Separating Lesbian Theory from Feminist Theory

The concept of sexuality, what is socially accepted, what is 'natural', what is prescribed by religion, what is deemed deviant has been a form of social analysis, controversy, political debate and a measure of human progress.

For what was considered the least talked about issue in society, sexuality was in many ways what defined the individual, their society, culture and the legal and moral laws that presided within it.

Lesbianism was either thought to not exist at all or was not thought of as a problem because they were not threatening (in any substantial way) the existence of a stable, masculinized order(Connell, 25-65). Oppression came in the form of the hegemonic masculinity passing laws to outlaw homosexuality and pronouncing that homosexuality was in fact a medical condition and could be treated. Yet despite the many laws passed, all the psychotherapy and electrocution the homosexual was still very much alive.

These thoughts of sexuality are in a constant state of change, deconstructing and reinventing. Queer theory has emerged from this spiral of thought and has impacted not only on the academic world but in the form of popular culture, where it continues to challenge and in many ways further sexual liberation.

Queer Theory; It's precursors and Theorists

Sexual desire has been for centuries thought of as being part of our natural makeup, as if it were embedded within our very being. This idea of sexuality being a natural drive was shared by many leading figures in the academic world; Charles Darwin, anthropologist Malinowski, the philosopher Marcuse and Freud saw sexuality within human psychology.

These ideas were challenged in the form of Post-structuralism, often associated with the works of Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, which dominants the structure and understanding of Queer theory(Kirsch, 20-65).

Post-structuralism argues that subjects are the autonomous creators themselves or their social worlds. Subjects are embedded in a complex network of social relations. These relations thus determine which subjects can appear where, and in what capacity.

Post-structuralism contends that a focus on the individual as an autonomous agent needs to be 'deconstructed', contested and troubled.

'Foucault argued that society did not repress sexuality, which simply does not exist as an entity in nature. Rather, social discourses constituted sexuality as a cultural form, in the historical transition to modernity.'(Steven, 19-96)

Jacques Derrida offers a somewhat different approach through his ways of thinking surrounding how meanings are established.

'"Supplement" suggests that meanings are organised through difference, in a dynamic play of presence and absence.' A Derridean perspective would argue that heterosexuality needs homosexuality for it's own definition.

Feminist theory contributed greatly to many of the ideas behind Queer theory

Feminist theorists looked at gender as a system of signs, or signifiers, assigned to sexually dimorphic bodies, which served to differentiate the social roles and meanings those bodies could have. Feminist theory thus argued that gender was a social construct, something designed and implemented and perpetuated by social organisations and structures, rather than something merely 'true', something innate to the ways bodies worked on a biological level. In so ...