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《媒介与社会性别 Media and Gender》本科课程参考文献_adrienne+rich

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Compulsory heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence Adrienne rich Biologically men have only one innate orientation-a sexual one that draws them to women -while women have two innate orienta tions, sexual toward men and reproductive toward their young I was a woman terribly vulnerable, critical, using femaleness as a sort of standard or yardstick to measure and discard men. yes- ublished Carroll Smith-Rosenberg's now classic article, The Female World of Love and Ritual Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America. The following summer ap- Culture and Society, vol. 1, no. 4[Summer 1976) Among scholarly articles, these two provided, in different ways, a point of departure for ny thinking in this essay. I am deeply indebted also to the growing body of lesbian research in other journals, including Blanche w. Cook's "Female Support Networks and Political Activism. " Chrysalis 3(1977): 43-61; and Lorraine Bethel,s"This Infinity of Consciot Pain: Zora Neale Hurston and the black Female Literary Tradition, " lecture given at the Harlem Studio Museum, May 1978, forthcoming in Black Women's Studies, ed. Gloria Hull, Elaine Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith(Old Westbury, N.Y.: Feminist Press, 1980); by several books published in the last few years: Kathleen Barry, Female Sexual Slavery(En glewood Cliffs, N.J. Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1979): Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology. The Metaethics of Radical Feminism( Boston: Beacon Press, 1978): Susan Griffin, Woman and Nature: The Ro ing Inside Her(New York: Harper Row, 1978); Diana Russell and Nicole van de Ven, eds Proceedings of the International Tribunal on Crimes against women(Millbrae, Calif. Les Fem mes, 1976): and by Susan Cavin s dissertation in sociology, "Lesbian Origins: An Hystorical d Cross-cultural Analysis of Sex Ratios, Female Sexuality and Homo-sexual Segregation ersus Hetero-sexual Integration Patterns in Relation to the Liberation of Women"(Ph. D diss., Rutgers University, 1978) 1. Alice Rossi, "Children and Work in the Lives of Women"(paper delivered at the University of Arizona, Tucson, February 1976) The University of Chicago. 0097-974080050H-4-0001$01.00 631

Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence Adrienne Rich I Biologically men have only one innate orientation-a sexual one that draws them to women,-while women have two innate orientations, sexual toward men and reproductive toward their young.1 ... I was a woman terribly vulnerable, critical, using femaleness as a sort of standard or yardstick to measure and discard men. YesIn its first issue (Autumn 1975), Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society published Carroll Smith-Rosenberg's now classic article, "The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America." The following summer appeared Joan Kelly's "The Social Relation of the Sexes: Methodological Implications of Women's History (Signs:Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 1, no. 4 [Summer 1976]). Among scholarly articles, these two provided, in different ways, a point of departure for my thinking in this essay. I am deeply indebted also to the growing body of lesbian research in other journals, including Blanche W. Cook's "Female Support Networks and Political Activism," Chrysalis 3 (1977): 43-61; and Lorraine Bethel's "'This Infinity of Conscious Pain': Zora Neale Hurston and the Black Female Literary Tradition," lecture given at the Harlem Studio Museum, May 1978, forthcoming in Black Women's Studies, ed. Gloria Hull, Elaine Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith (Old Westbury, N.Y.: Feminist Press, 1980); by several books published in the last few years: Kathleen Barry, Female Sexual Slavery (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1979): Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1978); Susan Griffin, Woman and Nature: The RoaringInside Her (New York: Harper & Row, 1978); Diana Russell and Nicole van de Ven, eds., Proceedings of the International Tribunal on Crimes against Women (Millbrae, Calif.: Les Femmes, 1976); and by Susan Cavin's dissertation in sociology, "Lesbian Origins: An Hystorical and Cross-cultural Analysis of Sex Ratios, Female Sexuality and Homo-sexual Segregation versus Hetero-sexual Integration Patterns in Relation to the Liberation of Women" (Ph.D. diss., Rutgers University, 1978). 1. Alice Rossi, "Children and Work in the Lives of Women" (paper delivered at the University of Arizona, Tucson, February 1976). [Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 1980, vol. 5, no. 4] ? 1980 by The University of Chicago. 0097-9740/80/0504-0001$01.00 631

632 Rich Compulsory Heterosexuality omething like that. I was an Anna who invited defeat from men without ever being conscious of it.(But I am conscious of it. And being conscious of it means I shall leave it all behind me become--but what?)I was stuck fast in an emotion common women of our time that can turn them bitter, or Lesbian or soli- ary. Yes, that Anna during that time was [Another blank line across the page The bias of compulsory heterosexuality, through which lesbian exper ence is perceived on a scale ranging from deviant to abhorrent, or simply rendered invisible, could be illustrated from many other texts than the two just preceding. The assumption made by Rossi, that women are choice is simply an acting-out of bitterness toward me g, that the lesbian innately sexually oriented"toward men, or by Less n,are by no means heirs alone; they are widely current in literature and in the social sci- ences. I am concerned here with two other matters as well first. how and why womens choice of women as passionate comrades, life partners, co-workers. lovers tribe. has been crushed invalidated. forced into hid ing and disguise; and second, the virtual or total neglect of lesbian exis- tence in a wide range of writings, including feminist scholarship. Obvi ously there is a connection here. I believe that much feminist theory and criticism is stranded on this shoal My organizing impulse is the bel ief that it is not enough for feminist hought that specifically lesbian texts exist. Any theory or cultural/ political creation that treats lesbian existence as a marginal or less"nati al"phenomenon, as mere"sexual preference, " or as the mirror image of either heterosexual or male homosexual relations, is profoundly weakened thereby, whatever its other contributions. Feminist theory can no longer afford merely to voice a toleration of" lesbianism"as an alternative life-style, "or make token allusion to lesbians. A fer minist critique of compulsory heterosexual orientation for women is long over due. In this exploratory paper, I shall try to show why I will begin by way of examples, briefly discussing four books that have appeared in the last few years, written from different viewpoints and political orientations, but all presenting themselves, and favorably reviewed, as feminist. 3 All take as a basic assumption that the socia 2. Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook(New York: Bantam Books [1962]1977), p. 4 3. Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978); Dorothy Dinnerstein, The Mermaid and the Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements and the Human Malaise(New York: Harper& Row, 1976); Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts'Advice to Women(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday &Co, Anchor Press, 1978): Jean Baker Miller, Toward a New Psychology of Women(Boston: Beacon Press, 1976

Compulsory Heterosexuality something like that. I was an Anna who invited defeat from men without ever being conscious of it. (But I am conscious of it. And being conscious of it means I shall leave it all behind me and become-but what?) I was stuck fast in an emotion common to women of our time, that can turn them bitter, or Lesbian, or solitary. Yes, that Anna during that time was ... [Another blank line across the page:]2 The bias of compulsory heterosexuality, through which lesbian experience is perceived on a scale ranging from deviant to abhorrent, or simply rendered invisible, could be illustrated from many other texts than the two just preceding. The assumption made by Rossi, that women are "innately sexually oriented" toward men, or by Lessing, that the lesbian choice is simply an acting-out of bitterness toward men, are by no means theirs alone; they are widely current in literature and in the social sciences. I am concerned here with two other matters as well: first, how and why women's choice of women as passionate comrades, life partners, co-workers, lovers, tribe, has been crushed, invalidated, forced into hiding and disguise; and second, the virtual or total neglect of lesbian existence in a wide range of writings, including feminist scholarship. Obviously there is a connection here. I believe that much feminist theory and criticism is stranded on this shoal. My organizing impulse is the belief that it is not enough for feminist thought that specifically lesbian texts exist. Any theory or cultural/ political creation that treats lesbian existence as a marginal or less "natural" phenomenon, as mere "sexual preference," or as the mirror image of either heterosexual or male homosexual relations, is profoundly weakened thereby, whatever its other contributions. Feminist theory can no longer afford merely to voice a toleration of "lesbianism" as an "alternative life-style," or make token allusion to lesbians. A feminist critique of compulsory heterosexual orientation for women is long overdue. In this exploratory paper, I shall try to show why. I will begin by way of examples, briefly discussing four books that have appeared in the last few years, written from different viewpoints and political orientations, but all presenting themselves, and favorably reviewed, as feminist.3 All take as a basic assumption that the social 2. Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook (New York: Bantam Books [1962] 1977), p. 480. 3. Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978); Dorothy Dinnerstein, The Mermaid and the Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements and the Human Malaise (New York: Harper & Row, 1976); Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts' Advice to Women (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., Anchor Press, 1978); Jean Baker Miller, Toward a New Psychology of Women (Boston: Beacon Press, 1976). 632 Rich

Summer 1980 633 relations of the sexes are disordered and extremely problematic, if not disabling, for women; all seek paths toward change. I have learned more from some of these books than from others but on this i am clear: each one might have been more accurate, more powerful, more truly a force for change, had the author felt impelled to deal with lesbian existence as a reality, and as a source of knowledge and power available to women; or with the institution of heterosexuality itself as a beachhead of male dominance. In none of them is the question ever raised, whether in a different context, or other things being equal, women would choose het- erosexual coupling and marriage, heterosexuality is presumed as a"sex ual preference"of"most women, " either implicitly or explicitly. In none of these books, which concern themselves with mothering, sex roles elationships, and societal prescriptions for women, is compulsory het erosexuality ever examined as an institution powerfully affecting all these; or the idea of"preference"or"innate orientation"even indirectly questioned In For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts Advice to Women by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, the authors' superb pam phlets, witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers, and Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of sickness, are developed into a provocative and complex study. Their thesis in this book is that the advice given American women by male health professionals, particularly in the areas of marital sex, maternity, and child care, has echoed the dictates of the economic marketplace and the role capitalism has needed women to play in production and/or reproduction. Women have become the consumer victims of various cures, therapies, and normative judg ments in different periods(includ ing the prescription to middle-class 4. I could have chosen many other serious and influential recent books, includi anthologies, which would illustrate the same point: e.g. Our Bodies, Ourselves, the Boston Womens Health Collective's best-seller(New York: Simon Schuster, 1976), which de votes a separate(and inadequate)chapter to lesbians, but whose message is that heterosex- ality is most womens life preference; Berenice Carroll, ed, Liberating Women's History Theoretical and Critical Essays(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976), which does not clude even a token essay on the lesbian presence in history, though an essay by linda Gordon, Persis Hunt, et al. notes the use by male historians of"sexual deviance ategory to discredit and dismiss Anna Howard Shaw, Jane Addams, and other feminists Historical Phallacies: Sexism in American Historical Writing"); and Renate Bridentha nd Claudia Koonz, eds, Becoming Visible: we Mifflin Co., 1977), which contains three mentions of male homosexuality but no materials that I have been able to locate on lesbians. Gerda Lerner, ed, The Female Experience:an Merican Documentary(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1977), contains an abridgment of two lesbian/feminist position papers from the contemporary movement but no other doc ian existence. Lerner does note in her preface, however, how the charge of deviance has been used to fragment women and discourage womens resistance. Lind Gordon, in Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America(Ney ccurately that: It is not that fe produced more lesbians. There have always been many lesbians, despite high levels of repression; and most lesbians experience their sexual preference as innate... " (p. 410)

Summer 1980 633 relations of the sexes are disordered and extremely problematic, if not disabling, for women; all seek paths toward change. I have learned more from some of these books than from others; but on this I am clear: each one might have been more accurate, more powerful, more truly a force for change, had the author felt impelled to deal with lesbian existence as a reality, and as a source of knowledge and power available to women; or with the institution of heterosexuality itself as a beachhead of male dominance.4 In none of them is the question ever raised, whether in a different context, or other things being equal, women would choose heterosexual coupling and marriage; heterosexuality is presumed as a "sexual preference" of "most women," either implicitly or explicitly. In none of these books, which concern themselves with mothering, sex roles, relationships, and societal prescriptions for women, is compulsory heterosexuality ever examined as an institution powerfully affecting all these; or the idea of "preference" or "innate orientation" even indirectly questioned. In For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts' Advice to Women by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, the authors' superb pamphlets, Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers, and Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness, are developed into a provocative and complex study. Their thesis in this book is that the advice given American women by male health professionals, particularly in the areas of marital sex, maternity, and child care, has echoed the dictates of the economic marketplace and the role capitalism has needed women to play in production and/or reproduction. Women have become the consumer victims of various cures, therapies, and normative judgments in different periods (including the prescription to middle-class 4. I could have chosen many other serious and influential recent books, including anthologies, which would illustrate the same point: e.g., Our Bodies, Ourselves, the Boston Women's Health Collective's best-seller (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976), which devotes a separate (and inadequate) chapter to lesbians, but whose message is that heterosexuality is most women's life preference; Berenice Carroll, ed., Liberating Women's History: Theoretical and Critical Essays (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976), which does not include even a token essay on the lesbian presence in history, though an essay by Linda Gordon, Persis Hunt, et al. notes the use by male historians of "sexual deviance" as a category to discredit and dismiss Anna Howard Shaw, Jane Addams, and other feminists ("Historical Phallacies: Sexism in American Historical Writing"); and Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz, eds., Becoming Visible: Women in European History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1977), which contains three mentions of male homosexuality but no materials that I have been able to locate on lesbians. Gerda Lerner, ed., The Female Experience: An American Documentary (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1977), contains an abridgment of two lesbian/feminist position papers from the contemporary movement but no other documentation of lesbian existence. Lerner does note in her preface, however, how the charge of deviance has been used to fragment women and discourage women's resistance. Linda Gordon, in Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America (New York: Viking Press, Grossman, 1976), notes accurately that: "It is not that feminism has produced more lesbians. There have always been many lesbians, despite high levels of repression; and most lesbians experience their sexual preference as innate . . ." (p. 410). Signs

women to embody and preserve the sacredness of the home-the"scien tific"romanticization of the home itself). None of the" experts"advice has been either particularly scientific or women-oriented; it has reflected male needs, male fantasies about women, and male interest in control particularly in the realms of sexuality and motherhood used with the requirements of industrial capitalism. So much of th book is so devastatingly informative and is written with such lucid feminist wit, that I kept waiting as I read for the basic prescription against lesbianism to be examined. It never was This can hardly be for lack of information. Jonathan K American History tells us that as early as 1656 the New Haven Colony prescribed the death penalty for lesbians. Katz provides many suggestive and informative documents on the "treatment"(or torture)of lesbians by the medical profession in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Recent work by the historian Nancy Sahli documents the crackdown on intense female friendships among college women at the turn of the present century. b The ironic title, For Her Own Good, might have referred first and foremost to the economic imperative to heterosexuality and marriage and to the sanctions imposed against single women and widows-both of whom have been and still are viewed as deviant. Yet this often enlightening Marxist-feminist overview of male prescriptions for female sanity and health, the economics of prescriptive heterosex uality go unexamined. 7 Of the three psychoanalytically based books, one, Jean Baker Mil ler's Toward a New Psychology of women, is written as if lesbians simply do not exist, even as marginal beings. Given Miller's title I find this astonish ing. However, the favorable reviews the book has received in feminist journals, including Signs and Spokeswoman, suggest that Miller's heterocentric assumptions are widely shared. In The Mermaid and the Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements and the Human Malaise, Dorothy Din gerstein makes an impassioned argument for the sharing of parenting between women and men and for an end to what she perceives as the male/female symbiosis of "gender arrangements, "which she feels are leading the species further and further into violence and self-extinction Apart from other problems that I have with this book(including her silence on the institutional and random terrorism men have practiced on women-and children-throughout history, amply documented by 5. Jonathan Katz, Gay American History(New York: Thomas Y, Crowell Co, 1976) 6. Nancy Sahli, ""Smashing: Womens Relationships before the Fall, " Chrysalis: A Mag- zine of women's Culture 8(1979): 17-27. A version of the article was presented at the Third Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, June 11, 1976 7. This is a book which I have publicly endorsed. I would still do so, though with the above caveat. It is only since beginning to write this article that I fully ap enormous is the unasked question in Ehrenreich and English's book

Compulsory Heterosexuality women to embody and preserve the sacredness of the home-the "scientific" romanticization of the home itself). None of the "experts"' advice has been either particularly scientific or women-oriented; it has reflected male needs, male fantasies about women, and male interest in controlling women-particularly in the realms of sexuality and motherhoodfused with the requirements of industrial capitalism. So much of this book is so devastatingly informative and is written with such lucid feminist wit, that I kept waiting as I read for the basic prescription against lesbianism to be examined. It never was. This can hardly be for lack of information. Jonathan Katz's Gay American History5 tells us that as early as 1656 the New Haven Colony prescribed the death penalty for lesbians. Katz provides many suggestive and informative documents on the "treatment" (or torture) of lesbians by the medical profession in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Recent work by the historian Nancy Sahli documents the crackdown on intense female friendships among college women at the turn of the present century.6 The ironic title, For Her Own Good, might have referred first and foremost to the economic imperative to heterosexuality and marriage and to the sanctions imposed against single women and widows-both of whom have been and still are viewed as deviant. Yet, in this often enlightening Marxist-feminist overview of male prescriptions for female sanity and health, the economics of prescriptive heterosexuality go unexamined.7 Of the three psychoanalytically based books, one, Jean Baker Miller's Toward a New Psychology of Women, is written as if lesbians simply do not exist, even as marginal beings. Given Miller's title I find this astonishing. However, the favorable reviews the book has received in feminist journals, including Signs and Spokeswoman, suggest that Miller's heterocentric assumptions are widely shared. In The Mermaid and the Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements and the Human Malaise, Dorothy Dinnerstein makes an impassioned argument for the sharing of parenting between women and men and for an end to what she perceives as the male/female symbiosis of "gender arrangements," which she feels are leading the species further and further into violence and self-extinction. Apart from other problems that I have with this book (including her silence on the institutional and random terrorism men have practiced on women-and children-throughout history, amply documented by 5. Jonathan Katz, Gay American History (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1976). 6. Nancy Sahli, "Smashing: Women's Relationships before the Fall," Chrysalis: A Magazine of Women's Culture 8 (1979): 17-27. A version of the article was presented at the Third Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, June 11, 1976. 7. This is a book which I have publicly endorsed. I would still do so, though with the above caveat. It is only since beginning to write this article that I fully appreciated how enormous is the unasked question in Ehrenreich and English's book. 634 Rich

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《媒介与社会性别 Media and Gender》本科课程参考文献_adrienne+rich