An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures (Series Q) by Ann Cvetkovich

Author:Ann Cvetkovich [Cvetkovich, Ann]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 2003-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

Dyke Dinners

How did lesbians survive in ACT UP? Even if they had strong reasons for being there, it was not always easy. As Danzig points out, “You had to have a taste for the rough-and-tumble of democratic process. This was not, strictly speaking, a feminist organization. Experienced, activist dykes taught by example and shared skills. It helped to be quick and witty and charismatic, and if you wanted to, you could stand in front of a room.” Lesbians were resilient and practical, or as Bauer says, “I don’t take things personally.” And they were strategic. Wolfe notes that the goal was not to monitor every instance of sexism:

And other than a couple of the younger women, everyone else had experience already in the women’s movement, had experience already with people screaming at each other, and knew it didn’t work. None of uswere interested in making the men less sexist than they were by chastising them. We came in to work on AIDS, and we would work on any issues that there were, and we were interested if there were ways of raising issues about women, but it wasn’t the only thing. We made a very conscious, collective statement to each other. We all had the same view, which was that some men in the room were misogynists—you were never going to change them. Some of them seemed to be really feminists and would be on our side. And the vast majority were badly trained. We were grown-up about it. We knew what bad training was because that’s what we learned from lesbian feminism. We’re all badly trained. You know? So, actually, that group of women had an incredible impact on the group because when someone would get up and say, “Let’s man the tables,” we would just say, “Staff,” and then everybody started saying “Staff” the table. We didn’t say, “You sexist pig.”

Bauer also talks about using her training in nonviolence and experience with consensus-based groups to negotiate conflicts in meetings. As a facilitator, she was able to build consensus out of a majority rule voting process by calling on people strategically and requesting discussion when necessary. Drawing on both positive and negative experiences with feminist styles of processing, the women frequently mention that they appreciated ACT UP’s efficient emphasis on action and concrete proposals. Explains Maggenti: “That part of me that is macho and that part of me that is very testosterone driven was totally thrilled by it. I loved the orderliness of it. They were totally into Roberts Rules of Order, which I thought was fabulous. It didn’t have that mushy-feminist-womyn/wimmin kind of thing that I’d been to before, and I rather liked that. It was very in-your-face.” The meetings were thus themselves a visible public sphere of protest and activity. As Leonard observes,

I was just blown away, mostly by the level of humor and intensity, and the amount of positive energy in the room; it was funny and fast-paced, and people were busy. This was not people sitting around talking—it was busy.

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