A Radical Lesbian Bibliography:

Carden, Kailah R., et al. “A Critical Archival Pedagogy: The Lesbian Herstory Archives and a Course in Radical Lesbian Thought.” Radical Teacher, no. 105, Summer 2016, pp. 23–32.

Usage: Kailah Carden wrote this article on how Radical Lesbian thought should be included in education, especially when talking about second wave feminism. She proposes a lesson plan that includes a visit to Lesbian History Archives. This is important because it seeks to normalize radical feminism within education and could be useful when thinking about this movement in future contexts.

Marrow, Joanne. "Recapturing our Radical Roots." Contemporary Women's Issues Database, 1997.

Usage: Joanne Marrow not only converses with another potentially useful source (Reasserting Radical Lesbian Feminism) but provides a clean overview of differing schools of lesbian feminism. She claims that lesbian feminists find radical feminism to be less political and therefore have decided to abandon the phrase. This provides an important counter perspective that will help add multiple viewpoints to this entry.

Murray, Heather. “Free for All Lesbians: Lesbian Cultural Production and Consumption in the United States during the 1970s.” Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 16, no. 2, 2007, pp. 251–275.

Usage: This article will be helpful in explaining the complex social roots of radical lesbianism. Heather Murray focuses on the oppressive structures that this movement seeks to dismantle and also discusses how this intersects (and sometime clashes) with lesbian feminism.

Poirot, Kristan. “Domesticating the Liberated Woman: Containment Rhetorics of Second Wave Radical/Lesbian Feminism.” Women’s Studies in Communication, vol. 32, no. 3, Fall 2009, pp. 263–292.

Usage: Kristan Poirot contextualizes the lesbian "struggle" within the broader movement of second-wave feminism. By doing this, she discusses "strategies of containment," or ways in which radical/lesbian feminism was restrained. Interestingly, she uses the words "lesbian" and "radical" interchangeably which may be an interesting topic of discussion.

Ross, Becki. “The House That Jill Built: Lesbian Feminist Organizing in Toronto, 1976-1980.” Feminist Review, no. 35, 1990, pp. 75–91.

Usage: Becki Ross analyzes the lesbian feminist movement in Toronto but, like Murray, contextualizes radical feminism within an oppressive system. This historical analysis is helpful for grounding the article and radical feminist history.

Wittig, Monique. The Straight Mind and Other Essays. Beacon Press, 1992.

Usage: Monique Wittig's collection of essays addresses radical lesbianism and female sexuality as well as how these concepts have been shaped by a largely heteronormative society. This source will be helpful in developing a more complete timeline of radical lesbianism as well as in finding relevant keywords and sources that may open up other sources.

Article Edits:

Radical lesbianism is a lesbian movement that sought to challenge the status quo of heterosexuality and mainstream feminism. It was started by lesbian feminist groups in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s. A Canadian movement followed in the 1970s, which added momentum. ^[1] As it continued to gain popularity, radical lesbianism spread throughout Canada, the United States, and France. The French-based movement, Front des lesbiennes Radicales, or FLR, organized in 1981 under the name Front des lesbiennes Radicales. ^[2] Other movements such as Radicalesbians have also stemmed off of the larger radical lesbianism movement. In addition to being associated with social movements, radical lesbianism also offers its own ideology, similar to how feminism functions in both capacities.

History

Radical lesbianism has roots in twentieth-century feminist and queer movements. Though radical lesbian movements may exist in other countries, those that contributed most heavily to this ideology include Canada, France, and the United States.

The United States

see also: History of lesbianism in the United States Radical lesbian organizations grew in number in the U.S. in the mid to late 1960s. Second-wave feminism, which began in the early 1960s and continued into the 1980s, was one of the larges influences on the development of this ideology. Moreover, the creation of radical lesbianism was directly linked to other left-wing social movements such as the New Left, the Vietnam-era Antiwar movement, and the American Civil Rights movement. ^[3]

Canada

After gaining momentum in the U.S., radical lesbian made its way to Canada in the 1970s. Quebec and Toronto were the predominant cities in which the Canadian movement took place. ^[1] Lesbian organizations in Canada focused on building up lesbian culture and making service available to the Canadian lesbian community. ^[1] The Lesbian Organization of Toronto, for example, established Amethyst, which provided services for lesbians who were struggling with addiction. ^[1]

France

Following the 1970s Canadian movement, a radical lesbian movement in France began to take shape in 1981. Front des Lesbiennes Radicales was proposed as an organization in June 1981. In a way similar to the American and Canadian movements, these radical, French lesbians sought to carve out space for themselves within feminism and within politics as a whole. They focused on the representation of lesbians and excluded heterosexual women, although they differentiated themselves from lesbian separatism. ^[4]

Influence of Monique Wittig

The Front des lesbiennes Radicales [ fr], were inspired by the words and writings of French philosopher Monique Wittig, ^[5] and their philosophic inquiries began through a Paris-based group including Wittig and Simone de Beauvoir who published the journal Questions féministes. ^[6] Wittig's 1981 essay, One is not Born a Woman, titled after Simone de Beauvoir's observation, posits that "Lesbians are not women," as "what makes a woman is a specific social relation to a man, a relation that we have previously called servitude, a relation which implies personal and physical obligation as well as economic obligation, ... a relation which lesbians escape by refusing to become or to stay heterosexual". ^[7] Wittig also believed that "lesbianism provides ...the only social form in which (lesbians) can live freely". ^[7]

In the encyclopedia Who's Who in Lesbian and Gay Writing, editor Gabriele Griffin calls Wittig's writing "part of a larger debate about how heteropatriarchy and women's oppression within it might be resisted." ^[7]

Radical lesbian ideology

radical and liberal movements

Though both radical and liberal movements seek social change, there is a distinctive difference between the two. Radical movements such as radical lesbianism seek to dismantle the status quo whereas liberal movements seek to reform it.Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page). ^[8] In her preface to Monique Wittig's The Straight Mind and Other Essays, Quebec radical lesbian Louise Turcotte explains her views that "Radical lesbians have reached a basic consensus that views heterosexuality as a political regime which must be overthrown." ^[5] Turcotte notes that Lesbian Separatists "create a new category" (i.e., complete separation not only from men but also from heterosexual women)" ^[5] and that the radical lesbian movement aims for the "destruction of the existing framework of heterosexuality as a political regime". ^[5] Turcotte goes on to discuss Adrienne Rich's landmark essay, Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, noting that Rich describes heterosexuality as a violent political institution that has to be "imposed, managed, organized, propagandized and maintained by force". ^[9] Rich sees lesbian existence as an act of resistance to this institution, but also as an individual choice, whereas the principles of radical lesbianism see lesbianism as necessary, and consider its existence as necessarily outside of the heterosexual political sphere of influence. ^[5]

Radical lesbianism and feminism

Radical lesbianism is separate from other feminist movements because it exists in opposition to the exclusion of queer women from mainstream feminism. For example, The Lavender Menaces formed in response to Betty Friedan's declaration that lesbians should not be involved in the feminist movement.Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page). This was also a period of strength for French-language lesbian presses such as Editions nbj and Oblique Editrices, and lesbian bookstores like Montreal's L'Essentielle. ^[10]

Lesbian activists also began cultivating their own material economy. Although radical movements seek to challenge the status quo, producing material goods such as art, music, and other consumable goods. This kind of consumerism led to tangible representations of identity. ^[11]

See also

Organizations

• The Daughters of Bilitis (1955)
• Radicalesbians (1970)
• The Furies (1971)
• Olivia Records
• Lesbian Organization of Toronto or LOOT (1976)
• Radical Faeries (1979)

People

• Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon
• Rita Mae Brown
• Karla Jay
• Martha Shelley
• Barbara Love
• Ellen Shumsky
• Adrienne Rich
• Michèle Causse

Publications

• Lesbian Tide
• Lesbian Connection
• " The Woman-Identified Woman"

General

• Lesbian feminism
• Political lesbianism
• Separatist feminism
• Womyn's land
• Lesbian utopia
• LGBT history

References