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beginning of the end of collective and individual male
supremacy. Since men in all races and classes are dependent
on female support and submission for practical tasks and
feeling superior, our refusal to submit will force some to
examine their sexist behavior, to break down their own
destructive privileges over other humans, and to fight
against those privileges in other men. They will have to
build new selves that do not depend on oppressing women
and learn to live in social structures that do not give them
power over anyone.
H
eterosexuality separates women from each
other; it makes women define themselves
through men; it forces women to compete
against each other for men and the privilege which
comes through men and their social standing. Hetero–
sexual society offers women a few privileges as
compensations for g1vmg up their freedom: for
example, mothers are respected and 'honored', wives or
lovers are socially accepted and given some economic
and emotional security, a woman gets physical protection
on the street when she stays with her man, etc. These
privileges give heterosexual women a personal and political
stake in maintaining the status quo.
The lesbian receives none of these heterosexual privileges
or compensations since she does not accept male demands
on her. She has little vested interest in maintaining the
present political system since all of its institutions --church,
state, media, health, schools--work to keep her down. If she
understands her oppression, she has nothing to gain by
supporting white rich male America and much to gain from
fighting to change it. She is less prone to accept reformist
solutions to women's oppression.
E
conomics is a crucial part of woman oppres–
sion, but our analysis of the relationship
between capitalism and sexism has just begun.
We know that Marxist economic theory does not
sufficiently consider the role of women or lesbians, and we
are presently working in this area.
However, as a beginning, some of the ways that lesbians
threaten the economic system are clear. In this country,
women work for men in order to survive, on the job and in
the home. The lesbian rejects this division of labor at its
roots; she refuses to be a man's property, to submit to the
unpaid labor system of housework and childcare. She
rejects the nuclear family as the basic unit of production
and consumption in capitalist society.
The lesbian is also a threat in the job because she is not
the passive/part-time woman worker that capitalism counts
on to do boring work and be a part of surplus labor pool.
Her identity and economic support do not come through
men, so her job is crucial and she cares about job
conditions, wages, promotion, and status. Capitalism
cannot absorb large numbers of women demanding stable
employment, decent salaries, and refusing to accept their
traditional job exploitation. We do not understand yet the
total effect that this increased job dissatisfaction will have.
It is clear however that as women become more intent upon
taking control of their lives, they will seek more control
over their jobs, thus increasing the strains on capitalism and
6
enhancing the power of women to change the economic
system.
LESBIANS MUST FORM OUR OWN MOVEMENT
TO FIGHT MALE SUPREMACY
Feminist-lesbianism, as the most basic threat to male
supremacy, picks up part of the Women's Liberation
analysis of sexism and gives it force and direction. Women's
Liberation lacks direction now because it has failed to
understand the importance of heterosexuality in
maintaining male supremacy and because it has failed to
face class and race as real differences in women's behavior
and political needs. As long as straight women see
lesbianism as a bedroom issue, they hold back the
development of politics and strategies which would put an
end to male supremacy , and they give men an excuse for
not dealing with their sexism.
Being a lesbian means ending your identification with,
allegiance to, dependence on, and support of
heterosexuality. It means ending your personal stage in the
male world, so that you join women, individually and
collectively, in the struggle to end your oppression.
Lesbianism is the key to liberation and only women who
cut their ties to male privilege can be trusted to remain
serious in the struggle against male dominance. Those who
remain tied to men, individually or in political theory,
cannot always put women first. It is not that heterosexual
women are evil or don't care about their sisters. It is
because the very essense, definition, and nature of
heterosexuality is men first. Every woman has experienced
that desolation when her sister puts her man first in the
final crunch: heterosexuality demands that she do this. As
long as women still benefit from heterosexuality, receive its
motive