sophiaserpentia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophiaserpentia) wrote2008-04-30 12:11 pm
sophiaserpentia) wrote2008-04-30 12:11 pm
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hmm, now here's an interesting one.
The people of Lesbos want gay women to stop calling themselves Lesbians.
Yes, i can illustrate the problem by imagining a Big Gay Sketch in my mind's eye: a man on a flight from Athens tells a US Customs Agent that he's a Lesbian; hilarity ensues. Gee, how funny.
The use of the term to refer to homosexual women dates to the Victorian era. It was, like so many other Victorian terms, a euphemism designed to hide what could not be talked about. It was adopted alongside the now archaic term sapphist; both refer to Sappho, the ancient resident of Lesbos who wrote love poems to women.
It is not the only geographic name which has been appropriated to describe women who live as partners; see for example the term "Boston marriage," which dates to roughly the same time period. (Hmm, someone on my friend's list wrote about this term in the last week, but i don't remember who, sorry.)
Since the political lesbian movement of the 1970's, the term "lesbian" has been cemented in our cultural consciousness, so much so that the term "gay" has come in many contexts to be seen as exclusively referring to men. But, just as 'transwoman' is not a real word but a composite term made of a norm + a modifier, 'gay woman' is not a real word; but neither is 'lesbian,' being an appropriated geographical term (still being used by the people who live there today) and is more of a moralistic erasure. It is more like the heteronormative imposition of a big "CENSORED" bar than a word itself. It is another example of the dominant culture using language as a weapon to deny identity; and we queer folk have made do with the modifiers and erasures given us, but we have yet to have actual words for who it is that we are.
Yes, i can illustrate the problem by imagining a Big Gay Sketch in my mind's eye: a man on a flight from Athens tells a US Customs Agent that he's a Lesbian; hilarity ensues. Gee, how funny.
The use of the term to refer to homosexual women dates to the Victorian era. It was, like so many other Victorian terms, a euphemism designed to hide what could not be talked about. It was adopted alongside the now archaic term sapphist; both refer to Sappho, the ancient resident of Lesbos who wrote love poems to women.
It is not the only geographic name which has been appropriated to describe women who live as partners; see for example the term "Boston marriage," which dates to roughly the same time period. (Hmm, someone on my friend's list wrote about this term in the last week, but i don't remember who, sorry.)
Since the political lesbian movement of the 1970's, the term "lesbian" has been cemented in our cultural consciousness, so much so that the term "gay" has come in many contexts to be seen as exclusively referring to men. But, just as 'transwoman' is not a real word but a composite term made of a norm + a modifier, 'gay woman' is not a real word; but neither is 'lesbian,' being an appropriated geographical term (still being used by the people who live there today) and is more of a moralistic erasure. It is more like the heteronormative imposition of a big "CENSORED" bar than a word itself. It is another example of the dominant culture using language as a weapon to deny identity; and we queer folk have made do with the modifiers and erasures given us, but we have yet to have actual words for who it is that we are.
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Hmm...so if given the chance, what word(s) should we use? Or should it be changed at all?
And I don't know about anyone else, but I know I posted about the term "Boston Marriage" on the 18th.
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Do we have a "Boston Marriage" in all senses of the term then? :P I am amused, I must confess.
I think I told you this once but when I lived in DC and had that lesbian landlady she and her partner were telling me about this female couple one time who wouldn't call themselves "lesbians" but insisted they were "gay women". Apparently they were very proper and well to do and went to theatres a lot or something... it was a funny conversation.
But even the term "woman" itself isn't a "real term". It means "man with womb" or something. Since those in charge do the naming of things, when some feminists tried to come up with their own terms to name themselves, such as a deliberate change of spelling to undermine the etymology - i.e. "womyn" - they were treated with incredible mockery by the dominant culture. How dare they have the nerve to try to CHANGE LANGUAGE! Don't they understand they don't have the RIGHT to do that? Never mind that language changes constantly, unless it is dead.
I suppose the people from that island have a point, but I don't think they have a chance of getting "their word" back. After all, what would we call ourselves then? When we try to name ourselves we are laughed at. "Homosexual women"? The interesting thing about the word "homosexual" is that, like the word "gay" has come to be associated mainly with male homosexuality. There are then various slurs, and while some lesbians are interested in reclaiming them, I have trouble with the whole concept of "reclaiming" terms used for the sole purpose of insult.
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That's just me, of course.
I don't mind the attempt to change language, I really don't. It at least makes one think about it more.
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Well, hrm, depends on how you look at it. Boston is one of the few places in the US where a "Boston marriage" can actually be recognized legally, so by that measure, i guess it is still only so informally.
she and her partner were telling me about this female couple one time who wouldn't call themselves "lesbians" but insisted they were "gay women". Apparently they were very proper and well to do and went to theatres a lot or something...
And i suppose they wanted to distinguish themselves from those bohemian (c whut i did thar?) poorly-behaved feminist lesbians.
But even the term "woman" itself isn't a "real term".
Indeed.
I suppose the people from that island have a point, but I don't think they have a chance of getting "their word" back. After all, what would we call ourselves then?
One relatively un-problematic other term, until a real word comes along, would be the archaic "sapphist." Not ideal, but then, in this line of endeavor, nothing ever is.
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Goths.
Bohemians!
Lesbians!
The Horde!
I'm sure there's more.
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I believe that was exactly their point, yes.
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Actually, it comes from "wyfman" and was as opposed to "werman" -- they meant, respectively, female or male person.
Womb actually has a separate derivation -- "womb O.E. wamb, womb "belly, uterus," from P.Gmc. *wambo (cf. O.N. vomb, O.Fris. wambe, M.Du. wamme, Du. wam, O.H.G. wamba, Ger. Wamme "belly, paunch," Goth. wamba "belly, womb," O.E. umbor "child"), of unknown origin." (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=womb&searchmode=none)
You may also be interested in the derivation of "man" -- I was intrigued to see that the slide from man-person to man-male happened in several languages, and not just in English:
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What's wrong with just using "homosexual" as a descriptor?
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Well, it's not very catchy, is it? Plus it's very clinical sounding. And it doesn't really solve the underlying problem, in that the term "homosexual woman" may be a description for who it is that gay women are, but it's not really a name.
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I don't know what we should do in terms of linguistics. Your debate brings to mind the "woman" ("man with a womb") quandry. At this point, we may have to start making up entirely new words as we rework our languages - and I do mean plural. First one that pops up for me is "femme" (French, means woman as well as wife, which is an interesting dual definition whereby a woman doesn't exist outside of a married couple from an etymological sense).
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Unfortunately, human politics are very predictable. As soon as you start to paint over the differences between people in a group, those with diverging experience within the group start feeling pressured to silence themselves for the good of all.
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