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Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade Decision

“We are at an exceedingly dangerous, unprecedented moment."

-Joni Madison, Human Rights Campaign Interim President

The US Supreme Court made it official: in a 6-3 decision, the justices ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that the constitutional right to an abortion, which has existed for nearly half a century, no longer exists. States can now ban abortion, and about half are poised to do so. The long-planned radicalization of the Court by the right-wing has finally come to fruition, with the appointment under Donald Trump of three well-vetted justices guaranteed to carry out the right’s ideological agenda.

Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, said “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey [a subsequent abortion rights decision] have enflamed debate and deepened division. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

"You don’t own me. I’m not just one of your many toys.
Don’t tell me what to do. Don’t tell me what to say.
And please, when I go out with you, don’t put me on display."
-Leslie Gore

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The rhetoric about division is laughable. The majority of Americans support some form of access to abortion. This decision will only deepen division. It will, however, delight the conservative base that the justices are catering to. The lack of regard for precedent and for public opinion is a very bad sign for LGBTQ rights. Indeed, Justice Clarence Thomas all but issued an open invitation to right-wing legal activists to find cases to bring his way.

“The message here is clear and distressing: Americans are losing protected access to abortion, a constitutional right they have valued for nearly 50 years, and other rights to personal liberty are at risk too. The anti-abortion playbook and the anti-LGBTQ playbook are one and the same. Both are about denying control over our bodies and making it more dangerous for us to live as we are. Both divide our country into free and less free, the opposite of what the United States should be. Our bodies, healthcare and our future belong to us, not to a meddling politician or extremist Supreme Court justices, and we will fight back.”

-Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD President and CEO

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"I am not just a dreamer. I am a hopeaholic."

-Gloria Steinem

"This ruling will cost women their lives and livelihoods. It will cost LGBTQ women, transgender men and nonbinary people their lives and livelihoods. And it will cost their friends, family, loved ones and neighbors those lives and livelihoods as a result. We cannot and will not allow this gross injustice to stand. We must fight twice as hard and twice as long, if necessary, to secure this fundamental right as our opponents have fought to rip it away. We are working with our allies in the reproductive freedom movement across California and across the country to protect access to safe, legal abortion. And we remain focused on a variety of LGBTQ issues, including attacks against trans kids, efforts to roll back protections for LGBTQ students, critical criminal justice reforms and the freedom to marriage equality. We will continue to monitor developments that threaten hard-fought rights to ensure that we can confront them quickly. And we must vote out anyone who stands in our way — until the work is done."

-Tony Hoang, Executive Director of Equality California

“As a result of today’s decision, some people will die because they can no longer access abortion care. Others will have their lives ruined by not being able to make their own decisions about their health and their futures. And as Justice Thomas makes clear in his concurrence, which openly calls for the reversal of the fundamental rights to contraception, sexual intimacy, and marriage, the Court’s disregard for precedent poses a clear and present danger to freedoms that are of utmost importance not only to LGBTQ people but to every person in this country.”

-Julianna Gonen, Federal Policy Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights

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“Every person in this country should be deeply alarmed by this shameful ruling, which is simply not normal and should be beyond the bounds of what is thinkable for the body entrusted to uphold our constitutional freedoms. We must rally together across all our communities to push back against these extreme assaults. We will fight alongside our partners and at every level of state and federal government and in the courts for the right of transgender people to access life-saving healthcare and for parents’ basic right to seek that care for their transgender children; for the rights of LGBTQ students and students with LGBTQ families to be welcomed and included in schools; to protect the recognition of our relationships; to ensure stronger protections for LGBTQ families and all families; and for access to abortion, contraception and reproductive choice.”

-Janson Wu, Executive Director, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders

"It is disturbing and dangerous that the Court overturned the key precedents of Roe v. Wade and Casey. Doing so allows tremendous overreach and intrusion by the government into our most personal decisions and freedoms — on an issue that was settled five decades ago. This ruling is rooted in sexism and misogyny. It denies equality before the law and restricts the right of anyone who needs abortion care in order to make their own decisions about their own lives...We know this: bans on abortion are deeply racist and profoundly sexist — the harshest impacts always fall on Black and Brown women and pregnant people and our families and communities. This decision will impact these communities the most, and it is these lives that will be forever harmed by the loss of these fundamental rights."

-Kierra Johnson, Executive Director, National LGBTQ Task Force.

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Women's Rights

“Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.”

-Pat Robertson

As a group, women have long suffered many of the same acts of oppression endured by LGBTQ individuals. Women have experienced countless inequities and injustices over the years. Women have been the victims of discrimination, harassment, and violence. Issues of women's rights are very much parallel with LGBTQ rights. Women's Liberation and Gay Liberation have a lot in common regarding the fight for equality. The "Glass Ceiling" and the "Lavender Ceiling" are obstacles both groups fully recognize.

"I just think there are some things women shouldn't wear.

Like the weight of other people's expectations and judgements."
-Megan Rapinoe

Lesbian feminism is a cultural movement and critical perspective, most popular in the 1970s and early 1980s (primarily in North America and Western Europe), that questions the position of lesbians and women in society. Some key thinkers and activists are Charlotte Bunch, Rita Mae Brown, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Marilyn Frye, Mary Daly, Sheila Jeffreys and Monique Wittig. Historically lesbianism has been closely associated with feminism, going back at least to the 1890s. "Lesbian feminism" is a related movement that came together in the early 1970s out of dissatisfaction with second-wave feminism and the gay liberation movement.

In the words of lesbian feminist Sheila Jeffreys, "Lesbian feminism emerged as a result of two developments: lesbians within the Women's Liberation Movement began to create a new, distinctively feminist lesbian politics, and lesbians in the Gay Liberation Front left to join up with their sisters."

Sheila Jeffreys defines lesbian feminism as having seven key themes:

--Emphasis on women's love for one another
--Separatist organizations
--Community and ideas
--Idea that lesbianism is about choice and resistance
--Idea that the personal is the political
--Rejection of social hierarchy
--Critique of male-supremacy (which eroticizes inequality)

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Shout Out to Women

"She overcame everything that was meant to destroy her."
-Sylvester McNutt III

"Give a woman pain and she’ll turn it into power. Give that woman chaos and she’ll create peace."
-R. H. Sin

“I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men. They are far superior and always have been.”
-William Golding

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Overturning of Roe v. Wade: Assault on Women and Democracy Globally

The US Supreme Court’s decision in June 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade (the 1973 landmark case protecting the right to abortion) is an assault on women’s rights, human rights, and democracy that will have a damaging impact around the world.

The decision reverses nearly 50 years of precedent in the United States, explicitly ending federal Constitutional protections for abortion, diminishing the rights of women, and threatening their access to reproductive care. With the significant hurdles already confronting those seeking to access reproductive care in the US, this decision will not only exponentially increase those who are impacted, but will hurt communities systemically failed by health systems the most—especially communities of color and poor women.

This is particularly concerning given the role the United States has played in championing human rights globally. Roe v. Wade inspired movements and laws in countries such as Tunisia and Cape Verde, and activists across the globe have expressed alarm at the prospect of other countries emulating the Supreme Court’s decision. This ruling may also signal a return to US obstructionism on sexual and reproductive health and rights globally, and a renewed effort to withdraw US funding for reproductive health care.

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“The majority’s decision will not only wreak untold harm on women and families in the US, it could have reverberating damage around the world, rolling back hard-won advances in other nations and emboldening anti-choice movements,” said Laleh Ispahani, co-director of Open Society-US.

Twenty-four countries still prohibit abortion, including Malta, Honduras, Senegal, and the Philippines. More than 50 countries have severe restrictions in place. And in countries such as Poland, rollbacks of basic rights, including restrictions on abortion access, have happened alongside a rise in authoritarian leadership.

But there are signs of hope, too. Over the past decade, African countries such as Benin have reversed or relaxed colonial-era abortion laws, while Latin American states such as Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico have advanced towards decriminalization. In Colombia, for example, feminist lawyers and advocacy groups won exceptions to the country’s blanket abortion ban in 2006. By 2022, they had won cases that decriminalized all abortion before 24 weeks of gestation. In Mexico, pro-choice groups and strategic litigation efforts resulted in the Mexican Supreme Court decriminalizing abortion in 2021. In Argentina, feminist movements secured the adoption of legislation legalizing abortion in 2020.

[Source: Open Society Foundations, June 2022]

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Overturning Roe v Wade: Huge Blow to Women’s Rights

The June 2022 decision by the US Supreme Court which overturns the 50-year-old Roe v Wade judgement guaranteeing access to abortion across the United States, was described by the UN human rights chief as “a huge blow to women’s human rights and gender equality.”

The widely anticipated Supreme Court decision, by six votes to three, was made in the specific case of Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health, and Michelle Bachelet said in a statement that it represents a “major setback” for sexual and reproductive health across the US.

The historic decision returns all questions of legality and access to abortion, to the individual states.

Reacting earlier to the US ruling, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) noted that a staggering 45 per cent of all abortions around the world, are unsafe, making the procedure a leading cause of maternal death. The agencies said it was inevitable that more women will die, as restrictions by national or regional governments increase.

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Restrictions, ineffective

“Whether abortion is legal or not, it happens all too often. Data show that restricting access to abortion does not prevent people from seeking abortion, it simply makes it more deadly”, UNFPA highlighted.

According to the agencies’ 2022 State of World Population report, nearly half of all pregnancies worldwide are unintended, and over 60 per cent of these may end in abortion.

UNFPA said that it feared that more unsafe abortions will occur around the world if access becomes more restricted. “Decisions reversing progress gained have a wider impact on the rights and choices of women and adolescents everywhere”, the agency emphasized.

WHO echoed the message on their official Twitter account, reminding that removing barriers to abortion “protects women’s lives, health and human rights”.

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An attack on women’s autonomy

Ms. Bachelet further reminded that access to safe, legal and effective abortion is firmly rooted in international human right law and is at the core of women and girls’ autonomy, and ability to make their own choices about their bodies and lives, free of discrimination, violence and coercion.

“This decision strips such autonomy from millions of women in the US, in particular those with low incomes and those belonging to racial and ethnic minorities, to the detriment of their fundamental rights”, she warned. The rights chief highlighted that the decision came after more than 50 countries with previously restrictive laws have liberalized their abortion legislation over the past 25 years. “With today’s ruling, the US is regrettably moving away from this progressive trend”, she said.

Meanwhile, the UN agency, UN Women, cautioned in another statement that the ability of women to control what happens to their own bodies, is also associated with the roles women are able to play in society, whether as a member of the family, the workforce, or government.

Countries’ responsibilities

The 1994 Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), signed by 179 countries including the United States, recognized how deadly unsafe abortions are, and urged all countries to provide post-abortion care to save lives, irrespective of the legal status of abortion.

The document (resulting from a high-level meeting in Cairo, Egypt) also highlighted that all people should be able to access quality information about their reproductive health and contraceptives. UNFPA, as the custodian of the Programme of Action, advocates for the right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so.

The agency also warned that if unsafe abortions continue, Sustainable Development Goal 3, related to maternal health, to which all UN Member States have committed, will be at risk of not being met.

[Source: United Nations, June 2022]

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Supreme Court Drafts Opinion to Overturn Roe v Wade

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled.”
-Justice Samuel Alito

The US Supreme Court has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, according to an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito.

The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights (Roe v. Wade) and the subsequent 1992 decision (Planned Parenthood v. Casey) that largely maintained the right.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes. “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he writes in the document, labeled as the “Opinion of the Court.”

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”
-Justice Samuel Alito

The other Republican-appointed justices (Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett) had voted with Alito in the conference held among the justices after hearing oral arguments in December, and that line-up remains unchanged as of this week.

The three Democratic-appointed justices (Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan) are working on one or more dissents, according to the person. How Chief Justice John Roberts will ultimately vote, and whether he will join an already written opinion or draft his own, is unclear.

[Source: Josh Gerstein & Alexander Ward, Politico, May 2022]

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Poll Finds Majority of Americans say Supreme Court Should Uphold Roe V Wade

A majority of Americans say the Supreme Court should uphold Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that established a constitutional right to abortion, a Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted last week finds. With the Supreme Court poised to overturn the right to abortion, the survey finds that 54 percent of Americans think the 1973 Roe decision should be upheld while 28 percent believe it should be overturned — a roughly 2-to-1 margin.

By about a 2-to-1 margin, Americans say Roe v. Wade should be upheld rather than overturned. The poll posed the question: As you may know, abortion law in the United States is based on the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling known as Roe v. Wade. Do you think the Supreme Court should uphold Roe v. Wade or overturn it?

Uphold 54%
Overturn 28%
No Opinion 18%

The Post-ABC poll finds that 57 percent of Americans oppose their state making abortions legal only in the first 15 weeks of pregnancy, while a similar majority, 58 percent, opposes limiting abortion to the first six weeks of pregnancy.

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Should the Supreme Court strike down Roe, some states could pass laws restricting or protecting access to abortion. The poll shows that one-third of Americans, 33 percent, say access to abortion in their state should be made easier, while slightly more, 36 percent, say abortion access should be left as is for now. A quarter, 25 percent, say it should be harder to access abortion.

More broadly, the Washington Post/ABC News poll finds 58 percent of Americans say abortion should be legal in “most cases” or “all cases,” while 37 percent say it should be illegal in “most cases” or “all cases.”

Public opinion on the legality of abortion has not shifted significantly since 2019, when 60 percent of Americans said it should be legal in all or most cases. Support today is slightly above the average of 55 percent saying it should be legal in all or most cases over 33 national Post-ABC polls dating back to 1995.

Americans overwhelmingly support permitting abortion in certain cases. Eighty-two percent say abortion should be legal when the woman’s physical health is endangered, and 79 percent say abortion should be legal when the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest. Meanwhile, 67 percent say abortion should be legal when there is evidence of serious birth defects.

Americans are more evenly divided on abortion in instances when the person who is pregnant cannot afford to have a child, with 48 percent saying it should be legal and 45 percent saying it should be illegal.

Despite varying opinions on when abortions should be allowed or not, 70 percent of Americans say the decision of whether a woman can have an abortion should be made by the woman and her doctor; 24 percent say it should be regulated by law. The majority saying the decision should be left to a woman and her doctor declined slightly from 75 percent in a November poll.

Views on Roe in the new poll range heavily based on partisan affiliation, with 75 percent of Democrats saying the court should uphold the ruling, compared with 53 percent of independents and 36 percent of Republicans. A plurality of Republicans, 44 percent, say the court should overturn the ruling, while 19 percent offer no opinion.

[Source: Washington Post/ABC News, May 2022]

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Bell Hooks: Queer Black Feminist Writer Passes Away

Esteemed queer Black feminist author bell hooks has died at age 69. She died in Dec 2021 at her home in Berea, KY. She had been ill, and friends and family were with her.

Her dozens of books included essays, poetry, and works for children, and she dealt with issues of intersectionality long before many others. These issues were at the core of her 1981 book Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, which examined the impact of sexism on Black women throughout history as well as racism within the feminist movement.

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Queer Black Feminist Writer Bell Hooks Dies at 69
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All About Love: New Visions, first published in 2000, deals with how love can heal a polarized society and asserts that love cannot be separated from justice. Amid the protests against police brutality and systemic racism last year, it “became sought-after reading,” according to the Bell Hooks Center at Berea College.

She was one of Time’s 100 Women of the Year in 2020, and the magazine called her a “rare rock star of a public intellectual.” Utne Reader in 1995 listed her among its 100 Visionaries Who Can Change Your Life.

She once described her identity as “queer-pas-gay.” She was critical, however, of those who viewed racism and homophobia as the same. “White people, gay and straight, could show greater understanding of the impact of racial oppression on people of color by not attempting to make these oppressions synonymous, but rather by showing the ways they are linked and yet differ,” she wrote in 1999’s Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black.

She was born in 1952 in Hopkinsville, KY, as Gloria Jean Watkins. Her pen name, "bell hooks," was her great-grandmother’s name, which she styled in all lowercase letters as a way to place importance on “substance of books, not who I am,” she said.

Growing up in Kentucky, she attended segregated schools that did not teach about the impact of racism. She went on to study at Stanford University, then earned a master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin and a doctorate at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She taught at Stanford, Yale University, and the City College of New York, then joined Berea’s faculty in 2004. Berea was founded in the 1850s by abolitionists who were dedicated to equal education for people of all races and genders.

The Bell Hooks Center at Berea hosts speakers on feminism and social justice, and seeks “to chart a new chapter in Berea College’s great, historical commitments — one that cultivates radical coalition between women, LGBTQ students, and students of color,” according to its website. The college also houses Hooks’s papers and artifacts. “Berea College is deeply saddened about the death of bell hooks, Distinguished Professor in Residence in Appalachian Studies, prodigious author, public intellectual and one of the country’s foremost feminist scholars,” said a statement from the school.

“I want my work to be about healing,” Hooks once said. “I am a fortunate writer because every day of my life practically I get a letter, a phone call from someone who tells me how my work has transformed their life.”

[Source: Trudy Ring, Advocate, December 2021]

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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dies

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a champion of civil rights for LGBTQ people, women, and many others, has died at age 87, on September 18, 2020 at her home in Washington DC. Appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, she was the second woman to serve on the high court, after Sandra Day O’Connor.

"Our nation has lost a justice of historic stature," Chief Justice John Roberts said. "We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her, a tireless and resolute champion of justice."

Architect of the legal fight for women's rights in the 1970s, Ginsburg subsequently served 27 years on the nation's highest court, becoming its most prominent member. Her death will inevitably set in motion what promises to be a nasty and tumultuous political battle over who will succeed her, and it thrusts the Supreme Court vacancy into the spotlight of the presidential campaign.

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About Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Tops the "Women of the Year" list compiled by Advocate Magazine. In reality, Ginsburg is a woman of the year every year, but this year she joins a long line of other trailblazers for Advocate's annual women's issue. Ginsburg has a long history of fighting for the rights of women, LGBTQ people, people of color, and other marginalized groups.

As a lawyer, she was arguing against sex discrimination back in the 1970s, when what was then called Women’s Liberation had far from universal support. One of her most significant early cases was Moritz v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue Service, which showed that gender equality benefited men as well as women. In the case, dramatized in the 2018 film On the Basis of Sex, Ginsburg successfully argued that a man shouldn’t be denied a tax deduction for what he paid his mother’s caregiver, when a woman in the same situation would receive the deduction.

Ginsburg, who graduated first in her class at Columbia Law School in 1959, taught law at Rutgers University, where she started a class on women and the law, and then Columbia before President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1980. Then President Bill Clinton appointed her to the Supreme Court in 1993, making her only the second woman to serve on the high court. Three years later, she joined the court’s majority in its first pro-LGBTQ ruling, Romer v. Evans, which struck down a discriminatory state constitutional amendment in Colorado.

Ginsburg went on to be in the majority in other pro-equality rulings, and she dissented eloquently from the court’s 2018 ruling in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple because, according to the baker, it would violate his rights of freedom of speech and religion. While the majority found that Colorado officials, when they found baker Jack Phillips had run afoul of the state’s antidiscrimination law, did not give his religious beliefs appropriate consideration, Ginsburg wrote, “What matters is that Phillips would not provide a good or service to a same-sex couple that he would provide to a heterosexual couple.” She further noted, “Phillips declined to make a cake he found offensive where the offensiveness of the product was determined solely by the identity of the customer requesting it.”

That was in keeping with Ginsburg’s record. In 2013, she became the first Supreme Court justice to officiate a same-sex couple’s wedding. “I think it will be one more statement that people who love each other and want to live together should be able to enjoy the blessings and the strife in the marriage relationship,” she told The Washington Post at the time. She has gone on to officiate weddings for other same-sex couples.

The Notorious RBG remains a fierce advocate for equality. Long may she rule.

[Source: Trudy Ring, Advocate Magazine, May 2020]

CNN: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dies at 87

NPR: Champion of Gender Equality Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dies

Slate: What Justice Ginsburg Would Want America to Do Now

ABC News: Supreme Court Powerhouse Ginsburg Dies at 87

NPR: Vigil for Ruth Bader Ginsburg

It's Time for LGBTQ Women to Claim Our Seats at the Table

Queer Suffragists Who Fought for Women’s Right to Vote

What Was It Like?

They asked me to tell you what it was like to be twenty and pregnant in 1950 and when you tell your boyfriend you’re pregnant, he tells you about a friend of his in the army whose girl told him she was pregnant, so he got all his buddies to come and say, “We all fucked her, so who knows who the father is?” And he laughs at the good joke….

What was it like, if you were planning to go to graduate school and get a degree and earn a living so you could support yourself and do the work you loved—what it was like to be a senior at Radcliffe and pregnant and if you bore this child, this child which the law demanded you bear and would then call “unlawful,” “illegitimate,” this child whose father denied it … What was it like? ...

It’s like this: if I had dropped out of college, thrown away my education, depended on my parents … if I had done all that, which is what the anti-abortion people want me to have done, I would have borne a child for them, … the authorities, the theorists, the fundamentalists; I would have born a child for them, their child.

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But I would not have born my own first child, or second child, or third child. My children.

The life of that fetus would have prevented, would have aborted, three other fetuses … the three wanted children, the three I had with my husband—whom, if I had not aborted the unwanted one, I would never have met … I would have been an “unwed mother” of a three-year-old in California, without work, with half an education, living off her parents….

But it is the children I have to come back to, my children Elisabeth, Caroline, Theodore, my joy, my pride, my loves. If I had not broken the law and aborted that life nobody wanted, they would have been aborted by a cruel, bigoted, and senseless law. They would never have been born. This thought I cannot bear.

What was it like, in the Dark Ages when abortion was a crime, for the girl whose dad couldn’t borrow cash, as my dad could? What was it like for the girl who couldn’t even tell her dad, because he would go crazy with shame and rage? Who couldn’t tell her mother? Who had to go alone to that filthy room and put herself body and soul into the hands of a professional criminal? – because that is what every doctor who did an abortion was, whether he was an extortionist or an idealist.

You know what it was like for her. You know and I know; that is why we are here. We are not going back to the Dark Ages. We are not going to let anybody in this country have that kind of power over any girl or woman. There are great powers, outside the government and in it, trying to legislate the return of darkness. We are not great powers. But we are the light. Nobody can put us out. May all of you shine very bright and steady, today and always.

[Source: Ursula K. Le Guin]

NPR: What The Texas Abortion Ban Does and What It Means For Other States
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Lesbians in the 1960s Feminist Movement

When Betty Friedan started the National Organization for Women, the last thing she wanted male America to think of was butch lesbians. The problem was, they were women too.

In 1969, political activism in America was reaching a fever pitch. The convulsions of 1968 (within the US and abroad) were still reverberating, and there was a sense among many young people that the stakes had never been higher. The continued calamity of the Vietnam War was unfolding. Racial tension was explosive. Social movements were coalescing, and using novel tactics to get what they wanted. Almost all were also grappling with what we now call identity politics. Tensions between assimilationism and the drive to pursue a more radical agenda threatened to undermine or tear apart groups of activists.

The “women’s liberation movement” was in full swing. Across the country, women gathered in consciousness-raising groups to share their experiences, read feminist texts, and work together to come to a fuller understanding of their own oppression. They debated politics. They talked intimately about previously private issues: marriage, mothering, dieting, rape, incest, and violence. They taught themselves self-defense. Groups like WITCH and Redstockings staged sit-ins, boycotts, and other protest actions. Media outlets clamored for hot leads about frustrated housewives, angry coeds, and other “women’s libbers.” As one editor is rumored to have told a writer, “Get the bra burning and the karate up front.”

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At the time, Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique, the 1963 book that blew the lid off of suburban female misery, was the president of the National Organization for Women (NOW). She had helped found the group three years earlier. NOW was arguably the most important feminist organization of the time, but there were tensions within its ranks. Friedan and other straight feminists were concerned that the presence of “mannish” or “man-hating” lesbians would hinder their cause.

The notion that a lesbian aesthetic or “agenda” would compromise feminists’ political power or mar their image in the broader culture was debated in many circles at the time, but few went so far as to overtly exclude lesbians. Friedan did, however. She severed ties with some known lesbians, and resisted affiliation with lesbian organizations. Del Martin, longtime activist and founder of the Daughters of Bilitis, the first official lesbian organization in the country, recalled, “Betty Friedan was such a homophobe. She was so afraid of the stigma lesbians might bring to the organization." Friedan even deleted references to lesbian organizations from the program for the First Congress to Unite Women the same year.

The homophobia of more conservative feminists was an unfortunate hurdle (and a nuisance) to many lesbian feminists, but when, at a 1969 NOW meeting, Friedan referred to the lesbian contingent as a “lavender menace,” some thought she’d taken it too far. Within the year, however, NOW had adopted a resolution recognizing lesbian rights as “a legitimate concern of feminism.”

National Organization for Women

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Women’s Issues Websites

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Here's to Strong Women

"Well behaved women rarely make history."
-Eleanore Roosevelt

"I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong."
-Audrey Hepburn

"Here's to strong women. May we know them. May we be them. May we raise them."

-Quote

"I am deliberate and afraid of nothing."
-Audre Lorde

"We need women who are so strong they can be gentle, so educated they can be humble, so fierce they can be compassionate, so passionate they can be rational, so disciplined they can be free."

-Kavita Ramdas

"Do not tame the wolf inside you just because you've met someone who doesn't have the courage to handle you."
-Belle Estreller

“The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race.”
-Susan B. Anthony

"A strong woman is one who feels deeply and loves fiercely. Her tears flow as abundantly as her laughter. A strong woman is both soft and powerful. She is both practical and spiritual. A strong woman in her essence is a gift to the world.”
-Native American Saying

"She was brave and strong and broken all at once."
-Anna Funder

What is Transmisogyny?

Is Feminism a Dirty Word?

Info: Definition of Lesbian

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NY Times: Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Yazidi Activist and Congolese Doctor

Taylor Swift: I'd Be The Man

American Girl (Alternate Version) by Tom Petty

Meredith Brooks: Bitch

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Guardian: Nobel Peace Prize Won by Mukwege and Murad

Lesley Gore: You Don't Own Me

The Story of Lilith

Women's March 2018

The second annual Women's March took place on Saturday, January 20 and Sunday, January 21, 2018 in various US cities, including Washington DC, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Austin, Seattle, and Las Vegas. In the same spirit as last year's event, the Women's March was a demonstration for human rights and other issues, including women's rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, LGBTQ rights, racial equality, voter empowerment, and sexual harassment.

Since the last protest march, a deluge of revelations about powerful men abusing women, leading to the #MeToo movement, has pushed activists to demand deeper social and political change. Progressive women are eager to build on the movement and translate their enthusiasm into electoral victories in this year’s midterm elections.

More than 200,000 protesters attended the march in New York. 600,000 attended the march in Los Angeles. And organizers of the Chicago march said 300,000 attended that event. As with last year's event, much of the protest centered on President Trump's ongoing disrespectful remarks about women and minorities.

Melissa Etheridge and Gay Men's Chorus at Women's March

NY Times: Thousands Participate in Women's March

Amazing Signs From the Women's March

CNN: Women's March Draws Big Crowds

Kids Protesting at Women's March

Huff Post: Great Protest Signs From Women's March

CNN: The Future is Female

Phenomenal Women

"Do not allow people to dim your shine because they’re blinded. Tell them to put on some sunglasses."

-Lady Gaga

"Men may have discovered fire. But women discovered how to play with it."

-Quote

"I am a woman phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, that's me."
-Maya Angelou

"I'm tough. I'm ambitious. And I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay."
-Madonna

"At present, our country needs a women's idealism and determination."
-Shirley Chisholm

"Strong women don't have attitudes. We have standards."
-Marilyn Monroe

"I am a woman with thoughts and questions and shit to say. I say if I am beautiful. I say if I am strong. You will not determine my story. I will."
-Amy Schumer

"Everyone wants a strong woman until she actually stands up, flexes her muscles, and projects her voice. Suddenly, she is too much. She has forgotten her place. You love those women as ideas, as fantasies, not as breathing, living humans threatening to be even better than you could ever be."
-The Minds Journal

"Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim."
-Nora Ephron

"My mother always told me, Hide your face, people are looking at you. I would reply, It doesn't matter. I am also looking at them."
-Malala

National Organization for Women

Women’s Issues Websites

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Lady Gaga: Till it Happens to You

Hundreds of Cities Joined Women's March

Women's March 2017

On Saturday, January 21, 2017, more than 2 million people across the world, led by hundreds of thousands who overwhelmed the nation's capital, protested the first full day of President Trump's tenure.

The Women's March was a worldwide protest to advocate legislation and policies regarding human rights and other issues, including women's rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, the natural environment, LGBTQ rights, racial equality, freedom of religion, and workers' rights.

What began as a Facebook post by a Hawaii grandmother the day after Hillary Clinton's loss in November's election blossomed into a massive protest uniting people of all ages, races and religions who crowded downtown Washington. They called for a "revolution" as a bulwark against the new administration and the Republican-led Congress they fear will roll back reproductive, civil and human rights.

According to a sister march webpage, an estimated 2.6 million people took part in 673 marches in all 50 states and 32 countries, from Belarus to New Zealand — with the largest taking place in Washington.

The crowds were so large in some cities that marching was almost impossible. In Chicago, organizers halted the march and rallied at Grant Park instead as crowds swelled to 150,000, although thousands still marched. In New York City, the number was 400,000, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio; in Boston, media reported more than 100,000 people marching in Boston Common. In Oakland, Calif., police estimated that about 60,000 people took part in the women's march. Local media reports said that San Francisco’s rally later in the day may have attracted as many as 100,000.

Women and men across the country participated in a “Women's March on Washington” in the nation's capital the day after the inauguration as a rebuke to President-elect Donald Trump's incendiary remarks about women and minorities during his presidential campaign.

The undercurrent of the protest was heavily female-oriented, with women decrying Trump's comments about women, the uncertain future of access to birth control and abortion, and the fact that Hillary Clinton missed becoming the first woman to hold the presidency.

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Badass Signs From Women's March

Voices and Portraits From Women's March

Photos From Women's Marches Around the World

Madonna: Billboard Woman of the Year 2016

This is her Madonna's speech while accepting the Billboard Woman Of The Year award in 2016.

"I stand before you as a doormat. Oh, I mean, as a female entertainer," Madonna said. "Thank you for acknowledging my ability to continue my career for 34 years in the face of blatant sexism and misogyny and constant bullying and relentless abuse."

Recalling her life as a teenager when she first moved to New York: "People were dying of AIDS everywhere. It wasn’t safe to be gay, it wasn’t cool to be associated with the gay community," Madonna recalled. "It was 1979 and New York was a very scary place. In the first year I was held at gunpoint, raped on a rooftop with a knife digging into my throat and I had my apartment broken into and robbed so many times I stopped locking the door. In the years that followed, I lost almost every friend I had to AIDS or drugs or gunshots."

"In life there is no real safety except for self-belief."

"I was of course inspired by Debbie Harry and Chrissie Hynde and Aretha Franklin, but my real muse was David Bowie. He embodied male and female spirit and that suited me just fine. He made me think there were no rules. But I was wrong. There are no rules -- if you're a boy. There are rules if you're a girl."

"If you're a girl, you have to play the game. You're allowed to be pretty and cute and sexy. But don’t act too smart. Don’t have an opinion that's out of line with the status quo. You are allowed to be objectified by men and dress like a slut, but don’t own your sluttiness. And do not, I repeat do not, share your own sexual fantasies with the world. Be what men want you to be, but more importantly, be what women feel comfortable with you being around other men. And finally, do not age. Because to age is a sin. You will be criticized and vilified and definitely not played on the radio."

Madonna also opened up about the time in her life when she felt "like the most hated person on the planet," she said, as she became emotional.. "Eventually I was left alone because I married Sean Penn, and not only would he bust a cap in your ass, but I was off the market. For a while I was not considered a threat. Years later, divorced and single -- sorry Sean -- I made my Erotica album and my Sex book was released. I remember being the headline of every newspaper and magazine. Everything I read about myself was damning. I was called a whore and a witch. One headline compared me to Satan. I said, 'Wait a minute, isn't Prince running around with fishnets and high heels and lipstick with his butt hanging out?' Yes, he was. But he was a man."

"This was the first time I truly understood women do not have the same freedom as men."

"I remember wishing I had a female peer I could look to for support. Camille Paglia, the famous feminist writer, said I set women back by objectifying myself sexually. So I thought, 'oh, if you're a feminist, you don't have sexuality, you deny it.' So I said 'fuck it. I'm a different kind of feminist. I'm a bad feminist.'"

"I think the most controversial thing I have ever done is to stick around. Michael is gone. Tupac is gone. Prince is gone. Whitney is gone. Amy Winehouse is gone. David Bowie is gone. But I'm still standing. I'm one of the lucky ones and every day I count my blessings."

"What I would like to say to all women here today is this: Women have been so oppressed for so long they believe what men have to say about them. They believe they have to back a man to get the job done. And there are some very good men worth backing, but not because they're men -- because they're worthy. As women, we have to start appreciating our own worth and each other's worth. Seek out strong women to befriend, to align yourself with, to learn from, to collaborate with, to be inspired by, to support, and enlightened by," she urged.

"It's not so much about receiving this award as it is having this opportunity to stand before you and say thank you,"

"Not only to the people who have loved and supported me along the way, you have no idea...you have no idea how much your support means," she said, tearing up for the second time. "But to the doubters and naysayers and everyone who gave me hell and said I could not, that I would not or I must not -- your resistance made me stronger, made me push harder, made me the fighter that I am today. It made me the woman that I am today. So thank you."

Madonna: Woman of The Year Speech Billboard Women in Music 2016

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These Boots Are Made for Walking

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Flashmob: Victoria's Secret

AutoStraddle: Female Friends Forever

Wikipedia: Womyn
Advocate Magazine: Women of the Year

Meredith Brooks: Bitch

Throw Like a Girl

Highwomen: Redesigning Women

Feminist and Lesbian Separatism

Separatism

Lesbian separatism is a form of separatist feminism specific to lesbians. Separatism has been considered by lesbians as both a temporary strategy and as a lifelong practice, but mostly the latter. In separatist feminism, lesbianism is posited as a key feminist strategy that enables women to invest their energies in other women, creating new space and dialogue about women's relationships, and typically, limits their dealings with men.

Lesbian separatism became popular in the 1970s, as some lesbians doubted whether mainstream society or even the gay rights movement had anything to offer them. In 1970, seven women, including Del Martin, confronted the North Conference of Homophile [meaning homosexual] Organizations about the relevance of the gay rights movement to the women within it. The delegates passed a resolution in favor of women's liberation, but Martin felt they had not done enough and wrote "If That's All There Is", an influential 1970 essay in which she decried gay rights organizations as sexist. In the summer of 1971, a lesbian group calling themselves "The Furies" formed a commune open to lesbians only, where they put out a monthly newspaper. "The Furies" consisted of twelve women, aged 18-28, all feminists, all lesbians, all white, with three children among them. They shared chores and clothes, lived together, held some of their money in common, and slept on mattresses on a common floor. They also started a school to teach women auto and home repair so they would not be dependent on men. The newspaper lasted from January 1972 to June 1973; the commune itself ended in 1972.

Charlotte Bunch, an early member of "The Furies", viewed separatist feminism as a strategy, a "first step" period, or temporary withdrawal from mainstream activism to accomplish specific goals or enhance personal growth. Other lesbians, such as Lambda Award winning author Elana Dykewomon, have chosen separatism as a lifelong practice.

In addition to advocating withdrawal from working, personal or casual relationships with men, "The Furies" recommended that Lesbian Separatists relate "only (with) women who cut their ties to male privilege" and suggested that "as long as women still benefit from heterosexuality, receive its privileges and security, they will at some point have to betray their sisters, especially Lesbian sisters who do not receive those benefits".

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This was part of a larger idea that Bunch articulated in Learning from Lesbian Separatism, that "in a male-supremacist society, heterosexuality is a political institution" and the practice of separatism is a way to escape its domination.

In her 1988 book, Lesbian Ethics: Towards a New Value, lesbian philosopher Sarah Lucia Hoagland alludes to lesbian separatism's potential to encourage lesbians to develop healthy community ethics based on shared values. Hoagland articulates a distinction (originally noted by Lesbian Separatist author and anthologist Julia Penelope) between a lesbian subculture and a lesbian community; membership in the subculture being "defined in negative terms by an external, hostile culture", and membership in the community being based on "the values we believe we can enact here".

Bette Tallen believes that lesbian separatism, unlike some other separatist movements, is "not about the establishment of an independent state, it is about the development of an autonomous self-identity and the creation of a strong solid lesbian community".

Lesbian historian Lillian Faderman describes the separatist impulses of lesbian feminism which created culture and cultural artifacts as "giving love between women greater visibility" in broader culture. Faderman also believes that lesbian feminists who acted to create separatist institutions did so to "bring their ideals about integrity, nurturing the needy, self-determination and equality of labor and rewards into all aspects of institution-building and economics".

The practice of Lesbian separatism sometimes incorporates concepts related to queer nationalism and political lesbianism. Some individuals who identify as Lesbian separatists are also associated with the practice of Dianic paganism.

Lesbian Feminism

Essay by Adrienne Rich: Compulsory Heterosexuality & Lesbian Existence

Womyn's Land

Backstory: Womyn
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Herstory Project: Feminism and Lesbianism

Article: Lesbian Separatism

Lesbians in the 1960s Feminist Movement

Elsewhere, lesbian feminists have situated female separatism as quite a mainstream thing and have explored the mythology surrounding it. Marilyn Frye's (1978) essay Notes on Separatism and Power is one such example. She posits female separatism as a strategy practiced by all women, at some point, and present in many feminist projects (one might cite women's refuges, electoral quotas or women's studies programs). She argues that it is only when women practice it, self-consciously as separation from men, that it is treated with controversy (or as she suggests hysteria). On the other hand, male separatism (one might cite gentleman's clubs, labor unions, sports teams, the military and, more arguably, decision-making positions in general) is seen as quite a normal, even expedient phenomenon.

Still, other lesbian feminists put forward a notion of "tactical separatism" from men, arguing for and investing in things like women's sanctuaries and consciousness-raising groups, but also exploring everyday practices to which women may temporarily retreat or practice solitude from men and masculinity.

Margaret Sloan-Hunter compared lesbian separatism to black separatism. In her work Making Separatist Connections: The Issue is Woman Identification she stated: "If Lesbian separatism fails it will be because women are so together that we will just exude woman identification wherever we go. But since sexism is much older than racism, it seems that we must for now embrace separatism, at least psychically, for health and consciousness sake. This is a revolution, not a public relations campaign, we must keep reminding ourselves."

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Conflict in the Feminist/Lesbian Movement in the 60s

Dispute Between Radical Feminism and Transgenderism

Lesbians Fight Against TERFs

Info: Transgender Issues

Womyn

"Womyn" is an alternate spelling of the word "woman." The term is sometimes used by some feminist and lesbian separatist groups as a nonsexist spelling of "woman" in order to deliberately avoid the suffix "man." The term has been tied to the concept of feminism as a form of the word "woman" without patriarchal connotations. The term is sometimes used in labeling certain academic programs, categories of literature, concert events, festivals, interest groups, support groups, and communities/communes related to feminist or lesbian issues.

Womyn's Land

Womyn's land is an intentional community organized by lesbian separatists to establish counter-cultural, women-centered space, without the presence of men. These lands were the result of a social movement of the same name that developed in the 1970s in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and western Europe. Many still exist today. Womyn's land-based communities and residents are loosely networked through social media; print publications such as newsletters; Maize: A Lesbian Country Magazine; Lesbian Natural Resources, a not-for-profit organization that offers grants and resources; and regional and local gatherings.

Womyn's lands practice various forms of lesbian separatism, an idea which emerged as a result of the Radical Feminist movement in the late 1960s. Lesbian separatism is based on the idea that women must exist separately from men, socially and politically, in order to achieve the goals of feminism. These separatist communities exist as a way for women to achieve female liberation by separating themselves from mainstream patriarchal society. Men are not allowed to live in these communities, but a few lands allow men to visit. Some communities ban male infants and/or male relatives.

Woman-Identified Woman

If the founding of the lesbian feminist movement could be pinpointed at a specific moment, it would probably be May 1970, when Radicalesbians, an activist group of 20 lesbians led by lesbian novelist Rita Mae Brown, took over the Congress to Unite Women, a women's conference in New York City. Uninvited, they lined up on stage wearing matching T-shirts inscribed with the words "Lavender Menace", and demanded the microphone to read aloud to an audience of 400 their essay "The Woman-Identified Woman", which laid out the main precepts of their movement. Later on, Adrienne Rich incorporated this concept in her essay "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence", in which she unpacks the idea that patriarchy dictates women to be focused on men or to be "men-identified women. Becoming women-identified women, i.e. changing the focus of attention and energy from men to women, is a way to resist the patriarchal oppression".

Contrary to some popular beliefs about "man-hating butch dykes", lesbian feminist theory does not support the concept of female masculinity. Proponents like Sheila Jeffreys have argued that "all forms of masculinity are problematic".

This is one of the principal areas in which lesbian feminism differs from queer theory, perhaps best summarized by Judith Halberstam's quip that "If Sheila Jeffreys didn't exist, Camille Paglia would have had to invent her."

Lesbian Feminism

Essay by Adrienne Rich: Compulsory Heterosexuality & Lesbian Existence

Womyn's Land

Backstory: Womyn
Gloria Steinem: Why You Should Be a Feminist

Herstory Project: Feminism and Lesbianism

Article: Lesbian Separatism

Lesbians in the 1960s Feminist Movement

My Out Spirit: Women’s Issues

What is Transmisogyny?

The term "transmisogyny" describes so much of what we see in the cultural and systemic treatment of trans women in our culture and ties in so clearly with feminism, and yet it’s not a word that many people know about or understand.

You may have heard of transphobia: the discrimination of and negative attitudes toward transgender people based on their gender expression.

And you’ve likely heard of misogyny: the hatred and denigration of women and characteristics deemed feminine.

Transmisogyny, then, is the confluence of these: the negative attitudes, expressed through cultural hate, individual and state violence, and discrimination directed toward trans women and trans and gender non-conforming people on the feminine end of the gender spectrum.

Transfeminist theorist and author Julia Serano argues in her book Whipping Girl that transphobia is rooted in sexism, and locates the origins of both transphobia and homophobia in what she calls "oppositional sexism," the belief that male and female are "rigid, mutually exclusive categories, each possessing a unique and nonoverlapping set of attributes, aptitudes, abilities, and desires." Serano contrasts oppositional sexism with "traditional sexism," the belief that males and masculinity are superior to females and femininity. Furthermore, she writes that transphobia is fueled by insecurities people have about gender and gender norms.

What is Transmisogyny?

PBS Video: Queer Feminist Punk Rocker

It's Time for LGBTQ Women to Claim Our Seats at the Table

It's Time for LGBTQ Women to Claim Our Seats at the Table

Women of Indomitable Will

"You have to learn to get up from the table when love is no longer being served."
-Nina Simone

"I am mine before I am anyone else's."
-Nayyirah Waheed

"Any woman who chooses is a strong woman. A strong woman chooses to follow her dreams and chooses to sacrifice her dreams. A strong woman chooses to build her career and chooses to take care of her family. A strong woman chooses to speak up and chooses to stay quiet. A strong woman chooses to be herself and chooses to sacrifice herself."
-The Minds Journal

"Never apologize for being sensitive or emotional. Let this be a sign that you’ve got a big heart and aren’t afraid to let others see it. Showing your emotions is a sign of strength."
-Brigitte Nicole

"Anytime someone tells me I can’t do something, I want to do it more."

-Taylor Swift

"You were wild once. Don't let them tame you."

-Isadora Duncan

"The world needs strong women. Women who will lift and build others, who will love and be loved. Women who live bravely, both tender and fierce. Women of indomitable will."
-Amy Tenney

"Strong women only intimidate weak men."

-Quote

"Tremendous amounts of talent are being lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt."
-Shirley Chisholm

"I became a lesbian because of women, because women are beautiful strong, and compassionate."
-Rita Mae Brown

"The most alluring thing a woman can have is confidence."

-Beyoncé

"We are powerful because we have survived."

-Audre Lorde

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Lesbian Continuum

"Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" is a 1980 essay by Adrienne Rich, published in her 1986 book Blood, Bread, and Poetry.

Rich argues that heterosexuality is a violent political institution making way for the "male right of physical, economical, and emotional access" to women. She urges women to direct their energies towards other women rather than men, and portrays lesbianism as an extension of feminism. Rich challenges the notion of women's dependence on men as social and economic supports, as well as for adult sexuality and psychological completion. She calls for what she describes as a greater understanding of lesbian experience, and believes that once such an understanding is obtained, these boundaries will be widened and women will be able to experience the "erotic" in female terms.

In order to gain this physical, economical, and emotional access for women, Rich lays out a framework developed by Kathleen Gough (both a social anthropologist and feminist) that lists "eight characteristics of male power in archaic and contemporary societies." Along with the framework given, Rich sets to define the term lesbianism by giving two separate definitions for the term. Lesbian existence, she suggests, is “both the fact of the historical presence of lesbians and our continuing creation of the meaning of that existence. The other, lesbian continuum, refers to the overall "range (through each woman’s life and throughout history) of woman-identified experiences, not simply the fact that a woman has had or consciously desired genital sexual experience with another woman." Below are the characteristics in which male power has demonstrated the suppression of female sexuality.

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--To deny women their own sexuality: destruction of sexuality displayed throughout history in sacred documents.

--Forcing male sexuality upon women: rape, incest, torture, a constant message that men are better, and superior in society to women.

--Exploiting their labor to control production: women have no control over choice of children, abortion, birth control and furthermore, no access to knowledge of such things.

--Control over their children: lesbian mothers seen as unfit for motherhood, malpractice in society and the courts to further benefit the man.

--Confinement: women unable to choice their own wardrobe (feminine dress seen as the only way), full economic dependence on the man, limited life in general.

--Male transactions: women given away by fathers as gifts or hostesses by the husband for their own benefit, pimping women out.

--Cramp women’s creativeness: male seen as more assimilated in society (they can participate more, culturally more important).

--Men withholding attainment of knowledge: “Great Silence” (never speaking about lesbian existence in history), discrimination against women professionals.

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Female Gaze

The female gaze is a feminist film theoretical term representing the perspective or viewpoint or feelings of the female viewer. It is a response to feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey's term, "the male gaze", which represents not only the gaze of a heterosexual male viewer but also the gaze of the male character and the male creator of the film. In contemporary usage, the female gaze has been used to refer to the perspective a female filmmaker (screenwriter/director/producer) brings to a film that would be different from a male view of the subject. The male gaze is so ubiquitous it’s taken for granted and once you’ve seen it, you can’t un-see it. But there’s a new media buzzword emerging — “the female gaze” — and it’s much trickier to define.

So, if the male gaze objectifies women, then the female gaze must be the mirror opposite — right? Bring on the close-ups up rippling pecs and washboard abs. We’re finally free to objectify man-parts with wild, feminist abandon! Er, not quite. The answer is a bit more complicated.

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The “female gaze” isn’t about asserting female dominance on-screen. And it doesn’t mean that therefore we get to “man-jectify” men in reverse. (Magic Mike, while a cinematic masterpiece to some, is not a good example of the female gaze in practice). That’s because the male gaze isn’t just about objectifying women. A male perspective doesn’t have to mean women are objectified (even though, the majority of the time, this is true). It’s a way to explain a limited male view, where the rest of the characters exist mainly to serve him, his interests, and his storyline. If the male gaze is all about what men see, then the female gaze is about making the audience feel what women see and experience.

Adopting the language of psychoanalysis, Mulvey argued that traditional Hollywood films respond to a deep-seated drive known as scopophilia: the sexual pleasure involved in looking. Mulvey argued that most popular movies are filmed in ways that satisfy masculine scopophilia. Although sometimes described as the “male gaze”, Mulvey’s concept is more accurately described as a heterosexual, masculine gaze. Visual media that respond to masculine voyeurism tends to sexualise women for a male viewer. As Mulvey wrote, women are characterised by their “to-be-looked-at-ness” in cinema. Woman is “spectacle”, and man is “the bearer of the look."

Woman's films were a genre that focused on female leads, showing the female as a diegetic story-teller rather than that of a spectacle. Movies such as Rebecca and Stella Dallas are examples of such films in which the traditional narrative is told through the female protagonist. This genre of film has evolved into modern day "chick flicks" such as 27 Dresses and The Devil Wears Prada. The films are meant to represent the desires of female protagonists and, therefore, are to represent the desires of the female movie-viewer.

Consider the female gaze in the chick flick genre, with specific attention to the attire women wear. Spectacle overrules plot in films such as The Awful Truth. Irene Dunne's wardrobe is regarded as a central aspect of the film. The different dresses that Dunn wears are extravagant but not sexualized. While the clothing may be regarded as comical, they are also supportive to Dunn's independence and femininity. Cohen notes that in the film The Wedding Planner, Jennifer Lopez is fully clothed throughout the entire film. The clothes, as in The Awful Truth, are regarded as comical yet they catch the viewer's eye without sexualizing her.

Critics have also focused attention on the presence of the female gaze in contemporary cinema and television, in works such as The Handmaid's Tale, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, I Love Dick, Frozen, Hunger Games, Fleabag, and The Love Witch. The controversial lesbian drama film Blue Is the Warmest Colour received considerable critical comment for the dominance of the male gaze and lack of female gaze, with some reviewers calling it a "patriarchal gaze". The author of the book upon which the film was based was among the harshest critics, saying, "It appears to me that what was missing on the set was... lesbians."

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Rift Between Lesbians and Feminists

While lesbians have always certainly been an active part of the overall feminist movement (including the women's liberation movement, the suffragette movement, and other political efforts to achieve women's right to vote and other women's equality issues), lesbians have not always been accepted or well-received in feminist circles. This dispute has sometimes been described as a culture clash between feminists and lesbians and sheds light on the conflict of values, priorities, and lifestyles between the two groups.

The emergence of queer theory in the 1990s was built upon certain principles of lesbian feminism, including the critique of compulsory heterosexuality, the understanding of gender as defined in part by heterosexuality, and the understanding of sexuality as institutional instead of personal. Despite this, queer theory is largely set in opposition to lesbian feminism. Whereas lesbian feminism is traditionally critical of BDSM, butch/femme identities and relationships, transgenderism, transsexuality, pornography, and prostitution, queer theory tends to embrace them.

Queer theorists embrace gender fluidity and subsequently have critiqued lesbian feminism as having an essentialist understanding of gender that runs counter to their stated aims. Lesbian feminists have critiqued queer theory as implicitly male-oriented and a recreation of the male-oriented Gay Liberation Front that lesbian feminists initially sought refuge from.

Because of its focus on equality in sexual relationships, lesbian feminism has traditionally been opposed to any form of BDSM that involve perpetuation of gender stereotypes.

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