everyone in a 2 mile radius: why the fuck would you say that? why would you post about your own sexual orientation on your own fucking blog? why do you hate trans people? why do you think you can have your own sexuality and not feel ashamed and dirty because of it? keep that bigoted shit to yourself.
it’s funny, sometimes when you point out that lesbians literally have nothing left but each other, libfems will agree. but as soon as you design something lesbian-positive, or bring up the labrys flag, they freak and call you a transphobic TERF
y’all really just hate lesbians, but you won’t admit it
really disappointing to read bell hooks’ essay in this anthology, “challenging patriarchy means challenging men to change” devolve into an attack on radical feminism in general, especially relying on the notion that radical feminism is simply “rooted in essentialist rage” that promotes the self-victimization of women and their status as “innocent victims”. it’s especially crushing, though, to see her position lesbians (and presumably bi women) as privileged because of their “sexual preferences that position them where they have options”. this anthology was published in 1991.
You should read “Separatism is Not a Luxury” by C. Maria, an Afra-Latina lesbian separatist. She refutes hooks’ apologism for male sexual violence and assertion that radical and lesbian separatism are for “privileged groups of women.” The entire essay addresses liberal and socialist feminists’ arguments for why women aren’t allowed to separate from our oppressors. She ends with a proposal – a list of actions that radical and lesbian separatists can take to directly challenge capitalism and patriarchy (actions that male-apologist feminists are unlikely to do).
An excerpt:
Most women could care less about separatism. This purposeful ignorance not only comes from non-feminists and anti-feminists, but also from feminists who should know better, yet choose to ignore separatism even as a possibility. Some of this ignorance is caused by the fear of male reprisals. But fear alone has not stopped many Lesbians and Radical Feminists from envisioning a world free from male oppression and violence. So what else is behind this ignorance?
The only way to account for this dismissal is the belief among liberal and socialist/left-wing heterosexual and lesbian feminists that some men, particularly poor men and ethnically different men, are more oppressed than women in general. They say these men do not benefit from the sexual oppression of women. bell hooks even goes as far as to justify male sexual crimes committed against women and to argue that men are the real victims:
“Alienated, frustrated, pissed off, he may attack, abuse, and oppress any individual woman or women, but he is not reaping the benefits from his support of sexist ideology. When he beats or rapes women, he is not exercising privilege or reaping any positive rewards; he may feel satisfied in exercising the only form of domination allowed him”
In fact, physical and sexual abuse that come from male heterosexual privilege are so pervasive and oppressive, that less privileged and LEAST privileged women often DO become Lesbian Separatists.
Those who see Lesbian Separatism as classist and racist deny the lives of Lesbian Separatists, most of whom are not privileged. For example, hooks sees separatism as purely a class issue.
“Most women do not have the economic freedom to separate from men because of economic interdependence. The separatist notion that women could resist sexism by withdrawing contact with men reflects a bourgeois class perspective.”
hooks assumes all Separatists are white and privileged. But if Separatism derived from a “bourgeois class perspective,” most of the more privileged lesbians would be Separatists, or at least give separatism some serious consideration. And there would be few racially and ethnically different Separatists or less privileged Separatists.
Yet Separatism IS an economic issue. Lesbian Separatists are painfully aware it is racist heteropatriarchy that keeps women poor.
…
Many feminists do not want to acknowledge how comfortable they have become with their heterosexual privilege within the oppressive system that many other women want to leave behind. They continue to ask for a few privileges for themselves, while conditions for most women remain unchanged. Few feminists any longer propose the abolition of racist heteropatriarchy, because to do so they would have to confront their own complicity and the painful subordination men have forced upon women through terrorism, indoctrination, deprivation, and lies.
We can start, even in modest ways, to disrupt the male economy. Lesbian Separatists and Radical feminists have already begun, by refusing to be with men, or to cater to their needs, desires, and whims in our personal/political lives. Although heterosexual women can also contribute to this disruption, through sabotage, it is unlikely they will place themselves and other women above male priorities. Lesbian Separatists can do much more […]
sapphic-schizo 