No Permanent Waves: Recasting Histories of U.S. Feminism

10. Living a Feminist Lifestyle

In a 1972 memo to the Furies, member Charlotte Bunch articulated her dream for fifty years in the future. Bunch foresaw that “women will have taken power in many regions in the US, [and] are governing and beginning to create a new feminist society.” This new society entailed a long-term view of lesbian feminist separatism: “[W]e have built alliances in which we are the dominant power, with some minority groups and with a few male groups (especially gay males). We have minimal, but not warring, relations with some other US regions where minority groups have taken power and where the women are advancing rapidly but not yet in total control.” The former United States had become “A Federation of Feminist States,” governed by a lesbian feminist party.1 Building on Bunch’s vision, members of the Furies, a lesbian feminist collective based in Washington, D.C., in the early 1970s, proceeded to plan how they could eventually bring about this political goal. Their short-term strategy involved creating a collective where a small number of white lesbian feminists lived and worked together, separated both from heterosexual women and men. As in the proposed Federation of Feminist States, the collective members accepted that they would interact with some men and with women of color in a limited, but not necessarily antagonistic, fashion. So situated, the Furies distanced themselves from what they perceived as a hostile world in order to analyze their experiences as women, question their own principles and assumptions, and subsequently develop a base from which they could mobilize other women for social change. . . . The Furies formulated their collective as a place where they could immediately enact their political beliefs and, at the same time, focus on how Living a Feminist Lifestyle The Intersection of Theory and Action in a Lesbian Feminist Collective ANNE M. VALK 221 10 bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb best to gradually and completely eradicate women’s oppression. . . . They focused their efforts in three interconnected areas: analyzing and transforming individual behavior and everyday relations, particularly within their own collective; publishing theory in their monthly newspaper, The Furies; and developing local educational programs intended to empower women. By concentrating on these projects, the members believed they would inspire a mass movement to end sexism. Occupying a common living space, they reasoned , would enhance their theoretical insights by encouraging them to work through new models of interaction, create a supportive environment for political and personal change, and insulate them from activists who denigrated or ignored lesbianism. The newspaper and educational workshops, in turn, provided forums where the group could discuss and disseminate ideas developed within the collective. The record of their experiences and ideas would create a model for feminists in the 1970s and leave a lasting legacy for activists in the future. The Furies, existing as a collective from 1971 to 1972, were not the first or the only lesbian feminist group of the time.2 . . . Yet the Furies differed from . . . other initiatives in several ways. Living and working together, collective members sought to exercise feminist politics within a communal household. Unlike most collectives, the members wrote extensively about their living arrangements. For more than a year they produced a newspaper, and the publication became a vehicle for promoting feminist analysis, thereby shaping the direction and emphases of the women’s movement. At a time when many feminists opposed the concept of political leadership and sought to create a nonhierarchical movement, the Furies embraced the opportunity to direct the struggle for women’s liberation. Dana Shugar, who analyzed a broad range of lesbian feminist writings from the 1970s, argues that the discourse of separatism “in many ways required women to live and/or work in collectives as the full realization of their political analyses.” Shugar notes, however, that such ventures were “repeatedly undercut by ideologies of difference and unity that divided women within the collectives themselves” and ultimately led to their dissolution .3 Among the Furies, personal differences and political disagreements regarding how to organize a mass movement caused conflict both within the collective and with other women. Dissension disrupted the collective’s productivity and, following the pattern noted by Shugar, eventually contributed to its collapse. Nonetheless, the Furies collective was an important incubator ANNE M. VALK 222 for activists and ideas that became significant to the broader feminist movement . Charlotte Bunch, Joan E. Biren, Rita Mae Brown, and other members went on to forge...