Separating Lesbian Theory from Feminist Theory
This chapter focuses largely on lesbian feminist theorizing in the 1980s. It is argued that feminist theorizing on gender oppression has worked to conceal, rather then reveal, lesbian specificity. An attempt is made to determine what it is in feminist thinking that makes it difficult to see the lesbian in the feminist subject of woman, so that she is regarded as a ‘not‐woman’, and also as the quintessential form of feminist revolt against patriarchy because she refuses to be heterosexual. It is argued that this placement of resistance to patriarchy at the heart of what it means to be a lesbian is wrong.
Keywords: feminist theory, gender oppression, heterosexuality, lesbian theory, patriarchy
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