Radicalesbians Issues "The Woman Identified Woman" Manifesto
The "Woman Identified Woman" manifesto, created by the Radicalesbians in the early 1970s, serves as a pivotal document in the intersection of lesbian and feminist movements. Emerging from a context where lesbian activists felt marginalized within broader women's groups, the manifesto articulates a call for recognition and solidarity among women. It emphasizes the importance of self-identification, encouraging women to embrace their identities and relationships with one another, whether romantic or platonic.
The manifesto confronts the prevailing heterosexism within feminist movements, urging women to recognize how societal norms prioritize heterosexual relationships and often dismiss the experiences of lesbians. It declares that the essence of being a lesbian embodies the collective anger and resilience of women, advocating for a revolutionary rethinking of personal and political relationships. By fostering consciousness-raising and a commitment to nonhierarchical organization, the Radicalesbians aimed to challenge the status quo and empower women to assert their identities.
Despite its initial impact, the Radicalesbians faced internal challenges and eventually disbanded by the early 1970s. Nevertheless, the manifesto's significance endures as a critical exploration of gender, sexuality, and the fight against oppression within both feminist and LGBTQ+ contexts.
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Radicalesbians Issues "The Woman Identified Woman" Manifesto
Angered by the homophobia and heterosexism of the resurgent women’s movement, a small group of lesbian-feminist activists “zapped” a women’s rights conference in New York in 1970. At the protest, they distributed copies of their manifesto, “The Woman Identified Woman,” which argued that lesbianism was central to feminism. The manifesto remains one of the classic works of lesbian-feminist theory, activism, and history.
Date May 1, 1970
Locale New York, New York
Key Figures
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944),Karla Jay (b. 1947),Martha Shelley (b. 1943),Sydney Abbott Barbara Love Lois Hart Ellen Shumsky Cynthia Funk andMarch Hoffman key founders of Radicalesbians, “zap” protesters, and distributors of the manifesto
Summary of Event
In the mid- to late 1960’s and early 1970’s, many young lesbian activists—some of whom had been involved in the pioneering lesbian group the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) or had published essays in DOB’s monthly magazine The Ladder—were forming or joining local and national women’s groups, from New York Radical Women to the National Organization for Women (NOW). The women often found that while their organizational talents and political skills were appreciated in these organizations, their sexuality and sexual identity were disparaged or ignored. Some of the women were veterans of battles over sexism within gay rights groups; they now found themselves fighting homophobia and heterosexism in the women’s movement.
After a few years of trying to change within NOW the oppression of lesbians and the suppression of issues of same-gender sexuality, and after numerous women (including New York chapter president Ivy Bottini) resigned or were “purged” from its leadership, many lesbian activists began to look for other groups to join. Some NOW members, such as writer and activist Rita Mae Brown, quit NOW for the Gay Liberation Front (GLF).
Brown’s break with liberal feminism came in 1969 after the name of the New York chapter of the DOB had been left off the press release announcing the first national Congress to Unite Women. While still part of GLF, Brown and former DOB-New York member (and The Ladder essayist) Martha Shelley, along with Karla Jay, Sydney Abbott, Barbara Love, Lois Hart, Ellen Shumsky, Cynthia Funk, March Hoffman (Artemis March), and other lesbian feminists, began organizing smaller groups of women to discuss their experiences as lesbians separately from the larger GLF mixed-gender group.
An article by writer Susan Brownmiller, downplaying the importance of lesbians in NOW, appeared in The New York Times Magazine in March, 1970, igniting a protest for the opening night (May 1, 1970) of the second Congress to Unite Women, held in New York City during the first few days of May. Wearing hand-dyed purple T-shirts with the words “Lavender Menace” stenciled on them, Brown, Shelley, Jay, and more than one dozen other women launched a surprise protest. They addressed NOW president Betty Friedan’s comments that the presence of lesbians in the women’s movement would harm the movement. As they prepared for the protest, they began to write a statement that would be distributed to conference attendees, explaining their lesbian-feminist philosophy.
The “zap,” or surprise political action, took the conference by storm. It also produced a commitment from NOW by the end of the conference to officially recognize the importance of lesbians to the women’s movement. In her memoir Tales of the Lavender Menace, Karla Jay writes that a handful of the women involved in the Lavender Menace action worked to draft the collective statement they distributed at the protest. (However, in the August/September, 1970, issue of The Ladder, where the manifesto was published just two months after it was distributed at the New York meeting, “The Woman Identified Woman” manifesto shows Rita Mae Brown’s signature only.)
Starting with the now-famous words “What is a lesbian? A lesbian is the rage of all women condensed to the point of explosion,” the manifesto was intended to educate heterosexual women about the revolutionary nature of being lesbian and of lesbian sexuality. Placing their emphasis on the political and personal importance of women loving themselves and one another, whether as sexual partners, friends, or comrades, the Lavender Menace women—who adopted the name Radicalesbians shortly after their protest action—called upon the women’s movement to create a revolutionary political sensibility, starting with their most intimate, personal relationships.
“The Woman Identified Woman” manifesto called upon women to work together to develop their “authentic selves” as well as build their collective power, promising a radical new way of thinking and being.
For the next year, Radicalesbians in New York continued to meet, organize consciousness-raising groups, and work to create a nonhierarchical organization that relied on decision making by consensus. Radicalesbian groups also formed outside New York City—including ones in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Madison, Wisconsin—for short periods of time. The intensity of the group members’ radical demands upon one another, including their increasing separatism from gay and heterosexual men, bisexuals, and heterosexual women, began to cause difficulties. Some members moved to other cities or drifted back to other lesbian and gay or women’s rights groups. By the end of 1971, the group had disbanded.
Significance
The Radicalesbians’ groundbreaking manifesto, “The Woman Identified Woman,” challenged feminists and other activists to name and examine their heterosexism, that is, the institutional and ideological dominance of opposite-gender sexuality and relationships. The manifesto, with its emphasis on the social construction of sexuality and sexual and gender roles, helped define the causes and effects of homophobia, heterosexism, bigotry, and discrimination against lesbians and gays. “The Woman Identified Woman” also helped explain how systems of male supremacy are maintained by denying women, and all sexual nonconformists, self-definition and agency.
Bibliography
Freedman, Estelle B. No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women. New York: Ballantine, 2002.
Jay, Karla. Tales of the Lavender Menace: A Memoir of Liberation. New York: Basic Books, 1999.
Miller, Neil. Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.
Radicalesbians. “The Woman Identified Woman.” Duke University, Special Collections Library. http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm/womid/.