Well, I think it's very much a product of its time; I would have been able to date it within a few years without looking. Very second wave (which when I first started reading feminist literature I found immensely appealing). I think that perhaps that was all true then and is not now, or maybe we just don't want it to be. I know that I don't actively think of my lesbianism in relation to men (I don't even usually refer to myself as a lesbian, but rather as "gay", a more non-gendered, inclusive term), but of course on some level I do, just as on some level I think of myself as a woman in relation to men; man is the default any way you look at it. Man is normal.
And man has convinced us that we are abnormal--I was talking to someone about minority groups the other day and we listed ones which we are part of: I'm gay, Jewish, relatively well-off and well-educated, a woman--wait, no, that's not a minority. Women are in fact in the majority, and yet often see ourselves as a minority group. There is a difference between minority and oppressed: I wouldn't say that being relatively well-off and well-educated makes me oppressed, but I would say that being a woman does.
I could take this apart and respond to it line by line but I'll just answer the first question: what is a lesbian? As far as I'm concerned, a lesbian is a woman who loves other women in a romantic way...like how a man and a woman love each other. Dammit.
Well, I think it's very much a product of its time; I would have been able to date it within a few years without looking. Very second wave (which when I first started reading feminist literature I found immensely appealing). I think that perhaps that was all true then and is not now, or maybe we just don't want it to be. I know that I don't actively think of my lesbianism in relation to men (I don't even usually refer to myself as a lesbian, but rather as "gay", a more non-gendered, inclusive term), but of course on some level I do, just as on some level I think of myself as a woman in relation to men; man is the default any way you look at it. Man is normal.
ReplyDeleteAnd man has convinced us that we are abnormal--I was talking to someone about minority groups the other day and we listed ones which we are part of: I'm gay, Jewish, relatively well-off and well-educated, a woman--wait, no, that's not a minority. Women are in fact in the majority, and yet often see ourselves as a minority group. There is a difference between minority and oppressed: I wouldn't say that being relatively well-off and well-educated makes me oppressed, but I would say that being a woman does.
I could take this apart and respond to it line by line but I'll just answer the first question: what is a lesbian? As far as I'm concerned, a lesbian is a woman who loves other women in a romantic way...like how a man and a woman love each other. Dammit.
Hahaha! Well said, Abby! I found it very offensive how men do reference women as the minority and find this whole lack of penis envy strange!
ReplyDeleteI made the link "live."
ReplyDelete