Identifying Lesbian and Mother :: Argumentative Persuasive Papers

Identifying Lesbian and MotherIn her 1995 book, On the removed Looking In The Politics of Lesbian Motherhood, Ellen Lewin presents the phenomenon of lesbian women who, through with(predicate) childbirth, gain access to the heterosexual community as an in-radical member. At offset glance, Lewins observations seem to subvert traditional inside/ byside ideology, portraying the boundaries of the hetero- and homophile worlds as permeable rather than rigidly, similitudeally exclusive. A more exhaustive compendium, that is to say of the accounts of the women Lewin interviews, serves instead to reinforce inside/outside construction in relation to self and perceived identity. While the women are allowed into the selective sphere of heteronormality, they do not cross these categorical lines as both lesbian and mother. This paper allow for argue that the terms lesbian and mother are mutually exclusive, perhaps not in reality, but in the capacities of identity, performance, and location within an inside/outside dynamic. Lewin prefaces her analysis with a glance at the classic Western representation of the lesbian. This motion picture focuses on the exclusion of lesbians from typical female roles of maternal quality and nurturing being a mother carried an implied notion of heterosexuality, therefore, lesbianism and motherhood cancelled each other out in the popular imagination (107). Indeed, many of the women surveyed shared the sentiment of motherhood as overwhelming and engulfing other dimensions of their livesincluding what they considered the lesbian comp onenessnt (109). While this whitethorn be ascribed to the daunting tasks of mothering and childcare, the women pointed to a more self-appropriated explanation as they echoed one another in their tendencies to downplay the significance of their lesbianism in giving accounts of themselves as mothers (110). Simultaneously, these women were grow themselves more deeply in the heterosexual world and losing ties wi th the homosexual world. legion(predicate) of the reports quote the lesbian mothers as feeling stronger ties to the world they share with clean women than with other lesbians. Many felt the lesbian community to be unfriendly to lesbian mothers. One woman was even asked to leave her all-lesbian rap group after her child was born, as her fellow group members believed she was no lone hand attuned to lesbian issues (124). The question remains as to why straight mothers, as a representation of the larger heterosexual community, would be so cursorily to ally themselves with lesbians, even lesbian mothers. For a scholar of feminist theorizer Diana Fuss, this coalition seems to threaten the inside (read dominant) status of heterosexual society.