Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how the conservatism of America's identity has often come to clash violently with the progressivism of its ideology, with the end result, optimistically speaking, of bringing the two sides into closer congress with one another. In particular, it looks at how the lesbian community is currently very deeply engaged in a struggle for acknowledgement under a more sociologically sound identity. The paper examines how the lesbian identity is subject today to ongoing debate, with internal divisions creating oppositional factions of the lesbian community, each guided by its own interpretation of the impetus placed upon the whole of the group and its individual cells to resist mainstream social and political patterns that apply necessarily negative connotations to female sexuality, femininity and lesbianism.

From the Paper:

"For homosexual women, or lesbians, this is a conflict which is perhaps even more affecting. While social tendencies in Western culture have typically been more lax toward lesbianism than toward male homosexuality, the latter of which still runs afoul of sodomy laws in many American states, the double jeopardy of being female and homosexual in a patriarchal society guided by Christian ethics creates a far denser morass of social pressures through which the lesbian must wade to achieve a relevant and fulfilling identity. Such is true not just in Western culture but in a wide range of settings where religious or gender-related factors play a significant part in defining the mutual space between individual and collective identities. As such, the lesbian identity is subject today to ongoing debate, with internal divisions creating oppositional factions of the lesbian community, each guided by its own interpretation of the impetus placed upon the whole of the group and its individual cells to resist mainstream social and political patterns that apply necessarily negative connotations to female sexuality, femininity and lesbianism."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Ardill, S. & O'Sullivan, S. (1987). Upsetting the Applecart : Difference, Desire and Lesbian Sadomasochism in Sexuality: A Reader. Feminist Review London: Virago Press.
• Butler, J. (1991). Imitation and Gender Insubordination. Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories. ed. Diana Fuss. New York: Routledge

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