The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian Movement
Barry D. Adam
Another strength of the book is its generally sympathetic treatment of lesbian consciousness-building and the resulting tensions within gay organizations habitually dominated by men. Due recognition is given to the powerful, though at times ambivalent, draw of most lesbians towards the women’s movement, and to the complex debates which ensued within feminist circles. Adam argues that the oppression of homosexuals has continued throughout the transition to industrial capitalism and beyond, although with altered styles of moral and sexual regulation. Full liberation, he says, requires a movement which challenges the foundations of an order which has the oppression of gay people, women, and other subordinate groups built into it. Political organizing must be in coalition with other subordinate groups, and must be based in radical analysis.
It is a plausible argument, and an important one in need of careful exploration. There are serious flaws in Adam’s book, however. First, at the level of description, insufficient attention is given, for example, to the impact of the Second World War on the development of gay consciousness. More strikingly, there is little attention paid to the impact of AIDS on contemporary gay communities and movements. If one of the book’s strengths is its comparative perspective, one of its weaknesses is the unevenness of attention to cases outside the United States. Canada is given markedly inadequate treatment and the analysis of France is inconsistent and seriously misleading.
Adam acknowledges national differences in the form which movements take, but he neither clarifies those contrasts nor helps us much to understand them. It is a general characteristic of the book’s analysis that it lacks consistency and subtlety. Feminism, for example, sometimes receives careful treatment, but just as often it is characterized in over-simplified ways and in terms that are unduly shaped by the US experience alone. The most serious weakness lies in Adam’s analysis of the oppressive impact of capitalism. The argument is insufficiently elaborated, often simplistic, and occasionally inconsistent. The marginalization of homosexuality, Adam says, is embedded in the capitalist mode of production. But he also tells us that homophobia represents a feudal holdover. There may well be elements of both, and some contradictory forces at work, but Adam tends not to confront such complexities directly.
Likewise, his analysis of the relationship between dominant moral ideas and capitalism lacks sensitivity to the possibility of disjuncture between them, and to the contradictory roles sometimes required of the state. Instead, we find an over-simplified form of class analysis which roots the moral restrictiveness of the late nineteenth century and the New Right ascendancy of our own time in the immediate interests of business. Overall, Adam’s book lacks the analytical sharpness and spark of works on the same subject by Jeffrey Weeks and Dennis Altman. It is not as subtle, as insightful, or as well-written. Despite that, its descriptive wealth makes it a worthwhile introduction to the history of anti-homosexual oppression and to the story of lesbian and gay resistance. ~ David M. Rayside, Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Mar., 1988)
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Details
| ISBN | 9780805797152 |
| Genre | LGBT Studies/Social Sciences |
| Publication Date | 01-May-87 |
| Publisher | Twayne Publishers |
| Format | Trade Paperback |
| No. of Pages | 203 |
| Language | English |
| Rating | NotRated |
| Subject | Gay liberation movement – History; Homosexuality – History |
| BookID | 10753 |
