Lesbian Feminism

Historical Background

Prior to the 1960s, thriving gay and lesbian communities developed across the United States, especially within urban areas, where they often centered within bars or private homes and many women assumed “femme” (or “fern”) or “butch” gender roles that resembled those in heterosexual relationships. Pervasive hostility pushed many of these communities underground as a form of self-protection against physical violence, social ostracism, harassment, and loss of employment. Within a culture that labeled homosexuality a form of mental illness and generally viewed gays and lesbians as a threat to the well-being of American society, the social, legal, and economic concerns of gay women, like their male counterparts, were seen as private, not the basis for political demands or collective action. These ideas slowly began to be challenged by gays and lesbians, such as the women who in 1955 formed the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), the [Page 488]first national organization of gay women. Members of the DOB came together for social and political purposes, seeking to end the sense of isolation many lesbians felt, educate gay women about their legal rights, and increase their social acceptance.

With the rise of second-wave feminism, the mass movement that emerged in the 1960s, the specific concerns of lesbians came to the fore as part of a broader challenge against sexism. Lesbians played prominent roles in many new feminist organizations, helping to organize for equity in the workplace, the home, and the courts. Concurrently, the civil rights and gay liberation movements and changing attitudes toward sexuality created openings for a more visible and defiant attack on sexual oppression. Within feminist organizations in the 1960s, many taboos still surrounded gay sexuality, and sexism constrained lesbians within the gay rights movement. Founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW) Betty Friedan called lesbians a “lavender menace” that threatened to taint the reputation of the feminist movement, driving women away out of fear of association and diverting attention from more-important campaigns for women's equality. Likewise, within mixed-sex gay rights organizations, some lesbians found their concerns marginalized by male counterparts no more committed to ending sexism than was the broader society. These experiences spurred lesbian feminists to create their own organizations in order to transform women's feelings about same-sex sexuality, replacing shame with pride, and to challenge beliefs that equated lesbianism with deviance. Thus, from the experience of viewing themselves as a minority within the era's political movements, many activists developed fresh understandings of the place of lesbians within America's society, economy, and culture.

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