Monique Wittig La Pensée straight

Bye Bye Binary’s selection for their storefront.

“In 1978, Monique Wittig closed her lecture on “Straight Thinking” with the words: “Lesbians are not women”. The shockwaves caused by this statement are still being felt today in feminist theory and beyond.

By analysing the founding aspect of the supposed “naturalness” of heterosexuality within our thought structures, whether in structural anthropology or psychoanalysis, Monique Wittig brings to light the fact that heterosexuality is neither natural nor a given: heterosexuality is a political regime. It is therefore important, in order to establish the “class” struggle, to go beyond the categories “men” / “women”, which are normative and alienating categories. In these conditions, the fact of being a lesbian, that is to say outlawed by the heterosexual structure, both social and conceptual, is like a breach, a fissure that finally allows us to think what is “always already there”.”