Sappho
Was a Right on Woman : A Liberated View of Lesbianism by
Sidney
Abbott,
Barbara Love
First published in 1972
This is a pioneering work on several
counts: it is the first book-length statement on the
relationship of Lesbianism to Feminism, as well as the first
serious nonfiction account of the Lesbian experience, described
carefully and logically from an authentic, inside perspective
rather than the prejudging eyes of an orthodox psychiatric
disapproval and its softer, more insidious corollary, an
alienating "clinical detachment." It is also,
incidentally, a unique, close-range history of the new women's
movement as it faced one of its major issues and crises.
Most material of all, this book begins to fill
the terrible need of an entire population of women, until now not
only persecuted and ignored, but deprived of any reasonable
account of themselves and the sufferings imposed on them by a
hostile society.
On this account alone, its publication is a
major contribution both to the possibility of social change and to
the hope of humane understanding. -- Kate Millett, author of Sexual
Politics. (From the back cover)
"It's heartening to see Lesbians speaking
up and talking back. This book tells straight women what
it's like to be a Lesbian today. It's a good job -- I can't
get it away from my husband." -- Caroline Bird, author of Born
Female and The Crowding Syndrome (From the back cover)
This is the most complete and honest book about
Lesbians I ever read. It's all here. At first I was
afraid the authors were just saying the same things the Enemy says
about our pains and how they have damaged us. We'd have to
be idiots to choose this contempt and punishment when society is
offering us something kind of cute as an alternative.
But then came why. Joy pleasure, equality,
humanity, self-determination, self-affirmation, access to our life
energy, heroism. I am very glad this book exists. --
Isabel Miller, author of Patience and Sarah (From the back
cover)
