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Lesbian feminism is a cultural movement and critical perspective that encourages women to focus their efforts, attentions, relationships, and activities towards their fellow women rather than men, and often advocates lesbianism as the logical result of feminism. Lesbian feminism was most influential in the 1970s and early 1980s, primarily in North America and Western Europe, but began in the late 1960s and arose out of dissatisfaction with the New Left, the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, sexism within the gay liberation movement, and homophobia within popular women's movements at the time. Many of the supporters of Lesbianism were actually women involved in gay liberation who were tired of the sexism and centering of gay men within the community and lesbian women in the mainstream women's movement who were tired of the homophobia involved in it.
Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was the name of several gay liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots. Similar organizations also formed in the UK, Australia and Canada. The GLF provided a voice for the newly-out and newly radicalized gay community, and a meeting place for a number of activists who would go on to form other groups, such as the Gay Activists Alliance, Gay Youth New York, and Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) in the US. In the UK and Canada, activists also developed a platform for gay liberation and demonstrated for gay rights. Activists from both the US and UK groups would later go on to found or be active in groups including ACT UP, the Lesbian Avengers, Queer Nation, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and Stonewall.
Monique Wittig was a French author, philosopher and feminist theorist who wrote about abolition of the sex-class system and coined the phrase "heterosexual contract". Her groundbreaking work is titled The Straight Mind and Other Essays. She published her first novel, L'Opoponax, in 1964. Her second novel, Les Guérillères (1969), was a landmark in lesbian feminism.
Feminist separatism is the theory that feminist opposition to patriarchy can be achieved through women's separation from men. Much of the theorizing is based in lesbian feminism.
The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s in the Western world, that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride. In the feminist spirit of the personal being political, the most basic form of activism was an emphasis on coming out to family, friends, and colleagues, and living life as an openly lesbian or gay person.
Lavender Menace was an informal group of lesbian radical feminists formed to protest the exclusion of lesbians and their issues from the feminist movement at the Second Congress to Unite Women in New York City on May 1, 1970. Members included Karla Jay, Martha Shelley, Rita Mae Brown, Lois Hart, Barbara Love, Ellen Shumsky, Artemis March, Cynthia Funk, Linda Rhodes, Arlene Kushner, Ellen Broidy, and Michela Griffo, and were mostly members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and the National Organization for Women (NOW). They later became the Radicalesbians.
"The Woman-Identified Woman" was a ten-paragraph manifesto, written by the Radicalesbians in 1970. It was first distributed during the Lavender Menace protest at the Second Congress to Unite Women, hosted by the National Organization for Women (NOW) on May 1, 1970, in New York City in response to the lack of lesbian representation at the congress. It is now considered a turning point in the history of radical feminism and one of the founding documents of lesbian feminism redefining the term "lesbian" as a political identity as well as a sexual one.
The Front homosexuel d'action révolutionnaire (FHAR) was a loose Parisian movement founded in 1971, resulting from an alliance between lesbian feminists and gay male activists. The movement had no official leaders, but Guy Hocquenghem and Françoise d'Eaubonne were among its most prominent representatives, while other members included Christine Delphy, Daniel Guérin, and Laurent Dispot. It had disappeared by 1976. Surviving early activists also include painter and surrealist photographer Yves Hernot, now living in Sydney, Australia.
Radical lesbianism is a lesbian movement that challenges the status quo of heterosexuality and mainstream feminism. It arose in part because mainstream feminism did not actively include or fight for lesbian rights. The movement was started by lesbian feminist groups in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. A Canadian movement followed in the 1970s, which added momentum. As it continued to gain popularity, radical lesbianism spread throughout Canada, the United States, and France. The French-based movement, Front des Lesbiennes Radicales, or FLR, organized in 1981 under the name Front des Lesbiennes Radicales. Other movements, such as Radicalesbians, have also stemmed off of the larger radical lesbianism movement. In addition to being associated with social movements, radical lesbianism also offers its own ideology, similar to how feminism functions in both capacities.
Michèle Causse was a French activist, author, and self-described radical lesbian.
Antoinette Fouque was a French psychoanalyst who was involved in the French women's liberation movement. She was the leader of one of the groups that originally formed the French Women's Liberation (MLF), and she later registered the trademark MLF specifically under her name. She helped found the publishing house Éditions des Femmes as well as the first collection of audio-books in France, "Bibliothèque des voix". Her position in feminist theory was primarily essentialist, and heavily based in psychoanalysis. She helped author Le Dictionnaire universel des créatrices (2013), a biographical dictionary about creative women.
Christine Delphy is a French feminist sociologist, writer and theorist. Known for pioneering materialist feminism, she co-founded the French women's liberation movement in 1970 and the journal Nouvelles questions féministes with Simone de Beauvoir in 1981.
Martha Shelley is an American activist, writer, and poet best known for her involvement in lesbian feminist activism.
Barbara Joan Love was an American feminist writer and the editor of Feminists who Changed America, 1963–1975. With the National Organization for Women, Love organized and participated in demonstrations, and she also worked within the organization to improve its acceptance of lesbian feminists. She helped to found consciousness-raising groups for lesbian feminists and was active in the gay liberation movement.
Marie-Josèphe Bonnet is a French specialist in the history of women, history of art, and history of lesbians. She has also published books in the history of the French resistance and occupation.
The women's liberation movement in Europe was a radical feminist movement that started in the late 1960s and continued through the 1970s and in some cases into the early 1980s. Inspired by developments in North America and triggered by the growing presence of women in the labour market, the movement soon gained momentum in Britain and the Scandinavian countries. In addition to improvements in working conditions and equal pay, liberationists fought for complete autonomy for women's bodies including their right to make their own decisions regarding contraception and abortion, and more independence in sexuality.
The Mouvement de libération des femmes is a French autonomous, single-sex feminist movement that advocates women's bodily autonomy and challenges patriarchal society. It was founded in 1970, in the wake of the American Women's Lib movement and the events of May 1968. The movement challenges traditional forms of militancy: it operates through general assemblies, small decentralized groups and has a repertoire of extra-parliamentary actions such as the organization of events, the creation and signing of petitions, the holding of public meetings, etc.
"L'Hymne du MLF", also known as "Debout les femmes", was written as the anthem of the Women's Liberation Movement (MLF) in France. It was created collectively in March 1971, during the second wave of French feminism, by militant feminist activists in Paris, during a meeting in preparation for a gathering on March 28, 1971, in the Square of Issy-les-Moulineaux, in memory and in honor of the women of the Paris Commune, marking its centennial.
Cathy Bernheim, a French novelist born in 1946, is an influential feminist activist. She started off the Mouvement de Libération des Femmes. She was also a member of the Gouines Rouges, a radical feminist lesbian movement. She has authored many books about feminism and the fight for reproductive rights, and gender equality, and against sexual violence in France. Cathy Bernheim is now an author, speaker, journalist, editor, and activist wo has translated several English feminist literature. Bernheim used art as a means of activism and has participated in two exhibitions by activist Delphine Seyrig. The different perspectives she brings as an author challenged traditional gender roles when discussing feminism in France.
References
- ↑ Bibliothèque Marguerite-Durand, dossier on the MLF
- ↑ olympedegouges. "Les Gouines Rouges". Ladies Room (in French). Retrieved 19 June 2019.
