Lesbianism As a Social and Thesis

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This may allow room for evaluation of the gender role conflicts which must naturally enter into this conversation. Where so many validate gender roles according to sexuality, this discussion of lesbian and feminist identity yields something of a less certain correlation. Rather, by an inclination to overcome the limitations imposed upon the female identity, there are distinctive characteristics which have been adopted by some within the lesbian community distinguishing these as apolitical-social lesbians. Driven by personal identification, and therefore required to pursue a social agenda which contrasts with mainstream conventions, apolitical-social lesbians may or may not be distinguishable by observable gender-role characteristics. However, in cases where such distinctions can be drawn due simply to a subversion of assumed gender rolls, the "butch" lesbian can be identified by a presentation of historically accepted male characteristics of identity. As outliers to the standards for gender-orientation normalcy, such lesbians are easily targeted for ridicule by conservative thinkers, who may disregard such identity presentation as apocryphal. "Such is to suggest that the identity which is especially promoted by the white, mainstream culture is that lesbianism, especially that which is typically referred to as "butch" lesbianism, in which a woman appears to take on many of the gender roles oriented with masculinity, is a willful attempt to co-opt the supposed normalcy of a heterosexual relationship.

In many regards, this stands to form the basis for the collective heterosexual perception of homosexuality at large. This fails a necessary differentiation though, between sexual and social identity. If it is to be accepted that sexuality and gender roles are one and the same, then it can be determined that there is a pointed contradiction in the butch lesbian identity, which skews the latter in order to facilitate a deviant variation on the former.

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This, however, does not translate to a sound evaluation of the lesbian adaptation of certain assumedly male characteristics, given that the behaviors, aesthetics and lifestyle choices which appear to mirror gender orientation are so often derived from points of external influence. Where sexual predilection is a quality which, evident or not, proceeds from an internal impetus, gender roles are, by name, those qualities which one has consciously and unconsciously adopted in order to demonstrate adherence to the social norms as they apply to either gender. The assumption that the lesbian adaptation of identity qualities that are conventionally considered male is in some way an effort to take on the desirably normalized elements of heterosexual intercession misapplies the fact of gender roles. Where there might be an aspiration, especially from within the heterosexual culture, to classify conventional gender roles as they manifest in heterosexual relationships as those qualifying for the norm, these are instead roles which are enforced by the above-mentioned aspiration rather then by genetics, instincts or hormonal predisposition. The adoption of such traits as those which fall under the purview of male gender roles by women involved in lesbian relationships offers insight into the elected superficiality of supposedly inborn gender roles

This conflict captures only one front in what will inevitably be a perpetually waged battle. There is no likely point at which lesbianism will be considered a standard of normalcy which, in today's Western society, means that lesbian identity will always bear in many ways the mark of the "other." However, with a continued drive toward aligning political, social and sexual aspirations toward the singular goal of dismantling expectations of "normalcy," the lesbian identity may eventually achieve its own clear and effective identity and ideology......

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