- crucial in creating communities and providing paid
netic feature neither chosen nor able to be changed. work for some lesbians. Fund-raising activities and
For other lesbians, however, expressing com- entertainment have supported community activi-
mitment to a partner and having this acknowledged ties such as lesbian telephone lines, coming out
and celebrated, for example through a ceremony, groups, and media. In Australia, as reported by
is of importance. Acceptance by society in general Young (1991), an Adelaide lesbian community
may also be valued. In pragmatic terms, many green-dollar scheme (LESY), in which credits can
would argue that lesbian partner relationships be deposited and drawn on based on doing or us-
should be treated as favorably as those of hetero- ing various types of work, is an example of an or-
sexual couples in such areas as domestic protec- ganization providing for the sharing of individual
tion, partner benefits at work, retirement benefits, skill. Gift and free-exchange systems are seen by
honoring of wills, and next-of-kin treatment by the some lesbians and feminists as an important alter-
medical system. This might imply legalizing lesbian native or supplement to the market economy and
and gay marriage, as a few jurisdictions worldwide an acknowledgment of lesbians different needs and
have done. Such a change would not appeal to all resources. Sliding scales or other ways of paying
lesbians: Some would prefer abolition of the insti- for facilities and events according to financial means
tution. On legal issues, some prefer that disputes also highlight the underlying class issues involved.
within the community are kept away from the (pa- Important issues for lesbian business and other
triarchal, heterosexist) judicial system, while oth- activities include conflicts in attempting to run a
ers see the need for residual protection, with cases business on lesbian feminist lines, the mixing of
cited in which financial unfairness has arisen after voluntary and paid labor, class and race issues, and
breakups. the balance among separatism, coalition politics, and

256 ECONOMICS
work on lesbian and other structural oppression is- Young, Carole. LESY-Adelaide: An Example of a
sues. As lesbian and feminist activity has become Lesbian Economy. Lesbian Ethics 4:2 (1991),
more acceptable or, more cynically, as the market 6266.
has noticed that it can profit from it, successful art-
ists face the issue of staying within in the commu- See also Advertising and Consumerism; Businesses,
nity or shifting to the mainstream. For the future, Lesbian; Demography; Domestic Partnership
feminist environmentalists, many of whom call for
a major rethinking and even repudiation of stand-
ard economics, offer useful insights into the rela- Egypt
tionship between economic and technical systems Country situated in the northeastern corner of the
and value systems. Continuing the creation of les- African continent, stretching almost across into
bian economy and value systems and influencing Asia. Its location on the threshold of continents,
those of the straight world are ongoing, difficult along with its dependence on its lifeline, the Nile
tasks. Many of the economic and ethical issues River, has defined its peoples throughout time. The
touched on here, including discussion of racism and ancient Egyptians, whose history extends more than
classism in the economy, are developed further in four thousand years, left behind them an over-
the collection Homo Economics: Capitalism, Com- whelming and detailed record of their achievements
munity, and Lesbian and Gay Life, edited by in life and in death but very little regarding their
Gluckman and Reed (1997). Prue Hyman sexual practices. Modern Egyptologists have specu-
lated about homoerotic desires between women,
Bibliography but little is known beyond assumptions based on
Allen, Jeffner. Lesbian Economics. Trivia (1986), modern conceptualizations of sexual practices. For
3753. instance, Queen Hatchepsut (eighteenth dynasty,
Badgett, Lee. The Wage Effects of Sexual Orien- ruled 14901468 B.C.E.) wore a beard to estab-
tation Discrimination. Industrial and Labor lish her position as pharaoh, led armies to war,
Relations Review 48:4 (July 1995), 726739. and generally challenged gender rules of her day,
Badgett, M.V.Lee, and Rhonda M.Williams. The but nothing is known about her sexual practices.
Economics of Sexual Orientation: Establishing Egyptian history spans many millennia, during
a Research Agenda. Feminist Studies 18:3 which Egypt succumbed to innumerable conquests
(1992), 649657. and, hence, cultural influences. Among these con-
Edwalds, Loraine, and Midge Stocker, eds. The quests were the Greeks, the Romans, and, finally,
Woman-Centered Economy: Ideals, Reality, and the Arabs in the seventh century. Arab rule of Egypt
the Space in Between, Chicago: Third Side, varied across centuries, bringing with it influences
1995. from other conquered cultures within its sovereignty
Gluckman, Amy, and Betsy Reed, eds. Homo Eco- and establishing Arab culture and language as domi-
nomics: Capitalism, Community, and Lesbian nant, with Islam as the religion of the majority, along-
and Gay Life. New York and London: side a small minority of Coptic Christians.
Routledge, 1997. Although there are no distinct words for ho-
Larson, Kathleen H. The Economics of Lesbian mosexuality nor heterosexuality in Arabic,
Households. In Exploring the Quincentennial: there is no doubt that homoerotic pleasures are
The Policy Challenges of Gender, Diversity, and prohibited in the Quaran (Koran), as these are
International Exchange (1994). Ed. Roberta denounced under such ambiguous terms as abomi-
Spalter-Roth, Debbie Clearwaters, Melinda nations and sodomy. Furthermore, same-sex
Gish, and Susan A.Markham. Washington, relations are specifically forbidden by the Prophet
D.C.: Institute of Womens Policy Research and Mohammad in the Hadith. Religious law, the
Department of Sociology, American University, Shariah, is practiced side by side with secular law
pp. 251257. in Egypt, each consulted according to the issue at
Matthaei, Julie. The Sexual Division of Labour, stake. Islam accepts erotic pleasures as a funda-
Sexuality, and Lesbian/Gay Liberation: Towards mental right for both men and women and ac-
a Marxist-Feminist Analysis of Sexuality in U.S. knowledges that eroticism includes a range of
Capitalism. Review of Radical Political Eco- sexual practices; it also, however, recognizes hu-
nomics 27:2 (1995), 137. man frailty in the face of temptation and,

EGYPT 257
 consequently, has in place a system of sanctions search into this area, however, and knowledge re-
E that regulate the lives of the faithful. Homoerotic
practices are prohibited under these sanctions.
garding how these women conceptualize such prac-
tices is, at best, sketchy. Didi Khayatt
References to female homoerotic desires and
practices surface regularly in Egyptian and Arabic Bibliography
literary and historical texts. Once again, however, Ahmed, Leila. Arab Culture and Writing Wom-
because these texts were written mostly by men, ens Bodies. Feminist Issues 9:1 (Spring 1989),
who were prohibited entry into womens quarters 4156.
in this sexually segregated society, not much is ac- . Women and Gender in Islam. New Haven,
tually known beyond speculation of what may have Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992.
occurred in the harems and the hammams (baths) Hatem, Mervat. The Politics of Sexuality and
and the sexual fantasies of the writers. Likewise, Gender in Segragated Patriarchal Systems: The
European visitors to Egypt record incidents of un- Case of Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century
speakable acts betweeen women within the loca- Egypt. Feminist Studies 12:2 (Summer 1986),
tions of the harems and the hammams, but little is 250274.
known regarding the extent or prevalence of these Murray, Stephen O. Woman-Woman Love in Is-
homoerotic desires. Still less is known about how lamic Societies. In Islamic Sexualities: Culture,
the women thought about these acts, if they were History, and Literature, eds. Stephen O. Murray
recognized as discreet practices or if they were per- and Will Roscoe. New York: New York Uni-
ceived as an extension of sensual, rather than versity Press, 1997, p. 97.
sexual, inclinations.
Egyptian class structure continues to reproduce See also Arab Literature, Modern; Harems; Islam
significant differences in access to education and
resources among people, which makes generaliza-
tions about sexual practices complex. For instance, Electoral Politics
such terms as lesbian or gay, as these are used Processes of voting, working for candidates and
in North America and Western Europe, do not elected officials, and working with elected officials
render intelligible experiences outside the cultural to affect policy, as well as running for office.
contexts for which they were created. Therefore, Lesbians have been involved in electoral politics
although the Egyptian upper classes who are edu- as candidates, as voters, and as activists and organiz-
cated in Western cultures use terms like lesbian ers. Most of the candidate activity to date has been in
and gay to describe same-gender sexual practices, the United States, although gay men have been suc-
they themselves cannot be indentified as lesbian cessful office seekers in Canada and the United King-
or gay since the social and political identities of- dom, and lesbians have been elected to office in Aus-
ten associated with these terms do not have similar tralia. The United States has almost 500,000 elected
currencies in Egypt. Among Westernized upper-class offices, so the chances for entry are greatest there.
women, lesbian desire is, therefore, recognized,
and some women of that class are involved in inti- Lesbians as Candidates
mate sexual relations with other women. Unlike Although it is impossible to know how many
gay men of that class, however, there are no or- women candidates have been lesbians, much is
ganized meeting places, although these women man- known about the open lesbians who have run for
age to recognize one another and congregate within office. Elaine Noble, a state representative in Mas-
the privacy of their homes. Since women in Egypt sachusetts from 1974 to 1978, was the first openly
are expected to live under the guardianship of a male, lesbian candidate and legislator. Since then, many
almost all are married and seem to lead normative lesbians have served at the state and local levels
heterosexual lives while having women lovers. across the country. In 1991, Sherry Harriss city
Middle- and working-class women in Egypt, council victory in Seattle, Washington, made her
whose language is primarily Arabic, do not have the first African American lesbian to be elected.
access to an equivalent term for lesbian. Implica- Lesbians, like gay men, have been successful in
tions of same-gender paractices, however, are present their campaigns when they were able to build coa-
in modern literary texts by women, which leaves no litions beyond lesbian and gay communities. No-
doubt as to their existence. There has been little re- bles success was largely due to her attention to

258 EGYPT
issues of childrens welfare and womens rights as political life was followed by cries of outrage and
well as lesbian rights. The many lesbian officials despair as Clinton not only did not end the ban,
elected in the 1980s and 1990s have had similarly but in 1996 signed the Defense of Marriage Act,
broad platforms and community experience. which denies federal recognition of same-sex mar-
The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which sup- riages should they be allowed by the states. Lesbi-
ports the candidacies of openly lesbian and gay ans and gays have faced another common experi-
political aspirants through fund-raising, was ence of racial minorities in the United States, that
formed in 1991. To receive support, candidates of being used for electoral purposes by people with
must endorse the federal gay and lesbian civil rights no real commitment to their rights or welfare. The
bill, support AIDS funding and abortion rights, and Republicans active hostility toward equality for
be viable candidates. Between the 1992 and 1996 gays means that there are precious few alternatives
elections, more than 50 percent of the endorsed to the lukewarm support of the Democratic Party.
candidates have won office.
Although candidates have been finding some Political Activism at the State Level
success, they have had to endure often intensely As Clintons promises faded, gay and lesbian ac-
antigay campaigns, from both Democrats and Re- tivists realized that the new battleground for rights
publicans. Very few districts are so favorable to was within the states, for two reasons. First, most
lesbians and gays that they are exempt from this of the laws that govern citizens daily lives are state
pressure. rather than federal, and concerns for equality and
nondiscrimination can be addressed through state
Lesbian Voting Behavior legislatures. Second, the antigay religious extrem-
Like the silence surrounding lesbian candidates, no ists have begun to launch a series of attacks at the
research was conducted into lesbian or gay voting state and local levels. These attacks take the form
until the late 1980s. Although little is known for of ballot initiatives and referenda. In 1992, for
certain about lesbian voting patterns, the research example, Colorado and Oregon faced such meas-
that has been done suggests that lesbians are largely ures. Both aimed to deny the possibility of equal
left-liberal in their political orientation. Voting sur- protection to homosexual citizens. Colorados
veys from the 1992 presidential campaign suggest Amendment 2 sought to ban any statute, regula-
that lesbians are significantly to the left not only of tion, ordinance or policy whereby homosexual,
heterosexual voters, but of gay men as well. Much lesbian, or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices
of this is explained by the greater feminism of lesbi- or relationships shall constitute or otherwise be the
ans; Hertzogs (1996) work on voting behavior sug- basis of, or entitle any person or class of persons
gests that strong feminism accounts for much of to have or claim any minority status, quota prefer-
the difference between lesbian attitudes and voting ences, protected status or claim of discrimination.
and those of other groups. Lesbians who did not The effect of this amendment was to override ex-
identify as strong feminists do not seem to vote isting antidiscrimination ordinances in Denver and
all that differently than gay men, and gay men who Boulder and to preclude the possibility of passing
identify as strong feminists voted like most of the any laws in Colorado that banned discrimination
lesbians. It is clear, however, that in high-salience on the basis of sexual orientation. In Oregon,
elections, such as presidential, congressional, and Measure 9 not only banned anti-discrimination
gubernatorial elections, lesbians and gays vote in legislation but mandated that schools teach that
distinct patterns that transcend particulars such as homosexuality, among other things, was morally
feminism, demographics, or party affiliation. wrong. Although Measure 9 was defeated at the
Whether this will continue over time is unclear. polls, and the Colorado and United States Supreme
The year 1992 was a watershed year for lesbi- Courts declared Amendment 2 unconstitutional
ans in electoral politics. After Democratic presi- (1994; 1996), state drives to roll back rights con-
dential candidate Bill Clinton pledged to eliminate tinued. For example, an Amendment 2-like meas-
the ban against lesbians and gays in the military, ure was defeated in Idaho in 1994.
lesbians across the country came out to work for Electoral politics is, thus, a place for the self-
Clintons campaign and supported it financially. assertion of both lesbians and their opponents.
The upsurge of enthusiasm and optimism about Battles over civil rights laws, marriage and family
gay and lesbian citizens inclusion in American policy, and other areas are waged in the voting

ELECTORAL POLITICS 259

 booth, as well as the street. As social stigma de- solidarity and respect; and (6) to revise prejudices
E clines, one can expect to see more lesbians visible
in politics at all levels. Shane Phelan
and myths that society has about lesbians.
One hundred women were expected at the first
gathering, but approximately 250 arrived eager to
Bibliography meet and share their experiences with their sisters:
Button, James W., Barbara A.Rienzo, and Kenneth lesbians from all over Latin America and the Car-
D.Wald. Private Lives, Public Conflicts: Battles ibbean, as well as Latinas living in the United States,
over Gay Rights in American Communities. Canada, and Europe. Some of the topics of the
Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly workshops were sexuality, myths and gender roles;
Press, 1997. lesbianism and repression; lesbianism and politics;
Herzog, Mark. The Lavender Vote: Lesbians, Gay and lesbian mothers. At this first gathering, it was
Men, and Bisexuals in American Electoral Poli- decided to strengthen the Latin American and the
tics. New York: New York University Press, Caribbean Lesbian Feminist Network that was also
1996. created at the ILIS conference, celebrate the first
Lachman, Linda. Electoral Politics: An Interview day of full moon in March as Lesbian International
with Elaine Noble. In Our Right to Love. Ed. Day, and continue with the organization of bian-
Ginny Vida. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice- nual gatherings, the next one planned for Peru.
Hall, 1978, pp. 128134. Because of internal political problems and repres-
Rayside, David. On the Fringe: Gays and Lesbi- sion against homosexuals, the women of Peru asked
ans in Politics. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University to change the place of the gathering to Costa Rica.
Press, 1998. But it was not easy to organize the second gathering
Shilts, Randy. The Mayor of Castro Street. New in Costa Rica (1989), nor the third gathering in
York: St. Martins Press, 1982. Puerto Rico (1992). The organization of these two
gatherings came out of the closet and produced a
See also Activism; Coalition Politics; Discrimina- national debate with sometimes violent manifesta-
tion; Noble, Elaine; Political Theory tions against their realization. For that reason, in
Argentina, venue for the Fourth Latin American and
Caribbean Lesbian Feminist Gathering (1995), the
Encuentros de Lesbianas organization was done in almost complete secrecy.
Encuentros de Lesbianas Feministas de Latinoamer- This situation made the dissemination of informa-
ica y el Caribe (Latin American and Caribbean Les- tion about the gathering among lesbian women very
bian Feminist Gatherings) have been held in Latin difficult and prompted much lower participation by
America and the Caribbean since 1987. They con- local women, who are afraid to be outed and/or
stitute a regional space for exchange and interac- harassed because of their participation.
tion mainly between activists and lesbian groups The inconveniences and difficulties encountered
from the region and Latina lesbians living in other in organizing the Lesbian Feminist Gathering in Latin
countries. America and the Caribbean shows the great need of
The idea of this political space was born in the this space for lesbians, as women, as activists, as femi-
lesbian workshop at the Third Feminist Gathering nists, and as Latinas. The interchange of experiences
of Latin America and the Caribbean (Brazil, 1985), and knowledge in this sisters meeting encourages
but the organization was finally decided at the the exchange of ideas for the construction of a new
Eighth Conference of ILIS (International Lesbian society that improves the situation for lesbians in Latin
Information Service) in Switzerland in 1986. The America and the Caribbean. Maria Rachid
First Latin American and Caribbean Lesbian Femi-
nist Gathering took place in Mexico in 1987. Bibliography
The main goals of this first gathering were (1) Las Entendidas. Memoria de un Encuentro
to explore alternative ways of communication, Inolvidable: Segundo Encuentro Lesbico-
work, and investigation; (2) to change the situa- Feminista de America Latino y el Caribe (Mem-
tion of lesbians in Latin America; (3) to modify oirs of an Unforgettable Meeting: Second Latin
oppressive legal, social, political, and work spaces; American and Caribbean Lesbian Feminist
(4) to discuss daily life and question standards Meeting). San Jose, Costa Rica: Imprenta
imposed by society; (5) to create an atmosphere of Carcemo, 1991.

260 ELECTORAL POLITICS

Yarbro-Bejarano, Yvonne. Primer encuentro de families together and finally settled in Wales, where
lesbianas feministas latinoamericanas y they lived from 1778 until Butlers death in 1829.
caribenas (First Latin American and Caribbean The ladies were well known in literary circles; they
Lesbian Feminist Gathering). In Third Woman: corresponded with William Wordsworth (1770
The Sexuality of Latinas. Ed. Norma Alarcn, 1850), Edmund Burke (17291797), Anna Seward
Ana Castillo and Cherre Moraga. Berkeley: (17471809), and others. Among the English liter-
Third Woman, 1989, pp. 143146. ary elite, they were considered exemplars of chaste
devotion, although their Welsh neighbors satirized
See also International Organizations; Latinas their masculine dress in local newspapers. Literary
representations of cross-dressing women who pur-
sue other women romantically include the signifi-
English Literature, Eighteenth Century cantly named Harriot Freke, an advocate for the
Representations of love between women in eight- Rights of Woman, in Maria Edgeworths (1767
eenth-century English literature fall on a continuum 1849) 1801 novel Belinda. In poetry, the anony-
between two apparently contradictory images: that mous 1720 sonnet Cloe to Artemisia critiques
of the paradigmatically chaste and virtuous roman- heterosexual relationships as degrading to women
tic friendship on the one hand, and the freakishly and celebrates intimacy between women as pleas-
sexualized sapphic relationship on the other. Ro- ures for their gross senses too refined, concluding:
mantic friendship is perhaps best exemplified by the Well scorn the monster and his mistress too,/And
characters in Sarah Scotts 1762 novel, Millenium Hall show the world what women ought to do.
Scott (17231795), herself the lifelong companion The eighteenth-century tradition of anonymous,
of Lady Barbara Montagu (d. 1765), depicts love and often bawdy, lyric makes room for this explicit les-
marriage between men and women as, at worst, vio- bian manifesto, in large part because of the poets
lent and abusive and, at best, an impious distraction anonymity. References to sexual relationships between
from attending to life in the hereafter. In the novel, women in eighteenth-century writing tend to cluster
several women characters live together in a commu- in low-culture genres, such as the ballad, pamphlet,
nal household (some in affectionate pairs) and im- and pornography, or in private sources, such as mem-
prove the lives of the neighboring villagers through oirs, diaries, and letters. The actress Charlotte Charke
their good works. According to Faderman (1981), (17131760) describes her life as Mr. Brown, who
this novel was the vade mecum of romantic friends passed for a married man for many years, in her 1755
throughout the century. At the other end of the spec- A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Charlotte Charke. In
trum is the lascivious Phoebe of John Clelands por- Satan s Harvest Home, a pamphlet satirizing metro-
nographic novel, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure politan vice published in 1749, a chapter describing
(17481749). Cleland (17101789) was viewed by sex between women as the Game at Flatts tells the
at least one eighteenth-century observer as a sodo- story of a Turkish noblewoman who falls in love with
mite, and his novel is infamous for its depictions of a young virgin whom she sees at a bathhouse. As
almost every kind of sexual act, including lesbian- in this story, lesbianism in eighteenth-century litera-
ism. The novels protagonist, Fanny, has her first ture is frequently associated with foreign locales, cus-
sexual experience when she is broken in by an older toms, and even bodiesespecially those of the
prostitute to induct her into the same trade. Cleland darker races of the Mediterranean, Africa, and the
makes a distinction between Fanny, whose Indian subcontinent.
desiresall pointed strongly to their pole, man, The impact of travel literature and Oriental
and Phoebe, who may have possessed a secret byass erotica on the English sexual imagination of the
toward women. eighteenth century is significant. Indeed, in an 1811
Famous literary examples of romantic friendship libel suit, a panel of Scottish judges concluded that
include that between Clarissa and Anna in Samuel two women schoolteachers, accused of lesbianism
Richardsons Clarissa (17471748). They wish to by one of their pupils, could not have conducted
live together rather than marry, a model that was such a relationship because the vice was hith-
actually followed by two Irish noblewomen, Lady erto unknown in Britain. One judge opined that
Eleanor Butler (17391829) and Sarah Ponsonby there could be no sort of doubt, however, that
(17551831). Best known as the Ladies of in India some womens enlarged clitorises made it
Llangollen, the women twice ran away from their possible for them to sexually penetrate other

E N G L I S H L I T E R AT U R E , E I G H T E E N T H C E N T U RY 261
 women. Such representations were important pre- Trumbach, Randolph. The Origin and Develop-
E cursors to nineteenth-century discourses of racial
eugenics and sexual degeneracy.
ment of the Modern Lesbian Role in the West-
ern Gender System: Northwestern Europe and
Scholarship on lesbianism in eighteenth-century the United States, 17501990. Historical Re-
England has exploded since 1990, a phenomenon flections/Reflexions Historiques 20:2 (Summer
well summarized by Emma Donoghue in Passions 1994), 285300.
Between Women: British Lesbian Culture, 1668 Vicinus, Martha. They Wonder to Which Sex I
1801 (1995). Historian Trumbach (1994) has care- Belong: The Historical Roots of the Modern
fully described the emergence of a role for women Lesbian Identity. Feminist Studies 18:3 (Fall
which was parallel to that of the molly for men af- 1992), 467497.
ter 1770 in London. A slang term for these women Woodward, Carolyn. My Heart Is So Wrapt:
attracted to women was tommies, according to Lesbian Disruptions in Eighteenth-Century Brit-
Trumbach, but he notes that the more usual term ish Fiction. Signs: Journal of Women in Cul-
was sapphistwith sapphist and tommy being the ture and Society 18:4 (Summer 1993), 838865.
high and low terms for women, as sodomite and molly
were for men. Literary historian Vicinus (1992) See also Charke, Charlotte; Cross-Dressing; Ladies
draws links between modern lesbian identity and what of Llangollen; Pirie, Jane and Woods, Marianne;
she calls four dominant ways in which lesbian Romantic Friendship
desire appears to have been defined in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries. Vicinuss four cat-
egoriesthe transvestite, the cross-dressed actress, the English Literature, Nineteenth Century
occasional lover of women, and the romantic friend For most of the nineteenth century in England, the
are all visible in eighteenth-century imaginative writ- word lesbian was virtually unknown; if used at
ing. Terry Castle turns to specifically literary ques- all, it referred specifically to the island of Lesbos
tions in The Apparitional Lesbian (1993). Calling and its famous poet Sappho (ca. 600 B.C.E.). Love
Daniel Defoes The Apparition of Mrs. Veal (1706) between women was not then considered sexual,
that first (and strangest) of lesbian love stories, since sexuality was commonly understood as re-
Castle establishes eighteenth-century fiction as the in- quiring the presence of a penis. Nevertheless, Eng-
augural moment and mode of lesbian representation. lish literature of the nineteenth century reflects the
Woodward (1993) also examines the conjunction of presence of what one would today define as les-
the rise of the novel and the representation of female bian desire. Although times overlap considerably,
same-sex desire. The variety of scholarly approaches lesbians in nineteenth-century English literature fall
to, and literary representations of, love between into three periods. Early in the century (1800
women in the English eighteenth century bears out 1830), lesbianism was figured as romantic friend-
Vicinuss conclusion: Many lesbian histories, con- ship or extreme eccentricity. At midcentury (1830
tradictory, complicated, and perhaps uncomfortable, 1870), the vampire lesbian appeared, preying on
can be told. Lisa Moore innocent girls and linking the portrayal of lesbians
to the Romantic/gothic ghost tale. Yet, even while
Bibliography the vampire prowled among her sisters, a new les-
Castle, Terry. The Apparitional Lesbian: Female bian was becoming visible in the literature (1860
Homosexuality and Modern Culture. New York 1900)the unconventional odd woman, whose
: Columbia University Press, 1993. insistence on appropriating the style and privileges
Donoghue, Emma. Passions Between Women: British of men provoked admiration, scorn, curiosity, psy-
Lesbian Culture, 16681801. Reprint. New York: choanalysis, and ridicule as the century wore on.
HarperCollins, 1995. London: Scarlet, 1993. Among middle-class Britons at the turn of the
Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men: nineteenth century, intense romantic friendship be-
Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women tween women (and men) was not assumed to in-
from the Renaissance to the Present. New York: clude a sexual component. In fact, such friendships
William Morrow, 1981. were accepted as normal, even admirable. In her
Moore, Lisa. Dangerous Intimacies: Toward a Sap- semiautobiographical novel Mary: A Fiction (1788),
phic History of the British Novel. Durham, Mary Wollstonecraft (17591797) describes a pas-
N.C.: Duke University Press, 1997. sionate loving friendship between the eponymous

262 E N G L I S H L I T E R AT U R E , E I G H T E E N T H C E N T U RY
heroine Mary and her friend Ann, much like the duction is not explicitly sexual) a young woman of
actual lifelong relationship between Lady Eleanor lower social class. Algernon Swinburne (1837
Butler (17391829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755 1909), in his poem Anactoria (1866) and in his
1831), called by the doting public the Ladies of unfinished novel Lesbia Brandon (1867?), also fea-
Llangollen. One of their devotees was Anna Seward tures the melancholy, seductive lesbian. Joseph
(17471809), who visited them at home and much Sheridan LeFanu (18141873), in his 1872 ghost
of whose poetry (published in 1810) praised the life story Carmilla, revisits the Christabel story, this
and lamented the early death of one Honora Sneyd. time imposing an unmistakably sexual meaning
The literature of romantic friendship was relent- upon it. In LeFanus telling of the tale, the young
lessly conventional, reflecting widespread approval ingenue even wonders if the sexy Carmilla might be
of a certain type of passionate same-sex attachment a boy in disguise, so intense is her desire. Finally, in
among middle-class Englishwomen. However, when the last decade of the nineteenth century, the les-
women departed from accepted gender roles, they bian vampire theme still flourishes, in the lush Songs
were understood as anomalous and described as of Bilitis (1894) by Pierre Louys (18701925), and
such in the literature. In Belinda (1801), for instance, even in Anglo-American Henry Jamess (1843
Maria Edgeworth (17671849) introduces the wom- 1916) story The Turn of the Screw (1898). As
ans rights advocate Mrs. Freke, whose mannish might be expected, these lesbian vampire tales are
behavior (she strides across the room like a man all male creations, reflecting mens simultaneous fear
and swears) is held up as buffoonery. Sir Walter of, and fascination with, lesbian sexuality. Only
Scott (17711832), in Guy Mannering (1829), de- Christina Rossettis (18301894) Goblin Market
scribes the gypsy Meg Merrilies as a giant in a mans (1859), which implies a kind of reverse vampirism
greatcoat, who seems more masculine than feminine. (the quasi-sexual sucking of the two sisters saves
There is never any indication that either Mrs. Freke one from parasitic male sexuality), defies this trend.
(despite her name) or Meg engages in sexual behavior In the year 1869, two events occurred that set
with other women; they are objectionable, rather, the stage for the articulation of lesbian identity dur-
for their blatant usurpation of male attire and hab- ing the last third of the nineteenth century: the pub-
its. Such irreverence, it was implied, could lead to lication of Karl Heinrich Ulrichss The Riddle of
blurring of class and gender boundaries and dan- Man-Manly Love and the founding of Girton
gerous destabilizing of the architectonic English so- College for women at Cambridge University. Ulrichs
cial hierarchy. Anne Lister (17911840), whose jour- (18251895) described (male) homosexuality as the
nal describing her life from 1824 to 1826 left no soul of a woman trapped in a mans body; soon his
doubt about her sexuality, could live and write as definition would be extended to include lesbianism
she did because she was financially independent. (the soul of a man trapped in a womans body). His
Lister, a kind of protobutch woman, would no doubt book introduced the idea of homosexuality to the
have recognized herself in the descriptions of man- newly developing field of sexology (later psychol-
nish lesbians in the sexological writing of the late ogy). Ulrichs positioned homosexuality as illness
nineteenth century. rather than sin; thus, his early work promoted a
The figure of the vampire lesbian, sucking the kind of acceptance for homosexuals and initiated
innocence from virginal girls, seems to have begun the process whereby homosexual men and women
with Samuel Taylor Coleridges (17721834) poem could develop whole identities around their gayness.
Christabel (written, though never completed, be- His definitions center on gender-role reversal (as
tween 1797 and 1801 and published in 1816). The opposed to modern definitions, which focus on
evil Geraldine, who gains access to the home and choice of sexual partner) as indicators of homosexu-
the bed of young Christabel by false pretenses, rep- ality, and, during the last third of the century, women
resents an early example of the conflation of two who usurp male dress and behavior might, for the
images: blood vampirism and lesbian sexuality. The first time, be suspected of sexual inversion.
popularity of Charles Baudelaires (18211867) Les The establishment of Girton College represented
Fleurs du Mal (1857) cemented this dual image in the first time women were admitted to Cambridge
the British literary mind. Charles Dickens (1812 and was considered by many an exceedingly dan-
1870) novel Little Dorrit (also 1857) introduces gerous move. It not only validated womens efforts
Miss Wade, a tormented and apparently sexually to break into the all-male professions, but also defied
frustrated woman who seduces (though the se- reactionary wisdom concerning womens intellect (the

E N G L I S H L I T E R A T U R E , N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U RY 263
 more powerful the brain, the weaker the reproduc- privileges of men in any way she could, including
E tive capacity) and provided opportunities for a few
of the many odd women living unmarried in Eng-
sexual desire. Many novels appeared in the 1890s
that brought lesbianism into public consciousness for
land at that time. Girton women reveled in their the first time, among them The Odd Women (1892)
rare privilege, dressing in starched shirtfronts, smok- and Born in Exile (1893) by George Gissing (1857
ing, and flirting with each other. The juxtaposition 1903); The One Too Many (1894) and The New
of Ulrichss theories with visibly transgressive Girton Woman in Haste and at Leisure (1895) by Linton;
collegians was an important factor in how lesbians The Celibates (1895) by George Moore (18521933);
were portrayed in literature. and The Heavenly Twins (1895) by Sarah Grand
The figure of Miss Sally Brass in Dickenss The (18541943). In addition to novels, the poetry of
Old Curiosity Shop (1840) prefigures the feminist Michael Field (pseudonym of niece and aunt
lesbian of the late century. Brass is an attorney who Katharine Bradley [18461914] and Edith Cooper
dresses, talks, and walks like a man; Dickens, of [18621913]) and Charlotte Mew (18691928) cel-
course, holds her up for ridicule. But Charlotte ebrated love between women in the 1890s.
Bront (18161855) refuses to ridicule her gender- In short, British literary portrayals of lesbian-
reversing characters, such as Shirley (1849) and Lucy
ism underwent drastic change during the nineteenth
Snowe in Villette (1853). By contrast, Wilkie Collins,
century, as the idea lesbian was defined, refined,
in The Woman in White (1860), finds the dark-
and accessible to popular understanding. In 1800,
complected, mannish Marian Halcombe weird and
romantic friendships were not understood as sexual
anomalous. But in Sowing the Wind (1867), Eliza
in any way; in 1850, lesbian sexuality could be
Lynn Linton (18221898) creates a thoroughly
expressed only through the image of the vampire;
male-identified odd woman named Jane Osborn,
in 1900, the literature reflected an identifiable les-
who is eccentric and, in some ways, unattractive,
bian style and community. Deborah T.Meem
but who functions as the moral center of the novel.
These characters predate Ulrichs and Girton and are
not specifically shown to be lesbian. Bibliography
But, within a few years of 1869, the prolifera- Chauncey, George, Jr. From Sexual Inversion to
tion of British New Women found its way into Homosexuality: Medicine and the Changing
fiction. Lintons 1880 novel, The Rebel of the Fam- Conceptualization of Female Deviance. Salma-
ily, introduces Bell Blount, whose lesbianism is gundi 5859 (19821983), 78146.
overt; she lives with a compliant little wife and Clark, Anna. Anne Listers Construction of Les-
spends most of the book trying to seduce the inge- bian Identity. Journal of the History of Sexu-
nue heroine. Rebel was written in the same year as ality 7:1 (July 1996), 2350.
Emile Zolas (18401902) Nana, and, while French DeJean, Joan E. Fictions of Sappho, 15461937.
literature by men had evinced a fascination with Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
lesbian characters for a century at least, Lintons Donoghue, Emma. Passions Between Women: Brit-
book was the first English novel to describe the ish Lesbian Culture, 16681801. London: Scar-
lesbian as an aggressively (homo)sexual member let, 1993.
of a feminist community. Henry James (1843 Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men:
1916) apparently patterned The Bostonians (1886) Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women
after it, and the British New Woman fiction of the from the Renaissance to the Present. New York:
1890s owes it a debt as well. William Morrow, 1981.
The 1890s represented a contentious decade in Jeffreys, Sheila. The Spinster and Her Enemies:
England, particularly around the issue of homosexu- Feminism and Sexuality, 18801930. London:
ality. In 1895, Oscar Wildes (18541900) sensational Pandora, 1985.
trial and conviction for sodomy coincided with the Lesbian History Group. Not a Passing Phase: Re-
publication of Havelock Elliss (18591939) Studies claiming Lesbians in History, 18401985. Lon-
in the Psychology of Sex including a chapter, Sexual don: Womens Press, 1989.
Inversion in Women. Suddenly, the literature of the
New Woman contained descriptions of lesbian rela- See also Diaries and Letters; English Literature,
tionships, romance, and community; it also referred Eighteenth Century; Field, Michael; Ladies of
to Elliss assumptions about lesbians, such as that Llangollen; Lister, Anne; New Woman; Romantic
the mannish lesbian wished to appropriate the Friendship; Sapphic Tradition; Sexology; Vampires

264 E N G L I S H L I T E R AT U R E , N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U RY
English Literature, Twentieth Century (18821941) uses the exotic setting of the Ama-
The twentieth century has been a particularly fruit- zon rain forest in the fictional nation of Santa
ful period for lesbianism as a theme in English lit- Marina as a backdrop for the erotic tensions that
erature; indeed, many of the most noteworthy Brit- develop between Rachel Vinrace, an unsocialized
ish works of fiction produced in the century were young woman making her first venture into the
either written by lesbian authors or address the is- larger world, and her aunt, Helen Ambrose. Pub-
sue of lesbianism in some manner. One of the ear- lished in the same year as The Rainbow, Woolfs
liest twentieth-century works to represent passion- novel, particularly when compared to her earlier
ate affection between female characters is The Get- unpublished drafts, evinces considerable self-cen-
ting of Wisdom (1910) by the Australian migr sorship and, as a result, the novel, narrated in a
Henry Handel (Florence) Richardson (18701946), traditional linear and discursive style, is generally
who sympathetically examined various aspects of considered beautiful but somewhat incoherent.
what was then termed deviance in a number of Woolfs protagonist, after indirect and uncomfort-
her works. In this semiautobiographical novel, able experiences with both heterosexuality and
Richardson delineates the education of a rebellious homosexuality, withdraws and dies of a fever, thus
young woman, already considered different by evading these conflicting demands.
her peers, through a series of schoolgirl crushes, Subsequently, Woolf found a more effective
a theme that would become increasingly common mode of representing lesbianism, by means of the
over the decades in what might be considered a stream-of-consciousness technique pioneered by
separate subgenre of lesbian fiction, namely the James Joyce (18821941) and Dorothy Richardson
girls-school novel. Clemence Danes (18881965) (18731957). This nonlinear and free-flowing style,
now forgotten Regiment of Women (1917), another which emulates the fragmentary and circular pat-
girls-school novel, was, according to Foster (1985), terns of human thought and is presented from nu-
the first English-language novel devoted wholly merous characters points of view, enabled Joyce
to [female sexual] variance. In this case, however, and Richardson to represent sexual matters con-
lesbianism is represented as psychologically mor- sidered improper or immoral in a manner that is
bid, as medical sexology then held it to be. semi-indirect and not entirely accessible to all read-
As a general rule, if lesbianism were to be rep- ers. While this mode could, to some extent, evade
resented in literature at all during the first decades censorship, Joyces Ulysses (1922) was banned
of the century, it was only as a romantic friendship because of its supposedly indecent language. Both
between adolescents or as pathological, as in the Joyce and Richardson, however, employed
two above examples. Even in the latter instance, it streamof-consciousnessin Finnegans Wake
could not be treated explicitly. This became evi- (1939) and Dawns Left Hand (1931), the tenth
dent in 1915, when D.H.Lawrences (18851930) segment of the multivolumed Pilgrimage, respec-
The Rainbow was withdrawn after a British court tivelyto present gay and lesbian characters and
found indecent its relatively detailed description situations. Woolfs first attempt at stream-of-con-
of a sexual encounter between Ursula Brangwen, sciousness narrative was Jacobs Room (1921),
the youthful protagonist, and her teacher. Lawrence which includes a discreet subplot of male homo-
did not treat lesbianism sympathetically in this sexuality. This was followed by Mrs. Dalloway
work; the chapter in question is entitled Shame, (1926), in which the lives and desires of the clos-
and Ursula eventually repudiates both her teacher eted protagonist and her homosexual male and les-
and feminism, yet remains an unsatisfactory par- bian alter-egos (Septimus Warren Smith and Doris
ticipant in heterosexual relationships, conceivably Kilman) are revealed in the course of a given day
as a result of her earlier experience. As a result of through the memories and reflections of the vari-
the charge of indecency, however, the more explicit ous characters. In To the Lighthouse (1927), Woolf
passage were, for many years, expurgated from presents the struggle of Lily Briscoe to reject tradi-
subsequent editions. tional gender roles for the sake of her art and her
Even as judicial intervention barred direct de- love for other women, a conflict heightened by her
piction of sexual activity between women, writers love for Mrs. Ramsay, the personification of the
nevertheless found alternative means to narrate Victorian ideal domestic woman.
lesbianism and, thus, subvert censorship. In her first Following the success of these novels, in which
novel, The Voyage Out (1915), Virginia Woolf lesbianism, however circumspectly, becomes the

E N G L I S H L I T E R A T U R E , T W E N T I E T H C E N T U RY 265
 central story, Woolf, emboldened by her affair Townsend Warners (18931978) Summer Will Show
E with the aristocratic Vita Sackville-West (1892
1962), made her lover the hero/heroine of Orlando
(1936) and The Corner That Held Them (1949) fea-
ture unobtrusive lesbian subplots, while Mary
(1928), a work of comic fantasy that satirizes Eng- Renaults (19051983) The Friendly Young Ladies
lish society and history through the adventures of (1994), published in the United States as The Middle
Orlando, a character originally male but later fe- Mist (1945), subverts its lesbian theme with an os-
male, who lives over five centuries without aging. tensibly heterosexual ending, and Dorothy Stracheys
Sackville-West, though not as accomplished an art- (18661960) Olivia (1949) presents a more sophis-
ist as Woolf, was a novelist, poet, and essayist in her ticated variation on the girls-school novel.
own right. Her novel Challenge (1923), originally The reliance on the novel of manners to present
surpressed at the insistence of her family, is, on the alternative sexualities persisted into the 1950s and
surface, a heterosexual romance but is, in actuality, 1960s, as can be seen in the novels of Brigid Brophy
a semiautobiographical narrative based on the au- (19291995), particularly King of a Rainy Coun-
thors notorious affair with Violet Trefusis (1894 try (1956). By the early 1960s, however, as the
1972)for which both women temporarily left their basics of Freudian psychology gained relatively
respective husbandsonly Sackville-Wests charac- widespread acceptance and womens self-con-
ter is, for the sake of public mores, rendered male. sciousness became a more frequent topic in litera-
While Woolf could celebrate her love for an- ture, female homoerotic desire, repressed or other-
other woman in a decidedly nonrealistic text, in wise, began to appear more often as a subtext in
the same year that Orlando was published another works by women authors, whether lesbian or not.
lesbian novel, Radclyffe Halls (18801943) The Some notable examples of such works are Muriel
Well of Loneliness (1928), was the center of legal Sparks (1918) The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
and literary controversy. Written in a realistic, di- (1961), Doris Lessings (1919) The Golden Note-
rect, unambiguous, and unhumorous style, Halls book (1962), Iris Murdochs (1919) An Unoffi-
work is a polemic for the rights of inverts such cial Rose (1962), and Elizabeth Bowens (1899
as her heroine Stephen Gordon, a woman who, 1972) The Little Girls (1963) and Eva Trout
like Hall, eschews feminine pursuits and dresses (1968). During the greater part of the 1960s, the
in mens attire. Because of its sympathetic (if not ruling Labour government promoted the idea that
terribly explicit) handling of a sexual relationship a permissive society is the most civilized one. To
between two women, the novel was declared ob- this end, the period saw a remarkable liberaliza-
scene by a British court and remained banned un- tion of British laws concerning censorship, mar-
til 1949. As a result, relatively few British works riage, divorce, contraception, abortion, and male
of fiction published in the 1930s or 1940s directly homosexuality (which was decriminalized in 1967).
or openly deal with lesbianism. Inasmuch as these legislative changes were an
Lesbianism did not completely disappear as a lit- indicator of sweeping changes in contemporary
erary theme; however, in some instances, as with social and sexual mores, so were these changes re-
Compton Mackenzies (18831972) Extraordinary flected in the literature of the decade. And, while
Women (1928), lesbiansin this case, Hall and other sexual acts between women had never been pro-
literary lesbianswere treated satirically. Otherwise, hibited by British law (and, thus, were not directly
writers addressing the issue generally did so in an affected legal reform), lesbianism became a topic
ambiguous, often subversive, manner, primarily of cultural interest. Perhaps the most noteworthy
through the mode of the novel of manners, which, examples are the novels of lesbian author Maureen
by means of characters urbane wit and the use of Duffy (1933), particularly her autobiographical
double entendres, permits alternative readings for narrative of lesbian childhood and adolescence,
knowing (that is, gay or lesbian) readers. For exam- Thats How It Was (1962), and the highly experi-
ple, Ivy Compton-Burnett (18841969), in More mental The Microcosm (1966), which presents a
Women Than Men (1933), presents discreet gay and cross-section of lesbian subculture through the
lesbian relationships among the faculty of a girls multiple points of view of the denizens of wom-
school, yet, because these relationships are presented ens bar. Just as an experimental multivoiced nar-
in such a matter-of-fact way, they do not draw atten- rative proved an apt means for Duffy to present a
tion to themselves and, therefore, might go unno- tapestry of stories about lives outside the main-
ticed by the unsuspecting. Also in this period, Sylvia stream, so also, for a number of authors, did

266 E N G L I S H L I T E R A T U R E , T W E N T I E T H C E N T U RY
bisexual experimentation became an almost fash- which might be seen as a postmodern reenvisioning
ionable topic for experimental womens fiction, re- of Gertrude Steins (18741946) playful, if some-
gardless of the writers own sexuality. Some sig- what obscure, erotic works, and Gut Symmetries
nificant examples from this period include Brophys (1997), in which she uses quantum physics to sym-
parodic girls-school novella, The Finishing Touch bolize personal relationships.
(1963), and her transsexual fantasy, In Transit British women writers have contributed amply
(1969); Ann Quins (19361973) Three (1966); to the creation of what might be called the lesbian
Shena Mackays (1944) Music Upstairs (1965); novel or, at any rate, the narrative of lesbianism.
Sybille Bedfords (1911) A Favourite of the Gods Unlike their American counterparts, however, Brit-
(1963) and A Compass Error (1969); and Eliza- ish women writers have, as a whole, produced rela-
beth Jane Howards (1923) Odd Girl Out (1972). tively little in terms of lesbian poetry. Some of the
Because of the gains made by both feminist and more prominent British women poets of the twen-
gay activism in the 1970s, lesbianism became a rela- tieth century, including Charlotte Mew (1869
tively frequent topic in fiction by lesbian and het- 1928), Edith Sitwell (18871964), and Stevie Smith
erosexual women authors alike, the latter often (19021971), have been lesbian or bisexual, yet
configuring the idea of lesbianism (rather than les- their poetry reflects little about desire between
bian individuals, in many cases) as an emblem of women. Conversely, while Vita Sackville-West,
the ultimate insult to, or rebellion against, male au- Sylvia Townsend Warner, and Maureen Duffy have
thority and dominance. Although often problem- published homoerotic poetry, they are better known
atic to many lesbian readersand to radical lesbian for their fiction. Also, there has been little in terms
critics, such as Palmer (1989)such novels never- of lesbian drama in Britain historically, although
theless indicate that lesbianism, which most critics numerous lesbian improvisational theater groups
hold to have been invisible if nonetheless existent have arisen in the late twentieth century.
throughout history, was now much more out in the Patricia Juliana Smith
open and, for many women, a viable alternative to
a male-centered lifestyle. This trend can be seen in Bibliography
many of Fay Weldons (1933) early novels, includ- Abraham, Julie. Are Girls Necessary?: Lesbian
ing Remember Me (1976), Little Sisters (U.S. title, Writing and Modern Histories. New York:
Words of Advice [1978]), The Life and Loves of a Routledge, 1996.
She-Devil (1983), and The Heart of the Country Castle, Terry. The Apparitional Lesbian: Female
(1987); in Emma Tennants (1937) The Bad Sister Homosexuality and Modern Culture. New
(1989) and Sisters and Strangers (1991); and Angela York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
Carters (19401992) Nights at the Circus (1984), DuPlessis, Rachel Blau. Writing Beyond the End-
among many others. The 1980s and 1990s also pro- ing: Narrative Strategies of Twentieth-Century
duced a number of contemporary British lesbian Women Writers. Bloomington: Indiana Univer-
authors of note, including Michelene Wandor, Anna sity Press, 1985.
Livia, Christine Crow, Emma Donahue, and mys- Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men:
tery writer Mary Wings, most of whom tend to Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women
employ a ludic (playful or whimsical) tone in their from the Renaissance to the Present. New York:
narrative styles, a trait that is characteristic of the William Morrow, 1981.
works of many prominent postmodern British Foster, Jeannette H. Sex Variant Women in Litera-
women writers. Most prominent among these con- ture. Tallahassee, Fla.: Naiad, 1985.
temporary British lesbian authors is Jeanette Palmer, Paulina. Contemporary Womens Fiction:
Winterson (1959). Her works, which have been Narrative Practice and Feminist Theory.
awarded some of the more distinguished prizes in Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1989.
British literary circles, have reached a vast main- Smith, Patricia Juliana. Lesbian Panic:
stream audience and include the droll coming out Homoeroticism in Modern British Womens Fic-
novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985), the tions. New York: Columbia University Press,
magic realist The Passion (1987) and Sexing the 1997.
Cherry (1989), and the romance narrative Written
on the Body (1992). Her more recent and increas- See also Boarding Schools; Bowen, Elizabeth;
ingly complex works include Art and Lies (1995), Compton-Burnett, Ivy; Duffy Maureen; Hall,

E N G L I S H L I T E R A T U R E , T W E N T I E T H C E N T U RY 267
 Radclyffe; Mew, Charlotte; Renault, Mary; at the corner of every one of their own streets, in
E SackvilleWest, Vita; Stein, Gertrude; Warner, Sylvia
Townsend; Woolf, Virginia
all the corners of the globe.
Many historians of sexuality have posited a link
between the Enlightenments emphasis on the in-
dividual and the appearance in the eighteenth and
Enlightenment, European nineteenth centuries of new sexual and gendered
Intellectual movement spanning the seventeenth to identities attached to individuals in themselves (ho-
the nineteenth centuries. It included thinkers from mosexuals, lesbians) rather than to those who en-
Europe and what was to become the United States, gage in certain practices (sodomites).
including John Locke (16321704), David Hume Some understand the liberatory quest of sexual
(17111776), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 minorities for equality and liberty in the twentieth
1778), Immanuel Kant (17241804), Thomas century as an attempt to extend the principles of the
Paine (17371809), and Jeremy Bentham (1748 European Enlightenment to those whose social iden-
1832). The European Enlightenment encompassed tities and practices have, through most of history,
several movements for social and political reform existed at the margins of hegemonic culture. On this
of medieval hierarchical social, economic, and po- view, a states denial of equal rights to sexual mi-
litical systems. Human emancipation was justified norities, including the right to same-sex marriage
by the notion that reason and empirical knowl- and other rights emanating from the legal recogni-
edge can become the basis for political authority, tion of same-sex relationships, constitutes a repu-
rather than the relations set in place by medieval diation of the promises of the Enlightenment. Other
notions of prejudice, superstition, social immobil- social theorists view gay and lesbian rights claims
ity, or ascribed status. as falling prey to the ideology of liberal individual-
Although the Enlightenment thinkers differed ism celebrated in much European Enlightenment
widely, modern notions of progress, humanism, thought. According to these critiques, liberal indi-
secularism, rationality, and universalism can all be vidualism provides a rationale for inherently unequal
traced back to aspects of Enlightenment thought; social and economic structures and practices by fo-
moreover, nineteenth-century radicals, liberals, and cusing solely on the individuals political rights in
reformers as diverse as Karl Marx (18181883), relation to the state, rather than on larger issues of
John Stuart Mill (18061873), and T.H.Green social and economic justice. Paisley Currah
(18361882) can also be construed as heirs of the
Enlightenment. Early feminist theorists, such as Bibliography
Mary Wollstonecraft (17591797), drew on the Blasius, Mark, and Shane Phelan, eds. We Are Eve-
Enlightenments emphasis on reason in making rywhere: A Historical Sourcebook of Gay and
their argument for womens equality. Lesbian Politics. New York: Routledge, 1997.
The concepts of equality and freedom marked Cassirer, Ernest. The Philosophy of the Enlighten-
the central philosophical contribution of the Eu- ment. Trans. Fritz Koelln and James Pettegrove.
ropean Enlightenment. But the centuries-long de- Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1951.
lay in extending these ideals to nonpropertied Eu- DEmilio, John. Capitalism and Gay Identity. In
ropean men, to European women, and to non-Eu- Powers of Desire. Ed. Ann Snitow, Christine
ropean peoples indicate to some critics that the Stansell, and Sharon Thompson. New York:
Enlightenment notions of progress, universalism, Monthly Review Press, 1983, pp. 100113.
and freedom operated merely as ideological justi- Hampson, Norman. The Enlightenment. New
fications for European capitalism, imperialism, and York: Penguin, 1968.
genocide. Frantz Fanon (19251961), an Mclntosh, Mary. Queer Theory and the War of
anticolonialist writer and revolutionary, appears the Sexes. In Activating Theory. Ed. Joseph
to be referring to the ideals of the European En- Bristow and Angelia R.Wilson. London: Law-
lightenment, enunciated in documents such as the rence and Wishart, 1993, pp. 3052.
French National Assemblys Declaration of the Young, Iris. Justice and the Politics of Difference.
Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1791), when he Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990.
writes in Wretched of the Earth (1963): Leave
this Europe where they are never done talking of See also Human Rights; Legal Theory, Lesbian;
Man, yet murder men everywhere they find them, Liberalism; Rights

268 E N G L I S H L I T E R A T U R E , T W E N T I E T H C E N T U RY
Erauso, Catalina de (ca. 15851650) Clearly she was a passing woman, but her sexu-
Spanish adventurer who passed much of her life as ality, due to her time and circumstances, defies easy
a man. Born in Basque Spain, Catalina de Erauso categorization. Mutual attraction to other women
became known in her lifetime as the Lieutenant (who think she is a man) appears as a theme in her
Nun due to her exploits in Latin America as a memoir, with her usually in the role of rescuer who
soldier discovered to be a woman. According to initially enjoys, but later rejects, the advances of
her own testimony, at age fifteen she escaped from her female admirers. In the larger context of her
the Spanish convent in which she had been placed story, her sexuality becomes part of a picture of a
at age four, stealing from it money, needle, and scis- person who embodied the ideal of machismo (mas-
sors to disguise herself as a boy. She served as a culinity) of her time and place: Her story is replete
court page in Spain, a ships boy en route to New with the gambling, fighting, and killingof both
Spain, and, from 1603 to ca. 1620, alternately a Europeans and Nativestypical of the tales of
soldier and a merchants clerk in what is now Chile, adventure and conquest of her era and after.
Peru, and Argentina. About 1620, she was arrested Catalina de Erauso is significant as an early-mod-
after killing a man in a fight and, in the course of a ern example of the many women who have dis-
lengthy confession, revealed herself as a woman to guised themselves as men to live as males, an act
the bishop of Guamanga; upon inspection, she was that, in her case, seems a result of being completely
declared a virgin, which would add to her fame. male identified. Vicki L.Eaklor
She temporarily entered a convent again and re-
turned to Spain in 1624. Ultimately, she was Bibliography
granted a pension from the king of Spain, papal Perry, Mary Elizabeth. The Manly Woman: A
permission to continue cross-dressing, and honor- Historical Case Study. American Behavioral
ary Roman citizenship. De Erauso returned to New Scientist 31 (September/October 1987), 86100.
Spain in 1630 and probably lived as a merchant Stepto, Michele, and Gabriel Stepto, trans. Lieu-
and a mule driver until her death around 1650. tenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite
in the New World, Catalina de Erauso. Fore-
word by Marjorie Garber. Introduction by
Michele Stepto. Boston: Beacon, 1996.

See also Passing Women; Spain

Erotica and Pornography

Explicit visual, written, and verbal representations
of sexual acts and organs, capable of eliciting sen-
suous responses.

Definitions
As terminology, erotica and pornography both
derive from nineteenth-century moral and legal
discourses. The many names used for erotic litera-
ture and art that were in use before the nineteenth
centurysuch as licentious, bawdy, libertine,
galant, and obscenepoint to more varied origins.
The distinction between erotica and pornogra-
phy is not definite, although it is commonly held
that the former refers to art and the latter to com-
merce. This distinction is the outcome of nineteenth-
century debates over the amorality of the arts, as
reflected in the motto Art for Arts Sake. In the twen-
tieth century, judicial authorities determined that, if
Doa Catalina de Erauso. British Museum. any artistic value could be detected or claimed, it

EROTICA AND PORNOGRAPHY 269

 would safeguard a work of art from the accusation Written representations of lesbian sex that may
E of obscenity. Norms about good and bad sex
are often the markers of the distinction.
have aimed at titillation date from the third-cen-
tury A.D. Lucians (A.D. ca. 115?ca. 180) Dia-
Erotica and pornography should not be con- logues of Prostitutes portrays a courtesan and her
fused with obscene satires or lampoons because female friend engaged in sexual encounters. Al-
the latter do not aim at sexual titillation. Accord- though medieval European culture was rich with
ing to the Russian linguist Mikhail Bakhtin (1895 sexual tales and songs, sexual acts between women
1975), sexual or scatological humorous insults are were not part of the erotic repertory. Even early
intrusions of the profane, the low, into the realm Renaissance literary eroticism, such as Giovanni
of the sacred, the high. Sexually charged attacks Bocaccios (13131375) Decameron or Geoffrey
on public figures or institutions are a related form. Chaucers (ca. 13401400) The Canterbury Tales,
The targets are accused of sexual behavior that is do not tell lesbian tales. The Italian Pietro dAretino
grotesque or incompatible with the norms belong- reintroduced the motif of the lesbian courtesan in
ing to their status, gender, or age. his Raggionamenti (1534), which was republished
Historically, lesbianism was an infrequent accu- countless times in Europe, especially in France. Its
sation in obscene satirical literature, except in a few dialogic form and brothel location, both reminis-
epigrams by the Latin poets Catullus (ca. 84ca. 54 cent of Lucians Dialogues, were copied repeatedly
B.C.E.) and Martial (A.D. ca. 40ca. 104). Its ap- by pornographers through the twentieth century.
pearance in obscene political pamphlets of the The lesbian motif began to be explored on a
French revolutionary epoch is, therefore, significant. large scale only in the second part of eighteenth
In these, Marie Antoinette (17551793) and her century. Half of the titles of eighteenth-century
aristocratic friends, as well as actresses and famous French pornography contain lesbian sex scenes,
courtesans, were all the butt of jokes about tribad- sometimes embellished with explicit engravings.
ism. Questioning why tribadism was chosen to at- These scenes are situated in brothels, harems, con-
tack these women, contemporary historians point vent schools, and the homes of bourgeois families.
to the fact that the political influence wielded by They occur between older and younger women,
these women before the French Revolution (1789) nuns and novices, girlfriends, whores and their fe-
was perceived as a threat to the new body politic. male clients. The frequent representations in erotica
The tribades were portrayed either as corrupted by of sex between women are signs of yet another
their insatiable lust, which symbolized the degen- pleasure, curiosity. Sex between women, tribad-
eracy of the aristocracy, or as would-be men who ism as it is often called, was not new to the Euro-
defy the exclusion of women from the public sphere. pean tradition, which had by now embraced the
In a similar manner, imputations of lesbianism were major texts of antiquity. In the eighteenth century,
fundamental to attacks on feminists during the last however, it became an object of sexual curiosity to
decades of the twentieth century. In contrast to the be satisfied primarily by erotic literature.
eighteenth-century political satire, however, the ac- The eighteenth century produced a large amount
cusations were not humorous, nor did they portray of erotic literature, as well as innovations in form
feminists as sexually insatiable. On the contrary, they and content. A distinct feature of eighteenth-cen-
were stereotyped as women too ugly to attract a tury literary eroticism is its multiplicity in form.
man and too ill equipped to satisfy another woman. Unlike most twentieth-century pornography, eight-
eenth-century erotic fiction could aim at various
History purposes besides arousing sexual responses. Many
Written or graphic representations of sexual acts an erotic novel was also a philosophical treatise on
between women do not appear in European cul- enlightened ideas, a commentary on society, and a
ture on a large scale before the eighteenth century. source of knowledge on sexual difference. Michel
The oldest examples come from fifth-century B.C.E. Foucault (19261984) designated this epoch as the
Greek vase paintings. Like other sexual imagery time when western European society invented sex,
on vases and drinking cups of men and boys or by making it discursive and developing a scientia
men and women together, they may have served to sexualis. By this he meant that the concept of sexu-
heighten the spirits during drinking bouts. Apart ality by which we give meaning to behavior, acts,
from these early instances, there is no proof that thoughts, fantasies, and identities did not exist be-
the Greeks used lesbian sex as erotica. fore this era. Others have described the literature of

270 EROTICA AND PORNOGRAPHY

the Enlightenment as encyclopedic, meaning that libertinism. Female erotic authors who wrote in this
it reproduces all sorts of available knowledge and mode included Liane de Pougy (Idylle sapphique,
cultural discourses. The erotic novel of the eight- [1901]) and the Viscountess de Coeur-Brlant (Le
eenth century was a discourse of sexuality, the nov- Roman de Violette, [1882]). In their effort to refute
elistic form allowing the author to insert bits of this pathological model, Rene Vivien (18771909)
knowledge and to create fictional characters, such and Natalie Barney (18761972) coined the word
as the lesbian, to embody this knowledge. lesbian for sapphic lovers.
Famous examples of erotic fiction on lesbianism In the twentieth centurythe age of visual cul-
are La religieuse (The Nun; written in 1760, pub- tureerotica and pornography expanded beyond
lished in 1796) by Denis Diderot (17131784), and its primarily written manifestations. With the ad-
La nouvelle Sappho (anonymous, 1791), the story vent of film, the elaboration of photographic tech-
of a young country girl who becomes the pet lover niques, the arrival of the glossy magazine and video,
of the high priestess of the sect of Anandrines (those the means by which to distribute erotic imagery
without men). Tribadism, as it was called, was multiplied. Even if the diffusion of written erotica
rarely presented as an exclusive desire or taste for among the popular classes of the eighteenth and
women and was seldom associated with masculine nineteenth centuries has been underestimated, it was
behavior. It could form part of the initiation into twentieth-century mass-media culture that made
sexual knowledge and pleasure of young girls, in access to a variety of pornographic products possi-
which case it was followed by a heterosexual finale. ble for a large public. Sex between women became
It could also be a sign of the insatiable lust of women, a regular item on the wish list of consumers of por-
in which case men were not excluded from the scene. nography, of whom men were the largest group.
Or a woman might reject the male sex because she
had been abused or betrayed by a man. Sex between Women as Consumers and Producers
women could generate solidarity and friendship, but Although as early as the seventeenth century indi-
it could also be a passing thing. vidual women had been involved as authors, read-
Eighteenth-century erotica produced more di- ers, peddlers, smugglers, and financiers in the pro-
verse lesbian images than ever and set the model for duction of pornography and erotica, the commer-
modern pornography. Tribadism continued to fig- cial production of pornography for and by women
ure in most nineteenth-century and twentieth-cen- did not occur until the 1980s. When it did, state
tury erotic fiction. In the nineteenth century, the censorship was largely a thing of the past. The legal
number of new works decreased in France and other distinction between the artistic and the obscene,
European countries, but the (clandestine) market for which previously determined whether a literary or
reprints of the classics grew in the last half of the a visual work could be distributed above ground,
century. As in the previous century, sex between had gradually been phased out. In the case of lesbi-
women was not represented as exclusive, but as one anism, it was replaced by a form of self-censorship.
form of sexual practice among others. The only novel Due to the emancipatory search for a homo-
in which lesbianism is the central motif is Gamiani, sexual identity, which took shape against, and
ou Deux nuits dexces (Gamiani, or Two Nights of through, the medical-psychiatric discourse, repre-
Excess) (1833), attributed to Alfred de Musset sentations of lesbian eroticism by female authors
(18101857). This novel stands out among its con- were far from lighthearted, let alone salacious. The
temporaries because the lesbian character is por- classic example is Radclyffe Halls (18801943)
trayed as pathological, a view later held by sexolo- The Well of Loneliness (1928), which was widely
gists. Gamianis inability to enjoy sex with a man is published and read through the 1950s, although it
seen both as a monstrosity and as the result of sexual did not even offer its readers anything beyond a
abuse and corruption in her youth. kiss. Novels like The Well, in which lesbian desire
At the end of the nineteenth century, lesbianism and sex were heavily coded in loneliness, guilt, and
figured in decadent art and in Belle Epoque eroti- shame, were published in different languages on
cism. The turn-of-the-century lesbian character was the Continent as well. In the same vein, lesbian
labeled with the features that sexology and psychia- characters appeared in films, in Germany (Die
try had given to the unnatural. The focus on les- Bchse der Pandora [Pandoras Box], [1929];
bianism coincided with a general cultural interest in Mdchen in Uniform [Girls in Uniform] [1931]),
degeneracy and perversions and with a revival of in France (Les biches [The Does] [1968]), and in

EROTICA AND PORNOGRAPHY 271

 the United States (The Fox [1968]; The Killing of While lesbian pornography produced by and for
E Sister George [1968]).
For those who wanted explicit lesbian eroticism,
male spectators still existed in the 1990s, lesbian
eroticism became part of mainstream culture, in such
American companies such as Fawcett-Crest pub- films as Basic Instinct (1994) and Bound (1996).
lished hundreds of lesbian pulp paperbacks in the The representations of lesbian sexuality in the main-
1950s and 1960s. These novels were primarily stream media created opportunities for political-ac-
destined for a male public, but women were avid tivist debates, as well as cultural criticism. Feminists
readers, too. scholars have contributed to more diverse ap-
In the 1970s, lesbian feminist publishing col- proaches to lesbian erotica and to pornography in
lectives started to produce lesbian erotica, intended general. Literary and film critics have developed new
to be exempt from sexism or self-hatred. Photog- ways of thinking about the processes through which
rapher Tee Corinne (1943) and novelist Rita Mae readers and viewers constitute themselves as desir-
Brown (1944) were very popular in the United ing and gendered subjects and opened have up the
States. Representations of sexual acts between prospect of the female reader and spectator of por-
women that aimed at arousal were still rare events nography. The view that pornography is, in itself, a
in lesbian feminist erotica, however. At the same male genre has become untenable.
time, there was a renewed interest in lesbian nov- Dorelies Kraakman
els and movies from the past, in spite of their homo-
phobia. Their sultry atmosphere and oppressive Bibliography
silence were turned into a cult and even imitated Brcourt-Villars, Claudine. crire damour.
by some lesbians. Anthologie de textes rotiques fminins, 1799
Many lesbian feminists of the 1970s rejected 1984 (Love Writing: Anthology of Womens
all pornography for its objectification and degra- Erotic Texts, 17991984). Paris: Ramsay, 1985.
dation of women. Lesbian sex scenes were seen as Healy, Emma. Lesbian Sex Wars. London: Virago,
solely catering to male voyeurism, intended to keep 1996.
control over womens sexual pleasure. Hughes, Alex, and Kate Ince, eds. French Erotic
In the 1980s, the sex-radical movement, headed Fiction: Womens Desiring Writing, 18801990.
by lesbian sadomasochistic groups, such as Samois Oxford: Berg, 1996.
in California, initiated written and visual pornogra- Hunt, Lynn, ed. The Invention of Pornography:
phy for lesbians aimed at sexual excitement. Well- Obscenity and the Origins of Modernity, 1500
known authors of lesbian pornography include Pat 1800. New York: Zone, 1993.
Califia and Susie Bright, both Americans. Krista Jay, Karla. Lesbian Erotics. New York: New York
Beinstein and Monika Treut from Germany gained University Press, 1995.
reputations as, respectively, a lesbian erotic photog- Perthold, Sabine, ed. Rote Ksse. Frauen-
rapher and a video- and filmmaker. The American FilmSchaubuch (Red Kisses: Womens Film
magazine On Our Backs and the British Quim ca- Book). Tbingen: Claudia Gehrke, 1990.
tered to a lesbian public, with women in control of
production and distribution. The lesbian sex scenes See also Barney, Natalie; Brown, Rita Mae; Hall,
are often set in a sadomasochistic idiom and feature Radclyffe; Marie Antoinette; Sexology; Tribade;
butch and femme roles. This and the already exist- Vivien, Rene
ing mistrust of pornography have led to violent con-
frontations between feminist antipornography lob-
byists and feminist sex radicals. Essentialism
The sex radicals claimed that women need to Belief that people or other beings are what they
liberate their fantasies through scenarios of power, are because of some essence or unchanging char-
including violent ones and that explorations of acteristic. Essentialism is usually contrasted with
polymorphous sexuality and celebrations of per- social constructionism, the belief that the ways that
versions can erase the boundaries between the erotic people understand themselves and the sorts of peo-
and the pornographic and subvert fixed gender and ple they can be are produced by particular histori-
sexual identities. The other position insisted that cal and cultural formations. Thus, for example, in
the violence and exploitation is an intrinsic feature answer to the question of male dominance, essen-
of pornography. tialists might say that men are not only stronger

272 EROTICA AND PORNOGRAPHY

and larger than women, they are also incapable of Grahn (1983) does, a line of cultural descent with
being gentle or cooperative; men just are aggres- the first-century A.D. Celtic Queen Boudica? So-
sors, regardless of place or time. A constructionist cial constructionists point to a history of the con-
view, in contrast, would seek to explain male domi- cept of lesbian, which stretches back only 150
nance and aggression by referring to cultural stand- years, and argue that calling earlier women who
ards of masculinity that tell men that being a man loved women lesbians falsifies their history. They
means dominating women. In this view, male size would detach the issue of whether women loved
and hormone levels do not automatically translate women from the contemporary idea of lesbianism,
into male aggression. both for historical accuracy and because such in-
Essentialism is often confused with other theo- vented traditions can work as part of the self-
retical issues. Overgeneralization, the problem of policing of lesbians.
making excessively broad claims about a group, such Yet another debate about essentialism concerns
as all lesbians are gentle, is not the same as essen- the question of biology. While biological explana-
tialism. To be essentialist, the claim that lesbians are tions for behavior need not be essentialist, many
gentle must not only be generalized, but also must are. They suggest that a certain percentage of peo-
be explained by referring to lesbians inherent gen- ple just are lesbian or gay, and that this is not
tleness. To state that all lesbians are gentle because susceptible to social influences. To those who want
they live in communities that validate gentleness and to demand tolerance, this may be an appealing ar-
condemn violence would be overgeneralizing but not gument, as they can point out the bigotry of hat-
essentialist. Essentialists would claim that lesbians ing people for characteristics beyond their control.
just are gentle because gentleness is in lesbian na- However, biological claims have proven problem-
tures. Lesbians might be warped by their upbring- atic. It is just as likely that genetic discoveries would
ing in nonlesbian society, one might say, but among be used to cure homosexuality as that they would
lesbians their basic nature will assert itself. raise awareness or tolerance. Many lesbians, fur-
Among lesbians, the debates about essential- thermore, do not experience their sexuality as in-
ism have taken several shapes. Some early lesbian born and beyond choice. Lesbian feminists, espe-
feminist claims about lesbians were, indeed, es- cially, often report coming out as a response to their
sentialist, as writers argued that lesbians were in- experience of womens communities and feminist
nately feminist rebels against patriarchy. This led activism. Biological explanations actively distort
to the problem of understanding exceptions: If such experiences and, thus, limit the range of les-
lesbians are innately feminist, how does one ex- bian politics, shifting discussions from matters of
plain lesbians who abuse other women, who dis- social structures such as patriarchy to questions of
like women, who dont identify with the feminist acceptance within existing society. Shane Phelan
movement? One answer is to suggest that, while
all lesbians are potentially or latently feminist, this Bibliography
potential can be blocked by living in patriarchy. Ferguson, Kathy E. The Man Question: Visions of
This answer is inadequate for several reasons. Subjectivity in Feminist Theory. Berkeley: Uni-
First, the default explanation of patriarchy makes versity of California Press, 1993.
the theory invulnerable to disproof. Any excep- Fuss, Diana. Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Na-
tions to the rule can be ignored as products of ture, and Difference. New York: Routledge,
patriarchy. Second, the idea that lesbians are in- 1989.
nately feminist invites lesbians to police themselves Grahn, Judy. Another Mother Tongue: Gay Worlds,
and one another, to measure themselves against Gay Words. Boston: Beacon, 1983.
some mythical lesbian. Rather than ask questions Stein, Edward, ed. Forms of Desire: Sexual Orien-
about whether their behavior is just or loving, les- tation and the Social Constructionist Contro-
bians can get drawn into debates about whether versy. New York: Garland, 1990.
they are really lesbians. Whisman, Vera. Queer by Choice. New York:
Another form of debates about essentialism Routledge, 1996.
concerns lesbian ancestors. Can one say that Queen
Christina of Sweden (16261689) was a lesbian, See also Biological Determinism; Christina of Swe-
even though the social category of lesbian did not den; Etiology; Sexual Orientation and Preference;
exist in the seventeenth century? Can one claim, as Social Construction Theory

ESSENTIALISM 273
 Ethics lapping, but also divergent, conceptions of lesbian
E The search for wisdom in the conduct of life. Also
known as moral philosophy, ethics traditionally
vitality. Amazon paradigms embrace the values of
physical skill, mobility, self-government, and
studies the fundamental distinctions of right and selfdefense and are apt to be skeptical of commit-
wrong, good and bad, and being deserving of praise ments to nonviolence. Sapphic paradigms center
or blame that are used to evaluate choices, prac- the values of creativity, especially in the arts, and
tices, experiences, states of affairs, agents, motives, the erotic, which often inspires creativity. Passion-
and goals. Arising from reflection on everyday per- ate-friendship paradigms have a partnership focus,
plexities, its objective is to deepen ones understand- with longrange economic concerns and adjustments
ing of normative and evaluative issues and to de- that domesticity entails. From sapphic standpoints,
velop critical skills requisite to reaching a consid- some lesbian ethics has been criticized as insuffi-
ered view of where wisdom lies. In this endeavor, ciently attentive to sexuality. This criticism has pro-
lesbian ethics centers lesbian lives and the lesbian duced interesting explorations of sexuality and the
experiences (hopes, desires, relationships) of nature of lesbian bonding.
women generally. Lesbian ethics arises from con- The meaning of lesbian is contested, as is what
texts of woman hating, antilesbian violence, and belongs in lesbian ethics. Some understand lesbian
lesbian resistance in struggles to form viable rela- experience as that of those who identify as lesbians.
tionships and communities. Hostile environments Others count as relevant the lesbian experiences of
have suppressed views from within lesbian com- women who do not identify as lesbian or even as
munities of lesbian life, enforced female economic bisexual. The latter tend to understand lesbian eth-
dependence on men, and made lesbians nearly in- ics as focusing on sexuality or erotic interaction,
accessible to one another. Against such histories, a personal relationships, and social-policy questions
major goal of lesbian ethics is to discover (or cre- pertaining to lesbian visibility. The former tend to
ate) and affirm ways of life conducive to establish- have a wider view of lesbian ethics, understanding
ing and maintaining thriving lesbian connections. it as comprehensively as patriarchal ethics, as about
Since the late 1970s, a substantial body of litera- all kinds of choices that lesbians facefor example,
ture has developed in lesbian ethics, both abstract economic, educational, and dietary, as well as sexual.
and concrete. Much of it is highly original, articu- Regardless of how lesbian experience is defined, for
lating alternatives to the ethics of heteropatriarchal ethics to center that experience and take it as a start-
sexual politics. The 1980s produced two journals ing point for reflection on the conduct of life is both
of lesbian ethics (Lesbian Ethics [United States] and radical and revolutionary. Lesbian ethics as a new
Gossip: Journal of Lesbian Feminist Ethics [United way of reflecting on norms and values is radical in
Kingdom]); feminist periodicals include articles in that it goes to the roots of ethics and starts over. It is
the area; anthologies and treatises have appeared revolutionary in that basing ethical reflection on
increasingly since the late 1980s; and lesbian ethics affirmed lesbian experience overturns
has entered university curricula by way of feminist heteropatriarchal norms and values.
philosophy, gay studies, and womens studies courses Although not a theory, doctrine, or specific set
in lesbian culture. Nor is lesbian ethics restricted to of practices, lesbian ethics has been characterized
the printed word. Temporary lesbian communities, by recurrent themes and topics. Topics include sepa-
such as summer-camp festivals, and more enduring ratism, monogamy, sadomasochism, attitudes to-
ones, such as land cooperatives, have been experi- ward money, the significance of social class, the
ments in lesbian ethics, as have workshops and ethics of diet, intersections of racism with sexism
projects within them. and heterosexism, disability and being differently
Lesbian ethics is not a particular theory or set abled, fat oppression, butch and femme identities,
of beliefs or practices, but a family of approaches horizontal violence in relationships, psychotherapy,
to ethics. What makes these approaches lesbian are and spirituality. Recurring themes include suspi-
their paradigms and the lesbian experience that cion of rules, institutions, coercion, governments,
forms their starting points for reflection. This natu- hierarchies and competitions, and curiosity about
rally gives lesbian ethics potential for great diver- the possibilities of friendship, anarchy, community,
sity. One way to understand some of that diversity agency, empowerment, eroticism, and creativity.
is by way of the historical paradigms of amazons, Like feminist ethics, lesbian ethics has been critical
sapphists, and passionate friends, which offer over- of traditions devaluing what is physical, emotional,

274 ETHICS
material, transitory, the concrete particularall to a crucial recognition: Theories about the causes
identified in patriarchy with femaleness. Like en- of lesbianism can be understood only by
vironmental ethics, feminist and lesbian ethics have contextualizing them in a critical understanding of
been characterized by tendencies toward holism, the sciences that have produced them. Far from
understanding individuals through their relation- neutral observers, these sciences have actively stig-
ships as members of larger wholes. matized lesbianism (and male homosexuality as
Although most lesbian ethics is also feminist, much well), treating it as a pathology at worst, a harm-
feminist ethics is not lesbian. Much feminist ethics less deviance at best. They have, almost without
takes heterosexual relationships as its paradigms of exception, reinforced the dominance of heterosexu-
caring, embodying major power imbalances. Lesbian ality by treating it as the normal pattern, therefore
paradigms of caring tend to be of adult lovers, who needing no explanation. As such, a history of the
are more balanced in power than parents and young various etiologies of lesbianism is a history of the
children. Much feminist ethics has also tended more stigmatization of lesbianism and the various forms
toward nonviolence than lesbian ethics, which draws that stigmatization has taken in different histori-
on experiences of resisting antilesbian hostility. cal contexts.
Some lesbian ethics is also gay or queer, although
most gay ethics is less theoretical and more concrete History
than lesbian ethics, as well as less revolutionary re- The effort to locate the causes of lesbianism began
garding established institutions such as law and the in the late nineteenth century, perhaps as an ad-
state, aiming more to integrate gays into the main- junct to the larger effort to explain male homo-
stream than to create alternatives. Queer ethics is sexuality. At that time, the term homosexuality
more revolutionary and theoretical than gay ethics, was used much less frequently than the term in-
but its paradigms are more diverse than those of vert. Inversion (also the third sex) was under-
either lesbian or gay ethics. Like gay ethics, queer stood as reversal of what would today be called
ethics is less likely than lesbian ethics to give major ones gender role. The whole of a female inverts
weight to feminist concerns. Claudia Card person was masculine, and a male inverts femi-
nine, according to sexologists such as Havelock
Bibliography Ellis (18591939) and Richard von Krafft-Ebing
Allen, Jeffner, ed. Lesbian Philosophies and Cul- (18401902). The female inverts attraction to
tures. Albany: State University of New York women was merely one effect of her masculine
Press, 1990. nature. The ultimate cause of her masculinity was
Calhoun, Cheshire. Separating Lesbian Theory said by most to be congenital, whether character-
from Feminist Theory. Ethics 104 (1994), 558 ized as a dangerous defect or an unfortunate vari-
581. ation. The key was located in the inverts body,
Card, Claudia. Lesbian Choices. New York: Co- most sexologists believed, and case studies gener-
lumbia University Press, 1995. ally included nude photographs and various physi-
Daly, Mary. Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radi- cal measurements. Inversion theory could not ac-
cal Feminism. Boston: Beacon, 1978. count for the love of women among convention-
Hoagland, Sarah Lucia. Lesbian Ethics: Toward ally feminine women, who often were referred to
New Value. Palo Alto, Calif.: Institute for Les- as the inverts partners and portrayed as women
bian Studies, 1988. passed over by men and then seduced by inverts.
Lesbian Ethics (periodical), ed. Fox (pseud, of Sigmund Freuds (18561939) theory, on the
Jeanette Silveira). Albuquerque: LE Publica- other hand, better accounted for feminine lesbi-
tions, 1984. ans. Although he also used the term invert, his
understanding of the concept came much closer to
See also Lesbian Feminism; Philosophy what one would today call homosexuality, be-
cause he distinguished between sexual preference
and gender role (in his terms, sexual object and
Etiology sexual aim). All persons, he believed, are capa-
Term referring both to the root cause of something ble of making a homosexual object choice, and,
(in this case, lesbianism) and to the scientific search indeed, most have at some point in their develop-
for that cause. The dual meaning of the word points ment, meaning that the distinction between

ETIOLOGY 275
 normality and perversion is a matter of de- teaching the armed forces to detect homosexuality
E gree. All aspects of adult sexuality, then, are ac-
quired through the process of psychosexual devel-
in its ranks, claimed to be able to cure lesbianism
and male homosexuality.
opment; even exclusive heterosexuality must be
explained. Although he understood homosexual- Contemporary Research and Theories
ity as acquired, he firmly opposed psychoanalytic This link between theories of etiology and treat-
efforts to cure it, at least in men, believing these ment regimes was severed in 1973 by the removal
efforts to be both useless and unnecessary. His fol- of homosexuality from the DSM III (third edition
lowers, however, particularly in the United States, of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the
would equate acquired with changeable by American Psychiatric Association). Beginning in the
mid-century. late 1960s and early 1970s, the behavioral and
Clearly, the homosexuality concept accounted social sciences increasingly turned their backs on
for a wider range of behaviors and identities than questions of etiology, producing instead more gay-
did the inversion concept. As such, sexologists positive, often gay-produced, research on issues of
abandoned inversion in the early twentieth cen- identity, community, history, and politics. The ques-
turyin their studies of men. Studies of women tion most frequently asked about homosexuality
continued to utilize the concept, because science throughout the twentieth centuryWhat causes
was unable to see females as sexual subjects. Femi- it?was itself subjected to critical scrutiny, effec-
nine sexuality was, by its nature, passive and re- tively for the first time. And lesbian feminist theo-
ceptive, they believed, and, as such, awakened only rists, notably Adrienne Rich (1929), broke with
by the power of masculine sexuality. Two women, convention by examining the etiology of hetero-
therefore, could not be sexual together unless one sexuality, seeing its institutionalization as a major
of them was essentially a man trapped in a wom- force in the subordination of women (Rich 1980).
ans body. (This belief has been remarkably long The question of homosexual etiology returned
lived; a popular sex advice book from 1969 stated: in the early 1980s with a Kinsey Institute study
One vagina plus another vagina equals zero.) In (Bell et al. 1981) that compared data collected from
part for this reason, official explanations of lesbi- nearly 1,500 men and women and demonstrated
anism have continued to portray lesbianism as less that the psychoanalytic theories generated in the
common, less dangerous, and, at the same time, 1950s and 1960s did not match the evidence, strik-
less comprehensible than male homosexuality. ing perhaps the final blow against once widespread
By the mid-twentieth century, the accepted beliefs about the etiology of homosexuality. The
etiology of male homosexuality was psychoana- Kinsey study, however, did not conclude that
lytic, minus Freuds own tolerant stance. Male etiological questions were irrelevant or unanswer-
homosexuality was understood to be the outcome able, but it pointed prophetically toward biology
of boyhood experience with a strong, overbearing as the most fertile ground for future research. Bio-
mother and a weak, absent father. Most theories logical studies of the origins of homosexuality in-
of this type ignored lesbianism; women appeared creased in number over the course of the 1980s;
as the generators of deviance in their male chil- by the early 1990s, the search for the physical
dren, not as deviants themselves. When psycho- source of homosexuality had returned with force.
analysts did attend to the etiology of lesbianism, The biological research of the 1990s, however,
they looked for its roots in the young girls resolu- differed from its early-twentieth-century precursors
tion of the oedipal complex, a process begun by in that much, if not most, of the more recent research
her discovery that she lacks a penisa is the work of openly gay-identified men, and the
shortchanging for which she blames her mother. results are widely hailed as gay affirmative. Like the
Psychoanalysis predicted that a loving mother- earlier research, however, it is focused almost entirely
daughter relationship would lead the girl to iden- on gay men. Only one of the widely reported research
tify with her mother and transfer her desire for af- projects of the early 1990s focused on lesbians (Bai-
fection to her father and other males, while a lack ley et al. 1993). That small study of lesbians and their
of warmth in the mother-daughter relationship sisters found that lesbians identical twin sisters were
might consign the grown daughter to life as a les- three times more likely also to be lesbians than lesbi-
bian, attempting to win the mother love she never ans fraternal twin sisters. This study, a replication of
had. Psychoanalysis, fresh from its successes in an earlier study of gay men and their brothers,

276 ETIOLOGY
attracted relatively little media attention compared Archives of General Psychiatry 50:3 (1993),
to the numerous reports of the gay brain and the 217223.
gay gene that announced the work claiming to find Bell, Alan P., Martin S.Weinberg, and Sue Kiefer
a biological source for male homosexuality. A later Hammersmith. Sexual Preference: Its Develop-
study (McFadden and Pasanen, 1998) reported that ment in Men and Women. Bloomington: Indi-
a portion of the auditory systems of lesbian and bi- ana University Press, 1981.
sexual women produced measurements at levels be- Chauncey, George, J. From Sexual Inversion to
tween those of heterosexual women and heterosexual Homosexuality: Medicine and the Changing
men, echoing the inversion model of the early twen- Conceptualization of Female Deviance. Salma-
tieth century. The researchers theorized that the in- gundi 5859 (Fall/Winter 19821983), 114146.
ner ear, and other parts of the brain, were Freud, Sigmund. Three Essays on the Theory of
masculinized in these women by prenatal expo- Sexuality. New York: Basic Books, 1962.
sure to high levels of androgens. McFadden, Dennis, and Edward G.Pasanen. Com-
The research remains controversial, and its au- parisons of the Auditory Systems of Heterosexuals
thors have often been accused of making very large and Homosexuals: Click-Evoked Otoacoustic
claims based on very modest results; Bailey et al.s Emissions. Proceedings of the National Acad-
lesbian twin study, for example, found that, of iden- emy of Sciences 95 (1998), 27092713.
tical twin sisters of lesbians, just over half were Rich, Adrienne. Compulsory Heterosexuality and
not lesbians themselves, despite sharing identical Lesbian Existence. Signs: Journal of Women
genetic blueprints. Such research may also be flawed in Culture and Society 5:4 (1980), 631660.
in the same manner as most research on homo-
sexual etiology, by treating homosexuality as a See also Biological Determinism; Heterosexuality;
unitary phenomenon, with a single root cause. Homosexuality; Kinsey Institute; Psychoanalysis;
Whatever the scientific pros and cons of this Sexology; Sexual Orientation and Preference
body of research, it is clear that its social and po-
litical meanings are complex. Many claim that the
identification of a biological etiology for homo- Europe, Early Modern
sexuality will set the stage for true equality for A period (ca. A.D. 15001700) and an area includ-
lesbians and gay men. Adherents to this view cite ing those countries from England and Ireland in the
a March 1993 New York Times/CBS opinion poll west to Russia in the east, and Norway and Den-
that found a correlation between gay-positive at- mark in the north to Spain and Italy in the south.
titudes and the belief that one is born gay. Crit- Throughout Europe, this period was characterized,
ics point out that such attitudinal correlations may on the one hand, by harsh denunciation and pun-
be fleeting, especially given the widespread desire ishment for lesbian activity and, on the other
to develop cures for socially unacceptable hand, by the official invisibility, and hence the pos-
behaviors and identities; these critics hold that, sibility, of many forms of female emotional and erotic
since the etiological question is itself profoundly attachment. During this era, erotic life was not or-
heterosexist, no answer to it can be truly ganized around an essential and exclusive division
liberatory. Clearly, questions of the etiology of of homo- and heterosexual; neither male nor female
lesbianism are not part of some value-free search homosexuality existed as separate categories of self-
for pure knowledge but, rather, socially and po- identification. Other social categoriesones posi-
litically significant discourses that go to the heart tion in the household, marital status, age, relation
of heterosexism and homophobia in the modern to work, lineage, and propertylocated people
West. Vera Whisman within their culture. This does not mean that women
did not experience homoerotic desire or engage in a
Bibliography variety of same-gender erotic activities. A sparse, if
Abelove, Henry. Freud, Male Homosexuality, and conceptually rich and varied, history of same-gen-
the Americans. Dissent (Winter 19851986), der erotic representations is evident in a range of
5969. discourses. Authorities in most European societies
Bailey, J.Michael, Richard C.Pillard, Michael C. were concerned about the threat certain activities
Neale, and Yvonne Agyei. Heritable Factors particularly those that involved cross-gendered
Influencing Sexual Orientation in Women behaviorsmight pose to patriarchal authority. At

E U R O P E , E A R LY M O D E R N 277
E

Parmigianino, Francesco Mazzola. Nymphs, and Diana as a Stag. Vault, detail from The Fable of Diana and
Acteon. Villa del Sanvitale, Fontanellato, Italy. Alinari/Art Resource, NY.

the same time, other behaviors that seem manifestly sions to Sappho of Lesbos (ca. 600 B.C.E.), pro-
lesbian to twentieth-century minds did not cause vides clues to the ways in which same-gender fe-
social concern and were compatible with the het- male desires were understood. It remains impossi-
erosexual, patriarchal family. The early-modern ble, however, and perhaps unwise, to delineate a firm
period presents a heterogeneous social situation in line between fact and fiction, representation and
which a cultural imperative not to acknowledge reality. What one can access are cultural discourses,
female-female eroticism increasingly conflicted with not the truth of early-modern lesbianism.
emerging disciplines dedicated to constituting and
governing morality and knowledge. Legal Discourses
Scholars of the early-modern period confront a Two discourses usually deemed authoritative re-
crucial question: how to recognize and articulate garding the status of nonnormative erotic activity,
womens homoerotic desires in a culture in which the law and church doctrine, were interdependent
womens recorded voices are largely silent about in the early-modern period, although, in many
sexuality. The small percentage of women who could countries, authority was beginning to be transferred
read and write were in a position neither to define from ecclesiastic to secular bodies. In general, both
the scope of legitimate erotic activity nor to explic- secular and church statutes proscribed nonrepro-
itly record their experiences. Consequently, most ductive erotic acts, the purpose of sex understood
representations of womens desires and behaviors to be the propagation of humankind. Romans
are male authored and reveal a great deal about 1:2627 provided biblical authority for condemn-
masculine ignorance of female sexuality and fears ing sodomy, a catchall category for nonprocreative
of female erotic autonomy. However, information sex. Under the category of sodomy, a multiplicity
gleaned from historical sources, including the exist- of erotic acts and positions were criminalized, in-
ence of terms such as rubster, frigging, ribaude, cluding anal penetration and masturbation, as well
tribade, fricatrice, and donna con donna and allu- as bestiality, rape, and child molestation.

278 E U R O P E , E A R LY M O D E R N
 Whereas, in most European states, sodomy gar- genital instruments were burned at the stake.
nered the death penalty for those convicted, not every Whereas sodomy often was referred to as the
states sodomy statute mentioned same-gender fe- Florentine vice, and throughout Italy the pun-
male erotic activity. In addition, when women were ishment for sodomy was burning at the stake, no
brought before secular or religious authorities, it documented executions of Italian women took
often was because they had gained local notoriety place, although a Pescian nun, Benedetta Carlini
through cross-dressing, prostitution, vagrancy, or (15901661), was imprisoned for thirty-five years
dissenting religious beliefs. Inconsistent use of the for a variety of evil deeds, including physical inti-
accusation of sodomy and selective sentencing ren- macy with another nun.
dered the status of female-female eroticism indeter- Uniquely in Europe, Russia during the Musco-
minate. Christian doctrine generally viewed women vite period (fourteenth-eighteenth centuries) enacted
as oversexedinherently promiscuous, fallible, and no secular legislation prohibiting same-gender erotic
unable to control their erotic urges. Yet, in contrast activity. Of concern to Eastern Orthodox ecclesias-
to the high incidence of prosecution for prostitu- tical authorities was the relative position of sexual
tion, adultery, bastardy, and witchcraft, few women partners: Two women together (or two men) were
were prosecuted for sodomy in this period. no more sinful than a woman on top of a man. With
In 1532, the Constitution of the Holy Roman same-gender contact a sin rather than a crime, the
Empire made sex between women a capital crime. recommended penance was confession, prostrations,
The 1533 English Act of Parliament that made exclusion from communion, and dietary abstentions.
buggery (anal penetration) punishable by death did When, in 1706, Russian laws penalized male sod-
not mention women, and Sir Edward Coke (1552 omy, no mention was made of women.
1634), a prominent English jurist, opined a cen- Although Jewish women were subject to the
tury later that, if women committed buggery, it was laws of the Christian states in which they resided,
by having sex with an animal. In Scotland in 1625 rabbinical commentary on the Old Testament pos-
the Glasgow Presbytery charged two women with sessed considerable authority in observant commu-
sodomy and demanded that they separate from nities. The few rabbinic sources that discuss wom-
each other upon pain of excommunication. A hand- ens same-gender erotic practices imply that the
ful of French women were prosecuted: The jurist primary concern was the transgression involved in
Jean Papon documented the arrest of two women a woman taking the part of a man in sexual acts
in Toulouse but implied that inadequate evidence or taking the part of the husband in marrying;
prevented them from being put to death; Henri both gender transgressions are proscribed.
Estienne (15311598) recounted the burning of a Selective enforcement of sodomy laws, when
woman in the 1530s for cross-dressing and marry- read in the context of court testimony, suggests that
ing; and, in 1580, Michel de Montaigne (1533 the primary concern of authorities was womens
1592) recorded the execution of another cross- usurpation of masculine prerogatives, whether in
dressed female husband. In Augsburg, the Dis- the form of cross-dressing and passing as a man,
cipline Ordinance of 1537 condemned damned, the use of instruments of genital penetration, or
forbidden copulation (referring to the provision other challenges to patriarchal authority. When
of imperial law), but only one woman is thought women were prosecuted, the woman who cross-
to have been prosecuted. Likewise, only one Swiss dressed or used penetrative devices invariably re-
woman was brought to trial for sodomy in Ge- ceived harsher punishment than her more femi-
neva between 1440 and 1789. In the Netherlands, nine partner. The near-inconceivability of eroti-
several cross-dressers accused of carnal conver- cism without a phallus meant that a range of fe-
sation with other women were whipped and ex- male erotic activities often escaped official censure.
iled, although a sodomy bill was not passed in the
province of Holland until 1730and it did not Medical Discourses
mention women. In Spain, the thirteenth-century In 1700, the Italian theologian Lodovico Maria
legal code known as las siete partidas (the seven Sinistrari, counselor to the Holy Inquisition, of-
laws) made sins against nature a capital crime, fered the most extended discussion of female sod-
but it wasnt until the mid-sixteenth century that a omy to date. Defining sodomy as the insertion of a
legal gloss proposed extending the death penalty body part into the wrong vessel, he argued that
to women, and two Spanish nuns accused of using only women with enlarged clitorises could commit

E U R O P E , E A R LY M O D E R N 279
 sodomy; in fact, the presence of clitoral hypertro- time that the term lesbian first began to circu-
E phy implied a presumption of guilt. Genital rub-
bing and the insertion of fingers or dildos he de-
late as a marker of same-gender erotic practices.
(Previously, references to lesbian located Sappho
fined as mere acts of pollution, sins for which one as a native of the island Lesbos; Sappho was known
could be absolved. Sinistraris definition of sod- primarily as a prostitute, and lesbian sex referred
omy drew from emerging medical theories about to fellatio.) These discourses came close to con-
the female body. The early-modern period saw the structing a specific bodily morphology for deviant
emergence of two new discourses that were preoc- behavior and, with it, competing models of cau-
cupied with the construction of normative bodies: sality, as authors debated: Did an enlarged clitoris
anatomies and midwiferies, and travel narratives. incite unnatural lust, or did sexual abuse of a
In particular, the rediscovery of the clitoris in clitoris cause it to grow monstrously large?
1559 by two Italian anatomists, Realdo Colombo As these medical discourses make clear, the his-
(1516?1559) and Gabriele Fallopius (1523 tory of womens same-gender eroticism is closely
1562), led to the dissemination of pseudomedical related to, though not identical with, the phenom-
ideas that linked the presence of an enlarged clito- ena of gender transformation, hermaphroditism,
ris with tribadism. The tribade (a French term and gender transitivity. Medical texts debated
derived from the Greek tribas and tribein [to rub] whether anatomical transformations from female
hence the Latin fricatrix, the French ribaude, and to male were possible, with many writers arguing
the English rubster) referred to a woman who that such cases were actually instances of tribad-
derived pleasure from genital rubbing (frigging) ism: Rather than the spontaneous eruption of a
and/or penetration. penis due to sudden motion or increased body heat,
The ancient Greeks viewed the tribade as a the problematic member was a prolapsed vagina
hypermasculine woman who penetrated women or or an enlarged clitoris. Hermaphrodites were also
men by means of a dildo or an enlarged clitoris; it linked to tribadism in legal practice, with true
was not until late antiquity that the tribade was hermaphroditism legally and socially tolerated.
associated exclusively with same-gender erotic prac- When accused of tribadism or sodomy, the defend-
tices. The accessibility of classical views on this ant might undergo a medical examination; if the
subject, however, was limited until the sixteenth probing of a midwife or a physician revealed the
century, when classical texts not only became more presence of both penis and vagina, the hermaph-
available, but also were translated into the vernacu- rodite usually was allowed to choose a gender iden-
lar. Although medieval medicine was largely un- tity. As long as she/he did not switch back and forth,
concerned with female erotic deviancy, this atti- and gender appropriate clothing was worn, she/he
tude changed as anatomists drew from Greek and was allowed to marry. Rabbis permitted marriage
Arab texts, augmenting classical knowledge with between an androgunos (one who possesses both
information culled from anatomical dissection. penis and vagina) and a woman but prohibited such
With the publication of anatomies and midwiferies, marriages with a man: Two penises, apparently,
as well as narratives written by European travelers were considered too many in one marriage.
to the east and the south, the concept of tribadism
was reintroduced to western Europe. At first, these Cross-Dressing
works attributed tribadism to non-Christian Whatever the actual numbers of hermaphrodites or
women residing in Turkey and Africa, describing women with clitoral hypertrophy, cross-dressed
the erotic misdeeds of women in the Sultans se- women on the streets of European cities, ships, and
raglio, the Turkish baths, and the Moroccan mar- the New World were numerous enough to elicit both
ketplace. By the mid-seventeenth century, in re- celebration and censure. Popular street ballads,
sponse to the promulgation of sensationalistic ac- broadsheets, and prose narrativesand at least one
counts, writers expressed fears about the existence autobiographical memoir, written by a cross-dress-
of tribades in their own countries. The dissemina- ing Basque conquistadorextolled the successful
tion of these discourses had a contradictory effect: exploits of female soldiers and sailors, although some
On the one hand, womens same-gender erotic ac- also resorted to scorn and bawdy hilarity when
tivity was harshly stigmatized; on the other hand, sexual irregularities were suspected. James I of Eng-
more and more varied descriptions of female devi- land and Scotland (15661625) in-structed clergy-
ance were made culturally available. It is at this men to preach against female transvestism (despite

280 E U R O P E , E A R LY M O D E R N
the fact that sumptuary legislation referred only to strong affective, and possibly erotic, relationships,
class infractions), and, in many continental coun- so, too, does evidence of material and emotional
tries, cross-dressing, often considered a form of support networks among prostitutes suggest that
fraud, was a serious offense. Whereas many cross- brothels may have been an important locale for
dressers adopted masculine clothing and/or identi- female-female bonds.
ties for economic gain or adventure, some were When early-modern women stepped too far
motivated by their attachments to other women. outside patriarchal control, they were vulnerable
Indeed, there are several anecdotal accounts of to the accusation of witchcraft. Insofar as witch-
French cross-dressers marrying, and one English craft in women was seen as stemming from lust,
court document details the annulment of a marriage allegations of a variety of diabolic sexual acts pep-
between a woman and her female husband. pered church writings and legal testimonies.
While there is no sure corollary between occa- Whereas the concern of ecclesiastical authorities
sional cross-dressing, a lifetime of passing as a man, was primarily intercourse with the devil, occasion-
and the theatrical stage, the high incidence of trans- ally they accused suspected witches of vices against
vestism as a plot device in Spanish Golden Age and nature. Russian churchmen connected same-gen-
English Renaissance and Restoration drama and der eroticism to pagan rites in which women prayed
pastoral romance allowed for the exploration of to a female spirit. Stories about witches in Fez who
homoerotic desires in popular venues. Although seduced innocent wives first circulated in travel
English authorities who denounced the Renaissance narratives and were reprinted in various venues.
stage often did so by emphasizing the abomination Perhaps the most amenable site for single wom-
of boy actors playing the parts of women, writers ens mutual affection was the convent. Nunneries
throughout Europe (William Shakespeare [1564 offered women a refuge from marriage, as well as
1616], Edmund Spenser [15521599], Sir Philip opportunities for political, emotional, and erotic
Sidney [15541586], John Lyly [1554?1606], independence. The Catholic Churchs valorization
Margaret Cavendish [16231673], Ludovico of chastity, which caused women to be sequestered
Ariosto [14741533], Lope de Vega [15621635], from men, unwittingly created conditions enabling
and Jorge de Montemayor [ca. 15201561]) in- female attachments; and, insofar as chastity referred
cluded cross-dressed heroines in their plots, often explicitly to the protection of ones hymen from
exploring the varieties of attraction such characters phallic penetration, a variety of pleasurable activi-
elicited and experienced, even as they concluded their ties may have been innocently pursued. In rec-
narratives with heterosexual marriage. ognition of the possibility of same-gender contact,
monastic rules prohibited nuns from sleeping to-
Single Women gether and mandated that a lamp burn in sleeping
Cross-dressing, or passing, allowed some women quarters. One of the most complete documents
to marry the women they loved; it also allowed detailing same-gender erotic activity, from a series
some to remain unmarried in a culture that man- of ecclesiastical investigations (16191623) of an
dated the transfer of daughters directly from the Italian abbess, Benedetta Carlini, suggests that
governance of a father to the protection of a hus- erotic contact among nuns could be considered by
band. In spite of this dictate, approximately 20 them to be compatible with religious expression.
percent of adult women in northwestern Europe Certainly, the allegation of erotic deviance among
never married; in addition, in those states in which nuns was a staple of anti-Catholic satire; and the
it was a legal option, many women filed for sepa- lust of an older nun for a novice crops up frequently
ration from husbands, and a large percentage of in Renaissance pornography.
widows never remarried. Single women, particu-
larly those in urban centers, often worked outside Literary Representations
the home, sometimes in all-female guilds. Although The ideology of chastity is also implicated in the
many of these women lived in their fathers or intense emotional and erotic friendships depicted
brothers households, others lived together, often in Renaissance drama. In countless stage plays,
under the auspices of charitable communities friendships between two feminine girls are de-
(Beguinages, widows hospices, houses for reformed picted as technically chaste, yet emotionally and
prostitutes, hospitals for poor and immigrant erotically charged. The unity, mutuality, and affec-
women). Just as many of these women experienced tion of such friends is idealized and portrayed as a

E U R O P E , E A R LY M O D E R N 281
 foil to heterosexual antagonism; at the same time, resented as providing hands-on instruction of
E such bonds are represented as temporary, inevita-
bly giving way to patriarchal marriage. Often lo-
sexual technique to novice prostitutes. Satire about
same-gender activities among prostitutes frequently
cated in the past, these relations are not threaten- crossed over into the pornographic, with salacious
ing precisely because, in the social scheme of het- descriptions of activities ostensibly being de-
erosexual reproduction and affiliation, they are nounced. Pornographic titillation is also evident
deemed insignificant. These literary representations in medical dictionaries and marital-advice books,
correspond to certain material conditions: which included explicit descriptions of female
Throughout Europe, girls of premarital age in- anatomy and womens erotic activities. Such texts
nocently shared beds with friends and servants; were available in the vernacular by the end of the
girls in schools and convents developed intense seventeenth century and circulated among an in-
affections; and popular mock wedding games creasingly large reading population.
among adolescent Russian and Italian girls were Also satirized, or at least a subject of gossip,
tolerated. were the erotic liaisons of aristocratic, and some-
The popularity of classical mythology in the times royal, women. The attachments of Queen
early-modern period also allowed for the represen- Christina of Sweden (16261689), who abdicated
tation of same-gender female desire, particularly rather than marry, and the English Queen Anne
in retellings and artistic renderings of the stories of (16651714), as well as of the ladies at the French
Iphis and lanthe and the goddess Diana and her court of Henri II (15471559) and the English
female followers. Francesco Cavalli (16021676), court of Charles II (16601685), were notorious
for instance, centered his 1651 opera La Calisto in their day. Although these womens erotic pro-
on a handmaids love for Diana, exploiting clivities were satirized by those critical of the
homoerotic sensuality in order to condemn it. Par- monarchs reign, aristocratic libertinage often was
ticularly in Italy, where womens erotic affairs were crucial to the deployment of power, patronage,
termed donna con donna, paintings of nude god- and influence.
desses and their attendants visually registered the The morality of the middle classes, however, was
possibility of womens erotic self-sufficiency. These not so permissive. Throughout the seventeenth cen-
images, like expressions of intense female friend- tury, changes in religious ideologies contributed to
ship in stage plays, were widely available to female more overt censure of same-gender attachments. In
spectators. Protestant countries, a developing bourgeois ideol-
By the late seventeenth century, womens literacy ogy of companionate marriage, which advocated
had substantially increased. Some of the poetry the spiritual union, mutual comfort, and emotional
women penned celebrated female friendship in terms dependence of husband and wife, idealized the mari-
that are emotionally and erotically charged. tal bond as the unique site of erotic desire. While the
Katherine Philips (16321664), known as the Eng- success of this ideology was probably never as great
lish Sappho, and the Dutch Catharina Questiers as was advocated, its popularity contributed to a
(16301669) and Cornelia van der Veer (1639 clearer distinction between female homoeroticism and
1702) appropriated neo-Platonic and Petrarchan heterosexuality. Conversely, in Catholic countries the
conventions to express the strength of their affec- Counterreformation Church took an increasingly
tions, to argue for the superiority of female friend- strict line on nonprocreative sexuality, with much the
ship over that of men, and to lament interruptions same result as its Protestant counterparts: a more
in relationships caused by marriage. An earlier precise articulation of marital heterosexuality as the
anonymous Middle Scots poem, known only as only proper mode of eroticism.
Poem XLIX in The Maitland Quarto Manuscript
(1586), similarly articulates a conflict between in- Conclusion
tense female bonds and marriage and may have been The sum of these representations reveals that
written by a woman. Margaret Cavendish and earlymodern culture recognized a range of erotic
Aphra Behn (ca. 1640?1689) flirted with female activities in which women may have engaged: kiss-
homoeroticism in many plays and poems. ing, caressing, clitoral rubbing, mutual masturba-
Not all literary images of same-gender love were tion, penetration (with dildo, finger, or enlarged
so idealized. The older female procuress, a staple clitoris). In addition to this taxonomy of practices,
figure of comic and satiric literature, often is rep- a catalog of persons and relations includes the

282 E U R O P E , E A R LY M O D E R N
single woman, the transvestite, the tribade, the in- eenth century, however, that new ways of concep-
timate female friend, the aristocratic libertine, and tualizing the individual would create the conditions
donna con donna. Locales consistently associated for the emergence of modern categories of erotic
with samegender erotic activity are nunneries, identity. Valerie Traub
brothels, and the Turkish harem and bath. Most
early-modern writers posited womens illicit erotic Bibliography
behaviors as a disturbance in genderwhether such Ballaster, Ros.The Vices of Old Rome Revived:
a disturbance be anatomical (the presence of an Representations of Same-Sex Desire in Seven-
enlarged clitoris or the presence of a penis and a teenth- and Eighteenth-Century England. In
vagina) or social (wearing male clothing, using a Volcanoes and Pearl Divers: Essays in Lesbian
dildo). Two dominant theories of causality inter- Feminist Studies. Ed. Suzanne Raitt. London:
mingled in the earlymodern period: While theolo- Onlywomen, 1994, pp. 336.
gians, jurists, and moralists typically viewed wom- Brown, Judith. Immodest Acts: The Life of a Les-
ens deviant sexual behavior as one of a host of bian Nun in Renaissance Italy. Oxford: Oxford
possible moral failings (prostitution, vagrancy, University Press, 1986.
witchcraft, resistance to patriarchal authority), Donoghue, Emma. Passions Between Women: Brit-
medical and popular knowledge tended to ascribe ish Lesbian Culture, 16681801. New York:
to at least some women an anatomical aberration HarperCollins, 1993.
that caused them to engage in unnatural acts. De- Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men:
bates about innate propensity versus the effect of Romantic Friendship and Love Between
social conditions occasionally were punctuated Women, from the Renaissance to the Present.
with astrological theories. In the case of the trib- New York: William Morrow, 1981.
ade, the supposition was not that she was a woman Park, Katharine. The Rediscovery of the Clitoris:
with male genitals nor a male trapped inside a fe-
French Medicine and the Tribade, 15701620.
male body, but a woman whose bodily morphol-
In The Body in Parts: Discourses and Anato-
ogy incited a usurpation of masculine prerogatives.
mies in Early Modern Europe, Ed. Carla Mazzio
Conventional historical periods often do not
and David Hillman. New York: Routledge,
correspond to the realities of womens lives. A case
1997, pp. 170193.
in point is the Renaissance, an era that is lauded as
Simons, Patricia. Lesbian (In)Visibility in Italian
a high point of creativity and progress but that also
Renaissance Culture: Diana and Other Cases
saw the tightening of patriarchal controls upon
of Donna con Donna. Journal of Homosexu-
women. If, however, one marks the beginning of
ality 27 (1994), 81122.
the early-modern period with the gradual increase
Traub, Valerie. The (In)Significance of Lesbian
in the early sixteenth century of vernacular dis-
Desire in Early Modern England. In Erotic
courses about, and inconsistent prosecution of,
Politics: Desire on the Renaissance Stage. Ed.
female sodomy, one registers the conceptual inco-
Susan Zimmerman. London and New York:
herence that attended same-gender female eroticism
Routledge, 1994, pp. 150169.
throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centu-
. The Psychomorphology of the Clitoris.
ries. Likewise, one might mark the periods end
with Sinistraris attempt, at the beginning of the GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 2
eighteenth century, to codify and correlate specific (Winter 1995), 81113.
erotic practices with precise punishments. The Vicinus, Martha. They Wonder to Which Sex I
amplification and cross-fertilization of legal, theo- Belong: The Historical Roots of the Modern
logical, medical, and literary discourses; the dis- Lesbian Identity. In The Lesbian and Gay Stud-
semination of images of tribades to an increasingly ies Reader. Ed. Henry Abelove, Michele Aina
literate populace through pornography, sexual- Barale, and David M.Halperin. New York and
advice books, travel narratives, anatomies, London: Routledge, 1993, pp. 432452.
midwiferies, and classical texts; the greater inclu-
sion of women in artistic, literary, and scientific See also Anne, Queen of England; Behn, Aphra;
productionall of these were in play by the end of Christina of Sweden; Clitoris; Cross-Dressing; Law
the seventeenth century. It is not until the rise of and Legal Institutions; Passing Women; Religious
Enlightenment discourses of selfhood in the eight- Communities; Sappho; Tribade

E U R O P E , E A R LY M O D E R N 283
 Evolution and Human Origins the similarities and differences between modern
E Female-female bonding and sexual behavior in
human evolution. Narratives of human evolution
human and nonhuman primate behaviors that we
now seek to define the social and sexual param-
are powerful statements about what will and what eters of human evolution.
will not count as human. The emergence of a dis-
tinctively human society has been argued to reside Nineteenth-Century Foundations
in the development of male-male social bonding During the nineteenth century, speculation about the
and male-female sexual pair bonding. Relationships origins of humanity became intense. People looked
between females have been regarded as inconse- to the Bible, classical myths, and ancient law for
quential to the course of human evolution. In this clues to their distant past. The most influential theo-
context, female sexuality has been regarded as a rists of the time, the social evolutionists, argued that
response to male behavior, so assertive female all societies progressed through universal stages of
sexual behaviors such as lesbianism could exist only development, culminating in the nuclear family and
as unnatural, unhuman aberrations. Western civil society. Progression in sexual behavior
This orthodoxy is beginning to crumble. Since involved the gradual abandonment of promiscuous
the 1970s, the visibility of women in narratives of sexual mating in favor of pair bonding, or mo-
human evolution has been increasing. Some authors nogamy, an arrangement that assured men control
now credit women with having influenced the course over womans sexual and reproductive capacities.
of evolution in their capacities as economic provid- Already implicit here is the assumption that the only
ers, inventors of tools, mothers, and assertive sexual purpose of sex is reproduction and that it is, there-
beings actively seeking out and selecting preferred fore, exclusively heterosexual.
male partners. However, the idea that female sexual Charles Darwin (18091882), founder of bio-
interest in other females could have affected human logical evolution and contemporary of the social
evolution remains unconsidered. This omission is evolutionists, argued that all organisms, including
not, however, due to a lack of potential informa- humans, evolved by natural selection, a process
tion. There is an ever-expanding body of data docu- regulated by competition rather than progress.
menting the widespread occurrence of female-female Later, Darwin added sexual selection to account
sexual practices in both past and present human for the development of different characteristics in
communities and in nonhuman primate societies. males and females. Males, he argued, invested in
The real problem lies in the unquestioned assump- sex and competed for access to females, while fe-
tion that, in order to count in evolution, sex must males invested in parenting and selected mates from
be reproductive and, therefore, heterosexual. among available males. Thus, males and females
Once art appears at around 100,000 years ago, had different reproductive strategies and pursued
direct archaeological evidence for lesbianism in the different sexual interests. Sexual selection allowed,
form of artistic depictions becomes a possibility. for the first time, the possibility that female sexu-
There are, for example, one-thousand-to- ality had its own agenda.
twothousand-year-old Moche pots from Peru that
depict women engaging in sexual acts with other Anthropological Challenges
women. But for the approximately five million The twentieth century saw the rise of anthropol-
years of human evolution taking place prior to the ogy and the publication of detailed ethnographic
appearance of art, the material consists of fossil- accounts of human societies from all over the
ized bones and stone tools. Such remains offer few world. The widespread occurrence of all kinds of
insights into the social and sexual behavior of our nonreproductive sex, including lesbianism, was
earliest ancestors, so indirect forms of evidence are recorded. However, neither anthropological theory
sought. The most important sources are anthro- nor narratives of human evolution made any at-
pology and primatology. Anthropology, the study tempt to account for them.
of human societies past and present, has docu- Kinship theory, for example, argued that the in-
mented the enormous variety of forms that human vention of incest taboos enabled men to give up their
social and sexual behavior can take. Primatology, sisters for the promise of future wives, thus explain-
the study of nonhuman primates, has documented ing the evolution of both male-male bonding and
the amazing diversity of social and sexual behaviors male-female sexual pair bonds. The relentlessly pa-
exhibited in present-day primate societies. It is in triarchal and heterosexist nature of this theory was

284 EVOLUTION AND HUMAN ORIGINS

fruitlessly pointed out by Rubin (1975). Another As with human societies, the diversity of nonre-
line of argument promoted hunting as the key in- productive sexual behaviors in nonhuman primate
vention that led to a uniquely human society. In this societies is the most striking pattern to emerge.
scenario, male bonding developed in the coopera- However, female-female sexuality has received the
tive context of hunting and led to the sharing of most attention. For example, among common chim-
meat with dependent females and, hence, to hetero- panzees sex occurs only at irregular intervals and
sexual monogamy. Even though the ethnographic nonreproductive sex is rare, while among Bonobo
accounts of nonagricultural societies on which this chimpanzees sex of every imaginable kind takes place
theory was based showed that women gathered more almost continually. Female-female sex between
than their fair share of food and supported not only nonkin partners is the most common form. These
their children but commonly also their menfolk, the sexual exchanges enable Bonobo females to domi-
hunting theory remained popular in the 1990s. nate malesan inconceivable occurrence among
common chimpanzees. The macaque monkeys are
Primatological Challenges just as diverse. Japanese macaque females engage in
During the 1970s, results from long-term studies sex with nonkin female partners simply because they
of nonhuman primates living in wild habitats be- like the sex. Furthermore, they will aggressively de-
gan to demonstrate just how diverse and complex fend these relationships against male competitors.
nonhuman primate societies are. Contrary to ex- Stumptail macaques similarly like the sex but do
pectations, the most important and enduring rela- not hesitate to use female-female sexual interactions
tionships, aside from mother-offspring bonds, form for social purposes, such as peacemaking and rec-
between female kin. Enduring bonds between males onciliation and to improve their social prospects.
are extremely rare, while enduring male-female It seems likely that female-female sexual
bonds are neither common nor necessarily based behaviors evolved as part of the pleasurable po-
on sex. These discoveries transformed appreciation tentialities of sex. No further function needs to
of the importance of female-female bonding in be invoked to explain their occurrence. That does
nonhuman primate societies. Around the same not mean, however, that such behaviors were never
time, the development of sociobiology from Dar- co-opted to serve social or reproductive ends. In
wins theories of natural and sexual selection kin- some contexts and at some times, female-female
dled new interest in the evolutionary implications sexual behaviors no doubt contributed to some
of assertive female sexualities. However, females reproductive success either directly
sociobiologists foreclosed on the radical potential through parenting or indirectly through improv-
of these implications by entrenching their investi- ing an individuals social position. But the contri-
gations within the sex-equals-reproduction equa- bution of female-female sexuality to evolution
tion. They allow females their own sexuality, but cannot be reduced to these instances. No human
it must be reproductive and heterosexual. For a society is reducible to its means of physical re-
lesbian perspective on human evolution to emerge, production; neither, then, is the course of human
new ideas on female-female bonding and assertive evolution. Yvonnne M.Marshall
female sexuality need to come together in the ab-
sence of this reproductive imperative. Bibliography
Arboleda, Manuel. Representations Artisticas de
Developments in the 1990s Actividades Homoeroticas en la Ceramica
The geographical and historical diversity of sexual Moche (Artistic Representations of
practices and gender arrangements in human soci- Homoerotic Activities in Moche Pottery).
eties is a major area of research. It is striking, how- Boletin de Lima 16 (1981), 98107.
ever, that literature on male homosexuality is far Hager, Lori D., ed. Women in Human Evolution,
more extensive than on lesbianism (see Herdt London: Routledge, 1997.
1996). Nevertheless, acknowledgment of the cross- Herdt, Gilbert, ed. Third Sex, Third Gender: Be-
cultural extent of same-sex practices has still not yond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and His-
engendered interest in how such behaviors might tory. New York: Zone, 1996.
have influenced human evolution. The assumption Rubin, Gayle. The Traffic in Women: Notes on
remains: If it made no contribution to reproduc- the Political Economy of Sex. In Towards an
tion, it made no contribution to directing the past. Anthropology of Women. Ed. Rayna Reuter.

EVOLUTION AND HUMAN ORIGINS 285

 New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975, pp. Wolfe, Linda D. Human Evolution and the Sexual
E 157210.
Taylor, T. The Prehistory of Sex. New York: Ban-
Behaviour of Female Primates. In Understand-
ing Behaviour. Ed. James D.Loy and Calvin
tam, 1996. B.Peters. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
Vasey, Paul. Intimate Sexual Relations in Prehis- 1991, pp. 121189.
tory: Lessons from the Japanese Macaques.
World Archaeology 29 (1998), 3. See also Animal Studies; Anthropology

286 EVOLUTION AND HUMAN ORIGINS

F
Faderman, Lillian (1940) several lesbian and gay organizations and publica-
Historian, literary critic, and educator. Born in New tions.
York City to a Latvian-Jewish mother, Faderman After receiving her B.A. in English from the
never knew her father. She was raised by her mother University of California, Berkeley in 1962,
and aunt in the working-class neighborhoods of Faderman earned her M.A. in 1964 and Ph.D. in
the Bronx, New York, and East Los Angeles, Cali- 1967 in English at the University of California, Los
fornia, where they moved in 1948. Fadermans first Angeles. In 1967, she joined the English faculty of
language was Yiddish. In her first major book, California State University, Fresno, where she has
Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship continued to teach. She was among the group that
and Love Between Women from the Renaissance founded the CSU Fresno Womens Studies Program
to the Present (1981), Faderman defines lesbian in 1971, as was her life partner, Phyllis Irwin
as a relationship that is not necessarily sexual, in
which two womens strongest emotions and affec-
tions are directed toward each other. In the years
since its publication, Surpassing has been cited
widely, interpreted variously, and sometimes mis-
represented and attacked as antisex. The book
is roughly contemporary with Adrienne Richs simi-
larly controversial conception of a lesbian con-
tinuum. In Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers (1991),
Faderman reiterates the themes of Surpassing be-
fore moving on to a decadeby-decade account of
U.S. lesbian culture in the twentieth century.
Both Odd Girls and Surpassing received many
accolades, including appearing on the New York
Times Book Review list of Notable Books for 1992
and 1981, respectively. Fadermans other
lesbianthemed books include Scotch Verdict
(1983), a reconstruction of the scandal on which
Lillian Hellman (19051984) based The Childrens
Hour (1934), and the anthologies Lesbian Femi-
nism in Turn-of-the-Century Germany (with
Brigitte Ericksson [1980]), reprinted in 1990 as
Lesbians in Germany, 1890s1920s, and Chloe
Plus Olivia: Lesbian Literature from the Seven-
teenth Century to the Present (1994). Faderman
lectures widely and has served on the boards of Lillian Faderman. Photo by Phyllis Irwin.

FADERMAN, LILLIAN 287

 (1929), a classical pianist and professor of music; While many feminists, both heterosexual and
F they met in Fresno in 1971. Faderman gave birth
to their son, Avrom Faderman, in 1975.
lesbian, have pointed out the patriarchal,
heterosexist, and oppressive character of the nu-
Linda Garber clear family, many have also argued that the fam-
ily is an institution that can be reclaimed and trans-
Bibliography formed. Through political and personal struggle,
Wiley, Catherine A. Lillian Faderman. In Gay they have tried to re-create relationships within
and Lesbian Biography. Ed. Michael J.Tyrkus. their families of origin and to establish their own
Detroit: St. James, 1997, pp. 160163. families of choice.

See also Lesbian Continuum; Rich, Adrienne; Ro- Families of Origin

mantic Friendship Despite the portrayal of lesbians as living outside fami-
lies, the reality is that each lesbian was born into a
family. That nexus can be quickly and sometimes ir-
Family reparably shattered, however, as parents and siblings
In both traditional scholarship and popular ideol- respond in anger, hurt, and denial to the revelation
ogy, family membership is defined by biology (par- of a family members sexual orientation. Fear of join-
ent/child, aunt, sibling, and so on) and/or by legal ing the ranks of what anthropologist Weston (1991)
relationship (marriage and adoption). Within that has termed exiles from kinship, many lesbians have
framework, lesbians and gay men are portrayed as sought to keep their sexual orientation hidden from
being outside of family, leading lives devoid of per- family members. The effort to keep such a significant
manent attachments. Yet lesbians and gay men are part of ones life a secret can extract an enormous
involved in a myriad of relationships that exist both psychological and emotional toll. Furthermore, the
within and outside biology and the law. Despite the difficulties of navigating a dual life are immense, and
risks of rejection, they continue to come out and to the dreaded secret is often unwittingly revealed, some-
find support and love, both within and beyond their times with painful, and even tragic, results. Never-
families of origin. As well, despite the legal and his- theless, many lesbians choose to come out, often test-
torical denial of their intimate relationships, many ing the waters with a sibling before broaching the
choose to define these connections as family. topic with other family members.
In contemporary Western society, the family has It is important to remember that there is no
become contested terrain. Groups ranging from po- unitary experience of family for lesbians. On the
litical parties on the Left and the Right to a host of contrary, lesbians enjoy a huge diversity of experi-
religious denominations claim ownership of the tra- ences. Age, ability, race, ethnicity, class, country of
ditional family. Such claims rest on the reification origin, and locationall of these variables and
and universalization of the male breadwinner/ female many others affect lesbians lives and experiences
homemaker family. This particular family form was, of family. Even within the same family of origin,
in fact, a demographic anomaly of the 1950s and reactions to a family members coming out can
early 1960s. Indeed, even in that narrow time pe- range from silence and rejection to benign resigna-
riod, vast portions of the population did not mirror tion and even celebration. Through the process of
the image of family projected on popular television coming out, some lesbians are forced to sever
programs like Leave It to Beaver. Single-parent fami- all ties with their family of origin. Others encoun-
lies, working mothers, and extended families were ter love and support and are able to maintain close
widespread throughout the postwar period. and enriched connections.
Many organizations and institutions in contem-
porary society actively create and promote a myth Lesbian and Gay Youth
of the heterosexual nuclear family as a haven in a Because of their financial and legal dependence,
heartless world, a refuge from the brutal world the issue of families of origin is particularly prob-
outside the home. Since the late 1960s, feminists, lematic for lesbian and gay youth. Youth often need
among others, have exposed the lies beneath that their family for food, shelter, and other forms of
image, as they have demonstrated that the family support. For them, the cost of revelation can be
is also the place of brutal violence against women high. Statistics on street youth indicate that a high
and children, of incest, and of other forms of abuse. percentage of homeless teens are lesbian and gay

288 F A M I LY
youth who have been disowned by their families ther used the law to prevent Thompson from even
of origin. Many other young people are forced to seeing Kowalski for a time. Only after a nine-year
submit to psychiatric treatment in an attempt to legal and political battle was Thompson successful
cure their sexual disorder. Fearing such out- in bringing Kowalski home to live with her.
comes, young lesbians often deny their lesbianism In other cases, grandparents of the children of
in order to survive within their family. lesbian mothers have successfully prevented the
In the face of these facts, however, gay and les- nonbiological mother from gaining custody of, and
bian youth are also resisting, forming youth groups, in some instances access to, their children upon
and gaining support from lesbian and gay commu- the death of the childrens biological mother. Par-
nities. Increasingly, parents are learning to accept ents have made medical plans and funeral arrange-
and even celebrate their childrens sexual orienta- ments against a dying womans wishes, excluding
tion. Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and a partner from any role in caregiving and plan-
Gays (PFLAG), an organization formed in 1981, ning. Such actions are supported by the lack of
has been instrumental in helping family members legal recognition for lesbians relationships with
understand and accept their lesbian and gay chil- each other and with their children.
dren. PFLAG provides public education and advo-
cacy, support groups, and youth programs. By Families of Choice
1997, there were more than four hundred affili- Within lesbian communities, the issue of family is
ated chapters of PFLAG in the United States, hotly debated. Some lesbians argue that, because of
Canada, and ten other countries. the patriarchal and oppressive nature of the nuclear
A 1997 American poll suggested that groups family, choosing to form a family serves to reinforce
like PFLAG may be having a positive effect on pa- the heterosexual nuclear family. Rather than attempt
rental homophobia. A survey of 1,123 adults con- to assimilate into mainstream society by bearing and
ducted by the Mason-Dixon Political/Media Re- raising children within coupled relationships, lesbi-
search Group in August 1997 found that 67 per- ans should be attempting to dismantle the institu-
cent of parents said that, if a child told them he or tion of the family. Others within lesbian communi-
she was gay, they would either provide support or ties maintain that creating lesbian families can pro-
be OK with it. In addition, 60 percent indicated vide both personal support and love and serve as a
that the child should feel free to tell whomever vehicle for change. As heterosexual families encoun-
they want to tell; theres nothing wrong with it. ter lesbian families in their workplaces, schools, and
Only 7 percent indicated they would suggest that communities, they are challenged to revise and ex-
the child get psychiatric help to change to hetero- pand their notion of what constitutes a family. While
sexual, and 1 percent said they would ask them the road to acceptance can be a rocky one, lesbians
to leave the house. Those results are promising for forming families of choice maintain that the gains
the future of lesbian and gay youth and their rela- they make in the struggle against heterosexism and
tionships with their families. the joy their children bring them far outweigh the
pain of occasional rejection.
Adult Lesbians and Their Families of Origin Despite the growing number of lesbian fami-
It is not only youth for whom relationships with lies, both with and without children, legislation has
their families of origin can be difficult. Even as adults, been slow to reflect this changing social phenom-
living apart from their parents, lesbians can experi- enon. In many jurisdictions, statutes explicitly ex-
ence rejection and recriminations if their sexual ori- clude lesbian and gay relationships from the pro-
entation is revealed. Many women find themselves tection and support afforded to heterosexual rela-
disowned, unwelcome in the family home. Others tionships. In many instances, the law not only fails
are welcomed only if their partner does not attend. to recognize lesbian and gay relationships, but also
Lesbians chosen families (partners, children) and actively works to undermine their existence. In most
their families of origin often come into conflict, jurisdictions, lesbians are prevented from adopt-
sometimes with brutal results. One such example is ing or fostering children. Despite favorable rulings
the case of Sharon Kowalski. In 1983, Kowalski was in some locations, in many others lesbian mothers
seriously injured in a car accident. Her family of are routinely denied custody of, and even access
origin sought to deny the family she had formed to, their children. They are denied access to repro-
with her partner, Karen Thompson. Kowalskis fa- ductive technologies, including donor insemination.

F A M I LY 289
 Partners of lesbian mothers are, for the most part, of origin or their coupled relationships. Other com-
F denied the right to adopt their partners biological
children.
mentators view this political stance as a dangerous
one. In their view, designating every relationship
Political and legal opposition to the extension of that involves love and support family renders
rights and benefits to lesbian and gay families is of- the concept of family so broad that it becomes
ten posed in terms of the alleged danger they pose meaningless. As well, it robs everything designated
to the family. Indeed, lesbian and gay families, nonfamily of any emotional or social content.
and, in particular, families with children, appear to Despite heated debates within the lesbian and
crystallize many fears about the demise of the tra- gay movements and in the face of vigorous politi-
ditional family. In 1992, for example, the caucus cal and religious opposition, lesbians continue to
formed within the Progressive Conservative Party form familial relationships with their partners and
in Canada to oppose inclusion of sexual orienta- children, to renew deep and abiding connections
tion in the Human Rights Code adopted the name with their families of origin, and to fight for the
Family Caucus. Other such organizations include legal and political recognition of their families.
Focus on the Family and the Coalition for Family Katherine Arnup
Values. Such organizations have formed in virtually
every country where lesbians and gay men have Bibliography
fought for legislation to protect their families. As Allen, Katherine R., and David H.Demo. The Fami-
early as 1978, the Briggs Initiative (Proposition 6) lies of Lesbians and Gay Men: A New Frontier
in California affirmed the fundamental interest in Family Research. Journal of Marriage and
of the state in preserving the family unit. While that the Family 57 (February 1995), 111127.
(unsuccessful) initiative barred lesbians and gay men Arnup, Katherine. Lesbian Parenting: Living with
from teaching school or holding other positions of Pride and Prejudice. Charlottetown, Prince
responsibility with children, more recent initiatives Edward Island: gynergy, 1997.
have attacked lesbian and gay families more directly. Benkov, Laura. Reinventing the Family: The Emerg-
The United States Defense of Marriage Act (1995) ing Story of Lesbian and Gay Parents. New
defines marriage as an institution restricted to the York: Crown, 1994.
union of one man and one woman. The legislation Demo, David H., and Katherine R.Allen. Diver-
was intended to strike a blow at the ongoing strug- sity Within Lesbian and Gay Families: Chal-
gle for gay and lesbian marriage. Section 28 of the lenges and Implications for Family Theory and
Local Government Act 1988 (known as Clause 28 Research. Journal of Social and Personal Re-
before the act was passed) in the United Kingdom lationships 13:3 (1996), 415434.
characterizes lesbian and gay relationships as pre- Laird, Joan. Lesbian and Gay Families. In Nor-
tended family relationships and explicitly banned mal Family Processes, 2nd ed. Ed. Froma Walsh.
local schools from promoting the acceptability of New York: Guilford, 1993, pp. 282328.
homosexuality. OBrien, Carol-Anne, and Lorna Weir. Lesbians
Yet, in the face of such legislative and political and Gay Men Inside and Outside Families. In
opposition, lesbians and gay men have continued to Canadian Families: Diversity, Conflict, and
fight for human rights protection, workplace medi- Change. Ed. Nancy Mandell and Ann Duffy.
cal and dental benefits, adoption and custodial rights, Toronto: Harcourt Brace, 1995, pp. 111139.
and many other reforms. In the process, they have Weston, Kath. Families We Choose: Lesbians,
stubbornly affirmed that we are family. Gays, and Kinship. New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 1991.
Community as Family
Like members of the feminist movement, the com- See also Adolescence; Adoption; Children; Com-
mune movement, and other social movements, ing Out; Custody Litigation; Donor Insemination;
some lesbians have adopted the term family to Law and Legal Institutions; Mothers, Lesbian
apply to the communities of support, solidarity,
and love within which they live and work. For these
women, the love that the term family connotes Fat Liberation
is provided by their friendship networks and geo- The movement to eradicate oppression on the basis
graphic communities, not solely by their families of weight, the radical branch of which has been

290 F A M I LY
formed primarily by lesbians and feminists. In the dark-skinned peoples, in whose cultures of origin
1970s, fat activists, sparked by lesbian feminist en- fatness may be prized or considered a neutral quality,
ergy and radical therapy principles, uncovered these the stigmatization of size in North America reinforces
facts about dieting: The vast majority of diets fail, racist ideas about what makes bodies acceptable or
resulting in regaining any weight lost (and often unacceptable.
more); many diseases attributed to overweight are Beginning with the Fat Underground in Los An-
caused by the social stress of fat hatred and the physi- geles in 1973, fat organizationsamong them, the
cal effects of repeated dieting (which depletes mus- Fat Avengers (Seattle, Washington), Life in the Fat
cle before fat, including heart muscle); fat people Lane (San Francisco, California), Fat Is a Lesbian
have the same caloric intake and eat the same foods Issue (New York City), Fat Chance (San Francisco),
as thin people; fatness is hereditary and a physical Largesse, the Network for Size Esteem (New Ha-
characteristic of the same order as height. Medical ven, Connecticut), Lesbians of Size (Portland, Or-
studies supporting these conclusions are cited by egon), Sisters of Size (Seattle), Big Beautiful Lesbi-
Vivian Mayer in The Fat Illusion and The Ques- ans (Washington, D.C.), the Lesbian Fat Activists
tions People Ask (in Schoenfielder and Wieser Network (Woodstock, N.Y.), Sisters Are Fighting
[1983]), William Bennet and Joel Gurn (The Diet- Fat Oppression (Minneapolis, Minnesota), and Let
ers Dilemma [1982]) and Size Acceptance and Self- It All Hang Out Day (San Francisco)have created
Acceptance, the NAAFA workbook (1994). demonstrations, Gay Pride floats, theater, pamphlets,
In the 1973 Fat Liberation Manifesto, pub- street actions, dances, and exercise and social groups.
lished in Schoenfielder and Wieser (1983), Judy Organizations also exist in Atlanta, Georgia; Bos-
Freespirit and Vivian Mayer (Aldebaran), of the ton and Northampton, Massachusetts; Canada; the
radical feminist Fat Underground, stated: We re- United Kingdom; Australia; and Holland. NAAFA
pudiate the mystified science which falsely claims has had a feminist caucus since 1983; a lesbian
that we are unfit. It has both caused and upheld group, since 1990. Fat-positive sexuality has always
discrimination against us, in collusion with the fi- been part of fat lesbians agenda. FaT GiRL, a dyke
nancial interests of insurance companies, the fash- zine started in 1994 in San Francisco by Max Air-
ion and garment industries, reducing industries, the borne, gives voice to radical fat sexual outlaws.
food and drug industries, and the medical and psy- The longest-lived group is Fat Lip Readers Theater
chiatric establishments. (San Francisco), which first performed in 1982.
Fat liberation has two basic approaches. The While many lesbians have developed analyses
first, embodied by the National Association to about, and organized around, fat oppression since
Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), founded in 1973, lesbian communities, mirroring the straight
1969, is the size-acceptance movement. NAAFA world, are often resistant to their messages about
fights weight-based discrimination and promotes health, beauty, and the effects of dieting. Fat ac-
self-esteem by publishing, organizing social events, tivists attribute this to media-perpetrated illusions.
and supporting civil rights legal action. In a world in which it often seems as if individu-
The second, more radical, analysis of fat oppres- als have little or no control over their lives, women
sion, formulated by lesbians and feminists, insists that are constantly encouraged to believe that control-
fat hatred is directly linked to sexism, racism, and ling their weight is a measure of their personal
classism. When women are obsessed about the size effectiveness. When the Fat Underground com-
of their bodies, their power and resources are wasted. piled its original statistics in 1973, Americans
Many women now argue that dieting and weight- spent $10 billion a year on the diet industry (in-
loss surgery are forms of mutilation, parallel to foot- cluding books, doctors, medications, surgery,
binding and clitoridectomypractices that women weight loss programs, camps and spas, and spe-
force on one another and their daughters to become cial foods and gadgets); in 1994, $33 billion. Fat
acceptable to men, thereby acquiring class privilege activists argue that some of the increase comes
and mobility. Mayer in Schoenfielder and Wieser from the fact that almost all diets fail, and so di-
(1983) cites studies showing that fat directly affects eters become dependent on the diet industry, while
economic status (a fat woman is more likely to be new dieters are constantly recruited by advertis-
poor due to social constraints and not because of ing and social pressure. Women in particular con-
negative qualities stereotypically attached to fatness, tinue to be economic, physical, and psychologi-
such as lack of motivation, laziness, or stupidity). For cal targets of fat hatred. Elana Dykewomon

F AT L I B E R AT I O N 291
 Bibliography women that emerged especially during the late nine-
F Brown, Laura S., and Esther Rothblum, eds. Over-
coming Fear of Fat. New York: Harrington
teenth century in the United States. Additionally, they
argued that such support was crucial politically and
Park, 1989. emotionally for women as they moved into male-
Bruno, Barbara Altman. Worth Your Weight. New dominated public arenas. According to Cook, this
York: Routledge, 1996. support from other women was not an emotional
Dykewomon, Elana. The Real Fat Woman Po- choice but political necessity.
ems. Nothing Will Be as Sweet as the Taste. Feminist scholars have developed this idea that
London: Onlywomen, 1995. women build and are sustained by kinlike networks
Fraser, Laura. Losing It. New York: Dutton, 1997. in a number of ways. In 1985, Signs devoted a spe-
Schoenfielder, Lisa, and Barb Wieser, eds. Shadow cial issue to examinations of womens communi-
on a Tightrope: Writings by Women on Fat ties in a variety of eras and places. In it Sklar ex-
Oppression. Introduction by Vivian Mayer. San amined the community within Hull House, a set-
Francisco: Aunt Lute, 1983. tlement house in Chicago, Illinois, founded in the
late nineteenth century by Jane Addams, focusing
See also Advertising and Consumerism; Body Im- on the numerous ways that institution met its resi-
age; Discrimination; Health; Stereotypes; Stigma dents needs. In the 1990s studies on the role of
women (and men) in the civil rights movement
noted that far more than material needs must be
Female Support Networks provided for people to construct and sustain po-
Term coined by Blanche Weisen Cook in Female litical activism.
Support Networks and Political Activism: Lillian Cooks essay was important not only because of
Wald, Crystal Eastman, and Emma Goldman its contribution to the literature on womens com-
(1977). In it, she argued that these activist women munities but also because it contributed to the de-
of the Progressive Era turned to other women for bate over the definition of lesbian in the 1970s
emotional sustenance even though, in some cases, and 1980s. Reacting in part to narrow definitions
their sexual partners were men. of lesbianism as exclusively sexual behavior, Cook
Cooks essay contributed to the developing defined lesbians as women who love women, who
scholarship on the importance of womens com- choose women to nurture and support and to cre-
munities that first gained broad notice with Carroll ate a living environment in which to work creatively
Smith-Rosenbergs The Female World of Love and and independently. Other historians and theorists
Ritual: Relations Between Women in Nineteenth- saw this emphasis on emotional bonds as possibly
Century America (1975). While Smith- erasing or minimizing lesbians erotic and sexual
Rosenbergs work in the inaugural issue of the femi- attractions and activities and reinforcing stereotypes
nist scholarly journal Signs: Journal of Women in of women as sexually passive and less sexually de-
Culture and Society, noted middle-class and elite siring than men. In the 1990s these debates over the
womens bonds with each other in their private importance and meaning of affectional and sexual
lives, Female Support Networks and Political relationships in womens lives continued.
Activism applied this idea to prominent women Trisha Franzen
and their public lives. Cook challenged the idea
that womens emotional relationships had no rel- Bibliography
evance to their public work and activism. Communities of Women. Signs: Journal of
These works signaled the growing importance of Women in Culture and Society 10:4 (Summer
studies of worlds of women for feminist scholarship. (1985) (Special Issue).
Cooks work, along with that of others, such as Freed- Cook, Blanche Weisen. Female Support Networks
man (1970), acknowledged that women-centered and Political Activism: Lillian Wald, Crystal
networks existed throughout American society and Eastman, and Emma Goldman. Chrysalis 3
were perhaps strongest when and where women (1977), 4361.
gained least through existing or potential heterosexual Freedman, Estelle. Separatism as Strategy: Female
connections. Studies of these networks demonstrated Institution Building and American Feminism,
how many of womens private and public needs were 18701930. Feminist Studies 5:3 (Fall 1970),
satisfied within the communities and networks of 512529.

292 F AT L I B E R AT I O N
Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. The Female World of The politicization of issues typically dismissed as
Love and Ritual: Relations Between Women in private and idiosyncratic, such as body image, sexu-
Nineteenth-Century America. Signs: Journal ality, intimate and familial relationships, emotional
of Women in Culture and Society 1:1 (Autumn states, and religious experiences, is a key compo-
1975), 130. nent of feminism, so much so that the personal is
the political became a major slogan for the resur-
See also Addams, Jane; Community gence of feminist activity that took place in the
United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Feminism History
A diverse sociopolitical movement with a long his- The term feminism entered the common vocabu-
tory. Feminism denotes conscious advocacy for lary in the early twentieth century. However, no ex-
womens civil, social, and human rights. However, act date has been established for the dawn of a femi-
historical change and cultural variation make femi- nist sensibility, and there are different opinions as
nism impossible to define in any monolithic sense. to how far back in history feminism extends. Some
Feminism includes a wide range of collective and trace feminism back to ancient mythsof Amazon
individual beliefs and expressions concerning the warriors, for exampleor to pre-Christian artifacts
situation of women in society; it may be embraced suggesting the dominance of matrifocal social or-
as a political strategy, a philosophical orientation, ganization and goddess worship. Others trace femi-
a mode of theoretical analysis, a personal commit- nism back to early European writers such as
ment to a set of organic beliefs and practices, a Christine de Pisan (13641430?), who defended
revolutionary struggle for human freedom, a model womens moral and intellectual nature. The wide-
for an ideal social state, and an entire gestalt spread persecution and murder of witches in the six-
(worldview) that encompasses everything from teenth and seventeenth centuries may also be seen
labor and economics, to language and psychology, as indicative of early feminist resistance.
to religion and spirituality. Modern Western feminism developed alongside
Feminism opposes hierarchy based on sex and, rapid industrialization, economic shifts, and
therefore, challenges the categorical assumption of changes in family structure and social organiza-
one sexs superiority and authority over the other. tion. A major philosophical influence was the En-
Feminism seeks to expose and eradicate the debase- lightenment conception of the subject as a free-
ment, mistreatment, and oppression of women. It standing individual possessed of certain inalienable
calls into question distortions of womens human rights. This notion is apparent in eighteenth-cen-
capacities and limitations of their opportunities. tury feminist writings, such as Mary
Central to feminist thought is the belief that the Wollstonecrafts (17591797) Vindication of the
sexes are not wholly predestined by God, biology, Rights of Women (1789), which argued for wom-
or a transcendent natural order but are socially ens education. In the United States, womens po-
constructed by cultural beliefs and practices that litical activism for human rights was centered in
become naturalized so as to seem beyond question. the early-nineteenth-century movement to abolish
Feminism confronts these ideological patterns in slavery. Many of the women who participated in
thought and behavior in order to reevaluate them the abolitionist struggle later joined the suffrage
and impel change. For example, feminist thinkers movement, which evolved out of the 1848 Seneca
have distinguished between sex (as a biological and Falls Convention in New York state, where women
physiological condition) and gender (as the cultur- gathered to discuss their own civil rights agenda.
ally specific ways in which human subjects are so- Feminism in the United States is often described
cially induced to express the properties of their sex). in terms of two historical flourishings, or waves.
This distinction suggests that differences in sex or First wave feminism was chiefly mobilized
reproductive function do not inevitably produce around the vote, although activists also focused
gender dimorphism or stereotypes of femininity and on standards of moral purity, education and occu-
masculinity. Feminism entwines personal experi- pations for women, and critiques of marriage and
ence and political analysis in complex ways as it motherhood. Second wave feminism developed
works to undo the historical trivialization and iso- out of post-World War II economic and social
lation of womens labor, social roles, and functions. changes and drew inspiration from the American

FEMINISM 293
 civil rights movement. Activities and issues associ- Bibliography
F ated with the second wave include group con-
sciousness raising, reproductive and sexual free-
Cott, Nancy. The Grounding of Modern Feminism.
New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987.
dom, the formation of the National Organization Echols, Alice. Daring To Be Bad: Radical Femi-
for Women (NOW), passage of the Equal Rights nism in America, 19671975. Minneapolis:
Amendment, and the establishment of womens University of Minnesota Press, 1989.
studies in higher education. Heller, Dana. Cross Purposes: Lesbians, Feminists,
While these issues are far reaching, mainstream and the Limits of Alliance. Bloomington and
movement organizers, like their nineteenth-century Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997.
predecessors, tended to concentrate on matters per- hooks, bell. Aint I a Woman: Black Women and
taining to white, heterosexual, middle-class women. Feminism. Boston: South End, 1981.
In the 1970s and 1980s, feminism was marked by Mitchell, Juliet. Women: The Longest Revolution.
debates over its responsiveness to the concerns of London: Virago, 1984.
African American women, Latinas, Third World Moraga, Cherre, and Gloria Anzalda. This Bridge
women, working-class women, and lesbians. The Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women
lesbian issue erupted in controversy as lesbian-bait- of Color. New York: Kitchen Table: Women of
ing became a favored tactic of feminisms detrac- Color Press, 1981, 1983.
tors, and as some movement organizers responded Morgan, Robin, ed. Sisterhood Is Powerful: An
defensively. While not all feminists are lesbian, nor Anthology of Writings from the Womens Lib-
all lesbians feminists, feminism has historically de- eration Movement. New York: Vintage, 1970.
fended womens right to define their own identities
and desires and to make their own choices, includ- See also Enlightenment, European; Suffrage Move-
ing the choice to live outside traditional heterosexual ment; Womens Liberation Movement
relationships with men. In the nineteenth century,
nontraditional couplings, called Boston mar-
riages, made it possible for women to live and work Fiction
together, although there is little evidence that these Certain forms of imaginative literaturemost com-
relationships were sexual. In the late twentieth cen- monly, prose narratives such as novels, novellas,
tury, many lesbians sought an egalitarian sister- and short storiesthe contents of which are ordi-
hood within the feminist movement. While some narily understood to be invented.
feminists idealized lesbians as the vanguard of the Fiction has been a central factor in the develop-
movement, others vilified them as the movements ment of modern understandings of lesbianism
greatest liability. This latter tendency prompted many within Western culture. From the mid-nineteenth
lesbians to break away and form their own separa- century to the last decades of the twentieth cen-
tist communities. tury, novels have served as a primary source of ac-
counts of lesbianism for readers of all sexual iden-
Contemporary Feminist Politics tities. Literary work has been easier to produce
In the late twentieth century, feminism became in- because it is cheaper to write and to publishand
creasingly attentive to the differences and contradic- harder to censor than theater or, as the decades
tions that make women, as a group, irreducible to passed, than radio, film, or television. Books might
any singular identity. Contemporary feminist politics be free in public libraries or for sale cheaply on
is understood to encompass many different identi- drugstore racks. They could be easily hidden and
ties, traditions, nationalities, and objectives. In the read without observation. As a form of writing,
1990s, the term feminism often appeared in the fiction has been more influential than poetry, in
plural, as feminisms, and some feminists catego- Western culture, because of the importance of nar-
rized their beliefs as liberal, radical, cultural, social- rative, of story, as the means by which one can
ist, or lesbian feminist. While this fragmentation has simultaneously describe and explain social, emo-
suggested to some a loss of common vision, others tional, and sexual experience.
have applauded feminisms ability to continually The novel has been the literary form dedicated
readapt itself, calling up new questions and drawing to a detailed accounting of the social order and,
on new resources and international perspectives. consequently, of social deviance. It has been the
Dana Heller literary and, more broadly, the cultural arena in

294 FEMINISM
which women have been most often represented, lesbians representations of lesbianism, because pub-
of which women are most likely to be the produc- lishing and circulating written materials were still
ers, and of which the majority of readers have his- comparatively inexpensive. The novel continued to
torically been women. Moreover, the novel has been be central to lesbian print culture for the reasons it
the literary form in which personal relationships has always been influential.
generally, and sexual relationships specifically Identifying lesbian fiction, whether or not a novel
especially when the focus is on womenare cen- is understood to be about lesbianism, has depended
tral subjects. Finally, novels have historically been almost as much on the historical moment at which
presented as true stories, if not true in the sense of it is being read and the reader as on the novels con-
describing actual people, then true in the sense of tent or form or the life of its author. Because of the
describing the world as it is. social stigma attached to lesbianism and the broad
cultural hostility that that stigma reflects, critics and
Fiction as Information writers across the twentieth century (sometimes even
The novel has shared its role as a source of infor- lesbian critics and writers) have been reluctant to
mation about lesbianism with scientific texts and identify literary work as lesbian, either to spare the
with newspapers, to the degree to which scientists work and/or its author from stigma or to ensure
and journalists share the novelists ability to tell that lesbianism continue to seem as ugly and incon-
stories and claim that they are true. Novels, scien- sequential as possible, and so remain stigmatized.
tific texts, and newspapers have also influenced However, particularly in the second half of the twen-
each others accounts of lesbianism: Novelists have tieth century, and especially after the inception of
relied on the theories of doctors; journalists have the womens and gay liberation movements, other
turned to novels for models of writing about ho- writers and critics (particularly, but not exclusively,
mosexuality; and journalists reports have been self-identified lesbians) have been committed to iden-
incorporated into doctors accounts of lesbian lives. tifying and discussing a range of literary work as
Fiction prevailed over scientific texts because nov- lesbian, in order to develop more complex
els are more accessibleeasier to get hold of and understandings of lesbianism and so defy and, ulti-
to readthan medical studies. Newspapers have mately, defuse the stigma.
not generally had the space to develop their stories The type of novel that has been, and still is, most
or the independence from public opinion that some consistently read as lesbian consists of a central nar-
novelists have been able to claim. rative focused on a sexual relationship between two
The novels role as a source of information di- women. Other factors have added to the likelihood
minished over the last decades of the twentieth cen- of a given work being interpreted as lesbian, the
tury, as a result of changes in the social situation of most important being the presence of a masculine
lesbians and, consequently, changes in mainstream woman. She is the character type most likely to be
cultural representations of lesbianism, as well as the read as a lesbian, as a result of a combination of
generally declining influence of the printed word. late-nineteenth-century scientific studies of sexual-
The gay liberation and womens liberation move- ity and popular perceptions of lesbians as women
ments of the late 1960s and the 1970s challenged who should have been, or want to be, men. The
social hostility to lesbianism and also produced new most widely known lesbian novel, Radclyffe Halls
lesbian-identified presses, newspapers, and journals, (18801943) The Well of Loneliness (1928), which
which began to publish essays, poems, anthologies combines both a narrative about sexual relation-
of personal testimonies, and political writings, as ships between women and the figure of a masculine
well as novels. This new cultural production also woman, Halls heroine, Stephen Gordon, served for
included gay and lesbian theater, music, and, even- decades as the model for popular and academic
tually, film and video. Since then, the representa- understandings of what a lesbian novel should be.
tion of lesbianism has gradually increased in main- This novel also incorporates a third element com-
stream publishing, newspapers, theater, music, film, mon to fiction read as lesbian: that lesbianism itself
and video. At the same time, television, film, and is the problem of the narrative.
video have become more culturally influential, more From the 1970s to the 1990s, lesbian critics tried
widely available, and more engaging to a broad au- to broaden the pattern of the kind of fiction read as
dience than the novel. But at the end of the twenti- lesbian. One tactic was to emphasize the subversion
eth century, print remained the chief medium for of gender norms as a subject of lesbian novels, so

FICTION 295
 that, for example, Virginia Woolfs (18821941) tler pressures against writing about lesbianism. Les-
F Orlando (1928), in which the protagonist changes
from a man to a woman mid-novel, can be read as a
bian writers of Halls and subsequent generations
were certainly aware of hostility. However, the pub-
lesbian work. Another strategy was to focus on trans- lication history of Halls novel, which has been con-
gression. The most radical formulation of this ap- tinuously in print around the world (and in many
proach, by lesbian novelist Bertha Harris (1937) in languages) since it was banned in Britain in 1928,
the 1970s, was that the lesbian should be read as she suggests that censorship is not always what it seems.
is socially perceived, as a monster, and, therefore, In the United States, in the 1950s and 1960s, pub-
novels about monsters should be read as lesbian nov- lishers of the cheap paperbacks known as pulps,
els. Some critics have argued that lesbian fiction seeing economic opportunity in a combination of
and lesbian writing more broadlyis distinguished sex and taboo, solicited writers to produce lesbian
by experimental forms that replicate the disruption romances. They also sought out and reprinted les-
of conventions and the experimental forms of les- bian fiction from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s that
bian lives. Other critics have argued that all of the originally had been published by mainstream presses,
work of lesbian writersas, for example, all of the from The Well to Gale Wilhelms (19081991) We
art produced by lesbian artistsshould be read as Too Are Drifting (1935), to Mary Renaults (1905
lesbian. In other words, lesbian literature should 1983) The Friendly Young Ladies (1944). Through
be constructed in the way that national literatures the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, lesbian, feminist, and
are constructed from the work of authors seen as university presses in the United States and Britain
belonging to the nation; womens literature is under- continued to keep in print lesbian novels from the
stood as literature by women, African American lit- 1920s through the 1970s, including the work first
erature as literature by African Americans, and so reprinted as pulps; novels that were written for the
forth. But others have pushed much more stringently pulp market, such as Ann Bannons (1937) Beebo
for narrowing the range of writing considered as les- Brinker series from the late 1950s and early 1960s;
bian, arguing, for example, that many novels about and novels first published in the 1970s, such as June
female couples, which might be read as lesbian nov- Arnolds (19261982) Sister Gin (1975) and Ber-
els, were not written by lesbians and were intended tha Harriss Lover (1976), by lesbian presses that
as parody or pornography. A combination of factors subsequently folded.
should be required, these critics imply, so that only Moreover, because literary work popularly iden-
novels (or stories) by lesbians and about lesbians tified as lesbian was narrowly defined, lesbians who
would be considered as lesbian fiction. did not produce narratives focused on female cou-
These debates mirrors general debates over defi- ples in sexual relationships had a great deal of free-
nitions of lesbianism in lesbian studies, which are dom. It was even possible to write about lesbian
finally shaped by the hostility of heterosexual cul- sexuality or female couples without social condem-
ture. Those arguing for a narrower definition of nation. Clarissa Dalloways sexual responses to other
lesbian fiction see sexual relationships between women, presented through her memories in Virginia
women rarely acknowledged by the dominant cul- Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway (1925), were ignored in
ture and want more acknowledgment of this as- contemporary comment on the novel, which focused
pect of lesbian lives. Those interested in more ex- on Woolfs stylistic innovation. Gertrude Steins
pansive definitions of lesbian fiction also want more (18741946) The Autobiography of Alice B.Toklas
acknowledgment, but of a broader understanding (1933) is premised on her partnership with Toklas
of lesbian lives and work. Some critics fear, how- (18771967), but does not include any discussion
ever, that the sexual content of lesbianism might of sex or social difficulty; the book became Steins
be lost in the pursuit of a more expansive under- great popular success. In Nella Larsens (18911964)
standing of lesbianism. Passing (1928), the question of racial passing was
so charged as to account for all of the tensions be-
Publication History tween Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry for the nov-
Discussions of lesbianism and fiction often empha- els contemporary readers.
size censorship, usually referring back to the obscen-
ity trial that followed the publication of Halls The Conventions
Well of Loneliness, which is viewed as evidence that In the novels that were read as about lesbianism
lesbian novels were prohibited or as a sign of sub- (as often still in mainstream fiction, film, and

296 FICTION
television), female couples are usually represented nunca pas por sus labios (1983), or anthologies such
in relation to heterosexuality. The lesbian lovers as Moraga and Gloria Anzaldas (1942) This Bridge
are shown in contrast to a heterosexual couple, in Called My Back: Writings of Radical Women of Color
contrast to the heterosexual experience of one or (1981), which combine all of these forms of writing.
both of the women in the lesbian couple, or as re- This movement away from the novel in writing
deemed by the return of one of those women to about race reflects a general pattern whereby the
heterosexuality at the end of the story. In many most innovative lesbian writing of the post-Stone-
lesbian novels, one woman leaves her male suitor wall period has usually taken forms other than that
for another woman; in many others, a female cou- of fiction, or, if fiction, it has been predominantly
ple is disrupted by a man. The endings of narra- experimental fiction or short stories. That devel-
tives about female couples have been, until the last opment underlines the limits of the lesbian novel
decades of the twentieth century, almost always as it has been generally recognizedas did the in-
grim: Like many stories about heterosexual women, creasing emphasis among lesbian novelists of the
lesbian novels have ended in either (heterosexual) 1980s and 1990s on genre fiction, such as detec-
marriage or death. The women who did not turn tive fiction, science fiction, or fantasy, in which
to heterosexuality in the end often instead fell out whether the girl gets the girl does not have to be
of windows or fell into psychiatric breakdowns. the focus of the narrative.
To establish a difference within lesbian couples un- Gay men and male couples have appeared in
derstood by the dominant culture as undifferenti- novels by and about lesbians from the work of high
ated because of the absence of a man, the lovers in modernist Virginia Woolf to popular historical
lesbian novels were invariably represented as di- novelists such as Mary Renault, raising questions
vided by gendermasculine/feminineand/or about the history of lesbians relation to gay men
older/younger, richer/poorer, brunette/ blonde, and gay culture. Gay men have served in lesbian
teacher/student. Class distinctions were usually novels as guides to gay life, from Jonathan Brockett
absorbed into age differences. All-female environ- in The Well of Loneliness to Jack Mann in Bannons
mentsgirls schools, sororities, womens pris- Beebo Brinker series, suggesting the degree to which
onsin which lesbianism could be understood as gay men represent homosexuality. Absent from the
the result of the absence of men, were favored set- lesbian fiction of the 1970s and 1980s, gay men
tings. Until the publication of Ann Allen Shockleys returned in the 1990s, often in fiction about the
(1927) Loving Her (1974), whiteness was as- AIDS epidemic, by writers such Sarah Schulman
sumed, even promoted in conjunction with the fre- (1958) and Rebecca Brown (1956). This reinte-
quently upper-class status of fictional lesbians, who gration of gay men into lesbian fiction was matched
could then be dismissed as apart from ordinary life. by the growing presence of lesbians in gay fiction
in the 1980s and 1990s, in novels by Edmund
Post-Stonewall (1969) Writing White (1940), for example, David Leavitt (1961
Shockleys first novel was followed by a collection of ), and E.Lynn Harris (n.d.).
stories, The Black and the White of It (1980), and
another novel, Say Jesus and Come to Me (1982), as Conclusion
well as the work of other African American novelists Which fiction will be read as lesbian matters be-
and short-story writers, such as Alice Walker (1944 cause of the novels role in the development of
), Becky Birtha (1948), and Jewelle Gomez (1948). mainstream and subcultural understandings of les-
In the 1980s and 1990s, critics looked beyond the bianism. Novels read as lesbian have been consist-
novel for the history of African American lesbian ently treated as true stories: endorsed by real and
writing to the diaries of Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1875 bogus medical authorities (when sufficiently atten-
1935) and the poetry of Angelina Weld Grirnk tive to scientific theories or so titillating as to need
(18801958). Most lesbian writing about racial dif- cover); praised by mainstream reviewers for their
ference in the post-Stonewall decades has not been in honesty (when sufficiently grim); read by hostile
novels but in short fiction, poetry, the essay, and a and friendly critics and readers alike as their au-
range of forms of memoir and autobiography, such thors autobiographies; and sought out by genera-
as Audre Lordes (19341992) biomythography, tions of lesbian readers needing accounts of lives
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982), Cherre like their own. Readers have looked to fiction for
Moragas (1952) Loving in the War Years: Lo que the truth about lesbianism not only because

FICTION 297
 novels represent themselves as true, but also be- 1960s. Then, as now, however, it must be noted
F cause lesbianism has had to be justified. If the story
were true, it had educational value; readers of all
that teen readers read widely and do not confine
themselves to YA literature. Some of this literary
perspectives could tell themselves they were just output was dismissed by critics as problem nov-
looking for information, and lesbian readers, in elsdidactic and simplistic accounts of teenage
particular, could see the novel as confirmation of angst in the context of current social issues. The
their own existence. Lesbian fiction can be treated best of them, however, were heralded as refreshing
as fiction only insofar as lesbianism itself no longer examples of a new realism in YA literature:
needs justification. Julie Abraham books narrated by a young adult protagonist and
characterized by candor, unidealized characters and
Bibliography settings, colloquial language, and the portrayal of
Abraham, Julie. Are Girls Necessary? Lesbian realistic problems faced by contemporary adoles-
Writing and Modern Histories, New York: cents that did not necessarily find resolution in a
Routledge, 1996. happy ending. Among these were novels that ex-
Castle, Terry. The Apparitional Lesbian: Female plored homosexuality and social prejudice against
Homosexuality and Modern Culture. New lesbians and gay men. The first YA novel to ad-
York: Columbia University Press, 1993. dress these issues was John Donovans Ill Get
Jay, Karla, and Joanne Glasgow, eds. Lesbian Texts There. It Better Be Worth the Trip (1969), the story
and Contexts: Radical Revisions. New York: of an ambiguous relationship between two teen-
New York University Press, 1990. age boys. More recently, novels in this genre have
Martin, Biddy. Femininity Played Straight: The Sig- been appearing at a rate of three to seven per year.
nificance of Being Lesbian. New York: In contrast to the central role that smaller presses
Routledge, 1996. have played in gay and lesbian publishing, most
Munt, Sally, ed. New Lesbian Criticism: Literary gay and lesbian YA titles are from mainstream pub-
and Cultural Readings. New York: Columbia lishers. Although adolescents read gay and lesbian
University Press, 1992. novels from small presses, these titles are not usu-
Roof, Judith. Come as You Are: Sexuality and ally aimed solely and specifically at the YA mar-
Narrative. New York: Columbia University ket. As with most of YA literature, YA novels with
Press, 1996. gay and lesbian content generally feature white
Zimmerman, Bonnie. The Safe Sea of Women: Les- middle-class teens, urban or suburban settings, and
bian Fiction, 19691979. Boston: Beacon, gay and lesbian characters who are basically indis-
1990. tinguishable from their heterosexual peers. The two
most common plot elements are gay and lesbian
See also Anzalda, Gloria; Arnold, June; Bannon, romances and the coming out story, in which young
Ann; Dunbar-Nelson, Alice; Grimk, Angelina Weld; adult protagonists who are not gay or lesbian them-
Hall, Radclyffe; Lorde, Audre; Moraga, Cherre; selves come to terms with the gay or lesbian iden-
Mystery and Detective Fiction; Pulp Paperbacks; tity of parents, siblings, uncles, teachers, or friends.
Renault, Mary; Science Fiction; Shockley, Ann Allen; A few of the more recent books contain characters
Stein, Gertrude; Wilhelm, Gale; Woolf, Virginia who happen to be gay or lesbian in a plot that
does not revolve around sexual-orientation issues.
Genre fiction aimed at YAs, such as Alyson Press
Fiction, Young Adult Pride Pack mystery adventure series (1995), has
Fiction written and told from a young adult per- also begun to appear. While the proportion of male
spective about a youthful protagonist facing prob- and female narrators are approximately equal, YA
lems and issues associated with adolescence. While books with gay male content have consistently
coming-of-age stories have a long history and a outnumbered books with lesbian content by a ra-
wide readership, books began being marketed spe- tio of nearly three to one. In addition, the vast
cifically to a young adult (YA) audience in the 1940s majority of books with gay male content do not
and 1950s, with the rise in visibility of a distinct include lesbians, and vice versa.
teenage market. This, plus the burgeoning num- Rosa Guys coming-of-age romance Ruby, pub-
bers of baby-boom adolescents, produced an up- lished in 1976, was the first YA novel with lesbian
surge of YA publishing in the United States in the content and the first gay and lesbian YA novel by

298 FICTION
and about people of color. Since that time, YA bians are rare; autonomous adult lesbians are non-
books with lesbian content have appeared at a rate existent. Furthermore, there is seldom any larger
of roughly one to two per year, with most reflect- community outside the dyad; most fictional les-
ing patterns of setting, plot, and character similar bian couples live in apparent isolation from other
to those found in YA novels with gay male con- lesbians or gay men.
tent. Lesbians in YA novels rarely reflect the social Perhaps the best-known YA novel with lesbian
stereotypes associated with them: Few have short content is Nancy Gardens Annie on My Mind
hair, excel at sports, play pool, drive trucks, or work (1982), a realistic portrayal of the falling-in-love
in nontraditional jobs. Most of these novels fea- process of two high school girls. Other outstand-
ture an adolescent female protagonist in her first ing novels in this genre include M.E.Kerrs Deliver
romantic relationship with another woman. The Us from Evie (1994), a romance between a hand-
outcome of the romance depends very much on some young butch and the bankers beautiful
the age of the book. Many of the earlier novels daughter, and Jacqueline Woodsons From the
were predictable stories of painful relationships Notebooks of Melanin Sun (1995), narrated by an
between naive protagonists and fickle teenage African American teen whose world is shaken when
temptresses. In others, teenage lesbian couples were his longsingle mother enters a relationship with a
tested with exceptional difficulties (in Sandra white woman. Am I Blue? Coming Out From the
Scoppettones Happy Endings Are All Alike [1978], Silence (1994), edited by Marion Dane Bauer, is a
for example, a young lesbian is assaulted and notable anthology of sixteen short stories explor-
raped). Few adult lesbians were pictured, but they ing gay and lesbian issues in the lives of teenagers;
also faced misfortunes, including terminal illness, half of the stories feature lesbians.
job loss, and child-custody battles. Thus, from the Not surprisingly, YA fiction with lesbian or gay
mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, most YA novels with content has come under persistent attack from indi-
lesbian content fell into the category of problem viduals and groups (chiefly religious fundamental-
novel, presenting lesbianism as a problem to be ists) who object to any inclusion of homosexuality
resolved rather than an attraction to be explored in materials for younger audiences. However, in a
or a relationship to be created. Since the mid-1980s, 1995 case involving the presence of Annie on My
however, the trend has been to treat lesbianism as Mind in the high school libraries of Olathe, Kansas,
simply one aspect of the conflicts and complica- a federal judge ruled that the school boards removal
tions that any romantic relationship might create of the book was a violation of students First Amend-
in a young adults life. The source of the tension ment rights and, thus, unconstitutional.
has shifted away from the same-sex relationship Christine Jenkins
itself and toward the responses it elicits from fam-
ily, friends, and community. Most late-twentieth- Bibliography
century novels portray teen and adult lesbians ei- Clyde, Lauren A., and Marjorie Lobban. Out of
ther as central characters who persevere in the face the Closet and into the Classroom: Homosexu-
of various difficultiesincluding, but not limited ality in Books for Young People. Port Mel-
to, homophobia and heterosexismor as second- bourne, Australia: ALIA Thorpe, 1992.
ary characters who are part of the social milieu Cuseo, Allan A. Homosexual Characters in Young
inhabited by the teenage protagonist. Adult Novels: A Literary Analysis, 19691982.
Aside from the early prevalence of tragic teen Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1992.
romances and adult losses, one of the most intrigu- Jenkins, Christine. From Queer to Gay and Back
ing patterns in these books is the consistent por- Again: Young Adult Novels with Gay/Lesbian/
trayal of lesbians as existing only in long-term cou- Queer Content, 19691997. Library Quar-
pled relationships. This cozy image is problematic terly 69 (July 1998), 298334.
in its ubiquity, as it frames females as entirely de-
pendent upon connections with others for their See also Adolescence; Fiction
selfdefinition. Fictional gay men frequently come
to a realization of their sexual orientation inde-
pendent of any actual relationship. Fictional lesbi- Field, Michael
ans, however, do not exist unless they have some- Pen name for Katherine Harris Bradley (18461914)
one to be a lesbian with: Autonomous teenage les- and Edith Emma Cooper (18621913), an English

FIELD, MICHAEL 299

 couple who collaboratively wrote poetry and plays. Bibliography
F In 1865, Bradley assumed care for threeyear-old
Edith, when Ediths mother, Bradleys aunt, became
Laird, Holly. Contradictory Legacies: Michael
Field and Feminist Restoration. Victorian Po-
an invalid. Bradley and Cooper were seldom sepa- etry 33:1 (Spring 1995), 111128.
rated thereafter, although Bradley attended Leighton, Angela. Victorian Women Poets: Writ-
Newnham College of Cambridge University, Col- ing Against the Heart. Hemel Hempstead, Eng-
lege de France, England, Paris. In 1878, Cooper land: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992;
accompanied Bradley to University College in Bris- Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia,
tol, where they participated in suffrage organiza- 1992, pp. 202243.
tions, debate societies, and antivivisectionist activi- Prins, Yopie. A Metaphorical Field: Katherine
ties. By the time Cooper was twenty, she and Bradley Bradley and Edith Cooper. Victorian Poetry
had sworn Against the world, to be/Poets and lov- 33:1 (Spring 1995), 129148.
ers evermore. From then on, they lived together, White, Chris. Poets and Lovers Evermore: In-
traveled abroad together, and collaborated on two terpreting Female Love in the Poetry and Jour-
dozen tragic dramas on classical and historical nals of Michael Field. Textual Practice 4:2
themes and eight volumes of neopagan lyric poetry. (Summer 1990), 197212. Reprinted in Sexual
In private life, Bradley called herself Michael, and Sameness: Textual Differences in Lesbian and
Cooper was Field or, more often, Henry; friends Gay Writing. Ed. Joseph Bristow. New York:
referred to them as the Fields. Comparing them- Routledge, 1992, pp. 2643.
selves to Elizabeth (18061861) and Robert Brown-
ing (18121889), the two women declared: We are See also Poetry
closer married. Their relationship may have con-
tributed to the theories of their friend Havelock Ellis
(18591939), the British sexologist. Film, Alternative
In 1884, Michael Field was welcomed as a Film produced and distributed outside established,
promising new writer, but when he was revealed as commercial channels. Alternative film provides
a spinster aunt and niece, public interest quickly forms of expression and creative opportunities for
faded. Nonetheless, praise from fellow poets, includ- marginalized filmmakers and audiences; it includes
ing Robert Browning, George Meredith (1828 the majority of lesbian films with explicit lesbian
1909), Arthur Symons (18651945), W.B.Yeats content.
(18651939), Vernon Lee (18561935), and George The phrase alternative film began to be used
Moore (18521933), encouraged the women to in the 1970s, the result of debates among filmmak-
continue writing. Their plays are well researched and ers and critics concerning the possibilities of a new
often at least mildly feminist. Bradley and Coopers and different kind of cinema that would challenge
close friends, the couple Charles Ricketts (1866 both the form and the production/distribution
1931) and Charles Shannon (18631937), privately models of Hollywood cinema. The alternative
printed elegant illustrated editions of four of their in alternative film is thus an alternative to the clas-
tragedies at the Vale Press. sical Hollywood cinema: produced by large stu-
Michael Fields poetry compares with the late- dios with equally large budgets, featuring well-
century aesthetic lyrics of Oscar Wilde (1854 known stars, and appealing to the largest possible
1900), whom they knew. Long Ago (1889) is a audiences. Alternative film was characterized not
collection of intense, sensuous verses based on just by its different means of production, but also
Sappho (ca. 600 B.C.E.); it contains the transsexual by a different style, for one of the concerns of the
poem Tiresias, extolling the joys and pleasures creators of alternative film was to provide an aes-
of female sexuality. Underneath the Bough (1893) thetic alternative to Hollywood. If Hollywood cin-
includes A Girl, often considered Bradleys en- ema provided a seamless form of entertainment
raptured tribute to her partner. When Cooper de- based on a realist aesthetic, then alternative film
veloped cancer, Bradley nursed her until her death, sought to engage spectators more actively by pro-
then died of cancer herself within a year. Their col- viding different forms of identification.
laborative journal, Works and Days (1933), pub- Lesbian alternative film traces its origins to femi-
lished after their deaths, seems to confirm the sexu- nism and the womens movement, which, in the
ality implied in their poetry. Kathleen Hickok 1960s and 1970s, defined womens images as

300 FIELD, MICHAEL

crucial to an understanding of both womens op- are available on home video) developed a regular
pression and womens liberation and to new ways segment on this theme, entitled I Was a Lesbian
of understanding film that emerged in the 1970s. Child, in which adult lesbians examine childhood
To be sure, there had been alternative cinema long images and their own lesbian formations.
before the 1970s. But something changed during Autobiographical and personal-essay films typi-
that decade: Film became a more accessible me- cally use voice-over narration (often that of the film-
dium for potential filmmakers, and the generation maker herself) and lyrical imagery to explore the
of filmmakers who came of age had been exposed imagery of lesbian identity. The autobiographical
to an image culture throughout their lives. Lesbian film is not unique to lesbian filmmaking, and, in
alternative film shared with feminist alternative film fact, there was, and continues to be, a strong link
an attempt to use film both as consciousness rais- between lesbian alternative film and feminist alter-
ing and as the means to create new and challeng- native film. Michelle Citrons Daughter Rite
ing portraits of (lesbian) womens lives. At the same (1978), for example, interweaves staged interviews
time, lesbian alternative film was influenced by the with two sisters and the filmmakers own home
emergence of new ways of thinking about the me- movies (which are slowed down, repeated, and
dium of film. reexamined in a variety of ways). The films medi-
Alternative film refers not only to individual tation on the strong bonds between women and
films, but also to the ways in which films are seen. on the reconsideration of the past suggests how
In the 1970s, alternative films were viewed in film the preoccupations of feminist and lesbian alter-
festivals, at colleges and universities, and in muse- native film have shared strong similarities.
ums. Alternative viewing sites thus constituted a The second category is the revisionist film, in
challenge to commercial cinema. The development which various genres and/or (mis)representations
of home-viewing systems and of a wide range of of lesbians and lesbianism are read critically. The
independent production and distribution practices medium of film is used self-critically to create both
in the 1980s and 1990s have meant that alterna- a critical look at the past and an appropriation of
tive film has a much wider potential audience than popular forms to lesbian ends. This category in-
was possible in the 1970s. cludes self-reflexive films, as well as films that at-
tempt to take established genres and lesbianize
Lesbian Alternative Filmmaking them. While this revisionist approach has been
Lesbian alternative film emerged in the 1970s more characteristic of lesbian alternative film (and
through the work of directors such as Barbara video) in the late 1980s and 1990s, its bases were
Hammer, Jan Oxenberg, and Chantal Akerman. present in the emergent 1970s. Oxenbergs Com-
Three strains of alternative filmmaking developed, edy in Six Unnatural Acts (1975) looks at popular
and they have continued to characterize trends conceptions of lesbianism, both from without (the
through the 1980s and 1990s. lesbian Girl Scout leader who lures young girls with
First, in the autobiographical and personal-es- cookies) and from within (the mating rituals of the
say format, film is used as a means of tracing the lesbian community, in which two womens first date
emergence of lesbian identity and of exploring the is quite literally a community event). By grouping
various ways in which film can function as a first- the stereotypes together, the film mocks them and
person form of narration. Virtually all of Ham- defuses their power simultaneously.
mers 1970s films fall into this category, from the Hammers Nitrate Kisses (1993) examines the
lyrical evocation of lesbian sexuality in Women I lesbian sexuality occurs in the film through a dou-
Love (1979), which shows a variety of women, ble ways in which lesbianism has been both repre-
including Hammer herself, to the exploration of sented and elided in a variety of contexts, from
the highs and lows (literally) of lesbian relation- early cinema to Nazi Germany. Su Friedrichs
ships in Double Strength (1978), which represents Damned If You Dont (1987) explores the lesbian
Hammers relationship (and its demise) with a tra- sexual awakening of a nun at the same time that
peze artist. Oxenbergs Home Movie (1973) was the film Black Narcissus, Michael Powells 1947
the first of many films to use childhood home film with Deborah Kerr in the role of a nun in a
movies as a device to explore coming out as a les- convent, is quoted, paraphrased, and reread. In
bian. In the 1990s, the New York City-based cable other words, the evocation of process of a lyrical
television series Dyke TV (several episodes of which evocation of love between two women and the

F I L M , A LT E R N A T I V E 301
 simultaneous deconstruction of a classical film in troversy and discussion about what lesbian film is
F which sexual repression is evident throughout.
Lesbianism may be repressed in the Powell film,
and should beand that is exactly one of the im-
portant functions of alternative film.
but the very project of Friedrichs film is to tease it These three categories should be understood as
out. Friedrichs film is not content simply to read fluid, for a striking characteristic of lesbian alterna-
Black Narcissus; rather, the deconstruction of that tive film is its hybridityits crossing of established
film becomes the stimulus for the creation of an- boundaries and its mixing of genres. Ten Cents a
other film, another story. Dance may fit most appropriately into the category
The third category of lesbian alternative film in- of rewriting the cinema, but it also draws from the
volves the rewriting of the cinema. This category is autobiographical film (in its first section, Onodera
the most amorphous, for it includes those films in plays the role of the experienced lesbian on a date)
which lesbianism is evoked, less to provide a portrait and the revisionist film (a split screen is used through-
of lesbian identity or a representation of sexuality, as out, recalling how in wide-screen films of the 1950s,
to rewrite the very language of cinema. The lesbian such as Pillow Talk [1959], similar devices portrayed
in this category of alternative film is less evident than sexuality in a very different way). Additionally, many
in the previous two categories, and the films in this lesbian filmmakers work across different categories.
category have been quite controversial in lesbian com- Because of its commitment to stylistic and aes-
munities, particularly when they are projected in gay thetic innovation, lesbian alternative film is often
and lesbian film festivals. In the 1970s, this category defined in opposition to the narrative feature (for
is best defined by Chantal Akermans Je tu il elle (I example, Desert Hearts [1985], directed by Donna
you he she) (1974), a film divided into three parts Deitch) and the documentary film (for example, In
and connected by the voyage of the protagonist, the Best Interests of the Children [1977], directed
played by Akerman herself, as she moves from a room, by Liz Stevens, Frances Reid, and Cathy Zheutlin).
to a truck ride with a man, to an encounter with her However, the impact of alternative filmmaking has
female lover in an apartment. The film concludes with been such that the hybrid quality of lesbian cinema
a scene of lovemaking between the two women, after challenges those divisions. Forbidden Love (1993),
which the protagonist leaves. This is hardly a film directed by Lynne Fernie and Aerlyn Weissman, is
that proclaims the joys of lesbian love or the affirma- both a documentary and a narrative feature and
tion of lesbian identity; nonetheless, it uses lesbian- draws from the categories of alternative film de-
ism as a point of interrogation about the very nature scribedit includes autobiographical coming out
of cinematic pleasure, voyeurism, and narrative. The stories, a rewriting of lesbian pulp fiction of the
film is controversial not only because it does not fit 1950s and 1960s, and, in the juxtaposition of the
neatly into the category of lesbian alternative film, love story and the interviews with lesbians, it, too,
but also, and especially, because Akerman herself has attempts to create a new kind of cinematic language.
resisted the identity of lesbian filmmakerand Onoderas A Displaced View (1988) is an experi-
once refused to let a gay and lesbian film festival show mental documentary that draws upon the different
the film. modes of alternative film. Onodera explores her own
Still, it is important to include such films as Je identity and her relationship to her mother and
tu il elle in the category of lesbian alternative film, grandmother, with particular attention to the ways
not so much to appropriate them as to keep in mind in which hybrid identities are forged. Rose Troches
that the very definition of lesbian cinema is not Go Fish (1994) was one of the most commercially
necessarily clear-cut, straightforward, or obvious. successful lesbian features since Desert Hearts, and
Such flexibility in definition encourages a consid- it, too, draws upon virtually all of the techniques
eration of how lesbianism informs the notion of associated with lesbian alternative film.
alternative film in different ways. Midi Alternative modes of distribution and exhibi-
Onoderas Ten Cents a Dance (1985), for instance, tion are central to the success of lesbian alternative
has also been controversial, particularly in the con- film. Some lesbian films have become widely avail-
text of gay and lesbian film festivals, because the able in commercial outlets; the video versions of
film (like Akermans) situates its lesbian scene as Forbidden Love and Go Fish can be found in large
only one of three in the film. But Ten Cents a Dance video rental stores, and cable television has offered
is also an original exploration of the aesthetics of some screenings of lesbian film. While these suc-
desire and communication. It has provoked con- cesses are important, there would be no such thing

302 F I L M , A LT E R N A T I V E
as lesbian alternative cinema without groups like duced in Hollywood or elsewhere, remains the vam-
Women Make Movies, the New York City-based pire. In some instances the lesbian vampire is de-
distributor committed to a wide range of womens picted in metaphorical terms, while in others she
filmmaking, including lesbian alternative film. Nor finds literal representation. In both cases, however,
would lesbian alternative cinema be a reality with- the appellation lesbian is an approximation. The
out both gay and lesbian and womens film festi- lesbian vampires of the cinema are not solely fe-
vals, which continue to provide opportunities to male identified, nor do they always pursue their
see films and videos that challenge viewers notions victims in explicitly sexual ways. What renders
of what images can be. Judith Mayne them lesbian is their preference for females and their
association with enduring stereotypes: They are
Bibliography usually aggressive, nonreproductive, sexually and
Dyer, Richard. Now You See It: Studies on Les- socially aberrant, and conventionally masculine in
bian and Gay Film. New York: Routledge, behavior. Metaphorical lesbian vampires can be
1990. found in Roberto Rossellinis Rome, Open City
Weiss, Andrea. Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in (19441945) and Claude Chabrols Les Biches
the Cinema. London: Jonathan Cape, 1992. (1967). Literal representations appear in Lambert
Hillyers Dracula s Daughter (1936), Roy Bakers
See also Documentaries; Film, Mainstream; Video The Vampire Lovers (1970), Harry Kumels
Daughters of Darkness (1971), and Tony Scotts
The Hunger (1983).
Film, Mainstream It is difficult to locate the first cinematic repre-
Lesbians in mainstream cinema have been alternately sentation of a lesbian, given that female-identified
visible and invisible since the 1910s. Yet, even in desire is often depicted in veiled terms. In spite of
those instances when lesbian characters or women this limitation, Countess Geschwitz (Alice Roberts)
who exhibit lesbian traits (such as sexually desiring in G.W.Pabsts Die Bchse des Pandora (Pandoras
or having an intense emotional bond with another Box [1929]) seems to be the premier lesbian of cin-
woman) can be discerned, they are often white and ema. Although Geschwitz pursues a heterosexual
middle-class. In fact, the majority of lesbian por- affair as the narrative progresses, she does so to pro-
trayals have been produced by Western filmmakers tect the woman she loves, Lulu (Louise Brooks). As
who depict white heterosexuality as the norm. Thus, with other lesbian representations, the countesss
in many films, the characters who seem to be lesbi- desires are heavily impliedespecially in a waltz
ans also express sexual interest in men, or their pas- scene when Lulu and Geschwitz dance together
sions for women are implied but rarely shown di- but do not take explicit shape. In the few instances
rectly. In Sidney Drews 1914 U.S. comedy, A Florida of explicit portrayals in the 1920s, lesbians often
Enchantment, for example, a lesbian attraction is exemplify the evils of unrestrained desire, as in the
hinted at when Lillian Travers (Edith Storey) swal- images of embracing women in the orgy sequence
lows magical seeds and becomes a man. Her sex- in Cecil B.De Milles Manslaughter (1922).
change leads her to court a number of women. The While the 1930s did not bring a radical revision
lesbian implications come less from the story line, of prior depictions, Leontine Sagans Mdchen in
though, than from the viewers knowledge that the Uniform (Girls in Uniform 1931) remains a sensitive
hero is played by an actress. portrayal of adolescent female desire and a compel-
As A Florida Enchantment suggests, describing ling anti-Fascist narrative. In Sagans movie, Manuela
images of lesbians in mainstream film is often less (Hertha Thiele), a student at a boarding school, falls
about locating characters and more about pinpoint- in love with one of her teachers, Fraulein von
ing allusions to lesbianism. In Hollywood movies, Bernburg (Dorothea Wieck). After boldly declaring
images of lesbians or lesbian-associated conduct her love for von Bernburg late in the film, Manuela is
include stereotypes of the predator (Barbara rejected by the schools headmistress and prepares to
Stanwyck as the lecherous madam in Edward leap to her death from a stairwell. In one version, her
Dmytryks Walk on the Wild Side [1962]) and the schoolmates save her, but, in most of the prints that
prison warden (Evelyn Harper as the sadistic ma- circulated internationally in the early 1930s, Manuela
tron in John Cromwells Caged [1950]). The most commits suicide. Lesbian love is punished in yet an-
popular predatory image of lesbians, whether pro- other production from the 1930s. In Jacques Devals

FILM, MAINSTREAM 303

 Club des Femmes (The Girls Club [1936]), the ac- the film. While a lesbian relationship is implied in
F tion takes place in a womens dormitory. In this all-
female environment, Alice (Else Argal) becomes
this sequence, it is never explicitly shown. Allusion
is even more apparent in Alfred Hitchcocks Rebecca
enamored of Juliette (Josette Day) and exhibits jeal- (1940), since the eponymous character, who is in-
ousy when Juliette returns the affections of a man. dependent, aggressive, and rejects her husband, is
By the narratives end, Alice is banished to a leper already dead before the movie begins. The strong-
colony. est clue to suggest Rebeccas departure from hetero-
The on-screen death of lesbian desire is nowhere sexual norms is provided by Mrs. Danvers (Judith
more evident than in William Wylers These Three Anderson), a spinster who tends the mansion in
(1936). Unlike Mdchen in Uniform, however, death which Rebecca once lived and who not only adores
results not by suicide but from revisions to the films her previous employer, but also hints at an illicit
source material: Lillian Hellmans play, The Childrens relationship with her.
Hour (1934). Hellmans work tells the story of two This practice of allusion may have had some-
women who run a girls school. One of their stu- thing to do with Hollywoods Production Code, a
dents starts a rumor that they are lesbians. The girls set of guidelines intended to ensure that motion
pictures adhered to moral standards of the day. The
grandmother begins a campaign to close the school.
codes strictures were imposed on studios by their
In the original play, and in Wylers second adapta-
own professional organization, the Motion Picture
tion, The Childrens Hour (1962), the lie becomes a
Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA),
trigger for one of the women to recognize that she is,
from the early 1930s until the late 1960s. Failure
indeed, a lesbian. In the 1962 adaptation, Martha
to meet the standards of the code could result in a
(Shirley MacLaine) realizes that she is in love with
$25,000 fine and the threat that a movie would
her friend, Karen (Audrey Hepburn) and commits
not be widely released in the United States. One of
suicide. In the 1936 film, however, both the rumor
the prohibitions detailed in the Production Code
and the revelation of lesbianism are removed and re-
is sex perversion, a phrase meant to refer to prac-
placed with hints of heterosexual promiscuity. tices unacceptable to normative heterosexuality,
While portrayals of lesbians in the 1930s were such as bestiality, bisexuality, transvestitism, and
few and far between, some movie stars cultivated homosexuality. The prohibition against sex perver-
an ambiguous sexuality both on and off screen. sion ensured that representations of lesbians were
Marlene Dietrich (19011992) and Greta Garbo either nonexistent or elusive.
(19051990) were often marketed as stars who ap- The Production Code files for the MPPDA con-
pealed to women, and both played roles that could tain evidence of efforts designed to censor lesbian-
be interpreted as lesbian. Paramount publicized Josef ism. Thus, for example, censors required revisions
von Sternbergs Morocco (1930) with the following for a scene in the original script of Draculas Daugh-
slogan: Dietrichthe woman all women want to ter (1936), in which a beautiful female vampire asks
see. In one scene in particular, Dietrich wears a a young woman to undress and pose in the nude. In
mans tuxedo and kisses another woman. Garbo, the final version, the model disrobes behind a screen,
too, wears male drag in the 1930s and embraces an and only her bare neck and shoulders are shown to
actress. In Rouben Mamoulians Queen Christina the audience. This alteration was designed to remove
(1933), Garbo rules Sweden in male attire and pas- female sex perversion from the movie. Yet, such ef-
sionately kisses her lady-in-waiting, Countess Ebba forts were not always successful, since the vampires
Sparre (Elizabeth Young). Despite the erotic charge attraction to her model is quite palpable in the final
of these scenes, Dietrich and Garbo play lesbians in cut of Draculas Daughter.
only the most allusive of terms. Suggestions of lesbian desire persisted in the 1950s,
Allusion and implication remain popular repre- 1960s, and 1970s, as in Orson Welless Touch of Evil
sentational strategies to depict lesbians and are es- (1958), in which Mercedes McCambridge plays a
pecially evident in Hollywood movies made between Chicana butch who watches Janet Leigh get attacked.
the 1930s and the 1960s. For example, Sandra Shaw In Robert Wises The Haunting (1963), Claire Bloom
portrays a woman who likes to wear mens clothing portrays a neurotic woman who seductively torments
in Rowland Browns 1933 movie, Blood Money. Julie Harris. Lesbianism remains implied in both films
While she is shown with a boyfriend in a number of and is collapsed with sadism.
scenes, she also appears wearing a double-breasted The failure on the part of mainstream filmmak-
mans suit and in the company of a woman late in ers to directly depict lesbians continued into

304 FILM, MAINSTREAM

numerous films that, like their predecessors in ear- Jane (Whoopi Goldberg), an African American les-
lier decades, imply the existence of lesbians but do bian, in Herbert Rosss Boys on the Side (1995).
not portray them in straightforward ways. Diane While the Canadian film depicts the womens ro-
Kuryss Entre Nous (1983) is a good example of mance in sexual terms, Rosss Hollywood movie
this continuing practice, as are Steven Spielbergs shies away from lesbian romance and traces, in-
The Color Purple (1985) and Jon Avnets Fried stead, the relationship between a lesbian and a
Green Tomatoes (1991). In the first instance, Kurys straight woman.
tells the story of her mothers intense friendship with As this summary of lesbian representations in
another woman just after World War II. While both the history of mainstream cinema indicates, images
women have significant ties to men, their friendship of lesbians are rarely straightforward. They have
with each other is the most satisfying and emotion- to be teased out of the allusions that are built into
ally intimate. Despite the passion that the women many movies. Despite the effort demanded to lo-
exhibit for each other, Kurys keeps their relation- cate cinematic lesbians, though, there is pleasure
ship platonic. Spielbergs The Color Purple is slightly to be had in searching for them. Hopefully, there
more explicit than Entre Nous in its depiction of will be more mainstream portrayals of lesbians in
lesbian love. Based on Alice Walkers 1982 novel, future films so that the search will not be in vain.
The Color Purple traces the story of Celie (Whoopi Rhona J.Berenstein
Goldberg), an African American woman living in
the U.S. South, who must endure her husbands Bibliography
physical and mental abuse and who falls in love with Creekmur, Corey, and Alexander Doty, eds. Out
a singer named Shug (Margaret Avery). The novels in Culture: Gay, Lesbian, and Queer Essays on
exploration of the womens affair is not only ex- Popular Culture. Durham, N.C.: Duke Univer-
plicit but also lengthy. The film adaptation, how- sity Press, 1995.
ever, streamlines their romance and reduces its im- Russo, Vito. The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality
portance. Noteworthy, however, is that The Color in the Movies. New York: Harper and Row,
Purple remains one of the few mainstream films to 1985.
depict lesbian love between women of color. Weiss, Andrea. Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in
Like Entre Nous and The Color Purple, Fried Film. New York: Penguin, 1993.
Green Tomatoes portrays a close friendship be- White, Patricia. Female Spectator, Lesbian Specter:
tween two women. (Actually, the movie traces the The Haunting. In Inside/Out: Lesbian Theo-
friendships between two pairs of women, but the ries, Gay Theories. Ed. Diana Fuss. New York:
characters played by Mary Stuart Masterson [Idgie] Routledge, 1991, pp. 142172.
and Mary Louise Parker [Ruth] suggest lesbian Wilton, Tamsin, ed. Immortal Invisible: Lesbians
desire.) Although Fannie Flaggs novel, Fried Green and the Moving Image. London: Routledge,
Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (1987), depicts 1995.
the rapport between Idgie and Ruth in explicitly Zimmerman, Bonnie. Daughters of Darkness:
lesbian terms, Jon Avnet portrays them as friends. Lesbian Vampires. Jump Cut 2425 (Fall
Yet spectator responses to the movie indicate that, 1980), 2324.
while some viewers choose to read the protago-
nists as heterosexual, others, especially lesbians, See also Dietrich, Marlene; Film, Alternative;
remain convinced that the women are gay. Garbo, Greta; Hollywood
The practice of reading against the grain of
mainstream images of lesbians has become com-
mon among gay women. Spectators have become Finland
adept at reading the allusions and implications that Scandinavian republic located in northern Europe
have been coded into cinematic images. Only rarely between Sweden and Russia and containing five
do viewers get the opportunity to enjoy mainstream million citizens. Once part of Sweden, Finland was
films with openly lesbian characters. Those rare an autonomous grand principality of Russia from
instances include the interracial relationship be- 1809 to 1917 while maintaining its Lutheran Chris-
tween a white, Qubecois woman and a black, tianity.
anglophone lesbian in Patricia Rozemas Canadian The earliest record of a Finnish woman who mar-
film When Night Is Falling (1995) and the role of ried another woman dates to a court case in 1713.

FINLAND 305
 Anna Jransdotter had been acting as a soldier until The fear of denunciation, court cases, and so-
F her lance corporal was informed that Johan
Jransson was a woman. Rather than believe this,
cially ruined lives made women-loving women keep
a low profile, even though women were charged
he assumed her to be a hermaphrodite until a physi- with homosexual acts in only a few cases. Due to
cal search revealed her to be a woman. Most likely strict alcohol laws, women could not frequent bars
because of her fully developed female body, she was without male escort even after the wars, thus re-
not assumed to have been guilty of sodomy and was stricting their ability to meet and build a commu-
punished only by imprisonment with hard labor. nity around shared lesbianism. This continued until
The first case of female sexual inversion was the late 1960s, when the mixed gay organization
published in a Finnish medical journal in 1882. Psyke started to organize dance evenings.
Fruntimmer XYZ had been repeatedly treated Homosexual behavior ceased being illegal in
in a mental hospital because she had erotic feel- 1971; three years later, SETA (Sexual Equality) split
ings toward women and wanted to act accordingly. from Psyke and began making gay politics more
However, the treatment did not cure her. visible and focused on emancipation. Due to their
The legal reform of 1889 incorporated female efforts, homosexuality was removed from the list
of medical disorders in 1981.
homosexual acts into the penal code by changing
In the 1980s, the lesbian feminist group Akanat
the formulation from man to person: One
began to gather around well-established Unioni,
who fornicates with another person of the same
the League of Finnish Feminists. Among other ac-
sex could be sentenced to jail for a maximum of
tivities, Akanat published a lesbian magazine,
two years. The inclusion of women was a direct
Torajyv (19821988). Increased international
recommendation of the penal-code comittee.
contacts also influenced the lesbian sadomasochis-
The Finnish Womens Association, founded in
tic group Ekstaasi, which ran a caf and staged
1884 and inspired by Christian and nationalistic
performances in Helsinki. At the same time, the
ideals, did not oppose the law. Nevertheless, in a
mixed gay clubs run by SETA continued to attract
letter to German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld lesbians on womens evenings.
(18681935) published in 1914, a Finnish lawyer The visibility and activity of lesbians continued
made a connection between the bearded leaders into the 1990s. The Lesbian Studies Network, ac-
of the Finnish womens rights organizations with tive from 1990 to 1995, supported students and
their broad shoulders and young female compan- advanced lesbian studies in academe as a part of
ions and a certain type of homosexual woman. womens studies. The first lesbian publishing com-
In 1906, these suffragists celebrated the passage pany, Meiknainen, was founded in 1992. The
of legislation giving women the right to vote and 1990s also saw the coming out of prominent lesbi-
to be elected into the Parliament. The posthumous ans and bisexuals, such as the writer Pirkko Saisio
edited letters and diaries of one of the first women (1949) and the theater director Vivica Bandler
members of Parliament, Hilda Kkikoski (1864 (1917). Lesbians and gay men continued to work
1912), made her an icon for women who wanted together in SETA, winning a ban against discrimi-
to achieve an independent life and who, like her, nation in 1995 and working for the legal acknowl-
were attracted to other women. Another example edgment of homosexual partnerships, including
of such a woman was the modernist poet and writer reproductive rights and the right to adopt children.
Hagar Olsson (18931978), who formed a close Tuula Juvonen
relationship with another Swedish-speaking poet,
Edith Sdergran (18921923). Bibliography
The period between the civil war in 1918 and the Bandler, Vivica, with Carita Backstrm. Adressaten
beginning of World War II in 1939 witnessed both a oknd (Addressee Unknown). Helsingfors:
backlash against independent women and the rise of Schildts, 1992.
the flapper in the mixed literary circles of Helsinki. Holmstrm, Roger. Hagar Olsson och den ppna
Discussions about sexuality and gender nonconform- horisonten. Liv och diktning, 19201945
ity began to recast public awareness of earlier instances (Hagar Olsson and the Open Horizon: Life and
of female bonding in erotic terms. The poems writ- Poetry, 19201945). Esbo: Schildts, 1993.
ten by Isa Asp (18531872), for example, were seen Lfstrm, Jan. A Premodern Legacy: The Easy
in the 1930s to portray erotic sentiments resembling Criminalization of Homosexual Acts Between
those of the Greek poet Sappho. Women in the Finnish Penal Code of 1889.

306 FINLAND
 Journal of Homosexuality 34:34 (1998), into old age and, indeed, until the connections were
53279. severed by death.
Saarinen, Terhi. Alussa oli kellari. Viisi Most famous for the New Yorker Letters,
helsinkilist lesbotarinaa (In the Beginning Flanner also published a series of profiles and
There Was a Cellar: Five Lesbian Stories from monographs portraying such figures as Adolf Hit-
Helsinki). Helsinki: Seta julkaisut, 1994. ler (18891945) and Marshal Ptain (18561951),
the premier of Vichy France (19401944). Paris
See also Russia; Sweden Journal, 19441965, one of several collections of
her Paris correspondence, won the National Book
Award in 1966. Anne Charles
Flanner, Janet (18921978)
U.S. journalist. Janet Flanner was the second of three Bibliography
daughters born into a middle-class family in Castle, Terry. The Gaiety of Janet Flanner. In
Indianapolis, Indiana; her undertaker father com- The Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexu-
mitted suicide in his mortuary in 1912. Eight years ality and Modern Culture. New York: Colum-
later, Flanner married and moved to Greenwich Vil- bia University Press, 1993, pp. 186199.
lage in New York City. After the marriage dissolved, Flanner, Janet. Darlinghissima: Letters to a Friend.
Flanner met Solita Solano (18881975), the drama Ed. Natalia Danesi Murray. New York: Har-
editor of the New York Tribune, who became her vest, 1985.
first woman lover. Intent on escaping what they per- Wineapple, Brenda. Gent: A Biography of Janet
ceived to be U.S. provincialism, the pair sailed for Flanner. New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1989.
Europe in 1921 and settled in Paris shortly thereaf-
ter. There Flanner finished an autobiographical first See also Barnes, Djuna Chappell; Barney, Natalie;
novel, The Cubical City (1926), and began writing Beach, Sylvia; Journalism; Paris; Stein, Gertrude
one-thousand-word dispatches for the newly
founded New Yorker magazine. These Letters from
Paris, published fortnightly under the byline Food
Gent (a French version of Janet coined by The sustenance of life, source of one of lifes greatest
Flanners editor), featured accounts of European pleasures, and the most common expression of hos-
events of interest to the New Yorkers U.S.-based pitality. Every culture and society has food that dis-
readership. News of notable lesbian expatriates, such tinguishes it from its neighbors. While lesbians may
as Gertrude Stein (18741946) and Sylvia Beach not have particular foods that attach to lesbian cul-
(18871962), appeared in her columns, along with ture, certain traditions have been taken up so as to be
references to more conventional subjects. expected of at least segments of the community.
Flanner figured importantly in the circle of les- Potluck dinners, or the practice of sharing a feast
bians frequenting the salon of Natalie Barney by having each household contribute a particular
(18761972) and is the model for a character in dish, have become common among lesbians, at least
Ladies Almanack (1928), Djuna Barness (1892 in the United States, and can be said to be elevated
1982) humorous send-up of the group. While still to an art form. While allowing a community to come
living with Solano, who reputedly also had taken together for a meal, such meals relieve a particular
another lover at the time, Flanner became sexually individual from the traditional womanly chore of
and emotionally involved with Noel Haskins producing and hosting an entire, coordinated meal
Murphy (1894?), a U.S. expatriate widow who without being able to sit and enjoy it. Potluck din-
had settled in France. Years later, back in the United ners or other occasions involving the serving of food
States during World War II, Flanner entered a third offered lesbians the opportunity to gather together
passionate friendship, with Italian journalist in an informal social setting that cost little and did
Natalia Danesi Murray (1901?), who published not have the perils associated with bar life.
their correspondence after Flanners death. Flanner, Another food custom adopted by many lesbi-
with varying success, seems to have juggled rela- ans, particularly lesbian separatists, is vegetarian-
tionships with these three women in the last dec- ism. Growing out of the concerns of the
ades of her life. What is certain is that she main- ecofeminists for the health of the planet, several
tained abiding emotional ties with each woman well lesbian-feminist collectives, notably Bloodroot (in

FOOD 307
 Connecticut), held vegetarianism as a prime tenet
F of their institutional philosophy. Vegetarianism also
reflects the separatists concern with the hierarchy
of power in modern life. In a traditional patriar-
chy, males are at the head of the hierarchy, fol-
lowed by women, children, people of lower classes,
and, at the bottom, animals. Vegetarian lesbian
separatists, in breaking with traditional forms of
patriarchy, discourage the eating of animal flesh.
They seek, in the name of women and sometimes
in worship of the goddess, to bring about the heal-
ing of the age-old rift from nature that resulted
from men asserting dominion over the earth. Es-
sential to this re-creation of womanspirit is the dis-
tancing from all destructive energy. Thus, vegetari-
anism goes hand in hand with back-to-the-earth
movements and the goal of self-sufficiency. Women
in ancient times were the gatherers of the produce
of the earth and healers who used herbs and flow-
ers in their treatments. Thus, many of those who
worship the goddess do not eat meat.
The food conspiracy (buying food in bulk at
cost for distribution within a cooperative) also has Jeannette H.Foster. Photo by Tee A.Corinne.
been a feature of more highly developed lesbian com-
munities, such as those in Iowa City, Iowa, and
Berkeley, California. These practices were developed, 1895, in Oak Park, Illinois, she died July 26, 1981,
again, as a response to the perceived monopoly of in Pocahantas, Arkansas.
patriarchal, environmentally destructive food con- One of the most significant contributions to the
glomerates; lesbians hoped to make wholesome food study of lesbian literature, Fosters groundbreaking
widely available at low cost to women throughout Sex Variant Women in Literature was self-published
their communities. Rosa Maria Pegueros in 1956 by Vantage Press. Sex Variant Women criti-
cally examines hundreds of occurrences of vari-
Bibliography ant women in literature in a number of languages
Faderman, Lillian. Odd Girls and Twilight Lov- and historical periodxs spanning more than 2,500
ers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth- years. In her thoroughness, Foster provided all fu-
Century America. New York: Columbia Uni- ture scholars with the basis for their research.
versity Press, 1991. The germ for Sex Variant Women, Foster explains
Gearheart, Sally Miller. The Spiritual Dimension: was implanted when she was in college. As a student
Death and Resurrection of a Hallelujah Dyke. council member, Foster was called to a secret council
In Our Right to Love. Ed. Ginny Vida. meeting to determine the fate of two female students
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1978. who locked themselves away together every chance
Shugar, Dana. Separatism and Womens Community. they got. Foster was perplexed by the need for such a
Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. meeting and the need for punishment.
The students in question were placed on pro-
See also Collectives; Goddess Religion; Separatism; bation for the brief remainder of the year. The ef-
Vegetarianism fect on Foster would last considerably longer; it
was then that her search to understand sex vari-
ant women began. Her research provided her with
Foster, Jeannette Howard (18951981) resources for addressing future conflicts, for man-
American author, poet, and translator. Jeannette Fos- aging her own sexually variant life, and, ulti-
ter also wrote under the pseudonyms Jan Addison, mately, for an impressive body of work, the crown-
Hilary Farr, and Abigail Sanford. Born November 3, ing jewel of which is Sex Variant Women.

308 FOOD
 A native of Illinois, Foster remained in her home See also Flanner, Janet; Grier, Barbara; Kinsey In-
state through 1922, earning a B.S. in chemistry and stitute Librarians; Naiad Press; Renault, Mary;
engineering in 1918 and an M.A. in English and Sarton, May; Taylor, Valerie; Vivien, Rene
American literature in 1922, both from Rockford
College. She then attended Emory University in
Atlanta, Georgia, where she earned a B.S. in library France
science in 1932 before returning to the University Large republic in western Europe with a long and
of Chicago, where, in 1935, she received her Ph.D. rich cultural history, including an expansive his-
She was a professor of library science, taught writ- tory of lesbianism. Information, although fragmen-
ing, literature, and English, and was a librarian at tary, is to be found in the fields of politics, reli-
a half-dozen prominent American colleges and gion, literature, philosophy, medicine, and art,
universities. Foster was Dr. Alfred Kinseys first li- among others.
brarian at the Institute for Sex Research, Indiana
University at Bloomington, 19481952. Early-Modern Era
Foster called such prominent women as Janet Aspects of female same-sex love can be found in the
Planner (18921978), May Sarton (19121996), history of medieval France, but the recovery of texts
and Mary Renault (19051983) friends. She had a from Greek and Roman antiquity in the early-mod-
long-term romantic relationship with Linwood ern period (the Renaissance) gave lesbians a concrete
College professor Hazel Tolliver. A number of years name. They were called tribades, from the Greek
later, the two were joined by the head of Linwoods tribein, signifying to rub or to rub against each other.
physical education department, Dorothy Dot In Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies, a fanciful history
Ross. The three women lived together, moving, of the events at the court of France, Pierre de
upon retirement, to the home they built in Bourdeilles (ca. 15401614), abbot and lord of
Pocohantas, Arkansas. Brantme (who also used the word Lesbian), iden-
Foster contributed countless articles, pieces of tified a tribade as a counterfeit who imitates a man,
fiction, and poetry to The Ladder in the 1960s. but, because she supposedly does not penetrate her
Nearly thirty years of her poetry were published as partner, her sexuality is seen as little more than a sham.
Two Women: The Poetry of Valerie Taylor and The printer and essayist Henri Estienne (15311598),
Jeannette Foster (1976) and later as Two Women in his work Apologia for Herodotus (1566), distin-
Revisited: The Poetry of Valerie Taylor and guishes between tribades and women who use a dildo
Jeannette Foster (1991), and her translation of to penetrate each other.
Rene Viviens A Woman Appeared to Me was Although the Renaissance recognized the lesbian
published in 1976 by Naiad Press. as a separate category, it defined her solely in terms
Barbara Grier (1933), and Donna McBride of a specific sexual practice. Since their recognition
(1940), whose Naiad Press republished Sex Variant was solely within the context of a devalued sexual-
Women in 1985, donated all of Fosters manuscripts ity, lesbians were denied social liberties. The occa-
to the main library in San Franciscos Gay and Les- sional transvestite marriages between women that
bian Center. Among those manuscripts are unpub- have been uncovered among the French lower classes
lished novels and novellas, including Home Is the during the sixteenth century were punished with the
Hunter and Death Under Duress, and a consider- same severity as those crimes against nature of
able number of her poems. Foster also contributed the sodomite, or male homosexual. In the 1550s,
articles to Library Quarterly and other professional for instance, a girl from Fontaines, married two
journals and saw her fiction published in Harpers. years, was discovered and burned alive (Estienne
Andrea L.T.Peterson 1566). Thirty years later, essayist Michel de
Montaigne (15331592) mentions a certain Mary,
Bibliography married five months, who was hung for illicit de-
Foster, Jeannette. Letter to Margaret Anderson, vices used to compensate for the defect of her sex.
Forbidden Fires, Margaret Anderson. This points to a central contradiction within the
Tallahassee, Fla.: Naiad, 1996, p. 154ff. culture of early-modern France: Whereas the death
Kuda, Marie. Jeannette Howard Foster. In Gay penalty awaited those who dared upset social con-
and Lesbian Literature. Ed. Sharon Malinowski. vention as cross-dressers, primarily women of the
Detroit: St. James, 1996, pp. 140141. working and peasant classes, a more tolerant

FRANCE 309
F

Ecole de Fontainebleau, Gabrielle dEstres and her sister. Louvre. Photo R.M.N.

attitude toward upper-class female same-sex cou- girlwas imprisoned for debauchery with
ples emerged. At court, and, more particularly, in women and for denigrating family values that
the Fontainebleau school of painting, lesbian-tinged women were supposed to pass on to male children.
representations of the classical goddess Diana ap-
peared along with a generally more permissive cul- The Eighteenth Century
tural and sexual environment for women. The fa- In the eighteenth century, leaders of the Enlighten-
mous painting of Gabrielle dEstres, the mistress ment protested against absolutism in its many
of Henri IV, and her sister naked in the bath is formsreligion, the monarchy, and masculine he-
certainly one of the more enigmatic expressions of gemonythus opening the door for some women
this period. to live openly homosexual lives. Indeed, lesbian
These liberal aristocratic attitudes during the pleasure became a philosophical topic explored
early-modern period did not survive the consoli- most notably by Denis Diderot (17131784), not
dation of power in the hands of the absolute mon- only in the novel La Religieuse (The Nun [written
archy of Louis XIV (16431715), which rested, in in 1760, published in 1796]) but also in the philo-
part, upon the consolidation of male power and sophical essay Le Rve de dAlembert (The Dream
authority. Some women attempted to assert their of dAlembert [1769]) and the Encyclopdie, in
agency through political action or through litera- which he redefined the word tribade.
ture, contesting the institution of marriage and Society during the Enlightenment, with its open-
exalting same-sex love between women. For ex- ness to new ideas, accepted homosexuals to a cer-
ample, Madeleine de Scudry (16071701) earned tain degree. The actresses Hipployte Clairon (1723
the name Sappho of the Htel of Rambouillet. 1803) and Franoise Raucourt (17561815), the
Later, Madame de Murat (16701716)author of singer Sophie Arnould (17401802), and several
fairy tales, including one called Le Sauvage (The aristocratic women were regularly written about
Savage [1699]), a story of a cross-dressed young in underground publications. Far from being

310 FRANCE
shocked, these authors, or secret observers, rec- Amoureux (Love in the New World) from around
ognized lesbians as part of society, going so far as 1816, Charles Fourier argued that Parisian lesbians
to imagine the existence of a Secte Anandryne defend liberty more than anyone else and, there-
(Anandryne Sect), presided over by Franoise fore, deserved a preeminent place in his work. In
Raucourt, which supposedly initiated young girls the 1830s, George Sand (18041876), the female
into the joys of Sappho. followers of the Utopian thinker Saint-Simon, and
As can be seen in Raucourts life, if one wished Flora Tristan (18031844), pioneer of the Work-
to challenge traditional societal values it was better ers Union, all sought out new models of sexual free-
to be an actress on the margins of society. During dom. Sand was the first novelist to speak of desire
the French Revolution, Queen Marie Antoinette and pleasure between women, in Llia (1833), which
(17551793) learned the cost of transgressing the caused a minor uproar. Tristan was the first to sug-
norm when she shared the sweet joys of friend- gest a possible spiritual relationship between women
ship with the princess of Lamballe (17491792) along the lines of Saint John and Jesus.
and the duchess of Polignac (17491793). Stigma- It was the highly successful painter Rosa
tized for her sapphic ways and her foreign origin, Bonheur (18221899), though, who braved nu-
she was also accused of being a bad mother and merous taboos. The first woman to live openly with
a debauched wife. While the Dclaration des another woman, Nathalie Micas (18241889), in
Droits de lHomme et du Citoyen (Declaration of a quasimarital relationship that lasted forty years,
the Rights of Man and the Citizen [1789]) pro- as well as the first artist decorated by the Legion of
claimed the principle of equality of the sexes, in fact Honor, Bonheur showed that lesbianism need not
the revolutionaries denied womens civil rights. be an obstacle to professional success, provided
While the revolutionaries removed sodomy from the that the model for success was a masculine one
category of sexual crimes against nature, they also valid for both sexes. In her biography, she con-
committed the first homophobic crime of the new fided about Micas: If Id been a man, I would
Republic by assassinating the princess of Lamballe have married her, and people wouldnt have in-
in 1792 for her excessive friendship with the vented all these silly stories. I wouldve started a
queen. Although the First Republic (following the family, had children and heirs, and no one could
revolution) granted sexual liberty to men, the same have said a thing about it.
rights for women were excluded from the new civil Bonheur managed to breach the patriarchal for-
code imposed by Napoleon in 1804, a code that tress, showing that sexual liberty was inextricably
resubjugated women to marriage by reinforcing the linked to social and cultural liberty, an idea that ex-
power of father, brother, and husband. plains why, from the end of the nineteenth century
on, so many lesbians expressed themselves in art and
The Nineteenth Century literature. Through art, society began to open up to
Thus, the early nineteenth century was marked by a the reality of lesbian life. For example, in the 1880s,
triumphant patriarchy. While women still had no Louise Breslau (18561927) painted a number of
civil rights, a general fear of lesbians presisted, which canvases depicting herself with her lover of forty years,
underlined their status as a social danger. Love be- Madeleine Zillhard (18631950). Indeed, after the
tween women became a disease, as medical and public display of Gustave Courbets famous painting
sexological discourses codified and stigmatized Sleep (Le Sommeil [1866]), many artists became fas-
clitorism or tribadism along with other excesses cinated with the sapphic couple. The repetition of
of pleasure. It soon became a moral disease as well: this theme served to soften taboos by revealing love
Tribades were considered corrupt and depraved. By between women and forcing society to see those
the end of the nineteenth century, lesbianism was whom it regarded as deviants and sinners.
treated as a mental illness within psychiatric dis- Literature, as well, responded to the sapphic
course, making this inverted woman an example theme, inspired partly by new fragments of poems
of the dangerous masculinization awaiting all by Sappho (ca. 600 B.C.E.) discovered by German
women who dared challenge patriarchal beliefs. archeologists. As the nineteenth century progressed,
Nonetheless, a liberating countercurrent ap- the word tribade fell into disuse as new defini-
peared that would exploit the contradictions of the tions came to the fore. In 1847, Charles Baudelaire
revolution and launch a new theory linking love to (18211867) considered the title Les Lesbiennes
social progress. In his Le Nouveau Monde for his future collection Les Fleurs du Mal (The

FRANCE 311
 Flowers of Evil [1857]). The feminine form of ho- bohemian circles, some evidence exists of a work-
F mosexual entered into the illustrated Larousse
dictionary (Nouveau Larousse Illustr) in 1904,
ing-class lesbian culture beginning in the mid-nine-
teenth century and continuing through World War
evidence of how medical and scientific language I (19141918). Although there were no laws
had entered everyday speech. against lesbianism per se, the negative images, par-
ticularly of poor lesbians, created a difficult atmos-
The Twentieth Century phere. Homophobia remained unchallenged by left-
Early-twentieth-century France was dominated by ist organizations representing the working class.
a psychiatric theory that pathologized women with For example, when anarchist leader Louise Michel
overly masculine tendencies, a political estab- (18301905) was accused of lesbianism, her po-
lishment that labeled sexual emancipation for litical compatriots vigorously denied it. The French
women as moral, and a feminist movement con- Communist Party, founded in 1920, was indiffer-
cerned, above all, with winning civil rights. Hence, ent or even hostile to homosexuality.
culture, by necessity, became the principal medium Nevertheless, authors such as Andr Gide (1869
through which lesbians sought visibility, a trend 1951) and Colette write in their memoirs about les-
that would last even through the 1970s. bianism among domestic servants. Two millinery
Natalie Barney (18761972), an American writer workers committed suicide in 1898 rather than live
living in Paris from around 1898, created a salon apart. Letters of women in jail describe an extensive
that was the center of much of this lesbian cultural lesbian culture, and lesbianism among sex workers
life. Barney herself became the model for characters was well known and documented. Some working-
in fiction by numerous writers, including her lover class lesbians even became celebrated, such as
Rene Vivien (18771909), Liane de Pougy (1869 Victorine Meurent (18441928), a model for painter
1953), Lucie Delarue-Mardrus (18741945), Edouard Manet (18321883), and the dancer Louise
Colette (18731954), Djuna Barnes (18921982), Weber (18691929), better known as La Goulue, who
and Radclyffe Hall (18801943). Romaine Brooks can be seen in many of Henri Toulouse-Lautrecs
(18741970), Barneys lover in later life, painted (18641901) paintings, at times with her lover. A rich
Barney in her garden on Rue Jacob in Paris. vocabulary existed for lesbianism, including gousse
Not all prominent lesbians worked in the cul- (garlic clove) for lesbians who took the active role,
tural field. Hlne Brion (18821962), a teacher who and vrille (tendril) for the passive. Lesbians also re-
lived for more than thirty years with Marguerite ferred to one another as gougnotte (girlfriend); popu-
Othon, was a trade unionist and a pacifist. She was lar, sometimes derisive, terms for lesbian acts included
accused of defeatism during World War I, given a to eat garlic or to go for the deal.
suspended prison sentence of three years, and pro- After World War I (19141918), sexual eman-
hibited from teaching. Editor of the journal La Lutte cipation swept across France, despite the fact that
fministe (Feminist Fight [19191922]), she trans- French women were denied the right to vote and
gressed the feminine cultural models of her time by saw the imposition, in 1920, of a law curbing abor-
dressing in pants (following the lead of Rosa tion and the distribution of birth-control informa-
Bonheur), yet she never dared reveal the strongly tion. The success of Victor Marguerittes La
ideological underpinnings of her feminism. Another Garonne (The Bachelor Girl [1922]), which sold
ambivalent figure was the doctor and writer 300,000 copies within a year, reveals how greatly
Madeleine Pelletier (18741939). Called a com- attitudes had changed in regard to womens sexual
plete feminist, she supported the masculinization freedom. Indeed, this novel portrayed the lesbian
of women since, in a social sense, to remain a as the true liberated woman for the first time, link-
woman is to remain a slave. But, even though she ing economic independence, sexual liberty, and
wore her mens suits like feminist banners, she rec- equality with men. Margueritte lost his member-
ommended that women remain virgins. Perhaps ship in the Legion of Honor, while feminists, hor-
fearing the association of feminism with lesbianism, rified by the debauchery and vice in his work,
she wrote to her friend Aria-Ly (18811934): refused to support him. Thus, despite the relaxing
Above all, never fall in love or everyone will sing of moral restrictions after the war, the loss of prac-
out Lesbos (Bonnet 1981, Bard 1992). tically an entire male generation caused the gov-
Although most available information pertains ernment of the Third Republic, for obvious rea-
to lesbianism within middle-class, upper-class, and sons, to reinforce its control over women and

312 FRANCE
procreation. Women, including feminists, did not Lesbians and Feminism
protest against the restrictions imposed on them. It was not until the wave of demonstrations and
The accepted social norms allowed married women general strikes in May 1968 and the emergence of
to engage in limited political activism; single women the womens liberation movement that lesbians were
joined trade unions; and lesbians and liberated able to truly come out. The womens revolt was a
heterosexuals enjoyed access to cultural circles. key moment in the history of their emancipation.
Lesbians continued to have a real visibility within For the first time, society saw a political movement
the cultural realm, as international artists inscribed that involved all women, whatever their sexual prac-
lesbianism within the avant-garde. tice or social class. Also for the first time, a feminist
The list of outstanding women who lived in les- movement held as a fundamental principle that
bian relationships and recreated these in their work women should define themselves in relation to each
is too long to give here. Some of the most celebrated other and not solely to men. From that point on,
during the period between the world wars include demystifying love between women became a prior-
dancer Loe Fuller (18621928), filmmaker ity in a feminist movement. Sisterhood is power-
Germaine Dulac (18821942), photographers ful was a commonplace slogan that recognized the
Claude Cahun (18941954) and Gisle Freund ties of love linking women, reversing oppression,
(1908), writer Gertrude Stein (18741946), paint- and restoring fragmented identities and lives.
ers Marie Laurencin (18831956), Mariette Lydis In 1971, the Homosexual Movement for Revo-
(18941970)creator of the album Les Lesbiennes lutionary Action (Front Homosexuel dAction
(1926)and Tamara de Lempicka (18981980), Rvolutionnaire) began, inspired by the womens
and booksellers Adrienne Monnier (18921956) liberation movement. Started by lesbian feminists
and Sylvia Beach (18871962). While the economic who wanted an alliance with their brothers, the
crisis of 1929 undermined the foundations of their Homosexual Movement for Revolutionary Action
prosperity, World War II would smash this move- soon became a mens movement mainly concerned
ment. Forced to flee the war, Nazism, and with plus jouir (more pleasure). In April of that
antisemitism, the majority of them scattered, bring- year, lesbians quit the mens movement and cre-
ing to an end a golden age to which Natalie Barney ated their own group, called Red Dykes (Gouines
had contributed so greatly through her salon. Rouges), realizing that their liberation was linked
Womens suffrage, finally won in 1944 with the primarily with women rather than with gay men.
end of the Nazi occupation, did little to stop a new The brief time that gay and lesbian militant in-
wave of misogyny, accompanied by a rise in homo- terests merged was an important moment in the
phobia that forced many homosexuals to live in constitution of a new feminist consciousness for les-
secret. Despite her many successes and Colettes bians. It not only reinforced the choice to remain
support, filmmaker Jacqueline Audry (19081977) separate from men by inserting militant lesbianism
was only barely able to make Olivia (1951) and in the womens movement, it also underlined the
The Bachelor Girl (1957). It was only through the differences between gay men and lesbians, allowing
help of existentialist philosopher Simone de lesbians to link sexuality to the political and the
Beauvoir (19081986) that Violette Leduc (1907 cultural arenas. For the next decade, the womens
1972) could publish her novels. Though promi- liberation movement was the location of lesbian
nent gay intellectuals lived openly, lesbians still met struggles for freedom, giving birth to a womens
with resistance, as Jean-Paul Sartre (19051980) culture that had considerable impact on society.
showed in his play Huis Clos (No Exit [1944]). However, the rise to power of the political Left
One of the characters, based on the model of the in 1981, led by socialist President Franois Mitterand
damned lesbian, may have been inspired by the (19161996), revealed how fragile the recognition
trio he formed with de Beauvoir and Bianca of lesbians was. Some lesbian theorists, such as
Lamblin, who wrote in her Mmoires dune jeune Monique Wittig (1935), attempted to create a
fille drange (Memoirs of a Crazed Young Girl unique version of lesbian materialism, influenced
[1993]) how de Beauvoir hid her affairs with by leftist and socialist thought. However, a major
women. This may explain why her treatment of conflict over materialist feminism ultimately de-
both the lesbian and the independent woman stroyed the journal Questions Fministes, with some
in her masterpiece, The Second Sex (1949), strikes materialist feminists attempting to exclude radical
many readers as unsatisfactory. lesbianism from the French intellectual scene.

FRANCE 313
 Given this, it is not surprising that the sicle (On the Sexual Liberation of Women in
F decriminalization of homosexuality in 1982 failed to
specifically mention social recognition for lesbians.
the City: Lesbians and Feminists in the Twentieth
Century). Les Tempes Moderne (March-April
Christiane Jouve, who founded the monthly maga- 1998), 85112.
zine Lesbia in 1982, noted the incongruous posi- Jouve, Christiane. Dtruire linvisibilit (Destroy
tion of lesbians between marginality and integration, Invisibility). Lesbia 30 (1985), 3.
remarking that if those who held to their right to Klumpke, Anna. Rosa Bonheur: The Artists
indifference wanted to destroy homosexuality, as (Auto)biography. Tr. Gretchen van Slyke. Ann
for herself, she wanted to destroy invisibility (1985). Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997.
Although this is not a simple task, because of the Martel, Frdric. Le Rose et le noir: Les
resistance of social and educational institutions, mas- Homosexuels en France depuis 1968 (The Rose
culine power structures, and the media, nonetheless, and the Black: Homosexuals in France since
at the end of the twentieth century the French lesbian 1968). Paris: Seuil, 1996.
movement could be said to be particularly dynamic. Sautman, Francesca Canade. Invisible Women:
More than twenty associations in Frances largest cit- Lesbian Working-Class Culture in France,
ies, a monthly publication, Lesbia, and a lesbian film 18801930. In Homosexuality in Modern
festival, Cinffable, organized and financed by France. Ed. Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T.Ragan,
nonprofit sources, existed. At the same time, lesbians Jr. New York: Oxford, 1996, pp. 177201.
were still marginalized by an institutionalized femi-
nism that wished to harvest the fruits of earlier strug- See also Barnes, Djuna Chappell; Barney, Natalie;
gles and make peace between the sexes at the expense Beach, Sylvia; Beauvoir, Simone de; Bonheur, Rosa;
of lesbians, and by a society that blamed them for Brooks, Romaine; Colette; Delarue-Mardrus,
attacks on patriarchal authority. Lucie; Europe, Early Modern; French Literature;
In 1992, the gay and lesbian movement issued Hall, Radclyffe; Leduc, Violette; Marie Antoinette;
a Contract for Social Union (Contrat dUnion Michel, Louise; Middle Ages, European; Paris;
Sociale), an attempt to secure the rights afforded Raucourt, Franoise; Sand, George; Stein,
heterosexual couples for same-sex couples. Gertrude; Tribade; Vivien, Rene; Wittig, Monique
Whether this will have any impact on the overall
recognition of lesbians seems doubtful, since they
have been excluded from the general debate. Wom- French Literature
ens sexual rights are far from won and will cer- From the Middle Ages through the twentieth cen-
tainly be at issue in the political debates of coming tury, the figure of the lesbian has appeared in French
decades. Marie-Jo Bonnet literature. However, the image and reception of that
figure has varied significantly from era to era.
Bibliography
Bard, Christine. Madeleine Pelletier (18781939): Middle Ages (A.D. 8001500)
Logique et infortunes dun combat pour lgalit The medieval period may well be the most prob-
(Madeleine Pelletier [18781939]: Logic and lematic, for few relevant texts exist. A number of
Misfortunes in the Combat for Equality). Paris: romances couch attraction between women in terms
Ct femmes, 1992. of a confusion resulting when a cross-dressed woman
Benstock, Shari. Women of the Left Bank: Paris, becomes the love interest of another woman. Typi-
19001940. Austin: University of Texas Press, cal of this type of tale is Huon de Bordeaux, a thir-
1986. teenth-century romance in which Ide, a crossdressed
Bonnet, Marie-Jo. Un Choix sans quivoque (An woman warrior, marries the daughter of the emperor.
Unequivocal Choice). Paris: Denol-Gonthier, When Ides identity is revealed, both she and her
1981. New rev. ed. with additional chapters: wife are threatened with death by burning, a not
Les Relations amoureuses entre les femmes du uncommon fate for lesbian couples. However,
seixime au vingtime sicle (Love Between through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, Ide is
Women from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth miraculously transformed into a man, thus restor-
Centuries). Paris: Odile Jacob, 1995. ing the married couple to the natural order.
. De lmanicipation amoureuse des femmes While narratives such as Ides present a some-
dans la cit, Lesbiennes et fministes au XX what ambiguous rendering of the couples

314 FRANCE
consciousness of their trangressive sexuality, a clear then commences a lengthy discussion of lesbian re-
portrait of lesbian sexuality appears in the twelfth lations to establish whether they can be considered
century. In his Livre de Manires (Book of Man- adulterous; he concludes that lesbian sex is not real
ners), written between 11681178, Etienne de sex and, ultimately, cannot be satisfying.
Fougres, a clergyman, chastises women who pre- For those of his audience who have not kept up
fer their own sex as partners as rebelling against with recent literary history, Brantme explains: It
the laws of nature and provides an elaborate meta- has been said how Sappho of Lesbos was a high
phoric description of lesbian sexual acts, all char- mistress in this art; indeed, it has been said that she
acterized by the lack of a penis. Fougres constructs invented it. Brantmes knowledge of the activi-
the lesbian couple in terms of the heterosexual ties of Sappho (ca. 600 B.C.E.) reflects the rediscov-
model, divided into passive and active partners. His ery in the 1550s of a fragment of Sapphos poetry.
suggestion that lesbians be physically punished and His use of the term lesbian to define women who
put to death reflects the hostility to lesbians that have sexual relationsthis is the first use of the term
informed the medieval legal and theological dis- as such in Frenchestablishes a category distinct
courses. from the male homosexual. Although Brantmes
Given the prevailing attitudes toward the les- term would be eclipsed for three hundred years by
bian in the Middle Ages, it is all the more remark- tribade (a Greek term for lesbian), his lesbians
able that a thirteenth-century poem, addressed to are women who act as Sappho of Lesbos did.
Lady Maria, the source of all happiness for The apparent tolerance that Brantme expresses
Bieris de Romans (before 1250), exists. The poem toward lesbian relationships among women at the
is written as a canso, the standard form of the court is echoed by Pontus de Tyards (15211605)
Provenal love lyric. When Bieris speaks of her joy, Elgie pour une dame, enamoure dune autre dame
her hope, her desire, she uses the same stylized lan- (1573, Elegy for a Lady in Love with Another Lady).
guage and imagery chosen by the male troubadours This mid-sixteenth-century text presents the lament
to express their love and longing for their lady. Were of a woman whose female lover has left her. The
the author male, there would be no controversy abandoned lover had hoped their love would coun-
over its meaning. The hesitancy to read Bieriss ter the abundance of well-known examples of male
poem as an expression of lesbian love reflects, per- couples and, in so doing, create a lineage for lesbian
haps, a certain reluctance to recognize the nature couples. While such couples may be tolerated in the
of the erotic subject. Still, Bieris de Romans gives a court and its literature, a working-class women does
voice to the lesbian writer in France, one that will not receive the same leeway. Michel de Montaigne
not be heard as clearly again in French literature (15331592), in his Travel Journal (15801581),
for well more than six hundred years. recounts the story of the execution of a young
woman who had cross-dressed, married, and whose
Early-Modern Era (15001800) identity was then discovered. Unlike the medieval
As France recovered from the devastation of the fictional version of this scenario, no miracle inter-
Hundred Years War, the plague, and ineffectual lead- vened: The husband was condemned to death and
ership, the new learning of the Renaissance facili- executed. The anecdote underlines the close con-
tated a renewed vitality in French literature and an nection between cross-dressing and lesbianism both
openness to new ideas, at least among the nobility. in literature and in life.
Pierre de Bourdeilles (ca. 15401614), abbot and The seventeenth century presents few outstand-
lord of Brantme, composed a history of events ing examples of overt lesbian characters or the theme
at the court of France, including a section entitled of lesbianism in French literature. Among many
Vie des Dames galantes (Lives of Fair and Gal- nearly forgotten minor male poets, lesbians or the
lant Ladies; [1666]written during the 1580s). In theme of lesbian love versus heterosexual love ap-
his reporting the sexual adventures among the pears, with the poets firmly extolling the superior-
nobles, he includes sexual relations among women ity of the latter. Cross-dressing remains a staple of
at the court and explains that these relations were a the baroque theater and novel. A typical example is
fashion that was brought from Italy by a lady of Honor dUrfs (15671625) Astre (16071620),
quality whom I will not name, referring perhaps in which the hero cross-dresses as a woman to be
to the rumored off-duty activities of Catherine de near his beloved Astre, who has banished him.
Medicis (15191589) ladies-in-waiting. Brantme Astre finds herself attracted to this woman,

F R E N C H L I T E R AT U R E 315
 whose advances she does not reject. The century also of public outcry, and, indeed, their publication was
F sees a substantial increase in the number of women
writers, and the cross-dressing motif frequently re-
censored.
Novels and short stories offer a variety of les-
appears in fairy tales they write for young girls, al- bian themes. In the 1830s and 1840s, Honor de
though the model of the cross-dresser is that of the Balzac (17991850) wrote a number of relevant
warrior-heroine rather than a would-be lover. novels, including Seraphita (1834), in which the
Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, the countess of Murat eponymous protagonist is a character who shifts
(16701716), one author of these tales, was herself from male to female, creating constant gender con-
accused of monstrous attachments to persons of fusion throughout the tale. His Cousine Bette
her own sex, reflecting the divergence between what (1846) offers an example of a relationship between
is acceptable in literature and in life. two women that follows the model of the roman-
As correspondance between nuns dating from tic friendship. In La Fille aux yeux dor (The Girl
the Middle Ages shows, the convent provided a safe with the Golden Eyes [18341835]), he tells the
haven for relationships between women. This motif tale of Paquita, a young woman sequestered by a
as a form of titillation for male readers appears in lesbian marquise. Paquita betrays the marquise with
Jean Barrins rightly neglected Venus in the Cloister her own brother, whom she forces to dress as the
(1683). A century later, as the cornerstone of Denis marquise. When this infidelity is discovered, the
Diderots (17131784) criticism of the institutions marquise murders her captive. Balzac posits the
of the Catholic Church in La Religieuse (The Nun, lesbian as a dangerous woman, capable of violence
written in 1760, published 1796), a negative image when she does not get her way. Theophile Gautiers
of the lesbian nunloathsome, unnatural corrupter (18111872) lesbian in Mademoiselle de Maupin
of innocentsis inscribed into the mainstream of (18351836) is more benign. Although he based
eighteenth-century thought. his novel on the life of Madeleine dAubigny (1670
Only Lettres persanes (Persian letters [1721]) by 1707), an actress who dressed as a man so that she
Baron de Montesquieu (16891755) offers what might seduce other women, in Gautiers version
might be considered a neutral portrait of female the male narrator, DAlbret, finds himself attracted
homoeroticism; this work brings to the fore the theme to Theodore, thus adding a second homoerotic
of the exotic lesbian through the authors reference complication to the plot.
to the relations between women in harems. While The bisexual/lesbian prostitute becomes a type in
this vision of the lesbian appears with regularity in naturalist literature of the late nineteenth century. Sex
nineteenth-century French painting, feeding a sort of as a form of power wielded by a bisexual prostitute
voyeuristic soft-pornographic interest, with the ex- heroine scandalized the readers of Emile Zolas (1840
ception of occasional texts, such as Salammb (1863) 1902) Nana (1880), yet, perhaps because of the con-
by Gustave Flaubert (18211880), it is less prevalent troversial heroine, Nana remains Zolas bestknown
in literature of that period. novel. Zola also includes a lesbian couple in his La
The libertinism that nourished eighteenth-cen- Cure (1871) and, indeed, has many references to
tury sexual mores did find its way into a number lesbians throughout his Rougon-Macquart cycle of
of texts that are frequently considered porno- novels. Guy de Maupassant (18501893) also shows
graphic. Works of the Marquis de Sade (1740 his readers openly lesbian couples in La Femme de
1814) mix the heterosexual adventures of hero- Paul (Pauls Mistress, in the collection of short
ines Juliette (1798) and Justine (1791) with epi- stories La Maison Tellier [1881]). In that tale, the
sodes of lesbian sex, often under the gaze of a male discovery that the prostitute he regularly employs can
protagonist. Sades female characters are either the give him up for Lesbos drives Paul to drown him-
unwilling partners of other women or women who self. However, Maupassant does not condemn
might better be termed bisexuals, who find true Madeleine, who finds herself more attracted to
sexual fulfillment with their male partners. Pauline than Paul. Rather, he casts Pauls suicide as
overreaction, suggesting a more tolerant view than
Modern Era (After 1800) some earlier writers.
A number of nascent (and frequently false) stere- Lesbian themes appear frequently in the poetry
otypes relating to lesbians begin to find their way of the second half of the nineteenth century. With
into all genres of French literature in the nineteenth the publication of Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers
century, although these works often were subjects of Evil [1857]) and the censored poems of that

316 F R E N C H L I T E R AT U R E
collection, Les Epaves (The Waifs [1866]) by Charles (1922), to Victor Marguerittes La garonne (The
Baudelaire (18211867), the stereotype of the femme Bachelor Girl [1922]), to the murderous school-
damne enters French poetry. Baudelaires lesbians teachers in Boileau-Narcejacs Celle qui ntait plus
are tortured souls, condemned to wander the Earth (The Woman Who Wasnt There [1952]), the
in joyless sterility. Thodore de Banville (18231891) source for the film Diabolique, to Ins, the third
transforms the idea of sterility to a valorization of member of JeanPaul Sartres hellish triangle in Huis
virginity. In his Erinna (published in Les Exils Clos (No Exit [1944]), to Mimi, whose one-night
[1867]), Sapphos successor exhorts her charges to stand with another woman leads to her murder by
chastity. Influenced, perhaps, by his own homosexu- her paraplegic male lover in Pascal Bruckners Lune
ality, Paul Verlaine (18441896) emphasizes the sen- de fiel (Bitter Moon [1981]), male authors fre-
sual in his portraits of lesbian couples in Les Amies quently include lesbians or bisexual women in their
(1867). Unlike Baudelaires negative portrayal, the narratives. These characters, portrayed as outcasts
friends in Verlaines poems experience sexual or misfits or simply sexually confused, appear as
pleasure with no regretexcept for Sappho, whose alternative choices to the heterosexual relationships
death leap for Phaon is interpreted by Verlaine as in these texts.
punishment for her heterosexual affair. At the end At the turn of the twentieth century, however,
Paris become a center for a multinational group
of the century, Pierre Louys (18701925) capital-
of lesbian artists and writers, at the center of which
izes on the taste for both lesbians and the exotic in
was Natalie Barney (18761972), a wealthy
his Chansons de Bilitis (Songs of Bilitis [1894]), fake
American who had moved to Paris. Many of
translations of ancient Greek poems, purportedly
Barneys writings are reminiscences or portraits
authored by Bilitis, who settles on Lesbos and be-
that give insight to the outstanding gays and les-
comes part of Sapphos circle. Two later volumes
bians among her acquaintances and to the lesbian
published after Louyss death, Chansons indites
literary community in Paris. Aventures de lesprit
(Unpublished Songs [1929]) and Chansons secrtes
(Adventures of the Spirit [1929]), for example,
(Secret Songs [1931]), contain more sexually explicit
devoted half to men and half to women, includes
passages and clearly pander to male fantasies of les- sketches of Djuna Barnes (18921982), Gertrude
bian sexuality. Stein (18741946), and Barneys lovers, the
The literature of the nineteenth century was al- painter Romaine Brooks (18741970) and the
most entirely dominated by the male writers vo- poet Rene Vivien (18771909). Traits et portraits
yeuristic gaze. George Sand (18041876), who (1963), published when Barney was eighty-six,
shocked French society by wearing mens clothing includes a witty, acerbic defense of lesbianism and
and having a liaison with the actress Marie Dorval male homosexuality as natural and normal life-
(17981849), figures among the rare exceptions styles. Vivien (Pauline Mary Tarn) was English,
to this rule. Sand depicted an eroticized encounter but, like Barney, settled in Paris and wrote in
between two sisters in Llia (1834), and her Gabriel French. Viviens poetry consists primarily of finely
(1843), concerning a girl raised as a boy, is often crafted love poems to other women, such as the
read as her answer to Balzacs Seraphita. Rachilde collection Cendres et poussires (Ashes and Dust
(Marguerite Vallette) (18601953), whose career [1902]). Her novel Une femme mapparut (A
spans the turn of the century, explores gender and Woman Appeared to Me [1904]) recounts her
sexuality in Monsieur Venus (1884) and Madame meeting with Barney. Vivien also was responsible
Adonis (1886), which both present transvestite for the first translation of Sapphos poetry into
protagonists. modern French (1909). Liane de Pougy (1869
1950), another member of the Barney circle, de-
The Twentieth Century scribed in her autobiographical Idylle sapphique
Twentieth-century literature widens the focus to (Sapphic Idyll [1901]) the liaison of Annhine (the
include texts written by women, many of whom Pougy character) with an American, Flossie,
are lesbians themselves. This is not to say that male modeled on Natalie Barney. Sex versus gender in-
authors abandon the lesbian or bisexual woman forms the adventures of Marion/ Mario, the her-
altogether: From Odette and her lovers in Marcel maphrodite who, as the main character in Lucie
Prousts multivolume A la recherche du temps Delarue-Mardruss (18741945) LAnge et les per-
perdu (Remembrance of Things Past [19131927]), verts (The Angel and the Perverts [1930]), in-
to Romain Rollands couple Annette and Sylvie trigues both the Paris lesbians and gay men s/he

F R E N C H L I T E R AT U R E 317
 encounters. Mardrus also novelized her affair with style and themes of literary texts. Of the three, Wittig
F Barney in Nos secrtes amours (Our Secret Loves
[1951]).
became most closely associated with the develop-
ment of a theoretical model for lesbian identity that
Colette (18731954), too, frequented the places her at the forefront of lesbian theory and queer
Barney enclave and presented her version of the studies. In addition to her theoretical texts, works
varieties of relationships between and among the such as Le Corps lesbien (The Lesbian Body [1973])
women in that group in Le pur et limpur (The provide a clue to Wittigs project: le corps, gendered
Pure and the Impure [1932]) and her own liaisons masculine, becomes lesbian. This lesbian body
in Ces plaisirs (These Pleasures [1941]). Many of consists of a poem cycle in which j/e (I/me) and tu
her novels deal with sexual awakenings, female (you) share a violent, all-consuming passion.
bisexuality, and the development of a lesbian con- Modeled on the Song of Songs, it presents a highly
sciousness in her characters. Colettes earliest suc- charged, disturbing erotic vision, reconciled only at
cess came with the Claudine novels, beginning with the end when the j/e becomes part of society of
Claudine lcole (Claudine at School [1900]). Of amantes (female lovers).
all of the French writers who came and went in Wittigs work may be seen as an answer to the
Barneys circle, she remains the most well known. strain of French feminist thought developed by
At least one popular lesbian writer whose career Hlne Cixous. Whereas Cixous posits a type of
began in the 1920s was not an intimate of the Barney writing the body grounded in the feminine and
circle. Jeanne Galzy (18851980), a member of the incorporating a bisexuality, Wittig rejects what she
jury for the Prix Fmina for some five decades, wrote considers a type of mistaken essentialism linked to
best-selling semiautobiographical novels. Her Jeunes a heterosexist and phallocentric society. Cixous,
filles en serre chaude (Young Girls in a Hot House nonetheless, refused to participate in what she
[1934]) depicted the lives and loves of students and termed the heterosexist scene in Angst (1977).
teachers at the prestigious teachers college the Ecole Texts such as her Livre de Promtha (Book of
Normale Suprieure. Toward the end of her life, Promethea [1983]), an experimental fiction that
Galzy published a quartet of novels, La Surprise de stages female homoeroticism in poetic terms, at-
Vivre (Lifes Surprises [19691976]), taking up tempt to break down the binary oppositions of
themes similar to her early work. male/female and hetero/homosexual.
After World War II, Violette Leduc (19071972) The 1970s through the 1990s featured a number
was among the first lesbian writers to gain recogni- of other major figures. Genevive Pastre, like Wittig
tion for her work, although that recognition came and Cixous, is a major figure in scholarly, as well as
primarily through the intercession of Simone de literary, production. Not only is Pastre an essayist,
Beauvoir. Her novels LAsphyxie (In the Prison of specializing in classical antiquity, but she also was
Her Skin [1946]), LAffame (A Woman Starved the founder, in 1985, of the first French lesbian press.
[1948]), and Ravages (1955) suggest alternate sce- Moreover, she is a poet whose collections recall those
narios for her autobiography, La Btarde (The Bas- of Vivien in their treatment of women. Michle
tard) (1964), which brought Leduc her first critical Causse, poet, playwright, and essayist, also trans-
success. Franoise Mallet-Joriss (1930) Le lates lesbian-themed literature. She has published
Rempart des Beguines (The Illusionist [1951]) takes Djuna Barness Ladies Almanack (1928) and edited
up the theme of sexual awakening and confusion the memoirs of Berthe Cleyregue, Natalie Barneys
the young Hlne discovers she is attracted to her houskeeper. Both Pastre and Causse contributed to
fathers future wife, whose past hides a lesbian rela- the now defunct journal Masques and are active in
tionship. Eveline Mayhres (19251957) Je jure de lesbian political movements.
mblouir (I Will Not Serve [1958]) treats the tragic In the same period, writers such as Jocylne
tale of Sylvies love for her convent-school teacher. Franois returned to the genre of the autobiographi-
Sylvies life, like that of the author, ends in suicide. cal novel. Her trilogy, Les Bonheurs (Times of
While the 1960s produced lesbian writers like Happiness [1970]), Les Amantes (The Lovers
Christiane Rochefort (1917), who wrote Les [1978]), and Joue-nous Espaa (Play Espaa
Stances Sophie (Poems for Sophie [1963]), it was for Us [1980]), traces the relationship between two
only in the 1970s that the work feminist theorists, women from childhood to adulthood. Autobio-
such as Hlne Cixous (1937), Luce Irigary (1930 graphical themes also mark the works of Hlne
), and Monique Wittig (1935), began to influence de Montferrand. She received the prestigious Prix

318 F R E N C H L I T E R AT U R E
Goncourt for her Les Amies dHlose (Heloises Friendship
Girlfriends [1990]) and soon published its sequel, Voluntary relationship, unregulated by the state as
Journal de Suzanne (Suzannes Diary [1991]). family relationships are, characterized by reciprocity
Heloise is the central character in both novels, both (though each friend may give the other something
of which explore themes as wide ranging as the different) and equality (achieved sometimes despite
fate of lesbians in World War II, schoolgirl rela- differences of race, class, age, or status around which
tionships, and political conservatism. Mireille Best the larger society constructs inequality). Countless
was one of the most influential lesbian writers at lesbian coming out storiesfictional and
the end of the twentieth century; among her works nonfictionalmake plain that friendship is the fre-
are Camille en octobre (1988) and Il ny a pas quent vehicle by which lesbians come to recognize
dhommes au paradis (There Are No Men in Para- their sexual preference in the first place. Nor does
dise [1995]). Moreover, just as the lesbian detec- friendships influence cease at coming out. It contin-
tive entered American popular fiction, Maud ues in importance throughout lesbians lives, sustain-
Tabaschnik created Sandra Khan, an American les- ing individuals from adolescence through old age.
bian journalist, who finds herself playing the role Moreover, friendship is politically, or collectively, sig-
of a detective in, among other works, Le festin de nificant: It is both the force that binds individuals
laraigne (The Spiders Banquet [1996]). Finally, into lesbian communities and the potent symbol of
the magazine Lesbia provides a space for lesbian ideal relations among women that frequently under-
writers to come to the fore. writes lesbians struggles to make those communities
Edith J.Benkov sites and agents of cultural transformation.
Since the mid-twentieth century, feminist schol-
Bibliography ars investigating friendship between and among
Benstock, Shari. Women of the Left Bank, 1900 women have firmly established the fact that friend-
1940. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986. ship is a crucial, although taken-for-granted, di-
Bonnet, Marie-Jo. Un Choix sans quivoque (An mension of womens lives. Friendship appears to
Unequivocal Choice). Paris: Denol-Gonthier, have several major functions. First, it fosters the
1981. New rev. ed. with additional chapters: formation of identity and spurs womens emo-
Les relations amoureuses entre femmes du tional, psychological, and spiritual growth: Friends
seixime au vingtime sicle (Love Between productively mirror each other, and they provide
Women from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth each other with images of their best selves. No less
Centuries ). Paris: Odile Jacob, 1995. important, the reciprocal exchange of material gifts
Dejean, Joan. Fictions of Sappho. Chicago: Uni- that characterizes friendship ensures womens well-
versity of Chicago Press, 1989. being and even, in some cases, survival. If all women
Foster, Jeannette H. Sex Variant Women in Litera- need friends, lesbians, who are sometimes outcast
ture. New York: Vantage, 1956. by family and marginalized within their communi-
Grier, Barbara. The Lesbian in Literature. ties, sometimes need them even more so.
Tallahassee,Fla.: Naiad, 1981. Yet, despite lesbians greater need for friend-
Mahuizer, Brigitte, Karen McPherson, Charles A. ship and the greater value lesbians apparently place
Porter, and Ralph Sarkonak, eds. Same Sex/ Dif- on friendship, existing research rarely demonstrates
ferent Text? Gay and Lesbian Writing in French. a sustained, critical focus on lesbians experiences
Yale French Studies 90 (1996) (Special Issue). as friends. Lesbians are frequently rendered invis-
Stambolian, George, and Elaine Marks, eds. ible in discussions of womens friendship, as
Homosexualities and French Literature: Cul- though either lesbians dont exist or lesbian prac-
tural Contexts/Critical Texts. Itahaca, N.Y.: tices of friendship are identical to those of hetero-
Cornell University Press, 1979. sexual women. On the other hand, even though
the theme of friendship permeates lesbian cultural
See also Barnes, Djuna Chappell; Barney, Natalie; production, it rarely occupies center stage. What
Brooks, Romaine; Colette; Beauvoir, Simone de; is wanted is a broad synthesis of the voluminous
Europe, Early Modern; France; Leduc, Violette; materialnow dispersed in lesbian literature,
Mardrus-Delarue, Lucie; Middle Ages, Europe; popular culture, and art and in the findings of his-
Paris; Sand, George; Stein, Gertrude; Vivien, Rene; torians, sociologists, and psychologistsinto a
Wittig, Monique coherent account of lesbian friendship.

FRIENDSHIP 319
 Such an account would necessarily locate lesbian women and homosociality. Zimmerman (1981)
F friendship in the larger context of the intertwined
histories of sexuality and the family, as well as rec-
effectively summarizes this debate concerning
friendship and argues, against Rich, that defini-
ognize how historical changes in sex-gender systems tions of lesbianism ought not to be conflated with
and divisions of labor influence womens, including female friendship generally, but be historically spe-
lesbians, friendship. The example of romantic cific and discriminating.
friendship in Western cultures illustrates the diffi- Zimmermans argument in favor of historical
culties that must arise upon recognition that current specificity has implicitly been endorsed by more re-
categories distinguishing friendship from sexual re- cent ethnographic and historical studies of lesbian
lationships, and hetero- from homosexualities, pro- communities. Such studies as Elizabeth Lapovsky
vide an imperfect grid on which to map past prac- Kennedy and Madeline D.Daviss Boots of Leather,
tices of friendship and lesbian experience. Roman- Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Com-
tic friendships were first described by Smith- munity (1993) attend, among other things, to the
Rosenberg (1975) and more fully analyzed by Lillian role of friendship in the creation and sustenance of
Faderman, whose Surpassing the Love of Men: Ro- specific lesbian communities. They not only affirm
mantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the validity of feminist research on womens friend-
the Renaissance to the Present (1981) surveys their ships for lesbians, but also draw attention to spe-
appearance in literature and history from the Renais- cifically lesbian practices that render the friendships
sance to the present. Romantic friendships were of lesbians unique, different from those of
intensely emotional, committed, and passionate rela- heterosexuals. Lesbians often befriend their ex-lov-
tionships that were commonplace and apparently re- ers, for example, sometimes becoming even best
spectable in the sexsegregated and supposedly prud- friends. Also, more lesbians than not reconstitute
ish nineteenth century. By twentieth-century stand- their friendship networks as chosen family.
ards, romantic friendships seem overtly and unmis- Since the mid-1980s, many lesbians have aban-
takably sexual and, by homophobic standards, clearly doned a female separatist cultural politics, forming
deviant. Their significance has been hotly debated, strong personal and political bonds with men that
especially the questions of whether they can be de- suggest huge territories of lesbian experience, such as
scribed as lesbian (did romantic friends have sex AIDS activism and antiracist work, not illuminated
and does that matter or not?) and whether they sup- by separatist theory and scholarship. New questions
ported heterosexuality (by making it bearable for arise upon consideration of the fact that lesbian friend-
women) or antagonized it (by offering more satisfy- ships do not involve only other lesbians, or even only
ing alternatives). other women: Lesbian friendship is also a term ap-
In answering such questions, some scholars propriate to describe certain relationships with men.
purposely blur the distinction between friendship Such relationships involve lesbians in different, but
and lesbianism, a strategy that has the advantages not less valuable, struggles for personal growth and
of normalizing the term lesbian and demonstrat- fulfillment and social justice.
ing the presence of lesbianism throughout history. Glynis Carr
Rich (1980) assumes such a stance when she ad-
vances her notion of the lesbian continuum as a Bibliography
tool to analyze womens relationships in the con- Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men:
text of compulsory heterosexuality. In a similar Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women
fashion, Smith (1977) offers a provocative lesbian from the Renaissance to the Present. New York:
interpretation of the relationship between Sula and William Morrow, 1981.
Nel in Toni Morrisons novel Sula (1973). The most Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, and Madeline D.
important study of womens friendship in this tra- Davis. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The
dition is Janice Raymonds A Passion for Friends: History of a Lesbian Community. New York:
Toward a Philosophy of Female Affection (1986). Routledge, 1993.
But Richs paradigm has also been rejected for the Raymond, Janice. A Passion for Friends: Toward
way it expands the category of lesbian to in- a Philosophy of Female Affection. Boston: Bea-
clude virtually every woman, ironically rendering con, 1986.
invisible the very women Rich would reclaim, Rich, Adrienne. Compulsory Heterosexuality and
women for whom lesbianism is a sexual matter Lesbian Existence. Signs: Journal of Women
rather than a more diffuse inclination toward other in Culture and Society 5:4 (1980), 631660.

320 FRIENDSHIP
Shugar, Dana R. Separatism and Womens Commu- Fuller was the editor of the Transcendentalist
nity. Lincoln: University Nebraska Press, 1995. journal the Dial from 1840 to 1842. Transcenden-
Smith, Barbara. Toward a Black Feminist Criti- talism maintained that the individual soul could
cism. Conditions: Two 1:2 (1977), 2552. achieve a spiritual connectedness to the higher
Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. The Female World of forces of the universe. In an ongoing dialogue with
Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Emerson, Fuller contributed to Transcendentalist
Nineteenth-Century America. Signs: Journal of philosophy a recognition of social realities and a
Women in Culture and Society 1:1 (1975), 129. belief that what woman needs is not as a woman
Zimmerman, Bonnie. What Has Never Been: An to act or rule but as a nature to grow, as an intel-
Overview of Lesbian Feminist Literary Criti- lect to discern, as a soul to live freely and
cism. Feminist Studies 7:3 (1981), 451476. unimpeded, to unfold such powers as were given
her when we left our common home.
See also Coming Out Stories; Community; Family; Shifting her focus from the state of the soul to
Lesbian Continuum; Romantic Friendship; Sisterhood direct political action, Fuller moved to Italy in 1847
and joined the cause of the Italian revolution. She
became lovers with Giovanni Angelo Ossoli and
Fuller, Margaret (18101850) had a child by him in 1848. In 1850, all three were
American feminist, writer, and philosopher. killed in a shipwreck off Fire Island, New York, as
Margaret Fuller had a profound impact on Ameri- she was returning to America. Mary E.Wood
can letters and philosophy, as well as on American
feminist thought. Her feminist tract Woman in the Bibliography
Nineteenth Century (1845) draws on female figures Capper, Charles. Margaret Fuller: An American
in classical mythology to establish womens right to Romantic Life, vol. 1: The Private Years. New
spiritual, social, and political identity apart from York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
men. Because of her expressions of love for women, Chevigny, Bell Gale. The Woman and the Myth:
her belief that her own identity is both masculine Margaret Fullers Life and Writings. Old
and feminine, and her insistence on crossing gender Westbury, N.Y.: Feminist Press, 1976. Rev. and
boundaries in her writing, Fuller has been of inter- exp. ed. Boston: Northeastern University Press,
est to current scholars debating definitions of les- 1994.
bianism before the twentieth century. Wood, Mary E. With Ready Eye: Margaret Fuller
Scholars have debated the nature of Fullers re- and Lesbianism in Nineteenth-Century Literature.
lationships with women. Francis B.Dedmond has American Literature 65 (March 1993), 118.
examined her correspondence with Caroline Zwarg, Christina. Feminist Conversations: Fuller,
Sturgis, to whom Fuller wrote: I build on our Emerson, and the Task of Reading. Ithaca, N.Y.:
friendship now with trust, for I think it is redeemed Cornell University Press, 1995.
from the search after Eros. Fuller described her-
self at times as an unnatural blend of male and See also American Literature, Nineteenth Century;
female qualities. She identified with French novel- Romantic Friendship; Sand, George
ist George Sand (18041876), whom she described
as a grand, fertile, aspiring, but in some measure
distorted and irregular nature. Furies, The
In the Conversations she organized in New Lesbian feminist living and working collective
England to educate women about philosophical formed in Washington, D.C., in 1971. The groups
and political issues, Fuller formed powerful rela- choice of name represented its members identifi-
tionships that were described by her contemporar- cation with mythological protectors of women and
ies as going beyond traditional friendship. Ralph declared anger at injustice as a way to mobilize
Waldo Emerson (18031882) wrote: It is certain against womens oppression. By living communally
that Margaret, though unattractive in person, and and working collaboratively, group members
assuming in manners, so that the girls complained sought to translate their theory into practice and
that she put upon them, or, with her burly mas- to produce a publication through which they could
culine existence, quite reduced them to satellites, record their experiences and disseminate their ideas.
yet inspired an enthusiastic attachment. Through theoretical writing, the group contributed

FURIES, THE 321

 to the evolution of the lesbian feminist movement tist lesbian feminist movement, bolstered by a na-
F in the United States. The collective originally in-
cluded twelve young white women, all of whom
tional political party, feminist businesses, and new
values that replaced misogynist ideas with those that
had previously participated in other revolutionary validated womens distinctive characteristics.
political movements of the time. Their ideology, Class, the second theme, dominated the groups
promulgated through their writing, fused elements writing and drove the dynamics within the collective.
of gay liberations positive affirmation of homo- Articles discussed the evolution of class conscious-
sexuality, womens liberations understanding of ness, examined the connections between class and
the connections between the personal and the po- heterosexuality, and criticized feminisms exclusion
litical, the New Lefts analysis of class, and the hip- of working-class women. Group members also re-
pie countercultures rejection of mainstream val- corded their own efforts to restructure class by dis-
ues with their anger at the treatment of gay women tributing property, salary, and skills within the group.
by feminists and male gay liberationists. Former Furies continued to influence lesbian
Their monthly newspaper, The Furies, published feminism after the collective ended. Photographer
from January 1972 to June 1973, helped the group Joan E.Biren (JEB), writers Rita Mae Brown and
gain its notoriety and extend its influence. Here Charlotte Bunch, along with those who established
members recorded their theoretical conjectures and the feminist journal Quest and businesses such as
their personal struggles to confront homophobia and Diana Press and Olivia Records, indelibly shaped
elitism. The publication also included film reviews, lesbian feminist politics and culture in the United
fiction, and photographs. Furies members wrote States. Anne M.Valk
most of the papers articles; the publication outlasted
the living collective, however. By August 1972, many Bibliography
of the original members had departed, although a Berson, Ginny Z. The Furies: Goddesses of Venge-
smaller group continued to publish the paper. ance. In Voices from the Underground: Insider
The Furies committed themselves to ending wom- Histories of the Vietnam Era Underground
ens oppression and building lesbian feminist poli- Press. Ed. Ken Wachsberger. Tempe, Ariz.: Mica,
tics and culture. To this end, the group focused on 1993, pp. 313324.
two primary issues that constituted the basis for Brown, Rita Mae. A Plain Brown Rapper. Oakland,
womens oppression. First, the Furies analyzed the Calif.: Diana, 1976.
social basis and the political repercussions of het- Echols, Alice. Daring To Be Bad: Radical Femi-
erosexuality and homosexuality. They defined les- nism in America, 19671975. Minneapolis:
bian feminism as a political choicerather than a University of Minnesota Press, 1989.
matter of sexual orientationthat signified ones Fox, Sue. After the Revolution. Washington
commitment to ending male supremacy. By empha- Blade (June 23,1995).
sizing that lesbianism represented a political stance, . The Furies. Washington Blade (June 16,
they minimized the importance of sexuality. The 1995).
Furies argued that heterosexuality constituted a Myron, Nancy, and Charlotte Bunch. Lesbianism and
mechanism of social control through which male the Women s Movement. Baltimore: Diana, 1975.
supremacy kept women economically and emotion- Valk, Anne M. Separatism and Sisterhood: Race,
ally dependent on men, extended social approval to Sex, and Womens Activism in Washington,
heterosexual women and vilified lesbians, and sepa- D.C., 19631980. Ph.D. diss., Duke Univer-
rated women from one another. Revolutionary sity, 1996.
change would ensue as gay, feminist women sepa-
rated from men and straight women in their per- See also Brown, Rita Mae; Class; Lesbian Femi-
sonal and political lives. They advocated a separa- nism; Olivia; Publishing, Lesbian; Separatism

322 FURIES, THE

G
Garbo, Greta (19051990) conventional relationships with men and women
Swedish actress. Born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in (although her affectional preference since adoles-
Stockholm, Garbo made her acting debut in cence was apparently for other women), most no-
advertising films for the department store where tably with the noted photographer Cecil Beaton
she worked in her adolescence. Within a year of (19041980), who was otherwise gay, and the
this inauspicious start, she was admitted to the openly lesbian socialite Mercedes de Acosta (1893
Swedish Royal Dramatic Theater Academy, where 1968). (The latter, Alice B.Toklas [18771967]
she came to the attention of Mauritz Stiller (1883 observed, could not be dismissed lightly, as she has
1928), who renamed her and directed her in her had the two most important women in the United
first leading role, in the silent film The Saga of StatesGarbo and [Marlene] Dietrich)
Gsta Berling (1924). Stiller brought her to Hol- A singular manifestation of Hollywood lesbian
lywood in 1925, where, under contract to Metro- subculture may be found in Queen Christina. The
Goldwyn-Mayer, she soon became one of the most films producers attempted to heterosexualize the
popular and glamorous film stars. Between 1925 story life of its subject, the seventeenth-century les-
and 1941, she starred in twentyfive feature films, bian queen of Sweden who abdicated her throne
in which she typically played an exotic, highly sen- rather than subject herself to the dynastic marriage
sual, aloof, and occasionally androgynous femme that her court and people required. Garbo, with
fatale. The most notable include The Flesh and the assistance from screenwriter Salka Viertel (1880
Devil (1927); her first talkie, Anna Christie 1978), with whom she was rumored to be roman-
(1930); Mata Hari (1931); Grand Hotel (1932); tically involved during the filming, nevertheless
As You Desire Me (1932); Queen Christina (1933); subverts the plot with numerous, if indirect, les-
Anna Karenina (1935); Camille (1936); Conquest bian modes of expression, including a variety of
(1937); and Ninotchka (1939). butch mannerisms, transvestitism, and a rare
At the age of thirty-six, after the box-office fail- filmic example of a shared kiss between two
ure of her last film, Two-Faced Woman (1941), women, and thus creates a sort of cinematic dou-
Garbo retired from acting and lived recursively in ble discourse.
New York City until her death half a century later. During Garbos lifetime, the complexity of her
The reasons for her withdrawal are the subject of sexuality, while the topic of gossip, was quite pur-
much conjecture. Lesbian film critic Weiss (1993) posely obscured. Since her death, several sensitive
among others, suggests that scrutiny of her private and well-researched biographies have illuminated
life by the press and in Hollywood gossip was a this aspect of the life of one of Hollywoods most
likely motivating factor. Garbo was widely known alluring and mysterious figures.
as a participant in the Hollywood gay and lesbian Patricia Juliana Smith
circles that flourished in the late 1920s and early
1930s and exhibited a penchant for cross-dressing Bibliography
and referring to herself, at times, by male pronouns. Acosta, Mercedes de. Here Lies the Heart. New
She was involved, moreover, in a number of un- York: Reynal, 1960.

G A R B O , G R E TA 323
 Paris, Barry. Garbo: A Biography. New York: teractions with the USOC occurred during the prepa-
G Knopf, 1995.
Souhami, Diana. Greta and Cecil. San Francisco:
rations for Gay Games IV in 1994. With the assist-
ance of the USOC, federation board members met
Harper, 1994. with officials from the United States State Depart-
Vickers, Hugo. Loving Garbo: The Story of Greta ment and Department of Health and Human Serv-
Garbo, Cecil Beaton, and Mercedes de Acosta. ices to address the needs of HIV-positive athletes
New York: Random House, 1994. who wanted to participate in the Games. One out-
Weiss, Andrea. Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in come of this meeting was the enactment of a blan-
Film. New York: Penguin, 1993. ket waiver allowing HIV-positive athletes to enter
the United States for the time period of the Games.
See also Christina of Sweden; Dietrich, Marlene; The Games offer a rare opportunity for lesbian,
Film, Mainstream gay, bisexual, and transgendered people to partici-
pate openly in a friendly and safe sport environ-
ment. The Games also provide numerous role mod-
Gay Games els and a socially supportive atmosphere. In many
Largest and most widely known athletic event for personal accounts of Gay Games participation, ath-
gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered individu- letes have described their experiences as empower-
als. In fact, as of the 1994 Games, it was the worlds ing, personally rewarding, and enlightening. The
largest athletic event of any kind. The Games are an Games serve important social, personal-develop-
Olympic-style event that is open to all interested par- ment, and political purposes for the participants.
ticipants who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, The athletes in the Gay Games seem to have very
or supportive of these groups. Thomas Waddell positive experiences, which then may generalize to
(19371987), an American Olympic decathlete, other aspects of their lives beyond sport as they
founded the Gay Games. His primary goal was to become personally empowered.
challenge homophobia in traditional sport. Thus, the Gay Games I was held in San Francisco, Califor-
Gay Games were established on the principles of in- nia, in August 1982, with 1,350 participants repre-
clusion, participation, and personal best. They are senting twelve countries and competing in fourteen
open to participants of any skill level, age, ethnicity, sports. In August 1986, Gay Games II, also in San
nationality, physical ability, and sexual orientation. Francisco, attracted approximately 3,500 athletes
There are no qualifying standards, and winning is from sixteen countries, competing in seventeen dif-
not the most salient aspect of the Games. Still, world ferent sports. The Games continued to grow, with
records have been achieved during the Gay Games. more than 7,500 athletes participating in twenty-
The Games also are an important cultural event three sports in Gay Games III, in Vancouver, British
to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Columbia, Canada, in August 1990. New York City
community. The organizing body for the Games is hosted Gay Games IV, June 1825, 1994. Still grow-
the Federation of Gay Games, initially founded in ing, 10,864 athletes, representing thirty-nine coun-
1980 as San Francisco Arts and Athletics. The tries, participated in thirtyone different sports. Com-
fiftyfive-member board of directors ensures the pared to Gay Games I, which had a budget of $
continuity of the Games and adherence to the 125,000, Gay Games IV had a $6.5 million budget.
founding principles. Gay Games IV also benefited from major corporate
Initially, the Games were called the Gay Olym- sponsorship of approximately $1 million in serv-
pics, However, shortly before the opening ceremo- ices and cash from twenty-one sponsors. Gay Games
nies of the first Games, in 1982, the organizing com- V, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, August 18, 1998
mittee was served a restraining order from the United the first time outside North Americatruly marked
States Olympic Committee (USOC), resulting in the them as an international event. In Gay Games V,
removal of the word Olympics from anything 14,715 athletes, representing eightyeight countries,
associated with the renamed Gay Games. After the participated in thirty official and seven demonstra-
Gay Games, the organizing committee appealed the tion sports. Victoria Krane
order. This legal battle continued until March 24,
1987, when the United States Supreme Court ruled Bibliography
that the USOC had exclusive and proprietary right Krane, V., and L.Romont. Female Athletes Mo-
to use the word Olympic. However, positive in- tives and Experiences During the Gay Games.

324 G A R B O , G R E TA
 Journal of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Identi- borrowed inspiration from the New Left analysis
ties 2:123138. that blamed the plight of women and racial and
Labrecque, Lisa, ed. Unity: A Celebration of Gay ethnic minorities on deeply ingrained and systemic
Games IV and Stonewall. San Francisco: flaws in society. Similar dynamics and theories also
Labreque, 1994. produced gay liberation movements in Canada, the
Young, P.D. Lesbians and Gays and Sports. New United Kingdom, France, and other European
York: Chelsea House, 1995. countries, and Australia and New Zealand.
Gay Liberation Front (GLF) members argued
See also Sports, Professional that enforced heterosexuality was an evil caused
by a sexist culture to protect the power of straight
men and that, under this hegemony, homosexual-
Gay Liberation Movement ity became prohibited behavior. Carl Whitmans
Post-Stonewall (1969) gay movement shaped by 1969 Refugees from Amerika: A Gay Manifesto
the counterculture of the 1960s, the civil rights made the point more stridently clear, arguing that
movement, radical feminism, and the New Left. exclusive heterosexuality is fucked upas it re-
flects a fear of people of the same sex, its anti-
Gay liberationists had a revolutionary view of the
homosexual, and it is fraught with frustration.
changes that needed to take place in the lives of
The rejection of heterosexuality was tied to simi-
lesbians and gay men and in the larger heterosexual
lar disavowals of marriage, family, and sex roles.
society that oppressed them.
One member of the New York City feminist collec-
One of the most influential organizations was the
tive who produced the newspaper RAT argued in
Gay Liberation Front (GLF). The GLF was consti-
1970 that gay liberationists were women and men
tuted out of two divergent groups. One of these
who from the time of our earliest memories have
groups consisted of former members of homophile
been in revolt against the sex role-structure and the
organizations such as the Mattachine Society and the
nuclear family structure. Traditional marriage was
Daughters of Bilitis. These organizations had been thought to be an oppressive institution, a contract
fighting for equality since the 1950s, and their mem- that smothered both people, denied physical and
bers emphasized accommodation as a tactic and ac- emotional needs, and placed impossible demands
ceptance by society as their goal. Members of the other on both members of the contract. Allen Young, one
group that helped found the GLF were younger, more of the central theorists of gay liberation and a Gay
radical, more idealistic, and more extremist in their Liberation Front member, argued against traditional
approach. Many in this younger core had been ac- normative family arrangements:
tive in the antiwar movement and New Left organi-
zations such as SDS (Students for a Democratic Soci- The nuclear family, with its man-woman
ety). This latter group largely ignored the achieve- model built in by the presence of parents, is
ments and significance of the homophile movement. the primary means by which this restricted
Having no patience for lesbian and gay organizations sexuality is created and enforced. Gays expe-
that were more accommodating of mainstream soci- rience rejection by the family in a society
etys oppression of sexual difference, this younger where familial love is considered important.
group quickly became the center of the early gay lib- The family oppresses women and children as
eration movement. well as gays. The phenomena of runaway teen-
Gay liberationists argued for fundamental and agers and increasing divorce rates are signs of
extensive societal change in the quest for a new the erosion of the nuclear family. Gay libera-
order built on egalitarianism, the end of gender tion is another sign. We attack the nuclear
bias and discrimination, and a more open, less family when we refuse to get married and have
puritanical attitude toward sex of all kinds. The a family. We are committed to building com-
guiding thread of gay liberation was a rejection of munal situations where children can grow
enforced heterosexuality, marriage, traditional gen- strong and free (Jay and Young 1992).
der roles and family arrangements, and sexual pri-
vacyall built upon an understanding of sexual For the gay liberationists, the social institutions of
identity as something other than fixed. The Gay marriage and family were suspect, in need of re-
Liberation Front of New York City and its name- definition, if not total elimination, because, like
sakes in other urban centers around the country heterosexuality, they were part and parcel of the

G AY L I B E R A T I O N M O V E M E N T 325
 very fabric of society that helped oppress lesbians the issue of choice. While it is difficult to find a
G and gays by rendering their lives and loves invis-
ible. The enforced privacy surrounding all discus-
social constructionist who would equate social
construction with choice, the liberationists did,
sions of homosexuality made it all but impossible indeed, argue that gays and straights alike need
for a teenager in the 1950s and 1960s to learn about only choose to be gay to make it so. Far from sim-
other lesbians and gay men. Because of the way it plistic, this position seemed carefully developed to
rendered gay existence invisible, GLF members help create anxiety and provoke reflection among
were also critical of the liberal, straight notion the heterosexual majority that never had to give a
that sexuality is essentially a private matter. They second thought to their sexuality and to the social
argued instead that this perpetuated male su- institutions that support it.
premacy and patterns of dominance which are ba- By the mid-1970s many of the most radical ideas
sically sexist and, in the end, antihomosexual. of gay liberation were in decline. The GLF faced
Although perhaps somewhat Utopian in their problems with organizational structure, FBI infil-
outlook, the liberationists merged their personal tration, and internal strife. For example, within GLF
insights and experiences of oppression with a rap- New York there was a caucus called Gay Liberation
idly expanding body of feminist and socialist theory, Front Women. Many of these women believed that
creating powerful criticisms of the institutions of male GLF members were themselves sexist and noted
heterosexuality, marriage, family, and privacy. Many that the word gay was coming to be used in the
of these criticisms continue to be relevant as young media as a term that referred almost exclusively to
lesbians and gays face oppressive home environ- men. They broke away and formed their own or-
ments and abusive families when their sexual iden- ganizations, often merging with lesbians coming out
tity is discovered, although, increasingly, this sad fact of the womens liberation movement. With the end
is widely acknowledged as a problem. The of the Vietnam War in 1973 also came the end of
liberationists understanding of what it means to be more than a decade of political radicalism that had
gay, of what constitutes lesbian or gay being, also swept the United States, ushering in a more con-
continued to be radical throughout the late twenti- servative approach to gay activism.
eth century. Gay liberationists argued that hetero- As the 1970s progressed, the notion that sexual
sexual and homosexual were artificial catego- identity was a choice or was malleable gave way to a
ries invented by a sexist society, and they made many reform model of gay activism that sought integration
heterosexuals anxious with their claim that every with the social institutions of society, not their over-
straight man is a target for gay liberation. Simi- throw or replacement. It was easier to argue that gays
larly, the New York City liberationist group and lesbians were like everyone else; their sexuality
Radicalesbians argued that lesbianism, like male was fixed, immutable, and unchanging. The AIDS
homosexuality, was a category that had meaning epidemic also affected the freer attitude toward sex
only in a sexist society characterized by rigid roles that gay liberationists had adopted from the
and dominated by male supremacy. counterculture movement of the 1960s. For gay men,
For many liberationists, heterosexuals were the a new urban, commercial culture succeeded in creat-
enemy, who could be trusted only if they renounced ing greater opportunities for men to meet, socialize,
their heterosexuality and became a lesbian or gay and be openly gay. Typified by the Castro in San Fran-
person. In the language of the times, one of the cisco and Greenwich Village in New York City, these
central goals of gay liberation was to reach the gay ghettos made the liberationist goals of build-
homosexuals entombed in heterosexuals, to lib- ing bridges between all minority groups in an effort
erate our brothers and sisters, to free the homo- to gain freedom and equality seem less immediately
sexual in everyone. This belief that sexuality was necessary and important for many gay men. In les-
the product of a sexist society, and that hetero- bian communities, feminist debates about pornogra-
sexuality and homosexuality were two equally phy, butch-femme roles, and sadomasochism split the
oppressive social roles, was a sophisticated theo- liberationist agenda in unpredictable ways. Still, as
retical argument, and many of the liberationist ideas the antecedent to the Lesbian Avengers, ACT UP
are contained in socialconstructionist understand- (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), and Queer Na-
ing of sexuality. However, there is an important tion, gay liberation was an important and theoreti-
difference between the gay liberationists of the cally sophisticated moment in the history of the gay
1970s and the social constructionists of the 1990s: rights movement in the United States. Gary Lehring

326 G AY L I B E R A T I O N M O V E M E N T
Bibliography tact or deferential head tilts. Referred to as doing
Altman, Dennis. Homosexual: Oppression and gender, the enactment of these interactional proc-
Liberation. New York: Outerbridge and esses entails men doing dominance and women
Dienstfrey, 1971. doing submission. According to this perspective,
Jay, Karla, and Allen Young. Out of the Closets: individuals pursuit of gender-appropriate inter-
Voices of Gay Liberation. New York: New York ests and self-presentations reflects a compulsory
University Press, 1992. process of recruitment to gendered identities, where
Lehring, Gary. Essentialism and the Political Ar- peoples perceived competence as members of so-
ticulation of Identity. In Playing with Fire: ciety is dependent upon their proper enactment of
Queer Politics, Queer Theories. Ed. Shane the doing of gender.
Phelan. New York: Routledge, 1997. Scholars have also conceptualized gender as a
Marotta, Toby. The Politics of Homosexuality. structure or stratification system that creates gen-
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981. der differences and then differentially rewards them,
with all men ranked above women of the same race
See also Daughters of Bilitis; New Left; and class. Drawing on black feminist thought, re-
Radicalesbians; Social-Construction Theory cent analysts view gender as part of a matrix of
domination containing interlocking systems of
oppression based on race, class, gender, and sexual
Gender orientation. Hence, researchers refer to the multi-
Refers variably to socially constructed behavioral plicity of gender, with hegemonic masculinity
and identity distinctions, as in feminine and (white, heterosexual, economically successful) be-
masculine; a process, as in doing gender; a ing ascendant over both women and subordinated
stratification system or structure, as in gendered masculinities, such as gay or working-class men,
organizations; or an institution whose main pur- and emphasized femininity being oriented
pose is to create and maintain gender inequality. around the accommodation of mens desires.
Should not be confused with sex, which denotes As a structure, gender legitimates these hierar-
biological distinctions between females and males. chies of authority, organizes sexuality and emo-
tion, and divides work in the home and the
Feminist Scholarship economy. Relatedly, scholars refer to organizations
The explosion of scholarship on gender, especially as gendered, meaning that advantages and dis-
by feminists, followed the emergence of the con- advantages are patterned in ways that reflect so-
temporary womens movement in the 1960s. Early cially constructed gender distinctions, which typi-
investigations of gender, called sex-roles re- cally benefit men. This gendering process occurs
search, focused on individual attributes that are through the creation of gendered divisions of labor,
learned via socialization and enforced through space, and behavior, as well as symbols, identities,
social control. Masculinity was characterized and practices that reinforce those divisions. For
as encompassing independence, aggression, domi- instance, job-evaluation systems that employers use
nance, emotional detachment, and rationality, to determine pay contain point ratings that sys-
while femininity was described as entailing de- tematically ignore or devalue skills found in female-
pendence, nurturance, passivity, emotion, and ir- dominated jobs.
rationality. Androgyny referred to a blending Another approach has emerged that conceptu-
of these attributes. Researchers revealed the so- alizes gender as an institution in and of itself. This
cially constructed nature of gender by highlight- paradigm analyzes gender as simultaneously a proc-
ing the changing form and content of gender roles ess, a stratification system, and a structure. Just as
across societies, time, class, ethnicity, age, and core institutions, such as the family and religion,
sexual orientation. entail patterns of organization and interaction that
Later, West and Zimmerman (1987) conceptu- serve particular societal purposes, so, too, does
alized gender not as a property of individuals but gender. According to this perspective, the main
as a process of interactional accomplishment en- purpose of gender as an institution is to construct
acted continually through various gender displays. women as a group to be mens subordinates so that
For example, men frequently interrupt conversa- women can be exploited as workers, sexual part-
tions, while women show interest through eye con- ners, childbearers, and emotional nurturers.

GENDER 327
 Gender, Lesbian Feminism, and
G Queer Theory
A central theme associated with some tendencies
German Literature
The development of lesbianism, in its broadest defi-
nition, as a theme in the literature of Germany is
within lesbian feminismoften referred to as cul- largely linked to the process of womens social and
tural feminismis its assumption of fundamen- political emancipation in the nineteenth and twen-
tal gender differences and its valorization of fe- tieth centuries. Seen from a historical perspective,
male values. In this view, womens traits and val- the expression of lesbianism in German literature
ues include an ethic of care, cooperation, and paci- has undergone significant transformations and can
fism, while mens characteristics encompass an ethic be divided chronologically into five major stages,
of individual rights, competition, and violence. ranging from the aestheticized homoerotic imagery
While some lesbian feminists ascribe to essential- hidden in the correspondence of Romantic women
ism or biological determinism, others take a so- writers to the proud affirmation of radical feminist
cial-constructionist approach and attribute these views in the postmodern novel. In light of the ab-
gender differences to socialization. sence of a lesbian aesthetics or a female homoerotic
Lesbian feminism also challenges oppressive tradition comparable to that of male homoeroticism
standards of gender behavior and appearance. Early in Western art and culture, it is important to note
lesbian feminists adopted practical, unisex styles of that all major works to depict lesbian desire or to
dress and presentations of self that included include lesbian characters were written by women.
unshaved legs, no makeup, and short hair. Scholars
refer to this as gender blending. Some recent Romanticism (17801880)
selfpresentation modes incorporate elements of punk The first period that brought about clearly visible
culture, while sex radicals wear low-cut tops, traces of female homoeroticism in German literary
short skirts, and fishnet stockings. Those who com- history is the Romantic period. Though love and
bine these with traditionally masculine items, such relationships between women are not portrayed as
as combat boots, adopt a style called gender explicitly sexual in either correspondence or fic-
fucking. This deliberate playing with gender in tion, many romantic female friendships, such as
order to expose it as a social construction also char- the ones between Rahel Varnhagen von Ense
acterizes those identifying as queer. Queer activ- (17711833) and Pauline Wiesel (n.d.) or between
ists and queer theorists aim to explode dominant Claire von Glmer (18251906) and Auguste
cultural binaries (man/woman, straight/gay), which Scheibe (n.d.), can be labeled lesbian in the sense
are seen as bases of oppression and distortions of that both partners were lovingly, and often posses-
human experience. Nicole C.Raeburn sively, devoted to each other in their struggle to be,
and remain, together. Bettina von Arnims (1785
Bibliography 1859) fictional account, in her epistolary novel Die
Acker, Joan. Hierarchies, Jobs, and Bodies: A Gnderode (1840), of her short, but intense, friend-
Theory of Gendered Organizations. Gender ship with Karoline von Gnderode (17801806)
and Society 4 (1990), 139158. demonstrates the amplitude of emotions and the
Connell, R.W. Gender and Power: Society, the Per- sexual ambiguities women writers of the Roman-
son, and Sexual Politics. Stanford, Calif.: tic period sought to express. Not only does Bettina
Stanford University Press, 1987. aspire to the highest form of physical and spiritual
Devor, Holly. Gender Blending: Confronting the closeness with her friendin one letter, Bettina
Limits of Duality. Bloomington: Indiana Uni- fantasizes about spending a night togetherbut she
versity Press, 1989. also does it by adopting the language, tone, and
Lorber, Judith. Paradoxes of Gender. New Haven, imagery of erotic love.
Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994.
West, Candace, and Don Zimmerman. Doing Gen- Sexology and Literature (1880s1917)
der. Gender and Society 1 (1987), 125151. The years of the construction and medicalization of
the homosexual by European sexologists ushered
See also Androgyny; Biological Determinism; Es- in the second stage in the history of German lesbian
sentialism; Lesbian Feminism; Queer Theory; So- literature. This period, around the turn of the twen-
cial-Construction Theory; Tomboy; Transgender; tieth century, may be labeled the creation and strug-
Womens Liberation Movement gle of what was called the Uranian woman, since

328 GENDER
the literature of this time echoes the medical-scien- in World War I and that much of it would stand in
tific debate on homosexuality, on the one hand, and the light of the social and political activism charac-
the calls for womens emancipation, on the other. A teristic of the Weimar Republic (19181933). The
striking characteristic of male-authored texts depict- continuing establishment of womens clubs in the
ing female homosexuality is the fact that the lesbian bigger cities and the publication of lesbian maga-
character generally serves to play the role of the de- zines, among them Bltter Idealer Frauen
viant and destructive female outsider who is harm- freundschaften, Frauenliebe, Garonne, and Die
ful to society and, ultimately, to herself. Such is the Freundin, further improved communication among
case in Alfred Meebolds novella Dr. Erna Redens women. Through soirees and organized readings,
Thorheit und Erkenntnis (Dr. Erna Redens Fool- as well as through the publication of articles, book
ishness and Insight [1900]), and in Hermann reviews, political essays, and fiction, womens clubs
Sudermanns play Die Freundin (The Girlfriend and magazines were instrumental in the creation and
[1913]). Even the legendary Countess Geschwitz, distribution of literature concerned with womens
introduced in the final act of Frank Wedekinds and lesbian issues. These were raised particularly
drama Erdgeist (Ghost [1895]) must realize that by Maria Sauer von Peteani (18881960), a
there is no place for the lesbian in the world of her Pragueborn writer whose many novels were best-
times. In Die Bchse der Pandora (Pandoras Box), sellers in lesbian circles; by Emma Zelenka (n.d.),
the follow-up play of 1904, Geschwitz, a kind and an activist and writer who, in 1932, appealed to
generous woman, is brutally murdered. Viennas lesbians to unite in the fight against mass
Though not always taking a positive stand on poverty; and by Edith Cadivec (1879?), author of
homosexuality, turn-of-the-century women writers the notorious two-volume autobiography, Unter der
clearly join in the feminist movements call for emo- Peitsche der Leidenschaft (Under the Whip of Pas-
tional, spiritual, and political solidarity of women. sion [1931]), who established a club for sadists in
While some texts, among them Baroness von Vienna. The best-known works of this period, Anna
Puttkamers lyric cycle Auf Kypros (On Cypress Elisabet Weirauchs (18871970) trilogy Der
[1898]), Mrs. M.F.s (pseud.) essay Wie ich es sehe Skorpion (1919, 1921, 1931) and Christa Winsloes
(As I See It [1901]), and Maria Janitscheks Die neue (18881944) Das Mdchen Manuela (The Girl
Eva (The New Eve [1906]), seem to endorse com- Manuela [1933]), would find international acclaim.
mon stereotypes, denouncing womens homoerotic The advancement in the general emancipation
desires as sinful and dangerous, others, such as of women, and in the struggle for the rights and
Elisabeth Dauthendey (18541918) in her 1906 recognition of lesbians and gays in particular, came
pamphlet Die Urnische Frage und die Frauen (The to a sudden halt with Adolf Hitlers rise to power
Uranian Question and Women), argue confidently in 1933, forcing many writers and activists into
from a political perspective in an attempt to con- exile. Although the Third Reich failed in its at-
struct a positive lesbian identity. Unsurpassed in their tempts to destroy Germanys lesbian and gay cul-
radicality are the works of the self-proclaimed tures, the severe stigmatization and persecution of
women-loving man hater, Helene von Druskowitz homosexuals instigated by the Nazis cast a shadow
(18561918), who, due to her subversive and that would affect the lesbian emancipation move-
malethreatening views, was imprisoned in a lunatic ment for no less than four decades. Following
asylum. Equally outstanding in its realistic insight World War II, the heightened isolation, the lack of
concerning the social, political, and sexual situation womens presses, and the controlling dominance
of women at the time is the novel Sind es Frauen? of men in key positions of cultural production and
(Are These Women [1901]) by Aime Duc (Minna criticism made it difficult for women writers to
Adelt, b. 1867). Here women identify as lesbians reconnect with an earlier tradition and to find a
not because of a congenital drive but, as Faderman voice of their own. It is, therefore, neither inaccu-
and Eriksson (1980) argue, because they have taken rate nor inappropriate to call the fourth stage in
their feminism to its logical conclusion. the history of German lesbian literature the Forty
Years of Hiding, Reflection, and Renewal.
The Weimar Republic and After (19181970) Indeed, the barricade of speechlessness, the ten-
It is hardly surprising, then, to note that an abun- dency to employ subterfuge, the transposition of
dance of lesbian literature would result out of the heterosexual conventions into homosexual rela-
liberal atmosphere that followed Germanys defeat tionships, the adoption of the male gaze to hide

G E R M A N L I T E R AT U R E 329
 lesbian desires, displacement and the search for nally younger than twenty-five or older than fifty;
G space, and the escape back into heterosexuality
these themes and techniques have been among the
they die and hide no longer; they are politicians,
doctors, mothers, and grandmothers; they appear
most prominent and enduring in the literature of in wheelchairs and are no longer confined to a
this stage. They are the keys to understanding not marginalized private sphere. Since Germanys
only works in which lesbian desires lurk under the reunification in 1990, additional efforts have been
surface, as in Ruth Kempes Paria and Annemarie made to retrace the history of lesbians in the former
Schwarzenbachs Lyrische Novelle (both 1933), German Democratic Republic (East Germany),
Marie Luise Kaschnitzs Elissa (1937), Luise which have resulted in, among other things, the
Rinsers Die glsernen Ringe (Rings of Glass creation of documentaries (Sillige 1991), biographi-
[1940]), and Gertrud Isolanis prison-camp docu- cal sketches (Gutsche 1991), and literary studies
mentary Stadt ohne Manner (City Without Men (Waberski 1997). Christoph Lorey
[1945]), but also those works in which lesbianism
is a more central theme. These include Marlen Bibliography
Haushofers novels Eine Handvoll Leben (A Hand- Ewering, Ccilia. Frauenliebe und-literatur. (Wom-
ful of Life [1955]) and Tapetentr (Wallpaper Door ens Love and Womens Literature). Essen:
[1957]), Ingeborg Bachmanns short story Ein Blaue Eule, 1992.
Schritt nach Gomorrha (A Step Toward Faderman, Lillian, and Brigitte Eriksson. Lesbians
Gomorrah [1961]), Nina Kellers novel Der Schritt in Germany, 1890s1920s. Tallahassee, Fla.:
(The Step [1965]), and the stories Eine groartige Naiad, 1980.
Eroberung (A Great Conquest [1965]) by Gabriele Marti, Madeleine. Hinterlegte Botschaften: Die
Wohmann and Die Klosterschule (The Convent Darstellung lesbischer Frauen in der
School [1968]) by Barbara Frischmuth. deutschsprachigen Literatur seit 1945 (Treasured
Messages: The Representation of Lesbian Women
The New Lesbian Movement (1971) in German Literature since 1945). Stuttgart: M
The era of a new lesbian movement began to emerge und P, Verl. f. Wissenschaft und Forschung, 1991.
in 1971 with the founding of the political action Meyer, Adele, ed. Lila Nchte: Die Damenklubs
group Homosexuelle Aktion Westberlin and to take der Zwanziger Jahre (Purple Nights: The Wom-
off in 1974 with the creation of the Lesbisches ens Clubs of the 1920s). Berlin:
Aktionszentrum (Lesbian Action Center) and the Frauenbuchverl. Zitronenpresse, 1981.
Gruppe L74 (Group L74) (Ewering 1992). Aside Schoppmann, Claudia. Der Skorpion:
from a wave of political and social activismin- Frauenliebe in der Weimarer Republik (The
cluding the tracing of lesbian history and the es- Scorpion: Lesbian Love in the Weimar Repub-
tablishment of womens presses and lesbian maga- lic). Hamburg: Frhlings Erwachen, 1985.
zines in Germany, Austria, and Switzerlandthe Tubach, Sally Patterson. Female Homoeroticism
following decades would witness a stark increase in German Literature and Culture. Ph.D. diss.,
in the publication of (also French and American) University of California, Berkeley, 1980.
lesbian literature and criticism. In the fiction of the
1970s, lesbians at times still appear hidden in the See also Germany; Nazism; Romantic Friendship;
light of conventional prejudices. However, in Weirauch, Anna Elisabet; Winsloe, Christa
groundbreaking works, such as Hutungen (Shed-
ding [1975]) by Verena Stefan, Die Freundinnen
(The Girlfriends [1977]) by Johanna Moosdorf, Germany
and Puppe Else (Dolly Else [1978]) by Marlene Officially named the Federal Republic of Germany
Stenten, the lesbian experience is increasingly be- (FRG); the result of the unification between West
coming a possible and positive alternative to het- and East Germany in 1990, a year after the fall of
erosexual relationships. the Berlin Wall. Of its approximately eighty mil-
In the 1980s, the works of Elfriede Jelinek, lion citizens (including 5.2 million non-German
Waldtraut Lewin, Judith Offenbach, Christa immigrants), sixteen million live in the territory of
Reinig, Monika Sperr, Marlene Stenten, and the former East and sixty-four million in the former
Gertrud Wilker, among others, brought about a West. A large percentage of lesbians and gays live
radical diversification of themes. Lesbians are fi- in metropolitan areas, such as Berlin, Cologne,

330 G E R M A N L I T E R AT U R E
Hamburg, and Munich, rather than in rural or ists, and the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee suc-
small-town areas, due to their large and visible cessfully fought off government attempts to rein-
subcultures, providing a broad variety of commu- corporate female homosexual acts into the penal
nity services, meeting places, bars, and bookstores. code. The attempt to criminalize lesbianism was not
directed against female homosexuality per se but
History was intended to subvert the growing political influ-
One of the earliest records of a German woman ence of the womens movement in general. Accord-
who passed as a man and married another woman ingly, the feminist argument focused almost exclu-
dates back to a court case in 1721. According to sively on the threat of such a law for all women and
the trial transcript, Catharina Margaretha Linck, argued primarily about womens right to privacy.
disguised as a man, served as a soldier in various Except for Johanna Elberskirchen (1864?) and
German armies. In 1717, after her military service, Anna Ruling (dates unknown), both active in the
she worked as a cotton dyer and married a woman. womens movement and two of the very few female
When her wife confessed to her mother that Linck members of the board of the Scientific-Humanitar-
was a woman, the mother brought Linck before ian Committee, feminists did not take an active and
the law, and she was imprisoned and tried. The progressive stance on the issue of lesbianism. Most
main evidence against Linck was a dildo she had of them shared the sexological view of homosexu-
fashioned from leather. Catharina Linck was ex- ality as repulsive and unnatural. Although many of
ecuted in 1721, based on the verdict that she had the leaders of the feminist movement lived together
committed a crime against nature. in lifetime companionshipsfor example, Helene
The death penalty for male and female homo- Lange (18481930) and Gertrud Baeumer (1873
sexuality (the term in use at the time was sod- 1954), Anita Augspurg (18571943) and Lida
omy) was in effect until its abolishment in 1794. Gustava Heymann (18681943)none of them ever
Both male and female homosexuality, however, publicly announced themselves to be lesbian. It was
were treated as criminal offenses until 1851. The a concept that didnt relate to how they understood
legal reform of 1851 excluded women from crimi- their lives, experiences, and relationships.
nal prosecution by changing the formulation from The history of lesbianism as a medical concept
men and women to mention only men. Fe- began in 1869 when Carl von Westphal (1833
male homosexual acts were believed not to occur 1890), a German psychiatrist, published a case study
as frequently as male homosexual acts and, there- of a young woman, Fraulein N., who was attracted
fore, were ignored by the law. Male homosexual to women. Westphal identified the young woman
acts between adults ceased to be illegal in East as a cogenital invert, whose abnormality was not
Germany in 1968 and in West Germany in 1969. aquired but the result of hereditary degeneration and
The early movement for the liberation of homo- neurosis. Following Westphal and others, Richard
sexuals was led by Magnus Hirschfeld (18681935). von Krafft-Ebing (18401902) developed his theory
In 1897, he and several others founded the Scien- of female homosexuality as an inherited diseased
tific-Humanitarian Committee for the purpose of condition of the central nervous system, in his book
promoting a scientific discussion of homosexuality Psychopathia Sexualis, first published in 1882.
and advocating the repeal of all laws persecuting Krafft-Ebings work would become the most influ-
homosexuals. The committee pursued its work un- ential theory on homosexuality at the time and was
til the Nazi rise to power in 1933. Although the replaced only gradually by the work of Sigmund
committee claimed to be fighting for both male and Freud (18561939). Krafft-Ebings distinction be-
female homosexuals, it was occupied primarily with tween aquired and inherited homosexuality had an
the struggle to end the legal persecution of male impact on the self-definition of lesbians. In Aime
homosexuals. Thus, the situation of lesbianswho Ducs 1901 novel Sind es Frauen? (Are They
endured more subtle forms of social control and did Women?), the protagonists proudly identify them-
not have access to the public sphere (women were selves in the newly available terms, drawing bounda-
not allowed to build political organizations until ries between true members of what was called
1908 and only gained the right to vote in 1918) the third sex and those who had never been true
was not given equal attention. inverts. Another example of the proud reclaiming
Despite this ignorance over lesbian concerns, be- of the sexologists vocabulary is Anna Rlings 1904
tween 1909 and 1911 a broad alliance of both radi- speech What Interest Does the Womens Move-
cal and liberal feminists, individual gay male activ- ment Have in the Homosexual Question? at the

GERMANY 331
 annual conference of the Scientific Humanitarian in German history: a leaflet campaign against a se-
G Committee. Ruling linked female homosexuality to
autonomy and independence, thus setting it in a
ries of articles in the newspaper BILD on the topic
The Crimes of Lesbian Women. In January 1974,
feminist context and also challenging feminisms si- German televion broadcasted the film And We Take
lence on the homosexual question. for Ourselves What Is Ours by Right, which docu-
Although these are early signs of the defiant mented personal lives and political activities of les-
(and, at times, problematic) reclaiming of the sex- bians from HAW. Also in 1974, the first autono-
ologists ideas on womens part, it took until the mous National Lesbian Whitsunday Meeting took
Weimar Republic (19181933) for a visible lesbian place, and Berlin lesbians founded the first autono-
subculture to come into existence. Massive eco- mous lesbian community center and began publish-
nomic, political, cultural, and social transforma- ing the first lesbian journal since the Weimar Re-
tions in post-World War I German society provided public, Unsere kleine Zeitung (Our Little Journal).
some women with the opportunity to live lesbian During the 1970s and 1980s, lesbians adopted femi-
lives and build the first lesbian culture in Germany. nist ideas and were active primarily in the feminist
In the Roaring Twenties, especially Berlin but movement, building a strong, politically active wom-
other major German cities as well, became the scene ens community.
of a thriving subculture, consisting of bars, maga- The second half of the 1980s witnessed the be-
zines, social gathering places, and associations. ginning of two contradictory developments: Les-
When the Nazis gained power in 1933, they bians became more visible as lesbians and not just
immediately raided and closed all lesbian and gay as feminists, demanding more active representation
bars and destroyed the lesbian and gay subculture. within the feminist movement; at the same time,
Unlike male homosexuals, lesbians were not sys- lesbians of color, disabled lesbians, and Jewish les-
tematically persecuted. Since it was believed that bians began to demand recognition within the les-
lesbians were also often heterosexual and, there- bian community, thus forcing lesbian feminists to
fore, much less likely than homosexual men to fail take a serious look at the, by then, dominant con-
to contribute to the birth rate, the Nazi govern- cept of lesbianism as a feminist or woman-identi-
ment concentrated on disciplining lesbians through fied identity. In the late 1990s, lesbians in Ger-
norms of proper femininity, based on racist dis- many became more visible than ever, fighting for
courses of the true womanand motherhood. cultural and political representation, as well as
There are relatively few examples of lesbians in- participating in other political arenas, such as the
carcerated in concentration camps. They would struggle against racism.
usually be charged with prostitution or indecent In East Germany, the Homosexuelle
behavior, thus being forced to wear the black tri- Interessengemeinschaft Berlin (HIB; Berlin Asso-
angle for the Asoziale (antisocials). ciation for Homosexual Concerns) was founded
in 1974. The semipublic asscociation was estab-
After World War II lished by both women and men and organized
Following World War II, the reconstruction of the mostly private discussion groups and programs.
economy and the rebuilding of political structures Parallel to these efforts, lesbians and feminists or-
stood on top of the agendas of both West and East ganized separate groups centered on feminist is-
Germany. Thus, lesbians and gays did not have a sues. As the Lutheran Church was the only institu-
chance to come out of the closet the Nazis had forced tion strong enough to serve as an umbrella for
them into. During the 1950s and 1960s, however, political work outside the Communist Party, dur-
underground lesbian and gay subcultures developed ing the 1980s many lesbian and gay activists turned
in both German states. They included friendship to it to organize publicly and to form discussion
circles and bars in major urban centers. During the groups. Lesbians and gays who were not comfort-
1970s and 1980s, these lesbian and gay subcultures able with church affiliation continued to fight for
in East and West Germany grew stronger, more recognition by state officials. In 1986, the Sonntags
overtly political, and more visible, creating a his- Club (Sundays Club), a group that organized Sun-
torically new sense of pride and assertiveness. In day programs in a regular neighborhood youth club
1972, West Berlin lesbians founded the womens in East Berlin consisting of meetings, discussions,
section of the gay and lesbian activist group Ho- and cultural activities, received official recognition
mosexual Action Westberlin (HAW); in February and became the first state-supported lesbian and
1973, they organized the first lesbian public protest gay group in the East.

332 GERMANY
 With the collapse of the Communist regime in See also Berlin; German Literature; Nazism; Rling,
East Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall in Anna; sexology
1989, history has taken many sharp turns for both
(former) East and West Germans. The visibility and
critical activity of lesbians in all of Germany, how- Gidlow, Elsa (18981986)
ever, remains unabated. Poet, freelance journalist, and philosopher. Born in
Throughout the 1990s lesbians and gays in both Yorkshire, England, Gidlows moved with her fam-
eastern and western Germany became more visible ily to Montreal, Qubec, Canada, when she was six.
than ever. The annual gay pride parades in Berlin, Her childhood was marked by poverty and an of-
Cologne, Hamburg, and other major cities grew ten interrupted education. Gidlow wrote poetry from
steadily in numbers, peaking in 1998 with about an early age and was a lifelong feminist, having read
350,000 participants in Berlin alone. The growth about suffragists in the United Kingdom as a teen-
of gay pride also reflected a renewed interest of ager. In 1920, she moved to New York City, where
both lesbians and gay men to form political, so- she became the poetry editor of Pearsons maga-
cial, and cultural alliances with each other. With zine, a frequently censored progressive publication.
the decline of a feminist model of lesbian identity Her first book of poetry, On a Gray Thread
as woman identification, many lesbians began (1923), the first openly lesbian poetry collection in
to associate lesbianism more closely with sexuality the United States, was published by the famous ty-
than with gender, thus reopening the possibility of pographer Will Ransom. Gidlow was aware of the
forming links with gay men. Feminist politics, how- social attitudes toward lesbians but believed she had
ever, remained important in lesbian activism, and an intrinsic right to publish erotic poetry about
debates over whether lesbians and gays do indeed women. That she did this without the support of a
share political goals continued. lesbian community or financial resources to fall back
One of the strongly debated areas between les- on marks her as a bold and fearless creative spirit.
bians and gay men in the late 1990s was the strug- Her poetry is singularly free of external influ-
gle for lesbian and gay rights. Whereas many gay ences, although she often wrote poetry reminiscent
men favored gay marriage as the means to legal of Japanese haiku, especially in Wild Song Singing
entry into society, many lesbians adopted a femi- (1950) and Makings for Meditation (1973). Let-
nist point of view to question if marriage really is ters from Limbo (1956) and Moods of Eros (1971)
the answer to equality for lesbians and gays. These were printed by her own Druid Heights Books.
differences notwithstanding, lesbians and gay men Sapphic Songs, Seventeen to Seventy (1976), pub-
agreed that anti-discrimination laws should be one lished by Diana Press, was reissued in a revised
of the primary issues on the political agenda for and expanded edition, Sapphic Songs, Eighteen to
the next millennium. Sabine Hark Eighty (1982), by Booklegger Press.
In the early 1930s, Gidlow moved to the San
Bibliography Francisco area of California. She was an early sup-
Faderman, Lillian, and Brigitte Eriksson, eds. Lesbi- porter of the Daughters of Bilitis and an important
ans in Germany, 1890s1920s. Tallahassee,Fla.: member of artistic, philosophical, and bohemian
Naiad, 1980. circles, cofounding the Society of Comparative Phi-
Hark, Sabine. Deviante Subjekte. Die paradoxe losophy in 1962. She counted among her admirers
Politik der Identitaet (Deviant Subjects: The Alan Watts (19151973), Kenneth Rexroth (1905
Paradoxes of Identity Politics). Opladen: Leske 1982), Ansel Adams (19021984), Robinson Jeffers
and Budrich, 1996. (18871962), and Del Martin (1921) and Phyllis
, ed. Grenzen lesbischer Identitaeten (Borders Lyon (1924). She was accused of Communist lean-
of Lesbian Identities). Berlin: Querverlag, 1996. ings, and in 1947 the American Civil Liberties Un-
Jones, James. We of the Third Sex: Literary Rep- ion (ACLU) came to her defense.
resentations of Homosexuality in Wilhelmine In Ask No Man Pardon: The Philosophical Sig-
Germany. New York: Lang, 1990. nificance of Being Lesbian (1975), Gidlow wrote
Martin, Biddy. Extraordinary Homosexuals and that lesbians are born with different desires and
the Fear of Being Ordinary. differences: A Jour- needs but just as nature intended. She appeared in
nal of Feminist Cultural Studies 6:23 (Sum- the documentary Word Is Out (1978); and in
mer/Fall 1994), 100125. ELSA: I Come with My Songs (1986), she

G I D L O W, E L S A 333
 chronicles a long life of unabashed eroticism, deep cil offices, where women do all of the jobs and make
G spiritual questing, and profound love of women
and nature.
all of the decisions. Scouting offers relief from the
strain of heterosexual dating and the pressure to be
Eloise Klein Healy conventionally feminine. In addition, many women
who attended Girl Scout camp in their youth found
Bibliography it a refuge from dysfunctional or abusive family situ-
Rexroth, Kenneth. Elsa Gidlows Sapphic Songs. ations. While there is no way to determine whether
American Poetry Review 7:1 (1978), 20. there are more, fewer, or about the same percentage
Wells, Karen. Part V Sisters All. Margins 23 (Au- of lesbians in the Girl Scouts as in comparable or-
gust 1975), 5355. ganizations, estimates from staff members and lead-
West, Celeste. Farewell, Elsa Gidlow, Poet-Warrior ership range from as low as 5 percent of members
off our backs (August/September 1986)n n.p. to as high as 80 percent of administrators.
The official GSUSA position on lesbians was
See also Martin, Del, and Lyon, Phyllis; Poetry; developed in 1980. It states that, while the Girl
Qubec Scouts does not recruit lesbians, it does not dis-
criminate or intrude into personal matters. It main-
tains that leaders must provide appropriate role
Girl Scouts models and that sexual displays or the advocacy
Organization for girls from ages five to seventeen.
of a personal lifestyle or sexual orientation are not
The Girl Scout organization was founded in Savan-
allowed. According to GSUSA, appropriate
nah, Georgia, by Juliette Gordon Low (18601927)
behavior, not orientation, is the issue.
in 1912. Girl Scouts and Girl Guides make up the
In practice, deep currents of homophobia run
World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts
through Girl Scouting, reflecting societys stereotypes
(WAGGGS), the largest organization of girls and
and fears about homosexuals working with children.
women in the world, with troops on every conti-
Lesbian Girl Scouts, fearful of compromising the
nent and international centers in England, India,
organization and of losing their positions, have usu-
Mexico, and Switzerland. Girl Scouts of the U.S.A.
(GSUSA) has had more than sixty million members ally stayed closeted. Despite their caution, many have
in the twentieth century. Its national headquarters lost jobs or troops when their sexual orientation
is in New York City, and there are more than three became rumored or known. In several camps and
hundred affiliated but independent councils serving councils, executive directors, sometimes themselves
cities and rural areas throughout the United States. lesbians, have conducted periodic witch-hunts to
Girl Scouting is devoted to empowering girls to rid the organization of lesbians.
realize their full potential. It encourages self-confi- In the late twentieth century, with greater so-
dence, independence, and a service ethic through cial acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and
outdoors activities, skill building, character develop- transgender people, coming out of the cookie
ment, and leadership training. Its success is indicated closet (a reference to the cookie sales that are a
by a 1991 study showing that 64 percent of women primary source of fund-raising for the Girl Scouts)
in Whos Who of American Women were Girl Scouts. became less fraught with danger. Some Girl Scout
The Girl Scouts has a long-standing commit- councils began adding sexual orientation to their
ment to diversity, allowing mixed-race Scout troops diversity training and to their employment non-
and camps during the era of strict segregation, discrimination policies. In several councils, open
doing outreach in minority communities, publish- lesbians began serving on boards of directors, as
ing information in Spanish, and stressing diversity administrators, and as troop leaders.
in its materials. According to a 1994 report by the Little has been published about lesbians in Girl
Nonprofit Academic Centers Council, nearly one- Scouting. The first article was a 1989 report by Jorjet
third of GSUSA management positions were filled Harper in New York Citys OutWeek magazine. The
by people of color, compared to a 14.3 percent first story, The Juliette Low Legacy, by Judith
national average for nonprofit organizations. McDaniel, appeared in 40 Contemporary Lesbian
and Gay Short Stories in 1994. Also in 1994, Les-
Lesbians in Girl Scouting bian Connection, a bimonthly news and opinion
Many lesbians have felt at home in the all-women magazine, printed a spirited exchange of letters about
environments of Girl Scout troops, camps, and coun- the importance of Girl Scouting to many lesbians.

334 G I D L O W, E L S A
 The first book on the subject, On My Honor: House and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Her
Lesbians Reflect on Their Scouting Experience, by support for the controversial strategies of homophile
Nancy Manahan, was published in 1997. It con- militancy was among the reasons given for her ouster
tains essays from thirty-three Girl Scouts, including as editor of The Ladder in 1966.
five women of color and several Scouts who played In the transformed political climate of the 1970s,
leadership roles in the organization. This collection Gittings rejected what she considered the extrem-
encouraged the Girl Scouts to stop compromising ism of radical gay liberationists, lesbian feminists,
its principles of honesty and fairness by acknowl- and lesbian separatists. Consistently defending les-
edging the contributions lesbians have made to the bian alliances with gay men, Gittings rejected the
organization, apologizing for past injustices, add- notion that lesbian activists should work prima-
ing sexual orientation to the GSUSA nondiscrimi- rily within the context of the womens movement.
nation policy, incorporating accurate information In the early 1970s, Gittings produced gay exhibits
on sexual orientation into its training materials, and at three annual conventions of the American Psy-
supporting its many dedicated lesbian members. chiatric Association and headed the Task Force on
Nancy Manahan Gay Liberation (renamed the Gay Task Force) of
the American Library Association (19711986). In
Bibliography 1971, Gittings appeared with six other lesbians on
Manahan, Nancy. On My Honor: Lesbians Reflect the nationally syndicated television program, The
on Their Scouting Experience. Northboro, David Susskind Show. She also served on the boards
Mass.: Madwoman, 1997. of directors of the National Gay Task Force (1973
Schultz, Gladys Denny, and Daisy Gordon Lawrence. 1982), the Gay Rights National Lobby (1976
Lady from Savannah: The Life of Juliette Low. 1984), and the Delaware Valley Legacy Fund
New York: Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., 1958, 1988. (1994), which raises and distributes money for
lesbian and gay projects. Marc Stein
See also Lesbian Connection
Bibliography
Katz, Jonathan. Gay American History: Lesbians
Gittings, Barbara (1932) and Gay Men in the U.S.A. New York: Avon,
Homophile and gay rights activist. Founder of the 1976, pp. 632651.
New York City chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis Marcus, Eric. Making History: The Struggle for
(DOB) in 1958 and editor of the national lesbian Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights: An Oral His-
magazine The Ladder: A Lesbian Review from tory. New York: HarperCollins, 1992, pp. 104
1963 to 1966, Barbara Gittings remained active in 126, 213227.
the struggle for lesbian and gay rights long after Perry, Troy, and Thomas L.P.Swicegood. Profiles
the 1969 Stonewall riots and the rise of lesbian in Gay and Lesbian Courage. New York: St.
feminism in the 1970s. Martins, 1991, pp. 153178.
Born in Vienna, Austria, Gittings moved with Tobin, Kay, and Randy Wicker. The Gay Crusaders.
her family to Wilmington, Delaware, in the 1940s New York: Paperback Library, 1972, pp. 205224.
and decided that she was a homosexual in the early
1950s. In 1951, she moved to Philadelphia, Penn- See also Daughters of Bilitis; Gay Liberation Move-
sylvania, and soon began going to gay bars dressed ment; Ladder, The; Librarians; National Gay and
as a butch. (She later rejected what she considered Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF)
the role-playing of butch-femme lesbian culture.)
In 1956, Gittings made contact with the homophile
movement in California. Two years later, she started Gluck (Hannah Gluckstein) (18951978)
the DOB chapter in New York City. In 1961, she English artist. Born into a wealthy business fam-
met Kay Lahusen [Tobin] (1930), who became ily, founders of the famed J.Lyons and Company,
her life partner. Gluck chose to attend art school rather than uni-
A strong and early proponent of using directaction versity. At St. Johns Wood Art School and dur-
tactics in the homophile movement, Gittings marched ing summer visits surrounded by a group of art-
in lesbian and gay demonstrations beginning in 1965 ists in Cornwall, Gluck began to develop her dis-
at Independence Hall in Philadelphia and at the White tinctive artistic and sartorial style. Well before it

GLUCK (HANNAH GLUCKSTEIN) 335

 with Obermer in a 1937 portrait of them both
G entitled Medallion, though the artist referred to
it as the YouWe picture. After four major exhi-
bitions in the 1920s and 1930s, Gluck disappeared
from the art scene, although she continued to
paint. In 1973, the gallery with which Gluck had
been most closely associated, the Fine Art Society
in Londons Bond Street, held a major retrospec-
tive that revived considerable interest in her work
and life. Laura Doan

Bibliography
Souhami, Diana. Gluck: Her Biography. London:
Pandora, 1988.

See also Brooks, Romaine

Goddess Religion
Contemporary spiritual movement identified as
Gluck by E.O.Hopp. The Fine Art Society, London. Witchcraft or Wicca, especially the Dianic Tradi-
tion, which emphasizes the female principle more
was acceptable, the androgynous Gluck dressed than the male. The Goddess is seen as encompass-
in mens clothing and cut her hair shortnever ing both the creative life force and the destructive
to pass as a man but to violate the rules of fash- death force and as predecessor of all other gods.
ion as well as of social etiquette. In 19231924, She is known by many names and in many aspects,
the artist Romaine Brooks (18741970) captured such as the Triple Goddess, Mother/Maiden/Crone,
Glucks unique persona in a well-known portrait of the Celts; Inanna; Thought Woman; Afrekete;
entitled Peter, a Young English Girl. E.O. Hopp Kali; Diana; Isis; and Ixchel. Some branches of this
(18781972) produced a series of photographs movement include both men and women as prac-
of Gluck in 1926 and explained that her facial titioners, but others, such as the Susan B.Anthony
contour indicates the qualities expressed in her Coven of Los Angeles, California, founded by
paintings. To look at her face is to understand Z.Budapest (1940), are limited to women. In gen-
both her success as an artist and the fact that she eral, the feminist branches of Wicca seem to have a
dresses as a man. Originality, determination, high percentage of lesbian participants.
strength of character and artistic insight are ex- Theologian Daly (1973) points to the patriarchal
pressed in every line (quoted in Souhami [1988]). focus of the major religions and how these serve to
Glucks daring tactic to use her own clothing to buttress the power of the fathers in society. For this
symbolize the theme of her 1926 one man show reason, it is not surprising that the idea of the God-
called Stage and Country created a sensation dess and her attendant, the Witch, would become
among art critics, who were equally impressed attractive to women, particularly to lesbians. As Adler
with her work. Throughout her career, Gluck re- (1986) notes: The Witchis an extraordinary sym-
jected developments in modern art in favor of bolindependent, anti-establishment, strong, and
more traditional subject matter, such as the por- proud. She is political, yet spiritual and magical. The
trait and the self-portrait, scenes from the theater, Witch is woman as martyr; she is persecuted by the
still life, and landscape. Biographer Souhami ignorant; she is the woman who lives outside society
(1988) suggests that the artists choice of subject and outside societys definition of woman.
was more influenced by the interests of her cur- Philosophically, the roots of the feminist god-
rent partner; Glucks relationships included jour- dess resurgence lie in the ideas of first wave femi-
nalists Sybil Cookson and Edith Shackleton Heald, nists, such as Matilda Joslyn Gage (Woman,
flower arranger Constance Spry, and socialite Church, and State [1893]) and Charlotte Perkins
Nesta Obermer. Gluck celebrated her partnership Gilman (His Religion and Hers [1923]), who

336 GLUCK (HANNAH GLUCKSTEIN)

sought an alternative culture to the patriarchal so- in the international anarchist movement, Goldman
ciety of their time by reviving what they saw as an included homosexuals among those for whom she
ancient preChristian ideal usually focused on a demanded justice. Despite criticism from her com-
matriarchy. These ideas resurfaced with the radi- rades, who disliked associating anarchism with such
cal feminists in the 1960s and 1970s, who had the unnatural topics, she condemned the stigmatiza-
same goals of seeking an alternative to what was tion and persecution of homosexuals in lectures on
seen as a deathoriented patriarchal culture. The Intermediate Sex, drawing primarily on the
The Goddess religion is earth-based, celebrating ideas of Edward Carpenter (18441929) but also
the cycles of the seasons and the moon. The eight on those of Havelock Ellis (18591939), Richard
festivals, known as Sabbats, and their dates are: Yule/ von Krafft-Ebing (18401902), and Sigmund Freud
winter solstice, December 2023; Brigid/ Candlemas, (18561939). An early defender of British writer
February 2; Eostar/spring equinox, March 2023; Oscar Wilde (18541900) in his 1895 sodomy trial,
Beltane/May Eve (May 1); Lima/ summer solstice, Goldman attracted to her bohemian Mother Earth
June 2023; Lughnasadh/Lammas, August 1; Mabon/ circle in New York City a number of gay men and
autumn equinox, September 2023; and Samhain/ lesbians, including the editor of The Little Review,
Halloween, October 31. Visualization or a change of Margaret Anderson (18861973), who, according
consciousness is the magic at the heart of the reli- to Goldman, aroused stirrings that were expres-
gion, which seeks to reconcile opposites and, there- sive of my previous theoretic interest in sex varia-
fore, effect healing for its participants and the earth. tion. These stirrings may have led Goldman in
At the end of the twentieth century, Goddess 1912 to a brief affair with an infatuated admirer,
religion had a growing popularity as evidenced by Almeda Sperry, who wrote ecstatically of the rhyth-
the number of groups identifying themselves with mic spurt of your love juice. But Goldman never
the movement and the intensive workshops held acknowledged a relationship with Sperry, and her
all over the United States by such practitioners as letters to her great passion, Ben L.Reitman (1879
Starhawk (1979), who attempts to restore and ac- 1942), whose own homosexual attractions she re-
knowledge the spiritual power of women. garded with equanimity, insist that she did not in-
Annette Van Dyke cline that way.
For all of her outrage at the social otracism of
Bibliography the invert, Goldman by the 1920s expressed am-
Adler, Margot. Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, bivalent feelings toward homosexuality, criticizing
Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pa- the narrowness of the lesbians whose antago-
gans in America Today. Boston: Beacon, 1981. nism to the male is almost a disease. In an angry
Rev. and exp. ed. 1986. 1923 letter to Magnus Hirschfeld (18681935),
Budapest, Zsuzanna E. The Holy Book of Women Goldman denied claims that the great French
s Mysteries. 2 vols. Oakland, Calif.: Susan B. revolutionist Louise Michel (18301905) was a les-
Anthony Coven no. 1, 1982. bian. Michels allegedly masculine traits were re-
Daly, Mary. Beyond God the Father: Toward a ally the attributes of a new type of womanhood.
Philosophy of Womens Liberation. Boston: Such women were not only not homosexual but
Beacon, 1973. extremely feminine. In Goldmans view, it was
Starhawk. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the An- precisely because there is no sex element between
cient Religion of the Great Goddess. San Fran- them [women] that they can better understand each
cisco: Harper and Row, 1979. other (emphasis in original). While rejecting Vic-
Van Dyke, Annette. The Search for a Woman- torian definitions of gender, Goldman oscillated
Centered Spirituality. New York: New York between the sexologists discourse of inversion,
University Press, 1992. which equated homosexuality with cross-gender
identification, and a modernist, psychoanalytically
See also Spirituality influenced discourse of desire, which stressed the
independence of sexual orientation and gender iden-
tification. Still, Goldman saw sexuality, including
Goldman, Emma (18691940) homosexuality, as the deepest wellspring of aesthetic
American anarchist and feminist organizer, lecturer, expression. Homophobia, not homosexuality, was
publisher, and writer. As the most influential woman the problem to be overcome. Alice R.Wexler

GOLDMAN, EMMA 337

 Bibliography unreliable, although they recognize it is oftentimes
G Chauncey, George. Gay New York: Gender, Ur-
ban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male
unsubstantiated. Gossip serves a variety of needs on
the part of the gossipers: It provides information; it
World, 18901940. New York: Basic Books, reaffirms values and social etiquette; and it serves a
1994. tutoring function for new community members. It
Cook, Blanche Wiesen. Female Support Networks allows determination of who is lesbian, and it pro-
and Political Activism: Lillian Wald, Crystal vides for monitoring of members relationship sta-
Eastman, Emma Goldman. In A Heritage of tuses. Gossip provides a forum for trading news and
Her Own: Towards a New Social History of for providing participants with a cognitive map of
Women. Ed. Nancy Cott and Elizabeth H. Pleck. the social environment.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979. As an intrinsically valuable activity, gossip sat-
Falk, Candace, ed. Emma Goldman: A Guide to isfies the basic need to acquire information about
Her Life and Documentary Sources. Alexandria, the intimate aspects of other peoples lives. In les-
Va.: Chadwyck-Healy, 1995. bian communities, gossip conveys information
. Love, Anarchy, and Emma Goldman. New about personal details of peoples lives (love, friend-
Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1984. ship, sex, violence, money, relationship beginnings
Haalund, Bonnie. Emma Goldman: Sexuality and and endings) and community politics. Lesbian gos-
the Impurity of the State. Montreal: Black Rose, sip is not abstract; it is focused on individuals in
1993. their concreteness.
Wexler, Alice. Emma Goldman in America. Bos- This need to acquire knowledge of intimate and
ton: Beacon, 1984. personal aspects of other community members
lives occupies a central role in lesbian gossip be-
See also Anderson, Margaret Carolyn; Michel, cause there are very few other ways to satisfy this
Louise need to acquire accurate information. Often, gos-
sip is more reliable and complete than information
released through authorized mechanisms, since
Gossip candid and open self-description is rare and lim-
Process of information dispersion and a social in- ited to close friends. Though lesbians must rely on
teraction, typically dealing with the personal af- gossip as a source of important community news,
fairs of individuals. Gossip can, thus, refer to news it is hard to verify, which is a consequence of the
about the affairs of another, to ones experiences, confidential nature of the information conveyed.
or to any hearsay of a personal nature, whether it Lesbian community members have a need for
is of a positive or a negative nature. Gossip as an acquiring knowledge of personal, intimate details
activity is a means of passing time, and it helps of the lives of persons across their social networks
maintain the fluidity of communication patterns. and community, and, at times, gossip may well be
Gossip is also the repository of folklore and ta- the only form of inquiry that provides the needed
boo, and, in some cultures, it is a storehouse for data. Information of such a highly personal nature
social precedents. Gossip is proscribed in principle is not likely to be accessible to the modes of in-
and generally frowned upon, but, at the same time, quiry more standardly perceived as legitimate.
it is respected in day-to-day practice because it pro- Thus, in cases in which the information or knowl-
motes friendship and group cohesion, helps sus- edge is extremely sensitive (and, frequently, impor-
tain group norms, and often serves to effectively tance is concomitant with sensitivity), acquiring
communicate important information. information via the grapevine will be the only form
of inquiry available. Such information in likely to
Gossip, Knowledge, and Communication be missing from the standard literature or the pub-
Lesbian community members frequently rely upon lic storehouse of received knowledge. Gossip al-
gossip as a source of crucial information inaccessible lows the indirectness and innuendo that make it
by other means. It is a very efficient means of acquir- safe to talk about certain things.
ing knowledge, in which participants work together
to achieve knowledge. Lesbians rely upon gossip as a Gossip and Community
form of knowledge. Their use challenges the assump- Another sort of gossip is engaged in strictly for mu-
tion that the informational content of gossip is highly tual entertainment of the participants. Gossiping for

338 GOLDMAN, EMMA

amusement is a reciprocal trade that is derived from gossiping is faithfully controlled by proficient com-
the pleasure of talking with other people. This pro- munity members.
motes lesbian solidarity through speaking the lan-
guage of shared experience. Members reveal them- The Grapevine
selves as they talk of others and construct a joint les- A grapevine is an informal, often secret means of
bian culture and social narrative. Like many other transmitting information, gossip, or rumor from
kinds of need-satisfying activities, gossip is pleasur- person to person. The term is derived from a popu-
able. Really good gossip is usually not just a piece of lar Civil War-era expression, a dispatch by grape-
information but a narrative-style anecdote of interest vine telegraph, which referred to information trans-
even to strangers. Gossip is a form of social commu- mitted by irregular means rather than by regular
nication that usually revolves around enjoyable and telegraphic lines. In contemporary practice, a grape-
intriguing information not yet widely known. Gos- vine is an informal communication network involv-
sip functions to construct and maintain lesbian com- ing circles of acquaintances who provide informa-
munity as speakers and listeners appear to share the tion, often faster than formal communication chan-
same standards of right and wrong behavior. And, nels. Participants in a grapevine system work to-
although adherence to such standards is often super- gether in a cooperative effort to achieve knowledge,
ficial, even the mere appearance of common values and the grapevine is often an efficient source of cru-
establishes intimacy among the participants. cial information inaccessible by other means.
Similarly, giving someone confidential informa- Since lesbian community members can depend
tion conveys confidence in that person. Such a use upon few institutional channels to transmit news
of gossip among friends belies its inherently valu- and information of import to members, it is func-
able nature as a friendly activity that strengthens tional for members to keep an ear to the grapevine,
social bonds. It can also solidify a groups sense of as it were. Members listen carefully to community
itself by heightening consciousness of community talk as a means of gleaning information about events
boundaries. Trading intimate information satisfies that they may be precluded from directly observing.
community need and indicates intimate relations Working the grapevine is an interactive process in
among lesbian women. In addition, gossip reaffirms which more is going on than speaking and listen-
community norms by bringing social pressure to bear ing. The grapevine participant is constantly sifting
on their enforcement. By carefully choosing the au- through information, evaluating talk, comparing
dience for gossip, lesbians maintain the boundaries component parts of talk to one another, and judg-
of the very community that the content of gossip ing what is truth, what is falsehood, and what needs
potentially exposes. Gossip as an activity is predi- further investigation prior to judgment being passed.
cated on a trust that the information traded will be Transmitting community information over the
confined to those in the community with a legiti- grapevine telegraph is an interactive skill that depends
mate need to know the content of the gossip. This on social and storytelling skills. Those engaging in
use of gossip functions to demonstrate lesbian unity, such talk may have no particular focus of interest; in
and it works to sustain community norms. this case, the community member will simply keep
Within the lesbian community, as in every com- an ear to the ground, hoping as much for insight in
munity, there is an etiquette for gossiping, and one selecting a particular focus as in acquiring specific
who doesnt follow the rules is seen and treated as information. Users of the grapevine employ commu-
a deviant. In the lesbian community, there is gos- nity consensus as a primary indication of their prox-
sip that is considered proper and gossip that is con- imity to the truth and their own sense of community
sidered improper. Proper gossip is that indulged in to discern what bits of information are appropriately
by all lesbians; it functions to construct and main- accountable as community news.
tain lesbian community as a unique social world. Success of the grapevine depends upon the qual-
Improper gossip aims at raising the tellers status ity of the community of relevant correspondents,
at the expense of other lesbians, and, eventually, those qualified to contribute to the investigation,
social constraints will be exerted by community and communication, of a particular concern. Ac-
members to rein in this errant member. Because cess to accurate information will be limited to those
gossip is not merely idle talk, but talk with a social lesbian community members with fairly direct ac-
purpose vital to lesbian community functioning, quaintance with the key individuals affected, nor-
the etiquette of what is proper and improper in mally an affinity group small in number. The

GOSSIP 339
 forum provided by a grapevine network generates generating a huge, mostly female, market. Novels
G its own boundaries or sets of conditions for be-
longing, and, thus, it creates its own group of in-
like The Monk (1796) by Matthew G.Lewis (1775
1818) and The Italian (1797) by Ann Radcliffe
siders and outsiders. The gossipers admitted to the (17641823) combined eerie windswept settings
network become insiders, with clearly understood with elaborate tales of evil (and mostly foreign)
entitlement and privilege within the gossip circle. monks and aristocrats. Usually, these tales revolved
around a gothic heroine. During the nineteenth
Conclusion century, while gothic subplots animated many oth-
Lesbian gossip serves a crucial function in pro- erwise conventional novels, the tradition lived on
viding necessary information and in establishing primarily in vampire stories. By the turn of the
intimacy; thus, it satisfies a lesbian community twentieth century, the gothic novel returned in full
need. Gossip norms permit or advance social force in a series of wildly popular monster stories,
knowledge, as well as serve other social ends. including Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker (1847
Gossip is an expectation in lesbian community. 1912), Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1885) by Robert
Not only is engaging in gossip evidence of friend- Louis Stevenson (18501894), and The Picture of
ship, but it creates friendship and community. Dorian Gray (1892) by Oscar Wilde (18591900).
Gossip is a communicative accomplishment that These novels all depend upon the terrifying effects
creates, expresses, and sustains lesbian social re- of bodily transformation: Respectable people meta-
ality. It is a privilege and even an obligation among morphose into vampires, blood suckers,
lesbians. Willa Young coldblooded murderers, and sexual sinners. The
1890s gothic novel concerns itself far less with
Bibliography gothic buildings and landscapes than in an almost
Dunbar, R.I.M. Grooming, Gossip, and the Evo- obsessive fascination with bodily abnormality. Fi-
lution of Language. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard nally, in the twentieth century, the advent of cin-
University Press, 1996. ema brought monstrosity and gothic effect to the
Goodman, Robert E, and Aaron Ben-Zeev, eds. silver screen, and the birth of the horror film ush-
Good Gossip. Lawrence: University of Kansas ered in a new era of visual horror.
Press, 1994. Homosexuality haunts the gothic in all of its
Rosnow, Ralph L. Rumor and Gossip: The Social manifestations. Many gothic writers of the 1790s
Psychology of Hearsay. New York: Elsevier, 1976. and the 1890s were rumored to be perverse in
Shibutani, Tamotsu. Improvised News: A Socio- some way (William Beckford [17601844] and
logical Study of Rumor. Indianapolis: Bobbs- Matthew G.Lewis in the 1790s and Oscar Wilde in
Merrill, 1966. the 1890s, most notably), and the gothic itself was
Tebbutt, Melanie. Womens Talk?: A Social His- always considered to be an abnormal and unhealthy
tory of Gossip in Working-Class counterpart to bourgeois realism. At the end of the
Neighborhoods, 18801960. Brookfield, Vt.: nineteenth century, in particular, gothicism became
Ashgate, 1995. one of a cluster of discourses dedicated to separat-
ing out the normal from the abnormal, the healthy
See also Community; Social-Construction Theory from the perverse, the productive from the unpro-
ductive. Medical, psychological, legal, and
sexological discourses produced accounts of sexual
Gothic behavior that resulted in the binary classifications
Term used to describe literary and cinematic gen- of homo- and heterosexuality.
res that focus upon and showcase the monstrous, Many critics have linked lesbianism to gothic
the ghostly, the supernatural, and the perverse. texts by describing the ghosting of perverse fe-
There are many references to nonnormative sexu- male sexuality. In a classic article on lesbian
alities and gender expressions within gothic pre- ghosting, film theorist White (1991) argues that
cisely because of the genres interest in bizarre acts Robert Wises horror film The Haunting (1963)
and terrifying embodiments. is one of the screens most spine-tingling repre-
There are several different historical periods of sentations of the disruptive force of lesbian desire.
intense gothic production. In the 1790s, the gothic In this haunted-house film, as White demonstrates,
novel emerged as an immensely popular literature, we never see the ghost but we do see the lesbian.

340 GOSSIP
The identification of lesbian desire with a ghosted study Men, Women, and Chain Saws (1992) exam-
effect captures perfectly the ways in which lesbian ines what she calls the final girl to argue that the
desire historically has been rendered invisible. horror film provides some of the few representa-
Lesbians are often invisible in the eyes of the law, tions of tough and androgynous female power in
unremarkable to the psychologist, and inexplicable cinema. The final girl is the character who sur-
to the sexologist. Indeed, the lesbian becomes vis- vives the carnage and emerges unscathed at the end
ible only as a specter, on the one hand, or as man- of the film; she is intentionally gender ambiguous,
nish or aggressive, on the other. Accordingly, within Clover argues, so that male audiences can identify
gothic traditions, the lesbian vampire is a counter- with both the monster and the victim. What this
part to the lesbian specter. The lesbian vampire is account leaves out are the powerful potential iden-
the visible, predatory lesbian who preys upon tifications to be made between queer female view-
younger women and seduces them with a phallic ers and the queer monster killer final girl.
bite. The lesbian vampire has been traced by In conclusion, gothicism has essential and impor-
Zimmerman (1981), Auerbach (1995), and others tant ties to the coded representation of homosexual-
from her first appearance as Carmilla in Joseph ity within literature and film. Monsters, demons, and
Sheridan Le Fanus (18141873) classic text of that vampires represent perverse combinations of pleas-
name (1872) to contemporary lesbian-made inde- ure and danger, power and violence, fear and desire.
pendent films, such as Because the Dawn (1988), Queers people the gothic as monsters, victims, and
directed by Amy Goldstein, and novels, including survivors, and lesbians, in particular, seem to thrive
The Gilda Stories (1991), by Jewelle Gomez. Pre- in its shadow lands. Judith Halberstam
senting an exciting and hypersexualized image of
lesbian desire, the lesbian vampire has become a Bibliography
popular cult figure. She represents an alternative to Auerbach, Nina. Our Vampires, Ourselves. Chicago
the ghosted and spectral lesbian, and she appropri- and London: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
ates stereotypes of predatory lesbian desire. The les- Clover, Carol. Men, Women, and Chain Saws:
bian vampire is an orally fixated sexual creature who Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton,
lives among humans, although not one of them, and N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992.
who lives within an alternative time zone, rising at Halberstam, Judith. Skin Shows: Gothic Horror
night and retiring by dawn. Contemporary alterna- and the Technology of Monsters. Durham, N.C.:
tive queer dyke features, such as the Austrian film Duke University Press, 1995.
Flaming Ears (1992), directed by Ursula Purrer, Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Between Men: English
AngelaHans Scheirl, and Dietmar Schipe, tend to Literature and Male Homosocial Desire. New
feature vampire scenes to emphasize an otherworldly, York: Columbia University Press, 1985.
deliberately perverse, underground dyke scene. . The Coherence of Gothic Conventions. New
Gothic has long been of particular interest to queer York and London: Methuen, 1986.
film and literary critics. Queer theorist Eve Kosofsky White, Patricia. Female Spectator, Lesbian Specter:
Sedgwick uses gothic in her seminal work, Between The Haunting. In Inside/Out: Lesbian Theo-
Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial De- ries, Gay Theories. Ed. Diana Fuss. New York:
sire (1985), to argue that gothic novels dramatize the Routledge, 1991, pp. 142172.
tableau of two men chasing each other across the Zimmerman, Bonnie. Daughters of Darkness: The
landscape. This tableau demonstrates both Lesbian Vampire on Film. Jump Cut 2425
homoerotic longing and paranoia about homoerotic (March 1981), 2324.
desire. Various gothic conventions, such as doubling
and the unspeakable, further code homosexuality into See also Film, Mainstream; Vampires
gothic structures. Other critics have examined the
various strands that link gothicism to the representa-
tion of perverse desire. Grahn, Judy (1940)
Contemporary horror film has less obvious links American writer and activist. Born in Chicago,
to representations of perverse desire. Lowbudget Illinois, to Vera Doris Grahn, a photographers
splatter films, in particular, seem dedicated wholly assistant, and Elmer August Grahn, a cook, Judy
to the fragmentation of the female body by a mur- Grahn wrote poetry as a child but stopped when
derous heterosexual killer. However, Carol Clovers she left home at seventeen. In 1961, she was

GRAHN, JUDY 341

 tle The Common Woman. The poems unsenti-
G mental representations of womens lives fed a pow-
erful and growing hunger for authentic, empower-
ing representations of women.
Grahns definitive political statement on women
in Western society occurs in A Woman Is Talking
to Death (1973), a poem that she told Adrienne
Rich frightened her enough that shed decided to
stop writing poetry for a while. The poem traces
the violently tangled historical relations that cause
members of disempowered groups, especially
women, to abandon each other.
In the 1980s, Grahns work became more ex-
plicitly mythical. In her 1982 American Book
Award collection of poetry, The Queen of Wands,
Grahn explores Helen of Troy from an array of
perspectives. Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words,
Gay Worlds (1984) is based on years of research,
interviews, and memories and argues that gay
culture is ancient and has been suppressed into an
underground state of being, that everything has
meaning, that slang is not necessarily a transitory
Judy Grahn. Lynda Koolish. language form, that old traditions transform, they
do not really perish. This theme of persistent,
discharged from the United States Navy for lesbi- submerged meaning recurs in her play The Queen
anism. Although she is best known for her po- of Swords (1987).
etry, Grahns contributions to womens publish- Grahns novel (1988) Mundane s World repre-
ing and to gay and lesbian and womens cultural sents human existence within a web constructed
history, and her drama, essays, edited collections, of the experiential and biological lives of plants,
and prose fiction have all enriched lesbian cul- animals, and other natural forms and forces. Her
ture. Throughout her ouevre, Grahns writing, in Blood, Bread, and Roses: How Menstruation Cre-
the words of Rich (1978), over and overcalls ated the World (1993) was hailed by Alicia Ostriker
up the living woman against the manufactured as a daring mix of autobiography, anthropology,
one, the man-made creation of centuries of male archaeology and myth. She has also written on
art and literature. butchfemme and the constructed nature of gender
In 1963, Grahn picketed the White House with identity, in an essay in M.G. Soaress collection
the Mattachine Society, a gay rights group. In 1964, Butch/Femme (1995). Margot Gayle Backus
she published an article in Sexology magazine un-
der the pseudonym Carol Silver. In 1965, she re- Bibliography
turned to poetry, including the word Dyke in Backus, Margot Gayle. Judy Grahn and the Les-
the title of her first long poem to fight the secrecy bian Invocational Elegy: Testimonial and Pro-
associated with lesbianism. Although she published phetic Responses to Social Death in A Woman
a few poems in The Ladder, The Psychoanalysis Is Talking to Death. Signs: Journal of Women
of Edward the Dyke was initially unpunishable. in Culture and Society 18:4 (1993), 815837.
In 1969, with her lover, artist Wendy Cadden, Brown, Jayne Relaford. Judy Grahn. In The Gay
Grahn began producing books of poems and graph- and Lesbian Literary Companion. Ed. Sharon
ics. This work formed the basis for the Womens Malinowski and Christa Brelin. Detroit: Visible
Press Collective, an early hub of the West Coast Ink, 1995, pp. 213219.
lesbian feminist movement. In 1971, the Womens Carruthers, Mary J. The Re-Vision of the Muse:
Press Collective published Grahns first poetry col- Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Judy Grahn,
lection: Edward the Dyke and Other Poems. In Olga Broumas. Hudson Review 36:2 (1983),
1973, Grahn published seven poems under the ti- 293322.

342 GRAHN, JUDY

Case, Sue-Ellen. Judy Grahns Gynopoetics: The bian group decided to leave the House of Women
Queen of Swords. Studies in the Literary Im- in Romanou Melodou because of conflicts with
agination 21:2 (1988), 4767. the feminist groups. In 1985, the lesbian group
Rich, Adrienne. Power and Danger: The Work of opened another House of Women on Veikou Street,
a Common Woman by Judy Grahn. Introduc- which, for three years, functioned as a meeting
tion to The Work of a Common Woman: The point and a group dedicated to self-knowledge.
Collected Poetry of Judy Grahn, 19641977. In 1989, AKOE ceased operations, and the
Freedom, Calif.: Crossing, 1978, pp. 721. struggle was continued by a new organization, EOK
(Greek Homosexual Community), as well as by a
See also Butch-Femme; Ladder, The; Poetry lesbian group that met at the Bookstore of Women
in Athens. When the bookstore closed in 1990, the
Lesbian Group of Athens was formed, sharing lodg-
Greece ings with EOK. In early 1992, AKOE was revived;
Republic located in the southeastern part of Europe. in 1994, it began to publish amphi again.
A member of the EEC (European Economic Com- In Thessaloniki, the second major city of Greece,
the lesbian group shared quarters with feminist
munity), Greece is, at the same time, greatly influ-
groups in the House of Women from 1981 to 1987.
enced by the Balkan states that surround it and by
O.P.O.TH., an acronym for Homosexuals Initia-
Asia Minor. It has a population of almost ten mil-
tive of Thessaloniki, was founded in 1988. In 1995,
lion, and its official religion Christian Orthodox.
former members of O.P.O.T.H. created a new gay
For lesbians, Greece is probably best known as
group called Cooperation to Combat Homopho-
the birthplace of Sappho, the famous lyric poet who
bia, which organized public discussions on homo-
lived ca. 600 B.C.E. on the island of Lesbos. Sap-
sexual issues and publishes a monthly pamphlet,
phism and lesbianism, the two terms that de-
Vitamin O.
scribe female homosexuality, derive, respectively,
Small in number and short lived, these lesbian
from the poet and the island upon which she lived. groups seemed to be undecided about whether to
Since late 1970s, Eresos, the town where Sappho cooperate with feminist and/or gay groups. The
was born, has attracted lesbian women from absence of a tradition of homosexual organizing,
around the world but especially from Europe. the feminist reluctance to embrace lesbians, and the
In contrast to the widespread impression of a limited effect lesbian groups had on the wider les-
long male and female homosexual tradition, invis- bian community prevented the flourishing of an in-
ibility seems to be the major characteristic of lesbi- dependent lesbian movement and discourse. Moreo-
anism in Greece. As far as is known, there are no ver, Christian Orthodox tradition and the values of
written records reporting female homoerotic prac- family, kinship, motherhood, and dependent female
tices before the late 1970s, when the first gay and sexuality, which maintain control in Greek society,
feminist groups made their appearance. condemned lesbianism to invisibility. Even the law
AKOE, an acronym for Homosexuals Liberat- ignores female homosexuality. Although homo-
ing Movement of Greece, was founded in 1977 in sexual acts in general are not penalized in Greece,
Athens, the capital city. The first organized gay since 1933 Code 347 punishes specific homosexual
group, it was very active in its time, publishing one acts (such as for monetary exchange) among men
of the best gay magazines, amphi (Of Both Kinds). exclusively and differently from heterosexual acts.
One year later, a group of women joined AKOE Samesex marriage is not allowed, while Paragraph
and, together with women from the feminist group 1578 of the civil code prescribes that courts allow
Movement for Womens Liberation, formed the adoption only after examining moral standards
Autonomous Group of Homosexual Women. They along with financial state.
left AKOE in 1980 and joined the feminist groups At the end of the 1990s, a group of lesbian
at the House of Women in Romanou Melodou women in Athens was publishing a lesbian maga-
Street in Athens, where they published the lesbian zine called Madame Gou; another group, the
magazine Lavris (Labyris; double-axe, a symbol of Cyberdykeswas organizing parties and excur-
female power). Lavris, which was, until the late sions, and women in Crete were publishing Greek
1990s, the only lesbian magazine ever published lesbian pages on the Internet, the Roz-Mov (Pink
in Greece, numbered three issues from Spring 1982 and Lavender). Lesbians in Greece, even if they
to Summer 1983. In the summer of 1983, the les- work in small and secluded groups, try to fight

GREECE 343
 against silence and invisibility and struggle to cre- Margaret Anderson (18861973) and Jane Heap
G ate a discourse to end discrimination and isolation.
Venetia Kantsa
(18871964), were leaders of this bohemian sub-
culture. They hosted salons, participated in the
Heterodoxy and Liberal clubs, and campaigned for
Bibliography the rights of women and workers. They gathered
Amphi. For the Liberation of Homosexual Desire. at restaurants such as Pollys and attended frequent
Periodical ed. (19781988,1994). Athens. costume balls at Webster Hall. Taking advantage
Lavris. Lesbian Discourse and Counter-Discourse. of cultural openings that resulted from
No. 1 (Spring 1982); No. 2 (Autumn 1982); bohemianism and feminism, they created tolerance
No. 3 (Summer 1983). Athens. for their unconventional lifestyles.
Madame Gou. Lesbian periodical ed. No. 1 (Au- Although lesbians were accepted as individuals
tumn 1995); No. 2 (March 1996); No. 3 (June before World War I, it wasnt until after the war
1996); No. 4 (December 1996); No. 5 (Novem- that they became a collective presence in Green-
ber 1997). wich Village. This was due, in large measure, to
Psevdonimou, Xaroula. Kravges ke psithiri. Gia to expansion of the Villages commercial entertain-
lesviako zitima stin Ellada (Cries and Whispers: ment district. Although rarely enforced after 1923,
About the Lesbian Issue in Greece). In I Ellada Prohibition spurred New Yorkers to mock conven-
ton ginekon. Diadromes ston how kai ston topo tion, while improved mass transportation made the
(Womens Greece: Stages in Time and Space). Ed. Village accessible for that purpose. Building on its
Evtihia Leondithou and Sigrid R.Ammer. Athens: bohemian reputation, entrepreneurs rushed to open
Enallaktikes ekdosis/Gea 1, 1992, pp. 8195. tearooms and speakeasies for white, middle-class
tourists. By the mid-1920s, a number of these ca-
See also Lesbos, Island of; Sappho tered to lesbians and gay men, including the Black
Rabbit, the Jungle, and the Bungalow. Some, like
the Howdy Club, staged elaborate floor shows for
Greenwich Village lesbian audiences. In addition, tenement speakeas-
Neighborhood in lower Manhattan in New York ies and studio parties dotted the neighborhood,
City that has maintained a continuous lesbian pres- attracting lesbians from more varied racial and class
ence throughout the twentieth century. Bounded backgrounds.
by the Hudson River, Broadway, Fourteenth, and Not all lesbians frequented these establishments,
Houston streets, it was originally settled in the however. In addition to bohemians and tourists, the
1820s and 1830s by New York Citys wealthiest Village attracted middle- and upperclass women so-
families, who moved there to escape a yellow-fe- cial reformers in long-term relationships with other
ver epidemic. At the end of the nineteenth century, women, such as Eleanor Roosevelts associates Esther
it accommodated successive waves of German, Lape (18811981) and Elizabeth Read (18901983),
Irish, and Italian immigrants. Marion Dickerman (1890?) and Nancy Cook
(18841962), Molly Dewson (18741962) and her
19001939 partner, Polly Porter (1884?); labor activists Pauline
Beginning around 1900, young, single people be- Newman (ca. 1890?) and Frieda Miller (1889
gan moving to the Village. Cultural and political 1973); and progressive educator Elizabeth Irwin
radicals, they were attracted by inexpensive hous- (18801942) and writer Katharine Anthony (1877
ing they found in converted tenements and stables. 1965). Their class privilege fostered interaction with
Primarily native-born from white, middle-class other lesbians in the privacy of their homes, while
families, they were determined to repudiate the professional decorum created obstacles to their par-
Victorian values of their parents generation. They ticipation in lesbian nightlife. This nightlife exempli-
championed artistic, political, and sexual freedom. fied one of the earliest public lesbian subcultures in
Most were ardent supporters of feminism who the United States, serving as a beacon to women from
advocated birth control, free love, and other alter- all over the country who traveled to the Village to
natives to the traditional family. vacation or live permanently.
Many lesbian and bisexual women, including However, by the time Prohibition ended in 1933,
arts patron Mabel Dodge Luhan (18791962), poet Americans had become intolerant of public night-
Edna St. Vincent Millay (18921950), and writers life and the excesses that were associated with it.

344 GREECE
In addition, psychological theories portraying un- of the Daughters of Bilitis was formed as a self-
married women as deviant gained widespread ac- help organization for lesbians who sought alterna-
ceptance in the 1930s. New state laws criminalized tives to the bars. Both groups maintained a cau-
the presence of those perceived as lesbian or gay in tious style, which was reflected in their modest
public drinking spaces, paving the way for organ- membership size over the next decade.
ized crime to become involved in running these es- Meanwhile, an oppositional subculture was
tablishments. State laws also censored representa- forming around beat artists who congregated in
tions of homosexuality on stage, while many theaters Greenwich Village, representing a rare exception
and nightclubs simply folded under economic pres- to the cultural and political conformity that char-
sure. These restrictions took their toll on Greenwich acterized American society in the 1950s. By the
Village, making working-class lesbian bars more 1960s, this subculture blossomed, once again turn-
dangerous and middle-class tourists more discreet, ing the neighborhood into an important site of
and stigmatizing social reformers who pursued les- protest activity. Influenced by this, homophile ac-
bian relationships in private. tivists helped establish the basis for collective re-
Nevertheless, pockets of lesbian resistance ap- sistance, which erupted on June 27, 1969.
peared in the Village in the late 1930s. In one in-
stance, local lesbians and gay men sought increased Stonewall
tolerance for their lifestyles by collaborating with That night, patrons of a Village bar called the Stone-
a group of medical researchers, the Committee for wall Inn fought back against police, igniting a riot
the Study of Sex Variants. Although their hopes that lasted several days and became an international
were dashed, this effort to educate professionals symbol of lesbian and gay liberation. Although few
anticipated a strategy that homophile organizations lesbians were present at the bar that night, they
pursued almost twenty years later. have claimed the Stonewall Rebellion as their own.
Soon afterward, a new generation of Village
World War II and After activists organized the Gay Liberation Front and
World War II drew thousands of lesbians to New the Gay Activists Alliance. Disillusioned with sex-
York City, where they remained once the war was ism in the gay liberation movement and
over. Despite ongoing police harassment, Village bars heterosexism in the feminist movement, women
such as the Welcome Inn, MacDougals Tavern, Tony formed the first lesbian feminist organizations in
Pastors, and Ernies Three Ring Circus were im- the Village in the early 1970s. Groups such as
portant gathering places for working-class lesbians Radicalesbians and Lesbian Feminist Liberation
in the 1940s. Middle- and upper-class lesbians con- absorbed many of those who had been active in
tinued to socialize in private settings in the Village, the second wave of feminism. They rejected both
which still retained an aura of bohemianism. the butch-femme roles of the bars and the cautious
Between the 1940s and the 1960s, police har- style of homophile organizations for more radical
assment of lesbian bars became systematized, and forms of activism.
entering the bars became an act of courage. Raids, Since the early 1970s, the Village has spawned
harassment, and the threat of violence were used hundreds of lesbian cultural, political, and social
to intimidate lesbians. While most bars had short organizations, from Gay Womens Alternative to
life spans, the bar culture, which was organized on the Lesbian Avengers. In the 1980s, these began to
the basis of butch-femme roles, persisted during reflect the sexual, racial, ethnic, and class diversity
this period. In the 1950s and early 1960s, bars such of New York Citys lesbian population. Since 1984,
as the Pony Stable and the Sea Colony fostered a the Villages Lesbian and Gay Community Serv-
collective lesbian identity among white, working- ices Center has housed many of these organiza-
class patrons, although they often discriminated tions. In 1990, their political power was reflected
against lesbians of color. in the election of Deborah Glick, the first openly
In the late 1950s, bars were joined by homophile lesbian member of the New York state legislature.
organizations, which contributed to a collective Meanwhile, competition from alternative pub-
identity among middle-class lesbians. Founded in lic spaces, changing attitudes about drinking, and
1956, the New York Mattachine Society comprised skyrocketing real-estate costs drove many lesbian
primarily gay men, although it included a handful bars out of business in the late twentieth century.
of lesbians. Two years later, the New York chapter Ironically, high real-estate costs also precluded

GREENWICH VILLAGE 345

 many lesbians from living in the Village during this
G period, although it remained an important center
for lesbian cultural and political activity.
Christie Balka

Bibliography
Chauncey, George. Gay New York: Gender, Urban
Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World,
18901940. New York: Basic Books, 1994.
Faderman, Lillian. Odd Girls and Twilight Lov-
ers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth Cen-
tury America. New York: Penguin, 1991.
Lorde, Audre. Zami, A New Spelling of My Name.
Freedom, Calif.: Crossing, 1982.
Schwarz, Judith. Radical Feminists of Heterodoxy:
Greenwich Village, 19121940. Norwich, Vt:
New Victoria, 1986.
Ware, Caroline. Greenwich Village, 19201930:
A Comment on American Civilization in the
PostWar Years. New York: Houghton Mifflin,
1935.
Barbara Grier. Courtesy of Barbara Grier.
See also Anderson, Margaret Carolyn; Daughters
of Bilitis; Harlem; Lesbian Avengers; Millay, Edna
St. Vincent; Radicalesbians Under the name Gene Damon, Grier became well
known writing the regular column Lesbiana,
serving as poetry and fiction editor from 1966 to
Grier, Barbara (1933) 1968 and as the journals editor from 1968 to 1972.
American publisher, journalist, and editor. Under As Gene Damon, Grier also coedited The Lesbian
the pseudonym Gene Damon, Barbara Grier wrote in Literature bibliography in 1967, revising it un-
a regular column, Lesbiana, for The Ladder and der her own name in 1975 and again in 1981.
later became the journals editor. Grier is cofounder Working together on The Ladder led Grier to
of Naiad Press, the oldest and largest lesbian pub- fall in love with Donna J.McBride (1940) in 1971,
lishing house in the world. and the two have shared their life with lesbian pub-
At age twelve, Grier told her mother that she lishing ever since. When The Ladder ceased publi-
was a ho-mo-sex-u-al, and, as Grier tells it, her cation in 1972, a newly retired lesbian couple who
mother was very supportive, suggesting only that had supported the journal approached Grier and
they wait six months before notifying the newspa- McBride with the idea of founding a lesbian femi-
pers. From the start, Grier has been a vocal advo- nist publishing company, and in 1973 Naiad Press
cate of coming out. My one great fear in life, was born in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1974, Naiad
she has said, is that somebody, somewhere, will, published its first novel, Sarah Aldridges The Late-
for even a minute, mistake me for a heterosexual. comer, which sold out its initial print run of two
At eighteen, Grier fell in love with a married thousand copies. Financial success followed popu-
librarian in Kansas City, Missouri, and Griers lar success, although, for the first nine years of
mother helped the two run away together. They Naiads existence, Grier and McBride did all of
lived together for twenty years and regarded their the work of the press without pay, holding down
relationship as a marriage. other full-time jobs for income. Naiads best-known
During that time, Grier wrote book reviews and success, Rosemary Curb and Nancy Manahans
letters for The Ladder, using fifteen different pseudo- Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence (1985), has sold
nyms. I took one look at The Ladder, Grier said, more than 150,000 copies worldwide.
and fell in love. I remember thinking that this was Grier prides herself on publishing lesbian novels
what I was going to spend the rest of my life doing. and keeping them in print, along with reprinting

346 GREENWICH VILLAGE

classics such as Patricia Highsmiths The Price of end of her life, she was reclusive, litigious, and
Salt, Gale Wilhelms We Too Are Drifting, and Ann neurotic. Some critics have suggested this turn of
Bannons five-novel Beebo Brinker series. personality late in life is connected to paternal ex-
In 1995, Grier and McBride donated their col- pectations, her absentee mother, and failed les-
lection of fifteen thousand titles to the new Gay bian relationships.
and Lesbian Center in San Franciscos downtown Grimks relationship with a woman identified
library. The Grier-McBride donation exemplifies as Mayme is the only close female relationship
Griers continuing commitment to the preservation clearly documented in Grimks correspondence.
of lesbian literature, for it includes books and From 1898 to 1903, the two women wrote letters,
monographs dating from 1860 to the 1990s, and exchanged confidences, and professed undying love
pulp novels from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. and affection in the accepted Victorian fashion of
Maida Tilchens foreword to the 1981 edition female friendship. This love and affection inspired
of The Lesbian in Literature best describes Griers an unpublished volume of pastoral poetry that
contribution to lesbian literature, culture, and sur- extols the beauty of romantic friendship. However,
vival: Every time a lesbian finds a reflection of her the relationship ended with Grirnk washing her
life in a book, and learns to believe in herself in a hands of love and swearing never to marry or
world which does all it can to prevent that, the work mother children. This event explains the
of Barbara Grier has played a part. Greta Gaard antimarriage theme in her plays.
Grirnk wrote two plays, Rachel, self-published
Bibliography in 1919, and the unpublished Mara. Both plays
Boucher, Sandy. Clinging Vine (Profile of Barbara drew the attention of Harlem Renaissance literati
Grier). In Heartwomen, by Sandy Boucher. San because of the theme of racial injustice. However,
Francisco: Harper and Row, 1982, pp. 212 Rachel also expresses Grimks negative feelings
230. about marriage and motherhood. This concern for
Kepner, Jim. Barbara Grier. In Gay and Lesbian female autonomy was uncommon, and Grimk
Literature. Ed. Sharon Malinowski. Detroit: St. received criticism for focusing on themes that were
James, 1994, pp. 167169. so dark in content. The combination of criticism
Tilchen, Maida. The Legendary Lesbian Treas- from her father and others led to the selfsuppression
ure Map. Foreword to The Lesbian in Litera- of Grimks poetry and her decision to withdraw
ture. Comp. Barbara Grier. Tallahassee, Fla.: completely from society. Grimk died in New York
Naiad, 1981, pp. xixvi. City in 1958 after a long illness.
Stephanie Byrd
See also Bannon, Ann; Bibliographies and Refer-
ence Works; Ladder, The; Naiad Press; Publishing, Bibliography
Lesbian; Pulp Paperbacks; Wilhelm, Gale Abramson, Doris E. Angelina Weld Grimk, Mary
Burrill, Georgia Douglas Johnson, and Marita
O.Bonner: An Analysis of Their Plays. Sage
Grimk, Angelina Weld (18801958) 2:1 (Spring 1985), 912.
African American poet and playwright. Born in the Angelina Weld Grimk Papers. Moorland-Spingarn
late nineteenth century to Archibald and Sarah E. Research Center, Washington, D.C.
Stanley Grirnk in Boston, Massachusetts, Angelina Hull, Gloria T. Color, Sex, and Poetry: Three
Weld Grirnk went to some of the best prepara- Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance.
tory schools of New England. Her parents sepa- Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
rated soon after her birth, and her father reared 1987,107151.
her. The situation that led to her parents separa- Young, Patricia Alzatia. Female Pioneers in
tion is unclear, but Grirnk stayed in contact with AfroAmerican Drama: Angelina Weld Grimk,
her mother, sending her letters and her earliest ef- Georgia Douglas Johnson, Alice DunbarNelson,
forts in writing poetry. and Mary Powell Burrill. Ph.D. diss., Bowling
Grirnk was a small, sad-eyed, introverted Green University, 1986.
woman of mixed heritage. She described herself
as having little faith in herself and as being highly See also African American Literature; Harlem Ren-
critical of friends to the point of insult. At the aissance; Romantic Friendship

GRIMK, ANGELINA WELD 347

H
Hall, Radclyffe (18801943) issue, Hall received the Gold Medal of the
English novelist and poet. Author of The Well of Eichelbergher Humane Award in 1930. The books
Loneliness (1928), acclaimed as the one novel that publication brought about the most famous legal
every literate lesbian in the four decades between trial for obscenity in the history of British law;
1928 and the late 1960s would certainly have read. Brown (1984) argues that the trial was about the
Marguerite Antonia Radclyffe-Hall (known in protocols of naturalizing the ugly facts of medi-
childhood as Peter and later as John) was born in cal pathology in a popular novel form that could
Bournemouth, Hampshire, on August 12, 1880. Her offer identification and ungoverned discussion
American mother, Marie Diehl, and her father, about female sexuality. Among those prepared to
Radclyffe Radclyffe-Hall, separated when she was bear witness in Halls favor were E.M.Forster
a year old and divorced when she was three. Like (18791970), Hugh Walpole (18841941),
her protagonist Stephen Gordon in The Well, her Leonard (18801969) and Virginia Woolf (1882
relationship with her mother was never close, and 1941), Rose Macaulay (18811958), and Vita
her early education came from governesses. Later, Sackville-West (18921962).
she spent a year at Kings College London and in A member of the P.E.N. Club, Hall came to
Germany. At the age of twenty-one, she inherited know well such writers as Elinor Wylie (1885
her fathers and grandfathers estates, enabling her 1928), May Sinclair (18631946), and Rebecca
to live as an independent woman, traveling abroad West (18931983). She was also a member of the
frequently. She began her literary career by writing Society for Psychical Research and a Fellow of the
verses, collected into four volumes of poetry. Many Zoological Society. Her other interests included
of these, notably The Blind Ploughman, were set breeding dogs and riding. A friend of Colette
to music by popular Edwardian composers of the (18731954), Romaine Brooks (18741970), and
day and sung in drawing rooms and concert plat- Natalie Barney (18761972), she and Troubridge
forms all over England up to and during World War moved in the caf lesbian society of London and
I. In 1907 Hall met Mabel Batten (1857?1916), a Paris. She spent much of the last nine years of her
society hostess, under whose influence she became life in Italy and France in pursuit of another
a Catholic. She lived with her until Ladye Bat- woman, Eugeunia Souline, with whom she was in
tens death in 1916 and, through her, met Una, Lady love. Much of her adult life was lived in Rye, Sus-
Troubridge (18871963), who was to become her sex, where she died of cancer on October 27, 1943.
lifelong lover, companion, and biographer. Although the author apparently did not see her
Halls first two novels, The Forge and The Un- early novel The Unlit Lamp as a story of lesbian
lit Lamp, were published in 1924. Adams Breed love, the relationship between Elizabeth and Joan
(1926) was awarded the Prix Femina Vie Heureuse in the novel is passionate, and Joan is represented
and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 1928, as something of a sexual misfit, like the central
she published The Well of Loneliness, a deliberate character of The Well. This earlier novel is a damn-
attempt to confront the subject of lesbianism ing condemnation of the confines of marriage un-
openly. For her open and polemical stance on this der patriarchy: tyrannical husbands and possessive,

H A L L , R A D C LY F F E 349
 demanding mother-love, with relationships and the novel place it within a contemporary tradition
H individual freedon and autonomy stifled by pos-
session and dependency. It is one of the strongest
of seeking alternative discourses to represent lesbian
desire in fiction. Gillian Whitlock
descriptions in English fiction of the loveand
hatethat can exist between women, mother and Bibliography
daughter, loved and beloved. Some critics argue that Brown, Beverley. A Disgusting Book When Prop-
this earlier novel is a more skilled literary accom- erly Read: The Obscenity Trial. Hecate 10:2
plishment than The Well. (1984), 719.
Hall decided to write The Well of Loneliness to Newton, Esther. The Mythic Mannish Lesbian:
describe and vindicate lesbianism to a hostile public. Radclyffe Hall and the New Woman. Signs:
She publicly associated her novel with the naturist Journal of Women in Culture and Society 9
point of view, a theory of homosexual love associ- (Summer 1984), 559568.
ated with, among others, the sex reformer Havelock ORourke, Rebecca. Reflecting on The Well of
Ellis (18591939), who wrote a preface to the first Loneliness. London: Routledge, 1989.
edition. The naturists argued that women do not be- Ruehl, Sonja. Inverts and Experts: Radclyffe Hall
come lesbians by choice or circumstance but are born
and the Lesbian Identity. In Feminism, Cul-
with an affliction called congenital inversion.
ture, and Politics. Ed. Rosalind Brunt and
Troubridge (1961) recounts that Hall had long
Caroline Rowan. London: Lawrence and
wanted to write a book on sexual inversion that
Wishart, 1983, pp. 1536.
would be accessible to the general public who did
Stimpson, Catherine R. Zero Degree Deviancy:
not have access to technical treatises. [H]er instinct
The Lesbian Novel in English. Critical Inquiry
had told her that in any case she must postpone such
8:2 (Winter 1981), 363397.
a book until her name was made. [I]t was with this
Troubridge, Una. The Life and Death of Radclyffe
conviction that she came to me (in 1926), telling me
Hall. London: Hammond and Hammond, 1961.
that in her view the time was ripe. In fact, a number
of novels published in 1928 took the recently devel- Whitlock, Gillian. Everything Is Out of Place:
oped category of lesbian as a theme: Compton Radclyffe Hall and the Lesbian Literary Tradi-
Mackenzies Extraordinary Women, Elizabeth Bo- tion. Feminist Studies 13:3 (Fall 1987), 555582.
wens The Hotel, Djuna Barness LadiesAlmanack,
and Virginia Woolfs Orlando. Of these, The Well See also Barnes, Djuna Chappell; Barney, Natalie;
alone presents a tragic vision of inversion, one that Bowen, Elizabeth; Brooks, Romaine; Colette;
does not accord with Halls own experience directly. Sackville-West, Vita; Sexology; Woolf, Virginia
It seems that, to achieve her moral purpose, she be-
lieved that she had to overstate her case and repre-
sent relationships between inverts as doomed to fail. Hamilton, Edith (18671963)
A number of critics have argued that Halls assertion American classicist, educator, and writer. Intro-
of inversion as immutable was strategic: The discourse duced to Latin at age seven by her father, Edith
of the sexologists and the image of the mannish les- Hamilton was home tutored until enrolled at Miss
bian allowed Hall to claim passionate physical desire Porters School in her late teens. In 1884, she earned
for lesbians, challenging the asexual model of roman- an A.B. in Latin and Greek from Bryn Mawr Col-
tic friendship. lege. After a year as a Bryn Mawr Latin Fellow, a
The Well has been read as literature, as psychol- prestigious Bryn Mawr fellowship allowed Hamil-
ogy, as part of the history of censorship, and as au- ton and her sister Alice (18691970), the first
tobiography. Recently, debates about the lesbian woman appointed to the Harvard Medical School
canon and the cultural history of lesbianism have faculty, to study at the Universities of Leipzig and
opened some new perspectives on the novel. In its Munich, where, to the consternation of the chan-
awareness of the issues of sex and gender, language cellor, Edith enrolled as the first woman student.
and literary forms, The Well stands as a precursor In 1887, faced with the need to support herself,
of later works in the lesbian canon, indicating not Hamilton became the first headmistress of the Bryn
only a precedent, but also a part of a tradition that Mawr School in Baltimore, Maryland; over the next
later writers confirm and against which they define twenty-five years, guided by Greek intellectual and
themselves. Subsequent lesbian writers have revised moral ideals, her leadership solidified the college
Halls depiction of the invert, yet the poetics of preparatory girls schools high reputation.

350 H A L L , R A D C LY F F E
 Retiring in 1922, Hamilton visited, and then Reid, Doris Fielding. Edith Hamilton: An Intimate
purchased, a house at Sea Wall, Mount Desert, Portrait. New York: Norton, 1969.
Maine, with Doris Fielding Reid, a 1911 Bryn Mawr
School graduate. Her retirement, clouded by her See also Mythology, Classical
intimacy with Reid, strained family affairs; however,
for the next forty years, the two women lived and
traveled together, summering at their beloved Sea Hampton, Mabel (19021989)
Wall. From 1923 to 1943, they lived at 23 Gramercy African American dancer and, later in her life, les-
Park in New York City; Hamilton kept house for bian activist. Mabel Hampton was born on or
them, including Reids nephew Dorian, whom Ham- about May 2, 1902, in Winston-Salem, North
ilton adopted, while Reid, from 1929, worked at Carolina, where she lived with her grandmother
Loomis, Sayles and Company, an investment firm. after her mothers death when she was two months
Already well known for poetry and Bible-verse old. When Hamptons grandmother died, the
recitation, Hamilton often led extemporaneous dis- seven-year-old girl was taken by an aunt to live in
cussions on Greek dramatists at afternoon teas. Greenwich Village in New York City.
Urged by friends, she reluctantly began writing es- Hampton began her working life at age eight
says and then published The Greek Way (1930) and by singing in the streets of the Village for pennies
The Roman Way (1932), establishing her second thrown from windows. That same year, she ran
career as a writer. Permeated by her unshakable con- away from her new home to escape her abusive
viction that the excellent becomes the permanent, uncle. Taken in by the White family of New Jersey,
the lively, acclaimed, but undocumented books con- Hampton worked as a domestic until, at age twenty,
vey her idealized interpretation of ancient cultures she became a member of an all-girl dance troupe
influences on modern, especially American, civili- performing in Coney Island. She was soon involved
zation. Her popular Mythology (1942) retells Greek in the theatrical life of the Harlem Renaissance,
and Norse myths for the modern reader. dancing in Harlem cabarets such as the Garden of
In 1943, Hamilton accompanied Reid to Wash- Joy, appearing in several all-black productions at
ington, D.C., and, for the next twenty years, Manhattans Lafayette Theater, and attending
traveled, translated, lectured, and wrote, often multisexual parties at the home of Alelia Walker
about biblical topics. She published Witness to the (18851931). During this time, she moved in the
Truth: Christ and His Interpreters (1948) and, circle of the two Ethels (Ethel Waters [1896
when more than ninety, coedited the Bollingen Se- 1977] and her woman lover), Alberta Hunter
ries The Collected Dialogues of Plato (1961). (18951984), and Moms Mabley (18971975).
Although she never professed herself a scholar, In the early 1920s, after being arrested at a house
Hamilton was awarded four honorary doctorates party, Hampton was incarcerated at the Bedford
and numerous awards, including election to the Hills Reform School for Women on prostitution
American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1957. Her charges. Upon her release, Hampton continued
translated epigrams were often quoted by others, working to support herself. She was part of a thriv-
including Robert Kennedy. Enrolled in 1957 as a ing lesbian community, delighting in such events
citizen of Athens at a ceremony in Athens Theater as the 1927 Broadway production of The Captive,
of Herodes Atticus, she proclaimed: This is the by Eduoard Bourdet and a proud celebrant of Af-
proudest moment of my life. Judith C.Kohl rican American culture. She attended the New York
concerts of Paul Robeson (18981976) and Marian
Bibliography Anderson (19021993) and carefully followed the
Bacon, Helen. Edith Hamilton. In Notable career of Josephine Baker (19061975). In these
American Women: The Modern Period. Ed. years, she started building her lifelong library of
Barbara Sicherman and Carol Hurd Green. books on black history and culture, gay novels,
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, and metaphysical writings.
Belknap Press, 1980. In 1932, Hampton met Lillian Foster (19061978)
Hallett, Judith. Edith Hamilton. In Biographi- while waiting for a trolley car. The two became lifelong
cal Dictionary of North American Classicists. partners, remaining together until Fosters death in
Ed. Ward W.Biggs, Jr. Westport, Conn.: Green- 1978. Hampton called Foster her wife, and, to Fos-
wood, 1994, pp. 253255. ter, Hampton was her husband. In 1973, Hampton

HAMPTON, MABEL 351

H

Mabel Hampton in Eastern Star outfit, in front of poster of Lillian Foster, her lover of forty years, 1984.
Morgan Gwenwald.

became an early supporter of the Lesbian Herstory Mabel Hampton Special Collection, including tran-
Archives; after Fosters death, she shared the New scripts of oral history. Lesbian Herstory Ar-
York apartment in which the archives were housed chives, Brooklyn, New York.
but always kept close ties to 169th Street in the Bronx, Nestle, Joan. I Lift My Eyes to the Hill: The Life
where she and Foster had lived for so many years. In of Mabel Hampton as Told by a White
the last ten years of her life, she became an active Woman. In A Fragile Union by Joan Nestle.
member of the lesbian and gay community, partici- San Francisco: Cleis, 1998.
pating in the Gay Pride demonstrations, appearing . Surviving and More: An Interview with
in several films about gay history, giving interviews Mabel Hampton. Sinister Wisdom 10 (Sum-
for many publications, and attending as guest of mer 1979), 1924.
honor many gay and lesbian conferences around the
country. In 1984, she addressed the New York City See also African Americans; Dance; Harlem;
Gay Pride rally: I have been a lesbian all may life, Harlem Renaissance
for eighty-two years, and I am proud of myself and
my people. I would like all my people to be free in
this country and all over the world, my gay people Hansberry, Lorraine (Vivian) (19301965)
and my black people. Joan Nestle American playwright. Born on January 12, 1930,
in Chicago, Illinois, Lorraine Hansberry was the
Bibliography daughter of a realtor and banker and the niece of a
Hampton, Mabel. I Didnt Go Back There highly respected scholar of African history at
Anymore: Mabel Hampton Talks about the Howard University. Sheltered from some of the
South. Feminary 10 (1979), 716. more bestial aspects of white supremacist culture,

352 HAMPTON, MABEL

Hansberry was exposed, at the same time, to many Harems
of Americas most influential African American Segregated womens quarters common in upper-
thinkers. Her familys move into a restricted white class households in the Middle East. The harem,
neighborhood in 1937 helped galvanize her resist- which means a sacred, inviolable place, was a world
ance to injustice, instilling her with a sense of so- of its own, separate from the rest of the house-
cial activism. She attended the University of Wis- hold, closed to outsiders, and guarded by eunuchs.
consin and the Art Institute of Chicago and stud- Concubines in the harem were solely for the sexual
ied in Guadalajara, Mexico, from 1948 to 1950. pleasure of the patriarch, while wives were expected
Hansberry became interested in theater in high to produce legitimate heirs.
school, pursued this interest in college, then returned The harem was institutionalized in a number of
to Chicago to study art. She became more politically societies throughout the Middle East for nearly five
active after moving to New York City and writing for thousand years (ca. 3000 B.C.E. to the A.D. 1800s).
Freedom magazine. She soon met and made friends Although considered to be synonymous with Is-
with Robert Nemiroff, a friendship that survived their lam, harems predate the rise of Islam by 3,600
marriage and divorce. In 1958, friends encouraged her years. Harems were the product of the class-based
efforts in writing Raisin in the Sun, which became the
patriarchal societies of the Middle East. Beginning
first play by an African American woman produced
with the Sumerians in Mesopotamia (now south-
on Broadway. She was named most promising play-
ern Iraq between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers),
wright. Raisin in the Sun ran for 530 performances
the state vested in men the control of women both
from 1959 to 1965; the play closed January 12,1965,
sexually and physically. Women owed complete
the day Hansberry died from cancer.
obedience to their fathers and husbands; adultery
Hansberrys work is noted for its cross-gender
by the wife was punishable by death, while men
and cross-cultural views. Her sense of history and
were permitted to have both wives and concubines.
the confusing role of women in history are also ap-
Royalty and upper-class men often maintained
parent in her work. Her mindfulness of being an
African American woman formed the foundation large harems to reflect their wealth and power. Over
of a comprehensive worldview that recognized the time, the number of women in royal harems in-
connectedness of all human suffering. Drafts of her creased significantly. An Assyrian king of the
later works suggest the growth of a feminist con- twelfth century B.C.E had a harem of forty women.
sciousness, mostly obscured by critical interpreta- When Alexander conquered Persia in 333 B.C.E.,
tions focusing on race. After her death, Nemiroff he increased the size of his harem to 365 women
completed her works in progress, in some cases to match that of the conquered king. In A.D. 500,
changing their theme. Some critics have questioned another Persian king reputedly had thousands of
whether this posthumous publication interfered with women in his harem. The rise of the Christian era
the integrity of the artists feminist voice. Hansberry saw the spread of veiling and womens seclusion
privately acknowledged her lesbianism and wrote throughout the region. It became a prominent fea-
several letters to the lesbian publication The Lad- ture of upper-class life throughout the Mediterra-
der about the economic and psychological stresses nean Middle East, including Mesopotamia, Persia,
that drive lesbians to choose marriage. Greece, Byzantium (now Turkey), Arabia, Egypt,
Stephanie Byrd and Syria, among others. It was also supported by
religious thinkers, both Christian and Islamic, who
Bibliography argued that women were primarily sexual and bio-
Baldwin, James. Lorraine Hansberry at the Sum- logical creatures who needed to be controlled and
mit. Freedomways 19:49 (1979), 269272. veiled, lest they inflame mens lust.
Rich, Adrienne. The Problem with Lorraine The harem has occupied a large place in the
Hansberry. Freedomways 19:4 (1979), 247255. imagination of Europeans. Despite the fact that no
Wilkerson, Margaret B. The Dark Vision of Lor- European man ever gained admittance to a harem,
raine Hansberry: Excerpts from a Literary Bi- many opinions were offered as to what took place
ography. Massachusetts Review 28 (Winter within them. For many Westerners, it signified a
1987), 642650. place of heightened sexuality and absolute male
dominance over women, as well as the decadence
See also African American Literature; Chicago, Il- and backwardness of the Orient. Muslim and
linois; Ladder, The European men alike were convinced that the lack

HAREMS 353
 of adequate sexual attention suffered by its inhab- Harlem
H itants led these women to look for, in Ibn al-Hajjs
words, satisfaction by perverse and unnatural
District of the borough of Manhattan, in north-
east New York City. A former village created in
means (Ahmed 1992). Religious men frowned on 1658 and named New Haarlem, the area was an-
women attending the baths because of the easy, nexed to New York City in 1731. In 1900, a small
relaxed intimacies of such places. It was feared that group of African Americans settled there, and it is
such occasions would lead to numerous corrup- now the chief African American quarter of New
tions, some unmentionable. York, with smaller Italian and Latino sections.
Since women left no written records of their lives Its growth as an African American enclave coin-
in the harem, there is no firsthand accounts of their cided with blacks exodus from the violent racism
sexual or erotic relationships. Most stories were based of the South, which historians have dubbed the
on hearsay or speculation. The most famous lesbian Great Migration (19151940). Often considered
love story comes from Baghdad in the years 785 the apex of black American culture, its history is
786. According to Muslim historians, Musa alHadi, rich with its residents contribution to the popular
ruler of the Abbasid Empire, was extremely jealous mainstream culture that defines America today.
of the honor and reputation of his royal harem. On
hearing that two women in his harem were lovers, he Harlem as Cultural Center
set spies to watch them. When the spies saw the In the 1920s, Harlem developed into a richly vig-
women in amorous embrace, they rushed to tell the orous creative center with a thriving underground
king, who immediately had them beheaded. In an- culture that included black writers, businessmen,
other account written in 1520, a male writer claimed artists, and noted blues and jazz singers, such as
that women who spend all day at the baths fall in Gertrude Ma Rainey (18861939), Bessie Smith
love with each other as a result of their great familiar- (18941937), Alberta Hunter (18951984), and
ity in washing and massaging each other. Though Gladys Bentley (19071960), to name a few, and
based only on hearsay, this account even suggested white society from downtown. Later, Harlem
that, at the baths, one could see a woman in love would host some of the most famous and popular
with another one just like a man and a woman. big bands that defined the swing era. In 1943,
A few upper-class European women travelers Harlem was the site of a wartime race riot when
wrote about their visits to harems but never re- Harlemites stormed the streets after a white po-
ported any sexual activity among the women. Lady liceman shot a black soldier.
Mary Wortley Montagu (16891762), the wife of As part of the rebellious, creative culture that has
the British ambassador to Turkey (17171718), marked Harlem over the years, young gays and lesbi-
visited several royal harems and spoke of the close ans started their own communities, which mingled
bonds formed between the women and their fe- well within the literary and performance circles.
male slaves, who served them, danced for them, During its heyday, Harlem was a pulsating cul-
and groomed them in the baths, yet she makes no tural center of salons, speakeasies, writers cliques,
mention of erotic attachments. Although much has and buffet flats (casually decorated apartments
yet to be learned about the emotional, erotic, and rented by several people) that writers and histori-
sexual experiences of women in the harem, it is ans still refer to. Located in the northeastern part
possible that the Western categories of sexuality of Manhattan Island, Harlem came to be known
and lesbianism may be inadequate to express them. as the Negro Bohemia, a place that has witnessed
Evelyn Blackwood the full range of prosperity, from the artistically
vibrant days of Prohibition in the 1920s to the eco-
Bibliography nomic decline of the Great Depression in the 1930s
Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam. New and continuing into the 1970s and 1980s to the
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992. redevelopment of the area in the 1990s.
Bouhdiba, A. Sexuality in Islam. London: As early as the 1920s, Harlem was a place where
Routledge, 1985. lesbiansand, particularly, bisexual womeninter-
Bullough, Vern L. Sexual Variance in Society and mingled within the musical, literary, and artistic cir-
History. New York: Wiley, 1976. cles and proved itself to be one of the few places
where female sexual experimentation, among both
See also Islam whites and blacks, was permitted. Unlike any other

354 HAREMS
locale, Harlem enjoyed a visible black lesbian sub- cial and/or homosexual, and, in 1927, officers
culture in the early part of the twentieth century, raided a production of The Captive by Edouard
and, although marriage was still considered the ap- Bourdet because of its lesbian themes.
propriate institution, adherents of the female sexual
freedom included some of the most celebrated art- Decline and Revival
ists and performers of the day. While many lesbians In the 1930s, Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. (1865
lived openly together, as a concession to the moral 1953), influential pastor of Harlems Abyssinian
expectations of the mainstream society, apparently Baptist Church and an early leader of the Urban
heterosexual marriage arrangements were frequent League and the NAACP (National Association for
among homosexuals, and even the most unconven- the Advancement of Colored People), began a cam-
tional gay artists perfected a bisexual lifestyle. paign against the homosexual community of
The area, especially in the 1920s and through Harlem, at one point declaring that sex among
the 1940s and 1950s, was a mecca of nightclubs, women in Harlem has grown into one of the most
speakeasies, and salons that were frequented by horrible, debasing, alarming, and damning vices
gays and straights. of presentday civilization, and isprevalent to an
Harlems homosexual subculture was not just unbelievable degree (Chauncey 1994). Powell
for African Americans. Harlem, as well as other suggested that lesbians refusal to marry posed an
enclaves such as Greenwich Village, offered a sort insidious threat to the black family.
of laissez-faire morality that appealed to many After nearly a decade of criticism and situations
whites. Historian Faderman (1991) notes that the in which moralists publicly named alleged homo-
interest sometimes suggested a sexual colonial- sexuals (Powell believed that the buffet flats, balls,
ism in which many whites used the bustling area and gay nightclubs recruited others into
as a stimulant to their own sexuality. In Harlem, deviancy), the popularity of the gay institutions
white women could observe or participate in erotic began to decline.
practices deemed immoral by the mainstream cul- By the 1960s, Harlem experienced an economic
ture. Interracial same-sex affairs were common. and social decline that lasted several decades.
Over the years, dozens of nightclubs catered to Crime, drugs, and poverty came to signify the once
a largely homosexual clientele, and huge crowds, thriving neighborhood. Once a segregated power-
mixed in terms of both race and sexuality, gath- house, Harlem came to symbolize black helpless-
ered to attend frequent and outrageous drag balls ness, racism, and the American underclass. Halls
in such ballroom haunts as the Rockland Palace and ballrooms that once teemed with people of all
and the Savoy Ballroom. races and sexuality now stood empty and crum-
Harlems lesbian community offered perhaps bling. Affluent blacks moved away, leaving the
the eras most visible example of female independ- neighborhood to the community-destroying activi-
ence from the masculine social order that domi- ties of drug dealers and pimps.
nated the larger society. Freed from economic and In the 1990s, Harlem began to rise economically
emotional dependence upon men, African Ameri- and socially, symbolizing the rebirth of black Ameri-
can lesbians of Harlem controlled their own sexu- can self-reliance. Although crime was still high, the
ality, lifestyles, and economic futures. crime rate began to fall. Several privateand public-
Women dating women were a common sight sector developers converged on the area, infusing
during the heady days of Prohibition in Harlem. the community with business deals and development.
African American lesbians were particularly visible Investors began to look at numerous opportunities
in the entertainment community. Harlem writers in Harlem, including cable television, restaurants,
sometimes offered lesbianism as an alternative to a and performance venues. Denise McVea
middle-class heterosexual order, as was the case with
Nella Larsen (18911964), who presented hetero- Bibliography
sexuality as emotionally empty and sexually stifling Anderson, Jervis. This Was Harlem. New York:
in her popular novel Quicksand (1928). Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1982.
Still, several writers have painted a picture of a Chauncey, George. Gay New York: Gender, Ur-
Harlem where lesbians, although normally unmo- ban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male
lested, were not necessarily approved of. Police fre- World, 18901940. New York: Basic Books,
quently raided clubs and plays considered interra- 1994.

HARLEM 355
 Faderman, Lillian. Odd Girls and Twilight Lov- pressions of erotic desire between women could be
H ers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-
Century America. New York: Columbia Uni-
both represented in art and literature and publicly
displayed. Washington, D.C., was also a place where
versity Press, 1991. large networks of black women of varying sexuali-
Johnson, James Weldon. Black Manhattan. New ties gathered and nurtured one another. Georgia
York: Arno, 2nd ed. 1968 [1930]. Douglas Johnsons (18861966) S Street Salon in
Lewis, David L. When Harlem Was in Vogue. New Washington, D.C., was a regular gathering spot
York: Knopf, 1981. where black women writers and activists met to share
Miller, Neil. Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian work and offer support; Alice Dunbar-Nelson
History from 1869 to the Present. New York: (18751935), Angelina Weld Grirnk (18801958),
Vintage, 1995. Gwendolyn Bennett (1902), Jessie Fauset (1888
1961), and Marita Bonner (18991971) were some
See also African Americans; Bentley, Gladys; of the women who took part in Johnsons Saturday
Harlem Renaissance; Rainey, Gertrude Ma; evening salon. These evenings established younger
Smith, Bessie; Walker, ALelia writers and offered feedback on writing. Johnsons
salon, and others like it, also offered a safe space for
women of varying sexualities and a meeting place
Harlem Renaissance to discuss politics, race, and sexuality, in addition
Spanning the time between World War I and World to writing. Some of these writers chose to write about
War II (ca. 19171935), the Harlem Renaissance, or bisexuality or even lesbianism in their literature;
New Negro movement, was a period of intense flour- however, most of it is coded by using second-person
ishing in black arts and letters and the rise of the pronouns, as in the poetry of Dunbar-Nelson,
black middle-class. While not confined to Harlem, Johnson, and Grimk. Although her writing is also
the Harlem Renaissance coincided with and was ena- veiled, Nella Larsens (18911964) 1929 novel Pass-
bled by the Great Urban Migration when many Afri- ing contains a triangulated love relationship between
can Americans migrated to Southern and Northern Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry and Irenes hus-
urban centers, in part to flee increased racial violence band, Brian. Reading this novel in a contemporary
after the formation of the new Ku Klux Klan in 1915. setting allows for readers to decode a largely coded,
Many African American writers, artists, jazz and blues but highly eroticized, relationship between two
singers, actors, and political activists were prolific in passing women.
their artistic and political endeavors, and philosopher The cultivation of jazz and blues music during
W.E.B. DuBois (18681963) dubbed this elite group this period was due in large part to lesbian or bi-
the Talented Tenth. sexual African American women, such as Gertrude
DuBoiss insistence that cultural production Ma Rainey (18861939), Bessie Smith (1894
would lead to racial uplift helped encourage black 1937), Gladys Bentley (19071960), and Ethel
artists and writers. Organizations like the NAACP Waters (18961977). Bentley used her bisexuality
(National Association for the Advancement of for shock value in her performances by hinting at
Colored People) and the Urban League launched her bisexual desire and also used male drag. Many
magazinesCrisis and Opportunity, respectively of these women would sing overtly about their love
to publish works by black artists and writers along- of women in the lyrics, such as Raineys rendition
side political articles and reports on lynchings. So- of the lesbian song Prove It on Me Blues
ciologist Charles S.Johnson, editor of Opportunity, (1928). However, Raineys lesbianism also led to
instituted annual dinners to award writers in his her arrest in 1925 for a lesbian orgy at her home
magazine and to publicize the arrival of black nov- with women in her chorus. Not all lesbians or bi-
elists and artists. While these magazines, and others sexual women in Harlem were as open as Rainey.
like them across the country, were devoted to racial There were many who married men, either to shield
uplift, it was not uncommon for them to publish their sexuality, or for economic reasons, or as a
writings by and about black lesbians and gay men. safe way to escape rumors about sexuality. Com-
bating racism and lynching were of primary con-
Lesbian Writers and Artists cern to African Americans during the Harlem Ren-
For lesbian and bisexual African American women, aissance, and, as such, having to endure sexual
the Harlem Renaissance was a period in which ex- oppression in addition to racism was secondary.

356 HARLEM
 Harlem, in particular, during the 1920s and 1930s, ban conditions and the loss of jobs for African
was a generally accepting community, as evidenced Americans in Harlem, which worked to further
in the number of black lesbians who paired off as break down the remnants of the artistic commu-
butch-femme couples and who even married in large nity. Marcy Jane Knopf
wedding ceremonies. Couples obtained marriage li-
censes by either having one partner masculinize her Bibliography
name or by having a gay man stand in as the groom. Faderman, Lillian. Odd Girls and Twilight Lov-
The relative acceptance of homosexuality in ers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-
Harlem was one of the strong attractions that led Century America. New York: Penguin, 1991.
many white men and women to travel to Harlem, Garber, Eric. A Spectacle in Color: The Lesbian
primarily from Greenwich Village, not only to at- and Gay Subculture of Jazz Age Harlem. In
tend jazz shows, parties, and nightclubs, but also to Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and
experiment sexually with bisexual men and women Lesbian Past. Ed. Martin Duberman, Martha
in Harlem. This sexual colonialism brought a Vicinus, and George Chauncey, Jr. New York:
tourist clientele to Harlem businesses and nightclubs, Meridian, 1989, pp. 318331.
which needed the business of any consumer. Yet the Huggins, Nathan Irvin. Harlem Renaissance. New
frequency of white men and women in Harlem also York: Oxford University Press, 1971.
created a segregated Harlem. During Jim Crow, Hull, Gloria T. Color, Sex, and Poetry: Three
when segregation of whites and blacks was legal, Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance.
having a population of whites in Harlem created an Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
environment in which some nightclubs in Harlem Knopf, Marcy Jane, ed. The Sleeper Wakes: Harlem
became white only. Terms designating sexuality Renaissance Stories by Women. New Bruns-
also became racialized, with faggot and wick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1993.
bulldagger used in Harlem to describe black gay Lewis, David Levering. When Harlem Was in Vogue.
men and lesbians, whereas whites were termed gay New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.
men and lesbians.
The relationship between blacks and whites dur- See also African Americans; Bentley, Gladys; Blues
ing the Harlem Renaissance was important and Singers; Bulldagger; Dunbar-Nelson, Alice; Green-
strained in other contexts as well. During this pe- wich Village; Grimk, Angelina Weld; Harlem;
riod, white men and women such as Carl Van Vechten Rainey, Gertrude Ma; Smith, Bessie; Washing-
(18801964), Mabel Dodge Luhan (18791962), and ton, D.C.
Fannie Hurst (18891968) served as patrons, who
also held salon gatherings in their homes in Green-
wich Village and Brooklyn offering a different kind Hawaii
of support than Johnsons S Street Salon promised. Archipelago in the Pacific Ocean populated by in-
At these gatherings, white publishers and patrons digenous people who, for thousands of years, until
would meet with black artists and writers in an at- colonization, lived free of puritanical sexual taboos.
tempt to publish and exhibit the work of African The Hawaiin people call themselves Kanaka
Americans. These ties and connections were impor- Maoli, the true, original people; or ka Lahui
tant, but they also provided novelists with experi- Hawaii, the Hawaiin nation. They trace their
ences with African Americans that they could use as genealogies back to Papa, the earth mother, and
subjects for their own work, as in Hursts Imitation Wakea, the sky father; and then further back to the
of Life (1933) and Van Vechtens controversial and formation of the earth itself, and further back to
problematic Nigger Heaven (1926). the time of the Kumulipo, the source of profound
While many black artists and writers contin- darkness. They originate in po (deep darkness).
ued to produce creative work after the decline of In modern times, they have been subjected to
the Harlem Renaissance, the onset of the Great colonization and missionization. The colonizer
Depression and the U.S. involvement in World War teaches that whiteness and light are good, and that
II dried up much of the financial resources that blackness and dark are bad; hence, it is no coinci-
had enabled black businesses to flourish, and pa- dence that the colonizer is white, and the Kanaka
tronage of black arts and letters declined. Finally, Maoli is dark. The missionary teaches that life with-
the 1935 Harlem Riot provoked deteriorating ur- out sexual taboos is bad, an abomination to their

H AWA I I 357
 god. The indigenous peoples own kapu (religious people in their birth land. Kanaka Maoli cannot
H laws) are said to be primitive, savage, something
from the long ago, dark, unenlightened past.
help but link the struggle for equality with the strug-
gle for self-determination. Noenoe K.Silva
Lesbianism as a category did not exist in the
indigenous society. Neither did heterosexual mo- Bibliography
nogamous marriage. People formed and ended re- Barrett, Paul M. I Do/No You Dont: How
lationships as they chose. At the same time, they Hawaii Became Ground Zero in Battle over Gay
fulfilled the responsibility to produce and care for Marriage. Wall Street Journal (June 17, 1996).
children. It is well known that male nobles (alii), Kameeleihiwa, Lilikala. Native Land and Foreign
such as Kamehameha and others, had aikane (ho- Desires Ko Hawaii Aina a me Na Koi
mosexual) relationships. Ancient myths contain Puumake a ka Poe Haole: Pehea La e Pono
references to womens romantic desires for each ai? How Shall We Live in Harmony? Honolulu:
other. It is likely, therefore, that women also en- Bishop Museum, 1992.
gaged in aikane relationships. Ragaza, Angelo. Aikane Nation: Sovereignty and
In 1993, Hawaii came to U.S. national attention Sexuality in Hawaii. Village Voice (July 2, 1996).
because three same-sex couples sued for the right to
marry. The most prominent of the couples is lesbian, See also Colonialism; Pacific Islands; Pacific Lit-
Ninia Baehr and Genora Dancel. The samesex mar- erature
riage case, Baehr v. Miike, and the struggles of the
gay communities in Hawaii to win it, has highlighted
tensions and anxieties not only between the conserva- H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) (18861961)
tive/religious political groups and the GLBT (gay, les- Anglo-American poet. Born Hilda Doolittle in
bian, bisexual, transgender) communities, but be- Pennsylvania, H.D. traced her artistic gift through
tween the GLBT communities themselves. One of her Moravian mother. She was at Bryn Mawr Col-
those communities is mostly white, with male lead- lege with Marianne Moore (18871972) and met
ers in prominent roles. Another community is made Ezra Pound (18851972) when he was a student
up of Kanaka Maoli and other people of color, in at the University of Pennsylvania. Pound idolized
which women leaders are prominent. Conflicts be- her in his Hildas Book (1905); she recalled their
came apparent when people of color attempted to brief engagement in End to Torment (1980).
join in the struggle for same-sex marriage. While After Pounds departure for Europe, Hilda
Kanaka Maoli activists stressed the need for commu- Doolittle fell in love with Frances Gregg (1884
nity coalition building and the linking of the mar- 1941); she would recall their relationship with
riage issue to other issues, white activists concentrated Pound in Her (1981). In 1911, they set sail for
on tasks around the marriage issue alone, such as Europe, a lesbian idyll traced in Paint It Today. In
lobbying legislators. It became clear that the goals of Asphodel, another expatriate novel of the 1920s,
the two groups were different. The white activists the Hilda character fails to persuade the Frances
goal is to benefit equally with heterosexuals from the character to stay with her in London and continue
current American politicaleconomic arrangement. the artistic tradition of Oscar Wilde (18541900).
The Kanaka Maoli activists goal, on the other hand, Gregg later resurfaced in H.D.s life; when she was
is to decolonizethat is, be free to engage in po- killed in 1941, Hildas Book was among her
litical and economic self-determinationand, at the possessions.
same time, to achieve a decolonization of the mind Hilda Doolittle married fellow poet Richard
that allows freedom from the puritanical sexual ta- Aldington (18921962) in 1914, acquiring British
boos so foreign to their ancestors. nationality. They translated ancient Greek poetry
This is because Kanaka Maoli activists are also and helped Amy Lowell (18741925) edit the
active in the indigenous nationalist movement. Imagist anthologies after her split with Ezra Pound.
More than a hundred years have passed since the This brought H.D. into contact with D.H.Lawrence
Hawain monarchy was forcibly overthrown by (18851930), though they were never lovers. The
American businessmen. Since then, the Kanaka breakup of the Aldington marriage during World
Maoli have become the poorest, the most unem- War I is presented in Bid Me to Live (1960), the
ployed, the most houseless (since Hawaii remains only autobiographical novel by H.D. to be pub-
home), the most imprisoned, and the shortest-lived lished in her lifetime.

358 H AWA I I
 In 1918, when H.D. was living with Cecil Gray Collecott, Diana. H.D. and Sapphic Modernism,
(18951951) and expecting their child, she was 19101950. Cambridge, England: Cambridge
discovered by the young writer Bryher (1894 University Press, 1999.
1983). Thus started a vital lifelong relationship. In DuPlessis, Rachel. H.D: The Career of That Strug-
I Said (1920) and We Two (1924), H.D. reg- gle. Brighton: Harvester, 1986.
isters their solidarity as lesbians before an Friedman, Susan. Penelopes Web: Gender, Moder-
uncomprehending world: We two remain: /yet by nity, H.D.s Fiction. New York: Cambridge
what miracle/have we two met within/this maze University Press, 1990.
of daedal paths/where once I stood alone? Laity, Cassandra. Lesbian Romanticism: H.D.s
Bryhers wealth allowed H.D. to live for writing Fictional Representations of Frances Gregg and
rather than by writing. In 1920, they visited Lowell Bryher. Introduction to H.D., Paint It Today.
and Ada Russell (18631952?) in Boston, Massa- New York: New York University Press, 1992,
chusetts, and Marianne Moore in New York City, pp. xvii-xliii.
also traveling to California and Greece. Subsequently,
Bryher married H.D.s lover, Kenneth Macpherson See also Bisexuality; Bryher; Lowell, Amy Law-
(19021971), adopted her daughter, Perdita, and set- rence; Modernism; Poetry; Psychoanalysis; Sappho
tled in Switzerland. The Macphersons made silent
films, including Borderline (1930), in which H.D.
acted with Paul Robeson (18981976). H.D.s writ- Health
ing at this time occupies psychic, sexual, and racial In health-care research, diagnosis, and treatment,
borderlines: especially her Sapphic lyrics and the ex- lesbians have often been ignored. The norm for
perimental fiction of Kora and Ka (1934). research, diagnosis, and treatment of health and
In the early 1930s, H.D. was analyzed by disease in the United States is the white, hetero-
Sigmund Freud (18561939), recording their ses- sexual, middle-class male. Doubly distanced from
sions in letters to Bryher and prose later published the heterosexual male norm, lesbian health-care and
as Tribute to Freud (1956). He described her as disease issues have failed to receive funding and
the perfect bi[sexual], but she continued to be study. When recognized, lesbians have often been
woman identified. While she resisted Freuds theo- subsumed as a subset of women or homosexuals,
ries of femininity and homosexuality, H.D. believed so that heterosexual females or homosexual males
that psychoanalysis powered the dynamic drive become the respective norms against which lesbi-
of her later writings. During World War II, living ans are measured.
in London with Bryher, she composed the sustained Use of the white, middle-class, heterosexual male
poetry of Trilogy (19441946) and her prose as the norm has resulted in the exclusion of women
memoir, The Gift (1983). from drug testing, the definition of some diseases that
H.D. was at the height of her powers, but after affect both sexes as male diseases, the insufficient study
the war she suffered a mental and physical break- of conditions specific to females, and the ignoring of
down and was sent to a Swiss clinic to recover. womens experiences. Ironically, obstetrics/
There she completed By Avon River (1949), cel- gynecology, the medical specialty centered exclusively
ebrating Shakespeares bisexuality. Later, she wrote on womens health issues, also derives its norms from
Helen in Egypt (1961), the revisionary epic that the heterosexual male. Because of its focus on pro-
she called my cantos. After being honored in creation and heterosexual activity, the centering of
1960 by the American Academy of Arts and Let- womens health in obstetrics/gynecology defines it in
ters, she died in Lausanne, Switzerland, the fol- terms of their relationships with men. Most women
lowing year. H.D. survives in a body of writing first consult an ob/gyn when they become, or are
that rivals the achievement of better-known male thinking of becoming, heterosexually active. The
modernists and extends well beyond her Collected possibility of future problems with procreation, dif-
Poems, 19121944 (1983). Diana Collecott ficult periods, the absence of periods, or other prob-
lems surrounding menarche bring other women to
Bibliography consult a gynecologist before they become hetero-
Buck, Claire. H.D. and Freud: Bisexuality and a sexually active. For many women, the obstetrician/
Feminine Discourse. New York: St. Martins, gynecologist becomes the primary-care physician, and
1991. reproduction becomes a major focus for health care.

H E A LT H 359
 Defining womens health in terms of mens interests also constitute a risk for ovarian cancer and may
H and norms has done more than promote the
overmedicalization of normal processes such as preg-
be implicated in endometrial cancer as well.
Failure to identify and fund separate studies of
nancy and childbirth. It has also led to the lesbian health issues usually results in lesbians be-
underfunding of most aspects of womens health not ing lumped with heterosexual women in studies of
directly related to procreation and heterosexual ac- womens health issues. When such lumping occurs
tivity. Thought of as homosexuals and, thus, defined in studies of the incidence and/or the causes of sexu-
in opposition to their heterosexual counterparts, les- ally transmitted diseases or other gynecological
bians become excluded from obstetrics/gynecology, problems from which lesbians are exempt or at low
the medical specialty devoted to womens health. risk because they do not engage in heterosexual
intercourse, both lesbians and nonlesbians suffer.
Research on Lesbians Defining such studies generally as research on
Although very little health-care research has included womens health issues rather than health is-
separate studies of health-care issues for lesbians, sues for women engaging in heterosexual sex leads
some studies have suggested differences in health the general population and some health-care work-
and disease processes in lesbians and nonlesbians. ers to think that lesbians are at risk for diseases
For example, it is clear that lesbians have a much that they are unlikely to contract, while obscuring
lower incidence of certain diseases, such as cervical the true risk behavior for heterosexual women.
cancer. Heterosexual intercourse permits the trans- A related confusion arises when lesbians are not
mission of herpes, trichomoniasis, chlamydia, and listed as a separate statistical category for frequency
the human papilloma virus (HPV), thought to be of diseases. The Centers for Disease Control in
major causes of cervical cancer. Beginning inter- Atlanta, Georgia, does not list lesbians as a sepa-
course at an early age also increases the chances of rate category in its groups for AIDS infection; ho-
cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is nonexistent in celi- mosexual men, bisexual men, and adult men are
bate women and rare in lesbians who have engaged listed separately. Men are listed not only by sexual
in limited heterosexual intercourse or are not at risk orientation but are further subdivided by intrave-
from other factors, such as diethylstilbesterol (DES) nous drug use and race.
exposure and smoking. However, a study by Johnson The failure to separate out lesbians as a distinct
et al. (1987) demonstrated that lesbians with a his- group for statistics on AIDS leads the public to false
tory of vaginal intercourse with men have an in- understandings of the risk behaviors causing AIDS.
creased rate of cervical cancer, between 2.7 percent It may partly explain the misunderstanding by the
and 2.9 percent, which is in the high-normal range public and even by 20 percent of nurse educators
for all women. that lesbians are at high risk to transmit AIDS (Randall
Lesbians may be at higher risk for breast, ovar- 1989). Lumping lesbians, celibate women, and het-
ian, and endometrial cancer. As of 1998, however, erosexually active women together obscures the in-
no prospective population-based study of the com- creased risk of AIDS to women engaged in hetero-
parative incidence of cancers in lesbians had been sexual activity, since lesbians and celibate women have
performed. This lack of research is problematic very low risk for AIDS from sexual activity. A 1993
because general epidemiologic studies of cancer in survey reported in 1996 by the Council on Scientific
women have identified specific risk factors that are Affairs of the American Medical Association of 498
distributed differently in the lesbian population. lesbians and bisexual women based upon a random
Dr. Suzanne Haynes of the National Cancer Insti- sample of San Francisco and Berkeley, California,
tutes estimates that one in three lesbians may de- residents revealed a 1.2 percent rate of HIV infec-
velop breast cancer during her lifetime because les- tion. Histories of heterosexual relations or injection-
bians are more likely than other women to fall into drug use prevented determination of femaleto-female
highrisk categories for the disease. Women who transmission. The greatest risk of HIV infection for
have never had children are at an almost 80 per- all women is from injection-drug use and sex with
cent greater risk for breast cancer than women who bisexual men. However, female-to-female transmis-
have had children; it may be inferred that lesbians sion of HIV can occur through exposure to cervical
are at increased risk for the disease because lesbi- and vaginal secretions of an HIV-infected woman.
ans are less likely to have children than are their The amount of shedding from these secretions likely
heterosexual sisters. Never having had children may increases the risk of HIV exposure. Lesbians may also

360 H E A LT H
be vulnerable to HIV infection via artificial insemi- sence of lesbians as a group from studies and dis-
nation from an infected donor, as well as from blood cussions of lesbian health-care literature has been
transfusions. translated into the assumption that no lesbians seek
Overexamination of, and research centered on, health-care service or that heterosexual activity
the lesbian population seeking or referred for should be assumed for all patients. In fact, a signifi-
counseling and therapy have possibly led to cant issue that hinders many lesbians from seeking
misperceptions about the prevalence and severity health care is homophobia and/or insensitivity on
of problems that sexual orientation causes for les- the part of health-care practitioners. Stevenss re-
bians. Since lesbians having fewer problems tend view of nine studies regarding lesbians experiences
not to seek help, they are underrepresented in the with health care between 1970 and 1990 uncov-
literature or unknowingly lumped with hetero- ered significant homophobic attitudes on the part
sexual women. Presumably, the pattern of of health-care professionals. The Gay and Lesbian
overrepresentation of lesbians with problems and Medical Association conducted a study of its mem-
underrepresentation of lesbians without problems bership in 1994 that revealed that 98 percent of re-
documented in psychology has been repeated for spondents felt homosexual patients should disclose
other aspects of health. This pattern provides their sexual orientation to their physician, but 64
health-care practitioners and the general popula- percent believed that, as a result of disclosure, ho-
tion with a false picture of the prevalence of dis- mosexual patients risked receiving substandard care
eases and difficulties in the lesbian population. (Senate and OHanlan 1994). Fifty-two percent had
Alcoholism, a problem for lesbians as well as male observed colleagues denying or providing reduced
homosexuals, is thought to be underdiagnosed and care to patients because of their sexual orientation.
undertreated in the lesbian community. A study by
McKirnan and Peterson (1989) suggests that the Lesbians and Health Care
drinking patterns of lesbians are more consistent with Because of lesbophobia and the assumption of a
national norms for male drinkers than female drink- heterosexual norm by many health-care practition-
ers. Much of the study of alcoholism in homosexual ers, many lesbians and celibate women refuse rou-
populations has used the gay bar as a source for esti- tine examinations or delay seeking treatment for
mating and diagnosing the incidence of alcoholism. serious symptoms because they find questions about
Limited research suggests that many lesbians, par- contraception and heterosexual activity to be dis-
ticularly in some geographic areas, such as the South, tasteful. Diseases such as endometriosis are unlikely
and from the upper and middle socioeconomic classes, to be diagnosed in lesbians if the practitioner uses
may not frequent lesbian bars. This does not mean pain during intercourse as the major criterion for
that they are not drinking elsewhere and may not be diagnosis. Some lesbians fear that revealing their
suffering from alcoholism. Similarly, the twelve-step sexual orientation to a health-care practitioner may
treatment, the model considered to be most success- lead to loss of jobs or children if this information is
ful for treating alcoholics, was developed by two men recorded in medical records that may become avail-
using themselves (white, middle-to-upper-class able to employers or social-service workers.
heterosexuals) as the norm. Feminists have critiqued When a woman does reveal her sexual orienta-
the confrontation aspects of the model as less appro- tion to a health-care practitioner, she must watch
priate for many women who seek to avoid conflict. for assumptions on the part of the practitioner that
The self-revelation aspects of the model and the in- she engages in a particular risk behavior. Risk
volvement of the spouse in Al-Anon or codependency behaviors, such as anal intercourse, not homosexu-
groups are less appropriate for lesbians, who are likely ality itself, put male homosexuals at risk for HIV.
neither to have a spouse nor to reveal much about Similarly, not engaging in heterosexual or anal in-
their personal life in a lesbophobic society. In some tercourse, not simply current sexual orientation,
cases, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is not sensitive to puts lesbians at less risk for cervical cancer than
painful prior events such as rape, incest, battering, or women who engage in those activities.
other traumas for which alcohol or drug use becomes Describing specific risk behaviors rather than as-
a symptom. cribing them to lesbians because of their sexual ori-
Ignoring lesbian health issues in research has led entation will open the way for a better understand-
to inappropriate diagnoses and treatments for les- ing of lesbian health-care issues without reinforcing
bians. For many health-care practitioners, the ab- the status quo of ignorance and oppression from

H E A LT H 361
 homophobia. The late-twentieth-century condition figures suffuse lesbian culture, whether public ones
H of ignoring lesbians and their health-care needs must
not continue. It is tragic for lesbians, who remain
appropriated from the mainstream or private ones
created out of lesbian thoughts and desires. He-
ignorant about their own health-care issues; health- roes are a counterpoint to homophobia, by actual-
care practitioners and the nonlesbian population also izing lesbian aspirations and fantasies. The heroic
suffer. When lesbians are ignored in research design, epic has survived as the most enduring style of story
it may lead to their inappropriate inclusion or exclu- in many different cultures. The hero-protagonist
sion from studies of health issues; this obscures the on a quest for legitimation marks a significant
true incidence and cause of some diseases for both number of lesbian narratives, including Radclyffe
lesbian and nonlesbian women. Precious resources Halls The Well of Loneliness (1928), Ann
may be unnecessarily wasted in overprescribing tests Bannons Beebo Brinker series (19571962), Rita
such as Pap smears and tests for STDs when inap- Mae Browns Rubyfruit Jungle (1973), Audre
propriate inclusion or exclusion from populations Lordes Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982),
sampled becomes translated into inaccurate diagno- and Jeanette Wintersons Oranges Are Not the
sis and treatment. Sue V.Rosser Only Fruit (1985). The lesbian hero is a presence
everywhere. Consuming her, a metamorphosis takes
Bibliography place through a process of identification and de-
Council on Scientific Affairs, American Medical sire: The reader wants the hero, and wants to be
Association. Health Care Needs of Gay Men the hero, whether she be Marlene (Dietrich),
and Lesbians in the United States. Journal of Martina (Navratilova), or Madonna.
the American Medical Association 275:17 Zimmerman (1990) suggests that [t]he lesbian
(1996), 13541359. hero, in all her various shapes, journeys through
Johnson, S.R., E.M.Smith, and S.M.Guenther. patriarchy to its point of exit, the border of an un-
Comparison of Gynecologic Health Care Prob- known territory, a wild zone of the imagination.
lems Between Lesbians and Bisexual Women: This is a journey of emancipation that assumes that
A Survey of 2,345 Women. New England Jour- the imagination has a relation to reality and that
nal of Medicine 32 (1987), 805811. reading performs a dual function of escape and re-
McKirnan, D.J., and P.L.Peterson. Alcohol and construction, which introduces the reader back into
Drug Use Among Homosexual Men and an imperceptibly changed world on her return. Pre-
Women: Epidemiology and Population Char- vailing categories of the lesbian hero, according to
acteristics. Addictive Behaviors 14 (1989), Zimmerman, are outlaws, witches, magicians, an-
545553. drogynes, and artistsall forms adapted to contem-
Randall, Carla E. Lesbian Phobia Among BSN porary circumstances and, in the novels Zimmerman
Educators: A Survey. Journal of Nursing Edu- describes, to lesbian feminism.
cation 28 (1989), 302306. Zimmerman describes how heroic models have
Rosser, Sue V. Ignored, Overbooked, or Sub- modified over the years. In pre-Stonewall (1969) lit-
sumed: Research on Lesbian Health and Health erature, the lesbian longed to return from exile, to
Care. NWSA Journal 5:2 (1993), 183203. be accepted by the dominant culture, and to become
Schatz, B., and K.OHanlan. Anti-Gay Discrimi- normalized and assimilated. On the other hand, in
nation in Medicine: Results of a National Sur- the figure of the lesbian vampirean erotic specta-
vey of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Physicians. cle that translated so successfully onto filmshe
San Francisco: American Association of Physi- persisted in romantic otherness. The most romantic
cians for Human Rights, 1994. of these classic forms of the lesbian hero is the butch,
her female masculinity offering a potent mixture of
See also AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syn- agency and idealization for the lesbian reader. The
drome); Alcohol and Substance Abuse; Medicine; butch is a tragic figure found in novels throughout
Nursing; Sexually Transmitted Diseases the twentieth century, from The Well of Loneliness
(1928) to Leslie Feinbergs Stone Butch Blues (1993).
Heroic narratives offer vicarious experiences
Heroes recognizable as lessons in morality. These
Archetypal figures with exceptional qualities who queststories provide a system of values in the form
undertake mythic quests and adventures. Heroic of a narrative in which the hero must search for

362 H E A LT H
and find selfhood. The hero passes from ignorance Zimmerman, Bonnie. The Safe Sea of Women: Les-
to knowledge and from passivity to action, guided bian Fiction, 19691989. Boston: Beacon,
through the maze by an ethical map. Trials under- 1990.
gone along the way underline the protagonists role
of apprentice and promote understanding of the See also Amazons
character and strength of an enemy (such as homo-
phobia). The effect is Utopian, offering a vision of
how the world could be. Heterosexism
Lesbian novels are commonly about becoming, A form of discrimination whereby heterosexuality
about appropriating power, about finding the he- and heterosexuals are considered superior to lesbi-
roic in oneself. The positive images of heroes in ans, bisexual men and women, gay men, and queers.
1970s fiction evokes the kind of fond embarrass- Heterosexism prevails in U.S. culture. It not only
ment reserved for naive versions of the self. The involves individual acts of mistreatment toward les-
lesbian and gay intelligentsia in the 1990s at times bians, but is also built into institutions, such as gov-
adopted a certain distanced snobbery about heroes ernment and the health-care system. As an institu-
and positive images in general, which are seen as tionalized system of oppression, heterosexism nega-
belonging to a backward and unsophisticated les- tively affects lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and
bian culture. But these stories are lesbian folktales transgender people, as well as some heterosexual
that have accumulated an elaborate and profound individuals who do not subscribe to traditional
symbolic meaning, adapted and reinterpreted to standards of masculinity and femininity.
meet the needs of each new political moment.
For example, The Gilda Stories (1991) by Jewelle Institutionalized Oppression
Gomez offers the black lesbian hero as a vampire. The power to create societal definitions of homosexu-
Gomez (1993) described her difficulty in finding ality has long been the domain of heterosexuals.
black women characters of heroic dimensions, not- Throughout history, lesbians and homosexuals have
ing: [W]e have been trapped in the metaphor of been defined by society in various ways: as sinners,
slavery[therefore] we are at a loss as to how to as mentally ill, and as criminals. In the 1990s,
extrapolate an independent future. She further iden- heterosexism continued to dictate the illegality of
tifies two literary archetypes in black fiction, the homosexual behavior through the existence of sod-
bitch, who makes herself the center of her exist- omy laws in nearly half of the states. Similarly, most
ence, and the hero, who makes the survival of cities with human rights ordinances do not extend
the community central to her being. In The Gilda legal protection against discrimination to lesbians and
Stories, Gomez illustrates her own argument by gays. Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenderists
showing her hero figure not as an individualist, but are, by and large, not legally protected against dis-
as a woman grounded in her community. crimination across the United States.
Heroes offer a metaphor of the self in movement, While it varies from city to city and state to state,
change, and process. Heroism can carry a complex heterosexism threatens lesbians and other
statement of identity and struggle. For example, it nonstraight individuals in terms of fairness in prac-
does not really matter whether it was a diesel dyke tices of employment, education, housing, and ac-
who threw the first punch at a police officer outside commodations. Lesbians, gays, and bisexuals are
the Stonewall bar in New York City in 1969. The plagued with concern for safety from physical and
image is symbolic and has an important function as emotional harm and the fear of incarceration.
heroic legend. Sally R.Munt While policy battles were waged across the United
States throughout the early 1990s in attempts to
Bibliography gain equal rights and same-sex marriage rights, still
Gomez, Jewelle. Lye-Throwers and Lovely Ren- only heterosexuals could legally marry. Four nations
egades: The Road from Bitch to Hero for Black permitted the registration of same-sex partnerships:
Women in Speculative Fictions. In FortyThree Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland (including
Septembers. Ithaca N.Y.: Firebrand, 1993, pp. Greenland). Despite some differences from hetero-
109128. sexual marriage, partnership registration in these
Munt, Sally R. Heroic Desire: Lesbian Identity and countries is considered to be a legal equivalent. Cou-
Cultural Space. London: Cassell, 1998. ples benefit from this status with tax breaks, the

HETEROSEXISM 363
 extension of health-care benefits to spouses, and As children grow to adolescents and adults, the
H other institutionalized benefits. connection between heterosexism and sexism re-
mains. Nonconformity in gender is assumed to be
Individual Oppression equated with nonconformity in sexual orientation.
On a more personal level, the assumption of indi- Symbols, such as clothing, jewelry, or hairstyle, can
viduals heterosexuality perpetuates heterosexism. serve to mark nonheterosexuals with the status of
For example, a norm exists in U.S. culture that in- other. Stereotypically, women with short hair-
dividuals should attend social functions with an styles, an affinity for flannel and combat boots,
other-sex date or partner. Given the fear and intol- and a dislike for makeup may be quickly labeled
erance of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals, individuals by straight people as butch or dyke.
are faced with the decision of whether or not to Along with the other forms of inequality,
attend mainstream events, to go alone, to take a heterosexism is a pervasive form of oppression in
decoy date, or to refer to their partner/lover as a society. Not only are personal relationships affected
friend. This prescribed pattern serves to keep by heterosexism, but institutions play a major role
lesbians in the closet and in fear of the repercus- in perpetuating this form of inequality.
sions of being identified as homosexual. Kimberly Dugan
Homophobia and heterosexism remain accept-
able in society. It is not uncommon to hear verbal Bibliography
attacks on lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men. Talk DEmilio, John. Sexual Politics, Sexual Communi-
about lesbians and gays in negative terms does not ties: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in
receive much, if any, sanction on the street corner, the United States, 19401970. Chicago: Uni-
in the home, in the classroom, and or in the popu- versity of Chicago Press, 1983.
lar media. Harvard Law Review. Sexual Orientation and the
Law. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Heterosexism and Sexism Press, 1990.
Heterosexism and sexism are interwoven systems Pharr, Suzanne. Homophobia: A Weapon of Sex-
of oppression. This overlap can be identified at both ism. Inverness, Calif.: Charden, 1988.
the institutional and the individual level in society.
At an institutional level, for example, women and See also Discrimination; Heterosexuality; Homo-
lesbians particularly are often ignored in medical phobia; Invisibility; Oppression; Sexism
research. Research on AIDS typically focuses on
men. Yet the results of research are assumed to
apply to lesbians and other women. While lesbi- Heterosexuality
ans are considered low risk, the incidence of AIDS Term used to refer to sexual behavior limited to male-
among lesbians has risen dramatically from the female interactions, to a sexual preference for, or
1980s to the 1990s. Still, lesbians are ignored in orientation toward, such interactions, to an iden-
medical research, in general, and often overlooked tity based on such a preference/orientation, and to
in AIDS education because of sexism. The invis- the social institutionalization of these. The distinc-
ibility of lesbians in medical research illustrates both tions are crucial, because, although behavior that
heterosexism and sexism because it is discrimina- could be called heterosexual is a universal, hetero-
tion against a particular gender and category of sexual institutions and identities are probably not.
people not involved in heterosexual relationships. For, while it is clear that all societies encourage most
Adherence or the lack thereof to traditional (though often not all) members to pair heterosexu-
standards of femininity and masculinity can be a ally for the purposes of procreation and lineage, it
sign of ones sexual orientation. Beginning at is not clear that all societies require that members
birth, children are socialized to be heterosexual and be heterosexual in some essential way. Critical study
to fit into traditional gender norms. Boys and girls of heterosexuality is nascent in the late twentieth
are sanctioned for transgressive gender behavior century and continues to be blocked by the he-
with verbal assaults marking them as other than gemony, or cultural dominance, of heterosexuality.
heterosexual. Girls who remain tomboys too long The assumed normality of heterosexuality has im-
may be called butch or dyke, and more ef- peded the pursuit, even the formulation, of such ques-
feminate boys may be tagged sissy or fag. tions as these: What are the causes of exclusively

364 HETEROSEXISM
heterosexual preferences and orientations in indi- indeed presupposes it. Lesbianism is subversive, then,
viduals? How have heterosexual identities developed not in its role as liberatory option, as in lesbian femi-
historically? How has heterosexuality been institu- nism, but through its exposure of heterosexuality
tionalized, and how has this differed for men and as a social construction. This exposure is achieved
women of different societies and social groups? best by butch-femme imitation of heterosexual
Historians have found that the term heterosexu- forms, upon which heterosexuality relies in order
ality did not appear in any European language until to appear to be the original; the process parallels
1869, when italong with its pair, homosexual- the one whereby the social construction of nor-
itywas coined in political letters by the German mal gender roles is revealed by drag performance.
publicist Karoly Maria Kertbeny (18241882). It was Perhaps ironically, lesbian analyses of heterosexu-
then used publicly in an anonymous 1880 pamphlet ality rarely focus on the role of heterosexuality in
calling for sodomy-law reform, and sexologist Rich- the lives of lesbians. Research on identity has dem-
ard Krafft-Ebing (18401902) used it in the 1889 onstrated clearly, however, that individuals sexual
edition of his Psychopathia Sexualis. Samegender behavior does not always match their sexual iden-
sexuality, particularly between men, was a primary tities, that many women who identify as heterosexual
topic of late-nineteenth-century sexological study, and
have homosexual experiences, and vice versa. Re-
new terms for it abounded. The invention of a term
search on sexual behavior has consistently found
for its opposite, heterosexuality, appeared almost
higher levels of heterosexual experience among
as an afterthought. The conceptualization of hetero-
women who identify as lesbians than among men
sexuality as an individual sexual preference or orien-
who identify as gay, a gender difference that remains
tation seems to have required, and followed, the
largely unexplained. It is clear, however, that, in light
conceptualization of homosexuality in such terms.
of the actual sexual experiences of lesbians, com-
Many scholars have suggested that the hetero/
monly held beliefs about the immutability of het-
homo distinction was not an important one before
erosexuality and homosexuality are overstated, par-
that time; Katz (1995) argues that, in Colonial
America, for example, the crucial distinction was ticularly for women. The concepts of clearly dis-
between procreative and nonprocreative forms of tinct heterosexuality and homosexuality seem bet-
sex and that acts, not desires, were the topic of con- ter applicable to mens sexual lives than to wom-
cern. Social-constructionist and essentialist theorists ens, which may be more often characterized by flex-
debate whether there were any heterosexuals, in this ibility and change. Vera Whisman
sense, before the concept came into being.
Lesbian feminist theorists led the way in the criti- Bibliography
cal analysis of heterosexuality, although most have Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York:
been less concerned with such questions as the above Routledge, 1990.
and more concerned with the place of institutional- Katz, Jonathan. The Invention of Heterosexuality.
ized heterosexuality in the subordination of women New York: Button, 1995.
to men. In her now-classic treatment of this prob- Rich, Adrienne. Compulsory Heterosexuality and
lem, Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Lesbian Existence, Signs: Journal of Women
Existence, Rich (1980) analyzes the forces that have in Culture and Society 5 (1980), 631660.
kept women bound to men through heterosexual Stein, Edward, ed. Forms of Desire. New York:
institutions. Looking at forces ranging from literal Routledge, 1992.
enslavement to more subtle ideological pressures, Whisman, Vera. Queer By Choice. New York:
she points out that the denial and distortion of les- Routledge, 1996.
bian existence undergirds the portrayal of hetero-
sexual unions as womens only real options. From See also Compulsory Heterosexuality;
this point follows the basic lesbian feminist insight Heterosexism; Homosexuality; Identity; Lesbian
that lesbianism is more than an individual sexual Feminism; Rich, Adrienne; Sexology; Sexual Ori-
preference and is, at least implicitly, a form of resist- entation and Preference
ance to male dominance.
The lesbian feminist analysis, however, is not the
only lesbian theoretical approach to heterosexual- High Schools, Lesbian and Gay
ity. Poststructuralist philosopher Butler (1990) ar- Educational centers prepared to service students
gues that heterosexuality requires homosexuality, who have, for whatever reason, have dropped out

H I G H S C H O O L S , L E S B I A N A N D G AY 365
 of the comprehensive public school system. Cre- politan area: 70 percent Latino; 10 percent Afri-
H ated in response to the high numbers of lesbian
and gay youth who were not completing their edu-
can American; 10 percent white; 6 percent Asian;
2 percent Native American; and 2 percent other.
cation, lesbian and gay high schools construct an Boys outnumber girls at the EAGLES Center, con-
atmosphere of tolerance and acceptance that helps stituting at least 70 percent of the student popula-
students get back on task to complete a high school tion.
diploma or its equivalency. In New York City, the Hetrick-Martin Institute
Students who seek out a lesbian and gay high sponsors Harvey Milk High School as part of its
school have usually experienced some form of vio- overall comprehensive services for lesbian and gay
lence and gay bashing, verbal and sexual harass- youth. In creating this educational space in its in-
ment, homelessness, or other kinds of alienating stitute, the Hetrick-Martin community has joined
experiences in public school culture. These students, social and health services into a comprehensive
as well as others, may be looking for other lesbian service environment specifically directed at queer
and gay youth for support and community. Often, youth. Hetrick-Martin is not only a center where
high school administrators have no policy for deal- lesbian and gay youth find a tolerant and support-
ing with lesbian and gay harassment or refuse to ive atmosphere in working toward a high school
address the issues of bashing and namecalling. The diploma, but also a space where students can find
societal oppression and discrimination against the shelter, health and social services, and a teen drop-
lesbian and gay communities, no access to informa- in center.
tion and role models, rejection of parental or family The curriculum for the lesbian and gay high
love and connection due to their sexual identity, school is queer positive and queer friendly but tra-
professionals labeling them as pathological and sick, ditional in approach. Students are required to fol-
and the extreme homophobia of the high school low state curriculum guidelines with course work
culture forces some students to leave school and seek in English, math, science, and social studies. How-
out alternatives to finish their education. ever, because of the high rates of transience of many
In 1998, there were three such programs. of the students, much of their course work is based
Inschool support groups, such as Project 10, a pro- on the Individual Education Plan (IEP), a compre-
gram founded in 1985 by Los Angeles Unified hensive academic plan designed for the student by
School Districts Virginia Uribe, also benefit stu- a team of counselors, teachers, parents (or
dents who are coming out in traditional high caregivers), and the student after an assessment of
schools. Project 10 support groups deal with many her or his educational needs.
of these coming out issues among students and help The first priority of the lesbian and gay high
negotiate a bridge of communication between par- school is to allow students access to their cumula-
ents, schools, and students as an afternoon, in- tive school records. Many students enrolling at
house rap group, usually sponsored by a teacher these schools are often leaving abusive households
or an administrator. and/or schools and are not aware of their status as
The EAGLES Center (Emphasizing Adolescent students. For older students who have been away
Gay/Lesbian Educational Services) was started in from school for longer periods of time, the school
1993 by Jerry Battey, an openly gay Los Angeles can also provide classes leading to a General
Unified School District teacher, in response to the Equivalency Diploma (GED). Students using the
publication of the 1991 U.S. Department of Health IEP pace themselves through their course work and
and Human Services Report on Youth Suicide, can finish numerous classes in a short span of time.
which recommended services for homosexual youth One criticism of lesbian and gay high schools
because of their much higher than average has been the curriculum, adding lesbian and gay
suicidecompletion rates. Although the EAGLES literature and history to an otherwise traditional
Center emphasizes a lesbian and gay student envi- curriculum. The use of volunteers in designing cur-
ronment, the school reflects a more inclusive popu- riculum for these schools is crucial, and it is through
lation of youth, including those who identify as the work donated by people in the lesbian and gay
bisexual and transgender and other youth who feel communities that the high schools can provide li-
solidarity with the queer community in Los braries, guest artists and writers, social and psy-
Angeles. The demographics of the school as of the chological services, internships, and equipment to
late 1990s reflected the larger Los Angeles metro- enrich their curriculum.

366 H I G H S C H O O L S , L E S B I A N A N D G AY
 Funding is always a problem for the schools. As Hildegard made four tours throughout Germany
no-cost items to their local school district budgets, preaching clerical reform.
the schools receive no funding beyond teacher sala- Dedicated at the age of eight to the service of
ries, leaving no funds for administrative or instruc- God by her aristocratic parents, Hildegard was
tional staff, facilities, or staff development. Much raised and educated by the anchoress Jutta of
of the administrative support is provided by volun- Sponheim and spent her life in female religious
teers. The EAGLES Center has its particular fund- communities, eventually becoming magistra of a
ing problems. Unlike the Harvey Milk High School, Benedictine convent near Bingen, Germany. She
there is no budget for a permanent site, so the EA- formed social, professional, and emotional friend-
GLES Center is forced to find communitybased or- ships with religious and lay women throughout
ganizations that can sponsor sites for the school. Germany. She corresponded with abbesses, offer-
School districts may support these alternative ing them aid and advice, and her work inspired
schools for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender the visionary writing of a protge, Elisabeth of
youth with teacher salaries but little else. Religious Schonau, who also wrote to Hildegard and visited
Right organizations have had a tremendous impact her. Hildegard formed a strong emotional attach-
in the policymaking of many school districts. With ment to a favorite nun, Richardis von Stade. When
the threat of highly organized blocks of voters, Richardis left Hildegard to assume an abbacy,
school boards stay politically neutral and are Hildegard protested in writing all the way to the
hesitant to commit part of school district budgets pope, to no avail.
to support programs for lesbian and gay youth. Hildegards attitude to female homosexuality and
And, although these educational spaces may keep homoeroticism varied according to the genre of the
students from officially dropping out of school, discourse in which she wrote. In her visionary moral
very few of these at-risk lesbian and gay youth are writing, Hildegard repeated the conventional medi-
graduating. Cynthia Cruz eval condemnation of both male and female homo-
sexual acts as devilish perversions of socalled natu-
Bibliography ral male (active) and female (passive) roles (Scivias
Remafedi, Gary. Death By Denial. Boston: Alyson, 2.6.78). But in her medical writing, Hildegard as-
1994. serted that womans sexual pleasure does not depend
upon the touch of a man (Causes and Cures 2.96),
See also Students; Suicide; Teachers and, in both the text and the music of individual po-
etic songs in her liturgical cycle, the Symphonia,
Hildegard created female homoerotic tropes that ex-
Hildegard of Bingen, Saint (10981179) press physical and spiritual desire for the Virgin Mary.
German Benedictine abbess, visionary, scientific and In the one extant letter she wrote to Richardis,
theological writer, musical composer, dramatist, and Hildegard encoded her erotic desire for her favorite
preacher; one of thirty-nine women honored with a nun. Susan Schibanoff
place setting in Judy Chicagos art installation The
Dinner Party (San Francisco, 1979). From child- Bibliography
hood, Hildegard experienced religious visions, which Dronke, Peter. Women Writers of the Middle Ages:
she began to record in 1141. These visionary works A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (d. 203)
form a trilogy on Christian doctrine remarkable for to Marguerite Porete (d. 1310). Cambridge:
its attention to the feminine aspects of theology. Cambridge University Press, 1984.
Hildegard wrote numerous other works: scientific Flanagan, Sabina. Hildegard of Bingen, 1098
treatises that combine therapeutic and herbal rem- 1179: A Visionary Life. London: Routledge,
edies for diseases with observations on human sexu- 1989.
ality and reproduction, astrological lore, and em- Holsinger, Bruce. The Flesh of the Voice: Embodi-
pirical information; the earliest-known allegorical ment and the Homoerotics of Devotion in the
drama in the West; music and lyrics for a cycle of Music of Hildegard of Bingen (10981179).
seventy-five poetic songs on liturgical themes; saints Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Soci-
lives; a secret language; and a correspondence of ety 19 (1993), 92125.
284 extant items, including letters to popes, cardi- Lauter, Werner. Hildegard-Bibliographie I, II. Alzey:
nals, kings, queens, and emperors. In later life, Rheinhessische Druckwerkstatte, 1970, 1983.

HILDEGARD OF BINGEN, SAINT 367

 Newman, Barbara. Sister of Wisdom: St. legal records, and photographs, seeking lesbians
H Hildegards Theology of the Feminine. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1987.
willing to share their life stories, researchers have
begun to piece together a lesbian history.
Still, a great deal of the literature on gay history
See also Religious Communities; Saints and Mystics ignores women because of the absence of sources.
Thus, John Boswell, in his ambitious Christianity,
Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (1980), a his-
History tory of gay people in Europe from the end of the
The study of same-sex love and sexuality in the Roman Empire until the fourteenth century, notes
past. Until the 1970s, there was no lesbian history. the relative absence of materials relating to women.
That is, although women in the past had loved and Taking a different tack, George Chauncey, in his
had sexual relations with other women, no body magisterial Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture
of scholarship documented such lives. With the and the Making of the Gay Male World, 18901940
burgeoning of the womens movement and the gay (1994), explained that the differences between gay
and lesbian movement throughout the industrial- male and lesbian history made it virtually impossible
ized Western world, academics in the new fields of to write a book about both that did justice to each.
womens history and womens studies, as well as So, by and large, lesbian history has developed along-
independent scholars unaffiliated with universities, side, but apart from, the history of gay men.
began to write and publish lesbian history. It was
no easy task. But, beginning with attempts to re- The Meaning of Lesbian
cover the lives of lost lesbians, scholars have It is not only the problem of sources that has plagued
produced a rich and complex history, although one the field of lesbian history. Even more troubling has
heavily weighted to the experiences of women in been the question of what is meant by lesbian.
the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Until the late nineteenth century, the concept and
countries of western Europe. identity of lesbian in the modern sense did not
exist. Women experienced desires and engaged in
Sources for Lesbian History behaviors that would now be called lesbian, and
One big obstacle to the writing of lesbian history people knew about them. But loving a woman did
is the difficulty of locating sources. Like womens not place one in a category based on sexual-object
history in general, lesbian history suffers from the choice until Western culture devised a classification
fact that societies throughout the world have ac- scheme that differentiated people known as
corded women less importance than men. Further- heterosexuals from those considered homosexu-
more, gendered illiteracy rates have ensured that als around the end of the nineteenth century. So if
women have historically been far less likely than lesbian history means only those who claimed the
men to be able to write their life stories. In the case label and identity, if only to themselves, the field is
of lesbian history, many of the sources have been geographically and chronologically limited.
deliberately destroyed, both by women fearful of Early works celebrating lesbianism often called
leaving a trace and by hostile outsiders determined upon history to provide lesbian heroines. Thus, gay
to wipe out any evidence of the existence of women liberation activists Sidney Abbott and Barbara Love
who loved and had sex with other women. entitled their 1972 book about lesbianism Sappho
As a result, historians have had to use ingenu- Was a Right-On Woman, and Dolores Klaichs
ity in writing about lives meant to be invisible. The Woman+ Woman (1974) named as historic wit-
founding in 1974 of the Lesbian Herstory Archives nesses not only Sappho (ca. 600 B.C.E.), but also
in New York City represented one response to the writers such as Rene Vivien (18771909), Natalie
problem of sources. The collection of life stories Barney (18761972), Colette (18731954),
on the local level, beginning with the Buffalo (New Radclyffe Hall (18801943), Virginia Woolf
York) Womens Oral History Project, was another (18821941), and Gertrude Stein (18741946).
effort to make sure that scholars of the future would Other famous women, from Queen Christina of
be able to find a history. And the compilation of Sweden (16261689) to U.S. peace activist and
bibliographies, perhaps most notably J.R.Robertss social worker Jane Addams (18601935) and, later
Black Lesbians (1981), exemplified yet another. and most notoriously, Eleanor Roosevelt (1884
Scouring personal papers, literature, newspapers, 1962), joined the pantheon of lesbian role models.

368 HILDEGARD OF BINGEN, SAINT

Were all of these women lesbians? In a classic arti- son, historians take care to specify the terms used,
cle, Cook (1977) claimed as lesbians all women either by women themselves or by the society in
who love women, who choose women to nurture which they lived. Sapphist, koskalaka, dyke,
and support and to create a living environment in bulldagger, butch, femme, stud, as well
which to work creatively and independently as non-genderspecific terms such as Uranian or
The poet Adrienne Rich, building on develop- Third Sex all emerge from the historical record
ments in the U.S. womens movement, further as externally imposed or proudly claimed descrip-
broadened the definition of lesbian history in tions of women who loved and desired women.
her influential 1980 article, Compulsory Hetero- The historical evidence tends to point to three
sexuality and Lesbian Existence. In line with the quite different phenomena connected to the his-
movement notion of political lesbianism, Rich tory of female same-sex love and sexuality: roman-
offered the concepts of lesbian existence and the tic love between women, transgendered behavior,
lesbian continuum, which included women-iden- and sexual acts. In almost all cases, uncertainties
tified women who resisted compulsory heterosexu- remain as to what the evidence really means in light
ality in a variety of ways. This opened up the pos- of modern conceptions of lesbian life and lesbian
sibility of expanding the modern Western confines identity. In the case of transgendered behavior, it is
of lesbian history and suggested a way of get- not even clear that same-sex love and sexuality
ting beyond obsessive questions about whether or came into play at all.
not one could find proof of genital contact. Rich
placed on her lesbian continuum the Beguines Romantic Friendship
of medieval Europe, devout women who lived col- As if echoing Western bourgeois societys associa-
lectively outside the institutions of both marriage tion of women with love, evidence of romantic love
and the convent; African women who formed se- between women abounds. This is no doubt at least
cret sororities and economic networks; and Chi- partly a result of the fact that the middle- and up-
nese marriage resisters. per-class American and European women who en-
Not all scholars embraced such a notion, how- gaged in romantic friendship had the education
ever. The sex radical position in the sex wars and status in society to leave a written trail. Carroll
of the 1980s called attention to the denial of sexu- Smith-Rosenbergs pioneering 1975 article, The
ality implicit in Richs definition. And the develop- Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations Between
ment of poststructural theory in the emerging area Women in Nineteenth-Century America, first called
of queer studies called for a problematizing of attention to what Faderman (1981) would later call
identity, an explicit realization that such terms as romantic friendships and Boston marriages
lesbian and even woman are profoundly shaped between eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury middle-
by historical location. Thus, the broad claiming of and upper-class women in the industrialized West-
women across the globe as lesbians, although re- ern world. Although scholars began in the 1990s to
sponsive to feminist critiques of race and class bias, question just how acceptable they were, passionate
in fact could perpetuate existing relations of domi- attachments between women, often lasting through
nation by assuming a white, American, middle-class marriage, were, at the very least, relatively common
model of the lesbian. and openly discussed without disapproval. Work by
In response to such theoretical and conceptual historians such as Everard (1986) and Ltzen (1990)
discussions, some historians have taken to avoiding has shown how widespread the phenomenon of
lesbian as a blanket term. Female same-sex love romantic friendships was in Europe, and others have
and sexuality describes emotions and behavior that documented the survival of this form of relation-
may have occurred at any place at any time without ship into the middle of the twentieth century.
suggesting advance knowledge of the meaning ac- Because such relationships required a certain
corded such relationships or acts to the women in- amount of leisure and, in the case of Boston mar-
volved or to the society in which they lived. Rather riage, economic independence, this was a largely
than assume anything about identity, historians ask class-bound phenomenon. That romantic attach-
what women did, what they felt, and what their ments crossed the lines of race is clear from the
actions and feelings meant to them. Even in histori- writings of African American poet Angelina Weld
cal periods and societies in which sexual-object Grimk (18801858), who formed a romantic
choice did imply that one was a certain type of per- friendship with a school friend in the late

H I S T O RY 369
 nineteenth century. In unpublished lyrics and pub- historical scholarship, Bonnets story became part
H lished verses addressed to a gender-unspecified
lover, she poured out the pain of an unidentified
of a nationally touring slide show. Arrested fre-
quently for her penchant for male dress, Bonnet re-
lost love. We also have evidence of an intense rela- fused to pay a penny of her fines and instead went
tionship in the mid-nineteenth century between two to jail, proclaiming her intention never to change
African American women, Addie Brown (1841 her ways. In 1875, she organized a gang of former
1870), a domestic worker, and Rebecca Primus prostitutes who swore off men, arousing the ire of
(18361932), a schoolteacher. their pimps. Waiting for a gang member who was
Womens expressions of love for one another, probably her lover, she was shot to death in 1876.
during a period in which such declarations did not By the turn of the twentieth century in the United
immediately point to a sexual relationship, leave us States and Europe, as Bonnets story begins to sug-
uncertain about the actual nature of such ties. Did gest, cross-dressing or passing women, in the past
women, conceptualized by the mainstream society always isolated from one another, began to come
as lacking in sexual desire, love and kiss and caress together in urban areas. Within the sexual
and sleep with each other but not have sex? In underworlds of big cities, women who dressed as
men but did not try to pass came to be known as
the wake of the sex wars, this question came to seem
dikes, from the term for a man all dressed up, or
increasingly important. Lillian Faderman has been
diked out, for a night on the town. Both urban
much criticized for asserting the asexuality of such
workingclass women and wealthy women in bohe-
relationships. But, in fact, her Scotch Verdict (1983),
mian circles affected male dress for a variety of rea-
a re-creation of the case of two Scottish schoolteach-
sons, giving rise to the association made by the early
ers accused of engaging in a sexual relationship in
sexologists between same-sex sexuality and gender
the early nineteenth century, pits opposing interpre-
inversion. At the height of the Harlem Renais-
tations of what happened between the two women
sance, the African American cultural flowering of
and raises the essential question of what exactly we
the 1920s, bisexual and lesbian performers such as
mean by having sex. Gertrude Ma Rainey (18861939) and Gladys
Bentley (19071960) sang of bulldaggers, con-
Passing Women necting a preference for male attire and female com-
Another body of historical writing has uncovered pany. The butch-femme world of the working-class
stories of women who crossed the gender line by bars of the 1950s, sketched out by Joan Nestle and
taking on the clothing, work, and social roles of painstakingly pieced together for Buffalo by Kennedy
men and marrying women. Faderman, in her monu- and Davis (1993), saw a full elaboration of a
mental work Surpassing the Love of Men: Roman- gendered lesbian social and sexual system.
tic Friendship and Love Between Women from the If transgressions of the gender line outraged
Renaissance to the Present (1981), collected evidence mainstream Euroamerican society and found toler-
of such women. Catharina Linck, in eighteenth-cen- ance in the heady days of the Harlem Renaissance,
tury Germany, disguised herself as a man to serve in some Native American cultures, primarily in west-
the army. After her stint in the military, she took on ern North America, included a cross-gender role, at
a mans job and married a woman, making a dildo least before the late nineteenth century. Women
and testicles from leather and pigs bladders in or- known as hwame (Mohave), kwiraxame
der, as the court in a similar case put it, to counter- (Maricopa), tw!nnaek (Klamath), koskalaka
feit the office of a husband. She was discovered (Lakota), or warrhameh (Cocopa) took on the man-
when her wife, after an argument, confessed to her nerisms, clothing, and work typical of men, and they
mother that Catharina was a woman. Like other also married women. Although the cross-gender role
women in early-modern Europe who claimed both had complex spiritual meanings, it is significant that
the occupational and sexual privileges of men, she the sex and gender systems of these cultures, prior
was executed for her crimes in 1721. to the impact of Euroamerican imperialism, made a
On the other side of the Atlantic and more than place for such individuals. Although the cross-gen-
150 years later, a French-born San Francisco, Cali- der female became a social male, her sexual behavior
fornia, woman by the name of Jeanne Bonnet took with her wife was not considered heterosexual but
to wearing mens clothes. Discovered by the San rather rated its own terminology.
Francisco Lesbian and Gay History Project, a par- Although many of the cases of women who crossed
ticularly successful example of community-based the gender line give evidence of sexual activity,

370 H I S T O RY
the historian is left with many puzzling questions. breast-caressing referred to in the correspondence
Did the early-modern European and U.S. women who of African American romantic friends Addie Brown
defied their societies and risked death or imprison- and Rebecca Primus and, even more strikingly, in
ment to take on the roles of men do so in order to the remarkable nineteenth-century diary of English-
pursue relationships with women? Or were their woman Anne Lister (17911840), an upperclass,
motives primarily social and economic, but passing independent, mannish woman who described her
as a man required sexual interaction with women? numerous sexual affairs with women, some of them
What about their wives? Should hwame and married. Disappointed that the husband of the
koskalaka, who took on the cross-gender role in a woman she loved stubbornly refused to die, in 1824
spiritual context, be considered lesbians? Lister ran off to Paris, where she immediately began
to court a widow staying in the same pension. Listers
Sexual Activity explicit descriptions of sexuality, recounted in a
Finally, there are examples of sexual acts between womans own words outside the walls of a court-
women. As already suggested by the case of room, are a historical treasure. Lister was a woman
Catharina Linck, evidence generally comes from who, before the invention of the term homosexu-
court records, notoriously difficult documents to ality in 1869 and before the emergence of the first
analyze. For one thing, women accused of sexual lesbian cultures around the turn of the twentieth
acts had every reason to deny having committed century, not only loved and desired women, but also
them, and women caught with other women had saw this as her defining characteristic.
cause to portray themselves as innocent victims. In
the fascinating case of Benedetta Carlini (1590 Conclusion
1661), discovered almost by accident in the Italian Anne Listers experiences bring together the previ-
archives by Brown (1986), this Italian abbess was ously disparate worlds of romantic friends,
accused of forcing a younger and less powerful sis- transgendered women, and same-sex lovers. The
ter in the convent to participate in the most im- standard story of lesbian history in the Western
modest acts. As in the case of Linck, the evidence world tells of class-divided experiences, with peas-
of a sexual act exists but not its meaning to the ant and working-class women such as Catharina
women involved. Linck and Jeanne Bonnet serving as forerunners of
In Fadermans account of the Scottish schoolteach- the butches and femmes of the 1950s, and middle-
ers, evidence of a sexual act came from an accusing and upperclass women such as Angelina Weld
witness, a student born of a liaison between a Scot- Grimk, foreshadowing the lesbian feminists of the
tish officer and an Indian woman. Only the Indian 1970s. Listers story makes clear that this is far
heritage of their chief accuser gave the judges a way too simple a depiction. Historians have assumed
out of an impossible choice between believing that that, because women did not have access to public
respectable romantic friends might lie on top of each space in the same ways that men who cruised the
other, kiss, and shake the bed, or that decent school- parks and public latrines and taverns of eighteenth-
girls could make up such tales. Revealing the ethnic century European cities did, same-sex communi-
and class assumptions of their society, some of the ties could not form until the turn of the nineteenth
judges concluded that the girl had learned of such century. But perhaps the first lesbian communi-
behavior in India or at a previous school populated ties can be found in the drawing rooms of respect-
by shopkeepers daughters and simply used her able society, as well as in the ranks of prostitutes
knowledge to get out of a school she found too strict. and other women within the sexual underworlds
That Indian women or lower-class women engaged of big cities.
in such behavior might be entertained, but that re- By the late nineteenth century, the previously
spectable Scottish women might do so shook the foun- separate strands of female same-sex sexuality be-
dations of the sexual system. came entwined in the category of the lesbian.
The question for the court was whether the Research on the sexologists who defined the les-
schoolteachers had kissed, caressed, and fondled bian and on the women who provoked, resisted,
more than could have resulted from ordinary fe- and embraced the new labeling suggests how com-
male friendship, suggesting a line into sexuality that plex the process of identity formation could be.
could be crossed. That such relations did exist in As women in the early twentieth century formed
the guise of romantic friendship is confirmed in the communitiesin Berlin and Paris and New York

H I S T O RY 371
 Cityand claimed words that described their love Lesbian Herstory Archives; Lister, Anne; Native
H for women, modern lesbian history was born.
Leila J.Rupp
Americans; Passing Women; Romantic Friendship

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. Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic known as hoboes. They hitchhiked, rode the freight
Friendship and Love Between Women from the trains, traveled by public transportation, car, and
Renaissance to the Present. New York: William motorcycle, and they walked. They slept in jails,
Morrow, 1981. womens shelters, and in the hobo camps called
Hansen, Karen V. No Kisses Is Like Youres: An jungles.
Erotic Friendship Between Two African Ameri- Almost all women hoboes wore mens cloth-
can Women During the Mid-Nineteenth Cen- ing. Most of them passed as men, at least part of
tury. In Lesbian Subjects: A Feminist Studies the time. Some of them wore careful disguises and
Reader. Ed. Martha Vicinus. Bloomington: In- lived as men for years. Many said that they wore
diana University Press, 1996, pp. 178208. mens clothes for convenience and freedom of
Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, and Madeline D. movement; almost all said that they passed as men
Davis. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The to prevent rape or sexual assaults. Passing women
History of a Lesbian Community. New York: are part of a long but hidden American tradition.
Routledge, 1993. Some women who passed as men could best be
Ltzen, Karin. Was das Herz begehrt: Liebe und called transgendered; others were butch, or mas-
Freundschaft zwischen Frauen (What the Heart culine, lesbians. Similarly, many women hoboes
Desires: Love and Friendship Between Women). undoubtedly were lesbians or transgendered.
Hamburg: Ernst Kabel Verlag, 1990. After unemployment, the main reason that
Rich, Adrienne. Compulsory Heterosexuality and women gave for being on the road was freedom,
Lesbian Existence. Signs: Journal of Women especially sexual freedom. Very few women hoboes
in Culture and Society 5:4 (1980), 631660. traveled alone. Almost all of them traveled in cou-
Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. The Female World of ples, some with male companions, most with fe-
Love and Ritual: Relations Between Women male companions, although it is not known how
in Nineteenth Century America. Signs: Jour- many of the women who traveled with female com-
nal of Women in Culture and Society 1 (1975), panions were lesbians. Since a large number of
129. women hoboes passed as men, it seems likely that
some of the apparently heterosexual couples were
See also Boston Marriage; Buffalo, New York; also lesbians, with one of the two women carefully
Bulldagger; Butch-Femme; Harlem Renaissance; disguised as a man.

372 H I S T O RY
 One hobo term for lesbians was lady lovers, tionships promoted by some sexologists, the rise
according to Sister of the Road (1937, 1975), Ben of the studio system, and economic hard times. The
L. Reitmans fictionalized account of the life of a lesbians and bisexual women in Hollywood dur-
woman hobo, Box-Car Bertha. Both lesbians and ing the 1930s and 1940s usually kept their sexual
gay men were also called queers. The male hobo activities a secret from all but other homosexuals.
subculture tolerated a high degree of male homo- Reflecting the paranoia generated by the Cold War,
sexual activity, with a strong tradition of the late 1940s and the 1950s were fraught with
pairbonding between a male oldtimer and a young tension for women who loved women in the enter-
newcomer (known as a gaycat). tainment industry in Hollywood. It was during this
In urban centers, the hobo subculture time that many tabloid magazines also began to
(hobohemia) overlapped with that of sexual and lift their self-imposed (and studioimposed) bans on
political radicals in neighborhoods such as New the discussion and identification of homosexuals
York Citys Greenwich Village and Chicagos North in Hollywood. These articles could, and did, end
Side. In such neighborhoods many women hoboes the careers of several homosexuals in Hollywood
discovered (or possibly helped transmit) the grow- in the 1950s. The 1960s counterculture and the
ing lesbian urban subculture, centered in lesbian bars 1970s second wave feminism brought about a
and cafs, which was thriving by the late 1930s. repeal of reticence within the Hollywood lesbian
Nan Cinnater and bisexual womens community. From this era
to the end of the 1990s, lesbians and bisexual
Bibliography women were much more visible on-screen. How-
Minehan, Thomas. Boy and Girl Tramps of ever, all stars who love other women in Hollywood
America. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1934. must still share the beliefs of their foremothers con-
Reitman, Ben L. Sister of the Road: The Autobiog- cerning public discussion of their sexuality. With
raphy of Box-Car Bertha. New York: Gold La- the exception of Amanda Bearse, a television star
bel, 1937. who came out in the 1990s under threat of a pub-
Roberts, J.R. Lesbian Hoboes: Their Lives and lic outing, no female star in the film or television
Times. Dyke 5 (Fall 1977), 3947. industries in Hollywood had publicly admitted to
being lesbian until 1997.
See also Greenwich Village; Passing Women; Throughout the history of homosexuals in Hol-
Transgender lywood, these men and women have sought to hide
or disguise their sexuality. Due to the very public
nature of the work and lives of Hollywood stars,
Hollywood this has often not been easy. Many of the lesbians in
Area of Los Angeles, California, northwest of the Hollywood married men, some of whom were gay,
downtown district; from the late 1910s onward, to disguise their sexuality from the general public.
the center of the movie business in the United States. Though some of these women were actually bi-
Lesbians and bisexual women have been in- sexual, it would be very difficult to separate those
volved in almost all facets of the entertainment who married men for the protection of their reputa-
business in Hollywood. They have made contribu- tions and those who married men for pleasure.
tions to the motion picture industry as perform-
ers, writers, directors, designers, and stuntpeople. History
Though all have remained closeted to the gen- Any discussion of lesbians in Hollywood must be-
eral public, many have been out to their col- gin with Alla Nazimova (18791945). Nazimova
leagues and peers in the entertainment industry. came to the film industry from Broadway, which
The earliest reliable evidence places lesbians in had a large lesbian and bisexual contingent. In 1918
Hollywood beginning in the late 1910s and early Nazimova moved to Hollywood, where she bought
1920s. Many of these women were quite open a large Spanish villa that was to later gain fame as
about their sexuality within the film community. the Garden of Allah, a chic hotel for entertainment
Toward the end of the 1920s and especially in the industry luminaries. However, when Nazimova
1930s, this atmosphere of relative openness abated lived at this address, the house was well known in
somewhat. This change was a result of the increased Hollywood circles as a meeting place for lesbians
acceptance of the morbidification of lesbian rela- in Hollywood, especially those in the entertainment

H O L LY W O O D 373
 industry. These gatherings were known in the les- agree to date or even marry a man in order to appear
H bian and gay community as sewing circles, a
phrase Nazimova is credited with coining.
heterosexual when they actually were not. Hollywood
had become, in effect, a company town.
As Metro Pictures highest-paid actress and one Many lesbians and bisexual women in Holly-
of the most popular movie stars in America, wood in the 1930s and 1940s, especially those from
Nazimova had enormous power in Hollywood. The Europe, gathered at the home of Berthold (1885
actress was also no stranger to scandal. However, 1953) and Salka Viertel (18891978). The Viertels
due to her fame and her lesbianism, Nazimovas were German migrs who had come to Hollywood
name was rarely seen in print in connection with in 1928 to work in the film industry. Like Salka,
these scandals. In 1920, Nazimova was alleged to most of the women who gathered at her home were
have been the real respondent in Charlie Chaplins Gillette Bladesthat is, their sexuality cut both
(18891977) divorce from his eighteen-year-old ways. Some American-born actresses also fit into
wife, Mildred Harris Chaplin (19011944). Both this category of actual or apparent bisexuality, while
of Rudolph Valentinos (18951926) wives, Jean others were lesbians who adhered to the older model
Acker (18931978) and Natacha Rambova (1897 of the Boston marriage and lived with their lovers
1966), were protges of Nazimova, and it was in what was purportedly a platonic relationship.
she who introduced them to Valentine. After Following World War II, and with the rise of the
Rambova divorced Valentine in 1926, she alleged Cold War in the late 1940s, the situation of Holly-
that the marriage had never been consummated. wood lesbians once again underwent a paradigm
Natacha Rambova also played a role in Nazimovas shift. After Communists, homosexuals were the
swan song in motion pictures. In 1921, Nazimova favorite targets of witch-hunting politicians and
left Metro, formed her own motion picture com- bureaucrats, especially those of the House Un-Ameri-
pany, and decided to produce a film version of Os- can Activities Committee (HUAC). At this same
car Wildes (18541900) Salome. Nazimova hired time, scandal magazines began to print articles that
Rambova to design the sets and costumes, which openly identified homosexual stars as such. The tab-
were based on the original illustrations by Aubrey loid Confidential was directly responsible for the
Beardsley (18721898). As a further homage to end of Lizabeth Scotts (1922) career in motion
Wilde, Nazimova employed an all-gay cast and pictures when it accused her in print of unnatu-
played the lead herself. Unable to find financing for ral sexual activity. Many of the lesbians and bi-
the film, Nazimova used her not inconsiderable per- sexual women who were married began spending
sonal fortune to pay for the picture. It was a box- more time with their spouses, and many who were
office disaster and basically ended Nazimovas reign unmarried rushed to the altar. Some of the homo-
as a star of the first magnitude in Hollywood. sexuals in Hollywood reacted to this climate of fear
The atmosphere in the Hollywood lesbian com- by becoming reactionary in their politics and coop-
munity began to change in the late 1920s and early erating with those carrying out the persecutions.
1930s. This change was a reflection of three impor- Barbara Stanwyck (19071990) and her beard
tant developments: (1) the increased adoption by the husband (a spouse who is taken by a woman who
general public of the morbidif ication of sexual rela- engages in homosexual behavior primarily to help
tions between women promoted by some sexologists; disguise her lesbian activities) Robert Taylor (1911
(2) the rise of the studio system in Hollywood; and 1969) became archconservatives after World War
(3) the onset of economic problems connected with II. Taylor, who was also gay, was the only actor to
the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great De- name names in front of HUAC. Salka Viertel was
pression. The effect of the heterosexual backlash and blacklisted and left the country. This climate of fear
the rise of the companionate marriage in the mid- to and paranoia among Hollywood homosexuals was
late 1920s was to push women who loved women to last well into the early 1960s.
further into the closet. The rise of the studio system
meant that, were these women ever to venture from The Modern Era
that closet and be caught in an embarrassing situa- By the mid-1960s, the countercultural revolution and
tion in public, the news media would not print the the demise of the studio system helped change the
story. Hard economic times made these women vul- situation of lesbians and bisexual women in Holly-
nerable to the demands of the studio bosses who pro- wood, at least on-screen. There were many more
tected themvulnerable enough, for example, to portrayals of lesbians or women loving women in

374 H O L LY W O O D
the films of this era. Most of the lesbian characters England that provides the settings for her first novel,
were little more than stereotypes whose punishment Anderby Wold (1923); her third, The Land of Green
or death at the end of the film was still a foregone Ginger (1927); and her last and best-known work,
conclusion. Sandy Dennis (19371992), an unmar- South Riding (1936). The household was dominated
ried, lesbian actress, bravely chose to portray a les- by her mother, Alice Holtby, whose energy and con-
bian character in the screen adaptation of D.H. Law- cern for social issues Holtby inherited.
rences The Fox (1968). It is noteworthy that the les- Holtby was educated at Queen Margarets
bian characters death was an addition to the screen School in Scarborough and later won a place at
version. By the early 1970s, second wave feminism, Somerville College, Oxford. She went up to Ox-
with its twin goals of the abolition of sexism and the ford in 1917 but left in the summer of 1918 to
empowerment of women, was helping improve this serve in the Womens Army Auxiliary Corps in
situation somewhat. It combated sexism and homo- Abbeville, France.
phobia on-screen and encouraged women to partici- Upon her return to Oxford after the war, Holtby
pate in the creation of their own films and film im- met Vera Brittain (18931970), a fellow history
ages, with the result that screen portrayals of lesbi- student, with whom she formed a lifetime partner-
ans increased in both number and quality through- ship that was only briefly interrupted by Brittains
out the 1970s and 1980s. In the early 1990s, lesbi- marriage to political scientist George Catlin (1896
ans even enjoyed a brief popularity onscreen as part 1979). Brittain portrayed Holtby as the tall,
of the lesbian chic fad. goldenhaired Daphne Lethbridge in her first novel,
In 1997, television actor Ellen DeGeneres (1958 The Dark Tide (1923).
) broke the code of silence among lesbians in Holly- The bond between Brittain and Holtby was
wood. She became the first person in a starring role based on their interest in, and support of, each oth-
on television to publicly claim her homosexuality. ers writing. Like Brittain, Holtby was a commit-
DeGeneress coming out was accompanied by ted feminist, pacifist, and antiimperialist who
much media attention. This event was capped off fought against any form of oppression. In Women
by a highly rated episode of her show in which she and a Changing Civilization (1934), Holtby asks
also outed the character she played on television. for respect for the richness of variety in sexual
During the first season following her coming out, expression. We do not know how much of what
many of the shows addressed Ellens newly revealed we usually describe as feminine characteristics are
sexual orientation. At the end of the 19971998 really masculine, and how much of masculinity
season, the executives at ABC Television canceled is common to both sexes, she wrote. We do not
the show. One reason given by the networks presi- even knowwhether the normal sexual relation-
dent for the cancellation was that the show had be- ship is homo- or bi-or hetero-sexual.
come too gay. Lisa Rhodes Holtbys relationship with Brittain has been
called lesbian by many despite Brittains consistent
Bibliography denials. In Testament of Friendship (1940), Brittains
Anger, Kenneth. Hollywood Babylon. New York: denial took the form of overemphasizing Holtbys
Bell, 1975, 1981. relationship with a lifetime male friend, Harry
. Hollywood Babylon II. New York: Dutton, Pearson (1896?). Brittain even engineered a mar-
1984. riage proposal from Pearson to Holtby as the latter
Haleigh, Boze. Hollywood Lesbians. New York: was dying. It is obvious, though, that Holtbys com-
Barricade, 1994. mitment to Brittain was far greater than her affec-
Madsen, Axel. The Sewing Circle. New York: Birch tion for Pearson. Unlike Brittain, Holtby had no
Lane, 1995. fear of the gossip about them, even joking that
Brittains blonde daughter, Shirley, took after her.
See also Arzner, Dorothy; Bisexuality; Dietrich, In her fiction, Holtby stressed the importance of
Marlene; Film, Alternative; Film, Mainstream; female friendship, though only once, in The Crowded
Garbo, Greta; Television Street (1924), does she portray such a friendship as
erotic. Her portrayal of heterosexual marriage is in-
variably negative. A perceptive literary critic, in 1932
Holtby, Winifred (18981935) she wrote Virginia Woolf, the first book-length study
British novelist and journalist. Winifred Holtby grew of the author. She died of kidney disease at the age of
up on a farm in Rudston, Yorkshire, a region of thirty-six. Jean E.Kennard

H O L T B Y, W I N I F R E D 375
 Bibliography This binary represents the general tendency in mod-
H Berry, Paul, and Mark Bostridge. Vera Brittain: A
Life. London: Chatto and Windus, 1995.
ern Western thought to conflate morality and na-
ture. According to this cultural equation, sexual
Gorham, Deborah. Vera Brittain: A Feminist Life. desire is a manifestation of a natural drive to repro-
Oxford: Blackwell, 1996. duce. The moral, disciplined individual contains this
Kennard, Jean. Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby: desire within the bounds of heterosexual monogamy.
A Working Partnership. Hanover: University These attitudes are reflected in clinical, social, and
Press of New England, 1989. religious definitions of the homosexual as cursed,
Leonardi, Susan. Dangerous by Degrees: Women perverted, sexually obsessed, evil, and, until recently,
at Oxford and the Somerville College Novel- mentally and physically sick. Popular fiction in the
ists. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University 1950s and 1960s depicted lesbians as evilminded,
Press, 1989. possessed daughters of the devil, natures mistakes,
and the like.
See also Brittain, Vera Mary; Woolf, Virginia
Gender
Understanding homophobia is complicated by the
Homophobia strong link between gender and sexuality in U.S.
Colloquial expression that refers to negative, fear- culture. Gender is the basic criterion by which to
ful, or hateful attitudes and behavior toward gays select sexual partners. The violation of expected
and lesbians. The term is a misnomer in that it gender behavior elicits taunting, prejudice, and
implies an irrational fear of homosexuals similar physical and social abuse. Frequent targets of this
to the panic of claustrophobia. Homophobia is a prejudice include the mannish lesbian and the ef-
form of cultural prejudice rather than a manifesta- feminate gay male. Both evoke stereotypes that rep-
tion of an individual phobia. resent violations of gender expectations and hint
of sexual transgressions. Many acts of violence
Containing Sexuality extend to transgendered persons. It is difficult to
Like racism, homophobia is a complex social preju- know if attackers are provoked by what they as-
dice. Homophobia is an expression of a culture that sume to be a sexual aberration or a gender viola-
is confused and inconsistent about sexual behavior. tion. Given the tight connection between gender
Attitudes and actions reflect both obsession with, and sexuality, it is likely that any deviation is per-
and repression of, sexual desire. One basis of tacit ceived as a threat to heterosexuality. In the 1990s,
agreement is that sexuality is something that must Lambda Legal Defense documented several cases
be contained. Homosexuality, along with adultery, of murdered transgendered persons in which the
prostitution, and pederasty, mark the boundaries by murderer was released by the courts. The ration-
existing outside culturally approved forms of sexu- ale offered in each case was that to arouse sexual
alitywhat poet Rich (1980) refers to as compul- desire in another under false gender pretense was
sory heterosexuality. Heterosexuality is a modern to invite violent self-defense when the pretense
sociopolitical institution that organizes and restricts was revealed. This rationale can be interpreted as
the expression of sexuality to vaginal-penile inter- a manifestation of homophobia; individuals who
course between a monogamous couple who repre- do not conform to the expected norms of gender
sent gendered difference with the potential for bio- and sexuality do not deserve social justice.
logical reproduction. There are many deviations
from this cultural ideal; these also vary in the degree Prejudice, Discrimination, and Violence
to which they are tolerated. One reason lesbians and Expressions of homophobia include verbal assaults
gay men are the object of so much cultural fear and and derisive joking; negative stereotypical media
loathing may be that homosexual sex is contained representations; discrimination in employment, edu-
neither by gender nor by reproductive expectations cation, housing, medical research, and legal defense;
of heterosexuality. Social historians note that the physical attack; and tacit approval of gay bashing.
emergence of a sexual binary in the nineteenth cen- Historians DEmilio and Freedman (1988) report
tury posits heterosexuality as natural and socially that, during the House Un-American Activities Com-
desirable by contrasting it with homosexuality, mittee (HUAC) meetings, more people lost their jobs
which is characterized as unnatural and immoral. because they were homosexual than because of

376 H O LT B Y, W I N I F R E D
alleged associations with communism. Their point represents a fight for rights that are constitution-
is that discrimination against homosexuals is driven ally guaranteed to all Americans but frequently
by homophobia and is persistent and common in withheld from homosexuals. Many local and na-
the United States. Black Panther leader Huey New- tional lesbian and gay groups and direct actions
ton suggested that homosexuals may be the most have been organized as a direct response to politi-
feared people in the United States and, therefore, cal initiatives designed to legalize discrimination
the most oppressed. In 1987, the United States De- against homosexuals. The federal Defense of Mar-
partment of Justice reported that homosexuals are riage Act (1996), which restricts marriage to a un-
the most frequent victims of hate violence. The ex- ion between a man and a woman, is one such case.
tent to which homophobia is an American institu- Marriage between same-sex couples poses no legal
tion is indicated in the decisions of law-enforcement threat or loss of benefits to heterosexual couples.
officials and judges who consider homosexuality It is difficult to interpret the urgency with which
sufficient grounds for justifying acts of prejudice, states have pursued legislation to restrict same-sex
discrimination, and violence. In addition to discrimi- marriages as anything other than a display of mass
nation in employment, housing, and medical treat- homophobia. In the 1990s, there was a focused
ment, homophobia affects lesbians through court attempt to enact legislation that would limit the
decisions that use lesbianism as grounds for deny- civil rights of gay men and lesbians. These meas-
ing child custody in divorce proceedings. ures included statutory guarantees for such poli-
cies as the refusal to hire, the right to fire, the right
Internalized Homophobia to refuse housing, the refusal of adoption, and the
In a culture that marks sex with shame and casts the refusal of marriage rights for lesbians and gays. By
homosexual as a primary villain, most lesbians and the mid-1990s, variations of all or some of these
gay men fear negative consequences for revealing their measure had appeared on ballots in forty-two
sexuality. The majority experience rejection by their states. This sort of legislation is indicative of the
families, friends, and religious and working commu- extent to which homophobia is culturally legiti-
nities when they reveal their homosexuality. Com- mated as an institutionalized form of prejudice.
ing out is an ongoing process. A lesbian must de- Critics who suggest that antidiscrimination laws
cide continually whether or not to voice information are special rights fail to comprehend the exten-
indicative of a deviant sexuality in a culture that oth- sive reach of homophobic actions into the every-
erwise assumes she is heterosexual. This process in- day lives of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and
volves wrestling with, and reconciling, family, peer, transgendered persons. Jodi OBrien
and religious expectations and personal feelings and
experiences. Fear of rejection and a lack of positive Bibliography
role models can lead to confusion and selfhatred. In- DEmilio, John, and Estelle Freedman. Intimate
formation compiled by the United States Department Matters: A History of Sexuality in the United
of Health and Human Services in 1991 indicates that States. New York: Harper and Row, 1988.
lesbian youth are two to three times more likely to Plummer, Ken. Speaking Its Name: Inventing a
attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. Gay Lesbian and Gay Studies. In Modern
and lesbian youth account for 30 percent of all com- Homosexualities. Ed. Ken Plummer. London:
pleted youth suicides. In contrast, religious and com- Routledge, 1992, pp. 328.
munity organizations that endeavor to understand Rich, Adrienne. Compulsory Heterosexuality and
and support gay and lesbian youth have been suc- Lesbian Existence. Signs: Journal of Women
cessful in reconciling family conflict and keeping these in Culture and Society 5:4 (1980), 631660.
youth off the streets. Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Epistemology of the Closet.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
Social Movements Singer, Bennett L., and David Deschamps. Gay and
The social protests and political activism associ- Lesbian Stats. New York: New Press, 1994.
ated with lesbian and gay history can be interpreted Tiefer, Lenore. Sex Is Not a Natural Act. Boulder,
as a response to widespread, organized manifesta- Colo. : Westview, 1995.
tions of homophobia. Several observers have sug-
gested that the struggle for gay and lesbian rights See also Coming Out; Discrimination; Gender;
is the civil rights issue of the 1990s. This history Heterosexism; Prejudice; Violence

HOMOPHOBIA 377
 Homosexuality saved those on trial for sodomy from six thousand
H Term originally used to define same-sex attraction.
The term itself is a painful philological combina-
years of imprisonment. But not all physicians were
interested in defending individuals from state pros-
tion of Greek and Latin elements, the first part, ecution. For many, homosexuality represented a dis-
homo-, being Greek for same, and the second ease, a physical degeneracy, or a mental illness, the
part coming from the Latin adjective sexualis. Al- cause for which needed to be diagnosed and the cure
though commonly believed to be an invention of for which needed to be discovered. Medical theories
nineteenthcentury medical practitioners, the word about the causes of homosexuality continued to pro-
itself, and the concept it represents, has always been liferate into the twentieth century, and many who
immersed in the politics of state control of indi- were identified as homosexuals were subjected to
viduals and their resistance to that control. physical experimentation, psychiatric examination,
The word first appeared in Germany in 1869 in and medical institutionalization, often against their
two political letters anonymously authored by a will. The search in the late twentieth century for bio-
translator named Karoly Maria Kertbeny (1824 logical and genetic causes of homosexuality indicates
1882). Kertbenys letters argue against a proposed how persistent the medical model continues to be.
This understanding of homosexuality as a medi-
law that would extend the Prussian antisodomy law
cal disorder entered official government discourse in
to the entire German Confederation. The confusion
the United States early in the twentieth century as a
su+rrounding the words invention and its inventor
disqualification for military service, and later from
(Kertbeny himself is sometimes identified as a phy-
all employment with the federal government. It was
sician) is understandable. Beginning in the second
this repressive history that led many gay liberationists
half of the nineteenth century, Europe witnessed an
in the second half of the twentieth century to reject
explosion in medical and scientific speculation about
the term as one that had been defined and regulated
the causes of crime and disease. Sodomy, once pun-
by experts. They preferred gay as a self-ascribed
ished by the church, had been criminalized by many
term to indicate same-sex orientation, and, by the
of the central European states. At mid-century, the 1970s, it had replaced homosexual in common
cause of this criminal behavior became the sub- usage, even by heterosexuals. During this same pe-
ject of much theoretical investigation, although not riod, lesbian feminists argued that both gay and
exclusively by physicians or scientists. Novelists, homosexual were terms that referred primarily to
criminologists, even tax assessors joined physicians men, and lesbian replaced both as the standard
in offering explanations for these criminalized sexual for women. Despite the increasingly widespread us-
behaviors. With greater frequency as the century age of lesbian and gay during the 1970s, many con-
progressed, these explanations began to reflect the tinued to employ the term homosexuality. In fact,
belief that the preference for same-sex sodomy was it was not until July 1987, that the New York Times
inborn, a condition over which the sodomite had allowed anything but the word homosexual to be
little control. By 1869, Kertbenys belief that same- used in the newspapers pages to refer to gay men
sex preferences indicated an underlying and un- and lesbians.
changing trait was no longer new, but his word for Homosexuality, both as a concept of same-sex
this new identityHomosexualitatwas. By the desire and as a term to represent that concept, has
end of the nineteenth century, it would eclipse the undergone many changes in its more than 125-year
many others terms, such as inversion and con- history. At the center of each of these changes has
trary sexual instinct, that had been advanced for always been a political struggle between the identi-
same-sex attraction. fication of those individuals society has defined as
Many of these early sexologists, as they called deviant and the counterassertion of identity by those
themselves, argued that homosexuals should not be individuals so defined. Despite the endeavors of sci-
punished as criminals because the homosexual was ence and medicine, homosexuality, as both a con-
not someone who chose to break the law or commit cept and a term, was born of resistance and remains
a sin. The medicalization of homosexualitya shift firmly entrenched in the territory of politics.
away from notions of sodomy as moral licentious- Gary Lehring
ness and criminal behaviorwas extremely impor-
tant. Magnus Hirschfeld (18681935), founder of Bibliography
the Scientific Humanitarian Committee in 1897, Bullough, Vern. Sexual Variance in Society and
claimed that, as a defense witness, his testimony had History. New York: Wiley, 1976.

378 HOMOSEXUALITY
Greenberg, David F. The Social Construction of terference should not apply to barbarians. Al-
Homosexualities. Chicago: University of Chi- though proponents of human rights no longer hold
cago Press, 1989. these views, critics of the idea of universal human
Katz, Jonathan. Gay American History. New York: rights argue that it continues to reflect the interests
Thomas Cromwell, 1976. and perspectives of the West and to ignore cultural
Lehring, Gary. Gay Rights Movement. In Pro- differences. Proponents of human rights point out
test, Power, and Change. Ed. Roger Powers and that human rights treaties such as the UDHR are
William Vogele. New York: Garland, 1997. the product of an international consensus that in-
Plummer, Kenneth, ed. The Making of the Mod- cluded representatives from a wide range of cultures,
ern Homosexual. London: Hutchinson, 1987. political viewpoints, and geographical areas.
Although no international human rights trea-
See also Gay Liberation Movement; Sexology ties explicitly mention lesbians or sexual orienta-
tion, the United Nations and regional intergov-
ernmental bodies, such as the European Court of
Human Rights Human Rights, have begun to interpret these trea-
Right to life, liberty, and security of the person; free- ties to include and protect lesbian and gay people
dom from torture and from cruel, inhuman, or de- and those who engage in same-gender sexual prac-
grading treatment or punishment; freedom of con- tices. Some nongovernmental human rights moni-
science, expression, and association; inherent dignity toring agencies have identified the discrimination
of the human person. The concept of human rights and mistreatment of sexual minorities as human
refers to both specific rights set forth in international rights violations. For example, in 1991, Amnesty
treaties and a system of values premised on the inher- International changed its policy to consider peo-
ent worth and equality of all human beings. ple arrested for their homosexual identity or for
The most important international human rights engaging in private, consensual same-gender sex
document, the Universal Declaration of Human as prisoners of conscience. Other human rights
Rights (UDHR), was adopted by the United Na- organizations, including the Lawyers Committee
tions in 1948. It affirms that every human being for Human Rights, the International Human
has, in addition to the rights mentioned above, the Rights Law Group, Human Rights Watch, and
right to equal pay for equal work, a standard of the Center for Womens Global Leadership,
living adequate for health and well-being, educa- among others, have followed suit. Locally based
tion, freedom from slavery, and the equal protec- human rights groups have also pressed individual
tion of the law, regardless of race, color, sex, lan- governments to end discrimination on the basis
guage, religion, political or other opinion, national of sexual orientation. In 1996, South Africa be-
or social origin, property, birth, or other status. came the first country in the world to prohibit
The concept of human rights emerged out of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation
the eighteenth-century European Enlightenment in its constitution.
and was referred to then as natural rights or the Human rights violations against lesbians, bi-
rights of man. These doctrines held that rights sexual women, women who are single by choice,
belonged to a person and were not bestowed upon transsexual, and transgendered women take two
him or her by virtue of citizenship or religion. The forms: persecution carried out by governments
United States Declaration of Independence (1776) (state-sponsored persecution) and persecution
and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man carried out by families and other private individu-
and of Citizen (1789) are examples of als. The most common forms of state-sponsored
eighteenthcentury doctrines of natural rights. persecution are violence against sexual minorities
Most early proponents of human rights did not carried out by police and paramilitary groups and
see the concept applying to all humans equally. De- laws that impose penalties on same-gender sexual
spite proclaiming that all men are created equal, practices and lesbian and gay identity. In the United
the Declaration of Independence failed to question States, some states have laws that punish consen-
the institution of slavery, the genocide of American sual adult same-gender sex with up to life impris-
Indians, or the political subjection of women. In On onment. In the Bahamas, the governments Sexual
Liberty (1859), John Stuart Mill (18061873) held Offenses and Domestic Violence Act of 1989 pun-
that his doctrine of freedom from government in- ishes same-gender sex with up to twenty years

HUMAN RIGHTS 379

 imprisonment. In Iran, those who engage in same- [The author wishes to thank Shannon Minter
H gender sexual practices may be executed.
Although lesbians are less likely than gay men
of the National Center for Lesbian Rights for his
help with this article.] Paisley Currah
to be targeted by these forms of state-sponsored
persecution, they are much more likely to suffer Bibliography
from persecution carried out in the private sphere Dorf, Julie, and Gloria Careaga Prez. Discrimi-
by families and communities enforcing prevailing nation and the Tolerance of Difference: Inter-
norms about womens roles. The failure to recog- national Lesbian Human Rights. In Womens
nize how profoundly human rights abuses against Rights, Human Rights. Ed. Julie Peters and
lesbians are shaped by gender has often obscured Andrea Wolper. New York: Routledge, 1995,
important differences between lesbians and gay pp. 324334.
men and has contributed to the relative invisibility Heinze, Eric. Sexual Orientation: A Human Right.
of lesbianspecific issues. Examples of this type of Dordrecht: M.Nijhoff, 1995.
persecution include violence against women sus- Minter, Shannon. Lesbians and Asylum: Overcom-
pected to be lesbians or bisexual women by hus- ing Barriers to Access. In Asylum Based on
bands or other male relatives; involuntary psychi- Sexual Orientation. Ed. Sydney Levy. San Fran-
atric treatment; rape and forced marriage; and the cisco: International Gay and Lesbian Human
separation of mothers from their children. Rights Commission and Lambda Legal Defense
For example, in 1996, the state of Florida de- and Education Fund, 1996, pp. I.B, 316.
nied Mary Ward custody of her daughter, awarding Rosenbloom, Rachel. Introduction. In Unspo-
custody instead to her ex-husband, a convicted ken Rules: Sexual Orientation and Womens
murderer, on the grounds that, as a lesbian, she was Human Rights. Ed. Rachel Rosenbloom. Lon-
an unfit mother. The story of a twenty-four-year- don: Cassell, 1996, pp. ixxxvii.
old lesbian from Zimbabwe is also typical of this
type of human rights violation: My parents decided See also Enlightenment, European; Immigration;
to look for a husband on my behalf so they brought Legal Theory, Lesbian; Rights
several boys home to meet me but I was not inter-
ested so in the end they forced an old man on me.
They locked me in a room and brought him every- Humor
day to rape me so I would fall pregnant and be forced Humor is an engaging social behavior and, there-
to marry him (quoted in Rosenbloom 1996). Hu- fore, requires that those participating share a com-
man rights violations against lesbians and women mon view of the world, with shared values and
who do not conform to the dominant heterosexual interpretations. Without a common perspective
norms of their culture are affected not only by gen- among members of a group, humor falls flat.
der, but also by race, nationality, political status, What one group may find very funny, another will
religion, ability, language, class, and age. interpret as insulting, degrading, or pointless.
Advocates of lesbian human rights urge inter- Humor is a means of establishing and affirming
national organizations and countries to recognize group membership. Until the second half of the
that lesbian human rights include freedom from twentieth century, much lesbian humor, humor
torture, imprisonment, or execution based on constructed by lesbians for lesbians, was strictly
sexual orientation; freedom from forced marriage, in-group and occurred only informally, as sponta-
rape, physical and psychological violence, and in- neous jokes or stories told among lesbians when
voluntary psychiatric treatment; rights to child they gathered in bars or at private parties. Because
custody and visitation, adoption, foster parenting, lesbians did not control any media, jokes were
access to donor insemination, domestic partnership, spontaneous and situational and worked only in
and same-gender marriage; and equal access to the contexts in which they occurred. Sigmund Freud
education, employment, and health. Some lesbian (18561939) argued that the intent of an in-group
rights advocates base these rights claims on estab- joke is to deflect the criticism or hostility directed
lished fundamentals of human rights laws, such as by the group in power (heterosexuals) against the
rights of freedom of association, conscience, and powerless in-group (lesbians) and convert it into
expression; others base lesbian rights claims on an more tolerable forms. More recent work by clini-
emerging right of sexual self-determination. cal psychologists not only appears to substantiate

380 HUMAN RIGHTS

Freuds theory regarding this function of in-group Laughter shared with others is both healing and
humor, but also suggests that such humor provides empowering.
a means of transcending the pain inflicted by preju- By the 1980s, specifically lesbian humor could
diced people. For example, generations of lesbians be found in the full range of genresas comedy,
have laughed at the unwitting stupidity of the as- parody, and satireand in many formats, ranging
sertion Its just a phase, because its been used from conventional literary forms (the novels of Brit-
so often to trivialize their experience. Laughter af- ish writer Anna Livia, for example) and newspaper
firms that shared experience and blunts the hurt. columns and articles (such as those written by Jorjet
Informal lesbian humor, the jokes exchanged Harper and Marilyn Murphy in the then-thriving
in social contexts, arises from a shared perspective gay and lesbian media, respectively), to cartoons and
and serves to deepen the bonds among lesbians. comic strips (such as those created by Alison Bechdel,
Such humor is highly situational and, often, de- Diane Germain, Jennifer Camper, and Diane
pending on the context in which it occurs and the DiMassa), song lyrics (Sue Finks Leaping Lesbi-
women involved, is extended and expanded on as ans, for example), standup comedy (as performed
individuals join in with their own contributions. by Kate Clinton and Karen Williams, for example),
The lesbians who participate in these humorous skits and monologues (such as Lily Tomlins), mov-
dialogues become part of the group if they began ies (such as Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, based
as strangers; if they were already friends, the humor on the prize-winning 1985 novel by British author
affirms the bonds within the group. Because the Jeanette Winterson), and an outpouring of witty slo-
shared joking is part of the bonding process among gans found on buttons, bumper stickers, and T-shirts
lesbians, they tend not to use people outside the (such as We Are Not Just Friends, Nuke a Gay Whale
group as scapegoats but rely instead on experiences for Christ, and RU 1 2?).
familiar to the women within the group. Its sub- The topics of contemporary structured lesbian
jects, when drawing on lesbian-specific experiences, humor, humor designed to be interpreted and repeat-
include the coming out process, lesbian sex and able in larger contexts, echo the concerns and experi-
relationships, reactions to the beliefs and behaviors ences of lesbians found in spontaneous ingroup
of hostile heterosexuals, and politics. humor. In one of her recorded monologues, for ex-
There were comic moments and humor recorded, ample, Kate Clinton reminisces about her Catholic
both gentle and sharp, in literature produced by les- girlhood, gratefully acknowledging the strength and
bians early in the twentieth century, in the writing dexterity her tongue developed as she manipulated
of Gertrude Stein (18741946), for example. Humor the communion wafer in her mouth. Getting the
grounded in lesbian experience, however, is found joke did not require that a lesbian be Catholic or
only later in the twentieth century, as it sometimes even Christian. In a cartoon, an Alison Bechdel char-
is in the novels of Ann Bannon (1937). But it was acter cracks under the strain of trying to decide
not until the 1970s, as a new group self-conscious- what to wear to meet another lesbians parents. Les-
ness arose, inspired by the womens liberation move- bians understood the anxiety such a meeting created,
ment, that lesbian in-group humor drawing on les- whether they had personally experienced it or not.
bians experiences emerged. Rita Mae Browns Lily Tomlin defended her ability to play a hetero-
Rubyfruit Jungle (1973) was a huge success, largely sexual woman in the film Moment by Moment (1978)
because it was a funny lesbian book and there had because she had watched them and could imitate
never been such a thing. In 1974, Meg Christian how they walk and talk, parodying all of the het-
recorded Ode to a Gym Teacher, a wry song about erosexual actresses who have used a similar explana-
a teenage girls crush on her gym teacher. It was an tion for their ability to act lesbian parts.
experience that her audiences could identify with, Debates within lesbian communities have been
laughing with her at their own youthful crushes and, the most fruitful sources for all kinds of lesbian
thereby, transforming the pain and confusion they humor, enabling lesbians to laugh at their most
felt as adolescent lesbians trying to understand them- serious preoccupations: vegetarianism, activism,
selves in a hostile society that provided only a very psychotherapy, goddess worship, fashion and style,
narrow, destructive context in which they could in- any behavior that groups of lesbians categorize as
terpret their feelings. Christian offered lesbians a PC (politically correct) or PI (politically incorrect).
means of laughing together at shared memories, one Alix Dobkin once joked that lesbians can all iden-
of the highest functions of humor in U.S. culture. tify each other because we all have the same junk

HUMOR 381
 on top of our dressers: crystals, shells, labryses, munity and, as a result, new forms of lesbian
H odd feathers, river rocks. The abundance of humor
centering on lesbians lives among their peers drew
humor. One might wonder, then, whether lesbians
still share the in-group humor of earlier decades. As
on the existence of lesbian communities and served long as lesbians remain a stigmatized group, denied
to create the sense of a larger lesbian culture to the rights that heterosexuals take for granted, in-
which one might belong. At the same time, lesbian group humor will continue to provide the empow-
humor is particularly vulnerable to changes in both erment and release of laughter. The joyous and rau-
mainstream (heterosexual) culture and the more cous reactions at music festivals, concerts, Lesbian
visible gay community. and Gay Pride events, and feminist conferences show
Humor created to be shared with a larger (lis- that a wide range of shared experiences still exists
tening or reading) audience presupposes that all les- among lesbians that continues to produce a recog-
bians have had similar experiences and participate nizably lesbian humor. Susan J.Wolfe
in a more homogeneous lesbian culture. The pub- Julia Penelope
lishing and recording of lesbian humor on
audiocassettes, compact discs, and television, as well Bibliography
as in print media, was primarily a phenomenon of Painter, Dorothy S. Lesbian Humor as a Normali-
the lesbian feminist movement of the 1970s and zation Device. In Communication, Language,
1980s. Although not all lesbian feminists shared and Sex. Ed. Cynthia L.Berryman and Virginia
exactly identical experiences, there were a sufficient A.Eman.Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House, 1980,
number to create laughter across a wide range of pp. 132148.
media and within a variety of contexts. More re- Stanley, Julia [Penelope] and Susan W.Wolfe
cent has been the attempted crossover of lesbian [Robbins]. Mother Wit: Tongue in Cheek. In
humor into the mainstream media, with, for exam- Lavender Culture. Ed. Karla Jay and Allen
ple, Suzanne Westenhoefers comedy special on HBO Young. New York: Jove, 1978, pp. 299307.
(Home Box Office) and the appearance of lesbian Stanley, Julia P., and Susan W.Robbins. Lesbian
comedians in a gay series hosted by Kate Clinton Humor. Women: A Journal of Liberation 5:1
on PBS (the Public Broadcasting System). The se- (1977), 2629.
ries, however, was short lived, perhaps because there Wolfe, Susan J., and Julia Penelope. Crooked and
is not sufficient overlap between the lesbian and gay Straight in Academia. In Pulling Our Own
(male) cultures to provide the necessary shared Strings. Ed. Gloria Kaufman and Mary Kay
worldview that would elicit laughter. Blakely. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
In the 1990s, even as earlier forms of lesbian 1980, p. 119.
humor persisted, debates over the meaning of the
word lesbian, the existence of a lesbian iden- See also Bannon, Ann; Brown, Rita Mae; Camp;
tity, and the diversity of lesbian experience led to a Cartoons and Comic Books; Comedy, Standup;
more fragmented, less viable idea of a lesbian com- Stein, Gertrude

382 HUMOR
I
Identity also as a reflection of their feminist politics and
An individuals perception or sense of self. Hence, their participation in lesbian culture. In fact, for
lesbian identity refers to a womans own percep- some women, politics and culture supersede sexual
tion of herself as a lesbian. The idea of basing per- attractions and behavior as bases for lesbian iden-
sonal identity on ones sexuality is found prima- tity. This desexualization of lesbian identity be-
rily in modern, European-derived cultures, and les- gan in the 1970s, as some lesbian feministsnota-
bian identity, in particular, is even more histori- bly the Radicalesbians, the Furies Collective, and
cally and culturally specific. In other cultures and Rich (1980)argued that the heart of lesbianism
other historical periods, some individuals had is woman-identification (that is, a political and
sexual contact with members of their own sex, but social commitment to women) and that lesbians
such individuals were not identified as a different were potentially more feminist than heterosexual
type of person from those whose affections ran women because they were independent of men.
toward the other sex. Jonathan Katz and other his- Redefining woman-identification as the heart of
torians have traced the concept of a homosexual lesbianism made it theoretically possible for any
type of person back to Europe in the 1860s, and woman to call herself a lesbian. This gave rise to
Randolph Trumbach argues that its roots can be political lesbians who identify as lesbian prima-
found in eighteenthcentury England. Gay iden- rily for political reasons and might or might not
tity arose in the United States in the mid-1900s feel sexually attracted to other women. These
when individuals classified as homosexual be- women generally see themselves as having cho-
gan to reject beliefs that they were sinful or men- sen lesbian identity, whereas other lesbians,
tally ill. Gay identity originally encompassed gay dubbed realesbians in the 1970s, often believe
women as well as gay men. With the advent of the that their lesbian identities reflect an inherent qual-
second wave of feminism in the late 1960s and ity within themselves that they cannot choose to
early 1970s, however, women who found them- have but can only choose to acknowledge.
selves second-class citizens in both the gay and the The deemphasis of sexuality as a part of les-
feminist movements embraced lesbian identity bian identity facilitated the building of a lesbian
to distinguish themselves, politically and socially, history that includes women who did not iden-
from both gay men and heterosexual women. Since tify as lesbian because they lived in times and cul-
then, lesbians have created additional identities; tures without a concept of lesbianism and whose
some women identify themselves as dykes, sexual lives are unknown to later generations be-
queers, or lipstick lesbians, and an extensive cause they were not recorded. For example, women
lesbian subculture has developed. who participated in nineteenth-century romantic
friendships or Boston marriages might or might
Lesbian Political Identity not have been sexually involved, but many mod-
Because of this history, many women use lesbian ern lesbians consider them their cultural
identity to refer not only to their sexual attractions foremothers because they loved each other psychi-
to and sexual experiences with other women, but cally and were relatively independent of men. This

IDENTITY 383
 lesbian history is part of lesbian culture and en- woman with a sense of lesbian self hood and makes
I hances the belief many lesbians have that lesbian-
ism is a timeless and enduring quality that exists
her a lesbian by distinguishing he: from the alterna-
tiveheterosexual women. Another alternative is to
regardless of whether it is recognized by a given understand lesbian identity as a description of a wom-
individual or in a given culture. Social scientists ans social location. Rust (1996) argues that, by iden-
refer to such a quality as an essence. When les- tifying herself as a lesbian, 2 woman marks herself as
bian identity is conceptualized as a reflection of living at a certain cultural and historical moment in
lesbian essence, as opposed to a chosen political which that identity is available and describes her so-
orientation or lifestyle, lesbian identity becomes cial position vis--vis other women, social groups,
analogous to racial and ethnic identities. Epstein and social institutions. For example, lesbian identity
(1987) and others have described the ways in which describes a woman as a probable outsider to the in-
modern gay and lesbian identities and politics have stitution of legally recognized marriage. Several theo-
been modeled on black/African American and rists note that having an identity provides one with a
white ethnic identities and political movements. subject position (that is, a social position from
which to speak). In other words, a woman with a
Social Construction of Identity lesbian identity has a different perspective and speaks
Lesbian, feminist, and queer theory scholars gen- with a different authority than does a woman with a
erally take a critical view of the concept of lesbian heterosexual identity, especially on issues involving
identity as a reflection of lesbian essence but do sexuality and sexual identity.
not see it as a matter of choice either. Given the his- Because social and political factors enter into a
torical and cultural specificity of the concept, many womans decision to identify as a lesbian, and les-
argue that lesbian identity is socially constructed. bian identity means different things to different
In other words, if the concept of a lesbian did not women, women with lesbian identities vary greatly
exist, women would not be able to conceptualize or in their actual sexual feelings and behaviors. Sev-
identify themselves as lesbians and would choose eral research studies, including studies by Chapman
another rubric for the description of their feelings, and Brannock (1987) and by Rust (1992), have
sexual histories, cultural connections, and politics. shown that 80 to 90 percent of women who iden-
In a very real sense, then, lesbians would not exist; tify as lesbian have had heterosexual contact, and
another type of person would exist instead. Exam- two-thirds of lesbians say they are sexually attracted
ples include the two-spirit traditions of some Na- to men as well as women. In other words, many
tive American groups. A two-spirit person is not lesbianidentified women actually have bisexual
considered a man or a woman but, rather, a third feelings and sexual histories. But bisexual identity
gender. A female two-spirit person usually adopts a is not as culturally available as lesbian identity,
masculine social role and, in some tribes, marries a cannot connect one to as extensive a subculture,
woman. Any sexual contact occurring within such and is perceived primarily as a sexual, not a politi-
a relationship would be between two females, but it cal, identity. Both Western mainstream culture and
is not traditionally conceptualized as homosexual lesbian subculture generally discredit the notion of
or lesbian. Two-spiritedness involves ones gender, bisexuality. In lesbian subculture, heterosexual
not ones sexuality. In such tribes, lesbians per se do experiences are often explained away as the result
not exist, just as two-spirited people do not exist in of heterosexual socialization, and women who
traditional Anglo-European cultures. identify as bisexual are encouraged to finish
Carrying social constructionist arguments further, coming out as lesbian. As a result, even though
Butler (1990) describes lesbian identity as perfor- adult (age eighteen and older) bisexual experience
mative (that is, an identity that is created and re- is ten times more common than exclusively lesbian
created through symbolic representations of the self). experience among women, Laumann and his col-
In effect, a woman becomes a lesbian by portraying leagues (1994) found that twice as many women
herself as a lesbian to herself and others. Her identity consider themselves homosexual (including les-
as a lesbian is her performance of that identity. Alter- bian) as bisexual, with one in a hundred women
natively, Fuss (1991) defines identity in terms of dif- in the United States identifying herself as homo-
ference, arguing that homosexuality (or lesbian- sexual or lesbian.
ism) derives its meaning in distinction from hetero- Identifying as a lesbian involves different issues
sexuality. Lesbian identity, therefore, provides a for women of different racial or ethnic cultural

384 IDENTITY
backgrounds. For some Latinas and Asian Ameri- Brett Beemyn and Mickey Eliason. New York:
can women whose cultures of origin emphasize the New York University Press, 1996, pp. 6486.
family rather than personal sexuality as a basis for
identity, coming out might be perceived as a rejec- See also Bisexuality; Essentialism; Identity Politics;
tion of their families and their ethnicity. Latinas, Performativity; Radicalesbians; Sexual Orientation
Asian, and African American women, and other and Preference; Social-Construction Theory;
women of color, for whom the support of their TwoSpirit; Woman-Identified Woman
racial or ethnic communities is important in the
face of societal racism, risk losing that support if
they come out. Whereas white lesbians find alter- Identity Politics
native sources of support in lesbian communities, Phrase used to describe those movements, devel-
lesbians of color often find that support compro- oped largely since the 1960s, that focus on oppres-
mised by the predominantly white character of sions related to positions of status or identity.
those communities. Integrating a lesbian identity
with a minoritized racial or ethnic identity can be History and Characteristics
difficult. Some women of color who identify as les- Identity politics began as a concept that distin-
bians are seen by their ethnic peers as succumbing guished newer social movements, such as civil rights
to white influence. The irony is that many non- and feminism, from earlier Left, class-centered
European cultures were more accepting of same- analyses. These earlier movements often ignored
sex relations prior to contact with white cultures; or denied the needs of women, homosexuals, and
homophobia, not homosexuality, is the cultural people of color as they argued that the overthrow
import. Paula C.Rust of capitalism would end other oppressions. In re-
sponse, lesbian and feminist groups, such as the
Bibliography Combahee River Collective (Boston, Massachu-
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the setts), decided to place their identities and oppres-
Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, sions at the center of their analysis. Rather than
1990. try to fit their lives into the framework prescribed
Chapman, Beata E., and JoAnn C.Brannock. Pro- by earlier theories, these groups used the particu-
posed Model of Lesbian Identity Development: lar concerns arising from their daily lives to fur-
An Empirical Examination. Journal of Homo- ther understanding of larger social structures.
sexuality 14 (1987), 6980. Early lesbian feminist identity politics linked the
Epstein, Steven. Gay Politics, Ethnic Identity: The oppression of lesbians to the position of women
Limits of Social Constructionism. Socialist and people of color. The work of lesbians of color
Review 17:2 (1987), 1054. has been particularly important to this project.
Fuss, Diana, ed. Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Rather than divert energy from larger issues, as
Theories. New York: Routledge, 1991. opponents sometimes charge, this work inspired
Laumann, Edward O., John H.Gagnon, Robert T. many lesbians to make connections between per-
Michael, and Stuart Michaels. The Social Or- sonal life and more traditional political issues,
ganization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the such as war, imperialism, and the global economy.
United States. Chicago: University of Chicago An identification as women, or as lesbians, has led
Press, 1994. many to work across racial and national lines for
Rich, Adrienne. Compulsory Heterosexuality and the common good. At the same time, practitioners
Lesbian Existence. Signs: Journal of Women of identity politics have called their home com-
in Culture and Society 5:4 (1980), 631660. munities to account for injustice. Lesbians have
Rust, Paula C. The Politics of Sexual Identity: demanded acceptance and equality within their
Sexual Attraction and Behavior among Lesbian communities of origin in addition to forming les-
and Bisexual Women. Social Problems 39:4 bian communities.
(1992), 366386.
. Sexual Identity and Bisexual Identities: The Critiques
Struggle for Self-Description in a Changing Identity politics has come under fire both from
Sexual Landscape. In Queer Studies: A Lesbian, conservative critics who disagree with progressive
Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Anthology. Ed. agendas and from other progressives who fear that

IDENTITY POLITICS 385

 identity politics leads to a splintering and loss of to focus on mainstream political action. Thus, the
I energy. The first group has ridiculed concerns about
racism, sexism, and homophobia, suggesting that
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), the
National Center for Lesbian Rights, the Campaign
activists want special rights or totalitarian con- for Military Service (which led the unsuccesful 1993
trol over public speech and thought. This criticism fight for an end to the ban on queers in the mili-
has largely served as a cover for a reactionary tary), and the Human Rights Campaign are all par-
agenda that would roll back the gains made by ticipants in identity politics. With the exception of
women, lesbians and gays, and people of color. NGLTF, however, the newer groups do not link the
The second group of critics is made up of people position of lesbians to other major social issues. In-
who often share a political agenda and an identity stead, they fight in legislatures and the courts for
with those practicing identity politics but who think equal rights in employment, marriage, housing, and
that the current state of identity politics reduces the credit. This sort of activity is not substantially dif-
possibility of real transformation. Writers such as ferent from mainstream interest-group politics. In
bell hooks have argued that identity becomes too such a process, groups jockey to get theirs in the
narrow a basis for politics. Rather than ask whether system without changing the political, economic, and
people share a political vision and agenda, practi- social structures that continue to generate stigma-
tioners of identity politics may, instead, demand tized identities.
uniformity in the name of a shared identity. For ex- As long as lesbians are excluded and stigma-
ample, lesbian-feminism became embroiled in the tized on the basis of their lesbianism, there will be
1980s in questions about whether particular prac- a continuing development of identity politics. For
tices and, therefore, the people engaged in them were all of its pitfalls, identity politics represents the in-
truly lesbian. Barry (1982) argued that sadomaso- creasing democratization of politics as people who
chism between lesbians was not lesbianism, and have been rejected and subordinated challenge their
communities became embroiled in controversies oppressors. The greater danger is that identity poli-
about what real lesbianism is. Although the is- tics will disintegrate into interest-group politics.
sues raised were important ones, the focus on iden- While mainstream tactics are an important part of
tity rather than on questions such as Is this a good the battle for groups who are oppressed on the basis
thing for us to do? and should this be a matter of of ascriptive characteristics, they run the risk of
public concern? often led to polarizations and feel- limiting the more transformative elements of iden-
ings of rejection. Thus, hooks (1984) argued that, tity politics and reconsolidating privileges along ex-
rather than ask whether someone is a feminist, isting lines, as those who are privileged by race or
one should ask whether she or he supports femi- by wealth come to define the issues and agendas of
nism. This allows people to work for change with lesbian politics. Shane Phelan
those who are different as well as those with
whom they share an identity. Other authors, such Bibliography
as Haraway (1985), have proposed that feminist Barry, Kathleen. Sadomasochism: The New
politics should be based on affinity rather than iden- Backlash to Feminism. Trivia 1 (Fall 1982),
tity. Because affinity includes both a sense of 7792.
bondedness and a reflective distance, it is less abso- Haraway, Donna. A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Sci-
lute and inflexible than identity may come to be. ence, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the
In the 1990s, political theorists began to think 1980s. Socialist Review 15:2 (1985), 65108.
in terms of identification rather than identity, to hooks, bell. Feminist Theory: From Margin to
examine the processes whereby groups come to see Center. Boston: South End, 1984.
themselves as like some others and to think of Moraga, Cherre, and Gloria Anzalda. This Bridge
themselves as one of them/us. Such examination Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women
allows one to consider the social issues that origi- of Color. New York: Kitchen Table: Women of
nally motivated identity politics without exclud- Color Press, 1981.
ing as allies those who do not share a full identity. Mouffe, Chantal. The Return of the Political. Lon-
Along with problems of exclusivity, identity poli- don: Verso, 1993.
tics faces another challenge. Following the typical Phelan, Shane. Getting Specific: Postmodern Les-
pattern of northern European and North American bian Politics. Minneapolis: University of Min-
politics, stigmatized groups have increasingly come nesota Press, 1994.

386 IDENTITY POLITICS

. Identity Politics: Lesbian Feminism and the Legal reforms, for example, would certainly have
Limits of Community. Philadelphia: Temple proven even more difficult to obtain if the ideol-
University Press, 1989. ogy of homosexual psychopathy had remained in
the oppositions arsenal.
See also Combahee River Collective; Identity; Na- While in the modern era scientific knowledge
tional Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF); Po- holds the most honored claim to a monopoly on
litical Theory truth, that position is generally enjoyed by religion
in traditional societies. Yet religions ideological
power is still presentperhaps increasingly soeven
Ideology in the late twentieth century. Official condemnations
The total thought structure of a society, reliance upon of homosexuality from Christianity, Islam, and
which tends to stabilize a social order; distinguished Judaism are widely influential; U.S. opinion polls
from Utopian thought structures, which are used to consistently find that highly religious respondents
transform a social order. In particular, ideologies display more negative attitudes toward lesbians and
function to explain, rationalize, conceal, or other- gay men than those who are less religious. The cor-
wise mystify social relations of dominance and sub- relation is not perfect, however, as there is consider-
ordination (as, for example, ideologies of racial in- able disagreement among the branches, sects, and
feriority have been used justify the subordination of churches of the major Western religions on issues of
people of color in the United States). Antilesbian sexuality, homosexuality, and gender. The more lib-
ideologies have taken several forms: Medical/scien- eral bodies frequently take stances against, rather
tific, religious, and political ideologies have been than in support of, the status quo, sponsoring gay
particularly powerful in the United States. and feminist activism. As such, the traditional Marx-
Medical/scientific ideologies have been most ist view that religion is always ideological, serving
clearly expressed through theories and research on as the opiate of the masses, is too simplistic.
the etiology of lesbianism. Much of this material is Antilesbian ideologies are found throughout the
bluntly homophobic, referring to lesbianism as a spectrum of political beliefs, from the revolution-
degeneracy, a failure, or a disorder. But even the ary to the reactionary. Anticolonialist movements
literature that takes a more cautious, objective tone, have condemned lesbianism and male homosexu-
seeking the source of variation rather than pathol- ality as Western imports, and communist move-
ogy, poses the research question so as to explain ments have characterized them as examples of capi-
lesbianism as a departure from heterosexuality and talist decadencea point on which fascists have
femininity. Such science assumes the normality of often agreed. These overt condemnations are joined
heterosexuality and prevailing definitions of femi- by the much more subtle ideological stance of
ninity, rather than subject these assumptions to Western liberalism, with its emphases on tolerance
analytical scrutiny. As such, it states by implica- and individual freedom. Lesbian feminists, such as
tion that lesbianism is abnormal, even as it claims Rich (1980) and Kitzinger (1987), have analyzed
to practice scientific objectivity. Such theories func- the antilesbian ideological implications of portray-
tion ideologically by providing justification for ing lesbianism as an individual issue of sexual pref-
antilesbian beliefs and practices. erence and lifestyle. In their view, lesbianism is also
In recognition of the high status enjoyed in the a form of resistance to compulsory heterosexual-
contemporary United States by medical/scientific ity and its role in the subordination of women; to
knowledge, lesbian and gay rights activists con- overlook this political significance in favor of a
fronted the American Psychiatric Association (APA) stance that merely advocates the tolerance of indi-
in the late 1960s and early 1970s, demanding that vidual variations is to contain the valuable threat
homosexuality be deleted from its official diagnos- to the gender order that is implicit in lesbianism.
tic manual. The APAs subsequent removal of ho- Strictly speaking, lesbian-positive thought sys-
mosexuality from the DSM-III (Diagnostic and tems are Utopian rather than ideological, as they
Statistical Manual, 3rd edition) in 1973 was lauded seek to change, rather than uphold, the dominant
as a victory not only because many lesbians and social order. However, within lesbian communities
gay men would now be spared psychiatric inter- and cultures, systems of belief do have a certain ideo-
vention, but also because of the ideological power logical power. Lesbian feminism, for example, has
of psychiatrys official stance in the society at large. often been criticized for providing a justification for

IDEOLOGY 387
 the stigmatization of butches and femmes within sought, produces a variety of stresses. No matter
I lesbian communities. Lesbian feminists, on the other
hand, have pointed out that femmes can be treated
how glad the immigrant might be to live in a new
country, the transitions created by immigration of-
as secondary members of butch-femme communi- ten produce negative experiences and emotional
ties, suggesting that the larger cultures ideology of strain. Conversely, the need to adapt to the new
masculine superiority has its complement there. Such environment may open up possibilities hitherto
critiques, for all their import, must not overshadow unavailable in the country of birth, including the
the fact that lesbian-positive thought systems are not possibility of living a lesbian life. The immigrant
the social equals of the various antilesbian ideolo- lesbian acculturates to the new society and to the
gies that continue to support the devaluation of all particular lesbian culture in the specific country at
lesbian women. Vera Whisman the same time. Lesbians who are immigrants or
refugees share experiences with heterosexual
Bibliography women in their particular immigrant community,
Kitzinger, Celia. The Social Construction of Lesbi- as well as with lesbians in the host culture. They
anism. London: Sage, 1987. also share experiences with gay men who are im-
Mannheim, Karl. Ideology and Utopia. New York: migrants or refugees.
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1936. Immigrant communities tend to be intent on
Rich, Adrienne. Compulsory Heterosexuality and preserving cultural traditions in the face of mas-
Lesbian Existence. Signs: Journal of Women sive cultural transformation. The presence of les-
in Culture and Society 5:4 (1980), 631660. bians in their midst is something not willingly ac-
knowledged by most immigrant communities,
See also Compulsory Heterosexuality; Etiology; which prefer to see lesbianism as one of the evils
Heterosexism; Homophobia; Lesbian Feminism of the host society. The expectations of their com-
munities create emotional pressures on lesbians in
immigrant families, particularly for those who
Immigration come out as adolescents. Even as an adult, to be
The geographical movement of individuals across a lesbian in the midst of an immigrant community
national borders for the purpose of residing more involves not only a choice about ones own life,
or less permanently in a country other than the but also a choice that affects the communitys per-
persons country of birth. Historically, the process ception of itself and of the family from which the
of immigration is at the core of the United States lesbian comes. Coming out may jeopardize not
as a nation. Immigration policy was one of the most only family ties, but also the possibility of serving
important political issues in the United States and the immigrant community itself.
the world in the 1980s and 1990s. The usual difficulties in obtaining adequate sta-
tistics on lesbian populations prevail concerning
Characteristics the numbers of lesbians among immigrants and
Immigration can be motivated by a desire for bet- refugees. Demographic studies have demonstrated
ter economic conditions or by fear of political or that the composition of the gay and lesbian popu-
other forms of persecution, including persecution lation in North America is very much like the en-
for lesbianism itself. If persecution and danger are tire population. Thus, it is possible to estimate that
the motivating force behind the migration, the per- large numbers of lesbians and gay menperhaps
son is considered a refugee. The legal distinction as many as two millionexist among the immi-
between immigrants and refugees is usually colored grant population in the United States. The num-
by the political persuasion of governments. bers are even higher if immigrants and refugees all
Many lesbians migrate from their countries seek- over the world are considered.
ing to avoid persecution for their sexual orienta-
tion or seeking to be able to live a freer, more out Legal and Political Institutions
life in a new country. Other lesbians come out Legislation concerning the immigration of lesbi-
years after immigration, as a consequence of the ans and gay men to the United States has been
new possibilities for self-expression afforded by the mostly restrictive. The Immigration Act of 1917 ex-
new country. From a psychological perspective, im- cluded persons of constitutional psychopathic infe-
migration, even when willingly chosen and eagerly riority. In the 1952 Immigration and Nationality

388 IDEOLOGY
Act (INA), the prohibition was reworded to ex- Despite these positive changes in U.S. immigra-
clude aliens afflicted with psychopathic person- tion policy, the Lesbian and Gay Immigration
ality, epilepsy or a mental defect. The legislative Rights Task Force, a nonprofit organization advo-
history of these acts shows that this language was cating the reform of discriminatory immigration
broad enough to exclude homosexuals and sex laws in the United States that affect lesbians and
perverts. The 1952 INA was adopted in a climate gay men, was still concerned in the late 1990s with
of national paranoia. Homosexuality was associ- several issues. In particular, although the Immigra-
ated with communism not only in the popular tion and Nationality Act permitted the immigra-
mind, but by the government as well, despite the tion of a foreign spouse, it discriminated against
fact that the Communist Party, like mainstream lesbians and gays because they were still prevented
culture, rejected homosexuals. from bringing foreign partners to the United States.
In 1979, as a consequence of the American Psy- Even if same-sex marriage were legalized in the
chiatric Associations 1973 declaration that homo- United States, it would take years of legal battles
sexuality per se does not constitute mental illness, to persuade the INS to recognize these marriages
the Surgeon General announced that the Public Health for immigration purposes. Oliva M.Espn
Service, working under the Immigration and Natu-
ralization Service (INS), would no longer exclude al- Bibliography
iens because they were suspected of being homosexu- Cole, Ellen, Oliva M.Espn, and Esther Rothblum,
als. In 1980, the INS (the federal agency charged with eds. Shattered Societies, Shattered Lives: Refu-
processing immigrants for admission to the country gee Women and Their Mental Health. New
and later for citizenship) adopted new procedures by York: Haworth, 1992.
which arriving aliens would not be asked about sexual Espn, Oliva M. Issues of Identity in the Psychol-
orientation. However, a voluntary admission of ho- ogy of Latina Lesbians. In Lesbian
mosexuality or a disclosure by a third party would Psychologies: Explorations and Challenges. Ed.
still be used to exclude an alien. Finally, the Immigra- Boston Lesbian Psychologies Collective. Urbana:
tion Act of 1990 rewrote the exclusion section, aban- University of Illinois Press, 1987, pp. 3555.
doning the provision excluding homosexuals. As a Foss, Robert J. The Demise of Homosexual Ex-
result, immigrants have the right to enter openly as clusion: New Possibilities for Gay and Lesbian
lesbians. However, those admitted before 1990 can Immigration. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Lib-
technically be deported because they were admitted erties Law Review 29 (1994), 439475.
at a time when the exclusion was still in effect. Park, Jin S. Pink Asylum: Political Asylum Eligi-
In the mid-1990s, the United States began consid- bility of Gay Men and Lesbians Under U.S.
ering persecution because of sexual orientation a cause Immigration Policy. UCLA Law Review 42
for political asylum and, thus, granting refugee sta- (1995), 11151156.
tus on the basis of sexual orientation. Historically, Tremble, Bob, Margaret Schneider, and Carol
lesbian and gay aliens were prevented from making Appathurai. Growing up Gay or Lesbian in
an asylum claim for persecution in their countries of Multicultural Context. In Gay and Lesbian
birth based on homosexuality. But two cases, follow- Youth. Ed. Gilbert Herdt. New York:
ing a 1994 directive to the INS from United States Harrington Park, 1989, pp. 253267.
Attorney General Janet Reno, held that lesbians and United States Committee for Refugees. World Refu-
gay men can receive protection under U.S. asylum gee Survey: 1989 in Review. Washington, D.C.:
policy because they can be considered members of a American Council for Nationalities, 1990.
persecuted social group eligible for political asylum,
thus eligible for refugee status under the law. Despite See also Law and Legal Institutions
Renos directives, there are still some problems with
the laws as written. Interestingly, proving persecu-
tion will be harder for closeted lesbians and gays, Incest
while open homosexuals will encounter less difficulty Sexual abuse of a person by a family member. Esti-
demonstrating that they are closely affiliated and share mates of the percentage of the U.S. population that
similar interests with other members of the persecuted are victims of incest and sexual abuse vary10
group, an essential component of the demonstration 40 percent of women and 520 percent of men,
of the need for asylum. depending on the particular study cited. However,

INCEST 389
 many studies do not separate sexual abuse by a bia can lead a woman to blame her lesbian feelings
I nonfamily member from incest so the incidence of
incest is difficult to estimate. Multiple studies have
or her lack of feelings for men on the incest. How-
ever, no study has shown any relationship between
found that lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men are no sexual abuse, incest, and lesbian or bisexual feel-
more likely to be perpetrators than heterosexual ings. It is important to remember that incest leads a
individuals. Other studies have found that lesbi- woman to feeling that her sexuality is bad. This is a
ans are no more likely to be victims of sexual abuse, common issue for all victims of sexual abuse, no
including incest, than heterosexual women. How- matter what their sexual orientation. Lesbian and
ever, these studies are difficult to conduct, as it is bisexual women who are survivors of incest have
hard to find a normative sample of lesbian women no greater symptoms than heterosexual women.
due to fears many have of disclosing their sexual- One of the most striking issues for a survivor
ity. Additionally, many lesbians who participate in can be difficulty protecting herself in intimate re-
studies have been in therapy or have other reasons lationships. Because an incest survivor did not have
for disclosing this information more readily. safe relationships in childhood, there is no frame
Experts in the field believe that incest has more of reference for safe relationships as an adult. Cues
damaging consequences on a child than sexual abuse that relationships or situations are unsafe are not
by a stranger. This is because sexual abuse by a fam- recognized as such. Revictimization or exploita-
ily member involves a betrayal of trust and an ex- tive, depriving, or violent relationships are not
ploitation of the dependency, vulnerability, and love uncommon. Victimization is not a goal of victims
that a child has toward a family member. Not only but is passively accepted. Often, the adult survivor
do victims have to heal from the violation of a trau- thinks that pain and suffering are the price of love
matic victimization, but they also have to address and does not feel entitled to, or does not know
the profound betrayal of trust and dependency. This what, a loving and safe relationship is.
betrayal can have a lasting impact on intimate rela- For lesbians, this difficulty in believing that they
tionships and sense of self. Some aftereffects of in- are entitled to safety, acceptance, and love can mean
cest for adult women are a sense of profound bad- the passive tolerance of second-rate status as a les-
ness or evil, low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, bian or a woman and may mean taking a more
sexual issues, body-image issues, intense rage, sleep passive role in accepting discriminatory behavior
disturbances, hyperarousal, posttraumatic stress dis- as a lesbian. One of the goals for incest survivors is
order, and dissociative disorders. Symptoms in child learning to recognize dangerous situations and feel-
victims are similarly various: depression, anxiety, ing entitled to safety and love.
fearfulness, hypersexuality, intense anger, low Other goals are establishing safety (physical and
selfesteem, changes in normal behaviors, and sleep interpersonal), reconstructing the trauma story (to
or eating disorders. Because the aftereffects of in- lessen self-blame and inappropriate responsibility),
cest are so varied and overlap with other disorders, and restoring connection between themselves and
one cannot make a diagnosis of incest or sexual others (interpersonal relationship and community
abuse simply from symptoms. ties). These issues can take on a moral or spiritual
The child victim often takes the blame for the emphasis as they address issues of good, evil, and
events, thus preserving the relationship to the abu- blameless suffering. In reaching these goals, openness
sive caretaker. This blame often becomes a sense about the trauma, transforming the trauma story into
of personal badness, evil, and a stigmatized iden- testimony, and a reaffirmation of the personal im-
tity, which may result in lowered self-esteem, portance of justice are helpful. Also often helpful are
selfdestructive behaviors, and other symptoms. therapy and/or support groups. Survivors need to
Often, as the child matures into adolescence and learn that improvement in symptoms and healing
adulthood, sexuality becomes the focal point for from these traumatic events are possible.
the sense of badness, leading to sexual problems. Judith Glassgold
Other longterm issues are difficulties in basic trust,
autonomy, and initiative. Bibliography
For lesbians, the stigma of incest can increase Bass, Ellen, and Laura Davis. The Courage to Heal.
homophobia and the stigma about being lesbian or New York: Harper and Row, 1988.
bisexual, creating more problems around acceptance Finkelhor, David. Child Sexual Abuse: New Theory
of sexual identity. Further, internalized homopho- and Research. New York: Free Press, 1984.

390 INCEST
Herman, Judith L. Trauma and Recovery: The Af- to a male child. The child is born without a bone
termath of Violencefrom Domestic Abuse to structure because there has been no transmission
Political Terror. New York: Basic Books, 1992. of semen.
A series of Islamic invasions, which began in the
See also Psychotherapy twelfth century A.D., was consolidated by different
dynasties until the advent of British colonialism in
the eighteenth century. Neither Islamic nor British
India rule entirely affected all parts of the country.
Situated just above the equator, India, in both its Little is known about lesbian sexuality in the
cultural and geographical diversity, is more a con- Islamic period or the colonial period. Some litera-
tinent than a country. Geographically, it is sur- ture does demonstrate lesbian desire. For exam-
rounded on three sides by water and, on the north- ple, Zeb-un-Nissa (16381702) wrote at least one
ern side, by the Himalayas, the highest range of poem in Persian that suggests desire for another
mountains on earth. It contains stretches of desert, woman. Bahu Begam (fl. 18551865) also wrote
as well as fertile plains located around an abun- about her fear that a beloved woman might be
dance of rivers. Its historical and cultural realities crushed by the burden of my adoring looks.
are equally diverse, with many different civiliza- With the domination of India by the British,
tions existing simultanaeously. Thus, it is difficult colonial ideologies led to the repression of diverse
to generalize about the entire country. lesbian and homosexual traditions. In 1861, the
colonial regime introduced the Indian penal code,
History including section 377, which prohibits carnal in-
India had a very rich culture of lesbian desire in tercourse against the order of nature with any man,
the early pre-Vedic cultures prior to 1500 B.C.E. woman or animal, punishing it with a fine and
(Vedas are the sacred writings of the Hindu cul- imprisonment from ten years to life.
ture that settled in India at that time.) Lesbianism
was represented through the concept of Jami (the Contemporary Conditions
feminine twins). The notion of twins was not based Several cases have been reported under this law. One
on a biological identity but that of a holistic union such was reported in the magazine India Today
between women that comprised both erotic and (April 15, 1990). A woman named Tarulata changed
sexual dimensions. her sex to marry her girlfriend, Lila Chavda.
This notion was later rendered taboo and crimi- Muljibhai Chavda, Lilas father, went to court, say-
nal in the brahmanic (the highest caste in the tra- ing that, since it was a lesbian relationship, the mar-
ditional social structure) texts. The most obvious riage should be annulled. His petition called for
examples are found in the Laws of Manu (ca. 2 criminal action to be taken against her under the
B.C.E.A.D. 2). According to laws 8.369 and 370: above law, contending that Tarunkumar (Tarulata)
possesses neither the male organ nor any natural
A kanya [young girl] who does it [kuryat] to mechanism of cohabitation, sexual intercourse and
another kanya must be fined 200 panas, pay procreation of children. Adoption of any unnatural
the double of the bride price and receive 10 mechanism does not create malehood and as such
lashes of the rod. But a stri [adult woman] Tarunkumar is not a male. Although the outcome
who does it [prakuryat] to a kanya shall in- of the case is not known, activists report that the
stantly have her head shaved or 2 fingers cut law is often used as a coercive weapon to break up
off and be made to ride through the town lesbian relationships.
on a donkey. The majority of lesbians live silent, private lives
within the closet, but there have been publicized
In spite of these laws, there are many examples of cases of lesbian marriages and suicides. The first
lesbianism in ancient texts, particularly the texts reported marriage, in 1987, goes back to an ear-
relating to the independent goddesses (figures lier tradition of gandharva (noncontractual) mar-
within the religious tradition outside the caste sys- riage. Gandharvas were celestial musicians and
tem; these goddesses do not function only as con- linked to divine erotic traditions. The gandharva
sorts of gods). One such myth tells the story of form of marriage was based on erotic union, the
two women having sex together and giving birth sex of the partners being unspecified. This is

INDIA 391
 precisely what two policewomen, Urmilla and Lila, Human rights groups, too, have challenged the le-
I did in a village in Madhya Pradash. They went to
a temple and married each other in front of forty
gal code, and, at the close of the 1990s, hope ex-
isted that it would be rescinded.
witnesses. In retaliation, they were forcibly medi- Giti Thadani
cally examined and fired from their jobs.
Since 1987, various instances of marriages and Bibliography
friendship contracts between women have been re- Khayal, Utsa, and Susan Heske. There Are, Al-
ported. In most cases, these have been broken through ways Have Been, Always Will Be Lesbians in
coercive tactics, using section 377 of the penal code, India. Conditions: Thirteen (1986), 135146.
although in the minority, when the family has been Kumar, Mina. Representations of Indian Lesbi-
supportive, the relationship has continued. anism. In The Very Inside: An Anthology of
The major expression of lesbian oppression is Writing by Asian and Pacific Islander Lesbian
found in numerous examples of lesbian double and Bisexual Women. Ed. Sharon Lim-Hing.
suicides. One example was reported in a local news- Toronto: Sister Vision, 1994.
paper in the late 1970s. Malika and Lalitambika, Thadani, Giti. Sakhiyani: Lesbian Desire in An-
both students at Keralavarma college in Kerala, cient and Modern India. London: Cassell, 1996.
were very much in love. When they discovered that
Lalitambika had passed but Malika had failed her See also: International Organizations; Islam
final examinations, they attempted to commit sui-
cide rather than face inevitable separation. The
police charged them with attempted suicide and Indigenous Cultures
found, among other things, a letter and a greeting Historical and cultural accounts of female same-
card with a silhouette of a kissing couple against a sex relationships among native peoples of Asia,
backdrop of a flaming sunset. Inside was a note Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific.
from Malika: Lali, after all everybody know about
our love, so heres a thousand kisses for you in Research Problems
public. Lalitambika had replied: Come to me, I The search by Euro-American scholars for lesbians
shall take you in my arms. I shall cover you with in other cultures has always confronted a number
kisses. You shall sleep in my bosom. A letter writ- of problems, not the least of which is the difference
ten before the suicide attempt by Lalitambika to between Euro-American and native definitions of
her parents stated: I cannot part with Malika. Bury sexuality. Sexual practices carry different meanings
us together. It was subsequently reported that their in different cultures. In Euro-American cultures, the
relatives were unable to grasp the implications of term lesbian, a woman whose primary sexual
their relationship and that Malikas elder brother preference is other women, connotes a permanent
said that the two had agreed to forget each other. sexual identity. Such an identity does not accurately
The greatest problem in the everyday life of les- define forms of intimate relations between women
bian relationships is the silence over lesbian issues, or female partners in other cultures.
which leads to terrible isolation. Further, the emo- In many cultures, the only practice that is con-
tional pressure of compulsory heterosexual marriage sidered sex is sexual intercourse between a woman
in Indian society results in the majority of lesbians and a man. Though many other forms of sex prac-
marrying, thus allowing only for a closeted and fur- tice may be engaged in, including sex between
tive existence. In the large cities, however, some open women, in some cultures these physical intimacies
activity exists, although there are only two formal fall outside the bounds of sex proper. In a study
groups, Stri Sangam (Fusion Between Women) in done in Lesotho, southern Africa, Gay (1986) asked
Bombay and Sakhi (Female Friend, incorporating if young women in mummy-baby relationships
eroticism) in Delhi. Sakhi, begun in 1990, was the make love like a man and a woman. Most women
first lesbian group in India. Initially a networking replied that that was different than the hugging and
group, it later developed both a political platform kissing of the mummy-baby relationship, distin-
and a lesbian archive. Stri Sangam also aims at net- guishing conceptually between what women do to-
working lesbians, as well as making lesbian issues gether and what women and men do. Kendall (in
publicly visible. These groups represent a gradual Blackwood and Wieringa, 1998) was told that
opening up of Indian society around lesbian issues. women cannot have sex together because there is

392 INDIA
no sex without a penis. Yet women of Lesotho do (except the sworn sisterhoods of China). Rather,
have erotic relationships with other women. what appears is that women, who are otherwise
Another problem with the anthropological record heterosexually married, engage in a variety of inti-
on lesbian relations is that anthropologists in the mate and erotic relationships, including affective or
past either associated lesbianism with masculinity intimate friendships between adult women, adoles-
or assumed that it resulted from heterosexual dep- cent sex play, ritual practices, bond friendships,
rivation. Some identified only masculine women as womanmarriage, and erotic relations between a
lesbian, while others confidently asserted that, for woman and a transgender female (a female-bodied
instance, among the peoples of Tikopia in Mela- man). In many cases, the primary relationship for
nesia, women did not engage in lesbianism because these women may be with men as husbands; in ritual
so many men were available. Consequently, many practices, the intent may be to learn and encourage
sexual or affective relations between women in other heterosexual relations. In some cultures that allow
cultures have gone unnoticed by naive outside ob- only two genders or that tie masculinity to erotic
servers, contributing to the small number of such attraction to women, some females live as men, tak-
accounts in the ethnohistoric record. ing women as sexual partners or wives. In all cases,
Along with the many problems in the these relations are embedded in, and gain their mean-
ethnohistorical record, the conquest of indigenous ing from, wider cultural contexts. For the individu-
groups contributed to the invisibility of lesbianism. als involved, these relations create social connections
The sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries saw mas- and identities, as well as erotic bonds.
sive incursions by Europeans into native lands. In the The interest in, and availability of, accounts of
process of taking economic and political control, these womens same-sex relationships in indigenous cul-
colonizers imposed their own religious dictates on tures has increased since the 1970s. This entry
native peoples. Missionaries controlled native sexu- presents accounts of a variety of relationships that
alities, in part, by redefining or suppressing native generally fall into five categories: intimate friend-
terms for same-sex partners. Words for intimate same- ships, woman-marriage, ritual practices, adolescent
sex friend or sexual partner were translated simply sex play, and transgender practices.
as friend (such as aikane in Hawaiin and takatapui
in Maori), losing their sexual meaning. Anglo offi- Intimate Friendships
cials forbade Native American two-spirit people (for- Although married and raising children, women in
merly berdache) to publicly continue in that role and many indigenous cultures maintained loving and
to practice their religious duties. Over time, these intimate relationships with other women, often sol-
words and identities were either forgotten or deeply emnizing these relationships with celebrations and
buried in folk consciousness. frequent gift exchanges. In some cases, the relation-
It is only with the globalization of gay liberation ship was between a slightly older and a younger
that native peoples with alternative sexualities or woman, or a married and an unmarried woman, or
genders have begun to question colonial histories two young women. This type of relationship is
and to reconstruct their own subjectivities and sexu- labeled intimate friendship because it is often
alities. Many are beginning to establish ties between impossible to know whether these relationships are
their contemporary gay identities and traditional sexual, nor is it necessary to insist on a sexual defi-
cultural practices. As Hall and Kauanui (1994) note nition that makes sense only to Western minds.
for the Pacific islands, Western notions about sexu- Azande women of central Africa (now Sudan and
ality and homosexuality are a colonial imposition the Republic of Zaire) could establish a bond friend-
which only address the realities of a small part of ship with another woman. Azande society was com-
the spectrum of Pacific people who have sexual and posed of several kingdoms with noble and com-
love relationships with members of their own sex. moner classes. Polygamy was the usual form of
marriage; each wife had her own dwelling in her
The Anthropological Record husbands compound and her own land to culti-
Despite the limitations of the record, female samesex vate. Besides the marital relationship, women could
sexuality has been noted in a number of indigenous establish a formal relationship of exchange and serv-
groups. The record suggests that, in indigenous cul- ice with another woman, often their cowives. These
tures, it is rare to find a segregated community of relationships were formalized by conducting a ritual
women involved in affective or erotic relationships called bagburu, in which the two women exchanged

I N D I G E N O U S C U LT U R E S 393
 small gifts, then divided a corn cob in half, each one vide more substantial goods and may have more
I taking a half to plant in her own garden.
Unfortunately, most of what is known about
than one baby. The girls treat the friendship like
an affair or a romance; hugging, kissing, and sexual
bagburu relationships comes from Azande men in relations are part of it. These relationships provide
the 1930s and reflects their own fears and fanta- emotional, sexual, and material support for the
sies about their wives. Men asserted that some young girls involved. Some relationships continue
women who were bond friends had sexual rela- after the girls leave school and even after marriage.
tions with their partners. The term for lesbian sex Whether they were carrying on the traditions of
was adandara. Azande wives had to ask permis- their African foremothers cannot be said, but
sion from their husbands to begin a bagburu rela- AfroCaribbean women on the island of Carriacou
tionship. Husbands tried to discourage their wives near Grenada were known to have intimate rela-
from developing sexual attachments, however. They tionships with other women. These women were
believed that, once a woman became her own mas- called madivine or zami. Relationships were usu-
ter and could have sex with another woman when ally between an older woman who was married and
she pleased, not just when a man cared to give it to had children and a younger woman who was more
her, she would want to continue it. likely unmarried and with little income. The elder
The Nama, an ethnic group of the Khoikhoi of partner, who might have several junior partners,
southwest Africa, also maintained the institution of particularly if her husband was prosperous, gave
bond friendship, called sorigus. The bond was initi- her lovers gifts, such as earrings or underwear, while
ated by both partners drinking from the same bowl the younger ones gave perfume, as befitted the sta-
and signified their willingness to provide mutual tus of the senior partner. These relationships were
assistance. It was considered customary, according noted in the 1950s when little wage labor was avail-
to reports from the 1920s, that women in these re- able on Carriacou, forcing most men to work over-
lationships engaged in sexual practices together. seas for long periods of time and send money home
In southern Africa, other forms of intimate to their wives, who engaged mainly in subsistence
friendship occurred among young women in rural farming. This labor pattern led Smith (1962) to claim
villages and at boarding schools. In the initiation that it was the long absences of their husbands that
schools of the Lesotho, Venda, and Zulu peoples, led married women to become madivines. On the
an older girl became the mother to a younger girl. other hand, it was believed that, since women are
The sex education that took place in these schools more sexual than men, only women can satisfy each
provided the opportunity for girls to touch and other. Lorde (1982) referred to the women of
fondle each other physically. Such schools, how- Carriacou in her biomythography, asserting poeti-
ever, became the target of missionary disapproval cally that Carriacou womens love for each other is
and have now all but disappeared. legend in Grenada, as are their strength and beauty.
Bond friendships, or mummy-baby relationships, According to several accounts by anthropologists
as they are called, became popular among young who worked among different aboriginal Australian
girls in southern Africa in the 1950s, particularly at groups from the 1930s through the early 1960s,
boarding schools. They may have originated in ru- young girls and women engaged in sexual activities
ral womens special affective and gift-exchange part- with other females. It was said to be quite common
nerships remembered by older women up to the late among girls, who used an ininta, a little stick with
1950s. These traditional partnerships, called string wound around the end, for sexual play. The
motsoalle in rural Lesotho, were long-term, loving, term kityili-kityili referred to a sex practice between
and erotic relationships that often coexisted with a adult women that involved tickling the clitoris with
heterosexual marriage. Such relationships were pub- the finger, followed by rubbing the genitals together.
licly acknowledged and celebrated by gift giving and Sexual intimacy with another woman generally fol-
feasting that involved the whole community. lowed the rules of kinship. Ones proper sexual part-
In the mummy-baby relationship of Lesotho ners were ones cross-cousins.
girls that continues into the present, two young Other sketchy reports of indigenous or diasporic
women, the older of whom becomes the mummy cultures in which women engaged in same-sex prac-
and the younger the baby, start a relationship by tices with other women include the Araucania
arranging private encounters and exchanging love (Chile) and the Aymara (Bolivia), Haiti and Jamaica
letters and gifts. The mummies, being older, pro- in the Caribbean, the Hopi, the Ojibwa, and the

394 I N D I G E N O U S C U LT U R E S
Pawnee of native North America, the Mbundu keeping a husband or a male lover). Such ceremonies
(Angola) and the Nupe (Nigeria), and the Balinese have rarely been performed since the 1950s in north
and the Javanese of Indonesia. Australia, but they continue to unnerve Anglo audi-
ences and confuse young aboriginal women, who are
Woman-Marriage now familiar with the Anglo gay identity. Older
A common institution throughout sub-Saharan Af- Belyuen women, however, are not troubled by the
rica, this practice allows one woman to marry an- homoerotic digging (yedabetj) of the ritual perform-
other. Woman-marriage is legally recognized in many ances. For them, it is erotic play that initiates young
African countries and is arranged through the pay- women into the complex social categories within
ment of brideprice by the woman for a wife. Whether which they will move,
some of these women have sexual relations with each A similar practice was an important part of cer-
other has been hotly debated. In some instances, emonies for women in the Solomon Islands in Mela-
woman-marriage is a nonsexual, economic relation- nesia. According to Blackwood (1935), women en-
ship arranged by a woman to provide offspring for gaged in boisterous sexual play during menstrual
a deceased husband or childless son. and wedding ceremonies, shouting and dancing to-
In other cases, a woman who is independently gether suggestively. Observed in the 1920s, this ritual
wealthy and powerful takes a wife to establish her behavior was described in biased terms as an imita-
own family and compound, of which she is the tion of sexual intercourse, its meaning unclear to
head. The woman-husband chooses a male con- the anthropologist, who thought it might be sym-
sort for her wife, and all resulting children belong bolic of marital relations or female sexuality. Simi-
to her and inherit her wealth. Although these rela- lar homoerotic play in ritual dances was noted for
tionships are not necessarily sexual relationships, women in the nearby Bismarck Archipelago.
some argue that, at least for the Fon of Benin, given
the presence of female same-sex practices there, Adolescent Sex Play
woman-marriages include sexual relations. In dis- Engaging in sex play with members of ones own
cussing woman-marriage in East Africa, Obbo sex during adolescence may be a common human
(1976) hinted at the possibility of sexual relations phenomenon, but for girls it is more typical (or vis-
by stating that some women may find woman- ible) in societies in which virginity is not given heavy
marriage more compatible because they cannot lead weight. Children and adolescents of the egalitarian
satisfying lives in a heterosexual marriage. Lack- !Kung San of the Kalahari Desert of southern Af-
ing the voices of the women themselves, however, rica did engage in homosexual play. Few !Kung now
it remains conjecture whether these women have live their nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle, having
sexual relations with each other. been forced to settle in one place by colonial au-
thorities, but one !Kung woman, Nisa, recounted a
Ritual Practices life history that shed new light on adolescent sexual
Aboriginal Australian customs provide one of the few practices (Shostak 1981). !Kung adults insisted that
examples of ritual lesbian practices, which refers to they disapproved of childhood sex play, but, when
sexual or erotic movements or performances between children played in their mock villages or in the bush,
two women during rituals or ceremonies. Among the they experimented sexually. Nisa watched older girls
aborigines, young girls were initiated into their adult play sexually with each other and then did the same
roles at first menstruation through a process of train- with her girlfriends as she approached adolescence.
ing and ritual that produced a girls social identity. The girls would put saliva on their hands, rub it on
Initiation ceremonies, which conveyed a number of their genitals, and touch genitals. As the girls got
messages about land, kinship, and social action, in- older, they started playing sexually with boys, and
cluded homoerotic and heteroerotic play. This sexual all eventually married. But these girls often main-
play was determined by the kinship and age of the tained strong and loyal friendships throughout their
women and the initiates. Early anthropologists, who lifetimes, even after marriage.
seemed reluctant to discuss this aspect of ritual per- Other indigenous cultures in which anthropolo-
formances, described the movements of the women gists reported that girls played together sexually
dancers as sexually suggestive, leading to simulated included Australian aborigines; some native North
intercourse. They insisted that the intent of this ac- American groups; the Fon of West Africa; the
tion was to ensure heterosexual success (getting or Mehinaku, a Brazilian Indian group; the peoples

I N D I G E N O U S C U LT U R E S 395
 of the Marquesas Islands and Samoa in Polynesia; in Indonesia and toms in Thailand, these butches or
I and the Alor in Indonesia. transgender females act and dress like men and are
sexually involved with women who maintain the
Transgender Practices customary feminine gender for their cultures. The
In many indigenous cultures in which the gender feminine partners are usually bisexual and may have
system is predicated on two sexes, each with dis- sexual relationships with men as well. Tomboys are
tinct roles, tasks, and behaviors, transgender females not generally accepted by Indonesians; heavy pres-
live as social men and have sexual relations with sure is brought to bear on females to fulfill family
women. A wide range of practices fall under this obligations through marriage, forcing many tom-
category, from the butch, to the ritual transformer, boys to migrate to urban areas, where they can live
to the two-spirit, but all derive primarily from the anonymously with their feminine partners. In the
relation between gender, sexuality, and personhood. Philippines, the tomboy, or lakin-on, of the Negros
The sexual division of labor, the importance of kin- Islands are said to be women with masculine physi-
ship and family to the life of the community, and a cal characteristics who do tasks primarily regarded
rigid gender hierarchy act as barriers to individuals as mens work and love only women.
who fall outside the norms of appropriate gender. The relation between gender and sexuality is one
Societies with rigid gender systems force of the keys to the study of lesbianism in indigenous
nonconforming individuals to see themselves as be- cultures. Where gender is rigidly hierarchical, some
longing to the other gender. In these societies, mas- cultures do not construct female same-sex relations
culinity and erotic attraction to women are con- as sexual or legitimate, particularly in patriarchal
structed as mens behavior. The inability to imagine cultures. The great majority of cases of intimate
other models creates the possibility in such cultures friendships between women occur in indigenous
of both butch and transgender behavior. cultures where women have greater control over their
Anthropological accounts of indigenous cultures sexuality. The data suggest that women engage in a
with female transgenders are less frequent than those wide range of affective and intimate sexual relations
with male transgenders, probably owing to the with each other. Through these relationships, they
greater constraints on womens sexuality in male- construct meaningful social connections that extend
dominant cultures or their greater significance to the range of kin and family beyond the heterosexual
kin groups and families. According to reports from matrix. Evelyn Blackwood
the 1800s and early 1900s, transgender females were
officially acknowledged and respected among some Bibliography
native North American groups and in two north- Blackwood, Beatrice. Both Sides of Buka Passage.
east Siberian cultures. Among the Chukchi and the Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon, 1935.
Korak of Siberia, the spiritual potency of gender Blackwood, Evelyn. Sexuality and Gender in Cer-
meant that those who ritually transformed them- tain Native American Tribes: The Case of
selves into the other gender became the most pow- CrossGender Females. Signs: Journal of Women
erful shamans or healers. Among the Chukchi, fe- in Culture and Society 10:1 (1984), 2742.
male shamans who became men were called qa Blackwood, Evelyn, and Saskia E.Wieringa, eds.
cikicheca (similar to a man). Such a transformed Female Desires: Same-Sex Relations and
female could marry a woman by going through the Transgender Practices Across Cultures. New
customary rites of marriage. If they wanted to have York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
children, they entered into a relationship with a man. Evans-Pritchard, E.E. Sexual Inversion Among the
Children resulting from that union were considered Azande. American Anthropologist 72:6
the transformed shamans lawful children. (1970), 14281434.
In Southeast Asia, a number of cultures have Gay, Judith. Mummies and Babies and Friends
produced a transgender category in which females and Lovers in Lesotho. In The Many Faces of
who act masculine and are attracted to women ap- Homosexuality: Anthropological Approaches to
propriate the male gender. In these cultures, sexual- Homosexual Behavior. Ed. Evelyn Blackwood.
ity is heavily embedded in rigid gender systems, forc- New York: Harrington Park, 1986, pp. 97116.
ing same-sex couples to rely on, or draw from, domi- Hall, Lisa Kahaleole Chang, and J.Kehaulani
nant cultural images of masculinity and femininity Kauanui. Same-Sex Sexuality in Pacific Litera-
to make sense of their relationship. Called tomboys ture. Amerasia Journal 20:1 (1994), 7581.

396 I N D I G E N O U S C U LT U R E S
Hart, Donn V. The Cebuano Bayot and Lakin-On. wax. Male transvestism was, and still, is common
In Oceanic Homosexualities. Ed. Stephen Murray. in many places in the archipelago, notably on Java.
New York: Garland, 1992, pp. 193230. In east Java, cross-dressing women were referred to
Lorde, Audre. Zami, A New Spelling of My Name. by the same name as cross-dressing and
Watertown, Mass.: Persephone, 1982. transgendered men (wandu in Javanese or band in
Obbo, Christine. Dominant Male Ideology and Malay). Colonial sources also reveal the existence
Female Options: Three East African Case Stud- of womens same-sex relations among the ladies in
ies. Africa 46 (1976), 371389. the royal courts of central Java. The cross-dressing
Shostak, Marjorie. Nisa: The Life and Words of a female soldiers at the courts, called Javanese Ama-
!Kung Woman. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard zons in colonial sources, likewise might have en-
University Press, 1981. gaged in sexual relations with each other.
Smith, M.G. Kinship and Community in Carriacou. There are few historical inscriptions in the tem-
New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1962. ples of Java of womens same-sex activities. On
the base of the central Javanese Buddhist temple
See also Anthropology; Bisexuality; Butch-Femme; of Borobudur, some scenes depict womens sexual
Caribbean; China; Colonialism; Gender; Indone- activities, but the context is not very clear. This
sia; Lesotho; Native Americans; Pacific Islands; Hidden Foot was covered again after the reno-
Philippines; South Africa; Thailand; Tomboy; vation of the temple. References to womens same-
Transgender; Two-Spirit sex activities in the rich old Javanese literature are
likewise scarce and open to various interpretations.
This historical silence on womens erotic friend-
Indonesia ships and same-sex activities was prepetuated
Sprawling archipelago-nation of great cultural and throughout the twentieth century. Indonesian women
linguistic diversity. With close to 200 million in- are supposed to be meek and sexually passive. Women
habitants, Indonesia is the fourth most populous who transgress the boundaries of this moral code of
nation on Earth and the largest Islamic state. Only conduct are socially marginalized. Although the term
in the nineteenth century under Dutch colonial rule band is still used both for a butch lesbian as for a
did the country become united. This process was cross-dressing man, the gendered implications are very
accelerated in the early twentieth century by a grow- different. Male transvestites have found a niche in
ing nationalist movement, which propagated the society in which they can carry out certain occupa-
use of a national language, and Islamic revivalism. tions (hairdressing, working in beauty salons, or pros-
The national revolution brought Indonesia its hard- titution), and in several cities there are large associa-
won independence in 1949. Nationalist sentiments tions of these men. Masculine lesbian women are
continued to play a major role, culminating in the ostracized. Occasionally receiving sensationalist press
invasion of East Timor in 1975. In 1965, a revolt attention, lesbianism is generally regarded as a de-
of leftist officers was followed by a wave of propa- viant form of sexuality. It is commonly associated
ganda against the strong Communist Party, in with other forms of unacceptable behavior by women,
which members of the Communist womens move- such as prostitution, night life, and drug addiction,
ment were accused of having castrated and helped and, in general, with a decadent, Westernized life-
murder the countrys top military leaders. In the style. There have been cases reported of women who
campaign that followed, probably half a million were sent to psychiatric hospitals or who received
people were killed, and General Suharto (1921) prison sentences for loving other women. The gov-
rose to power. Suhartos path to development was ernment actively condemns lesbian women as against
built on a combination of ruthless capitalist growth, the national culture.
military prowess, and womens subordination. Yet women-loving-women in Indonesia carve out
Ethnographic historical sources reveal a wide their own spaces. Most of them try to avoid the
variety of same-sex relations among men. Far less label lesbian, out of fear of being considered men-
mention is made of womens same-sex relations. In tally ill or delinquent. There are few public spaces
Aceh, in northern Sumatra, as well as on the island where they can meet, as gay men can. One possibil-
of Bali, it is reported that women used dildoes made ity is the ladies night, in which several disco-
of wax to please each other, while Dayak women in theques offer free access to women. Upper-class
Kalimantan preferred a combination of wood and women meet in the privacy of their homes, while

INDONESIA 397
 certain groups of lower-class women meet at eating tional nongovernmental organizations (NGOs; the
I stalls or shopping malls. The most visible lesbi-
ans are the butch-femme couples, but there are many
international equivalent of a U.S. nonprofit organi-
zation) are often in a privileged position with re-
other ways in which women express their love for gard to class and/or race, having either the individual
each other. Some internationally oriented women means to travel or having a professional position in
with a command of English have joined meetings of an international organization that sends people to
the Asian Lesbian Network. Lesbian women have attend international conferences or meetings. It is
made several attempts to organize, either within rare that lesbians involved in international work,
some of the feminist organizations that have emerged even from developing countries, would come from
or outside. For some time in the early 1990s a small a lower- or working-class background or a nonurban
group of lesbian women, Chandra Kirana (Kirana area, or would not speak English (the language that
the Shining One), published a bulletin called Gaya dominates most international conferences). On the
Lestari (Lesbian Style). Saskia E.Wieringa other hand, lesbian activists working on a local level
are more likely to come from a wider range of class
Bibliography and racial backgrounds. This limited representation
Blackwood, Evelyn, and Saskia E.Wieringa, eds. is a crucial factor in assessing the role and utility of
Female Desires: Same-Sex Relations and international organizations for lesbian individuals
Transgender Practices Across Cultures. New and groups worldwide.
York: Columbia University Press, 1998. Many lesbian workshops, caucuses, and meet-
ings have been held since the 1970s at international
See also Asian Lesbian Network gatherings such as health conferences, U.N. con-
ferences for NGOs, feminist gatherings, the Gay
Games, and human rights conferences. Sometimes,
International Organizations attempts have been made to formalize such groups,
Groups of lesbians throughout the world fighting but few have succeeded in a structured fashion.
for rights, organizing social activities, doing re- Nonetheless, such contacts and interactions are
search, playing sports, sharing artistic contribu- extremely useful and important for ongoing work,
tions, business networking, and many other activi- the sharing of strategies, support, and even advo-
ties. Such groups are often marginalized within their cacy when someones life has been in danger, not
countries, sometimes practically underground and to mention the long-lasting friendships built.
too often severely underresourced. These groups
usually are focused on the women in their local Lesbian-Only Organizations
communities; sometimes they are national in scope. As of the late 1990s, there was only one interna-
Rarely are they international, in the sense of a few tional organization in the world that focused on
or more countries. Some international organiza- lesbians exclusively and attempted to include les-
tions attempt to be global in scope; others, regional bians from the entire world: the International Les-
or subregional. Still others call themselves interna- bian Information Service (ILIS). ILIS was formed
tional when they are, in fact, predominantly of one in the late 1970s by a number of women who re-
nation but include a handful of members from portedly were upset by the sexism and lack of les-
another country. When determining what interna- bian representation in the International Gay Asso-
tional means to an organization, it is important to ciation (now the International Lesbian and Gay
consider who is representing whom, how decisions Association or ILGA). ILIS is located in the Neth-
are made, and how the group is composed. erlands, where a group of dedicated women (all
volunteers) have produced a newsletter titled ILIS
International Networking since 1984 in English and Spanish, containing cur-
Most of the connections that develop among and rent news and information from lesbians around
between lesbian organizations or individuals from the world. The group maintains contacts with les-
different countries are informal in naturemeeting bians from more than sixty countries. In 1986, ILIS
through friends, travel, conferences or, increasingly, held its first and only international conference, in
on the Internet. This unorganized, organic connect- Geneva, Switzerland; approximately two hundred
ing is important and useful for lesbians interested in lesbians from about forty countries participated.
international work. Lesbians involved in interna- Although the conference was disrupted by issues

398 INDONESIA
of racism and militarism, regional efforts were lesbian issues. The oldest such group is the Inter-
launched, and many contacts were made among national Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA),
key lesbian activists who have continued organiz- which was formed in 1978 as the International Gay
ing in the movement. At least two organizations Association. ILGA is a federation composed (as of
were formed from the inspiration of this confer- 1998) of approximately three hundred organiza-
enceone in Israel and another in the former Yu- tions, which holds a world conference for its mem-
goslavia. ILIS has maintained its modest goals (with bers every two years and distributes an English-
a very modest budget) of increasing communica- language bulletin approximately five times per year
tion and information about lesbians worldwide and via its administrative office in Brussels, Belgium.
strategically participating in certain international In 1997, ILGA changed its structure from numer-
events, such as the 1995 United Nations World ous secretariat positions held by member groups
Conference on Women in Beijing, China, and the to an executive board of individuals from various
Gay Games. regions of the world and two secretaries-general
The other lesbian-only ongoing international that govern the organization between world con-
groups are regional in scope and include the Asian ferences. The organization maintains a volunteer
Lesbian Network (ALN) and the Encuentros de Womens Secretariat that is charged with keeping
Lesbianas Feministas, conferences that are organ- lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered womens is-
ized regularly for lesbians living in Latin America sues active in the ILGA. With no paid staff, the
and the Caribbean. The Asian Lesbian Network, organization maintains an active presence on the
formed in 1991 after the first Asian lesbian confer- Internet.
ence in Thailand, is a loose network of lesbians The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights
from more than ten Asian countries, as well as Commission (IGLHRC) is a U.S.-based organization
Asian lesbians living outside Asia. The network that works on human rights abuses worldwide on
holds biannual conferences and, in the late 1990s, the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and
was the process of formalizing its constitution, HIV status. IGLHRC was formed in 1991 to bridge
membership criteria, and new structure. the gap between the mainstream human rights move-
The Encuentros de Lesbianas Feministas have ment and the growing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
been held approximately every three years since transgender movements worldwide. With twelve staff
1987 in conjunction with an annual feminist con- members and offices in New York City and San Fran-
ference for Latin America and the Caribbean. Les- cisco, California, IGLHRC monitors, documents, and
bians have been meeting at the Encuentros mobilizes response to human rights violations in part-
Feministas since the early 1980s and continue to nership with thousands of grass-roots organizations
meet even if the separate lesbian conference is not in more than 120 countries. The organization pro-
on for that year. There is no formal organization duces regular action alerts in three languages, mobi-
or network that hosts this conference, which ro- lizing response to urgent situations that need inter-
tates from year to year. national attention. IGLHRC also provides support
Other geographic regions have attempted to to asylum seekers; offers technical assistance to grass-
form such networks, or international organizations, roots lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other
or conferences, but only the Latin American and sexual-minority groups in developing countries; and
Asian regions have been able to successfully con- produces human rights reports. IGLHRC was instru-
tinue such institutions on a sustainable basis. On mental in ensuring visible, global lesbian participa-
the other hand, national lesbian conferences have tion in the 1995 United Nations World Conference
been plentiful in numerous countries, including on Women in Beijing and specifically works on les-
Israel, the United States, the Philippines, Brazil, and bian issues within the broader struggle to view sexu-
Chile. Often, women from neighboring countries ality as a human right.
will attend a national meeting due to a dearth of The International Gay and Lesbian Youth Or-
such opportunities in their own country. ganization (IGLYO), formerly the Union of Gay
and Lesbian Youth, has been functioning since
Lesbians in Mixed Organizations 1983 as a loose group of lesbian and gay youth
There are a few other international organizations activists. The group, headquartered in Amsterdam,
that, as mixed groups of lesbian, gay, and some- the Netherlands, holds an annual conference and
times bisexual and transgendered people, work on produces a newsletter, Speak Out. The Federation

I N T E R N AT I O N A L O R G A N I Z AT I O N S 399
 of Gay Games, headquartered in Oakland, Cali- man Rights Foundation, and the Dutch govern-
I fornia, is another international institution; it has
been holding Olympic-style sports and culture
ment, among others. Julie Dorf

events every four years since 1982. The purpose of Bibliography

the federation is to foster and augment the self- Dorf, Julie, and Gloria Cariega Prez. Discrimina-
respect, dignity, and pride of gay men and lesbians tion and the Tolerance of Difference: Interna-
throughout the world and to inspire the respect tional Lesbian Human Rights. In Womens
and understanding of the nongay world. Rights, Human Rights: International Feminist
Numerous religious organizations are becom- Perspectives. Ed. Julie Peters and Andrea Wolper.
ing more international. The World Congress of Gay New York: Routledge, 1995, pp. 324334.
and Lesbian Jewish Organizations (London, United ILIS Newsletter, International Lesbian Information
Kingdom) had a membership nearing three hun- Service, Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 6870, 1012
dred by the late 1990s; it holds annual conferences, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
distributes its newsletter among members, and ad- Reinfelder, Monika, ed. Amazon to Zami: Towards
vocates for greater inclusion of lesbian and gay is- a Global Lesbian Feminism. London: Cassell,
sues in the mainstream Jewish international insti-
1996.
tutions. The Universal Fellowship of Metropoli-
Rosenbloom, Rachel, ed. Unspoken Rules: Sexual
tan Community Churches, founded in 1968, had
Orientation and Womens Human Rights. Lon-
more than three hundred churches, primarily in
don: Cassell, 1996.
the United States, in the late 1990s, and at least
thirty churches in other countries.
See also Asian Lesbian Network; Associations and
Also in the late 1990s, there were about one hun-
Organizations; Encuentros de Lesbianas; Gay
dred international lesbian and gay film festivals held
Games; Human Rights
around the world on a regular basis. While they fea-
ture films and videos from numerous countries, they
usually cater to a local or national audience. Film
festivals, like Pride marches, are an unsurpassable Invisibility
opportunity to bring together large numbers of peo- As defined by Websters Third Edition International
ple to witness positive images of themselves on the Dictionary: intangible, unseen, inaccessible to
screen and in the streets, particularly given the few view; out of sight, of such small size or unobtru-
opportunities for lesbian visibility. sive quality as to be hardly noticeable.
There are a few organizations that cater to bi- To be visible as a lesbian requires that a woman
sexuals and transgendered people that are becom- is known to others as such. This also presupposes
ing more international, such as Female-To-Male being able to participate in an open manner as a
International (San Francisco, California). There is lesbian and being included in all areas of life as a
also an international bisexual conference that is lesbian. Throughout history, this has not been the
held every three years, although there is no formal experience of women who define themselves as les-
international organization. These are primarily bian. They have lived unseen and largely unnoticed,
European or U.S. dominated but also include a few unacknowledged in their relationships, living se-
members from other parts of the world. cret, stigmatized lives. In public spheres, women
Some nonlesbian and nongay international or- in general and lesbians in particular have rarely
ganizations could do constructive work on lesbian been clearly and generally acknowledged for their
issues, such as Amnesty International, the Interna- role in society. Lesbians, along with gay men, may
tional Womens League for Peace and Freedom, be rendered invisible when the media ignores ma-
and Planned Parenthood International; however, jor public events, such as the 1993 march on Wash-
most of these have historically been reluctant or ington, D.C., or the Gay Games (athletic competi-
slow to include lesbian issues in their missions. tions held every four years).
Although most lesbian organizations lack suf- Attempts to identify lesbians based on appear-
ficient resources to be able to fulfill their missions, ance or measurements of physical characteristics
there are an increasing number of funding sources have been unsuccessful. Early medical research at-
for lesbian organizations internationally. These in- tempted to prove that lesbians were anatomically
clude the Astraea Foundations International Fund, more like men than women, but significant differ-
the Global Fund for Women, the European Hu- ences between heterosexual and lesbian women

400 I N T E R N AT I O N A L O R G A N I Z AT I O N S
have not yet been found. More recent research on examples, may discuss these issues from very differ-
genetic causes of homosexuality has, as of the late ent perspectives than do lesbians in western Euro-
1990s, included very few women. pean or North American countries. Experiences that
Laws against sexual activity by homosexuals usu- mark a woman as a lesbian in one culture may not
ally describe behaviors between men. Often, the laws do so in another. Hence, cultural differences may
were not enforced against women, unless they were render lesbians invisible to one another.
women who, by cross-dressing, took on more mas- After decades of neglect, in the late twentieth
culine appearance and perogatives. In 1885, when century, art, music, literature, videos, television, and
the Criminal Law Amendment was passed in Eng- fiction all began to portray lesbians more fre-
quently. Increasing numbers of lesbian perform-
land, Queen Victoria (18191901) refused to sign it
ersfrom k.d. lang (1961) and Melissa Etheridge
until all references to women were removed. She did
(1961) in music to Ellen DeGeneres (1958) in
not believe female homosexuality existed and did not
televisionrevealed themselves to be lesbians. The
wish to blemish women by referring to them in this
analyses of these representations are extensive in
law about public or private homosexual acts.
both academic and nonacademic works, focusing
Invisibility is a complex issue, compounded by in part on the language about and images of lesbi-
lack of agreement even on how to define lesbians ans. Even within academic circles, there has been a
and how to determine who is one. Agreement on strenuous debate over whether queer theory also
lesbianism as biologically determined or chosen does renders lesbians invisible.
not exist. No one knows how many women have Social structures, systems, and services are sel-
sexual relationships with other women and, of those, dom inclusive of lesbians, or, if they are, it is sel-
how many define themselves as lesbians or how they dom readily apparent. For example, when a
decide. Women who have sex with women but do counseling center for lesbians and gay men was
not define themselves as lesbian may say, I am not incorporated into a family-therapy agency, staff
a lesbian, but my life partner is a woman. Two were told not to display their lesbian and gay post-
women who have a close relationship and share liv- ers where the general public could see them. In this
ing arrangements may seem to others to be lesbians way, invisibility is maintained.
but not see themselves as other than heterosexual. Self-identification as a lesbian varies from in-
Invisibility may also be a consequence of the use stance to instance, with women visible in different
of the words gay or homosexual, which are gen- ways: less at their childrens school, perhaps, and
erally taken to mean male homosexual. More spe- more at home with other lesbians. In most groups
cifically, these words are taken to refer to representa- of lesbians, there are different comfort levels with
tives of the dominant culture: white, able-bodied, visibility and invisibility. Frequently, this is a con-
tentious issue in lesbian families. Visibility requires
upper-middle-class men. They exclude lesbian women
a knowledge and an acceptance of ones identity and
in general. They also render invisible women of color,
a decision to share that. It also involves truth tell-
the physically challenged, and other groups, all of
ing, demanding and occupying a place in the domi-
whom have lesbian members. Similarly, the words
nant culture, and rejecting homophobia and secrecy.
woman and feminist are typically assumed to
Elizabeth L.Massiah
refer to heterosexual women. Hence, lesbians also
remain invisible within the feminist community. Bibliography
The image of the lesbian is seldom portrayed Klaich, Dolores. Woman+Woman: Attitudes To-
publicly. When it is, it is usually that of the butch wards Lesbianism. New York: Simon and
or more apparently lower-class, male-identified Schuster, 1974.
woman. The more traditionally feminine lesbian is Roof, Judith. Come As You Are: Sexuality and
seldom publicly identified. These femmes are Narrative. New York: Columbia University
often derided as lipstick lesbians and criticized Press, 1996.
as not real lesbians. There is little discussion or Walker, Lisa M. How to Recognize a Lesbian: The
representation of butch-butch or femme-femme Cultural Politics of Looking Like What You
relationships, again rendering invisible aspects of Are. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and
womens intimate experiences with other women. Society 18:4 (Summer 1993), 866890.
This discussion also varies in meaning and in
emphasis in different cultures and countries. Lesbi- See also Closet; Heterosexism; Homophobia; Iden-
ans in China and in Turkey, to give two disparate tity; Style

INVISIBILITY 401
 Ireland women (and, to some extent, the literary women
I Island located at the northwest extremity of Europe;
population, 3.5 million; divided into the Republic
whose privileged backgrounds made it possible for
them to lead the lives they did) are, to many con-
of Ireland and Northern Ireland, the latter adminis- temporary lesbians, only fantasy. In the attempt to
tratively part of the United Kingdom. Historically, fashion what American writer Audre Lorde (1934
Ireland has struggled against the colonial domina- 1992) calls a mythography for Irish lesbians, they
tion of its more powerful neighbor, England. The are crucial. But in terms of activism or the every-
Irish Republic won its freedom in 1921. At the end day lives of lesbians in Ireland, it is the work of
of the twentieth century, Ireland remained a small, more recent and collective heroines that has devel-
divided, postcolonial society whose values are domi- oped the lesbian community.
nated by a misogynist Catholic Church. Work in the gay community in Ireland during
Two-thirds of married women in Ireland do not the 1970s and 1980s focused on law reformspe-
work outside the home. Divorce was unavailable until cifically, the decriminalization of male homosexual-
1996, and abortion is prohibited by the constitution. ity. Paradoxical though it may seem, the very fact
Male homosexuality was decriminalized in 1993, that lesbians were not criminalized in the first
establishing an equal age of consent with
instance points to their invisibility in Irish society.
heterosexuals, yet harassment and constructive dis-
The lack of a political and media focus of attention
missal of lesbians and gays in the workplace contin-
in the 1980s left lesbians without a public identity.
ued. Numerous incidents of gay bashing have been
Many lesbians worked with gay activists on law re-
documented. AIDS claims many lives, and homopho-
form, while others joined feminist organizations and
bia is an enduring part of the fabric of the culture.
the antinuclear movement. Lesbians have been part
Despite these facts, lesbians have been actively
of every political campaign for womens liberation
engaged in constructing a lesbian tradition in Ire-
in Ireland; they have worked for access to contra-
land. One of the places lesbians look to for evidence
ception and abortion information and in the divorce
of a previous lesbian existence is Irish literature. Ro-
mantic friendships, androgynous heroines, and lobby; they also work in rape crisis centers, trade
women passing as men can all be found in the work unions, and environmental groups and have con-
of writers such as George Egerton (pseud, of Mary tributed to socialist and nationalist platforms, cam-
Chavelita Dunne [18591945]), Eva Gore-Booth paigns against racism, and disability issues. In the
(18701926), Martin Ross (pseud. of Edith 1990s, the focus of social activism narrowed to us-
Somerville [18581949] and Violet Martin [1862 ing European Unionand government-sponsored
1915]), Elizabeth Bowen (18991972), and Kate projectssuch as the Lesbian Education and Aware-
OBrien (18971974). From Egertons androgynous ness (LEA) project for training community organiz-
heroines of the nineteenth century to OBriens les- ersto provide facilities for lesbians and target
bian realist novel As Music and Splendour (1958), homophobia in the wider community.
there are writers imagining a future for women- At the end of the 1990s, lesbian activism in Ire-
lovingwomen. This tradition is continued in the con- land was at an all-time high. A cohesive support
temporary work of writers such as Emma Donoghue network of Lesbian (Help)Line groups (a collective
and Mary Dorcey. Lesbian experiences are validated organization that operates a countrywide switch-
by this literature and imaginations charged by fig- board) around the countryLesbians Organising
ures such as Egertons sketch, in her short story The Together, the Lesbian Health Network in Cork, and
Spell of the White Elf (1893), of a tall woman with the LEA projectall facilitate the development of
very square shouldersthe flame flickers over the the community. The Cork Womens Fun Weekend,
patent-leather of her neat low-heeled boot, and strikes which began in 1984, continued to thrive, as did
a spark from the pin of her tie. womens weekends in Dublin and Belfast. Talamh
Other historical figures in an imagined Irish les- na mBan (Womens Land) engaged in fund-raising
bian tradition include the early-eighteenth-century to buy land for the annual womens summer camps.
pirate Anne Bonney, whose cross-dressing, daring The study of lesbian experience began to emerge
exploits, and affection for her companion pirate from the excellent work done through womens
Mary Read make her one of the legendary figures studies courses around the country, ably supported
from the Irish past. Equally legendary are the La- by the annual Lesbian Lives conference run by the
dies of Llangollen, two Irish cousins who eloped Womens Education Research and Resource Centre
to Wales in 1778. However, the lives of these at University College, Dublin.

402 IRELAND
 Many questions need to be addressed. Few les- Islam
bians in Ireland have successfully gained custody Youngest of the three Abrahamic religions (also
of their children in the courts. In a country in which including Judaism and Christianity) professed by
womans place in the family is constitutionally en- Muhammad in A.D. 610. The term Islam signi-
shrined, lesbian parenting is just one of the chal- fies peace that ensues from complete surrender or
lenges posed by redefinitions of the family. Other submission to God.
questions being raised are issues of (un)employment
and poverty, problems surrounding alcohol and Characteristics
substance abuse, and differing lesbian identities The central tenant of Islam is: There is no god but
in an Irish social context. In a divided country,
God andMuhammad is the Prophet of God. Any
cross-border organization of Lesbian (Help)Lines
one who publicly proclaims this is considered a
is one way of enabling North-South cooperation.
Muslim. The most authoritative texts for Muslims
In 1989, the Cork-Belfast Lesbian Line Exchange
are the Quran, a collection of verses proclaimed by
won a Co-Operation North prize for its efforts. At
Muhammad (ca. A.D. 570632) as revelation from
the end of the 1990s, there was no lesbian-owned
venue in Ireland or any lesbian-only space that God over a period of twenty-two years, and the
operated for more than one night a week. Hadith literature, a record of the practice of the
On the other hand, the growing number of Prophet. In addition, Islam accepts the Bible as re-
nonIrish lesbians who choose to make their homes vealed scripture and recognizes all of the biblical
in Ireland makes a positive statement about the patriarchs as its own beginning with Adam. Unlike
kind of lesbian community that exists. Many the Shii sect, there is no clergy in Sunni Islam, the
women move to rural parts of the west coast, which religion of the majority of Muslims. Scholars opin-
extends the urban networks. The development of ions based on the authoritative texts of Islam are of
lesbian culture and community through publish- prime importance, and, when scholarly opinion dif-
ing and literature, music and art (Dublins lesbian fers, a Muslim is free to accept any one of them.
and gay choir, Gloria, for example), and educa- Most of what is called Islamic law (shariah) is un-
tion, social work, and therapeutic healing indicates enforceable, being rather a manual for personal con-
the energetic and constructive work of lesbians in duct for one who would practice Islam.
contemporary Ireland. Tina O Toole Although Islam originated in Arabia, and the
majority of Arabs are Muslims, Arabs form only
Bibliography 20 percent of the Muslim population. Muslims
Bidwell, Emma. Where Have All the Dungarees populate vast areas of Africa and Asia. After Chris-
Gone? Irish Journal of Feminist Studies 2:1 tianity, Islam has the largest number of adherents,
(1997), 5562.
and it is the fastest-growing religion in the world.
Dublin Lesbian and Gay Mens Collectives. Out for
A bloc of countries covering North and Central
Ourselves: The Lives of Irish Lesbians and Gay
Africa, the Middle East, and Central and South
Men. Dublin: Womens Community Press, 1986.
Asia with a Muslim majority are termed the Mus-
Irish Council for Civil Liberties. Equality Now for
lim world. There are some visible and tangible
Lesbians and Gay Men. Dublin: Irish Council
for Civil Liberties, 1990. cultural similarities among these countries. How-
OCarroll, Ide, and Eoin Collins. Lesbian and Gay ever, local languages, cultures, and customs sur-
Visions of Ireland. London: Cassell, 1995. viving from before the spread of Islam in these
OLeary, Mary. Lesbianism and Feminism: A Per- countries define the differences among the various
sonal Reflection. Irish Journal of Feminist parts of the Muslim world.
Studies 2:1 (1997), 6366.
Rose, Kieran. Diverse Communities: The Evolu- Attitudes Toward Homosexuality
tion of Lesbian and Gay Politics in Ireland. Muslim cultural attitudes toward homosexuality
Cork: Cork University Press, 1994. are equivocal. In poetry and literature, it may be
Walshe, Eibhear. Sex, Nation and Dissent. Cork: celebrated. In biography, it is respected as an inti-
Cork University Press, 1996. mate and important part of the subjects private
life. In Sufi (mystical) lore, it is a common occur-
See also Androgyny; Bowen, Elizabeth; rence; in medical lore, a curable disease; and in Is-
CrossDressing; Ladies of Llangollen; Lorde, Audre; lamic authoritative texts, abominable and punish-
OBrien, Kate; Romantic Friendship able behavior. From the point of view of orthodox

ISLAM 403
 religion, the term Muslim lesbian would be an yet untapped source for the construction of a rich
I oxymoron, as one cannot identify with both at the
same time.
chapter in the history of Muslim lesbians. There are
references to the Andalusian princess Walladah bint
In the Muslim world, which covers a multitude of al-Mustakfi (d. 1087), called the Sappho of Spain,
linguistic and cultural groups, there are several ver- in the works of Al-Maqarri (seventeenth century),
nacular terms that signify female homoeroticism or prinicipal authority for the literary history of Mus-
homosexuality that are not known outside the par- lim Spain. About twenty lines of Walladahs amo-
ticular local cultures. In other indigenous or regional rous poetic exchanges with the great poet Ibn Zaydun
cultures, the emotion and expression of female (10031071) are preserved. There are no known
homoeroticism remains unnamed due to the severity records of her homoerotic poetry, however.
of sexual suppression or reprisals for such behavior. In contemporary literature by Muslim women, an
Among the Urdu-speaking Muslims of northern In- implicit, but undeniable, theme of female
dia, references to female homosexuality are found in homoeroticism can be found in the short stories of
what is considered erotica or pornographic literature the Egyptian Alfa Rifcat (n.d.) and the Pakistani
presumably authored by men. Although this poetry Khalida Hussain (1938). It is not clear whether these
is not of literary significance, it nonetheless gives a authors, who write from within the protected and
name for female homosexuality: chapti khailna respectable environment of a traditional Muslim
(loosely translated as playing flat). In a standard family, are aware of the undercurrent of female
modern Arabic commentary of the Quran (Surah IV, homoerotic engagement in some of their writing. In
verse 15), the term sihaq (two surfaces grinding the provocative fiction of the acclaimed Indian Ismat
against each other) is used to refer to female homo- Chughtai (1915), one finds a frank exploration of
sexuality. There may be several other vernacular Ara- both hetero- and homosexuality. No study of her
bic terms for sihaq. The fact that Muslim religious work focusing specifically on the theme of female
(text-based) culture severely condemns homosexual- homosexuality has been undertaken.
ity, and that most Muslims live within oral, nonliteral, While there is clear textual evidence in the
gender-segregated, homosocial cultures, makes infor- Quran that supports the immorality and therefore
mation regarding female homosexuality quite inac- the illegality of male homosexual behavior, there
cessible. Among the myriad cultures falling within is no such clear text referring to female homosexual
the Muslim world, there may be long-standing fe- behavior. Surah IV, verses 1516 of the Quran,
male homoerotic cultures passed down from genera- which is cited by some as prohibiting female ho-
tion to generation. There also may be individual cou- mosexual behavior, is, in fact, ambiguous as to the
ples unnamed, secret, and isolated experience of nature of the offense and the gender composition
homoeroticism, and individual feelings that are never of the couple. Whereas in the earliest extant com-
understood or recognized by the individual herself mentaries of the Quran (Ibn Abbas, ca. A.D. 688),
due to the absence of cultural representations and this text is understood to refer to heterosexual cou-
models. As of 1998, no systematic field research had ples, in more recent times, especially in the twenti-
been conducted to gather oral histories of Muslim eth century, the verses have been cited as provid-
lesbians. ing the textual evidence needed to unequivocally
condemn female homosexual behavior.
Literary and Legal Texts A case cited in Shii juristic texts functions simi-
Whereas the religious texts of High Islam have his- larly to fill in the gap created by the silence of the
torically condemned homosexuality, the literary and Quran on the issue of female homosexuality. Hasan
mystical texts have preserved a male homoerotic and ibn Ali (A.D. 624669), Muhammads grandson,
homosexual tradition. The relative dearth of refer- and Jafar (A.D. 700765), Hasan ibn Alis grand-
ences to sihaq in classical Arabo-Muslim literary tra- son, are said to have ruled on the case. It involves a
dition may signify the lack of access to the elite male woman who, subsequent to having sexual inter-
literary circles with the power to preserve texts for course with her husband, engages in sexual activity
posterity. In the kitab al-aghani (The Book of Songs) with a virgin slave, transferring her husbands se-
of the literary historian of the Arabo-Muslim renais- men to her female sexual partner, thus causing her
sance, Abul Farraj al-Isbahani (ca. A.D. 897967), partner to become pregnant with the husbands
there are references to female homoeroticism among child. Both Hasan ibn Ali and Jafar al-Sadiq rule
the court poets and singers. The kitab al-aghani is a that the married woman is to be stoned to death

404 ISLAM
and the virgin slaves dowry is to be taken away, as United Nations after years of struggle between the
she will lose her virginity when she delivers the child. Palestinian Arabs, the Jews, and the British man-
After the child is born, it is to be returned to the date. The Zionist cause gained momentum and
father, and the slave woman is to be flogged. The achieved considerable international legitimacy in the
text prescribes the same punishment for female ho- wake of the Nazi genocide in World War II. After
mosexual acts as is prescribed by Islamic law for the creation of the state, an influx of immigrants
extramarital heterosexual acts. Regardless of doubled the Jewish population from 600,000 to
whether the case is a juristic fiction or an actual more than 1.2 million in less than five years. Many
case, the fact that it is quoted in several Shii texts is of the new immigrants were either Holocaust survi-
a recognition of the reality of female homsexuality vorsmostly Eastern Europeanor Jews from Arab
and a means of condemning and controlling it. countries. The rise of the Jewish nation from the
Within Muslim countries at the end of the twen- ashes of the Nazi genocide and the in-gathering of
tieth century, the public mention of homosexuality the Jewish people are two central elements inform-
is taboo, and, in many places, people perceived as ing Israeli national identity. Israeli identity politics
homosexual are ridiculed and/or persecuted. While never stray far from the issue of national survival.
human rights are a major focus of the political ac-
tion of the progressive forces, and while womens Israeli Gender Construction
rights movements are strong in major metropolitan Israeli lesbian identity can be understood only in the
areas, the rights of homosexuals remain, for the most context of the role gender plays in Israeli society.
part, publicly unspoken and unspeakable, given that Gender, in turn, must be evaluated through the lens
freedom of speech is not guaranteed in most Mus- of social and ethnic background. In spite of the my-
lim countries and that most Muslim governments thology of egalitarianism surrounding the Israeli fe-
use Islam to legitimize their rule. In the writings on male soldier and kibbutz life, Israeli society is rigidly
Muslim women by Muslim feminists, there is no gendered. The pervasive militaristic environment con-
mention of female homosexuality; the subject is structs and depends upon strict gender rolesmen
considered a land mine that could destroy, the are just warriors, and women are beautiful souls.
progress of womens rights and self-determination. In the same vein, sexual identity is clearly demarcated,
On rare occasions, individual Muslims, such as Ismat wherein masculinity and femininity strictly correlate
Chugtai or the Pakistani poet Josh Malihabadi with male and female heterosexuality and biological
(18961982), have stood for individual freedom and sex. The gendered nature of womens role in society
extended it to sexual minorities, protesting their re- is then shaped and exacerbated by the preoccupa-
ligious and cultural condemnation and political per- tion with the propagation of the Jewish people, rais-
secution. Ghazala Anwar ing the importance of fertility and childbearing to
cultish levels. The cult of fertility, in Hazletons
Bibliography (1977) coinage, flourishes in Israels profoundly
Duran, Khalid. Homosexuality and Islam. In heterosexist society: Marriage is an assumed and de-
Homosexuality and World Religions. Ed. Arlene sirable goal, and the family unit is of utmost impor-
Swidler. New York: Macmillan, 1993. tance. Lesbianism, historically perceived as a fore-
Ferne, Elizabeth Warnock, and Bassima Qattan closure on the family unit, generates curiosity, and
Bazirgan. Walladah bint-al Mustakfi: lesbians are largely pitied or mocked.
Andalusian Poet. In Middle Eastern Muslim
Women Speak. Ed. Fernea and Bazirgan. Aus- Gay and Lesbian History
tin: University of Texas Press, 1977. Male homosexuality was criminalized until 1988.
The criminal code did not mention lesbianism, and,
See also Arab Literature, Modern; Egypt while there was less hostility directed at lesbians than
at gay men, the criminal code also contributed to
the general antilesbian atmosphere. After the crea-
Israel tion of the state, the Israeli Parliament held no spe-
Country in the Middle East with a population of cific discussions on the topic of homosexuality. The
approximately five million people, of whom four antisodomy law was carried over from the British
million are Jewish and one million Palestinian Arab. mandate. By the 1950s, the general understanding,
The state of Israel was established in 1948 by the shared by the legislature, the courts, and the police,

ISRAEL 405
 was that this law was not to be enforced. In 1970 less, homophobia continues to control feminist
I 1971, several Parliament members attempted to
overturn the law without success. It would not be
activity, for, although lesbians stood on the front
lines in significant numbers in the womens peace
until 1988 that the Society for the Protection of Per- movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s, an
sonal Rights (SPPR), Israels lesbian, gay, and bi- unspoken code demanded they remain closeted, lest
sexual organization, would successfully spearhead the general public brand women peace activists as
the movement to decriminalize homosexuality. lesbians.
In the early 1970s, lesbians began organizing Another aspect of lesbian life is queer bar cul-
themselves and discussing their isolation in Israeli ture. Until the mid-1990s, there was very little
society. These initial attempts at community organ- crossover between the feminist lesbian community
izing took place within the fledgling feminist com- and lesbian bar culture. This has gradually changed
munity. Community lore suggests that many of the as Israeli lesbians and gay men become more vis-
early feminist activists were either lesbians at the ible in the general public and to one another. Les-
time or came out in future years. However, the femi- bian feminists are exposing themselves to queer
nist community welcomed neither lesbians nor dis- culture, and lesbians not affiliated with the femi-
cussions about lesbianism, for fear that the femi- nist community increasingly take part in the po-
nist movement and feminism itself would be syn- litical and feminist aspects of gay culture. In the
onymous with lesbianism. In 1974, at a feminist 1990s, Israeli gays and lesbians have made signifi-
collective meeting, members, including the lesbian cant strides toward coalition work. Gay Pride cel-
members, voted against starting a lesbian con- ebrations of June 1995 featured a public trial on
sciousness-raising group. Partly as a result of such the issue of lesbian secondparent adoption organ-
attitudes, lesbian feminists organized under- ized by KLaF and cosponsored by SPPR and other
ground activities. In 1976, an informal lesbian civil rights organizations. In effect this event marked
network held regular parties and other activities KLaFs, and the lesbian communitys, coming
to which only lesbians were invited. out event. Two years later, SPPR also came out of
In the spring of the same year, several lesbians the closet when members elected to change the or-
participated in a meeting between SPPR and the few ganizations name and to represent its constituency:
publicly supportive parliament members. The previ- the Association for Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Gay
ous year, one lesbian and eleven gay men had founded Men. These public events came in the wake of sev-
SPPR. Limited participation of lesbians in SPPR has eral important legislative gains. In 1992, sexual
characterized the nature, and determined the direc- orientation was added to the Equal Rights in the
tion, of SPPR since its inception. Despite continued Work Place law. In 1993, the military amended its
involvement in both the lesbian and gay rights move- regulations to prohibit discrimination on the basis
ment and the feminist movement, lesbian feminists of sexual orientation. In 1995, the Israeli Supreme
did not feel represented by, or welcome in, either. For Court recognized lesbian and gay domestic part-
that reason, since 1978 lesbian feminists have estab- nership when it ruled in favor of a gay flight at-
lished a series of groups to address their invisibility tendant who sued for spousal benefits for his lover.
and to fill a social and cultural void. These groups, On an individual basis, Israeli lesbians (and gay
such as KLaF (Kehila Lesbit feministit; Lesbian Femi- men) are slow to take advantage of these political
nist Community), have been increasingly active in the and legislative gains. The personal coming out proc-
urban centers of Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem. ess is made more complicated and frightening by
By the late 1980s, lesbians were acknowledged Israels small size and familial feeling: Coming out
as an integral part of the feminist movement. The publicly is tantamount to coming out to the entire
feminist movement in Tel Aviv gave a voice to, and nation. Subsequently, some would argue that the
a meeting place for, KLaF activities. The feminist vast majority of Israeli lesbians do not participate
center in Haifa, Isha lIsha (Woman to Woman), in public lesbian life.
recognized lesbians in its mandate. Organizers of Nevertheless, 1998 saw an outpour of lesbian
the feminist conferences since the early 1990s in- and gay pride. In May of that year, Dana Interna-
sist on equal representation for lesbians, Palestin- tional, an Israeli male-to-female transgendered
ian women, Ashkenazi Jewish women (of Euro- vocal artist, represented Israel in The Eurovision,
pean descent), and Mizrahi Jewish women (of Mid- an annual European song contest, which she won.
dle Eastern and North African descent). Neverthe- Her selection as the Israeli representative and her

406 ISRAEL
participation generated considerable media atten- sodomy. However, given the lack of clarity in the
tion and public debate. definition of this crime, it is not obvious whether
Within the lesbian community, the issue of hos- these statutes referred to heterosexual or homo-
tility to transgendered persons came to the fore. Dana sexual acts. On the other hand, at the beginning of
Internationals victory largely silenced the disagree- the fifteenth century, Saint Antoninus (13631451)
ments among lesbians, and she was fully embraced made explicit mention of sexuality between women
as a hero by the queer community as well as by many as the eighth of nine kinds of lust, and, at the end
heterosexual secular allies. In June 1998, for the first of the century, the Florentine political and religious
time in Israel and the entire Middle East, the Israeli leader Fra Girolamo Savonarola (14521498) was
queer community took to the streets of Tel Aviv for equally explicit in his condemnation. In 1539,
a Gay Pride march, sponsored by multiple organi- Annibal Caro (15071566), perhaps for the first
zations working in concert. time in the Italian language, used the word
Ruti Kadish tribades of Lesbos; lesbian as a noun appeared
only at the beginning of the twentieth century, first
Bibliography in literary texts. In 1574 in Treviso, women guilty
Freedman, Marcia. Exile in the Promised Land: A of this crime were condemned to be burned at the
Memoir. Ithaca, N.Y.: Firebrand, 1990. stake outside the city gate.
Hazelton, Lesley. Israeli Women: The Reality Be- In the seventeenth century, the French libertine
hind the Myths. New York: Touchstone, 1977. writer Pierre de Bourdeilles (ca. 15401614), ab-
Moore, Tracy. Lesbiot: Israeli Lesbians Talk About bot and lord of Brantme, describing the customs
Sexuality, Feminism, Judaism, and Their Lives. of French courtly women, asserted that these are
New York and London: Cassell, 1995. manners brought from Italy by a highly placed
Safir, Marilyn P., and Barbara Swirski, eds. Call- woman whom I will not mention. But, at the same
ing the Equality Bluff: Women in Israel New time, his contemporary Italian jurists strongly con-
York: Pergamon, 1991. demned this crime.
The women identified as lesbians during this
See also Antisemitism; Judaism; Nazism period included noblewomen, courtesans, and nuns.
In 1626, Benedetta Carlini (15901661), the abbess
of a convent, was sent to prison, where she spent
Italy thirty-five years, for, among other reasons, having
Republic located in southern Europe, with a popu- seduced a novice, Bartolomea Crivelli, assuming for
lation of about 56 million. First unified as a king- this purpose the masculine identity of an angel she
dom in 1861, the written history of the Italian pe- called Splenditello. Others were intellectuals, influ-
ninsula goes back more than two millennia. A hy- enced by the recovery of ancient texts such as those
pothetical lesbian history of Italy might begin with of the philosopher Plato (427?347? B.C.E.).
the presence of the Greek poet Sappho (ca. 600 In the eighteenth century, lesbianism was com-
B.C.E.) on the island of Sicily in 596 B.C.E. and mon among aristocratic women. Turin saw the
continue with references to the sexual behavior of birth of Maria Teresa of Savoia Carignano (1749
Roman courtesans mentioned in classical Latin texts. 1792), who later became princess of Lamballe and
After the decline of the Roman Empire (ca. A.D. Marie Antoinettes (17551793) reputed lover.
476), the Italian peninsula was conquered by dif- Even Maria Carolina, queen of Naples (1752
ferent populations (Arabic and Turkish from the 1814), sister of the beheaded queen of France, had
south, barbarians from northern Europe) and at least one woman lover, Emma Hamilton (1730
split into a number of independent regions, city- 1803), who had been the lover of the British naval
states, and kingdoms, many of which were domi- hero Lord Nelson (17581805). On the other hand,
nated by the papacy and by foreign powers. Infor- in 1739, a woman accused of witchcraft who had
mation about lesbianism is scattered throughout experienced carnal pleasures with another woman
different types of documents. was brought to trial in Reggio Emilia. And in Rome,
a woman who had lived for eight years dressed as
History a man was convicted in 1743.
In the fourteenth century, the statutes of the cities In the nineteenth century, a vulgar satire accused
of Ferrara and Florence condemned women for some Venetian women, several of whom were

I T A LY 407
 Jewish, of the crime of tribadism. During the same Sasha in Virginia Woolfs [18821941] novel
I period, in the isolated mountains of Pollino on the
border between the southern regions of Basilicata
Orlando, 1928), spent part of each year in Flor-
ence. A network of relations existed between for-
and Calabria lived a number of masculine lesbians eign and Italian women, as can be seen from the
called sbraie who, reputedly, were endowed with letters and visits that they exchanged and the com-
magic powers. mon circles that the expatriates frequented.
In 1861, Italy was unified into a single state, and, The work of German sexologists began to in-
in 1889, the articles in the penal code that condemned fluence Italian intellectuals at the end of the nine-
homosexuality (between men) were abolished. As teenth century. In 1883, the first Italian case of
Italy moved into the modern era, it is known that a sexual inversion was described, and it concerned
number of famous artists and feminists engaged in a woman. At the turn of the twentieth century, sci-
same-sex relationships, such as the actress Eleonora entists, criminologists, and anthropologists circu-
Duse (18581924), who had numerous women lov- lated information about abnormal women
ers, including Isadora Duncan (18781927). There through meticulous descriptions of prostitutes,
were strong attachments between numerous feminist schoolgirls, incarcerated women, and madwomen
and published love letters from nurses and students
leaders, including Armida Barelli and Teresa
and transcripts of legal cases involving separations
Pallavicino (both active in the early twentieth cen-
due to the lesbianism of the wife.
tury) and Giacinta Pezzana (18411919) and
Under the Fascist government of Benito Mus-
Alessandra Ravizza (18461915), among others.
solini (19221945), it is known that lesbianism
Italy was a popular destination for foreign
survided in the boarding schools and sports acad-
women, including many who had same-sex lovers,
emies (in Orvieto, for example) and that some
beginning with Queen Christina of Sweden (1626
women were accused of tribadism and condemned
1689), who, after abdicating in 1654, came to live
to internal political exile. Surprisingly, in 1930, at
in Rome (and is buried in Saint Peters Cathedral).
the height of Fascism, Radclyffe Halls The Well
In the nineteenth century, American actress Char- of Loneliness (1928)a book that had been cen-
lotte Cushman (18161876) and her partner, sured in England, a much more liberal country
Emma Stebbins (18151882), along with artists was translated and published in Italy.
Harriet Hosmer (18301908) and Edmonia Lewis
(ca. 1843after 1911), also settled in Rome. Lesbians in Modern Italy
Evangeline Marss Simpson (Whipple) (d. 1930) and Women in Italy voted for the first time in 1946, and
Rose Elizabeth Cleveland ([d. 1918]; sister of the the period after the war was dedicated to the eco-
American president) left the United States in 1910 nomic rebuilding of the newborn republic. Therefore,
for a small Tuscan town, Bagni di Lucca, where in the 1950s and 1960s, the only spaces for women
they are buried in twin tombs. Vernon Lee, pseu- were home and church. The homosexual movement
donym of Violet Page (18561935), an eminent that emerged in the early 1970s did not have a large
Victorian writer, lived in Florence from 1873 to following among lesbians, who preferred to ally them-
1935. British composer Ethel Smyth (18581944) selves instead with feminists in the struggle for abor-
spent more than a year there as well. Gertrude Stein tion and, thus, defined themselves as separatists
(18741946) and Alice B.Toklas (18771967) were (working apart from gay men). In the 1980s, the
guests of American hostess Mabel Dodge Luhan movement in Rome coined the name lesbofeminist
(18791962) in Fiesole in 1910. British novelist and gave birth to the CLI (Connection of Italian Les-
Radclyffe Hall (18801943) lived there on several bians), which, as late as 1998, still published its Bul-
occasions in the 1920s and 1930s with her part- letin. In the same period, an influential group from
ner, Una Troubridge (18871963), and with Milan had developed a feminist theory that rejected
Souline, the last woman with whom she fell in love. lesbianism as a politically useful category; in spite
Natalie Barney (18761972) and Romaine Brooks of this, lesbians from various groups, both separatist
(18741970), who was Italian by birth, left France and nonseparatist, organized several conventions (the
for Italy during World War II. A colony of famous last in 1997) and lesbian weeks (in 1990, 1996, and
homosexual women and men flourished on the is- 1998). In the 1990s, new alliances between lesbians
land of Capri in the 1920s. From 1955 until her and gay men began to develop.
death, Violet Trefusis (18941972), Vita Sackville- The Italian situation, while apparently favorable
Wests (18921962) lover (who was portrayed as to lesbians, has not been sufficient to promote

408 I T A LY
visibility: No famous women writers, actors, di- (Analogous Indecencies: Tribades, Sapphists, In-
rectors, or singers have publicly declared themselves verts, and Homosexuals: Sex/Gender Categories
to love or to have loved other women. And those and Systems in the Journal of Criminal Anthro-
who, in the wake of the first feminist wave (ca. the pology Founded by Cesare Lombroso [1880
late 1970s), had done sofor example, writer 1949]). DWF donnawomanfemme 4:24 (1994),
Dacia Maraini (n.d.)later denied it. In practice, 50122.
then, one cannot mention the name of a living Ital- . Bagni di Lucca: A Place To See. II ricordo
ian lesbian without the threat of legal action. This di una storia durata 18 anni (Bagni di Lucca:
reticence also concerns lesbian studies, which, A Place To See: Remembrance of an 18-
with rare and notable exceptions, is still absent from YearLong Story). Quir 6 (1993), 2629.
the universities and from research in general. A Web . Calavrisella mia, facimmu amuri? La storia
site, Pagine Lesbiche (Lesbian Pages) at http:// delle lesbiche contadine italiane attraverso le
www.women.it/les, was added in the late 1990s to tradizioni orali (Little Calabrese Woman of
the meager sources of information at the disposal Mine, Shall We Make Love? The History of Ital-
of Italian lesbians. Nerina Milletti ian Lesbian Peasant Women Through Oral Tra-
dition). Quir 11 (1994), 2326.
Bibliography . Due Violette a Firenze. Violet Paget (1856
Danna, Daniela. Amiche, compagne, amanti: storia 1935) e Violet Keppel (18941972) (Two
dellamore tra donne (Friends, Companions, Violets in Florence: Violet Paget [18561935]
Lovers: A History of Love Among Women). and Violet Keppel [18941972] ). Quir 13
Milan: Mondadori, 1992. (1994), 2528; Quir 14 (1994), 2930.
Macrelli, Rina. Vacca dlsraele (Cow of Israel). . Pas doubli: Eleonora Duse (18581924) a
Squaderno 1 (1989), 4572. Firenze (No Forgetting: Eleonora Duse [1858
Milletti, Nerina. Analoghe sconcezze. Tribadi, 1924] in Florence). Quir 17 (1995), 2024.
saffiste, invertite ed omosessuali: categorie e sistemi
sess/genere nella rivista di antropologia criminale See also Europe, Early Modern; Libertinism; Reli-
fondata da Cesare Lombroso (18801949) gious Communities; Sappho

I T A LY 409
J
James, Alice (18481892) lent to a marriage. Strouse, Yeazell, and Lewis
American diarist. Known in her day chiefly as the have not been as forthright, however. Inability
daughter and sister of famous men (Henry James to deal candidly with lesbianism also character-
[18111882], father; William James [18421910] izes Susan Sontags 1993 play Alice in Bed. On
and Henry James [18431916], brothers), Alice the contrary, James exclaimed in a letter: Oh
James now stands on her own merit as a writer Lord, how thankful I am I didnt take to refined
and personality. The publication of an edition of spinsterhood. Portraying James as an inactive
her diary, edited by Leon Edel, in 1964; an excel- or failed heterosexual not only falsifies history,
lent biography by Jean Strouse in 1980; a selection but also foists upon her the very role she em-
of her letters, edited by Ruth Yeazell, the follow- phatically rejected.
ing year; a chapter in R.W.B.Lewiss The Jameses: James described Loring to her Cambridge
A Family Narrative (1991); and the rise of femi- friends in 1879 as a most wonderful being. She
nist literary studies have all contributed to the re- has all the mere brute superiority which distin-
assessment of Alice James. guishes man from woman combined with all the
Denied a public sphere by her gender and suf- distinctively feminine virtues. There is nothing she
focated by her family, James became an invalid, cannot do from hewing wood & drawing water
eventually dying of breast cancer. She was too high to driving run-away horses & educating all the
spirited to let illness define her, however, and, near women in North America (Strouse 1980). The
the end of her life, she pleaded with her brother love relationship between Alice James and
William: Pray dont think of me simply as a crea- Katharine Loring deserves a lesbian feminist in-
ture who might have been something else. terpretation.
Both her diary and her letters reveal her trench- Margaret Cruikshank
ant, sarcastic wit, her unsparing and mordant view
of herself, and her irreverent, iconoclastic view of Bibliography
the world. More egalitarian than her brothers and Edel, Leon, ed. The Diary of Alice James. New
more compassionate toward the poor, she ardently York: Dodd, Mead, 1964.
supported Home Rule for Ireland. Lewis, R.W.B. The Jameses: A Family Narrative.
In the 1870s in Boston, Massachusetts, James New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1991.
joined the Society to Encourage Studies at Home, Sontag, Susan. Alice in Bed: A Play. New York:
which linked educated women to women corre- Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1993.
spondents around the country. A history teacher Strouse, Jean. Alice James: A Biography. Boston:
at the society, Katharine Loring (18491943), Houghton Mifflin, 1980.
became her life partner. Often kept from Jamess Yeazell, Ruth, ed. The Death and Letters of Alice
side by family duties, Loring took a few holiday James. Berkeley: University of California Press,
trips with James and nursed her in London dur- 1981.
ing the last months of her life. The other Jameses
acknowledged that their relationship was equiva- See also Diaries and Letters

JAMES, ALICE 411

J Japan
Archipelago in the Pacific Ocean off the Asian main-
land, consisting of four main islandsHonshu,
ured in the eighth-century mytho-histories. How-
ever, it was during the Edo period (16031867), in
particular, that sexual and gender transformations
Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikokuand 3,900 smaller became a subject of popular and legal fascination.
ones. The majority of the population of 123 million There has long been a close connection made in Ja-
is concentrated in Honshu between the capital city pan between androgynya body that is read as both
of Tokyo and Osaka. Japanese is the official lan- masculine and feminine (in a conventional sense) or
guage, although there are numerous (sometimes neither masculine nor feminineand same-sex sexu-
mutually incomprehensible) regional dialects in ad- ality and homosexual practices.
dition to the languages spoken by historical minor- The Kabuki theater, which dates to ca. 1600,
ity groups, including Ainu, Chinese, Korean, and originally included females who performed mens
Okinawan. Buddhism and Shinto represent the roles, while male actors often took womens roles.
major religious traditions, although there is a sig- However, female actors were banished from the
nificant population of Christians and also hundreds stage in 1629. Apparently, the Confucian
of alternative religious organizations. Shogunate was disturbed by the general disorder,
In the nineteenth century, Japan merged as an including un-licensed prostitution, associated with
imperial power after 250 years of virtual seclusion womens Kabuki. Eventually, the prohibition of
under the xenophobic Tokugawa Shogunate. The females and, later, of boys, whose nubile, androgy-
first half of the twentieth century saw the dramatic nous eroticism also upset convention, prompted
rise and collapse of the Japanese Empire, which the sanctioned emergence of the onnagata, adult
stretched over much of the Pacific Rim. Centuries males who specialized in femininity and who often
of military rule ended with Japans unconditional lived as women offstage and often engaged in same-
surrender in World War II following the U.S. atomic sex sexual practices. Contrarily, females who ap-
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August propriated masculinity as a social guise were
1945. The postwar constitution, drafted in part criminalized. This double standard was illustrated
by the Americans, who occupied Japan from 1945 poignantly by the case of a woman named Take,
to 1952, is distinguished by Article 9, which re- who, in the 1830s, openly defied the sex-gender
nounces war and the right to possess an offensive hierarchy by passing as a manand as a magis-
military force, and by an Equal Rights Amendment, trate. When apprehended, she was charged with
largely ignored until reactivated in 1986 by Japa- the newly coined crime of corrupting public mor-
nese feminists and womens groups. als, fined, imprisoned, and subsequently exiled.
The stereotype of the Japanese people as con- By the turn of the twentieth century, some in-
stituting a homogeneous group has effectively trepid females passed as men to secure employment
whitewashed a colorful variety of gender identities as rickshaw drivers, construction supervisors and
and sexual practices. More often than not, the dif- laborers, fishers, department-store managers, gro-
fering experiences of female and male members of cers, and so on. Unlike the Edo-period Shogunate,
Japanese society continue to be underacknow- social critics writing in the early twentieth century
ledged and/or collapsed with dominant, natural- associated male impersonation with sexual deviancy
ized gender ideals (for example, the Japanese only when practiced by urban middle- and upper-
housewife and the Japanese businessman). A class girls and women who, they argued, wore mas-
brief review of the discourses about gender and culine attire not to secure a livelihood, but as an
sexuality that emerged at different historical junc- outward expression of their moral depravity. As
tures in Japanese cultural history provides an op- privileged and educatedin short, bourgeoisgirls
portunity to dismantle some of the more tenacious and women, they were supposed to fulfill the nor-
stereotypes of Japanese women and men of domes- mative gender role of Good Wife, Wise Mother
tic and foreign creation alike, although here the sanctioned by the Meiji (18671911) state. This role
focus will be primarily on girls and women. was strictly enforced in the pro-natalist climate that
characterized modern Japanese society, especially in
Cross-Dressing Practices the context of military mobilization in the 1930s
For centuries, cross-dressed performances have char- and 1940s. The Good Wife, Wise Mother persisted
acterized shrine festivals and theatrical performances; through the 1990s as the dominant model of adult
they have lent spice to many novels and even fig- female gender.

412 JAPA N
Twentieth-Century Sexologists diflferently in the early twentieth century, when the
In the early twentieth century, critics were joined by country was embarked on a course of massive mod-
sexologists in singling out girls schools and their ernization, industrialization, selective Westernization,
(unmarried) female instructors and students as the and imperialism. In fact, a new interpretation of sexual
primary sites and agents of homosexuality among relations between females prompted the introduction
females. Distinctions were drawn between two types of the term dseiai, noted above.
of passionate relationships between females: dseiai Among the indigenous terms for lesbians are tachi
(same-sex love) and ome no kankei (male-female (an abbreviation of tachiyaku, or leading man,
relations). Dseiai is now used as a generic term for similar in meaning to butch), neko (cat, similar
same-sex love or homosexual relationships. How- in meaning to femme), onsama (older sister),
ever, when it was coined in the early twentieth cen- imoto (younger sister), join (female licentiousness),
tury to distinguish intimate relations between girls joshoku (female eroticism), gain (joint licentious-
and women from those between boys and men (upon ness), tomogui (eat each other), shirojiro (pure
which the existing terminology was based), dseiai white, with etymological implications of falseness
had the specific meaning of an essentially platonic, and feigned ignorance), and kaiawase (matching
if passionate, relationship between two females. Such shells). Japanese lesbian feminists translate butch and
friendships were also referred to as S or Class femme as tachi and neko, respectively, and often use
S (kurasu esu), with the S standing for shisut the loanwords butchi and fuemu. Another Japanese
(sister), shjo (girl), sekusu (sex), and/or shon (the term for butch often encountered today is onabe
Japanese pronunciation of the German word schn, (shallow pot), a play on okama (deep pot), a slang
or beautiful). Class S continues to conjure up the word for a feminine (passive) homosexual male.
image of two schoolgirls, often a junior-senior pair,
with a crush on each other. Ome, on the other hand, Sexuality and Everyday Life
is an abbreviation of osu (male) and mesu (female), Contrary to normative (commonsense) assump-
terms reserved for plants and animals and applied tions, marriage is not an indisputable marker of ex-
pejoratively to humans, including lesbians. Many clusive heterosexuality. But, precisely because it is
Japanese pundits blamed the popular all-female-re- commonly thought to be, marriage has servedat
vue theater and its hallmark mans-role players with least in the twentieth century in industrialized coun-
stimulating the emergence of a butch-femme-like tries, including Japanas a convenient cover for vari-
lesbian subculture in the early twentieth century. ous unconventional sexual practices, including ho-
Since the turn of the twentieth century and even mosexual practices. Although historically in Japan
earlier, Japanese scholars have been adept at selec- the broad spectrum of sexual practices available to
tively adapting for domestic (and often dominant) males has been openly acknowledgedand, in some
purposes, institutions and terminologies that were cases, has been the rulethe sexuality of Japanese
coined and first popularized outside Japan. With re- females invariably has been equated with procrea-
spect to sexological terms, Euro-American loanwords tion and/or male recreation. Homophobia in Japan
and Japanese neologisms rapidly made their way into is, thus, rationalized less on religious premises than
professional and lay parlance alike, evidenced not only on the idea that a female sexuality not directed to-
in a wide range of printed media, including transla- ward either childbirth, and, by extension, household
tions of foreign texts, but also by the many dictionar- posterity, or pleasuring males is unacceptable and
ies devoted to introducing and defining such words. represents the disruption of the gendered social hier-
Loanwords and Japanese social-scientific neologisms archy. Accordingly, the vast majority of Japanese
that became household words in the early twentieth women marry, and the lesbians among them are ac-
century included rabu ret (love letter); rezubian (les- tually freer to initiate or continue same-sex relation-
bian); dseiai for homosexuality (also referred to as ships under the protective umbrella of wife- and
homosekushuaru); and iseiai for heterosexuality (also motherhood. Japanese females who identify as lesbi-
heterosekushuaru). Other loanwords referring to ans, whether in terms of sexual practices, or politics
sexual practices that were introduced at this time in- (feminism), or both, continue to assume a very low,
cluded saffuo (sapphism), tsuribadeizumu (tribadism), mostly closeted, public profile. With the exception of
and uranizumu (uranism). Obviously, social and a few out critics and groups, such as the Re-gumi
sexual practices labeled and categorized in the feu- (Re-association, from rezubian, or lesbian) in Tokyo,
dal Edo period were undertaken and perceived most feel obliged to conduct their relationships in a

JAPA N 413
J clandestine fashion, including passing as a male-fe-
male couple. Jennifer E.Robertson
first positive collection of writing by, about, and
for gay people. It achieved the goal set for it by Jay
and Young: No one need grow up again thinking
Bibliography that he or she is the only gay person in the world.
Robertson, Jennifer. Takarazuka: Sexual Politics After Youre Out continued the project of the
and Popular Culture in Modern Japan. Berkeley: first anthology, addressing the variety of gay and
University of California Press, 1998. lesbian identities and offering strategies for surviv-
ing in a heterosexual world and for building gay
See also All-Female Reviews (Japan); Miyamoto communities of support. Essays on love relation-
Yuriko; Yosano Akiko; Yoshiya Nobuko ships, gay parenting, legal issues, gay history, and
racism in the gay community all began discussions
still relevant today. Lavendar Culture used the
Jay, Karla (1947) standard features of cultureart, dance, theater,
American scholar, educator, and activist. Karla Jays literature, and musicto suggest that gay commu-
best-known contributions to the post-Stonewall nities form a unique culture, distinct from hetero-
(1969) gay liberation movement are three antholo- sexual culture. Essays on sexual practices, the bars,
gies (coedited with Allen Young): Out of the Clos- growing up gay, aging, race, economics, lesbian
ets: Voices of Gay Liberation (1972; reprinted in separatism, and sports augmented the message.
1992), After Youre Out: Personal Experiences of Although Jays reputation could rest on these
Gay Men and Lesbian Women (1975), and Laven- three books alone, her work continues to contrib-
der Culture (1978; reprinted in 1994). ute to the development of gay and lesbian litera-
Written in the context of the 1960s counterculture, ture and culture. Jays The Amazon and the Page:
the black civil rights movement, the New Left, and Natalie Clifford Barney and Rene Vivien (1988),
radical feminism, the essays in Out of the Closets her coedited (with Joanne Glasgow) Lesbian Texts
envisioned gay liberation as part of a larger, revolu- and Contexts: Radical Revisions (1990), her an-
tionary social transformation. With essay after essay thologies Lesbian Erotics (1995) and Dyke Life
emphasizing gay pride, self-affirmation, and self-as- (1995), and her editorship of the New York Uni-
sertion, Out of the Closets was welcomed as the versity Press series The Cutting Edge: Lesbian Life
and Literature all prove Jays unswerving commit-
ment to the creation, recovery, and preservation of
lesbian literature and culture. Greta Gaard

Bibliography
Duberman, Martin. Karla. In Martin Duberman,
Stonewall. New York: Dutton, 1993, pp. 1420.
Jay, Karla. Tales of the Lavender Menace: A Memoir
of Liberation. New York: Basic Books, 1999.
Jay, Karla. A Journey to the End of Meetings. In
Lavender Culture. Ed. Karla Jay and Allen
Young. New York: Jove/Harcourt, Brace,
Jovanovich, 1978. Reprint. New York: New
York University Press, 1994, pp. 45257.
. Portrait of the Lesbian as a Young Dyke
In Out of the Closets: Voices of Gay Libera-
tion. Ed. Karla Jay and Allen Young. New York:
Jove/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972. Reprint.
New York: New York University Press, 1992,
pp. 275277.
Kuda, Marie J. Karla Jay. In Gay and Lesbian
Literature. Ed. Sharon Malinowski. Detroit: St.
James, 1994, pp. 198200.

Karla Jay, 1995. Photo by Jill Posener. See also Gay Liberation Movement; Radicalesbians

414 JAPA N
Jewett, Sarah Orne (18491909) that Jewett recognized herself and her relationship
American writer. Born in South Berwick, Maine, with Fields as lesbian, whether or not anyone else
Sarah Orne Jewett often left school and joined her would have done so.
doctor father, Theodore, on his rounds. Country life The sketches and stories (in addition to the three
and visiting friends, healing the spirit, and connec- books already mentioned) that scholars and biogra-
tion to Maine as a place characterize Jewetts inter- phers have most frequently identified as revealing
ests throughout her life and her lifes work as a writer. Jewetts interest in sexuality include An Autumn
Jewett published eighteen books, most of which were Holiday (1880), Toms Husband (1882), A
collections of sketches and short stories, and worked White Heron (1886), and Marthas Lady (1899).
closely with editors William Dean Howells (1837 Marthas Lady also brings into focus class differ-
1920) and Horace Scudder (18381902). ences that separated women and Jewetts perception
From her earliest diary entries as a young woman that women who occupied different class positions
to the series of sketches that became the basis for might also be gendered and sexualized differently.
her first published book, Deephaven (1877), Jewett Marjorie Pryse
discovered that writing and friendship, especially her
friendships with women, mutually reinforced each Bibliography
other. Jewett portrayed empathic connection as the Blanchard, Paula. Sarah Orne Jewett: Her World
center of these friendships, as well as the source of and Her Work, Reading, Mass.: Addison-
the listening that produced the stories, as in her best Wesley, 1994.
work, a novelistic collection of sketches, The Coun- Donovan, Josephine. Nan Prince and the Golden
try of the Pointed Firs (1896). Apples. Colby Library Quarterly 22 (1986),
After the death of her beloved father in 1878, 1727.
Jewett became friends with Annie Adams Fields Fetterley, Judith. Reading Deephaven as a Lesbian
(18341915), the wife of publisher and editor Text. In Sexual Practice/Textual Theory: Les-
James T.Fields (18171881). Following James bian Cultural Criticism. Ed. Susan J.Wolfe and
Fieldss death, Jewett and Annie Fields became in- Julia Penelope. Cambridge, Mass., and Oxford,
timate, traveling to Europe together in the spring England: Blackwell, 1993, pp. 164183.
and summer of 1882 and establishing their pri- Pryse, Marjorie. Archives of Female Friendship
mary residence at the Fieldses 148 Charles Street and the Way Jewett Wrote. New England
home, which had been, and would continue to be, Quarterly 66 (March 1993), 4766.
Bostons literary center. Jewett began the pattern
she would continue throughout her Boston mar- See also American Literature, Nineteenth Cen-
riage with Annie Fields and, indeed, for the rest tury; Boston Marriage; Cather, Willa; Romantic
of her life, alternating seasons with Fields in Bos- Friendship
ton or at Manchester-by-the-Sea, where the Fieldses
had built a summer house, with seasons at home
in South Berwick with her invalid mother and sis- Jewsbury, Geraldine (18121880)
ter Mary, where she focused on her writing. English novelist. Geraldine Jewsbury wrote six
While her biographers have agreed that Jewetts novels, one of which, Zoe (1845), was regarded as
Boston marriage more closely resembled the nine- daring and improper for its hints of adultery and
teenth-century romantic friendship than the sexual passion in women. She also wrote childrens
twentieth-century lesbian relationship, Willa stories and contributed articles to Charles Dick-
Gather (18731947) recognized in Jewett a per- enss Household Words. For thirty years, Jewsbury
sonal, as well as a literary, mentor during the year reviewed fiction for the Athenaeum.
they knew each other before Jewetts death. Fur- In 1854, Jewsbury moved from Manchester to
thermore, Jewetts letters to Fields, her fictional London to be near her intimate friend, Jane Carlyle
character Nan Prince in A Country Doctor (1884), (18011866). Their intense friendship lasted
and her advice to Gather that she could have writ- twenty-five years until Carlyles death. In October
ten a male lover as female ([A] woman could love 1841, Jewsbury wrote: [Y]ou will laugh but I feel
her in that same protecting waya woman could towards you much more like a lover than a female
even care enough to wish to take her away from friend! In another letter, she playfully proposed
such a life, by some means or other) all suggest that the two women run off together and take a

J E W S B U R Y, G E R A L D I N E 415
J cottageon a moor or on a mountain. Because
Jewsbury destroyed all correspondence from
Carlyle (at the latters request), only a partial record
of their shared lives exists.
Literature was an important element of their
friendship. Jewsbury urged Carlyle to step out from
the shadow of her famous husband, Thomas
(17951881), by becoming a writer herself, and
Carlyle found a publisher for Jewsbury. They were
keenly aware of the limitations of their lives. We
are indications of a development of womanhood
which as yet is not recognized, Jewsbury wrote
to Carlyle, describing them both as hints of higher
qualities and possibilities that lie in women.
In her essay Geraldine and Jane (1929), Vir-
ginia Woolf (18821941) brings to life the great
friendship of the two women. She contrasts the po-
etic and imaginative Jewsbury to the direct and prac-
tical Carlyle, whose mind had a hawk-like swoop
and descent on facts. Margaret Cruikshank

Bibliography
Ireland, Mrs. Alexander, ed. Selections from the
Letters of Geraldine Ensor Jewsbury to Jane
Welsh Carlyle. London: Longmans, Green, 1892.
Cruikshank, Margaret. Geraldine Jewsbury and Carolyn Gage in The Second Coming of Joan of Arc.
Jane Carlyle. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Photo by Linda C.Russell.
Studies 4:3 (Fall 1979), 6064.
Langstaff, Eleanor. Geraldine Ensor Jewsbury.
In An Encyclopedia of British Women Writers. tary escort, Jeanne adopted male clothing, and her
Ed. Paul Schlueter and June Schlueter. New second appeal met with success. The dauphin was
York: Garland, 1988. duly impressed and granted her a suit of armor
Woolf, Virginia. Geraldine and Jane. Times Lit- and permission to ride with the army. Under her
erary Supplement (February 22, 1929), p. 150. charismatic leadership, the French lifted the siege
at Orleans, and, on July 16, 1429, Jeanne accom-
See also Woolf, Virginia panied Charles to his coronation at Rheims, the
high point of her career.
Hampered by Charless indecisiveness, Jeannes
Joan of Arc (Jeanne dArc) (14121431) attack on Paris failed. Finally, in May 1430, she
Cross-dressing warrior and French national hero- went to the defense of Compigne, where she was
captured. In a shocking betrayal, the king refused
ine. Jeanne led a troop of French soldiers and served
to ransom her, and Jeanne was turned over to the
as a temporary focus of French resistance to Eng-
English to be tried for heresy.
lish occupation in a late phase of the Hundred Years
She was accused of witchcraft and charged with
War (conventionally dated 13371453). Tried and
leaving off the dress and clothing of the feminine
convicted by the Inquisition, she was canonized in
sex, a thing contrary to divine law and abomina-
1920 by the same church that martyred her.
ble before God, and forbidden by all laws to wear
Born the fourth child of French peasants, Jeanne
clothing and armor such as is worn by man.
began to hear the voices of Saint Michael, Saint
Jeanne, in her spirited defense at the trial, insisted
Catherine, and Saint Margaret when she was thir- that she did not take this dress nor do anything
teen. Her voices told her to go to the aid of the at all save by the command of Our Lord and the
French dauphin (the future Charles VII) in his fight angels (Scott 1956).
against the English. Forced to recant and wear a dress, Jeanne was
After the rejection of her first appeal for a mili- raped in her cell, after which she defiantly
416 J E W S B U RY, G E R A L D I N E
resumed her male attire. Jeanne, nineteen, was at a panel discussion focused on Norman Mailer
burned at the stake on May 30, 1431. Her naked (1923) and Germaine Greer (1939)were pre-
body was displayed publicly to dispel any doubts cisely challenges to a consolidation of the womens
about her sex. movement that excluded the (politicized) lesbian.
Carolyn Gage The continuing failure of alliance shifted the social
possibilities for lesbian-feminism. The conjunction
Bibliography of lesbian and feminism came to name not alliances,
Feinberg, Leslie. Transgender Warriors: Making but separationseparation from various forms of
History from Joan of Arc to RuPaul. Boston: feminist politics, as well as from men, including gay
Beacon, 1996. men. Thus, although Johnston refers to gay/femi-
Sackville-West, Vita. Saint Joan of Arc. Boston: nist much more frequently than to lesbian na-
O.K.Hall, 1984. tion as the title of her politics, it is the title of the
Scott, W.S., trans. The Trial of Joan of Arc, Being book, and Johnston herself, that become the found-
the Verbatim Report of the Proceedings from ing icons of a particular form of lesbian feminism.
the Orleans Manuscript. Westport, Conn.: As- In the end, Johnston expressed ambivalence
sociated Booksellers, 1956. about her place as both movement icon and icono-
Warner, Marina. Joan of Arc: The Image of Fe- clast. She never repudiated lesbian politics, but she
male Heroism. New York: Knopf, 1981. did quell the distribution of the 1976 lesbian femi-
nist Canadian film Jill Johnston: October 1975.
See also France; Passing Women; Transgender Over time, changes in both lesbian and feminist
politics led to a similar ambivalence over the icono-
graphic legacy of Lesbian Nation, which came
Johnston, Jill (1929) under attack as the marker of a monolithic com-
American critic and writer. Jill Johnston, best known munity with overly rigid boundaries that ultimately
as the author of Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solu- separated itself from engagement with politics. Yet
tion (1973), began her writing career as an arts critic Johnston was never comfortable with a monolithic
in the mid-1950s, writing for the Village Voice be- movement, and her style in Lesbian Nation, fre-
ginning in 1960. Johnstons major project has been quently described as irreverent, produces a text that
connecting the personal to the political and the artis- is suffused with irony and complexity. Johnston
tic through biographical criticism and the autobio- continued writing, mostly autobiography, and she
graphical form. In her Voice column, she came to later returned to arts criticism, once again connect-
focus on her own life as a central topic, coming out ing life and art, the personal and the political, as
in print in Lois Lane Is a Lesbian in 1970. Johnston she wrote in Secret Lives in Art (1994): As we
also became known as an iconoclastic participant in write ourselves into existence, the class, race, and
art-world and cultural events. She wrote of that pe- sexual political structures of society inevitably
riod in Lesbian Nation: I had the correct instinct to change. And as this happens, the culture will
fuck things up, but no political philosophy to clarify expand. Janet R.Jakobsen
a course of action. Without a political philosophy
and before the 1970s lesbian/ feminist revolution Bibliography
when [t]here was no lesbian identity. There was les- Banes, Sally. Writing Dancing in the Age of
bian activity, Johnston also broke and remade her- Postmodernism. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan
self, undergoing hospitalization twice for schizophre- University Press, 1994, pp. 310.
nia and writing herself out of a third episode. Ross, Becki L. The House That Jill Built: A Les-
Lesbian Nation narrates the constitution of a bian Nation in Formation. Toronto: University
political consciousness and an identity termed les- of Toronto Press, 1995.
bian that could be the intersection of the personal
and the political. Johnston places this possibility at See also Lesbian Feminism; Lesbian Nation
the intersection of the gay/feminist movement; yet
this alliance was difficult to materialize. Some of
the actions for which Johnston was most Journalism
(in)famousswimming topless at a feminist fund- Coverage of lesbians in the news media, including
raiser and participating in a lesbian demonstration lesbians as journalists. Although groups devoted to

JOURNALISM 417
J lesbian and gay concerns have existed in the United
States since the turn of the twentieth century, both
lesbians and gay men have historically been invisible
presenting balanced coverage, reports of lesbian
and gay events almost always included quotes from
antigay hecklers and often a visual image of a reli-
in the mainstream media. Until the 1980s, the little gious fundamentalist holding a sign declaring
coverage these communities received was dominated Gays Repent or a similar sentiment.
by reports of vice and crime, almost always involv- Such a focus on conflict and controversy fueled
ing gay men. In the 1950s and 1960s, local newspa- much of the news coverage of lesbians and gays in
pers covered gay-bar raids and arrests as crime sto- the 1970s and early 1980s. The new visibility of
ries and only from the perspective of the police. the movement inspired a backlash from conserva-
tives such as singer Anita Bryant and California
Media Coverage After Stonewall State Senator John Briggs, who spearheaded antigay
When hundreds of lesbians and gay men rioted in campaigns in the 1970s. Media scrutiny of such
1969 to protest a raid by vice officers at the Stone- legal challenges to the rights of lesbians and gays
wall Inn in New York Citys Greenwich Village, the made the movement visible for the first time to
event received little attention outside the gay com- many Americans. But the tone of the coverage, the
munity. The New York Times ran an inconspicuous way in which the conflict was framed as Americas
five-inch story on page thirty-three under the head- response to the lesbian and gay threat, did little
line Four Policemen Hurt in Village Raid. No to draw attention to the overall goals and aims of
mention was made of the political nature of the the movement.
eventof the condemnations of police read to the Lesbians and lesbian concerns were rarely the
crowd or of the support gay power and legalize focus of the mainstream news media. When they
gay bars graffiti that appeared on the boarded-up were singled out for attention, it was generally in
windows of the Stonewall Inn. Neither was any reference to the lesbian problem in the feminist
mention made of the lesbians involved. Rioters were movement. When Kate Millet (1934) came out as
uniformly described as young men. a bisexual in the early 1970s, for example, Time
The Stonewall Rebellion marked the beginning magazine featured her on its cover and ran a divi-
of a radically changed lesbian and gay movement sive story about the rift between heterosexuals and
in the United States and of a new relationship with lesbians within the feminist movement.
the media. Prior to the 1960s, a number of lesbian
and gay groups existed. Their function was prima- The AIDS Crisis
rily social, although some efforts were made to By the mid-1980s, media attention to gay men
reach out to and educate the heterosexual public. (rarely lesbians) was dominated by coverage of the
After Stonewall, lesbians and gays began to organ- AIDS crisis. The mainstream media were slow to
ize in greater numbers. They soon learned from pick up what they eventually came to call the gay
the tactics of antiwar and civil rights protesters that plague story. As the numbers of deaths increased,
the mainstream media would pay attention to however, and began to include prominent person-
colorful and dramatic events, such as parades, alities such as Rock Hudson, the media finally re-
marches, and demonstrations. sponded with coverage of the community that fo-
While the beginning of the 1970s witnessed a cused almost exclusively on AIDS.
significant increase in media attention to the gay The disease played a major role in mobilizing
and lesbian movement, the coverage paid scant the gay movement of the 1980s, as the specter of
attention to the substance of movement issues and sick and dying friends motivated large numbers of
was generally characterized by a simplistic reliance lesbians and gays to come out and to engage in
on stereotypes. Flamboyant drag queens provided political action for the first time. This surge in les-
the photo or video shot of choice, and, when lesbi- bian and gay visibility, particularly the dramatic
ans were noticed at all, it was the stereotypical actions of new activist groups such as ACT UP
image of dykes on bikes (motorcycles) that was (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) and Queer
presented. Ignored by the mainstream media were Nation, succeeded in capturing greater mainstream
the hundreds of others who made up the diversity media attention than ever before.
of the community. But the blessings of mass-media recognition of
Counterprotesters were another favorite focus the AIDS crisis were mixed. While the media fo-
of the media at Gay Pride events. In the guise of cused much-needed attention on a major concern

418 JOURNALISM
of the gay community, they did so to the near ex- sexuals in the military ranks, the vast majority of
clusion of all other community concerns. News news coverage focused on gay men in the military.
coverage of the community became synonymous Indeed, up to this point, lesbians had generally
with AIDS coverage in the 1980s. Press reports of been treated by the mainstream media as an after-
the 1987 National March on Washington for Les- thought. In spite of the presence of women in leader-
bian and Gay Rights, for example, were dominated ship positions at national lesbian and gay organiza-
by the AIDS issue. At least one major metropoli- tions, the bulk of the focus remained on gay men.
tan newspaperthe Chicago Tribunedevoted its Lesbians have never received the amount of coverage
march coverage exclusively to AIDS, making no that gay men have. Lesbian marches held as adjunct
mention of the civil rights demands that were also events to gay pride marches, for example, are treated
being stressed by the movement. in the mainstream media as footnotes, if they are
The most obvious omission in media coverage mentioned at all. And female groups such as the Les-
of the movement in the 1980s was the role of lesbi- bian Avengers have never received the kind of press
ans. Lesbians experience a rate of AIDS infection that primarily male groups such as ACT UP have.
lower than that of all adult segments of the popula- However, the mainstream media suddenly dis-
tion, but mainstream news-media coverage of AIDS covered lesbians in the 1990s. A Newsweek maga-
in the gay community rarely made note of this fact. zine cover featured two all-American,
Subsequently, lesbians were virtually ignored in wholesomelooking women posing together with the
media coverage of gays that was dominated by AIDS. headline Lesbians above them. Lesbian chic was
By the 1990s, mainstream-media interest in born, and news-media outlets rushed to feature their
AIDS began to wane as hopes for a cure remained own lesbian story. In August 1993, Vanity Fair maga-
distant, and reporters failed to come up with new zine ran a suggestive cover photo of lesbian singer
angles on the story. In the course of covering the k.d. lang with model Cindy Crawford. Newspapers
AIDS crisis, however, reporters had developed a and television news magazines featured stories on
variety of lesbian and gay sources who had begun lesbian communities, such as Northampton, Mas-
to familiarize them with other issues affecting the sachusetts. While such mainstream-media acknowl-
community. When Democratic Party candidate Bill edgment was to some a welcome change, its over-
Clinton openly courted the lesbian and gay vote whelming focus on white, middle-class, often
during his 1992 presidential campaign, assignment straight-looking women failed to capture the vast
editors developed a sudden interest in the commu- diversity of the lesbian community.
nity, and, at many news outlets, what had been the Media fascination with the newly discovered
AIDS beat gradually became, either officially or lesbians, however, faded quickly, and the media
unofficially, the lesbian and gay beat. moved on to other new trends. In 1996, however,
lesbians were back in the limelight when Newsweek
Media Coverage of Lesbians again featured lesbians on the cover when it ran a
President Clintons outreach to lesbians and gays photo of lesbian rock star Melissa Etheridge and
helped make them a safe topic for mainstream her partner, Julie Cypher, under the headline
news media to cover. By acknowledging issues of Theyre Having a Baby. Inside was an in-depth
concern to the community, Clinton gave it a new (if belated) look at the lesbian and gay baby
legitimacy in the eyes of the news media. Subse- boom. The article was thorough and generally
quently, lesbian and gay issues became rather com- supportivea great improvement over the gay
monplace in the mainstream news media during threat approach taken by the mainstream news
the early 1990s. The issue that received the most media in the preceding decades.
coverage during this time was the debate over gays The Newsweek baby boom cover story is in-
in the military. After Clinton announced his intent dicative of much of the coverage of lesbians and
to eliminate the ban on gays, the media were satu- gays found in the mainstream news media by the
rated with storiesmany of which were unchar- middle of the 1990s. Television news, news maga-
acteristically sympathetic to the plight of the gay zines, news wire services, and big-city newspapers
soldier. Few of these stories, however, focused on have increasingly devoted time and resources to
lesbians in the military. Although women were, at cover in-depth issues such as marriage laws, mili-
the time, much more likely than men to be the tar- tary policy, AIDS policy, antidiscrimination stat-
gets of witchhunts designed to ferret out homo- utes, and others that affect the community.

JOURNALISM 419
J Nevertheless, coverage in the mainstream media
is far from perfect. Content varies geographically, with
news outlets in more politically conservative regions
ers have suffered from more direct discrimination. In
1987, Christine Madsen, a seven-year veteran reporter
at the Christian Science Monitor, was fired when she
of the country less likely to use stories about lesbians refused to seek healing for her lesbianism.
and gays out of fear of offending their readers, Gays and lesbians were increasingly likely to come
viewers, or listeners. Mainstream news media in all out in the 1990s. The National Gay and Lesbian Jour-
areas of the country also have a tendency to bal- nalists Association was established in 1990 to increase
ance stories about lesbians and gays with commen- the visibility and defend the rights of lesbian and gay
tary from questionable experts representing the journalists. The association has been instrumental in
other side. For example, representatives of the improving the work environment for lesbians and
Christian Coalition are often called upon by the me- gays in the newsroom. Nevertheless, revealing ones
dia to comment on policy issues such as gay mar- sexuality can still have negative consequences in the
riages and antidiscrimination legislationa practice news business. Sandy Nelson, a reporter at the
described by lesbian and gay leaders as akin to ask- Tacoma, Washington, Morning News Tribune, was
ing leaders of the Ku Klux Klan to provide commen- demoted in 1990 when she spoke out publicly in sup-
tary on affirmative action. Lesbians and gays, how- port of antidiscrimination legislation. She subse-
ever, continue in their attempts to educate the main- quently lost a lawsuit she filed against the newspa-
stream news media, often from within the newsroom per. Also in 1990, United Press International reporter
itself. In addition, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Julie Brienza was fired after an evangelical broad-
Against Defamation (GLAAD) issued in 1994 a Me- caster attacked her on the airwaves for her freelance
dia Guide to the Lesbian and Gay Community to work for a gay newspaper. Brienza eventually col-
provide professionals with story ideas, background lected $255,000 in damages from the evangelist in
information, and a glossary of terms and usages. an out-of-court settlement of a $10 million libel suit
she had filed against him.
Lesbians in the Newsroom In spite of the continuing danger of coming out
Lesbians and gay men have always worked in the in the newsroom, there have been major strides
mainstream media, although, until the mid-1980s, made within mainstream media. In 1991, Linda
few had been out on the job. Esteemed journalists Villarosa, then a senior editor at Essence maga-
from the past who were lesbian or bisexual include zine, came out in the magazine in an article she
Margaret Fuller (18101850), a journalist for the cowrote with her mother. Villarosa suffered no re-
New York Tribune; Janet Planner (18921978), a percussions on the job; indeed, in 1994 she was
foreign correspondent and New Yorker columnist promoted to the magazines top position of execu-
who wrote under the pen name Gent; Dorothy tive editor, the highest-ranking post for an out les-
Thompson (18931961), one of the first female bian in mainstream media at the time.
foreign correspondents; and Lorena Hickok (1892 In 1992, the Detroit News began publishing the
1968), an accomplished Associated Press White first regular column by an openly lesbian commen-
House correspondent who is best known for her tator, Deb Price, an editor at the paper. Prices syn-
relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt (18841962). dicated column has since been picked up by other
Like members of most other professions, journal- newspapers throughout the country. The success
ists have considered the possibility of coming out on of Prices groundbreaking column led to the launch-
the job a risky proposition. Mainstream newsrooms, ing of columns by other lesbians and gay men, in-
historically populated by white males, have tradition- cluding Victoria Brownworth at the Philadelphia
ally been hostile workplaces for lesbians and gays. Daily News and Amy Adams Squire Strongheart
New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs banned use at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
of the word gay in 1975, insisting instead on the Since the late 1940s, lesbians have produced their
more clinical homosexual. Ochss ban was not own alternative media to report news of interest to
overturned until 1987. The Wall Street Journal the community. The first lesbian publication was
banned use of the word from 1978 to 1984. The few Vice Versa, a newsletter that circulated from 1947
lesbians and gays who came out in such an antago- to 1948. The Ladder, a monthly publication of the
nistic environment in the 1970s and 1980s often Daughters of Bilitis, was produced from 1956 to
found their ability to be objective journalists and re- 1972. In the 1970s, a number of lesbian feminist
port the news without bias called into question. Oth- publications, such as the Lesbian Tide (Los Angeles,

420 JOURNALISM
California), The Furies (Washington, D.C.), and that compromised her salvation when she donned
Lavender Woman (Chicago, Illinois), were launched the habit. She writes in her autobiographical
to meet the information needs that were not being Respuesta a Sor Filotea (1691; Reply to Sor Filotea)
met by male-centered gay publications such as the that she joined the convent because of her total
Advocate. By the 1990s, a variety of specifically les- antipathy toward marriage and because it was
bian publications existed, and lesbians were promi- possible there to pursue a life of learning. In her
nently featured on the staffs of the Advocate and twostory cell, she amassed a library of nearly four
Out, the two most popular national gay and les- thousand books and collected many musical and
bian magazines. Jane R.Ballinger scientific instruments, and her prolific pen produced
a body of work now anthologized in four separate
Bibliography volumes. Of these, her more famous pieces are
Alwood, Edward. Straight News. New York: Co- Respuestaher defense of a womans right to learn
lumbia University Press, 1996. and discourseand her philosphical satire on stub-
Cruikshank, Margaret. The Gay and Lesbian Lib- born men who malign/women without reason/dis-
eration Movement. New York: Routledge, 1992. missing yourselves as the occasion/for the very
Faderman, Lillian. Odd Girls and Twilight Lov- wrongs you design. In her love poetry to two Vice-
ers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth- reinesthe one whom she attended at court before
Century America. New York: Columbia Uni- entering the convent, Leonor Carreto, Marquesa de
versity Press, 1991. Mancera, and the one with whom she shared a pla-
Gross, Larry. Out of the Mainstream: Sexual tonic lovefriendship for eight years, Mara Luisa
Minorities and the Mass Media. Journal of Manrique de Lara, Condesa de Paredesone finds
Homosexuality 21:12 (1991), 1946. the true nature of what she calls her inclination.
Price, Deb, and Joyce Murdoch. And Say Hi to It was la Condesa, editor of the first two volumes of
Joyce: The Life and Chronicles of a Lesbian Sor Juanas work, who gave her the epithet tenth
Couple. New York: Doubleday, 1995. musewhat Plato had called Sappho two millen-
Signorile, Michelangelo. Queer in America: Sex, nia earlier. Though some scholars explain her Sap-
the Media, and the Closets of Power. New York: phic tendencies as excessive libido that had no
Random House, 1993. outlet in the opposite sex, a consequence of what
Paz (1988) calls her illegitimacy, or a combina-
See also Flanner, Janet; Fuller, Margaret; Furies, tion of other psychic traumas such as manic-depres-
The; Ladder, The; Periodicals sion, subjection to the Catholic Church, or penis
envy, it is evident from her own primary documents
that Sor Juana not only refused to submit to the
Juana Ins de la Cruz, Sor (16491695) male construction of her gender, but also rejected
Seventeenth-century Mexican nun, scholar, poet, compulsory heterosexuality by joining a separatist
and playwright, known as the first feminist of the community and cross-dressing as a nun.
Americas. Born in the small town of San Miguel Two years after scandalizing her superiors in
de Nepantla on the outskirts of Mexico City, Juana religion with her Respuesta, she was issued an ul-
Ins was, according to her baptismal records, the timatum: either renounce her scholarly life and
third natural daughter of Doa Isabel Ramrez. prostrate herself to the Catholic Church or suffer
Self-educated since the age of threeat six, she the Inquisition. In 1694, she renewed her vows,
requested that her mother dress her as a boy so she using her own blood for ink, and submitted to all
could attend the University of MexicoJuana Ins of the Churchs demands, selling her library and
entered the Order of Saint Jerome at the age of instruments and forfeiting all that had constituted
twenty. Her reputation as a girl-scholar won her her passion, her devotion, and her enlightened sub-
the admiration of nobles, scholars, and clergy jectivity. In 1695, at the age of forty-six, attending
across the realm; yet it would prove to be a dou- to her sick sisters, she died of the epidemic infest-
ble-edged sword that both empowered and injured ing the convent, leaving behind a legacy of colo-
her throughout her life. nial feminism and a cloistered identity that would
In an age when learning was the exclusive do- not find expression for three hundred years: And
main of men, she was viewed simultaneously as a if my intention is guilty/my affection is also
prodigy and an aberration to her sex, a distinction damned,/ for loving you is a transgression/of which

JUANA INS DE LA CRUZ, SOR 421

J I will never repent. [Translations of Sor Juanas
verses are by the author.] Alicia Gaspar de Alba
ther evidence, all arguments are inconclusive. There
is extant no information about erotic love between
women in this time period in Jewish history.
Bibliography
Arenal, Electa, and Amanda Powell, trans. The Rabbinic Times (165 B.C.E.A.D. 900)
Answer/La Respuesta (Translation of Sor The first discussion of female homoeroticism in Jew-
Juanas Respuesta a Sor Filotea). New York: ish texts is found in Sifra, a postbiblical commen-
Feminist Press, 1994. tary on the Book of Leviticus, edited in the second
Gaspar de Alba, Alicia. Excerpts from the Sap- century of the common era. The reference is to a
phic Diary of Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz. In passage in Chapter 18 of the Book of Leviticus that
Tasting Life Twice: Literary Lesbian Fiction by prohibits Israelite participation in acts deemed the
New American Writers. Ed. E.J.Levy. New York: doings of Egypt. The commentator in Sifra sug-
Avon, 1995, 182190. gests that lesbian marriage was one of the acts that
Merrim, Stephanie, ed. Feminist Perspectives on would be included in this category. What one can
Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz. Detroit: Wayne State infer from this text is that, at the time of the writing
University Press, 1991. of Sifra, Jewish communities were cognizant of the
Paz, Octavio. Sor Juana; or, the Traps of Faith. Roman practice of women marrying other women.
Trans. Margaret Sayers Peden. Cambridge, The Talmud, a compendium of Jewish law and
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988. practice compiled in the fifth century of the common
era, includes passages about female homoerotic
See also Mexico; Religious Communities behavior (mesolelot), not lesbian marriage. The word
mesolelot is understood by later commentators to refer
to the practice of tribadism (women rubbing genitals
Judaism against each other). A passage in the Talmud (Yevamot
For most of its three-thousand-year history, lesbi- 76a) questions whether women who practice
anism has been a subject of little interest in Jewish mesolelot are eligible to marry priests. Virginity is the
texts and societies. Only in the late twentieth cen- criterion upon which eligibility for priestly marriage
tury have Jewish scholars and communities faced is based, so, for example, a divorced woman or a
the issue of erotic love between women. widow is not allowed to marry a priest. The Mishnah
(a compilation of Jewish law dating from c. A.D. 200)
Biblical Times (1000165 B.C.E.) gives two opinions about the eligibility for priestly
Lesbianism is not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible marriage of one who practices mesolelot. The accepted
(Old Testament), in contrast to male homosexual opinion is that such a woman is eligible, although
behavior, which is expressly forbidden as a capital the minority opinion is that she is not. In the major-
crime. The absence of discussion of lesbianism in ity opinion, lesbian behavior is considered a minor
this context has raised scholarly interest. Biblical infraction. This passage establishes the existence of
criticism suggests that this difference exists because female homoeroticism in Jewish communities in an-
female homoerotic behavior would not have been cient times. It also suggests that this behavior was
considered sexual behavior, which, in ancient times, understood by rabbinic authorities as a specific prac-
was understood to require the emission of semen. A tice, not as a persons sexual orientation, as the ques-
related theory suggests that nothing women did tion is raised in the context of marriage to a man.
without men would matter because women were Some authorities place it in the category of sexual
not full persons by biblical standards. More tradi- practice, and, as such, it disqualifies the practioner
tional Jewish scholarship suggests that the writers from the category of virgin.
of the Bible knew nothing of erotic attraction be- There is one other discussion in the Talmud
tween women and could not prohibit something about lesbianism. In Shabbat 65a, Rabbi Samuel
about which there was no knowledge or awareness. is quoted as saying that he does not permit his
Another traditional interpretation is that the daughters to sleep under the same blanket. Else-
behavior was obviously prohibited because what where, the Talmud prohibits men from this
applied to men applied to women. Feminist inter- behavior because of fear of homosexual contact.
preters posit that biblical society accepted erotic love One of the Talmudic commentators suggests that
between women as a matter of course. Without fur- Rabbi Samuel is following the minority opinion

422 JUANA INS DE LA CRUZ, SOR

and making sure that his daughters will be eligible by Ruth Seid (1913) under the pseudonym of Jo
for priestly marriage. But the text also gives sev- Sinclair. The heroine was open about her sexuality
eral reasons, unrelated to lesbianism, for prohibit- to her family. The novel is about her brothers ef-
ing the young women from sleeping together. fort to come to terms with her lesbianism. This
frank discussion of lesbian themes, and the por-
Middle Ages (A.D. 9001700) trayal of lesbianism as a psychologically healthy
There is one significant discussion of female alternative, was unusual for its time.
homoerotic behavior in the medieval era. This is found During the early part of the twentieth century,
in a compilation of laws known as the Mishneh To- women began to live openly as lesbians, including
rah, written by legal scholar and philosopher Moses Jewish women. Gertrude Stein (18741946) and Alice
Maimonides (11351204) in the twelfth century. B.Toklas (18771967) are perhaps the bestknown
Maimonides reiterates the connection to the Leviti- examples. Pauline Newman (ca. 1890?), an organ-
cal prohibition against the doings of Egypt but also izer of the Jewish labor movement, lived openly with
suggests that this behavior should not disqualify a her partner in New York Citys Greenwich Village,
woman from marrying a priest because it is still only where they raised a child together. But, for the most
a minor infraction. Maimonides goes on to suggest part, women who loved women prior to the 1960s
that the courts administer a flogging to a woman who neither identified publicly as lesbian nor had the op-
is caught engaging in homoerotic behavior. Finally, portunity to live openly in partnerships.
Maimonides warns men to keep their wives from vis-
iting with women who are known to practice Lesbians and Contemporary Judaism
mesolelot with other women. This text views lesbian One result of the feminist and gay liberation move-
behavior as threatening to the institution of marriage ments in the 1960s and 1970s was that large num-
and worthy of punishment. bers of women began to claim lesbian identity. It was
in the context of these movements that lesbians be-
Modern Era (A.D. 17001945) gan to explore Jewish identity as well. The early 1980s
During the modern period, female homoeroticism witnessed an explosion of small groups of lesbians
is mentioned infrequently in Jewish sources. Most who were beginning to make connections to their
references are from fictional writings. An early ex- Jewish identities. The members of these groups iden-
ample is found in a Yiddish play produced by Sholem tified their simultaneous rejection as Jews in the les-
Asch (18801957) for the American theater, enti- bian community and as lesbians in the Jewish com-
tled The God of Vengeance. Written in 1907, it was munity. Evelyn Torton Beck made these issues visible
performed in many European countries as well. The in her groundbreaking anthology of writings by Jew-
plot focused on a lesbian relationship between a ish lesbians, Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology
prostitute and the daughter of a brothel owner and (1982,1989). Many lesbian novels with Jewish themes
included several explicit homoerotic scenes. Noted were published by womens presses. Progressive Jew-
Yiddish author Isaac Bashevis Singer (19041991) ish organizations, such as New Jewish Agenda, be-
also wrote several short stories about lesbian love. gan discussions of how to incorporate the needs of
During the modern period, Jewish sources also gay men and lesbians in Jewish life.
document the existence of women whose behavior Jewish lesbians also made inroads in religious
does not conform to stereotypic notions of gender. movements. The gay and lesbian synagogue move-
One such historical character is the Maid of Ludmir, ment, which began in the early 1970s, provided a
a nineteenth-century Hasidic teacher. Rachel locus for lesbians to explore religious identity. In
Webermacher lived, dressed, and taught as a man the 1980s, women rabbis like Stacy Offner and
for many years. She had a large following who lis- Linda Holtzman began to disclose their lesbian
tened to her preach from the other side of a cur- identities, and many lost their jobs. The Reform
tain, since women were not allowed to speak pub- and Reconstructionist movements developed poli-
licly. Hasidic leaders forced her to marry so that cies that sanctioned the ordination of lesbian and
she would stop teaching, but their efforts ended in gay rabbis and raised the issue of performing com-
failure. Webermacher was the model for the mitment ceremonies for lesbian and gay couples.
Yentl character created by Singer. The Conservative and Orthodox movements re-
The first Jewish novel by a woman that explored mained intransigent. The Conservative movement
lesbian themes was The Wasteland (1948), written struggled over permitting lesbians and gay men to

JUDAISM 423
J teach in religious schools. Orthodox leaders pub-
licly denounced lesbianism as a sin.
The 1990s bore witness to a growing interest in
dition. New York: Columbia University Press,
1997.
Balka, Christie, and Andy Rose, eds. Twice Blessed:
lesbian issues in the Jewish community. Articles On Being Lesbian or Gay and Jewish. Boston:
were published in the Jewish press. Symposia and Beacon, 1989.
conferences were held by mainstream Jewish or- Beck, Evelyn Torton, ed. Nice Jewish Girls: A Les-
ganizations. Some synagogues incorporated discus- bian Anthology. Rev. and updated. Boston: Bea-
sions of lesbian issues into their agenda and ac- con, 1989.
tively welcomed lesbian and gay members. These Biale, Rachel. Women and Jewish Law: An Explo-
activities made it possible for lesbian Jews to feel ration of Women s Issues in Halakhic Sources.
welcome in the Jewish community. Yet lesbian Jews New York: Schocken, 1984.
continued to voice concerns that go beyond accept- Kaye/Kantrowitz, Melanie, and Irena Klepfisz,
ance and toleration. They sought a reinterpreta- eds. Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Women s An-
tion of Jewish values, including the assumption that thology. Montpelier, Vt.: Sinister Wisdom,
heterosexuality is normative. They desired an in- 1986.
clusion of their visions and stories as part of a re- Moore, Tracy, ed. Lesbiot: Israeli Lesbians Talk
constructed Jewish textual tradition. And they About Sexuality, Feminism, Judaism, and Their
aimed to create an environment of complete com- Lives. London: Cassell, 1995.
fort in which to claim their identity and celebrate Rogow, Faith. Why Is This Decade Different from
the occasions of their lives. Rebecca T.Alpert All Other Decades? A Look at the Rise of Jew-
ish Lesbian Feminism. Bridges 1 (Spring,
Bibliography 1990), 6779.
Alpert, Rebecca. Like Bread on the Seder Plate:
Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tra- See also Antisemitism; Israel; Synagogues

424 JUDAISM
K
Kahlo, Frida (19071954) not, as some suggest, in response to Riveras chronic
Mexican painter. One of Mexicos most original unfaithfulness. Kahlo biographers agree that her
artists, whose work combines realism with the fan- first sexual encounter at thirteen was with a woman
tastic, Frida Kahlo is often associated with Surreal- teacher, an affair that ended abruptly when her
ism in spite of her protestations that I never painted mother discovered the liaison and moved Kahlo to
dreams. I painted my own reality. Her reality in- a different school. A family photograph taken by
cluded a great deal of physical and psychic pain, her father in 1926, which shows Kahlo in male
which informed her paintings. In more than fiftyfive clothing, is often dismissed as a sign of the young
striking self-portraits (almost a third of her oeuvre), Fridas high spirits or is taken as a symbol of re-
Kahlo constructed and revealed herself even as she bellion against her bourgeois family.
masked her deepest feelings (The Mask [1945]). Kahlo was rebelliousby taking herself seri-
Born to a Hungarian-German-Jewish father and ously as an artist, by allowing herself sexual pleas-
a Spanish-Indian-Catholic mother, Kahlo made her ure with men and women, by joining the Commu-
multiple heritage a central theme in her work by nist Party and taking a public stand against politi-
combining European influences with indigenous cal oppression and imperialism, and, not least, by
Mexican iconography (The Two Fridas [1939]; refusing conventional role expectations for women
Tree of Hope [1946]). A bout with polio when she of her social classbut it was not rebellion that
was six and a near fatal bus accident at eighteen drew Kahlo to the many women with whom she
made her keenly aware of the bodys vulnerability. was lovingly and sometimes amorously intimate
Further degeneration led to a series of painful pel- throughout her life (Two Nudes in the Jungle
vic and spinal operations that left her unable to [1939]). Yet, in spite of these many same-sex rela-
bear a child. Kahlo mourned this fate and made tionships that clearly nourished her, Kahlos paint-
the experiences of her miscarriages and operations ings exude a deep sense of loneliness and isolation,
public in graphic paintings that are singular in as well as vitality and hope. Her innermost longings
Western art (My Birth [1932]; Henry Ford Hospi- are recorded in her Diary (published in 1995) in
tal [1932]; Remembrance of an Open Wound powerful, freely flowing language and in paintings
[1938]). Her obsessive love-hate relationship with wrought in a style far less controlled than the work
her husband, the well-known Mexican muralist she allowed the public to see.
Diego Rivera (18861957), whom she had mar- Although Kahlos paintings were exhibited
ried in 1929 (when she was twenty-two and he and given critical attention in her lifetime, after
forty-three), also made its way into her work. her death in 1954 her name passed into near ob-
Much has been made of Riveras well-docu- livion. In the 1970s, her work was reclaimed by
mented womanizing (including an affair with feminist scholars as a prime example of an artist
Kahlos sister) and Kahlos numerous affairs with who had been lost to history because she was
both men and women. What is often minimized in a woman whose work reflected a womans life
the narrative of Kahlos life is her abiding passion experiences. In the late 1990s, her popularity
for women, which began in early adolescence and continued to grow (and her market value gained)

KAHLO, FRIDA 425

 as her work also converged with growing public Newsweek (1981) columnist wrote: [T]he wom-
K interest in nonEuropean indigenous cultural ex-
pression.
ens rights movement, of which Billie Jean King has
been a champion for years, taught many of us that
Evelyn Torton Beck there is more than one way for women to live.
We got to know women for whom homosexuality
Bibliography was a workable alternative to the traditional way of
Collins, Amy Fine. Diary of a Mad Artist. Van- life. For many years after the expos, King refused
ity Fair (September 1995), 176, 229. to embrace a lesbian identity, although, during a
Herrera, Hayden. Frida: A Biography of Frida fund-raising event for the 1994 Gay Games, she
Kahlo. New York: Harper and Row, 1983. thanked Martina Navratilova (1956) for helping
. Frida: The Paintings. New York: her understand her own sexuality. Finally, at the age
HarperCollins, 1991. of 55, King came out, stating that she had settled
Lowe, Sarah M. Frida Kahlo. New York: Universe into an enduring relationship with another woman,
Books, 1991. and that dealing with her sexuality had been the
hardest battle of her life.
Throughout her tennis career, King was ranked
See also Art, Mainstream; Mexico
number one in the world five times and number one
in the United States seven times. She retired in 1984.
Her many honors include induction into the Na-
King, Billie Jean Moffitt (1943)
tional Womens Hall of Fame (August 1990) and
Tennis champion; born into a white, working-class
the International Tennis Hall of Fame (July 1987).
family in Long Beach, California, on November 22,
She continues to promote womens tennis globally.
1943. The Moffitt family, including younger brother,
Mary Johnson
Randy, was active in sports and encouraged Billie Jean
at a young age; she enjoyed baseball and football with
Bibliography
neighborhood boys and played championship girls
Bianco, David. How did Billie Jean King Come
softball at age ten. At eleven, her parents encouraged Out? Impact (September 1996). Available:
her to pick a girls sport. King recalled that the http://www.impactnews.com/pastout.htm
first time she hit a tennis ball she knew it was her King, Billie Jean, and Frank Deford. Billie Jean
game; she told her mother she was going to be the King. New York: Viking, 1982.
number one tennis player in the world. King, Billie Jean, and Kim Chapin. Billie Jean King.
King states in her 1974 autobiography, Billie Jean New York: Harper, 1974.
King, that she knew she was different because her Roberts, Shelly. Bad Form Billie Jean King.
interest in sports and wanting to excel were consid- Newsweek (May 25,1981).
ered unusual for a girl. Growing up in the 1940s Taylor, Anne. The Battles of Billie Jean King.
and 1950s, she was labeled tomboy though she Womens Sports and Fitness (September/Octo-
was uncomfortable with the definition. The media ber 1998), 131134, 168171.
often deemed her skills masculine. By the 1960s,
the term tomboy intimated innate and immuta- See also Navratilova, Martina; Sports, Professional;
ble traits that were allegedly incompatible with femi- Tomboy
ninity and hetereosexuality, according to one sports
historian. Thus, King shunned the tag.
King won her first Wimbledon singles match in Kinsey Institute
1966. She was then married to Larry King, a college Founded by Alfred Kinsey (18941956) and in-
boyfriend. Their marriage endured from 1965 to corporated in 1947 as the Institute for Sex Re-
1985. However, on May 8,1981, King was forced search, it is now named the Kinsey Institute for
to call a press conference, at which she admitted to Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction.
a lesbian affair with her former hairdresser and sec- Housed at Indiana University, the Kinsey Institute
retary, Marilyn Barnett. Barnett filed a now famous is one of the largest collections of materials on sexu-
palimony lawsuit seeking financial support from the ality in the world. In addition to extensive textual
Kings. Though King admitted to the affair, which and archival holdings, its collection of erotica con-
began in 1972, she also deemed it a mistake. This tains drawings, paintings, etchings, photographs,
angered gay activists and feminists alike. One and old stag films.

426 KAHLO, FRIDA

 Also the home of a network of sex researchers, ties: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women
the Kinsey Institute is probably best known for its (1978) and Alan Bell, Martin Weinberg, and Sue
studies on male and female sexual behavior, as re- Hammersmiths Sexual Preference: Its Development
leased in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male in Men and Women (1981). Researchers at the
(SBHM) (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Hu- Kinsey Institute have also studied topics such as sex
man Female (SBHF) (1953). Based on sex histo- offenders, nudists, adolescent sexuality, and pu-
ries from almost twelve thousand men and women, berty. Janice M.Irvine
the Kinsey reports were an unprecedented glimpse
at the sexual lives of white Americans (although Bibliography
Kinsey and his associates studied African Ameri- DEmilio, John. Sexual Politics, Sexual Communi-
can women and men, they did not include that data ties: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in
in SBHM or SBHF because they believed their sam- the United States, 19401970. Chicago: Uni-
ple was not large enough). The Kinsey reports had versity of Chicago Press, 1983.
a huge impact on postwar culture in the United Irvine, Janice. Disorders of Desire: Sex and Gen-
States and, in particular, shaped the emerging les- der in Modern American Sexology. Philadelphia:
bian and gay communities in the 1950s. Temple University Press, 1990.
The well-known Kinsey Scale challenged the no- Pomeroy, Wardell. Dr. Kinsey and the Institute for
tion of fixed sexual identities and instead suggested Sex Research. New York: Harper and Row, 1972.
that individuals might be located on a 06 continuum
from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homo- See also Sexology
sexual in sexual involvement and interest. The popu-
lar slogan that one in ten adults is homosexual is
widely attributed to the Kinsey research. The statistic Korea, South
derives from Kinseys finding that 10 percent of males Peninsula located in eastern Asia, between China
were more or less exclusively homosexual (that is, and Japan. Choson Dynasty, known as Korea in
they would rate a 5 or 6 on the Kinsey scale) for at the twentieth century, was partitioned into North
least three years between the ages of sixteen and fifty- Korea (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea) and
five. The figure was lower for women: 3 to 8 percent South Korea (Republic of Korea) when the Korean
of unmarried women rated between 4 and 6 on the War ended in 1953. This entry addresses only South
Kinsey Scale in each of the years between twenty-five Korea.
and thirty-five. Kinsey found, however, that much Accounts of homosexual behavior among
larger numbers of men and women reported some women in South Korea are scarcely recorded in of-
level of samegender sexual involvement. In the 1950s, ficial history. One of the rare exceptions is a royal
a writer in the lesbian publication The Ladder said: record from the fifteenth-century Choson Dynasty
Probably the reams of material written in passion- (13921910), during the reign of King Sejong, which
ate defense of the homophile have done less to fur- reports that the kings daughter-in-law, Bongsi,
ther the cause of tolerance than Kinseys single, de- caused a scandal for mimicking heterosexual re-
tached statement that 37 percent of the men and 19 lations with another woman. It is said that she pre-
percent of the women whom he interviewed admit- ferred the company of other women to her husband
ted having had overt homosexual relationships. and frequently slept with her maidservants. The royal
Kinsey was widely perceived as an ally of lesbian and cabinet stripped her of nobility and expelled her from
gay communities. the palace with accusations of lying, shaming the
Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, the king, and harboring improper jealousy. There are
Kinsey Institute conducted major studies on homo- very few other historical sources that document the
sexuality. The findings from ethnographic research lives of peasants and other commoners.
on gay male communities in San Francisco, Califor- Fortunately, oral histories help provide contem-
nia; Amsterdam, Netherlands; and Copenhagen, porary information about the more informal so-
Denmark; were published in Male Homosexuals: cial networks of women. By several accounts, a
Their Problems and Adaptations (1974) by research- womens caf, Chanel, thrived in the late 1960s in
ers Martin Weinberg and Colin Williams. Data from Myongdong district of downtown Seoul, the capi-
studies on both lesbians and gay men were released tal. A brainchild of a well-traveled Korean man
in Alan Bell and Martin Weinbergs Homosexuali- who admired the free-spiritedness of the European

KOREA, SOUTH 427

 countries he had visited, the women-only caf at- ing to seek visibility in the public eye, they sought
K tracted lesbians from all across the country. Be-
cause there is a strong social taboo against women
institutional visibility. The Women Taxi Drivers
Association filed legal papers to become a public
smoking cigarettes in public, Chanel also became organization in the early 1980s but disbanded in
known as a place where women went to freely 1984 after a divisive election.
smoke cigarettes. Men were asked to leave or were In November 1991, a group called SAPPHO
forcibly removed if they refused to cooperate. Some formed in Seoul, consisting mostly of American
discontented men eventually started a rumor that women who were teaching English or stationed on
Chanel fostered marijuana smoking, and, at the military bases. The group also included women
height of the military dictatorship and drug enforce- from Belgium, Canada, Sweden, and Australia, as
ment, Chanel was raided by the police in 1968. well as women from all over the Korean diaspora.
Because many women feared the increase in public In December 1993, two Korean Americans and
attention and potential humiliation, they stopped several Korean gay men and lesbians formed an
coming to the caf. Chanel closed its doors soon organization called Chodonghwe. Students at ma-
after the raid. jor universities, such as Seoul National University,
A more organized instance of networking was Yonsei University, and Koryo University, have also
the Women Taxi Drivers Association in the city of organized campus groups for gays and lesbians. A
Taejon, which formed around 1965. About 90 Korean lesbian organization called Kirikiri (Among
percent of its members were taxi drivers, but the Likes) was officially launched in 1994, and a
women entrepreneurs and artists also joined the caf/bar called Lesbos in Mapodong in Seoul
group. On the surface, the association appeared to opened in 1995. Both were covered by a popular
be an advocacy group for women in a profession news program in 1996, after which Kirikiris mem-
that is overwhelmingly occupied by men. Mem- bership grew and Lesbos received more than sixty
bers of the association did not identify as homo- phone inquiries a day. The 1990s also saw further
sexual or lesbian, but as singlea term com- visibility in the media, including a 1995 made-
monly used in Korea to denote a person who fortelevision movie, called Two Womens Love, a
chooses not to marry. story about a woman who commits suicide when
The women in the association followed a rigid the woman with whom she is in love marries a
hierarchy based on age and butch-femme roles. The man. In June 1997, the first public gay and lesbian
butch women, who took on the characteristically rights rally took place in Chongno in Seoul.
masculine roles, were called baji (pants), and the Ju Hui Judy Han
femmes were called chima (skirts). Younger pants
had to defer to the older pants as hyong, a term Bibliography
usually reserved for men to call older men. The Bruining, Miok. A Few Thoughts from a Korean,
membership grew steadily over the years, and it is Adopted, Lesbian, Writer/Poet, and Social
said that at least 1,200 to 1,300 women would Worker. In Lesbians of Color: Social and Hu-
gather for events. The members took care of one man Services. Ed. Hilda Hidalgo. New York:
another by planning funerals, celebrating birthdays, Harrington Park, 1995, pp. 4360.
and organizing other activities that are tradition- Eng, David L., and Alice Y.Hom. Q & A: Queer in
ally associated with the family. There were also Asian America. Philadelphia: Temple University
occasional marriages, which were held at Buddhist Press, 1998.
temples or wedding halls and attended by hundreds.
Some women even adopted and raised children. See also Asian Americans; International Organi-
Even though the individual members were not will- zations

428 KOREA, SOUTH

L
Labeling points about the labeling process. First, a behavior
Sociological term refering both to the process by viewed as normal can come to be labeled deviant
which something comes to be defined as deviant over time; relationships between women are not
and to a theoretical perspective about the signifi- intrinsically deviant. Second, once the deviant label
cance of that process. The latter is an approach to adheres to a behavior, it changes the experience of
deviance that emerged in the 1960s; prior to this, that behavior; it became nearly impossible for a
sociologys approach to deviance, like criminolo- woman to feel a sensuous, loving attachment to
gys to crime or psychologys to individual pathol- another woman without considering the possibility
ogy, had been to treat it as a departure from some that she might be a lesbian. What had been a wide-
standard of normality and to explain the cause of spread behavior in which any woman might par-
the departure. Labeling theorists turned such ques- ticipate had become an indicator that the partici-
tions on their heads, noting that nothing is inher- pant was a particular type of woman.
ently or universally deviant and opening the door The effects of this modern lesbian label have
for examining both the causes and the effects of been contradictory. On the one hand, a new form
the social reaction that places something or some- of stigma was created, removing the aura of inno-
one into the deviant category. The relativism of the cence that had surrounded romantic friendships,
labeling approach provided a useful opening for a driving much expression of affection between
new academic approach to lesbian and gay lives, women into hiding. On the other hand, the les-
cultures, and communities. Most of the sociolo- bian label made it possible to define a relationship
gists who pioneered these studies were grounded between women as explicitly sexual, and, as such,
in labeling theory. (Significant members of this first the label was welcomed by some women in spite
generation include Barry Adam, Philip Blumstein, of the stigma attached to it. The lesbian communi-
Barry Dank, John Gagnon, Martin Levine, Barbara ties, cultures, and, eventually, social movements
Ponse, Pepper Schwartz, Richard Troiden, and that have grown over the course of the twentieth
Carol Warren.) century have been built upon the very lesbian label
Labeling processes impact lesbians at every level, that originated as a stigma.
from the societal to the inter- and the intrapersonal. As a result of these changes on the societal level,
Historical studies demonstrate that, in the European a modern individual may self-label, or identify, as
and U.S. middle and upper classes, intense, loving, a lesbian in a manner not found in the historical
exclusive relationships between women, termed ro- past. This process of identification, often listed as
mantic friendships, were not only acceptable but the first stage of coming out, must be understood
honorable prior to the late nineteenth and early as an achivement, as a lesbian identity does not
twentieth centuries. At that time, such relationships automatically follow from any particular behaviors
came to be seen as both lesbian and deviant, and, or desires. As a number of studies from the 1970s,
eventually, the once widespread practice of roman- 1980s, and 1990s have demonstrated, a woman
tic friendship became virtually extinct. The history who has never had a sexual experience with an-
of romantic friendship demonstrates two central other woman might identify as a lesbian, while a

LABELING 429
 woman who is involved in a serious relationship Visible lesbian contributions to union activism
L with another woman might not identify as a les-
bian. While many within and outside lesbian com-
come on the heels of two decades of feminist un-
ion work. Labor feminists who have been success-
munities would be inclined to see women such as ful in enforcing principles of wage equity in union
these as mistaken about their own identities, such contracts and who have achieved respect in leader-
judgments would miss the point that ones self-la- ship positions have come out to organize lesbian
bel, or identity, is significant regardless of its ac- and gay committees. Other, heterosexual support-
curacy of self-description. A woman who does ers have encouraged the efforts of gay and lesbian
not identify as a lesbian, who perhaps sees herself coworkers to organize caucuses.
as attracted only to a particular woman, rather than Lesbian and gay activists of Service Employees
to women per se, will make life decisions (such as International Union (SEIU) Local 503, the state
whether or not to become involved in political ac- employees of Oregon, were critical coalition build-
tivism on lesbian issues) based on that identity. ers in the No on 9 and No on 13 battles of
The lesbian label is not always chosen by the the early 1990s. These electoral campaigns twice
individual, however, but is also a label applied by successfully defeated statewide referendum propos-
others, usually to stigmatize. As such, the use of als that would have mandated discrimination
the lesbian label to refer to women who are strong against lesbian and gay citizens. Feminists from that
and independent, such as athletes, feminists, and local had led pay-equity-contract campaigns in the
women in positions of authority, is intended to 1980s; defending gay rights was an important ad-
discourage these women and others who might vance in Local 503s progressive program. The
admire them, regardless of the actual accuracy organizers public speeches at union halls through-
of the label. As such, many feminists consider the out Oregon helped defeat the statewide antigay
destigmatization of the lesbian label a crucial goal referendum proposals.
of the womens movement. Vera Whisman In the highly organized public and service work
sectors, where womens union participation is es-
Bibliography pecially forceful, unions such as the SEIU and the
Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men: American Federation of State, County, and Mu-
Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women nicipal Employees (AFSCME) have chartered les-
from the Renaissance to the Present. New York: bian and gay committees. Along with other public
William Morrow, 1981. employee unions, such as the American Federation
Ponse, Barbara. Identities in the Lesbian World. of Teachers (AFT) and the American Postal Work-
Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1978. ers Union (APWU), they have articulated in their
Schur, Edwin. Labeling Women Deviant. New constitutions clear principles of nondiscrimination
York: Random House, 1984. for sexual orientation.
Lesbian union work takes many forms, depend-
See also Coming Out; Feminism; Identity; Roman- ing on the needs of workers and the strength of
tic Friendship; Stigma support available from communities and local and
national unions. Domestic-partner benefits have
been a popular issue since the mid-1980s. AFSCME
Labor Movement and SEIU members have bargained benefit equity
The wide range of organizations dedicated to main- into contracts with the cities of Seattle, Washing-
taining workers rights to organize unions, to ne- ton; San Francisco and Berkeley, California; and
gotiating employment contracts as members of New York City. In private-sector contracts, Hotel
collective bargaining units, and to advocating all and Restaurant Employees (HERE) Local 26 in
workers rights in society. In the United States in Boston and Local 6 in New York City have achieved
1995, 15 percent of the employed workforce con- similar gains.
sisted of union members; how many of those or- Lesbians experience homophobia as a constant
ganized workers were lesbian, gay, bisexual, or workplace hazard in the unionized but male-domi-
transgendered was unknown. Still, since the mid- nated occupations in which feminism has been less
1980s, many unions have provided an opportu- influential, such as the building trades. Women
nity for lesbian members to develop their strengths construction workers, both gay and straight, often
as organizers for workplace democracy. endure grueling harassment from male coworkers,

430 LABELING
and rarely are their local unions responsive to com- cation in the United States, The Ladder was the
plaints. Yet unionized nontraditional jobs attract first that was printed, widely circulated, and long
lesbians because the complex skills needed for con- running. Begun as a small, mimeographed monthly
struction work are matched by high wages. newsletter with a readership of less than two hun-
Since the mid-1980s, regionally based lesbian and dred, The Ladder advertised DOB events and pub-
gay labor coalitions have been successful in cam- lished short fiction, poetry, book reviews, essays,
paigns against homophobic employers (for exam- news clippings, and letters to readers. By its last
ple, the Coors beer boycott, which began in 1973 issue in 1972, The Ladder was a polished forty-
and continued until 1987); they have supported in- four page publication sent to approximately 3,800
dividual workers isolated by harassment; they have people, including DOB members in seven countries.
encouraged union locals to bargain for The mission of the Daughters of Bilitis was
domesticpartner benefits; they have contributed to printed in each issue. This mission included educa-
AIDS fund-raising; and they have supported the tion of the female homophile to enable her to make
unionization of employees of gay-owned businesses. her adjustment to society; public education, which
In 1994 these regional groups formed Pride at Work DOB hoped would lead eventually to a breakdown
(PAW), a national organization, and in 1997 PAW of taboos and prejudices; participation in research
became an official constituency group of the AFL- projects by psychologists and other recognized ex-
CIO. Pride at Work has established international perts; and investigation of the penal code. In The
links with lesbian and gay committees active in labor Ladders early years, under the editorships of Phyllis
unions in New Zealand and in Canada, as well as Lyon (1924) and Del Martin (1921) (who con-
in several countries of the European Economic Com- tinued their work and became important lesbian
munity, including Germany, the Netherlands, and activists), the publication promoted a firmly
the United Kingdom. Miriam Frank integrationist stance, working to promote personal
and social acceptance of the female variant and
Bibliography promoting a feminine viewpoint within the
Frank, Miriam. We Are Everywhere: How (and homophile movement. In keeping with the goal of
Why) To Organize Lesbian/Gay Union Com- gaining increased acceptance of individual lesbians,
mittees. In Americas Working Women: A early issues of The Ladder counseled readers on is-
Documentary History. Ed. Rosalyn Baxandall sues of dress and appearance and emphasized ac-
and Linda Gordon. Rev. and updated. New commodation to the mores of middle-class hetero-
York: Norton, 1995, pp. 324327. sexual society. To help counter the extreme stigma
Frank, Miriam, and Desma Holcomb. Pride at attached to lesbianism in the 1950s, it emphasized
Work: Organizing for Lesbian and Gay Rights that both heterosexuals and homosexuals read The
in Unions. New York: Lesbian and Gay Labor Ladder, and it published the views of those few pro-
Network, 1990. fessionals who were sympathetic to lesbians.
Hunt, Gerald, ed. Laboring for Rights: An Inter- During the early and mid-1960s, with Barbara
national Assessment of Organized Labors Re- Gittings (1932) as editor, the publication became
sponse to Sexual Orientation. Philadelphia: more firmly allied with the militant and
Temple University Press, 1998. maledominated segment of the homophile move-
Montague, Ann. We Are Union Builders Too. ment, which rejected accommodationist politics
Labor Research Review 20 (Spring/Summer and embraced tactics then considered radical, such
1993), 7983. as picketing. The magazine published controver-
sial arguments (for example, that homosexuality
See also Class; Coalition Politics; Community Or- was not an illness but an orientation or preference
ganizing; Domestic Partnership; Economics; Work akin to heterosexuality) and news about militant
homophile organizations and actions. In 1966,
under the editorship of Helen Saunders, The Lad-
Ladder, The der shifted emphasis again. This time, The Ladder
Lesbian periodical (19561972) published by the moved away from the male-dominated homophile
Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), a womens homophile movement and focused on womens issues and the
organization established in San Francisco, Califor- emerging feminist movement. Articles critical of the
nia, in 1955. Although not the first lesbian publi- male homophile movement and its tactics and

LADDER, THE 431

 issues appeared, along with news and viewpoints
L positive of the womens movement. In 1970, The
Ladder became an independent womens libera-
tion movement publication, unaffiliated with the
Daughters of Bilitis and edited by Gene Damon
(pseud, of Barbara Grier [1933]). Throughout the
magazines history, short stories and poems show-
ing positive images of lesbians were an important
feature, as were reviews of books published by and/
or about lesbians. Many of the reviews were re-
printed in Barbara Griers Lesbiana: Book Reviews
from the Ladder, 19661972 (1976).
Kristin G.Esterberg

Bibliography
Esterberg, Kristin. From Accommodation to Lib-
eration: A Social Movement Analysis of Lesbi-
ans in the Homophile Movement. Gender and
Society 8 (1994), 424443.
. From Illness to Action: Conceptions of
Homosexuality in The Ladder, 19561965.
The Ladies of Llangollen, pirated version of engraving
Journal of Sex Research 27 (1990), 6580.
by Lady Leighton. Courtesy of Emma Donoghue.
Martin, Del, and Phyllis Lyon. Lesbian/Woman.
Twentieth Anniversary Edition. Volcano, Calif:
After two years of travel, they settled in north
Volcano, 1991.
Wales, because it was cheaper than England. There
Grier, Barbara. Lesbiana: Book Reviews from the
they shared a rural, studious, devoted life in a cot-
Ladder, 19661972. Reno, Nev.: Naiad, 1976.
tage they named, significantly, Plas Newydd (New
Place). Over the years, they redecorated it in Gothic
See also Daughters of Bilitis; Gittings, Barbara;
Grier, Barbara; Martin, Del, and Lyon, Phyllis style with stained glass and carved oak and planted
a famous garden. Money was always shortMary
Carryll got no wagesbut, eventually, their fami-
Ladies of Llangollen lies became resigned to the situation and gave them
Lady Eleanor Butler (17391829), and the Honorable small stipends to live on, and in 1787 Ponsonby
Sarah Ponsonby (17551831), Irish diarists. Known got an annual pension of 100 from the king.
as the Ladies of Llangollen after the Welsh valley The Ladies story of noble birth, resistance, and
where they lived for half a century, Sarah Ponsonby escape appealed to the late-eighteenth-century im-
and Eleanor Butler are probably the most famous agination, and their lifestyle seemed to combine
pretwentieth-century example of a female couple. all of the best aspects of romantic friendship be-
Both grew up as members of the gentry in Kil- tween women: unworldly motives, rural seclusion,
kenny, Ireland. In 1778, Butler was under pressure Anglican piety, scholarliness, lifelong virginity, and
to save her family trouble and money by becoming faithful love. Well aware of being legends in their
a nun, and Ponsonby, her friend often years, was own lifetime, the Ladies wrote up what they called
fighting off the advances of her guardian, who ex- their heavenly days as they went along, in let-
pected his wife to die soon. The two women ran ters (signed jointly), diaries recording how they
away together in mens clothes (for safer travel) spent every hour, and books of recipes, medicines,
but were brought back by their families, locked notes on tradesmen, weather, health, extracts from
up, and starved. On the second attempt, they and their reading, and future plans. Despite their scan-
their devoted maid, Mary Carryll, managed to cross dalous elopement, they were in no sense radi-
the Irish Sea. One of Ponsonbys relatives com- cals; they prayed for the king and dismissed serv-
mented that at least there were no gentlemen con- ants for pregnancy and venereal disease.
cerned, nor does it appear to be anything more Their journals, though marked by a certain
than a scheme of Romantic Friendship. smugness, offer an unparalleled, vivid picture of a

432 LADDER, THE

shared life that so many other romantic friends Bibliography
could only dream of. The Ladies referred to each Colette. The Pure and the Impure. Reprint. New
other as my sweet love, my Beloved, my York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1967.
Hearts darling, and my better half. One poem Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men:
of Ponsonbys celebrated serene Love over Vul- Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women
gar Eros, and, in her day book, she commented: from the Renaissance to the Present. New York:
Those that have loved longest love best. The William Morrow, 1981.
Ladies became an object of pilgrimage for visitors Mavor, Elizabeth. The Ladies of Llangollen: A
from all over Europe. William Wordsworth (1770 Study in Romantic Friendship. London: Michael
1850) celebrated them in a sonnet as Sisters in Joseph, 1971.
love; Anna Seward (17471809) wrote many Stanley, Liz. Epistemological Issues in Research-
poems about their Davidean friendship (recall- ing Lesbian History: The Case of Romantic
ing that between David and Jonathan), including Friendship. Women s History Review 1:2
one that prayed that when they had to die it would (1992), 193216.
be under a single bolt of lightning.
In the early ninetenth century, some visitors saw See also Couples; Diaries and Letters; English Lit-
them, with their old-fashioned cropped hair and erature, Eighteenth Century; Ireland; Lister, Anne;
mannish riding-habits, as androgynous figures of Romantic Friendship; United Kingdom
fun. After a visit in 1822, Anne Lister (17911840)
speculated with her lover about whether the La-
dies bond had always been platonic or was ce- Lagerlf, Selma (18581940)
mented by something more tender still than friend- Swedish author. In 1909, Selma Lagerlf became the
ship. Such suspicions were not new; in 1790, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in literature. She
Ladies had been so incensed by a hinting article grew up at Mrbacka, a small manor in Vrmland,
entitled Extraordinary Female Affection in a and attended the Royal Teachers College for Women
local paper that they asked their friend Edmund in Stockholm, where she encountered new ideas and
Burke (17291797), who had fought innuendo met women who became her lifelong friends. Before
about his own sexuality in court, whether they Lagerlf could make a living from her pen, she worked
should sue. One friend who had highly ambiva- as a teacher for ten years.
lent attitudes to the Ladies was the writer Hester Lagerlfs first novel, The Story of Gsta Berling
Thrale Piozzi (17401821); in most of her diaries, (1891), was a bold breakthrough with a new type
she referred to them as fair and noble recluses, of prose poetry in a symbolistic, romantic vein. Her
but, in an unpublished diary (unearthed by Liz subsequent work was more traditional in form but
Stanley), she called them damned Sapphists, did contain deep psychological insights that were
claiming that women were scared to spend a night often symbolically framed. Conflicts concerning
at Plas Newydd unless accompanied by men. female creativity and desire could be written into
After their deaths, the Ladies lived on in poetry, male characters. She won her greatest acclaim with
plays, and a semifictional biography, The Chase of two books characterized by their nationalist sym-
the Wild Goose (1936) by Mary Gordon, who was bolism: Jerusalem (19011902) and The Wonder-
convinced that she had talked to their ghosts. They ful Adventures of Nils Holgersson (19061907).
still have a central place in the controversy over Before entering the literary field, Lagerlf voiced a
the extent to which the female couples of the eight- high confidence in her own genius as a writer. Later,
eenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries can be she resigned herself to the position of moralist spin-
considered lesbians. In her study of the Ladies, ster, telling fairy tales from Vrmland, a role she
Mavor (1971) resurrected what she called the was assigned by sexist critics.
more liberal and inclusive eighteenth-century All of her life, Lagerlf had close emotional ties
term romantic friendship to describe their to other women and was in tune with bourgeois
homoerotic rather than homo-sexual relation- feminist ideas. The more than 2,500 letters Lagerlf
ship. But, as she points out, it is arguable that the wrote to her most intimate friends were sealed until
frequent references to headaches and mutual nurs- fifty years after her death. These letters reveal a
ing in Butlers diary may stand (consciously or not) woman full of passion. In 1894, she fell in love with
for a sexual connection. Emma Donoghue the widowed author Sophie Elkan (18531921).

L A G E R L F, S E L M A 433
 Her first letters to Elkan give self-disclosing evi- society for a weekend or a week. Wandering bands
L dence of her negotiations over her sexual identity.
Lagerlfs feelings were evidently sexual, but Elkan
may squat or be received by rural lesbian home-
steaders for a summer. Lesbian individuals, part-
seemed reluctant to live out the physical side of the ners, or intentional communities may create both
relationship, which lasted as a friendship until the a home for themselves and a refuge for others. And
death of Elkan in 1921. The more sophisticated community land trusts create and preserve lesbian
Elkan introduced Lagerlf to new circles, and to- space on land in perpetuity.
gether they traveled extensively throughout Europe. Anthropologically, landyke culture exists as a
In 1902, Lagerlf met Valborg Olander (1861 definable culture distinct from both rural society of
1943), a teacher, who became her lover and close the general population and urban lesbian culture.
companion. Although they never lived together, Some of the features of this culture include
Olander supported Lagerlf and her work in dif- gynecentricity; having no or limited male presence;
ferent ways throughout her life. At her death, decision making by resident consensus; attending to
Lagerlfs family home, Mrbacka, became a mu- rhythms of menstruation, birth, and menopause in
seum, which is open to the public as a living the planning of activity; organic-ecological methods:
memory of her life and work. Lisbeth Stenberg growing all or part of their food supply by organic,
veganic, or bioenergetic methods in cooperation with
Bibliography the natural forces; hospitality: accommodating
Berendsohn, Walter A. Selma Lagerlf: Her Life multiethnic, multigenerational friends and strangers
and Work. Preface by V Sackville-West. Lon- in need for economic, health, and mental-health rea-
don: Nicholson and Watson, 1931. sons; appropriate technology: using low-impact meth-
Larsen, Hanna Astrup. Selma Lagerlf: A Short ods and machinery that can be made or repaired by
Biography of the First Woman Winner of the the community favoring sun, wind, and water power;
Nobel Prize for Literature. New York: teacher-mentor ethic: developing skills and empow-
Doubleday 1935. ering new residents, visitors, and neighbors with in-
Stenberg, Lisbeth. Och forkladnad. En lasning av formation and opportunity to practice; diversity: su-
Selma Lagerlfs novell En fallen kung (Text perseding constrictions of age, race, ethnicity, ability,
in Disguise: An Analysis of Selma Lagerlfs education, and class to bring in varied traditions of
Short Story A Fallen King). Lambda Nordica how to accomplish self-sufficient living; and natural
2:2 (1996), 3447. healing: replacing paid health care, either al-lopathic
or alternative, with the use of plants and techniques
See also Sweden at hand. In addition, a higher percentage of rural les-
bians than urban are visibly out in all kinds of
local encounters, whether by choice, difference from
Land neighbors, or the efficiency of rural gossip. Given the
Movement of self-consciously lesbian women to demands of self-sufficient living, few participate in
rural settings with the intent to create autonomous the cash economy on more than a casual basis, but
lesbian culture. Although lesbians have always lived many support a barter economy by crafts produc-
on land, as a definable movement it can be said to tion done on the land using materials readily avail-
have begun in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in able. A large proportion of lesbian cultural produc-
North America, western Europe, Australia, and ers live on land and create art, music, books and pe-
New Zealand, as part of a countercultural back- riodicals, and gatherings and conferences for the larger
to-theland movement, following which many of the lesbian community.
women came out as lesbians. The other primary Lesbians who live on land have learned most of
genesis was lesbian separatism. their land skills since moving to a lesbian land com-
The movement of lesbians to land creates two munity, whether they grew up rural with land skills
opportunities: to live secluded from the continual or urban. Often, new land communities locate near
presence of patriarchal culture and, in the ab- existing ones, providing companionship, exchanges,
sence of that pressure, to develop an authentic defi- and safety. There are pockets of lesbian land com-
nition of lesbian culture and identity. Land experi- munities with members in the hundreds, many of
ences are of varied durations. Festivals and encamp- whom know one another. More commonly, lesbi-
ments bring lesbians together in a lesbian-centered ans settle on land within driving distance of an

434 L A G E R L F, S E L M A
established urban lesbian community for resources brary and collection of harpsichords and attracted
such as visitors, bookstores, and concerts, as well an international student body.
as outlets for market gardens and crafts. Landowskas highly respected work is well docu-
While some communities endure for decades, mented on numerous recordings and in her own pub-
others dissolve in conflict. Close living and inter- lished writings on harpsichord technique, music in-
dependence raise issues of race, class, and able- terpretation, style, and history. She revitalized works
bodied assumptions. Communities are often over- by Domenico Scarlatti (16851757) and George
run with visitors in extreme situations who lack Frideric Handel (16851759) and is best known for
resources and deplete resident energy. Some women her authoritative performances of Johann Sebastian
find the demands of self-sufficiency and isolation Bach (16851750), drawing out the poetic and sen-
overwhelming, and others simply move on to new suous qualities she believed were overlooked in his
communities, new lovers, new jobs. music. In addition, she commissioned both Manuel
It is commonly understood that land cannot be de Falla (18761946) and Francis Poulenc (1899
owned or be an investment. Although more land is 1763) to compose modern harpsichord concertos for
purchased and developed by private ownership than her in 1925 and 1929, respectively.
Landowska was apparently quite open about
by nonprofit-corporation land trusts, many private
her lesbianism with her students and colleagues.
owners convert or bequeath their homesteads to
She participated in the Parisian lesbian scene by
community ownership, creating lesbian legacies.
attending, and occasionally performing at, the fa-
Because land is a resource that generates other re-
mous salons of Natalie Barney (18761972) and
sources, such as food, fuel, shelter, water supply, and
Gertrude Stein (18741946). Her performances of
fiber, the lesbian land movement is a core element
keyboard music were marked by a vigorous pas-
of lesbian autonomy and social freedom. A goal of
sion that is often considered excessive but can be
the lesbian land movement is to keep lesbian land
heard as the work of a lesbian musician clearly
in lesbian hands and to create spaces in which lesbi-
devoted to promoting the beauty, subtlety, and sta-
ans may live out their whole lives. Nett Hart tus of the harpsichord in the classical-music
world. Martha Mockus
Bibliography
Cheney, Joyce, ed. Lesbian Land. Minneapolis: Bibliography
Word Weavers, 1985. Landowska, Wanda. Music of the Past. Trans.
Sue, Nelly, Dian, Carol, and Billie. Country Lesbi- William A.Bradley. New York: Knopf, 1924.
ans: The Story of the WomanShare Collective. Restout, Denise, ed. Landowska on Music. New
Grants Pass: WomanShare, 1976 York: Stein and Day, 1964.
Tetrault, Jeanne, and Sherry Thomas. Country Rogers, W.G. Ladies Bountiful London: Victor
Women. New York: Doubleday, 1976. Gollancz, 1968.
Salter, Lionel. Wanda Landowska. In The New
See also Ecology and Ecofeminism; Economics; Grove Dictionary of American Music, vol. 3.
Lesbian Nation; Music Festivals; Separatism; Small Ed. H.Wiley Hitchcock and Stanley Sadie. Lon-
Towns and Rural Areas don and New York: Macmillan, 1986, pp. 89.

See also Barney, Natalie Clifford; Music, Classi-

Landowska, Wanda (18791959) cal; Stein, Gertrude
Polish-born French harpsichordist, pianist, and
pedagogue. Wanda Landowska was one of the most
celebrated performers of seventeenth- and eight- lang, k.d. (Kathryn Dawn) (1961)
eenth-century keyboard music and a pioneering Canadian singer and songwriter. In the early 1980s,
figure in the revival of the harpsichord. She toured k.d. lang studied voice at Red Deer College, Al-
Europe extensively as a harpsichordist, perform- berta, and worked as a performance artist. She re-
ing early music and educating the public about corded A Truly Western Experience in 1984 with
longneglected musical repertoires of the past. In Bumstead, a Canadian independent label. In 1987,
1925, Landowska founded her own school of early she signed on with Sire Records and recorded An-
music, the cole de Musique Ancienne, in St.-Leu- gel with a Lariat (1987), Shadowland (1988),
laFort, north of Paris, which included a vast li- Absolute Torch and Twang (1989), Ingnue (1992),

LANG, K.D. 435

 All You Can Eat (1995), and Drag (1997). In 1993, Mockus, Martha. Queer Thoughts on Country
L she co-composed (with Ben Mink) and performed
the sound track for Gus Van Sants film Even
Music and k.d. lang. In Queering the Pitch: The
New Gay and Lesbian Musicology. Ed. Philip
Cowgirls Get the Blues. Brett, Elizabeth Wood, and Gary C.Thomas.
langs early musical style is a mischievous blend New York: Routledge, 1994, pp. 257271.
of honky tonk and rockabilly, and her extraordi- Rich, B.Ruby. On Standing by Your Girl. Artfo-
nary mezzo voice often recalls the late Patsy Cline rum 30 (Summer 1992), 1719.
(19321963). langs powerful vocal style includes
bluesy melancholy, rambunctious yodels and hic- See also Camp; Music, Popular
cups, and langorous phrasing. While some critics
find her music overwrought, others admire its ex-
quisite passion, humor, and camp. The Nashville Language
establishment held k.d. lang and the reclines (her The study of lesbian language did not begin until
band) in suspicion, even though lang befriended the last two decades of the twentieth century. It has
Minnie Pearl (19121996) and recorded with its origins in two rather different fields of inquiry.
Brenda Lee (1944), Loretta Lynn (1935), Kitty
The first concentrated on language and sexuality,
Wells (1919), and Roy Orbison (19361988). She
while the second looked at language and gender.
presented an unabashedly butch image to the world:
Early studies of language and sexuality mostly took
short spiky hair, mens clothing, no makeup, and
the form of investigations into gay slang. The crea-
no mention of boyfriends in her song lyrics and in-
tion of a specialized gay vocabulary was seen as an
terviews. Furthermore, she identified as a feminist,
integral part of establishing group cohesion and iden-
and her music was banned from many midwestern
tity. Glossaries of gay slang, including the words
country music radio stations in 1990 when she pub-
used, their meanings, and origins, began appearing
licly promoted vegetarianism on television.
as early as 1941 with Gershon Legmans The Lan-
Although lang was consistently referred to as an-
drogynous in the music press, her lesbianism was guage of Sexuality: An American Glossary. A tacit
only a semisecret to her lesbian and gay fans. Such assumption of many researchers was that lesbian
songs as Big Boned Gal, Its Me, and Big Big slang could be subsumed under a general homo-
Love are easily heard as raucous lesbian anthems, sexual heading. Two methods were used to gather
lang often adopts the stage antics of Elvis Presley the data. Researchers would circulate questionnaires
(19351977), Buddy Holly (19361959), and Wayne to places where gay people gathered, such as bars,
Newton (1942). And, in her mid-1980s perform- asking respondents to list the gay words they knew
ances of Bopalena and Polly Ann, which are for various activities and people, such as having
included on her 1992 video Harvest of Seven Years sex or lesbian. Alternatively, as participant ob-
(Cropped & Chronicled), she enacts outrageous girl servers who were themselves gay or lesbian, they
drag. In 1992, lang moved away from country music would provide information about their own and
(on Ingnue) and came out publicly as a lesbian in their friends use of gay slang.
the Advocate, one of the first visible women in popu- These early studies proved of limited value to
lar music to do so. She also made her film debut, the investigation of lesbian language for several rea-
portraying a butch lesbian in northern Alaska, in sons. Participant observation necessarily limits its
Percy Adlons Salmonberries (1991). findings to the insights of the informant/researcher
After coming out, a queer strain continued to and his or her acquaintances, while questionnaires
shape langs work. In her 1992 video of Miss that ask only for a series of discrete lexical items
Chatelaine, she donned prom-dress drag, and her lose vital information, such as the context of use
musically pared down, funk-inspired All You Can and the role the words play in creating community.
Eat made explicit reference to a female lover. Although it is interesting to note that the majority
Martha Mockus of San Francisco Bay Area lesbians are familiar with
the expressions butch bottom (a lesbian of mas-
Bibliography culine appearance who takes a relatively passive role
Bennets, Leslie, k.d. lang Cuts It Close. Vanity in bed), rug munching (performing oral sex), and
Fair 56:8 (August 1993), 9499, 142146. packing (wearing a dildo), this does not tell when
Lemon, Brendan. Virgin Territory: k.d. lang. and how these terms are used, by whom, nor what
Advocate 605 (June 12, 1992), 3446. their connotations are. Nevertheless, the early

436 LANG, K.D.

glossaries and slang dictionaries did help show that lesbian language. Kathleen Wood and Ruth Morgan,
the language of lesbians was a valid area of study. in a study of lesbians informal conversation, dem-
The gay slang glossaries listed relatively few onstrate that such talk tends to be highly collabora-
terms for lesbian activities, a fact that Penelope and tive, employing not only cooperation, but also
Wolfe (1979) investigated. They observed that les- coconstruction of narratives. One lesbian will begin
bians know few of the terms usually regarded as a description with a word or phrase, and others will
gay slang and use even fewer because, according build on that description by offering new elements.
to them, slang itself mostly consists of derogatory These new elements are not considered interruptions
terms for women. Since, as they concluded, lesbi- of the first speakers turn, but embellishments; not
ans do not possess a unique vocabulary, Penelope a takeover bid, but a group effort.
and Wolfe turned their investigations in another A great disadvantage of the language and gen-
direction, asking not what lesbian slang consists der approach, on the other hand, is that it assumes
of, but what other social mechanism is used by that the concepts masculinity and femininity
lesbians to create cohesion among themselves. are directly related to anatomical men and women.
Penelope and Wolfe began to analyze lesbian ver- In other words, it accepts as unproblematic that men
bal humor instead of concentrating on single words. use masculine modes of speech while women use
This development in lesbian linguistics proved feminine modes of speech. It leaves no space for lin-
both useful and detrimental. It temporarily shelved guistic gender transgression or performativity. It
the investigation into lesbian slang by stating that cannot account for the speech characteristics of
slang was not a fruitful area of research, implying butch women or effeminate men, for example.
even that such research was antifeminist. On the Both approaches, the language and sexuality
positive side, it moved the emphasis away from approach and the language and gender approach,
individual words and looked at the discourse con- have been criticized by modern theorists as reductive.
text and the cooperative creation of verbal texts. The former assumes that shared homosexuality can
The second field of inquiry that has contributed cancel out gender differences. It also views language
important concepts and analytical tools to the study as a collection of words, a lexicon, rather than as a
of lesbian language is conversational analysis, espe- system that works on many levels, principally those
cially the analysis of language and gender. Specialists of sound (phonology), vocabulary (lexicon), gram-
in the study of language and gender, such as Robin mar, meaning, and discourse (or language in con-
Lakoff, Jennifer Coates, Deborah Cameron, and text). Any of these levels may be used by lesbians to
Deborah Tannen, examined three principle areas: (1) distinguish their speech from that of heterosexual
the differing connotations of words applied to mem- women. For example, Birch Moonwomon (Livia and
bers of each sex; (2) the differing speech patterns of Hall, 1997), in a pioneering study of lesbian pho-
men and women; and (3) the cultural effects of lin- nology, showed that lesbians tended to stick to the
guistic gender in languages such as Spanish or Hindi, lower vocal range and did not employ the full range
which classify nouns as masculine or feminine. of pitch modulation with the steep ascents and de-
This approach provided a robust and complex scents observed in heterosexual womens speech.
framework for the analysis of lesbian language. It William Leap, a gay anthropologist working in the
showed, for example, that conversational concepts field of language and homosexuality, titled his les-
such as no gap, no overlap, which assumed that bian and gay linguistics anthology Beyond the Lav-
silences, interruptions, or overlaps in conversation ender Lexicon: Authenticity, Imagination, and Ap-
were signs that something was amiss, were not only propriation in Lesbian and Gay Languages (1995),
culturally limited (not applicable in cultures where in humorous recognition of the earlier single-minded
several people speaking at once might be encour- focus on individual words.
aged as a valued skill), but also of limited applica- In the 1990s, a more rounded picture of les-
tion in all-female groups. An overlap might well be bian language began to emerge. Language was con-
a sign of agreement or cooperation, since coopera- sidered in all of its aspects (not just lexicon). Les-
tive speech is more characteristic of women, while bians themselves were seen not only as distinct from
competitive speech is more characteristic of men. heterosexual women on the one hand and gay men
Since the study of lesbian language is, to a large ex- on the other, but also as belonging to different
tent, the study of all-female discourse groups, these communities of practice, or different groups that
findings have been useful to researchers looking at come together for different purposes, bound by

LANGUAGE 437
 different identities. Early studies tended to look Bibliography [Parts One and Two]. Journal of
L only at the language of white American lesbians,
whereas in the 1990s greater emphasis was placed
Homosexuality 4:2 (Winter 1978), 201212;
4:3 (Spring 1979), 299309.
on lesbian communities in other parts of the world Leap, William, ed. Beyond the Lavender Lexicon:
and in a variety of different ethnic and social Authenticity, Imagination, and Appropriation
groups. in Lesbian and Gay Languages. Buffalo, N.Y.:
It is impossible to state exactly what lesbian lan- Gordon and Breach, 1995.
guage consists of; any generalization would risk Livia, Anna. I Ought To Throw a Buick at You:
being reductive. Moonwomon demonstrated that, Fictional Representations of Butch/Femme
in Northern California, lesbians are believed by Speech. In Gender Articulated: Language and
straight outsiders to have an assertive, emotional, the Socially Constructed Self. Ed. Kira Hall and
talkative manner and a direct, engaged style with Mary Bucholtz. New York: Routledge, 1995,
little use of hedges and qualifiers. Research on fic- pp. 245278.
tional representations of butch-femme speech, on Livia, Anna, and Kira Hall, eds. Queerly Phrased:
the other hand, shows that the fictional butch (usu- Language, Gender and Sexuality. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1997.
ally taken as the archetypal lesbian) speaks little,
Penelope, Julia, and Susan Wolfe. Sexist Slang and
betrays few emotions, and often allows the words
the Gay Community: Are You One, Too? Ann
of popular songs to speak for her (Livia, 1995).
Arbor: Michigan Occasional Paper No. 14
The popular perception of the way real lesbians
(Summer 1979).
speak and the fictional portrayal of butch lesbian
speech would appear to be completely at odds. The
See also Gossip; Penelope, Julia; Slang
real lesbian is seen as talkative and expressive; the
fictional butch is seen as taciturn and unemotional.
To add a further complication to an already com-
Latin American Literature
plex picture, these portrayals, although valid for
A body of literature produced by Latin American
what they show of the perceptions of lesbian lan- writers that goes beyond simple representations of
guage, do not take account of the actual speech of lesbian themes and motifs to privilege a lesbian per-
lesbians in specific contexts. A study by Barbara spective. This literature concerns itself mainly with
Joans (Leap, 1995) comparing the speech of the les- erotic, autobiographical, and sociopolitical themes.
bian motorbike group Dykes on Bikes with that of However, in many texts, these are so intertwined
the predominantly heterosexual group Ladies of that their classification is difficult to discern.
Harley shows that, although members of the first As a consequence of womens and feminist
group engage in identifiably lesbian language and movements, the decades of the 1970s, 1980s, and
topics when talking about their lives outside the bike 1990s favored the emergence and development of
group, when they go on rides their bike talk is this type of literature. Still, the limited critical at-
indistinguishable from that of the heterosexual tention that lesbian literature has received speaks
group. Another problem one needs to be aware of to the denial that exists when it comes to lesbian-
is the fact that linguistic scrutiny itself may change ism. Traditionally, writers interested in lesbian is-
the nature of the discourse. As Mary Porter (Leap, sues and themes have resorted to the strategy of
1995), reporting on Swahili terms for lesbians in hiding meanings or transforming them into socially
Kenya, observes: [T]he scrutiny of female friend- acceptable forms. Hence, the history of lesbian lit-
ship is itself disturbing. It is troublesome to think erature has to be liberated from the silence that
that increased self-consciousness may inhibit the very society has imposed on it.
friendships on which women most depend.
Lesbian language is a complex, multifaceted, Key Literary Figures
and essential part of group identity, cohesion, and While the omission of lesbian issues is the norm in
expression. It cannot be reduced to one uniform Latin American literary critical discourse, some
set of practices. Anna Livia critics have begun to rescue from heterosexist views
two key literary figures: Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz
Bibliography (Juana de Asbaje, Mexico [16481695]) and Nobel
Hayes, Joseph. Language and Language Behavior Prize winner Gabriela Mistral (pseud, of Lucila
of Lesbian Women and Gay Men: A Selected Godoy, Chile (18891957]).

438 LANGUAGE
 Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz, a Carmelite nun, is While Peri Rossi encodes eroticism and love in
well known for her lyric and philosophical poetry, Evoh, Lingstica general addresses lesbianism
essays, and drama in which she rebels against patri- openly. Here, the poet continues to explore the rela-
archal structures. Her love poetry, dedicated to no- tionship of language, meanings, grammar, gender
blewomen, the Countess of Paredes and the Mar- categories, and, in several poems, lesbian love. In
quise de Laguna, among others, has provided the 3ra. Estacin: Campo de San Barnaba, for exam-
basis for lesbian interpretations of her works and, ple, lesbian meanings are clearly expressed and the
thus, of her life. Poems such as En que describe female voice proclaims her love for another woman.
racionalmente los efectos irracionales del amor (In In 4ta. Estacin: Ca Foscari, one of her most beau-
which she describes rationally the irrational effects tiful lesbian love poems, the exchange of the wom-
of love), Filis, and Divina Lysi ma (My Divine ens identities is prominent: I love you tonight and
Lysi) suggest a lesbian love discourse. some others/our identifying marks exchanged/the
Central to Gabriela Mistrals poetry are the way we joyfully exchange our clothes/and your dress
themes of loneliness, love, and frustration, reflect- is mine/my sandals yours/my breast/your breast.
ing the consciousness of a woman identified at dif- The decade of the 1980s witnessed the emergence
ferent emotional levels with other women. Her fe- of other lesbian poets, such as Magaly Alabau,
male friendships and the existence of a female part- Nancy Crdenas, Diana Bellessi, Mercedes Roff,
ner have been overlooked in Mistrals life, as crit- Nemir Matos, and Sabina Berman. With the excep-
ics have focused on her desolation because of a tion of Roff, this poetry is characterized by an
male lovers death. openly lesbian erotic discourse. However, eroticism
As with Sor Juana Inss and Gabriela Mistrals has acquired diversified manifestations in these
lives, literary critics have dismissed female bonding womens works. In some of them, for example, eroti-
in the life of prose writer Teresa de la Parra (pseud, of cism is intertwined with rivalry and violence, while
Ana Teresa Parra Sanojo, Venezuela [1889/ 1890 in others it is connected with the act of writing.
1936]). Moreover, de la Parras close friendship with Among the numerous poetry collections published
anthropologist and writer Lydia Cabrera (Cuba by Magaly Alabau (Cuba [1945]), Electra/
[19001991]) provides a basis for a lesbian reading. Clitemnestra (1986) and Hermana (Sister [1989])
focus on lesbian love, eroticism, and intimacy. In her
Late Twentieth Century first book, the author adapts and elaborates on the
In the second half of the twentieth century, the Greek myths of Electra and Clytemnestra. Through
works of Alejandra Pizarnik (Argentina [1936 the process of reinterpreting these classical myths,
1972]) and Cristina Peri Rossi (Uruguay [1941]) Alabau transforms their heterosexual context into
intertwine eroticism with the investigation of the lesbian meanings. While, in her first collection, vio-
process of writing and sociopolitical concerns. lence and rivalry are features of the female protago-
Considered mainly a poet, Pizarnik, in La condesa nists relationships, in Hermana she presents the pos-
sangrienta (The Bloody Countess [1971]), a work sibility of emotional bonding between women.
based on Valentine Pen-roses Erzbet Bathry: La Sabina Berman, Nancy Crdenas, and Rosamara
Comtesse Sanglante (1963), mixes lesbian eroti- Roffiel, all Mexican, have produced erotic, socio-
cism with death, power, and torture. This mosaic political lesbian literature. In the erotic vein is the
of eleven prose vignettes is a metaphor for her coun- poetry collection Lunas (Moons, 1988) by play-
trys political situation. wright, novelist, and actress Berman (1955).
Short-story writer, journalist, poet, and novel- Crdenas (19341994), poet, playwright, and
ist Peri Rossi is the author of two books, among theater director, was, until her death in April 1994,
many novels and poetry collections, that contain an activist for lesbians rights in Mexico City. Her
lesbian themes: Evohe (1971) and Lingstica gen- book Cuaderno de amor y desamor (Book of Love
eral (General linguistics [1979]). The epigraph of and Absence of Love, [1994]) articulates an openly
the former, a poem by Sappho (ca. 600 B.C.E.), is lesbian erotic discourse that, as the title indicates,
an obvious reference to the theme of lesbianism. centers on either celebratory or unrequited love. The
In Evoh, Peri Rossi assumes a male voice to speak grammatical markers (the use of an I identified
of desire for the female body. Through the use of as female and a she) make clear that the female
male and female pronouns, the author encodes her speaker is invoking a woman lover and specifies its
meanings and, thus, avoids political censorship. lesbian nature. Moreover, the first pages of the book

L AT I N A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E 439
 allude to a new genesis, a reinterpretation of the books dedication clearly states its lesbian charac-
L foundational myth of the Western world. Here,
Adam and Eve have been replaced by two women,
ter: Para todas las mujeres que se atreven a amar
a las mujeres (To All Women Who Dare to Love
who, alone and naked, will write their own history. Women). The controversy caused by the publica-
Rosamara Roffiel (Mexico [1945]) is the au- tion of the autobiographical novel Dos Mujeres
thor of a collection of poetry, Corramos libres ahora ([1990]; translated as The Two Mujeres [1991])
(Lets Run Freely Now [1986]); a documentary nar- by Sara Levi Caldern (Mexico [1942]) speaks to
rative, Ay Nicaragua, Nicaraguita! (Oh, My Dear the denial and silence that still prevails regarding
Nicaragua [1987]); and a lesbian novel, Amora lesbianism in Latin America. Elena M.Martnez
(Love in the Feminine [1989]). Most of the poems
of Corramos libres ahora deal with the theme of Bibliography
love and intimacy among women. In Eroica, Diana Foster, David William. Gay and Lesbian Themes
Bellessi (Argentina [1946]) presents a passionate in Latin American Writing. Austin: University
lesbian erotic discourse characterized by a celebra- of Texas Press, 1991.
tory tone. In Eroicas section Dual, as in Peri Martnez, Elena M. Lesbian Voices from Latin
Rossis 4ta. Estacin: Ca Foscari, the speaker America: Breaking Ground. New York: Gar-
emphasizes the reciprocity of the lovers desire. land, 1996, pp. 1233.
Nemir Matos (Puerto Rico [1949]), the first writer Rodriguez Matos, Carlos. Nemir Matos. In
on the island to deal openly with lesbian issues, also Latin American Writers on Gay and Lesbian
deals with the mutuality of desire in her two collec- Themes. A Bio-Critical Sourcebook. Ed. David
tions of poetry, Las mujeres no hablan as (Women William Foster. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood,
Should Not Speak That Way [1981]) and A travs 1994, pp. 216217.
del aire y del fuego pero no del cristal (Through Air
and Fire but not Glass [1981]). Unlike the previ- See also Juana Ins de la Cruz, Sor; Mistral,
ously mentioned poets, Mercedes Roff (Argentina Gabriela; Parra, Teresa de la; Sappho
[1954]), author of three poetry collections, Poemas
19731975 (1978), Crnara Baja (Lower Bedroom
[1987]), and La noche y las palabras (Nights and Latina Literature
Words [1996]), deals with the experience of the lov- Literature written by U.S. women writers whose
ers absence. ethnic identity originates from Mexico, Central
Lesbian prose writers in Latin America have been America, South America, and Spanish-speaking
less prolific than poets. Most lesbian narrative con- countries of the Caribbean.
cerns itself with the autobiographical and the erotic. U.S. Latina lesbian literature became widely avail-
In the biographical mode is the novel Monte de Ve- able and visible only with the publication of This
nus (1976) by Reina Roff (Argentina [1951]). Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women
Censored in Argentina because of its portrayal of of Color (1981). Prior to its publication, the very
political problems and lesbianism, the novel revolves concept of a Latina lesbian was met with cultural
around a lesbian whose life experiences reflect the and social resistance. The editors of This Bridge,
marginality she suffers in a homophobic society. Cherre Moraga (1952) and Gloria Anzalda
During the 1980s and the 1990s, three signifi- (1942), introduced into American literature for the
cant novels dealing with lesbian issues were pub- first time the voices of openly lesbian Latinas, as
lished. En breve crcel ([1981]; translated as Cer- well as those of other women of color. As Latina
tificate of Absence, [1989]) by literary critic Sylvia literature proliferated after 1981, so, too, did les-
Molloy (Argentina [1938]) explores the link be- bian literature. By 1998, two anthologies were spe-
tween eroticism and the act of writing. Rosamara cifically devoted to Latina lesbian literature. Addi-
Roffiels novel Amora intertwines a love story, an tional work in this field is increasing as Latina lesbi-
autobiography, and a social and political commit- ans continue to write and publish literary texts.
ment to womens causes with a reflection upon
womens position of inequality in Mexican soci- Terms and Origins
ety. The novels epigraph alerts the reader to the One needs to clarify the use of the terms Latina,
fact that it is an autobiographical account based Chicana, and Hispanic to recognize the spe-
upon real characters and plot. Furthermore, the cific differences within the community. Latina is

440 L AT I N A M E R I C A N L I T E R AT U R E
an umbrella term that includes women whose eth- lations of Latina lesbian existence and the cultural
nic heritage and culture include most of the Spanish politics involved in such an existence. Moraga ac-
diaspora (the originally homogeneous population knowledges the influence and importance of the
now dispersed around the world) from Central and African American feminist movementspecifically,
South America. Chicana refers specifically to the radical manifesto of the Combahee River Col-
women of Mexican American descent who are po- lective of 1977and its role in developing a frame-
liticized; the term also attempts to include a recog- work that includes the intersections of race, class,
nition of the indigenous heritage. These terms are and sexual orientation. Her mixed format of memoir,
often used interchangeably, but the distinctions essay, and historical retelling represents a significant
should be acknowledged. Hispanic is an umbrella literary development for Chicana writers, as it in-
term primarily used by mainstream acculturated troduced the literary form that would be followed
communities to describe Latinos in the United States. by later Latina lesbian intellectuals.
Latina lesbians rarely use Hispanic because it is In 1983, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press
not considered to be a radically politicized term. published Cuentos: Stories by Latinas. This col-
Latina/o literature can trace its beginnings to the lection of stories, edited by Alma Gomez, Cherre
protest literature of the civil rights movements in Moraga, and Mariana Romo-Carmona, is one of
the 1960s. The early published writings of Latinas/ the earliest collection of stories by not only Latina
os were specifically preoccupied with attempts to lesbians, but also heterosexual Latinas. It intro-
identify the community in relation to mainstream duced authors who would later go on to be recog-
American society. Many of the poets and prose writ- nized as the premier Latina lesbian writers.
ers were male nationalists interested in defining the Gloria Anzalda is a poet and an essayist who
Latino community in opposition to mainstream so- also questions and revises traditional conceptions
ciety; this included an affirmation of the traditional of literature. Her highly influential theoretical/po-
place of the woman in the Latino community, a rig- etic, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
idly defined domestic space. In response to this nar- (1987), breaks completely with traditional forms
row definition of women, Latinas began telling their of narrative or essay. Through metaphor, poetry,
own stories in opposition to both Latino writers the retelling of cultural myths, and her own per-
and the mainstream society. Many Latinas found sonal narrative, Anzalda defines a space that un-
themselves active in mainstream feminist organiza- derscores the ambiguity and multiplicity of sexu-
tions in the 1970s, as well as in politicized Latino ality in both U.S. mainstream society and the
organizations. Within both movements, however, Chicana/o community. In this way, Anzalda can
Latinas found themselves invisible. be credited with introducing a unique blend of
In 1980, two works of major significance to the Chicana feminism and queer theory. Anzalda, like
development of Latina writing were published: Moraga, began the articulation of lesbian Latina
Margarita Melvilles Twice a Minority: Mexican literature, and both continued through the 1990s
American Women and Dexter Fishers The Third to be tireless cultural workers who challenged the
Woman: Minority Women Writers of the United stereotyping of Latina sexuality and gender roles.
States. These two works introduced the concept of
Latinaspecifically, Chicanawomen as writers Expansion and Continuations
in contrast to more traditional female role models. In 1987, a second important anthology was pub-
However, it was the challenge made by Moraga lished, Compaeras: Latina Lesbians: An Anthology,
and Anzalda in 1981 that, in many ways, marks compiled and edited by Juanita Ramos. This text was
the beginning of the contemporary Latina feminist the first collection devoted completely to Latina les-
literary period. bian writings. Published initially by the Latina Les-
bian History Project and republished in 1994 by
Major Figures Routledge, a mainstream press, Compaeras contin-
An essayist and editor, as well as one of the found- ued the work of This Bridge. One way it did so was
ers of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, Cherre by including writers from a variety of specific Latina
Moraga invests her poetry and drama with both identities. Like the later works of Anzalda and
personal and political dimensions. Her first collec- Moraga that use essay, fiction, poetry, and drama,
tion of work, Loving in the War Years/Lo que nunca Compaeras attempts to break down the traditional
paso por sus labios (1983), is one of the first articu- lines between genres and explore other means of

L AT I N A L I T E R AT U R E 441
 communicating the complexity of sexuality and its Mex, Spanglish, and specific regional dialects. The
L constructions. This anthology introduced the work
of Mariana Romo-Carmona, as well as the first writ-
poetry in Chicana Lesbians and other collections, for
example, includes bilingualism as a fundamental char-
ings of previously unpublished lesbian Latinas. acteristic. Terri de la Peas novel Margins (1992)
In 1991, an anthology featuring only Chicana includes an explicit statement of purpose about her
lesbians and edited by Carla Trujillo was made avail- use of bilingualism within the dialogue, which at-
able by one of the important small presses that pub- tempts to reflect accurately the aural experience of
lishes the work of Latina lesbians, Third Woman Latina lesbians, as well as the emotional and physical
Press. Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers experiences as she understands them. In Margins, de
Warned Us About can be read as a coming of age la Pea explores a unique and particular Chicana les-
work by Chicana lesbians, who were ready to as- bian community defined primarily by relationships
sert an identity separate from that of other Latinas. and not necessarily by a one-dimensional, or essen-
Like its predecessors, Chicana Lesbians compiles tial, identity.
fiction, poetry, and essays into a text that continues In 1996, historian Emma Perez published Gulf
to deconstruct traditional literary genres and also Dreams, a short novel that produced yet another
represents the diversity and complexity of the iden- new space for the articulation of desire and intel-
tity Chicana lesbian. Chicana Lesbians also con-
lect. Influenced by postmodern scholarship, Perez
tinued the work of This Bridge by introducing
recognized how late-twentieth-century theorists have
Chicanas into the previously Anglo-dominated dis-
erased the traditional boundaries between sexual
cussions of lesbianism and by interjecting such theo-
desire and intellectual concepts. Hence, Gulf Dreams
rists as Ana Castillo, Emma Perez, and Yvonne
pushes Latina lesbian sexuality and theory further
Yarbro-Bejarano into the debates over what was
into the postmodern space known as queer theory.
coming to be known as queer theory.
At the end of the twentieth century, Latina les-
The work of writers such as Castillo and Perez
bian literature was still in its nascent stages. How-
points to the continued health of the field. An es-
ever, language is now available for the articulation of
sayist and a novelist, Castillo has always presented
work that is groundbreaking, prolific, and experi- sexuality and desire within the framework of cultural
mental. Among her more recent writing is a collec- diversity, which leaves ample space for new and in-
tion of essays, Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays vigorating creative work. Mara C.Gonzlez
on Xichanisma (1994), that explores the realm of
a feminism indigenous to the cultures to which Bibliography
Castillo belongs. Using both personal and schol- Anzalda, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The
arly essay forms, Castillo takes up many of the same New Mestiza. San Francisco: Spinsters/Aunt
issues Moraga and Anzalda articulated in their Lute, 1987.
own essays. Castillos prose, fiction, and poetry Castillo, Ana. Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays
represent one of the more complex voices among on Xicanisma. New York: Plum, 1994.
Latina lesbians. Gomez, Alma, Cherre Moraga, and Mariana
Latina lesbian writers also have worked with RomoCarmona, eds. Cuentos: Stories by
the short story and poetic forms. Achy Obejass Latinas. New York: Kitchen Table: Women of
collection of humorous and entertaining short sto- Color Press, 1983.
ries, We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Morag, Cherre. Loving in the War Years/Lo que nunca
Could Dress Like This? (1994) incorporates some paso por sus labios. Boston: South End, 1983.
of the major themes Latina lesbians address in their Moraga, Cherre, and Gloria Anzalda, eds. This
creative works, such as resistance and rejection by Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical
family and community, interracial and interethnic Women of Color. Watertown, Mass.:
relationships among women, and the complexities Persephone, 1981.
of coming out. Prominent Latina lesbian poets of Ramos, Juanita, ed. Compaeras: Latina Lesbians:
the 1980s and 1990s, in addition to Anzalda and An Anthology. New York: Latina Lesbian His-
Moraga, include Mariana Romo-Carmona, Julia tory Project, 1987. Republished New York:
Perez, and Luz Maria Umpierre. Routledge, 1994.
One of the unique aspects of Latina lesbian litera- Trujillo, Carla, ed. Chicana Lesbians: The Girls
ture is the use of bilingualism, usually Spanish and Our Mothers Warned Us About. Berkeley:
English, but also the informal oral languages of Tex- Third Woman, 1991.

442 L AT I N A L I T E R AT U R E
See also Anzalda, Gloria E.; Combahee River from recent immigrants to women whose families
Collective; Latinas; Moraga, Cherre may trace their presence in what is now the United
States back many generations.
Immigrant women bring distinct experiences
Latinas and viewpoints to the Latina lesbian community.
Diverse community of women living in the United They often carry with them specific ways of be-
States, as well as a movement for social change that ing lesbian, learned in their country of origin, and
emerged in the 1970s. Latina lesbian identity involves may not even use the word lesbian to describe
a complex blend of ethnic, gendered, and sexual char- themselves. In addition to mastering survival in a
acteristics and experiences. As people of color, as new culture and country, they must also negotiate
women, and as lesbians, Latinas have been what may be a very different lesbian identity once
marginalized in U.S. society yet also have success- in the United States. Moreover, immigrant women,
fully created a distinct culture. Often underlying the like Latinas in general, may feel great pressure to
identity of Latina lesbians is the refusal to give up or represent their communities to the larger society
to prioritize one part of their identity over another. and may, therefore, feel conflicted about living
openly lesbian lives.
Diversity While the Spanish language is one unifying fac-
While they share an identity based on cultural, eth- tor, it also reflects the diversity of the population.
nic, and linguistic factors, like the Latino popula- The Latina lesbian community includes bilingual
tion as a whole, the Latina lesbian community is women, as well as monolingual English- or Span-
quite heterogeneous. Latino cultures in the United ish-speaking women. Differences in language
States represent a fusion, to varying degrees, of among the distinct Latina lesbian communities are
specific Latin American cultures with national and illustrated by the spectrum of terms of self-desig-
regional U.S. cultures. Latin America itself repre- nation used by Latina lesbians. For example, while
sents a fusion, again to varying degrees, of indig- a Chicana or Mexican lesbian might refer to her-
enous, African, and European cultures emanating self as a tortillera (slang for lesbian, literally a
from more than three hundred years of Spanish woman who makes tortillas), another Latina might
colonial rule and racial intermixture. call herself a cachapera (slang for dyke, probably
The designation Latina is an umbrella term from the word cachapa, a pancake).
referring to women of Spanish-speaking heritage in Economic class is yet another factor that adds
the United States and includes both Latin American to the diversity within the Latina lesbian commu-
and U.S.-born women. The term is often chosen in nity. While many women come from working-class
conscious opposition to the term Hispanic, which backgrounds, others derive from middle- or
is perceived by many women to be an artificial label uppermiddle-class backgrounds. Economic class is
imposed by the media and the government. As mem- often associated with particular groups within the
bers of particular communities, Latina lesbians may Latino population. Historically, many population
refer to themselves by more specific labels, such as movements are representative of particular socio-
Puertoriquea, Chicana, Mexican American, or economic classes. For example, Mexican immigra-
Cuban. Some Latina lesbians refer to themselves sim- tion to the United States in the early part of the
ply as American. Regional identities are also impor- twentieth century was predominantly working
tant. For some Chicana lesbians, for example, iden- class, while the Cuban migration of the 1950s and
tities such as Tejana (Mexican Texan) and Hispana 1960s was chiefly middle class.
(New Mexican) are primary. Thus, there is no one Latina lesbian identity or
Adding to the diversity among Latina lesbians experience. Rather, there are a range of experiences
is the presence of both U.S.-born and immigrant defined by individual, regional, and group back-
women. While a significant part of Latino history grounds and histories. Despite the many sources
in the United States is rooted in the immigration of diversity, however, Latina lesbians often share a
experience, some communities, particularly in the sense of collective identity based on the common
Southwest, trace their beginnings to Spanish-Mexi- experiences of women who identify both as Latinas
can settlements in the seventeenth and eighteenth and as lesbians. These shared experiences frequently
centuries. As a consequence, the Latina lesbian include both the embrace and the critique of tradi-
community includes a wide spectrum of women, tional cultural values.

L AT I N A S 443
 Commonalities made it difficult for Latina lesbians to be open, par-
L One deeply held value, in both Latin America and
among Latinas and Latinos in the United States, is
ticularly within strictly Catholic households. Yet
many Latina lesbians have maintained ties with the
a strong orientation toward family. For Latinos in Catholic Church and have continued to practice their
the United States, identification with the family has specific forms of spirituality.
served as a survival strategy. Since Latinos have These connected, yet distinct, religious back-
faced deep-seated discrimination and prejudice in grounds have had differing consequences for Latina
the United States, family has often provided a ref- lesbians. Spirituality may open up spaces for lesbi-
uge and a place to maintain traditional ethnic cul- ans. In the Caribbean, Catholicism has been im-
ture. An already-strong family orientation, there- bued with African spiritual beliefs. Santeria, a spir-
fore, has been reinforced by the experience of ex- itual system derived from the Yoruba people of
clusion and segregation. This has had contradic- western Africa, often disguised itself as Catholi-
tory consequences for Latina lesbians. On the one cism in the Caribbean, where it has flourished, al-
hand, strong family ties and the fear of being os- though often underground, since colonial times.
tracized from the family have made it more diffi- There is evidence of a strong lesbian presence within
cult for some Latinas to come out as lesbians. Yet, Santeria in the nineteenth century. That presence
for other women, strong family loyalty has meant was powerful enough to merit a divinity, a protec-
a certain level of family acceptance of their lesbi- tor of lesbians, the hermaphroditic Inle. Like other
anism despite an underlying disapproval. culturally held values and beliefs, religion has served
Another powerful cultural value within Latino to both limit Latina lesbians and allow them places
societies revolves around the protection of women to exercise some control over their own lives.
from outsiders, especially men. The resulting sex Along with shared cultural values, an experi-
segregation has limited womens abilities to move ence of exclusion from predominantly heterosexual
about in society, but also has provided women with Latino communities and predominantly white les-
opportunities to form intimate and intense relation- bian communities has also reinforced the creation
ships with other women. Although the individuals of a Latina lesbian identity. Heterosexual Latinos
in these woman-centered relationships may not re- and Latinas sometimes label lesbianism as acting
fer to themselves as lesbians, the relationships in- white in an effort to control the sexuality of Latina
volve important components of lesbian relationships, lesbians. Out lesbians have been labeled sellouts
including devotion, affection, intimacy, and love. (vendidas) by straight Latinos and Latinas who see
While religion is by no means a monolithic insti- lesbianism as an intrusion of American culture.
tution within the Latino community, it has supplied Latina lesbians have also been accused of being
Latinas with another common link. Although Prot- antifamilia by others who believe that maintaining
estant denominations have made important inroads traditional culture is paramount to the survival of
into Latino communities in the twentieth century, peoples of color. These debates have been most vis-
Latinos have traditionally identified with the Ro- ible within the political arena, particularly during
man Catholic Church. The Catholic Church main- times of intense cultural nationalism.
tained religious dominance in Latin America through
three hundred years of colonial rule. It influenced Latina Politics
every aspect of life. Yet it, too, was modified by its As a consequence of the conflicts and debates be-
contact with indigenous and African spiritual sys- tween Latina lesbians and cultural nationalists, who
tems. Latin American spiritualities, therefore, reflect believe that culture should remain unchanged,
a fusion of Catholic beliefs and practice with indig- Latinas have responded politically in several dif-
enous, African, and folk beliefs and practice. In ferent ways. Some have continued to work within
Mexico, for example, Catholicism has been infused broad ethnic groups, others left to work with les-
with a variety of indigenous worldviews. The pa- bian-only organizations, while others formed sepa-
tron of Mexico, and of the Americas, Our Lady of rate Latina lesbian groups.
Guadalupe, is a dark-skinned virgin who is said to The move to lesbian-only groups presented dif-
have appeared to an Indian man in 1531. She asked ficulties. Within predominantly white lesbian or-
that a temple be built to her on the site of a previous ganizations, Latina lesbians frequently experienced
temple to the goddess Tonantzin. The Catholic racism and exclusion. In the 1970s, many Latina
Church, with its stance against homosexuality, has lesbians believed that what was then termed

444 L AT I N A S
womens culture was actually white womens reflects the diverse Latina lesbian visions through
culture. Within such settings, Latina lesbians of- literature and art. Beginning in the 1980s, Latina
ten felt pressured to speak only English, to set aside lesbian newsletters and journals undertook the task
cultural practices and values, and to disregard con- of diffusing these visions regionally and nationally.
cerns over racism in favor of a focus on sexism. One important avenue for this process was the jour-
Despite the feelings of exclusion arising from their nal esto no tiene nombre (this does not have a name)
interactions with both heterosexual Latinos and from Miami, Florida, which published work by
white lesbians, Latina lesbians have continued to Latina lesbians from 1991 through 1994.
work within both communities. Latina lesbians, like other lesbians of color, rep-
While there have been Latinas who fit the defi- resent a diverse, and still evolving, community of
nition of lesbian throughout the twentieth cen- women who identify as Latinas and as lesbians.
tury, the term Latina lesbian emerged from the Yolanda Chavez Leyva
particular historical circumstances of the late twen-
tieth century. The movement of Latina lesbians Bibliography
working for social change derives from a particu- Alarcn, Norma, Ana Castillo, and Cherre
lar political orientation that deems ethnicity, gen-
Moraga. The Sexuality of Latinas. Berkeley:
der, and sexuality equally worthy of consideration.
Third Woman, 1989.
As a political movement, Latina lesbians draw
Espn, Oliva. Cultural and Historical Influences
inspiration and experience from several other move-
on Sexuality in Hispanic/Latin Women: Implica-
ments, including the civil rights movement, the
tions for Psychotherapy. In Pleasure and Dan-
Chicano movement, the gay and lesbian liberation
ger: Exploring Female Sexuality. Ed. Carole S.
movements, and the feminist movement. Since the
Vance. Boston: Routledge, 1984, pp. 149164.
1970s, Latina lesbians have organized politically
Garcia, Alma. The Development of Chicana Femi-
in a number of ways around a number of issues.
nist Discourse. In Unequal Sisters: A
Although Latina lesbians have always been present
within their communities, their visibility as a dis- MultiCultural Reader in U.S. Womens History.
tinct politicized group dates from the 1970s. Ed. Vicki L.Ruiz and Ellen Carol DuBois. New
Shortly after the Stonewall Rebellion (1969) in York: Routledge, 1994, pp. 531544.
New York Citys Greenwich Village, Latina lesbians Leyva, Yolanda Chavez. Breaking the Silence:
and Latino gay men created organizations that fought Putting Latina Lesbian History at the Center.
racism and homophobia in a variety of ways. In the In The New Lesbian Studies: Into the
1970s, organizations included El Comite de Orgullo TwentyFirst Century. Ed. Bonnie Zimmerman
Homosexual Latinoamericanos (New York City), and Toni A.H.McNaron. New York: Feminist
Comunidad de Orgullo Gay (Puerto Rico), Greater Press, 1996, pp. 145152.
Liberated Chicanos (Los Angeles, California), and Moraga, Cherre, and Gloria Anzalda, eds. This
the Gay Latino Alliance (San Francisco, California). Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical
By the 1980s, Latina lesbians were creating separate Women of Color. Watertown, Mass.:
organizations, including Latinas Lesbianas Unidas Persephone, 1981.
(Los Angeles), Ellas (Texas), Las Buenas Amigas (New Ramos, Juanita, ed. Compaeras: Latina Lesbians.
York City), and Lesbianas Latinas de Tucson (Ari- New York: Latina Lesbian History Project,
zona). The 1980s also saw the formation of the first 1987.
national organization of Latina lesbians and Latino Trujillo, Carla, ed. Chicana Lesbians: The Girls
gay men, Latina/o Lesbian and Gay Organization Our Mothers Warned Us About. Berkeley:
(LLEGO). By the early 1990s, Latina lesbians were Third Woman Press, 1991.
also working within organizations focused on creat-
ing linkages between Latina lesbians in the United See also Caribbean; Immigration; Latina Literature
States and lesbians in Latin America. In 1994 Adelante
con nuestra vision: First National Latina Lesbian
Leadership and Self-Empowerment Conference, Law and Legal Institutions
Latina lesbians from throughout the United States Lesbian lives are affected on a daily basis by the
attended in Tucson, Arizona. law and legal institutions. The law often determines
Simultaneously, Latina lesbians have continued whether lesbian sexual practices will be punished
creating and re-creating a Latina lesbian culture that or tolerated, whether children will be removed from

L AW A N D L E G A L I N S T I T U T I O N S 445
 lesbian households, whether or not lesbian rela- trine of undue influence, and such wills were set
L tionships will be valued, whether or not lesbians
will be able to immigrate, and whether or not les-
aside by judges who believed that biological rela-
tives, not lesbian lovers, were the natural objects
bians will be discriminated against in employment, of a persons bounty. In the 1990s, however, such
housing, and other necessities. While the law and will contestations ceased to be generally successful.
legal institutions do not necessarily determine so- Nevertheless, unless there is a legal document, such
cial realities, the law does have an important prac- as a health-care proxy or a valid last will and tes-
tical and symbolic role. In advocating for the bet- tament, the law continues to operate to privilege
terment of lesbian lives, there is controversy about biological relations and obliterate lesbian relations.
how much the law and legal institutions should be The legal nonrecognition of lesbian relations can
utilized to effect change for lesbians. also cause a lesbian partner to be denied private
In a little less than half of the states in the United insurance benefits, Social Security benefits, and a
States and in many nations, lesbian sexual practices host of other benefits available to spouses. In a
are illegal. The criminalization of lesbian sexual prac- growing number of cases, municipalities, universi-
tices is often the linchpin that supports other forms ties, and corporations have adopted domestic-part-
of discrimination. For example, in child-custody dis- nership policies that attempt to recognize certain
putes, courts have often used the criminal status long-term lesbian relationships for benefit pur-
of the mothers sexual practices to deprive a lesbian poses. However, such policies remain the excep-
mother of custody. While there has been some liber- tion rather than the norm.
alization in lesbian child-custody cases since the Thus, many advocate for the extension of legal
1960s, lesbian mothers continue to be deprived of marriage to same-sex couples. The traditional le-
custody of their childreneven in cases in which such gal view has been that legal marriage can be ex-
a deprivation requires the court to award custody of tended only to couples who are composed of one
the child to a person convicted of murder or a per- man and one woman, although there were certainly
son, such as a grandparent, who is in the ordinarily factual exceptions in the cases of passing women
much less favored legal position of a nonparent. For and of transsexuals who changed gender identity
lesbian nonbiological parents, the law has not recog- after the marriage occurred. In the 1990s, how-
nized their status as parents. This means that, if there ever, there have been glimmers of change. Several
is a separation or if the legal parent dies, the nonlegal Scandinavian nations, as well as the Netherlands,
parent has little claim for custody or even visitation allow some form of same-sex marriage, although
of the child. However, several states have begun to not on the same terms as traditional male-female
recognize second-parent adoptions, which allow the marriages. In the United States, although during
nonbiological parent who is a partner of the biologi- the 1970s many state courts had rejected legal chal-
cal or adoptive parent to adopt the childthus, be- lenges to the limiting of marriage licenses to cou-
coming a legal parent. ples consisting of a male and a female, in 1993 the
Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that such treatment
Relationships might constitute sex discrimination (Baehr v.
Regarding lesbian relationships, the traditional Lewin). The court relied upon its state constitu-
stance has been a denial of legal status. This can tional provision prohibiting sex discrimination and
cause problems because the law routinely accords held that, unless the state could demonstrate a com-
other relationships legal status. For example, a les- pelling interest for the limitation of marriage to
bians next of kin for medical determinations and male-female couples, the practice must be discon-
inheritance purposes could be a biological relative tinued, and same-sex couples must be allowed to
she has not seen for twenty years rather than the avail themselves of legal marriage. When the case
lover with whom she has been living for those twenty was remanded for trial, the trial court found that
years. With the advent of statutes allowing health- the state did not satisfy its burden of demonstrat-
care proxies in almost every state and many nations, ing a compelling reason. A 1999 referendum em-
a lesbian can select the person(s) she wishes to make powered the legislature to ban samesex marriages,
her decisions should she become incapacitated. In though no such law has been passed, nor has the
terms of inheritances, the will of a lesbian devising Hawaii Supreme Court ruled on the court deci-
her property to her lover(s) was once easily con- sion. Although the validity of Hawaiin same-sex
tested by biological relatives under the legal doc- marriages in other states is unclear, in response to

446 L AW A N D L E G A L I N S T I T U T I O N S
the Hawaii litigation, in 1996 Congress passed the private entities to discriminate against a person on
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which attempts the basis of race, national origin, sex, or religion.
to make it clear that states need not recognize Although such discrimination undoubtedly occurs,
Hawaiin same-sex marriages. Many states have it is, nevertheless, illegal, and a person who could
passed similar statutes providing that the state will prove, for example, that a landlord would not rent
not recognize same-sex marriages even if such mar- to her because she is Asian, or from Japan, or a
riages are legally valid in other states. These state woman, or a Buddhist, could bring a lawsuit and be
laws, as well as DOMA, contradict the general prac- awarded money damages. However, if the landlord
tice of states recognizing as valid marriages that told her he would not rent to her because she is a
are valid in other states, a practice that is possibly lesbian, in all but a handful of states or cities she
mandated by the full faith and credit clause of would have no legal remedy. In the places that do
the United States Constitution. prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual ori-
Yet lesbians do not universally advocate samesex entation, however, it would also be illegal for a les-
marriage. For some lesbians, legalizing samesex bian landlord to refuse to rent to a heterosexual man
marriage is overwhelmingly positive: It will afford on the basis of his heterosexuality. Since 1995, the
some individual lesbians concrete benefits, and it United States Congress repeatedly considered, but
has the potential to erode the gendered configura- refused to pass, a federal law that would prohibit
tion of marriage and to liberalize, and perhaps even discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
liberate, the institution of marriage from its patri- In the United States, perhaps the most visible
archal roots. For other lesbians, the availability of legal discrimination has occurred in the military,
marriage will have negative effects: It will cause a which discharges women on the basis of lesbian-
rift between good lesbians, who inhabit monoga- ism in numbers disproportionate to the number of
mous long-term relationships, and bad lesbians, women serving in the military. According to anec-
who do not, and will mean that lesbian couples dotal evidence, many women discharged or forced
will be assimilated into the institution of marriage to resign may not be actual lesbians, but may have
with all of its defects, including its patriarchal his- merely resisted the sexual advances of male service
tory devaluing women. members and have then been subjected to lesbian
The availability of lesbian marriage would also baiting. In other cases, lesbians who have simply
affect the immigration laws of the United States and stated that they are lesbians have been discharged.
many other nations that give preference to noncitizens The courts have generally upheld these discharges,
related by blood or marriage to citizens. This giving great deference to the military and rejecting
privileging can result in the denial of a preferential various arguments, including that the discrimina-
immigration status to the noncitizen partner of a les- tion is unconstitutional under the equal protec-
bian citizen. Further, the immigration laws of many tion clause or that the discharge violated the les-
nations provide for the exclusion of persons who have bians constitutional right to free speech.
committed crimes or are morally unfit, both of which For many years, the United States Supreme
can be applied to lesbians, although in recent years Court has not been receptive to lesbian arguments
this application has become increasingly rare. Increas- for equality, most often refusing to even hear cases
ingly, legal advocates have argued that the laws al- in which lower courts had allowed discrimination
lowing political asylum for persons who have a justi- or other forms of inequality. In 1986, the Court
fied fear of persecution in their countries should be rendered its notorious decision in Bowers v.
applied to lesbians and gay men who have a fear of Hardwick, which held that states could constitu-
persecution because of their sexuality. tionally criminalize minority sexual practices. Per-
haps less well known, but equally offensive, was
Legalized Discrimination the Courts decision (1987) in San Francisco Arts
Persecution, in the immigration/asylum context, and Athletics v. United States Olympic Commit-
usually means fear of death in the home nation, but tee, in which the Court held that the United States
every nation seems to have an unacceptable level of Olympic Committee owned the word Olym-
violence against lesbians. A less dramatic form of pics and could seek an injunction against the Gay
persecution and violence occurs against lesbians in Olympics for infringement, despite granting the use
the form of legalized discrimination. In the United of the term Olympic to other groups (such as
States, it is unlawful for any government and most the Explorer Olympics) and its failure to enforce

L AW A N D L E G A L I N S T I T U T I O N S 447
 its right against other groups (such as the Crab- Robson, Ruthann. Lesbian (Out)Law: Survival Un-
L Racing Olympics). Similarly, in Hurley v. Irish
American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of
der the Rule of Law. Ithaca, N.Y.: Firebrand, 1992.
. Sappho Goes to Law School: Fragments in
Boston (1995), the Court overruled the Massachu- Lesbian Legal Theory. New York: Columbia
setts Supreme Courtwhich had held that the University Press, 1998.
group organizing Bostons St. Patricks Day Parade Rubenstein, William, ed. Lesbians, Gay Men, and
violated state laws by excluding gay, lesbian, and the Law: Cases and Materials. New York: Free
bisexual Irish Americans from the paradeargu- Press, 1993.
ing that the parade organizers had a First Amend- Wilson, Angela, ed. A Simple Matter of Justice?
ment right to determine the content of the parade. London and New York: Cassell, 1995.
In 1996, however, the United States Supreme
Court, for the first time, ruled in favor of lesbians, See also Adoption; Custody Litigation; Discrimi-
gay men, and bisexuals. In Romer v. Evans, the nation; Domestic Partnership; Legal Theory, Les-
Court ruled that Amendment 2 to the Colorado State bian; Privacy; Rights
Constitution, passed in a referendum by Colorado
voters, was unconstitutional. The amendment itself
was a backlash to some policies and ordinances in Leather
Colorado that had made discrimination on the ba- Term that can refer to clothing, a fetish, sexuality, a
sis of sexual orientation unlawful. Amendment 2 lifestyle, or a subculture with its own vocabulary
provided that the state or any of its subdivisions and codes. There is no universal profile of a lesbian
could not enact or adopt any policy whereby ho- who has interests in leather or in the leather com-
mosexual, lesbian or bisexual orientation, conduct, munity. Many lesbians involved within the leather
practices or relationships shall constitute or other- scene explain that their interests, fetishes, or prac-
wise be the basis of or entitle any person or class of tices are merely matters of personal choice and ex-
persons to have or claim any minority status, quota pression of sexual autonomy and radical sexuality.
preferences, protected status or claim of discrimi- In the 1990s, the community represented itself
nation. In declaring Amendment 2 unconstitu- as pansexual and inclusive of different sexualities,
tional, the Court held that Amendment 2 classifies persuasions, and varying degrees of interest in
homosexuals not to further a proper legislative end leather. The importance of a subculture and a vo-
but to make them unequal to everyone else. This cabulary for leather lesbians is an affirmation of
Colorado cannot do. A State cannot so deem a class their self-knowledge, sexual taste, and lifestyle.
of persons a stranger to its laws. Attraction to leather can extend into personal dress,
Many advocates on behalf of lesbian legal rights sexuality, or leather fetish. Despite popular stere-
believe that Romer v. Evans marked a new begin- otypes, not everyone interested in leather has an
ning in the laws treatment of lesbians and other interest in sadomasochism.
sexual minorities. Although most agree that this case During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the les-
does not guarantee that lesbian sexual practices will bian leather community was small, but it flourished
no longer be punished, or that children will not be even though there were no lesbian leather bars or
removed from lesbian mothers, or that lesbian rela- organizations. Instead, many leather women met
tionships will not continue to be devalued, or that within the mens leather bars, which had existed
lesbians will not continue to be lawfully discrimi- since the late 1950s. Several sources corroborate
nated against, most also agree that perhaps the laws that there was an increased curiosity in leather
hostility toward lesbian may be waning. within the lesbian community in the late 1970s. In
Ruthann Robson 1978, a group of leather women in San Francisco,
California, founded a group, Samois, which was
Bibliography one of the first organized support groups that ca-
Herman, Didi, and Carl Stychin, eds. Legal Inver- tered to lesbians interested in leather or sadomaso-
sions: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Politics of Law. chism. The name Samois comes from the estate
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995. of the lesbian dominatrix Anne-Marie in the Story
Leonard, Arthur. Sexuality and the Law: An of O (1965) by Pauline Rage (pseud, of
Encylopedia of the Major Legal Cases. New Dominique Aury). Samois membership grew large
York and London: Garland, 1993. enough to rent space at the Catacombs, a privately

448 L AW A N D L E G A L I N S T I T U T I O N S
owned leather/sadomasochism mens space, the Leduc, Violette (19071972)
Hothouse, and other places that welcomed their French writer whose works reflect the complex inter-
activities. play of autobiography and fiction. Violette Leducs
The effort to publish their booklet What Color fictional works stand as counterpoints to the autobi-
Is Your Handkerchief? (1980; out of print) and their ography she would later write. Indeed, it was only
book Coming to Power: Writings and Graphics on through the publication in 1964 of La Btarde (The
Lesbian S/M put a strain on the members, and, by Bastard), the first volume of her autobiography, that
1983, the group disbanded. Initially, Samois publi- Leduc began to receive any recognition as a writer.
cations were banned from the shelves of most femi- The stigma of illegitimacy marked Leducs child-
nist bookstores. They and other leather women were hood, as her mother shifted the burden of her own
attacked for what was perceived as male-identified disgrace onto the child. She taught her to distrust
sexuality and the violence attributed to leathersex. men and fear pregnancy and, at the same time, criti-
Acceptance from the feminist community was non- cized her unattractiveness and unfeminine behavior.
existent at the time and is still controversial. After Although her grandmothers love counterbalanced
Samois demise, other leather woman founded the her mothers lack of affection, her grandmothers
Outcasts in San Francisco in 1984. They published death when Leduc was nine brought an abrupt end
groundbreaking works that dealt with leather les- to any happiness she might have known in the con-
bian sexuality and sadomasochism, published by text of her family. With her mothers marriage and
Alyson Publications. Attention to leather dykes the birth of a legitimate child, a son, Leducs al-
has surrounded lesbian scholarship during the dec- ienation was complete. The rest of her youth would
ades of the 1980s and 1990s. probably have been spent at boarding school had
The 1980s saw a proliferation of lesbian or she not been expelled for a lesbian relationship with
woman-friendly leather clubs in most major cities one of the teachers.
in the United States, such as the Lesbian Sex Mafia Leduc quit high school and went to work for a
in New York City (1981); the Outer Limits in while as a secretary and publicity writer for the
Seattle, Washington (1988); and Female Trouble publishing house Plon. She also began another li-
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1989). Most organi- aison with a woman. Illness forced her to give up
zations are affiliated with the National Leather her job, and, soon afterward, the breakup of her
Association. These organizations and countless relationship left Leduc with few resources. She
others, cater to women interested in the leather or worked at odd jobs, was married, albeit briefly,
sadomasochist (S/M) culture. At the end of the and maintained contact with some of the writers
1990s, most major cities had leather-related groups, she knew from Plon. After the onset of World War
and many Internet sites that cater to lesbians ex- II, she fled to the Normandy countryside with the
isted, offering workshops, conferences, and con- flamboyant writer Maurice Sachs (19061945).
tests to members and others. Janni Aragon Under Sachs aegis, Leduc not only became a suc-
cessful trader on the black market, but also com-
Bibliography pleted the draft of her first novel, LAsphyxie (In
Califia, Pat. A Personal View of the History of the Prison of Her Skin). The return to Paris at the
the Lesbian S/M Community and Movement in end of the war introduced Leduc to the circle of
San Francisco. In Coming To Power: Writings Simone de Beauvoir (19081986) and Jean-Paul
and Graphics on Lesbian S/M. Ed. Samois. San Sartre (19051980). Beauvoir shepherded the pub-
Francisco: Samois, 1981. 3rd ed. Boston: lication of LAsphyxie (1946) and became one of
Alyson, 1987, pp. 245284. Leducs strongest supporters. She helped Leduc
Califia, Pat, and Robin Sweeney, eds. The Second during her nervous breakdown and assured her fi-
Coming: A Leatherdyke Reader. Los Angeles: nancial stability through a monthly stipend from
Alyson, 1996. the publishing house Gallimard. For her part, Leduc
Rubin, Gayle. The Catacombs: A Temple of the had long idolized Beauvoir. In a sense, all of her
Butthole. In Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, works, be they fiction or autobiography, were writ-
Politics, and Practice. Ed. Mark Thompson. ten with Beauvoir as their intended reader. Her
Boston: Alyson, 1991, pp. 119141. ambiguous, very much onesided, relationship with
Beauvoir became, as all of Leducs life, matter for
See also Sadomasochism both her novels and her autobiography.

LEDUC, VIOLETTE 449

 With Beauvoirs encouragement and despite the nent with annual visits to England. At age fourteen,
L lack of immediate critical success, Leduc contin-
ued living in Paris and writing. Then, in 1964, La
on the publication of her first short story, she
adopted a pseudonym to protect her identity from
Btarde, the autobiography behind the fiction of the all-male literary establishment. Lee was a trib-
LAsphyxie, appeared and instantly became a ute to her half-brother, the poet Eugene LeeHamilton
succs de scandale of the year. After experiencing (18451907), but the other major influences in her
the recognition of her talent and the fame she had life were women, including her mother, Matilda, and
long hoped for, Leduc spent increasing amounts of the novelists Cornelia Turner (d. 1874) and Henrietta
time, devoted to writing, in the southeast of France, Camilla Jenkin (1807?1885).
where she died of cancer in 1972. Edith J.Benkov In 1880, she published her most widely acclaimed
work, Studies of the Eighteenth-Century in Italy,
Bibliography which revived scholarly and popular interest in the
Courtivon, Isabelle. Violette Leduc. Boston: art and music of the Italian eighteenth century. She
Twayne, 1985. would write more than forty other books, includ-
Evans, Martha Noel. Violette Leduc: The Bas- ing supernatural and historical fiction, fairy tales, a
tard. In Masks of Tradition: Women and the play and a biography, and collections of essays on
Politics of Writing in Twentieth-Century France. traveling, literary and aesthetic criticism, and philo-
Ed. Martha Evans Noel. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell sophical, political, and social issues. She also pub-
University Press, 1987, pp. 102122. lished well over two hundred articles throughout
her lifetime, many in major journals and newspa-
See also Beauvoir, Simone de; French Literature pers. Brilliantly outspoken in her spectacles and tai-
lored dress, Lee was oftentimes both deeply admired
and harshly attacked, most especially for her anti-
Lee, Vernon (18561935) war activism and writing during the Great War.
British woman of letters. Born Violet Paget to an Her most intensely personal writing appears in
English mother of West Indian origins and a Polish her correspondence with Kit Anstruther-Thomson
father in Boulogne, France, on October 14, 1856, (18571921), a painter, who was her lover and col-
she was multilingual with an internationalist per- laborator from 1887 until 1898 and thereafter her
spective, having spent most of her life on the Conti- special friend until Anstruther-Thomsons death in

Vernon Lee [Violet Paget]. Special Collections, Miller Library, Colby College, Waterville, Maine.

450 LEDUC, VIOLETTE

1921. Although she never identified herself as les- entrenched male bias permeating avowedly neu-
bian, Lees romantic attachments were exclusively tral legal theory and doctrine.
with women. She also had an extensive network of At approximately the same time, Ruthann
literary and artistic friends with whom she corre- Robson unleashed her groundbreaking work de-
sponded and exchanged visits, including Henry veloping lesbian legal theory. Robsons landmark
James (18431916), Edith Wharton (18621937), book, Lesbian (Out)law: Survival Under the Rule
John Singer Sargent (18561925), Mary Cassatt of Law (1992), included a critique of feminist le-
(18451926), Ethel Smyth (18581944), Sarah Orne gal theory similar to that made by Cain. But
Jewett (18491909), and Bernard Berenson (1865 Robson, in Lesbian (Out)law and numerous arti-
1959). By the early 1930s, Lee suffered increasing cles, ambitiously declared the need to develop a
isolation resulting from her loss of hearing and the lesbian legal theory distinct from feminist jurispru-
almost total neglect into which her work had fallen. dence and undertook that task.
She died at her home outside Florence on February As developed by Robson, lesbian legal theory is
13, 1935. Phyllis F.Mannocchi a theory of law that has as its purpose lesbian sur-
vival. It constitutes a way to examine the law from
Bibliography both individual and community lesbian perspec-
Gunn, Peter. Vernon Lee: Violet Paget, 18561935. tives and is committed to being relentlessly les-
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964. Re- bian, putting lesbians, rather than law, at the
print. New York: Arno Press, 1975. center. For example, in Lesbian (Out)law, Robson
Mannocchi, Phyllis. Vernon Lee: A Commentary argues that the laws traditional categories and
and Primary Bibliography. English Literature themes sacrifice and damage lesbians. She reveals
in Transition, 18801920 26 (1983), 231267. the centuries of legal punishment of lesbians, hid-
. Vernon Lee and Kit Anstruther-Thomson: den behind the myth of lesbian impunity.
A Study of Love and Collaboration Between According to Robsons vision, lesbian legal theory
Romantic Friends. Womens Studies 12 (1986), respects a variety of lesbian traditions and does not
129148. emphasize some elements of lesbian identity over
Markgraf, Carl. Vernon Lee: A Commentary and others. It understands the inevitability of the laws
Annotated Bibliography of Writings About influence but is not knowingly complicit in the crea-
Her. English Literature in Transition, 1880 tion of the laws dominance. It makes lesbians vis-
1920 26 (1983), 268312. ible in the law and challenges what Robson calls the
domestication of lesbians by the law, or the dimin-
See also Jewett, Sarah Orne; Smyth, Dame Ethel ishment of lesbians through interaction with laws.
Mary For example, Robson argues that reform of mar-
riage laws to include lesbian relationships would
further domesticate lesbians, reforming lesbians as
Legal Theory, Lesbian much as the law. Robson has examined legal his-
Ideas about lesbians and law. Since surfacing as a tory, lesbians as criminal defendants, the use of con-
self-conscious enterprise in the late 1980s, lesbian tract law by lesbian couples, intralesbian intimate
legal theory has become a robust, yet controver- violence, and family law, among other areas.
sial, field for law professors, lawyers, and others. Although Robson began as an almost solitary
Lesbian legal theory offers a critique of, and a theo- pioneer in the field of lesbian legal theory, she has
retical framework for, ongoing efforts to obtain been joined by a number of lawyers and legal aca-
enhanced legal protections for lesbians through liti- demics developing and applying lesbian legal theory
gation, legislation, and other political strategies. to immigration law, family law, contract law, les-
One root of lesbian legal theory was Patricia bian marriage, criminal law, nondiscrimination law,
Cains challenge to the invisibility of lesbian expe- legal history, and other subjects.
rience in feminist legal theory. Cain (1989) pointed Those working to develop lesbian legal theory
out that inclusion of lesbian experience in feminist assert that elimination of sexism will not necessar-
legal scholarship lagged far behind scholarship in ily eliminate heterosexism and, thus, that feminist
other disciplines. This omission was especially jurisprudence does not adequately address the situ-
wrong given that a basic project of feminist legal ations of lesbians. Lesbian legal theory is needed,
theory is to use womens experience to reveal the for example, because feminist jurisprudences

L E G A L T H E O RY, L E S B I A N 451
 preoccupation with women compared to men sug- gests that lesbian is a meaningful identity to place
L gests a heterosexual bias and because lesbian lives
are not explained solely by either sex or gender.
at the center of a legal theory.
In related critique of lesbian legal theory,
Lesbian legal theory also implicitly critiques le- Herman (1994) and other critical theorists ques-
gal theories, sometimes called queer law, that com- tion the goal of developing any all-encompassing
bine claims or rights related to lesbians with those theory of law. Although, by its own terms, Robsons
related to gay men. In putting lesbian experience lesbian legal theory does not aspire to become a
first, lesbian legal theory suggests that sex and gen- paradigmatic, objective, or authoritative account
der differences distinguish the lives and experiences of law, critics argue that the very enterprise of les-
of lesbians from those of gay men in meaningful bian legal theory implies the goal of overarching
ways. Lesbian legal theory, thus, differs from the principles. Eaton addresses this concernand per-
dominant theory of lesbian law reform, which fo- haps qualifies Robsons projectby suggesting that
cuses on sexual-orientation discrimination, combin- lesbian legal theory be contextualized, find differ-
ing the interests of lesbian and gay men in human ent shapes in different controversies, and even dis-
rights law, constitutional litigation, contract law, appear when lesbian identity is not distinctive
employment discrimination, housing, domestic-part- within a particular legal arena, such as stranger
nership litigation, and other legal controversies. violence against women or some economic issues.
However, the very notion of lesbian legal theory Lesbian legal theory in English-speaking coun-
has brought criticism from both opponents and tries followed the growth of lesbian movements for
proponents of legal advances for lesbians and gay legal rights and the inclusion of lesbian activists in
men. Traditionalists within the legal academy scorn the legal academy. The important advances in les-
the idea of lesbian legal theory as simultaneously bian rights around the globe, including the explicit
trivial and grandiose. The more serious criticism, protection for lesbians and gay men in the South
however, comes from progressive legal theorists, African constitution and the greater advocacy of
including feminists and lesbians, who identify se- lesbian rights through international human rights
rious dangers in the development of explicitly les- provisions, suggest the possibility of ever-expand-
bian legal theory. Lesbian legal theory has evolved ing, global lesbian legal theories. Joan W.Howarth
in the context of other legal theories based on iden-
tities or standpoints, including critical race stud- Bibliography
ies, and provokes the same criticisms as these other Arriola, Elvia. Gendered Inequality: Lesbians,
identity- or standpoint-based theories. Gays, and Feminist Legal Theory. Berkeley
Many academics understand lesbian identity, like Womens Law Journal 9 (1994), 103143.
other identities, to be socially constructed, diverse, Cain, Patricia A. Feminist Jurisprudence: Ground-
contingent, and mutable. Eaton (1994) and others ing the Theories. Berkeley Womens Law Jour-
warn that developing a lesbian legal theory risks nal 4 (19891990), 191214.
universalizing one version of lesbian identity through . Lesbian Perspective, Lesbian Experience,
submersion of racial, class, and other aspects of iden- and the Risk of Essentialism. Virginia Journal
tity. Arriola (1994) has charged that the attempt to of Social Policy and Law 2 (1994), 4373.
develop lesbian legal theory necessarily and wrong- Eaton, Mary. At the Intersection of Gender and
fully privileges lesbian identity, suggests that identity Sexual Orientation: Toward Lesbian Jurispru-
is constituted by a singular trait, and dichotomizes dence. Southern California Review of Law and
lesbian and woman. Herman (1994) questions Womens Studies 3 (1994), 183218.
why any one identity should be chosen as the basis of Herman, Didi. A Jurisprudence of Ones Own?
unity (lesbian identity rather than, for example, Jew- Ruthann Robsons Lesbian Legal Theory. Ca-
ish identity), given that each person holds multiple nadian Journal of Women and Law 7 (1994),
and often contradictory identities. 509522.
Considering these dangers, Cain (1994) con- Herman, Didi, and Carl Stychin, eds. Legal Inver-
cludes that, although lesbian-centered theorists sions: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Politics of Law.
must be careful not to universalize lesbian experi- Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995.
ence or valorize lesbian over any other experience, Robson, Ruthann. Lesbian (Out)law: Survival
the experience of becoming and/or discovering Under the Rule of Law. Ithaca, N.Y.: Fire-
oneself a lesbian is transforming in a way that sug- brand, 1992.

452 L E G A L T H E O RY, L E S B I A N
. Sappho Goes to Law School: Fragments in widespread in the 1970s to refer to a political move-
Lesbian Legal Theory. New York: Columbia ment that joined feminist ideology to lesbian sexual
University Press, 1998. practices. In its earlier form, this movement criticized
the heterosexist categorization of lesbians and advo-
See also Law and Legal Institutions cated the concept of a lesbian continuum, Adrienne
Richs (1929) phrase for the broad range of affec-
tive and erotic bonds among women. Championed
Lesbian as a woman-identified woman, the lesbian was a
Term derived from the Greek island of Lesbos, figure for the defiant rage of all women, whether or
home of the seventh-century B.C.E. poet Sappho. not they fit the sexological profile of the lesbian devi-
In the twentieth century, lesbian has come to refer ate. With the waning of feminism as a political force
almost exclusively to female same-sex practices in in the 1980s, lesbianism became increasingly defined
which Sappho reputedly engaged and which she in cultural and psychological terms.
celebrated in her lyric poetry. To be a lesbian, at end of the twentieth century
The equivocal grammatical status of lesbian, in the United States, typically means to embrace an
as both noun and adjective, captures the historical identity and to participate in a lesbian subculture.
difficulty and the controversy over its definition. The clothing styles and sexual practices that signify
Whereas the former names a substantive category
the lesbian have diversified in the aftermath of dis-
of personsfemale homosexualsthe latter refers
putes over pornography, S/M (sadomasochistic) sex,
to a contingent attribute.
and the vogue of 1990s lipstick (conventionally
The use of the term to denominate a particular
feminine) lesbians. The mainstreaming of lesbian
kind of woman, one whose sexual desire is directed
subculture and its growing commodification, espe-
toward other women, originated in the late nine-
cially in the entertainment industry, suggest that les-
teenth century with the formulation of types of
bian chic will come to serve as an advertising ploy
sexual deviance, especially homosexuality. European
and that lesbians will gain a commercial niche. While
sexologists at the time invented the lesbian as a per-
sonage with a pathological medical and mental pro- some critics deplore this trend, others see it as a
file. The term typically designates a woman whose means of infiltrating the dominant culture and sub-
sexual orientation is believed to be caused by a bio- verting the homophobic notion of the lesbian as a
logical (genetic or hormonal) anomaly or by an ab- freak of nature. In this view, she is a consumer whose
normal psychological development. The lesbians desires are constituted and manipulated by social
defining trait was her alleged manliness, manifested and market forces.
in her dress and behavior and in her envy of the Academic debates concerning the meaning of les-
penis. According to popular opinion, buttressed by bianism in the last quarter of the twentieth century
Freudian theory, her desire for other women issued frequently have turned upon the interpretation of
from her wish to be a manher sexual inversion. same-sex desire and identification within psycho-
Although this belief was largely abandoned in the analytic theory. Influenced by the writings of Julia
1970s, the assumption that the lesbian is a unique Kristeva (1941), Luce Irigaray (1930), Hlne
and specific type of person, different from hetero- Cixous (1937), and Melanie Klein (18821960),
sexual women, remains prevalent. many theorists argue that the crux of lesbian desire
Taking lesbian as an adjective, however, im- lies in the preoedipal relation between mother and
plies that female same-sex desire is a detachable daughter, which they privilege as a primordial inti-
modifier, a relative characteristic rather than an macy. In keeping with the lesbian feminist precept
essential, or core, substance. Describing an object of female identification, this line of thought has led
or activity as lesbian may simply reflect its contin- to a preoccupation with identity politics. However,
gent affiliation or association with female theorists indebted to the poststructuralist thought
homoeroticism. Such an understanding of the term of Jacques Derrida (1930) and Jacques Lacan
was common in Western societies before the twen- (19011981) criticize gender and sexual categories,
tieth century and remains so in non-Western cul- claiming that woman and lesbian are social
tures that do not sharply distinguish female ho- inscriptions. Rather than springing from a natural
mosexuality from heterosexuality. origin, the lesbian is produced through coerced and
The best-known use of lesbian as an adjective regulated enactments of that role, a process Butler
is in the phrase lesbian feminism, which became (1991) calls performative repetition.

LESBIAN 453
 The controversy between these essentialist and Studies Reader. Ed. Henry Abelove, Michle
L constructionist views, corresponding to the differ-
ence between lesbian as a noun and as an adjec-
Aina Barale, and David M.Halperin. New York:
Routledge, 1993, pp. 227254.
tive, has resulted in a disciplinary rift in the late Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Epistemology of the Closet.
twentieth century. On the one hand, some schol- Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
ars seek to establish lesbian history and literature
as academic fields, while, on the other hand, queer See also Bisexuality; Essentialism; Lesbian Con-
theorists question the fundamental distinction be- tinuum; Lesbian Feminism; Performativity;
tween homosexuality and heterosexuality and, like Postmodernism; Psychoanalysis; Queer Theory;
Sedgwick (1990), replace lesbian and gay with Sappho; Sexology; Woman-Identified Woman
the multivalent and contested term queer.
A persistent problem with the use of lesbian
is its historical and cultural relativity. Most Lesbian Avengers
nonWestern cultures lack a corresponding category In 1992, writer and activist Sarah Schulman and
and term, while most Western cultures possess a five friends, Ana Maria Simon, Anne-Christine
similar linguistic expression but attach different DAdesky, Maxine Wolfe, Marie Hoban, and Ann
significations to it. These barriers to a universal or MaGuire, responded to a lack of attention given
unified definition of lesbian are exacerbated by to lesbian issues by founding a direct-action group,
heightened attention, at the end of the twentieth the Lesbian Avengers, dedicated solely to lesbian
century, to bisexuality and transgendering. Both visibility. In My American History: Lesbian and
phenomena elude the conceptual boundaries of Gay Life During the Reagan/Bush Years (1994),
lesbianism and threaten its coherence. Schulman provides a detailed account of the
If to describe is also to prescribe, any definition groups history up to 1994. Highlights of their first
of the term lesbian is also an implicit validation year included the New York Times appellation of
of a particular meaning as normal and, hence, nor- the group as the Lesbian Agenda and zaps (quick,
mative. Such a tacit endorsement, under the guise smallscale political actions) against Denver Mayor
of an accurate representation, is especially the case Wellington Webb. The groups organization of the
with encyclopedias, which aim to instruct on the first ever Dyke March on the White House dur-
basis of their claim to objective authority. Admit- ing the 1993 March on Washington provided the
tedly, the foregoing account of lesbian encour- Avengers with the opportunity to contact lesbians
ages consideration of the contingent, or adjectival, from around the country.
understanding of the term. Instead of searching for The Lesbian Avengers Handbook (in-
a nominative essence, one might recall the archaic cluded in My American History) is the best guide
sense of the word lesbian as (according to the to the groups philosophy and tactics. Organiz-
Oxford English Dictionary) a pliant and accom- ing an action includes answering questions con-
modating principle of judgment that, like a ma- cerning tactics and logistics, as well as more con-
sons rule, rather than going in a straight line, bends ceptual concernsall summarized in the Avenger
to fit its object. Colleen Lamos Action checklist and a task roster. Their tactics
are inherently theatrical, many borrowed from
Bibliography the guerrilla-theater troupes of the 1960s and
Butler, Judith. Imitation and Gender Insubordi- 1970s. The handbooks authors emphasize that
nation. In Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay meetings must be focused: A trained facilitator
Theories. Ed. Diana Fuss. New York: Routledge, ensures that members make concrete suggestions,
1991, pp. 1331. propose alternatives, and take responsibility for
Doan, Laura, ed. The Lesbian Postmodern. New their ideas.
York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Two important actions undertaken by the Les-
Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men: bian Avengers demonstrate their verve. First, their
Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women 1993 Freedom Ride through New England to
from the Renaissance to the Present. New York: help members of the gay, lesbian, and bisexual com-
William Morrow, 1981. munity of Lewiston, Maine, resist the repeal of their
Rich, Adrienne. Compulsory Heterosexuality and citys antidiscrimination measure, Equal Rights
Lesbian Existence. In The Lesbian and Gay Protection, succeeded in opening many closet

454 LESBIAN
doors. Second, the Lesbian Avengers 1994 grass-
roots, pro-gay and lesbian organization in Idaho,
the Lesbian Avengers Civil Rights Organizing
Project (LACROP), which clashed with the more
conservative local group, NO on One, influenced
the defeat of a measure aimed at prohibiting
antidiscrimination legislation. LACROP also pro-
duced and reproduced gay-positive literature, di-
rectly delivering it to rural gays lesbians, and
straight people, and inspired two Lesbian Avenger
chapters, in addition to several local gay and les-
bian support groups and an Out Against the
Right handbook. The Lesbian Avengers remain
as impetuous as their name implies. Amy Gilley

Bibliography
Metz, Holly. Sarah Schulman. Progressive 58
(October 1994), 3741.
Pursley, Sara. With the Lesbian Avengers in
Idaho. Nation 260 (January 23, 1995), 90ff.
Schulman, Sarah. My American History: Lesbian
and Gay Life During the Reagan/Bush Years.
New York: Routledge, 1994.

See also Associations and Organizations Lesbian Connection: Twentieth Anniversary Issue.

management practices and consensus-based, hori-

Lesbian Connection zontal decision making. The newsletter is funded
Longest-running publication for lesbians in the by advertising, donations, and fund-raising. It pro-
United States. Continuously published since 1974, vides generous space for reader submissions, and
the Lesbian Connection (LC or Elsie) is a twentyeight the discussion topics are all encompassing.
page forum for information exchange and dialogue Begun on a donated budget of $33, the first is-
among lesbians. LC is the premier example of a sue of LC was a four-hundred-piece mimeographed
publication creating a national and international mailing with hand-addressed labels. In 1997, the
network for lesbians, with a worldwide circulation subscriber mailing was more than twenty thousand,
of more than twenty thousand subscribers. LC is costing about $55,000 per issue. Its look has
free to lesbians and is published six times annually since evolved to a desktop published design. LC
in East Lansing, Michigan, by the Elsie Publishing is distributed primarily through subscriptions, al-
Institute, a not-for-profit corporation. ternative bookstores, and music festivals. Its con-
LC was founded on lesbian feminist principles by tent includes Letters and Responses (discussions
a collective called the Ambitious Amazons to address of wide-ranging issues); Articles and News; Festi-
the lack of safe, reliable, and targeted information val Forum (information about upcoming music
channels for lesbian groups and individuals. Margy, festivals and letters discussing recent festivals); To
one of the original Ambitious Amazons, described Our Health; Reviews (reader reviews of books,
its genesis (quoted in Baker, 1996): We figured if films, art, and music); classified and display adver-
LC was to be for every lesbian it should be written by tisements; and the Contact Dyke Directory (listing
its readers, not by us, thereby becoming the space for by state and country of women who are willing to
a wide-ranging lesbian dialogue. We thought of our- act as contacts for travelers, visitors, or women
selves as the caretakers of this forum. relocating to their area). Joan Nestle (in
The content and the structure of LC adhere to Streitmatter, 1995) credits the Contact Dyke sec-
the characteristics of a feminist publication detailed tion of LC with liberating American lesbians by
by Steiner (1992), including the use of egalitarian connecting them. Laurie J.Baker

LESBIAN CONNECTION 455

 Bibliography minority, rather than an extension of the coercion
L Baker, Laurie J. Ritual Argument: Creating and
Maintaining Identity Through Dialogue in the
all women face to remain subservient to men.
Some critics argue that the term lesbian con-
Lesbian Connection. Masters thesis, North tinuum deemphasizes, or even erases, the sexual-
Dakota State University, 1996. ity of lesbian relationships by defining feminism
Steiner, Linda. The History and Structure of Wom- rather than attraction to women as the primary ele-
ens Alternative Media. In Women Making ment of lesbianism. The concept has also been criti-
Meaning: New Feminist Directions in Commu- cized as being inattentive to historical and cultural
nication. Ed. Lana Rakow. New York: differences, especially by feminist historians and
Routledge, 1992, pp. 121143. other critics who think that it erases the specificity
Streitmatter, Roger. Unspeakable: The Rise of the of lesbian experience by naming any feminist or close
Gay and Lesbian Press in America. Boston: female relationship lesbian. In her 1986 afterword
Faber and Faber, 1995. to Compulsory Heterosexuality, Rich herself ad-
mits that the term could easily be misused in this
See also Lesbian Feminism; Periodicals way. She argues, however, that her intention was
not to erase differences between heterosexual and
lesbian women, but to define lesbianism broadly in
Lesbian Continuum her search across cultures and times for a continuity
A spectrum of female relationships that can, to of lesbian and feminist resistance to patriarchy.
varying degrees, be termed lesbian. First coined While the idea of a lesbian continuum has
by Adrienne Rich in Compulsory Heterosexual- caused much controversy, it has also been widely
ity and Lesbian Existence (1980), the term les- used in womens studies and lesbian and gay stud-
bian continuum suggests that there is a lesbian ies, often in discussions of the difficulty of defin-
presence that has existed across cultures and his- ing and applying the term lesbian in scholarship
torical periods. Rather than restrict her definition on womens history, literature, and media repre-
to women who self-identify as lesbian and en- sentation. Becca Cragin
gage in samesex sexual relationships, Rich expands
the term to include many kinds of practices and Bibliography
beliefs that express both resistance to male domi- Keohane, Nannerl, Michelle Rosaldo, and Barbara
nation and political and emotional commitment Gelpi, eds. Feminist Theory: A Critique of Ideol-
to women. The term, therefore, incorporates femi- ogy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
nism into a definition of lesbianism and reclaims King, Katie. The Situation of Lesbianism as Femi-
many forms of behavior that had not previously nisms Magical Sign: Contests for Meaning and
been recognized as lesbian, such as marriage re- the U.S. Womens Movement, 19681972.
sistance and womens intense personal friendships. Communication 9 (1986), 6591.
In the early stages of second wave U.S. femi- Rich, Adrienne. Compulsory Heterosexuality and
nism, which emerged in the late 1960s, lesbian- Lesbian Existence. Signs: Journal of Women in
ism, when not demonized as a deviant sexuality, Culture and Society 5:4 (1980), 631660. Re-
was often considered irrelevant to the cause of femi- printed in Rich, Blood, Bread, and Poetry, Selected
nism. Richs analysis was important as an asser- Prose, 19781985. New York: Norton, 1986.
tion that lesbianism is not antifeminist and that Thompson, Martha. Comments on Richs Com-
lesbian relationships are not merely sexual. By ar- pulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.
guing that there is a long line of resistance to male Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Soci-
domination and compulsory heterosexuality that ety 6:4 (1981), 790794.
can be traced throughout history, and by naming
this line lesbian, Rich proposes that the impulse See also Lesbian; Rich, Adrienne
toward woman-identification (feminism) and les-
bianism strongly overlap. She sees the erasure of
lesbians from history as a great loss for feminism, Lesbain Feminism
because it leaves the impression that women have A political movement and philosophy that began
never resisted patriarchy and that the hatred and in the early 1970s, the basic tenet of which is that
violence lesbians face is particular to them as a lesbianism is a political choice that any woman can

456 LESBIAN CONNECTION

make, not an essential identity. The early move- tempt to grapple with classism within the wom-
ment slogan Feminism is the theory; lesbianism is ens movement.
the practice indicates the belief that lesbianism is Despite the oppositional status of these early
a self-conscious enactment of an antipatriarchal lesbian feminists in the womens movement, the
politics, a profoundly political act of rejecting emergence of the second wave of U.S. feminism
heterosexist norms that oppress women. Beyond in the late 1960s was crucial to many womens
the basic commitment to lesbianism as a political coming out and politicization as lesbians. At con-
choice, lesbian feminists differ widely in terms of ferences, marches, and in consciousness-raising
political beliefs and activism. The growth of les- groups, a mass movement of feminists protested
bian feminism out of radical feminism in the early traditional female roles, including roles within the
1970s would seem to indicate a sole focus on gen- heterosexual nuclear family. Many members of the
der politics, but many lesbian feminists were and previously underground, despised lesbian commu-
are multi-issue activists. nity came out of the closet into a political move-
ment whose slogans called for womens liberation,
Origins and they decided that meant their liberation as les-
The earliest articulation of lesbian feminist theory bians as well. Other lesbians who came out in the
is in The Woman Identified Woman, a political late 1960s and the 1970s discovered their love for
manifesto written in 1970 by the New York group women through their feminist activism.
Radicalesbians in response to radical and reform- Among the most extreme statements of lesbian-
ist feminists dismissal of lesbianism as a serious ism as a political stance was Jill Johnstons book
issue for the movement. The manifesto was first Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution, which was
distributed in 1970 at the Second Congress to Unite published by a large mainstream press in 1973.
Women, after a protest led by Rita Mae Brown Johnston (1929) argued that lesbianism is the po-
(1944) designed to heighten lesbian visibility in litical vanguard of feminism: Feminism at its heart
the womens movement. Brown had left a leader- is a massive complaint. Lesbianism is the solution.
ship post in the National Organization for Women Until all women are lesbians there will be no revo-
(NOW) in 1969 after NOWs cofounder Betty lution. No feminist per se has advanced a solution
Friedan (1921) dubbed lesbian issues a lavender outside of accommodation to the man. Johnston
menace for feminism. The Woman-Identified repudiated the butch-femme identities so common
Woman was the first important document to pro- before the womens movement as antifeminist and
pose lesbianism as a political strategy, critiquing considered bisexuality a fearful compromise a
the institution of heterosexuality and arguing that continued service to the oppressor. Unlike the work
all women are potential lesbians. Its famous open- of most early lesbian feminists, Johnstons theory
ing reads: What is a lesbian? A lesbian is the rage included a large dose of biological essentialism, with
of all women condensed to the point of explosion. a twist, in which the lesbian is woman prime.
Brown was also a member of the influential les- In contrast, the French-born lesbian feminist
bian feminist Furies collective, a Washington, D.C. writer Monique Wittig (1935) argued in 1981 that
based group that included writer and activist Char- lesbians are not women at all because they do not
lotte Bunch (1944), photographer Joan E. Biren conform to female social roles. In One Is Not Born
(JEB, 1944), and Ginny Berson, cofounder of a Woman, Wittig argued for a strong
Olivia Records, among others. The Furies lasted socialconstructionist lesbian feminism: The refusal
only one year (19711972), but it influenced the to become (or to remain) heterosexual always
lesbian feminist movement profoundly, largely means to refuse to become a man or a women,
through its newspaper, The Furies, which was pub- consciously or not.
lished until the summer of 1973. The groups radi-
cal politics shaped the terms of the gay-straight Development
split that developed among radical feminists in Many lesbian feminists have disagreed with
the early 1970s. The Furies advocated a brand of Johnstons biological determinism and separatism.
lesbian separatism, arguing that lesbianism was the But, for many white lesbians in the 1970s, the bur-
only choice for feminists committed to fighting male geoning feminist and lesbian feminist movements
supremacy. The groups materialist, anticlassist led to a belief that the shared bond of woman-iden-
politics mark its work as an important early at- tification transcended differences among women,

LESBAIN FEMINISM 457

 rendering those differences less important. The the poet and essayist Adrienne Rich (1929), the
L desire to express this perceived bond, and to be
able to spot other lesbians, led to a conformity of
historian and literary scholar Lillian Faderman
(1940), and the philosopher Mary Daly (1928).
style among many white lesbians. The clone Rich, in her essay Compulsory Heterosexuality
lookfeaturing flannel shirts, jeans, boots or and Lesbian Existence (1980), and Faderman, in
Birkenstock sandals, short hair, and no makeup her book Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic
expressed an androgynous, feminist refusal of the Friendship and Love Between Women from the
trappings of traditional femininity. Renaissance to the Present (1991), made the im-
The emphasis on sameness and the erasure of portant contribution of broadly defining lesbian
difference was criticized by some lesbian feminists, identity as intimacy between women, claiming a
especially working-class lesbians and lesbians of wide range of behavior, not necessarily sexual, as
color, who were often involved in more than one evidence of historical lesbian existence.
liberation movement simultaneously. Members of Beginning in the 1970s, lesbian feminists founded
the Combahee River Collective explained, in their many institutions that constituted womens culture
Black Feminist Statement (1977), that separa- and lesbian communities in the United States. Book-
tism amounts to fractionalization, that they feel stores, coffeehouses, publishing houses, health centers,
solidarity with progressive Black men, and that credit unions, newspapers, magazines, music festivals,
as Black women [they] find any type of biologi- and record labels created a nationwide network of
cal determinism a particularly dangerous and re- feminist and lesbian feminist communities. They at-
actionary basis upon which to build a politic. tempted to set up an alternative to the exploitative,
Ample evidence shows that working-class lesbi- patriarchal institutions that dominate U.S. society.
ans and lesbians of color were active in both lesbian This movement was dubbed cultural feminism by
feminism and the womens liberation movement in radical feminist detractors, who decried the cultural
the 1970s; however, attempts to describe the racism feminists celebration of essential femaleness and their
of many white feminists and lesbian feminists have perceived withdrawal from engagement in direct
often led historians and other commentators to mis- struggle against the patriarchal system. Cultural
represent lesbian feminism as a white, middle-class feminism largely supplanted radical feminism among
womens movement. Sandoval (1991) explains that lesbian feminists by the late 1970s.
women of color were both active within and at odds For some lesbian feminists, separatism was the
with white feminism from the beginning of what logical next step. Separatists dissociate themselves
has been known as the second wave of the womens from men in every way possible, sometimes form-
movement. Their participation has been overlooked ing rural land collectives; some lesbian separatists
by historians describing lesbians who were politically dissociate from heterosexual women and from les-
active only as lesbiansthat is, white, middle-class bians who are not separatists. Generally, lesbian
women who were not identified also by race and class. feminists have lived in separate subcultures from gay
Prominent lesbian feminists as early as the 1970s men, who have been seen as sharing with hetero-
(and beyond) included such writers and activists sexual men both male privilege and a tendency to-
as working-class-identified African Americans Pat ward sexism. This has changed, to a large degree,
Parker (19441989) and Audre Lorde (1934 since the onset of the AIDS crisis in the early 1980s,
1992); Asian American Willyce Kim (1946); and which brought together lesbian and gay activists in
white, working-class-identified Judy Grahn (1940 many communities. While lesbian separatism has
). Grahn (1985) described the diversity of women provided much of the energy for the creation of les-
involved in early feminism and lesbian feminism, bian feminist culture, it is not synonymous with les-
including black lesbians, Asian American lesbians, bian feminism. Women who consider themselves
Jewish lesbians, and white, working-class lesbians. lesbian feminists may be separatists, cultural femi-
The diversity of the lesbian feminist community nists, radical feminists, liberal feminists, or some
became much more obvious in the 1980s, when combination of these categories.
both multiculturalism and racism were highlighted Confusion about the definition of lesbian femi-
by lesbian writers and activists of color. nism stems both from the various ways of express-
Many lesbian feminist theorists and activists are ing lesbian feminism and from the hostility of other
best known for their work within literary or aca- lesbians toward the movements basic principles.
demic contexts. Among the most prominent are Lesbians who believe that they are born homosexual

458 LESBAIN FEMINISM

(essentialist lesbians) criticize lesbian feminisms Sandoval, Chela. U.S. Third World Feminism: The
emphasis on lesbianism as a conscious, if socially Theory and Method of Oppositional Conscious-
constructed, choice. Postmodern queer lesbians ness in the Postmodern World. Genders 10
reject the implicit separatism of lesbian feminism (Spring 1991), 124.
and consider lesbian feminism to be essentialist.
See also Biological Determinism; Bisexuality; Brown,
Lesbian Feminism and Queer Theory Rita Mae; Butch-Femme; Combahee River Collec-
The excoriation of lesbian feminism by some fe- tive; Essentialism; Faderman, Lillian; Furies, The;
male academic queer theorists has led to splits Grahn, Judy; Johnston, Jill; Lorde, Audre; National
between activist theorists who often share many Organization for Women (NOW); Parker, Pat;
goals but whose critical tools and academic refer- Postmodernism; Queer Theory; Radicalesbians; Rich,
ence points differ. This is sometimes expressed as a Adrienne; Separatism; Social-Construction Theory;
divide between older 1970s feminists and Wittig, Monique; Woman-Identified Woman
younger queer lesbians, but, in fact, the
generational divide is not absolute.
Some queer theorists in the 1990s who op- Lesbian Herstory Archives
posed lesbian feminism wrote about the movement The Lesbian Herstory Archives (LHA) of the Les-
as if it were over, but many lesbian feminists contin- bian Herstory Educational Foundation is a popu-
ued to organize politically and to publish their work lar and perhaps the best-known collection of les-
throughout the decade. The discord between bian archival material. LHA began in 1974, when
postmodern queer theorists and activist lesbian femi- lesbians who had met the year before in New York
nists was exacerbated by some British and Austral- Citys chapter of the Gay Academic Union began
ian lesbian feminist publications such as Sheila to formulate and publicize the project. Cofounders
Jeffries (1993) in the mid- to late-1990s that ac- Joan Nestle (1940) and Deborah Edel (1944) are
cused postmodernists of academic elitism and of two central figures of the original group who have
lacking a radical political agenda. The existence of
the British and Australian publications, in addition
to continued lesbian feminist activism and writing
in the United States, makes clear that the lesbian
feminist movement and community continue.
Linda Garber

Bibliography
Cruikshank, Margaret. The Gay and Lesbian Lib-
eration Movement. New York and London:
Routledge, 1992.
Echols, Alice. Daring To Be Bad: Radical Femi-
nism in America 19671975. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1989.
Faderman, Lillian. Odd Girls and Twilight Lov-
ers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-
Century America. New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 1991.
Garber, Linda. Lesbian Identity Poetics: Judy
Grahn, Pat Parker, and the Rise of Queer
Theory. Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1995.
Grahn, Judy. The Highest Apple: Sappho and the
Lesbian Poetic Tradition. San Francisco: Spin-
sters Ink, 1985.
Jeffries, Sheila. The Lesbian Heresy: A Feminist
Perspective on the Lesbian Sexual Revolution. Lesbian Herstory Archives building in New York City.
North Melbourne, Australia: Spinifex, 1993. Photo by Saskia Scheffer.

L E S B I A N H E R S T O RY A R C H I V E S 459
 remained active with the archives. Following pub- sonal records, memorabilia, and other assorted
L lication of the first LHA newsletter in 1975, the
archives opened for community use in 1976. It was
objects. LHA houses books, periodicals, and elec-
tronic recordings (spoken word, music, and visual),
located in Nestles Upper West Side Manhattan and volunteers maintain clipping files arranged by
apartment, which she shared with Edel and, sub- subject, organization titles, and individual names.
sequently, others involved in the project. The open- LHA sponsors traveling exhibits (the largest is the
ing and growth of the collection shaped and re- 1991 Keepin On exhibit about African Ameri-
flected efforts to involve a broad-based lesbian can lesbians), slide shows, social events, and pres-
constituency in the construction and ownership of entations featuring lesbian activists, artists, and
the archives, including lesbian sexualities other public figures. The building and collections
marginalized or ostracized by dominant lesbian are open to visitors and researchers by appoint-
feminist politics in the 1970s. Archives organizers ment. Polly Thistlethwaite
welcomed any lesbian to help with the projects
work and invited, in Nestles (1990) words, any Bibliography
woman who has had the courage to touch another Edel, Deborah. The Lesbian Herstory Archives.
woman, to have her life reflected and remembered
Woman of Power 16 (Spring 1990), 2122.
by becoming part of the collection.
Lesbian Herstory Educational Foundation/Lesbian
Founders positioned LHA as a communitybased
Herstory Archives. P.O. Box 1258, New York,
institution designed to rectify the deprivation and
N.Y. 10116.
invisibility of lesbian lives and history. Nestle wrote
Nestle, Joan. The Will To Remember: The Les-
in the Spring 1979 Lesbian Herstory Archives
bian Herstory Archives of New York. Femi-
Newsletter. The roots of the Archives lie in the
nist Review 34 (Spring 1990), 8694.
silenced voices, the love letters destroyed, the pro-
Not Just Passing Through. Videocassette. Jean
nouns changed, the diaries carefully edited, the pic-
Carlomusto, Dolores Perez, Catherine Saalfield,
tures never taken, the euphemized distortions that
patriarchy would let pass. and Polly Thistlethwaite Producers/Directors. 52
From the inception of the organization, the LHA mins. New York: Women Make Movies, 1994.
newsletter and slide shows were educational and
organizing tools designed to reflect a broad range See also Archives and Libraries; Nestle, Joan
of lesbian life, identity, and experience. LHA found-
ing principles reflect lesbian-centered, feminist, class-
conscious, antiracist, pro-sexual diversity politics Lesbian Impunity, Myth of
situating the archives within a lesbian community, The term myth of lesbian impunity was brought
distinct from mainstream libraries and archives. In to scholarly attention by Louis Crompton in a 1980
1979, the LHA became one of the early lesbian and essay. It designates the frequently held belief that
gay groups to obtain nonprofit status in New York lesbians are, and have historically been, more ac-
state, incorporating as the Lesbian Herstory Educa- ceptable to heterosexuals and straight society than
tional Foundation Inc. The Lesbian Herstory Ar- homosexual men. It is assumed that they encoun-
chives of the Lesbian Herstory Educational Foun- ter less violence on the street, that state laws and
dation has resisted reliance on state or corporate local ordinances have been less often aimed at them,
funding, soliciting financial donations exclusively and, thus, that their lives are much easier. This view
from individual lesbians and radical funding sources is contested by lesbians, who, overtly and covertly,
supporting lesbian-focused projects. struggle with complex issues of survival and
LHA continues to be an all-volunteer effort (in)visibility in daily life.
governed by a committee of volunteer lesbian co- An overview of European laws and legal cases
ordinators. In 1993, after several years of fund- before 1791 shows that lesbians, indeed, have faced
raising, LHA reopened in a three-story brownstone capital punishment over the centuries in several
in Brooklyns Park Slopethe first building owned countries, including France, England, and Ger-
by a lesbian organization in New York City. The many, as well as other forms of punishment.
collection contains extensive archival holdings The nineteenth-century medical profession did
donated by lesbians and organizations with exclu- not treat lesbians kindly; in France, doctors were
sive or significant lesbian participation. Collections likely to recommend the psychiatric incarceration
include writings, art, photographs, clothing, per- of lesbians, and, in the 1820s, they performed

460 L E S B I A N H E R S T O RY A R C H I V E S
clitoridectomies (removal of the clitoris) on lesbi- Bonnet, Marie-Jo. Les Amours entre Femmes (Love
ans to cure them of their affliction, assumed to Between Women). Paris: Editions Odile Jacob,
be caused by an enlarged, penislike clitoris. 1995.
In the United States, there is ample documenta- Crompton, Louis. The Myth of Lesbian Impu-
tion of harsh police brutality in the 1940s through nity: Capital Laws from 12701791. Journal
the early 1960s, as laws banning the wearing of male of Homosexuality 6 (19801981), 1125.
clothing resulted in arrests, beatings, rapes, and in- Nestle, Joan. A Restricted Country. Ithaca, N.Y.:
carceration. Laws banning same-sex contact (danc- Firebrand, 1987.
ing, touching, kissing) in social spaces such as bars Sautman, Francesca Canad. Invisible Women:
applied to lesbians just as much as to gay men. In Lesbian Working Class Culture in France, 1880
France, the Napoleonic Code forbade women to 1930. In Homosexuality in Modern France.
wear mens clothing (a situation that changed only Ed. Jeffrey Merrick and Bryan T.Ragan, Jr. New
in the 1960s), and, in the 1950s, lesbians were still York and Oxford: Oxford University Press,
routinely harassed outside bars by the police. 1996, pp. 177201.
Lesbians in the United States Armed Forces did
not fare well after World War II. A wave of repres- See also Law and Legal Institutions
sion, in many cases enforced by closeted lesbian of-
ficers themselves, aimed at destroying the intense les-
bian networks and subculture within the Womens Lesbian Nation
Army Corps. Lesbian personal histories are filled with Lesbian nation was conceived by Jill Johnston (1929
detail about the immediate dangers of public identi- ) in 1973 in the form of the book Lesbian Nation:
fication on the job, particularly in nontraditional pro- The Feminist Solution, which consists of a collection
fessions for women, such as the construction trades. of essays written by her for a regular column in the
The enormous amount of implied or direct the Village Voice newspaper. The essays are focused
violence aimed at women who transgress the on the political and cultural events of the late 1960s
order of male/heterosexual prerogatives is the and early 1970s in the United States from her point
other side of legal repression against lesbians. of view as a social critic, political activist, anarchist,
The street and many workplaces are hazardous and lesbian. Her conflict with the antilesbian mem-
spaces for all women. The violence meted out at bership of the womens liberation movement led
lesbians (taunts such as Can you fight like a Johnston to argue that the best thing to do was re-
man? and punitive rapes) makes visibility par- treat and build lesbian nation from the grass roots
ticularly dangerous for lesbians, especially butch- out of your own community of women. The con-
identified ones. For instance, near Falls City, stituents of the gay and lesbian liberation movements
Nebraska, twenty-one-yearold Teena Brandon, also had links with wider civil rights movements that
who dressed and passed as a man, was kid- encompassed the politics of the Left. The political
napped, sexually assaulted, and murdered by two arena included the appeal to black nationalism and
men on December 25, 1993, along with the to indigenous American Indian claims to sovereign
woman she lived with and a friend. nationhood. Lesbian nation was also a response to
Thus, if lesbians appear less visible and, there- what Johnston refers to as the cultural desert of les-
fore, more acceptable and less vulnerable to pun- bian life in the period before the 1960s. She wrote:
ishment, it is because of the subsumed status of Most of us didnt know yet that it was wrong to be
women and the brutal enforcement of gender norma- a woman but we did know it was wrong to be les-
tivity against them. A full discussion of dissident bian [though we] were acquiring the rudimentary
sexualities among women requires that serious emotions of gay consciousness. Johnston and other
scholars devote further attention to the history of les- radical lesbians operated from the perspective that
bian resistance before concluding that lesbianism is the heterosexual institution was the prototype for all
a low-risk path in life. Francesca Canad Sautman other dyadic structures of oppression. Lesbian na-
tion is, therefore, a metaphor constituted in opposi-
Bibliography tion to widespread womens suffering in what
Bond, Pat. Tapioca Tapestry. In Long Time Pass- Johnston referred to as stag nation.
ing: Lives of Older Lesbians. Ed. Marcy Zimmerman (1990) suggests that, while the pur-
Adelman. Boston: Alyson, 1986, pp. 164176. pose of lesbian fiction is to map out the boundaries

L E S B I A N N AT I O N 461
 of lesbian nation, lesbian is not an ethnic or
L national designation, nor is it a stylistic or histori-
cal one, although it combines elements of each.
Lesbian Studies
The production of knowledge about lesbians (and
other matters) from various lesbian perspectives.
Zimmerman (1990) refers to the lesbian myth of
origins as articulating a vision of the world be- Origins
fore patriarchy and offering this vision as a model Lesbian studies in the United States began outside
for lesbian nation. She (1995) suggests that space academia as a product of social movements of the
is a profound metaphor for lesbian writers which 1960s and 1970s, most notably the womens lib-
has a lot to do with the fact that we were scattered eration and the gay liberation movements. As
in such a way that we must create a concept of homophobia and hostility toward lesbians were
space because that space is not given to us. problematic in the feminist movement, so also sex-
In Sisters, Sexperts, Queers: Beyond the Lesbian ism and misogyny worked against full lesbian in-
Nation (1993) Arlene Stein regards lesbian nation as volvement in gay liberation struggles. Lesbians frus-
a lesbian refuge from societys ills somewhere be- trated with these movements, as well as those com-
tween metaphor and reality. However, in the early ing from lesbian organizations such as Daughters
1980s, she says, there was an explosion of discus- of Bilitis or as individuals looking for community,
sion about sex and race [which] echoed across the convened locally in many areas or connected by
country. The geography of the lesbian nation would circulating mimeographed writings and newsletters
never be the same. For Stein, this means that once to form various autonomously identified lesbian
there was a dream of a Lesbian Nationa sisterhood groups. These groups ignited a new collective proc-
with a shared identity, a common agenda. Today that ess of thinking together, researching, and interpret-
first wave of pride has given way to a far more com- ing lesbian worlds and ideas from lesbian perspec-
plex sense of community. From lesbian marriage to tivesthe beginning of lesbian studies. Emerging
the seductive pleasures of butch-femme to the untidy outside universities and colleges, this early work
class difference that divide the lesbian communitya gave voice and print to ideas that threatened the
lesbian culture of tremendous diversityis reinventing closet of many lesbian academics as it challenged
itself for the nineties. the assumptions of mainstream feminism.
In the 1990s, Parker and colleagues (1992) ar- First-generation (ca. 1970s) community-based
gue, nationalism and sexuality are two of the most lesbian scholars published lesbian journals such as
powerful global discourses shaping contemporary Conditions, Trivia, and Sinister Wisdom, started
notions of identity. This is evidenced in the emer- small lesbian presses such as Naiad Press, Frog in
gence of queer nation as a discourse of resistance the Well, Spinsters Ink, Cleis Press, and the Institute
whose origins can be found in the idea of a lesbian for Lesbian Studies, and circulated newsletters and
nation that much earlier disrupted the narrative of newspapers such as Matrices, Lesbian Insider/In-
a homogeneous heterosexual nation. Susan Sayer citer, Lesbian Tide, C.L.I.T., and Lesbian Connec-
tion. This grass-roots intellectual movement included
Bibliography J.R.Roberts, a librarian and community activist, who
Johnston, Jill. Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solu- compiled Black Lesbians: A Bibliography, finally
tion. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973. published by Naiad Press in 1981, along with Sinis-
Parker, Andrew, Mary Russo, Doris Sommer, and ter Wisdom which created a special 1976 issue on
Patricia Yaeger, eds. Nationalisms and Sexuali- lesbian literature. Sinister Wisdom also published
ties. New York and London: Routledge, 1992. the proceedings of lesbian panels at the meetings of
Stein, Arlene, ed. Sister, Sexperts, Queers: Beyond Modern Language Association and some of the early
the Lesbian Nation. New York: Plume, 1993. work of lesbian philosophers, such as Marilyn Frye
Zimmerman, Bonnie. The Safe Sea of Women: Les- and Sarah Lucia Hoagland, as well as Audre Lorde,
bian Fiction, 19691989. Boston: Beacon, 1990. Adrienne Rich, and Mary Daly.
. From Lesbian Nation to Queer Nation. In several cities, lesbian archives, libraries, and
Interview with Susan Sayer. Hecate 21:2 (1995), resource centers, along with feminist bookstores,
2943. were established; among the oldest of these are the
Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, New York,
See also Community; Johnston, Jill; Queer Nation; and the Amazon Bookstore in Minneapolis, Min-
Separatism nesota. During the 1970s, influential textssuch

462 L E S B I A N N AT I O N
as Sappho Was a Right-On Woman (1972) by Sidney bian students and professors continued to create
Abbott and Barbara Love, Woman Plus Woman classrooms for open lesbian inquiry, despite tenure
(1974) by Dolores Klaich, The Wanderground and promotion decisions and admissions and evalu-
(1978) by Sally Gearhart, Gyn/Ecology (1978) by ation procedures still driven by homophobia and
Mary Daly, Amazon Odyssey (1974) by Ti-Grace antilesbian hatred. During this decade, the writings
Atkinson, and Lesbian/Woman (1972) by Del Mar- of Jeffner Allen, Nichole Brassard, Claudia Card,
tin and Phyllis Lyonbegan circulating among les- Mary Daly, Lillian Faderman, Marilyn Frye, Sarah
bian readers, who also found community in new Hoagland, Karla Jay, Toni McNaron, Julia Penelope,
lesbian music, theater, film, and a coffeehouse so- Joyce Trebilcot, Monique Wittig, and Bonnie
cial life that overlapped, although somewhat con- Zimmerman configured an approach to academic
tentiously, with lesbian bar cultures and a long his- lesbian feminism that problematized lesbians as
tory of closeted gay suffering and heroic survival. objects of sexist and antilesbian oppressions and as
subjects of heightened epistemic and revolutionary
Lesbian Studies and Womens Studies (often coded as separatist) potential.
Lesbian studies in universities and colleges found Supported on the margins of academic femi-
an emergency home in a few womens studies nism, lesbian feminism generated a more inclusive
classes that began to include lesbian readings and dialogue on lesbians and lesbian existence, as can
discussions on homophobia and lesbian oppres- be seen in the rich cross-currency of writings emerg-
sion. In the 1970s, titles of the early lesbian-friendly ing from U.S. lesbians of color, lesbians living with
womens studies courses were vague but sugges- disabilities, working-class lesbians, and lesbians
tive, such as Women Bonding with Women, with various other identities. In the United States
WomanIdentified Woman, and Woman Plus during the 1980s, these included the work of Gloria
Woman, but, by the mid-1980s, course titles had Anzalda, Beth Brandt, Chrystos, Jewelle Gomez,
become more explicit, as in Lesbian Cultures, Les- Audre Lorde, Joan Nestle, Cherre Moraga, Sarah
bian Lives, Lesbian Ethics, and Lesbians in Film, Schulman, and Barbara Smith, all of whom chal-
Literature, and Theory. These courses were offered lenged what many perceived as socially privileged
during a time when homophobia and misogyny representations of lesbians in academic lesbian
continued to wage unchecked violence against the feminist work. As Bernice Reagon (in Smith, 1983)
lives and careers of lesbian professors and students, described this period, feminist community in
making the shelter of womens studies and a few academia and outside was no longer coded as a
small spaces in other disciplines the only venue for home, a safe place built upon the parochial com-
these courageous moments in lesbian studies. placency of sameness. By the mid-1980s, Margaret
Womens studies, however, was at times a reluc- Cruik-shanks collective naming of lesbian stud-
tant home, often bristling with its own homophobia ies, Lillian Fadermans romantic friendship,
and fear of lesbian visibility, rendering lesbian aca- Barbara Smiths home girls, Adrienne Richs les-
demic presence in womens studies difficult for les- bian continuum, and radical women of colors
bian-identified scholars and threatening for womens evocation of this bridge called my back were
studies departments overly burdened with antilesbian notions widely circulating in feminist academic
and antifeminist bashing from those hostile to wom- readings as identity politics developed new models
ens studies. While womens studies was a venue where of coalition struggle and multiple-identity theory.
inclusive and radical scholarship on women was sup-
ported, the tension between heterosexual feminists Queer Theory
and lesbians in womens studies has been a theme of The attention to difference in lesbian studies did not
historical struggle on campuses and in the National end with questions of how race, class, ethnicity, dis-
Womens Studies Association. ability, generation, and other multiple social differ-
In the 1980s, lesbian studies maintained a small ences influence, and are influenced by, lesbian sexual
but viable presence in academia. Lesbian scholar- politics and identity. Sex itself was to be questioned
ship began to appear in special issues of academic and reshaped by the sex wars of feminism in the
journals, such as Frontiers (one of the first womens 1980s, by the male-driven gay insurgency emerging
studies journals), JumpCut, Radical Teacher, Signs, in the AIDS crisis, and by the popularity of queer
and Feminist Studies. Caucuses and divisions flour- theory in academic circles. Signaled significantly in
ished in many professional organizations, and les- 1984 by Gayle Rubins essay Thinking Sex (in

LESBIAN STUDIES 463

 Abelove, 1993), a new space for sexuality studies historiography and social movement theory; lesbian
L was positioned separately from lesbian feminism and
oppositionally to heterosexual normativity. Queer
literary, film, and cultural studies; lesbian ethnogra-
phy and anthropology; lesbian sociology, psychol-
theory represented lesbian feminism as a gender- ogy, and psychotherapy; lesbian policy studies and
separatist framework that was too soft on sex, too international studies; lesbian theory and philosophy;
inhibited by sexual politics, and too much inclined and various explorations of lesbian identities and
to understand female sexuality as a function of wom- identification strategies. In academia, lesbians are
ens oppression rather than as a function of wom- everywhere and going somewhere, often situated on
ens erotic and pornographic agency in pleasure, the cutting (although also marginalized) edge of dis-
danger, and power. ciplines, interdisciplines, and academic trends.
The space opened up by the feminist sex wars
intersected with queer theory and the emerging Lesbian Studies at the End of the
queer studies movement. Lesbian studies was en- Twentieth Century
dangered by this move not only because of its past Lesbian studies at the end of the twentieth century is
commitment to feminism and feminist method, located in an academic space opened up historically
often represented as a separate and gender-specific by the theoretical and practical inadequacies of wom-
endeavor, but also because the category lesbian ens studies, feminist theory, gender studies, queer
itself was dissolving. The idea of queerness re- theory, ethnic, race, and global studies,
lies heavily on the social-constructionist thesis that postmodernism, poststructuralism, cultural studies,
categories of sexual identity are cultural fictions social movement theory, and a variety of movement
that are less stable, unified, and coherent than they politics emerging from, or since, the 1970s. In addi-
are assumed to be and more fragile and fluid than tion, lesbian studies is a positive space in which knowl-
the categories of masculine/feminine, male/female, edge is produced from lesbian perspectives, leaving
hetero/homo, lesbian/gay presume. Lesbian is a open to intellectual and political debate what deter-
category that dissolves into a multiple-gendered and mines such perspectives and criteria for knowing.
sexually pluralistic space of queerness, in which Although not limited to to the study of lesbians,
any attempt to name a difference that is lesbian is lesbian studies is a primary means of producing new
immediately rejected as a historical, ethnocentric, knowledge about lesbians, often in opposition to
essentialist, or sexually repressive and dishonest. more traditional and heterosexually biased misrep-
On the other hand, critics argue, queer studies resentations of lesbian existence, leaving open to
allies itself with a radical politics of sexual trans- intellectual and political debate what counts as a
gression, while too easily ignoring the questions of more accurate or more reliable representation. In
mutiple social differences, such as race, class, gen- addition, an important component of lesbian stud-
eration, disability, and political ideology, raised by ies and life as a lesbian scholar is the creation of a
lesbian feminists in the 1980s. Likewise, the sig- space in which lesbian is more than an object of
nificance of social relations of power in maintain- study but also a place where agencypossessing the
ing white male dominance is often reduced to knowing authority to speak, look, listen, read, think,
contextualized performative acts only distantly and createis signified as lesbian. In other words,
related to the real effects of the sex/gender economy lesbian is recognized as a legitimate position from
on the lives of women. This is a subject matter of which to begin inquiry and creative work.
urgent and vital interest to feminists. While lesbian studies also emerges within the
Although lesbian sexual identity may be a cul- disciplines, it may best be conceived as an interdis-
tural fiction, it is necessary fiction with real effects ciplinary and multidisciplinary intellectual project
on women (and men). The question of lesbian dif- that transforms how disciplines produce knowl-
ference in the 1990s continued to establish the need edge, including knowledge about lesbians or sexu-
for lesbian studies wherever it could find a margin ality more generally. Lesbian studies also refuses
or corner to claim as its own inside the academy. the confines of any one discipline, without vanish-
Lesbian studies continued as a viable academic ing into one of several interdisciplinary foster
project, often sheltered by womens studies, gender homes such as womens studies, gender studies,
studies, cultural and literary studies, or queer stud- cultural and literary studies, and/or queer studies.
ies, but also on its own turf. The results have led to Although it seldom has its own institutional infra-
scholarship and research in the areas of lesbian structureas a program or a department of

464 LESBIAN STUDIES

lesbian studiesthe dispersed and disruptive See also Cruikshank, Margaret; Cultural Studies;
project of lesbian studies can create instability in Lesbian Feminism; Performativity; Queer Theory;
more established locations. Others may argue, how- Social-Construction Theory; Womens Studies
ever, that having an identifiable institutionalized
base, such as a department, program, or area stud-
ies, creates a more effective intervention in the acad- Lesbos, Island of
emy and better assistance in the disciplines to schol- Birthplace of the famous Greek poet of the sev-
ars advancing the work of lesbian studies who are enth century B.C.E., Sappho, many of whose lyr-
still isolated, ignored, and harrassed. The emer- ics focused on homoerotic desire; thus, the name
gence of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and of her island furnished the nineteenth-century
transgender) studies and queer studies, however, term lesbian to refer to erotic love between
seems to override the institutional formation of a women.
more autonomous lesbian studies. Lesbos is the third-largest island in the Aegean
In spite of this, lesbian feminist inquiry persists in Sea (665 square miles) and lies a few miles off the
raising the question of lesbian difference as it contin- coast of modern-day Turkey. The historical evidence
ues to investigate the mechanisms of white male power suggests a long tradition of cultural development that
and lesbian-specific oppressions, the meaning and produced not only Sappho but several other poets as
centrality of sex and gender in lesbian identity, the well, including Sapphos contemporary, Alkaios, who
differences among and between lesbians from differ- refers to her by name in a short fragment.
ent cultures and stations in life, the differences be- According to ancient legend, Sappho was born
tween women and men, and the material effects of on the southwest coast, at the town of Eresos (mod-
gendered life on the lesbian subject. Its strength and ern Skala Eressou). On the acropolis overlooking
endurance is evidenced by the numbers of active schol- the modern village, there survive a few scattered
ars and students not only in the United States, but ruins, including traces of polygonal stone walls that
also in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United may date to Sapphos time. Little is known of life
Kingdom, the Netherlands, and other European coun- on the island in that early period, but it would
tries, as well as the promise of its emergence through- appear that upper-class women, at least, enjoyed
out the world. Jacqueline N.Zita more freedom than they did elsewhere in Greece.
In the twentieth century, Lesbos became a place
Bibliography of interest for many lesbians seeking to make a pil-
Abelove, Henry, Michle Aina Barale, and David M. grimage to the island of Sapphos birth. The poet
Halperin. The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Rene Vivien (18771909) and her lover, Natalie
New York and London: Routledge, 1993. Barney (18761972), for example, fancied them-
Garber, Linda. Tilting the Tower: Lesbians Teach- selves latter-day followers of Sappho and traveled
ing Queer Subjects. New York: Routledge, 1994. to Lesbos in 1904 in pursuit of their spiritual past.
Griffin, Gabriele, and Sonya Andermahr. Straight The chief city of the island, Mytilene, features a
Studies Modified. London: Cassell, 1997. large modern statue of Sappho playing the lyre.
Medhurst, Andy, and Sally R.Munt. Lesbian and Jane Mclntosh Snyder
Gay Studies: A Critical Introduction. London:
Cassell, 1997. Bibliography
Moraga, Cherre, and Gloria Anzalda, eds. This Paraskevadis, M. Lesbos. In Princeton Ency-
Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical clopedia of Classical Sites. Ed. Richard Stillwell.
Women of Color. Latham, N.Y.: Kitchen Table: Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
Women of Color Press, 1981. 1976, pp. 502503.
Smith, Barbara, ed. Home Girls: A Black Feminist Schaus, Gerald P., and Nigel Spencer. Notes on
Anthology. New York: Kitchen Table: Women the Topography of Eresos. American Journal
of Color Press, 1983. of Archaeology 98 (1994), 411430.
Wilton, Tamsin. Lesbian Studies: Setting an Snyder, Jane Mclntosh. Sappho. New York: Chel-
Agenda. New York: Routledge, 1995. sea House, 1995.
Zimmerman, Bonnie, and Toni A.H.McNaron, eds.
The New Lesbian Studies: Into the Twenty-first See also Barney, Natalie Clifford; Lesbian; Sappho;
Century. New York: Feminist Press, 1996. Vivien, Rene

LESBOS, ISLAND OF 465

 norms; in fact, according to precolonial tradition,
L Lesotho
Small and impoverished African country with a
homosocial society in which romantic, and sometimes
a man claimed a woman as a wife by raping her,
and this custom is still common in rural areas. In
erotic, personal relationships between women appear this context, it is not surprising that women find
to be normative. As more Basotho (term referring to emotional nourishment, understanding, and love
people from Lesotho) women are exposed to West- in the arms of other women. A fairly modern phe-
ern ways and customs, homophobia is entering the nomenon is the practice of boarding-school girls
country, but, as recently as the 1950s, women in ru- choosing female partners; this is strikingly similar
ral areas were celebrating their love relationships with to the custom of their grandmothers choosing fe-
other women by means of public and socially ap- male wives (batsoalle).
proved feasts. Although there is no written documen- Kendall
tation of womens social history prior to coloniza-
tion by the British in 1868 following the Boer War, Bibliography
there is evidence in rituals that survived the mission- Blacking, John. Uses of Kinship Idiom in Friendships
ary period (beginning in 1833 and continuing through at Some Venda and Zulu Schools. In Social Sys-
the early twentieth century) that love between tem and Tradition in Southern Africa. Ed. John
womenthough not conceptualized as sexual, not Argyle and Elinor Preston-Whyte. Cape Town:
constructed as an identity, and not considered to Oxford University Press, 1978, pp. 101117.
conflict with (compulsory) heterosexualitywas a Gay, Judith. Mummies and Babies and Friends
feature of precolonial life in Lesotho. and Lovers in Lesotho. Journal of Homosexu-
Basotho women are brought up separately from ality 2:34 (Summer 1985), 97116.
Basotho men, work hard all their lives, and many Gill, Debby. Lesotho: A Gender Analysis. Lesotho:
endure physical abuse from men. Except in the SIDA, 1992.
wealthiest families, girls and women are responsi- Kendall. Women in Lesotho and the (Western)
ble for hauling water, gathering firewood, washing Construction of Homophobia. In Female De-
and mending clothing, rearing and educating chil- sires: Same-Sex Relations and Transgender Prac-
dren, gathering wild vegetables, cultivating and har- tices Across Cultures. Ed. Evelyn Blackwood
vesting small gardens and large fields, cooking, clean- and Saskia Wieringa. New York: Columbia
ing, earning whatever cash income they can, and University Press, 1998.
decorating their homes. Womens legal status is nil. Nthunya, Mpho. When a Woman Loves a
All women are legally minors in Lesotho under cus- Woman. In Singing Away the Hunger: The
tomary law; under common law women are minors Autobiography of an African Woman.
until age twenty-one, but they revert to minor sta- Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.
tus if they marry, attaining majority status only if
single or widowed. Women cannot hold property; See also Indigenous Cultures
they have no custody rights in the case of divorce;
they cannot inherit property if they have sons; they
cannot borrow money, own or run property or busi- Lewis, Mary Edmonia (ca. 1843-after 1911)
nesses, sign contracts, or buy and sell livestock, land, American sculptor. Born to an Ojibwa (Chippewa)
or unnecessary goods. Nor can they obtain a pass- mother and an Afro-Haitian father, Edmonia Lewis
port without a husbands or fathers consent. A was a woman whose ancestry was both a source of
woman whose husband and father are dead must fascination for critics and cultural observers and a
obtain permission from her local chief (97 percent site for her own self-invention. An expatriate who
of whom are male) to conduct adult business. lived in Rome in the late 1860s and the 1870s,
Marriage is socially compulsory, and wife beat- Lewis associated with the White Marmorean
ing is expected. Divorce is very expensive; the di- flock, the name Henry James (18431916) gave
vorce rate is only 1 percent for this reason. Yet to a circle of Euro-American women artists and
women manage up to 60 percent of the households poets who worked in Italy and formed same-sex
on their own, owing to the fact that men often work relationships with each other. Lewiss marble statu-
away from their homes, may abandon their fami- ary, accomplished in the neoclassical style favored
lies, or may be abandoned by women who tire of by latenineteenth-century American artists, is a
physical abuse. Date rape and marital rape are complex matrix of American romanticism,

466 LESOTHO
 cans, like that of the Egyptian Hagar and the eman-
cipated black American woman of Lewiss 1867
sculpture, Forever Free, adheres to a Greco-Roman
paradigm of beauty. Buick (1996) has argued that
Lewiss female portraiture consistently indicates an
aderence to the Cult of True Womanhood, in
contrast to her ethnically marked male figures, such
as the hook-nosed Native arrowmaker and the
curly-haired black male in Forever Free.
Lewiss own identity was far more complex than
her contemporaries reckoned. In response to the
publics expectations of her primitivism and exoti-
cism, Lewis seemingly embellished the circumstances
of her upbringing, downplaying her boarding-school
education in favor of anecdotes of hunting, fishing,
and wigwams. Furthermore, her association with
the circle of female couples in Rome (centered on
actress Charlotte Cushman [18161876]) and her
own androgynous dress and appearance have fueled
speculation about her sexual identity. As Holland
(1995) has hypothesized, Lewiss shaping of her own
story may be a measure of her agency and resist-
ance. Jacqueline Francis

Bibliography
Buick, Kirsten P. Edmonia Lewis in Art History:
Edmonia Lewis by Henry Rocher. Collection of the The Paradox of the Exotic Subject, in Three
Boston Athenaeum. Generations of African-American Women
Sculptors. Philadelphia: Afro-American Histori-
European convention, and a related veneration cal and Cultural Museum, 1996, 1215.
of ancient GrecoRoman ideals. Hartigan, Lynda R. Sharing Traditions: Five Black
Lewis attended Oberlin College (18591864), Artists in Nineteenth-Century America. Washing-
then, in 1865, moved to Boston, where she stud- ton, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985.
ied sculpture with the artist Edward Brackett Holland, Juanita M. Mary Edmonia Lewiss
(18181908). She made her living sculpting por- Minnehaha: Gender, Race, and the Indian
trait busts and medallions that were replicated and Maid. Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts
sold. Her work depicted Euro-American figures 69 (1995), 2635.
well known to the New England community of Richardson, Marilyn. Edmonia Lewiss The
abolitionists and Transcendentalists, among them Death of Cleopatra: Myth and Identity. In-
the poets Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 ternational Review of African-American Art 12
1882) and Anna Quincy Waterston (18121899), (1995), 3852.
and Robert Gould Shaw (18371863), the fallen
commander of a Union Army regiment of black See also Cushman, Charlotte
soldiers. Lewis took up allegorical and literary sub-
jects as well. Hagar in the Wilderness (1875) was
inspired by the eponymous biblical heroine who Liberalism
was impregnated by her master, Abraham, and Philosophy founded on the belief that each indi-
subsequently banished to the wilderness. Old Ar- vidual has an inalienable right to realize full
row Maker and His Daughter (1872) is one of sev- selfhood. This sovereign individual, through the
eral sculptures based upon Longfellows popular use of free will, steps out from the private realm to
epic poem The Song of Hiawatha (1855). Interest- make a contract with society and become a mem-
ingly, Lewiss portrayal of female Native Ameri- ber of a public world. In the modern era, two

LIBERALISM 467
 discoursesliberalism and humanismhave con- personal spacea concept not too distant from
L solidated the making of Western societies and,
through the colonial expansion that followed,
the liberal notions of private property and separate
spheres. Perhaps the most intense inheritors of liber-
shaped the rest of the world. Humanism is based alism are lesbian sadomasochists, whose activist lib-
on the idea that people everywhere have in com- ertarianism defends the right to free sexual conduct.
mon an essential human nature, a universal truth, They offer the concomitant justification that S/M in
which, with the power of reason and the benefit of the bedroom is separate from the eroticism of public
culture, fuels human progress to a better world. (state) power, that sex is only sex, and that consent is
Democracy is founded on the principle of making given as an autonomous act of will.
a choice for the greater good. Liberal humanists In 1995, philosopher Ernest Gellner wrote in
maintain that culture brings moral enlightenment, the British newspaper, the Guardian: Liberalism
through setting up as an ideal the best, most beau- has become the worlds dominant political theory,
tiful, virtuous, or intellectual aspirations of soci- but its political foundations remain uncertain and
ety for the multitude to follow. its capacity to deal with brutal realities unsatisfac-
Liberal humanists believe that all individuals, tory. Certainly for lesbians, the use of liberal con-
because of their intrinsic humanity, deserve respect cepts to argue for lesbian and gay rights has been
and an opportunity to explore their full potential problematic. First, the growth of liberal human-
through the pursuit of liberty and happiness. The ism reflected the concerns of white heterosexual
freedom to express oneself, so long as one does propertied males needs and desires. Their human
not cause harm to others, is more important than nature depended on defining itself against the
any interference by the state to control liberty. Otherbe that female, black, lesbian or any mar-
Liberalism has been a useful ally for lesbians. ginal, disenfranchised classification. In the latter
First, as an ideology based on the rights of the in- part of the twentieth century, a new pluralistic vi-
dividual, it has been used to justify a number of sion based on categories of difference and diver-
modern civil rights movements. Martin Luther sity raised questions about these assumptions of
King, Jr. (19291968) realized this in his 1963 liberal humanism. This new vision, in turn, became
March on Washington speech (I have a dream) subject to accusations of moral relativism, result-
when he envisioned that one day this nation will ing in paralysis in response to injustice. Second,
rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: the argument for rights is said to be a reformist
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men one, therefore perpetuating an intrinsically dis-
are created equal. The progressive, liberating side criminatory system, perpetuating dependency on
of liberal humanism has been used as a rhetoric to the nanny (welfare) state, and keeping petition-
end slavery, to argue for womens right to vote, ers in a permanent position of victimhood. Third,
and to inaugurate affirmative-action programs, liberal humanism romanticizes individualism, thus
including partnership rights for lesbian couples. failing to recognize the social and communitarian
In the liberalization of homosexuality in the West, needs of subcultural groups, such as lesbians, who
the most prevailing argument has been the forceful need to facilitate a sense of belonging, create
defense of privacy for sexual behavior. Liberal femi- affectional bonds in an imagined community, and
nism, introduced by Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 who, for political reasons, wish to create an ethics
1797) in her Vindication of the Rights of Woman of social responsibility. Sally R.Munt
(1792), argued for equal rights for women in eco-
nomic and social spheres. In the 1960s, liberal femi- Bibliography
nism became the dominant feminist ideology, Phelan, Shane. Getting Specific: Postmodern Les-
centering on the right to control ones own body prin- bian Politics. Minneapolis: University of Min-
cipally through reproductive choice (the idea that nesota Press, 1995.
people own their bodies is a liberal one). Liberal Sullivan, Andrew. Virtually Normal: An Argument
feminists were wary of lesbians, howeverBetty About Homosexuality. New York: Knopf, 1995.
Friedan (1921) coining the term lavender menace, Weeks, Jeffrey. Invented Moralities: Sexual Values in
for examplewhich may have been a logical move an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity, 1995.
for a political movement committed to improving the
status quo. Lesbian feminism adopted the liberal re- See also Enlightenment, European; Essentialism;
spect for privacy, turning it into a fierce defense of Privacy

468 LIBERALISM
Libertinism A stock character in libertine writings is the older
Style of aristocratic masculinity that developed in masculine woman who initiates girls into the mys-
France in the sixteenth century, traveled to England teries of sexual pleasure. In John Clelands porno-
with the Restoration court of Charles II (16301685) graphic novel Fanny Hill: or, Memoirs of a Woman
in the seventeenth century, and underwent sea of Pleasure (1748), the hackneyed, thoroughbred
changes in the eighteenth century; it became socially Phoebe, procuress of the brothel in which the hero-
unacceptable only in the nineteenth century after ine Fanny finds herself, makes Fanny aware of geni-
the revolution in France and the rise of the ideals of tal pleasure. Yet, despite Phobes lascivious
companionate family life and sentimental mascu- touches and probing fingers, Fanny retains her vir-
linity in England. Libertinism originally meant a ginity, bestowing it on her first male lover.
desire for religious freedom but soon grew into a In their pansexual love of pleasure and their pur-
religion of sexuality. In the words of historian suit of aggressively phallic relations with other
Trumbach (1993): This religion can be defined as women, some lesbians achieved their own libertine
believing, in contradistinction to orthodox Christi- notoriety. London actress Charlotte Charke (1713
anity, that sexual experience was central to human 1760) wrote a 1755 autobiography describing her
life and that sexual desire and pleasure were good cross-dressed seductions of women; the novelist and
and natural things. The sexual organs and acts of satirist Henry Fielding (17071754) based his pam-
sexual intercourse were, therefore, symbols of a great phlet The Female Husband (1746) on Charkes ad-
life-giving force and were as worthy of human wor- ventures, describing a dildo-sporting cross-dresser
ship as the symbols of the Christian sacraments and who marries an unsuspecting woman.
the grace that was the life of the soul. Libertines Blakey Vermeule
were materialist, pleasure seeking, and antiChristian;
they were also, at least in the seventeenth century, Bibliography
attracted to both boys and women. Barker-Benfield, G.J. The Reformation of Male
Many explicit early-modern representations of Manners. In The Culture of Sensibility: Sex
female-female sexuality occur in the works of lib- and Society in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Chi-
ertine writers, from Pierre de Bourdeille de cago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Brantme (15271614) to the Marquis de Sade Brantme, Pierre de Bourdeille de. Lives of the Fair
(17401814). Representations of female-female and Gallant Ladies. Trans. A.R.Allison. 2 vols.
sexuality were as titillating to early-modern audi- Paris: Charles Carrington, 1901.
ences as they are to consumers of pornography Trumbach, Randolph. Erotic Fantasy and Male
today. Libertinism supported many theories of gen- Libertinism in Enlightenment England. In The
der, the best known being, in the words of the poet Invention of Pornography: Obscenity and the
Alexander Pope (16881744) that every woman Oriins of Modernity, 15001800. Ed. Lynn
is at heart a rake. Identificationthe notion that Hunt. New York: Zone, 1993, pp. 6985.
women are just as sexually predatory and excit-
able as menunderlay libertine representations of See also Charke, Charlotte; Erotica and Pornogra-
female sexuality. Libertines such as John Wilmot, phy; Europe, Early Modern
Earl of Rochester (16471680), and the fictional
Robert Lovelace in Samuel Richardsons Clarissa
(1747) were both passionately enamored of women Librarians
and terrified of their hidden sexual power. Proof From its earliest days of academic training, librar-
of womens innate sexual appetitiveness was the ianship has been a predominantly female profes-
lesbian phase they went through on the way to find- sion. When Melvil Dewey (18511931) created the
ing mature sexual fulfillment with men. Here is first professional library school in 1887 at Colum-
Brantme in the erotic Lives of the Fair and Gal- bia College in New York City, women were in the
lant Ladies (1901): How many of these Lesbian majority. Although Dewey lost his job for allow-
dames have I seen who, for all their friggings and ing women to enroll in the heretofore all-male
mutual frictions, yet fail not at the last to go after Columbia College, he did open the doors to a new
men! Even Sappho herself, the mistress of them and different opportunity for women. Historians
all, did she not end by loving her fond, favorite of the development of U.S. librarianship hotly de-
Phaon, for whose sake she died? bate Deweys reasons for championing women as

LIBRARIANS 469
 librarians. Their arguments range from the benevo- the groups to benefit from each others existence.
L lent, a desire on his part to encourage women, par-
ticularly middle-class women, in their pursuit of a
Through co-sponsorship of programs, development
of bibliographies, and discussion of outreach ef-
profession, to the far more negative assessment that forts, lesbian librarians became more involved in
Dewey engaged both in a form of social control professional and association activities that marked
(libraries and librarians as civilizing forces) and, at them as lesbian. After some years of struggle and
the same time, ensured that libraries would be debate, the Gay Task Force changed its name to
staffed by well-educated but low-paid female work- the Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and the Gay Book
ers. Whatever the real motives were, at the end of Award, one of the first of its kind anywhere, added
the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth Lesbian to its title and made a concerted effort to
century, librarianship offered one of the few op- ensure gender equity in the nominations and selec-
portunities for women to earn a living, albeit a fru- tions process. While still predominately male, the
gal one, as a professional. Gay and Lesbian Task Force has made great strides
In any female-intensive occupational category, in incorporating lesbian librarian voices and per-
one will find lesbians. Librarianship is no excep- spectives.
tion. Drawn to it for a number of reasons, not the While the lesbian librarian presence in profes-
least of which was a kind of genteel respectability sional organizations continues to grow, the most
the profession bestowed upon its practitioners, les- obvious manifestation of lesbian librarians contin-
bian librarians were no more visible than lesbians ues to be in less traditional arenas. The creation of
in teaching, nursing, or social work until the rise specialized libraries such as the Lesbian Herstory
of the second wave of feminism in the 1960s. Archives in Brooklyn, New York, and the June
Feminism did not, however, automatically trans- Mazer Collection in West Hollywood, California,
late into a specifically lesbian form of activism, even started by women who did not identify as librar-
among progressive librarians. While many lesbian ians, has been helped along by lesbian librarians
librarians were involved in the growing number of who have found in them an outlet that combines
womens groups and caucuses in professional or- political activism with professional expertise. As
ganizations on the national, regional, and state lev- these community-based libraries expand, adding
els, a chasm existed between these women and the different sorts of materials to their collections, les-
smaller number who allied themselves with the bian librarians trained to catalog music or organ-
American Library Associations Social Responsi- ize manuscript collections have provided invalu-
bilities Gay Task Force. The Gay Task Force was able service to the individual libraries and to the
the creation of a small group, some of whom were preservation of the lesbian past. Some of the most
librarians by vocation, others by avocation. Led exciting sites on the World Wide Web and some of
for many years by Barbara Gittings (1932), an the liveliest discussion groups in cyberspace have
important voice in the early homophile movement, been developed and nurtured by lesbian librarians.
the Gay Task Force had the odd distinction of be- Lesbians have always been a presence in librar-
ing perceived, in spite of Gittingss leadership po- ianship. While a number of variables, including the
sition, as a space for men. Lesbians were apt to type of library in which one works and where it is
find a more conducive home in the Feminist Task located, impact the degree of openness, an increas-
Force, the Committee on the Status of Women in ing number of lesbian librarians are coming out and
Librarianship, and groups such as Wisconsin taking leadership roles in issues as wide-ranging as
Women Library Workers. The structure of the domestic-partnership legislation and the provision
American Library Association (ALA), with its dues of library services to lesbian and gay teenagers. While
schedule and heavy fees for conference attendance, some members of the American Library Associa-
tended to limit participation in organized groups tion have expressed outrage at this openness, de-
to degreed librarians (people with advanced degrees manding that lesbian librarians return to the closet,
in library and information science), effectively that is highly unlikely. Whether in organized groups
eliminating all but the most dedicated and tena- or as individuals, lesbian librarians have found their
cious nonpro-fessionals. voice in the information age and, in so doing, have
In spite of the tensions between the Gay Task given rise to new and significant considerations of
Force and womens groups in the ALA, there was the role of all women in librarianship.
a sufficient degree of cross-fertilization to permit Ellen Broidy

470 LIBRARIANS
Bibliography tasies (including one of seducing a servant, another
Gough, Cal, and Ellen Greenblatt, eds. Gay and of having a penis), her busy sex life of
Lesbian Library Service. Jefferson, N.C.: grubbling (groping) under petticoats and long
McFarland, 1990. kisses (tribadism, most likely), her fear of pass-
Kester, Norman, ed. Liberating Minds: The Sto- ing on her venereal disease, and her longing for a
ries and Professional Lives of Gay, Lesbian, and wife to run her household.
Bisexual Librarians and Their Advocates. Listers many lovers in England and France
Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1997. several married to mendid not share her sense of
a distinct sexual identity, but the diaries reveal a fe-
See also Archives and Libraries; Gittings, Barbara; male continuum of romantic friendship, flirtation,
Lesbian Herstory Archives and discreet sex. Lister pursued a nonmonogamous
lifestyle with varying degrees of honesty until she
settled down with a local heiress, Ann Walker, in
Lister, Anne (17911840) 1832. They took the Eucharist together as a sort of
English diarist. The Lister journals in Calderdale wedding, and Lister rewrote her will to leave a life-
Archives, Yorkshire, England, comprise more than time interest in Shibden to her friend and compan-
four million words (three times as many as those ion. On their travels, Lister succumbed to plague
of Samuel Pepys [16331703]), a sixth of them in in Georgia at the age of forty-nine.
code. They represent an extraordinary document Uncontroversial, censored excerpts from the dia-
of an early-modern lesbian life. ries were published on and off from the 1880s un-
Anne Lister grew up in rural Yorkshire and at- til, in 1988, Helena Whitbread brought out a frank
tended a boarding school where she met her first selection from the years 18171824. These were
lover, Eliza Raine (n.d.), a girl of colour. From published in the United States under the titles No
1806, Lister spent most of her time at Shibden Hall, Priest But Love and I Know My Own Heart (both
Halifax, choosing to live with her unmarried uncle 1992). Points of controversy since have included the
and aunts rather than her less genteel family; she authenticity of the papers, Listers gender identity,
inherited Shibden in 1826. and the extent to which she should be seen as unique,
From 1817 until her death, Lister kept a daily or representative of other secret lives. Work on the
diary. She devised a secret code to veil her references Lister papers, which include more than a thousand
to money, clothes, menstruation, and, above all, her letters, has barely scratched the surface of this treas-
overlapping love affairs with women. Listers money ure trove. Emma Donoghue
and position as a landowner allowed her to refuse
all pressure to marry a man. She pursued a rigorous Bibliography
course of self-education, learning French, German, Castle, Terry. The Diaries of Anne Lister. In The
Latin, Greek, mathematics, history, the flute, and Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality
the harpsichord. She enjoyed walking, riding, and and Modern Culture, New York: Columbia
hunting; she managed her estates herself, developed University Press, 1993, pp. 92106.
coal mines, and used her influence to win Tory votes. Donoghue, Emma. Liberty in Chains: The Dia-
Although she never wore trousers in public, her se- ries of Anne Lister (18171824). In Breaking
vere black dresses, cloaks, and partly cropped hair the Barriers to Desire. Ed. Kevin Lano and
won her the nickname of Gentleman Jack and Claire Parry. Nottingham: Five Leaves, 1995,
regular harassment from men, one of whom she beat pp. 7986.
off with her umbrella. Liddington, Jill. Anne Lister of Shibden Hall,
None of this seems to have troubled her very Halifax (17911840): Her Diaries and the His-
much; her diaries reflect her remarkable confidence. torians. History Workshop 35 (1993), 4577.
Lister does not seem to have thought of herself as Moore, Lisa. Something More Tender Still Than
transgendered, but rather, as an androgynous odd- Friendship: Romantic Friendship in
ity created by nature, a woman to whom gentle- EarlyNineteenth-Century England. Feminist
man-like manners and the love of women came Studies 18:3 (1992), 499520.
naturally. I love, & only love, the fairer sex, she
declared in 1821; my heart revolts from any other See also Androgyny; Diaries and Letters; Roman-
love than theirs. Ever frank, she recorded her fan- tic Friendship

LISTER, ANNE 471

 be called lesbian literary criticism, a criticism written
L Literary Criticism
An approach to literature that analyzes and evalu-
ates the lesbian elements in a literary work or that
primarily by lesbians explaining, appreciating, and
analyzing literature that is identified as lesbian. Some
interprets it from a lesbian perspective. Lesbian lit- of this criticism is designed for a specific lesbian read-
erary criticism is an evaluative and descriptive re- ing community, which, in the early part of the twen-
sponse, usually written, to literatures the critic or tieth century, was a small, educated, and wealthy elite;
others identify as lesbian. To a lesser extent, lesbian at mid-century, an underground, but more diverse,
literary criticism refers to reading any literature from group of readers; and at the end of the century, the
a lesbian perspective. It has existed since readers lesbian community at large. Some of the criticism of
first comments on Sappho (ca. 600 B.C.E.), but it the 1970s and later has been directed specifically to
has flourished primarily in the twentieth century. It the academic community. Lesbian literary criticism
is not a single approach to literature; it does not can be found in underground journals like The Lad-
concentrate on one type of literature; nor does it der (19561972); in community-based magazines
appear in one type of publication. Because different such as Sinister Wisdom and Conditions, both be-
critics or schools of criticism make different assump- gun in the 1970s; and, since 1994, in the Lesbian
tions about what makes literature lesbian and what Review of Books, which reviews general texts on les-
constitutes good or effective lesbian literature, no bian life and work, lesbian literature, and academic
one way of analyzing or evaluating literature con- books on lesbian topics. Lesbian literary criticism also
stitutes lesbian literary criticism. This type of criti- appears in books addressed to a general reading pub-
cism addresses traditional literary forms, such as the lic, such as Jane Rules (1931) Lesbian Images
novel, short story, poetry, and drama, as well as less (1976), and in anthologies of essays addressed pri-
traditional but now accepted genres, such as auto- marily to the academic world. The latter can appear
biography, essay, and film; it encompasses what is as highly theoretical writing, as with the queer theo-
generally considered popular literature, as well rists or postmodern critics of the 1990s. Creative
as what in some circles is called high literature. It writersto mention only a few, Adrienne Rich (1929
also exists wherever lesbian literature is discussed, ), Judy Grahn (1940), Monique Wittig (1935),
from the dyke on the street who reviews a lesbian Bertha Harris (1937), and Audre Lorde (1934
book for the local womens press to the academic 1992)have written a unique form of lesbian liter-
who offers a book on postmodern lesbian literary ary criticism in which they respond to other lesbian
theory for her tenure review. Variety is its key. writers or, more important, explain their own liter-
ary impulses. Lesbian literary criticism also appears
History in introductions to anthologies of lesbian writing.
Although lesbian literary criticism exists primarily Lastly, lesbian criticism can be found in coded form
as a twentieth-century phenomenon because of the in works such as Virginia Woolfs (18821941) A
relative obscurity of lesbians and lesbian literature Room of Ones Own (1929).
prior to the late nineteenth century, it also has an Once lesbianism became more visible in the early
earlier history. However, most of the early literary twentieth century, lesbian writing and criticism as
comments about what might be identified as les- we know it surfaced. But while the lesbian writers
bian literature today were written by men who of- of the early part of the twentieth century at times
ten condemned or ignored the lesbian elements in a wrote self-consciously about lesbianism, they of-
work of art. Commentary on Sappho is a case in ten coded not only their fictional characters, but
point. Some of Sapphos early commentators denied also their comments on lesbian literature. Given
or ignored her obvious lesbianism and instead iden- the relative difficulty early writers experienced
tified her lyrical style as the essence of Sapphic when coming outRadclyffe Halls (18801943)
and as a model for their own poetry. Early women trial for writing The Well of Loneliness (1928) is a
writers who were accorded the name of Sappho case in pointa literature that depends on codes
for instance, the English poet Katherine Philips may be seen as one option these writers had. Les-
(16321664) was called the English Sappho bian literary-critical works like A Room of Ones
gained that title as much by virtue of their poetic Own may also participate in this method of writ-
lyricism as by their attachment to women. ing. Although not universally acknowledged as les-
But it is the twentieth century, especially since the bian, A Room is surrounded by lesbianism: Woolf
1970s, that has been central to the activity that would wrote this critical text at the same time as her

472 L I T E R A RY C R I T I C I S M
lesbian fantasy story of her lover, Vita Sackville- feminism since the 1970s, with some ethnic criti-
West (18921962), Orlando (1928); Woolf her- cism, and with the popular critical forums like The
self imagines in her diary that the critics of A Room Ladder, especially the reviews written by Gene
will call her a Sapphist; and she refers in the Damon (pseud, of Barbara Grier, 1933). Often
book to the fantasy female friends Chloe and addressed both to the academic community and the
Olivia. The central topic that defines its lesbian larger lesbian community, like Bonnie Zimmermans
concern may be the notion of androgyny, which (1947) work, its strong points are its ability to bring
some have seen as a flight from feminism and les- to light previously ignored lesbian literature, its re-
bianism, but which may be read as a code word fusal to speak obliquely about obvious or even sub-
for homosexual. For while the notion of androgyny tle lesbian texts, and its insistence that lesbian lit-
was used negatively by the sexologists at the turn erature reflect lesbian experience. Organizing and
of the twentieth century, it was used positively by evaluating the literary themes and images becomes
some homosexuals and bisexuals of Woolfs era. the primary way the critic approaches literature.
Woolf incorporates that sense of androgyny when The American lesbian feminists of the 1970s
she describes the ideal position from which a also proposed a larger definition of lesbian,
woman should write literature. The difficulty of which, in turn, expanded the literary works that
recognizing the lesbian elements in A Room is in- could be considered lesbian. Lesbian was defined
dicative of the problem of identifying writings that by a womans political stance, not necessarily her
may have been intended, in part or wholly, as works sexual activity; thus, lesbian could mean the rage
of lesbian literary criticism. Much of this literary of all women, the creative energy in each woman,
criticism may remain unknown. or the primary intensity of women with one an-
other, what Adrienne Rich (1929) termed the les-
Lesbian Criticism from 1970 bian continuum. This wider definition also in-
The work of lesbian literary criticism, however, has cludes Lillian Fadermans (1940) phrase roman-
flourished openly since the 1970s. When this criti- tic friendship, as a passionate attachment of
cism did stand in the open, it naturally developed women for one another especially in pre-twenti-
arguments about what constituted lesbian literature. eth-century eras. These larger, metaphoric defini-
Although the term lesbian literary criticism im- tions allow as lesbian literary works by Emily
plies an agreed upon definition of lesbian literature Dickinson (18301886), who wrote passionate let-
literature by and about women who are sexually ters to her sister-in-law; a story by Isak Dinesen
attracted to other womenit does, in fact, involve (18851962), The Blank Page (1957), which
a variety of approaches to, and definitions of, this contains no lesbian character or direct lesbian ref-
literature. Each approach is determined both by the erence but may imply a lesbian topic; and Toni
critics definition of lesbian and by the critics Morrisons (1931) Sula (1973), whose primary
assumption about what constitutes effective or good characters critic Barbara Smith (1946) has called
literature. What could be a simple issue, then, has lesbian. This wider critical approach allows more
become a complex problem of definition. In other literature to be named lesbian, including literature
words, the basis on which a literary work is descibed, by women who are not necessarily lesbian. It may
analyzed, and evaluated can be radically different, also allow for a deeper understanding of these texts.
depending the the leaning of the critic. Ethnic, racial, and class perspectives on lesbian
The most common critical approach assumes that literary criticism also complicate what, in the early
lesbian literature must be written by a lesbian, dis- stages of lesbian feminism, was represented as an
play lesbian characters, and contain overt lesbian unproblematic, generic definition of lesbian. Espe-
themes. This form of lesbian literary criticism at- cially an American phenomenon since the late
tempts to identify literatures that have been previ- 1970s, this insistence on difference once again ex-
ously ignored, to judge the accuracy of the portrayal pands and complicates what can be called lesbian
of lesbians, and to identify imagistic similarities literature and how it can be talked about. African
among a diverse group of books. It is a criticism American Audre Lorde (19341992) insists on the
that often advocates for literature that takes a strong complicated issues of divided loyalty when some-
political stance and literature that represents lesbi- one is lesbian and black in America; Dorothy
ans in an unbiased, if not powerful, way. This form Allison (1949) considers class more important
of criticism can be identified with American lesbian than sexual identity; and Gloria Anzalda (1942)

L I T E R A RY C R I T I C I S M 473
 recounts the magical place gay people held in her of literature that incorporates lesbian anxiety and
L native culture. These critical perspectives empha-
size the way in which lesbian experience functions
lesbian potential in a crucial scene in which Eve
falls in love with her own image. Although this
differently in different cultural contexts and in dif- approach is not the usual way to define lesbian
ferent literary traditions (for example, Native literary criticism, it is an interesting addition to an
American myths). It forces the literary critic to see expanding way of talking about literature. In this
lesbianism as part of a cross-current of identities, fashion, all of literature would be open to lesbian
rather than the only one, and to analyze literature readings.
as part of different literary traditions. Lesbian literary criticism, then, encompasses a
wide variety of approaches to literature, but these
Theory and Criticism perspectives do have one thing in common: They
In the 1970s in France and in the 1980s and 1990s in end the silence that has surrounded lesbian writ-
the United States, academically oriented literary crit- ing and lesbian issues in literature.
ics developed a highly theoretical form of lesbian lit- Marilyn R.Farwell
erary criticism. Based primarily on the European
philosophical tradition from Friedrich Nietzsche Bibliography
(18441900) through Michel Foucault (19261984), Anzalda, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The
this lesbian criticism disagrees with U.S. lesbian femi- New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute, 1987.
nist criticism by questioning realism as an effective Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men:
type of lesbian literature, by refusing the meaning of Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women
lesbian as either a stable term or a metaphor for from the Renaissance to the Present. New York:
all women, and by centering work on disruptive William Morrow, 1981.
postmodern fiction, film, and drama. Monique Wittig Grier, Barbara (pseud. Damon, Gene). Lesbiana:
(1935), a French lesbian writer of fiction and theory, Book Reviews from The Ladder, 19661972.
and queer or postmodern critics such as Elizabeth Reno,Nev.: Naiad, 1976.
Meese (1943) and Judith Roof (1951) assume that, Jay, Karla, and Joanne Glasgow, eds. Lesbian Texts
because Western literature is a male and heterosexual and Contexts: Radical Revisions. New York:
system of meaning, lesbian literature will fail if it uses New York University Press, 1990.
the same forms. These critics favor writings that are Munt, Sally, ed. New Lesbian Criticsm: Literary
nonlinear and disruptive, such as literature by and Cultural Readings. New York: Columbia
Gertrude Stein (18741946) and Jeanette Winterson University Press, 1992.
(1959). The strengths of this form of literary criti- Roof, Judith. A Lure of Knowledge: Lesbian Sexu-
cism are its attention to literary structure rather than ality and Theory. New York: Columbia
content, its interdisciplinary emphasis, and its recog- Universty Press, 1991.
nition of differences; its weaknesses are its dismissal Rule, Jane. Lesbian Images. New York: Pocket
of more popular lesbian literature and, for some, its Books, 1976.
alliance with gay men instead of straight women. Smith, Barbara. Toward a Black Feminist Criti-
Many of the essays from this perspective appear in cism. Conditions: II, 1, 2 (1977), 2543.
anthologies devoted to interdisciplinary topics from Zimmerman, Bonnie. The Safe Sea of Women: Les-
both gay and lesbian critics. bian Fiction, 19691989. Boston: Beacon, 1990.
Finally, and most broadly, lesbian literary criti-
cism can be considered a way of reading any lit- See also Anzalda, Gloria E.; Cultural Studies;
erature, whether the literature is written by a les- Faderman, Lillian; Grier, Barbara; Ladder, The;
bian, a straight woman, a gay man, or a straight Lesbian Feminism; Lesbian Studies; Lorde, Audre;
man. This reader may be the lesbian who, while Philips, Katherine; Postmodernism; Queer Theory;
reading works highlighting straight culture, must Rich, Adrienne; Sappho; Smith, Barbara; Wittig,
reinterpret the literary work for herself, or the Monique; Woolf, Virginia
reader may be someone who is straight or gay and
desires to approach a text from a lesbian perspec-
tive. For instance, a critic reading from a lesbian Literary Images
perspective could read John Miltons (16081674) Images of lesbians in Western literary traditions
Paradise Lost not as a lesbian text but as a work have been in circulation only since the late

474 L I T E R A RY C R I T I C I S M
nineteenth century. However, expanding definitions women cross-dressed as a symbol of their feminism.
to include images of any female same-sex erotic This cross-dressing came to be increasingly associ-
attachments or women who violate demands for ated with sexual inverts, women who were by tem-
female/feminine behavior, reveals a much larger and perament and dress mannish. In this way, the popu-
longer tradition of images that were deployed by lar imagination converted the strong amazon figure
both these women and others who wrote about into a woman who was mannish in some fashion.
them. This conflation of gendered dress and behavior
The image of amazons has long been consid- with sexuality produced one of the best-known fig-
ered one of female strength and resistance, an im- ures in lesbian literature: Stephen Gordon, the hero
age found attractive by many lesbian writers. Per- of Radclyffe Halls (18801943) The Well of Loneli-
sistent legends of amazons can be found in West- ness (1928). In the 1950s and early 1960s, the butch
ern classical and in non-Western mythologies. Ro- character in pulp novels, such as Ann Bannons
man colonial rule of Celtic tribes was almost over- (1937) Beebo Brinker (1962), took the place of the
thrown by the first century A.D. Queen Boudica invert of Halls famous novel. Cheryl Clarkes (1947
(from whom Judy Grahn suggests the word dyke ) poem Of Althea and Flaxie (1982) celebrates the
derives). Other stories originate in northwest Af- mannish woman or butch: In 1943 Althea was a
rica, where amazons were known as warriors and welder/very dark/very butch/and very proud/loved to
founders of cities throughout North Africa, Egypt, cook, sew, and drive a car/and did not care who knew
and the islands of Greece. One of the cities said to she kept company with a woman. While some les-
be founded by these amazons, Mytilene, later be- bian feminists in the 1970s and 1980s critiqued this
came the home of Sappho (ca. 600 B.C.E.). particular image as belonging to a patriarchal porno-
Many lesbian writers in the twentieth century graphic imagination (and, indeed, the image of the
came to utilize the images of amazons found in ear- mannish woman is found in many works by male
lier eras. While writers such as Natalie Barney writers as well), others saw the mannish woman, or
(18761972) and Rene Vivien (18771909) butch, as a proud carrier of a working-class lesbian
harkened back to the ancient Greek mythology and literary tradition. This may be best exemplified in
the poetry of Sappho as sources of a liberatory per- Leslie Feinbergs Stone Butch Blues (1993), a novel
sonal and literary aesthetic, it wasnt until the late that chronicles a young butch lesbians decision to
twentieth century that feminist and lesbian feminist pass as a man when she needs to work.
writers reinvoked the images of amazons in more While women who took male prerogatives were
complete and political (and perhaps idealized) terms. considered mannish, it is in the figure of the un-
Thus, the amazon figure not only was a strong natural woman, the evil monster, that patriarchys
woman, but also became a woman who waged war worst fears of female autonomy can be found. This
against patriarchy and violence against other otherness of the lesbian can be found in nineteenth-
women. Poets frequently utilized the image. Audre century literature, especially French decadent litera-
Lorde (19341992), in her poem 125th Street and ture. Emile Zola (18401902), Guy de Maupassant
Abomey, (1978) writes: I surrender to you as li- (18501893), and Alphonse Daudet (18401897) all
bation/take my fear of being alone/like my war- contributed works that emphasized lesbian evil.
rior sisters/who rode in defense of your queendom/ Honor de Balzacs (17991850) The Girl with the
disguised and apart/give me the woman strength/of Golden Eyes (1835) illustrates this theme. Balzacs
tongue in this cold season. Fiction writers, too, androgynous Marquise de St. Ral purchases pretty
found the image of strong women and all-female young Paquita from her mother and holds her in
societies alluring. Elana Nachman, in her novel sexual slavery; when she telepathically discovers that
Riverfinger Women (1974), writes that some of us Paquita has been sexual with a man (her half-brother,
began our resistance, learned to change (acid on no less), she barbarously murders her. Writers such
stone) who we thought we were doomed to be into as Charles Baudelaire (18211867), Algernon
who we are. Tough, strong, proud: free women. Swinburne (18371909), Pierre Louys (18701925),
It is, perhaps, these images of amazons that also and Paul Verlaine (18441896) all utilized images of
gave birth to one of the more ubiquitous images of monstrous (and often exotic) lesbian evil, which
lesbians: that of the mannish woman. While most proved a popular theme well into the twentieth cen-
nineteenth-century feminists wore traditional wom- tury. Even the American Mary Wilkins Freeman
ens clothing, a number of primarily upper-class (19521930) (who had close friendships with

L I T E R A RY I M A G E S 475
 women) wrote The Long Arm (1895), which de- the lesbian-as-vampire character clearly existed
L picts a romantic friendship in which the more mas-
culine, unnatural woman murders her partners male
well before that time. Lesbian writers both rewrite
old stories and remythologize new ones. Perhaps
suitor, continuing this particular image of lesbian the best-known writer of lesbian vampire stories
monstrosity. is Jewelle Gomez (1948). Her collection The
Lesbians themselves have often utilized the image Gilda Stories (1991) tells of a black lesbian femi-
of lesbian evil or monstrosity in their works. Djuna nist vampire who escapes from slavery and
Barnes (18921982) Robin Vote in Nightwood searches for her place in the world. Commenting
(1936) invokes this succubus-like character. It was on the writing of vampire fiction, Gomez has said:
not until the lesbian feminist writers of the 1970s I feel I can remake mythology as well as any-
that the image of the monster was reappropriated as one. I was certain I could create a mythology
an outlaw figure, a source of femalecentered power to express who I am as a black lesbian feminist
outside patriarchal reach. Adrienne Richs (1929) (Keesey, 1993). Other lesbian writers of the 1980s
poem Planetarium (1971) begins: A woman in and 1990s who have explored the image of the
the shape of a monster/a monster in the shape of a vampire include Judith Katz, Katherine Forrest,
woman/the skies are full of them. and Pat Califia.
Judith Katzs novel Running Fiercely Toward a Lesbians have been represented in many modes
High Thin Sound (1992) follows the adventures of and manners in both mainstream and alternative
Nadine Pagan, who is mythologized by her sisters as literature. In addition to the amazon, the mannish
half-girl, half-wolf. (In early published exerpts, the lesbian, the monster, and the vampire, lesbian writ-
novel was titled The Monster in My Mothers House.) ers (and others writing about lesbians) have drawn
Nadines mother believes [t]heres a dybbuk inside upon the images of the schoolgirl, the athlete, the
her! Nadine is perceived as tainting the family and alcoholic, and the aristocrat, among others. While
its place in the larger Jewish community, especially mainstream literature has not always been compli-
after hiding in, and falling out of, the Ark at her sis- mentary to lesbian images, lesbians often reclaim
ters wedding. A similarly devilish figure employed and revise some of these images, making them over
by Chicana lesbian writers is that of the Aztec prin- in ways that better reflect how lesbians perceive
cess Malinche, who, as translator and courtesan to themselves within their own social and cultural
Hernando Cortez, betrayed her Indio people and sym- paradigms. Linnea A.Stenson
bolically gave birth to mestizo/Mexicano people. For
a writer like Cherre Moraga (1952), Malinche sym- Bibliography
bolizes the way Moraga, in her Loving in the War Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men:
Years (1983), further betrays my race by choosing Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women
my sexuality which excludes all men, and therefore from the Renaissance to the Present. New York:
most dangerously, Chicano men. William Morrow, 1981.
The crossing of same-sex eroticism, sexuality, and Foster, Jeannette H. Sex Variant Women in Litera-
danger led to literary works that are notable for their ture. Tallahassee, Fla.: Naiad, 1956, 1985.
use of vampire characters and vampiric imagery. The Keesey, Pam. Introduction. In Daughter of Dark-
English romantic Samuel Taylor Coleridges poem ness: Lesbian Vampire Stories. Ed. Pam Keesey.
Christabel (1817) and Irish writer Joseph Sheridan Pittsburgh, Penn.: Cleis, 1993.
LaFanus short story Carmilla (1872) feature two Newton, Esther. The Mythic Mannish Lesbian:
well-known examples of vampire-like women who Radclyffe Hall and the New Woman. Signs:
erotically drain the life force out of other women. Journal of Women in Culture and Society 9:4
Raymond McNally, a noted vampire scholar, sug- (Summer 1984), 557575.
gests that the birth of the myth of the vampire is Zimmerman, Bonnie. The Safe Sea of Women: Les-
actually traceable to a Hungarian countess, Eliza- bian Fiction 19691989. Boston: Beacon, 1990.
beth Bathory (15601614), who sexually preferred
young women and liked to dress in mens clothing See also Amazons; Bannon, Ann; Barnes, Djuna
(cited in Keesey, 1993). These origins are overlooked Chappell; Barney, Natalie Clifford; Butch-Femme;
in most vampire fiction. Hall, Radclyffe; Lorde, Audre; Moraga, Cherre;
Vampires became popular images used by les- Pulp Fiction; Rich, Adrienne; Romantic Friendship;
bian writers in the 1980s and 1990s, although Sappho; Stereotypes; Vampires; Vivien, Rene

476 L I T E R A RY I M A G E S
London ence in 1984. These inspired the setting up of les-
Capital of the United Kingdom, as well as its les- bian studies classes, the Lesbian Archive, and the
bian capital. Many famous lesbians have lived in Lesbian History Group. In 1985, the Greater Lon-
London over the years: The Pink Plaque Guide lists don Council (GLC), Londons municipal authority,
the addresses of, among others, writers Bryher opened a Lesbian and Gay Centre in London and
(18941983), Charlotte Charke (17131760), published Changing the World: A London Charter
Mary Renault (19051983), and Sylvia Townsend for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Their lead was followed
Warner (18931978), the artist Gluck (1895 by several left-wing local authorities in London but
1978), and the composer Ethel Smyth (1858 soon gave way to an antigay reaction that not only
1944). Radclyffe Hall (18801943) lived at sev- prompted the passing of Section 28 of the Local
eral London addresses and died there. Her novel Government Act 1988 (known as Clause 28 before
The Well of Loneliness (1928) was successfully the act was passed)which prohibits the promo-
prosecuted for obscenity at Bow Street Magistrates tion of homosexuality in some state-funded ven-
Court (opposite Covent Garden Opera House) in uesbut was also partly responsible for the aboli-
1928, and she worshiped at the Roman Catholic tion by the Conservative Party government of the
Church in Maiden Lane nearby (her name, and that gay-friendly GLC itself.
of Lady Una Troubridge [18871963], her lover, By the end of the 1990s, the feminist focus of
are still attached to the pew they occupied). London lesbianism had largely been replaced by an
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centu- emphasis on lesbian style. The London Lesbian and
ries, there were lesbian groupings around the theater, Gay Centre was destroyed by internal wrangling and
the art world, and womens colleges, as well as femi- the withdrawal of funding. Funding cuts also forced
nist activism. Less is known of working-class les- the Lesbian Archive to move to Glasgow, Scotland.
bian culture at that time, but after World War II, Nonetheless, a lively bar and club scene remained.
the Gateways Club, immortalized in the film The At the former London Womens Centre, renamed
Killing of Sister George (1969), flourished in the Wheel (in Wild Court, off Kingsway WC1),
Bramerton Street, SW3. It closed in 1985. many lesbian groups continued to meet or maintain
Modern lesbian organizing began in London. In a mailbox. For example, although the Lesbian His-
the 1960s, women associated with the pioneering tory Group folded in 1994, it was replaced by two
lesbian magazine Arena 3 organized monthly meet- radical lesbian feminist discussion groups, Lesbian
ings at the Shakespeares Head pub in Carnaby Viewpoints and RADS. Also at the Wheel were
Street. Kenric, a social group for lesbians that still groups such as the Lesbian Avengers and the Older
flourishes nationwide, was set up by two Arena 3 Lesbian Network, and groups for black and
members from the London boroughs of Kensing- ethnicminority lesbians. Silver Moon Bookshop in
ton and Richmond; hence, its name. When Arena 3 Charing Cross Road, Europes biggest womens
ceased publication in 1971, women continued to bookshop, continued to offer a large selection of
meet at the Museum Tavern in Museum Street lesbian books and magazines.
opposite the British Museumwhich led to the Among the lesbian institutions in London, three
founding of Sappho in 1972. This was both a maga- deserve highlighting: the annual Gay Pride march
zine (which ran until 1981) and a social group, through central London to Hyde Park, which has
whose collective organized discos (until 1982) and taken place every June since 1972; the lesbian pan-
weekly meetings in a West End pub, usually with tomime at Christmas at the Drill Hall in Chenies
speakers and discussion. These meetings still take Street, another popular venue for classes, shows,
place. London Friend, which began as the counseling and meetings; and the Ladies Pond on Hampstead
arm of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality in Heath, free to all women and a delightful place to
1971, still reaches out to newly arrived lesbians and spend a summer Sunday afternoon.
gays from its Caledonian Road premises. Information on London events can be found in
Radical activism in the 1970s gave London les- Time Out, a weekly informational magazine for
bians a higher public profile. They were involved in London, and the Pink Paper, a free gay weekly
the Gay Liberation Front and, especially, the wom- paper, or through the Lesbian and Gay Switchboard
ens liberation movement. A successful Lesbian Sex or Lesbian Line, which also provide counseling and
and Sexual Practice Conference was held in Lon- information about accommodation.
don in 1983, followed by a Lesbian Studies Confer- Rosemary Auchmuty

LONDON 477
 Bibliography poet, Lorde wove an incredible life from an early child-
L Duffy, Maureen. The Microcosm. New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1966.
hood of silence and near blindness. Lordes descrip-
tion of her early life in Zami, paints a portrait of a
Elliman, Michael, and Frederick Roll. The Pink young woman constantly trying to negotiate the rac-
Plaque Guide to London. London: GMP, 1986. ism and sexism of America in the 1950s. She said
Neild, Suzanne, and Rosalind Pearson. Women about becoming a poet: [W]hen the strongest words
Like Us. London: Womens Press, 1992. for what I have to offer come out of me sounding
like words I remember from my mothers mouth, then
See also United Kingdom I either have to reassess the meaning of everything I
have to say now, or reexamine the worth of her
words. Her memories of childhood are enmeshed
Lorde, Audre (19341992) with memories of her mothers simultaneous soft-
African American lesbian, feminist, poet, warrior, ness and harshness; this relationship is always bitter-
and mother. Audre Lorde was one of the foremost sweet, and, throughout much of Lordes work, the
lesbian thinkers of the twentieth century, who in- mother comes forward as a figure of both construc-
spired many other women, regardless of their sexu- tion and destruction. The bittersweet nature of the
ality, to think deeply about the interconnections mother-daughter bond is closely linked to the erotic
between racism, sexism, and homophobia. She kept connection to women that Lorde finds early in her
a wide circle of women poets and scholars as close life. Speaking of the sacred and the profane in one
friends, including Cherre Moraga (1952), Gloria breath, Lorde reminds her readers at the end of Zami
Hull, Adrienne Rich (1929), Judy Grahn (1940 that the desire to lie with other women is a drive
), and Barbara Smith (1946). from the mothers blood.
Raised by Grenadian parents who came to the United What appears to be one of Lordes first poems
States in 1924, Lorde recalled her early life in Harlem in was written in May 1949, after the suicide death of
her biomythography, Zami: A New Spelling of My a close high school friend. The piece is illustrative
Name, remembering that, under-neath it all as I was of an early poetry wrought with visceral images of
growing up, home was still a sweet place somewhere birth and death. Creating poetry at a time of intense
else which they had not managed to capture yet on pa- production by women artists, poets, and educators,
per, nor to throttle and bind up between the pages of a Lorde had her first volume of poetry, The First Cit-
schoolbook. Using the sights, sounds, and material ies, published in 1968. Always hurt and dismayed
memory of her childhood as fodder for her vision as a by the response of other African Americans to her
work, Lorde once remarked in an interview: [I]n
the forties and fifties my life-style and the rumors
about my lesbianism made me persona non grata in
Black literary circles. [W]hy do you think my last
book, The Black Unicorn, has not been reviewed,
nor even mentioned, in any Black newspaper or
Black magazine within the thirteen months since it
appeared? (in Evans, 1984).
Her refusal to forget the fact of her lesbianism
posed a challenge for Lorde throughout her career.
Consistently, she took the feminist maxim the per-
sonal is political and made it a reality in her work
and life. Recording her own personal tragedy and
triumphs so that others might gain strength from
her insight, Lorde spoke openly of her own strug-
gles with racism, sexism, and homophobia. But per-
haps her most profound impact on the feminist and
lesbian communities was the chronicling of her own
fight with cancer in The Cancer Journals (1980). In
the introduction to the work, Lorde writes: [F]or
Audre Lorde. Photo by Tee A.Corinne. other women of all ages, colors, and sexual identities

478 LONDON
who recognize that imposed silence about any area Angeles gathered in private homes and bars, at
of our lives is a tool for separation and powerless- softball games and beauty contests on the Venice
ness, and for myself, I have tried to voice some of Beach boardwalk, and on discrete strips of local
my thoughts about the travesty of prosthesis, the beaches. Some were active in homophile groups, and
pain of amputation, the function of cancer in a profit many in social movements not their own. Recorded
economy, my confrontation with mortality, the lesbian activism in Los Angeles began with resistant
strength of women loving, and the power and re- gestures like that of Lisa Ben (a pseudonym con-
wards of self-conscious living. structed from lesbian), who clandestinely pub-
Author of more than nine volumes of poetry, two lished and circulated the first lesbian newsletter (Vice
collections of essays, and two autobiographical Versa) in 19471948. In the 1950s, when homophile
works, Lorde will be remembered for the intensity groups formed, lesbians were notably active in ONE
of her words, the beauty of her presence, and the and the local chapter of Daughters of Bilitis (DOB).
insight of her work. Of her essays, Uses of the Shortly after Stonewall, a handful of lesbians joined
Erotic: The Erotic as Power and The Masters the Los Angeles Gay Liberation Front (GLF) but
Tools Will Never Dismantle the Masters House, were soon alienated by the sexism of GLF males. A
both in Sister Outsider (1984), will be long remem- developing feminist consciousness and memories of
bered because of Lordes attention to the way in sexist experiences in other movements led some to
which the patriarchy robs women of their own form a GLF womens caucus and then an entirely
power and, therefore, their ability to speak clearly separate group, Lesbian Feminists (LF). Housed at
and lovingly to one another. Some of her best-known the Crenshaw Womens Center, LF was an energetic
poems are Coal (1970), A Litany for Survival group that helped organize gatherings such as the
(1978), and Power (1978), all of which utilize Gay Womens West Coast Conference (1971), ran a
contemporary politics as the backdrop for creative coffeehouse and a speakers bureau, participated in
production. Lorde was a prolific poet; her work the movement against the Vietnam War, sponsored
spanned three decadesfrom the poetic style of the gay-straight dialogues, and worked with National
Black Arts Movement to the postmodern aesthetic Organization for Women (NOW) members to help
evidenced in her last book of poetry, Undersong, pass NOWs historic pro-lesbian resolution in 1971.
published posthumously in 1992. In 1971, the Lesbian Tide became the first les-
Lorde died from breast cancer that had bian publication to use the L word on its mast-
metastasized to the liver in November 1992. Her head. Its publisher, Jeanne Cordova, was an activist
passing was deeply felt by all of those whom she whose local credits included coorganizing the 1973
touched with her words and her vision of a place of West Coast Lesbian Conference. This second na-
understanding for humanity. Sharon P.Holland tional lesbian conference (DOB held the first one in
1960) was held at the University of California, Los
Bibliography Angeles, with more than 1,500 women attending.
Evans, Mari, ed. Black Women Writers (1950 In the 1970s and 1980s, Los Angeles lesbians
1980): A Critical Evaluation. New York: An- working alone and with allies created an institutional
chor, 1984. and cultural base that included centers like the Gay
Perreault, Jeanne. Writing Selves: Contemporary Womens Service Center (possibly the first in the
Feminist Autography. Minneapolis: University United States), the Westside Womens Center, the
of Minnesota Press, 1995. Alcoholism Center for Women, and Connexxus
Tate, Claudia, ed. Black Women Writers at Work. Womens Center/Centro de Mujeres; bookstores,
New York: Continuum, 1989. including Sisterhood Books and Page One; support
and advocacy groups, such as Fat Underground, Z
See also African American Literature Budapests Wicca, Radical Therapy Collective, and
rape hotlines; actions like the First National Les-
bian Kiss-In (1973); gatherings such as the Lesbian
Los Angeles, California History Exploration (1975), the National Lesbian
Largest city in California; noted in particular for its Feminist Organization Founding Conference (1978),
ethnically diverse population and its central role in and the West Coast Old Lesbian Conference (1987);
the entertainment industry. Prior to the Stonewall cultural events and groups, including the Great
Rebellion (1969) in New York City, lesbians in Los American Lesbian Art Show at The Womans

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 479

 Building, L.A. Womens Community Chorus, and small in number, a sign that the golden days of
L the West Coast Music Festival; the first lesbian so-
rority in the United States (Lambda Delta Lambda)
lesbian activism were gone or in abeyance mode.
Yolanda Retter
founded at UCLA in 1988. Important publications
that continued to publish through the 1990s include Bibliography
the Lesbian News, cofounded by Jinx Beers in 1975; Kepner, Jim. The Women of ONE. URL: http://
Lesbian Ethics; and the L.A. Womens Yellow Pages. www.lib.usc.edu/~retter/onewomen.html
The diverse lesbian community of Los Angeles Retter, Yolanda. Lesbian Spaces in Los Angeles,
also had its share of painful internal struggles over 19701990. In Queers in Space: Communi-
issues of class, race, roles, separatism, ties, Public Spaces, Sites of Resistance. Ed.
sadomaschism, AIDS, sexism, and generational Gorden Brent Ingram, Anne-Marie Bouthillette,
differences in perspective and style. Lesbians of and Yolanda Retter. Seattle: Bay Press, 1997,
color who were unhappy with the racism in les- pp. 325337.
bian organizations and the sexism in gay people of
color organizations formed groups such as See also Daughters of Bilitis; Gay Liberation Move-
Lesbianas Latinamericanas (formed in 1974), ment; Hollywood; Music Festivals; National Or-
Debretas (1977), Lesbianas Unidas (1984), Asian ganization for Women (NOW); Sororities
Pacific Lesbians and Friends (1985), and United
Lesbians of African Heritage (1990). Lesbians of
Color (LOC), founded in 1978, organized the first Love
National LOC Conference in 1983. Working with Intense affection, sexual passion, or deep devotion.
allies from White Women Against Racism, Love poetry and letters constitute the earliest writ-
Connexxus, and Califia (an organization known ten evidence of love between women. Poetry has been
for its week-long camps and workshops on racism used to express the passion, turmoil, and tender-
and classism), LOC also conducted numerous rac- ness of lesbian love throughout the ages, beginning
ism workshops. with Sappho (ca. 600 B.C.E.). Love letters were a
In the late 1970s and the 1980s, amidst a homo- second major means of communicating a transgres-
phobic backlash, the AIDS epidemic, and the in- sive love and have provided the basis for understand-
evitable life-cycle changes that individuals and so- ing the rise of romantic friendships in the United
cial movements are heir to, the momentum of les- States from the eighteenth century to the early twen-
bian-focused activism shifted. Beginning in 1977, tieth century. Women in romantic friendships, also
lesbians from many segments of the community known as Boston marriages, avowed a deep, abid-
worked in co-gender coalitions to stop various ing love for each other, although the extent to which
homophobic propositions, including the infamous the relationships included a sexual dimension is
Briggs Initiative, which was an attempt to prohibit uncertain. Multiple positive images of lesbian love
any discussion of homosexuality in public schools; evolved in the late twentieth century, paralleling the
it was defeated by California voters in 1978. These development of a modern lesbian community. These
efforts required new strategies and styles. Activist images celebrated the sensuality, intensity, danger,
lesbians increasingly worked with co-gender and comfort of love between women. Concurrent
projects (the Municipal Elections Committee of Los with womens own accounts of love, lesbian love
Angeles and the multimillion-dollar Gay and Les- also has been stereotyped as depraved, sick, or titil-
bian Community Services Center, which hired its lating in religious, medical, and pornographic rep-
first lesbian director, Torie Osborne, in 1988) and resentations.
in mainstream venues (Jackie Goldberg was elected
to the Los Angeles City Council in 1993, and Sheila Characterizations of Lesbian Love
Kuehl to the California State Assembly in 1994; Research on lesbian love in Western societies has
Jean OLeary was appointed to the Democratic found that choice, equality, intimacy, sensuality, and
National Committee in 1994). By the mid-1990s, independence are highly characteristic of and valued
lesbian-focused projects and groups, such as South- in lesbian relationships, although individual varia-
ern California Women for Understanding, the June tions exist (Peplau, 1993). Lesbians generally make a
Mazer Lesbian Collection, lesbians-of-color groups, free, affectionally based choice of partners. Equality
and the (Internet) Lesbian History Project, were is enhanced by the equal gender status of partners

480 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

and feminist values that emphasize the importance component of the lesbian romantic love script. An
of equity in relationships. Female gender socialization intense longing for union with the loved one, if
contributes to high levels of intimacy, including the reciprocated, is associated with ecstasy and
desire to have an emotionally close and relatively se- fulfillment. Separation or unrequited romantic love
cure love relationship. Sensuality encompasses physi- elicits feelings of anxiety and despair. During court-
cal affection, as well as explicit erotic acts. Independ- ship, the intensity of romantic love can be increased
ence refers to the high level of personal autonomy by cultural barriers to lesbian love and the uncer-
preferred by many lesbians, including having sepa- tainty of a new relationship.
rate interests, friendships, and earnings. The erotic love, or sexually explicit, script cel-
Variation in the strength of particular elements ebrates the active pursuit of sexual pleasure and
may be associated with specific outcomes in lesbian variety. Sensuality and lust motivate the connec-
love relationships. Couples who emphasize choice, tion, rather than feelings associated with romantic
equality, and intimacy may seek stable, close mo- or friendship love, such as duty, anxiety, or jeal-
nogamous relationships. A pattern of high intimacy ousy. Initiation of the relationship is direct and goal
and low independence in couples has been associ- oriented. Erotic love scripts sometimes explicitly
ated with fusion or merger, or the problem include role playing to stimulate desire, including
some lesbians have with maintaining a separate iden- butch-femme or sadomasochistic roles. In longterm
tity when they are in a couple. High levels of inti- erotic relationships, a friendship may be established
macy may contribute to a low rate of sexual desire but is not intertwined with the sexual component
or activity, also known as lesbian bed death. If as it is in the case of romantic love.
both intimacy and independence are highly valued, Love scripts may be fluid, with changes in pre-
a pattern of serial monogamy or nonmonogamy may ferred script occurring over the course of a relation-
result, with high independence making it possible ship or the life span. Friendship or erotic love may
for lesbians to seek a more satisfying relationship if develop into romantic love or vice versa. The sexual
expectations for intimacy are not met. component of romantic and erotic love declines sub-
stantially for most couples after two years; even so,
Lesbian Love Scripts most lesbians report high levels of sexual satisfaction
Three primary lesbian love scripts have emerged in and orgasm in relationships. Friendship love appears
the United States since the 1960s: friendship/ com- to remain strong even when a romantic or an erotic
panionate, romantic, and erotic. A script represents relationship has ended, accounting for the phenom-
a cognitive schema concerning why, when, where, enon among many lesbians of having ex-lovers as
how, and with whom one should love, as prescribed friends and extended family. Scripts also may over-
by the individuals culture. Lesbian love scripts have lap. In romantic friendships or Boston marriages, les-
been derived partly from heterosexual love scripts bians are highly committed to each other and view
and partly from social norms as represented in les- themselves as a couple but are asexual. Finally, love
bian popular culture, such as fiction and comedy. scripts are not mutually exclusive. For example, a
The three scripts are distinguished by the different lesbian might have an erotic and a romantic relation-
emphasis each places on intimacy, sexuality, and ship with different partners simultaneously.
commitment. Little research has been conducted about the
The friendship, or companionate, love script effect age, race, class, or disability have on lesbian
among lesbians combines feelings of deep attachment, love in Western, industrial societies. A majority of
intimacy, and commitment, with little or no empha- white lesbians fall in love with partners who are
sis placed on sexuality. It is highly valued by some similar on these dimensions. Most also tend to
lesbians because it promotes equality and is a pre- choose partners based on companionate traits
ferred courtship script, particularly in first relation- rather than physical beauty and to emphasize the
ships. If friendship is not present prior to sexual in- importance of emotional connection over sexual
volvement, lesbians generally act quickly to establish intimacy. Lesbians of color appear to follow a simi-
one. The priority given friendship love also is shown lar pattern in terms of partner choice but often
by a frequently expressed fear that becoming sexual describe having to subordinate their lesbian desires
with a friend might jeopardize the friendship. to maintain the support of their own ethnic com-
The romantic love script combines emotional munity. Barriers to love reported by interracial cou-
intimacy and sexual attraction. An emotional or ples include societal and internalized racism and
sexual awakening aroused by the beloved is a key negative reactions from family and community.

LOVE 481
 Although heterosexist cultural scripts had a strong that adolescent period, it was her crushes on her fe-
L influence on lesbian love scripts in the past, new
themes introduced in the late twentieth century are
male friends that appear to have first led to her writ-
ing poetry; one of her earliest extant poems came out
having an impact, including increased gender blend- of her adolescent crush on her girlfriend, Louly W.
ing of individual identity and roles, debates about Lowells first published volume of poems, A
same-sex parenting and marriage, the salience of race Dome of Many Coloured Glass (1912), contains a
and culture in defining relationships, and the impor- number of seemingly homoerotic poems, addressed
tance of extended friendship networks as a chosen to two women. But the most significant body of
family for lesbians. These themes are likely to result her experiential love poems was written to, and
in the evolution of future love scripts that are more for, the actress Ada Russell (18631952?).
clearly lesbian defined. Suzanna Rose Lowell first encountered Russell in 1909. They
spent part of the summer of 1912 together, and,
Bibliography for the next two years, the poet tried to persuade
Mays, Vicki M., Susan Cochran, and Sylvia Rhue. the actress to live with her. This courtship is re-
The Impact of Perceived Discrimination on the flected in approximately twenty poems of Sword
Intimate Relationships of Black Lesbians. Jour- Blades and Poppy Seed (1914). Russell finally
nal of Homosexuality 25:4 (1993), 114. yielded to Lowells pursuit in the spring of 1914.
Pearlman, S. Loving Across Race and Class Di- She quit the stage and went to live with Lowell in
vides: Relational Challenges and the Interracial her Brookline mansion, Sevenels, ostensibly as her
Lesbian Couple. Women and Therapy 19:3 paid companion but, in fact, as her mate. The two
(1996), 2535. lived together until Lowells death in 1925.
Peplau, L.Anne. Lesbian and Gay Relationships. Several of Lowells later volumes contain love
In Psychological Perspectives on Lesbian and poems about the relationship between the two
Gay Male Experience. Ed. Linda D.Garnets and women, including Pictures of the Floating World
C.Kimmel Douglas. New York: Columbia Uni- (1919)especially the forty-three poems in the
versity Press, 1993, pp. 39519. Two Speak Together sectionand two posthu-
Rose, Suzanna. Lesbian and Gay Love Scripts. In mous volumes, Whats OClock (l925) and Bal-
Preventing Heterosexism and Homophobia. Ed. lads for Sale (1927).
Esther D.Rothblum and Lynne A.Bond. Thou- The usual critical observation that Lowell was an
sand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1996, pp. 151173. overweight, pathetic, and lonely unmarried woman
Rose, Suzanna, Deborah Zand, and Marie Cini. Les- is not borne out by the body of Lowells poetry. The
bian Courtship Scripts. In Boston Marriages: preponderance of her experiential poems suggest a
Romantic but Asexual Relationships Among Con- life and a relationship that were extremely happy and
temporary Lesbians. Ed. Esther D.Rothblum and productive. Lowell admitted to her acquaintances that
Kathleen A.Brehony. Amherst: University of Mas- such love poems were about Russell.
sachusetts Press, 1993, pp. 7085. In a scurrilous study published one year after
Amy Lowells death, Clement Wood argued that
See also Boston Marriage; Butch-Femme; Couples; Lowell was not a good poet because many of her
Friendship; Monogamy and Nonmonogamy; Ro- poems were homosexual; therefore, they did not
mantic Friendship; Sadomasochism; Sexuality word a common cry of many hearts. Lowell, he
concluded, may qualify as an impassioned singer
of her own desires; and she may well be laureate
Lowell, Amy Lawrence (18741925) also of as many as stand beside her, but nonlesbian
American poet. Born into a distinguished and wealthy readers will find nothing in her verse.
family in Brookline, Massachusetts, Amy Lowell was Lillian Faderman
educated privately. For a brief period, she was asso-
ciated with Ezra Pound (18851972), but she broke Bibliography
with him to go her own way. In fact, her imagist po- Gould, Amy Jean. The World of Amy Lowell and
etry is quite different from that of Pounds circle. the Imagist Movement. New York: Dodd,
Lowell described herself in her adolescent diary Mead, 1975.
as a great, rough, masculine, strong thing. Although
she had very strong crushes on young males during See also Poetry

482 LOVE
M
Mh often connotes homosexual practices, these are
Indigenous to the Hawaiin Islands and Society Is- culturally understood in terms of the mhs com-
lands (French Polynesia), the term mh is trans- plex gender status as half-man, half-woman: It
lated as half-man, half-woman by Polynesians is, for example, because a female mh is half-
of the Society Islands. References to mh date back man that s/he is attracted to women (Tahitian,
to eighteenth-century European narratives identi- vahine) as lovers. However, homosexual practices
fying mh in the entourages of Polynesian queens are not necessarily part of mh behavior since
and kings and in everyday life. While most histori- many, but not all, mh take same-sex lovers. An
cal and ethnographic accounts suggest mh is a important corollary of the complex relationship
gender category available only to males, recent eth- between gender and sexual practice throughout
nographic and historical work demonstrates that Polynesia, however, is that the lovers of mh are
females have also been, and are, mh. either men (tane) or women (vahine) and never
In the Hawaiin and Society Islands, mh re- other mh.
fers to females or males who adopt complex com- In urban Papeete (French Polynesia), for exam-
binations of masculine and feminine gender signs: ple, where a butch-femme model structures sexual
There are crucial distinctions here between sex relationships among many females, mh are
differences (female, male), gender categories and butches who, in local terms, behave in the man-
behaviors (woman/feminine, man/masculine, ner of men. In the context of their butch-femme
mh), and sexual practices. Mh adopt styles relationships, this means female mh are sexu-
of dress, work, and embodied expressions (ges- ally attracted, like heterosexual men, to women.
tures, stances, speaking styles, voice pitch) that, Femmes, on the other hand, behave (in style, dress,
while incorporating both, privilege one over the and gender-coded work), and are culturally treated,
other. Female mh, for example, often dress and as women. Femmes, then, unlike their female mh
behave more like men than women. Analogous lovers, are not linguistically or socially marked as
categories with similarly long histories are found anything other than women, even though they have
elsewhere in Polynesia: faatama (for females) sexual relationships with females.
and faaffine (for males) in Samoa; and ffine This is a telling aspect of the ways in which gen-
tangata or fakatangata (for females) and der and sexuality are both separate and interre-
fakaffine or, more recently, fakaleit (for males) lated in these Polynesian societies: Mh is prima-
in Tonga. rily meaningful as a complex gender category, and
In Hawaii, mh means a homosexual of ei- with its set of masculine and feminine gender
ther sex who adopts the opposite gender role. significations comes the possibility of taking same-
This gendering of mh in ways lying beyond the sex lovers; yet, in these societies, women (and men)
binary man/woman is its most significant aspect, may also take same-sex lovers without these ho-
but homosexuality is also involved. In French mosexual practices rendering them mh.
Polynesia, however, mh is primarily a gender, [The author wishes to thank J.Kehaulani
not a sexual, category. While the category mh Kauanui, Lanuola Asiasiga, and her mh and

MH 483
 nonmh teachers in French Polynesia for their In the wake of this episode, Mansfield embarked
M guidance and insights.] Deborah A.Elliston upon a serious writing career and became ac-
quainted with such literary figures as Virginia
Bibliography Woolf (18821941), D.H.Lawrence (18851930),
Besnier, Niko. Polynesian Gender Liminality and John Middleton Murry (18891957), with
Through Time and Space. In Third Sex, Third whom she lived for many years and eventually
Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture married. While her working relationship with
and History. Ed. Gilbert Herdt. New York: Woolf was intense, it was not without hostility (I
Zone, 1993, pp. 285328. thought her cheap, and she thought me priggish,
Hall, Lisa Kahaleole Chang, and J.Kehaulani Woolf wrote to Vita Sackville-West [18921962]),
Kauanui. Same-Sex Sexuality in Pacific Litera- and each sharply criticized the others work.
ture. Amerasia Journal 20:1 (1994), 7581. With the exception of Bliss (1920), which
James, Kerry E. Effeminate Males and Changes Woolf found indicative of Mansfields callousness
in the Construction of Gender in Tonga. Pa- and hardness, her stories, while often detailing
cific Studies 17:2 (1994), 3969. womens dissatisfaction with traditional gender
Oliver, Douglas L. Ancient Tahitian Society. 3 vols. roles, rarely examine desire between women. Be-
Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1974. cause of Mansfields chronic ill health and early
death from tuberculosis, her literary output is small,
See also Anthropology; Butch-Femme; Hawaii; although often exquisite in its execution. Her dia-
Pacific Islands; Transgender ries, however, provide much insight into her com-
plex bisexuality. Patricia Juliana Smith

Mansfield, Katherine (18881923) Bibliography

New Zealand short-story writer. Born Kathleen Alpers, Antony. The Life of Katherine Mansfield.
Mansfield Beauchamp in Wellington, she was sent New York: Viking, 1980.
to England at fourteen to complete her education at Boddy, Gillian. Katherine Mansfield: The Woman and
Queens College, London. Returning home at sev- the Writer. Ringwood: Penguin Australia, 1988.
enteen, she started to publish short fictions, which Moore, Leslie. Memories of L.M. London: Virago,
she had begun writing at school, but soon grew 1985.
bored and dissatisfied with the provinciality of her Tomalin, Claire. Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life.
homeland and returned to England with an allow- New York: Knopf, 1988.
ance from her family. While still in New Zealand
she also began her ongoing exploration of what she See also New Zealand; Sackville-West, Vita; Woolf,
called the complete octave of sex, although her Virginia
adolescent affairs were primarily with other young
women. In London, she was reunited with Ida Baker
(b. 1888; also androgynously known as Leslie Marches and Parades
Moore or L.M.), whom she had met at Queens Organized public displays and celebrations, some-
College. L.M. became her lifelong devotee, even times expressing a political agenda.
during Mansfields relationships with men.
Within a year of her return to England, History and Characteristics
Mansfield became pregnant by one man and Although Chicago, Illinois, had had a small gay
quickly married another, whom she left the evening and lesbian celebration in 1967, it was the 1969
of the wedding. Soon after, her mother arrived in Stonewall Rebellion in New York City that initi-
London and swiftly removed her to Bavaria (where ated the era of gay pride parades. The first of these
she miscarried) and disinherited her. Late- came the year after Stonewall, as a demonstration
twentiethcentury biographers have suggested that for gay civil rights and liberties. Originally small
this was not so much a response to Mansfields and limited mainly to gays and lesbians who were
pregnancy (of which her mother may not have been publicly out, parades and marches mushroomed
aware) as it was to speculation about lesbianism in numbers of locations and participants, varying
between Mansfield and L.M., who was also dis- in size from thirty to more than 500,000. In West
patched abroad by her own family. Hollywood, California, for example, the gay and

484 MH
lesbian parade is the third largest of any parades Themes often pay homage to Stonewallfor ex-
held in the Los Angeles region; with an estimated ample, Stonewall XX: A Generation of Pride
400,000 participants, it is smaller only than the or San Francisco to Stonewall: Pride and Pro-
Tournament of Roses and Christmas parades. test. Most participants in the parades see them
In 1996, there were more than 127 separate as sources of pride; for some, it is the only time of
international gay pride celebrations held as annual the year that they are out. Despite their size
events. In addition to those in the United States, in and community appeal, media coverage of the
both large and small cities, there were parades in parades may be spotty and participant counts in-
Mexico, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South accurate. Although counterprotests may occur, by
America, and Europe. Tokyo, Japan, had its first the end of th 1990s these had become quite small
parade in 1994, with one thousand participants and inconsequential.
marching three miles between two commercial ar- In some cities, exclusively lesbian events, or
eas. Sydney, Australia, boasts the worlds largest Dyke Marches, precede the larger lesbian, gay,
annual parade, which began in 1978 as a protest bisexual, and trangender marches by a day. In the
against lesbian and gay oppression. 1970s and early 1980s, these were often protests
By the late 1990s, Pride marches and festivals against the growing commercialism and pageantry
had become a major enterprise in large U.S. ur- of the larger, inclusive parades and carried a more
ban centers, with individuals and organizations explicitly political and confrontational message. In
spending most of the year planning for the an- the 1990s, Dyke Marches were organized by groups
nual event. Pride parades begin in the spring and like the Lesbian Avengers as a way of demonstrat-
last throughout the summer and into the fall, al- ing lesbian visibility.
though the largest number are clustered during
the last weekend in June, in commemoration of Slogans and Symbols
the Stonewall Rebellion. Many marches and pa- Sloganschanted during marches, printed on
rades include the bisexual and trangendered com- Tshirts, written on placards and posters held up
munities, as well as allies, friends, and family during demonstrations, and reproduced on buttons
members, some of whom are members of the or- and stickersare a political mainstay, sources of
ganization PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbi- gay and lesbian pride. Slogans are designed to raise
ans and Gays). In many communities, the march consciousness, to provoke reaction, to educate, to
or parade is the culmination of a week, or sev- assert and build communities, to fight heterosexism
eral-day-long series, of events, including dances and sexism, and sometimes just to have fun. Many
and other social events; film series and cultural slogans reclaim the formerly negative word dyke,
performances; political rallies that highlight civil turning it into a self-affirming positive word. Oth-
rights issues and protests against discrimination; ers challenge lesbian invisibility, both within soci-
and festivals that include music and dancing, arts ety at large and the gay movement specifically, and
and crafts fairs, and booths purveying informa- heterosexist assumptions. There are also numer-
tion about community-based organizations and ous examples of familiar symbols, such as the rain-
social services. The highlight is the parade itself, bow, adopted as the symbol of the lesbian, gay,
complete with floats, marching bands, and politi- bisexual, transgender, and queer movement; the
cians and celebrities. What is primarily notable is pink triangle, taken from the Nazi persecution of
the fun, festiveness, and pageantry of it all: from homosexuals; the red ribbon, in memory of those
drag queens to dykes on bikes; people attired who have died from AIDS; and the entwined dou-
in leather or little at all to mainstream lesbian ble-womens symbol and the labyris (a double-
moms and gay dads. Members of organizations headed axe) that specifically represent lesbians. Like
and businesses march together, as do people who the marches and parades that they adorn, slogans
live in the same neighborhood or who share pro- and symbols respond to contemporary social and
fessions, such as gay and lesbian dentists, law- political events and debates.
yers, teachers, or electricians. In all, Pride parades Akilah Monifa
create the largest gathering of lesbian and gay
people together in a protected space. Bibliography
Gay and lesbian parades are often heralded as Blasius, Mark, and Shane Phelan, eds. We Are
a commemoration of the gay rights movement. Everywhere: A Historical Sourcebook of Gay

MARCHES AND PARADES 485

 and Lesbian Politics. New York: Routledge, manservant, the queens ladies in waiting, and the
M 1997.
International Association of Lesbian/Gay Pride
royal dog. In one pamphlet, she managed to copu-
late with her father while still in her mothers womb.
Coordinators, Inc. Web site through Queer Re- Images such as these cast doubt upon the royal suc-
sources Directory: http://www.qrd.com cession, Louis XVIs virility, and the very nature of
royalty and served as a staple of revolutionary cul-
See also Demonstrations and Actions; Lesbian ture.
Avengers; Symbols The allegation that the queen was a tribade also
expressed the considerable anxiety of Enlightenment
Europe in general and French revolutionaries in
Marie Antoinette (17551793) particular over shifting sexual identities and models
Queen of France (17741792). Born an Austrian of sexual difference in the late eighteenth century.
princess and married in 1770 to the French dauphin, At a time when dominant legal and medical opin-
Marie Antoinette was executed for treason during ion defined each sex as attracted exclusively to its
the French Revolution. She died a singularly unpopu- opposite, Marie Antoinettes alleged transgression
lar queen, a symbol of the threat posed by women was her insatiable desire for both men and women.
who transgressed upon mens sphere and entered Her ability to satisfy her own lust by assuming the
public life. Nicknamed Madame Deficit and Aus- male prerogative in sex further violated the sexual
trian wolf in the popular press and reviled as per- taboos of the period. The significance of represen-
verse and immoral in the bill of indictment against tations of Marie Antoinette as a tribade, then, lie
her, she was denounced by the official newspaper, less in their historical plausibility than in their im-
the Moniteur universel, as a bad mother, a debauched plications for the political and sexual order of late-
spouse. The printed campaign against the queen, eighteenthcentury France. Elizabeth Colwill
disseminated in newspapers and in pornographic
political pamphlets, typically interwove political with Bibliography
sexual themes, from corruption to conspiracy, and Colwill, Elizabeth. Pass as a Woman, Act Like a
adultery to incest. The allegation that Marie Man: Marie Antoinette as Tribade in the French
Antoinette was a tribadea term commonly used in Revolution. In Homosexuality in Modern
the eighteenth century to describe women who had France. Ed. Bryant T.Ragan and Jeffrey Merrick.
sex with other womenproved to be one of the most New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp.
persistent, and politically damaging, charges. 5479.
Rumors of Marie Antoinettes illicit liaisons be- Hunt, Lynn. The Family Romance of the French
gan shortly after her marriage, fueled by rivalries at Revolution. Berkeley: University of California
court. The queens disregard for royal etiquette and Press, 1992.
her taste for private audiences with her female . Pornography and the French Revolution.
favorites at the Petit Trianon, a private retreat on In The Invention of Pornography. Ed. Lynn
the grounds of Versailles that she had constructed Hunt. New York: Zone, 1995, pp. 301339.
on the model of an Austrian hamlet, did nothing to
allay public suspicions. Over the next two decades, See also Erotica and Pornography; France; Tribade
rumor convicted Marie Antoinette of betraying both
her husband, Louis XVI (17541793), and the
French people as a whole. Pamphleteers of different Marriage Ceremonies
political leanings soon took up the charges of adul- Rituals that solemnize same-sex relationships have
tery that had originated at court. Pamphlets and been documented in many different historical con-
engravings that represented Marie Antoinette in texts and cultural settings throughout the world,
graphic sexual poses eluded royal censors and played offering evidence that marriage is a concept as vari-
an important role in eroding support for a regime able as any other associated with sex and gender.
already wracked by political schism and financial Boswells (1994) research on early Christianity in-
woes. Pornography that targeted the queen prolif- dicates that such rituals may have been common in
erated during the revolution. In this pornographic Greco-Roman and Byzantine cultures. And descrip-
literature, Marie Antoinette appeared in the embrace tions of the Harlem Renaissance contain numerous
of partners as diverse as the kings brother and his references to lesbian unions, including some cases

486 MARCHES AND PARADES

in which marriage licenses were obtained when one ceremonies are eclectic in their choice of spiritual
partner posed as a man or had a man apply for the elements or in the balance they establish between
license in her place. But the performance of rituals religious and secular dimensions.
symbolizing lesbian and gay partnershipswhether At the same time that lesbian and gay couples are
they be called weddings, commitment ceremo- choosing to solemnize their relationships without
nies, holy unions, handfastings, or celebra- benefit of legal recognition, the issue of legal mar-
tionshas become increasingly visible in the United riage for same-sex couples has become a prominent
States and other Western countries in recent years, element of the civil rights agenda of the 1990s. At
along with a growing demand by lesbians and gay national gay and lesbian rights marches in Washing-
men that they be legally allowed to marry. ton, D.C., in both 1987 and 1993, a massive wed-
At the same time, opinions in the lesbian and gay ding was held outside the headquarters of the Inter-
communities are sharply divided over the importance nal Revenue Service, symbolizing the exclusion of gay
of marriage ceremonies or legal marriage as civil rights people from the many layers of financial and legal
issues. Some argue that marriage as an institution is benefits accorded to married heterosexuals. A number
at the heart of patriarchy and cannot contribute to of legal challenges to the prohibition of same-sex
the liberation of women from constricting gender marriage have been lodged over the years, with the
roles; others claim either that same-sex marriage has most significant one to date resulting in a 1993 rul-
revolutionary implications for mainstream culture or ing by the Hawaii State Supreme Court that limiting
that lesbians and gay men have similar aspirations to marriage to opposite-sex couples appeared to consti-
other citizens and want only the right to have their tute gender discrimination. The Supreme Court re-
relationships recognized and supported. turned the case, Baehr v. Lewin, brought by one les-
Same-sex wedding ceremonies in America take a bian and two gay male couples, to a lower court,
variety of forms, depending upon the political and saying that only if the court could demonstrate a com-
religious inclinations of the couple and their fami- pelling state interest against same-sex marriage would
lies. Although the Catholic Church and most it prohibit it in the future. While no final determina-
mainline Protestant denominations refuse to recog- tion in this case had been reached by mid-1999, and
nize such unions as equivalent to heterosexual mar- progress had stalled in the wake of a determined cam-
riage and enjoin their clergy from officiating, cer- paign against samesex marriage, in anticipation of
emonies drawing on virtually all religious traditions an outcome favorable to same-sex couples, many
occur. The pioneer in this area was the predomi- states have drafted legislation denying recognition of
nantly gay Metropolitan Community Church, same-sex marriages performed in other states. It was
founded by the Reverend Troy Perry in 1968, which, expected that legalization of same-sex marriage in
since the early 1970s, has performed rituals it calls any state would lead to protracted legal action around
holy unions for both female and male couples. the country, as couples married there sought to have
Some of the more liberal Protestant churches, such their unions recognized by other states and by the
as the UnitarianUniversalist and the United Church federal government. Ellen Lewin
of Christ, also perform same-sex weddings or com-
mitment ceremonies, as do the Reform and Bibliography
Reconstructionist movements in Judaism. Individual Ayers, Tess, and Paul Brown. The Essential Guide
clergy and congregations in other denominations to Lesbian and Gay Weddings. San Francisco:
have also shown support for same-sex marriage, HarperCollins, 1994.
though these activities have sparked sharp debate Boswell, John. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern
among these groups and, in some cases, have led to Europe. New York: Villard, 1994.
the expulsion of particular clergy or churches from Butler, Becky, ed. Ceremonies of the Heart. Seattle:
national or regional denominational organizations; Seal, 1990.
conflict over this issue has been particularly intense Lewin, Ellen. Recognizing Ourselves: Ceremonies
in recent years among Presbyterians, Lutherans, of Lesbian and Gay Commitment. New York:
Episcopalians, and Baptists. Same-sex ceremonies, Columbia University Press, 1998.
particularly among lesbians, sometimes draw on Sherman, Suzanne, ed. Lesbian and Gay Marriage.
alternative religious or spiritual movements, such Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992.
as Wicca, goddess worship, Buddhist or other East-
ern traditions, or Native American rituals, and many See also Domestic Partnership; Hawaii

MARRIAGE CEREMONIES 487

 Martin, Del (1921) and Lyon, Phyllis (1924) in mainstream society. Consequently, they pushed
M American activists and writers. Del Martin was
born in San Francisco; Phyllis Lyon, in Tulsa, Okla-
for dialogue with religious leaders, even if it meant
a reverend coming to DOBs national convention
homa. Both women studied journalism, Lyon at and declaring homosexuality a sin. Their work led
the University of California, Berkeley, and Martin the couple to join with other activists and clergy to
at San Francisco State College. Each faced heavy found the Council on Religion and the Homosexual
gender discrimination trying to pursue a journal- in 1964. The organization became a vehicle for
ism career in the 1950s. Meeting on their jobs at a attempts to increase acceptance for gay people
Seattle trade-journal publishing company in 1949, within organized religion.
Martin and Lyon fell in love. In 1953, they moved Martin and Lyon published Lesbian/Woman in
to San Francisco, California, and began living to- 1972. It was one of the earliest affirming nonfic-
gether, dating their commitment from Valentines tion books on lesbians, passed around eagerly from
Day. The couple knew practically nothing about coast to coast, and served as a primer for women
homosexuality, and what little they found in the coming out in the ensuing years. Their second col-
library branded lesbians as sick. Martin had even laboration, Lesbian Love and Liberation, was pub-
considered suicide when she discovered, during her lished in 1973.
brief prior marriage, that she was attracted to In 1972, Martin and Lyon were among the
women. Their first year was stormy. Lyon was still founders of the Alice B.Toklas Memorial Demo-
dating an old boyfriend; Martins young daughter cratic Club, a pioneering organization set up to
spent their honeymoon with them; and they knew endorse, campaign for, and elect pro-gay Demo-
no other lesbians. However, their love endured and crats to office.
provided the foundation for decades of visible les- Lyon went on to earn a Ph.D. in human sexual-
bian activist leadership. ity in 1976, helping found, and later serving as
After setting up house together, they found it professor and registrar at, the Institute for Ad-
extremely difficult to connect with other lesbians. vanced Study of Sexuality in San Francisco (1976
When they went to lesbian bars, the only social 1987). Martin wrote Battered Wives (1976), the
outlet at the time, they were too shy to speak to first nonacademic book on the subject.
the women there. When one of their few lesbian Indefatigable activists, they founded and served
acquaintances invited them to help start a lesbian as leaders of dozens of organizations and have been
social club, Martin and Lyon jumped at the chance, members of many more. They also took posts on
founding Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) in 1955 with government commissions and task forces. Among
eight members. them, Martin cofounded the Lesbian Mothers Un-
The fifteen years that followed were to be rich ion (1971) and the San Francisco battered wom-
ones, they wrote in Lesbian/Woman (1972). Mar- ens shelter La Casa de Las Madres (1976). She
tin and Lyon devoted long hours to the organization, chaired the San Francisco Commission on the Sta-
which put us in touch with countless lesbians around tus of Women (19761977) and served on the na-
the world. In the process, the couple strengthened tional board of the National Organization for
their own self-definition and pride. They met indi- Women (NOW). Lyon cofounded and served on
vidually at the DOB office with hundreds of lesbians, the board of Citizens Alert, a coalition of ethnic
many of whose stories found their way into Martin minorities and gays dealing with police harassment
and Lyons first book, Lesbian/Woman. and brutality (19651972), cofounded the Na-
The couple became pioneering out lesbians tional Sex Forum (1968), and served on the San
in the American media and on the college and reli- Francisco Human Rights Commission (1976
gious lecture circuit. DOB grew to become a na- 1987), chairing it in 19821983.
tional organization with chapters in other large A lesbian health clinic in San Francisco was
cities. Its magazine, The Ladder, was virtually the named in their honor. Both women received nu-
only resource for lesbians through the 1960s. Lyon merous awards for their writing and activism. In
edited The Ladder from 1956 to 1960; Martin, 1978, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is-
from 1960 to 1962. sued a Certificate of Appreciation commemorat-
Martin and Lyon wrote in The Lesbian Path ing their twenty-fifth anniversary. About that oc-
(1980) that they believed that the church was at casion, they wrote: The integration of the ho-
the core of all our problems gaming acceptance mosexual into so ciety had been an earlyand

488 MARTIN, DEL AND LYON, PHYLLIS

Del Martin, left, and Phyllis Lyon. Photo by Ruth Mountaingrove.

seemingly impossiblegoal of the Daughters of tic and socially useless erotic indulgence. During the
Bilitis. We are proud to have played a role in mak- eighteenth-century Enlightenment, polemics against
ing the impossible possible (Martin and Lyon, the practice took on a focused sense of alarm, cast-
1980). Judy MacLean ing it as a pernicious danger of near-epidemic pro-
portions. The anonymously published compendium
Bibliography Onania or the Heinous Sin of Self-Pollution (1723),
Jurgens, Jane. Del Martin. In Gay and Lesbian which appeared in England in the early part of the
Literature. Ed. Sharon Malinowski. Detroit: St. eighteenth century, detailed dozens of stories of ad-
James, 1994, p. 249. dictive masturbation and the woes it was said to
Martin, Del, and Phyllis Lyon. Anniversary. In bring. Later in the century, the Swiss physician
The Lesbian Path. Ed. Margaret Cruikshank. Samuel Tissots LOnanisme (1760) became the first
Monterey, Calif.: Angel, 1980. medical tract to deal extensively with the ailments
. Reminiscences of Two Female Homophiles. caused by masturbation.
In Our Right to Love. Ed. Ginny Vida. By the nineteenth century, the campaign against
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1978. Rev. masturbation in both Europe and the United States
ed. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996. had intensified. Writings against masturbation in
this period straddled the line between public health
See also Daughters of Bilitis; Ladder, The; National and pornography, identifying and even inciting
Organization for Women (NOW); San Francisco, sexual desire in order to manage and control it.
California Accounts linked masturbation to a long list of
physical and psychological problems, including
consumption, insanity, sterility, and death. It was
Masturbation also held to erode the moral faculties and under-
The production of sexual excitement through self- mine the will, resulting in addiction to sexual vice.
stimulation. In the Euro-American context, mastur- Antimasturbation tracts proclaimed that indul-
bation has traditionally been viewed as a narcissis- gence in the solitary vice made one averse to

M A S T U R B AT I O N 489
 matrimony. The dominant conception of heredity tory of Sexual Attitudes. New York: Garland,
M resulted in a belief that chronic onanists could
transmit these weaknesses to their offspring.
1977, pp. 5573.
Dodson, Betty. Liberating Masturbation: A Medi-
Masturbation was directly associated with ho- tation on Self-Love. New York: Dodson, 1974.
mosexuality, as the idea that masturbation created Ellis, Havelock. Studies in the Psychology of Sex.
aversion to marriage evolved into the popular belief Philadelphia: F.A.Davis, 19001928.
that masturbation caused homosexuality. Homo-
sexual exchange was viewed not only as an effect of See also Sex Toys; Sexology
masturbation, but also as its cause. In
nineteenthcentury polemics, the habit of masturba-
tion was often seen to originate in homosocial con- McCullers, Carson (19171967)
texts, especially the single-sex boarding school or American novelist and playwright. McCullers was
college. The line between self-titillation and homo- born Lula Carson Smith in Columbus, Georgia.
sexuality in these accounts was blurry. The medical After attending Columbia University and New York
model of the homosexual, which became visible at University, both in New York City, between 1935
the end of the nineteenth century, incorporated many and 1937, she married Reeves McCullers in 1937.
of the characteristics of the addictive onanist. They divorced in 1940 but remarried in 1945; their
The question of womens masturbatory prac- marriage ended when Reeves committed suicide in
tices fascinated late-nineteenth-century sexologists. 1953. The relationship proved to be an unusual
Particularly intriguing were the use of dildoes and one, as both Reeves and Carson were attracted to
other insertive objects and the belief that many members of their own sex. Carson was rumored
women had perfected the art of masturbation to to have been involved with Greta Garbo (1905
the point that they did not need to touch them- 1990), Katherine Ann Porter (18901980), and
selves in any way. These fixations reflect an anxi- Gypsy Rose Lee (19141970).
ety that female masturbation was taking place out- Carson McCullers burst on the American liter-
side masculine knowledge and control. ary scene with her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely
In the twentieth century, medical prohibitions Hunter (1940). In this work, along with the theme
against masturbation eroded, and the practice was of racial prejudice, McCullers explores the love
increasingly seen by medical and psychological pro- Singer feels for his hospitalized friend,
fessionals as normal and healthy. During the sexual Antonapoulos. When Singer kills himself after his
and womens liberation movements of the 1960s and friends death, his action is incomprehensible to the
1970s, masturbation was endorsed as a vehicle for other characters, who are unable to understand the
womens erotic self-exploration. Women were encour- life these two have shared together. Re/lections in a
aged to take charge of their own sexual pleasure and Golden Eye (1941) is a less subtle treatment of ho-
to become familiar with their bodies through mas- mosexuality, focusing on the sexual obsession an
turbation. However, the stigma against the practice Army captain feels for an enlisted man. The Ballad
never fully disappeared; in 1994, the surgeon general of the Sad Cafe (a novella serialized in 1943) re-
of the United States, Dr. Jocelyn Elders (1933), was counts androgynous Amelias love for her cousin
forced to resign after a scandal erupted over her state- Lymon, a dwarf, and the cafe she opens to provide
ment that children should be taught that masturba- their town with a healing center. In The Member of
tion is not unhealthy. Dana Luciano the Wedding (1946), McCullers creates one of her
more memorable characters in Frankie Addams, an
Bibliography adolescent whose fluid gender and sexual identity is
Anonymous. Onania, or; The Heinous Sin of finally vanquished by the cultures demands that she
SelfPollution. London: 1723. New York: Gar- mature into a proper young white woman. Finally,
land, 1986. in Clock Without Hands (1961), the grandson of a
Bennett, Paula, and Vernon Rosario. Solitary Pleas- bigoted, homophobic Southern congressman falls
ures: The Historical, Literary, and Artistic Dis- in love with his grandfathers secretary, a mixed-
courses of Autoeroticism. New York: Routledge, race man. In all of McCullerss works, the themes
1995. focus on how issues of race, gender, and sexuality
Bullough, Vern L., and Bonnie Bullough. The Se- are utilized by society to isolate and alienate indi-
cret Sin. In Sin, Sickness, and Sanity: A His- viduals from one another.

490 M A S T U R B AT I O N
 McCullers received some criticism for the gro- but outspoken cluster of homophobic voices was
tesqueness or freakishness of many of her charac- present at their schools. Reported were gay-bash-
ters. While some of these characteristics are due to ing jokes and nonverbal homophobic gestures,
her writing in Southern Gothic traditions, some seem such as the limp-wrist portrayal suggesting a gay
due to her ambiguous sexuality and her own physi- man (Robb, October 1996).
cal ailments. She was stricken early in her life with A particularly difficult area for lesbian medical
rheumatic fever anemia, pleurisy, and other respira- students is the mentoring system, which is impor-
tory illnesses. Following three strokes, McCullers tant in medical training. Mentoring thrives on the
was partly paralyzed before she was thirty. None- development of close relationships between resi-
theless, those who inhabit her literary worlds are dents and staff physicians. It is through this rela-
not abnormal. She once wrote: Nature is not ab- tionship that the latter socialize a doctor-in-train-
normal, only lifelessness is abnormal. Anything that ing into the larger profession. Yet lesbians can be
pulses and moves and walks around the room, no at a distinct disadvantage in such a system. If she
matter what thing it is doing, is natural and human perceives that the atmosphere is homophobic, a
to the writer. McCullers, in both life and art, strove lesbian resident is unlikely to reveal personal in-
to invert the normalized categories that govern so- formation about herself. This weakens the relation-
cial ideals of gender, sexuality, and love. ship and, therefore, the training and networking.
Linnea A.Stenson In particular, heterosexist assumptions have cre-
ated difficulties for lesbian residents with their men-
Bibliography tors. For example, one woman noted that her men-
Carr, Virginia Spencer. The Lonely Hunter: A Bi- tors had advised her to develop stronger relation-
ography of Carson McCullers. Garden City, ships outside work (Robb, October 1996). They gave
N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975. this advice based on the observations that she did
. Understanding Carson McCullers. Colum- not have male escorts at social functions and that
bia: University of South Carolina Press, 1990. they knew little of her outside life. When she ex-
plained that her social network was wonderful, one
See also American Literature, Twentieth Century; male mentor urged her to be honest with herself.
Garbo, Greta Ultimately, this resident had a male friend posture
as her boyfriend for professional functions. She re-
ceived greater acceptance after that.
Medicine Finding adequate mentors for lesbian medical
Research on the experiences of lesbians in medical students can be problematic because of structural
school began to emerge in the 1990s. One scholar homophobia and heterosexism. Finding lesbian, or
in this area, Cathy Risdon, has argued that there even lesbian-friendly, mentors, is often difficult
needs to be some institutional [acknowledgment] because many remain closeted. This closeted stance
that there are gay and lesbian medical students is understandable. Results of the 1994 GLMA
(Robb, October 1996). While improving the social study revealed that 59 percent of its U.S. members
climate for lesbian and gay medical students is the reported that they, personally, had experienced
focus for some, others, such as Dr. Gary Gibson, a jobrelated discrimination because of their sexual-
professor of family medicine at the University of ity. Despite this reporting of discrimination, Dr. Jill
Western Ontario, have proposed curriculum changes Tinmouth of Toronto, Ontario, and a member-at-
that would ensure more thorough coverage of les- large of GLMA, has urged lesbian and gay physi-
bian health issues during medical training. cians to come out to serve as resources for col-
Many medical schools have begun gay and les- leagues and students (Robb, October 1996). She
bian students associations. These organizations also argues that being out is generally healthier
may account for the tolerance, acceptance, and for lesbian physicians, since the price paid in terms
understanding that, according to a 1994 survey of active discrimination may be outweighed by the
by the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association price paid by remaining in the closet.
(GLMA), many say existed during their medical Besides the changing social climate at medical
training. In their 1996 study of lesbian and gay schools, some schools are addressing curriculum
medical students and residents, the Canadian issues. For example, in 1996 the Canadian Medical
Medical Association Journal found that a small Association endorsed a gay and lesbian curriculum

MEDICINE 491
 for postgraduate family medicine created by Lesbian Association of Doctors (SOGLAD); the
M Gibson, who has noted that most family medicine
departments do not have any structured segment
Gay and Lesbian Association of Doctors and Den-
tists (GLADD); Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual People in
on lesbian and gay health, except during discus- Medicine (LGBPM); and the National Lesbian and
sions of HIV (Robinson and Cohen, 1996). Moreo- Gay Health Association (NLGHA)all based in
ver, most information addresses gay mens issues, the United States. Christy M.Ponticelli
with far less coverage of lesbian health issues. Ad-
dressing sexuality only in relation to illness and Bibliography
disease is likely to stigmatize and ostracize lesbian OHanlan, Katherine A. Lesbian Health and
and gay doctors in training and patients. Studies Homophobia: Perspectives for the Treating
have shown that physicians have witnessed col- Obstetrician/Gynecologist. Current Problems
leagues cut back on treatment, give inappropriate in Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Fertility 18:4
care, and, occasionally, refuse treatment all together (1995), 97127.
upon discovery of a clients lesbian or gay identifi- Robb, Nancy. Fear of Ostracism Still Silences
cation. Some Gay MDs, Students. Canadian Medical
Overall, homosexuality is discussed very little Association Journal 155:7 (October 1, 1996),
during medical training. Results of a 1991 survey of 972977.
all U.S. medical schools showed that the mean amount . Medical Schools Seek to Overcome Invis-
of time during which homosexuality was discussed ibility of Gay Patients, Gay Issues in Curricu-
was three hours and twenty-six minutes (Wallick et lum. Canadian Medical Association Journal
al., 1992). Differences existed across geographic re- 155:6 (September 15, 1996), 765770.
gions, with the western region mean at five hours Robinson, Gregory, and Mary Cohen. Gay, Les-
and fifty-six minutes. Of those that did cover homo- bian, and Bisexual Health Care Issues and
sexuality, the most frequent style of education in- Medical Curriculum. Canadian Medical As-
volved lectures during a human sexuality sequence. sociation Journal 155:6 (September 15, 1996),
Panel presentations and meetings with gay and les- 709711.
bian health professionals and potential patients fol- Wallick, Mollie M., Karl M.Cambre, and Mark H.
lowed this strategy distantly. Of the eighty-two re- Townsend. How the Topic of Homosexuality
sponding schools, eight reported that the topic of Is Taught at U.S. Medical Schools. Academic
homosexuality was wholly absent; one reported that Medicine 67:9 (September 1992), 601603.
it covered the topic only during discussions of HIV;
twelve others said they taught or mentioned it during See also Health; Nursing; Psychiatry
discussions of AIDS. Largely, many agree that much
anxiety surrounds sex and sexuality discussions dur-
ing medical school training. Mestizaje
Organizations have arisen to help address these A Spanish word meaning racial/cultural hybridity.
issues. The GLMA, founded in 1981, is one of sev- The cultural construction of mestizaje was critical
eral professional associations that dedicates itself to the formation of collective identities in Latin
to combating homophobia in the medical profes- America. Unlike the ideologies of racial purity
sion and in society. It also promotes the best possi- embodied in the English word miscegenation,
ble health care for lesbian and gay patients. Nearly the discourse of mestizaje celebrates the mixture
half of the member are women and physicians of of races and the birth of a new, racially mixed
color, and the group offers an annual conference bodyla mestiza/el mestizo. Mestizaje refers to
on Women in Medicine. It also sponsors the the cultural and racial fusion of native, European,
Lesbian Health Fund, which provides grants for Asian, and African peoples that began with the
medical research on lesbian health issues and edu- Spanish conquest of the Americas in 1521. This
cation of health workers about health needs of les- cultural and racial mixture began in the context of
bians. It also educates lesbians regarding early di- conquest, and, as such, it was forced upon the na-
agnosis procedures for health problems and ad- tive inhabitants of the Americas against their will.
dresses the manner in which lesbian and gay health The original mixing is the direct outcome of a
is taught in medical school. Four other professional violent and sexual confrontation between colonizer
associations are the Southern Ontario Gay and and colonized, in particular between the Spanish

492 MEDICINE
men who came to conquer and the native women Bibliography
who bore their children. Anzalda, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The
In Latin America, both elites and popular move- New Mestizo. San Francisco: Aunt Lute, 1987.
ments have at various times embraced ideologies Perez, Emma. Sexuality and Discourse: Notes
that regard mestizaje as a positive outcome of con- from a Chicana Survivor. In Chicana Lesbi-
quest. The central philosophical text that devel- ans: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About.
oped and popularized the celebratory discourse of Ed. Carla Trujillo. Berkeley: Third Woman,
mestizaje is Jos Vasconceloss La raza csmica (The 1991, pp. 159184.
Cosmic Race [1925]). Vasconcelos posited the Raiskin, Judith. Inverts and Hybrids: Lesbian
emergence of a fifth race in Latin America, the Rewritings of Sexual and Racial Identities. In The
cosmic race, envisaged as a synthesis of the best Lesbian Postmodern. Ed. Laura Doan. New York:
aspects of all of the worlds races. Although fraught Columbia University Press, 1994, pp. 156172.
with Social Darwinism and psuedoscientific ide- Vasconcelos, Jos. La raza csmica: mison de la
ologies of race, La raza csmicas challenge to no- raza iberoamericano. Mexico City: Espasa-
tions of racial purity and its importance to the for- Calpe, S.A., 1982.
mation of collective ethnoracial identities make
Vasconceloss text a critical starting point for dis- See also Anzalda, Gloria, E.; Latina Literature;
cussions of Latino/a racialization. Latinas
In Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestizo
(1987), Chicana queer theorist Gloria Anzalda
(1942) reworks Vasconceloss concept of genetic Mew, Charlotte (18691928)
mestizaje, positing a new mestizo defined not by English author of poetry, short stories, essays, and
genes but by positionality, by the psychic and cul- plays. In 1924, Virginia Woolf (18821941) told
tural spaces she occupies. Anzalda sets up the con- Vita Sackville-West (18921962) that Charlotte
flict: The coming together of two self-consistent Mew was the greatest living poetess. Thomas
but habitually incompatible frames of reference Hardy (18401928) agreed, predicting she would
causes un choque, a cultural collision. Anzalda still be read when others are forgotten. Mews
describes the collision as a space that creates am- work appeared between 1894 and 1914 in major
bivalence, internal strife, and psychic restless- periodicals, including the Nation, Athenaeum,
ness, yet the ambiguity of the space opens up the Academy, Englishwoman, New Statesman, and the
possibility of a mestizo consciousness, a con- infamous Yellow Book, a provocative 1890s peri-
sciousness that challenges binaries. Anzalda writes: odical associated with Oscar Wilde (18541900).
The new mestiza copes by developing a tolerance Harold and Alida Monros Poetry Bookshop pub-
for contradictions, a tolerance for ambiguity. She lished The Farmers Bride (1916, 1921) and The
learns to be an Indian in Mexican culture, to be a Rambling Sailor (1929). Yet, despite her literary
Mexican from an Anglo point of view. She learns to success, Mew was isolated and unhappy. She killed
juggle cultures. This juggling act becomes part of herself at age fifty-nine.
the repertoire of an increasing number of queer and Mews life was full of intense attachments to
diasporic peoples in late capitalist social formations. other women, including her sister Anne, whose death
Identification with mestizaje informs much from cancer in 1927 precipitated Mews decline and
Latina/Chicana lesbian writing, both literary and suicide. As a schoolgirl, Mew had a crush on her
theoretical. Because the site of mestizaje embodies headmistress, the suffragist Lucy Harrison (1844
ambiguity, it becomes an important theoretical 1915), who fell in love with another teacher and
framework for the multiple and contradictory sub- moved with her to Yorkshire. Mew evidently fell in
ject positions of the Latina/Chicana lesbian, who love with Ella DArcy (1856/1857?1937?), another
is often forced to reconcile her ethnoracial identity Yellow Book contributor, whom she visited in France
with her lesbianism. In a society in which Latina in 1902, but that love, too, was unrequited. In 1914,
identity is often coded as heterosexual, and lesbian she apparently made a sexual overture to a friend,
identity is often coded as white, the Latina lesbian novelist May Sinclair (18631946), who rebuffed
can utilize mestizo consciousness to navigate the and subsequently lampooned her. In her final years,
spaces between these codings and to challenge her Mew grew close to Kate Cockerell (18721949),
exclusion. Luz Calvo who received her last letter.

M E W, C H A R L O T T E 493
 land: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992.
M Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia,
1992, pp. 266298.

See also English Literature, Twentieth Century;

Poetry; Sackville-West, Vita; Woolf, Virginia

Mexico
Country in North America situated between the
United States to the north and Central America to
the south. Lesbian life in Mexico is constrained by
a culture that rigidly controls sexuality through
silence. Homosexuality can be tolerated as an una-
voidable individual sin, as long as it is discreet and
does not confront dominant norms and beliefs. In
this context, lesbians have lived, for the most part
of their concealed history, married to men or keep-
ing company with each other, without social
spaces or economic options to live their emotional
and sexual lives openly.
Charlotte Mew. Photograph from The Bookman. By
courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London. History
Little research has been done into the varieties of
Mews friends described her as masculine in her same-sex affection among women or behaviors that
clothing, voice, and demeanor and defiant in her transgressed gender norms. The life and writing of
self-presentation. They remarked upon her dou- the seventeenth-century nun Sor Juana Ins de la
ble personality and her obsessive concern for ap- Cruz (16481695) have been a rich source of specu-
pearances. She was rumored to have several trunks lation about homoeroticism among women in co-
full of unpublished poems, which she used for light- lonial Mexico. Other possibilities may lie in the
ing cigarettes. Mew was probably struggling with crossdressing soldaderas (female soldiers) who
prohibited lesbian feelings. Her work shows strong fought during Mexicos wars of independence.
evidence of love for women, sexual frustration, and Although ostensibly heterosexual, their similarity
a sense of being an outcast. Persistent images in- to passing women in other countries does at least
clude closets, keys, fallen women, intimate bed raise interesting questions.
scenes, and being buried alive. The natural land- In more recent times, bohemian and artistic cir-
scape is characteristically rendered in sensual female cles provide some evidence of lesbianism and fe-
imagery. Dramatic monologues with male speakers male bisexuality. The famous artist Frida Kahlo
(The Farmers Bride 1912) and Fte love poetry (19071954), for example, exhibited both gender
with I/thou constructions (Fin de Fete 1923) transgression and love for other women in her life
or ambiguous gender references (The Forest Road and her paintings. The late 1940s and 1950s were
1916) are prevalent. In its appreciation of erotic fe- years of splendor for Mexican popular culture,
male beauty and its renunciatory aesthetic, Mews which was exported to all of Latin America. The
work has been said to resemble that of Christina most famous women singers, such as Chavela
Rossetti (18301894). Kathleen Hickok Vargas (1919), interpreted passionate love songs
(written by male lyricists) that were dedicated to
Bibliography other women. This practice did not necessarily elicit
Fitzgerald, Penelope. Charlotte Mew and Her suspicion of irregularity, although it is not known
Friends. London: Collins, 1984. New York: for sure to what extent closeted lesbians may have
Addison-Wesley, 1988. found personal validation in listening to these per-
Leighton, Angela. Victorian Women Poets: Writ- formances. By the late 1960s, however, these songs
ing Against the Heart. Hemel Hempstead, Eng- began to be heard in the context of a counterculture

494 M E W, C H A R L O T T E
that began to challenge the rigid gender system that their goal as the end of exploitation and sexual
had rendered lesbians unimaginable, and, accord- misery of the whole population. Concepts famil-
ingly, the lyrics began to be modified. iar to other lesbian movements, such as identity
politics or alternative lifestyles, were rarely
The Emerging Lesbian Movement advanced. At best, sexual liberation in the late
Lesbianism was publicly acknowledged for the first 1970s in Mexico was mistaken as a sexological
time by the Mexican press in regard to the United enterprise, which would provide assistance to those
Nations first International Womens Year Confer- who wished to engage in peculiar sexual activi-
ence, held in Mexico City in 1975. The press por- ties. Although some groups strongly opposed sex-
trayed it as an imported extravagance, completely ology, sexological language did open up spaces for
alien to Mexican women and to the legitimate in- a new understanding of sexuality. The First World
terests of Third World women. As a leading Sexology Congress was held in Mexico City in 1979
editorialist in Excelsior, the newspaper with the at the National Medical Center. A group of lesbi-
largest circulation in Mexico and a reputation for ans brought a statement to the forum that criti-
progressive social politics, wrote: What are the cized sexology because it tried to obscure the sub-
lesbians doing here? What can they ask for? Do versive potential of sexual dissidence. Instead, they
they want to inscribe their pathological irregular- argued, [c]oming out as lesbians means shedding
ity in the Charter of Human Rights? Are they claim- prescribed guilt and assigned shame; it means re-
ing the pathetic right to boast about their sexual nouncing an imposed clandestinity and a silent
aberration? This unawareness of their illness just complicity with institutionalized repression.
proves how severe these clinical cases are. They This statement reflects the influence of feminism,
have discredited this Conference and distorted the with its radical critique of sexual oppression, upon
true purposes of womans emancipation. lesbians. It was through the feminist challenge of
Although in 1971 an underground lesbian com- the arbitrary gender-role system that lesbian femi-
munity had started to read and write about Mexi- nists also questioned heterosexual feminists fear
can law and sexual liberation, its members did not of discussing lesbianism. A main focus of the femi-
feel prepared to challenge the media. The groups nist movement was the development of what was
primarily engaged in informing journalists, intel- termed a voluntary motherhood campaign for
lectuals, and psychologists and psychiatrists in pri- reproductive freedom. Lesbian feminists argued
vate sessions about the seriousness of social dis- that reproductive freedom could not exist without
crimination against lesbians and gay men. a full range of sexual options. As a result, some
The late 1970s in Mexico was a period of rising feminist groups attempted to create distance from
social expectations, caused by a brief period of ap- the lesbian organization to avoid being stigmatized.
parent economic affluence, fueled by the oil boom, Unwelcome in feminist groups, many lesbians tried,
and state-led political reform. During this time, a instead, to work within gay male organizations.
lesbian and gay movement emerged, preceded by In the early 1980s, a number of factors, includ-
the feminist movement, which had begun to organ- ing economic crisis, defeat of abortion rights, and
ize earlier in the decade. One of the particular char- the rise of a political right wing, led to a tempo-
acteristics of social movements in Latin America is rary demobilization of the feminist movement, in-
that they tend to look to the political Left and so- cluding lesbian feminist groups. In particular, the
cialism for their ideas, language, and goals. Accord- worsening of economic conditions made it increas-
ingly, the emerging lesbian and gay movement en- ingly difficult for lesbians to gain the economic
dorsed the general demands of the Left, while also independence needed to live openly as lesbians.
raising the cry for sexual freedom. In 1978, a small Many had to return to their families for survival,
contingent of lesbians and gay men joined a major while others had to work longer hours, thus mak-
demonstration against political repression. They ing it more difficult to maintain political activism.
were viewed uneasily by some left-wing groups who Some of the most visible lesbian groups in Mexico
represented themselves through the attributes of City dispersed or merged with others. These new
Virility (manliness) and uncritically endorsed pro- organizations carried on some of the projects of
creation and domesticity for women. the lesbian feminist movement, such as the annual
In the early years of the movement, lesbians celebration of Lesbian and Gay Cultural Week. By
rarely claimed specific rights, but instead stated the mid-1980s, the continuing economic crisis

MEXICO 495
 propelled many women into street demonstrations, lenges for lesbians in Mexico are to explore the
M union organizing, and electoral politics. This new
grass-roots constituency, as well as the emergence
meaning of compromising lesbian visibility for the
future of the womens movement, and to link the
of feminism in other Latin American countries, lesbian movements agenda to the debates on the
revitalized the feminist movement. construction of democracy in the country. Ultimately,
In 1987, the First Regional Lesbian Encuentro lesbian visibility in Mexico can only be understood
(conference) was held in Mexico. By the end of the as an integral part of a broader struggle toward the
same year, the National Coalition of Lesbian Femi- creation of a new political culture that includes all
nists was organized. In 1990, the right to a free people and of the conditions that enable all wom-
sexual option became one of the three central is- ens economic empowerment and self-determination.
sues of the Mexico City Feminist Coalition agenda Claudia Hinojosa
(Coordinadora Feminista del Distrito Federal),
along with opposition to domestic violence and Bibliography
voluntary motherhood. Schaefer, Claudia. Danger Zones: Homosexuality,
National Identity, and Mexican Culutre.
Contemporary Mexico Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1996.
In the 1990s, lesbians gained some greater visibil-
ity in Mexico even as they continued to face many See also Encuentros de Lesbianas; International
of the same problems and dilemmas. A number of Organizations; Juana Ins de la Cruz, Sor; Kahlo,
prominent literary figures published explicit les- Frida; Latin American Literature; Passing Women;
bian texts, including playwright, novelist, and ac- Vargas, Chavela
tress Sabina Berman (1955) and poet, playwright,
and theater director Nancy Crdenas (19341994).
In 1989, Rosamara Roffiel (1945) had published Michel, Louise (18301905)
Amora (Love in feminine), an autobiographical French revolutionary anarchist associated with the
novel dedicated to all women who love women, Paris Commune of 18701871. Questions concern-
while Sara Levi Calderons (1942) Dos Mujeres ing Louise Michels sexual identity were first posed
(Two Women), a love story between two upper- by the military tribunal investigating the uprising,
class Jewish women, caused controversy when pub- which concluded that her revolutionary ardor
lished in Mexico in 1990; it was translated and stemmed from her passion for fellow Communard
published in the United States a year later. Thophile Ferr.
In 1991, the Thirteenth Annual Conference of the Michels public denials of such feelings spawned
International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) new rumors. Charges of lesbianism arose during
was scheduled to be held in Guadalajara, the first her New Caledonian exile and focused on her re-
time in a developing nation. However, due to the joint lationship with fellow anarchist and communard
effort of the local authorities and the Catholic Church, Natalie Lemel (18271921). From this time,
a campaign of harassment and intimidation forced Michels dossier at police archives alleged that she
the organizers to move the conference to the city of had tastes against nature. Later police reports
Acapulco, where a tourist culture was seen as the seized on her relationship with socialist activist
appropriate space for that kind of meeting. Paule Minck (18391901).
Lesbian activists in the 1990s kept close connec- Although the inquiry into Michels private life
tions with different U.N. conferences. On the one was originally begun by her detractors, her life also
hand, these events permitted lesbians to network became the focus of researchers in the emerging sex-
and advance their platform on sexual rights. On the ology movement of the late nineteenth century. One
other hand, they were sober reminders of the differ- of the first biographies of Michel appeared in the
ent kinds of violence and discrimination that lesbi- 1905 Jahrbuch fr sexuelle Zwischenstufen (Year-
ans face around the world. Moreover, these inter- book for Intermediate Sexual Types), the official
national events focused the tensions that still exist journal of Magnus Hirschfelds (18591939) Sci-
between mainstream feminism and lesbian feminist entific Humanitarian Committee, usually credited
groups. The former continued to marginalize lesbi- with being one of the earliest gay liberation organi-
ans in order to advance what was considered a ne- zations. The entry, by German doctor Karl von
gotiable feminist agenda. Hence, two major chal- Levetzow, is instructive for what it reveals about

496 MEXICO
the biases of early sex researchers, all of whom linked fined and that few personal records attesting to af-
masculine traits and homosexuality in women. Thus, fective and/or sexual relationships between women
von Levetzow highlighted Michels virile appearance, exist. Indeed, the noun lesbian with its modern
her lack of interest in clothes, her youthful prefer- meaning had not yet entered the vernacular. How-
ence for tomboyish pastimes, her militaristic revo- ever, if no familiar term existed for a woman who
lutionary activities, her failure to marry, and her had a sexual and emotional relationship with an-
apparent dislike for men. Von Levetzows findings other woman, medieval society was well aware of
about Michel were later repeated by Havelock Ellis the lesbian, and it was not entirely devoid of
(18591939), whose Sexual Inversion (1936) long women who might be considered lesbians.
remained one of the most influential treatises on the
subject to appear in English. Theological Writings
The debate over Michels sexuality was contin- Most medieval ecclesiastic writers took their lead
ued by her friends, notably anarchist Emma from Saint Pauls (d. ca. A.D. 67) condemnation of
Goldman (18691940), who penned an impassioned the vices of Roman women, who did change the
rebuttal to Hirschfeld. Most subsequent biographers natural use into that which is against nature (Ro-
have carefully skirted the controversy, choosing ei- mans 1:26). This epithet against nature becomes
ther to emphasize her passion for Ferre or, more typically associated with the sin of sodomy (a sin
commonly, to highlight the asexual, saintly, and as- broadly construed to include any type of unnatu-
cetic nature of the legendary Red Virgin. Michels ral form of sexual intercourse, be it hetero- or ho-
historiographical treatment is most instructive for mosexual). Although Saint Pauls words are repeated
what it reveals about historical social attitudes to- and glossed throughout the Middle Ages, not all of
ward women as private and public beings and about the early-medieval theologians explicitly included
the way biographers have dealt with those attitudes. women in their interpretations. Nonetheless, a
Marie Marmo Mullaney number of medieval theological tracts do make men-
tion of sexual relations between women. Indeed, in
Bibliography his Commentary on St. Paul, the twelfth-century
Ellis, Havelock. Sexual Inversion. New York: Ran- French theologian Peter Abelard (10791142) un-
dom House, 1936. derscores the importance of relations between
Hirschfeld, Magnus. Sexual Anomalies. New York: women through his gloss: against nature, that is,
Emerson, 1948. against the order of nature, which created womens
Mullaney, Marie Marmo. Sexual Politics in the genitals for the use of men and not so women could
Career and Legend of Louise Michel. Signs: co-habit with women. In the thirteenth century,
Journal of Women in Culture and Society 15:2 both Albertus Magnus (ca. 12001280) and Tho-
(1990), 300322. mas Aquinas (12251274) in his Summa Theologica
Thomas, Edith. Louise Michel. Trans. Penelope (12671273) clearly state that the sin of sodomy
Williams. Montreal: Black Rose, 1980. includes men with men and women with women.
Notions such as these are typical of the formula-
See also France; Goldman, Emma tions found in the writings of medieval theologians
and inform the discourse of the vast majority of male
medieval writers.
Middle Ages, European Medieval handbooks of penance classified sod-
Period of European history conventionally dated omy between women under the rubric of the sin of
from the fall of the Roman Empire in A.D. 476 to fornication. The seventh-century Penitential of
the emergence of the early-modern period. The end Theodore, which imposes a penance of three years
of the Middle Ages varies greatly from country to upon a woman who practices vice with a woman,
country (the late fourteenth century in Italy to the indicates that relations between women were, in gen-
early sixteenth century in France, England, and eral, judged less harshly than those between men.
Spain, for example). The greatest challenges posed However, while sodomy or fornication encompasses
by any discussion of lesbians in the medieval period sexual relations between women, the medieval defi-
are that the discourses of that erabe they legal, nition of those relations remains ambiguous: What
theological, medical, or literaryhad not themselves acts between women can be considered sodomy?
come to terms with how a lesbian might be de- These same penitentials provide a bountiful source

MIDDLE AGES, EUROPEAN 497

 of what constituted irregular sexual acts. They in- Hadewijch, a thirteenth-century Beguine, to one of
M clude examples of sinful behavior to guide the priest
through his interrogation of the penitent and to help
her fellow Beguines, Sara. Similarly, Hildegard of
Bingen (10981179), who, in her official writings,
him elicit confessions of all the parishioners sins. echoed the opinions of her male counterparts, voiced
Unnatural frequently came to be interpreted in her feelings for another woman, Richardis von Stade,
penitentials as nonprocreative intercourse and, by in terms that hint at a more than sisterly love. Al-
extension, the use of any member not intended for though there is no way to determine whether there
procreation. The ninth-century theologian Hincmar existed a physical, erotic component to these rela-
of Rheims elaborated on this formulation in relation tionships, the women involved might well be deemed
to female sodomy, citing women who use diaboli- particular friends. The complex relations of me-
cal instruments to excite desire. Thus, in broad terms, dieval nuns, in which the spiritual and the physical
medieval theological discourse constructs the lesbian might often overlap, nonetheless serve to delineate
as a sinful, unnatural woman and associates her with at least one facet of medieval lesbian identity.
the devil. The link between lesbian sexuality and sa-
tanic forces appears repeatedly, relating unnatural Legal and Medical Discourses
sexual relations with heretical beliefs or with sorcery. Secular legal discourse presents another side to this
configuration. The elision of the lesbian into the
Religious Communities sodomite often makes it difficult to distinguish the
It may, then, be considered ironic that the convent male from the female transgressor in multitudes of
appears to have been an environment in which affec- customaries (written collections of laws used in
tive relationships between women developed. Circum- different regions of France) and codes in vigor at
stances that led women to the convent varied and did different moments of the medieval era. The earli-
not necessarily indicate a vocation. Medieval comic est legal text to mark out a space for lesbian rela-
literature often pokes fun at the loose ways of nuns, tions distinct from male homosexual relations ap-
yet it sidesteps any overt reference to too affectionate pears to be the Livre de Jostice et de Plet (Book of
sisters. Although the walls of the cloister seem to have Justice and Suits), a customary from the Orleanais
kept relationships between nuns from becoming com- district in France, compiled ca. 1270. Following
mon knowledge, relationships between members of the paragraph treating male sodomites, paragraph
these communities were not unknown. As early as 23 lists the penalties for females: dismemberment
the sixth century, Saint Augustine (354430) warned for the first two convictions and burning for the
his sister against them: [T]he love you bear for one third. Italian legists, influenced by Roman law, fol-
another ought not to be carnal, but spiritual. Ec- low a similar path. Cino da Pistoia (ca. 12701336/
clesiastic leaders, then, were clearly aware of the pos- 1337), for example, in a gloss on the lex
sibility of lesbian relationships in the convent. Moreo- foedissimam (Roman law treating rape and later
ver, it is likely that their uneasiness concerning rela- interpreted to cover other sexual crimes), interprets
tionships between nuns inspired a number of the more it as including women who exercise their lust on
common regulations of convent life: Nuns were pro- other women and pursue them like men. By 1400,
hibited from sleeping together; they were to sleep Bartolomeus of Saliceto, in another gloss on the
clothed; they were required to have lamps burning lex foedissimam prescribes the death penalty for
all night in their dormitories; they were to stay out of the defilement of a woman by another woman.
each others cells at night; they were to leave their Although Bartolomeuss gloss was not official, such
doors unlocked at night; and finally, they were ex- pronouncements by noted legal scholars often car-
horted not to form special ties of friendship within ried the weight of law. Judicial discourse, then,
the convent. constructs lesbian sexual relations not merely as
It is, then, all the more remarkable that any posi- illegal, but as a capital offense. Indeed, by the end
tive record of a relationship between nuns has sur- of the Middle Ages, the death penalty for lesbian
vived. Yet, from the evidence found in twelfthcentury relations does appear to be the norm in continen-
anonymous Latin verse letters composed in a Ba- tal Europe. The 1507 Constitutio criminalis of
varian convent by one nun for another, it seems likely Bamberg, for example, decrees that women who
that the women in question had a relationship that have lain with other women be burned at the
was both spiritual and physical. A parallel exists stake. Significantly, this same condemnation be-
between this epistolary poem and a letter of comes, through its inclusion in the Constitutio

498 MIDDLE AGES, EUROPEAN

criminalis Carolina (1532, the criminal code of the sexual relations in his Livre de Manires (Book of
Emperor Charles V), the penalty for lesbians Manners, composed between 1168 and 1178), a
throughout the Holy Roman Empire during the didactic treatise. In his discussion of women, he
sixteenth century. While secular justice was in- describes the proper role for women in society:
volved with punishing criminals, it must be noted motherhood followed by a life of devotion to the
that those crimes punished were often the result of church. The originality of de Fougres text lies in
condemnations by clerical authorities. Thus, the his inclusion, in an otherwise conventional pres-
punishment for heresy or sorcery, like that for con- entation, of women who choose female partners.
victed lesbians, was death. Since these three crimes His condemnation of such women as against the
were repeatedly linked in the theological discourse laws of nature echoes theological and legal dis-
of the late middle ages, the death penalty for lesbi- courses, but his lengthy description of womens
anism is, perhaps, not unexpected. sexual activities slips into a metaphor-laden style
Medieval medical discourse parallels the legal that recalls the Old French fabliaux (comic verse
and theological discourses in its negative construc- tales popular in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century
tion of the lesbian. Supposedly following Galen France). He defines lesbian by the lack a penis and,
(A.D. 129ca. 216), an early Arabic text recom- following a heterosexual model, notes that there is
mended drugs to rid women of the desire for other a passive and an active partner. Fougres conclu-
women. By the thirteenth century, a womans de- sion that the lesbian should be stoned, beaten, or
sire to engage in sexual relations with another killed aligns him with the norms of the period.
woman had a particular pathology. As explained A number of medieval romances include
in William of Salicetos Summa conservationis crossdressed women who develop romantic attach-
(1285), the disease of ragadia, fleshy growths simi- ments with other women. These relationships end,
lar to an elongated clitoris, supplies a physical cause almost without exception, when the true identity
for lesbian desire. Thus, William remedies wom- of the cross-dresser is revealed. The odd variant
ans lack of a phallus and offers a naturalizing ex- comes in an episode of Huon de Bordeaux (a
planation for what, in legal and theological terms, thirteenthcentury French romance), in which the
remains unnatural behavior. To eliminate the couple is threatened with death. However, the Vir-
cause of the aberrant behavior and, thus, cure the gin Mary intercedes and transforms the cross-
disease, William recommends cauterization or clito- dresser into a man, thus eliminating the lesbian
ridectomy. This medical treatment, inspired per- nature of the affection. The ambiguity of these
haps by African customs, comes in and out of vogue textslesbians who are not lesbiansoffers a
in Europe for the next six centuries. glimpse into the possibility of a transgressive sexu-
Given the antagonistic climate of the Middle ality without ever defining it as such.
Ages, it is not hard see why so few traces of lesbians Perhaps, then, the most unexpected text of all
can be found. We have no count of how many is a thirteenth-century poem by Bieris de Romans,
women might have been diagnosed with ragadia. a Provenal writer, who appropriates the male-
It is equally difficult to estimate how many woman voiced courtly lyric and addresses her poem to an-
may have run afoul of the law. Two women were other woman, Maria. The reading of this work as
put to death for their relationship in the town of an example of a lesbian love poem has met with
Speyer in 1474, and scattered references to others some resistance. Nothing is known of Bieris or
who met other forms of punishment document a Maria, and there is no precedent in medieval ver-
lesbian presence in legal records of medieval Europe. nacular literature for such a poem. The scarcity of
While the Catholic Church clearly acknowledged womenauthored texts from the period might ex-
that unnatural women existed, the privilege of plain the lack of like-themed works. Moreover,
the confes-sional cloaks whatever secrets the priests given the complexity of relationships between
may have heard in silence. Thus, the historical les- women, as evidenced by the letters of nuns and
bian remains an elusive figure in the Middle Ages. beguines, the homoerotic elements of Bieriss poem
to Maria cannot be dismissed out of hand. On a
Literary Texts textual level, the relationship between the I of
Literary texts complete the portrait of the lesbian the poem and Maria could be considered lesbian.
in the Middle Ages. Etienne de Fougres, a high- Thus, while the overwhelming majority of medi-
ranking member of the clergy, describes lesbian eval sources present lesbian relations in a negative

MIDDLE AGES, EUROPEAN 499

 or even criminal light, documents authored by their countries. For some, this decision was based
M women, be they poems or letters, provide a more
positive vision of their relationships.
on the desire to join their male partners as they
traveled with the military; for others, it was simply
The history of women who had homoaffective or the fact that they wanted to participate in an occu-
homoerotic relationships in the Middle Ages is just pation, whether for livelihood or patriotism, in
now being written. As research continues in the area which women were prohibited. The sexuality of
of medieval conceptions of sexuality and in womens these women has often been the focus of inquiry
history, the gaps in our understanding of the period into their lives. Some would readily have identi-
will begin to be filled in. Edith J.Benkov fied as lesbians; others were so male identified that
they would not have perceived themselves as
Bibliography womenloving women. Thus, lesbians have served
Brown, Judith C. Lesbian Sexuality in Medieval in the military as long as women have served in the
and Early Modern Europe. In Hidden from military, and even before women, recognized as
History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past. such, were permitted to do so.
Ed. Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus, and But women have always served with, if not in,
George Chauncy Jr. New York: Meridian, 1989, the military. Before holding any official status as
pp. 6775. members of the U.S. military, women served as
Bullogh, Vern L. The Sin Against Nature and cooks, laundresses, seamstresses, and nurses. In
Homosexuality. In Sexual Practices and the World War I, 34,000 women served as telephone
Medieval Church. Ed. Vern L.Bullogh and James operators, clerks, and nurses, yet the nurses were
A.Brundage. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus, 1982, not granted official status until World War II. In
pp. 5571. World War II, the military found that it needed far
Crompton, Louis. The Myth of Lesbian Impunity: more personnel than could be obtained if it recruited
Capital Laws from 12701791. Journal of Ho- only men. Women would now be recruited for such
mosexuality 6 (Fall/Winter 19801981), 1125. positions as teletype operators, aircraft electricians,
Matter, E.Ann. My Sister, My Spouse: aircraft mechanics, machinists, metal workers, ra-
WomanIdentified Women in Medieval Christi- dio mechanics, and glider instructors, to name a few.
anity. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion All told, approximately 271,600 women served in
2 (1986), 8193. the military during World War II.
Murray, Jacqueline. Twice Marginal and Twice
Invisible: Lesbians in the Middle Ages. In Sexuality and the Military
Handbook of Medieval Sexuality. Ed. Vern L. Although it is clear that lesbians have served as
Bullogh and James A.Brundage. New York and long as have women, discussions about sexuality
London: Garland, 1996, pp. 191222. and the military have generally focused on gay men.
Rieger, Angelica. Was Bieris de Romans Lesbian? Indeed, during World War II, much of the psychi-
Womens Relations with Each Other in the atric screening was aimed at male recruits. In gen-
World of the Troubadours. In The Voice of eral, criminal law ignored sexual acts between
the Trobaritz. Ed. W.Paden. Philadelphia: Uni- women, and the military followed suit. This is not,
versity of Pennsylvania Press, 1989, pp. 7394. to say, however, that the issue of womens sexual-
ity was ignored. Quite the contrary, it was a cen-
See also Christianity, Early; Clitoris; Crime and tral issue in the debate over the entrance of women
Criminology; Law and Legal Institutions; Religious into the military.
Communities; Witches, Persecution of One of the initial concerns was that women
would be either too frail to do the work or too
masculine to foster a good public image. Oveta
Military Culp Hobby, the chief of the womens interests
The ground, air, and naval forces of a government section of the War Departments Bureau of Public
whose mission, historically, is to prepare for and, Relations, is reported in a 1942 New York Times
if necessary, engage in warfare. The lengthy his- article to have said that members of the Womens
tory of womens participation in the armed forces Army Auxiliary Corps would be neither Amazons
would be incomplete without first mentioning the rushing into battle nor butterflies fluttering free.
women who passed as men so that they might serve There were fears that women who would seek to

500 MIDDLE AGES, EUROPEAN

join the military could be compared to naked was directed at gay men, and stories such as the
Amazonsand the queer damozels of the Isle of above are not unusual, lesbians were the victims
Lesbos (Treadwell, 1953). There was a consider- of investigations and purgesand continue to lose
able amount of panic that military women would their careers because of the prohibition on lesbi-
all end up as lesbians or, at the very least, divested ans and gay men in the military.
of any sense of moral decency.
Yet not all of the concern was focused on the Prohibition and Persecution
notion of lesbianism. The military was also con- From the World War II era through much of the
cerned with how to simultaneously downplay and 1970s, the military retained a degree of flexibility
highlight womens femininity and heterosexuality. regarding lesbian and gay service members. In those
For example, there was considerable debate over instances in which it was clearly in the militarys
whether womens jackets should have breast pock- best interest to retain the individual, it did so. In
ets, as the mens did. On the one hand, the military the late 1970s, the policy was revised to state that
wanted uniformity; on the other hand, it was be- homosexuality is incompatible with military serv-
lieved that the pockets might place undue empha- ice. Because the previous policy had allowed for
sis on the fact that women had breasts. some lesbians and gay men to remain in the serv-
The image of the servicewoman that was mar- ice, some thought that the loopholes that allowed
keted was one of femininity and (hetero)sexual at- for those cases must be closed. The solution was
tractiveness. Ultimately, the military managed; to make the policy more rigid. President Jimmy
women were recruited and served honorably. At Carter would be seeking reelection in 1980, and
the close of the war, a great deal was made of the drafting a new and less vulnerable policy was seen
fact that the military had not tarnished womens as a good way to court the conservative electorate.
femininity or their ability to be good wives and The process took longer than anticipated and in
mothers. Thus, the military might be described as January, 1981, days before Ronald Reagan took
being concerned that women in general, and lesbi- office, a new Department of Defense directive was
ans in particular, would ruin the military and that announced. The new policy stated flatly that ho-
the military would ruin women, heterosexual mosexuality is incompatible with military service.
women in particular. Lesbians, after all, were al- Because the previous policy had allowed some les-
ready ruined. Heterosexual women, the military bians and gay men to remain in service, some felt
worried, would distract the men, get pregnant, and/ the loopholes that allowed for those cases needed
or transmit venereal disease. But, despite the fre- to be closed. The solution was to make the policy
quent discussion about womens sexuality, there more rigid. The new policy would also allow for
was a war to be fought. And it is common knowl- the discharge of personnel believed to demonstrate
edge that, during war, things that might engage a propensity to engage in homosexual conduct.
ones energies during peacetime are often ignored. Prior to this, the military had to prove, so to
In fact, one of the most frequently told tales of speak, that an individual was actually a homo-
World War II concerns Johnnie Phelps and Gen- sexual. The political climate was changing, as was
eral Dwight D.Eisenhower (18901969). The gen- the military, and it became increasingly more diffi-
eral gave Sergeant Phelps an order to find the les- cult for lesbians who wished to serve to do so.
bians in the WAC (Womens Army Corps) battal- During the 1980s, there were a number of
ion and get rid of them. Reportedly, Phelps replied: highprofile cases involving the discharge of lesbian
Sir, if the General pleases, Ill be happy to check service members, including Miriam Ben-Shalom,
into this and make you a list. But youve got to Barbara Baum, and Dusty Pruitt. And the num-
know, when you get the list back, my names go- bers of women whose cases did not make the pa-
ing to be first. Eisenhowers secretary then indi- pers are vast according to the United States Gen-
cated that, no, her name would be first. Appar- eral Accounting Office (1992). While there were
ently, Eisenhower was then reminded about the cases of women who survived administrative hear-
outstanding performance of the battalion since its ings and were retained in the military, many were
assignment and the fact that he would lose many not so fortunate. In September 1990, shortly after
of his most valuable personnel. His response was: the United States sent troops to the Persian Gulf,
Forget that order. Forget about it (Humphrey, one Navy admiral issued a memo to his subordi-
1990). While much of the emphasis on expulsion nates indicating that, although lesbians were often

M I L I TA RY 501
 the top performers, they were to be discharged might be considered one of the most intense de-
M nonetheless. Then, when it became apparent that
this might be a deployment of some duration, claim-
bates in congressional history. Senate hearings were
held on the subject, with testimony both for and
ing to be a lesbian did not guarantee expulsion, at against lifting the ban. Again, debate focused on
least not until the war was over. Discharges and male sexuality, but it was clear that the careers of
inquiries were, for the most part, halted. women were also at stake. The debate resulted in
One of the most prominent cases is that of Congress codifying the ban into federal law,
Margarethe Cammermeyer, chief nurse of the whereas it had been a military regulation. As a regu-
Washington Army National Guard. In 1989, lation, it could have been changed by the Depart-
Cammermeyer was preparing to attend the Army ment of Defense. Changes would now have to come
War College, a move necessary before she could be via congressional vote.
considered for promotion to brigadier general. This During the debate on lifting the ban, there was
required that she undergo an extensive security a great deal of attention to what other countries,
investigation. In the course of the investigation, specifically NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organi-
Cammermeyer chose not to lie and revealed that zation) countries, do about lesbian and gay service
she was a lesbian. Thus began a legal battle that members. Although their policies also experience
ultimately resulted in her reinstatement, in 1994, periodic revision, most, either officially or infor-
as a member of military. In 1997, Colonel mally, are more lenient than the policy of the United
Cammermeyer retired from military service. While States. As of June 1992as reported by the United
hers is not the only success story, it is certainly States General Accounting Officeonly four of
one of the most well known. seventeen countries, not including the United States,
One of the most interesting aspects of the mili- specifically excluded lesbians and gays. Since that
tarys treatment of lesbians is the fact that lesbians time, Canada eliminated its restriction. Some of
are discharged in numbers quite disproportionate the countries that have no overall exclusion policy
to their representation. It is not known how many do have restrictions on the types of positions that
lesbians there are in the military, but, given the per- can be held.
centages of women compared to men in the mili- In the late 1990s, the fight continued. Lesbians
tary, lesbians are discharged at a much higher rate continue to serve in the U.S. military. Cases con-
than are gay men. Some believe that this is part of a tinue to make their way through the courts. There
larger backlash against women serving in the mili- have been various decisions at different levels in
tary. This is not a radical argument, considering that the judicial system: some wins, some losses. Most
any women, regardless of sexual orientation, may agree that it will take having a case heard by the
be subject to dyke baiting and many have lost United States Supreme Court to make the final
careers because of accusations of lesbianism. The determination as to whether those who wishes to
threat of being labeled a lesbian may serve to keep serve their country may do so, regardless of sexual
women from forming close bonds with their female orientation. Melissa S.Herbert
peers and from performing to their utmost ability
and also may function as a weapon by which women Bibliography
are encouraged, or even forced, to engage in sexual Berub, Allan. Coming Out Under Fire: The His-
relations with men when they might not otherwise tory of Gay Men and Women in World War II.
do so. Thus, while banning gay men may serve, New York: Free Press, 1990.
falsely, to ensure the militarys image as a bastion of Herbert, Melissa S. Camouflage Isnt Only for
masculinity, banning lesbians may help, quite lit- Combat: Gender, Sexuality, and Women in the
erally, to keep the military more male dominated. Military. New York: New York University Press,
1998.
Lifting the Ban Humphrey, Mary Ann. My Country, My Right To
In late 1992, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Serve. New York: HarperCollins, 1990.
Clinton made an election-year promise to elimi- Treadwell, Mattie E. The Womens Army Corps.
nate the ban on lesbians and gay men in the mili- United States Army in World War II, Special
tary. It is likely that no one expected that, shortly Studies. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief
after his inauguration, Clinton would announce of Military History, Department of the Army,
his intention to lift the ban. Thus ensued what 1953.

502 M I L I TA RY
United States General Accounting Office. DODs riorating health but now protected by Boissevain,
Policy on Homosexuality. GAO/NSIAD9298. withdrew to Steepletop, their country retreat in
Washington, D.C.: GAO, June 1992. Austerlitz, New York. Meanwhile, she completed the
Wheelwright, Julie. Amazons and Military Maids: libretto for Deems Taylors The Kings Henchman
Women Who Dressed as Men in Pursuit of Life, (1927); Fatal Interview (1931), the passionate son-
Liberty, and Happiness. London: Pandora, 1989. net collection dedicated to the cherished memory of
poet Elinor Wylie (18851928); and, notably, two
See also Norton Sound Incident; Passing Women additional elegiac sequences for women, one lament-
ing her mother published in Wine from These Grapes
(1934) and the other mourning Wylie in Huntsman,
Millay, Edna St. Vincent (18921950) What Quarry? (1939). After protesting the Sacco and
American poet, playwright, and essayist. Raised in Vanzetti case (1927) and fascism, Millay supported
Camden, Maine, in a close-knit, creative house- British War Relief; although increasingly reclusive,
hold by her divorced mother, Cora, Edna St. Vin- she continued giving public readings, dressed in her
cent Millay published her first poem, Forest trademark flowing chiffon gowns. Shattered by
Trees, in 1906; six years later, her celebrated poem, Boissevains death in 1949, Millay remained alone at
Renascence, was included in The Lyric Year Steepletop until her death on October 18, 1950. The
(1912), bringing the young poet to national atten- Millay papers are held in the Vassar College Library,
tion and enabling her enrollment in Vassar Col- Poughkeepsie, New York. Judith C.Kohl
lege (19131917), where the rebellious Millay ex-
celled in languages and literature, especially drama. Bibliography
In several works, Millay invokes her powerful loves Cheney, Anne. Millay in Greenwich Village. Uni-
formed within a clique of Vassar women, especially versity: University of Alabama Press, 1975.
Charlotte Babcock, the model for one of the de- Gould, Jean. The Poet and Her Book. New York:
voted stepsisters in The Lamp and the Bell (1921), Dodd, Mead, 1969.
and Dorothy Coleman, whose premature death Gurko, Miriam. Restless Spirit: The Life of Edna
prompted Memorial to D.C. (1920), an elegy St. Vincent Millay. New York: Crowell, 1962.
sequence commemorating friendship and Sapphic
love. Years later, to a personal question, Millay See also Colleges, Womens; Greenwich Village;
retorted: Oh, you mean Im homosexual! Of Poetry
course, I am, and heterosexual too.
Following graduation, the vivacious, independ-
ent Millay acted with the Provincetown Players (New Millett, Kate (1934)
York City) and directed her antiwar verse play, Aria American feminist. Born into an Irish American
da Capo (1919). Vincent supported the animated family in St. Paul, Minnesota, Kate Millett was first
Greenwich Village household formed with her introduced to politics listening to her family talk
mother and younger sisters by publishing short fic- about the Irish political situation.
tion and popular essays under the pseudonym Nancy Her family found out she was in love with an-
Boyd in Ainslees, the Dial, and Vanity Fair. The other woman while she was in college. This forced
first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry Millett to accept, as she wrote in A.D.: A Memoir
(1922), Millay, in A Few Figs from Thistles (1920), (1995), the renegade life I have sold myself into,
champions the liberation of women and captures like some secret society banned by the policea
her intoxicating Village life in the famous lines My secret leper, a secret everywhere except with two
candle burns at both ends; it shall not last the night. or three other souls in history.
Several Village acquaintances intricately influenced After her familys discovery, Millett went abroad
Millays life: Edmund Wilson (18951972); play- and studied at Oxford University in England. In
wright and Masses editor Floyd Dell (18871969); 1959, she moved to New York City to become an
poet Arthur Ficke (18831945), and Eugen artist. New York proved inhospitable, and she went
Boissevain (d. 1949), whom she married in 1923. to Japan, where she had her first sculpture show,
Millay dedicated her poem The Pioneer (1923) to in 1963. That same year she returned to New York
Boissevains first wife, the feminist Inez Milholland City, where her work became increasingly politi-
(18861916). In 1925, Millay, henceforth in dete- cal. In the mid-1960s, Millett became involved in

M I L L E T, K A T E 503
 the womens movement and began work on a Ph.D. tobiography: Essays in Criticism. Ed. Estelle
M at Columbia that culminated in Sexual Politics
(1970), a critique of cultural assumptions in the
Jelinek. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1980, pp. 238259.
portrayal of women in fiction.
Sexual Politics became a best-seller in 1970. See also Autobiography; Feminism; Gay Libera-
However, the publicity surrounding the book cre- tion Movement; Womens Liberation Movement
ated problems for Millett. She spoke publicly
about gay liberation alarming moderate femi-
nists, while lesbians were confused because she Misogyny
did not publicly come out about her lesbianism. Woman hating; includes antifeminist, along with
When she did publicly acknowledge her lesbian- antifemale, beliefs and behaviors and hostility for
ism in 1970, Time magazine claimed this disclo- women as a sex, as well as for that which is cultur-
sure would discredit both her and the movement. ally understood as feminine. Misogyny, although
The publicity surrounding this event became an characteristic of mens sexism, also infects wom-
early turning point in the feminist movement by ens attitudes toward themselves and other women.
making lesbianism a highprofile and controver- Hostility toward woman as the other is a re-
sial issue. current theme in all manner of patriarchal ideol-
Afterward, Millett found herself on the mar- ogy, social organization, and practice. The male is
gins of the womens movement. She continued to the norm, and the female an imperfection, a devia-
write and speak publicly on feminist and lesbian tion, a monstrosity. Judeo-Christian religious be-
issues. In Flying (1974), she wrote about her life, lief decrees divinity to be all-male and associates
and the book became an underground lesbian clas- sin, evil, and apocalypse with the female. Wom-
sic. Continuing to write about her life and the evolv- ens sexual functions, in science as well as religion,
ing lesbian culture, Millett wrote Sita (1977), El- are viewed as redolent of impurity and/or disease.
egy for Sita (1979), and A.D. (1995). Milletts work Realms of all-male fraternal bondingsport,
also includes The Loony-Bin Trip (1990), an au- politics, the military, religion, and social clubs
tobiographical expose of the mental health system, provide potent sites for the promulgation of mi-
and The Politics of Cruelty (1994), an examina- sogyny. Misogyny is institutionalized in many forms
tion of the use of torture in the twentieth century. of violence, including sexual slavery, war crimes,
She founded an art colony outside Poughkeepsie, battery, rape, and femicide (male killing of women
New York, for women artists in 1978 and contin- for reasons of hatred, pleasure, or sense of owner-
ues to work as a sculptor. Anne B.Keating ship). The latter is epitomized in practices from
witch burnings through spousal and sex murder.
Bibliography Narratives and images of such violence then are
Keating, Anne B. Kate Millett. In Contempo- channeled into art, both elite and popular, in mu-
rary Lesbian Writers of the United States: a seums and mainstream media, in pornography,
BioBibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Ed. childrens stories, jokes, and songs.
Sandra Pollack and Denise Knight. Westport, Misogyny declares women to be either evil or
Conn.: Greenwood, 1993, pp. 361369. impossibly good, domineering or completely sub-
. A World We Have Invented Here: Explor- missive (whorish or asexual, disgustingly ugly or
ing Community, Identity, and Art in the Con- fatally beautiful), as well as petty, treacherous,
struction of The Farm, Kate Milletts Femi- manipulative, stupid, illogical, gossipy, castrating,
nist Art Colony, 19781994. Ph.D. diss., Uni- hyperemotional, or childlike. Such beliefs are en-
versity of Maryland, College Park, 1995. shrined in stereotypes, including the welfare queen,
Juhasz, Suzanne. Towards a Theory of Feminist the dumb blonde, the femme fatale, the Jewish
Autobiography: Kate Milletts Flying and Sita; mother, the hot tamale, the shrewish mother-in-
Maxine Hong Kingstons The Woman Warrior law, the nymphet, and the man-hating dyke.
In Womens Autobiography: Essays in Criticism. Stereotypically, patriarchal heroes are men who
Ed. Estelle Jelinek. Bloomington: Indiana Uni- bond with other men, shun, and even violate
versity Press, 1980, pp. 221237. women. Men who aggress against women are cel-
Kolodny, Annette. The Ladys Not for Spurning: ebrated, often covertly, as heroes in both the real
Kate Millett and the Critics. In Womens Au- and the fictional world, as evidenced by the cult of

504 M I L L E T, K A T E
celebrity that has grown around the serial killer. Mistral, Gabriela (18891957)
Such extremely misogynist men are heroes because Poet, first Latin American Nobel laureate (1945).
they represent the core values of male supremacy Born Lucila Godoy Alcayaga in Vicua, Chile, she
and serve as enforcers of that order. Ironically, with published under her pseudonym Desolacion
the exception of feminist thinking, the phenom- (1922), Lecturas para mujeres (Readings for
enon of sex killers is rarely understood as based in Women [1924]), Ternura (Tenderness [1926]), Tala
culturally endorsed misogyny, but is instead attrib- (Felling Trees [1938]), Lagar (Wine Press [1954]),
uted to individual, and usually inexplicable, devi- and the posthumous Poema de Chile (1972) and
ance. However, Aileen Wuornos, a woman who Lagar II (1992). Her collected prose, some five
was convicted of murdering seven men in Florida hundred essays, is also widely read.
between 1989 and 1991 (despite her claim of self- The canonized figure of Gabriela Mistral ap-
defense), has been branded a man-hating lesbian. pears on postage stamps, banknotes, public
Psychoanalysis enshrines the misogynist notion schools, and parks throughout Latin America, re-
that, in order for boys to become men, they must flecting the erasure of sexuality attending wom-
separate from the mother and root out any linger- ens access to the public sphere. Contradicting this
ing trace of femininity. The worst thing a male can erasure are her earliest publications, stressing in-
be is a pussy. Racism and colonialism fundamen- trospection, the alternative spirituality of theoso-
tally rest upon misogynist principles in that the phy, educational reform, and the redemptive power
lower orders are invariably deemed inferior be- of art. Critics seized on a handful of earlier poems,
cause they have not been able to shuck off what the however, which they built into a soap-operatic story
oppressor cultures perceive as the dominance of the of a (male) lovers suicide and the poets subse-
feminine. Similarly, misogyny informs the violence quent renunciation and transformation into a sym-
that male supremacist cultures characteristically di- bolic mother. This narrative overlooks the all-fe-
rect against the land, the Earth, natureall entities male worlds in which the poet lived, especially
that traditionally have been associated with women. Chiles Liceo de Nias (girls high schools), where
Misogyny ordains that all traits valued in a cul- women teachers lived together on the premises. It
turebravery, independence, tough-mindedness, also overlooks the extensive network of womens
logic, strengthare deemed masculine, the prop- clubs and professional associations that constituted
erty of males. Female masculinity, then, especially an important audience for Mistral.
that associated with lesbianism, is most hated. As Mistral became a celebrity, she chose the rela-
Ironically, lesbians are deemed unnatural tive anonymity of exile, often outside Latin America.
women. Yet, by virtue of that perceived monstros- She changed residences frequently, preferring
ity, lesbians are concomitantly understood to be women-centered households on the outskirts of cit-
the most other and, therefore, the most ies. Her itinerary resembles that of many other simi-
woman and the most despised. Any woman who larly rootless Latin American intellectuals: Paris in
sparks the ire of a misogynist is likely to find her- the 1920s, Madrid in the early 1930s, variously
self anathematized as dyke. Jane Caputi Brazil, Italy, return to Mexico, California, New York.
Mistrals poetry encodes a lesbian sensibility
Bibliography through the treatment of certain themes as well
Caputi, Jane. The Age of Sex Crime. Bowling as in the tendency to avoid grammatical pronouns
Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University that mark gender. The themes of frustration, pro-
Popular Press, 1987. hibition, absence, and exile may be identified with
Daly, Mary. Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radi- the marginal position of lesbians in society
cal Feminism. Boston: Beacon, 1978,1990. (Martnez, 1996). Writing of motherhood allows
Hart, Lynda. Fatal Women: Lesbian Sexuality and Mistral to dwell on the female body, an area of
the Mark of Aggression. Princeton, N.J.: discourse prohibited to men. Matricide emerges in
Princeton University Press, 1994. her later work: A number of critics call for a les-
Radford, Jill, and Diana E.H.Russell, eds. Femi- bian interpretation to revise the ideal of Mistrals
cide: The Politics of Woman Killing. New York: relation to motherhood. The case of Gabriela Mis-
Twayne, 1992. tral, both as a text and a producer of texts, reveals
the emergence of a specifically female-centered iden-
See also Heterosexism; Sexism tity, expressed as prohibited longing and disguised

MISTRAL, GABRIELA 505

 as fascination with the female body, above and intimate relationship that prepared women for
M beyond male desire.
Elizabeth Rosa Horan
marriage. Kissing, embracing, and writing love let-
ters to each other, the two girls behaved much like
the other young women of the era and caused no
Bibliography concern to their families. Planning to elope together,
Fiol-Matta, Licia. Gabriela Mistral: Maestra de however, marked them as somewhat different from
America. In Entiendes: Queer Readings, His- other romantic friends. Mitchell gave Ward a ring
panic Writings. Ed. Emilie L.Bergmann and Paul in 1891, and both considered themselves engaged.
Julian Smith. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Mitchell planned to assume the male persona of
Press, 1995, pp. 201227. Alvin J.Ward, find a job, and support Ward as
Horan, Elizabeth Rosa. Gabriela Mistral. In would a husband. When Wards sister caught her
Latin American Writers on Gay and Lesbian waiting, fully dressed and packed, for Mitchell to
Themes: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook. Ed. David arrive in the middle of night, the Ward family
William Foster. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, stopped all contact between the girls. Angered by
1994, pp. 221235. this rejection and rumors that Freda had subse-
. Gabriela Mistral: A Poet and Her People. quently become romantically involved with a man,
Washington, D.C.: Organization of American a jealous Mitchell accosted her one afternoon on a
States, 1994. ferryboat dock. In a brief skirmish, Mitchell cut
Martnez, Elena M. Lesbian Voices From Latin Wards throat. Arrested at home that same night,
America: Breaking Ground. New York: Gar- on January 25, 1892. Mitchell pled insanity.
land, 1996. Mitchells trial began on July 18, 1892, in a packed
Rubio, Patricia. Gabriela Mistral Ante La Critica: courthouse. Enormous amounts of newspaper cov-
Bibliografia Anotada (Gabriela Mistral Regard- erage had made the murder case into a national sen-
ing Criticism: An Annotated Bibliography). San- sation. Blaring headlines announced that this was A
tiago, Chile: Direccion de Bibliotecas, 1995. Very Unnatural Crime in which the murderess
claimed to have loved her victim so much that she
See also Chile; Latin American Literature; Poetry killed her rather than live estranged from her. After a
ten-day trial, which included the testimony of several
medical experts, the jury declared Mitchell insane,
Mitchell, Alice (1873?1898) and the judge remanded her to the Tennessee State
American murderer. With four slashes of a razor, Insane Asylum at Bolivar, Tennessee, until she was fit
Alice Mitchell became one of the most notorious to stand trial. Mitchell was reported to have died from
women in 1890s America. A woman killing her tuberculosis at the asylum in 1898, but one of her
lover, although shocking enough, would not nor- lawyers later stated that she had committed suicide
mally have grabbed headlines throughout the coun- by jumping into a water tower.
try. But the nineteen-year-old Mitchells sweetheart Nineteenth-century America could understand
was no dashing young man, but her seventeen- the motivations behind the murders of spouses and
yearold lesbian lover. sweethearts, as long as a man was somehow in-
The death of Freda Ward stunned Victorians volved. But the lack of a male presence in this kill-
for a number of reasons. Apart from the sheer bru- ing baffled the public and turned the story of Mitchell
tality of Wards killing, Mitchells act challenged and Ward into a topic of newspaper coverage and
popular ideas about female sexuality. In an era in sexological debate well into the twentieth century.
which homosexuality went unrecognized and The case played a critical role in the definition of
women were not thought to have much of a sexual lesbianism by drawing a line between the accept-
appetite, the American public struggled to explain able model of romantic friendship and the emerg-
the attraction between Ward and Mitchell. The ing figure of the deviant, mannish lesbian.
sensational trial of Mitchell forced the public at Caryn E.Neumann
large to question what it meant for a woman to
love another woman. Bibliography
By 1892, Mitchell and Ward had been friends Duggan, Lisa. The Trials of Alice Mitchell: Sen-
for several years. Both Tennessee schoolgirls, their sationalism, Sexology, and the Lesbian Subject
relationship was classed as romantic friendship, an in Turn-of-the-Century America. In Gender

506 MISTRAL, GABRIELA

 and Scientific Authority. Ed. Barbara Laslett, year, she married Miyamoto Kenji (19081988), a
Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, Helen Longino, and young Communist and literary critic. From 1932 on,
Evelynn Hammonds. Chicago: University of her works became subject to strict government con-
Chicago Press, 1996, pp. 217240. trol. Between 1932 and 1943, she was arrested six
Lindquist, Lisa J. Images of Alice: Gender, times because of her affiliation with the Communist
Deviancy, and a Love Murder in Memphis. Party, spending approximately two years in prison.
Journal of the History of Sexuality 6:1 (July Despite these hardships and the torture she ex-
1995), 3061. perienced in prison, Miyamoto refused to give up
her ideological beliefs. The years between 1945 and
See also Crime and Criminology; Romantic Friend- her sudden death in 1951 were the most active and
ship; Sexology productive period of her life. Her major achieve-
ment is clearly in her autobiographical novels,
throughout which the protagonist tries to liberate
Miyamoto Yuriko (18991951) herself from her own feudal-bourgeois class back-
Japanese novelist. One of the most talented prole- ground and to contribute to human welfare by
tarian writers, Miyamoto Yuriko started writing fighting against sexism, war, and exploitation of
as an idealistic humanist who was disturbed by the the working class. Richmod Bollinger
alien-ation of elite intellectuals from the masses.
Her awareness of womens condition and her own Bibliography
experience of marriage and divorce led her to be- Lippit, Noriko Mizuta. Literature, Ideology, and
come a feminist and a Communist. Womens Happiness: The Autobiographical
Born in Tokyo as the first child of a prosperous Novels of Miyamoto Yuriko. Bulletin of Con-
architect, in 1918 she accompanied her father to New cerned Asian Scholars 10:2 (1978), 29.
York City. While studying at Columbia University
there, she married a scholar of Oriental linguistics See also Japan
fifteen years her senior. Their marriage brought five
years of psychological struggle and creative stagna-
tion that continued until the couple divorced in 1924. Modernism
Miyamotos traumatic experiences during what she Literary and artistic movement. Though there is
called her swamp period were soon to become the no exact formula for the time frame or definition
basis of her first masterpiece, Nobuko (1923), which, of modernism, critics generally date the movement
like all of her subsequent novels, is highly autobio- as occurring between 1890 and 1940, though mod-
graphical. Nobuko, Miyamotos alter ego, comes to ernist works and artists both precede and follow
recognize the traps created by womens vulnerability this time.
to the idealization of romantic love and marriage, a
realization that leads her to explore love relations that History and Characteristics
are not based on either. Nobuko was followed by Viewing this era as a period of cultural crisis, many
two sequels: Futatsu no niwa (Two Gardens [1947]) painters, musicians, and writers responded by ex-
and Dhy (Road Sign [1950]). pressing a sense of chaos and disruption through
After the divorce, Miyamoto lived with Yuasa artistic experiment, specifically, according to
Yoshiko (1896?), a woman translator of Russian Bradbury and McFarlane (1976), anti-represen-
literature who appears in Miyamotos fiction under tationalism in painting, atonalism in music, vers
the name of Motoko. In Miyamotos fiction, her libre [free verse] in poetry, stream of consciousness
alter ego Nobuko comes to realize the prejudices to narrative in the novel. Modernist art forms in-
which single women are subject in a male-oriented cluded architecture, dance, and film as well. Many
society: They force themselves unnaturally to be- modernists, at some point in their careers at least,
have like men, yet they are more vulnerable than sought to depict through experimental means the
married women and more conscious of themselves degradation, disharmony, isolation, and confusion
as sexual objects. Thus, she comes to reject the an- of the modern condition. Form was designed to be
drogynous existence she once thought necessary. inseparable from content.
Miyamoto returned to Japan in 1930 and joined In literature, T.S.Eliot (18881965) wrote criti-
the Japan Communist Party in 1931. The following cism focusing on the idea that the work of art should

MODERNISM 507
 be considered by itself, independent of its historical Women of the Left Bank (1986), for example, com-
M or biographical context. In the middle of the twen-
tieth century, this exclusive focus on the formal quali-
bined biography and literary criticism in its exami-
nation of the intersection of female artists and writ-
ties of the art work became the basic practice of ers, many of them lesbian, in a single section of
New Criticism, a critical school influencing literary Paris during the modernist years. Sandra Gilbert
studies in British and U.S. colleges and universities and Susan Gubar, in a three-volume thematic study,
for several decades. In conventional accounts, the No Mans Land: The Place of the Woman Writer
1920s came to be seen as the decade during which in the Twentieth Century (19881994), traced the
high modernism flourished because of the pre- movement as an arena of struggle for women mod-
ponderance of stylistically experimental works that ernists, whom Gilbert and Gubar present as en-
appeared during that period. In addition, several gaged in a professional and personal battle of the
New Critics and others advanced the year 1922 as a sexes. Feminist book-length biographies, as of U.S.
high point of literary modernism inasmuch as it fea- novelist Willa Gather (18731947), and critical
tured the publication of modernist classics like Eliots treatments, as of U.S. expatriate writer H.D. (Hilda
poem The Waste Land and James Joyces (1882 Doolittle) (18861961), also began to appear in
1941) epic novel Ulysses. Besides artistic the 1980s. And in Writing for Their Lives (1987),
experimentalism, another key feature of the move- Gillian Hanscombe and Virginia Smyers, besides
ment was cultural iconoclasm. Despite this subver- considering writers, turned biographical and his-
sive component, early conventional studies of mod- torical attention to women publishers, editors, and
ernism centered on the work of white, male, often patrons during the modernist period, further ex-
Christian, artists, such as Joyce, Eliot, Ezra Pound panding the designation of modernist beyond
(18851972), and William Butler Yeats (1865 the exclusively artistic. Much of the feminist work
1939) in literature; Pablo Picasso (18811973) and on modernist women revealed the lesbianism, bi-
Henri Matisse (18691954) in art; Igor Stravinsky sexuality, and otherwise strong personal and pro-
(18821971) and George Antheil (19001959) in fessional affiliations among female modernists in
music; Sergei Diaghilev (18721929) in dance; and Paris, London, New York City, and Berlin, the ur-
Sergei Eisenstein (18981948) in film. ban capitals of this international movement.
By the 1970s, however, the cultural and schol- Within the artistic domain, critics began to ques-
arly influence of feminism and other emergent move- tion the notion of stylistic experimentalism as a
ments in the United States and Europe had begun to key indicator of literary modernism, proposing as a
make inroads into the largely academic construc- modernist feature subversive content expressed in
tion of modernism as a movement practiced and conventional literary style. Similarly, writing in the
analyzed primarily by white men. In opposition to 1990s, critics Elliott and Wallace (1994) examined
the New Criticism, many feminists and other schol- the artistically subversive strategies in the apparently
ars began to insist on the significance of biography conventional portraits by neglected lesbian painter
and cultural context as constituents of critical evalu- Romaine Brooks (18741970), juxtaposed to the
ation. Feminists were also discovering a range of nonexperimental, yet oppositional, writings of her
overlooked or undervalued female modernists to longtime lover, Natalie Barney (18761972). This
consider. Women dancers, such as Isadora Duncan line of argument, that conventional style expressing
(18781927); painters, including Marie Laurencin anticonventional subject matter is a characteristic
(18831956); and writers, such as Dorothy of modernism, led lesbian publisher and critic Jay
Richardson (18731957) and Katherine Mansfield (1995) to advance Radclyffe Halls (18801943)
(18881923), became subjects of study; female lesbian classic The Well of Loneliness (1928) as an
modernists such as Gertrude Stein (18741946) and example of what Jay called lesbian modernism.
Virginia Woolf (18821941), sometimes mentioned Because this novel is written in a representational
in earlier accounts of the literary canon, became the style, follows a chronological plot, and includes
objects of serious, respectful inquiry. conventional characterization, Jay suggested that
Halls unswerving treatment of the culturally insur-
Feminist and Lesbian Perspectives gent subject of lesbianism disrupts reader expecta-
The 1980s witnessed several important thematic tion particularly effectively.
and recuperative studies expressing a feminist per- Besides The Well of Loneliness, critic Benstock
spective on the modernist period. Shari Benstocks (1990) included French writer Colettes (1873 1954)

508 MODERNISM
The Pure and the Impure as an example of what Little Review, Anderson and Heap provided engag-
Benstock called sapphic modernism. While ing cultural commentary and an important place for
Colette and Hall drew on traditional forms in their male and female literary modernists to circulate their
works centering on lesbianism, Benstock also iden- work. Similarly, bookseller Sylvia Beach (1887
tified as examples of sapphic modernism some ex- 1962), who published Joyces controversial volume
perimental works that presented lesbianism in and operated a store in Paris called Shakespeare and
codes, as in the work of Stein, or disguised lesbian Company, was a longtime intimate with French
content behind an ostensibly heterosexual narra- bookseller Adrienne Monnier (18921956), who
tive, as in some writing of Woolf and H.D.Benstock owned a store across the street. Both establishments
and others also point to certain stylistic character- became important cultural meeting places for the
istics as sometimes representing lesbianismsuch U.S. expatriates and French literati during several
as ellipses and dashes, markers that disrupt the flow modernist decades. In the United States, poet Amy
of language and suggest the rupture of the cultural Lowell (18741925) and novelist Willa Gather pre-
narrative of heterosexuality. sented lesbian modernism in traditional forms. In
Jay (1995) observed that, unlike many male mod- the United Kingdom, H.D.s partner of more than
ernists, lesbian modernists in general distrusted the forty years (though both women were married for
ideas of Sigmund Freud (18561939) (except H.D., some of that time), heiress Winifred Ellerman, who
who underwent psychoanalysis with him). Rather, called herself Bryher (18941983), wrote novels and
lesbian modernists, according to Jay, favored the theo- memoirs and provided lifelong emotional support
ries of sexologist Havelock Ellis (18591939), which for H.D. and critical financial backing for several
considered lesbianism as genetic, biological, and, female modernists. Other lesbian modernists include
therefore, not subject to the cure ostensibly offered British writer Charlotte Mew (18691928), Anglo
by Freud and his followers. Like Benstock, Jay also American poet and novelist Rene Vivien (originally
advanced coding and experimentalism as strategies Pauline Tarn [18771909]), Australian fiction writer
employed by lesbian modernists to present their revo- Henry Handel Richardson (18701946), and
lutionary subject matter. Among these tactics, Jay Harlem Renaissance writer Angelina Weld Grirnk
includes private printing and distribution as well. The (18801958).
1928 obscenity charges in England against The Well
of Loneliness alarmed lesbian modernists consider- Conclusion
ably, according to Jay, yet the year itself may be de- Despite ongoing elaborations of the description of
scribed as the high point of lesbian modernism. Be- the movement of modernism, the late twentieth
sides Radclyffe Halls novel, 1928 saw the private century witnessed modernist studies brought to a
publication of U.S. expatriate writer Djuna Barness pivotal point. The inclusion of the work of lesbi-
(18921982) Ladies Almanack, a spoof on Natalie ans and other marginalized groups, like artists of
Barneys Paris lesbian circle. Virginia Woolfs the Harlem Renaissance, into the modernist frame-
Orlando, a comic depiction of gender switching, dedi- work has raised questions about the value of as-
cated to Woolfs female lover, writer Vita similating divergent artistic productions into an
SackvilleWest (18921962), was brought out the overarching critical construct. Several scholars have
same year, as was African American novelist Nella suggested that, in the late twentieth century, in-
Larsens (18911964) Passing, a novel containing stead of trying to incorporate different styles and
perceptible lesbian undertones. All of these novels artists into a somewhat vaguely defined artistic and
present clear illustrations of the ways lesbianism was literary movement, it may be more accurate to
treated by female modernists. speak of modernisms and consider clusters of writ-
Besides Colette, Djuna Bames, Katherine ers and works separately. Some critics have sug-
Mansfield, Gertrude Stein, Natalie Barney, and Vir- gested abandoning the term modernism alto-
ginia Woolf, the list of prominent female modern- gether in favor of a broader designation like early-
ists who are lesbian or bisexual is long and wide twentieth-century studies. Whatever the outcome
ranging. U.S. expatriate editors Margaret Anderson of the critical debate, it is clear that the artistic
(18861973) and Jane Heap (18871964), who impulse in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere
printed Joyces Ulysses in their periodical, the Little (the geographical scope of modernism is expand-
Review, and were brought up on consequent ob- ing) during the time period in question was criti-
scenity charges, were lovers for many years. In the cally influenced by lesbians. Anne Charles

MODERNISM 509
 Bibliography maintaining a family. Monogamous is defined as
M Benstock, Shari. Expatriate Sapphic Modernism:
Entering Literary History. In Lesbian Texts and
mono- gamos, one marriage only during a life
or marriage with one person at a time.
Contexts: Radical Revisions. Ed. Karla Jay and Feminist scholars state that the origins of mo-
Joanne Glasgow. New York: New York Univer- nogamy can be traced back five thousand years
sity Press, 1990, pp. 183203. to the establishment of patriarchal rule. In the hi-
Bradbury, Malcolm, and James McFarlane, eds. erarchical, social construction of patriarchy,
Modernism: 18901930. New York: Penguin, women were regarded as inferior to men. Viewed
1976. as the possessions of the male, women were used
Elliott, Bridget, and Jo-Ann Wallace, eds. Women for barter and/or procreation. This concept of
Artists and Writers: Modernist (Im)positionings. women as personal property gave rise to the pre-
New York: Routledge, 1994. cept of patrimonial inheritance, and male heirs
Felski, Rita. The Gender of Modernity. Cambridge, inherited only if they were the legitimate sons of
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995. the father. Legitimacy of a child relates to the ac-
Jay, Karla. Lesbian Modernism: (Trans)Forming knowledgment of the childs father, not to the
the (C)Anon. In Professions of Desire: Les- childs mother. This definition of legitimacy is still
bian and Gay Studies in Literature. Ed. George a legal reality in many cultures, and children born
E.Haggerty and Bonnie Zimmerman. New to unmarried females are classified as illegitimate.
York: Modern Language Association, 1995, pp. To maintain a line of inheritance and to assure a
7283. father of the legitimacy of the male heir, the fe-
Kershner, R.B. The Twentieth-Century Novel: An male must be confined in her sexual activities.
Introduction. Boston: Bedford, 1997. Monogamy is, therefore, a necessity in marriage
Perloff, Marjorie. Modernist Studies. In Redraw- and patriarchy in terms of the bequeathing of fa-
ing the Boundaries: The Transformation of Eng- milial inheritances of material goods and proper-
lish and American Literary Studies. Ed. Stephen ties to heirs. In a patriarchal society, marriage and
Greenblatt and Giles Gunn. New York: Modern female fidelity are requirements for heterosexual
Language Association, 1992, pp. 154178. relationships.
In the nineteenth century, Marxist philosophers
See also American Literature, Twentieth Century; considered both marriage and monogamy restric-
Anderson, Margaret Carolyn; Barnes, Djuna tive states reflective of the theories of capitalism,
Chappell; Barney, Natalie; Beach, Sylvia; Brooks, ownership of goods and of people. By the twenti-
Romaine; Bryher; Cather, Willa; Colette; English Lit- eth century, the institution of marriage and the
erature, Twentieth Century; Grirnk, Angelina Weld; belief in the natural state of monogamy have been
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle); Hall, Radclyffe; Harlem Ren- so integrated into present-day thinking that they
aissance; Lowell, Amy Lawrence; Mansfield, are both sanctioned as the normal mode of behavior
Katherine; Mew, Charlotte; Sackville-West, Vita; in human relations. In present psychological texts,
Stein, Gertrude; Vivien, Rene; Woolf, Virginia practicing monogamy has been viewed as a sign of
stability and maturity, while nonmonogamy, espe-
cially for females, has been labeled as immature or,
Monogamy and Nonmonogamy worse, transgressive behavior, punishable in some
Terms societies employ to differentiate between cultures by death.
people who have sexual and/or emotional relation- For many centuries, scientists attempted to re-
ships with just one person and those who have re- inforce the supposition that humans were naturally
lationships with more than one person simultane- monogamous by citing examples of monogamous
ously. Generally, the designations refer to sexual coupling in other animal species. This has since
relations confined to one person or sexual rela- been disproved by social scientists who attribute
tions outside of marriage. These distinctions and linking of human behavior to behavior of other
restrictions grew out of the formalizing of the in- animals as anthropomorphic (human-centered)
stitution of marriage. Marriage can be interpreted thinking. In terms of sexuality, human beings can-
as the joining together of two people (generally not be compared to other animal species since they
male and female) in a special kind of social and mate whenever they desire, not only when the fe-
legal dependence for the purpose of founding and male comes into heat.

510 MODERNISM
 There are a small number of societies in the erosexual model, it is a way to make a transition
world that do not proscribe multiple partners; how- from one monogamous relationship into another
ever, in those cultures in which monogamous rela- monogamous relationship.
tionships have been endorsed as the ideal, clandes- The forms of nonmonogamy for lesbians vary.
tine nonmonogamy is widely practiced. Serial mo- Within a partnered situation, one or both women
nogamy has also been a product of the concept of might agree to having connections outside the pri-
monogamy, facilitating the rejection of one person mary one. Within the couple scenario, there can
for the next. be additional people added to the couple to pro-
The socialized patterns of monogamy and its duce a triad, a quartet, or a shared lover. Although
historical derivations go largely unquestioned by the forms and requirements of these setups vary
lesbians. The implications of the historical preroga- from person to person, the general rules and guide-
tive of male inheritance has little relevance for the lines for nonmonogamy are agreed to by both part-
lesbian community, but the social values and ners. Unpartnered nonmonogamous lesbians,
behavioral modes of the larger heterosexual com- whether by preference or chance, can choose to be
munity have been firmly implanted within the larger open to various levels of involvement with other
lesbian population. women, ranging from casual sex to intense per-
In the late 1960s through the 1970s, the second sonal commitments in friendships and loyalties.
wave of feminism in the United States questioned Lesbian nonmonogamy can be an active force
all forms of heterosexual sexual practices, and mo- reflecting the openness and willingness of the par-
nogamy was considered, by some, a restrictive tool ticipants to view nonmonogamy as a positive, and
used by the patriarchy to thwart womens sexual not a negative, aspect to their lives. The bounda-
energies. Soon though, in the 1980s, the general back- ries of lesbian nonmonogamy are continually be-
lash against womens equality began. The Barnard ing reset and invented, depending on personal ar-
Womens Conference on Sexuality (New York City) rangements and agreements. Judith P.Stelboum
in 1982 created a major furor between feminists when
the conference organizers attempted to include rep- Bibliography
resentative speakers expressing the diversity of wom- Anapol, Deborah. Love Without Limits: Respon-
ens sexual experiences. Nonmonogamy was viewed sible Nonmonogamy. San Raphael, Calif.:
by some as promiscuous, imitative of masculine Intinet Resource Center, 1992.
behavior, and not politically correct. Eisler, Riane. The Chalice and the Blade. San Fran-
There is still no positive word that has been cisco: Harper, 1988.
generally adopted to express involvement with Hall, Marny. A U Haul Named Desire. New York:
more than one person simultaneously, although HarperCollins, 1997.
polyfidelity or polyamory have both been Johnson, Sonia. The Ship That Sailed into the Liv-
used. Nonmonogamy is practiced, openly, by only ing Room. Estancia, N.M.: Wildfire, 1991.
a minority of the lesbian population, and lesbian Kassof, Elizabeth. Nonmonogamy in the Lesbian
nonmonogamy (polyamory) can be differentiated Community. Ph.D. diss., California School of
from heterosexual nonmonogamy as its purposes Professional Psychology, 1985.
are intrinsically related to the structures that char- Stelboum, Judith, and Marcia Munson. Lesbian
acterize the wide variety of lesbian lives. Lesbian Polyamory. New York: Harrington, 1998.
nonmonogamy can be a political statement that West, Celeste. Lesbian Polyfidelity. San Francisco:
rejects the confining heterosexual models of mo- Booklegger, 1996.
nogamy as not applicable to the diverse nature of
lesbians. Nonmonogamy may also be a response See also Couples
to personal situations in which individual lesbians
do not feel the needs for constraint in a relation-
ship that has not been legally sanctioned, or it can Moraga, Cherre (1952)
be a way for two women to define autonomy within Chicana lesbian playwright, poet, essayist, and
a coupled situation and avoid the intense bonding teacher. Raised in the San Gabriel Valley by an Anglo
typical of some lesbian partners. Nonmonogamy father and a Chicana mother, Cherre Moraga con-
can also be a method of extending friendship or a fronted the subtle effects of Southern California-style
manifestation of friendship. Often, as in the het- racism from the onset. With fair skin and a European

MORAGA, CHERRE 511

 Radical Women of Color (1981), coedited with
M Gloria Anzalda, was adopted by womens and
ethnic studies courses throughout the nation and
was awarded the Before Columbus Foundation
Book Award in 1986. It became an important re-
source for the womens movement and feminism
by critically exploring the deeprooted racism within
these groups. In the early 1980s, Moraga moved
to New York City and became involved with a com-
munity of writers active at that time, including
Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, Gloria Anzalda,
Myrtha Chabran, Amber Hollibaugh, Jewelle
Gomez, and Dorothy Allison, among others.
In 1983, she published Loving in the War Years/
lo que nunca paso por sus labios, a collection of
essays, short stories, and poetry. In this work, she
describes the painful consequences of her early sepa-
ration from Mexican culture and history and the
difficult process of reclamation. The text is noted
for its revolutionary mixed-genre style and the es-
say A Long Line of Vendidas, which explores
the origins and implications of betrayal between
Chicanas. Moraga utilizes her physical body as a
Cherre Moraga. Photo Patrick Pato Hebert. site that informs her theory, examining the dam-
Courtesy of Cherre Moraga. ages incurred, as well as the possibilities for heal-
ing. In 1993, The Last Generation appeared, in-
surname, she was pushed to assimilate into Anglo corporating both queer and bicultural theory. She
society in order to excel. Moraga discovered the has been anthologized in dozens of literary collec-
impact of this assimilation on her life during her tions published by such notable presses as Norton,
years at a small private college in Los Angeles. As Routledge, Harper, and St. Martins.
she began to acknowledge her sexual desire for Eager to expand the autobiographical voice,
women and confront the absolute silence imposed Moraga began to focus her attention on
upon her, the depth of race and class oppression playwrighting, allowing multiple expressions from
began to emerge in her consciousness. This awak- families and communities to enter into her work
ening led her back into her mothers experience of through fictional characters. Since 1985 when
oppression, due to being poor, uneducated, and Moraga turned to theater, she has written eight
Chicana. Since this revelation, she has continued plays, including Giving up the Ghost (1987),
to argue the connections between oppressions, ex- Shadow of a Man (1990), Heroes and Saints
ploring the specificity of each condition and search- (1992), and Watsonville (1995), which have been
ing for the respective paths for empowerment and produced across the country. They address issues
the creation of coalitions. related to Mexican womanhood, Chicano/a and
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, she Mexicano/a cultural values, environmental racism,
cofounded Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press illegal immigration, the conditions of migrant
and began working on an anthology of writings farmworkers, indigenous and Mexican Catholic
by radical women of color. What began as a thesis spirituality, contradictory strategies for female sur-
project for her masters degree in feminist litera- vival, the necessity of exposing secrets, and the
ture at San Francisco State University became a impact of sensual, desperate desires.
groundbreaking collection of voices testifying to Moraga makes her home in San Francisco with
the multiple oppressions levied against women of her son, Rafael Angel Moraga (b. 1992), where, in
color. In addition to the women-of-color commu- the late 1990s, she continued to write and teach
nities who immediately benefited from the broken chicana/o studies, womens studies, writing, and
silence, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by theater as an artist-in-residence at Brava Theater

512 MORAGA, CHERRE

Center and Stanford University. As theorized in her childrens psychological, social, or sexual develop-
literary works, she practices in her classrooms her ment will be harmed by life in a lesbian household or
conviction of creating radical change through the that the stigma they may suffer because of their moth-
embrace of the stories and experiences of the silenced. ers sexual orientation will be a serious burden to
Karleen Pendleton Jimnez them. The fear that any encounter with the legal sys-
tem may lead to loss of custody has led lesbian moth-
Bibliography ers either to conceal their lesbianism from ex-hus-
Yarbro-Bejarano, Yvonne. Deconstructing the Les- bands, children, and others or to forgo claims to prop-
bian Body: Cherre Moragas Loving in the War erty and child-support payments in exchange for usu-
Years. In Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mother ally informal agreements not to challenge custody.
Warned Us About. Ed. Carla Trujillo. Berkeley, Their best defense against a threat that is all too real
Calif: Third Woman, 1991, pp. 143155. has required them to avoid the surveillance of the
legal system, and this means that only a small pro-
See also Anzalda, Gloria E.; Latina Literature; portion ever expose themselves to judicial scrutiny.
Lorde, Audre; Smith, Barbara; Theater and Drama, Not surprisingly, these maneuvers have tended to
Contemporary compromise the economic status of lesbian mothers
and their families, much as similar pressures have
affected nonlesbian, formerly married mothers who
Mothers, Lesbian had had to cope with custody challenges.
Lesbian mothers have probably always existed, but, In response to the concerns about childrens
for the same reasons that accurate demographic welfare raised in these cases, a number of psycholo-
data on lesbians are rarely available, their abso- gists have undertaken carefully controlled studies
lute numbers or the proportion of all mothers who comparing the children of lesbian and heterosexual
can be defined as lesbian cannot be established. mothers; virtually all of this research has shown
Beyond this, because of the popular tendency to conclusively that no emotional or cognitive differ-
assume that women with children must be hetero- ences between children can be traced to their moth-
sexual, lesbian mothers have sometimes tended to ers (or fathers) sexual orientation. In fact, studies
be even more invisible than other lesbians. that examine the later development of children of
The visibility of lesbian mothers increased, how- lesbian, gay, or transsexual parents in comparison
ever, in the 1970s, when a number of highly publi- with those from other families that have experi-
cized custody disputes, such as the Mary Jo Risher enced divorce or separation reveal virtually no sys-
case in Texas and the case of Sandy Schuster and tematic differences. Despite the solidity of this body
Madeleine Isaacson in Washington state, brought their of research, however, and the appearance of some
existence to the attention of both the lesbian com- of the experts as witnesses in lesbian-mother cus-
munity and the wider society. The lesbian mothers tody cases, courts continue to discriminate against
involved in cases such as these had nearly all had lesbian mothers, awarding children to their fathers
their children during heterosexual marriages; disputes and, occasionally, to other relatives when the moth-
with former husbands either at the time of their di- ers sexual orientation is made public. The 1993
vorces or later brought them into the legal system. case of Sharon Bottoms in Virginia, in which a les-
In virtually all of the publicized contested custody bian mothers mother was awarded custody despite
cases from this period involving lesbian mothers, evidence that the grandmothers husband was
judges removed children from their mothers homes. prone to be sexually abusive, illustrates the depth
The justifications used for these decisions rested on of prejudice lesbian mothers experience in court.
many of the same assumptions about gender and sexu- Although there have probably always been some
ality that also have prevailed in nonlesbian custody lesbians who have chosen motherhood outside of
determinations. Judges have tended, for example, to heterosexual marriages, these families became a
assume that lesbian sexuality (or, indeed, any sexual- more prominent part of the community in the
ity) implies promiscuity, self-indulgence, and an ab- 1980s, as the womens health movement and femi-
sence of the level of altruism and nurturance assumed nist clinics made donor insemination more readily
to be necessary for adequate mothering. Even when available to unmarried women. Because many more
evidence indicates that mothers offer their children lesbians began to choose motherhood during this
excellent homes, judges have still accepted claims that period, through either donor insemination

MOTHERS, LESBIAN 513

 (sometimes jokingly called the turkey baster using commercial sperm banks or go-betweens to
M method), or a deliberate sexual encounter, or adop-
tion, many observers began to refer to the exist-
locate suitable donors. But such arrangements do
not resolve the issues of custody and visitation that
ence of a lesbian baby boom. But the appear- may arise when lesbian coparents break up, which
ance that a baby boom was under way very likely may leave the nonbiological mother without legally
had as much to do with increasingly open lesbian enforceable rights to see the children and may also
community life as with actual increases in the num- allow the biological mother no way to claim sup-
bers of lesbians choosing to become mothers. port from her former partner. Ellen Lewin
In some cases, single lesbians or lesbians and their
partners are raising children together, and, in a few Bibliography
states, the nonbiological mother has been able to Burke, Phyllis. Family Values. New York: Random
adopt the children as a second parent. In other House, 1993.
instances, probably less frequently, lesbians and their Lewin, Ellen. Lesbian Mothers: Accounts of Gen-
childrens fathers or donors have created alternative der in American Culture. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
family arrangements, sometimes with the involvement University Press, 1993.
of additional adults, such as mothers or donors lov- Maggiore, Dolores J., ed. Lesbians and Child Cus-
ers. All of these family forms have been, at times, tody: A Casebook. New York: Garland, 1992.
strengthened by input from other adult caretakers, Martin, April. The Lesbian and Gay Parenting
including friends and ex-lovers of mothers. The emer- Handbook. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
gence of these seemingly new family constellations Weston, Kath. Families We Choose. New York:
has stimulated discussion of lesbian and gay kinship Columbia University Press, 1991.
and popularized the imagery of families we choose
as a feature of lesbian community life. Still, research See also Adoption; Children; Custody Litigation;
by Lewin (1993) indicates that lesbian mothers are Donor Insemination; Family
likely also to maintain ongoing relationships with their
biological families and to place particular emphasis
on the symbolic importance of traditional kin ties. Music, Classical
Lewin also found that lesbian mothers interact with Although classical musicmusic written in the
other women who are mothers, regardless of their Western art traditionhas been an extremely
sexual orientation, and may perceive their identity as maledominated arena and its history relies almost
mothers to supersede or overwhelm that as lesbi- entirely on written documents, the diverse sounds
ans. Being mothers, in short, brings lesbians lives of all-female musical communities throughout vari-
closer to those of other women; while lesbian moth- ous periods of classical-music history can be heard.
erhood undermines the notion that only heterosexual The presence of lesbians in classical music emerges
women may be mothers, it also can enable lesbians primarily through highly suggestive contextual
to view themselves as women very much like others. clues rather than documented evidence. Les-
While earlier legal discussions of lesbian moth- bian and its related terms rarely, if ever, appear in
ers tended to be preoccupied with custody prob- musical discourse before the nineteenth century, but
lems and strategies for overcoming them, more re- female homosocial musical traditions and repre-
cent legal concerns have surrounded relations with sentations of lesbian eroticism in musical texts in-
anonymous and known donors and problems that vite one to challenge, reinterpret, and revise offi-
may arise between women when lesbian parents cial histories of classical music.
end their relationships. Because known donors may
be legally regarded as fathers, lesbian mothers must Medieval and Early-Modern Europe
often create elaborate contractual arrangements Convents in Europe during the medieval period
that restrict donors rights; even when such docu- offered women an alternative to marriage and cre-
ments exist, however, known donors may intrude ated all-women communities for making music.
more on lesbian mothers and their families than Medieval nuns composed, arranged, and sang li-
was originally planned. To avoid these hazards, turgical musicplainsong and polyphonyas a
which may even lead to custody and visitation central form of Christian worship and communal
rights going to a donor, many lesbians who wish activity. Twelfth-century nuns, such as Herrad of
to become mothers choose anonymous donors, Hohenburg, Mechtilde of Magdeburg, Adelheid of

514 MOTHERS, LESBIAN

Landau, Hloise, Marie of Oignies, Constance of figures to whom the women might appeal. Rather,
Le Roneray, and Hildegard of Bingen (1098 this opera can be understood as a model of how its
1179), are known to have composed sacred mu- woman patron, Maria Maddalena, might rule
sic. Hildegards numerous compositions survive, sucessfully within the systems of patriarchy and mon-
and many of her chants address female saints, as archy. The later years of Caccinis career often centered
well as the Virgin Mary, in highly sensuous and on other women: Cusick believes she probably taught
erotic language and music. music to princesses Anna de Medici and Vittoria della
In the medieval secular domain, the single re- Rovere and taught, coached, and composed music
maining musical example of lesbian love is the song for women in Florentine convents. Isabella Leonarda
Na Maria, pretz e fina valors (Lady Maria, in (16201704) entered the convent at age sixteen and
you merit and distinction) by the thirteenthcentury published her first composition at age twenty. She
trobairitz (woman composer-poet) Bieiris de Ro- composed both vocal and instrumental music for the
mans. church, and her passionate devotion to the Virgin
Convents in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Mary is borne out in her double dedications of her
Ferrara, Milan, Modena, and Bologna fostered compositionsto the Virgin and to a human patron.
allfemale music making. The nuns at the San Vito It is likely that she wrote her own texts, and some of
Convent in Ferrara were led by organist and com- the most beautiful are addressed to the Virgin.
poser Sister Raffaella Aleotti and were admired for Next to convents, the Venetian ospedali (con-
their high degree of musicianship as both vocalists servatories) of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
and instrumentalists. In addition to their own li- turies stand as one of the most important musical
turgical music, these nuns performed public con- institutions for the study of female-centered net-
certs and played instruments, such as cornetti and works and musical practices. There were four
trombones, that were considered inappropriate for ospedali in Venice, each with its own choir and
women. However, the Council of Trent (1545 orchestra of girls: the Ospedale della Piet (where
1563) eventually restricted the musical educations Antonio Vivaldi [16781741] taught), i
of nuns and prohibited them from performing con- Mendicanti, gli Incurabili, and i Derelitti, or
certs. 1Ospedaletto. The ospedali housed and educated
The lives and careers of three women composers orphaned and abandoned girls, and those with
from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries invite musical talent were given excellent musical train-
lesbian interpretations of their music. Madalena ing that required ten years of rigorous study. Each
Casulana (ca. 1540ca. 1590) was a wellrespected ospedale gave public concerts and attracted audi-
singer and madrigal composer and the first woman ences from all over Europe. The best musicians
to publish her music. Thomasin LaMay persuasively could remain in the ospedale as maestrae and teach
suggests that Casulana may have written the vast alongside the male masters. Such a career in music
majority of the poems herself in her Primo Libra del offered the maestrae an alternative to both mar-
madrigali quattro voci (First Book of Madrigals for riage and the convent. The predominant genres of
Four Voices, published in 1568 and dedicated to music cultivated and performed at the ospedali were
Isabella de Medici), and most of these poems ad- concertos, choral music for treble voices, and ora-
dress passion for a woman, sometimes with erotic torios (more than two hundred libretti for ospedali
imagery of the female body. Francesca Caccini (1587 oratorios survive). Two of the most celebrated
1641?) was also a highly successful professional singer women violinists from the ospedali are Maestra
and composer of both sacred and secular music. She Anna Maria della Piet (for whom Vivaldi com-
is recognized as the first woman opera composer, and posed many violin concertos) and Maestra
in 1625 she wrote the Florentine court opera La Maddalena Lombardini, who toured Europe with
liberazione di Ruggiero dall Isola dAlcina (The Lib- her violinist husband, Ludovico Sirmen, and com-
eration of Ruggiero from the Island of Alcina), based posed her own concertosthe only woman trained
on Ariostos Orlando Furioso (1516) and commis- in the ospedali known to have done so.
sioned by Archduchess Maria Maddalena of Aus-
tria. Cusick (1993) argues that Caccinis gynocentric Modern Era
opera revolves around the struggle for power between In the late nineteenth century, all-women symphony
two sorceresses, Melissa and Alcina, over the young orchestras and brass bands in Europe and North
knight Ruggiero and is unusual in its absence of god America offered women performers meager

MUSIC, CLASSICAL 515

 professional opportunities in music. These ensembles, were her principal heirs. She was also tirelessly de-
M particularly the orchestras, were modeled on the Vi-
enna Ladies Orchestra, which toured America in
voted to promoting the music of her younger sister,
Lili Boulanger (18931918), who, in 1913, was the
1871. They performed light classical music and first woman composer to win the prestigious Grand
were often led by male conductors; the musical pub- Prix de Rome. As a Catholic, Boulanger held con-
lic regarded them as a curious novelty. However, some flicting views about politics and sexuality. She rejected
of these orchestras were founded by women: the Phila- overtly feminist ideology, but, in practice, she was
delphia Womens Symphony by Mabel Swint Ewer supremely critical of marriage for her women stu-
in 1921, the British Womens Symphony Orchestra dents and was keenly aware of the sexism those
by Gwynne Kimpton in 1922, the Orchestrette women would face in the music world. Her biogra-
Classique by Frdrique Petrides in 1932, and the pher, Rosenstiel (1982), writes that the salon of Prin-
New York Womens Symphony Orchestra by Antonia cess de Polignac (whose lesbianism was well known)
Brico in 1934. Most of the all-womens orchestras was extremely important to her career, but she avoided
lasted between five and twenty years, and nearly all Steins salon because the flagrant homosexuality of
of them were forced to disband after the economic many of its members [was] antithetical to
and social constraints that followed World War II. [Boulangers] belief in discretion and elitism.
The rise of feminist activism, particularly the Rosenstiel further speculates that Boulanger was quite
suffrage movement, in the early decades of the possibly a lesbian, but she was not allowed access to
twentieth century functions as an especially rich Boulangers private diary.
context for lesbian music making. Although lesbi-
anism among the suffragists in Britain is still a story Opera
in waiting, Wood (1995) argues that several com- Sprinkled throughout the opera repertory are male
positions by Ethel Smyth (18581944), such as her characters sung by female singers (breeches or
Songs of Sunrise, are inextricably linked both to trouser roles), usually mezzo-sopranos or con-
her passion for Emmeline Pankhurst (18581928) traltos. These roles, and the women who sang them,
and to her devotion to the suffragists, with whom support lesbian interpretations of these operas:
Smyth engaged in militant feminist action in the Orfeo in Christoph Glucks Orfeo ed Euridice
years 19101912. (1762), Cherubino in Mozarts The Marriage of
The Parisian salons of such notable lesbians as Figaro (1786), Arsace in Gioacchino Rossinis
Natalie Barney (18761972), Gertrude Stein (1874 Semiramide (1823) and the title role in his Tancredi
1946), and the Princess de Polignac (ne Winaretta (1813), Romeo in Vincenzo Bellinis I Capuleti ed
Singer [18651943]) were extremely important in- i Montecchi (1830), the title role in Jules Massenets
ternational gathering places for lesbian artists, includ- Le Jongleur de Notre Dame (1902), and Octavian
ing musicians. Among musical circles in Paris, Nadia in Richard Strausss Der Rosenkavalier (1911).
Boulangers work is of towering importance. Explicitly lesbian characters can be found in
Boulanger (18871979) helped found the American Camille Erlangers Aphrodite (1906), Alban Bergs
School at Fontainebleau and is regarded as the great- Lulu (19291935), and Peggy Glanville-Hickss
est composition teacher of the twentieth century. Some Sappho (1960), operas most illustrious lesbian
of her women students were Ruth Anderson (1928 composer, Ethel Smyth, wrote six operas. While
), Ccile Armagnac (n.d.), Marion Bauer (1882 none of them feature lesbian roles, Fantasio (1894),
1955), Suzanne Bloch (1907), Peggy Glanville-Hicks The Boatswains Mate (1914), and Fte Galante
(19121990), Helen Hosmer (n.d.), Thea Musgrave (1923) resonate clearly with Smyths notions of
(1928), Priaulx Rainier (19031986), and Louise lesbian desire and her political work with the Brit-
Talma (19061996). Boulanger formed lifelong ish suffragists. Groundbreaking scholarly work by
friendships with Armagnac, Hosmer, and Talma. Castle (1993) and Wood (1994) on opera divas
Many of her male students, such as Aaron Copland and lesbian audition has prompted a reexamination
(19001990), Gian Carlo Menotti (1911), Ned of the opera repertory and its connections to les-
Rorem (1923), and Virgil Thomson (18961989), bian cultural life, past and present.
were openly gay and accepted by her. Boulanger never
married and lived most of her life with her mother, Second Wave Feminism
Rassa, and personal assistant, Annette Dieudonn; The second wave of the feminist movement in
at the time of her death, Dieudonn and Armagnac the 1960s encouraged women in classical music to

516 MUSIC, CLASSICAL

revisit the institution of professional female orches- ruses turn to non-Western repertoires (especially
tras. In 1978, lesbian composer-conductor Kay traditional African and Latin American music) and
Gardner cofounded, with Nancy Barrett Thomas actively commit themselves to abolishing racism
and Leslie Judd, the New England Womens Sym- and ethnocentrism in musical performance.
phony; in 1981, flutist Nan Washburn helped [The author thanks Sophie Fuller, Chip
found the Bay Area Womens Philharmonic in San Whitesell, and Elizabeth Wood for their assistance
Francisco, California. Both groups have women in preparing this entry.] Martha Mockus
conductors and were formed with the feminist aim
of seeking out and performing music written spe- Bibliography
cifically by women composers, both historical and Blackmer, Corrine E., and Patricia Juliana Smith,
contemporary. Similarly, the European Womens eds. En Travesti: Women, Gender Subversion,
Orchestra, based in Britain and conducted by Opera. New York: Columbia University Press,
Odaline de la Martinez, features repertoire by 1995.
women composers. The Minnesota Philharmonia Castle, Terry. The Apparitional Lesbian: Female
is nonprofessional and the first lesbian and gay Homosexuality and Modern Culture. New
community orchestra of its kind; ironically, this York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
group does not perform music by lesbian or gay Cusick, Suzanne G. Of Women, Music, and
composers, and its conductor, James Touchi-Peters, Power: A Model from Seicento Florence. In
is heterosexual (though queer supportive). Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexu-
Although her work does not involve the wom- ality in Music Scholarship. Ed. Ruth A.Solie.
ens symphony orchestra circuit, guitarist Sharon Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993,
Isbin came out in 1995. One of the only out les- pp. 281304.
bians in professional classical music, Isbin teaches Holsinger, Bruce Wood. The Flesh of the Voice:
guitar at the Julliard School of Music in New York Embodiment and the Homoerotics of Devotion
City and has commissioned many new works for in the Music of Hildegard of Bingen (1098
guitar, including the Troubadour Concerto (1993) 1179). Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and
by John Corigliano, a composer who addressed the Society 19:1 (1993), 92125.
tragedy of AIDS in his Symphony No. 1 (1991). Jackson, Barbara Garvey. Musical Women of
The most overtly lesbian context for making the 17th and 18th Centuries. In Women and
classical music is the tradition of grass-roots femi- Music: A History. Ed. Karin Pendle.
nist community choruses that began in earnest in Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991,
1975. While influenced, in part, by the popularity pp. 5494.
of womens music, womens choruses in Europe, Rosenstiel, Lonie. Nadia Boulanger: A Life in
North America, and Australia do not limit them- Music. New York: Norton, 1982.
selves to singing the more folk-inspired womens Wood, Elizabeth. Performing Rights: A
music; rather, they recover historical music by Sonography of Womens Suffrage. Musical
women composers and perform new music by Quarterly 79:4 (Winter 1995), 606643.
women as well. Choral music by male composers . Sapphonics. In Queering the Pitch: The
that feature texts by women and/or lesbian poets New Gay and Lesbian Musicology. Ed. Philip
are also sought. Groups such as the Calliope Wom- Brett, Elizabeth Wood, and Gary C.Thomas.
ens Chorus (Minneapolis), the Anna Crusis Wom- New York: Routledge, 1994, pp. 2666.
ens Choir (Philadelphia), Muse: Cincinnati Wom- Yardley, Anne Bagnall. Ful weel she soong the
ens Choir, the Bread and Roses Feminist Singers service dyvyne: The Cloistered Musician in the
(Maryland), and the Portland (Oregon) Lesbian Middle Ages. In Women Making Music: The
Choir, to name only a few, include both lesbians Western Art Tradition, 11501950. Ed. Jane
and straight women and often program music with Bowers and Judith Tick. Urbana: University of
texts that address lesbian eroticism. Most of these Illinois Press, 1986, pp. 1538.
choirs belong to the Sister Singers Network and
the Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses; See also Choruses, Womens; Composers;
many have produced compact discs and are well Hildegard of Bingen, Saint; Landowska, Wanda;
known in the lesbian community. In addition to Music, Womens; Opera; Religious Communities;
classical music of all periods, many womens cho- Smyth, Dame Ethel Mary

MUSIC, CLASSICAL 517

 Music Festivals Newer festivals are Rhythmfest (North Caro-
M Primary public venue for the live presentation of
music by women and womens music;
lina), which began in 1990, and the Lone Star
Womens Music Festival (Texas), started in 1994.
coffeehouses also function as the smaller, local coun- Several festivals are held in Canada, although
terpart to festivals. There are about twenty wom- not all are annual events. Among these are the Van-
ens music festivals in North America that occur couver Womens Music Festival (1988), the Cana-
annually in rural settings during the summer months, dian Womens Music and Cultural Festival (Win-
between May and September, and draw between five nipeg, 1984), Women in View: A Festival of Per-
hundred and ten thousand women each. These fes- forming Arts (Vancouver, 1989), the Western Ca-
tivals expose lesbian audiences to new music that is nadian Womens Music Festival (once only in
otherwise difficult to obtain and allow womens 1976), the Kingston Womyns Music Festival (On-
record labels to investigate the potential popularity tario, 1984), and the Festival International de
of a given artist. The Michigan Womyns Music Musiciennes Innovatrices (Qubec, 1988), which
Festival, founded in 1975, is the largest ongoing fes- featured avant-garde and experimental music.
tival. A veritable lesbian cultural institution, this six- Each festival has its own character, and, in ad-
day event is held in the woods of Oceana County dition to musicians, many festivals feature danc-
and features three stages and an increasingly diverse ers, performance artists, and stand-up comics, such
program, ranging from established artists, such as as Robin Tyler, Kate Clinton, Pat Harrison, and
Margie Adam, Alix Dobkin, and Sweet Honey and Lynn Lavner. The Womens Jazz Festival, organ-
the Rock, to brandnew women musicians. It is prob- ized by Carol Comer and Dianne Gregg, showcases
ably the most international festival of its kind, hav- jazz by women musicians but includes male per-
ing booked artists from Japan and South Africa and formers as well.
drawing crowds of women from all fifty states, every Most of these festivals are for women and girls
Canadian province, and more than twenty other only, although preadolescent boys are usually al-
countries. In addition to the music, there are open lowed. A storm of controversy has surrounded the
mikes and workshops addressing issues of race, class, Michigan festival, in particular, for its exclusion of
health, and sexuality. This festival has set a prec- transsexual and transgender women. Several festi-
edent for other lesbian and feminist events (musical vals are run cooperatively and require women to
or otherwise) by including sign-language interpret- share certain work duties so that the admission price
ers, wheelchair accessibility, and child-care facilities. remains affordable to everyone. Martha Mockus
While womens music festivals are open to all
women, the vast majority of organizers, producers, Bibliography
artists, and audiences are lesbians. The National McBride, Renee, and Yolanda Retter. Festivals:
Womens Music Festival, begun in 1974 in Born from Womyns Music. Lesbian News
Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, is held in Bloomington, 21:1 (August 1995), 3132, 36.
Indiana. Smaller venues include the West Coast Petersen, Karen E. An Investigation into
Womens Music and Comedy Festival (California) WomenIdentified Music in the United States.
(begun in 1979) and the Womens Jazz Festival in In Women and Music in Cross-Cultural Perspec-
Kansas City, Missouri (begun in 1978), as well as tive. Ed. Ellen Koskoff. Urbana: University of
the Gulf Coast Womens Festival (Mississippi), the Illinois Press, 1987, pp. 203212.
Southern Womens Music and Comedy Festival
(Georgia), the East Coast Lesbians Festival (Mas- See also Land; Music, Popular; Music, Womens
sachusetts), the Northampton Lesbian Festival (Mas-
sachusetts), and Sisterfire (Maryland), all of which
started in the 1980s. In 1987 the Sisterfire Festival Music, Popular
was notable for including a Deaf Stage and for plac- Music that has wide public appeal. Central to this
ing the child-care area, called the Hearth, at the appeal is the ability of music to evoke our deepest
center of the festival rather than at the periphery. desires and identifications. At the same time, popu-
Sisterfire is also considered a leader in programming larity is typically synonymous with commercial
multicultural music (Asian, Latina, and Native success, particularly in the United States. Hence,
American artists) and challenging the stereotype of popular music typically positions women as ob-
womens music as acoustic white folk music. jects of male desire. To achieve commercial

518 M U S I C F E S T I VA L S
success, female performers have been required to until the repressive climate of the 1950s forced her
project a sense of (hetero)sexual availability. to sanitize her act, begin wearing dresses, and bury
While images of heterosexuality dominate popu- her lesbian image.
lar music, they have not gone unchallenged. Lesbi- In the 1960s, the girl group sound spawned sing-
ans, for example, have always found ways to lis- ers such as Leslie Gore (1946) and Dusty Springfield
ten to popular music against the grainchanging (19391999), who achieved mass popularity and a
the pronouns of songs in their heads and project- loyal lesbian and gay following. In 1970, Fanny be-
ing their fantasies upon their favorite performers. came the first all-woman rock and roll band to be
The fantasies lesbians construct about particular signed and promoted extensively by a major label.
performers identities, and about themselves in re-
lation to these identities, are a collectively shaped Womens Music
and shared part of lesbian experience. In the 1970s, the feminist movement provided the
Lesbian-identified artists have also struggled impetus for many women to create their own fic-
for greater representation in musical production, tion, visual art, and music and to openly incorpo-
both by explicitly encoding lesbian references into rate their sexual identities into their creative work.
their music and by using more implicit, ambigu- Though not always explicitly lesbian, womens
ous coding. music was created and performed primarily by les-
bian feminists. It was imbued with a belief in a
Pioneers universal female sensibility, expressed in the idea
Lesbian performers have long participated in the crea- of woman identification, and defined, in large
tion of popular music in the United States, although part, by its opposition to masculinist forms of cul-
relatively few have openly identified themselves as ture, such as mainstream rock and roll.
such. Generally, overt homosexuality has been seen In addition to encouraging innovation in terms of
as a threat to the popularity of commercially success- musical content, womens music politicized the proc-
ful artists. Large record companies, organized to mini- ess of music production. Its producers sought to re-
mize risk, seek out the lowest common denomina- dress the fact that women in general, and lesbians in
tor and hold back potentially discreditable infor- particular, had been shut out of positions of power
mation about a performer from the public. in the music industry. They believed that it was im-
The presence of lesbians in the entertainment portant to erase the distinctions between the indus-
field has been a guarded secret. But at certain times try, the performers, and the audiencedistinctions
and places, such as Paris and Harlem in the 1920s that were central to commercially produced music.
and 1930s, female homosexuality became a source The vision of womens music was an ambitious
of musical inspiration and a subject of fascination one. In positively valuing lesbian lives and accom-
and intrigue. plishments and serving as an organizing tool, it
References to gender and sexual nonconform- played an important role in the development of
ity made their way into the art of a number of fe- lesbian feminist culture. However, the narrow way
male blues singers in the United States during the in which womens music was definedas music
Jazz Age. Bessie Smith (18941937) puzzled over produced by, of, and for feministsmay have in-
mannish-acting women in her Foolish Man advertently limited its appeal.
Blues (1927), and Gertrude Ma Rainey (1886 By the 1980s, the most loyal sectors of the wom-
1939) confessed that she liked to wear a collar ens music audience had aged, shedding some of
and a tie in her Prove It on Me Blues (1928). their political commitments to alternative womens
They say I do it, aint nobody caught me, they culture. Some suggested that womens music had
sure got to prove it on me, sang Rainey, about been firmly entrenched in what was, for the most
the friends who mustve been women, cause I part, a European tradition. Others criticized wom-
dont like no men. Blues singers Ethel Waters ens music for its stylistic conservatism. The femi-
(18961977) and Alberta Hunter (18951984) nist movement had helped create an audience that
were also said to have had romantic relationships was beginning to outgrow the counterculture.
with women.
Gladys Bentley (19071960), a 250-pound Crossover Stars
tough-talking cross-dressing singer, enjoyed a suc- While lesbian musicians of the 1970s were forced out
cessful twenty-year career in Harlems jazz scene, of the mainstream in order to achieve some creative

MUSIC, POPULAR 519

 autonomy, fifteen years later there were signs of new flaunted it. Their tongue-in-cheek I Spent My Last
M openings. In the late 1980s, a new wave of an-
drogynous women began to find their way onto
$10 (On Birth Control and Beer), was a
countryand-western tale of woe about a lesbian
major record labels and into mainstream tastes. who breaks up with her girlfriend and unexpect-
Tracy Chapmans carefully crafted folk albums edly finds love in the arms of a strong hairy man.
garnered her millions of fans. The Indigo Girls, an By the early 1990s, these and other developments
Atlanta-based duo, performed soul-searching made it possible for a few mainstream artists to cross
folkrock ballads, drawing upon folk and country over and achieve commercial success as out les-
influences. k.d. lang, a cross-dressing crossover bian performers. Lang and Etheridge came out as les-
artist, flaunted a butch image, blending pop and bians to great fanfare within lesbian and gay circles
country music. Melissa Etheridge, clad in jeans and and even greater commercial success. They were able
vest, prowled and kicked at her guitars and pro- to openly integrate their sexual identities into their
duced hard-driving rock and roll. Michelle Shocked art. Singer-songwriter Janis Ian, who had a series of
blended feminist and anarchist sympathies with hits in the 1960s and 1970s, including Societys
traditional folk and blues influences. Child, one of the first songs to tackle the theme of
Even if they tended to skirt clear identifications, interracial romance, followed suit.
these artists werent particularly heterosexually But there were limits to the crossover artists
identified either, studiously avoiding male pronouns newfound power. Lesbian performers were still gen-
in romantic ballads and carefully constructing their erally seen as marketable only when their sexuality
personas to assert a strong, if sexually ambiguous, was muted. A woman singing a love song to another
presence. This ambiguity appealed to a lesbian and woman was, for the most part, still taboo, as Phranc
gay audience and garnered mass appeal. sang: Androgyny is the ticket or at least it seems to
On the heels of the feminist movement, female be. Just dont wear a flat-top and mention sexuality,
performers and fans became commercially important and girl youll go far, youll get a record contract and
properties and markets, giving both musicians be a star. Few, if any, major record labels specifically
and fans new power. The trail was blazed by wom- targeted a lesbian audience. In the mainstream, the
ens music and by a number of commercially popu- classic dilemma persisted: A performer either became
lar performers who broke with conventions of femi- known as a lesbian artist and was, thus, doomed
ninity in popular music. Beginning in the late 1970s, to marginality, or she watered down her lesbianism
Joan Armatrading attracted a large feminist and gay to appeal to a mass audience.
following for her finely crafted and sexually ambigu-
ous rock and folk ballads. Madonna, one of if not Alternative Rock
the most successful female stars of the 1980s and Even as lesbians enjoyed greater visibility than ever
1990s, exuded sexual power and invincibility, at times in popular music in the 1990s, many artists and
making allusions to lesbianism, as on her Justify fans had little interest in crossing over to the main-
My Love video, which was banned by MTV (Mu- stream. They shared with their lesbian feminist
sic Television) at the end of 1990. Queen Latifah chal- predecessors a disdain for commercialism, a belief
lenged the sexism of rap music in such albums as in the capacity of anyone to create music, and a
Nature of a Sista. Even country music, which had desire to create cultural space for women. But they
never been known for its gender and sexual noncon- rejected the feminist belief that brashness is inher-
formity, produced such artists as Nanci Griffith and ently male, and they created a music that was loud
Mary-Chapin Carpenter, who departed from Nash- and, often, rude. Rather than abandon rock and
villes stand by your man approach. roll as inherently misogynistic, as womens music
At the same time, a few artists recording on did, they reclaimed it.
major independent labels made lesbianism an inte- This tradition of performers could trace its roots
gral part of their art. Phranc, calling herself a Jew- to artists such as Patti Smith, Pat Benatar, Janis Joplin,
ish lesbian folksinger, made several records, in- and others who had defied conventions of gender
cluding the 1989 album I Enjoy Being a Girl, which since the 1960s. Proto-punk singer-songwriter Patti
pictured her in a flat-top haircut, alongside a blurb Smith proclaimed, As far as Im concerned, any gen-
that sang her praises as a little daughter of bilitis. der is a drag, and wore mens shirts and ties, affect-
The Austin, Texas, trio Two Nice Girls made no ing a street-tough, androgynous style. Grace Jones
bones about identifying as lesbians and, indeed, struck a gender-bending Amazonian pose.

520 MUSIC, POPULAR

 In England, Annie Lennox, lead singer of the Griffin, Gabriele, ed. Outwrite: Lesbianism and
Eurythmics, accepted a 1984 Grammy Award Popular Culture. London: Pluto, 1993.
decked out in full Elvis Presley-style drag. The Au Hamer, Diane, and Belinda Budge, eds. The Good,
Pairs poked fun at heterosexual antagonisms, and the Bad, and the Gorgeous: Popular Cultures
Siouxsee Sioux sang love songs to women. Bands Romance with Lesbianism. London: Pandora,
such as the Slits and the Raincoats provided alter- 1994.
native images of women and sometimes made al- Lewis, Lisa. Gender Politics and MTV: Voicing the
lusions to lesbianism. Difference. Philadelphia: Temple University
Inspired by these and other performers, through- Press, 1990.
out the 1980s, in San Francisco, Boston, New York McDonnell, Evelyn, and Ann Powers, eds. Rock
City, and other cities, local bands with names such as She Wrote. New York: Delta, 1995.
Mermaid Tatoo, Lesbian Snake Charmers, Gutter Stein, Arlene, ed. Sisters, Sexperts, Queers: Beyond
Sluts, and Mudwimmin created a new kind of musi- the Lesbian Nation. New York: Plume, 1993.
cal presence within the lesbian community. They
embraced punk and other bad girl styles, unabash- See also Bentley, Gladys; Blues Singers; lang, k.d.
edly flaunted their sexuality, and mocked the image (Kathryn Dawn); Music, Womens; Rainey,
of the sexy girl group. A few, such as 4 Non Blondes Gertrude Ma; Smith, Bessie; zines
and Tribe 8, achieved some commercial success.
A cosexual queer youth subculture emerged
alongside this music scene, partly through the me- Music, Womens
dium of fanzines, photocopied homemade maga- Genre of popular music that emerged in the early
zines with names like Homocore and JDs (Juve- 1970s as music by, for, and about women. Wom-
nile Delinquents) that featured long, rambling sub- ens music is defined in The Ladyslipper Catalog
scriber mail from alienated youth in far-flung and Resource Guide and Catalog of Records and
places, short stories and graphics, and interviews Tapes by Women as music springing from a femi-
with musicians. Queer punks shared a feminist and nist consciousness, utilizing womens talentwith
anarchist politic and a disdain for professionalism, production, presentation and finances controlled
commercialism, and anything that reeked of main- by women. It is the music most closely connected
stream values. to the second wave of feminism, and communi-
In the 1990s, a subculture that first emerged in ties of lesbians were (and still are) its main audi-
the Pacific Northwest and the Northeast, made up ence. Its primary precursors were the womens suf-
of young, angry women engaged in cultural pro- frage music of the early twentieth century, the blues
ductionfanzines, music, performance events queens of the 1920s, and Malvina Reynoldss
came to be known as riot girls. Bands such as (19001978) political songs.
Bikini Kill, Hole, Babes in Toyland, and Team
Dresch, some of whom included out lesbians, Characteristics
blended anarchism and punk and were clearly in- Also referred to as woman-identified music,
fluenced by feminist/lesbian sensibilities. womens music is something of a euphemism for
Singer-songwriter Ani diFranco won a huge cult lesbian music since the vast majority of the art-
following for her live performances of hardedged ists, production companies, and audiences were
folk music that spoke unabashedly of bisexuality. lesbians. Founding artist Alix Dobkin asserted in
Shunning the commercial record industry, she a 1992 article in the Lesbian News (Los Angeles,
formed her own company to distribute her music California) that womens music is second only to
to her young, largely female fans. DiFrancos songs, softball in creating and sustaining a culture and
which blended the soul-searching quality of wom- having a profound effect on lesbians. This was
ens music and the raunchy abandon of riot-girl the first musical context in which lesbian life, de-
punk, embodied the gender/sexual sensibilities of sire, and sexuality were sung about openly. Les-
a new generation of women. Arlene Stein bian relationships and the feminist critique of pa-
triarchy, misogyny, and homophobia, as well as the
Bibliography desire for independence from men, were concerns
Gaar, Gillian. Shes a Rebel: The History of Women that were not sufficiently expressed in mainstream,
in Rock and Roll Seattle: Seal, 1992. male-dominated popular music of the late 1960s

MUSIC, WOMENS 521

 and early 1970s. In this respect, womens music Works label. Dobkin performed folk music in New
M was an extremely important stimulus in the for-
mation of the lesbian feminist community.
York City coffeehouses in the late 1960s, and, in
1971, she decided to focus on writing songs about
Stylistically, womens music draws most heav- womens experiences. She also recorded Living with
ily from the folk tradition, although the traces of Lesbians (1976), XXAlix (1980), Never Been Bet-
rock, pop, jazz, reggae, and classical music are of- ter/These Women (1986), and a compilation CD
ten heard. Womens music usually features auto- Love and Politics: A 30-Year Saga (1992), all on the
biographical lyrics and an emphasis on acoustic Womens Wax Works label. Dobkin continues to
instruments: guitar and/or piano as primary accom- perform at womens music festivals throughout
paniment, and light percussion, strings, or winds North America. Her musical style falls in the folk
as secondary timbres. tradition, and her songs often address the issues of
Womens music was not broadcast over radio or womens relationships with womenas mothers,
television, but promoted through women-owned and daughters, lovers, and friends. As an openly lesbian
-operated record labels and production companies, feminist, Dobkin is an iconoclastic figure for the
which had no precedent in twentieth-century West- womens music community; she has also performed
ern music. The grass-roots, low-budget effort pro- in conjunction with Jewish political groups and re-
vided women with the opportunity to record, engi- mains active in the struggle against antisemitism.
neer, produce, and distribute recordings in a feminist Cris Williamson produced her first album, The
environment and to be trained in the various aspects Changer and the Changed (Olivia), in 1975. It was
of the music business. Olivia Records was founded the widest-selling album in womens music (more
in 1973 in the Washington, D.C., area and soon than 250,000 copies) and is regarded as a classic in
moved to Los Angeles, California; in late 1977, Olivia the genre. Williamson is one of the pioneers in wom-
settled in Oakland, California. Other womens mu- ens music, along with Dobkin, Margie Adam, Meg
sic labels include Womens Wax Works, Redwood Christian, and Holly Near. Her music combines folk,
Records (established by Holly Near in 1973), Kay country, and pop sounds with soulful lyrics of les-
Gardners Urana Records (New York City), and bian passion. She has performed regularly at wom-
Margie Adams and Barbara Prices Pleiades Records ens music festivals, remains active in the lesbian
(Berkeley, California). Ladyslipper (based in Durham, feminist community, and has produced nearly a
North Carolina) began in 1977 and is the largest dis- dozen albums since The Changer, including Blue
tributor of womens music. While many of these la- Rider (1982), Prairie Fire (1985), and Wolf Moon
bels and distribution companies were short-lived, (1985), all on the Olivia label. She collaborated with
Olivia Records has remained the most successful, Tret Pure on Postcards from Paradise (1993), also
despite the economic decline of the late 1980s. The on Olivia, and Teresa Trull on Country Blessed
Reagan-Bush era (19801992) was particularly dif- (1989) on Second Wave. When she is not touring,
ficult for the womens music business, forcing Olivia she teaches music at small universities and colleges.
to sponsor all-lesbian vacation cruises, and in 1989 In 1990, Olivia released a documentary videotape,
Redwood became a nonprofit organization. The Changer: A Record of the Times, which chroni-
cles the early history of womens music and includes
Performers interviews with Williamson, Christian, Bonnie Raitt,
The New Haven Womens Liberation Rock Band, Near, and Adam, as well as rare concert footage from
the Chicago Womens Liberation Rock Band, Fam- the mid-1970s.
ily of Women, and New Harmony Sisterhood Band Meg Christian grew up in Lynchburg, Virginia,
were all-womens acoustic folk bands that started and completed a degree in music from the Univer-
up ca. 19721973. However, solo singer-songwrit- sity of North Carolina. She studied classical guitar,
ers were far more well known than bands. folk, and Appalachian music. In the early 1970s,
Maxine Feldman is usually credited with per- she involved herself in radical feminism and per-
forming the first lesbian song, Angry At This, in formed extensively at womens music festivals. In
1969 in Los Angeles; this was later recorded on her 1974, she recorded her first album, I Know You
album Closet Sale (1979) with Galaxia Records. Know (Olivia), which included both original mate-
However, the first album of womens music was rial and songs by other artists. Christians own tunes
Lavender Jane Loves Women (1973), recorded by deal openly with various aspects of lesbian life, and
Alix Dobkin with Kay Gardner on the Womens Wax her Ode to a Gym Teacher remains one of her

522 MUSIC, WOMENS

best-known songs. In 1977, she recorded Face the 1973, she recorded Hang in There (Redwood). She
Music (Olivia), on which she sings Leaping Lesbi- has recorded more than ten albums and continues
ans (by Sue Fink and Joelyn Grippo), and collabo- to be one of the most visible figures in womens
rates with Sweet Honey in the Rock, Near, Linda music, performing at festivals, benefit concerts, and
Tillery, and Trull. For Olivia, she recorded Turning at larger venues, where her music has attracted
It Over in 1981, the double album Meg/Cris at mainstream folk audiences.
Carnegie Hall (Second Wave Records) in 1983, and Many of these artists can be heard on Olivias
From the Heart in 1984; soon after, she left the Lesbian Concentrate: A Lesbianthology of Songs
womens music scene to study Syda Yoga with and Poems (1977), a collective project designed to
Guruyami Chidvilasananda in India. She recorded counteract Anita Bryants homophobic campaign
a tape in 1986, The Fire of My Love: Songs for of the mid-1970s.
Guruyami Chidvilasananda (Lady slipper).
Many leading figures in womens music are Conclusion
African American and African Canadian. Mary The heydey of womens music subsided ca. 1985
Watkins trained as a classical pianist, studied mu- when both socioeconomic pressures and changes
sic at Howard University, and later moved into jazz. in mainstream popular music shifted the focus away
Her own compositions draw from jazz, rhythm and from a woman-identified musical culture. Suc-
blues, gospel, and soul traditions. She has recorded cessful women musicians of the late 1980s and the
three albums: Something Moving (1978) (Olivia), 1990sseveral of whom are out lesbianssuch
on which four pieces are purely instrumental com- as k.d. lang, Tracy Chapman, Shawn Colvin,
positions; Winds of Change (1982) (Palo Alto Melissa Etheridge, Michelle Shocked, Suzanne
Records); and Spiritsong (1985) (Redwood). She Vega, The Indigo Girls, and Sinead OConnor
often collaborates with Linda Tillery, both of whom offered strong alternative sounds and messages to
are extremely dedicated to the womens music lesbian listeners while recording on mainstream
scene, have produced records for other musicians, labels, making the Top Forty, producing videos,
and have played on the albums of other womens winning Grammy Awards, and performing for gen-
music artists. Tillery is a singer, songwriter, and eral audiences. While critics of womens music ar-
percussionist whose style is most inspired by gue that its overall musical style lacked interest and
rhythm and blues. She recorded Linda Tillery innovation, supporters claim that the success of
(Olivia) in 1977, Secrets (411 Records) in 1986, contemporary mainstream women artists has a
and Good Time, A Good Time (Tuizer Music), a great deal to do with the political passion and com-
collection of blues and sprituals with the Cultural mitment of womens music. Newer artists, such as
Heritage Choir, in 1995. Many of her songs ad- Phranc (ne Susie Gottlieb), Girls in the Nose, and
dress political oppression, liberation, and religious Two Nice Girls, are out lesbians whose music
hypocrisy. Didre McCalla earned a degree in crosses over between lesbian and general audiences.
theater from Vassar College and established her Martha Mockus
career as an out lesbian in womens music as a
guitarist and songwriter who works mainly in the Bibliography
folk music tradition. She has recorded Fur Coats Dlugacz, Judy. If It Werent for the Music: 15
and Blue Jeans (1973) on the Roulette label and Years of Olivia Records. Hot Wire: The Jour-
Dont Doubt It (1985), With a Little Luck (1987), nal of Womens Music and Culture 4:3 (July
and Every Heroes and Heroines (1992) for Olivia. 1988), 2831, 52.
Faith Nolan of Toronto is also a folk-blues guitar- Near, Holly with Derk Richardson. Fire in the Rain,
ist and songwriter, who often sings about the lives Singer in the Storm. New York: Morrow, 1990.
of blacks in Canada. Her recordings include Pipik, Jane E. Woman-Identified Music: Moving
Africville (1986) and Sistership (1987), both on On. Heresies 10 (1980), 8890.
the Multi Cultural Women in Concert (MCWIC) Pollock, Mary S. The Politics of Womens Music:
label, and Freedom to Love (1989) (Redwood), a A Conversation with Linda Tillery and Mary
collection of protest songs. Watkins. Frontiers: A Journal of Woman Stud-
Holly Near is a groundbreaking figure in wom- ies 10:1 (1988), 1419.
ens music and maintains a prolific career as a song- . Recovery and Integrity: The Music of Meg
writer, performer, actress, and recording artist. In Christian. Frontiers 9:2 (1987), 2934.

MUSIC, WOMENS 523

 Post, Laura. Backstage Pass: Interviews with sented by coming out; the second, by finding love,
M Women in Music. Norwich, Vt: New Victoria,
1997.
in the form of the romance, and/or discovering the
lesbian community, in a movement toward politi-
cized self-integration.
See also Community; lang, k.d. (Kathryn Dawn); Lesbian mystery fiction has consistently
Lesbian Feminism; Music Festivals; Music, Popu- problematized the use of the heroic. A type of novel
lar; Olivia predominant in the mid-1980s self-consciously
appropriated the image of the avenging knight,
offering a sexy superdyke striding the city streets
Mystery and Detective Fiction in her steelcapped boots, swinging her double-
The lesbian mystery novel has its origins in lesbian headed axe, leaving slain patriarchs in her wake.
pulp fiction works of the 1950s and early 1960s. This was one form of transgressing the boundaries
Their glimpse into an underworld of intrigue and of the genre. Later manifestations tended to pro-
suspense is redelivered in the lesbian crime novels duce antiheroes, such as the unnamed protagonist
that proliferated in British and North American in Sarah Schulmans novel After Delores (1988).
feminist publishing houses during the 1980s. They Lesbian mystery fiction often makes more ex-
allow the reader to step into, relish, and then render plicit the representation of butch culture. As a sub-
safe a quagmire of sex, violence, and death. Les- cultural stereotype, the butch detective works at two
bian crime novels are also about discovering, and levels of identification for the reader. Not only does
exploring, lesbian identities. the reader desire the butch, who is a figure of eroti-
The first lesbian feminist crime novel was M.F. cized power, she also wants to be the butch or, at
Beals Angel Dance (1977). Its angry, complex, vi- least, procure her sense of agency. Femme lesbian
sionary indictment of hetero/patriarchal capitalism detectives are rare, since the conflation of the mas-
is replete with the peculiar energy of 1970s protest terful detective hero with femininity can be jarring.
culture. The Chicana detective and first-person nar- Paradoxically, the most convincing super-femme
rator, Kat Guerrera, is a subversive whose charac- sleuths are heterosexual: novelists Sara Paretsky, Sue
ter embodies the way class, race, gender, and sexu- Grafton, and Patricia Cornwell have all produced
ality interface to uphold the dominant order of law. fantasy femme protagonists in the 1980s and 1990s.
The corrupt power of the state is represented as In genre theory, detective fiction has been most
being so extensive that the concept of justice can likened to satire. Classic Greek satire, in its sim-
no longer be invoked. plest form, consists of a dialogue between stylized
This figure of the lesbian guerrillaan icon of characters who merely mouth ideas. The two speak-
1970s resistance culturewas distilled by French ers are an eiron, the hero, and an alazon, someone
materialist philosopher Monique Wittig in her 1971 usually revealed to be a deluded and pompous fool.
novel Les Gurillres. This invention of a new, mili- The lesbian crime-fiction detectives dramatic func-
tant category of lesbian, inspired by the myth of tion is to expose alazons using her powers of rea-
the Amazon, invigorated a whole community of soning, thus leading the reader into a changed and
women to wage war on the political institution enlightened consciousness. The feminist ideologi-
of heterosexuality. The early lesbian detectives re- cal project presents patriarchy and heterosexism
produced this figure. as synonymous with foolishness. Thus, false con-
The traditional crime novel is a site for the ex- sciousness is exposed by an investigation into
pression of anxieties about society in which the gender relations. It is a persuasive structure art-
enemy is named and destroyed. In the lesbian and fully seducing the proto-feminist reader. The pro-
feminist crime novel, the terms often become in- tagonist, or eiron, is able to scrutinize the hysteri-
verted, so that the state is identified as the corrupt cal excesses of masculinity with a deflationary gaze.
enemy, and the lesbian sleuth, normally the feared Masculinity, in these narratives, usually ends up
and hated Other, is the victor. The narrative reso- shooting itself in the foot.
lution of the mystery is resolved in two stages: First, The most effective lesbian crime novels have
by using the process of individuation intrinsic to been those that have most enthusiastically em-
the thriller mode, the lesbian hero achieves self- braced the need to entertain the reader, to inter-
determination; and, second, she becomes integrated weave suspense with pleasure. Those, such as She
into a community. The first phase is often repre- Came Too Late (1986) and She Came in a Flash

524 MUSIC, WOMENS

(1988) by Mary Wings, that arguably reproduce ence of such love or of its mythical representation.
most faithfully the classic element of satire, suc- (In the ancient world, lesbian referred to fellatio,
ceed mostif readership is anything to go byas not to female homosexuality.) Same-sex love (at least
popular novels. Lesbians as a group tend to be among men) was not only accepted, but also given
highly self-conscious and ironically self-referential; religious validation and important educational and
along with other minority cultures, they have rec- social functions. The socially validated expression
ognized the destabilizing potential of parody Hav- of male homosexuality involved the love of an older
ing a sense of humor is an essential survival tool man for a youth and was seen as part of the youths
for lesbians, necessary to deflect some of the dam- initiation into full manhood. Its purpose was the
age that dominant homophobic and misogynistic transfer of phallic potency from the older to the
discourses inflict upon them. Thus, lesbian crime younger. What little evidence there is suggests that,
novels, by their double deflationary gazeat the in female-female relationships, the dominance/sub-
sex/gender system and at lesbians themselves mission pattern so central to male-male love was
swing the two-headed axe liberally not just to de- absent. Although the written accounts of classical
stroy, but also to carve out and recombine new mythology reflect male perspectives, study of
kinds of identities for lesbians to inhabit. nonliterary sources and imaginative reconstruction
The crime novel, with its legacy of socialist cri- have enabled contemporary feminist scholars to dis-
tique (Dashiell Hammett [18941961], creator of the cover something of what the tales and rituals may
famous detective Sam Spade, for example, was a have meant to the women of the ancient world.
Communist), its formal relationship to parody, and Aside from Sapphos poetry, the only explicit
its tendency to produce antiheroic narratives, con- literary reference to love between women appears
tains elements favorable to countercultural appropria- in the myth in Platos (427?347? B.C.E.) Sympo-
tion. But the lesbian crime novel had its heyday un- sium about the primordial round people (some
der the individualistic era of Reaganism/Thatcherism of whom were hermaphrodite, some male, some
during the 1980s, often posing a response to crime female), who were cut in two as punishment for
and social problems in the form of personal, rather daring to challenge the gods. The same desire for
than structural, acts of justice. This did not gel with reunion with their lost other half is said to ani-
the more communitarian impulses of 1970s lesbian mate the yearning of heterosexuals, of homosexual
feminism, nor with the coalition activisms of the late men, and of lesbians.
1980s and the 1990s. The limits of its political vi- Both Amazons and Maenads are mythical
sion, although palliative, meant that few of these fic- groups of women sexually involved with each other.
tions endured into the 1990s. Sally R.Munt The Amazons were a society composed entirely of
women whose sexuality was mostly lived out
Bibliography among themselves, although once a year they would
Munt, Sally R. Murder by the Book: Feminism and seek out the men of neighboring tribes for inter-
the Crime Novel. London and New York: course, solely for the sake of reproduction. Girl
Routledge, 1994. children were kept and raised; boys were either
Palmer, Paulina. The Lesbian Feminist Thriller and exposed to the elements and left to die or sent away.
Detective Novel. In What Lesbians Do in Because to master the Amazons sexually was seen
Books. Ed. Hobby Elaine and Chris White. as an essential part of challenging their monstrous
London: Womens Press, 1991, pp. 927. claim to live as self-sufficient women, many myths
show the most celebrated Greek heroes testing their
See also Pulp Paperbacks; Wittig, Monique manhood against the fearsome Amazon warriors.
Myths picture the Maenads as women who tem-
porarily left their conjugal lives to be with one an-
Mythology, Classical other for a ritual period, during which they were
References in Greek and Roman mythology and free to release energies ordinarily suppressed.
ritual to same-sex love among women. There is lit- Maenadic enthusiasm was a communal, not an
tle historical evidence available about erotic rela- individual, experience. Participation in the ecstatic
tionships among women in classical Greece and, rites represented an initiation of women by women
aside from the poetry of Sappho (ca. 600 B.C.E.), into womens own sexuality, into arousal for its
no written accounts by women of their own experi- own sake. The excesses sometimes associated with

M Y T H O L O G Y, C L A S S I C A L 525
 maenadic frenzy were understood to express what Callisto responded to his first kisses but drew back
M happens when women are cut off from access to
their own desire and power and from one another.
in horror when she felt his erection. She fought him
off with all her strength, but Zeus had his way with
Several of the Greek goddeses are involved with her and left her ashamed and pregnant. When Artemis
women in ways that illuminate some aspect of same discovered what had happened, she banished the
sex love. None are shown as fitting easily into the nymph. Callistos unsurprised responsiveness to what
normative pattern of heterosexual relationship. she takes to be Artemiss embrace suggests that the
Myths describe Demeter as a determinedly nymph considered physical contact with the goddess
womanidentified goddess who allows Zeus to fa- comfortable and familiar. Given Artemiss identifica-
ther her child but refuses him any participation in tion with the female body and with the instinctual,
the childs rearing. Her daughter, Persephone, is to the relationship between her and the nymphs was
be hers alone and to be the object of all her love. clearly not viewed simply as a spiritual bond. But to
Demeter hopes to maintain their closeness forever understand this bond in primarily erotic terms would
and to protect their bond from any male intruder. be to misunderstand Artemis, who is essentially
Almost inevitably, her daughter ends up being ab- chaste, virginal, and solitary, who does not give her-
ducted by the male god of the underworld, Hades, self to any other, male or female, and who, as the
and Demeter ends up devastated. Nonetheless, myth suggests, can be unforgiving toward those who
what is most important about Demeter is her asso- do, even unwillingly.
ciation with the love that flows between mothers Though Artemis was the goddess of the Ama-
and daughters and, more generally, between one zons, Aphrodite was the goddess of Sappho. God-
woman and another. The major all-womens ritual dess of all erotic love, all sensual pleasure, all de-
associated with Demeter encouraged abandonment. light in beauty, Aphrodite, rather than Artemis, is
It gave participants an opportunity to vent their the goddess most associated with the explicitly
anger against men and to indulge in obscenity erotic, physical, orgasmic dimension of love among
that is, in a taboo-free sexuality. In the temple of women. She blesses all lovemaking that is dedi-
the mother, all was permitted. Demeter reconnected cated to mutual enjoyment (rather than to domi-
her worshipers to a time when there were no nation of another or to procreation), whether mari-
boundaries, when lover and beloved were one. tal or adulterous, heterosexual or homosexual,
There is no agreed-upon evidence of rituals in between men or between women. Though not spe-
ancient Greece in which pubertal girls were initi- cifically a goddess of women, she models womens
ated into female sexuality and identity by older affirmation of their own sexuality as powerful,
women parallel to the male pattern. Many schol- beautiful, and sacred. Sappho and Plato valued her
ars believe that an initiation into female sexuality association with a love that is not just physical but
that would help prepare a young girl for marriage truly directed toward the others being, the others
may have played an important role in Sapphos soul. They saw her as perhaps more truly present
circle. Plutarch attests that, in archaic Sparta, edu- in same-sex love than in heterosexual love because
cation for womanhood involved sexual relation- the latter was, in ancient Greece, viewed primarily
ships between aristocratic women and young girls. in relation to physical reproduction, not to emo-
In the classical period, Athenian maidens were sent tional intimacy or intellectual stimulation.
to Artemiss temple at Brauron for an extended The Latin poet Ovid (43 B.C.E.A.D. 17/18) re-
initiation just before they reached marriageable age, lates an otherwise unknown myth of a womans love
and there are hints that the priestesses there may for a woman. The story begins with a poor peasant
have presided over sexual initiations. telling his pregnant wife that he hopes their child
A virgin goddess, Artemis claims her sexuality is will be a son, for if they have a girl they will be
her own, not possessable by any man. Refusing all forced to expose her. The wife is in despair until the
association with men, she spends her time alone or in goddess Isis comes to her and, telling her not to
the company of her nymphs, maidens dedicated to worry, advises her that, if she has a daughter, she
remain virgins, to stay true to the virginal goddess. should simply deceive her husband and raise her as
One day, Zeus came upon Callisto, Artemiss favorite a boy. The woman gives birth to a girl, Iphis, whom
nymph, alone in the forest and desired her. Knowing she rears as the goddess had advised. All goes well
she would not accept advances from a man, he dis- until Iphis turns thirteen and the father arranges a
guised himself as Artemis and was warmly welcomed. marriage with lanthe, the most beautiful girl on the

526 M Y T H O L O G Y, C L A S S I C A L
island. The two had gone to school together and humankind to the existence of a specific river or
already love each other. Ianthe is happy and looks mountain range. As such, mythic narratives serve a
forward to marrying the boy she already loved, but number of ideological purposes: They provide con-
Iphis, of course, knows that she is really a girl in crete explanations of philosophical and metaphysi-
love with another like herself. She believes her love cal issues, such as the cause of good and evil or the
to be a strange and unnatural love that none has meaning of truth; they establish and reinforce a
known before and that cannot happily be consum- variety of social institutions and mores, including
mated. Her mother, too, is in despair; she cannot gender roles, sexual norms, and kinship systems; and
postpone the wedding forever. Finally, the two go they influence a communitys religious institutions
to the temple, and the mother asks Isis to come to and experiences. Myths function on several levels:
her aid again. As they walk home together, Iphis For some peopleespecially those within the spe-
begins to take longer strides, her features sharpen, cific culture in which the myths originatethey are
she becomes a man. The myth recognizes the love believed to be literally true; for others, they represent
the two girls feel for each other and shows the con- unsophisticated, inaccurate, naive beliefs and a nos-
fusion this engenders in Iphis, who does not know talgic worldview; and for others, myths reveal arche-
that women have ever before been drawn to women. typal and psychological truths about human nature.
Like the male authors of the classical world who Nonclassical mythologys prehistorical status
cannot imagine sexuality without a phallus, Iphis creates a number of problems for twentieth-cen-
cannot imagine how such a love might be lived out tury people, especially those trained in Western
except by her becoming a man. In Ovids myth, les- educational systems. To begin with, because these
bian desire is acknowledged but not the possibility stories were transmitted orally from generation to
of its fulfillment. Christine Downing generation and subtly reshaped to meet each gen-
erations changing needs, as well as each cultures
Bibliography interactions with other cultures, they have under-
Cantarella, Eva. Bisexuality in the Ancient World. gone many undocumented alterations. These
New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992. changes make it impossible to attain absolute
Dover, K.J. Greek Homosexuality. Cambridge, knowledge about the original myths. And, because
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978. these revisions reflect the perspectives of increas-
Downing, Christine. Myths and Mysteries of ingly male-dominated, hierarchical power struc-
SameSex Love. New York: Continuum, 1989. tures and social systems, the commonly accepted
twentieth-century versions contain a deeply embed-
See also Amazons; Antiquity; Classical Literature ded masculine, Eurocentric bias. In such accounts,
complex female images with multiple forms and
functions have been altered both by the successive
Mythology, Nonclassical generations of patriarchal cultures who inherited
Mythologythe prehistorical origin accounts of and revised the various mythic systems and by nine-
superhuman, often divine, beings and eventshas teenth- and twentieth-century Western scholars
its source in each cultures oral traditions and ex- who recorded and interpreted nonclassical myth.
ists in numerous literary and nonliterary forms. Whereas prepatriarchal goddess figures repre-
Although English-speaking peoples in Western cul- sented highly sophisticated female beings with the
tures generally associate mythology with the Greco- power to create, destroy, and regenerate, their pa-
Roman tradition, nonclassical mythology, which triarchal versions have been heterosexualized and
encompasses the origin stories derived from transformed into benign mother goddesses and
preclassical Indo-European and non-European cul- omnipotent male gods, redefined to indicate the
tures, can be found throughout the world and pro- dangers of female sexuality and control, or in other
vides a rich source of alternative imagery and ways simplified and disempowered. Thus, for ex-
worldviews. ample, when the Aztecs conquered the Toltecs, they
divided Coatlicue, a Mesoamerican creatrix figure
Characteristics with all-inclusive, cosmic powers, into two parts:
Generally, mythologies are associated with a cultures As Tlazolteotl/Coatlicue, she was restricted to the
foundational accounts; they explain the beginnings underworld and reduced to the embodiment of
of everything, from the universe, divine beings, and darkness, materiality, and female evil; as Tontantsi/

M Y T H O L O G Y, N O N C L A S S I C A L 527
 Guadalupe, she was purified and transformed into masculine bias has had a negative impact on women.
M the good mother and heterosexual consort of
more powerful male gods. After the Spanish con-
Because mythology embodies deep-seated, often
unacknowledged, and, therefore, unquestioned cul-
quest, this latter mythic figure underwent further tural assumptions about human nature, value sys-
changes; she was Christianized and identified with tems, and social structures, patriarchally shaped
Mary, the holy virgin mother. Similarly, Kali Ma mythic stories play a powerfulthough rarely rec-
the Hindu Triple Goddess who, in her earliest forms ognizedrole in naturalizing womens insubordi-
held unlimited power to create, protect, and de- nate status. And, by focusing on womens relation-
stroyis now known to Western readers prima- ships to men, such myths normalize and reinforce
rily as an entirely destructive, terrifying female fig- heterosexual systems of gender.
ure and the wife of Shiva. Her all-encompassing Twentieth-century women have reacted to these
powers have been redistributed to three male gods: misogynist depictions of women in a number of in-
Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva terrelated ways: They critique how the existing (mas-
the destroyer. In other instances, such as the Mayan culine) mythic stories silence women; they appro-
mates and partners Xmucane and Xpiyacoc, female priate and transform patriarchal myths by permit-
divinities who together created the world are ting the women silenced in these accounts to tell
changed into heterosexual couples. Western-trained their side of the story; they recover previously erased
scholars have further diminished prepatriarchal stories and perspectives; and they invent new myths
female figures power by attributing it to non-West- valorizing female power. Despite the many differ-
ern cultures superstitious, inaccurate worldviews. ences among them, these various forms of revision-
Parthenogenic goddess figures such as the Laguna ist mythmaking are motivated by the belief that
Keres Thought Woman, the Old European Bird myth, when reshaped to provide positive represen-
Goddess, and the Navajo Hard Beings Woman tations of women, can bring about concrete mate-
whose creative powers had their source in their own rial change. Nonclassical mythology plays a vital
bodies or minds, with no need for male insemina- role in this revisionary process, for it offers a wide
tionwere redefined as fertility goddesses created variety of non-Western perspectives on gender roles,
by simpleminded tribal peoples incapable of rec- sexual norms, and female identities. By reclaiming
ognizing mens role in reproduction. and rewriting the stories of Lilith, Kali, and other
mythic figures, twentieth-century women scholars
Feminist Critiques and creative writers challenge patriarchal construc-
Not surprisingly, then, Gloria Anzalda (1942), tions of womanhood and invent new descriptions
Mary Daly (1928), Adrienne Rich (1929), and of reality that affirm womens experiences. Their
many other feminists have argued that, in its patri- revisionist myths offer new models for female sub-
archal Western versions, mythology is inhospitable ject formation: Women see themselves differently;
to women. Whereas men find a wide range of male they identify with these mythic female images of the
gods and heroes engaged in an equally wide variety divine and recognize the sacredness of their own
of actions with which to identify, women do not. being. No longer silenced by feelings of inferiority,
Instead, they find a series of passive female mythic they reject masculinist definitions and begin affirm-
figures who function primarily as brides, wives, ing their own power.
mothers, and daughters of the male gods and he-
roes, often as the reward at the end of the quest or Lesbian Mythmaking
the helpless victim in need of salvation. When For self-identified lesbians, revisionist mythmaking
women are portrayed as powerful agents, their takes on an additional purpose as well, for it al-
power is often undermined and viewed as negative. lows them to move beyond the existing hetero-
In JudeoChristian tradition, for example, Eve, the sexual system of gendered relations and invent al-
woman created to fulfill Adams need for compan- ternative definitions of female identity and power
ionship, is associated with temptation, the fall from that celebrate womens same-sex relationships.
Paradise, and the introduction of evil into the world. Nonclassical mythology offers an especially wide
Lilith, the woman who, in Jewish creation accounts, range of strong, nonheterosexual female images for
was created to be Adams mate yet rejected his sexual twentieth-century lesbian writers. In Another
advances, has been entirely erased from Christian Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay Worlds (1984),
origin stories and demonized in Jewish myth. This for instance, Judy Grahn (1940) uses a variety of

528 M Y T H O L O G Y, N O N C L A S S I C A L
non-Western mythic figures, including the South nonbiological creative powers undermines readers
Asian Indian goddess Kamar, the Brazilian-West heterosexist assumptions.
African Oya, and the Hebrew goddess Daath, to This retrieval of Native American, West Afri-
validate lesbian womens spiritual and historical can, and other nonclassical mythic figures enables
roots. Similarly, by reclaiming and rewriting West Allen, Lorde, Grahn, and other twentieth-century
African mythology, Audre Lorde (19341992) si- women writers to intervene in existing systems of
multaneously critiques existing conceptions of heterosexually gendered meaning. Their mythic
womanhood modeled on European beauty stand- women represent an innovative departure from
ards and social roles and invents new definitions those reclaimed from classical mythology. By re-
that more accurately reflect her own experiences placing Europeanbased, masculine images of be-
as a lesbian woman of African descent. Like Lorde nign Mother Goddesses and other male-identified
and Grahn, Paula Gunn Allen (1939) uses revi- mythic women, they challenge Western cultures
sionist mythmaking to subvert the dominant ide- ethnocentric bias and provide all women with new
ologys male, heterosexist, Western bias. Through- models of subject formation. AnaLouise Keating
out The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in
American Indian Traditions (1986), her collection Bibliography
of academic essays, she exposes the sexism and eth- Alarcn, Norma. Chicanas Feminist Literature:
nocentrism in English-speaking scholars interpre- A Re-Vision Through Malintzin/or Malintzin:
tations of indigenous mythologies and maintains Putting Flesh Back on the Object. In This
that their references to fertility goddesses and het- Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical
erosexually paired mythic figures represent later Women of Color. Ed. Cherre Moraga and
patriarchal interjections into earlier gynecentric Gloria Anzalda. Watertown, Mass.:
texts. Drawing on a wide variety of indigenous Persephone, 1981. New York: Kitchen Table:
North American mythologies, she describes her Women of Color Press, 1983, pp. 182190.
mythic figures in distinctly nonheterosexual terms. Anzalda, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The
When she retells the Laguna Pueblo creation story New Mestiza. San Francisco: Spinsters/Aunt
of Tse che nako, or Thought Woman, for exam- Lute, 1987.
ple, she emphasizes that creation did not occur Keating, AnaLouise. Women Reading Women
through heterosexual biological reproduction, but, Writing: Self-Invention in Paula Gunn Allen,
rather, through Thought Womans intellectual and Gloria Anzalda, and Audre Lorde. Philadel-
linguistic powers. And when she retells the Navajo phia: Temple University Press, 1996.
creation story of Hard Beings Woman, she points Walker, Barbara G. The Womans Encyclopedia of
out that creation did not result from male/female Myths and Secrets. San Francisco: Harper and
sexual intercourse, but from the merger of two Row, 1983.
feminine elementswoman and water. Although
Allen does not explicitly lesbianize these female See also Allen, Paula Gunn; Anzalda, Gloria E.;
creatrix figures, her repeated emphasis on their Grahn, Judy; Lorde, Audre; Rich, Adrienne

M Y T H O L O G Y, N O N C L A S S I C A L 529
N
Naiad Press Naiad in the 1980s), it has also published numer-
Lesbian publishing house. Cofounded by Barbara ous nonf iction works and reference volumes. Such
Grier (1933) and Donna J.McBride (1940) in publications as Anita Cornwells Black Lesbian in
January 1973, Naiad Press is the largest and most White America (1983), Jeannette Fosters Sex Vari-
enduring lesbian publishing company in the world. ant Women in Literature (1985), Rosemary Curbs
In its first twenty-three years of operation, Naiad and Nancy Manahans Lesbian Nuns: Breaking
published 350 titles. Its mailing list comprises more Silence (1985), and Clare Potters The Lesbian
than 26,400 people, and its books are carried by Periodicals Index (1986) attest to the range of les-
more than 2,800 booksellers worldwide. Since its bian expression that Naiad fosters.
creation, Naiad has been committed to providing Even as Naiad Press has expanded, branching
readers with affirmative lesbian materials, to reis- out into video sales, it continues to prove that pub-
suing lesbian classics, and to keeping its titles from lishing lesbian books is good business.
going out of print. Alisa Klinger
In October 1972, following the dissolution of
The Ladder (19561972), Grier and McBride bor- Bibliography
rowed $2,000 in seed money from Anyda Brandt, Kate. Barbara Grier: Climbing The Ladder
Marchant (1911) and Muriel Crawford (1914) to Success: Naiad Press. In Happy Endings: Les-
to start a lesbian publishing house. Marchant, who bian Writers Talk About Their Lives and Work.
had contributed to the final two issues of The Lad- Tallahassee, Fla.: Naiad, 1993, pp. 99108.
der under the pen name Sarah Aldridge, provided Gambill, Sue. The Worlds Oldest and Largest
the press with its first three titles. The Ladder mail- Lesbian-Feminist Publishing House Naiad
ing list furnished Naiad with its initial market for Press. Hot Wire 3:2 (March 1987), 1819, 59.
its publications. Grier and McBride, both working Klinger, Alisa Margaret. Paper Uprisings: Print
at day jobs, ran the press from their home in Kan- Activism in the Multicultural Lesbian Move-
sas City, Missouri, before moving it to Tallahassee, ment. Ph.D. diss., University of California at
Florida, in 1980. It was not until 1982 that the Berkeley, 1995.
cofounders began to run the enterprise full-time
and to draw salaries from the business. See also Businesses, Lesbian; Cornwell, Anita; Fos-
The success of Naiad Press is largely due to its ter, Jeannette Howard; Grier, Barbara; Ladder, The;
concentration on genre fiction with positive les- Mystery and Detective Fiction; Publishing, Lesbian;
bian content. Mysteries and romances, plot-driven Rule, Jane Vance; Shockley, Ann Allen
narrative forms that are both popular and profit-
able, account for much of Naiads list. Although
Naiad is best known for its fiction, particularly Namibia
novels by Katherine V.Forrest, Lee Lynch, Jane An arid country situated on the west coast of south-
Rule, Dianne Salvatore, Ann Allen Shockley, and ern Africa. Namibia was sparsely inhabited by a
Sheila Ortiz Taylor (all of whom published with number of different African peoples when it was

NAMIBIA 531
 colonized by Germany in 1884. After World War rights as part of its feminist multiissue politics.
N I, Namibia was placed under British mandate but
was administered and economically exploited by
From 1993, articles, short stories, poems, and let-
ters dealing with lesbian life and lesbian issues have
whiteruled South Africa until 1989. been published in the bimonthly Sister Namibia
Even before colonization, Christian missionar- magazine, as well as in an anthology of womens
ies from Europe were active in Namibia, combat- writings produced by the collective in 1994.
ing traditional beliefs and practices such as po- In 1997, the Sister Namibia Collective received
lygyny with nineteenth-century European moral- one of the three Felipa de Souza Awards of the In-
ity and Christian beliefs. South Africa subsequently ternational Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Com-
imposed its rule of apartheid onto Namibians. mission. The same year saw the birth of the Rain-
The traditional powers and rights of women bow Project, in which lesbians and gays in Namibia
vary among the different African peoples in Na- began to join together to fight for their rights.
mibia, with several having a history of women rul- Liz Frank
ers. However, under the Roman-Dutch law intro-
duced by South Africa, married women became Bibliography
legal minors, dependent on their husbands per- Falk, Kurt. Homosexualitat bei den Eingeborenen
mission to engage in any kind of legal transactions. in Sudwest-Afrika (Homosexuality Among the
During the long struggle for liberation, women Indigenous Peoples of South West Africa). In
experienced empowerment, in particular, through Geschlecht und Gesellschaft (Sex and Society)
their political and military involvement. Womens 13 (1926), 203214.
equality became part of the liberation agenda. But Frank, Liz, and Elizabeth Khaxas. Black Sisters:
until 1990, political independence remained the Lesben (Lesbians). In Namibia: Frauen
paramount goal. mischen sich ein (Namibia: The involvement of
Since independence, the Namibian government Women). Ed. Florence Herve. Berlin: Orlanda
has been active in abolishing legal discrimination Frauenverlag, 1993, pp. 107111.
against women and has shown concern over the . Lesbians in Namibia. In Amazon to Zami:
rising tide of violence against women and children. Towards a Global Lesbian Feminism. Ed.
However, contrary to the new ethos of equality and Monika Reinfelder. London and New York:
human rights enshrined in Namibias constitution, Cassell, 1996, pp. 109117.
the state president and a number of senior minis-
ters have lashed out repeatedly against any public See also South Africa
manifestations of homosexuality, claiming it to be
an immoral and un-African import from the West.
Research published in 1926 by the German Kurt National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF)
Falk shows that homosexuality existed not only A national organization, based in Washington,
among men working as migrant laborers in the D.C., whose goal is the creation of a society in
diamond fields or other mines, but also among which lesbians and gay men can live openly, free
women and men in all Namibian communities he from violence, bigotry, and discrimination. Since
visited. As of the late 1990s, no other research had its founding in 1973, NGLTFs main activities have
been conducted, but a growing number of focused on lobbying, research, and education.
Namibian lesbians and gays were coming out to An early victory for the Task Force came in
the nation as proud African homosexuals in re- 19731974 when its efforts helped persuade the
sponse to the attacks of the politicians. American Psychiatric Association to declassify ho-
Support for lesbian and gay rights has been slow mosexuality as a mental illness. In 1975, NGLTF
to develop in the newly independent country, which lobbying led to the United States Civil Service Com-
is still divided racially, ethnically, culturally, and missions ruling that officially allowed lesbians and
economically by the legacies of apartheid and co- gay men to serve as federal employees. The groups
lonial rule. Most womens and other groups are successes in the congressional arena include lob-
engaged in single-issue struggles to overcome pov- bying efforts to defeat the 1981 Family Protection
erty, violence, or AIDS. Act, increase AIDS funding and programming, re-
The Sister Namibia Collective, founded in 1989, move restrictions against the immigration of lesbi-
is the first organization to speak out for lesbian ans and gay men in the 1990 Immigration Reform

532 NAMIBIA
Act, include people with AIDS and HIV infection Bibliography
in the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, and Adam, Barry D. The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian
include crimes against lesbians and gay men in the Movement. Boston: G.K.Hall, 1987.
1990 Hate Crimes Statistics Act. Items remaining Blumenfeld, Warren J., and Diane Raymond. Look-
on NGLTFs congressional agenda include the ex- ing at Gay and Lesbian Life. Boston: Beacon,
tension of civil rights protections to gay men and 1988. 2nd ed. New York: Farrar, Straus, and
lesbians, recognition and protection of lesbian and Giroux, 1993.
gay family relationships, and elimination of dis- Marcus, Eric. Making History: The Struggle for
crimination in the military. Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights, 19451990: An
NGLTF also provides support for organizations Oral History. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
throughout the country in their attempts to enact Moratta, Toby. The Politics of Homosexuality.
state and local laws decriminalizing lesbian and gay Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981.
sex, recognizing and protecting domestic partner- Vaid, Urvashi. Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming
ships and lesbian and gay parenting, and banning of Gay and Lesbian Liberation. New York:
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Anchor, 1995.
Since 1988, NGLTF has held annual Creating
Change conferences, which bring together lesbian See also Associations and Organizations; Daugh-
and gay activists from around the country for skill ters of Bilitis; Gay Liberation Movement
building and strategy sessions.
In the area of research and education, NGLTF
and the NGLTF Policy Institute collect, analyze, National Organization for Women (NOW)
and distribute information on a variety of issues, The National Organization for Women (NOW) is
including employment and violence. In 1984, the the largest womens rights group in the United States
organization released the first national survey of and focuses on promoting equality for all women.
violence directed against lesbians and gay men.
NGLTF updated that report in 1986 and has pro- History
duced and distributed annual reports about vio- NOW was formed on October 29, 1966, during a
lence against gays and lesbians since then. In the luncheon of women at the National Conference of
area of employment, the organization has con- State Commissions in Washington, D.C. NOW was
ducted surveys to identify employment discrimi- created when conference participants were blocked
nation, produced informational brochures for em- from passing a resolution pressing the Equal Em-
ployers about lesbian and gay employees, and co- ployment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) to
authored a 1995 book on the best and worst com- use greater force in investigating sex-discrimina-
panies in the United States for gays and lesbians to tion cases. Founding members include Betty
work. Friedan (1921), author of the Feminist Mystique
While it was founded under the name the Na- (1963); lawyer and civil rights activist Pauli Murray
tional Gay Task Force (NGTF), adding the word (19101985); and Kay Clarenbach (19211994),
lesbian to its title only in 1985, both lesbians head of the Wisconsin Commission on the Status
and gay men have played key leadership roles on of Women.
the board and staff of the organization since its Modeled after the National Association for the
inception. Founders and early board members re- Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), NOW
flected the variety of gay and lesbian politics dur- had as its original goal the expansion of womens
ing the 1970s. Among them were activists from economic rights and responsibilities by fighting sex
the Daughters of Bilitis and the Mattachine Soci- discrimination in the workforce. In one of its first
ety (homophile organizations founded in the actions, NOW pressured the EEOC to end the prac-
1950s), lesbian feminists, and activists from gay tice of sex-segregated help-wanted advertisements
liberation organizations founded after the Stone- in newspapers. Along with employment and eco-
wall Rebellion of 1969. Among the lesbians who nomic issues, NOW eventually formed task forces
have served as executive director or codirector are to deal with areas of discrimination in education
Jean OLeary, Virginia Apuzzo, Urvashi Vaid, and religion, family rights, womens image in the
Tone Osborne, Peri Jude Radecic, and Melinda mass media, political rights and responsibilities, and
Paras. Davida J.Alperin problems facing poor women.

N AT I O N A L O R G A N I Z AT I O N F O R W O M E N ( N O W ) 533
 Starting with twenty-seven members, the found- In the 1980s, the organization put much of its
N ing mothers originally intended to create a small
group of activists who could work quickly to ef-
efforts into maintaining abortion rights for all
women. NOW organized efforts to stop antichoice
fect change through the legal system. However, the activists from blocking access to womens health
organization began to grow: NOW had three hun- clinics by training members as clinic defenders. In
dred members by the end of 1967, three thousand 1994, the organization won a Supreme Court vic-
by 1970, and 46,500 by 1974. A combination of tory in NOW v. Schiedler. The ruling found that
events in the 1980s and 1990s increased the mem- antiracketeering laws could be applied against
bership to 250,000. Those events included the 1987 antichoice activists restricting patients and staff
nomination of Robert Bork to the United States from entering clinics. NOW continues to work on
Supreme Court, the erosion of abortion rights in other issuesopposing racism, ending sexual har-
the late 1980s, and the 1991 Anita Hill-Clarence assment, and stopping violence against women, to
Thomas sexual harassment hearings. name a few.
The second wave of the womens movement NOW embraces both traditional and
in the 1970s developed in two different branches, nontraditional forms of activism. Activists on all
of which NOW is characterized as belonging to levels do electoral, judicial, and legislative work,
the older, more mainstream branch. The younger, such as bringing lawsuits, lobbying officials, sup-
more radical branch of the movement developed, porting feminist candidates, and running for of-
to a large degree, from the New Left and focused fice themselves. NOW has also organized rallies,
on womens liberation from the system. The mass marches, pickets, and civil-disobedience ac-
older, more mainstream branch emphasized wom- tions. In 1978, an estimated 100,000 people
ens rights within the system. However, with the marched for the ERA in Washington, D.C. The
demise of many radical groups and an influx of March for Womens Lives, in 1992, drew an esti-
younger women into the organization in the late mated 750,000 participants. On both the local and
1970s, NOW came to be seen as the main organi- the national level, NOW encouraged activists to
zation of the womens movement. participate in zap actions (demonstrations re-
The first members of NOW were primarily sponding quickly to womens rights issues).
white, middle-class women who were mostly mid- NOWs structure is hierarchical with a small
dle-aged, married, and had working experience. In national level, intermediate state and regional lev-
the 1990s, NOW continued working to become a els, and a large and loosely structured grass-roots
more racially diverse organization. level. NOWs expansion from the national to the
grass roots was not without problems. The first chap-
Characteristics ters were formed in the late 1960s and the early
NOW continues to work on issues of employment 1970s, and, in the following years, tension between
discrimination, in particular gaining recognition for the national and the local levels rose because of such
the value of womens work both inside and outside issues as the division of members dues. In 1998,
the home. Related to these concerns is NOWs con- NOW had 550 chapters, fifty state groups, nine re-
tinuing goal of passing the Equal Rights Amend- gional groups, and thirty staff members.
ment (ERA). In the 1970s, NOW joined other or- At yearly national conferences, the membership
ganizations in working to pass the amendment. decides NOWs policies and goals. This style of
Despite the ERAs failure, the national and statelevel leadership has sometimes resulted in dissension and
efforts encouraged thousands of women and men controversy. When the issues of the ERA and abor-
to join the organization and brought about the for- tion came up at the second annual conference, in
mation of a feminist activist network. The process 1968, the membership splintered. Arguing that the
of working for the ERA convinced NOW leaders issues were too controversial and diverted NOW
that more women needed to become part of the from its original intent, some members formed the
political process. NOW began to press for women, more conservative Womens Equity Action League.
especially feminists, to run for political office at a
variety of levels. In 1992, NOW encouraged voters Lesbians in NOW
angry at the chipping away of abortion rights and Since NOWs inception in 1966, lesbians have been
the United States Senates treatment of law profes- members of the organization. Yet many felt pres-
sor Anita Hill to Elect Women for a Change. sured to keep their sexuality hidden from the public

534 N AT I O N A L O R G A N I Z AT I O N F O R W O M E N ( N O W )
and other NOW members. From 1968 to 1971, Bibliography
the issue threatened to divide the group. Several Garden, Maren Lockwood. The New Feminist
prominent lesbian leaders resigned from the organi- Movement. New York: Russell Sage Founda-
zation because of NOWs unwillingness to address tion, 1974.
lesbian rights. In 1968, Ti-Grace Atkinson, presi- Davis, Flora. Moving the Mountain: The Womens
dent of New York City NOW, left to form The Movement in America. New York: Simon and
Feminists, a more militant group. In 1969, Rita Schuster, 1991.
Mae Brown forced NOW to confront lesbian is- Deckard, Barbara. The Womens Movement. New
sues at a panel discussion on women discriminat- York: Harper and Row, 1979.
ing against other women. Afterward, Brown was Friedan, Betty. It Changed My Life: Writings on
told not to talk about the issue and consequently the Womens Movement. New York: Random
resigned from NOW. House, 1976.
Responding to rumors that lesbians wanted to
take over the organization and change its focus to See also Associations and Organizations; Brown,
lesbian rights, then-president Betty Friedan called Rita Mae; Radicalesbians; Womens Liberation
lesbianism a lavender menace threatening the
Movement
credibility of the womens movement and detract-
ing from the purpose of NOW. Friedan later re-
called, I didnt want to be a straight woman
Native Americans
fronting for a lesbian cabal. I didnt want the issue
Intimate relationships between females have been (and
to surface and divide the organization (1976).
are) a feature of many Native nations of North
In a defining action at the 1970 Second Congress
America. Because traditional Native American
to Unite Women, a number of lesbians took over the
understandings of gender and sexuality do not nec-
stage wearing lavender T-shirts identifying them as
essarily correspond with Western conceptions, it is
the Lesbian Menace. They were joined by other
women from the audience. They later formed the difficult to label such females as women or such
group Radicalesbians. After much infighting, debate, relationships as lesbian in the Euro-American sense
and conflict, the organization passed a resolution in of these terms. Each American Indian society has its
the 1970s stating that a womans right to her own own words for female (and male) twospirited peo-
person includes the right to define and express her ple, along with culturally specific understandings
own sexuality and to choose her own lifestyle; there- of them. The Mojave, for instance, have four differ-
fore[,] we acknowledge the oppression of lesbians as ent gender roles: female, male, hwame (female two-
a legitimate concern of feminism. spirit), and alyha (male twospirit). While the hwame
Since then lesbian rights have been one of is physiologically female, she does not generally en-
NOWs priority issues and was the theme of na- gage in gender-role activities appropriate to women.
tional conferences in 1984 and 1988. In addition, Nor is the hwames partner considered a lesbian in
lesbians are a visible presence in the leadership of the Western sense. She is a woman, and her partners
NOW. For instance, lesbian Rosemary Dempsey are as likely to be male as they are to be female. The
came to NOW for assistance with her 1979 cus- case of the Mojave should not be taken as illustrative
tody case and later became a national officer. of all Native American traditional understandings of
Despite NOWs attention to lesbian rights and gender and sexuality, however. It does demonstrate,
lesbian leadership, the connection drawn between though, the limitations of Euro-American concepts
feminism and lesbianism continues to plague the for discussing lesbianism, homosexuality, bisexual-
organization. When President Patricia Ireland ad- ity, and transgenderism in American Indian commu-
mitted to having a female companion in 1991, nities.
antifeminist groups used her admission as evidence While each First Nation has its own words for
that all feminists are lesbians. Ireland, by not identi- women-loving females and men-loving males, many
fying as a lesbian or bisexual, also stirred debate Native people have begun to use the term two-
among the NOW membership with lesbian and spirited or two spirit in the English language.
progay members feeling betrayed by her lack of Scholars do not know much about two-spirits in
identification, and others seeing her admission as general, and even less is known about female two-
weakening the organizations assertion that it rep- spirits and community regard for them. In part,
resents women of all sexual orientations. Jo Reger information is not available because, for Native

N AT I V E A M E R I C A N S 535
 Americans generally, sex is often considered a pri- changes, hermaphrodite), Papago, Pima,
N vate matter. Where there is information, much of
it is based on accounts by male explorers, mission-
Santo Domingo, Yavapai, Yuma (kwerhame),
and Zuni (katsotsegirl-boy);
aries, and anthropologists, most of whom spoke Subarctic: Carrier, Chipewyan, Cree, Ingalik
with, and observed, men. As outsiders to Ameri- (chelxodelean[e]), Kaska, and Ojibwa
can Indian communities, they generally did not (okitcitakwewoman warrior);
consider womens activities important, and they Plains: Assiniboin, Blackfeet (sakwomapi
did not have the opportunity to interact with fe- akikwanboy-girl), Cheyenne, Crow, Da-
males regularly due to the sex segregation that is kota (koskalakawoman who doesnt
common in Native American societies. It is also marry, although an alternative interpretation
difficult to determine indigenous understandings is male youth or postpubescent male), and
of two-spirited life prior to contact with Europe- Pawnee;
ans. The Christianization of American Indians has Northeast: Illinois (ickoue ne koussahunting
often resulted in communities that, to a greater or women), Ottawa, Potawatomi, and
lesser degree, reflect Euro-American conceptions Winnebago; and
of sexuality and gender, as well as their generally Southeast: Timucua.
negative attitudes toward homosexuality. Loss or
change of indigenous religious traditions through To this GAI list could be added the Bella Coola
acculturation and urbanization has also led to a (Northwest), Yokuts (California), Southern Ute
loss of traditional roles and ways of life, including (Great Basin), and Southern Paiute (Great Basin)
those of the two-spirited. Nonetheless, an impres- (Blackwood [1984]).
sion of this way of life can be gleaned from the While there is variation among American Indian
small but growing literature on the subject. cultures as to the lifeways of two-spirited females,
The Gay American Indian (GAI) History Project some commonalities have been noted. Historically,
began in 1984 to review and index sources report- they often demonstrated an inclination early in child-
ing the existence of female and male two-spirits in hood toward activities appropriate to the male gen-
various North American tribes. By 1988, they had der role, such as hunting and war. Upon observation
found evidence of many First Nations with of these tendencies, the childs relatives may have tried
twospirits, along with terms indicative of them in to discourage her from this path. Such attempts at
indigenous languages. Organized below by region, influencing her may have been limited, however, be-
those nations with a known tradition of female cause of the latitude given for individual differences
twospirits and the native words for them are: and because of the perceived involvement of super-
natural powers in her preferences and talents. For
Alaska: Bering Strait Eskimo and Chugach; instance, visions and dreams may have played a role
Northwest: Haida, Haisla, Nootka, Quileute, in her becoming a two-spirit, especially if she were
Quinault (tawkxwansixwman acting), and from one of the Southwestern nations.
Tlingit; In fact, it is the involvement of such powers that
Columbia Plateau: Flathead (ntalha), Kalispel, particularly differentiates two-spirits from Euro-
Klamath (tw!innaeK), Kutenai (titqattek American lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and
pretending to be a man; kocomenepeca transgendered people. For two-spirits, ones iden-
manlike woman), Lillooet, Okanagon, tity is often based on spiritual and communal
Sanpoil (sintaxlau wamfemale homosexu- orientations, not sexual or affectional ones. Some
ality), and Thompson; twospirits have been known for their spiritual acu-
California: Achumawi, Atsugewi (brumaiwi), Nisenan, men, although two-spirit is by no means syn-
Shasta, Tipai, Wappo, Wintu, Wiyot, Yuki (musp- onymous with medicine woman or medicine
iwap naipwoman mangirl), andYurok; man. Twospirits are not necessarily spiritual lead-
Great Basin: Northern Paiute (moroni noho), ers of any kind. However, a female two-spirits
Shoshoni (nuwuduka, waippu sungwe spiritual strength may have been looked upon
woman half), Ute, and Washo; favorably by potential partners; historical accounts
Southwest: Apache, Cocopa (warhameh), Hopi, report that, because of her relationship with spir-
Isleta, Maricopa (kwiraxame), Mojave its, she is often lucky as a hunter and, hence, a
(hwame), Navajo (ndleehthat which good provider.

536 N AT I V E A M E R I C A N S
 While two-spirits have often worn traditionally she was prosperous. It was also known that she could
male clothing, this practice has not been true for all heal, curing people from venereal diseases.
nations. Some two-spirits engaged exclusively in mens Among the Kutenai in the nineteenth century
work, but there is evidence that, in some cultures, was another well-known two-spirit. After leaving
they performed both womens and mens work. It her homeland and marrying a white man, she re-
should be pointed out, however, that some women, turned home, stating that her husband had trans-
particularly among Plains peoples, participated in formed her into a man. She changed her name to
hunting or warfare, traditionally male pursuits, al- Gone-to-the-spirits and began to wear mens
though these warrior women were not two-spir- clothes, court women, and fight as a warrior. In
ited. Such activities were allowable within their roles the stories passed down about her, she is remem-
as women. Regarding the partners of twospirits, schol- bered for marrying several women and for her su-
ars disagree as to whether, historically, they were usu- pernatural powers. She had the ability to see into
ally women who followed traditional gender roles, the future and to cure illnesses.
including wife and mother, or whether they were two- One final example is of the nineteenth-century
spirited themselves. Blackwood (1984), in her study Crow leader Woman Chief. Though the female
of what she calls cross-gender females in western twospirit tradition is relatively rare among Plains
North America and the Plains, argues that two cross- nations, she was an exception. In actuality, she was
gender females did not marry. Williams (1986), of the Gros Ventre people but had been captured by
though, states that relationships between two the Crows and had lived with them since she was ten
women-identified women were probably more com- years old. Very skilled on horseback, in hunting, and
mon. Marriage has been permitted in many nations, in war, she was known in her adult years for her acts
although more informal relationships between females of bravery, which contributed to her earning the third-
have existed as well. highest rank in the nation. She is said to have at first
A brief look at particular Native American cul- married one woman and later three others.
tures and two-spirits known historically sheds light These accounts may lead one to believe that the
on some of the specifics of being two-spirited. two-spirit tradition is a relic of the past. On the
Among the Kaska of the Subarctic, a daughter might contrary, two-spirits exist today in many Native
be selected to be like a man if a family or commu- nations. Some have established organizations, in-
nity needed a son to hunt. In this case, a female is cluding American Indian Gays and Lesbians
transformed through a ceremony designed to pre- (Minneapolis, Minnesota), Gay American Indians
vent menstruation and pregnancy. Thereafter, she (San Francisco, California), WeWah and
dressed like a man, was taught to do male tasks, BarCheeAmpe (New York City), Gays and Lesbi-
and had sexual relationships with women only. ans of the First Nations (Toronto, Canada), 2-Spir-
The Mojave hwame, mentioned earlier, is said ited People of the First Nations (Toronto, Canada),
to have dreamed about her role in the womb. She and Nichiwakan N.G.S. (Winnipeg, Canada). Oth-
refused to play with girls toys or do traditionally ers have been involved in producing the newsletter
feminine tasks. Through an initiation ritual, she Two Eagles: An International Native American Gay
was authorized to dress, work, and engage in sexu- and Lesbian Quarterly (Minneapolis, Minnesota).
ality appropriate to her gender. The Mojave be- Two-spirited people have also been meeting for the
lieve that she does not menstruate. This may have past several years in international gatherings. One
been the case, although they may have chosen to result of this organizing has been the concerted ef-
ignore it or she may have hidden it from then. In fort to educate scholars, especially in anthropol-
addition to marrying a woman, a hwame could ogy, about indigenous perspectives on two-spirit
become the father of her partners child. If the ways of life (Jacobs et al. 1997).
wife had been impregnated by a man but later Probably the most important and accessible
marries a female two-spirit, the hwame is consid- source for understanding the perspectives of female
ered to be the childs father. two-spirits is the body of literature that they have
One particular hwame was named Sahaykwisa. produced. In Giveaway: Native Lesbian Writers
As a masculine name, it suggests that she had already (1993), Beth Brant (Mohawk) describes some of this
been initiated. Though she was a prostitute for white poetry and prose and its importance to her as a two-
men, she had several wives during her life. Through spirit writer: Being a Native lesbian is like living in
prostitution and her abilities as a hunter and a farmer, the eye of the hurricaneterrible, beautiful, filled

N AT I V E A M E R I C A N S 537
 with sounds and silences, the music of lifeaffirmation See also Allen, Paula Gunn; Indigenous Cultures;
N and the disharmony or life-despising. To balance,
to create in this midst is a gift of honor and respect.
Two-Spirit

Several two-spirit writers are giving such a gift, voic-

ing the complexities that often characterize life on Navratilova, Martina (1956)
the borders between Native and non-Native, tradi- American tennis player. Born in Prague in the
tional spirituality and Christianity, two-spirited ways former Czechoslovakia, Martina Navratilova be-
and lesbianism. In addition to Brant, other well- gan playing tennis as a young child. When she de-
known two-spirited writers of the late twentieth fected to the United States in 1975, Navratilova
century are Paula Gunn Allen (Laguna and Lakota), aspired to be the top women tennis player in the
Chrystos (Menominee), Janice Gould (Maidu), and world. By the time she retired in 1994, she had
Vickie Sears (Cherokee). The works of many others won more overall titles than any other woman or
are beginning to make their way into print as well. man in tennis history. She was the first professional
It is the works of both established and new writers, athlete to proclaim her lesbianism and the only
along with those of their brother two-spirits, that twentieth-century sports legend to become an out-
will revolutionize understandings of two-spirited life, spoken advocate of lesbian and gay rights.
both historically and through the twenty-first cen- Navratilova is an accomplished athlete who
tury. Mary C.Churchill changed the look and style of womens tennis. She
introduced the concepts of healthy eating and
Bibliography physical conditioning to the womens tour. In her
Allen, Paula Gunn. The Sacred Hoop: Recovering twenty-two-year professional career, Navratilova
the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. earned eighteen Grand Slam singles titles, 167 ca-
Boston: Beacon, 1986. reer singles titles (including a record nine Wimble-
Blackwood, Evelyn. Sexuality and Gender in Cer- don titles), and 166 doubles titles (including thirty-
tain Native American Tribes: The Case of Cross- one Grand Slam titles). She held the record for 109
Gender Females. Signs: Journal of Women in consecutive doubles wins (with Pam Shriver [1962
Culture and Society 10:1 (Autumn 1984), 27 ]), and the longest continuous winning streak (sev-
42. enty-four matches). By the end of 1994, when she
Brant, Beth. Giveaway: Native Lesbian Writers. retired, she had won a total of 1,438 matches, and
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Soci- her career earnings exceeded $20 million. She has
ety 18:4 (Summer 1993), 944947. been named Athlete of the Year numerous times,
Brown, Lester B., ed. Two Spirit People: American as well as Athlete of the Decade for the 1980s.
Indian Lesbian Women and Gay Men. New After her retirement, Navratilova served as presi-
York: Haworth, 1997. dent of the Womens Tennis Association Tour Play-
Jacobs, Sue-Ellen, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine ers Association, played in the Virginia Slims Leg-
Lang, eds. Two-Spirit People: Native American ends Tour, and represented the United States in
Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality. Ur- the Federation Cup. She became a television com-
bana: University of Illinois Press, 1997. mentator for Grand Slam tournaments, impress-
Medicine, Beatrice. Warrior WomenSex Roles ing viewers with her insight, candor, and humor.
Alternatives for Plains Indian Women. In The Navratilova reached a wider audience with her
Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. editorials on sexism and homophobia in sports.
Ed. Patricia Labers and Beatrice Medicine. She also published two tennis-themed mysteries,
Lanham, MD: University Press of America, The Total Zone (1995) and Breaking Point (1996),
1983, pp. 267279. and became a leading speaker on the international
Roscoe, Will. Changing Ones: Third and Fourth lecture circuit.
Genders in Native North America. New York: Martina Navratilova has been an influential
St. Martins, 1998. advocate of lesbian and gay civil rights. In 1992,
, ed. Living the Spirit: A Gay American In- she took an active role in working to overturn
dian Anthology. New York: St. Martins, 1988. Colorados Amendment 2, a law that would have
Williams, Walter L. The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual severely curtailed the civil rights of lesbians and
Diversity in American Indian Culture. Boston: gays. At the 1993 National Lesbian, Gay, Bi-
Beacon, 1986. sexual, and Transgendered March on Washington,

538 N AT I V E A M E R I C A N S
 Nazism
Acronym for National Socialism, the political phi-
losophy and movement that dominated Germany
in the years 19331945 and influenced many other
countries throughout Europe and the rest of the
world. Homosexuality was fundamentally con-
demned by National Socialism, because it called into
question Nazi norms of sexual behavior, which were
oriented toward the production of healthy Ary-
ans (Nordic, non-Gypsy gentiles). However, after
the takeover of power in 1933, Nazi policy toward
homosexuals was differentiated. Its aim was not the
physical destruction of all homosexuals, but, rather,
deterrence through punishment. Furthermore,
homosexual men and women were treated differ-
ently. This distinction between the sexes made the
Nazi persecution of homosexuals fundamentally
different in kind from the racial war of destruction
that the regime waged against the Jewish popula-
tion and against Sinti and Roma (Gypsies).
After January 1933, one of the most urgent tasks
for Nazi policy on sexual matters was to destroy
Martina Navratilova. Photo by Greg Gorman. the organized public homosexual movement. In-
Courtesy Linda Dozoretz Communications. formal communications networks were smashed,
and pubs and bars were closed or placed under
surveillance. Raids and denunciations contributed
D.C., Navratilova was a keynote speaker. She spoke to a climate of fear and led many lesbians to with-
passionately about the importance of coming out draw into the private sphere or to break off all of
and being visible as lesbian and gay people: I be- their contacts.
lieve the biggest, strongest weapon of our move- Some lesbians in Nazi Germany were at risk on
ment for equality is visibility, and the best way to the grounds of their ethnic identity, their political af-
get it is to come out. [B]eing a lesbianis what I filiation, or for other reasons. However, for those who
am. Nothing more and nothing less. were not at risk on these grounds, the crucial factor
In 1995, Navratilova became the spokesperson defining the circumstances under which they lived
for the Rainbow Foundation, founded that year. This was their status as women. The Nazi state saw moth-
American-based nonprofit organization donated erhood and marriage as the fundamental destiny of a
more than $100,000 in its first year to lesbian and woman who was Aryan and hereditarily fit. A
gay health, cultural, and civil rights organizations, population policy aimed at increasing the number of
such as the Astraea National Lesbian Action Foun- desirable births was the essential precondition for
dation, the National Breast Cancer Coalition, the the National Socialist goal of conquest through war.
National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Na- After 1933, many of the estimated one million lesbi-
tional Lesbian and Gay Health Association. ans in Germany got married to escape social pressure
In 1996, Navratilova was awarded an honor- and, in some cases, to avoid losing their jobs.
ary doctorate in public service from George Wash- The criminalization of male homosexuality was
ington University. Nanette K.Gartrell never questioned, and the criminal law (paragraph
175 of the criminal code, which since 1851 had
Bibliography criminalized only sexual acts between men) on male
Navratilova, Martina, with George Vecsey. homosexuality was severely tightened up; fifty
Martina. New York: Knopf, 1985. thousand men were convicted on the basis of para-
graph 175, and about fifteen thousand were sent
See also King, Billie Jean Moffitt; Sports, Profes- to concentration camps. Yet the Ministry of Jus-
sional tice decided in 1935 to reject proposals to extend

NAZISM 539
 paragraph 175 to women. (Only in Austria, after forced to leave their homelandeither because of
N the annexation in 1938, did the Nazi regime pros-
ecute lesbians in the courts: In Austria, lesbianism
their involvement in antifascist activities or because
of their Jewish origins. Claudia Schoppmann
had long been a criminal offense.) The ministrys
decision of 1935 was justified with reference to Bibliography
socially defined gender roles. Government officials Grau, Gnter, ed. Hidden Holocaust? Gay and
pointed out that male homosexuality posed a Lesbian Persecution in Germany, 193345.
greater menace than female homosexuality to pub- London: Cassell, 1995.
lic life and political institutions, largely because of Schoppmann, Claudia. Days of Masquerade: Life
womens generally subordinate status and their Stories of Lesbians During the Third Reich.
exclusion from positions of power. Another argu- New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.
ment against the criminalization of female homo- . Nationalsozialistische Sexualpolitik und
sexuality was derived, on the one hand, from as- weibliche Homosexualitt (National Socialist
sumptions about marital relationships and, on the Sexual Politics and Female Homosexuality).
other, from the stereotype of the lesbian who was Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus, 1991. Rev. ed. 1997.
only pseudohomosexual and, thus, curable.
Most lawyers and population experts took the view See also Austria; Germany
that the danger of women being seduced into
homosexuality was less of a danger for the state,
since a woman seduced in this way is not perma- Nestle, Joan (1940)
nently withdrawn from normal sexual intercourse, Essayist, editor, poet, historian, archivist, educator,
but retains her utility for population policy pur- and cofounder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives in
poses (in Schoppmann, 1996). 1973. The Lesbian Herstory Archives resided in
There are only a few known cases in which Nestles Upper West Side Manhattan apartment
women were persecuted because of their lesbian- from 1974 to 1992, with Nestle opening her home
ism; officially, they were usually accused of other and the archives to visitors, researchers, and public
offenses, such as political unreliability or events. Born in the Bronx, Joan Nestle graduated
subversion of national defense. As they were from Queens College of the City University of New
notunlike homosexual menmarked with a pink York in 1963 and earned an M.A. in English from
triangle in concentration camps, their lesbanism New York University in 1965. She taught literature
was kept invisible. Lesbians were probably threat- and composition in the SEEK program at Queens
ened to a greater degree by the persecution of the College from 1966 until her retirement in 1995.
so-called asocials, which was based on Heinrich Nestles political vision and grass-roots scholar-
Himmlers decree of December 1937 on preven- ship has been central to constructing the nature and
tive measures to combat crime. As a result, per- content of lesbian history. As she wrote in A Restricted
sons who had committed no criminal offense but Country (1987): To live without history is to live
who were in some way socially deviant were labeled like an infant, constantly amazed and challenged by
asocial and taken by the police into concentra- a strange and unnamed world. There is a deep won-
tion camps. The major targets of this drive against der in this kind of existence. But a people who are
the asocial, who were marked in the camps with struggling against a world that has decreed them ob-
a black triangle, were homeless people, the unem- scene need a stronger bedrock beneath their feet.
ployed, and prostitutes, but also lesbians and Sinti Citing her own experience as a working-class
and Roma. femme who frequented lesbian bars beginning in
How many women endured the horrors of the the late 1950s, Nestle, in her historical work,
concentration camps because of their lesbianism? honors the sexual courage and erotic complex-
All that can be said is that there was no systematic ity of femme and butch lives and relationships. Her
persecution of lesbians comparable to the persecu- embrace of marginalized sexualitiesbutch-femme,
tion of gay men in the Third Reich. Most lesbians sadomasochism (S/M), prostitutionchallenged
were spared the fate of the camps as long as they lesbian feminists, who protested, during the early
were not endangered for other reasons and were 1980s sex wars, that Nestle represented het-
prepared to conform to the regimes norms. The erosexual, exploitative, dominant/submission
majority tried not to attract attention. Some were butch-femme sexuality. Nestle wrote in 1983: It

540 NAZISM
 is more lined. But still when I walk the streets
to protest our military bullying of Central
America, or the Meese Commission on por-
nography, or apartheid in South Africa and
here, my breasts and hips shout their own
slogans. As a woman, as a lesbian, as a Jew,
I know that much of what I call history oth-
ers will not. But answering the challenge of
exclusion is the work of a lifetime.
Polly Thistlethwaite

Bibliography
Metz, Holly. Interview with Joan Nestle. Ameri-
can Voice (Winter 1990), 7284.

See also Butch-Femme; Lesbian Herstory Archives

Netherlands
Constitutional monarchy since 1815, located in
northwest Europe; capital, Amsterdam. With a
population of 15.5 million, mainly in urban centers,
Joan Nestle. Morgan Gwenwald. the Netherlands has a history of social tolerance
since the seventeenth century.

is tempting to some Lesbians to see themselves as History

the clean sex deviant, to disassociate themselves The history of lesbianism in the Netherlands might
from public sexual activity, multiple partners, and be said to start either in 1730, when the dictionary
intergenerational sex. While this may be the choice of Van Hoogstraten en Schuer mentioned Sapphos
for some of us, it is not the reality of many others, love for her own sex, or in 1892, when the ex-
not now and not in the past (in A Restricted Coun- pression homosexual was first used in an article
try). With the wide readership of A Restricted by a psychiatrist. Between these two dates there is
Country and The Persistent Desire (1992), how- a shadowy period in which different elements of
ever, Nestle has become well known and revered same-sex relationships or prelesbian configurations
for her sexual politics and historical vision. can be recognized. If transgressive behavior and
Nestles writing incorporates a constellation of societal condemnation of cross-dressing and non-
themes and influences, including the political op- conformist sexual behavior can be considered
pression of the McCarthy era of the early 1950s; prelesbian configurations, then lesbianism starts
her civil rights activism; growing up Jewish, the with seventeenth- and eighteenth-century female
daughter of a single mother; and coming of age in soldiers and sailors, sexual relationships among
a lesbian world rich in erotic power and cultural women of the lower classes, and love poems writ-
resistance. Nestle characterizes lesbian as an ar- ten by educated seventeenth- and eighteenth-cen-
ray of erotic identities, desires, and sensibilities. She tury women, such as writers Betje Wolff and Aagje
wrote in A Restricted Country: Deken (both fl. ca. 1780). However, the dichotomy
between homosexual and heterosexual had not yet
But my body made my historyall my his- been established, and in none of these cases does
tories. Strong and tough, it allowed me to same-sex preference seem to have been exclusive.
start working at thirteen; wanting, it pushed At the end of the nineteenth century, under the
me to find the lovers I needed; vigorous and influence of scientific studies from Germany and
resilient, it carried me the fifty-four Alabama France, male and female homosexuality began to
miles. Once desire had a fifties face: now it be seen as a personality trait caused by biological

NETHERLANDS 541
 inversion (the wrong sex trapped in the oppo- sterdam and The Hague, where sex workers could
N site body). The word homosexualiteit was used for
a time in competition with other words, such as
be wooed by ladies with money, such as sculptor
Saar de Swart (18611951), one of the first more
Uranier/Urninde (which refers back to the classi- or less open lesbians in the country. Sometimes men
cal period) and tegennatuurlijke geslachtsdrift (con- and women joined one another at sedate parties in
trary sexual drive). The discussion informed the private homes. Women with financial means also
general public about a phenomenon that had hith- traveled to foreign countries.
erto been unknown and was thought to derive from During the 1930s, the first novels with lesbian
France. Colloquially, these women were called themes began to appear, such as Twee meisjes en ik
lollepot, which had previously meant immodest (Two Girls and Me [1930]) by A.H.Nijhoff and
woman. Lollepot has since been abbreviated to Terug naar het eiland (Back to the Island [1937])
pot (dyke) and, in the late twentieth century, was by Josine Reuling. These novels are always set in
a common expression. The term lesbian became foreign places, such as Paris, Berlin, the Alps, or
common only after World War II. Italy, reflecting the apparent reality of lesbian life
The increasing visibility of homosexuality at the at that time. A book of autobiographies, De Homo-
turn of the twentieth century led to a backlash, sexueelen, published in 1939, reflected another
put into effect by the conservative majority, who piece of lesbian reality: butch-femme relationships
won the 1906 elections. As a result, in 1911 sec- closely adhering to the third-sex image propagated
tion 248bis, which prohibited same-sex sexuality by the NWHK, which commissioned the book.
between adults and minors (under twenty-one), was During World War II, the Netherlands was oc-
put into the penal code. Contrary to the situation cupied by Nazi Germany, which had a paradoxical
in most surrounding countries, where laws also effect on homosexuals. Although the German occu-
were being tightened, this section applied to women pation prohibited all male homosexuality, in prac-
as well as men. The impending introduction of this tice, persecution was limited to those who had con-
article led to the formation, by J.A.Schorer, of the tacts with Germans. Lesbians appear not to have
first emancipation organization in the Netherlands, been persecuted at all. Nevertheless, many lesbians
het Nederlandsch Wetenschappelijk Humanitair and gays went into the Resistance. Being illegal was,
Komitee (NWHK; Dutch Scientific Humanitarian for the first time, an asset rather than a liability.
Committee). It distributed scientific information Because red light districts were out of bounds to
on homosexuality in the belief that the public the German soldiers, bars such as Bet van Beerens
would be more positively inclined toward homo- famous Het Mandje on the Zeedijk in Amsterdam,
sexuality if they knew its biological origins. In re- were used as arms depots for the Resistance.
ality, the NWHK was very much a one-man show,
although it attracted the attention of a number of Postwar Organizing
early feminists who were opposed, in principle, to After the war, there was a general feeling among
state intervention in private lives. In the course of the population that it should be possible to break
its sixty-year existence, nearly five thousand men through the old conservative prewar structures. At
and fifty women were convicted under section the same time, moral panic arose over the general
248bis. More significant, it was used as an instru- looseness of behavior of the American and Cana-
ment to render homosexuality and lesbianism vir- dian soldiers who liberated the country. In this cli-
tually invisible in Dutch society. Whenever homo- mate, the COC (Cultuur-en Ontspannings Cen-
sexuals and lesbians began to organize, it was used trum; Center for Culture and Relaxation), a ho-
by the police to quell their activities. Cross-dress- mosexual group, was founded on December 7,
ing was forbidden by local police bylaws, which 1946. At the first meeting, three women were
were used to pick up women in masculine trou- present. It was tolerated by the authorities, in part
sers. Personal advertisements were also closely because their impeccable behavior during the war
monitored by the police. It is, therefore, not sur- had given homosexuals some credit.
prising that there was very little subcultural activ- The COCs objective was twofold. Publicly, it
ity before World War II. aimed at abolishing section 248bis, which had been
There were some signs before the war of an reinstated after the war and rigorously enforced
emerging subculture in the lower-class honky-tonk during the 1950s. Privately, it wanted to provide a
bars and cafs in the red light districts of Am- safe haven for its members. For the COC, the

542 NETHERLANDS
morality of its members was the ultimate proof that from the COC. Womens houses and cafs began to
homosexuals had the right to be treated like other attract many women, some of whom left their hus-
upstanding citizens. Therefore, it condemned bands. New divisions occurredbetween old les-
sexual license and cross-dressing, which, until the bians (who had been out before the feminist
late 1950s, included the wearing of pants by its movement) and new lesbians, between lesbians
lady-members. Although, in principle, the COC in Amsterdam, who saw themselves as the vanguard
was a mixed organization, in fact it was male-domi- of the lesbian feminist movement, and those in the
nated in its early years. Throughout the 1950s and rest of the country. Using the feminist motto the
1960s, the percentage of women members never personal is political and under the influence of U.S.
rose above 20 percent. Very few women visited the poet and theorist Adrienne Rich (1929), Lavender
COC because they thought they had little chance September stated that being lesbian was a political
of meeting other women there, or they were afraid position. The country needed a cultural guerrilla
they might lose their girlfriends if they did meet movement against patriarchy with its strategy of
other women. The organizational structure of the enforced heterosexuality. In the Lesbisch prachtboek
COC was tightly regulated, with a strong board (The Lesbian Deluxe-Book [1979]), this strategy was
and endless meetings, which also was unappealing fully developed. Although Lavender September was
to most women. The human rights perspective of a very small group in reality, its public-relations cam-
the COC left no space to discuss male-female dif- paign was excellent, and, within weeks, its demands
ferences or any possibility for organizing separately. had become well known. The first structure that
After 1961, a one-day womens convention was had to be changed was language itself; therefore,
held infrequently, and the COC magazine began the members communicated in a self-fabricated odd
to include lesbian pages. archaic style, which also served as a kind of code to
Outside the COC, a lesbian subculture was slow distinguish them from others. Lavender September
to develop. Many lesbians lived in the cities of Am- influenced mainstream feminism by insisting that a
sterdam and The Hague, attracted by the job op- real feminist should be a lesbian. For a period of
portunities in a sex-segregated employment mar- time in the early 1970s, many heterosexual femi-
ket. Housing was difficult to find, as one-third of nists experimented with lesbianism, although few
the countrys infrastructure had been demolished continued, which led to frustration on both sides.
during the war and single people had no individual For example, it was known within the movement
right to housing. Lesbian lifestyles included a butch- that lesbians had been leaders in the defense of the
femme culture, as well as bar-dancerswomen first abortion clinic, Bloemenhove, but lesbians in-
with lower-to-middle-class jobs who went out in creasingly complained that heterosexual feminists
large circles to lead a life of fun and drink. Other could not be convinced to support lesbian demands.
women met privately, with a couple of friends in During this period, some women chose to re-
their own rooms. Overall, there was very little vis- main within the COC, where a split occurred be-
ible lesbian life, although the lesbianism of women tween those women who still wanted to work to-
such as novelist Anna Blaman (19051960) and gether with the menlater known as mixed
pianist Pia Beck (1925/1926) was well known. womenand those who wanted an autonomous
Books written during this period with lesbian position within the COC. In 1981, this led to the
themes include Dola de Jongs De Thuiswacht (The establishment of a federated structure, in which most
Tree and the Vine [1954]) and A.H.Nijhoffs De chapters had a gender-mixed committee alongside a
Vier doden (The Four Dead [1950]). women-only committee. One of the womens de-
mands was for an exclusive womens night, since
Lesbian Feminism gay male culture had grown extensively during this
During the 1960s, the social position of homosexu- period but there was still hardly any womens space.
als slowly began to change, thanks to the strategy At the end of the 1960s, author Andreas Burnier
of the COC, whose members worked for full inte- wrote novels such as Een Tevreden Lach (Satisfied
gration into society. The advent of feminism in the Laughter) and Het jongensuur (The Boys Hour)
early 1970s touched a sore spot, however: The inte- that gained wide acclaim among lesbians and the
gration strategy did not permit women to organize public at large. Much foreign acclaim was given to
separately. In 1971, a breach occurred, and groups Anja Meulenbelts The Shame Is Over, a story of
like Lavender September and Group 7152 split off personal growth that contained lesbian elements.

NETHERLANDS 543
 The 1980s saw a tremendous rise of the organ- Meijer, Irene Costera. Het persoonlijke wordt politiek.
N ized lesbian movement. Special lesbian magazines
such as Diva and the literary Lust and Gratie (Lust
Feministische bewustwording in Nederland,
19651980 (The Personal Becomes Political:
and Grace), began publication. Lesbian and gay Feminist Consciousness in the Netherlands, 1965
studies programs were established at several uni- 1980). Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 1996.
versities. A riot at the Pink Pride Demonstration in Schuyf, Judith. Een stilzwijgende samenzwering.
1982 initiated a new dialogue with the government, Lesbische vrouwen in Nederland, 19201970.
which led to the formulation of political demands (A Conspiracy of Silence: Lesbians in the Neth-
on both national and local levels. The government erlands, 19201970). Amsterdam: IISG, 1994.
increasingly provided money for organization and Tielman, Rob. Homoseksualiteit in Nederland.
research. It even funded projects for lesbians in Studie van een emancipatiebeweging (Homo-
Latin America and Asia. It also put lesbian demands sexuality in the Netherlands: Study of an Eman-
on the agenda of the United Nations Womens cipation Movement). Meppel: Boom, 1982.
Conference in Nairobi in 1985.
See also Blaman, Anna; Butch-Femme;
Contemporary Perspectives CrossDressing; Rich, Adrienne
By the end of the 1980s, feminism had lost its sway
over lesbian activists. Younger lesbians were likely
to be involved in mixed political movements and New Left
adopted a new lifestyle, including small-scale forms Umbrella term used to describe the loosely linked
of enterprise, such as restaurants and bookshops. groups of men and women who challenged the
Other women chose motherhood, aided by changes basic values and institutions of American society
in technology and public attitude. Since few clinics in the 1960s. Among their targets were racism and
would inseminate single women, they turned to gay the American political process. The New Left em-
male friends as donors. This led not only to new phasized personal freedom and direct democracy
coalitions with gay men, but also to intricate forms and raised individual freedom as its highest goal.
of parenthood by both lesbians and gay men. Both the lesbian and gay movement and the wom-
The advent of AIDS in the 1980s focused the ens movement were shaped by the New Left, and
movement on providing social services, as a result lesbians during the 1960s held multiple member-
of the influx of government money into AIDS pre- ships in a range of New Left movements from civil
vention. In a changing modern society, separatism rights groups to antiwar groups.
no longer seemed an effective strategy. New gov- It is possible to trace the origins of a New Left
ernment policies made people more responsible for political sensibility in the earliest modern lesbian
themselves; less money from state subsidies had to political organizations. While the Daughters of
be spent more economically. All of these trends led Bilitis (DOB) adopted the conservative policy of
to a smaller, more professionalized movement. helping lesbians adjust to society, not all lesbians
After fifteen years of political struggle, the Equal within DOB were comfortable with this policy. In
Rights Act became law in 1994. With this, the for- 1965, DOB member Ernestine Eckstein (pseud.),
mal equality of homo- and heterosexuality became who had been active in the National Association
a fact in Dutch society. Progress toward absolute for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP),
equality within all laws and regulationssuch as attempted to make DOB New York more militant.
domestic partnerships and gay marriages and, es- Eckstein argued that DOB should change its poli-
pecially, the position of children within such units cies in favor of a program of direct action to se-
will take a longer time. Judith Schuyf cure full equality for homosexual citizens.
By the late 1960s, new organizations formed
Bibliography whose political agendas were more directly in line
Everard, Myriam. Ziel en Zinnen. Over liefde en with New Left political agendas. In 1967, Rita Mae
lust tussen vrouwen in de tweede helft van de Brown helped found the Student Homophile
achttiende eeuw (Soul and Senses: About Love League, the first New Left gay student group at
and Lust Between Women in the Second Half Columbia University. In 1969, the Stonewall Re-
of the Eighteenth Century). Groningen: bellion in New York City became the critical turn-
Historische Uitgeverij, 1994. ing point for lesbian and gay New Left activism.

544 NETHERLANDS
Although Stonewall was not an organized politi- essay in the counterculture newspaper Rat, Good-
cal action, it served as a catalyst for lesbians and bye to All That, reflected a growing sense that
gays in the New Left to examine their status in womens liberation was turning away from the
American society. New Left. Morgan wrote: Goodbye, goodbye for-
The Gay Liberation Front (GLF), a powerful ever, counterfeit Leftmale-dominated cracked-
new homosexual rights organization, emerged in glassmirror reflection of the Amerikan Nightmare.
the wake of Stonewall. Though Marxist in nature, Women are the real left. The militancy and vio-
GLF was a catalyst for the lesbian and gay move- lence of the Left came under fire both in the main-
ment, but, early on, GLF women felt that GLF men stream and critically in the womens movement.
did not value their concerns as lesbians. In this, This turning away from leftist radical politics be-
they echoed the sentiments of many lesbians who, came clear when Susan Saxe, a Weatherman and a
tired of the sexism they encountered, left New Left lesbian, was arrested in March 1975. Many in the
organizations to join the womens movement. lesbian feminist community blamed her for the
Thus, in early 1970, Martha Shelley and Lois presence of the FBI in their community. This reac-
Hart of GLF formed the womens caucus of GLF, tion to Saxes capture signaled a critical shift in
which eventually became the Radicalesbians. The lesbian political thought away from a radical left-
Radicalesbians produced the critical theoretical ist brand of politics and toward the inward-focused
treatise Women-Identified Woman (Koedt et al., communitybuilding efforts of cultural feminism of
1973) and, in May 1970, took over the Second the late 1970s. Anne B.Keating
Congress to Unite Women, demanding better treat-
ment for lesbians within the womens movement. Bibliography
This action became a watershed event in contem- Echols, Alice. Daring To Be Bad: Radical Femi-
porary lesbian history. nism in America, 19671975. Minneapolis:
In August 1970, Huey Newton, a leader of the University of Minnesota Press, 1989.
Black Panthers, a Black Power organization, wrote Faderman, Lillian. Odd Girls and Twilight Lov-
a letter arguing that, despite personal opinion, the ers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-
Panthers should unite with homosexuals politically. Century America New York: Columbia Univer-
Shortly after the letter was published, the Panthers sity Press, 1991.
held their Black Panther Constitutional Conven- Jay, Karla, and Allen Young, eds. Out of the Clos-
tion. Hart, Brown, Shelley, and Charlotte Bunch ets: Voices of Gay Liberation. New York: Doug-
were among the lesbians who went to the conven- las, 1972.
tion, which drew six thousand participants, to dis- Marotta, Toby. The Politics of Homosexuality.
cuss gay liberation, among other topics. Twenty New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1981.
lesbians attended the womens workshop. Radicalesbians. The Woman Identified Woman.
In this time of increased Left militancy, lesbian In Radical Feminism. Ed. Anne Koedt, Ellen
groups began to identify with more militant leftist Levine, and Anita Rapone. New York: Quad-
groups. In Washington, D.C., Bunch went on to rangle/New York Times Book Co., 1973, pp.
help found the leftist group the Furies, the mem- 240245.
bers of which identified themselves as true revolu- Teal, Donn. The Gay Militants. New York: Stein
tionaries, most like the Weathermen, a militant and Day, 1971.
faction of the Students for a Democratic Society.
As radical outlaws, leftist lesbians had a special See also Brown, Rita Mae; Daughters of Bilitis;
place in the womens liberation movement. It was Furies, The; Gay Liberation Movement;
believed that if the revolution was to be led by the Radicalesbians; Socialism
most marginalized outcast groups, then lesbians
were the vanguard of the revolution. This outlaw
status was further heightened by the fact that the New Right
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) infiltrated A conservative segment of political life that shifted
lesbian and womens groups in this period. right-wing politics away from a strictly economic
As heroic as this outlaw status was in this pe- stance to one that emphasizes values and morality.
riod, the early 1970s were also mercurial years for The political spectrum in the United States is typi-
radical activist lesbians, and Robin Morgans 1970 cally characterized along a continuum, with

NEW RIGHT 545

 conservativism on the right end or wing and lib- sue conservatives became politically active with the
N eralism on the left. The right wing comprises a range
of conservative political ideals and motivations. For
New Right as they mobilized to oppose such pro-
gressive issues as the Equal Rights Amendment,
some, organized religion provides the moral basis abortion rights, and lesbian and gay rights, as well
for their conservative political activism. Others are as issues involving gun control, euthanasia, and
motivated by capitalist principles that challenge the capital punishment.
governments role in the marketplace. Since in the Like their conservative predecessors, the third
early 1970s, this dominant political force in the segment of the New Right campaigns around capi-
Republican Party has been referred to as the New talist interests. Emergent from business, elite, and
Right. political segments of society, these individuals and
organizations strive for a marketplace free from
Characteristics government intervention and regulation. Some
The New label distinguishes this constituency scholars have noted that professional organizers
from its conservative predecessors, the Old often come from this segment of the New Right.
Right. Characterized largely by its focus on eco- While pushing for their economic and social
nomic and militaristic goals, the older division led agenda, these organizers facilitate coalition and
the nation in the struggle against a perceived Com- organization among the different constituencies of
munist threat to capitalism. Since the 1970s, there the New Right.
has been a change in the Rights ideological focus.
Its political agenda now includes social and moral Goals
issues. The New Right agenda involves challenges The New Right economic campaign of the 1990s
to such diverse personal-life concerns as a wom- centered on the reduction and elimination of the
ans right to choose abortion; the rights of lesbi- federal budget deficit. The means proposed to abol-
ans, bisexuals, and gay men; the humanity and ish the deficit involve spending cuts on programs
rights of so-called illegal immigrants; and intense such as public assistance and other lowerand mid-
campaigns to remove gun-control legislation and dle-income social welfare programs. New Right
to limit government financial and other assistance proponents also advocate an income-tax reduction.
to poor, single parents for themselves and for their In support of its social agenda, the New Right
children. channels considerable resources into campaigning
While the concept New Right implies one uni- for legislative and cultural change. After the United
fied group of conservatives, those who constitute States Supreme Courts Roe v. Wade decision (1973)
this group are not monolithic in their views. The legalizing abortion, the New Right launched numer-
New Right can be divided into various organiza- ous attacks on adult and minor womens right to
tions representing distinct interests. One identifi- obtain safe and legal abortion upon demand. They
able segment is composed of those typically referred were successful in their legislative attempts in many
to as the Christian, or Religious, Right. The Chris- states to limit the power of Roe v. Wade. Likewise,
tian Rights fundamentalist views on sexuality, fam- New Right forces have blocked abortion clinics, set
ily, and society in general drive its adherents po- up their own pro-life clinics, and held marches to
litical agenda to restore traditional family values. gain support and prevent abortion.
Its family values campaign promotes traditional In the late 1980s and the 1990s, a shift occurred
gender relations and procreative and marital sexual in the New Rights social priorities, with the battle
relations. Often referred to as the pro-family against lesbian, gay, and bisexual rights becoming
movement, this segment of the New Right has primary agenda item. The Right created a well-
gained considerable recognition and legitimacy funded, well-organized challenge to the lesbian, gay,
from the Republican Party and some factions of and bisexual movement. In the early 1990s, for
the Democratic Party, as well as the mass media example, it was successful in legislating antigay laws
and the public. in a number of localities across the United States.
Another faction consists of those whose stance Colorado was the first state to have voters pass a
on specific social issues drew them into coalition law that allowed for discrimination against lesbi-
with the larger New Right. Many of the views of ans, gay men, and bisexuals in employment, hous-
these single-issue conservatives are shared with ing, and accommodations. The constitutionality of
the Christian Right. Historically, many single-is- this and other similar initiatives have been

546 NEW RIGHT

challenged in the courts, with Colorados law de- The New Woman offered a challenge to Victo-
clared unconstitutional by the United States Su- rian womanhood that stemmed from wage earn-
preme Court in 1996. ing or extended education that removed a daugh-
Along with such legislative campaigns, the New ter from the domestic sphere of her parental home
Right has attacked lesbians, gays, and bisexuals and took her into public space. New Women in-
in other critical areas. Campaigns have been cluded factory and clerical workers and early col-
launched in the schools against multicultural and lege students alike, and they were often active in
sex-education curricula supportive of lesbians, labor unions, social reform and radical movements,
gay, and bisexual rights. New Right proponents or the womens suffrage movement. They thereby
oppose any positive portrayal of what they term claimed more space in traditionally male arenas
a homosexual lifestyle in the schools and in the than previous generations. The New Negro
media. Private organizations have also been af- Woman of the 1920s in the United States, for
fected by the New Right antigay campaign. For example, was portrayed as an intelligent and ag-
example, as late as 1998, the Boy Scouts of gressive partner with the black man in political
America discriminated on the basis of sexual ori- activity to liberate their race. New Women also
entation in their national policy despite court chal- resisted older, more demure forms of womanhood
lenges in different locations and at least one state and claimed male privileges through physical ac-
supreme court decision against the organizations tivity, dress, and mannerswalking the streets, rid-
policy. These are just a few of the targets of the ing bicycles or driving cars, wearing shorter, lighter
New Right. A major component of the Right is clothing, smoking cigarettes, or cutting long hair.
determined to create a society based solely on the Historians have developed both a heterosexual
notion of traditional family. In the 1990s, the and a lesbian story about sexual independence as
New Right stood as a major opponent with which a component of New Womanhood. The first story
lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals had to contend marks late-nineteenth-century working-class
in the struggle for equality. Kimberly Dugan tough girls or charity girls as originators of a
more assertive heterosexual style. These women
Bibliography pioneered dating as a form of courtship at com-
Adam, Barry D. The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian mercial amusements like dance halls, away from
Movement. Boston: Twayne, 1987. family scrutiny. Class difference made them targets
Diamond, Sara. Spiritual Warfare: The Politics of for attributions of immorality from middle-class
the Christian Right. Boston: South End, 1989. exemplars of Victorian sexual restraint, but low
Himmelstein, Jerome L. The New Right. In The wages did underlie the dating exchange of sexual
New Christian Right: Mobilization and Legiti- favors for male treating at entertainments. Femi-
mation. Ed. Robert C.Liebman and Robert nist bohemians of the 1910s and flappers of the
Wuthnow. New York: Aldine, 1983, pp. 1330. 1920s adapted these styles and dating patterns for
Klatch, Rebecca E. Women of the New Right. Phila- middle-class women, but their relative freedom
delphia: Temple University Press, 1987. remained in tension with heterosexual relationships
Mueller, Carol. In Search of a Constituency for and usually ended with marriage.
the New Religious Right. Public Opinion A second historical account of New Womanhood
Quarterly 47 (1983), 213229. traces the shifting of same-sex relations among mid-
dle-class women from the model of romantic friend-
See also Electoral Politics; Law and Legal Institutions ship in the nineteenth century to one of lesbian rela-
tions, with acknowledged sexuality, in the twenti-
eth. Smith-Rosenberg (1985) and Newton (1984)
New Woman argue that the first generation of New Women as-
A term developed by social commentators in the serted their autonomy primarily by denying the fam-
late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century indus- ily claim of motherhood and choosing lives of pub-
trial cities of Europe and North America, indicat- lic service. Many declined marriage in favor of long-
ing a new independence and including, in some term partnerships, or Boston marriages, with
usages, the choice of emotional or sexual partner- other women, not usually considered sexual (what-
ships with women over dutiful daughterhood or ever their daily reality). Public discussion of sex in
marriage to men. the early twentieth century both encouraged sexual

NEW WOMAN 547

 consciousness in second-generation New Women History
N and stigmatized them for rejecting not just mother-
hood but men. If not actively heterosexual, a New
There have always been women who loved other
women in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The Royal Com-
Woman might be labeled either a mannish lesbian mission on Social Policy said in 1988 that homo-
or a repressed lady in lavender. Twentieth-cen- sexualityfemale and malewas not uncommon in
tury lesbian New Women sometimes created an an- pre-European times andit was in fact more readily
drogynous sexuality, sometimes embraced butch accepted than today. During the nineteenth and early
styles, and sometimes continued to understand them- twentieth centuries, numbers of settler women arrived.
selves as Victorian romantic friends. There are documented cases of women passing as
Christina Simmons men to marry other women or to gain access to male
employment opportunities. Romantic friendships
Bibliography were common among women of the upper and mid-
Freedman, Estelle. The New Woman: Changing dle classes, married or unmarried. However, not all
Views of Women in the 1920s. Journal of such friendships were as publicly acknowledged as
American History 61 (1974), 372393. that of poet Ursula Bethell and her companion, Effie
Newton, Esther. The Mythic Mannish Lesbian: Pollen, who lived together from 1904 until Pollens
Radclyffe Hall and the New Woman Signs: death in 1934. Some upper-class women who loved
Journal of Women in Culture and Society 9 women moved overseas. Katherine Mansfield (1888
(1984), 557575. 1923), for example, following intense relationships
Peiss, Kathy. Cheap Amusements: Working Women with Wellington artist Edith Kathleen Bendall (later
and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York. Robison [18771983]) and with Maata Mahupuku
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986. (18901952) in Wellington, moved to London and
Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. The New Woman as continued her relationship with Ida Baker (1888
Androgyne: Social Disorder and Gender Crisis, 1978) until her death in 1923.
18701936. In Smith-Rosenberg, Disorderly Little research has been done on the occupa-
Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian tional networks of lesbian women (hospitals, post
America. New York: Knopf, 1985, pp. 245296. office and telephone exchange, nursing, teaching,
and the military) that existed prior to the 1950s.
See also Androgyny; Boston Marriage; By the early 1960s, the rapid urbanization of Maori
ButchFemme; Romantic Friendship during the post-World War II period meant that
numbers of Maori kamps (a word meaning ho-
mosexual introduced by ship-queens on British
New Zealand boats) met in hotel bars in the port cities of Auck-
Also called by its Maori name Aotearoa. Group of land and Wellington, together with Pakeha work-
islands located in the South Pacific, about 1,200 ing-class kamp girls. The first lesbian club was the
miles southeast from Australia and bordered by KG Clubthe Karangahape Road Girls Club, also
the Tasman Sea to the west and the Pacific Ocean known as the Kamp Girls Club, started in Auck-
to the east. There are two major islands: the North land by Maori lesbians in 1970. In addition to this
Island and the South Island. The population is four and other visible groups, networks of middle-class
million, the capital is Wellington, and the largest Pakeha women (many also calling themselves
city is Auckland, both in the north. Other large kamps) met in private homes.
cities are Christchurch and Dunedin, both in the
south. The country is bicultural: Maori, the indig- Lesbian Organizing
enous people, arrived before A.D. 1000, and The late 1960s brought new ideas to Aotearoa/New
Pakeha, descended from mainly British settlers, Zealand from the United Statesblack, womens,
arrived in the nineteenth century. The founding and gay liberation. In the late 1960s, the first wom-
document is the Treaty of Waitangi, signed between ens liberation groups began; the first gay liberation
Maori tribes and the British Crown in 1840. There group was started in 1972 at the University of Auck-
are, in addition, many ethnic groups from the South land. The words gay and later lesbian and
Pacific, Asia, and Europe. Aotearoa/New Zealand dyke replaced kamp in common usage. From
is a self-governing member of the British Common- the 1980s, the Maori word takatapui or takatapuhi
wealth with a parliament, elected every three years, (beloved and intimate friend of the same gender)
that selects a prime minister and cabinet. was used by Maori lesbians and gays.

548 NEW WOMAN

 In 1973, the first national lesbian political or- Reform Bill campaign. The bill was introduced by
ganization, Sisters for Homophile Equality (SHE), Labor Member of Parliament (MP) Fran Wilde in
was formed. The Wellington branch produced the two parts: to decriminalize male homosexuality and
Circle, a national lesbian magazine, from Decem- to amend the Human Rights Act by adding sexual
ber 1973 until 1986. Wellington SHE began Club orientation to the grounds for prohibiting discrimi-
41, the first lesbian club there, and held the first nation. Some lesbians worked in lesbian and gay
National Lesbian Conference in 1974. Christchurch organizations (Gay Task Force, Campaign for
SHE started the first Womens Refuge in 1975 and Homosexual Equality), others in lesbian, gay,
operated regular lesbian summer camps. The group straight coalitions (Coalition for the Bill), and oth-
also was active in the womens art and literature ers in lesbian organizations (Lesbian Coalition),
movements, including the production of SPIRAL, especially opposing the nationwide door-to-door
the womens art magazine, in 1976. petition against the bill organized by fundamen-
After conflicts between lesbians and heterosexual talist Christians using American advisers. The first
feminists at the United Womens Conventions (1977 part of the bill was passed in 1986 and male ho-
and 1979) and the Radical Feminist Caucus (1978), mosexuality was decriminalized, but part two, the
more lesbians organized separately. The first Les- human rights section, was lost. It reintroduced by
bian Center was started in Wellington in 1978. In national MP Katherine ORegan in 1991 as the
1979, Breathing Space, a discussion and social group Human Rights Amendment Bill and was approved,
for women who were coming out as lesbians, was adding sexual orientation (defined as lesbian, ho-
formed; continued into the late 1990s. All of these mosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual) to the Hu-
groups had a lesbian agenda, and this tradition of man Rights Act. Christchurch-based LAVA (Les-
lesbian-only groups and events continued through bian Action for Visibility in Aotearoa) was a promi-
the 1990s. In smaller centers, lesbians often worked, nent lesbian group active on this campaign.
and continue to work, in organizations with femi- Lesbian involvement in womens organizations
nists or with gay menfor example, MALGRA is also considerable. Lesbians started womens
(Manawatu Lesbian and Gay Rights Association), centers, rape crisis and sexual abuse help centers,
established in Palmerston North in 1977. womens refuges, and antiracism groups and have
During the 1980s and 1990s, lesbian groups initiated many feminist actions.
and organizations grew in numbers and scope. In Wellington, DOODS (Dykes out of Debt)
Lesbian phone lines were started in various parts held monthly dances as fund-raisers for local les-
of the country, including Christchurch (1981), bian services, and there were regular Over-35s les-
Wellington (1983), and Dunedin (1984). By the bian dances. LILAC (Lesbian Information, Library,
early 1990s, services operated in smaller towns, and Archives Collective) in Wellington runs a lend-
such as Nelson, Palmerston North, Timaru, ing library and is developing archives. The Lesbian
Wanganui, and Hamilton. Overland and Cafe Club organizes outdoor activi-
Many lesbian newsletters and magazines came ties in Wellington, and, in Auckland, POLLY
and went in the last three decades of the twentieth (Proud Older Lesbians Like You) arranges events
century, including the Wellington Lesbian Network for older lesbians. Lesbian Balls, which are formal-
Newsletter, the Grapevine, Behind Enemy Lines, dress and ballroom-dancing events, are held annu-
Lesbian LIP, Dykenews, and Glad Rag; the Auck- ally in the main centers, attracting hundreds of
land Juno, LIP (Lesbians in Print), and Bitches, partipants: The Wellington Ball is held in the Town
Witches, and Dykes; the Hamilton lesbian News; Hall; the Dunedin Ball, at Larnachs Castle. There
and, in Dunedin, Against All Odds. The 1990s are many lesbian sports clubs: the Wellington
produced the Wellington Lesbians Newsletter, the Amazon Softball Club was the first (1977), fol-
Otautahu Lesbians Newsletter (Christchurch), and lowed by Aucklands Circe Softball Club (1979)
the Tamaki-Makarau Lesbians Newsletter (Auck- and Soccer Club (1980), to name just three.
land), among others. There are also some impor- Lesbian radio broadcasting started on Welling-
tant national lesbian and gay publications, such as ton Access Radio in 1984 with a weekly show that
the Express newspaper, published in Auckland. continued to broadcast through the 1990s. Les-
Lesbians worked for homosexual law reform bian programs have been broadcast in Auckland,
and human rights in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1985 Christchurch, Dunedin, and Nelson. There is a
and 1986, the participated in the Homosexual Law national lesbian and gay weekly television program

NEW ZEALAND 549

 called Out There with a lesbian copresenter. Les- . Katherine Mansfield: A Lesbian Writer?
N bian playwright Lorae Parry, actor Madeline
Macnamara, and musicians Sue Dunlop and the
New Zealand Womens Studies Journal (Decem-
ber 1988), 4870.
Topp Twins made significant contributions to les-
bian visibility in the 1980s and 1990s, as did fic- See also Mansfield, Katherine; Pacific Literature;
tion writers Frances Cherry, Ngahuia Te Romantic Friendship
Awekotuku, and Cathie Dunsford and nonfiction
writers Miriam Saphira and Julie Glamuzina.
National Lesbian Studies Conferences were held Nin, Anais (19031977)
in Wellington, in 1993 and 1995, attracting more French-American writer. Born outside Paris to a
than three hundred lesbians. Lesbian studies are French-Danish singer and a sexually abusive fa-
included at some universities, especially womens ther who was a Spanish composer, Anais Nin is
studies at Victoria University in Wellington. Lesbi- most frequently associated with the Parisian liter-
ans are also active members of GLEE (Gays and ary and artistic scene of the 1930s and with her
Lesbians in Education Everywhere) (primary, sec- sexually volatile relationships with Henry (1891
ondary, and tertiary), which holds regular national
1980) and June Miller (1902after 1977?). As a
conferences. There are also lesbian and gay stu-
writer, she is best known for her voluminous dia-
dent and youth groups at the universities. In Wel-
ries, which began publication in 1966. A prolific
lington, the Alexander Turnbull Library, situated
writer, Nin published thirteen volumes of diaries,
in the National Library, houses LAGANZ (Lesbian
twelve novels, and several volumes of criticism and
and Gay Archives of New Zealand).
pornography. She lectured widely after her diaries
Some lesbian and gay events are particularly sig-
were published and attained an almost iconic sta-
nificant, especially the HERO festival in Auckland
tus with many feminists in the United States, where
and DEVOTION in Wellington. These are
she settled at the outbreak of World War II.
weeklong festivals that include major street pa-
rades, dance parties attracting thousands of Nins diaries have received considerable atten-
partipants (open to anyone), theater performances, tion, in part, for their record of her compulsively
and historical walks. In Christchurch, a lesbian and voracious sexuality, including her experiences with
gay Futures Forum discusses current directions. women. Although ambiguity surrounds Nins ac-
International lesbian influences remain significant, tual engagements with womenbiographers de-
especially through books and magazines from the scribe Nin as a rapacious liar who fabricated much
United States and electronic connections through in both her diaries and her lifeshe wrote frequently
the Internet. Alison J.Laurie of feeling tremendous passion for women. Nin has
been celebrated for depicting female sexuality in a
Bibliography groundbreaking manner; however, her emphasis on
Coney, Sandra, ed. Standing in the Sunshine: A female masochism and the psychic scars left on her
History of New Zealand Women Since They as a result of paternal incest mitigate the ability of
Won the Vote. Auckland: Viking, 1993. her work to speak to a broad spectrum of female
Du Plessis, Rosemary, Phillida Bunkle, Kathie sexual experiences. Nevertheless, in her writings,
Irwin, Alison J.Laurie, and Sue Middleton, eds. lectures, and interviews, she was a consistent, if prob-
Feminist Voices: A Womens Studies Text for lematic, voice for free sexual expression, especially
Aotearoa/New Zealand. Auckland: OUP, 1991. for the expression of intense emotional and sexual
Else, Anne, ed. Women Together: A History of feelings between women.
Womens Organisations in Aotearoa/New Zea- Nins views of women and sexuality were pro-
land. Wellington: Internal Affairs/Brigid foundly affected by years of psychoanalysis, includ-
Williams Books, 1993. ing analysis with Otto Rank (18841939), with
Glamuzina, Julie. Outfront: Lesbian Political Ac- whom she also had a sexual relationship. Nin trained
tivity in Aotearoa, 19621985. Hamilton: Les- as a psychoanalyst herself, although she infrequently
bian Press, 1993. worked with patients. While she has stated that she
Laurie Alison J. From Kamp Girls to Political experienced homosexual relations as immature and
Dykes. In Finding the Lesbians. Ed. Julie narcissistic, she viewed lesbianism as a positive force
Penelope and Sarah Valentine. Freedom: Cross- in womens lives. She believed that feminist and les-
ing, 1990. bian anger toward men created an additional layer

550 NEW ZEALAND

of problems in regard to male/female estrangement fully in Massachusetts for the U.S. Senate (1980),
that would eventually require psychological energy and twice for the Cambridge City Council (1991
and attention. Hence, unlike many other feminists, and 1993). In 1998, she continued to live in Bos-
she eschewed the inevitability of such anger. Ulti- ton, and also managed the Pride Value Fund (a les-
mately, for Nin, it was the internal world of dreams, bian and gay investment fund).
passion, and feeling that held the greatest reality. As the first high-profile, out lesbian political
The quest for self-realization was her lifes work. official (Kathy Kozachenko had served as a mem-
Her novels and diaries serve as the complex record ber of the Ann Arbor, Michigan, City Council in
of that quest. Jo Ann Pavletich 1973), Noble was the target of unrealistic expec-
tations from the gay and lesbian community. In
Bibliography one interview she recalled that I had not only more
Bair, Deirdre. Anais Nin: A Biography. New York: work, but got more flack, more criticism, more
Putnam, 1995. heartache from the gay community than from the
Fitch, Noel Riley Anais: The Erotic Life of Anais people who elected me (quoted in Thompson,
Nin. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993. 1994). Yet she was an inspiration to the many
openly lesbian and gay elected official who followed
See also Diaries and Letters; Psychoanalysis
her in the United States. Yolanda Retter

Bibliography
Noble, Elaine (1944)
Retter, Yolanda. Herstory: Elaine Noble. The
U.S. political figure, and the first open lesbian
Lesbian News (September 1998), 52.
elected to a state assembly. Born in 1944 near Pitts-
Thompson, Mark, ed. Long Road to Freedom: The
burgh, Pennsylvania, she graduated from Boston
Advocate History of the Gay and Lesbian Move-
University and later earned a masters degree in
ment. Foreword by Randy Shilts. New York:
speech from Emerson College (Boston) and a mas-
St. Martins, 1994.
ters degree in education at Harvard University.
After she came out in the late 1960s, she helped
found the Boston chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis See also Electoral Politics
and produced one of the first lesbian and gay ra-
dio programs (Gay Way). Later, she served as di-
rector of the Massachusetts Womens Political Cau- Norton Sound Incident
cus and gained valuable skills lobbying the state Investigation into alleged lesbianism aboard a United
legislature on behalf of womens issues. During this States naval ship. In May 1980, at the request of a
time she also taught speech at Emerson College. member of the United States Congress, the Naval In-
Noble ran for the Massachusetts State Assembly vestigative Service (NIS) began an investigation into
on a multi-issue platform in 1974 and won the first life aboard the ship USS Norton Sound. Allegations of
of two terms. Members of the old boys network stabbings, drug dealing, and loansharking had been
in the legislature grew to like and respect their per- made, yet initial investigation into these crimes revealed
sonable colleague. In 1977, Noble was part of a del- nothing. But, when an agent asked one woman about
egation of lesbians and gays who met with representa- lesbians aboard the ship, she provided a four-page state-
tives of President Jimmy Carters administration. In ment claiming that twenty-three of the sixty-one
1978, her district was redrawn and she decided not women serving on the Norton Sound were lesbians.
to run for a third term. Barney Frank, who came out Significant in this statement, eight of the nine African
himself in 1987, won the seat Noble had held. American women aboard the ship were identified as
After Noble left the Assembly, she worked for lesbians. This was all the NIS needed to undertake a
Boston Mayor Kevin Whites office of intergov- fullscale investigation focusing solely on homosexual-
ernmental affairs. There she became involved in ity. Investigations of homosexuality were viewed as an
an FBI investigation aimed at Whites administra- easy means of demonstrating that the much maligned
tion but was exonerated of any wrongdoing. After NIS was doing its job and provided an opportunity
leaving her position with the city, she cofounded for investigators to improve their image.
in the early 1980s the Pride Institute, a gay and The NIS called in the thirty-eight women who
lesbian alcohol and drug treatment center in had not been identified as lesbian, assumed they
Minneapolis, Minnesota. She later ran unsuccess- were heterosexual, gave them a list of female crew

N O RT O N S O U N D I N C I D E N T 551
 members, and asked them to identify who they Nursing
N thought might be lesbian. The NIS engaged in ques-
tioning that was lewd and embarrassing (Did you
Womens profession and scientific discipline. Nurs-
ing is the care and nurturance of the health of both
lick her juices?) and used lies and coercion to healthy and sick people in any setting. Nursing is
obtain information. Although no one indicated performed by nurses, and there are many types of
having observed sexual behavior between any nurses.
women, these tactics resulted in nineteen women
being threatened with discharge. Characteristics
Unlike other witch-hunts, some of the accused Registered nurses (RN) may have two, three, four,
decided to seek outside help. They turned to the or more years of basic nursing education. Licensed
American Civil Liberties Union and other organiza- practical (or vocational) nurses (LPN, LVN) typi-
tions with experience in dealing with the issue of les- cally have twelve to eighteen months of basic edu-
bians and gays in the military. The case also gained cation. Advanced practice nurses (APN) have
the attention of the increasingly politicized lesbian graduate degrees and specialize as nurse practition-
and gay community. It is the degree to which this ers, nurse anesthetists, nurse midwives, and clini-
witch-hunt was made public that may have saved
cal nurse specialists. Each level of nurse has differ-
some womens careers. Before administrative hear-
ent skills. Multiple types and levels of nurses cre-
ings were begun, charges against eleven of the women
ate a problem for nursing because people who are
were dropped, and those against the other eight were
not aware of differences among nurses tend to think
reduced from unsuitability to misconduct.
that a nurse is a nurse.
The first two women on whom hearings were
Nurses are the largest number of workers in the
conducted were able to provide testimony from
health field. Most nurses engage in nursing prac-
men with whom they had had sexual relations.
tice, and the largest number of nurses practice in
They were recommended for retention. The next
hospitals. Other nurses work as educators, re-
two women were unable to provide such testimony.
Their hearings resulted in discharge. The Navy then searchers, and administrators. Nursing offers a
decided to drop the charges against the remaining wide variety of career options.
four women due to insufficient evidence. It ap- More than 90 percent of nurses are women. His-
peared to many that the Navy, having started the torically, nursing was one of the few professions
investigation, had to convict someone. Now that that women were allowed to enter. Florence Night-
it had, it could drop the charges against the others. ingale (18201910) is considered the founder of
Although the Norton Sound incident is only one modern nursing. The image of Nightingale as the
of many witch-hunts that have occurred through- lady with the lamp is a stereotype that nurses
out the military, it is viewed by some as one of the continue to endure (coincidentally, many of Night-
most egregious examples of intimidation and har- ingales own relationships with women were in-
assment. It is also recognized by many as a turning tense, romantic friendships). Nurses, as women,
point for military personnel in that they learned are viewed as nurturant, self-giving, and altruistic.
that using the press to their advantage was possi- Nurses are often thought less important than phy-
ble, and, perhaps most important, many learned sicians, and they make less money and have less
that they were not alone. In the end, the investiga- social recognition than physicians. There are at least
tion of the Norton Sound ruined more careers than two reasons for this: Society does not view nursing
those of the two women who were discharged, but as a profession, and people are socialized to value
it was one of the first cases to bring to the public cure (what physicians are educated to do) more
the issue of lesbians and gays in the military and than care (what nurses are educated to do).
the McCarthy era tactics often employed by mili-
tary investigative units. Melissa S.Herbert Lesbians in Nursing
Most nurses, both women and men, are hetero-
Bibliography sexual; however, the representation of lesbians in
Shilts, Randy. Conduct Unbecoming: Lesbians and nursing should be similar to that of lesbians in so-
Gays in the U.S. Military. New York: St. Mar- ciety. Lesbian nurses often recognize one another,
tins, 1993. even if they are not recognized by their heterosexual
colleagues, and they believe that their is a substan-
See also Military tial number within the field. A majority of lesbian

552 N O RT O N S O U N D I N C I D E N T
nurses, however, do not reveal to their colleagues These nurses are making a difference in nursing
that they are lesbian because internalized homo- curricula; they are conducting research on issues
phobia causes them to fear what might happen if of importance to the life and health of lesbians;
they do come out of the closet. Indeed, there are and they serve as role models for lesbian students.
real risks. Deevey (1993) writes that nurses risk Lesbian nurses such as Christine Tanner at Oregon
physical violence; loss of job, income, nursing li- Health Sciences University in Portland are work-
cense, and professional reputation; and shunning ing for the legal right to domestic-partner benefits
by colleagues and family. in places of employment. Young lesbians in the
Nursing has a reputation for caringabout all 1990s are more likely than lesbians in the past to
kinds of people. Nursing education emphasizes be out, and they seek support from older colleagues
being nonjudgmental, but research shows that in their chosen fields.
nurses, nursing students, and nursing educators (as
well as other health-care professionals) have homo- Organizing Efforts
phobic attitudes, which affect lesbian colleagues, In the United States, there have been several at-
as well as gay and lesbian clients. Although tempts to organize lesbian and gay nurses. Carolyn
multiculturalism is spreading, many people do not Innes and David Waldron founded the Gay Nurses
consider valuing lesbians as part of being Alliance (GNA) in Pennsylvania in August 1973.
multicultural. When nurses report that they do not GNA emerged nationally after Innes and Waldron
know any lesbians, they are probably wrong. presented the organization at the American Nurses
Still, being closeted results in feelings of isola- Association (ANA) convention in June 1974, which
tion, loneliness, powerlessness, and anger. Reveal- by chance, was held in San Francisco, California.
ing ones true self to colleagues is freeing and em- The purposes of GNA were to raise awareness
powering, if difficult for some nurses. Deeveys within nursing about the numbers of gay nurses,
suggestions for approaches to coming out on the provide a forum for gay nurses, work for the civil
job came from her experience as a nurse, but they rights of gay nurses, and sensitize health profes-
are relevant to any job situation. sionals to the needs of gay patients. Several local
An Australian study (Jackson 1995) suggests that chapters developed, but most action was national
one explanation for homophobic attitudes among and focused on ANA. The organization lasted for
nurses is that nursing textbooks have little or no about ten years before disappearing, and a newer
information about lesbians (and gay men) and that, generation of lesbian nurses did not know that
when information is present, it is negative. For ex- GNA existed.
ample, pediatrie nurse practitioners are taught that But lesbian nurses, like other lesbians, often
children of lesbians are socially isolated. Stevens and find ways to network with one another, both so-
Hall (1991) attribute homophobic reactions of cially and professionally. Lesbian nurses in Cali-
nurses and other health professionals to the larger, fornia began organizing in the San Francisco Bay
historical construction of lesbians as pathological. Area in 1989 and only later discovered that a
The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome group of lesbian nurses had been meeting in Los
(AIDS) epidemic has played a role in helping les- Angeles since 1985. The mid-1990s brought an-
bian nurses come out professionally. Lesbian nurses other organization, Lavender Lamps, the Na-
became unwilling to ignore homophobic attitudes tional Lesbian and Gay Nurses Association,
directed toward the large numbers of gay men who which is trying to become known in nursing. The
were among the first diagnosed with AIDS in the need for a national presence of lesbian nurses
United States. Research shows that homophobia remains. Linda A.Bernhard
among many health-care professionals, including
nurses, has decreased since AIDS appeared. Bibliography
Lesbians are increasingly a visible presence in Deevey, Sharon. Lesbian Self-Disclosure: Strate-
nursing. Since the late 1980s, several nurses have gies for Success. Journal of Psychosocial Nurs-
disclosed their lesbianism in nursing publications, ing 31 (1993), 2126.
and more have published on lesbian topics with- Jackson, Debra. Nursing Texts and Lesbian Con-
out specifically disclosing their sexuality. Many of texts: Lesbian Imagery in the Nursing Litera-
these nurses reported at least as many positive re- ture. Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing
sponses from colleagues as negative ones. 13 (1995), 2531.

NURSING 553
 Oakley, Ann. On the Importance of Being a Nurse. Stevens, Patricia E., and Joanne M.Hall. A Criti-
N In Telling the Truth About Jerusalem: A Collec-
tion of Essays and Poems. Ed. Ann Oakley. New
cal Historical Analysis of the Medical Construc-
tion of Lesbianism. International Journal of
York: Blackwell, 1986, pp. 180195. Health Services 21 (1991), 291307.
Stephany, Theresa M. Nursing as a Lesbian.
Sexuality and Disability 10 (1992), 119124. See also Health; Medicine; Romantic Friendship

554 NURSING
O
OBrien, Kate (18971974) (18901943). That Lady, her only historical novel,
Irish novelist, playwright, travel writer, and jour- was filmed in 1955.
nalist. Romantic friendships between women, les- The lesbian fairytale The Flower of May
bian heroines, the dilemma of womens identity in (1953) and a study, Teresa of Avila (1951), were
a rigidly sex-stereotyped society, are all grist to the written in Ireland. In her last novel, the lesbian
mill of Irish writer Kate OBrien. realist text As Music and Splendour (1958),
Born in Limerick in 1897, OBrien went to the OBrien forges a link between womens autonomy
French convent school Laurel Hill. The Land of and the rejection of the heterosexual contract.
Spices (1941) is a fictionalized account of her time Critically neglected, she spent her last fourteen
there. Graduating in 1919 from University Col- years in England. She died in 1974 in Canterbury,
lege Dublin, she worked for two years as a jour- where her grave bears the inscription pray for the
nalist and a teacher in England, where the painter wanderer. Tina OToole
Mary ONeill became her lifelong friend and, later,
literary executor. Bibliography
Considering marriage to Dutch journalist Dalsimer, Adele. Kate OBrien: A Critical Study,
Gustaaf Reiner in 1922, OBrien spent a year in Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1990.
Bilbao. Spain became her most enduring love, and Reynolds, Lorna. Kate OBrien: A Literary Por-
her novel Mary Lavelle (1936) was based on her trait. New Jersey: Barnes and Noble, 1987.
experiences there. Subsequently, she set the novel Walshe, Eibhear, ed. Ordinary People Dancing.
That Lady (1946) in Spain, and, because of her Cork: Cork University Press, 1993.
criticism of the regime of Francisco Franco (1892
1975) in Farewell Spain (1937), she was barred See also Ireland; Romantic Friendship
from the country. Following her year in Bilbao,
OBrien returned to London and married. The
union lasted only eleven months, and she later re- Olivia
ferred to her ex-husband as poor Gustaaf, now Founded in 1973 as a record company to support
in the grave despite the fact that he outlived her. the creativity of women singers, songwriters, mu-
OBrien began her literary career in 1926 with sicians, engineers, and producers, Olivia Records
the play Distinguished Villa, which she wrote for a grew to become one of the largest independent
bet. On the strength of its success, OBrien wrote her record labels in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1990s,
first novel, Without My Cloak (1932). The sequel, Olivia became the premier travel company for les-
The Ante Room (1934), and Mary Lavelle, her first bians.
novel to be banned by the Irish censor, followed. Olivia recorded more than forty albums, with
During World War II, OBrien lived in Oxford, sales of more than a million records, and produced
publishing Pray for the Wanderer in 1938. She hundreds of concerts, including three sold-out
wrote the novel The Last of Summer (1942) while events at Carnegie Hall. Olivia Records was the
staying at the home of novelist E.M.Delafield forerunner for the late-twentieth-century boom of

OLIVIA 555
 lesbian performers, having recorded and promoted Opera
O out lesbians since its inception.
Olivias most successful artist, Cris Williamson
Art form characterized by extended dramatic com-
positions in which all parts are sung to instrumen-
(1947), recorded her best-selling classic The tal accompaniment.
Changer and the Changed in 1975. Over the course
of twenty-one years, Cris recorded fourteen albums Historical Roots
and the documentary video (aired on the Public The medieval mystic Hildegard of Bingen (1098
Broadcasting System) The Changer: A Record of the 1179) and her nuns created the first musical drama,
Times, for Olivia. The roster of artists who recorded Ordo Virtutum (1158), which concerns the efforts
on Olivia during the 1970s and 1980s includes Meg of a female soul to resist worldly (that is, hetero-
Christian, Teresa Trull, Lucie Blue Tremblay, Tret sexual) temptation and rejoin her female religious
Pure, Linda Tillery, Dianne Davidson, Deidre community. The art form recognized today as op-
McCalla, Mary Watkins, June Millington, Nancy era, however, originated in seventeenth-century
Vogl, BeBe KRoche, Pat Parker, and Judy Grahn, Venice, where an enthusiastic public audience and
among others. All are featured on a compilation aristocratic patronage encouraged its development.
called Lesbian Concentrate: A Lesbianthology of While it cannot be known whether members of the
socalled Academy of the Anonymous, who worked
Songs and Poems, released in 1977 as a response to
to promote this new genre, were homosexual, their
Anita Bryants antigay campaign. Lesbian Concen-
secular outlook made opera a friendly forum for
trate was one of the first recordings ever made with
homoerotic representations. Baroque opera, de-
the word lesbian in the title.
nounced by its enemies as decadent, presented
In 1990, Olivia Records expanded into Olivia
Greco-Roman narratives of male and female ho-
Cruises and Resorts, the leading travel company
mosexual desire and gender-role subversion
chartering entire cruise ships and resorts exclusively
through the means of cross-dressed performers.
for women. Between 1990 and 1996 alone, Olivia
Claudio Monteverdi (15671643) was respon-
chartered more than thirty cruises and resort vaca-
sible for operatic constructions of madness and de-
tions for more than fifteen thousand women, with sire. Accordingly, both male and female characters
destinations including Alaska, Hawaii, Greece, the could be portrayed as losing control of reason
Caribbean, Mexico, the Mediterranean, Canada, through anger, passion, or grief. For example,
Costa Rica, and Tahiti. As with the record label, Lincoronazione di Poppea (1643) portrays Poppea,
Olivia Travel created a path for lesbians, where a Roman courtesan, employing her vocal prowess
none had existed before, and became the largest to scheme her way into power as empress. The char-
out lesbian business in the United States. acters of Ottone, her former lover, and Nero are
Since 1973, Olivias founder, Judy Dlugacz, has soprano roles for male castrato or female soprano.
dedicated herself to building visibility for the les- The early depiction of female homoeroticism and
bian community. She was instrumental in the crea- protolesbianism reaches its pinnacle, however, in
tion of the cultural phenomenon called womens George Frideric Handels (16851759) Serse (1738).
music and later developed exclusive vacations for Serse dramatizes, through an elaborate series of
women. She also manages actor-comedian Suzanne starcrossed and cross-dressed loves, the complicated
Westenhoefer and coproduced Westenhoefers plottings of the rivalries of King Serse and his
1994 out lesbian Home Box Office (HBO) com- brother Arsemenes (sung by a female
edy special, a first ever on television, which received mezzosoprano) for the love of Romilda, whose sis-
a CableACE nomination. Judy Dlugacz ter Atalanta is secretly in love with Arsemenes.
The gradual suppression of the practice of cas-
Bibliography trating young male singers to retain their high
Berman, Leslie. Olivia Turns Fifteen. High Fi- tessatura (vocal ranges) caused a shift in the casting
delity 39:3 (March 1989), 51. of male roles to female mezzo-sopranos, resulting
Davis, Riccardo A. Skys the Limit for Tour Op- in the travesti, or trouser, role. For example,
erators. Advertising Age 64:3 (January 18, Christoph Willibald Gluck (17141787) wrote the
1993), 3637. male lead of Orfeo edEuridice (1762) for a castrato;
when the opera was revived in 1859, however, Orfeo
See also Businesses, Lesbian; Music, Womens; was sung by the famous mezzo-soprano Pauline
Tourism and Guidebooks Viardot (1821 1910). Subsequent opera composers

556 OLIVIA
Der Rosenkavalier: Gwyneth Jones (left) as the Marschellin and Tatiana Troyanos as Oktavian. Winnie Klotz/
Metropolitan Opera.

made further developments in the travesti role. anizing page of Countess Almaviva; while in love
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts (17561791) Le with the countess, he seduces Barbarina, the gar-
Nozze di Figaro (1786) takes the occasion of the deners daughter. Cherubino sings an aria in which
waning of male aristocratic privilege to explore the he proclaims: Every woman makes me change
subversive meanings of female-female love. color, every woman makes me tremble. This char-
Cherubino, played by a mezzo-soprano, is the wom- acter type later reappears as Oktavian in Richard

OPERA 557
 Strausss (18641949) Der Rosenkavalier (1911), The American gay composer Virgil Thomson
O which makes the female homoeroticism in Nozze
quite apparent. Subsequent trouser roles of note
(18961989) collaborated with his librettist
Gertrude Stein (18741946) to produce two origi-
include Siebel in Charles Gounods (18181893) nal operas that not only eschew conventional het-
Faust (1859), Count Orlovsky in Johann Strausss erosexual plotting but also illuminate the social and
(18251899) Die Fledermaus (1874), and spiritual parameters of homosocial community. Four
Nicklausse in Jacques Offenbachs (18191880) Les Saints in Three Acts (1934) takes place in Spain and
Contes dHoffmann (1881). explores the lives of a group of male and female
In contrast to Mozartian opera, in which travesti Carmelites who work together harmoniously to
roles are comic, Gioacchino Antonio Rossinis achieve collective sainthood. The Mother of Us All
(17921868) female armor roles are typically (1946) is a homage to the nineteenthcentury Ameri-
heroic figures who perform such actions as fight- can suffragist Susan B.Anthony (18201906), which
ing duels, leading armies to victory, and romanc- focuses on the romantic friendship between Anthony
ing the soprano heroines. In Semiramide (1823), and her lifelong companion, Anne.
for example, Queen Semiramide falls in love with
the mezzosoprano Arsace, commander of her army Lesbian Subculture
and, unknown to her, her long-lost son. Arsace is In the twentieth century, opera also became a sig-
in love with Princess Azema and seeks vengeance nificant force in lesbian subculture. Leading sing-
for the murder of his father, who was killed, not ers such as Mary Garden (18741967), Emma
coincidentally, by Semiramide. Vincenzo Bellini Calv (18581942), Geraldine Ferrar (18821967),
(18011835), however, deployed his more psycho- and Kathleen Ferrier (19121953) became cultural
logically convincing travesti roles to romantic ends. icons to lesbian opera fans. The American lesbian
His I Capuleti e I Montecchi (1830) features a novelist Willa Gather (18731947), a devotee of
mezzo in the role of Romeo in this homoerotic opera, wrote The Song of the Lark (1915), a fic-
adaptation of the story of Shakespeares star- tionalized biography of the Wagnerian soprano
crossed lovers. Moreover, in Norma (1831), ro- Olive Fremstad (18711951). Opera has thus
mantic friendship between women is given elo- served lesbians as a vehicle for camp masquerade
quent, impassioned expression. In their duet, and diva identification. More recent works by gay
Adalgisa and Norma, who had once been rivals composers, however, deal more seriously with ho-
for the love of the same man, swear their eternal mosexual-related themes, such as social exclusion,
love to each other, concluding: With you I shall persecution, and the price of being different, all of
set my face firmly against the shame which fate which gained urgency in the wake of the Holo-
may bring, as long as I feel your heart beating next caust and the subsequent emergence of gay and
to mine. lesbian politics. Francis Poulencs (18991963)
woman-centered tragic opera Dialogues des
The Twentieth Century Carmlites (1957) returns to the scene of the French
The early twentieth century witnessed the creation Revolution to explore how a homosocial commu-
of new modes of gay and lesbian representation, nity of women, the Carmelite nuns of Compigne,
beginning with the antibourgeois aesthetics of Ri- respond to their scapegoating and martyrdom at
chard Strausss Elektra (1909) and Alban Bergs the hands of the allmale revolutionary authorities.
(18851935) Lulu (1937). Since the 1980s, pro- The increasing visibility of gay and lesbian artists
ductions have increasingly portrayed the title char- and audiences has contributed not only to the re-
acter of Elektra as a lesbian gripped by the Freud- vival of queer Baroque operas, but also to produc-
ian Elektra complex, identifying with her father tion of mainstream operas that explore the
against her mother and engaging in an incestuous homoerotic possibilities of ostensibly heterosexual
relationship with her sister Chrysothemis. Lulu, plots. Corinne E.Blackmer
based on Frank Wedekinds (18641918) plays,
features operas first openly lesbian character, the Bibliography
heroic Countess Geschwitz, who dies as the result Blackmer, Corinne E., and Patricia Juliana Smith,
of her unrequited love for the amoral protagonist, eds. En Travesti: Women, Gender Subversion,
Lulu, and emerges as the only sympathetic, humane Opera. New York: Columbia University Press,
character in the opera. 1995.

558 OPERA
Brett, Philip, Elizabeth Wood, and Gary C.Thomas, At the organizational level, lesbians face legal
eds. Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and oppression, typically in the form of discrimination.
Lesbian Musicology. New York: Routledge, Because U.S. federal legislation does not forbid dis-
1994. crimination on the basis of sexual orientation, les-
Clment, Catherine. Opera: or, the Undoing of bians face legal discrimination in employment, hous-
Women. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota ing, and public accommodations. Further, sexual
Press, 1988. relations between adult, consenting women are
Koestenbaum, Wayne. The Queens Throat: Op- criminalized in twenty of the United States; these
era, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire. so-called sodomy laws are invoked to take chil-
New York: Poseidon, 1993. dren away from their lesbian mothers and to justify
Leonardi, Susan J., and Rebecca A.Pope. The Di- other forms of organizational discrimination. The
vas Mouth: Body, Voice, Prima Donna Poli- lack of legal protection of lesbians and legal acknowl-
tics. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University edgment of their relationships denies lesbian fami-
Press, 1996. lies many social and economic privileges granted to
McClary, Susan. Feminine Endings: Music, Gen- married couples, including the right to visit one an-
der, and Sexuality. Minneapolis: University of other in the hospital in an emergency and to take a
Minnesota Press, 1991. leave of absence to care for a sick partner under the
Family Medical Leave Act of 1993.
See also Anthony, Susan B.; Cather, Willa; Institutional, or cultural, oppression of lesbi-
Hildegard of Bingen, Saint; Music, Classical; Stein, ans includes the annihilation, exclusion, and
Gertrude marginalization of lesbian experience and repre-
sentations in social consciousness and in social in-
stitutions, such as family, education, art, religion,
Oppression literature, media, and language.
According to Websters (1997) dictionary, oppres- Lesbians are not merely victims of oppression;
sion is the unjust exercise of power. The oppres- they also resist sexist and heterosexist systems of
sion of lesbians occurs through two wedded sys- domination. Lesbian resistance in the United
tems of domination: sexism, beliefs and practices States is evident in lesbians existence as a politi-
that enforce male dominance and female subordi- cal force as individuals, in lesbian communities,
nation; and heterosexism, beliefs and practices that and in larger social movements. At the individual
enforce heterosexuality as the only normal and natu- level, lesbians are working toward social change
ral form of sexual expression. The oppression of by coming out as lesbians and forming lesbian
lesbians occurs at the interpersonal, organizational, relationships and families. Lesbians also form
and institutional (cultural) levels of social life. communities to affirm their identities as lesbians
Because lesbians vary according to nationality, and to provide social and material support for
race, ethnicity, gender identity, class, ability, age, themselves. These communities often provide a
and religion, they experience oppression as lesbi- social context for political mobilization against
ans in multiple and varied ways. However, as oppressive beliefs and practices. Lesbians have
women and homosexuals, lesbians commonly share also been instrumental in larger social movements,
being perceived, and treated, as inferior to men and such as womens and gay liberation movements.
as sexually deviant. Regardless of the many axes Lesbian resistance and activism has contributed
along which lesbians may experience oppression to the repeal of sodomy laws in more than half of
and privilege (for example, race and class), both the states, the declassification of homosexuality
sexism and heterosexism, as systems of oppression, as a mental disorder, the institution of sexual-har-
shape lesbian experience. assment legislation, and the establishment of do-
At the interpersonal level, lesbians face preju- mestic-partner policies and legislation. Lesbian
dice, harassment, and violence in everyday life. resistance has often targeted both male and het-
Although public attitudes toward lesbians and les- erosexual privilege. Christine Robinson
bianism have become more tolerant, in the 1990s
hate crimes against lesbians in the United States Bibliography
reached an all-time high (National Gay and Les- Esterberg, Kristin G. Lesbian and Bisexual Identi-
bian Task Force Anti-Violence Project 1997). ties: Constructing Communities, Constructing

OPPRESSION 559
 Selves. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, to listen, project members went out to record memo-
O 1997.
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Anti-Vio-
ries before they were lost. Oral history provided the
opportunity to include all voices and visions of the
lence Project. Annual Report. Washington, lesbian past: those bourgeois women who were not
D.C.: NGLTF, 1997. women of letters and did not leave diaries and let-
ters and, most important the many working-class
See also Heterosexism; Law and Legal Institutions; women of all racial and ethnic groups, whose lives
Sexism would be completely invisible if they were not re-
corded through oral history.
Oral histories have played a crucial role in all
Oral History of the major publications on lesbian and gay his-
Using memory as a source for history. Because of tory of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. In 1976, in
the paucity of written records on lesbians before the first collection of documents on gay and les-
1970, oral history has become central in creating bian history, Katz (1976) included his oral history
knowledge about twentieth-century lesbians. It interviews with the founders of the Mattachine
expands the factual base of lesbian history and Society and Daughters of Bilitis. DEmilio (1983)
provides insight into lesbian consciousness and and Duberman (1993) both use extensive oral his-
subjectivity. tories, along with archival sources, to write a com-
The triumvirate of lesbian oppressionthat it plex history of the development of the homophile
was sinful, sick, and criminalmade it extremely movement and the gay and lesbian liberation move-
unlikely that, before the feminist and lesbian lib- ments, respectively. Oral histories have not only
eration movements, women would leave written documented political activism, but also illuminated
records of their erotic attachments to other women. daily life. Numerous collections of individual life
The primary public records available for the his- stories, such as the one edited by the Hall Carpen-
torical study of lesbianism were those of the crimi- ter Archives Lesbian Oral History Group (1989),
nal justice system, which recorded prosecution for demonstrate the various ways of being lesbians. In
transgressing sexual norms, or of the medical pro- addition, scholars such as Newton (1993) and
fession, which treated lesbians as cases of perver- Kennedy (1995) and Davis (Kennedy and Davis
sion. Although necessary for writing a history of 1996) have constructed histories of wealthy and
lesbianism, these documents are not sufficient, be- working-class communities based on oral histories.
cause of their bias and because they cannot ad- Filmmakers intrigued by the growing body of oral
equately convey the breadth of womens experi- histories have woven them throughout their his-
ence or their consciousness of it. torical films, as in Before Stonewall (1986) and
Without oral histories, the only insights into Forbidden Love (1992).
womens consciousness about their erotic attach- The reliance on oral history for analyzing les-
ments with women were provided by a few far- bian history raises questions about the veracity of
sighted women who donated their letters and dia- such sources. Most theoreticians of oral history have
ries to archives, usually with the stipulation that they come to see the practice as revealing two different,
not be open to the public until after their death. No but complementary, kinds of truth. First, oral
matter how valuable these few records, they also do history adds new social facts to the historical record.
not serve as a sufficient basis for constructing les- The urgency with which lesbians and gays went in
bian history. They represent a very elite group of search of their history encouraged a focus on names,
women, those with the leisure and training to write. dates, places, and events, and the majority of re-
In the mid-1970s, the lesbian and gay liberation search has been of this nature. Second, being based
movements were motivated to understand their his- in memory, oral history explores subjectivityan
tories in order to gain insight into the present and individuals interpretation of the past. Not being
the future. Grass-roots gay and lesbian history born and raised in a public lesbian and gay culture,
projects sprang up throughout the United States and, each gay and lesbian person has constructed his or
subsequently, around the world; among them were her own life in oppressive contexts, a process that
the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian History Project oral history is uniquely suited to reveal. Lesbian oral
and the Lesbian Herstory Archives. Armed with tape historians have learned to interpret the style of sto-
recorders, questions about the past, and the desire rytelling, the myths that are embedded in stories,

560 OPPRESSION
the multiple meanings of memories, and the inter- Katz, Johnathan, ed. Gay American History: Les-
action between narrator and interviewer. In this proc- bians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. New York:
ess, they have come to understand the subjectivity Crowell, 1976, pp. 249250.
and orality of their sources as a strength that keeps Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky. Telling Tales: Oral
the experiences of individuals alive. History and the Construction of Pre-Stonewall
Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy Lesbian History. Radical History Review 62
(1995), 5879.
Bibliography Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, and Madeline D.
DEmilio, John. Sexual Politics, Sexual Communi- Davis. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The
ties: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in History of a Lesbian Community. New York:
the United States, 19401970. Chicago: Chi- Routledge, 1996.
cago University Press, 1983. Newton, Esther. Cherry Grove, Fire Island: Sixty
Duberman, Martin. Stonewall. New York: Dutton, Years in Americas First Gay and Lesbian Town.
1993. Boston: Beacon, 1993.
Hall Carpenter Archives, Lesbian Oral History
Group. Inventing Ourselves: Lesbian Life Sto- See also Diaries and Letters; History; Lesbian
ries. New York: Routledge, 1989. Herstory Archives

O R A L H I S T O RY 561
P
Pacific Islands the universe (Hall and Kauanui 1994). This
Grouping of linguistically and culturally diverse cosmological perspective was reflected in both the
peoples of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, presence of, and the lack of interdiction against,
three culture areas identified by anthropologists. same-sex intimacies: Sexual relationships among
None of these categories is indigenous, and each females have been documented in most Polynesian
hides differences between what are today dozens societies. In Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), for
of different nation-states and European and Ameri- example, anthropologist Margaret Mead stated
can colonies. The categories also collapse the quite that, for Samoans, homosexual practices among
different historical paths created by the peoples adolescents were simply play, neither frowned
descending from the Austronesian speakers who upon nor given much consideration (emphasis in
began settling the Pacific islands six thousand years original). Seventeen of the twenty-five adolescent
ago. This contemporary diversity, combined with girls with whom Mead worked closely reported to
the scarcity of published accounts of Pacific Islander her that they had had homosexual experiences, and
forms of lesbianism, makes what follows an over- several of these girls sexual involvements with each
view highlighting the variability of Pacific forms other resulted in really important friendships,
of lesbianism and the need for more research. as Mead put it.
Since colonization, missionaries and colonial
Identity Categories powers throughout Polynesia have stigmatized forms
Unlike the situation in the United States and Eu- of homosexuality in ways unprecedented among
rope, lesbian is not meaningful as an identity indigenous people. Yet the bases of Polynesian
category in most Pacific societies. (The exception personhood and epistemologyparticularly
is the organized lesbian communities in urban ar- Polynesians emphasis on action over ideologygive
eas of Aotearoa/New Zealand and the Hawaiin individuals significant latitude in shaping others
Islands, both sites of particularly destructive colo- views of them. This may be crucial in accounting
nial interventions.) The phrase forms of lesbian- for variability found in the status of lesbians in
ism used in this entry foregrounds the complex- the late twentieth century: The importance of indi-
ity of forms through which female-female sexual vidual personalities, kinship networks, family his-
relationships are socially structured and under- tories, and individual actions toward others may be
stood. The different forms of lesbianism found fundamental in accounting for why some lesbians
across the Pacific are meaningful in relation to spe- are relatively isolated, while others are respected
cific cultural ideas and practices; in particular, members of their communities.
personhood, epistemology, and cosmology, as well In some Polynesian societies, forms of lesbian-
as kinship, gender, and exchange. ism have a complex relationship to gender. In the
early 1960s, for example, Levy (1973) found that
Polynesia [w]omen dressing and living somewhat as men and
In precolonial Polynesia, sexuality was an inte- playing western-type lesbian roles have been known
gral force of lifeindeed the cause of the life of in the island of Tahiti for some generations at least.

PACIFIC ISLANDS 563

 While the Polynesians with whom Levy worked used gests that these forms are often meaningful in refer-
P the term vahine paia to refer to female homo-
sexuals, the prevalence of butch-femme relation-
ence to the same social practices as forms of hetero-
sexuality: namely, kinship and exchange. An anthro-
ships among females in this part of Polynesia may pologist who worked in Island Melanesia, for ex-
be historically related to the concept of the mh. ample, encountered two lesbian couples on two
The term mh, which is indigenous to the Hawaiin different islands (Macintyre, personal communica-
and Society Islands (French Polynesia), means half- tion). In both cases, the couples divided their work
man, half-woman and highlights the interrelation- like a husband and wife, adopted children, partici-
ships between gender and forms of lesbianism. Mh pated in village feasts, and had high statuses in their
are males or females who deploy complex combi- villages, in part because they were successful gar-
nations of masculinity and femininity (cultural signs deners. While these female couples practiced a
of gender difference) and who, in many cases, are gendered division of labor that paralleled that of
sexually active primarily with individuals of the same husbands and wives, their styles of dress and man-
sex. Importantly, the lovers of mh are never other ner were feminine by their societies standards.
mh, but are socially categorized as either (tane) In other words, complexly gendered statuses were
men or women (vahine). More recently, in urban not part of these forms of lesbianism. However, the
Papeete in 1995, butch females who dressed and women were categorized into life stages at odds with
behaved in the manner of men were most con- their ages: Despite the fact that one couple was in
sistently described, by other Polynesians, as their forties and the other in their fifties, the women
lesbiennes, the French term for lesbian. Their of both couples dressed like young, unmarried girls,
femme lovers, however, who dressed and behaved not adult women. This is a potentially important
in the manner of women, were rarely referred to statement that the social criteria for adulthood were
as lesbiennes, despite their sexual intimacies with not met by their relationships, despite their appar-
butch females: They were simply women. ent social and economic successes.

Melanesia Micronesia
In contrast to the scholarship on forms of lesbian- Anthropologists have referred to Micronesia as the
ism in Polynesia, for Micronesia and Melanesia the place where homosexuality does not exist, a state-
ethnographic information is extremely thin and ment true primarily in the sense that there are no
difficult to interpret. It is probably not a form of homosexual identities. One anthropologist who
lesbianism, for example, that is found in the cer- worked on Chuuk suggested as an alternative that
emony performed by Solomon Islanders for a girls different definitions of sex may underlie this
first menstruation. During the ceremony, the characterization: Sex is locally defined as het-
[adult] women all play at copulating with one an- erosexual, making the group masturbation that
other, play that includes taking bits of ceremo- takes place among males, and probably among fe-
nial pudding and pieces of pig and rub[bing] them males as well, something other than sex (Moral,
on to their genitals, and then on one anothers pers. comm.). Definitions of sex occasionally
mouths (Blackwood 1935). On the other hand, combine with an anthropologists own prejudices
in his description of the Malekula people of to make it difficult to interpret local understandings
Vanuatu (formerly, New Hebrides), Deacon (1934) of sexual practices between females. In his ethnog-
wrote that, between women, homosexuality is raphy of Ulithi, for example, Lessa (1966) wrote:
common, many women being generally known as Boys sometimes indulge in mutual masturbation,
Lesbians, or in the native term nimomogh iap as do girls, and for this they are scolded and occa-
nimomogh (woman has intercourse with woman). sionally even beaten by their parents. Women of
It is regarded as a form of play, but, at the same mature age, usually because of involuntary conti-
time, it is clearly recognized as a definite type of nence, are said sometimes to resort to mutual mas-
sexual desire, and that the women do it because it turbation, but only as a substitute for the normal
gives them pleasure. sexual congress being denied them.
Anecdotal evidence of sexual relationships be- As in many other societies, gender can be one
tween females in various parts of Papua New Guinea, of the main vehicles through which a people un-
as well as occasional ethnographic references to derstand sexual desire and intimacyand the site
forms of lesbianism elsewhere in Melanesia, sug- of cultural work when an individuals desire is

564 PACIFIC ISLANDS

samesex. During her fieldwork on the Micronesian Pacific Literature
island of Pohnpei, for example, anthropologist Lesbian writing from the Pacific Island region, from
Ward (1989) describes how Aotearoa in the south to Hawaii in the north. Pa-
cific lesbian authors reflect indigenous issues in their
[a] young girl named Maria began exhibit- writing, from colonization of their islands by out-
ing the habits of a boy as she grew into her siders to the struggle for island sovereignty by re-
teens. She began to go walking about at night claiming the land and the spirit of the people.
looking for girls. Family and neighbors Pacific Island lesbian writing tends to be inclu-
held a meeting to discuss the problem. Then sive rather than exclusive. Bisexuals, transsexuals,
they held a feast where they publicly declared and lesbians are a natural part of island cultures,
her a boy. Her hair was cut and she was pre- despite the work of Christian missionaries in the
sented with male clothing. Henceforth they region to reverse this. Colonial Pacific literature
announced Maria would be Mario. I heard reflected Pacific Islanders as objects to be studied
that Mario became a responsible citizen with and analyzed or as exotic. In this canon, both
a wife and children. Pacific Island and lesbian oral storytelling and writ-
ing were not reflected in anthologies or single-au-
In addition, on Chuuk, Micronesians have indig- thor publications. Oral storytelling, songs, and
enous terms that complicate the gender dualism chants are still by far the greatest conveyors of
man/woman in ways similar to the category mh: knowledge throughout the Pacific Islands, and it
Wininmwn, for example, references women is only since 1980 that lesbian voices have begun
who behave like men, although, also as with to emerge strongly in print.
mh, this does not necessarily mean that The first Australian-Aotearoan/New Zealand
wininmwn are sexually active with other females lesbian anthology, The Exploding Frangipani
(Moral, personal communication). (1990), edited by Susan Hawthorne and Cathie
[The author wishes to extend special thanks to Dunsford, included indigenous Maori, Pacific Is-
Evelyn Blackwood, J.Kehaulani Kauanui, Elizabeth land, and Aboriginal writers. Pacific lesbian au-
Keating, Martha Macintyre, Mac Marshall, and thors have featured in other lesbian feminist an-
Beatriz Moral for their insights and contributions thologies since, such as the New Womens Fiction
to this entry.] Deborah A.Elliston series, Subversive Acts (1991) and Me and Marilyn
Monroe (1993), both edited by Dunsford.
Bibliography Pacific lesbian writing was generally excluded from
Blackwood, Beatrice. Both Sides of the Buka Pas- major anthologies documenting gay and/or lesbian
sage. Oxford: Clarendon, 1935. writing until anthologies like The Very Inside: Asian-
Deacon, A.Bernard. Malekula: A Vanishing Peo- Pacific Lesbian Writing (1994), edited by Sharon Lim-
ple in the New Hebrides. Ed. Camilla Hing. Northern Hemisphere readers, editors, and
Wedgewood. London: Routledge, 1934. publishers have become more aware of the distinc-
Hall, Lisa Kahaleole Chang, and J.Kehaulani tive and varied lesbian literature from the Pacific re-
Kauanui. Same-Sex Sexuality in Pacific Lit- gion, as indicated by the inclusion of a regular Pacific
erature. Amerasia Journal 20:1 (1994), lesbian column in the U.S. journal the Lesbian Re-
7581. view of Books since its inception in 1994.
Lessa, William A. Ulithi: A Micronesian Design Pacific lesbian writing reflects strong movements
for Living. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and for political independence and decolonization
Winston, 1966. throughout the Pacific region, as well as personal is-
Levy, Robert I. Tahitians: Mind and Experience in sues of sexuality, oppression, and empowerment. In
the Society Islands. Chicago: University of Chi- some of the lesbian literature, music is vital for the
cago Press, 1973. bridging work between cultures; in others, kii pohaku
Ward, Martha. Nest in the Wind Adventures in (ancient rock drawings) may be integral to the text.
Anthropology on a Tropical Island. Prospect The issues of Pacific lesbian writing have much in
Heights, Ill.: Waveland, 1989. common with those of Native American lesbian writ-
ers. Pakeha/haole/palangi (European) lesbian authors
See also Anthropology; Hawaii; Indigenous Cul- from the Pacific have wide-ranging concerns that
tures; Mh; Pacific Literature sometimes also include indigenous issues.

P A C I F I C L I T E R AT U R E 565
 Keri Hulme, Ngai Tahu (Maori) author of the Sayer, Susan. Alive and Well: Lesbian Writing in
P Booker Prize-winning novel The Bone People (1983),
describes herself as neuter, or gender neutral. This
Aotearoa/New Zealand. Hecates Australian
Womens Book Review 10 (1998), 2426.
terminology suggests that, as yet, there are not cat-
egories invented to fit identities that may not easily See also Australia; New Zealand; Pacific Islands
fall into European-defined criteria. Similarly, Pacific
Island lesbian authors do not always fit easy cultural
stereotypes. There are many mixed-blood Pacific au- Paris
thors. Often their multiple identities require coming Largest city and capital of France; best known for
out of the closet several times over. its famous lesbian salons (private artistic circles)
Postcolonial lesbian writing does not assume that of the 1920s. Paris has played a particular role in
colonization is over. Rather, it seeks to deal with the the construction of modern lesbian identity.
issues provoked by colonization and to redefine the The earliest definitions of female same-sex re-
past, present, and future based on decolonization lations in France have legal, theological, and cul-
and reclamation of land, spirit, and self. For Pacific tural roots. In sixteenth-century Paris, church and
lesbians, this means redefining the self in their own state law condemned to death women (tribades)
languages, songs, and rituals, as well as through new engaged in mutual lust. The law was evidently
literatures in English. The influence of oral story- enforced, however, only insofar as a woman also
telling emerges in many of the styles chosen for writ- crossdressed, thereby mixing visual codes of iden-
ing and often incorporates other oral traditions, such tification and challenging patriarchal laws of sexual
as dance, art, music, mythology, dreams, and indig- division.
enous philosophy and psychology, that differ from Revolutionary politics and science in eighteenth-
European models significantly. In fighting oppres- century France redefined the tribade. Medical lan-
sion, rituals, chanting, and often great humor are guage considered her an anatomical anomaly: the
used in the struggle and in the writing. There is woman who does more than masquerade as a man
empowerment through sharing a common vision (in mens clothing), but also acts in place of a man
that flames through the writing, as it often does when (with a malelike physical member). On the other
lesbians share common goals in their various strug- hand, Parisian male libertines, who wrote quasi-
gles for identity, but each island nation has its own pornographic tales featuring tribades, saw female
different identities and languages. same-sex love as either a delicious affront to mid-
The lack of Pacific Island lesbian publishing dle-class moral values or, more positively, as a Uto-
houses has constricted the availability of more Pa- pian sexual possibility.
cific lesbian writing. However, lesbian feminist The French Revolution in 1789 did not, how-
presses such as Spinifex in Australia, New Wom- ever, radically reimagine sex roles. Instead, several
ens Press in Aotearoa/New Zealand, and, Sister notable women (including Marie Antoinette [1755
Vision in Canada are leading the way in getting 1793]) who had expressed a passion for women
Pacific lesbian voices into the mainstream of glo- were among the casualties of the Old Regimes fall.
bal literature, as is the Lesbian Review of Books The libertines critique of old mores, in which the
in reviewing the literature. In 1995, the Univer- tribade might be invoked as revolutionary alterna-
sity of Osnabruck Press published the first bilin- tive, yielded to a critique of aristocratic decadence,
gual German-EnglishMaori anthology of Pacific in which the tribade would now function as em-
womens writing, Nga Uri a Papatuanuku: De- blem and proof.
scendants of the Earth Mother, edited by Sigrid In 1800, Napoleonic law renewed the legal sanc-
Markmann and Powhiri Rika-Heke, including tion against female cross-dressing, now possible
contemporary Maori lesbian writers Rene, only with special authorization from the police,
Marewa Glover, Cathie Dunsford, and Powhiri local government officials, and health officers. Al-
Rika-Heke. Cathie Dunsford though aristocratic novelist George Sand (1804
1876) cross-dressed in Paris without obtaining this
Bibliography official permission, self-supporting painter Rosa
Hall, Lisa Kahaleole Chang, and J.Kehaulani Bonheur (18221899) made multiple requests for
Kavanui. Same-Sex Sexuality in Pacific Litera- certificates (valid for six months). Bonheur cited
ture. Amerasia Journal 20:1 (1994), 7581. professional necessity, without drawing attention

566 P A C I F I C L I T E R AT U R E
to her lifelong relationship with another woman, verse, but history punished her for this by relegat-
Nathalie Micas (18241889). ing her, until the 1970s, to artistic oblivion and by
Also in the nineteenth century, French litera- cloaking her short life in mystery and vague scandal.
ture discovered an almost obsessive interest in the Barney, her lover, more successfully sustained a
lesbian, who was depicted in popular (and some- viable lesbian image. Her famed salon from 1905
times prurient) poetry and fiction published from to World War II gathered dozens of talented art-
1835 onward by male writers such as Charles ists, mostly women, at regular meetings. In 1927,
Baudelaire (18211867), Emile Zola (18401902), she founded the Academy of Women (a feminist
Honor de Balzac (17991850), and Thophile alternative to the exclusive male French Academy),
Gautier (18111872). which subsidized the publication of womens
By 1900, the vogue in Paris for Sappho (ca. 600 works, provided a private forum for reading wom-
B.C.E.), the visibility of paintings and novels fea- ens writing, and offered a literary prize. By cham-
turing lesbians, and the emerging modern medical pioning lesbian artists and celebrating her love and
writings about sexual inversion all created an lust for women, Barney was instrumental in
ambience that has been called Paris-Lesbos. Les- modeling modern lesbian identity, even if her in-
bian relationships were suddenly fashionable fluence extended only to a small artistic elite.
among some society women, prompting one lady The Parisian literary salon of Gertrude Stein
of fashion to declare that all of the chic women (18741946) was likewise a fixture of expatriate
were taking women as lovers. Paris in the 1920s. Presided over by Stein and her
Urban Paris in 1900 was a highly sexualized lover, Alice B.Toklas (18771967), the salon was
space. In a positive sense, the city tolerated not sim- less obviously lesbian than Barneys in its tone
ply private salons where aristocratic lesbians from and guest list but went far in placing Steins writing
all over Europe gathered, but also working-class and lifestyle at the heart of modern literary history.
bars, such as the Palmyre in Montmartre. Lesbian Between the wars, Paris hosted an impressive
theatricality experienced popularity and scandal: expatriate community of Anglo American lesbian
the crossdressed roles of actress Sarah Bernhardt writers, journalists, photographers, and publishers,
(18441923) or the famous veiled Egyptian including Djuna Barnes (18921982), Janet Plan-
mummy dance performed by writer Colette (1873 ner (18921978), Solita Solano (18881975), Sylvia
1954) with the aid of her female lover, the Mar- Beach (18871962), and Romaine Brooks (1874
quise de Belbeuf (also Belboeuf [18631944]). 1970). Although these women enjoyed personal
More negatively, the doomed lesbian image privacy in Paris, they infrequently risked sexual self-
circulated in both high and low culture, from the disclosure in their art, which continued to mask les-
canvases of Gustave Courbet (18191877) to the bian desire or present it in acceptably heterosexual
brothels of Paris, where lesbian and whore form. This may, however, say less about Parisians,
became fused images contributing to Pariss repu- who were accustomed to the lesbian in literature,
tation as the capital of sexual sophistication. Male and more about the struggle to reveal an authentic
writers, such as poet Pierre Louys (18701925), lesbian image to an American audience.
and painters, such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Lesbian identity continued to create itself else-
(18641901), created images of lesbian prostitutes, where in Paris, which had no gay ghetto per se
drawing on firsthand observation in working-class in the 1920s but which nonetheless supported a
cafs. Criminal anthropologists decried the dou- definable homosexual community. Lesbian bars
ble vice of lesbian prostitutes, and female cross- (the Sphinx, the Monocle, the Fetish) attracted se-
dressing was, as novelist Colette recalls, patrolled rious cross-dressers, and nightclubs drew women
in 1907 by a zealous prefect of police. from all classes.
In this mixed climate of fascination and intoler- By the 1930s, Pariss flamboyant expatriate and
ance, two major expatriate literary figuresNatalie indigenous lesbian cultures became subdued.
Barney (18761972) and Rene Vivien (1877 ParisLesbos 1900 recorded in Colettes The Pure and
1909)superimposed a modern lesbian aesthetic on the Impure (1932) now seemed remote and mythic, as
the classic model of Sappho. Both renounced their French society returned to conservative heterosexual
homelands (the United States and England, respec- models of identity, muting gay subculture and stigma-
tively) for Paris, calling it the only place in which to tizing collective lesbian identity. This pushed the bar
live. Vivien crafted a lesbian erotic in delicate French scene underground and made women

PARIS 567
 reluctant to identify with the term lesbian, a fear posed and became part of the scandal, especially
P that would persist until the 1970s. Elyse Blankley the lives of the upper-class Hulme family.
After a sensational trial, the two girls were con-
Bibliography victed of murder and served five years at Her Maj-
Benstock, Shari. Women of the Left Bank: Paris, estys Pleasure in top-security prisons, being care-
19001940. Austin: University of Texas Press, fully kept apart during this period. They were re-
1986. leased seperately in 1959 and were given new iden-
Blankley, Elyse. Return to Mytilene: Rene tities by the Justice Department, Juliet Hulme be-
Vivien and the City of Women. In Women coming Anne Perry and later establishing herself as
Writers and the City. Ed. Susan Merrill Squier. a writer of murder mysteries; Pauline Parker becom-
Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984, ing Hilary Nathan and qualifying as a librarian. Both
pp. 4567. women left Aotearoa/New Zealand and live in Scot-
Bonnet, Marie-Jo. Les Relations amoureuses entre land and England, respectively; they have never been
les femmes du seixime au vingtime sicle (Love in contact again, nor has either re-offended.
Between Women from the Sixteenth to the The case attracted international attention at the
Twentieth Centuries). Paris: Odile Jacob, 1995. time and subsequently, with the two girls depicted
Harris, Bertha. The More Profound Nationality as either mad or bad at the trial and by the
of Their Lesbianism: Lesbian Society in Paris in media. Extracts from Parkers diaries were reprinted
the 1920s. In Amazon Expedition: A Lesbian through the years, adding to a story that gained
Feminist Anthology. Ed. Phyllis Birkby, Bertha mythic proportions in Aotearoa/New Zealand and
Harris, Jill Johnston, Esther Newton, and Jane that profoundly influenced attitudes toward lesbi-
OWyatt. New York: Times Change, 1973, pp. anism for many decades in the country by construct-
7788. ing connections between female homosexuality, in-
Jay, Karla. The Amazon and the Page: Natalie sanity, and murder. The defense psychiatrist, Dr.
Barney and Rene Vivien. Bloomington: Indi- Reginald Medlicott, had argued that the two girls
ana University Press, 1988. were insane and had committed the murder because
Lesselier, Claudie. Silenced Resistances and they suffered from folie deux, or communicated
Conflictual Identities: Lesbians in France, 1930 insanity, of which homosexuality was a symptom.
1968. Journal of Homosexuality 25 (1993), The prosecution argued that they were perfectly sane
105125. but were dirty minded and bad girls. Both views
became part of public perceptions of lesbians, some
See also Barney, Natalie; Cross-Dressing; France; of which were internalized by lesbians themselves.
Stein, Gertrude; Tribade; Vivien, Rene In 1991, lesbian writers Julie Glamuzina and Alison
J.Laurie published Parker and Hulme: A Lesbian
View, which discusses the social and political con-
Parker-Hulme Murder Case text of the murder and its aftermath and includes
On June 22, 1954, in Christchurch, Aotearoa/New interviews with a number of New Zealand lesbians
Zealand, Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker killed about the effect the case had on their lives. This book
Honora Parker, Paulines mother. They were age was republished in the United States in 1995 fol-
fifteen and sixteen and killed Honora with a brick lowing the distribution of the movie Heavenly Crea-
in a stocking after luring her to Victoria Park. The tures by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh. This fic-
girls were arrested for the crime following the dis- tionalized filmed version of the murder shows Parker
covery of Pauline Parkers diary, which detailed and Hulme as frenetic teenagers and can be inter-
plans for the moider and which described a preted as based on Medlicotts ideas of folie deux.
sexual relationship between them. They were in- There also have been fictional and nonf ictional ac-
terviewed by the police without legal counsel and counts of the case that depict the girls either as in-
confessed to the murder. The motive was claimed sane or as cold-blooded killers out to remove an
to be their impending separation because Hulme obstacle in their path. All of these consider the re-
was being sent to stay with an aunt in South Af- lationship between the girls as the motive for the
rica. Parkers unmarried parents refused to allow murder.
her to leave New Zealand with her friend. After Soon after the release of Heavenly Creatures,
the murder, various family circumstances were ex- Anne Perry was exposed as Juliet by the media.

568 PARIS
Perry denied that the relationship was sexual and
said that she can remember little of the events be-
fore or during the murder. Hilary Nathan was ex-
posed in 1996 as Pauline and as of 1998, had re-
fused to be interviewed by the media.
Alison J.Laurie

Bibliography
Glamuzina, Julie, and Alison J.Laurie. Parker and
Hulme: A Lesbian View. Ithaca, N.Y.: Firebrand,
1995.
Laurie, Alison J. Lesbians Through the Decades:
Women Who Love Women. In Standing in the
Sunshine: A History of New Zealand Women
Since They Won the Vote. Ed. Sandra Coney.
Auckland: Viking, 1993.

See also Crime and Criminology; New Zealand

Parker, Pat (19441989)

African American poet. Born in Houston, Texas,
the youngest of four daughters, Pat Parker grew up
in a family that believed the road to freedom was
paved with the bricks of education. Parker began
writing poetry during her marriage to Ed Bullins Pat Parker. Photo by Tee A.Corinne.
(1935), a playwright, in order to carve out a liter-
ary niche that would not be associated with his work. The first poem, Goat Child, is autobiographical
Parker worked on including all aspects of her and examines the poets trials and tribulations as a
self in her work. A poet of vision, she moved be- young woman whose potential goes unrecognized
yond the racial separatist rhetoric of Oakland, Cali- by her family, the school system, and her husband.
fornia, of the 1970s. Bringing together feminism, Parkers expos of the family, marriage, and educa-
antiracism, and lesbianism into narrrative poetic tion is directly related to her vision of a society that
form, she sought to reveal the weakness of separa- is not divided in to classes and subclasses. This vi-
tist politics by using African American oratory tra- sion is elaborated in the section entitled Libera-
ditions, predominantly found in black churches and tion Fronts, in which Parker turns her discerning
Sunday schools. This is abundantly apparent in her eye on the flaws within the political movements she
first three works, Child of Myself (1972), Pit Stop traverses. The final poem in this section, Move-
(1974), and Womanslaughter (1978). ment in Black, is considered by many to be her
Criticized for her didacticism in these early works, signature piece. This work not only contains a
Parker decided to bring her vision on the road in chronicle of some of the black heroines of Ameri-
1975. Her readings in cities across the United States can history, but also uses the call-and-response verse
brought the universality of her themes to a broader that is a part of American poetics, past and present.
audience and earned her the respect and admiration Parkers final work, Jonestown and Other Mad-
that was lacking in the critical response of nonfeminist ness (1985), continues her quest for an identity that
and nonlesbian publications. The response of Park- deconstructs categories and definitions. She points
ers audience also led to a recorded collaboration with to the error of insisting on an identity that disal-
the lesbian poet Judy Grahn (1940)in l976. lows affiliation within a global society. These po-
Although Parkers three earliest works went out ems are longer, narrative works that give agency to
of print, many of the poems are included in Move- the ideals of unity, peace, and love.
ment in Black (1978). The collection is divided into Parkers activities in the womens health project
four sections. The first section is entitled Married. in Oakland was born out of her activism in the Black

P A R K E R , P AT 569
 Panther Party of the 1960s and the Black Womens For the next seven years, Parnok lived in Mos-
P Revolutionary Council in the 1970s. She worked as
a medical coordinator from 1978 to 1987 to ex-
cow, became self-supporting as a journalist, an op-
era librettist, and a poet, and led an, at times, fre-
pand the services of a single site to six clinics. Park- netic personal life. Her two most important rela-
ers work as an activist and her growth as a poet tionships of these years were with a Moscow social-
were halted by her death from cancer in 1989. She ite, Iraida Albrecht (n.d.), and with the then-begin-
is survived by her partner, her two daughters, and ning poet Marina Tsvetaeva (18921941). Parnok
her visionary work, which reminds readers of their began publishing separate poems in journals in 1906,
potential as a global family. Stephanie Byrd and in 1916 her first collection, Stikhotvoreniia (Po-
ems), appeared in the aftermath of her breakup with
Bibliography Tsvetaeva. Her creative development was slowed by
Annas, Pamela. A Poetry of Survival: Unnaming her chronic poor health (Graves disease), her lack
and Renaming in the Poetry of Audre Lorde, Pat of ambition, literary connections, and money, and
Parker, Sylvia Plath, and Adrienne Rich. Colby her long struggle against the artistic and moral norms
Library Quarterly 18 (March 1982), 925. of Russian literary culture that discouraged and
Beemyn, Brett. Bibliography of Works by and hampered the straightforward expression of lesbian
about Pat Parker (19441989). Sage 6:1 (Sum- desire in serious poetry.
mer 1989), 8182. The 1917 Revolution and ensuing civil war
Folayan, Ayofemi S., and Stephanie Byrd. Pat (19181921) brought Parnoks burgeoning liter-
Parker. In Contemporary Lesbian Writers of ary career to a halt. She and her partner (since
the United States: A Bibliographical Critical 1916), Lyudmila Erarskaya (ca. 18901964), a
Sourcebook. Ed. Sandra Pollack and Denise D. Moscow actress, spent the civil war years in the
Knight. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1993, eastern Crimean town of Sudak, where Parnoks
pp. 415419. mature creativity and her new faith (Russian Or-
thodoxy) blossomed.
See also African American Literature; Grahn, Judy In early 1922, Parnok and Erarskaya returned
to Moscow, where the poet would live until her death
eleven years later. Under Soviet power, Parnok found
Parnok, Sophia (18851933) it increasingly difficult to publish her poetry, which
Russian poet. Sophia Yakovlevna Parnok, Rus- was censored for its religious (and possibly lesbian)
sias first (and still only) openly lesbian poet, was content and pessimistic tone. During the 1920s, she
born into a professional Jewish family in Taganrog, published only three collections: Loza (The Vine
Russia, in 1885. The death of her mother, a physi- [1923]), Muzyka (Music [1926]), and Vpolgolosa
cian, in 1891 left Parnok with profound feelings (Halfvoiced [1928]). After 1928, Parnok was effec-
of orphanhood and homelessness, which were ex- tively silenced by the Soviet censorship, and her last
acerbated by her fathers remarriage and by diffi- and best lyrics, about one-third of her total output,
cult relations with her stepmother. were published only in 1979 in a Western edition.
Parnoks creativity was closely linked with her In Russia, Parnoks Sobranie Stikhotvorenii (Col-
lesbianism, which revealed itself in early adolescence lected Poems) was finally published in 1997, by
and brought her into conflict with her father. Parnok INAPRESS, in St. Petersburg.
finished the gymnasium (secondary school) in 1903, During the last five years of her life, Parnok en-
and, in 1905, left Taganrog with an actress lover dured poverty, constant illness, isolation from read-
and spent a year in Europe. Lack of funds forced ers, and, most painfully, the indifference to her work
her to return to Russia suddenly in 1906. Life in her of her poet colleagues, who, she believed, shunned
fathers house soon became intolerable, however, her for daring to say out loud what people hide,
and in 1907 Parnok married her close friend and even from themselves. She drew strength and spir-
literary adviser, Vladimir Volkenshtein (18831974). itual sustenance, however, from her devoted women
Marriage had a deleterious effect on Parnoks writ- friends and lovers, especially Erarskaya; the mem-
ing, and, despite her husbands acceptance of her oirist Eugenia Gertsyk (18781944); the mathema-
lesbianism, it restricted her personal life. In 1909, tician Olga Tsuberbiller (18851975), with whom
she left her husband and, after months of acrimoni- the poet lived from 1926 until her death; and the
ous haggling, got him to agree to a divorce. physicist Nina Vedeneyeva (18821955), Parnoks

570 P A R K E R , P AT
last love and the inspiration for her greatest work, her femininity, one proposed that she was married
the lyric cycles Bolshaia Medveditsa (Ursa Ma- to her work, while another tried to associate her
jor) and Nenuzhnoe dobro (Useless Goods) with the Ecuadoran essayist Gonzalo Zaldumbide,
(19321933). The Vedeneyeva cycles recount the to whom she once wrote: In general, I am fright-
unique and tragic story of two middle-aged lesbian ened of you and feel horror toward other men. Oh,
lovers in Moscow during the early years of Stalins if you but knew how to love me with the soul of a
rule. On August 26, 1933, shortly after whispering woman! The soul would be enough for me and I
from her deathbed four half-audible lines of fare- could forgo the body (in Molly 1995).
well to Vedeneyeva, Parnok died of heart failure. According to Molly (1995), Parras texts, letters,
Diana L.Burgin and diaries were expurgated by friendly hands
and by Parra herself. Thus, evidence of a lesbian
Bibliography connection must be read between the lines. In 1924,
Burgin, Diana Lewis. After the Ball Is Over: Sophia Emilia Barrios, an older woman whom Parra con-
Parnoks Creative Relationship with Marina sidered a mentor, died. At that time, Parra is said to
Tsvetaeva. Russian Review 47 (1988), 425444. have suffered a profound spiritual depression.
. Laid Out in Lavender: Perceptions of Lesbian Shortly after, Parra met Lydia Cabrera (19001991),
Love in Russian Literature and Criticism of the a Cuban writer and ethnologist. When the latter
Silver Age, 18931917. In Sexuality and the Body moved to Paris in 1927, they developed a compan-
in Russian Culture. Ed. Jane Costlow, Stephanie ionate relationship that continued until Parra, diag-
Sandler, and Judith Vowles. Stanford, Calif: nosed with tuberculosis, died in 1936.
Stanford University Press, 1993, pp. 177203. Letters between Parra and Cabrera include ref-
. Sophia Parnok and the Writing of a Les- erences to sensual love without consumation.
bian Poets Life. Slavic Review 51:2 (Summer An aversion toward vulgaridad (vulgarity) also
1992), 214231. appears in Parras letters, in which she seems put
. Sophia Parnok: The Life and Work of Rus- off by French author Colettes (18731954) sexual
sia s Sappho. New York: New York University frankness but charmed by the gentility of the
Press, 1994. eighteenthcentury Ladies of Llangollen, with
whom she may have identified. Parras relation-
See also Russia; Tsvetaeva, Marina Ivanovna ship with Cabrera may have been a romantic
friendship constrained by the mores of nine-
teenth-century Latin American Catholic culture
Parra, Teresa de la (1889/901936) and class privilege. Further interpretation must
Pseudonym of Ana Teresa de la Parra Sanojo, Ven- wait until Parras diaries and letters can be fully
ezuelan novelist and epistolary writer. Teresa de la accessed. Yolanda Retter
Parra was born in Paris in 1889, into a prominent
Venezuelan family. While living in Venezuela in her Bibliography
early twenties, she wrote her best-known work, Flores, Angel, ed. Spanish American Authors: The
Ifigenia (1924), the story of a young woman caught Twentieth Century. New York: Wilson, 1992,
in the conflict between cultural tradition and mod- pp. 655657.
ern ideas. Other works by Parra include Las Matta-Kolster, Elba. Ana Teresa de la Parra
Memorias de Mama Blanca (1929) and Epistolario Sanojo. In Latin American Writers. Ed.
Intimo (1953). Carlos A.Sole. New York: Scribner, 1989, pp.
Salient themes in her work include death, an 717720.
idyllic colonial past, and mysticism as a feminine Molly, Sylvia. Disappearing Acts: Reading Les-
goal. By the time Ifigenia was awarded a literary bian in Teresa de la Parra. In Entiendes?
prize in 1924, Parra had returned to Paris, where, Queer Readings, Hispanic Writings. Ed.
like other Western expatriates, she aspired to an Emilie L.Bergmann and Paul Julian Smith.
independent life, and where she presided over a Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1995,
literary salon. pp. 230256.
Critics and biographers have spent much en-
ergy accounting for the absence of an overt love See also Colette; Ladies of Llangollen; Latin Ameri-
relationship in Parras life. Some overemphasized can Literature; Paris; Romantic Friendship

PARRA, TERESA DE LA 571

 Passing Women Although categorizing historys passing women
P Colloquial term that refers to people assigned fe-
male at birth who live some part of their lives as
by late-twentieth-century terms may do them a dis-
service, or be a simplification of their stories, the
men. The term was part of subcultural lesbian ver- urge remains to hold them up as queer heroines
nacular in the 1940s and 1950s and has been de- and heroes. The most famous passing woman is
fined through practice over several decades. Pass- probably Joan of Arc (14121431), the French
ing women have been most often defined as rebel, who was called homasse, a derogatory term
women who live as men or women who pre- meaning masculine woman. The very existence
tend to be men. The first definition above derives of such a term in this time period suggests that
from the more complicated understandings of gen- Joan of Arc was not the only masculine, or pass-
der inspired by the transgender movement. Pass- ing, woman. At the age of seventeen, Joan dressed
ing women, already a complicated term, only be- in mens clothes and led a successful military cam-
comes more so as understandings of genders and paign to liberate the French from the English. The
sexualities expand. As is common with slang, the Roman Catholic Church condemned Joan of Arc
definition of the term is porous, and it collides, on for her cross-dressing, and she was burned at the
occasion, with other terms, such as cross-dressing, stake. Not as well known, but also dashing char-
transvestite, transgender, transsexual, and butch. acters, were the swashbuckling Mary Read and
Passing has long been a word used to describe Anne Bonney, who dressed as men and were con-
the activity of those who move in the world as part victed of piracy in 1720. Another early passing
of a group to which they do not belong: Race pass- woman, Deborah Sampson (17601827), fought
ing, for instance, is a topic extensively treated in as a man in the American Revolutionary War and
literature, especially in narratives of black people was the subject of a sensationalized biography en-
who passed as white, often as a means to escape titled The Female Review (1797).
slavery. There is also a tradition in literature and The self-descriptions of passing women reflect not
drama of gender passing, or cross-dressing; women only their times, but also their self-understandings
passing as men are often main characters, from the within these times. For instance, Mary Walker (1832
plays of William Shakespeare (15641616) to the 1919), who lived in the mid-1800s in the United
popular film Victor/Victoria (1982) and beyond. States, did not undertake to live full-time as a man,
Passing women, however, is a term initially aris- but did undertake to dress like one, and headed the
ing out of a subculture trying to put a name to reallife National Dress Reform Association. She was a sur-
passing, not the stagings and fictions of passing. geon who served in the Civil War on the Union side
and was awarded a congressional Medal of Honor.
Histories: Hidden Stories She wrote widely on topics ranging from suffrage to
The histories of people who passed are hard to sexuality, but her own sexual orientation remains
excavate, because the knowledge of such people unclear. The legendary Mountain Charley, who
depends upon their having been discovered at some trekked by wagon to California in 1855, was known
point. The history of passing has been written most to have been a woman. This moniker may, in fact
commonly in the genre of autobiography. As long have been adopted by more than one successfully
as there have been men and women, there have passing woman in the Old West. The legends of
been stories of women who passed as men, and Mountain Charleys exploits rival those of any mythic
vice versa, for a variety of reasons. The most com- hero. Where she came from is unclear, but, as a teen
mon are the desire to fight as soldiers in times of and an adult, she cross-dressed and passed as a man,
war, to get an education, and to be able to make a becoming a riverboat vagabond and then a train cap-
living in a world that limited the means for women tain, miner, and saloon owner during the Gold Rush.
to do so. Passing women have, in the past, been Other early American passing women are writ-
condemned as imitation men or as traitors to the ten about in newspaper reports or by doctors and
female sex; it has become more common, however, psychiatrists who treated them, and deciphering
to understand passing women as expressing a femi- early sensationalized news reportage and medical
nist revolt against their everyday constraints. Some assessments presents another sort of challenge. Babe
of these lives were certainly lesbian ones, perhaps Bean was a passing woman in the late 1890s in
for women without the language to express les- California whose story was printed in the newspa-
bian desire as such. per in her hometown of Stockton and was taken

572 PASSING WOMEN

up by papers in San Francisco, California, and tions for which change over time, as understandings
Boston, Massachusetts. Articles describing her of gender and sexuality change.
houseboat apartment and letters debating her male As subcultural understandings of gender and
attire appeared with frequency. Lucy Ann Lobdell, sexuality become more complex, those of the gen-
who was born in New York state in 1829 and lived eral public are thought to follow. However, public
much of her life as a man, wrote an autobiogra- opinion is slow to change, and prejudice and fear,
phy, Narrative of Lucy Ann Lobdell (1855), de- not to say hatred, remain. In December 1993,
fending her choices as economic necessity. She was twenty-one-year-old Brandon Teena was raped and
also written about by psychiatrists who treated her murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska. Teena lived as
in the later part of her life, including a Doctor Wise, a man and was discovered to be biologically and
whose determination of her insanity grapples with legally female upon his arrest for check forgery.
then-contemporary thinking about homosexuality; After the police released the information to the lo-
he makes such statements as it would be more cal news, Teena was assaulted and raped by two
charitable and just if society would protect them men, who later murdered Teena, after the police
fromridicule (in Katz, 1992). The doctors log- failed to file charges against them for the first at-
book of Lobdells ten years in what is now the tack. Both of Teenas assailants were found guilty
Willard Psychiatric Center (Willard, New York) is of first-degree murder. Brandon Teena is only one
extremely sad and stands as an incredible example example of the fact that many passing womens
of the kind of oppression faced by early queers. lives have ended in terrible violence.
Another famous contemporary exampleone
Transgendered Analysis whose life did not end in violenceis Billy Tipton, a
In addition to layering a feminist analysis onto the big-band musician, who, upon his death in 1989 at
histories of these women, the time has also come age seventy-four, was discovered to have been ana-
to consider their lives within the framework of a tomically female. There are no words from Tipton
transgendered analysis: Accompanying the exterior himself about his gender expression or his understand-
male presentation of the passing woman might be ing of his own sexuality. He began living as a man
a variety of interior motivations ranging from ex- while in his twenties, taking on his brothers name
pediency to male identification, which is where the and Social Security number. He worked with Louis
term collides with transgender and transsexuality. Armstrongs trombone partner Jack Teagarden and
In fact, some passing women may not be imita- formed the Billy Tipton Trio in the 1950s, playing
tion men at all, but transgendered men, men who nightclubs until shortly before his death. He was
are expanding the very terms of the discussion of married to a woman who said she never knew his
what it means to be a man or to be a woman. The biological sex, and he has been claimed variously as
collision of the terms is suggested by the most fa- a lesbian, a feminist, and a transgendered man. Tipton
mous recent example of a passing womans narra- himself articulated none of these identities. The only
tive, Leslie Feinbergs autobiographical novel Stone clear thing is which pronoun he preferred.
Butch Blues (1993). Some contend that Tipton lived as a man be-
Stone Butch Blues clearly shows the blurring cause it was the only way he could work as a jazz
boundaries between the terms lesbian, butch, musician. This may be true in part, but Tiptons
and passing woman. Feinbergs main character, desire might also have been to live as the man he
Jess Goldberg, passes from life within a always considered himself to be. In the face of
butchfemme community in Buffalo, New York, to modern-day conceptions of transgender and
living and working as a heterosexual manone transsexuality, the term passing women be-
might say as a full-time passing womanand fi- comes even more layered. In historical cases in
nally moves toward a life in which a complicated which passing women describe their choices, it
transgenderedbutch identity can be claimed. Many is not in the terms used today, so it is impossible
butch women are often momentarily taken to be to say that these people were lesbians or were
men. The difference between such momentary transgendered men. Even without identifying these
butch passing and the passing ascribed to passing folks by late-twentiethcentury terms, they can
women is intention: A passing woman actively surely be understood and cherished as a part of
undertakes to live some part of life as a man. The gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered his-
issues become a matter of self-definition, the op- tory. Rebecca Ann Rugg

PASSING WOMEN 573

 Bibliography intimacy cannot accurately be labeled as lesbian,
P Duberman, Martin, Martha Vicinus, and George
Chauncey, Jr., eds. Hidden from History: Re-
but that lesbian-like behavior can be identified.
Women who wrote to each other with, what seems
claiming the Gay and Lesbian Past. New York: to modern-day readers, passionate sexuality felt
Meridian, 1990. comfortable revealing themselves because they be-
Ginsberg, Elaine K. Passing and the Fictions of lieved in their innate passionless purity. Moreo-
Identity. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, ver, with sexuality associated with heterosexual
1996. intercourse, women who participated in lesbian
Guerin, E.J. Moutain Charley. Norman: University sexual acts might not necessarily consider them
of Oklahoma Press, 1986. sexualmerely romantic.
Katz, Jonathan. Gay American History: Lesbians Interpretations vary, for example, on letters such
and Gay Men in the U.S.A. Rev. ed. New York: as Emily Dickinsons (18301886) to Susan Gil-
Penguin, 1992. bert in 1852: [W]ill yoube my own again, and
Nestle, Joan. The Persistent Desire: A Femme- kiss me as you used to? I cannot wait, feel that
Butch Reader. Boston: Alyson, 1992. now I must have youthat the expectation once
, ed. A Restricted Country. Ithaca, N.Y.: Fire- more to see your face again, makes me feel hot and
brand, 1987. feverish, and my heart beats so fast.
Passionlessness ended with acknowledgment
See also Cross-Dressing; History; Joan of Arc of female heterosexual desire by sexologists be-
(Jeanne dArc); Transgender; Walker, Mary ginning in the 1880s. Womens feelings for one
Edwards another were then deemed sexual, acted upon,
and labeled deviant, inverted, and pathologi-
cal. Susan Gonda
Passionlessness
Anglo American middle-class belief (ca. 1780s1890s) Bibliography
that women innately lacked sexual appetites and Cook, Blanche Wiesen. The Historical Denial of
aggressiveness. This led to claims of natural fe- Lesbianism. Radical History Review 20
male virtue and superior morality. Womens in- (1979), 6065.
nate morality justified their participation in public Cott, Nancy. Passionlessness: An Interpretation
reform movements such as temperance. The belief of Victorian Sexual Ideology, 17901850.
also allowed women to develop romantic, sometimes Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Soci-
lifelong, same-sex relationships without public cen- ety 4 (1978), 219236.
sure. The love of two passionless true women was Rupp, Leila J. Imagine My Surprise: Womens
considered a pure, chaste love. Ironically, womens Relationships in Historical Perspective. Frontiers:
romantic relationships, like that of the A Journal of Women Studies 5 (1980), 6170.
eighteenthcentury Ladies of Llangollen, flourished Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. The Female World of
because of their supposed passsionlessness. Love and Ritual: Relations Between Women in
Historians are divided over how to interpret Nineteenth-Century America. In
romantic female relationships: as passionate (al- SmithRosenberg, Disorderly Conduct: Visions
beit asexual) friendships or as sexual love relation- of Gender in Victorian America. New York:
ships. Controversy stems from an argument over Knopf, 1986.
the definition of lesbian. Some insist that the Vicinus, Martha. Lesbian History: All Theory and
only true lesbian relationships were accompanied No Facts or All Facts and No Theory? Radi-
by sexual acts or conscious lesbian identity. Oth- cal History Review 60 (1994), 5775.
ers believe that women who recognized each other
as their primary love or partner were lesbian, re- See also Dickinson, Emily; Ladies of Llangollen;
gardless of their sexual expressiveness. The female Romantic Friendship
world of love and ritual (Smith-Rosenberg 1986)
had intimacy, love, and erotic passion, and some
partnerships did have a sexual component. Patriarchy
Due to historical beliefs in passionlessness, some A wide-ranging system by which men achieve and
historians argue that same-sex nineteenthcentury maintain dominance over women in all spheres of

574 PASSING WOMEN

social life from the family to the economy, from re- sex oppression, Rubin (1975) drew upon Claude
ligious and educational institutions to ideological LeviStrausss (1908) theory of kinship (especially
constructions and psychological processes. Those the exchange of women) and Sigmund Freuds
theorists who have been linked with the Marxist (18561939) theory of femininity to articulate the
feminist theoretical tradition highlight the economic ways in which male control of womens sexuality
basis for male dominance, while those associated was linked to cultural and economic practices
with radical feminist tradition emphasize sexual through a sexgender system. Subsequent radi-
domination. Lesbian feminists, in particular, centered cal feminist analyses further argued that patriar-
the ways in which patriarchal social relations pre- chal domination formed the basis for other forms
sume and reinforce heterosexual norms and of domination based on class and race.
behaviors. The use of the term patriarchy to de- Hartmann (1981) demonstrated the ways in
scribe a broad-based system of oppression has come which capitalism developed with specific forms of
under criticism as a consequence of postmodern cri- male dominance already embedded in it. Joseph
tiques of large, explanatory narratives. However, (1981) argued that such an analysis neglected the
criticism of patriarchy as a transhistorical and ways white supremacy organized systems of capi-
crosscultural system of male dominance has predated talism and patriarchy and rendered invisible the
contemporary postmodern critique. particular experiences of women of color within
Patriarchy, in its earliest usage, referred to the contemporary patriarchal capitalist societies. Moreo-
authority of the father (patria potestas) over other ver, despite the predominance of patriarchy as a form
members of his household, including his wife, chil- of social domination, not all men benefit equally
dren, grandchildren, servants, and slaves. This form from it. Men of color, working-class men, and gay
of rule was extended to serve as the basis for social men do not have the right to claim the same power
organization of economic, cultural, religious, and over women, especially white heterosexual women,
political institutions in numerous societal contexts. as white middle- and upper-class heterosexual men
While some feminist scholars have argued that the do. Other theorists cautioned that, by linking patri-
patriarchal family resulted from mens desire to archy with capitalism, different forms of male domi-
establish paternity, others, such as Mies (1986) and nance occurring within other modes of economic
Leacock (1978), have identified warfare, coloni- organization would be eclipsed.
zation, and the development of capitalism as cen- Often neglected in feminist analyses of patriar-
tral to the imposition of patriarchal rule. chy are the ways in which it presumes and rein-
The process by which private control of women forces heterosexuality. Lesbian authors such as Rich
(by individual husbands or family heads) shifts to (1980) have highlighted the ways in which lesbian
public control embedded in welfare and other state existence poses a fundamental threat to patriarchy,
programs has been the subject of numerous femi- comprising both the breaking of a taboo and the
nist historical analyses, such as those by Lerner rejection of a compulsory way of life, which Rich
(1986). While many feminist theorists of the state described as compulsory heterosexuality. Clark
have recognized that such a shift did offer women (1981) asserts: Men at all levels of privilege, of
greater options than was possible within the patri- all classes and colors have the potential to act out
archal family (such as the ability to leave abusive legalistically, moralistically, and violently when they
husbands or to resist employment in demeaning cannot colonize women, when they cannot circum-
and hazardous low-paid jobs), some feminists have scribe our sexual, productive, reproductive, crea-
continued to emphasize the social control aspects tive prerogatives and energies. Rape, wife beat-
of state intervention. ing, violence against lesbians, sexual harassment,
Early materialist feminist arguments viewed and other forms of physical and emotional intimi-
womens subordinate status as a process by which dation are used to maintain control over womens
the biological division of the sexes for the purposes bodies, as well as circumscribe womens spatial
of reproduction of the species created the grounds mobility and economic independence. Contempo-
for male control. Some argued that psychoanalytic rary critiques of patriarchy highlight how its
processes provided the mechanism by which usage often renders invisible the ways in which
women psychologically incorporate and, therefore, gender arrangements differ across time, place, cul-
help reproduce patriarchal culture. Noting the fail- tures, and other sites of difference. However, patri-
ure of Marxism to fully express or conceptualize archy remains a powerful concept for expressing

P AT R I A R C H Y 575
 the continued hegemony of male dominance in nections between systems of dominationmilita-
P contemporary institutions.
Nancy A.Naples
rism, patriarchy, capitalism, racism, and imperial-
ismand the oppression of women, the poor, peo-
ple of color, and nature.
Bibliography
Clark, Cheryl. Lesbianism: An Act of Resistance. Modern Peace Movement
In This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by While lesbians may have been part of the peace move-
Radical Women of Color. Ed. Cherre Moraga ment of the nineteenth century, most research has
and Gloria Anzalda. Watertown, Mass.: been done on the modern U.S. womens peace move-
Persephone, 1981, pp. 128137. ment. It developed during the Progressive Era in op-
Hartmann, Heidi. The Unhappy Marriage of Marx- position to World War I and flourished during the
ism and Feminism: Toward a More Progressive 1920s and 1930s. With the antiwar and the gay and
Union. In Women and Revolution. Ed. Lydia lesbian liberation movements and the beginning of
Sargent. Boston: South End, 1981, pp. 141. the second wave of feminism in the 1960s, the
Joseph, Gloria. The Incompatible Mnage Tr- womens peace movement revitalized and expanded.
ois: Marxism, Feminism, and Racism. In Visible and widespread lesbian participation occurred
Women and Revolution. Ed. Lydia Sargent. during the 1980s womens peace encampments and
Boston: South End, 1981, pp. 91108. antinuclear actions in the United States and Europe.
Leacock, Eleanor Burke. Myths of Male Domi- Most women peace activists in the first half of
nance. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1978. the twentieth century who appear to be lesbians
Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Patriarchy. New by modern standards did not identify themselves
York: Oxford University Press, 1986. as such. Therefore, scholars and historians have
Mies, Maria. Patriarchy and Accumulation on a debated whether to use the term lesbian in de-
World Scale. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Zed, scribing them. Many of the white, middle-class, and
1986. college-educated reformers of the Progressive pe-
Rich, Adrienne. Compulsory Heterosexuality and riod chose to remain single and lived with women
Lesbian Existence. Signs: Journal of Women in partnerships for many years, relationships that
in Culture and Society 5 (1980), 631660. society apparently condoned. Others lived and
Rubin, Gayle. The Traffic in Women: Notes on worked in female institutions, such as settlement
the Political Economy of Sex. In Toward an houses and womens colleges, even as U.S. women
Anthropology of Women. Ed. Rayna R.Reiter. as a whole created female voluntary organizations
New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975, pp. to promote reform. This strategy of female separa-
157210. tism enabled women not only to enter public life,
but also to develop a reform agenda to gain politi-
See also Oppression cal power for women and to democratize and hu-
manize industrial and urban society.
Jane Addams (18601935), a founder of Hull
Peace Movement House and the Womens International League for
Lesbian feminists and women-identified women Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and winner of the
have shaped the womens peace movement in many 1931 Nobel Peace Prize, is probably the most well
significant ways through their ideas and participa- known peace activist who was a woman-identified
tion during the twentieth century. In particular, they woman. For years, she lived at Hull House with
contributed vitally to the creation of womens com- partner Mary Rozet Smith (18681934) in a deeply
munities and organizations as spaces to challenge loving and satisfying relationship. She helped cre-
and disarm patriarchy, develop womens power, ate the modern womens peace movement through
freedom, and visions of a peaceful world, and ac- her leadership of the U.S. Womans Peace Party
tualize feminist and nonviolent principles. They and WILPF, which were formed to protest World
believed that the warrior mentality, as well as war, War I. For Addams, peace work was building co-
led to violence against women and that the realiza- operative communities to meet human needs at
tion of womens equality and autonomy depended local and international levels. Women, given their
upon achieving a peaceful and just world. Further, traditional maternal work, needed power to trans-
joining other feminists, they revealed the intercon- form governments based upon nationalism and

576 P AT R I A R C H Y
militarism to ones that fostered human life and first summer of the Seneca Womens Peace Encamp-
conflict resolution based upon nonviolent meth- ment, in 1983, local residents repeatedly condemned
ods. Further, Addams supported a womancentered the women for being lesbians, witches, and Com-
approach to peace work that incorporated consen- munists and expressed their hostility with signs and
sual decision making and respect for diversity T-shirts sporting slogans such as Nuke the Lizzies
within WILPF, which still exists. and Nuke the Bitches until they glowthen shoot
them in the dark. Further, an angry, screaming mob
Feminist Activists of locals blocked the path of women on a legal
Ideas and concerns about the war system and strat- march, which, ironically, resulted in the arrest of
egies for change expressed by Jane Addamss gen- more than fifty peace activists.
eration foreshadowed those of feminists active in Barbara Deming (19171984), a prominent les-
the womens peace and antinuclear movement of bian peace and feminist activist, wrote that the les-
the 1980s. The Greenham Common Womens bian spirit motivating women in the womens peace
Peace Encampment (19811990s) in England and movement of the 1980s revealed a new feeling of
the Womens Pentagon Actions (1980 and 1981) women daring to trust ourselves to one another in
and the Womens Encampment for a Future of an extraordinary way (Deming 1985). In creating
Peace and Justice in Seneca, New York (1983 the women-only spaces and committing to relation-
1990s), were the first major womens protests ships with women, they allowed for a deeper shar-
against the patriarchal institutions that produced ing of themselves and provided the opportunity to
nuclear missiles, which threatened life on the planet, invent new ways of living together in community.
and promoted militarism, sexism, racism, and the Indeed, women-identified women and lesbians of
exploitation of nature. The Womens Peace En- the twentieth century have shaped the womens peace
campment at Greenham served as an initial inspi- movement by fostering feminist protest against pa-
ration for women in Europe and the United States triarchy and developing a critique of the war sys-
to establish womens sites of resistance. Hundreds tem, even as they invented alternatives that could
of thousands of women participated, some for days mean real peace, justice, and security in a world of
or weeks, others for years, in creative acts of re- shared power. Anne Marie Pois
sistance that ranged from breaking into the base at
Greenham and dancing on the missile silos, to Bibliography
weaving webs of yarn across doors at the Penta- Alonso, Harriet Hyman. Peace as a Womens Is-
gon, to women linking arms and encircling mili- sue: A History of the U.S. Movement for World
tary installations. Peace and Womens Rights. Syracuse, N.Y.:
Many lesbian feminists participated in the peace Syracuse University Press, 1993.
camps, and, eventually, they were the majority of Deming, Barbara. Prisons that Could Not Hold.
residents. At the camps, lesbians having diverse San Francisco: Spinsters Ink, 1985.
identities could experience freedom of expression Harford, Barbara, and Sarah Hopkins. Greenham
while defying conventional notions of femininity. Common: Women at the Wire. London: Wom-
At Greenham, women decided that a women-only ens Press, 1984.
space was necessary for continuous protest against Krasniewicz, Louise. Nuclear Summer: The Clash
the placement of U.S. nuclear missiles there. Other of Communities at the Seneca Women s Peace
peace camps followed this model. Thus, it was in Encampment. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
these womens spaces that participants developed Press, 1992.
nonviolent, feminist methods of organizing, deci- Roseneil, Sasha. Disarming Patriarchy: Feminism
sion making, and direct action; in effect, they hoped and Political Action at Greenham. Philadelphia:
to live their principles. At times, however, conflicts Open University Press, 1995.
did arise between women over issues relating to
lesbianism and racism that did not reflect their ideal See also Addams, Jane; Deming, Barbara
of respect for difference.
While lesbians experienced new levels of free-
dom and creativity in the camps, lesbianism became Penelope, Julia (1941)
a controversial issue between the camps and the American linguist and philosopher. Born to
surrounding communities. For example, during the Frederick William Stanley and Frances Stanley, Julia

PENELOPE, JULIA 577

 Penelope was raised in Miami, Florida. (She was How to Act. Signs: Journal of Women in Cul-
P to eliminate the patronym for feminist reasons in
1980.) An avid reader, she decided she was a ho-
ture and Society 22:1 (Autumn 1996), 86114.

mosexual when she came upon the letter h in the See also Language
public library. At four or five years of age, she had
informed her mother that she intended to marry a
girl just like her. In high school, she developed her Performance Art
first serious lesbian relationship, one that lasted Catchall term describing live performance that does
two and a half years. not neatly fit into traditional categories, such as
A love for language led her to decide on a career drama, dance, film, or music, but that may incor-
in linguistics. The investigations of the Charlie Johns porate elements of any of these forms. Unlike more
Investigating Committee on Communism and Ho- conventional theater, performance art often lacks
mosexuality led to her dismissal from Florida State plot, psychological characters, and any intention
University in 1959 on the grounds of suspected les- that others might produce the piece again. The
bianism. Ironically, she was subsequently dismissed phrase historically encompasses a vast variety of
from the University of Miami in 1960 for having work, ranging from monologues by artists such as
men in her room. Undaunted, she went on to re- Jack Smith and Carolee Schneeman, to huge events
ceive a B.A. in English and linguistics from City like the Storming of the Winter Palace, the 1920
College (New York City) in 1966 and a Ph.D. in commemoration of the Russian Revolution, which
English from the University of Texas in 1971. De- involved eight thousand performers in a
spite a lengthy list of publications in linguistics, the reenactment of the historic siege. The term includes
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she taught the plotless happenings of the late 1950s and
for eleven years, failed to promote her to the high- early 1960s and the nonlinear, deconstructive pro-
est rank, sometimes suggesting that her research was ductions of theatrical artists such as Richard Fore-
narrow. Before, during, and after her academic man, Robert Wilson, the Wooster Group, and
career, she supported herself at a variety of occupa- Mabou Mines. It includes the deliberately shock-
tions, working as a file clerk, a handwriting analyst, ing shenanigans of the dadaists, who promulgated
and a girls basketball coach. During the 1960s, she antiart and nonsense in Zurich and Paris from 1915
was also a kept butch (a butch who is supported by to 1922, and the Romantic Festivities of the
another woman, often, but not always, a prostitute, Bauhaus, the architecture and design school
a call girl, or the mistress of a wealthy man). founded in Weimar, Germany, in 1919, promoting
In 1982, she met Sarah Valentine, and, by the unification of all of the arts. Performance art is
1983, they were involved in Penelopes longest a twentiethcentury phenomenon, but, in retrospect,
relationship to date, lasting until 1995. Together, Renaissance pageants or even medieval mystery
they edited two of Penelopes thirteen published cycles may be considered its progenitors.
books, including Finding the Lesbians (1990), one Specifically lesbian performance art, then, ex-
of the many volumes whose content and audience ists within, and against, a rich tradition of formal
was explicitly lesbian. One of her best-known col- experiment and, often, political dissent. Lesbians
lections is The Coming Out Stories (1980), coed- and gay men seized the form in the 1980s in the
ited with Susan J. Wolfe. Termed by another lin- United States, joining together method and mate-
guist bright but fierce, Penelope was a separa- rial that question the very means of representation
tist whose lesbian publications were often con- and that problematize identities and desire.
troversial, criticizing sadomasochism and other In the modern era, performance art developed
practices within lesbian communities. Disheart- within conscious artistic movements, often provid-
ened by lesbian infighting, she eventually with- ing the opening to the new perspectives for which
drew from lesbian writing, devoting her energies artists continually searched, especially as they
instead to editing copy for major commercial sought to challenge the commercial or
presses. Susan J.Wolfe highcultural status of the artwork. By virtue of
its evanescence, performance thwarted the
Bibliography commodification of the art object as something that
Tomlinson, Barbara. The Politics of Textual Ve- could be bought or displayed in a museum. As
hemence, or Go to Your Room Until You Learn Rosalee Goldberg has suggested in Performance

578 PENELOPE, JULIA

Art: From Futurism to the Present (1993): When- and, in any case, meant to be performed only by
ever a certain school, be it Cubism, Minimalism, their authors. While this work certainly has roots in
or conceptual art, seemed to have reached an im- the experiments of previous decades, it was also
passe, artists have turned to performance as a way fueled by the financial crisis in American arts that
of breaking down categories and indicating new put large spectacles beyond the grasp of most young
directions. In this respect, she describes perform- artists and theater spaces. For lesbian artists, in par-
ance art as the avant avant-garde. ticular, whose viewpoint was often unwelcome in
In European movements such as futurism, mainstream, and even sometimes in gay male, theater
constructivism, surrealism, and dada, performance establishments, presenting work as a single person
art fulfilled this function, and, in the United States, on a bare stage was inexpensive and, therefore,
it also played a role in developing an American producible practically anywhere. In this period,
avantgarde of the 1930s1950s. spaces devoted to presenting performance art mush-
roomed across the United States, and soon through-
Feminism and Performance Art out the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe.
But it was the rise of feminismand, soon after, of In the 1990s, a high proportion of the leading
the gay liberation movementthat translated per- artists, critics, and theorists in the field of perform-
formance arts oppositional spirit from an essen- ance art were lesbians, perhaps because, though their
tially formalistic focus toward more overt political work differs extensively from one another, they are
content. Reacting to their frequent second-class able to sustain the subversive impulses of the form.
treatment within even the avant-garde art world, Many lesbian performance artists exploit the tension
and recognizing the power of their own bodies as between their own bodily presence and their repre-
canvases for works about female experience, sentation of a culturally constructed female body. To
women began creating solo performances in the cite only a few examples, the butch-femme explora-
1960s that combined the formal experiments of tions in work by Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver cel-
the period with the autobiographical revelations ebrate these categories even as they call them into
of the consciousness-raising process and, in the case question; the disjunctive word-and-movement nar-
of lesbians, of the coming out process. ratives of Pamela Sneed and the comic exhortations
Though not lesbian, works of early feminist per- of Carmelita Tropicana examine, among other things,
formance artists in the 1970s, many still active at the intersection of gender and sexuality with racial
the end of the 1990s, such as Rachel Rosenthal, Joan and ethnic construction. With her outdoor perform-
Jonas, Cindy Sherman, and Theodora Skipitares, ance company Circus Amok, Jennifer Miller, who has
have had profound influences on lesbian work, as chosen not to remove the beard that grows on her
these artists used their own bodies and experiences chin, presents political circus acts, juggling, eating fire,
as the ground for an exploratory art that questioned and walking on stilts to a patter of pointed, punning
womens relationship to history, ecology, and rep- commentary. The geographical imagery in Holly
resentation. Perhaps the most telling image of this Hughess performances almost literally maps cultural
explosion of new work was Carolee Schneemans conflict onto her own midwestern body.
1975 Interior Scroll, in which she read critical re- Through exposure to such worksand to work-
marks about her own work from ticker tape she shops being taught around the United States, by,
extracted from her vagina. Such literal embodiment among others, Hughes, Shaw, and Weaver (who also
of political and artistic boundary breaking was re- conducts Queer School out of the Gay Sweatshop
peated in the 1990s in the self-described queer per- in London)young lesbians and gay men are dis-
formance of openly gay and lesbian artists such as covering in performance art a useful framework for
Tim Miller and Holly Hughes, whose explorations coming out, flexing their queer bodies, and articu-
of the present, unruly body were denied grants by lating their selves. Alisa Solomon
the National Endowment for the Arts in 1990 be-
cause of their homoeroticism, which scandalized Bibliography
Republican United States Senator Jesse Helms of Carr, C. On Edge: Performance at the End of the
North Carolina and legions of the Religious Right. Twentieth Century. Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan
Meanwhile, in the late 1970s, the term perform- University Press, 1993.
ance art came to describe a burgeoning movement Goldberg, Rosalee. Performance Art: From Futur-
of solo works, which were often autobiographical ism to the Present. New York: Abrams, 1988.

PERFORMANCE ART 579

 Phelan, Peggy. Money Talks, Again. The Drama dissonance, within the expected link between gen-
P Review: TDR 35:3 (Fall 1991), 13142.
. Serrano, Mapplethorpe, the NEA, and You:
der (identity), sex (body), and desire highlights the
performative quality of all genders and sexualities.
Money Talks. The Drama Review: TDR 34:1 This is not to say that gender, sex, and sexuality
(Spring 1990), 415. are free floating. On the contrary, they are histori-
Muoz, Jose Esteban, and Amanda Barrett, eds. cally and politically dependent and become intelli-
Queer Acts. Women and Performance: A gible through extended repetition. Yet scholars and
Journal of Feminist Theory 16 (1996) (Special activists have argued that various expressions of
Issue). gender, sex, and sexuality that employ performative
exaggeration, discord, internal confusion, or prolif-
See also Theater and Drama, Contemporary; eration can mobilize new possibilities over time that
Theater and Drama, History of exceed and expand what is intelligible. While Gen-
der Trouble focuses on gender, sex, and sexuality,
performativity has been broadened in relation to
Performativity many identities and subjectivities. Some analyses
The notion that the appearance of having a natural have addressed the performativity of race, ethnicity,
gender is an effect produced by a set of repeated class, and diseases such as AIDS. Kate Burns
acts performed within a specific cultural context.
This theoretical position asserts that there is no gen- Bibliography
der identity inherently belonging to bodies; rather, Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discur-
identity is constituted by the very expressions that sive Limits of Sex. New York: Routledge,
are said to be the results of gender. Thus, gender is 1993.
not being but doing. There is no true or natural . Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subver-
masculinity or maleness that originates in men; nor sion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990.
does femininity or femaleness originate in women. Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Queer Performativity:
On the contrary, the idea that men and women are Henry Jamess The Art of the Novel: A Journal
stable identities is a fiction that disguises itself as a of Lesbian and Gay Studies. GLQ 1:1 (Spring
law of nature and culturea law that regulates the 1993), 116.
field (gender relations) it purports to describe.
Judith Butler popularized performativity in See also Butch-Femme; Gender; Identity; Queer
Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Theory
Identity (1990). By using the examples of
butchfemme lesbianism and drag, she describes
how these and other non-status quo gender rela- Periodicals
tions bring into relief the constructed status of the Publications that are issued at regularly occuring
male/female binarya binary construction that is intervals. A proliferation of lesbian periodicals and
given the status of being natural when hetero- lesbian writing in feminist and other periodicals
sexuality is assumed to be natural. For exam- followed quickly from the rise of lesbian feminism,
ple, when two lesbians organize their relationship gay liberation, and womens liberation in the late
around one acting out her version of masculinity 1960s and early 1970s. By 1975, more than fifty
and the other acting out her version of femininity, lesbian periodicals and/or feminist periodicals with
they show that masculinity and femininity are not significant lesbian content had been launched in
restricted to male and female bodies, respectively; the United States, providing a forum for develop-
nor are they restricted to heterosexual relations. ing lesbian feminist political ideas and creating a
Rather than condemn butch-femme lesbianism as sense of lesbian community nationally. Around the
a mere imitation of heterosexuality, Butler asserts same time, lesbian periodicals were also founded
that butch-femme sexuality subverts the naturali- in several countries globally, with most concen-
zation of gender because a butch lesbian redefines trated in North America and western Europe. The
the performativity of masculinity and the femme number and diversity of lesbian periodicals, and
lesbian redefines the performativity of femininity the lesbian content in both feminist and cosexual
in a relationship that falls outside the boundary, lesbian-gaybisexual periodicals, continued to in-
or law, of heterosexuality. The disjunction, or crease worldwide throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

580 PERFORMANCE ART

History and 1970s rather than the assimilationist era of
The first known lesbian publication in the United DOBs beginnings in the 1950s.
States, Vice Versa, was published in Los Angeles,
California, in 1947 by Lisa Ben (a pseudonymous The 1970s
anagram for lesbian). For nine months, Ben dis- The explosion of specifically lesbian publications
tributed her typed, carbon-copied magazine to her around 1970 reflects many lesbians rejection of a
friends and to patrons of Los Angeless popular les- cosexual gay community in favor of lesbian femi-
bian bar, the If Club. Although the circulation of nism and often separatism, perhaps in no small part
Vice Versa was never more than twelve copies per because of the misogyny lesbians found in some gay
issue (the maximum Ben could surreptitiously pro- mens communities. Publications such as Lavender
duce at work), it foreshadowed the format of many Vision (Boston [19701971]), a cosexual, gay na-
lesbian and gay periodicals in the decades to come: tionalist tabloid, were the exception until the late
homegrown, upbeat, and including a mix of edito- 1980s. Lesbian periodical material is more com-
rials, poems, short stories, reviews, and letters. monly found in feminist publications, many of which
In 1956, The Ladder became the second les- have had lesbian staff members and have included
bian periodical launched in the United States. For articles by and about lesbians. Lesbian and feminist
sixteen years, The Ladder served as the mouthpiece periodicals were vital to creating lesbian theory, cul-
of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), a lesbian ture, and community in the 1970s, especially among
homophile organization founded in San Francisco, lesbians who lived far from cities with large, visible
California, in 1955. The Ladder included news of lesbian populations. Starting in the 1970s, periodi-
interest to lesbians, editorials, reports on profes- cals from Italy to New Zealand covered topics as
sional attitudes toward homosexuality, book re- diverse as film, spirituality, labor unions, sports,
views, short stories, and poetry. The DOB distrib- coalition politics, sex, and the military.
uted 170 copies of the first issue to lesbians and Prominent among U.S. periodicals in the 1970s
also to (presumably) heterosexual lawyers, psy- were The Furies (19721973), the short-lived publi-
chologists, and other professionals. cation of the radical lesbian feminist Furies collec-
The Ladder was the first place in history in tive; Lesbian Tide (19711980), the first all-news les-
which a large number of lesbians could air their bian periodical; Azalea, subtitled A Magazine by Third
views. The magazines circulation reached a high World Lesbians (19771983), which published the
of about seven hundredfar more than Vice Versa work of women from Asia, Africa, and South
but still far fewer than gay mens publications, fore- America, as well as the United States; and Amazon
shadowing a trend that continued over the next Quarterly (19721975), the largest (seventy-two
three decades. Readership was far larger than offi- pages) and widest-circulating (nine thousand) lesbian
cial circulation figures, however, since copies of gay publication of the mid-1970s, which focused on lit-
and lesbian magazines were passed around among erature, art, and other aspects of lesbian culture. A
friends. Fear of being associated with a homophile few journal-style lesbian periodicals that began in the
group is evident in the number of women who 1970s and early 1980s continued publish in the
asked to be removed from the mailing list of The 1990s: Sinister Wisdom (1976), Common Lives/
Ladder and in the editors assurances to subscrib- Lesbian Lives (1981), and Lesbian Ethics (1984);
ers that Your Name Is Safe from disclosure to many more feminist journals that include lesbian con-
police and government authorities. In the late tent were founded during the same period, including
1960s, The Ladder became more aligned with femi- the scholarly journals Womens Studies (1973),
nism than with the male-dominated homophile Atlantis (Canada [1975]), Feminist Studies (1975
movement. ), Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies (1975),
Although it fell victim in 1972 to financial dif- Hecate (Australia [1975]), Signs: Journal of Women
ficulties and the popularity of newer, more mili- in Culture and Society (1975), Camera Obscura
tant publications, it had by then inspired other (1976), Fireweed (Canada [1978]), Feminist Re-
DOB chapters in Boston, Massachusetts; New York view (England [1979]), and Resources for Feminist
City; San Francisco; Los Angeles; and Philadelphia, Research/Documentation Sur la Recherche Fministe
Pennsylvania, to publish their own newsletters and (Canada [1979]).
magazines. For the most part, these publications The homegrown publication Lesbian Connec-
belong to the activist feminist spirit of the late 1960s tion, initially a mimeographed, stapled newsletter

PERIODICALS 581
 like Vice Versa, has published continuously since the 1980s, notable periodicals focused on explicit
P 1974. The magazine is filled with news items, let-
ters, responses to letters, reviews, and other com-
sexual content with the stated aim of furthering
lesbian liberation through sexual freedom. On Our
mentaries from virtually any lesbian who writes to Backs (19841996) thumbed its politically incor-
the editors. Continuing to reflect the lesbianfeminist rect nose at the feminist newspaper off our backs
spirit of the 1970s into the 1990s, Lesbian Con- (1970) and launched the career of lesbian
nection (affectionately referred to as Elsie) pro- sexpert Susie Bright (1948). Forthright sexual
motes lesbian-owned businesses, ships free sub- imagery and language, sometimes including refer-
scriptions to low-income readers, and maintains a ences to butchfemme roles, bondage, or sadomaso-
list of Contact Dykes, women on LCs mailing chism, were also prominent in many personal-re-
list who volunteer to provide information to lationship ads, which had been a mainstay of many
traveling lesbians or new women in town. In 1997 gay mens publications since the 1970s and became
there were more than 1,000 contact dykes in all a common feature of many lesbian newspapers
fifty U.S. states and in twenty-four countries. during the 1980s.
By the late 1980s, in the face of a continuing
The 1980s onslaught from the Religious Right and the devas-
While many of the issues discussed in lesbian peri- tating AIDS epidemic, many more U.S. periodicals
odicals in the 1970s carried over to the 1980s, were joint lesbian-and-gay ventures than earlier in
emphasis and attitudes shifted. Treatment of rac- the decade or in the 1970s. OutWeek (19891991)
ism, women of color, bisexuality, and sex are im- was most famous for outing celebrities; Gay
portant examples. While racism was discussed in Community News (1974), with a national circu-
lesbian periodicals throughout the 1970s, the work lation of sixty thousand by the end of the 1980s,
of lesbians of color was published and distributed delivered news from a radical leftist perspective,
much more widely at the end of the decade and in highlighting issues such as racism and sexism, as
the 1980s, often with an emphasis on racism within well as homophobia; Out/Look (19881990) pub-
lesbian communities. Some lesbian and feminist lished substantive, controversial, and sometimes
periodicals published special women-of-color is- sexually explicit material.
sues, such as Conditions: Five, The Black Wom-
ens Issue (1979), and Sinister Wisdoms A Gath- The 1990s
ering of Spirit (1983), by and about Native Ameri- Notable changes in lesbian periodicals in the 1990s
can women. Lesbians of color often emphasized had more to do with form than content. Two new
their inability to endorse lesbian separatism because genres emerged, the glossy magazine supported by
of their shared oppression and affinities with men advertising revenues and the independent zine.
of color, which led to cosexual enterprises such as Deneuve (1991), which changed its name to Curve
Black/Out (19861989), the publication of the after the French actress Catherine Deneuve threat-
National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays. ened a lawsuit, set the tone for lesbian glossies,
During the 1970s, many lesbian feminists pub- which were far outnumbered by gay mens and
lished their opinions that bisexual women were cosexual, profit-making glossies. The main focus
sleeping with the enemy, which bisexual activ- of the glossies was on white, middle-class, upwardly
ists and writers in the 1980s termed biphobic. mobile lesbians and bisexual women; contents in-
As a national bisexual movement grew in the cluded features, letters, advice columns, and music
1980s, the Journal of Homosexuality published and book reviews. Continuing a trend from the
three special issues focusing on bisexuality. By 1980s, the 1990s glossies tended to include at least
1990, lesbian activist and writer Jan Clausen some explicit sexual content. Girlfriends (1994)
(1950) went public in Out/Look magazine about carried a different nude centerfold each issue. Gone
[Her] Interesting Condition: What Does It Mean from these magazines was the didactic political
When a Lesbian Falls in Love with a Man, as les- content that was common in many earlier lesbian
bian communities across North America argued periodicals.
about lesbians who fuck men and an emerging In the late 1990s, Haworth Press announced the
postmodern queer sensibility. new Journal of Lesbian Studies, at the time the only
As the sex wars over pornography and sado- scholarly journal devoted exclusively to lesbians.
masochism raged in lesbian communities during Journals aligned with the academic queer-theory

582 PERIODICALS
movement tended to be cosexual, while feminist builds an artificial version and establishes it as an
academic journals published few articles about les- object of worship. In feminist discourse, phallic
bians relative to their entire contents. By the 1990s, has always had currency as a metaphoricaland
a variety of types of lesbian periodicals were pub- resoundingly derogatorydescription of patriar-
lished all over the world, with most coming from chal power, and many artists developed clitoral and
Europe and North America; there were also lesbian vaginal imagery as alternatives. But it was as a psy-
periodicals in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Nor- choanalytic concept that the phallus caught the
way, and South Africa, among other countries. attention of feminist theory in the 1980s. Since
Low-budget, independently published zines pro- then, lesbian theorists have found in the phallus
liferated both on paper and the Internet during the fertile ground on which to debate the meanings of
1990s. Lesbian zines were often associated with the male power, masculinity and femininity, and
young feminist movement of so-called riot grrrls; heterosexism.
other lesbian zine writing and editing were done The man most responsible for having introduced
from a queer perspective, which included gay men, the phallus onto the critical stage is undoubtedly
bisexual people, and transgendered people. It is dif- French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (19011981).
ficult to estimate the total number of lesbian zines In The Meaning of the Phallus (1958), Lacan re-
because of their small circulation and typically brief interprets Sigmund Freuds (18561939) concept of
life spans, but more than fifty titles were available castration as a description of the alienated position
in the late 1990s in the United States. The punk of the subject, male or female, in language. Lacan
roots of zine publishing influenced the tone of many argues, moreover, that the phallus (like Isis statue)
lesbian zines. Im So Fucking Beautiful, Dork Dyke, is a signifier, the master signifier of desire, and
Fat Girl, Femcore, Girljock, Lezzie Smut, Girl that masculine and feminine subjects are differenti-
Frenzy, Girl Luv, and Muffmonsters on Prozac were ated by their unique relationships to the phallus:
among many punk-inflected titles. The former seek to have it, the latter to be it.
Linda Garber The importance of the phallus to Lacans theory
has been called phallocentrism and has raised
Bibliography an obvious challenge for feministsnot to men-
Garber, Linda. Fact or Fiction? Lesbian Identity tion lesbians, whose sexuality in Lacans schema
in The Ladder. Unpublished. appears marginalized at best. Critics of the phallus
. Lesbian Sources: A Bibliography of Periodi- have taken three tacks: Rose (in Mitchell and Rose,
cal Articles, 19701990. New York and Lon- 1982) and Silverman (1992) have argued that
don: Garland, 1993. Lacans account is a powerful description not only
Martin, Del, and Phyllis Lyon. Lesbian/Woman. of the formation of heterosexual identity, but of
San Francisco: Glide, 1972. its impossibility. It is, thus, the critics duty to
Potter, Clare. The Lesbian Periodicals Index. analyze and expose that impossibility in its con-
Tallahassee, Fla.: Naiad, 1986. crete instances. Others, including Gallop (1982)
Streitmatter, Rodger. Unspeakable: The Rise of the and Irigaray (1985), have emphasized the differ-
Gay and Lesbian Press in America. Boston and ence between the phallus and the penis, arguing
London: Faber and Faber, 1995. that phallic power is the pernicious mystification
of a more innocuous, penile pleasure. Finally, some
See also Erotica and Pornography; Furies, The; Lad- lesbian critics want simply to appropriate it, pro-
der, The; Lesbian Connection; Sadomasochism; zines posing, in Judith Butlers (1992) words, that the
phalluss naturalized link to masculine
morphologybe called into question through an
Phallus aggressive reterritorialization. In The Practice of
Generally defined as a symbol for the penis. The Love (1994), Teresa DeLauretis draws her exam-
unpopularity in daily lesbian life of the phallus is ples of the lesbian phallus from canonical texts,
matched only, perhaps, by its popularity in lesbian and other commentators, including Lamos (1995),
studies. The phallus comes originally from an- have compared the Freudian discourse on the phal-
thropological studies of myth, especially the an- lus to popular debates over the political correct-
cient Egyptian legend whereby Isis, unable to lo- ness of lesbian sex toys.
cate the genital of her dismembered brother Osiris, Heather Findlay

PHALLUS 583
 Bibliography Based on accounts by traders and visitors centu-
P Butler, Judith. The Lesbian Phallus and the Mor-
phological Imaginary. differences: A Journal
ries before the colonial period, Filipino women were
held in high social esteem. Women in tribal commu-
of Feminist Cultural Studies 4:1 (Spring 1992), nities possessed numerous skills and were honored
133171. for their contribution to their community as guard-
Gallop, Jane. The Daughters Seduction: Feminism ians of their progeny. It was the womans prerogative
and Psychoanalysis. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Uni- to name her children, keep her name, and freely dis-
versity Press, 1982. pose of her property by birthright even after mar-
Irigaray, Luce. This Sex Which Is Not One. Ithaca, riage. Male and female children were also given equal
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985. value. Women could become barangay (basic politi-
Lamos, Colleen. Taking on the Phallus. In Les- cal unit) chiefs. Women functioned as babaylans (na-
bian Erotics. Ed. Karla Jay. New York: New tive priestesses), who took charge of the important
York University Press, 1995. tribal rites related to the start of the seasons, healing,
Mitchell, Juliet, and Jacqueline Rose, eds. Femi- death, and other spiritual activities. In the absence of
nine Sexuality: Jacques Lacan and the cole women, it was said that some men wore womens
Freudienne. New York: Norton, 1982. clothes to take the role of the babaylan.
Silverman, Kaja. Male Subjectivity at the Margins. The most famous of these precolonial chiefs was
New York: Routledge, 1992. Princess Urduja, who was known for her skill in
armed combat and her intelligence. While there is
See also Clitoris; Critical Theory; Psychoanalysis; no proof that she engaged in women-identified re-
Queer Theory; Sexuality lationships, she never had a relationship with any
man either. Legend says that she once stated that
she would get married only to someone who could
Philippines defeat her in combat.
Located in Southeast Asia, the Philippines is the only There are no documented records of
predominantly Christian country in Asia and the womenidentified relationships, only stories handed
third-largest Catholic country in the world. The Phil- down from generation to generation of communi-
ippine archipelago is composed of 7,107 islands and ties of women or spinsters living together. How-
is inhabited by 68 million people, making it one of ever, there is proof that women-to-women relation-
the most densely populated countries in the world. ships might have existed since precolonial times.
The Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan In Mindanao, an island located in the southern
(ca. 14801521) landed on Philippine shores in part of the Philippines, there is an indigenous tribe
1521 in his search for the fabled Spice Islands and called the Badjao; it does not have an equivalent
promptly claimed it in honor of his benefactor, word for lesbian but does have a word for vaginal
King Philip of Spain. The Spanish colonization manipulation by another woman: agkul-lit or kul-
would last for more than three hundred years until lit. In southern Luzon, in the province of Quezon,
the turn of the twentieth century, when the Ameri- there are women-only spiritual communities that
can occupation began. The conquistadores sys- have existed along the foot of the mystical Mount
tematically condemned all customs and behaviors Banahaw for years. While there have been no stud-
that were not in keeping with their own spiritual ies on whether lesbian relationships have been
and moral standards. The Spanish civil code cur- formed here, at the very least it is likely that women-
tailed the freedom of women to engage in, and identified friendships have been formed.
decide on, political and economic activities. De- Some of the words used to describe
spite major changes in the 1987 Philippine con- womanloving-women or woman-to-woman rela-
stitution, ratified after the fall of President tionships were formed in relation to men. An exam-
Ferdinand Marcos (19171989) in 1986, the ple would be binalake, wherein the words babae
Catholic Church has continued to exert a strong (woman) and lalaki (man) were put together. Around
influence in the formulation of laws and policies the turn of the twentieth century, when exclusive
in the land. Lesbianism is not a crime in the Phil- girls schools were put up by Catholic convents to
ippines, but lesbianism or homosexuality is a educate the daughters of the upper class, the word
ground for legal separation or annulment in the byuts was coined to refer to both the relationship
Family Code enacted into law in 1988. and the sexual identity of the women.

584 PHALLUS
 In the twentieth century, lesbians have been ren-
dered invisible, except for occasional stories about
cross-dressing women living with their wives or
spinsters living together for years. The public un-
derstanding of lesbians has largely been limited to
the tomboy stereotype.
While women-loving-women groups have existed
for a long time, they are mostly social or business
related and very private in nature. Only a very few
lesbians have dared talk about their lives in print
and media. In the mid-1980s, exclusive lesbian dance
parties came into fashion. These womens parties
were patronized by mostly middle- and upper-class
lesbians who operated an informal information net-
work. For some women, this was as out as they
would ever get and provided the only access to les-
bian culture they would ever know.
It was only in the late 1980s and the 1990s that
some lesbians in the womens movement began to
group together politically over issues of lesbian-
ism and sexuality. In 1993, a small contingent of
mostly lesbian feminists joined the International
Womens Day March in Manila and read a state-
ment during the program. Subsequently, a number
of lesbian rights groups were formed. By the late Katherine Philips, frontispiece to the 1667 edition of
1990s, there were more than a dozen lesbian groups her poems. Courtesy of Harriette Andreadis.
around the country, as well as many mixed gay
and lesbian groups. In December 1996, three les- female friendship, Katherine Philips was the first
bian groupsthe Womyn Supporting Womyn English female poet to achieve a considerable repu-
Committee (now Centre), the Group, and tation in her own time. Praised by male writers
LesBondinitiated the First National Lesbian such as Abraham Cowley (16181667), John
Rights Conference (FNLRC 96). More than two Dryden (16311700), Andrew Marvell (1621
hundred lesbians participated in the entire proc- 1678), and John Keats (17951821), she was ad-
ess, which included regional and sectoral consul- mired, imitated, and emulated as a model for fe-
tations. This was the first time the Filipina lesbi- male literary accomplishment by subsequent gen-
ans from all over the country were able to come erations of English women writers, among whom
together to talk about their situation and collec- were Aphra Behn (1640?1689), Delariviere
tively address lesbian rights issues. Manley (1671?1724), and Jane Barker (n.d.).
Giney Villar Born Katherine Fowler, the daughter of a pros-
perous London cloth merchant, she was educated
Bibliography at Mrs. Salmons school for girls. When she was
Marin, Malu. Stolen Strands: The In and Out Lives sixteen she married James Philips, fifty-four, a sup-
of Lesbians in the Philippines. In Amazon to Zami: porter of Oliver Cromwell (15991658), who
Towards a Global Lesbian Feminism. Ed. Monika brought her to Cardigan Priory on the remote west
Reinfelder. London: Cassell, 1996, pp. 3055. coast of Wales. Katherine Philipss royalist poli-
tics, literary ambitions, and desire for Londons
See also Asian Lesbian Network; Tomboy cultural amenities led her to seek friendships and
patronage for herself and preferment for her hus-
band at court after the Restoration. Among her
Philips, Katherine (16321664) writings are poems to royalty and to various aris-
English poet and playwright, known as The Match- tocratic women, translations from the French of
less Orinda. Widely recognized for her poems of two plays by Pierre Corneille (16061684), and a

P H I L I P S , K AT H E R I N E 585
 volume of letters edited by her friend and literary Souers, Philip Webster. The Matchless Orinda.
P executor, Sir Charles Cotterell; it is in these writ-
ings that she expresses her concerns with politics
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1931.
and court activities.
Philipss school friends Anne Owen (1633 See also Behn, Aphra; Romantic Friendship; Sap-
1692) and Mary Aubrey (1631?), whom she ad- phic Tradition
dresses in a fashionably pseudoclassical manner as
Lucasia and Rosania, provided an emotional fo-
cus both for her most successful poetry and for her Philosophy
life; they also provided a model for later friend- Branch of the humanities that pursues the funda-
ships, though the poems she wrote to others were mental questions of what exists, what is worth-
less successful than those to Lucasia and Rosania, while, and what can be known about either. Les-
perhaps because they lacked the same impassioned bian philosophy reflects on lesbian existence, the
impulse. Among the most admired of her poems values of lesbian lives, and what lesbians can know.
are To my Lucasia, in defence of declared friend- It also reflects on the universe (not just the lesbi-
ship; To My excellent Lucasia, on our Friend- ans in it) from lesbian perspectives.
ship; Friendship in Emblem, or the Scale, to my
dearest Lucasia; and Orinda to Lucasia parting, Traditional Philosophy
October 1661, at London. In these poems, and European philosophy has four traditional core ar-
in others, Philips uses the conventions of her time eas. They are metaphysics (on reality and the mean-
for example, the excesively mannered pastoralism ing of existence), epistemology (on belief, knowl-
of then-fashionable prciosit (a style emphasizing edge, and truth), ethics (on right and wrong, good
elegance in language and manners), the sentiments and bad, virtue and vice), and logic (on valid and
of John Donnes (15731631) metaphysical school invalid, sound and unsound, reasoning). There are
platonism, and the poetic forms used by male con- also special area philosophies, such as philosophy
temporaries in addressing their female lovers to of science, philosophy of language, and political
express an intensely passionate and eroticized ver- philosophy. Philosophical movements are often iden-
sion of platonic love in female same-sex friendship. tified by historical period, geographical location, or
Her letters to Sir Charles, published in 1705, also culture. The most abstract questions in any academic
express the intensity of her attachments to women; discipline tend to be philosophical. Lesbian philoso-
when Anne Owen marries a man of whom Philips phy comprehends both philosophy in general as
disapproves, she writes, bitterly: I find too there pursued within lesbian cultures and philosophical
are few Friendships in the World Marriage reflection specifically on the meanings of lesbian
proof. We may generally conclude the Marriage existence, whether within lesbian cultures or in less
of a Friend to be the Funeral of a Friendship. friendly contexts. Both kinds of lesbian philosophy
Philipss writings and life have been read by have expanded the repertoire of topics, questions,
twentieth-century readers as lesbian. How the eroti- and issues subject to philosophical investigation.
cism of this experience might have been understood Philosophys chief method of investigation is
by contemporaries, despite its modern-seeming reflection on data of everyday life. Its objectives
articulation in Philipss poems and letters, is diffi- are to understand basic concepts (such as reality,
cult to assess. Until scholarship provides a more freedom, value, mind, and body) and gain insight
complete understanding of the construction of into oneself and ones surroundings. Most academi-
sexuality during this period, one can conclude that cally archived philosophy comes from privileged
Philips offers the prototype of an eroticized ro- men with leisure to reflect. They tend to center their
mantic friendship among respectable women in points of view, unself-consciously, ignoring points
early-modern England. Harriette Andreadis of view of less privileged people. Against this back-
ground, lesbian philosophers self-consciously
Bibliography center lesbian lives, proposing theories to make
Andreadis, Harriette. The Sapphic-Platonics of sense of everyday lesbian living from the perspec-
Katherine Philips, 16321664. Signs: Journal tives of those whose experience it is. Academic les-
of Women in Culture and Society 15:1 (Autumn bian philosophy has flourished mainly since the
1989), 3460. late 1960s. It was preceded by informal philosophy

586 P H I L I P S , K AT H E R I N E
published in periodicals of lesbian culture by les- guages did not mark the same distinctions as Euro-
bians often not trained as academic philosophers pean cultures? One philosophically sensitive gay his-
(although some were). This informal tradition con- torian avoids the terms lesbian, gay, and mar-
tinues alongside academic philosophy. There is in- riage when writing about premodern Europeans,
teresting communication and overlap between the preferring the more noncommittal same-sex un-
traditions. ions. When investigators lack adequate written pri-
Traditional academic philosophy has given some mary source material in lesbian history, philosophi-
attention to same-sex love. Some ancients affirmed cal questions about what one can know and how
it. Modern European philosophers before the twen- one can know it become especially acute. Many philo-
tieth century, however, did not. Even the ancients sophical questions mentioned above arise in attempts
usually ignored females. And the focus everywhere to evaluate the hypothesis of some social
is almost entirely on sex. What is distinctive about constructionists that, prior to the late nineteenth cen-
lesbian philosophy flourishing in the last third of tury, there were no lesbians, gays, or homosexuals
the twentieth century is, first, that it is lesbian af- (although there were same-sex erotic attractions and
firming. Second, it centers females. Third, it does interactions).
not focus only on sexuality but often includes other Not all questions of lesbian philosophy are de-
aspects of intimate bonding among women, such termined by prejudices of heterosexist culture. Many
as the economics of domestic partnership and the arise internally within lesbian communities and re-
politics of bonding across ethnic and class divisions. lationships. They need not presuppose a hostile back-
Traditional academic philosophy in Europe, fol- ground society. The nature of friendship and its re-
lowing Aristotle, treats metaphysics as First Philoso- lation to justice is such a topic. Whether ideal lover
phy. This means that it regards metaphysics as the relationships would be sexually exclusive is another.
most basic field on which others (such as ethics) are Yet another is how the meanings of sexuality and
based. For lesbians, however, moral and political eroticism are related and also distinguishable.
philosophy plays the role of First Philosophy. Les-
bian political liberation, especially in North America Lesbian Philosophy
and Europe, has been the most salient phenomenon Some issues of lesbian philosophy arise because of
of twentieth century lesbian life. Thus, it is not sur- hostilities within lesbian relationships and commu-
prising that most contemporary lesbian philosophy nities. Examples are what should count as domestic
begins from ethical and political concerns. Yet there abuse, how to distinguish between abuse and legiti-
is also a growing body of lesbian philosophy of sci- mate self-defense, and when, if ever, violent self-
ence, exploring meanings of hypotheses regarding defense is justifiable. Lesbian abuse of lesbians is
sources of lesbian desire. Such inquiries often grow sometimes called horizontal, assuming the lesbi-
out of concern to criticize the idea that same-sex inti- ans social power is roughly equal; abuse of lesbi-
macy is unnatural, an idea historically central to ethi- ans by others is called vertical, assuming the oth-
cal rejections of lesbian relationships. A related con- ers are more powerful. How horizontal abuse is re-
cern is to evaluate the idea that lesbianism is a choice. lated to vertical abuse raises both philosophical and
As a choice, lesbian lives become subject to ethical empirical questions. Empirical ones are about causes,
evaluation and possible defense. Whether it makes and philosophical ones are about meanings of basic
sense to consider it a choice, or whether sexual or concepts, such as lesbian and abuse.
erotic orientations can be determined only by causes Most lesbian philosophy in the last third of the
beyond ones control, is an issue on which lesbian twentieth century is also feminist. Feminism has chal-
philosophers disagree. Part of the issue is whether lenged heterosexism in patriarchal cultures. Thus, one
ones feelings and desires are the sorts of things one might expect feminism to lead naturally to lesbian
can control, change, or modify. Questions about the philosophy. Yet, historically, it has often been the other
values of lesbian community also lead easily to ques- way around. The challenges of lesbian living have
tions about meanings of lesbian. Some such ques- motivated many to engage in feminist theorizing of
tions are: Is a lesbian a woman? a female homosexual? the most radical sorts and to challenge less radical
Must lesbian relationships be sexual? Is sex (between feminists to be more inclusive and not be deterred by
females) sufficient to make a relationship lesbian? Can fear of the lavender menace. For feminists, repro-
lesbian be meaningfully applied in cultures (for ex- ductive concerns need not be central to long-term
ample, of precontact Native Americans) whose lan- intimate bonding or to many enactments of sexual

PHILOSOPHY 587
 desire. When reproduction is not in question, what losophers draw on many politically insurgent lit-
P counts as sexual behavior can become problem-
atic. Thus, disagreements among lesbian philosophers
eratures in pondering difficulties of theorizing
across differences among lesbians, integrating mul-
over the centrality of sexual interaction to lesbian tiple identities in lesbian lives, and exploring mean-
relationships are partly about the meaning of sexual ings and fluidities of social identities, many of which
interaction and do not always, or necessarily, re- arise out of contexts of oppression. Whether les-
flect differences of value priority regarding the physi- bian is such an identitywhether there would be
cal and sensual aspects of relationships. the concept lesbian in a society free of oppres-
Lesbian philosophy overlaps both gay and queer sionis an issue on which lesbian philosophers
philosophy. Gay philosophy developed in the United disagree.
States from the homophile movement of the 1950s. Claudia Card
It takes as its basic data for theorizing the everyday
lives of women and men in same-sex intimate rela- Bibliography
tionships, aiming to pursue issues common to both Allen, Jeffner. Lesbian Philosophy. Palo Alto, Calif:
sexes. But often, in fact, it has treated mens lives as Institute of Lesbian Studies, 1986.
paradigmatic. Its concerns have been more with le- Beauvoir, Simone de. Le deuxieme sex (The Sec-
gal reform than with political revolution. It tends to ond Sex). 2 vols. Paris: Gallimard, 1949, Vol.
emphasize sexuality more than lesbian philosophy 1, pp. 481510.
often does. And it has not always been sensitive to Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: The Subversion of
feminist concerns. Thus, lesbian philosophy that Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990.
emphasizes feminist and revolutionary concerns and Calhoun, Cheshire. Separating Lesbian Theory from
problematizes sexuality is not redundant in relation Feminist Theory. Ethics 104 (1994), 558581.
to gay philosophy. Relations of women and men to Card, Claudia, ed. Adventures in Lesbian Philoso-
patriarchal cultures have been historically different, phy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.
yielding different problems. Daly, Mary. Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philoso-
Queer philosophy developed in the United States phy. Boston: Beacon, 1984.
from AIDS activism in the 1980s. It aims to be more Frye, Marilyn. The Politics of Reality: Essays in
inclusive than gay philosophy. It comprehends not Feminist Theory. Trumansburg, N.Y.: Crossing,
only sexual-orientation issues defined by the sex of 1983.
ones partner but also issues of transgendering, sado-
masochism, and, in general, more ways of classify- See also Beauvoir, Simone de; Ethics; Lesbian Femi-
ing sexual desire than simply by the sex or gender nism; Political Theory
of ones partner. Like gay philosophy, it tends to
center sexuality. But, unlike gay philosophy, it is less
ready to take for granted that we all know what Photography
counts as sexual experience. It has sometimes been No stylistic concerns unite the work of lesbian pho-
more receptive than gay philosophy to feminist con- tographers, although most have produced
cerns. Some lesbian philosophers also think of them- selfportraits and portraits of their lovers, reflecting
selves as queer or as gay. Still, lesbian philosophy is their interest in identity and relationships. Those who
not reducible to a branch of either gay philosophy worked prior to the late 1960s did so in isolation
or queer philosophy, although it shares some com- from other lesbian photographers and seemed to
mon concerns with each. have no knowledge of one another. Commissioned
Feminist lesbian philosophy has been inclusive portraits purchased by the subject were the only les-
along other dimensions. It has developed through bian-themed work for which they were paid.
reflection on intersections of lesbian identities with
race and class identities. It includes reflections on History
the experiences of disabled and physically chal- The history of lesbian photography is one of nam-
lenged lesbians. There is at least as much overlap ing artists as lesbian, reclaiming women for whom
of feminist lesbian philosophy with antiracism, the necessity to hide their love of women was para-
anticapitalism, and movements of respect for the mount. Much of that history is hidden in scrap-
disabled and physically challenged as there is with books and will never be exhibited as art. Yet per-
gay and queer philosophy. Feminist lesbian phi- sonal photos by lesbians famous for other activities

588 PHILOSOPHY
Sinister Wisdom. Photo by Tee A.Corinne.

reflect their desire to portray otherwise hidden as- on articles with her lover, Victoria Hayward (1876
pects of their lives. 1956). She photographed Hayward in the Baha-
Writer Natalie Barney (18761972) made nude mas lifting her long skirts away from the waves.
pictures of herself and her lovers between 1897 Watsons contemporary, Alice Austen (1866
and 1901. Gertrude Stein (18741946) photo- 1952), lived on inherited money while document-
graphed her intimate friends smoking cigarettes ing the upper middle class on Staten Island, immi-
together in 1903. Art collector Etta Cone (1870 grants on Ellis Island, and workers in Manhattan.
1949) used a box camera to document herself and Jessie Lillian Buckland (18781939) maintained a
her new love reflected in a mirror in 1913. Painter professional studio in Akaroa, New Zealand.
Romaine Brooks (18741970) photographed her- Buckland, like Alice Austen, made self-portraits in
self with her newest love, Natalie Barney, around which she dressed in male clothing.
1915. Images of less famous womenlike those in Photographs by bisexual Margarethe Mather
Mabel Hamptons (19021989) African American (ca. 18851952), a business partner of photogra-
friendship circlehave been saved through the pher Edward Weston (18861958), are elegant and
work of lesbian and gay archives. spare. Another bisexual, Hannah Hoch (1889
US.-born E.Jane Gay (18301919) took up 1978), German and associated with the dada move-
photography to document the work of anthropolo- ment in art, pasted photographic reproductions
gist Alice Fletcher (18381923) for whom she had together as commentaries on politics, culture, and
an unrequited love. In a small-group photograph, gender in the 1920s and 1930s.
Gay recorded herself preparing a meal at their In Paris during the 1920s, American
campsite while Fletcher washed clothes and the Nez midwesterner Berenice Abbott (18981991) pho-
Perce translator carried buckets of water. tographed expatriate lesbians and other literary
Edith Watson (18611943), an early figures. Gisle Freund (1912), German and Jew-
photojournalist, traveled across Canada working ish, photographed many of the same individuals a

PHOTOGRAPHY 589
 decade later. During the 1930s, Laura Gilpin Although JEB and Cade are known because of
P (18911979), famous for her photographs of the
American Southwest, made gentle portraits of her
their books, hundreds of photographers working
through dozens of periodicals made the dream of
beloved companion, Betsy Forster (18861972), a a lesbian nation a visual reality. Senior among les-
nurse working with the Navajo. In Paris, her French bian photographers who came out within the wom-
Jewish contemporary, surrealist Claude Cahun ens movement is Ruth Mountaingrove (1923),
(18941954), constructed complex self-portraits whose images, often published in WomanSpirit
that experimented with gender roles and styles. magazine, were associated with the womens back-
Because of the ways in which lesbianism has to-the-land movements. Along with Tee A.Corinne
been hidden, any history of lesbian photography (1943), Jan Phillips (1949), and others,
has unanswered questions and lines of inquiry that Mountaingrove founded the Blatant Image: A
result in dead ends. For instance, was Lady Magazine of Feminist Photography (19811983),
Clementina Hawarden (18221965) bisexual, as which showcased lesbian-content imagery and pub-
her photographs suggest? The answer remains hid- lished articles on lesbian aesthetics.
den. Was the early photojournalist Frances Sexual imagery was often contested territory in
Benjamin Johnston (18641952) a lesbian? The
the 1970s; however, Corinne, known early for her
care she took to destroy her personal papers has,
Sinister Wisdom poster (1977), and Honey Lee
thus far, totally obscured her private life.
Cottrell (1945) developed strategies for publish-
ing and exhibiting graphically explicit photographs.
Lesbian Publications and Exhibitions
Both were associated with the U.S. West Coast popu-
By the 1960s, there was an international art mar-
list sex-education movement and later with On Our
ket for photographs, but no place within it for les-
Backs, a lesbian sex magazine. Morgan Gwenwald
bian photographers making lesbian-themed pho-
(1950) and Joyce Culver (1947) produced images
tographs. The self-conscious history of lesbian
of butch-femme romance, and Gwenwald created
photography in the United States began with The
an early network of activist image makers through
Ladder (19561972), a small magazine published
by an educational and social group, the Daughters The Lesbian Photography Directory (1982). Later,
of Bilitis. Kay Lahusen [Tobin] (1930) photo- subtle and overt sexual imagery was advanced by
graphed political events, especially those in which French-born Laurence Jaugey-Paget (1965), who
her lover, activist Barbara Gittings (1932), was created stylish, erotic photographs.
involved. When Gittings became editor of The As a counterbalance to lesbian-as-the-girlnext-
Ladder, they worked together to publish photo- door imagery supported by early feminismitself
graphs of lesbians on the magazines cover. This a reaction against images of lesbians as unhealthy
was the first time images of lesbians were published predatorsphotographers such as Della Grace
outside of sensationalized tabloid articles. (also known as Del (la) Grace Volcano) (1957)
In the 1970s, lesbian-themed newspapers and and Catherine Opie (1961) began publishing im-
small magazines began to flourish, supported by a ages of lesbian decadence, with an emphasis on
growing network of womens bookstores. With these drug and bar cultures, public toilet sex, and sado-
publications as outlets for their prints, photogra- masochistic activities.
phy became the medium of choice for many artists. Some photographers, such as Laura Aguilar
JEB (Joan E.Biren [1944]) was associated first with (1959), used curatingas well as publishing and
the Furies collective and newspaper and then with exhibitingto reach national and international au-
the feminist newspaper off our backs, both pub- diences. Aguilars best-known photographs include
lished out of Washington, D.C. On the U.S. West a series titled Latina Lesbians. Her willingness to
Coast, Cathy Cade (1942) worked with the San expose her own large body and to incorporate cul-
Francisco Bay Area paper Plexus and became espe- tural signifieraonce binding herself with the
cially known for images of lesbian-parented fami- Mexican and American flagsearned respect from
lies. JEB and Cade self-published photographic diverse critics.
books whose pictures came to represent the public
image of activist lesbianism. Diversity of age and Global Photographers
race, participation in cultural institutions, lesbian By the mid-1980s, as a direct result of lesbian, gay,
mothering, separatist communal life, and spiritual- and queer studies courses, university-trained lesbian
ity emerged as recurrent themes. photographers produced work that reflected

590 PHOTOGRAPHY
postmodem theoretical concerns. The images were portrayed vulnerability through combined text and
often layered and fragmented and frequently in- imagery. Two of the early women of color to publish
cluded words or texts. Representative examples in- erotic imagery were Parminder Sekhon (1968), who
clude the work of critic and photographer Deborah published in British journals like Wickers and Bullers,
Bright (1950), who inserted intellectually intrigu- a magazine for black lesbians and gay men, and Lola
ing, butch-appearing self-portraits into Hollywood Flash (1969), an African American who worked in
movie stills. British photographers Jean Fraser and Britain. Flash specialized in arbitrarily colored, sur-
Tessa Boffin, working within a similar intellectual realist-appearing photographs, which received wide
framework, crafted photographs reminiscent of distribution as bookcover art.
earlytwentieth-century living-tableau performances. In Australia, Bombay-born Lariane Fonseca
Continuing in the documentary tradition estab- (1951) published color close-ups of flowers that vi-
lished by JEB and Cathy Cade, but broadening it brated with symbolic erotic imagery. Her contempo-
to include images of gay men, as well as lesbians, raries C.Moore Hardy (1955) and Marion Moore
Nancy Andrews (1963), a photojournalist work- (1958) documented private activities and public
ing with a national gay and lesbian newspaper, used events while also developing a line of more complex,
oral histories and photographs to explore the lives fine art-oriented images. Fiona Arnold (1958) and
of a cross-section of ordinary lesbians and gay men. Tina Fiveash (1970) independently developed forms
Allowing the photos alone to tell the stories, of social commentary-inspired humor.
Carolyn Vaughan (1945) intermixed images of In New Zealand, the feminist magazine Spiral
lesbian and gay male couples with heterosexual gave lesbians a public forum. Barbara McDonald
portraits, still lifes, and landscapes. Ann Meredith (1948) was an early documenter of womens
(1948), who in the early 1980s photographed les- events, and Anne Mein (1968) produced erotic
bians with their dogs, later concentrated on im- images that echoed Rodins work in late-
ages of lesbians with AIDS. twentiethcentury surroundings. Fiona Clark
Canadian Ann Pearson (1935) produced a popu- (1954) and Jane Zusters (1951) specialized in
lar butch-femme spoof that was published initially in journalistic and portrait work.
The Furies (1972). Pearson worked in film, docu- The imagery of some Dutch lesbian photogra-
mentary, and art photography and published in phers was published as postcards. For two years
Fireweed magazine. Other prominent Canadian les- around 1980, lovers Diana Blok (1952) and Mario
bian photographers include Cyndra MacDowell Broekmans (1953) collaborated on evocative
(1953), who concentrated on emotive body and selfportraits with overt sexual references. Working
sexual imagery, and Nina Levitt (1955), who altered in a journalistic style, Gon Buurman (1939) pro-
images appropriated from lesbian popular fiction. duced psychologically moody portraits of a broad
Early in the 1990s, Vancouver photographer Susan range of women, including women in nightclubs,
Steward (1952), working collaboratively with Per- older couples, and disabled lesbian lovers.
simmon Blackbridge (1951) and Lizard Jones (1961 In the 1980s, lesbian artists of color established
) under the name Kiss & Tell, produced an exhibit exhibition sites and publications, sometimes in
and book in which viewers were asked to choose conjunction with gay men of color. Lebanese
where to draw the line in censoring sexual imagery. American photographer L.A. Happy Hyder
Beginning in the 1970s in Britain, the news jour- (1947) championed the inclusion of work by les-
nal Spare Rib published documentarians Val Wimer bians of color in exhibitions like The Dynamics of
(1941), Maggie Murray (1942), Pam Isherwood Color: Lesbian Artists Respond to Racism (San
(1949), and Brenda Prince (1950). They later Francisco, California, 1990), which featured the
founded Format, a feminist photo agency. Jill photographs of Julia Youngblood (1962),
Posener (1953) initially photographed Catalina Govea (1952), and Victoria Lena
activistinspired billboard graffiti but, in the 1980s, Manyarrows (1956), among others. Hyder also
produced images of overt sexuality. In London, organized Lesbian Visual Artists, whose newslet-
Rosy Martin (1946), who often worked with the ter networked lesbian artists internationally.
heterosexual photographer Jo Spence (19341992), Navajo/Creek/Seminole photographer Hulleah
explored identity and photography as therapy. Tsinhnahjinnie (1954) created an urban Indian icon
Ingrid Pollard (1953), working with the com- with the image of a woman in Native garb standing
plex intersections formed by being black and lesbian, beside a motorcycle, which was published on the

PHOTOGRAPHY 591
 cover of Living the Spirit (1988), an anthology. tion of Lesbian Art and Writing from Aotearoa/
P Roberta Almerez (1953), of Puerto Rican and Fili-
pino descent, used clarity and humor in group por-
New Zealand. Wellington, New Zealand: Spi-
ral, 1992.
traits published in Between the Lines (1987) and Soares, M.G., ed. Butch/Femme. New York:
later in the journal conmocin. Canadian Ka Yin Crown, 1995.
Fong (1968) and American Jacquelyn Ching Weiss, Andrea. Paris Was a Woman. San Francisco:
(1958) reached international audiences through the HarperSanFrancisco, 1995.
groundbreaking anthology The Very Inside (1994),
as Gaye Chan (1957) did through Amethyst (1991) See also Art, Contemporary European; Art, Con-
and Asian American Sexualities (1996). temporary North American; Austen, Alice
Portraiture, especially of lesbian and feminist
authors, provided both a service for the subjects
and a way of exploring the visual identity for pho- Physical Education
tographers Jean Weisinger (1954), of African Profession teaching sport and physical activity
American and Native American descent, and skills. Physical education has been considered a
Theresa Thadani (1960), of Japanese and Indian haven for lesbians, both stereotypically and within
descent. Of special note are Weisingers images of lesbian lore. It is during physical education that
writer Alice Walker (1944) and Thadanis images young women are provided role models of strong,
of writer Chea Villanueva(1952). physically active women.
Throughout the 1990s, lesbians continued to
make personal and public photographs. Although History
some lesbian photographers developed mainstream Throughout the history of womens physical edu-
reputations, the most prominent among them, like cation, there has been a strong emphasis on mod-
their predecessors, hid their love of women. Yet, eration. Although focused on a women-centered
because of social changes that had occurred since philosophy of physical education, the women edu-
the 1960s, many openly lesbian photographers pub- cators also stressed prevention of the
lished imagery that accurately reflected their lives. masculinizing effects of sport. These notions
Gay Pride marches, Dykes on Bikes, women in emanated from their attempts to gain respect within
couples, sports, identity, and sexuality emerged as the predominantly male physical education pro-
primary themes in their work. Tee A.Corinne fession of the late 1800s, when women began to
enter the profession. The early physical educators
Bibliography also emphasized upper-class notions of femininity,
Ashburn, Elizabeth. Lesbian Art: An Encounter which emanated from early Victorian ideals, stress-
with Power. Roseville East, New South Wales, ing strictly defined gender roles. Since physical ac-
Australia: Craftsman House, 1996. tivity was considered masculine at that time, the
Boffin, Tessa, and Jean Fraser, eds. Stolen Glances: female physical educators developed policies and
Lesbians Take Photographs. London: Pandora philosophies to minimize negative perceptions. By
and San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991. the 1920s, female physical educators were ex-
Bright, Susie, and Jill Posener, eds. Nothing but tremely worried about the masculinization of young
the Girl: The Blatant Lesbian Image. London women in sport; thus, they condemned competi-
and New York: Freedom Editions/Cassell, 1996. tive sport activities for women, emphasizing, rather,
Fernie, Lynne, Dinah Forbes, and Joyce Mason, the credo a sport for every girl, and every girl in a
eds. Sight Specific: Lesbians and Representation. sport. Strenuous competition was deemed incom-
Toronto: A Space, 1988. patible with femininity, so it was discouraged. Sport
Gates, Beatrix, ed. The Wild Good: Lesbian Pho- rules were changed for girls and womenexam-
tographs and Writing on Love. New York: An- ples include restricting physical contact and short-
chor/Doubleday, 1996. ening game timeso that competitiveness and ac-
Kelley, Caffyn, ed. Forbidden Subjects: Self-Por- tivity were minimized.
traits by Lesbian Artists. North Vancouver, B.C.: Ironically, it was the philosophy and actions of
Gallerie, 1992. the female physical educators of the early 1900s,
McPherson, Heather, Julie King, Marian Evans, and focused on the concerns about the overly masculine
Pamela Gerrish Nunn, eds. Spiral 7: A Collec- nature of sport and its inappropriateness for young

592 PHOTOGRAPHY
women, that led to many of the late-twentiethcentury dents. Fear of exposure as a lesbian is described as
stereotypes about female physical educators and constant, and it influences most job-related decisions.
athletes. Initially, sexual concerns emanated from
the belief that sport may lead young women to loosen Survival Strategies
their inhibitions toward men. Yet, by the 1930s, this Lesbian physical educators have described a variety
concern turned toward the view of female athletic of identity-management strategies to conceal their
behavior as a sign of failed heterosexualitywit- lesbian identities. Some women may choose to re-
ness the stereotypes of the muscle moll or dam- main closeted from colleagues and students. Pass-
aged mother. In the 1940s, vague and indirect con- ing is a strategy in which lesbians lead others to
cerns about lesbians in physical education emerged; believe that they are heterosexual. Covering in-
in the post-World War II era, those concerns were volves censoring personal information, maintaining
stated overtly. By the 1950s, the stereotype of the personal distance, and avoiding personal conversa-
mannish lesbian physical educator loomed over tions and social settings where people commonly share
the profession. Those perceptions led to an even personal aspects of their lives. Using passing or cov-
greater focus on sport and physical activities deemed ering strategies leads physical educators to separate
appropriately feminine. Many female physical edu- their personal and public identitiesoften deemed a
cators adopted apologetic behavior, displaying overt professional survival strategy in which one can act as
signs of femininity in their dress and behaviors to a lesbian in private situations but as a nonlesbian in
divert any accusation of masculine demeanor. It was public situations. Implicitly out lesbians will share
not unusual for females with short hair or obvious personal information yet not use gendered pronouns
lesbian relationships to be expelled from physical or directly acknowledge that they are lesbians. It is
education programs. assumed that the physical educator is a lesbian, al-
This atmosphere in womens physical education though direct disclosure has not occurred. Explic-
created a climate in which homophobia and itly out physical educators, on the other hand, di-
heterosexism became common. Even in the 1990s, rectly state to others that they are lesbians, and pub-
negative stereotypes continued to be widespread, and licly out lesbians are open about their sexual orien-
positive images of lesbians in physical education, tation to the entire community.
sport, and physical activity were rare. The stereotype Although most physical educators who have been
that all female physical educators are lesbians cre- interviewed for research studies are not comfortable
ates an uneasy environment in which accusations of concealing their lesbian identities, they express fear
lesbianism may be used to threaten and harass of repercussions if exposed as lesbians. Constantly
women in the profession. Common stereotypes that hiding their lesbian identity results in high levels of
directly affect lesbian physical educators include the stress. These educators expend a tremendous amount
belief that lesbians will molest or make sexual ad- of energy to create this public facade, and it affects
vances toward students or will attempt to recruit their relationships with their colleagues and students.
students to a lesbian lifestyle. These stereotypes are They also miss out on much needed social support
especially salient in physical education because les- when others do not know their true identity.
bian physical educators often are physically close to
their students, supervise locker rooms (including Role Models
showers), and are in a more open environment than Many physical educators feel powerless to chal-
traditional classroom teachers. These conditions lenge homophobia when it is experienced. To do
make them prime targets of homophobia. Knowing so would jeopardize exposure of their own lesbian
that parents, students, and colleagues may hold stere- identity and perhaps lead to much more adverse
otypical beliefs, most lesbian physical educators care- repercussions. However, continued hiding of les-
fully hide their lesbian identity when at school or bian identities further contributes to an enforced
with other people from school. silence in which issues related to homophobia and
Most remain closeted and silent about being a lesbians in physical education are not addressed.
lesbian because they assume that there will be con- This silence perpetuates negative stereotypes of les-
siderable negative consequences should their lesbian bians and further oppresses lesbian physical edu-
identity become known. They may feel that if it were cators. It also reduces the possibility of students
known that they are lesbians, they would lose their having positive lesbian role models or learning
job or lose credibility with their colleagues and stu- positive attitudes toward lesbians. However, on a

P H Y S I C A L E D U C AT I O N 593
 positive note, as more gay and lesbian athletes come Pirie, Jane (ca. 1784) and
P out, they serve as role models for physical educa-
tors and their colleagues and students. Similarly,
Woods, Marianne (ca. 1779)
Scottish schoolteachers. Marianne Woods and Jane
college and university professors of physical edu- Pirie are remembered for a libel case in which they
cation and exercise science are coming out and denied accusations of of lewd and indecent be-
educating others about lesbians in physical educa- haviour towards each other.
tion and sport. As more gay and lesbian physical In 1809, Pirie and Woods opened an elite board-
educators become empowered to come out, they ing school together near Edinburgh with Woodss
help create a more supportive climate in physical aunt. Their dreams of success and devoted domes-
education and can serve as positive role models ticity were shattered the following year when Lady
for nonheterosexual and heterosexual students. Cumming Gordon withdrew her granddaughter
Interestingly, lesbian physical educators have and advised other families to do the same. The two
become somewhat of an enigma in lesbian lore. teachers sued for libel a month later, asking 10,000
Although they remain mostly closeted, many young in damages.
girls look to their gym teachers as role models During the long trial, Jane Cumming (ca. 1795),
of strong women. The theme of young crushes on the illegitimate daughter of a Scottish father and
gym teachers is common among coming out sto- an Indian mother, gave detailed but obscure ac-
ries and has been codified in feminist folksinger counts of nightdresses being lifted, a wet kind of
Meg Christians song Ode to a Gym Teacher noise, heavy breathing, a shaking of the bed, and
(1974). Perhaps it is because of the all-female en- whispered exchanges such as the following (all
vironment of physical education, and the ability quotes are from Faderman 1983):
of lesbian physical educators to break down stere- Pirie: Oh, you are in the wrong place!
otypes about female sport abilities, that leads young Woods: I know.
students to admire and emulate them. As Chris- Pirie: Why do you do it then?
tians song goes: She was a big tough woman/ the Wood: For fun.
first to come along/that showed me being female/ Testimony was also given by other pupils and a
meant you still could be strong. Victoria Krane servant, Mary Brown, who thought they were
worse than beasts and deserved to be burned if it
Bibliography was true and wondered if one of them was actu-
Cahn, Susan K. Coming on Strong: Gender and ally a man.
Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Womens Sport. The defense counsel had accused Woods and
New York: Free Press, 1994. Pirie of having some kind of sex, whether with gi-
Griffin, Pat. Identity Management Strategies ant clitorises, digitation (fingers), or tools or
Among Lesbian and Gay Educators. Qualita- instruments (dildos). Lord Glenlee thought the
tive Studies in Education 4 (1991), 189202. women were definitely lovers, whereas Lord
Lenskyj, Helen. Power and Play: Gender and Meadowbrook was convinced that, in the United
Sexuality Issues in Sport and Physical Activity. Kingdom, where women did not have the over-
International Review for Sociology of Sport 25 grown genitals he thought common elsewhere, les-
(1990), 235245. bian sex was as imaginary as carnal copulation
Squires, Sarah L., and Andrew C.Sparkes. Cir- with the devil. Still he was terrified of giving this
cles of Silence: Sexual Identity in Physical Edu- case publicity, so the case records were kept sealed.
cation and Sport. Sport, Education, and Soci- The lawmen discussed what women could do in
ety 1 (1996), 77102. bed (the defense counsel presented a reading list
Woods, Sherry. Describing the Experiences of Les- on tribadism, from Ovid to Diderot), whether pen-
bian Physical Educators: A Phenomenological etration was necessary for orgasm, whether women
Study. In Research in Physical Education and would be likely to quarrel before sex or talk dur-
Sport: Exploring Alternate Visions. Ed. Andrew ing it, and whether the reference to the wrong
C.Sparkes. Washington, D.C.: Falmer, 1992, pp. place could possibly mean sodomy (anal sex).
90117. Racism marks parts of the trial, such as Lord
Meadowbrooks argument that the Hindoo Jane
See also Athletics, Collegiate; Sports, Professional; Cumming must have based her lies on the lewd
Teachers gossip she picked up from Indian maids. This fig-

594 P H Y S I C A L E D U C AT I O N
ure of the evil accuser is central in Lillian Hellmans categorizations of the content of particular poems,
Broadway success based on the trial, The Childrens it is more useful to place the emphasis on how a
Hour (1934), set in contemporary America. In lesbian reading of a poem alters traditional assump-
Lillian Fadermans generically experimental Scotch tions. These assumptions have to do with what con-
Verdict: Miss Marianne Woods and Miss Jane Pirie stitutes the human, and what constitutes the ex-
Against Dame Helen Cumming Gordon (1983) ternal, as well as how the relationship between the
an edited version of the trial interspersed with an two might be viewed. When the word lesbian is
autobiographical narrative of researching ital- used as an adjective, as it is in the term lesbian
though many possibilities are raised, most of the poetry, readers and listeners are faced with a diffi-
blame seems to rest on Jane Cumming. cult choice between either regarding poetry as an
For the judges, believing in the teachers guilt aspect of lesbian existence or regarding lesbian
would have meant suspecting most of the female as marking a subspecies of poetry in general. Both
population; as Lord Gillies put it: Are we to say viewpoints are valid, but each emphasis leads to dif-
that every woman who has formed an intimate ferent forms of commentary, and, within each, lie
friendship and has slept in the same bed with an- temptations to reduce the complexity and to ob-
other is guilty? Where is the innocent woman in scure the understanding of poetic texts.
Scotland? Lady Cumming Gordon was found not
guilty in 1811, guilty in 1812, guilty on appeal in Visibility and Invisibility
1819, and finally paid Woods and Pirie about Ways to examine lesbian poetry are many and vari-
3,000. They seem to have gone their separate ous, focusing sometimes on sociopolitical phenom-
ways, and nothing more is known of them. ena and sometimes on literary-cultural considera-
Emma Donoghue tions. Within the lesbian and gay rights movements,
for example, alliances based on homosexual resist-
Bibliography ance to heterosexism have resulted in lesbian and
Faderman, Lillian. Scotch Verdict: Miss Pirie and gay (male) poetry performances and publications.
Miss Woods Against Dame Helen Cumming At the same time, solidarity and identification within
Gordon. New York: William Morrow, 1983. feminism between lesbian and heterosexual women
Miss Marianne Woods and Miss Janie Pirie Against in resistance to patriarchy have resulted in feminist
Dame Helen Cumming Gordon. New York: poetry performances and publications. With these
Arno Press, 1975. Unedited version of trial tran- parameters still pertaining, there have been further
script. alignments and realignments of Third World,
Moore, Lisa. Something More Tender Still Than nonwhite, postcolonial, First Nation, working-class,
Friendship: Romantic Friendship in and similarly differentiated groups, both of activ-
EarlyNineteenth-Century England. Feminist ists and of scholars, resulting in poetry performances
Studies 18:3 (1992), 499520. and publications that either include, or entirely com-
prise, lesbian work. Much of this poetry is ignored
See also Boarding Schools; Clitoris; Crime and Crimi- by literary critics, or it is derided as ghettoized, spe-
nology; Faderman, Lillian; Romantic Friendship cial-interest polemic, or it is simply misread.
In addition, not all languages and cultures rec-
ognize as their own the construction of lesbian iden-
Poetry tity initiated by Western sexologists in the latter
As a rule, poetry embodies thoughts and feelings in part of the nineteenth centuryand further chal-
its imagery and in its sound patterns, rather than lenged, developed, and changed by Western femi-
explaining or describing such thoughts and feelings nism during the latter half of the twentieth cen-
at length. In many lyric poems, these thoughts and tury. This circumstance, together with the increas-
feelings concern the relationship of the human to ing global dominance of English-language use and
the externalfor example, the relationship of the publishing, means that, at the same time as the read-
lover to the beloved, the human to the other or to ing and the writing of lesbian poetry in English
the world, or to God, or to nature, or to the uni- became increasingly visible (ca. 1970), the reading
verse. Rather than attempt to define lesbian poetry and the writing of lesbian poetry in minority West-
by means of information about the sexualities or ern languages, and in all non-Western languages,
lifestyles of particular poets, or through literalist became relatively invisible or declared nonexistent.

P O E T RY 595
 To uncover and explore texts in these language This view has been endorsed and reinforced by
P cultures demands different methods of analysis
from those now familiar to students of English,
those who define and control literary debate in the
public arena. Further, of the published literary work
French, and Spanish literatures. that is readily accessible, much in the past was
Lesbian poetry is hard to find, even with the coded, either through the simple device of substi-
aid of dedicated scholarship, but, despite dismissal tuting male pronouns for female ones or through
by mainstream critics and scholars, its existence is complex imagistic devices of the kinds used, for
secure. Its range is prodigious, its production vig- example, by Gertrude Stein (18741946).
orous, its voice authentic, its temper fully human, In addition to love lyrics, the vast, relatively
and its quality equal to anything elsewhere admired. unexplored body of lesbian poetry encompasses
But it is marginalized or excluded from reading meditations, speculations, insights, affirmations,
lists, publishers promotions, print and broadcast and examinations concerning every aspect of life,
reviews, awards and prizes, and all of the other both of the external known world and of the inner
literary and marketing showcases used to monitor landscapes of memory and desire. For isolated
and manipulate modern readerships. writers and readers, poetry has offered comfort,
corroboration, and connection; for those who have
Poetic Forms and Modes found social, professional, or activist networks, it
The combined effects of English-language domi- has offered clarity, continuity, and celebration.
nance, late-twentieth-century literary theory, and The body of lesbian poetry established by the
the development of information technology have late twentieth century has both literary and
resulted in a greater visibility and foregrounding extraliterary resonances. Because women as a group
of twentieth-century Anglo American writers and have less disposable income than men, and because
readers of lesbian poetry than of similar work in womens work has had considerably less visibility
other language cultures. Lists of cited work will than mens, and because recognizably lesbian work
include comparatively small numbers of non- has been censored or silenced altogether, poetry has
Englishlanguage writers and of pre-twentieth-cen- always been highly valued by lesbian writers and
tury writing. Standard bibliographical searches of readers. The writing of poetry needs neither expen-
major databases and of sites on the World Wide sive equipment nor professional institutions, and,
Web, for example, provide accessible references to since poems are nearly always shorter than prose
lesbian poetry by and about more than forty au- works, they have been easier to reproduce and cir-
thors. Although the list includes some geographi- culate at minimal cost. This has meant that the de-
cal and historical variety, it is dominated by nine- velopment of lesbian communities, and of lesbian
teenth- and twentieth-century white, Western sensibility, has always been supported by exchanges
womenin particular, American women. of poetry with political energies, both celebratory
Given this imbalance, it is important to begin and subversive. This vast body of work is hidden in
by exploring poetic forms and modes, rather than newsletters, small magazines, and other marginal or
biographies. The most obviously lesbian poetry can short-lived publications stored in specialist archives
be found in love lyrics, since the love lyric, familiar and in collections of personal papers.
to all writers and readers, has been the most com-
monly used poetic form from the late Middle Ages Readers and Lesbian Poetry
onward. Its use extends throughout the range of More conventionaland, therefore, enduring
crafted diction, from highly wrought literary texts, modes of publication are obviously easier to locate,
to folk poetry and folk song, to the verse of greet- so that commentary, which is centered for the most
ings cards and popular songs. Lesbian voices have part in the academy, necessarily focuses on work
been present in every part of this range. Love that has found literary, rather than activist, outlets.
and, more recently, sexbetween women has more Even from a literary standpoint, however, lesbian
often been given shape and expression in love lyr- poetry still requires a radical repositioning of its read-
ics than in any other written form, though the ership if it is to be permitted the full force of its
greater part of such texts has never been published. energy and clarity. How lesbian poetry is read, that
These poems have been regarded by their writers is, is at least as crucial to its understanding as who
and recipients as private, personal, and particular, wrote it, why it was written, how it has been, and
thus devoid of any wider interest or literary status. will be, written, and even what it is, since its proper

596 P O E T RY
reading requires a major reassessment of the assump- place in it. In no known society, however, has the
tions brought to the reading of mainstream poetry. relationship of the male human being to God and
These assumptions concern the relationship between the world been the same as that of a lesbian reader
the writer and the reader, between the writer and or writer to God and the world. Moreover, it is
the speaker of the poem, and between the writer harder for a woman to idealize or demonize an-
and/or speaker of the poem and the world, the whole other woman for her own ends, because, despite
of creation, or the other. Lesbian poetry requires differences of race and class, for example, the
a constant questioning of the notion of the other phrase another woman, with all the weight of
and of the relationship to that other. Virginia Woolfs tradition behind it, necessarily indicates that they
(18821941) insight in A Room of Ones Own belong to the same category. Simple statements such
(1929) that Chloe liked Olivia and did not re- as You are like me and You are not like me
gard her as a member of another species is not just depend for their precise understanding on who is
crucialit is sensational. What is at stake in the read- speaking to whom and in which cultural context,
ing of lesbian poetry goes beyond the foregrounding since the relative power, or powerlessness, attrib-
of relationships between women, though that can uted to the younot just by the speaker, but
have striking results. also by the surrounding mores and conventions
Reading poetry involves continually placing the is crucial to understanding what is meant.
poem in new contexts. Samuel Taylor Coleridges This is not to say that lesbian poetry contains
unfinished poem Christabel (1816), for exam- no antagonistic figures. Many appear. Men are the
ple, foregrounds woman-to-woman eroticism, but, obvious example, though a poem like Adrienne
since it sees this through male eyes, it is only les- Richs (1929) Phantasia for Elvira Shatayev
bian in the mainstream pathological sense. A con- (1978), which extends understanding and fellow
ventional reading of Christina Rossettis Goblin feeling to the figure of the husband, will often reach
Market (1862), in which the characters are read out to the male outsider. What matters is how
as fallen and pure women, results in difficult power and kinship are attributed, by whom they
enigmas, whereas a reading foregrounding the pri- are attributed, and to whom they are attributed.
macy of their view of each other, even though they What also matters is the value placed on them.
are not a lesbian pair, reveals a satisfying and co- Whatever may be the agenda, the particular
herent pattern. Again, Elizabeth Bishops (1911 politics, or the individual attitudes of a poet de-
1979) refrain, in her Invitation to Miss Marianne claring herself to be lesbian, these stances have to
Moore (1955), to please come flying, captures take place in a context that explores some of the
the joyful calling of like to like, regardless of following questions. How does she relate to other
whether either poet might have welcomed or re- women? Does she assume, or not, that her work
jected a lesbian identity for herself. will be read by other women? Does she speak to a
It is the sense of kinship, rather than the idea fellow goddessa fellow idealized figuresince
of an identity, that is important. What is meant by she does, after all, inherit the mainstream tradi-
a sense of kinship is quite simply a strong sense of tion, however ill or well it serves her? Or does she
similarity rather than of difference. The other is not address a goddess? Is she human in that
not necessarily different from the human. A she is separated from the rest of creation? Or is she
woman addressing another woman inevitably ac- human in that she is not?
knowledges the similarity between them. By con- Since lesbian role models have not been set up
trast, in a traditional, heterosexual love poem, the for widespread acclaim, admiration, or imitation
male lover is different from the beloved. by absolutely everyone, it follows that the prob-
Male-dominated societies generate male-domi- lems of kinship and of relative power and power-
nated literary traditions. This means that the hu- lessness that any lesbian poet negotiates are being
man is primarily the male human, and the rela- readwhen they are read at allwithin a main-
tionship of the human to the external referswith stream context. This requires a readjustment of all
all the weight of tradition behind itto mans assumptions regarding kinship and the value at-
relationship to the external. Mans relationship tached to relative power and powerlessness. A les-
to God, to the world, to other men, to women, bian reading of poetry, in other words, is hard
and to the rest of creation has varied in accord- work. Is it, therefore, worthwhile, apart from the
ance with a particular cultural context and his novelty it generates and apart from the general

P O E T RY 597
 principle that any new way of looking at things is of the Soviet Union. Communist control of Poland
P worth acquiring?
For many commentators, it is not only worth-
continued until 1989, when the Solidarity move-
ment, which started in 1980, initiated significant
while, but absolutely essential at the end of the twen- and ongoing social, economic, and political trans-
tieth century. The central question of the relation of formations.
the I to the other that lesbian poets negotiate Traditional Polish upbringing mandates that
and perforce redefine is precisely the question that Polish girls marry young, because of the belief that
needs to be renegotiated by everyone, if women, men, an unmarried woman is less valuable than a mar-
God, the world, and the rest of creationlesbians ried one. Many lesbians, especially older ones, are
includedare not to destroy themselves. Lesbian or formerly were married and realize only late in
poetry embodies a major and continuing contribu- life that heterosexual marriage is not right for them.
tion not only to the needs of lesbian writers and The inability to free themselves from the trap of
readers, but also to the civilizing of the wider cul- marriage, especially because of children, reportedly
ture, in that it offers the possibility of human beings leads many women to alcoholism. Husbands may
seeing themselves as a part of creation, rather than also resort to blackmail, particularly regarding cus-
at odds with it. Gillian Hanscombe tody cases. Should a womans lesbianism be revealed
Suniti Namjoshi during divorce proceedings, she loses parental rights.
The Catholic Church, a dominant social and
Bibliography political institution in Poland, plays an important
Bulkin, Elly, and Joan Larkin, eds. Lesbian Poetry: role in creating and maintaining heterosexist views
An Anthology. Watertown, Mass.: Persephone, of homosexuals through outspoken opinions and
1981. the imposition of moral norms. Homosexuality is
DeJean, Joan. Fictions of Sappho, 15461937. attacked from pulpits, on Catholic radio shows and
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. television programs, and in the Catholic press.
Hanscombe, Gillian, and Suniti Namjoshi. Who Moreover, by making lesbians and gay men guilty,
wrongs you, Sappho? Developing Lesbian Sen- the Church also plays a role in causing psychologi-
sibility in the Writing of Lyric Poetry. In Out cal problems, as well as societal discrimination.
of the Margins: Womens Studies in the Nine- For all of these reasons, very few lesbians and
ties. Ed. Jane Aaron and Sylvia Walby. London: gay men publicly identify as such, making it diffi-
Palmer, 1991, pp. 156167. cult to find partners and communities. Should they
Kennard, Jean E. Ourself Behind Ourself: A become publicly identified, they may be harmed in
Theory for Lesbian Readers. In Gender and business, professional, and social life. For example,
Reading: Essays on Readers, Texts, and Con- legislation drafted in the 1990s would require can-
texts. Ed. Elizabeth A.Flynn and Patrocinio P. didates for positions in state administration or dip-
Schweickart. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univer- lomatic service be evaluated morallyincluding
sity Press, 1986, pp. 6380. questions about sexual preferenceto determine
Munt, Sally. New Lesbian Criticism: Literary and whether they are susceptible to blackmail. Lesbians
Cultural Readings. Hemel Hempstead, England: and gay men are not allowed to marry in Poland.
Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992. Because of this, lesbians cannot file joint tax returns,
Rich, Adrienne. On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Se- automatically inherit property, or make decisions
lected Prose, 19661978. New York: Norton, for their partner in case of serious illness.
1979. The term lesbian itself has negative connota-
tions in Polish society, due in part to the mass me-
See also Bishop, Elizabeth; Literary Criticism; Rich, dia. No film about lesbians has ever had a positive
Adrienne; Stein, Gertrude; Woolf, Virginia ending. The lesbian is almost always presented as
an unattractive, often dishonest person. If she is
sympathetically portrayed, she can expect a tragic
Poland ending. When newspaper reporters write about a
Republic in northern Europe with a population of crime committed by a homosexual, they always
39 million. Its capital and largest city is Warsaw. stress the perpetrators sexual orientation, some-
In 1945, following the defeat of Germany in World thing that never happens if the criminal is hetero-
War II, Poland came within the sphere of influence sexual.

598 P O E T RY
 Lesbians in Poland lack any publication related for lesbian communities and politics, and what les-
to their lifestyle and situation. Love between bians desired futures might be like. They address
women is used in books and periodicals only as a questions about human nature, ones ability to
stimulus for men or is presented as a transitional know and change features of the world, what jus-
stage in the development of womens sexuality. tice might be, and how power works in communi-
Many youth magazines present relationships be- ties and how it should be used.
tween girls as a first step in sexual awakening, thus Although these questions might be raised in al-
depreciating the relevance of lesbianism. If lesbian most every society, the earliest written discussions of
orientation turns out to be permanent, Polish soci- political theory are from European and Islamic (Mid-
ety tends to assume that such women should re- dle Eastern and North African) authors. Greek trag-
ceive psychological treatment. edy highlighted questions of justice, relations between
Furthermore, gay publications tend to limit the men and women and sometimes between men, but
number of pages in which information specific to womens close relationships were generally over-
lesbians can be published. In 1992, two women looked. The Western tradition of political theory,
from the region of Silesia tried to publish a news- represented by authors such as Aristotle (384322
paper for lesbians. Only one issue of Sigma ap- B.C.E.), St. Augustine (A.D. 354430), Thomas
peared. At that time, Poland had only one news- Hobbes (15881679), John Locke (16321704),
paper distributor, which rejected the publication, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (17121778), and Georg
defining it as pornography. In Gdansk, a low-qual- Hegel (17701831), relegated women to a private
ity bulletin, Violet Pulse, was published by a local sphere subordinate to men and assumed that their
gay womens group, but it was poorly promoted relationships with one another were of no importance.
and unknown to most women. Plato (427?347? B.C.E.) advocated equality for an
In 1991, the Association of Lambda Groups was elite class of women but assumed the subordination
registered in Poland. At first, Lambda Groups ac- and inferiority of most women. Karl Marx (1818
tively worked to integrate lesbians into their or- 1883) challenged the division between public and pri-
ganization. The Lesbian Lambda Group from vate, but he never questioned heterosexuality; for him,
Krakow organized three-day sessions in different the division of labor between men and women,
cities for women to learn about their activities. Simi- specifically their sexual roles in intercourse, was the
lar meetings were organized by the Warsaw group only natural division in human history.
Bilitis. During this initial period, lesbians and gay In spite of the shortcomings of European po-
men cooperated closely and implemented many litical theory, many feminists and lesbians have
initiatives together. However, these activities were appropriated its elements in advocating change.
followed by a visible decline in womens participa- Their arguments have been based primarily on two
tion. There are a number of reasons why Lambda varieties of Euro-American political theory: liber-
groups attract mostly men. Polish society is male alism and Marxism.
dominated, and women are generally socialized into Liberalism, which had its beginnings in the six-
passive roles. They may have a greater fear of pub- teenth-century Protestant Reformation and the
licly coming out, less desire to join groups to meet desire for religious independence, has generally
other women (especially if they are in stable rela- emphasized individual liberty and equality under
tionships), or wish not to work with gay men. The the law. Thinkers such as Locke and John Stuart
low level of activity by lesbians does not indicate Mill (18061873) urged readers to resist tyranny,
comfort with this situation but, rather, their expe- whether that of a ruler or of intolerant majorities.
rience of discrimination. Violetta Cywicka In the late eighteenth century, Mary Wollstonecraft
(17591797) urged womens political equality
See also International Organizations based on arguments she had adapted from liberal
thinkers. She suggested that womens biological
differences are irrelevant to their mental capacities
Political Theory and, hence, their ability to participate in public
Political theories are an important part of the life affairs, own property, and govern their own lives.
of lesbian comunities. Far from being simply aca- In the late twentieth century, liberalism remained
demic, political theories structure how lesbians see the dominant political tradition in the United States
the world, what questions seem to be of relevance and Canada; the American Civil Liberties Union

P O L I T I C A L T H E O RY 599
 bases its defense of lesbian and gay equality on lib- larger communities of color. Although not all les-
P eral arguments about individual freedom and equal-
ity. Liberalism is also used by opponents of equal-
bian feminists are separatists, many women have
thought that the division between men and women
ity. The liberal focus on individual freedom is of- is too starkly drawn for their needs. Lesbians such
ten used to justify discrimination, as defenders ar- as Smith (1983) have pointed out that their need
gue that they have a right to choose whom to hire, to fight racial oppression is as pressing as their
rent to, do business with, and the like. The defense battle against heterosexual supremacy and that they
of individual liberty has been used to justify hate need male allies in that fight.
speech and religious intolerance, as well as femi- The AIDS crisis of the 1980s had a powerful
nism or racial equality. impact on lesbians relation to gay men, and this led
Marxism and other socialist traditions have been to new directions in political theory. In response to
more central to the political thought of countries social attacks on gay men, many lesbians began to
other than the United States. Marx argued that class identify again with gay men and to see heterosexism,
is the fundamental division in society and that other rather than patriarchy, as the enemy. Lesbian com-
cleavages result from, or are structured by, this split. munities are now theoretically diverse, with many
Marxists analyses of oppression and emphasis on different positions and viewpoints competing for
collective action have been important sources for attention. Women such as Vaid (1996), past execu-
lesbians and gay men, as well as for feminist tive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task
thought. Although most feminists and lesbians re- Force, have argued forcefully that sexism is present
ject Marxism as a complete doctrine, many find in gay communities but that lesbians must work to
important insights into questions of equality, free- change that rather than leave those communities.
dom, and community. Many debates central to les- In lesbian communities, and especially in gay
bian political theory have terms and concepts communities, liberalism has become the predomi-
rooted in Marxism; for example, the concept of nant political theory of the 1990s. Liberalism is be-
male-identification to explain a lesbians lack of ing used in court cases to argue for individual lib-
feminist perspective is an adaptation of the con- erty and equality, and it is the theoretical framework
cept of false consciousness discussed by Georg of a spate of new books by gay men aimed at achiev-
Lukacs in the early twentieth century. ing acceptance by the straight majority. In these lib-
Early lesbian feminists, such as the Furies collec- eral presentations, lesbians and gays are treated as a
tive in Washington, D.C., often came from minority, genetically defined and unchangeable. This
antiVietnam and civil rights struggles and used the is in stark contrast to both Marxism and lesbian
theories of the New Left to explain lesbian oppres- feminism. Lesbian feminists have often argued for
sion and recommend changes. Authors such as the idea that any woman can be a lesbian, that
Bunch (1987) adapted Marxism to suggest that sex, sexuality is a matter of choice and moral import,
not class, was the fundamental division in society and that lesbians must use their lesbianism to break
and that other divisions were modeled on sex in- down the existing heteropatriarchy. Marxist gay
equality. Lesbian feminist theorists built on this base. liberationists of the 1970s spoke of the liberatory
They argued that lesbianism was not simply a sexual force of homosexuality, of the need for everyone to
orientation or preference but a political stance that find the erotic bonds that were repressed in capital-
defies patriarchy. If sex was the primary division, ist societies. Liberals, on the other hand, do not ar-
then heterosexuality was the way that sexual in- gue that accepting homosexuality will change other
equality and domination were enforced. Thus, les- social structures; their arguments for acceptance have
bian feminists developed a political theory based on hinged on the belief that, aside from who lesbians
the belief that the personal is political. Lesbian or gays sleep with, they are just like heterosexuals,
feminists argued that gay men and lesbians were not and that all lesbians and gays want is to be included
allies but were fundamentally different and even in existing society. These arguments have proven to
opposed. Gay male culture was viewed as the be reasonably effective in gaining heterosexual tol-
epitome of maleness, male-bonding to the exclusion erance, but they remain controversial within lesbian
of women, while lesbians were the most female. and gay communities.
Many feminist lesbians rejected lesbian femi- Although lesbian communities have been debat-
nism. Lesbians of color especially questioned a ing political theory as long as they have existed, aca-
theory that encouraged them to separate from demic lesbian political theory really began in the

600 P O L I T I C A L T H E O RY
1990s. These political theorists have begun to work , ed. Playing with Fire: Queer Politics, Queer
on questions of group identity, law, and social change Theories. New York: Routledge, 1997.
in ways that both draw on, and challenge, existing Smith, Barbara, ed. Home Girls: A Black Feminist
scholarship. Lesbian feminists are less present in Anthology. New York: Kitchen Table: Women
academia than in lesbian communities, so scholar- of Color Press, 1983.
ship has been weighted more toward what is being Vaid, Urvashi. Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming
called queer theory. In political theory, queer of Gay and Lesbian Politics. New York:
theory has meant a challenge to the oppositions Doubleday, 1996.
between gay and lesbian and straight and between Wilson, Angelia, ed. A Simple Matter of Justice?
men and women. Thus, this political theory has London: Cassell, 1995.
concentrated on empowering lesbians and gays
through subversion rather than confrontation. In See also Furies, The; Lesbian Feminism; Liberal-
contrast to liberal theories, queer theory argues that ism; New Left; Queer Theory; Socialism
the line between queer and straight is not fixed or
clear; this means that heterosexuals may find com-
mon cause with homosexuals in breaking down Portugal
the barriers that keep both in line. In contrast to Republic situated at the extreme western tip of
Marxism, queer theory refuses to privilege any one Europe, next to Spain. It is a small country of about
ideological position as the truth about homosexu- 10 million inhabitants and is popular with tourists
ality or sexual oppression. Against lesbian feminism, of all nations.
queer theorists have argued that lesbians are not all The first major discussion of lesbianism in Por-
alike, that there is no essence to lesbianism, and tugal in medical terms came in 1904 with A Vida
that patriarchy is but one of a number of interlock- Sexual (Sexual Life) by Egas Moniz, a lobotomy
ing social structures that oppress lesbians. specialist who dabbled in sexology. Moniz drew
Although queer theory has offered impressive heavily on other European sexologists, such as Ri-
insights into lesbian identity and politics, it, too, chard von Krafft-Ebing (18401902) and Havelock
cannot be the last word. Critics have charged queer Ellis (18591939). Lesbians were inevitably por-
theorists with being excessively abstract and bur- trayed as abnormal, in terms of both sexual desire
dened by jargon, thus hiding their insights from the and gender performance. It was common before
communities that might gain from them. They have 1932 to find lesbianism discussed in print, one ex-
also suggested that queer theorys intellectual posi- ample being A Nova Sapho (The New Sappho
tions do not make for effective politics and that more [1921]), a fairly sympathetic approach for the time.
is to be gained from working within existing terms The most salient fact of Portuguese life in the
and structures than from standing outside and com- twentieth century was the fascist dictatorship that
menting on them. These charges are part of the larger lasted from 1926 to 1974. Repression and censor-
problem of the isolation of academic political theory ship became the norm in every area. Discussions of
from the communities it speaks about and for, a lesbianism, as of so many other topics, ceased. Just
problem not easily resolved. Shane Phelan as they had always done, lesbians met by word-
ofmouth circuits in certain bars, cafs, and beaches,
Bibliography while parties in private homes were also popular as
Blasius, Mark, and Shane Phelan, eds. We Are Eve- meeting places. These were frequently raided by the
rywhere: A Historical Sourcebook in Lesbian police, and party goers were taken to jail for inter-
and Gay Politics. New York: Routledge, 1997. rogation. Many marriages of convenience between
Bunch, Charlotte. Passionate Politics: Feminist gays and lesbians were made during these years. The
Theory in Action. New York: St. Martins, army takeover in 1974, which eventually led to a
1987. democratic state, not only did not improve the sta-
Phelan, Shane. Getting Specific: Postmodern Les- tus of same-sex relations, it actually produced, in
bian Politics. Minneapolis: University of Min- 1975, a civil code declaring same-sex marriage non-
nesota Press, 1994. existent. The reasons given were that
. Identity Politics: Lesbian Feminism and the complementarity cannot exist between two peo-
Limits of Community. Philadelphia: Temple ple of the same sex. Two directives (1989) barring
University Press, 1989. gays and lesbians from the armed forces describe

PORTUGAL 601
 homosexuality as a mental illness. Homosexuality these writers were lesbians. The first Portuguese les-
P is deemed a crime when committed with minors;
heterosexuality in similar situations is not branded
bian magazine, Organa, published from 1990 until
1992. In 1993, a new publication, Lils (Lavender),
as criminal. In 1997, as part of a constitutional re- emerged; in 1998, it was still the only lesbian maga-
view, members of the Green Party proposed several zine in the country. Its aims are consciousness raising
revisions that would have outlawed discrimination generally, but it is, as was Organa, available by direct
on the grounds of sexual orientation and included mail only. A Homossexualidade Feminina (Female
recognition of same-sex relationships. However, Homosexuality [1996]) by Teresa Castro dAire is a
none of these revisions appeared in the final revised slim volume of interviews, in which, for the most part,
text, so the legal situation for lesbians and gay men interviewees use pseudonyms, as do almost all lesbi-
as of the late 1990s had not improved. ans who are interviewed in Portugal.
With the 1974 revolution, a short-lived As a result of the lack of nationwide structures
Movimento de Libertao das Mulheres (MLM; and role models, many lesbians are isolated, even in
womens liberation movement) appeared in Lisbon, the cities. In the capital, Lisbon, there are a few les-
in which lesbians were very active, for instance, in bian-friendly meeting places, but knowledge of these
the pro-abortion struggle. There was, however, no is carried by word of mouth, much as in earlier years.
equivalent airing of lesbian concerns. What re- Clube Safo (Club Sappho), formed as a correspond-
mained of the MLM became, in 1977, a far smaller ence club in 1996, also organizes regular meetings
group, Identifica-Documenta-Mulheres (IDM; and outings. The local branch of the International
Identification-Documentation-Women), run pre- Lesbian and Gay Association, also formed in 1996,
dominantly by closeted lesbians in a just dont has shown little interest in lesbians. Lesbian chic,
talk about it climate. IDM collapsed in 1985. imported from the United States, has given lesbian
Lesbianism began to be discussed in the media ca. stances a certain veneer of glamour among minor-
1990, with articles in womens magazines such as ity groups, but the deep-rooted attitudes of families
Elle, focusing, for instance, on the English writers and employers have not kept up with this trend.
Virginia Woolf (18821941) and Vita SackvilleWest Despite these difficulties, it is possible to lead a happy
(18921962) but never identifying Portuguese lesbi- and productive life in Portugal, and many lesbians
ans. By 1997, it had become far more common to are working actively to produce better conditions
find lesbianism mentioned in the press, although, with in the future. Maria Josefina Silva
one or two exceptions, lesbians were not out in
Portugal. The Portuguese media are, on the whole, See also International Organizations;
antagonistic to same-sex relations, although there is SackvilleWest, Vita; Woolf, Virginia
a certain sympathy when reporting same-sex-related
events taking place outside Portugal. It is possible to
see films with lesbian content, and the very popular Postmodernism
Brazilian soap operas have begun to include lesbian Term used to denote an aesthetic, philosophy, eco-
characters, albeit timidly. Television documentaries nomic form, or anti-identity politics. It is best char-
and talk shows occasionally focus on same-sex love. acterized as a heterogeneous mixture of critical and
This has given rise to a backlash in the press, with artistic practices that challenge modern ideas about
articles routinely linking homosexuality with socially government, art, history, and knowledge. In the
condemned behaviors, such as prostitution, substance critical histories that have emerged to describe
abuse, and pedophilia. Many articles attack same- postmodernisms enormous influence, three nar-
sex aspirations in terms that are severely fundamen- ratives of origin are central.
talist, both religiously and medically. The first narrative, that of the aesthetic, takes shape
Although lesbians are largely invisible in Portu- by tracing the turn away from the canonical tradi-
gal, twentieth-century Portuguese literature does in- tions of high modernism in the late 1950s toward art
clude poetry with an openly lesbian content; exam- and architectural forms engaged with postclassical
ples include Decadncia (Decadence [1923]) by Judith pastiche and the seemingly degraded sphere of
Teixeira and Mulher Repetida (Repeated Woman popular culture. Here one encounters radical
[1974]) and Amor Geomtrico (Geometrical Love, antiformalist architecture, street art, and the pop
[1979]) by Manuela Amaral. Given the social climate movement, all of which challenged aesthetic estab-
in Portugal, it is impossible to state whether any of lishments and intersected with countercultural social

602 PORTUGAL
movements by emphasizing public access and popu- offers a tour of Jodie Foster fandom; Jean Walton
lar forms. The second narrative, that of philosophy, traces lesbian response to Sandra Bernhards pub-
imports postmodernist thought from France through lic image; and Dana Heller investigates the con-
poststructuralist theorists such as Jean Baudrillard nection between lesbian sexuality and law enforce-
(1929), Jacques Derrida (1930), Michel Foucault ment in Hollywood film narratives since the late
(19261984), Jacques Lacan (19011981), and Jean- 1980s.
Franois Lyotard (1924). Critiquing the dominant While the strategies examined in many of these
narratives of modernity and its antithetical twin, essays on popular culture identify the postmodern
Marxism, these writers offered new theories of lan- with the rejection of essentialist understandings of
guage and representation to recast the rationalist lega- sexuality, Judith Halberstam in her essay uses the
cies of eighteenth-century Enlightenment humanism. postmodern to question the ideals of coherent gen-
Their antihumanism has contributed to debates on ders that underlie not only heterosexual, but also
identity politics by questioning the idea of a sover- homosexual sexual scripts. By analyzing discourses
eign self-knowing subject. The third narrative, that about female-to-male transexualism, Halberstam
of the economic, focuses on historical transforma- develops an understanding of the artificiality of
tions in capitalism in the postindustrial era. In the gender and sex, arguing for critics to think of the
writings of Marxist theorists such as Fredric Jameson postmodern lesbian body as one produced by vari-
(n.d.) and Louis Althusser (19181990), ous technologies, including the cinema and medi-
postmodernism is theorized as a historical period cal technology. The centrality of the body as artifi-
characterized by the rise of information technology cial and, hence, as constructed also underlies Cathy
and transnational modes of production. Griggerss Lesbian Bodies in the Age of
Taken together, these three narratives about the (Post)Mechanical Reproduction in the Doan col-
emergence of postmodernism might seem to have lection. Drawing upon a well-known essay by
little bearing on the question of the lesbian whose Marxist critic Walter Benjamin, Griggers under-
critical relation to the aesthetic, philosophical, or stands the lesbian body as a composite of disor-
economic has often been subordinated to issues of ganized signs that do not refer to some kind of real
heterosexuality, patriarchy, and gay civil rights. Yet or authentic being. Part of commodity capitalism,
lesbian critical theory and cultural and artistic prac- yet resisting it at the same time, the lesbian body
tices have been profoundly influenced by the broader she tracks poses a challenge to the future of les-
impact of postmodern thought since the 1980s, so bian politics, necessitating that one understands
much so that one cannot cite queer theory in the identity politics as both a problem and an oppor-
academic realm or the butch-femme revival in the tunity for thinking about straight culture and the
cultural sphere, let alone the recent focus on trans- race and class hierarchies it produces.
sexual and transgendered issues anywhere, without Other critics are not as sure as Griggers that the
some sustained attention to their relation to the postmodern rejection of essentialized notions of
postmodern. How, then, does one define the rela- identity will respond adequately to race and class
tionship between the lesbian and the postmodern? differences. Emma Perez, for instance, challenges
In the 1993 collection titled, appropriately, The the postmodern assault on essential identities as a
Lesbian Postmodern, edited by Laura Doan, this form of cultural and political suicide for
question is answered from a multidisciplinary criti- marginalized groups. Sagri Dhairyam, taking a dif-
cal perspective that cuts across the explanatory ferent approach, is especially concerned with the
frameworks for the postmodern defined above: the way that postmodern discourses have authorized
aesthetic/popular, the philosophically antihumanist, the professional advancement of white, middle
and the economic. Erica Rand, for example, asks a class, First World lesbian academics and, hence,
postmodern lesbian question about how popular how any academic theory works to constitute dis-
culture can be subversively refunctioned for wom- ciplinary regimes of power, no matter how care-
ens pleasure. She begins to answer this question fully such theories may question power itself.
by taking seriously girls play with the pop icon While the essays in The Lesbian Postmodern
Barbie and lesbian appropriations of the doll as a reinforce, through their difference, the postmodern
sex toy. Other essays in the collection likewise use emphasis on fragmentation, multiple explanatory
popular culture as the sphere for critical questions narratives, popular culture and its reception, and
about the lesbian and the postmodern. Terry Brown post-Enlightenment organizations of power and

POSTMODERNISM 603
 knowledge, they all share a concern for the future (and, therefore, erroneous) criteria. Even when pre-
P of lesbian politicsor, perhaps one should say, for
a politics that can use the lesbian without be-
conceived ideas have positive associationsfor ex-
ample, Asian students are good in maththey deny
coming fully committed to it as a universal or uni- a persons individuality. The irrational hatred on
tary sign. As Judith Butler writes in Gender Trou- which prejudice is based can be manifest in stere-
ble: [I]t is no longer clear that [we] ought to try otypesa set of cognitive beliefs about the charac-
to settle the questions of primary identity in order teristics of members of a social groupin social avoid-
to get on with the task of politics. Instead, we ought ance, and in overt discrimination.
to ask, what political possibilities are the conse-
quence of a radical critique of the categories of iden- Prejudice Against Lesbians and Gay Men
tity? Much of the force of the lesbian engagement Prejudice against lesbians and gay men, referred to
with the postmodern takes shape here, in the con- by the generic term of homophobia, is endemic in
cern over the historical and cultural construction the contemporary United States. Some people assume
of the lesbian and that subjects consequent crea- that the most blatant forms of homophobia are a
tion within a psychosexual regime. For critics try- historical relic; such as German Nazi Heinrich
ing to think through the various definitions of the Himmlers (19001945) proclamation that [i]n our
postmodernand the postmoderns resistance to judgment of homosexualitya symptom of degen-
a single coherent definitionthere can be no final eracy which could destroy our racewe must return
answer to the questions posed by the lesbian to the guiding Nordic principle: extermination of
postmodern. In most cases, that deferral of final degenerates. Yet more than forty years later, a Dal-
coherency is taken as a good thing. las, Texas, judge declared: I put prostitutes and
Robyn Wiegman queers on the same leveland Id be hardput to give
somebody life for killing a prostitute. Those who
Bibliography act upon same-gender desire do not have the same
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the legal rights and protections as those who act upon
Subversion of Identity. New York and London: cross-gender desire. The judges suggestion was made
Routledge, 1990. law in the state of Colorado in 1992 (and later over-
Butler, Judith, and Joan Scott, eds. Feminists Theo- turned by the United States Supreme Court): Nei-
rize the Political New York: Routledge, 1992. ther the State of Colorado, norshall adopt or en-
Doan, Laura, ed. The Lesbian Postmodern. New force any statutewhereby homosexual, lesbian or
York: Columbia University Press, 1993. bi-sexual orientation, practice, or relationships shall
Docherty, Thomas, ed. Postmodernism: A Reader. constitute the basis of any person to claim discrimi-
New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. nation. The inclusion of bisexuals suggests that the
Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condi- practice of same-gender sexuality is a master sta-
tion: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff tus, making invisible the simultaneous practice of
Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: opposite-gender sexuality.
University of Minnesota Press, 1984. Prejudice against lesbians and gay men is expressed
Nicholson, Linda J., ed. Feminism/Postmodernism. most directly in violence. Not only are homosexuals
New York: Routledge, 1990. the most frequent victims of hate violence today (U.S.
Department of Justice 1997), but a New York City
See also Critical Theory; Enlightenment, European; Anti-Violence Project reported in 1992 that 89 per-
Modernism; Philosophy; Political Theory; Queer cent of all incidents of antilesbian and antigay vio-
Theory lence resulted in no arrest. Chief Justice Warren Burger
offered a perhaps unintentionally direct statement of
this prejudice in the Bowers v. Hardwick decision
Prejudice (1986): To hold that the act of homosexual sod-
A preconceived judgment or opinion, a feeling about omy is somehow protected as a fundamental right
a person or group, with little, if any, basis in direct would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.
experience. Although prejudice need not be negative,
in everyday use prejudice refers to a derogatory atti- Explaining Prejudice
tude toward members of a social group. Prejudice Like many other intergroup relations, prejudice has
entails hostility and rejection, based on categorical often been conceived as an individual-level

604 POSTMODERNISM
phenomenon. Earlier theories of prejudice focused Contesting Prejudice
on personality formation or cultural explanations, Direct experience with the targets of ones preju-
with concepts such as the authoritarian personal- dice is assumed to undermine this hostility. In a
ity. More recent theory and research, primarily on 1993 U.S. News and World Report poll, 73 per-
racial prejudice and discrimination, has focused on cent of those who said they knew someone who is
intergroup conflicts. Contemporary racial prejudices lesbian or gay (53 percent of the total sample) sup-
are marked by contradictions: A steady decline in ported equal rights for lesbians and gays. Only 55
whites negative attitudes and feelings about racial percent supported gay rights among the 46 per-
and ethnic minorities is accompanied by whites con- cent of the total sample who said they did not know
someone who is lesbian or gay. Research on racial
tinued resistance to policies such as affirmative ac-
prejudice, especially the effects of desegregation,
tion in employment and education. Contradictions
suggests that the conditions under which contact
also mark the contemporary expression of homopho-
occurs are vital to determining whether contact
bia, in seemingly opposite ways. On the one hand,
reduces, or intensifies, prejudice. Only when di-
support for civil rights for lesbians and gays has been
rect contact is sanctioned by institutional supports
increasing. In a 1993 Gallup poll, between 74 and and when it leads to a perception of common in-
89 percent of U.S. residents endorsed equal rights for terests and common humanity is contact between
homosexuals in job opportunities. In 1988, the Gen- heterosexuals and lesbians and gays likely to re-
eral Social Survey, conducted regularly by the Na- duce homophobic prejudice. Judith A.Howard
tional Opinion Research Center, showed a gradual
decline in support for proposals to remove gay-posi- Bibliography
tive books from public libraries, to fire lesbian and Allport, Gordon W. The Nature of Prejudice. Cam-
gay college teachers, and to prohibit public speaking bridge, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1954.
by lesbians and gays. On the other hand, there has Brown, Rupert. Prejudice: Its Social Psychology.
been no decline in moral and social sanctions against Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.
homosexuality. From 1973 through to 1995, the U.S. Herek, Gregory M., and Kevin T.Berrill. Hate
Gallup polls showed that between 70 and 77 percent Crimes: Confronting Violence Against Lesbians
of the respondents believed that sexual relations be- and Gay Men. Newbury Park, Calif: Sage, 1992.
tween two adults of the same sex are always wrong Lott, Bernice, and Diane Maluso, eds. The Social
(Vaid 1995). These apparently opposite trends are Psychology of Interpersonal Discrimination.
consistent with political consultants analyses. In New York: Guilford, 1995.
1994, one consultant, based on analyses of polling Vaid, Urvashi. Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming
and focus group data, concluded that more than half of Gay and Lesbian Liberation. New York:
Anchor, 1995.
of the U.S. population view homosexuality negatively,
Young-Bruehl, Elisabeth. The Anatomy of Preju-
but close to 75 percent are opposed to discrimina-
dices. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
tion. This rejection is pronounced among self-identi-
Press, 1996.
fied heterosexual male youth, the group most likely
to commit antilesbian and antigay violence: In a 1988
See also Discrimination; Homophobia; Stereotypes;
survey of adolescent males, 89 percent found such Violence
behavior disgusting. In surveys done in the 1990s,
this figure declined: 50 to 66 percent of those sur-
veyed agreed with this position. Prisons and Prisoners
The assumption that ones individual opinions In 1994, women made up 7 percent of the more
are shared by others validates the direct expression than 1.5 million persons incarcerated in U.S. jails
of prejudice. Most important, it is the visible en- and federal and state prisons on any given day. Of
dorsement of ones prejudices by societal institutions those, 49.4 percent were classified as white, an-
and authorities that validates and legitimates preju- other 50.6 percent as black. In states with large
dice. Statements such as those by the Dallas judge concentrations of Latinas, such as California and
or Justice Burger, for example, or the fact that po- New York, Latinas made up a disproportionate
lice officers are among the most common perpetra- percentage of the womens state prison population.
tors of antilesbian and antigay violence (Herek and The overwhelming number of women were incar-
Berrill 1992), affirm both institutional and individual cerated for economic, drug-related, and nonvio-
expressions of homophobia. lent offenses.

PRISONS AND PRISONERS 605

 Stereotypes about women prisoners that appear Gender Roles and Terminology
P in the mass media are synonymous with stereotypes
about lesbians that abound in the same media. The
Women prisoners and staff use a number of terms
to describe the gender roles assumed by, or assigned
portrayal of women prisoners as violent, sadistic, to, prisoners. Male-identified prisoners are gener-
and psychotic evokes the image of the sexually ally called little boys, stud broads,
obsessed and predatory lesbian. bulldaggers, butches, drag butches, and
true homosexuals. Women who assume this role
Prison Families are usually referred to as he and him.
Prison families have been one of the most persist- Many women who identify as lesbians prior to
ent and studied forms of prisoner organization in imprisonment or who assume masculine roles while
womens prisons. In prison families, women gen- in prison (hereafter called butches) generally cut
erally adopt, or are assigned by other prisoners, their hair short and walk and talk in ways that are
the roles of mother, father, husband, wife, brother, identified with working-class men of their own eth-
sister, and so forth. Prison families and the lesbian nic or racial background. They frequently fashion
relationships with which they sometimes overlap womens prison clothing into mens shorts and T
fulfill a number of functions. While family mem- shirts. Butches are expected to be strong, independ-
bers may be spread throughout the institution, ent, provide protection, and pursue other women
whenever possible they socialize with one another sexually.
and share resources. Prison families offer prison- Many prisoners who adopt butch roles do so
ers protection from staff and other prisoners, thus to give the impression that they can take care of
helping reduce prisoners sense of isolation and fear. themselves. Others adopt a butch role because they
They provide stability and continuity, as well as want to exert power over other prisoners or they
multiple opportunities for close relationships. want to get over by receiving goods, services,
Prison families also help socialize prisoners into and favors from peers. Still others, because of their
the institution by familiarizing them with facility mannerisms and personality, may simply be as-
regulations and prisoner codes. There are also in- signed such roles by other prisoners.
stances when family members recruit other kin Butches who revert to a feminine role while in
for reform-oriented activities, such as work stop- prison are said to have dropped their belts. Such
pages or litigation efforts aimed at changing op- a change is generally frowned upon because of the
pressive conditions. In some cases, prison family shortage of butches within womens institutions.
groups have fostered the creation of other infor- Prisoners assuming feminine roles (hereafter
mal and formal prisoner organizations and have called femmes) are expected to provide nurtur-
been the most active prisoners in these groups. ing and advice, as well as fulfill a number of serv-
Moreover, in some cases, heads of households have ices associated with traditional womens roles. Such
been leading organizers of prisoner coalitions. services include cooking and ironing for the
butches. Feminine-identified prisoners are gener-
Emotional/Sexual Relationships ally called femmes or fishes.
Women participating in prison families may identify Women involved in situational lesbian relation-
themselves as being lesbian, bisexual, or heterosexual. shipsthat is, women who engage in sexual rela-
If one defines as lesbians those women who identify tionships with other women solely while they are
themselves as such, both staff and selfidentified lesbi- in prisonare referred to as flippers,
ans agree that the number of lesbians in prison fluc- wannabes, players, LUPs (Lesbians Until
tuates between 5 and 10 percent of the prisoner popu- Parole), or JTOs (Jailhouse Turnouts). The term
lation. This is so despite the overwhelming existence JTOs sometimes also refers to women who have
of sexual relationships among prisoners. had their first sexual experience with another
While lesbians do often participate in prison woman while in prison. Whatever label is used,
families, many opt not to join such networks, pre- these women may have male partners on the out-
ferring to have one or more partners while impris- side to whom they return once released from prison.
oned or to remain faithful to a partner on the out- Women involved in lesbian relationships are said
side. Once two women form an intimate bond, they to be playing, crushing, going together,
may opt to perform a marriage ceremony with the turning out, making it, being together hav-
participation and blessing of other prisoners. ing husbands and wives, tying in, bulldogging,

606 PRISONS AND PRISONERS

being in the doll racket or in the life, being they are given work assignments. Lesbians may also
married, having people, or housekeeping. be prevented from participating in programs of-
While butch-femme relationships usually in- fered by outside volunteers. In some institutions,
volve bartering of some kind, these types of rela- women labeled homosexuals have been forced to
tionships often reproduce unequal heterosexual wear different-colored uniforms.
power relationships, with the butch often enjoy- Furthermore, staff often label lesbians men-
ing privileges accorded to men. For example, while tally ill. They may house lovers in separate living
a butch may have more than one lover, femmes are units and try to discourage lesbian relationships
rarely allowed to do the same. by repeatedly giving partners minor rule infractions.
On the other hand, both butches and femmes Women may be written up for hugging, kissing,
can attain top leadership positions in formal and having hickies, making love, standing too close,
informal prisoner groups, as well as reform-ori- or even combing each others hair or sitting in each
ented coalitions. others bed. The accumulation of write-ups can lead
While a great deal of violence that takes place in to prisoners being sent to segregation or the loss of
womens prisons is said to result from lovers quar- good time they have accumulated. Write-ups are
rels or quarrels among two women for the same part- also placed in prisoners files, where they are ac-
ner, much of the violence women prisoners experi- cessible to other staff and parole board members.
ence is the result of the day-to-day emotional, physi- At times, institutional personnel have informed
cal, and spiritual assault perpetrated on prisoners by prisoners families on the outside when their kin
staff and by the experience of imprisonment itself. was sent to segregation for homosexual activity.
Staff also frequently harass lesbian couples who
Prison Staff are affectionate with each other in the visiting room
Reactions by prison staff to lesbian prisoners, les- and deny lesbian lovers participation in overnight
bian relationships, and prison families vary from visiting programs available to heterosexual couples.
outright tolerance to severe repression. A small Furthermore, it is not uncommon for both male
number of staff may show its support or tolerance and female staff to frisk lesbians without provoca-
for such relationships by housing lovers together, tion or force a butch to watch her lover be thor-
by becoming emotionally and sexually involved oughly patted down by guards. Staff members have
with prisoners, and/or by ignoring institutional been known to beat up lesbians, particularly
rules prescribing further punishment for women butches, solely because they are lesbians.
caught being affectionate with each other. While staff claim that they segregate lesbians
Other staff members, while not condoning such from other prisoners to protect the latter, it is more
relationships, may use the prison family hierarchy likely that lesbian relationships are feared because
to try to quell tensions among prisoners or between they create bonds among prisoners that can lead
prisoners and staff. For example, a staff member them to collectively challenge oppressive prison
may ask the mother or the father of a family group conditions. This is particularly so if such ties cut
to speak to one of their children concerning their across racial, ethnic, and class cleavages. The fact
behavior. that women prisoners continue to violate institu-
However, the majority of staff either openly re- tional regulations prohibiting them from having
ject lesbian relationships or feel compelled to en- intimate sexual and emotional relations with each
force discriminatory institutional regulations. Hos- other is an indication of their continued willing-
tility toward lesbians is evident when lesbian friends ness to challenge societal and institutional regula-
or lovers are separated when arrested together, pris- tions deemed intrusive and oppressive.
oners are asked if they are homosexual, butch, [The author wishes to thank Rosalind Ruth
or femme when first entering the institution, and Calvert and Darlene Desmond for helping prepare
lesbians are contemptuously called dykes, this entry.] Juanita Daz-Cotto
bulldaggers, and the like. At times, obvious
homosexuals or women presumed to be lesbians Bibliography
are permanently separated from the general pris- Bowker, Lee. Prisoner Subcultures. Lexington,
oner population and/or housed in units generally Mass.: D.C.Heath, 1977.
reserved for prisoners considered emotionally dis- Burkhart, Kathryn Watterson. Women in Prison:
turbed. In the latter cases, women remain locked Inside the Concrete Womb. Rev. ed. Boston:
in their cells for twentythree hours a day unless Northeastern University Press, 1996.

PRISONS AND PRISONERS 607

 Daz-Cotto, Juanita. Gender, Ethnicity, and the his own bedroom. In a decision with sweeping
P State: Latino and Latino Prison Politics. Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1996.
implications for gay, lesbian, and bisexual people,
the Court held that the constitutional right of pri-
Giallombardo, Rose. Society of Women: A Study vacy did not extend to gay and lesbian sexual con-
of a Womens Prison. New York: Wiley, 1966. duct occurring in the privacy of ones own home.
Propper, Alice M. Prison Homosexuality: Myth and Hence, state statutes that criminalized homosexual
Reality. Lexington, Mass.: D.C.Heath, 1981. sexual behavior were held to be constitutional.
Williams, Vergil L., and Mary Fish. Convicts, Focusing on the subject matter rather than the le-
Codes, and Contraband: The Prison Life of Men gal arguments of previous privacy cases, the Court
and Women. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1974. declared that it could find no connection between
family, marriage, or procreation and homosexual
See also Butch-Femme; Crime and Criminology; activity. As of mid-1998, states with sex laws that
Situational Lesbianism target only same-sex couples included Arkansas,
Kansas, Maryland, Missouri, and Oklahoma; pen-
alties range from six months to ten years impris-
Privacy onment and fines of $1,000. In states that have
Privacy is a right not afforded to lesbians as lesbi- more general sodomy laws, same-sex couples are
ans under the law. Privacy is not listed as a right in usually the target for enforcement. Sodomy laws
the Bill of Rights or the United States Constitu- that prohibit some kinds of sex for consenting
tion. Hence, any right of privacy must originate adults, both heterosexual and homosexual, still
with the judicial branch of government unless Con- existed in mid-1998 in Alabama, Arizona, Florida,
gress or individual state legislatures decide to pass Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Massachu-
an amendment to the federal Constitution or state setts, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina,
constitutions recognizing a right of privacy for all Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia;
persons. Further complicating the law for lesbians penalties ranged up to twenty years imprisonment.
is the fact that the courts lump gay, lesbian, and In addition to still being considered criminal in
bisexual people together under the heading of ho- up to twenty states, depending upon the particular
mosexual. Hence, any holding aimed at gay men sexual practices of any individual lesbian, lesbians
is viewed as precedent for cases involving lesbians. (in addition to gay men and bisexual people) have
Privacy is a legal concept that has evolved over time no right to privacy in terms of having their sexual
through judicial decisions, applying to some peo- orientation made known by others. It has been held
ple some of the time. that publishing information concerning a persons
Beginning in Griswold v.Connecticut in 1965, sexual orientation is not an invasion of privacy
the United States Supreme Court found a right to because ones orientation is newsworthy if anything
privacy in the penumbras (an umbrella concept else he or she does is newsworthy. Further, one
created by the courts) of the First, Third, Fourth, cannot claim defamation unless one is prepared to
Fifth, and Ninth amendments and held that it ex- prove that the claimed gay, lesbian, or bisexual
tended to individuals making their own decisions orientation is not true and the source of the false
about private matters. In Griswold, the private information either knew it was false or was reck-
matter was the use of birth control by married cou- less in not verifying the accuracy at the time of
ples in the privacy of their own bedrooms. In 1967, publication.
in Loving v. Virginia, the Court held that a law Given that, as of mid-1998, only eleven states
criminalizing interracial marriage was unconstitu- granted gay, lesbian, and bisexual people equal pro-
tional. In 1971, in Eisenstadt v. Baird, the Court tection under the state constitution, lacking privacy
expanded its Griswold ruling to unmarried per- as lesbians subjects lesbians to the risk of loss of
sons concerning access to birth control. In 1973, employment, children, the use of public accommo-
in Roe v. Wade, the Court held that the right of dations, housing, and all other benefits denied them
privacy was broad enough to include a womans because of their lesbian status. Dorothy Painter
decision to terminate her pregnancy.
In 1986, the United States Supreme Court heard Bibliography
Bowers v. Hardwick, a sodomy case involving a Rivera, Rhonda R. Our Straight-Laced Judges:
gay man having consensual sex in the privacy of The Legal Position of Homosexual Persons in

608 PRISONS AND PRISONERS

 the United States. Hastings Law Journal 30:4 and sexuality began to change in the 1960s, the pub-
(1979), 799955. lic became more aware of homosexuality. Gay peo-
Rubenstein, William B., ed. Lesbians, Gay Men, ple were increasingly labeled sinners and ostracized.
and the Law. New York: New Press, 1993. For this reason, in 1968 Troy Perry, who was or-
dained as a Pentecostal, founded the Universal Fel-
See also Crime and Criminology; Law and Legal lowship of Metropolitan Community Churches
Institutions; Rights (MCC) In belief, MCC is conventionally Christian
and Protestant. In practice, it is radically inclusive,
welcoming lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and
Protestantism heterosexual peoples from various religious traditions.
Those denominations of Christianity formed after Ordained clergy within the fellowship are evenly di-
the sixteenth-century Reformation, including Lu- vided between gay men and lesbians.
theran, Calvinist or Reformed (Presbyterians, The ordination of lesbians in other denomina-
Church of Scotland), Anglican (Church of England, tions followed the curve of womens ordination.
the Episcopal Church), and Anabaptists (including Although Quakers have always allowed women to
Mennonites, Amish), plus more recent divisions (in- preach, Antoinette Brown Blackwell (18251921)
cluding Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, was, in 1853, the first woman to be ordained a
Churches of Christ, Adventists, Holiness churches, Protestant minister. Unitarians and Universalists
Pentecostals). The large number of denominations subsequently ordained women in the nineteenth
means that views on lesbianism vary widely. century, and some Holiness and Pentecostal
While the reformers uniformly rejected the Ro- churches did so in the early twentieth century.
man Catholic emphasis on celibacy and embraced However, Methodists and Presbyterians first or-
marriage for clergy, they did not immediately alter dained women only in 1956, Lutherans and Epis-
theological perspectives on sexuality, marriage, or copalians in the 1970s. Southern Baptists and many
women. Women gained the role of pastors wife but other conservative groups still oppose the practice.
lost the autonomy, education, and spiritual esteem of While many lesbianssome open, most clos-
the nun. Women and sexuality continued to be deni- etedhave been, and are being, ordained as Protes-
grated theologically. However, John Calvin (1509 tant ministers, the issue of ordaining self-affirming,
1564) suggested that companionship was as impor- practicing lesbian and gay candidates was being
tant as procreation in defining marriage, and Puritan debated in the 1990s by Methodists, Episcopalians,
John Milton (16081674) argued that intellectual and Lutherans, American Baptists, and Presbyterians. By
emotional incompatibility should be grounds for di- the late 1990s, only MCC, UnitarianUniversalists,
vorce. These views laid the groundwork for the mod- and the United Church of Christ ordained qualified
ern notion of marriage as a romantic union of equals, ministers who are lesbians.
which opens the door to samesex unions. Most mainline Protestant churches are ambiva-
While instances of Protestant punishment of lent about how to view homosexuality, despite the
male homosexuals can be cited, for the most part fact that numerous denominational task forces have
female same-sex activity was ignored. In the eight- generally found no scriptural or theological bars
eenth century, Catherina Margretha Linck was to full participation and ordination. The United
executed, but whether because she cross-dressed Methodists are typical. They affirm that homo-
as a man, married another woman according to sexual persons are individuals of sacred worth,
the rituals of at least two Protestant sects, per- who need the ministry and guidance of the church
formed as a man with a leather dildo, or espoused in their struggles for human fulfillment and up-
heretical beliefs is unclear. In Scotch Verdict hold their human and civil rights. On the other
(1983), Lillian Faderman, investigating the true hand, they do not condone the practice of homo-
nineteenth-century story behind Lillian Hellmans sexuality and consider it incompatible with
play The Childrens Hour (1934), found that Christian teaching. The Episcopal Church has said
proper Anglican jurists decided that accusations homosexual persons are children of God who have
of lesbian activity were a thing unheard ofa a full and equal claim with all other persons upon
thing perhaps impossible. the love, acceptance, and pastoral concern and care
Until the 1970s, homosexuality was rarely men- of the church. It is not appropriate for this church
tioned in churches at all. As cultural views of women to ordain a practicing homosexual. Most groups

P R O T E S TA N T I S M 609
 try to impose celibacy on all homosexuals, espe- Willard, 186696. Urbana: University of Illi-
P cially clergy. While the Episcopal Church still offi-
cially opposes the ordination of homosexuals,
nois Press, 1995.
Heyward, Carter. Our Passion for Justice. New
many bishops (some of whom are gay themselves) York: Pilgrim, 1984.
ignore the prohibition and judge each candidate . Touching Our Strength: The Erotic as Power
on his or her own merits. and the Love of God. San Francisco: Harper
Denominational caucuses are working to gain and Row, 1989.
acceptance in local congregations. The Reconciling Mollenkott, Virginia. Sensuous Spirituality: Out from
Congregations program in the United Methodist Fundamentalism. New York: Crossroad, 1992.
Church is supported by Affirmation, its gay and les- Scanzoni, Letha Dawson, and Virginia Ramey
bian caucus. Among Presbyterians, the program is Mollenkott. Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?
called More Light. Its missionary is the Reverend San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978; rev. ed.
Janie Spahr, supported by a Rochester, N.Y., church 1994.
that wanted to hire her as pastor. Neighboring Pres-
byterian ministers went to church court to prohibit See also Black Church, The; Churches, Lesbian and
them from doing so. In 1998, she was still a mis- Gay; Marriage Ceremonies; New Right
sionary, and not on staff. Similar programs include
Reconciled-in-Christ Evangelical Lutheran churches
and Open and Affirming churches in the United Provincetown, Massachusetts
Church of Christ and the Disciples of Christ. Small New England seacoast village with a winter
Same-sex marriages, commitment services, or population of approximately 3,500 and a summer
holy unions are also being debated. By mid- population of more than 20,000. Rooted in a
1998, only MCC and the Unitarian-Universalist semiisolated location at the end of a sixty-mile-
Fellowship officially offered them. However, many long peninsula known as Cape Cod, Provincetown
ministers perform such ceremonies for church mem- is a lesbian and gay summer resort that doubles as
bers and sometimes for nonparishioners. As more a quiet fishing village and artists workshop dur-
people digest the evidence in historian John ing the winter. Provincetown is also famous as the
Boswells Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe landing place of the Pilgrims and the birthplace of
(1994) for religious ceremonies between two men the Provincetown Players.
or women in the Middle Ages, the practice may As early as 1915, lesbians, or maiden ladies, as
gain wider acceptance. they were sometimes called, came to Provincetown
Some more conservative Protestant churches are to enjoy the camaraderie of like-minded artists and
quite opposed to any affirmation of lesbians. De- bohemians. Examples of singular ladies and
spite all scientific and psychological evidence, they bohemians visiting Provincetown in the early twen-
insist that homosexuality is simply a sinful choice; tieth century include Maude Squire (1873?), Ethel
thus, homosexuals can change and be healed Mars (1876?), Mabel Dodge Luhan (18791962),
through so-called ex-gay ministries. They cite such Edna St. Vincent Millay (18921950), Katharine Lee
works as Homosexuality: A Symbolic Confusion Bates (18591929), and Edna Ferber (18871968).
(1977) by Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse and The Heal- These women introduced alternative relationships to
ing of the Homosexual (1984) by Leann Payne. Provincetowns resident population and helped shape
Substantial scholarship has been produced ex- Provincetown into a liberal artists colony and bohe-
ploring biblical and theological issues surround- mian outpost. Most spinsters visiting Provincetown
ing homosexuality, including the evolution of before World War II were white, middle-upperclass
biblical interpretations, the lesbianism of histori- college professors, artists, and writerswomen, in
cal figures in the Protestant tradition, polemics other words, whose racial status and class privilege
concerning the roles of lesbians within congre- enabled them to live independently of men.
gations and clergy, and works on gay spiritual- World War II transformed Provincetown, as it
ity. Nancy A.Hardesty changed queer urban centers and larger towns na-
tionwide. In the 1950s and 1960s, Provincetown
Bibliography witnessed an overwhelming increase in its gay and
Gifford, Carolyn de Swarte. Writing Out My Heart: lesbian population. The 1950s mark the opening
Selections from the Journal of Frances E. of Provincetowns first lesbian bar, the Ace of

610 P R O T E S TA N T I S M
Spades, and one of Provincetowns first lesbian- ders. In the nineteenth century, psychiatry became
run businesses, the Plain N Fancy Restaurant. This an independent medical specialty, and lesbianism
decade also marks a unique time in Provincetowns soon came under its purview. Initially, lesbianism
history when local officials and clergymen at- was thought to be a mental illness. Religious and
tempted to discourage undesirables (meaning, cultural attitudes toward lesbians both shaped and
lesbians and gay men) from visiting. were affected by psychiatric nomenclature and treat-
By the late 1970s and early 1980s, a group of ment. In the last half of the twentieth century, scien-
eight women, recently empowered by the womens tific studies demonstrated that lesbianism is a nor-
liberation movement, formed an organization mal variation of sexual and emotional expression.
called the Women Innkeepers to collectively pro-
mote their guest homes in Provincetown and lure Lesbianism as a Mental Illness
more women to visit. They launched their first off- Several thousand years of religious censure created
season event, Womens Weekend, in 1985. By 1993, the atmosphere in which the disease model of les-
Womens Weekend could no longer contain the bianism developed. Richard von Krafft-Ebing
numbers of women seeking freedom in (18401902), one of the early neuropsychiatrists,
Provincetown. The Women Innkeepers organized claimed in his 1886 Psychopathia Sexualis that les-
instead Womens Week, which, by 1996, attracted bianism was an acquired or hereditary anomaly
more than four thousand guests. The Women Inn- that was highly resistant to treatment. Sigmund
keepers opened Provincetowns doors to women Freud (18561939) later disavowed the concept
nationwide and gave them a reason to visit what of congenital etiology, instead preferring a devel-
was once primarily a gay male resort mecca. opmental model. In his first detailed case study of
Provincetown in the late 1990s still fancied it- a lesbian (1920), Freud hypothesized that mother
self a fishing village even though white, fixation, penis envy, and maternal indifference were
middleupper-class lesbians and gay men own and causative factors. Another psychoanalyst, Helene
patronize the majority of its guest homes, shops, Deutsch (18841982), argued in 1932 that lesbi-
bars, and restaurants. Provincetown is a dream anism was a perversion that resulted from sa-
come true for many of its lesbian residents and visi- distic mothering and inadequate fathering. Subse-
tors alike, who find there a magical gay presence quent psychoanalytic theorists suggested that clito-
and a magical gay market. Indeed, visitors often ral fixation, fear of men, fear of rejection, narcis-
describe Provincetown as a gay Disneyland sism, and sexual abuse contributed to the develop-
where lesbians, gay men, straight folks, drag ment of lesbianism.
queens, butch dykes, transgendered people, and Homosexuality was defined as a sexual disor-
transvestites parade freely up and down der under psychopathic personality in the 1935
Provincetowns main thoroughfare while enjoying Standard Classified Nomenclature of Disease and
the highly visible, highly energetic, and highly crea- as a sexual deviation under sociopathic personal-
tive queer culture that has made this seaport vil- ity disturbance in the first edition of the Diag-
lage its summer home. nostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
Karen Christel Krahulik (DSM). This manual, published and updated regu-
larly by the American Psychiatric Association
Bibliography (APA), has been the professional diagnostic stand-
Drake, Gillian. The Complete Guide to Provincetown. ard in the United States since 1952.
Provincetown: Shank Painter, 1992. Although Krafft-Ebing strongly opposed sen-
Vorse, Mary Heaton. Time and the Town: A tencing lesbians to insane asylums, psychiatric
Provincetown Chronicle. New York: Dial, 1942. treatment of lesbians in the early twentieth cen-
tury was designed to change their sexual orienta-
See also Bates, Katharine Lee; Millay, Edna St. Vin- tion. Treatment modalities ranged from psychoa-
cent; Small Towns and Rural Areas nalysis and hypnotherapy to involuntary hospi-
talization, electroshock, and lobotomy. Conver-
sion therapy was severely damaging to the men-
Psychiatry tal and physical health of lesbians who were sub-
The medical science that deals with the origin, diag- jected to it and consistently unsuccessful in achiev-
nosis, treatment, and prevention of mental disor- ing its goal.

P S Y C H I A T RY 611
 Lesbianism as a Normal Variation studies by Michael Bailey and Richard Pillard (Bai-
P Psychoanalytic theories about lesbianism were
based on observations of lesbians who were un-
ley et al. 1993) suggested that lesbianism may be
familial. They found that monozygotic (genetically
dergoing psychiatric treatment, not on controlled identical) twins had a much higher rate (48 per-
studies of the general population. Rigorous scien- cent) of lesbianism than dizygotic (fraternal) twins
tific scrutiny in the 1960s and 1970s proved these (16 percent). This research evolved out of unbi-
theories unfounded and repeatedly demonstrated ased interest in the origins of sexual orientation,
that lesbians are indistinguishable from hetero- and it was published in the psychiatric literature
sexual women in psychological adjustment. without homophobic commentary. It is likely that
Armed with data refuting the psychopathologi- the twenty-first century will see a resurgence of
cal views of homosexuality, lesbian and gay activ- studies on the biologic aspects of lesbianism. If so,
ists lobbied the APA in the early 1970s to elimi- lesbian and gay psychiatrists will need to guard
nate homosexuality from the DSM. Conversion against any social or political movements to
therapists such as Charles Socarides (1922) ob- repathologize homosexuality.
jected; Socarides cited his personal observations
that lesbians and gays were perverse and se- Toward a Lesbian-Sensitive Practice
verely handicapped (Gartrell 1981). Because of The late twentieth century witnessed an important
the controversy, the diagnosis was phased out in transformation in psychiatrists understanding of
stages. In 1973, the APA voted to remove homo- lesbianism. Prior to 1973, the psychiatric commu-
sexuality from the DSM and replace it with sexual nity refused to acknowledge that diagnoses could
orientation disturbance. This diagnosis underwent be socially constructed, and untold numbers of les-
one further transformation in 1980 to ego dys- bians were harmed by psychotherapies purporting
tonic homosexuality before fading to the generic to cure them of their sexual orientation. The elimi-
category of persistent and marked distress about nation of homosexuality from the DSM freed mil-
ones sexual orientation (which could be applied lions of lesbians from a pathological label that sanc-
to heterosexuals who wished to be lesbians, or vice tioned discrimination. However, most lesbians work
versa) in the DSMs 1987 revision. throughout their lives to overcome internalized
Since all psychiatrists trained before 1973 were homophobia created by a society that pathologizes
taught that lesbianism is a mental illness, those who them. By the close of the twentieth century, most
wished to continue to treat lesbians were forced to lesbians who sought psychotherapy consulted les-
adopt new psychotherapeutic approaches. The trans- bian or lesbian-sensitive psychotherapists; treatment
formation in psychiatric treatment of lesbians was of lesbians by heterosexual male psychiatrists had
spearheaded largely by lesbian and gay psychiatrists. fallen into disrepute. This shift in mental-health con-
In 1975, Nanette Gartrell organized the first all-les- sumerism was one of many that forced psychiatrists
bian presentation on lesbianism at the APAs an- to be cautious about translating patriarchal, reli-
nual convention. Subsequently, efforts were made gious, and moral values into diagnostic nomencla-
to include reliable research data on lesbianism and ture and treatment. Nanette K.Gartrell
homosexuality in residency training and
continuingeducation curricula. Lesbian and gay psy- Bibliography
chiatrists lobbied for and won official status within Bailey, J.Michael, Richard C.Pillard, Michael C.
the APA in 1978 through the formation of the Task Neale, and Yvonne Agyei. Heritable Factors
Force on Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Issues. This Influence Sexual Orientation in Women. Ar-
task force became a permanent committee in 1981. chives of General Psychiatry 50 (1993), 217
In addition, the APA voted in 1982 to allow lesbian 223.
and gay representatives to be elected from the Cau- Bayer, Ronald. Homosexuality and American Psy-
cus of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Psychiatrists to its chiatry. New York: Basic Books, 1981.
governing assembly. By the 1990s, lesbian and gay Gartrell, Nanette. The Lesbian as a Single
psychiatrists had been largely integrated into the Woman [Discussion by Charles
APA, where they became advocates for W.Socarides]. American Journal of Psycho-
nonhomophobic research and treatment. therapy 35:4 (1981), 502516.
Investigations into the possible heritability of Krajeski, James. Homosexuality and the Mental
lesbianism were resumed in the early 1990s. Twin Health Professions: A Contemporary History.

612 P S Y C H I AT RY
 In The Textbook of Homosexuality. Ed. Robert sexual development. Homosexualities, which he
P.Cabaj and Terry S.Stein. Washington, D.C.: classed as inversions, were part of what Freud saw
American Psychiatric Press, 1996. as humanitys basic bisexual disposition and were
necessary to the ultimate development of healthy
See also Psychoanalysis; Psychology; Psycho- heterosexuals who aligned their appropriate sexual
therapy aim (or desire to discharge sexual substances) with
an appropriate object (a member of the opposite
sex) in a properly reproductive relationship. Lesbi-
Psychoanalysis ans were women who never developed a proper (that
A set of clinical practices designed to alleviate such is, male) object choice; hence, their sexual object is
mental disorders as schizophrenia and hysteria, psy- inverted. A pervert would be someone who had
choanalysis also refers to theories about the uncon- an improper sexual aim. All people, according to
scious and psychic development. Arising in the last Freud, formed their sexual disposition in relation to
half of the nineteenth century in the work of Pierre the oedipal scenario modeled by the nuclear fam-
Janet (18591947), Jean-Martin Charcot (1825 ily, in which children, like the Greek tragic hero Oedi-
1893), and Sigmund Freud (18561939), psychoa- pus, form intense attachments to parents of the (pre-
nalysis has always been associated with issues of sumably) opposite sex.
gender and sexuality. Sexuality, which, according Throughout his career, Freud offered several
to Michel Foucault (19261984), emerged as a dis- accounts of lesbian patients. In the early Frag-
tinct category in the nineteenth century, became one ment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (the
of the chief areas of psychoanalytical investigation. Dora case) (1905), Freud discerned lesbianism,
Analysts often saw repressed sexuality and sexual or female sexual desire for other females, as the
trauma as the cause for the symptoms of hysteria, underlying cause of his patients hysteria, although
paranoia, and neuroses. he admits that he failed to see his patients attach-
Psychoanalysis is a very large field with a ment to an older woman. In the later Psychogen-
number of variations, though most esis of a Case of Homosexuality in a Woman
twentiethcentury practitioners have followed some (19201922), Freud thought that his patients ho-
aspect of Freuds emphasis on the sexual origins of mosexual attachment to another woman was the
psychological illness. The Oedipus complex, re- result of a frustrated love for her father; not able
pressed homosexuality, repressed primal-scene fan- to win her fathers interest, the girl rejected males
tasies, and repressed incidents of sexual seduction altogether. In this case, however, Freud did not see
(both real and fantasy) all provide some clue to his patients lesbianism as an illness.
how an individuals unconscious has responded to Followers of Freud, including Karen Horney
various childhood events. The sexologist Havelock (18851952), Helene Deutsch (18841982),
Ellis (18591939), whose work preceded Freuds, Melanie Klein (18821960), and Jacques Lacan
was more interested in sexuality itself as a phe- (19011981), all develop some version of Freuds
nomenon; he understood both male and female understanding of the place and function of lesbian-
homosexualities as forms of inversion and nar- ism, but they disagree about its causes and relative
cissism, in which individuals believed that they were pathology. Horney believed, unlike Freud, that fe-
really the opposite gender and formed romantic male sexuality was essentially different from male
and sexual attachments accordingly. In this view, sexuality; however, she adapts his reading of Psy-
lesbians were women who believed that they were chogenesis to develop the theory that female ho-
men and, thus, fell in love with women. The con- mosexuality is caused by an identification with the
cept of lesbianism as inversion influenced some father and that lesbians live out some version of an
early-twentiethcenrury writers, such as Radclyffe earlier attachment to the mother. Deutsch extends
Hall (18801943), who explores such inversion in the notion of lesbians as fixed on an earlier relation
her novel The Well of Loneliness (1928). to the mother. She sees lesbians as attached to an
Freuds understanding of lesbianism was more infantile oral stage; still fixated on the mother, les-
complex than that of the sexologists. In Three Essays bians use masculinity only as a facade. Klein devel-
on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), published early in ops the idea of lesbians as the product of inadequate
his career, Freud theorized that homosexual desires ego development. Envy of the fathers penis
arose naturally as a part of the process of human disenables a satisfactory relation to the mothers

P S Y C H O A N A LY S I S 613
 breast, and the lesbian thus seeks a good object in nature of its sexism and, thus, either argue more
P another woman to replace the one she lost.
All of these analysts see lesbianism as a regres-
efficiently against it or use psychoanalytic princi-
ples as a way of better comprehending how patri-
sion with elements of narcissism; it is seen as the archy works in order to change it. If, for example,
desire to repair a loss in relation to the mother. In sexism and homophobia are somehow features of
each case, lesbians suffer from an inability to dif- the psyche, and if the psyche partly governs what
ferentiate themselves sufficiently; lesbianism thus happens in culture and politics, then how might
becomes the expression of a lack of difference. This people change culture and politics by understand-
same sense that the lesbian denies sexual differ- ing the psychic constitution of individuals or the
ence is also a feature of Lacans understanding of interrelation between the psyche and culture? Or
lesbianism. Reinterpreting Freuds work in light of how might one be better able to treat lesbian pa-
structural linguistics and culture, Lacan tients by understanding their lesbian sexuality not
universalizes the process by which individuals be- as a disorder, but as a normal part of an individual?
come separable beings. For Lacan, castration is less Lesbian critics of the 1980s and 1990s, includ-
a literal fear of the loss of the penis and more a ing Judith Butler, Teresa de Lauretis, Judith Roof,
metaphorical interpretation of the fact of the indi- and Diana Fuss, all began to employ psychoana-
viduals inevitable separation from its mother. Lan- lytic concepts as a way of reconceiving lesbian sexu-
guage itself provides the model for operations of ality as a positive, and even radical, kind of desire.
castration and desire, while the phallus becomes Situating the lesbian at the center of critical inves-
the signifier of desire (everyone wants it, no one tigation challenges normative notions of mascu-
has it). In this scenario, lesbians are inevitably dis- linity and femininity, as well as the constraints of
appointed, since instead of having the phallus, they the oedipal scenario. Butler (1990) uses Lacans
try to become it, but in so doing they deny castra- insights about the relation of the subject to lan-
tion and the sexual difference castration evokes. guage as a way to argue that the relation between
Thus, lesbians deny sexuality itself and live out a individuals and gender is neither natural nor nor-
futile courtly drama, in which, like the hopeless mative but is constantly produced through the in-
admirers of medieval great ladies, they offer an al- dividuals situating self as one gender or another.
ternative brand of inspired romance. When both gender and sexuality are produced in
Lesbian and feminist critics regard psychoanaly- discourse, neither is natural or stable, which brings
sis both as a mode of institutional oppression and into question institutions such as marriage that
a possibility for understanding and empowerment. depend upon clear, constant categories.
Critics from the early 1970s, such as Kate Millett De Lauretis (1994) argues that psychoanalytic
(1934) and Jane Rule (1931), saw Freuds ideas understandings of sexuality depend upon homo-
reiterating and justifying patriarchal cultures sex- sexuality. Reading Freud carefully enables de
ism and homophobia. Criticizing Freud for his nor- Lauretis to demonstrate that, in his notion of sexu-
mative ideas of gender and his belief in the natural ality, the perversions are normal and necessary.
primacy of heterosexuality, these writers blame Centering the perverse in her own reading of les-
Freud and his followers for pathologizing lesbian bian desire, de Lauretis arrives at a nonpathological
sexuality, seeing heterosexuality as its cure, and theory of lesbianism, in which the lesbian is a
enabling widespread cultural bias. Since the Ameri- woman who, cut off from her own body image,
can Psychiatric Association had listed lesbianism seeks that female body image in others. Also
as a mental disorder until 1973, feminist critics cer- through detailed readings of Freud, Roof and Fuss
tainly had a point. Psychoanalysts and psychiatrists both suggest the liberatory possibilities enabled by
most often treated lesbian sexuality as a disease to questioning assumptions about definitive endings,
be cured. stable identities, and fixed desire.
In the 1980s, feminist and lesbian critics such With homosexuality no longer a mental dis-
as Jane Gallop, Jacqueline Rose, and Elizabeth order, and with the new critical tools afforded by
Grosz began to study psychoanalysis to understand Lacanian psychoanalysis and deconstruction, psy-
the nature of its assumptions and biases. Seeing choanalysis has become less a monolithic, institu-
psychoanalysis as another symptom of broader tional guardian of normative values and more a
cultural conditions, feminist critics thought that by way of exploring more open categories of gender
reading psychoanalysis, they could understand the and sexuality. Judith Roof

614 P S Y C H O A N A LY S I S
Bibliography reinforces notions of an essential lesbian inner
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the self, and for its reliance on traditional scientific
Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, methods of inquiry (tests, scales, experiments),
1990. which reinforces the power of psychology as a dis-
de Lauretis, Teresa. The Practice of Love: Lesbian cipline of surveillance and control. For lesbian femi-
Sexuality and Perverse Desire. Bloomington: nists, there is the additional concern that lesbian
Indiana University Press, 1994. psychology has established itself as part of the dis-
Freud, Sigmund. Standard Edition of the Complete ciplinary area of psychology of homosexuality
Psychological Works. Ed. and trans. James (male and female): Psychological studies of lesbi-
Strachey. London: Hogarth, 19531974. anism are generally published in edited volumes
OConnor, Noreen, and Joanna Ryan. Wild De- that address the concerns of both gay men and les-
sires and Mistaken Identities: Lesbianism and bians, that draw on a body of literature relevant to
Psychoanalysis. New York: Columbia Univer- homosexuals of both sexes, and that do not en-
sity Press, 1993. gage with feminist analyses. By contrast, lesbian
psychology is not well represented within the dis-
See also Hall, Radclyffe; Millet, Kate; Phallus; Psy- ciplinary field of psychology of women, which
chiatry; Rule, Jane Vance; Sexology; Sexuality is often criticized for its heterosexist biases.

Depathologizing Homosexuality
Psychology In 1975, after a long history of pathologizing les-
The empirical study of the behavioral and mental bian and gay identities, the American Psychologi-
functioning of individuals. Until the mid-1970s, the cal Association (APA) adopted the official policy
vast majority of psychological research presented that homosexuality per se does not imply any kind
homosexuality as a form of pathology, with lesbi- of mental-health impairment (the American Psy-
ans and gay men characterized as the sick products chiatric Association had done so in 1973). It urged
of disturbed upbringings. Most of these investiga- mental health professionals to take the lead in re-
tions were conducted on gay male samples, and the moving the stigma of mental illness that had long
findings generalized to include lesbians; the over- been associated with gay male and lesbian sexual
whelming majority relied upon samples drawn from identities. Nine years later, in 1984, the APA ap-
prisons, mental hospitals, and psychologists con- proved the establishment of a formal division, Di-
sulting rooms. This traditional psychology provided vision 44, within the APA, to be dedicated to the
a scientific justification for the continuing oppres- psychological study of lesbian and gay issues. The
sion of lesbians and gay men. Since the mid1970s, only other national psychological society with a
there has been an important shift toward the crea- similar group (founded in 1996) is the Australian
tion of a lesbian and gay psychology that starts Psychological Society; proposals to form a lesbian
from the assumption that homosexuality falls within and gay psychology section within the British Psy-
the normal range of human behavior and that chological Society (BPS) have repeatedly been
attempts to investigate issues of concern to lesbians turned down by the BPS Scientific Affairs Board
and gay men, such as coming out, dealing with and Council, and, as of the late 1990s, no attempts
heterosexism, lesbian parenting, and bereavement. had been made in other countries. Consequently,
Since the mid-1980s, lesbian and gay psychology lesbian psychology is very much a U.S. product.
has established itself within the mainstream of psy- Although antilesbian prejudice and discrimina-
chology in the United States. tion are still apparent within some psychological
The success of mainstream lesbian and gay psy- theory and practice, they do not usually receive
chology has been welcomed by some lesbians but explicit support from official organizations or from
criticized by others. Many lesbians (both within acknowledged experts in the field, and it is rare to
and beyond psychology) applaud this new lesbian find overt reference, within Anglo American psy-
psychology for its contribution to lesbian mental chological writing, to lesbianism as pathology.
health, its challenge to heterosexism, and its uses Research on lesbian and gay issues has moved well
in the courts and in developing social policy. Oth- beyond simply demonstrating the normality of
ers criticize this mainstream lesbian psychology for lesbians and gay men. Key texts outlining and de-
its individualistic focus, for the way in which it fining the field of lesbian and gay psychology as it

PSYCHOLOGY 615
 developed during the 1980s and early 1990s in- sexuality in the context of lesbian couples; on con-
P clude Garnets and Kimmel (1993), Greene and
Herek (1994), and DAugelli and Patterson (1995).
ceptualizing and addressing problems of excessive
closeness between partners (fusion or merger)
and lesbian bartering; and on devising methods for
Lesbian Psychology in the 1980s and 1990s couple-therapy with lesbians. Psychologists tend
The key topics in lesbian psychology during the to focus on lesbian sexual relationships, with rela-
last two decades of the twentieth century are out- tively little work in the area of lesbian friendships
lined below, with, in each case, some indication of or lesbian communities.
the ways in which they have changed and devel-
oped over this period. Life-Span Developmental Issues. The psychologies
Lesbian Identities. With the aim of facilitating, of adolescence, mid-life, and old age are all based
through therapy, the development of healthy and on heterosexual (often, heterosexual male) sam-
mature lesbian identities, psychologists have ex- ples. Lesbian developmental research (Patterson
plored the processes through which a woman 1995) explores the different experiences of lesbi-
comes to identify herself as a lesbian and the mean- ans at various stages of the life span, including the
ings that being a lesbian has for her. Stage models challenges of coming out in adolescence, in mid-
of lesbian identity development are well established life, and in old age; the ways in which issues around
in the literature. In the process of identifying them- physical health and bereavement are experienced
selves as lesbian, women are described as moving by lesbians of different ages; and age-related
through a sequence of stages from identity con- changes in orientation to work, identity, relation-
fusion (marked by uncertainty and anxiety about ships, and feminism.
ones sexual identity) through identity tolerance,
identity acceptance, and identity pride, finally Homophobia and Antilesbian Discrimination. Psy-
to identity synthesis or identity integration chologists have asked why some people
(when lesbianism is seen as simply one aspect of (homophobes) react negatively to lesbians and
the whole person). Psychologists focus on how what can be done to alter this. Early research fo-
individuals can be helped to reach the highest de- cused on diagnosing individuals suffering from
velopmental stage to achieve a healthy identity as homophobia using a variety of tests and scales.
a lesbian. One important part of this process is Homophobes were described as insecure, sexually
overcoming internalized homophobia. The in- repressed people with authoritarian personalities
tersection of lesbian identities with other identi- who purportedly differed from the rest of society
ties based in class, ethnicity, and disability came to in being prejudiced against gay people: therapeu-
the fore in the 1990s, as did a new interest in bi- tic and education programs were proposed to
sexuality as a stable identity. cure them. While neatly reversing the diagnos-
tic label, such that it was now homophobes, rather
Building Healthy Lesbian Relationships. Psycholo- than homosexuals, who were sick, this work was
gists argue that models of healthy relationships criticized both for its narrowly individualistic fo-
based on heterosexual couples are inappropriate cus and for failing to differentiate between preju-
when applied to lesbians, who confront different dice against lesbians and prejudice against gay men.
challenges, both socially and psychologically. Ini- Later, work on hate crimes led to a broader un-
tially, research focused on comparisons among derstanding of lesbian oppression as a social phe-
heterosexual, gay male, and lesbian couple rela- nomenon, incorporated into the fabric of society,
tionships; subsequently, attention has focused on rather than caused by the actions of homophobic
lesbian couples in their own right. Researchers have individuals. Psychologists have explored the effects
investigated the different chronological stages of antilesbianism (in the family, the workplace, and
through which lesbian couple relationships pass, the health-care system) on lesbiansnotably, in
from falling in love, through the consolidation of terms of the resulting stress, depression, and anxi-
a relationship, its changes over time, and its even- ety suffered by lesbians.
tual dissolution. Another key area has been devel-
oping an understanding of the difficulties lesbians Lesbian Parenting. Initially, research focused on
sometimes have in sustaining couple relationships; whether (and to what extent) the children of lesbi-
research has focused on developing new models of ans can be distinguished psychologically from the

616 PSYCHOLOGY
children of heterosexuals (especially in relation to tialists argue (or assume) that lesbianism is innate or
their psychosocial adjustment and their conform- acquired in very early life and that, in coming out
ity with traditional gender-role stereotypes). Be- as lesbian to themselves, at whatever age, women are
cause of its legal and policy implications, this re- recognizing and acknowledging their true selves.
mains an important area of research. Additionally, Using the scientific method, they often compare les-
psychologists are increasingly carrying out research bians with heterosexual women across a whole
directly rooted in the concerns of lesbian moth- range of measures and make statements about the
ersfor example, coming out as lesbian to ones differences between them. Social constructionists, by
children or managing different coparenting ar- contrast, reject both the concept of true selves or
rangements, such as with a woman lover, an ex- inner lesbian essences and the method of science; com-
husband, or a gay male sperm-donor. parative scientific studies of lesbian and heterosexual
women are not used because such studies assume the
Ethnic and Cultural Diversity among Lesbians. Early usefulness of the scientific method and take as al-
psychological models were often drawn from research ready given the categorical existence of the lesbian
that used only white lesbian subjects, and the results and the heterosexual. Social constructionists ex-
were falsely generalized to all lesbians. From the mid- plore, instead, the ways in which women actively
1980s on, psychology began to explore the interrela- construct narratives about their own lesbianism, the
tion of ethnicity and lesbianism. This includes research discourses lesbians use in talking about who they are
that examines the specific characteristics of lesbians and how they came to be that way. Although social
who are also African American, Asian American, constructionism is a very important strand of con-
Native American, Jewish American, or Latina Ameri- temporary lesbian psychology, essentialist theories
can, as well as recent U.S. immigrants. On the whole, continue to dominate the mainstream of the field.
given the U.S. basis of lesbian psychology, these ex-
plorations are limited to cultural and ethnic diversity Choice, Flexibility, and Flux in Sexual Identi-
within the United States. ties. With the social-constructionist questioning of
the very concept of the lesbian, psychologists
Social Constructionism vs. Essentialism. Until the have explored how individuals construct their iden-
mid-1980s, lesbian psychology was almost, without tities over time and in relation to changing sexual
exception, rooted in essentialist theories. Lesbianism activities and political commitments. Psychology
was assumed to be an inner state or essence started with theories that conceptualized lesbian,
(whether innate or resulting from early childhood heterosexual, (and, sometimes, bisexual) as
experiences) that the individual represses or dis- fixed categories or models against which women
covers, denies or acknowledges. Drawing on matched their experiences to uncover true identi-
theories derived from the sociology of science and ties. By the 1990s, social-constructionist psycholo-
the philosophy of knowledge, social constructionists gists were exploring the ways in which these cat-
(Kitzinger 1987) pointed out the extent to which the egories are made real through talk. The labels
very category lesbian was the product of a par- an individual uses, the assumptions embodied in
ticular historical, cultural, and political context. Such everyday language about sexuality and sexual iden-
an approach challenges the whole concept of the tity, affect how she understands herself. In particu-
lesbian (and of the heterosexual or the bi- lar, in line with the new interest in the social con-
sexual). It also challenges traditional psychological struction of dominant identities, such as whiteness
scientific methods. According to this perspective, the or maleness, psychologists also began to investi-
scientific method is simply a socially and historically gate the takenfor-granted category of heterosexu-
specific faith with no particular access to truths or ality and to explore the way in which heterosexual
facts about the world. The language and practices identities are constructed.
of scientific psychologywhether explicitly pro or
anti lesbianserve to shore up the power of an Lesbian Psychology: Its Political Impact
oppressive institution. Debates between social Lesbian and gay psychology in the United States
constructionists and essentialists formed a central has made important critical interventions into so-
motif of 1980s lesbian psychology. These debates left cial policy and legislation. For example, drawing
neither side convinced, and research proceeds sepa- on research demonstrating the normal psychoso-
rately and in parallel within each framework. Essen- cial development of children born to, or adopted

PSYCHOLOGY 617
 by, lesbian mothers, psychologists have testified in Greene, Beverly, and Gregory M.Herek, eds. Psy-
P court on behalf of lesbian mothers in custody cases
and have provided expert witness for gays and les-
chological Perspectives on Lesbian and Gay Is-
sues, vol. 1: Lesbian and Gay Psychology:
bians wishing to adopt or foster children. Lesbian Theory, Research, and Clinical Applications.
and gay psychologists in the United States have also Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage, 1994.
been involved in developing lesbian-affirmative Kitzinger, Celia. The Social Construction of Lesbi-
therapies, in documenting and protesting antigay anism. London: Sage, 1987.
and antilesbian violence, and in providing court Kitzinger, Celia, and Rachel Perkins. Changing Our
testimony in support of antidiscrimination legisla- Minds: Lesbian Feminism and Psychology. New
tion for lesbian and gay citizens. These achieve- York: New York University Press, 1993.
ments of lesbian psychology have clearly made an Patterson, Charlotte, ed. Sexual Identity Devel-
important political impact. opment. Developmental Psychology 31:1
On the other hand, critics of mainstream lesbian (1995) (Special Issue).
psychology point to the extent to which it, like main-
stream psychology in general, retains a clear focus See also Essentialism; Homophobia; Psycho-
on individual health and pathology. This focus on therapy; Social-Construction Theory
individual victims tends to obscure the role of so-
cial institutions and structures. Lesbian and gay psy-
chology was born out of a reaction against a tradi- Psychotherapy
tional mainstream psychology that used science The practical application of behavioral and
to define homosexuality as sick. Its reaction, not nonbehavioral techniques that are derived from a
surprisingly, was to present scientific evidence for broad range of theories of human behavior and
lesbian and gay mental healthand, subsequently, development, as well as theories of behavior
to provide evidence for the pathological nature of change. The term behavior may include
antigay (homophobic) individuals. From its begin- thoughts, feelings, beliefs, actions, or the absence
ning, then, lesbian and gay psychology was shaped of actions that in some way undermine the opti-
by that which it opposed, and it incorporates the mal functioning of an individual in a variety of
individualism and the commitment to traditional spheres. Those spheres may include, but are not
(positivist empiricist) science typical of the discipline limited to, interpersonal relationships, cognitive,
as a whole. Few lesbian psychologists have joined affective, work, and/or school functioning.
with social-constructionist, postmodern, and criti- Psychotherapy may be divided into three gen-
cal psychologists in their thoroughgoing critique and eral categories: supportive, reeducative, and
deconstruction of the assumptions underlying psy- reconstructive. In these contexts, the focus of therapy
chology as a discipline. The overwhelmingly essen- may range from targeting specific behaviors for
tialist, individualistic, and narrowly scientific change to focusing on the development of insight
(positivist empiricist) approach of the mainstream into the underlying unconscious dynamics and
of lesbian psychology has severely limited its appeal motivations for behavior. It may also represent vari-
in interdisciplinary (womens studies) and interna- ous combinations of insight and behavior change.
tional (European) contexts. Celia Kitzinger Therapy may range from brief focused interventions
that may last a few weeks to long-term work that
Bibliography requires years of commitment on behalf of the cli-
Bond, Lynne, and Esther Rothblum, eds. ent. The client, in this case, may be an individual, a
Heterosexism and Homophobia. Thousand couple, family members, or a group of unrelated
Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1996. individuals. Generally, psychotherapy is conducted
DAugelli, Anthony R., and Charlotte J.Patterson, by persons who have advanced training in the men-
eds. Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Identities over tal-health professions, including psychology, psychia-
the Lifespan: Psychological Perspectives. New try, and social work. However, in many institutions,
York: Oxford University Press, 1995. nurses and other practitioners may serve as psycho-
Garnets, L.D., and D.C.Kimmel, eds. Psychologi- therapists when their training has been appropri-
cal Perspectives on Lesbian and Gay Experi- ately augmented. While psychotherapy has been tra-
ences. New York: Columbia University Press, ditionally applied to ease the symptoms of mental
1993. disorders, it is useful in helping individuals cope with

618 PSYCHOLOGY
routine, as well as catastrophic, life stressors. Hence, take place across the life span, the initial realiza-
a person need not be mentally ill to benefit from tion of a lesbian sexual orientation can be a pro-
psychotherapy. Ideally, psychotherapy should offer foundly disruptive event in a womans life. It is
a safe and private environment for a client or clients during this period that many women who are les-
to express feelings such as anger, frustration, irra- bians seek psychotherapy services, often to first
tional beliefs, and other difficulties without being determine whether their attractions to other women
judged, while seeking to lessen or better understand have any meaning. Having determined that such
the nature of their difficulty. attractions do have meaning, they may seek psy-
Lesbians are visible and significant consumers chotherapy to learn how to integrate these new or
of psychological services and often seek psycho- preexisting feelings (or a new awareness of them)
therapy for many of the same reasons as hetero- into their life. This is complicated by the fact that
sexual women. Like heterosexual women, they face lesbian sexual orientations are still stigmatized.
the challenge of developing healthy images and roles Coming out requires restructuring ones self-con-
for themselves in a culture that has a history of cept and reorganizing ones personal sense of his-
labeling departures from traditional female gender- tory, as well as altering ones relationship with fam-
role expectations as abnormal, psychologically un- ily, peers, and society (Browning et al. 1991). These
healthy, or socially inappropriate. Mental-health tasks are often understandably stressful, and many
institutions have been guilty of this behavior as well. women use psychotherapy to assist them in mov-
They have frequently given legitimacy to such think- ing through this often difficult transition.
ing and to the discriminatory behavior that resulted Other difficult transitions associated with com-
from such thinking. Women who are lesbians clearly ing out involve telling other significant figures in a
depart from traditional female gender roles. When womans life that she is a lesbian. Coming out to
lesbians seek psychotherapy, unlike heterosexual family members may trigger old family conflicts or
women, they do so as women who face unique chal- dynamics that may be displaced on to the family
lenges to their optimal functioning as lesbians in a member who comes out. Such scapegoating is facili-
society that is heterosexist and homophobic, as well tated by societys tolerance of bias toward lesbians,
as sexist. Whatever her personal psychological re- which gives some family members license to behave
sources and handicaps may be, the woman who is a in ways that might otherwise be considered unac-
lesbian negotiates the world from a position of ceptable. It is likely that, at these times, the woman
societal discrimination and disadvantage. who is coming out is in greatest need of her familys
Despite the fact that all lesbians share such chal- love and support but may be unable to obtain it. Even
lenges, they are not a homogeneous group. The chal- worse, she may instead elicit their scorn or rejection.
lenges a woman faces as a lesbian are colored by her This should not imply that all families reject lesbian
race or ethnicity, her age, her socioeconomic status, members; however, the tendency for such occurrences
the presence of physical challenges, the geographi- cannot be underestimated. This affects the emotional
cal region in which she lives, and her own personal well-being of a person, particularly when she is in
and familial psychological resources. Any individual need of support. Many women in these circumstances
lesbian has multiple identities, some of which may turn to psychotherapy for help.
conflict with or complement the others. Another circumstance in which lesbians may
There are specific challenges that all lesbians seek psychological services is related to their ro-
confront on the road to healthy psychological de- mantic relationships. Because of the societal stigma
velopment that are relevant to a discussion of psy- attached to being a lesbian, many lesbians hide their
chotherapy. This is because many lesbians are apt relationships out of realistic fears of rejection, dis-
to seek psychological services when coping with crimination, or even violence. The hidden nature
certain predictable and frequently stressful events. of such relationships leaves lesbians with fewer role
Depending on the individuals resources and op- models for conducting relationships and, perhaps,
tions, these stressors may exceed her capacity to a narrower range of visible relationships than het-
cope with them in healthy ways. The conscious erosexual women. In addition, there is less sup-
acknowledgment or awareness of ones same port for lesbian unions than for heterosexual mar-
genderattraction and self-labeling as a lesbian is riages. Painful breakups between women may be
referred to as coming out. While coming out is ignored by their families or even greeted with re-
not a static or a singular event and continues to lief, rather than the emotional support that may

PSYCHOTHERAPY 619
 be offered a heterosexual woman who is getting heterosexist society. As lesbians are not a homoge-
P divorced or whose relationship is impaired. This
absence of support or recognition for the unique
neous group, therapists must also be culturally lit-
erate and competent in understanding that many
strains that lesbian couples confront can intensify lesbians have multiple identities and may experi-
other problems in the relationship. For some cou- ence racial and other forms of societal oppression,
ples, the establishment of an ongoing relationship as well as heterosexism. The unique interactions
that is visible may precipitate coming out to family among these identities must be appreciated, as well
members in ways that may be quite stressful for as the individuals own contribution, knowingly
both partners, particularly if they disagree about or not to her own dilemma. Overall, effective psy-
the need to come out to family or about the way it chotherapy with lesbian clients should assist the
should be done. Therapy at such junctures may be client in examining the conscious and unconscious
seen as an appropriate place to turn for help. methods she employs in confronting and negotiat-
Perkins (1996) has been critical of the use of psy- ing both systemic and personal barriers while
chotherapy by lesbians, viewing it as a process that analyzing the effectiveness of her methods and
takes the place of community relationships and con- goals. If need be, it should assist the client in devel-
nections and of political organizing that is essential oping a wider range of options that are consistent
to combating oppression. In her view, the danger of with her values and goals.
psychotherapy is that it tells lesbians that their prob- Beverly Greene
lems are in their minds rather than in societal op-
pression. Historically, it is true that many psycho- Bibliography
therapies have been used to pathologize healthy re- Browning, Christine, Amy L.Reynolds, and Sari H.
jecting responses to societal discrimination. Effec- Dworkin. Affirmative Psychotherapy for Les-
tive psychotherapy, however, should never purport bian Women. Counseling Psychologist 19
to take the place of friends, family, and other rela- (1991), 21772196.
tionships. It is a specific process aimed at assisting Espn, Oliva. Cultural and Historical Influences on
individuals in very specific ways. Rather than take Sexuality in Hispanic/Latina Women: Implications
the place of other relationships, it should merely take for Psychotherapy. In Pleasure and Danger: Ex-
its place among them until it is no longer needed. ploring Female Sexuality. Ed. Carole S. Vance.
An important ingredient in effective psychotherapy London: Routledge, 1984, pp. 149163.
is the validation of a clients accurate perception of Falco, Kristine L. Psychotherapy with Lesbian Cli-
discrimination and other often denied experiences. ents. New York: Brunner Mazel, 1991.
It is also important to validate a clients perception Glassgold, Judith, and Suzanne Iasenza, eds. Les-
of prior inappropriate treatment as well as her ap- bians and Psychoanalysis: Revolutions in
propriate anger or outrage at such treatment. Theory and Practice. New York: Free Press,
There is no literature that suggests that any spe- 1995.
cific form of therapy has demonstrated greater util- Greene, Beverly. Lesbian Women of Color. In
ity with lesbian clients. Generally, the choice of Women of Color: Integrating Ethnic and Gen-
theoretical framework or approach to treatment is der Identities in Psychotherapy. Ed. Lillian Co-
guided by the nature of the specific problem(s) and mas-Diaz and Beverly Greene. New York:
the success of a particular approach in clinical set- Guilford, 1994, pp. 38927.
tings. Effective psychotherapy with lesbians must . Psychological Perspectives on Lesbian and
contain specific elements, however. It should be free Gay Issues, vol. 3: Ethnic and Cultural Diver-
of the heterosexist, ethnocentric, racist, and sexist sity Among Lesbians and Gay Men. Thousand
biases that have long plagued mental health. The Oaks, Calif: Sage, 1994.
process should affirm the clients choice of healthy Laird, Joan, and Robert Jay Green, eds. Lesbian
relationships regardless of sexual orientation, rec- and Gay Couples and Families: A Handbook
ognizing lesbian sexual orientation as a healthy for Therapists. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1996.
form of human diversity. Psychotherapy with les- Perkins, Rachel. Rejecting Therapy: Using Our
bians should be conducted by therapists who clearly Communities. In Preventing Heterosexism
understand the nature and extent of the unique and Homophobia. Ed. Esther D.Rothblum and
stressors that confront lesbians as women who Lynn Bond. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage,
routinely negotiate the realities of a sexist and 1996, pp. 7183.

620 PSYCHOTHERAPY
Rothblum, Esther D., and Lynne A.Bond, eds. Pre- ing carbon paper, she produced the magazine ten
venting Heterosexism and Homophobia. Thou- copies at a time and relied on lesbians to circulate
sand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1996. the magazine hand to hand at bars and other meet-
ing places.
See also Psychoanalysis; Psychology Almost ten years later, the much longer-lived and
more widely distributed magazine The Ladder be-
gan its career. The Ladder was the first national les-
Publishing, Lesbian bian periodical, in print continuously from 1956 to
A loosely organized collection of independently or 1972. Originally the newsletter of the Daughters of
collectively operated presses, publishing houses, and Bilitis, it became an independent and welldistributed
distribution companies, operating primarily in North monthly magazine, publishing news, fiction and
America since the early 1970s, specializing in the poetry, book and film reviews, readers contribu-
dissemination of such lesbian cultural materials as tions, and reports on lesbian and homosexual life
newspapers, periodicals, and books and united, to made by sympathetic sociologists, lawyers, psycholo-
some extent, by a shared political commitment to gists, and other professionals. By the time The Lad-
womens liberation and lesbian feminism. der ceased publication in 1972, it was no longer the
Although womens bookstores are its most vis- sole voice of lesbian culture but was one of many
ible manifestation, the lesbian publishing enterprise newsletters and journals with lesbian editorial au-
is more accurately a host of activities and affilia- thority, lesbian content, and lesbian readers.
tions that both define it as a full-fledged alternative The rise of the womens liberation movement
institution and anchor it as an important part of the in the 1970s unleashed an extraordinary amount
infrastructure of North American feminism. While of lesbian energy, much of it channeled into pub-
lesbians were certainly active in independent pub- lishing, the print arm of the movement. In the
lishing ventures before the second wave of the 1970s, more than 560 newsletters, journals, and
womens movement in the 1960s1970s, the project womens community papers were launched, as well
of lesbian publishing differed from earlier endeavors as several dozen publishing houses and printing
in its fervent efforts to implement the theoretical presses. The decade also saw the creation of more
insights of womens liberation, its exclusive interest than one hundred womens bookstores devoted to
in womens words and images, and its reliance on selling the materials generated by the women-in-
womens labor to perform the manifold tasks of an print movement (a term coined by lesbian publisher
alternative publishing enterprise. From the publish- June Arnold of Daughters, Inc., who called the first
ing ferment that inspired the first national Women Women in Print Conference in 1976). At a time
in Print Conference near Omaha, Nebraska, in 1976; when countercultural and alternative institutions
to the founding of presses as distinct from each other were changing the social and cultural dynamics of
as Daughters and Diana, or Naiad and Kitchen Ta- both rural and urban landscapes, lesbians took on
ble; to the development of such specialty trade jour- the work of creating alternatives to the mass me-
nals as Motheroot Journal: A Womens Review of dia. The feminist appropriation of the slogan Free-
Small Presses or Feminist Bookstore News or Hot dom of the press belongs to those who own the
Wire, lesbian publishers have produced a concrete, press became the rallying call for the entire
enduring, and commercial legacy of the womens women-in-print movement, encouraging women to
and lesbian liberation movements. learn how to edit manuscripts, run printing presses,
Lesbian publishers can be found in the histori- paste-up copy, bind books, and operate bookstores.
cal record before World War II, but the lesbian Lesbian collectives, partnerships, and friendship
publishing enterprise is a specifically postwar and networks would often be inspired to publish a jour-
North American phenomenon, with identifiable nal or a newsletter as part of the work of libera-
firsts and defining moments. The first magazine tion. For example, the short-lived, but influential,
for lesbians, Vice Versa, appeared in Southern Cali- journal The Furies was written and produced in
fornia in 1947 at a time when obscenity laws meant the early 1970s by a collective of Washington, D.C.,
that lesbian and gay male materials could not be women that included Rita Mae Brown and Char-
sent to a printer or to newsstands. Lisa Ben (pseud.), lotte Bunch. Similarly, Sinister Wisdom, the long-
a Hollywood secretary, began composing, editing, est-running lesbian journal in history, was founded
and typing Vice Versa at her office typewriter. Us- in 1976 and first edited by the lesbian couple

PUBLISHING, LESBIAN 621

 Harriet Desmoines and Catherine Nicholson. A Clarke, Jan Clausen, Chrystos, Judy Grahn, Audre
P lesbian or feminist periodical became, for many
otherwise isolated women, the mailing address of
Lorde, Joan Nestle, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Jane Rule,
Sarah Schulman, and Kitty Tsui.
the movement, fulfilling a traditional role of the If lesbian literary history during the 1970s was
alternative press: In its pages, activists could ar- being made and recorded primarily on the freshly
ticulate their beliefs, organize members and recruit drafted pages of lesbian periodicals, then, by the
new ones, conserve their movements history, and end of the 1970s and into the 1980s, debates about
make possible its future. lesbian diversity, community organizing, and po-
Such ambitious lesbian feminist periodicals as litical activism were generating an increasing
Amazon Quarterly, Chrysalis, Feminary, Conditions, number of book-length collections. Often these
Lavender Woman, Feminist Bookstore News, Les- anthologies were born in the pages of lesbian jour-
bian/Lesbienne, Sinister Wisdom, Azalea, nals: For example, both Beth Brants A Gathering
Connexions, Heresies, Maenad, Open Door: Rural of the Spirit: Writing and Art by North American
Lesbian Newsletter, Calyx, Fireweed, La Vie En Indian Women (1983, 1984) and Melanie Kaye/
Rose, Lesbian Tide, Ache, Hot Wire, Dyke, Rites, Kantrowitz and Irena Klepfiszs The Tribe of Dina:
and Common Lives/Lesbian Lives found their way A Jewish Womens Anthology (1986, 1989) began
into the hands of rural and urban lesbians across as special issues of Sinister Wisdom, while Barbara
North America and beyond. The periodicals pro- Smiths Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology
duced by lesbian publishers not only contributed to (1983) grew out of Conditions Five, The Black
the formation of a widespread, though geographi- Women s Issue (1979).
cally dispersed, lesbian community with identifiable In the 1980s, lesbian publishing would see the
cultural interests, but also proved to be a nurturing rise of a powerful activist toolthe multicultural
milieu for author development. Lesbian periodicals anthology. An increasing preoccupation with issues
provided lesbian writers with a peer cohort of edi- of racial and ethnic identity can be seen in a critical
tors, reviewers, and readers. They also provided, in mass of texts produced primarily by lesbians of color
their classified sections and announcements pages, and ethnic lesbians, works that were ushered into
the calls for submissions that generated material for print by established lesbian feminist publishers, as
new lesbian anthologies and single-author works. well as by such newer women-of-color presses as
While lesbian periodicals were introducing au- Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press and Sister
thors to audiences across the continent, lesbian Vision: Black Women and Women of Colour Press.
presses were beginning to produce the steady stream Perhaps the most well known of these books is
of lesbian books that would come to represent, by Gloria Anzaldas and Cherre Moragas This Bridge
the 1990s, 40 to 60 percent of the sales in North Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of
American womens bookstores. Lesbian publishing Color (1981), originally published by Persephone
housesincluding Naiad, Persephone, Diana, Press and reprinted by Kitchen Table. This landmark
Shameless Hussy, the Womens Press Collective, anthology, with its multigenre mix of short stories,
Aunt Lute, Spinsters Ink, Sister Vision, Daughters, diary entries, polemical essays, poems, testimoni-
Inc., Firebrand Books, Kitchen Table, Cleis, New als, interviews, and oral histories, became a model
Victoria, Seal, Vanity, and Press Gangprovided for a host of others, including Evelyn Torton Becks
lesbians with unparalleled opportunities and forums Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology (1982) and
for their self-expression. Typically operating, at least Makeda Silveras Piece of My Heart: A Lesbian of
in theory if not always in practice, as egalitarian, Colour Anthology (1991).
nonhierarchical, nonprofit, and ideologically sound By lining mailboxes, magazine racks, and book-
enterprisesjuggling feminist principles with the shelves, lesbian publishers have kept womens ideas
demands of capitalismlesbian feminist presses and in print and in circulation; dispersed new theoreti-
publishers actively repudiated the often elitist, dis- cal insights, particularly about multiple interlock-
criminatory, and censorious practices of the com- ing oppressions (the basis of identity politics), to
mercial presses. Lesbian publishers can be credited new audiences of women; and provided women with
with giving first publication or wider distribution the self-help, spiritual, activist, and imaginative lit-
to such celebrated writers of the 1970s through the eratures necessary for them to sustain themselves
1990s as Gloria Anzalda, Dorothy Allison, June and their political movements. Kate Adams
Arnold, Allison Bechdel, Rita Mae Brown, Cheryl Alisa Klinger

622 PUBLISHING, LESBIAN

Bibliography
Adams, Kathryn Tracy. Paper Lesbians: Alterna-
tive Publishing and the Politics of Lesbian Rep-
resentation, 19501990. Ph.D. diss., Univer-
sity of Texas, 1994.
Hodges, Beth, ed. Lesbian Writing and Publish-
ing. Sinister Wisdom 13 (Spring 1980) (Spe-
cial Issue).
Klinger, Alisa. Paper Uprisings: Print Activism in
the Multicultural Lesbian Movement. Ph.D.
diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1995.
Streitmatter, Rodger. Unspeakable: The Rise of the
Gay and Lesbian Press in America. Boston:
Faber and Faber, 1995.

See also Anthologies; Anzalda, Gloria E.; Arnold,

June; Bookstores; Brown, Rita Mae; Businesses,
Lesbian; Collectives; Daughters of Bilitis; Furies,
The; Grahn, Judy; Grier, Barbara; Journalism; Lad-
der, The; Lesbian Feminism; Lorde, Audre;
Moraga, Cherre; Naiad Press; Nestle, Joan; Peri-
odicals; Pulp Paperbacks; Rule, Jane Vance; Smith,
Barbara; zines

Pulp Paperbacks
The 1939 paperback revolution, brought about by Cover for Odd Girl Out by Ann Bannon. Courtesy
changes in printing and distribution, made books ofLinnea Stenson.
affordable and widely available. Sex (of any sort)
made them salable. Little lesbian fiction was pub- covers, often featuring two women embracing or
lished in the 1940s due to an unprecedented short- in various stages of undress, signaled lesbian to
age of paper (because of military requisition of cel- even the casual browser, and they were widely avail-
lulose for explosives), as well as selectivity in fiction able at drugstore book racks and newspaper stands.
publishing. However, the 1950s and early 1960s saw Despite their cautionary intent, they often served
an upsurge in the number of works touching upon to inform lesbians that there were, indeed, others
lesbianism. While most were pulp paperbacks like themselves out in the world.
(named for the inexpensive paper on which they were In the novels typical of the majority of the pulp
printed) with little redeeming value, more novels genre, real lesbians are portrayed as manipula-
with lesbian themes were published during this pe- tive, perverse, and evil. Their victims are generally
riod than at any other time in history. younger innocent women, unable to comprehend
It is not surprising that so many lesbian-themed the destructive sexual power of the lesbian on the
novels were published, since, for the most part, prowl. Ultimately, these novels have some sort of
they functioned as Radclyffe Hall (18801943) mainstream redeeming social value: The real les-
claimed The Well of Loneliness (1928) should bian is killed at the end, or a rival male gets the girl,
function: as stories warning about the dangers of and the normal balance of life is restored. Lesbians
a lesbian life. Despite the moralizing, the preju- of color are virtually nonexistent in these works.
dices, and the bad writing, lesbians voraciously Where they do exist, they are an exoticized, super-
devoured these novels. They were inexpensive, sexualized other, the dark seductress who has
generally thirty-five to forty cents during the mid- trouble in mind for her blond, white (and innocent)
1950s, and their length seldom ran more than two victim. Gomez (1983) cites one example in which
hundred pages. The characters in them are almost the lone Black Lesbian character is left to be hunted
entirely white and young. The luridly designed by the police as the accomplice/catalyst to [a] chain

PULP PAPERBACKS 623

 reaction of destruction, including the accidental important, their romances are often allowed to
P killing of a white heiress. Another example, Puta
(1962) by Sheldon Lord, revolves around the ad-
continue implicitly through the novels final scenes;
if not, the ending is, nevertheless, hopeful for the
ventures of a Latina nymphomaniac (puta, which protagonist (although, given the prevalence of sui-
translates as whore). These novels add the evil of cides and deaths, just being alive at the close could
miscegenation to homosexuality. be considered an uplifting ending).
In reviewing the huge number of pulps pub- It is deeply ironic that, at a time when social,
lished, it is helpful to draw some distinctions. Some economic, political, and cultural forces in the
pulps were reissues of earlier literary lesbian United States worked so strongly against homo-
novels, such as Gale Wilhelms (19081991) Torch- sexuals, a literary expression existed that has not
light to Valhalla (1938, which was republished in been surpassed in its impact on lesbian life. Pulp
1953 under the title The Strange Path), or Halls novels themselves proved to be both creations
The Well of Loneliness. Most of these paperback and creators of lesbian cultures and, given their
originals were purely exploitative. However, with popularity, appear to have crossed class bounda-
all of the others, there were a number of pulp nov- ries. While they were often distorted and filled
els published that were generally pro-lesbian. The with expert psychoanalytic theories and medi-
writers of these novels strove to present a positive cal pathologizing, they also introduced lesbians
lesbian identity, despite the unhappy ending that to one another. Moreover, despite the pressures
many editors demanded be tacked on to conform of publishing conventions, they sometimes al-
to the moralistic expectations of the day. lowed two women to remain together, or at least
The pro-lesbian pulps, representing a frac- one woman to gain and hold onto pride in who
tion of these paperback originals, featured lesbian she was. The pulps left a legacy of rebellion
characters who rebelled against the stereotypes of against assimilation. Bar dykes and other more
perversion and social prejudice. These were par- overtly out characters set the stage for the
ticularly popular among lesbian readers, although, novels that came into existence in the late 1960s
given that one cover was as lurid as the next, dis- and early 1970s. The novels of Ann Bannon,
cerning from the drugstore racks which of these Paula Christian, Valerie Taylor, and Claire
novels might be somewhat sympathetic and which Morgan reject the sanitized mainstream and
utterly full of lesbian self-hate must have been dif- bring marginal lives to the center.
ficult. Some of the more popular books were writ- The political upheaval of the 1960s gave birth
ten by Ann Bannon (1937) and are still recog- in the early 1970s to a number of lesbian feminist
nized as classics by aficionados of the genre. publishing houses, most notably Daughters Inc.,
These novels, despite their generally pro-lesbian the Womens Press Collective, and Diana Press.
stance, are, nonetheless, characterized by the vio- Lesbians turned their reading interests to more
lence, alcoholism, and weird sexual situations that politically radical works that reflected the enor-
most other pulp novels contain. Paula Christian, mous social changes in their identities and lives. In
another sympathetic writer of lesbian pulp novels, the 1980s, the republication and popularity of a
explained in the lesbian journal The Ladder the small number of these novels reflected a renewed
difficulty of publishing these novels, placing blame interest in these works as significant sites of some
squarely on publishing houses that would not al- lesbian lives and cultures. Linnea A.Stenson
low any theme that seemed to promote homosexu-
ality. Other positive writers included Claire Morgan Bibliography
(pseud, of Patricia Highsmith [19211995]); Bonn, Thomas L. UnderCover: An Illustrated His-
Valerie Taylor (19131997), and Ann Aldrich tory of American Mass Market Paperbacks.
(pseud, of Marijane Meaker, who also wrote un- New York: Penguin, 1982.
der the name Vin Packer [1927]). Gomez, Jewelle. A Cultural Legacy Denied and
Pro-lesbian novels are set apart by an empa- Discovered: Black Lesbians in Fiction by
thetic narrative, coupled with characters who (for Women. In Home Girls: A Black Feminist
the most part) come to their lesbian identity Anthology Ed. Barbara Smith. Kitchen Table:
through struggles that must have looked (and, to Women of Color Press, 1983, pp. 110123.
some degree, still might look) familiar to many of Koski, Fran, and Maida Tilchen. Some Pulp
their white, middle-class readers. Perhaps most Sappho. In Lavender Culture. Ed. Karla Jay

624 PULP PAPERBACKS

 and Allen Young. New York: Jove/Harcourt Politics of Pulp. Social Text: Theory/Culture/
Brace Jovanovich, 1978, pp. 262274. Ideology 23 (Fall/Winter 1989), 83101.
Tilchen, Maida. Ann Bannon: The Mystery
Solved! Gay Community News (January 8, See also American Literature, Twentieth Century;
1983), 812. Bannon, Ann; Hall, Radclyffe; Ladder, The; Naiad
Walters, Suzanna Danuta. As Her Hand Crept Press; Publishing, Lesbian; Taylor, Valerie;
Slowly Up Her Thigh: Ann Bannon and the Wilhelm, Gale

PULP PAPERBACKS 625

Q
Qubec Montral artistic milieu between 1917 and 1919,
Beginning in the sixteenth century, Qubec terri- Elsa Gidlow (18981986) claimed it was difficult
tory was the heart of French colonial activity in to find any. With a gay male friend, the young
North America, until the signing of the Treaty of Gidlow discovered European homosexual litera-
Paris in 1763, which ceded these territories to Eng- ture and published a magazine in which she in-
land. The French-Canadians, abandoned to their cluded a number of Sapphic poems, before mov-
fate, were forced to accept British rule, yet, at the ing to New York City in 1920 in the hope of end-
same time, they resisted assimilationist policies. ing her isolation as a lesbian.
Because of a high birth rate, they managed to main- The period between 1940 and 1967 was charac-
tain their demographic weight and preserve their terized by the modernization of Qubec society and
language, their Catholic religion, and their own the erosion of the power of the Catholic Church.
culture, distinct from that of their French ances- After World War II, women had easier access to
tors. In 1997, Qubecs population reached 6.9 education and the job market. Now increasingly
million people, comprising descendants of the visible, lesbianism was considered a vice, a crime,
French-Canadians and the English, as well as other and an illness. The most common terms encoun-
immigrants of diverse origins. Those of French tered were femme aux femmes (woman who love
descent dominate the population at more that 80 women), lesbian, butch, and Sapphist. There
percent, yet they are marginalized in Canadian were separate, distinct lesbian networks, depending
culture. The colonial process and the Franco-Brit- on language, social class, and generation. Lesbians
ish wars decimated the Native American popula- who had professional reputations to protect re-
tion, which, in the 1990s, represented about 1 per- stricted their activities to private, closed circles. The
cent of the total population. most educated were inspired by references in the
literature and cinema of France, which was less cen-
History sored than Qubecs. To identify one another, they
Between 1900 and 1940, the control of the Catho- used the term homosexual or euphemisms like
lic Church strongly affected women, the guard- to be one of us (en tre) or to be part of the big
ians of morality and tradition. Religious wom- family (faire partie de la grande famille). The only
ens communities took charge of the education of visible lesbians were working-class women who went
young girls, health, and aid to the poor. Many to bars and adopted the butch-femme code. The most
women who refused marriage and frequent preg- overt exposed themselves to social stigmatization:
nancies opted for life in the convent, but there is insults, rejection by their families and friends, eco-
no way of knowing if homosexual tendencies in- nomic sanctions, and police harassment. Outside of
fluenced their choice. Unmarried women had great secrecy and marginality, there were few alternatives.
difficulty maintaining financial and general inde- Isolated, without role models, and at the low end of
pendence from their families. Little is known the salary scale, many lesbians married and,
about lesbians during this period except that they sometunes, attempted to maintain secret lesbian re-
were socially almost invisible. Within the lationships at the same time.

QUBEC 627
 The period between 1967 and 1982 witnessed an active part in the struggle for womens rights,
Q intense social and political agitation, including the
popular sovereignty movement, which struggled for
the lesbian movement affirmed its separate status
from the feminist movement, which, in turn, proved
Qubec independence. After the Liberation for reluctant to support specific lesbian demands. How-
Qubec Front (Front de libration du Qubec) came ever, the Utopian ideal of building a lesbian com-
the Womens Liberation Front (Front de Libration munity ran up against the divergent political agen-
des Femmes), and then the Homosexual Liberation das of lesbian feminists, who wanted to maintain
Front (Front de Libration Homosexuel) in 1971. the alliance with the feminist movement, and radi-
English-speaking lesbians started the first Canadian cal lesbians, who rejected it. These political debates
lesbian monthly, Long Time Coming (19731975). were fueled as much by American as French writ-
Inspired by the American counterculture, they also ings. The rise of conservatism, successive economic
launched service organizations and consciousness- crises, the extreme politicization of lesbian spaces,
raising groups and organized conferences in and internal division severely dampened the energy
Montral that brought together hundreds of Cana- of the lesbian movement.
dian and American lesbians. French-speaking lesbi- After what might be termed a period of disor-
ans were involved in independent womens groups ganization in the early 1990s, the movement
representing the most radical tendencies of the femi- regrouped with a larger and more diversified base,
nist movement. Still in the minority within within the context of more open social attitudes
Anglophone groups and wishing to create their own toward lesbianism. By the end of the century,
cultural space, Francophone feminist lesbians groups pursued practical aims focusing on spe-
founded the Coop-femmes (19771979). A group cific goals, including lesbian studies, recreational
of women participated in the first lesbian contin- activities, sports, film, violence, and entrepreneur-
gent in a Gay Pride Parade in Montral in 1978. ship. Some lesbians have continued to maintain
During this period, exclusively lesbian bars appeared, separate status, while others have managed to es-
as well as more public and semipublic meeting places, tablish lesbian services and groups within femi-
differentiated by class and language. In 1977, the nist associations. Still others are involved in the
Qubec Human Rights Charter (La Charte gay groups struggling for legal rights. Many young
Qubecoise des Droits de la Personne) prohibited English speakers identify with the queer move-
all discrimination based on sexual orientation. ment. Meeting places, more often than not mixed,
exist in practically every region of Qubec.
Contemporary Qubec Though fragmented, the lesbian movement is vis-
Beginning in 1982, Qubec saw the explosion of ible and active in many spheres of social life. Af-
militant lesbianism characterized by political activ- ter more than a year of networking and negotiat-
ism and an enormous artistic production in litera- ing, the Reseau des Lesbiennes du Qubec/ Qubec
ture, theater, dance, and music. Literary works by Lesbian Network was founded in June 1997; its
Marie-Claire Blais (1929) and Nicole Brossard goals are to promote lesbians rights and to de-
(1943) and films by La Pool (1950) were dis- velop solidarity among lesbians while respecting
tributed internationally. There was an expansion of their diversity. Line Chamberland
cultural events and community meeting places. Les-
bian media became increasingly diversified as well: Bibliography
community radio broadcasts in English and French, Bertrand, Luce. Le Rapport Bertrand sur le vcu
magazinesAmazones dhier, Lesbiennes de 1000 femmes lesbiennes (The Bertrand Re-
daujourdhui (Amazons Then, Lesbians Now port on the Lives of 1,000 Lesbians). Montral:
[1982]); a sattrape (Its Catching! [19821984]); Primeur Opinions, 1984.
Treize (Thirteen [1984]); LEvidente lesbienne (The Chamberland, Line. Memoires lesbiennes. Le
Obvious Lesbian [19841988])and newsletters. lesbianisme Montral entre 1950 et 1972 (Les-
From 1982 to 1989, annual conferences, called bian Memories: Lesbianism in Montral Be-
Journes de Visibilit (Days of Visibility) and subse- tween 1950 and 1972). Montral: Editions du
quently Journes dInteractions lesbiennes (Lesbian Remuemenage, 1996.
Days of Interaction), were held. In other words, les- . Remembering Lesbian Bars: Montreal,
bians spoke up and constructed a collective iden- 19551975. Journal of Homosexuality 25:3
tity. Even though many lesbians continued to take (1993), 231269.

628 QUBEC
Gidlow, Elsa. Elsa: I Come with My Songs: The erosexual allies. As the decade of the 1990s pro-
Autobiography of Elsa Gidlow. San Francisco: gressed, struggles over race, gender, and bisexuality
Booklegger, 1986. began to dissipate the effectiveness of Queer Nation,
Roy, Carolle. Les lesbiennes et le feminisme (Les- and the number of its participants began to decline.
bians and Feminism). Montral: Editions Saint- Akilah Monifa
Martin, 1985.
Bibliography
See also Blais, Marie-Claire; Brossard, Nicole; Blumenfeld, Warren J., and Diane Raymond. Look-
Canada; Gidlow, Elsa ing at Gay and Lesbian Life. Boston: Beacon,
1993.
Lewis, Andrea, and Robin Stevens. At the Cross-
Queer Nation roads: Race, Gender, and the Gay Rights Move-
A multicultural direct-action group dedicated to ment. Third Force (April 30, 1996), 2226.
fighting homophobia, queer invisibility, and all
forms of oppression. This in your face (auda- See also Activism; Performance Art
cious and confrontational) organization is best
known for its rallying cry: Were here, were queer,
get used to it. It was founded in 1990 in New Queer Theory
York City at the Lesbian and Gay Community Serv- Interdisciplinary body of work dedicated to denatu-
ices Center. Like the Gay Liberation Front in the ralizing the body and its pleasures. Queer theory
1970s and ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash arises out of, and is indebted to, earlier scholarly
Power) in the 1980s, Queer Nation used similar trends within gay and lesbian studies that attempted
direct-action and confrontational strategies and to construct histories of gay and lesbian people and
rejected the mainstream assimilationist strategies. to record their presence and influences in any
The group expanded to cities across the United number of fields and discourses. Queer theory moves
States, especially those with universities and col- beyond the endeavor to fill in the gaps left by
leges, as the members were typically college age. A heterosexist scholarship and tries to theorize sub-
group was also established in London, England. jectivity itself in relation to nonnormative sexual
Known for disruptive protests, kiss-ins, and practices and identities. Queer history, furthermore,
confrontations, the group nearly caused a riot in does not assume a transhistorical sexual subject but
1992 at the Republican Convention in Houston, examines sexual practices within their specific his-
Texas. Unlike ACT-UP, which focuses exclusively torical and social contexts.
on AIDS activism, Queer Nation expanded beyond The work of Judith Butler has become synony-
a single-issue political agenda to include fighting mous with queer theory in the 1990s. In her enor-
homophobia, gay bashing, and murder and incor- mously influential book Gender Trouble: Feminism
porating antiracist and antisexist strategies and and the Subversion of Identity (1990), she argues
policies that addressed the specific needs of lesbi- that the category of woman has been reified
ans and queers of color. Often the group would within feminism and that, while such a reification
reappropriate traditionally heterosexual spaces may have been necessary to generate a powerful
to stage their performance-art theatrics. critique of patriarchy, rather than a stable signifier
In addition to fighting racism and sexism, Queer that commands the assent of those whom it pur-
Nation attempted to address class bias by operat- ports to describe and represent, women, even in
ing as a nonhierarchical organization. An example the plural, has become a troublesome term, a site
of working groups included LABIA (Lesbian and of contest, a cause for anxiety (emphasis in origi-
Bisexual Women in Action), which covers spaces nal). Following from Wittigs (1992) work on the
with posters and stickers sporting provocative slo- mark of gender, Butler makes gender troubling
gans like Dont call me a dyke unless youre go- as a site for the production of identity. While Wittig
ing to kiss my clit and Lesbian by birth, queer questioned whether lesbians are women, Butler uses
by choice. her critique of the category of woman to
The term queer was adopted for its destabilize the very project of Western metaphys-
inclusiveness, since it purports to incorporate lesbi- ics itself. Gender Trouble has received much criti-
ans, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people, and het- cal attention precisely because Butlers project is

Q U E E R T H E O RY 629
 so ambitious: Gender Trouble seems to be about weighty contributions to queer theory, Rubin has
Q the subversive effects of cross-gender identification
(within butch-femme, for example) upon feminism,
identified the basic ideological obstacles to a radi-
cal theory of sex. In addition to sexual essential-
but, actually, as a philosophical project, it uses ism, the idea that sex is a natural force that exists
cross-gender models to deconstruct the binaries prior to social life and shapes institutions, Rubin
(particularly male/female and hetero/homo) upon identifies sex negativity, the fallacy of the mis-
which Western metaphysics depends. placed scale, the hierarchical valuation of sex acts,
Gender performance is the main theoretical the domino theory of sexual peril, and the lack of
model that has been extracted from Gender Trou- a benign concept of sexual variation as the main-
ble. Butler argues that gender is a copy without an stays of a sexual system that demonizes and se-
original and that gender is performative rather than verely punishes erotic variation.
expressive. If one uses this model to theorize the As Rubin shows, erotic variation within West-
butch lesbian, for example, one is able to claim that ern culture is not synonymous with gay and les-
butchness in no way mimics maleness but that, in bian sexual orientations. Indeed, the Western sexual
fact, male masculinity actually depends upon female value system defines good and healthy sex in rela-
masculinity for its power. No masculinity exists prior tion to monogamy, reproduction, and
to its performance in both male and female bodies, noncommercial sex, and bad, or abnormal, sex
and male bodies cannot be said to originate the gen- tends to involve pornography, fetish objects, mas-
der effect of masculinity. In relation to the binary turbation, public sex, promiscuity, and prostitu-
relation of hetero- to homosexuality, Butler writes: tion. While good sex tends to be equated with het-
In other words, for heterosexuality to remain in- erosexuality, and bad sex tends to be equated with
tact as a distinct social form, it requires an intelligi- homosexuality, these equations do not always hold.
ble conception of homosexuality and also requires Monogamous gays and lesbians or gays and lesbi-
the prohibition of that conception in rendering it ans with children can easily occupy positions within
culturally intelligible. The performances of gender the sexual hierarchy above unmarried and promis-
and sexuality, according to Butler, are in no way cuous heterosexuals. Because of this complex
voluntary: We do not perform gender; in a sense, it scheme of sexual privilege and oppression, gay
performs us. As she puts it, it is not that there is no and lesbian do not automatically line up with
doer behind the deed, but that the doer is variably transgression, nor with progressive politics, for
constructed in and through the deed. She does mark that matter, and heterosexual does not guaran-
out a place for something like agency, however, and tee either sexual health or status quo politics.
that is in relation to gender parody, in which certain As Foucault suggests in The History of Sexuality,
gender acts reveal the absence and, indeed, the im- sexuality is a particularly unreliable marker of po-
possibility of gender authenticity: One such act could litical transgression: We must not think that by
be the drag show. saying yes to sex, one says no to power.
Esther Newtons 1972 ethnographic study of Queer theory, in many ways, represents a move
drag queens (Mother Camp: Female Impersona- beyond thinking simply in terms of identity, and
tors in America), Gayle Rubins 1984 work on the beyond even the idea of sexual identity itself. This
creation of sexual moralities (Thinking Sex: Notes entails the recognition that what Sedgwick (1990)
for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality), has called the homo/hetero binary does not ad-
and Michel Foucaults early volumes in his His- equately delineate the multiple possibilities for sexu-
tory of Sexuality (1980) are all crucial underpin- ality. Queerness, in other words, designates sexuali-
nings of the enterprise that is now called queer ties defined by more than simply the gender of ob-
theory. While Newtons work on drag queens and ject choice; it is often used to refer to sexual minori-
on early-twentieth-century lesbian forms examines ties in general: Nongay and nonlesbian sexual mi-
the ways in which gay and lesbian identities are norities may include transsexuals or members of
translated into visible communities, Rubins work what is called the gender community (people in
has theorized the moral strictures that hamper what various stages of transsexual transition),
she calls erotic creativity. As early as 1984, Rubin sadomasochists, fetishists, transgenerational lovers,
put out a call for a radical theory of sex, which transvestites, male lesbians, queer butches, drag
must identify, describe, explain, and denounce queens/kings, sodomists, and so on. Sexual identity
erotic injustice and sexual oppression. In her own can broken down into acts; it can also be broken

630 Q U E E R T H E O RY
down in terms of the relation of ones fantasy life to adding: Without seeking to minimize the impor-
ones sex life. In fact, sexual identity can be based tance of other disciplines, I would suggest that nei-
upon so many different factors that it seems ther queer theory nor lesbian and gay studies in
reductive, if not downright violent, to insist that a general could be imagined in their present forms
person choose between two options and two alone without the contributions of sociological theory.
homo or hetero. The violence of this binary is most Other essays in this issue continue Epsteins line of
obvious in the AIDS crisis, in which the medical es- inquiry to build a critique of the state of queer
tablishment has consistently refused to understand theory. While some of these essays represent prob-
that acts, not sexual preferences, are dangerous. The lematic dismissals of queer cultural studies, they
AIDS crisis, in fact, emphasized the need to explode do point to what Duggan (1995) has called a dis-
the confining discourse of identity. cipline problem within queer theory. The disci-
Sedgwick is a queer thinker whose work has pline problem concerns not only what methods are
been dedicated to careful and powerful delineations used to study sexuality, but also what institutional
of the mechanisms that uphold binarized sexual dynamics conspire to house queer theory in some
thinking. Her first book, Between Men (1985), departments but not others.
demonstrated that what one thinks of as Western Queer theory has been critiqued for more than
literary culture is a complicated web of homosocial just disciplinary problems. Many critics find that
relations between menrelations that rely, implic- it provides inadequate models of the mutual con-
itly or explicitly, upon erotic male bonds. This claim structions of race and sexuality or class and sexu-
was important because it allowed for a distinction ality. The tendency within some queer theory to
to be made between the kind of male bonding that privilege psychoanalytic models of sexuality and
creates and sustains patriarchy, on the one hand, gender has indeed, led theorists to bypass critical
and relationships between self-identified gay men analyses of race- and class-based studies of sexual-
on the other. Sedgwick calls her theory feminist ity. As Mercer (1994) states, [T]he discourse of
and antihomophobic. In Epistemology of the white sexual politics has been impoverished in its
Closet (1990), Sedgwick takes apart the discursive obsession with self. A psychoanalytic study of
structure of the closet and demonstrates that the gay masculinity, Mercer suggests, universalizes a
open secret of homosexuality allows for an in- white model of maleness: By emphasizing mascu-
tricate system of knowledge/ignorance to be built linity at the individual level of subjective interac-
up around a hetero/homo binary. Sedgwick (1990) tion, rather than focus upon men as a sociological
suggests that the definitional narrowing-down in group, the privileged attention to sexuality is
this century of sexuality as a whole to a binarized reductionist, as well as being ethnocentric by de-
calculus of homo- or heterosexuality is a weighty fault. The absence of a critical discourse of white-
fact but an entirely historical one. Sedgwick ness within queer studies and the blindness of many
deconstructs that history and untangles the inter- queer theorists to issues of race and class has led to
sections between gender and sexuality that have, a widely held perception of queer theory as a white
in some ways, obscured such a history. and, often, male discourse. What such criticisms
Some scholars have critiqued an apparent em- overlook, however, is that queer theory cannot be
phasis on literary and cultural criticism within limited to works by white gay men writing about
queer theory, and there are arguments about canonical figures; rather, it resides at least partly in
whether the queer enterprise is truly interdiscipli- the tension between mainstream, white gay and
nary. There is some irony in the apparent reluc- lesbian scholarship and its critique. Queer theory,
tance to apply social-science methods to the study in other words, is that body of work produced by
of sex because, as queer sociologists are all too theorists of color, as well as the work they critique.
quick to point out, many of the theoretical sys- It might be asked, finally, does queer theory hap-
tems that are used to talk about sex, such as social pen outside the academy? In many ways, queer
constructionism, come from sociology. In a queer theory originates outside the academy as a theoreti-
issue of Sociological Theory, a group of sociolo- cal and intellectual response to the AIDS crisis. It
gists attempted to account for the strained rela- grows out of the activism of ACT-UP and out of
tions between sociological theory and queer theory. coalitions of people affected in one way or another
Epstein (1994) points out that it was sociology that by the AIDS crisis. Queer theory marks a back-and-
asserted that sexuality was socially constructed, forth relation between the academic and the public

Q U E E R T H E O RY 631
 spheres, and, just as some theoretical understand-
Q ings of sexuality and identity inform some commu-
nity organizing, some of the insights produced within
Mercer, Kobena. Welcome to the Jungle: New Po-
sitions in Black Cultural Studies. London and
New York: Routledge, 1994.
political communities, bars, sex clubs, zines, and Newton, Esther. Mother Camp: Female Impersona-
popular literature feed queer intellectual production. tors in America. London and Chicago: Univer-
It is important to resist using queer as an um- sity of Chicago Press, 1972.
brella term for sexual minorities, and instead use it Rubin, Gayle. Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical
to mark radical models of sexual politics.
Theory of the Politics of Sexuality. In Pleasure
Judith Halberstam
and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality. Ed.
Carole Vance. Boston and London: Routledge,
Bibliography
1984, pp. 267319.
Duggan, Lisa. The Discipline Problem. GLQ: A
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Epistemology of the
Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 2:3 (1995),
179192. Closet. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
Epstein, Steven. A Queer Encounter: Sociology California Press, 1990.
and the Study of Sexuality. In Sociological Wittig, Monique. The Straight Mind and Other
Theory, 12:2 (1994), 188202. Essays. Boston: Beacon, 1992.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, vol. 1:
An Introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley. New See also Critical Theory; Cultural Studies;
York: Vintage, 1980. Performativity; Postmodernism; Wittig, Monique

632 Q U E E R T H E O RY
R
Race and Racism tification of superiority of one group over another,
In the eighteenth century, taxonomist Carl Linnaeus which remains unrecognized by the majority of the
(17071778) coined the term homo sapiens and privileged group.
cataloged the human species into four races based The terms race and ethnicity are frequently
on skin tone: homo americanus (reddish); homo confused and used interchangeably. Ethnicity re-
eruopaeus (white), homo asiaticus (yellow), and fers to shared cultural and behavioral elements of
homo afer (black). His categorization provided not a group: Members may be of the same race or from
only phenotypic markers, such as facial features, other racial backgrounds, but they share the same
skin color, and hair texture, to classify the races, cultural practices. Culture refers to shared customs,
but also a brief description of the characteristics values, traditions, and worldviews of a group of
associated with each race: homo americanus were people who identify with the same ethnic group,
said to be ruled by custom; homo eruopaeus, although national cultures may grow out of, and
ruled by opinion; homo asiaticus, ruled by be shared by, a number of different ethnic groups
rites; and homo afer, ruled by caprice. Thus, within a country. Ethnicity involves socialization
Linneaus was an early advocate of pairing person- patterns that begin with, but are not limited to,
ality constructs with physical differences. genotypic (genetic constitution) or phenotypic
descriptors. Phinney (1996) suggests that there are
Race, Ethnicity, and Culture three components of ethnicity: ones culture, ones
Although race referred to phenotypic differences ethnic identity, and how one is perceived and
associated with geographical regions at one time, treated by others, given their presumed ethnicity.
in the United States race is a social construct rather Since American culture is resistant to letting go of
than a meaningful biological or genetic determi- the socially constructed meaning of race, race will,
nant. For bicultural individuals, racial distinctions for the foreseeable future, play a central role in
based on biology are not meaningful, but research on human behavior. In American society,
phenotypic traits, nevertheless, carry certain as- race, along with gender, are the largest categories
sumptions that create a hierarchy of power and used to describe and to distinguish individuals.
privilege. Many societies reify racial differences to
create meaningful categories to understand hu- Racial and Ethnic Identity
man behavior. The social construction of race pre- To understand the relevance of race or ethnicity
vails in the United States, among other societies, to an individual, one must appreciate that indi-
and plays a central role in the assumptions about viduals differ in the relevance of race and ethnic-
ones own racial group and the racial group of oth- ity in their lives. Racial identity and ethnic iden-
ers. Adherence to meaningful racial differences tity refer to how individuals differ in their identi-
carries a psychosocial meaning, including the jus- fication with their racial and ethnic groups, re-
tification of bias, discrimination, stereotypes, and spectively. The racial and ethnic identity of an
prejudice. Furthermore, the relevance of race individual is a fluid, dynamic process rather than
establishes assumptions about privilege and a jus- a category or a fixed stage. For people of color,

RACE AND RACISM 633

 Helms (1995) states, racial identity ranges from Race and Racism in the Lesbian Community
R identifying with whites, to identifying only with
ones own racial group, thereby denigrating
Like white lesbians, lesbians of color have to con-
tend with sexism and homophobia. Racism in the
whites, to being comfortable with ones own ra- lives of lesbians of color and the influence of privi-
cial group as well as appreciating the positive as- lege in the lives of white lesbians influence the so-
pects of other racial groups. cial and political climate of the lesbian commu-
Ethnic identity is a component of self-concept nity. All women experience sexism; in the lesbian
that refers to the role or impact of culture in a per- community, the experience of sexism, along with
sons life and the extent to which one identifies homophobia and heterosexism, becomes the bond
with ones ethnicity. Phinney describes ethnicity as of unity. Because the experience of homophobia is
an umbrella term for race and for culture and states so strong, it can blind the predominantly white les-
that ethnic identity is a multifaceted, dynamic, and bian community to other types of oppression and
fluid process. She measures ethnic identity from a the reality of the diversity within the lesbian com-
developmental model and addresses a persons self- munity. Experiences with racism compound the
identification, ethnic behavior, feelings of affirma- experiences of homophobia and heterosexism for
lesbians of color. When the predominantly white
tion and belonging, achieved ethnic identity, and
lesbian community subtly demands that sexual
feelings toward other ethnic groups. Racial and
orientation prevail as ones primary identification,
ethnic identities are processes that are reexamined
it denies the relevance of race in the lives of lesbi-
throughout ones life span and may be modified,
ans of color. The result is split loyalties and con-
given the life experiences of an individual. In es-
flicts within the lesbian community as a whole.
sence, to appreciate the meaning of race and eth-
The predominantly white lesbian community is
nicity in the United States, one must also be cogni-
a product of contemporary American society and,
zant of the ramifications of race, the role of privi-
as such, is a racist community practicing individual
lege and oppression in society, and the racial and
and cultural racism. Not to recognize the relevance
ethnic identification of an individual. of race or ethnicity for lesbians of color is an overt
dismissal of the importance race and ethnicity in
Racism their lives. Not only is there pressure to identify pri-
Racism is discrimination against an individual or marily as a lesbian independent of race or ethnicity,
a group based on their assumed racial inferiority lesbians of color are also discriminated against and
by a racial group that assumes its own superiority, oppressed within the community. The predominantly
a policy that is imposed by social and legal sanc- white lesbian community prides itself on its accept-
tions. In the United States, racism exists on many ance of difference, and yet many within it may cringe
levels: individual, institutional, and cultural. While at the visibility of lesbians of color beyond a token
individual racism is racism manifested by one in- number of women of color at social or political
dividual toward another, institutional racism is events. The presence of a disproportionate number
implicitly or explicitly sanctioned by society of lesbians of color is all that is required for the
through laws and social norms that ensure the su- predominantly white community to be in touch with
periority of whites over people of color. Institu- the racism and privilege that predominates in the
tional racism, for example, restricts the purchase lesbian community. As a result, lesbians of color fre-
of property by people of color, interferes with the quently feel isolated and marginalized within the
procurement of loans, and denies people of color lesbian community. To the extent that the white les-
access to clubs and organizations. Cultural racism bian community does not acknowledge the privi-
adheres to the belief that Eurocentric customs, lan- lege that race offers it will feel comfortable describ-
guage, values, and the like are superior to those of ing the white lesbian experience as representative of
people of color. For example, independence is all lesbians. However, several groups of women of
highly valued in a Eurocentric context, while in- color and white women have evolved to address the
terdependence is more common and highly valued racism in the lesbian community. These groups have
in cultures of color. As a result, dissonance emerges moved from a recognition of racism to a nonracist
for people of color as they engage in the process of stance (I do not practice racism) and are working
forming their racial and ethnic identity in a culture on their anitracist commitment (I will take an ac-
that creates myriad boundaries that interfere with tive role in eliminating racism in our society). Such
developing ones full potential. groups are making the lesbian community more

634 RACE AND RACISM

cognizant of the diversity within and responsive to Beverly Greene. New York: Guilford, 1994, pp.
the needs and concerns of all lesbians. 389427.
Furthermore, some white women within the les- Hall, Ruth. L., and Suzanna Rose. Friendships
bian community may not appreciate the bond be- Between African American and White Lesbi-
tween women and men of color that is created by a ans. In Lesbians and Friendships: Ourselves
racist society. Women of color express the pressure and Each Other. Ed. Jacqueline S.Weinstock and
they face to choose an oppression, a choice lesbi- Esther D.Rothblum. New York: New York
ans of color do not need or desire to make. For les- University Press, 1996, pp. 165191.
bians of color, there is no hierarchy of oppressions. Helms, Janet E. An Update of Helms White and
People of Color Racial Identity Models. In
Lesbians of Color in Communities of Color Handbook of Multicultural Counseling. Ed.
For many lesbians of color, communities of color Joseph G.Ponterotto, J.Manuel Casas, Lisa A.
have been a safe haven for racial identification and Suzuki, and Charlene M.Alexander. Thousand
racial oppression. Juxtaposed against this haven for Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1995, pp. 181198.
racial and ethnic identification is the homophobia Leslie, Dorian, and Lauren MacNeill. Double
within the community, which is more intense in com- Positive: Lesbians and Race. In Racism in the
munities of color. Lesbians of color may feel aban- Lives of Women: Testimony, Theory, and
doned in their communities of color, and communi- Guides to Antiracist Practice. Ed. Jeanne
ties of color frequently perceive lesbians of color as Adleman and Gloria Enguidanos. New York:
abandoning the needs of their communities of color Hayworth, 1995, pp. 161179.
and the struggle for equality. Communities of color Lorde, Audre. I Am Your Sister: Black Women
accuse lesbians of color of abandoning the commu- Organizing Across Sexualities. Practice 5:1
nity, not perpetuating the race, and being influenced (1987), 8387.
by white culture since homosexuality is a perceived Phinney, Jean. S. When We Talk About American
as a white lifestyle choice. As a result, lesbians of Ethnic Groups, What Do We Mean? Ameri-
color may feel a greater need to remain closeted, can Psychologist 51 (1996), 918927.
creating an environment that is potentially detrimen-
tal to their mental health. All lesbians share the ex- See also Discrimination; Lorde, Audre; Prejudice;
periences of sexism and homophobia, but lesbians Stereotype; Women of Color
of color have a history of discrimination along ra-
cial lines: Coming out makes lesbians of color triply
oppressed. Losing the support of communities of Radicalesbians
color, combined with their membership in three New York City-based group originally called the
oppressed groups (women, lesbians, and people of Lavender Menace (LM). LM formed in response to
color) and the racism within the lesbian commu- the homophobia of the womens liberation move-
nity, creates a significant amount of stress for lesbi- ment, especially that of the National Organization
ans of color. Audre Lorde (19341992), a lesbian for Women (NOW), despite the fact that some of
activist, challenged the African American commu- New York NOWs leaders were lesbians. Some het-
nity, in particular, to recognize the relevance of op- erosexual feminists derided lesbians for butchfemme
pression and racial pride for all African Americans role playing and for refusing to engage and trans-
independent of sexual orientation. Given their own form the male oppressor. Heterosexual feminists also
history and experiences with oppression, commu- tended to view lesbianism as a mere lifestyle choice,
nities of color find it more challenging to be open to as opposed to a biologically determined and op-
lesbians of color whom they mistakenly label as dis- pressed gender class of women.
loyal to issues and concerns of communities of color. LM finally coalesced around two events in 1970.
This alienation is unnecessary and harmful, deny- In a piece entitled Sisterhood Is Powerful in the
ing communities of color the talents and energies of New York Times Magazine (March 15, 1970),
a vital segment of their communities. Ruth Hall Susan Brownmiller dismissed NOW president Betty
Friedans assessment that lesbians were a laven-
Bibliography der menace, implying that gay women would de-
Greene, Beverly. Lesbian Women of Color. In stroy the credibility of the womens movement.
Women of Color. Ed. Lillian Comas-Daz and Brownmiller suggested that lesbians were a

RADICALESBIANS 635
 lavender herring perhaps, but surely no clear and while others decried RLs lack of attention to is-
R present danger. The final insult came when
NOWs Second Congress to Unite Women in May
sues of race and class. Barbara Love and others
revived the GLF Womens Caucus, which drew
1970 completely omitted lesbians from its agenda. those who were disillusioned with RL politics. Fi-
Lesbians from the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) nally, the creation of Lesbian Feminist Liberation,
Women, the Daughters of Bilitis, and Redstockings Inc., during the winter of 19711972 left RL with
joined forces to pen a response to this rampant only a handful of members.
heterosexism. Members of the original group in- The fact that RL was the first post-Stonewall radi-
cluded Sidney Abbott, Ellen Bedoz [Ellen Shumsky], cal gay womens group has given it an importance
Ellen Broidy, Rita Mae Brown, Cynthia Funk, that belies its actual size and duration. The success of
Michela Griffo, Lois Hart, Karla Jay, Arlene Kisner, the Lavender Menace action gave RL mythical stat-
Barbara Love, and Martha Shelley. Together they ure as the group that took over the womens move-
slowly carved out a manifesto. The chief author ment, if only for one night. Karla Jay
was March Huffman (later Artemis March), but
many members of the group contributed to its fi- Bibliography
nal shape. The document, entitled The Woman- Brown, Rita Mae. Take a Lesbian to Lunch. In
Out of the Closets: Voices of Gay Liberation.
Identified Woman (1971), avoided the loaded
Ed. Karla Jay and Allen Young. New York: New
term lesbian and tried to universalize the sexual
York University Press, 1972. Reprint. 1992, pp.
oppression of gay women by asserting that a les-
185195.
bian is the rage of all women condensed to the point
Echols, Alice. Daring To Be Bad: Radical Femi-
of explosion. The manifesto agreed that lesbian-
nism in America, 19671975. Minneapolis:
ism was a societally created category, but no more
University of Minnesota Press, 1989.
so than heterosexuality, and argued that, in a truly
Marotta, Toby. The Politics of Homosexuality.
free society, both categories would disappear. The
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981.
document also proclaimed that a primal commit-
Radicalesbians. The Woman Identified Woman. In
ment which includes sexual love is essential to Notes from the Third Year: Womens Liberation.
the liberation of women. Ed. Anne Koedt and Shulamith Firestone. New
The document was disseminated on May 1, York: Notes from the Second Year, Inc., 1971.
1970, on the first night of the Second Congress to Teal, Donn. The Gay Militants. New York: Stein
Unite Women. Decked out in pale purple T-shirts and Day, 1971.
with the words Lavender Menace stenciled across
the front, some members of the group cut off the See also Brown, Rita Mae; Gay Liberation Move-
lights and microphone and surrounded the audience. ment; Jay, Karla; Millett, Kate; National Organi-
Other protesters were planted in the audience and zation for Women (NOW); Woman-Identified
spontaneously joined the demonstration. Work- Woman; Womens Liberation Movement
shops on lesbian issues were held, and the congress
adopted a pro-lesbian platform. At the close of the
congress, consciousness-raising groups were set up Radio
for those interested in lesbian feminism. Programs hosted and produced by lesbians, or pro-
After changing the groups name to Lesbian Lib- grams that express, reflect, and document the var-
eration and finally to Radicalesbians (RL), the ied perspectives, realities, and experiences of
women continued to meet and discuss politcal ac- women-loving women.
tion. RL attempted to be nonhierarchical, but some Lesbians began producing and hosting radio
women nevertheless emerged as leaders, causing programs during the second wave of U.S. femi-
other powerful women who were not part of this nism. During the early 1970s, many lesbian femi-
group to drop out. RL advocated strict separatism, nists, (some out, some not) created weekly pro-
and mainstream writers such as Kate Millett were grams on community radio stations, the most ac-
denounced as collaborators. RL divided further cessible of the broadcast media, in cities and rural
when some women cooperated with the police in communities throughout the world.
the murder investigation of group member Lydia While many, but not all, feminist radio programs
French. Some were dismayed by RLs hostility to include lesbian perspectives, few programs have been
gay men, bisexual women, and all heterosexuals, lesbian only. Amazon Country (WXPN-FM

636 RADICALESBIANS
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), one of the first lesbian sexual identity: I am an actor and Im a lesbian.
radio programs in the United States, first came on Said Pasternak: The idea was to let people know
the air in 1974. In 1997, the producer, Debra we are everywhere.
DAlessandro, said: The majority of programs are Few lesbian or even feminist radio programs have
on lesbian issues, but some are more broadly about lasted. Journalist Laura Flanders, an out lesbian
issues impacting all women. Every program and feminist, for a number of years hosted Counter
includesa calendar of events of interest to lesbians Spin, a nationally syndicated radio program heard
and feminists. Lesbian and feminist radio shows, on community stations around the country. Lesbi-
which may include music, interviews, news, and talk ans produce nationally and internationally distrib-
formats, serve an important function for lesbians and uted radio programs with gay men, and some lesbi-
feminists: documenting cultural events, forums, and ans and feminists use the Internet as a new audio
demonstrations and covering local, national, and in- outlet and avenue for sharing radio resourcesa
ternational political controversies, always asking: goal for many lesbian and feminist radio pioneers
How does this affect women? Which women? Les- of the second wave. Jennifer Abod
bian and feminist radio has often been the only source
of media attention for lesbian and feminist musicians, Bibliography
writers and poets, artists and comics. Kelly, Janis. Feminist Radio: Sophies Tells All.
Feminists and lesbians, slotted into a few hours Off Our Backs (February 1982), 2021.
once a week during low-listening times such as Sun- Rainone, Nanette. Men and Violence: WBAI
day afternoons, have constantly battled to get their Consciousness Raising. In Radical Feminism.
shows on the air and keep them there. Airtime has Ed. Anne Koedt, Ellen Levine, and Anita
often been shared collectively by volunteers, the Rapone. New York: Quadrangle/New York
majority of whom have been lesbian. In large com- Times Book, 1973, pp. 6371.
munities, such as Boston, Massachusetts, and Wash-
ington, D.C., women who secured a weekly air slot See also Journalism
supported and trained a broad range of women in
the community over a period of months to produce
an annual eighteen-to-twenty-four hours of wom- Rainey, Gertrude Ma (18861939)
ens programming, including lesbian programming, African American blues, jazz, and vaudeville singer
for International Womens Day, March 8. and songwriter. As a girl, Gertrude Pridgett sang
Some radio communities created wry and funny in cabaret and minstrel shows. In 1904, she mar-
soap operas that challenged stereotypes about ried Will Pa Rainey, with whom she formed the
women and lesbians, such as The Liberation of Rabbit Foot Minstrels and sang the blues in tent
Lydia (ca. 1970), WYBC-FM, New Haven, Con- shows throughout the South. She separated from
necticut; The Well of Horniness (1980), WBAI-FM, Pa Rainey in 1917 and continued touring the South
New York City; and As the Rumors Fly (1980), with her own group, Ma Rainey and Her Georgia
WZRDFM, Chicago, Illinois. Smart Set. She made her first recording in 1923
One early lesbian radio program was The Les- with Paramount, and by 1929 she had recorded
bian Radio Spectacular with a Cast of Millions ninety-two songs, at least one-third of which she
(19761977), WBAI-FM, New York City. Producer wrote herself. Named the Mother of the Blues,
and writer Judith Pasternak recalled: Ma Rainey had her musical roots in the from coun-
try blues style typical of the rural South. She was a
It was my intent to say the L word as of- sensational and powerful stage presence, and her
ten, as loudly and publicly as possible in or- highly visceral renditions of the blues were often
der to forcibly insert [it] into a culture that described as cathartic: Her live performances mes-
is so profoundly misogynist, and in which merized her audiences with an unprecedented depth
loving women is not perceived as a choice, and richness barely matched by other classic
the underlying notion that one can actually blues singers of her time.
choose to love a woman. Raineys songs express themes of poverty, heart-
break, humor, cynicism, endurance, violence, prison,
Each show opened with a taped collage of women and sexuality, among others. Her sexual preference
identifying themselves by their work and their for women was well known both on and off stage.

R A I N E Y, G E R T R U D E M A 637
 In her Prove It on Me Blues (1928)her most imagination of Franois Mairobert, author of The
R famous expression of lesbian sexuality, cross-dress-
ing, and assertivenessshe declares: Went out last
English Spy (17771778). Raucourt made her de-
but at the Comdie Franaise in 1772 in the role
night with a crowd of my friends/ They mustve been of Dido. Her beauty, gifts, voice, and intelligent
women, cause I dont like no men. Nearly fifty reading of the role assured her the success that
years later, Teresa Trull recovered this song on Les- would follow her throughout her career in the
bian Concentrate: A Lesbianthology of Songs and theater. However, if Raucourt, the actress, charmed
Poems (Olivia Records, 1977). Sexual candor and Paris, Raucourt, the lover, soon made the news
lesbianism are also apparent in Raineys Shave Em just as frequently for acting like a grand lord as for
Dry Blues (1924), which suggests that some pros- her relationships with the singer Sophie Arnould,
titutes may be lesbians. Raineys biographer, Sandra Mademoiselle Virginie, Jeanne Souque, and Mad-
Lieb, writes that Rainey and blues singer Bessie Smith ame de Mailly. While her status as an actress who
(1894?1937) were close friends and occasionally had been excommunicated by the Catholic Church
performed together. Sam Chatmon, a guitarist in gave her a freedom that the great ladies of the aris-
Raineys tent show in Jackson, Mississippi, stated tocracy might have envied, her taste for ostenta-
in a 1975 interview with Lieb his belief that Rainey tion and her generosity toward her lovers led her
and Smith were lovers. quickly into bankruptcy and forced her to flee to
Lieb (1981) describes Ma Raineys contralto Germany in 1776 to escape her creditors. She re-
voice on recordings as heavy, rough, without vibrato, turned secretly to France, several months later, and
and enormously energetic. Her slurred diction, Geor- eventually took refuge with the Prince de Ligne.
gia accent, characteristic moan, and jug-band ac- Thanks to her many powerful supporters, includ-
companiments marked her musical style as distinctly ing Queen Marie Antoinette (17551793), who
Southern and set her apart from New York-based paid her debts, she rejoined the Comdie Franaise
blues queens such as Bessie Smith, Mamie Smith in 1779 in the service first of the Queen and in
(18831946), Lucille Hegamin (18941970), and starring roles.
Edith Wilson (18961981). Martha Mockus Termed an insolent sultaness by the Journal
of Public Safety, Franoise Raucourt lived through
Bibliography the French Revolution with the same panache she
Davis, Angela Y. I Used To Be Your Sweet Mama: showed during the Ancien Rgime. Although she
Ideology, Sexuality, and Domesticity in the Blues was imprisoned in August 1793 with the other
of Gertrude Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. In actors of the Comdie Franaise for having acted
Sexy Bodies: The Strange Carnalities of Femi- in a royalist play (and perhaps for her ties to the
nism. Ed. Elizabeth Grosz and Elspeth Probyn. counterrevolutionary movement), she was saved by
New York: Routledge, 1995, pp. 231265. the coup dtat of 9 Thermidor. Unlike Madame
Lieb, Sandra R. Mother of the Blues: A Study of de Lamballe (17491792), who was mutilated and
Ma Rainey. Boston: University of Massachusetts assassinated in September 1792 for her excessive
Press, 1981. friendship with the queen, Raucourt was not har-
assed for her sexual mores. During the Directory
See also African Americans; Blues Singers; Harlem; (the revolutionary government in France, 1795
Harlem Renaissance; Smith, Bessie 1799), she was named director of the Thtre
Louvois and later, in 1803, of the French Theaters
in Italy. She did not retire from the stage until 1814,
Raucourt, Franoise (17561815) after having created twenty-four roles in forty years.
French actress. Born in Paris, March 3, 1756, She died the next year in Paris, where she was so
Franoise Raucourt was among the first French well loved that the Parisians made the priest of
women who dared to live her love of women openly, Saint-Roch say a Mass for her burial (despite the
without choosing to hide behind a marriage or an excommunication) before they accompanied her to
impeccable reputation. She loved her freedom so the Pre Lachaise cemetery. Marie-Jo Bonnet
much that, in their correspondence, her contem-
poraries called her the priestess of Lesbos. Some Bibliography
even went so far as to install her as president of the Blanc, Olivier. Les Libertines: Plaisir et libert au
Secte Anadryne, a group that existed only in the temps des Lumires (The Libertines: Pleasure

638 R A I N E Y, G E R T R U D E M A
 and Freedom in the Enlightenment). Paris: History
Perrin, 1997. Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in 1935 by Bob
Bonnet, Marie-Jo. Un choix sans quivoque (An Smith and Bill Wilson. AA emerged from an organi-
Unequivocal Choice). Paris: Denol, 1981. Re- zation called the Oxford Group, a Christian revival
vised and reprinted as Les relations amoureuses movement, originally called the First Century Chris-
entre les femmes du XVIe au XXe sicle (Lov- tian Fellowship. The central insight of AA is that
ing Relations Between Women from the Elev- one alcoholic talking to another is a vital source of
enth to the Twentieth Century). Paris: Odile strength and healing. AA relies heavily on the medi-
Jacob, 1995. cal concept of alcoholism as a chronic and progres-
Merrick, Jeffrey. The Marquis de Vilette and sive disease; its members believe that if one admits
Mademoiselle Raucourt: Representations of powerlessness over such a disease, that is the first
Male and Female Sexual Deviance in the Late step to recovery. AA groups are based on a twelvestep
Eighteenth Century. In Homosexuality in program that is reported to have had tremendous
Modern France. Ed. Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant success in addressing issues of alcoholism. The de-
T.Ragan. New York: Oxford University Press, gree of this success is a source of controversy, how-
ever. Among the many positive aspects of AA are its
1996, pp. 3053.
grass-roots organization, the widespread availabil-
ity of groups, the support offered in the groups, and
See also France; Marie Antoinette
the fact that it is basically a free program. Many of
the critiques of AA have focused on its origins as a
Christian group, on whether it is as successful as it
Recovery Movement
claims, and on whether AAs belief that alcoholics
Term, believed to have first emerged from the
can never drink again is an accurate assessment.
therapy community in Minnesota in the 1970s, that
Lesbians, some social scientists argue, have his-
encompasses a variety of groups of individuals who
torically been at tremendous risk for alcoholism.
either identify themselves as addicted to substances First, because of the degree to which lesbian social
or behaviors or are connected to those who are life revolved around bars and bar culture, lesbians
addicted. The movement peaked in the late 1980s. are believed to be at heightened risk of alcohol
Despite the fact that, becuase of the anonymity of abuse. Several studies of lesbians and alcoholism
membership, there is no definitive estimate of the conducted in the 1970s, with samples drawn from
number of people who were active in the move- different geographical locations, estimated that 35
ment or of those that are still active, the recovery percent of all lesbians had a serious problem with
movement achieved widespread popularity in both alcohol (Sandmaier, 1980). Second, as members of
the lesbian community and the larger society. an oppressed and stigmatized group, many lesbi-
ans have used alcohol and drugs to dull the pain of
Characteristics social ostracism. For many lesbians, AA has liter-
The critical part of the recovery movement is the ally saved their lives.
way it expanded the concept of addiction from In the 1970s, a number of therapists began to
addiction to a habituating substance, such as drugs expand the concept of addiction beyond the ha-
or alcohol, to characterizing a variety of behaviors bitual abuse of alcohol or other drugs to charac-
as addictive. These include loving someone who is terize a variety of behaviors as addictive, resulting
addicted (codependency); shopping too much in later, influential books such as Beatties (1987)
(shopping addiction); using too much makeup and Schaefs (1987). These addictions, they argued,
(makeup addiction); and, perhaps most ominously represented progressive diseases that could be fa-
for feminists, addiction to pornography and sexual tal if not treated appropriately. The treatment of
abuse (sex addiction). these addictions still relied on the twelve-step model
A variety of support and self-help groups were created by AA; however, many of the groups were
(and continued in the 1990s to be) formed, most now led by therapists who charged fees for work-
based on the twelve-step model created by Alco- ing with those now defined as addicts.
holics Anonymous (AA) to encourage people to
treat their addiction by embracing the AA concept Contemporary Controversies
of recovery. As a result, no one is ever cured of Many lesbians, such as McDaniel (1989), have
an addiction; rather, one is always in recovery. written eloquent testimonies to the efficacy of the

R E C O V E RY M O V E M E N T 639
 recovery movement. The central argument of those tiques. Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
R who defend the movement is that addiction, in any
of its forms, has been the primary stumbling block
1995.
Beattie, Melody. Codependent No More. New
for many women in terms of not only achieving York: Harper/Hazelden, 1987.
selfactualization, but also of being more effective McDaniel, Judith. Metamorphosis: Reflections on
political activists. Recovery. Ithaca, N.Y.: Firebrand, 1989.
Critics of these movements, such as Peele (1989), Peele, Stanton. Diseasing of America: Addiction
Bette Tallen, and the authors in Challenging Treatment Out of Control. Lexington, Mass.:
Codependency: Feminist Critiques (Babcock and D.C.Heath, 1989.
McKay 1995), have argued that calling behaviors Robertson, Nan. Getting Better: Inside Alcoholics
such as excessive consumption of food; overdepend- Anonymous. New York: William Morrow,
ence on sex, love, or relationships; and codependency 1988.
addictive disease misses the point that many of these Sandmaier, Marian. The Invisible Alcoholics:
behaviors are individual responses to oppression. Women and Alcohol Abuse in America. New
Codependency and sex addiction are concepts York: McGraw Hill, 1980.
that are particularly troubling to such critics. Schaef, Anne Wilson. When Society Becomes an
Codependency (defined as being in a relationship Addict. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987.
with an addict or being raised in a dysfunctional
family) encompasses such a wide variety of See also Alcohol and Substance Abuse; Self-Help
behaviors that many of its proponents allege that
it affects 96 percent of the population. Feminist
critiques of codependency object to this Recreation
pathologizing of family life. They believe that this Activities participated in primarily for their entertain-
characterization misses the point that the family is ment value. During the twentieth century, when rec-
a focal nexus of institutional racism, sexism, reational opportunities for women in the United States
classism, and heterosexism. By stating that being began expanding beyond the confines of home, the
raised in a dysfunctional family qualifies one for community-related and communitybuilding activities
treatment, it betrays the feminist goals of the radi- of lesbians varied, depending on the general economic
cal transformation of the nuclear family. and political climate of the time. During more con-
Sex addicts, most of whom are male, are de- servative eras in U.S. history, lesbian recreation tended
fined in the recovery movement as those with an to be more discrete and clandestine, while more lib-
addiction to pornography and sexual abuse. This eral climates fostered open socializing. In general,
terminology is particularly troubling to critics who though, lesbian recreational opportunities burgeoned
believe that terming such behaviors a manifesta- since the Stonewall Rebellion (1969), particularly in
tion of a disease allows males to evade responsibil- major metropolitan areas.
ity for such acts as rape and child abuse.
Those who defend treatment for Codependency Bars, Private Clubs, and Social Groups
and sex addiction point out that, without these pro- As early as the 1920s, there were bars in large cit-
grams, many would continue behaviors that are de- ies nationally that catered to a gay and lesbian cli-
structive to themselves and others. Without the avail- entele. In most cities, the women frequenting such
ability of programs that destigmatize the behavior, establishments were young working-class lesbians,
they argue, many would not seek treatment. although many bars in Harlem in New York City
While the recovery movement appeared to lose also attracted members of a sophisticated, wealthy
some of its popularity in the 1990s, the debate will crowd, some merely experimenting with sexuality
continue in feminist and lesbian circles about but also women whose primary attraction was to
whether the movement is a progressive one that women. Though the poor economic conditions
saves womens lives or whether it represents a during the 1930s Depression years reduced oppor-
depoliticization of feminism. Bette S.Tallen tunities of all kinds for women, bars remained a
recreational option in many cities. And during the
Bibliography 1940s, when large numbers of women identifying
Babcock, Marguerite, and Christine McKay, eds. themselves as lesbians migrated to large urban ar-
Challenging Codependency: Feminist Cri- eas, it became possible for a number of bars

640 R E C O V E RY M O V E M E N T
catering exclusively to lesbians to survive economi- volleyball, basketball, flag football, and darts, and
cally. While bars did not necessarily engender po- many lesbians in the area were involved in sports
litical consciousness, they did provide an impor- sponsored by various other organizations, includ-
tant sense of community to women, making them ing rugby, golf, soccer, karate, racquetball, bicy-
feel less isolated in their love for women. The re- cling, running, and swimming.
pressiveness of the 1950s, due to the anti homo- Many lesbiansathletes and not, alikeenjoyed
sexual inquiries of the United States House Un- watching sports, both womens and mens, profes-
American Activities Committee, necessitated that sional and amateur. Parties and excursions were of-
visits to bars be clandestine, but, for many, espe- ten organized around sporting events. Womens pro-
cially young workingclass women who could not fessional teams (baseball, softball, volleyball, and
receive friends at their families homes, bars were basketball) shied away from courting a lesbian audi-
one of the few options for socializing as lesbians. ence but, although historically shortlived, enjoyed a
In the 1970s and 1980s, gay and lesbian and ex- substantial lesbian audience nonetheless. Professional
clusively lesbian bars flourished in cities. While golf and tennis operated in a similar homophobic
particular bars might come and go, the bar as a vein until tennis great Martina Navratilova (1956)
lesbian institution remained a perennial recrea- brought lesbian sexuality into the open on the tennis
tional option. circuit. Any event featuring Navratilova always drew
Although social mores changed enough from a crowd of lesbians, and, since her coming out, she
the nineteenth to the twentieth century to make it has had a faithful following among lesbians, includ-
more acceptable for working-class women to fre- ing some who had never before followed tennis. Golf
quent saloons, the message many women still got has also been known for having a substantial lesbian
was that nice girls did not go to bars. These women, following, especially seen at the Dinah Shore Ladies
many of whom were middle class, often relied on Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tournament.
private clubs and social groupssuch as the New Although two professional women golfers came out
York City-based Nucleus Club of the late 1930s in the mid- to late-1990s (Muffin Spencer-Devlin and
and the Daughters of Bilitis in the 1950s (which Patty Sheehan), they did not inspire the same level of
soon turned from social to political in nature) idolatry that Navratilova did.
which typically offered meetings and dances as The Gay Games, a multisport festival held every
social opportunities. Although taboos against fre- four years since 1982, counted more than seven
quenting bars all but vanished by the 1980s and thousand participants at the Games in Vancouver
1990s, many lesbians found social groups to be in 1990, about half of whom were women.
more congenial, and such groups abounded, with Lesbians were also involved in the gay rodeo
organizations based on ethnic and religious affili- circuit (twenty-two such rodeos existed in the
ations and on a variety of interests, such as square 1990s across the United States), both as spectators
dancing, choral singing, fishing, and motorcycling. and participants. Participants competed against
other women in everything from bull riding to calf
Athletics roping and barrel racing.
Sports make up another enduring recreational pas-
time among lesbians. Historically, softball was an Festivals, Concerts, and
important community-building activity, for both Other Cultural Events
players and spectators, probably since the advent Womens music and literature, which proliferated
of womens industrial softball teams in the 1930s in the 1970s, became the cornerstones of a large
and certainly since the 1940s and 1950s. While entertainment industry geared toward lesbians. Les-
softball continued to be, in the 1980s and 1990s, bians could, in the 1990s, choose from nearly a
one of the most popular forms of athletic recrea- dozen national and regional music and culture fes-
tionespecially in rural areas, where other options tivals, and many major cities have had production
tend to be limitedlesbians participated in a vari- companies that staged music and comedy concerts
ety of sports, both on mixed gay and straight teams locally for lesbians, although such events waned
and on lesbian-only teams and in individual sports. somewhat following the advent of mainstream
The Metropolitan Sports Association of Chicago, lesbian performers, such as Melissa Etheridge
for instance, in 1996 offered its all-gay member- (1961) and k.d. lang (1961), in the 1980s.
ship not only softball, but also bowling, tennis, Bookstores and womens coffeehouses offered

R E C R E AT I O N 641
 readings, performances, and discussion venues to Niemi, Judith. Lesbians, Lightning, and Bears.
R their clientele. And Gay Pride events provide sea-
sonal entertainment for lesbians, often featuring a
In Lesbian Scouts: On My Honor. Ed. Nancy
Manahan. Boston: Madwoman, 1997.
weeklong menu of parades, dances, and rallies. Zipter, Yvonne. Diamonds Are a Dykes Best
Friend: Reflections, Reminiscences, and Reports
Travel/Outdoor Activities from the Field on the Lesbian National Pastime.
Since the late 1970s, lesbians have participated in Ithaca, N.Y.: Firebrand, 1988.
a broad spectrum of activities emphasizing some
combination of nature and mobility. The more rug- See also Bars; Choruses, Womens; Gay Games; Girl
ged enjoyed wilderness excursions, ranging from Scouts; lang, k.d. (Kathryn Dawn); Marches and
canoeing, backpacking, and mountain climbing to Parades; Music Festivals; Navratilova, Martina;
rafting, kayaking, and dogsledding. There were Olivia; Sports, Professional
numerous womens wilderness-excursion organi-
zations around the country in the 1990s, attesting
to the popularity of this pastime. A precursor of Relationship Violence
such female-oriented outings was camp counseling, Violence, abuse, and/or battering in lesbian relation-
which dates back to the 1930s as a recreational ships are defined as patterns of behavior whereby a
opportunity for women, especially lesbians. lesbian seeks to control the thoughts, beliefs, or con-
Equally adventurous, but perhaps less hardy, les- duct of her intimate partner or to punish her part-
bians could satisfy their wanderlust and recreational ner for resisting this control. Results of studies indi-
needs by participating in such activities as RVing cate that physical violence in same-sex relationships
(traveling in recreational vehicles) and women-only occurs at approximately the same rate as in hetero-
ocean cruises. While RVers traveled predominantly sexual relationships, and it is clear that the explora-
as couples, they found community not only by tion of violence in same-sex relationships requires
chance meetings on the road, but also through news- an examination that reflects the prevalence of these
letters and Internet chat groups. In addition, enthu- issues while encompassing the uniqueness of same-
siasts gathered at regional RV rallies to share tips sex domestic violence (Renzetti and Miley, 1996).
and experiences. Even more luxurious were the Without taking sexual orientation into considera-
ocean-liner cruises sponsored by Olivia Records and tion, generalized conclusions could easily be reached
Cruises since 1990. These cruises, which drew their regarding the misuse and abuse of power and con-
patrons from all economic and racial groups, have trol within all intimate relationships. Despite these
been described as floating festivals. [The author similarities, however, it is critical that, in the proc-
wishes to thank Linda Dederman, John Jacoby, Anne ess of understanding the causes and dimensions of
Mania, Judith Niemi, and Don Nowotny for help violent and coercive behaviors within the specific
in preparing this article.] context of lesbian relationships, the important dif-
Yvonne Zipter ferences be established. The roles of perpetrator and
victim in female-to-female intimate violence cannot
Bibliography be defined by gender, and it has been suggested in
Armstrong, Toni, Jr. Olivia Turns Twenty: Anni- the literature that lesbian women report physically
versary Weekend. Hot Wire: The Journal of fighting back more often than women who are bat-
Womens Music and Culture 10 (January 1994), tered by men. The understanding of this and other
2426, 4647, 62. unique characteristics can contribute directly to the
Franzen, Trisha. Differences and Identities: Femi- quality of assessment and the effectiveness of inter-
nism and the Albuquerque Lesbian Commu- vention.
nity. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Late-twentieth-century trends in understanding
Society 18 (1993), 891906. and addressing the issue of lesbian relationship vio-
Lurie, Rachel. Martina and Me: A Trilogy. In lence in the United States are directly related to the
SportsDykes. Ed. Susan Fox Rogers. New York: discussion of the historical social response to vio-
St. Martins, 1994, pp. 120129. lence against all women. Domestic violence grass-
Murphy, Marilyn. Are You Girls Traveling Alone? roots activism and community organizing in urban
Adventures in Lesbianic Logic. Los Angeles: areas during the mid-1970s were influenced by the
Clothespin Fever, 1991, pp. 2133. civil rights and the womens movements and the

642 R E C R E AT I O N
corresponding cultural shifts that allowed for pre- into consideration that the two most common char-
viously taboo personal disclosure of physical and acteristics of a lesbian who is abusive are her need
sexual victimization. The creation of domestic-vio- to know and control her partners activities and her
lence shelters and safe homes was a grass-roots ef- own previous history of being abused. In addition,
fort by feminist-identified women (many of whom the pervasive problem of jealousy in lesbian rela-
were lesbian) to provide support for battered women tionships is due, in part, to the fragile nature of ho-
(initially identified only as heterosexual). mosexual relationships (Renzetti 1992). The absence
The first national hearing to address violence of legal ties and positive social support also con-
in the lives of women was sponsored by the United tributes to feelings of isolation and fear of aban-
States Commission on Civil Rights and held in donment, which are related to increased levels of
Washington, D.C., in 1978. The testimonies of dependency and jealously, which often leads to vari-
battered women that were heard at that meeting ous forms of violence between intimates.
resulted in the formation of what would become It is understandable that, without available in-
the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence tervention and support services, lesbian women who
(NCADV). Institutionalized homophobia, com- are victimized by their partners have historically not
bined with concerns about loss of potential sup- defined the behavior as violence. Their minimiza-
port and the need for credibility as an organiza- tion of the violence and their reluctance to disclose
tion, resulted in a significant NCADV decision to their experience may also have been based on their
focus its efforts on heterosexual violence. The is- need to protect not only the reputation of their part-
sue of lesbian relationship violence was virtually ner, but also the lesbian community in which they
tabled until a 1982 meeting, when formerly bat- live. Many communities within the United States
tered lesbians within NCADV organized and de- have begun to address the need to provide a wide
manded that the caucus address lesbian battering range of services to lesbian victims/survivors. It is
as a priority. Dialogue began to address homopho- anticipated that, as awareness levels of the problem
bia within the movement, and the Lesbian Task increase and as services specific to the needs of les-
Force assumed a lead role in the 1986 NCADV bian victims/survivors continue to be provided, les-
publication of Naming the Violence: Speaking Out bian communities will also be successful in begin-
About Lesbian Battery, an anthology of lesbian ning to face the challenges of responding to the needs
stories of relationship violence accompanied by of the lesbian perpetrator of violencewho histori-
articles describing communityorganizing strategies. cally has either not been held accountable for, or
Due to the limitations of nonrandom and been shunned and ostracized as a result of, her abu-
selfselected samples, it is difficult to measure accu- sive behaviors. Irene Anderson
rately the prevalence of violence in lesbian relation-
ships. However, as indicated by Renzetti (1992), Bibliography
research studies since the mid-1980s have clearly Holiman, Marjorie. From Violence Towards Love:
demonstrated the existence of physical, emotional, One Therapists Journey. New York: Norton,
and sexual abuse in lesbian relationships. These more 1997.
recent research perspectives have identified stressors Lobel, Kerry, ed., for the National Coalition
specific to lesbian relationships (which generally exist Against Domestic Violence Lesbian Task Force.
within the context of homophobic and heterosexist Naming the Violence: Speaking Out About Les-
environments) that contribute to major conflict and bian Battering. Seattle: Seal, 1986.
potential for violence. In addition to considering McDaniel, Judith. The Lesbian Couples Guide:
factors such as the complex association between the Finding the Right Woman and Creating a Life
use of alcohol (and other drugs) and relationship Together. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.
violence and intergenerational violence, specific Renzetti, Claire M. Violent Betrayal: Partner Abuse
stressors have been identified as variables contrib- in Lesbian Relationships. Newbury Park, Calif.:
uting to abuse in lesbian relationships. Renzetti Sage, 1992.
(1992) conducted a nationwide study of violence in Renzetti, Claire M., and Charles Harvey Miley, eds.
lesbian relationships, and has identified three pri- Violence in Gay and Lesbian Domestic Part-
mary indicators of abuse including dependency (ver- nerships. New York: Harrington Park, 1996.
sus autonomy), jealousy, and the balance of power
between partners. It is especially important to take See also Couples

R E L AT I O N S H I P V I O L E N C E 643
 Religious Communities for their poetry and other writings. By the seven-
R Institutions that have historically constituted a ref-
uge from compulsory heterosexuality by offering
teenth century, it became harder for women in re-
ligious communities to pursue intellectual interests
women the possibility of communal living in con- because the Reformation had put severe restrictions
vents, bguinages (female religious communities on womens active participation in religious debate;
with looser ties to the institutional church than still, these communities remained spaces where a
convents), or sisterhoods of a religious order. Con- small degree of leisure and opportunity could be
vents and bguinages are Catholic communities, found for writing. Some extant manuscripts of
whereas sisterhoods are Protestant ones. seventeenthcentury women religious from England,
Women in religious communities take vows of the Low Countries, and Latin America prove that
poverty, chastity, and obedience. In both cloistered reading and writing were regular activities for them
and working orders, they lead lives of prayer and and, as in the case of Mexican nun Sor Juana Ins
work that combine personal spirituality with prac- de la Cruz (16481695), strongly influenced some
tical communal endeavors. Members of cloistered in their decisions to join communities.
orders are confined to their convents; members of Until the twentieth century, religious communi-
working orders have more social impact and greater ties allowed women the possibility of attaining in-
visibility. dependence from men and supplied a venue for tal-
Because religious communities have typically pro- ents that they would otherwise have been unable to
vided women with an alternative to marriage and pursue for lack of a socially acceptable outlet. Work-
motherhood while simultaneously fostering their ing in hospitals, schools, and in communalproperty
advancement in a separate female space, they have administration, women continued to have access to
inevitably aroused patriarchal anxieties. Given that areas of public life that had begun to be denied to
religious communities ultimately abide by decisions them around the seventeenth century with the
made by the Church, however, their freedom from professionalization, and, thus, masculinization, of
male intervention could only be described as relative. many of the very tasks that had previously been
theirs. As such, and to a relative degree, religious
History communities have historically been sites of feminist
Central as religious vocation has been to the mem- resistance. However, they have also been seen as
bers of these communities, it was also to find pro- privileged spaces for controlling womenplaces
ductive occupations that women began forming where, because of the patriarchal structures of the
and joining them. A monastery of virgins and wid- Church, women have internalized and lived out
ows founded by Marcella, a widow who was a patriarchal notions of their role as relational.
friend of St. Jerome (ca. A.D. 347419/420), is
considered the first female religious community in Sexuality and Resistance to Patriarchy
the West. Only women who did not have occupa- Conspicuous exceptions were usually punished. Sor
tions or family duties were allowed to join it, and Juana Ins de la Cruz, for example, incurred the
their dedication was mainly to charitable works. anger of the Church fathers for writing love poetry
Subsequently, more religious communities were the most passionate of which she dedicated to the
formed, and, until the Council of Trent (1545 women to whom she was closest, the Vicereines
1563) imposed the rule of enclosure for nuns, most Leonor Carreto and Maria Luisa Manrique de Lara
of them focused on providing material and spir- y Gonzagaand for daring to get involved in theo-
itual comfort to the needy. logical argumentation. The public admonition and
Intellectual pursuits, though limited, were avail- implicit threat of persecution constituted by the 1690
able to the women in these early communities: The letter from the bishop of Puebla led to her silence.
high levels of literacy among Anglo-Saxon nuns In 1694, she signed in blood a declaration of faith,
suggest that convents were, from early on, places repenting and giving up secular studies. Another nun
where women had the opportunity to read and who was punished by the religious authorities was
write. From the Middle Ages until the Reforma- Benedetta Carlini (15901661), abbess of a convent
tion in the sixteenth century, nuns and bguines in Tuscany. The notoriety caused by her mystic ex-
often wrote their Lives as spiritual exercises. Some, periences was followed by accusations of lesbian-
like Hildegard of Bingen (10981179) and ism. These led to her imprisonement, which lasted
Hadewych (thirteenth century), were also famous for the last thirty-five years of her life.

644 RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES

 Public discourse on religious communities has For many, this struggle ended in open rebellion that
always betrayed their controversial nature and, more led to a radical break with institutionalized religion.
particularly, the fears of uncontrolled female sexu- In Rosemary Curb and Nancy Manahans Lesbian
ality they aroused. Indeed, alongside pleas such as Nuns: Breaking the Silence (1985), lesbian women
Mary Astells (16661731) A Serious Proposal to religious describe their experiences in the convent and
the Ladies (1692) in seventeenth-century England discuss the reasons for ultimately choosing to leave.
for the creation of religious communitieswhich Most found support in alternative lesbian communi-
she deemed essential to provide women with a dig- ties that keep a strongly religious and spiritual di-
nified alternative to marriagethere were literary mension while defining themselves in opposition to
depictions of convents as brothels and nuns as un- the institutional Church.
chaste. Jean Barrins (ca. 16401718) Venus in the While the number of women religious is still de-
Cloister (1683) represents sex as a common prac- creasing, and their struggle to attain a higher degree
tice in the convent and includes several scenes of of independence from male influence continues, their
lesbian sex. In the eighteenth century, Denis Diderots sphere of action has widened considerably since they
(17131784) La Religieuse (The Nun) condemned gained access to higher education. While the central
forced vocations and represented the convent as a drive of their lives remains spiritual, the scope of
place threatening to the social structure because it their participation in the social fabric is no longer
fomented lesbianism. Scores of literary works con- substantially different from other womens.
tinued to represent convents and sisterhoods in a Manuela Mourao
negative light, even as nineteenth-century English
feminists such as Dinah Mullock Craik (18261887) Bibliography
spoke of entering a sisterhood as potentially keep- Allchin, A.M. The Silent Rebellion: Anglican Reli-
ing women from the lunatic asylum. gious Communities, 18451900. London: Scm,
1958.
The Twentieth Century Bernstein, Marcelle. The Nuns. New York:
Twentieth-century developments in feminist thought, Lippincott, 1976.
together with changes in the Catholic Churchs atti- Borromeo, Sister M.Charles, ed. The New Nuns.
tude brought about by Vatican II (1965), have led New York: Signet, 1968.
to dramatic reevaluations of female religious com- Curb, Rosemary, and Nancy Manahan, eds. Les-
munities. During the 1960s and 1970s, the number bian Nuns: Breaking the Silence. Tallahassee,
of women leaving such communities was consider- Fla.: Naiad, 1985.
able. Members questioned their roles in both the McKenna, Sister Mary L. Women of the Church.
Church and society. When outspoken demands for New York: Kennedy, 1967.
change and equal representation in the Church hi- McNamara, Jo Ann Kay. Sisters in Arms: Catholic
erarchy fell on deaf ears, many chose to leave their Nuns Through Two Millennia. Cambridge,
communities. In the United States, the leaving could Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996.
only be described as a virtual exodus. Those who
left have become outspoken critics of the institu- See also Catholicism; Hildegard of Bingen, Saint;
tional Churchs sexism, while continuing to stress Juana Ins de la Cruz, Sor; Protestantism
that, at the core of womens religious communities,
is the desire for true sisterhood.
Among those who have written about their expe- Renault, Mary (19051983)
riences in the convent, lesbian ex-nuns have offered English/South African novelist. Mary Renault
an especially candid assessment of the difficulties of (pseud, of Eileen Mary Challans) was born in Lon-
reconciling their individuality as lesbians with the don and, at an early age, decided to become a writer.
demands of their position as members of institution- After her graduation from college, she entered
alized religious communities. Because the status of nurses training at Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford,
women religious had always been represented as ap- where she received her degree in 1937 and met her
pealingly exemplary, and because both unconditional lifelong companion, Julie Mullard. They were to-
obedience and celibacy were expected, many women gether fortyeight years until Renaults death in 1983.
had to struggle against internalized principles that Two of Renaults early fictional works deal with
kept them from accepting their own subjectivities. homoerotic friendships between women, Purposes

R E N A U LT, M A R Y 645
 of Love (1939) (published in the United States as
R Promise of Love, [1940]) and The Friendly Young
Ladies (1944) (published in the United States as The
Middle Mist, [1945]). However, it is The Charioteer
(1953) that finally focused explicitly and sympatheti-
cally on a young homosexuals coming of age. Renault
modeled the young mans struggle in straight soci-
ety on the chariot in Platos Phaedrus (ca. 360 B.C.E.
or later): one horse pulling the chariot toward heaven,
the other toward hell. Renaults self-taught knowl-
edge of ancient Greece led her to publish eight novels
between 1956 and 1981 that all revolve around Greek
heroes and philosophers, examining the conjunctions
of power, social conventions, and spiritual existence.
These novels feature principled characters who were
often homosexuals. Due to her attention to detail and
her ability to invoke atmosphere, classical scholars
became some of her biggest fans.
Renault immigrated in 1948 to South Africa,
where she lived the remainder of her life. There, while
continuing to write, she became active in politics, in
1956 joining the Womens Defence of the Constitu-
tion League, popularly known as the Black Sash for Adrienne Rich. Lynda Koolish.
the shoulder-band worn by its members as they pro-
tested the South African governments escalating white-skinned social Christian/neither gentile nor
apartheid system. Renaults failure to persuade the Jew, Adrienne Rich began writing poetry as a
Black Sash to fight legal restraints on homosexual- child. She entered Radcliffe College, and, upon
ity convinced her of liberal South Africas larger graduation in 1951, her volume of poetry titled A
moral failing. Renault also became involved in the Change of World was chosen for the Yale Younger
difficult and contentious politics of PEN Interna- Poets Award by W.H.Auden, who wrote in the fore-
tional (Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, Nov- word that her poems were neatly and modestly
elists) as the president of the Cape Town center. dressed, speak quietly but do not mumble, respect
Renault was generally a reluctant public politi- their elders. Accepting at first this role assigned
cal figure and conflicted, to some degree, about to her, Rich excelled poetically, but at mid-life she
her own lesbianism. Nonetheless, Renaults liter- began to break out of those boundaries: Locked
ary works brought homosexuals forward as admi- in the closet at four years old I beat the wall with
rable characters and gave them an acknowledged my body/that act is in me still (Tear Gas, 1969).
place in history. Linnea A.Stenson Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law (1963) con-
tained poems that were no longer nice, in forms
Bibliography that reflected Richs search for new visions. In this
Sweetman, David. Mary Renault: A Biography. volume, she proclaimed: A life I didnt choose/
New York: Harcourt, 1993. chose me. Finding the tools to create a life of her
Wolfe, Peter. Mary Renault. New York: Twayne, choice was a theme in several following volumes.
1969. With The Will To Change (1971) and Diving into
the Wreck (1973), Rich began the search for her
See also English Literature, Twentieth Century; own tools and her own language, a new way to
South Africa express a womans experience.
Richs first prose book, Of Woman Born: Moth-
erhood as Experience and Institution (1976), ex-
Rich, Adrienne (1929) plored her own experience as the mother of three sons
North American poet. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, against the backdrop of patriarchys definition of
Southern Jewsplit at the root, raised as a motherhood. As a mother, she wrote, I experienced

646 R E N A U LT, M A R Y
great internal violence; yet it was as a mother that I Hanna Senesh (19211944), abolitionist John
first became politicized. Recognition of, and re- Brown (18001859), and others, always striving to
sponses to, that violenceboth internal and exter- expand her own awareness and that of her readers.
nalhave been the subject or subtext of much of In 1973, Robert Boyers, an early reviewer of
Richs work, as in The Burning of Paper Instead of Adrienne Rich, observing her shift toward a spe-
Children (1968) and The Phenomenology of cifically feminist politic, accused her of the will
Anger (1972). Images of testing bombs in the desert to be contemporary, an unhappy influence on her
are juxtaposed with newly discovered tenderness in poetry, he thought, as she was neither a radical
her first explicitly lesbian poems, TwentyOne Love innovator nor the voice of an age. She is, in fact,
Poems in The Dream of a Common Language both. No other poets voice has spoken as clearly
(1978). Celebrating the beginning of her decades- and pointedly to the issues raised in this historical
long partnership with writer Michelle Cliff (1946 periodissues between women and men, issues of
), Rich wrote in those poems: I believe I am choos- privilege, of disempowerment, of the loss of a hu-
ing something new, and concluded the set with her mane perspective. She speaks exactly as the voice
own statement of self-definition: I choose to be a of a profound and compassionate intelligence ob-
figure in that light,/a woman. I choose to walk serving the world shifting around her. The epigraph
here. And to draw this circle. from William Carlos Williams (18831963), which
The publication of Compulsory Heterosexu- introduces and titles What Is Found There: Note-
ality and Lesbian Existence (1980)later col- books on Poetry and Politics (1993), describes her
lected in Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose work in the five decades she has been writing and
19791985 (1986)established Rich as one of the publishing poetry: It is difficult/to get the news
most visible lesbian feminist theorists. Written origi- from poems/ yet men die miserably every day/for
nally to encourage heterosexual feminists to ex- lack/of what is found there. Judith McDaniel
amine heterosexuality as a political institution
which disempowers women, Richs essay became Bibliography
a touchstone for some feminists, a lightning rod Cooper, Jane Roberta, ed. Reading Adrienne Rich:
for others, sparking debate on sex and sexuality Reviews and Revisions, 19511981. Ann Ar-
among feminists and lesbians, on pornography and bor: University of Michigan Press, 1984.
censorship, on sadomasochism, on coercion and Gelpi, Barbara Charlesworth, and Albert Gelpi,
compulsion, and other topics. eds. Adrienne Richs Poetry and Prose. New
Richs awareness of the privilege of being an edu- York: Norton, 1993.
cated white woman was undoubtedly enhanced by Keyes, Claire. The Aesthetics of Power: The Po-
her relationship with Michelle Cliff, but her empa- etry of Adrienne Rich. Athens: University of
thy for ordinary, as well as extraordinary, suffering Georgia Press, 1986.
was deepened over the years by the painful rheuma-
toid arthritis that progressively limited her physical See also Compulsory Heterosexuality; Lesbian
ability. Surgery for joint replacements on several Continuum
occasions helped her mobility but only temporarily.
In The Transit (in A Wild Patience Has Taken
Me This Far, [1981]), she wrote for the first time Rights
about one of the differences that separated her from Broad concept centering primarily on equal protec-
her younger sister, Cynthia, who walks, tion under the law. Until 1996, lesbians had no equal
freeswinging in worn boots. Privilege, whether protection under the law at the federal level. Then,
that of the able-bodied person or the woman with in Romer v. Evans, the United States Supreme Court
white skin, allows the possessor to be unaware held that an amendment to the state constitution of
that others cannot do simply or easily those things Colorado was unconstitutional. The amendment
that she takes for granted. In the two other volumes precluded all legislative, executive, or judicial ac-
Rich published during the 1980s, Your Native Land, tion at any level of state or local government de-
Your Life (1986) and Times Power (1989), she in- signed to protect the status of persons based on their
cluded Puerto Rican revolutionary and poet Julia homosexual, lesbian or bisexual orientation, con-
de Burgos (19141953), the sixteenth-century Az- duct, practices or relationships. Because the Colo-
tec woman La Malinche, Jewish freedom fighter rado amendment, Amendment 2, infringed on the

RIGHTS 647
 rights of gay, lesbian, and bisexual persons to par- children of the marriage needs to locate an attor-
R ticipate in the political process, the Court applied
the standard of strict scrutiny and held that the
ney experienced not only in domestic law, but also
in sexual-orientation law. Statewide legal organi-
amendment failed under the Equal Protection Clause zations can often make referrals to a qualified at-
of the Fourteenth Amendment. Although Romer is torney.
the most important judicial victory for gay, lesbian, Another highly significant area in most peoples
and bisexual people in the history of the United lives, employment, can be difficult for gay, lesbian,
States, the consequence of Romer is not to confer and bisexual people. If one lives in an employment-
equal protection per se, but only the ability to peti- at-will state, employment can be terminated by ei-
tion ones local or state government in an attempt ther party for any reason as long as federal and state
to gain equal protection. Each state may decide for employment discrimination legislation is not vio-
itself whether to grant equal protection to gay, les- lated. The major U.S. employment-protection act,
bian, and bisexual persons, and, if protection is not Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, applies
achievable on a statewide level, thanks to Romer it only to race, color, national origin, sex, and reli-
may be sought on a local level. Supreme Court Jus- gion. In addition, separate acts exist to protect those
tice Anthony Kennedys pronouncement, A State who are terminated or discriminated against based
cannot so deem a class of persons a stranger to its upon age or disability. Strikingly absent is sexual
laws, confers the ability only to petition ones gov- orientation. Not only may one be fired from ones
ernment for rights, not necessarily to achieve them. job, regardless of the quality of job performance,
However, in 1998, the Supreme Court refused to because one is a lesbian (or gay or bisexual), one
rule on a similar law passed in 1993 in Cincinnati, may also be fired because one is perceived to be les-
Ohio (Equality Foundation of Greater Cincinnati, bian regardless of the perception of the individual
Inc., et al. v. City of Cincinnati et al), thus implying herself. As such, a woman whom coworkers believe
that, while it is unconstitutional to deny a group to be a lesbian may be fired for being a lesbian even
the right to petition the government for rights when if she does not think of herself as a lesbian. In all
it is done on a state level, it is permissible on a mu- court cases, without exception, even when courts
nicipal level. By denying to hear the case, the Su- have stated that the discrimination is outrageous,
preme Court did not set precedent, but it did signal no discrimination has occurred, and the individual
that such local laws can be upheld. has no legal recourse unless she lives in one of the
In 1998, the only states that included sexual ori- minority of states in which, as of 1998, lesbians were
entation as a protected category for equal protec- covered by equal protection. Dorothy Painter
tion, were Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, Hawaii, California, New Jersey, Ver- Bibliography
mont, Minnesota, and New Hampshire. Equal pro- Robson, Ruthann. Lesbian (Out)Law: Survival
tection was passed in Maine in 1997, but in 1998 Under the Rule of Law. Ithaca, N.Y.: Firebrand,
opponents succeeded in overturning it through a 1992.
general referendum. In the remaining states, gay, les- Rubenstein, William, B., ed. Lesbians, Gay Men,
bian, and bisexual people do not enjoy equal pro- and the Law. New York: New Press, 1993.
tection and, hence, may be discriminated against in
employment, housing, public accommodations, in- See also Custody Litigation; Human Rights; Law
surance, custody, adoption, loans, and other areas and Legal Institutions; Privacy
in which discrimination could hinder ones enjoy-
ment of public amenities and private rights.
Although very few of the states still view gay, Romantic Friendship
lesbian, or bisexual identity as automatic grounds The Renaissance interest in Platonism encouraged a
to disqualify a parent from gaining custody of mi- revival of passionate friendships between men, re-
nor children, the majority of states consider sexual flected in works such as Michel de Montaignes
orientation as one of a number of factors that (15331592) On Friendship (15721576, 1578
should be taken into account when determining 1580), Baldassare Castigliones (14781529) The
the best interest of the child. Any gay, lesbian, Book of the Courtier (1528), William Painters (ca.
or bisexual person who wishes to seek a divorce 15401594) The Palace of Pleasure (1566), and
from a heterosexual marriage to gain custody of Thomas Lodges (ca. 15571625) Euphues Shadowe

648 RIGHTS
(1592). Literary examples of such relationships be- their gardens and to living generously and produc-
tween women are less numerous in the Renaissance, tively, too; they could share perfect intimacy in per-
but they may be found in work such as Lodges fect equality. The most complete fictional blueprint
Rosalynde (1590), and after, in the seventeenth cen- for conducting romantic friendship is Sarah Scotts
tury, in many of the poems by Katherine Philips A Description of Millennium Hall (1762), a novel
(16321664). It is in the eighteenth century that such that went through four editions by 1778.
relationships, which came to be called romantic Even the mention of such a relationship in the
friendships, became common. Romantic friendship title of a work must have promoted its saleswhich
between women was socially condoned, originally would explain why a 1770 novel that sees friend-
because it was not believed to violate the platonist ship between women as nothing more than an epis-
ideal and later for more complex reasons. But while tolary device was entitled Female Friendship. Women
it is true that love between women was in style, readers could identify with the female characters
womens experiences of that love were no less in- involvement with each other, since most of them had
tense or real for their social acceptability. experienced romantic friendship in their youth at
least. Mrs. Delanys (17001788) description of her
The Eighteenth Century own first love (in The Autobiography and Corre-
Such passion in the eighteenth century was not spondence of Mary Granville, Mrs. Delany [1861])
believed to seriously violate any code of behaviors, is typical of what numerous autobiographies, dia-
even when it was taken to such extremes that ries, letters, and novels of the period contained. As
women eloped with each other, as did the Ladies a young woman, she formed a passionate attach-
of LlangollenEleanor Butler (17391829) and ment to a clergymans daughter, whom she admired
Sarah Ponsonby (17551831)in 1778. One rela- for her uncommon geniusintrepid
tive observed: [Sarahs] conduct, though it has spiritextraordinary understanding, lively imagi-
an appearance of imprudence, is I am sure voide of nation, and humane disposition. They shared se-
serious impropriety. There were no gentlemen con- cret talk and whispers together; they wrote to
cerned, nor does it appear to be anything more each other every day and met in the field between
than a scheme of Romantic Friendship. their fathers houses at every opportunity. Typical
The English, during the second half of the eight- of many youthful romantic friendships, it did not
eenth century, prized sensibility, faithfulness, and last long (at the age of seventeen, Mrs. Delany was
devotion in a woman but forbade her significant given in marriage to an old man), but it provided
contact with the opposite sex before she was be- fuel for the imagination that idealized the possibili-
trothed. It was reasoned, apparently, that women ties of what such a relationship might be like with-
could practice these sentiments on each other so that, out the impingement of cold marital reality. Because
when they were ready for marriage, they would have of such girlhood intimacies (which often were cut
perfected themselves in those areas. It is doubtful off in an untimely manner), most women would have
that women viewed their own romantic friendships understood when those attachments were compared
in such a way, butif we can place any credence in with heterosexual love by the female characters in
eighteenth-century fiction as a true reflection of that eighteenth-century novels and were considered, as
societymen did. Because romantic friendship be- Lucy says in William Hayleys (17451820) The
tween women served mens selfinterest, in their view, Young Widow (1789), infinitely more valuable.
it was permitted and even socially encouraged. They would have had their own frame of reference
The novels of the period show how women per- when, in those novels, women adopted the David
ceived these relationships and what ideals they envi- and Jonathan story, about a same-sex love that sur-
sioned for love between women. Those ideals gener- passes the love of man for woman, for themselves
ally could not be realized in life because most women and swore that they felt for each other (again, as
did not have the wherewithal to be independent. In Lucy says) a love passing the Love of Men or
fiction, however, romantic friends (having achieved proclaimed, as does Anne Hughes, the author of
economic security as a part of the plot, which also Henry and Isabella (1788), that such friendships are
furnishes them with good reasons for not having a more sweet, interesting, and to complete all, last-
husband around) could retire together, away from ing, than any other which we can ever hope to pos-
the corruption of the man-ruled great world; they sess; and were a just account of anxiety and satis-
could devote their loves to cultivating themselves and faction to be made out, would, it is possible, in the

ROMANTIC FRIENDSHIP 649

 eye of rational estimation, far exceed the somuch to be. Samuel Richardson (16891761) permitted
R boasted pleasure of love. Miss Howe (in Clarissa [17471748]) to express
the yearnings of many a frustrated romantic friend
Romantic Friendship in the United States when she remarked to Clarissa: How charmingly
By the mid-eighteenth century, romantic friendship might you and I live together and despise them all.
was a recognized institution in America, too. In the
eyes of an observer such as Moreau de St. Mery, who The Nineteenth Century
had just recently left Revolutionary France for In America and England during the second half of
America and must have been familiar with the accu- the nineteenth century, as more women began to claim
sations of lesbianism lodged against Marie Antoinette more of the world, the reasons for bonding together
(17551793), the women of her court, and most of against men who wished to deny them a broader
the French actresses of the day, womens effusive dis- sphere became greater. Smith-Rosenberg (1975) has
play of affection for each other seemed sexual. St. amply demonstrated that deeply felt friendships be-
Mery, who recorded his observations of his 1793 tween women were casually accepted in American
1798 journey, was shocked by the unlimited lib- society, primarily because women saw themselves, and
erty that American young ladies seemed to enjoy were seen as, kindred spirits who inhabited a world
and by their ostensible lack of passion toward men. of interests and sensibilities alien to men. During the
The combination of their independence, heterosexual second half of the nineteenth century, when women
passionlessness, and intimacy with each other could slowly began to enter the world that men had built,
have meant only one thing to a Frenchman in the their ties to each other became even more important.
1790s: that they are not at all strangers to being Particularly when they engaged in reform and better-
willing to seek unnatural pleasures with persons of ment work, they were confirmed in their 7belief that
their own sex. It is as doubtful that great masses of women were spiritually superior to men, their moral
middle- and upper-class young ladies gave themselves perceptions were more highly developed, and their
up to homosexuality as it is that they gave themselves sensibilities were more refined. Thus, if they needed
up to heterosexual intercourse before marriage. But emotional understanding and support, they turned
the fiction of the period corroborates that St. Mery to other women. New England reform movements
saw American women behaving openly as though often were fueled by the sisterhood of kindred spirits
they were in love with each other. Charles Brockden who were righting a world men had wrong. In nine-
Browns Ormand (1798), for example, suggests that teenth-century America close bonds between women
American romantic friends were very much like their were essential both as an outlet for the individual
English counterparts. females sensibilities and as a crucial prop for wom-
ens work toward social and personal betterment in
The Female Island mans sullied and insensitive world.
Many of the fictional works about romantic friend- What was the nature of these same-sex bonds?
ship were written by women, and they provide a Margaret Fuller (18101850), an early feminist, saw
picture of female intimacy very different from the same-sex love as far superior to heterosexuality. She
usual depictions by men. The extreme masculine wrote in her journal in the 1840s: It is so true that
view, which is epitomized in Casanovas Memoirs a woman may be in love with a woman, and a man
(18261838), reduced female love to the genital, with a man. Such love, she says, is regulated by the
and, as such, it could be called trifling. But love same law that governs love between the sexes, only
between women, at least as it was lived in wom- it is purely intellectual and spiritual, unprofaned by
ens fantasies, was far more consuming than the any mixture of lower instincts, undisturbed by any
likes of Casanova could believe. need of consulting temporal interests.
Women dreamed not of erotic escapades but of William Alger, in The Friendships of Women
a blissful life together. In such a life, a woman would (1868), cites one historical example after another
have choices; she would be in command of her own of love between women. Typically, the women
destiny; she would be an adult relating to another wrote each other: I feel so deeply the happiness
adult in a way that a heterosexual relationship with of being loved by you, that you can never cease to
a virtual stranger (often an old, or at least a much love me; I need to know all your thoughts, to
older, man), arranged by a parent for considerations follow all your motions, and can find no other
totally divorced from affection, would not allow her occupation so sweet and so dear; My heart is so

650 ROMANTIC FRIENDSHIP

full of you, that, since we parted I have thought of childhood marked by the early deaths of her mother,
nothing but writing to you; I see in your soul as Anna Livingston Hall, and then her beloved alco-
if it were my own. holic father, Elliott Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt was
raised by her maternal grandmother within the con-
The Twentieth Century fines of a New York society whose rules she broke
In 1908, it was still possible for an American chil- to become the most important woman of the twen-
drens magazine to carry a story in which a teen- tieth century. In 1899, she enrolled in Ravenswood,
age girl writes a love poem in honor of her female a girls school outside London; over the next three
schoolmate. In the early twentieth century, popu- happy years, inspired by the affectionate com-
lar stories in magazines such as Ladies Home Jour- panionship of the magnetic, liberal headmistress,
nal and Harpers often treated the subject totally Marie Souvestre (d. 1905), Roosevelt flourished.
without self-consciousness or awareness that such Returning to New York City at eighteen, she began
relationships were unhealthy or immoral, even her lifelong commitment to social reform by inves-
for several years after French novelists and Ger- tigating working conditions in garment factories for
man sexologists started writing voluminously about the Consumers League and teaching calisthenics at
lesbianism and were published in America. a settlement house on the Lower East Side for the
America may have been slower than Europe to Junior League. On March 17, 1905, with President
be impressed by the taboos against same-sex love, Theodore Roosevelt (18581919) giving his niece
in part, because, by virtue of distance, America was away, she married Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882
not so influenced by the German medical establish- 1945), a distant cousin and her fathers godson.
ment as other countries were, such as France and During the next years, while raising five children,
Italy and, to a lesser extent, England. Moreover, there Roosevelt developed her acumen as a politicians wife,
was not so much clear hostility, or rather there was first in Albany, New York, and then in Washington,
more ambivalence, to womens freedom in a land D.C., where she coordinated the Union Station Can-
that, in principle, was dedicated to tolerance of in- teen and organized Red Cross activities. But after
dividual freedom. Therefore, romantic friendship 1918, betrayed by FDRs affair with Lucy Mercer
was possible in America well into the second dec- (1891?1948), long stifled by her possessive mother-
ade of the twentieth century and, for those women in-law, and later challenged by FDRs crippling po-
who were born and raised Victorians and remained lio, Roosevelt, politically and privately, forged her
impervious to the new attitudes, even beyond it. independence while maintaining a partnership with
Lillian Faderman FDR. In New York City, with Louis Howe as her
political adviser, Roosevelt assumed leadership in the
Bibliography Womens City Club, the League of Women Voters,
Alger, William Rounseville. The Friendships of the Womens Trade Union League, and the Womens
Women. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1868. Committee of the State Democratic Party working
Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men: with women such as Mary Dewson (18741962),
Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women Mary Dreier (18751963), and Rose Schneiderman
from the Renaissance to the Present. New York: (18841972). Supported by several intimate friend-
William Morrow, 1981. ships within this network of politically conscious
Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. The Female World of women, Roosevelt became, according to biographer
Love and Ritual: Relations Between Women in Cook (1992), a New Woman.
Nineteenth Century America. Signs: Journal In the early 1920s, lawyer Elizabeth Read
of Women in Culture and Society 1:1 (Autumn (18901983) and her life partner, Esther Lape
1975), 129. (18811981), became her close friends. As first
lady, Roosevelt often retreated to her rented apart-
See also Boston Marriage; Fuller, Margaret; Ladies ment in their Greenwich Village home. After 1925,
of Llangollen; Marie Antoinette; Philips, Katherine she established an independent home with the so-
cial feminists Marion Dickerman (1890?) and
Nancy Cook (18841962), her constant compan-
Roosevelt, Anna Eleanor (18841962) ions, at Stone Cottage, which they built at Val-Kill
American politician, author, teacher, business- in Hyde Park, New York. Their Val-Kill partner-
woman, social reformer, and U.N. diplomat. Her ship included the Womens Democratic News, the

R O O S E V E L T, A N N A E L E A N O R 651
 Val-Kill furniture factory, and the Todhunter School Hickok, Lorena A. Eleanor Roosevelt: Reluctant
R in New York City, where Roosevelt taught. Mean-
while, Earl Miller (n.d.), her Albany bodyguard,
First Lady. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1962.

also became a central figure in her life. See also Electoral Politics; Greenwich Village; Hu-
Upon FDRs election to the presidency in 1932, man Rights; Journalism; New Woman
Eleanor Roosevelt established a profound intimacy
with lesbian Lorena Hickok (18921968), a highly
regarded Associated Press reporter assigned to Routsong, Alma (19241996)
cover the woman she called the Reluctant First American novelist. Born November 26, 1924, in
Lady. Hick, as she was called, advised Roosevelt Traverse City, Michigan, Alma Routsong received
to hold women-only press conferences and encour- an honors B.A. in art from Michigan State Univer-
aged her to write the My Day newspaper col- sity in 1949. She interrupted studies begun in 1942
umns. Hickok had a bedroom in the White House. to serve two years in the United States Navy. Her
They took vacations together; when apart, they marriage to Bruce Brodie lasted fifteen years, and
wrote daily passionate, sensual letters. After the she published two novels, A Gradual Joy (1953)
relationship cooled, Roosevelt, for whom friend- and Round Shape (1959), in the 1950s.
ships were precious, arranged a home for Hick in Routsong is best known for her historical ro-
Hyde Park. mance Patience and Sarah, published under the
After FDRs death, Eleanor Roosevelt contin- pseudonym Isabel Miller. Inspired by the relation-
ued her humanitarian work from Val-Kill. Presi- ship between Mary Ann Wilson and Miss
dent Harry Truman (18841972) appointed her Brundidge, who lived in the 1820s in upstate New
delegate to the United Nations, where, as chair of York, the novel was completed in 1967 and pub-
the Human Rights Commission, she framed the lished as A Place for Us in 1969. Routsong financed
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). its onethousand-copy press run herself as a Bleecker
During the 1950s, she canvassed for world peace, Street imprint. She sold it on Greenwich Village
traveled extensively, campaigned for Democratic street corners and at meetings of the New York
presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson (1900 chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis. After the novel
1965), supported the creation of a Jewish state, received the American Library Associations first
and championed minority rights. A fighter for Gay Book Award in 1971, McGraw-Hill released
womens political independence, she accepted Presi- it in 1972 as Patience and Sarah.
dent John F.Kennedys appointment to the Com- The story of Patience White and Sarah Dowling,
mission on the Status of Women. Eleanor Roosevelt a cross-dressing farmer, may strike some readers
died of bone-marrow tuberculosis at the New York as overly idealized, but lesbian readers were quick
City home of David Gurewitsch (19021974), her to celebrate Routsongs portrayal of strong lesbian
friend and physician, and is buried next to FOR at characters in a positive love relationship. Main-
Hyde Park. stream readers, however, generally failed to recog-
In October 1996, her statue was unveiled in nize the lesbian-feminist encoding in the authors
New York Citys Riverside Park, and Stone Cot- pen name. By combining an anagram for lesbian
tage is now part of the Eleanor Roosevelt Center with her mothers birth name, Routsong created
at ValKill. The Eleanor Roosevelt papers are col- Isabel Miller, fictitious author of a novel that stands
lected in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, as a touchstone for affirmation of women loving-
Hyde Park, New York. Judith C.Kohl women.
For the Love of Good Women followed Patience
Bibliography and Sarah in 1986; Side by Side, in 1990. In Side
Cook, Blanche Wiesen. Eleanor Roosevelt, vol. 1 : by Side, Patience and Sarah are modernized and
18841933. New York: Viking Penguin, 1992. recast as Patricia and Sharon, artist and herbalist.
Faber, Doris. The Life of Lorena Hickok: E.R.s Partners in a loving relationship, they belong to a
Friend. New York: William Morrow, 1980. lesbian group called A Place for Us. Routsong origi-
Goodwin, Doris Kearns. No Ordinary Time: nally planned a novel-length sequel to Patience and
Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Sarah, but she condensed her material into a short
Front in World War II. New York: Simon and story titled A Dooryard Full of Flowers for a
Schuster, 1994. 1993 collection of stories by the same name.

652 R O O S E V E L T, A N N A E L E A N O R
 All of Routsongs fiction explores lesbianism in Rukeyser, in 1947. She raised the boy alone, and,
a white, middle-class milieu. If her cultural hori- in The Gates (1976), she wrote about how this
zons are limited, she sees beyond internalized influenced her development as an artist.
homophobia to love between women as mutually Rukeyser wrote three biographies, all portray-
supportive. ing the lives of independent thinkers like herself.
Alma Routsong died October 3, 1996, at her She was active in the anti-Vietnam War movement
home in upstate New York after a long illness. and also protested the threatened execution of
Sonya Jones South Korean poet Kim Chi-Ha by going to Seoul,
the South Korean capital, to seek his release. She
Bibliography helped establish the Exploratorium, an interactive
Breen, Margaret, and Elsa A.Bruguier. Miller, museum of science, in San Francisco.
Isabel. In The Gay and Lesbian Literary Her- Reaction to her poetry over the years has always
itage. Ed. Claude J.Summers. New York: Henry been mixed. Many critics attacked her political view-
Holt, 1995, p. 488. points, but feminist writers claimed Rukeyser as a
Katz, Jonathan. Interview: 19621972: Alma champion, both for her poetry and her political ac-
Routsong, Writing and Publishing Patience and tivism. Although she had relationships with women,
Sarah, I Felt I Had Found My People. In Gay like many other writers of her generation, she did
American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in not openly identify as a lesbian. However, her po-
the U.S.A.: A Documentary. Ed. Jonathan Katz. etry in The Speed of Darkness (1968) has elements
New York: Crowell, 1976, pp. 433443. New that are congruent with themes and images in overtly
York: Avon (paper), 1978, pp. 652665. lesbian poetry. Rukeyser accepted an invitation to
Soares, Manuella, and Sara Yager. Interview with speak at the Lesbians in Literature panel of the
Alma Routsong, January 20, 1990. Videotaped Modern Language Association in 1978 but could
for the Daughters of Bilitis Project, Lesbian not attend because of ill health. She served as a model
Herstory Archives, New York. for many lesbian writers, notably Adrienne Rich
(1929). Eloise Klein Healy
See also American Literature, Twentieth Century
Bibliography
Brinnin, John M. Muriel Rukeyser: The Social
Rukeyser, Muriel (19131980) Poet and the Problem of Communication.
U.S. poet, novelist, and essayist. Muriel Rukeyser Poetry, 61 (January 1943), 554575.
was born in New York, City, the daughter of Law- Daniels, Kate, and Richard Jones, eds. Poetry East
rence B.Rukeyser, a construction engineer, and 1617 (Spring/Summer 1985) (Special Double
Myra (Lyons) Rukeyser, a homemaker and book- Issue on Muriel Rukeyser).
keeper. Rukeysers parents had a stable and com- Kertesz, Louise. The Poetic Vision of Muriel Rukeyser.
fortable existence, but she identified more with the Foreword by Kenneth Rexroth. Baton Rouge:
life of her less fortunate playmates. Because of her Louisiana State University Press, 1980.
political ideas and class consciousness, she was fi- Terris, Virginia R. Muriel Rukeyser: A Retrospec-
nally disinherited by her father. tive. American Poetry Review 3 (May/June
Rukeyser was the literary editor of the leftist Stu- 1974), 1015.
dent Review at Yasser College. She covered the trial
of the Scottsboro Boys, nine African Americans who See also Poetry; Rich, Adrienne
were accused of raping a white woman. From that
point on, her work was marked by commitment to
social justice. Rukeyser was among the first to elu- Rule, Jane Vance (1931)
cidate the kinds of concerns now taken for granted Canadian writer. Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, Jane
in political poetry. Her first book, Theory of Flight Rule attended twenty-two schools as she grew up
(1935), won the Yale Younger Poets Award. throughout the United States. Observing contradic-
In 1945, she moved to San Francisco and taught tory customsboth serious (racial segregation) and
at the California Labor School. She married Glynn trivial (how to wear your socks)she concluded that
Collins, a painter, but the marriage was soon an- a communitys values may teach you how to sur-
nulled. She had one child, (William) Laurie vive but cannot teach what is right or true.

RULE, JANE VANCE 653

 When asked how she came out, Rule has
R answered that she was never in. All of her nov-
els (This Is not for You [1970]; Against the Season
[1971]; The Young in One Anothers Arms [1977];
Contract with the World [1980]; Memory Board
[1987]; After the Fire [1989]) incorporate lesbian
characters and themes, as do many of the short
stories she has had published in womens maga-
zines, such as Redbook, and lesbian journals, such
as The Ladder. She interrogates the meanings and
politics of sexuality, the relation between sexuality
and language, and the stakes of communities in
individual claims on identity.
Beginning in the 1970s, Rule wrote Sos Your
Grandmother, a column for the Body Politic, a
Toronto gay liberationist newspaper, in which she
engaged the defining issues of feminism and sexual
liberation. Rule is far from a single-minded apolo-
gist for a political movement. Anticipating resist-
ance to one of her novels, she wrote: I do under-
stand the appetite in the gay community for art which
Jane Rule. Photo by Tee A.Corinne. can celebrate, but too often that desire gets trans-
lated into a need for narrowly correct propaganda.
Rule has often crossed geographic and social Suffering from arthritis, Rule retired from writ-
borders. After graduating from Mills College in ing in 1989. Since then, her work has received in-
1952, she studied at the University of London, lived creasing attention. A documentary, Fiction and
with the first woman she loved, and wrote two Other Truths: A Film About Jane Rule, premiered
unpublishable novels. She then taught at Con- in Toronto in 1995. Academic critics are reconsid-
cord Academy in Massachusetts, where she met ering her work in the context of queer theory and
Helen Sonthoff. In 1956, increasingly disturbed by lesbian and gay studies. Marilyn R.Schuster
the homophobia and political hysteria of the
McCarthy era, Rule and Sonthoff moved to Van- Bibliography
couver, became Canadian citizens, and taught for Roof, Judith. A Lure of Knowledge: Lesbian Sexu-
twenty years at the University of British Columbia ality and Theory. New York: Columbia Univer-
before retiring to Galiano Island. sity Press, 1991.
In 1961, Rule completed Desert of the Heart. Schuster, Marilyn. Strategies for Survival: The
After more than twenty rejections, the novel was Subtle Subversion of Jane Rule. Feminist Stud-
finally published in 1964 by World Publishing ies 7:3 (1981), 431450.
Company in Cleveland, Ohio. Made into the film Zimmerman, Bonnie. The Safe Sea of Women:
Desert Hearts in 1985, the novel recounts the love Lesbian Fiction, 19691989. Boston: Beacon,
story of Evelyn, an English professor in Reno for a 1990.
divorce, and Ann, a cartoonist who works as a
change apron at a casino. The novel counters the See also Canada; Ladder, The
conventions of lesbian fictionheterosexual
marriage and/or death at the end, guilt and self-
loathing throughout. Rules fiction resonates with Ruling, Anna (dates unknown)
the great books of Western literature, questioning German feminist and author ca. 1900. Anna Rul-
or confirming ideas about meaning and literary ing was one of the first women in Germany who
form. Yet Rule has most often been ignored by publicly addressed the correlation between lesbian
professional critics even as she has been embraced identity and feminist politics and acknowledged
by readers who express bonds of recognition in being homosexual herself. Her 1904 speechWhat
countless letters. Interest Does the Womens Movement Have in the

654 RULE, JANE VANCE

Solution to the Homosexual Problem?was both Gttert, Margit. Zwischen Betroffenheit, Abscheu
influential and controversial. She gave that speech und Sympathie. Die alte Frauenbewegung und
in Berlin upon an invitation from the Scientific Hu- das heikle Thema Homosexualitt (Between
manitarian Committee, the largest homosexual or- Bewilderment, Aversion, and Sympathy: The
ganization in Germany, and in the presence of sev- Old Womens Movement and the Delicate Sub-
eral renowned womens movement activists. ject Homosexuality ). Ariadne: Almanac of the
Consistent with the theory of innate (natural) Archive of the German Womens Movement,
homosexuality that had been formulated ca. 1900, Kassel 29 (May 1996), 1421.
Ruling defined the homosexual woman as talented Kokula, Ilse. Weibliche Homosexualitat um 1900
like a man, energetic, goal oriented, and of clear in zeitgenssischen Dokumenten (Female Homo-
mind. Using eugenic arguments, which were also sexuality Around 1900 in Contemporary Docu-
used by feminist theorists at the time, she appealed ments). Munich: Womens Offensive, 1981.
to the womens movement to advocate the right of
female homosexuals to remain unmarried. In her See also Germany; Sexology
opinion, the strength of lesbian women lay in pro-
fessional life, such as medicine or the legal profes-
sion. They were also particularly qualified to take Russia
leading positions in the womens movement. Con- Also known as the Russian Federation and formerly
sidering the position of many lesbians in the front part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Rus-
ranks of the movement, most feminist organiza- sia is about 6.5 million square miles in area, with a
tions had taken scandalizingly little action to pub- population of more than 147.5 million. The capital
licly acknowledge lesbians and to grant the homo- is Moscow, which shares special administrative sta-
sexual question its due place in their own politics. tus with St. Petersburg. Although the official lan-
To broach the subject of ones own homosexu- guage is Russian, many other languages are spoken
ality and, in addition, to define lesbianism as a femi- throughout its republics. Major religions include
nist challenge, as Ruling did, clearly ran counter Christianity, of which the Orthodox Church is the
to the mainstream womens movement in Germany largest denomination, Islam, and Buddhism. Al-
at the turn of the twentieth century. Most femi- though there was a large Jewish population prior to
nists kept silent about their own desire, as well as 1917, which was depleted due to war and emigra-
about contemporary sexological definitions, at least tion, more than 650,000 Jews reside in Russia.
in public, and the reactions to Rlings speech, As a result of centuries of expansionism, by the
ranging from the radical Minna Cauer (1841 end of the nineteenth century the Russian Empire
1922) to the moderate Marie Stritt (18551928), comprised territories in eastern Europe and regions
were accordingly critical, reserved, or outraged. in northern and central Asia. After the 1917
Further details about Rlings biographical Boshevik Revolution, the Union of Soviet Socialist
background and her political involvement are not Republics (USSR) was formed in 1922. In the
known. In 1906, she published a volume with sev- 1990s, the old USSR broke up, and the Russian
eral short stories, titled Those of You Who Are Federation, or Russia, began a series of economic
Without Sin. Three of the narrations deal with and constitutional reforms and political reorgani-
lesbian happiness and anguish. Mysterious is zation. These have had varying degrees of success
about the suicide of a lesbian despairing of her fate; and, at times, have resulted in ideological and vio-
in Moonlight Sonata, the long-unspoken desire lent confrontations that have affected both politi-
between two women finally reaches fulfillment; and cal and social stability.
The Baggage Porter tells an adventurous story
with a happy ending for the young couple, the Homosexuality in the Russian Empire
understanding parents, and all like-minded women For most of the last three centuries, homosexuality,
friends. Hanna Hacker both male and female, was a punishable offense in
Russia. But, along with hideous oppression of sexual
Bibliography minorities, the country has seen brief periods of re-
Faderman, Lillian, and Brigitte Eriksson. Lesbians markable permissiveness in matters of sexuality.
in Germany: 1890s1920s. Tallahassee, Fla.: Some of the foreigners who visited Russia in
Naiad, 1990. the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries left memoirs

RUSSIA 655
 testifying to a liberal attitude toward sexual devi- lished in Russia in 1987, speak of love for Martha
R ance to which Europeans were not accustomed.
But, beginning in the eighteenth century, as Peter
Wilmont, an Englishwoman who lived with her in
Russia for five years.
the Great (16721721) strove to make his country After censorship in Russia was suspended fol-
a part of the cultural and legal space inhabited by lowing the uprising and reforms of 1905, several
Europeans, Russia acquired its first secular laws writers took the liberty of publishing work that dealt
banning homosexuality. A military statute intro- openly and often positively with same-sex love.
duced in 1706, modeled on Swedish law, prescribed Among the female writers were Lydia
burning at the stake for homosexual activity. The ZinovyevaAnnibal (18661907), whose best-known
code applied only to members of the military, so lesbianthemed work is the short novel Thirty-Three
the states attitude toward female homosexuals was Abominations (1907), and the novelist Yevdokia
not codified. Indeed, the status of lesbians appears Nagrodskaya. Sophia Parnok (18851933) not only
never to have been articulated in Russian or Soviet wrote poems about the love of women for one an-
law, although this has not protected them from other, but also made no secret of her own lesbian-
official persecution. ism. In the years 19141916, much of literary Mos-
A penal code based on a German model was cow was privy to the ups and downs of Parnoks
adopted in 1832. The offense of muzhelozhestvo relationship with Marina Tsvetaeva (18921941),
(the word contains the roots muzh, meaning one of the best-known Russian poets of the twenti-
male, and lozh, meaning bed or lying, so eth century. The lesbian-themed parts of Tsvetaevas
literally it could be translated as man lying with literary heritagea cycle of poems written in 1914
man, although it is usually translated as sod- 15 for Parnok, entitled Podruga (Girlfriend; also
omy) was punishable by exile to Siberia for a pe- translated as Woman Friend), and a 1933 essay in
riod of four to five years with the deprivation of the form of a letter to the American writer Natalie
all rights. A 1903 code changed the punishment to Barney (18761972), written in Frenchremained
incarceration for at least three months. unavailable to Russian readers and largely unknown
The prerevolutionary Russian parliament, the into the 1980s. In 1983, an American publisher of
Duma, deliberated a measure to repeal the sodomy Russian writing printed a book about Tsvetaeva and
law. But the law remained on the books until 1918, Parnoks relationship by Sophia Poliakova, a Len-
when the new Bolshevik government abolished all ingrad scholar who sacrificed her career to the pub-
the laws of the old empire, including the prohibi- lication of this work. Poliakova, who died in 1994,
tions of murder and rape. There is no evidence that was also instrumental in compiling and publishing,
this legal move caused or inspired the period of in the West, the first collection of poetry by Parnok,
relative sexual freedom that ensued. Sobranie Stikhotvorenii (1979), who had been vir-
tually forgotten in the Soviet Union. The collection
Cultural Activity was published in Russia in 1997.
The 1910s and early 1920s were a time of unprec- Members of the artistic and literary elites were
edented cultural activity in Russia. Dozens of writ- certainly not the only people in early-
ers, poets, actors, and other artists rose to promi- twentiethcentury Russia who explored the defini-
nence, leaving an imprint on Russian culture that tions and permissible limits of sexual identity and
would last well into the twentieth century. A behavior. But, ultimately, the period of redefini-
number of these cultural leaders made no secret of tion did not become a time of sexual liberation for
their affections for their own sex. Male homosexu- the society at large. For decades, a view of the Bol-
als had been visible in the higher echelons of Rus- sheviks as sexual liberators had currency in the
sian society during the nineteenth century as well; West. But available evidence suggests that early
the composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky (18401893) and Bolshevik ideologues, including Alexandra
the theatrical impresario Sergei Diaghilev (1872 Kollontai (18721952), saw redefining the family
1929) are two examples. Prominent women who as part of the process of subjugating the citizens
openly loved women, however, represented a new private lives to the needs and the will of the state.
phenomenon. One possible exception is Yekaterina
Dashkova, a writer and publisher who headed the The Bolshevik Revolution
Russian Academy and the Academy of Sciences Following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the
between 1783 and 1796; her memoirs, first pub- legal and social concepts of private life underwent

656 RUSSIA
a series of metamorphoses. Abortion was legalized and otherwise limiting her rights. A person branded
in 1920. The first postrevolutionary set of family as mentally ill had to remain registered with an
and marriage laws, adopted in 1926, recognized outpatient psychiatric clinic, which continued to
marriages that were not registered in any way and monitor the patient. The lifelong consequences of
provided for a simple and inexpensive divorce pro- psychiatric treatment and the wide circle of people
cedure. But 1936 saw a ban on abortion and adop- who could initiate hospitalization made lesbian-
tion of a new family and marriage code that made ism one of the most dangerous secrets a Soviet
divorce far more difficult and declared that the fam- woman might have to keep.
ily was important composite part of the commu- Though high social standing did not guarantee
nist collective. Three years earlier, another piece of safety for Soviet homosexuals (for example, Sergei
legislation had already outlawed those who fell Paradzhanov, a well-known film director, served a
outside the family unit: Sex between men had once sentence for sodomy), in general the fear of pros-
again become a punishable offense. ecution and persecution was less among the intel-
This sodomy law, which later became known lectual and cultural elite. One of the best-known
as Article 121 (its number in the 1961 penal code), actresses of the Soviet era, Faina Ranevskaya (1896
remained in effect in the Soviet Union and Russia 1984), was widely believed to be a lesbian, and she
until May 1993, when it was repealed by presi- does not appear to have taken steps to disprove this
dential decree. Throughout its sixty-year history, impression. She became a symbol and a magnet for
the law was enforced in the random way that char- young lesbians, who flocked to Moscow in the 1970s
acterized political laws used against dissidents, as and 1980s in the hope of meeting Ranevskaya. Some
legal scholar Valery Chalidzes research shows. The of them succeeded, and many more met during their
history of lesbians in the Soviet Union is far more attempts, forming the lesbian social circles that sus-
difficult to trace. Some research, such as street in- tained them and that led to the formation, in the
terviews with lesbians and gay men conducted by 1990s, of the first lesbian organization in Moscow.
the linguist Vladimir Kozlovsky in the 1970s, in-
dicates that the understanding of homosexuality Contemporary Political Activism
as a political crime was sometimes extended to The first attempt to declare a political agenda for
apply to lesbians, even though the law did not pro- sexual minoritiesa preferred term for Russian gays
vide for punishment for lesbianism. According to and lesbians in the late 1980s and early 1990s
Kozlovskys sources, lesbians accused of theft or occurred in Moscow in February 1990, when about
other criminal offenses were given longer jail sen- a dozen people gathered in a Moscow apartment
tences if their sexuality was known to the investi- for a press conference to which only foreign corre-
gators. More often, however, lesbians became vic- spondents were invited. The only person who used
tims of punitive psychiatric measures. her real name at that event was a woman named
In the 1930s, Andrei Snezhensky, a founding Yevgenia Debrianskaya, then a prominent activist
father of Soviet psychiatry, advanced the theory of of the pro-democracy movement. The organization
slow-going schizophrenia, a condition that de- born at that press conference, called the Moscow
veloped over a lifetime, with odd, asocial traits serv- Union for Sexual Minorities, later renamed the
ing as its early signals. This diagnosis, which made Moscow Union for Gays and Lesbians, ceased to
it possible to deem a person mentally ill for read- exist about a year and a half later.
ing banned books or failing to work at a state- Later in 1990, another lesbian, a graduate stu-
assigned jobor for loving people of the same dent named Olga Zhuk, formed a gay and les-
sexbecame a cornerstone of Soviet psychiatry. A bian organization in the Soviet Unions second-
woman suspected of being a lesbian could be com- largest city, Leningrad. The organization, the
mitted to a psychiatric hospital at the initiative of Tchaikovsky Foundation for Cultural Initiative
the police, her parents or guardians, teachers, and the Defense of Sexual Minorities, was still in
neighbors, coworkers, and assorted others. The existence in 1997, although Zhuk had moved to
hospital stay would normally last a few months, Germany. In 1991, the first lesbian organization
but the patient would be marked for life: A stamp in the Soviet Union was formed: Moscow Lesbi-
in her internal passport would indicate that she ans in Literature and the Arts, led by Liudmila
was mentally ill, barring her from an extensive list Ugolkova, an amateur filmmaker. In July-August
of occupations or from receiving a drivers license, 1991, on the eve of the failed coup that spelled

RUSSIA 657
 the end of the Soviet Union, gays and lesbians bian rights, originally based on the U.S. model, failed
R held their first public gathering in that country, a
conference and film festival in Moscow and St.
to develop. Discrimination against lesbians remained
legal, and many reasons for lesbians to fear for their
Petersburg; the Moscow part of the festival was well-being and safety, especially outside the large
accompanied by two gay and lesbian rights dem- cities, remained. Masha Gessen
onstrations. Dozens more gay and lesbian groups
and publications appeared throughout Russia in Bibliography
the months following the conference and the dem- Burgin, Diana. Sophia Parnok: The Life and Work
onstrations. of Russias Sappho. New York: New York Uni-
A new law on psychiatric treatment, passed in versity Press, 1994.
July 1992, made it impossible to hospitalize a per- Gessen, Masha. The Rights of Lesbians and Gay
son without that individuals consent. Russian psy- Men in the Russian Federation. San Francisco:
chiatry, however, continued to consider same-sex International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights
attraction a personality disorder, making it possible Commission, 1994.
for psychiatrists to attempt to cure lesbianism in Karlinsky, Simon. Marina Tsvetaeva: The Woman,
women who sought help voluntarily or, if they were Her World, and Her Poetry. Cambridge: Cam-
minors, were brought to their attention by guard- bridge University Press, 1985.
ians. In 1993, Article 121 (the sodomy law) was Kon, Igor, and James Riordan, eds. Sex and Rus-
repealed, enabling the formation of a number of gay sian Society. Bloomington and Indianapolis:
social clubs and similar commercial establishments, Indiana University Press, 1993.
which often benefited lesbians as well. But, in the
absence of any other civil rights or identity-based See also Barney, Natalie; Parnok, Sophia; Social-
movement, the Russian movement for gay and les- ism; Tsvetaeva, Marina Ivanovna

658 RUSSIA
S
Sackville-West, Vita (18921962) a man when they were together and was often ad-
English poet, biographer, and novelist. Born at Knole, dressed as Julian by Trefusis.) Sackville-West
Kent, Vita Sackville-West was the daughter of the third eventually returned to Nicolson, although she con-
baron of Sackville. In 1913, she married Harold tinued to have affairs with women throughout her
Nicolson (18861968); their unorthodox union, de- life, including Virginia Woolf (18821941), whom
scribed by their son Nigel in Portrait of a Marriage she first met in 1922.
(1973), withstood the trials of her affairs with women Sackville-Wests birth as a woman prevented her
and Nicolsons own homosexuality. Their marriage from inheriting her beloved Knole when her father
survived as an abiding friendship. Together in 1930 died. Woolf restored Knole to SackvilleWest in
they purchased Sissinghurst Castle, where Sackville- Orlando (1928), a fantastic biography that in-
West (with designs from Nicolson) planted the su- cluded Knole portraits and photographs of Sackville-
perb gardens that still exist. West herself. Nigel Nicolson has called Orlando the
Sackville-West was prolific, writing, among longest and most charming love-letter in literature.
other works, four poetry collections, three collec- While their love affair lasted only a few years, their
tions of short stories, two travel books, a biogra- long friendship as women writers was important and
phy of St. Joan of Arc (14121431), a study of St. sustaining. Linnea A.Stenson
Teresa of Avila (15151582) and St. Thrse of
Lisieux (18731897), and twelve novels. The Eng- Bibliography
lish countryside and its populace proved her most Glendinmng, Victoria. Vita: A Biography of Vita
enduring focus. Her long pastoral poem, The Land Sackville-West. New York: William Morrow,
(1926), brought her some measure of fame and won 1985.
her the Hawthornden Prize, and The Edwardians Nicolson, Nigel. Portrait of a Marriage. New York:
(1930) was a best-seller. All Passion Spent (1931), Simon and Schuster, 1982.
considered a feminist classic, deals with a woman Rait, Suzanne. Vita and Virginia: The Work and
gaining autonomy and self-determination in her Friendship of V Sackville-West and Virginia
widowhood. Woolf. New York: Oxford University Press,
Sackville-Wests most (in)famous affair involved 1992.
Violet Trefusis (ne Keppel [18941972]), a child-
hood friend. Their torrid relationship, beginning See also English Literature, Twentieth Century;
in 1918 and lasting several years, included repeated United Kingdom; Woolf, Virginia
elopements to France and brought on a public
scandal. Sackville-Wests Challenge (1924) was
written explicitly as a novel about their affair, with Sadomasochism
Trefusis the unacknowledged writing collaborator. A sexological term for a complex of desires that
Unwilling to write openly about lesbianism, some would see as pathological disorders. In psy-
Sackville-West made the protagonists, Julian and chological terms, a sadist is one who derives (an
Eve, cousins. (Sackville-West sometimes dressed as often sexualized) pleasure from inflicting pain or

SADOMASOCHISM 659
 distress and humiliation on another person or liv- by the San Francisco-based S/M group Samois and
S ing thing. A masochist is one who derives pleasure
from experiencing pain and/or forms of humilia-
argued for a recognition of the pleasures of S/M
against a lesbian feminist stance that saw S/M as
tion. In lesbian and gay cultures, the term sado- oppressive to women. The storm that this book and
masochism (often shortened to sm or S/M) has related cultural products caused in lesbian and femi-
been adopted by those who derive pleasure from nist circles cannot be underestimated. Its impact was
such activities. This has changed it from a widely felt: S/M was now a crucial issue for discus-
classificatory and often regulatory term imposed sion in circles that had previously never considered
on individuals from the outside to a self-chosen it part of their worldview (except in an analysis of
affiliation that is also, at times, constitutive of a mens sadism in sexual violence).
sense of group or community identity. Critics of S/M argued that sadomasochism re-
In taking on this classification, lesbian and gay produced patterns of oppression and exploitation
sadomasochists would emphasize that their sadistic and should be combated on the political stage, not
and masochistic practices are based on consent: In embraced in the bedroom. For many, the S/M pre-
theory, no participant should ever experience any- dilection for leather wear, slave/slaver imagery, army
thing to which they do not consent. This is achieved uniforms, and, in some cases, Nazi insignia was
by the institution of safe wordsa word other anathema. It is important to recognize that, while
than no that is agreed between participants. Once many of the sexual acts associated with S/M took
the safe word has been uttered, the activity should place in private or the relatively sequestered spaces
stop. This allows the masochist (or bottom) to of S/M clubs and bars, S/M groupings became
experience the fantasy of events happening against highly visible in general lesbian and gay spaces due
her will, since she can resist and scream no, se- to their distinctive self-presentation. For them, it
cure in the knowledge that her safe word will allow was important to assert their presence, and so they
her to intervene if necessary. Often, sadists (or would attend lesbian strength and Gay Pride
tops) use this as evidence that the bottom is marches in full regalia, often leading each other by
really in control of any scenario. Some proponents chains and neck braces. For lesbians opposed to S/
of lesbian S/M would argue that, far from duplicat- M, particularly lesbians of color or Jews, this
ing the patriarchal oppression of women through amounted to a celebration of the very forces that
sexual coercion, this sex-play can be therapeutic in had oppressed millions and had killed their fami-
that the masochist can act out an experience or fan- lies. S/M lesbians argued that the fact that their
tasy of powerlessness in a safe environment. Many practices occurred between women, plus the code
would dispute this analysis and would point to the of consent, meant that the power relations of
possibility of nonconsensual acts taking place: Power hetero-patriarchy were absent. For the opposition,
does exist in any relationship, but talking about it it was impossible to allow that the historic mean-
does not neutralize it. While it is clear that many ings of symbols and events could be willed away:
lesbians do enjoy S/M sex and experience it as liber- The argument that power between lesbians could
ating, it is also emerging that some lesbians sadists never be coercive was simply wishful thinking.
do like to act beyond or without consent. In the so-called sex wars, those lesbians and het-
erosexual feminists who spoke against S/M were hin-
Controversies dered by a feminist agenda from the 1970s that had
The big controversy over lesbian S/M did not arise been reticent about discussing sex and sexual pleas-
until the mid-1980s, when S/M groups began to ure. The S/M alliance successfully presented them-
assert themselves as a visible lesbian subculture. This selves as pro-sex and the opposition as antisex.
occurred most prominently in the United Kingdom Although feminists had been concerned with wom-
and North America and was prompted by a number ens sexual pleasure, the urgency of fights against rape
of events, among which could be instanced the pub- and sexual violence had led to what some saw as a
lication of Coming to Power (1983) and the fierce withdrawal from the sexual. Thus, proponents of les-
arguments at any number of conferences and meet- bian S/M were able to argue in favor of a recognition
ings until the end of the decade. These, and other of womens diverse sexual desires and practices against
events, instigated the rolling debates that have come what they saw as lesbian feminists denial of an ac-
to be known as the lesbian sex wars. The tive female and lesbian desire. This meant that S/M les-
agendasetting book Coming to Power was written bians were able to colonize many acts not specifically

660 SADOMASOCHISM
sadomasochistic and include them under their sexual- politicized psychosocial identifications; the develop-
liberationist agenda. For example, the belief in some ment of AIDS; and a shift in lesbian S/M politics that
feminist circles that penetrative sex replicated forms emphasizes the links to, rather than separation from,
of patriarchal oppression meant that many hetero- other sadomasochists and sexual outlaws. AIDS
sexual and lesbian women avoided this practice. The has given rise to a need for safe-sex material in which
S/M assurance that all sexual acts were acceptable, S/M groups, both lesbian and gay and heterosexual,
including penetration, had an impact beyond the have taken a lead, since they are accustomed to talk-
strictly S/M communityalthough penetration, ing frankly about sexual practice and to minimizing
whether by penis, hand, or dildo, is not in itself a risk, not just of HIV transmission.
specifically sadomasochistic act. S/M has had a great impact on lesbian culture,
not only on lesbian fashion, as has already been
Influence discussed, but also on lesbian fiction, film, theater,
The influence of S/M grew as much by style and cul- and performance. In fiction, this is most clearly
tural production as it did by the spread of S/M sexual seen in the development of lesbian erotica in the
practices. Indeed, in some ways, the cultural currency late 1980s and early 1990s. This marked a will-
of S/M far outweighs its actual demographic base in ingness to challenge a feminist disapproval of
sexual practice. As S/M became a main topic for dis- erotica as a form of pornography and a new confi-
cussion and successfully presented itself as pro-sex dence in the diversity of the lesbian market. While
(and, of course, discussions about sex are also often some fiction presented an overtly sadomasochistic
themselves an eroticized experience), it became in- narrative, others, like the fashionable takeup of a
creasingly fashionable to adopt a sometimes diluted, faux-S/M style, merely deployed the signs of S/M
but nonetheless recognizable, S/M style of self-pres- without actually describing clearly classifiable S/
entation. By the early 1990s, a vaguely leather-S/M M relations or acts. S/M codes have also been
style had become a predominant signifier of a lesbian prominent in lesbian art, photography, film, and
identity per se in metropolitan centers. The dress theater and much discussed in debates about sexu-
codings of (black) leather jackets, caps, boots, hand- ality, particularly those informed by psychoanaly-
cuffs, neck collars, and leather wristbands that had sis and concerned with an exploration of female
once been so shocking were now frequently on dis- fetishism. Reina Lewis
play. It could be argued that what these accessories
came to symbolize was not so much a clear affilia- Bibliography
tion to S/M practices as an identification with a far Adams, Parveen. Of Female Bondage. In Be-
looser subcultural style that had come to signify hot tween Feminism and Psychoanalysis. Ed. Teresa
sex. In this, S/M had won the fight against the va- Brennan. London: Routledge, 1989.
nilla opposition, who, especially to a younger gen- Creet, Julia. Daughter of the Movement: The
eration of possibly postfeminist lesbians, seemed up- Psychodynamics of Lesbian S/M Fantasy. dif-
tight, unfashionable, and unsexy. The presence of this ferences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Stud-
generational perception gap should not hide that fact ies 3:2 (Summer 1991), 135159.
that many of the women initially associated with S/ Lewis, Reina. Dis-Graceful Images: Della Grace
M advocacy were themselves the same generation as, and Lesbian Sadomasochism. Feminist Review
if not participants in, the earlier feminist movement. 46 (Spring 1994), 7691.
But it does point to a certain coming of age of lesbian Linden, Robin Ruth, Darlene R.Pagano, Diana
culture and politics when it has, in S/M, its own sub- E.H. Russell, and Susan Leigh Star, eds. Against
culture whose sense of transgression is premised on a Sadomasochism: A Radical Feminist Analysis.
rejection of a mother culture of feminist and les- East Palo Alto, Calif: Frog in the Wall, 1982.
bian orthodoxy. Merck, Mandy. The Feminist Ethics of Lesbian
The growing acceptability of lesbian S/M has oc- S/M. In Merck, Perversions: Deviant Readings.
curred in the context of a postmodern emphasis on New York: Routledge 1993, pp. 236266.
pleasure and play (one can also think of S/M roleplays Samois, Coming to Power. Boston: Alyson, 1983.
in relation to theories of sexuality as performative);
the development of lesbian and gay studies in the See also Butch-Femme; Erotica and Pornography;
academy (which have often embraced postmodern Psychoanalysis; Safer Sex; Sex Practices; Sex Wars;
theory); the reactivation of bisexuality and queer as Sexuality

SADOMASOCHISM 661
 literature in the years 19861995, but none were
S Safer Sex
Safer sex refers to choosing sexual practices that
reduce ones chance of contracting human immu-
considered documented cases.

nodeficiency virus (HIV) or other sexually trans- HIV Transmission

mitted diseases (STDs). For HIV to be transmitted sexually, live virus in the
blood, semen, or vaginal fluid of an infected person
History must get into the bloodstream of a partner. HIV dies
The term safe sex was coined by gay men in the quickly in response to drying or temperature
early 1980s in response to the growing Acquired changes. HIV can easily travel through tears in the
Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) epidemic. By anal or vaginal lining that occur during penetration,
the late 1980s, the term safer sex was widely but it can also travel through intact mucous mem-
used, and the concept had expanded to include branes. HIV cannot travel through healthy skin, but
prevention of all STDs, including hepatitis, herpes, a few cases of HIV entering the body through breaks
chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, human papilloma in the skin have been reported. Immunoglobulin A
virus, and trichomonas. Leadership in raising found in saliva neutralizes HIV Cuts or sores in the
awareness about safer sex was provided by sado- mouth, skin, or genitals can facilitate disease trans-
masochist (S/M) lesbians. They promoted the use mission. The spermicide Nonoxynol-9 and other
of latex gloves and oral-sex barriers, modeling af- vaginal microbicides undergoing research in the
ter the use a condom every time message for gay 1990s kill HIV and other STDs.
men, bisexuals, and heterosexuals. This suggestion
was controversial. Some lesbians discounted the Implications for Lesbians
latex-sex fad as a capitalist effort to profit from Because of the lower amount of body fluid poten-
exaggerated levels of fear about AIDS. Other tially transferred, the tribadism, fingering, fisting,
women questioned whether the lower levels of risk dildo penetration, and cunnilingus commonly
in lesbian sexual activities warranted any protec- practiced by lesbians are not as likely to spread HIV
tive measures. Lesbian activists pressured the U.S. or other STDs as a penis ejaculating inside an anus
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, or a vagina. Oral sex is not a likely way to spread
Georgia, to do research on the possibility of HIV, but it can spread other STDs. Kissing does not
woman-towoman HIV transmission. spread HIV, but it can spread herpes, colds, and flu
In the 1990s, in an attempt to shift attention to germs. Oral herpes, called a cold sore or fever
other diseases directly affecting lesbians, health ad- blister, occurs in more than 50 percent of the U.S.
vocates emphasized the forty thousand U.S. wom- population according to the American Social Health
ens deaths each year from breast cancer. AIDS edu- Association. Herpes is a particular lesbian concern
cators shifted their focus to methods of HIV trans- because it can be spread from mouths to genitals.
mission that posed the greatest risk to all women: Regardless of the lower risk of woman-
sharing injection drug needles and unprotected in- towoman sex, many lesbian couples, especially
tercourse. those with one HIV-positive woman, do everything
possible to make sex safer. Since her immune sys-
Research tem is weakened and she is particularly susceptible
A 1980 study of 2,345 women by Susan R.Johnson, to contracting other diseases, an HIV-positive
concluded that women who exclusively engaged in woman may have more need for safer sex prac-
homosexual sex were less likely to contract STDs tices than an HIV-negative woman.
such as trichomonas, gonorrhea, and cystitis than
were bisexual women. Five different studies, includ- Safer Sex Practices
ing 995,000 subjects, published by the CDC in the Because a dildo or a finger might theoretically trans-
years 19901994 concluded that woman-to-woman fer enough body fluid from one woman to her part-
HIV transmission was very rare (Peterson et al. 1992) ners vagina or anus to transmit HIV or another
A 1994 University of Turin, Italy, six-month study STD, safer lesbian sex requires washing hands and
(Raiteri et al. 1994) of eighteen HIV-discordant les- sex toys well with soap and water or covering them
bian couples found no evidence of womanto-woman with clean latex before moving from an anus to a
transmission. Five cases of suspected woman-to- vagina or from one woman to another. Filing fin-
woman HIV transmission appeared in the scientific gernails can prevent scratching the vagina or more

662 SAFER SEX

fragile rectum. Oral sex can spread herpes and other Rejection. Daly (1979) and some other lesbian femi-
STDs, so it should be avoided when one woman nists find little of positive value in female hagiogra-
has a herpes outbreak or another STD. Some phy (lives of the saints written by people promoting
women use dental dams or household plastic wrap their cause), pointing out that it was largely written
to add a layer of safety to oral sex. by men and sought to conform the lives of these
Safer sex for women who have sex with men women to contemporary understandings of holi-
includes the use of latex condoms, water-based ness, which largely consisted in the rejection of their
lubricant, and spermicide such as Nonoxynol-9 to embodiment, self-abasement, and obedience to male
avoid HIV and other STDs. Marcia Munson representatives of the Churchhence, their dispro-
portionate representation in the saintly categories
Bibliography of virgin and martyr. Some lesbian feminist Chris-
McIlvenna, Ted. The Complete Guide to Safer Sex. tians also find the whole concept of sainthood in-
Fort Lee, N.J.: Barricade, 1992. compatible with feminist visions of equality.
OSullivan, Sue, and Pratibha Parmar. Lesbians
Talk Safer Sex. London: Scarlet, 1992. Appropriation. Some lesbian scholars have at-
tempted to identify saints and mystics who might
Petersen, Lyle, Lynda Doll, Carol White, and Susan
be labeled lesbian. This is a difficult task not only
Chu. No Evidence for Female-to-Female HIV
because of the general problem of defining and
Transmission Among 960,000 Female Blood
labeling same-sex affection in the premodern era,
Donors. Journal of Acquired Immune Defi-
but also because of the heavy editing and interpret-
ciency Syndromes 5 (1992), 853855.
ing of a womans life that usually occurred in the
Raiteri, R., R.Fora, and A.Sinicco. No HIV Trans-
process of canonization. One of the least controver-
mission Through Lesbian Sex. Lancet 344
sial cases is saint, mystic, and doctor of the Church
(1994), 270.
Teresa of Avila (15151582), who was put into a
convent by her parents because of intimate relation-
See also AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syn- ships she had with two women, one a cousin. Teresa
drome); Sadomasochism; Sexually Transmitted later described this passion as a mortal sin and bit-
Diseases terly regretted it. Saint Joan of Arc (14121431)
has been claimed as a dyke by some lesbian schol-
ars, such as Grahn (1984). While acknowledging
Saints and Mystics Joans own fiercely protected chastity, Grahn has
Saints are persons who have been canonized by argued that Joans assumption of male clothing, her
the Catholic or Orthodox churches as a result of guidance by spirit voices, and her sacrificial death
their exceptionally holy life or martyrs death. For place her within the ancient pre-Christian tradition
many centuries, canonization took place through of the ceremonial bulldike. Certainly, Joans trans-
public acclamation, but, in the latter half of the vestism deeply disturbed her inquisitors, and it was
tenth century A.D., the papacy took control of the the most obvious sign and symbol of her subver-
process. The hierarchy was then able to manipu- sion of all that they identified with a God-given or-
late the making of saints to reflect its own con- der. She dressed in male clothes and assumed
cerns and ideologies. However, the Church also male roles; she trusted in the authority of her
acknowledges that there are many more saints than voices rather than the Church; she was a woman
it recognizes, and these are venerated during the who mixed freely with men but was not loose;
feast of All Saints (November 1). and she was a devout Christian who was labeled a
A mystic is a person who has a direct experi- witch. It is easy to see why so many lesbians have
ence of the presence of God, often through vision. identified with Joans fierce resistance to what was
Some mystics have been canonized, but, since mys- understood to be natural and God-given in her
ticism has at times been associated with heresy and day. Joan was one of a long line of female saints
dissent and female resistance to male control, many who assumed male clothes, but other female trans-
mystics were not canonized. vestite saints tended to disguise themselves to es-
cape from parents or suitors or to enter the kind of
Lesbian Responses religious life barred to females. Joan did not pre-
Within the lesbian community, there have been four tend to be a man. She just refused to conform to the
responses to the saints and mystics. dominant concept of woman.

SAINTS AND MYSTICS 663

 Critical Solidarity. This approach recognizes the other nun and was imprisoned for thirty-five years
S historical and cultural difficulties of claiming
women of past ages as lesbians but also recognizes
as a result. Contemporary lesbian figures, like
Audre Lorde (19341992), are also being embraced
a family resemblance between some women within the queer canon. Lesbian theologian Stuart
saints and mystics and contemporary lesbians, (1996) has endeavored to make theological sense
grounded in a resistance to male control and mar- out of this desire to reclaim and proclaim saints in
riage and in what Daly (1979), among others, has terms of the distinctive lesbian theology of friend-
labeled gyn/affection. One such woman is the ship. Elizabeth Stuart
mystic Hadewijch of Brabant (ca. 1200s). She was
part of the bguine movement that arose as a reac- Bibliography
tion against the enforced enclosure of religious Daly, Mary. Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radi-
women. Bguines did not take vows, nor were they cal Feminism. Boston: Beacon and London
under the control of bishops, but they lived lives Womens Press, 1979.
of prayer and charity. They were often suspected Grahn, Judy. Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words,
of heresy. Hadewijchs letters to a young bguine Gay Worlds. Boston: Beacon, 1984.
whom she loved survive, as do her accounts of four-
Jantzen, Grace M. Power, Gender, and Christian
teen visions. Unlike contemporary male mystics
Mysticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University
who use erotic language of the relationship between
Press, 1995.
the soul and God as an allegory while continuing
Maitland, Sara, and Wendy Mulford. Virtuous
to hold negative attitudes to sexuality and embodi-
Magic: The Meanings of Women Saints. Lon-
ment, Hadewijch uses erotic language literally. Even
don: Mowbray, 1997.
more significant, though she follows male mystics
Stuart, Elizabeth. Spitting at Dragons: Towards a
in using the genre of courtly love to describe the
Feminist Theology of Sainthood. London:
relationship of the soul to God, she inverts the roles
Mowbray, 1996.
usually assigned to God and the soul. God is Lady
Love, and the soul is the knight seeking physical Wilson, Nancy. Our Tribe: Queer Folks, God, Je-
consummation of his love. This queering of the- sus, and the Bible. San Francisco:
ology continues in the writings of mystics such as HarperSanFrancisco, 1995.
Hildegard of Bingen (10981179) and Julian of
Norwich (13431413), who referred to Jesus as See also Catholicism; Hildegard of Bingen, Saint;
Christ, our Mother and completely rejected the Joan of Arc (Jeanne dArc); Juana Ins de la Cruz,
dualistic attitude to the physical and the spiritual Sor; Lorde, Audre; Religious Communities; Teresa
that tended to characterize mysticism at that time. of Avila

Reclamation of the Process. Some groups of les-

bian and gay Christians have attempted to reclaim San Francisco, California
and subvert the process of canonization, to queer Port city in California with a long history of lesbian
the ecclesiastical calendar, by proclaiming their own and gay community life. With the California Gold
saints or reinterpreting the lives of those who were Rush of 1849, San Francisco became a destination
canonized for other reasons. The biblical charac- for transnational and transcontinental migrations.
ters of Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi, are By the turn of the twentieth century, San Francisco
venerated as models of same-sex devotion. Lesbian had gained a reputation for licentious entertainment
theologian Wilson (1995) has argued that Martha and sex tourism. The first-known lesbian establish-
and Mary (Luke 10:3842; John 11:146), with ment was Monas, which opened in 1933 at the foot
their brother Lazarus, may, in fact, represent a of Telegraph Hill near the infamous Barbary Coast,
new type of family that flourished in the early the vice district fueled by Gold Rush entertainments.
Church based not upon blood relationship but on Originally intended as a hangout for local
friendship. Other female figures venerated by queer bohemians, Monas gained a reputation for its un-
Christians include Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz (1648 conventionality and soon became a nightclub where
1695), the Mexican nun who joined a convent to lesbian waitresses cross-dressed and sang showtunes
avoid marriage and fought ecclesiastical authority, to eager tourists and each other. Some of the per-
and Benedetta Carlini (15901661), an Italian nun formers, including Kay Scott (ca. 1916?), Beverly
who entered into a sexual relationship with an- Shaw (active ca. 1940s), and Gladys Bentley

664 SAINTS AND MYSTICS

(19071960), became local favorites around whom activists and Tavern Guild members established lim-
San Franciscos lesbian bar culture took shape. ited legal protections for lesbians and gay men in
World War II (19411945) stimulated the ex- San Francisco, such as the right to public assembly.
pansion of San Franciscos lesbian communities, As a result, lesbian bars became a center for lesbian
since the city served as a port of embarkation for life in the city. Mauds, near the Haight-Ashbury
GIs who served in the wars Pacific Theater. district, ran from 1966 to 1989, and it was never
Servicewomen who had homosexual experiences raided by the police. Instead, Mauds functioned as
during the war and did not want to return home a community center. It stayed open 365 days a year
afterward often chose San Francisco for their new and hosted a wealth of social and athletic events,
home because of its familiarity and its reputation including variety shows, poetry readings, a bowling
as a wide-open town. In the postwar years, the lo- team, and its notorious softball league.
cal police, the Armed Forces Disciplinary Control San Franciscos lesbian communities flourished
Board, and the Alcohol and Beverage Control De- in the 1970s as cafs, bookstores, small presses, and
partment coordinated their efforts to survey San record companies sprang up. The Full Moon
Franciscos gay and lesbian nightclubs, working Coffeehouse and Bookstore, a worker-owned col-
systematically to shut them down. It was during lective, became a nexus for San Franciscos lesbian
this time that the first lesbian-owned establishments feminist community. The Full Moon had nightly
opened in San Francisco. In the late 1940s, lesbian raps, poetry readings, music, workshops, and
Tommys 299 opened at 299 Broadway, just down speakers, and it maintained a womenonly admis-
the street from Monas, and, in 1951, Charlotte sion policy. Valencia Street became a corridor of les-
Coleman (ca. 1924) opened the Front, the first bian life in San Francisco as the Womens Press
lesbian bar on San Franciscos waterfront. Collective, the Old Wives Tales bookstore, Artemis
In 1955, a handful of women founded the Daugh- Cafe, and the Womens Building opened through
ters of Bilitis (DOB) so that San Francisco lesbians the 1970s, and the Valencia Rose, a lesbian perform-
could socialize privately, outside bars. Through the ance space, opened in the early 1980s. In nearby
next two years, Del Martin (1921) and Phyllis Lyon Oakland, Olivia Records, a small lesbian feminist
(1924), two of the original eight members, steered collective, worked to promote womens music by
the Daughters of Bilitis toward greater public in- sponsoring large annual music festivals. These events
volvement. They initiated open discussion meetings and social spaces shaped the emergence of lesbian
focused on lesbian issues and encouraged other les- feminist ideologies and separatist political action.
bians (whom they called female sex variants) to Lesbians also continued to participate in homophile
join their group. In 1956, the Daughters of Bilitis organizations such as DOB and NACHO (North
began publishing a monthly newsletter, The Lad- American Committee of Homophile Organizations);
der, which was distributed nationally until 1972. they maintained leadership positions in feminist
As DOB chapters spread through the United States, organizations such as NOW (National Organiza-
the Daughters of Bilitis became a vital national or- tion for Women); and, along with a coalition of pro-
ganization, and, with San Francisco as its place of gressive movements, lesbians organized to defeat
publication, The Ladder positioned San Francisco Californias Proposition 6, the 1978 Briggs Initia-
at the center of lesbian homophile organizing. tive, which would have expelled gay and lesbian
With an impressive number of lesbian bars and schoolteachers from the classroom.
a national organization dedicated to lesbian eman- As the 1960s and 1970s witnessed the flower-
cipation, through the 1960s San Francisco trans- ing of lesbian culture and organization building,
formed itself into a haven for lesbians and gay men. the 1980s and 1990s witnessed the incorporation
Homophile activists worked alongside bar owners of lesbians into city politics, culminating in the
(both gay and straight) to quell police harassment 1990 election of two lesbians, Roberta Achtenberg
and to suspend post office regulations that threat- and Carole Migden, to San Franciscos City Coun-
ened the distribution of homophile newsletters. In cil. Lesbians continued to participate in direct-ac-
1961, an association of gay bar owners and bar- tion politics such as ACT UP, Queer Nation, WAC
tenders formed the San Francisco Tavern Guild, an (Womens Action Coalition), and the Lesbian
organization dedicated to protecting the interests of Avengers, but, by the mid-1990s, Bay Area Career
lesbian and gay bar owners and the safety of their Women, a social organization with a dues-paying
patrons. By the mid-1960s, the efforts of homophile membership of more than one thousand, had

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 665

 become the largest lesbian organization in the Bay the possibility of an incestuous lesbianism as an
S Area. Through the twentieth century, the legacy of
lesbian bar cultures, homophile movements, and
alternative to female sexual frustration. Following
the uproar caused by this novel and the negative
lesbian feminist institutions ensured lesbian visibil- publicity of separation hearings from her husband
ity and secured San Franciscos importance as a in 1836, Sand shifted the focus of her writing away
locus of lesbian social life and political resistance. from sexual inequality toward class inequality.
Nan Alamilla Boyd Most of her work published after 1840 is catego-
rized as pastoral. Her autobiography, Story of My
Bibliography Life (18541855), is often misleadingly evasive
Boyd, Nan Alamilla. Wide Open Town: San Fran- about the scandalous aspects of her personal life
ciscos Lesbian and Gay History. Berkeley: Uni- and career. Leyla Ezdinli
versity of California Press, forthcoming.
Lyon, Phyllis, and Del Martin. Lesbian/Woman. Bibliography
New York: Bantam, 1972. Barry, Joseph. Infamous Woman: The Life of
Stryker, Susan, and Jim Van Buskirk. Gay by the George Sand. New York: Doubleday, 1977.
Bay: A History of Queer Culture in the San Fran- Naginski, Isabelle Hoog. George Sand: Writing for
cisco Bay Area. San Francisco: Chronicle, 1996. Her Life. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Uni-
versity Press, 1991.
See also Bars; Bentley, Gladys; Bookstores; Daugh- Schor, Naomi. George Sand and Idealism. New
ters of Bilitis; Ladder, The; Lesbian Avengers; Mar- York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
tin, Del, and Lyon, Phyllis
See also France

Sand, George (18041876)

French writer. Born Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin, Sapphic Tradition
of a working-class mother and an (illegitimate) aris- The Greek lyric poet Sappho (ca. 600 B.C.E.), who
tocratic father, she was raised primarily by her pa- lived on the island of Lesbos in the Aegean Sea, was
ternal grandmother in Nohant, in the French region renowned throughout the ancient world. Her
of Berry. She was tutored at home until the age of preeminence in the world of letters was acknowledged
fourteen, when she was sent to the Convent of the by numerous tributes, not least of which was Aristo-
English Augustinians in Paris. In 1822, she married tles (384322 B.C.E.) remark: Everybody honors
Baron Casimir Dudevant. Her son, Maurice, was the wiseand the Mytilineans honored Sappho al-
born in 1823; her daughter, Solange, in 1828. Sands though she was a woman. Plato (427?347? B.C.E.)
career as a writer began in 1831, when she left her called her the Tenth Muse, an epithet that was to
husband and moved to Paris to collaborate with her become conventionally attached to her name. Her
lover, Jules Sandeau (18111883), under the pen works were lost during the early Christian era, and it
name J.Sand. She began an independent career with was not until the late nineteenth and early twentieth
the publication of the novel Indiana (1832) under centuries that fragmentary remains of her poems were
the male pseudonym G.Sand. The novel was an recovered. However, two of her poems and a number
immediate success, which ensured Sands entry into of fragments had been transmitted to Renaissance
the world of romantic literary bohemia. Sand was a Europe through the works of others and established
notorious figure in her day, primarily because of the the basis of her reputation in Western culture. Dur-
transgressiveness of her personal life: In her early ing the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the French
career, she was known for wearing mens clothing and the English preserved and translated the avail-
and smoking cigars, which earned her the label of able poems and fragments of her work so that knowl-
hermaphrodite in the popular press; she was also edge of her was perpetuated.
famous for her illustrious lovers, including Alfred It was known that both extant Sapphic odes
de Musset (18101857), the actress Marie Dorval the Ode to Aphrodite and Phainetai moi, in which
(17981849), and Frdric Chopin (18101849). the speakers passion for her beloved is triangulated
Sands early writings are marked by forceful by a manprobably addressed love between
critiques of the institution of marriage. Her third women. Sappho was reputed to have established a
novel, Llia (1833), created a scandal by raising school for girls, to whom she taught the lyric and

666 SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

choric arts and with whom she was reputed to have female homosexuality and her subsequent use by
developed pedagogical-erotic friendships. Despite the literary modernists as their patroness of modernity.
ambiguities of her sexual reputationshe was also Natalie Barney (18761972), a wealthy American
said to have been infatuated with a much younger expatriate in Paris who was the center of a
ferryman, Phaon, on whose account she committed wellknown lesbian salon, established the basis for
suicideSapphos became the one name associated the twentieth-century tradition of Sappho as a kind
with female poetic excellence. She was the sole an- of proto-lesbian example. Her discovery of an edi-
cient model to whom early-modern women writers tion of Sappho and of Louyss version of Sapphos
might compare themselves and to whom they might sexualitywhich together provoked striking per-
be compared. Madeleine de Scudry (16071701) sonal revelations for her, her pseudonymous pub-
in France presented herself as a second Sappho, com- lication of Cinq petits dialogues grecs (Five Small
posing the first full-scale modern biography of Grecian Dialogues) in 1902, her influence on Rene
Sappho. Katherine Philips (16321664) in England, Viviens (pseud, of Pauline Tarn [18771909]) spu-
who emulated Scudrys literary style, was compared rious edition of Sapphos poems in 1903, and her
repeatedly to Sappho, often with a disclaimer about integration of what she understood as Sapphic
her sexuality. The compliment was later taken over, eroticism into her Paris salon, which featured clas-
without the sexual disclaimer, by English women sical costumes and gestures la Sapphoinaugu-
writers, who used it among themselves. Sapphos rated the twentieth-centurys popular understand-
literary reputation was, thus, well established in ing of Sappho as lesbian poet. Barney, Vivien, and
early-modern Europe. She was also the most promi- their Paris circle ignored what had been (and con-
nent exemplar of erotic behaviors between women, tinue to be) the profound ambiguities in what is
having been used repeatedly to illustrate tribad- known about Sapphos sexuality to create a figure
ismthe classical term for female same-sex eroti- of erotic obsession and a model for emulation.
cism, from the Greek tribein (to rub)in early-mod- Their movement and the cult of Sapphos person
ern European medical accounts of the clitoris. It is was to be called Sapho 1900 or Sapho cent pour
this latter aspect of her reputation that was instru- cent (Sappho one hundred percent).
mental in establishing her stature in the twentieth French dictionaries note the occurrence of
century as a kind of lesbian foremother. sapphisme in the sense of female homosexuality
During the period between the late seventeenth as early as 1838 and lesbienne in the sense of fe-
and the mid-nineteenth centuries, a broad range of male homosexual in 1867. In English, a similar
fictions of Sappho was produced in France, Ger- vocabulary for female same-sex love develops later,
many, and Italy, in addition to various scholarly probably inspired by French usage. By the early
translations of the availableand fragmentary twentieth century, it is not unusual to find refer-
corpus of Sapphos poetry. These fictions were usu- ences to sapphists or to a Sapph in the writ-
ally motivated by the various nationalistic, politi- ings of Virginia Woolf (18821941) and other
cal, and/or scholarly agendas operating at any par- members of Londons sexually and socially pro-
ticular historical moment. As a result, simultane- gressive Bloomsbury group. A nomenclature de-
ous, yet contradictory, traditions of Sappho (con- rived from constructions of Sappho was, thus, re-
tinue to be) perpetuated: A desexualized, chaste placing the language of tribadism by the mid-nine-
Sappho coexisted with a second, hetero- or bisexual teenth century. By the end of the twentieth cen-
and promiscuous Sappho, recapitulating yet again, tury, the conflation of modern lesbian identity with
but in a more contemporary key, the garbled tradi- the sixth-century B.C.E. Greek poet and her Aegean
tion of the two Sapphos that went back to island was complete.
eleventhcentury commentators. At the same time, It is almost certainly the very fragmentary na-
in France, Germaine de Stal (17661817)as had ture of what remains to us of Sapphos life and
de Scudry before herkept invigorated, through work, rather than any enterprise of accurate his-
her own identification with the classical poet, the torical reconstruction, that has enabled the inven-
power of Sappho as a model for women writers. tion of elaborate and contradictory Sapphic fic-
It was, however, the elaborate fiction of Sappho tions that serve the purposes of their creators. By
created by Pierre Louyss Les Chansons de Bilitis the end of the twentieth century, apart from con-
(Songs of Bilitis) (1895) that initiated the consoli- tinued scholarly debates among classicists about
dation of Sapphos role as classical exemplar of the nature of Sapphos poems and sexuality, Sappho

SAPPHIC TRADITION 667

 continues popularly to be regarded as a cult figure
S by lesbian women, especially by the many lesbian
feminists who make the pilgrimage to Lesbos to
partake of the environs inhabited by their precur-
sor so many centuries ago. Harriette Andreadis

Bibliography
Andreadis, Harriette. Sappho in Early Modern
England: A Study in Sexual Reputation. In Re-
Reading Sappho: Reception and Transmission,
Ed. Ellen Greene. Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1997, pp. 105121.
DeJean, Joan. Fictions of Sappho, 15461937.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
DuBois, Page. Sappho Is Burning. Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1995.
Williamson, Margaret. Sapphos Immortal Daugh-
ters. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1995.

See also Barney, Natalie; Philips, Katherine;

Sappho; Tribade; Vivien, Rene; Woolf, Virginia

Sappho (ca. 600 B.C.E.)

Most famous lyric poet of the ancient Greek and Attic vase showing Sappho and Alkaios, ca. 500475
Roman world. Sappho lived on the island of Lesbos B.C.E. (Munich 2416). Staatliche Antikensammlungen
ca. 600 B.C.E. Unfortunately, only one of her songs und Glyptothek, Munich.
survives completely intact, but it and the fragments
of nearly two hundred other poems make clear that grammarians and rhetoricians were sometimes
prominent themes in her songs included Aphrodite struck by some phrase or unusual word or, indeed
(goddess of love) and the subject of love between in one case, by an entire poem, which they chose
women. Virtually nothing is known of her life from to preserve in quotation. The one completely ex-
sources dating to her own time, for the only con- tant song, a hymn to Aphrodite, was preserved in
temporary reference to her is in a brief fragment of just such a way by Dionysios of Halicarnassos (first
the poetry of Alkaios, a fellow aristocrat from the century B.C.E.), who quoted this hymn as an ex-
same island. Most of the later stories about her life ample of outstanding grace and charm. Another
and death belong to the realm of legend. Of these, fragment of Sapphos poetry was found scratched
by far the most pervasive in shaping the later image onto a potsherd (broken pottery was the scrap
of Sappho has been Heroides 15 by the Roman poet paper of antiquity), and a few other fragments have
Ovid (43 B.C.E.A.D. 17), in which the fictional turned up on a parchment dated to the sixth cen-
Sappho writes a letter addressed to a young man tury A.D. In the nineteenth and twentieth centu-
(named Phaon) who has been her lover and then ries, several more fragments, many of them of sub-
deserted her; at the end, she alludes to a cure for her stantial length, have been found in papyri preserved
misery, a suicide leap off the cliffs of Cape Leukas. in the dry sands of Egypt. Besides deliberate de-
About the real Sappho we have only the sketchiest struction of her work during medieval times, igno-
information, of which some details (such as a daugh- rance of her particular dialect of Greek (called Les-
ter named Kleis) may be fictions based upon an bian-Aeolic) on the part of scribes has contributed
overly literal interpretation on the part of ancient to the dearth of surviving poems.
biographers of the poems of Sappho known to them. If the one complete poem is an accurate indica-
Sapphos poetry has come down to us today tion, most of Sapphos songs were relatively short.
through several kinds of sources. Ancient The hymn to Aphrodite (fr. 1 Voigt) consists of seven

668 SAPPHIC TRADITION

four-line stanzas, in which the poet as narrator de- See also Antiquity; Classical Literature; H.D. (Hilda
scribes her past encounters with the goddess, who Doolittle) ; Lesbos, Island of; Lowell, Amy Law-
has come to her aid in winning over reluctant lov- rence; Sapphic Tradition
ers. The Sappho figure concludes the song by call-
ing upon Aphrodite once again to be her fellow-
soldier. In another song, the narrator describes her Sarton, May (19121996)
sensations of overwhelming desire as she gazes upon Novelist, poet, and New England woman of letters.
a woman she loves (fr. 31 Voigt). One nearly com- Im proud of the fact that I came out as a lesbian in
plete poem (fr. 16 Voigt) examines the question of 1965, long before anyone did, but I lost two jobs
what constitutes the most beautiful thing upon the because of it. It was easier for me because I had no
black earth, rejecting military splendor (so prized family, but its true that I wrote about it only after
in earlier Greek literature such as Homers Iliad) in my parents deaths, so Belgian-born May Sarton
favor of what one loves; the point is then illus- wrote, at age sixty-seven, about her lesbianism for
trated by two examples, namely Helens love for the first time in her 1979 autobiography, Recover-
the Trojan prince Paris and the narrators love for a ing. It is significant that her coming out coincided
woman called Anaktoria. Other songs focus on the with her healing process after a mastectomy and
pain of separation of lovers and on the power of radiation treatments. This honesty and openness
memory to re-create the presence of an absent be- characterize Sartons oeuvre and offer explanation
loved. Additional themes include folk motifs, mytho- for her popularity with standing-room-only audi-
logical descriptions, and wedding songs. All of these ences. The author of seventeen novels, fourteen
songs were no doubt composed for live perform- books of poetry, five biographical works, and short
ance by a singer accompanied by the music of the stories in the New Yorker, Harpers, and the Atlan-
lyre, but little is known of the specific circumstances tic Monthly, Sarton lectured and taught at Harvard
of performance on the island of Lesbos. University and Radcliffe and Wellesley colleges and
Sapphos poetry is distinguished by the beauty of read her works to eager listeners at more than fifty
many vivid images: Eros compared to wind blasting other institutions of higher learning. In addition, she
mountain oaks; the rosy-fingered moon; a redripe served as a Guggenheim Fellow in Poetry and a Fel-
apple on the very top of a tree, just out of reach of low in Poetry at Bryn Mawr College.
the apple-pickers; Aphrodites sparrow-drawn The daughter of historian of science George
chariot; and sleep descending from apple boughs. Sarton and fabric designer Mabel Elwes Sarton, she
Sapphos influence on later literature has been came to the United States at the age of four, when
considerable despite the paucity of her surviving her father accepted a professorship at Harvard Uni-
poems. Besides her impact on Roman, English, and versity. Attending Shady Hill School in Cambridge,
French literature, perhaps her most significant in- Massachusetts, the Institute Belge de Culture
fluence has been on twentieth-century American Franaise in Brussels, and Cambridge High and Latin
women poets, particularly Amy Lowell (1874 School, from which she graduated in 1929, Sarton
1925), H.D. (Hilda Doolittle [18861961]), and joined Eva LeGalliennes (18991991) Civil Reper-
Olga Broumas (1949). Jane Mclntosh Snyder tory Theatre, with which she acted for several years.
She founded a small company of her own, the Asso-
Bibliography ciated Actors Theatre, which disbanded after its
De Jean, Joan. Fictions of Sappho, 15461937. third season. Publishing her first book in 1937 (En-
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. counter in April), Sarton set about her lifes work
DuBois, Page. Sappho Is Burning. Chicago: Uni- of publishing in five genres: poetry, novels, mem-
versity of Chicago Press, 1995. oirs, journals, and short stories.
Snyder, Jane Mclntosh. Lesbian Desire in the Lyr- Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing
ics of Sappho. New York: Columbia University (1965) was the novel that introduced lesbianism
Press, 1997. in Sartons work (I suppose people were shocked
. Sappho. New York: Chelsea House, 1995. because you talked about things like women fall-
. The Woman and the Lyre. Carbondale: ing in love with each other, took this for granted,
Southern Illinois University Press, 1989. set it in its place, asks the young woman in her
Williamson, Margaret. Sapphos Immortal Daugh- interview with Mrs. Stevens). It was the publica-
ters. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University tion of this book that caused Sarton the loss of
Press, 1995. several employment opportunities.

S A R T O N , M AY 669
 Plant Dreaming Deep (1968) is dedicated to Womens access to higher education and the emer-
S Sartons partner, Judy, with whom she lived for fif-
teen years, who believed in the adventure from the
gence of womens colleges in the late nineteenth cen-
tury in the United States facilitated the development
start, as they made a home together in Nelson, New of quasi-lesbian feminist scholarly communities.
Hampshire. By the time Journal of a Solitude (1973) However, although lesbian scholars worked in uni-
was written, Sarton lived alone. Both her partner, versities throughout the twentieth century, there were
Judyreferred to in the journal simply as Xand few networks or outlets for self-consciously lesbian
her faithful gardener, Perley Cole, were suffering scholarship beyond initial work by homophile or-
from the change to a new place, nursing homes. ganizations, such as Daughters of Bilitis.
This journal appears to be the work by Sarton that Lesbian scholarly work did not coalesce in sig-
is most frequently mentioned as readers introduc- nificant, organized forms until after the Stonewall
tion to Sartons voluminous writings. Rebellion (1969) in New York City. Spurred by
In 1973, Sarton moved to York, Maine, to Wild the activism of gay liberationist groups, gay and
Knoll, where her second-floor study looked out lesbian scholars formed the Gay Academic Union
upon a field mown with a walkway for her and (GAU) in New York City in 1973. By 1975, the
Tamas, her beloved dog, which led to the rocky
organization had formed chapters in cities includ-
Atlantic Ocean coast. Her gardening spirit sus-
ing Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Ann Arbor, Michi-
tained her soul and her writing. In her later years,
gan; Boston, Massachusetts; and Chicago, Illi-
Sarton wrote with the voice of truth and clarity
noiswith writers such as Kate Millet (1934),
about her aging process and her sadness at the loss
Adrienne Rich (1929), and Rita Mae Brown
of energy to write and to be with and correspond
(1944) giving readings at conferences and fund-
with people. She died on July 16, 1996. Her final
raisers. The GAU emphasized a connection between
journal, At Eighty-Two: A Journal (1994), was
personal liberation and social change and stressed
published posthumously. Nancy Seale Osborne
its opposition to discrimination against women and
gay people in academia, support of faculty and stu-
Bibliography
Osborne, Nancy Seale. May Sarton. In Contem- dents coming out, and promotion and development
porary Lesbian Writers of the United States: A of new approaches to gay studies in universities.
Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Ed. However, sexism within the GAU precipitated the
Sandra Pollack and Denise D.Knight. Westport, almost immediate formation of separate mens and
Conn.: Greenwood, 1993. womens caucuses and the eventual exodus of many
Straw, Deborah. Belles Letters Interview. Belles women from the organization in 1976.
Lettres 6:2 (Winter 1991), 3437. Early post-Stonewall scholarly work was tied to
community organizing and social movements in the
See also Autobiography; Poetry form of lesbian archives and history projects, includ-
ing the founding of the Lesbian Herstory Archives in
New York City by Joan Nestle (1940) and Deborah
Scholars Edel (1944) in 1973. This work was instrumental
Lesbians who conduct scholarship pertaining to in initiating a field of study that displaced models of
lesbian- or nonlesbian-related issues outside or in- social, medical, and psychological deviance in the
side educational institutions. Many lesbian schol- study of lesbian lives. With the success of GAU mem-
ars point to social change and movements as ena- bers in forming gay and lesbian caucuses within dis-
bling and motivating their scholarship, as they seek ciplinary professional organizations, including the
to reshape scholarly traditions that have debased Modern Language Association in 1973 and the
and denied lesbian existence, to represent the American Anthropological and American Sociologi-
specificity and multiplicity of lesbians lived expe- cal associations in 1974, scholarly activity shifted to
riences, and to explain and change the social or- the disciplines as a primary location for defining gay
der. These scholars have worked within and be- and lesbian scholarship.
yond academia to create legitimate areas and meth- At the same time that lesbian scholars worked with
ods of study. Even lesbian scholars who do not gay men, their scholarly work was enabled by the
engage in lesbian-specific scholarship frequently gradual institutionalization of womens studies
face professional marginalization in their fields courses and departments in universities in the 1970s
when they are publicly lesbian. and 1980s. However, despite the role of lesbians in

670 S A R T O N , M AY
inaugurating many womens studies programs, it was The gains made in validating lesbian scholars and
not until the early to mid-1980s that mainstream aca- scholarship have increasingly situated openly lesbian
demic feminism, responding to critiques of its scholars in universities, where institutionalized
exclusionary practices by women of color and lesbi- homophobia may discredit them personally and
ans, began to include those it had previously excluded. professionally. Whether they engage in scholarship
Initially, the work of lesbian scholars was shaped pertaining to lesbian issues, many lesbian academ-
by their marginalization in gay and lesbian and ics struggle with issues of coming out in terms
feminist movements, as well as their desire for dis- that are specific to their roles as educators. A number
ciplinary and personal legitimation within the acad- of lesbians write of their responsibility to come out
emy. Lesbian scholars defined lesbian identity and in order to offer students role models, support, and
experience, constructed a visible history, literature, mentoring and to use their presence in classrooms
and culture, and identified specific forms of dis- to foreground the personal and political relevance
crimination that they faced as a group. Feminist of classroom discussions. Beyond the classroom,
and gay male work in the academy developed coming out is often used to work against institu-
around collective identity and experience and led tional and social discrimination, although it may
to the recovery of lost history and literature and diminish a scholars credibility with colleagues, who
the identification of narratives of oppression and may marginalize her scholarship as politicized and
resistance. These strategies excluded lesbian con- endanger her professional status, possibilities for
cerns; nevertheless, they were appropriated by les- networking, and job security. On the other hand, in
bians seeking to create their own area of study by the 1990s, as lesbian studies and queer theory made
defining lesbian identity and experience. Definitions inroads in cultural and literary studies, some les-
of the lesbian, based on such criteria as affective bian scholars faced tokenization, becoming com-
ties, genital sexual experiences, and politics and modities who are called upon to be representatives
resistances forged a lesbian identity and helped of the lesbian community or spokespersons for
construct historical accounts of lesbian lives. lesbian issues in departments and universities.
From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, socalled [The author wishes to thank the Lesbian
sex radicals challenged lesbian feminists mod- Herstory Archives for making available documents
els of lesbian sexuality and politics while women pertaining to the Gay Academic Union.]
of color challenged white lesbians exclusionary Susan Talburt
definitions of lesbian identity and experience. These
political breaks with monolithic understandings of Bibliography
lesbians intersected with the rise of social-construc- Cruikshank, Margaret, ed. Lesbian Studies:
tion theory, which argued for the social, historical, Present and Future. Old Westbury, N.Y.: Femi-
and discursive formation of identities rather than nist Press, 1982.
fixed, timeless identities. Some lesbian scholars criti- Garber, Linda, ed. Tilting the Tower: Lesbians
cized poststructural analysis, arguing that it dis- Teaching Queer Subjects. New York: Routledge,
places the lesbian identity and history constructed 1994.
through activist scholarship with a theoretical fo- Kitzinger, Celia. Beyond the Boundaries: Lesbi-
cus on ideology, representation, and the cultural ans in Academe. In Storming the Tower:
construction of identity categories. They were con- Women in the Academic World. Ed. Susanne
cerned that, by seeking legitimacy within academia, S.Lie and Virginia E.OLeary. New York: Kogan
poststructuralist scholars impose orthodoxies for Page, 1990, pp. 163177.
scholarship that undermine lesbian specificity and McNaron, Toni A.H. Poisoned Ivy: Lesbian and
sever connections to social and political movements Gay Academics Confronting Homophobia.
that have historically enabled their work. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997.
Independent lesbian scholars often had little Zimmerman, Bonnie, and Toni A.H.McNaron, eds.
access to material or institutional support for their The New Lesbian Studies: Into the Twenty-First
work. Nonetheless, they inaugurated presses, jour- Century. New York: Feminist Press, 1976.
nals, and newspapers, created resources for research
and teaching through history projects and com- See also Archives and Libraries; Brown, Rita Mae;
munity centers, and promoted lesbian cultural ex- Daughters of Bilitis; Lesbian Feminism; Lesbian
pressions through film, drama, and art collectives. Herstory Archives; Lesbian Studies; Millett, Kate;

SCHOLARS 671
 Nestle, Joan; Queer Theory; Rich, Adrienne; Social- From the late nineteenth century onward,
S Construction Theory; Teachers; Womens Studies women in many industrialized countries slowly
regained access to this institutionalized practice of
science, but their roles as scientists were isolated
Science and marginal. Science and technology remained
Lesbians have worked in science and technology male dominated in both their practices and dis-
as long as women have had access to these fields. courses. The conventional image of a scientist was
Prior to the twentieth century, however, very little white, male, Western, and heterosexual, while the
is documented about their affectionate preferences. role of a woman in science stayed that of the
During certain periods of time, western European other by definition.
medieval convents offered some women possibili-
ties of engaging in the pursuit of knowledge in com- The Twentieth Century
munities consisting of other women. Some, for The twentieth-century female scientist is thus a de-
example, read lesbian passion into the friendships viant from traditional male-controlled femininity.
of Hildegard of Bingen (10981171), the medieval Her stereotype has often been that of a spinster, dedi-
visionary, composer, and writer of medical and cated to her career instead of to a husband and chil-
philosophical texts. dren. This seeming asexuality could hide potential
lesbian lifestories of many female scientists from
History sight. The main affections we know from their docu-
At the beginning of the modern era (ca. 1500), many mented lives are their often passionate pursuit of
European women had roles in their communities as scientific knowledge and their friendships and con-
healers and wise women (or witches), practicing tacts with other women. The latter have been rou-
knowledge and skills that had been developed by tinely ignored by historians of science, who have
women over several centuries. During the so-called treated women scientists almost solely in their rela-
scientific revolution, this traditional knowledge was tion to male colleagues and superiors. For example,
replaced by the emerging modern science, practiced the 1996 biography of the Austrian nuclear physi-
by well-to-do men. In large-scale witch-hunts, last- cist Lise Meitner (18781968), discoverer of nuclear
ing from the late Middle Ages until the eighteenth fission, could be read as containing a possible les-
century, vast numbers of women (estimates range bian subtext, instead of the usual reading of Meitner
from 100,000 to several million) were killed. as a spinster colleague of the most eminent nuclear
During and after this violent era of scientific physicists of her time. Meitners close friendships
revolution, women of wealthy families still had were with other women, but no documents about
some limited access to science and learning. How- their intimate exchanges remain, as is often the case
ever, they were isolated, particularly from commu- with scientists personal correspondence.
nities of other women, in their roles as family mem- Various lesbian feminist movements that
bers (wives, daughters, sisters, or in otherwise sec- emerged from the 1960s onward were often criti-
retarial functions) and helpmates to the scientist, cal of established science. This criticism took sev-
who was their father, brother, husband, or master. eral forms, some of which rejected science alto-
By the nineteenth century, western European gether. Many lesbian feminists were actively in-
science and technology had become institutional- volved in practicing alternatives to science and tech-
ized as a profoundly male realm. Not only did the nology, such as astrology and witchcraft, with the
scientific establishment consist of men, but, in ad- purpose of reclaiming the power that the scientific
dition, the scientific approach that had developed revolution had taken from women. These ap-
in the modern era represented the point of view of proaches became threaded into lesbian feminist
the enlightened Western man of science. He culture, while offering little of interest to those les-
treated nature and women as objects of study and bians working as scientists.
as the other, seen as inherently inferior to the Since the late 1970s, Western feminist thinkers,
objective male scientist. Womens control of their including Merchant (1980) Evelyn Fox Keller, and
bodies, now reduced to biological objects, were Harding (1991), have vocally challenged the ob-
placed in the hands of men, and womens sexual- jectivity and rationality of science and technology.
ity was reduced to a means for heterosexual pro- These challenges have emerged both from the femi-
creation. nist rethinking of knowledge and from the general

672 SCHOLARS
development of social and cultural studies of sci- like in lesbian sociogeography, which aims at plac-
ence and technology. ing lesbians concretely on the map.
There have been various approaches to the ques- Many lesbian scientists are involved in main-
tion of how science should be treated and trans- stream scientific research and teaching, but com-
formed. Some 1970s feminist writers of theory and munities of lesbian scientists for socializing, or for
Utopian fiction outlined science as a threat, unavoid- furthering the practice of lesbian science, hardly
ably leading to violence and domination. Others sug- existed until the early 1990s. In the last decade of
gested it had a liberating potential and could be used the twentieth century, lesbian scientists created
to transform human reproduction, thus freeing some loose networksfor example, LIS (Lesbians
women from their biological, heterosexual destinies. in Science), which was formed in 1991 in the United
The intrinsic resistance of physical science and States and connects its members through an elec-
technology to feminist critiques has been much tronic mailing list. There have also been gather-
stronger than in the humanities and the social sci- ings of lesbian scientists in connection with meet-
ences. Because of this, there has been little change ings for women in science and technology, in Ger-
in the theory and practice of science itself, although many and elsewhere. However, in many branches
some in the consciousness of women (and men) of science and in most countries and cultures, sci-
involved in doing it. There is no unique approach ence and technology still lack lesbian viewpoints
to a specific lesbian science but, instead, a vari- and a sense of lesbian community. Coming out,
ety of approaches. Although creating lesbian view- connecting with others, and providing role models
points on science and technology might not sig- for lesbian students are practical concerns for many
nificantly alter existing scientific practices, they are lesbians in science around the world.
well worth exploring. There are a few examples of how lesbianism
Many lesbians incorporate the insights of femi- has informed a scientists approach to her disci-
nist critiques of science. Some researchers have, how- pline. One such testimony can be found in the writ-
ever, attempted to outline a more explicitly lesbian ing of Rachel Carson (19071964), the well-known
approach. Sandra Harding, in Whose Science? U.S. ecologist and author of The Silent Spring
Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Womens Lives (1962). Carson fell in love with a married woman
(1991) asks: Shouldnt there be a distinctive les- ten years her senior at age forty-five, although they
bian epistemological standpoint? Harding outlines could meet only during the summer at their vaca-
several lesbian contributions to feminist standpoints. tion homes on an island in Maine.
These include seeing women in relation to other In her best-selling book about seashore ecol-
women and imagining communities consisting of ogy, The Edge of the Sea (1955), Carson describes
women, challenging compulsory heterosexuality, life forms that belong both to the wet and the dry
and centering on female sexuality as constructed by worlds in a way that seems to reflect her own les-
women. A lesbian standpoint also points to a link bian life, closeted out of necessity:
between the oppression of women and the oppres-
sion of deviant sexualities, originating in the way In my thoughts of the shoreis a pool hid-
science has been structured. den within a cave that one can visit only
rarely and briefly when the lowest of the
Lesbian Perspectives years low tides fall below it, and perhaps
But what could lesbian perspectives in natural sci- from that very fact it acquires some of its
ences be like? They could include, for example, an special beauty. Here were creatures so
approach to gynecology that does not imagine fe- exquisitely fashioned that they seemed un-
male bodies as just reproductive systems. Another real, their beauty too fragile to exist in a
contribution could be to use metaphors of positive world of crushing force.
woman-to-woman relations in describing how a
scientist interacts with nature. Instead of having Lesbian scientists like Carson, with their hidden
penetrating insight into something unknown, a and marginal viewpoints, have stood among oth-
scientist could rely on interdependencies, seeing ers (women, eco-activists, indigenous peoples)
herself as a part of what is being observed, not as with equally marginal viewpoints, helping trans-
someone fundamentally different and dominant. gress the established borders of science and tech-
Lesbians can also be placed into focus explicitly, nology. Eva Isaksson

SCIENCE 673
 Bibliography (1986), Nicola Griffiths Ammonite (1992), and
S Freeman, Martha, ed. Always, Rachel: The Let-
ters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman,
Suzy McKee Charnass The Furies (1994), the se-
quel to Motherlines (1978). Marion Zimmer
19521964. Boston: Beacon, 1995. Bradley (1930), an early contributor to The Lad-
Harding, Sandra. Whose Science? Whose Knowl- der who went on to become a popular and prolific
edge? Thinking from Womens Lives. Ithaca, SF writer, both depicts and critiques lesbian Uto-
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991. pias in The Ruins of Isis (1978) and her Free Ama-
Merchant, Carolyn. The Death of Nature: Women, zon trilogy, The Shattered Chain (1976), Thendara
Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution. San House (1983), and City of Sorcery (1984).
Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980. Despite the continuing popularity of Utopias, the
1980s and 1990s saw the growth of more dystopian
See also Ecology and Ecofeminism; Hildegard of future visions as feminist and lesbian writers began
Bingen, Saint; Technology to engage with the realities of technology, the limi-
tations of the lesbian community, and the inescap-
able presence of men. SF writers of the 1990s, such
Science Fiction as Eleanor Arnason, Lynda Lyons, Laura Mixon,
The roots of modern science fiction (SF) can be traced Mary Rosenblum, and Melissa Scott, challenged the
back to a range of nineteenth-century literary tradi- heterosexist and frequently misogynistic conventions
tions, including Gothic horror, utopian fantasy, and of hard (high-tech) SF like cyberpunk by giving
adventure fiction, but it was not until the early twen- lesbian and bisexual women characters central roles.
tieth century that SF emerged as a distinctive genre. Feminist male writers, including Samuel Delany and
Editors such as Hugo Gernsbeck (18841967) and John Varley, have also included sympathetic protraits
writers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs (18751950) of female homosexuality in their work.
forged the conventions of SF in pulp magazines and The 1980s and 1990s also saw a shift in pub-
novels intended primarily for adolescent boys. Thus, lishing trends. In the 1970s and early 1980s, small,
it is not surprising that lesbians, on the rare occa- independent, feminist and lesbian presses were
sions that they appeared in early SF at all, were por- largely responsible for seeing lesbian SF into print.
trayed as sexless manhaters or loathsome monsters. In the United States, Naiad Press, Spinsters Ink,
Some notable exceptions occurred in the context of New Victoria Publishers, Rising Tide Press, and
the mid-twentiethcentury homophile movement. others have printed a variety of SF and fantasy
Lisa Ben (pseud.) included several SF stories in Vice novels. In the United Kingdom, Onlywomen Press
Versa, a short-lived magazine for lesbians that she and the Womens Press have put and kept an im-
edited and published in Los Angeles, California, in pressive number of lesbian SF titles in print, in-
1947. The Daughters of Bilitisa small but influ- cluding Anna Livias Bulldozer Rising (1988) and
ential group of early lesbian activistsalso published Lorna Mitchells Revolution of Saint Jone (1988).
SF in its national newsletter, The Ladder, including Since the late 1980s, however, large commercial
a threepart series about a Martian anthropologist SF publishers, such as Del Rey, Daw, and Tor, have
in a lesbian bar. come out with an increasing number of novels with
Riding the second wave of the feminist move- realistic lesbian characters. Simultaneously, Naiad
ment, large numbers of lesbian and feminist writ- Press, the oldest and largest independent lesbian
ers entered SF for the first time in the 1970s. Uto- press, gradually ceased publishing SF altogether.
piasvisions of ideal future societieshave been Lesbian SF, like both lesbian fiction and main-
a predominant feature of lesbian SF ever since. stream SF more generally, continues to be written
Lesbian Utopias frequently rest on separatist prin- predominantly for, by, and about white, middleclass
ciples, imagining future harmony in pastoral soci- people. Jewelle Gomez (1948) is among the few
eties inhabited solely by women. Examples can be lesbians of color writing SF. Published in 1991 by
found in Joanna Russs pioneering book The Fe- independent feminist press Firebrand Books,
male Man (1975), as well as Alice Sheldon/James Gomezs first novel, The Gilda Stories, follows the
Tiptree Jr.s Houston, Houston, Do You Read? life of a black lesbian vampire from the time of
(1976), Sally Gearharts The Wanderground (1980), slavery to a terrifying near-future world. Other
Katherine Forrests Daughters of a Coral Dawn women of color, including Gloria Anzalda and
(1984), Joan Slonczewskis A Door into Ocean Michelle Parkerson, have produced a handful of

674 SCIENCE
poems and short stories that fall in the category of the Rockefeller familys oil fortune; joining the So-
lesbian SF. Gomez (1993) believes that the histori- cialist Party in 1912; speaking to the women of
cal and cultural legacies of racism make it impossi- the 1912 Lawrence textile strike; helping found the
ble for women of color to escape into Utopian nar- Church League for Industrial Democracy in 1919;
ratives. Thus, the fact that the Utopia has been at lecturing at the New School for Social Research
the heart of lesbian SF since the 1970s may be one weekly in 1931; and organizing a 1944 conference
of the reasons few women of color have chosen to on The Churchs Responsibility Toward Racial
write it. Groups.
Karen Cadora All of Scudders work was situated in a
femalecentered world, about which she wrote ex-
Bibliography tensively in her 1937 autobiography, On Journey.
Decarnin, Camilla, Eric Garber, and Lyn Paleo, eds. She wrote of friendship between women as the
Worlds Apart: An Anthology of Lesbian and definitive experience of reality. Scudders friend-
Gay Science Fiction and Fantasy. Boston: ship with Florence Converse (18711967), her stu-
Alyson, 1986. dent, a woman who has entered the inmost re-
Garber, Eric, and Lyn Paleo. Uranian Worlds: A gion in my power to open, was lifelong, as was
Guide to Alternative Sexuality in Science Fic- the closeness between Scudder and her mother. At
tion, Fantasy, and Horror. 2nd ed. Boston: Wellesley, she and Converse became the center of a
G.K.Hall, 1990. vital community of women. In 1919, with their
Gomez, Jewelle. Speculative Fiction and Black mothers, they established a household, about which
Lesbians. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture Scudder wrote in On Journey: Miss Converse had
and Society 18:4 (1993), 948955. for years shared my life in all ways except living
Yntema, Sharon, ed. More Than 100 Women Sci- under the same roof. Now that joy was given us,
ence Fiction Writers: An Annotated Bibliogra- and we have never been separated since.
phy. Freedom, Calif: Crossing, 1988. In the plots of their fiction and in the dedica-
tions of their books is a record of their enduring
See also Anzalda, Gloria E.; Naiad Press; Uto- and loving relationship and an exploration of what
pian Literature womens relationships mean. For example, in
Scudders A Listener in Babel (1903), the main
character, a female settlement worker from a rather
Scudder, Vida Dutton (18611954) privileged background, decides with a group of
American writer, teacher, and social activist. She multiethnic working-class women to do factory
was born in India and christened Julia Davida work while they plan a cooperative living commu-
Dutton Scudder; after the death of her missionary nity. In Converses Diana Victrix (1897), Enid,
father when she was less than a year old, she was modeled after Scudder, and Sylvia, modeled after
raised by her mother in Auburndale and Boston, Converse, both reject men, embracing their work
Massachusetts, where both the Scudders and and each other. Scudder dedicates her 1937 auto-
Duttons, old New England families, resided. She biography to Converse, her Comrade and Com-
was a member of the first class of the Boston Girls panion.
Latin School and attended Smith College, where In addition to the female-centered worlds of
she got her B.A. and M.A. in English studies and college and the settlement house, Scudder was also
published her first writing, under the pseudonym devoted to the Companionship of the Holy Cross,
Davida Coit. In 1887, she joined the faculty of a sororial religious community. Scudder wrote on
English literature at Wellesley College, where she the life of St. Catherine of Siena (13471380) and
taught until her retirement in 1928. on Christian social thought and became one of the
Not only was she a prolific writer (seventeen leading Franciscan scholars of her day.
books and several hundred articles), Scudder also Nan Bauer-Maglin
acted on her progressive social vision, which took
such forms as organizing the College Settlement Bibliography
Association in 1887 and, during 1893, working at Balch, Emily Green. Vida Dutton Scudder, 1861
Denison House, Bostons first settlement; cam- 1954. Wellesley Alumna Magazine (January
paigning in 1900 against a gift to Wellesley from 1955), 8990.

SCUDDER, VIDA DUTTON 675

 Corcoran, Theresa. Vida Button Scudder. Boston: borrow martial-arts techniques. Students practice
S Twayne, 1982.
Frederick, Peter J. Vida Button Scudder: The Pro-
using their minds, their voices, easily learned physi-
cal techniques, and objects at hand, rather than
fessor as Social Activist. New England Quar- weapons. They learn realistic information about
terly 43 (September 1970), 407433. attacks in order to minimize media distortion and
Maglin, Nan Bauer. Vida to Florence: Comrade to counter pervasive advice not to resist. Sociologi-
and Companion. Frontiers: A Journal of cal research has shown that resistance works; the
Women Studies 4 (Fall 1979), 1320. more strategies a woman used, the more likely she
was to escape from an attacker with minimal inju-
See also Boston Marriage; Colleges, Womens; Fe- ries. To make skills widely accessible, most femi-
male Support Networks nist self-defense classes are relatively inexpensive,
although a few, widely publicized businesses sell
courses at prices that only affluent women can af-
Self-Defense ford. Typically, selfdefense classes last six to ten
Skills that help individuals protect themselves. In a weeks. Some programs teach courses for women
society that expects women to limit their freedom, with disabilities or adapt their curriculum to disa-
to rely on male protection, and not to fight back if bled womens capabilities. Mixed gay and lesbian
assaulted, self-defense classes teach women and girls organizations have also sponsored self-defense
mental, psychological, and physical skills and em- classes, often taught by lesbians.
power them to feel confident on their own. Wom- All women can benefit from self-defense classes,
ens self-defense is one of many examples of femi- but not all continue training in a martial art. Les-
nist political action led and supported dispropor- bian and feminist martial artists are noteworthy for
tionately by lesbian energy. Beginning ca. 1970, their cooperation, despite style chauvinism in the
feminists sought martial-arts training and organ- martial arts. The National Womens Martial Arts
ized classes to defeat female victimization, passiv- Federation and the Pacific Association of Women
ity, and powerlessness. In the late 1990s, commu- Martial Artists, both founded in the 1970s, hold
nity centers, religious institutions, workplaces, rec- annual training camps, as well as local and regional
reation programs, universities, Girl Scout troops, get-togethers, that feature self-defense classes and
feminist organizations, and martial-arts schools training for self-defense teachers. Competitors at the
hosted selfdefense classes. 1994 Gay Games in New York City included more
Anger at violence against women; the convic- than two hundred lesbian martial artists.
tion that women have the right to feel safe in their Lois Rita Helmbold
homes, on the streets, and in the workplace; and
the desire to challenge ingrained fears and lack of Bibliography
confidence motivated this movement. Feminist Bart, Pauline, and Patricia OBrien. Stopping Rape:
antiviolence politics and martial arts contribute to Successful Survival Strategies. New York:
selfdefense philosophy and practice. But while rape Pergamon, 1985.
crisis groups, battered womens shelters, and do- Caignon, Denise, and Gail Groves, eds. Her Wits
mestic violence projects strive to mitigate the ef- About Her: Self-Defense Success Stories by
fects of violence perpetrated against women, Women. New York: Harper and Row, 1987.
selfdefense teaches prevention and successful re-
sponse to attacks. Child assault prevention pro- See also Violence
grams incorporate the same philosophy of safety
and empowerment for children.
Although success stories are rarely heardthe Self-Help
media publicize rapes, assaults, and murders The variety of strategies by which people meet their
countless women have avoided, escaped, and suc- personal needs outside professional arenas. All of
cessfully protected themselves from threatening these strategies focus on giving people access to
situations. Self-defense teaches assertiveness, reli- the information they need to cope with personal
ance on intuition, and knowledge of vulnerable concerns and empowering them to believe that they
areas on attackers bodies. Self-defense classes are can do it. The terms self-help and mutual aid
not martial-arts classes, although they freely are sometimes used interchangeably because most

676 SCUDDER, VIDA DUTTON

forms of self-help involve helping ones self and cultural barriers women face. According to this per-
being supportive of others with the same problem spective, womens self-help promotes a culture of
or concern. victim feminism or a cult of victimhood. Oth-
The most commonly recognized form of selfhelp ers view self-help groups as promoting social change
is the self-help group. These small, organized while meeting individuals needs. For example, the
groups of individuals who share a common set of AIDS self-help movement has changed medical defi-
concerns or characteristics have become more com- nitions of the disease, increased federal funding for
mon in the last two decades of the twentieth cen- research and services, and demanded protection for
tury. Self-help groups usually focus their activities the rights of individuals with AIDS/ HIV Self-help,
on supportive discussion, but many also provide according to this perspective, has encouraged women
material assistance to participants, plan outings, to recognize that others share their concerns, em-
and/or educate the public about their particular powered women to seek solutions, and brought the
concerns. Although professionals may be involved issues of specific subgroups of lesbian, gay, and bi-
as members, self-help groups can be distinguished sexual women to the attention of the community as
from therapeutic support groups in that they do a whole.
not rely on professionally trained leaders. Some of Marieke Van Willigen
these groups are independent, but many are linked
with regional or national self-help organizations Bibliography
that provide information and resources. Kaminer, Wendy. Im Dysfunctional, Youre Dys-
Self-help is not limited to support groups. An- functional: The Recovery Movement and Other
other common form is self-help reading. Bookstores Self-Help Fashions. Reading, Mass.:
are full of self-help books, providing information AddisonWesley, 1992.
and advice about specific concerns. Many self-help Katz, Alfred. Self-Help in America: A Social Move-
organizations publish newsletters in which mem- ment Perspective. New York: Twayne, 1993.
bers give firsthand accounts of their experiences. Simonds, Wendy. Women and Self-Help Culture:
In the womens community and, particularly, the Reading Between the Lines. New Brunswick,
lesbian community, self-help has also taken other N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992.
forms, such as self-defense training, co-counseling Wuthnow, Robert. Sharing the Journey: Support
groups, and legal clinics. Groups and Americas New Quest for Com-
Self-help has played an important role in the munity. New York: Free Press, 1994.
lesbian community and in the gay, lesbian, and bi-
sexual movement. In the 1970s, lesbian feminists See also AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syn-
organized around the concept of self-help, estab- drome); Olivia; Psychotherapy; Recovery Move-
lishing economic co-ops, child-care centers, health ment; Self-Defense
clinics, and halfway houses, in addition to more
traditional support groups. Olivia Records, a suc-
cessful womens music company, began as a part Separatism
of this effort to establish a separate, self-sufficient Act of separating both privately and publicly from
lesbian nation. In the late 1970s through the men and/or those who promote or maintain male
1980s, these self-help groups branched off in many supremacy (patriarchy). The motivation behind
directions. They became more racially and ethni- separatismto remove ones self from patriarchal
cally diverse, and groups organized to represent influence or behaviordistinguishes separatism
other specific subgroups in the community. Groups from other gestures of all-female community, such
such as Chicago Asian Lesbians Moving (CALM), as those embraced by women who join convents.
Fat Dykes, and the San Francisco Bay Area Career While no exact date has been established for the
Women are examples of self-help groups emerging origins of separatism in the United States, women
during this time period. In the 1990s, groups or- have practiced it in their private lives since at least
ganizing around specific health concerns, such as the mid-nineteenth century. During the late 1960s
cancer, have become common. and early 1970s, however, separatism evolved as
Some feminists accuse self-help groups of encour- political activism designed to destroy patriarchal in-
aging women to define problems in individual terms stitutions. Initially, separatism was practiced by les-
instead of pointing out the political, economic, and bians and nonlesbians alike; as it became increasingly

S E PA R AT I S M 677
 politicized, separatism emerged as almost exclu- pression. Thus, debate carried out in newspapers
S sively lesbian. such as The Furies often included calls for separa-
tion from men and heterosexual women. As the
Characteristics debate followed this path, other separatists began
Separatism adheres to several radical and lesbian to note that even lesbians allied with the patriarchy
feminist principles. It holds that sexism is the first when they refused to remove their energy from main-
oppressive division in human society upon which stream society. Such a recognition compelled sepa-
all other oppressions are modeled. Such a belief ratists to issue position papers, such as one by mem-
emanated from early radical feminist response to bers of the Gutter Dyke Collective that proclaimed:
Marxist analyses of classism; many on the Left [W]e have found it necessary to separate ourselves
contended that class was the original and, thus, from certain lesbians. For the most part, we want
most pernicious division in human society. In part to withdraw ourselves from very oppressive, nega-
to assert the importance of the devastation caused tive situations into more positive ones (quoted in
by sexism, radical feminists contextualized their Hoagland and Penelope 1988). But whatever the
analyses within the accepted framework of Marx- differences in their definitions of separatism, many
ism. Most separatists view sexism as so pervasive separatists sought out all-female living and business
that reformist measures will never end womens arrangements. Separatists often participated in the
oppression; women can overcome their subjection creation and maintenance of residential and/or busi-
only by dismantling and rebuilding society. ness collectives, particularly during the 1970s.
Further, the reliance on concepts of sexism as
the primary, or root, oppression in human soci- Criticism
ety compels many separatist theorists to name men Separatism has created considerable controversy
as the agents of most, if not all, social ills. If sex- within and outside lesbian communities. Because it
ism served as the first oppression upon which all usually names men as the agents of male supremacy,
other hierarchal thought or behavior was modeled, much of separatist theory insists that women should
then men, as the benefactors of sexism and the have nothing to do with men. Feminists of color
possessors of power within patriarchal societies, such as Audre Lorde (19341992), Chrystos (1946
must be the architects and agents of that oppres- ), and members of the Combahee River Collective
sion. In addition, any society requires the work of criticized this stand for its racist and classist impli-
most of its members to function or survive. Be- cations because it denies minority womens desire
cause separatism withdraws womens energy and to ally with minority men against all oppressions in
labor from the patriarchy and denies male access their lives. Similarly, lesbians and nonlesbians alike
to women, separatism theoretically should bring fault separatism for its tendency to universalize
about the end of society in its current form. For womens experiencea tendency that often occurs
most separatists, separatism is, thus, a political in conjunction with belief in sexism as the primary
strategy and a way to affirm lesbianism through oppression. In other words, if all men are agents of
the support of women in all aspects of ones life. womens oppression, then all womenby virtue of
Despite the cohesiveness that these characteris- their secondclass statusare at least potential al-
tics imply, separatist thought has not been mono- lies. Such a concept worked as a strong call for wom-
lithic or even broadly unified. For example, while ens unity: The popularity of the slogan Sisterhood
most separatists agree that men are the primary en- is Powerful! is but one example of its appeal. Yet
emy, widespread debate over the degree of separa- the concept of womens natural affinity or unity also
tion necessary to separatist practice occurred, par- worked destructively in womens communities, par-
ticularly during the 1970s and early 1980s. Some ticularly when it allowed women to dismiss their
theorists, such as Marilyn Frye in Some Reflections own racism, classism, heterosexism, or other op-
on Separatism and Power (1978), wrote that sepa- pressive behaviors. Critics have argued that these
ration from menwhenever reasonably possible behaviors became relatively easy to justify as bad
is the key component of separatist practice. By 1973, habits learned from a patriarchal society; the justifi-
other separatists began to point out that women who cation implied that women, on their own, would
refused to sever their ties with men also played a not create or engage in oppressive behavior. Because
role in the maintenance of patriarchal society. Sepa- such dismissals allowed women to deny ultimate
ratists identified heterosexual women, in particular, responsibility for their own oppressive actions,
as those responsible for colluding in womens op- separatist communities often became divided or

678 S E PA R AT I S M
destroyed over struggles with racism, classism, and Connection; Lesbian Feminism; Lesbian Nation;
heterosexism. Finally, many lesbians dismiss sepa- Lorde, Audre; Music Festivals; Patriarchy;
ratism as impractical because it requires unilateral Penelope, Julia; Sexism; Sisterhood
action by most (if not all) women in order to suc-
ceed as a political agenda.
Sex Education
Contemporary Status As defined in guidelines issued in 1991 by the Na-
Although much of separatist thought emanates from tional Guidelines Taskforce, comprised of groups
the United States, separatism is international in such as the American Medical Association and the
scope. France, in particular, has generated a sub- U.S. Centers for Disease Control, a lifelong proc-
stantial body of separatist theory; members of sepa- ess of acquiring information and forming attitudes,
ratist collectives in Denmark wrote of their experi- beliefs, and values about identity, relationships, and
ences in Joyce Cheneys Lesbian Land (1985). While intimacy. These groups suggest that all children
the strength of, and interest in, separatist thought would benefit from comprehensive sex education.
waned during the 1980s and early 1990s, lesbians Such programs would include basic information,
have renewed calls for separatist practice in the as well as instruction about attitudes and values,
United States, particularly through the re-creation relationships, and sexual responsibility.
of separatist collectives. Separatist residential col- Mainstream sexuality education has evolved over
lectives, in particular, continue to compel the inter- the last one hundred years. Contemporary sexual-
ests of lesbians, as might be exemplified by discus- ity education has its roots in the social-hygiene move-
sions of separatism in newsjournals such as Lesbian ments at the turn of the twentieth century. As part
Connection during 19951996 and subsequent calls of initiatives to curb prostitution and venereal dis-
for womens participation in the creation of new eases, a diverse group of physicians, educators, and
rural collectives. And while the number of business social workers proposed sex education in the pub-
collectives decreased during the 1990s, the impor- lic schools. Although the National Education Asso-
tance of separatist thought remains evident in the ciation endorsed sex education in 1912, schools did
structure and practice of organizations such as the not integrate such programs into their curricula until
womens music industry, domestic abuse shelters, much later. Activists like Margaret Sanger (1879
womens historical archives, rape crisis lines, and 1966) in the 1930s and organizations like Planned
womens health-care centers. Dana R.Shugar Parenthood in the 1940s and 1950s supported ef-
forts at sex education and counseling.
Bibliography By the mid-1960s, many schools had implemented
Cheney, Joyce, ed. Lesbian Land. Minneapolis: some type of instruction on sexuality and reproduc-
Word Weavers, 1985. tion. One important example was the school system
Freedman, Estelle. Separatism as Strategy: Female in Anaheim, California, whose Family Life and Sex
Institution Building and American Feminism, Education program was a national model. In response
18701930. Feminist Studies 5:3 (Fall 1979), to an increasingly sexually liberal society, schools
512529. began to teach more comprehensive programs rather
Hoagland, Sarah Lucia, and Julia Penelope, eds. than focus simply on anatomy and physiology. Some
For Lesbians Only: A Separatist Anthology. educators began, for example, to include lessons about
London: Onlywomen, 1988. homosexuality, masturbation, and sexual decision
Jo, Bev, Linda Strega, and Ruston. Dykes- making. The Sex Information and Education Coun-
LovingDykes: Dyke Separatist Politics for Les- cil (SIECUS), founded in 1964 by physician Mary
bians Only. Oakland, Calif.: Battleaxe, 1990. Calderone (1904) and colleagues, served as an or-
Rich, Adrienne. Notes for a Magazine: What Does ganizational resource and clearinghouse for this new
Separatism Mean? Sinister Wisdom 18 (Fall educational movement.
1981), 8391. The years 19681969 marked a moment of in-
Shugar, Dana R. Separatism and Womens Commu- tense controversy over sex education that raged on
nity. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. both local and national levels. National right-wing
groups, notably the Christian Crusade and the John
See also Collectives; Combahee River Collective; Birch Society, discovered the enourmous potential in
Community; Essentialism; Furies, The; Lesbian sex education to galvanize and organize

S E X E D U C AT I O N 679
 communities, raise money, and consolidate political Although embattled, the mainstream
S power, beginning with school boards. They were fre-
quently the moving force behind the myriad local
sexualityeducation movement has been largely sup-
portive of lesbian and gay rights. The guidelines from
groups that sprang up to exploit parental fears and the national task force call for tolerance of sexual
concerns, such as MOTOREDE (Movement to Re- diversity and an end to discrimination and bigotry.
store Decency) and POSE (Parents Opposed to Sex In particular, they assert that curricula should in-
Education). Therefore, a consistently successful clude messages such as homosexual love relation-
oppositional tactic has been the spinning of sex-edu- ships can be as fulfilling as heterosexual relation-
cation apocryphal tales. One such story in 1969 as- ships and homosexual, heterosexual, and bisexual
serted that seventeen male students had raped a people are alike except for their sexual attraction.
twenty-five-year-old sexeducation teacher after watch- Increasingly, educators are integrating positive mes-
ing a film in class. The story could not be verified sages about homosexuality in the schools.
and, although assumed to be false, reappeared in 1979 School reform assumed increasing importance for
in a Christian Defense League broadside. But in that the lesbian and gay movement during the 1980s and
version, twenty male students raped a twenty-four- 1990s, despite formidable obstacles. The need for
year-old teacher during their final exam. One of the
safety and tolerance propelled the first programs.
rapists was alleged to have said: Didnt she spend
Project 10 was the first major school-based program
the whole year telling us how to do it, when to do it,
developed to provide education and counseling to
and how much fun it would be? Other apocryphal
students on sexual orientation. Its formation in Los
tales consistent to both the late 1960s and the 1990s
Angeles, California, in 1985 was prompted by the
include the teacher who disrobes in class and the
harassment of an openly gay male student who even-
teacher who masturbates in class or forces her stu-
tually dropped out of school. This incident height-
dents to masturbate. Sexeducation supporters may
ened faculty awareness of homophobia in the schools
expend exhaustive efforts to convince the public that
and eventually resulted in the implementation of
they do not force students to listen to the teachers
sexual fantasies, watch pornography, or practice Project 10. Since its inception, Project 10 has been
putting on condoms in class. the subject of extensive publicity and has been rou-
Communities in at least thirty states were riven tinely characterized by the Religious Right as a pro-
by sex-education controversies in 19681969. By gram for seducing innocent children.
the end of this period, approximately twenty states In the late 1990s, there were a range of other
had considered or implemented legislation regu- programs throughout the country that either taught
lating sex education. The United States Congress about lesbian and gay issues or offered counseling
debated bills to end federal funding for sex educa- and support to youth. Lesbian and gay content was
tion and to launch an investigation into SIECUS. increasingly integrated into comprehensive sexu-
By the early 1970s, however, the intense furor over ality education, AIDS education, and multicultural
sex education had waned, and very slowly and care- education. Many public schools also established
fully school districts began to reinstitute programs. support groups, such as the increasingly common
Yet sex educations enduring power as a con- Gay/Straight Alliance. Janice M.Irvine
densed symbol for sexual chaos, disease, and dif-
ference was evident in the reintensification of de- Bibliography
bate a quarter-century later. In the mid-1990s, Brandt, Allan. No Magic Bullet. New York: Ox-
SIECUS documented controversies in one hundred ford University Press, 1985.
communities. The actual number of such commu- Breasted, Mary. Oh! Sex Education! New York:
nity debates was likely much higher, since, in Mas- Praeger, 1970.
sachusetts alone, there were challenges to compre- DEmilio, John, and Estelle Freedman. Intimate
hensive sexuality or AIDS curricula in almost thirty Matters: A History of Sexuality in America. New
towns in early 1994. Congress once again began York: Harper and Row, 1988.
debating bills that would regulate what schools Gordon, Linda. Womens Body, Womans Right:
could teach about sexuality and homosexuality. The Birth Control in America. New York: Penguin,
swift escalation of these controversies suggests that 1974.
sex education replaced abortion and anti-Commu- Sears, James, ed. Sexuality and the Curriculum: The
nism as major fund-raising and organizational tools Politics and Practices of Sexuality Education.
for the secular and the Religious Right. New York: Teachers College, 1991.

680 S E X E D U C AT I O N
Trudell, Bonnie. Doing Sex Education: Gender Analingus, also called rimming, means stimu-
Politics and Schooling. New York: Routledge, lating the anus with the mouth.
1993. Tribadism refers to rubbing bodies together while
women face each other. Examples include lying one
See also High Schools, Lesbian and Gay woman on top of the other and rubbing pubic areas
together for mutual clitoral stimulation, one woman
rubbing her clitoris against another womans hip
Sex Practices bone, or sitting face-to-face with legs open and en-
Erotic activities engaged in by women who iden- twined to rub vulvas against each other.
tify as lesbians. A survey of one thousand lesbians Fingering of genitals, sometimes called mutual
conducted in the late 1970s in the United States masturbation, means rubbing the clitoris and la-
and Canada revealed that the most popular sexual bia, or sliding fingers into the vagina. Penetration
activities among lesbians were manual stimulation refers to putting fingers, a dildo, or other object
of the clitoris or vagina, kissing, breast stimula- into the vagina. Finger-fucking means sliding one,
tion, cunnilingus, and tribadism. A late-1980s sur- or more fingers into the vagina, either gently or
vey of more than 1,500 U.S. lesbians had similar vigorously. Sliding a whole hand into the vagina
results: Hugging, snuggling, kissing, masturbating, or anus is called fisting. Butt-fucking refers to pen-
getting naked, holding hands, and French kissing etration of the anus with fingers or sex toys.
were listed as the most popular sex acts. A 1975 Packing means strapping on a dildo with a har-
lesbian sex manual described similar practices. ness and, often, wearing these sex toys under cloth-
As lesbians moved from feminist separatism in ing on a date or out cruising. A dildo and a har-
the 1970s toward working and socializing with gay ness allow a woman to penetrate her partner stand-
men in the 1990s, sex styles changed. A lesbian ing up, kneeling, or lying down, leaving her hands
sex manual by Schramm-Evans and Jaugey-Paget free for breast fondling, hugging, hair tugging, back
(1995) described fisting, penetration, sex with men, scratching, or clitoral stimulation.
voyeurism, fetishism, S/M (sadomasochist) gear, Fantasy and role playing can involve wearing
and anal toys, in addition to the sex acts reported costumes or acting out stories. Acting butch means
as popular in the previous two decades. wearing traditional male clothing, initiating sexual
Lesbian sex practices incorporate a wide range activity, being aggressive, or stimulating ones part-
of techniques engaged in by females and males of ner to orgasm. Acting femme means wearing stere-
all sexual orientations. Many of the behaviors, such otypical womens clothing and makeup, initiating
as snuggling, kissing, and caressing, can be non- emotional intimacy, being receptive, or encourag-
sexual expressions of affection. When these activi- ing the sexual advances of a partner. Cross-dress-
ties are combined to produce erotic feelings by ing can refer to a woman wearing male clothing or
women who consider themselves lesbians, they are to a butch woman wearing feminine clothing.
called lesbian sex practices. Topping refers to controlling, suggesting, initi-
Sleeping together can mean sharing a bed, snug- ating, or acting out sexual activity. Bottoming re-
gling, and/or having sex. Spooning refers to lying fers to requesting, agreeing to, limiting, or receiv-
close together, front to back, usually on the side ing sexual stimulation.
with knees bent so bodies form an S-shape. Strok- Sixty-nine means lying head-to-toe so that one
ing and fondling of body parts, including breast woman stimulates her girlfriends vulva while her
stimulation, are common among lesbians. own genitals can be touched by her partner. A daisy
Kissing means pressing the lips against another chain is a group sex circle with one womans geni-
persons lips or body. French kissing, deep kissing, tals being stimulated by the second woman, while
tongue kissing, and wet kissing refer to opening the her breasts or clitoris are caressed by the third, while
mouth to allow a partners body parts to enter or she is being stroked or sucked by the fourth, who
sliding the tongue out to touch a lovers tongue, ear, can be kissed or fisted by the fifthwho is being
armpit, neck, or skin. Sucking refers to taking a fin- tongued or penetrated by number one.
ger, nipple, toe, or clitoris into the mouth. Cunni- S/M (sadomasochism) involves pairing pain with
lingus is oral sex: licking the vulva or clitoris or pen- pleasure to heighten physical sensitivity and emo-
etrating the vagina with the tongue. Oral sex is also tional vulnerability. S/M includes activities that might
called eating out, going down, or eating pussy. be considered uncomfortable in a non-S/M setting,

SEX PRACTICES 681

 such as scratching, biting, pinching, spanking, whip- in the Human Female. Philadelphia: Saunders,
S ping, cutting, humiliation, piercing, or burning.
Bondage and discipline (B/D) involves physically or
1953. 6th ed. New York: Pocket Books, 1973.
Loulan, JoAnn. Lesbian Passion. San Francisco:
psychologically restraining and controlling a part- Spinsters/Aunt Lute, 1987.
ner for the pleasure of both. Sex toys, fantasy, and Munson, Marcia. Eliminating the Barriers to
role playing are often a part of S/M or B/D. Communication: Safer Sex Education for Les-
According to S/M lesbians, vanilla sex is any- bians and Bisexual Women. In Sexualities. Ed.
thing other than S/M. To some women of color, Marny Hall. New York: Haworth, 1996, pp.
vanilla refers to sex with a white woman. 7584.
Viewing pornography, either alone or with oth- Schramm-Evans, Zoe, and Laurence Jaugey-Paget.
ers, has become a more common lesbian sexual ac- Making Out: The Book of Lesbian Sex and
tivity since the appearance of lesbian-made erotic vid- Sexuality. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1995.
eos in the 1980s. Cyber sex, or having erotic encoun-
ters via computer, gained popularity in the 1990s. See also Clitoris; Erotica and Pornography; Love;
Self-stimulation, self-pleasuring, masturbation, Masturbation; Sadomasochism; Safer Sex; Sex
and solo sex are terms for touching ones own body
Toys; Sexuality; Tribade
for sexual excitement, either while alone or in the
company of a lover.
Bestiality refers to getting sexual pleasure from
Sex Toys
animalsfor example, encouraging a cat or dog
The least-euphemistic term available for what many
to lick a persons breasts or genitals.
nonlesbians know as marital aids or personal
Safer sex refers to practices that reduce the
massagers. Used primarily to induce or enhance
chances of spreading sexually transmitted diseases,
orgasm, basic types include electric massage wands,
such as refraining from kissing or oral sex when
plastic and silicone dildos for vaginal or anal use,
one has a cold sore (herpes) on the lips.
Group sex means three or more people having and a variety of lubricants, body paints, and restraints.
sex with each other during one sexual episode.
Polyamory, polyfidelity, nonmonogamy, and open History
relationships are terms for being sexually involved Sex toys have a long, colorful, and specifically les-
with more than one person, but the actual sex acts bian history. Medieval courts prosecuted women for
are usually in couples. A triad is three lovers who using implements, most often handmade of
simultaneously share emotional and/or sexual in- leather, to penetrate their lovers. Seventeenthcentury
timacy. Cheating, sleeping around, and stepping libertines and eighteenth-century criminal biogra-
out are derogatory terms for sexual styles other phers showed particular interest in dildos, the most
than monogamy, which refers to having just one prominent English examples being the Earl of
sex partner at a time. Rochesters (16471680) Signor Dildo and Henry
Making love refers to sex as an expression of Fieldings (17071754) The Female Husband
emotional closeness. Casual sex implies lack of at- (1746). Even Marie Antoinette (17551793) was
tachment or expectations of becoming a couple. featured in French antiroyalty pamphlets using a
Lover, partner, spouse, date, wife, fuck-buddy, dildo on a female lover.
play partner, significant other, and girlfriend are Until the eighteenth century, the punishment for
some of the words lesbians use to describe a woman using a dildo was death. In the hands of male doc-
with whom they have sex. tors, however, vibration was considered a legitimate
The particular array of sex practices engaged in treatment for hysteriawhich some sexologists de-
by an individual lesbian depends on the time, the fined as the suppression of perversion, including les-
setting, her partner, her community, and her per- bianismthroughout the late nineteenth and early
sonal preferences. Marcia Munson twentieth centuries. As such, early vibrators enjoyed
a popular reputation for promoting health, vigor,
Bibliography and beauty of men and women. By 1981, the New
Jay, Karla, and Allen Young. The Gay Report. New York Times reported that the U.S. vibrator business,
York: Summit, 1977, 1979. including personal-care products, adult novelty toys,
Kinsey, Alfred C, Wardell B.Pomeroy, Clyde E. and cottage-type manufacturers, had grown into a
Martin, and Paul H.Gebhard. Sexual Behavior $15 million industry.

682 SEX PRACTICES

Community Aspects chism (S/M) that began in the mid-1970s. The femi-
In the 1980s and 1990s, sex toys achieved subcul- nist antipornography movement that gained promi-
tural prominence among self-identified lesbians by nence at that time provoked a reaction by lesbians
virtue of the advent of women-owned sex-toy stores and feminists, who argued for the liberatory nature
and mail order companies. Organized around femi- of stigmatized sexual practices, particularly S/M. This
nist and sexual liberationist principles, Eves Garden, community of sex radicals bonded through their
Toys in Babeland, and other retailers openly marketed ostracism from the self-identified antiviolence femi-
their products as sexual, empowering, and lesbian nist community. The division into opposing sides in
friendly. Good Vibrations, for example, promoted these wars challenged any coherent definition of les-
Hitachis Magic Wand massager as a clitoral bian and feminist sexuality, as well as the relation-
stimulator and debuted a line of dildos shaped as ships among identity, politics, and sexuality.
goddesses. As a result of sex toys greater availabil- These debates heated up throughout the late
ityas well as the ideological facelift provided by 1970s and into the early 1980s, culminating with
the dyke magazine On Our Backss regular column The Scholar and the Feminist IX conference, To-
Toys Are Us, in which sexpert Susie Bright re- wards a Politics of Sexuality, held at Barnard Col-
viewed and defended the politics of toys and erotica
lege in New York City in April 1982. The conflict
in 1995 43 percent of lesbian readers of the national
exploded, in part, due to the exclusion of
gay magazine the Advocate reported use of a hand-
antipornography activists from planning and par-
held dildo with a partner in the last five years.
ticipating in the conference. The conference organ-
Twenty-seven percent had strapped one on.
izers were exclusionary because, they argued, since
the antipornography side dominated the movement,
Political Aspects
their inclusion would implicitly prevent all (other)
In 1998, laws in Texas and Georgia still prohib-
positions from being heard. Women Against Por-
ited the sale of sex toys, and many lesbiansde-
nography (mainly, although other groups were in-
spite Brights (1990) insistence that penises can
volved) fought back, both before and during the
only be compared to dildos in that they take up
space [in the vagina or anus]have objected to conference. Prior to the conference, antipornography
dildos because of their reputation as a penis sub- activists (or people claiming to be antipornography
stitute. Radical feminist Sheila Jeffreyss The Les- activists) telephoned Barnard College denouncing
bian Heresy (1993), for example, criticized the the organizers for inviting antifeminist speakers
avalanche of dildos let loose on lesbians by Good to participate. On the actual day of the conference,
Vibrations and its sister retailers. From a different antipornography feminists picketed and distributed
perspective, Black Lace editor Lane (1991) com- leaflets that criticized organizers for their
pared the popularity of oversized, black dildos to exclusionary practices, claiming that the decision to
the stereotype of African hypersexuality, propos- deemphasize pornography silenced a significant
ing that dildos may be the location of both sexual feminist presence. According to conference organ-
and racial terror and desire. Heather Findlay izer Carole Vance, the leaflet also attacked indi-
vidual women by name and accused them of un-
Bibliography conventional sexual options, practices, and fanta-
Bright, Susie. Susie Sexperts Lesbian Sex World. sies. The leaflet further blurred the boundary be-
Pittsburgh: Cleis, 1990. tween thought and practice, as defenders of other
Lane, Alycee J. Whats Race Got To Do with It? feminists right to speak were crudely transformed
Black Lace (Summer 1991), 21. into advocates or practitioners of stigmatized sexual
Semans, Anne, and Cathy Winks. The Good Vi- acts (Vance 1984).
brations Guide to Sex. Pittsburgh: Cleis, 1995. The effect of the fighting that occurred prior to
and during the conference illustrates the extent to
See also Clitoris; Marie Antoinette; Sex Practices; which these debates over sexuality became polar-
Tribade ized. The controversy surrounding Barnard brought
the issues of butch-femme, S/M, and pornography
to the forefront, even though the organizers in-
Sex Wars tended to address a much wider variety of issues,
Term referring to the debates over issues such as por- including the relationships among female sexual-
nography, butch-femme identities, and sadomaso- ity and issues such as race, class, body size, and

SEX WARS 683

 disability. Many reviews of the conference noted tions or the relation between pain and pleasure.
S the way that Barnard had been misinterpreted in
order to focus attention once again on S/M and
This connection between morality and sexuality
intensified anxieties about sex within feminist and
pornography, although no workshops or theoreti- lesbian communities. For example, the self-identi-
cal essays focused on these issues. The oppositional fication as feminist by sex radicals frequently
structure of this debate left out a variety of politi- was the source of skirmishes in the wars. Partly,
cal and theoretical positions. then, the sex wars were fought over who had the
These particular debates over sexuality reflected right to claim the term feminist.
earlier gay-straight splits within feminism. The is- In the earliest defense of S/M, Cathexis: A Pre-
sue of lesbian sexuality split the feminist movement liminary Investigation into the Nature of S-M
in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Consequently, (1975), Barbara Lipschutz (later Ruth) responded
some feminists reformulated lesbian sexuality as precisely to the question of how one can be both a
an extension of female sexuality or woman-identi- lesbian feminist and a practitioner of S/M. Because
fication, in part through opposing womens sexu- of the power of the argument that S/M requires roles
ality to mens. This reformulation also contributed thought to be the province of heterosexuality, she
to, and reflected, the idealization of lesbianism that, began her essay by noting that she thought S/M was
in some circles, replaced its ostracism. desirable only in lesbian relationships, since they do
The model of woman-identification became sig- not involve the power relations endemic to hetero-
nificant in the sex wars through its marginalization sexuality under patriarchy. For her, S/M was justifi-
of some lesbians within feminism, especially those able for two main reasons: the explicit nature of the
who identify as butch or femme. Much of the cri- exchange of power, and the fact that it transforms
tique of butch-femme attacked role-playing, gen- pain into pleasure (hence, the title Cathexis).
erally by reasoning that butch-femme relationships While she acknowledged that some lesbians may not
replicate heterosexuality. This critique provided the enjoy S/M, she urged women to listen to their bod-
basis for much of the critique of S/M as well; in ies to discover what sexual practices they might
fact, many anti-S/M critics conflated these issues. prefer. Rather than see S/M as antifeminist, then,
Hoagland (1980) wrote that the current belief that she argued that discovering ones sexual pleasure is
S/M is compatible with a feminist consciousness is radical; it is having rules that govern appropriate
a hangover from patriarchal social reality and in- sexuality that she identified as patriarchal.
imical to our attempts to construct a sexual iden- The primary focus on pornography and S/M
tity distinct from masculinist conceptualizations of allowed other issues of structural oppression, such
sexuality. The conflation of butch-femme and S/ as race and class, to be continually subsumed into
M exemplifies the way all of these issues and expe- the oppositional framework of the sex wars. In an
riences became consolidated into singular positions. interview in Against Sadomasochism: A Radical
Furthermore, although pornography has been seen Feminist Analysis (Linden 1982), Audre Lorde
as the emblematic issue for antiviolence feminists, (19341992) argued that debates over S/M can
S/M, or representations of S/M, bore the brunt of serve as a displacement from other issues: When
moral condemnation. sadomasochism gets presented on center stage as a
These conflations contributed to the polariza- conflict in the feminist movement, I ask, what con-
tion of the two sides, largely through equating the flicts are not being presented? In particular, this
political identity of feminist and the sexual iden- critique indicates that the timing of the sex wars
tity of lesbian despite repeated attempts to keep may have served as a bulwark against fears of ac-
them separate. The resulting identity, or subject knowledging racism, classism, and fragmentation
position, of lesbian feminist relieved some wom- among women at a time when working-class
ens anxieties over the challenge of lesbian sexuali- women and women of color were effectively bring-
ties to dominant feminism. One way in which this ing their concerns to the center of mainstream femi-
occurred was by separating out notions of good nist movements. These problems led later theorists
sex and bad sex. The idea of good sex im- to argue that the very structure of the sex wars
plied not only satisfying sex, but also moral sex; was racist. Noted Rich (1986): The ethnocentrism
in other words, sex should be nurturing, mutual, of the sexuality debates remains acutein terms
and nonhierarchical. On the other hand, bad or of a sexuality constructed to exclude the experi-
immoral sex is driven by unequal power rela- ences and perspectives of so many women of color.

684 SEX WARS

 Similar problems were enacted with respect to Sexuality. New York: Monthly Review Press,
class: Working-class womens perspectives were fre- 1983.
quently excluded from debate, and class as a cat- Vance, Carole S. Pleasure and Danger: Exploring
egory of analysis that might challenge the structure Female Sexuality. London: Pandora, 1984.
of debate or the focus on sexuality was frequently
ignored. Very few of the activists from the 1970s See also Butch-Femme; Erotica and Pornography;
and 1980s on either side even mentioned class or Leather; Sadomasochism
presented a detailed analysis of class in relation to
sexuality, and fewer still brought together issues of
race and class in relation to sexuality. Once again, Sex Work
later analysts, such as Nestle (1980), pointed to the Term coined by prostitutes rights activists of the
ways in which debates over sexuality can also 1980s as part of an effort to legitimate erotic labor.
reproduce dominative class politics. Sex work includes prostitution, pornography, ex-
These oppositions continued through the end otic dancing, phone sex, and peep shows.
of the 1990s; Cvetkovich (1996) notes: Too of-
ten, lesbian subcultures that focus on healing from History
abuse and those that encourage sexual exploration Commercial sex, like same-sex eroticism, has existed
have been constructed, and have constructed them- for millennia. The meanings attached to it, however,
selves, as mutually exclusive, repeating anew the are historically and culturally specific. Nonetheless,
schism between pleasure and danger. Although just as many contemporary gays and lesbians claim a
the furor that followed the Barnard conference has strategic kinship to such honored ancestors as an-
died down, the legacy of this conference includes cient Greek man/boy lovers or Sappho (ca. 600
deep distrust, as well as a considerable amount of B.C.E.), so to do some sex workers attempt to trace
anxiety in talking about sex and the relationships their genealogy back to the Sacred Prostitute or the
among sexual experiences, practices, and politics. Greek hetairae. Modern understandings of prostitu-
Juliana M.Kubala tion as a deviant identity (and not merely a practice)
date to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
Bibliography when sexologists began to distinguish between nor-
Cvetkovich, Anne. Sexual Trauma/Queer mative and pathological sexuality. Sexual devi-
Memory: Incest, Lesbianism, and Therapeutic ants, such as prostitutes and lesbians, were under-
Culture. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay stood to differ from normal women not only
Studies 2:4 (1996), 351377. through their participation in nonreproductive sexu-
Hoagland, Sarah Lucia. Violence, Victimization, ality, but also through their physiology. From this
Violation. Sinister Wisdom 15 (1980), 7072. perspective, the prostitutes appearance and her
Lederer, Laura. Take Back the Night: Women on sexual identity are pre-established by heredity
Pornography. New York: William Morrow, (Gilman 1985). Like the congenital invert (the in-
1980. nate lesbian) and the African Hottentot (a favorite
Linden, Robin Ruth. Against Sadomasochism: A nineteenth-century racial other among whites),
Radical Feminist Analysis. San Francisco: Frog prostitutes were believed to have errors in develop-
in the Well, 1982. ment of the labia and overdevelopment of the clito-
Lipshutz, Barbara. Cathexis: A Preliminary In- ris. The physiological differences believed to be
vestigation into the Nature of S-M. Hera present in the whore, the pervert, and the savage were
(1975), 10. used to distinguish them from the True Woman,
Nestle, Joan. The Persistent Desire: A Femme- whose sexuality would be expressed only through
Butch Reader. Boston: Alyson, 1980. reproductive sex in the context of a monogamous,
Rich, B.Ruby. Feminism and Sexuality in the heterosexual marriage. Not only were lesbians and
1980s. Feminist Studies 12 (1986), 525563. prostitutes believed to share certain physical anoma-
Samois, eds. Coming to Power: Writings and lies, but both perversions were considered likely
Graphics on Lesbian S/M. Palo Alto, Calif: Up to appear in the same individual. Early sexologist
Press, 1981. 2nd ed. Boston: Alyson, 1987. Havelock Ellis (18591939), for example, argued that
Snitow, Ann, Christine Stansell, and Sharon a considerable proportion of prostitutes showed signs
Thompson. Powers of Desire: The Politics of of a congenital condition of sexual inversion, while

SEX WORK 685

 others adopted homosexuality because of an ac- share a history of deliberate political and erotic alli-
S quired distaste for normal coitus due to professional
intercourse with men.
ances. Erotic alliances between the two, overlapping,
groups have taken the form of both commercial and
Sexually deviant women were commonly seen intimate relationships. While the great majority of
as not only diseased themselves, but also poten- commercial sex is performed for male clients by both
tially contaminating to others. Just as the true female and male sex workers, some small percent-
invert (the innately lesbian woman) might cor- age of sex work is undertaken by women for women.
rupt an otherwise normal woman through se- This form of lesbian sex work remains the least
duction, so, too, were prostitutes assumed to be documented and discussed. The San Francisco Les-
pools of contagion threatening to infect the gen- bian and Gay History Project has uncovered lim-
eral population with venereal diseases. As a re- ited references to women clients in the Barbary Coast
sult, in both the nineteenth and the twentieth cen- brothels of that city in the late nineteenth century,
turies, sex workers (but not clients) repeatedly were and the Lesbian Herstory Archives in New York
targeted for mandatory medical testing. Some of City has evidence of at least one Harlem brothel in
the most extreme measures taken, ostensibly to the 1930s that catered exclusively to women. Ac-
protect public health and the moral fiber of the counts by contemporary sex workers suggest that
nation, have included the 1930s German Nazi lesbians continue to represent a small portion of sex
policy of identifying with black triangles asocial workers clientele. With the advent of lesbian sex
women such as prostitutes and lesbians and con- radicalism in the 1980s and 1990s, there has been
fining them to concentration camps. a dramatic increase in the availability and visibility
Not all nineteenth- and twentieth-century observ- of lesbian sexual commerce, including pornographic
ers accepted the notion that prostitution was a form magazines and videos (such as On Our Backs, Bad
of individual pathology; some argued, instead, for Attitude, Blush Productions), strip shows, sex par-
the importance of social and economic factors. In the ties, and lesbian escort and eroticmassage services.
early twentieth century, Emma Goldman (1869 Intimate, noncommercial erotic alliances also
1940), for example, forcefully advanced the argument always have existed between women inside and
that prostitution should be viewed as an occupational, outside the sex trades. Some accounts of lesbian
rather than an erotic, choice made compelling by eco- life of the 1950s in the United States suggest that
nomic desperation. Similar arguments have been made one compelling point of connection between
in the late twentieth century by the prostitutes rights (femme) prostitutes and (butch) lesbians was a
organization US PROS. Other activists have insisted shared understanding of the experience of being
that prostitution cannot be fairly described as a choice stone. The stone butch would not allow herself
at all; rather, the prostitute should be seen as a victim to be physically vulnerable during lovemaking with
of violence and sexual slavery. Significantly, despite her intimate partners, while the femme prostitute
important differences among these approaches, each exercised similar psychological control in sexual
assumes that commercial sex is a problem in need encounters with her clients. Other common expe-
of an explanation. riences included those of police harassment and
Beginning in the early 1970s, a historically unique social marginalization.
perspective on prostitution was advanced by sex In addition to erotic alliances (commercial and
workers themselves. Sex worker self-advocacy intimate) between sex workers and women outside
groups like COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Eth- the trade, there also exists a complicated history of
ics) and the International Committee for Prostitutes political collaboration and struggle between these
Rights argued that the problem with prostitution two groups. Contemporary feminists and former sex
wasnt the practice itself but working conditions workers opposed to the practice of prostitution have
within the trade and social attitudes toward it. From united in abolitionist organizations like WHISPER
this perspective, the very attempt to explain why (Women Hurt in Systems of Prostitution Engaged
women are engaged in prostitution is itself as misdi- in Revolt) and the Coalition Against Trafficking in
rected as efforts to explain homosexuality. Women. Similarly, sex-worker rights organizations
including COYOTE and US PROS, have created
Sex Work and Lesbianism powerful coalitions of sex workers and feminist sup-
In addition to a shared experience of social and porters demanding decriminalization of the trade.
sexual stigmatization, sex workers and lesbians also Prostitutes rights advocate Gloria Lockett insists

686 SEX WORK

that such alliances are crucial to social change: No ally complementary to a man. Sexist ideology con-
single group by itself can make an impact. We need tends that a womans reproductive biology makes
everybody: street prostitutes and call girls, lesbians her naturally suited for nurturing and caretaking of
and feminists, everybody. Weve got to figure out children and that a mans biology naturally suits
how to support each other in this (Chapkis 1997). him for providing sustenance for his family. Lesbi-
Wendy Chapkis ans, by definition, are unfeminine women since
they do not choose sexual relationships with men.
Bibliography This is what Rich (1980) elaborated in her
Barry, Kathleen. Female Sexual Slavery. Englewood theory of compulsory heterosexuality, the en-
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1979. forcement of heterosexuality and male control over
Chapkis, Wendy. Live Sex Acts. New York: womens sexuality, which translates into male
Routledge, 1997. dominance of women in both public and private
Delacoste, Frederique, and Priscilla Alexander, eds. spheres. Although compulsory heterosexuality has
Sex Work. Pittsburgh: Cleis, 1987. implications for the social control of sexuality for
Gilman, Sander. Black Bodies, White Bodies: To- all women, this aspect of sexism makes lesbians
ward an Iconography of Female Sexuality in suspect as women. Therefore, sexism is inherently
Late Nineteenth-Century Art, Medicine, and heterosexist, and its effects are experienced differ-
Literature. Critical Inquiry 12:1 (Autumn ently by heterosexual women and lesbians. Rich
1985), 204242. has argued that compulsory heterosexuality is a
Jenness, Valerie. Making It Work. New York: cornerstone of male dominance.
Aldine de Gruyter, 1993. According to Hartmann (1984), sexism has a
Pheterson, Gail, ed. A Vindication of the Rights of material base. Sexist practices are maintained by
Whores. Seattle: Seal, 1989. male control of female labor through the sexual di-
Roberts, Nickie. Whores in History. London: vision of labor in both public and private spheres
HarperCollins, 1992. and male control over female sexuality. Sexist prac-
tices manifest at the interpersonal and organizational
See also Economics; Goldman, Emma; Nazism levels of social life and are reflected in cultural rep-
resentations and social institutions. Sexism operates
through blatant, covert, and subtle forms of discrimi-
Sexism nation, harassment, and violence and is maintained
A system of beliefs and practices that assumes the and reproduced, like gender, in social interaction.
superiority of males over females and usually re- Sexist ideology informs heterosexist practices
sults in male dominance of females. Although dif- that politically, economically, and socially oppress
ferent groups of men and women benefit, and are lesbians. Sexism, as it applies to lesbians, is evident in
disadvantaged by, sexist practices in different ways, court decisions that declare lesbians unfit mothers
this entry focuses on the implications of sexism for solely on the basis of their sexual orientation. Sexism
lesbians. is also evident in legal definitions of family in the
Sexism as an ideology often rests on the following United States, which disenfranchise lesbian couples
assumptions about human nature, called essential- from the privilege to marry and adopt children.
ism: (1) there are two and only two natural sexes, The wage gap between the sexes disadvantages
male and female; (2) the sexes are biologically op- women in the United States so that they earn only
posite and complementary; (3) masculinity and femi- approximately 75 percent of what men do, which
ninity, gender, are social roles that naturally extend has special implications for unmarried women, in-
from the biological sexes of male and female, respec- cluding lesbians and lesbian families (with and with-
tively; and (4) men and women are essentially inter- out children). The wage gap reflects persistent
dependent, both biologically and socially. [hetero]sexist beliefs about the paid labor of men
Essentialist beliefs about sex and gender have and women as the family wagethat males ought
implications for norms regarding sexuality, particu- to be the primary breadwinners in society, support-
larly lesbian sexuality. For lesbians, sexism includes ing an economically dependent wife and their chil-
not only the subordination of females to males, but dren. Heterosexual marriage remains a means of
the assumptions surrounding womens sexuality. upward social mobility for many women, although
To be feminine or a woman means to be sexu- this is clearly not universal for all women who marry.

SEXISM 687
 Sexism disadvantages lesbians and heterosexual disciplinary approaches, most were physicians in-
S women in different ways. Heterosexist ideology and
practice logically extend from essentialist beliefs
vested in medical theories such as those of Samuel
Auguste Tissot (17281797), a Genevese physician
about sex and gender. Lesbians, by definition, are whose LOnanisme (1760) prescribed that ejacu-
unfeminine females and face economic, politi- lation be limited to reproductive purposes because
cal, and social consequences. Social change for it weakened the body and caused insanity. Tissot
sexual equality targets both the ideological under- was instrumental in pathologizing the onanist, a
pinnings and the material consequences of the personification of a rigid, pleasureless Victorian
sexual division of labor and male control of fe- sexual economy fixated on ensuring reproduction
male sexuality. Christine Robinson and regulating sexual excess.
The writings of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825
Bibliography 1895) similarly fomented sexological discussions,
Benokraitis, Nicole V, and Joe R.Feagin. Modern particularly those concerning the etiology of the
Sexism: Blatant, Subtle, and Covert Discrimina- homosexual, another figure who troubled Victo-
tion. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1986. rian mores. Ulrichs, a Hanoverian attorney and
Connell, R.W. Gender and Power. Cambridge, avowed homosexual, wrote the first extended study
U.K.: Polity, 1987. of male same-sex desire in the West, Forschungen
Hartmann, Heidi. The Unhappy Marriage of ber das Rthsel der mannmnnlichen Liebe (The
Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More Pro- Riddle of Man-Manly Love). Published pseu-
gressive Union. In Feminist Frameworks, 2nd donymously as twelve treatises between 1863 and
ed. Ed. Alison Jaggar and Paula Rothenberg. 1879, Riddle employs philosophy, law, history, lit-
New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984, pp. 172189. erature, religion, and mythology to develop the
Rich, Adrienne. Compulsory Heterosexuality and third-sex theory of the Urning (named after Uranian
Lesbian Existence. Signs: Journal of Women love as described in Platos Symposium).
in Culture and Society 5:4 (1980), 631660. The Urning, Ulrichs maintained, suffered from a
West, Candace, and Don Zimmerman. Doing female soul and psyche trapped in a biologically male
Gender. Gender and Society 1 (1987), 125 body. His theory, informed by a rigid biological de-
151. terminism, holds that emotions, needs, and drives
are as gendered as the sexual organs themselves.
See also Compulsory Heterosexuality; Essential- Though Ulrichs had little to say about female in-
ism; Gender; Heterosexism; Oppression verts, he did propose a fourth sex, the Urningin, a
biological female whose body similarly confines male
desires and drives. His several reconfigurations of
Sexology the third-sex theory eventually led Ulrichs to posit
Branch of science that incorporates various disci- sixteen types of sexual intermediaries. Later, British
plinary approaches in the study of human sexual poet Edward Carpenter (18441929) took up
behaviors and relationships. First practiced in Ulrichss theory in The Intermediate Sex (1908), a
latenineteenth-century Europe, sexology historical discussion of sexual intermediaries as
medicalized a host of behaviors that had previously mystics and shamans in various cultures. Expound-
been considered criminal, immoral, or sinful. Nor- ing upon Ulrichss model, Carpenter asserted that
malizing a white, bourgeois, heterosexual family, the third sex is superior because it balances male
sexologists played a large part in transforming par- and female elements in one body.
ticular sexual acts, such as masturbation and sod- Few medical sexologists, however, adopted such
omy, into fixed and readily identifiable personali- a model; instead, most relied upon cataloging case
ties, such as the onanist and the homosexual, two histories that highlighted the bizarre and patho-
figures key to early sexological literature. logical and documented treatments ranging from
bed rest and behavioral modification to steriliza-
Nineteenth-Century Debates tion and castration. In 1869, German psychiatrist
Questions concerning the physiological sources and Carl von Westphal (18331890) published Die
proper channels of sexual gratification informed contrre Sexualempfindung (The Contrary Sexual
many nineteenth-century sexological debates. Feeling), the case history of a young woman suf-
Though early sexologists drew from a variety of fering from a hereditary, congenital neurosis and

688 SEXISM
contrary, or inverted, sexual desire. This case his- Krafft-Ebing asserted, could look forward to noth-
tory fueled an onslaught of similar publications, ing less than a hopeless existence, a life without
and later, in anonymous political pamphlets, Karoly love, an undignified comedy before human society,
Maria Kertbeny (18241882), a Hungarian trans- and moral and psychical marasmus. Krafft-Ebing
lator, first coined the terms homosexuality and maintained that genital contact was generally less
heterosexuality. The term sexology was first common among female inverts, attributing such
coined in the writings of German dermatologist behavior primarily to women in prison and prosti-
Iwan Bloch (18721922) as Sexualwissenschaft tutes disenchanted with, or disgusted by, the un-
(sexual science). Bloch, who planned the unfinished seemly demands of male clients. Among women, as
collection of monographs Das Sexualleben unserer among men, he argued, acquired homosexuality
Zeit (The Sexual Life of Our Times), was among could become permanent, as when heterosexual
the first to argue that cultural and historical women were seduced by subtle and persevering
specificities should inform medical discussions of tribades. He urged parents to prevent
sex and sexual behavior. pseudohomosexual tendencies by guarding children
Most early studies, though, centered on the con- against masturbation, inappropriately gendered play,
temporary Victorian economy of sex for reproduc- and same-sex tutors. Although toward the end of
tion. In the case histories, an innate, immutable sex his career Krafft-Ebing recanted his position that
differentiation was simultaneously suggested and homosexuality was necessarily a disease, Psycho-
evidenced by womens natural passivity and do- pathia Sexualis remained influential in medicine and
mesticity and mens natural activity and aggres- psychology well into the twentieth century.
sion. Often, sexological treatments sought to reim- Most histories of sexology set up a dichotomy
pose this natural balance by regulating womens between Krafft-Ebings work and that of British lit-
bodies and desiresparticularly those of prostitutes, erary critic Henry Havelock Ellis (18591939), au-
women of color, and poor women. Sexologists pro- thor of Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1896
scribed womens sexuality through procedures such 1910), a seven-volume collection on modesty,
as clitoridectomy and ovariectomy, as well as autoerotism, sexual inversion, and other topics. Ellis,
through a host of restraining devices designed to many contend, should be extolled as a sexual re-
keep these supposedly sexless beings from any erotic former for providing the first real challenge to Vic-
activity not directly related to reproduction. torian prudery. While Krafft-Ebing kept a moralis-
Most influential in disseminating this medical tic and judgmental distance from his sordid subject
ideology was Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840 matter, Ellis held that the normal and the abnormal
1902), a German psychiatrist and neurologist whose exist along a continuum. Like Ulrichs, he questioned
career began with the study of the criminally men- sexual dimorphism, arguing that male and female
tally disturbed. Krafft-Ebings Psychopathia Sexualis organs and desires are potentially mutable. In his
(1886) provides myriad lurid case histories of mur- fluid formulation, the invert could conceivably live
derers and sexual predators. Here, Krafft-Ebing a normal, healthy life, and the aberration was the
coined the terms sadism and masochism, bring- province of neither the courts nor the clinics.
ing these, along with fetishism and exhibition- Ellis delineated his theory in Sexual Inversion,
ism, into common medical usage and providing the first volume of Studies, completed in collabo-
one of the earliest medical discussions of what is ration with his correspondent and friend literary
now known as transgenderism. Krafft-Ebing pro- scholar John Addington Symonds (18401893). In
posed causal links among masturbation, criminal A Problem in Greek Ethics (1883) and A Problem
deviance, and sexual inversion, a degenerative and in Modern Ethics (1891), Symonds suggested that
pathological taint that disturb[ed] the development both the potential for sexual inversion and the pro-
of a well-defined and complete being. Following pensity for pathological behavior are common to
the lead of German sexologist Albert Moll (1862 all humans; thus, his treatises challenged notions
1939), Krafft-Ebing contrasted the true invert to the that inversion necessarily results in, or from, pa-
makeshift, or pseudo, homosexual, one in whom thology. Symonds died before the 1896 German
the heterosexual instinct long remains predomi- publication of Sexual Inversion as Das Kontrre
nant, and the impossibility to satisfy it gives pain. Geschlechtsgefhl. Symondss family, who stead-
While the pseudohomosexual might benefit from fastly denied his homosexuality, purchased all cop-
behavior modification or hypnosis, the true invert, ies of this edition and destroyed them. Symondss

SEXOLOGY 689
 name does not appear on subsequent editions of view, hundreds of years of tolerance for, and encour-
S Sexual Inversion.
In addition to being lauded for proposing tol-
agement of, romantic, often passionate, relationships
between women. For years, Radclyffe Halls (1880
eration toward inverts, Ellis has been credited for 1943) The Well of Loneliness (1928)a novel that
being the first to theorize that a womans body is draws heavily from Elliss workepitomized this view
replete with erogenous zones and that women are of the tragic female invert. In addition, this period
fully capable and deserving of sexual gratification: witnessed the birth of the best-selling marriage manual
Some scholars joke, for instance, about his dis- and sexual handbook, exemplified by the work of
covery of the clitoris. However, his theories sug- Marie Stopes (18801958), a British physician, sex-
gest that sexual pleasure for women is contingent ologist, and birthcontrol advocate whose Married
upon their inherent passivity and masochism. Love (1918) critiqued female same-sex desire and
Moreover, Ellis, like most early sexologists a cham- burgeoning feminist movements while normalizing
pion of eugenics, charged women with the goals of and celebrating a female pleasure circumscribed by
racial purification and selective breeding because heterosexual marriage. The effect of the new sci-
of their greater innate inclination toward hetero- ence of sexology, Kitzinger (1987) argues, was to
sexuality and child rearing. scare women back into marriage and conformity with
fears of abnormality.
Sexology, Lesbians, and Feminists
Elliss views on lesbianism, based on a handful of Twentieth-Century Developments
case histories, including that of his wife, Edith Married love and heterosexuality were also pro-
Lees Ellis (18611916), also relied upon the dis- moted by the growth of psychoanalysis, the do-
tinction between congenital inversion and main of Moravian neurologist and psychiatrist
pseudohomosexuality. Focusing on the habits of Sigmund Freud (18561939). Freuds work drew
female invertsfor instance, a tendency toward heavily from the writings of the nineteenth- and
transvestism combined with a decided taste and early-twentiethcentury sexologists, some of whom
toleration for cigars and a dislike and some- he befriended. From Ellis, with whom Freud ex-
times incapacity for needleworkEllis asserted changed letters and personal photographs, Freud
that the female invert exhibits nothing of that adopted the term autoerotic. However, Freud
sexual shyness and engaging air of weakness and parted from the sexological theory of congenital
dependence. In addition, she often produces in sexual inversion, positing instead a developmental
an otherwise heterosexual woman the spurious model associating inversion with parental influence,
imitation of lesbianism, one Ellis specifically childhood trauma, and stunted sexual develop-
linked to feminist and suffrage movements. ment. His Psychogenesis of a Case of Homosexu-
Numerous feminist and lesbian scholars, most ality in a Woman (1920), for example, examines
notably Lillian Faderman (1940) point to the con- the mannish lesbian and suggests that psycho-
nections among nineteenth-century sexology; the therapy may restore a female inverts fuller poten-
morbidification of lesbians, spinsters, and feminists; tial for bisexuality, though not heterosexuality. Ellis
and the pathologization of womens romantic and others rejected psychoanalytic theories of the
friendships. Jeffreys (1985) charges Ellis with con- Oedipus complex and childhood sexuality, and
demning rituals and relationships common within most sexologists held that psychoanalysis could not
feminist social movements that threatened the so- effectively cure sexual inversion.
ciopolitical structures of patriarchy in the West. Though Freuds work captured public attention,
Faderman (1981) indicates that the period between primarily in the United States, the partial transfor-
1898 and 1908 witnessed increasing interest in all mation of sexology from an inaccessible medical
matters sexual: Germany alone produced more than discourse to one suitable for a lay audience was
a thousand publications on sex and sexuality in these largely the work of German physician, author, and
years. In addition, in the first decades of the twenti- reformer Magnus Hirschfeld (18681935).
eth century, sexological literature entered the popu- Hirschfeld, perhaps the first celebrity sexpert,
lar imagination for the first time. As the new sexual argued against the use of specialized terminology
vocabulary captured the attention of the masses, in- and ancient languages in sexological publications:
creasingly more literature condemned the lonely, un- KrafftEbings Psychopathia Sexualis, for example,
stable, or suicidal female invert, ending, in Fadermans was published in Latin to avoid prosecution and

690 SEXOLOGY
censorship, as well as to maintain an aura of scien- Reform (1928), venues that brought together sex-
tific mystique. ologists from all over the world. He is perhaps best
Like Bloch and Carpenter, Hirschfeld adopted known as the founder of the Institute for Sexual
an interdisciplinary sexology, incorporating Science in Berlin, a medical center, marital therapy
endocrinology, psychology, evolutionary theory, eth- service, university, library, and archive housing tens
ics, and ethnology in his work. Moreover, Hirschfeld of thousands of publications, case histories, and
was one of first sexual scientists to use biography photographs. The institute was one of the first or-
and autobiography, devising and applying a ganizations targeted for destruction by the Nazis
psychobiological inventory composed of more than in 1933, twelve years after Hirschfeld himself barely
135 sets of questions on kinship and family oral escaped death in a Nazi assault.
history; racial, ethnic, and class background; medi- The rise of Nazism and the destruction brought
cal history; dreams and memory; sexual behavior; upon Europe by World War II ravaged the bur-
hobbies; and political views. Though the question- geoning sexological industry in Germany and
naire was used primarily on men, Hirschfeld was throughout Europe. The mid-twentieth century saw
among the first to suggest that lesbianism be stud- sexology move from German medical models to
ied according to different theoretical paradigms than more quantitative models in the United States, first
male homosexuality. Relying upon the distinction at the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana Univer-
between true inversion and pseudohomosexuality sity, Bloomington, headed by U.S. zoologist Alfred
posited by Ellis and others, Hirschfeld argued that Charles Kinsey (18941956). Kinsey and the insti-
harems, womens prisons, hospitals, and boarding tute gained fame and notoriety for the publication
schools were the main sites of lesbian sexuality. His of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and
1910 study, Die Transvestiten (Transvestites), coined Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953), both
the term transvestism and distinguished it from based on thousands of lengthy interviews similar
sexual inversion, a category under which it had pre- to Hirschfelds substantive questionnaires. Though
viously been subsumed. Transvestites, which in- Kinseys famous seven-point scale suggests a con-
cludes an extensive section on the history of women tinuum of sexual desires and object choices influ-
who passed as men in various military units, presents enced by Ellis, Freud, Hirschfeld, and others,
a theory of intermediaries based on a persistent ques- Kinseys studies differ from earlier sexological
tioning of fixed realms of masculinity and feminin- methods in its reliance on mathematical and sta-
ity. Here, Hirschfeld posits the existence of more tistical models of quantitative analysis. Widely criti-
than 43 million types of sexual intermediaries, ar- cized and censured for his views on homosexual-
guing that absolute representatives of their sex ity, Kinsey, as Jones (1997) contends, attempted
areonly abstractions, invented extremes. to stand conventional morality on its head by in-
A pioneer, reformer, and early political activist, sisting that the criminalization and pathologization
Hirschfeld campaigned extensively against the of homosexuality run counter to humanitys mam-
criminalization of male homosexuality. He is re- malian evolutionary heritage. Characterizing sexual
ported to have saved thousands of men from crimi- behavior as fluid and diverse (Jones 1997),
nal prosecution under Germanys paragraph 175, Kinsey planned, but did not complete, an extended
which he campaigned to repeal. In addition, he study of differences between the learned patterns
traveled extensively, collecting sexological data and of behavior among homosexuals and heterosexuals.
presenting his work throughout Europe and Asia. Kinsey suggested that female homosexuality was
In 1897, he founded the Scientific Humanitarian largely confined to single females who had been
Committee, an organization that aligned itself with widowed, separated, or divorced (Kinsey et al.
eugenics movements to pursue tolerance for ho- 1953). He denied the existence of vaginal orgasm
mosexuals, who, Hirschfeld assured, were ill-suited the heteronormative ideal espoused by numerous
for marriage and could, therefore, not reproduce contemporary sex and marital handbooksand
themselves. From 1899 to 1923, Hirschfeld pro- concluded that lesbian sexual practices may be as
duced and contributed to the first sexological jour- effective, or even more effective than the petting or
nal, Jahrbuech fr sexuelle Zwischenstufen (Year- coital techniques ordinarily utilized in heterosexual
book for Intermediate Sexual Types). He also or- contacts (Kinsey et al. 1953).
ganized the first International Congress for Sexual Though sociological, literary, historical, ethno-
Reform (1921) and the World League for Sexual graphic, and anthropological approaches occasionally

SEXOLOGY 691
 accompany statistical ones, late-twentiethcentury surgical procedures; new forms of contraception;
S sexology remains largely the province of medicine
and disaffected, scientific observation. In the United
sex and sexuality in relation to cancer, AIDS, pa-
ralysis, and other serious diseases; childhood sexual
States, for instance, Kinseys quantitative model has abuse; same-sex couples counseling; teenage preg-
been inherited by the research team of dentist nancy; and the more commonly discussed concerns
William H.Masters (1915) and psychologist Vir- of heterosexual genital and reproductive dysfunc-
ginia E.Johnson (1925) and by pediatrician, psy- tions. Nancy San Martn
chiatrist, and behavioral scientist John Money
(1921). Masters and Johnsons Human Sexual Bibliography
Response (1966) relied upon clinical observations Bullough, Vern L. Science in the Bedroom: A His-
of thousands of individuals and heterosexual cou- tory of Sex Research. New York: Basic, 1994.
ples engaged in masturbation and intercourse. Their Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men:
work, which focuses on the physiology and anatomy Romantic Love Between Women from the Ren-
of humanprimarily heterosexualsexual activity, aissance to the Present. New York: William
has been critiqued by Janice Irvine and others for Morrow, 1981.
suggesting that mens and womens sexual responses Irvine, Janice M. Disorders of Desire: Sex and
are fundamentally alike and, by extension, that the Gender in Modern American Sexology. Phila-
sexual responses of heterosexuals and homosexu- delphia: Temple University Press, 1990.
als are similarly complementary. Their Homosexu- Jeffreys, Sheila. The Spinster and Her Enemies:
ality in Perspective (1979) provides, as Irvine (1990) Feminism and Sexuality 18801930. London:
suggests, a model of heterosexual/homosexual same- Pandora, 1985.
ness that occludes cultural and social differences and Jones, James H. Alfred C.Kinsey: A Public/Private
power imbalances; the study excluded, for instance, Life. New York: Norton, 1997.
noncoupled homosexuals and those who practice Kinsey, Alfred, C., et al. Sexual Behavior in the
casual sex, various forms of anal eroticism, and sado- Human Female. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1953.
masochistic rituals. While Moneys work also privi- Kitzinger, Celia. The Social Construction of Lesbi-
leges heteronormativity, it calls into question mod- anism. London: Sage, 1987.
els that polarize masculinity and femininity. The Rosario, Vernon A., ed. Science and
author of Gay, Straight, and In-Between: The Sex- Homosexualities. London: Routledge, 1997.
ology of Erotic Orientation (1988), Money has de-
fined more than forty paraphilias, the conditions or See also Biological Determinism; Etiology;
rituals necessarily for sexual arousal and orgasm, Faderman, Lillian; Germany; Hall, Radclyffe; Het-
and completed extensive research on intersexuality erosexuality; Homosexuality; Kinsey Institute;
in children, outlining varying types of intersexual- Nazism; Psychiatry; Psychoanalysis; Romantic
ity, including genital, as well as, chromosomal, go- Friendship; Spinsters; Suffrage Movement
nadal, and endocrinological hermaphroditism.
The continuing medicalization of sex and sexu-
ality has been loudly criticized by U.S. psychologist Sexual Harassment
and sexologist Leonore Tiefer (1944), whose col- The imposition of institutional, social, or personal
lection of essays and lectures, Sex Is not a Natural power, explicitly or implicitly, in such a way as to
Act (1995), urges sexologists to incorporate cultural, sexually dominate or coerce an individual into giv-
historical, and popular discourses of sex and sexual ing sexual favors. Heterosexual norms may also con-
behavior. Furthermore, Tiefers critique of ahistorical stitute sexual harrasment to the extent that lesbians
and apolitical sexology calls for changes in research are coerced by systems of rewards and punishments
models, increased cultural and historical specificity, into maintaining a heterosexual orientation.
and considerations of issues concerning power, gen- Sexual harassment first became visible (in the
der, and ethnicity. Some late-twentiethcentury con- United States), to a large degree, because of the
ferences of the International Congress for Medical womens movement, feminist education and
Sexology (held approximately biyearly in major smallgroup consciousness raising among women.
world cities) do adopt more of an interdisciplinary, The work of MacKinnon (1979) is a pivotal marker
cross-cultural approach. Common subjects of in the development of a social consciousness of
sexological debate in the 1990s included transsexual sexual harassment as an abuse of power coincident

692 SEXOLOGY
with received cultural norms about gender and erting a sexual presence thatwithin a homopho-
sexuality. bic mindsetcan be experienced as sexual harass-
In the workplace, the separation between the ment. There is an inherent ambiguity in the imme-
private and public domains of everyday life breaks diate and concrete experience of sexual harassment,
down. This allows one human being with greater such that, given certain contexts, virtually any
power (usually male) to impose sexual and/or per- behavior may be interpreted and, indeed, experi-
sonal desire upon another (usually female). This enced as sexual harassment.
may be expressed as an explicit or an implicit coer- Hence, lesbian teachers face particular chal-
cion whereby job benefits are promised for sexual lenges promoting education in the midst of homo-
favors. Rarely, however, are any job benefits actu- phobic attitudes. Lesbians, like all other human
ally gained by complying with sexual requests. To beings, are capable of using sexuality as an abuse
the degree that lesbians pass as heterosexual, they of power against other persons. Like the debates
are subject to the same phenomenon as nonlesbians. within the feminist community about sadomaso-
However, like the other stressors that confront les- chism, debates about the degree to which lesbian-
bians who pass as heterosexual, the distress of ism might have the capacity to create an under-
sexual harassment is compounded by the need to standing of sexuality not linked to dominance are
keep their lesbianism hidden. open and ongoing.
While efforts to establish common rules of con- It is important to note that the veracity of the
duct within the workplace have helped curtail charge of sexual harassment against someone who
sexual harassment, these efforts do not address the already occupies the position of being harassed by
underlying conditions that predispose persons to- the very norms of culture deserves a different kind
ward sexually harassing behavior. Cultural norms of critical attention than those charges made against
that position male sexuality as active and female those who inherit positions of cultural or institu-
sexuality as passive construct a notion of man as tional power or authority.
taker and woman as there to be taken. Thus, some One final and important point should be made
argue that sexual harassment by men against about lesbians and sexual harassment: In the same
women is normative in both public and private way that lesbianism reveals specific features of
domains. In the public domain, for example, wom- sexual harassment concealed within a heterosexual
ens relative economic disadvantage, combined with context, so, too, does a focus on race and ethnicity
gendersegregated jobs, encourages womens toler- reveal features of both lesbianism and sexual har-
ance of unwanted sexual and/or personal atten- assment previously concealed. Lesbians of color
tion. Waitressing and secretarial work are prime, have revealed the coexistence and interrelationship
though not the only, examples. Conversely, hetero- of sexism and racism, providing an important av-
sexual women and lesbians who work in tradition- enue for understanding the complex interworkings
ally male-segregated jobs are often subjected to of cultural power, systematic domination, and pos-
especially virulent forms of sexual harassment. sibilities for personal and social transformation.
For lesbians who are not out publicly, hetero- Jacqueline M.Martinez
sexual norms may, in fact, constitute a hostile en-
vironment. Such an environment is coercive in that Bibliography
lesbians understand that they will be rewarded for MacKinnon, Catherine A. Sexual Harassment of
maintaining a heterosexual orientation and punished Working Women. New Haven, Conn.: Yale
for expressing a lesbian orientation. Thus, one could University Press, 1979.
argue that lesbians are sexually harassed by the cul- Paludi, Michele A., and Richard B.Barickman.
tural (and familial) effort to make them heterosexual. Academic and Workplace Sexual Harassment:
In another way, publicly out lesbians may A Resource Manual. New York: State Univer-
become targets for accusations of sexual harass- sity of New York Press, 1991.
ment by their mere presence as lesbians. For exam- Smith, Andrew R., and Jacqueline M.Martinez.
ple, lesbians and gay men are stereotyped as at- Signifying Harassment: Communication, Am-
tempting to seduce and convert unwitting biguity, and Power. Human Studies 18 (1995),
heterosexuals. In the particular case of the academic 6387.
workplace, openly lesbian teachers who bring their
lesbian-self into the classroom are, in a sense, ex- See also Work

SEXUAL HARASSMENT 693

 antidiscrimination statutes in various localities used
S Sexual Orientation and Preference
Terms used to refer to a fairly consistent pattern of
sexual desire for one gender or the other. Although
either term, differing by the time and place of their
drafting rather than by intent.
one may prefer or be sexually oriented toward any In contrast, a social-constructionist view implies
number of behaviors, stimuli, situations, and the that the terms refer to two different, if related,
like, the late-twentieth-century use of the terms phenomena. Individuals may have underlying
refers only to the gender of ones desired partners. orientations, which may be strong or weak and
This limited usage both illustrates and underwrites which may or may not manifest in coordinating
the centrality of gender in the social organization preferences. Many women who live and identify
of the modern West. It also leaves open the place as lesbians, for example, indicate that their under-
of bisexuality in this scheme, and bisexual theo- lying orientation is probably bisexual and so it is
rists and activists differ as to whether bisexuality their preference that is lesbian.
is a sexual orientation or preference like hetero- Lesbian feminists have sought to enlarge the
sexuality and homosexuality, or whether it is the understanding of lesbianism beyond a sexual pref-
absence of any orientation or preference toward erence or orientation and, as such, have
one gender over the other. downplayed distinctions between heterosexual and
Historical and cross-cultural evidence demon- homosexual women. And a good body of evidence
strates that the conceptsand, apparently, the ex- including Bell and Weinberg (1978) and Blumstein
periences of self that accompany their useare of and Schwartz (1983), suggests that, indeed, wom-
fairly recent, Western origin. Although there is much ens sexual preferences and orientations are often
evidence worldwide of same-sex love and sexuality, quite fluid and flexible, particularly compared to
there is relatively little evidence of the now-wide- those of men. Vera Whisman
spread belief that individuals are distinguished from
one another by an underlying trajectory of desire Bibliography
for one gender or the other. Cross-culturally, most Bell, Alan P., and Martin S.Weinberg.
relationships between women do not exclude rela- Homosexualities: A Study of Human Diversity.
tionships with men and do not mark the partici- New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978.
pants as different in type from women who do not Blumstein, Philip, and Pepper Schwartz. American
love women. Where women are differentiated, as Couples: Money, Work, Sex. New York: William
with the manly hearted woman in some Native Morrow, 1983.
American societies, it is their gender-crossing, rather Whisman, Vera. Queer by Choice: Lesbians, Gay
than their sexuality, that distinguishes thema dis- Men, and the Politics of Identity. New York:
tinction that does not extend to their female part- Routledge, 1996.
ners. This gender-crossing form of relationships be- Whitehead, Harriet. The Bow and the Burden
tween women does not feature the concepts of sexual Strap: A New Look at Institutionalized Homo-
orientation or sexual preference. Neither, apparently, sexuality in Native North America. In Sexual
does the romantic-friendship form, common among Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gen-
middle- and upper-class women in the United States der and Sexuality. Ed. Sherry B.Ortner and
and Europe in the nineteenth century. Harriet Whitehead. New York: Cambridge
Lesbian and gay activists in the 1980s and 1990s University Press, 1981, pp. 80115.
debated the meaning and usage of these terms, see-
ing them as interchangeable but not neutrally so. See also Bisexuality; Essentialism; Lesbian Femi-
Over the course of the 1980s, a strong partiality to nism; Native Americans; New Right; Social-Con-
the term orientation emerged among most ac- struction Theory
tivists. It implies, they argued, an internal,
unchosen, and possibly innate characteristic, as
much a part of an individuals makeup as her left- Sexuality
or right-handedness. At the same time, antigay ac- A much-disputed term associated with types of
tivists took on the term preference, believing that sexual persons and kinds of erotic attraction. Sexu-
it implies choice, mutability, and a focus on ality should be clearly distinguished from sex,
behavior over being. As of the late 1990s, no legal in the sense of a varying set of acts, practices, and
distinction between the terms existed, and behaviors that in some way or other engage the

694 S E X U A L O R I E N TAT I O N A N D P R E F E R E N C E
body, its pleasures, and desires. Sex has a history with the exception of the legendary poet Sappho (ca.
that goes back as far as humankind. In contrast, 600 B.C.E.) from the Isle of Lesbos, who reputedly
sexuality is a relatively new concept, gaining cur- prepared young girls for their future roles as wives
rency only in the 1890s and, hence, a and mothers by introducing them into the realm of
sociohistorically specific phenomenon. Eros, very little is known about the regulation of fe-
male same-sex relations in classical antiquity.
History Other premodern constructions of lesbian sexu-
Most historians of sexuality emphasize that het- ality render such phallocentrism explicit by insist-
erosexuality and homosexuality are not the natu- ing on some form of physical deformation or aber-
ral, unchanging categories of identity they are com- rant sexual behavior on the part of what were vari-
monly assumed to be, at least in the Western world. ously called female sodomites, tribades, and
Neither the idea of a sexual essence, the belief in fricatrices, involving elongated clitorises, dildos,
a fixed sexual identity grounded in biology or and other mock penises. Historically seen, discourses
anatomy, nor the exclusionary distinction between of sexuality do not allow for conceptualizations of
homo- and heterosexuality have any historical ba- female same-sex desire outside the terms of
sis. The invention of sexuality as such is usually phallocratie thought. As a result, the female body
traced back to the late nineteenth century and the has traditionally been inevitably defined in terms of
emergence of modern, industrialized society. In lack, perceived to be lacking the critical instru-
premodern cultures, different modes of differen- ment necessary for phallic penetration. Seen as ei-
tiation play the part of what in the twentieth cen- ther complementary to that of the male, or as a mere
tury came to be regarded as a natural hetero- variation on the universal (male) model, female
sexual instinct, the biological link between mem- sexuality has rarely been treated as an object wor-
bers of two oppositionally defined sexes. thy of independent investigation.
In ancient Greece, for instance, sexual relations Unfortunate as this may be, historical evidence
were not structured along the binary divide between clearly suggests that sexual desire and behavior are
straight and gay but were, instead, organized in not swayed by the laws of nature. Two points,
terms of activity and passivity. Free mennonslave nonetheless, deserve special notice. First, prior to
males, the only ones to enjoy full citizenshipoften the creation of the modern concept of sexuality,
maintained sexual relations with both women and erotic relations were officially recognized as thor-
boys. Such same-sex relations were not considered oughly entwined with public interests. The sepa-
abnormal, because the critical aspect in erotic rela- ration between private and public, a distinction that
tions was not the gender of the sexual object but the centrally revolves around matters of the flesh, was
respective roles of each sexual partner in actual prac- installed only in the late nineteenth century. Sec-
tice. As a free man, only the older male could legiti- ond, all systems of sexual organization, past as well
mately take up the active role of penetrator, a role as present, critically depend on some other form
appropriate to his dominant social position. While a of hierarchizationwhether in terms of sex, class,
gender hierarchization clearly existedin the sense race, or ethnicity, if not sexual orientation.
that woman and boy (as not-yet-man) could func-
tion only as the passive objects of the male subjects Modern Theories
desiresthe distinction between acceptable and The connection between sex and sexuality has been
nonacceptable sexual behavior was not based on the central to all modern theories of sexuality. The first
assumption of a natural heterosexuality. theorists to discuss same- or different-sex sexual
The Greek state is often invoked by gay male his- relations in terms of (ab)normal gender behavior
torians who seek to liberate homosexuality from its were the sexologists, nineteenth-century medical men
association with sickness, sin, and perversion. They who sought to appropriate human sexuality for their
do not always take into account, however, that even new profession. They furthermore began to distin-
this liberating model, like all currently charted guish human beings on the basis of their erotic in-
forms of Western sexuality, is rooted in phallocentrist clinations, to define humanity in terms of sexual
assumptions. In line with their inferior social posi- identity. In sexological discourse, any person with
tion, women were not considered sufficiently impor- exclusive sexual interest in members of his or her
tant for either contemporary policymakers or later own sex was categorized as an invertthat is, as
(male) historians to pay them much attention. Hence, a biologically distinct individual who, by fault of

SEXUALITY 695
 nature, had ended up with the sexual instinct of the general public and many a hapless individual that
S opposite sex. Where sexual practices had previously
seen as acts either legitimately or illegitimately in-
the only route happiness was reproductive sex. To
cure otherwise doomed perverts from their patho-
dulged in, they henceforth functioned as the foun- logical tendencies, a series of medical treatments
dations of two kinds of sexual species, endowed with was introduced to supplant the traditional, and
either natural or unnatural desires. often unsuccessful, psychoanalytical talking cure.
Although sexological theory put sexuality on Homosexual men and women were routinely hos-
the map of Western consciousness, it has been over- pitalized and subjected to a variety of therapies,
shadowed by the ideas of Sigmund Freud (1856 ranging from the forcible application of large doses
1939), whose science of psychoanalysis contin- of insulin and electroshock therapy to the more
ues to inform contemporary notions of sexuality. drastic measures of castration and lobotomy. From
In his own way, Freud did much to reinforce the a revolutionary and potentially liberating theory
distinction between homo- and heterosexual prac- of sexuality, psychoanalysis was thus, in the course
tices in terms of (ab)normality. He did, neverthe- of a few decades, transformed into a powerful re-
less, succeed in separating sexual behavior from pressive tool in the service of a highly conserva-
its presumed biological foundations and, instead, tive, if not reactionary, sociopolitical ethics.
introduced the concept of the pleasure principle. Against this background, it is not surprising
According to Freud, the sexual instinct is not that, at the end of the 1960s, the rise of various
fueled by the need to reproduce but, rather, by the countercultural movements, including feminism
need to satisfy (largely unconscious) desires. Pre- and gay liberation, coincided with a pervasive at-
supposing that human beings are born with a bi- tack on Freudian psychoanalysis as the dominant
sexual disposition, he described a complex psycho- explanation of sexuality. Despite his attempts to
sexual development in which the childs early his- assign woman her own place on the map of sexu-
tory, rather than her or his biological body, plays a ality, femininity had, after all, ultimately remained
decisive role. Although cultural conventions led an enigma to Freud. A growing body of feminist
Freud to offer the heterosexual ideal as the only critical work challenged prevailing theories of sexu-
successful outcome of psychosexual development, ality in which woman figured as mans other,
he did much to dislodge the notion of sexuality as and uppity women were diagnosed with penis
either rightly or wrongly fixed in immutably envy. However, the main object of white, straight,
gendered bodies. Freuds assumption that the li- middle-class feminist analysis was the oppressive
bido is neither inborn nor natural has proved by system of patriarchal power relations. Hence, its
far the most radical of his ideas. initial focus on sexual differencewomans differ-
During the 1920s, it became possibleand, all ence from manto the relative neglect of other
too soon, necessaryto identify oneself in terms areas of exclusion, such as race, class, ethnicity,
of ones sexual behavior and feeling. For the first and, somewhat surprisingly, sexuality. Indeed,
time in history, homosexuals and heterosexuals when lesbian feminists occasionally brought up the
alike were expected, if not forced, to define their question of sexualas distinct from genderdif-
erotic preferences as vital aspects of their private ferences as a political issue, some heterosexual femi-
and public selves. The idea that sexuality is one of nists advised them to keep their problematical pri-
the mainstays of collective, as well as individual, vate lives to themselves, since the mere association
identities has since become almost unchallenged in with lesbianism might discredit the feminist cause
Western consciousness. The construction of as a whole.
sexualized persons and, by extension, of a hierar- Some of the most incisive critiques of patriar-
chical system of sociosexual differentiation, is one chal power, nonetheless, came from early feminists
of a number of Freudian legacies that has been put who, either implicitly or explicitly, dared to write
to significant, if radically different, political effects. from a lesbian perspective. For what, they pertinently
In the 1950s, social and economic pressures asked, succeeded in keeping individual women in
fostered a cult of domesticity in which the idea thrall to men, and women as a group subordinated
of healthy heterosexuality was firmly established to male sociopolitical power, if not the organization
as the only natural and mature form of sexual iden- of both public and private relations along the lines
tity. Freuds work was used by an emerging class of normative heterosexuality? Only by overhauling
of practicing psychologists to convince both the what Adrienne Rich (1929) has called the system

696 SEXUALITY
of compulsory heterosexuality would the aims of sociopolitical regulation. Anyone who refuses to play
womens liberation be ultimately fulfilled. These by the rules is subject to marginalization, ostracism,
radical lesbian feminist critiques, in turn, inspired and other kinds of delegitimation.
some of the reconceptualizations that subsequently The rise of queer activism has had an empower-
arose from lesbian and gay studies and theory. Such ing effect on the gay and lesbian populations of some
alternative sexual discourses, emerging in the Euro- (white, urban) communities in the United States,
Western academy only in the late 1980s, have their Canada, and several western European countries.
roots in the gay and lesbian liberation movements Similarly, the renewed questioning of sexual catego-
of previous decades. ries and identities by self-identified queer scholars
has opened up a potentially enabling space for in-
Identity Politics and Queer Theory novative modes of thought about sexuality, gender,
In line with the times, most lesbians and gay men and other aspects of psychosocial differentiation.
in the 1970s adopted the notion of identity poli- Still, queer practice and theory have also been met
tics, originally developed within black activism with suspicion within other segments of the lesbian
in the United States, to further the cause of sexual and gay community, especially by those unwilling
liberation. They embraced this self-definition as a to let go of precisely such categories as gay, lesbian,
sexual minority to empower themselves and end bisexual, and transgender as legitimate terms of self-
the marginalization of nonheterosexual groups. identity that have, as yet, barely been acknowledged
While identity politics based on a fixed and natu- as such in Western societies, let alone in other parts
ral sexual orientation proved to be a powerful tool of the world. In view of the tenacity with which
for effecting social change, most lesbigay theorists previous attempts at changing sexual norms and
believed, at the same time, that sexual identities values have usually been resisted, and in light of the
whether gay, lesbian, bisexual, or even hetero- overwhelming power of the heterosexual impera-
sexualare neither innate nor Godgiven but, tive that continues to expand across many different
rather, the results of heterosexist ideologies. In other nations, cultures, and communities, the majority of
words, lesbian and gay studies have assumed con- peoplehowever sexually identifiedwill probably
tradictory positions toward their object of analy- enter the twenty-first century with at least some be-
sis from the start. This contradiction came newly lief in sexual identities intact.
to the fore with the birth of queer practice and rene c.hoogland
theory in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Queer theorists primary aim is to call into ques- Bibliography
tion any stable notion of identity, be it in terms of Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the
gender, ethnicity, race, class, sexual orientation, age, Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge,
or ability. Dislodging the traditional distinction be- 1990.
tween act and identity, they equally reject the con- Chauncey, George, Jr. From Sexual Inversion to
cepts of biological essence and social construction Homosexuality: Medicine and the Changing
and, instead, foreground the performative aspects Conceptualization of Sexual Deviance. Salma-
of sexuality. Generated by a wide range of acts, gundi 5859 (Fall 1982/Winter 1983), 114146.
thoughts, and feelings, sexuality is seen as a shifting Feminist Review, ed. Sexuality: A Reader. London:
pattern of being and behaving, as an ongoing pro- Virago, 1987.
duction, with multiple and changing significance. Lancaster, Roger N., and Micaela di Leonardo, eds.
The emphasis on changeability and multiplicity does The Gender/Sexuality Reader: Culture, History,
not deny that individuals are variously exposed to Political Economy. New York and London:
the compulsory and compulsive demands of the Routledge, 1997.
dominant culture. On the contrary, the notion of Rubin, Gayle. Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical
the performative seeks to underscore that any mean- Theory of the Politics of Sexuality. In Powers
ingful act of self-identification must be continually of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality. Ed. Ann
repeated in order to produce the illusion of perma- Snitow, Christine Stansell, and Sharon
nency and stability that is the precondition for psy- Thompson. London: Virago, 1984.
chosocial survival. Sexuality should, therefore, not
be regarded as a freely chosen set of theatrical per- See also Compulsory Heterosexuality; Essential-
formances, but as the effect of a powerful system of ism; Heterosexuality; Homosexuality; Identity

SEXUALITY 697
 Politics; Performativity; Psychoanalysis; Queer low perception of risk of STDs from female part-
S Theory; Rich, Adrienne; Sex Practices; Sexology;
SocialConstruction Theory
ners was not known, but routine Pap-smear screen-
ing of lesbians should not differ from that for het-
erosexual women.
Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is a condition in which
overgrowth of some vaginal organisms occurs.
Sexually Transmitted Diseases While it is not an STD among heterosexual cou-
Also known as STDs; infections transmitted through ples, the prevalence of BV among lesbians has been
sexual contact from one individual to another. reported to be 1836 percent. Berger et al. (1995)
STDs are caused by viruses, bacteria, and pro- found that a partner of a woman with BV was al-
tozoa. Viral STDs are chronic, persisting for life. most twenty times more likely to have BV than a
They include infection with human immunodefi- partner of a woman who did not have it. Despite
ciency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS; herpes sim- these data, whether BV is an STD among lesbians
plex virus (HSV), which causes genital herpes; hu- was not clear by the late 1990s, and further re-
man papillomavirus (HPV), which causes genital search was being conducted.
warts and cervical cancer; and hepatitis B.Bacterial Because of the lack of any good understanding
STDs include chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis; of the risks of STD transmission in a given sexual
trichomonal vaginitis is the only protozoan STD. encounter, the use of protective measures, such as
The risks of STD transmission between lesbians latex barriers (gloves, dams), or plastic kitchen wrap
are not well known. A few studies have reported a remained the safest approach for lesbians in the first
low prevalence of STDs and no risk of HIV trans- six months of a mutually monogamous sexual rela-
mission between female sex partners. However, these tionship. In addition, the presence of oral or genital
studies evaluated small numbers of women, did not ulcers or lesions consistent with herpes should
employ newer diagnostic tests, and provided incom- prompt caution and, at least, the use of barrier meth-
plete information on sexual practices. Among the ods to prevent transmission. Jeanne M.Marrazzo
6,146 respondents to the National Lesbian and Bi
Womens Health Survey (1994), many women re- Bibliography
ported contracting an STD from another woman American Medical Association, Council on Scien-
(including herpes in 135, chlamydia in 102, genital tific Affairs. Health Care Needs of Gay Men
warts in 100, gonorrhea in sixteen, hepatitis in nine, and Lesbians in the United States. Journal of
and HIV in one). However, since most lesbians (77 the American Medical Association 275 (1996),
99 percent) have had sex with men, and many (21 13541359.
30 percent) continue to have sex with men, acquisi- Berger, Barbara J., Shelley, Kolton, Jonathan
tion of a chronic viral STD may occur from male M.Zenilman, Marinella C.Cummings, Joseph
partners (OHanlon, 1995). Feldman, and William M.McCormack. Bac-
Several anecdotal reports case of HIV transmis- terial Vaginosis in Lesbians: A Sexually Trans-
sion between women have been reported, but the mitted Disease. Clinical Infectious Diseases 21
risk of transmission for a given sexual encounter (1995), 14021405.
was not known by the late 1990s. Trichomoniasis Lemp, George E, Melissa Jones, Timothy
and genital herpes occur among lesbians and are A.Kellogg, Giuliano N.Nieri, Laura Anderson,
very likely transmitted between women (the first David Withum, and Mitchell Katz. HIV
by exchange of infected vaginal secretions, and the Seroprevalence and Risk Behaviors Among Les-
second by orogenital sex). HPV infection, genital bians and Bisexual Women in San Francisco and
warts, and cervical cancer also occur in lesbians, Berkeley, California. American Journal of Pub-
including those who have never had sex with men, lic Health 85 (1995), 15491552.
which strongly suggests that transmission between Marrazzo, Jeanne M., Laura A.Koutsky, Kathleen
female sex partners occurs (probably on hands and Stine, Jane M.Kuypers, Thomas A.Grubert,
sex toys). Marrazzo et al. (in press) suggest that Denise A.Galloway, Nancy B.Kiviat, and H.
lesbians receive routine Pap-smear screening less Hunter Handsfield. Genital Human
frequently than heterosexual women. Whether this Papillomavirus Infection in Women Who Have
stems from alienating behavior on the part of Sex With Women. Journal of Infectious Dis-
healthcare providers, inability to pay for care, or eases, in press.

698 SEXUALITY
OHanlan, K.A. Lesbian Health and Homopho- claim, in Romans 1 that homosexuality is perverse
bia. Current Problems in Obstetrics, or unnatural.
Gynecology, and Fertility 18 (1995), 93136. An academic librarian at Fisk University since
1969, Shockley has produced extensive, distin-
See also AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syn- guished bibliographical and critical work, includ-
drome); Health; Safer Sex; Sex Practices; Sexuality ing Afro-American Women Writers, 17461933
(1988). Dandridges (1987) annotated bibliogra-
phy fully documents Shockleys prolific career
Shockley, Ann Allen (1927) through 1985. More recently, Bogus (1990) lo-
Pioneering African American writer. Ann Allen cates Say Jesus in a multigenerational,
Shockleys lesbian fiction explores the turbulent afrofemcentric tradition representing black les-
and formative years between 1960 and 1980, when bian musicians. Glynis Carr
few black lesbians were writing openly or being
published. In a critical essay in Barbara Smiths Bibliography
(1946) influential black feminist anthology, Home Bogus, SDiane A. The Queen B Figure in Black
Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (1983), Literature. In Lesbian Texts and Contexts:
Shockley analyzes the ideological reasons for this Radical Revisions. Ed. Karla Jay and Joanne
marginalization and documents a trickling of Glasgow. New York: New York University
black lesbian texts newly appearing in the 1970s. Press, 1990, pp. 275290.
Shockleys own carefully structured, classically re- Dandridge, Rita B. Ann Allen Shockley: An Anno-
alist fiction is central to this small, but historically tated Primary and Secondary Bibliography.
significant, body of work. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1987.
The Black and the White of It (1980) collects ten Smith, Barbara, ed. Home Girls: A Black Feminist
short stories about lesbians, some written as early as Anthology. New York: Kitchen Table: Women
the 1960s and published previously. Like her novels, of Color Press, 1983.
Shockleys short stories are thematically innovative: Wallace, Michelle. Black Macho and the Myth of
They grapple with experiences rarely rendered in fic- the Superwoman. New York: Dial, 1979.
tion before, exploring the consequences of racism and
heterosexism while focusing on characters creative See also African American Literature; Smith, Barbara
responses and, especially, the ability to love.
Shockleys first novel, Loving Her (1974), is
widely recognized as the first U.S. lesbian novel Simcox, Edith Jemima (18441901)
dealing with interracial love. Set in the 1960s, this British social reformer and scholar. Edith Simcox
erotic narrative avoids the racial discourses of both established and managed a shirtmaking coopera-
black nationalism and radical feminism, employ- tive (18751884), supported the trade-union move-
ing, instead, an earlier, liberal discourse of transcen- ment, was a representative to the International
dence and color blindness. Still, Shockleys insights Trade Union Congress on eight occasions, was
regarding racism in gay communities and the nec- elected to the London School Board, wrote for the
essary conditions for nonexploitive interracial re- leading periodicals, and published three books.
lationships fully anticipate antiracist theory of the As a young child, according to her journal,
1990s. Shockleys characterizations of Simcox liked boys best and dreamed of some dis-
heterosexuals constitute a forceful critique of con- covery that should prove her to be a boy; she and
temporary black gender relations. her two brothers were referred to as the three boys.
Shockleys second novel, Say Jesus and Come The base of the preference was a want of sympa-
to Me (1982), is more than a love story concerning thy with girls games and talkI did not care for
two very public, closeted black women, a minister dolls or dress or any sort of needlework. As a stu-
and a recording artist. It is also an ambitious po- dent, she described having an affection for a French
litical fable, with Myrtle representing the possibili- governess of a demonstrative, fondling sort.
ties of black female leadership as she mobilizes a Simcox thoroughly enjoyed her androgyny, re-
historic, interracial grass-roots womens movement. ferred to herself as half a man, mentioned her
Myrtle finally gains the courage to come out pub- young manhood, laughed at signing her name
licly: Her last sermon boldly contradicts Saint Pauls E.J.Simcox to get mistered, and said she would be

SIMCOX, EDITH JEMIMA 699

 glad to serve on a government committee if women eth century, the demarcation between being single
S were eligible because she was the least womanish of
available women. From 1877 until 1900, she kept
and being coupled was not uniformly defined
among lesbians.
a private journal, Autobiography of a Shirtmaker, in
which she attempted to deal with the painful reality History
that her passionate love for the British novelist George Single lesbians did not exist until the late nineteenth
Eliot (18191880) was not reciprocated. She enjoyed century. Woman-to-woman sexual activity had been
kissing Eliot, was seldom alone with her, and strongly documented for many centuries before, but the idea
resented the remarks that Eliot made encouraging her of a homosexual as a distinct person was first pro-
to be more charitable to men and urging her to moted by German psychologist Carl von Westphal
marry. Simcox made indignant comments such as I (18391890), who described a congenital invert
have never wished to be married in the abstract and I in 1869. Richard von Krafft-Ebing (18401902)
would decidedly much rather not be married to any elaborated on this concept in Psychopathia Sexualis
concrete Dick or Tom. in 1882, and Havelock Ellis (18591939) published
Simcox was herself pursued by women whose Studies in the Psychology of Sex: Sexual Inversion
love she did not return, and she recognized the irony in 1897. Because homosexuality, or sexual inver-
in causing them the same miserable pain that Eliot sion, was considered a disease in the nineteenth cen-
caused her. She often mentioned her business part- tury, few women identified as lesbians. A woman
ner, Mary Hamilton (n.d.), being involved with other coupled with another woman might have seen her-
women, while Simcox cultivated relationships with self as homosexual; a woman alone would not have
the other women who loved Eliot, such as Elma used that label because the concept of a homo-
Stuart (1837?1903), Barbara Bodichon (1827 sexual as a distinct person did not exist until later.
1891), and Maria Congreve (d. 1915). In Episodes As a result of the feminist and gay rights move-
in the Lives of Men, Women, and Lovers (1882), ments in the second half of the twentieth century,
Simcox portrayed her secret love for Eliot in twelve more women identified as lesbians, whether they
fictional vignettes. Constance M.Fulmer were coupled or single.

Bibliography Finding Other Singles

Fulmer, Constance M., and Margaret E.Barfield, Single lesbians needed a way to identify themselves
eds. A Monument to the Memory of George to one another and the outside world so they would
Eliot: Edith J.Simcoxs Autobiography of a not be presumed to be single heterosexual women.
Shirtmaker. New York: Garland, 1998. As a result, they developed subtle and overt visual
Haight, Gordon S. George Eliot: A Biography. cues and social structures to proclaim their iden-
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968. tity and sexual orientation as lesbians.
McKenzie, Keith A. Edith Simcox and George Many lesbians wore traditionally masculine
Eliot. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961. clothing. Short fingernails, sensible shoes, and an-
Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1978. drogynous clothing styles were common among
1970s lesbians. Distinctly lesbian hairstyles, such
See also Androgyny as crew cuts, short on top and long in back, short
with a tiny long tail, or partly shaved heads, were
popular for a few years each, until these haircuts
Singles became common among heterosexuals. Pinkie
A single lesbian is a woman who has a preference rings; tattoos; rainbow flags; pink or black trian-
for female partners and who does not consider gles; labyris, lambda, or double-woman symbol
herself currently coupled. A single lesbian might jewelry; and freedom rings have all offered ways
be celibate by choice, uninvolved but looking for a for lesbians to identify themselves to one another.
lover, or dating one or more women but not in an At some dances, single lesbians were each given a
exclusive relationship with anyone. A lesbian might white flower to wear; at the Michigan Womyns
see herself as coupled after just one date or sexual Music Festival, single lesbians could meet each
episode, while the other woman might still see her- other at a designated breakfast area each day.
self as single. Because same-sex marriage was not Lesbian bars were a major gathering place for
legal in the United States at the end of the twenti- singles in the 1950s through 1970s, but, as alcohol

700 SIMCOX, EDITH JEMIMA

consumption became less socially acceptable, other ganizing committee around issues of ethnicity or
methods of meeting evolved. In the 1970s, person- age, would offer the newcomer more opportunity
als ads emerged as a way for single lesbians to find for becoming part of a community, establishing
partners; in the 1980s, professional dating services friendships, and finding lovers.
catering to lesbians were established; and some major As gay politics focused on securing
cities advertised sex clubs for lesbians. Feminist or- domesticpartnership and marriage benefits for gays,
ganizations, womens sports teams, womens col- lesbian couples moved toward acceptance in main-
leges, girls camps, and the military all attracted sin- stream American culture. This inspired many single
gle lesbians. A common way single lesbians met oth- lesbians to create and support visible lesbian social
ers was through introductions by friends. institutions catering to their lifestyles. Numerous
womens theater groups, coffeehouses, community
Single Lifestyles centers, dances, concerts, and bookstores in the
For some lesbians, being single is a transition phase United States at the end of the twentieth century
between a breakup and finding a new partner. For resulted from the creative and organizing efforts of
others, being single is a preferred lifestyle. In a 1987 coupled and single lesbians in search of friendship,
survey (Munson) of 106 women at a lesbian social lovers, and community. Marcia Munson
group in Boulder, Colorado, 40 percent described
themselves as currently being part of a monoga- Bibliography
mous couple; 16 percent were in a committed, open Munson, Marcia. How Do You Do It? On Our
relationship; 23 percent were single and looking Backs 4:1 (1987), 1241.
for sexual involvement; 6 percent were celibate by Stevens, Robin, ed. Girlfriend Number One: Les-
choice; and 15 percent were dating one or more bian Life in the 90s. San Francisco: Cleis, 1994.
women. When asked to describe their ideal sexual
involvement, 55 percent preferred to be in a mo- See also Bars; Bookstores; Choruses, Womens; Com-
nogamous couple; 31 percent would choose a com- munity Centers; Couples; Domestic Partnership;
mitted, open relationship; 8 percent preferred mul- Monogamy and Nonmonogamy; Music Festivals
tiple committed relationships; and 6 percent pre-
ferred something else. This survey revealed that
about 50 percent usually became sexually involved Sisterhood
with someone after a few dates, about 25 percent Term generally referring to the unity of women,
had sex after many months of getting to know each particularly as that unity is connected with feminist
other, about 12 percent usually had sex on the first activism. Popularized during the nineteenth-century
date, and the rest gave some other answer. fight for womens suffrage, the concept of sisterhood
reemerged during the 1960s and 1970s. Since then,
Finding Community many feminist groups have utilized it, often for dif-
Feminist bookstores throughout the country, many ferent reasons and with different meanings.
of them started by lesbians, served as de facto les-
bian community centers in the 1970s through 1990s. Characteristics
Their bulletin boards advertising events, services, At its reemergence during the 1960s, the concept
and housing for women were an especially impor- of sisterhood was used by radical feminists (as in
tant resource for single lesbians new in town or in Robin Morgans Sisterhood Is Powerful [1970])
transition. In many smaller cities, a feminist book- to counter the generic usage of the term brother-
store was the only public place a woman could go, hood by male-dominated leftist organizations. Its
knowing she would find lesbian-friendly women. usage was designed to reveal the sexism pervasive
A single lesbian moving to a small city would in these organizations andmany women hoped
likely be included in the community with invita- motivate the Left to address sexism as seriously as
tions to potlucks, picnics, or parties organized by it did racism and classism. The concept illuminated
local lesbians. In a large urban area, choosing a the status of women as an oppressed class and il-
particular subgroup, such as the lesbian chorus, lustrated the need for female solidarity. Many femi-
an S/M (sadomasochism) group, a two-step or a nists also employed the phrase to emphasize the
twelve-step group, a sports team, a recreational or magnitude and power of women united in the fight
political club, a career womens group, or an or- against oppression. Because it challenged the Lefts

SISTERHOOD 701
 male supremacy and emphasized the solidarity of Chrystos. Nidishenok (Sisters). Maenad (Win-
S women, sisterhood was one of several theoreti-
cal constructs that served to validate feminism (par-
ter 1982),n.p.
Combahee River Collective. A Black Feminist
ticularly radical feminism) as an important, effec- Statement. In This Bridge Called My Back:
tive movement for change. Writings by Radical Women of Color. Ed.
As its usage grew, sisterhood was adopted Cherre Moraga and Gloria Anzalda. New
by other womens groups to differentiate their par- York: Kitchen Table Press, 1981, pp. 210218.
ticular experience of oppression. Lesbians utilized Joseph, Gloria I., and Jill Lewis, eds. Common
the term to emphasize the homophobia of main- Differences: Conflicts in Black and White Femi-
stream society and the need for women to unite in nist Perspectives. Boston: South End, 1986.
ways that affirmed lesbian existence. Similarly, Phelan, Shane. Identity Politics: Lesbian Feminism
women of color used the phrase to signify the need and the Limits of Community. Philadelphia:
to bond against racist and ethnocentric practice. Temple University Press, 1989.

Criticism See also Essentialism; Feminism; Identity Politics;

These different uses and meanings of sisterhood National Organization for Women (NOW); Politi-
revealed problems inherent in the primary definition cal Theory; Race and Racism; Suffrage Movement;
of the term itself. Those wary of the term criticize its Womens Liberation Movement
tendency to universalize female experience. Such a
tendency emphasizes womens assumed shared ex-
periences at the expense of the differences among Situational Lesbianism
them. For example, early in its history (1971), the Sexual contact between women that is caused by so-
National Organization for Women (NOW) simulta- cial or other circumstantial factors, rather than by
neously advocated sisterhood and instituted a purge the womens internal psychological or emotional char-
of every known lesbian within the organization. Thus, acteristics. The term implies that the women would
many women were uncomfortable with feminist uses not have engaged in lesbian behavior were it not for
of the term, particularly when they seemed to ex- their unusual situation and that they are, therefore,
clude women who were not heterosexual, middle- not really lesbians. The term situational lesbian-
class, or of western European descent. The use of the ism is most commonly used to refer to same-sex
term within lesbian communities carried similar prob- activity that occurs in single-sex environments, such
lems: Although it was redefined to address more spe- as between women in prison or between adolescent
cifically the oppression of lesbians, it still operated to girls in single-sex boarding schools. The concept of
separate and, thus, gloss over the very real problems situational lesbianism can also be used to describe
of racism, classism, and other oppressions rooted in some same-sex activity among women college stu-
social-identity differences among lesbians themselves. dents and among prostitutes.

Status Locations
Despite its sometimes rough reception, sisterhood The classic studies of womens prison culture, in-
remains an important concept for lesbians and cluding sexual culture and same-sex activity, are
nonlesbian feminists alike. While most recognize Rose Giallombardos Society of Women: A Study
its practical limitations, it still represents for many of a Womens Prison (1966) and David Ward and
the power and magnitude of womens bonds with Gene Kassebaums Womens Prison: Sex and So-
other women. In its most effective sense, sisterhood cial Structure (1965). Among women who are sexu-
has come to mean the necessity for women to build ally active in prison, true homosexuals are dis-
alliances against all oppressive structures and in- tinguished from players or jailhouse turnouts.
stitutions and resist the temptation to privilege one The latter are women who were heterosexual prior
struggle over any other. Dana R.Shugar to incarceration and who are expected to be het-
erosexual following their release; their sexual ac-
Bibliography tivity with other women in prison is attributed to
Cohen, Marcia. The Sisterhood: The True Story of the single-sex environment causing them to turn
the Women Who Changed the World. New their heterosexual affections toward the only po-
York: Simon and Schuster, 1988. tential partners available: other women. Because

702 SISTERHOOD
their female sex partners serve as surrogates for ples who swingthat is, engage in mate swap-
male partners, sexual contact with them arguably ping. Citing other researchers reports that 60 to 92
does not reflect attraction to another woman but percent of female swingers had engaged in same-sex
is merely a distorted expression of heterosexual contact in the context of swinging, Dixon (1985) stud-
attractions. These women are, therefore, not con- ied women whose first sexual experience with an-
sidered lesbians but, rather, heterosexuals engag- other woman occurred while swinging with their
ing in situational lesbianism. Giallombardo es- husbands. Although the experience of these women
timated that 5 percent of women prisoners are les- could be characterized as a form of situational les-
bians before incarceration, and wardens and in- bianism caused by the proximity of another woman
mates estimate that 50 to 80 percent of all women in a sexually permissive and charged situation, Dixon
prisoners engage in same-sex activity while incar- herself chose to conceptualize it as an actual change
cerated, indicating that situational lesbianism in in the sexual orientations of the women involved,
womens prisons is common. from heterosexuality to bisexuality.
Most literature on situational homosexuality Situational lesbianism is also found among
in boarding schools pertains to males. A notable women in the sex industry. Some prostitutes and
exception is work by Martha Vicinus, who exam- strippers, for example, exchange sex for money
ines close friendships between female students and with men but choose women for their partners in
adolescent crushes between female students and pleasure sex. McCaghy and Skipper (1969) stud-
their female teachers in turn-of-the-twentieth-cen- ied women strippers, who pointed out that strip-
tury English boarding schools. These relationships pers do not usually meet nice guys and that, when
might rarely have involved actual sexual contact, they do meet nice guys, they usually ask them to
but Vicinus (1989) describes them as emotionally stop stripping, so the strippers turn to other women
intense and replete with sexual tension. She notes for intimacy. In contrast to situational lesbianism
that critics characterize boarding-school friendships in prison, which is due to a lack of male partners,
as emotional training for the girls future hetero- in sex work women have plenty of access to male
sexual relationships. Boarding-school friendships partners but seek female partners because of the
were sometimes seen as threatening the primacy of poor quality of their heterosexual experiences.
the family in girls priorities; therefore, these friend-
ships were the arena in which some young women Controversies
fought for independence from their families. The term situational lesbianism is controversial.
Contemporary young women often experiment It assumes that same-sex activity can be neatly at-
with independence from their families and find the tributed to either internal psychological character-
opportunity to pursue same-sex relationships in col- istics (in the case of the true lesbian) or to exter-
lege. Although few colleges remain single-sex, many nal circumstances (in the case of the situational
provide access to worldly ideas, including feminist lesbian). But psychologists and sociologists gen-
philosophy and acceptance of sexual diversity. Women erally believe that most human behavior is a result
who participate in lesbian relationships during col- of the combined effects of internal and external
lege but seek male partners thereafter are sometimes causes; if a given situation were the sole cause of
called LUGs, or lesbians until graduation, by same-sex activity, then all women in that situation
women who remain lesbian after graduation. Simi- would be expected to engage in the activity. Much
larly, womenin or out of collegewho lived les- sexual behavior that is classified as situational
bian lifestyles during the 1970s heyday of lesbian femi- might actually reflect a capacity for bisexual re-
nism but who later married men have been called sponse that exists in some people but is expressed
hasbians. The terms LUG and hasbian effec- only in certain situations; in this view, the concept
tively characterize these women as situational lesbi- of situational homosexuality is used to deny the
ans, who engage in lesbianism under certain condu- existence of bisexuality. Same-sex activity among
cive circumstances but return to heterosexuality once allegedly heterosexual women can also be viewed
they have to find employment or settle down with a as a change in sexual orientation rather than as
permanent partner in a heterosexist society. situational lesbianism, as illustrated by Dixons
Ironically, for some women, heterosexual marriage characterization of swinging women. In the eyes
provides the situation that leads to experimentation of critics, situational lesbianism is a linguistic
with lesbian sex. Joan Dixon studied women in cou- loophole that allows some people to maintain

S I T U AT I O N A L L E S B I A N I S M 703
 heterosexual identity even as they engage in same- and understand slang codes signals that one is part
S sex activity. On the other hand, the concept of
situational lesbianism accurately reflects the way
of a group. The newness and the fleeting nature of
slang are part of the appeal, part of who is in, who
in which some women, who believe that they are is on the edge, who is doing the trendiest things, or
really heterosexual despite their sexual activities who can pretend they are on top of the trends by
with women, experience their sexuality. knowing the vocabulary.
Paula C.Rust Slang is dynamic. It comes from using or com-
bining existing words in a unique way. Some of
Bibliography the words have a short shelf life, but others be-
Dixon, Joan K. Sexuality and Relationship come so commonplace they move into everyday
Changes in Married Females Following the usage. When slang loses its group-identifying quali-
Commencement of Bisexual Activity. In Two ties and its freshness and appeal, and when it no
Lives To Lead: Bisexual in Men and Women. longer carries any social sanctions for being used,
Ed. Fritz Klein and Timothy J.Wolf. New York: then it has moved into standard vocabulary. When
Harrington Park, 1985, pp. 115133. particular slang is heard over and over again, it
Giallombardo, Rose. Society of Women: A Study loses impact. Slang words and expressions, there-
of a Womens Prison. New York: Wiley, 1966. fore, wear out from overuse. Popular slang is spread
McCaghy, Charles H., and James K.Skipper, Jr. in much the same way as other trends, appearing
Lesbian Behavior as an Adaptation to the Oc- in major cities and spreading to other locales.
cupation of Stripping. Social Problems 17 Lesbians have their own nonstandard vocabular-
(1969), 262270. ies or slang. It has the purpose of showing identifica-
Ward, David A., and Gene G.Kassebaum. Wom- tion with one another, and it is a part of the language
ens Prison: Sex and Social Structure. Chicago: lesbians use among themselves for fun, social com-
Aldine, 1965. munication, and political debate. The lesbian cul-
Vicinus, Martha. Distance and Desire: English ture is actually a loosely networked collection of
Boarding School Friendships, 18701920. In subcultures that are, nevertheless, conscious of some
Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and important shared experiences, shared roots, and
Lesbian Past. Ed. Martin Duberman, Martha shared values. This culture has its own myths, he-
Vicinus, and George Chauncey, Jr. New York: roes, villains, folk epics, in-jokes, taboos, and dreams.
Penguin, 1989, pp. 212229. Because lesbians as a group are outsiders, they have
developed a creative lexicon that self-consciously con-
See also Bisexuality; Boarding Schools; Colleges, structs themselves as on the fringe of normal het-
Womens; Prison and Prisoners; Students erosexual values and culture. Lesbianspecific use of
slang demonstrates a rich and conscious tradition
within a vibrant intentional culture.
Slang The special slang vocabulary of lesbians helps
The nonstandard vocabulary of a given culture or hold their culture together. It helps lesbians recog-
subculture. It typically consists of arbitrary, and of- nize one another and places in their communities,
ten short-lived, coinages and figures of speech char- and it expresses shared values and experiences. Not
acterized by creativity, spontaneity, and raciness. The knowing the slang, or using it inappropriately, de-
point of slang words is often to be startling, amus- fines one as an outsider or possibly someone new
ing, or shocking. Slang stands out against other, more to the community. Members of lesbian culture use
ordinary lexical items. Although they must be eas- slang, as do members of all cultures, in several ways:
ily understood, slang words and expressions attract as a tool of communication, as a tool of inclusion,
attention. It is language particular to a group, its and as a tool of exclusion.
vernacular and jargon. Slang enriches day-to-day Some segments of the lesbian community love
language. Sometimes it is used to replace taboo word play and are very conscious and inventive in
phrases or to playfully enhance them. It sets social their use of language. These women regard slang
boundaries; slang takes words already in use, im- formation and use as a game to be played for con-
bues them with new connotations that have mean- scious pleasure. Their inventions thus display an
ing for the speaker and a circle of like-mined or like- almost unique combination of enjoyment of lan-
aged acquaintances. The ability to competently use guage play and demonstration of culturally

704 S I T U AT I O N A L L E S B I A N I S M
specific intelligence. Since slang functions to make Eble, Connie C. Slang and Sociability: In-Group
speech vivid, colorful, and interesting, speakers (les- Language Among College Students. Chapel Hill:
bian and otherwise) often keep up with current University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
trends in slang for a while during their lifetimes. Green, Jonathon. Slang Down the Ages: The His-
Veteran community members, who have found other torical Development of Slang. London: Kyle
ways to establish lesbian identity, usually find it less Cathie, 1993.
necessary to keep up with the most current slang. Sornig, Karl. Lexical Innovation: A Study of Slang,
Because lesbians have an intentional culture (one Colloquialisms, and Casual Speech. Philadel-
each individual must choose by action to join), it phia: J.Benjamins North America, 1981.
is not surprising that competency in
lesbiancommunity talk and particular facility in use See also Community; Dyke; Language; Subculture
of lesbian slang can imbue individuals with popu-
larity and personal influence within the culture.
Slang has played a central role in spreading les- Slovenia
bian language and the culture that goes with it. Republic located in middle Europe adjacent to
For example, many persons familiar with lesbian-
Hungary, Austria, Italy, and Croatia and contain-
community talk will know that dyke is a slang
ing two million citizens. Once part of Yugoslavia,
term that means lesbian. Once vulgar and used by
Slovenia became an autonomous and independent
speakers outside the community as derogatory, it
democratic republic in January 1992. Catholicism
has been reclaimed in informal lesbian talk as a
is the predominant religion.
noun referring to members of the community. It is
It is difficult to trace lesbian women or a lesbian
a normal, ordinary, and neutral word in standard
subculture in the Slovenian past. There were some
lesbian talk. Similarly, even outsiders to lesbian
lesbian writers and artists in the twentieth century,
culture and community are probably familiar with
but they rarely wrote about explicitly lesbian themes.
the labels butch and femme, which have long
ago crossed over into heterosexual lexicon, but it However, lesbianism was mentioned in a police re-
is unlikely that those outside the lesbian commu- port, Report About Prostitution and Homosexual-
nity have a full understanding of what it means to ity (Ljubljana, April 17, 1956), although lesbian-
be termed baby butch, one of the children, or ism is not prohibited by law. The report mentions
LUG (lesbian until graduation). Words such as the phenomenon of lesbian love among prosti-
butch and femme have been slang for a long tutes, imprisoned women, and actresses.
time, but most slang words either make it into ac- Homosexuality and lesbianism became visible
cepted neutral style or else die out rather quickly. in the 1980s when movements for civil rights and
Every speech community has its own specialized peace emerged in Slovenia. Among the groups that
informal vocabulary. Lesbians may establish a con- formed in that decade were the gay group Magnus,
nection of more intimacy or a sense of family by the feminist group Lilit, and the lesbian group LL,
shifting metaphorical registers from formal language The first gay initiative was the Magnus cultural
to talk that includes slang. Both speakers and lis- festival in 1984 in the capital, Ljubljana. LL was
teners take note and interpret it as a friendly ges- formed in September 1987 as a part of Lilit. In
ture, even as a sign of respect or acceptance. Lan- 1988, LL became an autonomous and independ-
guage between equals or near-equals tends to be less ent section (Sekcija) of KUC (Students Cultural
formal, so their talk will include more slang expres- Center), formed to break the silence about the les-
sions. What is slang for one person, generation, or bian lifestyle and culture in Slovenian society. It
situation, however, may not be slang for another. was the first lesbian group in Slovenia and the
Hence, differences in age, race, nationality, social former Yugoslavia and one of the few lesbian
status, and degree of outness or lesbian visibility will groups in eastern Europe.
all affect use of, and familiarity with, slang. Sekcija LL took part in annual Yugoslav femi-
Willa Young nist meetings throughout the 1980s. In that dec-
ade and the 1990s, it published different newslet-
Bibliography ters (Lesbozine [19871989], Pandora [1990
Allen, Irving L. The Language of Ethnic Conflict: 1996], and Lesbo [1997) and organized a lesbian
Social Organization and Lexical Culture. New video and film festival, lectures, dances, meetings,
York: Columbia University Press, 1983. summer camps, discussions, and workshops.

SLOVENIA 705
 In 1990, LL and Magnus organized the Roza lesbians live in large cities. Many have stayed in the
S Klub (Pink Club), a political organization of les-
bian and gay people. The Roza Klub fought for
small towns and rural areas where they grew up.
Moreover, when large numbers of American lesbi-
changes in the new Slovenian constitution that ans embraced the lesbian separatist movement dur-
would have included the term sexual orientation ing the 1970s, many of them chose to leave cities
among other personal circumstances for which dis- for the countryside. Lesbian separatists believed that
crimination is prohibited. Unfortunately, the term women had suffered by giving too much of their
was not explicitly written into the new document. energy to men, denying their own needs and sacri-
Since its formation, Sekcija LL had always co- ficing themselves to the needs of others, including
operated with and occasionally fully joined gay straight women. The separatists believed that lesbi-
male and feminist organizations. In 1993, when ans needs had to come first. While the separatists
many independent groups and individuals took often created communities within cities, some es-
over an old military barracks, Metelkova, in tablished communal farms. Womens science fiction
Ljubljana, gay, womens, and lesbian groups set novels of the 1970s created a neopastoral vision of
up their own offices and clubs. Sekcija LL some- the countryside as a refuge from the savage inequi-
times shared rooms with womens groups, and ties of male-dominated industrial society. However,
sometimes with the gay mens group. In 1993, LL achieving the purist vision of rural lesbian separa-
established a women-only pub, Monokel, within tist happiness proved daunting, and most rural com-
Metelkova, although it only began to operate on a munities died by the 1980s.
regular basis in 1997. In the same year, Sekcija LL One aspect of lesbian separatism has survived
separated from Roza Klub and began an independ- and flourished in the womens music festival. The
ent program, with its own office, activities, and Michigan Womyns Music Festival has been held
publication, Lesbo. Another lesbian group, yearly since the 1970s in a rural area near Hart,
Kasandra, was formed in 1994 at the Womens Michigan. Other womens music festivals are held
Center at Metelkova. Kasandra is a lesbian femi- not only in the Midwest (The National Womens
nist group, cooperating with other independent Music Festival at Indiana University in
womens organizations but not with organizations Bloomington and the Iowa Womens Music Festi-
of gay men. At the end of the decade, lesbians in val are two), but in rural areas across the country
Slovenia could take part in different groups and every year, from New England to the South to the
activities: Sekcija LL, the mixed gay and lesbian West. Wanda and Brenda Henson, who, in 1993,
group Roza Klub, the lesbian-feminist group organized Camp Sister Spirit, have been perhaps
Kasandra, and a gay and lesbian youth organiza- the most publicized example of lesbians living in
tion, Legebitra (an acronym constructed from the rural areas. They have appeared on national tel-
words for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender). evision and in virtually every major newspaper
By the end of the 1990s, the lesbian movement because of the hostility they have endured from
in Slovenia became increasingly dispersed among townspeople in nearby Ovett, Mississippi.
multiple activities, small groups, and political The largest lesbian-owned publishing house,
orientations. Suzana Tratnik Naiad Press, moved to a rural area near Tallahassee,
Florida, at the beginning of the 1980s and has flour-
Bibliography ished there since. Women continue to own land in
Tratnik, Suzana, and Nataa S.Segan. L: Zbornik rural areas, and a network of womens land de-
o Lezbicnem Gibanju na Slovenskem 1984 veloped in the 1970s continued to be active in the
1995 (L: An Anthology of the Lesbian Move- 1990s despite the demise of many lesbian com-
ment in Slovenia, 19841995). Ljubljana: munes. Women can still travel across the continen-
KUC-Lambda, 1995. tal United States, staying on womens land rather
than in conventional campgrounds or motels.
See also Yugoslavia, Former Many lesbians living in rural areas are not part of
a separatist community and have reported a sense of
isolation. A lack of affirmative resources and fear of
Small Towns and Rural Areas rejection and ostracism have led many lesbians to
Although lesbian life in the twentieth century has remain invisible as lesbians in their rural areas. A
been marked by migration to urban centers, not all British woman explained her experience in a small

706 SLOVENIA
town: In Woking theres just no space to actually torneys, chiropractors, restaurants, and gift shops
grow the way you want to. Youre very pushed into in its directory. Another concentration of lesbians
one little box and if you dont fit theyre going to can be found in southwestern Michigan. Several
bang you in. Its very difficult to get out to Camberley small towns near the shores of Lake Michigan have
or Guildford where there are gay groups. Thats a seen an influx of lesbians that began in the
shame because there must be loads of places like mid1980. Lakeside, Union Pier, Three Oaks, Saw-
Woking where people are just choosing to conform. yer, and New Buffalo have a significant number of
I tried it for a long time (King 1989). Although they lesbian landowners, and real estate agents actively
may be in a satisfying relationship with a partner, promote the area to lesbians. Lesbian-owned res-
many rural lesbians, especially older lesbians, say their taurants and other businesses have become popu-
geographic circumstances make life difficult. A lar there. Farther north, Saugatuck and Douglas,
woman may drive fifty to one hundred miles to at- already famous as a gay vacation destination, are
tend a meeting of a lesbian or feminist organization. home to an increasing number of lesbians.
The lack of public transportation and other metro- Lesbians in rural areas have perhaps gained the
politan amenities may affect lesbians more acutely, most from access to the Internet, where many les-
bian groups and publications exist. The Pioneers in
as lesbian earning power often is weaker than that of
rural southwestern Wisconsin is one of many groups
other population groups. Divorced lesbian mothers
that help rural lesbians and gay men connect with
in rural areas may fear conservative judges. The im-
one another for social contact and support. By es-
pact of the Christian Religious Right is sometimes
tablishing home pages on the Internet, these groups
more deeply felt in rural areas. Human rights ordi-
have become more accessible to rural lesbians. Even
nances have been passed in small towns (Douglas,
lesbians who cannot afford their own computers
Michigan), but more often they are voted down
can usually use one at a nearby library and, thus,
(Bloomington, Illinois, and Saugatuck, Michigan) or
discover organizations, activities, and resources that
repealed (Lewiston, Maine). In areas of rural Oregon,
can assist them. Karen Lee Osborne
lesbians have organized networks and gatherings, yet
rural Oregon has also seen a strong homophobic Bibliography
backlash resulting in violence. Reports of violence King, Sue. Inventing Ourselves: Lesbian Life Sto-
against lesbians and gay men, however, are not lim- ries. Hall Carpenter Archives. Lesbian Oral
ited to rural areas. History Group. Margot Farnham, project co-
Through national publications such as the Wish- ordinator. London: Routledge, 1989.
ing Well (located in rural Napa, California) or Les- Miller, Neil. In Search of Gay America: Women
bian Connection (Lansing, Michigan) or through and Men in a Time of Change. New York:
local chapters of womens groups such as the Na- Harper and Row, 1990.
tional Organization for Women (NOW) and, more Rothblum, Esther D., and Ellen Cole. Lesbianism:
recently, through Internet access, many rural lesbi- Affirming Nontraditional Roles. New York:
ans manage to find one another and develop a sense Haworth, 1989.
of community. In Bloomington, Illinois, a wom- Sears, James T. Growing Up Gay in the South:
ens bookstore operated by lesbians was founded Race, Gender, and Journeys of the Spirit.
in the 1970s and existed as an informal commu- Binghamton, New York: Haworth, 1991.
nity center into the 1980s. And although a human
rights ordinance was voted down there in 1995, See also Collectives; Computer Networks and Serv-
the lesbian and gay community is committed to ices; Land; Lesbian Connection; Music Festivals;
the effort. Provincetown, Massachusetts, has long Naiad Press; National Organization for Women
been known as a gay and lesbian resort area, but (NOW); Provincetown, Massachusetts; Recreation;
lesbians in rural areas and small towns of western Science Fiction; Separatism
Massachusetts have also established a strong cul-
tural and economic base. Many businesses in
Northampton, Massachusetts, are owned and op- Smashes, Crushes, Spoons
erated by lesbians, and the Lesbian Calendar pub- Words used in the nineteenth and early twentieth
licizes important cultural events there. The North- centuries to describe intense emotional infatuations,
ampton Lesbian and Gay Business Guild lists eve- with or without a sexual component, between two
rything from real estate agents, to dentists, to at- women. Such relationships were particularly

SMASHES, CRUSHES, SPOONS 707

 prevalent in womens colleges and boarding schools verse and could even result in the girls being forced
S and were widely tolerated as part of school life. A
crush on another woman did not carry the same
to leave school. Never again in the twentieth cen-
tury would same-sex crushes be perceived by the
societal opprobrium as a romantic entanglement general populace as other than suspect, since such
with a man. Although crushes were usually con- relationships might be lesbian. Crushes, however,
fined to the womens school years, sometimes the still exist, and continue to be a significant element
relationships evolved into lifelong Boston mar- in lesbian fiction, particularly young-adult fiction.
riages for women. Sherrie A.Inness
There were informal codes of behavior governing
a smash. Although it could involve a student and a Bibliography
teacher, the most typical smash at a womens college Inness, Sherrie A. Mashes, Smashes, Crushes, and
was likely to be between a freshman and a senior or Raves: Woman-to-Woman Relationships in
a junior, with the younger student smashed on the Popular Womens College Fiction, 18951915.
older one. The infatuated younger student would NWSA Journal 6:1 (1994), 4868.
shower her object of adoration with small gifts, speak Sahli, Nancy. Smashing: Womens Relationships
of her constantly, and try to attend any school dances Before the Fall. Chrysalis 8 (1979), 1727.
with her. These displays of affection were not hidden Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. The Female World of
and were often spoken of openly on campus. If the Love and Ritual: Relationships Between Women
freshmans admiration was returned, typically the two in Nineteenth-Century America. Signs: Jour-
girls would spend the bulk of their time together, and nal of Women in Culture and Society 1:1 (1975),
it would be a scarcely concealed secret that they were 1927.
smashed on each other. Vicinus, Martha. Distance and Desire: English
As Nancy Sahli points out in her important es- Boarding-School Friendships. In The Lesbian
say on crushes, Smashing: Womens Relationships Issue. Ed. Estelle B.Freedman, Barbara C.
Before the Fall (1979), such relationships between Gelpi, Susan L.Johnson, and Kathleen
schoolgirls were typically accepted by parents, ad- M.Weston Chicago: University of Chicago
ministrators, and teachers as a phase that girls would Press, 1982, pp. 4365.
go through before reaching maturity. Crushes, how-
ever, were not without their nineteenth-century crit- See also Boarding Schools; Boston Marriage; Col-
ics, who considered crushes too emotional. For in- leges, Womens; Fiction; Fiction, Young Adult; Stu-
stance, Alice Stone Blackwell (18571950) was criti- dents
cal of smashes and assumed they came from mass-
ing hundreds of nervous girls together, and shutting
them up from the outside world (Sahli 1979). Views Smith, Barbara (1946)
such as Blackwells remained the exception rather African American scholar and activist. Born in the
than the rule in the 1800s and early 1900s, when segregated South in 1946, Barbara Smith spent
womens romantically charged relationships with most of her childhood in Cleveland, Ohio, after
women were regarded as a sign of their having a her family joined great masses of rural, Southern
more emotional nature than men. blacks who migrated to Northern cities in search
Attitudes toward crushes changed in the early of a better life.
twentieth century, when it became far more com- In high school in the early 1960s, Smith became
mon to label such relationships as abnormal. The active in school desegregation efforts, attending
publication of sexologist Havelock Elliss influen- several speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929
tial book Sexual Inversion (1897), in which he iden- 1968) and meeting Mississippi activist Fannie Lou
tified girls crushes as unhealthy and possibly being Hamer (19171977) following a civil rights rally.
of a sexual nature, made it increasingly difficult for In 1965, she became one of a handful of black stu-
school authorities to view girls crushes on other dents who desegregated Mount Holyoke Colleges
girls as asexual. In addition, the spreading 1920s campus and was swept up by the budding Black
interest in popular psychoanalytical theory and the Power movement and antiwar activism. In 1968,
work of Sigmund Freud (18561939) made it in- she spent a year at the New School for Social Re-
creasingly unlikely that such relationships would be search in New York City a pivotal year in which
disregarded. By the 1920s and 1930s, crushes be- King and Robert Kennedy (19251968) were as-
tween two women were increasingly viewed as per- sassinated and in which she took part in the

708 SMASHES, CRUSHES, SPOONS

 She immediately moved to have other women of
color appointed to the commission, and, in 1975,
MLA offered its first workshops on black wom-
ens literature at its annual conference. As wom-
ens studies programs began to develop on cam-
puses, Smith traveled widely, speaking about black
womens studies as a lifesaving discipline.
In 1976, Smith met poet and activist Audre Lorde
(19341992) at a conference, embarking on an in-
tense friendship that would profoundly impact them
both. In 1980, Smith and Lorde founded Kitchen
Table: Women of Color Press, which, at the end of
the 1990s, remained the sole press in the United
States directed by women of color and has published
some of the most important lesbian feminist aca-
demics and activists of color of their time.
Smiths scholarly works include Homegirls: A
Black Feminist Anthology (1983) and the first vol-
ume on black womens studies, All of the Women
Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, but Some of
Us Are Brave (1982), which includes her landmark
essay Toward a Black Feminist Criticism. Smiths
particular contribution as a trailblazing black les-
bian feminist has been to challenge heterosexual
Barbara Smith. Photo by Tee A.Corinne.
black women and men about the diversity of sexual
expressions within a black context. Simultaneously,
antiwar demonstrations at the Chicago Democratic she has raised the issue of racism within the les-
National Convention. bian and gay movement, creating an expanded
Moving into graduate school directly after col- definition of lesbian and gay issues and politics.
lege, Smith felt caught in the rigidity of black na- She has won numerous awards, including the
tionalist views of black women and wondered how Stonewall Award for outstanding service to lesbian
she would proceed. In 1973, she went to the first and gay communities and the Lambda Award for
eastern regional meeting of the National Black excellence in publishing. Jaime M.Grant
Feminist Organization (NBFO) in New York City.
From her first moments at the conference, Smith Bibliography
knew I was home. Bell-Scott, Patricia. Reflections from a Home Girl.
Following her first NBFO gathering, Smith both Ms. 5:4 (January-February 1995), 5963.
defined and championed black feminism in the acad- Chay, Deborah G. Rereading Barbara Smith:
emy and the community, often as the sole visible Black Feminist Criticism and the Category of
lesbian of color in countless dialogues. In the early Experience. New Literary History 24:3 (Sum-
1970s, she founded the Combahee River Collective mer 1993), 635652.
in Boston, Massachusetts, a group of black (mostly
lesbian) feminists who did progressive, antiracist See also Black Feminism; Combahee River Collec-
organizing around a multiplicity of issues facing tive; Identity Politics; Lorde, Audre; Race and Rac-
Bostons black community. Combahees Black ism; Women of Color
Feminist Statement (1977) was an early manifesto
for identity politics, a practice the group forged
through such work as organizing around the mur- Smith, Bessie (1894?1937)
ders of a dozen black women in the late 1970s. African American blues and jazz singer and song-
In 1974, Smith became the first black woman writer. Named the Empress of the Blues, she was
to be appointed to the Modern Language Associa- the most famous of the blues queens. She performed
tions (MLA) Commission on the Status of Women. throughout the South, as well as in Northern cities,

SMITH, BESSIE 709

 and her first recording, Down-Hearted Blues Garber, Eric. A Spectacle in Color: The Lesbian
S (1923), written by Alberta Hunter (18951984), was
an enormous success. She was one of the highest-
and Gay Subculture of Jazz Age Harlem. In
Hidden From History: Reclaiming the Gay and
paid black artists in the 1920s and went on to record Lesbian Past. Ed. Martin Duberman, Martha
two hundred songs. In 1929, she starred in the film Vicinus, and George Chauncey, Jr. New York:
St. Louis Blues, the only visual footage of her musi- Penguin, 1989, pp. 318331.
cal artistry. Smiths voice is widely admired for its Harrison, Daphne Duval. Black Pearls: Blues
power, expressivity, urban sophistication, and Queens of the 1920s. New Brunswick, N.J.:
improvisatory flexibility. Harrison (1988) writes that Rutgers University Press, 1988.
her keen sense of timing, her expressiveness, and
her flawless phrasing influenced many jazz musi- See also African Americans; Bentley, Gladys; Bi-
cians and gospel and popular music vocalists. sexuality; Blues Singers; Harlem Renaissance;
Smith married Jack Gee in 1923, but their rela- Rainey, Gertrude Ma
tionship was volatile, marked by brutal violence and
periods of separation. Smith was bisexual, and her
affair with Lillian Simpson, a chorus girl, is well docu- Smith, Lillian Eugenia (18971966)
mented by her niece, Ruby Walker, in Albertsons American novelist, essayist, and social critic. Born
(1972) biography. Walker, herself a performer in and reared in an upper-class white family in Jas-
Smiths shows, also recalls an encounter in Detroit, per, Florida, Lillian Smith saw life change abruptly
Michigan, between Smith and a dancer named Marie: immediately after her high school graduation in
Jack had made one of his surprise appearances and 1915 when bankruptcy forced the family to move
caught Marie in a compromising situation with to their summer home in the mountains of Clay-
Bessie (Albertson 1972). Like Gertrude Ma ton, Georgia. Smith attended Piedmont College,
Rainey (18861939), Smith sang about poverty, vio- helped her parents manage a hotel, and taught in
lence, independence, heartbreak, and unorthodox mountain schools before pursuing her chosen ca-
sexuality with great candor. In Foolish Man Blues reer in music at the Peabody Conservatory in Bal-
(1927), she sang, with irony: Theres two things got timore, Maryland. In 1925, after three years teach-
me puzzled, theres two things I dont understand,/ ing music at a girls school in China, Smith returned
Thats a mannish-acting woman, and a skipping, to direct her fathers summer camp for girls near
twistin woman-acting man. In Detroit, Smith was Clayton. Through Laurel Falls Camp, Smith met
known to frequent the buffet flats with her girlfriends, Paula Snelling (18991985), a native of Macon,
where she enjoyed the wide variety of sexualities, in- Georgia, and began the lifelong relationship that
cluding lesbianism, on display. encouraged and sustained her writing career.
Smith was profoundly aware of racism in Ameri- Between 1932 and 1934, Smith wrote her first
can society and rarely cultivated friendships with novel, about the shadowy relationships, intense,
white people. Fiercely confrontational, in July 1927 passionate but unnamed between white American
in Concord, North Carolina, she successfully cursed women missionaries and Chinese girls. No one
out a group of robed and hooded Ku Klux would dare publish this book, she later recalled. I
Klansmen who tried to collapse her show tent. laid it aside knowing I might never write so personal,
In the last years of her life, her career suffered so terribly honest a book again (Gladney 1993).
from heavy drinking, the general decline in popular- While developing the progressive and creative
ity of classic blues, and the effects of the Depression camp, Smith and Snelling coedited a small literary
on the recording industry. However, she continued magazine, Pseudopodia (later changed to North
to perform, and, like her contemporaries Ma Georgia Review and then South Today), from 1936
Rainey, Alberta Hunter, Ethel Waters (19001977), to 1945. Through South Today, her best-selling
and Gladys Bentley (19071960), she sang from a novel Strange Fruit (1944), and her autobiographi-
womans perspective and demanded to be heard. cal critique of Southern culture, Killers of the
Martha Mockus Dream (1949), Smith established herself as the most
liberal and outspoken of white Southern writers
Bibliography against racial injustice. Yet her attack on racial seg-
Albertson, Chris. Bessie. New York: Stein and Day, regation was fueled by an equally bold explora-
1972. tion of taboo sexual relationshipsspecifically,

710 SMITH, BESSIE

samesex and/or interracial relationships as reflec- her women characters in The Wreckers and The
tions of, and challenges to, the dynamics of power Boatswains Mate are courageous, defiant, and
in the larger social order. selfassured, as was Smyth herself.
While Smith never publicly acknowledged her Smyth never married and was never secretive about
own lesbianism, shadowy relationships between her lesbianism. Her first major love affair was with
women appear in significant roles in her published Elisabeth (Lisl) von Herzogenberg (18471892), the
fiction. In both Strange Fruit and One Hour (1959), wife of Smyths composition teacher in Leipzig. Later
her treatment of lesbian and gay male relationships lesbian attachments, some of them unrequited, were
sends a clear message: Societys ideas about sexual formed with Rhoda Garrett (d. 1882), Minnie Benson
normalcy can be as destructive to the human psy- (18421918), Mary Ponsonby (18321916), the Prin-
che as the deeds of a lynch mob. cess de Polignac (18651943), Emmeline Pankhurst
Margaret Rose Gladney (18581928), Edith Somerville (18581949), and
Virginia Woolf (18821941).
Bibliography In the years 19101912, Smyth was active in
Gladney, Margaret Rose, ed. How Am I To Be the British suffrage movement; after one action,
Heard? Letters of Lillian Smith. Chapel Hill: she was sentenced to a two-month jail term at
University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Holloway Prison for throwing stones through gov-
Loveland, Anne C. Lillian Smith: A Southerner ernment officials windows. In 1911, she composed
Confronting the South. Baton Rouge: Louisi- the chorus March of the Women, dedicated to
ana State University Press, 1986. the Womens Social and Political Union. Smyth is
Watson, Jay. Uncovering the Body, Discovering possibly the most iconoclastic lesbian figure in clas-
Ideology: Segregation and Sexual Anxiety in sical music, and her battle to confront discrimina-
Lillian Smiths Killers of the Dream. Ameri- tion against women in the music professions is well
can Quarterly 49:3 (September 1997), 470503. documented with great candor in her letters, es-
says, and nine volumes of autobiography. In 1922,
See also Race and Racism she was named Dame Commander of the Order of
the British Empire. Martha Mockus

Smyth, Dame Ethel Mary (18581944) Bibliography

English composer, conductor, and writer. Ethel St. John, Christopher [Marie]. Ethel Smyth: A Bi-
Smyths early compositions are chiefly chamber en- ography. London: Longmans, Green, 1959.
semble works, and her Mass in D (1891) for solo- Wood, Elizabeth. The Lesbian in the Opera: De-
ists, chorus, and orchestra was her first major work sire Unmasked in Smyths Fantasio and Fte
to win widespread recognition. Opera, however, was Galante. In En Travesti: Women, Gender Sub-
Smyths greatest passion. A large, complex, and ex- version, Opera. Ed. Corinne E.Blackmer and
pensive art form, very few women composers have Patricia Juliana Smith. New York: Columbia
devoted themselves to opera, and Smyth composed University Press, 1995, pp. 285305.
six: Fantasio (1894), Der Wald (1901), The Wreck- . Music into Words. In Between Women:
ers (1904), The Boatswains Mate (1914), Fte Biographers, Novelists, Critics, Teachers, and,
Galante (1923), and Entente Cordiale (1925). She Artists Write About Their Work on Women. Ed.
successfully secured performances for all of her op- Carol Ascher, Louise DeSalvo, and Sara
eras and occasionally conducted them herself. Ruddick. Boston: Beacon, 1984, pp. 6883.
Smyths musical language was colorful and en-
ergetic, and she drew from a variety of contempo- See also Composers; Music, Classical; Opera; Suf-
rary musical styles. Elizabeth Wood, the leading frage Movement; United Kingdom; Woolf, Virginia
Smyth scholar, hears traces of Johannes Brahms
(18331897), Richard Wagner (18131883), and
Edward Elgar (18571934) among the hearty Social-Construction Theory
bugle calls and hunting horns that echo her rau- Perspective within the social sciences based upon
cous childhood, and among the English folk tunes the understanding that social reality is constructed
that she remembered and renewed in her musical through the process of everyday, practical delib-
vocabulary (Wood 1984). Smyths portrayals of eration. Social constructionism is usually contrasted

S O C I A L - C O N S T R U C T I O N T H E O RY 711
 with essentialism, the belief that there is a fixed and utilize a shorthand of social practices. It is the
S essence to individuals and groups. Among the cen-
tral tenets of the perspective is the understanding
various practices and patterns of actual behavior and
the routines associated with community ground rules
that social reality is created as it is lived. Facts are that together constitute a social order.
themselves creations of individuals who provide Another principle of social-construction theory
accounts of them. There are no experts; everyone is that all social realities are partial and unstable.
has opinions, based on personal interpretations of Although community members may sense social
community norms, social routines, and practices. reality as static, in actuality more than one identity
Agreement exists where there is a taken- is accountable. A woman perceived as lesbian may
forgranted sense of shared social reality. not self-identify as such. Likewise, a woman who
Within any social order, including lesbian so- identifies as lesbian may not fit the community norms
cial worlds, there is an understanding of an order that allow other lesbians to identify her outside les-
that is real. Competent members of a social bian settings. Bisexual women may be mistaken for
world use community social understanding to guide lesbian or as heterosexual, depending upon which
everyday sense-making. Doing lesbian social re- community they are in at a particular time.
ality and being lesbian are accomplished within The nature of social reality does not, however,
a social context. Becoming a lesbian community entail that positions on relevant issues are discre-
member means learning to talk and act lesbian in tionary, nor that the whole process is disorderly. The
community settings. It means learning to do rec- everyday work of practical deliberation is highly
ognition of other lesbian community members in structured because it is so strictly bound by the need
straight, or heterosexual, community settings. It to come to practical actions and by the restricted
means conforming to lesbian social norms. Lesbian range of options a culture will accommodate within
reality and existence are contingent upon commu- a particular framework of social reality. The con-
nity, a takenfor-granted sense of normalcy, and crete particulars and social norms of any situation
defining reality in a lesbian sense. limit the number of choices available for action by
Lesbians and lesbian community exist where community members. How lesbian women enter the
and when they are made accountable. The prac- deliberations furnishes the abstract principles of les-
tice of lesbian reality is carried on under the aus- bian community with content, limits and extends
pices of those possessing skill with, knowledge of, application of those principles, and makes them
and entitlement to the detailed work of that ac- available for practice in everyday life.
complishment. Lesbian community is constituted Talk is one of the most visible means of con-
by those whose competence is depended upon, rec- structing an ongoing sense of social reality and
ognized, used, and taken for granted as they both community. Linguistic markers are used by some
construct and maintain distinguishing and particu- individuals or groups to keep others in their
lar features of lesbian social reality. The existence places. On the other hand, community members
of lesbian women and lesbian communities con- utilize language to construct and maintain a sense
struct a unique social reality. To be socially les- of everyday reality that spans the larger lesbian
bian, a woman must pass as lesbian in lesbian-com- culture as well as bridges subcommunities, each of
munity settings. She must do lesbian reality in or- which has its own linguistic uniqueness. The power
der to be lesbian. This understanding replaces the of language is that it can be used both by lesbians
old model of lesbianism as a pathological afflic- and those who would oppress them. It provides a
tion. That model has largely given way to a social- system of relationships running through the whole
scientific one, which constitutes it as an alterna- of society, producing incongruent and often con-
tive lifestyle, a way of loving, a sexual preference, flicting definitions of reality. Language can be used
or a source of personal fulfillment. to construct community and to construct social
Under the social-construction model, lesbians con- structures of oppression.
stitute the conditions for their own legitimacy by way Late-1990s developments in social-construction
of lesbian community. Community members inter- theory deconstruct altogether the assumption of
act routinely, and they seem universally to become group coherence based on a shared characteristic,
subject to taken-for-granted common rules that both such as gender or sexuality. This new perspective
restrict and enable them. When lesbians participate posits that identities are multiple, fragmented, and
in organized interchange with each other, they learn unstable. In this view, communities predicated on

712 S O C I A L - C O N S T R U C T I O N T H E O RY
identity are weak, not only because the multifari- many of the attitudes about the poor derive from
ous strands of identities interact in elaborate and the punitive and judgmental English Poor Laws of
unpredictable ways, but also because the meanings the seventeenth through the eighteenth centuries.
of even seemingly singular parts of our identities, When the settlement movement crossed the Atlan-
such as gender or sexual identity, should not be tic to the United States, it shared many of the char-
understood as absolute social categories. With acteristics of its British origins: It was principally a
framing principles of lesbian feminist thought such volunteer effort by the wealthy to ameliorate the
as identity and community destabilized, poverty and social decay of the impoverished.
socialconstruction theory contests the very foun- With the insurgence of Freudian theory, the so-
dation of knowledge as lesbian feminists had con- cial-reform attitudes of the settlement movement
structed it. Still, in everyday life, lesbian-commu- were replaced by a focus on individual pathology.
nity members construct their lives while maintain- Social work has benefited from the healthy ten-
ing a sense of identity and community as real. sion between its mission to recognize and improve
Once lesbian reality is seen as socially constructed, social conditions and maintaining a narrow focus
it doesnt make sense to suppose that one can deduce on the individual. The person-in-environment and
the true significance of events. Lesbian social reality ecological-practice models, for example, have em-
will, at best, articulate and organize complexity in phasized the importance of examining the many
some settings; and it will change social reality in an social, economic, and psychological factors that
ongoing manner in ways agreeable to lesbians, as well contribute to client well-being.
as their antagonists. Willa Young Social work has devoted a considerable portion
of the twentieth century to rebuffing early claims
Bibliography that it lacked professional status. The inability of
Kitzinger, Celia. The Social Construction of Lesbi- social work to point to a single theoretical school
anism. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1987. and method has led some to agree that it ranks
Painter, Dorothy. A Communicative Study of among the semiprofessions. The very strength
Humor in a Lesbian Speech Community: Be- of the profession, however, may derive from the
coming a Member. Ph.D. diss., Ohio State Uni- diverse areas that it blends (such as economics,
versity, 1978. political science, psychology, and psychoanalysis)
Phelan, Shane. Identity Politics: Lesbian-Feminism to build its knowledge, value, and practice base.
and the Limits of Community. Philadelphia: Social-work services are delivered within a va-
Temple University Press, 1989. riety of fields, such as health, services to the eld-
Pollner, Melvin. Mundane Reason: Reality in Eve- erly, chemical dependency, child welfare, and men-
ryday and Sociological Discourse. New York: tal health. The methods of social-work practice are
Cambridge University Press, 1987. equally varied and include work with individuals
Whisman, Vera. Queer by Choice: Lesbians, Gay and families, social-service management and plan-
Men, and the Politics of Identity. New York: ning, and community organization.
Routledge, 1996.
Social Work and Lesbianism
See also Community; Essentialism; Identity The early days of social-work practicenamely,
among the settlement houses of New York City
and Chicago, Illinoiscan be heralded as time
Social Work when intimate friendships among women social
Umbrella term that encompasses a wide range of pro- reformers were the mainstay of well-known settle-
fessional activities, conducted within the socialwelfare ments, such as Hull House in Chicago, founded
industry. Social-work intervention falls along a con- by Jane Addams (18601935). The very fact, how-
tinuum of skills, from work with individuals, groups, ever, that feminist scholarship has struggled with
and families to community organizing and advocacy, the issue of publicly identifying the sexuality of
social policy analysis, and administration. important historical figures even in the field of so-
cial work (typically less homophobic than many
History other disciplines) is a sign of the level of
Social work has its roots in the settlement move- heterosexism that flourishes even in a profession
ment of nineteenth-century England, although committed to social justice and diversity.

SOCIAL WORK 713

 The rise of the gay and lesbian movement, be- Eastman, Emma Goldman. Chrysalis 3 (1977),
S ginning with the founding of the Mattachine Soci-
ety in 1950 and gaining impetus in the mid-1980s
4361.
Magee, Maggie. A Response to Weilles Rework-
as a response to the AIDS crisis, has had an impact ing Developmental Theory: A Case of Lesbian
on the provision of services to lesbians and their Identity. Clinical Social Work Journal 22
families. The need for greater education and aware- (1994), 113117.
ness on the part of social work has been highlighted. Tully, Carol T. In Sickness and in Health: Forty
It also sparked an important controversy in the Years of Research on Lesbians. In Lesbian
socialwork field. The National Association of So- Social Services: Research Issues. Ed. Carol T.
cial Workers espouses the need for education and Tully. New York: Haworth, 1995, pp. 118.
understanding of lesbian lifestyles. However, the Weille, Katharine Lee H. Reworking Developmen-
Council on Social Work Education, the accredit- tal Theory: The Case of Lesbian Identity For-
ing body for schools of social work, has been un- mation. Clinical Social Work Journal 21
able to support standards that would bar colleges (1993), 151159.
and universities that offer social-work degrees from Woodman, Natalie Jane, ed. Lesbian and Gay Life-
discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, styles: A Guide for Counseling and Education.
opting instead for a standard of respect for human New York: Irvington, 1992.
diversity including sexual orientation when it re-
vised the standard in 1997. Given the failure of See also Addams, Jane; AIDS (Acquired Immune
the United States Congress to extend workplace Deficiency Syndrome); Community Organizing;
protections to gay men and lesbians, this contro- Economics; Female Support Networks; Gay Lib-
versy is unlikely to be resolved in the near future. eration Movement; Psychoanalysis; Psychology
Social-service needs among lesbians exist across
the life span, from identity issues among young
adults and others coming out at various times Socialism
in their life cycle, to family functioning, couple The ownership and control of the tools of produc-
relationships, issues of terminating relationships, tion, as well as capital, land, and large-scale prop-
workplace issues, and issues specific to older les- erty, by the entire community. This wealth is distrib-
bians. uted to benefit the interests of all rather than to amass
Social-work research has shifted its focus in the private profits for the few, causing poverty for the
1990s from the examination of lesbianism as a many. Karl Marx (18181883) and Friedrich Engels
pathology to the examination of lesbianism as an (18201895) are the most noted exponents of the
alternative lifestyle. Since then, heterosexism (rather theory of scientific socialism, which they projected as
than lesbianism itself) has come to seen as a sig- the first major step in achieving communisma class-
nificant factor in the development of social prob- less, stateless form of social organization.
lems, such as substance abuse, domestic violence,
and depression, among lesbians. Origins and Methods
Emerging feminist scholarship in social work is To explain the laws of motion in nature, history,
exploring the role of postmodern feminist theory and human thought, Marx and Engels generated a
within social-work education, research, and prac- method of logic called dialectical materialism
tice. An important contribution in this realm is the (dialectical meaning that continual change occurs
recognition of ways that existing theoretical perspec- through contradictions; materialism meaning that
tives of all types have masked the voices of women existence precedes consciousness). They objectively
and people of color. Although not widely explored, analyzed the ascent and decline of past societies,
this growing body of scholarship promises to the emergence of capitalism with its vast internal
strengthen the ability of the profession to be more contradictions, and the class struggle it inevitably
responsive to the needs of a diverse population. engendered. The dialectical patterns of the past
Kathleen E.Nuccio showed them that the profit system would be over-
turned by the modern working class that capital-
Bibliography ism itself had created. Affirming the positive power
Cook, Blanche Wiesen. Female Support Networks of human nature and its perennial quest for evolu-
and Political Activism: Lillian Wald, Crystal tionary progress, they predicted how capitalism

714 SOCIAL WORK

would be replaced by the global flowering of new Like Marx and Engels, the early Bolsheviks un-
human relations that are necessary, rational, func- derstood and expressed the essential connection
tional, and fulfilling. between the private ownership of wealth and the
One of their basic sources was Ancient Socie- degraded social position of, and denial of rights to,
ties (1877) by U.S. anthropologist Lewis women, national minorities, and other suppressed
H.Morgan, which revealed how patriarchy was groups. The Soviet constitution made both divorce
preceded worldwide by the natural matriarchal and abortion easily available, eliminated the legal
gens, or maternal clan. There, private ownership concept of illegitimacy, and struck down all laws
did not exist, all basic property was vested in the prohibiting consensual sexual conduct, including gay
community, and labor was organized for the com- relations. The Soviet Union recognized a multitude
mon good and personal pleasure. of freedoms for women and access to all forms of
This was primitive communism, and its overthrow economic, political, and cultural work. In the same
could be accomplished only by what Engels called spirit, the Twelfth Party Congress in 1923 ratified
the world historic defeat of the female sex. In The an initiative by Lenin granting full selfdetermination
Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State for national minorities.
(1884), Engels described how the bourgeois monoga- The fledgling workers state in 1917 had to con-
mous family, which was necessary to guarantee bio- tend, however, with a huge legacy of material and
logically correct private inheritance, and a state to cultural backwardness and a protracted siege
enforce this startling new family form, emerged by against the new Soviet Union by all major capital-
necessity out of the changing economic level, or de- ist governments. A bureaucracy arose to guard and
gree of technology, of the time. According to the so- allocate scarce goods (and skim the cream for it-
cial division of labor, men controlled the cattle herds, self), and, with the accession of Joseph Stalin
where the first significant surpluses of wealth ap- (18791953) to power after Lenins death in 1924,
peared. This situation led to the shift from reckoning the policies of the Russian Revolution were re-
descent matrilineally to reckoning it along patrilineal versed. Despite a determined Left opposition led
lines, and to women and children becoming the prop- by Trotsky, Stalin introduced the notion of the
erty of men. From this original oppression ensued all revolutionary fighting family (a throwback to
subsequent exploitation and repression, including the patriarchal-monogamous norms). He condemned
taboo against free sexual expression in general and sexual minorities, withheld self-determination from
homosexuality in particular. Any deviation from het- national minorities, and espoused the concept of
erosexual monogamy was a serious threat to the socialism in one country, a complete turn away
wealthy ruling class. from the internationalism that had previously de-
Reelevating the status of women is, thus, cen- fined the communist movement.
tral to the socialism of Marx and Engels. In the
Communist Manifesto (1848), they called for the Socialism and Feminism
abolition of the father-dominated family and, along The fall of the degenerated Soviet Union and the
with it, the role of women as mere instruments of Eastern European workers states at the beginning
procreation and service to males. of the 1990s led Western commentators to proclaim
the death of communism. Nevertheless, socialist
The Russian Revolution ideas and ambitions remain alive, especially among
In the Russian Revolution of 1917, V.I.Lenin feminists who embrace Marxism as the basis for
(18701924), Leon Trotsky (18791940), and understanding the late-twentieth-century backlash
cothinkers such as Alexandra Kollontai (1872 against women, sexual minorities, people of color,
1952) and Nadezhda Krupskaya (18691939) were immigrants, national minorities, and indigenous
faced with the opportunity to bring the ideas of peoples (in tandem with the poor and workers gen-
Marx and Engels to life. Lenin had paved the way erally). These feminist intellectuals and activists have
for the revolutions success with his pioneer insist- enriched socialist thought by building upon the fun-
ence on the need for a vanguard party to provide damental ideas that the patriarchal family is one of
global leadership for the working class and for the linchpins of capitalism and that womens sub-
workers to provide leadership to the new society ordination, free labor in the home, and the absence
(the dictatorship of the proletariat to replace the of a majority of women engaged in wage labor have
bourgeois dictatorship). resulted in discrimination and low wages.

SOCIALISM 715
 Socialist feminists, for example, point out that Bibliography
S the social fortunes of sexual minorities always rise
and fall in direct proportion to those of women.
Moraga, Cherre, and Gloria Anzalda, eds. This
Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical
They see that capitalism cannot abide the homo- Women of Color. New York: Kitchen Table:
sexual threat to its roots in private ownership, pri- Women of Color, 1982.
vate property, private profit, and inheritance by Deaderick, Sam, and Tamara Turner. Gay Resist-
legally authentic heirs any more than it can permit ance: The Hidden History. Seattle: Red Letter,
womens emancipation. Lesbians, in particular, are 1997.
despised or made invisible because they symbolize Fraser, Clara. Socialism She Wrote. Seattle: Red
complete independence from men. In contrast, ac- Letter, 1997.
cording to feminist materialist anthropologists, the Lenin, V.I. The Emancipation of Women: From the
perspective on sexuality in matrilineal, communal Writings of V.I.Lenin. New York: International,
societies was fluid and respectful of diversity. 1975.
Contemporary feminists who have connected Midnight Sun. Sex/Gender Systems in Native
equality for lesbians to socialism include Charlotte North America. In Living the Spirit: A Gay
Bunch, who argued the importance of lesbian femi- American Indian Anthology. Gay American In-
nism to the socialist movement in her 1975 speech, dians, Will Roscoe, coordinating ed. New York:
Not for Lesbians Only, at the Socialist Feminist St. Martins, 1988, pp. 3247.
Conference at Antioch College in Ohio, and Trotsky, Leon. Women and the Family. New York:
Christine R.Riddiough and Hanna Frisch, who Pathfinder, 1970.
stressed the significance of lesbian and gay libera-
tion to social and cultural change in a 1979 pam- See also Combahee River Collective; Lorde, Audre;
phlet, Women Organizing: A Socialist Feminist Parker, Pat; Political Theory; Smith, Barbara
Bulletin, published by the Socialist Feminist Com-
mission of the New American Movement.
Socialist feminists also view racist oppression, like Sociology
sexism and heterosexism, as organically connected The study of social organization and interaction.
to capitalism. Black lesbian feminist organizers and Sociology seeks to explain both persistent patterns
writers of the 1970s and 1980s Pat Parker (1944 of social behavior and the factors associated with
1989), Audre Lorde (19341992), and Barbara social change. Research in this discipline is often
Smith (1946), writing for the Combahee River categorized as either macrosociology or
Collective, put forward a credo of revolutionary microsociology. Macrosociology examines entire
feminist leadership, developed from their own ex- societies or large institutions. Microsociology focuses
periences, that calls for a radical movement that is on individuals and their face-to-face interactions in
multi-issue and all inclusive and a socialist revolu- small groups. Sociological research on lesbians has
tion that is both feminist and antiracist. Midnight typically been conducted on the micro level.
Sun (1988), an Anishnawbe lesbian, uses Marxist
theory to analyze several sex-gender systems among History
North American Indians. Jewish Marxist feminist Before the 1980s, sociological studies of lesbians
Fraser (1997), founder of the explicitly feminist and were scarce. Sociologists had, however, opened the
Leninist Freedom Socialist Party, argues persuasively subject of same-sex sexuality as early as the 1940s
that socialist feminism offers the most logical and and 1950s, when Alfred Kinsey (18941956) pub-
advanced theory and the most successful practical lished his now-famous reports on the prevalence
results in the feminist movement. of same-sex erotic experiences. The research con-
Finally, many socialist feminists in academia pro- ducted in the 1960s and 1970s on same-sex sexu-
vide a counterweight to the postmodernist perspec- ality typically approached the topic from an essen-
tive that denies lesbian identities worldwide, claim- tialist perspectivethat is, it attempted to find a
ing that lesbianism is solely a Western construction. root cause for gay and lesbian sexual orientation.
Socialists, instead, offer an integrated, internation- Other studies tried to uncover a universal sequence
alist analysis flowing from the historical and dialec- through which individuals progressed in order to
tical materialist approach of Marxism. discover their gay or lesbian identities. These early
Merle Woo works were also limited because they focused on

716 SOCIALISM
gay men. Lesbians experiences were assumed to nation. In this context, lesbianism is viewed as the
be equivalent to those of gay men or were left out ultimate subversion of patriarchy and, thus, a po-
of the discussion entirely. litical identity. Taylor and Whittier also note the
The 1980s and 1990s witnessed an increase in importance of feminist culture for providing stand-
the amount of research on same-sex sexuality and ards of dress and language through which women
on lesbians in particular. Despite increased atten- can present themselves as lesbians. Through their
tion, sociology failed to undergo a sexual revolu- description, the authors present a framework for
tion, according to Arlene Stein and Ken Plummer understanding lesbian identity from a
in I cant even think straight: Queer Theory and socialconstructionist perspective.
the Missing Sexual Revolution in Sociology, their Similarly, Arlene Stein describes lesbianism as a
contribution to Queer Theory/Sociology (1996), socially constructed identity that is continually
edited by Steven Seidman. Research on sexuality negotiated, revised, and redefined through inter-
remained on the periphery of the discipline and was action in social-movement communities. In her
not well integrated into the field as a whole. The book Sex and Sensibility: Stories of a Lesbian Gen-
continued shortage of gay and lesbian scholarship eration (1997), Stein compares lesbians from two
may be due to scholars fears of stigmatization and different political generations: women who came
discrimination. A 1982 report by the American So- of age in the lesbian feminist communities of the
ciological Associations Task Group on Homosexu- 1970s and women who came of age in the 1990s.
ality found that professors and graduate students Her analysis shows how lesbians conceptions of
were discouraged from pursuing research on topics self have changed over time. Lesbian communities
related to gays and lesbians. The report also found of the 1970s were consolidated by, and centered
that a majority of the surveyed chairs of sociology on, a feminist discourse that defined lesbian iden-
departments thought that hiring a known gay or tity based on political affiliation. Lesbian commu-
lesbian faculty member would create problems. Ten nities of the 1990s, by contrast, were highly frag-
years later, little had changed: A survey of members mented and included multiple and competing ways
of the Sociologists Gay and Lesbian Caucus found of defining and presenting oneself as a lesbian,
that nearly one-third had been discouraged by col- which sometimes included embracing aspects of
leagues and mentors from conducting research on femininity and sexualized images that the earlier
gays and lesbians (Taylor and Raeburn 1995). generation of lesbians rejected. Through this dis-
cussion, Stein points toward understanding lesbian
Sociological Studies of Lesbians identity as contextual, shifting, and tied to the femi-
In spite of this resistance, sociological studies of nist and the gay liberation movements.
lesbians made great advances during the 1990s. The view of sexual identity as fluid and dynamic
Much of this work can be classified into two ar- has been further explored by research on bisexual
eas: theoretically driven studies that explore iden- women. Paula Rust argues that sexual identity is shift-
tity and community and empirical studies that de- ing, not only on the level of the lesbian community,
scribe the everyday life experiences of lesbians. but also on the level of the individual. Based on sur-
Theoretical discussions of lesbian identity have veys of 346 women who self-identified as lesbian and
undergone major conceptual changes. Scholars sixty who self-identified as bisexual, Rust (1993) re-
have moved away from the essentialist view that ported that both groups of women experienced con-
conflates the experiences of lesbians and gay men siderable change in how they identified themselves,
and regards identity formation as an individualis- with bisexual women reporting more frequent shifts
tic endeavor. In the wake of a series of studies of in identity over their life histories. Based on these find-
lesbian communities conducted by anthropologists ings, Rust suggested that scholars conceptualize com-
and other social scientists in the late 1970s and ing out as an ongoing process of describing ones
early 1980s, sociologists began to view lesbian iden- social location within a changing social context.
tity as a collective project. Esterberg (1997) also discusses lesbian and bi-
Taylor and Whittier (1992) analyze lesbian iden- sexual womens identities and similarly describes
tity formation among networks of feminists. They identity as shifting and contextual. Although ear-
describe how lesbian feminist communities build a lier research has commented on the sharp divide
culture and ideology in opposition to dominant between lesbian and bisexual women, Esterberg
conceptions of femininity and womens subordi- writes that the boundary between lesbian and

SOCIOLOGY 717
 bisexual women is permeable and constantly rene- Empirical Research
S gotiated. Some bisexual women are more integrated
into lesbian networks than others. Because lesbian
Along with the growing body of literature that has
developed theories of lesbian identity, a body of re-
and bisexual women have multiple and diverse search that gives voice to lesbians has also emerged.
identities, Esterberg concludes that scholars should This empirical work seeks to describe the actual day-
not describe the lesbian community as if it were to-day experiences of lesbian women. Some of the
monolithic. Instead, they should conceptualize les- topics explored in this literature include lesbians
bian community as overlapping friendship net- experiences in the workplace and responses to hate
works with blurred boundaries. crimes, as well as lesbian health and families.
Beth Schneiders survey of 228 lesbians has re-
Queer Theory vealed much about lesbians employment condi-
In addition to the growth in research on lesbian tions. Schneider (1993) describes several common
identity from a social-constructionist perspective, patterns that emerge in the work lives of lesbian
the 1990s also witnessed the development of queer women. First, she notes lesbians efforts to com-
theory. This perspective is well articulated in Queer bine their employment and their social lives, meet-
Theory/Sociology, edited by Seidman. As an aca- ing friends and sometimes lovers on the job. Sec-
demic movement, queer theory examines the mani- ond, she finds that lesbians, like heterosexual
festations of sexual power in the social world. women, report having experienced sexual harass-
Queer theorists view the conception of homosexu- ment by men at work. Lastly, she discusses the fac-
ality and heterosexuality as separate, and oppo- tors that influence lesbians decisions to come out
site, categories as a central support of the system at work, noting that some women fear losing their
of sexual domination. As a political strategy, queer jobs if their sexual identities as lesbians are exposed.
theory attempts to disrupt dichotomous categories Expanding on the study of discrimination in
in an effort to subvert the sexual system. Queer employment, the previously mentioned 1995 study
theorists view sexuality as ambiguous and challenge of members of the Sociologists Gay and Lesbian
the practice of classifying individuals as homo- Caucus by Verta Taylor and Nicole Raeburn docu-
sexual versus heterosexual or feminine versus mas- ments the types of discrimination reported by les-
culine. By problematizing heterosexuality and dis- bian, bisexual, and gay faculty. The career conse-
rupting the often takenfor-granted sexual and gen- quences of coming out professionally and writing
der categories, queer theorists incorporate the strat- about and teaching gay and lesbian lives include
egies of activist groups such as Queer Nation into discrimination in hiring, bias in tenure and pro-
academic writing. motion, exclusion from social networks, devalua-
Queer theory has been criticized for being too tion of research on gay and lesbian topics, and
abstract, elitist, and removed from the everyday lived harassment and intimidation.
experiences of gay men and lesbians. Research on Concerning health and health care, more has
bisexual women lends support to the idea that queer been written in the nursing field about lesbian con-
theory may be a powerful conceptual tool but is a cerns than in sociology. A notable exception to the
difficult theory to put into practice. Bisexual women, dearth of sociological studies on lesbian health is
who, like queer theorists, seek to disrupt the binary Women Resisting AIDS: Feminist Strategies of
heterosexual/lesbian classification, nonetheless re- Empowerment (1995), edited by Beth Schneider
sort to defining themselves in those terms. Also, and Nancy Stoller. In one essay in the book, Stoller
Esterberg (1997) argues that, although queer theo- discusses lesbians involvement in the AIDS move-
rists question the utility of identity politics, the act ment; in another, Amber Hollibaugh, the director
of embracing identities has been exceedingly impor- of the Lesbian AIDS Project, discusses the myth of
tant to the creation of lesbian communities. As a lesbian immunity to the HIV virus. Hollibaugh
result, having multiple identities was a sign of sta- states that the assumption that lesbians cannot
tus within many lesbian communities of the 1990s. contract HIV is based on a limited definition of
Recognizing this tension, the work of Stein, lesbianism, one that excludes women who use in-
Esterberg, and others is informed by queer theory jection drugs or who have sex with men. Her dis-
and the possibility of deconstructing categories, but cussion argues for a more inclusive definition of
it also recognizes that people do define themselves lesbians to acknowledge women who are at risk of
in terms that reify categories. HIV infection.

718 SOCIOLOGY
 Like the literature on lesbian health, the socio- in shaping identity and, therefore, are able to ac-
logical literature on lesbian families is also sparse. commodate the experiences of diverse women, in-
Scholars in anthropology and law have discussed cluding lesbians of color and working-class lesbi-
some of the legal issues faced by lesbian partners ans. Despite the inclusive potential of these frame-
and mothers in the United States and the United works, however, research on lesbians has focused
Kingdom. Although sociologists have been slow largely on women who are white and middle-class.
to explore this area, some have studied the divi- Some scholars, including Kristin Esterberg, have
sion of child care and household work among les- made efforts to include women of color in their
bian coparents. Others have discussed how domi- samples and discuss the intersection of race, class,
nant images of the ideal family in the United States and sexuality. However, the body of sociological
and Latin America facilitate the marginalization literature on lesbians still lacks work that focuses
of gay and lesbian families. explicitly on women of color. Although the lit-
erature is still limited in this sense, the prolifera-
Social Movements tion of research on lesbians in the 1990s in the
Studies of social movements constitute one of the face of the continued threat of discrimination
most prolific bodies of research on lesbians. In ad- within academia is a positive indication that this
dition to the numerous works mentioned above that research will continue to expand, accumulating
describe the impact of social-movement ideology on increasingly more information about an increas-
lesbian identity, several scholars have examined les- ingly diverse population of women who identify
bians connections with the feminist movement and as lesbian. Elizabeth Kaminski
the gay and lesbian movement. Jenness and Broad Verta Taylor
(1997) analyze the grass-roots, community response
to violence against gays and lesbians. They discuss Bibliography
how gay and lesbian antiviolence organizations have Esterberg, Kristin. Lesbian and Bisexual Identities:
used the discourse of the gay and lesbian movement Constructing Communities, Constructing Selves.
and the womens movement to frame their concerns Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997.
in broader discussions of homophobia and sexual Jenness, Valerie, and Kendal Broad. Hate Crimes:
terrorism. Jenness and Broad document the forma- New Social Movements and the Politics of Vio-
tion of several of these antiviolence projects across lence. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1997.
the country and note their success in appealing to Rust, Paula. Coming Out in the Age of Social
government and law-enforcement agencies, which Constructionism: Sexual Identity Formation
have, as a result, begun to take gay bashing more Among Lesbian and Bisexual Women. Gen-
seriously. der and Society 7:1 (1993), 5077.
Taylor and Rupp (1993) add to the literature Schneider, Beth E. Peril and Promise: Lesbian
that suggests that feminist communities are impor- Workplace Participation. In Feminist Frontiers.
tant to the formation of lesbian identity by showing Ed. Laurel Richardson and Verta Taylor. 3rd ed.
that the effect is reciprocal. Lesbian identity and New York: Random House, 1993, pp. 223234.
culture have been important to sustaining the wom- Schneider, Beth E., and Nancy Stoller, eds. Women
ens movement. Early lesbian organizations, such Resisting AIDS: Feminist Strategies of Empow-
as the Daughters of Bilitis, the main lesbian organi- erment. Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
zation of the 1960s homophile movement, were tied 1995.
to the emergence of the modern womens movement. Seidman, Steven, ed. Queer Theory/Sociology.
Moreover, lesbian identity and activism have been Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996.
integral components of a variety of contemporary Stein, Arlene. Sex and Sensibility: Stories of a Les-
movements, such as the AIDS movement, the wom- bian Generation. Berkeley: University of Cali-
ens health movement, the homophile movement, fornia Press, 1997.
and the gay liberation movement. Taylor, Verta, and Nicole Raeburn. Identity Poli-
Queer theory and the social-constructionist tics as High-Risk Activism: Career Consequences
viewpoint on lesbian identity, which dominated for Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Sociologists.
the 1990s literature on lesbians, provide frame- Social Problems 42:2 (1995), 252273.
works for understanding sexual identity. These Taylor, Verta, and Leila J.Rupp. Womens Cul-
frameworks emphasize the importance of context ture and Lesbian Feminist Activism: A

SOCIOLOGY 719
 Reconsideration of Cultural Feminism. Signs: might be interpreted as an early harbinger of the
S Journal of Women in Culture and Society 19:11
(1993), 3261.
struggles within the womens movement over lesbi-
anism, sexual aggresiveness, and nonreproductive
Taylor, Verta, and Nancy Whittier. Collective Iden- sex practices (such as prostitution).
tity in Social Movement Communities: Lesbian Largely because of the inspired rhetoric of The
Feminist Mobilization. In Frontiers in Social S.C.U.M. Manifesto, Solanas has become a cult
Movement Theory. Ed. Aldon D.Morris and heroine, a tragic but inspired figure of lesbian out-
Carol McClurg Mueller. New Haven, Conn.: Yale rage. Born in 1936 in Atlantic City, New Jersey,
University Press, 1992, pp. 104129. she attended college at the University of Maryland
and began to pursue graduate study in psychology
See also Community; Daughters of Bilitis; Essen- at the University of Minnesota. She dropped out,
tialism; Feminism; Gay Liberation Movement; Iden- explaining to her family that there was nothing
tity; Identity Politics; Queer Nation; Queer Theory; relevant for women, all the professorships were for
Social-Construction Theory; Women of Color men, all the research places were for men (Jobey,
1996). As details like these emerge and she is placed
in historical context, her appeal as an unapologetic
Solanas, Valerie (19361988) and uncompromising misfit grows. In 1996, she
American writer. Valerie Solanas authored The reemerged as public figure as the subject of a film
S.C.U.M. Manifesto (1968), a vibrant, outrageous, by Mary Harron, I Shot Andy Warhol. Little is
and brilliantly contradictory treatise on relations be- known about Solanass life after her release from
tween the genders, and the platform for the Society prison except that she died in a hotel room in San
for Cutting Up Men. For many years, she was most Francisco, California, in 1988. Jennifer Doyle
famous for having shot artist Andy Warhol (1928
1987) in 1968. A peripheral member, at best, of Bibliography
Warhols Factory scene in New York City, she ap- Frank, Marcie. Popping Off Warhol. In Pop Out:
peared in two of Warhols films, I, a Man (1967 Queer Warhol. Ed. Jennifer Doyle, Jonathan
1968) and Bike Boy (1967), and sent him a script, Flatley, and Jose Munoz. Durham, N.C.: Duke
Up Your Ass, that Warhol neither responded to University Press, 1996, pp. 210223.
nor returned to her, thinking that, because it was so Harron, Mary, and Diane Minahan. I Shot Andy
obscene, it might be a police trap. When she turned Warhol. New York: Grove, 1996.
herself in to the police, she explained her attempt Jobey, Liz. Solanas and Son. The Guardian
on Warhols life: He had too much control over (Manchester, England), August 24, 1996: T10.
my life (Jobey, 1996). Her original target, how- Smith, Howard. Valerie Solanas Interview. Vil-
ever, appears to have been her publisher, Maurice lage Voice (July 25, 1977), 32.
Girondis: She had signed over to him the rights to . Valerie Solanas Replies. Village Voice (Au-
her manifesto and worried that she had also given gust 1,1977), 28.
him the rights to all of her future writings. She was
found incompetent to stand trial, pleaded guilty of See also Womens Liberation Movement
assault, and was sentenced to three years in prison.
Solanas, who described herself once as a gar-
bage-mouthed dyke and supported herself through Sororities
prostitution, was a reluctant and improbable Womens organizations with a long history on col-
postergirl for the womens movement. After her ar- lege campuses in the United States. Founded origi-
rest, leaders of the movement like Ti-Grace Atkinson nally in the late 1800s, mostly in association with
and Florynce Kennedy heralded Solanas as a hero- male fraternities, they had their first serious up-
ine of and spokeswoman for the feminist movement. surge in membership during the 1920s as college
Though Solonas would have no part of their attempt campuses were inundated with newly arriving
to exploit her as an expression of their political middleclass students. During the 1960s, member-
agenda, The S.C.U.M. Manifesto continues to ships declined, but, as of the 1980s, they were on
circulate at least in academic feminist circles (often the upswing again.
unattributed) as a foundational text of radical femi- There are two national organizations governing
nism. Feminist misappropriations of Solanas in 1968 sororities. The National Panhellenic Conference

720 SOCIOLOGY
oversees the twenty-six historically white sorori- issues surrounding sexuality and other forms of
ties, while the National Pan-Hellenic Council over- diversity, local chapters of new lesbian sororities
sees the four historically African American sorori- may proliferate. In addition, the heterosexual
ties (and the four historically African American stronghold of the mainstream sororities may be
fraternities). In addition to the national sororities, further challenged. Again, anecdotal evidence sug-
there are numerous local and regional sororities gests that, at least on some campuses, sorority presi-
across the country that are unaffiliated with these dents struggle with issues around whether women
national organizations. Many of these are organ- are allowed to bring other women to official so-
ized around themes of ethnicity, designed to foster rority functions as dates and whether to partici-
multiculturalism or Latina identities, for example. pate in campus events that may be associated with
A few specifically incorporate diversity of sexual- the lesbian and gay community. Lisa Handler
ity into their organizational structure.
The national sororities, both historically white Bibliography
and historically African American, are self-con- Handler, Lisa. In the Fraternal Sisterhood: Sorori-
sciously heterosexual, though the white organiza- ties as Gender Strategy. Gender and Society
tions tend to structure the rituals of heterosexual 9:2 (April 1995), 236255.
coupling into sorority life much more rigidly than Risman, Barbara. College Women and Sororities:
do the African American. Despite sororities en- The Social Construction and Reaffirmation of
forcement of heterosexuality, however, over the Gender Roles. In Women and Symbolic Inter-
years lesbians have quietly joined sororities. Al- action. Ed. Mary Jo Deegan and Michael Hill.
though, as of the late 1990s, there had been no Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1987, pp. 125140.
published studies done of lesbians in sororities,
anecdotal evidence suggests not only a historic pres- See also Students
ence, but also the logic of joining and organization
so permeated by heterosexuality.
In areas where Greek life dominates college cam- South Africa
puses and where homophobia runs particularly deep, Country of 473,000 square miles, and 42 million
(such as the South), few options are open to col- people, located at the southernmost tip of the Af-
lege-age lesbians. In these situations, joining a so- rican continent. The early history of lesbianism in
rority may be one of the safest acts a closeted les- Southern Africa has yet to be fully (re)constructed,
bian can take. To remain an independent opens but there is evidence that a variety of homoerotic
her up to suspicion and potential ridicule. Within practices and queer identifications flourished
the sorority, however, she is protected. A sorority among women in this region long before the first
not only provides a cover of sorts, but also allows arrival of white colonists in 1652. A traditional
her networking possibilities with other women, in- custom of marriage between women continues in
cluding other lesbians who have joined for similar several Southern African communities, although
reasons. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some sis- homophobic assumptions still inform much of the
ters come out to their sororities, while others do Western and African scholarship on woman mar-
not. Reactions of the sororities have been mixed. riage in Africa as a whole; in some southern Afri-
Lesbians may not be invited to join a sorority if they can communities, traditional women priest-
are out before rush (the phase during which women prophet-healers (sangomas) were independent,
are invited to join a sorority), but there are no unmarried, and often lesbians; and in Lesotho,
grounds for removing a lesbian from the sisterhood. mummy-baby relationships fostered sexual re-
Gay men have made further inroads into Greek lations and support networks between girls.
life than have lesbians, with a national fraternity Twentieth-century lesbian expression in South
and several local fraternities at campuses around Africa has included a variety of mostly racially spe-
the country. In 1988, a self-defined lesbian soror- cific identities and cultural practices. There was a
ity, Lambda Delta Lambda, was formed at the cross-dressing subculture in the Cape Malay com-
University of California, Los Angeles, but, despite munities in the 1950s. White upper-, middle-, and
attempts to establish chapters at a few other cam- working-class lesbians socialized in professional
puses, the experiment did not take hold. As col- groups, womens sports clubs, and at private parties
lege campuses continue to be further sensitized to in towns and cities in the 1950s and 1960s. Urban

SOUTH AFRICA 721

 white lesbian and gay bars flourished in the 1970s, ence on Women to acknowledge discrimination
S and lesbian feminist discussion groups were popular
among white academics in the 1970s and 1980s.
against lesbians in its Platform for Action.
Ian Barnard
Lesbians participated in anti apartheid feminist or-
ganizations like the Black Sash. Specifically lesbian Bibliography
political and social organizations, such as Sundays Gay, Judith. Mummies and Babies and Friends
Women in Durban, the GLOW Lesbian Forum in and Lovers in Lesotho. In Anthropology and
Soweto/Johannesburg, and LILACS (Lesbians in Love Homosexual Behavior. Ed. Evelyn Blackwood.
and Compromising Situations) in Cape Town, were New York: Haworth, 1986, pp. 97116.
often formed because of the marginalization of Gevisser, Mark, and Edwin Cameron, eds. Defiant
women in mixed-gender gay organizations. There was Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa.
a visible black lesbian and gay presence in townships Johannesburg: Ravan, 1994.
in the 1980s, and the 1990s saw glossy lesbian maga- Hammer, Barbara, dir. Out in South Africa. Video.
zines and a significant lesbian presence in black wom- 51min. U.S.: 1994.
ens soccer leagues. Krouse, Matthew, ed. The Invisible Ghetto: Les-
Although lesbianism has never been illegal in bian and Gay Writing from South Africa. Jo-
South Africa, the fear of social ostracism has en- hannesburg: COSAW, 1993.
sured that many lesbians pursued the above activi- Maart, Rozena. Black Feminist in South Africa.
ties clandestinely. In 1967, the South African gov- Interviewed by Carol Anne Douglas. Off Our
ernment proposed antihomosexuality legislation Backs 19:9 (October 1989), 13.
that would, for the first time, criminalize lesbians,
but the new legislation was not enacted, although See also Lesotho
some amendments to existing laws were, includ-
ing the outlawing of dildos.
As lesbian and gay identity became increasingly Spain
articulated by activists, so racial polarization among Country on the Iberian peninsula, almost touching
queer South Africans also became more explicit. In northern Africa, with a population of forty million.
1982, the Gay Association of South Africa (GASA) The capital city is Madrid, at the center of the an-
was formed. The subsequent history of GASA mir- cient kingdom of Castille. Castilian, commonly called
rored many of the conflicts of South Africa under Spanish, is the official language, but several other lan-
apartheid. GASA was male dominated and almost guages have official recognition in their respective
exclusively white. Its stated policy of remaining autonomous regions. Although the Spanish consti-
apolitical on matters of national import made its tution of 1978 replaced the old Roman Catholic stat-
refusal to condemn apartheid complicit with a his- ute with a secular one, there is still a deep-rooted and
tory of brutal and systemic racial oppression. In widespread Roman Catholic tradition.
1988, the Gay and Lesbian Organization of the There is little surviving documentary evidence
Witwatersrand (GLOW), a multiracial group com- relating to lesbian figures in Spanish history. This
mitted to contesting all forms of discrimination, was may be largely the result of the influence of the
founded. In 1990, GLOW organized South Africas Roman Catholic Church, which applied strict ta-
first Lesbian and Gay Pride March (it was also the boos to sexuality, considering it sinful and justifi-
first such march on the African continent). able only for purposes of procreation. Indeed, there
In 1994, formal apartheid came to an end with is little historical recognition of any sexuality at
the election of an African National Congress (ANC) all, and none whatsoever of lesbianism.
government under Nelson Mandela. At the urging There do exist incidental records of women who
of a host of new lesbian and gay organizations align- did not marry and lived together, implying some
ing themselves with the antiapartheid movement, form of lesbian relationship. Women who became
South Africa became the first country in the world prostitutes, thereby achieving material independ-
to constitutionally outlaw discrimination based on ence and avoiding the need to marry, remained free
sexual orientation. In 1995, South Africas leading to have sexual and emotional relationships with
spokesperson for lesbian rights, Palesa Beverly Ditsie, people of their choice, which may have included
became the first open lesbian to address the United other women. There were others who became nuns
Nations when she urged the Fourth World Confer- and maintained lesbian relationships within the

722 SOUTH AFRICA

walls of a convent. For example, elements of heterosexist institutions. They tended to be op-
homoeroticism have been interpreted in the life of posed to the mainstreaming of the feminist move-
Saint Teresa of Avila (15151582). The Spanish ment, preferring to concentrate on the creation of
conquistador Catalina de Erauso (ca. 15851650) alternative womens spaces, such as bookstores.
is an example of a woman who defied gender norms Others identified as radical lesbians, who refused
and exhibited some attractions to other women. to identify with the category woman. They dis-
In all territories under Spanish control, lesbians tanced themselves from feminism, which they be-
were among the groups of people, including witches lieved to be dominated by heterosexism, making it
and heretics, condemned by the Inquisition (fl. six- what they called heterofeminism.
teenth century) to be burned at the stake. Historical Since 1980, a youth group and several political
records relate that two nuns were executed in the and social pressure groups have appeared, using a
mid-sixteenth century for carnal intercourse using new style of operation to fight for legal recognition.
instruments. However, after the first Spanish penal A mixed movement was born in 1990, with lesbi-
code of 1822, all mention of homosexuality disap- ans working together with gay men to carry out
peared from the judicial system, except for the mili- awareness campaigns, fight against AIDS, and pro-
tary code of justice. This position was maintained vide social support to the gay and lesbian commu-
in the reforms of 1848, 1850, and 1870. During the nity. Lesbian groups within the mixed movement
dictatorship (19281932), homosexuality was again do not adhere to any one political or feminist ideol-
made an offense, until the Second Republic of 1932, ogy but are characterized by a wide range of ten-
when it was dropped once more from the law. dencies and ideologies within a common framework.
Legal reforms of 1944 and 1963 allowed for the Grup Lesbia, which was formed in 1990, changing
punishment of homosexuality under scandalous to Grup Lesbos in 1994, works within the
public behaviour. The Vagrancy Law of 1933 was Coordinadora Gai-Lesbiana, which arose in Barce-
further modified in 1954 to state that homosexuals lona in 1980. Within this federation, women may
be declared a danger. This law was redrafted as be found working in groups of gay and lesbian
the Law of Social Danger (la Ley de Peligrosidad youth, Christians, and university students.
Social) in 1970 to allow the decision to be taken There are also mixed associations that carry out
according to the judges discretion. During the leisure and cultural activities in conjunction with
Franco dictatorship (19381975), homosexuality gay men, rather than exclusively for lesbians. These
was seen as an epidemic that had to be cured. mixed organizations work toward increasing and
After the death of Franco in 1975, during improving the opportunities available to gays and
Spains transition to democracy, a series of legal lesbians by providing services and encouraging
reforms were achieved, including the abolition of political lobbying around legal, educational, reli-
the 1970 Law of Social Danger. During this pe- gious, youth, feminist, and AIDS-oriented issues.
riod, lesbians within the newly emerging feminist Radical groups can often be found working in spe-
movement began to express their identity openly, cific areas in common with feminist lesbians and
although the debate going on in society about sexu- lesbians from the mixed movement.
ality was still defined in exclusively heterosexual Maria Angeles Ruiz Torralba
terms and centred on reproduction. The 1970s also
saw a flowering of explicitly lesbian literature. Bibliography
During the 1980s, lesbians remained within the Aliaga, Juan Vicente. Identidad y Diferencia: Sobre
feminist movement, in many cases silently, and did la Cultura Gay en Espaa (Identity and Differ-
not organize as lesbians. Debates over sexuality ence: On Gay Culture in Spain). Barcelona:
became more inclusive and widespread, and femi- Editorial Gay y Lesbiana, 1997.
nism began to diversify and gain greater social pres-
tige, becoming accepted in mainstream institutions See also Erauso, Catalina de; Europe, Early Mod-
that took up its cause. ern; Spanish Literature; Teresa of Avila
Outside the feminist movement, lesbians organ-
ized according to a number of different models.
Some identified as separatist lesbians, organizing Spanish Literature
separately from men and heterosexual women and There are no literary histories of lesbian lives as
fighting for the abolition of patriarchal, represented in Spanish texts. References to intimate

S PA N I S H L I T E R AT U R E 723
 relationships between women seem either written in the American Colonies, she cross-dressed and used
S in disappearing ink or undecipherable to a society
that has suppressed nonprocreative forms of hu-
masculine-gendered pronouns for selfreference. It
is unclear whether Catalina rejected heterosexual-
man sexual experience. ity, the social convention of marriage, confinement
The religious tradition of the Virgin Mary cult to a religious order, or all of these. Episodes sugges-
produced an ideal of purity and an inhibition of tive of liaisons with other women are elliptical and
sexual desire that became institutionalized. The per- sketchy. Attracted to physical beauty, she acquiesced
missiveness of Moslem society toward homoerotic to one womans caresses but rejected another as
love ceded to Christian asceticism; medieval laws black and ugly as the devil himself. Toward the
and the Inquisition enforced this; and censorship end of her life, Catalina confesses to a bishop that
under twentieth-century dictator Francisco Franco she is a woman and a virgin. Her ambiguous figure
(18921975) continued sanctions. serves as the model of a virago (a woman of man-
In broad terms, including, but not limited to, nish demeanor and spirit) for Golden Age writer
explicit erotic relations between women, traces of Maria de Zayas, who composes a number of texts
lesbian identities in Spanish literature assume a based on amorous intrigues and deceptions precipi-
variety of guises. Among them are characters that tated by confusions of identity.
cross bounds of social or sexual propriety, women Spanish drama of the Renaissance continues the
who undertake male-identified activities or don formulaic character of the mujer esquiva (a cold, dis-
masculine attire, and figures of powerful women tant woman who refuses the amorous attentions of
living independently of men. A text that questions men). Based on classical sources such as Ovid, this
the exclusion of women from roles other than du- masculine woman threatens male authority in plays
tiful daughter, faithful wife, obedient nun, or sac- by Lope de Vega (15621635) and Agustn Moreto
rificing mother offers an alternative vision. (16181669). Their challenge to natural order
might seem, in the twentieth century, a rejection of
History straight society, but it is less clear in seventeenth-cen-
Female characters in medieval literature are divided tury context. Scholars are debating the possible sub-
into the idealized and the condemned (for their versive undertones in the representation of mistaken
strength or aggression toward men). sexual identities in Spanish Golden Age (sixteenth-
Thirteenthcentury epic poems contain folk motifs century) drama (a confusion always corrected by the
of Amazon warriors who have no need for the com- end of the play). Some reject the suggestion of les-
pany of men except to mate. This stereotype is also bian motifs in these works as universalizing imposi-
found in the serranillas (mountain women who tions; others seek parallels between documented phe-
entrap male travelers). Such figures satirize women nomena of everyday life and artistic representation
who refuse to be sensible, prudent, or passive. of sexual irregularities. Medical, legal, social, and
The mystic body, exalted by sixteenth-century philosophical discourses of the time may yield more
Carmelite nun St. Teresa of Avila (15151582), information regarding correspondences between as-
indicates a turn away from ascetics. Her allegori- sumptions of sexual normality and the appearance
cal penetration of the heart by the flame of ecstatic of the character of the masculine woman.
experience has been called a divine jouissance, The same holds true for the use of the term
the literary expression of pleasure not tradition- butch-femme in reference to the representation
ally accorded woman in body or spirit. Within the of the female body by the Dulcinea/Aldonza char-
conventboth enclosure and space of female com- acters of Don Quixote (1605). It has been suggested
munitySt. Teresa recovers a language of sensual- that the interaction between Hispanic scholarship
ity. Her writings inspired nineteenth-century poet and lesbian theorylike the relationship between
Carolina Coronado to call Sappho (ca. 600 B.C.E.) the characters encoded as masculine and feminine
and St. Teresa twin souls of intense spirit and nov- by the society in which this work by Miguel de Cer-
elist Jesus Fernndez Santos to write Extramuros vantes (15471616) was producedaffords an op-
(Outside the Walls [1977]), exploring the conflu- portunity to reinterpret literary texts and their po-
ences of mystic and lesbian desires. tential for transgressing the norms of what consti-
The memoirs of lieutenant-nun Catalina de tutes gender identity. The idealization of the femi-
Erauso (ca. 15851650) narrate her adventures pass- nine in the character Dulcinea is juxtaposed with
ing as a man. Basque by birth and a fortune hunter the traits attributed to Aldonza, who offers a

724 S PA N I S H L I T E R AT U R E
performance of masculinity by a woman directed As director of the Editorial Lumen in Barcelona,
toward another woman. Their dual embodiment of Esther Tusquets has actively promoted writing on
womens desires may be read as counteracting the the cutting edge of gender issues. The core of a
stereotypes of women or the invisibility of what is trilogy of her own novels is the theme of lesbian
seen to fall outside societal norms. erotics. In El mismo mar de todos los veranos (The
In the 1840s, women poets of the Romantic Same Sea as Every Summer [1978, 1990]), El amor
period found intellectual muses in Sappho of Lesbos es un juego solitario (Love Is a Solitary Game [1979,
and St. Teresa of Avila. Each inspired passionate 1985]), and Varada tras el ltimo naufragio
devotion to writing, but both were read as address- (Stranded [1980, 1991]), language and the lesbian
ing their erotic poetry to men. During the first three body become battlefields. Through the use of im-
decades of the twentieth century, only Federico ages which bind them to nature and the earth, char-
Garca Lorca (18981936) created characters (such acters seek a separate, preculrural space, similar to
as Bernarda Alba) whose rebellious spirits and ir- that proposed by French author Monique Wittig
repressible sensuality are socially encoded as mascu- (1935). Bourgeois women reveal social rituals and
line. Imbedded in rigid codes of heterosexual con- performances as rites of passage into the patriar-
duct, they are all doomed to sacrifice. chal adult world. The three novels are based on
adaptations of classical myths and center on a mid-
The Post-Franco Era dle-age woman caught between an empty marriage
With Francisco Francos death in 1975, thirty-six and a young woman who embodies the natural
years of repression came to an end. Feminism, eroticism of the American continent.
Basque, and Catalan separatist movements and gay Claudia Schaefer
liberationa conjunction of the traditionally dis-
possessedexerted strong influences on the litera- Bibliography
ture of the post-Franco era. Writers dealt more Bergmann, Emilie L., and Paul Julian Smith, eds.
openly with the intersections of desire, class, and Entiendes? Queer Readings, Hispanic Writings.
nation and explored conflicts between generations Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1995.
of women. Lesbian characters emerged from the Brown, Joan L., ed. Women Writers of Contem-
shadows of earlier novels, such as Ana Maria porary Spain: Exiles in the Homeland. Newark:
Matutes Los soldados lloran de noche (Soldiers University of Delaware Press, 1991.
Cry by Night [1964, 1995]), into the foreground. Miller, Beth, ed. Women in Hispanic Literature:
Barcelona, the capital of Catalan culture, and Icons and Fallen Idols. Berkeley: University of
the Catalan language itself, were primary sites for California Press, 1983.
this literary flowering. In La bsqueda de Eliza- Prez, Janet. Contemporary Women Writers of
beth (The Search for Elizabeth [1982]), Marta Spain. Boston: G.K.Hall, 1988.
Pesarrodona weaves a coming out tale set in Smith, Paul Julian. The Body Hispanic: Gender and
1970s London. A voyeur in Ana Mara Moixs Sexuality in Spanish and Spanish American Lit-
Las virtudes peligrosas (Dangerous Virtues erature. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989.
[1982]) uncovers the power of an erotic gaze be- . Laws of Desire: Questions of Homosexual-
tween two women. Moixs novels explore social ity in Spanish Writing and Film, 19601990.
obstructions to female-female relationships, while Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
suggesting their potential for psychological
fulfillment. In Montserrat Roigs La hora violeta See also Erauso, Catalina de; Saints and Mystics;
(The Violet Hour [1980]), a character whose inti- Sappho; Spain; Teresa of Avila; Wittig, Monique
mate bonds with other women are only promises
represents potential lesbian sexuality. Te entrego,
amor, la mar, como una ofrenda (I Give You, Love, Spinsters
the Sea, as an Offering [1975]) by Carme Riera is Conventional and often derogatory term for sin-
composed as a letter following the suicide of a gle women. Feminists, especially lesbians, have
woman separated from her female lover by pater- sought to reclaim the term spinsters from U.S.
nal prohibition. For Mara Jan, a public bathhouse cultures ageist and heterosexist views of older sin-
offers space for physical and emotional encoun- gle women. Examinations of when and how the
ters between women in Sauna (1987). derogatory connotations came to be associated with

SPINSTERS 725
 this term are part of a larger analysis of both the led women-centered public and private lives, were
S denial and invisibility of single women and the lack
of positive terms for women who do not marry.
perceived as a threat to heterosexuality even among
progressive reformers.
While a number of feminists have examined the Spinsters/single women do not appear to have
origins of this word and its use in mythology, oth- the same role among African Americans. African
ers have studied the lives of single women in the American Progressive Era (18901920) women
United States and the United Kingdom. While the leaders more often combined marriage and moth-
asexual, repressed spinster has often been con- erhood with careers and public leadership roles
trasted with the sexually predatory lesbian in popu- than did white, middle-class women. The position
lar culture and psychological literature, lesbians, of single women within African American commu-
from writers such as May Sarton (19121996), nities needs fuller exploration.
through womens businesses such as Spinsters Ink, An acknowledgment of womens sexuality that
are contributing to a reimaging of this term. contradicted the image of both the asexual celi-
Scholars have argued that only in Western tra- bate spinster and the sexually vulnerable working-
dition has the spinster been defined so negatively. girl victim, along with greater economic opportu-
Within feminism, this term has taken on the mean- nities for women signaled the next turn in the for-
ing of a woman who chooses her own definition, tunes of the spinster. According to many nineteenth-
and is autonomous, and without connections to and early-twentieth-century sexologists, the asexual
husband or children. Others have uncovered pow- never-married woman was repressed, while the too
erful roles for older women as crones in pre-Chris- sexual independent woman, either heterosexual or
tian religions and cultures. lesbian, was promiscuous or menacing. It has been
Historians such as Chambers-Schiller (1984), against the former image that feminists have di-
Vicinus (1985), Jeffreys (1985), Meyerowitz rected their rehabiliation efforts. Trisha Franzen
(1988), and Franzen (1996) have studied the lives
of spinsters in the United States and the United Bibliography
Kingdom. Chambers-Schillers study of single Chambers-Schiller, Lee V. Liberty: A Better Husband.
women through the early part of the nineteenth New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1984.
century found that, for many of these women, eco- Franzen, Trisha. Spinsters and Lesbians: Independ-
nomic factors limited their mobility and kept them ent Womanhood in the U.S. New York: New
assigned to family-support roles. Vicinus, Jeffreys, York University Press, 1996.
and Franzen discuss how these options changed Jeffreys, Sheila. The Spinster and Her Enemies:
with greater economic opportunities for middle- Feminism and Sexuality, 18801930. London:
class women. Vicinus provides a full examination Pandora, 1985.
of the lives of middle-class British spinsters who Meyerowitz, Joanne M. Women Adrift: Independ-
built supportive communities while also providing ent Wage Earners in Chicago, 18801930. Chi-
leadership in the emerging professions. Jeffreys cago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
argues that these redundant women posed a Simmons, Christina. Companionate Marriage and
challenge to the heterosexual order, producing a the Lesbian Threat. Frontiers: A Journal of
backlash in which legal, economic, and ideologi- Woman Studies 4:3 (Fall 1979), 5459.
cal constraints undermined turn-of-thetwentieth- Vicinus, Martha. Independent Women: Work and
century opportunities for womens independence. Community for Single Women, 18501920.
In the United States, feminist historians early Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.
noted the role that Euro-American, middle-class,
single women played in the womens movement of See also Addams, Jane; Anthony, Susan B.; Sarton,
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Spinsters, May
from Susan B.Anthony (18201906) through Jane
Addams (18601935), were disproportionately
represented among the leaders of womens diverse Spirituality
efforts in social reform. Many of these women had Term referring to human interest in, and commu-
women partners, and historians have argued over nication with, forces (spirits) that are believed
the appropriateness of calling these women lesbi- to possess power to help or harm people. Spiritu-
ans. Simmons (1979) argues that these women, who ality is rooted in the human desire for support,

726 SPINSTERS
strength, and guidance in life. Religion denotes in traditional, male-defined religion and society, or
an organized or institutional basis through which be out (at least to themselves) in search of liber-
spiritual practices, stories, and symbols are shared. ating spiritualities that celebrate their love of
Theology usually refers to the study of histori- women (including themselves). In fact, most les-
cal, cultural, and other contexts and meanings of bian feminists (lesbians with some political con-
particular religions or spiritual traditions. sciousness of what it means to be lesbian in
heterosexist socity) live amidst the fluid dynamics
Background of denial and consciousness. In the United States,
In Western religions, spirits such as gods, goddesses, some of the most articulate lesbian writers in the
angels, and demons have been experienced by be- last half of the twentieth centurypoets such as
lievers as present but hidden in everyday life. Such Adrienne Rich (1929), Pat Parker (19441989),
spirits become accessible through the practice of and Audre Lorde (19341992)have artfully pre-
prayer. Other common spiritual practices in the sented these dynamics of ambiguity and struggle
history of Western religions have included the of- as the spiritual stuff of their lives.
fering of blood sacrifices to the spirits, sharing a Since the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969 (the his-
common meal that has been blessed by gods or torical event that brought homosexuality itself out
goddesses, and channeling spiritual energy from of the closet) and the emergence of the feminist
the dead to the living. movement in the early 1970s, many out lesbi-
In the last third of the twentieth century, femi- ans have helped generate, and have benefited from,
nist movements have generated a renewed interest at least seven spiritual movements in the United
in spirituality among women of different religions, States. These movements frequently have over-
races, and cultures. This woman-based spiritual lapped, and many lesbians have derived benefits
renewal has shaken the foundations of dominant from all of them. Grammatical use of the plural
patriarchal Western religions, particularly Christi- with reference to these spiritualities is meant to
anity and Judaism (and, to a lesser degree, Islam). convey a multiplicity of spiritual practices and as-
In their efforts to shape spiritual resources that sumptions even within movements that shared com-
empower women, feminist theologians have drawn mon goals and values:
upon contemporary womens experiences, together
with research into the silenced voices and outcast Goddess-centered Spiritualities. Associated with
lives of women in patriarchal religious history. Such such late-twentieth-century spiritual teachers, heal-
theologians have challenged the primacyindeed, ers, and witches as Margot Adler, Starhawk, Luisah
the existenceof God the Father and the au- Teish, and Carol P.Christ, these diverse streams of
thority of male-defined dogma and male-control- spirituality, some of them multicultural, have pro-
led religion. vided resources for lesbians and other women who
Some feminist theologians have opted to work have renounced (or never belonged to) patriarchal
toward transforming patriarchal religions from religions. They also are important to lesbians who
within. Others have chosen to labor outside the remain active, to some degree, in male-defined spir-
traditions to build womens spiritual communities itual traditions, ranging from predominantly white,
and to renew womens spiritual traditions. Many mainline churches, to the Black Church, to
women who have left patriarchal religions have maleoriented currents of such Native and
aligned themselves with the old, woman-centered, Africanderived religions as Yoruba.
wiccan tradition with its roots in Celtic spiritu-
ality or with other religions that have been perse- Post-Christian Spiritualities. Unlike Goddess
cuted by Western Christianity (spiritualities, for spiritualities, with their roots in ancient cultures,
example, that are indigenous to Native, African, post-Christian spiritualities are a product of the
or Latin American peoples). predominantly white feminist movement in the
United States. They have spread, especially in Eu-
Lesbians and Spirituality rope and other Western, Christian-based cultures,
Because lesbians represent a foundational challenge during the last quarter of the twentieth century.
to patriarchal spirituality, they must either deny Originating in the early 1970s work of lesbian femi-
(often even to themselves) the woman-affirming nist philosopher Mary Daly (1928), post-Chris-
basis of their spiritual energies in order to survive tian spirituality is a radically woman-affirming (not

SPIRITUALITY 727
 necessarily Goddess-centered) alternative to patri- Bernadette Brooten; ethicist Mary Hunt; historians
S archal religion. Post-Christians do not see any value
in attempting to transform Christianity.
Ann Matter and Joanne Carlson Brown; and church-
women Nancy Krody, Sandra Browders, Nancy
Some post-Christian lesbians, such as Sally Wilson, Sandy Robinson, Mari Castellanos, Diane
Gearhart, Emily Culpepper, and Nelle Morton, Neu, Janie Spahr, and Melanie Morrison have un-
have become allied with Goddess spiritualities. For derstood womens sexual energies as a source of spir-
many lesbian and other women who are still itual power for creativity and liberation.
practicing Christians or Jews, such theologians have Along with other feminist, womanist, and
provided important bridges between womens ex- mujerista liberation spokeswomen, the presence of
periences (of, for example, their mothers or their many erotic-celebrative lesbian Christians contin-
sexualities) and Goddess spiritualities. ues to fuel prophetic efforts within the churches to
open up ordination processes and marriage to sexu-
Feminist, Womanist, Mujerista, and Other ally active lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and
Womanaffirming Liberation Spiritualities. In the transgendered persons.
United States, these theological currents have origi-
nated in the academic and congregational efforts of Recovery Psychology and Step Spirituality. Gen-
radical Christian and Jewish women and have been erated by widespread recognition among lesbians and
given voice by such late-twentieth-century white other women of their addiction to alcohol or other
Christian feminists as Rosemary Radford Ruether, drugs, or of their experiences of childhood sexual
Beverly W.Harrison, Letty Russell, Elisabeth Schussler abuse, a psychospiritual culture of recovery emerged
Fiorenza, Sharon Welch, Susan Thistlethwaite, and during the 1980s. During this period, psychotherapy
Sallie McFague; Jewish feminist Judith Plaskow; became a refuge for many survivors of abuse and
Christian womanists Delores Williams, Katie Can- for women suffering from addiction. At the same time,
non, and Emilie Townes; mujerista (a self-descrip- many lesbians began to attend step programs in
tion used by many Latina theologians, often in place response to their addiction or abuse. Some of the best
of feminist) Christians Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz and therapy, as well as the step programs, with origins in
Yolanda Tarango; and Asian and Asian American the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, have ena-
Christian feminists Kwok Pui Lan, Chung Hyun bled many to live in recovery with a deeper sense
Kyung, and Rita Nakashima Brock. of serenity. On the other hand, some lesbian femi-
The distinctive, unifying, characteristic of these nists have rejected the twelve-step program of Alco-
culturally diverse theologians is their threefold em- holics Anonymous, contending that its founding by
phasis on (1) the bias of the Good Spirit(s) for poor evangelical Christian men in the 1930s continues to
and oppressed, outcast, and marginalized people, shape its spirituality. For these women, the steps sim-
especially women; (2) the movement of the Spirit(s) ply reinforce patriarchal values of womens submis-
in history through human commitment and action; sion to a higher power.
and (3) the explicitly political and economic bases
of spiritual movement in history. These liberation New Age Spiritualities. Evoked by the same pain
theologians vary in how much attention they give and hope as the step programs, psychotherapy, and
the sanctity of other-than-human creatures and the the resurgent popularity of spirituality among
Earth and also in whether they emphasize sexual women toward the end of the twentieth century,
relationship, play, and pleasure as a source of em- New Age practicessuch as Tarot readings, sit-
powerment and liberation in womens lives. ting with crystals, mutual conversations with ani-
mals, past-life memories, channeling, and astrol-
Erotically Empowering Lesbian Christian ogyhave been common among lesbians. The term
Spiritualities. Much of the explicitly sex-affirming New Age refers to a deep desire, shared by many,
spirituality in the United States has been shaped by that the old order of violence and massive social
lesbian Christians and post-Christians, perhaps largely decay is giving way, mystically, to a new age of
because the church has been for so long a source of harmony and well-being for all who can see it, hear
such vilification of female sexuality. Such Christian it, and believe it. Many lesbians have found cer-
(and post-Christian) lesbians as theologians Carter tain New Age practices helpful, even though they
Heyward, Virginia Mollenkott, Anne B.Gilson, Renee sometimes do not subscribe to its otherworldly
Hill, Irene Monroe, and Melanie May; biblical scholar emphasis. What worldly lesbians may find

728 SPIRITUALITY
insightful in the philosophy of New Age is the as- sue for the general public. At the same time, such
sumption that all lives are connected, human and professionals often serve as invaluable role models
other creatures, in all times; and that human ac- for lesbians coming out. Their presence is important
tions should reflect this radical interdependence. because the allure of sport(s) runs throughout Ameri-
can life. It is taught in schools, actively enjoyed by
Meditation and Other Spiritual Practices Based in participants of all ages, enthusiastically watched by
Buddhism, Other Eastern Religious Traditions, and/ all generations and races on televisions, and discussed
or Western Mysticism. These ancient resources, es- avidly by women and men. Sport is, in fact, a major
pecially the practice of meditation, have been intro- industry amid consumer culture. It absorbs count-
duced to many lesbians and other women through less hours of leisure, fuels regional rivalries, provides
the teachings of such contemporary Buddhists as a distinct, if limited, upward mobility for athletes of
Joanna Macy of the United States and Thich Nhat all races, and has become a source of escapist enter-
Hahn of Vietnam. Though not necessarily feminist tainment for numerous devotees.
or lesbian, teachers and practitioners of meditation
like some therapists, step programs, and New Age History: Sport and Femininity
practitionerssuggest paths by which individuals Womens place in professional sports competi-
and groups can live in greater peace with one an- tion has been an ambivalent cultural legacy. The
other and themselves. Many lesbians experience such acceptable parameters of physicality have varied
practices as sources of personal strength, hope, and widely according to a womans social class, region
joy. When grounded in socially responsible and po- of origin, ethnicity, and race. For example, in the
litically active commitments, much as Thich Nhat 1870s womens wrestling was a titillating specta-
Hahn and Joanna Macy exemplify, these tor sport performed by women in music halls and
spiritualities can be wellsprings of justice-making. theaters (Fox 1989). Boxing, pursued by work-
In addition to the more explicitly spiritual move- ing-class and ethnic women in the 1880s, also en-
ments, many other cultural resourcespoetry, fic- joyed a brief heyday. The editor of the popular
tion, drama, music, sports, film, and philosophy Police Gazette sports magazine in the 1880s pro-
have contributed to the formation of lesbian moted female pugilists. Evidence suggests the edi-
spiritualities. Carter Heyward tor/promoter never took female fighting seriously,
yet he did crown the woman champion of New
Bibliography York, a powerful-amazon named Alice Jennings,
Daly, Mary. Beyond God the Father: A Philosophy who had a great left hook (Fox 1989). Other stunt
of Womens Liberation. Boston: Beacon, 1973. types of female athleticism gained popularity at the
Heyward, Carter. Touching Our Strength: The turn of the twentieth centurymost notably, Annie
Erotic as Power and the Love of God. San Fran- Oakleys (18601926) trick shooting. Oakley ex-
cisco: Harper and Row, 1989. ploited narrow definitions of ideal femininity; she
Plaskow, Judith, and Carol P.Christ, eds. Weaving appeared in corseted waist, tight dark stockings,
the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spiritual- short dress, and leather boots. While these cast both
ity. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1989. a fetching and a daring image, they discredited
Spretnak, Charlene, ed. The Politics of Womens women athletes who sought mainstream accept-
Spirituality: Essays on the Rise of Spiritual ance. At the professional sports level, virtually all
Power Within the Feminist Movement. Garden athletes were judged and constrained by middle-
City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1982. class, western European ideals of appropriate femi-
ninity. Despite the rise of college athletics at all-
See also Black Church, The; Catholicism; Goddess female schools from the 1870s onward and the
Religion; Islam; Judaism; Lorde, Audre; Parker, Pat; popular acceptance of exercises such as bicycling,
Protestantism; Recovery Movement; Rich, ice skating, tennis, and golf from the 1890s on-
Adrienne ward, women athletes who sought professional
athletic careers met with resistance and bias.
The modern Olympic Games, which served as
Sports, Professional a conduit for some athletes to enter the professional
The visibility of lesbians in professional womens (money earning) ranks, were overwhelmingly hos-
sports has become an increasingly controversial is- tile toward female athletes. This disdain was

SPORTS, PROFESSIONAL 729

 directed with particular virulence toward women were pseudo-hermaphrodites, according to the ath-
S who were deemed unfeminine or whose sports
were, according to Pierre de Coubertin, Interna-
letes confessions and to contemporaries who relied
on visual inspections. Most notable was Stella Walsh,
tional Olympic Committee president (ca. 1900), a Polish American who captured thirty-five national
against the laws of nature. championships between 1930 and 1951. Upon her
General columnists and sportswriters death, an autopsy was performed and she was dis-
dichotomized womens sports into distinct catego- covered to be biologically male.
ries: beautiful sports (golf, swimming, The specter of nonfemale women athletes clung
trapshooting) versus manly sports (track-and- to top-level womens sports. It reached its apex in
field events and basketball). Beautiful sports were 1966 at the womens track-and-field championships
deemed by male writers, as well as some in Budapest, Hungary, when athletes were required
accommodationist female scribes, as ones in which to parade nude in front of a panel of three women
women did not sweat, wore attractive costumes, gynecologists. Outraged by the invasion of privacy,
and did not develop musculature. Manly sports, 234 participants complied and passed incontrovert-
conversely, were team sports, necessitated physical ibly. Yet several prominent Eastern European athletes
contact (which fueled fears of lesbianism), produced failed to show up, causing speculation in Time and
musculature, and encouraged a psychological Life magazines about women athletes normalcy.
fierceness and disregard for femininity. These terms
ruled popular perceptions of women athletes in the Lesbians and Sport
1920s and 1930s. Demonstrably, one commenta- In the 1940s, to compensate for the diminished
tor earnestly wrote: Nice girls dont sweat. content of major league baseball due to World War
II, Chicago Cubs owner Philip K.Wrigley launched
Questioning Sexual Orientation the All-American Girls Baseball League (AAGBL).
Speculation about a female athletes sexual orienta- This league, which flourished from 1943 to 1954,
tion were rife in this cultural context. In 1933, Paul used the gender issue in sports to its advantage as
Gallico, a well-known sportswriter speculated about an ingenious way to market its brand of baseball.
the sexuality of Babe Didrikson Zaharias (1911 By demanding that its players combine mascu-
1956), winner of three Olympic medals at the 1932 line athletic skill with feminine appearance, the
Games, a national basketball champion, and an ex- AAGBL maintained a clear distinction between
cellent athlete in several other manly sports. In male and female roles, yet provided fans with
Vanity Fair, he riddled Didrikson Zaharias with ac- skillfully played baseball.
cusations of being neither male nor female and dis- Homophobia within the league was ever
cussed, but dismissed, her lesbianism. Thus, another present. Athletes were chosen for their feminine
category was created for stellar female athletes: mus- looks, as well as their ball-handling skill. All mem-
cle molls, or members of a Third Sex. Gallico, bers were made to attend company-sponsored poise
like others of his era, wrote about her as a member and beauty classes, and uniforms were highly im-
of a breed of women who made possible deliciously practical short skirts. Players earned $40 to $85
frank and biological discussions in the newspapers per week in the early years of the league and up to
as to whether this or that woman athlete should be $125 later on. The AAGBL Handbook, in the sec-
addressed as Miss, Mrs., Mr. or It (Cayleff 1995). tion Femininity with Skill noted: The more
One historian has argued that women athletes were feminine the appearance of the performer, the more
considered an intermediate sex who had shed dramatic the performance. It went on to say that
their primary identity as women before the world boyish bobs and other imitations of masculine
they inhabited accepted the legitimacy of an- style and habit are taboo. Masculine appearance
drogyny. As such, they were condemned, ostra- or mannerisms produce an impression either of a
cized, and legally censored. masculine girl or an effeminate boy; both effects
Not surprisingly, sex testing emerged at the Ol- are prejudicial [to the desired image]. Manage-
ympic level. In 1936 at the Berlin Olympics, there ment ordered players to keep their hair shoulder
was widespread speculation about the chromosomal length or longer, to wear makeup and nail polish,
and gender identity of women track-and-field ath- and never to appear in public wearing shorts, slacks,
letes. A few highly touted cases fueled these suspi- or jeans. Those who failed to comply, Cahn ar-
cions. Some female athletes were male, and others gued (1994), felt the sting of a shortened pay

730 SPORTS, PROFESSIONAL

check. Tomboys, Amazons, and freaksall dis- phy, Martina (1985), that her avowed lesbianism ir-
paraging words used to denote unfeminine ath- revocably damaged her endorsement opportunities.
leteswere scorned at every turn. Big corporate sponsorships were inaccessible to the
The AAGBL barred women of color (with the tennis pro and increasingly scarce for the tour as a
exception of several Cuban Americans) and recoiled whole. When Billie Jean Kings lesbian relationship
at the possibility of lesbians. While lesbian rela- was revealed, she also reported that it cost her mil-
tionships existed, maintaining ones position in the lions in endorsements.
league depended upon masquerading under these Insiders also note the dismissal that often ac-
ideals of heterosexuality. companies the charge of lesbianism. Pam Shriver
The 1950s continued to reflect this hostility to- (1962) wrote in Passing Shots (1987) that most
ward lesbianism, real or imagined, in womens pro- of the guys on the mens [tennis] tour have stere-
fessional sports. Despite the womens and gay libera- otyped the women as a whole bunch of lesbians.
tion movements of the 1960s, little changed for pro- Thus, athletic excellence is submerged under the
fessional women athletes. The subculture of nonpro- accusation of lesbianism.
fessional athletes, however, did change dramatically A similar trend has plagued both the Ladies Pro-
as a result of these liberation movements. Lesbian fessional Bowlers Tour (LPBT) and the Ladies Pro-
subculture in womens softball and the emergence of fessional Golf Association (LPGA). An ESPN in-
the first Gay Games in 1982 provided unprecedented terviewer in conversation with a top-ranked female
opportunities for lesbian athletes to compete in bowler in the mid-1980s was told that the LPBT
nonhomophobic environments. Yet even the passage had difficulty securing corporate sponsors because
of Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, who wants to pay to see a bunch of dykes bowl
which guaranteed proportionately equal funding for anyway? Little wonder, then, that professional
womens sports at any school level, did not substan- bowlers continue to willingly wear skirts as a
tially change the tenuous lot of lesbians in sports. proof of femininity if they make the show (the
Numerous examples exist that demonstrate the final four of a televised match). Further, all
systematic purging some college teams pursue topmoney-winning bowlers are aware that public
against lesbian college athletes. Fear and discrimi- admission of lesbianism is tantamount to sacrific-
nation are perpetuated by homophobic male and ing endorsements. In a 1992 interview with this
female coaches (some of whom are themselves ho- author, Tish Johnson, an LPBT member who had
mosexual or lesbian) as they try to distance them- just three-peated as the top money winner on
selves, their sports and their own athletes from the the tour, came out during the interview. She
taint of lesbianism. spoke of the pressures from other female bowlers
Among the professional womens sports associa- (lesbian and straight) not to reveal her lesbianism
tions things are similar, although the coming out for the good of their sport. Her decision to come
of notable women athletes has done much to push out was based on her unprecedented success as an
(and exacerbate) the issue. Martina Navratilovas athlete at that time, encouragement from her life
(1956) open avowal of her lesbianism sent the tab- partner, and a sense that her lesbianism had already
loids into a frenzy in the early 1980s. Just as Billie cast both herself and her sport outside the realm
Jean Kings (1943) lesbian relationship was deemed of mainstream recognition and economic reward.
a mistake by her and something she strove to ob- In 1992, two sponsors of the LPGA, Lucky
scure, Navratilovas coming out focused the spotlight Stores and J.M.Smucker, received anonymous let-
on lesbianism in professional sports irrevocably. The ters threatening demonstrations at the stores and
press obsessed on Navratilovas lesbianism: One boycotts of the products if the corporations con-
Sports Illustrated reporter ridiculed Judy Nelson, tinued to sponsor an LPGA tournament. The play-
Navratilovas partner at the time, for blowing kisses ers on this professional tour, the letters alleged,
to the tennis great during a match. Criticism has also have a known reputation of being homosexual.
come from within the ranks of womens tennis: Brit- While neither sponsor withdrew, the sports lead-
ish champion Margaret Court (1942) said ership cringed at what they perceived as the negative
Navratilovas homosexuality made her a very poor publicity. For lesbians within professional golf, the
role model for young people. While public opinion issue of invisibilizing oneself was ever present. In
did not dampen the amount of media coverage fact, to promote the tours image and to silence rumors
Navratilova received, she stated in her autobiogra- that it was not the Lesbian Professional Golf

SPORTS, PROFESSIONAL 731

 Association (as some observers have labeled it), in portrayed as either hypersexual or as erotic al-
S 1989 executives of the LPGA initiated a sexy mar-
keting campaign that first ran in Fairways, the asso-
iens (Cahn 1994).
For those professional women athletes who
ciations own publication, then reprinted in Sports pass the feminine and heterosexual ideals
Illustrated. Five players in skimpy and provocative scripted by culture, who are white and in elite
swimsuits were photographed on Hawaiin beaches. sports, the economic rewards can be great (for
As Cahn (1994): LPGA officials admitted that they example, Chris Evert [1954], Mary Lou Retton
designed this marketing approach in light of the tours [1968], and Peggy Fleming [1948]). Yet for
image problem, hoping it would remove all the those women perceived as lesbian or unfeminine,
negatives and squelch the lesbian whisper cam- as well as for women of color and those in nonelite
paign. In 1996, Muffin Spencer-Devlin willingly sports, the opportunities to earn a living or cul-
became the first lesbian LPGA tour member to de- tural appproval are often greatly diminished. They
clare her lesbianism. As of 1998, she had lost neither also serve as daring role models for other lesbian
of her two sizable endorsements; reaction from LPGA athletes and the larger lesbian and gay commu-
officials and players ranged from wary (Youll hurt nity. Susan E.Cayleff
the game) to pledges of support.
Bibliography
Contemporary Concerns Cahn, Susan K. Coming on Strong: Gender and
Two other significant issues face professional Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Womens Sport.
women athletes. Although the buccal smear (a sam- New York: Free Press, 1994.
ple of tissue from the inside of the mouth) has re- Cayleff, Susan E. Babe: The Life and Legend of
vealed only one man-masquerading-as-a- Babe Didrikson Zaharias. Champaign: Univer-
womanathlete (Hermann Ratjent in 1957 confessed sity of Illinois Press, 1995.
that he had disguised himself as female to compete Fox, Sally. The Sporting Woman: A Book of Days.
for Nazi Germany), the specter of sex testing and Bulfinch, 1989.
accusations of abnormality continue to haunt pro- Garrity, John, and Amy Nutt. No More Dis-
fessional women athletes. Bev Francis, an Austral- guises [re: Muffin Spencer-Devlin]. Sports Il-
ian-born body builder, was featured in the 1980s lustrated 84:11 (March 18, 1996), 7173, 77.
film Pumping Iron Two: The Women. In this docu- Rogers, Susan Fox. SportsDykes: Stories from On
mentary of the then-fledgling womens and Off the Field. New York: St. Martins, 1994.
bodybuilding tour, Francis was openly discussed
by the all-male judging panel as far too masculine See also Athletics, Collegiate; Didrikson, Mildred
and muscular to be worthy of prize money. Ques- Ella Babe (Zaharias); Gay Games; King, Billie
tions of her genetic sex identity were discussed Jean Moffitt; Navratilova, Martina
backstage at one meetthis, amid numerous re-
assuring photo sessions of her with her boyfriend
in their hotel. Similarly, Maria Jose Martinez Stein, Gertrude (18741946)
Patino, Spanish track-andfield athlete, was banned American biographer, essayist, librettist, novelist,
from international competition in 1986 because playwright, and poet. Born into a prosperous Jew-
genetic testing revealed an XY chromosome. After ish family, Stein resided in Europe and Oakland,
two years of humiliation and forced competitive California, where she was educated privately and
inactivity, she was reinstated. Yet the specter of in public school. While at undergraduate at
hermaphroditism and lesbianism continued to Harvard University, she published papers on ex-
haunt her personally and professionally. Likewise, perimental psychology.
accusations that Florence Griffith Joyner (1959 Stein entered Johns Hopkins medical school but
1998) was not all-female but at least a steroid quit before earning her degree, mainly because her
abuser quickly followed her Olympic victories in growing awareness of her lesbianism put her in con-
1988. This suspicion toward Flo Jo was com- flict with her own bourgeois upbringing and medi-
pounded by racism. The media continuously por- cal views of the female body. Stein became involved
tray her and other top African American female with a group of college women who, unbeknownst
athletes as animal-like and needing male coaches to her, conducted clandestine lesbian affairs. Never-
and husbandly domination. Frequently they are theless, she fell in love with a student named May

732 SPORTS, PROFESSIONAL

 low teacher Jane Harden. Stein projects a
masculinized version of herself onto Jeff Campbell,
a doctor who wants his people to live regular
and with whom Melanctha has a failed romance.
In 1909, Stein met Alice B.Toklas (18771967),
in whom she found a lifelong lover and an artistic
collaborator and audience who agreed with her
assessment of her genius. The creativity of their
relationship is evident in The Autobiography of
Alice B.Toklas (1933), an engaging chronicle of
artistic life in Paris that transformed Stein into a
bestselling author. By assuming the voice of Toklas,
Stein was able to position herself in the center of
the narrative of modernism and playfully drama-
tize the relations between her private identity as a
lesbian and her public perception by her audience.
Stein invented a genre called the verbal por-
trait, which frees the subject from conventional
narrative expectations and patterns of association.
Ada (19091910) recapitulates the story of
Toklass separation from her family and ends on a
note of domestic felicity centered on exchanging
stories with the other one, namely Stein. Her
most famous portrait, Miss Furr and Miss Skeene
Portrait of Gertrude Stein (left) and Alice B.Toklas.
Department of Special Collections, University (1922), was based on a lesbian couple who visited
Research Library, UCLA. Stein and Toklas in Paris. Through strategic rep-
etition of the verbal motifs being gay, regularly,
and cultivating their voices, the portrait associ-
Bookstaver. Confronted with her own naivete, moral ates, for the first time in print, the term gay with
crises, and an experienced rival for Bookstavers a homosexual couple.
affections, this relationship ultimately failed. Tender Buttons (1914), one of the outstanding
Stein reworked this drama in her first novel, Q.E.D achievements of modernism, is a surrealistic ex-
(1903). Adele, the character based on Stein, fears ploration of the mysterious thing-ness of com-
physical passion. Nevertheless, she falls in love with mon objects. Stein uses verbal encodings to create
Helen, who is dependent on her manipulative lover, a vernacular of lesbianism that accurately reflects
Mabel. By the time Adele has dispensed with her scru- the richness of lived experience. Rather than use
ples and wants a sexual affair, Helen has become ex- literal terms that correspond to a single referent
hausted by her dithering and rejects her advances. outside the text, Stein engages in elaborate pun-
Q.E.D. concludes with an anguished Adele confess- ning, so that terms hover on the boundary between
ing that the relationship is at a deadlock. paraphrasable sense and opacity. The word pen-
Soon thereafter, Stein moved to Paris, where she cil not only means writing instrument, but also
became an influential collector of modernist paint- connotes phallic object and dildo. Similarly,
ings. Inspired by Paul Cezannes (18391906) box signifies container and female genita-
democratic method of giving equal weight to lia and interiority.
each element in a composition, Stein wrote Three Stein also wrote dialogue-style poetry in which
Lives (1909). This work employs her famous style a major theme is elaborated through the fuguelike
of repetition-within-variation and simple diction interplay of two voices. Lifting Belly (1953), a tour
to great psychological effect in exploring the lives de force of erotic literature, explores the creativity
of three female outsiders. Melanctha, one of the of lesbian sexuality. The poem develops the con-
stories in the text, blends elements of Q.E.D. with notative meanings of the title: the lifting up of
African American themes and contexts. The title the female body in response to sexual arousal and
character has a lesbian relationship with her fel- the enlarging of the significance of lesbianism.

STEIN, GERTRUDE 733

 Other erotic works are similarly ebullient. Pink are associated feelings, evaluations, and prescrip-
S Melon Joy (1922) celebrates oral sex, and As a
Wife Has a Cow: A Love Story (1926) tells of a
tions for behavior that are triggered when the stere-
otype is invoked. Stereotypes are necessary build-
wife (Toklas) having a cow (an orgasm). ing blocks of cognition and social communication.
In 1942, Stein and Toklas fled the Nazi occupa- They enable the processing and organizing of in-
tion of Paris. The liberation of Paris in 1944 re- formation quickly and without direct experience.
newed Steins optimism and her interest in political They are also the basis of considerable social preju-
writing. Her last work, her libretto for The Mother dice. Stereotypes act as filters that focus attention
of Us All (1946), is a feminist paean to the Ameri- and judgment: People tend to omit information that
can suffragist Susan B.Anthony (18201906). The is not consistent with the stereotype and to accen-
evocative epilogue enshrines Anthony and Stein as tuate features that match.
monuments to which the other women pay hom-
age, Not to what I won but to what was done. Common Stereotypes
Stein has gained overdue recognition as the leading Stereotypes about lesbians are legion. Many of the
American modernist, and her work continues to most common stereotypes are based on deviations
exert an important influence on lesbian literature. from gender expectations. Lesbians are assumed
Corinne E.Blackmer to have been tomboys; inversely, it is widely as-
sumed that tomboys will become lesbians. The
Bibliography stereotype of the lesbian as mannish and butch
Barry, Ellen E. Curved Thought and Textual Wan- has persisted since the early twentieth century. A
dering: Gertrude Steins Postmodernism. Ann related stereotype is that lesbians possess the minds
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992. of men trapped in a womans body; hence, the
Blackmer, Corinne E. African Masks and the Arts misconception of the lesbian as a third sex. In
of Passing in Gertrude Steins Melanctha and linking mental activity with maleness and the body
Nella Larsens Passing. Journal of the History with the feminine, this stereotype reflects a cultur-
of Sexuality 4 (October 1993), 230263. ally assumed gender hierarchy. Women who
Grahn, Judy. Really Reading Gertrude Stein: A downplay feminine sexuality and are assertive in
Selected Anthology with Essays by Judy Grahn. the classroom and the workforce are often repre-
Freedom, Calif: Crossing, 1989. sented as dykes. Dyke is a conventionally pe-
Kellner, Bruce. A Gertrude Stein Companion: Con- jorative term that evokes a stereotype of a person
tent with the Example. New York: Greenwood, not fully female: someone who is aggressive and
1988. lacking in the feelings, attitudes, and sexuality ap-
Ruddick, Lisa. Reading Gertrude Stein: Body, Text, propriate to her gender. The dyke is hard and
Gnosis. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, brooding and hovers at the margins of society.
1990. Other prevalent stereotypes represent the lesbian
as antimale and antisex. Many people assume that
See also Anthony, Susan B.; Modernism; Paris; a woman has become a lesbian because of unpleas-
Toklas, Alice B. ant experiences with men and/or sexual abuse.
Lesbians are also stereotyped as hypersexed and
sexually aggressive. The contrast between these
Stereotypes representations illustrates the point that stereotypes
Abstract representations based on commonly are often inconsistent and contradictory.
shared assumptions about the characteristics of a
type of person, situation, or thing. As symbol-us- Prejudice and Discrimination
ing creatures, humans carry around a great deal of Points of commonality between stereotypes reflect
knowledge that is gained secondhand rather than shared cultural values and ideals. General stereotypes
through direct experience. This information comes of lesbians converge on the image of the lesbian as a
in the form of abstract representations that stand sexual deviant and a gender deviant. Lesbian stere-
in as a prototype for the real thing. For instance, otypes are framed in reference to cultural ideals re-
many people have never encountered a prizefighter, garding the embodiment of femininity and wom-
but, when they read or hear of one, they are able ens nurturing role. Lesbians are typically represented
to conjure up an image in their heads. Stereotypes as contradicting these ideals. Common stereotypes

734 STEIN, GERTRUDE

carry a valence that shadows the lesbian as having can both shape and reflect real aggregate behavior,
stepped out of her place and into competition with as well as misrepresent the experiences and behavior
men. Much discrimination experienced by lesbians of the many diverse individuals who identify with
can be attributed to judgments based on stereotypes a particular cultural group.
rather than careful consideration of individual char- The prevalence of insider stereotypes, such as the
acteristics. A woman is more likely to have her ideas, soft butch and the lipstick lesbian, convey the
suggestions, and positions dismissed as radical extent to which lesbian ideals and sensibilities are
and uncooperative if she is known to be a les- shaped by the preconceptions of a heterosexist and
bian. Lesbians are disproportionately likely to be sexist society. A much-debated stereotype among
accused of sexual harassment. This is consistent with lesbians is the lipstick lesbian. This image reflects
the stereotype that lesbians are oversexed and an ongoing and contested discourse about what it
obsessed with straight women. The dearth of means to be a lesbian: Can a woman who embodies
medical research on lesbian sexuality and transmis- stereotypical representations of heterosexual femi-
sion of disease can be explained in terms of the stere- ninity be a real lesbian? Lesbians, as well as
otype that lesbians are not sexually active. Stere- nonlesbians, have been known to ask: Can a les-
otypical ideas about the relationship between fertil- bian wear makeup and a dress? Conversely, the fre-
ity, female health, and lesbianism may mislead quency with which women tend to describe them-
health-care practitioners when they are diagnosing selves as soft butch suggests that an ideal among
and treating lesbians. The misconception that lesbi- lesbians is someone who is neither too butch nor
ans cannot parent their children reflects the stere- too femme. This ideal is not so much based on en-
otype of the lesbian as having abandoned appropri- lightened conceptions of gender and sexuality as it
ate gender behavior. Lesbians filing for custody of is a product of a homophobic culture: The soft
their children must fight against the courtsanctioned butch can claim insider status without making her-
stereotype that they cannot be both a lesbian and a self the target of prejudice. She can pass. As much
mother. fun as it can be to enact stereotypical forms for play
and pleasure, the awareness that these representa-
Self-Fulfilling Stereotypes tions reflect stereotypical features that mark one as
Lesbians represent a wide range of appetites, de- belonging to a stigmatized group is indicated in the
sires, and personal and political positions. Because prevalence of personal ads in which women seeking
people cannot read each others mind, it is neces- women frequently admonish one another to be
sary to let others know who one is and what one is straight-acting.
looking for in friends and lovers. Paradoxically,
an effective way to signal this information is to Reclaiming Stereotypes
don attire and assume postures that manifest the One form of activism is for members of a stigma-
desired impression. In doing so, one invokes and tized group to reclaim negative stereotypes and re-
enacts stereotypes. In the 1950s, for instance, lated pejorative terms. This is accomplished by high-
women traveled to large urban centers looking for lighting some of the default assumptions implied in
the lesbians. Without a guidebook about who the stereotype and refraining them as interesting and
to be and how to find similar others, many of these acceptable, possibly even desirable. A new genera-
woman relied on stereotypical clues. The source of tion of lesbians are the vanguard of a progressive
these cultural images included a genre of pulp pa- sexuality. By naming themselves sex radicals and
perback novels and similar cultural artifacts. Many appropriating the notion of lesbians as sexually
of these gave the impression that lesbians were surly obsessed, they have begun to manufacture ideals of
misfits who looked and acted butch. Women female sexual awareness and pleasure. They are re-
who did not experience themselves as being par- casting themselves as sex positive. Similarly, ac-
ticularly butch but who were attracted to other tivists and artists use images such as (Del)la Graces
women found a place for themselves playing the (1957) lesbian boys to critique and reframe some
stereotypical femme counterpart. The establishment of the negative gender deviations associated with
of a butchfemme culture is partly a result of in- lesbianism. In the 1990s, lesbianism became become
voking common representations to make sense of chic. Having a lesbian for a friend was a signifi-
ones own experiences and to draw the attention cant social accoutrement. Mainstream media
of others presumed to be similar. Thus, stereotypes portrayais cast lesbians as women with hearty

STEREOTYPES 735
 professional and sexual appetites; women with just ing others functions to solidify ones own identity,
S enough attitude to have an edge but not be too
threatening to the men who are now their buddies.
behavior, and social position.
The need to stigmatize others, particularly large
This is no less a stereotype, and it is certainly an groups of people, occurs especially during times of
instance of exoticizing the other, but these con- social crisis in identity or changing standards of
temporary images also reflect the influence of lesbi- behavior. For example, stigmatizing and
ans. Not only are there more lesbian roles in film scapegoating Communists, immigrants, and homo-
and television, but these roles are often authored, sexuals may take attention away from economic
played, and technically advised by lesbians. As les- and political problems of the day, providing, in-
bians gain more of a hand in rendering self-images, stead, a moral issue over which people can locate
it is possible that the resulting stereotypes will re- themselves and regain some sense of security dur-
flect a wider and more representative range of les- ing uncertain times.
bian experiences and sensibilities.
Jodi OBrien Sexual Stigma
Many cultures regulate and monitor sexual expres-
Bibliography sion and mark as deviants those alleged violators
Langer, Ellen. Mindfulness. Reading, Mass.: of normative heterosexual conduct. This concern
Addison-Wesley, 1989. over regulating sexual expression is operationalized
OBrien, Jodi, and Peter Kollock. The Production at all levels of society: by government, churches,
of Reality. Newbury Park, Calif: Pine Forge, families, and individuals. There are varying insti-
1996. tutional, interactional, and intrapersonal conse-
Plummer, Ken, ed. Modern Homosexualities. Lon- quences to being sexually stigmatized. One can be
don: Routledge, 1992. jailed or committed, suffer economic losses, lose
Stein, Arlene, ed. Sisters, Sexperts and Queers: custody of ones children, be physically and ver-
Beyond the Lesbian Nation. London: Penguin, bally assaulted on the streets, be shunned by oth-
1993. ers, or experience debilitating levels of self-hate.
The fact that one engages in homosexual acts
See also Butch-Femme; Discrimination; Dyke; may or may not be apparent or visible to others.
Prejudice; Pulp Paperbacks; Style; Tomboy Hence, in an effort to regulate sexuality, people
rely on stereotypical images of masculinity and
femininity as indicators of alleged sexual noncon-
Stigma formity. For example, females who employ tradi-
Physical or personal attributes and behaviors that tionally masculine characteristics or who exhibit
are deemed socially undesireable, thereby discred- masculine styles of dress may be seen not only as
iting the individual who possesses them. Stigma is unfeminine, but also as unwomanly and, hence,
not inherent to any attribute or behavior but, rather, lesbian. Here, the connection to stigmatized sexual
is found in the culturally specific negative mean- status is based not on empirical or specifically
ings that are attached to it. sexual evidence, but on evidence that one has
Stigma can be based on physical characteristics moved out of ones prescribed gender role and
that do not correspond to some standard of ap- usurped that of the other.
pearance; it can also be the result of personal The fear of being labeled a lesbian serves as a
behavior that is labeled as deviant. Unlike physical powerful deterrent to control womens actions and
stigma that may be seen as misfortunes out of ones allegences. This threat affects individual women,
control, stigma based on behaviors or actions are as well as groups and organizations. For example,
typically viewed as reflecting a flaw in ones char- in the late 1960s certain factions of the womens
acter. In addition, because Judeo-Christian beliefs movement actively sought to distance themselves
underlie many of Western societys standards of from their lesbian members, who were seen as un-
appropriate conduct, instances of sexual transgres- dermining the movements credibility by giving it
sion can be interpreted as abominations, moral and its heterosexual members a bad name.
defects, or sins. Both physical and personal stigma This is an example of stigma spillover, a process
serve as ways to group and categorize people, per- whereby people who associate with a sexually stig-
petuating an usthem mentality. In this, stigmatiz- matized person or group are also seen as

736 STEREOTYPES
sexually suspect. Often this happens when superior and acceptable ground in a world that de-
heterosexuals socialize with homosexuals or are sym- plores them. But, by judging and stigmatizing others
pathetic and vocal supporters of homosexual issues dress, demeanor, or, most critically, sexual practices,
and concerns. Here, the pressure not to be seen as lesbians perpetuate versions of sexual stigma from
gay can make even the most openly gay-friendly which they are seeking relief. This is stigma in its
people rush to declare their heterosexuality. simplist form: on an interactional level in day-today
practices and encounters. It is at this interactional
Managing Sexual Stigma level that everyone has an opportunity to reproduce
There are various ways that lesbians manage a po- or dismantle stigma. Linda Van Leuven
tentially discrediting (stigmatized) sexual identity,
two of which are passing and adopting. Pass- Bibliography
ing is the ability to affect a heterosexual appearance Bornstein, Kate. Gender Outlaw. New York: Vin-
and persona. This can be done through outward tage, 1994.
presentations of oneself as feminine and offering Erickson, Kai T. Wayward Puritans. New York:
stereotypically heterosexual responses, interests, and Macmillan, 1966.
demeanor. This not only entails considerable work Goffman, Erving. Stigma. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
and energy, but also often prevents one from con- Prentice-Hall, 1963.
necting, and building community, with other lesbi- Plummer, Kenneth. Sexual Stigma. London:
ans. The individual who seeks to pass runs the Routledge, 1975.
risk of disassociating from her whole self. Alterna-
tively, people who claim their stigmatized identities See also Discrimination; Homophobia; Prejudice;
can form alliances based on their shared-in-com- Stereotypes
mon oppressionor mutual delights.
Another management strategy is to refashion
the socially defined stigma by actively adopting as Students
part of ones identity those behaviors that ironi- Students of all sexual orientations are on college
cally may signify it. This out and proud stance campuses seeking an education and searching for
can be seen in very butch women or those for whom self. In a 1996 survey of first-year students con-
tattooing and piercing are dominant. Another ex- ducted by the University of Michigan (UM), nearly
ample may be seen in the push for celebrities to 4 percent indicated an intention to date people of
come out. This has little to do with concern over their same sex during their years at Michigan. These
the improvement of the stars self-worth and psy- data verify that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
chological well-being but, rather, is directed at lend- transgender students are on college campuses; some
ing legitimacy to a problematic homosexual iden- are now standing to be counted as they enter insti-
tity. Showing that someone successful, respected, tutions of higher education.
and popular also happens to be homosexual may, Experiences of lesbian, bisexual, and
indeed, minimize the extent to which gay people transgender (LBT) women on campus are vast and
can be seen as other. varied. The UM Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
and Transgender (LGBT) Affairs discovered mul-
Stigma from Within tiple terminology used by women students to iden-
Stigma from within refers to the hierarchies among tify nonheterosexual orientations. Some women
lesbians, whereby different factions look down upon identify as homosexual, using such descriptors
or disparage other women who love women. Here, as lesbian or gay or queer. Some identify as
the issue is not that they are homosexual but the way bisexualor bieven if they are in a monoga-
that they are homosexual: sexual practices, political mous relationship with another woman. They, too,
activism, dress, demeanor, outness. For example, some might identify as queer. Others identify as
lesbians disregard bisexual females; monogamous transgender and may or may not cross-dress or
lesbians are assumed to be better than seek sex reassignment. Some describe themselves
nonmonogamous lesbians; and many otherwise as transfags, identifying as transgender and at-
openminded lesbians disapprove of women who en- tracted to others like themselves who are female-
gage in sadomasochism. Lesbians stigmatize other to-male transgenderists. They, like the others, may
women who love women as a way of gaining some also identify as queer. There are LUGS (lesbians

STUDENTS 737
 until graduation), who are sexual with women because they understand its a part of me that
S during their college years but marry men after
graduation. Some women identify as question-
I hold very dear.

ing, not yet ready to select specific terminology Leadership is a valued and integral part of campus
because they are still seeking self within a sexual- life at most institutions. At UM, openly LGBT stu-
orientation context. Finally, there are women who dents hold leadership positions throughout cam-
never use specific terminology because they do not pus. The Office of LGBT Affairs asked women what
want to be labeled or categorized either by them- it is like to be an LBT student leader on campus.
selves or others. The responses were indicative of the quality of lead-
The Office of LGBT Affairs at UM asked ership found among these students:
women students what it means to be LBT. Several
shared feelings of difference, power, and compas- I feel like Im in heterosexual-education mode
sion, while others spoke of invisibility: all the time. When I dont speak up I go home
feeling as though I betrayed not only my
Sometimes I just feel different, like I know personal integrity but also a community that
that not everyone here is like me. Sometimes means a great deal to me. I have the oppor-
I find power in that difference. It means be- tunity to be a voice for LGBT students on
ing proud and comfortable with who you campus. Theres usually no one else in stu-
are. It means understanding how people can dent government or in my sorority or in ath-
discriminate against you and why they do it. letics who feels safe enough to offer the voice
It means not discounting anyone because and the perspective of a lesbian; those seeds
they have less experience or have been ex- need to be planted. I know perfectly well the
posed to less diversity than you. Being a les- risks I take when I do that. If its a choice
bian isnt a visible sign of difference, and I between my popularity and my integrity, Ill
can choose to just blend in, unlike older choose the latter.
college students or people with physical dis-
abilities. Sometimes it doesnt matter at all. Students were asked what advice they would give
Im still a college student like everyone else. to other LBT women who are just coming out. All
But I hate that feeling of not being present spoke of seeking community and role models:
when Im really there.
Find the dyke community. Theres no reason
Students described the support received from other to feel alone. Get into a support group. Talk
LBT students when each came out (acknowl- to other women who are gay because theyll
edged a homosexual, bisexual, or transgender ori- understand you and you can feel proud of
entation) while in college: who you are. Find the role models on cam-
pus if you are lucky enough to be on a cam-
Coming out, all the lesbians I met made me pus where there are out staff and faculty.
feel like I came home. I cried, and finally
knew who I really was. One of the main rea- Students spoke of the impact their sexual
sons I can be so open is because the LBT orientations may have on their families, who are
women on campus have created such a sin- important to them and to their stability as college
cere and helpful support system. I owe my students. They want to come out to their families,
sanity to these women. especially when they have fallen in loveinvari-
ably at Thanksgiving, the winter holidays, or at
LBT women students also described their general spring break. These are the most popular times for
interactions with non-LGBT students: students to go home, drop the information bomb,
then return to the safety of the campus. Most par-
Not all my friends are queer and I like it that ents love their children and want what they be-
way. Theyre friends, neighbors, fellow-ac- lieve is best for them. Generally, nonheterosexual
tivists and always willing to gossip. They identities were not in the parents game plan nor
seem to be an extension of our community. in their realm of understanding. One student ex-
My closest friends are the most accepting plained:

738 STUDENTS
 When you first tell them youre homosexual, virulent. In the public at large, lesbians were gener-
the only word that rings in their ears is ally forced to conform to feminine norms and to
sexual. My mom probably thought I was carefully manage their identities so as not to be found
a nineteen-year-old virgin until she found out out on the job. But in the largely workingclass sub-
I was like that. Now she probably thinks culture of the bars, they were able to escape from
Ive been sexually active since I was seven, the constraints of heterosexual society.
and doing quite unusual and impossible Particularly for women who passed as men,
things. It will just take her time to under- masculine clothes, much more than style, were also
stand that I love women with or without sex. a means of survival. The writer Ann Bannon (1937
) fashioned a series of paperback novels around
Whether or not they are visible, LGBT students the character Beebo Brinker, a strapping tomboy
exist on every campus. Many LGBT students have who worked as an elevator operator and wore a
articulate, courageous voices and effective leader- mans uniform.
ship skills. As with other minority students, cam- Butch-femme styles aided the creation of a pub-
pus services must be provided to address their needs licly identifiable lesbian culture. They also helped
and to acknowledge their presence and the gifts potential sexual partners signal their preferences
they bring to higher education. Ronni L.Sanlo to each other. Roles eroticized differences between
partners. The butch, or active partner, orchestrated
Bibliography the sexual interaction, but her pleasure was depend-
Cooperative Institutional Research Program ent upon pleasing her partner.
(CIRP). 1996 Entering Student Survey Adden- In the system of butch-femme as it was practiced
dum. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. in the 1950s, ones identity as butch or femme was
an essential, integral part of ones being. By impos-
See also Adolescence; Athletics, Collegiate; Sorori- ing rules and placing limits on selfexpression, roles
ties; Teachers provided security in a tenuous, secretive world. They
were often proud statements of lesbian resistance,
but they were also the expression of an oppressed
Style minority faced with a paucity of alternatives.
Mode of self-presentation in which individuals
embrace gestures, symbols, hairstyle, and clothing Androgynous Styles
to convey a particular sense of self. Individuals use In the 1970s, in the context of the womens libera-
elements of style to claim membership in lesbian tion movement, a very different understanding of
communities. Collectively, lesbian style is a form style emerged among lesbians. Feminists attempted
of self-expression and resistance. to erase gender differences, recodify gender and
The codification and eroticization of gender has sexuality and position themselves outside of the
been central to lesbian style. Historically, there has dominant culture.
been a tension between those who emphasize di- As Sidney Abbott and Barbara Love, writing in
chotomous gender differences, or butch-femme Sappho Was a Right-on Woman (1972), pro-
style, and those who wish to minimize these differ- claimed: [T]he lesbianis not trying to be like a
ences, embracing a more androgynous style. man, butmore of a human being. Gay
liberationists and lesbian feminists viewed the ex-
Butch-Femme Styles aggerated gender roles of butch-femme as little
For most of the twentieth century, butch-femme more than a selfhating reflection of the dominant
roles adapted conventional gender roles to the heterosexual culture. Styles that emphasized di-
lesbian context. Femmes appropriated elements chotomous masculine and feminine codes were seen
of traditionally feminine attire, adapting it to the as vestiges of the prefeminist days and reflections
lesbian context. Butches adopted a more mascu- of an oppressive hegemonic culture. Feminist les-
line style and typically wore short hair, slacks, bians wished to free themselves from fashion and
and shirts. style altogether, which they saw as synonymous
Butch-femme styles were popularized in the with womens oppression. They wanted to free
1950s, when sharply dichotomous gender roles were womens bodies from their possession by men,
inescapable and stigma against homosexuality most which they viewed as being synonymous with their

STYLE 739
 sexualization. The fashion industry, they suggested, a familiar icon of urban lesbian subcultures, repre-
S played into the objectification of womens bodies.
Lesbian feminists forged an antistyle that
senting a rejection of feminist antistyle and a will-
ingness on the part of some lesbians to publicly en-
embodied ideals of authenticity and naturalness. dorse dominant conceptions of female attractiveness.
Toward this end, feminist-influenced lesbians em- A spate of newspaper and magazine articles pro-
braced androgynous styles of self-presentation. A nounced the arrival of lesbian chic, playing on
study of San Franciscos lesbian community in the the apparent novelty of the feminine lesbian. Some
1970s described lesbian feminist style as consist- companies embarked on a dual-market strategy,
ing of Levis or other sturdy pants, t-shirts, and using advertising that coded styles and body lan-
workshirts (Wolf 1980). Simple, functional guage as lesbian without directly identifying them
workingclass clothing symbolized the wish on the as such, indirectly targeting a lesbian market.
part of many middle-class lesbians to be down- Arlene Stein
wardly mobile, or at least to identify with the least
fortunate. It also reflected their wish to replace the Bibliography
artifice of fashion with a naturalness, freed of gen- Clark, Danae. Commodity Lesbianism. In The
der roles and commercialized pretense. Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Ed. Henry
But despite efforts to construct a democratic Abelove, Michle Aina Barale, and David M.
style that would submerge differences among the Halperin. New York: Routledge, 1993.
group, individual differences persisted. Although Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, and Madeline Davis.
many feminists welcomed women of color into their Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The His-
circles, the dominant visual codes in lesbian and tory of a Lesbian Community. New York:
gay communities that suggested what a lesbian Routledge, 1993.
looked like often assumed whiteness. Newton, Esther. The Mythic Mannish Lesbian:
Moreover, despite their attempt to erase gender Radclyffe Hall and the New Woman. Signs:
differences and position themselves outside the Journal of Women in Culture and Society 9:4
dominant culture, lesbian feminists style was ulti- (1984) 557575.
mately dependent on the gender codes it sought to Weston, Kath. Do Clothes Make the Woman?:
subvert. Feminists tended to privilege that which Gender, Performance Theory, and Lesbian Eroti-
the dominant culture had historically stigmatized cism. Genders 17 (1993), 121.
as lesbianthe masculine woman. But being too Wolf, Deborah Goleman. The Lesbian Community.
masculine carried the taint of butch-femme roles. Berkeley: University of California, 1980.

The Revival of Butch-Femme See also Androgyny; Bannon, Ann; Butch-Femme;

In the 1980s, style, along with sexuality, became a Lesbian Feminism; Sexuality; Stereotypes
central battleground in many lesbian communities.
A younger generation of lesbians affirmed the value
of individual choice of style and sexual expression. Subculture
They constructed a diverse range of lesbian styles Term used to describe a group of people who par-
that drew upon elements of 1970s lesbian femi- ticipate in a common identity that constitutes their
nism, 1950s butch-femme, and other influences. shared, daily, lived experience. Membership in a
Particularly noteworthy was the resurgence of subculture involves the adoption of an identity and
gender-dichotomous styles. The new a set of beliefs and values that are communicated
butchfemme styles often self-consciously played to one another and to outsiders. People tend to
with style and power. For some women, fashion describe their subculture with a sense of home and
and selfpresentation, like gender and sexual iden- belonging, because it provides them with a base
tities, were little more than performances. (roots) from which to interpret the world around
Clothes became transient, interchangeable. One them. People in subcultures tend to focus on those
could dress as a femme one day and a butch the aspects by which they claim membership and, by
next. This was partly due to the influence of punk spoken and unspoken consent, assiduously police
subcultures of the 1970s and 1980s, which at times the boundaries of their subculture.
self-consciously embodied gender-fuck styles. In the field of cultural studies, culture refers to
In the early 1990s, the lipstick lesbian became structures of feeling, a concept that developed out

740 STYLE
of the work of the British socialist critic Raymond Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, and Madeline D.
Williams in the 1960s. Original work on subcul- Davis. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The
tures was informed by the scientific approach of History of a Lesbian Community. New York:
anthropology, although they also have been studied Routledge, 1993.
from the perspective of participant observation.
Early studies of subcultures tended to be romanti- See also Community; Cultural Studies; Identity
cized versions of young working-class men living in Politics; Lesbian Feminism
the north of England. Subculture is often used syn-
onymously with oppositional culture, although sub-
cultures do not necessarily transgress social norms. Suffrage Movement
Lesbian scholars have tended to argue that lesbi- Womens collective activism in the United States
ans constitute such a subculture. For example, Eliza- and the United Kingdom, as well as in many Euro-
beth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline D.Davis, in pean countries, for the right to vote (18481928).
Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Many middle-class, white suffragists maintained
Lesbian Community (1993), reproduce the close loving relationships with women, which, due
objectifying tendency of looking at working-class to social and scientific changes, were interpreted
experience as worthy of sociological attention, but differently over time. During the last decades of
they also challenge the implicit power structure of the movement, the medical classification of les-
traditional academic approaches. Emma Donahue, bian as a pathology became more widely accepted.
in Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Cul- Antisuffragists began using lesbian as an epithet
ture, 16681801 (1993), argues that a recognizable against suffragists to discredit themto stigmatize
lesbian culture existed in Britain during the period unmarried suffragists, stating that the desire for
16681801. Perhaps the most convincing contem- the vote was mannish, unnatural, and
porary example of lesbians organizing a subculture unwomanly. Ironically, the new classification of
would be the lesbian feminist movements of the lesbianism as a disease also allowed women to iden-
1970s, which insisted on a commitment to a specific tify themselves as lesbians and become aware of
lifestyle as an expression of explicit ideology. In the others within the movement.
1980s, that seeming homogeneity fractured into iden- Many suffragists in the nineteenth century had
tity politics, as the privileging of one identity over passionate relationships with women without nega-
another required to constitute a subculture ceded to tive consequences. This was due to the white, mid-
a new era of postmodern complexities, in which in- dle-class assumption that women were naturally
dividuals could not be so clearly in or out. asexual and passionless. The love of two passion-
Implicit within the subculture model is a no- less women was considered a pure, chaste love.
tion of social hierarchies. Subcultures can breed a American suffragist Susan B.Anthony (18201906)
kind of competition, and paranoia, over identity had a passionate love with Anna Dickinson (1842
(as can be shown in the interminable debates about 1932) that survived long distances and time.
whether bisexual women can participate in lesbian Anthony referred to this love as motherly or as
events). Lesbian subcultures have to reassemble an elderly sisters. Yet Anthony urged Dickinson
with each new generation. They are constantly in not to marry a man, and they longed to share a
the process of emergence. Allegiance to a subcul- bed when they were apart. Suffragists in the nine-
ture is a necessary demand for visiblity in a culture teenth century who developed Boston mar-
that effaces minority existence. Yet, in the rush to riageslong-term, loving partnerships with
prioritize an identity and configure a subculture, womenincluded settlement-house founder Jane
participants must consider who are excluded and Addams (18601935) with Ellen Gates Starr
what is ignored. Sally R.Munt (18591940), Bryn Mawr College president
M.Carey Thomas (18571935) with Mamie Gwinn
Bibliography (1861?) and Mary Garrett (18391915), Mount
Donahue, Emma. Passions Between Women: Brit- Holyoke College president Mary Woolley (1863
ish Lesbian Culture, 16681801. London: Scar- 1947) with Jeannette Marks (18751964), and
let, 1993. National American Womans Suffrage Association
Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. leader Anna Howard Shaw (18471919) with Lucy
London: Routledge, 1984. Anthony (n.d.), niece of Susan B.Anthony. Similar

SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT 741

 relationships can be found among suffrage leaders But it was too late. Elliss descriptions were accu-
S in the United Kingdom and Europe.
Passionate love between women flourished in
rate, even if his diagnosis was not, and lesbian suffra-
gists began to bond. Antisuffragists were right to think
the movement, although historians are divided over that suffragists who were New Womeneducated,
how to interpret the participants: as romantic, pas- middle-class career women who remained single or
sionate friends or as lovers. Some womens roman- married latewould challenge traditional familial
tic partnerships did have a sexual component. But social order. Among radical suffragists of the 1910s,
whether or not they were sexual, all close, loving some New Women, such as U.S. suffrage leader Alice
relationships between women within the suffrage Paul (18851977), rejected the heterosocial order,
movement helped fuel the cohesiveness between, remained unmarried, and had close relationships with
and motivation of, the activists. At the same time, other women without identifying as lesbian. Others
suffragists passionate relationships seemed to have lived rather openly as gay ladies. Social groups and
a political component; their shared concerns for gathering places where lesbians could meet surfaced
womens status intensified their relationships. during this decade. Heterodoxy, a radical feminist
The rise of sexologists in the 1890s allowed organization formed in 1912 in Greenwich Village
antifeminists to attack suffragists with the author-
in New York City, was home to many lesbian suffra-
ity of science. If lesbians were perverted, in-
gists. Some had lifelong relationships, such as author
verted women who preferred female companion-
Katherine Anthony (18771965) and educator
ship, then the suffrage movement seemed a lesbian
Elisabeth Irwin (18801942), who adopted and raised
hotbed. British sexologist Havelock Ellis (1859
five children. Other lesbian members included Paula
1939), ironically a defender of male homosexuals,
Jacobi, who was a Framingham (Massachusetts)
spread the negative definitionand fearof lesbi-
Womens Prison guard in 1917 when she was arrested
anism. He claimed that womens loving relation-
as a suffrage picketer; and Sara Josephine Baker
ships were based in eroticism and pathological. He
(18731945), a medical doctor and renowned pio-
established that lesbians could be mannish, work-
ing-class, and cross-dressers or feminine, genteel, neer in child health and welfare.
educated women. He argued that lesbianism was a The significant contributions of lesbians could
congenital anomaly that was especially common in not counteract negative scientific definitions of
highly intelligent women who influence others, ei- lesbianism after U.S. women received the vote in
ther voluntarily or not. By 1913, newspapers de- 1920 and British women in 1928. By then, sexolo-
scribed suffragists picketing the White House as gists theories of women as biologically sexual yet
undesirable, unwomanly, dangerous, unsexed, and passivewhose only normal outlet of sexual
pathologicalall sexologist terms for lesbians. expression was heterosexual marriagehad spread
Not all physicians fueling antisuffragists were among suffragists. Suffragist Doris Stevens (1888
experts. In the New York Medical Journal (year 1963) feared being tinged dangerously with
unknown), eye surgeon J.Herbert Claiborne de- homoism (Rupp 1989).
scribed hypertrichosis, a disease relating lesbi- The legacy of using lesbian as an epithet dur-
anism to suffragism. Hypertrichosis was associated ing the suffrage movement was a repression of
with the invasion by woman of many forms of womens relationships with each other during the
business, professions, trades, and heretofore rec- conservative 1920s and a split in the feminist move-
ognized prerogatives of man. I refer in particular ment. Many former suffragists were alienated, stere-
to the suffragette feminist movements. Symptoms otyped as deviant, unfulfilled women. As physi-
included facial and other body hair, a deep voice, cian John F.W.Meagher wrote in The Urologic and
and a flat chest. Claiborne said that the original Cutaneous Review in 1929: The driving force in
cause for womens political activism was a cel- many agitators and militant women who are al-
lular one, lying in her natural bisexuality, which in ways after their rights, is often an unsatisfied sex
many of them is accentuated. impulse, with a homosexual aim. Married women
In England, the identification of lesbianism with with a completely satisfied libido rarely take an
suffragism prompted an attempt by Parliament to active interest in militant movements.
outlaw lesbianism in 1921. The bill failed because The focus on lesbianism during the movement,
members decided lesbianism would spread if they then, was a double-edged sword: Lesbians were re-
acknowledged it. They preferred not to notice jected by society but had found each other, an iden-
them, not to advertise them (Jeffries 1985). tity, and strength in a common cause. Susan Gonda

742 SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT

Bibliography to succeed, usually more violently, but the precipi-
Jeffries, Sheila. The Spinster and Her Enemies: tating causes remain obscure.
Feminism and Sexuality, 18801930. London It is not unreasonable to hypothesize that the still
and Boston: Pandora, 1985. rampant homophobia in the United States is an im-
Rupp, Leila J. Imagine My Surprise: Womens portant factor accounting for a lack of reliable fig-
Relationships in Historical Perspective. Fron- ures for teen gay and lesbian suicides and that it is
tiers: A Journal of Woman Studies 5 (1980), likely one of the major causes, if not the major cause,
6170. of such suicides. In the latter situtation, internalized
. Feminism and the Sexual Revolution in the homophobia reinforces low self-esteem and self-
Early Twentieth Century: The Case of Doris hatred, as well as the depressing sense of isolation
Stevens. Feminist Studies 15 (1989), 289309. the suicidal person experiences, ultimately leading
Schwarz, Judith. Radical Feminists of Heterodoxy: her or him to consider suicide as a solution. In the
Greenwich Village, 19121940. Lebanon, N.H.: former instance, it is reasonable to hypothesize that
[n.p.], 1982. there is a low and inaccurate reporting of causes of
Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. The New Woman as successful suicides related to sexuality because
Androgyne: Social Disorder and Gender Crisis, parent(s) either do not know or are too embarrassed,
18701936. In Disorderly Conduct: Visions ashamed, or afraid to give such data to authorities.
of Gender in Victorian America. Ed. Carroll Use and abuse of alcohol and/or other drugs fur-
Smith-Rosenberg. New York: Oxford Univer- ther compounds the problem of determining whether
sity Press, 1985, pp. 245296. a death is accidental or a suicide.
Vicinus, Martha. Lesbian History: All Theory and The effect of puritanism (that is, sexual repres-
No Facts or All Facts and No Theory? Radi- siveness) is still pervasive in the United States, irre-
cal History Review 60 (1994), 5775. spective of specific religions. This is evidenced by
widespread traditional and conservative public
See also Addams, Jane; Anthony, Susan B.; Boston values, in which neither sex nor sexuality are ac-
Marriage; Greenwich Village; New Woman; Pas- ceptable or comfortable topics of discussion for
sionlessness; Spinsters; Thomas, M.Carey most adults. Hence, sex education in schools is
routinely stifled, many people prohibit their chil-
dren from learning about sexual information, and
Suicide there is generous use of guilt and shame to effect
The intentional taking of ones own life, and the control. Guilt and shame will exacerbate the de-
third leading killer of youth in the United States, pression a suicide planner experiences and, no
accounting for 14 percent of all deaths among teen- doubt, interfere with honest reporting of the causes
agers in 1988 (Garland and Zigler 1993). Between of that individuals suicide by relatives or friends.
1960 and 1985, according to the National Center Another cultural factor that confounds the is-
for Health Statistics, suicide rates rose by more than sues of suicide, in the case of lesbians, is that fe-
200 percent among teenagers, compared to 17 per- male sexuality, primarily in the past, was not con-
cent in the general U.S. population. sidered to exist or to be important, except in rela-
Lesbians are less reported and less noted in the tionship to males. While this attitude probably al-
literature about suicide than are gay males. Hunter lowed many lesbian relationships to go unrecog-
(in Remafedi 1994) reported that, in the 1980s, nized and unchallenged in the past, it could also
30 to 35 percent of all adolescent suicides were have contributed negatively to lesbians sense of
due to questions of sexuality. These data were being acceptable human beings. The sense of
drawn from 500 interviews conducted in 1988 unacceptableness within, and isolation from, the
1989 with selfdefined gay and lesbian adolescents; general society is a major contribution to depres-
the study dealt with all forms of violence, includ- sion that leads to considerations of suicide on the
ing suicide, and extrapolated from information part of an individual.
given by those who attempted but did not succeed. Furthermore, alcohol and drugs have served the
There is little data available that specifically as- purpose of deadening pain for generations of lesbi-
sesses the situation for adolescent lesbians. Studies ans and gay men. A major danger of using alcohol
have shown that females of all ages are more likely and other substances is their depressive action on
to attempt suicide, and that males are more likely the central nervous system, which, in turn,

SUICIDE 743
 contributes to the likelihood of suicidal thoughts dangerous to society than gay men, as signs of
S advancing to actions. The use of chemical substances
to reduce the pain of being abnormal is only some-
lesbian affection were more tolerated, and there
was no open lesbian cruising in public places that
what diminished in late-twentieth-century U.S. cul- could offend the public. In the 1950s, a wave of
ture, in which a still significant portion of the popu- antihomosexual sentiments swept across the coun-
lation considers homosexuality a sin. try, targeting gay men mostly, but warnings against
Barbara W.Gerber lesbian teachers were also issued.
The 1970s and 1980s brought several legal and
Bibliography social reforms. In 1973, the Swedish parliament
Garland, Ann F., and Edward Zigler. Adolescent declared that cohabitation between two persons
Suicide Prevention: Current Research and So- of the same sex is, in the eyes of society, a fully
cial Policy Implications. American Psycholo- acceptable form of relationship. In 1978, the age
gist 48:2 (1993), 169182. of consent for same-sex relationships was lowered
Remafedi, Gary, ed. Death by Denial: Studies of to fifteen years, the same as for heterosexuals. In
Suicide in Gay and Lesbian Teenagers. Boston: 1979, the Swedish Board of Health abolished the
Alyson, 1994. classification of homosexuality as a disease. In
1987, two laws were passed. One forbids commer-
cial organizations and public administrations to
See also Adolescence; Alcohol and Substance
discriminate on grounds of homosexuality. The
Abuse; Homophobia
other makes it a criminal offense to make deroga-
tory remarks about an individuals homosexual-
ity. In 1988, same-sex couples living together were
Sweden
granted the same rights and obligations as unmar-
Country in northern Europe with eight million citi-
ried heterosexual couples living together.
zens. Until the 1960s, Swedish society was ethni-
Beginning January 1, 1995, same-sex couples
cally and religiously homogeneous. Swedish attitudes
could enter registrated partnership in an official,
toward lesbianism are largely formed by the ideol- nonreligious ceremony, similar to the one used for
ogy of the welfare state. Swedish society is marked nonreligious heterosexual marriages. It is conducted
by tolerance toward less fortunate groups and by a licensed registrator and usually held at the
social change through reform but also by a diffi- city hall. In daily speech, the partnership is referred
culty in accepting differences, a striving for consen- to as a marriage. It has the same legal consequences
sus, and avoidance of conflict. Open expressions of as a marriage, except that same-sex partners do not
antilesbianism are rare. Invisibility is the keyword. have the right to adopt children together, and artifi-
cial insemination within the public-health service is
History given only to women in a heterosexual relationship.
The history of lesbianism in Sweden is largely un- The law, which did not forbid hate speech against
written. One well-known historic person is Queen homosexuals as a group, was met with strong op-
Christina (16261689). There has been much position from right-wing Christians. Since its pas-
speculation about her sexuality, but what is undis- sage, more men than women have chosen to enter
puted is that her letters to the Countess Ebba Sparre registrated partnerships. In 1996, one of Swedens
speak of a deep and lasting affection. In 1864, a most popular rock stars, Eva Dahlgren, registrated
law against homosexuality, fornication against partnership with another woman.
nature, was issued. Before that time, there had
been no specific law regulating same-sex relations. Organizations
The law included both women and men, although Lesbians have organized both separately and to-
only male homosexuality was of any concern for gether with gay men. One important place was the
the legislators, and almost no women were pros- female citizens school at the country estate,
ecuted. With references to Magnus Hirschfelds Fogelstad, founded by Elisabeth Tamm (18851958)
(18681935) theory of the great diversity of sexual and five other pioneers of the womens rights move-
types, attempts were made in the 1930s to have ment in 1925. Even if not openly associated with
the law abolished, but not until 1944 were con- lesbianism, it provided a women-only space and
sensual relationships between adults of the same many lesbians went there, both as participants in
sex made legal. Lesbians were regarded as less courses and as lecturers. The school closed in 1954.

744 SUICIDE
 The first homosexual organization in Sweden was thors emerged. Theater and film with lesbian mo-
founded in 1950 as a branch of the Danish Federa- tifs has also been produced, mostly by independ-
tion of 1948. In 1952, it became a separate organiza- ent, smaller groups.
tion with a separate name, the Swedish Federation Karin Lindeqvist
for Sexual Equality (RFSL). In the beginning, very
few women participated. The first lesbian group, Bibliography
Diana, was founded in the mid-1950s. Unlike the Hkansson, Per-Arne. Lngtan och Livsform:
United States in the 1950s, Sweden had no bar cul- Homosexuellas situation i ett heterosexuellt
ture, and the groups aim was to provide a social samhlle (Longing and Lifestyle: The Situation
space for lesbians to meet. Some very big costume for Homosexuals in a Heterosexual Society).
parties for both lesbians and gay men were privately Lund: Lunds universitet, 1987.
arranged. RFSL has continued to organize both les- Hansson, Johan, ed. Homosexuella och Omvarlden
bians and gay men. In 1974, the first Nordic les- (Homosexuals Around the World). Stockholm:
bian conference was held in Oslo, Norway, and, in LiberFrlag, 1982.
the summer of 1975, a Nordic lesbian week was Parikas, Dodo. ppenhetens Betydelse: Homo- och
arranged at the womens camp, Fem, in Denmark. bisexuella i Sverige mellan perversitet och
After the third Nordic conference in Stockholm, dygdemnster (The Importance of Being Open:
Sweden, a group of women left RFSL in 1976 and Homo- and Bisexuals in Sweden Between Per-
founded the separate lesbian organization LF (Les- versity and Paragons of Virtue). Stockholm:
bian Front, later Lesbian Feminists). LF was prima- Carlsson Bokfrlag, 1995.
rily a part of the womens movement with a strong
feminist and socialist agenda. Another lesbian or- See also Boye, Karin; Christina of Sweden; Lagerlf,
ganization, LN (Lesbian Now), was founded in 1988 Selma
out of the need to create a lesbianonly space. Two
other organizations with strong lesbian influence are
Kvinnohjden (formerly Kvinnohgskolan), a year- Switzerland
round women-only center with courses in a multi- Country located in the middle of Europe that shares
tude of subjects, such as astrology, wood-carving borders with Germany, Italy, France, and Austria. It
and lesbian sexuality, and Kvinnofolkhgskolan in has a population of seven million (65 percent Ger-
Gothenburg, a women-only school for adult educa- man speakers, 18 percent French, 10 percent Ital-
tion that also arranges weekend courses, many of ian, 1 percent Romansch, 6 percent other languages).
specific interest to lesbians. Lesbians have also or- Although Switzerland became a democratic coun-
ganized together with men in such groups as EKHO try in 1848, women did not get the vote until 1971.
(Christians), Gay Conservatives, Gay Socialists, Gay Little is known about lesbian women in the
and Lesbian Jews, and youth groups. medieval or early-modern periods, but it is likely
that they were sometimes persecuted as witches.
Culture At the end of the nineteenth century, Zurich
The first lesbian novel written in Swedish, Charlie, University became the first university in Europe to
by heterosexual author Margareta Suber, was pub- admit women as students, with other Swiss uni-
lished in 1932. It gives, for its time, a positive de- versities quickly following suit. Women came from
scription of a young lesbian and her love for a all over Europe to study in Switzerland, although
married woman. There is not a lot of Swedish les- most were from Germany and Russia. Among them
bian literature, but among celebrated Swedish au- were many women who would today be identified
thors are Selma Lagerlf (18581940), among as lesbians and who established life partnerships
whose publications is a collection of letters to with other women. Many of these students pub-
Sophie Elkan (18531921), a Jewish woman who lished fiction, political pamphlets, or memoirs that
was also an author, and poet Karin Boye (1900 show signs of lesbian tendencies. Examples include
1941), who wrote many love poems to other the Austrian philosopher and poet Helen von
women. In her novel Kris (1932), she pictures a Druskowitz (18561918); the German novelists Ilse
young emotionally and religiously troubled woman Frapan (18491908) and Ella Mensch (1859
who finds consolation in her feelings for another 1935); the historian and writer Meta von Salis
woman. In the 1990s, several younger lesbian au- (18551929), the first Swiss woman to receive a

SWITZERLAND 745
 doctorate; the Swiss doctor Caroline Fahrner was politically active in supporting the emancipa-
S (18421913); and Anna Heer (18631918),
founder of the first Womens Hospital in Zurich.
tion and social equality of lesbians. Emancipatory
lesbian groups were also started in Bern, Basel, and
In 1901, the Austrian Minna Adelt-Wettstein, Geneva and, later, in the towns of Baden and St.
under the pseudonym of Aime Duc (1867?), Gallen. These groups were vocal in demanding
published the novel Are They Women?, which de- rights for lesbians. The magazine Lesbenfront (Les-
scribes the milieu among students in Geneva, Swit- bian Front) was launched in 1975 by the
zerland, at that time and includes a discussion about Homosexuelle Frauengruppe Zurich; since 1996,
the third sex (as homosexuals were called). At it has been published, under the name DIE (The
the same time, the first womens associations ad- Feminine Gender).
vocating the right of women to vote were founded Geneva, which used to have a lesbian magazine
in Switzerland. It took almost a hundred years for Clit 007, is the center for lesbians in French-speak-
this battle to be finally won, in 1971, when an all- ing Switzerland, as Zurich is for lesbians in the
male electorate voted to give women the vote German-speaking part. Many events connected
quite a bit later than the rest of Europe. with lesbian culture are held in Zurich. In 1993,
The first lesbian organization was formed in 1931 150 participants from Germany, Austria, and Swit-
after Laura Fredy Thoma (19011966), a clerk from zerland took part in the 2. Symposium
Zurich, became acquainted with the lesbian ladies deutschsprachiger Lesbenforschung (Second Sym-
club in Berlin, Germany. On her return, she published posium for Lesbian Research in German) held in
an article in Berlins lesbian magazine Garonne and Boldern, near Zurich. An annual meeting of lesbi-
an advertisement in a Zurich daily paper. Through ans and gay men has been held in Bolderns Study
these, she met other like-minded women, who to- Center since the mid1970s. Besides issuing DIE,
gether founded the Damenclub Amicitia (Ladies Club the Womens Center in Zurich also has a Lesbian
Amicitia). This club soon merged with the Herrenclub Advice Center and a library for women and lesbi-
Excentric (Eccentric Gentlemens Club) and, in 1932, ans. Lesbians were the founders, builders, and main
this mixed group began to publish the magazine Das users of Switzerlands first womens holiday house,
Freundschaftsbanner (The Friendship Banner), called Villa Kassandra, in the French-speaking canton of
from 1937 to 1940 Das Menschenrecht (The Hu- Jura, and of the womens hotel, Monte Vuala, in
man Right), and thereafter Der Kreis (The Circle). Walenstadtberg.
Annemarie Schwarzenbach (19081942) from In 1990, Lesbian Organization Switzerland
Zurich, a historian and the daughter of a million- (LOS) was founded with the aim of campaigning
aire, also left Switzerland in the 1930s. As a jour- for the rights of lesbians in the whole of Switzer-
nalist and a photographer, she wrote reports and land. In 1994, it received favorable publicity when
lyrical prose revealing her lesbian leanings. She was it participated in a widely publicized discussion on
in love with actress and journalist Erika Mann Swiss television about whether lesbians should be
(19051969), was loved by American novelist allowed to play womens football. While repre-
Carson McCullers (19171967), and had various sentatives of one football club presented hair-rais-
affairs with other women. ing arguments for excluding lesbians, most jour-
After World War II, little information is avail- nalists and a large part of the public supported the
able about lesbian lifestyles in Switzerland and lesbians. In the end, lesbians were allowed to play
Germany (where the Nazis had destroyed the les- on one club, but not on others.
bian subculture) until the early 1970s. There were In 1996, representatives of lesbian and gay or-
a few lesbian bars in Basle and Zurich, as well as ganizations handed a petition to the Swiss govern-
gay male bars that women also visited. The maga- ment demanding equal rights for same-sex partners.
zine Der Kreis had built up a readership in Zurich, At the same time, a law was drafted to ensure that
and, from 1950, organized club evenings, parties, lesbian and gay relationships were treated the same
and cultural events. In 1966, the Conti-Club was as heterosexual relationships but as of 1998 the
founded. Lesbians were active members and met government had not discussed it. Madeleine Marti
once a week for a social event.
In 1974, the Homosexuelle Frauengruppe Zu- Bibliography
rich (Homosexual Womens Group, Zurich) was Kokula, Ilse. Bhmer, Ulrike: Die Welt gehrt uns
formed as part of the new womens movement. It doch! Zusammenschluss lesbischer Frauen in

746 SWITZERLAND
 der Schweiz in der 30er Jahre (The World Be- There is no one, definitive explanation about why it
longs to Us! Lesbian Women Organizing in the is considered a lesbian and gay color, but lavender
Thirties in Switzerland). Bern/Zurich: eFeF seems to have accrued homosexual connotations
Verlag, 1991. through multiple and repeated references pairing it
Marti, Madeleine. Hinterlegte Botschaften. Die with homosexuality in literary and historical docu-
Darstellung lesbischer Frauen in der ments. Some of the early references to the color, un-
deutschsprachigen Literatur seit 1945 (Depos- covered by poet and author Grahn (1984), include
ited Messages: The Representation of Lesbian descriptions of the lesbian poet Sappho as violet
Women in German Literature since 1945). Stutt- haired. One hundred years after Sappho (ca. 600
gart: J.B.Metzler Verlag, 1992. B.C.E.), the Greek poet Anacreon used the word pur-
ple in a poem that is also the oldest-known text that
See also Berlin; McCullers, Carson; Witches, Per- uses the word lesbian to describe a woman who
secution of loves another woman. Historically, some purple flow-
ers have also indicated homosexuality. The hyacinth
is named after Hyacinthus, of whom the Greek sun
Symbols god Apollo was passionately fond, while the violet
Socially rooted and supported, symbols represent was worn by men and women in England during the
the desires, histories, and identities of specific com- fourteenth century to indicate that they did not in-
munities. As such, the more popular and pervasive tend to marry. A more contemporary hypothesis
a symbol, the more power it has to draw together points out that lavender consists of the combination
the diverse members of a community, subsuming of red and blue, gender-specific colors used in West-
difference under unity. Symbols can, therefore, serve ern society to distinguish between girls and boys at
an important function for minority groups, remind- birth. Thus, lavender represents the merging of the
ing the community that, despite individual differ- male and the female and signifies lesbian and gay re-
ences, the group is, nonetheless, united by com- sistance to traditional gender roles and identities.
mon issues and experiences. The twentieth-century Like the color lavender, the lambda is a lesbian
lesbian community has adopted a number of sym- and gay symbol with an only partly recovered his-
bols that assert lesbians existence, differences, and tory. It was popularized in the 1970s, after it was
pride. Many of these symbols, such as the rainbow adopted by the New York Gay Activists Alliance
flag, the color lavender, the lambda, the pinkie ring, in 1970 and then by the International Gay Rights
and the pink triangle, are used by both lesbian and Congress held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1974.
gay communities, while others, such as the black However, it remains unclear why these organiza-
triangle, the labrys, and the interlocking female tions adopted the lambda as a lesbian and gay sym-
symbols, are used specifically by lesbians. bol. Some speculate that it was used because it is
The rainbow flag, one of the late twentieth centu- the Greek lowercase letter for liberation, while oth-
rys most popular symbols of lesbian and gay pride, ers cite the use of the lambda in physics to denote
was created by Gilbert Baker and was first used in energy, claiming the lambda symbolizes the energy
San Francisco, Californias, Lesbian and Gay Free- of the lesbian and gay community working together.
dom Day Parade in 1978. The flags original eight Still others point to its use by the Greek Spartans,
stripes represented diversity, with each color symbol- who considered it a symbol of unity. Despite the
izing a different aspect of the lesbian and gay com- confusion surrounding its adoption, it is generally
munity: Hot pink stood for sex, red for life, orange considered a symbol of lesbian and gay pride.
for healing, yellow for sun, green for nature, turquoise The pinkie ring, although somewhat obscure in
for art, indigo for harmony, and violet for spirit. In the 1990s, has been used as a discreet way of indi-
1979, when Baker decided to massproduce the flag, cating that one is lesbian or gay. Grahn (1984) notes
pink and turquoise were removed, and indigo was that the occult sciences attributed knowledge and
replaced by royal blue, due to production constraints. transformation to both the little finger and the color
The six-color version is widely used all over the world, purple. The little fingers association with a tradi-
symbolizing both gay pride and diversity within the tionally lesbian and gay color, as well as with
lesbian and gay community. selfknowledge and transformationideas that are
Another color that has long been symbolically consonant with popular lesbian and gay
associated with lesbians and gay men is lavender. identityformation narrativesmay have contributed

SYMBOLS 747
 to the pinkie rings adoption as a lesbian and gay the Amazons wielding labryses. The goddess of the
S symbol.
The pink triangle, another popular symbol of
Amazons, variously named Artemis, Gaea, Rhea,
and Demeter, used the labrys as a scepter, and her
lesbian and gay pride, has a darker history, dating priests were called ax-bearers. The sacred rites
back to Adolf Hitlers Nazi regime (19331945). associated with the worship of Demeter are believed
Although German law prohibited homosexual acts to have included lesbian sex. The labrys is prima-
prior to Hitlers rise to power, Hitler expanded the rily remembered for its Amazon roots and most
law to include kissing, embracing, lewd glances, often appears in the form of jewelry, worn as a
and gay fantasies as criminal offenses. Between symbol of lesbian strength and self-sufficiency.
1937 and 1939, thousands of men convicted of Finally, two interlocking female symbols are also
homosexuality were sent to prison, then later sent often used to signify lesbianism. Gender symbols
to concentrations camps. Each prisoner in the consist of ancient Roman astrological signs; the male
camps wore a colored, inverted triangle that signi- is represented by the symbol of Mars, and the fe-
fied the reason for his or her incarceration. Green male is represented by the symbol of Venus, some-
signified a regular criminal; red a political prisoner; times described as the mirror of Venus. Her sign,
two yellow overlapping triangles, forming the star which once represented life, love, and sexuality, is
of David, a Jew; pink a homosexual; and a star of now both a botanical and zoological symbol of fe-
David under a pink triangle a gay Jew. maleness, as well as the astronomical symbol of the
Although the pink triangle was originally a sym- planet Venus. Lesbian and feminist communities
bol of shame and tragedy associated with the perse- have also adopted the symbol, using two interlock-
cution and extermination of thousands of gay men, ing Venus emblems to represent lesbianism or, alter-
the 1970s gay liberation groups reclaimed it as a natively, the sisterhood of women. Christy Stevens
symbol of lesbian and gay pride, solidarity, and the
fight against oppression. However, some critics have Bibliography
opposed the lesbian adoption of the pink triangle, The Alyson Almanac: A Treasury of Information
believing that it conceals the specificity of lesbian for the Lesbian and Gay Community. 2nd ed.
experience by conflating it with that of gay men. Boston: Alyson, 1990.
Lesbians were never specifically targeted under para- Elman, Amy R. Triangles and Tribulations: The
graph 175 of German lawnot because the Nazis Politics of Nazi Symbols. Journal of Homo-
accepted lesbianism, but because they found the idea sexuality 30:3 (1996), 111.
so intolerable that they denied its existence. Grahn, Judy. Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words,
Some historians have also found evidence that Gay Worlds. Boston: Beacon, 1984.
lesbians were included among women who were Plant, Richard. The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War
imprisoned for antisocial behavior, violating the Against Homosexuals. New York: Holt, 1986.
Nazis construction of womanhood, which reduced Walker, Barbara G. The Womans Dictionary of
women to wives and mothers. They were made to Symbols and Sacred Objects. San Francisco:
wear a black triangle, which, although far less Harper and Row, 1988.
popular than the pink triangle, is sometimes used Yoshino, Kenji. Suspect Symbols: The Literary
as a symbol specifically denoting lesbian pride. Argument for Heightened Scrutiny for Gays.
Despite this attempt to differentiate between the Columbia Law Review 96:7 (1996), 17531834.
experiences of lesbians and gay men, the use of
both the pink and the black triangle as symbols of See also Amazons; Nazism; Sappho
liberation has been criticized by those who believe
that they cannot be extricated from their original
horrific uses. Nevertheless, those who use them Synagogues
maintain that these symbols speak to the invisibil- Houses of worship in the Jewish religion. Gay and
ity of gay history, recasting symbols of victimhood lesbian synagogues arose in the 1970s to meet the
into a warning against complacency. needs of a growing number of Jewish gay men and
Another exclusively lesbian symbol is the labrys, lesbians who wished to explore religious identity
a double-sided ax believed to have been used in but did not feel welcome in traditional synagogues.
ancient matriarchal societies as both a weapon and Many gay and lesbian Jews grew up with religious
a harvesting tool. Ancient Greek artwork depicts affiliations but became alienated from mainstream

748 SYMBOLS
synagogues, which were structured on heterosexu- And the Jewish National Fund turned down the
ality as the norm. The negative attitudes toward groups gift to plant trees in Israel. In 1993, the
samesex love that are found in ancient Jewish texts New York City congregation, Beth Simhat Torah,
were never scrutinized or repudiated. Gay men and was refused a place in the annual Israel Independ-
lesbians could not show affection in public, seek ence Day Parade.
partners, be recognized as couples entitled to fam- Gay and lesbian synagogues are similar to tra-
ily memberships, or celebrate their relationships ditional synagogues in terms of the needs they serve.
through Jewish ritual. They offer worship services, study groups for adults
In the 1970s, many Jewish gay men and lesbi- and children, and opportunities for social experi-
ans sought spiritual connections in the Metropoli- ences and political action within the Jewish com-
tan Community Church, an interdenominational munity. Some have formal institutional structures
Protestant church founded to serve the Christian that include boards of directors and dues, build-
gay community. But they quickly realized that they ings and professional staff, while others function
wanted Jewish places of worship. In 1972, gay more as informal havurot (small groups that gather
synagogues were founded in Los Angeles, Califor- for prayer, study, and social activities). Addition-
nia (Beth Chayim Chadashim), and New York City ally, gay and lesbian synagogues represent Jewish
(Congregation Beth Simhat Torah), and, soon there- interests in the gay and lesbian community.
after, in San Francisco, California (Shaar Zahav), Gay and lesbian synagogues are unique in that
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Beth Ahava), and their members display a wide variety of religious
Washington, D.C. (Beth Mishpaha). In 1975, these beliefs and practices, ranging from Orthodox to
groups formed an umbrella group known as the Reform. This reality has necessitated compromise
World Congress of Gay and Lesbian Jews, which in the definition of communal norms. In addition,
meets every other year for an educational and so- gay men and lesbians may have had different expe-
cial conference. By the late 1990s, more than fifty riences with Jewish tradition that are a result of gen-
gay and lesbian synagogues and groups existed in der. Some gay synagogues have been willing to chal-
the United States and in many countries through- lenge traditional gender norms in Judaism, and femi-
out the world, including Canada, Mexico, the nism has found a supportive environment in many,
United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, Israel, but not all, of these groups. Rebecca T.Alpert
and the Netherlands.
Many gay and lesbian synagogues have affili- Bibliography
ated with mainstream Jewish religious organiza- Balka, Christie, and Andy Rose, eds. Twice Blessed:
tions as well. The Reform and Reconstructionist On Being Lesbian or Gay and Jewish. Boston:
movements have welcomed these synagogues into Beacon, 1989.
their national groups, the Union of American He- Brick, Barrett L. Judaism in the Gay Community.
brew Congregations (UAHC) and the Jewish In Positively Gay. Ed. Betty Berzon and Robert
Reconstructionist Federation (JRF), respectively. It Leighton. Millbrae, Calif.: Celestial Arts, 1979,
was the UAHC that first admitted the congrega- pp. 7987.
tion in Los Angeles, Beth Chayim Chadashim, in Cooper, Aaron. No Longer Invisible: Gay and
1973, and helped it acquire a Torah scroll and Lesbian Jews Build a Movement. Journal of
meeting place. Homosexuality 18 (19891990), 8394.
The gay and lesbian synagogue movement has Shokeid, Moshe. A Gay Synagogue in New York.
also met with severe opposition. When the World New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.
Congress held its meetings in Israel in 1979, rab-
binic authorities tried to prevent it from meeting. See also Judaism

SYNAGOGUES 749
T
Taiwan be pathologized. Still, during this period, some
Multiethnic political entity with a complex history women were able to eke out a lesbian existence in
of successive waves of immigrants and a series of certain peripheral social spaces, such as local op-
imperial, colonial, and elected administrations. The era troupes and the entertainment sector.
population of 21 million makes the small island Political liberalization during the 1980s paved
(14,000 square miles) one of the most densely the way for a variety of dissident social and cul-
populated areas in the world. Politically, Taiwan tural movements that challenged the status quo.
was, and still is, an oddity. In the wake of his de- Feminist organizations began to push for the re-
feat in mainland China at the hands of the Com- form of family laws, nondiscriminatory AIDS edu-
munists, the general and leader of the Nationalist cation, and destigmatization of divorce and fe-
party (KMT), Chiang Kai-shek (18871975), es- male sexuality through study groups, publications,
tablished the Republic of China on Taiwan in 1945, public speaking, lobbying, and demonstrations.
vowing to re-conquer mainland China in due In the wake of workers, womens, and students
course. Meanwhile, the Peoples Republic of China, activism, the first self-consciously lesbian social
which was proclaimed in 1949 also laid claim to group was formed in Taipei in 1990. In the next
Taiwan, considering Chiangs regime a renegade few years, the coverage of lesbian and gay themes
government. While never escalating hostilities to increased in both newly founded lesbian media
the point of war, the two Chinas have, neverthe- and in mainstream venues. By 1996, female and
less, been locked in a political, economic, and so- male homosexuality had become a major media
cial rivalry. This geopolitical constellation has had phenomenon, produced by a small number of self-
a significant impact on the formation of lesbian identified lesbians and gays and a large number
identity in Taiwan. of relatively sympathetic heterosexuals. An incom-
In the 1950s, the autocratic KMT government plete sampling includes lesbian and gay electronic
promoted Confucian family-centered ideology; bulletin boards, radio programs aimed at a gay
political allegiance to a pan-Chinese, but anti-Com- and lesbian audience, lesbian- and gay-themed
munist, nationalism; and capitalist development novels, special issues of established periodicals and
through a variety of policies. While neither female scholarly journals, a lesbian and gay lifestyle
nor male homosexuality was criminalized, lesbi- magazine, regular columns on gay and lesbian is-
anism, to the extent that censorship allowed for sues in mainstream newspapers, lesbian- and gay-
any representations whatsoever, was construed as related lecture series in feminist and upscale book-
a psychiatric disorder. Since the early decades of stores, lesbian and gay films, and lesbian- and gay-
the twentieth century, Western sexological treatises themed courses in college and university English
had been accepted as a form of scientific knowl- departments. In terms of activism, 1996 also wit-
edge necessary for modernization. In 1960s and nessed a number of firsts: the public celebration
1970s Taiwan, economic modernization depended of a gay and lesbian Pride Day, the participation
partly on womens entry into the labor force. How- of a lesbian and gay political group in a feminist
ever, female sexual access to women continued to rally held in conjunction with International

T A I WA N 751
 Womens Day, and an openly gay candidate run-
T ning for political office.
Lesbians confront major paradoxes. In terms of
the state, in showcasing a liberal attitude toward, and
financial support of, lesbian cultural activities, gov-
ernmental agencies and political parties can demon-
strate that Taiwans policies compare favorably with
the intolerant and repressive treatment of lesbians and
gays in the Peoples Republic of China. In terms of
the public imagination, lesbians represent a variety
of positions in the question of how modern or tra-
ditional, how Western, Chinese, or Taiwan-
ese a society Taiwan wants or ought to be. For in-
stance, if portrayed as a symptom of cultural and
economic backwardness, lesbianism needs to be over-
come by economic modernization, whose primary
romantic reward is, supposedly, a sexually and emo-
tionally satisfying heterosexuality. If described as an
undesirably Westernized entity, the lesbian needs to
be silenced in order to create a pure Taiwanese body
politic. If portrayed as an emblem of a modern Tai-
wanin the 1990s, the most popular media repre-
sentationlesbianism can be celebrated as the quin-
tessential style of a hip, trendy, and modern society
of an ultra-new species (xinxin renlei). The ques- Valerie Taylor. Photo by Tee A.Corinne.
tion of how comfortably one can adopt a lesbian iden-
tity without being ostracized by family, friends, and using money earned from the sale of her first pa-
coworkers is as acute as ever. However, as public per- perback novel, Hired Girl (1953). In the following
ceptions change, familial ones are likely to be trans- years, she published short stories, poetry as Nacella
formed as well. Patricia Sieber Young, and romance novels as Francine Daven-
port; however, it was her writing of lesbian-themed
Bibliography books, using the name Valerie Taylor, that brought
Huang, Hans. Be(com)ing Gay: Sexual Dissidence her lasting fame.
and Cultural Change in Contemporary Tai- The market for paperback originals expanded
wan. M.A. thesis, University of Sussex, 1996. through the 1950s and 1960s, and Taylor published
Sang, Tze-lang D. The Emerging Lesbian: Female three books with FawcettWhisper Their Love
Same-Sex Desire in Modern Chinese Literature (1957), The Girls in 3-B (1959), and Stranger on
and Culture. Ph.D. diss., University of Cali- Lesbos (1960)and four with Midwood-Tower
fornia, Berkeley, 1996. Return to Lesbos (1963), A World Without Men
Sieber, Patricia, ed. Red Is not the Only Color: (1963), Unlike Others (1963), and Journey to
Contemporary Chinese Writing on Love Be- Fulfillment (1964). Her novels were praised and treas-
tween Women. San Francisco: Cleis, 1998. ured, in part, because she wrote about ordinary, rec-
ognizable women confronting real-world dilemmas.
See also China; Chinese Literature Taylor spent the years 19621975 in Chicago,
where she became a founding member of
Mattachine Midwest in 1965 and cofounded the
Taylor, Valerie (19191997) Lesbian Writers Conference in 1974. In 1975, at
Author and activist. Born Velma Nacella Young, age 62, she retired from her editing job and moved
Valerie Taylor grew up in Illinois, attended Black- from Chicago to Upstate New York. In 1979, she
burn College, and taught in rural schools before moved to Tucson, Arizona.
marrying William J.Tate in 1939. The difficult mar- A new phase of Taylors career was launched in
riage produced three sons. Taylor divorced in 1953, 1976 when Womanpress brought out Two Women:

752 T A I WA N
The Poetry of Jeannette Foster and Valerie Taylor. bians and gay men can be found in the profession
Naiad Press published Love Image (1977), Prism (Harbeck 1997). At least since the 1870s lesbian
(1981), and Rice and Beans (1989) and, in 1982, teachers have formed networks of personal and pro-
reprinted three earlier novels. In 1991, Banned fessional support; in the late 1970s, the Lesbian
Books published Two Women Revisited. Teachers Network for public-school instructors grew
Taylor wrote poetry all of her life. She published out of the annual Michigan Womyns Music Festi-
poems and prose in The Ladder in the years 1961 val, and numerous lesbian or gay and lesbian cau-
1965 and was active in the poetry scene in Tucson. cuses organize for personal, professional, and po-
She wrote and spoke against war and poverty and litical support within organizations.
for the rights of the elderly, disabled people, lesbi-
ans, and gay men. She organized a fund to help History
support scholar Jeannette Fosters (18951981) While the poet-teacher Sappho (ca. 600 B.C.E.)
final years and wrote articles on Foster, as well as might be invoked as a first lesbian teacher, indi-
on authors May Sarton (19121996) and Denise vidual women have served cross-culturally as tu-
Levertov (19231997). tors or governesses and, occasionally, as teachers
Taylor received the Paul R.Goldman Award in small schools or select classrooms. Women as a
from the Chicago Chapter of One, Inc., in 1975 group were recruited to teaching beginning late in
and was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Les- the nineteenth century just as increasing numbers
bian Hall of Fame in 1992. Tee A.Corinne of women (primarily white women in the United
States) graduated from womens colleges, private
Bibliography seminaries, and public normal schools special-
Brandt, Kate, ed. Happy Endings: Lesbian Writers izing in educational training. As populations, as
Talk About Their Lives and Work. Tallahassee, well as the need for educated industrial workers
Fla.: Naiad, 1993. and hence schools, expanded (especially in Canada,
Corinne, Tee, and Caroline Overman. Valerie the United Kingdom, France, and the United States),
Taylor Interview. Common Lives/Lesbian school administrators viewed a female teaching
Lives 22 (Winter 1988), 6072. corps as cheap labor. Simultaneously, adminis-
Kuda, Marie, and Bill Kelley. Valerie Taylor. trators described the teaching role as a proper ex-
Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame. Chi- tension of womens duties and role: the care and
cago: City of Chicago Commission on Human nurture of children. In the United States, black
Relations, 1992. women teachersmany of them graduates of
Terkel, Studs, ed. Coming of Age: The Story of Our Southern colleges or institutes established by black
Century by Those Whove Lived It. New York: women, or specifically for black studentsfound
New Press, 1995. work primarily in black institutions, Northern ur-
ban schools and, after 1920, segregated Southern
See also Chicago, Illinois; Foster, Jeannette Howard; schools. Overall, teaching for wages increased a
Ladder, The; Naiad Press; Pulp Paperbacks womans economic autonomy but did not neces-
sarily raise her social status; for example, women
teachers of all races were expected to behave primly
Teachers and, in time, to choose marriage. Black women who
Although quietly named within the history of women remained single and committed to educational up-
and education and, at times, submerged in histories lifting of the race were less likely than their white
of gay (male) teachers, lesbians have pursued edu- peers to be scorned as spinster teachers.
cational careers. Contending with cultural and in- Early in the twentieth century, in Europe as in
ternalized constraints regarding sexuality and gen- North America, the maligning of all spinster teach-
der roles, lesbian teachers have often been silenced ers rested on the work of sexologists, who dispar-
or obscured in educational narratives. They have, aged such female perversions as lesbianism as
nonetheless, become educational leaders, respected well as independentunmarried and wage-earn-
educators, and provocative theorists. Because edu- ingwomen generally. Many educated spinsters
cationespecially public primary and secondary remained at womens colleges as new teaching fac-
educationhistorically has attracted single women ulty, while others left to invent new careers. In ei-
and nontraditional men, significant numbers of les- ther case, educationthe pursuit and practice of

TEACHERS 753
 itbrought women together in new communities servatives to initiate campaigns to repeal various
T and spheres. Well-known early-twentieth-century
educators who established same-sex households
protections. In 1978, California State Senator John
Briggs called for the firing of school employees who
included Lucy Diggs Slowe, dean of women at engaged in advocating, soliciting, imposing, encour-
Howard University (19221937), and educator aging, or promoting of private or public homosexual
Mary Birrill; and M.Carey Thomas, president of activity directed at, or likely to come to the atten-
Bryn Mawr (18941922), and philanthropist Mary tion of, schoolchildren and/or other employees. The
Garrett (18391915). Briggs Initiative was defeated by California voters,
After World War I, same-sex social spheres and but the close vote created a chilling effect for teach-
relationships faded as acceptable practices and ide- ers across the country. In the early 1990s, voters in
ologies; still required to be exemplars, teachers faced at least three U.S. statesColorado, Idaho, and
medical and legal, as well as religious and social Oregonconsidered state constitutional amend-
consensus, regarding characteristics of proper mo- ments that would have prohibited state, regional,
rality that left no room for homosexual behavior or and local governments from using public money to
identities but required sexual and gender conform- promote homosexuality, whether by enacting
ity. As local or federal government workers, lesbi- antidiscrimination ordinances or by hiring teachers
ans at mid-century in the United States could be or creating educational curricula at any grade level
harassed, forced to resign, or fired from positions that might affirm homosexuals or homosexuality.
as teachers on the ground of moral turpitude. In Only voters in Colorado approved such a measure,
this atmosphere, lesbian teachers often chose to but the rhetoric of gay and lesbian human rights as
pass publicly as heterosexual by entering a front special rights spread beyond these few sites. Based
marriage (often with gay men) or by inventing a on arguments posed by a coalition of educational
heterosexual social life while building lesbian social groups and gay and lesbian organizationsthat
networks. Because homosexualityor homosexual public schools fail in their educational mission if
sex acts, sodomyremained a criminal offense in they do not create a secure learning environment
most American states and many countries world- for gay and lesbian students as well as teachers
wide, school officials in the last half of the twenti- and allies (Education Amici Curiae Brief)the
eth century were empowered to terminate the em- United States Supreme Court in 1996 declared the
ployment of teachers accused of criminal homo- Colorado measure unconstitutional, ruling that it
sexual acts. This particularly targeted gay males ar- denied legal protections to persons based on a sin-
rested for committing immoral public sexual acts. gle trait, sexual orientation, and denied gays and
Since the 1960s, lesbians and gay men accused of lesbians equal protection.
criminal homosexual activity generally retained their Earlier during the 1980s, lesbian educators par-
jobs by challenging the constitutionality of laws ticipated in the building of teacher organizations,
based on homosexual status. campus offices, and student-centered programs in-
tended to break silences about the subject of homo-
Public Policy and Teacher Organizing sexuality, to create social and intellectual dialogues
In 1974, the National Education Association first regarding sexuality in safe and supportive settings,
included sexual preference in its statement of and to engage parents, administrators, and col-
nondiscrimination; at the same time, some U.S. leagues in examining and diminishing heterosexism
states, cities, and school boards began to and homophobia. In 1984, Dr. Virginia Uribe be-
decriminalize same-sex sex acts or include sexual gan to, invite self-identified gay and lesbian students
preference in human rights provisions. Despite in her Los Angeles high school to meet weekly for
these legal gains, lesbian teachers still face challenges. informal lunchtime discussions. She formalized the
Some human rights statutes, for example, include sessions in her own school and in the Los Angeles
exemptions and limitations in the areas of educa- School District as Project 10 in 1985. Project 10
tion and curriculum and in hiring and leadership emphasizes creating places for gay and lesbian stu-
for youth groups and religious organizations; also, dents to talk, coordinating workshops and training
the adoption of human rights protections does not for administrators, and operating drop-in school
always lead to a repeal of sodomy laws. An ongo- sites for counseling, including peer counseling, and
ing fear that gay and lesbian teachers would teach outreach to parents, significant others, suicide-pre-
homosexuality prompted religious and cultural con- vention programs, and substance-abuse centers.

754 TEACHERS
 Across the country, lesbian educators joined in working with heterosexual persons of color, many
shaping schools, programs, and educational of whom also have internalized various aspects of
projects that brought students and teachers to- institutional homophobia and/or find it difficult
gether. In 1985, Joyce Hunter cofoundedwith the to address race-, class-, gender- and sexuality-based
Hetrick-Martin Institutethe Harvey Milk School concerns of students. Lesbian teachers report that
for sexual-minority youth in New York City. In being open about lesbianism does make positive
1994, a national coalition of gay and straight teach- differences in classrooms, whether in elementary
ers, GLSTN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Teachers Net- schools, high schools, or colleges and universities.
work), formed to fight homophobia through pro- McNaron (1997) reports a burgeoning presence
gramming, networking, and offering resources to of gay and lesbian academic research coexisting
individuals and schools. Research findings indicate with a determined intolerance of lesbian scholars
that teachers who participate in such organizations and scholarship. Also, although gay and lesbian
and who are open about their sexual orientation teachers increasingly take an educational stance,
experience less isolation, increase interactions with believing that their writing and teaching can change
students and colleagues, participate more in school attitudes and knowledge, coming out remains
change, and experience fewer negative social rami- difficult for many lesbian teachers, especially in
fications (Woog 1995). unwelcoming environments. McNaron notes the
importance of a campus [that] has integrated its
Closets, Conflicts, and Classrooms lesbian and gay faculty into the fabric of its pro-
Lesbian teachers face a dilemma in which physical grams and structures, not demanding silence or
safety, as well as economic and job concerns may secrecy in exchange for acceptance or reward.
collide with a desire to be fully present in classroom Such an environment allows individual teachers to
interactions. How a teacher views herself and her be public in large numbers about their sexual iden-
society often shapes decisions about coming out to tity, creating thereby a critical mass which makes
colleagues and students and about how, or whether, it virtually impossible for them to be marginalized.
to address sexuality-related questions and concerns Building on legislation, court rulings, organization
in classroom discussions and curriculum design. A building, individual scholarship, and collective
lesbian teacher may come out to herself, to school curriculum building, lesbian teachers in the 1990s
colleagues, and in classrooms as one who is aware of worked to continue improving the overall educa-
lesbian concerns, histories, and persons. Occasion- tional environment.
ally, lesbian teachers and administrators who in- Ilene D.Alexander
ternalize a cultures homophobic attitudes will not
only closet themselves, but also work against out Bibliography
colleagues who seek equity and curricular change. Harbeck, Karen. Gay And Lesbian Educators: Per-
Many lesbian teachers who are out note that the sonal Freedoms, Public Constraints. Maiden,
support of, contacts in, and easy access to, an estab- Mass.: Amethyst, 1997.
lished gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender com- Jennings, Kevin, ed. One Teacher in 10: Gay and
munity influence their lives as teachers. Involvement Lesbian Educators Tell Their Stories. Boston:
with feminist politics and theories can provide les- Alyson, 1994.
bian teachers with frameworks for developing a vi- Khayatt, Madiha. Lesbian Teachers: An Invisible
sion of the world that informs teaching choices with Presence. Albany: State University of New York
an analysis of how lesbian teachers are perceived Press, 1992.
within academic communities and why, and with Kissen, Rita. The Last Closet: The Real Lives of
means of understanding career and classroom choices. Lesbian and Gay Teachers. Portsmouth, N.H.:
Lesbian teachers of color in colleges and uni- Hienemann, 1996.
versities, even more than in elementary and high McNaron, Toni A.H. Poisoned Ivy: Lesbian and
schools, find themselves working in an overwhelm- Gay Academics Confronting Homophobia.
ingly white profession, in which few teachers have Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997.
sufficient experience with building multicultural Parmeter, Sarah-Hope, and Irene Reti, eds. The Les-
classrooms or mediating interpersonal differences. bian in Front of the Classroom: Writings by Les-
At the same time, lesbian teachers of color may bian Teachers. Santa Cruz, Calif.: HerBooks,
experience a mixture of discord and comfort in 1988.

TEACHERS 755
 Woog, Dan. Schools Out: The Impact of Gay and power to survive on the basis of seizing the tools
T Lesbian Issues on Americas Schools. Boston:
Alyson, 1995.
to mark the world that marked them as other.
British physicist and writer Sourbut (1991) ap-
plies these ideas to reproductive technologies from
See also Boarding Schools; Colleges, Womens; a lesbian viewpoint. Traditionally, debates about
High Schools, Lesbian and Gay; Lesbian Studies; assisted reproduction have centered on the treatment
Spinsters; Students; Thomas, M.Carey of infertility. Sourbut explores how lesbian feminism
might be used to empower women as mothers and
as users of technology, rather than simply as passive
Technology recipients of medical interventions. For that pur-
Combination of practical skills with theoretical pose, Sourbut adopts the concept of gynogenesis,
knowledge about nature into complex craft tech- a term advocated by lesbian feminist scientist
niques. According to late-twentieth-century femi- Edwards (1990). Gynogenesis (not to be confused
nist critiques of science, technology, as its practical with parthenogenesis, in which only one egg is
application, manifests a strong inherent male bias, present) is defined as an attempt to create an indi-
serving primarily the needs of those who are male, vidual with two female parents, by adding the ge-
heterosexual, and wealthy. Very little of technol- netic material from one egg to a second egg. Cur-
ogy has been specifically developed to serve the rently, this is not possible because of genetic imprint-
needs and viewpoints of lesbians and other ing (in which both maternal and paternal contribu-
marginalized groups. Consequently, lesbian views tions are needed for a successful early development
on technology remain to be developed. of a fertilized egg). Nevertheless, Sourbut argues that
Traditional approaches to technology reduced gynogenesis, even if it would prove to be difficult or
women to a part of nature, treating them as bio- even impracticable to achieve by existing or future
logical and reproductive objects rather than active technological means, is valuable as a vision of
participants. Phallic imagery can be found in many women-controlled technology. Gynogenesis also
supposedly objective traditional narratives of tech- remakes the boundaries between science and na-
nology. It is particularly prominent in late-twenti- ture, natural and unnatural, going far beyond the
eth-century nuclear-weapons research and devel- traditional aim of providing infertility treatment for
opment, but also exists in metaphors used in nar- childless heterosexual couples.
ratives of other technological endeavors. Science fiction, as a powerful tool for the techno-
Many lesbians have rejected those expressions logical imagination, has given a voice to lesbian tech-
of technology, which they perceive as patriarchal, nological Utopias and dystopias. The cyborgs and
to seek women-only communities that follow eco- lesbian space explorers that inhabit these stories rep-
logical and low-technology principles. Some oth- resent the elements of an imagined lesbian future that
ers have chosen to engage in research that respects could become reality or at least contribute to it.
animal rights and attempts to reintegrate human- Women and lesbians who are actively engaged in
ity with the rest of the organic world. attempts to transform scientific and technological
To move beyond the struggles centered in the practices have argued that certain applications of sci-
male/female power differentials of technology, femi- ence and technology might place a stronger empha-
nist thinker Haraway (1991) has introduced the sis on observing the complexity and interdependencies
concept of cyborga metaphor that offers present in nature, instead of on objectifying and con-
women and lesbians a wider position. Cyborg re- trolling it. These applications could include such dis-
fers to a creature in a post-gender world, repre- ciplines as meteorology or oceanography or certain
senting a blurring of the dichotomy of nature and experimental approaches. An example of the latter is
technology, humans and machines. It connects geneticist Barbara McClintocks (19021992) often-
humans with nonhumans and allows humans to cited feeling for the organismthat is, treating her
gain an approach to the possibilities of technology research material, maize plants, individually and
that could humanize it. watching each of them grow. Eva Isaksson
In Haraways view, women need not necessarily
take an antiscience stand or resort to what she calls Bibliography
the demonology of technology. Instead, women Edwards, Ryn. The Choreographing of Reproduc-
can be responsible for machines and have the tive DNA. Lesbian Ethics 4:1 (1990), 4451.

756 TEACHERS
Haraway, Donna J. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. observe those bounds contributed to its cancellation
London: Free Association, 1991. at the end of the 19971998 season.
Sourbut, Elizabeth. Gynogenesis: A Lesbian Ap- The world of the small screen is a small one, in-
propriation of Reproductive Technologies. In deed. It is a world populated by mostly white, mid-
Between Monsters, Goddesses, and Cyborgs. dle-to-upper-middle-class heterosexuals (primarily
Ed. Nina Lykke and Rosi Braidotti. London: men) who represent idealized, sanitized social rela-
Zed, 1991, pp. 227241. tions. Although the advent of new broadcast net-
works, such as Fox, Warner Brothers, and Universal
See also Science; Science Fiction Pictures Network, along with a proliferation of ca-
ble networks, such as Home Box Office, Showtime,
Turner Network Television, Cable News Network,
Television and Black Entertainment Television, has increased the
The representation of lesbians on U.S. television, diversity of characters and content of television pro-
whether in prime-time network series and movies, gramming, it can hardly be claimed that television
syndicated talk shows, made-for-cable movies, tradi- even begins to represent the diversity of the social,
tional and tabloid news programs, public-access pro- cultural, racial, ethnic, sexual, political, or economic
grams, or commercials, changed dramatically over relations, identities, and perspectives of the U.S. popu-
the first fifty years of televisions presence in Ameri- lation. The continued vertical integration of owner-
cas living rooms. At the dawn of the Television Age ship of media production and distribution outlets,
in the 1950s, when television was becoming a major especially in television, by fewer transnational cor-
medium for news and entertainment, coverage of les- porations during the 1990s indicates that the indus-
bian issues and portrayal of lesbian characters was try is unlikely to diversify its product unless it is prof-
nonexistent. When television news coverage of les- itable. These material relations and the worldview
bian and gay issues did begin to appear on the small they engender are the context in which nearly all pro-
screen in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in response gramming for television is produced. It is important,
to political activism for the civil rights of lesbians and therefore, to preface any discussion of media repre-
gay men, it was blatantly negative and stereotypical, sentations by remembering the very particular filters
fueled by homophobia and heterosexism. Through- through which television content must pass before
out the 1970s and 1980s, continued political activ- reaching living-room screens. Only with this caveat
ism for gay and lesbian rights, including actions di- recognizing the tightly circumscribed symbolic world
rected at television networks and other mass media, of televisiondoes any discussion of the representa-
brought about a growing number of somewhat sym- tions of lesbians and lesbian issues on TV make sense
pathetic representations. in relation to actual lives.
By 1991, the prime-time TV audience was able to
watch the first lesbian kiss on network television Prime-Time Entertainment Programs
on NBCs L.A. Law. The number of nonnegative Openly homosexual nonstereotypical fictional char-
portrayals of regular lesbian TV characters in prime acters first appeared on prime-time television in 1972
time proceeded to increase during the 1990s, in part in an ABC Movie of the Week, That Certain Sum-
due to the identification of lesbians and gay men as a mer. Actor Hal Holbrook (1925) played a father
target consumer market for advertisers and the me- who left his family to live with his male lover and
dia-created phenomenon of lesbian chic. By 1997, then had to tell his son he was gay. The father tells his
viewers could follow the comedie antics of TVs first son that he would be heterosexual if he could. The
out lead lesbian character on ABCs Ellen and two gay men are never shown as intimate with, or
know that the actor playing the lesbian, Ellen loving toward, each other. Since this movie aired, more
DeGeneres (1959), had come out along with her fictional lesbian and gay characters have been repre-
character, another first in TV history. Although rep- sented in individual episodes of programs or movies,
resentations of lesbians and lesbian issues had be- but the number of gay men portrayed has always
come more frequent and generally sympathetic by been greater than the number of lesbians. The
the late 1990s, televisions view remained primarily groundbreaker in the portrayal of lesbians on televi-
heterosexual, meaning that depictions of lesbians had sion came six years later with ABCs broadcast of A
to fall well within the acceptable bounds of Question of Love in 1978. Starring Jane Alexander
heteronormative behavior. The failure of Ellen to (1939) and Gena Rowlands (1934) as a lesbian

TELEVISION 757
 couple, the film was based on a true-life custody bat- beat was important in creating a generally positive
T tle by a lesbian for her two sons. Even though, at the
end, the lesbian mother loses the custody battle to
portrayal of a lesbian on TV, the value of this in-
clusion was at least partly undermined by the de-
her ex-husband, the film does portray the atmosphere piction of the lesbian character as nonsexual, not
of bigotry surrounding the couple in their lives and independent or assertive, frequently troubled, and
the case in court. A Question of Love was produced in feminine dress and manner but never sexy.
and aired by ABC partly in response to a challenge Representations of lesbians in TV comedy and
by lesbian media activists to networks to stop por- drama programs became a bit more positive during
traying lesbians negatively (after a particularly grue- the 1990s, but the ambiguity built in to many of the
some depiction of three fellow inmates in youth de- characterizations and the acceptability of these
tention using a broomstick to rape a teenage charac- characters in appearance and behavior continued to
ter played by Blair Brown (1948) in NBCs movie neutralize, to some extent, the potential political ef-
Born Innocent, aired in 1974 and 1975). Unlike That fect. These fictional lesbians, above all, fit in, liv-
Certain Summer, A Question of Love shows the cou- ing in heterosexual environments, rarely seen as part
ple in an intimate and loving scene, when one dyes of a lesbian community or rallying for civil rights.
the others hair. The lesbian characters, however, never The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
express their sexualitywith even a kiss. A sprin- (GLAAD) estimated that, in the 19961997 TV sea-
kling of movies focusing on lesbian issues were shown son, thirty gay characters were regulars on prime-
by the networks during the 1980s and 1990s, with time series. Lesbian characters recurred as part of the
portrayals becoming more positive. My Two Loves ensemble of ongoing characters in Roseanne (ABC)
(ABC), about a woman married to a man and in love and Relativity (ABC) (two series that also aired scenes
with a woman, aired in 1986. In 1995, the real-life of two women kissing), as well as Friends (NBC),
story of a lesbian colonels fight against discharge from NYPD Blue (ABC), and Mad About You (NBC). At
the United States Army, Serving in Silence: The the beginning of the May ratings sweeps in 1997,
Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (NBC), was broad- another landmark in TV history was made with the
cast. Like A Question of Love nearly two decades hour-long coming out episode of Ellen on ABC.
earlier, a custody battle was the basis of the 1996 TV While portrayal of lesbian and gay adults on
movie Two Mothers for Zachary (ABC), except that, TV increased over the last two decades of the twen-
in this case, the lesbian mother is sued by her own tieth century, gay and lesbian youth were rarely
mother for custody of her son. Made-for-TV movies portrayed. Kielwasser and Wolf (1992) note this
paved the way for nonstereotypical representations extreme symbolic annihilation of lesbian and gay
of lesbians and gay men; afterward, lesbian and gay adolescents by network television and most mass
characters became more prevalent in TV series. media and concluded that it reinforced the isola-
In the mid- to late 1980s, some prime-time tel- tion lesbian and gay youth often experienced in
evision series, such as Designing Women (CBS), their daily lives. There have been few exceptions,
Cagney andLacey (CBS), L. A. Law (NBC), and most notably an episode in the late 1990s of CBSs
the Golden Girls (NBC), treated the subject of Picket Fences that dealt with two teenage girls ex-
homosexuality sympathetically, despite the social ploring their physical attraction to each other and
backlash, and a consequent reversion to negative the mid-1990s Fox Networks My So-Called Life
stereotypes, especially in news programs, occa- that included a gay teenage boy who is eventually
sioned by the arrival of AIDS and its early associa- thrown out of his home.
tion with the gay male population.
The earliest prime-time network series with a News Programs
regular (recurring) lesbian character was ABCs The first hour-long report on lesbian and gay is-
Heartbeat, a drama centered on a womens medi- sues by a television network news division was CBS
cal clinic. The series debuted in 1988, featuring a Reports The Homosexuals. Aired in March
lesbian nurse-practitioner and mother as a central 1967, the show was narrated by TV news reporter
character. The series ran for one-and-a-half sea- Mike Wallace (1918) and compiled many nega-
sons, with the role of the lesbian character steadily tive stereotypes of gay men, such as that they are
decreasing, and was canceled for poor ratings. promiscuous and incapable of long-term relation-
Hantzis and Lehr (1994) argue, based on a close ships. The program did not mention lesbians. More
reading of the shows text, that, although Heart- than a decade passed before the next network

758 TELEVISION
attempt at covering gay and lesbian issues. An ABC cials aimed at these two consumer markets. For ex-
News Closeup on Homosexuals, broadcast in ample, in a few major cities, a national chain of fur-
December 1979, interviewed several lesbians, as niture stores ran an ad that featured two men, por-
well as gay men. Although it was the first time les- trayed subtly as a couple, shopping for their home.
bians and gay men had been given the opportunity By the late 1990s, advertisers in local, as well as
to speak for themselves before a nationwide TV regional, markets had begun using television to reach
audience, the program still focused on the most lesbians and gay men. However, on a nationwide
sensational aspects of gay life in the late 1970s. basis, advertisers and networks still treated the rep-
The early attempts of television news at document- resentation of lesbians and gay men as taboo and
ing the politics and lifestyles of lesbians and gay men refrained from using nationwide TV commercials
were, indeed, biased. In April 1980, the CBS Reports to woo lesbian and gay consumers. ABC even re-
documentary Gay Power, Gay Politics represented fused to air an ad for Olivia, a lesbian cruise-ship
lesbian and gay communities as abnormal, charac- line, during the 1997 coming out episode of Ellen,
terized by promiscuity, sadomasochism, and public claiming that it was too controversial.
sex. Focusing on the 1979 San Francisco, California,
mayoral race, the show also exaggerated the political Lesbian and Gay Media Activism
influence of gay men and lesbians on the election. After controversy over a 1974 episode of Police
Because gay activists documented and filed a formal Woman titled Flowers of Evil, in which three les-
complaint of bias and inaccurate reporting against bians murder patients in a nursing home, the Na-
CBS with the National News Council, in October tional Gay Task Force (NGTF)later the National
1980 CBS aired an apology for errors it had made in Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF)persuaded
the portrayal. This marked the beginning of realizing the Television Review Board of the National Asso-
positive results from lesbian and gay activism toward ciation of Broadcasters to apply to homosexuals the
television networks. Television Codes policy not to treat material with
In the 1970s and 1980s, most news media, espe- sexual connotations exploitatively or irresponsibly.
cially television, were unwilling to accord gay and The Gay Media Task Force was formed in the mid-
lesbian political action the status of a civil rights or 1970s and monitored scripts for the networks, look-
minority movement. Researchers reported in 1984 ing for stereotypes and making suggestions for less
(see Fejes and Petrich 1994) that heavy viewers of offensive portrayals. Throughout the 1970s and
TV, regardless of their political conservatism or liber- 1980s, gay activism directed toward television news
alism, had stronger negative attitudes toward lesbi- and entertainment divisions was intense. The broad-
ans and gay men than those who watched less televi- cast of some TV shows, such as the CBS Evening
sion, a finding that was interpreted as an indicator of News with Walter Cronkite in 1973, were inter-
the strength and prevalence of negative TV news cov- rupted by gay raiders, activists protesting nega-
erage of lesbian and gay issues. But continued pres- tive and biased portrayals of gay men and lesbians.
sure from activists brought about less stereotypical NGLTF activists mobilized supporters of lesbian and
and more balanced coverage of lesbian and gay is- gay rights for phone-call and letter campaigns against
sues from network television news. In the 1990s, for the networks and sometimes protested by organiz-
example, CNN aired activities at the April 25, 1993, ing pickets at television studios and offices. In 1985,
National Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual March on Wash- the New York City chapter of the Gay and Lesbian
ington, D.C., live and unedited, an unprecedented Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) was founded
television news event. In the mid- to late 1990s, net- to continue to mobilize action directed to mass me-
work nightly newscasts and newsmagazines increased dia and to lobby television networks for more posi-
and continued efforts to balance their coverage of tive representations of lesbian and gay issues and
such lesbian and gay issues as civil rights initiatives, characters. GLAAD has been successful in many of
parenting, and military service. its efforts, including its campaign to Disney Studios,
owners of ABC, to let the lead character in Ellen
Advertising come out publicly on TV.
By the early 1990s, advertisers had identified lesbi-
ans and gay men as desirable niche markets repre- Lesbian- and Gay-produced Programs
senting households with greater than average dis- Lesbians and gay men have begun producing televi-
posable incomes. Some companies aired commer- sion programs covering lesbian and gay culture and

TELEVISION 759
 have met with some success in getting them on the the Media. Critical Studies in Mass Commu-
T air. Dyke TV, a half-hour biweekly television maga-
zine, debuted in 1993 and, by 1997, aired on pub-
nication 10 (1994), 396422.
Gluckman, Amy, and Betsy Reed, eds. Homo Eco-
lic-access channels in sixty-one U.S. cities. In the nomics: Capitalism, Community, and Lesbian
1990s, many PBS (Public Broadcasting System) af- and Gay Life. New York and London:
filiates carried In the Life and Network Q, two news- Routledge, 1997.
magazine-style television series produced by and Hantzis, Darlene M., and Valerie Lehr. Whose
about lesbians and gay men. By 1997, many more Desire? Lesbian (Non)Sexuality and Televisions
TV programs with content by and about lesbians Perpetuation of Hetero/Sexism. In Queer
and gay men were locally produced and shown on Words, Queer Images: Communication and the
public-access cable channels across the United States. Construction of Homosexuality. Ed. Jeffrey
R.Ringer. New York and London: New York
Outside the United States University Press, 1994, pp. 107121.
Much of American television programming is ex- Kielwasser, Alfred P., and Michelle A.Wolf. Main-
ported to media systems in countries throughout the stream Television, Adolescent Homosexuality,
world. Although little research on the representation and Significant Silence. Critical Studies in Mass
of lesbian and gay issues and characters in these coun- Communication 9 (1992), 350374.
tries had been published by the late 1990s, it is possi- Sanderson, Terry. Mediawatch: The Treatment of
ble to conclude that, to the extent that U.S. television Male and Female Homosexuality in the British
programs are imported by other countries, at least Media. London: Cassell, 1995.
some of the trends in U.S. television, including por- Wolf, Michelle A., and Alfred P.Kielwasser, eds.
trayals of lesbians, apply internationally. Gay People, Sex, and the Media. New York:
Of the countries that produced most of their Haworth, 1991.
own television programming, only Australia,
Canada, and the United Kingdom have attracted See also Advertising and Consumerism; Journal-
the attention of researchers studying TV repre- ism; Video
sentations of lesbians and gay men. British televi-
sion has produced and broadcast some of the most
well known miniseries involving lesbian or gay Teresa of Avila (15151582)
characters and themes, including Brideshead Re- Saint, mystic, theologian, reformer, and doctor of
visited (1981), The Jewel in the Crown (1984), the Church. Teresa de Cepeda Dvila y Ahumada is
Portrait of a Marriage (19901991), and Tales of one of the historical figures sometimes claimed by
the City (1993), all of which were later broadcast twentieth-century lesbians to be one of their own.
by PBS in the United States. In 1989, Jeannette In her autobiography, Teresa describes a period in
Wintersons novel of a lesbians girlhood in Brit- adolescence without fear of God, a period of mor-
ain, Oranges Are not the Only Fruit, was filmed tal sin and blind passion connected to her relation-
and broadcast in Britain (and later aired by Arts ship with a female cousin and another girl. Only
and Entertainment cable network in the United fear of scandal and the intervention of her father,
States). Out On Tuesday (later Out), a who placed her in a convent, prevented, she later
newsmagazine covering lesbian and gay issues, believed, a complete moral calamity. There are cer-
produced and aired by the British independent tainly enough hints to justify the conclusion that
Channel 4, debuted in 1989. Throughout the Teresa was engaged in some kind of amorous epi-
1990s, several British comedy and drama series sode with another woman. But Teresa was not posi-
had lesbian characters, as did a few TV shows in tive about the incident, and, thus, her appropria-
Australia and Canada. Ruth Largay tion by some lesbians may be of questionable value.
A more realistic approach is to locate Teresa
Bibliography within the tradition of gyn/affection as a woman
Alwood, Edward. Straight News: Gays, Lesbians, who employed a rhetorical strategy of female pow-
and the News Media. New York: Columbia erlessness to gain authority in the Church, with
University Press, 1996. the specific aim of founding and maintaining fe-
Fejes, Fred, and Kevin Petrich. Invisibility, Homo- male communities based upon friendship. The Way
phobia and Heterosexism: Lesbians, Gays and of Perfection (1583) centralized friendship as the

760 TELEVISION
hall-mark of the religious life. Teresa was adamant tween women living in the inner court. Stipulated
that religious communities had to be small enough punishments ranged from fifty lashes, through dis-
to allow all of the sisters to be friends with one figuring neck tattoos, to exile for subsequent
another. Teresa was particularly harsh on particu- offenses. While there are no records of women be-
lar friendships between the sisters, not because of ing punished under this law, an early-nineteenth-
any erotic element, but because of the factionalism century temple mural from Ratchburi province ap-
they inevitably produced. However, she believed pears to depict female lovers being imprisoned.
that any friendship was better than none and rec- Early in the twentieth century, King Chula-
ognized that sometimes her sisters had to experi- longkorn (ruled 18681910) followed Western
ence sentimental friendships before they could precedent and issued a criminal code punishing
move on to the most pure friendship, which was unnatural relations between men and between
to love the friend as God did. women. However, no person was ever punished
Teresas understanding of friendship as the fun- under this law, which was abolished after a legal
damental Christian relationship was profoundly review in 1956. Since these various edicts appear
subversive in a society rigidly constructed in terms not to have been enforced, practical control over
of honor and shame. Indeed, as a person of Jewish female sexuality has probably been exercised
descent in a social context that was profoundly sus- through popular and religious sex/gender dis-
picious of conversos (converted Jews), as a mystic courses, in which womens sexuality is consistently
and a visionary at a time when the Church associ- devalued and subordinated to male desire. For ex-
ated such things with dissent, and as a reforming ample, within the dominant religion, Theravada
woman, Teresa was a deeply subversive figure and, Buddhism, female sexuality has been portrayed
therefore, very attractive to many lesbians. historically as a tempting hindrance to the
Elizabeth Stuart renunciate males spiritual attainment, and, tradi-
tionally, women had to be reborn as a man before
Bibliography they were believed capable of attaining nirvana.
Lincoln, Victoria. Teresa, a Woman: A Biography Almost nothing is known about the social his-
of Teresa of Avila. Albany: State University of tory of female homoeroticism outside the court,
New York Press, 1984. and study of contemporary patterns of lesbianism
Williams, Rowan. Teresa of Avila. London: is also very limited. Furthermore, representations
Geoffrey Chapman, 1991. of lesbians in the press and other media are much
less common than those of male transvestites and
See also Saints and Mystics gay men. It is clear, however, that, until the early
1960s, the term kathoey was used to describe fe-
male homosexuals as well as transgender and ho-
Thailand mosexual men. Since then, this term has been nar-
Although female homoeroticism is becoming increas- rowed to describe males who breach sex and gen-
ingly recognized in Thailand, it remains less visible der norms. While the term lesbian is widely
and, arguably, less accepted than male homosexual- known in the press and scientific discussion, it is
ity. Despite the countrys large heterosexual commer- strongly disliked within some parts of the subcul-
cial-sex industry, public discussion of all aspects of ture because of associations with lesbian pornog-
womens sexuality remains restricted, affecting the raphy for heterosexual men. Expressions such as
ability of lesbians to generate positive discourses of women-loving women (ying rak ying) are pre-
female homoeroticism and limiting their capacity to ferred amongst Thai lesbian activists.
develop independent lifestyles and relationships. Since the 1980s, the growing prevalance of roles
Premodern references to female homoeroticism similar to butch-femme roles has received public
within elite circles are found in Thai law and litera- comment and occasional press headlines. Mascu-
ture and in occasional Buddhist temple murals. Ref- line women are called torn (from tomboy), and
erences in classical literature to sexual relationships feminine lesbians are called dee (from lady).
between women of the court (called len pheuan, lit- Within both popular and subcultural discourses,
erally, playing with friends) suggest tolerance the torn is portrayed as the sexually assertive part-
mixed with humorous derision, despite the fact that ner, having masculine dress and hairstyle, a bold
medieval palace law prohibited sexual relations be- personality, and an independent lifestyle. In

THAILAND 761
 contrast, dee are often considered to differ little Sexuality in Contemporary Thailand. Positions
T from ordinary women. In some circumstances,
high school tom-dee relationships appear to be tol-
2:1 (1994), 1543.
Otaganonta, Wipawee. Women Who Love
erated as part of a recognized adolescent fad that Women. Bangkok Post Outlook section (June
is not necessarily believed to cause ongoing iden- 21, 1995).
tity formation. However, some critics have de- Sinnot, Megan. Masculinity and Tom Identity in
nounced the popularity of such tom-dee relation- Thailand. In Lady Boys, Tom Boys, Rent Boys:
ships, calling for an end to single-sex schooling. Male and Female Homosexualities in Contem-
Lesbians generally lack the informal meeting porary Thailand. Ed. Peter A.Jackson and
places and commercial venues widely available to Gerard Sullivan. New York: Haworth, 1999.
Thai gay men. However, some shopping malls have Thongthiraj, Took-Took. Toward a Struggle Against
become known as tom-dee meeting spots, and a Invisibility: Love Between Women in Thailand.
small number of Bangkoks gay venues are also les- Amerasia Journal 20:1 (1994), 4558.
bian friendly. Thai lesbians often argue that their
ability to form relationships is constrained by pa- See also Asian Lesbian Network
rental expectations to live at home until marriage,
womens general lack of financial independence,
subordination in marriage, and expectations that Theater and Drama, Contemporary
daughters should obey and look after parents. Thai Literary and performance texts in print, on audio
lesbians commonly maintain that they are, thus, less or video records, and from oral histories of par-
well situated than better-paid gay men, who are less ticipants that represent womens erotic and
tied by parental obligations and who, if they choose affectional desire for women, relationships with
to marry for respectability, can still pursue the male- each other, coming out stories, revisioning of
only privilege of extramarital lovers. powerful women of history, struggles to survive
Anjaree (Those Following a Different Path), an and heal from the pain and diseases of homopho-
activist and support group to improve the status of bia, and parodies of heterosexist culture.
women-loving women by promoting womens right
to choose their own lifestyle (within a human rights History and Documentation
and feminist framework), was established in Bang- Theater and drama that calls itself lesbian
kok in 1986. By the late 1990s, membership had emerged as a collective movement throughout the
reached about four hundred, with an estimated 40 western world in the 1970s as part of the feminist
percent of members residing outside Bangkok. Mem- and the gay and lesbian theater movements, which
bers arrange discussion meetings and social outings had their roots in black, pacifist, socialist, and other
and produce a national (Thai-language) newsletter. leftist theaters. Like other political protest or per-
A branch also operates in the northern city of formance art, it rose on the crest of a rainbow coa-
Chiengmai. Anjaree members were instrumental in lition of progressive liberation movements that built
establishing the Asian Lesbian Network and hosted in force throughout the 1970s, reached a crescendo
its first international meeting in Bangkok in 1990. of visibility and power in the mid-1980s, and
[This entry has been compiled with the assist- waned in the 1990s. Performances at womens and
ance from Anjaree. The group can be contacted at: fringe theater festivals, on college campuses, and
P.O. Box 322, Ratchadamnoen, Bangkok 10200, in a few surviving alternative theaters keep it alive.
Thailand.] Nerida M.Cook Lesbian theater and drama is most accessible
Peter Jackson through books. At least four anthologies of lesbian
plays have appeared in the United Kingdom and the
Bibliography United States since the mid-1980s. Gay anthologies
Chamsanit, Varaporn. Women Who Love usually offer a few plays by or about lesbians; wom-
Women. Nation Sunday Focus (September 25, ens anthologies may include one token lesbian play.
1994). Also partly published as Anjaree: To- Many published playscripts were originally created
ward Lesbian Visibility. Connexions 46 by solo performance artists or collectively with no
(1994), 89. expectation of publication. For a historical analysis
Morris, Rosalind C. Three Sexes and Four Sexu- of feminist and lesbian theater in the United King-
alities: Redressing the Discourses on Gender and dom, see Michelene Wanders Understudies: Theater

762 THAILAND
and Sexual Politics (1981); for North America, see and fantasy screenplays about Provincetown, Mas-
Women in American Theater (1987), edited by Helen sachusetts, lust, and alien Amazons. In Providence,
Crich Chinoy and Linda Walsh Jenkins. Rhode Island, Shay Youngblood set her dramas in
the southern African American culture. Gloria
Playwrights and Theaters in North America Joyce Dickler, founder and artistic director of Com-
In the English-speaking world, Jane Chambers mon Stage Theater in Woodstock, New York, wrote
(19371983), was the first playwright to produce about urban middle-class Jewish lesbian experience.
and publish lesbian plays in the American realist In New York City, Sisters on Stage produced the
tradition. Lesbians appear as ordinary people com- camp (stylized and parodic) Puerto Rican lesbian
ing out in a hostile world, finding and losing love, coming out tales of Janis Astor del Valle. In Chi-
dying, and survivingin contrast to the 1930s cago, Illinois, Claudia Allen portrayed the daily
1960s psychotic, suicidal, predatory, vampiristic, homophobia of small-town middle America, where
sadomasochistic stereotypes represented by popu- tough survivors maintain their lesbian desire with
lar media in films and in lesbian-hating plays. humor and dignity from adolescence through old
Through the mid-1980s, sexual identity, coming age. In St. Louis, Missouri, Joan Lipkin wrote and
out to family, and the angst of lesbian relationships directed her own and other plays for That Uppity
took center stage in much North American lesbian Theater. In San Francisco, California, Canyon Sam
drama, including that of Canadian playwrights. Later- wrote and performed original Chinese American
twentieth-century lesbian performance featured camp one-woman shows, and Cherre Moraga (1952)
and more complex avant-garde presentational modes wrote Mexican American political protest drama,
that show the influence of experimental film, punk especially for Brava Theater. Many playwrights,
rock, and other popular music and culture. notably Patricia Montley, have won awards and
Following Chambers, Sarah Dreher focused on had productions in primarily university theaters.
coming out struggles in heteropatriarchal families and Two of the most famous, award-winning lesbian
the anguish of lesbian relationships beginning, end- playwrights resist labels. Since the 1960s, both Megan
ing, or mending. Drehers lesbian protagonists are Terry (1932) and Maria Irene Fornes (1930), ma-
modern heroes searching for integrity and identity jor avant-garde playwrights, have produced work that
amidst cruel and homophobic parents, classmates, laid the foundation of contemporary U.S. experimen-
ex-lovers, and their own internalized self-hatred. tal theater. Their plays present the matrix of oppres-
Carolyn Gage, playwright, performer, and sive forces that control and destroy the poor, women,
founding artistic director of the lesbian separatist racial and sexual minorities, and all marginalized
theater No To Men (Ashland, Oregon), performed peoples; the antirealist drama spans the gamut of set-
in her dramas about female oppression through- tings from absurdist primeval mud to symbolic dis-
out history at numerous womens theater and music tant galaxies. Terrys more than fifty produced and
festivals. Her characters, such as Joan of Arc (in published plays include pieces that expose the sadis-
The Second Coming of Joan of Arc [1994]), tic treatment of women in prison and focus on les-
Hrosvitha, Louisa May Alcott, Calamity Jane, and bian power and intelligence. Some of Forness doz-
Typhoid Mary, re-create history through lesbian ens of plays feature lesbian characters in hopelessly
rage and healing. She also wrote Take Stage! How anguished scenarios.
To Produce and Direct a Lesbian Play (1994). If Terry and Fornes resist the lesbian label, Holly
In major U.S. cities and on college campuses Hughes flaunts it in her plays that parody classic
throughout the 1980s and 1990s, lesbian play- and popular lesbian pulp paperbacks (originally
wrights with particular ethnic and cultural perspec- produced at the WOW Caf in New York City).
tives drew local audiences to similarly realist dra- She often foregrounds the repression and banality
mas that reflect lesbian lives. In Atlanta, Georgia, of heterosexual power plays with cross-dressing
Shirlene Holmes produced fourteen mostly Afri- lesbian performers and erotic camp parodies.
can American lesbian plays through the late 1990s. From 1970 to 1990, more than one hundred femi-
In Boston, Massachusetts, site of annual womens nist and gay and lesbian theaters sprang up across
theater festivals during the 1980s, Michelle Gabow North America, producing hundreds of lesbian plays
and Marty Kingsbury produced lesbian plays in a and performances. A few, such as the Red Dyke
variety of styles, often from a Jewish perspective. Theater in Atlanta, the Lavendar Cellar Theater in
Julia Willis wrote and performed lesbian comedy Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Medusas Revenge in

T H E A T E R A N D D R A M A , C O N T E M P O R A RY 763
T

Shirlene Holmes, playwright. Photo by Duane Powell, 1985.

New York City, focused exclusively on lesbian lesbian audiences can read a subtext of women-
productions. Theater Rhinoceros in San Francisco loving women in resistance to patriarchal power
also produced many original lesbian plays. and of a reassertion of lesbian and womens power,
Playwrights and directors of major feminist creativity, healing, vengeance, and wit. Among the
theaters with radically different styles featured most notable of these are Megan Terry and Jo Ann
woman-identified passion and spirituality in a vari- Schmidman at Omaha (Nebraska) Magic Theater;
ety of collectively created antirealist rituals and camp Lisa Mayo, Gloria Miguel, and Muriel Miguel,
parodies of Western heterosexism. In these, ters from sisters from the Kuna-Rappahannock Nation who

764 T H E A T E R A N D D R A M A , C O N T E M P O R A RY
 Dramas by off-Broadway award-winners Paula
Vogel and Susan Miller also had many productions
internationally. Vogel invents absurdist comedies,
while Miller features lesbian and bisexual charac-
ters at lifes complicated crossroads in bittersweet
comedies and dramas that explode unities of time
and place.

International Theater
Lesbian theater in the United Kingdom followed a
similar rise to a crescendo of productions and pub-
lication in the mid-1980s. An overview of British
lesbian theater shows slightly more emphasis on
comedy and parody. In 1975, the Gay Sweatshop
(London), Britains oldest gay theater company, pro-
duced its first lesbian play, Any Woman Can by Jill
Posener, an impassioned and angry coming out
drama. The preoccupations of British lesbian theater
have been comparable to those of North American
lesbian theater: coming out to family, the search for
identity and survival from self-hatred, celebrations
of lesbian role models and historic heroes, ritual
quests for an integration of ethnic culture and sexual
identity. In the 1980s, British lesbian drama featured
Megan Terry. Photo M.Terry.
comic twists, such as Jill Flemings The Rug of Iden-
tity (1986), parodying mystery thrillers through a
lesbians search her long-lost father who turns out
to be another lesbians transsexual mother; Debby
make up New York Citys Spiderwoman Theater; Kleins Coming Soon (1986) mocking a lesbian nuns
Martha Boesing and Phyllis Jane Rose of At the Foot repentance for murdering her lover, who turns up
of the Mountain Theater in Minneapolis; Clare Coss, alive and lusting in the arms of the nuns new girl-
Sondra Segal, and Roberta Sklar of the Womens friend; Mamas Gone A-Hunting (1980) by Tash
Experimental Theater in New York City; Lois Fairbanks and Jane Boston, presenting a futurist in-
Weaver, Peggy Shaw, and Deb Margolin of Split tergalactic court battle for womens right to leave
Britches in New York City; and Maureen Angelos, the planet and set up an all-woman civilization.
Babs Davy, Dominique Dibbell, Peg Healey, and Lisa In Australia, scores of feminist plays, play-
Kron of the Five Lesbian Brothers, who started at wrights, and theaters emerged, but few that iden-
New York Citys WOW Caf. Concurrent with, and tify as lesbian. In 1981, Alison Lyssas Pinball cap-
following, the collaborative troupe productions, tured myriad struggles in the Australian radical
Boesing, Coss, Muriel Miguel, and others have also lesbian community through the portrayal of a les-
written and produced individual lesbian plays. bian custody struggle. Sandra Shotlander has pro-
Some U.S. lesbian playwrights had greater ac- duced lesbian plays internationally since her first
claim abroad. Award-winning Joan Schenkar had full-length award-winning play, Framework (1983),
her macabre, erotic, and chilling comedies presenting snapshots of two lesbians symbolically
foregrounding the horrors of history and female represented by famous portraits in the Metropoli-
desire for vengeance in more than three hundred tan Musuem. In 1991, Shotlanders Is That You,
productions across North America and western Nancy? captured daily lesbian obsessions with
Europe. Terry Baum, cofounder of San Franciscos food, sex, and gossip, while her Angels of Power
Lilith theater, presented camp coming out stories (also 1991) celebrated womens political alliances
in various theatrical styles and drew audiences, in resistance to new reproductive technologies. In
especially in western Europe, to her humorous one- 1990, Eva Johnsons play What Do They Call Me?
lesbian performances, as well as serious drama. explored, for the first time, the intersection of

T H E A T E R A N D D R A M A , C O N T E M P O R A RY 765
 lesbian and Aboriginal identity, and Vitalstatistix and recognizing others seeing it and by being seen
T theater presented Margaret Fischers The Gay Di-
vorcee, portraying a comic breakup from a Jewish
seeing it, and thus become part of the spectacle them-
selves. Thus, lesbian theater counters the closet
lesbian perspective. through a collective public coming out ceremony as
In Aotearoa/New Zealand, Rene wrote seri- no other art form can do.
ous historic drama and slapstick comedy inspired Rosemary Keefe (formerly Curb)
by her lesbian sensibility and Maori/British ances-
try. Hilary Beaton portrayed lesbian bonds among Bibliography
women in prison. Lorae Parry wrote and performed Allen, Claudia. Shes Always Liked the Girls the
her Digger and Nudger drag shows with Carmel Best. Chicago: Third Side, 1993.
McGlone, foregrounding and mocking macho Curb, Rosemary Keefe, ed. Amazon All Stars: Thir-
heterosexist attitudes toward women. Parrys plays teen Lesbian Plays. New York: Applause, 1996.
also feature strippers and sex workers and a fe- Davis, Jill, ed. Lesbian Plays. London: Methuen,
male television talk-show host falling in love with 1987.
a prominent married socialite. . Lesbian Plays II. London: Methuen, 1989.
International Women Playwrights Conferences McDermott, Kate, ed. Places, Please! The First
(1988 in Buffalo, New York; 1991 in Toronto, Anthology of Lesbian Plays. Iowa City: Aunt
Canada; 1994 in Adelaide, Australia; 1997 in Gal- Lute, 1985.
way, Ireland) have drawn playwrights from around Willis, Julia. We Oughta Be in Pictures. San Fran-
the (mostly English-speaking) world, but few plays, cisco : Alamo Square, 1993.
playwrights, performances, and theaters are iden-
tified in conference programs as lesbian. Neverthe- See also Chambers, Jane; Moraga, Cherre; Per-
less, lesbian workshops and informal caucuses pro- formance Art; Theater and Drama, History of
vide networks for lesbian dramatists and scholars.

Politics of Visibility Theater and Drama, History of

Lesbian theater has never presented a monolithic As a generic term, lesbian theater typically refers to
political stance. Far more than mainstream popu- a modern movement, largely based in the United
lar entertainment, it has passionately embraced States and the United Kingdom and dating from the
diversities and marginalities, including differences late 1960s and the 1970s, dedicated to the public
in age, race, social and economic class, ethnicity, performance of plays explicitly addressing the ex-
religious practice, intellectual and artistic presup- periences and perspectives of lesbians. However,
position, modes of presentation, and, especially, scholars are beginning to expand this definition as
political positions. In art-versus-politics struggles, they uncover numerous instances of lesbian desire
most lesbian playwrights and theaters claim both. represented in Western theater, a ready siteaccord-
Scholars of lesbian drama and performance vehe- ing to critics as far back as Plato (427? 347? B.C.E.)
mently disagree on the political efficacy of diverse and, in seventeenth-century England, the
aesthetic modes. Some feminists reject realism in antitheatrical Puritansfor questioning the sup-
plays by Chambers, Dreher, Montley, Baum, and posed stability of gender and sex. Recognizing im-
most popular playwrights named above for rein- ages of female homosexuality in plays from eras
stating the heteropatriarchal norm. They prefer a before the modern concept of lesbian identity
postmodern lesbian subject position, as in drama emerged, these scholars are careful to examine them
by Spiderwoman, Split Britches, and Holly Hughes. within the context of the historical and cultural con-
Unlike other forms of art and literature, theater ditions of the images themselves. Thus, they tend to
must be heard and seen in public. Poems and novels speak of representations of female-female desire.
can be read in solitude, film can be viewed in anony-
mous darkness or at home, but theater invites a com- Origins
munal experience. Whereas writers create their vi- The earliest example, perhaps, is John Lylys
sion on paper, directors, actors, scenic artists, and Gallathea (1585), in which two girls disguised as
other theater workers collaborate to create the spec- boys (and played by boys) fall in love with each other.
tacle of lesbian visibility. Finally, audiences complete Venus promises to turn one of them into a male as a
the communal circuit by seeing the performance text reward for their chastity. But the question of which

766 T H E A T E R A N D D R A M A , C O N T E M P O R A RY
girl will undergo the magical sex change remains that the play called not for criticism, but for chlo-
unresolved, and the play ends with the image of two ride of lime, a disinfectant.
be-trothed girls pledging eternal devotion. In sev-
eral comedies by William Shakespeare (15641616) The Twentieth Century
and his contemporaries, intimate friendships be- By the turn of the twentieth century, especially with
tween women offer an alternative to the antagonis- the growth of psychological realism as a dominant
tic heterosexual pairings into which young women dramatic style, homosexuality became a common
are often reluctantly placed. Such relationships be- trope of submerged perversion and psychic disorder.
tween womenfor instance, Helena and Hermia in Mainstream plays began to depict (and denounce)
A Mid-summer Nights Dream, and Celia and lesbian love, even if they didnt speak its name.
Rosalind in As You Like Itare frequently depicted Broadways first lesbian love scene appeared in
as temporary, almost as rehearsals for marriage. Yet, 1922, when the English-language version of Sholem
as scholars such as Traub (1992) are finding, these Aschs God of Vengeance moved uptown after a brief
friendships are also presented as emotionally and run in Greenwich Village. Written in Yiddish in 1906,
erotically satisfying. the play was first produced in Germany by Max
New scholarship is also uncovering female-female Reinhardt (18731943) and toured all over the Yid-
desire in Restoration drama, especially in the prac- dish-speaking world, generally to great acclaim. But
tice of female cross-dressing and, more especially, the story of the daughter of a brothel keeper who
when that cross-dressing moved beyond the vogue falls in love with one of the prostitutes in her fathers
for breeches roles, in which women basically employ was too much for puritanical guardians of
showed off their legs, toward travesties of the male the commercial New York City stage; the cast was
rake, such as those played by Margaret Woffington arrested, and the producers fined, for obscenity.
(17141760), in which the disguised woman wooed Similarly, Eduard Bourdets The Captive (1926)
other women. Scholar Straub (1992) argues that caused a sensation at its debut in Paris in the mid-
cross-dressing by women on stage in the mid-eight- 1920s and then scandalized America when it pre-
eenth century constitutes a historical possibility for miered in English on Broadway in 1926. The hero-
pleasure in sexual and gender ambiguities. ine rebuffs a male suitor because she remains a cap-
Similar ambiguities were often evoked in works tive to her female paramour (who never actually
by the French playwright Pierre Marivaux (1688 appears on stage). Broadways Play Jury (parallel to
1763). In The Triumph of Love (1732), for exam- Hollywoods Hayes Office) declared the play mor-
ple, a young woman disguises herself as male to gain ally acceptable; nonetheless, it was raided by the
access to the man she loves. While disguised, she police and declared obscene by the New York State
seduces both an older man and his sister. In the end, Supreme Court. Along with Mae Wests Sex [1926]
all of the confusions are resolved as she is neatly (which she described as the male version of The
paired off with the young man she desires. But, in Captive), Bourdets work was grist for the Wales
her wake she leaves two broken hearts and the rub- Padlock Bill, an anti-obscenity statute enacted in
ble of an exploded sex-gender system. A French 1927 forbidding the presentation of salacious plays.
pornographic drama, Andra de Nerciats The Spirit It stood as New York State law until 1967.
of Morals in the Eighteenth Century (1789), fea- Nevertheless, while male-male desire was coded
tures an unabashed sexual scene between the mar- on Broadway as more homosocial than homosexual,
quise and her beloved, Mademoiselle de Lesbosie. lesbians continued to appear, perhaps because they
There seem to have been fewer images of fe- were usually presented as miserable and evil, and they
male-female desire on nineteenth-century stages. typically ended up dead. One character to escape such
Two exceptions are Alphonse Daudet and Adolph a fate was Tony, the disgruntled butch in Thomas
Belots Sappho (1895), about a Parisian prostitute Dickinsons Winter Bound (1929). Though review-
who models for a statue of the poet, and Archibald ers called the play a study in abnormality because
Gunters A Florida Enchantment (1896), in which it showed two women living together in a Connecti-
a woman swallows a magic seed that turns her into cut farmhouse, Tonys lover leaves in the end to marry
a man, prompting her to smoke, swear, and make a man. Tony remains alonebut alive and relatively
love to girls. Though she does so as a man, the unpathologized. Not so for the woman who mur-
audience sees two actresses in passionate embrace. ders her lovers fiance in William Hulberts Sin of
A contemporary New York Times review suggested Sins (1926); nor for the self-loathing schoolteacher

T H E AT E R A N D D R A M A , H I S T O RY O F 767
 in Lillian Hellmans The Childrens Hour (1934), who theater and, somewhat later, by similar strains in
T kills herself after confessing to another woman that
she has loved her the way they said; nor for the old
France, Germany, Australia, and elsewhere).
The three formative theaters of off-off-Broad-
actress in the British play Wise Tomorrow (1937), by wayJudson Poets Theater, Caffe Cino, and La
Guy Bolton, who is killed off after wrecking the life Mamaproduced mostly works by gay men, but
(read: the heterosexuality) of the protge she adores. much of the work that was by women was by les-
The homoeroticism of the stage version of Christa biansGertrude Stein (18741946), Megan Terry
Winsloes Mdchen in Uniform (1931) (presented in (1932), and Maria Irene Fornes (1930). Their
New York City in 1932) apparently escaped the no- plays may not have particularly addressed lesbian
tice of local critics, who praised the girls school trag- themes, but nor were their formal experiments
edy as deeply touching. impeded by the constraints of the closet.
The Wales Padlock Law was invoked again in By the early 1970s, gay production companies
1945 to close down a play featuring a villainous were established in the United States and the United
lesbianDorothy Bakers Trio (1943), in which a Kingdom, but, for years, they seldom highlighted
young man lures the young woman he loves away lesbian works. In the United States, Jane Cham-
from an older, French woman. The two other popu-
bers (19371983) was an exception. Her realistic
lar plays of the decade with unconcealed lesbian
dramasamong them, A Late Snow (1974), The
characters did not rouse the authorities, probably
Quintessential Image (produced posthumously in
because in Jean-Paul Sartres No Exit (1944), Inez
1989), and Last Summer at Bluefish Cove ([1980]
is punished with eternal damnation for driving the
a commercial hit about a group of lesbians who
woman she loved to suicide, and, in Allen
spend the summer together on Long Island, where
Kenwards Proof Through the Night (1942), the
one falls in love with a presumably straight
confused wartime nurse Steve is killed in an air
neighbor)were presented all over the country.
raid before she comes to terms with her sexuality.
But, for the most part, lesbian theater in the 1970s
It is important to note that beyond mainstream
stages, lesbians carved out venues in the early dec- flourished within its own networks and on its own
ades of the twentieth century, offering nonrepre- terms. While gay male performers were cavorting in
sentational alternatives to such conventional fare. froufrou and glitter, much lesbian theater was shed-
The famed Paris salons of Natalie Barney (1876 ding the decorative role to which women had long
1972) and others were important sites of lesbian been relegated. In the early 1970s, womens theater
performance. Meanwhile, lesbian desire sometimes groups sprang up all over the United States. Reflect-
found expression in nonlegitimate theatrical en- ing the different strategies of materialist and bour-
tertainments. Colette (18731954) appeared in geois feminisms, some sought to use theater to
1907 at the Moulin Rouge in Paris in a sketch called change the world, while some sought to change
Le Rve dEgypte, playing a love scene with the theater so women could share an equal place in it
Marquise de Belbeuf (also Belboeuf [18631944]), with men. It is impossible to define many of these
dressed as a man. Male impersonators in the mu- theaters as primarily lesbian, yet many of their mem-
sic-hall tradition, such as Annie Hindle and Ella bers were out lesbians, and many took up lesbian
Wesner in the nineteenth century and Storme issues in their frequently issue-laden plays.
DeLarverie in the 1950s and 1960s, whether lesbi- This was a theater of proclamations and mani-
ans or not, often presented scenes that could be festos. One typical leaflet wheatpasted around New
(and were) read homoerotically. The same could York City in the early 1970s urged women to join
be said about Japans all-female revues, which have in a collective that would address their concerns in
attracted a devoted following of adolescent girls theatrical form and create an active conscious
and women since their founding in 1914. voice in our community.
Feminist theater companies were usually organ-
Lesbian Theater ized as collectives and often grew out of conscious-
But it was not until the late 1960s, with the con- ness-raising sessions, which were then extended into
vergence the off-off-Broadway, womens liberation, a public, dramatic enactment. The Its All Right to
and gay liberation movements, that women began Be Woman Theater, founded in New York City in
to produce an explicit, self-named lesbian theater 1970, built plays based on personal experience
in the United States (paralleled in the United King- through improvisation; the group included lesbians,
dom by the feminist and gay wings of the fringe and lesbian themes were frequently broached. Other

768 T H E A T E R A N D D R A M A , H I S T O RY O F
feminist troupes included the Caravan Theater in The work at WOW and at other theaters like it
Cambridge, Massachusetts, founded in 1965; the has inspired a new generation of lesbian theater
Omaha (Nebraska) Magic Theater founded in 1969; critics and theorists, such as Sue-Ellen Case, Kate
the Los Angeles (California) Womens Liberation Davy, Jill Dolan, and Peggy Phelan, among others.
Union; the New York (City) Feminist Theater; the Alisa Solomon
Womens Experimental Theater (New York City);
Bread and Roses Theater (Los Angeles, California); Bibliography
the Rhode Island Feminist Theater (Providence); and Curtin, Kaier. We Can Always Call Them Bul-
the Onyx Womens Theater (South Ozone Park, garians: The Emergence of Lesbians and Gay
New York), an African American troupe. Men on the American Stage. Boston: Alyson,
Spiderwoman Theater (New York City), named for 1987.
the Hopi goddess of creation, was founded in 1975 Dolan, Jill. Presence and Desire: Essays on Gen-
by three sisters, one of whom is an out lesbian. The der, Sexuality, Performance. Ann Arbor: Uni-
troupe, still functioning in the late 1990s, uses vaude- versity of Michigan Press, 1993.
villian gags, Native American storytelling, cabaret Ferris, Lesley, ed. Crossing the Stage: Controver-
sketches, and irreverence to layer complex experi- sies on Cross-Dressing. London and New York:
ence with humor and poignancy. Routledge, 1993.
The 1970s saw specifically lesbian feminist com- Hart, Lynda, and Peggy Phelan, eds. Acting Out:
panies, too, whose stories remain to be collected, Feminist Performances. Ann Arbor: University
among them: the Red Dyke Theater in Atlanta, Geor- of Michigan Press, 1993.
gia, founded in 1974 with the assertion that its pur- Straub, Kristina. Sexual Suspects: Eighteenth-Cen-
pose was to entertain lesbians, not to educate straight tury Players and Sexual Ideology. Princeton,
people about lesbians; the Actors Sorority in Kan- N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992.
sas City, Missouri; and the Lavender Cellar Theater, Traub, Valerie. Desire and Anxiety: Circulations
founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1973. Spe- of Desire in Shakespearean Drama. London and
cial short-term projects included the Lesbian Femi- New York: Routledge, 1992.
nist Theater Workshop in Chicago, Illinois, whose
purpose, an ad in a feminist newspaper stated, would See also All-Female Revues (Japan); Barney, Natalie
be the production of plays emphasizing a positive Clifford; Chambers, Jane; Colette; Cross-Dressing;
approach to the lesbian lifestyle, and An Oral His- Performance Art; Stein, Gertrude; Theater and
tory of Lesbianism (1979), at the Womans Build- Drama, Contemporary
ing in Los Angeles.
There was also a strain of celebratory feminist and
lesbian theater that was often less doctrinaire and Thomas, M.Carey (18571935)
more formally experimental and sexually explicit. American educator. One of the most prominent
Perhaps the best early example was Medusas Re- American educators and womens activists in the
venge, a multicultural theater founded in New York early twentieth century, Martha Carey Thomas
City in 1976. One of its well-known plays, Ana Maria gained fame as the president of the women-only
Simos Bayou (1977), was a raucous piece about a Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.
lesbian bar, in which, among other things, two women Born in 1857 to a Quaker family in Baltimore,
courting each other danced erotically across a pool Maryland, Thomas set about developing a schol-
table. The theater also hosted dances, benefits for arly career, a rare dream for a Victorian girl. After
women prisoners, and other events. obtaining a B.A. in classics from Cornell University,
The WOW Caf carried on this tradition when she studied in Germany. In 1882, with a Ph.D. in
it opened in New York Citys East Village in 1981, philology from the University of Zrich, Thomas
growing out of the Womens One World Festivals returned home with the hope of a prominent role in
of 1980 and 1981, to present plays, solo perform- the formation of the new Quaker womens college
ers, drag balls, and other extravaganzas. Such art- being planned for Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
ists as Split Britches, Holly Hughes, the Five Les- Appointed to a post at Bryn Mawr in 1883,
bian Brothers, and Carmelita Tropicana cut their Thomas became the first dean of an American
teeth at WOW. The theater continued to thrive in womens college to hold a doctorate. Named presi-
the late 1990s. dent of the school in 1894, she encouraged

THOMAS, M.CAREY 769

 nontraditional attitudes among the undergraduates mar in Steins periodic pieces written in French,
T by supporting academic and professional careers
for women. Education of Women (1900) estab-
and proofreading. Perhaps some of Toklass great-
est creative energy went into cooking for Stein, who
lished Thomass reputation as an authority on the had an appetite as prodigious as her intellect. Toklas
higher education of women. Blocking some stu- later published many of her famous recipes, along
dents from attending Bryn Mawr on racist, with reminiscences of their life together, in The Alice
antisemitic, and elitist grounds, Thomas manifested B.Toklas Cookbook (1954). Her Flavors and Aro-
many of the prejudices of her day, to an extent that mas of Past and Present (1958) was less success-
shocked some of her peers. ful, but her recipes and remembrances continued
While in Europe, Thomas had lived with Mamie to be popular magazine pieces throughout the
Gwinn (1861?), an arrangement that continued at 1950s. Her memoirs of her life with Stein, What Is
Bryn Mawr, with the two openly sharing a home on Remembered (1963), portrays their relationship
the college campus until Gwinn married in 1904. and their contacts with the many literary and ar-
Gertrude Stein (18741946) immortalized the end tistic figures who encircled their lives.
of their relationship in her story Fernhurst (1904 Stein wrote that Toklas is always forethoughtful,
1905?). While involved with Gwinn, Thomas pur- which is what is pleasant for me (Souhami 1991).
sued a relationship with Mary Garrett (18391915), It is to oversimplify their relationship to see Toklas
heiress to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad fortune. in a demeaning wife role; indeed, Toklas gener-
After Gwinn and Thomas separated, Garrett and ally ruled the roost. Both were in complete accord
Thomas became a couple, living together at the col- in their belief that Stein was a genius (Toklas said
lege until Garretts death in 1915. That Thomas was she heard bells ringing when they met, a certain sign
a lesbian is well established. Analyzing Thomass she was in the presence of genius). Once they met in
reading, Horowitz (1994), her biographer, argues Paris in 1907, they were inseparable and utterly
that the Bryn Mawr president was well aware of the devoted to each other until Steins death in 1946.
possibilities for physical love between women and As Toklas noted in her autobiography, What Is Re-
of the medically oriented literature on sexuality that membered (1963), Stein had her utmost attention,
began to appear in the late nineteenth century. as she did for all the many years I knew her until
Thomas retired from the college in 1922. A her death, and all these empty ones since then.
forceful woman, and not always a likable one, Toklass later years were financially and physi-
Thomas is notable for managing to carve out a large cally difficult. Her health declined, and provisions
role for women in the world of academia. that Stein had arranged from her own estate were
Caryn E.Neumann often late and insufficient. Toklas shares a single
grave with Stein in Paris. Characteristically stand-
Bibliography ing behind Stein even in death, Toklas directed that
Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. The Power and Passion her name and dates be engraved on the rear of the
of M.Carey Thomas. New York: Knopf, 1994. head-stone. Linnea A.Stenson

See also Colleges, Womens; Stein, Gertrude Bibliography

Simon, Linda. The Biography of Alice B.Toklas.
Lincoln:University of Nebraska Press, 1991.
Toklas, Alice B. (18771967) Souhami, Diana. Gertrude and Alice. New York:
American memoirist. Born and raised in San Fran- Pandora, 1991.
cisco, California, Alice B.Toklas studied music at
the University of Washington. After her mother fell See also Paris; Stein, Gertrude
ill, she returned to San Francisco, and, upon her
mothers death, she began to tend house for three
generations of her familys men, a task she ab- Tolerance
horred. In 1907, Toklas left San Francisco for good, The willingness to allow a person, group, idea, or
traveling to Paris with a friend who introduced her ideology to exist without interference, despite ones
to Gertrude Stein (18741946). disliking or disapproving of the thing in question.
Toklas spent her years as a tireless promoter of Tolerance has long been a goal of lesbian, gay, and
Steins work, typing manuscripts, correcting gram- bisexual activists and those who advocate on their

770 THOMAS, M.CAREY

behalf. In comparison with the discrimination that withdrawal of tolerance that explains the assault
lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals have suffered, upon lesbian and gay rights that occurred in the
being tolerated has seemed an appealing possibil- United Kingdom in the late 1980s. The somewhat
ity. Yet tolerance has proved a goal that is both arbitrary nature of the protection offered by toler-
elusive and insufficient. ance is available only so long as lesbians, gay men,
Pleas for tolerance toward lesbians were first and bisexuals are perceived as not threatening het-
voiced by sexologists in the late nineteenth and early erosexual dominancethat is, only so long as they
twentieth centuries. However, even as they argued continue to be oppressed. Jodee M.McCaw
for tolerance, they depicted lesbian sexuality as a
neurological malfunction, caused by a genetic flaw. Bibliography
Lesbians, unless they abstained from sex, were per- Black, Allida M. Perverting the Diagnosis: The
verse and uncontrollable. This portrait, not surpris- Lesbian and the Scientific Basis of Stigma.
ingly, undercut the sexologists pleas for tolerance, Historical Reflections 20 (1994), 201216.
so that the public became increasingly aware of the Robson, Ruthann. Lesbian (Out)law: Survival
pathology of intimate relationships between women Under the Rule of Law. Ithaca, N.Y.: Firebrand,
and increasingly intolerant of these relationships. 1992.
For many years afterward, social scientists followed Wilson, Angelia R. Which Equality? Toleration,
the sexologists in simultaneously pathologizing les- Difference, or Respect. In Activating Theory:
bians and pleading for tolerance of them. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Politics. Ed. Joseph
The appeal of the concept of tolerance has led Bristow and Angelia R.Wilson. London: Law-
also to an assimilationist strategy on the part of rence and Wishart, 1993, pp. 171189.
many lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals, who argue
that the best political strategy is to demonstrate See also Discrimination; Heterosexism; Homopho-
how much we are like them (heterosexuals). bia; Liberalism; Prejudice
Mini-mizing the difference between the two groups
is seen as maximizing the likelihood of increasing
heterosexuals tolerance of those who are not het- Tomboy
erosexual. Proponents of this strategy see a slowly A girl who behaves in ways considered socially ap-
increasing level of tolerance of lesbians, gay men, propriate for boys. These may include being ath-
and bisexuals in, for example, the visibility of letic or active, preferring boys clothing or hob-
nonheterosexuals in the media and the appearance bies, or taking off on adventures. In fact, a
of sexual-orientation issues in mainstream politics. tomboyade is a word coined in 1886 to indicate
Perhaps more important, many report thinking that an escapade or adventure taken by girls. Ladylike
heterosexuals with whom they interact personally could be considered the opposite of tomboyish.
are becoming more tolerant. Since its appearance in print in 1592, accord-
One major problem with tolerance is that groups ing to the Oxford English Dictionary, tomboy
are tolerated within certain limits defined by those has been connected with connotations of rudeness
who are doing the tolerating. If a group member and impropriety: a wild, romping girl; a girle
ventures beyond these limits, tolerance no longer or wench who leaps up and down like a boy; a
applies. Thus, many heterosexuals argue that they ramping, frolicsome, rude girl. The word also has
tolerate lesbians and gay men so long as they are a history of sexual, even lesbian, connotations.
not flaunting their sexuality, which may consist When applied to a woman, one obsolete meaning
of as little as holding the hand of ones lover in of tomboy defines her as bold, wanton, or im-
public. The absurdity of this is highlighted by the modest. In 1888, Mrs. Humphrey Ward wrote: As
button that reverses the situation to proclaim: I a rough tomboy of fourteen, she had shown
dont mind straights so long as they act gay in pub- Catherinea good many uncouth signs of affec-
lic. To be required to make ones lesbianism all tion (in Yamaguchi and Barber 1995).
but invisible is a high price to pay for tolerance. The connection between tomboyism and lesbi-
Moreover, the very definition of tolerance in- anism continued, in a more positive way, as a fre-
volves a more powerful group that continues to dis- quent theme in twentieth-century lesbian literature
approve and that can remove its limited protection and nonfiction coming out stories. A number of les-
at any time. Wilson (1993) argues that it was the bian novels, including Radclyffe Halls The Well of

TOMBOY 771
 this connection to the fact that both tomboys and
T lesbians are transgressing societys gender
barriersnot doing what normal women do.
Barber and Yamaguchi found that
commonalities in tomboy experience seemed to cut
across ethnic and cultural backgrounds to a sur-
prising degree. Contibutor Sharon Lim-Hing de-
scribes playing cowboys with a neighborhood boy
in Jamaica; editor Yamaguchi, who grew up in Ja-
pan, Guam, and the United States, talks about her
tomboy days catching lizards, playing army, and
climbing trees. Although there are undoubtedly
cultural differences, they speculate that the strik-
ing similarities among expressions of tomboyism
have to do with the fact that prescriptions for gen-
der roles cut so broadly across cultural lines.
For many of the contributors to Tomboys!, what
links their self-identifications as tomboys and lesbi-
ans is that both position them outside cultural and
gender boundaries. As Yamamguchi and Barber put
it: As tomboys we were other then; as lesbians,
we are other now. Though we were defined as tom-
boys by what we did, for many of us what we did
Diane F.Germain as tomboy, ca. early 1950s. Courtesy turned out to be who we were and what we be-
of Diane F.Germain. came, the behavior an expression of identity.
Jayne Relaford Brown

Loneliness (1928) and Rita Mae Browns Ruby Bibliography

fruit Jungle (1973), emphasize their heroines re- Grahn, Judy. Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words,
belliousness and boyish exploits as signs of their Gay Worlds. Boston: Beacon, 1984.
early separation from straight society. While Halls Yamaguchi, Lynne, and Karen Barber, eds. Tom-
1928 novel shows her character Stephen Gordons boys! Tales of Dyke Derring-Do. Los Angeles:
tomboyism as an early sign of congenital lesbian- Alyson, 1995.
ism, Browns post-Stonewall (1969) novel presents
Molly Bolts tomboyism as a sign of her confident See also Brown, Rita Mae; Grahn, Judy; Hall,
rebellion against traditional social mores. In An- Radclyffe
other Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay Worlds
(1984), Judy Grahn characterizes being a tomboy
as taking a dykes-eye view of myself as tough Tourism and Guidebooks
and hardy, smart, muscular, and athletic. In 1995, Lesbian tourism is a specific market segment of the
Alyson Press published Tomboys! Tales of Dyke tourism industry. It overlaps with the gay male
Derring-Do, an entire anthology of poems, stories, portion of the industry but has grown from a word-
and essays by lesbians about being tomboys. of-mouth, primarily bar culture to include guest
Lynne Yamaguchi and Karen Barber, editors of houses and cruise and tour companies catering
Tomboys!, identify a strong connection for their specifically to the lesbian traveler. Guidebooks were
contributors between their tomboy and lesbian one of the earliest and most significant offshoots
identities. The prevailing social prescription is that of the rise of lesbian tourism.
girls should grow out of being a tomboy. How-
ever, Yamaguchi and Barber argue that Guidebooks
tomboyhood is much more than a phase for many In the 1960s and before, lesbian travelers in search
lesbians; rather, it seems to remain part of the of gay culture relied on recommendations from
foundation of who we are as adults. They attribute friends, knowledgeable taxi drivers, or careful

772 TOMBOY
conversations with people who looked like they tising income to sustain their products. Publica-
might be gay. Even in gay meccas like New York tions with travel advertisers follow a code of neu-
City and San Francisco, California, much of the trality when providing vendor information or fo-
community was invisible. The only resource avail- cus only on the positive aspects of travel suppliers.
able was Damrons Address Book, a thirty-page Debate continues about the credibility of this un-
guide that listed mens bars, bathhouses, and cruise critical approach, which is one way that traditional
areas, with a few bar or bookstore listings for gay guides differ from the more widely distributed
women. Lesbians who traveled outside the coun- and better-funded mainstream travel books. De-
try had no resources at all. fenders of gay travel guides that use advertisers
The first women-only guidebook was Gaias argue that their neutral policy is actually more re-
Guide, which began to appear on a yearly basis in liable than mainstream rating systems, which, they
the early 1970s. The last editionits fourteenth- argue, are not objective and reflect only one au-
appeared in 1989. Gaias Guide listed itself as the thors personal preferences and biases.
international guide for traveling women and, by
1989, covered the United States, Canada, Europe, The Tourism Industry
Israel, Australia, and New Zealand. In 1979,
By the 1980s, the tourism industry had begun to
Marianne Ferrari created Ferrari for Women, which
offer more extensive gay-oriented travel experiences.
listed bars, restaurants, bookstores, organizations,
Several mens tour companies and gay and lesbian
and other networking information. In 1988, it ex-
bed and breakfasts now existed. In 1983, twenty-
panded to cover international destinations.
six travel professionals met to form the International
The Womens Traveler, the only other womens
Gay Travel Association (IGTA). The association
guidebook in the domestic market in the 1990s,
promoted lesbian and gay travel and included pri-
was first published in 1989 by Damron Publishing
marily travel agents and members of the guest house
Company. Damron used a different staff for its new
community. IGTA soon began to include tour op-
book and did not include the name Damron on
the cover because of its long association with the erators and wholesale suppliers, and, by the mid-
mens community. 1990s, it had more than one thousand members.
Fodors became the first mainstream publishing The first major lesbian tour operator was Olivia
company to address the gay and lesbian community Cruises and Resorts. Judy Dlugacz had established
with its 1996 release of Gay Guide to the USA. In Olivia Records in 1973; using the companys ex-
1997, it released five regional editions and in 1998, a tensive mailing list, Olivia chartered its first inau-
gay guide to Amsterdam. HarperCollins also released gural cruise, from Miami to the Bahamas, in 1990.
its own guidebook under the Access imprint. Mean- By 1998, it was offering five to seven international
while, Ferrari and Damron have created expanded cruises and resort-oriented vacations every year.
guidebooks and travel planners that focus on lodg- More than one hundred companies were ad-
ing, tour operators, and metropolitan cities. vertising woman-only tours by the end of the twen-
The gay press has also entered the travel indus- tieth century. These packages vary from essentially
try. Our World and Out & About are consumer straight tours that include only women, to
travel publications covering international pleasure woman-focused tours that specifically address
travel for gays and lesbians. National lesbian maga- lesbian culture. Packages for lesbians often focus
zines like Curve (formerly Deneuve) and Girlfriends on soft adventure, like hiking and backpacking,
also feature travel departments. Unlike travel sec- canoeing and kayaking, and active ranch, safari,
tions in mainstream magazines, they move beyond or wilderness experiences. Honeymoon packages
standard tourist attractions to include information were also on the rise, partly due to the prominence
on local gay and lesbian politics, customs, and of same-sex marriage in the national political de-
unusual destinations with high concentrations of bate. Womens travel is also often related to politi-
lesbians. Finally, by 1998, the World Wide Web cal, musical, and sporting events.
had become an important source of travel infor- IGTA travel agents were writing more than $1
mation, both domestic and international. billion annually in travel business in the late 1990s.
Because of limited distribution and the difficulty The electronic revolution contributed to the indus-
of building a strong gay-identified subscriber and trys growth in that decade, making it easier to
mail-order base, all traditional gay travel books communicate and plan travel in even the most re-
and magazines except Out & About rely on adver- mote parts of the world. Member agents can

TOURISM AND GUIDEBOOKS 773

 arrange trips to exotic destinations using exclusively address both men and women jointly, with limited
T gay-owned and gay-friendly businesses.
IGTA expects gay and lesbian tourism to con-
specialization. It will be interesting to see whether
any kind of a specialized bisexual or transgendered
tinue growing in the twenty-first century. The mar- market develops in the next wave of gay tourism.
ket spends an estimated $17 billion a year on travel, [Primary source material for this entry came
and gay tourists are widely thought to be more af- from John DAlessandro, Judy Dlugacz, Marianne
fluent than mainstream travelers. While there is Ferrari, Heather Findlay, Gina Gatta, and Billy
controversy about whether economic statistics ac- Kolber.] Christina Allan
curately reflect the broader lesbian and gay com-
munity, any double-income household without Bibliography
children is generally believed to allow more discre- Ebensten, Hann. Volleyball with the Cuna Indians
tionary income for travel. and Other Gay Travel Adventures. New York:
Gay-friendly companies are one of the newest Penguin, 1987.
trends in the industry. In 1995, Virgin Atlantic Air- Feifer, Maxine. Tourism in History, from Imperial
ways became the first airline to offer gay and les- Rome to the Present. New York: Stein and Day,
bian deals. Despite the fear of reprisal from the Re- 1985.
ligious Right, other major airlines and established Gee, Chuck Y. The Travel Industry. Westport,
travel agencies are also offering gay tour packages. Conn.: AVI, 1984.
With approximately 95 percent of gay travel dol-
lars going to mainstream wholesalers who own car See also Olivia; Recreation
rental companies, hotels, and cruise ships, gay in-
dustry professionals welcome their interest in the
gay and lesbian community. Because existing gay Transgender
and lesbian companies already have marketing and Community-generated term coined in the early
sales networks in place, mainstream suppliers often 1970s by Virginia Prince. Transgender (TG) is a
partner with them, rather than compete directly. In concept referring to someone who lives as a woman
turn, gay and lesbian consumers benefit from the or a man but who neither desires nor has sex-reas-
pricing discounts that large agencies can offer. signment surgery. An individual who defines him-
Growth areas for lesbian tourism include tours self or herself in this way is referred to as a
with children, more mixed gay and lesbian tours, transgenderist or transgendered person. As with
and the development of the buycott mentality. all terms, the trans-community expanded the defi-
This means that consumers actively support com- nition of transgender, so that, in the 1990s, it was
panies that have adopted policies against discrimi- used as an inclusive term for anyone who trans-
nation because of sexual orientation, have altered gresses, or crosses, gender boundaries, but specifi-
policies to consider same-sex couples, or have been cally for transvestites, transsexuals, transgenderists,
the first in their industry to make such changes. As drag queens and drag kings, gender-benders, gen-
lesbian professional associations continue to form der-blenders, she-males and he-shes, androgynes,
and mature, meeting and convention travel is also and intersexed people. The commonality among
increasing. Associations are demographic groups these categories of people is that all of them, to
that are easily definable and are considered a new one degree or another, challenge the binary of sex
marketing opportunity. and/or gender. Some transsexuals object to the la-
bel of transgender and advocate against the use
Conclusion of it as an inclusive term. Nonetheless, many indi-
As the gay and lesbian travel boom approaches the viduals do use the term. Transgender is not used
close of the century, lesbians have established them- in medical-psychological discourses and, as such,
selves as a unique demographic market. Industry is not recognized as a diagnostic category.
professionals believe that lesbians travel needs and
financial spending patterns often differ significantly Definition of Terms
from those of gay men. However, just as the gay By clinical definition, a transvestite (TV) is a male
and lesbian community became more unified, due who dresses as a woman and obtains erotic arousal
primarily to the joint response to the AIDS crisis, while cross-dressed. Within this definition, such
the future of gay travel and tourism will probably behavior is considered extremely rare in females.

774 TOURISM AND GUIDEBOOKS

However, female transvestites do exist and can be communities have advocated that transpeople re-
distinguished from women who wear so-called mens turn to the closet and deny their past histories,
clothing by their efforts to pass as men. Just as arguing that it is necessary for a successful transi-
the clinical definition excludes females, so it excludes tion to melt into the woodwork and pass as
males who cross-dress for other reasons. More normal women or men.
broadly defined, a transvestite is a person, regard- The challenge to the medical and psychological
less of sex or gender, who cross-dresses and takes communities has arisen as a consequence of trans-
on the behaviors, socially constructed as the proper community networking, in which the results of
domain, of the other biological sex. Many transves- inadequate, and sometimes damaging, surgeries, as
tites prefer the term cross-dresser (CD) because it well as the sometimes harmful effects of hormones,
more accurately describes their behavior and re- are discussed. For some transpeople, passing as
moves it from its sexual connotations. normal is impossible or nearly so, and, depend-
By clinical definition, a transsexual (TS) is a per- ing on when a person decides to transition, it may
son who has an extreme discomfort with his or her be impossible to deny a lengthy past life without
assigned sex and desires and/or pursues sex-reas- suffering severe consequences, such as lost employ-
signment surgery. It is commonly understood that ment and loss of family. Some transpeople have
the transsexuals goal is to have sex-reassignment come to realize that, even if they can pass as
surgery and to ultimately live as a normal woman normal, they are different (if only because of their
or man. Transsexual is used in two ways: to de- histories) from men and women who have always
scribe a man who is in the process of becoming a had a gender identity that was congruent with their
woman, or vice versa; and, to describe someone who assigned sex. So long as transpeople were isolated
has completed sex-reassignment surgery. Many post- from one another, these discussions could not take
operative transsexuals no longer consider themselves place. Like other minorities, transpeople felt the
transsexual and reject the term as a descriptor, pre- need to discuss these issues and others, and net-
ferring the term woman or man. Those indi- works such as support groups, trans-conferences,
viduals who retain their transsexual identity refer and Internet lists developed.
to themselves as transsexuals or as transgendered, Trans-activism has arisen also because of the
as well as MTF (male-to-female), transwoman, FTM deaths of several transpeople in the 1990s. The
(female-to-male or female toward male and/or mas- murders of Brandon Teena (1994), Tyra Hunter
culine), and transman. (1995), and Chanelle Pickett (1995) outraged many
transpeople, and vigils, demonstrations, and
Trans-Activism leafleting were conducted during the perpetrators
The adaptation of old terminology and the devel- trials and sentencing hearings. In part, the success
opment of new terms is, in part, a direct result of of these activities led to the formation of direct-
trans-community formation and subsequent trans- action groups, such as Transgender Nation and
activism. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s, Transexual Menace. Along with these organiza-
trans-activism focused on civil rights issues, such tions, other groups, including ICTLEP (Interna-
as employment and housing discrimination, and tional Conference on Transgender Law and Em-
legal name changes. Another focus was on treat- ployment Policy) and TOPS (Transsexual Officers
ment issues, such as clinical requirements that in- Protect and Serve) have rallied, held vigils, pick-
sisted that transpeople have textbook biogra- eted, and protested in venues as disparate as GLBT
phies, that they live as their preferred gender with- (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) and main-
out hormonal therapy, and that they completely stream newspapers, the Michigan Womyns Music
change their lives by moving to a new area where Festival, courts of law, police and fire departments,
no one knew of their past. The late 1990s saw a and psychology-society meetings, and have held
shift toward activism that challenged the medical transgender lobby days at the United States Senate
and psychological communities psychopathologi- and House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.
cal model of transsexualism. Many transpeople Many transpeople have supported the work of
object to being labeled as mentally ill and the re- these action groups. However, as with any commu-
quirement that they submit to surgeries that are nity activism, there is always controversy. For ex-
supposed to cure them of gender dysphoria. ample, at the 1997 American Psychiatric Associa-
Most members of the medical and psychological tion (APA) meetings, a group of protesters picketed

TRANSGENDER 775
 for the elimination of the diagnostic category of gen- lesbian and gay communities all along. Some
T der identity disorder (GID). Many transpeople be-
lieve this diagnosis stigmatizes them with a patho-
transpeople identify as gay or lesbian prior to, as
well as after, transitioning, regardless of the degree
logical mental disorder and want it removed from of their transition. Many transwomen who identi-
the APAs Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). fied as heterosexual while living as men continue
Those who object to the elimination of GID as a to be attracted to women and identify as lesbians.
diagnostic category fear that not having a disor- Likewise, some transmen who identified as hetero-
der will result in the loss of available services, es- sexual while living as women continue to be at-
pecially reassignment surgeries. Those who are in tracted to men and identify as gay men. Many
favor of removing GID also note that it is often used transmen, based on their attraction to women, tried
for corrective treatment of children and adoles- to fit in as lesbians, specifically as butch dykes or
cents who are gender variant, such as masculine- stone butches. Not all butches want to be, or iden-
behaving girls, feminine-behaving boys, and gay, tify as, men. However, some found that, although
lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered youth. they were able to express their masculine identities
within some lesbian communities, it was not
enough, and they sought or found the trans-label
Trans-Inclusion
that better expressed their identities as men. Natu-
Another reason for the increase in trans-activism
rally, some of these individuals leave lesbian com-
lies in the intersection between lesbian communi-
munities. However, many transpeople remain in
ties and trans-communities. The entry into lesbian
lesbian and gay communities and insist that they
communities by some transwomen who identify
belong to, and are a part of, these communities as
as lesbians has been met with mixed results. Some
queer people. Jason Cromwell
lesbians have accepted, while others have rejected,
transwomen. For example, during the 1991 Michi-
Bibliography
gan Womyns Music Festival a transwoman was
Bolin, Anne. Transcending and Transgendering:
asked whether she was a transsexual, and, when
Male-to-Female Transsexuals, Dichotomy and
she answered in the affirmative, she was promptly Diversity. In Third Sex, Third Gender: Be-
ejected from the festival. However, she did not re- yond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and His-
main silent. Along with many supporters, she or- tory. Ed. Gilbert Herdt. New York: Zone,
ganized, educated, and protested at subsequent fes- 1994, pp. 447485.
tivals under the banner of Camp Trans until festi- Bornstein, Kate. Gender Outlaw: On Men,
val organizers allowed entry to transwomen in Women, and the Rest of Us. New York:
1995. While the ejection of this transwoman Routledge, 1994.
brought the issue of trans-inclusion out into the Califia, Pat. Sex Changes: The Politics of Sex
open, it was just the tip of an iceberg. Changes. San Francisco: Cleis, 1997.
One individual who was active at Camp Trans Feinberg, Leslie. Transgender Warriors: Making
and who has tried to create a bridge between les- History from Joan of Arc to RuPaul. Boston:
bian Communities and trans-communities is activ- Beacon, 1996.
ist Leslie Feinberg (1949). In the early 1980s, she Stoller, Robert. Transvestism in Women. Ar-
wrote and published a chapbook outlining the chives of Sexual Behavior 11 (1982), 99115.
oppression of transpeople throughout history. In
1996, she extended this historical tract into a book, See also Butch-Femme; Cross-Dressing; Music Fes-
which was published by Beacon Press. In part, tivals; Passing Women; Queer Theory
Feinbergs activism arose from her history as a per-
son who lived as a passing woman and from her
personal identity as a transperson and as a lesbian. Tribade
While Feinberg has been warmly received by les- A term designating a woman who engages in erotic
bian communities, her presence is often met with acts with other women or, more generally, tribad-
consternation by some transmen, who argue that ism, designating the erotic practices of genital rub-
she muddies the issues concerning the differences bing or penetration. Tribade made its way into
between lesbians and transmen. English via the French tribad, which, in turn, was de-
Transpeople, whether they have identified as rived through the Latin from the Greek tribas
transwomen or as transmen, have been a part of (to rub). Other variants of this term are the Latin

776 TRANSGENDER
fricatrix and the English fricatrice, confricatrice, rises, and anatomists and doctors argued for a more
and rubster. The English term is first recorded in precise distinction between clitoral hypertrophy
Ben Jonsons (15721637) poem Praeludium and hermaphroditism. In part because of this dis-
(Poem X in The Forest [1601]) in reference to the tinction, tribadism came to designate primarily an
purported activities of Venus and her Graces. In the erotic practice (genital rubbing) rather than an
documented sources, tribade is never used as a erotic type or bodily morphologyalthough the
self-description; it is a term of opprobrium or, in notion of somatic deformity reappeared in some
the case of pornography, titillation. late-nineteenth-century concepts of the invert.
Historically, the concept of tribadism has been Despite anatomical skepticism, tribadism
mediated through beliefs about the erotic poten- continued to be used as a term in criminology and
tial of the clitoris. The ancient Greeks viewed the forensic medicine; a Netherlands judge used the
tribade as a hypermasculine woman who pen- term in his private annotations on a case in the late
etrated either women or men with her enlarged eighteenth century, and Jane Pine (ca. 1784) and
clitoris or a dildo; later Roman authors tended to Marianne Woods (ca. 1779) defended themselves
project this illicit behavior back onto the Greeks. against the imputation of tribadism in a Scottish
It was not until late antiquity that the tribade was libel case in 1811. (More often, such women were
associated exclusively with same-gender eroticism. prosecuted for sodomy, transvestism, or fraud.) The
Classical definitions and attitudes, however, were term had a considerable life in eighteenth- and nine-
only partly accessible in Europe until the sixteenth teenth-century pornography (particularly of the
century, when newly rediscovered classical texts satiric kind) and was employed in several porno-
were translated. Through the proliferation of clas- graphic libels against Marie Antoinette (1755
sical literature, anatomies, midwiferies, sexual-ad- 1793). By the Victorian era, tribadism tended to
vice manuals, and pornography, the concept of trib- be constructed as a lower-class and non-Western
adism gained wider currency. phenomenon and often was associated with the
Sixteenth-century Western authors attributed supposed degeneration of prostitutes and criminals.
tribadism largely to non-Christian women resid- By the close of the nineteenth century, tribade
ing in Turkey and Africa. By the mid-seventeenth had been supplanted by the terms sapphist, les-
century, in response to the promulgation of sensa- bian, invert, and homosexual. With the
tionalistic accounts, an increasing number of West- movement away from physiological explanations
ern writers expressed anxiety about the existence toward notions of psychosexual causality, the spe-
of tribades in their own countries. Prosecutions in- cific bodily basis of the concept of the tribade be-
creased, which led to further use of the term. These came an archaism.
events gave rise to a proto-erotic identity for the As a specific erotic technique, however, tribad-
tribade, who was believed to be different from other ism survives in contemporary lesbian culture, re-
women in both her desires and her bodily anatomy. ferring to the rhythmic rubbing of one partners
She often was believed to possess an enlarged clito- clitoris with the others thigh, hip, pubic bone,
ris, which she rubbed against her partner or used buttocks, or genitals. Its equivalent slang term is
as an instrument of penetration; lacking this ana- dyking. Valerie Traub
tomical deviation, she sometimes was thought to
use a dildo. Bibliography
From the seventeenth through the eighteenth Brooten, Bernadette J. Love Between Women: Early
centuries, tribade was used inconsistently along- Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism.
side hermaphrodite, female husband, virago, and, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
late in the period, tommy and sapphist to connote Donoghue, Emma. Passions Between Women: Brit-
a masculinized woman who desired or commit- ish Lesbian Culture, 16681801. New York:
ted sexual acts with other women. More often, HarperCollins, 1993.
however, writers avoided the term, instead euphe- Halberstam, Judith. Female Masculinity. Durham,
mistically invoking unnatural vice, lewd N.C.: Duke University Press, 1998.
behavior, crimes against nature, using an in- Park, Katharine. The Rediscovery of the Clitoris:
strument, and taking the part of a man. By the French Medicine and the Tribade, 15701620.
mid-eighteenth century, anatomical investigation In The Body in Parts: Discourses and Anato-
led to skepticism about stories of enlarged clito- mies in Early Modern Europe. Ed. Carla Mazzio

TRIBADE 777
 and David Hillman. London and New York: where Tsvetaeva lived for the next fourteen years. In
T Routledge, 1997.
Traub, Valerie. The Psychomorphology of the
the early 1930s, she was introduced to Natalie Barney
(18761972) and gave a poetry reading at Barneys
Clitoris. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay rue Jacob salon, but neither she nor her work was
Studies 2 (Winter 1995), 81113. given an enthusiastic reception. Tsvetaeva wrote (in
French) her Lettre lAmazone (Letter to an Ama-
See also Clitoris; Marie Antoinette; Pirie, Jane, and zon [1932, rev. 1934]), a highly encoded, autobio-
Woods, Marianne; Sex Practices; Sexology graphical, and polemical work on lesbian love with
two addressees: Barney and Tsvetaevas former lover,
Parnok. Lettre lAmazone also gives expression to
Tsvetaeva, Marina Ivanovna (18921941) Tsvetaevas struggle with her own lesbianism: She
Widely considered one of the four greatest twenti- defends lesbian relationships against the censure of
eth-century Russian poets, Marina Tsvetaeva was society, religion, and the state, while her internalized
born into a distinguished Moscow intelligentsia homophobia leads her to strike out at such relation-
family. Her father was an art professor, and her ships as an offense to nature and Mother.
mother a gifted pianist of Polish descent. Tsvetaeva During the 1930s, Tsvetaeva was increasingly
began writing poetry at the age of six; her first isolated and criticized by the Russian migr com-
volume of poems, Vechernii albom (Evening Al- munity, in large part because of her husbands
bum), was published in 1910. proSoviet political activities. At the end of the dec-
Tsvetaeva revealed an attraction to her own sex ade, she returned to Soviet Russia, where tragedy
from childhood and tells the story of her first love awaited her. First, her daughter was arrested in Au-
for another girl in her prose work The House at gust 1939 and sent to a concentration camp; then
Old Pimen (1934). Despite her lesbian inclina- her husband was arrested and executed as an en-
tions, or perhaps in an effort to neutralize the anxi- emy of the people. Despite her desperate situation,
ety they clearly caused her, Tsvetaeva married young Tsvetaeva became involved (in 1940) with Tatyana
and immediately had a daughter. Then, in late 1914, Kvanina (1908), the wife of a minor writer. Part of
she met and fell in love with the openly lesbian their intimate correspondence has appeared in a
poet Sophia Parnok (18851933). This brief, but Russian journal. At the beginning of World War II,
passionate, affair inspired Tsvetaevas cycle Tsvetaeva and her teenage son were evacuated to
Podruga (Girlfriend [19141915]), a masterpiece Yelabuga, in the Tatar Autonomous Republic. On
of lesbian love poetry that was published only in August 31, 1941, she hanged herself from a beam
the 1970s and, as of 1998, had not been trans- in the ceiling of her quarters; she was buried in an
lated into English in its entirety. Tsvetaeva was trau- unmarked grave in the Yelabuga cemetery.
matized by the end of her relationship with Parnok Since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early
in early 1916, calling it the first catastrophe of 1990s, interest in Tsvetaeva has burgeoned; her
her life. She nurtured vengeful feelings about voluminous output of lyrics, long poems, prose
Parnok for the rest of her life and constantly re- works, literary criticism, and letters has been pub-
wrote their love affair in her major lesbian works. lished in Russian; and several biographies of her
Tsvetaeva spent the 1917 Revolution and ensu- have appeared. However, despite the poets self-
ing civil war in Moscow while her husband served as acknowledged love for women, the lesbian theme
an officer in the white army. From 1918 to 1920, she that runs throughout her poetry, prose, letters, and
worked with an avant-garde Moscow theater, the journals continues to be ignored, or mentioned
Third Stage, and became involved with Sonya merely in passing, by most Western biographers
Gollidey (18941934), one of the actresses. Much and literary scholars. Most Russian Tsvetaeva
later, in 1936, she wrote about this love affair in scholars try to deny entirely the poets lesbianism
Povesto Sonechke (The Tale of Sonechka), which, and its significance in her work. Diana L.Burgin
by the late 1990s, had not been translated into Eng-
lish. Just after the publication of her most famous Bibliography
collection of poems, Versty (Mileposts [1922]) Burgin, Diana Lewis. Mother Nature versus the
Tsvetaeva left the Soviet Union and was reunited with Amazons: Marina Tsvetaeva and Female Same-
her husband in Prague. In early 1925, their son was Sex Love. Journal of the History of Sexuality
born, and, later that year, the family moved to Paris, 6:1 (July 1995), 6288.

778 TRIBADE
Feiler, Lily. Marina Tsvetaeva: The Double Beat of male and male (gender-mixing), or is of an entirely
Heaven and Hell. Durham, N.C.: Duke Univer- separate gender. Williams (1986) points out that the
sity Press, 1994. Mojave, for instance, have four distinct genders:
Karlinsky, Simon. Marina Tsvetaeva: The Woman, female, male, hwame (female two-spirit), and alyha
Her World, and Her Poetry. Cambridge: Cam- (male two-spirit). Different interpretations of gen-
bridge University Press, 1985. der roles are due, at least in part, to variations from
Taubman, Jane. A Life Through Poetry: Marina tribe to tribe. Similarly, the fluid nature of Native
Tsvetaevas Lyric Diary. Columbus: Slavica, American gender and sexual roles makes the use of
1989. the categories homosexual and heterosexual
problematic as well. Because many American Indian
See also Barney, Natalie Clifford; Parnok, Sophia; cultures have traditionally been more open and flex-
Russia ible in their attitudes toward sexuality, it is not nec-
essarily the case that one will be exclusively homo-
sexual or heterosexual throughout ones life.
Two-Spirit The term two-spirit reflects more of an indig-
enous understanding of American Indian genders
A term used in the late twentieth century by Native
and sexualities. It has arisen, in part, because of the
Americans who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or
inaccurate and inappropriate conceptions employed
transgendered (cross-dressers, transvestites, and
by Euro-Americans in describing twospirited peo-
transsexuals) to define and identify themselves. It
ple. In particular, anthropologists have regularly used
suggests that one possesses a female and a male spirit.
the word berdache to refer to American Indian
Strictly speaking, being a lesbian, gay, bisexual,
two-spirits, especially those who are anatomically
or transgendered person in the Western sense is not
male but engage in traditionally female gender roles.
necessarily synonymous with being a two-spirit.
The term berdache stems from the Persian bardaj,
Twentieth-century non-Native conceptions of ho-
which later developed into bardasso (Italian),
mosexuality, bisexuality, and transgenderism do not bardaxa or bardaje (Spanish), and bardache (French)
convey the traditional meanings or roles of twospirits (Williams 1986). Regardless of the language, the
within Native American societies and communities. meaning of the term, boy kept for unnatural pur-
In particular, for two-spirits ones identity is often poses (the passive homosexual partner, especially
based on spiritual and communal orientations, not in anal intercourse), reflects EuroAmerican condem-
sexual or affectional ones. Some American Indians, nation of homosexuality. Because of the male refer-
for instance, become two-spirited after experienc- ent implicit in berdache, the designation female
ing one or more visions. Two-spirits have tradition- berdache, used occasionally in the literature, only
ally held particular social and ritual roles in many compounds the inaccuracies. In its place, Williams
Native cultures as well. Some are asked to partici- employs the term Amazon, in light of the
pate in naming a child, for example, while others Tupinamba Amazons, the female warriors of an in-
have been in charge of burying the dead. It is impor- digenous Brazilian people.
tant to note, however, that not all two-spirits are The term two-spirit eliminates many of these
spiritual adepts or ritual leaders or are considered conceptual difficulties, but it is not without its own
to be so by their communities. problems. Although the word two-spirit is a crea-
Neither does two-spirited experience fit neatly tion of the community that it defines and describes,
into contemporary mainstream Western not all American Indian lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
understandings of gender and sexuality in general. transgendered people use the designation. Addi-
In Native American societies generally, ones physi- tionally, as a generic term, it obscures the fact that
ological sex does not determine ones gender role. each Native nation has its own understandings of
For instance, while a two-spirited woman may be two-spirited people, which are not necessarily the
female biologically, in every aspect of her life she same as those of any other nation. These concep-
lives as a man, behaving according to the male gen- tions are linked to particular terms used to desig-
der role appropriate to her nation. It is also not nec- nate two-spirits, words that are specific to each
essarily the case that a female two-spirit becomes a indigenous language. The meanings embedded in
man. Scholarly interpretations vary as to whether, these terms are not completely conveyed by the
to be a two-spirit, one changes from one gender role English two-spirit either. For this and other
to another (such as female to male), or is both fe- reasons, it is preferable to use the indigenous words

TWO-SPIRIT 779
 to discuss two-spirits of particular Native nations, Bibliography
T rather than the generic two-spirit.
Because two-spirit is not particular to any
Blackwood, Evelyn. Sexuality and Gender in Cer-
tain Native American Tribes: The Case of
one nation, though, its use appears to have served Cross-Gender Females. Signs: Journal of
as a unifying force, enabling two-spirits of many Women in Culture and Society 10:1 (Autumn
nations to find common ground and make com- 1984), 2742.
mon cause. In contrast to the derogatory connota- Brown, Lester B., ed. Two Spirit People: American
tions of berdache, two-spirit is generally em- Indian Lesbian Women and Gay Men. New
ployed in a positive way, especially by two-spirited York: Haworth, 1997.
people themselves. This use of the term reflects, in Jacobs, Sue-Ellen, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine
part, the positive regard many Native American Lang, eds. Two-Spirit People: Native Ameri-
peoples historically have had for two-spirits. This can Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spiritu-
respect could be a response to the particular roles ality. Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
two-spirits play in a community, though it could 1997.
also reflect recognition of the power potentially Jaimes, M.Annette, and Theresa Halsey. Ameri-
present in the two-spirits status as a liminal being,
can Indian Women: At the Center of Indigenous
one who intermediates between genders.
Resistance in North America. In The State of
Jaimes and Halsey (1992) found that some les-
Native America: Genocide, Colonization, and
bian and gay activists have romanticized two-spir-
Resistance. Ed. M.Annette Jaimes. Boston:
its and Native community acceptance of them, in-
South End, 1992, pp. 311344.
venting and appropriating an image of two-spirits
Roscoe, Will. Changing Ones: Third and Fourth
to be used for legitimating homosexuality in West-
Genders in Native North America. New York:
ern societies. Not all Native nations have tradition-
St. Martins, 1998.
ally valued twospirits. In some cases, a live and let
Tafoya, Terry. Native Gay and Lesbian Issues: The
live philosophy has been more common, although
outright homophobia is not unheard of. It is not Two-Spirited. In Positively Gay: New Ap-
always possible to determine, however, if negative proaches to Gay and Lesbian Life. Ed. Betty
attitudes toward twospirits are traditional in a com- Berzon. Berkeley: Celestial Arts, 1992, pp. 253
munity or are the result of the adoption of Euro- 259.
American attitudes toward homosexuality due to Williams, Walter L. The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual
Christianization and colonization. Contemporary Diversity in American Indian Culture. Boston:
Native attitudes toward two-spirits are therefore Beacon, 1986.
varied, ranging from respect to toleration to rejec-
tion, and including all points in between. See also Amazons; Gender; Native Americans; Spir-
Mary C.Churchill ituality; Transgender

780 TWO-SPIRIT
U
United Kingdom and conventions, for such rights as the right to
Political union of Great Britain (England, Wales, marry. Many lesbians do not support the rights
and Scotland) and Northern Ireland. England and movement, however, preferring to maintain a femi-
Wales fall under one legal jurisdiction, Northern nist critique of the institution of marriage and to
Ireland another, and Scotland a quite distinct third. continue to attack patriarchal value systems rather
than seek to be included within them.
The Legal Context In 1988, the Conservative Party passed the Lo-
Lesbianism has never been illegal in any U.K. ju- cal Government Act, Section 28, which prohibits
risdiction. Under English law, the common-law the promotion of homosexuality in certain
offense of sodomy has not been applied to women, statefunded venues such as schools. The campaigns
and, while homosexual acts between consenting against Section 28 mobilized a coalition of lesbi-
male adults in private were criminalized between ans, gay men, and straight supporters of unprec-
1885 and 1967, the only attempt to bring lesbian edented size and strength, marching and demon-
acts within the same statutory regime failed in 1921. strating against it. Section 28 has never been tested
Members of Parliament argued that the practice in the courts, and legal commentators claim it is
would be better controlled by maintaining silence unworkable in practice, but it has had the effect of
than by admitting the possibility of its existence. making it acceptable for homophobic people to
There is no age of consent to lesbian sex, in con- discriminate against lesbians and gay men and gay
trast to heterosexual sex (sixteen) and male homo- events or enterprises.
sexual sex (eighteen).
Lesbians are not protected against discrimina- Lesbian History
tion in employment under the Sex Discrimination There are still many gaps in British lesbian history
Act of 1975, though most large organizations op- before the nineteenth century. There has been some
erate equal-opportunities policies that cover sexual work on the witch-hunts and witch-burnings of
orientation. Lesbian mothers have historically had early-modern England and on communities of nuns
difficulties in custody disputes, but recent court in pre-Reformation convents. Queen Anne (1665
decisions since 1990 suggest that lesbianism, which 1714) is an early lesbian icon, her relationship with
judges used to see as either perverted in itself or Sarah Churchill (16601744) being generally rec-
inevitably leading to social ostracism and embar- ognized as lesbian despite her marriage and seven-
rassment for the children, is no longer an insuper- teen pregnancies.
able barrier to custody. Research into lesbian history was given impe-
None of the jurisdictions within the United tus in the 1970s and 1980s as part of the second
Kingdom has a bill or charter of rights. The civil wave of feminisms search for roots. American
rights discourse that has been adopted by lesbians scholars such as Lillian Faderman and Martha
and gay men with some success in North America Vicinus, who traced the history of romantic friend-
began to be articulated only in 1990 applications ships and communities of women in Victorian Brit-
to the European Court of Justice, under its treaties ain and beyond, strongly influenced British research

UNITED KINGDOM 781

 in this field, including the Lesbian History Groups in London with a lifelong companion, Welsh artist
U collection Not a Passing Phase: Reclaiming Lesbi-
ans in History, 18401985 (1993). This remains
Mary Lloyd (d. between 1894 and 1898). Cobbe
had met Lloyd while visiting Charlotte Cushman
the classic British text on ways of doing lesbian (18161876) in Rome, on a tour that included call-
history and the problems of definitions, method- ing on Rosa Bonheur (18221899) in France, sug-
ology, and politics. The publication in 1988 of the gesting that lesbian networks existed in the mid-
first extracts from the diaries of Anne Lister (1791 nineteenth century. Cobbes critiques of marriage
1840), a Yorkshire gentlewoman, upset the earlier and her articles in praise of spinsterhood did not
assumption, derived from Fadermans work, that prevent her from taking up the cause of women vic-
women who desired other women would not have tims of domestic violence; her campaigning helped
expressed their desire sexually, and would not have bring about the passing of the Matrimonial Causes
had a lesbian identity, before the naming of les- Act of 1878, which enabled battered women to leave
bianism by sexologists at the end of the nineteenth violent husbands and obtain financial support.
century. Lister, who wrote of her sexual feelings Many lesbians continued to be associated with
and experiences in code, clearly saw herself as a feminism into the twentieth century. Cicely Hamil-
sexual outlaw. Emma Donaghues Passions Be- ton (18721952), according to biographer Lis
tween Women: British Lesbian Culture, 1668 Whitelaw, wrote suffrage plays and pageants that
1801 (1993) offered a second rebuttal to the age- were produced and performed by her lesbian friends;
of-innocence theory. Donaghue examines a range Ethel Smyth (18581944) composed the suffrage
of texts to demonstrate that images and words to anthem, Shoulder to Shoulder (to words by Hamil-
indicate lesbian desires and identities were freely ton); and, in the 1920s, equal rights feminism was
circulating in the late seventeenth and eighteenth promoted by Viscountess Rhondda (18831958),
centuries. While this provides valuable evidence of who set up the Six-Point Group and whose fortune
attitudes, it says little (as the author freely admits) financed the weekly paper Time and Tide as a vehi-
about womens actual experiences of love and sex. cle for progressive ideas. Winifred Holtby (1898
The reaction against Faderman in the 1990s led to 1935) was among those who wrote for it.
a greater focus on lesbianism as sexual radicalism, By the 1920s, lesbianism had been recognized
which, Vicinus argues, has had a limiting effect on in intellectual circles as a psychosexual problem.
historical research, since not only is it difficult to The successful prosecution of Radclyffe Halls
find evidence of lesbian sexual activity in the lives (18801943) novel The Well of Loneliness (1928)
of women of past generations, but sexual activity for obscenity in 1928 was the culmination of a
is not an essential element in the definition of les- development that had started much earlier:
bian in history. Clemence Danes novel Regiment of Women (1919)
Much more is known about the nineteenth cen- depicts the malevolent influence of a woman
tury. Victorian feminism provides several examples teacher who preys on young women, and there was
of lesbians among the well-to-do women who the attempt, described above, to criminalize lesbi-
chose to direct their energies toward other women. anism in 1921. By the 1930s, most lesbians had
Though few were in a position to share their lives gone underground. Attempts to research the lives
with a woman partner, since women were expected of this generation of women are made difficult by
to live with family members, even married women the absence of personal papers, destroyed by ei-
were permitted, even encouraged, to enjoy close re- ther the women themselves or their heirs, and the
lationships with other women under the ideology silence of their memoirs, where they exist, on mat-
of separate spheres for men and women. ters of sexuality and relationships. However, biog-
Faderman is probably right in suggesting that these raphies of some well-to-do figures like Vita
relationships were not, in this period, viewed as ei- Sackville-West (18921962) show that lesbian net-
ther sexual or threatening to patriarchal control works and relationships were certainly in existence
because of the assumption that women were sexu- in the interwar years, although there is little evi-
ally passive. On the other hand, this does not mean dence for the same among ordinary middle- and
that the relationships were not sexual or that the working-class women.
women had no consciousness of themselves as les- Oral histories undertaken during the second
bians. For example, Frances Power Cobbe (1822 wave of feminism, when lesbian feminists were
1904), a member of the Anglo-Irish gentry, settled seeking their heritage, pick up the story during World

782 UNITED KINGDOM

War II, when women were thrown into close asso- nist and lesbian enterprises, such as womens centers
ciation with other women, as in the days of the Vic- and gay and lesbian centers that hosted classes, clubs,
torian separate spheres. The decade of the 1950s associations to advise and assist lesbians (such as
was a morally repressive era in Britain, with much LESPOP, the Lesbian Policing Project), and librar-
emphasis on womens domestic role and the impor- ies and archives. In the cities at least, lesbians be-
tance of marriage and pleasing men. In the 1960s, came a public presence in this decade, and, while
however, the sexual and economic bonds that tied many women remained (and still remain) in the
women to husbands were loosened with the socalled closet, others came out and stayed out. The 1980s
sexual revolution, the increased participation of saw the first black lesbian groups (in the United
women in the paid workforce, and the rise in di- Kingdom, the term black encompasses people of
vorce (no-fault divorce was introduced in 1969). Asian as well as Afro-Caribbean origin) and the
In 1963, Esme Langley founded the Minorities opening of a black lesbian center in north London.
Research Group (MRG), an organization for lesbi- The 1990s proved, in the United Kingdom as
ans, which held monthly meetings in a central Lon- elsewhere, to be a period of backlash and reaction,
don pub. In 1964, the group produced Britains first with religious fundamentalism and family values
all-lesbian newsletter, Arena 3, with a countrywide conservatism permitting the confident assertion of
circulation. In 1965, Kenric was founded as a social heterosexist and lesbophobic sentiments. Paradoxi-
group for London lesbians, and it soon spread to cally, however, lesbian and gay rights gained a
the provinces; in the late 1990s, local Kenric asso- higher profile than ever before in British history,
ciations continued to flourish, and Sappho, which and young women coming out in Britain in the
grew out of the MRG, still existed as a London so- 1990s had an unequaled range of images, models,
cial and discussion group for lesbians. and access to information about lesbianism.
After the legalization of gay male sex in 1967, gay
men began to campaign against other aspects of gay Lesbian Literature
oppression and were joined by some lesbians. Both Lesbian books enjoyed a boom in the 1990s, driven
the Gay Liberation Front (19701972), which was largely by market forces. If Radclyffe Halls The Well
revolutionary in character, and the Campaign for of Loneliness, banned upon publication in Britain
Homosexual Equality (founded in 1969), which was though not in the United States, is still regarded as
more reformist, purported to represent the interests the classic text of lesbian love, many more positive
of both lesbians and gay men, but the sexism of the representations have been produced by subsequent
male leadership and the focus on demands to benefit writers, and lesbian scholars have reclaimed some
men (for example, to legalize cottaging, the prac- earlier literature as proto-lesbian and have given les-
tice of soliciting in public toilets) led many women to bian readings of a variety of genres, ranging from
leave. Many of them found a welcome in the wom- girls school stories (a peculiarly British phenom-
ens liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. enon) to detective fiction and television soap op-
Lesbians were prominent in all of the main cam- eras. It has become acceptable to write doctoral the-
paigns of second wave feminismsetting up rape ses on lesbian romance novels or lesbian cinema,
crisis centers and womens refuges and campaign- and cultural studies is perhaps the biggest growth
ing against domestic violence, child sexual abuse, area in lesbian studies, both in the universities and
and pornography (though many lesbians were in publishing. Many major publishing houses, such
anticensorship rather than antipornography)and as Cassell and Routledge, have extensive lesbian lists,
also launched their own lesbian initiatives, such as and most bookshops in larger towns have lesbian
the Lesbian Custody Project. Lesbians also contin- and gay sections. Onlywomen Press in London cel-
ued to organize outside the womens movement; ebrated twenty years of lesbian publishing in 1995,
Sappho, for example, held a conference for mar- having maintained a radical feminist philosophy
ried lesbians in the early 1970s that attracted more throughout its history. Other publishers present a
than one hundred women from all over England range of feminist, queer, and postmodern critical
and Scotland, which led to the setting up of the viewpoints, black lesbian perspectives began to ap-
Gay Wives and Mothers Group, later renamed pear, later and more slowly than in the United States.
Action for Lesbian Parents. Several British lesbian writers, such as Maureen
In the 1980s, public funding in London and other Duffy (1933), enjoy critical esteem. Lesbian po-
urban districts facilitated the development of femi- etry flourishes, black Scottish poet Jackie Kay

UNITED KINGDOM 783

 (1961) being considered one of the most exciting mentaries about older lesbians, Women Like Us
U contemporary voices. Many feminist publishers,
like the Womens Press and Onlywomen, publish
(1990) and Women Like That (1991).
Two highly successful television presentations
light (but still feminist) lesbian fiction alongside were the dramatization of Jeannette Wintersons
their more serious lists. The London bookshop Sil- (1959) Oranges Are not the Only Fruit (1990)
ver Moon, Europes largest for women, not only and the four-part series based on Portrait of a
stocks a huge range of lesbian thrillers and ro- Marriage (1991) by Vita Sackville-Wests son Nigel
mances, but also publishes them. In the 1990s, the Nicolson (1917), both transmitted in 1990. By
Scot Val McDermid wrote both detective stories the mid1990s most British soaps had introduced a
with a lesbian feminist heroine for the Womens lesbian storyline, approved by many because they
Press and thrillers with a straight heroine for the brought lesbians into so many homes, criticized by
mainstream publisher HarperCollins. others for relying on damaging negative stereotypes,
such as the older teacher/younger student in one
Lesbians in the Media case and the suicidal lesbian in another.
It was in the 1970s that the British Broadcasting The London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival pre-
Commission (BBC), formerly a vigorous upholder mieres a small number of commercial and notso-
of family values, made a few tentative forays into commercial lesbian films each year, though these are
lesbian culture. Representatives of the lesbian or- often drawn from North America and Australasia.
ganization Sappho were invited to comment on les- Some proceed to open release. The most famous
bian and womens issues, and, in 1975, a Radio 4 British lesbian film ever made is probably The Kill-
play depicting a lesbian relationship, Now She ing of Sister George (1968). Based on a stage play
Laughs, Now She Cries, went out to general ac- by Frank Marcus that is still often revived in Britain
claim. In the 1980s and 1990s, the program that and abroad, it avoided censorship by refraining from
kept lesbians on the agenda most assiduously was mentioning the word lesbian. In the 1970s and
Womans Hour, a national institution that reaches 1980s, lesbian and mixed gay theater companies,
a daily audience of 600,000. With a producer ap- such as Siren and Gay Sweatshop flourished. While
pointed to look after lesbian issues, Womans Hour lesbian plays like Lillian Hellmans The Childrens
not only devotes space to items of specific lesbian Hour (1934) occasionally appear on the West End
interest, such as Section 28 and lesbian crime fic- stage, fringe theater continues to be more receptive
tion, but also ensures a lesbian perspective on gen- to lesbian drama and entertainment.
eral subjects; for example, time was devoted in a Lesbian journalism made its debut with Arena
1996 documentary on interwar Member of Parlia- 3 in 1967. After Sappho folded in 1981, lesbians
ment Eleanor Rathbone to a discussion on whether had to content themselves with sharing space with
she was a lesbian. The 1990s saw the introduction gay men (Gay News [19721983], followed by Gay
of programs aimed at mixed gay audiences, such Times [1983]) or with heterosexual feminists
as A Sunday Outing and Loud and Proud (both (Spare Rib [19721993] and other shorter-lived
1993), and regular weekly slots, such as Gay and publications). In 1988, the Pink Paper was
Lesbian London on Greater London Radio. launched as a free weekly for lesbians and gay men.
The rare television appearances of lesbians be- Its bias toward male interests led to the setting up
fore the 1980s generally took place within investi- of Lesbian London in 1992, which survived for
gative series into taboo topics: for example, a Man only three years. There are, however, specialist les-
Alive program in 1967 in which a number of lesbi- bian papers, such as Dyke, a magazine for walk-
ans were interviewed about their lives, including a ers. Lesbian issues are increasingly aired in straight
group at the legendary Gateways Club in west Lon- womens magazines, though rarely from a femi-
don. London Weekend Televisions pioneering Gay nist standpoint: from alternative lifestyles in Cos-
Life series went out at 11:30 p.m. on Sunday nights mopolitan, through k.d. lang (1961) in Vanity
during 1980 and 1981. Gay television really arrived Fair, to gay parenting in Marie-Claire. Diva is a
in 1989 with regular programs on both the BBC glossy devoted to lesbian life and style that re-
and commercial channels. These tend to be shared flects the 1990s preoccupation with lesbian chic.
withone might even say dominated bygay men,
and feminist approaches are conspicuous by their The Lesbian Scene
absence. Nevertheless, it was an Out program on Most U.K. cities offer lesbians a range of places to
Channel 4 that hosted the brilliant feminist docu- go and things to do. Outside the towns, the closet

784 UNITED KINGDOM

doors tend to remain firmly shut, and outings are Vita; Smyth, Dame Ethel Mary; Suffrage Move-
restricted to ones nearest branch of Kenric if there ment; Woolf, Virginia
happens to be one.
There are places associated with famous lesbians
to be visited: for example, Anne Listers Shibden Hall United States
in Halifax; the Ladies of Llangollens house, Plas For lesbians in the United States, the possibility of
Newydd, in Wales; Smallhythe in Kent, home of the knowing any lesbian or gay history much beyond
early-twentieth-century mnage trois of theatrical personal experience is a relatively recent development.
producer Edith Craig (18691947), writer Although discussed in sexologists and sociologists
Christopher St. John (Christabel Marshall [d. 1960]) studies since the turn of the twentieth century, lesbi-
and artist Tony (Clare) Atwood (18661962); and ans seldom were able to speak for themselves before
the several London properties listed in the Pink Plaque World War II. Beginning in the late 1960s with the
Guide. Britains Lesbian Archive is now housed in second wave of the womens movement and the
the Womens Center in Glasgow, Scotland. gay liberation movement, lesbian activism emerged
Cassells Pink Directory lists lesbian and gay to seriously challenge both lesbian invisibility and
organizations, businesses, and services in the United oppression in the United States. With this activism
Kingdom and Eire. But, as listings tend to go out also came the academic and grass-roots studies that
of date, visitors are advised to check the Pink Pa- have uncovered, collected, and preserved the history
per or local papers or to phone the Lesbian and of lesbians and lesbian communities in the United
Gay Switchboard. Rosemary Auchmuty States. This era has also seen a tremendous growth in
lesbian literature, music, and culture. With only a
Bibliography little more than a quarter-century of work, scholars
Cant, Bob, and Susan Hemmings, eds. Radical have gathered a tremendous amount of data and gen-
Records: Thirty Years of Lesbian and Gay His- erated much theory, but a broad and inclusive his-
tory. London: Routledge, 1988. tory of lesbianism in the United States continues to
Cooper, Davina. Sexing the City: Lesbian and Gay be a work in progress. The newness of this field de-
Politics Within the Activist State. London: Riv- mands an acknowledgment that the parameters, the
ers Oram, 1994. content, and the methods of this particularly hidden
Donaghue, Emma. Passions Between Women: Brit- history are still being defined. Efforts at theory and
ish Lesbian Culture, 16681801. London: Scar- analysis must be kept within this perspective.
let, 1993.
Gibbs, Liz, ed. Daring to Dissent: Lesbian Culture Precolonial and Colonial Times
from Margin to Mainstream. London: Cassell, Sex-variant women, to use Jeannette Fosters
1994. term, have probably existed in all cultures in some
Griffin, Gabriele, ed. Outwrite: Lesbianism and form. Blackwood, in her 1984 examination of
Popular Culture. London: Pluto, 1993. crossgender roles for females in Native American
Harne, Lynne, and Elaine Miller, eds. All the Rage: societies, remarks on how differently sexuality was
Reasserting Radical Lesbian Feminism. London: viewed in what is now the United States before the
Womens Press, 1996. colonization by Europeans. She suggests that, while
Lesbian History Group. Not a Passing Phase: Re- these cross-gender options, in which females took
claiming Lesbians in History, 18401985. 2nd on male economic and familial roles, were avail-
ed. London: Womens Press, 1993. able, and while woman-to-women sexual practices
Mason-John, Valerie, and Ann Khambatta. Lesbi- were known, they did not necessarily go together.
ans Talk Making Black Waves. London: Scar- She does not believe that there were lesbians, as
let, 1993. we know them today, among the indigenous peo-
Neild, Suzanne, and Rosalind Pearson. Women ple of North American. This conclusion echos the
Like Us. London: Womens Press, 1992. ongoing questions of definition, of the connections
between sexuality and economics, and the link be-
See also Anne, Queen of England; Bonheur, Rosa; tween the emergence of lesbian and gay identities
Cushman, Charlotte; Duffy, Maureen Patricia; and lesbian and gay oppression.
Hall, Radclyffe; Holtby, Winifred; Ladies of Moral condemnation of woman-to-woman
Llangollen; Lister, Anne; London; Sackville-West, sexual practices came to the North American

U N I T E D S TAT E S 785
 continent with the Puritan settlers of New Eng- 1935), president of Bryn Mawr College, and Mary
U land, as documented by historians such as Jonathan
Katz and J.R. Roberts. Roberts (1980) discusses
Garrett (18391925), heir to the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad fortune; and Anna Howard Shaw (1847
the 1648 case involving leude behauior between 1919), suffrage leader, and Lucy Anthony (1861
two women. Her research on this case demonstrates 1944), her companion, assistant, and Susan
that the Puritan community condemned this inci- B.Anthonys (18201906) niece. The next generation
dent both as a sexual crime and as a threat to the included Molly Dewson (18741962), leader of the
social order. Katzs Gay American History: Lesbi- Democratic women during the New Deal, and her
ans and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (1976) also con- companion, Polly Porter (1884?); Martha May Eliot
tains accounts of passing women. These women, (18911978), physician and head of the Childrens
who dressed and lived as men and, in some cases, Bureau, and Ethel Durham (18921969), also a phy-
married women, were probably among the first sician; and Frances Kellor (18731952), sociologist,
Euro-American women to construct lives outside and Mary Elisabeth Dreier (18751963) of the Wom-
the female role prescribed by mainstream U.S. cul- ens Trade Union League. While, by the late 1990s,
ture. These womens views on their choices or their historians had not found any evidence that any of
these women claimed lesbian identities, they lived such
claimed identities do not exist, and, consequently,
women-centered lives that their experiences resem-
it is not known what part their attractions to other
ble those of late-twentieth-century lesbian feminists.
women, their identification with the male role, their
Critical of the institution of marriage because of the
search for autonomy, or their economic need played
restrictions it placed on women, they constructed
in their decisions.
support networks that sustained them in both their
public lives of professional responsibilities and po-
The Nineteenth Century
litical causes and their private lives. These circles of
During the nineteenth century, middle-class women
women overlapped across causes and geography, link-
were expected to develop close bonds with each
ing suffrage workers in California with union organ-
other, and this intimacy was not seen as a threat to izers in New York City. Additionally, a number of
the heterosexual family. Crushes and these couples raised children, most often the nieces
smashings were accepted parts of girls schools or nephews of one of the partners.
culture. Hansens (1996) finding of letters tracing As the institution building of the nineteenth cen-
the intimate relationship between two African tury progressed and the field of sexology emerged
American women shortly after the Civil War chal- in the United States and Europe, class and race in-
lenges the idea that these relationships were lim- creasingly determined how vulnerable variant
ited to white, middle-class women. women were to the attention, and the socialcontrol
As the century progressed, middle-class women aspects, of the medical, criminal justice, and social
expanded their economic options through education welfare establishments. Once the social professions
and participation in the growth of the professions. accepted that women could have independent, ac-
Many such women combined the potential to be fi- tive sexual lives, they sought to label and regulate
nancially independent with a rejection of marriage, womens sexual activities, both heterosexual and
often choosing, instead, to live with another woman lesbian. The poor, working-class counterparts of
in what were called Boston marriages. Through the spinsters were the first who were targeted as
most of the nineteenth century, these middle-class dangerously deviant. Woman-to-woman sexual ac-
spinsters could lead respectable lives protected by the tivities, especially within female reformatories,
cultures belief that, without a male partner, such caught the attention of sexologists and criminolo-
partnerings must be asexual. The period from 1890 gists. Women reformatory superintendents tended
to 1920 could be termed a golden age for spin- to be more tolerant then their male counterparts
sters. The percentage of never-married women was and benefactors of these sexual expressions be-
higher during this time than during any other in U.S. tween women, recognizing the diversity of wom-
history. Many of the most prominent women of this ens sexualities and the needs of these often young
era were single, and many formed lifelong couples. women for affectionate physical relationships while
They covered two generations, with the first includ- incarcerated. The men among these professionals
ing couples such as Jane Addams (18601935), Hull blurred the boundaries between moral judgments
House founder, and sister Hull House resident Mary and legal definitions about womens sexuality, con-
Rozet Smith (18681934); M.Carey Thomas (1857 structing the menace of the female invert. Some

786 U N I T E D S TAT E S
female professionals, such as Katherine Bernent lesbianism in print, none had spoken of lesbian-
Davis (18601935), tried to broaden the defini- ism as lesbians, as Rainey and other African Ameri-
tion of acceptable expressions of female sexuality can women entertainers did during this era.
through scientific studies. Nevertheless, as male At the same time, working-class women of all
domination of these professions increased during races were increasingly establishing communities for
the twentieth century and activist women split over themselves as lesbians in street bars and other mar-
such issues, the formal creation and condemnation ginal places in numerous urban centers. Elizabeth
of the modern lesbian occurred simultaneously in Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline D.Daviss Boots
academia. By the 1930s, the middle-class profes- of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Les-
sional woman was very much included in the les- bian Community (1993) is the most thorough study
bian label and the accompanying moral, legal, and of the emergence of such working-class lesbian com-
psychiatric censure. From the founding of wom- munities, though numerous grass-roots history
ens prisons through the McCarthy era of the projects have been functioning since the 1970s. The
1950s, the middle-class professional women who largest of these efforts is the Lesbian Herstory Ar-
managed these institutions juggled protecting their chives in New York City. Important aspects of these
subcultures included claiming public space for les-
wards and protecting themselves from the myriad
bians in the bars; the development of their own so-
labels created for women who were sexually in-
cial and sexual norms (the most visible of which
volved with other women or simple unmarried.
were butch-femme roles), which they passed on to
new members of their communities; and, eventu-
The Twentieth Century
ally, a visible lesbian presence outside the bars, on
Nevertheless, while this process was taking place,
the streets of their communities. From the 1930s
women were concurrently constructing alternative
through the 1960s, the women who risked police
definitions of lesbians. An interesting part of les-
harassment and arrests were overwhelming the rec-
bian history in the United States involves several
ognized lesbians of the United States.
prominent expatriates. Both Natalie Barney (1876 Overlapping, to various degrees, in many regions
1972) and Gertrude Stein (18741946) were were lesbians who chose to be more closeted.
among the earliest U.S. women to publicly identify Bullough and Bullough (1977) describe such a com-
as lesbians. However, neither of these women were munity in Salt Lake City, Utah, during the 1920s
public residents of the United States; both resided and 1930s. The study they inherited was done by a
in Paris during the majority of their adult years. member of that community. While these women
This was their solution to the homophobia of the were white and middle-class, they differed from their
United States. During these years, the era when heterosexual counterparts primarily on the basis that
British novelist Radclyffe Hall (18801943) pub- most were wage-earning women. These lesbians were
lished and was prosecuted for The Well of Loneli- well read in terms of theories of homosexuality.
ness (1928), middle-class women in the United When The Well of Loneliness was published, they
States not only failed to publicly discuss their sexu- discussed their evaluation of its impact on public
ality, but some, like novelist Willa Gather (1873 acceptance of lesbianism. For lesbians in isolated
1947), destroyed, or left orders for the burning of, areas, any publication dealing with homosexuality,
their private papers. especially lesbianism, increased both self-awareness
Other groups of women did claim lesbian iden- and a sense of connection with others like them-
tities in the United States during this time; a few selves. It was only with the emergence of middle-
did so quite publicly, while others did so within class homophile groups, such as the Daughters of
small closed communities. During the Harlem Ren- Bilitis, during the post-World War II era that the
aissance of the 1920s and into the 1930s, African U.S. public and U.S. professionals saw the break-
American women blues singers sang of lesbian love. down of the barrier between respectability and a
Hazel Carby (1994) writes that Gertrude Ma publicly claimed lesbian identity.
Raineys (18861939) Prove It on Me Blues was
an assertion and affirmation of lesbianism. What Lesbian Feminism
differentiated this public discourse from others on Lesbian feminism built on these foundations, as well
woman-to-woman loving was that the source did as the gay liberation movement, which strengthened
not disassociate herself from her material. While after the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969 in New York
writers, reporters, and researchers had discussed City, and the reemergence of a womens movement

U N I T E D S TAT E S 787
 in the United States. The most visible component of Women in Culture and Society 10:1 (Autumn
U lesbian feminism has been the growth of wimmins
(various spellings used) culture. Lesbians supported
1984), 2742.
Bullough, Vern, and Bonnie Bullough. Lesbian-
the development of women- and lesbian-centered ism in the 1920s and 1930s: A New Found
literature, music, and art, as well as womens busi- Study. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and
nesses. Womens music festivals are held annually Society 2:4 (Summer 1977), 895905.
around the country, while womens bookstores have Carby, Hazel. It Jus Bes Dat Way Sometimes: The
their own association. Sexual Politics of Womens Blues. In Unequal
Lesbians struggled for recognition within main- Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Womens
stream feminist organizations, such as the National History. Ed. Vicki L.Ruiz and Ellen Carol DuBois.
Organization for Women (NOW) and the National New York: Routledge, 1994, pp. 330341.
Womens Political Caucus, as well as within the field DEmilio, John, and Estelle B.Freedman. Intimate
of womens studies. It was within the overlap of Matters: A History of Sexuality in America. New
academia and politics that women developed lesbian York: Harper and Row, 1988.
theory, including a strong strain on separatism. Faderman, Lillian. Odd Girls and Twilight Lov-
Groups such as the Furies and Radicalesbians placed ers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth Cen-
lesbians at the center of feminist theory and activism, tury America. New York: Columbia University
demanding that analyses and critiques of compul- Press, 1991.
sory heterosexuality be integrated with feminist schol- Hansen, Karen V. No Kisses Is Like Youres: An
arship on race, class, and sex. With the development Erotic Friendship Between Two African Ameri-
of such theories came arguments over definitions of can Women During the Mid-Nineteenth Cen-
lesbianism and the relationship of lesbians to the femi- tury. In Lesbian Subjects. Ed. Martha Vicinus.
nist movement. In a number of communities, splits Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996.
developed not only between straight and lesbian Katz, Jonathan, ed. Gay American History: Lesbi-
feminists, but also among lesbians who came out ans and Gay Men in the U.S.A. New York:
within feminism, lesbians who identified with a Thomas Crowell, 1976.
prefeminist lesbian and gay community, lesbians who Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, and Madeline D.
chose to live as separate from men as possible, and Davis. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The
lesbians who continued to live and work with gay History of a Lesbian Community. London:
and straight men. Significant within these breaks were Routledge, 1993.
struggles over privilege, differences, and power based Roberts, J.R. leude behauior each with other vpon
on class, race, and education. a bed: The Case of Sarah Norman and Mary
The breadth of materials on lesbians in the Hammond. Sinister Wisdom 14 (1980), 5762.
United States at the end of the twentieth century
was hard to capture. As lesbian visibility increases See also Addams, Jane; Anthony, Susan B.; Barney,
and the work to uncover and preserve lesbian his- Natalie; Boston Marriage; Cather, Willa; Compul-
tory continues, lesbians are constantly challenged sory Heterosexuality; Daughters of Bilitis; Davis,
with new perspectives on their lesbian identities. Katherine Bement; Female Support Networks; Fos-
As queer theory joins the various strains of lesbian ter, Jeannette Howard; Furies, The; Hall, Radclyffe;
studies as a scholarly effort to understand gender Harlem Renaissance; Lesbian Feminism; Lesbian
and sexuality in U.S. culture, younger generations Herstory Archives; Lesbian Studies; Music Festi-
of women challenge the identities older generations vals; National Organization for Women (NOW);
fought to have recognized. As their lesbian Native Americans; Passing Women; Queer Theory;
foremothers did before them, young lesbians de- Radicalesbians; Rainey, Gertrude Ma; Separa-
fine themselves, their cultures, and their commu- tism; Smashes, Crushes, Spoons; Spinsters; Stein,
nities, keeping lesbianism dynamic and responsive Gertrude; Thomas, M.Carey
to new challenges and growth. Trisha Franzen

Bibliography Utopian Literature

Blackwood, Evelyn. Sexuality and Gender in Cer- Depictions of an ideal society that contrasts with
tain Native American Tribes: The Case of flaws in the authors real society. Dystopian litera-
Cross-Gender Females. Signs: Journal of ture portrays a very negative society. Feminists have

788 U N I T E D S TAT E S
used both forms to criticize sexism and to envision different possible Earth. Joanna, a contemporary
a better world for women. Like Christine de Pizans feminist, is visited by Janet from the lesbian utopia
medieval Cit des dames (City of Ladies [1405]), Whileaway. Whileaway is not perfect, but the elimi-
feminist Utopias have often been all-female worlds. nation of men (by plague) has eradicated sex-
While these Utopias often show loving relation- ism and heterosexism. Later they meet a third self,
ships among the inhabitants, overtly sexual lesbian Jael, and learn that her worlds war against men
Utopias did not appear in print until the twentieth was the plague that enabled Whileaway to
century. evolve.
The word utopia, based on the Greek outopos Wittig and Russ show violent revolution against
(nowhere), was invented by Thomas More patriarchy as essential to establishment of their
(14781535) in the sixteenth century. While many Utopias. Both see male dominance as a political
classic Utopias are set on remote parts of a con- structure that creates gender differences. Domi-
temporary Earth, most lesbian Utopias are located nance and difference each must be eliminated. Their
in distant times or on other planets. lesbians do not embrace femininity.
The nineteenth-century feminist movement in In contrast, the majority of lesbian Utopias writ-
the United States prompted a flood of Utopian fic- ten in the period 19751985 view women as in-
tion by women. Mary Bradley Lanes Mizorah herently different from men. Men are naturally vio-
(1881) and Charlotte Perkins Gilmans Herland lent, hierarchical, and exploitative. Technology and
(1915) both show all-female worlds, but sexuality cities are masculine, while nature and psychologi-
is absent or sublimated into maternal love. cal powers are feminine. In Sally Gearharts The
In the early twentieth century, Natalie Barney Wanderground (1979), nature has revolted against
(18761972) and Rene Vivien (18771909) men, and men and machines become impotent
turned to the ancient Greek poet Sappho (ca. 600 outside the cities. Most women leave the dystopian
B.C.E.) for inspiration and tried to re-create her cities and discover telepathy, mystical reproduction,
lesbian society in their Paris salon and in their writ- and other powers based on an affinity with na-
ings. Djuna Barness (18921982) Ladies ture. Gearhart also introduces the Gentles, men
Almanack (1928) portrays Barney and her friends who are trying to reject masculinity, a rare instance
in a comic Utopian world. Outside France, lesbian of including gay men in utopia.
Utopian literature generally did not appear in print Like Gearhart, several writers show a future
until feminism was revived in the late 1960s. Earth divided between a hypersexist dystopia and
The first major lesbian Utopian novel was a separatist all-female utopia. Suzie McKee
Monique Wittigs (1935) Les Gurillres (1969). Charnass dystopian Walk to the End of the World
The heros build a new society after a successful (1974) and Utopian Motherlines (1978) show a
revolution against all aspects of male-dominated womans escape and her integration into the les-
culture. Wittig explores how language, myths, and bian utopia. The free women have an Amazonian
gender itself have enslaved women, and the strug- culture with a tribal structure.
gle necessary to overcome psychological and po- Critics have noted that most of these Utopias
litical enslavement. Feminist males help create Uto- share similar characteristics: democratic or anar-
pia. She later expands the Utopian portion in Le chic governments, little or no technology, affinity
corps lesbien (The Lesbian Body [1973]) and cre- with nature and animals, preindustrial economies,
ates a lesbian language with coauthor Sande Zeig and dedication to nonviolence except for defense.
in Brouillon pour un dictionnaire des amantes (Les- Some bisexual feminist Utopias of the period, such
bian Peoples: Materials for a Dictionary [1976]). as Marge Piercys Woman on the Edge of Time
Another important French Utopian novel, (1976) and Ursula K.LeGuins Always Coming
Franoise dEaubonnes Les Bergres de Home (1985), deliberately use Native American
lapocalypse (The Shepherdesses of the Apocalypse tribal models, combined with technology. An ex-
[1977]), also depicts a revolution that founds an ception, Katherine V Forrests lesbian Daughters
all-female Utopia, shown in Le Satellite de of a Coral Dawn (1984), features a nondemocratic
lAmande (The Satellite of the Almond [1975]). government and space technology.
Joanna Russs The Female Man (1975) was the Several lesbian Utopias eliminate men through
first important North American lesbian Utopia. The war or ecological disaster created by male-domi-
narrator is split into four selves, each inhabiting a nant societies. James Tiptree Jr. (pseud, of Alice

U T O P I A N L I T E R AT U R E 789
 a feminist nonviolent Utopia threatened by patri-
U Sheldon) presents such a world in the witty no-
vella Houston, Houston, Do You Read? (1976). archal invasion.
Yet lesbian Utopias continue to appear. Those
Three astronauts accidentally enter Earths future,
where an all-female culture combines technology published in the early 1990s tend to include a
and ecology to maintain a high quality of life. The strong spiritual element and often are set in the
women regretfully decide to kill them when the past, not the futurecharacteristics found in Judy
men exhibit violent sexist behavior. Rochelle Sing- Grahns (1940) Mundanes World (1988) as well.
ers The Demeter Flower (1980) also shows a les- Diana Riverss Daughters of the Great Star (1992)
bian postholocaust community. shows lesbians with magic powers in a medieval
Although U.S. writers produced the most Utopian setting. Others invoke ancient Amazon myths, such
novels, authors in Canada, the United Kingdom, and as Barbara Walkers Amazon (1993) and Charnass
western Europe also contributed. Louky Bersianiks The Furies (1994), the delayed sequel to
LEugelionne (The Eugelionne, [1976]) satirizes the Motherlines. French author Richard Demarcys
Catholicism of Qubec. Norwegian writer Gerd Angela, la gurillre soprano (Angela, the Soprano
Guerrilla [1990]) features a half-African, half-Eu-
Brantenbergs Egalias Dotre (Egalias Daughters
ropean bisexual freedom fighter whose weapon is
[1977]) is a comic example of role reversal.
her voice. The title and the novel allude to Wittig.
Nearly all lesbian and feminist Utopias were
The best Utopian fiction can still inspire lesbi-
written by European and Euro-American authors.
ans to action in efforts to create a better world.
The works of African American writer Octavia
Diane Griffin Crowder
Butler exhibit some Utopian/dystopian features but
do not portray a lesbian society. Her work does
Bibliography
highlight a lack of racial diversity in many Uto-
Andermahr, Sonya. The Politics of Separatism and
pias. Alice Walkers The Color Purple (1982) and
Lesbian Utopian Fiction. In New Lesbian Criti-
Toni Morrisons Beloved (1987) are examples of
cism: Literary and Cultural Readings. Ed. Sally
realistic novels containing Utopian moments. R.Munt. New York: Columbia University Press,
The dream of lesbian feminist transformation 1992, pp. 133152.
of society that animated the classical period of Uto- Bammer, Angelika. Partial Visions: Feminism and
pias from 1969 to 1985 faced an antifeminist back- Utopianism in the 1970s. New York: Routledge,
lash in the 1980s. Monique Wittigs Virgile, Non 1991.
(Across the Acheron [1985]) shows heterosexual Crowder, Diane Griffin. Separatism and Feminist
society as Hell, lesbian bars as a marginalized Utopian Fiction. In Sexual Practice, Textual
Limbo, and Utopia as an elusive Paradise in a les- Theory: Lesbian Cultural Criticism. Ed. Susan
bian rewriting of Dantes The Divine Comedy Wolfe and Julia Penelope. Cambridge, Mass, and
(1308?1321). Margaret Atwoods The Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell, 1993, pp. 237250.
Handmaids Tale (1986) depicts an antifeminist Lefanu, Sarah. In the Chinks of the World Ma-
fundamentalist theocracy in the United States in chine: Feminism and Science Fiction. London:
which women are literally enslaved. Pamela Womens Press, 1988.
Sargents The Shore of Women (1986) and Sheri Zimmerman, Bonnie. A Safe Sea of Women: Les-
Teppers The Gate to Womens Country (1988) bian Fiction, 19691989. Boston: Beacon, 1990.
show separatist futures in which men and women
occupy different spaces on Earth, but both authors See also Amazons; Barney, Natalie; Goddess Reli-
reject lesbianism and aspects of feminism. Joan gion; Grahn, Judy; Native Americans; Sappho;
Slonczewskis A Door into Ocean (1986) portrays Separatism; Vivien, Rene; Wittig, Monique

790 U T O P I A N L I T E R AT U R E
V
Vampires cally aristocratic, feminine ladies who preyed on
In folklore, a reanimated corpse that sucks the servants and peasants. This added another trans-
blood of sleeping persons, or one who preys ruth- gressive element to the already heady mix of the
lessly on others. The vampire is a tantalizing figure vampires tale. Critics have outlined the workings
for lesbian writers, and it is not difficult to see why. of the vampires dangerous allure in the way she
Three elements typify vampire narratives: sadism, crosses class, gender, and sexual boundaries in her
blood, and desire. And vampires have long been relentless quest for blood. The apparently yield-
associated, though not always explicitly, with femi- ing, yet cruelly incisive, vampire mouth, so sugges-
ninity, sex, and death. Although the classic vam- tive of cultural fears around the vagina and its
pire text, Bram Stokers Dracula (1897), focuses emasculatory potential, the out-of-control female
upon a male vampire, there is evidence to suggest sexuality represented by the night-prowling, insa-
that Stoker fashioned Count Dracula upon a fe- tiable vampire, and the queerness of the vam-
male prototype. This was Countess Elizabeth pires indiscriminate choice of victims all combine
Bathory (15601614), who, according to legend, to make the vampire text a story about the ulti-
bathed in the blood of freshly killed girls to main- mate femme fatale. It has been especially easy to
tain her youthful good looks. The Blood Coun- read the vampires consummationher messy,
tess of Transylvania, as Bathory was known, liked bloodsucking penetrationas a displacement of
to dress in male attire, was a frequent visitor at the anxieties about oral sex. Victorians, in particular,
house of an aunt whose lesbianism was common avidly consumed vampire literature, which ad-
knowledge, and had a predilection for torturing dressed anxieties about the new sexual emancipa-
and killing servant girls. Although her bloodbaths tion of women, demonizing and then destroying
are apocryphal, her cruelty is not, and her crimes, the vampire figures who displayed an aberrant,
suitably embellished, have inspired many a mod- aggressive sexuality.
ern depiction of the lesbian vampire. The lesbian vampires late-twentieth-century
Dracula aside, most modern vampires have been vogue was sparked in the first half of the 1970s,
women. The earliest modern lesbian vampire no- when a spate of vampire films with homosexual
vella was Irish writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanus themes appeared, of which the most stylish (and
Carmilla (1872), a popular story about a vampire least forgettable) was Daughters of Darkness (Bel-
who comes to visit for the express purpose of se- gium [1971]). Since then, lesbian writers have seized
ducing and damning her innocent young niece. upon the vampires illicit charge, using her trans-
Though its melodramatic style blunted its impact, gressive potential to symbolize outlaw sexuality and
the basic outline Carmilla set was to typify the fate bloody desire. No longer is this lesbian vampire a
of the lesbian vampire for the next hundred years: sign of unremitting evil, however, but a complex,
Put bluntly, the monster had to die. sympathetic character whose manifestations are as
The vampire story, as traditionally conceived, various as they are compelling. Jewelle Gomez
was not just about aberrant sexuality. It was also a (1948) presents, possibly for the first time, a black
potent class vehicle: Vampire lesbians were typi- lesbian feminist vampire in the story of an escaped

VAMPIRES 791
 slave named Gilda (The Gilda Stories [1991]). Pat ure because of her out lesbianism. Anecdotes
V Califias (1954) memorable tale of a sadistic top
and her femme stalker, The Vampire (1988),
abound of her flamboyant entrances at clubs on
motorcycles and in sports cars and her blatant flirt-
keeps the reader in the dark until the last moment ing with women in the audience. She was ultimately
about the vampires identity. Pam Keeseys two blacklisted because of her so-called obscene
anthologies, Daughters of Darkness (1993) and behavior. In the early 1970s, she made her Mexi-
Dark Angels: Lesbian Vampire Stories (1995), of- can comeback in a queer-friendly venue for politi-
fer a surfeit of such new, creatively realized lesbian cal theater artists in Coyoacan called El Habito,
vampire fiction. These writers interpretations of an ironic reference to nuns habits.
the vampire are various and ingenious; they retell In 1993, at the age of seventy-four, Vargas rode
the original Dracula from a lesbian perspective, for the crest of a second comeback in Spain referred to
example, or recast the vampires legend in a sci- as El chavelazo (Chavela-mania), enjoying the
ence-fiction setting. Carellin Brooks adoration of a third generation of Spanish fans.
In addition to her outrageous public perform-
Bibliography ance of lesbian identity, Vargas often appropriated
the active heterosexual male subject position in songs
Case, Sue-Ellen. Tracking the Vampire. Differ-
that explicitly mark the object of desire as female,
ences 3:2 (1991), 120.
facilitating lesbian identifications within a cherished
Craft, Christopher. Kiss Me with Those Red
repertory of Latin American music. Furthermore,
Lips. In Speaking of Gender. Ed. Elaine
the simultaneity of Vargas as butchdesiring subject
Showalter. New York: Routledge, 1989, pp.
in many of her interpretations and as virtual
216242.
estampa de Mexico (hallmark of Mexico) in her
McNally, Raymond. Dracula Was a Woman. New
albums liner notes provides a space for lesbian sub-
York: McGraw-Hill, 1983.
jectivity within the definition of what is considered
Weiss, Andrea. Vampires and Violets. London:
authentically Mexican.
Jonathan Cape, 1992. Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano
Zimmerman, Bonnie. Daughters of Darkness: The
Lesbian Vampire on Film. Jump Cut 2425 Bibliography
(March 1981), 2324. Yarbro-Bejarano, Yvonne. Crossing the Border
with Chabela Vargas: A Chicana Femmes Trib-
See also Gothic; Literary Images ute. In Sex and Gender in Latin America: An
Interdisciplinary Reader. Ed. Daniel Balderston
and Donna J.Guy. New York: New York Uni-
Vargas, Chavela (1919) versity Press, 1997.
Latin American singer and performer. Chavela
Vargas was an active proponent of the first wave of See also Mexico
the Latin American rescate del folclor (rescue of folk-
lore) movement. Born near the Costa Rican capital
of San Jose, the singer, like other Latin American Vegetarianism
personalities of the time (often signifying queer Form of ethical dietary separatism from patterns
in the broadest sense), moved to Mexico in the of male domination, a way of bringing principles
1950s. In the wake of Vargass nomadic travels in a of nonviolence home from the peace movement to
career during which she recorded more than eighty the dinner table, from the political to the personal.
albums, writers such as Nicolas Guillen (1902 Womens culture has characteristically displayed
1989), Miguel Angel Asturias (18991974), and compassion for animals. Many women in the
Leon de Greiff (1895) have praised Vargass voice antivivisection and the animal-welfare movements
and interpretations. Her heyday in Mexico coincided of the nineteenth century were lesbian or bisexual,
with the first half of the 1960s in the bohemian and many women theorized the linkages between
atmosphere of clubs frequented by the patriarchs of feminism and vegetarianism in the late twentieth
the Mexican intelligentsia. century. From its beginnings in 1976, the Michi-
At the same time that Vargas was idolized for gan Womyns Music Festival has served only vegetar-
her passionate interpretations of Mexican and Latin ian food. The Bloodroot Collective, founded by radi-
American popular song, she cut a scandalous fig- cal feminist lesbians in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in

792 VAMPIRES
1977, supports a garden, restaurant, and book- white heterosexual malereasonby which his
store, and members regularly revise their cookbook, superiority and rightful dominance is established and
in which they declare that eating meat is wrong justified. Accordingly, lesbian vegetarians also re-
for its cruelty to creatures who can feel and experi- ject hunting, animal experimentation, factory farm-
ence pain, and wrong because it contributes to ing, zoos, rodeos, circuses, wearing animal skins as
worldwide starvation, mostly of women and chil- furs or leather, and all other forms of animal op-
dren. Founded in San Francisco, California, in pression. Lesbian vegetarians have contributed sig-
1982 by two lesbians, Feminists for Animal Rights nificantly to the development of ecofeminism, a
strives to raise awareness of the connections among movement linking the liberation of women, people
the objectification, exploitation, and abuse of both of color, queers, animals, and nature.
women and animals in patriarchal society. Lesbi- Greta Gaard
ans involved in non-Western spiritual practices,
such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and some forms of Bibliography
paganism and witchcraft, often adopt vegetarian- Adams, Carol J. The Oedible Complex. In The
ism as part of their spirituality. Historically, there Lesbian Reader. Ed. Gina Covina and Laurel
has been a cultural association of womens power Galana. Berkeley: Amazon, 1975, pp. 145152.
with vegetarianism in contrast to the association . The Sexual Politics of Meat: A
of patriarchal power and meat eating. FeministVegetarian Critical Theory. New York:
In the context of the Vietnam War protests of Continuum, 1990.
the 1970s, many feminists and lesbian feminists Adams, Carol J., and Josephine Donovan, eds.
saw a peaceful, vegetarian diet as a private coun- Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Ex-
terpart to their public stance of nonviolence. Draw- plorations. Durham, N.C.: Duke University
ing on Elizabeth Gould Daviss popular work in Press, 1995.
The First Sex (1971), Carol Adamss The Oedible Collard, Andre, and Joyce Contrucci. Rape of the
Complex (1975) was the first lesbian feminist Wild: Man s Violence Against Animals and the
essay to document a history of womens vegetari- Earth. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
anism and to suggest a link between male violence 1989.
and a meatbased diet. That link was developed Gaard, Greta, ed. Ecofeminism: Women, Animals,
more fully with Laurel Hollidays The Violent Sex Nature. Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
(1978). Though not all lesbians read these 1993.
foundational texts, the connection between veg-
etarianism and lesbian feminism became part of See also Ecology and Ecofeminism; Ethics; Food;
popular knowledge and was manifested in lesbian Peace Movement; Utopian Literature
culture through the omnipresent potluck social.
Lesbian Utopian novels regularly depicted the
peaceful, separatist Utopia as vegetarian. Video
In the 1990s, many lesbian feminists and Electronic visual medium. In the late 1960s and
ecofeminists posited a conceptual correlation among early 1970s, lesbian videographers began to pro-
sexism, heterosexism, racism, classism, and duce realist and experimental pieces about lesbian
speciesism, in that each system justifies oppression subjects. As Martha Gever notes (in Kahn and
(of women, queers, people of color, the poor and Neumaier, 1985), this time period marked the con-
working classes, or animals) based on the subordi- vergence of two important political and cultural
nate groups perceived connection with nature, the phenomena: social change movements, including
body, the erotic, the emotions, or with each other. the lesbian and gay liberation movement, and the
Women, for example, are conceptually associated proliferation of alternative, progressive media.
with animals in sexist thought, just as people of color One reason for the proliferation of video in par-
are seen as less human than whites in racist ideolo- ticular was the late-1960s advent of relatively low-
gies. Animal pejoratives, such as chick, pussy, cost portable video equipment.
bitch, dumb bunny, shrew, or sow, are Newly affordable video-production equipment
frequently used to describe women. Lesbian vegetar- and the explosion of the video-rental market ena-
ians challenge the patriarchal notion that subordi- bled filmmakers and videographers to undertake
nated groups lack the singular characteristic of the financially risky projects. Whether their lesbian

VIDEO 793
 content or their experimental forms reduce the narrative, visible seams, self-reflexivity, and
V projects chances of wide theatrical release, video
rental creates the possibility of recouping invest-
foregrounding of the videos producers. Some such
videos parody the generic conventions of MTV
ments. In addition, video sales and rentals make music videos, nightly news programs, talk shows,
lesbian productions available in markets that may made-for-television dramas, soap operas, and com-
not receive independent, experimental, or mercials. The series Two in Twenty (1988) is nota-
lesbianthemed Hollywood releases. ble for its campy lesbian revision of the latter two
Lesbian video refers to two distinct arenas. genres. This lesbian soap opera deploys humor
Video distribution makes available productions and suspense to explore the ethical and moral im-
originally created on film, including Hollywood films plications of child custody, lesbian parenting, AIDS,
with lesbian stories or subtexts and independent, substance abuse, racism, and coming out. The
lesbian-produced projects. Native video indicates series includes mock commercials for fictitious
productions originally created in video format. products and services that blithely satirize the ex-
Native video genres include documentaries, fea- travagant consumerism of daytime television
ture-length narratives, safer-sex videos, lesbian mu- (McGavin, 1993).
sic and comedy videos, and compilations of lesbian Lesbians who share an interest in producing
shorts from the festival circuit. These videos are pro- video that documents or explores a particular set
duced with either high-end portable video cameras of issues form collectives. In the 1970s, the Wom-
(Beta, 3/4, some Hi-8) or low-end personal ens Video Collective in Rochester, New York, and
camcorders (1/2, 8mm, some Hi-8). In the 1980s the Womens Video Project in Los Angeles, Cali-
and early 1990s, lesbian artists Sadie Benning and fornia, created collaborative projects addressing
Cecilia Dougherty each experimented with Fisher feminist issues, including perspectives on lesbian
Price pixelvision cameras before these affordable sexuality. Airing weekly in the early and mid-1980s,
artistic toys/tools were removed from the market. Paper Tiger Television (PTTV), according to
Both production and distribution considerations Halleck (in Kahn and Neumaier, 1985), became a
lead lesbians to choose video over film. In addition paradigm of cheap, imaginative access program-
to the availability of less expensive equipment and ming. Some lesbian (and gay) video collectives
tape stock, video format lends itself to the most com- have opted to follow PTTVs example of airing their
mon distribution channels for lesbian productions: programs in a regular weekly time slot to cultivate
lesbian and lesbian-friendly distribution houses, such an audience. For example, members of the grass-
as Naiad, Women Make Movies, and Frameline; roots collective Dyke-TV nationwide feed locally
cable-access television stations; local schools or com- produced pieces to their local cable-access stations
munity groups; and local festivals. Since the Wom- and to the New York City core group for weekly
ens Video Festival held annually from 1972 to 1976 distribution. However, many collectives work on
in New York City, cities around the world have held a more ad hoc basis, developing and distributing
annual festivals that showcase lesbian videos. projects as events and avenues arise. House of
A primary challenge for lesbian videographers Color, a multiracial lesbian and gay collective, in
has been to create content that accurately repre- New York City produces experimental videos about
sents the complexity of lesbian lives. What Gever the interplay of race and sexuality in political alli-
says of feminist video applies also to lesbian video: ances and personal relationships. Testing the Lim-
making documentary videotapes usually proposes its started as a grass-roots collective also in New
a redefinition of reality by asserting the validity York City, then became more stably established and
of [lesbians] existence and experiences, by chal- produced the well-funded, four-part series on les-
lenging accepted ideas about those experiences, or bian and gay politics, The Question of Equality,
by a combination of both strategies (in Kahn and which began airing nationally on Public Broadcast-
Neumaier, 1985). A related focus of lesbian ing System (PBS) Stations in 1995.
videomakers has been formal experimentation to Auteurs are those who earn renown for their
critique dominant visual and societal conventions individual contributions to the field of lesbian
and also to articulate lesbians particular perspec- video. While many of these artists produce their
tives on identity and community. Experimental videos through a partly collaborative process, con-
pieces often employ avant-garde techniques, includ- sulting with members of their community, crew,
ing montage, a grainy or handmade look, ruptured and cast, their names have become synonymous

794 VIDEO
with their cultural products. Members of this dis- Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexual-
tinguished category include Cecilia Dougherty ity (1980), documented violence against lesbians
(Grapefruit [1989]), Pratibha Parmar (Sari Red in western Europe from the beginning of the Chris-
[1988] and Memory Pictures [1989]), Ellen Spiro tian era to the fourteenth century; Jonathan Katz,
(Greetings from Out Here [1992]), and Julie Zando in Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay men
(Lets Play Prisoners [1988]). The phenomenon of in the U.S.A. (1992), documented violence against
lesbianvideo rental and sales contributes to the cult lesbians in what is now the United States as early
status of particular videos and videographers be- as the sixteenth century, and the National Gay and
cause of the repeated queer viewing it enables. In Lesbian Task Force (1991) documented cases of
their own homes, spectators have great control over violence against lesbians in the United States
the viewing experience: They can watch satisfying throughout the latter part of the twentieth century.
scenes multiple times for private pleasure and/or Reports such as these reveal that violence against
analyze the videos with other viewers. lesbians continues to take a variety of formsfrom
Community media centers, such as Womens symbolic to fatal assaultsand to implicate a range
Access to Electronic Resources (WATER), a lesbian- of perpetratorsfrom intimates to strangers to
led organization in Austin, Texas, serve as training institutions such as the state, religion, and medi-
and production facilities for local communities. cine. Moreover, documented cases of violence
Such centers provide lesbians with access to the against lesbians throughout history and across so-
means of production and with opportunities to cieties illustrate that physical, psychological, and
work in nontechnocratic environments as either symbolic violence against lesbians crosses racial,
collectives or auteurs on videos in whatever ethnic, religious, nationality, and age boundaries.
genre and about whatever issues best suit their in- Despite an undeniable history of violence against
terests. [The author wishes to thank Amanda lesbians, systematic and reliable information on the
Johnston.] Gina M.Siesing causes, manifestations, and consequences of such
violence is scant. Since the late 1980s, empirical
Bibliography work on the epidemiology of violence against les-
Gever, Martha, Pratibha Parmar, and John bians has been slowly accumulating. For example,
Greyson. Queer Looks: Perspectives on Lesbian Beatrice von Schulthesss study of antilesbian vio-
and Gay Film and Video. New York: Routledge, lence in San Francisco, California (in Herek and
1993. Berrill 1992), found that 57 percent of the lesbian
Kahn, Douglas, and Diane Neumaier, eds. Cultures respondents reported that they had experienced
in Contention. Seattle: Real Comet, 1985. actual violence or the threat of violence because of
Kotz, Liz. Anything but Idyllic: Lesbian their sexual orientation, including threats of physi-
Filmmaking in the 1980s and 1990s. In Sis- cal violence, being chased or followed, having ob-
ters, Sexperts, Queers: Beyond the Lesbian jects thrown at them, and being punched, hit,
Nation. Ed. Arlene Stein. New York: Penguin, kicked, or beaten. Additionally, compared to gay
1993, pp. 6780. men, lesbians report higher rates of verbal harass-
McGavin, Patrick Z. Facets Gay and Lesbian Video ment by family members and a greater fear of
Guide. Chicago: Facets Multimedia/Academy antigay violence, as well as a higher rate of vic-
Chicago, 1993. timization in nongay-identified public settings and
Murray, Raymond. Images in the Dark: An Ency- in their home and a lower rate of victimization in
clopedia of Gay and Lesbian Film and Video. school and public gay-identified areas. Studies also
Philadelphia: TLA, 1994. reveal that lesbians of color are at an increased risk
for violent attack because of their sexual orienta-
See also Documentaries; Film, Alternative; Televi- tion. In addition to reporting on the rate of vio-
sion lence against lesbians, a few studies converge to
suggest that the typical perpetrator of antilesbian
violence is young, white, and male and that most
Violence antilesbian violence goes unreported. In von
Violence in the lives of lesbians has been docu- Schulthesss study, only 15 percent of lesbians who
mented for as long as the lives of lesbians have had been victimized reported the incident to the
been documented. For example, John Boswell, in police, with many of the respondents reporting that

VIOLENCE 795
 harassment is an inevitable part of life as a lesbian. increasingly been recognized as problematic. At the
V At the same time, Comstocks (1991) research sug-
gests that violence against lesbians frequently goes
federal level, the Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990
recognized crimes that manifest evidence of preju-
unreported because of fear of abuse by police, fear dice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or
of public disclosure, and the perception that law- ethnicity as a new category of criminal behavior: a
enforcement officials are antilesbian. hate crime. At the state level, by 1998 nineteen
A defining characteristic of violence against les- states had adopted hate crime legislation that in-
bians is that it exists on a continuum, from exclu- cludes provisions for sexual orientation. Just as
sively antiwoman to exclusively antigay conduct. legal reform continues to recognize violence against
Lesbians who experience harassment and violence gays and lesbians as a social problem, so, too, does
often have a difficult time distinguishing whether a plethora of community-based activism. In the late
the violence was motivated by antiwoman or 1970s, throughout the 1980s, and into the 1990s,
antilesbian sentiment, with many lesbians report- there has been a proliferation of gay and lesbian
ing a scenario in which violence begins as antiwoman organizations throughout the United States devoted
and then escalates such that it is recognizable as to responding to antigay and antilesbian violence.
antilesbian. Consistently, the experience of violence Among other things, these antiviolence projects
against lesbians as girls/women and as lesbians document the incidence and prevalence of antigay
which is defined by sexism, heterosexism, and, at and antilesbian violence, establish crisis interven-
times, racism, classism, antisemitism, and ageism tion and victim assistance programs, sponsor pub-
has most frequently been been analyzed and politi- lic education campaigns, and undertake surveillance
cized as either antigay or antiwoman, with lit- efforts in the form of street patrols. Combined, these
tle or no discussion of the interconnections between activities have sustained, according to the National
gender and sexuality/sexual orientation in Gay and Lesbian Task Force, an unprecedented
antilesbian violence. Policymakers, activists, and level of organizing against violence. As a result,
researchers understanding of the causes and conse- violence against gays and lesbians has finally taken
quences of violence experienced by lesbians is al- its place among such societal concerns as violence
most exclusively informed by, and subsumed under, against women, children, and ethnic and racial
more general discussions of gay bashing or vio- groups (Comstock 1991). Kendal L.Broad
lence against women. The former is anchored in a Valerie Jenness
concern for the health and well-being of gay men
and explained via references to institutionalized Bibliography
homophobia and heterosexism, while the latter is Comstock, Gary. Violence Against Lesbians and
anchored in a concern for the health and wellbeing Gay Men. New York: Columbia University
of (presumed) heterosexual women and explained Press, 1991.
via references to sexism and misogyny. As a result, Herek, Gregory M., and Kevin T.Berrill, eds.
historically, violence against lesbians was, at best, Hate Crimes: Confronting Violence Against
generally treated as a second-order concern; at worst, Lesbians and Gay Men. Newbury Park, Calif:
it is more often than not rendered invisible as a cat- Sage, 1992.
egory of violence in and of itself. Jenness, Valerie. Hate Crimes in the United
However, in the 1980s and 1990s, violence States: The Transformation of Injured Persons
against lesbians began to receive public recognition into Victims and the Extension of Victim Sta-
as a social problem. Indeed, the 1998 murder of a tus to Multiple Constituencies. In Images of
young gay man, Matthew Sheppard, was immedi- Issues: Typifying Contemporary Social Prob-
ately defined and reacted to as a hate crime by the lems. Ed. Joel Best. New York: Aldine, 1995,
national press as it covered the story. This framing pp. 213237.
of the story was made possible primarily because Jenness, Valerie, and Kendal Broad. Anti-Vio-
antigay and lesbian violence had already been rec- lence Activism and the (In)visibility of Gender
ognized in larger campaigns to address violence in the Gay/Lesbian Movement and the Wom-
against gays (presumed men) and violence against ens Movement. Gender and Society 8 (1994),
women (presumed heterosexuals). Legal reform 402423.
and grass-roots activism have been the most visible National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Anti-Gay/
venue through which violence against lesbians has Lesbian Violence, Victimization and Defamation

796 VIOLENCE
 in 1990. Washington, D.C.: National Gay and Appeared to Me [1904]) there runs a recurrent
Lesbian Task Force, 1991. image of an aloof woman turning away from mans
brutish desire in distaste; lesbian love is correspond-
See also Community Organizing; Discrimination; ingly praised as pure, chaste, and without physical
Heterosexism; Homophobia; Law and Legal Insti- expression.
tutions; Misogyny; Oppression; Race and Racism; The inspiration for much of Viviens verse was
Relationship Violence; Sexism her first lover, Natalie Barney (18761972), with
whom she conducted a stormy relationship that
lasted, on and off, for four years. During this time,
Vivien, Rene (18771909) the couple acquired a villa on the Greek island of
British expatriate poet. Vivien was born Pauline Lesbos, where they planned to re-create the school
Tarn but adopted the name Rene Vivien at the Sappho had held two thousand years before. Al-
age of twenty-four when she published her first though this project was never realized, Vivien did
collection of poetry, Etudes et Prludes. complete a translation into French of the Greek
In her early twenties, Vivien moved to Paris and poets verses. When Barneys constant affairs be-
adopted French as the language of her published came too much for the more single-minded Vivien,
works. She is principally known as a poet of turn- the latter found something of a safe harbor in the
ofthe-century France, writing more than twenty arms of the Baroness Hlne de Zuylen von
volumes of poetry and short stories. Although she Nyevelt, a multimillionaire. She was to coauthor
claimed the Greek poet Sappho (ca. 600 B.C.E.) as several more collections of poetry with her new
her greatest influence, her poetry is often more remi- patron.
niscent of Charles Baudelaire (18211867) and re- Vivien conducted a lifelong battle against de-
plete with images beloved of the nineteenth-century pression, and her early death at the age of thirty-
symbolists, such as white lilies, burning candles, two was probably suicide caused by starvation and
twisting serpents, and fragile violets. The novelist alcoholism. Since her unpublished letters and pa-
Rachilde (Marguerite Aymery Vallette [18601953]) pers were deposited in the Bibliothque Nationale
dismissed Viviens writing as the old, decadent style, in Paris by her friend Salomon Reinach (1858
which died yesterday and is now horribly with- 1932) and wont be available to readers until the
ered. Too many verses! too many flowers! too year 2000, many aspects of Viviens private life
many glow-worms! (Foster 1985). Despite this remain obscure. Anna Livia
adverse criticism, Vivien gained the respect and ad-
miration of her contemporaries for the originality Bibliography
and power of her poetry and her mastery of com- Foster, Jeannette. Sex Variant Women in Litera-
plex formal verse structure. She was one of the ear- ture. Tallahassee, Fla: Naiad, 1985.
liest women poets to write openly, proudly, and Jay, Karla. The Amazon and the Page. Indianapolis:
passionately about love between women in all of its Indiana University Press, 1988.
complicated and compelling emotional depths. Marks, Elaine. Sapho 1900: Imaginary Rene
In her short stories, Vivien champions strong, Viviens and the Rear of the Belle poque. In
silent, emotionally distant women over ineffectual, The Politics of Tradition: Placing Women in
boasting males. With what the lesbian anthropolo- French Literature. Ed. Joan Dejean and Nancy
gist Rubin (1982) has celebrated as an insolent K.Miller. Yale French Studies 75 (1988), 175
extremism, Vivien systematically rewrites many 189 (Special issue).
of the myths and legends of Western literature in a Rubin, Gayle. Introduction. In A Woman Appeared
lesbian feminist setting. Her Prince Charming, for to Me. Trans. Jeannette Foster. Tallahassee, Fla.:
example, turns out to be a chivalrous, well-man- Naiad, 1982.
nered young woman. Throughout her prose works,
La dame la louve (The Woman of the Wolf See also Barney, Natalie; Colette; France; French
[1904]), and Une Femme mapparut (A Woman Literature; Paris; Sappho; Sapphic Tradition

VIVIEN, RENE 797

W
Walker, ALelia (18851931) Walkers jeweled turbans, riding crop, and rid-
One of the most important promoters of black arts ing clothes were outward expressions of her own
in Harlem during the Roaring Twenties. Referred feelings about black feminine autonomy. The Mad-
to as the Mahogany Heiress and a friend to such ame C.J.Walker Theatre in Indianapolis, Indiana,
Harlem Renaissance luminaries as Langston is a monument to both women and their African
Hughes (19021967) and Zora Neale Hurston heritage. The theater is an example of the Art Deco
(18911960), ALelia Walker wanted to provide a style but utilizes an Egyptian motif that celebrates
haven for Harlems gay and lesbian artists, as well black womanhood. ALelia Walkers influence over
as New York Citys caf society. Walker herself was the architects designs speaks clearly of her love
not an educated woman, but she understood the and admiration for women. Walker died in New
importance of the art and writing that abounded Jersey in 1931 while visiting friends. Mayme White,
in Harlem. who accompanied Walker on this visit, was with
Born to Sarah Breedlove (18671919) and her when she died. Stephanie Byrd
Moses McWilliams (n.d.) in Vicksburg, Missis-
sippi, Walker and her mother moved to St. Louis, Bibliography
Missouri, where her mother began to develop Ahmed, Siraj. Walker, ALelia. In Encyclopedia
hair-care products that made her the first black of African American Culture and History. Ed.
and female American millionaire. Her mother Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith, and Cornel
married Charles Walker and became Madame West. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.
C.J.Walker. Lelia, as she was known then, began Lewis, David Levering. When Harlem Was in
to call herself ALelia. She worked with her Vogue. New York: Knopf, 1981.
mother to build the hair-care empire and encour- Miles, Tiya. Walker, ALelia (18851931). In
aged her to purchase property on Harlems Striv- Black Women in America: An Historical Ency-
ers Row and to build Villa Lewaro in upstate clopedia. Ed. Darlene Clark Hine. Brooklyn,
New York. N.Y.: Carlson, 1993.
ALelia Walker was married three times, and
there are no documents that positively link her to See also Harlem; Harlem Renaissance
lesbianism, but she was considered a social pariah
because of her fondness for lesbians and homo-
sexuals. Certain members of Harlems aristocracy Walker, Mary Edwards (18321919)
refused to attend her parties or include her on their U.S. Civil War physician and author. Born near
guest lists. Rumor and innuendo were fueled also Oswego, New York, to parents who were descend-
by May Fain, Edna Thomas, and Mayme White, ants of early New England settlers, Mary Walker at-
the beautiful women who made up part of her en- tended Falley Seminary in nearby Fulton, New York
tourage. Anyone who expressed distaste for her (18501852). She entered Central Medical College
entourage or her gay friends found themselves ex- in Syracuse, New York, in 1853 and graduated in
cluded from her salons and parties. 1855. She was briefly married to a fellow medical

W A L K E R , M A R Y E D WA R D S 799
 school student, Albert Miller (18281900), and, al- wearing corsets, and womens sexuality, such as a
W though they practiced medicine together in Rome,
New York, for several years, she never adopted his
womans right to control her body. Poverty-stricken
in her later years, she attempted repeatedly to ob-
name. In 1857, Walker joined forces with womens tain her $6 a month pension from the United States
dress reformer Lydia Sayer Hasbrouck (18291910), government. However, the government turned her
contributing to her periodical, the Sibyl. down, stating simply that she had failed to satisfy
During the early months of the Civil War (1861 the army medical departments requirements, which
1865), Walker traveled to Washington, D.C., un- may have been a reference to her sex. In the winter
successfully seeking employment as an surgeon in of 1919, Mary Edwards Walker, attired in her black
the Union army. The U.S. Patent Office Hospital frock suit, was buried in a simple ceremony in the
accepted her as a volunteer, and she helped organ- family plot in the Oswego Town rural cemetery.
ize the Womens Relief Organization there. Earn- This venturesome lady, as she was described
ing a degree from the New York Hygeio-Thera- by journalists is intriguing to contemporary lesbi-
peutic College, she then ventured entirely on her ans largely for her courage to stand up to those who
own onto the battlefields of Virginia, rendering prevented her from serving on the battlefield as the
medical assistance at tent hospitals in Warrenton physician she had been educated to be. Her knowl-
and Fredericksburg, despite the complete absence edge about, and interest in, human sexuality, though
of an official standing. She was finally appointed disrespected during her lifetime, have subsequently
assistant surgeon in Tennessee, often passing suggested to researchers that Walker was, indeed,
through Confederate lines to serve civilians medi- what is now termed a woman-identified woman.
cal needs. Captured by Confederates in 1864, she Nancy Seale Osborne
was taken to Richmond, Virginia, and imprisoned
for several months. After being freed in a prisoner Bibliography
exchange, she supervised a womens prison hospi- Katz, Jonathan, ed. Gay American History: Lesbi-
tal in Louisville, Kentucky, and, in 1865, received ans and Gay Men in the U.S.A. New York:
the Congressional Medal of Honor for Meritori- Crowell, 1976.
ous Service, which she wore throughout her life. It Leonard, Elizabeth D. Yankee Women: Gender Bat-
was revoked (along with 909 others) in 1917, when tles in the Civil War. New York: Norton, 1996.
the criteria for awarding it was narrowed to in- Lesbian Herstory Archives. Lesbian Fashion
clude actual conflict only. Returned posthumously Through the Ages. Archives Update (Decem-
in 1977, it is on exhibit at the Oswego County ber 1995), 12.
Historical Society.
In the immediate postwar years, Walker was See also Passing Women
elected president of the National Dress Reform
Association, and, in 1866, she traveled to England
on a lecture tour. Returning to the United States in Warner, Sylvia Townsend (18931978)
1867, she lived for several years with Belva British novelist and short-story writer. Born at Har-
Lockwood, becoming active in the Central Wom- row School, Middlesex, where her father was a
ens Suffrage Bureau of Washington, D.C., and schoolmaster, Sylvia Townsend Warner was educated
occasionally appearing at congressional hearings. by her father. Her first interest was a career in musi-
In 1869, on a lecture tour of the Midwest, she par- cology. During the 1920s, she began to write crea-
ticipated in a Cincinnati suffrage convention at- tively, and, within a few years, she produced several
tended by Susan B. Anthony (18201906), and, in volumes of poetry and short stories (for which she
1872, she made an unsuccessful attempt to vote in was best known in her lifetime), and three novels.
Oswego. From her home base in the The most notable of these are her first novel, Lolly
neighborhood of Bunker Hill, she continued to Willowes (1926), whose central character is an ag-
travel and to speak out about social and political ing spinster who, with whimsical subversion, de-
issues of dress reform and womens suffrage. Her cides at last to pursue her much-delayed adventures,
first book, Hit (1871), was autobiographical, and including a benign form of witchcraft; and Mr. For-
her second, Unmasked; or, the Science of Immo- tunes Maggot (1927), a tale of a repressed homo-
rality (1878), openly and frankly addressed issues sexual Anglican missionary in the South Seas.
of womens health, such as the negative effects of At the beginning of her literary career, Warner met

800 W A L K E R , M A RY E D WA R D S
the poet Valentine Ackland (19061969). They be- tween Maryland and Virginia. While initially Wash-
came lovers and, despite a number of disruptions re- ington was only one of several cities in the federal
sulting from Acklands alcoholism and occasional District, in 1871 the District government absorbed
infidelity, remained together until Acklands death. the smaller municipalities, creating one political unit
Their relationship is chronicled in Acklands posthu- now commonly known as Washington, D.C. Home
mously published For Sylvia: An Honest Account to the federal government, Washington has been the
(1985). During the mid-1930s, both became mem- focus of much national lesbian and gay organizing
bers of the British Communist Party and actively sup- since the mid-1960s, but Washington also has its
ported the Loyalist cause in the Spanish Civil War. own vibrant lesbian past and present.
This interest shows in Warners two novels of the While little remains of a lesbian heritage from
period, Summer Will Show (1936) and After the the 1800s, one of the most well documented ac-
Death of Don Juan (1938). The former, a historical counts centers on the White House. Rose Cleve-
novel set in the 1840s during the Paris Commune, is land (d. 1918), Grover Clevelands spinster sis-
her most lesbian novel. It incorporates many of ter, assisted her brother as First Lady from 1885
the egalitarian ideals of Communism in the love be- until the presidents marriage to Frances Folson in
tween two women, the English gentlewoman Sophia 1886. Though they were not together while she
and the Jewish Minna, who, in her earlier role as the was in the White House, she had a passionate rela-
mistress of Sophias husband, had been her rival. In tionship with Evangeline Marss Simpson (Whipple)
this manner, as Terry Castle has demonstrated in The (d. 1930) for more than twenty years.
Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality and As in many other areas in the United States, the
Modern Culture (1993), the novel is virtually para- 1920s brought an increase in sexual freedom to Wash-
digmatic in its use of erotic triangulation as a me- ington. In the 1920s and 1930s, it remained a segre-
dium by which members of the same sex realize their gated city, but several interracial bars on the U Street
desires for each other. A subsequent historical novel, Corridor, known then as Washingtons Black Broad-
The Corner That Held Them (1948), explores a sub- way, were welcoming to gay people (primarily men),
plot of female romantic friendship against the back- and the noted Howard Theater hosted many well-
drop of medieval convent life. known black gay performers. Just a few blocks away
After World War II, Warner and Ackland lived on Church Street, a private interracial club was a
in rural Dorset, where Warner continued to write popular evening destination for lesbians. One patron
poetry and short stories until her death. recalls seeing Billie Holiday (19151959) perform at
Patricia Juliana Smith the club; during the performance, the Miss America
candidate from Kentucky sensuously undressed Holi-
Bibliography day onstage. Another notable performance occurred
Ackland, Valentine. For Sylvia: An Honest Account. in 1939, when the Daughters of the American Revo-
New York: Norton, 1985. lution would not allow opera singer Marian Anderson
Castle, Terry. The Apparitional Lesbian: Female (19021993) (rumored to be a lesbian) to sing in
Homosexuality and Modern Culture. New Constitution Hall because she was black. First Lady
York: Columbia University Press, 1993. Eleanor Roosevelt (18841962) arranged for
Harman, Claire. Sylvia Townsend Warner. London: Anderson to perform on the steps of the Lincoln
Chatto and Windus, 1989. Memorial to a crowd of more than 75,000.
Mulford, Wendy. This Narrow Place: Sylvia While police raids and harassment were a con-
Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland: Life, stant threat throughout these years, repression
Letters, and Politics, 19301951. London: reached new levels in the 1950s with Senator Joseph
Pandora, 1988. McCarthys (19081957) virulent attacks on ho-
mosexuality. After the Senate Appropriations Sub-
See also English Literature, Twentieth Century; committee concluded that sex perverts were secu-
Romantic Friendship rity risks and generally unsuitable for government
service, dismissal from government jobs jumped
from five people each month before 1950 to more
Washington, D.C. than sixty people each month by 1952. This new
Capital of the United States. Created by an act of antigay focus hit especially hard in Washington,
Congress in 1791, the District of Columbia lies be- D.C., a city in which the federal government was

WASHINGTON, D.C. 801

 the largest employer. While much of the literature In Creating a Place for Ourselves. Ed. Brett
W focuses on gay men, lesbians were also targeted
and fired as a result of these witch-hunts. As an
Beemyn. New York: Routledge, 1997, pp. 183
210.
example, the head of the Washington Vice Squad DEmilio, John. Sexual Politics, Sexual Communi-
sought increased appropriations to create a les- ties: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in
bian squad to rout out the females. Washing- the United States, 19401970. Chicago: Uni-
tons first homophile organization, a chapter of the versity of Chicago Press, 1983.
Mattachine Society, formed in 1961 and focused Faderman, Lillian. Odd Girls and Twilight Lov-
on federal employment. In 1965, as part of a coa- ers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth Cen-
lition called East Coast Homophile Organizations, tury America. New York: Penguin, 1992.
society members picketed against job discrimina- Katz, Jonathan, ed. Gay American History: Lesbi-
tion at the White House, the Civil Service Com- ans and Gay Men in the U.S.A: A Documen-
mission, and the Pentagon. tary History. New York: Avon, 1976. Rev. ed.
In the early 1970s, the Furies Collective formed New York: Dutton, 1992.
in Washington. White radical lesbian separatists, Lait, Jack, and Lee Mortimer. Washington Confi-
the Furies promoted lesbianism as a political dential. New York: Crown, 1951.
choice. Including members such as Rita Mae Marcus, Eric. Making History: The Struggle for
Brown, Charlotte Bunch, and Joan Biren, the col- Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 19451990.
lective explored lesbian feminist ideology, hetero- New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
sexual privilege, and class both in the collective
and in its short-lived newspaper, The Furies. While See also Brown, Rita Mae; Furies, The; National
splits over class and custody of children tore the Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF); National
collective apart by 1972, it had a lasting impact on Organization for Women (NOW); Roosevelt, Anna
the development of lesbian and feminist theory. Eleanor
Many of the Districts late-twentieth-century
lesbian institutions have their roots in the feminist
movement and the gay and lesbian civil rights Weirauch, Anna Elisabet (18871970)
movement. To mention just a few: In 1973, the German actress and writer. Born August 7, 1887, into
District enacted a strong human rights law that a distinguished immigrant family in Galati, Ruma-
included lesbians and gays. Two years later, the nia, Anna Weirauch was only four years old when
District hosted its first Gay Pride day. Black Gay her father died and the family returned to Berlin. Due
Pride was established in Washington in 1991, and, to the great success of her stage debut in 1906 in a
in the late 1990s, it remained the only event of its play directed by star-actor Max Reinhardt (1873
kind in the nation. Lammas Womens Books and 1943), Weirauch would remain with the Deutsche
More has doubled as an unofficial community Staatstheater in Berlin and, in 1917, be awarded the
center for lesbians in Washington since 1973. Gold Medal for Arts and Sciences. Following the
Not surprisingly, a number of major national publication of her first novella, Die kleine Dagmar
organizations that work on lesbian and gay issues (The Little Dagmar [1918]), Weirauch retired from
have made the nations capital their home. The the stage to pursue a career as a writer.
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Human Although some of her earlier, unpublished,
Rights Campaign, the National Organization for works had been staged with success as Matinees in
Women, the Latino/a Lesbian and Gay Organiza- the Staatstheater, the predominant genre of
tion, and the National Black Lesbian and Gay Lead- Weirauchs future literary production would be the
ership Forum are all located in the Washington novel. Weirauch counts among the few female au-
area. Washington also was the site of three national thors of the Weimar Republic who would discuss
marches for lesbian and gay rightsin 1979, 1987, gay and lesbian themes openly and without preju-
and 1993. Melinda R.Michels dice. The plot of her second novella, Der Tag der
Artemis (Artemiss Day [1919]), centers around the
Bibliography homoerotic love between two teenage boys. Sev-
Beemyn, Brett. A Queer Capital: Race, Class, eral lesbian relationships (and many gay charac-
Gender, and the Changing Social Landscape of ters) are portrayed in Weirauchs novel-trilogy Der
Washingtons Gay Communities, 19401955. Skorpion (1919, 1921, and 1931). All three

802 WASHINGTON, D.C.

volumes were immensely popular and sold out und Manner in Berlin, 18501950 (A Lesbian
quickly, not only in Germany, but also in the United Novel from the Weimar Years: The Scorpion. In
States, where several editions were printed in trans- Eldorado: Homosexual Women and Men in Ber-
lation under the titles The Scorpion (1932, 1948), lin, 18501950). Berlin: Berlin Museum/ Frhlich
Of Love Forbidden (in a shortened version 1958, and Kaufmann, 1984, pp. 197199.
1964), and The Outcast (1933, 1948). (A com-
plete three-volume edition was reprinted as The See also German Literature; Germany
Scorpion in 1964 and 1975.)
The sensitive portrayal of the protagonists long-
ing for other women, as well as her courageous Wilhelm, Gale (19081991)
struggle against the continual discrimination of American novelist. Born in Eugene, Oregon, and
society, make the novel an important testimony in educated in the Northwest, Gale Wilhelm published
the history of lesbian love; it also defies all com- a total of six novels between 1935 and 1945, two
mon negative notions of homosexuals and homo- of which deal with lesbian protagonists. Wilhelm
sexuality in general. lived for many years with Helen Hope Rudolph Page
In many of her more than fifty novels, Weirauch (n.d.), great grandniece of Stephen A.Douglas (1813
focuses exclusively on the life of women charac- 1861), friend of Carl Sandburg (18781967), and
ters, most notably in Ruth Meyer (1922), Lotte editor of the Oakdale branch of the Stockton Her-
(1932), and Frau Kern (1936), but also in Ein ald. Wilhelms work, characterized by a laconic,
Mdchen ohne Furcht (A Girl Without Fear modernist prose style, was well reviewed, and, in
[1935]), Die Ehe der Mara Holm (The Marriage 1943, she received an honorary membership in the
of Mara Holm [1949]), and Der Traum vom Gluck International Mark Twain Society for her outstand-
zerbricht (Broken Dreams of Happiness [1964]). ing contribution in the field of fiction.
From 1933 to 1945, Weirauch resided with her We Too Are Drifting, first published in 1935,
lifelong female companion in Gastag, a small town revolves around Jan Morale, an androgynous artist
in Bavaria. Weirauch continued writing and pub- who creates woodcuts, and her attempt to disen-
lishing throughout the Third Reich, although four tangle herself from a destructive affair with a mar-
of her novels, including Der Skorpion, were indexed ried woman. Jan meets and falls deeply in love with
under Paragraph 184 of the penal code and listed the feminine Victoria Connerly, who is engaged to a
among the unzchtig verdchtige Schriften (writ- young man. Their relationship survives for a time
ings suspected of indecency) as early as 1926. While but is eventually done in by the fact that Victoria is
she had to enter the Reichsschrifttumskammer, the not a real lesbian. Jan is left alone at the close,
National Socialist organization for writers, she never watching Victoria and her fianc depart together.
became a member of the NSDAP (National Social- Torchlight to Valhalla, published in 1938, has
ist Workers Party). After the war, Weirauch and her a considerably upbeat close, perhaps reflecting
partner moved to Munich, but in 1961 they returned Wilhelms own life with Helen Page. Morgen, a
to Berlin, where Weirauch died on December 21, writer in the process of grieving for her dead fa-
1970. Christoph Lorey ther, is pursued by Royal St. Gabriel, although she
is unable to return his affections. However, in a fit
Bibliography of loneliness, Morgen mistakenly sleeps with Royal.
Budke, Petra, and Jutta Schulze. Schriftstellerinnen Shortly after, she meets Toni, a childhood friend.
in Berlin, 1871 bis 1945. Ein Lexikon zu Leben They fall in love, and the novel closes on the prom-
und Werk (Women Writers in Berlin, 1871 to ise of a long-lasting relationship for the two women.
1945: An Encyclopedia of Their Lives and Wilhelm lived with Page until Pages death in
Works). Berlin: Orlanda Frauenverlag, 1995, the mid-1950s and then disappeared from the lit-
pp. 371374. erary world, leaving no clues to her whereabouts.
Schoppmann, Claudia. Der Skorpion: In 1984, Naiad Press reprinted We Too Are Drift-
Frauenliebe in der Weimarer Republik (The ing. Barbara Grier (1933), the publisher, included
Scorpion: Female Love in the Weimar Repub- a biographical essay that ended in a plea for help
lic). Hamburg: Frhlings Erwachen, 1985. locating Wilhelm. In 1985, Grier received an anony-
. Ein Lesbenroman aus der Weimarer Zeit: mous note that eventually led to Wilhelms dis-
Der Skorpion, Eldorado: Homosexuelle Frauen covery in Berkeley, California. (Wilhelm

WILHELM, GALE 803

 commented: I always knew where I was.) Aged
W and ill, Wilhelm was, nonetheless, delighted that
her books had been reissued and provided a brief
autobiographical sketch for the 1985 Naiad reis-
sue of Torchlight to Valhalla. Linnea A.Stenson

Bibliography
Grier, Barbara. Introduction. In Torchlight to
Valhalla. Tallahassee, Fla.: Naiad, 1985.
. Introduction. In We Too Are Drifting.
Tallahassee, Fla.: Naiad, 1984.

See also American Literature, Twentieth Century;

Grier, Barbara; Naiad Press

Winsloe, Christa (18881944)

German writer and sculptor. Christa Winsloe was
born December 23, 1888, in Darmstadt, the daugh-
ter of a Hessian cavalry captain, and raised in Ber-
lin. After the death of her mother, she was sent to
the Kaiserin-Augusta-Stift, a stifling and strictly
regimented boarding school in Potsdam. In 1909,
against her familys will, Winsloe entered the
Kunstgewerbeschule (college for arts and crafts) in
Munich to become a sculptor. Her eleven-year mar-
riage of convenience with the Hungarian poet
Baron Ladislas Hatvany (18801961) ended in Christa Winsloe. Courtesy ofRenate von Gebhardt.
divorce in 1924.
Winsloes breakthrough as a writer came in
1930 with her play Gestern und Heute (Yesterday Nazi Germany. Traveling throughout Europe and the
and Today), a semiautobiographic portrayal of the United States between 1933 and 1935, she frequently
love of a shy but high-spirited student, Manuela met up with American journalist Dorothy Thompson
Meinhardis, for her young teacher, Elisabeth von (18931961), with whom she had a passionate love
Bernburg, who is unable to prevent Manuela from affair that still echoes in a series of letters to her.
committing suicide when her lesbian feelings be- In October 1939, Winsloe took up residence
come public. Although the successful staging of the with her lover, Simone Gentet (d. 1944), in
drama in Berlin counts as the first truly sensitive Cagnessur-Mer, a French village not far from Nice
and realistic representation of female homosexu- on the Cte dAzur, at times providing a home to
ality in German theater, it was the adaptation of other fugitives. To battle her profound unhappi-
the story in the 1931 film Mdchen in Uniform ness, caused by her increasing poverty and loneli-
directed by Leontine Sagan (n.d.) with an all-fe- ness in exile, Winsloe kept writing tirelessly. How-
male castthat brought Winsloe worldwide rec- ever, the mountains of manuscripts (Winsloe,
ognition. Winsloes novels, Life Begins (London quoted in Schoppmann, 1995) that she produced
1935; also New York 1936 under the title Girl were left behind and lost when she had to evacu-
Alone) and Passeggiera (1938), and her plays, Der ate the house in Cagnes in February 1944.
Schritt hinber (One Step Over [1940]) and Aino On June 10, 1944, in the unrest that followed
(1943), are less known but of equal importance the liberation of Paris, Christa Winsloe and Simone
for their open discussion of gay and lesbian themes. Gentet were abducted in Cluny by a gang of mer-
After 1933, Winsloe, known as an intensely femi- cenaries and shot in cold blood in the nearby woods
nine (Kurth, 1990), straightforward, and outspo- of Chateau. Their executioners were acquitted of
ken woman, spent most of her time in exile from all charges four years later. Christoph Lorey

804 WILHELM, GALE

Bibliography could cohabit with women (Crompton 1980
Dyer, Richard. Less and More Than Women and 1981). As a result, the Church began identifying
Men: Lesbian and Gay Cinema in Weimar Ger- homosexuality with witchcraft and heresy and per-
many. New German Critique 51 (Fall 1990), secuting, among others, homosexual men and
562. women. Fueled, in part, by an environment in
Kurth, Peter. American Cassandra: The Life of which women were challenging old assumptions,
Dorothy Thompson. Boston: Little, Brown, the witch-hunt craze targeted unconventional
1990, 177197, 342343. women, including those considered to be lesbians.
Rich, Ruby. Mdchen in Uniform: From Repres- Thousands of people were tried and convicted
sive Tolerance to Erotic Liberation. Jump Cut of witchcraft (hundreds for sexual deviancy), and
2425 (March 1981), 4450. many were executed. Birth control and abortion
Schfer, Margarete. Theater, Theater! Eldorado: were seen as heinous crimes and were connected
Homosexuelle Frauen und Mnner in Berlin, to witchcraft. The breasts and labia of women were
18501950. (Eldorado: Homosexual Women and considered models for the devils teat. A predomi-
Men in Berlin, 18501950). Berlin: Berlin Mu- nantly male establishment fomented the persecu-
seum/Frhlich and Kaufmann, 1984, 180186. tion of so-called witches: 85 percent of all accused
Schoppmann, Claudia, ed. Im Fluchtgepck die were women. Thus, the witch-hunt craze that be-
Sprache: Deutschsprachige Schriftstellerinnen im set premodern Europe was decidedly mysogynistic
Exil (Language of Escape: German-Speaking in nature. Joan of Arc (14121431), the female
Women Writers in Exile). Frankfurt: Fischer, 1995. crusader, was considered a witch, in part, because
she dressed and fought like a man.
See also German Literature; Germany; Nazism Lesbianism was thought to be proof of witchcraft.
Accused lesbiansor female sodomiteswere
tried, and some executed. In one case, a young French
Witches, Persecution of abbess was sentenced to life in a convent after engag-
Hysteria, primarily European, during which uncon- ing in sex with an assistant for several years. Another
ventional women were persecuted under the con- woman, of Essex, England, was hanged as a witch
ventions of demonic possession. During the Euro- after a man accused her and his wife of being lovers
pean witchcraft craze from the mid-fifteenth to and familiar friendes (Barstow 1994). In 1477, a
the mid-eighteenth century, Protestant and Roman girl was drowned in Germany for lesbian love, and
Catholic Church leaders decried witchcraft as an two women were tortured in France in the sixteenth
evil to be suppressed. For more than two centuries, century for their relationship. Both were later acquit-
witches were accused of relating to the devil, often ted for insufficient evidence. Two Spanish nuns
sexually. The campaign enveloped Europe, but, in were burned alive for using material instruments,
general, the witchcraft craze was restricted to Scot- which historians interpreted to mean dildos (all quo-
land, France, Germany, Italy, and England. These tations from Crompton 19801981).
countries, from as early as 1400 until at least the In 1692, in Salem, Massachusetts, witch hyste-
1750s, embraced medieval Roman law that deemed ria led to the hanging of nineteen accused witches
sex between women a foul wickedness that was and the imprisonment of others. A physician at-
deserving of the death penalty. tributed unusual behavior of young village girls to
Until almost the thirteenth century, the Catho- demonic possession. Historians have often attrib-
lic Church had considered witchcraft to be flights uted the girls behavior to repressed sexuality, a
of fancy, but St. Thomas Aquinas (12251274) result of a restrictive Puritan lifestyle that permit-
challenged that assertion, maintaining that witch- ted no outlets for female expression. Inappropri-
craft was, indeed, real. In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII ate sexual behavior among some of the girls is
(14321492) released a papal bull designed to also believed to have contributed to belief in their
eradicate witchcraft in Germany, incorporating folk demonic possession. Denise Me Vea
belief in black magic and witchcraft into Church
dogma. Lesbianism had already been singled out Bibliography
as a sin in church penitentials, having been deemed Barstow, Anne Llewellyn. Witchcraze: A New His-
against the order of nature, which created wom- tory of the European Witch Hunts. San Fran-
ens genitals for the use of menand not so women cisco: Pandora, 1994.

WITCHES, PERSECUTION OF 805

 Bullough, Vern L. The Subordinate Sex: A History ing of Don Quixote, in which all major characters
W of Attitudes Toward Women. Athens: Univer-
sity of Georgia Press, 1988.
are lesbian. The novel Virgile, non (Across the
Acheron [1985]) is a lesbian Divine Comedy set in
Crompton, Louis. The Myth of Lesbian Impunity: contemporary San Francisco, California.
Capital Laws from 1270 to 1791. Journal of Wittig served as visiting artist and professor at
Homosexuality 6:1/2 (19801981), 1125. several American universities, and, in 1986, she earned
Evans, Arthur. Witchcraft and the Gay a Ph.D. in literature from the Sorbonne in Paris,
Counterculture: A Radical View of Western France. She later became professor of French litera-
Civilization and the People It Has Tried To ture and Womens Studies at the University of Ari-
Destroy. Boston: Fag Rag, 1978. zona, where she continued to teach in the late 1990s.
Starkey, Marion. The Visionary Girls: Witchcraft A materialist feminist, Wittig believes that all hu-
in Salem Village. Boston: Little, Brown, 1973. man culture is socially constructed and, therefore,
political. Biological differences have no meaning out-
See also Joan of Arc (Jeanne dArc) side a compulsory heterosexuality that creates
women to be exploited by men. Her goal is to
abolish these unequal classes of people in order to
Wittig, Monique (1935) abolish compulsory heterosexuality. Hence, she says,
French novelist, essayist, and playwright. Born in lesbians are not women because lesbians are not
the Haut Rhin (Alsace), Monique Wittig moved to defined by a relation to men. Wittig rejects femi-
Paris in the 1950s. Her first novel, LOpoponax nist theories that valorize difference or the femi-
(The Opoponax [1964]), won the Prix Mdicis and nine as reactionary reinforcements of heterosexual
critical acclaim. Her play LAmant vert (The Green dualism. In her essays, she explicitly ties language and
Lover) was produced in Bolivia in 1969, and sev- literary work to the material oppression of women
eral short stories were published in the late 1960s. and of lesbians. While never didactic, her novels and
Wittig participated in the French student/ worker plays are all explorations of how the world appears
revolts of May 1968 and emerged a major feminist from the marginalized perspective of lesbians.
theoretician and activist. Her influential novel Les For Wittig, literature is a Trojan horsea war
Gurillres (1969) portrays a global feminist revo- machine to undermine society. By invoking and
lution that vanquishes patriarchy and creates a then deconstructing existing language, myths, and
postheterosexual society. In May 1970, Wittig and forms, she reveals their hidden political meanings.
three coauthors published a manifesto for the French Like the phoenix in Les Gurillres, from these
feminist movement. She helped organize a demon- ashes arise visions of daring freedom and beauty.
stration at the Arc de Triomphe in August 1970 that Diane Griffin Crowder
drew major media attention. She was a founding
member of several radical groups, including the Bibliography
Gouines rouges (Red Dykes). In 1973, she published Crowder, Diane Griffin. Monique Wittig. In Fifty
Le Corps lesbien (The Lesbian Body), a series of French Women Writers. Ed. Eva Sartori and
prose poems in which all lovers are lesbian. She re- Dorothy Zimmerman. New York: Greenwood,
wrote, with coauthor Sande Zeig, the history of the 1991, pp. 524534.
world from a lesbian feminist perspective in Duffy, Jean H. Monique Wittig. In Beyond the
Brouillon pour un dictionnaire des amantes (Les- Nouveau Roman. Ed. Michael Tilby. New York:
bian Peoples: Material for a Dictionary [1975]). Berg, 1990, pp. 201228.
Tensions within the movement became intense, Jardine, Alice A., and Anne M.Menke, eds. Shift-
and, in 1976, Wittig moved to the United States. ing Scenes: Interviews on Women, Writing, and
She remained involved in French lesbian politics, Politics in Post-68 France. New York: Colum-
however, and turned to theory in a series of impor- bia University Press, 1991.
tant essays published in France and the United King, Adele. Monique Wittig. In French Women
States, collected in The Straight Mind (1992). Novelists: Defining a Female Style. New York:
Wittig returned to drama and fiction in the MacMillan, 1989.
1980s. A comic play, produced by Zeig in the Ostrovsky, Erika. A Constant Journey: The Fic-
United States as The Constant Journey (1984) and tion of Monique Wittig. Carbondale: Southern
in Paris as Le Voyage sans fin (1985), is a rework- Illinois University Press, 1991.

806 WITCHES, PERSECUTION OF

See also Critical Theory; France; French Literature; lished poetry and novels with lesbian themes. Her
Utopian Literature final work was a biography of Magnus Hirschfeld
(18681935), a leading sex researcher in pre-Nazi
Germany. Rebecca T.Alpert
Wolff, Charlotte (18971986)
German psychologist and writer. Charlotte Wolff Bibliography
was born and raised in Germany, where she trained Alpert, Rebecca T. Like Bread on the Seder Plate:
to be a physician. She participated in the under- Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tra-
ground lesbian community in Weimar Germany dition. New York: Columbia University Press,
(19181933). When the Nazis came to power, 1997.
Wolff fled to France and later to the United King-
dom. Unable to practice medicine, she became a See also Germany; Nazism; Psychology; Woolf,
chirologist (hand reader) and later a psychological Virginia
researcher, novelist, and lesbian feminist activist.
Born in Danzig, Germany, Wolff was raised in
a liberal Jewish family. Her parents were comfort- Woman-Identified Woman
able with her strong masculine identity and sexual A woman whose primary political and emotional
interest in women. In her youth, she frequented
allegiances are to other women. In 1970, lesbians
the underground dance clubs that served the les-
from a number of organizations in New York City
bian community of the time. After medical school,
met to write a manifesto in response to homopho-
she worked as a physician in a state family-plan-
bia in the Womens Liberation Movement. Naming
ning clinic and lived in an open lesbian relation-
themselves Radicalesbians, they produced The
ship. When the Nazis came to power, her Chris-
Woman Identified Woman, an essay first published
tian lover deserted her. Wolff found herself obli-
in the movement pamphlet Notes From the Third
gated to leave Germany in 1933 when she both
Year (1971) and later collected in Radical Feminism
lost her job because she was a Jew and was ar-
rested by a Gestapo agent for impersonating a man. (Koedt et al. 1973). The essay defined woman-iden-
In France, Wolff took up a career as a tification and offered a new vision of lesbianism to
chirologist. She read and interpreted the hands of the womens liberation movement. The
many literati, including Aldous (18941963) and Radicalesbians define male-identification as the in-
Maria (18981955) Huxley. The Huxleys helped ternalization by women of a misogynist view of
her move to the United Kingdom, where she con- themselves, so that they gain self-esteem only
tinued her hand-reading practice with leading art- through servile relationships with men.
ists and writers of the time, including Virginia Womanidentification, by contrast, is a position that
Woolf (18821941). In the 1950s, Wolff began to values women in their own right as individuals and
publish psychological studies of the human hand, values their relationships with each other. The
for which she became well known. womanidentified woman would appreciate what
In 1969, Wolff published the first of two mem- was worthy in other women and would not be afraid
oirs, On the Way to Myself: Communications to a to give her political and emotional energy to them.
Friend. In writing this volume, Wolff realized that This definition implies that feminism is neces-
she had never addressed the implications of her sary for womens development and that homopho-
sexual interests in women in her professional work. bia is central to womens oppression. According
She embarked on a series of studies of bisexuality to the Radicalesbians, women face many inequi-
and lesbianism that showed that lesbianism was ties under heterosexuality but are compensated for
healthy from a psychological perspective. This this by the knowledge that they have fulfilled their
brought her to the attention of the nascent lesbian role as true women. This role requires that they
feminist communities in Britain and Germany and identify with men and against other women, which
solidified her reputation as a spokesperson and often results in homophobia toward lesbians. From
resource of the lesbian feminist community. a womanidentified perspective, heterosexual wom-
In her later life, Wolff published her second ens homophobia toward lesbians is a form of self-
memoir, Hindsight (1980), which discussed the hatred, in which they value themselves and women
integration of her psychological theories of lesbi- so little that they cant imagine giving love and at-
anism and her personal experiences. She also pub- tention to anyone other than men.

WOMAN-IDENTIFIED WOMAN 807

 To the Radicalesbians, lesbians provide an im-
W portant example for feminists of the power of
woman-identification. In The Woman Identified
Womanist
Term derived from the African American women
folk cultural expression You are acting woman-
Woman the lesbian is presented as a kind of femi- ish. The phrase illustrates African American little
nist hero who has, through her marginality, devel- girls precociousness as they attempt to compre-
oped insight into the relationship between wom- hend and overcome the challenges adult African
ens oppression and heterosexuality. Lesbians very American women face in their strategies for sur-
strength, according to this view, is that they are vival in an oppressive society. The term was coined
not proper women: They have not developed a by African American writer Alice Walker (1944)
preoccupation with mens concerns and with mens in her 1983 collection of prose writings, In Search
opinions of them, and they are not isolated from of Our Mothers Garden.
other women by individual relationships with men. Walker specifically devised the term in response
Lesbians are described in this essay as the rage to literary historian Jean Humezs introductory state-
of all women condensed to the point of explosion, ment in Gifts of Power: The Writing of Rebecca
as lifelong feminists who have always rejected the Jackson, Black Visionary, Shaker Eldress (1981).
oppressive feminine role and have always been Humez suggested that Rebecca Jackson (1795
woman-identified. The Radicalesbians encourage 1871) and Rebecca Perot, who were part of an Af-
heterosexual women to adopt this same viewto rican American Shaker settlement in Philadelphia
value women, to challenge men, and to examine in the 1870s and lived with each other for more
the extent to which heterosexuality and gender roles than thirty years, would had been labeled as lesbi-
are central to the maintenance of womens oppres- ans in the late-twentieth-century climate of acknowl-
sion. While they suggest that heterosexual women edging female relationships. Humez supported her
may choose to withdraw from personal relation- speculations of the Jackson-Perot relationship by
ships with men in order to strengthen their own pointing to the homoerotic dreams the women had
positive view of themselves, they dont require that of each other. Walker disputed Humezs right, as a
women do so. For the Radicalesbians, what is im- white woman from a different cultural context, to
portant is not that all women become lesbians but define the intimacy between two African American
that all women convert from a male-identified to a women. Womanist was coined as a term that was
womanidentified view of the world. both culture specific and encompassed a variety of
The idea that lesbians are inherently feminist is ways that African American women support each
controversial among many lesbians. However, the other and relate to the world.
image of the lesbian as an outsider whose presence Walker defines a womanist as a black feminist
challenges norms of gender and sexuality has per- who continues the legacy of outrageous, audacious,
sisted in many areas of lesbian scholarship. courageous, and willful, responsible, in charge, seri-
Becca Cragin ous African American women as agents of social
change for the wholeness and liberation of their en-
Bibliography tire people and, by extension, the rest of humanity. A
Echols, Alice. Daring To Be Bad: Radical Femi- womanist can be a lesbian, a heterosexual, or a bi-
nism in America, 19671975. Minneapolis: sexual woman. She celebrates and affirms African
University of Minnesota Press, 1989. American womens culture and physical beauty.
King, Katie. The Situation of Lesbianism as Femi-
nisms Magical Sign: Contests for Meaning and Christian Uses
the U.S. Womens Movement, 19681972. Although the words religion or Christian do
Communication 9 (1986), 6591. not appear in Walkers definition, there are both
Koedt, Anne. Lesbianism and Feminism. In Radi- religious and secular usages for the term
cal Feminism. Ed. Anne Koedt, Ellen Levine, womanist. Because Walker emphasizes African
and Anita Rapone. New York: Quadrangle, American womens love for the Spirit, African
1973, pp. 246258. American Christian women have used womanist
to articulate their witness to, and participation in,
See also Homophobia; Lesbian Feminism; Mi- Gods power and presence in the world. Womanist
sogyny; Radicalesbians; Womens Liberation in the religious sense is often used by African Ameri-
Movement can women who are Christian ministers and

808 WOMAN-IDENTIFIED WOMAN

seminarians, as well as feminist scholars in the field Bibliography
of religion. Womanist Christian thought and prac- Clarke, Cheryl, Jewelle L.Gomez, Evelynne
tices began to flourish by the mid-1980s as a way to Hammonds, Bonnie Johnson, and Linda Powell.
challenge racist, sexist, and white feminist religious Conversations and Questions: Black Women
practices and discourses that excluded African on Black Women Writers. Conditions: Nine,
American womens participation and ignored their III:3 (1983), 88137.
experiences in church and society. Humez, Jean. Gifts of Power: The Writings of
For womanist Christian ministers and seminar- Rebecca Jackson, Black Visionary, Shaker
ians, Walkers definition serves as a springboard Eldress. Amherst: University of Massachusetts
for their preaching style, liturgy, and pastoral min- Press, 1981.
istry. For womanist Christian academicians, the Sanders, Cheryl, Katie G.Cannon, Emilie M.
definition shapes and frames their analytical and Townes, bell hooks, and Cheryl Townsend
theoretical approaches. By using African Ameri- Gilkes Christian Ethics and Theology in
can womens experiences of struggle and survival Womanist Perspective. Journal of Feminist
as their starting point of inquiry, these clergywomen Studies in Religion 5:2 (Fall 1989), 83112.
and scholars examine the simultaneous forces of Walker, Alice. Gifts of Power: The Writings of
race, class, and gender oppressions in African Rebecca Jackson. In In Search of Our Moth-
American womens lives. A womanist approach ers Garden. New York: Harcourt Brace
also celebrates African American womens religious Jovanovich, 1983, pp. 7182.
history and validates their theological beliefs.
Although Walkers definition includes lesbians See also Black Church, The; Black Feminism;
as womanist, their voices in the womanist Chris- Homophobia
tian discourse, as well as their contributions to
African American womens religious histories, have
been suppressed. Proponents for the exclusion of Women of Color
lesbians in the discourse argue that a lesbian sexual In 1981, the National Institute for Women of Color
orientation is antithetical to the tenets and survival in Washington, D.C.which tracked the status of
of the Black Church and the black family. As a women of color in terms of educational attainment,
result, many Christian lesbians in the womanist earnings and employment, health, socioeconom-
Christian discourse have responded either by en- ics, and political participationadopted the fol-
gaging in the debate without disclosing their sexual lowing definition:
identities or by opting not to engage in it at all.
[T]he phrase women of color is a positive
Secular Uses descriptor for women who are black, His-
The secular use of womanist is by African Ameri- panic, American Indian, Alaska Native,
can women who either have left the Black Church Asian American, Pacific Islander; this
because of its gender bias and/or homophobia, or descriptor lays the foundation for new and
do not come from the Black Church religious expe- broader alliances among women and their
rience, and/or are not Christians. These women use organizations, and focuses upon the national
the term to identify a culturally specific form of and global relationships among women and
women-centered politics and theory. They argue that encourages inter-ethnic/racial group commu-
the term feminist is inappropriate because of its nication; moreover, the foregoing connotes
history of being identified with a predominantly a realignment of power relationships toward
white movement that has often excluded and alien- a status in which women of color become
ated African American women. In addition, because equal partners with women and men of all
the term feminist has been used to identify women races. (Inuzaka, 1991)
as lesbians regardless of their sexual orientation,
womanist provides a way to affirm ones identity Politically, the adoption of this term and defini-
without being associated with lesbianism. Because tion reflected the outgrowth of the belief that
of this, some women have challenged the term the womens movement and feminism addressed
womanist for its homophobic implications. only the issues of women of European descent
Irene Monroe and literally excluded anyone who was not of

WOMEN OF COLOR 809

 European descent. It addressed the observations Bibliography
W that these groups were often elitist, classist, and
racist and that women of color experienced dif-
Anzalda, Gloria, ed. Making Face, Making Soul
Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspec-
ferent types of oppression than white women. tives by Women of Color. San Francisco: Aunt
The concept points to the fact that commonalities Lute, 1990.
exist among the types of oppression experienced Inuzaka, June K. Women of Color and Public
by women of color and that working collectively Policy: A Case Study of the Womens Business
would be more effective than having separate Ownership Act. Stanford Law Review 43:6
political groups based on specific ethnic back- (1991), 12151239.
grounds. Collectively, women not of European Moraga, Cherre, and Gloria Anzalda, eds. This
descent would have power in their larger num- Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical
bers. Moreover, while individual ethnic groups Women of Color. New York: Kitchen Table:
might literally be in the minority, collectively they Women of Color Press, 1983.
are not. In fact, 70 percent of the world is com-
posed of nonwhite people, with 51 percent of See also African Americans; Anzalda, Gloria E.;
those people being females. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders; Black Femi-
The United Nations declared the 1980s the In- nism; Latinas; Moraga, Cherre; Native Americans;
ternational Womens Decade. Many other Race and Racism
womenof-color groups were formed in recognition
of the fact that vast numbers of women were lo-
cated outside the United States of America and se- Womens Lberation Movement
lect European countries. On the eve of that dec- Commonly referred to as the second wave of
ade, in April 1979, after leaving a national femi- feminism, with the first wave focusing on win-
nist writers organization in which they were the ning womens suffrage. The contemporary femi-
only Chicanas, Gloria Andalza (1942) and nist movement in the United States emerged out of
Cherre Moraga (1952) wrote and sent out a let- the generalized social discontent of the 1960s and
ter soliciting women of color to write about, and adopted structures, ideologies, and strategies that
define, feminism. reflect the grievances and preexisting networks of
Responses to the solicitation letter resulted two different cohorts of women.
in the publishing of This Bridge Called My Back:
Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981). In History
the Introduction, editors Moraga and Anzalda Most scholars divide the womens movement into
wrote: What began as a reaction to the racism two wings, variously referred to as the womens rights,
of white feminists soon became a positive affir- liberal, bureaucratic, older branch and the womens
mation of the commitment of women of color to liberation, radical, collectivist, younger branch.
our own feminism. This Bridge Called My Founders of the former were mainly older, well-edu-
Back intends to reflect an uncompromised defi- cated, professional women with strong ties to state
nition of feminism by women of color in the and federal governments, while the latter drew mostly
U.S. Toni Cade Bambara summarizes the po- from college-age women with experience in other
litical importance of women of color in the fore- progressive social movements. Structural facilitators
word of Bridge: of the movement included womens rising educational
levels and their increased participation in the paid
Now that weve begun to break the silence labor force, especially among white married women
and begun to break through the diabolically with children. The dual burden of work in and out-
erected barriers and can hear each other and side the home and blatant employment discrimina-
see each other, we can sit down with trust tion created, for many women, a sense of discontent
and break bread together. Rise up and break and gender consciousness.
our chains as wellexplain to white femi- Several distinct and more immediate factors fa-
nist would-be allies that there are other ties cilitated the formation of the two branches. For the
and visions that bind, prior allegiances and liberal wing, significant facilitating events include
priorities that supercede their invitation to John F.Kennedys establishment, in 1961, of the
coalesce on their terms. Akilah Monifa Presidents Commission on the Status of Women;

810 WOMEN OF COLOR

the publication in 1963 of Betty Friedans (1921) The radical branch consisted of smaller, local,
best-selling book The Feminine Mystique; the pas- autonomous groups that lacked formal structure and
sage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963; and the addition were organized communally with an egalitarian fo-
of sex to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. cus. As reflections of the insight that the personal
The official birth of the liberal branch occurred in is political and as prefigurative attempts at struc-
1966 with the formation of the National Organiza- turing groups in ways that mirror feminist values
tion for Women (NOW), after participants at the and goals, these nonhierarchical, collectivist groups
Third National Conference of State Commissions operated by consensus, rotated leadership and other
on the Status of Women (Washington, D.C.) were tasks, and encouraged members to obtain multiple
prevented from introducing a resolution demand- skills. Consciousness-raising (CR) groups, in which
ing that the Equal Employment Opportunity Com- members taught each other to connect seemingly
mission begin taking sex discrimination seriously. personal problems to larger structural inequalities,
The radical wing grew out of the simultaneously were the main source of initiation and participation
radicalizing and alienating experience of young for most women. CR groups fostered enormous
women involved in the male-dominated civil rights growth in the radical branch and spread eventually
and New Left movements. African American to the liberal wing. Some of the most well known
women in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating radical groups include Redstockings, the Feminists,
Committee first raised the issue of sexism and gen- and New York Radical Feminists.
der inequality in the civil rights movement in 1964, From the 1970s onward, the two branches in-
while white women activists in the New Left also creasingly convergedas bureaucratic and
began to question traditional notions of feminin- collectivist organizations blended structural ele-
ity as they met strong, effective young black women ments, and activists participated in both types of
in the movement. Most men reacted with hostility organizations. Although the vast majority of radi-
and claimed that womens concerns were per- cal feminist groups ceased to exist in the mid-1970s,
sonal or apolitical. Hence, by 1965, many radical feminism lives on in numerous alternative
women began to meet separately and discuss the institutions that emerged in the early 1970s and
creation of an independent womens liberation spread across the country. These counterinstitutions
movement. A crucial moment occurred in 1967 at include feminist bookstores, newspapers, rape cri-
the National Conference for New Politics (Chicago, sis centers, battered womens shelters, publishing and
I11.), when the womens caucus followed the ex- recording companies, coffeehouses, health clinics,
ample of the black caucus and passed a resolution self-help groups, and womens studies programs.
demanding that women receive committee repre-
sentation and half of the convention votes. After Ideology
they were ridiculed, the women met and wrote a Liberal feminist ideology maintains that women
manifesto, published in a leftist newspaper, in which lack power because they are denied equal oppor-
they called for the organization of a womens lib- tunity in the economic and political arenas. Em-
eration movement. Shortly thereafter, womens phasizing individual rights, liberal feminist analy-
groups rapidly emerged in several cities and on sis was largely a response to the institutionalized
campuses across the country, and, within a year, a sexism that professional women faced, yet it was
mass movement for womens liberation had begun. readily adapted to other areas, such as education,
the family, child care, and health care. Sometimes
Structure called equal rights feminism, liberal feminism
The liberal branch initially adopted national-level, takes an integrationist approach based on presumed
bureaucratically structured organizations with hi- similarities between the sexes.
erarchical leadership and democratic decision mak- Radical feminist ideology emphasizes womens
ing, as exemplified in NOW. As massive numbers subordination as a sex class and views gender
of women expressed interest in the movement, as the primary form of oppression. It assumes dis-
NOWs leadership encouraged the formation of tinct differences between women and men, attrib-
local chapters. Many other national organizations uted typically to stratification and socialization.
soon formed, such as the Womens Equity Action Radical feminism conceptualizes the cause of gen-
League and the National Womens Political Cau- der inequality as the sex-class system and main-
cus, which also established chapters. tains that all institutions are structured to create

W O M E N S L I B E R AT I O N M O V E M E N T 811
 and maintain that inequality. Radical feminist pendently from men allowed women the space to
W thinkers revealed how the sexist division of labor
in the home perpetuates male advantage in the eco-
question the status quo, build solidarity, develop
crucial skills, and sustain commitment. The radi-
nomic and political arenas. Analyses targeted pa- cal branchs first major action that received wide-
triarchal structures and practices in every societal spread media coverage was at the 1968 Miss
sphere, including family, the workplace, politics, America contest, where protesters crowned a sheep
education, medicine, religion, and everyday social Miss America and threw bras and other items into
interactions. Among other issues, radical feminists a freedom trash can. Although no bras were ever
developed influential critiques of rape, battering, burned, the dismissive label bra burners origi-
and other forms of violence; compulsory hetero- nated from media coverage of the event. Disrup-
sexuality, marriage, and motherhood; and the poli- tive tactics eventually spread to the liberal wing,
tics of abortion, pornography, the media, law, sci- with NOW initiating the Womens Strike for Equal-
ence, language, beauty, and culture. ity on August 26, 1970, which drew participants
The womens liberation wing also gave birth to from both branches and turned out thousands of
socialist feminism, which highlights patriarchy and women.
capitalism as interlocking systems of oppression.
Socialist feminism emerged from early movement The Impact of Lesbian Feminism
disputes between radical feminists and politicos, Following the emergence of the gay liberation
the latter attributing womens oppression to capi- movement in the wake of the Stonewall Rebellion
talism. Intense movement debate in the early 1970s (1969), lesbians in the womens movement began
concerning lesbianism also contributed to the rise seeking visibility and support from their hetero-
of lesbian feminism, which conceptualizes hetero- sexual sisters yet encountered hostility in both
sexuality as an institution of patriarchal control branches. Presaging later debates over the race- and
and recasts lesbianism as a form of political resist- class-bound nature of the womens movement, the
ance against male domination. gay-straight split emerged as a major schism in
After the mid-1970s, the distinction between the early 1970s. Fearful that lesbians would dis-
liberal and radical feminism blurred as the move- credit the movement, NOW founder Betty Friedan
ment became increasingly radicalized. The move- labeled lesbianism a lavender menace and drove
ment blended ideas and goals from its various ideo- many lesbians from the organization. In response,
logical strands, so that, by the late 1990s, it ad- a group of lesbians with T-shirts reading Laven-
dressed nearly every social issue, critiquing multi- der Menace disrupted the 1970 Congress to Unite
ple forms of domination based on gender, race, Women in New York City. Calling their group the
ethnicity, class, and sexuality. Radicalesbians, protesters began distributing their
paper, The Woman Identified Woman, which
Strategy conceptualized lesbianism as a political choice.
The liberal branch primarily used institutionalized Other lesbian feminist groups soon emerged af-
legal tactics to pursue equal rights within the exist- ter the formation, in 1971, of the influential collec-
ing social structure. Its main strategies were to ob- tive named the Furies, which advocated separatism,
tain economic and legal equality through legislation, viewed lesbianism as the logical extension of the
the courts, and lobbying and to gain access to elite personal as political, and characterized lesbians as
positions in politics and the workplace. Examples the vanguard of the womens movement. Put on the
include the struggles to ratify the Equal Rights defensive, some heterosexual feminists left the move-
Amendment and to secure abortion rights. These ment. Eventually, however, the movement began to
became mobilizing and unifying issues for both sponsor workshops on lesbianism, incorporate les-
branches, leading them to work in coalition and bian feminist analyses, and fight for lesbian rights.
prompting the liberal branch to begin working in Scholars sometimes refer to lesbian feminism as
the 1970s as a political interest group, which soon cultural feminism, even though the latter is but
faced a powerful antifeminist backlash movement. one ideological position within lesbian feminist
The radical branch was more apt to use disrup- communities. Cultural feminism entails an essen-
tive tactics, such as direct, or zap, actions and tialist view of gender differences and emphasizes
civil disobedience. Separatism was also a strategy separatism and the building of an alternative wom-
and, for some, a goal in itself. Organizing inde- ens culture predicated on female values. Critics

812 W O M E N S L I B E R AT I O N M O V E M E N T
have viewed the rise of these elements in radical Socialism; Suffrage Movement; Woman-Identified
feminism as a retreat from politics into lifestyle Woman
and have blamed radical feminisms demise on les-
bian feminism. Contrary to this view, Taylor and
Rupp (1993) argues that radical feminism, faced Womens Studies
with a hostile sociopolitical environment, evolved Academic discipline that seeks, through education,
into a different cycle of activism that is largely sus- research, and public service, to promote the crea-
tained by lesbian feminist communities. The con- tion and dissemination of knowledge about the
tinuing feminist resistance inherent in womens diversity of womens lives and experiences. As an
culture and the numerous alternative institutions interdisciplinary field of inquiry, womens studies
of the womens community were increasingly examines womens participation and representa-
driven by the commitment of lesbian feminists in tion in history, culture, and society and offers new
the 1980s and 1990s. These networks encouraged theoretical perspectives, insights, and methodolo-
women to take a variety of actions aimed at per- gies on the relationship between sex, gender, and
sonal, cultural, and structural change. Hence, ac- power. Feminist scholars working in the field of
cording to this view, rather than ushering in the womens studies are encouraged to create new ways
demise of radical feminism, lesbian feminists have of viewing women and gender that accommodate
contributed to its survival. Nicole C.Raeburn the differences and similarities among women in
terms of race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexual
Bibliography identity, and physical ability. The womens studies
Buechler, Steven M. Womens Movements in the curriculum generally offers courses on women writ-
United States: Woman Suffrage, Equal Rights, ers, artists and filmmakers, the sociology of gen-
and Beyond. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers der, the psychology of women, womens history,
University Press, 1990. feminist theory and activism, women of color, les-
Echols, Alice. Daring To Be Bad: Radical Femi- bianism, women and work, womens health and
nism in America, 19671975. Minneapolis: safety, women and politics, women and religion,
University of Minnesota Press, 1989. gender and communication, and global feminism.
Evans, Sara. Personal Politics: The Roots of Wom-
ens Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and History
the New Left. New York: Random House, 1979. Sometimes characterized as the academic arm
Ferree, Myra Marx, and Beth B.Hess. Controversy of the womens movement, womens studies had
and Coalition: The New Feminist Movement. its origins in the social-change movements of the
Boston: Twayne, 1985. Rev. ed. New York: 1960s. Many of its pioneers believed that wom-
Maxwell Macmillan, 1994. ens studies was a necessary part of womens strug-
Freeman, Jo. The Politics of Womens Liberation: gle for selfdeterminationand that the goal of
A Case Study of an Emerging Social Movement womens studies was to understand the world in
and Its Relation to the Policy Process. New order to change it (Boxer 1982). Womens stud-
York: David McKay, 1975. ies began as a loose configuration of activities,
Ryan, Barbara. Feminism and the Womens Move- courses, and resources, such as bibliographies and
ment: Dynamics of Change in Social Movement readings lists, newsletters, manifestos, pamphlets,
Ideology and Activism. New York: Routledge, conferences, schools, workshops, and campus pro-
1992. test actions. Many feminists who were participants
Taylor, Verta, and Leila J.Rupp. Womens Cul- in the movement to establish womens studies were
ture and Lesbian Feminist Activism: A Recon- veterans of the civil rights and New Left move-
sider-ation of Cultural Feminism. Signs: Jour- ments and, thus, provided a focus on transforma-
nal of Women in Culture and Society 19 (1993), tion and change in the university and in society as
3261. a whole. Through their activism, women gained
valuable experience in organizing, public speak-
See also Consciousness Raising; Essentialism; Femi- ing, and teaching. Participants were joined by
nism; Furies, The; Lesbian Feminism; National women in government and in the professions, in-
Organization for Women (NOW); New Left; cluding higher-education administration, in articu-
Radicalesbians; Separatism; Sexism; Sisterhood; lating a new intellectual agenda for women in the

WOMENS STUDIES 813

 academy. The first courses in womens studies be- The development and legitimation of womens
W gan to appear on college campuses in the late 1960s;
the first integrated programs of study were estab-
studies was fueled by and, in turn, promoted, the
tremendous growth in interdisciplinary scholarship
lished at San Diego State University and at Cornell on women, gender, sexuality, and sex equity. Re-
University in the 19691970 academic year. search grants and fellowships provided by major
Early efforts to establish womens studies raised foundations, such as Ford, Rockefeller, Mellon, and
important questions about the tensions between Russell Sage, and the federal government stimulated
the academic and political goals of classroom teach- the creation of new knowledge about women. The
ing, the responsibility of womens studies to wom- creation of the Feminist Press in 1970 and the es-
ens movements, and the implication of feminist tablishment of academic journals in womens stud-
organizational structure and democratic governance ies facilitated the dissemination and production of
for impact on the university (Boxer 1982). Fur- this new scholarship. Increased institutionalization
thermore, as womens studies struggled with the of womens studies has been accelerated by the ex-
double purpose to expose and redress the oppres- plosion of feminist scholarship, so that, by the 1990s,
sion of women, there was ambivalence about af- there were more than thirty journals that published
filiating with traditional institutions of higher edu- scholarship on women, dozens of feminist presses,
cation. In fact, the first womens studies courses were and many womens studies series within university
established outside mainstream academic circles as and commercial publishing circles.
a part of the free-school movement at the New Or-
leans Free School in 1966 and at the Free School of Lesbians Within Womens Studies
Seattle in 1965. Nonetheless, the student movements Many womens studies journals, such as Signs:
of the 1960s made it easier to challenge the curricu- Journal of Women in Culture and Society, NWSA
lum taught in colleges and universities and helped Journal, Gender and Society, differences, and
create the climate on campuses for the creation of Hypathia, published special issues on lesbianism,
womens studies. On some campuses, womens stud- sexuality, and queer theory. Many others, such as
ies became a reality only after women students, fac- Feminist Studies, Womens Studies Quarterly, and
ulty, and staff, many of whom were lesbians, threat- Womens Studies International Forum, regularly
ened to file class-action suits against the universities feature articles about lesbian health, culture, phi-
for discriminatory practices in admissions, hiring, losophy, literature, and the like. Lesbian scholars
promotion, wages, governance, and access to ath- within the field of womens studies have been in-
letics. Proposed remedies for sex discrimination in strumental in the critique of institutional
higher education focused on affirmative action, gen- heterosexism in society and in the academy and
der equity in sports, and the inclusion of women in have helped make visible the experiences and con-
the curriculum through the establishment of wom- tributions of lesbians. Lesbians of every race and
ens studies programs. nationality, along with heterosexual women of
The proliferation of specialized courses about color, have historically challenged the field to honor
women, gender, and sexuality gave way to the crea- its commitment to inclusivity and diversity in both
tion of coherent womens studies programs. Be- theory and practice. The result, with much strug-
tween 1970 and 1975, 150 such programs were gle, has been the development of a growing body
established; by 1980, the number exceeded three of research that examines the intersections of race,
hundred; and, by the late 1990s, there were more class, nationality, gender, physical ability, and sexu-
than nine hundred programs in the United States ality both historically and cross-culturally.
alone. Womens studies has been established in Despite the fact that lesbians have always been
every region of the world, including Africa, Asia, active in the production of knowledge about women
Latin America, Europe, Canada, and Australia, and and in the struggle for womens liberation, and were
in every type of academic institutionsmall pri- influential in the formation, growth, and develop-
vate liberal arts colleges, religious-affiliated schools, ment of womens studies as a field, their specific
large public research institutions, womens colleges, concerns as lesbians were often muted or excluded.
and historically black institutions. With a 1988 Marilyn Frye, a philosopher and professor of wom-
endowment from the family of comedian Bill ens studies at Michigan State University, is one of
Cosby, Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, es- the most visible lesbian scholars within womens
tablished the first chair for black womens studies. studies and a vocal critic of womens studies for its

814 WOMENS STUDIES

heterosexual biases and assumptions. She has ar- Pedagogy
gued that womens studies as a field too readily as- Because womens studies places a premium on femi-
sumed that heterosexuality was pervasive, ubiqui- nist education as a tool of liberation and empow-
tous, and dominant throughout the world and that erment, there is a well-developed body of scholar-
lesbianism was an acceptable alternative for some ship on the changing nature of feminist pedagogy
women. She conceptualized this assumption as within the field. Feminist approaches to teaching
heterosexualism. In my experience with womens and learning focus on what is taught, how it is
studies it seems common and characteristic for the taught, and how it is learned and includes debates
women instructors to assume that widespread het- and discussions about classroom dynamics, issues
erosexuality and the dominance of heterosexual of authority and power, womens voices, womens
conceptions have always been and will always be ways of knowing, multiculturalism, consciousness
The Way It Is for humans on this planet, in particu- raising, social transformation, and cultural values.
lar, for women on this planet (Frye 1992). As a From the beginning of womens studies, par-
consequence, too much of the scholarship on wom- ticipants displayed a remarkable willingness to
ens history, politics, literature, and so forth is really share information, ideas, and strategies for the crea-
scholarship on heterosexual womens lives and ex- tion of individual womens studies courses and
periences. For Frye, the more interesting and politi- overall programs, as well as novel approaches for
cally compelling question in womens studies is not teaching the new field. Female Studies (Vol. 110),
why some women are lesbian, but why women, first published in 1971 by KNOW Inc. of Pitts-
particularly feminists, choose heterosexuality. Ad- burgh, included course listings, syllabi, bibliogra-
vances for lesbians in womens studies grew out of phies, conference proceedings, and reports of indi-
these kinds of struggles over inclusivity. vidual classesmaterials that not only supported
Efforts to coordinate and exchange ideas across the work of educators, but also helped define the
various womens studies programs at home and field. Feminist librarians were also instrumental in
abroad became possible with the formation of the publishing and circulating resources crucial to the
National Womens Studies Association in 1977 and curricular development of the field and to the study
the National Council for Research on Women in of lesbians. Two publications, Womens Studies
1982 and with the United Nations International Quarterly and Feminist Teacher, continue to serve
Decades for the Advancement of Women confer- this function. Specialized publications and antholo-
ences held in Mexico City in 1975; in Nairobi, gies, such as Matrices, published at the University
Kenya, in 1985; and in Beijing, China, in 1995. of Minnesota; The New Lesbian Studies: Into the
Some organizations, including the National Wom- TwentyFirst Century (Zimmerman and McNaron
ens Studies Association, contain lesbian caucuses 1996); Tilting the Tower: Lesbians Teaching Queer
and forums that attempt to represent the diverse Subjects (Garber 1994); and the Lesbian Review
interests of lesbians in the field of womens stud- of Books, focus on feminist research and pedagogi-
ies. Conference meetings, resolutions, debates, cal issues of interest to high school teachers and
speeches, and workshops have contributed to the college professors who wish to incorporate lesbian
establishment of an international network of wom- experiences and issues in their courses. These re-
ens studies programs and activities for womens sources include essays on coming out in the class-
rights, empowerment, and research. Through their room, on teaching lesbian history and literature,
work in these organizations and campaigns, les- and on building multicultural lesbian and gay stud-
bian scholars and activists, such as Charlotte ies programs; bibliographies and film guides on
Bunch, have brought together womens studies lesbians; personal accounts of lesbian teachers and
practitioners and supporters from every setting and professors and their encounters with homophobia
region of the world. Internationally, lesbian vis- on campus; lesbian periodicals indices; dissertation
ibility was most apparent at the Fourth World abstracts on lesbian topics; book reviews; and con-
Conference on Women held in 1995 in Beijing, ference announcements and proceedings.
where lesbians won official space in the Students throughout the world can pursue wom-
Nongovernmental Organization Forum. This al- ens studies courses, degrees, and certificates at both
lowed lesbians the opportunity to meet, to ex- the graduate and undergraduate levels. Womens
change ideas, and to develop an effective lobbying studies can prepare students to be better world citi-
strategy for the conference. zens, to think critically and creatively about how

WOMENS STUDIES 815

 the world is organized for women, and to become socialist diplomat, intellectual, and diarist Leonard
W change agents on behalf of women internationally.
The graduates of womens studies programs can
Woolf (18801969), Virginia Woolf depended
upon a series of women to give her emotional and
be found working inside mainstream social, politi- erotic stimulation. In her own words, in a letter to
cal, and cultural institutions, as well as in social- the lesbian composer Ethel Smyth (1858l 944):
movement organizations at the local, national, and Women alone stir my imagination.
international levels, to meet the needs of women Woolfs most significant relationships with
and to advocate for the rights of women, includ- women began with her mother, the much-lauded
ing their right to love other women. Womens stud- beauty Julia Duckworth Steven (18461895), and
ies enhances both individual and career develop- her sister, the painter Vanessa Bell (18791964).
ment and can be beneficial in fields such as law, In her teens, she formed a deep attachment to Vio-
social work, education, the health professions, let Dickinson (18651948), a family friend to
government service, business, counseling, journal- whom she looked, at age twelve, when her mother
ism, and library science. Mary Margaret Fonow died. The most tempestuous liaison was between
her and Vita Sackville-West (18921962), with
Bibliography whom she spent as much time as their husbands
Boxer, Marilyn. Review Essay: For and About and their own other interests allowed, and for
Women: The Theory and Practice of Womens Stud- whom she wrote the amazingly energetic novel
ies in the United States. Signs: Journal of Women Orlando (1928). In later life, Woolf formed a some-
in Culture and Society 7:3 (1982), 661695. what ambiguous bond with Ethel Smyth, shared
Frye, Marilyn. Willful Virgin: Essays in Feminism, literary and personal intimacies with the brilliant
19761992. Freedom, Calif.: Crossing, 1992. New Zealand short-story writer Katherine
Garber, Linda. Tilting the Tower: Lesbian Teach- Mansfield (19881923), and valued her many as-
ing/Queer Subjects. New York: Routledge, 1994. sociations with writers and activists in the burgeon-
Guy-Sheftall, Beverly. Womens Studies: A Retro- ing feminist movement in England.
spective: A Report to the Ford Foundation. New The vexing aspect of Woolfs personality turns
York: Ford Foundation, 1995. around her sexuality. The victim of childhood and
hooks, bell. Teaching To Transgress: Education as teenage sexual abuse at the hands of her two
the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, halfbrothers, George (18681934) and Gerald
1994. (18701937) Duckworth, she was able to write
Maher, Frances, and Mary Kay Thompson about her experiences in variously coded texts but
Tetreault. The Feminist Classroom: An Inside never received any professional help to heal the trau-
Look at How Professors and Students Are matic wounds inflicted by these encounters. Not
Transforming Higher Education for a Diverse surprisingly, attempts at adult sexual relations were
Society. New York: Basic Books, 1994. haunted by her unresolved but vivid memories of
Zimmerman, Bonnie, and Toni A.H.McNaron. The the insults upon her body. She and her husband were
New Lesbian Studies: Into the Twenty-First rarely sexual, though in many ways companionate,
Century. New York: Feminist Press, 1996. and, unlike her sister, Vanessa, Woolf did not seek
sexual liaisons with any of the Bloomsbury men with
See also Activism; Associations and Organizations; whom she associated. When it came to being sexual
Feminism; Lesbian Studies; Periodicals; Queer with the women to whom she was admittedly and
Theory; Scholars; Students; Teachers; Womens intimately drawn, the same anxieties and fears about
Liberation Movement physical connection obtained, making it difficult for
her to express herself sexually even with Sackville-
West, whom she adored.
Woolf, Virginia (18821941) Her letters and journal entries, however, reveal
Twentieth-century English novelist. Considered one just what her intimacies with women gave her: safe
of the leading figures in the history of modernism, venues from which to explore her passionate na-
Virginia Woolf is the author of ten novels, several ture and an audience for her powerfully metaphoric
hundred essays and reviews, and six volumes of and linguistic eroticism. One reason to assert
letters; she also figures prominently in the debate Woolfs lesbian self arises from treatment of her
over definitions of lesbianism. Though married to by critics. Most often, she has been presented as

816 WOMENS STUDIES

Virginia Woolf. Photo by Gisle Freund. Photo Researchers, Inc., NYC.

W O O L F, V I R G I N I A 817
 asexual or frigid, or, more recently by feminist crit- While some lesbians work at home (earning money,
W ics, as someone who had a brief, if important, af-
fair with Sackville-West, from which both were
caring for loved ones, raising children), most work
outside the home for pay.
rescued by loving husbands, to whom both gave Yet, until the 1990s, with rare exceptions, les-
heartfelt devotion and gratitude. Claiming her as bians were invisible in the workplace. In the
part of lesbian history and culture not only extends 1990s, however, increasing numbers of lesbians
to her fiction the serious regard it deserves as the were willing to be open, and U.S.-based, openly
site for a range of accounts of the complexity of lesbian individuals and groups were beginning to
female experience, but also provides a framework achieve recognition for their accomplishments
within which her more informal and personal writ- from their peers and bosses, as well as in the me-
ings make sense and take on major significance. dia. In other parts of the world, lesbians were just
Readers wishing to explore markers of lesbian beginning to grapple with the issues involved in
and/or homoerotic energy between women point coming out at work.
to the following: the relationship between Mary Although, throughout history, some self-iden-
Datchett and Katherine Hilbery in Night and Day tified lesbians have married men or been supported
(1919); Sally and Clarissas youthful liaison, as by their families or an inheritance, in the modern
well as Miss Kilmans somewhat predatory inter- period, many lesbians have remained unmarried
est in Clarissas daughter, in Mrs. Dalloway and have worked to support themselves and some-
(1925); the intimate connections between Lily times others. And, despite rampant discrimination,
Briscoe and Mrs. Ramsey in To the Lighthouse particularly in the past, lesbians have also been well
(1927); Rhodas characterization in The Waves represented among the highest-achieving working
(1931); the characterization of Peggy, as well as women.
Kittys attachment to Mrs. Fripp, in The Years
(1937); Miss LaTrobes representation in Between History
the Acts (1941); and short stories such as Slat- At the turn of the twentieth century, there was a
ers Pins Have No Points (1928) and Kew Gar- socially sanctioned tradition for a pair of independ-
dens (1919). Toni A.H.McNaron ent (middle- or upper-class) women to live together
in Boston marriages, and a number of these re-
Bibliography lationships would be called lesbian by todays defi-
Bell, Quentin. Virginia Woolf: A Biography. New nition. Many of these women worked in academia,
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972. nursing, philanthropy, or other professions open
DeSalvo, Louise. Virginia Woolf: The Impact of to middleclass women of the time. Some had the
Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work. benefit of inherited wealth, but others were com-
Boston: Beacon, 1989. pletely selfsupporting. Much less is known about
Marcus, Jane, ed. New Feminist Essays on Virginia the lives of working-class women, although some
Woolf. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, butch women chose to pursue professions and
1981. trades otherwise restricted to men by dressing as
Poole, Roger. The Unknown Virginia Woolf. Cam- men and living their lives as passing women (as
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978. did a few middle- and upper-class women).
Stape, J.H., ed. Virginia Woolf: Interviews and The World War II era enabled large numbers of
Recollections. Iowa City: University of Iowa women to develop a lesbian identity. The all-fe-
Press, 1995. male environment of military society, improved job
training for women, the availability of jobs in ur-
See also English Literature, Twentieth Century; ban centers, and the economic demand for the in-
Mansfield, Katherine; Sackville-West, Vita; Smyth, creased participation of women in the work force
Dame Ethel Mary led to significant changes in womens life choices.
For some, personal and financial independence
meant that they were able to associate with other
Work like-minded women in the service or in the cities.
It is at worknot asleep, not interacting in rela- After the war, lesbian communities began to
tionships, not in recreationthat most people, in- thrive in urban areas. Among the working and
cluding lesbians, spend the majority of their time. middle classes, butch women are known to have

818 W O O L F, V I R G I N I A
sought work in traditional male, unionized trades, fessions, such as retail, restaurant, or secretarial
not always successfully; femme women typically work, preschool through high school education,
obtained work in traditionally female occupations, child care, social work, mental health, allied health
such as waitressing, piecework, secretarial work, care, government and nonprofit agencies, library
teaching, nursing, and social work. The economic science, and residential real estate rentals and sales.
disparity between breadwinning femmes and out- As some of these fields have not lent themselves to
ofwork or underemployed butches sometimes re- workplace organizing of any kind, it is not surpris-
sulted in a reversal of the typical male-female het- ing that few lesbians within them have become vis-
erosexual roles in lesbian society, not always to the ible. However, lesbians are well represented among
mutual satisfaction of the lesbian partners. lesbian and gay associations in education, allied
An exclusive upper-class lesbian society also health care, and government agencies and have been
began to thrive; it included women of monied back- among the leaders for change in these fields.
grounds who worked in the arts, journalism, law, Lesbian also increasingly entered blue-collar
and other fields that were beginning to open to (typically male working-class) professions as
women. In some cases, these privileged women were laborers, transport workers, factory workers, po-
known to be lesbians by their heterosexual peers lice officers, firefighters, and military personnel, al-
and colleagues. Academics and novelists began to though not to the same degree as gay men, because
show an interest in lesbian lives, and the middle- these fields remain so heavily male dominated.
class working woman was among the objects of It is in the white-collar professions that lesbi-
their scrutiny. Biographies of women like Gertrude ans have become most visible, gaining access in
Stein and Alice B.Toklas, or of Eleanor Roosevelt large numbers to well-paying jobs in law, medi-
and her friendship networks, detail the overlap- cine, business, architecture and engineering, higher
ping social and professional circles in which they education, politics, and high technology. They have
moved, while pulp novelists and semisympathetic joined lesbian and gay and lesbian professional
social reporters of the period paint a far less happy associations in increasing numbers, and, a number
picture of the lives of the more run-of-the mill have come out in local and national media as part
lesbian professional. Typically, her workplace of their effort to gain specific workplace protec-
world was marked by fear of discovery, reports that tions or benefits.
are confirmed by such histories as Elizabeth
Kennedy and Madeline Daviss Boots of Leather, The Workplace Closet and Coming Out
Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Com- It was only in the 1990s that significant numbers of
munity (1996), and Esther Newtons Cherry Grove, municipalities, states, and businesses have adopted
Fire Island: Sixty Years in Americas First Gay and nondiscrimination laws or policies that encompass
Lesbian Town (1993). sexual orientation. While these provisions cover the
The feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s majority of American workers, they tend to be most
saw tremendous participation by middle-class les- prevalent in certain industries and geographic ar-
bians, who began to organize their own political eas, and their enforcement is uneven. Hence, many
and social circles and to publish their own writing. lesbians remain afraid of coming out at workand
In these circles, moneymaking was often scorned, this fear is inadvertantly reinforced by studies, pro-
and, as a result, downward mobility became fash- duced by national and local gay organizations and
ionable among some middle- and upper-class les- publicized in the lesbian and gay and mainstream
bians. Many of these women were attracted to tra- press, that highlight workplace discrimination in
ditional working-class jobs in factories, farms, and order to secure additional protective legislation.
the crafts, along with the newer womens com- For some, staying in the closet is seen as a survial
munity positions in food service, entertainment, issuephysical attacks in the workplace on blue-
and nonprofit work. However, particularly in the collar lesbians are not unknown. For other work-
1980s, self-identified lesbians also began to move ing-class women, who are one paycheck away from
into the professions, including teaching, law, medi- public assistence, the closet also feels safer than
cine, business, and academia, alongside closeted the possibility of being fired for being gay. Many
lesbians and heterosexual women. lesbians in the newly expanded white-collar pro-
In the 1990s, the largest number of lesbians could fessions also feel especially fearful of coming out
be found in the pink-collar (typically female) pro- at work, because it was only in the 1980s that large

WORK 819
 numbers of women gained access to these better- rate support, including such soft benefits as time off
W paying jobs. However, no statistical data exist to
support this fear. Rather, these white-collar posi-
and such hard benefits as insurance for their part-
ners and children (see, for example, Benkov 1994).
tions tend to exist in industries and locations that Finally, in contrast to the stereotype of the office
offer the best protection against discrimination; romance between male boss and female employee,
moreover, women tend to work for companies that Schneider (1984) found that lesbians and bisexual
have among the best track records of hiring and women were more likely than heterosexual women
promoting openly gay men and lesbians. In fact, to become involved in sexual relationships in the
the experience of lesbian professionals who are out workplace. These were not brief affairs, but serious
at work shows that those who try to remain clos- relationships, and typically took place between
eted or undeclared are more likely to experience coworkers of equal status, although as women move
harassment, as well as more subtle forms of dis- into positions of authority, more relationships be-
crimination (Friskopp and Silverstein 1995). tween women of unequal status may occur. Friskopp
There are other benefits to being open. Since and Silverstein (1995) found a number of closeted
open communication about private life is often lesbians and bisexual women who engaged in sexual
expected among co-workers, lesbians who are not harassment. This may be because lesbians see them-
out may be thought of as trying to hide something selves as having fewer choices in meeting a suitable
and, thus, not to be trusted. Alternatively, they may partner. So when a lesbian or bisexual woman meets
be perceived, and subsequently stereotyped, as sin- a lesbian in her own workplace, she may be tempted
gle heterosexual women. Single heterosexual to try to develop the relationship.
women are often thought of as unreliable (shes Closeted workplace relationships have many
just going to get married, follow her husbands pitfalls, such as the need to circumvent one part-
career, or have a baby and leave the workforce), ner reporting to the other, to arrange simultane-
flirtatious (shes sleeping her way to the top), or ous geographic transfers, or to avoid each other if
lacking social skills (why cant she get a man?). the relationship ends. Lesbians who are open at
In contrast, open lesbians ironically benefit from work are able to secure employer support in avoid-
the typical stereotypes of lesbianshardworking, ing the problems that even an acknowledged rela-
appropriately aggressive, career minded (Friskopp tionship may pose (Friskopp and Silverstein 1995).
and Silverstein 1995). Furthermore, open lesbians The closet is a vicious circlethe fewer lesbians
have the opportunity to allow bosses, coworkers, who are out, the more dangerous it seems to be to
and subordinates to know them well, which those come out. But the reverse is also trueas more lesbi-
who are out say typically leads to closer relation- ans come out at work, the safer coming out seems to
ships and more career benefits. Open lesbians re- be, and the more obvious its advantages are. Many
lationships with women may improve because they lesbians in the 1990s were open to some, most, or all
can participate in the usual forms of female of their workplace colleagues and bosses, but, until
workplace bonding by talking about relationships the 1990s they did not had the opportunity to share
or dating. In particular, their relationships with men their positive experiences with a wider audience. Thus,
are improved because there is no longer any innu- while examples of discrimination are well known,
endo about the possibility of a sexual relationship. success stories have been less widely reported. The
Schneider (1984) found that open lesbians also reporting of these stories, however, particularly when
were less likely to report sexual harassment than accompanied by profiles of open lesbians who helped
were closeted lesbians. Finally, open lesbians are the storyteller achieve her goals, creates an atmos-
also more likely to find mentors among, and to phere in which coming out is more normative.
provide mentoring to, other lesbians and gay men. Some of the most-reported success stories involve
Another disadvantage of the staying in the closet group action to achieve domestic-partnership health
closet is that, despite the lesbian baby boom, lesbi- insurance benefits. The number of companies, or-
ans who intend to remain closeted at work typically ganizations, and public employers offering these
avoid having children. In contrast, those who are benefits is growing rapidly, although the overall
open are more likely to feel the necessary social sup- numbers remain small. The typical successful effort
port for motherhood. Lesbian mothers who are open includes some lesbian and gay employees from every
at work have reported being the recipient of social part of the workplace hierarchy coming out to
niceties, from smiles to baby showers, and corpo- achieve this goal (Winfield and Spielman 1995).

820 WORK
Other goals for such groups include pension ben- amusements for a national and, in some cases, in-
efits, benefits for a partners children, corporate ternational clientele. The events associated with the
philanthropy to gay and lesbian causes, targeted Dinah Shore golf tournament in Palm Springs,
hiring among openly gay people, marketing to gay California, every spring, for example, have become
men and lesbians, and top-management support for a mecca for lesbian professionals.
local or national nondiscrimination legislation. Some lesbians professionals are also active in
national and local lesbian or lesbian and gay or-
Networking ganizations, which provide additional opportuni-
Virtually every large U.S. city has a lesbian and gay ties for friendship and networking. The few na-
professional and/or business association, and a tional lesbian organizations have also captured the
number have lesbian-only groups as well. Outside devotion of lesbian professionals, who make valu-
the United States, there are also lesbian or lesbian able social and professional contacts while fund-
and gay professional groups and business associa- raising for lesbian causes.
tions. Most are in Canada, with others in western Opportunities for lesbians who work in pinkand
Europe. Additionally, in many U.S. cities, specific blue-collar fields to network include workplace
groups exist for particular professions, such as law venues, such as gay and lesbian employee groups
or medicine, etc., and lesbian participation in these and union caucuses, and social venues, such as
groups tends to be strong in most areas and grow- softball teams and bars. Large numbers of lesbians
ing in businessoriented groups. More than one hun- also gather at womens festivals, such as the one in
dred major American companies have lesbian and Michigan, which provide other formal and infor-
gay employee associations, and these groups have mal networking opportunities.
also seen their lesbian participation grow, particu-
larly as they have moved from informal gatherings Conclusion
of friends to officially recognized organizations As lesbians move into increasing visibility in Ameri-
(Friskopp and Silverstein 1995). Their numbers in- can lifeboth to each other and the heteroseuxal
clude both management and hourly employees. mainstreamthe conditions for lesbians in the
Some unions have also developed committees and workplace will continue to improve. In other coun-
caucuses for lesbian and gay issues. tries, such changes were just beginning in the late
Historically, gay men have been far more likely to 1990s and will no doubt take different forms, based
engage in professional networking than lesbians have on the unique cultural experiences and needs of the
been. One reason is that, in general, lesbians are dis- lesbians in each location. In Canada, western Eu-
inclined to participate in social functions or organi- rope, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and
zations that are predominately male or to read media Israel, among other places, lesbian workplace issues
targeted primarily to gay men. Another reason is that were discussed among friends, on the Internet, in
lesbian social life tends to circle around the monoga- the press, and occasionally in organizations, and
mous couple and tight friendship groups, while gay these discussions were beginning to result in tangi-
men seek a more diverse social life that encourages ble advances. International organizations, sporting
networking with its resultant workplace benefits. and cultural events, parties, and Gay and Lesbian
However, through the 1990s, as lesbian and gay pro- Pride celebrations thrive as the most important ven-
fessional associations and employee groups sup- ues for face-to-face networking regarding workplace
planted these informal male social groups, lesbians issues for lesbians from these countriesas of 1998,
increasingly availed themselves of the career oppor- there had been no large-scale conferences devoted
tunities provided by them (Friskopp and Silverstein solely to workplace themes, as there have been in
1995). Additionally, the opportunities for lesbian the United States. Lesbians in eastern Europe, Asia,
professionals to meet each other in lesbianonly set- and other places were also beginning to make their
tings multiplied and continued to grow. voices heard on these issues.
While previously lesbians professionals could Sharon Silverstein
meet others like themselves only by chance at bars
or through existing friendship circles, lesbian party Bibliography
and vacation promoters in the 1990s identified this Benkov, Laura. Reinventing the Family: The Emerg-
group as a relatively affluent marketing niche and ing Story of Lesbian and Gay Parents. New
provided golf outings, cruises, tours, and other York: Crown, 1994.

WORK 821
 De La O, Maria. Lesbians in Corporate America. nasty (16441911). During this dynasty, the writ-
W In Dyke Life. Ed. Karla Jay. New York: Basic
Books, 1995, pp. 265281.
ing of poetry was considered enough of a valuable
commodity to be included in a womans dowry.
Friskopp, Annette, and Sharon Silverstein. Straight Wu Zao was the daughter of a merchant, and, later,
Jobs, Gay Lives. New York: Scribners, 1995. the wife of one, helping both her father and her
Hall, Marny. The Lesbian Corporate Experience. husband in their shops, and, as such, she had more
Journal of Homosexuality 12:34 (1986), 28 freedom of movement than most other women of
33. her class.
Levine, Martin P., and Robin Leonard. Discrimi- Wu Zaos songs and poems were very popular
nation Against Lesbians in the Work Force. and sung all over China. She was considered one
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Soci- of two leading women tzu poets in her dynasty
ety 9:4 (1984), 700710. and highly regarded as one of the best women po-
Magee, Bryan. Lesbians at Work. In One in ets of all time. Seven of her poems have been pub-
Twenty: A Study of Homosexuality in Men and lished in translation by Rexroth and Chung (1972),
Womem. New York: Stein and Day, 1966. although only three are titled. Unlike other Chi-
Rast, Richard, and Lourdes Rodriguez-Nogues, nese women poets, she wrote about a variety of
eds. Out in the Workplace. Boston: Alyson, subjects and referred to other poets in her works.
1995. Her poetry reflects her unhappy marriage and also
Schneider, Beth E. Peril and Promise: Lesbians expresses an open eroticism directed toward
Workplace Participation. In Women-Identified courtesans and other women. The most explicit of
Women. Ed. Trudi Darty and Sandee Potter. Palo these, For the Courtesan Ching Lin, evokes the
Alto, Calif.: Mayfield, 1984, pp. 211230. other womans slender body and the poets loss
Vida, Ginny, ed. The New Our Right To Love: A of speech and memory upon seeing her smile. Wu
Lesbian Resource Book. New York: Touch- Zao also draws upon imagery of leaning against
stone, 1996. the bamboos, which was commonly used by male
Winfield, Liz, and Susan Spielman. Straight Talk poets, specifically to refer to courtesans longing for
about Gays in the Workplace. New York: their special lover while in their gardens.
AMACOM, 1995. Ca. 1837, Wu Zao went into seclusion and be-
came a Taoist priestess. Akilah Monifa
See also Coming Out; Discrimination; Domestic
Partnership; Economics; Labor Movement: Sexual Bibliography
Harassment Rexroth, Kenneth, and Ling Chung. Women Poets
of China. New York: New Directions, 1972.
More information on Wu Zao is available on
Wu Zao (ca. 1800s) the World Wide Web at http://www.sappho.com/
Chinese lesbian poet; also published as Wu Tsao. poetry/wu_tsao.htm
The exact date of her birth and death are unknown.
Wu Tsao was a poet of the Ching (Manchu) Dy- See also China; Chinese Literature

822 WORK
Y
Yosano Akiko (18781942) but fictional ones suggest that the relationship be-
Japanese poet and writer. Born H Sh, Yosano Akiko tween Yosano Tekkan, Yamakawa, and herself was
was a woman of extraordinary physical, intellectual, intense and complex. Yamakawa, who died young
and emotional vitality. In 1900, Yosano and her close of tuberculosis, is considered to be the white lily
friend Yamakawa Tomiko (18791909) fell in love (shiroyuri) referred to in many of Yosano Akikos
with Yosano Tekkan (Yosano Hiroshi [18931935]), early poems. If so, the following example would
who considered himself the leader of the new poetry have to be translated differently and, instead of
movement, and he, apparently with some preference being cited as one of her most narcisstic poems,
for the softer Yamakawa, with both of them. would, rather, reveal Yosanos attraction to her
Yosano Akiko married him in 1901; however, Yosano friend: Bathing in the spring, /Lapping in the warm
Tekkan remained actively involved with both a former water lay/A fair white lily/The summer of my
wife and with Yamakawa. twentieth year/Was lovely to my gaze (trans.
Yosano Akikos first collection of poems, pub- E.A.Cranston). It is possible that the androgyny of
lished the same year under the title Midaregami the poetic speaker in Midaregami reflects a deeper
(Tangled Hair), won her instant success. Her po- complexity in Yosano, which did not permit her to
ems were praised for the freshness of their language, assume any one-dimensional sexual identity,
the boldness of their imagery, and their passion. In anymore than the ambiguity of poetry allows for a
1905, Koigoromo (Robe of Love) was published, single interpretation. Richmod Bollinger
coauthored with Yamakawa and Chino Masako
(18801946). Bibliography
As Yosano Akikos reputation climbed, Yosano Beichman, Janine. Yosano Akiko: Return to the
Tekkans fell. To help him recover his spirits and his Female. Japan Quarterly 37:2 (1990), 204228.
poetic inspiration, she raised funds to send him to Larson, Phyllis Hyland. Yosano Akiko and the
Europe in autumn 1911; Yosano herself followed in ReCreation of the Female Self: An
the spring. Back in Japan, she continued to write under Autogynography. Journal of the Association
the pressure of endless financial struggles. In the course of Teachers of Japanese 25:1 (1991), 1126
of her life, she produced many collections of poetry, (Special Issue on Yosano Akiko).
novels, essays, childrens stories, and fairy tales. She Rodd, Laurel Rasplica. Yosano Akiko and the
also did several translations of classical Japanese lit- Taish Debate over the New Woman. In Rec-
erature into modern language, including a complete reating Japanese Women, 16001945. Ed. Gail
translation, of great beauty of style, of the classic The Lee Bernstein. Berkeley: University of Califor-
Tale of Genji (ca. 1020). Despite caring for her familiy nia Press, 1991, pp. 175198.
of eleven children, Yosano kept her house open to Ueda Makoto. Modern Japanese Poets and the
new poets and writers. She died from a stroke in 1942 Nature of Literature. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford
at the age of sixty-three. University Press, 1983.
Nonfictional sources about Yosano Akikos life
during the first few years of her marriage are scant, See also Japan

YOSANO AKIKO 823

 Yoshiya Nobuko (18961973) bara (Stormy Rose [19301931]), Watashi no mita
Y Japanese writer. Yoshiya Nobuko is credited with
developing the now pervasive genre of shjo fic-
hito (People I Have Known [1963]), and Hana
monogatari (Flower Tales [19161924]), perhaps
tion (shjo shosetsu). Shjo does not translate easily her most famous book, which has been used in the
into English: Its most rudimentary meaning is girl, past as a school textcontinue to be reprinted and
but shjo more specifically refers to a category of sold by major publishers. Jennifer E.Robertson
problematic females between puberty and marriage
that was invented in the late nineteenth century. The Bibliography
shjo remains an ambiguous figure: She is at once Robertson, Jennifer. Takarazuka: Sexual Politics
desirable and dangerous and has long been a favorite and Popular Culture in Modern Japan. Berkeley:
scapegoat for social disorder. Yoshiyas shjo fic- University of California Press, 1998.
tion, which dwelled on passionate friendship and a Yoshitake Teruko. Nyonin Yoshiya Nobuko. To-
world without dominant males, inspired the emer- kyo: Bunshun Bunko, 1986.
gence of a reflexive subculture that overlapped with
that of the female fans of all-female revue theaters, See also All-Female Revues (Japan); Japan
such as Takarazuka, whose founder collaborated
with Yoshiya on several productions.
Yoshiya was born in Niigata, the only daughter Yourcenar, Marguerite (19031987)
in an affluent family of five children; it seems that French writer. Born Marguerite Cleenewerck de
dealing with her bureaucrat father and four brothers Crayencour of a Belgian mother, who died giving
left Yoshiya with a jaded view of malesthe title of a birth to her, and a French father, Marguerite
short story she published in Kaiz (Reconstruction), Yourcenar was educated privately. In 1921, her first
a leading, progressive journal is telling: Dannasama volume of poetry was published at her fathers ex-
muy (Husbands Are Useless [1931]). A self-identi- pense, appearing under the anagrammatic pseudo-
fied lesbianshe is also recognized for her feminist nym Marg. Yourcenar. In 1929, she produced
politics in postwar JapanYoshiya met her life part- her first major work, Alexis, a novella treating male
ner, Monma Chiyo (1907), in 1923; their fifty-year homosexuality. In 1939, Yourcenar moved to the
relationship, which ended with Yoshiyas death, was United States to join Grace Frick (19031979), with
referred to in the mass media as, dseiai ffu (same- whom she lived until Fricks death. They settled in
sex-love [or homosexual] husband and wife). With Northeast Harbor, Maine, where Frick helped re-
her short-cropped hair, Yoshiya was also called a vise and translate some of Yourcenars best-known
garon (garusonnu [boy]) by conservative social crit- works, such as Mmoires dHadrien (Memoirs of
ics, who, nevertheless, dissociated the writers private Hadrian, 1951) and Loeuvre au noir (The Abyss,
life from her prodigious literary output and public 1968). In 1980, Yourcenar became the first woman
service, including a stint as a wartime correspondent. elected to the Acadmie Franaise. After her death,
A 1935 article on Yoshiya in the popular monthly her ashes were buried next to Fricks in Maine.
Hanashi (Gossip) introduced her as follows: There Yourcenars attitudes toward sexuality, in life
may be women who dont know who heads the and literature, were complex. She was discreet
Womens Patriotic Association, but there is not a sin- about her personal life, choosing to leave her rela-
gle woman alive who doesnt know who Yoshiya tionships with Frick and others in the shadows
Nobuko is. Given her widespread popularity and that suit the essential things in life so well
following in Japan, it is most odd that Yoshiya has (Yourcenar 1984). Furthermore, while almost all
been ignored by EuroAmerican scholars of Japanese of her works touch on male homosexuality, refer-
literature, who have yet to complicate the received, ences to lesbianism are rare, aside from some sug-
androcentric, and safe canon. gestive remarks in Quoi? Lternit (What? Eter-
Yoshiyas numerous essays and short stories nity [1988]), the third volume of her autobiogra-
were published throughout her career in most of phy, including this description of her first, adoles-
the leading journals and popular magazines, and cent experience with another girl: [A]n instinct, a
her many novels and nonfiction textsincluding premonition of intermittent desires experienced and
Tokugawa no fujintachi (Tokugawa Wives [1966]), satisfied later in the course of my life, allowed me
Nyonin Heike (Heike Women [1971]), Onna no to find right away the posture and the movements
yj (Female Friendship [19331934]), Arashi no needed by two women loving each other.

824 Y O S H I YA N O B U K O
 In general, Yourcenar was not so much clos- womens right to work; extreme poverty was eradi-
eted as impatient with modern categories of sexual cated by 1990; the law on abortion was one of the
identity: Throughout her writing, she insists that the most radical in Europe; birth leave was eight to
modern vocabulary for sexuality is inadequate to twelve months; and men had a right to birth and
express the infinite plasticity of desire. The pro- sickness leave. On the other hand, women had the
tagonist of Alexis asks, surely in Yourcenars voice: classic double burden of work in the home and in
How can a scientific term explain a life? the paid workforce.
Yourcenar herself always rejected the word homo- Moreover, freedom of thought and speech was
sexuality as too medical, preferring to speak of not permitted. Feminist organizing, which had be-
sensual choices. While disdaining public polemic gun by the end of 1978, was considered an activity
about sexuality, she was not insensitive to the po- against the system; there were no nongovernmental
litical ramifications of having what she called mi- registered womens groups; and the right to be a
nority tastes; in interviews, she advocated sexual lesbian almost did not exist.
liberty and drew analogies between homosexu- On June 27, 1991ironically, the day when
als and other victims of intolerance. Erin Carlston lesbian and gay activists in Belgrade, for the first
time, organized a public discussion for the Inter-
Bibliography national Gay and Lesbian Pride Daythe Serb
Farrell, C.Frederick, Jr., and Edith R.Farrell. Mar- authorities started the war in the republics of
guerite Yourcenar in Counterpoint. Lanham, Slovenia and Croatia, signaling the end of the state
Md., and New York: University Press of of Yugoslavia. From that day until the signing of
America, 1983. the Dayton Peace Treaty in November 1995, the
Howard, Joan. From Violence to Vision: Sacrifice in war was carried on in Bosnia and Hercegovina and
the Works of Marguerite Yourcenar. Carbondale: Croatia. As a result, five million refugees and dis-
Southern Illinois University Press, 1992. placed persons were produced, as well as ca.
Savigneau, Josyane. Marguerite Yourcenar: Invent- 400,000 dead and many thousands injured. Five
ing a Life. Trans. Joan E.Howard. Chicago: new independent states were created: Slovenia,
University of Chicago Press, 1993. Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Macedonia, and
Yourcenar, Marguerite, and Matthieu Galey. With the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (made up of
Open Eyes: Conversations with Matthieu Galey. Serbia and Montenegro).
Trans. Arthur Goldhammer. Boston: Beacon,
1984. Lesbian Organizing in Croatia
In the former Yugoslavia, lesbian organizing began
See also French Literature in Ljubljana, Slovenia, when, in 1987, Suzana Tratnik
initiated Lilith LL, inspiring womens groups in Bel-
grade (Serbia) and Zagreb (Croatia). Natasa Lalic, at
Yugoslavia, Former that time preparing her graduate thesis on prejudices
Socialist Federal Republic (SFR) located on the against lesbians and gay men, initiated, in 1989, the
Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe; formed first lesbian group in Zagreb, called Lila Initiative.
at the end of World War II (1945). Until 1991, Some lesbians who founded this group were also ac-
Yugoslavia consisted of six republics, with 22 mil- tive in a feminist action group, Tresnjevka, that was
lion inhabitants, twenty-four spoken languages, a charter member of the first SOS Hotline for Women
and three main religions (Serbian Orthodox, Catho- and Children Victims of Violence in eastern Europe.
lic, and Islamic). The six republics had their own Lila Initiative organized weekly meetings, discussions,
criminal codes, so that laws against adult gay male and workshops. The group was very successful in
sex differed in five of the republics and did not supporting and strengthening lesbian identity, and
exist in the republic of Slovenia. Citizens had the more than hundred lesbians were, in some way, in-
freedom of travel, passports, and visas. volved in the group.
The Yugoslav state was organized as a oneparty In May 1990, when the Croatian pro-national-
system, under the control of the Communist Party. ist party won the first multiparty elections, the
Basic human rights were respected, including the womens group Tresnjevka lost its meeting space,
right to social and economic security, education, after which Lila Initiative dissolved. In 1992,
and reproductive freedom. State ideology supported LIGMA (Lesbian and Gay Men Action) was

Y U G O S L AV I A , F O R M E R 825
 founded as a section of the Transnational Party in published twice a year, and through essays on les-
Y Zagreb. The group actively lobbied for lesbian and
gay rights in public. But, as before, lesbians and
bian rights, translations of lesbian texts, interviews
in the media, and leaflets.
gays lost their space, and their activites were re- In the spring of 1995, four activists from Labris
duced after that. were attacked by three men, with many hate words.
In 1995, lesbians from several womens groups This hate act happened while the war in Bosnia
organized women-only disco nights in the club was going on and while the Serbian regime daily
Mobilus in Zagreb. The unexpected attention of manufactured hatred toward Muslims, Albanians,
the media caused fear among lesbians, which was and Croats. Lesbians of Labris were present at the
substantiated when police raided the club immedi- 1995 United Nations-sponsored World Conference
ately after its opening and every time there was a on Women in Beijing, China, and at other regional
womenonly night. After four nights, this project conferences and international events.
ended. November 1997 saw the beginning of a
Lesbian LineKontra Project, a project that gathers Contemporary Issues
activists and lawyers to support lesbians and cre- In the summer of 1997, the First Meeting of Lesbi-
ate more social space for them in Zagreb. ans of Former Yugoslavia was organized. Forty
lesbians met for five days, holding workshops,
Lesbian Organizing in Serbia video shows, poetry readings, and sporting events.
In December 1990, a few women and men in Bel- After living through the pain of the war, separated
grade, spurred by letters from the Rosa Club in by the politics of hatred and nationalism, the les-
Ljubljana, began to discuss founding a Belgrade bians met together for the first time. It was a deeply
equivalent. The word spread, and the group rap- emotional event that heralded reconciliation and
idly grew in size. However, most members were renewal. Nevertheless, some dilemmas remained for
gay men, with only a handful of lesbians. Shortly lesbians in the former Yugoslavia. For example,
after, in 1991, Arkadia, the Lesbian and Gay Lobby, what is the relationship between feminist aware-
was formed. Its first public action was organized ness and lesbian identity? The history of lesbian
on June 27, 1991. After the beginning of the war, activism in the states of the former Yugoslavia dem-
two of its founders (Lepa Mladjenovic and Dejan onstrates that, during the Communist regime, those
Nebrigic) participated in founding the womens lesbians who started lesbian organizing came out
peace group known as Women in Black and the from, and through, feminist groups. Those who
Antiwar Center in Belgrade. Most of their time was joined later were less, or not at all, involved in femi-
now dedicated to antiwar activities. The war re- nist politics. Another dilemma is: To what extent
vived nationalist feelings, including among some can lesbian groups afford to be political and still
gay men in Arkadia. Others were strongly opposed have members? Most lesbians come to groups to
to this attitude and decided that Arkadia shall be socialize, and, when political ideas are introduced,
clear about its politics on ending nationalism and many lesbians do not join. Most significant, per-
all kinds of discrimination, including discrimina- haps, is the issue of nationalism, which, by the late
tion against women. 1990s, lesbians had yet to explore in depth within
By 1995, more lesbians had joined Arkadia, and their own groups. Lepa Mladjenovic
the decision was made to split from the mens group
and form Labris (Group for Lesbian Human Bibliography
Rights). Lesbians started to meet in the space of Galkovic, Sanja, ed. Lesbians in Croatia: A Criti-
the Womens Studies Center. Labris worked in two cal Review of the Lesbian Question in Social-
directions: empowering lesbian identity through ism. The Lesbian Review of Books 4:1 (Fall
workshop discussions and lesbian studies lectures, 1997), 2122.
and lobbying for lesbian human rights in the pub-
lic sphere. This is done through Labris Bulletin, See also Slovenia

826 Y U G O S L AV I A , F O R M E R
Z
Zimbabwe was a crucial need for GALZ to offer a counseling
Republic in southern Africa formerly known as service to homosexuals and lesbians grappling
Rhodesia. Zimbabwe is bordered by Mozambique with issues such as coming out, HIV/AIDS, and
and Botswana to the east and west and Zambia and discrimination. GALZs attempt, in 1993, to place
South Africa to the north and south. It has a popu- a counseling advertisement in the Herald, a na-
lation of more than 11 million, and its largest city is tional daily newspaper was the catalyst that turned
Harare (formerly known as Salisbury), which is also GALZ into a political organization fighting for
the capital. The majority of its people, nearly 55 gay and lesbian equality in Zimbabwe. The Her-
percent, are Christians, while most Africans main- ald rejected the GALZ advertizement, stating that
tain traditional beliefs, and Asians follow Islam or the newspaper was a family paper. As of 1998
Hinduism. English, Chishona, and Sindebele are the GALZ still could not advertize its counseling fa-
official languages. Known as Southern Rhodesia, cility. GALZ has gone from a little-known organi-
the territory became a British colony in 1923 when zation in southern Africa to one that is globally
it was transferred from the British South Africa recognized for having stood up to scathing attacks
Company to the United Kingdom. After Northern from the Zimbabwean government. This recog-
Rhodesia declared independence as Zambia in 1964, nition has largely been a result of GALZ being
Southern Rhodesia declared independence and was banned from having a stand at the Zimbabwe
renamed Rhodesia in 1965. It was declared a re- International Book Fair in 1995. The theme of
public in March 1970 and, after several major con- this particular event was human rights and jus-
stitutional reforms in the 1980s, became Zimbabwe. tice. President Robert Mugabes opening speech,
Since the 1960s, African nationalist movements in which he said that homosexuals have no rights
notably, the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union at all and were worse than pigs and dogs, re-
(ZAPU) and the Zimbabwe African National Un- verberated around the world, catapaulting Zim-
ion (ZANU), among othershave played a signifi- babwes minority gay and lesbian group into the
cant role in politics. Zimbabwe is self-governing limelight. Subsequently, GALZ managed to set up
through a parliament, whose members are elected a resource/drop-in center in Harare and to secure
every six years, and a president, who is elected by funding from international donors who realize
members of the parliament for that term. The presi- that GALZ has a unique contribution to make to
dent appoints a cabinet, which is accountable to the the fledgling and beleagured human rights move-
parliament. ment in Zimbabwe. Bev Clark
Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) was
formed in 1989. At that time, its primary objec- Bibliography
tive was to ease the isolation felt by lesbians and Desai, Gaurav. Out in Africa. In Sex Positives?
gay men. Much of GALZs early work was di- The Cultural Politics of Dissident Sexualities
rected toward organizing social events where les- (Genders 25). Ed. Thomas Forster, Carol Siegel,
bians and gay men could meet each other and form and Ellen E.Berry. New York and London: New
friendships. In time, it became apparent that there York University Press, 1997, pp. 120143.

ZIMBABWE 827
 See also Human Rights; International Organiza- lates the issue and sends it back out to all partici-
Z tions pants. Quite a few zines last many years, while
many others come and go according to the pub-
lishers interest, time, and resources.
zines Austin and Gregg (1993) locate the beginning of
Small-press publications that are known for being lesbian and queer zines within punk youth culture.
homemade or cheaply produced and often writ- According to them, it was lesbian and gay punks
ten for a very specific audience or subculture, zines who first employed the fanzine model to add a queer
(pronounced zeenz), sometimes referred to as zines slant to the straight punk scene and an outlaw sen-
or fanzines, take their name from the end of the sibility to mainstream lesbian and gay publishing.
word magazine; yet they resist conventions in They cite J.D.s (short for juvenile delinquents) as
the dominant magazine industry. Moreover, zines the first queer punk zine to hit the streets (Toronto,
that define themselves as lesbian or queer usually 1986). After the post-Stonewall (1969) rise in the
have as conflicted a relationship with more main- number of newspapers and magazines geared to-
stream feminist, lesbian, and gay newspapers and ward a general feminist, lesbian, or gay public, zines
magazines as they do with the heterosexual estab- emerged to address more specific audiences and sub-
lishment. Efforts to define zines are inevitably in- cultures within the larger population.
adequate since they are vastly different from each Many of these small alternative publications
other and defy fixed definitions. A significant ele- deliberately situate themselves against the big-name
ment of the zine movement, if it can be called a publications, such as the Advocate and off our
movement, has been to reject any strategy of as- backs. For example, the editors of Bimbox (To-
similation and embrace a politics of difference. ronto) wrote in their summer 1990 issue that
Some sources trace zine-like culture in the magazines like The Advocate and Out/Look have
United States as far back as the early 1930s and but one mandate: to systematically render the en-
1940s, when science-fiction devotees began to copy tire international Lesbian and Gay population
and distribute their reviews and musings within a brain-dead. The antimagazine position contests
growing subculture of enthusiasts. The term the notion that a unified movement or community
fanzines is a contraction of fan magazines used of lesbians and gays exists at all. zines accomplish
by science-fiction fans to distinguish their publica- this in a variety of ways. Madwoman (Chicago,
tions from prozines, or professionally produced Illinois) and Not Your Bitch (St. Paul, Minnesota)
magazines marketed for profit, zines have been take a separatist (women-only) stance in opposi-
an important form of expression and networking tion to the dominance of gay male material in many
for particular groups and subcultures, such as those of the slick magazines and established newspapers.
interested in punk rock, professional wrestling, P.C.Casualties, (Ann Arbor, Michigan), a cogender
comics, or queer politics. Many agree that the tech- zine, attacks the antiporn position adopted by
nological advances in photocopying and personal some lesbian feminists and demands acknowledg-
computing in the 1980s enabled a boom in the zine ment of lesbian sexual diversity.
scene. Cheap copying and easy desktop publishing Some zines emerged to fill the gaps in the domi-
meant that access to exclusive and expensive re- nant heterosexist culture, as well as in the white,
sources was no longer required to produce and middle-class feminist, lesbian, gay, and queer main-
distribute information. As the editors of The World stream. These have included the African American
of zines: A Guide to the Independent Magazine publications Black Lace, Blk, and Ache; the Asian
Revolution (1992) write: [M]ost zines start out American Shamakami, Trikone, and Phoenix Ris-
with the realization that one need [not] be merely ing; and the Latina Esto No Tiene Nombre and
a passive consumer of media. Everyone can be a conmocin. Other zines aim to explode the myth
producer. Generally, theyre created by one per- that all lesbians share a common sexuality. Brat
son, for love rather than money. Many zines take Attack and Up Our Butts are only two of the many
this democratization of publishing further and re- zines that uabashedly explore sadomasochism (S/
duce hierarchical editorial power. This is epito- M). Fat Girl caters to Fat Dykes and the Women
mized, for example, in Amateur Press Associations Who Want Them. Girljock presents sexy images
(APAs), in which contributors send multiple cop- of lesbian athletes, along with humor and com-
ies of their submissions to a coordinator, who col- mentary about dykes and sports. Quim, out of

828 ZIMBABWE
London, advertises itself as a zine for dykes of rence Roberts (Larry-Bob), who also created his own
all sexual persuasions; similarly, the standpoint bimonthly review, queer zine explosion.
of Taste of Latex (San Francisco, California) is Kate Burns
polysexual. The proliferation of sex zines dem-
onstrates that desire is much more specific and Bibliography
complex than a simplistic binary division between Austin, S.Bryn, and Pam Gregg. A Freak Among
heterosexuality and homosexuality implies. Bi- Freaks: The Zine Scene. In Sisters, Sexperts,
sexual and transgender zines have added signifi- Queers: Beyond the Lesbian Nation. Ed. Arlene
cantly to the variety, with contributions such as Stein. New York: Penguin, 1993.
Berlant, Lauren, and Elizabeth Freeman. Queer
Anything That Moves, Bi Girl World, and
Nationality. Boundary 2 19:1 (Spring 1992),
Boystown for female-to-male transsexuals.
149180.
Since many lesbian, gay, feminist, and alterna-
Gunderloy, Mike, and Cari Goldberg Janice. The
tive bookstores have become hubs for the distribu-
World of zines: A Guide to the Independent
tion of zines, fans of these specialized publications
Magazine Revolution. New York: Penguin, 1992.
have multiplied in the last decades of the twentieth
Larry-Bob. queer zine explosion (Ongoing). Send
century. Electronic zines are increasingly available inquiries to Box 591275, San Francisco, CA,
on local computer networks and the Internet. To 941591275, U.S.A.
aid in the exploration of this medium, several zines Vale, V, ed. Research: zines. 2 vols. San Francisco:
devote themselves solely to reviewing other zines. V/Search, 1996.
Well known in the 1980s and 1990s, Factsheet 5
regularly includes a category of queer zine reviews, See also Cartoons and Comic Books; Publishing,
primarily written by San Francisco reviewer Law- Lesbian

ZINES 829
Index

Abbema, Louise, 69 Aino, 804

Abbink, Marilyn, 73 Akerman, Chantal, 301, 302
Abbott, Berenice, 70, 589 Akhmadulina, Bella, 198
Abbott, Sidney, 368, 463, 636, 739 Al-Hajj, Ibn, 354
Ache, 828 Al-Isbahani, Abul Farraj, 404
Achtenberg, Roberta, 6, 665 Al-Mustakfi, Walladah bint, 404
Ackland, Valentine, 8001 Al Shaykh, Hann, 53
ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), 60, 77, 231, Al-Yaziji, Wardah, 52
326, 418, 419, 629, 631, 665 Alabau, Magaly, 439
Activism, 12 Alcman, 46
A.D.: A Memoir, 503 Alcohol and substance abuse, 2224
Adam, Carol, 793 Alcoholics Anonymous, 639
Adams Breed, 349 Alcoholism, lesbians and, 2224, 361
Addams, Jane, 24, 3, 158, 292, 368, 57677, 713, 726, Alcott, Louisa May, 29, 30
741, 786 Aldington, Richard, 358
Adelman, Shonagh, 144 Aldrich, Ann, 624
Adelt-Wettstein, Minna, 746 Aldrich, Verna, 25
Adler, Margot, 727 Aldridge, Sarah, 346
Adnan, Etel, 52 Alexander, Jane, 75758
Adolescence, 45 Alexanders Bridge, 150
Alexis, 824
Adoption, 56
Alger, William, 650
joint, 6
Algernon Swinburne, 263
Advertising and consumerism, 69
ALIA, 221
Advocate, The, 436, 828
Alice B.Toklas Cookbook, The, 770
Aerial Letter, The, 190
Alice in Bed, 411
AFINS, 130
All-American Girls Baseball League (AAGBL), 73031
Afrekete: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Writings, 11, 189
All-female revues (Japan), 24, 768
African American literature, 912
All Gods Children, 244
African Americans, 1217
All Names Spoken, 72
Afro-American Women Writers, 17461933, 699 All of the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, but
After Delores, 524 Some of Us Are Brave, 709
After the Death of Don Juan, 801 All Passion Spent, 659
After the Fire, 654 All That False Instruction, 83
After Youre Out, 414 Allan, Maud, 2425
Against Sadomasochism, 684 Allen, Beth, 156
Against the Season, 654 Allen, Claudia, 763
Ageism, 1718 Allen, Jennifer, 463
Aging, 1820 Allen, Paula Gunn, 2526, 33, 18283, 254, 529, 538
Aguilar, Laura, 65, 590 Allison, Dorothy, 172, 473, 512, 622
Aguilar-San Juan, Karin, 73 Allport, Catherine, 65
AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), 2022, Almerez, Roberta, 592
195, 36061, 41819, 553, 66263, 677, 69899 Alternative Press Index, 106

INDEX 831
Always Coming Home, 789 Archiven fur Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten, 102
Am I Blue?, 299 Archives and libraries, 5456
Amantes, 133 Are They Women?, 746
Amaral, Manuela, 602 Arena 3, 477, 784
Amazon, 790 Argentina, 5658
Amazon and the Page, The, 414 Aria da Capo, 503
Amazon Country, 63637 Armatrading, Joan, 520
Amazon Odyssey, 463 Arnason, Eleanor, 674
Amazon Quarterly, 581 Arnold, Fiona, 591
Amazons, 2627, 525 Arnold, June, 33, 5859, 296, 621, 622
American Library Association, 335, 470, 652 Arnould, Sophie, 310, 638
American literature, nineteenth century, 2731 Arrival of Marie de Medici in Marseilles, The, 68
American literature, twentieth century, 3135 Art
American Psychiatric Association (APA), 387, 532, contemporary European, 5963
61112, 614, 615, 77576 contemporary North American, 6366
Amethyst, 592 lesbian, 5966
Ammonite, 674 mainstream, 6670
Amor Geomtrico, 602 performance, 57880
Amora, 496 Art of Management, The, 156
Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change, 118 Artemidoros, 48
Ancient Greece, 4647 Artemis, 526
Ancient Rome, 4748 Arzner, Dorothy, 70
Anderby Wold, 375 As Music and Splendour, 402, 555
Anderson, Alice, 82 As the Rumors Fly, 637
Anderson, Margaret, 32, 87, 158, 337, 344, 509 As You Like It, 211, 767
Anderson, Marian, 801 Asagi, Lisa, 73
Anderson, Shelley, 106 Asch, Sholem, 423, 767
Andrews, Nancy, 591 Asian American literature, 7172
Ange et Damnation, 62 Asian American Sexualities, 592
Angel Dance, 524 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, 7275
Angela, la gurillre soprano, 790 Asian Lesbian Bisexual Alliance (ALBA), 74
Angelos, Maureen, 765 Asian Lesbian Network, 7576, 399
Angels of Power, 765 Asian Lesbians of the East Coast (ALOEC), 74, 77
Anjaree, 762 Asian Pacific Lesbian and Bisexual Network (APLBN), 74
Anne, Queen of England, 3738, 781 Asian Pacific Lesbian Bisexual Transgendered Network
Annie on My Mind, 55, 299 (APLBTN), 74
Anno, Kim, 66 Asian Pacific Lesbian Network (APLN), 74
Another Mother Tongue, 342, 528, 772 Asian Pacific Lesbians and Friends, 480
Anstruther-Thomson, Kit, 450 Ask No Man Pardon, 333
Ante Room, The, 555 Asociacion Regional Controamericana de Gays y
Anthon, Kate Scott, 237 Lesbianas (ARCEGAL), 155
Anthony, Katharine, 344, 742 Asp, Isa, 306
Anthony, Lucy, 741, 786 Asphodel, 358
Anthony, Susan B., 235, 726, 741, 786, 800 Asquith, Margot, 25
Anthropologists, lesbian, 4344 Association for Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Gay Men, 406
Anthropology, 4144 Association for Social Knowledge, 144
Antiphon, The, 31, 93 Association of Lambda Groups, 599
Antiquity, 4549 Associations and organizations, 7678
Antisemitism, 4445 early, 7677
Any Woman Can, 765 national, 7778
Anything That Moves, 829 Astarte, 129
Anzalda, Gloria E., 43, 4950, 88, 189, 190, 210, 297, Astell, Mary, 645
440, 441, 463, 473, 493, 512, 528, 622, 675, Astre, 315
810 Asturias, Miguel Angel, 792
Apologia for Herodotus, 309 At Eighty-Two: A Journal, 670
Apparition of Mrs. Veal, The, 262 Athletics, collegiate, 7880
Apparitional Lesbian, 28, 262, 801 Atkinson, Ti-Grace, 463, 535, 720
Applesauce, 58 Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance, 77, 193
Arab Americans, 5051 Atwood, Margaret, 790
Arab Lesbian and Bisexual Womens Network, 50 Atwood, Tony (Clare), 785
Arashi no bara, 824 Aubrey, Mary, 586
Archer, Robin, 83 Audry, Jacqueline, 313
Architecture, 5354 Augspurg, Anita, 331

832 INDEX
Auguste, Jules-Robert, 68 Bean, Babe, 572
Austen, Alice, 69, 81, 8182, 589 Bearse, Amanda, 373
Australia, 8285 Beaton, Cecil, 323
Austria, 8587 Beaton, Hilary, 766
Autobiography, 8789 Bechdel, Alison, 150, 381, 622
Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, Beck, Evelyn Torton, 44, 189, 423, 622
Mrs. Delany, 649 Beck, Pia, 543
Autobiography of a Shirtmaker, 700 Becoming-Woman, 216
Autobiography of Alice B.Toklas, 31, 88, 220, 296, 733 Bedoz, Ellen, 77, 636
Aventures de lesprit, 94, 317 Beebo Brinker, 9293, 296, 362, 475, 739
Awakening, The, 68 Beers, Jinx, 480
Awekotuku, Ngahuia Te, 550 Before Stonewall, 243, 560
Azalea, 581 Begam, Bahu, 391
Behn, Aphra, 99100, 212
Beinstein, Krista, 272
Babcock, Charlotte, 503
Belgium, 1001
Baca, Judith F., 64
Belinda, 261, 263
Bad Attitude, 145
Bell, Alan, 427
Baehr, Ninia, 358
Bell, Vanessa, 816
Baehr v. Lewin, 446, 487
Bellamy, Suzanne, 84
Baehr v. Miike, 358 Bellessi, Diana, 440
Baeumer, Gertrud, 331 Belot, Adolph, 767
Bailey, J.Michael, 110, 612 Beloved, 790
Baker, Dorothy, 768 Ben, Lisa, 581, 621, 674
Baker, Gilbert, 747 Ben-Salah, Rafik, 51
Baker, Ida, 484, 548 Ben-Shalom, Miriam, 501
Baker, Sara, 742 Benatar, Pat, 520
Balkan Sworn Virgin, 9192 Benavidez, Virginia, 65
Ballad of the Sad Cafe, The, 490 Bendall, Edith Kathleen, 548
Ballads for Sale, 482 Benedict, Ruth, 42, 43, 1012
Bambara, Toni Cade see Cade, Toni Benguel, Norma, 130
Bamber, Judie, 66 Bennett, Gwendolyn, 356
Bancroft, Ann, 253 Benning, Sadie, 794
Bandler, Vivica, 306 Benson, Minnie, 711
Banks, Barbara, 11 Benstock, Shari, 508
Bannon, Ann, 33, 9293, 296, 362, 381, 475, 623, 624, 739 Bentley, Gladys, 13, 102, 120, 137, 354, 356, 370, 519,
Barber, Karen, 772 664, 710
Barelli, Armida, 408 Berlant, Lauren, 89, 216
Barnes, Djuna, 31, 69, 93, 94, 133, 307, 312, 317, 350, Berlin, 1024
476, 509, 567, 789 Berman, Sabina, 439, 496
Barnett, Marilyn, 426 Bernhard, Sandra, 142, 187, 603
Barney, Natalie, 31, 32, 53, 64, 69, 9495, 132, 135, 172, Bernhardt, Sarah, 69, 213, 567
192, 227, 236, 271, 307, 312, 31718, 349, Berry, Christina, 60
368, 408, 435, 465, 475, 508, 516, 567, 589, Bersianik, Louky, 790
656, 667, 768, 778, 787, 789, 797 Berson, Ginny, 77, 457
Barnhouse, Ruth Tiffany, 610 Best, Mireille, 319
Baroque daube, 133 Bethnia, Maria, 130
Bethel, Lorraine, 10, 118
Barrin, Jean, 645
Bethell, Ursula, 548
Bars, 9597
Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial
Basic Instinct, 208
Desire, 341, 631
Bates, Katharine Lee, 30, 97, 181, 610
Between the Acts, 818
Batten, Mabel Veronica, 197, 349
Between the Lines: An Anthology by Pacific/Asian Lesbians
Battered Wives, 488
of Santa Cruz, 73, 592
Battey, Jerry, 366 Beyond the Lavender Lexicon, 437
Baudelaire, Charles, 263, 311, 317, 475, 797 Bi Any Other Name, 113
Bauer, Marion Dane, 299 Bi Forum, 112
Baum, Barbara, 501 Bi Girl World, 829
Baum, Terry, 765 Bi Ways, 112
Bay, Elise, 232 Bible, 16769
Bayou, Ana Maria Simo, 769 Bibliographies and reference work, 1047
Beach, Sylvia, 32, 87, 9798, 135, 307, 509, 567 Bid Me to Live, 358
Beal, M.F., 59, 524 BiFace, 145

INDEX 833
Big Sea, The, 102 Bonney, Anne, 402, 572
Billie Jean King, 426 Bono, Chastity, 177
BiNet, 113 Book of Repulsive Women, The, 70, 93
Biography, 1078 Book of the Courtier, The, 648
Biological determinism, 10912 Bookstaver, May, 733
BiPol, 113 Bookstores, 12526
Biren, Joan E., 64, 77, 322, 457, 590 Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, 141, 320, 741, 787,
Birkby, Noel Phyllis, 54 819
Birke, Lynda, 254 Borderlands/La Frontera, 49, 190, 441, 493
Birrill, Mary, 754 Born Innocent, 758
Birtha, Becky, 11, 297 Bosch, Alie, 119
Bisexual movement, 11214 Boston Asian Gay Males and Lesbians (BAGMAL), 74
Bisexual Option, 113 Boston, Jane, 765
Bisexual Resource Guide, 113 Boston marriages, 97, 12627, 786, 818
Bisexuality, 11416 Bostonians, The, 29, 127, 204, 264
Bisexuality: A Study, 113 Boswell, John, 795
Bishop, Elizabeth, 32, 116, 130, 597 Botticelli, Sandro, 67
Black and the White of It, The, 10, 699 Bottoms, Kay, 219
Black arts movement, 10 Bottoms, Sharon, 219
Black Church, 11617 Boudjedra, Rachid, 51, 52
Black feminism, 11719 Boulanger, Lili, 516
Black Lace, 828 Boulanger, Nadia, 516
Black Lesbian in White America, 204, 531 Bourdet, Eduard, 767
Black Lesbians: An Annotated Bibliography, 55, 105, 368, Bow, Clara, 70
462 Bowen, Elizabeth, 12728, 266, 350, 402
Black/Out, 582 Bowers v. Hardwick, 447, 604, 608
Black Unicorn, The, 10, 478 Bowles, Jane, 32, 128
Black Woman, The, 11 Bowles, Paul, 128
Blackbridge, Persimmon, 591 Bowman, Parke, 59
Blackwell, Alice Stone, 708 Boyce, Candice, 15
Blackwell, Antoinette Brown, 609 Boyd, Blanche, 59
Blais, Marie-Claire, 119, 628 Boyd, Nan Alamilla, 7, 8
Blaman, Anna, 11920, 543 Boye, Karin, 12829, 745
Blatant Image, 590 Boystown, 829
Blithedale Romance, 28 Bradley, Katherine Harris, 299300
Blk, 828 Bradley, Marion Zimmer, 104, 674
Bloch, Alice, 33 Brady, Maureen, 33
Bloch, Iwan, 689 Brand, Dionne, 190
Blok, Diana, 591 Brando, Leci, 130
Blood, Bread, and Poetry, 647 Brandon, Teena
Blood, Bread, and Roses, 342 see Teena, Brandon
Blood Money, 304 Brant, Beth, 463, 537, 622
Bloodroot Collective, 79293 Brantenberg, Gerd, 790
Blues singers, 102, 12021 Brat Attack, 828
Bluethenthal, Anne, 224 Brazil, 12931
Blyton, Enid, 122 Bread Out of Stone, 190
Boarding schools, 12123 Breaking Point, 538
Bode, Janet, 113 Brenner, Claudia, 207
Bodichon, Barbara, 700 Brent-Dyer, Elinor M., 122
Body image, 12324 Breslau, Louise, 311
Body Politic, 145 Brideshead Revisited, 760
Boesing, Martha, 765 Brienza, Julie, 420
Boffin, Tessa, 591 Briggs Initiative, 480, 754
Bogan, Lucille, 121 Bright, Deborah, 65, 591
Bolkan, Florinda, 130 Bright, Susie, 272, 582, 683
Bolton, Guy, 768 Brion, Helene, 312
Bon, Sylvie le, 99 Brittain, Vera Mary, 131, 375
Bone People, The, 566 Broad, Kendal, 719
Bones and Ash, 224 Brock, Rita Nakashima, 728
Bonheur, Rosa, 69, 124, 12425, 311, 56667, 782 Broekmans, Mario, 591
Bonner, Marita, 356 Broidy, Ellen, 636
Bonnet, Jeanne, 370, 371 Bronte, Charlotte, 264
Bonnet, Marie-Jo, 105 Brooke, Kaucyila, 65

834 INDEX
Brooks, Romaine, 31, 53, 69, 94, 13133, 132, 312, 336, Calv, Emma, 558
349, 408, 508, 567, 589 Camille en octobre, 319
Brooten, Bernadette, 152, 728 Cammermeyer, Margarethe, 502
Brophy, Brigid, 266 Camp, 6063, 14142
Brossard, Nicole, 27, 133, 190, 463, 628 Camp Grounds: Style and Homosexuality, 141
Brothers and Sisters, 199 Camp Sister Spirit, 706
Brouillon pour un dictionnaire des amantes, 789, 806 Camp Trans, 776
Broumas, Olga, 669 Campello, Myriam, 130
Browders, Sandra, 728 Camper, Jennifer, 381
Brown, Addie, 13, 235, 370, 371 Canada, 14246
Brown, Alice, 29 Canadian Medical Association, 491
Brown, Blair, 758 Cancer Journals, The, 47879
Brown, Charles Brockden, 27, 650 Cannon, Katie, 728
Brown, Joanne Carlson, 728 Capitalism, 7
Brown, John, 647 Captive, The, 767
Brown, Judith C., 152 Card, Claudia, 463
Brown, Laura S., 123 Cardenas, Nancy, 439, 496
Brown, Rebecca, 297 Cardogan, Muriel, 82
Brown, Rita Mae, 33, 45, 59, 77, 13334, 272, 322, 362, Cardona, Anna, 208
381, 457, 535, 544, 621, 622, 636, 670, 772, Caribbean, 14648
802 Carland, Tammy Rae, 66
Brown, Victoria Bissell, 3 Carlini, Benedetta, 152, 281, 371, 407, 644, 664
Browne, Karen, 193 Carlomusto, Jean, 244
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 217 Carlyle, Jane, 415
Brownsworth, Victoria, 420 Carmilla, 791
Bruining, Mi Ok, 73 Carpenter, Edward, 688
Bryher, 13435, 359, 509 Carpenter, Mary-Chapin, 520
Buckland, Jessie Lillian, 589 Carreto, Leonor, 421
Buffalo, New York, 13536 Carriacou, 148
Buffalo Radical Lesbians, 136 Carryll, Mary, 432
Bulldagger blues, 13 Carson, Rachel, 673
Bulldaggers, 121, 136, 370 Cartoons and comic books, 14950
Bulldozer Rising, 674 Case, Sue-Ellen, 139, 141, 216
Bullivant and the Lambs, 199 Cass, Vivienne, 188
Bulosan, Carlos, 71 Cassells Pink Directory, 785
Bund fur Menschenrecht, 86 Cassidy, Jules, 189
Bunch, Charlotte, 77, 322, 457, 599, 621, 716, 802 Castellanos, Mari, 728
Burke, Edmund, 433 Castiglione, Baldassare, 648
Burke, Sharon, 184 Castle, Terry, 28, 262, 801
Burnier, Andreas, 543 Castro, Fidel, 147, 228
Casulana, Madalena, 515
Burning, 156
Catchpole, Margaret, 82
Businesses, lesbian, 13738
Cather, Willa, 32, 15051, 158, 415, 508, 558, 787
Bussy, Dorothy, 122
Catholicism, 15152
Butch-Femme, 9597, 13840, 73940
Catlin, George, 375
Butler, Eleanor, 235, 261, 263, 432, 649
Cauer, Minna, 655
Butler, Judith, 139, 141, 210, 580, 604, 614, 62930
Cavin, Susan, 105
Buurman, Gon, 591
Censorship, 15253
By Avon River, 359
CENSORSTOP, 153
By the Light of the Soul, 29
Centlivre, Susanna, 212
Central America, 15355
Cabrera, Lydia, 147, 439, 571
Central Ohio Lesbians, 77
Caccini, Francesca, 515
Centre/Fold, 145
Cadden, Wendy, 342
CHA (Argentinean Homosexual Community), 57
Cade, Cathy, 590
Chabran, Myrtha, 512
Cade, Toni, 9, 11
Chadwick, Rona, 150
Cadivec, Edith, 329
Challenge, 659
Cagney and Lacey, 758
Challenging Codependency, 640
Cahun, Claude, 590
Chambers, Jane, 15556, 763, 768
Cain, Patricia, 451 Chan, Connie, 73
Caldern, Sara Levi, 440, 496 Chan, Gaye, 65, 592
Calderone, Mary, 679 Chanacomchana, 130
Califia, Pat, 272, 792 Chang, Ann Mei, 201

INDEX 835
Change of World, A, 646 Chung, C., 73
Changing the World: A London Charter for Lesbian and Churches, lesbian and gay, 17071
Gay Rights, 477 Churchill, Sarah, 781
Chapman, Tracy, 520 Cinq petits dialogues grecs, 667
Charioteer, The, 646 Cit des dames, 789
Charke, Charlotte, 15657, 212, 261, 469, 477 Citron, Michelle, 301
Charles II, King, 99, 21112, 469 City of Sorcery, 674
Charley, Mountain, 572 Civil rights movement, 15
Charlie, 745 Cixous, Hlen, 453
Charnas, Suzy McKee, 674, 789, 790 Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise, 33, 190
Chase of the Wild Goose, The, 433 Clairon, Hipployte, 310
Chasin, Alexandra, 89 Clarenbach, Kay, 533
Chasin Jason, 156 Clarissa, 28, 261, 650
Chat rooms, 201 Clark, Danae, 8, 9, 215
Chatterton, Ruth, 70 Clark, Fiona, 591
Cheang, Shu Lea, 73 Clarke, Cheryl, 11, 12, 15, 475, 622
Chen Xue, 165 Clarke, Sara Jane, 217
Cheney, Joyce, 679 Class, 17273
Cherifa, 128 Class and Feminism, 134
Cherry, Frances, 550 Classical literature, 4649, 17375
Cherry Grove, Fire Island: Sixty Years in Americas First
Claudine lcole, 179, 318
Gay and Lesbian Town, 819
Claudine sen va, 94
Cherry Grove, New York, 15758, 819
Clausen, Jan, 582, 622
Chicago Asian Lesbians Moving, 77, 677
Cleland, John, 261, 469
Chicago, Illinois, 15859
Clement, Caroline, 143
Chicana Lesbians, 442
Clement of Alexandria, 48
Child custody, 160
Cleveland, Rose Elizabeth, 408, 801
Child of Myself, 10, 569
CLI (Connection of Lesbians), 408
Children, 15961
Childrens Hour, The, 142, 287, 304, 595, 76768, Cliff, Michelle, 11, 33, 190, 647
784 Clinton, Bill, 259, 419, 502
Chile, 16162 Clinton, Kate, 185, 381, 382
China, 16264 Clit 007, 746
China Girls, 72 C.L.I.T. (Collective Lesbian International Terrors), 77
Chinese Garden, The, 122 Clitoris, 83, 17576
Chinese literature, 16466 Clock Without Hands, 490
Ching, Jacquelyn, 592 Closet, 17677
Chingusai, 74 Clover, Carol, 341
Chinn, Lenore, 65 Club, The, 213
Chino Masako, 823 Coalition politics, 17778
Chinoy, Helen Crich, 763 Cobbe, Frances, 782
Chloe Plus Olivia, 287 COC (Cultuur-en Ontspannings Centrum), 54243
Chodonghwe, 428 Cockerell, Kate, 493
Chopin, Frederic, 666 Cold Spring, A, 116
Chopin, Kate, 29 Colectiva Lesbica Feminista, 161
Choruses, womens, 16667 Coleman, Charlotte, 665
Christ, Carol P., 727 Coleman, Dorothy, 503
Christ in a Treehouse, 156 Coleridge, Samual Taylor, 263
Christian Lesbians Out Together (CLOUT), 152 Coletiva de Feministas Lsbicas, 130
Christian, Meg, 522 Colette, 94, 17879, 227, 312, 318, 349, 5089, 567, 571,
Christian, Paula, 624 768
Christian right, 54547 Collected Works of Jane Bowles, The, 128
Christianity, early, 4849, 16769 Collectives, 17980
homoeroticism in, 169 Colleges, womens, 18082
Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, 795 Colonialism, 18284
Christina of Sweden, 170, 273, 368, 408, 744 Color Purple, The, 11, 34, 121, 305, 790
Christopher Strong, 71 Colvin, Shawn, 523
Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Coman, Katharine, 97, 181
Culture, The, 101 Combahee River Collective, 15, 77, 118, 18485, 385, 678,
Chrysostom, John, 169 709, 716
Chrystos, 463, 538, 622, 678 Comedy, standup, 18586
Chu, Louis, 71 Coming of Age in Samoa, 101, 563
Chughtai, Ismat, 404, 405 Coming out, 18688
Chung Hyung Kyung, 728 Coming Out, Coming Home, 73

836 INDEX
Coming out stories, 3940, 18990 COYOTE (Call OffYour Old Tired Ethics), 686
Coming Out Stories, The, 188, 189, 578 Craig, Edith, 785
Coming Soon, 765 Craigs Wife, 71
Coming to Power, 34, 660 Craik, Dinah Mullock, 645
Common Lives/Lesbian Lives, 172, 581 Crane, Louise, 116
Communist Manifesto, 715 Crawford, Cindy, 419
Community, 19092 Crawford, Muriel, 531
centers, 19294 Crime and criminology, 2069
organizing, 19496 Critical theory, 20911
Community Homophile Association, 144 Crivelli, Bartolomea, 152, 407
Compaeras: Latina Lesbians, 189, 441 Crompton, Louis, 206, 460
Companionate marriage, 19697 Cronin, Patricia, 66
Companionate Marriage, The, 196 Cross-Dressing, 21113
Composers, 19799 Crowded Street, The, 375
Compton-Burnett, Ivy, 199200, 266 Cruikshank, Margaret, 44, 189, 21314, 214, 463
Compulsory heterosexuality, 200 Cuaderno de amor y desamor, 439
Compulsory Heterosexuality, 210 Cuba, 14748
Computer networks and services, 2002 Cubical City, The, 307
Comunidad Homosexual Argentina, 231 Cuentos: Stories by Latinas, 441
Conditions, 472 Culpepper, Emily, 728
Cone, Etta, 589 Cultural studies, 21417
Conference for Catholic Lesbians, 151 Culver, Joyce, 590
Confessions of Cherubino, 33 Cuomo, Christine, 254
Congreve, Maria, 700 Curb, Rosemary, 346, 531, 645
Conmoion, 828 Curtains of Light, 73
Connexions, 106 Curve, 582, 773
Consciousness raising, 2023, 811 Cushman, Charlotte, 213, 217, 408, 467, 782
Constant Journey, The, 806 Custody Action for Lesbian Mothers, 77
Contemporary Lesbian Writers of the United States, 55, Custody litigation, 21820
106 Cypher, Julie, 419
Contract with the World, 654 Cytron, Sara, 185
Converse, Florence, 30 Czech Republic, 22021
Cook and the Carpenter, The, 33, 59
Cook, Blanche Wiesen, 105, 107, 292
dAdesky, Anne-Christine, 454
Cook, Eliza, 217
Dahlgren, Eva, 744
Cook, Nancy, 344, 651
dAire, Teresa Castro, 602
Cooke, Rose Terry, 28
dAlessandro, Deborah, 637
Cooksey, Helen, 177
Daly, Mary, 253, 458, 463, 528, 72728
Cookson, Sybil, 336
Cooling, Janet, 64 Damon, Betsy, 64
Cooper, Anna Julia, 118 Damon, Gene, 104, 346, 432, 473
Cooper, Edith Emma, 299300 Damrons Address Book, 773
Cooper, James Fenimore, 28 Dance, 22325
Coordinadora Gai-Lesbiana, 723 Dance, Girl, Dance, 71
Cordova, Jeanne, 479 Dancel, Genora, 358
Corinne, Tee A., 64, 272, 590 Dancer Dawkins and the California Kid, 72, 73
Cornell, Michiyo Dane, Clemence, 122, 265, 782
see Fukaya, Michiyo dArcy, Ella, 493
Corner That Held Them, The, 266, 801 Dark Angels: Lesbian Vampire Stories, 792
Cornwall, Anita, 10, 15, 118, 203, 2034, 531 Dark Tide, The, 131, 375
Coss, Clare, 765 Darwin, Charles, 284
Costa, Gal, 130 Das Mdchen Manuela, 329
Costa Rica, 15455 Das Sexualleben unserer Zeit, 689
Cottrell, Honey Lee, 590 Dashkova, Yekaterina, 656
Counter Spin, 637 Daudet, Alphonse, 767
Country Doctor, A, 415 Daughters, Inc., 59, 134, 624
Country of the Pointed Firs, The, 415 Daughters of a Coral Dawn, 674, 789
Couples, 2046 Daughters of Bilitis, 15, 76, 82, 104, 159, 178, 193, 194,
Courbet, Gustave, 68 22526, 230, 333, 335, 420, 431, 479, 488,
Court, Margaret, 731 533, 544, 551, 560, 581, 621, 636, 641, 652,
Cousine Bette, 316 665, 674, 719
Covina, Gina, 189 Daughters of Darkness, 791, 792
Cowdery, Mae V., 9 Daughters of the Great Star, 790

INDEX 837
Dauthendey, Elisabeth, 329 Delaney, L.Joyce, 12, 190
Davis, Bette, 142 Delaria, Lea, 185
Davis, Elizabeth Gould, 793 Delarue-Mardrus, Lucie, 94, 227, 312, 317
Davis, Katharine Bement, 22627, 787 DeLaverie, Storme, 248, 768
Davis, Madeline, 141, 172, 248, 320, 741, 787, 819 Deliver Us From Evie, 299
Davis, Tiny, 158 Demarcy, Richard, 790
Davy, Babs, 765 Dement, Linda, 60
de Acosta, Mercedes, 239, 323 Demeter Flower, The, 790
de Balzac, Honor, 316, 475 Deming, Barbara, 119, 22729, 228, 577
de Beauvoir, Simone, 98, 198, 313, 318, 449 Demography, 22930
de Belbeuf, Marquise, 567, 768 Demonstrations and actions, 23032
de Brantme, Pierre de Boudeilles, 309, 315, 407, 469 Deneuve
de Burgos, Julia, 647 see Curve
de Castro, Germaine, 227 Denmark, 23234
de Castro, Rosalia, 198 Dennis, Sandy, 375
de Cervantes, Miguel, 72425 Densmore, Adele, 13
de Erauso, Catalina, 723, 724 Der Kreis, 746
de Fougres, Etienne, 499 Der Rosenkavalier, 557, 558
de Greiff, Leon, 792 Der Schritt hinuber, 804
De Homo-sexueelen, 542 Der Skorpion, 329, 8023
de Jong, Dola, 543 Der Tag der Artemis, 8023
De Kruisvaarder, 119 Der Traum von Glck zerbricht, 803
de la Cruz, Juana Ins, 42122, 43839, 494, 644, 664 Description of Millenium Hall, A, 649
de la Parra, Teresa, 147, 439 Desert of the Heart, 33, 144, 654
de la Pea, Terri, 442 Designing Women, 758
de Lamballe, Madame, 638 Desmoines, Harriet, 622
de Lauretis, Teresa, 583, 614 Desolacion, 505
de Lempicka, Tamara, 70 dEstres, Gabrielle, 310, 310
de Mailly, Madame, 638 Deutsch, Helene, 611, 613
de Maupassant, Guy, 316 Deutscher Freundschaftsverband, 86
De Mille, Cecil B., 303 DeVeaux, Alexis, 11
de Montaigne, Michel, 648 Development, 134
de Montesquieu, Baron, 316 Developmental stage theory, 4
de Montferrand, Helene, 318 Dewson, Mary, 651, 786
de Murat, Madame, 310 Dewson, Molly, 344
de Musset, Alfred, 271, 666 Dhairyam, Sagri, 603
de Nerciat, Andrea, 767 Diaghilev, Sergei, 656
de Pizan, Christine, 789 Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders
de Polignac, Princess, 516, 711 (DSM), 611, 776
de Pougy, Liane, 94, 271, 312, 317 Dialogues de Carmlites, 558
de Sade, Marquis, 68 Dialogues of the Courtesans, 48, 175
de Scudry, Madeleine, 310, 667 Diana: A Strange Autobiography, 88
de St. Mery, Moreau, 650 Diana Press, 104, 105, 322, 621, 622, 624
de Stael, Germaine, 667 Diana Victrix, 30, 675
de Swart, Saar, 542 Diaries and letters, 23436
De Thuiswacht, 543 Diary, 425
de Tyard, Pontus, 315 Diaz, Jean Marie, 201
de Vega, Lope, 724 Dibbell, Dominique, 765
De Verliezers, 119 Dickens, Charles, 263, 264
De Vier doden, 543 Dickerman, Marion, 344, 651
Dead Heat, 72 Dickinson, Anna, 741
Death of the Heart, The, 127 Dickinson, Emily, 30, 23738, 473, 574
Death Under Duress, 309 Dickinson, Thomas, 767
dEaubonne, Franoise, 789 Dickinson, Violet, 816
Debretas, 480 Diderot, Denis, 68, 271, 310, 316, 645
Debrianskaya, Yevgenia, 657 Didrikson, Mildred Ella Babe (Zaharias), 108, 238,
Decadencia, 602 23839, 730
Deephaven, 29, 415 DIE, 746
Deerslayer, The, 28 Die Bchse des Pandora, 303
Defoe, Daniel, 262 Die Ehe der Mara Holm, 803
DeGeneres, Ellen, 177, 188, 375, 401 Die Freundin, 86
Deken, Aagje, 541 Die Freundinnen, 330
Dekker, Thomas, 211 Die Gnderode, 328

838 INDEX
Die kleine Dagmar, 8023 Durer, Albrecht, 67
Die neue Eva, 329 dUrf, Honor, 315
Die Transvestiten, 691 Durham, Ethel, 786
Die Urnische Frage und die Frauen, 329 Duse, Eleonora, 408
Dietrich, Marlene, 239, 304, 362 Dusman, Linda, 198
Digger and Nudger, 766 Dyke, 25051
DiMassa, Diane, 149, 150, 381 Dyke Action Machine (DAM), 66
Dinesan, Isak, 473 Dyke Life, 414
Ding ing, 165 Dyke TV, 760, 794
Disability, 23941 Dykewomon, Elana
Disabled Lesbian Alliance, 240 see Nachmann, Elana
Disappearing Moon Cafe, 72
Discrimination, 24143 E-mail discussion lists, 201
Discrimination by Design: A Feminist Critique of the Man- EAGLES Center, 366, 367
Made Environment, 54 Eating Artichokes, 73
Ditsie, Palesa Beverly, 722 Eaton, Edith Maud, 71
Diva, 544, 784 Echols, Alice, 2
Diving into the Wreck, 646 Eckstein, Ernestine, 15, 230
Dixon, Joan, 703 Ecology and ecofeminism, 25354
Djebar, Assia, 52 Economics, 25557
Dlugacz, Judy, 556, 773 Edel, Deborah, 105, 670
Doan, Laura, 603 Edelin, Kenneth, 185
Dobkin, Alix, 199, 381, 521, 522 Edge of the Sea, The, 673
Dobkin, Marjorie, 236 Edgeworth, Maria, 261, 263
Documentaries, 24345 Edmeades, Deborah, 66
Dodd, Betty, 238 Education of Marie de Medici, The, 68
Dodge Brothers, The, 61, 248 Education of Women, 770
Does Your Mama Know?, 11 Edward the Dyke and Other Poems, 342
Dohyo, 507 Edwardians, The, 659
Dolores, 199 Edwards, Marion/Bill, 82
Domain-Matrix, The, 216 Een Tevreden Lach, 543
Dome of Many Coloured Glass, A, 482 Eenzaam Avontuur, 119
Domestic partnership, 24546 EGALE, 145
Don Quixote, 72425 Egalias Dotre, 790
Donoghue, Emma, 262, 402, 741, 782 Egerton, George, 402
Donor insemination, 24647 Egypt, 25758
Donovan, John, 298 Ein Mdchen ohne Furcht, 803
Doolittle, Hilda, 31, 32, 135, 35859, 508, 669 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 501
Door into Ocean, A, 674, 790 Eisenmann, Nicole, 66
Dorcey, Mary, 402 El amor es un juego solitario, 725
Dorval, Marie, 317, 666 El Comite de Orgullo Homosexual Latinoamericanos,
Dos Mujeres, 496 445
Dos Passes, John, 98 El mismo mar de todos los veranos, 725
Double Trouble, 73 El Saadawi, Nawal, 52
Dougherty, Cecilia, 794, 795 Elberskirchen, Johanna, 331
Doughty, Frances, 107 Elders, Jocelyn, 490
Dracula, 791 Electoral politics, 25860
Draculas Daughter, 304 Electra/Clitemnestra, 439
Drag kings, 24749 Elegie pour une dame, enamoure dune autre dame,
Dream of a Common Language, The, 647 315
Dreher, Sarah, 763 Eliot, George, 700
Dreier, Mary, 651, 786 Eliot, Martha May, 786
Dryden, John, 212 Eliot, T.S., 98, 5078
Du Faur, Freda, 82 Elkan, Sophie, 433, 745
Duc, Aime, 329, 331, 746 Eller, Cssia, 130
Duffy, Maureen, 157, 249, 266, 783 Ellerman, Winifred
Dunbar-Nelson, Alice, 14, 250, 297, 356 see Bryher
Duncan, Isadora, 408 Ellicott, Rosalind, 197
Duncan, Zlia, 130 Ellis, Edith Lees, 158
Dunham, Katherine, 224 Ellis, Havelock, 27, 121, 134, 264, 275, 300, 337, 350,
Dunlop, Sue, 550 497, 509, 601, 613, 685, 689, 700, 708, 742
Dunsford, Cathie, 550, 565, 566 Ellis, Ruth, 14
Dunye, Cheryl, 142, 244 Ellison, Ella, 185

INDEX 839
ELSA: I Come With My Songs, 333 Federatie Werkgroepen Homoseksualiteit, 100
Empress Elizabeth, 85 Feinberg, Leslie, 172, 190, 362, 475, 573, 776
Encounter in April, 669 Feldman, Maxine, 185, 522
Encuentros de Lesbianas, 58, 26061, 399 Female Friendship, 649
Engels, Friedrich, 71415 Female Man, The, 33, 674, 789
English literature, 26168 Female Review, The, 572
eighteenth century, 26162 Female Studies, 815
nineteenth century, 26264 Female support networks, 29293
twentieth century, 26568 Female-To-Male International, 400
English Spy, The, 638 Feminine Mystique, The, 533, 811
Enlightenment, European, 268 Feminism, 29394
Eparpillements, 94 lesbian, 479
Episalla, Joy, 66 Feminist Studies, 814
Episodes in the Lives of Men, Women, and Lovers, 700 Feminist Teacher, 815
Epistemology of the Closet, 210, 631 Feminist Union of Argentina, 57
Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), 534 Feminists for Free Expression, 153
Erarskaya, Lyudmila, 570 Feminists, The, 535
Erauso, Catalina de, 269, 269 Femme, 130
Erhart, Margaret, 34 Fenger, Augusta, 232
Erotica and pornography, 26972 Ferber, Edna, 610
history of, 27071 Fernhurst, 770
Essentialism, 210, 27273 Fernie, Lynne, 302
Esterberg, Kristin, 719 Ferrar, Geraldine, 558
Estienne, Henri, 309 Ferrari for Women, 773
Esto No Tiene Nombre, 828 Ferrari, Marianne, 773
Etheridge, Melissa, 401, 419, 520, 523, 641 Ferrier, Kathleen, 558
Ethics, 27475 Few Figs from Thistles, A, 503
Etiology, 27577 Fickert, Auguste, 85
Etudes et Preludes, 797 Fiction, 29498
Euphues Shadowe, 648 young adult, 29899
Europe, early modern, 27783 Fiction and Other Truths, 654
cross-dressing in, 28081 Field, Michael, 264, 299300
legal discourses, 27879 Fields, Annie, 30, 126, 415
literary representations in, 282 Fierce Pussy, 66
medical discourses, 27980 Fierce with Reality, 214
single women in, 281 Film
Eva Trout, 127, 266 alternative, 3003
Evans, Donna, 66 mainstream, 3035
Evert, Chris, 732 Finding the Lesbians, 578
Evolution and human origins, 28486 Fine, Maxine, 64
Fingers and Kisses, 73
Ewer, Mabel Swint, 516
Fini, Leonor, 70
Exploding Frangipani, The, 565
Finland, 3057
Extraordinary Women, 266, 350
Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schussler, 728
First Cities, The, 478
Factors in the Sex Life of Twenty-Two Hundred Women, 226 First Comes Courage, 70
Faderman, Lillian, 105, 107, 236, 287, 288, 320, 370, 458, First Sex, The, 793
463, 473, 595, 690, 78182 Fischer, Margaret, 766
Fahrner, Caroline, 746 Fishman, Louise, 64
Fairbanks, Tash, 765 Fiveash, Tina, 591
Family, 28790 Flanders, Laura, 637
lesbian and gay youth, 288890 Flanner, Janet, 87, 307, 309, 420, 567
Fanny Hill, 469 Flash, Lola, 60, 591
Farewell Spain, 555 Flaubert, Gustave, 316
Fashions for Women, 70 Flavors and Aromas of Past and Present, 770
Fasnacht, Heide, 65 Fleming, Jill, 765
Fassinger, Ruth, 5 Fleming, Martha, 65
Fat Avengers, 291 Fleming, Peggy, 732
Fat Dykes, 677 Fletcher, Alice, 589
Fat Girl, 828 FLH (Homosexual Liberation Front), 57
Fat is a Lesbian Issue, 291 Florida Enchantment, A, 303, 767
Fat liberation, 29093 Flower of May, The, 555
Fauset, Jessie, 356 Flowers, Yvonne, 15

840 INDEX
Flying, 33, 89, 504 Frisch, Hanna, 716
Folly, 33 Frith, Moll, 211
Fong, Ka Yin, 592 From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun, 299
Fonseca, Lariane, 591 Front, The, 665
Food, 3078 Frye, Marilyn, 463, 678, 814
For Lesbians Only, 204 Fukaya, Michiyo, 7374
Fr lite, 129 Fuller, Loie, 158
For Sylvia: An Honest Account, 801 Fuller, Margaret, 28, 321, 420, 650
For the Love of Good Women, 652 Funk, Cynthia, 636
Forbidden Love, 560 Furies, 231, 321, 322, 457, 545
Forge and the Unlit Lamp, The, 349 Furies Collective, 77, 134, 383, 788, 802
Fornes, Maria Irene, 763, 768 Furies, The, 105, 421, 581, 621, 674, 678, 790, 802
Forrest, Katherine, 674, 789 Fuss, Diana, 614
Forschungen ber das Rathsel der Mannmnnlichen Liebe, Futatsu no niwa, 507
688
Forster, Betsy, 590 Gaard, Greta, 254
Foster, Jeannette, 55, 104, 158, 308, 3089, 531, 753, 785 Gabow, Michelle, 763
Foster, Jodie, 187, 603 Gage, Carolyn, 416, 763
Foster, Lillian, 351, 352 Gage, Matilda Joslyn, 336
Foucault, Michel, 209, 270, 603, 613, 630 Gaias Guide, 773
Four Saints in Three Acts, 558
Galana, Laurel, 189
Four Witches, The, 67
Gallathea, 76667
Fourteenth of October, The, 135
Gallop, Jane, 614
Framework, 765
Galzy, Jeanne, 318
France, 30914
Gamiani, ou Deux nuits dexces, 271
early modern era, 30910
Gapen, Jane, 228
eighteenth century, 31011
Garber, Linda, 106
lesbians and feminism in, 31314
Garbo, Greta, 170, 239, 304, 32324, 490
nineteenth century, 31112
Garonne, 746
twentieth century, 31213
Garden, Mary, 558
Francis, Bev, 732
Garden, Nancy, 299
Franois, Jocylene, 318
Garden Variety Dykes, 253
Franson, Leanne, 150
Gardner, Kay, 198, 522
Frapan, Ilse, 745
Garrett, Mary, 181, 741, 754, 770, 786
Fraser, Jean, 591
Garrett, Rhoda, 711
Frasier, Jane, 198
Gartrell, Nanette, 612
Frau Kern, 803
Gate to the Sea, 135
Frauenliebe, 86
Gate to Womens Country, The, 790
Frazier, Demita, 184
Frederics, Diana, 88 Gates, The, 653
Free Enterprise, 11 Gathering of the Spirit, A, 622
Freeman, Elizabeth, 89 Gauthier-Villars, Henri, 179
Freeman, Mary Wilkins, 29, 47576 Gay Academic Union (GAU), 670
French Kiss, 133 Gay American History, 786, 795
French literature, 31419 Gay American Indian (GAI) History Project, 536
early-modem era, 31516 Gay American Indians, 537
middle ages, 31415 Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD),
modem era, 31617 420, 758, 759
twentieth century, 31719 Gay and Lesbian Arabic Society, 50
French, Lydia, 636 Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses, 517
Fresh Kill, 73 Gay and Lesbian Association of Doctors and Dentists
Freud, Sigmund, 86, 115, 176, 210, 275, 331, 337, 359, (GLADD), 492
38081, 509, 583, 611, 613, 614, 690, 695, 708 Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame, 159
Freund, Gisle, 589 Gay and Lesbian Humanists Society, 249
Frick, Grace, 824 Gay and Lesbian Liberation Movement, The, 214
Fried, Nancy, 64 Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA), 49192
Friedan, Betty, 195, 457, 468, 533, 535, 63536, 811, 812 Gay and Lesbian Organiztion of the Witwatersrand
Friedenreich, Alexander, 232 (GLOW), 722
Friedrich, Sue, 301 Gay and Lesbian Parents Coalition International, 77
Friendly Young Ladies, The, 266, 296, 646 Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, 259
Friends (Television show), 758 Gay Association of South Africa, 722
Friendship, 31920 Gay Community News, 582
Friendships of Women, 65051 Gay Divorcee, The, 766

INDEX 841
Gay, E.Jane, 589 Gluckstein, Hannah see Gluck
Gay Games, The, 32425, 731 Go Fish, 302
Gay Guide to the USA, 773 God of Vengeance, The, 423, 767
Gay Liberation Front, 195, 230, 325, 345, 545, 629, 636 Goddess religion, 33637
Gay liberation movement, 325 Goldberg, Jackie, 480
Gay Life, 784 Goldberg, Rosalie, 57879
Gay McGill, 144 Golden Girls, The, 758
Gay Nurses Alliance (GNA), 553 Golden Notebook, The, 266
Gay Rights National Lobby, 335 Goldman, Emma, 33738, 497, 686
Gay, Straight, and In-Between, 692 Golidey, Sonya, 778
Gay Times, Gay News, 784 Gomez, Alma, 441
Gay Womens Liberation, 231 Gomez, Jewelle, 11, 15, 224, 297, 341, 363, 463, 476, 512,
Gay Womens Resource Center, 193 674, 79192
Gay Womens Services Center, 193, 479 Gomez, Marga, 185
Gaya Lestari, 398 Gonsiorek, John C., 5
Gays and Lesbians of the First Nations, 537 Gonzalez, Maria Elena, 66
Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ), 827 Goodloe, Amy, 201
Gearhart, Sally, 33, 253, 463, 674, 728, 789 Goodness of St. Rogue, The, 250
Gender, 32728 Gopinath, Gayatri, 73
Gender and Society, 814 Gordon, Mary, 433
Gender Trouble, 210, 580, 604, 62930 Gore-Booth, Eva, 402
Gentet, Simone, 804 Gore, Leslie, 519
Geography III, 116 Gorman, Harry, 135
Gerber, Barbara W., 5 Gossip, 33840
Germain, Diane, 381, 772 Gossip: Journal of Lesbian Feminist Ethics, 274
German literature, 32830 Gothic, 34041
Germany, 1024, 33033 Goudeket, Maurice, 179
See also Nazism Gould, Janice, 538
Gertsyk, Eugenia, 570 Govea, Catalina, 591
Gestern und Heute, 804 Grace, Della, 60, 61, 62, 65, 248, 590, 735
Getting of Wisdom, The, 265 Gradual Joy, A, 652
Ghitany, Gamal, 51 Graham, Martha, 223
Giallombardo, Rose, 702 Grahn, Judy, 172, 34143, 342, 458, 472, 478, 52829,
Gibbs, Joan, 15 569, 622, 772, 790
Gide, Andre, 94, 98, 312 Grapevine, the, 33940
Gidlow, Elsa, 143, 33334, 627 Gray, Eileen, 53
Gift, The, 359 Greece, 34344
Gifts of Power, 808 Greek Way, The, 351
Gilbert, Sandra, 508 Greene, Annette, 208
Gilbert, Susan, 237, 574 Greenwich Village, 34446
Gilda Stories, The, 224, 341, 363, 476, 674, 792
Greenwood, Grace
Gillon, Margaret, 106
see Clarke, Sara Jane
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 336, 789
Gregg, Frances, 358
Gilpin, Laura, 589
Gregory, Roberta, 149
Gilson, Anne B., 728
Grmaux, Ren, 9192
Ginger, 375
Grenada, 148
Gingrich, Candace, 177
Grien, Hans Baldung, 67
Ginsberg, Vida, 228
Grier, Barbara, 104, 309, 34647, 432, 473, 531, 803
Girl Alone, 804
Grier, Pam, 142
Girl Scouts, 33435
Griffin, Susan, 253
Girl with the Golden Eyes, The, 475
Griffith, Nanci, 520
Girlfriends, 582, 773
Griffith, Nicola, 674
Girljock, 82829
Griffo, Michela, 636
Girls in 3-B, The, 752
Griggers, Camilla, 216
Girls of Summer, The, 204
Griggers, Cathy, 603
Gittings, Barbara, 335, 431, 470, 590
Grirnk, Angelina Weld, 9, 14, 118, 297, 356, 369, 371,
Glamuzina, Julie, 550, 568
509, 647
GLEE (Gays and Lesbians in Education Everywhere),
Griswold v. Connecticut, 608
550
Glick, Deborah, 345 Grosz, Elizabeth, 614
Glover, Marewa, 566 Group, The, 181
GLSTN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Teachers Network), 755 Gruen, Lori, 254
Gluck (Hannah Gluckstein), 69, 33536, 336, 477 Grup Lesbos, 723

842 INDEX
Grupo Lesbico, 130 Haunting, The, 304
Grupo Sapho, 130 Hautungen, 330
Gubar, Susan, 508 Hawaii, 183, 35758, 446, 487
Guillen, Nicolas, 792 Hawk, Colleen, 201
Gulf Dreams, 442 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 28
Gullibles Travels, 88 Hawthorne, Susan, 565
Gunter, Archibald, 767 Hay, Deborah, 197
Gurgel, Bebeti do Amaral, 130 Hayley, William, 649
Gut Symmetries, 267 Hays, Matilda, 217
Gutter Dykes Collective, 77 Hays, Sorrel, 198
Guy, Rosa, 298 Hayward, Victoria, 143, 589
Gwenwald, Morgan, 590 H.D.
Gwinn, Mamie, 181, 741, 770 see Doolittle, Hilda
Gwyn, Nell, 99, 212 Heald, Edith Shackleton, 336
Gyn/Ecology, 253, 463 Healey, Peg, 765
Healing of the Homosexual, The, 610
Hadewych, 644 Health, 35962
Halberstam, Judith, 139, 603 Heap, Jane, 32, 158, 344, 509
Hale Aikane, 76 Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, The, 490
Hall, Radclyffe, 32, 57, 69, 86, 93, 94, 126, 131, 139, 197, Heart to Artemis, The, 135
Heartbeat, 758
204, 220, 266, 271, 295, 296, 312, 34950,
Heather Has Two Mommies, 55
362, 408, 472, 475, 477, 508, 613, 623, 624,
Heavenly Creatures, 209, 568
690, 77172, 782, 783, 787
Hegamin, Lucille, 638
Hamer, Dean, 110
Helen in Egypt, 359
Hamer, Fannie Lou, 708
Hellenistic Egypt, 48
Hamilton, Cicely, 782
Heller, Chaia, 254
Hamilton, Edith, 35051
Hellman, Lillian, 142, 287, 304, 595, 76768, 784
Hamilton, Emma, 407
Hemingway, Ernest, 98
Hamilton, Mary, 157, 700
Henderson, Elandria, 15
Hamlet, 212, 213
Henry and Isabella, 649
Hammer, Barbara, 243, 301
Henry, Barbara Rae
Hammersmith, Sue, 427
see Roberts, J.R.
Hammond, Harmony, 64
Henry Dumont, 156
Hammond, Joan, 82
Henry VIII, King, 212
Hammonds, Evelynn, 11
Henson, Brenda, 706
Hampton, Mabel, 35152, 352, 589
Henson, Wanda, 706
Hana monogatari, 824
Hepburn, Katharine, 70
Handmaids Tale, 790
Hepper, Carole, 65
Hanover, Renee, 159 Her, 358
Hansberry, Lorraine, 15, 158, 352 Herland, 789
Hanscombe, Gillian, 508 Hermana, 439
Happy Endings Are All Alike, 299 Hernandez, Ester, 65, 142
Harding, Sandra, 673 Heroes, 36263
Hardy, C.Moore, 591 Herzer, Sandra Mara, 130
Harems, 35354 Het jongensuur, 543
Hari, Mata, 94 Hetairistriai, 46
Harlem, 35456 Heterosexism, 36364
Harlem Renaissance, 9, 1315, 192, 35657, 370, 48687, Heterosexuality, 36465
787 compulsory, 200
Harper, Jorjet, 381 Heymann, Lida Gustava, 331
Harris, Bertha, 33, 59, 296, 472 Heyward, Carter, 728
Harris, Sherry, 258 Hickok, Lorena, 108, 236, 420, 652
Harrison, Beverly W., 728 Higgs, Kerryn, 83
Harrison, Lucy, 493 High schools, lesbian and gay, 36567
Harrison, Patty, 185 Highsmith, Patricia, 347
Harrouda, 52 Hildegard of Bingen, Saint, 198, 36768, 556, 644, 664,
Hart, Lois, 77, 545, 636 672
Hart, Pearl, 158 Hill, Renee, 728
Harvey Milk High School, 366, 755 Hindle, Annie, 213, 768
Hasbrouck, Lydia Sayer, 800 Hindsight, 807
Hatchepsut, Queen, 257 Hinkley, Caroline, 65
Hathaway, Dorsie, 201 Hired Girl, 752

INDEX 843
Hirschfeld, Magnus, 103, 331, 337, 378, 496, 69091, 744, Humez, Jean, 808
807 Humming Under My Feet, A, 228
His Religion and Hers, 336 Humor, 38082
History, 36872 Humphrey, Doris, 223
History of Sexuality, 630 Hunger So Wide and So Deep, A, 124
Hit, 800 Hunt, Mary, 728
Hitchcock, Alfred, 304 Hunter, Alberta, 13, 14, 120, 351, 354, 519, 710
Hitchens, Donna, 77 Hunter, Tyra, 775
HIV Huntsman, What Quarry?, 503
see AIDS Hurl, Patricia, 62
Hoagland, Sarah, 463 Hurley v. Irish American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group
Hoban, Marie, 454 of Boston, 448
Hobby, Oveta Culp, 500 Hurst, Fannie, 357
Hoboes, 37273 Hussain, Khalida, 404
Hoch, Hannah, 589 Hyde, George, 170
Hoffman, March, 636 Hyder, L.A.Happy, 591
Holbrook, Hal, 757
Holiday, Billie, 801 I Am a Woman, 92
Hollibaugh, Amber, 512, 718 I Know My Own Heart, 470
Holliday, Laurel, 793 I, Mary MacLane, 88
Hollywood, 37375
Iamblichos, 48
Holm, Ina, 233
Ian, Janis, 520
Holmes, Shirley, 763, 764
ICTLEP (International Conference on Transgender Law
Holtby, Winifred, 131, 37576, 782
and Employment Policy), 775
Holtzman, Linda, 423
Identity, 38385
Hom, Alice Y., 73
politics, 38587
Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, 15, 118, 622,
Ideology, 38788
699, 709
Idylle Sapphique, 94, 317
Home Is the Hunter, 309
Ifigenia, 571
Home Movie, 243
Il ny a pas dhommes au paradis, 319
Homo Economics, 257
Ilbrect, Iraida, 570
Homophobia, 37677
ILIS, 398
Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and
Ill Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip, 298
Women, 427
Imitation of Life, 357
Homosexuality, 37879
Immigration, 38889
Homosexuality: A Symbolic Confusion, 610
Imperia de Heredia, 227
Homosexuality in Perspective, 692
Improper Conduct, 147
Homossexualidade Feminina, A, 602
Imraa in Nuqtat al-Sifr, 52
Honduras, 155
Hong Ling, 165 In Search of Our Mothers Garden, 808
Honourable Estate, 131 In the Life, 186, 760
Hope Leslie, 28 In the Pink: The Making of Successful Gay and Lesbian
Horney, Karen, 613 Businesses, 137
Hosmer, Harriet, 158, 217, 408 In the Summer House, 128
Hossain, Rokeya, 179 Incest, 38991
Hot Wire: The Journal of Womens Music and Culture, Inchbald, Elizabeth, 212
199 India, 39192
Hotel, The, 127, 350 Indiana, 666
House and Its Head, A, 199 Indigenous Cultures, 39297
Houston, Houston, Do You Read?, 790 Indigo Girls, The, 523
Howe, Mark DeWolfe, 126 Indonesia, 39798
Hoyle, John, 99 Infelicia, 30
Hudson, Rock, 418 Ingres, Jean-Auguste Dominique, 68
Hughes, Anne, 649 Innes, Carolyn, 553
Hughes, Holly, 579 Institute for Sexual Research, 691
Hughes, Langston, 102 Institute for Sexual Science, 103
Hulbert, William, 767 Intermediate Sex, The, 688
Hull, Gloria, 118, 478 International Committee for Prostitutes Rights, 686
Hull House, 3, 158, 292, 576, 713, 786 International, Dana, 4067
Hulme, Juliet, 208, 56869 International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission,
Hulme, Keri, 566 399
Human rights, 37980 International Gay and Lesbian Youth Organization, 399
Human Sexual Response, 692 International Gay Travel Association (IGTA), 77374

844 INDEX
International Lesbian and Gay Association, 398, 399 Johnston, Jill, 27, 88, 210, 417, 457, 461
International Lesbian Information Service, 398 Joint adoption, 6
International organizations, 398400 Jonas, Joan, 579
Internet, 2012 Jones, Debbie, 64
Inventing Lesbian Cultures in America, 43 Jones, G.B., 65
Invisibility, 4001 Jones, Grace, 520
Ione, 197 Jones, Gwyneth, 557
Ireland, 4023 Jones, Lizard, 591
Ireland, Patricia, 535 Jonestown and Other Madness, 569
Irigaray, Luce, 209, 453 Joplin, Janice, 520
Irwin, Phyllis, 287, 344, 742 Josa-Jones, Paula, 197
Is That You, Nancy?, 765 Joue-nous Espaa, 318
Isaksson, Eva, 201 Jounal of a Solitude, 670
Isasi-Diaz, Ada Maria, 728 Jourdain, Margaret, 199
Isbin, Sharon, 517 Journal de Suzanne, 319
Isherwood, Pam, 591 Journal of Lesbian Studies, 582
Islam, 5153, 4035 Journalism, 41721
Israel, 4057 Journey to a Woman, 92
It Aint Me, Babe, 149 Journey to Fulfillment, 752
Italy, 4079 Jouvenel, Colette de, 179
Jouvenel, Henri de, 179
Jouvre, Christiane, 314
Jackson, Bessie, 136, 137
Joyce, Gloria, 763
see Bogan, Lucille
Joyce, James, 98
Jackson, Cath, 150
Joyner, Florence Griffith, 732
Jackson, Delores, Rev., 15
Judaism, 4446, 42224
Jackson, Rebecca, 808
Julian of Norwich, 664
Jacobi, Paula, 742
Julio, Ivonne, 208
Jacobs, Elaine, 159
June Mazer Collection, 470, 480
Jadallah, Huda, 50
Jan, Maria, 725
Kahlo, Frida, 112, 42526, 494
Jahrbuch fur sexuelle Zwischenstufen, 496, 691
Kkikoski, Hilda, 306
Jamaica, 148
Kallocain, 129
James, Alice, 127, 411
Kantrowitz, Melanie Kaye, 622
James, Henry, 29, 127, 204, 264
Karpman, Laura, 199
James I, King, 211
Kass, Deborah, 65
Janitschek, Maria, 329
Kassebaum, Gene, 702
Jannat wa-Iblis, 52
Kassner, Natascha, 62
Japan, 41214
Katz, Jonathan, 786, 795
Jay, Karla, 414, 414, 463, 636 Katz, Judith, 476
Jazz Age, The, 1315 Kay, Jackie, 78384
Je tu il elle, 302 Keefer, Krissy, 224
Jeffreys, Sheila, 683 Keesey, Pam, 792
Jelinek, Elfriede, 330 Kellor, Frances, 786
Jelloun, Tahar Ben, 52 Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, 141, 172, 248, 320, 720,
Jenkins, Linda Walsh, 763 741, 787, 819
Jenness, Valerie, 719 Kenward, Allen, 768
Jennings, Kate, 83 Kerr, M.E., 299
Jerusalem, 433 Kertbeny, Karl Maria, 365, 378, 689
Jeunes filles en serre chaude, 318 Kheel, Marti, 254
Jewel in the Crown, The, 760 Khush, 73
Jewelle, Terri, 11 Kilawin Kolektibo, 74
Jewett, Sarah Orne, 2829, 126, 415, 451 Killers of the Dream, 710
Jewett, Sophie, 30 Killing of Sister George, The, 784
Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (JRF), 749 Kim, A., 73
Jews, 4445 Kim, Willyce, 72, 73, 458
Jewsbury, Geraldine, 41516 Kimpton, Gwynne, 516
Joan of Arc, 416, 41617, 572, 805 King, Billie Jean Moffitt, 426, 731
John Birch Society, 679 King of a Rainy Country, 266
Johnson, Eva, 76566 King, Ynestra, 254
Johnson, Georgia Douglas, 356 Kingsbury, Marty, 763
Johnson, Tish, 731 Kingston, Maxine Hong, 71
Johnson, Virginia E., 692 Kinlock, Lucy, 122

INDEX 845
Kinsey, Alfred, 115, 42627, 691, 716 Labor
Kinsey Institute, 42627 movement, 43031
Kinsey Report, 96, 176, 276 unions, 43031
Kirana, Chandra, 398 Labris Bulletin, 826
Kirikiri, 428 Labris (Group for Lesbian Human Rights), 826
Kisner, Arlene, 636 Lacan, Jacques, 583, 613, 614
Kiss and Tell Collective, 65 Ladder, The, 10, 15, 104, 105, 194, 225, 226, 309, 335,
Kitab al-aghani, 404 342, 346, 353, 420, 427, 43132, 472, 473, 488,
Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 512, 622, 709 531, 581, 590, 621, 624, 654, 665, 674, 753
Kitty Kitty, 191 Ladies Almanac, The, 31, 70, 93, 307, 350, 509, 789
KLaF (Kehila Lesbit feministit), 406 Ladies of Llangollen, The, 235, 261, 263, 402, 571, 574,
Klaich, Dolores, 368, 463 649, 785
Klein, Debbie, 765 Ladies Professional Golf Association, 238
Klein, Fritz, 113 Lagar, 505
Klein, Mary, 66 Lagar II, 505
Klein, Melanie, 453, 613 Lagerlf, Selma, 43334, 745
Klepfisz, Irena, 622 Lahusen, Kay, 335, 590
Klonaris, Maria, 62 Lai, Larissa, 73
Klumpke, Anna, 69, 125 Lakich, Lili, 64
Knight, Denise D., 106 LAmant vert, 806
KoALA, 74 Lamballe, Princess of, 407
Kobayashi, Tamai, 72 Lambda Delta Lambda, 721
Koigoromo, 823 Lambda-Nachrichten, 86
Kokula, Ilsa, 105 Lambda Union, 220
Kollontai, Alexandra, 656 Lambert, Angela, 122
Koran Lamblin, Bianca, 98
see Quaran LAmr ou le chapitre effrit, 133
Korea, South, 42728 Lamp and the Bell, The, 503
Kosse, Roberta, 166 Lampio de Esquina, 130
Kowalski, Sharon, 178, 289 Land, 43435
Kozlovsky, Vladimir, 657 Land of Green, The, 375
Kris, 129, 745 Land, The, 659
Kristeva, Julia, 453 Landowska, Wanda, 435
Krody, Nancy, 728 Landyke culture, 434
Kron, Lisa, 765 Lane, Bettye, 64
Kruse, Edwina B., 250 Lane, Mary Bradley, 789
Kuda, Marie J., 104 lang, k.d., 142, 144, 187, 401, 419, 43536, 520, 523, 641,
Kuehl, Sheila, 480 784
Kunin, Julia, 66 Lang, Margaret Ruthven, 197
Kvanina, Tatyana, 778 LAnge et les Pervers, 94, 227, 317
Lange, Helene, 331
Kwok Pui Lan, 728
Language, 43638
Lape, Esther, 108, 344, 651
La Btarde, 449, 450 Lapointe, Lyne, 65
La Belle Bte, 119 Larsen, Nella, 10, 33, 296, 355, 356, 509
La dame a la louvre, 797 Las Buenas Amigas, 445
La Fille aux yeux dor, 316 Las Entendidas, 155
La Gallienne, Eva, 213 Las Memorias de Mama Blanca, 571
La Garonne, 312 LAsphyxie, 318, 449, 450
La hora violeta, 725 Last Generation, The, 512
L.A. Law, 758 Last of Summer, The, 555
La lettre arienne, 133 Last of the Mohicans, The, 28
La Lutte feministe, 312 Last September, The, 127
La Luz Journal, 180 Last Summer at Bluefish Cove, 768
La Maison Teller, 316 Late Snow, A, 768
La Malinche, 647 Latecomer, The, 346
La Morada, 161 Latham, Ruth, 13
La nouvelle Sappho, 271 Latin American literature, 43840
La Religieuse, 310, 316, 645 Latina Lesbian History Project, 441
La Rpudiation, 52 Latina Lesbians, 590
La Vagabonde, 179 Latina literature, 4950, 44043
L.A. Womens Yellow Pages, 480 Latina/o Lesbian and Gay Organization (LLEGO), 445
Labeling, 42930 Latinas, 44345

846 INDEX
Latinas Lesbianas Unidas, 445 Lesbian, 45354
Laurie, Alison J., 568 chic, 419
Lavender, 159 continuum, 456
Lavender Culture, 204, 414 feminism, 45659
Lavender Herring, The, 204 identities, 616
Lavender Menace, 63536 impunity, myth of, 46061
Lavender Press, 104 love scripts, 481
Lavender Vision, 581 nation, 46162
Lavender Woman, 159, 421 parenting, 61617
Law and legal institutions, 44548 publishing, 62123
Law of Return, The, 33 studies, 46265
Le Bon, Sylvie, 98 Lesbian AIDS Project, 718
Le Coin, Elizabeth, 98 Lesbian Almanac, The, 106
Le corps lesbien, 789, 806 Lesbian and Gay Immigation Rights Task Force, 389
Le desert mauve, 133 Lesbian Art Project, 64
Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan, 791 Lesbian Avengers, 2, 66, 142, 178, 195, 231, 419, 45455,
Le Nef des sorcires, 119 477, 665
Le Pur et limpur, 179, 318, 509, 567 Lesbian Calendar, 707
Le Satellite de lAmande, 789 Lesbian Cartoonists Network, 150
Le Sauvage, 310 Lesbian Concentrate: A Lesbianthology of Songs and
Le Voyage sans fin, 806 Poems, 523, 556, 638
Leadbeater, Charles Webster, 170 Lesbian Connection, 180, 193, 581, 679, 707
Leap, William, 437 Lesbian Connection, The, 45556
Learning Our Way, 54 Lesbian Education and Awareness (LEA), 402
Leather, 44849 Lesbian Erotics, 414
Lecturas para mujeres, 505 Lesbian Ethics, 274, 480, 581
Leduc, Violette, 98, 313, 44950 Lesbian Feminism in Turn-of-the-Century Germany, 287
Lee, Christopher Lesbian Feminist Liberation, 77
see Lee, Kris Lesbian Feminists, 479
Lee, Eileen, 73 Lesbian Front, 745
Lee, Gypsie Rose, 490 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual People in Medicine (LGBPM),
Lee, Kris, 73 492
Lee, Laurie, 135 Lesbian Health Bibliography, 106
Lee, Sadie, 60, 61, 62 Lesbian Heresy, The, 683
Lee, Sky, 72 Lesbian Herstory Archives, 56, 105, 352, 368, 459,
Lee, Vernon, 408, 450, 45051 45960, 462, 470, 540, 670, 686
LeFanu, Joseph Sheridan, 263 Lesbian History Group, 782
Legal Implications of Alternative Insemination and Lesbian Images, 472
Reproductive Technologies, 105 Lesbian in Literature, The, 104, 346, 347
Legal theory, lesbian, 45153 Lesbian Land, 679
LeGallienne, Eva, 669 Lesbian Lists, 106
Legman, Gerson, 436 Lesbian London, 784
LeGuin, Ursula K., 789 Lesbian Love and Liberation, 488
Lelia, 311, 317, 666 Lesbian Mothers and Their Children, 105
Lemel, Natalie, 496 Lesbian Mothers National Defense Fund, 77
Lemeshewsky, A.K., 73 Lesbian Mothers Union, 77, 488
Lennox, Annie, 521 Lesbian Nation, 88, 210, 417, 457, 461
Leonard, Zoe, 66 Lesbian Network, 84
Les Amantes, 318 Lesbian News, 480, 521
Les Amies dHlose, 319 Lesbian Nuns, 346, 531, 645
Les Bergeres de lapocalypse, 789 Lesbian Organization Switzerland (LOS), 746
Les Bonheurs, 318 Lesbian (Out)law, 451
Les Chansons de Bilitis, 667 Lesbian Path, The, 44, 189, 213, 488
Les Fleurs du Mal, 263, 311, 316 Lesbian Peoples: Material for a Dictionary, 105
Les Gurillres, 524, 789, 806 Lesbian Periodicals Index, 55, 105, 531
Les Nuits de lUnderground, 119 Lesbian Photography Directory, The, 590
Les Relations amoreuses entre les femmes, du XVIe au XXe Lesbian Postmodern, The, 603
sicles, 105 Lesbian Psychologies, 123
Les Vrilles de la vigne, 179 Lesbian Resource Center, 193
Lesbenfront, 746 Lesbian Review of Books, 472, 815
Lesbenrundbrief, 86 Lesbian Sources: A Bibliography of Periodical Articles, 55,
Lesbia, 319 106
Lesbia Brandon, 263 Lesbian Studies: Present and Future, 21314

INDEX 847
Lesbian Teachers Network, 753 Chinese, 16466
Lesbian Texts and Contexts, 414 classical, 4649, 17375
Lesbian Tide, The, 421, 479, 581 English, 26168
Lesbian Viewpoints, 477 French, 31419
Lesbian Visual Artists (LVA), 66, 591 German, 32830
Lesbian/Woman, 463, 488 Latin American, 43840
Lesbiana: Book Reviews from the Ladder, 432 Latina, 4950, 44043
Lesbianas a la Vista, 191 Spanish, 72325
Lesbianas En Accion (LEA), 162 Little Dorrit, 263
Lesbianas Latinamericanas, 480 Little Girls, The, 127, 266
Lesbianas Unidas, 480 Little Review, 35, 158, 337, 509
Lesbianism: An Annotated Bibliography, 105 Little Women, 30
Lesbians Choosing Children Network, 77 Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies, 309
Lesbians Choosing Motherhood, 105 Lives of the Fair and Gallant Ladies, 469
Lesbians in Print, 106 Livia, Anna, 381, 674
Lesbians, Jewish, 4445 Living the Spirit, 592
Lesbians of Color, 480 Livre de Manires, 499
Lesbies Doe-Front, 100 LiYu, 163
Lesbo, 705 Llego, 77
LesBond, 585 Lloyd, Mary, 782
Lesbos, Island of, 465, 668 Lobdell, Lucy Ann, 573
Lesbozine, 705 Locke, Alain Leroy, 9
Lesmos, 77 Locked-Up Daughters, 122
Lesotho, 466 Lockett, Gloria, 686
LESPOP; the Lesbian policing project, 783 Lodge, Thomas, 64849
Lessing, Doris, 266 Loeuvre au noir, 824
Lettre a lAmazone, 778 Lolly Willowes, 800
Lettres persanes, 316 London, 47778
LEugelionne, 790 London, Helene, 250
LeVay, Simon, 110 London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, 784
Levertov, Denise, 753 Londoners: An Elegy, 249
Levi-Strauss, Claude, 209 Long Ago, 300
Levitt, Nina, 591 Long Arm, The, 29
Lewin, Waldtraut, 330 Long Time Coming, 628
Lewis, Edith, 151 LOnonisme, 489, 688
Lewis, Mary Edmonia, 408, 46667, 467 Looking Queer, 123
Liberalism, 46768 Loony-Bin Trip, the, 504
Liberation of Lydia, The, 637 Lopez, Yolanda, 142
Libertinism, 469 LOpoponax, 806
Librarians, 46971 Lorca, Federico Garcia, 725
Life and Letters To-Day, 135 Lord, Sheldon, 624
Life Begins, 804 Lorde, Audre, 10, 11, 15, 33, 88, 118, 148, 190, 297, 362,
Life in the Fat Lane, 291 402, 458, 463, 472, 473, 475, 478, 47879, 512,
Lifting Belly, 733 622, 664, 678, 684, 709, 716, 727
LIGMA (Lesbian and Gay Men Action), 82526 Loring, Frances, 143
Lilas, 602 Loring, Katharine, 127, 411
Ling Shuhua, 165 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Islander Sisters, 74
Lim-Hing, Sharon, 73, 565, 772 Los Angeles, California, 47980
Lima, Marina, 130 Los Angeles Gay Liberation Front, 479
Linck, Catharina Margareta, 206, 331, 370, 371, 609 Los Angeles League for the Advancement of Lesbianism in
Lindsey, Ben B., 196 the Arts, 64
Ling, Amy, 71 Los Angeles Unified School District, 366
Linn, James Weber, 4 Los soldados lloran de noche, 725
Lipkin, Joan, 763 Lotte, 803
Listener in Babel, A, 675 Loud and Proud, 784
Lister, Anne, 235, 263, 371, 433, 470, 782, 785 Louis XVI, King, 486
Literary criticism, 47274 Louys, Pierre, 263, 317, 475, 667
Literary images, 47476 Love, 48082
Literature Love, Barbara, 368, 463, 636, 739
African American, 912 Love Bites, 60
American, nineteenth century, 2731 Love Child, 249
American, twentieth century, 3135 Love Image, 753
Asian American, 7172 Love Letters Between and Nobleman and His Sister, 99

848 INDEX
Love, Susan, 177 Marchant, Anyda, 531
Lover, 33, 296 Marches and parades, 48486
Lovers, The, 68 Margins, 442
Loving Her, 10, 33, 297, 699 Margolin, Deb, 765
Loving in the War Years, 190, 297, 441, 476, 512 Margueritte, Victor, 312, 317
Low, Juliette Gordon, 334 Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples, 407
Lowell, Amy, 32, 482, 509, 669 Marie Antoinette, Queen, 68, 311, 407, 486, 566, 638,
Loza, 570 650, 682, 777
Lu Qingzi, 165 Marielitos, 147
Lucian, 48, 175, 270 Marivaux, Pierre, 767
Luhan, Mabel Dodge, 135, 344, 357, 408, 610 Markmann, Sigrid, 566
Lukenbill, Grant, 9 Marks, Jeannette, 107, 181, 741
Lulu, 558 Marquis de Sade, 469
Lunas, 439 Marriage
Lust and Gratie, 544 ceremonies, 48687
Lyly, John, 76667 resisters, 16364
Lyon, Mary, 18082 Marriage, The, 92, 93
Lyon, Phyllis, 225, 431, 463, 48889, 489, 665 Married Love, 690
Lyons, Lydia, 674 Mars, Ethel, 610
Lyric Year, The, 503 Martial, 48
Lyssa, Alison, 765 Martin, Del, 225, 431, 463, 48889, 489, 665
Martin, Mary, 213
Martin, Rosy, 591
Mabley, Jackie, 13, 351
Martin, Violet, 402
MacDowell, Cyndra, 591
Martina, 731
Mackenzie, Compton, 266, 350
Marx, Karl, 209, 71415
Macnamara, Madeline, 550
Mary: A Fiction, 262
Macpherson, Kenneth, 135, 359
Mary Lavelle, 555
Macy, Joanna, 729
Mask, The, 425
Mad About You, 758
Massacre of the Dreamers, 442
Madam Gou, 343
Masters, Wiliam H., 692
Mdchen in Uniform, 768, 804
Masturbation, 48990
Maddison, Adela, 197
Matalon, Linda, 66
Madonna, 142, 362, 520
Mather, Margarethe, 589
Madsen, Christine, 420
Matos, Nemir, 440
Madwoman, 828
Matrices, 815
Maenads, 525
Matrix, Venus, 60
Maggiore, Dolores, 105
Mattachine Midwest, 159
MaGuire, Ann, 454
Mattachine Society of the Niagara Frontier, 136, 225, 230,
Mahfouz, Mouloud, 51 342, 345, 533, 560, 714, 752, 802
Mh, 48384, 564 Matter, Ann, 728
Mahupuku, Maata, 548 Matute, Ana Mara, 725
Maimonides, Moses, 423 May, Melanie, 728
Main, Beck, 150 Mayo, Lisa, 764
Mairobert, Franois, 638 Mazer, June L., 56
Majoli, Monica, 66 McAlmon, Robert, 135
Making Face, Making Soul, 49 McBride, Donna, 309, 346, 531
Malihabadi, Josh, 405 McCarthy, Joseph, 801
Mamas Gone A-Hunting, 765 McCarthy, Mary, 181
Mammen, Jeanne, 70 McCartin, Mandy, 62
Mammeri, Mouloud, 51 McCarty, Marlene, 66
Manahan, Nancy, 346, 531, 645 McClintock Barbara, 756
Mann, Erika, 746 McClung, Isabelle, 151
Mannering, Guy, 263 McCombs, Pat, 158
Manning, Rosemary, 122 McCullers, Carson, 32, 127, 49091, 746
Mannweiber-Weibmmanner und der Para. 175, 104 McDaniel, Judith, 334
Manservant and Maidservant, 199 McDermid, Val, 784
Mansfield, Katherine, 484, 548, 816 McDonald, Barbara, 591
Manslaughter, 303 McFague, Sallie, 728
Manyarrows, Victoria Lena, 591 McKinley, Catherine E., 11, 190
Mara, 647 McNaron, Toni, 463
Maraini, Dacia, 409 Me and Marilyn Monroe, 565
March, Artemis, 636 Mead, Margaret, 42, 43, 101, 115, 563

INDEX 849
Meagher, John F.W., 742 Mixon, Laura, 674
Media Guide to the Lesbian and Gay Community, 420 Miyamoto Kenji, 507
Medicine, 49192 MiyamotoYuriko, 507
Megeara, 84 Mizorah, 789
Meigs, Mary, 119, 228 Modern Language Association, 88, 709
Mein, Anne, 591 Modernism, 50710
Meitner, Lise, 672 Moix, Ana Maria, 725
Melanesia, 564 Moll, Albert, 689
Mellor, Dawn, 60, 62, 62 Mollenkott, Virginia, 728
Melville, Margarita, 441 Molloy, Sylvia, 440
Member of the Wedding, The, 490 Moltke, Thusnelda, 232
Memoires dHadrien, 824 Monahan, Colleen, 159
Memoires dune jeune fille derange, 98 Money, John, 692
Memoirs of a Women of Pleasure, 261 Moniz, Egas, 601
Memoirs of Casanova, The, 68, 650 Monma Chiyo, 824
Memory Board, 654 Monnier, Adrienne, 98, 509
Men, Women, and Chain Saws, 341 Monogamy and nonmonogamy, 51011
Menken, Adah Isaacs, 30 Monroe, Irene, 728
Mensch, Ella, 745 Monster, 83
Meredith, Ann, 65, 591 Montagu, Lady Barbara, 261
Merit Vaknar, 129 Montano, Linda, 197
Merriam, Eve, 213 Montley, Patricia, 763
Mestizaje, 4950, 49293 Moore, Clover, 85
Methfessel, Alice, 116 Moore, Lisa C., 11
Meulenbelt, Anja, 543 Moore, Marianne, 116, 358, 591
Meurent, Victorine, 312 Moorhead, Finola, 83
Mew, Charlotte, 264, 267, 49394, 494, 509 Moosdorf, Johanna, 330
Mexico, 49496 Mootoo, Shani, 73
Meyer, Ruth, 803 Moraga, Cherre, 43, 88, 189, 190, 210, 297, 440, 441,
Micas, Nathalie, 125, 311, 567 463, 476, 478, 51113, 512, 622, 763, 810
Michel, Louise, 312, 337, 49697 More Men Than Women, 199, 266
Michigan Womyns Music Festival, 185, 191, 240, 518, Moreto, Agustn, 724
700, 706, 753, 775, 776, 792 Morgan, Claire, 624
Microcosm, The, 157, 249, 266 Morgan, Julia, 53
Micronesia, 56465 Morgan, Kris S., 5
Midaregami, 823 Morgan, Marion, 71
Middle Ages, European, 497500 Morgan, Robin, 83, 545, 701
Middle Mist, The, 266, 646 Mori, Toshio, 71
Middleton, Thomas, 211 Morocco, 304
Midnight Sun, 716 Morrison, Melanie, 728
Midsummer Nights Dream, A, 767 Morrison, Toni, 9, 320, 473, 790
Migden, Carole, 665 Morton, Nelle, 728
Miguel, Gloria, 764 Moscow Lesbians in Literature and the Arts, 65758
Miguel, Muriel, 764 Moscow Union for Gays and Lesbians, 657
Military, 5003 Mother Camp, 43, 630
Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 344, 503, 610 Mother Im Rooted, 83
Millay, Norma, 227 Mother of Us All, The, 558, 734
Millenium Hall, 119, 261 Motherlines, 789, 790
Miller, D.A., 176 Motheroot Journal, 621
Miller, Frieda, 344 Mothers, lesbian, 51314
Miller, Isabel MOTOREDE (Movement to Restore Decency), 680
see Routsong, Alma Moulding, Karen, 6
Miller, Jennifer, 579 Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, 180, 181
Miller, June, 550 Mountaingrove, Ruth, 590
Miller, Susan, 765 Movement in Black, 569
Millett, Kate, 33, 64, 89, 418, 5034, 614, 636, 670 Moyer, Carrie, 66
Min, Anchee, 164 Mr. Fortunes Maggot, 800
Mirikitani, Janice, 72 Mrs. Dalloway, 296, 818
Misogyny, 5045 Mrs. Spring Fragrance and Other Writings, 71
Missy, the Marquise de Belbeuf, 179 Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, 669
Mistral, Gabriela, 43839, 5056 Mulher Repetida, 602
Mitchell, Alice, 5067 Mullard, Julie, 645
Mitchell, Lorna, 674 Mundanes World, 342, 790

850 INDEX
Mundt, Marta Gertrud, 197 National Womens Music Festival, 185, 518
Murdoch, Iris, 266 National Womens Political Caucus, 788
Murphy, Marilyn, 381 Native Americans, 53538, 77980
Murphy, Noel Haskins, 307 Navratilova, Martina, 142, 362, 426, 53839, 539, 641, 731
Murray, Maggie, 591 Nazimova, Alla, 37374
Murray, Natalia Danesi, 307 Nazism, 45, 1024, 53940
Murray, Pauli, 533 Near, Holly, 523
Music Nelson, Sandy, 420
classical, 51417 Nestle, Joan, 105, 190, 463, 54041, 541, 622, 670
festivals, 518 Netherlands, 54144
popular, 51821 Neto, Conceio Couto, 130
womens, 52124 Network Q, 760
Muslims Neu, Diane, 728
see Islam New left, 54445
Muzyka, 570 New Lesbian Studies, The, 815
My American History, 454 New Lesbian Writing, 21314
My Mamas Dead Squirrel, 190 New Lesbians, The, 189
Mystery and detective fiction, 52425 New Our Right to Love, The, 104
Mythology, 351 New right, 54547
Mythology New woman, 54748
classical, 52527 New Zealand, 54850
nonclassical, 52729 Newman, Pauline, 344, 423
Newsgroups, 201
Newton, Esther, 43, 630, 819
Na Mamo o Hawaii, 183
Nga Uri a Papatuanuku, 566
NAACP, 355, 356
Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology, 44, 189, 423, 622
Nachmann, Elana, 33, 59, 122, 475
Nicholson, Catherine, 622
NACHO (North American Committee of Homophile
Nicolson, Nigel, 659
Organizations), 665
Niemi, Judith, 253
Nagrodskaya, Yevdokia, 656
Nigger Heaven, 357
Naiad Press, 55, 104, 105, 137, 309, 346, 531, 621, 622,
Nightengale, Florence, 235, 552
674, 706, 794, 803
Nightwood, 31, 93, 133, 476
Namibia, 53132
Nijhoff, A.H., 542, 543
Naming the Violence: Speaking Out About Lesbian Battery,
Nile Daughters Party, 51
643
Niles, Blair, 102, 121
Nana, 316
Nin, Anais, 55051
Naples, Nancy A., 2
Nitrate Kisses, 301
Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Charlotte Charke, A, 156, 261
No Exit, 768
Nathan, Hilary, 56869
No Mans Land, 508
National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance No Priest But Love, 470
(NAAFA), 291 No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture, 141
National Bisexual Liberation Group, 112 No Talking After Lights, 122
National Black Feminist Organization, 15, 77, 118, 709 No Telephone to Heaven, 11
National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum, 77, Noble, Elaine, 258, 551
802 Nobuko, 507
National Center for Lesbian Rights, 105, 219, 386 Noda, Barbara, 73
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), North and South, 116
643 Norton Sound incident, 55152
National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gay Men, 77, Nossis of Locri, 47
231 Not a Passing Phase, 782
National Coming Out Day, 187, 187 Not Without Honour, 131
National Education Association, 754 Not Your Bitch, 828
National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association, 420 Notes From the Third Year, 807
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), 386, Nouvelles pensees de lamazone, 94
53233, 599, 759, 795, 802 Nova Sapho, A, 601
National Gay Task Force, 335 NOW
National Leather Association, 449 see National Organization for Women (NOW)
National Lesbian and Gay Health Association (NLGHA), Now She Laughs, Now She Cries, 784
492 Nucleus Club, 76
National Lesbian Feminist Organization (NLFO), 78 Nursing, 55254
National Organization for Women (NOW), 76, 78, 13334, NWSA Journal, 814
195, 203, 231, 293, 457, 479, 488, 53335, Nyonin Heike, 824
63536, 665, 702, 707, 788, 802, 811 NYPD Blue, 758

INDEX 851
O Moi, 74 Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, 125, 126
O Pioneers!, 150 Ospedali, 515
Oakley, Annie, 729 Othon, Marguerite, 312
Obejas, Achy, 442 Our Family, 77
Oberlin Lesbian Society, 181 Our Right to Love: A Lesbian Resource Book, 104
Obermer, Nesta, 336 Our World, 773
OBrien, Kate, 402, 555 Ouspenskaya, Maria, 71
OConnor, Sinead, 523 Out, 7
Odd Girl Out, 92, 623 Out and About, 773
Odd Girls, 287 Out for a Change: Addressing Homophobia in Womens
Ode to Aphrodite, 66667, 66869 Sports, 78
Of Love Forbidden, 803 Out in the Field: Reflections of Lesbian and Gay
Of Woman Born, 64647 Anthropologists, 43
off our backs, 828 Out in the World: International Lesbian Organizing,
Offenbach, Judith, 330 106
Offner, Stacy, 423 Out of the Class Closet, 189
Oikawa, Mona, 72 Out of the Closet, 414
Olander, Valborg, 434 Out on Tuesday, 760
Old Curiosity Shop, The, 264 Outcast, The, 803
Old Lesbians Organizing for Change, 18 Outside Belongings, 216
Older Asian Sisters, 75 OutWeek, 187, 582
Older Lesbian Network, 477 Ovid, 526, 668
Oldfield, Nance, 212 Owen, Anne, 586
Oliveira, Carmen L., 130 Oxenberg, Jan, 243, 301
Oliveros, Pauline, 197 Oxenham, Elsie, 122
Olivia, 122, 266, 313
Olivia Cruises and Resorts, 556, 773 Pacific Islands, 56365
Olivia Music, 77, 137, 322, 52223, 55556, 665, Pacific literature, 56566
677 Packer, Vin, 624
Olsson, Hagar, 306 Page, Helen Hope Rudolph, 803
Olympics, The, 324, 729 Paglia, Camille, 211
On a Grey Thread, 143, 333 Paiderasteia, 46, 17374
On Journey, 675 Paint It Today, 358
On My Honor: Lesbians Reflect on Their Scouting Painter, Nell Irvin, 108
Experience, 335 Painter, William, 648
On Our Backs, 582, 590 Palace of Pleasure, The, 648
On the Way to Myself, 807 Pallavicino, Teresa, 408
Onania or the Heinous Sin of Self-Pollution, 489 PAN, 233
One Hour, 711 Pandora, 705
One, Inc., 225 Pankhurst, Emmeline, 516, 711
One of Ours, 150 Paper Tiger Television (PTTV), 794
ONeill, Mary, 555 Paradise Lost, 474
Oneirokritika, 48 Parenting, 61617
Onna no yujo, 824 Parents and Gonna Be Parents, 77
Onodera, Midi, 302 Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays
Ontario Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights, 145 (PFLAG), 289
Op leven en dood, 119 Paris, 56668
Opera, 55659 Parker and Hulme: A Lesbian View, 568
Opie, Catherine, 66, 590 Parker-Hulme murder case, 56869
Oppression, 55960 Parker, Pat, 10, 11, 118, 172, 458, 569, 56970, 716,
Oral history, 56061 727
Oral History of Lesbianism, An, 769 Parker, Pauline, 208, 56869
Oral Majority, 66 Parkerson, Michelle, 675
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, 267, 362, 760, 784 Parmar, Pratibha, 73, 153, 244, 795
Ordona, Trinity, 73 Parnok, Sophia, 57071, 656
Organa, 602 Parra, Teresa de la, 571
Orientalism, 68 Parry, Lorae, 550, 766
Origin of the Family, The, 715 Passeggiera, 804
Orlando, 93, 266, 296, 350, 509, 659, 816 Passing, 33, 296, 509
Ormond, 2728, 650 Passing Shots, 731
Oronooko; or, The Royal Slave, 99 Passing women, 37071, 57274
Osborne, Tone, 480 Passion for Friends, A, 320

852 INDEX
Passion, The, 267 Piozzi, Hester Thrale, 433
Passionlessness, 574 Pirie, Jane, 59495, 777
Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture, 29, Pit Stop, 10, 569
262, 741, 782 Place for Us, A, 652
Pasternak, Judith, 637 Plain Pleasures, 128
Pastors and Masters, 199 Planned Parenthood, 679
Patience and Sarah, 33, 652 Plant Dreaming Deep, 670
Patriarchy, 57476 Plaskow, Judith, 728
Patten, Mary, 65 Plato, 46, 47, 173, 525
Patterns of Culture, 101 Plautus, 47
Paul, Alice, 742 Players Boy, The, 135
Payne, Leann, 610 Plummer, Ken, 717
Paz, Juana Maria, 180 Plutarch, 46
P.C. Casualties, 828 Podruga, 656
Peace movement, 57677 Poema de Chile, 505
Pearl of Orrs Island, The, 29 Poetry, 59598
Pearson, Ann, 591 Poison for Teacher, 122
Pelletier, Madeleine, 312 Poland, 59899
Pemerton-Billing, Noel, 25 Poliakova, Sophia, 656
Penazola, Lisa, 7, 9 Police Woman (television show), 759
Penelope, Julia, 189, 463, 57778 Political theory, 599601
Penses dune amazone, 94 Politics
Perez, Emma, 442 coalition, 17778
Perez, Julia, 442 electoral, 25860
Performance Art, 57879 identity, 38587
Performance art, 57880 political theory, 599601
Performativity, 580 Politics of Cruelty, The, 504
Periodicals, 58083 Pollack, Sandra, 106
Perjurd Husband, The, 212 Pollard, Ingrid, 60, 591
Perkins, Helvetia, 128 Pollen, Effie, 548
Perot, Rebecca, 808 Polynesia, 56364
Perry, Anne, 56869 Ponsonby, Mary, 711
Perry, Troy, Rev., 170, 609 Ponsonby, Sarah, 235, 261, 263, 432, 649
Pesarrodona, Marta, 725 Pool, Lea, 628
Peter Pan, 213 Portable Margaret Fuller, The, 28
Petrides, Frederique, 516 Porter, Katherine Ann, 490
Petronius, 47 Porter, Polly, 344, 786
Pezzana, Giacinta, 408 Portinari, Denise, 130
Phaedrus, 47 Portrait of a Marriage, 659, 760, 784
Phainetai moi, 66667 Portugal, 6012
Phallus, 58384 POSE (Parents Opposed to Sex Education), 680
Pham, Hanh Thi, 66 Posener, Jill, 591, 765
Phelan, Shane, 2 Postmodernism, 6024
Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart, 28 Potter, Clare, 55, 105, 106, 531
Phelps, Johnnie, 501 Poulenc, Francis, 558
Philips, Katherine, 472, 585, 58586, 649, 667 Pound, Ezra, 94, 98, 358, 482
Phillipines, 58485 Pound, Louise, 151
Phillips, Jan, 590 Povesto Sonechke, 778
Philosophy, 58788 Practice of Love, The, 583
Phoenix Rising, 828 Pratt, Minnie Bruce, 622
Photography, 58892 Pray for the Wanderer, 555
Phranc, 520 Prejudice, 6045
Physical education, 59294 Prescott, Oliveria, 197
Pickett, Chanelle, 775 Price, Deb, 420
Picture Theory, 133 Price of Salt, The, 33, 347
Pictures of the Floating World, 482 Pride at Work, 431
Piece of My Heart, 622 Pride Institute, 23
Piercy, Marge, 789 Primavera, 67
Pillard, Richard, 110, 612 Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The, 266
Pinball, 765 Primus, Rebecca, 13, 235, 370, 371
Pindar, 47 Prince, Brenda, 591
Pink Paper, 477, 785 Prince, Virginia, 774
Pink Plaque Guide, The, 477, 785 Prism, 753

INDEX 853
Prison Notes, 228 Quoi? Lternit, 824
Prisons and prisoners, 6058 Quran
Privacy, 6089 see Quaran
Problem in Greek Ethics, A, 689
Problem in Modern Ethics, A, 689 Race and racism, 4446, 63335
Probyn, Elspeth, 216 Races of Mankind, The, 101
Prohibition, 95 Rachel, 647
Project 10, 754 Rachid O., 51
Promise of Love, 646 Rachilde (Marguerite Aymery Vallette), 797
Promluv, 221 Radical Feminism, 807
Proof Through the Night, 768 Radicalesbians, 7677, 134, 231, 326, 345, 383, 457, 535,
Protestantism, 60910 545, 63536, 788, 807
Proust, Marcel, 317 Radio, 63637
Provincetown, Massachusetts, 61011 RADS, 477
Pruitt, Dusty, 501 Raeburn, Nicole, 718
Prynne, William, 211 Rainbow Foundation, 539
Psychiatry, 61113 Raine, Eliza, 470
Psychoanalysis, 61315 Rainey, Gertrude Ma, 9, 13, 102, 120, 137, 354, 356,
Psychogenesis of a Case of Homosexuality, 86 370, 519, 63738, 710, 787
Psychology, 61518 Raisin in the Sun, A, 158, 353
Psychopathia Sexualis, 86, 331, 365, 611, 689, 69091, Ramos, Juanita, 189, 441
700 Rand, Erica, 603
Psychotherapy, 61821 Rank, Otto, 550
Psyke, 306 Rankow, Lisa, 106
Ptolemy, 48 Rapson, Sarah, 66
Puar, Jasbir, 73 Raucourt, Franoise, 310, 63839
Publishing, lesbian, 62123 Ravizza, Alessandra, 408
Puerto Rico, 148 Raymond, Eleanor, 53
Pulp paperbacks, 33, 62325 Raymond, Janice, 320
Puppe Else, 330 Read, Elizabeth, 344, 651
Pure and the Impure, The Read, Mary, 402, 572
see Le Pur et limpur Rebecca, 304
Purposes of Love, 64546 Recovering, 669
Push, 11 Recovery movement, 63940
Puta, 624 Recreation, 64042
Red Azalea, 164
Qabbani, Nizar, 52 Red Dykes, 313
Q.E.D.; or, Things as They Are, 31, 733 Rede Informao um Outro Olhar, 130
Quaran, 257, 403, 4045 Rede Outro Olhar, 130
Quatrefoil, 76 Redwood, 29
Quebec, 62729 Reflections in a Golden Eye, 490
Quebec Lesbian Network, 628 Regiment of Women, 122, 265, 782
Queen Christina, 304, 323 Regumi, 413
Queen Christina of Sweden Reibey, Mary, 82
see Christina of Sweden Reid, Doris Fielding, 351
Queen Latifah, 520 Reid, Frances, 243, 244
Queen of America Goes to Washington, The, 216 Reinach, Salomon, 797
Queen of Wands, The, 342 Reinhardt, Max, 767
Queer Nation, 77, 231, 418, 629, 665 Reinig, Christa, 330
Queer Sisters, 191 Reitman, Ben L., 337, 373
Queer theory, 62932, 697, 718 Relationship violence, 64243
Queer Theory/Sociology, 717, 718 Religion
Queer zine explosion, 829 Catholicism, 15152
Quelques portraits sonnets de femmes, 94 Christianity, early, 4849, 16769
Quest, 322 Judaism, 4446, 42224
Question of Equality, The, 794 Protestantism, 60910
Question of Love, A, 75758 Religious communities, 64445
Questions of Travel, 116 Religious right, 54547
Quicksand, 355 Remember the Tarantella, 83
QuiJin, 163 Remembering Who We Are, 228
Quim, 829 Renault, Mary, 266, 296, 309, 477, 64546
Quintessential Image, The, 768 Render Me, Gender Me, 43

854 INDEX
Renee, 566 Ror, ngela, 130
Repertoria Americano, 154 Rosalynde, 649
Respuesta a Sor Filotea, 421 Rose, Jacqueline, 614
Restricted Country, A, 190, 540 Rose, Phyllis Jane, 765
Retton, Mary Lou, 732 Roseanne, 758
Reuling, Josine, 542 Rosenblum, Mary, 674
Revolution and Equilibrium, 228 Rosenthal, Rachel, 579
Revolution of Saint Jone, 674 Ross, Andrew, 141
Revolution of Sweden, The, 212 Ross, Dorothy, 309
Revolutionary Tales, 204 Ross, Martin, 402
Revoyr, Nina, 73 Rossetti, Christina, 263
Rhondda, Viscountess, 782 Rossi, Peri, 439
Rhue, Sylvia, 244 Roth, Joseph, 86
Rice and Beans, 753 Round Shape, 652
Rich, Adrienne, 11, 33, 3334, 88, 108, 110, 133, 198, Routsong, Alma, 33, 65253
200, 210, 276, 369, 383, 453, 456, 458, 472, Rowlands, Gena, 75758
473, 476, 478, 528, 597, 646, 64647, 653, Ruan Fang-fu, 164
670, 687, 69596, 727 Rubens, Peter Paul, 68
Richard, Dell, 106 Rubin, Gayle, 210, 630
Richardson, Dorothy, 135 Rubinstein, Ida, 132
Ruby, 298
Richardson, Henry Handel (Florence), 265
Rubyfruit Jungle, 33, 45, 134, 362, 381, 772
Richardson, Samuel, 28, 261, 650
Rudin, Therry, 62
Ricketts, Wendell, 6
Ruether, Rosemary Radford, 728
Riddiough, Christine, 716
Rug of Identity, The, 765
Riddle of Emily Dickinson, The, 237
Ruins of Isis, The, 674
Riera, Carme, 725
Rukeyser, Muriel, 32, 653
Ries, Marilyn, 198
Rule, Jane, 33, 144, 472, 614, 622, 65354, 654
Rifcat, Alifa, 53, 404
Rling, Anna, 103, 331, 65455
Rights, 64748 Running Away from Myself, 228
Rika-Heke, Powhiri, 566 Running Fiercely Toward a High Thin Sound, 476
Riley, Elizabeth, 83 Rupp, Leila, 2
Rim Tasbugh Sha raha, 52 Russ, Joanna, 33, 59, 674, 789
Rios, Cassandra, 130 Russell, Ada, 482
Risdon, Cathy, 491 Russell, Letty, 728
Rites, 249 Russell, Rosalind, 70
Rivera, Diego, 425 Russia, 65558
Riverfinger Women, 33, 122, 475 Rust, Paula, 115, 717
Rivers, Diana, 790 Ryder, 31, 93
Rivers Running Free, 253
Roaring Girl, The, 211 Sachs, Maurice, 449
Roberts, J.R., 55, 105, 368, 462, 786 Sackville-West, Vita, 408, 473, 602, 659, 782, 784,
Roberts, Lawrence, 829 816, 818
Robinson, Fay Jackson, 250 Sacred Hoop, The, 26, 529
Robinson, Sandy, 728 Sadomasochism, 45, 65961
Robson, Ruthann, 451 Safer sex, 66263
Rockefeller, Nelson, 136 Safo, 57
Rodin, Auguste, 94 Saga of Gosta Berling, The, 433
Rodriguez, Nice, 73 Saint Antoninus, 407
Roe v. Wade, 546, 608 Saints and mystics, 66364
Roff, Mercedes, 440 Saisio, Pirkko, 306
Roff, Reina, Sakhi, 392
Roffiel, Rosamara, 440, 496 Salammb, 316
Rogers, Gwendolyn, 15 Salo, Marcia, 65
Roig, Montserrat, 725 Salsa Soul Sisters Third World Womyn, Inc., 77, 118,
Roma, Catherine, 166 231
Roman Way, The, 351 Sam, Canyon, 72, 73, 763
Romantic friendship, 36970, 64851 Samaras, Connie, 65
Romantic, The, 204 Samois, 272, 44849, 660
Romer v. Evans, 448, 64748 Sampson, Deborah, 29, 572
Romo-Carmona, Mariana, 441, 442 San Francisco Bay Area Career Women, 677
Roof, Judith, 474, 614 San Francisco, California, 66466
Room of Ones Own, A, 36, 472, 597 San Francisco Lesbian and Gay History Project, 136,
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 108, 236, 368, 420, 65152, 801, 819 686

INDEX 855
Sand Child, The, 52 Senesh, Hanna, 647
Sand, George, 28, 125, 311, 317, 321, 566, 666 Separatism, 67779
Sanger, Margaret, 679 Seraphita, 316
Saphira, Miriam, 550 Serious Proposal to the Ladies, A, 645
Sapphic Songs, 333 Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story,
Sapphic tradition, 66668 758
Sapphira and the Slave Girl, 150 SETA, 306
Sapphire, 11 Settlement houses, 3
Sapphire Sapphos, 77 Sex, 767
Sappho, 31, 46, 47, 67, 69, 17374, 198, 262, 311, 343, Sex
465, 525, 567, 668, 66869, 747, 753 education, 67981
Sappho, 767, 784 practice, 68182
SAPPHO (South Korea), 428 toys, 68283
Sappho und Sokrates, 103 wars, 68385
Sappho Was a Right-On Woman, 463, 739 work, 68587
Sargent, Pamela, 790 Sex and Sensibility: Stories of a Lesbian Generation,
Sari Red, 73 717
Sarton, May, 88, 127, 309, 66970, 726, 753 Sex and Temperaments in Three Primitive Societies, 101
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 98, 99, 449, 768 Sex, Art, and American Culture, 211
Saskatchewan Gay Coalition, 145 Sex Information and Education Council (SIECUS),
Satyricon, 47 67980
Sauna, 725 Sex Is not a Natural Act, 692
Saunders, Helen, 431 Sex Variant Women in Literature, 55, 104, 158, 308, 531
Saxe, Susan, 545 Sexism, 68788
Say Jesus and Come to Me, 10, 33, 699 Sexology, 68892
Scheibe, Auguste, 328 Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, 427, 691
Schiller, Greta, 243 Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, 427, 691
Schmidman, Jo Ann, 764 Sexual Freedom League, 112
Schneeman, Carolee, 579 Sexual harassment, 69293
Schneider, Beth, 718 Sexual Inversion, 497, 68990, 700, 708
Schneiderman, Rose, 651 Sexual orientation and preference, 694
Scholars, 67072 Sexual Politics, 504
Schulman, Sarah, 2, 297, 454, 463, 524, 622 Sexual Preference, 427
Schurch, Jaya, 62 Sexuality, 69498
Schwarz, Judith, 105 Sexually transmitted diseases, 69899
Science, 67274 Sexualwissenschaft, 689
Science fiction, 67475 Shafiq, Durriyah, 51
Scoppettone, Sandra, 299 Shakespeare and Company, 98
Scorpion, The, 86, 803 Shakespeare, William, 211, 767
Scotch Verdict, 287, 370, 595 Shamakami, 828
Scott, Kay, 664 Shame is Over, The, 543
Scott, Lizabeth, 374 Shameless Hussies, 83
Scott, Melissa, 674 Sharawi, Huda, 51
Scott, Sarah, 179, 261, 649 Shattered Chain, The, 674
Scott, Sir Walter, 263 Shaw, Anna Howard, 235, 741, 786
Scudder, Vida Dutton, 67576 Shaw, Beverly, 664
S.C.U.M. Manifesto, 720 Shaw, Peggy, 579, 765
Search for Tomorrow, 156 She Came in a Flash, 524
Sears, Vickie, 538 She Came Too Late, 524
Second Coming of Joan of Arc, The, 763 Sheehan, Patty, 641
Second Sex, The, 98, 313 Sheehan, Stacy, 150
Secret Lives in Art, 417 Sheldon, Alice, 674
Secret Love, 212 Shelley, Martha, 545, 636
Sedgwick, Catherine, 28, 29, 63031 Shen Fu, 162
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, 17677, 210, 341 Sherif, Katherine, 51
Segal, Sondra, 765 Sherman, Cindy, 579
Segrest, Mab, 190 Shirley, 264
Seid, Ruth, 423 Shocked, Michelle, 187, 520, 523
Sekcija LL, 7056 Shockley, Ann Allen, 10, 33, 137, 297, 699
Sekhon, Perminder, 61, 591 Shojo fiction, 824
Self-defense, 676 Shore of Women, The, 790
Self-help, 67677 Shotlander, Sandra, 765
Seneca, 47, 173 Shoulder to Shoulder, 782

856 INDEX
Shriver, Pam, 731 Smyth, Dame Ethel Mary, 87, 197, 408, 451, 477, 516,
Shumsky, Ellen, 636 711, 782, 816
Siddons, Sarah Kemble, 212 Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law, 646
Side by Side, 652 Sneed, Pamela, 579
Sigler, Hollis, 64 Snelling, Paula, 710
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 292, 814 Sneyd, Honora, 263
Silent Spring, The, 673 Snezhensky, Andrei, 657
Silton, Susan, 65 Snyder, Joan, 64
Silvera, Makeda, 622 Scares, Lota de Macedo, 116, 130
Simcox, Edith Jemina, 699700 Sobranie Stikhotvorenii, 570, 656
Simon, Ana Maria, 454 Social-construction theory, 71113
Simpson, Evangeline Marss, 408, 801 Social work, 71314
Simpson, Lillian, 710 Socialism, 71416
Sin of Sins, 767 Society for Individual Rights, 192
Sinclair, Jo, 423 Society for the Protection of Personal Rights, 406
Sinclair, May, 493 Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists, 43
Sind es Frauen?, 329, 331 Society of Women: A Study of a Womens Prison, 702
Singer, Isaac Bashevis, 423 Sociologists Gay and Lesbian Caucus, 717
Singer, Rochelle, 790 Sociology, 71620
Single White Female, 208 Sdergran, Edith, 306
Singles, 7001 SOHO, 220
Sinister Wisdom, 11, 462, 472, 581, 582, 621 Sokol, 92
Sister Gin, 33, 296 Solanas, Valerie, 720
Sister My Sister, 209 Solano, Solita, 307, 567
Sister Namibia Collective, 532 Som, Indigo, 73
Sister of the Road, 373 Somerville, Edith, 711
Sister Outsider, 479 SOMOS, 130
Sister Singers Network, 166, 517 Song of the Lark, The, 558
Sisterhood, 7012 Songs of Bilitis, 263
Sisterhood is Powerful, 701 Sonntags Club, 332
Sisters for Homophile Equality (SHE), 549 Sontag, Susan, 141, 411
Sisters on Stage, 763 Sonthoff, Helen, 654
Sisters, Sexperts, Queers, 462 Sororities, 72021
Sita, 33, 89, 504 Sorrah, Renata, 130
Situational lesbianism, 7024 Souline, Eugeunia, 349, 408
Sitwell, Edith, 135, 267 Souque, Jeanne, 638
Six Chapters of a Floating Life, 162 Sous la langue/Under Tongue, 133
Skipitares, Theodora, 579 South Africa, 72122
Sklar, Kathryn Kish, 4 South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association, 74
Sklar, Roberta, 765 South Asians, 183
Slang, 191, 7045 South Riding, 375
Sleep, 69 Souvenirs indiscrets, 94
Sloan, Margaret, 15 Spahr, Janie, 728
Slogans and symbols, 485 Spain, 72223
Slonczewski, Joan, 674, 790 Spain, Nancy, 122
Slovenia, 7056 Spanish literature, 72325
Slowe, Lucy Diggs, 754 Spark, Muriel, 266
Small, Judy, 83 Speak Out, 399
Small towns and rural areas, 7067 Spectrum, 128
Smashes, crushes, spoons, 7078 Speed of Darkness, The, 653
Smith, Barbara, 9, 10, 15, 118, 184, 463, 478, 512, 622, Spence, Jo, 591
699, 7089, 709, 716 Spencer-Devlin, Muffin, 641, 732
Smith, Bessie, 9, 13, 102, 120, 354, 356, 519, 638, Sperr, Monika, 330
70910 Sperry, Almeda, 337
Smith, Beverly, 184 Spielberg, Steven, 305
Smith, Lillian Eugenia, 71011 Spinsters, 72526
Smith, Liz, 187 Spinsters Ink, 726
Smith, Mamie, 638 Spirit of Morals in the Eighteenth Century, The, 767
Smith, Mary Rozet, 3, 576, 786 Spirits in the Street, 11
Smith, Patti, 520 Spirituality, 72629
Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll, 105, 107, 292, 320, 369 Spiro, Ellen, 244, 795
Smith, Stevie, 267 Sports, professional, 72932
Smyers, Virginia, 508 Springfield, Dusty, 519

INDEX 857
Spry, Constance, 336 Suffrage movement, 41, 74143
Squire, Maude, 610 Sui Sin Far, 71
St. John, Christopher, 785 Suicide, 74344
St. Paul, 16769, 497 Sula, 320, 473
Stalin, Joseph, 715 Sultanas Dream, 179
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 235 Summer on the Lakes, 28
Stanwyck, Barbara, 374 Summer Will Show, 266, 801
Starhawk, 337, 727 Sun, Midnight, 716
Starr, Ellen Gates, 3, 741 Sunday Outing, A, 784
STDs Surpassing the Love of Men, 236, 287, 320, 370, 458
see Sexually transmitted diseases Suzan Daniel Fonds, 101
Stebbins, Emma, 217, 408 Sweden, 74445
Stefan, Verena, 330 Swedish Federation for Sexual Equality (RFSL), 745
Stein, Arlene, 2, 462, 717 Switzerland, 74547
Stein, Gertrude, 31, 53, 67, 88, 94, 135, 198, 220, 267, Sword Blades and Poppy Seed, 482
296, 307, 317, 368, 381, 408, 423, 435, 474, Symbols, 74748
508, 516, 558, 567, 589, 596, 73234, 733, Symonds, John Addington, 689
768, 770, 787, 819 Symposium, 46, 47, 173, 525
Steiner, Emma, 197 Synagogues, 74849
Stenten, Marlene, 330
Stephan, Naomi, 198
Tahu, Ngai, 566
Stephens, Elizabeth, 66
Taiwan, 75152
Stereotypes, 73436
Takarazuka Revue, 24
Stevens, Doris, 742
Take Stage! How To Produce and Direct a Lesbian Play, 763
Steward, Susan, 591
Tala, 505
Stewart, Maria, 118
Tale of Genji, The, 823
Stewart-Park, Angela, 189
Tales of the City, 760
Stigma, 73637
Tales of the Revolution and Other American Fables, 156
Stikhotvoreniia, 570
Talmud, the, 422
Stockdale, Jackie, 84
Tamm, Elisabeth, 744
Stolen Glances, 60
Tarango, Yolanda, 728
Stoller, Nancy, 718
Taste of Latex, 829
Stone Butch Blues, 190, 362, 475, 573
Tate, Gertrude Amelia, 81
Stonewall Rebellion, 12, 194, 230, 345, 418, 485
Taylor, Robert, 374
Stopes, Marie, 690
Taylor, Valerie, 33, 158, 624, 752, 75253
Story of Avis, The, 28
Taylor, Verta, 2, 718
Story of Mary MacLane, The, 88
Taymur, Aishah, 52
Story of My Life, 666
Tchaikovsky Foundation for Cultural Initiative and the
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 29
Strachey, Dorothy, 266 Defense of Sexual Minorities, 657
Straight from the Heart, 244 Tchaikovsky, Pyotr, 656
Straight Mind, The, 806 Te entrego, amor, la mar, como una ofrenda, 725
Strange Brother, 102, 121 Teachers, 753, 75356
Strange Fruit, 71011 Technology, 75657
Strange Path, The, 624 Teena, Brandon, 573, 775
Stranger on Lesbos, 752 Teish, Luisah, 727
Stratum, Margaret, 65 Teixeira, Judith, 602
Straub, Scholar, 767 Television, 75760
Strawberries, 73 Ten Cents a Dance, 302
Strawberry and Chocolate, 148 Tender Buttons, 733
Stri Sangam, 392 Tepper, Sheri, 790
Stritt, Marie, 655 Teresa of Avila, 555
Strongheart, Amy Adams Squire, 420 Teresa of Avila, 723, 76061
Stuart, Elma, 700 Ternura, 505
Stuart, Lee, 104 Terry, Megan, 763, 764, 765, 768
Students, 73739 Tertullian, 211
Studies in American Indian Literature, 26 Terug naar het eiland, 542
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, 121, 264, 689, 700 Testament of Experience, 131
Studies of the Eighteenth-Century in Italy, 450 Testament of Friendship, 131, 375
Style, 73940 Testament of Youth, 131
Subculture, 74041 Thadani, Theresa, 592
Suber, Margareta, 745 Thailand, 76162
Subversive Acts, 565 That Certain Summer, 75758

858 INDEX
That Lady, 555 Townes, Emilie, 728
Thats How It Was, 249, 266 Traits et portraits, 317
Thaxter, Celia, 30 Trans-activism, 77576
Theater and drama Transgender, 9192, 396, 77476
contemporary, 76266 Transsexual, 775
history of, 76669 Transvestite, 77475
Thendara House, 674 Trapani, Joanne, 159
Theory of Flight, 653 Trebilcot, Joyce, 463
Therese Philosophe, 68 Tree of Hope, 425
These Three, 304 Trefusis, Violet, 266, 408, 659
Thich Nhat Hahn, 729 Treut, Monika, 244, 272
Third World Gay Revolution, 231 Tribades, 168, 17475, 270, 280, 283, 309, 4078, 486,
Third World Women Inc., 118 566, 77678
Thirty-Three Abominations, 656 Tribe of Dina, The, 622
This Bridge Called My Back, 43, 49, 88, 189, 210, 297, Tribute to Freud, 359
440, 512, 622, 810 Trikone, 77
This Is Not for You, 654 Trikone, 828
This Sex Which Is Not One, 209 Trilogy, 359
Thistlethwaite, Susan, 728 Trio, 768
Thoma, Laura Fredy, 746 Tristan, Flora, 125, 311
Thomadaki, Katerina, 62 Triumph of Love, The, 767
Thomas, M.Carey, 181, 236, 741, 754, 76970, 786 Troche, Rose, 302
Thompson, Becky W., 124 Tropicana, Carmelita, 142, 579
Thompson, Dorothy, 420, 804 Trotter, Catherine, 212
Thompson, Karen, 289 Troubridge, Una, 69, 139, 349, 350, 408, 477
Thomson, Virgil, 558 Troyanos, Tatiana, 557
Those of You Who Are Without Sin, 655 Trujillo, Carla, 442
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, 115, 613 Truth, Sojourner, 118, 198
Three Graces, The, 67 Tsinhnahjinnie, Hulleah, 591
Three Lives, 733 Tsuberbiller, Olga, 570
Three Witches, The, 67 Tsui, Kitty, 72, 73, 622
Tiefer, Leonore, 692 Tsvetsaeva, Marina, 570, 656, 77879
Tilchen, Maida, 347 Tubiya, Majid, 52
Tilley, Vesta, 213 Tubman, Harriet, 184
Tilting the Tower, 815 Turkish Bath, The, 68
Time and Tide, 782 Tusquets, Esther, 725
Time Out, 477 Twee meisjes en ik, 542
Times Power, 647 Twelfth Night, 211
Tinmouth, Jill, 491 Twenty One Love Poems, 34, 133
Tipton, Billy, 573 Twice a Minority, 441
Tiptree, James, 674, 78990
Twilight Lovers, 287
Tissot, Samuel, 489, 688
Two Eagles: An International Native American Gay and
Title IX, 78
Lesbian Quarterly, 537
To the Lighthouse, 818
Two Fridas, The, 425
To the North, 127
Two Friends, 28
Togawa, Jill, 224, 224
Two in Twenty, 794
Toklas, Alice B., 88, 408, 423, 567, 733, 733, 770, 819
Two Mothers for Zachary, 758
Tokugawa no fujintachi, 824
Two Selves, 134
Tolerance, 77071
Two Serious Ladies, 128
Tomboy, 77172
Two-spirits, 25, 384, 53537, 77980
Tomboys! Tales of Dyke Derring-Do, 772
Two Women Revisited, 753
Tomlin, Lily, 186, 381
Two Women: The Poetry of Valerie Taylor and Jeannette
Top Ranking: An Anthology on Racism and Classism in the
Foster, 309, 75253
Lesbian Community, 204
Two Worlds and Their Ways, 199
TOPS (Transsexual Officers Protect and Serve), 775
Tyler, Lottie, 120
Tops?e, Marie, 232
Tyler, Robin, 185
Torajyv, 306
Tyson, Nicola, 66
Torchlight to Valhalla, 624, 8034
Total Zone, The, 538
Touch of Evil, 304 Ugolkova, Liudmila, 657
Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de, 69 Ulrich, Karl Heinrich, 263, 688
Tourism and guidebooks, 77274 Umpierre, Luz Maria, 442
Toward a Black Feminist Criticism, 9 Un Choix sans quivoque, 105

INDEX 859
Underneath the Bough, 300 Violent Sex, The, 793
Undersong, 479 Violets and Other Tales, 250
Understudies, 76263 Virgile, Non, 790, 806
Une Femme mapparut, 797 Virgin Atlantic Airways, 774
Une Femme mure et lamour, 227 Virginie, Mademoiselle, 638
Une Saison dans la vie dEmmanuel, 119 Vivien, Rene, 31, 32, 94, 179, 271, 309, 312, 317, 368,
Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC), 749 465, 475, 509, 567, 667, 789, 797
United Kingdom, 78185 Vogel, Paula, 765
United Lesbians of African Heritage, 480 Volcano, Del LaGrace, 60, 62, 248
United States, 78588 See Grace, Della
United States Navy, 55152 von Arnim, Bettina, 328
Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Church, von den Eken, Anna, 104
17071, 400, 487, 609 von Druskowitz, Helene, 85, 745
Unlike Others, 752 von Ense, Rahel Varnhagen, 328
Unmasked; or, the Science of Immorality, 800 von Glmer, Claire, 328
Unofficial Rose, An, 266 von Gnderode, Karoline, 328
Unsere kleine Zeitung, 332 von Herzogenberg, Elisabeth, 711
Unter der Peitsche der Leidenschaft, 329 von Krafft-Ebing, Richard, 27, 85, 275, 331, 337, 365, 601,
Untold Millions, 137 611, 689, 69091, 700
Unusual Company, 34 von Najmajer, Marie, 85
Up Our Butts, 828 von Peteani, Maria Sauer, 329
Uribe, Virginia, 754 von Salis, Meta, 745
Urologie and Cutaneous Review, The, 742 von Schulthess, Beatrice, 795
USSR, 65558 von Troll, Irma, 85
Utopian literature, 78890 von Westphal, Carl, 331, 688, 700
Uyehara, Denise, 73 Voyage Out, The, 265
Vpolgolosa, 570
Vrouw en Vriend, 119
Valentine, Sarah, 578
Valry, Paul, 94, 98
WAC (Womens Action Coalition), 665
Vampires, 476, 79192
Waddell, Thomas, 324
lesbian, 341
Wade, April, 219
Van Ness, Joan, 157
Wagner, Jane, 186
Van Vecten, Carl, 357
Waldron, David, 553
Vance, Linda, 254
Wales, Mary John, 29
Vancouver Gay Liberation Front, 144
Walk to the End of the World, 789
Varada tras el ultimo naufragio, 725
Walker, ALelia, 351, 799
Vargas, Chavela, 494, 792
Walker, Alice, 9, 34, 121, 244, 297, 305, 592, 790,
Vaughan, Carolyn, 591
8089
Vechernii albom, 778 Walker, Ann, 470
Vedeneyeva, Nina, 57071 Walker, Barbara, 790
Vega, Suzanne, 523 Walker, Madame C.J., 799
Vegetarianism, 79293 Walker, Mary Edwards, 572, 799800
Venus and Psyche, 68 Walker, Ruby, 710
Venus in the Cloister, 645 Wallace, Mike, 75859
Verlaine, Paul, 475 Waller, Sheila, 198
Versty, 778 Walsh, Stella, 730
Very Inside The: An Anthology of Writing by Asian and Pacific Wanderground, The, 33, 253, 463, 674, 789
Island Lesbian and Bisexual Women, 73, 565, 592 Wandor, Michelene, 76263
Vestris, Eliza, 212 Ward, Carrie Mae, 120
Vice Versa, 56, 420, 479, 581, 582, 621 Ward, David, 702
Vicinus, Martha, 105, 703, 78182 Ward, Freda, 506
Vida, Ginny, 104 Ward, Mary, 380
Vida Sexual, A, 601 Warner, Sylvia Townsend, 266, 477, 8001
Video, 79395 Warren, Fan, 66
Viertel, Salka, 323, 374 Wash Us and Comb Us, 228
View from Another Closet, 113 Washington, D.C., 8012
Villanueva, Chea, 72, 73, 592 Wasteland, The, 423
Villarosa, Linda, 420 Watashi no mita hito, 824
Villette, 264 Watermelon Woman, 142
Vinderen, Ingeborg, 232 Waters, Ethel, 13, 121, 351, 356, 519, 710
Vindication of the Rights of Women, 293, 468 Watkins, Mary, 523
Violence, 79597 Watson, Edith, 143, 589

860 INDEX
Waves, The, 818 Wilmont, Martha, 656
Way of Perfection, The, 76061 Wilson, Edith, 638
We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like Wilson, Edmund, 119
This?, 442 Wilson, Millie, 65
We Cannot Live Without Our Lives, 228 Wilson, Nancy, 171, 728
We Too Are Drifting, 296, 347, 803 Wimer, Val, 591
Weaver, Lois, 579, 765 Wimmens Comix, 149
Web sites, 2012 Winant, Fran, 64
Weber, Louise, 312 Wine from These Grapes, 503
Weibliche Homosexualitat um 1900 inzeitgenossischen Wings, Mary, 525
Dokumenten, 105 Winsloe, Christa, 103, 142, 329, 768, 804, 8045
Weinberg, Martin, 427 Winter Bound, 767
Weirauch, Anna, 86, 329, 8023 Winterson, Jeanette, 267, 362, 381, 474, 784
Weisinger, Jean, 592 Wise Tomorrow, 768
Weisman, Leslie Kanes, 54 Wishing Well, 707
Weiss, Andrea, 244 Witchcraft
Welch, Sharon, 728 see Goddess religion
Well of Horniness, The, 637 Witches, persecution of, 8056
Well of Loneliness, The, 32, 57, 69, 86, 93, 94, 126, 131, Without My Cloak, 555
139, 204, 220, 266, 271, 295, 296, 34950, Wittig, Monique, 27, 54, 59, 105, 209, 313, 457, 463, 472,
362, 408, 472, 475, 477, 508, 613, 623, 624, 474, 524, 629, 725, 789, 790, 8067
690, 77172, 782, 783, 787 Woffington, Margaret, 212, 767
Welles, Orson, 304 Wolfe, Maxine, 454
Wellington Lesbians Newsletter, 549 Wolfe, Susan, 189, 578
Wells, Anna Mary, 107 Wolff, Betje, 541
Welty, Eudora, 127 Wolff, Charlotte, 113, 807
Were Here, 189 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 262, 268, 293, 468, 599
Wesner, Ella, 768 Woman and Nature, 253
West, Mae, 767 Woman Appeared to Me, A, 309
Westenhoeffer, Suzanne, 186, 382, 556 Woman, Church, and State, 336
Weston, Edward, 589 Woman-identified woman, 8078
Westphal, Carl, 102 Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 321
What Do They Call Me?, 76566 Woman on the Edge of Time, 789
What Is Found There, 647 Woman Vision, 78
What Is Remembered, 770 Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts,
Whats OClock, 482 The, 7172
Whisper Their Love, 752 Woman Who Owned the Shadows, 33
WHISPER (Women Hurt in Systems of Prostitution Womanist, 8089
Engaged in Revolt), 686 Womans Hour, 784
White-Parks, Annette, 71 Womanslaughter, 10, 569
Whitlam, Gough, 82 Women and a Changing Civilization, 375
Whitman, Carl, 325 Women in American Theater, 763
Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?, 673 Women in the Shadows, 92
Wicca Women Loving Women: A Select and Annotated Bibliography
see Goddess religion of Women Loving Women in Literature, 104, 159
Widow Ranter, The, 212 Women Make Movies, 303, 794
Wiesel, Pauline, 328 Women of color, 80910
Wigginton, Tracey, 208 Women of Gold, 73
Wight, Rebecca, 207 Women of Sand and Myrrh, 53
Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far, A, 647 Women of the Left Bank, 508
Wilde, Oscar, 94, 132, 141, 337, 340, 358 Women Organizing: A Socialist Feminist Bulletin, 716
Wilder, Thornton, 98 Women Resisting AIDS, 718
Wilhelm, Gale, 296, 347, 624, 8034 Women Taxi Drivers Association, 428
Wilker, Gertrude, 330 Womens Circus, 84
Will to Change, The, 646 Womens Electric Band, 83
Willard, Francis, 236 Womens Health Action Mobilization (WHAM), 231
Williams, Delores, 728 Womens International League for Peace and Freedom, 576
Williams, Karen, 185, 381 Womens liberation movement, 81013
Williams, William Carlos, 647 Womens Oral History Project, 368
Williamson, Cris, 244, 522, 556 Womens Press Collective, 624
Willis, Julia, 763 Womens Prison, 702
Willy Womens Resources International, 106
see Gauthier-Villars, Henri Womens studies, 81316

INDEX 861
Womens Studies on Disc, 106 Yamamoto, Hisaye, 71
Womens Studies Quarterly, 814 Yamaoka, Carrie, 66
Womens Theatre Group, 83 Years, The, 818
Womens Traveler, The, 773 Yellow Book, 493
Womens Video Collective, 794 Yellow Clover, 97
Womyn Supporting Womyn Committee, 585 Yosano Akiko, 823
Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgersson, 433 Yosano Tekhan, 823
Wong, Nellie, 72 Yoshiya Nobuko, 824
Woo, Merle, 72, 73 Young in One Anothers Arms, The, 654
Wood, Thelma, 70, 93 Young Widow, The, 649
Woods, Marianne, 59495, 777 Youngblood, Julia, 591
Woodson, Jacqueline, 299 Youngblood, Shay, 11, 763
Woolf, Virginia, 36, 93, 236, 265, 296, 350, 368, 375, 472, Your Native Land, Your Life, 647
Yourcenar, Marguerite, 824
508, 509, 597, 602, 659, 667, 711, 807, 81618,
Yuasa Yoshiko, 507
817
Yugoslavia, former, 82526
Woolley, Mary E., 107, 181, 236, 741
Word Is Out, 243, 333
Zahle, Natalie, 232
Words of a Woman Who Breathes Fire, The, 72, 73
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, 10, 88, 148, 190, 297,
Work, 81822
362, 478
Works and Days, 300 Zando, Julie, 795
World Congress of Gay and Lesbian Jewish Organizations, Zaydun, Ibn, 404
400 Zeb-un-Nissa, 391
World of zines: A Guide to the Independent Magazine Zeidan, 52
Revolution, 828 Zeig, Sandy, 105, 789, 806
World Within a School, A, 122 Zheutlin, Cathy, 302
World Without Men, A, 752 Zhuk, Olga, 657
Writing for Their Lives, 508 Zillhard, Madeleine, 311
Wu Zao, 822 Zimbabwe, 82728
Wu Zhiying, 163 Zimmerman, Bonnie, 39, 89, 190, 320, 341, 362, 46162,
Wuornos, Aileen, 208 463, 473
Wyle, Florence, 143 Zines, 82829
Wyler, William, 304 Zinovyeva-Annibal, Lydia, 656
Ziyadah, Mayy, 52, 407
Xochi-quetzal, 153 Zoe, 415
Xu Yuan, 165 Zola, Emile, 316, 475
Xue Susu, 165 Zollar, Jawole Willa Jo, 224
Zusters, Jane, 591
Yamaguchi, Lynne, 772 Zuylen von Nyevelt, Baroness Hlne, 797
Yamakawa Tomiko, 823 Zweig, Stefan, 86

862 INDEX