The term queer has often puzzled outsiders.Why call yourself that? This too has its story. For a long time queerwas, of course, a derogatory term for male homosexuals. That began to change when it began to be widely used in… Read More ›
Adrienne Rich
Postmodernism and Feminism
[Feminism] should persist in seeing itself as a component or offshoot of Enlightenment modernism, rather than as one more ‘exciting’ feature (or cluster of features) in a postmodern social landscape. (Sabina Lovibond, in T. Docherty, ed., Postmodemism: A Reader (1993).)… Read More ›
Heterosexism
The word ‘heterosexism’ derives directly from the feminist creation of the term ‘sexism’ during the late 1960s. The first usage of the term heterosexism is given as 1979 by the Oxford English Dictionary and it is defined as ‘prejudice and… Read More ›
Lesbian Continuum: A Brief Note
The ‘lesbian continuum’ was a phrase coined by Adrienne Rich in her pathfinding essay Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence (1980, reprinted in Rich 1986). Rich’s notion of ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ here extends the definition of lesbian beyond that of sexual identity… Read More ›
Introduction to Whiteness Studies
Whiteness studies investigates the parameters of white racial identity, locating its scope and function in systems of representation. This field of study takes as its founding premise the constructed nature of identity, a poststructuralist concept heralded by race theorists who… Read More ›
Radical and Lesbian Feminism
Contemporary lesbian feminism and action owes greatly to the thoughts of Adrienne Rich who argued that “compulsory heterosexuality” ensured a woman’s continuous subjugation by continually privileging man’s needs. She points out that such an ideology forces the girl/daughter to turn… Read More ›
