Lavender Menace

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The Lavender Menace (about: The Purple Menace) was an informal group of lesbian radical feminists who first came out on May 1, 1970 at the Second Congress to Unite Women in New York City in protest against the exclusion of lesbian and lesbian issues from the rest of the feminist movement conducted a public action. Members were u. A. Karla Jay , Rita Mae Brown , Lois Hart , Barbara Love , Ellen Shumsky and Michaela Griffo , most of whom were also members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and the National Organization for Women (NOW).

Origin of the conflict

The term "Lavender Menace" was first used by Betty Friedan , President of NOW, when she made an attempt in 1969 to describe the threat she believed posed by the lesbian members of the movement. Friedan and other heterosexual feminists believed that the alliance of the feminist and lesbian movements would undermine the potential for political influence if stereotypes of man-women and man-hating lesbians were available to the public to condemn the movement. Following Friedan's instructions, NOW distanced itself from lesbian concerns - to the point that they removed the Daughters of Bilitis from the sponsor list of the First Congress to Unite Women held in November 1969 . Friedan's remarks and the decision to quit womenswear made the lesbian feminist Rita Mae Brown feel so disappointed that she quit her job with NOW in February 1970 (Jay 137-138, Brownmiller 82).

On March 15, 1970, Susan Brownmiller commented on and quoted Friedan's remarks in an article in the New York Times Magazine , in which she noted that it is by no means a "menace", but rather "a lavender herring" (Note: red herring [fig.] = fake, diversionary maneuver) and therefore no clear and present danger exists.

Brownmiller later said that with this article she intended to distance herself from Friedan's homophobia in a humorous way (Jay 140, Brownmiller 82), but it was received very differently by some lesbian feminists. Michaela Griffo in particular understood her comments as "a scathing put-down" (an insulting disparagement, Brownmiller 82) and "evidence of Susan's homophobia or closet homosexuality - that is, that she was trying to distance herself from lesbians by insulting us" ( proof of Susan's homophobia or her own homosexuality - by which I mean that she probably wanted to distance herself from us lesbians by attacking us, Jay 140).

Second Congress to Unite Women

At Rita Mae Brown's suggestion, the women of the Lavender menace agreed that the time had come to take action in response to Brownmiller's comments and Friedan's complaints. It was decided to target the Second Congress to Unite Women , which was remarkably not a single open lesbian on the program. (Jay 140). A humorous “zap” (for example: a sudden contribution / action) was planned for the opening of the congress and the issue of a manifesto entitled “ The Woman-Identified Woman ”. (Jay 140-142). Karla Jay , one of the organizers and participants of the campaign, describes its course:

We were finally ready. The “Second Congress to Unite Women” began on May 1st at 7:00 pm in the Intermediate School on West Seventeenth Street in Manhattan. About three hundred women filled the auditorium. Just as the first speaker - Jesse Falstein - made her way towards the microphone, Michaela [Griffo] turned off the light and unplugged the microphone. (We had taken a close look at the room the day before and knew where all the switches were). I stood in the middle of the crowd and heard my fellow conspirators running up the aisles. Some laughed, others uttered sharp screams. When Michaela and Jesse turned the lights back on, both corridors were flanked by 17 lesbians who wore purple T-shirts with the words "Lavender Menace" on them and held the self-made plaques. Some invited the audience to join them. I got up and called, “Yes, yes sister! I'm not going to stay in the closet anymore because of the women's movement! ”To the great horror of the audience, I began to unbutton and take off my long-sleeved red blouse. I wore a Lavender Menace T-shirt underneath. There was a lot of laughter as I stood with the others. Then Rita [Mae Brown] called out, "Who wants to join us?"
“I want to!” Replied some.
Then Rita tore off her T-shirt, the audience gasped for air, but she wore another underneath. More laughter. The audience was on our side. ( Karla Jay , Tales of the Lavender Menace , 143)

After that, the Menaces began handing out copies of The Woman-Identified Woman manifesto, climbed the stage, and began explaining why they were against banning lesbians from Congress. Some members of the planning committee tried to get on stage and continue with their program, but the Menaces did not move and the audience, with applause and boos, showed very clearly where their sympathies were. The group used the microphone for a spontaneous speak-out on the topic of lesbians in the women's movement, whereupon several participants of the "zap" were invited to hold workshops on this topic the next day.

Effects

This campaign by “Lavender Menace” and the publication of “The Woman-Identified Woman,” mark a turning point in the second wave of the feminist movement and the year the “lesbian-feminist” movement was founded. Many of the organizers continued to meet and decided to found a fixed group (the Radicalesbians ) in order to be able to deal with their concerns appropriately. At the next NOW national conference in September 1971 , delegates passed a resolution designating lesbians in the movement and lesbian rights as "a legitimate concern for feminism."

literature

Web links

Individual proof

  1. ^ Feminist.org