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What Every Lesbian Should Know
I
n our society which defines all people and
instituions for the benefit of the rich, white
male, the lesbian is in revolt. In revolt
because she defines herself in terms of women and
rejects male definitions of how she should feel, act,
look and live. To be a lesbian is to love oneself, woman, in a
culture that denigrates and despises women. The lesbian
rejects male sexual/political domination, and defies his
work, his social organization, his ideology, and his
definition of her as inferior. Lesbianism puts women first
while the society declares the male supreme. Lesbianism
threatens male supremacy at its core. When politically
conscious and organized, it is central to destroying our
sexist, racist, capitalist, imperialist system.
LESBIANISM IS A POLITICAL CHOICE
Male society defines lesbianism as a sexual act which
reflects men's limited view of women: they think of us only
in terms of sex. They also say lesbians are not real women,
so a real woman is one who gets fucked by men. We say
that a lesbian is a woman whose sense of self and energies,
including sexual energies, center around women--she is
woman identified. The woman-identified-woman commits
herself to other women for political, emotional, physical,
and economic support. Women are important to her; she is
important to herself. Our society demands that commit–
ment from women be reserved for men.
The lesbian, woman-identified-woman, commits herself
to women not only as an alternative to oppressive·
male/female relationships but primarily because she
loves
women. Whether consciously or not, by her action, the
lesbian has recognized that giving support and love to men
over women perpetuates the system that oppresses her. If
women do not make a commitment to each other, which
includes sexual love, we deny ourselves the love and value
traditionally given to men. Lesbians' energy and love flows
to women because we do not accept our second class status,
we see women as serious persons worthy of total
commitment and capable of changing the world. When
women give primary energies to other women, it is possible
to concentrate fully on building a movement for our
liberation.
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by Charlotte Bunch and Rita Mae Brown, Washington, D.C.
A
s women who have rejected the identity that
.
men have built for us, we now face the
reality of women's oppression and what it has
done to us, without the buffer of male privilege or
the security of predetermined roles. We see the
damage done to us by a sexist society. We see the strengths
gained in fighting to survive in an anti-woman world. We
find that we are not failures, that we do not have to hate
ourselves, but that we are fighters who understand that
society is wrong. And so, we can begin to construct new
selves.
Woman-identified lesbianism is, then, more than a sexual
preference, it is a political choice. It is political because
relationships between men and women are essentially
political, they involve power and dominance. Since the
lesbian actively rejects that relationship and chooses
women, she defies the established political system.
LESBIANISM, BY ITSELF, IS NOT ENOUGH
Of course , not all lesbians are consciously woman–
identified, nor are all committed to finding common
solutions to the oppression they suffer as women and
lesbians. Being a lesbian is part of challenging male
supremacy, but not the end. For the lesbian or heterosexual
woman, there is no individual solution to oppression.
The lesbian may think that she is free since she escapes
the personal oppression of the individual male/female
relationship. But to the society she is still a woman, or
worse, a visible lesbian. On the street, at the job, in the
schools, she is treated as an inferior and is at the mercy of
men's power and whims. {I've never heard of a rapist who
stopped because his victim was a lesbian.) This society hates
women who love women, and so, the lesbian, who escapes
male dominance in her private home receives it doubly at
the hands of male society; she is harrassed, outcast, and
shuttled to the bottom. Lesbians must become feminists
and fight against woman oppression, just as feminists must
become lesbians if they hope to end male supremacy.
U
.5.
society encourages individual solutions, apolitical
attitudes, and reformism to keep us from political revolt
and out of power. Menwho rule, and male leftists who seek
to rule, try to depoliticize sex and the relations between
motive
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