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Jun Jul. 1971, Vol. 15 No. 09-10

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Jun Jul. 1971, Vol. 15 No. 09-10 r THE LABBER JUNE/JULY, 1971 1.25 THE LADDER, pnblished by Lesbians and directed to ALL women seeking full human dignity, iad its beginning in 1956. It was then the only Lesbian VOLUME 15 No. 9 and 10 THE publication in the U.S. It is now the only women's magazine openly supporting JUNE/JULY, 1971 Lesbians, a forceU minority within the women’s liberation movement. LADDER Initially THE LADDER’S goal was limited to achieving the rights accorded heterosexual woaen, that is, full second^lass citizenship. In the 1950’s women as a whole were m yet unaware of their oppression. The Lesbian knew. And she wondered silend^ when her sisters would realize that they too share many of the THE LADDER STAFF Lesbian’s handlers, those that pertained to being a woman. Editor ................................................................................................ Gene Damon THE l a d d e r ’s fvrpose today is to raise all women to full human status, with Director of Prom otion....................................................................... Rita Laporte all of the rights«mI responsibilities this entails; to include ALL women, whether Production E d ito r .......................................................................Hope Thompson Lesbian or heteracxual. Circulation M anager.......................................................................... Ann P. Buck Production Assistants ............................................. Lyn Collins, Kim Stabinski, OCCUPATIORS have no sex and must be opened to all qualiRed persons Tracy Wright, King Kelly, Ann Brady, for the benefit of all. Robin and Dana Jordan Staff Cartoonist ................................................................................ Ev Künstler LIPD STYLES must be as numerous as human beings require for their Art Columnist ....................................................................................Jean Louise personal happiMss and fulfillment. Secretary to the E d ito r....................................................................... Gladys Irma ABIUTY, AMBITION, TALENT - THESE ARE HUMAN QUALITIES. CONTENTS: THE LADDER, though written, edited, and circulated by volunteer labor, The Butch/Femme Question by Rita L a p o r te ....................................................4 cannot survive aM out money. We Lesbians are perhaps more anxious than The Politics of Di Prima by Carol Lynk ..........................................................12 other women to make our views known. We wish we could blanket the country Why I Want A Wife by Judy Syfers .................................................................15 and the world iidfi free copies. But stem reality tells us that, more important A Hard Row to Hoe, Short Story by Lynn Flood .......................................... 16 even than mass dbtribution, is the need to keep alive the only real Lesbian Photo by Lyn Jones magazine in the world. Therefore THE LADDER will no longer be sold at Selected Poems from SAPPHO 71 by Harrielte Frances.................................25 newsstands. We mill survive only if there are enough o f you sufficiently Book Review by Hope Thompson ....................................................................28 concerned with A t rights and the liberation o f ALL women to spend $7.50 a Poem by Adele A. Chatelin................................................................................... 29 year to subscribe. ¡Sample copies are always available at $1,25.) Journeys in Art 6y Jean Louise ....................................................................... ,30 Angela Davis: Some Questions ..........................................................................34 Against the Season, Review by Ellen G o ld .......................................................35 ADVERTISING RATES Women Composers by Pauline Oliveros . ,...................................................... 37 Cross C u rre n ts...................................................................................................... 40 Half Page ................................ 145 Back C over............................ $100 Lesbian by Gene D am on.......................................................................................46 Quarter Page........................... S25 Full Page .............................. $ 80 Illustrations by Adele A. Chatelin Repeated Advertisements at Reduced Rates Readers Respond...................................................................................................49 BACK ISSUES AVAILABLE. WRITE FOR COST. COVER: Pholograph by Lyn Jones Published bi mondUy at Box 5025, Washington Station, Reno, Nevada, 89503. THIRD CLASS MAIL IS NOT FORWARDABLE. W'hen moving send us your old address and All rights reserved. No part o f this periodical may be reproduced without the ZIP as well as new address and ZIP. written consent ofTHE LADDEIR. 2 the Ih'sI barroom brawl Iradition. Oiick.' Lesbian ean arrive at her own truth, il she arc .siriclb properly. Being .«mall of stature evi’r does, onlv bv iniieh .«out si’arehing and the BUTQI/FEMME question Bv RITA LAPORTE mvsi'lf. I would prefer ibe relative .salcly ol exjK'rienee of life. Il is not easy for any a waterfront sailor's bar to Ibe loiigbesl ol hiunan lieing lo achieve an aiilhenlie inner Whenever a fawp of Lrsbians gathers Lesbian bars. But rorlmialely most Lesbian life. Women s liberation has laiiglil many a together over a pened of time, this question bars offer no such danger, but they do heterosexual woman this, but one still finds invariably comes ^ and, for some of us, it exhibit much of the less brutal male-female, studies that “prove' the female to be has become probaUy the most boring ques­ doniinaiice-submis-sion behavior, exactly pa.s.sive and all those other attributes that tion of aU time. Rrverlhelcss, the question that kind of behavior feminists loathe. add up to a creature no one would care to is very much alive today, has in fact become Many, if not most, Leshian.s, including be. least of all the Lesbian. more pertinent apin in view of women’s those irelonging to the upper .socio­ How arc we Lesbians to e.scape or liberation. The aawers given to the ques­ economic stratum, do at one lime frequent re.solve the butch/femme eontroversy? Let tion range from: S is a pseudo-question, a these bars, knowing nowhere else to meet us once and for all separate female from matter of aping iKferosexual relationships, with their own kind, or what they hope will feminine and male from masculine. All to the convictioB that it is a deli^thil be their own kind. Many of these Lesbians Lrsbians arc female, but most assuredly not reality. Why is it Arf this question is still so arc appalled by what they see and sense the all Lesbians are feminine, no matter how much alive today and no nearer solution unnaluralness of it. In their revulsion they one defines that elusive word. It might be among Lesbians thenselves? throw the baby out with the bath water, wise to discard altogether the words, mas­ Lesbians are b m into the heterosexual throw out the whole butch/femme phenom­ culine and feminine, for hetero.sexual men world of sex stereotypes just as are hetero­ enon. What they arc left with is: "We arc all have so loaded them in their own favor. All sexuals. As they mature and gradually women, aren't we? therefore we are all .sorts of desirable qualities such as courage, surmount the big hurdle, that of fem inine and must not deny our strength, ambition, leadership, aggressive- acknowledging aod aecepting their nature, femininity.” Yet many l.,esbians know a nes.s, and mental brilliance are said to be they are, for the most part, quite without middle ground, though it may have taken masculine, which means attributes per­ Lesbian models «■ the one hand, while them many years to find it, to accept it, taining to the male only. The Lesbian is imbued with hetooKxual stereotyping, on and to be thoroughly comfortable about it. living proof that these qualities can just as the other. Some lebians fall in with that This is the trill’ iMilcli/fcmme phenomenon. well belong to the female, that they are, in stereotyping eaA and thoughtlessly, I would like to digress here for a moment short, human qualities. And yet the persis­ imagining themseha to be essentially male; tence of the butch/femme controversy others toss it out impletely, settling for an to point out a common error of sociology: to discover what should be. just find out yioints to a residue of meaning to the words, oversimpliried femte to female relation­ feminine and masculine. The words have a the center of humanity as once he saw the what is. This sort of thinking is particularly ship. Many of m, however, have ex­ real, relational meaning. They refer to earth the center of the universe. (There iiuiy misleading where Lesbianism is concerned. perienced a real naning to that miserable, qualities that exert a mutual attraction, be other “centers” equally valid, e.g., We la’sbians have a very difficult time of it slang phrase, batAlfemme. But this is analogous to the attraction between the hardly the end of t.T h e anti-butch/femme women, Lesbians, etc.) for we have no models other than the, for us. irrelevant heterosexual models. Even if north and south poles of magnets, to use an contingent tries to make our lives miserable Most Lesbians live in great isolation, inanimate example. Here we get down to whether alone or married to a woman, but heterosexual sex roles were right for all by making fun ^ what to them is a the bedrock level of experience, the level
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