Why Must Male Egos Control Every Aspect of Women’s Lives?

A lesbian is a woman. A woman is a lesbian. Why are the two constantly defined as being dichotomous? The only distinction is their sexual preference. The RADICALESBIANS point out that both are met with oppression and limitations of their most basic roles in society. Both terms are socially constructed by males to ensure that the sexist undertones of American society persist. These sex roles function to dehumanize women by merely assigning labels to their social existence. Lesbians encounter much of the same problems as heterosexual women, yet, their efforts to combat the oppression that they face is most often done solitarily. Why must their be this divide? The time is now. We, as women, can no longer allow men to structure our livelihood and daily operation in society. It is this notion of patriarchy in society that creates a divide between women. I would actually go so far as to call it a “double consciousness,” in that lesbian women are in the midst of an internal battle between their identity as a woman and a lesbian. This internal battle manifest itself in the form a “scripted reality” that is representational of a male dominated stance. Thus, the internal essence of the woman is lost in translation, and is rather suited to satisfy the egos of patriarchal forces. Scripted reality, in a sense, that it could be looked at as the fantasies or dreams of the dominate. All this is, is a manifestation of the gender border control that formulates an individual’s gender identity. Judith Butler also attests to the fact that gender is used in way to establish and maintain specific codes of cultural coherence for the purposes of social regulation and control. As a result, there is a construction of the gendered body though a series of exclusions and denials based on the dichotomous nature of human existence. It is these prohibitions that produce identity that is based on an idealized an compulsory heterosexuality. If this is the case, where do lesbians fit in the picture? Their identity becomes categorized as “other” or “deviant” and challenges set codes of femininity and/or female existence. The assigning of labels is central to the maintaing of power.