Adrienne Rich and Second Generation Feminism

I have long, long, loved Adrienne Rich's poetry.  I saw her speak in Portland in 1999 (with a group of Lesbian Avengers) and mourned her death in verse with a group at CCCCs last year.  Mary Soliday even talks about Rich's early teaching days (she taught composition and not creative writing, to my surprise) in New York--making me recognize our affinity even more.

Like most of my colleagues and friends, however, I'm a third generation feminist.  I am pro-erotica/pornography.  I support non-normative career choices, like stripping.  I recognize normative beauty standards--despite our gender's socialization--as a real, actual, choice.  And I recognize arranged marriages and the veil as culturally situated and not exclusively the product of male hegemony.  Second generation feminism, according to Rich's famous "Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Experience" recognizes none of these things.  And that's to be expected given the context of her writing.

…here is where we all wished Liz Siler was there to help put 70s (and 80s) feminism in perspective for us.

Instead, we ruminated on how we would go about teaching an essay like "Compulsory

Indeed, a few years after Rich writes "Compulsory Heterosexuality," AIDS will strike.  And, as one (male) interviewee in the documentary "We Were Here" put it, "suddenly lesbians start showing up as nurses and caregivers.  They were the only ones willing to work those jobs."  Asking students to see these connections will surely help them contextualize, rather than reject out of hand, what second generation feminism (and Rich) had to offer.

Audre Lorde, Meridel Lesueur, Adrienne Rich 1980

Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Experience" and how it would contribute to student understanding of Rich's poetry.  April suggested framing the discussion in terms of other "rights" movements, noting that they often have "waves," where some are excluded (at least initially) and important sub-groups form.  This called to mind for me the way Rich and others in her camp stopped trying to be a part of the gay movement in the 1970s, since homophobia wasn't so much the problem, as institutional sexism was.  When lesbians joined the gay men's movements in the 1970s they became invisible (just as they did in the larger culture).  Straight feminists, Rich says, don't make this any easier when they cling to the myth that heterosexuality is a choice.  Instead, Rich encourages straight feminists to conceive of a lesbian continuum made up of things like two women "sharing a rich inner life, bonding against tyranny, or giving practical and political support…." (135)  I'm not sure Rich actually believed straight feminists at the time would let lesbians into their clubs, but perhaps she hoped a common focus on sexism might eventually unite us.