I just saw to interesting statistics, The are over 50 million unmarried adult women in the United States. Second, over 40% of children are born to unmarried women.
I suspect their are a lot unmarried women who would like to have husbands to share their lives with.
How do you think women feel about the growing number of gays in the US. We are far more open in stating our preference for men as partners. We are definitely seeking acceptance of gay marriage.
Do you ever feel that gays may be in for a homophobic backlash from women?
Gay men are working hard to get their share of available men. I am, that's for sure.
Have GS members felt there is a growing resentment of gays by women? I have, that's for certain.
No. Not here in the UK at least.
If anything, it seems that women(At least younger women) tend to be more accepting.
At least that's the vibe i get from all the coming out stories i've heard over the years while on here.
I've generally found women to be less homophobic than men, and even when they are homophobic they usually base it on religious reasons rather than more pragmatic ones, and/or they're more concerned with lesbians jumping their tender hetero bones than they are about gay men.
And technically speaking gay men are in competition for other gay men, not the men available to women. Sure, there's bisexual men but way too many people seem to think bisexuals aren't real and just confused at best. Besides, the laws make it much easier to settle with someone of the opposite gender so the playing field is still in the favor of heterosexuals even when competing for someone bi.
But I have read some feminist rants of the 70s who confused sexual orientation with political orientation. For example, they believed lesbians weren't about women loving women but about women rejecting men and patriarchy, either to build "womyn's" culture or retreating from the fight against the patriarchy depending on how they felt about it. And as for gay men a few of them seemed to think that wasn't about men loving men but about men rejecting women, thus misogyny. It was pretty crazy, but it was the 70s. :tongue:
Pix Wrote:But I have read some feminist rants of the 70s who confused sexual orientation with political orientation. For example, they believed lesbians weren't about women loving women but about women rejecting men and patriarchy, either to build "womyn's" culture or retreating from the fight against the patriarchy depending on how they felt about it. And as for gay men a few of them seemed to think that wasn't about men loving men but about men rejecting women, thus misogyny. It was pretty crazy, but it was the 70s. :tongue:
Yes, that movement was called "Lesbian Feminism". I have met a few younger lesbians who ascribe to those notions, but they are few in number.
Lesbian Feminism could at times be very dogmatic regarding gay men, decrying male homosexuality as an aspect of the patriarchy. As an example, the essay, "Compulsory Heterosexuality" by Adrienne Rich:
There were other feminists, outside of the lesbian feminist framework, who argued, from a constructionist perspective, that male homosexuality was inherently misogynistic. Of course, such an argument is problematic for too many reasons to cover here. The continentals, like Irigaray and Cixous have been guilty of attacking gay men from that perspective.
On the other hand, liberal feminist like Martha Nussbaum have been amongst the strongest defenders of gay rights. Moreover, we have prominent female academics, mostly out of American academia, in the field of queer theory who came out of an originally feminist perspective, like Sedgwick and Butler.
OrphanPip Wrote:On the other hand, liberal feminist like Martha Nussbaum have been amongst the strongest defenders of gay rights. Moreover, we have prominent female academics, mostly out of American academia, in the field of queer theory who came out of an originally feminist perspective, like Sedgwick and Butler.
I would also add Suzanne Farr and her work, "Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism" to that list of feminists in support of gay rights.
I'd add that in general, from surveys, women are far more likely to be less antagonistic towards gays and more in favour of gay rights.
There is, like we've talked about above, a legacy of anti-gay sentiment coming from women in the 60s, 70s and 80s. I think, partly, this was from a perception of difference between gays and lesbians, we didn't congregate in the same bars, or move in the same political circles, before the LGBT movement got into full swing in the 90s. There has been a rapprochement, and we are more integrated as a community.
For those interested, Leslie Feinberg's novel Stone Butch Blues, about pre-Stonewall lesbian life in America, is very interesting. It, semi-autobiographically, explores the transphobia directed at FtM transsexuals and butch lesbians that came in the late 60s and early 70s, which often gets overlooked in the larger picture of the general oppression gays and lesbians dealt with at the time. These anti-gay feminist discourses have also been directed at women who were seen to be too masculine.
I honestly don't think there are 'more' homosexuals in our societies, but rather there are 'more visible' homosexuals.
In the past a lot of gay men/women married and had families to disguise their real sexuality. However, the last 20 years has just seen and environment that is easier to gays and lesbians to live openly and honestly.
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Virgo
