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CHERCHEZ LA FEMME

courtesy of BAY AREA REPORTER,

There's a subject that Gay men don't talk about very much and I've often wondered why. That subject is our relationship to women. It has been in my mind again ever since I watched the Gay Freedom Day parade and was impressed by the large numbers of women who were marching. A good many of these women were Gay women, of course, but there were also some others. I have asked myself why Gay men have such ambivalent feelings about women and, specifically, why Gay men have offered so little support to the women's liberation movement. Gay women are 'ery active in the women's movement because they, after all, are women, but why do Gay men for the most part ignore it? It is as if Gay men so strongly identify with the male forces in our society that they aren't able to see where their best interests lie.

Perhaps Gay men haven't given this matter very much serious thought, and if this is so, then I would like to remind them that the treatment of all homosexuals in our society is directly related to the treatment of women. As long as women are treated as second-class citizens, Gay people will be treated as third-class citizens, because there is a sexual pecking order in the society. The system is ruled by the dominant males the big cocks and for obvious reasons they don't want any changes made in the status quo. If we Gay men identify only with the big cocks, we will miss our main chance. The women's liberation movement is trying hard to make changes in society's attitudes and assumptions about sex roles, and these changes can only benefit Gay people, especially Gay men.

The dominant males in our society have been trying for centuries to make women and Gay men think that they ought to be enemies. Far too many women are antihomosexual because they have believed this propaganda. But far too many Gay men have accepted the propaganda, too, aligning them selves with the dominant males against the women. As long as women and Gay men are susceptible to this propaganda, there will be no freedom for any of us.

One example of the propaganda is the canard that Gay men really want to BE women. This tells us that both women and Gay men are to be viewed as something less than whole. It assumes that being a woman is necessarily a bad thing and that a man who relinquishes his birthright of male supremacy is shirking his duty. Why does this nonsense appeal? I suspect that straight women respond to the part about Gay men shirking their duty after all, they do want to attract mates, given the circumstances of the society and Gay men respond to the notion that being a woman is bad they want to feel superior to somebody, and women are readymade victims.

Let's be honest about this matter: A good many Gay men do look down on women. One Gay man insults another by calling him "Miss So-and-So" and by using feminine pronouns. Some drag (not all) is meant to mock and degrade. I have seen Gay men insult women to their faces, simply because they're women. All of this has happened, I think, not because Gay men naturally hate women, but because they have been subject to the propaganda.

They think they are SUPPOSED

ERD

to hate women. Yet most Gay men know full well that they don't hate or even dislike women. A good many women entertainers couldn't survive without their followings of Gay men, many drags are based on admiration and emulation, and practically all Gay men (at least in my generation) have women as close friends.

Something else that tells us that enmity between women and Gay men is manufactured is psychiatric theory. Psychiatrists claim that mothers are at fault when their sons become homosexual. Homosexuality is thought to be bad, but dominant males won't take any responsibility for it the blame is placed on women. We are told that we hate and fear women because that is precisely what it is hoped we will do.

It has been said by certain historians that the persecution of homosexuals eases when supreme power is held by women, and the examples given usually include the two Elizabethan ages in England. Whether this is so is a matter of conjecture, but it offers food for thought. In spite of Anita Bryant, our enemy is men, not women. For it is men who make the rules, men who control our society.

Make no mistake: Dominant males want women and Gay men to distrust, dislike, and hate each other. Because if women and Gay men ever join forces, the dominant males will lose their power. Women and Gay men have much in common so far as the struggle for rights is concerned both of us want to have the society restructured so that power is not wielded on the basis of sex and sexual orientation alone.

Gentlemen, it's time to join the ladies.

(2)

HALLOWEEN

Costume Ball

October 28th

540 CLUB

judging at 2cover 12 Midnight 2 cover charge

540 WALNUT N.E.

CANTON, OHIO

Phone 456-8622

Cash Prizes!

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MLL

METROPOLITAN COMMUN TAN-COMMUNITY

METROPOACH

"A Christian Church with a Special Outreach to the Gay Community" Services: 2 PM Sunday at 3300 Morewood Road (across from Summit Mall)

Rev. Karen J. Wheeler Rev. A.S. Umbertino

Co-Pastors

836-3930

See America. Find a friend.

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