"So much of this book (For Her Own Good) is so devastatingly informative and is written with such lucid feminist wit, that I kept waiting as I read for the basic proscription against lesbianism to be examined. It never was…"False consciousness" can, I agree, be used as a term of dismissal for any thinking we don't like or adhere to. But, as I tried to illustrate in some detail, there is a real, identifiable system of heterosexual propaganda, of defining women as existing for the sexual use of men, which goes beyond "sex role" or "gender" stereotyping or "sexist imagery" to include a vast number of verbal and nonverbal messages. And this I call "control of consciousness." The possibility of a woman who does not exist sexually for men-the lesbian possibility-is buried, erased, occluded, distorted, misnamed, and driven underground. The feminist books-Chodorow, Dinnerstein, Ehrenreich and English, and others-which I discuss at the beginning of my essay contribute to this invalidation and erasure, and as such are part of the problem."
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Columnists from the United StatesHumanistsBloggers from the United StatesDemocratic socialistsSocialist feminists
Original Language: English
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Sources
Adrienne Rich, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" (1980)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Barbara_Ehrenreich
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Categories
Barbara Ehrenreich
1941 – 2022
US-amerikanische Schriftstellerin und Kolumnistin
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