ABSTRACT
Might there be an incompatibility between feminist commitments and heterosexuality? In this chapter, I argue that there are serious tensions between the two. One tension stems from the fact that heterosexuality can be understood as gender-based attraction, and current systems of gender are unjust and oppressive; heterosexuality thus inherits these features. Further, I argue that, given that persons with non-heterosexual sexual orientations have been oppressed (e.g., stigmatized and subjected to systematic violence), recognition and support for the practice of non-heterosexual orientations (and associated sexual identities) is central to social equality in our present condition, even when these orientations are gender based. As I argue, in our non-ideal conditions, it is possible to be a feminist and a heterosexual, but it isn’t easy.
