A. FRANK SMITH, JR.

LIBRARY CENTER
Southwestem University
Georgetown, Texas 78626

Doing Feminist Theory

From Modernity to Postmodernity
,r
SUSAN ARCHER MANN

DATE DUE
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ILL -2020

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New York Oxford

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
 CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii
INTRODUCTION XV
Using this Text to Navigate Feminist Thought xvi

Chapter 1 Doing Feminist Theory 1

Introduction 1
Deconstructing the "F-word": What Is Feminism? I
Deconstructing Women and Recognizing Difference 5
How Feminists Do Theory and for Whom B
Accessibility and Multiple Sites of Theory Production I 0
Grounding Theories in Social History 13
What Is Meant by Modernity? 14
What Is Meant by Postmodernity? 16
Epistemological Underpinnings of Feminist Theories 18
Empiricist Epistemology 19
Standpoint Epistemology 21
Postmodern Epistemology 26
Conclusion 29
Boxed Inserts
Box 1. 1 What Is Feminism? 3
Box 1. 2 Minimalist Definitions of Feminism 4
Box 1.3 Th e un1org1veable
c . .
Transgression of
B Being Caster Semenya 6
4
ox I. "Poetry Is Not a Luxury" 12

_v
 vi CONTENTS

SECTION I MODERN FEMINIST THOUGHT 31

Chapter 2 Liberal Feminisms 33

Introduction 33
The "Woman Question" and Enlightenment Thought 34
The Rise of the U.S. Womens Movement in Early Modernity 3
The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments 38 7
Liberal Feminists on Love, Marriage, and Sex in Early Modernzty
. 40
Social Reformers 41
Free Love Advocates 43
Divergent Paths of Liberal Feminists in Early Modernity 45
Left-Liberal White Reformers 45
Left-Liberal Black Women's Clubs 47
Moderate-Liberal Women's Rights Advocates 49
Advances and Setbacks between the Waves 51
New Directions in Psychoanalytic Thought 52
Cross-Cultural Contributions on Sex and Gender 53
Shakespeare's Sister 54
Political Changes in Liberal Feminisms in the Twentieth
Century 55
Liberal Feminisms in Late Modernity 57
From the "Feminine Mystique" to the "Feminist Mystique" 60
Liberal Psychoanalytic Feminisms 62
Liberal Ecofeminisms 66
A Short History of Gender Analyses 69
Defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment 72
Conclusion: From Reform-Oriented to Revolutionary
Feminisms 74
Criticisms of Liberal Feminisms 75
Boxed Inserts
Box 2.1 Selected Letters from the Adams Family
Correspondence, 1776 35
Box 2.2 The Municipal Housekeeping Movement 45
Box 2.3 1968-National Organization for Women (NOW)
Bill of Rights 58
Box 2.4 Rachel Carson's Silent Spring:
A Feminist Awakening Story 67

Chapter 3 Radical Feminisms 78

Introduction 78
Precursors to Radical Feminism in Early Modernity 79
 CONTENTS vii

Lesbianism as a Modern Social Construction 80

Lesbian Sexual Politics between the Waves 84
Radical Feminisms in Late Modernity 87
The "Dialectic of Sex" 87
Feminist Separatism and the Woman-Identified Woman 91
Diverse Voices within Radical Feminism 93
The "Sex Wars" 98
Sex as a Realm of Pleasure 98
Sex as a Realm of Danger 99
The Radical Feminist Roots of Cultural and
Spiritual Ecofeminisms l 04
The "Unhappy Marriage" of Feminist Theory and Lesbian Theory 107
Conclusion l 08
Criticisms of Radical Feminisms 11 O
Boxed Inserts
Box 3.1 "Sappho's Reply" 87
Box 3.2 Excerpts from "The BITCH Manifesto" 87
Box 3.3 "Redstockings Manifesto" 96
Box 3.4 "Use" 105

Chapter 4 Marxist, Socialist, and Anarchist

Feminisms 112
Introduction 112
Marxist, Socialist, and Anarchist Feminisms in Early Modernity 114
The Origins of Women's Oppression 114
Women's Work in the Home 117
Class Differences in Women's Lives and Work 119
Love, Marriage, and Sexual Practices 120
Precursors to Ecofeminism in Early Modernity 123
Marxist, Socialist, and Anarchist Feminisms between the Waves 125
Feminist Social Democracy 126
Existential Socialist Feminism 129
Neo-Marxist Critical Theorists' Psychoanalytical
Approach 131
Marxist, Socialist, and Anarchist Feminisms in
Late Modernity 132
Women's Work in Late Modernity 132
Feminist Existential Phenomenology 135
Psychoanalytic Approaches of the Feminist New Left 138
New Directions in Feminist Thought Inspired by the
Old and New Left 141
 viii CONTENTS

Socialist Feminist Standpoint Epistemologies 1

41
The Liberatory Potential of the "Feminist Standp .
01nt"
Institutional Ethnography and the "Standpoint f 142
» 0
Women 144
Situated Knowledges and Partial Perspectives
147
Contributions of Socialist Feminist Standpoint
Epistemologies 148
Materialist Feminisms 148
Queer Anticapitalism 150
Marxist, Socialist, and Anarchist Ecofeminisms l 52
Distinguishing Marxist and Socialist Ecofeminisms
152
Distinguishing Socialist and Anarchist Ecofeminisms
Conclusion l 56 154

Criticisms of Marxist, Socialist, and Anarchist Feminisms 157

Boxed Inserts
Box 4.1 "Bread and Roses" 120
Box 4.2 Lenin on "Sex-Love" 121
Box 4.3 A Comparison of Family-Friendly Public Policies in
the United States and Scandinavia 128
Box 4.4 "To My White Working-Class Sisters" 138

Chapters Intersectionality Theories 160

Introduction 160
Precursors to Intersectional Analyses in Early Modernity by Jane
Ward and Susan Mann 162
Precursors to Intersectional Analyses between the Waves 168
The Harlem Renaissance 168
The Long Civil Rights Era 169
Intersectionality Theories That Bridged Late Modernity
and Postmodernity 172
This Bridge Called My Back 172
Deconstructing Essentialism 175
Simultaneous and Multiple Oppressions 178
Epistemological Contributions of
Intersectionality Theory 180
From Margin to Center 183
Bridging Modern and Postmodern Thought 186
Decentering and Difference 189
Reproductive Justice 189
Violence against Women by Rachel E. Luft 193
U.S. Third World Feminism 197
The Environmental Justice Movement 199
The Social Construction of Whiteness 201
Integrating Disability Studies into Intersectionality Theory 2o4
 CONTENTS ix

Conclusion 205
Criticisms of Intersectionality Theories 206
Boxed Inserts
Box 5.1 "The Bridge Poem" 173
Box 5.2 "When I Was Growing Up" 176
Box 5.3 "Theory in the Flesh" 181
Box 5.4 "Colonizers Who Refused" 188

SECTION II FEMINIST THOUGHT AFTER TAKING

THE POSTMODERN TURN 209

Chapter 6 Postmodernism, Poststructuralism, Queer,

and Transgender Theories 211
Introduction 211
Historically Grounding Postmodernism and Poststructuralism 212
Major Assumptions of Feminist Postmodernisms and
Poststructuralisms 214
The Deconstruction of Essentialist Group Categories 214
Epistemological Assumptions 217
Tensions between Foucault and Feminism 219
Knowledge and Truth 219
Power and Discourse 221
Modern Techniques of Power 224
Sex, Sexuality, and Deconstructing the "Natural" 226
Is the Subject "Dead"? 228
"I.ecriture Feminine" and Writing the Body by Dimitra Cupo 230
The Basics of Queer Theory 233
Queer Theory's Feminist Foremothers 234
The Politics and Premises of Queer Theory 235
Being versus Doing: Central Questions in Queer Theory 238
The Invention of Homosexuality and Heterosexuality 239
Rethinking the Closet 240
Performativity Theory 241
Postcolonial and Critical Race Applications 242
Theorizing and (Re)Defining Queerness 244
Queer Approaches to Sex 246
Transgender Theory 249
Queer Ecofeminisms 251
Conclusion 252
Criticisms of Postmodern and Poststructuralist Feminisms 254
Criticisms of Queer Theory 254
Boxed Inserts
Box 6.1 Foucault and the Government of Disability 227

j
 x CONTENTS

Box 6.2 Homonationalism: A Queer Analysis of

Patriotism 243
Box 6.3 What Is Sexuality without the Gender Binary? 2
Box 6.4 What's Queer about Christmas? 253 · 48

o Chapter 7 Third Wave Feminisms 256

Introduction 256 258
Historically Grounding the Third Wave
Postfeminism and Feminism's "Dissenting Daughters" 262
The Third Wave and Postructuralism 267
Third Wave "Bad Girls" and "Pomosexuals" 267
The Third Wave's Epistemological Stance 271
The Third Wave's Poststructuralist Turn
on Identities 273
Rejecting a Disciplinary Feminism 274
The Third Wave and Intersectionality Theory 278
Third Wave Theory Applications 281
Conclusion: The "Unhappy Marriage" of the Modern
and Postmodern 284
Criticisms of Third Wave Feminisms 288
Boxed Inserts
Box 7.1 Third Wave Manifesta: A Thirteen-Point
Agenda 261
Box 7.2 Barbie Dolls Ia Like to See 266
Box 7.3 "Don't You Know-We're Talking about a Revolu-
tion?" Sounds Like a {Zine}!" 272
Box 7.4 Guerrilla Girls 275

SECTION III THEORY APPLICATIONS-BRIDGING THE

LOCAL AND THE GLOBAL: FEMINIST
DISCOURSES ON COLONIALISM,
IMPERIALISM, AND GLOBALIZATION 291
Introduction 29 l
Conceptualizing Imperialism and Colonialism 292

Chapter 8 Feminism and Imperialism in Early

Modernity 297
Introduction 297
Whose Voices, Whose Visions? 298
U.S. Western
. Expansion and the "TAr.
rroman Questton
. ,, 299
The Rise of U.S. Global Imperialism 305
U.S. Overseas Expansion and the "TA,
rroman Questton
. ,, 307

d
 CONTENTS xi

Rosa Luxemburg on Imperialism 315

Conclusion 317
Boxed Inserts
Box 8.1 Conceptualizing Indigenous Women 303
Box 8.2 Fighting for American Manhood 306
Box 8.3 The First Antiwar Poem 313
Box 8.4 Rosa Luxemburg and Feminism 314

Chapter 9 Feminism and Imperialism in Late

Modernity 319
Introduction 319
The Anti-Vietnam War Movement 322
Modernization Theory and Dependency Theory 325
Liberal Feminisms Inspired by Modernization Theory 327
Marxist and Socialist Feminisms Inspired by Dependency
Theory 329
Global Factories 330
The Feminization of Migration 333
Socialist Feminist World-Systems Theories 335
Radical Feminist Global Analyses 338
Third World Feminisms 340
U.S. Third World Feminisms: Intersectionality Theory
Applied to Global Issues 344
Global Feminist Analyses Inspired by Luxemburg's Work 348
Conclusion 353
Boxed Inserts
Box 9.1 The Importance of Feminist Curiosity
in the Military 324
Box 9.2 "Taking on the Global Economy" 340
Box 9.3 African-Americans as Postcolonial Subjects 344
Box 9.4 "Imagine a Country-2009" 351

o Chapter 1o Feminism and Imperialism in Postmodernity 355

Introduction 355
Postcolonial and Transnational Feminisms 362
Decolonizing Feminist Thought 365
Diasporas and the Gender Politics of Postcolonial
Space 367
Materialist-Deconstructive Postcolonial and Transnational
Approaches 369
Can the Subaltern Speak? 369
Feminism without Borders 374
xii CONTENTS

Scattered Hegemonies and Transnational Am enca

.
37 6
The Cultural Logics ofTransnationality 38!
Transnational Feminist Organizing 384
Transnational Sexual Trafficking 386
Queering Global Analyses 388
Third Wave Feminism on Global Issues 393
Conclusion 396
Criticisms of Transnational and Postcolonial Feminisms 397
Boxed Inserts
Box IO. I Who Lives in the "Global Village"? 356
Box 10.2 "Transnational Barbie" 358
Box I 0.3 The Extension of Microcredit to Poor Women·• 0 ne
Step Forward, Two Steps Backward? 360
Box 10.4 Culture Wars at Home and Abroad 377

Conclusion Paradigm Shifts in Feminist Thought 400

Introduction 400
Decentering Theory and Science 401
Deconstructing Sex and Gender 403
Deconstructing Social Structure 404
Paradigm Shifts in Analyses of Power and Difference 405
Decentering Dominant Feminisms 406
Feminist Politics amid the Radical Insecurity of Postmodernity 407

GLOSSARY 410
BOX CREDITS 429
REFERENCES 432
NAME INDEX 461
SUBJECT INDEX 470
TIMELINE IN INSIDE BACK COVER
 CH AP TE R 3

Radical Feminisms
. . all ann y is built. Every-
Sexism is the foundation on which. tyrd 1 d on male-over
. form ofh1e . rarch y an d abuse 1s mo e e
social
-AN DR EA DW OR KIN
female domination.

IN TR OD UC TI ON
ing the second
. es th at arose in late mo der nit y dur des
Of all the 1emm1
c. . ·st perspectiv d. al feminism ma de the greatest stri
US women's movement , ra IC
f th e . . d h 1·t· 1 Rad ical feminists were foremost among
wave o sonal an t he po. I. ica . ipation required tha t
. b "d . the per . . g how women's emanc al k
m n gm g c.
emp as1zm . Th
second wave feminists 1or and control their own. bod ies. ey so were · ey
tect . 11 t
women und erstandd, Pro th 't drew attention to lesbian issues as we as o vanous
. . interpersonal
ces theth secto hnd pw: e:o u:ly bee n rele gated to the private readlm of d h h th
v01 I~
oppress10ns a a estic violence, and sexual harassment. I~ ee , w et er_ ey
life, such as rape, dom es,
were highlighting the dangers or the
pleasures, associated with ~exual practic
been
womens issues tha t prev10usly had
radical feminists exposed and analyzed
closeted or hidden in the household. l
was first coi ned in 1969 by radica
The phrase the personal is political wave
ame a slogan em bra ced by second
feminist Carol Hanisch and soon bec sword,
perspectives. Like a double-edged
feminists from a wide array of political s. It is
ancipatory and dis cip lin ary feature
"the personal is political" has both em der-
men by illu min atin g how ma ny gen
emancipatory in that it can empower wo el but,
addressed no t at the individual lev
related ''personal" problems should be Prior to
er, col lect ivel y as pro ble ms roo ted in social and political institutions.
rath
n wo me ns mo vem ent , issu es like rape, dom est ic violence, and sexual
the mo der
wer e trea ted as per son al pro ble ms tha t sho uld be dea lt with privately
harassment lence or
en were told the y pro vok ed the vio
and individually. Battered women oft en were
that they "made their bed" now they
"should sleep in it." Ra pe victims oft
iced
feel tha t the y wer e to bla me -th at the y had som eho w pro vok ed or ent
made to
cla imi ng tha t the per son al is pol itical, feminists in the late I 960s
their rapist. By al issues
and 1970s argued that these so-cal
led per son al problems we re politic
as
and ed tha t the y be add res sed col lectively by the women's mo vem ent
and dem

78
 CHA PTE R 3 • Rad"teal Feminisms 79

tant political concerns. Thus, solutions were sought t th

iII1POr microi· t a e macrostructural
. stitutional level rath er than at the n erpe rson al O h h
or Ul "the pers ona l . . . r ouse old leve l.
e disc iplin ary side of the IS po 1Ihca l" . . . .
Th . . enJoined femm 1sts to
. their politics m thei r ever yday live s-to pract·ice wh at the h
I1ve . . . Ypreac ed. If they
enga ged m personal lifestyle choices that undermmed fe · · r •
were that th . mm1st po 1~1cs, they
should make every effort to change their lives so
h eihr perso_nal practices were
nsistent with thei r political views. Chapter 7 will s ow ow thud w £ · ·
cO feminism of the d ave emm1sts
often rail against this disciplinary ·• secon wav . e. How ever at this
. hl" h · tive feat ures . Tog ethe th '
oint I want to h 1g 1gf"t hits posi . r e ema ncipatory and disc .
i-
P • ·
o t e pers ona l 1s poli tical " were a ful d
plinary d1mens1ons uo. They hnked
· l I f soci•ety as well as social st powt er d h
the macro and micro. .eve s o rue ure an uman agency
and called for a femm1sm that tran sfor med both the 1 IVI·dual and soci.ety.
·nd·

SM IN EARLY
PR EC UR SO RS TO RA DIC AL FEM INI
SUS AN MA NN
MO DE RN ITY BY JAN E WA RD AN D
precursors to radical feminism in
It is difficult to say who wou ld best stand as
an-centered, revolutionary poli-
e_arly m~dernity._Radical fem inis ~ enta~s a wom
and patriarchal institutions in gen-
tics that is conscious of how men m particular
eral benefit from control over womens lives and
bodies. This radical feminist stance
chist and socialist feminists, such
is, in part, visible in the gen der politics of anar
fought for women's access to birth
as Emma Gol dma n and Margaret Sanger, who
or deportation and in the radical
control and abo rtio n und er pen alty of arrest
ull. However, these feminists were
sexual and lifestyle politics of Victoria Woodh
women were committed to working
aligned with political mov eme nts in which
s.
closely with men to achieve thei r political goal
Josephine Butler's "Letter to My
Perhaps a mor e wom en-c ente red example is
and Cottages of England;' written in
Countrywomen, Dwelling in the Farmsteads
ases Acts passed in England in the
1871. Butler highlights how the Contagious Dise
tary to protect soldiers and sailors
late 1860s were desi gne d prim aril y for the mili
ired all prostitutes to be periodically
from venereal diseases. Thi s legislation requ
nds for arrest. If found to be dis-
examined by doc tors . Failure to do so was grou
remained until police were given
eased, wom en were sen t to hospitals, where they
to My Countrywomen" Butler calls
certificates of thei r clea n hea lth. In "Letter
these hospitals "prisons" bec ause a wom an cou
ld be "kept against her for any ":f
and could be forced to do any work
length of time, not exc eed ing nin e mon ths"
fit to dem and of her" (Butler [1S7l]
which the gov erno r and nur ses may thin k
prostitutes we~e ~ot allowed to
2005: 90). Moreover, whi le hospitalized, accused
ers without permission.
see their frie nds cler gy or eve n thei r own lawy r with excessive powers of sur-
' ' "d d ice d
The Con tagi ous Dis ease s Acts provi. l)e po h ccused or simp ly susp ecte
( or gir w O was a . d
ve ill ance ove r wom en. Any wom an ical proc edu res an
b . t th se med .
.
0 f bemg a pro stitu te cou ld be ord ered to su mit
O e
re was no penalty for false acc usa tio:
"doomed to sin and sha me for life" (88). The . f prostitutes• The sworn oa
O
serv ices
and no pen alty for any man who use d the
 80 SECTION I • MODERN FEMINIST THOUGHT

of one policeman was sufficient cause, and anyone could write to the police and
not be called upon to provide evidence. This made women vulnerable to blackmail
and extortion by anyone angry with them. Indeed, just to be ~een out late at night
or "larking" about the streets and talking with men was sufficient grounds for sus-
picion (89). Butler highlights how these arbitrary laws were unjus~ and how they
"encouraged men in vicious habits" (89). These laws also were heavily class-biased,
making poor and vagrant women most vulnerable to accusation an~ ~rrest. As will
be discussed in chapter 8, some late-nineteenth-century U.S. femmists criticized
similar prostitution laws established by the U.S. military in U.S. overseas territories,
adding a global dimension to these early modern, Western feminist concerns.
There also were women in early modernity who committed their personal and
sexual lives to relationships with other women. However, because lesbianism was a
modern social construction, it remained largely invisible in earlier eras. The focus
of chapter 2 was changes in women's heterosexual practices. The following sections
of this chapter will focus on lesbianism in early modernity and between the waves.

Lesbianism as a Modern Social Construction

The late nineteenth century witnessed some major institutional and economic
changes that expanded women's sexual possibilities in addition to the circulation of
ideas about free love and the feminist critiques of sexual practices within marriage
noted in the previous chapter. The proliferation of women's colleges in the United
States during the late 1800s opened the door for educated, upper-middle-class
women to form intimate bonds with other women and to remain independent of
financial and legal ties to men. Whether women went to college together, engaged
in professional careers, or lived together as "kindred spirits" or "spinsters:• freedom
from marriage enabled many women to engage in intimate, romantic, and sexual
r~lationsh!ps with o~er women and for such relationships to go relatively unno-
ticed. While womens sexual pleasure was a controversial subject in the nineteenth
century, even mo~e unimaginable was the idea that women might experience
sexual pleasure with one another. Hence, such relationships generally remained
under the rad~r of moral~sts and others who later would become sharply critical
~f h~mo~exu~ity. In fact, it was not until 1869 that the term homosexual appeared
.d . and not until much later that the concept of homosexua1or
hmtsc1ent1fic literature
11
e erosexua _ en~ity was fully introduced to the general public. Although there is
a wealthal•
of h1stoncal evidence that both women and men have engaged m . same-
~;x ~exu /nkity_for as lo~g as sex itself has existed, Victorian cultural and religious
I eo ogy I ng sex with marriage and reprOd t' d
either invisible · "f . di uc ton ren ered these relationships
Ors1mpy 1 nen y:'
hallFurthermore,
t d patriarchal
. . con ceptual.izations
. of sex as a male-controlled and
P us-cen ere activity made sex betw
late nineteenth century Th' h ~en women unfathomable prior to the
. is eteropatnarchal co t . f .d
only costs but arguably al b ns ruction o sex carne not
so some enefits for w . .
ships with women As ht' st . t·n· ' omen engaged m sexual relation-
. onan t tan Faderm h ill h
on the history of lesbian s al. h an as ustrated in her researc
exu tty, t e presumed impossibility of "love without
 .
CHAPTER 3 • Rad1cal Feminisms 81

ea nt th at w om en "were allowed to d emonstrate th e most sensual behav-

nis" m . ,, (
ape ards one anoth er without suffering stigma Faderm an 198 1:149) What we
. row ly .
ior refer to as Jesb'1an sex or desire hard registered as sexual through much of
noW teenth century.
the nine t h.
th e la te 18 00 s, so me journalistic acco un s mt at th e emergence of fears
By t . .
w in g w om en ac ce ss to education and o mtimacy with other women might
t al lo .
tha
e co ns eq ue nc es for heterosexuality m general and f◄or marria .
ge in
ave nega tiv un d d A . h
un fo n
e · mencan wor en w o attended
h
articular. These co ncerns were not
. terp ar ts t lik 1
P llege were less likely than their coun o m'arry .men and more e y to
co . al careers and long-term partnersh ips with other women, some-
ursue pr of es s1 0n " 9 ) "R . . "b
P referred to as Boston marriages" (l 0 · omantic ,fnendsh ·ips etween
times lleges ' One Off◄ew
e es peci
.
al ly co m m on in the context of womens co .
women wer . . women could form c1ose re1at10dnships outsi e 0
·d f
m w hi ch yo ung
environments , th e site o f romantic all- women ances. and other
ens co lle ge s w er e
families. W·om • ung women 10 d adem1e and ath-
· · es as we11 as p1aces m which vo
c.
un ac
'
soci.
al act1V1t1
ale prof es so rs man y of w h om 1IVed on campus .as
.
ong fe m ' .
letic role models am w hi ch w om
al
en students h ad sexu re1at10nships
e exte. nt to column
couples. Although. th ral in dict or s su gg est that it was likely. A
certam, se ve
with one another 1s un ap er de sc rib es co llege romances between women,
in an 1873 Yal"e st h ,, "
udent newsph ,,
ons":
ow n as sm as es , crus es, or "spo
also kn rs upon
aightaway ente
sh in e to on e another, she str
When a Vassar gi
rl ta ke s a tes, mysteri-
nd in gs , in te rs pe rsed with tinted no
bo uq ue t se other
a regular course of es ;' lock s of ha ir perhaps, and many
di
idley's M ix ed Can is captured, the two
women
ous packages of "R of he r at te nt io n
at la st th e object acquain-
tender tokens, until es so r is co ns id er ed by he r circle of
e, an d th e aggr
become inseparabl 1991: 19)
as - sm as he d. (Q uo te d in Fa de rm an
tances
y were
nd ition s in th e la te nineteenth centw
an, social co her women: "How co
uld
According to Fadenn se xu al de sire fo r ot
able to express nnan, "at a time whe
n
ideal for women to be lo ve s, " as ks Fa de
t lead to passionate ale same-sex relatio
n-
such excitements no ai ns t in tens e fem
idespread stigma ag
there was not yet w
s in the
ships?" (20). w er e be gi nn in g to have access to college
women tempt to
While wealthy white w hi te w om en w ere more likely to at
1800s, women o f co
lor and po or ac ce ss to the public sphere
. For
e de gr ee of
der to gain som ses of women who su
c-
pass" as men in or ov er a hu nd re d ca
l (2000) points to al exams precluded
example, Terry Lovel be fo re m ili ta ry m ed ic
ldiers in earlier eras were working-class
wo~en.
cessfully passed as so o f th es e w om en
vast majority arduous labor not so
differ-
this possibility. The w om en en ga ge d in
because these th
easier for ese women
Lovell suggests that it m ig ht ha ve be en
working-class men
ent from the labor o f -
m en h • 'd dl lass feminists in fithe nine
to pass as · concerns taken up by w 1te, fimi d e-cof employment,. re e 1ove,
. ,
Many o f the sp he re , ree omfl t d these fem1msts own
te th century- access to th e pu bl ic
e
en .
. ou t fem ale frailty or weakness-re ec
restnctive beliefs ab
, 82 SECTI ON I • MODE RN FEMIN IST THOU GHT

racial and socioeconomic privileges. The ninete enth-c entury logic

of separate
spheres suggested that white, middle-class wome n requir ed protection
from the
heartless, male-dominated, and sexually volatile public realm, yet wome
n slaves,
poor women, and prostitutes were not included in the narrow catego
ry of woman
upon which such logic relied. Black women slaves and wome n factor
y workers
(across various racial groups) engaged in backbreaking work as difficu
lt as any
manua l labor under taken by men, and women slaves and prostitutes
were fre-
quently subjected to the most brutal forms of sexual violence and torture
. These
abuses reflected a contradiction in Victorian gender ideology, one that
would carry
forward into the current era. White women, especially white middl e-
and upper-
middle-class women were imbued with chastity, purity, and great mater
nal impor-
tance, while women of color and poor women of all races were regula
rly subjected
to demeaning forms of sexual violence and social control (see chapters
4 and 5).
Consequently, even though we know little about the same-sex desires
of
nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century women, those we know about
tend to
be white, middle- or upper-class women and working-class wome n who
were lit-
erate. Despite this race and class bias, it is worth noting that some
of the most
compelling examples of same-sex desire in this era come from promi
nent femi-
nist activists. At the turn of the century, Jane Addams openl y consid
ered herself
marrie d to philanthropist Mary Rozet Smith, with whom she bough t
a house and
shared a bed and to whom she wrote letters expressing great love
and longing
during her travels. Jane wrote to Mary: "You must know, dear, how I
long for you
all the time, and especially during the last three weeks. There is reason
in the
habit of married folks keeping together" (Quot ed in Fader man 1991:
26). Emma
Goldman, who refused identification with lesbianism when the label later
entered
public awareness, shared a very "romantic" vacation in the count ry with
a female
admirer and prostitute named Almeda Sperry. In letters to Goldm an
dated 1912,
Sperry recalled Goldman's "beautiful throat that I kissed with revere
nt tender-
ness;' "your sweet bosom, unconfined;' the "rhyth mic spurt of your
love juice;'
and the moment when "you reached the climax ... the mome nt I had
complete
possession of you" (34). Although Charlotte Perkins Gilma n marri
ed, her first
lo:e was Martha Luther, and after her divorce she had several passio
nate affairs
with women (Len~ermann and Niebrugge-Brantley 1998: 108-1 09). The
record is
less clear for late-eighte~nth and early- ninete enth-c entury feminists,
such as Mary
Wollstonecraft, ~ho ulti~a tely marrie d but also wrote and spoke about
her inti-
mate and possess1:e relationships with wome n (Fade rman 1981: 138-1
42).
. At the ~ame ~e that some promi nent wome n activists were cultiva
s10nate relationships with O ting pas-
. ne another m .
Europe and the Unite d States European
male sexo1ogists such as Ri h d .
. b ' . .
theonze a out the ongms and c ar von Kraft- Ebmg Havelock Ellis had' begun to
... . h . . '
c aractenstics of homo sexua lity then known as
mvers1on:' As John D'Emilio d Es . '
A Hi' . . an telle Freed man discuss in
zstory of Sexuality in America ([1988] 1997) while Elli' b ksIntimatethMatter s:
b' ct
of censorship in his E gli h h . ' s s oo were e o Je
volumes printed betwe :n :897 :~l~ d, his ~tudies in the Psychology
of Sex (~ix
910) qwckl y found an Amer ican readership.
 CHAPTER 3 • Rad'ICal Feminisms 83

sex wa s "w on de rfu l an d lovely" -t he "ch'ief and central fun ti fli£ ,,

e. He
Ellis al . du l t h alt h c on o
for , ge nc e po se d a th re at -
did not think that sexu m d th e in sf tut ~ e f or character and encour d
d sexual gratificati on. He questione i ion o marriage and a vocate a
d
. ,, b c e couples made a 1 t· t and ogm.zed
age d of "trial marriage e1or
rio as mg commitmen . rec
pe d rie ty of se x pa rtn ers H wrote approvm 1 f b
pe op le m ig ht ne e a va • e yo m astu r a-
that e re m ov al of th e sti gm a att ach d tO h omosexua g
l be ha vio p
tion and calle.d for th . ,, iti on
e
an d as "natural" r. or
s a co ng en ita l co nd
him, "sexual mversion wa tio n th at wo m en we re p . nlessash e
het~ro~exuassl
did discu
ted the no assio ,
behavior. While Ellis•rejec• g di di "
stinct!Y uerent. He characterized
.
al e orientat io ns to se x as be in
male and fem d'
.
e, ag gr es
.
siv e, an d se xu ally in. sistent and worn en as nee mg more atten-
rnen as activ , . 1 . )
.
to be ar ou se d (D Em ilio and Freedman [19 88 1997 2 4
tion and stimulus t, the homosexual sub·1ec was iter y prul
t · 1,2 all. o-
Fo uc au lt po in te d ou
As Mich•el 'fi . t
neteenth cen ury ouca t (F
by sc ien tl ic an d m ed ical discourses of the ni t· f
duced . . . 80 s, U. S ph ysicians began docu men mg cases o
g
nm ,, . .m th e 18
(1976) 1980). Be1gm • . ·
s vi ew ed as an acquired form of in
san-
" . Im tia lly th is wa
contrary sex~~ im~~lse be tte r kn ow n, medical opinion began
to shift
be ca m e
ity, but as Ellis s wntmgs o an d _F r~ ed man ((1988] 1997: 226) po
int
el. As D 'E m il!
towa~d a congenita! mod he n Fr eu di am sm sw ept competitors from th
e
1920s, w
out, it was not until the ck to th e po sit io n that homosexuality was
an
swun g ba
field;' that "the pendulum ol og y. M or eo ve r, according to many sexolo-
ll as a pa th
acquired condition" as we cl ud in g an dr og yn y, sexual desire for women
,
versio n- in
gists of this era, female in w ith m en -w as no t unrelated to the problem
associated
and interest in activities m en to se ek au to no m y and to emulate men.
uraged wo
of feminism, which enco ho m os ex ua lit y in Th ree Essays on the Theory
usse d
Sigmund Freud first disc di d no t th in k se xu al drives were inherited.
e Ellis, Fr eu d
of Sexuality (1905). Unlik bo rn "p ol ym or ph ou sly perverce"-t ha t is, that
ildren were
Rather he thought all ch an y ob ject. It was childhood ex
periences that
d be dr aw n to
their sexual drives co ul
cte d to m em be rs of the opposite or the same
e to be dire
caused children's sex driv ic tra di tion of labeling nonhetero
sexual sex-
re d a ps yc hi atr
sex. This analysis foste Essays gave
an d ab er ra tio ns . In de ed, one section of Three
ualities as perversions stment. This
to re ar ch ild re n to "n ormal" heterosexual adju
parents tips on how ol og y wo ul d do m in ate American psychiatry
lity with path
equation of homosexua
until the 1970s. d, Charlotte
re se co nd wa ve fe m in ists would critique Freu
Notably, long befo se xu ality as proof of the inter
twining of
s w or k on se x an d
Perkins Gilman saw hi , an d do m ination-part of a backlas
h against
bi d se xu ali ty
patriarchal culture, mor nd en ce . H er views of his work are pres
cient:
ic in de pe
women's gains in econom on the
hy of Freu d ... seems to embody the last effort
op
The perverted sex-philos of the female . . .. Not since the ph
allic reli-
n his mi su se
part of man to maintai strongly appeared. (Quoted
in Lengermann
has sex- wo rsh ip so
gions of antiquity
1998: 127).
and Niebrugge-Brantley n lesbi-
ee
s of fem ale hom osexuality and any link betw
In summary, theorie lar or feminist attention until
the early
ceived little popu
anism and feminism re
,
•
84 SECTION I • MODERN FEM !NIST THOU GHT
. feminists had few reasons to theorize
decades of the twent1.eth century.· First
.
wave
. uldlatercarrywasre1ative . 1
d thest1 gma1 two yunknown
lesbianism since the 1abe1an . . th ht on same-sex des1re .
appears less in
to them. Hence, our record Of feminist oug sand more in the form of personal cor.
. al speeches or essay
the form of educatio n h d rttle
1 reason to h1"de t heir
. .
emotional and
respondences between women who Ha. t ·an Nancy Cott describes
how, when
sexual attachme~ts to one ~~ other IS on
i~ the 1920s, in part they did so because of the
young women reJected femimsm c . . m and lesbianism advanced
by the new
newly created associ.ation
. between iem1ms
(C tt h
7: 279). It appears to ave taken a
· and sexology O 198
fields of psychoana1ysis . ntific discourses on sexua1ity to trickle
few decades for the power of these new sc1e
down to the masses.

LESBIAN SEXUAL POL ITICS BETWEEN THE WAVES

'E r and 11 F d an oint out in Intimate Matters: A History
As Jo hn D. ~e 10 . Este e ree m: P ), World War II created "substa
1997 289 ntially
of Sexuality in Ame~1~a ~ 19881 h t·cula tion of a gay identity and the rapid growth
t' portumt1es 1or t e ar 1
new ero ic;pult ,, The war years fostered large migrations of people
away from
of a gay su c udre. f mall towns and rural areas. Cities provi
their families an away rom s ded more
. ·
.
options for sexua1express10n, · but residential segregation and the strictures p1aced
.
on movements of peop1e Of color within white-controlled space meant that racism
· ted these op t·10ns (Collm·s 2004a· 109). Nevertheless, both the milita ..
restnc · . ry and
wartime factory work placed gays and lesbians of all races m more dense
ly popu-
lated areas (and often in sex-segregated settings) where they were able
to meet
others with similar feelings and sexual interests. Some historians have
described
World War II as something of a "nationwide 'coming out' experience"
(D'Emelio
and Freedman [1988) 1997: 289).
These changes set in motion by the war continued after demobiliza
tion, as
many lesbians and gay men did not return to their prewar geographic
locations.
Rather, they often stayed in cities and created gay institutions to bolste
r their iden-
tity. D'Emelio and Freedman discuss, for example, how gay bars began
to be estab-
lished in cities across the country in the 1940s, although they are carefu
l to point
out gendered differences in the ability to establish gay spaces. Not only
did gay men
make more income, but they also had greater access to public entertainm
ent spaces
without the "disreputable" connotations often associated with bar life
for women.
Gay men developed more gay bars, more neighborhood enclaves, and
more bath-
houses. The lesbian subculture was smaller and more hidden-especial
ly for lesbi-
ans of the working and lower classes-though, unlike their wealthier count
erparts,
they too developed their own bar culture. Ironically, black lesbians were
less likely
~o fre~uent thes~ bars because of racial segregation, even though many
were located
m their own neighborhoods (Collins 2004a: 111).
By contrast, wealthy lesbians were able to provide private gay space
s mod-
e~ed on. the salon culture described in chapter 2. Among the more
famous les-
bian wnters of the salon culture between the waves were Gertrude Stein
and Alice
 CHA PTER 3 R d. 85
• a ICal Feminisms
and Toklas were Amenc .
a. ~10t lives in Europe.
klas. While both Stein. . ans, they l' d
Stem is auth or of some f th . ive most of their
0
e earlie st com· .
adul s the short story "M'iss Furr and Miss Ske ,, ( mg-out stones,
sueh a ene 1922) d Q
·tten in 1903 but not publ ished until 19S0 u d h . an .E.D., the latter
wn . n er t e title Th·
Ber book The Autobiography of Alice B. Tokla s )- . mgs as T_hey Are.
0932
biog raph y-is well know n in lesbian , gay, b"isexua1 and which actually 1s Stein's
trans end (
auto Stein ' d g er LGBT)
Alice B. Toklas (often referred to as ·c
l1·terature. mem oir,
s W11e an the man
The Al.
fh
ager o er
affairs) is prob ably best know n for her own
B. To~las Cookbook
33), which included a recipe for marijuana browm.es thzceat received far more
(19 • 1 h .
ublicity than h er rmemoir. T e most famous lesb ian • 1writt en between the
P , nove
Well of Lone liness ( 19 ) Al h h .
waves was Radclyfi.e Halls The 1· • 28 · t oug the mam char-
, · d dh . .
acters attitu e towar er sexua ity is anguished ' the nove1presents lesbianism as
· t all . .
natural and makes a plea for. greater tolerance. The novel is no sexu y exphc1t
B ·t • h
but was nonetheless. the subJect of an obscenity trial in n am, w ere attempts
t· • h .
were made to have it bann.ed and all copies destroyed · Puhl'ica ion m t e Umted
b ttl
States was not allowed until 1949, after a long series of court a es.
d States from the
The repression and surveillance of homosexuality in the Unite
lity. While more per-
e~ly_to mi~-twentieth centu ry accompanied its growing visibi
d between the waves,
missive attitudes towa rd heterosexual sex were gaining groun
lity became named and
restraints on lesbians and gay men increased. As homosexua
st what was viewed as
studied, local, state, and federal governments mobilized again
onslaught that reached
an underground worl d of sexual perversion, a homophobic
its peak during the 1950s and early 1960s.
y, et.al:s Sexual
Social scientific resea rch on sexuality, such as Alfred Kinse
the Human Female
Behavior in the Human Male ( 1943) and Sexual Behavior in
ugh these works were
(1953) received muc h publ icity in the popu lar press . Altho
regard to the unexpect-
not inten ded for repressive purp oses , their findings in
ttling to mainstream
edly high incid ence of hom osex ual behavior were unse
it was during the cold
mores. However, acco rding to D'Emelio and Freedman,
ssion of homosexuals
war perio d of the fifties and sixties that the greatest repre
sexuality in February
occurred. Politicians first latch ed onto the issue of homo
charged that the U.S.
1950 -the same mon th that Sena tor Joseph McCarthy
osexuals within the gov-
State Depa rtme nt was riddl ed with comm unist s. Hom
were considered perfect
ernment were deem ed threa ts to natio nal security. They
of "emotional stabil-
targets for com mun ist coun teres pion age due to their lack
could be blackmailed
ity" and "mor al fiber " as well as the ease with which they
Red Scare was acco ~-
(D'Emelio and Free dma n [1988] 1997: 292). Thus , the th
s jumped_ onto ~ anti-
panied by a lave nder scare , and Republican politician
blican nation,~l chairman
comm unist and antig ay band wago n. In 1950, the Repu · g them that sexua l per-
wor k ers warn m "
sent a lette r to seve n thou sand party ,, d th t homosexuals were. perh aps
Gov ernm ent an a d £
verts ... have infil trate d our . ,, J 1950 the Senate authorize at "or- ·n
as d ange rous as actu al Com mun ists." In une 1 and othe r mora1perver s I -
.
mal mqu iry into the emp loym ent of hom osex ua s
gove rnme nt (292 ).
r
86 SECTION I • MODERN FEMINIST THOUGHT

The response to this panic over homosexuals in government was immedi-

ate and far-reaching. Dismissals from civilian posts increased twelvefold over
the pre-1950 rate. After President Dwight D. Eisenhower was inaugurated, he
issued an executive order barring gay men and lesbians from all federal jobs.
The federal government's harsh stance encouraged local police to harass gays
and lesbians with impunity. The FBI initiated a widespread system of surveil-
lance, and the armed forces purged homosexuals from its ranks. One study in
the mid-1950s estimated that over 12.6 million workers-more than 20 percent
of the labor force-faced some type ofloyalty-security investigations as a condi-
tion of employment. 2 For lesbians, who faced the same constricted employment
options that all women faced in the post-World War II era, this cold war employ-
ment discrimination posed serious hardships (293). Leslie Feinberg's Stone Butch
Blues (1993) highlights the violence and discrimination faced by lesbians in the
cold war era. Feinberg's novel became an underground hit before it surfaced as
mainstream literature. While it specifically portrays butch-femme culture, it is
generally regarded as a groundbreaking work on gender and a classic of LGBT
literature. 3
While there were a number of small riots and demonstrations by lesbian and
gay activists during the immediate post-World War II decades,4 the Stonewall
riots that t?ok place in 196~ at a gay bar (the Stonewall Inn) in New York City
often are ~1ted as the definmg event that marked the beginning of the lesbian
and gay nghts movement. Within two years after the spontaneous and violent
~tonewall dem?nstra_ti_ons, lesbian and gay rights groups had been established
m many American cities. However, lesbian feminists at times found th 1
· fli ·h h emse ves
m co~ ct wit t e gay rights movement. Many found gay men's attitudes and
behaviors to be patriarchal and chauvinistic. Moreover, the issues most im or-
tanD'Etto gl~y men-entrapment and public solicitation-were not shared by lesbfans
( me 10 and Freedman [1988]
1997. 294)
movement to form their own rad1·cal ce.m· ..tMany left the lesbian and gay rights
11 mis groups.
The routes to radical feminism were man £ .
women. Some, such as Andrea D ki y or both lesbians and heterosexual
.
V1etnam wor n, came out of th N L ft
war movement D ki .. e ew e and the anti-
. wor n was Jailed fo h ·
her first efforts to end violen . r er antiwar activism, and among
ce agamst women w h
abuse of prisoners. Others initiall k d. ere er protests against the sexual
b ywor e mNOW til h
out Y Betty Friedan's attempts to d' t . un t ey felt forcibly pushed
. th is ance this org . .
m e l 960s. It was not until l 97l ft . amzation from lesbian issues
and Ti-Grace Atkinson had st , ~ er such radical feminists as Rita Mae Brown
conferences, that NOW finally ~ge a number of protests at national women's
1983: 341-342). Brown's famous Pei:~; adtess lesbian issues (Deckard [1979]
~appho was an ancient Greek poet wh app o's Reply" is reproduced in Box 3 I
1or all th' ose wr·r ··
from t i~gs beautiful, including people of bo I mgs centered on passion and love
he island of her birth-Lesbos "S h~ genders. The word lesbian derives
have had the · app os Re 1 ,,
wh . courage to live a lesbian Ii£ 'd p y pays tribute to those who
o contmue the t 1 e am1 much fr1 .
s rugg e against lesb · . su enng as well as to those
ian oppression.
 nisms 87
CHAPTER 3 • Radical Femi

BOX 3.1

"Sappho's Reply" 11
thousands of years.
My voice rings down through
give you strength
To coil around your body and '
t sunlight,
You who have wept in direc
le chains,
Who have hungered in invisib
legacy:
Tremble to the cadence of my
.
An army of lovers shall not fail

(Freedom care. C . printed

usappho's Re·plyd," by Rita Mae Brown. From Poems ' II.. rossmg, 1971). Re
.c d
w M · Da vidson eds 7ih ,. men's
· in and Cathy N. ., e 0~,o,, Book of Wo
on p.. 580• ,n Lin ·a d agner- art rsity
'
Press, ).
. York: Oxford Unive 1995
w,,cmg ,n the Unite States (New

IN LATE MODERNITY
RADICAL FEMINISMS

The "Dialectic of Sex" ents of radical feminism wa

s
d mo st inf lue nti al sta tem
One of the earliest an ed in 1970. Firestone had been a key
ctic of Se x pu bli sh
Shulamith Firestone's Diale en in Ne w York. Their protest against
p Ra dic al W om
activist in founding the grou tion of the sec-
erica Pa ge an t in 19 68 wa s the first feminist demonstra
the Miss Am ] 1983:
front- pa ge co ve rag e in the national press (Deckard [1979
ond wave to ge t m Trash
tes t a sh ee p wa s cro wn ed Miss America and a "Freedo
329). At this pro ay "women's garbage;' such as "br
as,
for wo me n to thr ow aw
Can" was provided 9). Most likely this event contribu
ted
ey ela sh es an d wi gs" (32
girdles, curlers, false ini sts as bra burners (the actual burn-
of se co nd wa ve fem
to the legendary labeling e an d political stance of radical fem
i-
cu me nte d) . Th e ton
ing of bras was never do Th e "B ITC H Manifesto" (1968) written
ca ptu red we ll in
nists in these early years is
x 3.2).
by Joreen [Jo Freeman] (see Bo

BOX3.2
II
Manifesto"
II Excerpts from "The Bitch
onym. It
anization which does not
yet exist. The name is not an acr
BITCH is an org
nds like... .
stands for exactly what it sou man should be proud
does no t use this wo rd in the negative sense. A wo
BITCH affirma-
ch, be cau se Bitch is Be autiful. It should be an act of
to declare she is a Bit
n by others... .
tion by self and not negatio t they rudely violate
cteristic of all Bitches is tha different ways, but
The most prominent chara . Th · I te them in .
. s of proper sex role behavior. ey v10 a peo ~le,
th e~r
conception elves and other
attitude towards themsnee their
they all violate them. Their . and way of handling
. d
ions the ir pe rso na l sty le, their appeara metimes it's conscious an
goal orientat y So
them ,ee1uneas ·
&
. ' an d ma ke
bod1es, all jar peop le
r 88 SECT ION I • MOD ERN FEMI NIST THOU GHT

d Bitches. They
sometimes its not but people generally feel uncomfortable aroun
create a dump-
consider them aberrations. They find their style disturbing. So they
ted. Frustrated
ing ground for all who they deplore as bitchy and call them frustra
they may be, but the cause is social, not sexual. ...
res which
Therefore, if taken seriously, a Bitch is a threat to the social_ struc~u
rn therr place. She
enslave women and the social values which justify keeping them
and as such raises
is living testimony that woman's oppression does not have to be,
. . .
doubts about the validity of the whole social system. · · ·
s and to grve therr sisters
Bitches have to learn to accept themselves as Bitche
to b~ proud of
the support they need to be creative Bitches. Bitches must learn
togeth er_ rn a mov~-
their strength and proud of themselves. ... Bitches must form
organrze for therr
ment to deal with their problems in a political manner. They must
be strong, we must
own liberation as all women must organize for theirs. We must
Beautiful and that
be militant, we must be dangerous. We must realize that Bitch is
we have nothing to lose. Nothing whatsoever.

by Jo Freeman, ~ -
"The BITCH Manifesto," by Joreen [Jo Freeman} (1968). Copyright
Reader , 2nd ed., edited
jofreeman.com. Reprinted on pp. 213-217 in Feminist Theory: A
mar and Frances Bartkow ski (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2005).
by Wendy K. Kol

] 1981: 5)
Firestone states at the beginning of The Dialectic of Sex ([1970
sex" in order to
that her aim is "to develop a materialist view of histor y based on
class oppression.
achieve for women's oppression what Karl Marx had achieved for
in Marx's theory,
Rather than the social relations of production driving histor y as
"dialectic of sex:'5
biological relations of reproduction drive history in Firestone's
radical feminism
A major claim made by Firestone that became a central tenet of
is that womens oppression is the earliest and most fundamental form
of oppression
on class,
and provides the modelfor all laterforms ofoppression, such as those based
race, or sexual orientation.
in sociohis-
Unlike other feminist frameworks that root women's oppre ssion
torical conditions, Firestone ([1970] 1981: 8) roots womens oppre
ssion in biology:

Women throughout history before the advent of birth control were

at the con-
le ills': con-
tinual mercy of their biology-menstruation, menopause, and "fema
made them
stant painful childbirth, wetnursing and care of infants all of which
dependent on males for survival.
n fetus and the
Firestone adds _to this list the long gestation perio d of the huma
part of her argu-
even longer ~eno d ~hat h~man infants are depen dent on adults as
th on of labor in the
me~t at bwlogy _1s _destmy (8). In her view, the sexual divisi
d:" Sh
earliest human societies was simply a reflection of these biological meren ces. e
. "fi t d' · · fl fu . ..
sees this irs IVIs1on o abor based on sex" as the "origins of all rther d1V1s1on
into economi d It al
c ~ cu _ur c1asses and is possibly even at the root of all caste"
(9).
. . ..
.
Firestone also directly links child rearin6u and ch1'ld bearin
• d g-a conne ction critically
quest1one by those feminists who highl ight how hild .
sex. c rearm g can be done by
either

L_
 CHAPTER 3 • Rd .
a ical Feminisms 89
. . .
based
For estone, this biologically
Fir sexual division oif Iabor is. "the root" of
men a d
major cultural dif1 fierences between n ~omen in (1 75 ). She .define s culture as
pt by ma n [sic ] to rea lize the le th ,,
"the attem . conceivab e possible and refers to
the "m ale te h .
these cultural dif
,,
fer en ces as c no1og1cal mod e,, and the "female aes-
gical d re1cers to a typ Of ul
mo
thetic mode (17. 4). Th.e technolo e e c tural response
" tm gen c1e s of rea lity " are ,,
thr ou gh "th
where the con 0 ,er co me of reality's
ng s
,,
(17 4). Ex am ple s of thi s incl dethe use of · e mastery
own worki u science, technology, and
ug ht to ma ste r the va ga rie s of th al an d so ·al worIds. By con-
rational tho . e natur CI
to a cu ltu ral · d' 'd 1
trast, the aesthetic. mode drefers res ponse through. which th e m IVI ua
. .
denies the 11m1tations
to define, create, his [
an
sic J ow
co
n
nti
po
ng en
ssi
cie
ble "
s
or
of
i~ r
al.
:~
us
"b
i :scapmg from it.altogether
75
b~o~x~ples of.this aesthetic
,

mu sic , an d ph ilo sop hy . Th

mode include poetry, est o , th gic~l sex differences are
ma ter ial bas e in Fir d d I I
the foundation for the nes eory while gen ere cu tura
ture.
orientations form its superstruc
n's oppression is mn . t andb '10logi.cal, little room
Given tha t the root of wome . ae
. ofwomen would
. c 'al h Ac co rdm g to Fir est on e the t l'b
1 eratio n
1s left 1or soc 1 c ang e. ' rue
• • s we ffi •
have to wait until the new rep .
roductive techn olo gie re su 1c1ent1y developed to
, . ives and to enable reproduction • to take place
d wo me ns bio log ica l im pe rat
transc . en . With such technological advances, ex-utero reproduc-
ou tsid e of the human.body . •
.
lac e ch ild bir th an d he ter ose xual intercourse wouId become 1ust one
t10n could. rep .
of sex ua l ex pe rie nc es , no lon ger being so 1·mportant 1or c. procreati·on.
of many kinds .
e;p en en ~~ ma ny ero tic exp eriences and reclaim the "poly-
Then people could bo rn with,7 what she sometimes cal
ls
rse sex ua liti es the y we re
morphously perve
"pansexuality" (11). The
ination of male
tion must be ... not just the elim
end goal of the feminist revolu human beings
itself; genital differences between
privilege but ofthe sex distinction
would no longer matter cultur
ally:' (11; her emphasis)
important
en d of Th e Di ale cti c of Sex , Firestone argues that "the most
At the her empha-
ristic to be ma int ain ed in an y revolution is flexibility" (227;
characte roles and life-
ce wo me n we re fre ed fro m their biological chains, gender
sis). On x and match
uld be ma ny an d div ers e; pe ople would be encouraged to mi
styles co d. Not only
an d ma scu lin e tra its in wh atever combination they wishe
feminine become
ns evo lve int o an dro gy no us persons, but all of culture could
could huma of "drafting
us. Un lik e the ear ly Fri ed an , Firestone considers any image
androgyno distinction
o a ma le wo rld rat he r tha n the elimination of the sex class
women int which
pa rt of a "19 84 nig htm are :'8
She does not want a society in
altogether" as ther,
be co me lik e me n, cri pp led in the identical ways" (210-211). Ra
"women have as
g the ear lie st sec on d wa ve feminists to call for androgyny
Firestone is amon
integral to women's liberation. ptions of Firestone's radical feminist theory are
The major theoretical assum n on the Edge .of
76
Time ([ 19 ]
inist's no vel Wo me
captured in Marge Piercy's fem one fin ds pansexuality, an dr o~ ou s
rad ica l fem ini st utopia ,
1997). In this fictional, cha rac ters practice many and diverse
rep rod uc tio n. Pie rcy 's
persons, and ex-utero
90 SECTION I• MODERN FEMINIST THOU GHT
scu-
sexualities, such as the celibate character Magdalena or the heterosexually promi
line-
ous Jack Rabbit. All of her characters are androgynous. One of the more mascu
round,
looking characters, the bearded Barbarossa, is breastfeeding. In the backg
fetuses are gestating in enormous breeding tanks. As one character explains:
It was part of women's long revolution. When we were breaking up all the
old
hierarchies. Finally there was one thing we had to give up too, the only power we
ever had.... The original production: the power to give birth. Cause as long as
we were biologically enchained, wea never be equal ... we all became mothers.
Every child has three. To break the nuclear bonding. (98)
In both Firestone's theory and Piercy's novel, the nuclear family is viewed
as a
major site of womens oppression. In their visions for the future the nuclear family
of
is eliminated as a procreative unit, as an economic unit, and as the primary unit
g and
socialization for young children. In its place there is communal child rearin
us
multiple mothers (of no particular sex), and all children are viewed as precio
y,
responsiblities of the entire community (Firestone [1970] 1981: 206). Notabl
well-
Firestone writes quite a lot about children. She uses historian Philippe Aries's
pre-
received book Centuries of Childhood (1962) to document how children in
that
modern societies were not excluded and shielded from adult life. She argues 9
modern societies have suffered from separating children from the adult world.
and
One of Firestone's major demands was for the total integration of women
"the
children into all aspects of the larger society. In particular, she believed that
to be
modern school must be destroyed" ([1970] 1981: 208). She wanted children
one
introduced into the adult world by a more hands-on approach to education,
that does not isolate children from the knowledge and skills of adults. 10
Similarly, in Piercy's. novel _there_ are no schools, and children learn directly
also
from a~ults as they practice their various occupations. Children in the novel
of
e~gage 1~ sexual activities with the full blessing of adults, which was also one
por-
F1restones_d_emands (236). This integration of children into the adult world is
trayed .positiv.ely as sugges
. ted by the following quote·. "I th1'nk growmg up Is 1ess
. .
124).
mysterious wit~ us s1~ce the adult world isn't separate" (Piercy [1976] 1997:
b
Mor~over, despite their communal lifestyles, children are taught to e au onomous t
and mdependent individuals.
Diversity reigns in both Firestone's theor and p· , .
1 d db Y_ iercys novel. Not only IS the
uniqueness of individuals
the Edge of Time, the comm ::i; m:e:o ;f;~;; is cult~ral. diversity. ~n W~~an on
racism is eliminated through ge . . . s to mamtam cultural Identitles, but
ne mixmg m the breeding machines·
We decided to hold on to separate cultural .d . . ·
genes and culture, broke it forever. We w~::~t ies. But we broke the bond between
there to be no chance of race hate
again. But we didn't want the meltin h
Wi g pot w ereh everyone ends up Wl'th thin gruel.
e wanted diversity, for strangeness br d nc .
. . ee s ness. (Piercy [1976] 1997: 97)
~either Firestone nor Piercy suggest that . d' . any
smgular vision or that people should b th m 1v1duals should confonn to
(Piercy [1976] 1997: 90). e e same. Rather, "Beautiful is many"
 CHAPTER 3 • Rad'ical Feminisms 91

ions for the futu

Both of these radical feminists' vis
one ([1 970 ] 198 1: 196 ) rec ogn izes ~et~reredicatedonadvanced
hnology. Firest a ~c nology can liberate or
ues tha t "w ho" con tro ls tec hn
tee t ol people but arg 0 1ogy 1s the key. N0 t 0 nl d
, l'b . rep rod t· · Y oes
con r me ns i era tio n on the new tec hno log ies b t . h
redicate wo . h uc ive " , u m er
she p gy;' Firestone enVIs1o .. .]
ter "Feminism m t e dAge of Ecolo ns a man m de,, [sic
a
chaP
ical bal anc e as a pro uct of the "total mastery of natu re,, by sci.enc-e and t h
log f . . . . ec -
ecO . On e o the mo st ser iou s eco logical pr bl m her VIe w: is "th e
ology (192-193) . ,, d h l k o ems, '
n l s to new me tho ds of£ rtil'
opulation exp os1on, ban s · e oo e ity con tro l to address it
· h .
P
In tur n, cy _er nat ion 1st e key to transforming the wor lac e-"
093 _199). wo rk and wages" (200) · Thi's technocrkp. me
altermg
nta lity-
...,an's [sic] age -ol d rel atio n to atic
.,. . m _ b c.
all proble s can e 1ound also m .
sci enc e and tec hn olo gy can fix
the view tha•t · h
anced technology makes ex -utero repro uction
d .
Piercy's fictional utopia, w ere adv .
ible and ena ble s peo ple to hve comfortably in a communal 1·c. 11e sty 1e. Everyone
oss . . . .
P
nov el app ear s to use the ir art isti c or craft skills to reali'ze th emse1ves m non-
in the . . .
exploit ativ e lab or tha t 1s soc iall y useful and interesting:
g
pe~ the job s tell ing peo ple wh ~t to do, counting money and movin
We dum what
don t want or bashing them for doing
about, making people do what they
they want. (Piercy [1976) 1997: 121)
ltering the
fem inis t uto pia the re are no problems feeding, clothing, or she
In this d with short
mu nity . Ev ery one wo rks ; the y have "high productivity" couple
com ed that
g hou rs (12 1). Ho w and wh ere the advanced technology is produc
workin
table life possible is not revealed.
makes such a pleasant and comfor hno-
rad ica l fem ini sts cri tici zed Fir estone's theory for embracing a tec
Other
lity and for no t cel ebr atin g the positive features of women's lives and
cratic menta
197 8). Ho we ver , wh eth er rad ical feminists agreed with Firestone
culture (Daly
to aw ait the new rep rod uct ive technologies to free them from
that women had
ins or rej ect ed her bio log ical determinism and took a more
their biological cha
nis t app roa ch, ma ny cal led for feminist separatism as the path
social constructio ir every-
resist the impact of patriarchy in the
women should take to challenge and
day lives.

an-Identified Woman
Feminist Separatism and the Wom fro~
conscious and willful separation
men's
Feminist separatism refers to wo ~emi-
ms of pat ria rch al con tro l. Am ong the most radical sta~~ments of
various for t e?
wa s Ch arlott e Bu nch 's ess ay "Lesbians in Revolt, firS ~ubhsh t
nist separatism ones
lesbia n fem inist jou rna l The Fur ies. While Bunch shares FireS or as
in 1972 in the , . n and th e sexual division of. lab . .
• oppressio
VIews on the origins of womens . • th eoretical contributio.
ns heifi
m
d
h . root of women's oppression, her maJor woma n-1 den t e
t e ma Jor d wh at she caile d the
.
her dis sions of fem ini st sep aratism an
cus
woma n: itical
. If other woment tforherpolShe
ent ifie d wo ma n com mit s herse to importan ° · is
.
The wo
.
ma n-id . port. w0 men are
emotional, physical, and economic sup
1993: 174)
important to herself. (Bunch [1972)
 T THOUGHT
92 SECTION I• MODERN FEMINIS
woman" to women who give their
Bunch contrasts the "woman-identified
, "giving support and love to men over
primary commitments to men. In her view
es her" (175). She discusses how het-
women perpetuates the system that oppress
h other, forces women to compete for
erosexuality separates women from eac
selves through men. She also discusses
men, and encourages them to define them
ileges" as compensation for their loss
how heterosexual women "gain a few priv
s, they are socially-accepted as wives
of freedom. They are "honored" as mother
nomic and emotional security as well
or lovers, and they often receive some eco
tect ion on the street" (176). In her view , these privileges give heterosexual
as "pro
women a personal and political stake in
maintaining the status quo. So long as
es they cannot be trusted and will at
heterosexual women receive these privileg
Lesbian sisters who do not receive those
some point "betray their sisters, especially
sbians must become feminists and fight
benefits" (178). According to Bunch, "Le
ts must become lesbians if they hope to
against woman oppression, just as feminis
oman-identified lesbianism, is, then,
end male supremacy" (175). For Bunch, "W
l choice" (175; emphasis added).
more than a sexual preference; it is a politica
also was expressed in an early
The view that lesbianism is a political act
e Woman-Identified Woman;' first
statement by the Radicalesbians titled "Th
the Lavender Menace protest in New
published in 1970. This group grew out of
ians in the women's movement and
York-a protest against the invisibility of lesb
men (NOW). As noted in chapter 2,
especially in the National Organization of Wo
ty Friedan's remark that lesbianism was
the term "lavender menace" referred to Bet
address lesbian issues. By contrast, the
a "lavender herring" and NOW's refusal to
lesbianism as a woman's courageous
Radicalesbians [1970] 2005: 239) portrayed
compulsion to be a more complete and
efforts "to act in accordance with her inner
allow her:'
freer human being than her society cares to
d to the point of explosion. ... Lesbian
A lesbian is the rage of all women condense
s women in line. When a woman hears
is the word, the label, the condition that hold
stepping out ofline. She knows that she
this word tossed her way, she knows she is
role.... Lesbian is a label invested by
has crossed the terrible boundary of her sex
to be his equal, who dares to challenge
the Man to throw at any woman who dares
primacy of her own needs. (239)
his prerogatives ..., who dares to assert the
feminist writers to emphasize that
. At_this time it was not uncommon for lesbian
sexual or "bedroom issue:' I highlight
le~bian~sm should not be viewed simply as a
Bunch and the Radicalesbians for tak-
this pomt because later feminists criticized
However, these early radical feminists
ing ~e "sex" out of lesbianism (see chapter 7).
practices in this historical context. For
had unportant reasons for downplaying sexual
of"whom one sleeps with" as a "pri-
B~~~ ([1~72] 1993: 175), defining the question
es ofpower and domination entailed
:ate issue igno~ed ~e more s~~ious "public" issu
understanding of the politics of seX:'
m heterosexuality; m short, it sidetracks our
as a bedroom issue they hold back the
As long as straight women see lesbianism d't al
development of politics and strategies that would put an en o m e supremacy
d th • with their sexism. (177)
an ey give men an excuse for not dealing
 \
.
CHAPTER 3 • Radical Fem·m1sms 93
splits in the s d
hese wr1
·ti·ngs exacerbated one of the . most. serious econ wave
o give their rn's rnovernent-the gay .
versus straight
,
spht-first initiated by Fri·edans, "lav-
to men over . ,, statement m 1966. Bunchs call for all feminists to become lesb"1ans
woJ'lle herring
es how het- ender ·rn that only heterosexual women who "cut. their ties with male pn"vilege
dherc1ai . .
:ompete for an betrusted to remam serious to the struggle agamst male dominance" add ed
. .
,o discusses can to the fire (177). Readers can imagme t~e debates that arose over these issues.
>r their loss fue1 1 •nist mothers to separate from their male children? Should heterosexual
ed as Wives were 1ern1 "th th .
. . ts refuse to sleep Wl e enemy? To this day, these debates continue in
trity as well ferninis · cultural ac t·ivitles · · · d by radical feminists-the
· · mitlate
d to one of the premier
eterosexual regar . n Womyns' Mus1c · Fest·ival [the "y" removes the "men" from women] This
So long as ~~ h .
. al refuses entry to males over the age of twelve and to transsexuals ' as indi-
and Will at festlV .
n its 2009 website:
'. Ceive those cated O
:sand fight Since 1976, the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival has been created by and for
1ey hope to womyn-born womyn, that is, womyn who were born as and have lived their
m, is, then, entire life experience as womyn .... the Festival remains a rare and precious
ded) . space intended for womyn-born womyn.11
.n an early
man;' first Diverse Voices within Radical Feminism
est in New A number of radical feminists attempted to heal the gay/straight divisions within
ement and the U.S. women's movement. Unlike Bunch. whose feminist separatism required
1 chapter 2, women to disengage from any relations with men, for other radical feminists, sepa-
ianism was ratism took more moderate forms. According to Marilyn Frye's "Some Reflections on
mtrast, the Separatism and Power" (1978), separatism can involve avoiding close relationships
ourageous with men, excluding someone from your company, withdrawing from participation
nplete and in certain activities and institutions, and withholding support or commitment to
certain people. In short, Frye makes dear that feminist separatism included a wide
.esbian
range of possible actions as part of a conscious strategy for liberation. Most femi-
1hears nists, she argues, already practice some separation from sexist people and activities.
1at she Because Frye's examples range from serious, life-altering refusals, such as refusing
.ted by to work for or to live with men, to more minor refusals, such as not listening to
1llenge music with sexist lyrics, her article reduced some of the tensions between gay and
') straight feminists.
1asize that Perhaps the major healer of the gay/straight split was radical feminist poet
: highlight Adrienne Rich. In her widely read piece "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian
lS for tak-
Existence" ([1980] 2005), Rich argued that the notion of"women-identified women''
[ feminists entailed a spectrum of female-to-female relationships, which she referred to as the
,ntext. For "lesbian continuum" (349). Here woman-to-woman relationships ranged from
.) .
((
s~xual intimacy with women to mother-daughter relations, sister-to-sister rela-
asa pn-
0th
nentailed tions, and best friend relations-relationships that all women could have with er
of sex:' ~omen. Not only did Rich's continuum describe lesbianism as more than a bedroom
issue, but her view of women-identified women also fostered common ground for
:k the ;r, · I
Politicallv'I" un~ymg
macy esbian and straight women.
th
ua T?e foundation of Rich's argument is that gender is more important a~ s~x-
1orientation, thus implicitly urging lesbians to ally with heterosexual femm1sts
 94 SECTIO N I • MODER N FEMINIS T THOUG HT

rather than with gay males. She highligh ted the privileges enjoyed by both straight
and gay males-s uch as higher incomes and earning power. She pointed to "quali-
tative differenc es in female and male relations hips;' citing how males engage in
more "anonym ous sex" while females are more relations hip-orien ted. She criti-
cized gay males for a number of sexual practices, such as pedophi lia and sado-
maschis m, as well as "the pronoun ced ageism in male homosex ual standard s of
sexual attractiveness" (349). For Rich, being woman- oriented and woman- born is
a "profoun dly female experience." Hence, she argued that "equatin g lesbian exis-
tence with male homosex uality because each is stigmati zed is to erase female real-
ity once again" (349). She writes:
Just as the term parenting serves to conceal the particular and significant reality
of being a parent who is actually a mother, the term gay may serve the purpose
of blurring the very outlines we need to discern, which are of crucial value for
feminism and for the freedom of women as a group (349)

Overall, Rich's approach to radical feminism is distinctl y different from that

of Firestone. Rather than biological determin ism driving her writings, Rich takes
a social constructionist approach to gender and sexuality. For Rich, heterosexual-
ity is not a natural emotion al and sensual inclinati on but, rather, is "forcibly and
sublimin ally imposed on women" (350 and 351). Compulsory heterosexuality
refers to how heterosexuality has been created and rigidly enforced by various
institutio nal, ideological, and normative means in order to achieve women's sub-
servienc e through emotion al and erotic loyalty to men. Using examples that cut
across class, race, and cultural lines, Rich points to how historica lly many women
have resisted heterosexuality at great costs, such as imprison ment, physical tor-
ture, psychosurgery, social ostracism, and poverty (351). She asks, if heterosexual-
ity is natural, why do societies need such violent stricture s to enforce it?
Rich also laments the invisibility of lesbian existence. She sees the destruct ion
of records, memorabilia, and letters docume nting the realities of lesbian lives as
an indication of the serious "means of keeping heterose xuality compuls ory for
women" (349). Through this destructi on, all women are denied knowled ge of the
joys, sensuality, and courage of lesbians as well as their loneliness, guilt, and pain.
Here again, her social construc tionist approac h is evident in her portraya l of his-
tory as an ongoing and creative process that both gives voice and silences by its
inclusions and its omissions.
In Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institutio n [1976] (1977),
Rich also takes a different approach to childbir th and motheri ng from that of
Firestone. Rich highlights the trials and tribulati ons, as well as the sheer joy,
entailed in biological gestation, childbirt h, nursing, and nurturin g children :

M_Y children ~ause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience.
It 1s the suffermg ofambivalence: the murderou s alternation between bitter resent-
ment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderne ss.... Their
voices wear away at my nerves, their constant needs, above all their need for
simplicity and patience, fill me with despair at my own failures, despair too at
 CHAPTER 3 • Radical Feminis
ms 95

at other
which is to serve a functionf for which I was not fitted ... . And yet
t. ·
· helpless, charmmg and quite irresistible
111Yiate,am melted wit · h the sense o th eir
. 1
them. Bu t it's in the enorm ity and inevitability of this Jove that the
tiJlleS I love . .
beauty• .··gs ·lie (Ri.ch 1976 [1977J.. 1-2, her emphasis)
suffienn ·
to motherhood contrasts sharpl y with
ona l and soc ially liv ed app roa ch
. oti . . women to be freed from
fb1s em her col d, ana lyt ica l, and im per sonal call for
.
e's rat
fires ton .
l rep rod uc
.
tio n-a fre edo m no t likely to be relished by many
hains of biologcica . .
the C
omen, including 1em1msts. tive. In
h also reject s Fir est on e's vie w tha t women's biology is simply restric
w Ric "field
ies she see s a rad ica l po ten tia l to bring forth and nurture life as a
women's bod
" (Ri ch [198 0 J 197 7: 90 ). Sh e also highlights how women's bodies
of contradictions ebr ate rather than renounce:
wo me n sho uld con tro l and cel
are a "resource" that
nse sen suality
I have come to believe ... that
female biology-the diffuse, inte
has far more radical impli-
uterus, vagina ...
radiating out from clitoris, breasts, ale
n we hav e com e to app rec iate . Patriarchal thought has limited fem
cations tha from
y to its ow n nar row spe cifi cat ion s. The feminist vision has recoiled
biolog sicality
will, I believe, come to view our phy
female biology for these reasons; it require
In order to live a fully human life we
as a resource, rather than a destiny. ch
trol of our bod ies (th oug h con trol is a prerequisite); we must tou
not only con order, the
uni ty and res ona nce of our phy sicality, our bond with the natural
the
e. (21)
corporeal ground of our intelligenc
choanalyt-
vie ws on mo the rin g are dif fer ent also from liberal feminist psy
Rich's inequal-
che s to mo the rin g, wh ich po sit as the primary solution to sexual
ical approa r 2). Rich
me n sha re equ ally in chi ld rea ring responsibilities (see chapte
ity having balance
t this tra nsf orm atio n wo uld no t be sufficient to radically alter the
argues tha ions of male
pow er in a ma le- ide nti fie d soc iety. She points to other dimens
of male ht to free sex-
tha t wo uld still nee d to be add ressed: the denial of women's rig
power oflarge areas
ressio n, the exp loi tati on of wo men's labor, and the withholding
ual exp 80] 2005: 348).
soc iety's kno wle dge and cul tur al attainments from women ([19
of distin-
n Born [19761 (1977) suggests, she
As the subtitle of Rich's Of Woma as experience
motherhood-first, motherhood
guishes between two meanings of roduction and
any women to her powers of rep
or the "potential relationship" of aims
and sec ond , mo the rho od as a "patriarchal institution" which
to her children; ar
t this po ten tia l rem ain s un der male control (xv). Rich makes de
at ensuring tha for
tiq uin g mo the rho od as a pat ria rchal institution; she is not calling
that she is cri
earing or child rearing (xvi).
an end to women's role in childb t men rather
con tras t, ma ny rad ica l fem inists directed their attacks agains
In
the following quote from the
th an against patriarchal institutions. Consider
in 1969:
"Redstockings Manifesto" written
institu-
burden of responsibility from men to
Attempts have been made to shift the
me n the mse lve s. We con dem n these arguments as evasions.Institutions
tions or to wo [19691
tools of their oppressors (Redstockings
alone do not oppress; they are merely
2005: 221).
 IST THO UGH T
96 SECT ION I • MOD ERN FEM I N

. adical feminist organization thatteenreclaimed

d
t-lived rfore uca ted wom en in the nine th cen-
Redstockings was a shor . sed .
k
the pejorative label bluestoc mgs u . d " al politics. Members of this group
d • ify their ra 1c as oppressors.
tury with the color re fjtinto Sign , pression and all men h d
b . from wom ens op that t e secon wave
as ene 1 g . third wave femi nists
viewed all men
Contrary to contemporary claims by
), the Redstockings Manifesto
2004
ignored differences between women (H~n r~ or status privileges" that divide
, men can oppress men. Th e entir .e
" . , racial ' education
h
discusses the econ omic t at wo
women. It rejects, however, the n otion
manifesto can be found in Box 33·

SOX3.3

II "Redstockings Manifesto" l
,- . ary political struggle, women are dedi- unit-
dual a~d pre rmrn le supre macy . Reds tockin gs is
1. After centuries of indivi
ing to achieve their final liberation from ma
· ing our freedom.
. an d wrnn .
cated to building this unrty
ur o ression isdome total, affecting every facet chea
of
p
t p~ eede rs stic serva nts, and
II. Women are an oppressed class.O~-
is to enhance men's
our lives. We are exploite~ as ~ex ?ec s~:ose only purpose
labor. We are consi dered ,_nferror berng s,_bed behavior is enforced by the threat of
lives. Our huma nity is denied. Our presc rr
· · I t· t
physical violence. essor s, rn rso a ron I" rom
. I
Because we have I,ve . d so ,·ntimately with our oppr
nal suffering as a po rt~ca
each other. we have been kept from seeing our perso
condition. This creates the illusion that a woman's
relationship with her man •~ a
ca~ be worked out_ in-
matter of interplay between two unique personalities, a~d
dividually. In reality, every such relationship is a class
relat,onshrp, and the conflrcts
that can only be solved
between individual men and women are political conflicts
collectively.
Male supremacy is the old-
111. We identify the agents of our oppression as men.
of exploitation and oppres-
est, most basic form of domination. All other forms
sion (racism, capitalism, imperialism, etc.) are exten
sions of male supremacy: men
All powe r structures throughout
dominate women, a few men dominate the rest.
history have been male-dominated and male-orie
nted. Men have controlled all
political, economic and cultural institutions and back
ed up this control with physi-
cal force. They have used their power to keep wom
en in an inferior position. All
from male supremacy.
men receive economic, sexual, and psychological benefits
All men have oppressed women.
responsibility from men to institu-
IV. Attempts have been made to shift the burden of
tions or to women themselves. We condemn these
arguments as evasions. Institutions
alone do not oppress; they are merely tools of the
oppressor. To blame institutions
implies that men and women are equally victimized,
obscures the fact that men ben-
efit from the subordination of women, and gives men
the excuse that they are forced
to be oppressors. On the contrary, any man is free
to renounce his superior position,
provided that he is willing to be treated like a wom
an by other men.
or are to blame for their own
We also reject the idea that women consent to
-washing, stupidity or
oppression. Women's submission is not the result of brain
 YM Oty on July 7,
.i o: w. ue d ~ ;; r~ a p h e d flyer in tw - Further
~~~~ l~ .. n~
~ fc,,- distnb ution at women's fibt:ratio
l ',f ), tt'iit r~ A o
tt ~ the rebirth ars d
ye
an d oth er so or a ~ from
,rb r(t[l(Jon ~ dle
~ . M J
ffation Arclwes for
, ~ ~ f r o m ~ Women's Ub
,a
fttr¥w-..m ,r; mt 19«,r 017 GainnviUe, FL 32£
,04.
H il U ~~ 'i- "' fJ ; or at P.O. Sox 14
/.d i« ,, bS #

l fe m in ism in the 1970. was Gayle Rabin's

oach to radica Sex (( 1975] 2005}.
AruAhtr inf1ui:-ntia1 appr 1> oJiticaJ & on om y' of
: N ot u cm the
'" Inc 'lraffk in Women which she ~n~ as
"the set of
e "s ex /gen de r ,y ,tem ~" ts of
~bin UJintd the ph ru fo rn u bi olog ical sexuaJJty mto produc28
:.rr,.t,1,trn-tnh by whi
ch a ,o ci dy tra ns
ne eds are sat isf ie ~ ( 7).
m ed se xual
hiJrnan ~ tivlty1arni in
whidl the,e transfor ~i ld s o_n
,y ltem is a un ique, ,ynthetic work. She
m
Her analyi i, the ,a /g
tn d a
ric h En ge ls to un de rstand the economic basis
.d Fr ied
the Writing, of Karl Marx an
 98 SECTION I • MODERN FEMINIST THOUGHT

of gender relations (see chapter 4) but argues tha~ this econo~ic analysis must
be accompanied by a more thorough understandmg of marriage and the fam-
ily. Here she draws from the work of Claude Levi-Strauss to show how the incest
taboo and the "exchange of women'' forged bonds between groups through mar-
riage and kinship. Levi-Strauss's notion of "gift e~chan~es" w~s used also"by Rubin
to broaden anarchist feminist Emma Goldmans earlier notion of the traffic in
women'' (see chapter 4). In Rubin's analyses, the "traffic in women" referred to the
various ways women are "given" in marriage, "taken in warfare:' or "exchanged"
for tribute throughout history (277).
To illuminate the "deep structures" or psychosocial roots of both sexist and
heterosexist oppression, Rubin drew from the works Sigmund Freud and Jacques
Lacan. This latter analysis entailed a deconstruction of both heterosexual and
homosexual relations that was to earn her a reputation as an early precursor to
queer theory. Her later writings, such as "Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory
of the Politics of Sexuality" (1984), and her work on leather culture place her more
firmly in the poststructuralist camp and as a major voice in queer theory (see
chapter 6). Notably, Rubin also was a key voice on the pro-sex side of the so-called
sex wars waged among feminists of the second wave.

The "Sex Wars"

The term sex wars has been used to describe heated debates that took place within
the second wave of U.S. feminism from the late 1970s through the mid- l 980s. These
debates focused on the implications of various sexual practices for women's libera-
tion. Feminists argued over pornography, sexwork, censorship, sadomasochism,
and other erotic practices in terms of what constituted nonpatriarchal forms of sex
or whether there should even be such a notion (Henry 2004: 89). The pro-sex side
of this debate rejected any form of censorship or restrictions on sexual practices in
the interests of more openness and freedom. In contrast, their opponents-often
r~ferred ~o today_ as victim feminists-highlighted the violence and danger asso-
ciate~ with cert~m sexual practices and had quite definite opinions about what
stl
c~n tuted patriarchal and nonpatriarchal forms of sex. While feminists from a
w~de array of fe~inist perspectives participated in these debates, the focus below
will be on the voices and visions of radical feminists. Not only were they among
the most vocal on both sides of th· d b b .
f . . . is e ate, ut radical feminism became fractured
rom wzthm durmg these intense, internecine battles.

Sex as a Realm ofPleasure

As was shown above, both Firestone d p·
their call for freedom of al _an iercy embraced a pro-sex approach in
sexu expression for worn d hildr
of polymorphous or panse ali . en an c en as well as a vision
nent feminist on the pro-sexu 'dty afsthmtegral to women's liberation. Another promi-
c
10 x si e o e sex wars is A v d h
unded the New York Rad· al F . . nne 1'0e t, w o, with Firestone,
for her article "The Myth ficth em~msts (NYRF) in 1969. Koedt is best known
h o e Vaginal Orgas ,, (1970) . .
ow women had been socialized . b . . m , m which she discussed
mto elievmg the "myth" that orgasm occurs in
 CHAPTER 3 • Rad'ical Feminisms 99

.
. a rather than in the clitoris. She argued that th
en' de unportance of the clitoris
the -vagalUl orgasms had been hidden to ensure wom s ependence on
d , . had a maJ·or e" t c d
fern e rosexuality. . le men an to
to hete Koe ts artic uec on 1emin · t di
. force sm potentially remov d is scourses on
relll ality because the clitoral orga e men as nece ssary t0
au • · al lauded her work fo takin . wom-
s , xual pleasure . Fem 1ms ts so mto acco unt mutu al
ens se nJ·oyment. However, Koedts, cnt1 . . . s of the rh t g
c1sm e erosexual exp · ces of
aual e a num ber of prom inen t femi nists G . enen
s en were mocked by . erma me Greer' the
-worn ian fem1. mst . and auth or of 'T'h1, e Fem ale Eun uch ( )
1971 , wrote "One wo d
j\ustral . with ;" whil e Betty F . d, "n ers
. t whom Miss [sic] Koedt has gone1· to bed ne an calle d those
JUS 1 papers about c 1toral orgasms that would l'b
angely humor ess , . ,, «• ,, 1 erate wom from
en
str pems a Joke (both quoted in Hen .
eXUal dependence on a mans b h
. anot er key voice in th ry 2004. 83).
s Gayle Rub'm, d'1scussed a ove, 1s h
e pro-sex c orus In
. ·
e l960 s and 1970 s, Rub m argued. that one of the keys to both womens, 11.b era-
th . .
ion. In "Thinking Sex: Notes
tion and ~uman hberation was _e~dmg sexua~ r~f re~s
inally published in 1984, her
for a Radical Th~ory of the Poht1cs _of S:xu~1ty orig
attack all ideologies of sexual
analysis moves m a poststructurahst direction to
right, or from feminists them-
repression-whether they come from the left, the
of sexual values institutional-
selves. In particular, Rubin studied the hierarchies
discourses on sexuality. She
ized in religious, medical, psychiatric, and popular
"be a need to draw and main-
argued that within such hierarchies there appears to
-a line that stands between
tain an imaginary line between good and bad sex"
t against any ideologies that
"sexual order and chaos" (282). Rubin stood steadfas
osis, pathology, decadence,
attempted to describe sex in terms of sin, disease, neur
Convinced that sexual repres-
pollution, or the decline and fall of empires (278).
ons to control human behav-
sion was one of the most irrational ways for civilizati
interests of both women and
ior, she viewed sexual permissiveness as in the best
to dictate which types of sex
men. In her view, it was misguided for feminists
n was repression regardless of
were patriarchal or nonpatriarchal. Sexual repressio
sex positions, see Carol Vances
who made the rules. 12 For more second wave pro-
ality (1984) based on papers
anthology Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexu
in 1982.
presented at a conference held at Barnard College

Sex as a Realm of Danger

al feminists who_ undertook t_o
It must be emphasized that the second wave radic th
wha t types of sex were violent and /or patr iarch al were motivated by eu
delineate
against wome~. They were not
desire to end unequal power relations and violence
ers of sex simply to present
victim feminists in the sense of highlighting thef dang cont. rary,
. the face o these dangers · On the
13
ims m . .
women as passive or weak vict d
. ent an pa na t · rcha l to illummate mJus -
as v10l .
they named certain sexual practices . . 1Onger As Deb.orah Sieg e1
. be V1Ct 1ms any • . f
tices so that women would refuse to . . c · ·sm is an articulation o
(1997 b: 76) so aptly points out -thi s type of VIctim iemim
st . l'f al" made violence
rength, not of weakness.
The slogan of radical feminists that "the personal is po _1 h1c d been during the
· women a more central focus of fem1mst act'vis
ag amst . • 1 m than 1t a
 100 SECTI ON I • MODERN FEMIN IST THOU GHT

first wave. This slogan led feminists whose politics crossed the political spectr
um
to address such issues as battering, rape, incest, sexual harassment, and pornog
ra-
phy-issues that previously had been treated as individual, personal problems
too
often hidden behind closed doors. Not only did they establish rape crisis and
bat-
tered women centers, but they also challenged and revised laws that dealt with
these
issues. In turn, events like the first "Take Back the Night" march held in Pittsbu
gh
in 1977 dramatized "women's insistence on their right to enjoy public space
in
safety" and drew feminists of various political stripes to a protest that contin
ues to
be held annually in many cities (Lederer 1980: 15). While different feminists
had
different solutions to violence against women, second wave feminists were at
least
united in the urgent need to address violent acts against women.
Two major issues divided the second wave and caused deep splits within radi-
cal feminism: (1) whether feminists should legislate that certain sexual practic
es
constituted patriarchal and/or violent forms and (2) whether feminists should
censor violent and degrading images or just concern themselves with violen
t
acts and behaviors. While Adrienne Rich's writings on lesbianism and mothe
r-
ing had helped to heal splits within the second wave, her judgmental analys
is of
sexual practices divided feminists-including those who shared other aspect
s of
her radical feminist approach. As noted above, Rich pointed to qualitative
dif-
ferences between female and male sexual relations, lauding the nurturing
and
commitment-oriented relationships she associated with females, while criticiz
ing
the aggressive and indiscriminate sexual practices she associated with males.
She
also explicitly described a number of sexual practices, such as pedophilia, sado-
masochism~ prostitution, and pornography, as reflecting "male power" and forcing
~ale sexuality on ~thers (Rich [1980) 2005: 348-349). Robin Morgan drew simila
r
~mes between ~atnarchal and non-patriarchal sexual practices when she critiqu
the male style as follows: ed

Every woman ~ows in her gut the vast differences between her sexual
ity and
that of _any patna_rchally trained male's - gay or straight . . . That the em
hasis
on gemtal sexuality, objectification, promiscuity emot1·onal non .
d f · .. ' l p
an , o course, mvulnerab1hty was the male style and that -mvo vemen t
greater trust in love sensuali h l ,
, we, as women ,p aced
181 her emphasis). , ty, umor, tenderness, comm itment :' (Morgan 1977:

Although other radical feminists such as R b. .

the notion of feminists legislating " ood" and ~ m:, Firestone, and Koedt rejecte
d
censoring sexual images created th g . bad sexual practices, the issue of
bY 1cem1ms
. .
ts in the 1960s and e most conflict· Var·10us action ·
19 1970s to protest deg d' · s had been taken
76, members of Women against Viol . ra mg images of women. In
billboards and demonstrated . enc~ agamst Women (WAVAW) defaced
£ d
oun degrading. That sam agams . t vanous m dIa · ·
p e year, m San Fran · e ur images of women they
ornography and Media (WAVPM) wa ~isco, vvomen against Violence in
1991: 32). Yet while second wav c . s _established (Berger, Searles, and Cottle
de .
monstrations , censorship w e iemim.sts . .had £ew Ob" .
as a more d1V1s1ve issue. 1ections to protests and
 Gpr

CHAPTER 3 • Radical Feminisms

101

e ear lies t radical feminists to call for the censo rsh'1p of pornogra-
.
one of th _i of v10 lence against women was Kate Mi
llett
d to treat porno~ r. a phy as forn
70). Lik e her rad ical feminist counterp art s, Mill ett
pbYan book Sexual ,Polttzcs (19 . . h .
for all other power relationships.
ill :d
br
that wo
d
me
bru
ns
te
opp
for ms
res sio
of
n
po
is
we
t e
r-l
p~
ike
rad igm
rap e-a s well as more subtl e 1o c
rm s-
argtl dd resse . al sex ual poli-
be a 1 pointed out how patria rch
~ e the use of misogymst anguage. She men as well as over h al
Jilc enta1.1ed power over hetero.sex
ual wo omosexu ma1es
the
.s
ales . A sig nif ica nt po rtl~ n of Sex ual Politics was devoted to exposing
ucdfem t.
ide olo gy em bed ded m We ste rn societies. Millett attacked th e pa n-
all . hal . . .
atnarc
ns m van ou s aca dem ic the ori es, such as Freud's, as well as the
~chal assumptio
ero sex ism of the mo der n nov elis ts D. H. Lawrence, Henry Mill er,
and het
sexi.sm err ed to the m as "litera te pornographers" and cited
d Norman Mailer . She ref
an erous examples of "pornogra phy" in their literature. 14
h · us future, she
numWhile Millett shared wit. h p·Irestone t e vision of an androgyno
patible
ed wit h Ric h def init e vie ws on which traits and behaviors were com
shar us per-
wo me n's libe rati on. Fo r exa mp le, in her vision of the future androgyno
with by men
Mil lett inc lud ed nei the r the "ag gressiveness" traditionally exhibited
son censor-
the "ob edi enc e" tra dit ion ally exh ibited by women. She also called for
nor rnicious"
of por nog rap hy and had stro ng views on the "patriarchal" and "pe
ship
to achieve feminist liberation (42).
15

beh avio rs tha t mu st be "el im ina ted "

were
inists on the topic of pornography
In the 1980s, the most vocal fem (1981) and
rea Dw ork in and Ca tha rin e Ma cKinnon. Dworkin's Pornography
And (1988) ,
rcou rse (19 87) , alo ng wit h Ma cK innon's Pornography and Civil Rights
Inte radical
e am ong the mo st wid ely rea d feminist books on this topic. These
wer wed it as
inis ts pla ced por nog rap hy "at the center of a cycle of abuse" and vie
fem ize gen-
e con stitutiv e pra ctic e" tha t hel ped to institutionalize and legitim
a "cor se were
qua lity by cre atin g a soc ial clim ate in which sexual assault and abu
der ine views but
her radical feminists had similar
tolerated (MacKinnon 1988: 47). Ot example,
ideology that fostered violence. For
focused more on pornography as an raphy as
Sexual Slavery (1979) viewed pornog
Kathleen Barry's analysis in Female violence as
"-a n ideology that depicts sexual
the embodiment of "cultural sadism hy was
women. She argued that pornograp
normative and pleasurable for men and main-
cultural sadism is diffused into the
the principal medium through which es of individuals. Radical fem-
int egr ate d into the sex ual pra ctic
stream culture and : "Pornography is the theory,
n (19 77: 5) pu t it mo re suc cin ctly
inist Robin Morga
ctic e" -a pol itic al sta nce also esp oused by Susan Brownmiller in
and rape is the pra .
her influential work Against our Wil
l: Men, Women and Rape (1975) .
gra phy fem inis ts, suc h as Glo ria Steinem, founder of Ms. magazme,
Antiporno
dis tinc tion s bet we en "er otic a" as images of mutually pleasurable sexual
often made
we en equ al and con sen tin g sub jects and "pornograp~( as ob~ecti-
e~pression bet t e~
n and por tra yin g sex as vio len t, degrading, or dehumamzmg (S em
rn g wome opponents of censorship
9BO). However, these dividing lines proved too fuzzy for
oca tes because they still entailed dM rules govern-
cte d by pro -se x adv
~nd wer e reje
of cen sor shi p, Dw ork · an
in acKi nnon
ing sexual practices. To the opp one nts
f 102 SECTION I. MODERN FEMINIS T THOUGH T

argued that pornography was not merely a fantasy, a_ si~ula~ion, ?r an idea. Rather,
it was a concrete discriminatory social practice that mStttutwnahzes the inferiority
and subordination of one group to another (Berger, Searles, and Cottle 1991: 37).
Hence, they demanded that laws be passed to_de~ wi~ ~or~ography in the same
way that laws had been set up to deal with racial d1scn~unatton.
When the first of antipornography civil rights ordmance (based on the work
of Dworkin and MacKinnon) was introduced in Minneapolis in 1983, conflicts
within the second wave became the most heated and polarized. The Minneapolis
ordinance did not ban pornography, but it gave women the option of filing a civil
suit against those whose involvement with pornography caused harm to women.
While critics argued that this would increase state control over sexual practices,
Dworkin and MacKinnon argued that this was not so. Rather, in their view such
ordinances would empower women by giving them the ability to initiate civil
litigation. The Minneapolis ordinance was revoked later by a higher court, but
the writings of MacKinnon and Dworkin were used to establish antipornogra-
phy ordinances in neighboring Canada. 16 While Dworkin and MacKinnon saw
the antipornography movement as revitalizing feminism in the wake of the ERA's
defeat, critics saw it as leading to internecine battles that would further fragment
the feminist movement (7).
Feminists against censoring pornography responded by forming the Feminist
Anti-Censorship Taskforce (FACT). Anticensorship feminists came from many
and diverse perspectives. Liberal feminists generally opposed censorship, viewing
it as a violation of freedom of speech and the right to privacy (Duggan, Hunter,
and Vance 1985). Although they worked to change images of women that were
objectifying or degrading, censorship was not part of the liberal feminist toolbox.
Other feminisms within the second wave were more divided on this issue.
Some women ofcolor discounted feminists' concerns about pornography as a mis-
placed outrage that only white, middle-class women could afford-concerns that
paled in comparison to other problems they faced (Tong 1998: 219). Other wom-
anists of color argued that pornography should be addressed because its negative
imagery reinforced sexual stereotypes that had plagued people of color historically.
~ice W~ker, for example, criticized how the black man "is defined solely by the
szze, readmess, and unselectivity of his cock" while the black woman has histori-
cally been viewed as a Jezebel or slut, and she called on women of color to address
the ~ssue 0 ~ p~rn~graphy (Walker 1980: 103). Audre Lorde made a strong plea for
the re~lemshm~ and empowering force of the erotic and described pornogra-
~hy as its o~posite-as the "direct denial of the power of the erotic" that "empha-
sizes sensation without feeling" (1980: 296). Many of these feminist perspectives
on pornography can be found in Laura Lederer's anthology Take Back the Night:
Women on Pornography (1980).
Radical feminists Mar:xist 1c. 1• • d . .
' em msts, an soc1al1st feminists were divided
among themselves on this issue Whil
. h · e some supported antipornography cam-
paigns, ot ers embraced a pro- .. . .
to liberat· Th sex position and VIewed censorship as antithetical
IOn. e 1atter feared that t · ·
res nctions on pornogr aphy would foster a
 CHAPTER 3 • Radical Feminisms 103

·,.,,ate of repression, strengthen oppressive sexual norms , and m

cl11» . h'b•
1 1t women's
·ty to discover sexua1 p1easure. They also saw pornograph fl . con-
abil1 . f Y as outmg
ventional sexual mo~es m avor of more sexual freedom (Ferguson 1984, English,
rloll'ibaugh and
11 . .Rubm
. 1981).. Because
. many
. feminists of the second wave placed
value on empinc1sm for vahdatmg their theoretical and poli'ti·ca1pos1•t·ions (see
chapter 1), debates en~ued over research that studied whether violent images led
to violent actions or if ~ornogra~hy could have a cathartic effect that reduced
viewers' sex~a~ly aggressive behaviors (McCormack 1978; Lederer 1980). In turn,
pro-sex feminists o~ the_ second wave ~efused to view women as passive victims of
pornography ~ut highlighted won_1ens agency and their ability to negotiate this
terrain for their own purposes (Smtow, et al. 1983, Vance 1985).
Because cen~orsh~p. of ~ornography caused divisions within many feminist
political perspectives, it_ is difficult to place feminist positions on pornography on
a conventional right-wmg to left-wing political spectrum. Indeed, radical femi-
nists who called for censorship of pornography often ended up with strange politi-
cal bedfellows since their allies were often conservative, right-wing antifeminists
who were more interested in how pornography harmed the moral fabric of society
than how it harmed women. Although radical feminists transformed campaigns
against pornography from debates over morality to debates over gender violence,
uniting the second wave around laws that prohibited sexual practices and cen-
sored sexually degrading images did not happen. In this sense, the pro-sex side of
the sex wars won.
The only issue on which there was more agreement across the second wave
was sexual harassment in the workplace. Most sexual harassment laws on the books
today are based on MacKinnon's legal work. In Sexual Harassment of Working
Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination (1979), MacKinnon distinguished two types
of sexual harassment: quid pro quo, from the Latin phrase meaning "one thing
in return for another:' and creating a hostile environment, meaning that sexual
harassment is a persistent condition of the workplace. The latter can entail a range
of comments, gestures, and physical contacts interpreted as sexual in nature that
are deliberate, repeated, and unwelcome. While creating a hostile environment
entails more ambiguities than quid pro quo harassment, both types are generally
included in sexual harassment legislation.
Radical feminists also were major voices in the struggle to end violence against
women internationally (see chapter 9). For example, MacKinnon repres~nted
Croatian and Muslim women and children who were seeking justice in international
courts for the mass rapes and sexual atrocities they experienced during the ethnic
conflicts in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Charlotte Bunch foun~ed ~e
Center for Women's Global Leadership (CWGL) that became a leading orgamzati?n
in the global movement for women's human rights. Her coauthored b~ok Deman~;;
Accountability: The Global Campaign and Vienna Tribunal on Womens Human Rt& s
. . , s· t hood Is Global (1984) was
(1994), 1s a classic on this topic. Rohm Morgans ts e1'. " ..
'b al c · · t clopedia and the defimttve
descn ed by Western reviewers as a glob 1emims ency .. h
t . , ,, (M [1984] 1996: vu). Althoug
ext on the international womens movement organ
r oDERN FEMINIST THOUGHT
104 SECTION I• M ... de th.
. al . ues often were cnt1c1ze 1or e1r essen-
.. internation iss . c .
al feminist wntmgs on d an important role m 1ostermg U.S. femi-
radic d IO) they p1aye
tialism (see chapters 9 an ' links between the local and the global.
. think globally and to make
rusts to
INIST ROOTS OF CULTURAL
THE RADICAL FEM
AND SPIRITUAL ECOFEMINISMS
. . that have roots in radical feminism are cultural
£ · ·st perspectives
The maJor eco emm~ . al c . •·sm Both forms of ecofeminism developed in
. . d spmtu eco1emm ·
ecofemirusm an t"alist •·n terms of arguing that all women share cer-
1970 d both are essen 1
the s, ~n . t· lar they argue that women are closer to the natural
tain intrinsic traits. 1n par icu ' d .l h
· embodiment as women an potentta mot ers. Just
world than men because oif th eir . . .
• b'irth to natural resources ' women
as the earth gives . .
have the potential to give birth
to social life. Rather than denigrate this relat10nsh1p betwe~n women and nature
as patriarchal cultures historically have done, they celebrate it as a source offemale
. .
Both cultural and spiritual ecofeminists focus heavtly on the symboltc and cul-
tural connections between women and nature. They portray women as oriented
toward nurturing and caring and, thereby, as potentially providing a more sym-
biotic relationship between humans and nature. In contrast, men are portrayed
as more rationally oriented and more prone to uncritically use science and tech-
nology to dominate women and nature. Whereas patriarchal cultures historically
have used the binary polarizations of men/women, mind/body, rational/irrational,
and culture/nature to argue for the subordination of women, cultural and spiritual
ecofeminists invert these dualisms and herald women's traits as sources of their
empowerment and ecological sensitivity. By inverting the binaries of patriarchal
thought, they simply reverse the attribution of superiority but do not transcend
this type of thinking.
Such dualistic thought is exemplified in the works of cultural ecofeminists
Madry Daly and Susan Griffin. Daly's Gyn/Ecology (1978) and Griffin's Woman
an Nature (1978) are among th . fl .
rime. Daly an d Griffin
. e most m uential ecofeminist writings of their
were both w d . h h
tive style to illustrate h th l . or sm1t s w o wrote in a clever and provoca-
ow e re at10nship betw
ing~ained in patriarchal cultures and h een women an~ nature was deeply
their bodies by identifying th . h ow these cultures demgrated women and
em wit nature An ti . ,
an d Nature is presented in B 3 · excerpt rom Griffins Woman
4
ox • . 1nterweaving ful . ,
quest of women and nature •till power images of mans con-
, i ustrates how l
archal oppression. anguage and culture buttress patri-
St Key figures in the development of s i .
arhawk, and Carol Christ In p ntual ecofeminism are Charlene Spretnak
Daly and G iffi10 · contrast to the . '
r to expose how pat . hal negative, critical approach used by
ment th .. narc cultu .
and , ese spmtual ecofeminists em 1 res exploit women and the environ-
nature They all 1c P oy a positive fun ·
dess · c or recapturing th . ' ctional approach to women
es were Worsh. d e symbolism 0 f
ippe and reviving a . . premodern eras when god-
nc1ent ntual
s centered on natural cycles, such
 CHAPTER 3 • Radical Femm1sms
.. 105

BOX3.4

"Use"

He breakS the wilderness. He clears the land of trees, brus h, weed The I d ·
ht under his control; he has turned waste into a d · an rs
brou g gar en. Into her soil he
(aces his plow. He labors. He plants. He sows. By the sweat of his brow
Ph er yield. She opens her broad lap to him. She smiles on h'rm. Sh e prepares , he makes
h·
, ast. She gives up her treasures to him. She makes him grow . h Sh . rm a
,e • & ·1 f rrc • e yields She
0
co nceives. Her lap rs ,ertr
. e. ut o her dark. interior
. ' life arise s. Wh at she does to · his
se ed is a mystery to . him. He
k counts her yielding as a miracl H . .
e. • • . e 1s determined
master her. He will ma e her . produce at will. He will dev·ise ways to plant what
to
he wants in her, to make her yield more to him.
He deciphers the secrets of the soil. (He knows why she br'ings &,orth). He recites .
the story of the carbon
. . the properties of chloro PhY11 .) He recites
cycle. (He masters .
the story of the nitrogen cycle. (He. brings nitrogen out of the air) • . . . He .increases
the weight of kernels of barley with potash·' he makes a more mea1y potato with .
muriate of potash, he makes the color of cabbage bright green with nitrate, he
makes onions which live longer with phosphates, he makes the cauliflower head
early by withholding nitrogen. His powers continue to grow....
And he has devised ways to separate himself from her. He sends machines to
do his labor. His working has become as effortless as hers. He accomplishes days of
labor with a small motion of his hand. His efforts are more astonishing than hers.
No longer praying, no longer imploring, he pronounces words from a distance and
his orders are carried out. Even with his back turned to her she yields to him. And
in his mind, he imagines that he can conceive without her. In his mind he develops
the means to supplant her miracles with his own. In his mind, he no longer relies
on her. What he possesses, he says, is his to use and to abandon.

From Susan Griffin, Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her (New York: Harper Colophon,
1980), pp. 52-54.

as those of the moon or women's reproductive cycles. Especially popular were ritu-
als from premodern cultures that were matrilineal or that were based on a specific
female deity. Native-American traditions inspired many U.S. spiritual ecofeminists,
as have Celtic and ancient Greek cultures. For spiritual ecofeminists, reclaiming
such ceremonies, rituals, and beliefs fosters a revolution in symbolic structures to
counter the hegemony of patriarchal religions and cultures (Merchant 1995: 11).
By unearthing pagan rituals and their histories feminists have learned that
women charged with witchcraft in premodern and early modern societies often
posed threats to male authority or would not submit to the patriarchal norms of
their communities (Starhawk 1979, Daly 1978). For example, a number of women
deemed to be witches in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America were actu-
ally midwives or lay practioners who used herbal medicines to attend to lower-d~ss
patients who could not afford the services of certified medical doctors (Ehre~r_eich
and English 1973: 15-18). Yet because many premodern rituals are pagan, spmtual
,
Ill"""

106 SECTION I • MODERN FEMINIST THOUGHT

ecofeminism generated strong reactions from supporters of dominant reli i

t
For example, when ecofeminist and self-identified witch Starhawk spoke at; ons.
lie lecture at a Catholic university in New Orleans in 1989, the university c~ub.
under attack by angry protesters for ostensibly supporting witchcraft. llle
Both cultural and spiritual ecofe~inists e~brace an_ecocentric approach
to the environment whereby human bemgs are VIewed as Just one of many part
of the natural world-not as morally or ethically superior to nonhuman forni.:
of nature. 17 As contrasted to liberal ecofeminists, who focus on rules, rights, and
utilities, cultural and spiritual ecofeminists employ an ethic of care, love, and trust,
The future envisioned by cultural and spiritual ecofeminists is highly decentraJ.
ized and democratic and organized around nonsexist, nonracist, and communi-
tarian principles (Merchant 1999: 16-17). This vision of the future sounds similar
to the depictions in Firestone's Dialectic of Sex (1970) and Piercy's Women on the
Edge of Time ( 1976). A major difference is that Firestone and Piercy embraced
science and technology, whereas cultural and spiritual ecofeminists view them as
male-centered means of domination over women and nature. Hence, cultural and
spiritual ecofeminisms take a decidedly antitechnology and antirational turn.
"The Myth of Gaia" from Charlene Spretnak's The Spiritual Dimension of Green
Politics (1986) exemplifies this antirational turn. Gaia is one of the major icons of
spiritual ecofeminism. In Lost Goddesses of Ancient Greece (1978: 30-31) Spretnak
explains how Gaia (also called Ge) is the ancient earth-mother who brought forth the
world and the human race from the gaping void Chaos. Spretnak's efforts to reclaim
Gaia as an earth-mother were part of many feminist attempts to create a new earth-
based form of spirituality rooted in ancient traditions that revered both the earth and
female deities (Merchant 1995: 3). By incorporating the Gaia myth into ecofeminism,
spiritual feminists created a new cultural framework that countered male-dominated
cultures and religions and fostered the idea ofliving symbiotically with the earth.
Carol Christ's article "Why Women Need the Goddess" {1999) highlights four
major reasons for the importance of the Goddess symbol to women. First, this
symbol acknowledges the legitimacy of female power and stands in sharp contrast
to the portrayals of female dependence on and inferiority to men that predominate
in dominant religions and cultures. Second, the Goddess symbol is an affirmation
of the female body and its life cycles, a sharp contrast with the frequent denigra-
tion of female bodies expressed in cultural/religious taboos surrounding men-
struation, childbirth, and menopause. Third, the Goddess symbol represents the
positive valuation of women's will. Unlike more individualistic portrayals of will,
within the Goddess framework an individual will can be achieved only through
harmonic exercise with nature and other human beings. Fourth, Goddess sym-
bolism encourages women to reevaluate their bonds and heritage. This woman-
identified focus is meant to unify women through respecting and celebrating their
woman-to-woman relationships (Merchant 1999: 16).
. . The _19~0s was a period of significant growth in cultural and spiritual ecofem-
misms Withm the U.S. women's movement. Some observers claim that their ideas
"injected new life" into the ecofeminist movement during the 1980s and were an
 CHAPTER 3
• Radical Fe . .
. gral part" of what sustained the wom , mmisms 107
"inte . . ens move
Equal Rights Amendment (Wh1tt1er 1995: 2I1-212~ent after the defeat of the
.c minists view cultural and spiritual ecofem· . , ~erchant 1995: 4). Oth
1e h .. h In1sms as Ir ti er
Ct ionary. To t ese cntics, t ey romant1·c· ra onaI and pol1't• all
rea . . 1ze women,s b . 1c y
at foster conservative notions of women th h' od1es and lives in w
th . at Istoricall h ays
"elude women from educational and occupat· Y ave been used t
ei' . 1ona1opportu . . o
roach is frequently v01ced by liberal and M . nities. A more rational
aPp arxist ecofe · ·
and 4). Early anarcha-ecofeminists also embr d . mm1sts (see chapters 2
. h'ft d ace a rational
their perspective
.
s 1 e toward melding the r t·
. . . a iona1and th . .
approach, but later
ter 4). Environmental Justice activists criticize sp· .t e spmtual (see chap-
In ua1ecofem· ·st .
their insensitivity to women of color. On the one h d mi s primarily for
an pagan r .
sive to many African-Americans who work in clo , .re igions are offen-
. . . se partnership ·th h
their civil nghts and environmental justice campaigns (t wi c urches for
· A · · · · ay 1or 2002) On the oth
hand, Native- mencans VIew spmtual ecofeminists as a . . · er
. • «• ·a1· » ppropnatmg their ancient
traditions m an 1mpen 1st manner that uses them t f
. . . b k . ou o context and distorts
them without g1VIng ac to Native communities (Smith 1997. h
, see c apter 5).

THE "UNHAPPY MARRIAGE,, OF FEMINIST THEORY

AND LESBIAN THEORY
As is discussed in chapters. 6 and 7, a shift from radical feminist lesbian theory
to queer theory took place m the 1990s as many U.S. feminists began to criticize
second wave lesbian theories and embrace queer politics. Cheshire Calhoun's
"Separating Lesbian Theory from Feminist Theory" (2003) provides a conceptual
bridge between these modern and poststructuralist camps. Although Calhoun stays
within the modernist camp, she argues not only that radical feminist lesbian the-
ory desexualized and sanitized lesbian theory but also that it swallowed up lesbian
politics. Her description of the situation, what she calls the "unhappy marriage of
feminist theory and lesbian theory;' alludes to the inequalities entailed in marriage
law under the common law doctrine of coverture whereby when a man and woman
married they became one but not equal under law, as the man re~ained l~gal power
over his wife. Calhoun argues that wedding feminist theory with lesbian theory
resulted in feminist theory subsuming and dominating lesbian theory.
To her credit, Calhoun places these nuptials in their hiSt0rical _conte~. She
. . • art downplaymg sex m1es-
understands that second wave lesbian femm1sts were, mP ' al
. d oflesbians and heterosexu
b1an relations in order to highlight the share concerns . f th t but also
th hOmophob1a o a era
Women. This was important not only to count~r e ( ). Nevertheless, she
336
to mend the gay-straight split in the womens movemenbt d the power ofhet-
. h c . . ttheory su merge
argues that joining lesbian theory wit iemims . analvtically dis-
. . h d h terosexism are two ,- .
erosexism. She points to how patnarc Yan e sed by heterosexism:
. 1 b' are more oppres
tmct systems of oppression and how es ians
are often not the most
. .
Bemg a woman and bemg oppresse d as a
. woman
db .ng oppressed as aIesb'an
1
• , . · I sb1an an ei
important facts in a lesbians hfe. Bemg a e
often matter more (344)
 108 SECTION I • MODERN FEMINIST THOUGHT

.
Ca1houn also questions the earlier claim .by lesbian feminists that. lesbian .
· 1s
ism • a "parad'1gm 1or
c 11cemi'nists" (Radicalesb1ans 1970) because
. " lesbians rarely
l.1ve wit• h or do domest·1c labor 11.c0 r males • For Calhoun, this• escape from male
dommance
· ,, 1s
· a 1em1ms
c · · t paradi'gm only from the vantage pomt of a heterosexual
woman. A 1esb.1an may be 11cree from an individual man . in her personal life, but
she 1s· not free from system,·c heterosexism · The coercive forces brought to bear on
lesbians are witnessed in numerous situations not faced by heterosexual women.
Lesbians often are denied custody of their children, punished for public displays
of affection, and lose jobs if they are "outed":
To refuse to be heterosexual is simply to leap out of the frying pan of individ-
ual patriarchal control into the fire of institutionalized heterosexual control.
(Calhoun 2003: 338)
For Calhoun, a heterosexual vantage point also underlies many second wave
feminists' criticisms of certain lifestyle and sexual practices. She argues that it is
only from a heterosexual vantage point that butch/femme and sadomaschism are
seen as emulating patriarchal roles or power dynamics. From a lesbian vantage
point, the "identification" with masculinity that appears as butch is not a simple
assimilation of lesbianism back into the terms of heterosexuality. Rather it is a
dissonant juxtaposition that enables butch to deconstruct and denaturalize mas-
culinity and femininity. Within a lesbian context, sadomaschism need not involve
oppressive forms of power but, rather, can be sexually playful and enhance eroti-
cism. Practices that are repressive from a heterosexual vantage point may be forms
of resistance to normalizing sexual regimes in a nonheterosexual context. In these
ways Calhoun shares with queer theorists an appreciation for how "subversive per-
formances" can contest or resist the status quo (Butler 1990: 128). Nevertheless
given her binarr: anal~sis of oppression, her affirmative lesbian identity politics:
and her. standpoint epistemology, her theoretical perspective remains within the
modernist camp (Calhoun 2003: 343-344).

CONCLUSION
This chapter has pointed t d•
US women' o a iverse array of radical feminisms generated by the
.. s movement. Other com t t h . . .
between these different £or Of d' malen a ors ave analytically d1stmguished
ms ra 1c feminism · ·
divided them on the basis of whether the . m various ways. Some have
Others have focused on wheth th h. / Vlew sex as pleasure or sex as danger.
and females or material and/o:~io~: i ig h~ht cultural ~ifferences between males
matched these foci to <livid d' g cal _d~fferences. Still others have mixed and
· £ · • e ra teal femm1sm int0 tw
Ian emm1sts versus radical cultural£ . . 0 camps: radical libertar-
the various radical feminisms f h em1msts (Tong 2009: 90-95). Overall, I find
such precise categorizations F o t e second wave too diverse and nuanced for
be placed in a number of th. or example, the work of Shulamith Firestone could
. ese categorie Sh
spective lauded sexual freedo d s. e was a libertarian in that her per-
m an pansexualih, Sh . .
.,. e was a matenal1st feminist
 CHAPTER 3 • Radical Feminisms 109

rooting women's oppression in a biologically based sexual d' . . f

ms of d 1 1£ . . . . iv1s1on o
in ter employe cu tura emmism m discussing the "£ al ,, h .
She a1s0 . em e aest etic
Jabor. " ale" technological cultural forms.
and the hm s the more fundamental distinction between different b h f d'
per ap ranc es o ra 1-
. 's""' is between those who employ a biological determinist fram k d
al fem1ni
1
" • • • • ewor an
c ho embrace social constructiomsm. Given the important rol th t .
hose w . . . £ . . . e a soc1a1
t truc11·onism is playing. in eminism today, this may be a better pred·ictor of
0115
cwh1c. h radical feminisms will.have a. longer life span. Overall, the common ground
that rad1·cal feminists. share 1s .a fairly narrow isthmus· They share the view• that
women's oppression 1s the earliest and most fun~amental form of oppression that
serves as a model for all other , forms
. of oppression.
h They hierarchicalize oppres-
. ns by deeming womens oppression as t e most important form of oppression.
S10 'al' d
They also tend to essentl ize women an argue that there are core traits (whether
biological, social, o_r cul~ural) shared by all women. Thus, they have been heavily
criticized for ignoring differences between women by race, class, and global loca-
tion (Lorde 1984; Mohanty 1984; see chapters 5, 9, and 10). Nevertheless, radical
feminists developed the most woman-centered perspective of all of the second
wave feminist frameworks.
Another hallmark of second wave, radical feminisms is their concern with
women's bodies. On the one hand, they drew the most attention to how women's
bodies were objectified, used, and abused in patriarchal societies. They did an
extraordinary amount of work on violence against women-whether it took the
form of physical, emotional, or symbolic violence. On the other hand, they did
the most to celebrate women's bodies-to argue that we should love our bodies,
our natural cycles, our blood, and our tears despite the derogatory and demeaning
messages we received from the patriarchy. While many younger feminists are quick
to call radical feminism a classic example of second wave victim feminism because
it focused so much on women as victims of both institutional and individual patri-
archy (Roiphe 1993, Wolf [1993] 1994, Denfeld 1995), the aim of radical femi-
nism was quite the opposite. By naming women's victimization and recognizing it
as a political rather than a personal issue, they encouraged women to collectively
empower themselves to end such abuse. They were the strongest second wave
advocates of how women must understand, protect, and control their own bodies.
Their other positive contributions were many. Although their movement is
often castigated today, their essentialist slogans, such as SISTERHOOD IS POWER-
FUL and SISTERHOOD 1s GLOBAL, helped build community and collectivity among
women. Radical feminists also provided a better understanding of the cultural
dimensions of women's lives by simultaneously critiquing how patriarchal cultu~e
dominated women and celebrating women's culture. Their voices were central m
draWi.ng U.S. feminists' attention to compulsory heterosexuality as well as to th0 se
oppressions that previously had been relegated to the private realm of personal
problems, such as rape incest domestic violence, and sexual harassment. 1ndeed,
Whether they were highlighti~g the dangers of sexual violence or pleasures of
sexual freedom they made great strides in making the personal political.
 no SECTION I • MODERN FEMINIST THOUGHT

Additional writings by radical feminists on global issues can be found in

chapter 9.

CRITICISM OF RADICAL FEMINISMS

1. That because radical feminists hierarchicalize oppressions by treating gen-
der oppression as the most fundamental and important form of oppression, they
ignore the simultaneous and interlocking nature of multiple oppressions, such as
those of race and social class (Smith 1983).
2. That radical feminists are guilty of essentialism because they treat all
women as having common attributes, traits, and concerns and, therefore, ignore
important differences between women (Lorde 1984).
3. That radical feminists fail to analyze how women also can dominate or
oppress others, such as when women with race or class privilege dominate both men
and women who are marginalized by their racial or class locations (Collins 1990).
4. That radical feminists often take a colonialist stance in dealing with women
from third world countries. They tend to homogenize third world women as pas-
sive victims of backward, traditional cultures who are unable to represent them-
selves and who must be rescued by modern, Western feminists (Mohanty 1984).

NOTES
1 For example, Ario Guthrie's famous song "Alice's Restaurant" ( 1966) as well as the 1968 Peter Sellers
movie I Love You, Alice B. Toklas both made much of her cannabis brownies. Some commentators
claim that the slang term "toke" for inhaling majiuana is derived from her last name.
2 For more on federal and local crackdowns on homosexuals and other erotic communities see Gayle
Rubin's discussion in "Thinking Sex" (1984).
3 Stone Butch Blues won the Stonewall Book Award in 1994.
4 For example, gay and transgender people staged a small riot in Los Angeles in 1959 in response to
police harassment, while in San Francisco in 1966 a riot ensued when police tried to arrest drag
queens, hustlers, and transvestites sitting in Compton's Cafeteria. This latter event is often cited as
marking the beginning oftransgender activism (Faderman and Timmons 2006; Stryker 2008).
5 While Firestone dedicates her book to Simone de Beauvoir, she criticizes her for taking an idealist
approach by positing a priori categories of thought and existence-"otherness"-that fail to realize
how these philosophical categories grow out of history (Firestone [1970) 1981: 7-8).
6 Sometimes Firestone ([1970) 1981: 195) contrasts these two approaches by calling them the "sci-
entific" versus the "idealistic."
7 Firestone references Freud's theory here, though she criticizes his theory in another chapter, claim-
i~g it refl~cts the ~power psychology" created by the patriarchal family [1970) 1981: 42-43).
8 Firestone 1s referrmg here to the totalitarian, repressive, and bleak social world portrayed in George
Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 (Firestone [1970) 1981: 238).
9 Aries's Cent_uries of Childhood points out how children in the premodern era were not separated
from ad~t hfe. They witnessed childbirth and death; they worked alongside their parents. Children
of the ehte ~ere often repr~sente,d in portraits as little adults, and according to Aries, there was no
sen~~ of childhood (~o _childre?s clothes or toys) until early modernity. Firestone highlights the
positive features of this mtegrat1on of children into the adult world but ignores the negative sides,
such as_ violence ~gainst children and the exploitation of child labo;
10 Here ~•res~one discusses the kibbutz model as well as Summerhill-a popular model of liberal
edd~caaltwn m th at era developed by A. S. Neill. However, neither of these models is sufficiently
ra 1c for her.
11 See www.lesbianlife.about.com/od/lesbianactivism/a/TransatMich.htm (last accessed May 17, 2009).
 CHAPTER 3 • Radical Feminisms 111

R bins. , an alysis here is . very similar

( to
) ( the Foucaultian-inspired article "M'iss10nary
• Femimsm''
.. by
12 d ave feminist Gma Dent 1995 see chapter 7). Both authors suggest how cem· . ·t lf
th1r W d' h tD ll " . 1 inism i se can
1

ct as a d1·sciplinary iscourse or w. a c ent c ca. s. a missionary feminism" th at JU

· dges an d evaluates
a l't' cally correct sexua1practices 1or 1emmists.
the po apter
I I .
t h'ird wave 1emmists
c . . ( ft
3 see Ch 7 for various
C • • C b . C
o en called the "dissenting daughters") h
f (( . . .
•t· _
w O en 1
1 cized second wave iem1msm ._or emg a iorm o Victim feminism" and who used this term in a
. tive way (Wolf 1993, R01phe 1993, Denfeld 1995).
~~ro::arnple, ~illett provided the following qu?te fro1:11 a work by Norman Mailer: "He took plea-
14 sure in degradmg ?er. I could sc~rc~ly blame him for it, she was such a prim, priggish bitch in her
street clothes. Yo~o swe_ar she didn t own a cunt the way she carried herself in the street. . . . Once
he played her a dirty tnck. · · · H~ had her worked up t~ sue~ a state that she was beside herself.
Anyway, after he had almos~ polished the ass off her with his back-scuttling he pulled out for a
second, as though to cool his cock off ... and shoved a big long carrot up her twat" (quoted in
Millett 1970: 400).
Millett contrasts the works of these "literate por~ograph~rs" to the deconstructionist plays of the
15 homosexual author Jean Genet. She (1970: 42) wntes: Sex is deep at the heart of our troubles, Genet
is urging, and unless we eliminate _t~e mos~ pe_rnicio~s. of our systems of oppression, unless we go
to the very center of the sexual politic and its sick delinum of power and violence, all our efforts at
liberation will only land us again in the same primordial stews.
l6 In R. v. Butler, [1992] 1 S.C.R. 452, known as the Butler decision, the Supreme Court of Canada
largely accepted the arguments made by MacKinnon and Dworkin. Ironically, this law was used by
Canadian customs to seize shipments of Dworkin's book Pornography. It also was used to prosecute
gay and lesbian bookstores for selling the lesbian sadomasochistic magazine Bad Attitude.
17 This approach led many cultural and spiritual ecofeminists to become vegetarians and ani-
mal rights activists. It also melds well with their interests in earlier forms of spirituality, such as
totemism and animism.