Barbara Love

Barbara Joan Love (February 27, 1937 – November 13, 2022) was an American feminist writer and the editor of Feminists who Changed America, 1963–1975.

At 12 years of age as a competitive swimmer, she was the first person in New Jersey to break the record of the 100 yard freestyle in under a minute.

Friedan, reflecting the tenor of some other heterosexual members of NOW, stated initially that the presence of lesbians in the organization was damaging to their image. Barbara Love's public response was: "My life had gotten better since I’d joined NOW and even better when I joined the women forging the beginnings of lesbian liberation," which reflected her intention to have lesbianism accepted as a feminist issue within NOW. who became Love's lover and co-author. In the 1970s they were fellow members of Radicalesbians.

While Kate Millett was speaking about sexual liberation at Columbia University in 1970, a woman in the audience asked her, "Why don't you say you're a lesbian, here, openly. You've said you were a lesbian in the past." Millett hesitantly responded, "Yes, I am a lesbian". A couple of weeks later, Time December 8, 1970 article "Women's Lib: A Second Look" reported that Millett admitted she was bisexual, which it said would likely discredit her as a spokesperson for the feminist movement because it "reinforce the views of those skeptics who routinely dismiss all liberationists as lesbians." In response, two days later a press conference was organized by Love and Ivy Bottini in Greenwich Village which led to a statement in the name of 30 lesbian and feminist leaders which declared their "solidarity with the struggle of homosexuals to attain their liberation in a sexist society". They were among the first open lesbians to appear on television in the US, and debated long-held stereotypes about gays with Susskind. A week after her appearance on the David Susskind Show, a middle-aged couple approached Gittings in the supermarket to claim, "You made me realize that you gay people love each other just the way Arnold and I do."

In their essay Is Women's Liberation a Lesbian Plot published in the book Women in a Sexist Society (1971), Sydney Abbott and Love gave their opinion about lesbians’ role in the women's liberation movement:

Regarding the way in which lesbians represented the ultimate liberated women, Love said in 1972:

That year, at a national NOW conference in California, Arlie Scott led an effort that resulted in NOW passing a resolution asserting that lesbianism is a feminist issue. Friedan endorsed the lesbian rights resolution at the International Women's Year conference in Houston in 1976.

Psychiatric diagnosis There used to be a record in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) for homosexuality. Barbara Gittings, Love, and other lesbian and gay people made a presentation in 1971 to the American Psychiatric Association (APA) that influenced the December 15, 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from the DSM. Two diagnoses remained in the DSM: "ego-dystonic homosexuality" and "sexual disturbance disorder".

Parents of Gays Sidney Abbott and Love were among the first feminists to join the gay liberation movement.

Identity House Love co-founded a free walk-in center for gays, Identity House.

Sappho Was a Right-on Woman In 1971, Love co-authored the first non-fiction book about lesbianism from a positive perspective, Sappho Was a Right-on Woman, with Sidney Abbott. They wrote that a goal of the book was that lesbians could live their lives "unconsciously", without the societal stigma placed upon them because of their gender or sexuality. To be "the most ordinary people" required awareness created through the gay liberation and women's liberation movements that would lead to elimination of oppressive behaviors and practices.

Feminists Who Changed America 1963–1975 In 1996, she began a project to write biographies of 2,200 second-wave feminists and record the important events from that period, which was published in the book Feminists Who Changed America 1963–1975. She was assisted by Veteran Feminists of America (VFA) members. Her book has been the subject of discussion or conferences at VFA and NOW events.

For living "changemakers", information was gathered via questionnaires and other sources of information. In addition to research, people close to deceased activists were interviewed for information gathering. The book focuses on the contributions of individuals, rather than organizations. Information about each feminist is archived at Smith College’s Sophia Smith Collection. and the organization has said of Love, "If Second Wave activists were graded according to their contributions, Barbara Love would be in the top ten."

She continued to swim competitively into her 70s.

Love married Donna Smith in 2018.

Love died on November 13, 2022, at the age of 85.

Works Editor

Author

Barbara J. Love (2021). “There At The Dawning: Memories of a Lesbian Feminist”.

Co-author