Des les·bi·ennes respectables

Abstract

Using an approach based on respectability, the article tries to understand how lesbian and bisexual women who are activists in a workers’ union manage to deal with the stigmatizing information about their sexual orientation. More often than their gay or heterosexual counterparts, or than middle-class lesbians, they emphasize on the importance of marriage, monogamy, and the length of their relationship. They also minimize experienced discrimination, and more rarely dissociate themselves from the LGBT cause. Sexual morality and work ethics go hand in hand. Overinvestment in work, common among LGBT people, persists in LGBT commissions within unions, because of the illegitimacy of this cause. Work outside union is nonetheless much valued by these women, who often refuse long union careers. This pursuit of respectability is more marked in Spain than in France, due to the age of the sample and the weight of catholic morality in their socialization. The more recent creation of LGBT commissions in the union, and the federations and localities of origin of the respondents explain the strength of their will to appear respectable.

Keywords

• Spain
• France
• respectability
• class morality
• unionism
• lesbianism