The Woman-identified Woman Article Index for
The
Website Links For
Woman
 

Information About

The Woman-identified Woman




It was written and revised collectively by a group including Artemis March , Lois Hart , Rita Mae Brown , Ellen Shumsky , Cynthia Funk , and Karla Jay , among others. A group of Lesbian Radical Feminist s staged a "zap" for the opening session of the Congress, during which they cut the lights, took over the stage and the microphone, and explained how angry they were about the exclusion of lesbian speakers from the Congress. They passed out Mimeograph ed copies of "The Woman-Identified Woman," in which they argued that lesbian women were at the forefront of the struggle for women's liberation, because their identification with other women defied traditional definitions of women's identity in terms of male sexual partners, and expressed "the primacy of women relating to women, of women creating a new consciousness of and with each other which is at the heart of women's liberation, and the basis for the cultural revolution." Thus, support for lesbians and an open commitment to lesbian liberation was argued to be "absolutely essential to the success and fulfillment of the women's liberation movement."


FULL TEXT ONLINE

  • "The Woman-Identified Women" (1970). From ''Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement'', Special Collections Library, Duke University.



SOURCES

  • Jay, Karla (1999). ''Tales of the Lavender Menace: A Memoir of Liberation'' (ISBN 0465083668).