I’m fond of saying that everyone should be a feminist, because everyone either is a woman, loves a woman, is queer* or all three; which is why lesbians make such good feminists. When I told my friend B this, she saw right to the heart of the matter, and asked if I had a girlfriend. Astute friends like that make coming out easy.
I’m not a lesbian because I’m a feminist, and I’d always presumed the contrary was true as well; but B made me think about the link. Am I a feminist because I am a lesbian?
Six months earlier I’d been expounding on a feminist point with another group of friends, and K asked me, whether, being a feminist, I was also a lesbian. I denied this with the fervour of the still-in-denial-but-slowly-watching-my-certainty-fray-at-the-edges self-closetee. Looking back two years later, I know I was wrong about me being straight, but was I also wrong in saying that there is no link between being a woman loving woman and fighting for gender equality?
Lesbians experience the power of the patriarchy in real terms. Sex without men baffles a society which is deeply uncomfortable with female sexuality, and society’s response may be seen in the prevalence of girl on girl porn and erotica for male consumption — it functions as a way of bringing men into an act in which they are otherwise absent. The pop culture norm of performative and male centred lesbianism is something that lesbians encounter regularly in jokes, but also in the inevitable straight man at the gay bar, looking for hot threesome action/creepy staring.
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The fact that women earn less than men, even after factoring in pregnancy and children, has a greater impact in a household made up of two women.
Not only this, but while straight women might linger at the dangle-the-toes-in stage of feminism for fear of being labelled a lesbian, lesbian and bi women are more likely to jump right in upon hearing that lesbians await the intrepid voyager into feminism.
This last was probably what snatched my interest.
I was 14 or 15 the first time I called myself a feminist. I had no idea that my ideal family structure would involve two substandard female paychecks. I was largely unaware of the extreme objectification of the female form in lesbian sex as packaged to straight men. I had no reasonable prospects of meeting gay ladies by venturing into feminism, did not know that I might even desire to. But something in my adolescent brain started jumping around excitedly when I discovered the idea of lesbian feminists. Something caught my eye, so to speak. Inspired me to take a closer look.
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My mother told us about lesbians when my sister and I were 9 and 10. Someone had slung the word at my sister at school, and on the way home that day she asked what it meant. Mum told us that gay means happy, and that homosexuals adopted it because people were insulting them and they wanted a word that described, but did not insult them. She told us that our uncles T and D were gay, and that women could be gay too. She didn’t make it sound exciting.
There was absolutely no mention of this:
I immediately dismissed the possibility that I might be gay; I wasn’t special or lucky. I’d never be able to be so cool as to be an actual lesbian. I’d just be a wanna-be lesbian feminist.
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Related to your say on this, how, in a culture that revolves around heterosexual sex as much as it does, did you find a safe place to explore your attraction to women? Every time a woman has made a pass at me it’s been at a party and it’s about the male gaze. Truthfully, I could be bisexual and not even be aware of it, because there isn’t that easy roadmap for you like there is with straight relationships, where you assume most men are attracted to women and most women are attracted to men.
I had difficulty with finding the space to admit it myself. I grappled with why I wasn’t into guys for a year or so before it even occurred to me that I might be into women. I think queer women may have it harder than queer men in this respect because we are constantly told that we are not meant to desire, only to be desired; and a lack of desire is easy to explain away.
I found my safe space in two ways: I sought out the queer and women’s collectives on my campus and started attending a queer women’s social group. I also took a trip abroad, promising myself before I went that I would not deny my sexuality if asked. While on that trip, I visited my friend B and she guessed. Her reaction convinced me that my friends would be much more accepting than I had feared, and as I have gradually come out, my friends have uniformly been amazingly accepting.
One thing which I find interesting, is that in the six months or so from trying to stop hiding my sexuality in anyway, and in the context of becoming more comfortable with it in a personal sense, I started remembering my dreams. They’re no riot of lesbianism, but I think its a sign that I am being more honest to myself.
I would recommend getting involved in queer groups in your area. Maybe there’s a community centre, or something at the university, or even a book club. If that feels like too much of a stretch, get involved in the community online. Check out autostraddle, which is an awesome website for queer women.