PAGE 6

HIGH GEAR

Village Grotto DRAG -

GERMAN VILLAGE VICTORIAN BAR 622 South High Street Columbus, Ohio

Open 1:00 pm to 2:30 am Daily

Happy Hour 1 pm to 8 pm Mon. thru Sat.

Tap Room

Outdoor Patio

Lighted Dance Floor

Wednesday Nights DJ Disco & 40 Busch Beer Thursday Nights

60 Scotch

Friday & Saturday Nights

Sundays

DJ Disco Buffet

NO COVER

NOW OPEN ABOVE THE GROTTO

Drink at

THE LOFT

for the leather/levi crowd

Bakers

24 Public Square

COVENTRY

BOOKS

NEW-JUST RELEASED!

CASSE CULVER

AND

•

Lima, O.

3 Gypsies

A WISE WOMEN ENTERPRISE

Do You Have Your -

Distributed by OLIVIA RECORDS

$5.50

"The GAY ENGAGEMENT CALENDAR 1977?"

$4.95.

The largest selection of GAY literature in town.

10-10 WEEKDAYS

OPEN: 10-7 SATURDAY

1824 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights

932-8111

JANUARY 1977

MYSOGYNY IN DISGUISE

By KAREN LINDSEY

The following is reprinted courtesy The Sojourner 545 Technology Sg., Cambridge, MA. 02139

In August, a group of gay men called "Fort Hill Faggots for Freedom" went into Sporters, a gay male bar, dressed in full drag, and were promptly kicked out. According to them, Sporters and other gay bars discriminate against lesbians, transvestites, and others who don't conform to a respectably straight male image.

If the bars discriminate against lesbians, any action protesting this should be taken (or at least led) by lesbians, with whatever degree of male support they want it shouldn't be led by a bunch of men dressed up as women.

If they're discriminating against transvestites they have no right to do so in a public business.

But almost lost in the whole discussion in successive issues of Gay Community News is the oppressiveness of drag itself. (The notable exception was a brief, politically aware column by Darius Dappletree.) In fact, David Holland in a piece insultingly titled "The Politics of Dress." has the arrogance to equate the "struggle" of transvestites with feminism, and to assert that if "jeans are to be categorized as male apparel, and... women intend to smash that image by wearing them, so, conversely, men must attempt to kill the same sacred cow of dress. This is the focus of drag 'statements today."

So oppressive is the system under which we live that it becomes for some of us an unconscious assumption that what the system says is bad must of necessity be good. And so many feminists are hesitant to attack the segment of the gay male subculture that society most despises. Many of us feminists and leftists tend to feel guilty over the fear and horror we experience over drag queens, attributing our emotions to our own inherent bigotry, and demanding of ourselves that we be more tolerant. Yet I wonder how far that commitment to tolerance would go if 1, for example, suddenly decided to smear my face with burnt cork and walked around mimicking black speech patterns? (And if it's tiresome to keep reading comparisons between black and women's oppression, it's even more tiresome to keep writing them. Unfortunately, until we all learn to understand, and take seriously, the depth of women's oppression, we will have to continue to measure it by the more

familiar yardstick of black oppression).

It is, in reality, the drag queens who are indulging in bigotry. Drag is a blatant mockery of women, as genuine a manifestation of misogyny as the straight male practice of sexual harassment.

This is a touchy area, because it involves exploring the very real strain of misogyny that has always been part of the gay male world and we are legitimately hesitant to feed the oppressive psychiatric myth that gay men become gay because

or gay-self-hate in this as well, that too can be traced to

misogyny the mockery of the "female" component in themselves.)

Some men, of course, are authentically trying to fashion androgynous modes of dress that neither reinforce the "virility" of traditional male clothing nor ape traditional women's clothing. A weaver who is a friend of mine works with tunics loose, free, comfortable, and attractive which challenge stereotypical male clothing but do not look

But when men dress in spike heels rhinestones, sheer stockings, and evening gowns fitted with bust-darts, there is no room for doubt or for tolerance.

they are maladjusted and hate especially "feminine." And women. But if we understand there's also the fact that many the dynamics of male "unisex" styles long hair, earsupremacy, we realize that rings were until recently conmisogyny is not the least a "mal-sidered exclusively female. adjustment." it is an essential component of social manhood. Once we face the fact that aii men hate us to some degree at least, we see the misogyny of the gay male culture in its proper context. It is a part not of their homosexuality but of their manhood itself. Thus while many straight men display their hostility overtly by sexual harassment, many gay men display their hostility most overtly by sexual mockery. (And if there is an element of self-hate,

And when men like Holland compare men in drag, with women in jeans, they compound their oppressiveness. First of all, it is men who determine what is

CONTINUED ON

PAGE 20