Bonds and Barriers Among Women

When the Feminist Theatre Collective performed in Cleveland a few years ago, one of their most successful sketches instructed the audience on rules of etiquette between lesbian and straight women. Advice such as, "Don't ask her if she can fix your car,” and "Don't assume that she knows all about sports, and finally, “Do not assume A-N-Y-thing” drew appreciative laughter. What the theatre group offered went beyond entertainment; they helped lesbians and straight women confront their stereotypes.

The flag raised by the What She Wants Collective asking for articles on the interactions between lesbian and straight women again brought that easilyavoided issue to the foreground. The following is an edited version of a discussion among a group of lesbian and straight women in direct response to the WSW request. The participants included Willow Bentley, Leslie Greenhalgh, Jamie Hecker, Deborah Hirschberg, Linda Jane, Jean Loria, Lorraine Schalamon, Sally Tatnall, Jeanne Van Atta and Deborah Van Kleef.

Several women in attendance could not at first understand why the issue is a problem. After all, we were all feminists and many of us had worked together on common goals. As the discussion progressed, however, we began to see and explore some of the misconceptions and barriers that exist between lesbian and straight women even within the common bond of feminism.

We didn't come up with any new revelations or reach any clear conclusions. However, by the end there was general agreement that it had been worthwhile and that we might like to get together and talk again. We would encourage other women to get groups together for this purpose.

The discussion opened with suggested questions from WSW (we do not claim to have answered any of them):

1) Is there a problem between lesbian and straight women?

2) Do women believe that male domination is the problem in relationships between lesbians and straight women?

3) Who makes up the women's movement in Cleveland? the women's community?

4) Are there certain social lines along which women direct their energies? For instance, are there more straight women working on abortion; are there more lesbian women working on women's culture? There seem to be some patterns; what is the significance of those patterns?

5) Do straight women feel excluded from the women's movement or put down by lesbians, and vice versa? Does this inhibit women from being active?

6) Do lesbians have reservations about putting effort into issues which primarily affect straight women—do they feel such issues are not worth their energy?

ST: I can answer some of those questions differently depending on the individual women. Whether they are lesbian or straight might not be the deciding factor. I think there are some people who are very much relationship-dominated, and they don't see politically eye to eye with me. Some of my best friends are straight because we agree; some of my enemies, almost, are lesbians, because we don't agree politically. We don't agree on fundamental issues and what the problems are, which doesn't mean that I'm not going to go to a party with them, but there are some issues that are more critical to me. Some of the women in this house have been spending time with two straight women and we've sort of been nurturing a very nice relationship; it's fairly support-

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ive, in my mind anyway, and that issue has never come up. So it's really hard to know when that issue is there, when it's present. Certainly, if it is, I would like to know about it.

DH: I would say the same thing. The differences, where I see them, are really between feminists and non-feminists. The feminists who are lesbian I see eye to eye with, and the feminists who are straight I see eye to eye with, and gay women who aren't feminist I don't have much in common with. Even though they're gay, we don't work together.

DV: When you say that, how do you define feminists? You can get ten women in a room who call themselves feminists and they'll each have a different version of feminism.

ST: When I became a lesbian, I thought, Ah ha, now it's clear sailing. I don't have to deal with men anymore; it'll be just great. I went down to the bars with this new energy and rose-colored glasses and started talking to lesbians, and remember so clearly this woman saying to me, "I'm not oppressed. I always played baseball when I was a kid". I wasn't prepared for that. I believed that lesbians grew up in a different world than I grew up in, and of course they didn't have the same prejudices and all that. It was very hard, actually, in the beginning to take that because I was expecting women to understand about the problems of men and culture, and actually straight women understand the problems of men and lesbians don't necessarily.

DV: For some people it wasn't a political thing. Ultimately that's what we all want: we want it to be your business whom you sleep with, rather than having it be something that you make a statement about. JV: I think fear keeps some straight women out of the women's community. Like it's catching and we don't want to catch it. The fears that society teaches us are there. There's also the additional thing that people feel that there's some judgmentalism going on-if you're not a lesbian then you're not a feminist. But maybe some of that's internal. I've felt that conflict in myself; how can I not be a lesbian and believe what I believe?

DV: I felt that about five years ago when I was living in Toronto. All the women I knew who considered themselves feminist were either lesbian and radical, or else were very, very moderate-it was the my-husband-does-housework syndrome. I couldn't relate to people who I felt were trying to make the problem simpler or dismiss it and say their dives were really okay when it seemed to me they were very much oppressed. On the other hand, it was equally hard for me, as a straight woman who was involved with a man and committed to trying to work some of the things out, to be around lesbian women. I felt that a lot of the gay women were very intolerant of straight women and there was nowhere I could get any real support. Which is probably why, at this point, none of my close friends are gay. It was from having been burned. Maybe the women's community has progressed beyond that and that's why you can say the kinds of things you're saying.

DH: I don't think it's any surprise that lesbians have very close social friends who are lesbians and straight women's closest social friends are straight women. I don't think anything's wrong with it. There are mutual concerns and areas of support which can't be met by the other women. I think on some levels we can meet, and do meet very broadly. But I'm interested in the community question whether women who aren't lesbians think there's a community in Cleveland. When I think of the women's community I think of the parties, the social, because the political is so diffused.

JV: I think of that, too, and feel sorry that there isn't more I can be involved in. I miss the time when

Oven Productions [local producers of women's

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cultural events] had more events. That was a place I could go with other women and feel comfortable. There are fewer and fewer of those things with the bar [Three of Cups] closed. I feel cut off as a result. I see Oven as a tremendous loss to myself not only personally but culturally, It was a way to be with women. When you are heterosexual and are with men it perpetuates itself and you have to make an extra effort, just like you have to make an extra effort to do anything you weren't raised to do, but you need a place to do it.

WB: Right, like when we worked together at the abortion clinic. I don't think anyone felt uncomfortable.

LJ: But if feminism is our politics and the basis of feminism is male domination-personally, politically and socially-that's something that you would talk about when you talk about politics.

LG: Right. I think we would talk about politics in terms of male domination, but we wouldn't talk about male relationships, which is different. Just because I'm involved in a male relationship doesn't mean that I like men.

DV: If you see the problem as men dominating women-and of course that penetrates into your personal relationships-then is it possible for a man and woman to have a relationship in which the man doesn't dominate the woman? And if I'm in a relationship with a man and I think it's pretty egalitarian and there's progress being made and problems being worked out, am I just kidding myself? Am I totally in bad faith and is this truly a non-feminist thing to be doing? I've known some gay women who really made me feel that that was the case and others who didn't and others who probably weren't sure what they thought.

ST: It wasn't until I started talking to heterosexual women about their relationships that I realized their problems were exactly the same.

LG: What blocks the communication? I think in some ways straight women feel guilty about being involved with a man. Does that block communication in opening up about your relationship with a gay woman? At the Three of Cups, there was a lot of conflict about straight women thinking that their men should feel comfortable in a women's bar. It didn't bother me if men felt uncomfortable there. I think they should go through that process of feeling uncomfortable since they're usually in the position of power. If the man can't handle it, then that's too bad.

DH: It was the women who couldn't handle the men not being able to handle it who bothered me.

LJ: The whole question of can men be feminists: it's easier for me to have that discussion with a lesbian or with someone who's not involved with a man than it is with someone I know who's involved with a man. Particularly since I have some feelings that it's nearly impossible for a man to be a feminist and they sincerely believe that the man they're involved with is a feminist man. I think this is one area in which dialogue is very difficult.

DH: That's where the resentment comes in. I know I have felt that; I have put up blocks against women who tout their men as feminists.

ST: I was thinking about what you said before, wondering how you can believe what you believe and not be a lesbian. I ask that question of all the straight women I know, because I think lesbianism is catching, in a very positive way.

JV: We can't print this in the newspaper. We'll scare people to death!

ST: But it's not talked about-how will it be safe

(continued on page 12)

November, 1980/What She Wants/Page 9