Dec Jan. 1971-1972 Vol. 16 No. 03-04

‘THEIiftDDER ECEMBER/JANUARY, 1971/1972 $1-25 VOLUME 16 No. 3 and 4 'JTf- fT 7 THE LADDER, published by Lesbians and directed to ALL women seeking full DECEMBER/JANUARY, 1971/1972 human dpity, had its beginning in 1956. It was then the only Lesbian ^ ^ publicatioa ia the U.S. It is now the only women’s magazine openly supporting Lesbians,« fafceful minority within the women’s liberation movement. LADDER

Initially THE LADDER’S goal was limited to achieving the rights accorded THE LADDER STAFF heterosenoi women, that is, full second-class citizenship. In the 1950’s women as a whole were as yet unaware of their oppression. The Lesbian knew. And she Editor ...... Gene Damon wondered sdcstly when her sisters would realize that they too share many of the Director of Promotion...... Rita Importe Lesbian'sloadicaps, those that pertained to being a woman. Production Editor ...... Hope Thoinp.son Circulation Manager ...... Ann P. Buck THE LADI^R’s purpose today is to raise all women to full human status, with Production A ssistants...... Lyn Collins, Kim Stabinski, all of the rights and responsibilities this entails; to include ALL women, whether Jan Watson, King Kelly, Ann Brady, Lesbian orheterosexual. Phyllis Eakin, Robin Jordan Staff Cartoonist...... Ev Künstler OCCHATIONS have no sex and must be opened to aü qualified persons Art C olum nist...... Sarah Whitworth for tbelcaefit of all. Cross Currents E d ito r...... Gladys Irma Staff A rtis t...... Adele A. Chalelin LIFE STYLES must be as numerous as human beings require for their persoarf happiness and fulfillment.

ABILITY, AMBITION, TALENT - CONTENTS: THESE ARE HUMAN QUALITIES. Editorial: What Can You Do? by Gene Damon...... 4 Cousin Shirley’s Complaint Afickic Burns ...... 5 THE LAUDER, though written, edited, and circulated by volunteer labor, Victory at Los Angeles (A Report on the NOW Convention)...... 14 cannot m a m without money. We Lesbiant are perhaps more anxious than Woman in Sexist Society, A Review by Hope Thom pson...... 17 other women to make our views known. We wish we could blanket the country Warning . . . May Be Dangerous to Your Health! by Carol D w yer...... 27 and the wmii with free copies. But stem reality tells us that, more important Poetry by Rochelle Holt; Jane Kogan; Adele A. Chatelin; Lynn Strongin; even than mass distribution, is the need to keep alive the only real Lesbian Alicia Langtree; and Nathaniel Jane Harrington ...... 28 magazine m the world. Therefore THE LADDER will no longer be sold at Journeys in Art by Sarah Whitworth ...... 32 The First Sex, A Review by Hope Thompson...... 36 newsstand We will survive only if there are enough o f you sufficiently Ladies of Llangollen by Ellen Cold ...... 38 concerned the r^hts and the liberation o f ALL women to spend $7.50 a with Games, Short Story by F. Ellen Isaacs ...... 39 year to ssdacsibe. (Sample copies are always available at $1.25.) Letter to a Friend by Anita Cornwell...... 42 Cross C urrents...... 45 ADVERTISING RATES Lesbiana by Cene Damon ...... 49 Readers R espond...... ,53 Back C over...... SlOO Half Pi t ...... Q u artrrh g e ...... 125 Full Page ...... S 80 COVER: Audrey Flaek. Self Portrait. 1958. Oil on canvas. Collection of the Artist. See Journeys in Art, page 33. Repeated Advertisements at Reduced Rates Unless otherwise credited all illustrations are by staff artist Adele A. Chatelin BACK ISSUES AVAILABLE. WRITE FOR COST. and all cartoons are by staff cartoonist Ev Künstler. THIRD CLASS MAIL IS NOT FORWARDABLE. Published onthly at Box 5025, Washington Station, Reno, Nevada, 89503. When moving send us your old address and ZIP as well as new address and ZIP. All rights ed. No part o f this periodical may be reproduced without the written cn t o f THE LADDER. EDITORIAL: sell ourselves when we arc seen, but we haven’t the money to provide the kind of I believe Mademoiselle and Clamour publicity we need. You must be our magazines make titillating claims that the “word-of-mouth” campaign. Cousin Shirley's big city is chock full of exciting new What Can You Do? Help us by being careful about sending lifestyles for our young lady neophytes. By in your address change the instant you There are, in fact, two. One can choose to By GENE DAMON have a new address . . . we must use 3rd Complaint MICKIE be either a Ixiwer East Side Chick or an class mail and this is a dubious means of BURNS Upper Ea.st Side Swinging Single. If you live Many of >«• reading this are new circulation at best . . . you can help us “Had we but world enough, and time. in New York and seem to fit neither readers of THE L\DDER. You haven’t, by making sure we know WHERE YOU This coyness, lady, were no crime.” category, you are probably Ia;sbian and pt'rhaps, heard o « prior pleas for help in ARE. Another simple thing is RENEWING can’t really be considered wholly female. various areas. YOUR SUBSCRIPTION R.APIDLY. We “Come on you groupie — piece of trash!” Both lifestyles are equally, cheaply, and We are always in need of writers. As provide you with a “first notice” and a drearily subsidized through a hasty post­ THE LADDER iafroves in quality there final notice. If you can possibly afford to "An hundred years should go to praise grad acquisition of typing and shorthand is a tendency t* assume that we have do so, resubscribe with the first Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze.” skills and through shoplifting, the distinc­ “enough” of all the talents any good notice . . . and if not, then the instant tion being that Upper East Side Swinging magazine needs t* survive. We do not; we you receive your “ final” copy and last “She’s not the kind of chick you can like Singles live with five other airline steward­ are always in nr*d of ¿ood non-fiction notice . . . Every issue we get a lot of stay with — a good shag and that’s it.” esses in a luxury high rise and the Lower articles on Lesbian and on women’s liber­ “late” renewals whidi means we must go East Side Groovy Chicks live relatively ation. We would ^ f e r that these articles to the expense of cutting your subscrip­ “The grave’s a fine and private place alone in a five floor walk-up tenement. deal with all woian since the battle to be tion off and then putting it back on. This But none, I think, do there embrace.” Under the Lower East Side category there won must be won by all women. We also costs money and time. are a number of interchangeable subdivi­ need short fiction, cartoon ideas, clippings Many of our skilled workers simply “He took me into the toilet. ‘Baby, I’d sions. There are acid-rock groupies, radical­ from everywhere aftout anything connected came to us, came asking to help, and we like to make love to you,’ he said. I didn’t revolutionary groupies, and psycho­ witli women’s Beration and Lesbian are delighted to have them. Most of them know he meant right then, right there." encounter Reichian analysis groupies. Tfie rights. are worked to death. Can you draw . . . male counterpart of a groupie is called a When we toA the step of removing could you help staff artist Adele A. “Let us roll all our strength, and all guru. The gurus therefore are rock stars, THE LADDER fcom newsstands, many Chatelin? If so, won’t you let us Our sweetness, up into one ball: revolutionary leaders and psychoanalysts. It criticized us for Jwig so. The reason was know . . . ? Do you know of any art And tear our pleasure with rough strife. would be an amusing experiment if the simple survival . .. this magazine costs us work about Lesbians or with strong Through the iron gates of life. maternal antecedents of all Swinging Singles so much to prodme that we cannot afford feministic overtones? If you do, Sarah Thus, though we cannot make our sun and Groovy (hicks came to live a few to .sell it at the nnrsstand rates. Since then, Whitworth would love to know about Stand still, yet we will make him run.” months, invisibly perhaps, with their daugh­ we have nm into m curious phenomenon: a this . . . won’t you write and tell us? Do ters — to see how well their provincial or few bookstores *e buying us at our you have an idea for an art column for “Come here with your va-gina. Di-ana.” suburban philosophies apply. They would regular subscriptian rates and selling us at Sarah? Tell us this, too. Have you any all contract lary'ngitis from saying, “I told the regular S1.2S cover price, therefore cartoon ideas? You don’t have to ■Random telections from you so,” so often. making no profit ttemselves at all. We feel draw . . . just have a funny idea . . . “To Hii Coy Mtitreu" But as for me, I prefer to leave New this means there • a pretty large demand and describe it to us . . . Ev Künstler can by Andrew Marvell, 1681; York City for a while and briefly visit the in these areas f«a THE LADDER. If you turn your idea into everyone’s fun. and from the film “Groupies, ” 1970. provinces, to briefly return for Christmas or are one of the vnmen who is buying THE We welcome and encourage letters to Thanksgiving or for a summer vacation to LADDER in this way, won’t you please the editor and in the last couple of years And they came, this year, last year, the Obensburg, to the suburbs. subscribe instead? We need your direct have had more of these than ever before year before that, huddled masses of groovy It was there I learned of an old wives’ .support. in LADDER history. Write to us about the chicks to the south of Fourteenth Street, tale, an anecdote of recent psychiatric and We still rccewr letters from women magazine . . . what pleases and displeases New York City, U.S.A., yearning to be social advances. Although some of the asking how they can help, feeling they you, and why. Make it concise and clear anything but like their mothers were, yearn­ events to follow took place as long as eleven lack special M . We always need and we can share it with everyone. ing to be free. For although their estimaUe years ago, you must remember that ninc- tv pists . . . mam of our best workers are And last, but never least, have you a predecessors lived really quite commend­ tecn-sixty was a very contemporary and now tied up in tin- indexing project which few spare dollars in the till? We always able lives, one must in fairness admit they highly-lhought-of year. is an enormous fcsk (THE LADDER is need money. To make THE LADDER as presented a colorless image with which to I wisli now I had never seen her again. I now into Us 16«b have any friend any- Your turn . . . got any ideas I forgot fellatio and anally and up the brain and Great or to Cleopatra. Egregiou.s and diver­ when' who might be intcmslcd, tell them to ask about? frigidity all the same. Otherwise they cook sified drugstores, as much as I admire and about us and get Acm to suKscribc or at Gene Damon (groove food) and clean (groove pads) and frequent them, produce few heroines of least to buv a saB|>le issui' . . . we can EDITOR, THE LADDER get knocked up (also a groove) regularly epic stature. I pulled up even with her just like dear old moms. station wagon hoping to look as ostenta- balky neighbor boy in his oiling and starting Actually I had seen the newspaper clip­ disappear to hunt the correct color and size. of her little red tractor lawn mower. Over ping but had forgotten about it. And still in I waited for her to come out again so I tlie starting whirr, Mother continued in an Oben.sburg for that week’s visit, I was could say hello when .she finished with her even more strident tone her berating and walking through the only large department customer. It was a civility, (iousin Shirley bawling at tlie unfortunate and sulky youth Store in town. Anderson’s only competitors had never occupied much lime and space in regarding innumerable but nonetheless are the three brand new large shopping my thoughts. We were, on my mother s crucial shrubs and plants. The poor sweaty centers on the outskirts of town, nearer the side, from a large country family of modest­ fellow seemed grateful when my arrival newer subdi visions. No return to Obensburg ly self-sufficient Baptist farmers, an intellec­ provided him with a brief recess from his would be complete without a drive to the tually and imaginatively mediocre race that forewoman’s scrutiny. river to look at the bridge or a stroll neverthele.ss reproduces itself frequently “Did you sec anybody interesting when through Anderson’s. Farmwives from the and fondly. Shirley was somewhat more you were driving around, dear?” Mother country, and women whose husbands have typical of our generation of cousins than inquired. steady jobs at the factory, and, in recent my brother and I were, coming from a more Old dormant instinct, the old habit of years, even colored folks shop at Ander­ thrifty rural prosperity than ours, that in­ lying about Joan even after ten years’ disuse son’s as well as the doctors’ and lawyers’ dulged itself only in plastic doilies for the almost made me say, “No, mamma, no one wives whom the clerks are more likely to living room furniture to save the trouble of really,” until I momentarily remembered know by ruime. In the china department, on starching the old-fashioned crocheted anti­ that 1 was over twenty-one and Joan was no the third floor, engaged girls’ photographs macassars, and vast deepfreezers filled with longer the little girl across the street that I are clipped from the society oolunm of the whole butchered steers 'and hogs. Our other was not supposed to play with. “No one local newspaper and placed on placards near female cousins, like Shirley, habitually special really. Mother,” I replied in sly a place setting of china and silver that the worked during school and immediately compromise, “ But do you happen to engaged girl has selected. I do not recall of following graduation from County High as remember Joan Carson? I saw her at the any betrothed girl whose picture has factory girls, or as clerks, or as waitresses in gasoline station. She had her two babies appeared in the local paper not having her town until their marriages to young farmers with her.” china pattern on display at Anderson’s. or fellows from the steel mill. My bother Mother needed no further prompting; There is, however, one way of avoiding all and I, by contrast, were the only grand­ “It’s really amazing how fine that girl is this democracy. The wealthier girls also children who had always lived in Obensburg turning out after all. You know she married have their patterns on view at Christine and who had been sent to college. I knew 1 that Buddy Carl Penrod, Carl Junior's Ford’s Gift Shop. Some teenage girls would see Shirley and all the other relations youngest boy. They are really making a twitched and flopped, giggling and squirm­ at my grandmother’s house when we went tiously tanned aid as ostentatiously en­ decent young couple: both of those child­ ing (in that gesture known as flirting) past out there on Sunday, but I would not have sconced in tny spent; car as I casually could. ren were baptized at our church and she me in the aisle. The young ladies very much wanted to omit stopping to speak to Shirley The point was to Aow her how well / had and Buddy Carl arc right down there in the resembled amputated frog specimens from at Anderson's. Shirley was very proud of survived, to sliow her that I had returned fourth pew every Sunday. It's no wonder their own biology classes, reacting, though her position there. She had started out at nearly up to her ilandard.s. But when she that girl got off to a bad start with that dismembered, to electric and invigorating the dimestore and then at Walgreen's foun­ looked around I w . Her eyes as I knew mother of hers running around with men stimuli. The source of their self-conscious tain, then at a second-rate shoe store, and them were pone. Ifcr eyes were now soft, and drinking the way those people did and manipulations, I began to discern, emanated now, as a matron with a five year old son, frapile, puncturedL put out, - feminine. leaving those children with just any old from a blander-mannered male duo who she had the classiest clerking job in town What had become irf my old-time idol, the colored woman who came along. 1 always sauntered past me, cockily attired in Obens­ almost. The whole family felt proud and most unrepentant creature 1 had ever say a girl can never feel right about herself burg High’s black and red letter jackets. The secretly not a little relieved about her know n? That wild child had been broken when her marriage is one of those have-to fellows grunted at the young ladies in because Shirley, even in a family that still in. beaten, tamed. dDincsIiratcd. There was things; but that little Joan seems to be disdainful recognition, athletically massag­ put little stock in books, had a reputation a baby and a smal child beside her on the making as fine a little wife and mother as ing their chewing gum. The kids that age for not being too bright and “nervous.” I front seat. It was like seeing the certain she can be, and that Buddy Carl really always look familiar whenever I go back myself was once surprised at the halting evidenre of soincoie's having been irrevera- showed himself to be a man taking on all and I was then as I always am, tempted to way my cousin read her romance comic bl\ brain damaged after an automobile that responsibility, the way he did.” say hello, until I realize that they are book aloud to me when I was still in crasli: the phy.^erd presence was the same “ Yes, Mother, she did turn out nice.” probaUy the younger brothers and si.sters grammar .school and she was at least a but the person somed to have been taken of my own high school classmates and that sophomore in high school. Shirley as an out. A r.ombie. I iB-d to make up for it by PART TWO the young manager in the credit partition, adolescent had always been a lank-haired, sating, “ How air you, Joan? Do you This is w/iat I learned in Psychology or that young housewife with a scarf over washed-out, poor-white looking puddle of remember me?” as kindly and as quietly ¡01: In the First Experiment, if the her curlers and the baby in the stroller I saw stammering inefficiency. .She was a jerkv, and as humbly as I possibly could. The rat chooses the correct path through looking at the di.shwa.shers on the fifth floor scurrying creature who made the customers gasoliiM- station atkndant kept interrupting the maze, the hungry rat will be are more likely people I ought to have ill at ea.se in spite of her obsequiousness, w hatever else we tied to say to each other, rewarded (reinforced) with food; if the known. I have been out of college a couple always making dressy ladies fret their wanting to know M we wanted our wind­ rat chooses the wrong path the rat will of years now and out of high school a long, clothes out of range of Shirley’s .soup plate shields wiped or if we saved stamp.s. When I be given an electric shock. This ex­ long time. deliveries, and gentlemen clutch their lies to pulled liaek into « r driveway, .Mother, in periment compares positive versus When I came to the shoe department, I the side. In addition to Ihese defects, spifft madras N m ida shorts and rhin- negative reinforcement in the learning thought I saw my cousin Shirley going back Shirley was “just plain silly as she could be slotH-d suiigla-sses, was lu.stily supervising a process. behind a curtain affair where shoe clerks about men” as my mother frequently obser­ Kotex Napkin Company in one and the hesitant and insecure cousin managed any What would I have done without the ved. Everyaar n s .surprised and proud same breath, and in a litany of hatred that I shred of dignity before us all, caught as she Shirley had. at fast, done so well. Now, lessons learned at my mother’s knee? With­ have not stopped. had been, how she managed to face any of althouph she was even at her Ik'sI a non- out her peri'eet tutelage I might have us much less become a reasonably calm desrripl youap woman, yihirley hud left off per.sisted in the a«'xual ideali.sin, in the Cousin Shirley was as good an example of “what men think of girjs that kiss them a shoe clerk. After all, she knew we all knew. lookinp so Aary-eyed and limp about eonfidenee of childhood and learni'd 1 remember how 1 found out. When thing.«. My mrikr explained this phenome­ nothing of the world. 1 might have gone on lot” as Mother could possibly have located — so went the gist of lesson number one. I Shirley was about to get married and non by praaMKtng my eousin to have forever thinking 1 could come and go as 1 arrangements seemed secure and final, my “matured late." TV other aunts and uneles pleased or as my abilities would permit. But was, I think, about eight years Shiriey’s junior when she came by the house as an mother took me (1 was thirteen and Shirley absented to iWr elder sister's verdict. mother pointed out beforehand all possible elderly teenager wearing a white sailor hat had bagged a man of more stable tendencies I myself «herved that Shirley had even directions I might choo.se to take and let me that I admired. Shirley was wanting to show than last year’s red convertible owner) — aequlred tlid giinninp syndrome of 1)«- in on what would confront me at the end of off her new boyfriend. He was some third- Mother took me aside to breathe her sighs haviour ObeidhEg and some of the major each of them. Mother’s religious faith led rate lingerie salesman or used car dealer she of relief about my cousin’s getting settled airline stewaAss training schools refer to her to believe that whatever is (whether had picked up at Walgreen’s, a bit too with someone “halfway decent” before she as “ poise aaf pcisonality.'’ Shirley's hus­ created by God, nature, or man), is for the slickly groomed and distinctly too old for went out and got herself “in trouble. band, significately, had even gone to college best, a philosophy with which I have never her. But he boasted a narrow moustache Mother and 1 were sitting at the breakfast for a brief poaid where he had completed a learned to agree, and against which 1 have and a red finny convertible that had quite table together looking at Shirley’s engage­ few business amnes and now worked at a frequently rebelled. Even so. Mother pre­ ment picture in that morning’s paper. I was white collar jih. Shirley had accordingly dicted just what those insurrections would turned Shirley’s head but not my mother’s. After the glamorous couple left. Mother about to get lesson number two. learned to dwss in the beige three-piece get me as well as where more conventional “Your cousin Shirley has really caused knits suits tfete ObensArurg coasiders the paths would lead. Nothing Mother ever made a point to impress upon me that the man was probably married and that Shirley your Aunt Nila a lot of worry,” Mother height of di— rt good taste in its sales­ taught about the way of the world missed commented. I thought Mother was alluding people, com|ide with scatter pin to the left the truth. Mother was even more horribly wag a little country fool and was about to disgrace herself in some sleazy Ban-Ion way, to last year’s slick-haired apparition with of the throat and a prefabricated hairdo I right than perhaps slie knew. Don’t ask my the red convertible or peihaps to some can account im «niy by understanding that mother about “romance,” she knows a and ought to have more common sense. And, I had to admit, that the man find shadowy things I remembered about many of the team's hairdressers worked on knocked-up chick when she sees one. Shirley’s being put back in school when she assembly l i ^ before going to beauty leered at Shirley when her back was turned toward him with much the same contempt was supposed to start at County because school. The hte tiiBc I had been home and When I was near puberty and having she was having nightmares *r something had seen ShiAr* decking at Anderson’s she been soundly and graphically instructed in for her as my mother had expressed. So much for lesson number one: Men don t furmy like that. But Mother had assumed had looked d«aiflrd and composed, hands the use and function of those squarish the air of a person in possession of a lot clasped befoir her as she said, “May I help boxes and ugly pink elastic “belts” waiting respect girls who do “what comes natur­ ally.” more specific information than my general you, Ma’amr"tB Anderson’s patrons — just ominou.sly for me on the bathroom shelf. knowledge of my cousin could account for. Mother decided it was time for lesson like any othemiionsible young matron of PART THREE Before Mother could proceed with her tale, the town. IWl was why I was mistaken number one on the Opposite Sex. At llie In the Second Experiment, the hungry she had to do moral weighty battle. Mother when I thoiqit i saw her go behind the time, I didn’t want to hear another bloody rat is rewarded with food whether or looked down at her hands and I knew this curtains to fategg oatt shoe boxes. When the disgusting part of it. All right, I sympa­ not the rat chooses the correct path meant I was supposed to cut out munching clerk came bad «ut, she asked if she could thized. I knew Mother was only trying to through the maze. This experiment my jelly and marmalade toast and show help me and I s id no thank you. She had do (as tactfully as possible) her duty to me, tests the effects of positive versus reverence for the moral weighty battle. her hair just ttc Shirley’s and wore a beige telling me all that clotty sex stuff because positive reinforcement. How much more elevating conversations suit. I started te ask the strange clerk if her mother had been too humiliated to tell Sometimes in the recent years before with my father always were, how noble and Shirley were awl to lunch and then I her about it, but I was guile busy at the Shirley was killed, 1 used to wonder if she high-minded. remembered 9idc> had had most of her time, busy doing stuff like writing long realized what all us other cousins, worse At length Mother hit upon her rational­ head shot o8 and didn’t work there any­ passionate letters to the Hungarian Informa­ than that, what all the aunts and uncles and ization with such enthusia.sm and inventive­ more. I had *wm sent flowers a couple of tion Service, imploring them to let me join even our grandparents knew about her. ness, she could have made me bet it was months ago to my aunt for Shirley’s up with their revolution, imagining myself Because we all knew in intimate and deba­ really the first time 1 ever heard malicious funeral, \totter said the undertaker had .stringing dynamite along significant bridges sing detail about her history. That, I am gossip in parable form. “Dear, you are fixed her so ^ cadiet could be open and if at midnight, and charging enemy tanks with certain, is the most outstanding thing any growing up fast and have matured early (a you hadn't kMw> her, hadn't realized how Molotov cocktails. Hubi:rty could wait. 1 of us remember about Shirley except the euphemism for my bra size, I gathered) and she had died,yoa wouldn’t have noticed had to prepare myself with rugged training, extraordinary way she met her end. And I there are some things I reckon your mother anything amaw. “If you had known her,” 1 had to memorize codes and nitro-glyeerine am sure she knew that we all knew about a can tell you, that your mother ought to tell .Mother said. just didn’t look anything formulas, and perfect banging by my knees, certain little episode in her early adoles­ you. Now I am going to tell you something at all like hendf.” It was in the papers and a skill I judged to In- es.senlial in counter­ cence. We are not a family that cherishes and I want your promise on the word of the very embamateg for the whole family. intelligence activity . I was a person of secrets and therefore, for all us girl cousins Lord that you won’t ever let this slip, not .According to Valbrr it was a trashy inci­ moment. I had importance of an inter­ in particular, Shirley served as a livid even to your cousin Sara Jane when she dent. Some a neighbor, had shot first national (however unsung and under­ example. Each of us found out at different comes to stay with us next week. Your Shirley and fcn lun.self. In just what the ground) significance that summer. But then times as we came of age, but we all knew Aunt Nila, you must never let on now, your relalioii.ship klwrrn Shirley and the man it happened to me too and the only act of and we all learned. But whenever 1 would Aunt Nila (poor hardworking woman) had had eon.sUted was the subjeet of morbid guerrilla warfare I ever engaged in was to be back home and see Shiriey at a family to take your cousin Shirley once up to and (lopular laats]irculaliun. .sneak Tampax into the housr-. By autumn I gathering, I always wondered how my Louisville, to their big mental hospital had learned to c urse God, nature, and the Ihcv'n' gol up ¡hw .” and we all got down on our knees with with me. 1 knew this meant she didn’t want “Will you tell?” I was sliimiitl. Kusllliig cliccked farm .Shirley and helped her pray. I told Nila that me hanging around inside the house and “I won’t tell.” womrii willi « ¡i-rtrir niilkiiiE niadiincs like Shirley ought to .see Dr. Hreast. that nice therefore could be tnisted not to see “Promise not to tell.” tii> Aiinl \i!;i WITT iKil file sorl of sopliisti- new psyi'hiatrist out at the hi's|)ital, and he anything unusual when I asked permission “I won’t tell. I proini.'«'. I promise.” i-atrs lliai iiabitiMlIy seek out the aid of advised us to get her into Lady of Peace. to spend the night just across the street “Come on, you said you will.’ group psychotherapy in the raising of their They did right well by Shirley up there; with one of my little classmates. “Don’t teU, don’t tell.” children. If my Aunt Nila even knew how tliey are a lot more thorough than that old I saw Joan sitting on her front steps “I won’t tell, 1 won’t tell, 1 won’t tell.” to pronoiutie the word “psychiatrist,” it state asylum down at Hopkinsville. Least- drinking a Coke. She seemed to flourish on was onlv becauir she had heard it on a ways, I believe. 1 do truly believe, your exotic meals of bar-b-que potato chips and There was some trouble; we went our television soap opera. My own mother was coii.sin Shirley has learned her lesson.” I soft drinks and was rumored to drink up separate v.'ays at school after the summer. .soinewhat more knowledgeable, being of wonder now if Shirley also learned from the the dregs from her mother’s cocktail parties She continued her career as the school the class that would routinely consult a learned Freudians at Lady of Peace that die and eat up the olives. She onre did a whore. But I never slopped admiring her or psychiatrist any time someone in the family was masturbating in the wrong place as striptease for our brothers that I watched her unflinching eyes. Mien she was in tlie did anything realy far out, abnormal or well. too. The boys sniggered about it over their yearbook as one of the football queen’s bizarre, such as thinking of divorce. “Girls do not have strong sex desires like Indian bead collection, but Joan seemed court, I knew ^ e was really the most “Cousin .Sliirley has been in an insane boys do,” Mother once explained to me incapable and insensible of sexual guilt. She beautiful of them all. She wort an eyeliner asylum'f” 1 asked both incredulous and lying. “Ugh, no, of course not. Mother,” I wore lipstick in the sixth grade and stained put on not with any hand that was ever proud of having aich a romantic adventure had prissily and promptly lied back. The her lips red with popsicles in the fifth. All destined to rock any cradles but with a befall our prosaic family. I was exhilarated difference between my mother and my the girls in the seventh grade said Joan wore hand more fitted for a stilleto. She looked enough to thorou^ddy forget my jelly toast. cousin Shirley was that my mother had not can-can petticoats under a straight skirt to out from the school annual photo un­ Mother contianed, pleased with her been caught. Women leach their daughters resemble (althougli 1 must say this sounds smiling, scimitar-cyed, and 1 fancied, cruelly effect. “It started when Shirley was having as Spartans once taught their young. far-fetched) a voluptuous Brigitte Bardot beautiful, so much superior to the whole­ those nightmares Ar used to have, and your Spartan children were taught to be thieves behind. Joan Nix had inscrutable, almond, some blondes surrounding her. But then I Aunt Nila didn’t Hiderstand why she went - to be very skilled thieves — for it was at coal-black eyes. I never saw Joan Nix smile always romanticize girls like Joan; I always to getting tliem to bad and then too she time of war a great necessity, but when at a boy even though Seventeen magazine unjustifiably expect them to know their started to doing so poorly in school. Poor caught, the children were punished by their highly recommended it. She never looked way around. Nila had gone to the school to speak to the own parents even more severely and nervous or flurry-eyed in her life. She was teachers artd the teachers said Shirley Just mercilessly than would the enemy. That is nothing at all like my stupid cousin Shirley PART FIVE coudn't seem to apply herself and was tlie nature of the relationship between a and her dumb wedding. Other girls in our In the Fourth Experiment, the rat is flirting with the boys all the time and not woman and her daughter. It is the mother’s class were afraid they would get a bad rewarded at regular intervals regardless getting along well at all with her books. duly to teach her daughter how to survive, reputation if they were friends with her, of the skin the rat may exhibit in Then, one night your Aunt Nila was trying to never get caught. but I saw in Joan a fellow victim of learning the maze. This experiment to calm Shirley down after one of her bad precocious puberty, a comrade. resembles the situation in which a dreams and Shirley started crying and Nila PART FOUR My brother and 1 were strictly forbidden factory worker is paid the same told me she couU Just tell there was guilt In the Third Experiment, the rat is to enter the Carson house. I imagined it amount weekly irrespective o f quan­ written all over Sariry’s fare. Nila said she rewarded or punished erratically with therefore to be an oriental den of iniquity. tity or quality of work performed as asked Shirley if ibere was something she no relation to whether or not the rat There were heavy shrubs in front and it was opposed to the piece work, incentive, ought to tell her mother and Shirley kept has learned the correct path through a stucco hacienda with dark casements. It or merit system, along bawling and fLially slie said, ‘Oh. ma, the maze. The result is confusion and seemed dark, secret, and exciting. Mother 1 been playing with myself.’ ” As she sometimes schizophrenia in the rat. also discouragr.d our associating with Joan I was myself a senior in high school, quoted my euusin.my mother looked at me I was still thirteim and on Shirley’s and her brother unless they were unavoid­ much wiser, sufficiently learned in sexual sharply , mea.surins just how well 1 under- wedding day 1 came home from the recep­ ably included in the activities of the whole matters to tease and banter (and bait) with slorxl “She wa.s just about the age then tion, eager to take off iny organdy dress neighborhood pack of kids. When Joan was my mother about my good looking brother that you are now.” .Mother inleijected. 1 with scratchy seam.s. I put on my bathing only six, Mother had caught her reaching and the girls. I said, “Oh, Mother, I bet knew vvbai “playii^ with yourself” meant. .suit and roller skates and went back out into my brother’s diaper. Michael isn’t a virgin. Don’t you bet he’s I ii.«d to hear L*m- boys in my da.ss into the heat. For reasoiLs attribulable to I invited Joan to skate in and out of the not? You said yourself that boys have catcalling and casaally accusing each otlicr the lifsfiilioiis holiday atmosphere of the lawn sprinklers up and down the block. We awfully strong sex drives and Michael is of it after sellout wlieii the kids were wedding and to my mother’s being heavily must have been beautiful little girls we over sixteen already. He even has to shave.” hanging around wailing for their pals to get involved in helping my aunt with the both tanned easily, and we both had on Mother was most unappreciative of my light their b kidney s * ik e me as being at least there had been trouble in the chapter, raised by the pn-ss in a way in which as titillatii^ as a goddam uterus. You know, provoked by alleged Lesbian-baiting within this movement will not tolerate . . • sweetie, I wonder how men would feel if a NOW; the chapter had been divided on We are in support of all our sisters and female Kreud can» along and told men that political — not gay/straight — lines as to we expect all our sisters to keep their they had not made a satisfactory sexual how best to cope with the crisis. Equally eyes on the targets of our movement adjustment until they learned to achieve interesting is the fact that other feminist and not be diverted by issues as coitus by having their left ball tweaked groups in Los Angeles, more open to radical defined by the press.” twice and salt p u t« their fails.” issues in general than NOW, had also drown She went on to reiterate that the goal of the Eleanor was not listening anymore if she more open concern rvith the matter of feminist movement is full equality for all had been before, i said goodbye. Lesbianism. Undoubtedly all these factors women, and, importantly, full personhood How odd. 1 though, walking down the played a significant part in the determina­ for every individual in our society. stairs, I had been luge-bosomed enough to tion of the workshop to try to get a Becau.se it is such an excellent exposi­ liavr been the oiqecl of pornographic resolution on the subject adopted by the tion of the argument that Lesbianism is speculation at 13 but at 23 was not woman entire chapter. This was accomplished at indeed a major concern of feminism, and enough for another woman to credit me the next busines meeting. Some of the because it must therefore have been instru­ with any knowledfjc on the subject. Eleanor conservative members were absent and a mental in moving many to vote for passage had been to the best male authorities in few new members who were also radical of the resolution, 1 would like to summarize Hew York. 1 hope they will some day find a feminists were present. Nevertheless, it the ihain points of the position paper. It cure for what they lefer to as her frigidity. I passed by only three votes. Along with the begins by noting that both the original wondered if coiaw Shirley’s psychiatrist subsequent decision to further submit it to feminists and the National Organization for ever taught her Id accept her femininity the NOW National Conference was the Women a century later recognized as “the before her brains mere blown out. I got to formulation of a committee to write an most sacred right of all — a woman’s right the bottom of tlr stairs and saw that all accompanying position paper. This group, to her own person.” However, though exits were blocked. composed of both straights and gays, NOW has been courageous in agitating for In the Fifth Exferiment, the hungry worked for many months to produce a dissemination of contraceptives and birth rat is punished wegardtess o f the direc­ truly outstanding document. control information and for repeal of all tion takeru the srsull is insanity in the Though there was general optimism abortion laws, it has stopped short of rat. The fifth method is that most among the resolution’s backers at the con­ clarifying its position on a woman’s right to frequently used m us. vention, there was also a realistic recogni­ define her sexuality as she chooses. Specifi­ (A Report on the tion of probable significant opposition to it cally NOW has said nothing about Les­ VICTORY at Los Angeles NOW Convention) on the part of some members. After all, a bianism. Yet the Lesbian is doubly oppres­ few chapters had experienced crises because sed — as a woman, and as honaosexual. And of the purported “lavendar menace” , and the additional legal, social and p s y c h o ­ The National Organization for Women day before the general membership, at­ others had simply kept the whole matter logical harassment to which the woman as tempts were made to dilute some of the (NOW), at its fifth national convention held carefully suppressed. But the most drama­ homosexual is subject is directly related to substance of the resolution, notably that in lx)s .Alleles omr the Labor Day week­ tic threat potential seemed to lie in the her choice of a life style which excludes part referring to NOW’s own bad record of end, took an histmric stand on Lesbianism. person of NOW’s founder and inspiring men. Lesbian-baiting within the organization. Among the large volume of resolutions up genius, Betty Friedan, slated for appearance Just as the false and demeaning image However, this move to whitewash a bad for considerati« by this pioneering at the convention. At least that’s the way of all women provides the rationale to record was pointed out as being a political women’s liberati« group was one submit­ the press, so prone to smell out and keep them subjugated, so does the ploy and thus not up to NOW standards. ted by the Los ABgelcs chapter that NOW highlight issues seen by the public as con­ distorted stereotype of the Lesbian officially recogniat the oppression of Les­ Once again, the final outcome was that the sanction her per.secution. Not only is resolution was heartily endorsed. troversial, saw it. Thus this opening sen­ bians as a b-gitinuDe concern of feminism. It tence in Friday’s (Sept. 3) LOS ANGELES she assumed to be unstable or sick or That this resolution was submitted at all was submitted f»d to the Workshop on TIMES article on the NOW conference: immoral; but because slic defines her­ Le.sbiani.sm, llumm Sexuality and Ferai- is one of the minor miracles in the series self independently of men, the Lesbian that lead to its ultimate and glorious pass­ Betty Friedan will be one side voicing ni.sm by I’hy’lis l»«n and Del Martin, two her position on Lesbianism as it relates is considered unnatural, incomplete, of the founders «f Daughters of Bilitis, age. One Sunday in spring a gay/straight not quite a woman — as though the workshop, dealing with the relation of gays to the National Organization for together with a position paper. Though Women, the organization which she essence of womanhood were to be naturally this supircharged subject engen­ and straights to one another, as well as the identified with men. Obviously, this relation of gays to each other, was held at founded. “It’s a divisive, irrelevant dered some olyceliDns, it was amazing to Playboy image of the l.esbian reduces the Los Angeles NOW Center. The real issue and the red herring of the .see a number of iftaight people, identified her to an abject sexual object, depri­ threat posed to the feminist movement by women’s movement”. as such, testify in its favor, including one ved of the most basic civil and human fear of Lesbianism, acting as a force for But the press did not go unchalle^ed. board member mho had recently been Qcarly the response of outgoing president rights due every person. active in l.esbianhaiting. The workshop internal dissention, can be seen by noting The paper continues by pointing out that the situation out of which this event emer­ Aileen Hernandez in her resounding open­ eoncluded by appamving the resolution by a ing speech to the conference was a coura­ many Lesbians joined NOW and worked for largì' majority, hhen presented the next ged. This was the first formal confrontation its goals. Yet wfcile they were thereby The paper concludes by stating that the o m e n i n .Sexidl .Societi brought to an aeate conseioiisness of soci­ resolution does not mean that NOW’s Wc ety’s condemnation of their sexual prefer­ emphasis is changing, that it will hereafter REVIEW BY HOPE THOMPSON ence, they al.so ^covered many of these concentrate on specifically Lesbian issues. WOMAN IN SEXIST SOCIETY, Studies in the ancient Greek city state”.and “eaA sex same prqudiccs aaong their own sisters. Rather the resolution itself is designed to be Power and Powerlessness, edited by Vivian has its place in a well balanced society. I.esbian.s wae never excluded from an action - “the first step toward breaking Comick and Barbara K. Moran, Basic Where have women been worse off than ¡n NOW, but we have been evasive or down the barriers between women that Books, Inc., New York and London, 1971, ancient Greece? And what self-respecting apologetic aboMt their presence within have kept them weak and suppressed.” ($12.50, 515 pp). Lesbian want.s to be put in her female the organization. Afraid of alienating The whole of this paper was included in Despite the high pricetag, this book is place? Leavitt also assumes it was man public support, we have often treated the resolution as finally passed as “Where­ worth every penny. It marks a turning point (who] began to domesticate the animals he Lesbians as the riepsisters of the move­ as” clauses. The resolutions themselves in in women’s liberation literature in that it is hunted.” It is more likely woman who took ment, allowed to work with us, but their finally adopted form read as follows: utterly serious — neither flamboyant nor care of the cubs and pups left motherless by then expected to hide in the upstairs THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED; outrageous. The 30-odd articles are intelli­ the hunters, but whichever way it was, why closet when conpany comes. Lesbians THAT NOW RECOGNIZES THE gent and well written and cover such topics assume it was men who discovered animal are now telling us that this attitude is DOUBLE OPPRESSION OF WOMEN as: prostitution; women in literature; husbandry? She docs at least credit women no longer acceptable. Asking women WHO ARE LESBIANS; AND, marital (heterosexuaD and menopausal with inventing agriculture, “a revolution of to disguise their identities so they will BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: myths; beauty; psychology and psycho­ the greatest significance because it radically not “embarrasi’ the group is an in­ THAT A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO HER therapy; natural law; orgasms; advertising; altered the way human beings had lived tolerable form of oppression, like ask­ OWN PERSON INCLUDES THE textbroks; language; cross-cultural studies; since they were proto-men.” Proto-men? I ing black woaen to join us in white RIGHT TO DEFINE AND EXPRESS women artists and executives; voluntarism; have become very sensitive to this kind of face. HER OWN SEXUALITY AND TO social work; the woman’s college; women’s male chauvinist language. To the argument Aat the Lesbian question CHOOSE HER OWN LIFE STYLE; liberation and blacks; consumerism; and, Some of the articles read as though the is too controvoKl to confront at the AND, yes! an excellent article on Lesbianism. The authors had never heard of the vast number moment, it is pointed out that after all BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED only topic left out is women and religion. of Lesinans and homosexuals in the popula­ NOW is a reform movement, a stance not THAT NOW ACKNOWLEDGES THE Some readers will complain that the book is tion, but, encouragingly, others are not always compatHlr with “respectability”. OPPRESSION OF LESBIANS AS A too middle class, an objection that confuses afraid of us. And, even where Lesbians are Susan B. Anthony's feeling on the matter is LEGITIMATE CONCERN OF FEMI­ articulately stated intelligent thought with totally ignored, it is interesting to the quoted; NISM. middle class bias. Why intelligence should Lesbian reader to note how often the “Cautious, careful people always cast­ Surely the endorsement of this document be equated with a bourgeois outlook and institution of heterosexuality is at the ing about to ptserve their reputation by the 1971 NOW National Conference is then damned as bigotted decadence 1 fail to bottom of society’s and particulariy or social standmds, can never bring nothing short of a magnificent victory for see. There is no article specifically on class, women’s difficulties. The articles do not say about a reform . . . ” feminism against the irrational fears of a probably because the authors fee), as I do, so in so many words, but it is hard to avoid Also NOW’s bold stand on abortion a few sexist and surprisingly Puritan society. And that class as traditionally defined has little this conclusion. I will point out these it will long resound to the credit of NOW - years ago, when soch a stand was seen by to do with women and particularly with instances as I discuss individual articles in that strange hybrid among feminist organi­ the public as disbictly heretical, is also feminists, who sec the oppression of women more detail. It occurred to me, since read­ zations, a “middle class/radical” group. noted; it didn't weaken the movement then, as swallowing up other oppressions. ing and pondering the book, that perhaps and so it would imt seem likely that a stand Women, taken separate from their men, are the authors were not unaware of the cu­ (Editor's Note: This anonymous re­ on Lesbianism wontd endanger it now. The hard to pul into male-defined classes and pidity of heterosexuality but stopped short port was done for lu 6y a LADDER final point, and pohaps the most persuasive why should we bother to when class of saying so on purpose. While a book on one for the pra^atists, is the political supporter and a member o f NOW.) pigeon-holing leads to divisivencss - what sexism published in 1971 and intended for argument. the men of the 1-eft like to glorify as war — a general readership should, as the better W'e are affected^ society’s prejudices class war? part of discretion, avoid anything so drastic against the l>eAnn. whether we ack­ I cannot say that every article is tops. as a general criticism of heterosexuality, nowledge it oraat. As feminists we are One, “Women in Other Cultures,” is naive THE LADDER need not be so careful. all sutfcct to “Lesbian-baiting” by in the extreme. The author. Ruby R. Kate Millett has a very moving article on opponents who ase the tactic of label­ Leavitt, tells us that Burma has no women’s prostitution wherein two prostitutes speak ling us the word thing they can think in their own words, along with Kate and a of, “Lesbians”, in order to divide and movement for “in Burma ri^ ls for women are an integral part of traditional woman who has worked in the courts where di-scredit the movement and bring Buddhism ...” The king and the prostitutes are arraigned and sentenced and women to hed. Even within NOW, headman . . . well, well, where are the incarcerated. The impact of this article is regrettably, this tactic Is employed by queen and headwoman? Better still, read altogether different from the usual anti­ some members aho conjure up the George Orwell’s BURMESE DAYS for the septic discussions of “the problem” by sexist image of Lesbians and shout truth about the status of women in Burma. males concerned, in their lofty detachment, “lavendar menaar” at anyone who More likely the reason there is no women’s with regulating this profession and mini­ opposes their vievs. NOW is inevitably movement in Burma is that the oppression mizing its health hazards, or with analysing weakened by thcK attempts to under­ of women is too drastic for one to have the psychology of the prostitute as though mine the spirit and efforts of its WEU.J OONT VOUASRCC THE emerged, l-cavitt approves of Hopi society she were a specimen apart from humanity. members; we cm no longer afford to because it “ is a democratic unit resembling One of the prostitutes sees herself as ignore the probkm. NUCtiAft FAMUYtS OCAOf the story of many a repressed Lesbian. And assume the traditional female role and does not expect her needs for achievement . bolter off th an fc married woman in that who really were bom there are far better many an unrepressed Lesbian is repulsed by she is not depenimt upon any one man and qualified to tackle the specific oppressions male carnality. Miriam’s warping may be a to be met vicariou.dy through the aeeom- is líeme freer. Sbr thinks it is “ compulsive ghettos inflict upon women. false suppression of hetero-sexuality, or it plisliments of her husband and children, marriatte and tBnipulsivc families that Vivian Gomick's article, WOMAN AS may be a suppression of la;sbian sexuality. then she has no need to dominate support prostitdiMi. I am inclined to put OUTSIDER, in contrast to Kale Millett’s, “The Paradox of the Happy (Hetero­ them . . . ” But then, 1 wonder, what need the blame upon ««npulsive heterosexuality, betrays a lack of integration between aca­ sexual] Marriage” ends with “Could it be would * e have for a heterosexual marriage? and much of • « compulsive, as any demic learning and personal experience. that marriage itself is ‘sick?’ ” My penciled (One should not even ask this que.stion, of Lesbian knows. H e article offers no agree­ Perhaps it takes time to mesh one’s formal note to that reads “You bet!” . . . “It course, but 1 find myself asking it over and ment as to a s o l^ n , but Kate’s suggestion teaming with one's inner life and to discard may come to seem inereasingly anomalous over.) that the whole Britcr be removed from the what is spurious in the former to the female that we must make women sick in order to Una .Stannard tells us at the outset of criminal code sidles me as a step in the experience, what is true only for males in a fit them for marriage.” This is indeed a her article, “The Mask of Beauty” : “What­ right direction. Ibis would end the ex­ male wwld. Despite this criticism, the momentous switch: the proper heterosexual ever else is denied women, no one dcnic^s ploitation of pnstitutes by police and article is interesting in its analysis of women woman is now the sick one — not the that they are better looking than men.” pimps alike. Theyiestion left unanswered, in literature. “Women go mad. Men shoot I.,esbian as heretofore. Well, only millions of male homosexuals even unasked ia the article, is how can themselves bravely, but women go mad. Tl»e article following this, “Depression deny it. “A man’s love is beauty deep. prostitution be dfaninated as long as the Hamlet dies, but Ophelia goes mad. Mac­ in Middle-Aged Women,” by Pauline B. Bart Beauty is man’s only and sufficient reason male sexual urgedemands it. beth dies, but Lady Macbeth goes mad.” I continues this general theme. The proper for lusting, loving, and m atting a woman. Kate tells of her experience in being would have been happier with this article if heterosexual woman may make it into . . . Is it therefore surprising that even the forced to lie to M t relatives; their ultima­ it had clearly stated it was about hetero­ middle age only to fall apart then. Male great beauty fears a man’s love will not tum to her was to give up the woman she sexual women. 1 cannot identify with tliis: MD’s like to see this in their own sexual survive her looks, and the average woman is loved or they w«dd deny her the money to “In woman the myth of violence takes form terms, imagining that the menopause some­ convinced tliat no man can really love her?" go to Oxford. A sale in effect. The rich through the fantasy of rape. Women . . . how means the disappearance of sexual I must be an ‘average woman’ then, excfpt relatives were hotoTicd — “a pervert in the shiver in excited fear over the prospect — “potency” - their usual confusion of preg­ that a man’s inability to love me bothers me family.*' Our touiy heterosexuals! No real or imagined — of rape. . . . Rape is nancy with sexuality. This article, when it not at all. “ . . . every woman is pleased matter how true « á beautiful and steadfast the ultimate death wish. It is the death wish appeared in somewhat different form in and secretly believes a man when he tells one's love may bc,if it is Lesbian it is worse operating at a level of self-scaling internali­ TRANSACTION, Nov./Dec. 1970, ^was her she is beautiful.” Hmmm. I’m afraid than the most di^nerate of heterosexual zation." (This sounds magnificent, but not titled “Portnoy’s Mother’s Complaint” be­ I’ve fallen for this sort of thing when a behavior. In the heterosexual ethic even all of us even accept Kreud’s Thanalo.s or cause “you do not have to be jewidt to be a woman tells me I’m beautiful. Vanity is death wish and anyway, what does it really monogamous lame may be more horrible Jewish mother, but it helps. . . . Since in hard to escape. thin perverted sec. Kate tells of recognizing mean?) “The woman’s dream of rape is that the traditional Jewish family the most Stannard sounds a bit upset that the a pimp at the Cotoitutional Convention of of being pierced, tom, violated, challenged important tie is between the mother and culture, “far from conditioning women to Revolutionary Peales in Philadelphia. He for her very existence by man, her enemy; the children .... the higher rate of de­ be heterosexual by holding up for their man, her brother; man, her lover; man, her was “resplendent in black beret, black pression among Jcwisli women in middle admiration images of handsome men, other self.” Is this really true for the leather jacket, tomplete with Panther age when their children leave is not sur­ . . . keeps women looking constantly at heterosexual woman, or is it man’s fantasy badges...... bat the pimp as revolution­ prising.” On a role ranking questionnaire, other women.” This would be fine with me of the truth for heterosexual women? To ary is a rcpelleitt image. Yet not all that “No woman listed ‘being a sexual partner to if the women held up to my view were not surprising either daing the nightmare Phila­ me it all sounds slightly ridiculous and my husband’ first, and only one woman such simpy idiots. Stannard continues: delphia weekend when Panther swagger overblown. ”... there isn’t a woman listed it second . , . they do not consider as “The culture, however, likes to think that reached a fever pibdi of macho bully.’’ Kale alive who is not obsessed with her sexual important the roles that could be expanded women don’t look at women in the .same takes a poke at tiosc movement women desirability. Not her sexual desire. Her at this time: the sexual partner role, the way that men do.” Asa l.esbian I know this whose class guilt ands them “into frenzies sexual desirability. Her inner life — no occupational role, and the organizational to be true, but this is not quite what of divisiveness” a d poisons “the hopes of matter who she is - is, in many senses, role.” Pauline Bart’s view of the role of Stannard means. She means that women unitx with a selfaghteous missionary trip, ruled by the continual measure she is taking ‘sexual partner’ as so desirable strikes me as could be conditioned to be aroused sexually which maunders a t about the Third World of her ability . , . to attract men.” Well, I terribly heterosexual. It would never occur by voyeurism, as men are, or, in other and proletarian mman, using it as an for one am not so obsessed and I am hardly to me that my primary importance to my words, that women have the same kind of opportunity for endless recriminations unique. Uomick may be referring only to spouse was as her sexual partner. I like to desire for pornography as men, provided among former frwds, all of them middle- fictional women, though this is not clear, fancy that my importance to her is as the only it were turned around. (I suggest, if (:la.ss. . . . This 9>rt of meddling folly and I am not an authority on fiction. Yet I one person in the world whom .die totally this be so, that heterosexual women sub­ would delight in «snverting the prostitute question that even fictional women are all loves and who totally loves her. All our scribe to some male homosexual publica­ into flag and syntoJ, a movement idol.” I so obscss(;d. Gomick’s discussion of the activities, including sex, are secondary to tions - plenty of nude males there for their loo think it is tm e that middle.class character, Miriam, in D.H. Ijwrencc’s this fundamental union in love. Nor do 1 delectation.) In this same paragraph women, whatever Aal really means, simply SONS AND LOVERS, does not seem to me care to degrade this profound aspect of my .Stannard makes the statement that “ identi­ accepted their padas neither here nor there to be the only possibility. She says Miriam’s life to that of a mere role. Bart concludes fication is one of the most potent forms of for one cannot alto one’s past and it is the mother, with her anti-sexual preachings, led by pointing out that it is the “feminine love; one wants to merge, with what one pre.seni and fuhne that count. It seems a to Miriam’s being “arrested nearly in pre­ women, the ones who play the traditional identifies with, become one with the be­ terrible waste of «fibri to try to change puberty, worshipping and spiritual, repulsed roles, not the career women, who are likely loved.” Again, I find the statement true, classes, to pretend, for example, that one by the carnal, displacing her erotic impulses to dominate their husbands and children. but in a different way from what Stannard iH-ver got one’s flH) and that one was onto nature, never growing to feel the force . . . If, however, a woman does not has in mind. I sec this as a heterosexual soinehow !^>iritualh bom in a ghetto. Those of sexuality fusing in her own self.” This is female type of b«e; this is the vicarious Maybe heterosexual “love” is a fabrication effect a compromi.se, recognizing the hier­ aspect of a wifeV^e. She marries, “falls in and the Lesbian is the human prototype. off, but is a good l»mb good'?” archy of their motivations and the appropri- Nancy Chodorow's “cro.s.vcultural” love with”, the la d of man she would like Weisstein has a charming sense of re­ atene.ss of their heterosexual desires.” 1 can article is le.ss .sucie.ssfni than most in this to be. Not that Jtr wants to be a man, but ality. For example: “The most general and only conclude that the absence of hetero- book. She, like most heterosexuals, is stuck she would like la be that sort of person. serious problem [in reasoning from primate The statement naianded me of my movie- .sexual desires is God’s greatest gift to on the necessity to grow up into either a to human behavior] is that there are no male or a female, .stopping short of growing goin* days of the 30’s, when I delighted in grounds to assume that anything primates women. The article ends with: “During a into an adult human being. She uses the identifying with Cary Cooper (no problem do is necessary, natural, or desirable in period of transition one can expect to see term ‘bisexuality’ as meaning that all people despite the factftd I was nothing like him) humans, for the simple reason that humans increasing numbers of women quelling have traits of both sexes and she confuses and the identifioBon was complete. 1 fell are not nonhumans. [If so] it would be as anxiety by fleeing into a unidimcntional, male with masiailine. The truth is simpler, for the woman ^ ^ t along with him. 1 did reasonable to conclude that it is quite .stereotyped femininity. . . . Role free­ but apparently upsets anthropologists: all not fall in love wiBGary - 1 was Gary. useless to teach human infants to speak dom is a burden when choice is available traits that are found in both men and “Perhaps theaaiy women in the culture since it has been tried with chimpanzees but criteria are unclear; under these circum­ women are simply human traits. Making so who do not despac themselves because they and it does not work.” I have the gall to stances it is very difficult to know whether much of the fact that homo sapiens comes are women, are Ba active lesbians - at least apply this reasoning to heterosexuality one has achieved womanhood or has those who d o n ^ u ta te men — the many itself - why not? dangerously jeopardized it.” We Lesbians, in two sexes is (for me) evidence that homo lesbians who lookand act intensely feminine. An article on the socialization of women who are not directly involved in this tran­ sapiens is, evolulionarily speakir^, still in They [these ‘iiAasely feminine’ Lesbians] is part standard text and part suggestive of sition, for Lesbianism is at least as old as adolescence. Most people lose sight of want to continoc to live in the one-sexed the hazards and pains of heterosexuality. Sappho, must expect a sizable number of human beings, seeing only women and men, world of infamy; in the cocoon of their The authors detail the standard upbringing women to flee us in fear and trembling and and, when a trait is common to both, get all mother’s or them own unconditional love. heterosexuals inflict upon children, so that to form an anti-Lesbian backlash. As long as involved in bisexual complications, in trying LesUans are mody more unadulterated gencraUy little girls become women and women are bent upon ‘achieving woman­ to explain how it can be that creatures so narcissists than heterosexual women.” little boys become men and no one be­ hood’ rather than personhood, they are in different as women and men can share some trouble. Rather than gro«ia£out this bit of nonsense, comes a human being. “This all means that qualities. ■ “ Natural Law Language and Women” by I suggest “The liBch/Femme Question” in if the socialization demands made upon Chodorow feels terribly sorry for men, Christine Pierce is a most necessary basic the June/July 11EI issue of THE LADDER, boys and girls were actually the same,girls “of the threats of bisexuality or femininity analysis that points with humor to the and leave Una h And her fulfilment in to boys and men . . . of fear of that would be in a better position to cope with myopic male vision of philosophy. What are identification wBb some male. As she says, the world than boys.” Unfortunately, this womanly power which has remained within the meanings of “natural” and of “good”? “Woman’s mask ad beauty is the face of ¿le men — the bisexual components of any statement is not followed up. Most girls “The unusual . . . cannot be ruled out as child, a revelaiB of the tragic sexual conform and, during their teens "personal man’s personality.” “What it means, accord­ immaturity of M i sexes in our culture.” bad; it can be alternatively described as ing to Mead, is that ‘the recurrent problem qualities, such as independence, aggression, ‘deviant’ or ‘original,’ depending on This is what hiBmii xuality hath wrought; and competitive achievement, that might of civilization is to define the male role can it do better? whether or not we like it.” Good may refer satisfactorily enough,’ both for societies threaten success in heterosexual relation- to efficiency or to morality or sometimes to “P^ehology Constructs the Female” by diips are largely given up.” This docs not and for individuals who must live up to both, but sloppy thought often mixes them these undefined roles.” My penciled com­ Naomi Weisstein ■ an expanded version of speak well of heterosexuality. “In their up. One might argue that heterosexuality is ment to this is: Oh, grow up! This kind of “Kinder, Kudie,Erche as Scientific Law" relationships with their father and later efficient, efficient for men, that is: it thinking about men and women leads me to first published ■ 1968. It is exceUent and with their boy friends or husbands, girls do provides for unpaid breeders and child question whether there is not something one "expansion'' is a happy footnote: “It not threaten the important and frequently raisers. Whether it is morally good is basically immature about heterosexuality. should be noted Rut psychologists have precarious heterosexual sources o f love." another question. “We can no longer “Organs and Orgasms” sweeps away been as quick f i assert absolute truths (Italics mine). “But sometime in adoles­ assume that fulfilling a function or role is much genital confusion with its common about the natuicaf homosexuality as they cence the message becomes clear that one necessarily good in any moral sense.” sense approach, but manages to avoid the have about the M u e of women . . . there had better not do too well, that com­ Pierce makes fun of Lionel Tiger, author taboo of Lesbianism. “Men, who have is no more evidrKc for the ‘naturalness’ of petition is aggressive and unfeminine, that of MEN IN GROUPS, (as did Naomi benefited greatly from both orgasms and heterosexuality 1M for the ‘naturalness’ of deviating threatens the heterosexual rela­ Weisstein). “Surely, however,” she says, babies, have had no reason to question the homosexuality. Psychology has func­ tionship.” One might question the value of “Tiger cannot be saying that the male’s traditional definition of penis and vagina as tioned . . . as a buttress for patriarchal a relationship that required so drastic a propensity for bonding makes him better at ideology and pBiarchal social organi­ sacriAce from women and one might wish true genital counterparts. . . . If people political management.” (When I read the zation ...” H ii article too cannot bring to see it threatened more often. considered that the purpose of the female book I thought this was just what he uaij itself to see nothing amiss in hetero­ Heterosexual women seem to be caught .sex organs is to bring pleasure to women, saying.) “If the contemporary political tlicn female sex would be defined by, and sexuality, but t k implications are there. either in conAict or in ambivalence. The .scene is the result of our allowing un­ focused on, a different organ.” True, but “. . . the fundMCntalist myth of sex- authors define ‘conflict’ as the simultaneous checked biological propensities to assert the trouble is that this gets dangerously organ causality strangled and deflected desire to achieve a rewarding heterosexual themselves, perhaps what is needed is a close to the female sex also focusing on a psychology so A it it is relatively use­ relationship and to participate in com­ more cerebral approach, more distant from different .sex. 1 expect this is why we have less . . . It theagpes without saying that petitive achievement Ambivalence is the the ‘biological flow’ of things. Perhaps women like Mrs. Hobbes (Cf. THE present psycholoff is less than worthless in “simultaneous enjoyment of one’s [hetero­ women are needed to rescue men from LADDER, April/May 1971, p 21) and Ms. contributing to a vision that could truly sexual] feminine identity, qualities, goals, liberate - men m well as women.” “Sex- being caught up in their anatomical Greer (Cf. THE LADDER, Aug./Sept. and achievements and the perception of destiny.” Amen. What we must reexamine organ causality” m a reproductive matter 1971, p 22) to rea.ssure us that a full vagina them as less important, meaningful, or is “whether ‘natural’ values are. good and who is to agr it is anything more? during orgasm is after all very important. satisfying than those of men.” “Most girls values. . . . a good bomb is one that goes 20 On the one hand. “Women know from written by a man, shorking or ilisgiisting d Iclier to PL AYBOY, it does include/eilalio, female patients. . . . A male therapist |>i*rsonal rx|«TH'iwr lliat llieri’ i? only one may receive a real psychological ‘serriee’ written by a woman.” Wha! v.imld Sltow- kind of no iiiatfer nlial name it is cunnitingus, and soixantemeuf. The choice from his female patient: namely, the exper­ aller sav «( lane Eyre if: (I) '• w as written gnen, \a;;iiial. Hilorak ps\ cholojicah on of entries was obviously the result of ience of controlling and feeling superior to by a femme, or (2) it wa.« written by a III.- Olh'r liaiid, laJie., ‘"IV i litoris may be inusculinc decision-making; males may find graphic descriptions of exotic forms of a female being upon whom he has projected biitch? sliniiiialed to elum'X by a band, by a The next article, “Why Are fliere No sexual connection more fun to write (and many of his own forbidden longings for tme more fcmiiiiiH-, While I llioiigli. as the editor once boasted in a clinicians, especially psychiatrists, prefer thouf^l the book was a masterpiece if ■v-1 have come dow* hard on this aspect of the ones, why have men dominated for so long? kinds . . . Second, almost every human topic, homosexuality, under Social Iswcs artirle. it is in d o ttier respcrts an excellent One reason is that though “most women relationship operates from a baseline of and Feminism, angered me. The article, one, know that relationships are skewed, they exploitation and self-interest rather than however, is tilled “Is Women s Liberation a Nochlin is not the least fooled, as are also know that men have been taught to mutual trust . . . Third, the time-honoured Lesbian Plot?” and is must reading for many so-called feminists, by hopes that relate their ego needs to their mytliical function of reciprocal assistance . . . can­ every Lesbian who still suffers from guilt men will welcoar the liberation of women superiority. Destroying the myths would be not be appropriately fuiniled today because and an apologetic attitude and for every because it will Iterate them too. “It is only destructive of many men. Few women are it depends on a social cohesiveness and woman who considers herailf a feminist the extraordinary enlightened or altruistic willing to undertake a destructive program stability that are missing from today’s scene while smuglv congratulating herself on her man who can Rally want to grant — the even for their own advantage . . .W ith , . . women’s function within the family, heterosexuality. I niu.st resist the tempta­ term itself is revealing — equality to their emotional affiliations to particular and also its derivatives, the helping profes­ tion to discuss this article in view of the women, and he will certainly not offer to men, they cannot lightly countenance the sions, are being plundered, not in order to length of this review, but 1 wish to quote switch places wüh one under present cir­ possibility of damage to them.” I fear that keep a basically healthy society in shape, the following: cumstances . . . While some of the more this assessment of the situation is correct; but to prolong the moribund life of a “Lesbians arc women who survive enlightened slamiwners may have granted that few heterosexual women can be corrupt and decaying social order.” In her without men financially and emotion­ freedom to their slaves, certainly none of counted on to go the whole way in the total quiet and reasoned manner, Adams lays ally, representing the ultimate in an them in their ri^ t minds could have ever liberation of women. Perhaps the women’s bare the terrifying degree to which our independent life style. La-sbiansare tlie suggested in anyfting but a spirit of black movement must ultimately be carried on society has putrified. It will take time even women who battle day by day to show humor that he sight prefer the carefree, the backs of today’s very young women and for feminists to comprehend the degree of that women are valid human beings, irresponsible, watermelon-eating, spiritual­ out-of-closest Lesbians of aD ages. danger that now threatens humanity and, not just appendages to men . . . Les­ singing life of the darky to his own burden­ I learned something I did not know until the threat is thoroughly felt and bians are the women who are pena­ some superiority.” . . . The article pro­ from the article on voluntarism: that articulated by millions of women every­ lized for their sexuality more than any ceeds to debunk the theory that genius is women excel at collecting money. What I where, we will continue merely to cover other women on earth. Thus, it is no ^ some kind of a ser substance a very few wonder is, do they so excel only when they over the festering sores with little bandages. wonder that Lesbians are attracted to persons (generdy only males) are bom collect it for men? Or is the women’s (As 1 write this two men are tooling around the women’s liberation movement are with. Genius is at least as much a social movement richer than I think? "Voluntar­ on the moon in their little dune buggy. active in it, and feel that they are in phenomenon. *V1iat if Picasso had been ism is clearly exploitative” and is “more What fun!) the vanguard of it. If women’s libera­ bom a girl? Wodd Señor Ruiz have paid as closely linked to ‘occupational therapy’ The stance of revolutionary protest, tion does mean liberation from the much attentioa or stimulated as much than to work.” The author tells how “wom­ popular with so many Women’s Libbers dominance of men, l/;sbians’ opinions ambition for achievement in a little en helped maintain the stagecoach era in today, is not the answer. “Women who are should be actively sought out, for in Pablita?” suburbia” by organizing many social ser­ currently the spokeswomen for their ex­ many ways the Ixsbian has freed Roslyn S. WSett’s article on the woman vices; “women organized themselves to plug ploited si^x mu.st try to understand attitudes herself from male domination.” executive is fine as long as it stays with every hole in the community dike.” This and aspirations that are at variance with The question in my mind is whether hetero­ what she really knows — women executives; struck me as terribly funny — that poor their own. Otherwise, one brand of doctri­ sexual feminists have the courage to inquire it is weaker w h a she turns to the question commimity dike! naire tyranny will be exchanged for an­ into the relation, if any, between their of biological and behavioral differences Perhaps the most profound article other, alienating a substantial portion of oppression as women and heterosexuality. between women and men. If, as apparently (omitting from comparison only the article women who arc not yet ready for total If they do not. if tliey must insist frantical­ most women and men agree, men are more on Lesbianism — we have yet to reach the separation from the symbiotic relationship ly and compulsively, that a man is necessary given to aggresan and fantasy, “the com- stage «here Lesbianism is treated as it with the ‘dominant’ male sex . . This is to their fulfilment and not merely a possi­ binatioii . . . may be useful for developing should be, as part of every discussion about a tall order. We must practice patience and ble choice freely made, a choice that is ambitious plans and elaborating abstract women) is “The Compassion Trap” by understanding in the face of our rage. “Two questionable today when male supremacy is systems and strartures. [Like our Viet Nam Margaret Adam.s. The domestic paradigm of attributes particular to women have an still firmly entrenched, then I fear that the venture?] But aRhitious plans and abstract the family is present in the professional increasingly important place in today’s so­ women's movement of this century will go systems are ineflifctual without the coun­ world; “Both family and professional com­ ciety: flexibility of operation and the ca­ the way of the women's movement of the ter-balance of asnsitivc perception of what mitments incorporate the in.sidious notion pacity for intuitive aunreness of personal 19tli century, after some amelioration of Í.S really happcniig in the real world and a that the needs, demands, and difficulties of and social phenomena . . . one of the our slave status is aecomplislied. I find this su.stained interedf in getting a real job other people should be woman’s major, if outstanding contributions that the women’s prospect depressing, hut 1 know tliat noth­ done.” (Italics nàte.) “Most working wom­ not exclusive, concern . . . The title of this liberation movement can make to the over­ ing sliort of a total annihilation of the en perceive very clearly that their (male) essay was chosen to convey the idea that all revolutionary trend in this country is to human species will destroy Lesbianism and bo.sses are not paticularly bright.” “When 1 overemphasis on certain qualities and the set a model for non-doctrinaire policies and that once more- l.esbiaiis will revive the was asked how i could continue work with social overenforcement of functions asso­ flexible goals . . . in a social setting that is women’s movement in the 21st century. such a massive handicap [9 months preg­ ciated with them have trapped women into unstable and unpredictable, men’s power The article on education by Liz nant J, the answR was easy : a big belly only a false and basically untenable position.” tactics tend to be outmoded and lack the Schneider, “Our Failures only Marry: Bryn interferes with hmg your shoelaces; it does The social worker is a kind of housewife to capacity for adroit maneuvering, rather like Mawr and tlie Failure of Feminism,” is a not impair your iiteibgence. Ask any man society. the Spanisli Armada when naval warfare good example of mi.s.HÍng the point. with one.” Adams analy.ses our exploitative society look on a new style.” And this is putting it Selmeider sees tlie failure of women’s col­ A paragraph «Bder the biological differ­ in a manner mercifully free from Marxist mildly, it seems to me. leges today as causi-d by their elitist ap­ ences section f t the article disturbs me cant and hence ail the more persuasive. The last section of the book Ls about proach and not breause their female presi­ anew. If we gont that the differences “ First, our society is primarily committed education, homosexuality (sic), race and dents. dcan.s, and faculty must stay firmly between men aad women are only minor to destruction, of both obvious and subtle radicalism. The sudden inclusion of a male lodged in their closets and vigorously foster the hrlrmscxual fariy line. The growth of were black. I’d choose to consider myself a WARNING: women’s eolli'grs in the last century was a negro first in this statement. But, since 1 am meera for the Irsbian, but, as the last white, I don’t like the statement. To me it May Be Dangerous women's movemnit closed down, and parti­ is reverse racism to put black men ahead of cularly after W«id War II, when women women. 1 see the fundamental division to Your Health! hastened back to carriage and breeding, the within humanity as sexual, not racial, and, many Lesbians «■ the faculty of women’s not being racist either rightade up or upside By CAROL DWYER colleges had to bend over badewards into a down, I cannot include any male group as show of “fe m i» ty ” to safeguard their part of the feminist struggle. comparison with about 1 in every 20,000 very livelihood. The bind was on: educate “ However”, writes Stimpson, “1 believe women not using them . . . it is concluded women as well as any men were being that women’s liberation would be much that oral contraceptives arc a cause of this educated, but wittout any real purpose. I stronger, much more honest, and ultimately Why have we not seen more about the disease.” From other studies reported here fail to see what ebism has to do with it. Liz more secure if it stopped comparing white serious side effects of the oral contraceptive they concluded that cerebrovascular insuf­ Schneider is hentlf letting her “elitism” women to blades so freely . . . Intellectual­ piU in women's liberation publications? ficiency can also be caused by oral contra­ ^ow by publiMig this well written and ly sloppy, it implies that both blacks and This may not be of great interest to the ceptives. interesting article about educated women. white women can be seriously discussed as mqority of LADDER readers, but let us Although Vessey and Doll claim that Are we to cease educating women in order amorphous, classless, blobby masses . . . It hope that the 7,000,000 American women smoking is not a factor in association to avoid the chaigg of “elitism” ? also helps to limit women’s protest to the who are taking the pill^ are aware of the between use of oral contraceptives and the “A woman’s college that does not relate American landscape. The plight of woman possible physical hazards. development of thromboembolism, to the needs of its students and pretends is planetary, not provindid; historical, not Virtually all drugs, includirig commordy Fredetiksen and Ravenholt, of the U.S. that its educaticB will solve the ‘inequali­ immediate.” To speak of “both blacks and used ones like aspirin, have side effects for Department of State’s Population Service, ties’ of women within the society is diihon- white women” is to leave out most of the some users. What is alarming about the pill, dispute this4. Their findings suggest that e s t.” No college “relates to the needs of its human race, and even in the United States, which tampers with the body's powerful heavy smoking might be a reason not to (Lesbian] studewts.” It may be that, if to leave out Mexican Americans, Indians, hormonal system, is the serious nature of prescribe oral contraceptives. Bryn Mawr goes foed, its Lesbian students Puerto Ricans, Oriental, Hawaiians, Sa­ die adverse reactions. A more recent British study® states that and faculty will be slightly better off in that moans, and maybe more. 1 fear for a The occurrence of thrombosis and em­ oral contraceptives have been shown to they will be less aDtioed among the men on women’s movement that feels it must in­ bolism is an area of principal concern and have aggravating effects on at least four campus. My ambtfon in 1939 was to go to clude and labor for certain select males. investigation. Thrombosis is the formation conditions which, if present, do increase the Vassar (why notfcyn Mawr I don’t remem­ This could lead to endless arguments: for of a thrombus, or blood clot, within the risk of development of myocardial in­ ber) where I wwld have been one year example, diould women fight for the rights heart or blood vessels. Embolism is the farction at an eaily age. behind .Mary McCarthy’s THE GROUP. of black homosexuals only or all homosexu­ obstruction of a blood vessel by an A published American study^ we can [Bryn Mawr has yet to subscribe to THE als, i.e., for a percentage of white males, embolus, which may be a blood clot or turn to presents conclusions just as dis­ LADDER, thou^ a number of coed col­ those who can establish their homosexual clots, air or gas bubbles, tissue fragments, quieting. The cases were 175 women aged leges have. I prc& t that Bryn Mawr will be credentials. And where would wc put men bacteria, or other matter foreign to the 15 to 44 who were discharged alive from 43 one of the last bbdouts — THE LADDER who say they are bisexual? That feminists blood stream. hospitals. Diagnoses were idiopathic throm­ in the Bryn Mawr library is just too should feel obliged to work for the rights of Two British studies reported in 1968 bophlebitis, pulmonary embolism, or dangerous.] some classes of males distresses me. Let us provided some of the first disturbing sta­ cerebral thrombosis or embolism. Twenty- The last article I will review is the one work for all women first and, when sexisn tistics. Inman and Vesseyl^ concluded from five per cent of the cases were attributable on Women’s LAeration and Black Civil is a thing of the past, let us turn to other their study that "a strong association be­ to oral contraceptives. Riglils by Cathaime Stimpson. I remain injustiees. tween the use of oral contraceptives and Every female should find it curious that terribly puzzled by the oft-used phrase, death from pulmonary embolism in pre­ recently the Food and Drug Adminis­ blacks and worn«. Docs it mean black men BACK ISSUES OF viously healthy women has been estab­ tration, as a result of objections by the and all women, male and female blacks and THE LADDER lished.” The subjects of this report were American Medical As.sociation and drug white (or other) women, or docs it ignore ARE AVAILABLE married women aged 20 to 44 in England, manufacturers, abandoned a plan to insert black women aitgpther? I wonder where a Prior to October/November Wales and Northern Ireland. Their estimates into every package of oral contraceptives black woman puls herself in that phrase, 1968, THE LADDER was issued show that users of oral contraceptives are literature presenting “a detailed resume of blacks and wobkti. She can, as often monthly for the most part; we now seven times more likely than non-users to the side effects and hazards, both known happens, be cowaied twice. One black issue six magazines a year. THE be subject to risk of death from pulmonary and possible, associated with the pill.”7 woman elevated lo a su|>ervisory position LADDER year begins with the embolism or cerebral thrombosis. The AMAgrams .section of the Journal accomplishes the same result statistically October/November issue each year. Vessey and Doll’s study^ of British of the American Medical Association, that the elevationaf one black man and one Where available, copies of each women aged 16 to 40 indicates that “the August 3, 1970®, notes that the House of while woman does for a company trying to issue in Volumes 13 and 14 risk of hospital admission for venous throm­ Delegates of the AMA objects to the inser­ prove its anti-.seam and anti-racism. This (Oct./Nov. 1968 through April/May boembolism is about nine times greater in tion because it would mean a federal semantic confusMW is of very long standing. 1970) cost $1.25. Individual issues women who use oral contraceptives than in agency’s “coming between a physician and In the la.st co ^ry Sarah M. Halleck before that time are $1.00 per those who do not.” .They estimate from his patient, and stressed the importance of Uiought a resolutian unfair to blacks, saying magazine. their various data that “about 1 in every making certain that such intcijections arc “The negroes haw suffered more than the 2,000 women using oral contraceptives are not extended to other prescription drugs.” EVERY MAGAZINE IS NEW UNTIL women, and the women, perhaps, can af­ admitted to the hospital each year with In the very same issue of the JAMA, a ford lo give tlieraiir preference . . .” If I YOU’VE READ IT! ‘idiopathic’ venous thromboembolism in few pages later^, is a one-page article titled 26 “Nrurolopical problems linked to ‘Pill’ in 3 4. Frederiksen, H., and R.T. Ravenholt. I loved you once. You sent me the birth announcement women." This i.« Ilie opening paragraph: British Medical Journal, 1968.4, 770. A year ago. “Although the puhlie furor over oral con- 5. Oliver, M.F., British Medical Journal, Just six years ago we met: I didn't know what to reply traeeptivrs seein.s to hair cooled a bit. 1970,2, 210-213. It seems like a lifetime. So wrote nothing. another .scientific repiort linking ‘the Pill' to 6. Sartwell, P.E., A.T. Masi, F.G. Arthes, Your flesh was the first I ever desired. But now I am thinking of development of serious neurological compli­ G.R. Greene, and H.E. Smith. American Your body an amazing continent awaiting discovery, Your Abigail, cations was presented at the American Journal o f Epidemiology, 1969, 90, And I trembled to possess you. Of what you wrote: "The name means College of Angiology meeting in New York 365-380. Father's beloved. I am City.” 7. Anon. American Druggist, 1970, 162, But you, boldly offering Beginning to like my baby; but Other adverse reactions of oral contra­ 39. Then coyly withholding. Michael is much better with her. ceptives are myriad and include nausea, 8. Anon. Journal o f the American Medical Spent our days like timid pennies Dearest, if you want me vomiting, headache, dizziness, break­ Association, August 3, 1970, 213, No. While I was longing to fling away a lifetime. I could still get out of this. through bleeding, breast tenderness, abdom­ 5, 682. Night after night I love you inal cramps, bloating, nervousness, irrit­ 9. Anon. Journal o f the American Medical You teased my lust As I have always loved you.” ability, and change in weight (increase or Association, August 3, 1970, 213, No. Until I wept. decrease). Let us hope that women every­ 5,699. I loved you once my dear where who are using the pill are being fully Then I fell out of love And might have been your little girl informed of these known adverse reactions Out of frustration. (EDITOR’S NOTE: Indeed, those of To hold and caress along with the additional possible ones, and And suddenly you begged and railed you uiho are blessedly married to — an idea you found charming that they are getting thorough periodic Wildly, with a despair women or single may well wonder why At the time. physical examinations. One docs tend to That almost won me back. a LADDER reader wrote this and why But now you live with him. wonder why, as an alternative, more When you saw me leaving. we are runnir^ it. Main point is that He spreads your thighs and vasectomies are not performed on the male Hears your moan: Hypocrite! , there are thousands o f Lesbians who of the species. It is a simple operation with But I hardened myself. You have never loved men, but are married and in situations where no side effects. The biggest scar it leaves is Told you not to call. Only pretended both because o f children they cannot leaue on the male ego. That I had nothing to say. their husbands. In desperation most o f Desire and satisfaction. REFERENCES them would resort to anything, in­ Ai>d now you have a child, You clung for three years A little girl of your own. 1. Time Magazine. December 7, 1970. p. cluding block magic, to avoid further While I hated you for making 97. pregtuincies. The increasing use o f oral Thet simple thing that was my love 2. Inman, W.H.W., and .M.P. Vesscy. British contraceptives in the face o f terrible Abigail, I knew your mother well Medical Journal. 1968,2, 193-199. certainty o f its dangers seems impor­ Long, difficult, and ugly. And the fierceness of her desire 3. Vessev, M.P.. and R. Doll. British tant knowledge for these women to And fell in love with you When, dreaming the world away. Medicaljoumal, 1968,2, 199-205. have.) All over again We loved. Many different times. And she called me Darling. how did you weather the Christmas, But I left at last Jane Kogan little one? —once And bade you go. Poetrij we promised Wishing you luck. wherever we went The night before your wedding my thoughts flew off to Australia- You offered me your body we could count on what Suicide mas your suitor And vowed it was I Eulogy we knew we felt, in the gentleness of the city's autumns Who drove you into his arms. yes: in the quickness of your words Intimating that it was not yet " If you need me wherever, that day we met/opened your heart Too late to call it off. Who is to speak of loyalty? just call-I’ll come." for the last time And inviting me to witness the ceremony. In the end, yes. Both I refused. she was probably the one who loved me best. we said that A long time ago An invisible hand slapped a tambourine Perhaps you counted on that. and meant it then, before the hour was yours Her breasts are little, in the scramble A month later, on your honeymoon. are like very slim pears; of His and Hers Still breathing the air you left behind You followed me to a little town her memory children I light a solemn candle A t the edge where land meets sea. ripped into Christmas and watch the flickering tongue Leaving your new husband in a rented room like the moon: their laughing eyes speak the words of a dead girl You came searching me out. Now crescent, focus on Now We walked an hour in the fog now is eclipse. and what was us was sometime O Anne Talking, talking. packed away, untie me from your roots It was unreal. Now­ decorations too strange Then we parted trembling, for the present to view Adele A. Chatelin With a brief clasping of hands. full! Nathaniel Jane Harrington And have never met again. Lynn Strongin MOOD PIECE QUESTION Lost at 33

This is bunHJ weather. Em iiy, Nevermind the heart’s affections. was it for love You wore your brother's pants and cried when of a woman Daddy said you couldn't go, "girls play house.' Colors are the colors of scooped clay; The night ran out you folded yourself away? Then you were six and she was pretty brusque, burned, brunt, and bruise. Did Higginson do to you of room for us, (the friend called teacher), you ran and fell as did your hand what my friends would do to skin the knee so she would kiss it Soul recounts the cards of countries for my to me? "better?" but nevermind the beat, relax: kisses, so I trailed Going through the poems- At ten you never cried, but rose from the nor the chimneys siumped them down changing every "she" to "he?" gravel cuts with a tom-boy grin- against the sky: ■-until your fingers Daddy was proud of his "boy". here's sundown: traced tranced But then it began- slate color shouldering miracles upon some days were blood, the whole lump of a town. the walls of darkness; Now the streets of Amherst straps where free had been are frozen even as they faded "don't run wild-it tears your dress." This is bump weather, plain. in new frost; giving way to day, 18 summers-black with rain-winters impatience and the word of love cold and sickening like his hands is lost the scolding birds you ran wildly against the stubborn on my tongue. shaking from the smell. Just as that's a something cat closedness of our A t table, I bow my head down No longer seen you hid inside slinking across sleet street curtains. in native modesty- a shell of musty libraries and in the rain. knowing not which way to turn ivy halls and lonely nights of Alicia Langtree but only that the fire in the biood pills and dreams of ending- Lynn Strongin will rage, But, now you've come to me, wiil burn. drawn to the understanding in my eyes - your're right, Lynn Strongin I know, and maybe-just maybe, In the morning, when the many I can build again what "they've" destroyed jeweled night wraps the velvet dawn On the Beach and give you pride in about her knees, What You Are against the eyes of men, I was a fish and all the dark musicians have crept off away from the sea. Alicia Langtree to lie in the cool shadows-Then I woe awash on the shore, I love you best. absent from nte. Then in the peace between madness Until a seasheil woman caught Pisces I can untangle me from your and balanced myth-shadow rose-tipped snow and count with artistry. the rhythms of your sleeping (so Like the sheil different from those of love) who sings its knell in the first gold the dark mist on the fonely no-print sand. on my pillow is from black to iridescent Like the waves shining like black diamonds or hard coal- shining too are your eyes in waking- who wash the graves . , You Then I must quickly hide you from the where tall castles used to stand. fall upon me like the misting tears growing light and the eyes of Our So too the soul that rain down from autumn's Lady of the crescent shield- who seeks its shoal ancient waiting trees. for surely, surely She would take you on the isJe where star-scrolls are bound. I lean to you, from me, binding each tiny foot with a When a single mind taking fully the need of silver rose. can read strange runes of your desire and understand aware Alicia Langtree the cryptograms buried by drowning poets that because of my love in search of land and the love of her sister, I, like the trees, w ill be torn by all on the same variation— winter's cold, biting claws. with her I am to the trees-the claws of nature, woman to us (and to our sisters) I am. the self-righteous claws of society. Rochelle Holt Alicia Langtree J ournei^s- in A r t By SARAH WHITWORTH

AUDREY FLACKs Whereas the concept of an heroic friend­ THREE VIEWS ship between men has been consistently popularized in drama, art and literature, Audrey Flack has achieved a certain the experience of such a friendship be­ renown for her paintings of protest and tween women is so repugnant to a male dvil tights. Two Women Grieving Over domiruint society, that it is almost never Kennedy Outside a Dallas Hospital is one acknowledged in art. But Two Women of this series and is especially relevant as it Grieving is more than a simple acknow­ depicts two bladt women. The question of ledgement. The friendship depicted has the black woman in art has yet to be real grounds for its existence. Unlike the raised seriously. For the most park it is usual portrayal of a purely sentimental the stereotype of “Aunt Jemima” that has attachment between women, this is a consistently been the most disparaging and friendship of understanding and reinforce­ this is not limited merely to American ment that is a vital necessity to both Art. Edouard Manet’s 1863 Olympia is an individuals. early example, contrasting the white flesh Ms. Flack’s departure from old estab­ of a female nude, (who appears the very lished cannons in subject matter is felt epitome of the woman as sex and art again in two of her paintings of women in oitjcct Ide^) against the blackness of a old age. To quote the artist, the lady in negro in the background, (who is painted Tante Elite is 88 years old, has wo^ed in an equally supeiTicial manner as the every day of her life and kills chickens on prototype of an ignorant servant). a farm in upstate New York. How remark­ Romare Bearden, a black artist, writes able it is to see in art a woman of in the introduction to the exhibition, considerable years whose beauty does not “The Black Experience”, Lincoln Univer­ depend on her youth, wealth or high sity; “ Whatever increases the self- breeding. We have always had “master­ awareness of black people will therefore pieces” of dignified, elderly gentlemen, enlarge the opinion they have of them­ but in what painting, old or new, does the selves — as well as the opinion other average woman, who has passed the age, people have of them.” But this can defined by men, as sexually available, operate in reverse when the mirror of appear with any sense of personal power self-awareness is one which distorts or or vitality. We all know that such women maligns a self-image and art certainly has exist more often as the rule than not, but provided much of the propaganda that even in their most outrageous attempts to devalues the opinion of black women present something extraordinary, artists rather than enlarging it. In Flack’s paint­ have rarely seen fit to di.scard the per­ ing, however, the two women can very petual glorification of youth. It is not definitely be identified with the elevating uncommon for women of prominence to way which Bearden defines, especially be honored in portraiture in old age but since the work also contains within it the this too has its chauvinist beginnings. For, idea of a black solidarity which, in this it is only when a woman is old and case, is the result of a unifying grief over therefore considered undc.sirabie by male the death of a leader who presented some standards, that she is willingly conceded a hope for the black race in America. position of relative esteem. But the beauty of the black experience Stylistically, Flack’s insight is due, in is only half the value of Two Women part, to the fact that she works directly Grieving. On a second level, there is a from unposed photographs whidi have a broader theme of friendship between way of presenting life as it is and not as women which speaks to us all. Although the artist might have it be. But her choice the figures are expressing grief in different of photographs is the result of her par­ Audrey Flack. Two Women Grieving Over Kennedy Outside a Dallas Hospital. ways, one crying visibly, while the other ticular interest in human form which con­ 1964. Oil on carws. Collection, Edward Lamb, Toledo, Ohio. suffers silently, the hand clasp is a joining cerns itself with the emotional complexity of the two in an act of mutual support of a personality rather than with a more and need at a time when both women are superficial vision of the characteristics of being attacked by the setback of a dream. the figure’s gender. The traditional concentration on the expres.sion of the face that, played against curves of the breast and thigh, (essential in the aging of its flesh, seem.< to present a a more sexist representation of a woman), paradox. And, behind the old woman, to has been foregone in Taate Elke. In its the left, there is a young girl in braids place, there is an interest in the beauty of who looks out at us skeptically from the the network of lines formed by the comer of her eye with a knowing glance wrinkles about the face, neck and hands. that alludes to an opposing idea of sophis­ The face, squinting in the glare of the sun, tication in youth. But both women, oddly, is that of a human being whose person­ share a kind of belonging to their situation ality is as complex as the creases in her and environment that i.s so often absent in face. The clothing and stature of the the perplexed faces of the masses going to figure denote a woman who is her own and fro in our urban cities. person. Here sits a lady who might not There is a striking consistency to 1» hesitate to use a shotgun to ward off understood in all three paintings, when it unwanted intruders, a woman who meets is realized that Flack has carefully side­ us on her own terms. Most importantly, stepped, in each work, the necessity of Tante Elke is a confrontation of age and painting a woman in terms of a definition womanhood wherein the two are mutually of her sex. The focus of the work lies in enhancing and not mutually exclusive, the connection of the human being with Mexican Woman, the second of Fladc’s her particular world or life-style without wcH-ks to deal with age, is a painting of an nebulous allusions to sexuality and without old woman selling oranges whom the artist having to place her on some imaginary scale happened to meet while visiting Oaxaca, of “femininity”. . Mexico. It seems fascinating that a person, Audrey Flack, as well as many other who has lived her life in total anonymity, contemporary' female artists, has not settled who, by the expression in her eyes and for an acclaim that may be labeled pursed mouth, is aware only of her own derivative of this or that male forerunner. vicinity, may be portrayed in a painting These older works, as well as the recent that rvill be seen and felt by a great many paintings to be shown in her one-woman people without her ever being affected by exhibition at French & Co., New York, it. But of course, that is one of the New York (February 19 through March possibilities of realist paintings that are 16, 1972), underline her ability from the derived from photographs, and Mexican start to quietly and determinedly create a Woman has utilized this potential fully style and use of subject matter that is and effectively. truly her own. i Perhaps, it is the innocence in the

Audrey Flack. Xante Elke. 1967. Oil on canvas. Collection of the Artist.

Audrey Flack Mexican Woman. 1966. Oil on canvas. Collection of the Artist. 3.5 by the ancient Hebrews and then by Chris­ those, like this reviewer, who have always stripes ever since masculine art was bom. ’ THE FIRST SEX tianity as it took over the Old Testament. taken it for granted that women are su­ Hmmm. What about Lesbian lyric poetry? perior to men, the evidence Davis amasses Davis states as unquestionable fact that A REVIEW BY HOPE THOMPSON If, as she seems to be saying, the plight of Western Woman is the direct result of for such a Golden Age, the truth of the “women revered both breast and penis as Elizabeth Could Davis has written that Judeo-Christian religion and philosophy, myth of Atlantis and the overthrow of a instruments of motherhood.” (Italics most rate of books, a book that stretches what of the equally terrible oppresaon of j>eaceful, world-wide civilization of the mine). The fact is, we just do not know the mind and alters one’s outlook upon Arab and Oriental women? It seems to me highest order by bands of marauding, bar­ what those breast adorned walls meant. the history of “man.” In 339 pages of that, in the dim past when the peaceful baric males is convincing. For those — Perhaps the ancient matriarchs were careful research into archeology, myth, the world-wide matriarchy was gradually des­ virtually all males and many females - Lesbians all. Why should we conclude writings of the ancients, and obscure troyed by the rise of patriarchy, that who fear to question the superiority of without question that, since our present books from the dark, middle, and modem something must have preceded all modem the male, or even his equality with the civilization is heavily heterosexual and is ages she has indeed made a case for the (that is patriarchal) religions and that female, will be able to find Davis’s evi­ heading “inexorably back to barbarism”, female sex as the first sex. It is a wonder Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, dence unconvincing. There is something of to use Davis’s own words, that the Golden the book has been published at all and Buddhism, Islam, etc., are merely reflec­ a paradox here. If one accepts Davis’s Age of matriarchy was also heterosexual? G.P. Putnam’s Sons (New York, 1971) is tions of this. Something occurred some summary of woman and man, that “man Davis telle us that “maternal love was to be congratulated. I imagine that the 3000 or more years ago (Davis is not clear is by nature a pragmatic materialist, a not only the first kind of love. For many men involved must be tom between desire about such dates and cannot be until and m echanic, a lover of gadgets and millennia it was the only kind.” How can to profit by the book and the horrifying if archeology makes further discoveries) gadgetry”; that "man is the enemy of she be so sure? Perhaps Leslnan love thought that too many women may read that led to the overthrow of the Goddess nature: to kill, to root up, to level off, to , existed during all those many mOlennia. it and take courage. THE FIRST SEX is a by the God. Her book will be most dis­ pollute, to destroy are his instinctive re­ She continues: must for every women’s studies course and turbing to orthodox believers of whatever actions to the unmanufactured phenomena “When woman, after she had tamed for every feminist and makes fascinating religion. of nature, which he basically fears and man, extended her love for her chil­ reading for all people with even the slight­ Like even the best of the current distrusts” and that woman “is the natural dren to include their father, then ’ est interest in human history. For me books about women, this one suffers from leader of society and of civilization,” aiul perhaps man began to learn for the there is one somewhat unfortunate side the old heterosexual bias. While male patriarchy brings about “the unco­ first time what love was. At least he ordinated chaos that is leading the human effect — I have long enjoyed reading his­ chauvinism is deplored and exposed for learned to appreciate and be grateful race inexorably back to barbarism,” then tory and now realize that I have been the myth it is, heterosexual bias continues for woman’s love, even though he it is not vital to prove the existence some readirtg a very distorted view of it. Davis unabated. Davis’s bias is accomplished by was [sic] not emotionally equipped 50,000 or mcce years ago of a golden age gives a number of examples of the delib­ silence on the sul^ect of I.,esbianism. The to return it in kind. Eventually he erate downgrading or omission of women word Lesbians appears once, in connection of matriarchy. Those of us who already came to depend on woman’s love as in order to enhance the male sex (which with their being burned alive during the know that women are the only hope of one of the basic necessitieE of life. Yet needs it!). A most interesting omission, middle ages. (Burning alive was reserved humankind, do not need the knowledge of she is still trying to teach him what carefully documented, is Pope Joan for women. Men were always killed first). this Golden Age of the past, while those love really is. For, as Reik points out, (853-855). “Whatever happened, however, The book assumes without fanfare that all who must cling to the belief in male when men speak of love’ they art the name of ’John VIII a Woman from women were, of course, heterosexual, superiority for reasons for personal really talking about ‘scrotal frenzy.’ ” England' graced the papal list from 855 to despite the fact that known Lesbians are psytdiology, will close their eyes to Davis’s Davis completely ignores, as though quite 1601. In that year. Pope Clement VIII named. Much is made of the early God­ disturbing evidence. unknown to her, male homosexual love. officially declared Joan mythical and dess's cult of the bull and it is assumed One startling piece of evidence for Something seems out of kilter here. ordered all effigies, busts, statues, shrines, that the bulls’ horns found in ancient some kind of great, pre-historic civilization Women are still trying to teach men what and recoeds of her utterly demolished and tombs of great queens arc phallic symbols. is that “on seals dug up at ancient sites in love is and to men it is still just scrotal her name erased from the papal rolls.” No evidence for such an assumption is what was Sumer, our sun is shown with all I frenzy. Is this heterosexuality? If so, it is The Catholic Church had hoped to do the given and I do not feel like accepting such nine planets revolving around it.” Pluto, I not a very tempting alternative to Lesbian- .same with J oan of Arc, but the records of statements without further proof. Freud the ninth planet, was not rediscovered I ism and homosexuality. her trial turned up and spoiled that exer­ told us that church steeples are phallic until 1930. This sort of evidence from cise in 1984, Orwellian “Gynikomnemoni- symbols. Not even a telephone pole can be astronomy is not subject to much contro­ kothanasia”, which means, “the zeal of planted without its being penile. A church versy, but another archeological finding masculine historians and encyclopedists in steeple may be a means of announcing a “that startled its excavators in the early destroying even the memory of great town to the weary traveller or a means of 1960’s were the many pairs of female women.” surveying a vaste expanse of territory. And breasts that adorned the walls of the god­ Before discussiiig some of the ideas and a bull’s horn may be a symbol of plenty dess shrines.” How is one to interpret findings put forth by Davis, 1 wish to to take with one into the afterlife. Or it their meaning? This seems to depend upon mention what 1 consider to be short­ may well be a phallic .symbol and the whether one is heterosexual or Lesbian - comings. This is far easier to do than to explanation for the demise of matriarchy. or perhaps merely patriarchal, for it is bring together a welter of bits and pieces As more and more women came to wor­ often difficult to separate patriarchal from of truth men have not been able to destroy ship the penis — turned to heterosexuality, heterosexual bias. Davis says, "Ever since and to make of them a coherent whole that is - they sealed their doom. modern history began, men have been that only the intellectually blind could Was there ever a world-wide matri­ bemused by the mammary glands. ignore. Davis Is ruthless in her account of archy dispensing peace and justice, where . . . Breasts have been favorite subjects the patriarchal distortions perpetrated first war was unknown and life, good? For of poets, sculptors, and artists of all in Great Britain in that time. Ms. Mavor has put into this book an exhaustive investiga­ diows a shorthaired young woman in riding a much welcome exploration of some Les­ habit and looking very cocksure and im­ Ladies of Llangollea tion of the journals, correspondence, geog­ bian herstory. Chapter Five, titled, ‘ Im- pudent, both attitudes being unthinkable in (lossibilities . . . whenever two Ladies live raphy, and herstory of everything and Mavor, Kli/jbrlh. The ladies o f l.langollen, a lady of quality then. Eleanor does appear too much together.” Beginning in 1789 the A Study in Kamanlic friendship, te n ­ every one concerned with the Ladies. closer to the societal stereotype of a Les­ press of the day seemed to wage a minor Their days were filled with country don: Michael Joseph, 1971. bian than her lover and it was Sarah’s campaign against “the latest unnatural vice” walks, work on their small farm, study of relatives and friends, during their unsuccess­ of women loving one another. Attacks were languages, and their nights with reading Reviewedby ELLEN GOLD ful attempts to be together, who expressed made on the Queen of France and the aloud to eaeh other and talking at the doubts about Eleanor’s character. She was “sapphists” around her, on Mrs. Darner (a kitchen fire. The two were also a strange, also seventeen years older then Sarah and sculptor) and her constant companion Miss distant intellectual center for men and The romantie friendship was a relation- had a reputation of being “masculine and Farren (a comedienne), a Miss Weston, women from all over Great Britian. There sliip primarily Aared between women in satirical.” Anna Seward (later a friend of the Ladies), are fascinating accounts throughout the the late cighteoth and early nineteenth The relationship of the two women to Eleanor and Sarah themselves and many book of visits from notables and a story of centuries. The too “ladies of Llangollen,” each other seems no different from those others. The period is covered fairly well the yueen asking for a plan of the famous Eleanor Butler (1739-1829) and Sarah patterns evolved in relationships now. throughout the book and leads the reader site. Their attraction for the public lasted Ponsonby (1755-1831) arc considered by Eleanor Butler is surfacely the more out­ to realize that there should be no doubts long after their deaths a.s the house and Ms. Mavor the eabodinient of the concept. going, making decisions and doing most of that Lesbianism was as well established then grounds continued to be a tourist attrac­ She explains the romantic friendship as a the talking and is stronger and more active. as now. Hopefully the historical sketch may “relatioiiship praAiced by the emergency of tion. Personalities later than the Ladies Sarah, though, dealt with the “reality” inspire women to study further the period a cultivated and leisured body of middle continue to b<^ attracted to them. Dr. Mary Gordon, one of the first womim doctors to mentioned before. An example given of this of romantic friendships. and upper-class women in a society in confusion of expected roles was of a time Ms. Mavor is to be commended for her which . . . theftses were traditionally and be trained in England and an author, began when the fireplace was threatening to set diligent study of the Ladies and their time. culturally divided.” It consisted usually of a to have dreams about the geographical area the Indies had occupied. 1’liis occiired in the whole house on fire. Sarah burned She has made them very real people and withdrawal from society and a return to herself to stop its congestion and save them. gives us the most accurate study of these nature coupled with a devotion to intellec­ the 1930's and the Doctor wrote a book called The fUf(ht o f the Wild Goose d<»- Another involves Eleanor’s fear (hatred?) of two famous l-esbians. The book is very well tual pursuits. Saaah and Eleanor had just men. Sarah had to deal with them for, “in written and will hold the interest of those such a rdationsUp. Fleeing from their Irish cribing her meeting with Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby in their spirit forms. the pages of the journal strange men lurk as not inclined to reading herstory or bi­ homes until their escapes were finally suc­ in nightmares.” Theirs seemed to become ography normally. It is an extended love cessful, they sou|^ out a place to suit their Colette and Simone d(^Beauvoir have also written about them. the .sort of relationship which naturally story based encouragingly on reality. No purpose and found it in Llangollen, Wales grows between two women unburdened by one can dispute its happy ending. Sarah where they set their home. Ms. Mavor does not dwell on Sarah's personality, except to say she was apparent­ an attempt to keep to stereotyped roles: a Ponsonby and Eleanor Butler were a Les­ There were oAer possible ingredients in fairly equal, give-and-take situation. bian couple who rose above society’s harass­ romantic friencMips. One was the inclu.sion ly overshadowed by Eleanor while still wielding a strong, quiet influenci- on both Besides the romantic, myth-like story of ment to build and enjoy a happy and of sexual love. Ifc. Mavor suggests that the their “elopement” and the attempt to draw their lives. She was their bridge with reality, productive life together. “tendemess, seaAility, shared tastes, co­ their characters, Ms. Mavor’s book offers us quetry” which imBifested themselves in the attending to practical matters while Eleanor journals and concspondence issuing from rampaged and offended other people at thing going wrong, of something unpre­ romantic frienddips, are “what we would will. &rah wrote verstts like the following dictable, leaped into her imagination. A answer to a friend's warning of the “dangers GAMES... now associate soUy with a sexual relation­ By F. ELLEN ISAACS faceless anxiety jumped about inside her ship.” Yet the arihor was not able to say of Poetry and Love:” head, growing bigger. She frowned, and ’By Vulgar Eros long misled that the Ladies woe Lesbians beeau.se there All the lights were out when she finally turned the frown into an exaggeration, I call’d the Tyrant, mighty love! simply was not enough evidence cither way. straggled into the house. Inside the hall, the making her face grotesque. With idle fears my fancy fled She does state tha entries into the journals darkness was oppressive, almost solid, cut “We’re just a bunch of irresponsible Nor ev’ne thy pleasures wisih’d to prove. which she studied for this book “could be only by three thin bars of light from a hippies.” She giggled at her conscious read a.s a code, as the only permissible Condem’d at length to wear thy chains street lamp outside. She stood on the clowning. The fear dispersed. expression of a ye* more intimate relation­ Trembling I felt and ow’d thy might doorstep, hesitant, playing absentmindedly She stepped into the living room, aware ship; or as the aconscious exprt^ssion of But soon I found my fears were vain with the doorknob, turning it back and of making an effort to move quietly, the desire for snch a relationship.” She Soon hugg’d my chain, and thought forth. The lines of light in the hallway cautiously. She sing-songed her jingles of eoncludes that wble the two were obvious­ it light.’ amazed her, as if they made a real barrier, thoughts softly in the darkness, as if to ly l-esbians, a mate technical investigation made of something solid like metal. soothe someone, to suppress the feeling would be imposoUe because of their dis­ Eleanor Butler is described by one Lady “Oh, I’m a gyp, gyp, gypsy. Been out that loomed up in the back of her mind, cretion, which wasiniLsedf another clue to Ix>nsdale as “very clever, very odd ...” a-wandering. And nobody’s locked the that filled the room with a presence, a the nature of theirrelationship. and the author describes her as having a door, oh. ” watching presence. The book, Ihn, Ix'comes both an im­ sharp wit, but a “Gothic” mind. Her in­ She felt self-conscious in the dark, and “Oh, it’s a good old house. And it’s full portant documcid in Lesbian herstory and a terests included “fossils; makers of Aeolian sang silly jingles of thoughts under her of good people. Though we ain’t got no love story paraBcdrd today, in its romanti­ harps; geology; underground passages; the breath to dispel the watcliful silence. money. And I’m the only one up.” cism, only by Isdbelle Miller’s A Place for choice of a new Lama; witchcraft; ghosts;” “Nobody’s locked the door. And any­ She stopped halfway across the room, Us. It is fascinalmg to read the detailed etc. The one single portrait of Eleanor one could get in. Anyone could get in.” suddenly overwhelmed witli a feeling of description of the life of a la;.sbian couple (Included in a good section of illustrations) Then, in her silliness, a fear of some­ being alone. It was so dark and silent, it What if she’s not there? Stop it. Don’t think room, trying to find the source of die muled. She heard a whispered “damn”. about it.” She tripped on the stair. The .sharp et^e breathing she thought she had heard. She Relieved, she rolled over, feigning a tripped on the edge of the mattress. In groggy waking-up, one hand over her eyes. jarred her ankle. She caught herself with her sudden relief, she knelt down, anticipating hands, feeling foolish. “Cass? Is ¿hat you?” “Oh, our Gypsy’s a real wanderer, the connection with warmth. There was no answer. alright” The mockery wasn’t funny this “Cass?” “Have you got a cigarette?” Unsmiling in the candlelight, Cass time. It wasn’t hers. It had been real, There was nothing there. She felt over­ turned around. The shadows twitched someone else’s. Rudy had been sitting, whelmed by the nothingness, trideed. Her sprawled comfortably, at the table in the throat grew tight, the buzz of the silence about her face. Without a word she tossed a pub. He was acting very sure of himself in grew steadily to a high, thin whine. cigarette onto the blankets. front of the two young girls he’d picked up. “There’s no one here. She’s not here. “You got a match too? Thanks. Wow, I She had been angry at his easy powerful And I called out to her.” am really stoned.” stance, and had tried to ignore him, acting The presence she had felt in the living “Where were you?” bored, looking around the pub. One girl had room filled the space around her. She heard “Out drinking.” tiumed to her, smiling, trying to make hersdf half-choke, half-gasp a whispered, “Who with?” “Rudy and Tom, and two girls they’d conversation. “She’s not here.” She wished desperately "Do you live at the same house too? As for some light, looking into the darloiess at picked up. I didn’t know them.” “Mmm-hmm.” Rudy?” the top of the stairs. She tried to be calm, “Yeh. There’s a bunch of us.” to sound calmly irritated. “Tom left for his job. I was bored. I “And your name’s Gyp?” “OammiL She’s not here. Where the hell walked around the beach for awhile. It was Rudy had interrupted. “Yeh, this one is she?” nice. Too bad you didn’t come with us.” here we call our readent gypsy ’cause she She was straining to hear better in the “Yeh.” Cass turned sharply, her voice? wanders about so much. Now, get it dark. There were too many sounds now, was sharp. “Yeh, I know.” straight. The one that she sleeps with is the creaks and whispers from the walls. Then “It was nice.” She put out her cigarette. household witch.” downstairs, she heard a thump, like a door “I didn’t really want that.” The two girls had giggled, coyly, at this. dosing. She could hear her own heart There was silence. She laughed. Her And Rudy had smiled, glowing at the thumping, feel the pulse under her skin. voice broke. attention, unaware of her frown. She had There was the faint click of a light switch. “Hey you. Hey Cass, I’m really stoned. Somebody was humming softly, far away, felt powerless to say something, to be You gonna come to bed soon?” in the kitchen. She felt her stomach tighten­ There was no answer. seemed there was nobody in the house, ^ e angry. ing. She pulled off her clothes and hurriedly “Why did I let that hurt me? Why did 1 “Hey, you gotma put out the light and felt completely alone. lay down on the mattress, quickly straight­ "I wonder if Tom got to his late shift on give him that power to hurt me?” come to bed with me?” ening the tarigled Uankets and sheets, hold­ time. Poor old sorrowful Tom. And here's At the top of the stairs, she felt along “Yeh. Just a minute. Gyp.” ing her body quiet, tense for more comfort­ She turned over on her side, noisily, the gyp, gypsy back from her lonely wan­ the ledge in the darkness. ing far-off noises. derings. Ajid nobody’s up to meet her. “Goddamn, where are those candles? trying to sleep, to keep still. Her head spun. “What the hell is she doing? She must be Nothing works in this place. No lights. Not She closed her eyes. She had walked on the Nobody’s up. Nobody’s even snoring.” brushing her teeth. That’s what’s taking her She felt sad at the stillness now, awk­ even any goddamn candles.” beach earlier. The waves had glittered, small so long. She’s torturing me with this and petulantly. The water had been oily ward. The living room seemed unfamiliar, She squinted into the dark at the far end waiting.” with the sickly shimmer of reflected street­ like another room she didn’t know. She of the room. She thought she heard a faint She was alert to the sounds in the room. walked towards the doorway. There was a breathing through the buzz of the silence in lights. She had wanted to come home to The house seemed to be breathing. There bed, but had wanted to stay alone on the thin crease of light under the bathroom her ears. The blackness was dense, almost was a noise on the stair. The attic door beach, tom between the two places. It had door. “Aha. There is someone up after all. liquid. opened at the bottom of the staircase. She been cold. See?” Thè heaviness of the night lifted. “Cass?” Her voice broke. She had could feel excitement buUilirig up inside “You’re a crazy kid. Gyp.” Cass lay Behind the door the tap was running, whispered the name, fearful to make waves her, almost painfully. She held her body down on the mattress, it creaked with the steadily, sanely. She let the sound drown in the silence. rigid. movement. out her loneliness, fill her with a small, “Cass? Cassandra? Light me a match, She heard a match struck. A tuneless “Good night.” almost whimpering comfort, a connection wiU you?” There was no answer. humming came phantom-like up the stair. Gyp turned over on her side, electrified She felt suddenly sharply angry, not with another being. She turned and quietly Dust from the mattress tickled her nose. at the touch of the warm body. wanting to venture out across the floor. opened the door to the attic stairs. The vague round light of a candle flickered, “Cass? 1 really do love you. Let me love “She’s only pretending to be asleep.” “ And now I’m on the first step.” She on the wall, the shadows swaying. The you.” Quickly she stifled the malicious muttering felt the Wall with her hands, climbing up round light mounted the top of the stairs. There was no answer. Gyp threw the the steep stairs, narrow and closed in, in her mind, ashamed. She felt like shout­ She closed her eyes swiftly. blankets to the bottom of the bed, and ing, like kicking the ledge, to make a noisy turning at a right angle. The closeness of the “I’m asleep. Where did she find the kneeled on the mattress. She marveled at staircase brought back the oppressive show of her anger, to wake up the house. candles? I must be asleep. She’ll be aUe to the light that surrounded Cassandra’s She stepped out onto the floor, cautious feeling. She held down a persistent thought tell I’m not asleep.” thi^s, as if that was the source of light in against the creaking of the floor-boards, nagging at her. The obsessive little w hiter She could hev the soft swish of clothes the room. ten-se against an expected touch. Her atten­ rose in the back of her mind. being thrown in the comer. Something “Do you know? 1 live for you.” Gyp put tion was focused at the dark end of the “Will she be asleep? Shall 1 wake her up? made of glass fell on the rug, the sound her hands on Cassandra’s shoulders, mold- ing them, feeling the .'.Irength something to “Why are you so cruel to me? WTiy do can no longer cope with anything, let alone slavery with womanhood is lieyond my hold on to. All her anguish evaporated. Her you play around with me? I love you. Don’t problems of being and non-being. comprehension. True, we have always been back felt cold. She gently touched you understand?” However, few things on this throttled slaves, but that only proves that men arc Cassandra's hair, stroking it back, as a “C’mon Gyp. Stop being so melodra­ earth are all inclusive and 1 refuse to believe slavemakcrs and we should be fighting like mother sootlies a child. Cassandra rolled matic. I’m not in love with you. I can’t that every shred of your once fine mind has hell to break our bonds, not licking the over violently, noisily. She lighted the love you. I’ve told you. You’re in love with been obliterated. So, to answer your ques­ boots that stomp on us. candle, found a cigarette and lighted it from some other person. It’s not me you’re in tion as concisely as possible, let me say that I realize all loo painfully that your the candle, lying back, breathing out the love with. I’ve told you. I just can’t love. the smartest move I ever made was the day condition is now so wretched that your smoke with a sigh. That’s all.” 1 finally realized the sheer absurdity of using me to spew off steam is only a “It’s no good, (>yp. I can’t feel it. Not “No. You hate me. That’s what it is.” wasting my life energies trying to adjust to diversionary tactic. But what will you do now.” “Gyp? Go to sleep, O.K.?” She blew out a male-dominated society which denies my once you’ve exhausted me as your scape­ Gyp felt her leave her hands, felt the the eandle and turned over in the dark. very existence and came to this commune goat? Find another, in all likelihood. But absence. She shivered, wanting to touch, to “J ust go to sleep.” for women. why not start at the root of your disease? silence, angry, not daring to be violent. Gyp turned over. Her mind was burning. No, 1 am not trying to pretend your For the longer you ignore the problem, the “ You drive me crazy. First you want She couldn't think. Some unconsciousness world no longer exists, for 1 know all too more malignant it becomes. me. Then you don’t want me. What the hell was filling up her mind. well that it still does with all of its sordid Yes, 1 know I’ve said you have been do you want.” She heard herself muttering spitefully. evils intact. And your letter certainly con­ “destroyed” and I am not backtracking one Cassandra turned her head away. “That’s all youll ever say. Go to sleep, firmed this as few other things have done so step. But as long as you are able to breath “It’sjust no use. Gyp.” Gyp.” vividly recently. and write such long, unwieldy letters, you “Who is it?” She breathed out an exasperated sigh, Point number two: You wonder if they should also be able to either set up a plan of “It’s nobody.” very conscious of the act. She knew it was have corrupted me into turning into a action which says you are no longer going “Why are you torturing me this way?” like this. She was amazed that she could Lesbian, and I say to you that not only is to be the Chief Flunky and Doormat or else, “Jesus Christ! Torture! That’s your play her part so well knowing that it was that a terrible sentence, grammatically walk the hell out and stay out. game. Gyp. I never said I loved you.” always like this. The room began to hum speaking, but psychologically it’s from way And yes, 1 know, what about the chil­ “ You said you wanted me." loudly in her ears. Then it subsided. She felt out in left field. dren? Well, whose children are they? So­ “Oh, just leave me alone.” herself falling to sleep, bound into her 1 suppose what you’re really wanting to ciety says they arc his, so shouldn’t they be “Cassandra, please?” She was amazed at despair, her certain and predictable despair. know is, am I sleeping with a woman? And his problem? At least as much as yours? her anger exploding so quickly, at the A small, sing-song whisper crept into her the answer, dear Sister, is you ean damn I suppose there’s little value now in whine in her voice. head. She knew the voice. It was hers. sure bet your last dollar I am. And life has going over past history as to how you ever “Cass, I don’t want to fight with you.” “Hey, Gyp. Hey, Gyp: When are you never been sweeter! let yourself get stuck with .seven children in “ Ixvok, just leave me alone.” gonna let her go?” However, I don’t suppose there’s any the first place, when you knew almost from use in frying to use psychology to explain the day you said, “I do” that you were — s î ^ e » « - much of anything since, in the first place, married to a sewer rat. Charming, handsome psychology is no different from all other and witty (usually at your expense), but encountered, namely: W'hy in the name of fields and sciences; it has been fucked over still a sewer rat who grew rattier as the hell do so many of our Sisters continue to by men too long and turned into simply years dragged on. So 1 w'on’t go into that. let men use and abuse them to death? another vehicle for the destruction of Point number three: Your marvel that 1 Point number one: You claim to be womanhood. can manage to be so .serene surrounded by “horrified” that 1 have sunk so low as to But, if you think being a Lesbian is a white people when our people need me. reside in a commune for women! form of corruption, then once again you are Well, now shit, let’s not go back and do Sister, I still think you’re putting me on denying your own being. Because, my dear, a re-run of the goddamn Civil War. And for it would be one of the best comedy you are a Lesbian whether you sleep with a why do you find it so disconcerting that I FRIEND lines ever written, if you were actually woman or not. The mere fact that your should associate with white women when kidding. But from the tone of the rest of society tells you that your sleeping with a you are forever bragging about his many your letter, I realize you are all too serious. white friends. Male, of rourse. By ANITA CORNWELL man makes you a “.straight” woman and And that knowledge is unbearable for now I not a Lesbian is about as valid as the crap And who the hell arc our people any­ Dear Sister: To say that I found your am positive the brutalized existence that that same society puts out when it says that way? Dammit, 1 am our people too, and la.

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