ABSTRACT
In the early 1970s, across Western capitalist countries, collectives of self-identified lesbians emerged out of the heady ferment of mass political action and social change: in the US, groups like the Radicalesbians in New York, the Furies in Washington, DC and the Gutter Dykes in Ann Arbor, Michigan announced the birth of autonomous lesbian cultural and political organizing. Through their discussions, printed manifestos, ‘wimmin-only’ music and public demonstrations, these ‘new lesbians’ gave vent to their outrage at the erasure and/or the dismissal of lesbian issues inside the women’s movement, gay liberation and the new left. Undaunted by the familiarity of feeling marginal, this new wave of largely white, middle-class, urban and college-educated lesbian feminists set out to wrestle the category ‘lesbian’ away from the heterosexist consensus of sin, sickness and criminality. In so doing, they urged an appeal to lesbian pride, strength and visibility. To many, lesbianism became synonymous with the creation of a woman-identified Jerusalem based on principles of ‘sharing a rich inner life, bonding against male tyranny, and giving and receiving practical and political support’ (Myron and Bunch, 1975; Rich, 1980). According to popular lesbian demand, ‘feminism is the theory, lesbianism is the practice’ became the rallying call, and all things male or male-identified assumed the reviled status of ‘the enemy’ (see, Atkinson, quoted in Abbott and Love, 1972: 117; Shelley, 1970; Brown, 1976).
