Lesbian Origins

by Susan Cavin

Lesbian feminism has often been scorned as a marginal political dogma. Susan Cavin, a lesbian feminist sociologist, advances a new theory of women's oppression and women's liberation, based on cross-cultural data. She holds that original human societies were woman-centered, with females greatly outnumbering males; men occupied a marginal position. When armed men overthrew women's societies they integrated themselves into society, breaking women's power. Examining the sex ratio of societies across the globe, Cavin challenges conventional wisdom about the "natural" numerical balance between the sexes. She finds a frequent occurrence of societies with a high-female sex ratio (54% or more female) among Africans, Pacific islanders and Native Americans (in both North and South America). Moreover, she finds that these cultures tend to subsist by hunting and gathering, with extended-family households centered around mothers' kin-groups, and a lack of sharp social stratification in the culture. She thus hypothesizes that original human society had a high-female sex ratio. Cavin also finds that lesbian relations have existed in pre-industrial societies at every level of economy and subsistence pattern, with woman-to woman marriage practiced in several African and Native American cultures. Her investigation provides a sociological basis for lesbian feminism. Cavin disputes the liberal notion that sex separation invariably places women in a subordinate role. "The entrance of the mass of males into everyday residential contact with female society brings dominance hierarchies into society," she asserts. "These male dominance hierarchies economically, socially, and politically segregate the mass of women from positions of power in society." She also challenges standard feminist views of women's liberation, arguing that women will not win their freedom by integrating into male-dominated power structures.

Genres: Lesbian, Feminism, LGBT, Sociology

275 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[fausto · Rating 3 out of 5]

The only study about the origins of civilization with a lesbian-feminist orientation. The book had a lot of demographic information, and "empyrical" data, sometimes this make it hard to read, specially if you are not really interested in that kind of information. Some chapter are really good (the Amazon origins and the Lesbian cross-cultural references for example), others not so much.
If you are looking for a non-heterosexual research in prehistory and matriarchy this is for you.

[Marcy Rae Henry · Rating 2 out of 5]

published in 1985 and largely consisting of her dissertation. had I read it then, as a teen, it probably would have blown my mind. very few people used the word 'lesbian' regularly and respectfully in polite society in my small town (even though Plato wrote about women who prefer women).

interesting ideas about matrilineal societies and parthenogenesis. another statement she makes is that heterosexuality-- the supposition and enforcement of it-- upholds the patriarchy and though I agree, she didn't really seem to connect the dots in parts. I also didn't see how many of the images included, in black and white, connected to the text. but hey, I sped-read this book given to me by my dear friend gray, after my neighbor above woke me up at 2 in the morning with a whole lot of tap tap tap tap tapping.