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“Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”

In “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” Adrienne Rich argues that feminism has to address no only gender inequality as a way to include women’s ideas in the cultural norms of patriarchal society, but feminism should also address heterosexualism as an institution in society established  by the capitalist system, which  deprives women from accessing empowerment and embrace their  identities as a group .

The system of heterosexuality imposed to women as a natural choice for women’s erotic life and development in general is a managed and organized form of coercion according to Rich. The reality of women’s identity is distorted by a fragmented  perception and false consciousness about themselves. The information and social scripts for women, determine fixed patterns of behavior, that are represented in the media and reinforce with stereotypical ideas of romance, marriage, women’s role, womanhood, freedom of choice, sexual liberation, etc.

However, women’s  empowerment would lay in questioning the “compulsory heterosexualism,” or the “female sexual slavery” in which women are used as objects and subjected to violence.  By questioning heterosexualism, women perhaps would be able to see the methods and mechanisms that lay underneath the surface of the family institution and the societal arrangements that keep women subjugated.   The many ways in which male dominate women’s lives are by controlling women’s self-expression and  creativity, limiting their access to education and economic freedom, regulating their offspring , imposing  division of labor, and erasing erotic ideas about themselves and their own bodies.

According to Rich, the suppressing of women’s history and  lesbian invisibility creates the appropriate terrain for male domination. Rich discusses the term “lesbian continuum”  to reflect the experiences of women transcending sexual attraction, but bonding in an intimate way against tyranny, marriage resistance and forming women associations. Lesbian existence comprises the rejection of an imposed way of life, in which women are naturally, emotionally and sensually inclined towards the masculine figure .