Feminist diagrams. (April 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: McBean, Sam
• Other Names: Nicholas Lucy guest-editor.; Budgeon Shelley guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Feminist theory. Volume 22:Number 2(2021)
• Page Start: 206
• Page End: 225
• Publication Date: 2021-04
• Subjects: Data visualisation -- diagrams -- political lesbianism -- radical feminism -- Ti-Grace Atkinson; Feminist theory -- Periodicals; 305.4205
• DOI: 10.1177/1464700121997182
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1464-7001

Abstract

On 4 January 1971, Ti-Grace Atkinson delivered a talk entitled 'Strategy and Tactics: A Presentation of Political Lesbianism'. The talk was later published in her collected essays, Amazon Odyssey . The essay contains thirty-five diagrams: ten 'Strategy Charts', three 'Tactical Charts' and twenty-two 'Tactical-Strategy Charts', which map a strategy of the 'Oppressor' (men) and the tactics that the 'Oppressed' (women) might develop to lead to a revolution – lesbians, significantly, are the 'Buffer Zone' between these two classes. In the only reference I have managed to find to these diagrams, they are referred to as 'crazy'. This article re-visits these diagrams, exploring the role of the diagram in how Atkinson attempts to map patriarchal relations and also imagine a feminist revolution. Taking Atkinson's diagrams as a starting point, the article then uses them to begin to narrate a genealogy of the diagram in feminist theory, exploring a diagrammatic imaginary that is an often-used but rarely discussed tactic in feminist writing. Finally, the article opens out to consider how this history of feminist diagrams might be a precursor to more contemporary feminist data visualisations.