Patriarchy, Sexual Identity, and the Sexual Revolution Author(s): Ann Ferguson Source: , Vol. 7, No. 1 (Autumn, 1981), pp. 158-172 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3173515 . Accessed: 22/10/2014 13:59

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On "Compulsory and Existence": Defining the Issues

Ann Ferguson, Jacquelyn N. Zita, and Kzthryn Pyne Addelson

Ann Ferguson: ,Sexual Identity,and the Sexual Revolution

Adrienne Rich's paper "Compulsory Heterosexualityand Lesbian Exis- tence"' suggests two important theses for further development by feministthinkers. First, she maintainsthat compulsory heterosexuality is

EDITORS' NOTE: Marianne Hirsch suggestsat theconclusion of her review essaythat the phrase "lesbian continuum" may serve to liberate usfrom masculine theoryand languageinto genuinelyfeminine speculation on thenature of women's sexualityand women'smothering. As ithappens, the question of whether the phrase can infactdo so is at thecenter of the debate between Ann Ferguson, Jaquelyn N. Zita,and KathrynPyne Addelson. Philosophy, linguistics, sociology, and historical theoryall becomeelements in theexchange. An earlier versionof thispaper was read at a philosophyand feminismcolloquium at the Universityof Cincinnati,November 15, 1980. I would like to acknowledge the forma- tive aid of Francine Rainone in the ideas and revisionof thispaper, as well as the helpful comments made by Kim Christensen,Annette Kuhn, Jacquelyn Zita, and Kathy Pyne Addelson on earlier draftsof this paper (Ferguson). 1. , "Compulsory Heterosexualityand Lesbian Existence,"Signs: Jour- nal of Womenin Cultureand Society5, no. 4 (Summer 1980): 631-60. Unless otherwise indicated, page numbers referredto in text and footnotesare fromthis article.

[Signs:Journal of Womenin Cultureand Society1981, vol. 7, no. 1] ? 1981 by The Universityof Chicago. All rightsreserved. 0097-9740/82/0701-0013$01.00 158

This content downloaded from 167.206.19.4 on Wed, 22 Oct 2014 13:59:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Signs Autumn1981 159 the central social structureperpetuating male domination. Second, she suggests a reconstructionof the concept lesbian in terms of a cross- cultural,transhistorical lesbian continuum which can capture women's ongoing resistance to patriarchal domination. Rich's paper is an in- sightfuland significantcontribution to the development of a radical feministapproach to patriarchy,human nature,and sexual identity.Her syntheticand creativeapproach is a necessaryfirst step to furtherwork on the concept of compulsoryheterosexuality. Nonetheless, her position containsserious flawsfrom a socialist-feministperspective. In thispaper I shall argue against her main theses while presentinga different,his- toricallylinked concept of lesbian identity. Rich develops her insighton the concept lesbianfrom de Beauvoir's classic treatmentof lesbianismin TheSecond Sex where lesbianismis seen as a deliberate refusal to submit to the coercive force of heterosexual ideology,a refusalwhich acts as an underground feministresistance to patriarchy.From thisbase Rich constructsa lesbian-feministapproach to lesbian history.As she writeselsewhere: "I feel thatthe search forlesbian historyneeds to be understood politically,not simplyas the search for exceptional women who were ,but as the search for power, for nascent undefined ,for the ways that women-lovingwomen have been nay-sayersto male possession and controlof women."2 To use such an approach as an aid to discover "nascent undefined feminism"in any historicalperiod, the feministhistorian has to know what she is looking for.We need, in other words,a clear understanding of what is involvedin the concept lesbianso as to be able to identifysuch women. Rich introducesthe conceptslesbian identity and lesbiancontinuum as substitutesfor the limitedand clinical sense of "lesbian" commonly used. Her new concepts imply that genital sexual relations or sexual attractionsbetween women are neither necessary nor sufficientcon- ditionsfor someone to be thoughta lesbian in the fullsense of the term. If we were to presentRich's definitionof lesbian identityit would there- fore be somewhatas follows:

1. Lesbian identity(Rich) is the sense of self of a bonded primarilyto women who is sexuallyand emotionallyindependent of men.

Her concept of lesbian continuum describes a wide range of "woman- identifiedexperience; not simplythe factthat a woman has had or con- sciouslydesired genitalsexual experience withanother woman." Instead we should "expand it to embrace manymore formsof primaryintensity between and among women, including the sharing of a rich inner life, the bonding against male tyranny,the givingand receivingof practical

2. Quoted byJudith Schwarz, "Questionnaire on Issues in Lesbian History,"Frontiers 4, no. 3 (Fall 1979): 1-12, esp. p. 6.

This content downloaded from 167.206.19.4 on Wed, 22 Oct 2014 13:59:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 160 Fergusonet al. On "CompulsoryHeterosexuality" and political support; if we can also hear in it such associationsas mar- riage resistance. . . we begin to grasp breadths of female historyand psychologywhich have lain out of reach as a consequence of limited, mostlyclinical definitionsof 'lesbianism'" (pp. 648-49). Rich, in short, conceives of lesbian identityas a transhistorical phenomenon, while I maintain,to the contrary,that the developmentof a distinctivehomosexual (and specificallylesbian) identityis a historical phenomenon, not applicable to all societies and all periods of history. Her idea that the degree to which a woman is sexuallyand emotionally independent of men while bonding withwomen measures resistanceto patriarchyoversimplifies and romanticizesthe notion of such resistance withoutreally defining the conditionsthat make forsuccessful resistance rather than mere victimization.Her model does not allow us to under- stand the collectiveand social nature of a lesbian identityas opposed to lesbian practicesor behaviors. Although I agree withRich's insightthat some of the clinical definitionsof lesbian tend to create ways of viewing women's lives in which "female friendshipsand comradeship have been set apart fromthe erotic: thus limitingthe eroticitself," I thinkher view undervalues the importanthistorical development of an explicitlesbian identityconnected to genitalsexuality. My own view is thatthe develop- ment of such an identity,and with it the development of a sexuality valued and accepted in a communityof peers, extended women's life options and degree of independence frommen. I argue thatthe concept of lesbian identityas distinctfrom lesbian practices arose in advanced capitalistcountries in WesternEurope and the in the late nineteenthand early twentiethcenturies from the conjunction of two forces. In part it was an ideological concept created by the sexologists who frameda changing patriarchalideology of sexualityand the family; in part it was chosen by independent women and feminists who formedtheir own urban subculturesas an escape fromthe new,mystified formof patriarchaldominance thatdeveloped in the late 1920s: the com- panionate nuclear family.3

Defining"Lesbian"

Radicalesbians were the firstlesbian-feminist theorists to suggest a reconstructionof the concept lesbian.4Their goal was not merely to

3. Cf. Michel Foucault, The Historyof Sexuality,vol. 1, An Introduction,trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978); JeffreyWeeks, Coming Out: HomosexualPolitics in Britainfrom the Nineteenth Centu7y to thePresent (London: Quartet Books, 1977); Mary McIntosh, "The Homosexual Role," Social Problems16, no. 2 (Fall 1968): 182-92; and Christina Simons, "Companionate and the Lesbian Threat," Frontiers4, no. 3 (Fall 1979): 54-59. 4. Radicalesbians,"Woman-identified Women," in ,ed. A. Koedt, D. Levine, and A. Rapone (New York: Quadrangle Books, 1973).

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locate some centralcharacteristic of lesbianismbut also to find a way to eliminate the standard, pejorative connotation of the term. They wanted, that is, to rid the term of the heterosexistimplications that lesbiansare deviant,sick, unhealthy beings-a taskimportant not merely as a defense of the lesbian communitybut of the feministcommunity and, indeed, of all women. The problem is thatRadicalesbians as well as Rich do not clearly distinguishbetween three differentgoals of def- initional strategy:first, valorizing the concept lesbian;second, giving a sociopoliticaldefinition of the contemporarylesbian community;and finally,reconceptualizing history from a lesbian and feministperspec- tive.These goals are conceptuallydistinct and may not be achievable by one concept, namely,the lesbian continuum. In the remainder of this section I will criticizethe definitionsof lesbian thathave been offeredin the literatureand in common usage; I will argue that none succeeds completelyin achievingany one of these tasks.(In fact,the truthmay be thatthe firsttask cannot be accomplished at all in the opinion of those espousing values of the dominantculture.) In subsequent sectionsI will give my own suggestionfor a sociopolitical definitionof the contemporarylesbian communityand some thoughts about transhistoricalfeminist concepts. What then are some proposed definitionsof the concept lesbian? First,let us consider the meaning the concept mighthave in 1981 foran average lay person not deeply engaged in gay, lesbian, or feministpoli- tics:

2. Lesbian (ordinarydefinition) is a woman who has sexual attrac- tions toward and relationshipswith other women.

One problem withthe use of definition2 as the instrumentfor delineat- ing membersof the contemporarylesbian community(the second goal) is that its meaning does not exclude practicingbisexual women. In fact, manycommonsense usages of the termlesbian do not make the lesbian/ bisexual distinction.Many women who have loved men and had sexual relationshipswith them come later to have sexual relationshipswith women and to thinkof themselvesas lesbians withoutbothering to con- sider the metaphysicalsignificance of the distinctionbetween being a bisexual who loves a woman and a lesbian who loves a woman. What does thisambiguity in the application of the concept lesbiansuggest about the usefulnessof definition2? One thingit suggestsis thathomosexual practicesby themselvesare not sufficientor definitiveconstituents of a homosexual identity.A cer- tain kind of politicalcontext is required. Therefore, when considering sexual identity,we should be wary of attemptsto make oversimplified cross-culturalparallels. Most known societies have had some form of legitimate,or at least expected, homosexual practices in spite of the widespread persistenceof culturallyenforced heterosexuality;but from

This content downloaded from 167.206.19.4 on Wed, 22 Oct 2014 13:59:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 162 Fergusonet al. On "CompulsoryHeterosexuality" this we cannot conclude that individuals within those societies had homosexual identitiesin our modern understanding of the concept. Thus, among the Mohave Indians, those of either sex who so wished could choose to become socially a member of the opposite sex. The "woman" male might simulate pregnancy and menstruation,and the "man" female play the father role to her chosen partner's child by a biological male. Nonetheless the societydistinguished between the two partnersin such a homosexual pair. The social but nonbiologicalmale or female was deviant, while the social and biological males and females were unfortunatebut normal membersof society.This distinctionis not present today in society'sconcept of homosexual identitythat would equally stigmatizeas deviant both partners in a sexual relationshipbe- tween two people of the same sex. We could tryto correctdefinition 2 while stillseeking some ahistori- cal descriptivecomponent of lesbian and say that:

3. Lesbianis a woman who is sexual exclusivelyin relationto women.

This definitioncertainly captures one importantuse of the concept les- bian in contemporarylesbian politics,in thatit describesidentified mem- bers of the lesbian subculture in such a way as to exclude women who engage in bisexual practices.But it also cuts fromlesbian historymany women like Sappho, Vita Sackville-West,and Eleanor Roosevelt,whom most lesbian feministswould like to include. Yet should a woman be accepted as a lesbian if she engaged in bisexual practicesonly if she is a historicalpersonage and is not presentlydemanding to be included in the lesbian community?Surely, this is ratherad hoc! The problem is thata strictdistinction between lesbian/homosexual and bisexual rules out many commonly accepted historicalsituations involvinghomosexual practices,for example, those of Greece and Les- bos, because the aristocraticmen and women involved (including Sap- pho) had same-sex love relations but also formed economic and pro- creative marriageswith the opposite sex. One furtherdefinitional strategy would eliminate genital sexual practices as relevant to the concept lesbian,thus at once avoiding the standard,pejorative connotations of the termand extendingits meaning to include celibate women who are otherwiseexcluded by definition3 from the lesbian sisterhood.5It is the trivializingof lesbian relations throughemphasis on genital practice,many feel, thatcontinues to stig- matize lesbianism. Instead, we should substitutetraits valued highly,at least by the intended audience of feminists,and thuscleanse the concept of its negative implications. This is the definitionalstrategy suggested by Blanche Weisen Cook

5. See Susan Yarborough, "Lesbian ,"Sinister Wisdom 11 (Fall 1979): 24-29.

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fromwhich Rich, Nancy Sahli, and other recentwriters take theircues.6 The resultingdefinition is based on Cook's quoted words but with a clause added on the possibilityof sexual love between women as a chal- lenge to people's negative feelingsabout such love:

4. Lesbian(Cook) is ".... a woman who loves women, who chooses women to nurtureand support and to create a livingenvironment in whichto workcreatively and independently,"7whether or not her relationswith these women are sexual.

My main criticismof definition4 is a politicalone. This extension and reconstructionof the termlesbian would seem to eliminatewomen like Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, and so on-in fact,all women who were sexuallyattracted to women but who workedwith men or in a circle of mixed male and female friendssuch as the Bloomsburygroup. When juxtaposed to Rich's idea of a lesbian continuumas an indicatorof resis- tance to patriarchy,this definition suggests that female couples likeJane Addams and Mary Rozet Smithor women like Lilian Wald whose com- munityof friendswere almostentirely feminist are more importantrole models for lesbian-feministsthan women like Gertrude Stein or Bessie Smith. This approach also leaves out the historicalcontext in whichwomen live. At certainhistorical periods, when there is no large or visibleoppo- sitionalwomen's culture,women who show that theycan challenge the sexual divisionof labor-that is, who work withand performas well as men-are just as importantfor questioning the patriarchalideology of inevitable sex roles, including compulsory heterosexuality,as are the woman-identifiedwomen described by Cook. At certain periods even women who pass for men-such as those adventurersDona Catalina De Erauso, Anny Bonny,and Mary Read8-are just as importantas models of resistanceto patriarchyas the celibateEmily Dickinson may have been in her time. For these reasons I rejectthe politicalimplication of radical feminist theorythat there is some universalway to understand"true" as opposed to "false" acts of resistanceto patriarchy.Consider that implicationas expressed in thisquote fromRich's interviewin Frontiers:"We need also to researchand analyze the livesof women who have been lesbiansin the mostlimited sense of genitalsexual activitywhile otherwise bonding with men. Because lesbianismin thatlimited sense has confused and blocked

6. Nancy Sahli, "Smashing: Women's RelationshipsBefore the Fall," Chrysalis,no. 8 (1979), pp. 17-28. 7. Blanche W. Cook, "Female Support Networksand PoliticalActivism," Chrysalis, no. 3 (1977), pp. 43-61. 8. See Nancy Myron and , eds., WomenRemembered: A Collectionof Biographies(: Diana Press, 1974).

This content downloaded from 167.206.19.4 on Wed, 22 Oct 2014 13:59:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 164 Fergusonet al. On "CompulsoryHeterosexuality" resistanceand survival."9I wonder, for instance,whether it is not racist or classist to urge third world women to bond with white women in "Take Back the Night" marches, rather than with third world men in protestagainst repressiveracial violence toward minoritymen suspected of violence against white women. On the other hand, may have bonded withother women,but it is not clear to me thather life is not the sad case of a victim,rather than a successfulresister, of patriar- chy. Feministsmindful of the differentforms of patriarchalhierarchy, includingdiscrimination based on class and race, ought to be verywary of positing universal formulas and strategiesfor ending it. Hence, I reject the notion of a lesbian continuum because it is too linear and ahistorical. My final objection to the reconstructionof the concept lesbian suggested in definition4 is that the definitionignores the important sense in whichthe sexual revolutionof the late nineteenthand twentieth centuries was a positive advance for women. The abilityto take one's own genital sexual needs seriously is a necessary component of an egalitarianlove relation,whether it be witha man or a woman. Further- more, I would argue thatthe possibilityof a sexual relationshipbetween women is an importantchallenge to patriarchybecause it acts as an alternativeto the patriarchalheterosexual couple, thus challenging the heterosexual ideology thatwomen are dependent on men for romantic/ sexual love and satisfaction.Therefore, any definitionalstrategy which seeks to drop the sexual component-of"lesbian" in favorof an emotional commitmentto, or preference for,women10 tends to lead feministsto downplay the historicalimportance of the movementfor sexual libera- tion. The negative results of that movement-by which sexual ob- jectification replaces material objectification,the nineteenth-century concept of woman as a "womb on legs" becoming the twentieth-century one of a "vagina on legs"-do notjustify dismissal of the real advances thatwere made forwomen, not the least being the possibilityof a lesbian identityin the sexual sense of the term." I conclude that none of the definitionsgiven above succeeds in accomplishingthe tasks which those interestedin lesbian historyhave put forward:first, freeing the concept lesbianfrom narrow clinical uses

9. Quoted by Schwarz, p. 6. 10. See Joyce Trebilcot's discussion of related development of the concept of woman-identifiedwoman in "Conceiving Women," SinisterWisdom 11 (Fall 1979): 43-50. 11. Historical and political reasons lead me to reject Annabel Faraday's suggestion that we should get beyond the theoreticaltask of defininglesbian to the more important task of researchingmale methods of theorizingand controllingwomen's sexuality.We do indeed need to do this,but understandingthe historicaldevelopment of a lesbian identity and of a lesbian communityas a potential resistanceto male control is one part of this broader task. See Annabel Faraday, "Liberating Lesbian Research," in The Making of the Modem Homosexual,ed. K. Plummer (London: Hutchinson PublishingGroup, 1981), pp. 112-29.

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and negative emotive connotations;second, aiding the developmentof feministcategories for drawing clear lines among contemporarysexual identities;and finally,illuminating women's historyby developing trans- historicalcategories that give us a betterunderstanding of women's his- torical resistanceto patriarchaldomination.

An AlternativeApproach: The New LesbianIdentity

SomeMethodological Considerations The major problem with definitions1 through 4 is that they are ahistorical;that is, theyall implicitlyassume some universalway to define lesbianism across cultures, classes, and races. But this approach, as I hope I have shown, is bankrupt. Nonetheless, I thinkwe can offer a historicallyspecific definition of lesbian for advanced industrialsocieties thatwill meet the second goal listedabove. But firstwe need to consider the prior social conditions necessaryfor one to be conscious of sexual orientationas part of one's personal identity. Our contemporarysexual identitiesare predicated upon two con- ditions.First, and tautologically,a person cannot be said to have a sexual identitythat is not self-conscious,that is, it is not meaningfulto con- jecture that someone is a lesbian who refusesto acknowledge herselfas such. Taking on a lesbian identityis a self-consciouscommitment or decision. Identityconcepts are, thus,to be distinguishedfrom social and biological categorieswhich apply to persons simplybecause of theirpo- sitionin the social structure,for example, theireconomic class, theirsex, or their racial classification.For this reason, labeling theoristsmake a distinctionbetween primaryand secondarydeviance: One can engage in deviant acts (primarydeviance) withoutlabeling oneself a deviant, but acquiringa personal identityas a deviant(secondary deviance) requiresa self-consciousacceptance of the label as applying to oneself. A second condition for a self-consciouslesbian identityis that one live in a culturewhere the concept has relevance. For example, a person cannot have a black identityunless the concept of blacknessexists in the person's culturalenvironment. (Various shades of brown all get termed "black" in North American culturebut not in Caribbean cultures,partly because of the greater racism in our culture.) Connected to this is the idea, borrowed from Sartre, that a person cannot be anythingunless others can identifyher or him as such. So, just as a person cannot be self-conscious about being black unless there is a potentially self- conscious communityof others prepared to accept the label for them- selves,so a person cannot be said to have a sexual identityunless thereis in his or her historicalperiod and culturalenvironment a communityof otherswho thinkof themselvesas havingthe sexual identityin question.

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Thus, in a period of human historywhere the distinctionsbetween het- erosexual, bisexual, and homosexual identityare not presentas cultural categories(namely, until the twentiethcentury), people cannot correctly be said to have been lesbian or bisexual, although theymay be described as having been sexually deviant. This point is emphasized by Carroll Smith-Rosenbergin her classic treatmentof the particularlypassionate and emotionallyconsuming friendshipsof nineteenth-centurymiddle- class women for other women.12 The definitionof lesbian that I suggest,one that conformsto the two methodologicalconsiderations above, is the following:

5. Lesbian is a woman who has sexual and erotic-emotionalties primarilywith women or who sees herselfas centrallyinvolved with a communityof self-identifiedlesbians whose sexual and erotic- emotional ties are primarilywith women; and who is herselfa self- identifiedlesbian.

My definitionis a sociopoliticalone; that is, it attemptsto include in the termlesbian the contemporarysense of lesbianismas connected with a subculturalcommunity, many members of which are opposed to de- finingthemselves as dependent on or subordinate to men. It defines both bisexual and celibate women as lesbians as long as they identify themselvesas such and have theirprimary emotional identificationwith a communityof self-definedlesbians. Furthermore,for reasons I will outline shortly,there was no lesbian communityin which to ground a sense of self before the twentiethcentury, a factwhich distinguishesthe male homosexual communityfrom the lesbian community.Finally, it is arguable that not until this particularstage in the second wave of the women's movement and in the lesbian-feministmovement has it been politicallyfeasible to include self-definedlesbian bisexual women into the lesbian community.13 Many lesbian feministsmay not agree withthis inclusion. But it may be argued that to exclude lesbian bisexuals fromthe communityon the

12. Carroll Smith-Rosenberg,"The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations be- tween Women in Nineteenth-CenturyAmerica," Signs:Journal of Womenin Cultureand Society1, no. 1 (Autumn 1975): 1-29; Weeks (n. 3 above). 13. Some responses to the recent "vanguardism"of politicallesbianism in the wom- en's movementhave suggested thatwe avoid such labels as "heterosexual,""bisexual," and "lesbian feminist"and begin to framea bisexual or pansexual politics(see Beatrix Cambell, "A FeministSexual Politics,"Feminist Review 5 [1980]). While I agree thatwe need new ideas to get beyond existing labels, it would be utopian to ignore the ongoing strengthof heterosexism,which continuesto stigmatizeand deprive lesbians more than heterosexual women. We need, then,a clearlydefined lesbian oppositional culture of resistance,but as feministswe need also to find ways to strengthenour women's communitywith other feministsas well as to recruit new members into the feministcommunity. One way to accomplish both these tasks in part is to accept the inclusive definitionof lesbian I offer above.

This content downloaded from 167.206.19.4 on Wed, 22 Oct 2014 13:59:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Signs Autumn1981 167 grounds that"they give energyto men" is overlydefensive at thispoint. Afterall, a strongwomen's communitydoes not have to operate on a scarcitytheory of nurturantenergy! On feministprinciples the criterion for membershipin the communityshould be a woman's commitmentto givingpositive erotic-emotional energy to women. Whetherwomen who give such energy to women can also give energy to individual men (friends,fathers, sons, lovers) is not the community'sconcern.

The HistoricalDevelopment of theSexual IdentityLesbian In consideringsome reasons why the cultural concept lesbiancame to exist in the United States and WesternEurope only in the early twen- tieth century,we must ask what particularpreconditions underlay the development in the later nineteenth century of the concept of a homosexual type or personality.If we take a socialist-feministperspec- tiveon preconditionsfor radical social change-the general assumption is (to paraphrase Marx) that people can change their personal/social identitiesbut not under conditionsof theirown choosing-we can focus on three factors:material (economic), ideological, and motivational. In other papers I have developed the argument that the "material base" of patriarchylies in male dominance in the familyand extended kin networks.14However brutal its economic exploitation,nineteenth- centuryindustrial capitalism did have one positiveaspect for women in that it eventuallyweakened the patriarchalpower of fathersand sons and, thus, the life choices of women increased. This relative gain in freedom was not an instanteffect of capitalism,of course; early wage labor for women gave most women too littlemoney to surviveon their own. Nonetheless, acquisition of an income gave women new options, for example, sharing boardinghouse rooms with other women; and eventuallysome workdone by women drew a sufficientwage to allow for economic independence. Then, too, commercial capital's growth spurred the growthof urban areas, which in turn gave feministand deviant women the possibilityof escaping the confinesof rigidlytradi- tional, patriarchalfarm communitiesfor an independent, if often im- poverished,life in the cities. Yet as the patriarchalfamily's direct, personal controlover women weakened, the less personal control of a growing class of male pro- fessionals (physicians,therapists, and social workers) over the physical and mental health of women grew in strength.At the same time, a growing percentage of women were being incorporated into sex-

14. See Ann Ferguson,"Women as a New RevolutionaryClass in the United States," in BetweenLabor and Capital: The Professional-ManagerialClass, ed. Pat Walker (Boston: South End Press, 1979), pp. 279-309; and Ann Ferguson and Nancy Folbre, "The Un- happy Marriage of Patriarchyand Capitalism,"in Womenand Revolution,ed. Lydia Sargent (Boston: South End Press, 1981), pp. 313-38.

This content downloaded from 167.206.19.4 on Wed, 22 Oct 2014 13:59:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 168 Fergusonet al. On "CompulsoryHeterosexuality" segregated wage labor for longer and longer periods. Ehrenreich and English argue that the shiftfrom a patriarchal ideology based in the male-dominatedfamily to a more diffusemasculinist ideology was in no sense a weakeningof patriarchy,or male dominance, but simplyrepre- sented a shiftin power fromfathers and husbands to male professionals and bosses.15 It is myview, on the contrary,that the weakeningof the patriarchal familyduring thisperiod created the materialconditions needed forthe growthof lesbianismas a self-consciouscultural choice for women-a choice that in turn helped to free them froman ideology that stressed their emotional and sexual dependence upon men. Accelerating the process were the studiesin human sexualitymade around the turnof the centuryby Freud, Ellis, Krafft-Ebing,and Hirschfield.The ideological shiftin the understandingof human nature thattheir findings involved set the stage fora new permissivenessin sexual mores and the realization that both men and women have sexual drives. This change legitimated the demand of women to be equal sexual partners with men. It also suggested that women could add another dimension of joy to their already emotionallyintense friendshipswith women. As it developed, the concept of a lesbian identitychallenged the connection between women's sexualityand motherhoodthat had kept women's eroticenergy eithersublimated in love forchildren or frustratedbecause heterosexual privilegeoften kept women from givingpriority to their relationswith other women. Noting the ideological changes thatmade possible the development of a lesbian identity leaves the deeper motivational questions un- answered. First,what lies behind the creation of a new dominant ideol- ogy, creating,in turn, a new way of viewinglegitimate and illegitimate sexual behaviorand changing the previousdistinction between "natural" and "unnatural" sexualityto that between "normal" as opposed to "de- viant" sexuality and sexual identity?Second, what motivation leads women to accept a deviant label and adopt a lesbian identity? The answer to the firstquestion is suggested by Michel Foucault's Introductionto theHistory of Sexuality.16 The risingbourgeois class gradu- allycreates a new ideology foritself that shifts the emphasis fromcontrol of social process throughmarriage alliance to the controlof sexualityas a way of maintainingclass hegemony.Jacques Donzelot documents how the developing categoryof sexual health and itsobverse, sexual sickness (e.g., the hystericalwoman, the psychoticchild, the homosexual invert),

15. See Barbara Ehrenreich and Deidre English, For Her Own Good (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1979); and , Gyn/Ecology(Boston: Beacon Press, 1978), chap. 7. Other work that agrees with and supports this perspectiveis Stuart Ewen, Captainsof Consciousness(New York: McGraw-HillBook Co., 1976); and Heidi Hartmann, "The Un- happy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More ProgressiveUnion," Capital and Class 8 (Summer 1979): 1-33. 16. Foucault (n. 3 above).

This content downloaded from 167.206.19.4 on Wed, 22 Oct 2014 13:59:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Signs Autumn1981 169 allow forgrowing intervention in the familyby therapists,social workers, and male professionalsas mediatorsfor the capitalistpatriarchal welfare state.17By providinga clear-cut,publicized line betweenpermissible and illegitimatebehavior, these categories enforce the social segregationof "deviants" from"normals," thus keeping the normals pure (and under control).l8 One thingthat Foucault and Donzelot as male leftistsfail to empha- size is the way thatthe ideological reorganizationthey speak of servesnot only the bourgeois class but also men reorganizingpatriarchy. Christina Simons'simportant article documents the factthat self-styled progressive thinkersand humanistsof the 1920s and 1930s who developed the ideal of the sexuallyequal "companionatemarriage" did so in order to protect theirnewly mystified form of the patriarchalfamily (in whichthe male is instrumentalbreadwinner and the female is the expressive,nurturant, but sexy mom-housewife)by protectingyoung people fromthe lesbian/ homosexual threat.'9 Foucault also failsto emphasize popular resistanceto the ideas and forces of social domination. As Rich points out, women have always resistedpatriarchy, but whydid women choose the particularavenue of lesbianismin the face of intense social stigmaattached to it? A general answer is found in the sociologyof normal/deviantcategories. Once a particulardeviation is identifiedin popular discourse, those dissatisfied withthe conventionaloptions have the conscious possibilityof pursuing the deviant alternative.We could then expect thatamong participantsin the first-wavewomen's movementsa growingresentment of male domi- nation in the familyand the economy may have led some women to turn from sexual relationswith men to sexual relationswith women. There is some evidence thatin both the United States and Western Europe the growthof lesbianismamong middle-and upper-classwomen was as closelyconnected withthe firstwave of the women's movementas the growthof lesbian feminismis withthe second wave of the movement. Marcus Hirschfieldclaimed that in Germany 10 percent of feminists were lesbian.20In England, Stella Browne, the Britishpioneer in birth controland abortionrights, defended lesbianismpublicly.21 Upper-class women like Vita Sackville-West,Virginia Woolf, and Natalie Barney involved themselvesin lesbian relationships.The fact that the lesbian subculturedid not develop extensivelyuntil the 1930s in mostcountries, however,indicates how difficultit stillwas for most single women to be economically independent of men. With the rise of somewhat better wage labor positions for women in the 1920s, 1930s, and onward, the

17. Jacques Donzelot, The Policingof Families (New York: Pantheon Books, 1979). 18. McIntosh (n. 3 above). 19. Simons (n. 3 above). 20. Weeks (n. 3 above). 21. Weeks (n. 3 above).

This content downloaded from 167.206.19.4 on Wed, 22 Oct 2014 13:59:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 170 Fergusonet al. On "CompulsoryHeterosexuality" gradual rise of an independent subcultureof self-definedlesbians can be seen as a pocket of resistanceto marriage. The second-wave women's movementin the 1960s and 1970s made possible a furtherextension of that subculture and a clearer definition of its counterpatriarchal, stronglyfeminist nature.

HeterosexualIdeology as a CoerciveForce

Rich makes two basic assumptions in her defense of the lesbian continuumas a constructfor understanding female resistanceto patriar- chy. First,she assumes thatthe institutionof compulsoryheterosexuality is the key mechanism underlyingand perpetuating male dominance. Second, she implies that all heterosexual relationsare coercive or com- pulsory relations. No arguments are given to support these crucial as- sumptions, an omission which I take as a fundamental flaw. While I agree that lesbian and male-male attractionsare indeed suppressed cross-culturallyand that the resultinginstitution of heterosexualityis coercive, I do not think it plausible to assume such suppression is sufficientby itselfto perpetuate male dominance. It may be one of the mechanisms,but it surelyis not the singleor sufficientone. Others, such as the control of female biological reproduction,male control of state and political power, and economic systems involving discrimination based on class and race, seem analyticallydistinct from coercive hetero- sexuality,yet are causes whichsupport and perpetuatemale dominance. Targeting heterosexualityas the keymechanism of male dominance romanticizeslesbianism and ignores the actual quality of individual les- bian or heterosexualwomen's lives. Calling women who resistpatriarchy the lesbian continuum assumes, not only that all lesbians have resisted patriarchy,but thatall true patriarchalresisters are lesbiansor approach lesbianism.This ignores,on the one hand, the "old lesbian" subculture thatcontains many nonpolitical, co-opted, and economicallycomfortable lesbians. It also ignores the existence of some heterosexual couples in which women who are feministsmaintain an equal relationship with men. Such women would deny that theirinvolvements are coercive, or even that they are forced to put second their own needs, their self- respect,or their relationshipswith women. Part of the problem is the concept of "compulsoryheterosexuality." Sometimes Rich seems to implythat women who are essentiallyor natu- rally lesbians are coerced by the social mechanisms of the patriarchal familyto "turn to the father,"hence to men. But if a 'soriginal love for her motheris itselfdue to the social factthat women, and not men, , then neither lesbianism nor heterosexualitycan be said to be women's natural (uncoerced) sexual preference.If humans are basically bisexual or transsexualat birth,it willnot do to suggestthat lesbianism is

This content downloaded from 167.206.19.4 on Wed, 22 Oct 2014 13:59:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Signs Autumn1981 171 the more authenticsexual preferencefor feminists,and that heterosex- ual feministswho do not change theirsexual preferenceare simplylying to themselvesabout theirtrue sexuality. The notion that heterosexualityis central to women's oppression is plausible only if one assumes that it is women's emotional dependence on men as lovers in conjunction withother mechanismsof male domi- nance (e.g., marriage,motherhood, women's economic dependence on men) which allow men to control women's bodies as instrumentsfor theirown purposes. But single ,black women,and economically independent women, for example, may in their heterosexual relations with men escape or avoid these other mechanisms. Rich's emphasis on compulsoryheterosexuality as the key mecha- nism of male domination implies that the quality of straightwomen's resistancemust be questioned. But thisignores other equally important practicesof resistanceto male domination,for example, women's work networksand trade unions, and welfaremothers organizing against so- cial service cutbacks. The (perhaps unintended) lesbian-separatistim- plicationsof her analysisare disturbing.If compulsoryheterosexuality is the problem, why bother to make alliances with straightwomen from minorityand working-classcommunities around issues relating to sex and race discriminationat the workplace, cutbacks in Medicaid abor- tions, the lack of day-care centers,cutbacks in food stamps, and ques- tions about nuclear power and the arms race? Just stop sleeping with men, withdrawfrom heterosexual practices,and the whole systemof male dominance will collapse on its own! A socialist-feministanalysis of male dominance sees the systemsthat oppress women as more complex and difficultto dislodge than does the utopian and idealist simplicityof lesbian separatism. They are at least dual systems,22and more likelymultiple systems, of dominance whichat timessupport and at timescontradict each other: capitalism,patriarchy, heterosexism,racism, imperialism. We need autonomous groups of re- sistersopposing each of these forms of dominance; but we also need alliances among ourselves. If feminismas a movement is trulyrevolu- tionary, it cannot give priority to one form of male domination (heterosexism)to the exclusion of others. One's sexual preferencemay indeed be a political act, but it is not necessarily the best, nor the paradigmatic,feminist political act. Naming the continuumof resistance to patriarchythe lesbian continuumhas the politicalimplication that it is. To conclude, let me agree with Rich that some transhistoricalcon- cepts may be needed to stress the continuityof women's resistanceto patriarchy.Nonetheless, the concepts we pick should not ignore either the politicalcomplexity of our presenttasks as feministsnor our histori-

22. Iris Young, "SocialistFeminism and the Limitsof Dual SystemsTheory," Socialist Review 10, no. 50/51 (March-June 1980): 169-88.

This content downloaded from 167.206.19.4 on Wed, 22 Oct 2014 13:59:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 172 Fergusonet al. On "CompulsoryHeterosexuality" cally specificpolitical consciousness as lesbians. Rich's argument,on the one hand that compulsoryheterosexuality is the key mechanismof pa- triarchy,and on the other hand that the lesbian continuum is the key resistanceto it, has both of these unfortunateconsequences.

Philosophyand Women'sStudies Universityof Massachusetts-Amherst

Jacquelyn N. Zita: Historical Amnesia and the Lesbian Continuum

Ann Ferguson's paper "Patriarchy,Sexual Identity,and the Sexual Revo- lution"is a welcome port of entryinto a conceptual arena thatmany of us have encountered in our personal and communitylives, but one which few of us as philosophershave given careful studyand attention.23The discussion is long overdue, and since many of our philosophical di- alogues have been sparked by the poetic insightof Adrienne Rich, we have once again to thank our poet-philosopher for generating yet another multitudeof thoughtsand words withinthe newlyexpanding communityof feministphilosophers. In myown workI have returnedto Rich manytimes for a regenerationof ideas and forthe courage to move withhints of thingsonly dimlyseen, whichwe as philosophersshape by a differentkind of language, inscribinga differentintention into the words of our craft.The differencein styleand language between Adri- enne Rich's "Compulsory Heterosexualityand Lesbian Existence" and Ann Ferguson's response demonstratesthis difference in intention:The firstis poetic and literary;the second, philosophical and analytic.Both worksshare a personal commitmentand passion whichbelongs to good feministwriting. Both pieces are meant to persuade us, but it would be misleadingto suggestthat the issue is one of definitionsalone. The issue central to these two papers goes much deeper. It concerns the livingof lesbian lives and the kind of social and politicalinterpretation that we as women bring to our lesbian existence. Involved is a long process of exploration,dialogue, and communityexchange. The dangers of discussion such as this one are obvious enough. 23. Like others involved in feministwriting and research, I am indebted to many women who found it worthwhileto discuss and criticizethe developmentof these ideas. I would like to give special thanksto Naomi Sheman, VickySpelman, Janet Spector, Susan Rogers, HilarySandall, Susan Bernick,Hazel VanEvera, Marilou Good, and above all Toni McNaron for their generous exchange and support. Also many thanks to Alison Jaggar, whose work in organizingthe PhilosophicalIssues in FeministTheory Conference held in Cincinnati on November 13-16, 1980, was instrumentalin bringingthis discussion into existence,Finally, I wish to extend myappreciation to Ann Ferguson,whose work not only inspires this commentarybut also provides an articulate and intelligentbalance for the discussion at hand (Zita).

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