The Feminist Review

Sarah Hoagland’s article “Why Lesbian Ethics?” is a celebration of the lesbian-only (and therefore women-only) space that exists within the philosophical and cultural realms of ethics. Hoagland argues that this lesbian-only space should be recognized and developed. The thinking and living that happens within this space can only happen in a space without men (gay or straight), and, generally, without straight women either. She explains why this is necessary, writing:

Lesbian separatism certainly informs my work, including the ideas that (1) separatism is a no-saying to male parasitism and a withdrawal from the dominant/subordinate, man/woman relationship;( 2) protectors are not essentially different from predators;(3 ) a feminist agreeing to defend women’s rights is actually coerced into solidifying status quo values that make women’s, but not men’s, rights debatable in a democracy; (4) heterosexuality provides a legitimation of all forms of domination, most especially the exploitative and paternalistic justification of imperialism;( 5) separatism is a focusing on lesbians and a lesbian conceptual framework from which new values can and have emerged. (Hoagland, 196)

Hoagland does not particularly explain these ideas, likely assuming that her audience will already be familiar with these tenets of lesbian separatism. This article appears in Hypatia, a journal of lesbian thought. While I was initially reluctant to fully grant these points (particularly #4), on a second read I realized the deep truth of each. I am not sure how to incorporate point #3 into my own feminist work, but am grateful that I know realize I need to. I appreciate that Hoagland dives right in to her subject, not apologizing or tip-toeing. She is acting on point #5, focusing on a lesbian conceptual framework.

Hoagland offers a helpful example of the fresh conceptual framework possible within a lesbian-only space.

Before the women’s liberation movement began, women’s anger was madness. When a woman got angry, men would discount the anger by saying, “You’re so cute when you get angry” or “The bitch is crazy.”After the women’s liberation movement got under way, women’s anger became a righteous response to male domination. Men went right on saying the same things, but by coming together in a movement and focusing on each other, women as a group created a different context and stopped referring to men’s values and perceptions of women. (A similar phenomenon occurred as Blacks as a group focused on each other, ignoring white definitions/perceptions of blackness.) Tragically, that women’s anger has become once again taboo or psychological (therapized, especially among women), which suggests that the context of the movement has been co-opted and patriarchal disciplinarians and professionals have reasserted their control. (Hoagland, 200)

Hoagland does offer a definition of “heterosexualism,” a term she employs (and I think coined, since the earliest use I’ve found is in her 1988 book Lesbian Ethics) to justify the importance of lesbian-only space. “Focusing not on sexism, homophobia, or even heterosexism, I consider heterosexualism-a relationship between men and women” (Hoagland 196). Quoting her own previous work she explains that “Heterosexualism is men dominating and deskilling women in any of a number of forms, from outright attack to paternalistic care, and women devaluing (of necessity) female bonding as well as finding inherent conflicts between commitment and autonomy and consequently valuing an ethics of dependence” (Hoagland 1988, 29, quoted in “Why Lesbian Ethics” 196-197). As heterosexualism does not allow women their own agency, it affects all women, even those not in romantic/sexual/domestic relationships with men. As a woman in a romantic relationship with a man, of course I wonder how to have heteroqueer relationships that do not involve the problems of heterosexualsm. Reasonably, Hoagland is not concerned with this question, though I am interested in reading others’ wisdom on the matter. (And here I go, placing my heterosexist agenda on a perfectly reasonable lesbian set of concerns.)

If my romantic relationship with my partner was able to exist in a vacuum of only the two of us, I imagine we could have a fairly successful heteroqueer relationship. But I realize that even our most personal feelings and activities affect and are affected by the cultural system we live within. I cannot deny Hoagland’s assertion that “heterosexualism is a particular economic, political, and emotional relationship between men and women: men must dominate and women must subordinate themselves to men in any number of ways. As a result men presume access to women while women remain riveted on men and are unable to sustain a community of women” (Hoagland 1988, 29, quoted in “Why Lesbian Ethics, 197). I have experienced this broad orientation (beyond sexual or romantic) toward men within my own self and many of my female friends, and I know it often means that we see each other as threats, and of secondary importance. As Hoagland writes, this orientation toward men “undermines women’s community. Thus, two serious problems of heterosexualism for women are female agency and community. By not trying to fit ourselves into a (heterosexual) women’s framework and instead recognizing our own, lesbians can discover that from lesbian lives come different conceptual possibilities” (Hoagland, 197).

The tendency for women to orient toward men is driven not only by external societal and economic factors, but is developed within women by cultural norms.

The values assigned to women are the feminine virtues: self-sacrifice, altruism, vulnerability (Hoagland 1988, chap. 2). As a consequence, the healthy and normal woman’s actions are to be toward others. If we try to fit that model, it means our actions are away from ourselves, with the result that our ability to act is located in others. And that means that the primary mode of female agency is manipulation. (Hoagland, 197)

But what if these actions are aimed at other women, and at us by other women? The other-oriented nature (thanks in large part to nurture) of women would not serve patriarchy. Would it still undermine women’s agency, or would it redefine what agency might mean, celebrating interdependence as a way to honor both individual and community? Hoagland seems to say yes, in her discussion of female agency as creativity, rather than sacrifice. She describes a memory of a Take Back the Night gathering. A woman who was married to a man found the time she invested in the event to be a sacrifice from her “normal life.” A worthy sacrifice, but still a de-centering, in Hoagland’s estimation, of this woman’s life which was normally centered on her husband and home. Hoagland, however, writes

We did not consider our work away from our centers; and on nights like those, as well as others, we were taking the reality we were creating in our homes, collectives, bars, consciousness-raising groups, and other meeting places, and extending it to the streets. In considering actual lesbian lives, I found that our actions were not sacrificial but creative. (Hoagland, 198)

In communities of women where women’s lives are centered on one another (and therefore affirming of the woman each one is), giving of oneself can be giving to oneself, since the giving is all in service to women.

Thus, I am suggesting that by considering the category “lesbian,” not “woman,” we discover a different sense of female agency. In lesbian lives we find that choice is creation, not sacrifice. As a result, we can revalue female agency, developing it independently of the manipulation and control from the position of subordination of heterosexualism. Female agency becomes not a matter of sacrifice but a process of engagement and creation. And if we regard choice as creation, not sacrifice, we can regard our ability to make choices as a source of enabling power, rather than as something to avoid because it appears to mean loss. All that is lesbian exists only because we’ve created it. And realizing this, we can realize that our power lies in choice. (Hoagland, 198-199)

Seeking such interdependent community is a way for lesbians to enrich their own lives, and resist a draw toward “masculine” traits that the binary gender system hoists on lesbians. “Being a lesbian is not a matter of remaining isolated (and thus pursuing masculine agency); it is a matter of recognizing and sharing things with other lesbians, from oppression to recipes, from resistance to outrageousness” (Hoagland, 199).

Just as lesbian ethics offer a new understanding of choice, Hoagland believes that lesbian community offers a constructive, positive way to understand difference.

In perceiving ourselves as one among many, we realize we are not destroyed (nor created) by another’s reflection, but we also realize that we are not the whole picture. I am suggesting that one’s self in relation to others need not be a matter of a polarity. Further, in dealing with differences, no one of us lesbians is purely a dominator, purely from the privileged classes, and no one of us is purely from the subordinate classes. How we live in resistance or acquiescence to any of these classes provides crucial information in community. Thus, as we pursue the work we are doing, we begin to realize that difference is not only not a threat and that difference is more than a gift: difference is at the center of our survival. Most communities strive to be culturally homogeneous .As lesbians we have the possibility of developing difference in new ways if we consider the reality of our lives. (Hoagland 202) Read Audre Lorde for more on the constructive power of difference!

So why lesbian ethics?

If from the reality of our lesbian lives we realize “lesbian” is a category that creates some distinct values and also some distinct possibilities – choice as creation not sacrifice, community as a context of values in which we are one among many, and community as the possibility of difference – then we may approach ethics differently: not trying to control situations but acting within them. Moral agency then becomes a question, not of how am I going to stop all the injustice, but rather what is my part, and what are we going to do next? (Hoagland, 203-204)

Why Lesbian Ethics? By Sarah Lucia Hoagland

Source: Hypatia, Vol. 7, No. 4, Lesbian Philosophy (Autumn, 1992), pp. 195-206

Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of Hypatia, Inc.

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3810086

Accessed: 23/11/2010 13:32

Filed under: articles on November 29th, 2010 by Anna Lisa