What Distinguishes Islamic Feminism from Other Feminist Movements?

In the most simplistic terms, Islamic feminism is distinguished from other feminist movements by its conjunction with Islam. As Margot Badran says, “the distinction between (secular) feminist discourse and Islamic feminism is that the latter is a feminism that is articulated within a more exclusively Islamic paradigm” (in Bahi 2012 p 5.) However, the combination of Islam and feminism is a subject of contention. As we shall see, many non-Muslim feminists and some feminists who are believing Muslims claim that Islam is too inherently patriarchal ever to be feminist. Equally, some Muslim women’s rights’ activists have claimed that ‘feminism’ is too western, too capitalist, too secular and too focused upon cultural sources of difference to be Islamic. Riham Bahi explores these perceived oppositions, “The literature on women in Islam has become so polarized with oppositional binaries: theology versus social issues, Islam versus democracy and Qur’an versus universal standards.”  She goes on: “The polarization of the discourse is further reinforced by the so-called confrontation with the West coupled with the growing demand for cultural self-determination in terms of an Islamic collective identity” (2012 p3.) This essay will look at these two oppositions; Islamic feminism distinguished from secular feminisms in strongly Islamic countries and Islamic feminism distinguished from Western feminisms.

It should be stressed that there are considerably more similarities that could be discussed between Islamic feminism and other movements. We could consider Bahi’s analysis of feminist responses to Islam which groups them into ‘rejection and dismissal’ and ‘revision and reconstruction’ and compare this to Heather Walton’s study of feminist responses to Christianity which she argues to take three forms -“ reconstruction, rejection, revisionism” (1999 p339.) We would see a similar focus by Islamic feminists and Christian feminists on the reinterpretation of religious texts and the foregrounding of powerful women in those texts and in religious history.  A different essay could compare essentialist gender roles and the emphasis on the importance of motherhood often found in some forms of Islamic feminism and in French feminism.  A strong similarity is clearly discernible between the Sufi construct of the ‘Divine Feminine’ in the work of such influential figures as Sheikh Muyiddin ibn al-‘Arabî (N. 1165,) and the ‘Goddess, Nature and Earth’ feminism associated with Susan Griffin’s Woman and Nature (1978) and Mary Daly’s Pure Lust (1984.)

In many ways, exploring such similarities would be preferable to seeking distinctions. The Iranian feminist scholar, Valentine Moghadam, who promotes the idea of a global feminism which incorporates myriad diverse feminisms, maintains that “it is not particularly useful to create absolute boundaries between Islamic feminism, Western feminism, Latin American feminism, African feminism, Jewish feminism, and so on” (2002 p1165.) I, an active, Western, liberal, secular feminist wholeheartedly share Moghadam’s views and her aim for a global feminism but,  also like her, see, too, the value of understanding the distinguishing features of the individual feminisms which constitute it. 

  My examination of Islamic feminism in relation to secular feminism within predominantly Muslim countries will consider the debate between the groups on the usefulness of an Islamic framework to feminist activism. Islamic feminists’ reinterpretation of the Qur’an and their arguments drawing upon powerful women in Islamic history will be discussed. The concerns of secular feminists about the subjectivity of this process and its long-term effectiveness for change will be considered. Having looked at some primary methodologies and ideological underpinnings of Islamic feminism in the first part of the essay, I will then consider the distinctions between Islamic feminism and Western feminism more in terms of conflicting feminist identities and feminist values.  Some differences between the two in their perceptions of gender roles and different social issues requiring feminist intervention will be considered.

It would, of course, be a mistake to assume that there is a cohesive school of thought known as ‘Islamic feminism’ any more than that there is one known as ‘secular feminism’ or ‘Western feminism.’  In the introduction to the book, Feminism and Islam, Mai Yamani says that the “category of ‘Islamic feminism’ may stand its ground by the sheer diversity it includes” (1996 p1.) Acknowledging the differences and even contradictions in the arguments of her contributors, Yamani says, “a strong theme that runs through the book is the suggestion that women should be taking a much more prominent role in the interpretation of the basic sources of Islam” (p24.) Elizabeth Segran defines Islamic feminism in a similar way: “Throughout the Muslim world, a groundswell of feminist sentiment is growing among women who are seeking to reclaim Islam and the Koran for themselves” ( 2013 pg 12.) ‘Secular feminism’ can refer to any feminism which does not draw on religion, and only becomes a definition in itself when related to a feminism that does. In the first part of this essay, the secular feminism I will be discussing will be that within countries where Islam is the dominant faith.  

Many secular feminists who are Muslim have argued that Islamic feminism is oxymoronic. Mahnaz Afkhami, the liberal Iranian, secular feminist argues “Our difference with Islamic feminists is that we don’t try to fit feminism in the Qur’an. We say that women have certain inalienable rights. The epistemology of Islam is contrary to women’s rights…I call myself a Muslim and a feminist. I’m not an Islamic feminist—that’s a contradiction in terms”(in Moghadam 2002 p1152.) Haideh Moghissi too sees feminism and Islam as incompatible arguing that feminism is a secular ideology and Islam rests on “fundamentalist foundations” (in Bahi 2012 p5)

Islamic feminists strongly dispute this and argue that, on the contrary, Islam is inherently egalitarian but has been skewed falsely towards patriarchalism. In support of this argument, they return to the sources of Islam, drawing on the Quran and the history of powerful women in Islam.  The Iranian women’s magazine, Zanan, frequently takes this approach. Ziba Mir-Hosseini looks at its legal section and shows a process in which issues in the shari ‘a that are problematic for women’s rights are examined in relation to the Qur’an, hadith and cultural practices of the time. She shows scholars drawing a distinction between ‘the divine Law Giver’ (Shar ‘-i Islam) and the mundane law maker (in this case, the Iranian Islamic Republic), and says “primary sources are subjected to innovative interpretations [and] the secondary sources are debated and at times refuted by the aid of the former” (1996 p315.)   

Islamic feminists, Moghadam tells us, “engage in theological reinterpretation to support the view that genuine Islam, as opposed to patriarchal interpretations, holds women in esteem and calls for an egalitarian status for them within the family and in the society” (2002 p1156.) We see an example of this in the Iranian, feminist translator and psychologist, Laleh Bakhtiar’s, translation of verse 4:34 of the Qur’an, traditionally read as

 “Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other …As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them”  (M.M Pickthall’s translation in Cervantes-Altamirano p5.)

Bakhtiar’s translation, however, reads

 “Men are supporters of wives because God has given some of them an advantage over others… Those (women) whose resistance you fear then admonish them and abandon them in their sleeping place and go away from them”  ( my emphasis. in Cervantes-Altamirano pg 5.)

This is clearly a radical change in which men are neither inherently superior to women nor entitled to corporally punish them.

Many Islamic feminists maintain that the Qur’an also needs to be read in its historical context. Ghada Karmi argues that it should be seen as two documents, “one eternal and unchanging and one conditional and adjusted to social circumstance” (1996 p83.) “It is clear” she argues “that Islam has been exploited by patriarchal society to legitimise its discrimination against women” (p82.)  Amina Wadud makes a similar argument. Her aim is to show “how to transform Islam through its own egalitarian tendencies …by first admitting that concepts of Islam and concepts of justice have always been relative to actual historical and cultural situations (2006 p2).

In support of their argument that true Islam supports women’s rights to education and careers, many Islamic feminists draw on the example of the Prophet Muhammad’s wives, Khadija and ‘A ‘isha.  Khadija was a successful business woman who employed many men including the prophet himself.   Muhammad always expressed great respect for his wife’s acumen and judgement and she was his first convert. As Halef Afshar asserts, “no religion which she accepted could discriminate against women” (1996 p199.) ‘A ‘isha was a great scholar, a politician and warrior. Most significantly perhaps for Islamic feminism seeking legal reformation was her standing in legal matters. Raga El-Nimr says “On Islamic jurisprudence, she was and is still regarded as a great authority” (1996 p92.)

However, secular feminists are largely dubious about the long-term merits of feminist reinterpretation of sacred texts and historical figures. Elizabeth Segran says “secular feminists … say that pursuing justice within Islam is a losing battle because the process of interpreting Islamic sources is inherently subjective. They warn that building a movement on such shaky ground is unwise” (2013 p15.) To this objection, Islamic feminists have argued that working within Islam is not only effective but necessary to be meaningful to Muslim women. Zainah Anwar, one of the founders of the global Islamic women’s movement, Musawah (equality), argues that “Religion matters to the lives of the women we claim we want to help… We needed to engage with religion and provide answers to these questions in ways that were relevant to their lives” (in Segran p13.) A main aim of the organisation is to provide women with the information and arguments they need not only for legal advancements but in their everyday relationships.  Anwar maintains that, “When their husbands beat them, have affairs or neglect to provide for them, they assert their agency by arguing that this behavior goes against Islam. They say their husbands are much more likely to respond to religious appeals than if they simply point out that their actions are hurtful” (in Segran p13.)

Moghadam acknowledges this utilitarian argument saying “I am sympathetic to the discursive strategy of these Islamic feminists, but …a reasonable concern is that, so long as Islamic feminists remain focused on theological arguments rather than socioeconomic and political questions, and so long as their point of reference is the Qur’an rather than universal standards, their impact will be limited at best” (p1158.)

Although secular and Islamic feminists share many goals, there are clearly significant differences in their ideological or theological bases of argument and their methodologies. The distinctions between Islamic feminism and secular Western feminism are perceived more in terms of female identity and essential values and in the different issues they address.

 Kent Blore traces the history of Western feminist thought regarding Islam through first and second wave feminism  and shows a consistent tendency of Western feminists to  have “espoused the universality of patriarchal oppression, but in so doing imposed generalised Western experience on, and othered, the non-Western world” (2010 p5.)  Consequently, Blore  argues, “Islamic feminism in particular sought to refute two aspects of Western feminism; firstly its claims of universal application to the experience of Muslim women, and secondly the Orientalisation of the experiences of Muslim women as a reassurance of Western moral superiority” (p5.) 

Of course, there are many feminisms to be found in the West but the ‘Western feminism’ from which we will see many Islamic feminists distinguishing themselves in this essay, is specifically a white, liberal, middle class, scholarly feminism. More accurately, it is some key principles within an Anglo-American feminism which, in addition to striving for identical rights for women, also espouses the view that all gender roles are culturally constructed and regards Muslim women as the epitomised victims of patriarchal oppression.  This feminism is often seen as imperialist, hegemonic and full of misconceptions about and misdirected empathy for Muslim women. 

 Fatima Seedat correction of this perception is worth quoting in full.

“Contrary to the European history of Islam where Islamic feminism is the express wish that Muslim society may someday hopefully emerge into a secular and equality-focused future, these scholars work with the idea of a non-secular present which is not waiting to become secular, modern, or democratic. It is faith-oriented, both presently and in the future, already modern, exists in the now, and is already feminist” ( 2013 pg 16)

In short, Islamic feminism is not an embryonic form of Western feminism but a fully formed, current movement situated firmly within Islamic faith, culture and history.

Some Muslim women’s rights activists have rejected the term ‘feminist’ considering it, in the words of Omaima Abou-Bakr, the “hegemonic naming of the ‘other’ (in Bahi p7.) Bahi says “some Muslim women activists see the term feminism attached to Islam as “redundant and offensive. So while some Muslim feminists openly use the term, others evade it opting for “Believing women” or “Muslim women scholar-activists” (Bahi pg 7.) Haleh Afshar uses the example of the veil to illustrate fundamentally different perceptions. Often seen by Western liberal feminists as a symbol of oppression, Islamic feminists have argued that it actually serves a feminist purpose. Afshar says, “They maintain that the veil enables them to become the observers and not the observed; that it liberates them from the dictates of the fashion industry and the demands of the beauty myth” (1996 p201.)

 In fact, Afshar explains, “many highly educated and articulate Muslim women regard Western feminism as a poor example and have no wish to follow it” (p200.) They argue that “Western feminists have only liberated women to the extent that they are prepared to become sex objects and market their sexuality …to benefit patriarchal capitalism” (p200.) Interestingly, Moghadam too criticises Western feminists for supporting capitalism by failing to demand political and economic transformation but she regards this flaw as a similarity with Islamic feminists whom she criticises for failing to address issues around homosexuality and personal autonomy. “Both groups of feminists,” she maintains, “work within and maintain the legitimacy of their respective political systems “(p1159.)

Clearly, feminist identity differs culturally between Islamic and Western feminism.  An essential difference in relation to gender roles is also perceived by many Islamic feminists. Whilst dominant Western feminisms seek identical rights and espouse a view that gender roles are the result of cultural conditioning, many Islamic feminists see a complementary equality between men and women as essentially Islamic. This is certainly the view taken by El-Nimr when she says, “According to Islam there is a specific sex individuality in man and woman which they must preserve and cherish. It is this individuality which gives them honour and dignity and enables them to fulfil their specific roles inn society in an effective way”(1996 pp88- 89.)   Afshar shows that many Islamic feminists feel that in seeking identical rights for men and women, Western feminists have ‘sought and failed to make women into quasi men’ (p200.) In contrast, she says, many Islamic women argue that ‘Islamic dicta bestow complementarity on women…providing an honoured space for them to become mothers, wives and home-makers’ (p200.)  Both El-Nimr and Maha Azzam are activists who argue that education and spiritual equality and authority are part of this role and a right often wrongly denied Muslim women. Azzam says “Islam is not a religion or way of life for those who believe men and women should have identical rights” (1996 p228.) Instead it offers women an “enhanced position that demands they be honoured as wives and mothers” and that “by turning to Islam for legitimisation and the legacy of learned women throughout Islamic history for inspiration, Muslim women today are attempting to authoritatively extend their roles beyond the home” (Azzam p228.)

In addition to holding frequently different views regarding gender roles, Western feminists and Islamic feminists have different problems to address in relation to different cultural norms. One significant difference is in relation to female sexuality. Whilst Western feminists frequently raise the issue of women’s worth being related to their sexual attractiveness and the effect this has on women’s self-perceptions, Islamic feminists have expressed concerns about Muslim women’s worth being perceived as entirely bound up in her chastity and ‘modesty’ and the social restrictions this places on women. In both cases, the feminist issue is that the woman is not being recognised as a full human being but reduced to her sexual appeal.

 Lama Abu-Odeh addresses the most serious consequence of this in her study into ‘crimes of honour’ against (usually poor) Arabian Muslim women. She argues that, “A heterosexuality that is honour/shame-based such as the Arab one, demands, under sanctions of social penalty, that the performance of femaleness be “in conjunction with”, “inseparable from”, “part of” the performance of virginity” (1996 p149.) Masculinity, Abu-Odeh argues, is also dependent on the virginity of his female family members. “The man who kills his sister to defend his honour, epitomises in a dramatic way, through his act, the performance of his gender” (p151.) Lama Abu-Odeh fears that a reluctance to seem to be espousing permissive values may be preventing Islamic feminists from being as active as they could on this issue.  She maintains that Arab feminists shy away from tackling the leniency of sentences on men who commit violence against women for reasons of ‘honour’ because their feminism already makes them feel marginalised and they fear losing the respectability they have.  Activists are placed in the ‘impossible position of having to avoid discussing issues that give the impression they are advocating sex before marriage” (p186.)

                Whilst feminists are often satirised in Western societies as sexless kill-joys who regard all heterosexual intercourse as an act of violence against women, Islamic feminists risk being perceived as sexually promiscuous advocates of free love. This is made very clear in the publication by the Palestinian feminist group al-Fanar, “The deliberate misrepresentations of feminism…such as accusing it of being in favour of immorality or permissiveness, is nothing other than an attempt at malicious deceit, the purpose of which is to perpetuate the oppression of women and the suppression of women’s liberation movement” (in Abu-Odeh p186-7.) However, as Abu-Odeh points out, this view of feminism is much more worrying if it is, as she suspects, sincerely believed to be true.    

Clearly feminism comes in many forms and within diverse cultures, expresses itself in myriad ways and addresses substantially different issues faced by women. I have only been able to compare Islamic feminism with secular feminism within predominantly Muslim countries and with some dominant features of a scholarly form of Western feminism. We have seen that in strongly Muslim countries secular feminists and Islamic feminists disagree about how useful feminist activism is when it works within an Islamic framework. Secular feminists have expressed concerns that theological interpretations are subjective and argued that a feminism based on equality of human rights is more useful for long term change. Islamic feminists have disputed this, arguing that the Qur’an and Islamic history support egalitarian arguments for gender equality and that Islamic approaches to feminism are more persuasive amongst people to whom their Muslim faith is very important.

In my consideration of the distinctions between Islamic feminism and Western feminism, I discussed arguments that Western feminist attitudes towards Muslim women have tended to erroneously universalise Western feminism and that Islamic feminist have resisted this and been critical of some aspects of Western feminism. We have seen that Islamic feminists are more likely to consider gender roles to be complementary and to reject ideas that all differences are culturally constructed. Above all, Islamic feminism and Western feminism are distinguished from each other in that they address different problems using different sources and different methodologies and they face different barriers and hostilities in doing so.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abu-Odeh.L. (1996) ‘Crimes of Honour and the construction of gender in Arab societies.’ in Yamani.M (ed) Feminism and Islam: Legal and Literary Perspectives. Berkshire. Garnet Publishing Limited.

Afshar.H. (1996) ‘Islam and feminism: An Analysis of Political Strategies.’ in Yamani.M (ed) Feminism and Islam: Legal and Literary Perspectives. Berkshire. Garnet Publishing Limited.

Azza. M. (1996) ‘Gender and the Politics of Religion in the Middle East. ’ in Yamani.M (ed) Feminism and Islam: Legal and Literary Perspectives. Berkshire. Garnet Publishing Limited. 

Bahi R. (2012) ‘Islamic and Secular Feminisms: Two Discourses Mobilized for Gender Justice.’ Contemporary Readings In Law & Social Justice.  3(2) pp138-158. Academic Search Complete. Available at: EBSCOhost.com  (Accessed 4^th April 2014)

Blore K.  (2010) ‘A Space for Feminism in Islamic Law? A Theoretical Exploration of Islamic Feminism.’ Elaw: Murdoch University Electronic Journal Of Law 17(2):1-12. Academic Search Complete.  Available at: EBSCOhost.com  (Accessed 4^th April 2014)

Cervantes-Altamirano E. (2013)  ‘Islamic Feminism and the Challenges of Gender, Sexuality and LGBTQ Rights in Contemporary Islam.’ International Journal Of Religion & Spirituality In Society 2(3):76-85. Academic Search Complete.  Available at: EBSCOhost.com  (Accessed 4^th April 2014)

Daly. M. (1984) Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy. The Woman’s Press Ltd.

El-Nimr. R. (1996) ‘Women in Islamic Law’ in Yamani.M (ed) Feminism and Islam: Legal and Literary Perspectives. Berkshire. Garnet Publishing Limited.

Griffin. S. (1978) Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her. Sierra Books.

Karmi.G (1996) ‘Women, Islam and Patriarchalism’  in Yamani.M (ed) Feminism and Islam: Legal and Literary Perspectives. Berkshire. Garnet Publishing Limited.

Mir-Hosseini. Z. (1996) ‘Stretching the Limits: A Feminist Reading of the Sharia in Post-Khomeini Iran.’  in Yamani.M (ed) Feminism and Islam: Legal and Literary Perspectives. Berkshire. Garnet Publishing Limited.

Moghadam.V. (2002)  ‘Islamic Feminism and Its Discontents: Toward a Resolution of the Debate.’ Signs.   27(4) pp. 1135-1171 The University of Chicago Press Stable.  JSTOR. Available At: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/339639  (Accessed: 4th April 2014)

Seedat F. (2013) ‘Islam, Feminism, and Islamic Feminism: Between Inadequacy and Inevitability.’ Journal Of Feminist Studies In Religion 29(2):25-45. Academic Search Complete.  Available at: EBSCOhost.com  (Accessed 4^th April 2014)

Segran. E.  (2013) ‘The Rise of the Islamic Feminists.’ Nation. 297(25):12-18. Academic Search Complete.  Available at: EBSCOhost.com  (Accessed 4^th April 2014)

Wadud. A. (2006) Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam. Oxford. Oneworld.

Walton. H. (1999) ‘Exploring the Intimacy Between Women’s Writing and Theology.’ In Gearon.L. (ed) English Literature, Theology and the Curriculum. London. Cassell.

Yamani. M. (1996) ‘Introduction’ in Yamani.M (ed) Feminism and Islam: Legal and Literary Perspectives. Berkshire. Garnet Publishing Limited.

Was There a Sexual Revolution in Britain in the 1960s and 70s?

Kate Millet, writing in 1970, asserted that ‘the term “sexual revolution” has such vogue at present it may be invoked to explain even the most trivial of socio-sexual fashions’ (Loc 1672.) If we accept Jeffery Weeks’ definition of sexuality as ‘the product of a host of autonomous and interacting traditions and social practices: religious, moral, economic, familial, medical, juridical’ (1985 p6) we see that a sexual revolution would be a very profound social and cultural change.  For Kate Millet, it would result in ‘a permissive single standard of sexual freedom… uncorrupted by the crass and exploitative economic bases of traditional sexual alliances …[which] would bring the institution of patriarchy to an end’(Loc. 1687.) It would also presumably bring an end to heterocentrism.

Millet, Dominic Sandbrook, Jeffery Weeks and Sheila Jefferies argue that changes in sexuality in the 60s and 70s were part of a longer, more gradual shift occurring sporadically since the 19^th century. Sandbrook, Weeks and Andy Beckett posit that changes were most significant for gay men and Weeks and Jefferies consider the change in women’s sexual freedoms to have been cosmetic at best. Becket argues for the seventies being ‘the real sixties’ (2009. P209) when discussing advances made in gay rights and feminism. This essay will look at all these arguments and the experiences of heterosexual women and homosexual men and women during those two decades.  

It will be argued here that the 1960s and 1970s saw significant advances in the sexual liberation of heterosexual women and homosexual men and women but that this is due less to a revolution and more to several important law changes regarding sexual behaviour and women’s rights and a new openness in discourses around sex. In reality, the majority of people did not drastically change their sexual behaviour or attitudes. It is tempting to conclude that the sexual revolution existed for a minority of young, white, urban, middle class heterosexuals in the sixties and young, white, urban, middle class homosexuals in the seventies with both groups taking a politically challenging approach to older heteronormative values. However, this would be to fail to appreciate the wider underlying social shifts which came before the sixties and the ways in which this period paved the way for greater sexual freedom since. It will be useful to consider the sixties more closely in relation to heterosexual experiences of change and look at the seventies in more depth in relation to change for homosexuals.   

That laws governing sexuality changed in the sixties and that speech around sexuality became more open and public is undeniable. Sandbrook says ‘At the beginning of the 1950s…it was commonly accepted that the state had the right to regulate sexual behaviour’ ( 2006 p478) and cites studies which leave ‘ no doubt that before the sixties most people received no sexual education at all’ (479.)  These were to change.  The Obscene Publications Act 1959 and the relaxation of film and theatre censorship in 1968 allowed sex to be portrayed more openly. In 1964 Oral contraceptives became available to married women and the 1967 Abortion Act also gave women somewhat more power and freedom over reproduction. The Sexual Offences Act  (1967)at last decriminalised consensual private sex acts between men over 21 and the  1969 Divorce act also made it easier for people to end unhappy marriages.

Discourses around sex also increased. Weeks, writing in 1985 says ‘if the history of recent sexuality can be seen as an explosion of speech around sex then the 1960s experienced a decisive, qualitative escalation of the volume’ (pg 20) There was a surge of books about sex aimed first at married couples and then at single women but these cannot be considered evidence of the sexual liberation of women. Beckett asserts that ‘the main beneficiaries of this new permissiveness were men’ (2006 p221) and  Jefferies argues that this was a new form of subordination and that ‘behind the baloney of sexual liberation, the naked power politics of male supremacy were being acted out’ (1990 p2.) The books of this time either ignored homosexuality or discussed it as a mental disorder.  Weeks argues that heteronormative ideologies had not been overthrown when he says ‘feminist and militant gay movements of the seventies grew explicitly in opposition to the dominant tendencies of the decade.’ (Weeks’emphasis. 1985. P20)

The concept of a sexual revolution assumes that there was a solidly defined structure of sexual norms to be turned upside down in the sixties but Kate Millet argues that a sexual revolution for women began in the last three decades of the 19^th century related to increased legal rights of women and a new expectation of men to take more responsibility for their sexual behaviour. A sexual revolution, she argues, was bound to take place ‘by stages that are capable of interruption and temporary regression’ (1970 p1734) and that the 1930s to the 1960s was such a time after which women would again make political and social headway  (1970 p1704.) Interestingly, Sheila Jefferies makes a very different analysis arguing that it was the threat to patriarchy of the first wave of women’s liberation which led to the birth of sexology, a science ‘founded on the assumption that sex played a crucial role in maintaining women’s subordination’ (1990 p93.) The sixties and its sexual revolution, Jefferies argues, is part of this tradition, another occasion where increased rights for women again led to new ways in which women could be controlled sexually (91-94.)

Sandbrook argues that the developments of the sixties ‘look less like a revolution and more like the latest stage in a long period of development’ (2006 p481.) Using a survey by Eustace Chesser in 1956 he shows that half of women born between 1924 and 1934 had had sex before marriage (481) with contraception being available from 1918. The contraceptive pill emerged in the sixties but Sandbrook argues that it was not easily available then (p490.) He asserts that the concept of sexual permissiveness in the sixties is a myth confined largely to anecdotes of a vocal minority (479) living in London (199) and cites Ross McKibbon’s argument that there was a ‘clear relationship between sexual permissiveness and income levels’ (McKibbon in Sandbrook 481.)

I interviewed Mo Pritchard, a white, middle class, heterosexual woman who came to London from Kent in 1960 at the age of eighteen. For Pritchard, the sexual revolution existed. She says ‘I think it was easier for me because my mother had discovered and enjoyed sex and told me all about it, openly (not done at the time’)(20012.) Ann Oakley cites a study by Chesser in which women who had been told sex was an unpleasant duty by mothers were much less likely to find it enjoyable than women whose mothers had given the opposite impression (1974 p79.) For Mo, the contraceptive pill was central to her experience of the sixties. ‘Better than sliced bread, the washing machine or any other innovation… woohoo! If I fancied a bloke, I could indulge.’  However, Pritchard goes on to say   ‘underneath, for a long time was a slight guilt that I enjoyed this “disgusting” act as my Aunt Grace called it.”

Jennison and Bartle discuss how many young women were held back from seeking contraceptive advice from these feelings of guilt and ‘how pressures combine to make women feel guilt where none is needed ‘(1974 p33.)   The pressures they mention include disapproving families, fear of moral lectures from doctors or clinic staff or simply having no precedent for thinking about such things as contraception (27-35.) It is revealing that Pritchard says of the contraceptive pill ‘I was allowed it for heavy periods’(2012.) She never needed to mention her need for contraception at all.  This sense of shame for women around sexuality is argued by Oakley and Millet to be socially constructed. Millet says’ the conditions of patriarchal society have had such profound effects upon female sexuality that its function has been drastically affected, its true character long distorted and long unknown (1970 p2865.) Drawing on anthropological studies of other cultures, Oakley argues that the ‘natural’ differences in male and female sexuality accepted in Britain in which men are perceived as sexually aggressive and women as sexually passive, are socially constructed from childhood.  ‘A man proves his masculinity by going to bed with women whilst a woman proves her femininity by not going to bed with men.  Masculinity equals sexuality whereas femininity is opposed to it’(1974 974 p79)

However, whilst these attitudes survived into the sixties, women were suddenly expected to immediately enjoy sex or risk being considered frigid or having’ inhibitions.’ ‘The concept of the ‘inhibition’ was a powerful weapon in the armoury of 1960s sexual revolutionaries…to be accused by a man of having inhibitions was a serious matter, the implication being that the woman was old fashioned, narrow minded and somehow psychologically damaged.’(Jefferies 1990 pp 95-96.) Asked about this, Pritchard said ‘If you knew too much about it, the man would think you “were no better than you should be” but ‘to refuse sex we were definitely frigid or a lesbian – couldn’t possibly be that the man was totally unattractive!’ (2012)

Jeffery Weeks argues that this new sexualisation of women’s bodies at a time when women were still financially dependent on men led to the ‘relatively new phenomenon that the choice of a marriage partner could be dictated by sexual attraction’ (1985 p27) and therefore new pressure on women to be sexually attractive and available. Jefferies supports this saying of the popular book ‘Sex and the single girl’ (1962) by Helen Gurley Brown, ‘It instructed girls on how to use specifically sexual lures to hook men ( 1990 p106.)  Pritchard remembers this imperative ‘a spinster was still seen as a girl who couldn’t get a boyfriend.  We were all desperate to get one and a ring, if poss’ (2012.)

Power relations, it seems, did not change in the sixties and so the concept of any true ‘Sexual Revolution’ is not supported. However the impact of the sixties on heterosexuality had long lasting effects which were felt more fully in the seventies and beyond. The first women’s liberation groups were formed in 1968. Millet’s SexualPolitics and Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch both published in 1970 were very influential on feminist thought. The contraceptive pill became more widely available in the 1970s and began to have what Sandbrook called ‘an enormous impact on British sexual behaviour’ (2006 p490.) It also led to greater freedom for women who could have smaller families and enter the workforce in greater numbers leading to feminist action to obtain equal opportunities and equal pay.   Also ‘Feminist theory on sexuality developed throughout the 1970s and 80s to encompass a wide ranging critique of male sexual behaviour, male violence and its effect on women, and the construction of female desire’ (Jefferies 1990 p239.)

This change was felt and experienced by Mo Pritchard whose experiences caused her to enter the seventies as a feminist.  ‘Subsequently …I saw that, in fact, men still controlled our sexuality in many ways… It would take many years for us to gain a measure of equality – we are still not there but a lot better.  I was unable to take out a mortgage to buy a flat by myself in the early seventies …Many careers were not open to women… If you were a secretary, the best you could attain was senior secretary to CEO – always the “wife” never the boss’ (2012.) The editor of feminist magazine Spare Rib which started in 1972, Marsha Rowe, shared this frustration ‘Ihated having to be a secretary. But I really did have a sort of idea that maybe women were there to support men… you lived your creativity through the man’ (in Beckett 2009 p223) In the seventies this would begin to change although Mo Pritchard believes inequality will always exist. ‘I burned my bra and did my bit but, it seems to me, that so long as women bear the children, we will not be able to fulfil our full potential.’

If ‘sexual revolution’ is a misleading term to describe heterosexuality in the sixties, it is even more so to describe homosexuality. Sandbrook argues that in the early sixties ‘homosexuality was still popularly regarded as evidence of moral degradation, a psychological disorder or a debilitating illness’ ( 2006 p494) and gives evidence that ‘public attitudes to homosexuality was still extremely hostile’ citing the research of Geoffrey Gorer showing the most common reaction 1 in 4 was ‘revulsion’ whilst a minority, 3 in 10 women and 2 in ten men, opted for ‘pity’ (495)  Sheila Jefferies says ‘ The sexual revolution was heterosexual’ (1990 p110.) She makes reference to The Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort published in 1972 which made no mention of homosexuality and mentioned bisexuality as simply a variant of heterosexuality in the context of group sex (p111.)

The experiences of gay men and lesbians in the sixties and seventies certainly show some common struggles and combined efforts to overcome them but in many ways the difficulties they faced were different. Whilst only gay men were in danger of prosecution (until 1967), only lesbians faced the challenge of trying to achieve any kind of material stability in a patriarchal system built around a male ‘breadwinner’.

The early 1960s were dangerous for gay men despite significant attempts to decriminalise homosexual acts between men in private. The Wolfenden Report advocated this in 1957 and the Homosexual Law Reform Society which became active in 1958 and included such notable men as Bertrand Russell and Lord Atlee ‘ceaselessly badgered newspapers and MPs for a change in the law’ (Sandbrook 2006 p496.) Allen Horsfall in hisessay ‘Battling for Wolfenden’ describes an increase in aggressive prosecution of men for private sex acts which continued into the early sixties.  He writes of the late fifties ‘ I knew of one man who was convicted for a single private act which had taken place ten years previously’ (His emphasis. 1988 p18) and of 1963 ‘ The witch hunts were starting up again including one in Bolton where ten men faced charges in respect of private behaviour. This led to loss of imprisonment, loss of employment and ultimately a suicide’ (1988 p25.)

The law was changed on 27^th July 1967. However, this cannot be considered revolutionary as sex between men was not decriminalised because of social acceptance of homosexuality but due to a tolerance for it as a mental disorder. Sandbrook describes this as ‘a general shift from revulsion to condescension’ (496.)

For lesbians this devaluing of their sexuality as a form of mental illness was not new. Sheila Jefferies cites many sexologists of the fifties taking this view including Frank Caprio. He asserted that lesbians were likely to be sadistic, kleptomanic, psychopathic or otherwise neurotic and unstable ( 1990 p55.) According to the Freudian Edmund Bergler ‘the unconscious reason for female homosexuality is to be found in an unsolved oral- masochistic conflict of the pre-Oedipal child with the mother’ (in Jefferies 1990 p53.) This was the experience of Elizabeth Wilson who, in the 1960s, ‘worked on the fringes of psychoanalysis’ and described it’s stereotyping of women ‘slightly mad’ and found psychoanalysis ‘warped..fatally’ by its ‘ support for male privilege’ (1988 p45) In an earlier essay Wilson said ‘ this attitude of ‘you are sick’ rather than ‘you are wicked’ was actually the more undermining of the two’ (1974  p112.)

Wilson felt herself fortunate to have been white and middle class because an inheritance enabled her to buy outright a house ‘at a period when an unmarried woman could not get a mortgage’ (1988 p48) and ‘lifted us clear of the intense oppression faced by many working class lesbians’ (1988 p49-50) However Wilson’s account of being a lesbian in the sixties ‘Memoire of an anti-heroine’ stands out mostly for the invisibility which was the price of her freedom. She describes being asked repeatedly by family and friends when she was going to get married despite living happily with her long term partner. ‘Our relationship was largely invisible.’ (1988 p 48.) It seems that for most of the sixties homosexuality still remained largely hidden. This changed in the seventies and it will be interesting to look at the most ‘revolutionary’ activism.

Revolution was certainly the aim for Stuart Feather and Keith Birch, active members of the Gay Liberation Front. The GLF’s ‘attitude was ‘the government can change the law…our aim is to change public opinion, to change people’s minds’ (Feather in Beckett 214.) ‘ GLF brought together politics which had been flowering in the social movements of the sixties and other political ideas which had laid dormant for many years.’ (Birch pg 51)

In 1970 the well-known Liberal Louis Eakes was arrested on suspicion of seeking sex in a public place and the Gay Liberation Front marched in protest demanding an end to discrimination, for psychiatrists to stop treating homosexuality as a disease, for the age of consent to be the same as for heterosexuals and for gay people to be able to contact each other, meet and kiss and hold hands as publically as heterosexuals (Beckett 2009 p212.) ‘The notion of the personal being political informed both the theory and practice of GLF and was perhaps both its strength and weakness’ says Birch 53. The GLF became known for its high visibility and confrontational attitude with many of its activists appearing in drag at many public events including trade union marches and targeting organisations seen as ‘anti-gay’ but it was over by 1974. Mainstream gay activists were unhappy about the drag element and confrontational aspect and Birch says ‘The whole experience was intense…and left us politically and emotionally exhausted..we had changed, the world had changed a little and we went off in different directions …But GLF had made possible many developments in the following few years’ (58-9.) Birch describes a more ‘confident and visible lifestyle’ (59) which became possible after this and Beckett lists as the most important of the long lasting developments started by GLF , the first Gay Pride march in 1972, the starting of Gay News in 1971 and the starting of London Gay Switchboard in 1974 (2009 p219.)  

Whilst the GLF existed for homosexual men and women, it was widely felt by many to be a male organisation. Birch describes it as ‘overwhelmingly male, white (and) young’ (1988 p52) and Janet Dixon recalls ‘We, the lesbians, began to abandon the GLF dream.’ Dixon’s account of her separatism stems largely from her experience that mainstream feminism failed to recognise the disadvantages of lesbianism in society as a feminist issue and wished to distance itself from the image of ‘bra burning lesbians’ (1988 p72) and that the GLF failed to recognise lesbians as having distinct issues related to their being female. Jeffery Weeks defines the problem as lesbianism being both a sexual category and a political definition in a period in which heterosexual feminists overlooked the importance of sexual identity(1985 p201.)  The failure of gay men to recognise the disadvantages of female homosexuals is defined in the acerbic words of Susan Hemmings ‘Male brain death on the issues of patriarchy is not confined to heterosexual men’ (1988 p11.)

Whilst many mainstream lesbian gay rights activists continued to work within feminist and gay rights groups, the separatists lived in communes and rejected men entirely. Dixon felt that ‘Something inherent in maleness necessitates its expression in systems of hierarchies. Competitiveness, aggression, brutality and maleness are all one and the same’ (1998 p70.) Dixon rejected maleness to the extent of stopping using tampax which were essentially ‘cotton wool pricks’ and becoming vegetarian to ensure she was not eating a male animal ( 1988 p79.) Dixon’s separatism ended in 1977. Separatism, she argues ‘came up against the age old problem of how to transpose the idea onto the material world’ (p82.) An all-woman world is not possible and the sexes have to interact.  However Dixon feels that the opportunities the separatists took ‘to disseminate our beliefs to huge numbers of women’ at national conferences was ‘responsible for making lesbianism, eventually, respectable inside the WLM’ (1988 p73) and that graduated separatism ‘can be seen as the ripples which pass outwards from this….you do not have to be a separatist or even a lesbian to enjoy the benefits of graduated separatism. It has meant that women’s groups of all kind… can now quite legitimately organise around women-only issues’ ( 1988 p76.)

It is interesting to note that at the radical ends of gay rights activism at this time gay men, with the GLF, took their activism into the public sphere confrontationally whilst lesbian separatists confined themselves to an isolated domestic sphere in an essentially passive protest. Of course a larger proportion of gay rights activists, male and female, did neither as part of their on-going campaign for equality.

It seems clear that ‘sexual revolution’ is not a useful term for the changes which happened in the 1960s and 1970s. A revolution would have resulted in women having complete sexual equality with men and homosexuality being accepted to the same degree as heterosexuality.  The experiences of Mo Pritchard, Marsha Rowe, Stuart Feathers, Keith Birch, Elizabeth Wilson and Janet Dixon were that this did not happen. The arguments of Jeffery Weeks, Sheila Jefferies, Kate Millet, Dominic Sandbrook, Ann Oakley and Beckett have supported the view that change occurred in discourse and in law in the sixties but that real change in sexualattitudes and behaviours have been more gradual although discernible and significant. Today, in 2012, we see that promiscuity is still often seen as shameful in a woman but laudable in a man and that gay men and lesbians are still unable to marry and still face prejudice and discrimination. The sixties and seventies sparked many changes which continue to develop today and lead us towards sexual equality but they did not constitute a sexualrevolution.

Bibliography

Beckett. A. (2009) When the Lights Went Out: What Really Happened to Britain in the Seventies. London. Faber and Faber.

Birch. K. (1988) ‘ A Community of Interests.’ In Radical Records: Thirty Years of Lesbian and Gay History.London. Routledge.

Dixon. J. (1988) ‘Separatism: A Look Back at Anger.’ In Radical Records: Thirty Years of Lesbian and Gay History. London. Routledge.

Hemmings. S. (1988) ‘Introduction.’ In Radical Records: Thirty Years of Lesbian and Gay History. London. Routledge.

Horsfall. A. (1988) ‘ Battling for Wolfenden.’ In Radical Records: Thirty Years of Lesbian and Gay History. London. Routledge.

Jefferies.S. (1990) Anticlimax: A Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Revolution. London. The Women’s Press Limited.

Jennison. A & Bartle.H. ‘Punitive Attitudes Towards Contraceptions and Abortion.’ In Conditions of Illusion: Papers From the Women’s Movement. Leeds. Feminist Books.

Millet. K. (1970) Sexual Politics. (Kindle Edition 2012) Retrieved from Amazon.com

Oakley. A. (1974) ‘Cultural Influences of Female Sexuality.’ In Conditions of Illusion: Papers From the Women’s Movement.

Pritchard. M (02/11/2012) Interview with Helen Pluckrose by email/chat.

Sandbrook. D. (2006) White Heat: A History of Britian in the Swinging Sixties. London. Abacus.

Weeks. J. (1985) Sexuality and its Discontents: Meanings, Myths and Modern Sexualities. London, Routledge.

Wilson. E. (1974) ‘Gayness and Liberalism.’  In Conditions of Illusion: Papers From the Women’s Movement.Leeds. Feminist Books.

Wilson. E. (1988) ‘Memoirs of an Anti-Heroine.’ In Radical Records: Thirty Years of Lesbian and Gay History.London. Routledge.