ABSTRACT
Homophobia in women's support groups and the initial reluctance of NOW to accept lesbian rights as a feminist issue had made lesbians feel marginalized in the early women's movement. The achievement of a feminist vision of an egalitarian, gender-equal society requires the establishment of a democratic socialist society. Feminist theory has gone in two directions in response to the splits between lesbians and heterosexuals and the challenges concerning classism and racism within the movement. Ironically, the upsurge of AIDS created a medical and political crisis that tended to bring back many former lesbian separatists to work with gay men against the cultural homophobia that began to connect gay sex with death. The New Left had proposed an anarchist conception of democracy, participatory democracy, that critiqued hierarchical political decision-making. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
