“Lesbian nation is Amazon culture: Lesbian separatism and the uses of Amazons”

Abstract

In this article, Amazon imagery serves as a case study for the complicated relationship of lesbian separatist movements of the 1970s and the classical Greek tradition. I consider how the use of mythological figures allowed lesbian feminists to rewrite and subvert dominant patriarchal narratives in ways that furthered their revolutionary projects. I argue that the nature of mythology is fundamentally fluid, collaborative, and open to queer reinterpretations and appropriations in ways that are rich with symbolic potential. Furthermore, the creation of separatist communities approximates an act of nation-building, and it is useful to consider other attempts to construct and theorize nations, ranging from Homi Bhabha on post-/anticolonial resistance to Berlant and Freeman on Queer Nationality. In particular, when considering a lesbian movement, we should remember that queer theory is messy because queerness itself is messy and resists boundaries and classification. Furthermore, what Ward frames as “dyke methods” (or dyke-centric queer methods) insist on categories that are fluid, messy, and shifting in their classifications and drawn toward as-yet-unknown queer possibilities. To study lesbian separatists with dyke methods is to embark on “an antiessentialist and interdisciplinary project” without necessarily “making a commitment to balanced ideas” (pp. 82–83). It is my hope that a messy, queer analysis of Amazonian symbolism in the construction of a lesbian nationalism will ultimately offer intriguing, if at times contradictory, possibilities.

Keywords:

• Lesbian lands
• classical reception
• Amazons
• lesbian separatism
• queer separatism

Acknowledgments

I am so grateful for the generosity of Dr. Evan Lee, whose feedback, collaboration, and insight has been instrumental throughout this project. I am also extremely grateful to Dr. Walter Penrose for his support and assistance throughout, and to the anonymous reviewers whose thoughtful comments helped make this a stronger article.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Notes

1 Not all female separatist movements were lesbian in nature, but the ideological thread I trace here is informed more by groups like the Gutter Dykes, Radicalesbians, and the CLIT Collective, which framed lesbianism as integral to their movements. We start to see, in a series of independent publications (many detailed below), an evolving sense of the necessity to craft a political lesbianism, as opposed to heterosexual feminism. Those with an explicit focus on lesbian feminism can most pithily be summed up in the slogan “feminism is the theory, lesbianism is the practice,” credited to Ti-Grace Atkinson. As a further example, a pamphlet from the Furies argues: “as long as women still benefit from heterosexuality, receive its privileges and security, they will at some point have to betray their sisters, especially Lesbian sisters who do not receive those benefits.” Likewise, from a pamphlet from the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group: “[A]ll feminists can and should be lesbians. Our definition of a political lesbian is a woman-identified woman who does not fuck men. It does not mean compulsory sexual activity with women.” (n.b., the framing of a “woman-identified woman” was generally used to talk about the primary sexual or political orientation of someone, in terms of power structures and was not being used in the ways that modern anti-trans activists use this sort of language. A more legible term in the modern era might be “woman-aligned,” given the changes in language around gender identification. A feminist who was a heterosexual cis woman was considered to be “male-identified” because her primary allegiance was toward patriarchy). Of additional note, celibacy is equally available for “lesbian feminists” and many women from these movements identified as celibate lesbians. However, some form of at least political lesbianism is, for many of these communities, an essential element.

2 The idea of a queer society as opposed to queer spaces is significant. Lesbian bookstores provided a brief respite from heteropatriarchy within dominant society, but that is a meaningfully different thing than a society fully organized in line with lesbian feminism. For further analysis on queer spaces, see Currans (2012) on dyke marches.

3 Throughout, I use the term “separatist” to refer to these movements, though there was significant debate about whether separatism or autonomy was the more desirable goal, and many of the people quoted throughout were proponents of autonomy rather than separatism at different points in their intellectual developments. For a more thorough overview of the different strains of lesbian feminism, lesbian or female separatism, and other women’s land movements that do not always overlap with each other ideologically, see Luis (2018). For a recent and incisive look at the history of womyn’s lands as antecedents of many subsequent radical movements, see Campbell (2023). See Ainley (2016) for a series of personal accounts that touch on the politics and messaging of separatism.

4 The Civil Rights movement(s) and the radical feminist movement(s) of the 1960s and 1970s had significant overlap, both in terms of the people involved as well as the philosophies and strategies employed. These parallels are not a coincidence, but rather a natural result of the contact between these disparate groups (Black nationalism, a movement that significantly pre-dates the Civil Rights era, is specifically mentioned as a model in several lesbian publications, including Cordova [1973]). Nonetheless, relationships between the different movements were sometimes fraught, given widespread failures to adopt an intersectional approach (see, e.g., The Combahee River Collective Statement from 1977).

5 For example, when examining lesbian lands, we see meaningful parallels with a Black nationalist ideal that can be traced back at least as far as W.E.B. Du Bois (whose ideas would contribute to later movements in Pan-Africanism and Afrocentricity). Du Bois’ approach “plac[ed] Africa in its rightful place in an ancient Mediterranean landscape [and] expand[ed] the scope of the classical world to include African civilizations” (Lee, 2019, p. 3), by writing African history back into the ancient Mediterranean world and looking back to a time before the construction of white supremacy. For a thorough treatment of Du Bois’ construction of national identity across his writing, and the ways Du Bois was engaging with others in the Black nationalist tradition, see Lee (2019). Future work on this topic will explore lesbian nationalism within the intellectual milieu of Black and post-/decolonial movements in greater detail.

6 In this sense, lesbian lands are utopic in both of More’s original senses, both an idea that exists in ‘no place’ (ou-topos) and an actual, physical ‘good place’ (eu-topos). More discusses this double etymologizing in his appendix to Utopia and the related poem, “A Short Metre of Utopia.”.

7 It is worth noting that there were several attempts to craft a narrative around ancient matriarchal societies, such as thealogian (a spelling that centers the study of a female divine; hence, thea- rather than theo-) Carol Christ’s work, especially “Why Women Need the Goddess” (originally published in 1987). However, such approaches to reconstructing a matriarchal prehistory (or pre-herstory) were only moderately successful, preventing the emergence of a shared ancestry for contemporary feminist communities. These approaches fall into what Alice Echols describes as the rise of cultural feminism, a movement that undermined and eventually caused the dissipation of the radical feminist movements of the 1970s (Echols, 2019). While writers such as Wolff (1971) and Johnston (1985) insist on the existence of prehistoric matriarchies, my focus here is not on the possibility of actual gynocentric societal structures but rather the symbolic work that mythologies of matriarchy/female separatism do for the collective feminist imaginary.

8 The reception of Sappho among queer communities is outside the scope of this paper, but for my purposes here, her female community on Lesbos does not represent a meaningful nation of women. Sappho’s ‘school’ (granted, this characterization elides a good deal of scholarly debate about the context in which Sappho lived and wrote) does not seem to have been a permanent community for most of the young women whom she loved. Sappho’s community of women would have been more akin to a queer women’s space (a bookstore or coffee shop) rather than a separatist community (that is a queer space versus a queer state). While Sappho was famously deemed ‘a right-on woman’ (per the title of Abbott and Love’s [1985] book, which was itself taken from a poem by Sue Schneider), she does not do the same symbolic and metaphorical work that Amazons do. See DeJean (1989) for more on the reception and, at times, fictionalization of Sappho’s legacy.

9 Cf. Johnston (1985, pp. 248–249): “Of supreme importance in this process is the recovery by modem woman of her mythology as models for theory, consciousness, and action.”.

10 I here disregard the attempts (at the time and in the decades since the 1970s) to find historical Amazons. For example, Johnston (1985, pp. 258–266) traces a particular narrative of Amazons as an actual, historical phenomenon. This account, like her preceding account of the ascendence of male divinities over female ones, seems heavily influenced by a form of cultural feminism that echoed the scholarly influence of the Freud and the Cambridge Ritualists. This methodological lineage is well reflected in the scholars she chooses to cite (among others, Jane Harrison, Joseph Campbell, Robert Graves, Erich Neumann, J. J. Bachofen, Helen Diner, Philip Slater—scholars whose work has been thoroughly critiqued, including by feminist scholars), and this reading is not entirely in keeping with contemporary mythologists/folklorists, classicists, and anthropologists. I set this debate aside because the historicity of Amazons is not central to my argument and because the overwhelming majority of the evidence that feminists in this era use is drawn from Greek literary accounts and not archaeological accounts that might give us some access to real women’s lives in the Black Sea region.

11 Throughout my treatment of failure and queerness, I draw predominantly on Halberstam’s (2011) The Queer Art of Failure, both for the broad theoretical framing as well as the specifics of the hydra.

12 See Ward (2016) for a recognition that “to pair the terms ‘queer’ and ‘methodology’—the former defined by its celebrated failure to adhere to stable classificatory systems or be contained by disciplinary boundaries, and the latter defined by orderly, discipline-specific, and easily reproducible techniques—produces something of an exciting contradiction, a productive oxymoron” (p. 72). See also Love (2016) on “Queer Messes.”.

13 See also Maltz (1999) on what she calls “dyke discourse,” or “a parallel project to queer theory [that] considers female subjectivity first and foremost” (p. 1).

14 Segrest’s (2016) “A Bridge, Not a Wedge” speech touches on the differences between queer socialism and queer nationalism, advocating for a queer socialism. I appreciate her vision of a queer utopia that does not replicate the colonialist, racist, and classist aspects of many nationalist movements, but I am not convinced that all nations must inevitably develop these oppressive aspects. Put otherwise, a queer nation and queer socialism are not mutually exclusive. For a related analysis, see Murray (2007) on aspirations toward a Lesbian Nation in the 1970s and 1980s and the complicated relationship many lesbian communities negotiated between their values and capitalism, as they were attempting to create their own cultural institutions. See also Stein (2001, p. 117) on the symbolism of lesbian nation.

15 One of the highest profile instances of conflict between gender essentialist and trans-exclusionary models of feminist spaces was the now-discontinued Michigan Womyns Festival. For more on this ideological conflict, see Currans (2020) and Lavery (2023).

16 Pausanias 1.2.1 recounts aspects of the conflicting tradition and the differences between Pindar and Hegias’ accounts of the hero(es) involved in conflicts with the Amazons. Theseus’ abduction of Antiope is depicted in several vase paintings (London E41; Louvre G197; NY 12.198.3; Munich 1414), often with his companion Perithoos (Perithoos’ involvement is also mentioned in Pindar frag. 175 SM. Plutarch recounts a version from Philochorus where Theseus sails with Heracles (as Paus. 1.2.1 describes Hegais’ account).

17 The Exekias Amphora, c.540 BCE, Vulci; The British Museum 1836,0224.127.

18 For more on this motif, see Hall (2020), Castriota (1992, 2005), and Blundell (2005).

19 See Blok (1995) for more detailed analyses of the connotations of these epithets (especially 179ff) and their usage history (passim).

20 Hippocratic writings are varied but they attest to the use of breast cauterization by Sauromatian women to arrest the growth of the right breast and divert the bulk and strength to the right shoulder and arm (Airs Waters Places 17), cauterization as a general tool by the Scythians to counteract their innate moistness and softness (Airs Waters Places 20) and the general condition of women and the health risks of an excessively cold and wet constitution (Nature of Women and Diseases of Women). For more on the Hippocratics, see Jouanna (2012).

21 For the most rigorous and extensive treatment of these mythological and historical women, see Penrose (2016). See also Mayor (2014). The existence (or lack thereof) of Amazons is immaterial to my argument, since I am more concerned with their representation in the ancient and modern cultural imagination and not any underlying historical veracity.

22 As noted above, not all female separatist movements were lesbian in nature, but the ideological thread I trace here is informed more by groups like the Gutter Dykes, Radicalesbians, and the CLIT Collective, which framed lesbianism as integral to their movements. We start to see, in a series of independent publications (many detailed below), an evolving sense of the necessity to craft a political lesbianism, as opposed to heterosexual feminism. As an example, a pamphlet from the Furies argues: “as long as women still benefit from heterosexuality, receive its privileges and security, they will at some point have to betray their sisters, especially Lesbian sisters who do not receive those benefits.” Likewise, from a pamphlet from the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group: “[A]ll feminists can and should be lesbians. Our definition of a political lesbian is a woman-identified woman who does not fuck men. It does not mean compulsory sexual activity with women.” See Ross (1995, pp. 23–40) on the emergence of a lesbian feminist discourse and debates over alliances with other queer groups (e.g., gay men), alliances with other (straight) women, and alliances with leftist organizations, with a particular focus on Canadian political organizing. In the face of “augmenting levels of exasperation at the heterosexual bias of straight feminists, the sexism of gay and straight men, and the class determinism of the left” (p. 39), lesbian feminism as a political project began to take clearer form. (n.b., the framing of a “woman-identified woman” was generally used to talk about the primary sexual or political orientation of someone, in terms of power structures and was not being used in the ways that modern anti-trans activists use this sort of language. A more legible term in the modern era might be “woman-aligned,” given the changes in language around gender identification. A feminist who was a heterosexual cis woman was considered to be “male-identified” because her primary allegiance was toward patriarchy). Of additional note, celibacy is equally available for “lesbian feminists” and many women from these movements identified as celibate lesbians. However, some form of at least political lesbianism is, for many of these communities, an essential element.

23 Advertisements found in Lesbian Connection 4, no. 4 (1978): 15 and 5, no. 6 (1982): 13.

24 This direction is heavily influenced by Penrose (2016) and his application of postcolonial theory to the study of Amazons. I am aware of the problems with conflating a group of predominantly white women with colonized peoples but I analyze these separatist communities on their own terms and treat them as subaltern (knowing full well that Spivak might not approve). I proceed carefully in the path that has been trod by others who have seen the great value that the theoretical construct of the subaltern has for analyzing other power structures whose dynamics are similar to exercises of imperial power. See Berlant and Freeman (1994, p. 157) for an example of Spivak thoughtfully applied to queer theory.

25 Whether lesbian feminists and separatists chose Amazons for precisely these reasons is immaterial to an examination that considers the force, aptness, and potential of this symbolism. Many women in this era insisted on the literal, historical reality of Amazons and a prehistoric matriarchy, but very little about the ideological usefulness of Amazons is contingent on such a history. To build upon Charlotte Wolff’s claim that “Mythology is history” (Wolf, 1971, p. 82), I would go so far as to claim that mythologies also stand on their own, separate from the person who creates them, and a symbol does not need authorial intent to have an effect on the thoughts of those who consume it.

26 On this process in the United States in the context of both the Founding Fathers as well as within African American identity construction, as influenced by Virgil’s Aeneid, see Shields (2022).

27 Drawing on Segrest (2016) in conjunction with Anderson, we might consider how rigidly or loosely we should define nation-states and nationalism. Visions of lesbian and queer nations are explored in different ways in both Murray (2007), Johnston (1985), and Berlant and Freeman (1994). For my purposes here, I am using the idea of a nation (as loosely and conventionally understood) more than something particularly rigid and precise. A more precise definition of nation-state would surely highlight many places where these constructions of lesbian/queer nations do not map neatly onto traditional definitions of nation-states but those specifics are outside the scope of this project.

28 Compare the language in the 1971 declaration by the National Organization of Women: “Because she defines herself independently of men, the lesbian is considered unnatural, incomplete, not quite a woman—as though the essence of womanhood was to be identified with men.”.

29 See also Wittig (1992): “Lesbian is the only concept I know of which is beyond the categories of sex (woman and man), because the designated subject (lesbian) is not a woman, either economically, or politically, or ideologically. For what makes a woman is a specific social relation to a man, a relation that we have previously called servitude, a relation which implies personal and physical obligation as well as economic obligation… a relation which lesbians escape by refusing to become or to stay heterosexual” (p. 18).

30 Parthenogenesis was a regular feature in lesbian separatist publications and speculative fiction (e.g., “When It Changed” by Joanna Russ and The Wanderground by Sally Gearhart), of particular interest to lesbian feminists in the 1970s because the general understanding of parthenogenesis was that it could only produce female children.

31 For more on these intersecting movements and the emergence of lesbian separatist communities, see Burmeister (2014).

32 For more on the utopian nature and politics of queer communities, see Berlant and Freeman (1994).

33 For the practicalities of queer nationality (as compared to Berlant and Freeman’s more abstract consideration of the symbolism of Queer Nation), see Walker (1996). His concerns are primarily with the idea of a cultural nation that operates in a “trans-statal” or diasporic way, meaning a culture that does not have a specific territory.

34 To be clear, there are still lesbian lands in existence, just not in the numbers there once were, when these projects were part of mainstream feminism at the time. See Luis (2018) for contemporary landdyke communities that still exist, though in more peripheral forms.

35 See Campbell (2023) for more on this theme. Enszer (2016) also speaks to the merits of lesbian separatism in the contemporary moment and into the future: “Lesbian separatism as ideology generates conflicts and irreconcilable challenges, but lesbian separatism as process generates utopian possibilities that even if not achieved transform the field of the possible for lesbians” (Enszer, 2016, p. 193).

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Notes on contributors

Amy Pistone

Amy Pistone is an Assistant Professor at Gonzaga University and her primary area of research is Greek tragedy and its reception. She completed her PhD at the University of Michigan, where her dissertation focused on oracular language in the plays of Sophocles, but she has recently worked on classical reception through the lens of postcolonial, queer, and feminist theories.