Sheila Jeffreys gave a talk – ‘Lesbian Feminism Now and Then’ – to the 1st Andalusian Congress of Abolitionist Women on 28 November 2021.
‘Lesbian Feminism Now and Then
Seville Conference 28 November 2021
Hello Sisters, It is a delight to be able to speak with you today. I am going to talk about where lesbian feminism came from and what it was about at the time of the Women’s Liberation Movement in the 1970s and 1980s. I will describe the main ideas. I explained in my book The Lesbian Revolution in 2018 that lesbian feminism was the very heart of the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s and 1980s, playing a vital and dominant role in creating culture and community and challenging pornography and violence against women. Today it is hard even to use the word lesbian, women are under so much pressure to call themselves something else, bi or queer or non-binary or trans because these words are more polite and do not upset men. All that we achieved for lesbians and women has been pretty much wiped out in the antifeminist backlash of the 1990s and 2000s. I will talk about the challenges that the lesbians across generations are facing as we bring back lesbian feminism today.
Download full transcript: Lesbian Feminism Now and Thenfinal1.