These are the questions I will use to unpack the women-only spaces in many of the movies and literature that I engage for this blog.

Formation

• What led to the existence of this space?
• Why can only women be there?
• Is it the women’s choice that they, and only they, are there?
• Are there things about the space, other than its occupants, that make it “feminine” or women-oriented?

Role in their lives

• How often are the women there?
• What role does it play in their lives?
• How significant is the space to their lives?

Effect

• Does the space affirm and empower women? Do they love one another?
• Does the space contribute to women’s relationships with themselves and one another? With men? With the broader world?
• Does the space teach women that they are full and whole human beings?

Women have come into male spaces in male ways because that is often the only option. Women need to be able to enter all spaces with a full, whole sense of their womanhood—their selfhood.

Freedom should not be fully individual without attention to others – women know this. Christianity speaks to this (though of course it is often problematic). Women can offer the world a lesson on sacrifice – including the nuances of pitfalls and pain.

A marginalized group must be focused on its own wholeness, rather than finding equality with the center group. This is how they can make themselves their own center, rather than always giving the center its normalized, powerful position.

It is essential for men to occupy “women’s” spaces or quality will never  be realized.

While there are many constructive comparisons among various margins and centers, one disanalogy between black/white and women/men relations is that women and men share many more physical spaces and their lives are more constantly intertwined. Segregation between genders happens in psychological, intellectual, etc. spaces as much as physical.

Women are more inclined to defend and perpetuate oppression in order to maintain harmony with men they love. It is much harder for women to find their own spaces for internal consciousness and growth. Lesbianism has its own merits, but one way that it dismantles patriarchy is by offering opportunities for women-only spaces.

Women-only spaces in film and literature:

Real Women Have Curves

Fried Green Tomatoes

Like Water for Chocolate

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

The Social Construction of Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins

Why Lesbian Ethics? by Sarah Hoagland (actually about lesbian-only space)

Do you have suggestions for literature, films, etc. that offer insights on the role and power of women-only spaces? Contact us with your suggestions!

I particularly appreciate Power’s timely caution that feminism not allow “bombs to make its point” through military and cultural imperialism that claims to be liberating women throughout the world.

I haven’t read anything else by Power, but I am now interested in her book, “One Dimensional Woman” in which she apparently claims that the real c-word is capitalism. This desire to shift feminism away from sexual matters appears in this article as well, as she warns that “if feminism spends too much time focusing in on questions of sexuality, it risks losing sight of other significant questions — unequal pay, non-sexual violence, and so on.” I certainly agree, though I also believe that women’s bodies are at the heart of our oppression and a fundamental reframing of our bodies will  be necessary in our liberation. I was surprised that sexual objectification and control through body image dogma don’t show up on Power’s top 10 list in any way.

Would you like to write for The Feminist Review? Contact editor@thefeministreview.com (anna lisa) and we can set you up!

I realize that the word “queer” sounds offensive to some people. However, many people (especially in my generation) feel that queer is the most empowering word to describe our own identity.

Going through the acronym is usually still the most politically correct way to refer to LGBTQIA – lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/transexual, queer/questioning, intersex, ally people, but it’s pretty cumbersome. And when you’re using the acronym, how do you decide where to stop? There are more letters to add, like P for polyamory, O for omnisexual, TS for two-spirited, etc. Now doesn’t it seem simpler to just say queer!? Many people just use LGBT for simplicity, but that leaves people out.

Also, many of us can’t claim one of the words in this acronym. I don’t identify as bisexual because it sets up a gender binary that I don’t believe exists – implying that a person can simply be attracted to men AND women, keeping these categories distinct and separate. Gender is obviously way more complicated than two boxes, as other letters in the acronym point out.

Queer is also something that even straight people can be! People who are in a relationship with (or generally attracted to) someone of a different gender, but don’t have a traditional heterosexual relationship (non-traditional gender roles, or non-traditional commitment, e.g.) can identify as queer. Or someone, like me, who is in a relationship with someone of a clearly different gender, but who does not identify as straight – I can be queer all the time, regardless of my partner.

Queer is a label, an identity, a movement, an invitation (though it still sounds awful when it comes out of a homophobic mouth).

While these perceptions are often age-related, they transcend age as well. What words do you use to describe yourself? What words has your community reclaimed?