[page 11]
This is a shorter version of a contribution to the discussion on lesbians and the women's movement which was a central theme for the discussion at the national women's liberation conference in Edinburgh, last June.
A psychiatrist writing to the Sundar Observer in November 1973 asserted that women's liberation was only a lot of loud-mouthed latent lesbians". Midge Decler in her book The New Chastity and Other Arguments Against Women's Liberation takes a similar line.
This style of attack is neither new nor particularly unusual. It works from the idea that women who challenge their position In society (whether the society be feudal or capitalist) must be less than women.
must be unnatara women: and that once the lesbian label has been atlached, then our ideas can be dismissed.
In the early stages of the women's movement both in this country and elsewhere the attitude to lesbains was not qualitatively different from that in society in general.
In Britain lesbians first appeared as an identified group within wom: en's liberation at the national conference in Skegness in 1971. There the vicious attacks launched by the women and men of the Union for Women's Liberation produced an immediate, if muddled expression of support for lesbians from the vast majority of women at the conterence. Since then lesbianism has not appeared as a national issue in Britain. It has often been seen either as the exclusive concern of gay women themselves or as the 'solution' for heterosexual women.
EDINBURGH Workshops at Edinburgh allowed us to begin to work through some of these confusions, and the conference unanimously adopted a new demand for the movement: an end to all discrimination against lesbians and for the right of each woman to determine her own sexuality.
To be a lesbian is to be a woman who has the capacity to love and make love with another woman. To have such an identity within capitalist society is in itself subversive. It ual division of labour structured and men.
plicitly seen as a threat to family life and the well being of the state the divorce referendum in Italy.
Fanfani, one of the leaders of the right-wing campaign against divto lesbianism.
sion of gay people has been expres-for men legal terms: gay people gay people are sick, and immature. They are at best suitable cases for treatment, at worst pathetic objects of pity. Until the 1967 Act gay men were criminals and they still do not have parity with heterosexual men. of knowing that at least they are men (and with a socially recog nised tradition of achievement in certain spheres-especially artistic one), while gay women are not even women. ignored by the law not because they are more tolerated than male homosexuais, but because the very existence of lesbians is denied on every level.
lies in the subordination and denial of female sexuality except as a implies a rejection a sexuality committed to reproduction, and the sex through the family cannot operate properly on homosexual women Thus homosexuality is often exSuch a view was expressed during orce, argued that the availability of divorce would drive masses of women OPPRESSION Within this society the oppressed mainly in religious, medical and are evil, unnatural, less than human;
+ change it.
Yet gay men have the advantage Part of the oppression of women response to the male, or as a means to the only true female fulfillment in maternity. The assumption is of heterosexuality consisting of active male and passive female. Women without men are assumed to be in an asexual state, or to be waiting for a man.
Thus the assertion of homosexual identity in general and lesbian idenlily in particular has a political significance, and is one important step in the process of challenging our oppression. We are not just seeking tolerance (inevitably as an abnormal minority") within the confines of this society.
Liberal tolerance is of most benefit to the liberal himself-now able to boast not only his own normality but also his generous understanding of deviants'.
### HOSTILITIES
Misunderstandings and hostilities persist within the women's movement in Britain. I'll try to consider some aspects of these. Firstly there is the effect of the assertion of a lesbian identity. The problem here is that at this time and within this society when we say that gay is good, we are asserting an identity which is denied. This assertion (if it has any effect) inevitably challenges the identity which is assumed, namcly that of heterosexuality. It seems important to see that within the women's movement the tensions between gay women and heterosexual women develop within this general framework. We have not created or chosen this framework, but we cannot ignore it if we want to Secondly there is the confusion over the question of bisexuality. To discuss this we have to distinguish between the world we are trying to create and the world we live in now. In some future socialist sexually liberated society the bisexual potential (which probably exists in most people) may have the freedom to develop. But in the actual society in which we now live is say "we are now all bisexuals really' is as meaningful as saying that we are all middle class now, It simply ig nores all the structures of exploitation, oppression and repression which stifle and distort our lives and which (continued on page 18)
[page 12]
are clearly emerging between the different elements in this reactionary spectrum. Let's look at some exa The festival of Light and Mary Whitehouse wage war on "permissiveness. Lord Longford's London rally in September drew a thousand supporters together in search of a 'moral solution to inflation. Enoch Powell punctuates his highly publicised racism with sexist assertions which in general boil down to the idea that there is only one place tor women the home. SPUC, Life and other anti-abortion groups focus their attacks on the right to abortion, their election campaigns of leaflets and posters around the slogan support your anti-abortion candidate* invited, and gained them, the enthusiastic backing of National Front candidates in many constituencies. In Blackburn where the NF nationally has been focussing its resources for several years, Kingsley Read the local leader, smiling to the SPUC election campaign, has become firmly committed to the anti-abortion cause, and attacks homosexuals and reds' as threats to the tamily.
It is clear from Keith Joseph's recent speech the he aligns himself to the forces of reaction in Britain today.
WHY ARE WOMEN ATTRACTED?
Already masses of women are becoming involved in these organisations; many of them are certainly from petty-bourgeois social backgrounds, trying to save dwindling stake in the nation. But it is also the case that the National Front is drawing some support from amongst working class WOER OCHE KIR women, while organtsations such as SPUC and Life, with the "helpful" mediation of the catholic church, are able to attract larger numbers of working class women.
Not surprisingly women want to be able to solve the problems of The Nazi slogan "Kinder, Kliche, Kirche' (children, kitchen, church) summed up the ever increasing prices of food, and role women were to occupy under the Third Reich. essentials cuts in public and social
[page 13]
n cance in the past few id organisational links of this trend.
services, housing shortages. In any crisis period it is women that feel these problems most actively. It is
----- pull-quotes -----
Reactionary forces are rallying in Britain to-day behind the banners of organisations which have grown to years. The most obvious danger of these are fascist organisations such as the National Front. However other less explicitly political organisations have attracted increasing support. Already ideolo