SuperTutor
$15/per page/Negotiable
Copyright © 1 9 7 0 by Radicalesbians. All rights reserved. 14402 The Woman Identified Woman BY RADICALESBIANS What is a lesbian? A lesbian is the rage of all women condensed to the point of explosion. She
is the woman who, often beginning at an extremely early age, acts in accordance with her inner
compulsion to be a more complete and freer human being than her society - perhaps then, but certainly later - cares to allow her. These needs and actions, over a period of years, bring her into
painful conflict with people, situations, the accepted ways of thinking, feeling and behaving, until
she is in a state of continual war with everything around her, and usually with her self. She may
not be fully conscious of the political implications of what for her began as personal necessity, but
on some level she has not been able to accept the limitations and oppression laid on her by the most
basic role of her society—the female role. The turmoil she experiences tends to induce guilt pro portional to the degree to which she feels she is not meeting social expectations, and/or eventually
drives her to question and analyze what the rest of her society more or less accepts. She is forced
to evolve her own life pattern, often living much of her life alone, learning usually much earlier
than her "straight" (heterosexual) sisters about the essential aloneness of life (which the myth of
marriage obscures) and about the reality of illusions. To the extent that she cannot expel the heavy
socialization that goes with being female, she can never truly find peace with herself. For she is
caught somewhere between accepting society's view of her - in which case she cannot accept herself and coming to understand what this sexist society has done to her and why it is functional and necessary for it to do so. Those of us who work that through find ourselves on the other side of a tortuous journey through a night that may have been decades long. The perspective gained from that
journey, the liberation of self, the inner peace, the real love of self and of all women, is something
to be shared with all women - because we are all women.
It should first be understood that lesbianism, like male homosexuality, is a category of behavior
possible only in a sexist society characterized by rigid sex roles and dominated by male supremacy.
Those sex roles dehumanize women by defining us as a supportive/serving caste in relation to the
master caste of men, and emotionally cripple men by demanding that they be alienated from their own
bodies and emotions in order to perform their economic/political/military functions effectively.
Homosexuality is a by-product of a particular way of setting up roles ( or approved patterns of behavior) on the basis of sex; as such it is an inauthentic ( not consonant with "reality") category. In
a society in which men do not oppress women, and sexual expression is allowed to follow feelings,
the categories of homosexuality and heterosexuality would disappear.
But lesbianism is also different from male homosexuality, and serves a different function in the
society. "Dyke" is a different kind of put-down from "faggot", although both imply you a r e not play- -2- ing your socially assigned sex r o l e . . . a r e not therefore a "real woman" or a "real man. " The
grudging admiration felt for the tomboy, and the queasiness felt around a sissy boy point to the same
thing: the contempt in which women-or those who play a female role-are held. And the investment
in keeping women in that contemptuous role is very great. Lesbian is a word, the label, the condition
that holds women in line. When a woman hears this word tossed her way, she knows she is stepping
out of line. She knows that she has crossed the terrible boundary of her sex role. She recoils, she
protests, she reshapes her actions to gain approval. Lesbian is a label invented by the Man to throw
at any woman who dares to be his equal, who dares to challenge his prerogatives ( including that of
all women as part of the exchange medium among men), who dares to assert the primacy of her own
needs. To have the label applied to people active in women's liberation is just the most recent
instance of a long history; older women will recall that not so long ago, any woman who was successful, independent, not orienting her whole life about a man, would hear this word. For in this sexist
society, for a woman to be independent means she can't be a woman - she must be a dyke. That in
itself should tell us where women are at. It says as clearly as can be said: women and person are
contradictory terms. For a lesbian is not considered a "real woman. " And yet, in popular thinking,
there is really only one essential difference between a lesbian and other women: that of sexual
orientation - which is to say, when you strip off all the packaging, you must finally realize that the
essence of being a "woman" is to get fucked by men.
"Lesbian" is one of the sexual categories by which men have divided up humanity. While all
women a r e dehumanized as sex objects, as the objects of men they a r e given certain compensations:
identification with his power, his ego, his status, his protection (from other males), feeling like a
"real woman, " finding social acceptance by adhering to her role, etc. Should a woman confront herself by confronting another woman, there are fewer rationalizations, fewer buffers by which to avoid
the stark horror of her dehumanized condition. Herein we find the overriding fear of many women
toward being used as a sexual object by a woman, which not only will bring her no male-connected
compensations, but also will reveal the void which is woman's real situation. This dehumanization
is expressed when a straight woman learns that a sister is a lesbian; she begins to relate to her
lesbian sister as her potential sex object, laying a surrogate male role on the lesbian. This reveals
her heterosexual conditioning to make herself into an object when sex is potentially involved in a
relationship, and it denies the lesbian her full humanity. For women, especially those in the
movement, to perceive their lesbian sisters through this male grid of role definitions is to accept
this male cultural conditioning and to oppress their sisters much as they themselves have been
oppressed by men. Are we going to continue the male classification system of defining all females
in sexual relation to some other category of people? Affixing the label lesbian not only to a woman
who aspires to be a person, but also to any situation of real love, real solidarity, real primacy among
women, is a primary form of divisiveness among women: it is the condition which keeps women
within the confines of the feminine role, and it is the debunking/scare term that keeps women from
forming any primary attachments, groups, or associations among ourselves.
Women in the movement have in most cases gone to great lengths to avoid discussion and
confrontation with the issue of lesbianism. It puts people up-tight. They a r e hostile, evasive, or
try to incorporate it into some 'broader issue. " They would rather not talk about it. If they have
to, they try to dismiss it as a 'lavender herring. " But it is no side issue. It is absolutely essential to the success and fulfillment of the women's liberation movement that this issue be dealt with.
As long as the label "dyke" can be used to frighten women into a less militant stand, keep her separate from her sisters, keep her from giving primacy to anything other than men and family-then
to that extent she is controlled by the male culture. Until women see in each other the possibility
of a primal commitment which includes sexual love, they will be denying themselves the love and -3- value they readily accord to men, thus affirming their second-class status. As long as male
acceptability is primary-both to individual women and to the movement as a whole-the term lesbian
will be used effectively against women. Insofar as women want only more privileges within the
system, they do not want to antagonize male power. They instead seek acceptability for women's
liberation, and the most crucial aspect of the acceptability is to deny lesbianism - i. e . , to deny
any fundamental challenge to the basis of the female. It should also be said that some younger, more
radical women have honestly begun to discuss lesbianism, but so far it has been primarily as a sexual "alternative" to men. This, however, is still giving primacy to men, both because the idea of
relating more completely to women occurs as a negative reaction to men, and because the lesbian
relationship is being characterized simply by sex, which is divisive and sexist. On one level, which
is both personal and political, women may withdraw emotional and sexual energies from men, and
work out various alternatives for those energies in their own lives. On a different political/psychological level, it must be understood that what is crucial is that women begin disengaging from maledefined response patterns. In the privacy of our own psyches, we must cut those cords to the core.
For irrespective of where our love and sexual energies flow, if we a r e male-identified in our heads,
we cannot realize our autonomy as human beings.
But why is it that women have related to and through men? By virtue of having been brought
up in a male society, we have internalized the male culture's definition of ourselves. That definition
consigns us to sexual and family functions, and excludes us from defining and shaping the terms of
our lives. In exchange for our psychic servicing and for performing society's non-profit-making
functions, the man confers on us just one thing: the slave status which makes us legitimate in the
eyes of the society in which we live. This is called "femininity" or "being a real woman" in our cultural lingo. We a r e authentic, legitimate, real to the extent that we are the property of some man
whose name we bear. To be a woman who belongs to no man is to be invisible, pathetic, inauthentic,
unreal. He confirms his image of us - of what we have to be in order to be acceptable by him - but
not our real selves; he confirms our womanhood-as he defines it, in relation to him- but cannot confirm our personhood, our own selves as absolutes. As long as we a r e dependent on the male culture for this definition, for this approval, we cannot be free.
The consequence of internalizing this role is an enormous reservoir of self-hate. This is not to
say the self-hate is recognized or accepted as such; indeed most women would deny it. It may be
experienced as discomfort with her role, as feeling empty, as numbness, as restlessness, as a
paralyzing anxiety at the center. Alternatively, it may be expressed in shrill defensiveness of the
glory and destiny of her role. But it does exist, often beneath the edge of her consciousness, poisoning her existence, keeping her alienated from herself, her own needs, and rendering her a stranger
to other women. They try to escape by identifying with the oppressor, living through him, gaining
status and identity from his ego, his power, his accomplishments. And by not identifying with other
"empty vessels" like themselves. Women resist relating on all levels to other women who will reflect
their own oppression, their own secondary status, their own self-hate. For to confront another
woman is finally to confront one's self-the self we have gone to such lengths to avoid. And in that
m i r r o r we know we cannot really respect and love that which »ve have been made to be.
As the source of self-hate and the lack of real self a r e rooted in our male-given identity, we
must create a new sense of self. As long as we cling to the idea of "being a woman, " ve will sense
some conflict with that incipient self, that sense of I, that sense of a whole person. It is very
difficult to realize and accept that being "feminine" and being a whole person a r e irreconcilable.
Only women can give to each other a new sense of self. That identity we have to develop with reference
to ourselves, and not in relation to men. This consciousness is the revolutionary force from which -4- all else will follow, for ours is an organic revolution. For this we must be available and supportive to one another, give our commitment and our love, give the emotional support necessary to
sustain this movement. Our energies must flow toward our sisters, not backward toward our oppres
sors. As long as woman's liberation tries to free women without facing the basic heterosexual
structure that binds us in one-to-one relationship with our oppressors, tremendous energies will
continue to flow into trying to straighten up each particular relationship with a man, into finding
how to get better sex, how to turn his head around-into trying to make the "new man" out of him,
in the delusion that this will allow us to be the "new woman. " This obviously splits our energies
and commitments, leaving us unable to be committed to the construction of the new patterns which
will liberate us.
It is the primacy of women relating to women, of women creating a new consciousness of and
with each other, which is at the heart of women's liberation, and the basis for the cultural revolution. Together we must find, reinforce, and validate our authentic selves. As we do this, we confirm in each other that struggling, incipient sense of pride and strength, the divisive b a r r i e r s begin
to melt, we feel this growing solidarity with our sisters. We see ourselves as prime, find our
centers inside of ourselves. We find receding the sense of alienation, of being cut off, of being
behind a locked window, of being unable to get out what we know is inside. We feel a real-ness, feel
at last we are coinciding with ourselves. With that real self, with that consciousness, we begin
a revolution to end the imposition of all coercive identifications, and to achieve maximum autonomy
in human expression. Printed with permission by:
KNOW, INC
P.O. BOX 86031
PITTSBURGH, PA 15221
Â
Attachments: