Lavender Menace
Encyclopedia
The Lavender Menace was an informal group of lesbian
radical feminists
formed to protest the exclusion of lesbians and lesbian issues from the feminist movement
at the Second Congress to Unite Women in New York City
on May 1, 1970. Members included Karla Jay
, Martha Shelley
, Rita Mae Brown
, Lois Hart, Barbara Love, Ellen Shumsky, and Michela Griffo, and were mostly members of the Gay Liberation Front
(GLF) and the National Organization for Women
(NOW).
, president of NOW, to describe the threat that she believed associations with lesbianism posed to NOW and the emerging women's movement. Friedan, and some other straight feminists as well, worried that the association would hamstring feminists' ability to achieve serious political change, and that stereotypes of "mannish" and "man-hating" lesbians would provide an easy way to dismiss the movement. Under her direction, NOW attempted to distance itself from lesbian causes – including omitting the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis
from the list of sponsors of the First Congress to Unite Women in November 1969. Friedan's remarks and the decision to drop DOB from the sponsor list led lesbian feminist Rita Mae Brown
to angrily resign her administrative job at NOW in February 1970 (Jay 137-138, Brownmiller 82). On March 15, 1970, straight radical feminist Susan Brownmiller quoted Friedan's remarks about the "lavender menace" and dismissed her worries as "A lavender herring, perhaps, but no clear and present danger" in a New York Times Magazine article.
While NOW did eventually use "Lavender Menace" as a negative term for lesbianism, it originated as a positive term claimed by lesbian feminists.
Brownmiller later said that when she wrote the article, she had intended to use a humorous quip to distance herself from Friedan's homophobia (Jay 140, Brownmiller 82), but some lesbian feminists (especially Michela Griffo) took her remarks as "a scathing put-down" (Brownmiller 82) and "evidence of Susan's homophobia or closet homosexuality--that is, that she was trying to distance herself from lesbians by insulting us" (Jay 140)—because they felt that the quip dismissed lesbians as an insignificant part of the movement, or lesbian issues as unnecessary distractions from the important issues.
suggested to her consciousness-raising group that lesbian radical feminists organize an action in response to Brownmiller's comments, and the public airing of Friedan's complaints. The group decided to target the Second Congress to Unite Women in New York City
on May 1, 1970, which they noticed featured not a single open lesbian on the program (Jay 140). They planned a zap
for the opening session of the Congress, which would use humor and nonviolent confrontation to raise awareness of lesbians and lesbian issues as vital parts to the emerging women's movement. They prepared a ten-paragraph manifesto entitled "The Woman-Identified Woman
" and made t-shirts, dyed purple and silkscreened with the words "Lavender Menace" for the entire group (Jay 140-142). Karla Jay
, one of the organizers and participants in the zap, describes what happened:
After the initial stunt, the "Menaces" passed out mimeographed copies of "The Woman-Identified Woman" and took the stage, where they explained how angry they were about the exclusion of lesbians from the conference. A few members of the planning committee tried to take back the stage and return to the original program, but gave up in the face of the resolute Menaces and the audience, who used applause and boos to show their support. The group and the audience then used the microphone for a spontaneous speak-out on lesbianism in the feminist movement, and several of the participants in the "zap" were invited to run workshops the next day on lesbian rights and homophobia
(Jay 144). Straight and gay women from the congress joined an all-women's dance (a frequent organizing and social tool used by Gay Liberation Front
men and women) (Brownmiller 98).
movement, and as a founding moment for lesbian feminism
. After the zap, many of the organizers continued to meet, and decided to create a lasting organization to continue their activism, which they eventually decided to call the "Radicalesbians." At the next national conference of NOW
, in September 1971, the delegates adopted a resolution recognizing lesbianism and lesbian rights as "a legitimate concern for feminism" http://www.feminist.org/research/chronicles/fc1971.html.
In 1999, Susan Brownmiller
described the impact by writing that "Lesbians would be silent no longer in the women's movement" (98). Karla Jay
described it in her memoirs as "the single most important action organized by lesbians who wanted the women's movement to acknowledge our presence and needs," and said that it "completely reshaped the relationship of lesbians to feminism for years to come" (137). "We felt as well," Jay wrote, "that the zap was only the first of many actions to come and that lesbian liberation was suddenly and unstoppably on the rise" (145).
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
radical feminists
Radical feminism
Radical feminism is a current theoretical perspective within feminism that focuses on the theory of patriarchy as a system of power that organizes society into a complex of relationships based on an assumption that "male supremacy" oppresses women...
formed to protest the exclusion of lesbians and lesbian issues from the feminist movement
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
at the Second Congress to Unite Women in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
on May 1, 1970. Members included Karla Jay
Karla Jay
Karla Jay is a professor of English and the director of the Women's and Gender Studies program at Pace University. A pioneer in the field of lesbian and gay studies, she is widely published....
, Martha Shelley
Martha Shelley
-Life and early work:Martha Altman, later Martha Shelley, was born on December 27, 1943, in Brooklyn, New York, to parents of Russian-Polish Jewish descent. Samuel R. Delany was a Bronx High School of Science friend. She was involved in a group based on the work of Harry Stack Sullivan which led to...
, Rita Mae Brown
Rita Mae Brown
Rita Mae Brown is an American writer. She is best known for her first novel Rubyfruit Jungle. Published in 1973, it dealt with lesbian themes in an explicit manner unusual for the time...
, Lois Hart, Barbara Love, Ellen Shumsky, and Michela Griffo, and were mostly members of the Gay Liberation Front
Gay Liberation Front
Gay Liberation Front was the name of a number of Gay Liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots, in which police clashed with gay demonstrators.-The Gay Liberation Front:...
(GLF) and the National Organization for Women
National Organization for Women
The National Organization for Women is the largest feminist organization in the United States. It was founded in 1966 and has a membership of 500,000 contributing members. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S...
(NOW).
Origins
The myth of the origin of the phrase "Lavender Menace" is that it was first used in 1969 by Betty FriedanBetty Friedan
Betty Friedan was an American writer, activist, and feminist.A leading figure in the Women's Movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the "second wave" of American feminism in the twentieth century...
, president of NOW, to describe the threat that she believed associations with lesbianism posed to NOW and the emerging women's movement. Friedan, and some other straight feminists as well, worried that the association would hamstring feminists' ability to achieve serious political change, and that stereotypes of "mannish" and "man-hating" lesbians would provide an easy way to dismiss the movement. Under her direction, NOW attempted to distance itself from lesbian causes – including omitting the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis
Daughters of Bilitis
The Daughters of Bilitis , was the first lesbian rights organization in the United States. It was formed in San Francisco in 1955, conceived as a social alternative to lesbian bars, which were considered illegal and thus subject to raids and police harassment...
from the list of sponsors of the First Congress to Unite Women in November 1969. Friedan's remarks and the decision to drop DOB from the sponsor list led lesbian feminist Rita Mae Brown
Rita Mae Brown
Rita Mae Brown is an American writer. She is best known for her first novel Rubyfruit Jungle. Published in 1973, it dealt with lesbian themes in an explicit manner unusual for the time...
to angrily resign her administrative job at NOW in February 1970 (Jay 137-138, Brownmiller 82). On March 15, 1970, straight radical feminist Susan Brownmiller quoted Friedan's remarks about the "lavender menace" and dismissed her worries as "A lavender herring, perhaps, but no clear and present danger" in a New York Times Magazine article.
While NOW did eventually use "Lavender Menace" as a negative term for lesbianism, it originated as a positive term claimed by lesbian feminists.
Brownmiller later said that when she wrote the article, she had intended to use a humorous quip to distance herself from Friedan's homophobia (Jay 140, Brownmiller 82), but some lesbian feminists (especially Michela Griffo) took her remarks as "a scathing put-down" (Brownmiller 82) and "evidence of Susan's homophobia or closet homosexuality--that is, that she was trying to distance herself from lesbians by insulting us" (Jay 140)—because they felt that the quip dismissed lesbians as an insignificant part of the movement, or lesbian issues as unnecessary distractions from the important issues.
Second Congress to Unite Women
Rita Mae BrownRita Mae Brown
Rita Mae Brown is an American writer. She is best known for her first novel Rubyfruit Jungle. Published in 1973, it dealt with lesbian themes in an explicit manner unusual for the time...
suggested to her consciousness-raising group that lesbian radical feminists organize an action in response to Brownmiller's comments, and the public airing of Friedan's complaints. The group decided to target the Second Congress to Unite Women in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
on May 1, 1970, which they noticed featured not a single open lesbian on the program (Jay 140). They planned a zap
Zap
A zap is an onomatopoetic word for a discharge of electricity or an electric shock.Zap or ZAP may refer to:- People :* Zap, stage name of female bodybuilder Raye Hollitt on the TV show American Gladiators...
for the opening session of the Congress, which would use humor and nonviolent confrontation to raise awareness of lesbians and lesbian issues as vital parts to the emerging women's movement. They prepared a ten-paragraph manifesto entitled "The Woman-Identified Woman
The Woman-Identified Woman
"The Woman-Identified Woman" was a ten-paragraph manifesto, written by the Radicalesbians in 1970. It was first distributed during the "Lavender Menace" protest at the Second Congress to Unite Women, on May 1, 1970 in New York City...
" and made t-shirts, dyed purple and silkscreened with the words "Lavender Menace" for the entire group (Jay 140-142). Karla Jay
Karla Jay
Karla Jay is a professor of English and the director of the Women's and Gender Studies program at Pace University. A pioneer in the field of lesbian and gay studies, she is widely published....
, one of the organizers and participants in the zap, describes what happened:
- Finally, we were ready. The Second Congress to Unite Women got under way on May 1 at 7:00 PM at Intermediate School 70 on West Seventeenth Street in Manhattan. About three hundred women filed into the school auditorium. Just as the first speaker came to the microphone, Jesse Falstein, a GLF member, and Michela [Griffo] switched off the lights and pulled the plug on the mike. (They had cased the place the previous day, and knew exactly where the switches were and how to work them.) I was planted in the middle of the audience, and I could hear my coconspirators running down both aisles. Some were laughing, while others were emitting rebel yellRebel yellThe rebel yell was a battle cry used by Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War. Confederate soldiers would use the yell during charges to intimidate the enemy and boost their own morale, although the yell had other uses. The exact sound of the yell is unknown and the subject of much...
s. When Michela and Jesse flipped the lights back on, both aisles were lined with seventeen lesbians wearing their Lavender Menace T-shirts and holding the placards we had made. Some invited the audience to join them. I stood up and yelled, "Yes, yes, sisters! I'm tired of being in the closet because of the women's movement." Much to the horror of the audience, I unbuttoned the long-sleeved red blouse I was wearing and ripped it off. Underneath, I was wearing a Lavender Menace T-shirt. There were hoots of laughter as I joined the others in the aisles. Then Rita [Mae Brown] yelled to members of the audience, "Who wants to join us?"
- "I do, I do," several replied.
- Then Rita also pulled off her Lavender Menace T-shirt. Again, there were gasps, but underneath she had on another one. More laughter. The audience was on our side.
- —Karla JayKarla JayKarla Jay is a professor of English and the director of the Women's and Gender Studies program at Pace University. A pioneer in the field of lesbian and gay studies, she is widely published....
, Tales of the Lavender Menace, 143
After the initial stunt, the "Menaces" passed out mimeographed copies of "The Woman-Identified Woman" and took the stage, where they explained how angry they were about the exclusion of lesbians from the conference. A few members of the planning committee tried to take back the stage and return to the original program, but gave up in the face of the resolute Menaces and the audience, who used applause and boos to show their support. The group and the audience then used the microphone for a spontaneous speak-out on lesbianism in the feminist movement, and several of the participants in the "zap" were invited to run workshops the next day on lesbian rights and homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
(Jay 144). Straight and gay women from the congress joined an all-women's dance (a frequent organizing and social tool used by Gay Liberation Front
Gay Liberation Front
Gay Liberation Front was the name of a number of Gay Liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots, in which police clashed with gay demonstrators.-The Gay Liberation Front:...
men and women) (Brownmiller 98).
Effects
The "Lavender Menace" zap, and the publication of "The Woman-Identified Woman," are widely remembered as a turning-point in the second-wave feministSecond-wave feminism
The Feminist Movement, or the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States refers to a period of feminist activity which began during the early 1960s and lasted through the early 1990s....
movement, and as a founding moment for lesbian feminism
Lesbian feminism
Lesbian feminism is a cultural movement and critical perspective, most popular in the 1970s and early 1980s , that questions the position of lesbians and women in society. It particularly refutes heteronormativity, the assumption that everyone is "straight" and society should be structured to serve...
. After the zap, many of the organizers continued to meet, and decided to create a lasting organization to continue their activism, which they eventually decided to call the "Radicalesbians." At the next national conference of NOW
National Organization for Women
The National Organization for Women is the largest feminist organization in the United States. It was founded in 1966 and has a membership of 500,000 contributing members. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S...
, in September 1971, the delegates adopted a resolution recognizing lesbianism and lesbian rights as "a legitimate concern for feminism" http://www.feminist.org/research/chronicles/fc1971.html.
In 1999, Susan Brownmiller
Susan Brownmiller
Susan Brownmiller is an American feminist, journalist, author, and activist. She is best known for her pioneering work on the politics of rape in her 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, Brownmiller argues that rape had been hitherto defined by men rather than women; and that men use,...
described the impact by writing that "Lesbians would be silent no longer in the women's movement" (98). Karla Jay
Karla Jay
Karla Jay is a professor of English and the director of the Women's and Gender Studies program at Pace University. A pioneer in the field of lesbian and gay studies, she is widely published....
described it in her memoirs as "the single most important action organized by lesbians who wanted the women's movement to acknowledge our presence and needs," and said that it "completely reshaped the relationship of lesbians to feminism for years to come" (137). "We felt as well," Jay wrote, "that the zap was only the first of many actions to come and that lesbian liberation was suddenly and unstoppably on the rise" (145).
See also
- LGBT rights in the United States
- List of LGBT rights organizations