Abstract:
The patriarchy constricts the mere existence of lesbians; suffocates a woman devoted and tender to women; constricts all that contradicts his defined and maintained control. This essay examines 1970s lesbian feminism as a project of liberation through refusal, community, and self-definition. From the Radicalesbians’ rejection of male-defined womanhood to the Combahee River Collective’s confrontation with interconnected systems of oppression, lesbians challenged the boundaries of both feminist and queer movements. Women-centered spaces transformed politics into practice, allowing lesbians to build culture, community, and power. The subsequent disappearance and erasure of these spaces reveals how mainstream acceptance can neutralize radical movements. Recovering lesbian history is therefore not an act of nostalgia—it is an act of political reclamation.
There was nothing in the culture that nourished us. –Joan Biren, a lesbian photographer (Morris, 2016).
Society centers the concerns of those it benefits –predominantly white men– and erases the experiences of any marginalized by this system. Hence, the lesbian experience supposes a burning hunger to realize history, community, and identity. It is within the woman-defined spaces that flourished in the 1970s that lesbians introduced radical discussion, which advanced gender and sexuality ideology. These ideologies are radical in that they defined women outside of the prevailing narrow heterosexual and sexist lens. By challenging these limitations of gender and sexuality, the lesbian movement exists as a vanguard that encompasses the struggles of marginalized communities. The Combahee River Collective embodies the intersections of blackness, feminism, and the lesbian identity to combat racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression through realizing the multiplicity of their abuse. Such intersectionality –and therefore lesbians– were often excluded from women’s movements and queer movements that centered straight women and gay men respectively. An intersectional lesbian experience is at the center of the feminist and queer movement which is evident in radical ideology presented in the 1970s by lesbian feminists such as the Radicalesbians and The Combahee River Collective but has since been lost as the movements strove for mainstream acceptance.
Radicalesbians: The Woman-Identified Woman
The Radicalesbians emerged in the 1970s in opposition to The Lavender Menace: exclusion of lesbian representation within the women’s movement (Westerband, 2008). Alongside a determination to challenge heterosexual male dominance, the Radicalesbians existed as a community wherein members formed and participated in social activities that empowered and strengthened the bonds between sisters in rebellion. Central to their ideology is the women-identified woman which necessitates “the primacy of women relating to women” to reclaim their identity. The manifesto demanded space for lesbians, self-reification, and cleansing of internalized sexist oppression. It declares that “A lesbian is the rage of all women condensed to the point of explosion” (Radicalesbians, 1970). A woman-identified woman discounts the male gaze and construes a woman’s identity without relation to male constructed limitations and authority. “In a society in which men do not oppress women, and sexual expression is allowed to follow feelings, the categories of homosexuality and heterosexuality would disappear” (Radicalesbians, 1970). A women’s movement within a male-defined society is dependent upon men to define their authenticity, worth, and identity (Radicalesbians, 1970). “Lesbian” as a label is given by men to women who defy his sovereignty; retaliation against lesbianism is fear of lesbian defiance. The mainstream women’s movement denies lesbianism and subsequently their own liberation so as to not antagonize men and lose the privilege that they gain in their association with men. It is the significance of lesbians’ love for women extending to all women that predicates liberation (Radicalesbians, 1970). Lesbians grow up questioning the patriarchy and heterosexuality and possess a unique lens for constructing a new definition for womanhood and the feminine experience (Westerband, 2008). The Woman-Identified Woman manifesto states:
[a lesbian] is the woman who, often beginning at an extremely early age, acts in accordance with her inner compulsion to be a more complete and freer human being than her society - perhaps then, but certainly later - cares to allow her (Radicalesbians, 1970).
Because a lesbian’s inner compulsions are counter-cultural, she is inherently critical of a system that does not make space for her. A cultural revolution against all male structures led by lesbians is radical in that lesbian liberation promises liberation for all women (Radicalesbians, 1970).
Combahee River Collective: The Black Feminist Lesbian Perspective
Despite the inclusive intentions of the lesbian movement, it failed to include those at marginalized intersections of lesbianism. Esther Newton writes “Despite or because of the fact that the rhetoric of lesbian-feminism is universalist (‘‘All women are sisters’’), class and race antagonisms may have sharpened since 1970” (Westerband, 2008). The Combahee River Collective, which emerged at the intersection of blackness, feminism, and lesbianism, served to advocate against the multiplicity of their oppression. Frustrated by the persistent racism in the women’s movement and sexism in the black liberation movement, The Combahee River Collective formed to battle what they recognized as the interlocking issues of racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression. The collective writes “we’re told in the same breath to be quiet both for the sake of being “ladylike” and to make us less objectionable in the eyes of white people" (Combahee River Collective, 1977). As a collective, the women realized a sanctuary to heal from and deconstruct their trauma. Their 1977 statement affirms “We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression.” Later they remark, “being on the bottom, we would have to do what no one else has done: we would have to fight the world” (Combahee River Collective, 1977). Through recognizing the futility of limiting revolution to one facet of their identity, they rebel against all systems of their oppression.
The Vivacity of Lesbian Spaces and Culture
“Only a few times in history have women been in a position to separate from the rest of society in order to describe the world as we see it, and our needs.” –Judy Grahn, A Simple Revolution (Morris, 2016). It is in the potent radicality, passion, and amity of women-owned spaces for women that lesbians found validation, community, and built a revolution. Toni Armstrong Jr. reflects, “during the years when the mainstream was nowhere near recognizing lesbians as chic, thousands of creative, feminist, women-loving women “just said yes” and provided for ourselves" (Morris, 2016). The women’s music movement of the 1970s introduced women-only festivals, recordings, and female musicians and producers. For many women, this was the first time they heard music about women, by women. Festival attendees reflected on and celebrated the transcendence of gathering in free expression. One woman writes of the Michigan Music Festival:
To have our individuality supported and mirrored back to us is just beautiful. Here my body is beautiful, my self-definition is sustained. And I am reminded how important it is to fight for a real-world so liberating, so supportive and safe—peace and power.
The music further validates womanly existence. Holly Near, a prominent lesbian musician, sang “we are a gentle, angry people, and we are singing for our lives.” This verse expresses the strength in the community and unites the rebellion and love as one “people”. As if granted permission, lesbian artists and music exploded into existence to challenge “every issue that the mainstream press distorted (or did not report on at all) in the women’s movement” (Morris, 2008). The music created a community wherein women addressed “every issue simmering in the lesbian community” (Morris 2008). They not only advocated for change, they implemented change, starting in their own spaces, this change later spread into broader society. This included sliding scale admissions for low-income women, sign language interpretation at concerts, front-of-stage seating for deaf and disabled fans, and the recognition and addressing of racism and sexism. A festival attendee celebrated this inclusion: “The best show was not onstage this year. It was the women in wheelchairs having “scooter races,” and I was honored to be a member of the pit crew" (Morris, 2008). Given the influence of the women’s movement and its radical contributions, it is shocking how little recognition it has received. Holly Near on her Fire in the Rain … Singer in the Storm tour explains:
We were not the first feminist musicians to sing out, but this tour jump-started a cultural phenomenon that would change the lives of hundreds of thousands of women and men; it laid the groundwork so that a dozen years later, young independent women could dominate the music industry. At the same time, millions of people never even knew it happened (Morris, 2008).
In her novel The Disappearing L: Erasure of Lesbian Spaces and Culture, Bonnie Morris illustrates this erasure of lesbian culture in her classroom; when asked to name five openly lesbian role models, students rarely identify musicians. The students, who are of the present generation of young women, are unaware of the expansive and rich lesbian history buried in scattered albums, journal entries, images, and archives; all left unexplored and unappreciated. These stories and the history of the lesbian community are vital as they create a community for those who identify as a woman who loves women. This visibility is important to marginalized communities to revolutionize their identities and claim space in a nation that excludes diversity. The question remains: why is lesbian history so widely disregarded? The lesbian spaces of the 1970s, such as the music festivals, were separatist in nature; they were women-only spaces that guaranteed safety for women engaging in exploration, self-determination, and free expression. Oven Production addressed the backlash regarding their separatism with the statement:
Women must have an opportunity to come together to develop our culture as part of the process of taking control of our lives. … For women who have been raped, beaten, deserted, fired, misled, manipulated, discriminated against, had their children taken away, etc., the man at the concert may trigger pain even if he is the nicest guy in town (Morris, 2008).
The separatist nature of women’s spaces became controversial when the practice of trans-exclusion in a number of these separatist spaces came under public attack. The contributions made by radical women and the spaces they inhabited became taboo as it was detrimental to be associated with trans-exclusionary radical feminism, more commonly known as TERF. For the Michigan Music Festival, a revolutionary gathering, this meant that “TERF became a label for any woman who had ever appeared at Michigan” (Morris, 2008). The fact that the Michigan Music Festival is still disregarded proves the permeating damage in allowing the TERF controversy to supersede the importance of preserving the already fragile lesbian history and culture.
Conclusion
Radical lesbians in the 1970s gathered not only to demand attention for the lesbian community but to love one another in a way they were incapable of while fighting for the liberation of others. While they announced that their liberation also demanded the liberation of the exclusive women and gay movements, they recognized the importance of creating women-defined spaces. Adrienne Rich affirms this: “I write as a woman, lesbian and feminist, I make no claim to be universal, neuter or androgynous” (Morris, 2008). Empowered by their community, these lesbians boldly existed in rebellion against all systems of oppression: sexism, heterosexism, racism, ableism, and classism. With mainstream acceptance, lesbian spaces became deradicalized and disappeared; lesbians are shamed into inhabiting general spaces that are not specifically for them. It is vital to women’s and gay movements that radical lesbian spaces exist for lesbians to define themselves and their relationship with the world in order to demand the necessary changes that allow them complete liberation.
Work Cited
Combahee River Collective. (1997). *Combahee River Collective Statement.
Radicalesbians. (1970). The Woman-Identified Woman, 1-4.
J. Rainin, & R. Methdow (Producers/Directors). (2020). Ahead of the Curve [Documentary]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B093XYYF9S/ref=atv_dl_rdr?autoplay=1
Morris, B. J. (2016). The disappearing L: Erasure of lesbian spaces and culture. SUNY Press.