Lesbian: Politics, Culture, Existence
A history of feminist and lesbian thinking from the 1970s to the present
Across almost 50 years of writing, Susan Hawthorne’s essays on lesbian culture and politics take the reader on a journey through the concerns of radical feminists engaged in the Women’s Liberation Movement. Not only does she trace the experiments of lesbians creating a vibrant woman-loving culture, but she also traces the backlash against lesbians and a history of violence perpetrated by the state, corporations and individual men.
She begins with a recollection of a rape in her pre-feminist days, followed by a critique of the institution of heterosexuality and the role of lesbian feminism as a strategy. She is soon asking questions about lesbian existence. The essays span reflections on lesbian literature and the development of lesbian culture, including the politics of physical expression in circus.
Susan Hawthorne writes about cultural appropriation, depoliticisation and the erasure of lesbian inventiveness. She researches violence against lesbians including rape, torture and murder and the way in which this violence is ignored and often distorted by the media.
Her investigations include lesbian refugees, lesbian economics, violation of lesbian human rights and the impact of the transgender industrial complex on the existence of lesbians as a political force.
SEPTEMBER 2024 | ISBN 9781925950984 | Paperback | 360 pages | 152mm x 228mm
A history of feminist and lesbian thinking from the 1970s to the present
Across almost 50 years of writing, Susan Hawthorne’s essays on lesbian culture and politics take the reader on a journey through the concerns of radical feminists engaged in the Women’s Liberation Movement. Not only does she trace the experiments of lesbians creating a vibrant woman-loving culture, but she also traces the backlash against lesbians and a history of violence perpetrated by the state, corporations and individual men.
She begins with a recollection of a rape in her pre-feminist days, followed by a critique of the institution of heterosexuality and the role of lesbian feminism as a strategy. She is soon asking questions about lesbian existence. The essays span reflections on lesbian literature and the development of lesbian culture, including the politics of physical expression in circus.
Susan Hawthorne writes about cultural appropriation, depoliticisation and the erasure of lesbian inventiveness. She researches violence against lesbians including rape, torture and murder and the way in which this violence is ignored and often distorted by the media.
Her investigations include lesbian refugees, lesbian economics, violation of lesbian human rights and the impact of the transgender industrial complex on the existence of lesbians as a political force.
SEPTEMBER 2024 | ISBN 9781925950984 | Paperback | 360 pages | 152mm x 228mm
A history of feminist and lesbian thinking from the 1970s to the present
Across almost 50 years of writing, Susan Hawthorne’s essays on lesbian culture and politics take the reader on a journey through the concerns of radical feminists engaged in the Women’s Liberation Movement. Not only does she trace the experiments of lesbians creating a vibrant woman-loving culture, but she also traces the backlash against lesbians and a history of violence perpetrated by the state, corporations and individual men.
She begins with a recollection of a rape in her pre-feminist days, followed by a critique of the institution of heterosexuality and the role of lesbian feminism as a strategy. She is soon asking questions about lesbian existence. The essays span reflections on lesbian literature and the development of lesbian culture, including the politics of physical expression in circus.
Susan Hawthorne writes about cultural appropriation, depoliticisation and the erasure of lesbian inventiveness. She researches violence against lesbians including rape, torture and murder and the way in which this violence is ignored and often distorted by the media.
Her investigations include lesbian refugees, lesbian economics, violation of lesbian human rights and the impact of the transgender industrial complex on the existence of lesbians as a political force.
SEPTEMBER 2024 | ISBN 9781925950984 | Paperback | 360 pages | 152mm x 228mm
Look Inside the Book
Endorsements
Susan Hawthorne bestows on her readers an impressive garland of lesbian essays that take us from etymologies to lesbian flights at the Women’s Circus in Australia. On the tightwires of lesbian culture, her essays maintain a balance between the tensions of lesbian history and the building blocks of a lesbian future.
— Janice G. Raymond, author Doublethink and A Passion for FriendsWhen I was in my 20s, I read that fragment of Sappho in which she says that someone will remember us in the future. Who is the unmarked ‘us’? For me, obviously, this ‘us’ means lesbians, and the fragment must have worked as a spell, for indeed in the future she was finally remembered for who she was, for who we are. It is due to the work of writers such as Susan Hawthorne that our culture is preserved and able to flourish. This collection of essays shows our everlasting tenacity, courage, and beauty, be it in the poetry of our love for women or in the bravery of defending our rights and the planet that has borne us.
— Monalisa Gomyde, Lesbian literature researcher, translator, and writer, BrazilLεzbIәn is a great book and its coverage of different aspects of being lesbian is outstanding. The significance of lesbian culture through poetry and artistic creations features throughout the book. The highlight for me is an essay on lesbians who are tortured by their families or the state. Hawthorne also challenges the takeover of transgenderism and the denial of lesbian existence by men who claim to be lesbians, because they say they are. A must-read for every person who cares about justice.
—Lynne Harne, lesbian activist and coeditor, All the RageLεzbIәn covers almost every conceivable aspect of lesbian lives, from love and sexuality to torture, from living as a refugee to aerial performance and the effects of the encroachment of men into women’s space. The essays, written during 50 years of activism, exemplify the notion that the personal is political. Some are deeply personal, others highly political, all are thoughtful and wellresearched. LεzbIәn’s publication is especially timely, coming at a time when women’s and lesbians’ rights, spaces, culture and experiences, and even our very existence, are being widely ignored and undermined globally in favour of the rights of men claiming to be lesbian. I was struck by how many of the arguments Susan Hawthorne was making 10, 20, 40 years ago are being echoed today – a stark reminder, if any were needed, that many of the battles we face now are battles that lesbians have been fighting for many years.
—Sally Wainwright, editor, Women’s Rights, Gender WrongsSusan Hawthorne is a treasure and her book a treasure trove. Lesbians like myself can only marvel at the comprehensive and varied research that underlies it. From learning Greek to uncover our early existence, to becoming an aerialist to be brave and soar and teach others, to founding and developing (with Renate Klein) Spinifex Press, a treasure trove of lesbian and feminist writing, Susan has pioneered exposing our proud lesbian history in all its variety. She can be angry at post modernism, the torture of lesbians, and the transgender movement, gentle with separatism, and defiant about proud lesbian activism. Dip into it in all its variety – from the tough research to the light but pointed poetry and the wonderful cover of art by Suzanne Bellamy – I found the chapter on Bellamy poignant and evocative. It made me, a rather tired 81 year old lesbian feminist economist, all fired up to continue the fights we are engaged in to exist in this weird modern world. Give it to every young lesbian you know – and to those who don’t realise yet that they are lesbians (the straight world would benefit from reading it too).
—Prue Hyman, economist, lesbian and political activistI was very pleased to be asked to comment on this collection of Susan’s important contributions to the theory and culture of lesbian feminism over five decades. It was lovely for me to be reminded of these, and I particularly enjoyed the pieces on theorising heterosexuality, separatism, and the problem of men trying to crash and destroy the Women’s Circus to satisfy their sexual fetishism. There is such richness here, and this book is a treat for old lesbians like me and for a new generation.
— Sheila Jeffreys, author, The Lesbian Heresy and Trigger Warning: My Lesbian Feminist Life
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Poem: Together (1975)
2 Friends at the Wrong Time (2013)
3 The Institution of Heterosexuality and Lesbian Feminism as a Strategy (1976)
4 The Politics of the Exotic: The paradox of cultural voyeurism (1989)
5 What Do Lesbians Want? (1992)
6 Planting Roses: An exploration of lesbian traditions, cyberculture and poetics (1997)
7 Transgender People in the Women’s Circus: Open letters (2001)
8 From the Lesbian Body to Same-sex Attracted: The depoliticising of lesbian culture (2003)
9 The Political Uses of Obscurantism: Gender mainstreaming and intersectionality (2004)
10 The Butterfly Effect: The disruptiveness of lesbian knowledge (2005)
11 Ancient Hatred and Its Contemporary Manifestations: The torture of lesbians (2005)
12 Not on Anyone’s Program: How to count the unrecorded, unremembered, unnoticed lesbian refugees (2005)
13 Lesbian Economics: A challenge to economics as a sense of entitlement (2006?)
14 The Silences Between: Are lesbians irrelevant? (2007)
15 The Aerial Lesbian Body: The politics of physical expression (2007)
16 Matrices (2010)
17 Footnoted and Sidelined: The campaign for lesbian human rights (2011)
18 Poem: Slut but but (2011)
19 “Or, failing that, invent”: On lesbian language, memory and poetry (2014)
20 Fragmented Feminisms (2016)
21 From Inner Space to Outer Space: Australian lesbian writing (2017)
22 The TranScam (2021)
23 Separatism (2021)
24 The Lesbian Art of Suzanne Bellamy: Creativity as political strategy (2024)
25 Poem: Things a Lesbian Should Know (2019)
Bibliography
Index