The Woman-Identified Woman

The authors consisted of Artemis March, Lois Hart, Rita Mae Brown, Ellen Shumsky, Cynthia Funk, and Barbara XX.

At the following NOW conference, held in New York City in September 1971, the Congress adopted a resolution acknowledging the rights of lesbians as a "legitimate concern for feminism".

[5] It was the general sentiment of many feminists at the time that lesbianism was a private and personal matter that shouldn’t be mentioned in a public sense and had no place in their discussions.

Another newsletter, Lavender Woman, asserts themselves as “lesbian-identified lesbians” not believing in the comradery with straight women and viewing the women-identified label as a joke.

The manifesto points out that, although changes have occurred in American society for women, these changes are superficial, nominal displays presented to cope with the rising tide of feminism.

This inclusion of lesbians in feminism was formal in the form of pacts written between NOW and the Lavender Menace and informal in the transformed community now more eager to learn.

Some black women activists, especially those engaging in mixed-gender civil rights activism, critiqued the separatism of the manifesto as men weren’t seen as the ultimate source of all their oppression.

[15] Additionally, there were some unintended effects of the release of the Woman-Identified Woman manifesto and subsequent movement as feminists were increasingly associated with and, many times, interchangeable with lesbians.

Scholars have suggested the manifesto was coopted by antifeminists such as Phyllis Schlafly primarily in the efforts to rally against the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).