For me, this started as such a clear idea: to reclaim lesbian identity. We, lesbians, will get to say who we are and who we are not. Politically, sexually, emotionally, within our communities. We will have space to discuss owning ourselves.

I’ve been wanting to do this issue for a year or two, in part to explore how we understand “lesbianism” in the present, in part to respond to attacks on lesbian identity. I believe the ideas that lesbians can sleep with men, that faggots can call themselves dykes and dykes can avail themselves of male privileges by calling themselves faggots, that men can be women and women who pass do it because they’re simply “playing with gender” — are meant to divide and destroy us, to drive us literally out of our own minds.

But I feel already driven out. Or more like I’m driving a car with no brakes down a side road in the mountains and it keeps picking up speed. I don’t know how to contain myself and make a nice, neat, clear argument. I have to finish ten books first, reread everything that came out in the last twenty years, find out exactly what deconstruction and essentialism mean. How am I going to do that, edit the magazine, go to work and have a life?

But I’ve got to try. I understand lesbians’ claim to own ourselves (well, it’s a stance more than a reality) as heroic. Our minds, our bodies, our labor, our sex, our heritages are constant staging grounds for war. Vastly out-powered on every front, we manage to survive and, for moments, thrive.

Owning ourselves is, after all, no small feat. That lesbians are different from “women” means something. Consider, for a minute, women’s bodies: women have been owned for centuries…

Other lesbians of course have written papers and books on the way these things work - I think of Marilyn Frye and Monique Wittig in particular. But the point is: a lesbian is in opposition to a “woman” by her very being. Of course we have to work on men’s terms to make a living, but even so we mostly rent our bodies out. A lesbian body is, theoretically, a body that no man owns.

Read the whole thing here.

________
From “Our bodies are the flags” by Elana Dykewomon, in Sinister Wisdom 49, The Lesbian Body, Spring/Summer 1993, pp. 4-9.

Filed under: feminism as politics, lesbian feminism, words from women by Amy's Brain Today at 11:49 am

Two lesbians of color, Black and Asian, had seemingly forgotten lesbians are everywhere, and come from everywhere. We did gut checks on who we were thinking of when we thought of lesbians in East Oakland. We were thinking of dykes like the ones on 20/20: white, middle-class and definitely out of place in the inner city. We did find the Mexican restaurant, barely before 8, but they let us in and we ate while they closed up. While eating my taco, I watched the owners turn away customers who arrived after the hour.

Closing early, too dangerous to stay open past dusk.

I kept thinking about what I had said, what I had thought. I
felt ashamed. Who wanted me to think that the likes of me couldn’t be found in a neighborhood much like the Los Angeles city I had grown up in? It was that brutalizing and very alive force that declares only one race, class, only one type of person is okay, the rest of us are superfluous. Lesbians are everywhere I repeated again and again on our way back home. I felt close to tears. What does it mean that I call the “lesbian community” home, but do not see myself or other sisters like me living in that home? How many east Oakland dykes did I make invisible by my earlier statement? Was I thinking about the theft and violence that comes out of communities of poverty and imagining that lesbians are never thieves or never involved in violence? Was I remembering my own tough youth and how I knew that to be lesbian (or more accurately be caught lesbian) meant certain cruelty and attacks, even possibly murder? Maybe … maybe, but probably it was more like I was thinking that “lesbians” wouldn’t be in east Oakland, because they are safer, smarter, richer and whiter than residents of this area. Honestly and painfully I acknowledged to myself that I internally read lesbian as white lesbian.

Read the whole thing here.

_________
From “Internalizing the Lesbian of Color Body” by Jamie Lee Evans, from Sinister Wisdom 49, The Lesbian Body, Spring/Summer 1993, pp. 10-13.

Filed under: lesbian feminism, racism, words from women by Amy's Brain Today at 10:52 am

…about sexist bias in the mental health classification system, the pervasiveness of woman and child abuse in this culture, and what a struggle it is when the two come together in the person of one hurting woman. For what it’s worth, I too struggle with everything she talks about, even though I was just a “little bit” abused — randomly smacked around and dominated/terrorized verbally by my dad. Amananta’s post reminds me that the results of this and the subsequent abuse and humiliation that he set me up for, habits, behaviors and traits I often consider personal shortcomings, really aren’t my fault–though they are, however unfairly, mine to cope with, and I do my best, just like every other ordinary woman wandering around struggling with the effects of the damage this world has heaped upon her.

So this morning I offer anyone who’s reading a big deep breath and a step back from the self-blame and self-hate that’s all too easy to feel, and instead, if you want, grab a few minutes with the feeling of being held in the arms of someone you trust. Even if the only arms that qualify are your own.

Filed under: fluff and musings, links, womanlove by Amy's Brain Today at 11:20 am

The Bus
by Arl Spencer Nadel

Young men on the bus
legs splayed wide
take up 2, 3 seats even,
Stare at you insolently
demanding their right
to take up as much space as possible.

Fat womon sits primly
Pulls in her folds
as tight as possible
takes up 1 1/4, 1 1/2
maybe 2 whole seats on the bus
ashamed, she stares out the window
and smashes herself even closer to it
if you sit next to her.

I’ve seen a full bus with boys taking up so much room
no one even dares sit beside them
forcing them to take the real space
their skinny bodies require
I’ve heard and felt the sighs, the looks,
of resentment toward the fat womon
squishing her soul into a tiny space,
making room for some
disgusted skinny person.

You know buses were made by white men
for money
so’s as many as possible can fit
on this cattle car for the poor.
And I know those white men
don’t ride them.

Fat latina womon and
small asian womon
sit side by side
one takes up two-thirds of the seat
the other’s legs dangle in the air
I’m looking at all of us trying to fit ourselves
into some white man’s image
I’m looking at all of us trying to survive
in this white man’s world

And I wish I had the chutzpah
to spread my legs and
let my beautiful fat body expand
let my arms fall to my sides,
to stare insolently at
the disgusted thin people

and not care.

______
From Sinister Wisdom #49, The Lesbian Body (Spring/Summer 1993) pp. 60-61.

Filed under: fat politics, lesbian feminism, words from women by Amy's Brain Today at 1:11 pm

McKinney Responds to Verdict in Sean Bell’s Murder
Green Party Hopeful Would De-fund Departments Which Violate Civil Rights

Cynthia McKinney, a Presidential candidate seeking the Green Party nomination, today released a statement commenting on Queens State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman’s verdict, acquitting NYPD Detectives Marc Cooper, Gescard Isnora and Michael Oliver of all charges stemming from their fifty-shot killing of an unarmed Sean Bell, on the eve of the young father’s wedding. In it she invoked a long and disturbing history of jurisprudence, founded in the Supreme Court’s finding that there exists “no rights which the white man was bound to respect”. She also cited a growing resentment among African-American communities within the country, over the arrogance shown to their communities by the police forces who are sworn to protect them.

“It is not impossible for us to have justice. We don’t have to lose any more people to police abuse, brutality, or murder,” said Ms. McKinney, who left the Democrat Party in the Spring of 2007, declaring her independence from its leadership, which has perpetuated war both at home and abroad. “But, in order to change things, we’re going to have to do some things we’ve never done before in order to have some things we’ve never had before,” she noted.

Ms. McKinney has often spoken out on the issue of police brutality, which she asserts “has reached epidemic levels”. During her six-term tenure in the U.S. Congress, she introduced legislation to deny federal funds and the use of federal equipment to any law enforcement unit found to have violated the civil rights of the people it is organized to protect and serve.

Recently, McKinney teamed up with the National Hip-Hop Political Convention to “launch a crusade against police brutality in the African American community,” featuring five days of vigils, rallies, cultural and educational events linking the Atlanta Police shooting of 92 year-old Kathryn Johnston on November 21st and the NYPD’s murder of Sean Bell on November 25th. Mrs. Johnson fired in self-defense against an apparent home-invasion when the Atlanta City Police came to serve a no-knock warrant that was issued based on faulty testimony from a confidential informant. In response, police officers riddled her home with bullets, killing her in the process.

“Imagine if we had the laws on the books and the apparatus of enforcement,” to curb these abuses, said Ms. McKinney. “If we demand more of our elected representatives, I’m convinced we will get it. And it should be clear exactly what is needed if we don’t get what we demand.”

Read her full statement here.

Filed under: links, media/culture criticism, racism, words from women by Amy's Brain Today at 6:56 pm

I’ve noticed recently a bunch of women running around the internet acting like feminism is some kind of social service agency, instead of a movement for the liberation of women. So just to be clear:

1. Women of color do not need white women to save them.
2. Lesbians do not need straight women to save them.
3. Women who do not live in the United States do not need women who do, to save them.
4. Old women do not need young women to save them.
5. Young women do not need old women to save them.
6. Poor women do not need wealthy women to save them.
7. Disabled women do not need able-bodied women to save them.
8. Fat women do not need thin women to save them.
9. Etc.

It’s also not the responsibility of the marginalized to water down our ideology or our behavior so it doesn’t threaten those with loyalties to the status quo. We’re all in this together, as equals, or we have no hope of success. And by that I do not mean that everyone who’s not a white straight middle-class middle-aged upwardly mobile professional in the US should STFU about what’s oppressing us; I mean that those of us who are white, straight, middle-class, middle-aged, US citizens, or reasonable facsimilies thereof, need to get out of the frickin’ way. We either do this collectively, where we trust women to identify and pursue our own liberation to the best of our ability, or we perpetuate the top-down hierarchical savior trope of dominance which will end us right back where we started from.

Filed under: feminism as politics by Amy's Brain Today at 2:53 pm

Filed under: cats, fluff and musings by Amy's Brain Today at 10:41 pm

Starfish asked me some questions about my white-only post and I clarified a few things in her comments.

*************

I linked to “Stuff White People Like” a while back because I thought it was funny. At that time, I didn’t know that the author was white, or that the blog was connected to a book deal. (Geez louise, how tired am I of bloggers who are no threat to anyone anywhere getting book deals and thinking it’s a measure of how great they are.) I also didn’t read the comments, which apparently feature fairly frequent racist screeds that the blog owner doesn’t do anything about. Since then, I’ve learned those facts, as well as being made aware of some of the political problems with what’s written there. Here are just two of the many available critiques for your cutting and pasting pleasure:

http://www.tnr.com/booksarts/story.html?id=49eb53ed-afbc-4aae-bf17-6ffc44f40a48 (thanks Amber)

http://www.theroot.com/id/45371 (via Joan Kelly)

I still think SWPL is funny, but I don’t think it’s creating change, if I ever did. Quite the opposite, in fact.

***********

A few days ago I promised a piece on Teh State. I’m still excited to write that, but I realized I have some reading to do first. One of the books is on its way to me in the mail, and I’m excited because it’s one I’ve wanted for a long time but it’s been out of print for years, and hence difficult and/or expensive to get.

I also realize I never did a promised post on lesbianism, celibacy, and couple privilege, so I think that one will be up next, since the research on that one is pretty much done.

********

And just in case you were wondering, yes, the migration is complete, I fixed all the weird quirks that it caused, and everything ought to be loading correctly. If you find glitches, please feel free to let me know.

Filed under: blogging, links, white privilege by Amy's Brain Today at 5:10 pm

I had no idea that this process of transferring would be so fraught.  If you can see this, please rest assured that this blog will be BACK, at its proper URL of http://www.feminist-reprise.org/wpblog, as soon as I can figure out what the #&$!*(^$!&$!)$#(#)@# I am doing!  Thank you for your patience.

Filed under: blogging by Amy's Brain Today at 5:11 pm

When I say that all women have been seasoned as slaves and prostitutes, I’m talking about seasoning that began at home. All other societal institutions avidly participated in it, of course. But no matter how we’re seasoned — as prostitute or wife, which is the same thing — we’re seasoned in the patriarchal family almost exclusively to serve sexual functions.

No matter what form seasoning takes, it always has the same goal — to make us feel worthless and dependent…It functions to make us believe passionately that we need a savior, that men must save us, that we have to go through them to be saved. That somehow we’ve got to get them to change their minds about us. We’ve got to make them agree that their behavior is terrible and get them to stop it…

That’s the goal of seasoning: to make us believe that we must always go through someone else to be free. Of course, the reason we’re taught this is because freedom never happens that way. Tyrants never free the slaves. It’s an historical truth that the oppressed must always rise and free themselves…The truth is that radical change, change at the root, must be made by us…

But conditioned, seasoned as we are, this is the most difficult possible conception for us, and most of us continue to believe that we must make men change their ways, that we are dependent upon legislators to pass laws, for instance. Good grief! When have those in control ever give up a significant amount of it to those they control? Can you think of a single time in history? …

This is the main goal of seasoning: to make us believe the men must change the world for us and that we’re powerless to change reality unless the men change first. But the truth is that they’re not going to change — can’t change — so we don’t have to waste our time trying to get them to any more. We are the ones who must change, because we can. And when we change, everything outside us will have to change to accommodate our new way of being in the world.

Posted in honor of JW.

_____
From “Taking Our Eyes Off the Guys” by Sonia Johnson in The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism edited by Dorchen Leidholdt and Janice G. Raymond (1990, Pergamon Press), pp. 57-58.

Filed under: words from women by Amy's Brain Today at 12:46 pm