Lesbophobia
Encyclopedia
Lesbophobia comprises various forms of negativity toward lesbian
women
as individuals, as a couple or as a social group
. Based on the categories of sex or biological gender
, sexual orientation
, lesbian identity
, and gender
expression, this negativity encompasses prejudice
, discrimination
, and abuse
in addition to attitudes
and feelings ranging from disdain
to hostility
. As such, lesbophobia is sexism
against women that intersects
with homophobia
and vice-versa. Cynthia Petersen, a professor of law at University of Ottawa
, has defined lesbophobia as also including "the fear that women have of loving other women, as well as the fear that men (including gay
men) have of women not loving them."
to describe this sort of prejudice or behavior, others believe that the terms homosexual and homophobia do not adequately reflect the specific concerns of lesbians. In particular, some lesbians argue that they experience the double discrimination of both classic homophobia and sexism
. Similarly, bisexual women may prefer to use the term biphobia
to refer to prejudice or abuse that they encounter which is based on their bisexual identity or behaviour, as people who identify as transgender
often prefer to use the word transphobia
.
interactions are natural, normal and spontaneous is a common example of beliefs which are lesbophobic. Like homophobia, this belief is classed as heteronormative, as it assumes that heterosexuality is dominant, presumed and normal, and that other sexual or relationship arrangements are abnormal and unnatural. A stereotype that has been identified as lesbophobic is that female athletes are always or predominantly lesbians. Lesbians encounter lesbophobic attitudes not only in straight men and women, but from gay men as well. Lesbophobia in gay men is regarded as manifest in the perceived subordination of lesbian issues in the campaign for gay rights
.
and even murder
. In South Africa
, Sizakele Sigasa, a lesbian activist living in Soweto
, and her partner Salome Masooa were raped, torture
d, and murdered in July 2007 in an attack that South African lesbian-gay rights organizations, including the umbrella-group Joint Working Group, said were driven by lesbophobia. Two other rape/murders of lesbians occurred in South Africa earlier in summer 2007: Simangele Nhlapo, member of an HIV-positive support group was raped and murdered in June, along with her two-year-old daughter; and Madoe Mafubedu, aged 16, was raped and stabbed to death. In 2006, Zoliswa Nkonyana, aged 19, was killed for being openly lesbian by about 20 young men in the Cape Town
township of Khayelitsha, who clubbed and kicked her to death. Eudy Simelane
, the Banyana Banyana soccer player, was also raped and killed in South Africa. Zanele Muholi, community relations director of a lesbian rights group, reports having recorded 50 rape cases over the past decade involving black lesbians in townships, stating, "The problem is largely that of patriarchy
. The men who perpetrate such crimes see rape as curative and as an attempt to show women their place in society."
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
women
Woman
A woman , pl: women is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent...
as individuals, as a couple or as a social group
Group (sociology)
In the social sciences a social group can be defined as two or more humans who interact with one another, share similar characteristics and collectively have a sense of unity...
. Based on the categories of sex or biological gender
Biology of gender
Biology of gender can have different meanings, depending on the meaning of gender.* In medicine and biology it usually refers to the biology of sexual dimorphism, e.g...
, sexual orientation
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...
, lesbian identity
Identity (social science)
Identity is a term used to describe a person's conception and expression of their individuality or group affiliations . The term is used more specifically in psychology and sociology, and is given a great deal of attention in social psychology...
, and gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
expression, this negativity encompasses prejudice
Prejudice
Prejudice is making a judgment or assumption about someone or something before having enough knowledge to be able to do so with guaranteed accuracy, or "judging a book by its cover"...
, discrimination
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
, and abuse
Psychological abuse
Psychological abuse, also referred to as emotional abuse or mental abuse, is a form of abuse characterized by a person subjecting or exposing another to behavior that may result in psychological trauma, including anxiety, chronic depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder...
in addition to attitudes
Attitude (psychology)
An attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's degree of like or dislike for something. Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person, place, thing, or event— this is often referred to as the attitude object...
and feelings ranging from disdain
Disdain
Disdain is a feeling of contempt or scorn.Disdain may also refer to:* So Disdained 1928 novel by Nevil Shute* Disdain , an EP by Alien Huang...
to hostility
Hostility
Hostility is a form of angry internal rejection or denial in psychology. It is a part of personal construct psychology, developed by George Kelly...
. As such, lesbophobia is sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
against women that intersects
Intersectionality
Intersectionality is a feminist sociological theory first highlighted by Kimberlé Crenshaw . Intersectionality is a methodology of studying "the relationships among multiple dimensions and modalities of social relationships and subject formations"...
with homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
and vice-versa. Cynthia Petersen, a professor of law at University of Ottawa
University of Ottawa
The University of Ottawa is a bilingual, research-intensive, non-denominational, international university in Ottawa, Ontario. It is one of the oldest universities in Canada. It was originally established as the College of Bytown in 1848 by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate...
, has defined lesbophobia as also including "the fear that women have of loving other women, as well as the fear that men (including gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
men) have of women not loving them."
Related terminology
While some people use only the more general term homophobiaHomophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
to describe this sort of prejudice or behavior, others believe that the terms homosexual and homophobia do not adequately reflect the specific concerns of lesbians. In particular, some lesbians argue that they experience the double discrimination of both classic homophobia and sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
. Similarly, bisexual women may prefer to use the term biphobia
Biphobia
Biphobia is a term used to describe aversion felt toward bisexuality and bisexuals as a social group or as individuals. People of any sexual orientation can experience such feelings of aversion...
to refer to prejudice or abuse that they encounter which is based on their bisexual identity or behaviour, as people who identify as transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
often prefer to use the word transphobia
Transphobia
Transphobia is a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards transsexualism and transsexual or transgender people, based on the expression of their internal gender...
.
Extent of lesbophobia
The idea that lesbians are dangerous, while heterosexualHeterosexuality
Heterosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, physical or romantic attractions to persons of the opposite sex";...
interactions are natural, normal and spontaneous is a common example of beliefs which are lesbophobic. Like homophobia, this belief is classed as heteronormative, as it assumes that heterosexuality is dominant, presumed and normal, and that other sexual or relationship arrangements are abnormal and unnatural. A stereotype that has been identified as lesbophobic is that female athletes are always or predominantly lesbians. Lesbians encounter lesbophobic attitudes not only in straight men and women, but from gay men as well. Lesbophobia in gay men is regarded as manifest in the perceived subordination of lesbian issues in the campaign for gay rights
LGBT social movements
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender social movements share inter-related goals of social acceptance of sexual and gender minorities. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies have a long history of campaigning for what is generally called LGBT rights, also called gay...
.
Lesbophobic violence
Lesbophobia is sometimes demonstrated through crimes of violence, including corrective rapeCorrective rape
Corrective rape is a criminal practice first seen in South Africa, whereby lesbian women are raped by men, sometimes under supervision by members of their families or local communities, purportedly as a means of "curing" them of their homosexuality....
and even murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
. In South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, Sizakele Sigasa, a lesbian activist living in Soweto
Soweto
Soweto is a lower-class-populated urban area of the city of Johannesburg in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for South Western Townships...
, and her partner Salome Masooa were raped, torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
d, and murdered in July 2007 in an attack that South African lesbian-gay rights organizations, including the umbrella-group Joint Working Group, said were driven by lesbophobia. Two other rape/murders of lesbians occurred in South Africa earlier in summer 2007: Simangele Nhlapo, member of an HIV-positive support group was raped and murdered in June, along with her two-year-old daughter; and Madoe Mafubedu, aged 16, was raped and stabbed to death. In 2006, Zoliswa Nkonyana, aged 19, was killed for being openly lesbian by about 20 young men in the Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
township of Khayelitsha, who clubbed and kicked her to death. Eudy Simelane
Eudy Simelane
Eudy Simelane was a South African footballer who played for the South Africa women's national football team and an LGBT-rights activist. She was raped and murdered in her hometown of KwaThema, Springs, Gauteng.-Football:...
, the Banyana Banyana soccer player, was also raped and killed in South Africa. Zanele Muholi, community relations director of a lesbian rights group, reports having recorded 50 rape cases over the past decade involving black lesbians in townships, stating, "The problem is largely that of patriarchy
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
. The men who perpetrate such crimes see rape as curative and as an attempt to show women their place in society."
See also
- Societal attitudes toward homosexuality
- HeterosexismHeterosexismHeterosexism is a system of attitudes, bias, and discrimination in favor of opposite-sex sexuality and relationships. It can include the presumption that everyone is heterosexual or that opposite-sex attractions and relationships are the only norm and therefore superior...
- Violence against LGBT people
- History of lesbianismHistory of lesbianismSocietal attitudes towards homosexual women have varied throughout human history and between different cultures. It is notable that there are far fewer historical mentions of lesbianism than male homosexuality, possibly due to many historical writings and records focusing primarily on men.-Ancient...
- Lesbianism in eroticaLesbianism in eroticaDepiction of lesbianism has been a relatively common theme in erotic art and pornography throughout history. Studies indicate that heterosexual men were more aroused by depictions involving lesbian sex than they are by depictions of heterosexual activity, while heterosexual and lesbian women were...