Taking the Bullshit by the Horns

by Barbara Solomon

Published in The Furies feminist newspaper (Washington DC), March-April 1972; reprinted in Lesbianism and the Women's Movement, edited by Nancy Myron & Charlotte Bunch (Diana Press, 1975), pp. 39-47.

I've heard a lot of women criticize The Furies article "Lesbians In Revolt." Their criticism has not gone any further than to label the article elitist and arrogant. Such criticism does not deal with the political differences these women feel with the article. All it says is, "Reading this demanded a political response from me that was too threatening." This kind of thinking has been generated by the straight women's liberation movement which as The Furies introduction pointed out has defined political analysis as men's realm and left women acting on an emotional level. Since thinking about the article won't feel good for a lot of women, it's easier for them to call it arrogant and ignore what it says.

Some Lesbians I know who read the article said, "There's no difference between straight and gay," or "People need other people to love them and if a woman can get love from a man, that's cool," and "I don't like to sleep with men, but they are going to be around after the revolution, and I could care less if another woman is sleeping with a man."

These Lesbians probably crystallized their politics in the Gay Liberation Movement, which was an appendage of the New Left and which was run by men. Gay Liberation defined the enemy of gayness as public opinion that gay is perverted, and acted to disprove that notion. There were two standard arguments used. The first said that straight people need to loosen up and let everybody do their own thing. This argument equates Lesbian lifestyle and sexuality with gay men's, when in fact there crucial differences.

The second argument said, "Do what feels good. Sex is groovy. Gay is just as good as straight. I don't care what you do in bed, so you shouldn't care what I do in bed." This argument assumes that Lesbians have the same lifestyle and sexuality as straight women. But we don't--straight women choose to love and fuck men. Lesbians have commitments to women.

Lesbians are not born. We have made a conscious choice to be Lesbians. We have rejected all that is traditional and accepted, and committed ourselves to a lifestyle that everybody--straight men, straight women, gay men--criticizes. So most of us question this choice over and over again, and we are still Lesbians. Therefore every Lesbian knows in her gut that what we do is not the same as gay men--they oppress us too--and what we do is not the same as what straight women do. If it were, we wouldn't have chosen to be Lesbians in the first place.

Implicit Feminist Political Principle

Implicit in the Lesbian lifestyle is a Feminist political principle. That does not mean that all Lesbians are Feminists. It just means that we have chosen living with and loving women, that we have rejected living with and loving men. Since straight women get some compensations for being straight which we have forfeited, then Lesbianism further says that we get something better from women than we do from men, or that we get something worse by relating to men that we do not get relating to women. Or both.

We live in a male supremacist shitpile. At its most basic level this shitpile is upheld by fucking, marriage and breeding. Straight women serve this system by serving their men. Lesbians reject it by saying we won't fuck, we won't marry, and we won't breed and we'll damn well do as we please.

And we are oppressed for it. Our biggest oppression is not that everybody thinks we're perverted. Women think we're perverted because women have been handed a whole set of morals. But men have never given a shit about morals and they could care less about perversion. Men tell women that we're perverted because men know that what we're doing is going to take their power away from them right where it hurts. Men see us saying that we don't want men in our beds and we don't want men in our houses and we don't want men in our bars. And they know that it is a very short step from there for us to say that we don't want men living on the street, we don't want men in our government, and in fact we would be 100% better off if we just didn't have to deal with men at all.

They don't think there is anything perverted about that. They recognize it for what it is and oppress us, stick us away in ghettoes and tell their wives and daughters that we're disgusting. Now any woman who gets raped by her husband every day, who has to live under his psychological and economic control, and had to grovel before him and lap up the shit that he ladles all over her knows that that is pretty damn disgusting and perverted. She is only too happy to hear that there is somebody lower on the pecking order than herself.

Heterosexuality Insures Male Supremacy

Heterosexuality ensures male supremacy. To say that "Everybody needs love and I could care less if a woman is fucking a man" is to say "Any oppressed person needs some payoff to make them preserve their oppression. I could care less if a woman is oppressed, and I could care less if that oppression makes her gang up with that pig to fuck me over." The only Lesbians who could say this are Lesbians with a bigger stake in their own oppression than in our liberation; i.e., Lesbians who use their class and race privileges, Lesbians in the nouveau chic of the New Left, etc.

Lesbians have the potential to smash male supremacy. Straight women do not, because they are living its perpetration. The Furies article on Roxanne Dunbar summed this up very accurately, "I know full well there are women who physically love other women who could sell us out as quickly as any man or straight woman. Some of them are racist, classist snobs and outright reactionaries. By the same token, all working class people are not committed to the destruction of capitalism. There are plenty of racists and fascists among the workers. The essential point is that workers carry the greatest threat to capitalism if organized just as Lesbians carry the greatest threat to male supremacy if organized."

We can extend this analysis further. The middle class depends on capitalism for its privileges, although some middle class people feel oppressed by capitalism and are organizing. Because their interests lie with their oppressors', they are capable of organizing as a power bloc to minimize their petty oppressions at the expense of the working class and expand their privileges.

And so with women. Straight women are oppressed by men, but their lifestyle and privileges are nevertheless dependent upon their individual relationships with men. When they organize, they seek to minimize that oppression at the expense of other women, and grab more privileges.

"Sisterhood is Groovy"

Straight women's liberation started the myth that sisterhood is groovy. Sisterhood is so groovy that if put to use by straight, racist, classist women it can make it easier and better for them to maintain their lackey relationships with the men who oppress us all.

The Women's Liberation movement has completely avoided making any kind of ideology about our oppression because that would expose the contradiction they are living in. So they left politics to the big, strong men and developed a philosophy of being "sensitive." They have expressed their sisterly feelings by making us slaves for their personal liberation. They say that all women are sisters despite sexuality, race or class. Then they organize us and put our sisterhood to work for reforms that only benefit white, middle class, straight women.

The abortion movement is a good example of what happens when privileged people organize. Abortion is a reform measure. Its analysis is good when it says that women should seize control of their own bodies, but it patently ignores the contradiction that women will not have control of their own bodies if they keep on voluntarily giving them to men. Abortion, then, does not threaten male supremacy. It assumes that women are going to keep on fucking and breeding and makes it easier for some women to lick up to men.

Straight women tried to rally us all together under the "Sisterhood is groovy" banner to win abortions. Straight privileged women said that sex, class or race issues would be divisive and would keep us from winning. Then they proceeded to use us to win abortions that are totally irrelevant to Lesbians, can be used as genocide against Third World women, and are too expensive for poor women to afford. Oh, Sisterhood is so groovy.

The biggest rip-off of the Sisterhood is groovy line is that it says women should get together and get stronger and take care of each other's needs independently. This is great. But if some of those women are depending on men in their personal lives, then they are going to depend on women to fill the needs that those men cause them. Any woman who expects other women to fill her needs has a responsibility to minimize those needs by immediately eliminating any of the needs caused by living with or sucking up to an oppressor.

Straight Women Want Payoffs

Straight women don't want us to fight with men--they just want pay-offs from men and women. Since women have been defined as always-giving, women who define themselves through women should always give--to them. They don't think that they are important enough to deserve anything from men, but because they're "real women" who get fucked by men, they think they deserve something from us. The reason they would rather exhaust our energy than join is in ripping off what we need from men is very simple: The man who's got it is giving her some crumbs. She's been conditioned to think that she doesn't deserve anything more than the crumbs, so if we start taking whole pieces of the pie, it might make less [sic] crumbs for her. On the other hand, if she stays in middle-of-the-road straight women's liberation, she can play us off against her man and get the best of both worlds. He's going to have to start behaving--washing the dishes, taking care of the kids, and being a good lay--or she might leave him and become a man-hating dyke. (He knows her friends are subverting her.) Meanwhile, we've got to prove to her that we're better than men--if we also wash her dishes, take care of the kids, help her try to change her old man and show him the light, hold her hand when he fucks her over but don't alienate her or hurt her feelings by telling her to leave him, and to top it all off, if we seem like desirable sex objects--then she might leave him to become a man-hating dyke, and reward us with her love. (If she changes her mind later she can always say that we subverted her.)

Every Lesbian knows through personal experience how straight women sell us out. Each of us at some time has been infatuated with a straight woman and we compromised ourselves, grovelled to be good to her and tried to prove to her that we were better than men, all in hopes that she would love us. Meanwhile she feminized us--kept us passive in intimidation, ashamed of ourselves, pretty, dangling, kssing up to her and very, very vulnerable. Whenever we were hurt she was too busy with the men in her life to help us out. If any man found her out, she told him that we were dirty and disgusting and had done horrible things to her. Then he "saved" her and she paid him back by giving him a lifetime of services and free fucks. She had to betray us, because her interests were hanging on some man's prick.

"Lesbians in Revolt" does not say that all Lesbians are necessarily feminists. It says that we are a very big threat to male supremacy, and if we're together with each other, we can bring that beast down. And it says that for sure any woman relating to a man cannot be a feminist. Women who give love and energy to men rather than women obviously think men are better than women. Therefore they will wish to remain in a society that says men are better than women, and they'll join their boyfriends in trying to do us in.

It's really sad that every man holds a woman in front of him to cushion reality and be his shield. Some women are so well trained that they'll run right out on their own to protect him and bare their own necks instead. When we pick a fight with a man, it seems like we can't even get close enough to kick unless we want to kick all those women out of the way first. That's why straight women's liberation tells us Sisterhood is so groovy. We've been kept from fighting our oppression because our enemies are just crawling all over with women who want to protect them, and fighting with women is a no-no.

Well, I'm not going to try to take on all those women if I don't have to. I am just stating that I personally am going to keep my distance from men and straight women. Maybe we can run around behind and stab that pig in the back. Any woman hanging out in front to protect him would then have the choice of joining us or letting him fall on top of her.