Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence
@article{Rich1980CompulsoryHA, title={Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence}, author={Adrienne Cecile Rich}, journal={Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society}, year={1980}, volume={5}, pages={631 - 660} }
In its first issue (Autumn 1975), Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society published Carroll Smith-Rosenberg's now classic article, "The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America." The following summer appeared Joan Kelly's "The Social Relation of the Sexes: Methodological Implications of Women's History (Signs:Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 1, no. 4 [Summer 1976]). Among scholarly articles, these two provided, in different ways…
3,082 Citations
Compulsory Sexuality and the Desiring Woman
- Art
- 2008
Adrienne Rich’s 1980 essay, ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence’, left an indelible imprint on feminist research. Even though students today may not have read the essay, the term…
Night Heron Press and Lesbian Print Culture in North Carolina, 1976–1983
- Art
- 2015
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the inaugural 1976 issue of the journal Sinister Wisdom, founders Harriet Desmoines and Catherine Nicholson wrote, "We're lesbians living in the South. We're white;…
Women look into love : reimaginings of heterosexual love in contemporary women's fiction
- Art
- 2013
This thesis explores how contemporary women writers write about heterosexual love, considering not only the ways it has been implicated in patriarchal models and traditional romance plots, but also…
From Sex Roles to Patriarchy: Recent Developments in the Sociology of Women—A Review Essay*
- Sociology
- 1982
Bernard, Jessie. 1981. The Female World. New York: Free Press.
Epstein, Cynthia Fuchs. 1981. Women in Law. New York: Basic Books.
Leghorn, Lisa, and Katherine Parker. 1981. Women's…
Lesbian feminisms: Historical and present possibilities
- Sociology, Political Science
- 2011
Lesbian feminism was a dominant ideology of politicized (white, middle class, North American, Western European, and Australasian) lesbians during the 1970s and 1980s. Prior to the rise of lesbian…
Marriage and Its Discontents
- Art
- 2000
This chapter aims to analyse the parameters of the New Woman writer’s onslaught on the ‘sacred enclosures’ of Victorian orthodoxy: marriage, (hetero)sexual relations and, by implication,…
The Lie with the Ounce of Truth
- Art
- 2003
Abstract This article focuses on the bisexual fantasies of playwright and memoirist Lillian Hellman. It analyzes the 1934 Broadway success, The Children's Hour, and the short story “Julia,” in her…
Oppression and Resistance: Frye's Politics of Reality
- ArtHypatia
- 1986
Marilyn Frye's first book, The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory, presents nine philosophical lectures: four on women's subordination, four on resistance and rebellion, one on…
Dangerous desire : sexual freedom and sexual violence since the sixties
- Art
- 2004
Dangerous Desire is an important work that calls attention to how post-1960s literary representations of rape have shaped the ways in which both sexual and social freedoms are imagined in American…
Historic Heteroessentialism and Other Orderings in Early America
- HistorySigns: Journal of Women in Culture and Society
- 2009
The aim of this essay is to highlight recent trends in the field of women's and gender history in early North America and to demonstrate why it holds value for feminist academics and activists alike.…
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 38 REFERENCES
"Women Alone Stir My Imagination": Lesbianism and the Cultural Tradition
- Art, HistorySigns: Journal of Women in Culture and Society
- 1979
In literary history, were all things equal, 1928 might be remembered as a banner year for lesbian publishing. In 1928 Virginia Woolf's Orlando, Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness, and Djuna…
Woman and nature : the roaring inside her
- Art
- 1980
In this famously provocative cornerstone of feminist literature, Susan Griffin explores the identification of women with the earth--both as sustenance for humanity and as victim of male rage.…
Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power
- Art
- 1978
A Lorde died in November, 1992. Audre Lorde was author of more than a dozen books of poetry and prose, recipient of national and international awards, and a founding member of Kitchen Table: Women of…
Becoming Visible: Women in European History
- History, Economics
- 1976
1. "Women of Ancient Egypt and Western Asia," Lesko 2. "Daughters of Demeter: Women in Ancient Greece," (Arthur) Katz 3. "Matres Patriae/Matres Ecclesiae: Women of Rome," McNamara 4. "Women in Early…
The Golden Notebook
- Art
- 1962
Beautiful, striking reissue of this classic Lessing novel. Widely regarded as one of the most influential books of the twentieth century Anna Wulf is a young novelist with writer's block. Divorced,…
Against our will : men, women, and rape
- Psychology
- 1978
The author shows why she considers rape not to be just a brutal crime but a reflection of how our society is conditioned. To do this she traces the use and meaning of rape from Biblical times through…
Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism
- Economics
- 1979
The theory of imperialism has always been one of the stronger aspects of marxism, and some of the new applications o f it in the context of the “ development dilemma” in the contemporary world…
Father-Daughter Incest
- Psychology, SociologySigns: Journal of Women in Culture and Society
- 1977
The incest taboo is universal in human culture. Though it varies from one culture to another, it is generally considered by anthropologists to be the foundation of all kinship structures.…
Toward a new psychology of women
- Psychology
- 1976
In this revised second edition, Dr Jean Baker Miller expands on her reflections on women and their future in the world. In particular, she supplies a commentary on the developments and changes…
For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts' Advice to Women
- History
- 1979
Are women by their very nature as frail, as prone to disease, as vulnerable and as inept as the experts appear to believe? In For Her Own Good, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English dismantle 150…