/

sinister wisdom 37

With an emphasis on
Lesbian Theory

Sinister Wisdom 37
Spring 1989
Editor and publisher: Elana Dykewomon

Editorial readers and advisors: Barbara Ruth, DeeAnne Davis, Betty Dudley,
Caryatis Cardea, Cath Thompson, Dolphin Zelda Waletzky, Gloria Anzaldua,
Jasmine Marah, Joan Drury, Lisa Carlin, Naja Sorella, Susan Jill Kahn, Valerie
Stoehr, Winn Gilmore
Contributing editors: Gloria Anzaldua, Irena Klepfisz, Melanie Kaye/
Kantrowitz
Typists and proofreaders: Cath Thompson, Cindy Cooper, Susan Goldberg,
SJ Kahn, Valerie Stoehr
Office help, correspondence, ads and accounting: Joan Drury, Nina Wouk,
Barbara Dinnerstein, Toni Langfield
Thanks to Bobby Rothschild and Rebecca Kutlin of Tamed Technology
Distribution and mailing: Barb Voss, Caryatis Cardea, Cath Thompson,
Debbie Fier, Dolphin Zelda Waletzky, Elizabeth Fides, Jasmine Marah, Kim
Swineheart, Leslie Baker, Leslie Levy, Lisa Carlin, Susan Jill Kahn, Toni
Langfield, Valerie Stoehr
Reader for the Womyn's Braille Press: Judy Freespirit
Cover design: Louise Rafkin
Cover art: Karen Sjoholm: "Vessel," charcoal, 17" x 16 1/2", © 1988

SINISIER WISDOM, founded 1976
Fonner editors and publishers: Harriet Ellenberger (aka Desmoines)
and Catherine Nicholson (1976-81)
Michelle Oiff and Adrienne Rich (1981-83)
Michaele Ucce\la (1983-B4)
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz (1983-87)
Copyright © 1989 Sinister Wisdom. All rights reserved to individual artists and authors.

ISSN: 0196-1853

Sinister Wisdom· PO Box 3252 • Berkeley CA 94703

A Journal for the Lesbian Imaginationin the Arts and Politics- - - - - - - -_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Contents
Elana Dykewomon • Notes for a Magazine
6 Notes on the Themes (upcoming issues)
7 Carolyn Gage • On Singing Women's Praises (poem)

3

8
9
20
29
35

Introduction to National Women's Studies Conference
papers from the Lesbian Theory panel
Lee Evans • The Spread of Consumerism: Good Buy
Community (paper)
Anna Lee • New Age Spirituality is the Invention of
Heteropatriarchy (paper)
Elana Dykewomon • Lesbian Theory and Social
Organization: The Knots of Process (paper)
Bette Tallen • Lesbian-Feminist Theory: a View from the
Political Theory Trenches (paper)
§§§

48
50
51
56
57
66
70
71

Caryatis Cardea • tremors (poem)
Anita Green • We Be Signifying (poem)
Anne Corey • Buried Inside the Stone (fiction)
Julie Justicz • Look Twice Now (poem)
Ruthann Robson • Learning to Read (fiction)
Minnie Bruce Pratt • My Life You Are Talking About (poem)
Linda Quinlan • Summer of 53 (poem)
Linda Quinlan • Ruth Wiseman (my mother's friend) (poem)
§§§

73
77
81
82
83

Anna Livia • Spaceship to the Good Planet (fiction)
D.E. Langlois • Dick Money (prose)
Betty Dudley • Swimming Lessons (poem)
Jan Hardy • submitting poems to a straight magazine (poem)
Pamela Gray • Pomegranate Seeds (poem)

88
90
93
94
100

Mary Carol Randall • Delicate As ... (poem)
Anne Haines • Arpilleras (poem)
Viki Radden • Not Black America (poem)
stomp, bruiser,fang, sparks ... and footnote (san francisco) • Womyn In The Joint/Wimmin In The Joint (essay)
Marilyn Kalman and Rachel Lederman • Talking withThree Lesbian Political Prisoners (essay /interviews)
§§§

111
113
115
118
121

Barbara Ruth • Not Vanishing, by Chrystos (review)
Nelly Kaufer • A Lesbian Photo Album, by Cathy Cade(review)
Books Received
Contributors' Notes
Announcements and Classified Ads§§§

ART
Cover Karen Sjoholm • Vessel (charcoal, 17" x 16 1/2")
7 Linda Marie Nolte • Untitled (pen and ink)
47 Karen Sjoholm • Deborah Reading (charcoal, 18" x 20")87 Max Hammond Dashu • Calyakh Veyra, the Hag of Beur
99 Unknown· Judy Clark before Imprisonment (photo)

____________ Notes for a Magazine
Welcome to Sinister Wisdom #37. This is an "open theme" issue
with an emphasis on theory and politics. We're running four
papers from the National Women's Studies Conference panel on
Lesbian Theory, and two papers by/about lesbians in prison.
Most of the other prose and poetry deal with issues of socialorganization and how politics impact our personal lives.
The special Italian-American issue, which was to be #38, hasbeen postponed due to a change in editors (Rose Romano resigned as guest editor in December). The issue has been moved to#41, and the new guest editors are Janet Capone and Denise Leto.
The new deadline for submission will be February 15, 1990. All
womyn of Italian descent are welcome to submit to this issue.
Lesbians who sent in material for this issue before December
should contact Sinister Wisdom. We will hold all submissions to
the Italian-American issue sent after December until next year's
deadline unless you request your manuscripts back.
#38, our next issue, will also be an "open theme" issue with anemphasis on personal writing - stories about relationships,
childhood, love. Of course the boundaries between the personal
and political are not always sharp. We hope you'll argue/ discusswith us about some of the issues and overlaps .

•••••I've been working on Sinister Wisdom now for two years. Afterthe last issue, #36 On Surviving Psychiatric Assault & Creating
Emotional Well Being in our Communities came out, I looked at
the four issues on my bookshelf and felt a sense of wonder. Thismagazine actually got made, the work I and all the lesbians
who've been part of Sinister Wisdom have done has a physicalmanifestation - the magazine goes out in the world and touches
other womyn. Sometimes it makes them angry, often womyn
write to say the work has given their thoughts voice or direction.
Sometimes womyn get mad at me - for rejecting their work,
for making editorial suggestions which show my insensitivity or
unawareness on issues ranging from incest to racial identity. I try
to listen and respond, I remember often what Melanie said to me
when she passed Sinister Wisdom on: "I learned I could make3

mistakes and live." Many dykes share this creative, mistakemaking, praise-worthy venture and our editorial group process
gets stronger all the time.
I feel enormously privileged (though not always lucky) to havethis job - I get a tremendous amount of positive feedback, I get
to work with a varied, talented and challenging group, I am in
intimate conversations with lesbians internationally, and eventhe very hard discussions teach me, keep me actively engaged
with lesbian passion. The passion to do it right, to make our workand our lives purposeful, ethical, healing and loving.
I experience myself, and Sinister Wisdom, deeply engaged in
lesbian community. But what I hear from other lesbians is that
this sense of being part of/participant in/benefitted by community is not a very strong common experience. We may feel it inmoments - for instance, those of us who were fortunate to go theThird International Feminist Bookfair in Montreal last summer
gathered with lesbians from all over the world to talk about
strategy and theory and went away with a tremendous high. But
coming into those meetings (and after being home for awhile),
many of those dykes said, "1 feel alone in what I think and am
doing in ... Europe, South America, Canada, the U.s ... . I don't
know exactly where or what my community is."I hear statements all the time that start with: "lesbians hurt eachother too ... " leading up to: there is no lesbian community, we're
too different, we aren't there in the crunch, no matter how good
our intentions may be, we can't provide for each other's needs.
These are very complex questions of identity that many lesbians are addressing in their work (some in this issue). Yet, simply,
I believe that each of us is lesbian community herself. That it starts
inside us. I know that community must have some external
shape, some points of reference. But I think when anyone of us
says "the lesbian community has let me down" we are drawing
a picture of our expectation - and that expectation is the sign ofour membership, of our partnership in being. The fact is, lesbians
don't come from another planet, however much we wish we did.
We live here, in the 20th century, most of us terribly damaged bymore than one form of oppression. Simply as members of theclass of women, we have few resources, little access to ownershipof the means of production, are rarely in control of the ends to4

which our labor is put. Many of us have spent long hours
working; trying to understand what it means to be a lesbian, awomon concerned with living and acting in concert with a desire
to see life flourish. We have built whatever we could. And we
expect something back for that. Don't we? We deserve it, certainly. The bitterness of not getting it from the womyn in whom
we place our hearts, our best effort, our trust, is often hard to bear.
Each of us has the right, as a lesbian, to start from her own need.
Our needs can be turned around from complaint to direction. For
example, we have the right to say: I have housing needs thataren't being met. Instead of, "my lesbian landlady ripped me off,so take your so-called community and shove it," we could try
something different. We could say: I need safe, affordable, secure
housing with lesbian neighbors and privacy, where I can work to
maximize the use of my resources. I need other lesbians in orderto make this into a reality. That I or my friends haven't been able
to do this so far doesn't mean we can't. We can always find new
ways to imagine it, work on it, create what we need.
We can, can't we?

•••••

Speaking of creating what we need: Here's the fifth California
issue of Sinister Wisdom in your hands. It takes work and money
to make this. Our financial situation is always precarious - wehave just enough to pay for printing costs when each issue goesto press. We have volunteer typists, proofreads, mailing crews,
technical advisors, letter writers. App. 45% of our income comesfrom subscriptions, 45% from bookstore sales, 10% from backissues, advertising and donations. This comes to an annual totalof $22,000-$26,000. I get paid $300 a month (and work four nights
a week typesetting to pay my rent). The truth is, we're still doing
it on a shoestring and we just squeak by. Help.
What we really need is to double (triple, quadruple) our
subscription list. It's critical to our survival that you renew; thatyou let us know changes of address; that you encourage yourfriends to subscribe. And of course, we're always glad to get
donations.
We need your financial support because we want to keep being
here with you, providing a place where we can find new ways toexperience ourselves as lesbian community.

5Notes on the Themes-----------_#38. Open. We have wonderful fiction and poetry lined up forthis issue. Don't miss it!
#39. An issue on Physical Disability. We want to include all
womyn whose lives are seriously disrupted by long-term conditions. This includes, but is not limited to, impairments to a
womon's mobility, communication, vision, hearing, as well as tothe immunological, cardiovascular and nervous systems. Many
womyn are isolated in their disabilities. We encourage works
from womyn who have conditions not usually recognized, suchas cancer and other life-threatening illnesses, learning disabilities
and other hidden disabilities. (Deadline: June IS, 1989)#40. On Friendship. "Just" friends? "Best" friends? "Old"friends? "Life-long" friends? How do we befriend each other?
What do we expect from our friendships? What do we put intothem? How do we understand the complex differences (andsimiliarities) between friend and lover? What about betrayals? Isfriendship part of political movement? Are political movements
possible without friendship? What's the difference between a"clique" and a "network?" What kind of friendships do we makeacross race, class, cultural, ability, size, age differences? How do
we sustain and nurture our friendships through time? We could
ask these questions for pages - we hope you have some answers.
(Deadline: October IS, 1989)#41. The Italian-American Issue. Guest editors: Janet Capone

and Denise Leto. (Deadline: February IS, 1990)

Correction - - - -_____________In issue #36, the photographs on p. 31 and 32 were taken by Kiku
Hawkes, originally published in the book Still Sane by Persimmon Blackbridge and Sheila Gilhooly. We apologize for omitting
Kiku Hawkes' credit, and for the mis-spelling of Sheila Gilhooly's
name in the Review of Still Sane (p. 125) and on the Contents page.
6

Carolyn Gage

On Singing Women's Praises

Yes, it's true I only know one song.
But that one song takes all the notes
And lasts forever.

Untitled by Linda Marie Nolte
7

The following papers (slightly revised) are four of six presented on the Lesbian Theory panel organized by Sarah Hoagland for the National Women's Studies Annual Conference, heldin Minneapolis in June of 1988, which included Sarah and Jeffner
Allen as well as these authors. Over 250 womyn filled the room.
Their enthusiasm for a wider forum on lesbian theory encouraged us to present these papers in Sinister Wisdom .
"J assembled this panel because J think it very important that (some)lesbians focus on lesbian theorizing. To date most u.s. lesbians havefocused on sexism, homophobia, and compulsory heterosexuality inanalyzing lesbian existence. As a result, for the most part, u.s. lesbians
have not focused on the creation of lesbian meaning. This loss is one ofthe devastating effects of heterosexualism. This panel explores lesbian
theory: by working from a lesbian center, we create lesbian meaning."-Sarah Lucia Hoagland

8

Lee Evans

The Spread of Consumerism:
Good Buy Community

Many years ago I lived in a Feminist Collective based upon,among other things, a shared value of resistance to Consumerism. Roughly, our analysis was that we live in a culture that
promotes conspicuous consumption of goods, services, environment, and so forth. The attitude that everything can be bought orused is an example of a value (which I will call consumerism)
which defines our relationship to the world. Consumer values do
not allow for stable or long-lived relationships with either peopleor the environment. In our early analysis we hoped to replacethose values with more humanistic ones. Since that time I havecome to realize that "humanism" holds no promise for Lesbians,
and have subsequently put it aside as I have other dead-ended
ideologies.
In the past several years my focus has changed to building
Lesbian connections, hence strong Lesbian Community. Even
though I have devoted myself to creating connections with otherDykes, I find that the ability to describe those connections still
escapes me. I sense that they are based upon a core of desire toconnect on a Lesbian plane. I believe that our passion for eachother is what fuels our connections. I know that our connections
are not yet institutionalized. I believe that in making Lesbianconnections we have the ability to create and transform ourselves
and our world.
I also know that we struggle with the boys' values insinuating
themselves into our interactions. There has been much education
done by Lesbians about the effects of oppressions on our communities. Besides being cruel, arrogant and harmful, racism, antisemitism and other oppressions directly affect our Lesbian communities by narrowing the scope of what is or who is acceptable.
These oppressions are men's tools for enforcing sameness andanti-diversity.
9

Coming from a small, rural, white town in Pennsylvania, I
thought that diversity was how many breeds of cows you owned.
Coming out as a Lesbian, and now as a Separatist, I have had towork hard to sensitize myself to and rout out the boys' tools ofdivision. This has helped me to perceive the world differently andform deeper, more substantial bonds with other Dykes. Struggling to be aware of how oppressions work, and what part I playin them, has made me stretch in a way that I hadn't felt since I firstcame out as a Lesbian.
Yet, through this process I have become increasingly aware of
how I approach events and community. I know that my interactions often take on the tourist-y flavor of a consumer. Consumerism is a way of "be-ing" in the world, and it undermines ourconnections and sense of community. Consumer values are intertwined throughout industrial culture, and therefore probably
have a pretty firm hold in many of our belief systems.
In writing this paper I am not so much concerned with what webuy, but with what male values are used to form our perceptionof ourselves as consumers of our communities rather than cocreators of our communities. It is my intent to blend myoId
analysis of consumer values with my current Dyke Separatist
perspective in order to sensitize myself and other Dykes to theeffects of consumer values on our Lesbian communities andWomen-only space.
We live in a culture that is built, among other things, upon asystem based upon consuming. In order to convince us that wehave to buy, own, use, (consume), it is necessary to create acontext in which conspicuous consumption looks normal. One
way to develop that context is to create "needs" and then toobjectify living things, processes and interactions into "products" to fill these "man-made needs." These are the gears that run
a consumer society.
The society's members function in relationships of producersconsumers or buyer-seller to one another. The world, previously
seen as an organic interconnected system, is now able to be "seen"
as parts. 1 Those parts are able to be objectified in order to bebought and sold, used and discarded, acquired and hoarded orused as a means of trade to obtain other objects. As in othersystems of reality, if one views the world in this way, it then spills
10

over to include how we view people, animals, the environmentand our relationship to them.
What does it mean when we adopt a value that allows suchmass-scale objectification? First of all, objects have no inherent
meaning. We imbue objects with meaning. For instance, anautomobile has different meanings related to which culture, classand economic group you belong. The owning of an automobile,
besides providing transportation and the opportunity for repair
bills, often serves to foster identity. We buy a particular car because it is symbolic of how we see ourselves, or how we want to
be. For example, I once found a Dyke party when I wasn't quite
sure of the location by driving up and down streets until I foundthe street with the "usual" Dyke vehicles common in my community: small foreign-made cars with a smattering of pick-up trucks.
Buying an object in order to foster identity becomes a neverending cycle. The new pick-up truck itself does not the adventuresome Dyke make, so we are once again encouraged to enter
the market place to start the cycle over. In other words, we buy anobject to establish status and identity. Because objects have no
intrinsic value, the status and identity do not become firmly
established, so we have to continue to "consume" other objects toshore up our identity, and so the consumer cycle goes on ad
infinitum.
This process works to help create a consumer atmosphere because it is an escalation-based model. It sets up the value thathaving new, improved, bigger, better and more is not only
acceptable, it is expected of us. (For many sales jobs, employers
require that you not only have good transportation, but that yourcar must "look" new, thus fostering the notion that employees
must become believers and participants in the american dream.)This model creates the habit of escalation.
Pornography is an example of an escalation-based model that
has increased dramatically over the last 20 years. This escalation
occurs in terms of what is openly available in book stores.
Pornography begins with showing naked females, moves to theobjectification of body parts, then to the abusing and mutilatingof women, and finally to the torture and murder of women andchildren for men's satisfaction. The escalation-based model increases the violence and cruelty inflicted.
11

What does it mean for Dykes when we carry this "habit ofescalation" into our communities? The "habit of escalation"
creates .a context in which we willingly participate in or at least
accept increasingly destructive behaviors without questioning
them. I once asked a sadomasochistic Dyke if she kept reworking
her fantasies in order to become aroused. She replied that, in fact,
it was necessary for her to keep increasing the violence in her
fantasies and practices in order to increase sensations (pain) for
her and her partner. This objectifying of people and experiencessoon leads to being jaded. Being jaded creates a sense of numbness and the more we objectify the more numbness spreads
throughout our interactions. We soon need more and morestimulation in order to respond at all.
Numbness leads to a focus on newness so that we might findthat extra stimulation. To focus on newness is to focus on packaging, not on content. Newness suggests that which exists for th~
first time. Since newness becomes more and more difficult tocreate, then things must be packaged to provide the illusion ofnewness. Marketers and advertisers do not want us comparing
products in terms of how they are similar, but rather in terms of
how their product is newer and different than the others. Newness is fetishized in this country. New cars, new detergents, new
pop-psychologies and new religions are often far more similar tothe old ones than we want to believe. Again, the value lies in the
newness of the products.
The ramifications for Dyke culture are that in order to regain
our attention, the boys will slap a "new, improved" label on or
repackage their therapy, religion, politics and so forth. As Anna
Lee points out in her paper "New Age Spirituality Is the Invention of the Heteropatriarchy,"2 what many Lesbians are now
espousing as their means to a new improved personal sense of
empowerment is the same religion the boys were marketing to us
before. We looked at the differences that they assured us were
there, and ignored the now more obvious similarities between
new age spirituality and heteropatriarchal religions.
Because the search for newness is based upon how things differ
rather than how things are similar or connected to one another,
the search for newness stems from and fosters alienation anddisconnectedness. The search for newness is the search for those12things that allegedly stand out from, are apart from that which is.
The ability to perceive how things, events, people and power areconnected and relate to each other is at the very core of ourpolitical skills. When we participate in the focus on newness, welose the ability to develop and use political skills because we arefocused on the differences that are used as proof of newness. We
are no longer able to focus on our connections with each other.
Without recognizing our connections to each other, Lesbians are
not able to disconnect from heteropatriarchy.
For Dyke communities the search for newness and the resulting alienation has meant that the commitment to analyze ourlives, our behaviors and problems in political terms is no longer
promoted or supported. In the seventies we had a commitment toanalyzing our lives from a political perspective, and we joined
Consciousness Raising groups to that end. By the eighties, many
Dykes had retreated to therapies and various twelve-step groups,
none of which are noted for any political analyses, but are heavily
invested in viewing the world from a psychological base. Psychology complements consumerism nicely, in that it views
humans as units that can be adjusted to the norm. All we have to
do to get healthy is to work our program better, try a different
therapy, or subject ourselves to an endless list of cures because weare never quite healthy enough. This also is an example of an
escalation-based model.
The undermining of our political skills further endangers us inthat the boys are able to divert our focus to their concerns andtasks, at the same time convincing us that they are our concerns
and interests. Much theory and discussion has centered aroundmotherhood. Many Lesbians understood motherhood to befundamentally oppressive to women and Lesbians, and understood that the boys benefited from us producing children to turnover to the heteropatriarchy. While there have been Lesbians
who have been honest in wanting children so that they moreclosely resemble heterosexuals, it is only recently that Lesbians
have advocated motherhood as a strategy for changing theworld. In liThe Tired Old Question of Male Children," Anna Leesuggests our mothers didn't set out to raise their sons to be
rapists, woman-haters, and prone to violence. 3 But Lesbians whochoose motherhood focus once again on how this form of parent13

ing is going to be different and not on how it is similar. Perhaps
some communities are just now beginning to realize that thechildren raised by Lesbians are not significantly different thanthe children raised by heterosexual parents. The fact remains thatchildren of Lesbians are claimed at the same level by the heteropatriarchy as the children of heterosexual parents.
Another example of focus on the new is the encroachment by
men on Women-only space. A purported Lesbian musician at amajor women's music event in California, while introducing theboys in her band, was reported to have said "how nice it was tobe able to have boys back on stage with us again." Men have"been on the stage" with us for 5,000 years. Nothing much about
their behavior has changed in the last 15 years, but now theymarket themselves to us as "new, improved feminist" men.
Because they are "new" boys, some are willing to perceive themas different from the "old" boys. Many of us have not noticed
boys doing anything differently, while at the same time noticingthat they are intent on invading Women-only space. Ten years
ago boys would not have been permitted on stage without a lotof discussion of the political implications of male invasion of
Women-only space. Ten years ago the personal was political. In
1988 we have reduced the political to the personal. 4 It is very
difficult to explore political choices with Lesbians who champion
certain behaviors as personal preferences which therefore cannot
be questioned.
Personal preference, which is an underpinning of psychological perspective, discourages us from examining the connections
with each other and the organic world. If we attend to ways inwhich events, people and things connect, it would be very
difficult for the boys to package our lives and sell them back to us.
It is the breaking of the world into parts and even the objectifyingof the world itself which feeds the vicious cycle of buy and sell.
The boys cannot sell that which they cannot objectify. It is theforging and recognizing of our connections which shield andprotect us from the boys' objectification of us.
When we perceive everything as an object, even people become consumable. It is no surprise that people have indeed beenbought and sold, used and discarded, acquired and hoarded, andused as objects of barter. This is evidenced in the slave trade and14

prostitution, among other things. While we would all like tobelieve that only strange people could objectify humans to that
extent, it is not difficult to notice the "normalcy" of the male belief
that children, wives and employees can be owned. Once people
are objectified into objects, we move easily to the consuming ofinteractions and experiences.
The consuming of experiences is best described as being present at an event or experience and yet being a voyeur to that interaction. We disconnect from the experience - we allow it to flow
over us and not affect us much, if at all. Heteropatriarchy promotes voyeurism as the path of least resistance. When we arebombarded from all sides by the boys' often meaningless stimuli,
it becomes very difficult to maintain our focus . What makes it
even harder to remain focused is that the intensity of the stimuli
often does not coincide with the importance of the content. For
example, on a given day in Cleveland all of the rapes, womanbashings, batterings and killing of women are relegated to theinside pages of the newspaper, yet the headlines scream out that
the Cleveland Browns may make it to the 5uperbowl. It becomesalmost impossible to correlate intensity of stimuli with importance of the content, and even more difficult to trust one's
perceptions and judgments. So most of the time I am a voyeur toboys' culture, I step back and let it roll off my back. I am curiously
removed.
Unfortunately, it is one thing to be a "tourist" in Boysland, andanother thing to be a tourist to our own culture. As communities
struggle with trying to keep ourselves alive and accessible to all
Dykes, we have developed the "more if you can, less if you can' tilpolicy for many events. This is predicated upon the assumptionthat the community and its events are important to all of us, andthat we are all responsible in "making things happen." Yet I haveobserved well-to-do Dykes come in and pay the low end of thescale because they left their money in the car, or Dykes who pay
less because they want to save money for a boy's event the nextnight. This is treating our community events as consumableobjects.
In fact, the institutionalizing of our culture, primarily our musical culture, has turned our celebrations into mass consumer
events. At the recent Olivia Anniversary Gala, everything was for15sale: the reception (but only if you had $25); articles of clothingfrom the "stars" as a fundraiser; and package deals in certain
cities, with the best seats going to the Dykes who could dish out
the most money. (Ironically, there were Dykes in Cleveland who
wouldn't have been able to afford the concert, except for the factthat they produced it.) Besides being a blatant example of abysmal lack of and commitment to class consciousness, this is an
example of buying and selling of Dyke community. Happily,
Dyke love and energy survive under even adverse circumstances, but the fact remains that the consumerism existing insome events dictates a producer-consumer relationship.
Because boys' culture has existed for so long, it is firmly entrenched in the objectification of living things resulting in stagnation which is also a death focus. Boys' culture is in no way
diminished by our consumption of that culture; in fact, qur
consumption of their culture contributes to its continuation. The
point of Lesbian community is to separate from the status quo
and base our connections on a different set of values. When weparticipate in a Lesbian event, we are not just purchasing entertainment, we are fostering our connections with each other. Our
Lesbian cultural heritage has been that music, art and theory havebeen used as the means by which we created, expressed andexplored our connections with each other. It is because thisheritage of celebrating our connections has meant so much to me
as a Dyke that I have become angry and disappointed that our
events have taken on a consumer flair and return us to themalestream. Because our connections are continually being created, we cannot assume the role of consumers of our culture
unless our intent is to diminish and consume our connections as
a product. If our commitment is to building Lesbian community,
then we must participate in the ongoing creation of that community, not the objectification and consumption of Lesbian community. The turning of our connections and communities into marketable products is going to have a devastating effect on us. As
consumers our relationship to products is on two levels: on one
hand we identify with the product, and on the other hand we
distance ourselves from it. The identification with the product I
have already discussed. The distancing from the product allows
us not to be affected by it, not to be responsible for it and often a16

a voyeur of it. As consumers, our only responsibility is to our own
sa tisfaction.
In the seventies I lived in a community that valued W omenonly space, Radical Dyke Activity, manual laborers, development of theory, other working class jobs and anti-patriarchal
work. I question the inverse correlation between the rise ofcultural Lesbianism and the return to the malestream and resulting decline in respect for the Radical Lesbian activities. Once weinstitutionalize our culture, the rules of the marketplace takeover. We have many examples, from making our Lesbian-createdrape crisis centers and battered women's shelters more palatableto funders by firing the Dykes, to the selling of Lesbian Nuns to
Forum by Naiad Press, to the Dyke musicians who play at Michigan for Women-only audiences until they make it big and will nolonger play before Women-only audiences. Hence our relationships to each other have shifted from co-creating to the producing
and consuming of our Lesbian community. When we create
Lesbian community, we are enacting values that enhance andprioritize our Dyke connections. When we enact consumer values, our Lesbian connections are not the priority. Our consumerproducer connections are the priority.
When we established a producer-consumer relationship toeach other, boys stepped in as the producers of our culture andmarketed it back to us. The boys will be involved as long as they
can turn a tidy profit and even if some boy producer in a large
Eastern city decided to "return" some of the money to Lesbiancommunity, it is as an insurance that he be allowed to continue tomarket our community. When boys quit making money from us,
they will stop being concert producers and purveyors of
women's books and records. They are not co-creators of ourculture. They are the people who come in to make profit from ourhaving institutionalized to the point that money was able to be
made. They are the people who sell our experiences and connections. Once we give them the right to market our lives to us, theyalso have the right to determine what our lives will be. Boys twist
who we are and market it back to us in their own image.
Consumerism has been an effective tool for undermining ourcommunities. We have consumed our own communities, thereby
diminishing them. Boys have appropriated our communities,
17thereby distorting them. Boys begin to sell it back to us, thereby
molding it in their own image. And sadly, many Dykes are nolonger participating as co-creators of our culture, thereby conceding it to the forces of consumerism.
Consumerism is a system that fails to acknowledge what is
important to us. I have interacted with my community as aconsumer at times and admit that I thought I felt alive in theprocess. Or maybe I just felt motion and mistook it for life. But
motion is not proof of life. After all, the boys are good at making
machines move. That back and forth motion of consumerism is
not motion on a profound level. Rather it is predictable, has acertain weariness, and holds no promise for change or creation.
It is motion between two points of the patriarchy and fails topropel us away from the gravitational pull of boys' values.
Earlier in this paper, I spoke of my inability to describe ourconnections. I still wonder why that is when those connections
are so often intense. Amidst the glare of the market place it
appears those connections are also very subtle.
Yet it is at the level of our connections that we begin to build ourcommunities. A fundamental difference between Lesbian culture
and heteropatriarchal culture is that unlike the boys, what moves
and sustains us are our desires and passion. Our passion for ourfriends, our lovers, our politics, our lives and our creations
defines our connections. Passion and desire cannot live in themarket place any more than we can joyously thrive in the heteropatriarchal world. Consumerism is about the objectifying of allliving things and passion has its own life. Passion cannot bepackaged and marketed to us; instead it is created by and amongus. I believe our passion has integrity and rather than allow itself
to be distorted by consumerist interactions, it will quietly leave.
When consumerism forces passion to leave our interactions,
we no longer have a basis for Lesbian connections. It is this interweaving of passion and desire throughout our values, our lives
and our connections that will be the foundation of our Dyke
communities.

This is a revised version of the paper presented at the Lesbian Theory
panel, June 1988, at the National Women's Studies Association confer18

ence. I want to thank Sarah Hoagland for asking me to participate in the
Lesbian Theory panel of NWSA. The panel was the impetus for me
finally setting my thoughts down on paper. I want to thank Julia
Penelope for the creation of the word heteropatriarchy and Anna Lee forthe word malestream. I want to thank Anna Lee, Bette Tallen, Ellen
Catlin and Laura Sanders for their help in clarifying my ideas andrewriting the paper. I am also indebted to long hours of conversations
with many of the Separatists who attended the Midwest Lesbian Separatist Conference, June 1988.
1. Starhawk. Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex and Politics. Beacon Press,
1982. Starhawk discusses how the norms of the world shifted in thesixteenth century from an organic system to that of isolated nonliving
parts.
2. Lee, Anna. ''New Age Spirituality Is the Invention of the Heteropatriarchy," Sinister Wisdom #37, Spring 1989. Paper read at the panel on
Lesbian Theory at the 1988 National Women's Studies Association
Conference.
3. Lee, Anna. "The Tired Old Question of Male Children," Lesbian Ethics,
Vol. 1, #2, pgs. 106-108. While Anna Lee is specifically referring to black
women in her paper, I believe that the point still stands that the fact thatneither black nor white women raise their sons to grow up to be abusers
isn't enough to stop the boys from enacting those behaviors.
4. A point made by Bette Tallen in a conversation concerning the lack ofpolitical analysis in our communities.

19

Anna Lee

New Age Spirituality is theInvention of Heteropatriarchy
When lesbians began to focus on ourselves and each other, wecreated a lesbian social meaning. From that lesbian social meaning,
we developed a lesbian spirituality which honored equality, diversityand our lesbian selves. We elevated the female principle asdefined by lesbians. We sought not power-over but power withinin order to strengthen our interactions with each other. Lesbians
challenged heteropatriarchy. Heteropatriarchal beliefs were suspect. Our social context excluded the male principle and males.
I plan to critique new age spirituality from a lesbian perspective
through the following points:
1. New age spirituality justifies the status quo by naming it goodand proper.
2. It honors hierarchy by encouraging those who exercise powerin society to continue to do so through the search for enlightenment.
3. New age spirituality promotes males as important.
4. New age spirituality denies its connection to spiritualism.
5. Males want to recapture our attention.
6. By rejecting resistance and challenge to heteropatriarchy, aterm developed by Julia Penelope, new age spirituality undermines lesbian connectiveness.
One of the basic tenets of new age spirituality is what exists isfreely chosen. Hence the status quo is affirmed. What makes us
human is interacting with each other. Our interactions, therefore,
have social meaning. It requires power to arrange the world as one
would want. Power coupled with wishes provide the social context within which we operate. As MacKinnon argues in Feminism
Unmodified, "The beliefs of the powerful become proof, in part
because the world actually arranges itself to affirm what thepowerful want to see ..."1
Apparently, it is in the interest of new age proponents to ignore
power-over and focus on wishing, thereby rendering the social
context invisible. It is in their interest to ignore the power-over20

needed to arrange the world because then they can argue those
who do not crea te the world in theirimage are less enlightened. The
failure to create the world one desires is due to personal shortcoming, not powerlessness.
Free will to be truly free necessitates the absence of constraints
as Sarah Hoagland points out in her recent book, Lesbian Ethics:
Toward a New Valuation .2 By denying unequal power in our interactions, new age spirituality adherents can claim the illusion ofequality of our choices. Once they have established that illusion ofequality, the concept of oppressors becomes meaningless.
Free will or choice becomes the basis for perceiving the absenceof oppression which is the second point I want to discuss. If there
are no oppressors, there can be no oppression. By claiming theabsence of oppression, new age spirituality proponents honor
hierarchy. New age spirituality adherents do acknowledge horrible circumstances. In a conversation, one of the new age advocates told me that the master-slave relationship was a horrible one
but did not indicate oppression. It did not indicate oppression, shewent on to say, because the master and the slave freely chose toenter the world for their own reasons. While she could not ascertain
the reasons, it was an opportunity for each of them to learn somelesson and for the rest of us to become more enlightened.
In focusing on free will, new age spirituality denies oppression
occurs. The negation of the reality of oppression encourages boththe powerful and the powerless to view each other's situation as
chosen. The denial of social meaning of our interactions makes it
possible for no blame to be attached to the powerful. The powerful
did not impose powerlessness. The powerless chose their situation, if only by choosing the circumstances under which they wereborn. If the powerless do not choose to change their situation, then
new age spirituality would have us believe it is because the powerless have some lesson to learn.
Once horrible circumstances are freely chosen, then the responsibility of the powerful is to accept that choice. The status quo
represents unequal power dynamics and must remain so until
those who are less equal, hence less enlightened, freely choose toarrange the world differently. The powerful are able to define theworld on their terms. They perceive the powerless as the axis onwhich the status quo revolves, thus absolving themselves of any
21

responsibility for the control they exercise in their interactions
with the powerless. This reversal in logic is accomplished by new
age spirituality honoring hierarchy.
While hierarchy is not specifically acknowledged by new age
spirituality proponents, the implicit goal engenders hierarchy.
The goal of every new age spirituality seeker is enlightenment. The
powerful have defined those in horrible situations as lacking therarefied enlightenment that the powerful possess. While thepowerful cannot challenge the status quo for that challenge wouldinterfere with the less enlightened one's free will or choice, they canand must teach the lessons they have learned. Unlike free will, theteachings are not free. The cost of the teachings will be exploredlater.
I want to return for the moment to the concept of individuallychosen paths which on the surface would seem to coincide withfree will. In fact, individually chosen paths do coincide with new
age spirituality's concept of free will. The concept of enlightenment presents a continuum on which seekers exhibit more or lesser
degrees of enlightenment.
This continuum is used to measure all paths to discover the degree of enlightenment exhibited. The concept of enlightenment
forces those who are less enlightened to seek those who are moreenlightened for guidance. While each of us has the capacity forenlightenment, only a few display highly evolved enlightenment.
Those few are to be honored, respected and paid. The vagueness of
evolved enlightenment is not coincidental. It is as deliberate asother patriarchal religions are and as therapy is intentionallyvague. Each focuses on the inner being isolated from social meaning. New age spirituality and therapy do not value self-definedsuccess. Success is measured by external authority.
It is not surprising that many new age spirituality adherents
have previously embraced therapy as a way of life. New age spirituality is a logical step for those who seek the quick fix and instantrevelation. The quick fix and instant revelation are both discussed
in my paper, "Therapy: the Evil Within."3
New age spirituali ty departs from the pa th of thera py by removing any hint of human agency inasmuch as new age's arbitrator isa spirit gUide. In a story about two lesbian lovers growing old in thenineteenth century, Sarah Aldridge in her book titled Madame
22

Aurora describes Madame Aurora as a medium who exercises
human agency in her interactions with her clients. 4 The channeler,
unlike the therapist or the medium, presents herself as simply avehicle for the spirit guide(s) . Her representation of her role issimilar to a priest claiming to be only the mouthpiece of god. Whyis human agency or judgement defined as wrong and certainly lessevolved than spirits?
Part of the answer lied in the fact that humans have been imperfect. New age spirituality, similar to christianity, proposes a higher
power to lead us to perfection. Both christian and new age spirituality tenets accept famine in Ethiopia, men's rape of women in thehome and the street, u.s. invasion of Grenada and so forth as examples of human imperfection. The tenets of new age spirituality
and christianity allow such imperfection by promising that thespirit world does represent perfection. New age spirituality, christianity and other patriarchal religions provide the justification for
acceptance of what is. By counseling disregard for the existinghierarchy, new age spirituality supports heteropatriarchy.
The third point about new age spirituality concerns its promotion of male and female principles. These principles are arbitrarily
assigned characteristics. New age spirituality accepts that males
have sex specific characteristics and females have different sex
specific characteristics. These characteristics are innate to each sex.
New age spirituality proponents seek to incorporate each set ofcharacteristics to become whole beings. This concept is also referred to as androgyny. Each set is incomplete without the other,which is the justification for heterosexuality. While male andfemale characteristics are perceived by new spirituality seekers as
having equal value, although incomplete, male and female characteristics are not equally valued in society. The characteristics ofmales, such as rationality, strength, decisiveness, domination andso forth, as MacKinnon and others have pointed out, are the characteristics valued as important by society. The characteristics offemales, such as emotionality, maternalness, vacillation, subordina tion and so forth, are not highly valued by the powerful. New age
seekers claim to want female characteristics to be equally valued.
As we discovered with their claims about free will and power
parity, their commitment to equally valuing female characteristics
is equally false.
23One reason the claim is false is the sex specific characteristics are,in fact, not sex specific and can be found in both sexes. For example,
females can be both rational and emotional. This overlap of allegedly sex specific characteristics is not the exclusive province ofhighly evolved females . Since there is a great deal of overlap ofcharacteristics between males and females, then the assignment ofa specific set of attributes to one sex or the other sex is arbitrary.
The arbitrariness of the assignment of a specific set of characteristics to one sex or the other sex is the second reason the equality
claim is false. The characteristics assigned to males are the characteristics valued by the powerful. MacKinnon notes, "In reality .. .
virtually every quality that distinguishes men from women isalready affirmatively compensated in this society. Men's physiology defines most sports, their needs define auto and health insurance coverage, their socially designed biographies define work
place expectations and successful career patterns, their perspectives and concerns define quality in scholarship, their experiences
and obsessions define merit, their objectification of life defines art,
their military services define citizenship, their presence defines
family, their inability to get along with each other - their wars andrulerships - defines history, their image defines god, and theirgenitals define sex. For each of their differences from women, wha t
amounts to an affirmative action plan is in effect, otherwise known
as the structure and values of American society."s New age spirituality as we have discussed in terms of honoring hierarchy does
not challenge the unequal power dynamics existing in society. Aslong as new age spirituality does not challenge the inequality of
male and female characteristics existing in society, then their claim
to value female characteristics is suspect.
The third reason the equality claim is false is developed throughexamining those characteristics primarily exhibited by each sex.
While a set of characteristics is not primarily sex specific, males aretrained to be males and females are trained to be females. Part ofmale training is to possess females. Part of female training is to bepossessed by males. MacKinnon states, "Women are there to beviola ted and possessed. Men to violate and possess us ..."6 If males
desire to incorporate the female principle, then they would be
willing to be possessed by other males. If females want to incorporate the male principle, then we would need the ability to possess
24other females. The androgynous model denies the inequality inrelationships. MacKinnon argues, liMen's power over womenmeans that the way men see women defines who women can be."7
Denial of unequal power relationships is not the same as challenging unequal power relationships. Since new age spirituality refuses to challenge the current hierarchy of unequal power relationships, female characteristics are not equally valued by new age
spirituality.
In fact, new age spirituality promotes the male principle whichleads to my fourth point. Spiritualism could provide new age
spirituality the opportunity to value the female principle, for spiritualism is practiced primarily by women. Spiritualism at its coresis the belief that you can contact spirits who once lived in this world.
Some spiritualists believe that spirits from other worlds and otherrealities can be contacted and these spirits do have an interest inproviding guidance to humanity. Spiritualism also includes reincarnation. Spirits are almost always known by the seeker. A friend
pOinted out spiritualism had been around a long time.s I began tothink about how even the name of new age spirituality severs itfrom the root of spiritualism. The denial of spiritualist roots isdeliberate. New age spirituality divorces itself from spiritualism
by renaming many of the practices. A medium becomes a channeler. Spirits known by the seeker become impersonal guides.
New age spirituality takes common multifunctional tools andoffers in their place costly monofunctional ones. Practices such as
crystal ball gazing, fortune telling, reading palms and tea leaves
and so forth were seen as the beliefs of the witless and old women.
The two groups are often synonymous with each other. In a rational age, the witless and old women are not credible. Credibility
is defined by the powerful. By yuppifying the spiritualists' techniques, the practices could be made credible to those who werepowerful. Male participation in new age spirituality lent further
credibility to that system of beliefs. The powerful require maleparticipation in order to grant credibility.
Another reason new age spirituality is reluctant to claim spiritualism is spiritualist practitioners utilize tools which do not necessarily lend themselves to conspicuous consumption. Part of themaintenance of the status quo is to protect unequal economic
distribution. Under such a system, conspicuous consumption is25valued by the powerful. 9 While it is true the rich frequented mediums, the services of mediums were accessible to those less welloff. Even today, palm reading is advertised for $5.00. The cost of
crystals has not only escalated, but also their usages have becomeso specialized that more crystals are required to achieve the same
results.
As we examine who the believers are, it becomes even clearer
that new age spirituality panders to the powerful. New age spirituality proponents are primarily white and financially com-fortable. New age spirituality appeals to those who value conspicuous
consumption as I discussed earlier. Hence the proponents havealready demonstrated a propensity to buy services and material
goods. New age spirituality adherents are eager, even require, thatevolved enlightenment be costly. Given conspicuous consumption, a service or object is not valuable if it is not expensive.
For example, a psychic workshop lasting for four hours costs$35.00 per participant. It is led by a straight woman and more
women want to attend than the space can accommodate. The
participants are all women, primarily lesbian, but not one black
woman is present. When I talk with several of the lesbians who
attended, they report surprise they failed to notice the absence of
black women. The white lesbians express shock the guru is
straight. I believe two things were operating in this situation.
One is that the cost of the workshop made it very valuable tothose who wanted to participate. The same guru offered a lecture
for a similar length of time but the cost was free or nominal. The
second dynamic operating in the above situation is the undermining of lesbian agency.
My fifth point concerns the undermining of lesbian agency
through males seeking to recapture our attention. The straightwoman guru is perceived as more evolved than lesbians for she has
already incorporated the male principle as important and valuable. As I discussed, the male principle is intrinsic to new age spirituality. In fact, while straight women are higher in the enlightenment hierarchy, it is males who have gained rarefied enlightenment status. This explains why most spirit guides are male. Males
are in the forethought, foreground and foreskin of new age spirituality. Males wanted to be included in our lesbian interactions
with each other. They tried many tactics to regain our attention.
26

Males became transsexuals and applied for jobs at lesbian recordlabels, lesbian production companies and battered women shelters. Males professed to be feminists and demanded to be included
in our organizations and women-only spaces. Males threa tened us
with disaster if we did not bond with them to fight nuclear power.
Males denied our commitment to anti-racist work if we did notbond with them to challenge u .s. invasion of central america. Males
appealed to maternal instinct to coerce us to provide caring,money, time, energy and blood to those males dying of AIDS. In
short, males clamored that their issues were primary and lesbians
should attend to them. Fundamentally, heterosexuality was promoted even by gay males.
Some of us succumbed to these scare tactics, but some of us did
not. As Bette Tallen observed, "Lesbian separatists are the only
stability the women's movement has known, holding on to thebasic political analyses developed in the early seventies whileother parts of the feminist movement wavered and often abandoned the politics with which they began."loWhen the male scare tactics did not fully destroy lesbian connectiveness, males promoted theories which would destroy thatconnectiveness from within. They advocated focusing on the innerbeing divorced from social interaction or context. Our focus on the
inner being would be guided by males who had achieved enlightenment and credibility. The focus on inner being could not bedirected by males if a lesbian inner being were central, for a lesbian
focus excludes males. The inner being had to be separated from asocial context. If a social context were retained, then male power in
the interaction would be questioned.
Both new age spirituality and therapy accomplish the malemission to re-establish males as primary. New age spirituality
promises to value the female principle while devaluing females.
Which brings me to my sixth point. Once lesbian spirituality
sought the knowledge lost during the witch burnings. Now new
age spirituality only values male knowledge. Once lesbian meaning was central to our world view. Now new age spirituality values
humanist meaning. Once lesbians challenged hierarchy. Now
new age spirituality admires hierarchy and has institutionalized it
as enlightenment. Once we knew oppression was imposed bymales. Now new age spirituality denies oppression exists. Once27

lesbians examined power dynamics to explain how the world
operated. Now new age spirituality wants us to believe power isirrelevant.
New age spirituality not only resembles bu t promotes heteropatriarchy. By rejecting resistance and challenge to heteropatriarchy,
new age spirituality negates female agency. It is not coincidental
that new age spirituality undermines lesbian connectiveness.
New age spirituality is truly the invention of heteropatriarchy.

I want to thank Vivienne Louise and Billie Potts who listened numerous times to this paper while I was preparing it for the National Women'sStudies Association Conference in 1988. I also want to thank Tara Ayres
and Lee Evans who discussed the concepts of new agespiri tualitywithme
over a period of many months. I want to thank Mev Miller, Selma Miriam,
Betsey Beaven and Noel Furie for encouraging me to write this paper.
Although itis not exactly what any of them had in mind. Finally I want tothank Sarah Hoagland who invited me to participate on a panel on lesbian
theory. To date, this paper has taken me the least amount of time tocomplete. Thereis somevalueincompl yingwithdeadlines. Of course, thelesbians mentioned are not responsible for the arguments Ihaveput forth.
1. MacKinnon, Catharine A, Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Lifetmd Law. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts andLondon, England, 1987.
2. Hoagland, Sarah Lucia, Lesbian Ethics: Toward New Value. The Institute of Lesbian Studies, Palo Alto, California, 1988.
3. Lee, Anna, "Therapy: the Evil Within," Trivia, #9. Fall 1986.
4. Aldridge, Sarah, Madame Aurora. The Naiad Press, Tallahassee,
Florida, 1983.
5. Op. cit., Feminism Unmodified.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. This was pointed out to me in a conversation with Tara Ayres.
9. Evans, Lee, Sinister Wisdom #37, Spring 1989.
10. Tallen, Bette, quoted by Sarah Hoagland in Gossip #6in her article"Lesbian Separatism: an Empowering Reality," London, England, 1988.

28

Elana Dykewomon

Lesbian Theory and Social Organization

The Knots of ProcessThis wave of the lesbian and women's movements started out
with a stated desire, if not commitment, to abolish hierarchy andwork collectively. In the last twenty years we have had wonderful, short-term successes, community-dissolving disappointments and political collectives that turned into capitalist businesses. Our brief history in collective and collaborative work hasoften deeply discouraged us. Of course many of us thought we'dlive to see the "women's revolution to end all revolutions." We
had neither models nor cohesive theory with which to conceptualize working together from our 20's to our 90' s.
Yet over the course of these years, I believe lesbians havedeveloped an idea which I call an "harmonious placement
model," from which we might go back and re-examine ourunderstandings of collective organization. While it may seem
obvious to envision ourselves in a harmonious (as opposed to any
form of power-over) relation to the world and universe, it is in
direct conflict with the thrust of western thought since the creation of hierarchical nation-states as we know them. That we havegotten as far as we have, with some of our senses of humor intact,is remarkable.
But in order to address the problems of hierarchy and the ways
we organize our lesbian lives and work, I need to go back a stepand figure out what lesbian theory is. And for that I need adefinition of lesbianism. What is a lesbian anyway? What makes
lesbians a group that needs theories? And what is this theorymaking process all about?
About two years ago, my Jewish lesbian writing group rented
a house in Lake Tahoe for a week. We expected good weather andof course got freezing rain. Hanging around the house, I started
to browse through the books of the family who owned it, andcarne upon a collection of "essential Kierkegaard." I had gone to29college thinking I wanted to study, among other things, philosophy. After a semester of watching men put their feet up on thetable and talk about the nature of dogness, I decided that either
there was something profound I was missing due to my own
inferiority of one kind or another, or these guys were all fools.
Eighteen years go by, Kierkegaard has to make at least as muchsense as Plato, I figured what the hell, a rainy night by the fire, I'll
check it out.
I was amazed. Here was a philosophy based on hating women.
No bones about it. But not quite that simple: a philosophy
concerned with the placement of man in the universe, not thesham generic man, but the real article, Man with a capital M. And
Man's placement depended on defining his superiority - inKierkegaard's case, moral, ethical, spiritual superiority - over
women and nature in general.
What my evening's reading made me realize was that I wasboth right and wrong all those years ago: there was nothing I had
missed except that those guys weren't fools - they were engaged
in a very serious activity through which they claimed the right tocontrol my life and the fate of the planet.
Because that is what the practice of philosophy, the creation oftheories is all about: placing one's self in relation to the world inwhich one finds oneself. But placing yourself in the universe does
not necessarily have to mean placing yourself in control of it.
Which brings us back to: ''What is a lesbian?" Each of us will
have some differences of opinion on that, I'm sure. To me,
lesbianism encompasses three clear areas: sex, culture and politics (that is, of course, just about everything). To be a lesbian is tohave a world view.
Not simply sex (or what "they" like to call sexual preference),
because if being a lesbian just meant going to bed with other
women in a world of equal choices, there would be no lesbianism
We all know that being a lesbian means breaking the rules.
As soon as a specific grou p universally breaks a rule, by its very
existence, that group needs a theory. Needs a way to examine thestructure of the rules, the motives of the rule-makers. Needs
ways, rituals, events, to express and develop its group identity.
That group, lesbians, needs theory that places it in relation to the30world, and in relation to other theories of placement with whichit comes in conflict.
Now if lesbians break the rules, and we need theory in order tounderstand what that means, to validate our own beings apartfrom the rules, does that mean that the sum of lesbian theory isbased on reaction, a theory that starts from and ends with our
responses to being oppressed?
Yes and no. The theories that men make which give them thepower to make the rules place Man at the center of the universe
with his god . These are all, in one form or another, theories ofdominance and submission. When someone goes around theworld saying I'm the boss of this place, you're the outlaw, you
there - you're the slave, and you're the freak, and if you don't
like the way I set it up, I'll kill you - it's hard not to be reactive.
It is, in fact, the terrible trap of our attempts at creating a moral
way to live here - those who place themselves in a position of
dominance appear to control the interpretation of our response.
Like a prisoner in a mental institution, we may say their interpreta tion of reality makes no sense to us - and they will call us crazy.
We may say they can go on with their interpretation of reality,
and we will go on with ours - and they will say we're crazy. We
can say we don't care what they say, and they will say - you arestill our prisoner. What women often opt for in that situation is
to make their wardens believe they agree with the "reality" ofdominance and submission - and eventually many women,
through isolation, frustration, fear,longing, loneliness - come toactually agree on the definitions of reality with those who holdpower over them.
We all struggle with this problem in our daily lives. Fortunately, we don't struggle alone - and that makes all the difference in the world. We are a group which can identify ourselves,
which can engage in the life-long process of self-definition andthe creation of theory that places us in relation to the universe.
Not simply in reaction to the rules that we have broken, but to therule-makers from whom we want to regain our own power to say
what are and are not clear and purposeful ways to live.
It's important to note here that while I am asserting the possibility of lesbians identifying with each other as a primary group,
I am in no way advocating any erasure of individual cultures of31

ongm. Our diversity is a source of wonder and growth. But thefact is we all come from families, and family structure across theworld echoes the structure of the state - it depends on some formof dominance and submission, cross-culturally. If we as lesbians
choose a different model for placing ourselves in relation to theuniverse, we are immediately in some kind of conflict with ourfamilies and cultures of origin which is very painful and complex.
Every lesbian works out her own resolution - and I believe astrong lesbian analysis and the creation of lesbian social structures can help us experience community in the midst of what isoften a very isolated, alienating struggle.
I would also like to note that a harmonious placement model
is not unique to lesbians - many matrifocal Native Americanand indigenous tribal groups developed cultures which did notrank relative status for human beings and animals. Patriarchal
culture has been extremely successful in destroying and subverting these other cultures - and the history of those conquests is
one from which we have a lot to learn.
Among lesbians, the process of theory-making and establishment of group identity has been going on for decades. That work
is what leads me to understand that we, as lesbians, have both
politics and a culture. Which also means that if we examine ourculture, we should find forms of social organization that reflect the ways
we understand our place in the universe.
But it is extremely difficult. I want to say, I as a lesbian base mylife, my ethical and political decisions, on lesbian theory. A theory
that proceeds from the premise that social organization should bebased within individual integrity, that the good of the wholecomes from the well-being of every single member, and that eachmember, by acting for her own well-being, acts for the good of thewhole. That identification with lithe whole" is as strong and important as self-identification, and embraces a sense of identification with the natural world. A community which defines itself
that way needs no police, no sets of rules, only the attention andloyalty of its members. Individuals within such a community
may find themselves at odds with each other, but could notenvision themselves at odds with the group: they are the group.
A lesbian utopian anarchist-socialist society makes perfect sense
to me, when I've gotten this far.
32

So that, for example, if I lived in a lesbian community, in which
each member identified herself as a willing and committed
community participant, and that community decided, for thecommon good, we would attempt a new form of income distribution - then I would have no reservations about giving my full
support and best critical attention to that plan.
Well, that sounds good in theory but we sure seem a long way
from it in our lives. Why can't i.t work? Because: who would bein control of the division of resources? Who would make sure it
would be equitable? Who could sit through nights of meetings
where every woman presented her need? Who would trust thata roomful of lesbians of different class, race and ethnicities would
understand her? Who would believe that even if a contract could
be made, the others would abide by the terms of the contract?
What happens to the group if someone cheats? If someone withholds, if someone steals and splits? If someone simply leaves?
In a group of women working on distributing money, someone
will want a leader, someone will want to be the leader, andsomeone will feel compelled to rebel against the leader or leadership, and either no one will cop to it or else there will be a groupjustification. They will say collectives don't work, they will talkabout the tyranny of structurelessness, they will rationalize why
so and so should be in charge. They will say: I have to look out formyself first; they will say: you are not my family, I don't owe you
anything.
We are caught between the theories of dominance and submission that we grew up in and our fledgling ability to define ourown position in the universe. Without analysis, without ways tokeep very basic questions open between us, we tend to feelourselves isolated and coerced. Many of us find ourselves taking
it for granted that we need boards of directors, presidents,
treasurers, elections and stars; that the world is divided into thefamous (or rich, or powerful, or beautiful), the aspiring to be
famous and those who pretend they don't care; that some of us
are more "evolved" than others which confers upon us a higher
place in the spiritual order; that some occupations are moredeserving of respect than others. Inversely, we have come tobelieve the collective process is too unwieldy, t09 inefficient; that33

co-operatives are doomed to failure; that only fools believe in
non-profit work.
There are enormous questions we have to address aroundpower, hierarchy and social structure. I believe we do ourselvesa terrible disservice by disowning the collectivist impetus thelesbian and women' s movements had twenty years ago. We canchange our memory of our short-lived collectives from painful to
instructive. What was useful, what do we still carry with us? In
what ways have we tried to establish trust, on what basis, andhow might we re-establish trust now? How do we divide thework? What kind of activity gets status and why? Who gets
respect, how do we understand that? How can we encourage
individual excellence as an expression of group creativity rather
than a series of competitions?
Political repression, survival needs, romanticism and consumerism keep us fr.o m really looking at the social structures of ourwork and interactions. We are very substantial women who keepplugging our creativity, our intimate juice, back into hierarchies,
into institutions that offer us short-term rewards for agreeing toplay by the dominance/submission rules.
Those rules don't fit us. If we do really believe that we can claim
the power to define our own position in the cosmos; and if wechoose to define a lesbian position as one committed to individual integrity within group identification; then we need institutions that reflect that belief. We need to work in ways that follow
our belief in ourselves and each other. Not easy: we are colonized,
we have to make money, we need enough time to enjoy our lives,
we are in reaction, we are damaged, we are often forced into war
by those who believe in their right to dominate. It may be that theinstitutions we create will always reflect this struggle: but better
they should reflect our struggle than our loss of self. Our collective, cooperative, collaborative impulses are our treasure. Let's
keep figuring out how to change the world together.

34

Bette S. Tallen

Lesbian-Feminist Theory:a View from the
Political Theory Trenches

I come to this work both excited and a bit sad. Excited because
I feel like I am once again on the cutting edge of a new kind offeminist theory, a theory that may yet bring feminist theory backto its more radical nineteenth-century roots. The sadness comesfrom a realization, though, that much of what is called feminist
theory today is not an inclusive enterprise, it is meant to exclude
my life and my experience. Most "feminist theory" today is exclusionary of lesbians and exclusionary of Jews, among manyother groups. So I begin this paper with a call that it is time to recognize that what we are doing as lesbian theory may in fact be
far more inclusive than most feminist theory is today.
I also begin this work remembering what happened to me
when I entered graduate school in political theory in 1971. I was
taking a seminar with my advisor on modern political theory and
I was going on and on about my favorite theorist at the time, JeanJacques Rousseau and his ideas on man and his environment. My
advisor (who became my advisor because she was the only woman on the faculty and I was one of only four female graduate
students in my year) finally couldn't take it anymore and asked
me, "Tell me, what is the fate of poor woman?" My mouth
dropped open - I had never heard such a question. So I stammered on and on how man was really a generic term and thatclearly Rousseau had meant to include women in his discussion.
She asked me if I had ever read Rousseau's Emile. I said I hadn't
so she sent me home with her copy that evening. So I went homeand eagerly opened the book and started to read. Well, Emile was
all about the education of the ideal citizen, Emile, who of course
was male. No problem, I thought - I'm used to identifying withmales. After all, Holden Caulfield had been the hero of my youth.
Then I got to Book V, Rousseau's chapter on marriage. Here I met

35

for the first time Sophie who is there to help complete Emile's
education. Imagine how I felt when I read,In the mating of the sexes each contributes in equal measure to the common end but not in the same way. From thisdiversity comes the first difference which has to be notedin their personal relations. It is the part of the one to be
active and strong, and of the other to be passive and weak.
Accept this principle and it follows in the second place thatwoman is intended to please man. 1
Imagine my surprise! I then was forced to radically re-examine
all that I thought I knew about any political theorist. Was I to be
included in any of their visions and analysis, was I to be liberated
along with all the others? Clearly the term man was meant to be
exclusionary not only by Rousseau but by most theorists. John
Locke, for example, never really explicitly confronts whether
women are truly to be fully included in his theory of naturalrights. He does grant that even married women retain their rightto life, but how about liberty and property? His silence and thesilence of others spoke volumes.
My second starting place for this work occurred in 1982 when
Billie Potts published the best all-round women's herbal I've
seen; its title was Witches Heal: Lesbian Herbal Self-Sufficiency. Oneof the reasons Billie titled it that was that all the women's herbals
she had ever seen only addressed women's reproductive issues.
She subtitled it as a lesbian herbal not only because of her extensive work and commitment to lesbian health but also because
she meant it to be a complete herbal for a woman's entire body.
I have used the book as a text in several courses on women andhealth. Students loved the book but were, in the main, shocked
and uncomfortable with the title. One student in her journal went
on for pages yelling about the title and why should she as a nonlesbian be forced to read this and then went on to say that thesection on arthritis saved her knee. Further, anytime I went intoa women's bookstore that stocked the book, it was inevitably on
the lesbian shelf; not once did I see a copy on the health shelf. It
clearly belonged on both. That was my first major indication that
non-lesbians absolutely refused to identify with the word lesbianeven though in this case the book applied to them. Recently I wasa judge for the Chicago Women in Publishing annual awards.
36

One of the awards that I and another judge recommended was for
the Iowa based periodical, Common Lives, Lesbian Lives. She and I
were amazed at the lengths to which the other judges, all nonlesbians and all very high-powered women in the world of
publishing, went to avoid uttering the L word - I did make them
say it. As feminists we reject the generic man and refuse to identify with exclu-sionary language. What does it mean when nonlesbian feminists refuse to identify with the term lesbian?
Do non-lesbians include or exclude us when they use the term
woman or the word feminist? We all understand that terms likelady doctor or lady lawyer imply that doctors and lawyers are
male. Why, then, is it so hard to see that feminist may be just as
exclusionary? Women of color have often challenged the term
feminist and whether it is inclusive. They point to the phrase
Black feminist and say if feminist is inclusive, then why is Black
placed in front of it. Many feel that the term womanist is more
inclusive and clearly, historically, they are correct. I think of thetimes I have heard non-lesbians use terms like lesbian families,
lesbian mothers or the supreme redundancy lesbian woman.
When I have pOinted out to them that lesbian women as a term
implies the existence of the ultimate oxymornon, lesbian men,they look at me as if I were no longer in the realm of the rational.
Finally, it has dawned on me that perhaps they do not use terms
like family, mother or even woman as inclusive ideas - they domean to exclude lesbians. A dramatic example of this occurs in aninterview with Linda Gordon, a prominent Socialist-feminist historian, who is quoted as saying, ''The word family does have an
ideological meaning that cannot be defined away simply by thedecision of leftists to make it mean something else. The family
does not mean two lesbians and a child." 2 Let me not be accusedof quoting Gordon out of context; she makes it very clear that she
does not embrace the pro-family politics of some feminist and lefttheorists. Still her omission of lesbians from the concept of family
is significant. Does it mean all of her work on family and violenceagainst women within the family cannot include a discussion oflesbian battering? If not, can any discussion of lesbian life haveany place in her work? Is this women's studies? Perhaps thereason that non-lesbians look at me as if I am speaking nonsensewhen I address terms like lesbian woman is that they do not think37

that woman is an inclusive term - how could they if they add
lesbian to it?
In order to consider how inclusive or exclusionary the practiceof feminist theory is, I need to think about what I know about
political theory and the emergence of feminist theory. Most political theory that calls itself feminist emerged as a reaction to liberal
theory. Once citizenship in the state was opened up to all men(excluding slaves in the U.s.), women began to also agitate forinclusion. I, among others, have already written at length how theconnection between liberal theory and feminist theory has both
fueled and limited the emergence of feminism as a politicalmovement. 3 It should be noted that early liberal feminist theory
focused primarily on woman's relationship to the state, a focus
that took as its automatic presumption that the state was a given,
the state was and is vitally necessary for the preservation ofhuman peace. Even institutions like the church and familyneeded to be preserved, albeit reformed . Even Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, one of the most radical theorists of the nineteenth
century, relied on the state as the major vehicle through which
women needed to gain and exercise rights.
Even when one moves out of the nineteenth century mostpolitical theories calling themselves feminist either built on thesame assumption (Le., that the state was natural and vital forhuman interests) or focused exclUSively on women's relations tomen, to children and to the family. In other words, feminist
theory has taken certain social institutions, primarily marriage
and the family, as the focal points of its analysis. These are not
only institutions that exclude lesbians, these are also institutions
that are male-defined and dominated. It is clear that many ofthese feminist theorists' intention is to maintain relations withmen. Sheila Rowbotham, another very prominent Socialist-feminist, takes this point even further when she says,
I felt that the concept of patriarchy was one that I couldn't
handle as a historian . .. It seemed to me that the idea of
patriarchy inevitably inclines toward separatist feminism. . . what I was really trying to say was that a feminist theory
about relationships between women and men needs tothink in terms of mutual needs and relations, positive
reasons for relating as well as conflict. You need the two
together . . . you need to see why it is not a relation of total
38

conflict, not a Hobbesian situation, otherwise it would
deny the experiences of those who have either sexual,
work or political relationships with men. I think this is an
unreal aspect of separatism . . . The term "patriarchy" implies that the forms of male domination are unchanging.4
So women and men become the yin/ yang of feminist analysis. So
much for the dialectic - all synthesis and no conflict.
There are several other points of interest that can be derived
from Rowbotham's statement. The first is her view that feminism
is meant to facilitate women's relations with men ("you need thetwo together"). Her embrace of the male/female, yin/ yang explicitly connects women's situation to men and in so doing,
denies lesbian existence. What further interests me is her insightthat the use of the term patriarchy inevitably inclines toward
separatism. What she really seems to be saying is that once you
accept the concept that men seek to dominate, control and define
the lives of women because they are male and because historicallymen have exercised that right, then the only way to free oneself
from that is to separate from men. Her refusal to do so only
further underscores the nature of the non-lesbian feminist's
dilemma. Her last assertion that patriarchy implies that forms ofmale domination are unchanging is truly absurd. Would she saythat the term capitalism implies an unchanging form of economic
domination and exploitation and therefore is not a useful term?
A survey of the major women's studies texts and major nonlesbian theoretical works reveals the same tendency to either
ignore lesbians all together or treat them as a special case. Linda
Gordon, in the same interview cited above, reveals that the highpoint for her at one of the Berkshire Women's History Conferences was a paper on the history of the Buffalo lesbian community. She says we need to do more of this but then she says, "since
Carroll Smith-Rosenberg's wonderful article, much that has been
written about women's culture, particularly in the more popularfeminist press, is abstract, rhetorical, polemical or without criticalanalysis." s Earlier she had already drawn a distinction between
lesbian history and women's history when she stated, "there isreal energy now in lesbian and gay history, as there was inwomen's history ten years ago and that brings both strength andweakness." 6 Does women's history not include lesbian history?
39

On the one hand she collapses lesbian history into women's culture and states that since one article on lesbians (written by a nonlesbian), nothing very good's been written. Has she not readMary Daly, Marilyn Frye, Sarah Hoagland, among many others?
Has she not looked at Sinister Wisdom, Lesbian Ethics, Common
Lives, Lesbian Lives, Trivia, the old Insighter? Why does she only
seem to link lesbian history with the history of gay men? Is ourhistory more similar to theirs than the experience of all women?
The point is that Monique Wittig was right all those years ago
when she wrote that lesbians are not women. That to be a woman
in a heterosexualist context meant that one's existence and context were defined by one's relationship to men. Most heterosexual women who consider themselves feminist are not willing to
be seen outside of those relations with men e.g., "1 speak to you
today as a wife and mother, as well as a." Their absoluterefusal to identify with the word lesbian shows their complicity
in male domination.
Non-lesbian feminists, to the degree that they refuse to separate from men and masculine values and identify with lesbian
existence, participate in the maintenance of patriarchal values. If
the major focus of the feminist revolution is to facilitate women's
better relationships with men ("dancing with chains" was myhigh school principal's description) then one really needs toquestion the revolutionary nature of feminism.
Feminist theory and process are exclUSionary of others in
addition to lesbians. As a Jew, I have long been disturbed by what
I saw as the exclusion of Jewish values and life from feminist
politics and process. Evi Beck, in her introduction to Nice Jewish
Girls, summed up many of my feelings on feminist process. I havelong experienced feminist process as subtly anti-Semitic. The
focus on not interrupting, not being emotional or loud are not
only feminist priorities but they embody the values of WASP
middle- and upper-class life. Jewish conversational style andcultural values are distinct. In my home, to interrupt someone
was an indication of interest, not of dismissal. Feminist process isalso based on the concept of the "good girl," the one who speaks
when spoken to, is not rowdy and obnoxious, who doesn't talk
too fast, is, well, nice. Within WASP culture, Jewish lesbians are
not nice. Within patriarchal culture, how many lesbians are nice?
40

As a Jew and a lesbian, I have long rejected the premises ofliberal feminism. Liberal feminism today is based on many of thesame premises of seventeenth-century liberalism: that the state isvital for the preservation of human peace. The illusion that one
can, by putting pressure on the state, achieve meaningful equality
for all women is a frightening one for me. First, the liberal state
was set up to ensure the protection of unequal distribution ofproperty. To imagine that the state, which was set up to protect
the interests of wealthy and powerful white men, will protect
women, let alone a Jewish lesbian, is absurd. Second, as a Jew, I
am all too well aware of what reliance on the state can bring. As
Hannah Arendt so convincingly argues in her work on antiSemitism, one of the major reasons Jews stayed in Germany, evenafter Hitler came to power and before the massive deportation to
the camps began, is that over the centuries Jews had looked to thesecular state to protect them from Christian religious authorities
and from the mobs inspired by the Church. To hear liberal feminists embrace the state as the guarantee of my freedom and life is
not only foolish but chilling.
Similarly, much of what is written by Socialist and Marxistfeminists also seems either exclusionary or foolish to me. For
example, in one of the standard Socialist-feminist readers, Zillah
Eisenstein's Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism,
there are only two more than perfunctory considerations about
lesbians. The first is an article by Linda Gordon on reproductive
freedom in which she argues that lesbians and gays will also
benefit from reproductive self-determination. She writes,
In this respect again the lesbian liberation movement has
made possibly the most important contribution to a future
sexual liberation. It is not that feminism produced morelesbians. There have always been many lesbians, despitehigh levels of repression; and most lesbians experience
their sexual preference as innate and involuntary. What
the women's liberation movement did create was a homosexual liberation movement that politically challenged
male supremacy in one of its more deeply institutionalized aspects - the tyranny of heterosexuality. The political power of lesbianism is a power that can be shared by all
women who choose to recognize and use it: the power of41

an alternative, a possibility that makes male sexual tyranny escapable, rejectable - possibly even doomed?
Lest I be accused of trashing Linda Gordon, whose work on thewhole I have admired and used, it must be noted to her credit that
she is the only non-lesbian in the group of women included in theanthology that seriously considers lesbians as a political issue. It
still must be seen in her analysis, though, that she links lesbians
with gay men (as part of a distinct "homosexual// liberation
movement). She also states, with no footnote, that most lesbians
experience their sexual preference as innate and involuntary.
Now, the Kinsey research does indicate that is true for most gay
men, but I have yet to see any serious research that says that it istrue for most lesbians. My lesbianism was a personal and apolitical choice, a choice to reject heterosexual privilege. I do
know lesbians who have experienced their own personal preference as innate but they still recognize that they have also chosen
to see it as a political choice as well, and to base their politics on
it. It was their choice to base their politics in a lesbian context.
The other article in the book that deals with lesbianism at all is
the Combahee River Collective statement. However, their statement is strongly opposed to any separate lesbian analysis andaction when they write, "we are feminists and lesbians, we feelsolidarity with progressive black men and do not advocate thefractionalization that white women who are separatists demand.// B That is the extent of their statement on lesbianism.
The other articles in the anthology systematically ignore lesbianism as they focus on the more "important" subjects of women's
work in the family, mothering, and women's role in the workforce. Even where a discussion on lesbianism might be appropriate, for example in Judith Stacey's article on women in China,
where she does mention the Shanghai women marriage resisters,
and does cite Agnes Smedley's statement that the women were"notorious and thought to be lesbians,//9 there is no examination
or elaboration of that.
Nowhere in the final section of the book on Socialist-feminism
in America is there any mention at all of lesbians (except for the
Combahee River statement), not even when one author calls forchanges in patriarchal ideology and women's consciousness. 1o I
guess Socialist-feminists make it pretty clear about where they42

stand on lesbians; their silence, like that of John Locke on thesubject of women's rights, sounds pretty loud to me.
lt is perhaps the ultimate irony that Marxist-feminists appear
to be the worst offenders when it comes to the issue of dealing
with lesbians and lesbianism. At least liberal feminists deal
substantively with the issue of civil rights for gay people and do
support lesbian custody fights, etc. But some lesbians are seeing
the Hobson's choice they are facing. As Erica Jong .w rites,
Unless men give up their denial that the society they havecreated is deeply diseased, most women have no choice
but to be either semi-slaves colluding in their own oppression, or militant separatists a la Dworkin. How to get pastmale denial when most men have so much to gain bydenying the existence of female pain? Privileged groups
seldom give up their privilege without bloody revolution,and it is unthinkable that women will take up arms
against their own sons, brothers, husbands. However violent our dreams, we are tied by ties of love and loyalty.
Men have always known this and abused it. ll
Jong is correct when she identifies that unless men give up
privilege women face two choices - to collude in their own
oppression (to get men to be more human and behave themselves), or to separate from men. What a dilemma!
I am not writing this to take all lesbian-feminists and lesbian
theorists off the hook. Historically, much of our own writing andlanguage has been equally exclusionary - think of terms like
Black lesbian, working-class lesbian, Jewish lesbian, etc. Our
theory has also seemed at times to assume that all lesbians werewhite, Christian, middle class, not disabled, etc. Some of ourtheory has been racist and exclusionary. Yet I do think that mostlesbian theorists and writers have taken the issues of exclusionary theory, privilege and accessibility seriously. One only has tofollow lesbian or predominantly lesbian publications for a shorttime to realize how diverse the perspectives and backgrounds
are. We take each other's cultures and systems of oppression
seriously and attempt to understand our own privileges. I thinkof Alix Dobkin's line often when she sang, "we ain't got it easy but
we got it."12 This is not to say that our work is finished, but I do
think it is correct to say lesbians have been at the forefront of every
43fight in our movement in the struggle to make it more accessible
and inclusive. The fact that we do so while so many of our nonlesbian sisters systematically exclude us from their writing is ofgreat significance.
What would a theory that is explicitly lesbian and revolutionary look like? Clearly it cannot start from the assumptions thatseem to underlie both liberal and Socialist-feminist theory. It is
not a theory that takes as a given an accommodationist politic
with men and male-dominated institutions. It cannot take as its
end product the "reconciliation" of men and women. It cannot
deny that men do oppress other men, that racism, anti-Semitism,classism are real for men as well as for women. But it must be atheory that challenges the assumption that the end product oftheory is the unity of opposites. In my view, it is a profoundly
separatist theory. In order to also separate from women's traditional roles in the family, we need to challenge the use of "motherhood" as our dominant political metaphor. We must start with,as a central focus, woman as a separate and autonomous being,
and examine our relations with each other, not only by analyzing
the nature of lesbian oppression, but also the issues of bonding,responsibility, ethics and how various systems of oppression
work in our lives.
The necessity for lesbians doing this work can be seen if we
examine what happened at the 1988 Sisterfire Music Festival(when two lesbian separatists asked two Black men to leave theircrafts area because it was womyn-only space, an altercation ensued and at least one of the womyn was hit by one of the men).
When some lesbians defended the actions of these two Black men
because of the reality of racism in the U.S.A., they ended up
justifying woman-hating. Lesbians (and feminists) must stop
excusing men's violent and oppressive behavior because of somemen's lack of privilege. We must continue to deal with differences between us, but we can no longer allow our understandingof the oppressions that some men face as an excuse or rationale for
their actions.
Events like the Sisterfire incident only teach me how much
more theory and understanding we need to do. We also need tocontinue to confront non-lesbian feminists on their failure to
identify with the L word. I am not saying they must become44lesbians, but that they understand that a lesbian context andmeaning can apply to their own lives, the part of their lives they
define separate from men. The continued failure to identify witha lesbian meaning represents the true divisiveness in feminism.
If being a feminist means "working it out" with men, count meout. As long as the practice of feminist theory continues to be
exclusionary we must struggle both with non-lesbian feminists
and create our own more inclusive lesbian theory. If being alesbian and being involved with lesbian theory means working
together with other women-identified-women to build a community, a movement, and ultimately a safe planet, count me in. The
more non-lesbian feminists continue to deny their complicity
with male supremacy because of their fear of being labeled a"man-hating" lesbian, the more we all lose.
Let us continue to create our lesbian theory and give voice andmeaning to lesbian existence. In so doing let us end the divisiveness and exclusionary aspects of feminism. Let the non-lesbians
among us do more of their own homework and examine theirown woman-hating and lesbophobia. Ultimately it is the nonlesbians' fear of us that is the true divisiveness of the feminist
revolution.

1. JeanJaques Rousseau, The Emile of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Translatedby William Boyd. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University,
1962, p. 131.
2. '1nterview with Linda Gordon," Visions of History, Abelove, Blackmar, Dimmock, Schneer (eds.). New York: Pantheon, 1976, 1977, 1979,
1980,1981,1983, p. 84.

45

3. For further discussion of this see Bette Tallen, Liberal Equality andFeminism: the Implications of the Thought of John Stuart Mill, unpublisheddissertation, 1980. Also see Juliet Mitchell, ''Women and Equality," The
Rights and Wrongs of Women, Juliet Mitchell and Ann Oakley (eds.). New
York: Penguin Books, 1976, pp. 379-399. Also see Zillah Eisenstein, The
Radical Future of Liberal Feminism. New York and London: London, 1981.
4. '1nterview with Sheila Rowbotham." Abelove, et al., op. cit., p. 60.
5. '1nterview with Linda Gordon." Ibid ., p. 92.
6. Ibid., p. 88.
7. Linda Gordon, "The Struggle for Reproductive Freedom: Three
Stages of Feminism." Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism, Zillah Eisenstein (ed.). New York and London: Monthly Review
Press, 1979. p. 123.
8. ''The Combahee River Collective: a Black Feminist Statement."
Ibid., p. 365.
9. Judith Stacey, ''When Patriarchy Kowtows: the Significance of theChinese Family Revolution for Feminist Theory." ibid., p. 302.
10. Rosalind Petchesky, "Dissolving the Hyphen: a Report on MarxistFeminist Groups 1-5." ibid., pp. 384-385.
11 . Erica Jong, "Changing My Mind About Andrea Dworkin" Ms.
Magazine, Vol. XVI, No. 12, p. 64.
12. Alix Dobkin, "Talking Lesbian." Lavender Jane Loves Women.
Preston Hollow, N.Y., Women's Wax Works, 1975.

46

Deborah Reading
charcoal, 19" x 25"© Karen Sjoholm, 1983
47

Caryatis Cardea

tremors

your head is on my shoulder
while somewhere
the earth shifts
feminism createsa rage we watch grow
we attempt to make of thisa strengthasi was raped
i am a survivor
this is but an actof endurancewith what stubbornness do womynrobbed of our lives
continue to live
many men are islands
don't believe the saying
but no womon
is separate from womonkind
even the sell-out
in the comfort of her counterfeit successdoes not truly hasten our demise
despite our fears to the contrary
for she lives
unconnected to womyn
in hollow denial of our bondthe contrast is unbearable
your head is cradled on my shoulder
48

the newspaper says a womon
young
was raped and beaten by six men
her life stretches before her
unbrokenso many mornings
and nights ice-starred with memoryof this act of imbalance
this womon robbed of her life
will be told
her hatred is an unacceptable responseto theirs
when she knows that she knows
the scales must alter
you stirand settle again more restfully
your head secure on my shoulder
we are at rest
we are in balancebut somewhere
the earth shifts

49Anita GreenWe Be Signifying

Everywhere you look
Black women are dreading
People ask
Why do you do that to yourhair?
We be letting you know
the struggle continues
the '60s are not deadthe '20s still beat
the Ancient Mother breathes.
We be dread in'cuz we are homeand you supposed toget comfortable
when you feel at home.

50Anne Corey

Buried Inside the Stone

In the beginning, the accounts were few and scattered andseemed to bear no relationship to each other. The first one I
remember was on a morning in late May, about a year ago. We
were listening to NPR and getting breakfast going. I was slicing
a banana and Lori was opening a can of cat food. The coffee hadjust finished dripping, but we hadn't poured it yet. A slightbreeze blew the embroidered cafe curtain back and forth acrossthe back of our fat tortoise-shell cat stretched out on the windowsill. This is what a work morning is like in our house, more or less- or, what it used to be like.
"Just in," the radio voice said. What followed was a report oftwo men killed and a third critically wounded in a pre-dawn
attack near an all-night diner in Queens. Disconcerting, but not allthat unusual in New Yark City. The announcer went on to explainthat the shootings took place in a neighborhood not usuallyplagued by violence.
''Mob-killing?'' I wondered.
"Probably drugs," Lori muttered.
The radio answered us both. "Police are puzzled as to a motive.
They do not believe the crime was drug-related or connected toorganized crime. Further investigations are under way."'Well, that's two less to worry about," Lori said under her
breath, carefully measuring out our standard quarter cup of
granola into the gray pottery breakfast bowls. "Do you wantyogurt or applesauce?""Too much dairy is clogging up my throat lately. It's hard to
keep their attention for a full period when my voice gives out.
Guess I'll have the applesauce. I'll get it."
"Okay. But I'm going to have yogurt," Lori said.
'Which shelf is it on? What do you mean 'two less to worry
about'?""Top shelf - behind the pasta sauce ... Here, let me find it. I'mgoing to have to spend some time on this refrigerator. The cheese51

looks like a science experiment. .. Two less men. Two less men to
worry about.""Huh? Why are you worrying about men?""What I mean is ... Oh never mind, look at this yogurt. It's
dated May 5. Do you think it's still good?"
And the morning went on. There may have been other news
stories after that, but my schedule got really hectic in June finals, grades, graduation. The next report that now, looking
back, may have been related was something we heard on the carradio on our way to Michigan in August. Even with the antennaup, reception driving through much of Upstate was garbled. But
we were planning to camp near the Finger Lakes our first nightout, and the ominous clouds made me switch on the radio in thehopes of hearing local weather conditions. What we heard wasmostly static, except for a piece of a newscast about a car bomb
exploding and killing five men. We couldn't make out where it
had happened. "Middle East, I bet," Lori muttered. ''Yeah,'' I
agreed, "or Northern Ireland ."Later on that evening, when we went to the campstore for ice,
I glanced at a local paper and saw a headline about a bomb
explosion in Westchester. Huh. Not what we'd thought. Lori readover my shoulder. She shook her head and turned away to findthe charcoal. I read just enough to learn that the police were
unsure of whom the attack was aimed at. Without this information, the process of discovering the perpetrators could not begin.
The five men killed in the blast did not appear to have been mixed
up in anything that could have resulted in their being targeted.
"Male violence.""What?""Male violence," Lori intoned as we marinated the vegetables
for the veggie shishkebab. "The boys are killing the boys in
Westchester now."''You can't reduce everything to that. The world doesn't work
like that. Hand me that skewer. Is this enough mushrooms?"''You're really wild! No, put on some more. You really arewild . You're the one who used to have to ask every bookstore if
they had a women's section ... "''Yeah - you could never understand why it mattered if

52women had a place of their own. And now, a short five years later- you're the one who walks out when the clerk explains there
isn't one. But what has that got to do with what I said? You can't
just throw everything together under one heading. The world is
too complex. Nothing is that simple.""1 know the world is complex and nothing is simple. Stop
talking to me as though I were in your English class. And anyway,
I was quoting an Alix Dobkin song.""Oh. I didn't mean to play teacher. I'm sorry. Do you think thatthe onions should get parboiled?""But it's true anyway ... Yeah, maybe. They take longer thanthe zucchini and the other stuff. Did you know that one in every
four girls is sexually molested by the age of I8?"
"Oh god! Is that a real statistic? That's incredible. That's
awful...""Male violence ... ""Male violence ... Maybe it is a good idea if they kill each other.
Leave us alone.""But the only problem is they're not killing each other fastenough. Maybe we need to give them a little help."
I couldn't see Lori's face as she leaned over the grill. "Are you
serious?" I said. ''What are you saying? You're not saying thatwomen should kill men - just because they're men. I mean,
they're people. They're human beings. Women don't kill anyway. That's male. Remember - male violence. I really don't agreewith you, I don't ... ""Hey - You're getting upset!" Lori interrupted sharply.
''Why are you getting so upset? I haven't killed anyone. I'm notplanning on killing anyone.""I'm not upset. It's just that - well, we can't be like that. We
can't be like them. Women are different."''Yes, I agree with you. Women are different. But don't go
putting women up on that ridiculous pedestal you used to havethem on. Women are capable of doing anything they want to do.""Oh that's not even the issue ... ""Pass me the marinade. I think two of these are done. Do weneed more water?" Lori picked up the pot holder from its place
on a flat rock, next to the neatly lined up barbecue utensils. Evenin the woods, Lori created order.
53

The papers, by the end of August when we got home, werefilled with accounts of men killed for no apparent reason. Not thatthe papers made the connection that all the victims were male.
Since "man" is still generally synonymous with "person," there
was no connection to be made . .
Labor Day came and school started again. But something hadchanged. Women, it seemed to me, began to look at each other
differently. Not all women, of course. But the women I saw on aregular basis, at meetings and readings and dances. We all
seemed to look at each other differently. Our eyes seemed to
linger a moment longer than was necessary, the corners of ourmouths almost, but not quite, turning up into smiles. Something
was happening. It was in the air. It was on TV. It was all aroundus. Something was changing. When I was a child, autumn meant
walking home from school through piles of dried, crunchy,orange-brown leaves, the air sweet with the smoke of bonfires.
The crunch and smell of the dead leaves filled me with exhilaration. Leaf-burning is against the law now, but that same
summer's-death sense of exhilaration filled my being now.
Lori and I began planning our annual Halloween party. We
were sitting at the kitchen table, trying to design an invitation,
when Lori suddenly jumped up and ran into the bedroom. She
came back paging through a book.
"Let's put this inside the invitation - black paper with orange
paper glued to it. And this on the orange paper." Her finger
pointed to the words of Andrea Dworkin: Many women, I think,resist feminism because it is an agony to be fully conscious of the brutal
misogyny which permeates culture, society, and all personal relationships. It is as if our oppression were cast in lava eons ago and now it isgranite, and each individual woman is buried inside the stone ..
I read it twice. Then I looked at Lori.
"This isn't an invitation, Lor. Lori - What's going on?"
"It is an invitation - of a sort," Lori answered, staring hard at
me. Then she looked away. "I'm going to a meeting on Wednesday. It's not at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center."''What kind of meeting? Where is it?"
"It's ... The group's called BITS. You can come if you want to... Do you want to?"''W ednesda y?"54

"Yeah.""What kind of a meeting is it? What's BITS?""Look at the last four words of the quote."
I did. "Buried inside the stone. Is that it? You' re going to agroup called 'Buried Inside the Stone'?"Lori nodded. Her expression was impossible to read. I don't
even think she had an expression. "Are you going?" I asked her.
Lori nodded again.
"It has something to do with what's been going on - with thenewspaper stories ... with the killings ... Doesn't it?"
Lori didn't answer. Slowly, she folded a piece of black construction paper in half and placed it in the page containing thequote. Then she closed the book and took it back into the bedroom.
The sky is filling up with rain clouds. They say that the weather
patterns for our area have been drastically altered by the greenhouse effect, the build-up of pollutants and break-down of ozone.
Perhaps that's the reason. Maybe we're all just reacting to theradical changes in the environment we inhabit ... that our psyches are being altered, affected like the fishless lakes of the
Adirondacks and the leafless trees of the Smokies. I don't have areal theory yet. I know only that women's ways are different than
men's. I know only that too much violence has been done to
women. I am not a violent person. Lori is not a violent person. But
the men must be stopped. I do not wish to become like a man. I ama woman. Women's ways are different.
Lori isn't here now. She hasn't been here for awhile. In themorning, I slice a banana and I open the can of cat food and i pourthe coffee. Lori is organizing something bigger than our refrigerator and our lives. I'm not sure it's going to be okay. But that does
not seem important. I have a meeting to go to in a little while. It's
not at the Community Center.

. Andrea Dworkin, Our Blood, p. 78. Perigee Books, G.P. Putnam's Sons,
NY, 1976.

55

Julie Justicz

Look Twice Now

I read a bookcalled Men Who
Rape behind mybolted bedroom door
cried a little
because one girl
five foot one
pushed down in a puddle
ate mud at his commandand jumps these days
when she seessuch a pick-up truck
and fears rainstorms like I
look twice now
when crossing train-tracks

56

Ruthann Robson

Learning to ReadI know it is cold because Cecile returns to bed after her shower
with her socks on. She burrows under the quilt, twisting her
ankles around mine. I can hear Colby in his own room singing out
the alphabet. When I get up to make the coffee, I light the candles
on the windowsills, as if this will keep us warmer.
"The coffee's already on," Cecile says. "Close the windows.""It's only September," I answer.
"It's cold."''We live in Florida," I remind her.
"North Florida," she reminds me. ''We're not in Miami anymore."
I miss the smell of hibiscus. It is not yet autumn, and already themornings are more chilled than February. I think Cecile looks
cute in socks, but I hate to wear them myself; socks make me feellike a child.
''You're not going to turn on the heat, are you?" she accuses.
"It will warm up"''You're just like my mother," Cecile says. ''You would rather
freeze your ass off than use a little electricity.""It isn't the electricity," I tell her, but I don't know what it is.
After spreading out a pair of Osh-Kosh overalls, a blue andwhite striped shirt, some white socks and Snoopy underwear for
Colby, I lavish myself with a hot shower, grateful that Cecile has
left me some steaming water. I imagine what I will wear to work,
deciding on a purple pullover and lavender pants. Toweling myhair, I see Cecile walk into the kitchen with the purple pulloverand lavender pants, as if she read my mind.
Colby is still singing the alphabet and he still has his pajamas
on. The clothes, however, are on the floor.
"Get dressed," I yell.
''What does this say?" Colby asks, pointing at the letters on his
pajamas. Last year, he was involved with the three wolf-looking
dogs silks cree ned on the pajama top. Now, he wants to learn to
read.

57

"Chinook," I say.
"And what does this say?" Colby asks Cecile, as she brings me
a cup of coffee.
"Team Sled Dogs," she reads.
"Look, a '5', a'S' ." Colby is excited.
''Yes. '5' starts the word 'sled.' S-L-E-D," Cecile says patiently,
as I am trying to wrestle Colby out of his pajamas, worrying thatthey are the warmest pair that he has, and he is wearing them in
September.
''What's a sled?" asks the almost-five year old who has neverseen snow.
Cecile, who has seen snow twice in her life, explains dogsledding to Colby. Although Cecile spent her childhood in the subtropics, she spent most of it reading National Geographic magazines.
"Hurry up and get ready for primary," I change the subject. "If
you are old enough to be in primary, you are old enough to get
dressed yourself."
My suggestion has no effect on Colby, who is tracing the word
"Chinook" with his finger. After two weeks in the primarysection of the Co-op Free School, the word "primary" has lost its
magic. After months of pleading and cajoling, Colby finally madehis way across the fence into primary. Now, it all seems blase. lt
depresses me to see one of the cruelest habits of life - that anticipation leads to disappointment - already ingrained in a four
year old.
Cecile and I are also less than thrilled with primary, althoughin our case we did not have too many expectations. This school isthe "alternative." While the scant women's community is often
subsumed into the "alternative" community, when it comes to
the Co-op Free School, it sometimes seems as if the word "cooperative" is not broad enough to include Cecile and me.
lt also seems that "co-operative" excludes lots of other people.
While the facade of the school is interracial - the walls arecovered with magazine cut outs of mixed race children who mustbe attractive to the Anglo eye as well as politically correct - thechildren who actually attend the school are as uniformly lightskinned as Colby. The most physically different child has abirthmark the size of a quarter on her cheek; the most emotionally58different child is undergoing sugar deprivation for his hyperactivity.
On the way to the school, Colby finally dressed, Cecile and I
talk for the hundredth time about sending Colby to public school
as soon as he is old enough. For now, it seems as if it is either the
Co-op Free School or the Christian Academy.
But sometimes when Cecile and I walk into the Co-op schoolwith Colby between us, I think mornings facing the fundamentalists might be easier. It is not difficult to read the faces of the adults:
surely, it only takes one of them to hold the boy's hand, keep him fromdropping his lunchbox containing Dreo cookies although they have been
told we disapprove of sugar, sign him in. With one of us, the teacher
and her aides (all of them women, all of them married, most forthe second time) can pretend we are not who we are; can pretendthat somewhere there is a happy husband rushing off at this very
moment to committee work at the food co-op or a responsible jobat the university with walls, or at least to yet another episode of
acceptably heterosexual infidelity. So, Cecile and I always walk in
together.
This morning, when we walk in, we learn that September is"family month" at primary. I do not notice the bulletin board at
first because I am noticing how nice those lavender pants hug
Cecile's thighs. Cecile elbows me, pointing.
WHAT IS A FAMILY? the block letters on the bulletin board
ask. Underneath, is the block letter answer: FATHER MOTHERSISTERS AND BROTHERS YOu. To the side are three magazine
cut outs: a white man and woman with a blond boy child and ablond girl child and a baby; a black woman and man with a brown
eyed black skinned boy child and a brown eyed black skinned girlchild and a dark brown skinned baby; and an Asian woman in akimono with an Asian man in a business suit and an Asianlooking baby. The lines drawn around each of the pictures lookso thickly uncrossable that it makes me wonder how all thoseinterracial children on the walls got there.
I mean to comment on this to Cecile, but when I look at her I can
see that there is a storm gaining strength under her eyebrows.
Cecile has the same sort of torrential temper that my mother has.
While Cecile spent her childhood looking at magazines, I spentmine reading the skies of my mother's eyes. So, as soon as I spot59

that certain cloud around the iris, I try to redirect the storm. This
morning, with Cecile, I pull her out of the room, banging my kneeon one of those two-foot high tables.
I barely get the car door closed before the downpour.
"1 have had it," Cecile screams. "Men. Men. Men. These stupid
jerks and their fucking fathers.""Cecile," I say.
"I'm tired of it. We pay all this money to send Colby to analternative school and they shove that shit down his throat. Everyfamily does not have a father.""1 know that, Cecile."''Well, apparently those fools don't.""1'11 speak to someone." I am hoping that Cecile does not takeme seriously. I am hoping Cecile knows that I am saying this tomollify her. I would be content to let it slide, perhaps light a pinkcandle. And then change schools.
"Good. Go talk to the director," Cecile says, taking me seriously.
Like any other two people who have known each other longer
than five seconds, Cecile and I assign ourselves and each otherroles. It would be easier, I sometimes think, if Cecile and I had
more rigid roles; like breadwinner/homemaker or even butch/
femme. Our life, however, has never been capable of being split
into even such complicated dualities. Instead, I - the woman
who won't close the windows no matter how cold it is because thecalendar on the wall reads September - am being cast as thelogical one of the co-mothers.
I open the door to the car. I try to remember the director's name,but I can only think of radio jingles for sugar free candy. I clear mythroat to make room for my "I-know-you-really-did-not-meanto-be-an-insensitive-shit-but-your-homophobia-is-showing"
tone of voice. Surely, I think, it cannot be that difficult to talk to
the director of an alternative kindergarten. After all, I am employed with the state of Florida in a responsible supervisory
position, although I am dressed a little funkily and wish I had on
those lavender pants. I decide upon the administrator-to-administrator approach.
But before I am totally in the little office, I am being nagged
about the garage sale to benefit the school. The director, whose60name I still cannot recall, is reminding me that I have not yet
donated any items and insisting that I must have something
suitable.
"I'll look," I promise, not stopping to take 'a breath. ''But what
I really need to talk with you about is family month at primary.
I'm a little troubled about the theme, especially the father thing.
Not all children have fathers, you know."
Silence.
"Oh, I know that," she finally says. "It isn't meant to be
offensive. And I really thank you for saying something. Parental
involvement is what this school is all about. I'm so glad you spoke
up. Parents sometimes think I can read their minds, but I can't."
I do not mention that there was never a need to read my mind,
all she had to do was read anyone of the seemingly hundreds offorms Cecile and I had to fill out to enroll Colby, forms withquestions about pets, favorite colors, and maybe even the pets'
favorite colors.
'Well," I finally say.
"Like I said," she says, "I'm really glad you shared yourthoughts."
It is at times like this that I see the fury of Cecile and my motheras the logical response. I would like to rip the artfully knottedbandana from around the creamy neck of the director.
Instead, I am true to my role. My character resembles Antarctica more than a tropical hurricane.
'What are you going to do about it?"
"I can take it up at the next Teachers' Planning Day.""And when is that?""October ninth," she says.
"How convenient." I stalk out to Cecile.
I tell her about my conversation with the director. To Cecile's
credit, she lets me finish before her curses fog up the windows. To
my relief, she focuses on the director of the school.
After Cecile drops me off in front of the office building, I spend
my time trying to sort out my politics, my responsibilities to
Colby and the Monday morning reports. I would like to put mypersonal life on hold, but the phone lines keep ringing. Now myprivate line rings with its Cecile ring.
She can't meet me for lunch today. She's got the car. She's
61

picked up Colby. She's home trying to figure out how to work theheat. She' s going to make a list of our options. She'll pick me up
at five.
"Four," 1 tell her. "I'llieave early."
She tells me that she loves me; that she'll be there at four; that
she loves me; that we'll have soup or something warm for supper.
After a dinner of cheese soup and toasted cheese sandwiches,
Cecile produces her list. It includes suing the school, bombing theschool, home schooling Colby, starting a lesbian school andmoving to Cuba.
"My Spanish is shit," 1 respond only to the last option.
"So's mine. But wouldn't it be neat to have Colby learn to readin Spanish. Mira perro," she says, as if she has been practicing.
"The lesbian school is an interesting idea," 1 answer.
"Great, until you think of who else would be involved," shesays, axing her own idea. "Can you imagine a school with Prissy
the Nazi's kids?""Don't use the word Nazi so lightly.""I'm not. What would you call her? Born in Paraguay afterWorld War II, her father a German scientist.""People aren't responsible for their fathers," 1 argue.
''Maybe not. But she sends her eleven year old son off to amilitary school in South Carolina because he was acting 'like asissy.' She campaigns for Republicans. She may sleep withwomen, but she ain't a lesbian in my book.""There are other people," 1 say, hoping Cecile does not ask me
to name names.
'Whatever." Cecile smiles. "1 think we should teach him toread at home."'We already are."
Colby can pick out words like "and," "the," "moon" and"ocean" from his favorite books. He has memorized the stories
like poems, of course, but we are teaching him to see letters aswords, to say words as sounds, to hear sounds as meanings. He
is anxious to learn, as if he can smell freedom.
When 1 was learning to read, it was that same smell of freedomthat intensified my hunger. Sitting in my mother's lap, 1 learned
the skills which would make it possible for me to have a life
different from hers. It was in a book where 1 first learned about62women who loved each other. I like to imagine that I was reading
those books in the same spaces of time in which Cecile sprawled
in a windowseat reading National Geographic articles about
women with dogsled teams.
For Cecile and me, learning to read allowed our world to bedifferent from our mothers'. But now that Cecile and I are
mothers, I find myself not wanting to allow Colby's world to bedifferent from ours.
I want to protect Colby from the F-word: father. I want tocensor all those books with their perfect Daddy and Mommy
dyads. I want to forbid all the fairy tales and legends and myths
full of insipid women who are either bad or beautiful and boys
who are either handsomely virtuous or stupidly ugly. Since hewas born, Cecile has been reading to Colby and changing thewords. Now we are teaching him to read. Soon, he is going tofigure out that MOM cannot be spelled both M-O-M and D-A-D.
Our phone rings.
''Who is it?" Cecile asks.
"The school," I say, without moving. My ability to know who
is on the phone without answering it used to spook Cecile. Afterall these years, she now merely thinks it is convenient.
"Should I answer it?" she asks.
"Go ahead."
The poor mother (it is never a darling daddy) unlucky enoughto be on our branch of the phone tree soliciting items for the Coop Free School garage sale finishes her spiel to Cecile.
"If we aren't good enough to be represented in family month,then I doubt our white elephants are good enough for the garage
sale." Cecile slams down the phone.
"I hate the whole idea of families," I tell Cecile.
''We've had that discussion a thousand times," Cecile estimates.
In less than an hour, the phone rings again.
"It's the school," I say.
"Even I know that," Cecile says, picking up the receiver.
''We did tell you how upset we are." Cecile is telling thedirector.
"No, I don't expect you to read our minds. We told you thismorning." Cecile is raising her voice.
63

"Another bulletin board sounds like a pretty token gesture."
Cecile is pretending to be even-tempered.
"Well, we'll talk it over." Cecile hangs up.
"Talk what over?" I ask Cecile.
"Oh. That jerk thinks she can fix everything with a bulletinboard filled with photographs from the kids' families. We should
send a picture with him on Wednesday. The teacher will do acollage."
While Colby is in the bathtub, Cecile and I talk about victoryand compromise, about consensus and politics, about when wewere kids, about being different from other mothers because weare dykes and being different from other dykes because we aremothers and about being different from other dyke mothers because we are who we are and who we are means we are different
even from each other.
After Cecile's anger has subsided and Colby is clean, she wants
to compromise by sending an outrageous photograph of the threeof us. I want to pull Colby out of school for "family month."
After Colby gets into his Chinook purple pajamas, despite myargument that it is turning warmer, Cecile reads him a book. He
claps whenever he spots "and" or "the" or "ocean" or "moon."
Cecile is trying to teach him "tree." He becomes confused between "the" and "tree." He whines and cried.
"No one said learning to read was easy," Cecile almost-scolds
him. "Now, do you want to learn to read or don't you?" she asks.
I am half-hoping he says no, but Colby says he will try harder.
Cecile tells him to count whether there is one "e" or two. Colbysmiles, learning another secret.
When Cecile is finally finished with the book and Colby hassung himself to sleep with the alphabet, Cecile and I relax in our
bedroom. I watch as she takes off those lavender pants, a golden
splotch of soup stained into the thigh. I light a candle on thewindowsill. A damp night breeze blows through the open windows.
We sit cross-legged on our pink quilt. We look at each other,
two women with a child asleep in the next room. This is theuniverse we have made - we have ourselves and we have eachother and we have long conversations, sometimes with words
that sprint from our lips to the other's ears and sometimes with64

words which travel between us without moving through either
time or space.
When we get out the tarot cards we each ask the same questions; and the same immediate question: what should we doabout the Co-op Free School? We spread the cards and pick themand talk about them. We get the Towers and Five of Discs and Sonof Cups and the Star.
We decide we need some more practical advice. In the same
moment, we are striding towards the phone, each of us wondering whether it is too late to call our mothers.

~~~'~Ethics~lesbianA forumforethicalissuesamong
lesbians.

Envisioning theWorld We Were All
Meant to Live In.
• ESSAYS• READERS FORUMS• REVIEWS/COMMENTARY

Now in her fourth year.
3 issues for $14; out of U.S. $16 surface. $24 air.
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65

Minnie Bruce Pratt

My Life You Are Talking Abouthe ugliness, the stupid repetition
when I mention my children, or these poems,
or myself as mother. My anger when someone
tries to make my life into a copy ofan idea in her head, flat, paper thin.
How can I make any of this into a poem?
What do I mean by this? For instance:
Me standing by the xerox machine, clack, slide, whish.
Another teacher, I've known her for five years,
asks what I've been writing lately,and I say:

These poems about my children,

holding up the pages. Her face blanks. I'd never seen that
happen before, the expression, a blank face: vacant, emptied.
She says:

I didn't know you had children.

So I say:That's why I'm writing the poems. Not many people
know I have children. They were taken away from me.

She says:

You're kidding.

I say:

No, I'm not kidding. I lost my children because I ama lesbian.

She says:

But how could that happen to someone with a Ph.D.?

I lean against a desk. I want to slap her with anger.
Instead I answer:

I'm a pervert, a deviant, low as someone sexualon the street, as a prostitute, a whore. I'm unnatural, queer. I'm a lesbian . I'm not fit to havechildren.

I didn't explain:

A woman who's loose with men is trash;a woman with a woman is to be punished.
66

Because this woman was supposed to be a feminist andunderstand something.
I walk away, carrying away the poems,
useless words, black tracks on flimsy paper.
So much for the carryover of metaphor,and the cunning indirection of the poet (me)who lures the listener (her) deeper and deeper
with bright images, through thorns, a thicket,
into a hidden openness (the place beyond the self:
see any of the preceding or following poems.)
So much for the imagination. I don't say:You've known for years who I am. Have you
never imagined what happened to me day
in and out, out in your damned straight world?
Why give her a poem to use to follow me
as I gather up the torn bits, a path madeof my own body, a trail to findwhat has been lost, what has been taken,
when, if I stand in the room, breathing,sweating a little, with a shaky voice,blood-and-bones who tells what happened,
I get her disbelief? Or worse:
A baby-faced lesbian, her new baby snug in her closed arms,
smiles matronizing, smug, and asks
had I ever thought of having children?

Have you ever thought of having children?
What I thought as the payphone
doctor's voice pronounced jovial
stunning pregnancy, advised philosophy(why he had five, this one's only mysecond) was where would my life bein this concept mother-oJ-two?
There was no one around to see.
67

I could cry all I wanted while
I sat down and got used to the idea.
At a friend's house for dinner, we talk about: my boys, her girl,the love affairs of others, how I like morning bed
with my lover. She complains how sex is hard to getwith a three-year-old around, glances at me as if to say:
You have it so easy. Does say:Well, if you had children:
In his crib the first one bangs
his head on the side, little worm
wailing lost earth. He burrows,
pushes through, in, out my vagina,
while in another room, I cringeat the push of his father's penis.
Other side of the door, the two boys
half-grown, gangly in their sleep.
In bed, her hand slides, cold, doubtful
from my breast, she frets what are they
thinking? While I whisper, hot, heatin my breath, how I lost them for touch,dangerous touch, and we would not believe
the mean knifing voice that says we lose
every love if we touch. We pull close,
belly to belly, kiss, push, push,no thoughts in writhe against ache,
our sweaty skin like muddy ground,when we come back to being, there, in bed,
and to the sleeping presence of children.
In a classroom, theories of feminism, we wind through ideas
about women, power, the loss of children, men and ownership,
the loss of self, the lesbian mother.
They have heard me say how it has been for me. The woman
to my left, within hand's reach, never turns her face toward me.
But speaks about me:68

It's just not good for children to be in that kind of home.
I am stripped, naked, whipped.
Splintered by anger, wordless.
I want to break her, slash her.
My edged eyes avoid her face.
I say:Why do you think this?

I do not say:What have you lost? What have you ever lost?

Later I say:This is my life you are talking about.

She says:

I didn't mean it personally.

Over the phone, someone I've known for years asks what I'm
writing now.
I say:

I'm working hard on some poems about my children.

She says:Oh, how sweet. How sweet.

69Linda Quinlan

Summer of 53

The tree was behind the Soldier's Home.
The knotted rope swing pulled between our legs
as our bodies swungand our toes touched the leaves below.
This was before the boys opened us
like the names they carved on bark.
They gathered frogs from the pond
and threw them under cars
just to hear them pop.
Us girls held each other's hands
and tightened our roller skates with keys.
On the stoop our fathers played poker
and laughed at the frog crackers
as the heat exploded into twilight,
and the porch lightand shirts went on.
I saved as many frogs as I couldby making noise,but most weren't quick enoughto hid in the summer grass.
They slipped in oil as thick as mud.
I sat down by the pond
and made mud pies
listening to my mother yell about polio
as if that were the only danger.

70Linda Quinlan

Ruth Wiseman(my mother's partner)

hey lift fifty pound slabs of rubber
to make shoes
hoist it onto the table
and smooth the edges
as if one of their children
were being powdered.
The factory stacks
like towers
fume behind them.
I wait after schoolby the iron gate
then stand between them.
Ruthie has small hands,
hands that help her accent.
They move like grazing deer
splitting the grass with their tongues
and my mother understands words
that I have never heard.
Ruthie's hands are as soft
as a stuffed pillow
and I watch themthese hands tha t quieted
one crying child with deathto save the other two.
On the bus
my body shakes
with every bump.
Mother's lips
look as red as the garage
behind our house71where paint bubbles like blisters.
They talk of German winters.
I can feel the wind through window cracks
and hear the crisp soundsof boots on the snow.
Ruthie gets off at Carmel Street.
The bus jerks forward;
I am thrown into her seat.
It is warm and torn apartand my feet swing underneath
as if separated from my body.
I can see her red earrings
dangle in the distancethe ones that crossed Europe
and she has let me touch themwith my fingers .
Mother holds onto her lunchbox
her eyes fixed on the silver handle.
I move back beside her
because I knoweven as a childthat I can only lean
towards Ruthie's empty seat.

72

Anna Livia

Spaceship to the Good Planet
Five of them sit cosily watching the television, a lesbian sitcom,
rare treasure, and it isn't even bad. Ella's feet are in one lap, herhead in another. Nicole is making a fresh pot of tea. Soon there
will be pancakes and Shirley will offer a teaspoon of her closely
hoarded maple syrup. They will laugh and ask how she proposes
to share one teaspoon between five. She will reply that they'll
have more fun all trying to lick the spoon together.
The phone rings. Nicole, who is nearest, answers it. They do
not see her face go white, the fear in her eyes, but they hear when
she walks towards them, saying, "It was a woman with an American accent. She said 'The Jew-haters must die.'"
Penny and Jean groan and shrug. Such a household for trouble,
only the syrup comes in spoonfuls. Shirley is on her feet, her arms
round Nicole. Ella is about to check the front door, somehow she
imagines death comes through the letter box. She has not quite
left the room when Nicole turns to her.
"Do you think it could have been Miriam?"
The scream which leaves Ella's mouth is high enough to crack
the glass of the sliding doors to the garden. High enough, but notlong enough. Shirley cuts it short.
"Could it?" she insists.
"It could not," shouts Ella. ''No. How can you think? How canyou imagine? Miriam doesn't go around threatening women. It's
as likely to be an Arab as a Jew.""Of course. Arabs always address their death threats to 'Jewhaters,'" says Shirley coldly.
The room empties, the pancakes are never made. One by one
Penny, Jean and Nicole go (cocoa less} to bed, slinking away fromthe hysteria and rage which has invaded their comfortable
kitchen. Ella and Shirley scream at each other until the small
hours. It is a few weeks after the massacres at Sabra and ChatHa.
This is only one in a series of anonymous death threats to
Lebanese, Palestinian and Jewish lesbian groups.
73

In Shirley's collective there is a woman, Farida, whose motherwas murdered in the Sabra camp. The row between Ella andShirley has been brewing ever since Farida's mother died, eversince Ella started sleeping with Miriam. There is a sudden lull.
Both Ella and Shirley draw breath.
"I don't want Miriam in the house any more," says Shirley. "It'san insult to Farida.""Just because Miriam's Jewish? That's all? That's all you haveagainst her?""She's part of that Jewish lesbian group.""Shirley, you and I are both lesbians, and we are both ingroups, the only difference with Miriam is she's in a Jewish
group. That's blatant anti-semitism.""I'm not anti-semitic. I'm anti-Zionist.""It seems to amount to the same thing."''My friends find it difficult to be around your friends.""I find it difficult to be around you."''We find it difficult to be around each other," said Shirley,"You know, if we were talking Russian we could make that one
verb and conjugate it."
Ella raises her eyebrow. Shirley smiles tentatively. Her Russiancame from her father.
''What makes this so much worse, Shirley," says Ella, "is how
much I like you. I just don't understand how you can have a
Jewish father and . . .""This has nothing whatever to do with my father," Shirley
bellows.
"I suppose he's still welcome in your house, then," says Ella,"unlike my lover."''You were dead right when you said you didn't understand,"says Shirley. "They murdered Farida's mother. Can't you see . .. "''Who 'they?' Listen to yourself. Miriam's never set foot in
Lebanon. She was horrified by the massacres. Why do I even haveto justify her? This is appalling."
They sit down and look at each other. It is appalling. Of all herhousemates, Ella likes Shirley best because she is generous: with
her time, her property, her passions, herself. Whatever Shirley
protested, if she'd cooked pancakes tonight, she would have used
up all her maple syrup on them. When a row was brewing, Shirley
74and Ella had it, clearing the air for the others.
''Want a cup of tea?" asks Shirley.
"Love one," says Ella.
Shirley fills the kettle, picks up the tea caddy and laughs.
"Do you know what they're doing upstairs?" she asks, "right at
this very moment?"
Ella shakes her head.
''Jean and Penny have crept into Nicole's room and they're
huddling round her camping gas burner, heating milk for cocoa,
like good girl guides pretending to be outlaws."
Ella laughs. It is true. She has so much more in common with
Shirley than with the girl guide cocoa drinkers. Shirley brings thetray over to the sofa and is about to pour tea.
"Apologise first, Shirley," says Ella.
"For what?""For suspecting Miriam.""Nicole said that.""Nicole said the name of the first American woman she could
think of. She's just a twit. But you thought it was possible.""It is possible.""Shirley, I can't stay in a house where my lover isn't welcome.""I can't apologise, Ella . I'd feel I was betraying Farida."
Ella is too tired to scream any more. She wants the spaceship toland now, right now, and take her away to the good lesbian planet
where no one is anti-semitic, or racist, or even unkind. Where
Shirley's generosity would always outweigh her stubborn, stupid loyalty, and everything would conspire to bring out the bestin Ella.
Instead she is going to leave the house now, stay the night ona friend's floor and, in the morning, join the ranks of the lesbiansemi-homeless. Maybe in ten years she will have been on a
waiting list long enough to get the tenancy of a bedsit in her name.
She will, over the years of six month short lets in damp, insecurebasements, come to regard her moonlight flit as a heroic sacrificefor Miriam. The politics will be lost as Ella loses her home, her old
friends, and her job in the move. She will depend, almost utterly,on Miriam, and soon she will lose her lover too. And then, will she
blame Miriam, absent throughout the high drama except as thefirst American with a Jewish name to come to Nicole's foolish and75

frightened lips? This is not the best of Ella. It is not the best of
Shirley, or Nicole, or Jean or Penny. And as for Miriam, she is only
a name. A Jewish name.
Ella is about to stuff some clothes into a bag and storm out
when the first deep groans of Shirley's saxophone come to her
through the open door. The full moori bursts through the clouds,
the house is bathed in blue light. Ella stops on the stairs; Shirley's
playing ripples up her spine. The light pours down the stairwellfrom the skylight; a cello joins the sax. It is impossible, but thecello sits down in the kitchen to a duet of bitterness and pain,
loyalty and loss. Ella hugs her knees and weeps. A soft breeze
blows in the window, the light turns purple, an oboe wails. Ellacloses her eyes.
It is no longer mournful. It is beautiful. It is like listening to the
March from "Aida," the Gallop from "Orpheus" and "Stormy
Weather," all separate and all at once. It is like reading a perfectparagraph of Bertha Harris, eating three mangoes and swimmingyour fifth mile, all separate and all at once. The spaceship has
landed. They knew how to find her after all.

This is the first part of a short story entitled, "Players in the Oberlin." Theoberlin is an instrument played by sentients of many different forms on manydifferent planets. On Earth, it is a force for female liberation.

,---------------------------------------------,!WOMAtJEWS
I 'I'll: _ 51 NEWSHI'fII AHCl CAUNCWI Of MNlS

I'll take a one-yeor aublcrlptlon:o H2 flfIf-clo.. moU
o H5 aupportlng-----

o 120 buainelllinatttution- - -_ ._- - - -- -CIIy _... _-- - --_._--

76..., ~

D. E. Langlois

Dick Money
This piece is a response to some of the references that have been made toprostitutes in the recent Lesbian literature; to wit:
"It was Queenie's line of work the other dykes had problems with. They all
agreed they could live with anything but that.""Then they'd shake their heads - because to them a woman who fucked men
was defiled, and that's what Queenie did for a living. There were some things you
just couldn't wash off, they said to each other . .. "This is from Common Lives, Lesbian Lives #25, and is entitled "TheQueen of the Tanqueray," by Martha Miller.
Or how about "Texas was a fat, blonde whore that summer, who smokedcheap cigarettes and wore brassy make-up; who stood under a light and beckoned
to strangers -and you and I - well, she'd gotten in our blood."This is from Sinister Wisdom #35, entitled ''Texas '52," by Charlene S.
Henderson.
My piece is a remnant of my adolescence, spent as a Lesbian prostitute in thelate 1960s and early 70s. It is something of a summary of a conversation held in
the early 70s and which occurred between a Lesbian Feminist and myself. Just
another experience that didn't wash off.

I gave you my dick money. That meant something to you. It
meant that the money came from men. Well, actually from awoman who sleeps with men. For money. I'm someone who canbe bought, you say. You also say that I am not a Lesbian (the term
Dyke is not yet in vogue). If you sleep with men, you aren't aLesbian. Lesbians don't sleep with men. But I do. And so does thewoman that I sleep with. What are we then, the two of us, when
we sleep together? Does the fact that I sleep with men outweighthe fact that I sleep with her? If so, tell me, what does that mean?
You know you have a serious problem with visibility when thegroup you belong to, a group with an admitted problem with
Visibility, insists that you don't exist. I'm moving towards being
defined out of existence. If I can't be a woman because I'm a
Lesbian, and I can't be a Lesbian because I am a prostitute (andtherefore sleep with men), then finally what am I? A prostitute, I77

guess. No one ever argues with me and tells me I'm not a
prostitute. Everyone is willing to concede that I am a sexual
object.
What does a woman who can be bought buy with her money?
Let's start at the beginning, or very nearly the beginning, when I
am an adolescent. What do I buy after I've been bought? First, aplace to sleep, as safe as possible. The Ohio East Hotel; a smallroom, you walk in and almost fall onto the bed. There is no
window. There are many roaches, a night stand, and a lamp witha very low watt bulb. I would have liked a chair to place against
the door when I slept. Sometimes my lover and I would go fordays without sleeping with men because we had somehow
managed to pay for the room through the end of the week. Thiswas before we learned to deaden our responses, before welearned not to care anymore (or at least not as much) about what
they did to us/we did to/for them. It was when we still referred
to it as sleeping with them (men), before we started saying
fucking them, sucking their dicks, calling them dicks, pink dicks.
It was also before we got to the point where we just couldn't suckanother pink dick, couldn't be touched by another one of themwithout screaming and physically attacking them (which weboth finally did, much to their surprise and confusion). It was
before the point where we thought it would be easier to die. At
first we only didn't care if we lived anymore, or how we lived.
Eventually we wanted to die, me going to sleep saying to myself,"1 hope I don't wake up, if I could just not wake up, if it could only
finally be over;" you going a step further beyond this, and trying
for it, over and over and over again through the years. You finallymade it, I recently heard; I understand, I know you were tired,
your thinking wasn't faulty; no one deserves to live, to have to
live, if that is what living feels like. You do it as long as you can,but you finally reach a point of diminishing returns.
During this period of time, before I became desperate enoughto start selling to men again, I used to sell my blood (plasma,
actually). Doing so paid $9, but only so often, because your bodyneeds time to make new blood components. This was a variation
on being used as a breeder; only this time I was used to produce
blood components which would be sold to hospitals, instead ofbeing used to produce babies. I don' t remember how often I could78

sell my blood, but I think I was able to make $27 about every six
weeks. Clearly not enough to live on. Go on public aid, you say.
Yeah, but I was afraid of any of those people with authOrity,
because they could have us locked up, in a number of different
places. I probably had warrants out for my arrest; maybe even for
assault with a deadly weapon, because when that man attacked
me I hit him with a hammer that I pulled out of my purse; did hefile charges? I don't know. How badly did I hurt him? I don't
know, I didn't stick around to figure that one out. Then again we
could be locked up in one of the state mental hospitals. My lover
was several years older than me and had had this experience on
a number of different occasions; it becomes a self-perpetuating
phenomenon. We weren't crazy, but that doesn't keep them fromdiagnOSing you as such. Or they could contact my legal guardian,also not a pleasant thought. So I didn't want to risk any contact
with anyone in authority; it just didn't sound like a good bet. Thatleft prostitution at this point. Later on it would leave theft anddrug dealing as well as prostitution, but I hadn't gotten that far
yet. Right now we're talking about dick money, the money I madeoff of sucking or fucking dicks; which, remember, I did only when
I couldn't sell my blood. This means that the dick money cost me
more personally than the blood money, because 1'd rather partwith my blood than suck cock. If I sold my blood to get money todonate to your Lesbian Feminist cause would that be ok, or wouldthat gross you out too? Would that be tainted money also, an
ethical question, a moral conflict to consider in accepting themoney from me?
I gave you my dick money, the money I live off of. Do you have
any idea what that means? Have you any ability to conceptualize
what I had to go through to get that money? And even when I
became older, and could do it (prostitute myself) with little
apparent trauma occurring as a result of it, what about what I had
to go through to get to the point where I could distance myself
from what was going on so completely?
When I gave you my dick money, I gave you something thatwas very precious to me because it cost me so very much. Giving
you my blood would have been easier, would have meant a lot
less. But I did give you my dick money. And why did I give it toyou? What does it mean that I was willing to give it to you? Why
79

would I do that? How must I feel about you?
You look down your nose at me, consider me of inferior status
to yourself; you see me as less ethical, less moral, less Lesbian.
You abuse me too. You hurt me too.
I talk to the other hookers, tell them don't give your money tosome man, some stupid pimp, you give him money and he abuses
you, he doesn't value you, doesn't care about you, you're stupid
to do that. And they look at me and laugh. "How do your women
treat you?" they ask. flOur men don't treat us no worse than yourwomen treat you. Wake up and smell the coffee. Abuse is abuse.
Beat up is beat up. Don't matter much really whether it was a man
or a woman who beat you up. You look and feel the same after
they're done with you. Only difference is, you whore for women,
I whore for men. That must be because you're a Lesbian; you must
really love your women. Next time you're in lockup, call NOW tocome get you; at least my pimp, he comes and gets me."Maybe they were right. And maybe I'm the Lesbian (me whosucks cock) and you're not.

What's so great about

SOJOURNER?
RITA MAE BROWN:" It'S ful l of responsib le news
coverage, provocative articl es,
and a solid sense of com m unity,"
A DRIENNE RICH :" It'S an unu"ua lly ha ndsom e
and intell igently w ritten
jou rn al: ser ious, responsible,
and sti mu l l t ing ,"Try !iIIUOlABI
the eleven·year·old
national feminist f orumthat comes out every monthl
Q Sampl e issue 1521
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Name_ _ _ __ _ _Address_ __ _ __TILLIE OLstN :" It'S brave marvelous,

Please mail with paym ent to:
SOJOURN ER
143 Alba ny Street
camb rid ge, MA 02139

info rmatil e, challengi ng,
invaluab le essential.
I'm deeply indebted for
all It'S brought me ,"80

Betty Dudley

Swimming Lessons

I am fat.
I stay afloat in water.
I am not a life raft,
Blown up and thrown here
To save skinny girls like you
Who cannot swim.
Don't cling to me in my celebration;
Don't climb on my back because you are too tired to tread water;
Don't load me down with your lifetime pack of problems.
I am not a mothership.
I do not wait conveniently off shore
To take you on board after a short row.
Don't make yourself comfortable in my space,
Then tell me you have no friends .
I am not your island,
Not your stable ground.
Don't walk on me because you can't find your sea legs.
Don't dump your waste,
Then sit here and tell me
You wish you were in a better space.
I am happy with myself.
I cannot make you happy with you.
Yes, there is more of me.
Enough to stay afloat in water.

81

Jan Hardy

submitting poems to a straight magazine

All of a sudden, each love scene
becomes a movie
Now Showing: Two Women
Doing Itand even my English subtitles
are a foreign language
Breasts
fill the screen
loom like planets
my lover and I
a monster matinee
Goddess of a Thousand Breasts
meets Mammoth Mammaries
Our mouths
are huge
our tongues
rivers of muscle
Our cunts
could swallow
academia
And a single pronounshecastrates
objectivity.

82Pamela Gray

Pomegranate Seeds
i.

Demeter

She said she'd be backin an hour, just wanted
to gather hyacinths
to bring to the Oracle
I tried to find her
in the darkening
dusk light, my heart
jumping from the sudden
movements of small
animals, the rustlingof leaves
I imagined she'd bebehind every tree
I saw, black
against the purple sky
I called her nameit hung in the aircaught in the webof branches like a bird
in a trap
At midnight
I lit two candles
and climbed the long hillto the Oracle, the crescentmoon a silver blade
against my throat
What I learned there
will haunt me
until I die:83

He grabbed herfrom behind, dragged her
down into the dank
hell of his homeand raped her
The Oracle told me
to find an armfulof hyacinths
fallen to the groundand I will find my way
back to herii.

Persephone

I cried for my motherhours and hours
of tearssalt stinging
my lipshe watched me
he opened his fisthis palm held a clusterof pomegranate seeds,
garnets lighting
the cavehe said the sweetness
would take away
the painand told me
to eatI sucked each seeddrew my tears
back into myself

84spit the hard kernels
onto the damp floor
I didn't knowthat taking anythingfrom himmeant giving up
everythingiii. Demeter
I told her nevertake sweet thingsfrom strangers neverlisten to the sweet
nothings
that seep from men's
lying mouths
But you know
the waysof the world
One man's brute force
destroys
years of a woman's worka heavy bootcrushinga spider web
Each day I circle
the fields
searching
for the driedremnants of her
hyacinths
And as I walk circles
within circles

85

the air grows cooler
the days grow shorter
At night she comesto me in dreams
her lips stainedwith pomegranate juice
her thighs stainedwith blood
I stopped bleeding
after he took her
No life, no fruit
will come from me
until she's backin my arms

86

c'A1LLEACh 6hEA~ . ~~~,::. >' 2t~~~~ ;, ~~~~~€~~~--~;,--,..
~-'

Calyakh Veyra, the Hag of Beurby Max Hammond Dashu
87

Mary Carol Randall

Delicate As
hze woman comes backdelicate as any clue.
Delicate as a gun runnergowned and veiled, eyes averted,in Iran, in Algeria, the veil
makes her invisible, the gun
not even a bulge
in her full clothing.
Delicate as any carpenterswinging a hammer
silver in the northern
California sunor in North Carolina,
where the woods were green
as the heart of corn,
as the memory of Eve
before Agent Orange
rained here, stripping
leaves, life, hot and merciless
as it was in Vietnam, ending
the women's land collective there.
And the woman always comes backdelicate as fire
the first tiny blue flames
licking the papers, then bursting
into red, joyous and greedy, eating
the hate passbooks;
the women
feeding the flames, dancing
in South Africa, ''You have struck the women,
you have struck a rock," they say.
88And the woman always comes backlike the moonon a stormy night
peeking through.
The goddess,in as many forms,
as there are people who see her.
In Iran, the revolution
founderedin a narrow poolof reaction, of religion, women must now
wear the veil
everywhere.
In Algeria
the veil is more and more common.
Here, women go veiledin fearof rape, dyke-bashing, death.
Yet the woman
always comes back.
Behind her veiled eyes
she remembers
the thrill and courage of smuggling
and the feeling of metal
delicatein her hands.

89Anne Haines

Arpilleras
Arpilleras are a traditional Chilean needlework form. They have been politicized by groups of women, friends and familes of the "disappeared," who usethem to depict and denounce the Pinochet dictatorship. The arpilleras are
smuggled out of Chile and sold to help fund the resistance.
Some of the images in this poem come from the article "Needle and Thead
Warriors" by Marjorie Agosin (Woman of Power, Winter/Spring 1986).

the women's hands are roughagainst burlap
as they gather to work
pushing needles through fabric,hands that work with urgency
stitching what is difficult
to say aloudthese hands have dug
in gardens, fed families
from pots that now stand empty
these are hands that have waited
too long already,waving white handkerchiefs
outside prison walls
not knowing who is within
hands that smooth the faceof a child awakening from nightmares,that moisten themselves in tears
hands that do not dig graves
there are no graves for the disappeared
the women gather
just as women do everywhereand begin to speak the truth
demandto be spoken to in truth90

demand the simple factsof loved ones and the ways they were taken
the details they remember or invent
become pictures in cloth, true storiesof the disappearedsacando sus trapitos al sol:bringing the bits and pieces
out into the sun
with bits and pieces
with scraps of clothburlap and lengths of thread
the truth here
is simply the image
burned into the heart
stitched into cloth
slowly and with sorrowscenes of silent protest
translations of memory
are patched into wall hangings
arpilleras
which are soldand smuggled from Chilea fragile lifeline, to places
where their names can be spoken:
Irma, Mireya, Mercedes, Ana,
Anita, Elaida, Eloisa
needles flash in the sunsuch tiny weapons
such moments of knowing
as their eyes meet over clothbound together by the momentsin their lives when everything changed
and they alone left to tellbound by the images they stitch

91

by the truths:
empty pots, empty chairs
empty streetsat night, as a van drives off
into darkness
with shadows inside
the silence of voices
smothered by cloth
gives way to the silenceof no one there
now cloth begins to breakthat silence
speaks of people plucked from corners,
from cafes, from theaters,from beds, from arms
and the waiting
and the waiting
the women's hands fly
their needles like birds
they stitch houses with empty windows
women outside the houses
watching, speaking, joining together
and the mountains
and the clear blue skybring the bits and pieces
out into the sun

92Viki Radden

Not Black America

I went shopping downtown today
and not once was I
accostedcalled"mama""sweet thing"''bitch''or talked to like a dog
by my black brothers
I realized thenthat I must not have been in
ChicagoDetroitD.C.
San Francisco
or in any Black American ghetto
where angry black men assert their 'manhood'vent their rage and frustration
on any black woman who happens to pass them by
I am not in Black America
I am in the Pacific, an ocean away
A black woman
has to cross an ocean
to escape the abuse
that spews from the mouthsof angry black men

93stomp, bruiser, fang, sparks ... and footnote

Womyn in the Joint
Wimmin in the Joint
This article is about prisons and it was written in hopes that it
will spark consideration and discussion of these ideas. We are notso interested in recruiting lesbians/ women to think exactly as wedo, as we are in promoting thought and talk that moves us all
forward . Also, we believe that lesbians/women in prison are
under attack and need our awareness and support.
This article deals with adult women in prison. We are awarethat hundreds of thousands of children are imprisoned andsomehow survive the horrible conditions. This is a subject foranother article.
In patriarchy, physical violence or the threat of physical violence is a primary tactic of cunt-role. The just-us system is run by
the elite BMW's (Bourgie Male Whitefolks). It exists to retain theircontrol and to ensure the preservation of the existing power
structure. Womyn who question this system by fighting back areconsidered out of control (out of male control anyway); andwimmin who kill are definitely beyond control (crazy bitches).
Battered womyn who kill their batterers are not "political prisoners" by the standard/traditional leftist definitions, but they are
given harsh and heavy sentences, over three times the penalty
given male batterers who kill the women they abuse. In a systemthat's based on the rights of men to treat women and children any, way they want, killing men is seen as a highly charged politicalact. As one judge justified a long sentence ..."we can not condone
this behavior. We can't have women declaring open season on
husbands ... "Womyn and lesbian political prisoners and prisoners of war
are not criminals by the standard/ traditional definition either.
They have made a VERY conscious decision from a serious
political awareness of the world and its enemies. And these boldbitches are amazingly successful at striking effective blows. Just
like wimmin who kill their abusers, womyn political prisoners
94are given extremely long sentences and serve them under harshconditions ... " We can't have political women declaring open season on the system ..."
Maybe this is simplistic, but maybe it is also true that there aremany overlaps and similarities, if we pay attention to witch
worn min are seen as the enemy of the powers that be. After all,degree of punishment is relevant in determining who is considered more dangerous by the punishers. They know we are "atwar."
Lock-Ern-Up Whenever Possible
The united states imprisons more people per capita, and keeps
people locked up for longer lengths of time, than any otherindustrialized country. (The soviet union and south africa aresecond and third.) The prison population has more than doubled
in the past ten years, and womin are the fastest growing groupwithin that increase. Is it coincidental that more womyn than everbefore are being institutionalized at the same time as the women'sliberation movement is gaining a very broad base strength andapproval among women???
"PRISONS" change according to need. For example, 50 years
ago it was easier to imprison wimmin in the home. Anothersuccessful "prison" for womyn, specifically Black womyn, wasslavery (total control of wommin's sexuality as well as her physical labor). Another traditional lock-up for women of all races andclasses has been mental institutions. Whenever women don't
agree with the system, and more specifically with their subjugation as women/ lesbians, they are called crazy/ lesbians ... And
the more butch, the more criminal! crazy they are diagnosed. All
bad girls in amerika are thought of as crazy. The newer lock-up
for womin who refuse in one way or another to be under male
control is prison itself, traditionally used almost exclusively forpoor men and men of color.
Most "crimes" committed by wommin are non-violent. Mostof these acts are related to economic survival such as forgery,stolen property, fraud, not to mention the victimless crimes ofdrugs and prostitution, which account .for 90% of the women in
prison. The new federal codes demand that more and more first
offenders be thrown in prison. In the past, women were likely to95get probation for a first offense and be scared Straight (as a heterosexual) away from further criminal activity. Now with the lockem-up wherever possible mentality there is less and less choicebecause once a womon is in prison she is stigmatized for life. She
is a slut, a horrible person, a lesbian, a disgusting creature, awhore, and definitely an unfit mother. Between 70 and 80 per centof women in prison come from impoverished backgrounds; 50%
are between the ages of 22 and 30 (except in the federal system
where the average age for women is slightly higher); 24% aremarried; and 60-70% are mothers.
Less Than Minimum Wage: Who Says Prisons Ain't Class-y
The current trend in amerika is to imprison more and more
people. And increasingly, prisoners are being used as cheap
labor. Building and managing prisons is big business. Prisons are
moving away from just warehousing people and are becoming
highly militarized forced labor camps.
The unemployables have always included women, but evenmore so these days. Wommin are the cutting edge of the changing
economic scene in amerika. As single mothers, as lesbians, as
economic need dictates wommin refuse to accept the traditionalroles specified for them under decaying u.s. culture. The roles forBlack womyn that were created under slavery have been transferred over to the prison system (in 1985, 46% of all wimmin
prisoners were Black). The base theory for u.s. prisons has always
been "out of sight, out of mind."
As the working class becomes poorer and more unemployed,
BMW's see a chance to get work for less and less wages. In prison
industries workers are paid anywhere from 10 cents to 1 dollar anhour for jobs that workers on the outside would get at least
minimum wage for. Women, particularly women of color, havealways been the most unskilled and unemployable. This works to
keep women dependent on welfare, workfare, all so-called social
agencies and on the individual men in their lives. Women prisoners are working in prison industry sweat shops just as colonized
women work in sweat shops in Singapore, Puerto Rico, Johannesburg, New York or San Francisco.
Another side of this is the "prison-ification" of amerika. Security systems, drug testing, ID cards, and other control measures96

that were first used in prisons are being brought into non-prison
workplaces and communities. They prove every day that if they
can get away with doing something to people in prison, they will
do it to people on the streets.
Sexual Harassment as Social Cunt-Role

The increasing numbers of women in prison, and their growing economic role, have required the development of new meansof social control. One is "control units" like the Lexington Control
Unit, where women, mostly political prisoners, were subjected to
24-hour a day psychological, physical and sexual torture, withthe clear intention of ''breaking'' them physically or mentally.
The threat of being sent to a unit like this is used against any
prisoner who dares to resist.
Another technique is the institutionalization of sexual harassment. Traditional sex roles in this society make womyn constantly vulnerable to specific sexual attacks in ways that men cannever be.
"Sexual threats and sexism as a weapon are rampant in theprisons as a whole. It is an underpinning of the institutional
policies of the BOP (Bureau of Prisons). It is encouraged andapplauded by the administration ..." (Susan Rosenberg). Even
when men rape men in prison it is blamed on women (or cuz there
are no women). Even the brave and brazen out-there faggot isseen only as a substitute woman by his fellow prisoners. Sincebeing female and vulnerable is seen as shameful in the generalview of this society (and this is of course reflected in the left), it isno surprise that women/lesbians are never a political focus for
too long. Men are so uncomfortable, guilty, and threatened by thelevel of sexual abuse that wommin can be forced to endure on adaily basis that they will use all sorts of excuses not to deal withany specific women's oppression.
The colonizer will always consider the slave his sexual property, especially in a prison environment. This was made veryclear during the struggle around the Dessie Woods case. And one
thing for sure - in all control units in this land it is only wommin
who have to ask male guards for kotex (one at a time). And it is
only wommin who are held down by robot guards and raped
vaginally as well as anally. This sexual victimization of women is97

a model that is then applied to other sexually vulnerable people
like gay men or children.
Feminist Co-Opt-Eration

The just-us system is a system of victimization and abuse, but
this is obscured by propaganda from newspapers, t.v., government officials, lawyers, etc. telling us that people are sentenced
because of the "crimes" they commit..."remember they are terrorists ... " (quote from letter from BOP about Lexington Control Unit,
1987). This propaganda helps create an illusion of protection for
oppressed people and enforces that tired old myth that thesystem can work in our favor. This encourages the people who
feel! are powerless to call upon the police for protection. In
reality, however, sentencing has little to do with one's race, sex,class, sexual identity, religion, etc.
Wimmin who try to protect themselves or their children fromrape or other assault are often manipulated into cooperating withthe just-us system. They are told that the prison system is the only
alternative. The fact is, it isn't an alternative. No man is ever sent
to prison for rape, since the vulnerability of women and children
is a basic fact of patriarchy. They are sent to prison for being too
dark, or too poor maybe, but not for abuse against women.
As women, we feel powerless and desperate against abuse,and so we can be convinced to support the very system that
abuses us. But we never have the control or power in this system.
A woman who is raped is not the one who brings the charges, whomakes any major decisions regarding the case, or who decides thesentence.
How come we are clear that an individual man beating his wife
is horrible, but we are not so clear that turning over working
class/men of color/women/lesbians to judges/police/psychologists is doing their dirty work for them? When we call thepolice on a batterer, we are turning over a little batterer to a big
batterer, and helping the bigger batterer cover up his cruelty. This
helps him pretend he is protecting womanhood instead of enforcing a system that's destructive to women. The women's community, like other oppressed communities, can and does find ways
to make our own justice, whether it's safe houses or armed self
defense teams, or anything in between.
98

Lezberadas ...

There are over 200 political prisoners and prisoners of war inthis country (using conventional left definitions) and more than
25% are women. Three are out lesbians. Judy Clark has been in
prison for more than eight years, in some form of segregation/
isolation for most of that time. Laura Whitehorn and Linda Evanshave been in prison since 1987 on sentences up to 40 years, and are
currently on trial in Washington, D.C. (See other article in thisissue for more information about these sisters.)
Gay people are outside the mainstream employment market
unless they manage to pass in some way through education and /or acceptable costume (drag) . Lesbians are even further outside.
Poor dykes, dykes of color, and working class dykes have evenless opportunity to gain skills when they do not stay put in thecloset. They usually get nothing but shit jobs with little or no job
security or advancement. When we get to prison, we usually end
up doing more time, and doing harder time.
Lesbians in prison and lesbian political prisoners are an important part of our community, and their defense is a part of building
our future. "Being a lesbian is a really important gut level part of
why I'm a revolutionary and I want to be part of the struggle toend our oppression, not contribute to it by being back in thecloset..." (Linda Evans) .

Judy Clark, before incarceration
99

Marilyn Kalman and Rachel Lederman

Talking with Three
Lesbian Political Prisoners
Standing on the sidelines, watching the annual "Peace, Jobs andJustice" march in San Francisco, if you know how to spot dykes,
you will see a Lesbian presence in every contingent. Lesbians
march with the labor unions, the anti-intervention and solidarity
movements, anti-racism organizations, peace groups, politicalcommittees. Lesbians have played a major role in many of the
progressive movements in this country. Yet, too frequently, we
haven't intentionally made ourselves visible as lesbians, andhave failed to demand that a strong call for lesbian liberation be
included in the platforms of the mixed movements in which we
work.
By the same token, some lesbians who work exclusively in thewomen's community are alienated from the left or do not see
much connection between the women's/lesbian movement andother movements for social justice. The alienation of many progressive lesbians who do not actively support left causes and theinvisibility of lesbians who do are often both a product of homophobia or lesbophobia. As lesbians, we recognize that there is aconnection between lesbian liberation and the national liberation
struggles of other peoples colonized by dominant powers. We see
the importance of working with left movements and struggling
against homophobia within them.
There are three out lesbians (that we know of) who are currently incarcerated in U.s. prisons, facing long sentences as aresult of their anti-imperialist and anti-racist activities, as well as
their association with the women's liberation movement. They
are Judy Clark, Linda Evans and Laura Whitehorn.
As activists and lawyers, we had become involved in visiting
Laura and Linda when they were incarcerated at Pleasanton
prison in California. We wanted to give them an opportunity totell their stories to the lesbian community.
Judy was convicted in 1983 on numerous charges stemming100

from the Brinks expropriation attempt of 1981, and is serving a 75
years to life sentence. She is currently being held in a Federal
facility in Tucson, Arizona, awaiting transfer to a New York Stateprison. Linda is doing 45 years, 40 of which are for a convictionof using false identification to purchase legal weapons. (Thelength of sentence unprecedented for the crime charged.) Linda
faces an additional 45 years and is awaiting trial in Washington,
D.C., with five other co-defendants, on charges that she has "conspired to resist U.s. government policies and practices throughthe use of violent and illegal means." Laura is awaiting trial with
Linda on those same charges in Washington. She is also facing
separate charges for weapons possession and assaulting an officer. Laura has been held without bail for almost 3 years.
For each of these women, their commitment to fighting forsocial justice for all people has resulted in a major life sacrifice.
Like many of us who are in our late 30s/ early 40s, these womencame into their "political being" by supporting other people's
struggles.
JUDY CLARK: ''When you grow up in the '50s in Brooklyn,
a Jew, a daughter of communists, a girl who reads and thinks
and dreams and sometimes must speak out, you grow up
acutely aware of being Other. And that Otherness - it either
is a nightmare from which you do anything to escape. Or
you take it as your own, you adopt it as your child; you arethat child, that Other and you love it. You love yourself as
Other and that makes you love all the other Others you find.
You feel their Other pain, as you feel your own rage andfrustration and alienation. Their fight is your fight. And you
feel uplifted, empowered when Others rise and struggle. To
join that struggle, to support that struggle is not a sacrifice.
It is a privilege; it is a liberation, an inspiration, an act of selfempowerment and affirmation. My world opened up with
my discovery and involvement with Black people instruggle. My horizons broadened with the inspiration of theVietnamese and Cuban revolutions. Here I found Life andculture, here I found hope and faith. Here I found a vision
worth climbing toward. This was the path I chose. This pathbrought me to the earliest women's liberation groups."
101

LINDA EVANS: "I was born May II, 1947, and grew up in
Iowa and the Midwest in a staunchly Republican family. My
family lived in a nearly all-white, small farming community.
I graduated high school as valedictorian in 1965 and attended Michigan State University in East Lansing. I
dropped out of college in 1967 as a result of my awakening
consciousness of racism and a rejection of the privileges of
the academic "ivory tower." I remember very vividly a field
trip to inner-city Detroit, walking around the glass-strewn
streets, and the shocking waves of awareness of how massesof Black people were being forced to live - and the contrast
to my own middle-class, privileged upbringing. In June of1969 I moved to Detroit as part of an SDS (Students for a
Democratic Society) Summer Program to support the Blackliberation movement and intensifying work against US
aggression in Viet Nam. In June of '69 I went to Viet Nam asa representative of SDS. This trip changed my life forever.
Perhaps more influential than anything else was the example of Vietnamese women and the importance of the role
they played in mobilizing the entire population. Women
overcame tremendous difficulties - years of traditionalsocialization to stay in the home, their own fears and men's
reluctance to accept their new roles, a chronic lack of education and skills - to become full participants and leaders in
the liberation struggle."
LAURA WHITEHORN: "I am 43, a Jew, born and raised in
New York. I began my work as an activist in the civil rights
and anti-war movements in Cambridge during the sixties. I
started out writing letters to congresspeople and signingand circulating petitions. I remember sitting up late at night,
writing letter after letter to Bobby Kennedy, pleading with
him to do something to stop the war. In 1968 I moved to
Chicago and my view of the world began to radicallychange. For one thing, racism was more raw and obvious
than it had been in Cambridge. For another, the Chicago
police were so clearly a racist force with power - acting as
an occupying force in the Black and Puerto Rican communities. I saw this with my own eyes daily - cops stopping102

young Black men on the street, searching and questioning
them for no reason. The anti-war demos at the Democratic
Convention also opened my eyes. There we were, in thestreets, being gassed and beaten by the police - what had
happened to the democracy I'd believed in the day before?
After that I began working in support of the Black Panther
Party and the Young Lords Party. What I had come tounderstand was that the issues I was concerned about were
issues of power, not just kinks in a basically sound framework. Control, power - the right of people to determine
their own lives."
Many of us came to recognize our oppression as women andlesbians and the need for a women's liberation movement in partas a result of encounters with sexism in the left.
LINDA EVANS: "My political consciousness was actually
first awakened by the grim realities of racism in the US andthe horrors of the Viet Nam War. I became a political activist
primarily out of a sense of outrage at the suffering andinequities that exist inside the US and around the world. But
as soon as I started to assert myself in the anti-war/student
movement, I began to encounter resistance from the menaround me, and I began to understand my own oppression
as a woman in our society."
The reaction to sexism in the left was clearly not the only basis
for the development of the women's liberation movement.
LAURA WHITEHORN: "Through the late '60s my consciousness as a woman was growing, but it was still prettyvague, and definitely still individual. I resented the limitations put on me as a woman, but I didn't see this as acollective problem of women, nor did I see the possibility fora collective struggle to change it. But now that was something else I learned from the Black struggle: oppression is acollective social problem, not an individual one. Some
women trace the roots of the women's liberation movementof the '60s to women becoming fed up with the maledominated left. To me, it's always seemed an outgrowth of103the most powerful struggles for social change we saw at thetime. In other words, to change things, to get rid of the things
that held us down, we had to organize ourselves as womenand struggle against whomever and whatever was holding
us down."
While Judy, Linda and Laura each came to recognize their own
oppression as women, became integrally involved with thewomen's liberation movement and eventually came out as lesbians, they continued in their commitment to fight against racism
and to support the national liberation struggles of other oppressed peoples.
JUDY CLARK: "In the early '70s, as women who had foughtin the Civil Rights, anti-war and anti-imperialist movements found their way to the women's movement andfeminism, some cried, 'Enough! I've spent all my energy
supporting other people's struggles. Now we must fight forourselves.' But that denied our historical legacy. We foundourselves, discovered and defined ourselves in relationshipand solidarity with Third World Struggles. I have neverbeen able to disown my legacies. I came out in fits and starts,
through the last years of the '60s and early '70s. I came out
at a time when gay liberation was exploding and droves ofyoung women and men, including many activists came out.
I came out in the years that 5,000 Black revolutionaries andactivists were jailed and hundreds were shot down, whileothers went underground to organize armed resistance tothe government's effort to stamp out the most fertile seedsof revolution in this country. I came out in the years that theoverwhelming majority of those with whom I'd marched,rioted and fought suddenly or gradually settled down toquieter,less embattled lives. But coming out only sharpened
my sensitivity to the crushing of liberation movements, tothe reality that the war in Vietnam was not over and the drug
war against Black and Latin youth had just begun, to myown rage and refusal to make a separate peace."
LINDA EVANS: "The late '60s and early '70s were a time ofgreat energy, activity and growth in the women's liberation
104

movement. Women were forging unique connections witheach other, engaging in a lot of political struggle and analysis, and learning strength and commitment from the examples of women around the world - in particular, thewomen of Vietnam and women leaders in the Civil Rights
and Black Liberation movements. In many ways it was thepower of the women's liberation movement that helped me
discover the deep love and respect I have for my sisters andfor what women have accomplished in the world. Certainly
it was the support of other women that helped me acknowledge to myself and to the world that I am a lesbian, to bewilling to talk about it and be proud of it. For me being alesbian is both deeply personal and profoundly politicalthere is no real separation. Fundamentally, it's my own
oppression as a woman and as a lesbian that has led me tocommit my life to struggling for revolution."
The connections between lesbian liberation and efforts for nationalliberation (e.g., the struggles of the people of South Africa,
Central America, Puerto Rico, Palestine and Black and Native
American people inside the U.s.) are not always obvious to whitelesbians. In our work it's been important for us to look at theseconnections as well as understand the differences. This is not anattempt to create something from nothing, to pull teeth to justifya political perspective. The development of our analysis begins
with our life experience, learning from the experience of others
and studying. These are complex issues and our analysis is far
from complete. We hope that this dialogue with other lesbians
will help clarify issues, contradictions and directions.
In preparing to write this article we had discussions with northamerican lesbians who are anti-imperialists in different parts ofthe country. One commonly-held position was that no people canexperience true liberation until all peoples are liberated.
JUDY CLARK: "Because I yearned for unity, a just peace, fora true communion among equals, the political visions that
resonated and moved me are liberationist visions. I havealways felt, have always known that no person, no woman,no one people can be free, can be whole or at peace, unless
all peoples are free. That no liberation can take root on the105bent backs of other oppressed people. That solidarity is not
a gift we bestow, but a necessity for our spiritual, social andphysical survival."
Through our discussions the ideas we wanted to present here
became clearer, although not crystal clear. Many of the issues are
not new but deserve more attention. The interests of northamerican lesbians in many ways differ greatly from those ofpeople who are fighting for their national liberation. There is a lot
we don't have in common with other progressive communities
and these differences often lead to conflict. On the other hand wehave common enemies, like white male supremacists, like theU.S. government and the rich and powerful behind it.
One of the problems in the U.S. that obstructs resistance is that
there aren't a hell of a lot of people who think things shouldchange. People hold onto what they have in the face of racism,sexism, anti-semitism, homophobia and many forms of exploitation. There is so much wealth in this country and it's spread out
just enough to keep people placated with their creature comforts.
The lines are clearer for third world and indigenous peoples ofother nations. U.S. corporations are visibly robbing them of labor
and resources every day, while the U.s. military robs them of selfdetermination. Therefore, large numbers of people in these nations are more willing to fight for revolutionary change. The
people of Nicaragua and El Salvador, for example, have a muchbetter chance of achieving major social change in the near futurethan we do in the U.s.
As lesbians who are interested in achieving social justice, it isimportant that we be a part of this process. In addition to adding, our numbers to the fight against U.s. dominance, progressive
lesbians have a lot to contribute to the shaping of new societies.
This contribution helps to ensure our own future by making surethe issues of homophobia and sexism are always addressed. Ourpresence also includes the work our community has done in suchareas as spirituality, collectivity, environmentalism, and bodyand health issues, to name a few.
LAURA WHITEHORN: "Because I'm a lesbian, fighting tochange the system as it now exists is a very necessary thing
to me: I'm fighting for the right to live as I wish, without106

being a target of hatred and discrimination. It also meansthat building alliances and unity with other struggles
against the u .s. government is very important to me. I
believe that the struggle for women's liberation will never
be won except as part of a struggle against the people, forces
and structures responsible for keeping women, along withother oppressed people, down."
LINDA EVANS: 'What is the relationship of my identity as
a lesbian and all of these political ideologies, besides in myown personal! political self-definition? Objectively, national liberation struggles are leading the fight against
imperialism and establishing societies that vastly improve
the quality of life for the vast majority of their people:
Nicaragua, Zimbabwe, Angola, Cuba, Mozambique, Vietnam are only a few examples. For us to act in solidarity withthese struggles, from inside the center of the empire, willbring imperialism's defeat sooner.
"In order to build strong alliances with other liberation
movements, we will have to struggle that an end to gay andlesbian oppression must be part of building a revolutionarysociety, that women's liberation must be a fundamental
principle, and that sexual preference/ orientation should
never again be a reason for discrimination in any aspect of
our lives. But for working alliances against imperialism to
be built, we will also have to struggle hard against racism
and white supremacy in our own community, and against
the national chauvinism and arrogance that so often leads
people to assume that they have the right to intervene intoanother movement's internal decisions about direction or
strategy. These alliances are crucial to our collective survival
and, ultimately, to winning the opportunity to create abetter society where peace, justice and equality can prevail."Yet, these alliances are not always easy. As women, we havebeen taught to put ourselves last and as lesbians, we all sufferfrom internalized homophobia. These factors combine with theexternal homophobia we experience in mixed movements toprevent us from putting forth as strong a voice for lesbianliberation as we might within the left. Judy Clark speaks of the107

necessity for our revolutionary vision to start within our lesbian
selves.
JUDY CLARK: "Today, I say, 'I am a lesbian, I am an antiimperialist.' Both are true and each affects the other. But for
years, one qualified the other. I was a lesbian but I was ananti-imperialist. I was a revolutionary, but also a lesbian but I wouldn't let that get in the way. I fought for women'sliberation, but I hated the elitist exclusivity in much of thefeminist movement and culture. I was at war with myself.
"We couldn't embrace our experience and identity as lesbians as a positive reality in and of itself, worth fighting for.
Always we were seeking the elusive political formula that
could justify our lesbian identities on anti-imperialist terms.
Over and over, we were drawn, out of the best of ourinstincts and identification, to women fighting for themselves, their children, their lives. Over and over,we'd backaway because we couldn't transform these struggles into
part of a neat, pro-national liberation, anti-racist package.
We stood outside ourselves, our communities, shouting,shadowboxing against the spectra of our worst nightmares.
''We de-eroticized our lesbian lives. What was legitimate
was what could be contained by political analysis and could
be enlightened by revolutionary prir..ciples. But the sexual
energy, the personal self-affirming, celebratory energy, therage and love and desire that come from within - all that
became fugitive.
''We denied ourselves and feeling lost, without any identity, we sought to find ourselves, re-create ourselves as
Third World people. But the seeds of our rebellion, ourmilitancy and courage and commitment lay not in their lives
and heritage and identities, but in our own. Out of our own
selves came the capacity for solidarity, the transformative
vision of liberation that is quite different from striving forequal rights on a ship that's on fire."
Judy Clark has been in prison for approximately seven years,
most of that time spent in isolation. Linda is currently held insegregation from other prisoners. Both she and Laura are subject
to severe conditions which inhibit their ability to prepare their108defense to the charges they now face. When you compare thesentences and conditions of other prisoners it is clear that these
women are being persecuted for their political beliefs.
At the same time the government literally isolates these lesbians and other political prisoners and Prisoners of War by cutting
them off in segregation units, it would like to isolate them fromus by labeling them terrorists and extremists. Unfortunately
many of us have assisted the government in condemning ourown sisters who have been charged with engaging in armed
struggle and/ or destroying government property. Even thoughsome of us may not agree with armed struggle as a strategy forsocial change, we cannot let the government decide strategy for
us. We are doing just that if we jump on the bandwagon anddisassociate ourselves from women whom the government labels as terrorists. We should instead commit ourselves to the
dialogue that is necessary to resolve and accept our differences
while remaining conscious of our commonalities.
Not only does the label terrorist help the government justify
the cruel and unusual punishment directed at Political Prisoners,
but it helps justify government attacks on our own community.
For example, the FBI and other police forces have attempted tojustify their extensive surveillance and infiltration of progressive
organizations (including gay and lesbian groups) during the past
few years by claiming to be looking for terrorists. If we agree withthe "terrorist" label, we help open the door to the suppression of
all efforts for social change.
Many of us, no doubt, share similar lesbian herstories with
Judy, Laura and Linda. Most of us probably share some perspectives with them as well. When we agree with the government's
effort to "criminalize" their activities, it is like cutting off our own
arms. They are truly a part of our community and, along withother political prisoners and prisoners of war, need and deserve
our support.
JUDY CLARK: "Always, throughout my seven years inprison, I came back to certain fundamentals, over and over,such that I know them as my bedrock, my home, my being.
In that bedrock is my identity as a revolutionary, and myidentification with other oppressed peoples around the109world and in this country, with people in struggle for selfdetermination and empowerment. In that bedrock is my
identity as a lesbian, my sense of community with otherlesbians, my passions and love for women and sometimes(when I'm lucky) a woman, and a universe of emotions as amother."Laura and Linda are expected to go to trial with four co-defendants,
Marilyn Buck, Susan Rosenberg, Allan Berkman and Tim Blunk, at thetime this goes to press. They have been charged with resisting thepolicies and practices of the United States government through violent
and illegal means. The specific acts in question involve the bombing of
the u .s. capital and a number of military installations in the D.C. area.
The bombings caused no personal injuries.
The six, who call themselves the "resistance conspiracy defendents,"
have been held in the D.C. jail awaiting trial since May 1988. During thattime they have been subject to many human rights violations. Theynever get to see the light of day, they have been shackeled and chainedand denied access to legal counsel. Generally, the government is doing
whatever it can to inhibit their ability to prepare a defense. Laura Whitehorn is the only one who is not currently serving time on a conviction.
She should be out on bail but the court refuses to even give her a hearing
on the matter.
The indictment itself amounts to a human rights violation, as the
charges are clearly politically motivated. The government is expending
exorbitant sums to try these "resistors," four of whom are alreadyserving sentences in excess of 40 years.
The Justice Dept./FBI wants to send out a clear message that people
like Laura and Linda are terrorists by putting on a "show trial." They willbe tried in a special courtroom behind a plexiglass wall, intended toprejudice the jury.
, Show your support. Write Judy, Laura and Linda. If you want tocomment on this article, dialogue, argue or just to say hello, your letterswill be very welcome.
• Judy Clark, 83G313, Bedford Hills Prison, 247 Harris Road, Bedford
Hills, NY 10507• Laura Whitehorn, 220-858, DC Detention Facility, 1901 "D" Street, SE,
Washington, DC 20003• Linda Evans, 233-411, DC Detention Facility, 1901 "D" Street, SE,
Washington, DC 20003
For more information contact: Bayside Legal Advocates, Kalman/
Lederman, 67-D Hoff Street, San Francisco, CA 94110.
110-------------------------------------Revievvs
Not Vanishing, poetry and prose by Chrystos. (1988, Press
Gang, 603 Powell St., Vancouver, B.C. V6A IH2 Canada)This is a powerful book, written by a powerful woman. The
subject matter embraces and explores Chrystos' various identities (Native American, lesbian, incest survivor, ex-psychiatricprisoner, spiritual seeker, maid, childless) and the intersection ofthese identities.
"Dr. A told me being Indian didn't matter/ said I had
Character Psychosis .. . My Visions she assured me werepart of my sickness/ a tunnel my eyes couldn't light"(Doctor's Favorite Color)"it's such a fine/ fine line/ between my instincts & theirsanity laws"(Crazy Grandpa Whispers)
Much of Chrystos' work is to strip away myths about who
Native Americans are, and to reveal the truth of her life/ our lives.
"My tendons stretched brittle with anger/do not look
like white roots of peace"(I Walk In the History of My People)
In one of my favorite Chrystos poems, "Today Was a Bad Day
Like TB," she delivers a stinging indictment of cultural imperialism:"Today was a day I wanted to beat up the smirking man
wearing/ a pack with a Haida design from Moe's bookstore/ Listen Moe's How many Indians do you haveworking there? / How much money are you sending the
Haida people to use their sacred raven design?"
Chrystos speaks pain and truth about the consequences ofincest.
"Praying for relief I've buried you therapied you/ talked
you into blue streaks & scars cut my arms my breasts/
expelled a thousand seeds Wet clay to your fist 1/
111

couldn't drink enough shoot up enough spread my legsenough/ hundreds of strangers & worse"(Bitter Teeth)"Eli," a long poem about a boy child beaten to death, has
haunted me since I first read it months ago. In this work Chrystos
explores the cycles of violence and the role we each play in theirperpetuation. How seductive, how familiar, violence becomes.
"Beaten too often/ one has ruts where it is so easy to bebeaten again/ It is all I can do l to love those who don't
beat mel because they are such strangers."
She acknowledges what it means that she is not a mother, tells
us she sent a boy child and his mother (her lover) away because
she could not love him.
Chrystos also gives us line drawings and poems depicting her
spiritual journeys.
"I wait for the wings on my wall to speak to mel guide my
hungers teach me winds I can't reach"(Wings of a Wild Goose)Some of these journeys are in the lands of lesbian love.
"her mouth takes me her/tongue tells long dancing
stories of flight stars darkness burst/ fingers flicker in mybones"(Double Phoenix)
Many lesbian authors write in celebration of our bodies and thenatural world. Chrystos' distinctive voice is especially apparent
in "Fresh Out," a prose piece in which she calls on the elements
to get her through the day.
"Listen sun you girl that gets up every morning
before the rest of us & hauls ass across the whole damn sky
every day all day until your feet hurt too"Listen Sun give me a little courage for this joint"
Most of the poems are dedicated to individuals important inChrystos' life. In addition, the book ends with extensive acknowledgements because, as Chrystos tells us, "Nothing is pos-112

sible without relationship." My only real complaint is that thepoems are not dated.
This book will push you to go further in your understanding of
WHAT IT ALL MEANS. Buy it. Read it. Give it as a gift. Go
further.
- Barbara Ruth

A Lesbian Photo Album -The Lives of Seven Lesbian Feminists,
by Cathy Cade. (Waterwomen Books, 3022 Ashbrook Court,
Oakland, CA 94601, 1987, $14.95. California residents add $1.04
sales tax per copy, shipping prepaid.)
As a lesbian, living in a homophobic society, I hunger forreflections of myself, while I simultaneously fear being recognized and known as I am. The life stories of seven lesbians arecourageously revealed through the photographs in Cathy Cade's
A Lesbian Photo Album. These women's stories illustrate thediversity and commonality of lesbian lives. These women are
Asian, white, Black, Latina and Jewish. They are disabled andable bodied. Sometimes they go through periods of tremendous
emotional strain. Some are mothers, some are thin, others fat.
They are each of us and at the same moment uniquely themselves.
It took tremendous courage for each woman to reveal her story.
To quote Audre Lorde, 'We fear the visibility without which wecannot truly live ... And that visibility which makes us mostvulnerable is also the source of our greatest strength." Homophobia, the fear of lesbians and gays, not only isolates us from eachother, but keeps us from knowing ourselves.
I met Cathy Cade, the photographer, author, and publisher of
A Lesbian Photo Album, in the early 1970's. We were on women's
land at a workshop on women and creativity, in a consciousnessraising group. We were telling our stories, in photographs andthrough words. The personal was political. Our stories counted.
Our ideals were strong. We were creating lesbian culture andlesbian nation. The politically repressive 1980's ushered in agreater lesbian invisibility as well as less time and energy to create113lesbian culture. Finally, while on vacation on women's land, I had
the time to savour A Lesbian Photo Alb.um. I was hungry for thisinspiration, to be once again reminded of the beauty and strengthof our lesbian lives. Each woman became a new friend. In my
experience the warmth and caring of friendship with people
different from myself brings me freedom from my racism, classism, able-bodyism, and other oppressive conditioning. Throughknowing each of these women's stories, I let go of more stereotypes and allowed for the complexity of their lives. This bookinspired me to pull out my photographs, to honor where I comefrom and the strength it took to get to where I am now.
A Lesbian Photo Album is about seven women thirty-five toforty-five years old. The "transitional generation, most of us were
adult before we even heard the word feminism." The historicalintroduction by lesbian feminist Lois Rita Helmbold chronicles
our common lesbian history. "This book examines the ways inwhich our pasts color our present and asks what we are doing totransform ourselves and our society. It is another small piece ofthe pot, unearthed and dusted off, placed with the alreadycollected fragments that will someday form a comprehensive
lesbian history."
A Lesbian Photo Album challenges stereotypical images of lesbianism. This book expands our awareness of who we are andopens up new options. Some of my favorite photos are: a nude ofAnn, pensive and pregnant; Willyce, taking a long hard look atherself in the mirror during the time when she was anxiety riddenwith agoraphobia; Jeri's lesbian Aunt Elsie, sitting arm in arm
and obviously enjoying her woman lover, circa 1940; Cathy
cradling her son Carly and laughing uproariously; Judy holding
a statue of the Great Goddess with a fat sensual body remarkably
similar to Judy's.
Treat yourself to an affirmation of who you are and our
evolving lesbian culture. The 150 photos are high quality reproductions and these women's stories are fascinating reading. Buy
A Lesbian Photo Album at your women's bookstore or orderdirectly from Waterwomen Books. You'll be in for a pleasantsurprise!
- Nelly Kaufer114

______________ Books Received
Reclaiming Medusa, short stories by contemporary Puerto Rican Women,edited and translated by Diana Velez, 1988, $8.95, Spinsters/ Aunt Lute,
PO Box 410687, SF, CA 94141 .
Why Can't Sharon Kowalski Come Home? Sharon's lover's chronicle of thecase to regain access to and a life with Karen, after a car accident left her
seriously disabled. Includes information and forms to create a Durable
Power of Attorney, by Karen Thompson and Julie Andrzejewski, 1988,$10.95, Spinsters/Aunt Lute.
All the Muscle you Need, an Eliza Pirex Mystery about the disappearanceof an old friend, set in the San Francisco Bay area by Diana McRae, 1988,$8.95, Spinsters/ Aunt Lute.
The Lesbian S/M Safety Manual is more or less what it seems, edited by Pat
Califia, 1988, $7.95, Lace Publications, PO Box 10037, Denver, CO 80210.
The First Stroke, short stories of dyke passion and power in the S/M vein
by Cappy Kotz, 1988, $7.95, Lace Publications.
Daughters of Khaton, one female and five males land on an all-women'splanet, by Merril Mushroom, 1988, $7.95, Lace Publications.
Mundane's World, a mythic woman-centered first novel from Judy
Grahn, 1988, $10.95, Crossing Press, PO Box 1048, Freedom, CA 95019.
The Prosperine Papers, a middle-aged midwestern dyke struggles withher grandmother for access to a lesbian's unpublished papers, by Jan
Clausen, 1988, $8.95, Crossing Press.
Alive & Well, A Lesbian Health Guide, by Cuca Hepburn, Ph.D., with
Bonnie Gutierrez, RN, CPNA, 1988, $10.95, Crossing Press.
Red Flower - Rethinking Menstruation, incl uding acne, PMS, menopause,myths, dreams and more, by Dena Taylor, 1988, $8.95, Crossing Press.
Through Other Eyes - Animal Stories by Women, a collection from a wide
variety of authors, edited by Irene Zahava, 1988, $8.95, Crossing Press.
Feminist in the Dark - Reviewing the Movies, reviews of recent flicks ofinterest to women, by Kathi Maio, 1988, $7.95, Crossing Press.
Footprints, a gay mystery in the WomanSleuth series, about the baby
market, by Kelly Bradford, 1988, $6.95, Crossing Press.
Clio Browne, Private Investigator, a mystery in the WomanSleuth series, by
Dolores Komo, 1988, $6.95, Crossing Press.

Naming Ourselves, Naming Our Children:Resolving the Last Name Dilemma,
by Sharon Lebell, 1988, $6.95, Crossing Press.

115

A Mistress Moderately Fair, a playwright and an actress with secrets in a
17th-century romance, by Katherine Sturtevant, 1988, $8.95, Alyson
Publications, 40 Plympton St., Boston, MA 02118.
Crush, a high-school lesbian romance, by Janet Futcher, 1988, $6.95,
Alyson.
Dead Heat, a new dyke adventure with the cast from Dancer Dawkins
and the California Kid, by Willyce Kim, 1988, $6.95, Alyson.
Macho Slut, lesbian SM stories and philosophy by Pat Califia, 1988, $8.95,
Alyson.
Testimonies: A Collection of Lesbian Coming Out Stories by 22 dykes froma wide spectrum of backgrounds, ed. Sarah Holmes, 1988, $7.95, Alyson.
Take Back the Night, a 13 month calendar of nights. Likely you have thecalendars you need by now, but this is a very sweet lesbian spirited wall
hanging you might still want to get, ed. by Mary Blaettler and Terese
Armstrong, Full Womoon Prod., PO Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 .
Ladies' Night introduces Meg Lacey, feminist private eye, bringing childpornographers to justice, by Elisabeth Bowers, 1988, $8.95, The Seal
Press, 3131 Western Ave., Suite 410, Seattle, WA 98121-1028.
The Last Draw, a thriller about a series of murders of men in Stockholm,by Elisabeth Peterzan, trans. from Swedish by Laura Desertrain, 1988,$8.95, The Seal Press.
Hard-Hatted Women, stories of struggle and success in the trades,
edited by Molly Martin, 1988, $10.95, The Seal Press.
Heavy Gilt - when the homophobic brother disappears, it's a lesbian
dinner party whodunnit, by Dolores Klaich, 1988, $8.95, Naiad Press, PO
Box 10543, Tallahassee, FL 32302.
Double Daughter, the third in the Nyla Wade mystery series, by Vicki P.
McConnell, 1988, $8.95, The Naiad Press.
Seventeen Syllables and other stories about the lives of Japanese womenin and out of World War II internment camps by Hisaye Yamamoto,1988, $9.95, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, PO Box 908, Latham,
NY 12110.
Desert Run, poems and stories, a second book from Mitsuye Yamada,
1988, $7.95, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.
As the Road Curves, cool dyke journalist climbs into her van and goes on
a quest, by Elizabeth Dean, 1988, $8.95, New Victoria Publishers, Inc.,Box 27, Norwich, VT 05055.
Found Goddesses - Asphalta to Viscera, a tour through the communal
rituals of dykedom and a catagorization of the spirits we invoke, as116

revealed to Morgan Grey and Julia Penelope with illustrations by Alison
Bechdel, 1988, $7.95, New Victoria Publishers.
Aids: The Women - covers women with AIDS / ARC, families & friends,
professional women dealing with AIDS, educators, the lesbian community, prostitution, prevention, resources. Edited by Ines Rieder andPatricia Ruppelt, 1988, $9.95, Cleis Press, PO Box 8933, Pittsburgh, PA
15221.

Inessential Woman - Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought, an examination of who the "we" is in (mostly straight) feminist theory, by
Elizabeth V. Spelman, 1989, $22.95 cloth, Beacon Press, 25 Beacon St.,
Boston, MA 02108.
A Passion for Friends - Toward a Philosophy of Female Affection, a wonderful work that helps us move our hearts and minds forward together, by
Janice G. Raymond, 1986, $10.95, Beacon Press.
Dreaming the Dark - Magic, Sex and Politics, new edition with new
preface by Starhawk, 1988, $10.95, Beacon Press.
Esta puente, mi espalda: Voces de mujeres tercermundistas en los Estados
Unidos, edited and adapted by Cherrie Moraga and and Ana Castillo
with translations by Ana Castillo and Norma Alarc6n, is the Spanish
edition of This Bridge Called My Back edited by Gloria Anzaldua andCherrie Moraga, 1988, $10, Ism Press, PO Box 12447, SF, CA 94112.
A Legal Guide for Lesbian and Gay Couples (Fifth Edition), is what it says it
is - an important resource for those of us in relationships, by attorneys
Hayden Curry & Denis Clifford, 1989, $17.95, Nolo Press, 950 Parker St.,
Berkeley, CA 94710.
Your Skin Is A Country, a first book of poems by Nora Mitchell, 1988,$8.95, Alice James Books, 33 Richdale Ave., Cambridge, MA 02140.
Memoir, intense poems ranging from nuclear fear to AIDS by Honor
Moore, 1988, $11.95, Chicory Blue Press, Goshen, CT 06756.
For Lesbians Only - A Separatist Anthology contains nearly 600 pages ofseparatist documents from 1970-86, an amazing and essential compilation that belongs in every dyke's home. Edited by Sarah Lucia Hoaglandand Julia Penelope, 1988, £8.95 (check price at your local bookstore),
Onlywomen Press, Ltd., 38 Mount Pleasant, London WC1X OAP England.
Lesbian Ethics: Toward New Value, a ground-breaking redefinition of
ethical theory and examination of lesbian community interactions bySarah Lucia Hoagland, 1988, $14.95, Institute of Lesbian Studies, PO Box
60242, Palo Alto, CA 94306.

117

Contributors' Notes _____________
Caryatis Cardea is a 38-year-old working class dyke, Irish andFrench-Canadian. Still separatist after all these years.
Anne Corey is a 41-year-old poet, playwright and teacher living
in Park Slope, Brooklyn with her lover and four cats. Her poems
have appeared in the anthology We're Working on It and thechapbook Love Bytes . Her play "Another Thursday Afternoon"
won a contest sponsored by the Women's Community Theatre of
Northampton, MA.
Max Hammond Dashu is the author of the Secret History of the
Witches, an unpublished book on European pagan traditions. She
also paints cosmologies of the goddess. A catalog of art prints andcards is available to senders of of an SASE to PO Box 3511,
Oakland, CA 94609.
Betty Dudley was born in Missouri and now lives and works in
San Francisco, Calif. She's in the editorial group of Sinister
Wisdom, and is a future Lotto winner.
Lee Evans: I am a white Lesbian Separatist of Welsh-GermanMexican descent living in Cleveland, Ohio. It ain't all that bad. I
can't imagine why this information is interesting to anyone otherthan my friends, which leads me to the next question: Are there
any ghostwriters who know how to spice up these little bios? It's
so hard to make yourself sound interesting in five sentences. Can
I put in my picture next time, Elana?
Carolyn Gage is a lesbian playwright in Portland, OR. Her play
"The Second Coming of Joan of Arc" was published in SW #35.
Gage is currently revising a musical based on the life of the athlete
Babe Didrikson. She is also the initiator of the Women's Rape
Museum Project, a project to establish the first museum/ memorial with exhibits to honor our victims and survivors.
Pamela Gray is a Jewish lesbian poet, playwright, comedian,teacher and co-mother living in Oakland. Her work appears in
the anthologies New Lesbian Writing, Politics of the Heart andNaming the Waves: Contemporary Lesbian Poetry.
Anita Green: Thanks to Lisa Manning, whose writing inspires
me, whose love supports me ... who said "send in that poem."
Anne Haines: I live in Bloomington, Indiana, where I am amember of the writing and performance group Source: Women
Writers. My poems have recently appeared in Common Lives/118

Lesbian Lives, Images, and Calapooya Collage. I love music, my cats,
the play of light & shadow on a woman's face .. .
Jan Hardy: I've published one chapbook and am editing ananthology of erotic lesbian poetry. My work has appeared in For
Lesbians Only: A Separatist Anthology, Sinister Wisdom and Hurricane Alice. For some reason, lesbians are my most receptive
audience.
Julie Justicz: I'm a lesbian feminist, born in England, living in
Atlanta, Georgia, with my cat, Harriet. I'm an attorney - and I
love to write - have to write. I want to live life intensely!
Marilyn Kalman is a fat, Jewish dyke. She is one of the foundersof Bayside Legal Advocates, a San Francisco lesbian law firm. She
also works with the Out of Control Committee, an S.F.-based
group, that does support work for women political prisoners andprisoners of war.
Nelly Kaufer has been involved in lesbian publishing for the past
fifteen years. She wrote, published and / or edited A Woman's
Touch and Country Lesbians. She is currently writing her thesis on
lesbian spirituality.
Debbie E. Langlois: Currently I am a full-time student at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. Most recently I completed
a project through the Women's Studies Department doing court
advocacy for women and nighttime street outreach work on
Chicago'S westside (an old neighborhood of mine). Special
thanks go to Bette Tallen and Shelley Bannister for encouraging
me in this area.
Rachel Lederman is a commie Jew dyke who lives in San Francisco where she practices law, knits sweaters, paints pictures andis active in the feminist anti-imperialist movement.
Anna Lee: I am a black lesbian separatist. I have recently returnedto the midwest.
Anna Livia is 33, white, Anglo-Irish, and tired of racism and antisemitism being greeted with glee as the tactical error of a rival
behavior. Furthermore, one cannot disown their Christianity
merely by despising it.
Linda Marie Nolte: I am a 29-year-old short, fat lesbian with
Northern European Fairy ancestry who loves living in Minneapolis. My drawings provide an emotional anchor, a safe channel
for expressing my subconscious self.
119Minnie Bruce Pratt is the author of two books of poetry, The
Sound of One Fork and We Say We Love Each Other. She has recently
finished a new book of poems, Crime Against Nature, about being
a lesbian and the mother of her two sons.
Linda Quinlan, New Orleans, LA, presently works for an oil
company that is threatening to close down and writes articles fora gay and lesbian newspaper that has just started. Her poetry has
been published in Conditions, Sing Heavenly Muse and others.
Viki Radden: I'm not a lesbian. I work as a junior high school
teacher and stereotype-buster in a small town in western Japan,
miles from English bookstores, Mexican food and live music.
Mary Carol Randall lives in Oakland with a dog and two cats.
She is involved in a women's writing group and also in a lesbianaffinity group, Revolting Lesbians.
Ruthann Robson lives outside of Tallahassee, Florida. A collection of her short fiction is forthcoming from Firebrand Books,
later this year. "Learning to Read" is part of an ongoing series,
entitled CECILE .
Barbara Ruth is a Native American lesbian writer who is currently midwiving a new publication: Out/Inside - a women's
news journal focusing on lesbian prisoners. Watch Sinister Wisdom for more info.
stomp, bruiser, fang, sparks ... and footnote: We 5 dykes live in
San Francisco and are from working class and middle class backgrounds. All of us are white. One is self-employed as a craftswoman, one is an alternative healer and the rest of us get and lose
jobs as we can. Two of us are unemployed at this moment, or most
moments. All of us do prison work, and two of us are ex politicalprisoners. Three of us are butch, and if you'll send a SASE we'll
tell you who's available. Send $20.00 and we'll send you life-sized
photographs for your home or office (specify which butch).
Bette Tallen is a 38-year-old Jewish lesbian feminist separatist
who lives in Mankato Minnesota where she chairs the Women'sStudies Department (which has a wonderful M.s. program in
Women's Studies). There are a few of us doing good work in
lesbian theory here - but we're always looking for a few recruits!

120

_ _ _ _ _ Announcements and Classified Ads
CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONEROTIC LESBIAN POETRY needed for anthology. No s/m, no previously published work. Deadline 6/1/89. Send with SASE to Sidewalk
Revolution Press, PO Box 9062, Pittsburgh, PA 15224.
WOMEN AND CANCER anthology, being edited by Judith Brady for
Cleis Press, is seeking submissions in all forms. Send submissions (2copies) or inquiries to Judith Brady, 62 Sussex St., SF, CA 94131. Deadline: August, 1989.
BUBBE MEISEHS BY SHAYNA MAIDELEHS - an anthology of writing by Jewish women about their Jewish grandmothers. Submissions in
all forms including recipes. Send with SASE to Leslea Newman, 50
Hawley St., Northampton, MA 01060. Deadline: May IS, 1989.
WORD OF MOUTH: SHORT-SHORT WRITINGS BY WOMEN. Submissions on any topic, any form except poetry, app. 500 words each.
Irene Zahava, 307 W. State St., Ithaca, NY 14850. Deadline: June, 1989.
LAS CHICANAS - a special issue of FRONTIERS: A Journal of Women
Studies . Theme: Chicanas in an International Context/Chicanas en uncontexto internacional. Material in all forms is welcome, particular interest in Chicana studies. Three copies to guest editors Cordelia Candelaria & Mary Romero, FRONTIERS, Women Studies Program, CB 246,
Univ. of Colo., Boulder, CO 80309-0246. Deadline: Cinco de Mayo, 1989.
LA BELLA FIGURA - a literary journal for Italian-American women,with a special welcome for lesbians. Send SASE for guidelines andsubscription info to Rose Romano, PO Box 411223, SF, CA 94141-1223.
DISABLED WIMMIN' S NEWSLETTER wants stories, drawings, ar-ticles, poetry, ideas by disabled wimmin. For information or to send
your work, SASE to: 2 Sun Lane, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601.
LESBIAN SHORT FICTION - twice a year Seal Press will publish thework of two lesbian short story writers in a single volume. Send stories(8 to 15) with SASE to Barbara Wilson, Seal Press, 3131 Western Ave.
#410, Seattle WA 98121.
HOW CHILDHOOD ABUSE AFFECTS PREGNANCY, ABORTION,
AND CHILDBIRTH: submissions from adult survivors, health care
professionals (nurses, midwives, gynecologists, bodyworkers), andtherapists. Interviews possible. Laura Davis (co-editor of The Courage toHeal), ed. Send with SASE to: Anthology, PO Box 460190, SF, CA 94146.
Deadline: January 1990.
FEMINIST NON-FICTION BOOKS and book proposals are being solicited by South End Press, 116 St. Botolph St., Boston, MA 02115.
12 1

UPCOMING CONFERENCESSECOND ANNUAL LESBIAN SEPARATIST CONFERENCE AND
GATHERING, June 15-18, 1989, near Milwaukee, WI. To provide Lesbian Separatists opportunity to exchange ideas, present papers, participate in workshops & discussions, play, expand Separatist networks &spark new friendships. Sliding scale: $85-$150 includes lodging andmeals. Some work exchange slots. For more info: Burning Bush, PO Box
3065, Madison, WI 53704-0065, USA.
WOMEN SHARING SPIRIT/SHARING SKILLS, April 14-16, 1989,
central WI and WOMEN'S WELLNESS/WOMEN'S HEALING,July2123, southwest WI. For more information and brochure: Conference,
RCG, PO Box 6021, Madison, WI 53716.
PARALLELS & INTERSECTIONS: a conference on Racism and Other
Forms of Oppression, April 6-9, 1989. For info, write: Women Against
Racism Commi ttee, c/o Women's Resource and Action Cen ter, Univ. of
Iowa, 130 N. Madison St., Iowa City, IA 52242.

GENERAL
MAILING LIST SERVICES. Let me computerize you! Address changes,
clear duplicate names. Peel & press labels, sorted zip or any way you
want. Confidential, reliable. No setup fees. Your cost per printed label:
5¢ if nonprofit, 10¢ if business or other. OUR GOOD NAMES, 4063
Connecticut, St. Louis, MO 63116.
THROWING OUR WEIGHT AROUND - a video about fat women!slives - needs $6,000 to complete. 20-minute "rough" version available
for fund-raisers. For info, or to send donations: Boston Area Fat Liberation, PO Box 1836, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130.
CORINNE GUNTZEL MEMORIAL FUND of the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Foundation has a new award program for projects and research inwomen's history. Write for information on 1990 grants: Harlene Gilbert,
c/o The E. C. Stanton Foundation, Box 603, Seneca Falls, NY 13148.
ISIS BARTER NETWORK - a lesbian barter company, is building a
network to utilize womynmade products and services. Great idea.
Write: 113 E. Whiteman Street., Yellow Springs, OH 45387 for more
information.
FEMINIST WOMEN'S WRITING WORKSHOPS, INC.: July 9-21 at
Wells College, NY. Guests: writers Lucille Clifton and Judith McDaniel,
publisher Nancy Bereano. Resident faculty: Mary Gilliland and Rachel
Guido deVries. Supportive atmosphere, honest criticism. For Brochure
send SASE to FWWW,PO Box 6583, Ithaca, NY 14851.

122

PRODUCTION S
proudly an nounces
the completion of their video

A~k~f~AlbmnA beautiful 'I, hour tape ex plori ng theex periences of Five lesbi an daughtersof holocaust survivors.

''Strong, clear, and ollt/ spoken. "o Please send relllal informationo Please send purchasing information

easily as f imngined Ibis poefs ~les-Common Lives/ Lesbian Lives"My eyes slipped dOJlJ1/ Ihe pages asslipping dOIlJII some handsome
llJoma,, 's body while out 011 a cnlise. "o I wanl to help Daughter'S Productions- Feminist Bookslore Newspal' off its debt and distribute thevideo. Enclosed is my IaX - deductible
cOnlribution.

3.95 plus 1.50 postage and handling, prepaid, to Sidewa lk Revolution Press, P.O. Box9062, Pitts burgh, PA 15224.

Daughters Produ ctions. P.O. Box -i lll - ~ . S.F. CA 9il il -Wi• Do You Neecl FaC IS Aboul M enopause?
• Does the Slereotyping of Olcler Womel') M ak e You Angry?
• Do You wa nllo be ParI of an Older Feminists' Network?

BROOMSTICKa Bimonthly National Magazine
by.jor. and about Women Over F orty
Annual Subscripti on (LI S. Funds Only)
U.S. 5 15: Canada 520:
Overseas and Institutions 525:
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Sample Copy: 83.50

LESBIAN ETHICS
Sarah Lucia HoaglandtNSTITUTE or LlSBIAN STlJOllSLESBIAN ETHICS uses lesbian experience as astarting point for redefining ethics. The overallthesis is that the values from anglo·european
ethical philosophy undermine rather thanpromote lesbian connection. Challenging control
in lesbian relationships. the book develops an
ethics relevant to lesbians under oppression one which avoids both blaming the victim andvictimism . which embraces the spirit of lesbian
resistance. and which encourages plurality.

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indi vidua l rei\ liries t o th e we ll o f o ur co llec ti ve co n sciou'>ness. A mu st rea d ro r evo lving
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: New' Third VOlume!

GAYELLDW

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rLAU!i I. 28/29 . r~ lIlIn b.u b~c ')!iUC "i, h )(11111: or the ~rl!\ll!lctlU""'hr"ru1l<J:I~lnsl ...
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