Sorry, I’ll have to decline your invitation to the women-only commune.
On Political Lesbianism in the 21st Century
If your algorithms are anything like mine, I’m sure that every once in a while you’ll see a TikTok, YouTube video, or even Instagram post inspired by the Korean 4B movement asking women in the U.S. to organize communes away from men. That post may provoke some self-reflection and just for a moment, you find yourself asking: what is stopping me from divesting completely from men? Is it possible to live a fuller life if I never had to interact with a man again?
With heteropessimism on the rise, I wouldn’t blame you for thinking the same. If you are a woman in the U.S. who leans toward progressive ideals, I would almost expect that you’ve thought about feminist separatism, especially considering how often men burden women with domestic and emotional labor without providing much reciprocation. The 4B movement, for example, shows us that women worldwide are not only thinking about it but actively organizing themselves to live a male-free life. For context, the 4B movement is a South Korean social movement, “ideological stance and a lifestyle,” that encourages Korean women to forgo traditional expectations of heterosexual marriage & relationships, childbirth, and dating (Sussman). The movement has progressed with online and in-person solidarity groups, some intended to increase women’s political power by providing support and economic education.
Although the 4B movement has recently made waves on social media, its politics come from a long history of women finding ways to keep themselves safe in male-dominated societies. Umoja, for example, is a village established in Kenya over 30 years ago where men are banned. It materialized as a haven for women fleeing female genital mutilation, domestic violence, abuse, or child marriage (Kahinju & Mwangi).
The U.S. second-wave feminism of the late 1960s brought us similar, if not identical, sentiments. Political lesbians saw the separation of women from men — and the complete rejection of heterosexual women’s “biological needs” — as essential to the fight for women’s liberation. However, I have several issues with these foundational ideas and the belief that women must live entirely separate lives from men to feel free, respected, understood, and heard. Before I continue, I want to affirm that I support the decisions of women to create separate spaces from men. These spaces are vital for women’s safety and important for fostering solidarity amongst women. Despite the success of these movements in addressing immediate gender-related issues, my critique will outline why movements dependent on separatism aren’t sustainable long-term strategies in the fight against patriarchal violence.
First, political lesbianism presumes that sexuality is a choice. Although some members of the 4B movement distance queer sexuality from the practice of political lesbianism, many political lesbians repeatedly assert that lesbian sexuality is a choice women can make in service of the greater struggle for liberation. Prominent lesbian and feminist, Julie Bindel, for example, proudly affirms her “choice” to be a lesbian and questions “why some feminists then block out the possibility of sexual relationships with their political sisters” (Bindel). As a pansexual Black woman who grew up in a strict Catholic home, the insinuation that for all those years I spent feeling like an abomination, I could’ve chosen to be different is completely absurd to me. You hear how that sounds too right? Yes, choosing to love women sounds progressive until you’ve considered how many right-wing Christian evangelists use the argument of “choice” to send their queer children to conversion camps.
My second problem is that political lesbianism is entirely too gender-essentialist for me — or any other queer person who doesn’t fit neatly in a box — to consider. Bindel herself expresses very transphobic views toward trans women and lesbians. In a 2023 Substack post titled “The Misogyny of trans ideology,” Bindel is quoted saying “It[’s] quite extraordinary that females are being persuaded to change our language to appease a tiny group of men, simply because they wish for us to partake in the fantasy that they are women,” which completely invalidates the trans experience and assumes that gender is bound by the sex you are assigned at birth. More often than not, this unfortunately echoes the dominating sentiments within political lesbian circles. In one of the early documentations of political lesbian principles, Love your enemy?, it proclaims: “[…] All feminists can and should be political lesbians. Our definition of a political lesbian is a women-identified woman who does not fuck men.” Because, according to the second wave movement, “if you engage in any form of sexual activity with a man you are reinforcing his class power.” However, not all feminists identify as women and these statements reinforce the notion that all male-identified people occupy the same social position as cis-heterosexual men, which is also not the case.
I cannot deny how useful political lesbianism has been as an organizing ideology to create spaces by and for women within and outside Western contexts. However, even within the 4B movement — the most recent adaptation of these politics — many express concerns about transphobic and gender essentialist tendencies. For example, there have reportedly been instances when members of the movement took action to verify that women with prominent Adam’s apples weren’t assigned male at birth (Sussman). The lingering questions around genderqueer folks and other gender-bending, nonconformist individuals keep me from embracing political lesbianism — or any separatist movement for that matter — as praxis. I am all for establishing pockets of society that keep people safe from those traditionally afforded powerful positions socially, politically, and economically. But doesn’t the notion that women are incapable of engaging in sexual/emotional intimacy with men without re-inscribing gender power dynamics serve to remove the same agency from women that the movement is trying to protect?
In the Combahee River Collective 1977 statement, Black feminists and lesbians declare that “we reject the stance of lesbian separatism because it is not a viable political analysis or strategy for us. It leaves out far too much and far too many people, particularly Black men, women, and children” (Taylor 21). Outside of the 4B movement and Umoja village, a patriarchal world persists by injecting misery into the lives of non-cis men. We cannot sustain fortresses free of misogyny and sexual oppression if a good portion of the dominating group does not also believe that it is in their best interest to change the social dynamics between men, women, and genderqueer folks. Don’t get me wrong, I champion efforts to decenter men because our lives as women shouldn’t have to revolve around how we are received and valued by men. But the question at hand remains: as a queer Black woman, what is stopping me from investing in lesbian separatism? This essay presents just some of my reasons, what is stopping you?
Sources / Additional Reading
Heterofatalism in the Context of Political Lesbianism: A Modern Analysis
Julie Bindel on Political Lesbianism
Men Have No Friends and Women Bear the Burden
The village where men are banned
How We Get Free edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor