From another perspective

To be honest, I am sick of the androcentricity that permeates our society. Don’t get me wrong; I am not a man hater. I talking to men and hearing their ideas and I even like talking to them about beautiful women on television...like Demi Moore. What I can’t stand is when men believe they are experts on something that they cannot possibly fully understand.

Standpoint epistemology, as outlined by Sandra Harding in Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology, states that persons in a marginalized group will have epistemic privilege over those not occupying that same social position. This means that there is knowledge that is accessible to those facing oppression that is not accessible to those on the outside of that oppression. Privilege results in blinders and thus makes it impossible to possess certain knowledge. For another, perhaps more accessible outline of this, there is a great book called Feminist Methodologies; Challenges and Choices by Caroline Ramazanoglu and Janet Holland which I highly recommend.

By only reading one perspective on the dominant lesbian feminist movement and how it emerges from the dominant gay male movement, one is missing most of the story. A white male cannot possibly know what an African American, lesbian, Chicana, etc. woman experiences because of these social blinders. There is clearly knowledge that is not being portrayed. I would like to talk about one perspective that was brought up in class that I believe deserves further mention.

The Combahee River Collective was founded in 1974 out of the Boston chapter of the National Black Feminist Organization. Three of the members of this collective wrote a statement in 1977 outlining their views, problems in organizing, issues and practice. It states, “The major source of difficulty in our political work is that we are not just trying to fight oppression on one front or even two, but instead to address a while range of oppressions. We do not have racial, sexual, heterosexual or class privilege to rely upon…” (Combahee River Collective 314). More complex, and arguably more important, are the women who are being excluded from the dominant lesbian movement. African American women, during this time, are mobilizing and facing even more problems than the dominant feminist movement of the time. Viewing the movement with a single-pronged approach is, in more than one way, problematic. It is effectively continuing the exclusion that was started in the early phases of the feminist movement.

There is value, however, in the dominant viewpoint. The Combahee River Collective statement itself says, “Eliminating racism in the white women’s movement is by definition work for white women to do, but we will continue to speak to and demand accountability on this issue” (Combahee River Collective 316). White women, in this case, and men in the case of feminism and lesbian feminism, are important as well. It is their job, as oppressors, to work against oppression within their movement and to listen to the wishes of the oppressed and incorporate them into the movement (Ryder 380). Reading literature from the dominant perspective is as important as reading literature from the marginalized perspective.

A Black Feminist Statement written by the Combahee River Collective was a groundbreaking document highlighting the disillusionment that permeated the seemingly liberal movements of the 1960s and 1970s. There are many other perspectives that could be looked at in this context. I will follow this with a bibliography of some articles and essays I have found interesting and important that have come out of, or address 2^nd wave feminism and lesbian feminism.