Reclaiming Lesbian Pride

[Jess]

Hey Kobi,

Here are a couple sites that can give you a huge boost. You may have to do the six degrees of separation on some, as they are chock full of links . I have started doing a lot more reading thanks to conversations here. Again, thanks for the wonderful, albeit sometimes "uncomfortable" reminders of the importance of feminism in our lives.

Feminist Theory Website:
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/

Women's Studies and Online Resources:
http://userpages.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/

National Women's Studies Association:
http://www.nwsa.org/research/theguide/index.php

Artemis Guide to Women's Studies in the U.S.:
http://www.artemisguide.com/

Women and Gender Studies Web Sites:
http://libr.org/wss/wsslinks/index.html

Happy hunting!

[*Anya*]

I read this about 5-years ago and am sure it is just as timely. The description is from Google Books.

Identity poetics: race, class, and the lesbian-feminist roots of queer theory
Linda Garber

Columbia University Press, 2001 - Social Science - 262 pages
"Queer theory," asserts Linda Garber, "alternately buries and vilifies lesbian feminism, missing its valuable insights and ignoring its rich contributions." Rejecting the either/or choice between lesbianism and queer theory, she favors an inclusive approach that defies current factionalism. In an eloquent challenge to the privileging of queer theory in the academy, Garber calls for recognition of the historical -- and intellectually significant -- role of lesbian poets as theorists of lesbian identity and activism.

The connections, Garber shows, are most clearly seen when looking at the pivotal work of working-class lesbians/lesbians of color whose articulations of multiple, simultaneous identity positions and activist politics both belong to lesbian feminism and presage queer theory. "Identity Poetics" includes a critical overview of recent historical writing about the women's and lesbian-feminist movements of the 1970s; discussions of the works of Judy Grahn, Pat Parker, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Gloria AnzaldAa; and, finally, a chapter on the rise and hegemony of queer theory within lesbigay studies.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Kobi

As part of all this reclaiming, I am looking for current writings on the gay community per se and feminism.

I found a couple of books in the library system on gay stuff but was not so lucky with the contemporary feminism stuff. Anyone know who the contemporaries might be? Be easier to search with names.

Kobi:

I don't have any suggestions at the moment, but just to say that hopefully within a year or so, if I can find a publisher, there'll be another book on this general theme.

Cheers
Adrienne

[Chazz]

Originally Posted by Anya/Georgia

I read this about 5-years ago and am sure it is just as timely. The description is from Google Books.

Identity poetics: race, class, and the lesbian-feminist roots of queer theory
Linda Garber

Columbia University Press, 2001 - Social Science - 262 pages
"Queer theory," asserts Linda Garber, "alternately buries and vilifies lesbian feminism, missing its valuable insights and ignoring its rich contributions." Rejecting the either/or choice between lesbianism and queer theory, she favors an inclusive approach that defies current factionalism. In an eloquent challenge to the privileging of queer theory in the academy, Garber calls for recognition of the historical -- and intellectually significant -- role of lesbian poets as theorists of lesbian identity and activism.

The connections, Garber shows, are most clearly seen when looking at the pivotal work of working-class lesbians/lesbians of color whose articulations of multiple, simultaneous identity positions and activist politics both belong to lesbian feminism and presage queer theory. "Identity Poetics" includes a critical overview of recent historical writing about the women's and lesbian-feminist movements of the 1970s; discussions of the works of Judy Grahn, Pat Parker, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Gloria AnzaldAa; and, finally, a chapter on .

Great quote, Anya/Georgia. It's exactly as stated, I've seen it first hand.

I can't, I won't, rend my lesbianism from my Feminism. I don't care what new, kitschy "theory" comes along, or how much pressure is brought to bear to buy into it. My understanding of myself as a white privileged, woman and lesbian was illuminated for me by Feminism. It gave me an informed, humanistic/heuristic/moral center from which to function in the world that took me beyond self-preoccupation without insight. As I said earlier, Feminism is based in the personal is political - queer theory is based in the political is personal . That semantic shift is huge.

I'll have a lot to say about this, and will, in the coming days. Just now, I'm in a make or break battle with Patriarchy.... My Feminism tells me to reach out to other lesbian women who have been through this. Queer theory tells me to change myself and my wardrobe.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Chazz

I'll have a lot to say about this, and will, in the coming days. Just now, I'm in a make or break battle with Patriarchy.... My Feminism tells me to reach out to other lesbian women who have been through this. Queer theory tells me to change myself and my wardrobe.

Chazz:

With your kind permission, I would like to use the text I highlighted in red as an epigraph.

Cheers
Aj

[Chazz]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Chazz:

With your kind permission, I would like to use the text I highlighted in red as an epigraph.

Cheers
Aj

Umm, I'm not seeing anything highlighted in red.

[Heart]

[QUOTE=Chazz;396275]I'm in a make or break battle with Patriarchy.... My Feminism tells me to reach out to other lesbian women who have been through this. Queer theory tells me to change myself and my wardrobe.[/QUOTE]

I'll wager this is what Aj intended to highlight.

Reach out Chazz, reach out!

Strength and courage,
Heart

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Chazz

Umm, I'm not seeing anything highlighted in red.

Chazz:

Sorry about that, thought I'd done the text color inside the quoting correctly. Obviously not. This is what happens when I try to do intelligent things before the second cup of coffee.

What I'd like to quote you on, again with your kind permission, is this:

Feminism is based in the personal is political - queer theory is based in the political is personal.

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

[quote=Heart;396295]

Originally Posted by Chazz

I'm in a make or break battle with Patriarchy.... My Feminism tells me to reach out to other lesbian women who have been through this. Queer theory tells me to change myself and my wardrobe.[/QUOTE]

I'll wager this is what Aj intended to highlight.

Reach out Chazz, reach out!

Strength and courage,
Heart

This would ALSO be a great epigraph.

Cheers
Aj

[Kobi]

Thanks for the suggestions and links everyone. This is so cool. So much happened while I wasnt paying attention!

Aj - look forward to reading your book!

"Feminism is based in the personal is political - queer theory is based in the political is personal . That semantic shift is huge."

Chazz this is a very important distinction. Look forward to hearing more about it.

Now, of course, I have to go look up "queer theory" and "lavender linguistics".

[Jess]

Originally Posted by Chazz

I'll have a lot to say about this, and will, in the coming days. Just now, I'm in a make or break battle with Patriarchy.... My Feminism tells me to reach out to other lesbian women who have been through this. Queer theory tells me to change myself and my wardrobe.

Chazz,
This statement has echoed through my head since I read it earlier. It very much sounds like my state of mind in my younger days when I was about to sell everything, get off the grid and move to womyn's land. I didn't, as I felt that was too extreme then, as it was a complete reaction to being fed up with the "patiarchy" and just sharing my part of the world with men in general. In as much as I wanted to just be done with dealing with what I saw as my foe, I thought it better somehow, to stay and make my stand.

This may not be at all what you are alluding to. Could you please explain the "make it or break it battle" you are going through?

Thanks.

[Chazz]

Originally Posted by Jess

Chazz,
This statement has echoed through my head since I read it earlier. It very much sounds like my state of mind in my younger days when I was about to sell everything, get off the grid and move to womyn's land. I didn't, as I felt that was too extreme then, as it was a complete reaction to being fed up with the "patiarchy" and just sharing my part of the world with men in general. In as much as I wanted to just be done with dealing with what I saw as my foe, I thought it better somehow, to stay and make my stand.

This may not be at all what you are alluding to. Could you please explain the "make it or break it battle" you are going through?

Thanks.

A child custody battle with a father who is abusive, rabidly homophobic and misogynist, watches porn with his 6 year old son, doesn't pay child support, files false CPS reposts, sees his son as a trophy of his male prowess rather that a human being, refuses to see that his son is a "special needs child" (and stands in the way of his getting services) ---- and, a Family Court judge who is all about "Father's Rights" and just awarded "Dad" joint custody.

[Jess]

Thanks. I'm sorry that this "battle" is not a metaphor and it is very much reality. I didn't mean to pry. To me, the broadness of your earlier post felt much more ethereal than a situation such as this.
I hate hearing of the countless stories like this. I am never sure whether to light a candle and send out positive thoughts into the universe or to gift wrap a Louisville slugger and send it to you.
Thanks again, take care.

[Kobi]

Chazz,

I, too, was hoping it was a metaphor. I'm sorry to hear it is not. Can send positive thoughts , offer a ear, and a shoulder if you need it.

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

I also wanted to thank others who have participated on this thread and particular shout-outs for Kobi, for starting it and Heart for, well, being Heart.

Most of you know I'm not particularly effusive with my emotions--at least not here--I would like to say that I was profoundly relieved when I started to see how this thread was going. Quite honestly, I had been wondering if it was just me. I had really started to doubt myself because it seemed that some of the ideas that others have expressed concerns about appeared to be accepted as self-evidently true to so many within the queer community.

It's a relief to know I'm not alone in valuing being butch, lesbian and a woman.

cheers
Aj

Oh, so not alone! Looking toward your future works with great excitment!

[Chazz]

Originally Posted by Jess

Thanks. I'm sorry that this "battle" is not a metaphor and it is very much reality. I didn't mean to pry. To me, the broadness of your earlier post felt much more ethereal than a situation such as this.
I hate hearing of the countless stories like this. I am never sure whether to light a candle and send out positive thoughts into the universe or to gift wrap a Louisville slugger and send it to you.
Thanks again, take care.

Originally Posted by Kobi

Chazz,

I, too, was hoping it was a metaphor. I'm sorry to hear it is not. Can send positive thoughts , offer a ear, and a shoulder if you need it.

Thank you, my Sisters.

As to my "battle" - all women's "battle" - being reality or metaphor..... All women's "battles" are both at once. This is what breeds (in "us") complacency, resignation, defeatism, self-disavowal, self-loathing, self-negation, mindless self-preoccupation, depoliticalization - and, horizontal oppression. Many times, all at once.

The "battle" with misogyny is the one-on-one of it, as in: I'm dealing with a misogynist individual.... The "battle" with patriarchy is the systemic front of the "battle". Misogyny begets patriarchy begets misogyny begets.... it's an endless loop of self-reification that is so pervasive many of us cannot look it in the eye, or take its full measure on a macrolevel. It's too much to process or bear. So we deny it, bargain with it, concede to it, or glimpse at it with one eye that is, itself, half shut. A body has gotta survive, after all.

I, like most female human beings who strive for some measure of peace and serenity, want to believe things have gotten better in the sexism department. Superficially, they have. People have become adroit at using PC language and gestures, usually when the stakes are low. That is the public face of benevolent sexism.... But when the stakes are high(er) and something of genuine value is on the line (i.e. wages, a promotion, a legal decision, equal rights legislation, budget debates, a child....), all pretense of parity and gender equity goes out the window.

Think, I mean REALLY think for a minute: "Who's interests are most at risk (REALLY, REALLY) in the budget debate? Women and children's - that's who. The services and programs most essential to "us" are the ones taking the biggest hits. (Marginal men's, too, but to a lesser degree.)

Look around.... state after state is tightening the restrictions on abortion. Why should I care, I'm a butch.... I care because "when they came for the gypsies, "I" said nothing....".

To the extent that we have all become so self-preoccupied with our gender identities, labels, neologisms, and wars.... we have abdicated our obligations to ourselves and one another. The System doesn't care what pronoun you or I use. It still sees us as children of a lesser God because we're woman or para men (in its mind).... It thinks this even as it (patriarchy) smiles in "our" faces and says otherwise, but only, when the stakes are low.

Feminism, NOT gender theory, addresses these things. Feminism canonizes "us" over "I" --- gender theory canonizes "I" over "us". The later leaves us standing alone in our consecrated subjectivity or, at best, marginally unified in some version of "Im okay, you're okay", but don't you dare ask too many questions 'cause we've got a "tent" to erect. (Tents, big or small, do not offer good cover in a war.)

Patriarchy has every tool at its disposal - it owns the System. It's perfected its dominion over our lives and our minds. Its most effective backlash against 2nd Wave Feminists was to turn women against Feminism (i.e. ourselves) and give us gender theory - a self-negating ideology that leaves us elbowing each other for a higher place on a mythical hierarchy for a bigger piece of the patriarchal pie. Ya gotta give it to patriarchy - it's brilliant

[*Anya*]

You can not see me right now but I am giving you a standing ovation.

Yes, yes and yes, again for your oh-so eloquent post. It reminds me so well of all the reasons why my feminism is so much a part of who I am.

I have pushed it down, dampened my feelings and beliefs in order to work, raise my children to their own respective womanhood and to be able to support them.

Thank you.

[Chazz]

To everyone who has been messaging me.... THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU ! ! ! !

And for good measure: XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

So there......


Here's the short of it.....

Was in a relationship with a woman for 8 years. Her daughter was 4 when we met. I raised that child as my own and became "Momma".

It was an interracial relationship (strange term that; aren't we all of the human race?). Mentioning race to say: This beautiful child was my teacher in so many ways. We cried, together, so many days when she arrived home from school because she was the only Black child in her class, and the butt of much taunting. (I live in a white, middle-class ghetto.) I still cannot find words for the hurt and rage I felt over her having to go through that. I felt so powerless and ill-equipped, so I cried with her.

(Keep it short, Chazz).... Anyway, her bio mother - who was always ambivalent towards her own child, even resented her - ceded most of the parenting to me. I loved it, even as it conjured nurturing feelings in me that were inconsistent with my understanding of myself as a mega masculine butch. (This was a large part of what prompted me to begin reclaiming my woman-self. I'll get to that at some point. Remind me, I get distracted....)

Then, it all went to hell, to this day I'm not entirely sure why?!?!? But, $50,000+ later in legal fees over a multi year custody battle and subsequent debt.... bio Mom gets herself in a (legal) jam, cleans out my bank account, taps out my credit cards, goes to work one day and never comes home (not so much as a phone call since) and hands over full custody of the child to her homophobic father. I haven't seen, or spoken to, "my" little girl since.

I spent two years fending off creditors not of my making (almost lost my house), but worse, I lived in a traumatized emotional stupor. I still mourn.

Always the optimist, I decide the solution for bad love is good love.

So, I get involved with another woman with a 7 year old son.... His father (the one I referred to in a prior post in this thread) starts making false CPS reports, sues for custody based on Mom and I having fist fights and sex in the kid's presence (neither of which, ever happened - the CPS reports came back unfounded, btw), but the judge still awards him joint custody.... The negativity, stress and ugliness took it's toll on the relationship - among other things - and, we're since parted ways.

Oh the joy of being butch and loving our partners' children.

I'm not much for public displays of my private business, but.... I can't help but wonder how much sexism and homophobia played a part in these, and other struggles, in my life.

I'm still the proverbial optimist in matters of love - just dumb, I guess - but I have been forced to reconsider what "theory" best addresses the issues making my life a living hell. I'm not seeing where gender theory addresses the things I'm living through. It was fun and edgy for awhile, but outside of the LGBTQ community, how I gender identify and look, still boil down to me being a female in a patriarchal culture. And, a lesbian woman at that. If I don't do, what I don't wanna do (i.e. transition to male), I don't see that changing much under gender theory.

[Kobi]

In the words of my ancestors, holy canoli Chazz! This made the radical feminist inside of me stand at attention.

I agree with your analysis. And, it is very clear to me, even if I dont have the postmodern terminology for it. What I am finding in print, to me, seems like an excess use of words to justify positions rather than something firmly grounded in female focused, female driven quest to attack the underlying pathology of the patriarchy.

And, I tend to look more at real life manifestations rather than the "theoretical analysis" of it. Often times the rhetoric doesnt fit the reality, no matter how many words we use to make it appear like it is something else.

In my opinion, when I look at the world, I see so many good changes for women. Yet, I also see more responsibility as well and perhaps in unintended ways. There is always a flip side to everything. If one bears more, another bears less.

There have been unmistakeable benefits for educated white women in professions that afford them more general freedoms. For non white, uneducated or less educated women there have been few if any benefits. Poverty in this group is rising at unprecedented porportions. http://www.nclej.org/poverty-in-the-us.php

Women freed ourselves sexually. Yay! Now, think again. We, as women, are second class citizens in a patriarchy. Did we "free" ourselves or did the partriarchy see there was a huge benefit to IT and them if we were "free"? Is it a win-win or are have we just played into our own objectification? Who wins in the politics of sex in a patriarchy?

Women took control of their own financial wellbeing. Yay for us! Now, think again. If we are supporting ourselves, who ends up having more disposable income?

Women took control of reproduction. Yay for us! Now, think again. We spend billions of dollars a year on a growing number of contraceptives which have the potential to adversely affect our bodies, our health and endanger our very lives. We bear the burden of the expense and risk to our heath. Male contraceptive, at the moment, still revolves around condoms and for the non wimping ones, a vasectomy. Orgasms aside, who won here?

Growing numbers of women who want to be a parent are happy to proceed without husbands and father figures for their children. I actually kind of like this one. But, men, in those cases, are merely sperm donors, without any financial or parental responsibility for the product of their seed. Looks to me like more for women and less for men again.

So, while we are so busy with getting an education, working, being sexually free, being parents without help, and all the other lovely "perks" of women's liberation, how much time and energy do we have to look at and speak to the "new and improved" manifestations of our oppression?

The great thinkers and leaders of feminism in my generation had a vision and foresight which continues to astound me. The great thinkers and leaders of today havent impressed me as much. They are well spoken, well educated, can turn a phrase with the best of them, and debate at a level that still eludes my full comprehension.

Yet, to me, the post modernists have dropped the proverbial ball. Actions speak louder than words. And when I look around me, I see some nifty stuff happened for women.

But, in the scheme of the patriarchy, greater things happened for IT and for those who benefit the most from it.

In case I havent said it today....I love this thread and all the great minds that are contributing to it.

[Apocalipstic]

I think things are better for women in many ways than they were when I was a child in the 60's, but they have not changed enough I agree and since the ERA was not passed we don't see as much written about of fought for except for from those who want to make abortions and birth control harder to get and want to re-establish what counts as rape. Rape affects us all. Pregnancies due to rate affect all women. Birth control affects everyone as we get more and more overcrowded....

Also, this "give the fathers the kids" shift. The children used to always go to the mother, but now, in the name of Women's Lib...somehow the trend seems to be to give the kids to the fathers, especially if they have more money...which considering the still wide split in wages...they are likely to have.

As a child I grew up with my father telling me he had total control of me and could do anything he wanted and he was right.

Yes more has been done with children's right and yes women can own property without a man but so much more is expected of us and the trend seems to be going back to a 50's model of marriage.

It really weirds me out that things are so much more conservative now than they were in the 70's and 80's. And rarely do we hear a peep from anyone about Equal Rights for Women.

Chazz, good for you for being a stand up Mom. It is heartbreaking that anyone would use a child as a pawn in a break up or just refuse to achnowledge that someone who was in a child's life for years should have the right to at least see the child.