National March! On Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights: Official Souvenir Program Page: 18
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means one person rising above another, one thing or person being big-
ger than another-in short, the whole idea of hierarchy.
Therefore, to say that there is either art or politics, culture or
politics, building a garage/restaurant or building a revolution smacks
of male, either/or exclusive thinking, the epitome of which must be the
existentialist philosophers, such as Jean-Paul Sartre or Albert Camus.
Thus, if we are told that we have to choose, we can answer that we
do not have to operate within male choices or male questions, for the
quesitons invariably set up the answers. We must and can set aside
even the questions.
I keep talking about the development of women's culture and
women's thinking, and this brings up two points which must be
covered before I go on to discuss more specific aspects of our culture.
First, I use women's culture (some would respell it womyn's or
wimmin's to get rid of the root man from the word) and lesbian
culture interchangeably. I do this purposely because I think that
women's culture and lesbian culture are basically the same. Almost all
the women producing today outside of traditional home-related
work-whether it be books, records, garages, restaurants, women's
centers, and even abortion clinics-are lesbians. I'm even certain that if
we dig far enough into herstory, we will discover that almost every
woman who was doing something atypical was a lesbian. Today one
has to look pretty hard to find a straight woman active in our arts.
For example, in music, Holly Near was the "token straight woman,"
and now she too is a lesbians
Secondly, I talk of women's/lesbian culture and not gay male
culture. I believe that culture is one area in which lesbians have greatly
diverged from gay men, perhaps because, as I have pointed out, gay
men had somewhat different roots, and after all, they are men. And
although we do have common experiences, such as coming out, prob-
lems with the straight culture (laws, discrimination, harassment, etc.),
the culture we have developed from the same sexist oppression is very
different. This is true, as I've said, in part because gay men, being
men, with more stake in the ruling culture, have relied heavily on
already established institutions and forms for their "new" culture. Les-
bians, twice removed and thoroughly alienated, have started from
scratch.
Also, we are not a people in the sense that other groups have been
a people. Blacks have been black men and their women; Jews have
been Jewish men and their women, and lesbians are being very careful
(as Rose Jordan pointed out in After You're Out) that we do not
become the women of gay men because they have no women. If we
do become a true, united people, it will be the first union of choice,
18
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D.C. Media Committee. National March! On Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights: Official Souvenir Program, pamphlet, 1979; Washington D.C.. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc276226/m1/20/: accessed June 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.