Lesbian history and gay studies: keeping a feminist perspective

The radical potential of gay studies to challenge the prevailing heterosexist academic vision will only be realised if a lesbian feminist viewpoint is incorporated. At present in gay scholarship the words ‘homosexual’ and ‘gay’ do not always include women, and sexuality is often defined in essentialist terms. Lesbian experience is frequently presented as a ‘pale version of the male’. Gay male history-writing reflects the concerns of the gay male rights movement, which do not challenge patriarchy. Lesbian history, on the other hand, focuses critically on the institutions of patriarchy which serve to keep women in subjection to men. It is argued that lesbians should not be subsumed into the dominant male culture but must seek to transform it through making their voices heard in gay studies as well as in women's studies and in separate lesbian history courses and writings