by Joan Lubin

About Joan Lubin

Joan Lubin (she/her) is Visiting Scholar in the Society for Humanities at Cornell University. She is the author of the forthcoming Pulp Sexology: Paperback Revolution, Gay Liberation and is the co-author of “Learning in Public” in Women & Performance.

Lesbian

book Keywords for Gender and Sexuality Studies

“Lesbians are not women,” declared lesbian feminist theorist Monique Wittig (1980, 111). Wittig’s statement captures a persistent problem that the figure of the lesbian illuminates, bringing to light the frictions between sex, gender, and sexuality as well as nature, culture, and embodiment. If lesbians are not women, what on earth are they?