Queer As Art issue 2 April-May-June 2017 | Page 17

put you in a box and nail the lid on it?”
Rita Mae Brown shares many a
thing with her heroine - her childhood,
her academic background, her passion
for latin… Unlike her heroine, Brown was
heavily politicized in the 70s, first
through student movements then as a
part of the Lavender Menace. Brown was
a key-figure of lesbian feminism, and
took part in the writing of the manifesto
“The Woman-Identified Woman”. While
Brown’s commitment to second-wave
feminism brought a lot of attention to the
discriminations lesbians were facing,
some parts of Rubyfruit Jungle show
their age regarding its treatment of
butch woman. Molly doesn’t seem to get
that being a woman sometimes means
having short hair and being buff, without
wanting to resemble a man.
"That's the craziest, dumbass thing I ever
heard tell of. What's the point of being a
lesbian if a woman is going to look and
act like an imitation man? Hell, if I want a
man, I'll get the real thing not one of
these chippies. I mean [...] the whole
point of being gay is because you love
women.”
It’s important to remain critical of
most exclusive aspect of lesbian history
to remind ourselves that the
advancement of LGBT people in society
must be the advancement of all LGBT
people, not only those who happen to
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conform to society’s view of gender and
sexuality.
Rubyfruit Jungle is a lesson of
resilience and strength - albeit an
individualistic one.