Nuova DWF. Donna Woman Femme
Quaderni di studi internazionali sulla donna
Roma, Coines Edizioni, then Editrice coop. UTOPIA, 1976-1985

Forbidden Love. Studies on Lesbian Existence from the U.S.A., 1982, n. 23-24

EDITORIAL, pp.3-4

This issue appears after a long break in publication due to various problems, among them the necessity to start rethinking the policy and format of the journal. The issue focuses a complex political and scientifical question: the relationship between heterosexuality and lesbianism, and the different points of view from which either of them can be looked at in relation to feminist politics. The writings have been selected among the rich literature on this topic produced in the U.S.A.

RICH Adrienne, Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, pp. 5-40

The author asks and tries to answer two questions: on the one hand why the choice of a woman to share her life and passions with another woman has been denied or compelled to disguise itself; on the other hand the reasons for a continued silence on lesbian existence even in openly feminist books. She analyses several writings which take heterosexuality for granted, instead of considering its essence as a political institution, and then looks at the ways male power controls female sexuality. Reflecting on the writings of Catharine A. MacKinnon and Kathleen Barry, Rich examines the economical, symbolic and emotional aspects of these oppressive practices as ways of imposing heterosexuality upon women, in order to guarantee men's physical, economical and emotional rights of control. The third and fourth parts of the essay introduce the concepts of lesbian existence and lesbian continuum - in opposition to clinical reductive definitions - to point to a series of experiences which embody the internalisation of a female subjectivity historically marking women's resistance to oppression, to institutionalised heterosexuality, to marriage. Erotic sensuality is the most violently repressed feature of women's experience. Internalising a female subjectivity is a source of energy for all women, in order to change the social relations between the sexes: bringing to light this energy is a necessary step to dismantle the power wielded by men in all fields, which has provided a model for all other forms of exploitation and oppressive control.

WILSON Elisabeth, Forbidden Love, pp. 41-55

The author outlines a map of the transformations which have occurred, and of the problems we have to face today - going beyond the obvious improvement with respect to a biologically defined conception of lesbianism - if we look at the various feminist theoretical positions about lesbianism and lesbian eroticism. After underlining that feminist thinkers tend to neglect the romantic aspects of lesbianism, Wilson argues that lesbianism still destabilises the concepts of masculinity and femininity, since homosexuality calls gender into question.

FADERMAN Lillian, Boston Marriage, pp. 57-72

In late-nineteenth century the phrase 'Boston marriage' was used in New England to indicate a monogamous long term relationship between two unmarried women. These women were usually economically independent, either because of inherited wealth of because they earned their own living. They were usually feminists, 'new women', often pioneers in their professions. Analysing James' The Bostonians, Faderman argues that such relationships have been considered "perverse" only in twentieth-century interpretations, certainly going beyond the suggestions granted by James' text (and by his own family life). Similarly, in late-nineteenth century the relationship of the writer Sarah Jewett with Annie Fields - as well as many other relationships between women - were not considered a pathology; it was a very "American" phenomenon.

NEWTON Esther - SMITH-ROSENBERG Carroll, The Myth of the Lesbian and the 'New Woman': Power, Sexuality and Legitimacy, 1870-1930, pp. 73-102

The 'New Woman' came into being between 1870 and 1930. This essay has a twofold purpose: on the one hand it highlights the differences between the various generations of New Women as they tried to create a public female figure which would be granted power, legitimacy and sexuality; on the other hand it looks at the role played by the masculine lesbian in the debate on political power and public order. The authors analyse writings by medical doctors, pedagogists and novelists - both men and women - especially from the post World War One period; in particular, the second part of the essay is devoted to an analysis of Radclyffe Hall's novels The Unlit Lamp and The Well of Loneliness.

NESTLE Joan, Lesbian Relationships. Sexual Courage in the Fifties, or Butch and Femme, pp. 103-111

The author's purpose is to explain the nature of lesbian relationships based on role division - butch and femme - to those women, even lesbian ones, who see them as reproducing heterosexual models. Already in the Fifties butch-femme relationships were complex erotical statements and not fake heterosexual copies; they symbolised the responsible acceptance of one's way of being, and they were a political act which embarrassed other lesbians as it made lesbianism culturally visible. In the Seventies, feminism has paradoxically made this radical position appear reactionary, labelling it as non-feminist, whereas it should be assumed and vindicated.

NESTLE Joan, My Mother Loved to Fuck, pp. 113-116

Nestle, a lesbian who has loved women for more than twenty years, remembers her mother, celebrating her courage and talking about the inheritance of sexual secrets she found in her writings, about the rewards and punishments Regina - this was her mother's name - got because she dared to be explicit about her pleasure in fucking.

TABET Paola, Compulsory Reproduction, Mutilated Sexuality, pp. 117-138

Biology and nature are invoked in order to link women and reproduction; but, Tabet argues, between ovulus and child, between the capacity to give birth and the fact of giving birth, there are the relationship between the sexes, the history of reproductive practices, the history of the social organisation of reproduction, for its greater part reproduction as exploitation. Since, exactly due to biological reasons, making a woman pregnant is neither simple nor automatic, the social and cultural techniques and apparatuses which control reproduction - marriage in the first place - ought to be examined. Marriage is the institution guaranteeing women's regular availability for sexual intercourse, and their regular exposition to pregnancy. Female sexuality is tamed and domesticated in different ways in different cultures, but such domestication takes place in all of them. Tabet then looks at some specific features of the reproductive process as "work", in its dual aspect of free and exploited work.

GIACOMINI Mariuccia - PIZZINI Franca, At Home Child Delivery: An Experience to Reconsider. An Interview, pp. 139-167

The interview focuses on an experience of child delivery, in a rich account full both of technical details and of emotional touches about the best conditions to face delivery, out of a conscious choice, in one's own everyday environment. An important and special feature of such an experience is the woman's determination to make her presence and awareness felt at every minute, playing an active part in an event which nowadays demands her passive acceptance of the rituals and techniques of hospitalisation and modern obstetrics.

ROCCHI Maria, Translating Christa Wolf. An Interview to Anita Raja, pp. 169-177

Rocchi interviews Wolfs Italian translator about the general problems of translation, as well as about the special relationship which inevitably comes unto being between the translator and the poetical world, the language, the political conception of a writer such as Wolf.