Radical lesbians

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Two movements of radical lesbians are known. One was the U.S.-based movement of the mid to late 1960s. The other was the Front des lesbiennes Radicales  (fr ), or FLR, which began in France in 1980 and became organized in 1981 under the name Front des lesbiennes Radicales. [1] An offshoot of the latter movement developed shortly after, in the French-speaking province of Quebec, Canada. [2]

France Republic with mainland in Europe and numerous oversea territories

France, officially the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered by Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany to the northeast, Switzerland and Italy to the east, and Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. The country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres (248,573 sq mi) and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice.

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U.S.-based 1960s movement

Radical lesbian organizations in the mid to late 1960s in the U.S. were small, well known, and outspoken; among "charismatic" leaders, according to Deborah Siegel, were Rita Mae Brown. [3] [4] Radicalesbians was a group in New York. [4]

Rita Mae Brown is an American writer, activist, and feminist. She is best known for her first novel Rubyfruit Jungle. Brown is also a mystery writer and screenwriter.

New York City Largest city in the United States

The City of New York, usually called either New York City (NYC) or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2018 population of 8,398,748 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. The city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.

French-based 1980s movement

Similarities and differences between lesbian separatism and radical lesbianism

The principles of radical lesbianism are similar to those of English-language lesbian separatism, however, there are some important basic differences. [5] [6] In her preface to Monique Wittig's The Straight Mind, Quebec radical lesbian Louise Turcotte explains her views that "Radical lesbians have reached a basic consensus that views heterosexuality as a political regime which must be overthrown." [5] Turcotte notes that Lesbian Separatists "create a new category" (i.e., separation from men and heterosexual culture)" [5] and that the radical lesbian movement aims for the "destruction of the existing framework of heterosexuality as a political regime". [5] Turcotte goes on to discuss Adrienne Rich's landmark essay, Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence , noting that Rich describes heterosexuality as a violent political institution that has to be "imposed, managed, organized, propagandized and maintained by force". [7] Rich sees lesbian existence as an act of resistance to this institution, but also as an individual choice, whereas the principles of radical lesbianism see lesbianism as necessary, and consider its existence as necessarily outside of the Heterosexual political sphere of influence. [5]

Monique Wittig French writer

Monique Wittig was a French author and feminist theorist who wrote about overcoming socially enforced gender roles and who coined the phrase "heterosexual contract". She published her first novel, L'Opoponax, in 1964. Her second novel, Les Guérillères (1969), was a landmark in lesbian feminism.

Heterosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction or sexual behavior between persons of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to persons of the opposite sex; it "also refers to a person's sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors, and membership in a community of others who share those attractions."

Adrienne Rich American poet, essayist and feminist

Adrienne Cecile Rich was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse." Rich criticized rigid forms of feminist identities, and valorized what she coined the "lesbian continuum"; which is a female continuum of solidarity and creativity which has impacted and even filled women's lives.

Influence of Monique Wittig

The Front des lesbiennes Radicales  (fr ), were inspired by the words and writings of French philosopher Monique Wittig, [5] and their philosophic inquiries began through a Paris-based group including Wittig and Simone de Beauvoir who published the journal Questions féministes . [8] Wittig's 1981 essay, One is not Born a Woman, titled after Simone de Beauvoir's observation, posits that "Lesbians are not women," as "what makes a woman is a specific social relation to a man, a relation that we have previously called servitude, a relation which implies personal and physical obligation as well as economic obligation, ... a relation which lesbians escape by refusing to become or to stay heterosexual". [9] Wittig also believed that "lesbianism provides ...the only social form in which (lesbians) can live freely". [9]

Paris Capital of France

Paris is the capital and most populous city of France, with an area of 105 square kilometres and an official estimated population of 2,140,526 residents as of 1 January 2019. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of Europe's major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts.

Simone de Beauvoir French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir was a French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist and social theorist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, she had a significant influence on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory.

Questions féministes was a French feminist journal published from 1977 to 1980.

In the encyclopedia Who's Who in Lesbian and Gay Writing, editor Gabriele Griffin calls Wittig's writing "part of a larger debate about how heteropatriarchy and women's oppression within it might be resisted". [9]

Heteropatriarchy is a socio-political system where (primarily) cisgender males and heterosexuals have authority over cisgender females and over other sexual orientations and gender identities. It is a term that emphasizes that discrimination exerted both upon women and LGBTQ people has the same sexist social principle.

Development of radical lesbian culture in Quebec

The 1980s and 1990s saw the development of a number of Francophone lesbian periodicals in Quebec, Canada, including Amazones D'hier: Lesbiennes D'aujourd'hui , Treize, and L'evidante lesbienne. [2] This was also a period of strength for French-language lesbian presses such as Editions nbj and Oblique Editrices, and lesbian bookstores like Montreal's L'Essentielle. [2]

Montreal City in Quebec, Canada

Montreal is the most populous municipality in the Canadian province of Quebec and the second-most populous municipality in Canada. Originally called Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-peaked hill in the heart of the city. The city is centred on the Island of Montreal, which took its name from the same source as the city, and a few much smaller peripheral islands, the largest of which is Île Bizard. It has a distinct four-season continental climate with warm to hot summers and cold, snowy winters.

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Martel, Frederic. The Pink and the Black: Homosexuals in France Since 1968, Stanford University Press, 2000, ISBN   0-8047-3274-4, p119
  2. 1 2 3 Gammon, Carolyn. Lesbian Studies in Francophone Institutions and Organizations, in Gay and Lesbian Studies Henry L. Minton, Ed., Haworth Press, 1992, ISBN   1-56023-021-5, p155
  3. ↑ Riley, G. (2001). Inventing the American Woman: Since 1877. Inventing the American Woman: An Inclusive History. Harlan Davidson. p. 533. ISBN   978-0-88295-958-0 . Retrieved 31 August 2018.
  4. 1 2 Siegel, Deborah, Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild (N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007 (ISBN   978-1-4039-8204-9)), p. 38 (author PhD & fellow, Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership).
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Turcotte, Louise. (foreword) The Straight Mind and Other Essays , Monique Wittig, Beacon Press, 1992, ISBN   0-8070-7917-0, p ix-x
  6. ↑ Kramarae & Spender. Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women: Global Women's Issues, Routledge, 2000, ISBN   0-415-92089-2, p785
  7. ↑ Rich, Adrienne. Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, Signs 5, no.4, Summer 1980
  8. ↑ Duchen, Claire. Feminism in France: From May '68 to Mitterrand, Routledge, 1986, ISBN   0-7102-0455-8, p24
  9. 1 2 3 Wittig, Monique (1992). The Straight Mind and Other Essays. Beacon Press. p. 32. ISBN   978-0-8070-7917-1. OCLC   748998545.
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