The Lesbian Revolution: Lesbian Feminism in the UK, 1970-1990

by Sheila Jeffreys

The Lesbian Revolution argues that lesbian feminists were a vital force in the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM). They did not just play a fundamental role in the important changes wrought by second wave feminism, but created a powerful revolution in lesbian theory, culture and practice. Yet this lesbian revolution is undocumented.

The book shows that lesbian feminists were founders of feminist institutions such as resources for women survivors of men’s violence including refuges and rape crisis centres, and they were central to campaigns against this violence. They created a feminist squatting movements, theatre groups, bands groups, art and poetry and conducted campaigns for lesbian rights. They also created a profound and challenging analysis of sexuality which has disappeared from the historical record. They analysed heterosexuality as a political institution, argued that lesbianism was a political choice for feminists and, indeed, a form of resistance in itself. Using interviews with prominent lesbian feminists from the time of the WLM , and informed by the author's personal experience, this book aims to challenge the way the work and ideas of lesbian feminists have been eclipsed and document the lesbian revolution.

This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of women’s history, history of feminism, politics of sexuality, women’s studies, gender studies, lesbian and gay studies, queer studies, and cultural studies as well as to the lay reader interested the WLM and feminism more generally.

Genres: Feminism, Lesbian, Nonfiction, History, LGBT

256 pages, Paperback

Published September 10, 2018

About the author

Sheila Jeffreys writes and teaches in the areas of sexual politics, international gender politics, and lesbian and gay politics. She has written six books on the history and politics of sexuality. Originally from the UK, Sheila moved to Melbourne in 1991 to take up a position at the University of Melbourne. She has been actively involved in feminist and lesbian feminist politics, particularly around the issue of sexual violence, since 1973. She is involved with the international non-government organization, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, in international organising.

She is the author of The Spinster and Her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality, 1880-1930 (1985/1997) Anticlimax: A Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Revolution (1990), The Lesbian Heresy: A Feminist Perspective on the Lesbian Sexual Revolution (1993), The Idea of Prostitution (1997), Unpacking Queer Politics: a lesbian feminist perspective (2003) and Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West (2005).

Reviews

[Wenjing Fan · Rating 5 out of 5]

是一整个月非常亲密的共读体验！过程中随机记录了很多我的想法，有赞叹也有批判，有感慨“当时做了好多事情呀当时的氛围好好呀”也有无奈“现在这倒车开得”。关于lesfem这个词在lesbian feminism中的含义、关于Race在这些议题中的位置、关于怎么理解bdsm分裂了lesfem以及我的一些批判，见长评。

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2023年底，刚来到欧洲学习性别研究的我，发现身边的同学们都是女权主义者，但都不是激进女权主义者。于是我尝试在别的地方寻找激进女权主义者。

我找到了一个名为WDI的组织，她们每周会组织两次活动，周六请各国的radfem分享她们近期运动的情况，周日请两位早期的运动者们讨论对于一些激进女权主义作品的看法。那个周日的分享者就是Sheila Jeffreys。

朋友读过Sheila的自传，感受是“很有活力的老太太”。确实如此。除此之外我还感受到她的自如、自洽。



本书主要介绍了1970-1990年代的英国激进女权主义运动，包括历史故事、产生的影响、主要主张等。我的一条批评是我认为她在阐述一些现在的激进女权主义者们也认同的主张时相对完善，但一些当下或过去较为有争议的话题时较为谨慎。

零散记录一下我的思考。



Lesbian feminism

1970s的女同女权起源于激进女权主义，而她们都起源于社会主义女权主义。当时的radfem强调父权制对女性的剥削，而lesfem再次基础上还强调“强制异性恋”，认为父权制+异性恋是维持统治的工具。她们还有一些别的延续至今的主张，例如主张与男性分离、成为政治女同等。

从这个意义上讲，lesfem主张的核心并不全是让女同性恋被看到，而是性别分离+只关注女性议题。因为很长一段时间里（包括欧美当下的语境下），radfem的主张里“与男性分离”只是暂时的、策略性的。

在英国lesfem后续的社会运动中，她们创造了许多以lesbian命名的词汇，比如lesbian friendship、lesbian ethics、lesbian/homosexual sex，从中国激女的角度，这些词汇多少有点性缘中心，或许用radical/women来替换会更好理解，也同时没有误解她们本来想表达的含义。

但我想之所以她们决定这样命名，也是因为当时的radical、women无法准确表达“只关注女性”这层含义吧。



Gender & Race

第二波女权运动的许多文献，至今也会被激进女权主义者们引用。但那个时代的作品总是被批评的一个角度是“缺乏对有色人种女性对关注”。美国是这样，在英国也是这样。朋友曾评论Sheila的作品“似乎由于她是白人，怎么写都总是会被批评”。

读这本书的时候或许我也带着这样批判的预设。在Introduction的部分，Sheila已经在努力强调对Black lesbian feminism的关注，但在这里Sheila引用的Audre Lorde实在算不上radfem，而Adrienne Rich也得要归为白人。

在第一章中，Shelia呈现了早在1970s-1980s时就有Black Lesbian和Afro-Caribbean and Asian lesbians的团体存在，也逐渐发展出了其它更小的有色人种女权社群。但一些白人的lesfem也会觉得讨论种族议题会“分散斗争的力量”。

多么熟悉的发言，在左男面对女性议题的时候、在异性恋女权主义者面对les议题的时候，不也是这样说的吗？

在第三章讨论到不同团体对分离主义（与男性分离）的态度的时候，Sheila提到了黑人的feminist/lesfem对这个议题的复杂态度。与黑人男性分离让她们某种程度上觉得似乎是在抛弃种族议题、与白人女权主义者分离似乎又像是某种对性别议题的背叛。

我觉得这种复杂性真实存在且非常有讨论的意义，无论是战术还是战略、面对不同议题，都值得展开讲。但是在这本书里没有呈现，且似乎文中引用支持完全分离主义的黑人女同女权的人也比较少。让我感到遗憾。



BDSM

作者认为BDSM是对异性恋压迫关系的模仿，而许多女性拥有受虐倾向也是由于社会规训的女性身份和异性恋经历，我同意这个观点。包括作者提到一些女性喜欢被虐，且觉得这样安全地被打可以修复过往在异性恋关系中被家暴的创伤，我也认为这很离谱。

但我不太同意她们针对这些虐恋幻想的做法——听那些女性描述，然后嘲笑，让她们羞愧地觉得这些幻想是不应该的。为什么不能好好说呢？用言语解构那些幻想，探索哪些是发自内心，而哪些在发自内心的背后也是被社会建构的。在我看来这才是更有效的、安全的做法。

作者说BDSM的浪潮是促使lesfem分化、瓦解的一股重大力量。因为当时自由主义、性解放的浪潮，让lesfem内部是否支持BDSM的讨论，变成了lesfem群体与自由女权、嬉皮士、保守主义等群体的混合对抗。

可我也在想，她们面对BDSM分化而做出的反击是“好”的吗？本来很多事情在lesfem群体内部都是一种“可以讨论”的状态，群体内部的人提出了不能互认同的观点，分裂是唯一的结果吗？我没有去读认同bdsm的lesfem所写的作品，但从她们无法融入主流异性恋/gay bdsm群体、要自己写小册子来看，她们一定也有许多关于理念和实践的思考。为什么不讨论呢？



提出这个困惑也是因为，我认为简中互联网完全反性缘的激女是比较自洽的，反对亲密关系反对做爱也反对bdsm，逻辑完整没什么可说的。

但是书中lesfem认同性爱但反对角色扮演（TP之分）反对bdsm，那她们认可的性爱应该是什么样的，不角色扮演、不sm的性又是什么样的，却没有具体被讨论。

更进一步，美国radfem出现的时候，倾向于独身主义和倾向于lesfem的各成一派，我想在英国也会有独身主义（反性缘）的支持者吧。没有讨论更激进的、内部的派别，没有讨论更属于女性的议题，让我觉得不太满意。

在我看来，或许也是因为bdsm等议题让lesfem内部分化，所以才更坚持着当时的观点。否则多像是对当年的背叛呀。

可是，当年的她们也只有二十几岁呀。我回看自己五年前写的东西也有许多稚嫩的地方，你们回看自己五十年前的决定，也可以不认同吧。



还有一些零散的关于这本书带来的启发：

通过这本书了解到了女同文学并不一定是悲伤的，例如第一本这样的作品《Patience Sarah》
通过这本书找到了第一本让我读起来不难受的推理作品，例如Val McDermid的Lindsay Gordon系列
如果没有黑人女权主义者支持lesfem，那是否说明当时的lesfem社群确实就是很白人中心的呢？

[fausto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is very very similar to her 1993's book "The Lesbian Heresy" both in content and critic. If you have ever read that book you problably already knows a lot of her positions in "The Lesbian Revolution". Yes, this book have interviews of some of her 1970-80's partners of revolutionary feminist activism in the UK. The most interesting part of the book is her description/herstory of the particularities of the English lesbian-feminist movement in relation with its US counterpart.

I can't avoid a comparation of this book with Bonnie Morri's "The Disappearing L" both describe the rise and fall of the lesbian culture (but Jeffrey's book deals a lot more with politics and non-cultural activism) while I really love Morri's book for her deep knowledge of the herstory of the US lesbian cultural institutions, I found Jeffrey's Lesbian Revolution kinda repetitive paraphrasing in many cases her more extensive and deeply grounded critique in The Lesbian Heresy

I found very interesting that she never mentions the BBC's 2006 documentary "Lefties: Angry Wimmin", specially when you realize that she not only participate in the documentary, but her interviewed are basically the same. Obviously "Angry Wimmin" is the direct antecedent of this book. If you see that documentary and read "The Lesbian Heresy" you have virtually "read" this book, that's why my 3 stars.

The other reasong is that while she is very clear about the harms that transgender, capitalism, assimilation politics and free-politics sexual thought have done to lesbian politics and community, I found racist her conclusions of what she calls "identity politics". Yes, she clearly states her anti-racist and anti-classist positions, but by demeaning the work of very insighful and classical black feminist and lesbian intellectuals she makes in one way or another a statement. Is not that she is "racist" or classist" but I found that in general (with some notable exceptions) white intellectuals tend to trivialize the politics of non-white and jewish experience.

Is a good book, but I find "The Lesbian Heresy" a lot more insighful.

[Emmaby Barton Grace]

gave me a much greater understanding of lesbian and political feminism and the context of the women’s lib and lesbian movements at this time (as well as other key ideas from this time such as identity politics)

however, not giving this a rating because the amount of transphobia (especially given this book was only published relatively recently) was disgusting and inexcusable

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential feminist reading.