Why They Call Us "Dykes"
It's happened to all of us, one way or another. Either overtly - "You're a man-hating dyke!" - or implicitly: "You don't want them to think there's something wrong with you, do you?", whenever we start to test the leash a little, let alone to fight back and proclaim loudly that the System is broken, to be a little bit different, to reject the idea that we must either play the social game of interaction between males and females by the existing, half-unspoken Rules, or else remove ourselves from it altogether, whether by dressing in comfortable but unfashionable clothing, or refusing to wear makeup, or wearing outrageous amounts of it, or talking too much instead of listening, or talking about what interests us, or being interested in unconventional, conventionally-male fields--sooner or later the accusation of being a lesbian is made: (bolding mine)
It should first be understood that lesbianism, like male homosexuality, is a category of behavior possible only in a sexist society characterized by rigid sex roles and dominated by male supremacy. Those sex roles dehumanize women by defining us as a supportive/serving caste in relation to the master caste of men, and emotionally cripple men by demanding that they be alienated from their own bodies and emotions in order to perform their economic/political/military functions effectively. Homosexuality is a by-product of a particular way of setting up roles (or approved patterns of behavior) on the basis of sex; as such it is an inauthentic (not consonant with "reality") category. In a society in which men do not oppress women, and sexual expression is allowed to follow feelings, the categories of homosexuality and heterosexuality would disappear.
But lesbianism is also different from male homosexuality, and serves a different function in the society. "Dyke" is a different kind of put-down from "faggot", although both imply you are not playing your socially assigned sex role. . . are not therefore a "real woman" or a "real man. " The grudging admiration felt for the tomboy, and the queasiness felt around a sissy boy point to the same thing: the contempt in which women-or those who play a female role-are held. And the investment in keeping women in that contemptuous role is very great. Lesbian is a word, the label, the condition that holds women in line. When a woman hears this word tossed her way, she knows she is stepping out of line. She knows that she has crossed the terrible boundary of her sex role. She recoils, she protests, she reshapes her actions to gain approval. Lesbian is a label invented by the Man to throw at any woman who dares to be his equal, who dares to challenge his prerogatives (including that of all women as part of the exchange medium among men), who dares to assert the primacy of her own needs. To have the label applied to people active in women's liberation is just the most recent instance of a long history; older women will recall that not so long ago, any woman who was successful, independent, not orienting her whole life about a man, would hear this word. For in this sexist society, for a woman to be independent means she can't be a woman - she must be a dyke. That in itself should tell us where women are at. It says as clearly as can be said: women and person are contradictory terms. For a lesbian is not considered a "real woman." And yet, in popular thinking, there is really only one essential difference between a lesbian and other women: that of sexual orientation - which is to say, when you strip off all the packaging, you must finally realize that the essence of being a "woman" is to get fucked by men.
Kind of astounding to see this being slammed down on the table without any padding or attempts at sanding off the rough edges, even now, with all this feminist blogging going on. But why does it work? Why is it worse than, say, being called a "sycophant," or "gold-digging parasite" or even "legalized prostitute" after Mary Wollstonecraft's accusing description of traditional marriage--? Why would so many women rather be "a minx, a moron, and a parasite" than risk being called "a dyke"--?
But why is it that women have related to and through men? By virtue of having been brought up in a male society, we have internalized the male culture's definition of ourselves. That definition consigns us to sexual and family functions, and excludes us from defining and shaping the terms of our lives. In exchange for our psychic servicing and for performing society's non-profit-making functions, the man confers on us just one thing: the slave status which makes us legitimate in the eyes of the society in which we live. This is called "femininity" or "being a real woman" in our cultural lingo. We are authentic, legitimate, real to the extent that we are the property of some man whose name we bear. To be a woman who belongs to no man is to be invisible, pathetic, inauthentic, unreal. He confirms his image of us - of what we have to be in order to be acceptable by him - but not our real selves; he confirms our womanhood-as he defines it, in relation to him- but cannot confirm our personhood, our own selves as absolutes. As long as we are dependent on the male culture for this definition. for this approval, we cannot be free.
The consequence of internalizing this role is an enormous reservoir of self-hate. This is not to say the self-hate is recognized or accepted as such; indeed most women would deny it. It may be experienced as discomfort with her role, as feeling empty, as numbness, as restlessness, as a paralyzing anxiety at the center. Alternatively, it may be expressed in shrill defensiveness of the glory and destiny of her role. But it does exist, often beneath the edge of her consciousness, poisoning her existence, keeping her alienated from herself, her own needs, and rendering her a stranger to other women. They try to escape by identifying with the oppressor, living through him, gaining status and identity from his ego, his power, his accomplishments. And by not identifying with other "empty vessels" like themselves. Women resist relating on all levels to other women who will reflect their own oppression, their own secondary status, their own self-hate. For to confront another woman is finally to confront one's self-the self we have gone to such lengths to avoid. And in that mirror we know we cannot really respect and love that which we have been made to be.
As the source of self-hate and the lack of real self are rooted in our male-given identity, we must create a new sense of self. As long as we cling to the idea of "being a woman," we will sense some conflict with that incipient self, that sense of I, that sense of a whole person. It is very difficult to realize and accept that being "feminine" and being a whole person are irreconcilable. Only women can give to each other a new sense of self. That identity we have to develop with reference to ourselves, and not in relation to men.
This is why, when some guy says "What, are you a lesbian?" in that sneering way, the proper answer is not to sputter a denial but to fire back, "Are you my only alternative?" or other cutting retort.* Because to act as if it's an insult - not as it is meant by the accuser but in the greater scheme of things, within heaven-and-earth, a blight or rift in the cosmos - is to surrender to the disordered mortal system of the Lords of Misrule, which takes as a given the shrunken, atrophied reduction of true humanity to nothing more than a penis, a pair of testicles, and a vas deferens, and subjects everything else in the universe to this glorified phallus. The only response is to mock, to deny the foundational premises implicit in that statement, accusation, question, whether it comes from male or male-identified female, to give not an inch of validity to the underlying assumptions there. Not to the assertion that a woman's proper place is under a man in all things; not to the assertion that a man who is not busy subjecting women is not a true man; and not to the assertion that neither of them are truly, fully, human persons. The patriarchal System does not just injure uppity women and gay men; all men are crippled and wounded by it, whether they submit to it and embrace it, or defy it and refuse to allow themselves to be pressured into behaviors they would not choose for themselves. --Even as all women are, even the likes of Phyllis Schlafly and her self-hating legion of followers.
The manifesto from which these passages were taken was written in 1970, btw.
* Unless, of course, you are a lesbian, in which case it depends on whether you're out or not. But most of us feminists, by the numbers, are not going to be.
It should first be understood that lesbianism, like male homosexuality, is a category of behavior possible only in a sexist society characterized by rigid sex roles and dominated by male supremacy. Those sex roles dehumanize women by defining us as a supportive/serving caste in relation to the master caste of men, and emotionally cripple men by demanding that they be alienated from their own bodies and emotions in order to perform their economic/political/military functions effectively. Homosexuality is a by-product of a particular way of setting up roles (or approved patterns of behavior) on the basis of sex; as such it is an inauthentic (not consonant with "reality") category. In a society in which men do not oppress women, and sexual expression is allowed to follow feelings, the categories of homosexuality and heterosexuality would disappear.
But lesbianism is also different from male homosexuality, and serves a different function in the society. "Dyke" is a different kind of put-down from "faggot", although both imply you are not playing your socially assigned sex role. . . are not therefore a "real woman" or a "real man. " The grudging admiration felt for the tomboy, and the queasiness felt around a sissy boy point to the same thing: the contempt in which women-or those who play a female role-are held. And the investment in keeping women in that contemptuous role is very great. Lesbian is a word, the label, the condition that holds women in line. When a woman hears this word tossed her way, she knows she is stepping out of line. She knows that she has crossed the terrible boundary of her sex role. She recoils, she protests, she reshapes her actions to gain approval. Lesbian is a label invented by the Man to throw at any woman who dares to be his equal, who dares to challenge his prerogatives (including that of all women as part of the exchange medium among men), who dares to assert the primacy of her own needs. To have the label applied to people active in women's liberation is just the most recent instance of a long history; older women will recall that not so long ago, any woman who was successful, independent, not orienting her whole life about a man, would hear this word. For in this sexist society, for a woman to be independent means she can't be a woman - she must be a dyke. That in itself should tell us where women are at. It says as clearly as can be said: women and person are contradictory terms. For a lesbian is not considered a "real woman." And yet, in popular thinking, there is really only one essential difference between a lesbian and other women: that of sexual orientation - which is to say, when you strip off all the packaging, you must finally realize that the essence of being a "woman" is to get fucked by men.
Kind of astounding to see this being slammed down on the table without any padding or attempts at sanding off the rough edges, even now, with all this feminist blogging going on. But why does it work? Why is it worse than, say, being called a "sycophant," or "gold-digging parasite" or even "legalized prostitute" after Mary Wollstonecraft's accusing description of traditional marriage--? Why would so many women rather be "a minx, a moron, and a parasite" than risk being called "a dyke"--?
But why is it that women have related to and through men? By virtue of having been brought up in a male society, we have internalized the male culture's definition of ourselves. That definition consigns us to sexual and family functions, and excludes us from defining and shaping the terms of our lives. In exchange for our psychic servicing and for performing society's non-profit-making functions, the man confers on us just one thing: the slave status which makes us legitimate in the eyes of the society in which we live. This is called "femininity" or "being a real woman" in our cultural lingo. We are authentic, legitimate, real to the extent that we are the property of some man whose name we bear. To be a woman who belongs to no man is to be invisible, pathetic, inauthentic, unreal. He confirms his image of us - of what we have to be in order to be acceptable by him - but not our real selves; he confirms our womanhood-as he defines it, in relation to him- but cannot confirm our personhood, our own selves as absolutes. As long as we are dependent on the male culture for this definition. for this approval, we cannot be free.
The consequence of internalizing this role is an enormous reservoir of self-hate. This is not to say the self-hate is recognized or accepted as such; indeed most women would deny it. It may be experienced as discomfort with her role, as feeling empty, as numbness, as restlessness, as a paralyzing anxiety at the center. Alternatively, it may be expressed in shrill defensiveness of the glory and destiny of her role. But it does exist, often beneath the edge of her consciousness, poisoning her existence, keeping her alienated from herself, her own needs, and rendering her a stranger to other women. They try to escape by identifying with the oppressor, living through him, gaining status and identity from his ego, his power, his accomplishments. And by not identifying with other "empty vessels" like themselves. Women resist relating on all levels to other women who will reflect their own oppression, their own secondary status, their own self-hate. For to confront another woman is finally to confront one's self-the self we have gone to such lengths to avoid. And in that mirror we know we cannot really respect and love that which we have been made to be.
As the source of self-hate and the lack of real self are rooted in our male-given identity, we must create a new sense of self. As long as we cling to the idea of "being a woman," we will sense some conflict with that incipient self, that sense of I, that sense of a whole person. It is very difficult to realize and accept that being "feminine" and being a whole person are irreconcilable. Only women can give to each other a new sense of self. That identity we have to develop with reference to ourselves, and not in relation to men.
This is why, when some guy says "What, are you a lesbian?" in that sneering way, the proper answer is not to sputter a denial but to fire back, "Are you my only alternative?" or other cutting retort.* Because to act as if it's an insult - not as it is meant by the accuser but in the greater scheme of things, within heaven-and-earth, a blight or rift in the cosmos - is to surrender to the disordered mortal system of the Lords of Misrule, which takes as a given the shrunken, atrophied reduction of true humanity to nothing more than a penis, a pair of testicles, and a vas deferens, and subjects everything else in the universe to this glorified phallus. The only response is to mock, to deny the foundational premises implicit in that statement, accusation, question, whether it comes from male or male-identified female, to give not an inch of validity to the underlying assumptions there. Not to the assertion that a woman's proper place is under a man in all things; not to the assertion that a man who is not busy subjecting women is not a true man; and not to the assertion that neither of them are truly, fully, human persons. The patriarchal System does not just injure uppity women and gay men; all men are crippled and wounded by it, whether they submit to it and embrace it, or defy it and refuse to allow themselves to be pressured into behaviors they would not choose for themselves. --Even as all women are, even the likes of Phyllis Schlafly and her self-hating legion of followers.
The manifesto from which these passages were taken was written in 1970, btw.
* Unless, of course, you are a lesbian, in which case it depends on whether you're out or not. But most of us feminists, by the numbers, are not going to be.