Lesbian/Woman

Lesbian/Woman
Cover of the first edition
Authors Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon
Country United States
Language English
Subject Lesbian feminism
Publisher Glide Publications
Publication date
 1972
Media type Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages 283
ISBN 978-0553235975
OCLC 506556

Lesbian/Woman (1972; second edition 1991) is a work by the feminist and gay rights activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, in which the authors discuss what it means to be a lesbian. They provide a subjective account of lesbianism based on personal experience. The book was influential and is considered a foundational text of lesbian feminism. Reviewers believed that it benefited from its authors personal experience as lesbians, and endorsed its criticisms of the treatment of lesbians by religious and professional organizations.

Publication history

First published in 1972, Lesbian/Woman was republished in an expanded edition in 1991.[1]

Reception

Early reviews

Lesbian/Woman received a positive review from Carol Leard in The Body Politic and a mixed review from Diane Trzcinski in Lesbian Tide,[2][3] and was reviewed by Julia P. Stanley in the Journal of Homosexuality.[4] The book also received reviews in Sisters,[5] Amazon Quarterly,[6] and the Journal of Sex Research.[7]

Leard considered Lesbian/Woman "positive and enlightened", and credited Martin and Lyon with demonstrating "a full and realistic appreciation of what it means to be a woman and a Lesbian in contemporary society", and having provided an "authentic and factual" discussion of the topic that benefited from their personal experience as lesbians. She considered the book a useful counter to stereotypes about lesbians and welcomed its advice to parents not to send their daughters to therapists interested in changing their sexual orientation. Leard found the final chapter of the book to be "liberating in itself" in its "vibrant demand for liberation", endorsing its criticism of "the Church and professional associations".[2]

Trzcinski wrote that Lesbian/Woman would prove useful to feminists because of its history of the lesbian and lesbian feminist movements in the United States. She maintained that it benefited from Martin and Lyon's personal experience as lesbians, and credited them with accurately assessing the "three main sources of institutionalized oppression of lesbians" as organized religion, the medical profession, and the government. She also endorsed Martin and Lyon's criticism of psychoanalytic theories of lesbianism. However, she found that the book "too often reads as an apology", and believed that Martin and Lyon were wrong to demand that society give lesbians love and respect, writing that this was impossible given "the way society is presently constituted". She also questioned why lesbians should want the love and respect of society, given the way it treated them. She also maintained that while Martin and Lyon's account of lesbianism was accurate as far as it went, it ignored "the various alternatives now open to lesbians."[3]

Later evaluations

Jennifer Terry described Lesbian/Woman as "a foundational text of lesbian-feminism" and commented that in many respects it, "resembles previous social scientific surveys and early psychiatric case histories produced as a result of voluntary lesbian participation in studies." She added that, "One can identify a similarity in the discursive structure of the subjects' self-descriptions reported in Lesbian/Woman and those of the early psychiatric interviews that were part of the Sex Variants study of the 1930s."[8]

In 2004, The Advocate listed Lesbian/Woman as one of the "100 Best Lesbian and Gay Nonfiction Books" ever written.[9] Tina Gianoulis, writing for GLBTQ Social Sciences, described Lesbian/Woman as an influential book, adding that Martin and Lyon's understanding of what it means to be a lesbian "not only opened the door for women who had never been sexual with women to see themselves as lesbians, but it also laid the foundation for a woman-identified subculture that became the basis for the lesbian movement of the 1970s." Gianoulis added that it was Martin and Lyon's "most significant book" and that it "remains a crucial account of American lesbian life in the twentieth century".[10]

References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Martin & Lyon 1991, p. 285.
  2. 1 2 Leard 1972, p. 15.
  3. 1 2 Trzcinski 1972, pp. 10–11.
  4. ↑ Stanley 1974, pp. 220–223.
  5. ↑ Sisters 1972, pp. 5–8.
  6. ↑ Amazon Quarterly 1972, pp. 16–18.
  7. ↑ Journal of Sex Research 1973, p. 355.
  8. ↑ Terry 1997, pp. 278–279, 299.
  9. ↑ The Advocate 2004, pp. 172–177.
  10. ↑ Gianoulis 2015, pp. 1–2.

Bibliography

Books

  • Martin, Dell; Lyon, Phyllis (1991). Lesbian/Woman. Volcano, California: Volcano Press. ISBN 978-0912078915.  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Terry, Jennifer; Rosario, Vernon A., Editor (1997). Science and Homosexualities. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-91502-3.
Journals

  • Leard, Carol (1972). "Lesbian/Woman". The Body Politic (6).  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Stanley, Julia P. (1974). "Sappho Was a Right-On Woman: A Liberated View of Lesbianism / Woman Plus Woman: Attitudes Toward Lesbianism / Lesbian/Woman (book)". Journal of Homosexuality. 1 (2).  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Trzcinski, Diane (1972). "Lesbian/Woman". Lesbian Tide. 2 (3).  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • "Lesbian/Woman: A Review". Amazon Quarterly. 1 (1). 1972.  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Wollman, Leo; Beigel, Hugo G.; Sagarin, E.; Woltmann, Gus; Brooks, Joann (1973). "Lesbian Woman". Journal of Sex Research. 9 (4): 353–359. doi:10.1080/00224497309550816.  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • "Lesbian/Woman". Sisters. 3 (8). 1972.  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • "Simply the best". The Advocate (917). 2004.  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
Online articles

  • Gianoulis, Tina (2015). "Lyon, Phyllis, (b. 1924) and Del Martin (1921-2008)". GLBTQ Social Sciences. Retrieved 24 November 2017.
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