Methods
The early gay rights movement, then called the Homophile Movement, was developed by the Mattachine Society, formed in 1950. Although the Mattachine Society began as a provocative organization with roots in its founders' communist activism, leadership of the Mattachine thought it more prudent and productive to convince heterosexual society at large that gays were not different from themselves, rather than agitate for change. They changed their tactics in 1953. The Daughters of Bilitis followed this model by encouraging its members to assimilate as much as possible into the prevailing heterosexual culture.
This was reflected in ongoing debate over the propriety of butch and femme dress and role play among its members. As early as 1955 a rule was made that women who attended meetings, if wearing pants, should be wearing women's slacks. However, many women remember it being a rule that went unfollowed as attendees at many meetings were wearing jeans, and the only jeans available in the 1950s were men's. Barbara Gittings recalled years later of an instance when, in preparation for a national convention, members of the DOB persuaded a woman who had worn men's clothing all her life, "to deck herself out in as 'feminine' a manner as she could...Everyone rejoiced over this as though some great victory had been accomplished...Today we would be horrified at anyone who thought this kind of evangelism had a legitimate purpose."
The Daughters of Bilitis were used as political fodder in the 1959 mayoral race in San Francisco. Russell Wolden, challenging incumbent George Christopher, distributed information implying that Christopher was making the city safe for "sex deviants". Wolden was responsible for materials that stated, "You parents of daughters — do not sit back complacently feeling that because you have no boys in your family everything is all right...To enlighten you as to the existence of a Lesbian organization composed of homosexual women, make yourself acquainted with the name Daughters of Bilitis." There were only two copies of the subscription list of The Ladder, a deliberate attempt to discourage its getting into the hands of anyone who might use it against the subscribers. DOB leaders moved the list from its headquarters to find later San Francisco police had searched the office after its removal. Even the FBI was curious enough to attend meetings to report in 1959, "The purpose of the DOB is to educate the public to accept the Lesbian homosexual into society."
Read more about this topic: Daughters Of Bilitis, History
Famous quotes containing the word methods:
“If men got pregnant, there would be safe, reliable methods of birth control. They’d be inexpensive, too.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“The comparison between Coleridge and Johnson is obvious in so far as each held sway chiefly by the power of his tongue. The difference between their methods is so marked that it is tempting, but also unnecessary, to judge one to be inferior to the other. Johnson was robust, combative, and concrete; Coleridge was the opposite. The contrast was perhaps in his mind when he said of Johnson: “his bow-wow manner must have had a good deal to do with the effect produced.””
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“A woman might claim to retain some of the child’s faculties, although very limited and defused, simply because she has not been encouraged to learn methods of thought and develop a disciplined mind. As long as education remains largely induction ignorance will retain these advantages over learning and it is time that women impudently put them to work.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)