Re: let's twist again

mary bryson (brys who-is-at unixg.ubc.ca)
Wed, 17 Nov 1999 18:37:31 -0800

>
> How nice to see Monique Wittig cited here in xmca. She is also (in)famous
> in feminist theory for the statement that "lesbians are not women." Of
> course, she meant by that just what we've been talking about -- lesbians
> are (or can be) resisters of the feminine category system and all its
> accouterments.

I interpret this statement differently - and I happen to have a pretty good
hunch Monique does too.

On one auspicious evening she sat in my living room reading french poetry to
one of my cats, and we talked - lots. I am really not claiming some
authoritative voice here, but the implications are pretty serious. What
Monique meant, as far as I could gather, is that to the extent that a woman
does not identify as one who is the "opposite sex" of males, to that extent
her culture refuses her an identity as a "woman".

It is more about the attributional character of identity than some kind of
agency on a woman's part to resist the category and its attributes. And
actually, once, this homicidal maniac who accosted my partner and I in a
restaurant said to the waiter, who had asked him to, "Please sir, leave
those women alone!": "Those aren't women. Just look at them! Call them
women?!"

So I don't actually think the intent of mw's claim was a liberatory one. Far
from it.

mb