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Mori: I’m reading a lesbian history book, Faderman’s Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America, and this bit on utopian lesbian-feminism gone wrong in the 1970s feels so relatable fifty years later:
The uncompromising stance and rhetoric of rage in the movement was bound to bring about bitter feelings and factionalism. Perhaps rage was an inextricable part of lesbian-feminism, because once these women analyzed the female’s role in society they realized they had much to be furious about. But their anger sometimes manifested as a horizontal hostility in which members of the community were constantly attacking other members, either because they had strayed from some politically correct behavior or because the diversity within the growing groups was not sufficiently recognized to appease everyone. As the decade progressed, the core groups tended to get smaller as factions multiplied and splintered and became more and more insistent in their demand to be heard or in their conviction that they alone were the true lesbian-feminists. Attacks were often brutal, combining what one victim described as “the language of the revolution [with] the procedure of the inquisition.”
Like the Left, lesbian-feminists believed that the revolution meant change—women changing themselves as well as changing the world. Criticism and self-criticism were thus crucial in order to perfect themselves in their quest for utopia. It was to the credit of lesbian-feminists that they wanted to provide a platform for criticism in the name of improvement, but criticism often became vituperation. This was particularly true when the community opened itself to criticism from minority voices. [...]
Women felt freer to complain within the lesbian-feminist community than in the more oppressive heterosexual world, where their mistreatment was far worse. Not only did community doctrine mandate listening to criticism by all members, but also they felt the community was or should be family and they were claiming their rightful place in the family. But the word “oppression” was then tossed around so loosely as an accusation that it came to be devalued. Criticism too often became crippling. It seemed that every move one made was sure to be found politically incorrect by a dozen others. (Pg. 235-236)
The uncompromising stance and rhetoric of rage in the movement was bound to bring about bitter feelings and factionalism. Perhaps rage was an inextricable part of lesbian-feminism, because once these women analyzed the female’s role in society they realized they had much to be furious about. But their anger sometimes manifested as a horizontal hostility in which members of the community were constantly attacking other members, either because they had strayed from some politically correct behavior or because the diversity within the growing groups was not sufficiently recognized to appease everyone. As the decade progressed, the core groups tended to get smaller as factions multiplied and splintered and became more and more insistent in their demand to be heard or in their conviction that they alone were the true lesbian-feminists. Attacks were often brutal, combining what one victim described as “the language of the revolution [with] the procedure of the inquisition.”
Like the Left, lesbian-feminists believed that the revolution meant change—women changing themselves as well as changing the world. Criticism and self-criticism were thus crucial in order to perfect themselves in their quest for utopia. It was to the credit of lesbian-feminists that they wanted to provide a platform for criticism in the name of improvement, but criticism often became vituperation. This was particularly true when the community opened itself to criticism from minority voices. [...]
Women felt freer to complain within the lesbian-feminist community than in the more oppressive heterosexual world, where their mistreatment was far worse. Not only did community doctrine mandate listening to criticism by all members, but also they felt the community was or should be family and they were claiming their rightful place in the family. But the word “oppression” was then tossed around so loosely as an accusation that it came to be devalued. Criticism too often became crippling. It seemed that every move one made was sure to be found politically incorrect by a dozen others. (Pg. 235-236)
