ABSTRACT
The Women’s Liberation Movement and lesbian feminism could not have developed on the scale and in the ways in which they did if they had not been based upon separatist principles. In this chapter I will examine the theory and practice of separatism that was adopted across the Women’s Liberation Movement in the UK from the early 1970s onwards. In the Women’s Liberation Movement, the women-only principle for women’s meetings, marches and events was fundamental and unproblematic, amongst both heterosexual and lesbian feminists. Many lesbian feminists took separatism much further, to the extent of living in women-only houses and creating women-only culture. Some went so far as to live on women-only land and seek to be self-sufficient, so that they were able to live, as far as possible, without male contact. Separatism meant different things to different women, but there was little controversy about the principle that spaces and events should be women-only. The historical struggle to create such space and the reasons why it was, and remains, crucially important to feminism will be examined here.
