Original title: ‘Lesbisch zijn is politieke keuze’

Article | Netherlands

Source: Folia Civitatis
Keyword(s): lesbian movements | action groups | interview | sexual difference | consciousness-raising groups
Languages(s): Dutch
Manifest: view document: lesbisch zijn is een politieke keuze
Copyright:

© Copyright Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Summary:
In this article, Jeanne Doomen interviews the members of the activist group Paarse September (Purple September). The group, consisting of four women who knew each other from consciousness-raising group Purperen Mien, dissatisfied with the way the gay and lesbian association (COC) assumed that homosexuality was experienced in the same way by women as by men and with the fact that heterosexual feminists with whom they felt solidarity did not return that solidarity. The group attempted to raise awareness through their newsletter and through letters to other newspapers and magazines. In the interview, which made the group famous overnight, they stated that feminists needed to (re-)consider their heterosexuality as the essence of their oppression and that lesbianism was hence not (just) about sex but a political choice.