The following appeared in Volume 96, Number 2 (Spring 1997) of the APA Newsletters.

7. Joyce Trebilcot, Dyke Ideas: Process, Politics, Daily Life. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. Reviewed by Lori Hughes

The first thought that went through my head as a reader and reviewer of Joyce Trebilcot’s book was: "How the hell does this little happy white grandmotherly woman pictured on the back cover plan to represent dyke ideas? I’m a dyke, and I’m already sure that my dyke ideas are going to be quite at odds with this womon’s . Does she think she can speak for me (and all dykes)? The very notion put me in an aggressive state of mind ready to disagree with what she might have to say instead of listening openly and looking for common ground. That will teach me to think and feel so strongly about a book and author before even reading the preface. Joyce Trebilcot makes it clear right away that in fact she speaks for herself.

She breaks away from her training as a career philosopher, seeker and seller of unbiased universal "truths," and adopts feminist methodology, where the personal is political, where personal bias and motivation are as interesting as the question and answer, where personal stories are as valuable as general theories. The dyke in the title of her book was never meant to represent me or a whole community of people, but to represent her. She is the dyke and the ideas are hers. The book is an excursion through the author’s thinking process, a very personal tour where the reader is invited to reflect upon ideas rather than persuaded to accept them. I might call this autobiographical philosophy. Dyke Ideas is the "story" of a dyke doing philosophy and resisting patriarchy. The book speaks to dykes, feminists, philosophers, activists, people in academia, people outside of academia, females, males, students of women’s studies and philosophy.

Dyke

Owning up to one’s biases comes out of the tradition of feminist research methodology. Instead of making the assumption that the researcher can be an objective, unbiased witness and interpreter, feminist methodology recognizes that the researcher’s background, experiences, opinions, and motivations are biases that influence her/his work, and should therefore be made public to the reader. Joyce Trebilcot owns up to her primary bias (dyke) in the title itself; she wants the reader to know that her ideas are "intimately connected with being a dyke." She chooses "dyke" as a label to emphasize its implication of resistance instead of the label "lesbian" that carries a sexual definition in many people’s minds. To her, "dyke" means "having radical lesbian feminist ideals, including: being alert to and active against oppressions; taking every womon seriously, especially by attending to what each womon has to say; and empowering wimmin in contexts that wimmin create." (It is useful to read her Notes on Words , found at the end of the book, including the use of "womon" and "wimmin" vs. "woman" and "women.") Dykism "is not a matter of sex but rather rejecting and separating from patriarchy and joining in solidarity with wimmin." There is a strong separatist component in Joyce Trebilcot’s idea of being a dyke and that was an important bias for me to be aware of as a reader with less of a commitment to separatism. I choose to disagree with some of the ideas presented, but knowing the author’s bias i was able to understand and respect how she came to her ideas.

Dyke Philosophy

Dyke philosophy is like a potluck. Whereas academic philosophy might be described as a competitive marketplace, with philosophers persuading readers to buy their particular brand of "truth," dyke philosophy is like a potluck where each "philosopher" shares ideas with others of like mind and samples ideas based on one’s tastes and needs. "The idea is not to discover ‘the truth’ and, competitively, to present it more clearly or accurately or completely than anyone else; it is, rather, to contribute one’s own words, insights, speculations, jokes, to feminist realities."

Joyce Trebilcot offers three principles of dyke methods which help her to avoid forcing (selling) her "truth" on other wimmin. One: speak only for yourself, two: do not try to get other wimmin to accept your beliefs in place of their own, three: there is no given. The first principle reminds the author to speak about "i" rather than "we" thus avoiding putting her words and explanations in wimmin’s mouths. But it also reminds her to be conscious of speaking for patriarchy, to be aware that her ideas may represent and support the oppressor rather than her dyke self. The second principle refers to intentions of the author. It does not prevent Joyce Trebilcot from putting her ideas on the table, even from hoping that wimmin will find her ideas useful in forming and revising their own, but it reminds her to not try to persuade wimmin to replace their ideas with the author’s. The third principle reminds Joyce to question patriarchal assumptions and givens which are likely to benefit patriarchy and not wimmin, and in fact, to perhaps redefine reality so that there are no givens. These principles are intended for wimmin’s spaces and may not apply or be useful in mostly patriarchal space.

Resisting Patriarchy

A central tenet of being a dyke as defined by Joyce Trebilcot is resisting and rejecting patriarchy; refusing to speak for patriarchy, separating from patriarchy, and creating wimmin’s space outside of patriarchy. Academic Philosophy in which the author was trained and makes her living keeps the "machine" maintained and running, the machine being dominant western ideology. It does this by "persuading people to accept hierarchies" such as patriarchy. So why is Joyce Trebilcot involved in philosophy? "Money, of course," she says. Nearing retirement she looks forward to "restructuring my work and, to some extent, myself."

She identifies guilt, competition, and envy as tools of patriarchy. She even goes so far as to showcase a dialogue between Hortense and Gladys where the two voices (two parts of her self?) debate whether sex is an invention of patriarchy and the possibility of not wanting sex as an idealistic resistance to patriarchy. She points out the benefit to patriarchy of the notion that sexuality is a given. Instead of accepting the "natural" orientation, Joyce asks women to take responsibility for their sexuality. In the case of a heterosexual woman, responsibility includes deciding "which aspects of the heterosexual institution she wishes to participate in, and why."

Creating wimmin’s space is part of being a dyke, of separating from patriarchy. She makes the point that separating from patriarchy and committing to discovering/ creating wimmin’s space does not preclude coming back and confronting patriarchy, or even that there are not times when using patriarchal tools and values (such as persuasion) is effective and necessary. Joyce Trebilcot realizes that pure wimmin’s space cannot exist at this point, that patriarchy is always intruding, but "as if in compensation, when wimmin are present there is no pure patriarchy-we are always violating and sabotaging it."

So what about Autobiographical Dyke Philosophy? It may leave you thinking that it’s something other than philosophy, or maybe it will make you wish that philosophy be more like this.

Lori Hughes is the Women’s Volleyball Coach at Emerson College in Boston. She holds an M.S. in Exercise and Sport Science from UNC-Greensboro. A transplanted southern trans-dyke, Lori is interested in queer politics and the gender movement.

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