Some women may not "come out" until middle age, after long-term relationships with men. Still others may feel a clear attraction for women but never act on it, because of social pressure or isolation.
Lesbians have often been conflicted about what to call themselves, and which term one chooses can be meaningful. Some call themselves gay women, though many consider this a conservative term, and argue that "gay" was invented to describe homosexual men. Many more radical lesbians refer to themselves as dykes, reclaiming an anti-lesbian epithet. Black lesbians were sometimes contemptuously called bulldaggers, and that term has been reclaimedas well by black lesbians like writer Diane Bogus, who argued that the name originated with the Amazon queen Bodicea. Among themselves, lesbians worked out code references to announce their identity. In one of these codes, one was a "friend of Dorothy" if she was known to have sex with other women.
Women have traditionally been somewhat invisible in patriarchal society, and one or two women living without men has tended to arouse condescension or pity rather than the suspicion of homosexuality. Therefore, lesbians who were financially independent of men have historically been able to live together with relative ease.
This is a free page. This page contains 184 words. This
article contains 2,204 words (approx. 7 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our Lesbianism Access Pass.
