Finding Out: Ch1, Before Identity

Many women seem to have lived in situations undesirable but perhaps well-suited for female-female sexuality; in others, they received harsher punishments for stepping outside of gender boundaries. To start, far fewer same-sex relationships between women were valued or honored than those between men. In ancient Greece, countless pederastic relationships were revered while only Sappho’s same-sex relationships were recorded. Of course, men had more mobility and freedom than women in their society, and men kept the records. Even so, most of the accounts mentioned in this chapter are focused on male experience. On the Arab world, China, Japan, India, Pakistan, and early England, men alone are discussed, leading me to believe that the women in these societies were ignored or restricted by those who made the records. 

When women are discussed, it is in the context of offending men. Upper Egyptian women’s attempts to attract other women was “disapproved of and ridiculed” by men in the Church (17). This is one example of the still-prominent fact of men shaming women into submission. Today, mostly men (though occasionally women) shame women who act outside of conventional gender roles, whether through dress, performance, or sexuality, by accusing them of same-sex relations. Feminists and intelligent, vocal women are labeled as lesbians regardless of sexual preference in an attempt to hold them back from success. While gay men suffer the same bullying, their submission is in the form of adhering to masculine standards, to being “real men.” Both are restricted from a full range of expression, but where women are prevented from achieving success politically, professionally, or academically, men are often spared such extreme verbal oppression (outside of violence, which affects everyone). 

In some cases, women seem to have benefited either from their relative invisibility or from their lower status in society. In the places in which female sexuality is not mentioned, it is more likely that women’s sexuality was ignored than that female-female sexual contact or relationships never happened. The lower status of women’s bodies and women’s roles also contributed to th attitudes regarding their same-sex encounters. During the Middle Ages, “female-female sexuality was regarded as a lesser offense than male-male sexuality” due to a females subordinate reproductive role (17). Further, “lesbian sex was widely considered to be merely a preliminary activity preparing a woman for marriage; a sexually aggressive woman was thought to be emulating men--in other words, aspiring to a more perfect state of nature” (17). While, on the surface, this appears to be better for women, this view of women’s sexuality stems from patriarchal beliefs that women are inferior to men. 

In other places, women received harsher punishment than men. That “it is now believed that during the so-called burning times . . . many of the female victims were women who violated accepted gender practice” (17) is an indication that women’s nonconformity to gender norms was a more serious crime in societies where men had more flexibility in practice and in dress. Perhaps this is because women were seen as the bearers of the family line or race? Women were certainly viewed as property that had to be controlled rather than free agents. Rigidity when it comes to women’s roles and appearances is vital in such societies; without it, the potential for change and the usurping of patriarchy is too great for those in power to risk.