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Homphobia and Sexism 101_____
An analysis of why homophobia exists and the way it works
BY
ANNDEE
HOCHMAN
Homophobia: A Weapon o f Sexism. By
Suzanne Pharr. Chardon Press, 1988. $9.95.
f you are a lesbian or gay man, you already
know the things Suzanne Pharr has to tell
you in Homophobia: A Weapon o f Sexism.
You know that homophobia can threaten your
physical safety, your mental health, your job,
your credibility, your relationships. You
know what it means to feel invisible. You
will receive Pharr’s text with a wince of
recognition.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read it.
The strength of this slim book — at 91
pages, really more of a long essay — is its
concise, coherent explanation of a
complicated matter. Pharr discusses the iron
links between sexism — differential treatment
and attitudes about people based on gender —
and homophobia.
The reason gay men and lesbians become
targets of homophobia, she argues, is because
they upset the rigid rules o f sex-appropriate
behavior;- they threaten a system grounded on
male dominance and female passivity. And
the roots of this sexism, she concludes, are
burrowed deep in economic power. In the
end, the problem boils down to who’s got
what (at recent count, the richest one percent
of Americans owned as much wealth as the
bottom 90 percent) and who wants to keep it
that way.
Is it really that simple? O f course not.
Pharr’s book is neither the first nor the defini
tive study of the web between money, power,
class, gender and gay and lesbian discrimina
tion. (She does give credit where it’s due,
citing essays be Audre Lorde and Adrienne
Rich.) This volume is more like a short-
course, a Homophobia and Sexism 101.
Like any introductory college course,
Pharr’s presentation sacrifices nuance for
brevity and leaves questions unanswered. The
text suffers from over-generalization; for
instance, she asserts that blatant homophobia
is more acceptable than blatant racism be
cause “there has not been a major, visible,
lesbian and gay movement.” Some might
argue that Stonewall ignited a decade of visi
bility lesbian and gay activism; in any case,
her statement oversimplifies a complex issue.
The book is split into five chapters; in the
first, Pharr outlines the tools of patriarchy that
work to keep women in their places and les
bians invisible — economic clout, violence
and homophobia. Explaining how homopho
bia affects all women, she writes that “to be a
lesbian is to be perceived as someone who has
stepped out of line, who has moved out of
sexual/economic dependence on a male... And
any woman who steps out of role risks being
called a lesbian.”
In later sections, Pharr describes how that
threat o f being labelled and ostracized affects
the behavior of all women, causing hetero
sexual women to distance themselves from
I
lesbians and forcing lesbians to push their
own identities underground.
Based on her own experience as co-chair
of the Lesbian Task Force of the National
Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Pharr
tells how “unlike heterosexual women,
lesbians are asked to bring only the asexual,
asocial part of ourselves to the feminist
workplace...We are asked to pass.”
And as a longtime leader of workshops on
homophobia, she knows how that demand
affects lesbians. Women have described to
her how “their true selves appear only at rare,
safe moments...they have traded wholeness
for heterosexual privilege and survival in a
sexist society.”
These sections, along with the very
personal introduction, comprise the strongest
part of Pharr’s book. Because she uses few
specific examples and usually writes in the
general “we,” the excerpts that carry power
are those drawn from her own experience at
being an “out” lesbian while directing a
county-wide system of Head Start programs.
“Because I had not hid as a lesbian,” she
writes, “I endured life-threatening phone calls,
police harassment at my house, personnel
committee meetings that I was not allowed to
attend.”
In final chapters, Pharr rushes too quickly
through a discussion of various oppressions
and their common elements. In a brief 12
pages, she mentions economic power, the
myth of scarcity, invisibility, stereotyping,
internalized oppression and assimilation,
concepts that could each carry a chapter of
their own.
Her conclusion is that lesbians must work
together, struggle against invisibility, defeat
isolation by sharing their stories and believe
themselves worthy of freedom. In a list that
mysteriously lacks specifics, she recounts
some national projects that are moving toward
those goals. (Portland’s Lesbian Community
Project cams mention as “a lesbian
community building project that organized a
conference” in an unnamed Northwest city).
Effective work for lesbians should blend
the best aspects of consciousness raising,
support and political action, Pharr says. “Our
movement will be simply our part of this
larger movement for freedom...We will
recognize that we all go forward together or
ultimately not at all.”
Is this a new idea? Of course not. But at a
time when society constantly drums the value
of individual success, the notion of collective
action is worth hearing again. And again.
Pharr’s book makes explicit — in a clear,
if cursory analysis — the knowledge most
lesbians and gay men carry with them every
day. She may be preaching to the persuaded.
But her readers can do something about that.
Read the book, nod with recognition and
remember how much you already know. The
give it to someone — your cousin, your boss,
your father — for whom it will be brave, new
territory.
Y
TWENTY-THIRD AVENUE
BOOKS
1015 NW 23rd Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97210, (503) 224*5097
Cascade AIDS Project
408 SW 2nd. Suite 412
Portland. OR 97204
(503) 223-5907
ju st out W 2 4 T February 1990
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