Separatist Feminism - Controversy

Controversy

Valerie Solanas' SCUM Manifesto, written in 1967, suggested that it was the job for females to rid the planet of men.

In a 1982 published conversation about black feminism and lesbian activism with her sister, Beverly Smith, Barbara Smith, co-author of the Combahee River Collective Statement expresses concerns that, "to the extent that lesbians of color must struggle simultaneously against the racism of white women (as against sexism), separatism impedes the building of alliances with men of color." Smith writes that race places lesbians of color in a different relation to men as white lesbians, as "white women with class privilege don't share oppression with white men. They're in a critical and antagonistic position whereas Black women and other women of color definitely share oppressed situations with men of their race." Smith makes a distinction between the theory of separatism, and the practice of separatism, stating that it is the way separatism has been practiced which has led to "an isolated, single-issued understanding and practice of politics, which ignores the range of oppressions that women experience."

In 1983 Anarchist Bob Black wrote that "Separatism may be absurd as a social program and riddled with inconsistencies (scarcely any separatists separate from patriarchal society to anything like the extent that, say, survivalists do—and nobody intervenes more to mind other people’s business than separatists). But semi-isolation makes it easier to indoctrinate neophytes and shut out adverse evidence and argument, an insight radical feminists share with Moonies, Hare Krishna, and other cultists."

Feminist Sonia Johnson, while advocating a broadly separatist policy, points out that feminist separatism risks defining itself by what it separates itself from, i.e. men.

Lesbian poet Jewelle Gomez refers to her intertwined history with black men and heterosexual women in her essay Out of the Past, and explains that "to break away from those who've been part of our survival is a leap that many women of color could never make."

Cultural critic Alice Echols describes the emergence of a lesbian separatist movement as a response to what she sees as homophobic sentiments expressed by feminist organizations like the National Organization of Women. Echols argues that "...the introduction of (homo)sex troubled many heterosexual feminists who had found in the women's movement a welcome respite from sexuality." Echols considered separatism as a lesbian strategy to untie lesbianism from sex so heterosexual women in the feminist movement felt more comfortable.

Feminist theorist and author bell hooks believes that the beliefs of separatist feminists run counter to many of the original goals of feminism, and instead of seeking to create equality, attempt to establish a female-centric and female-dominated society in which men are subjugated and misandry is brought into the mainstream.