Do Butch and Femme Still Attract?
A somewhat larger proportion of the women—about two-thirds—specified their preference for a butch or femme partner in their ads, but a substantial majority (66 percent) were silent on this matter.
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A Writer and Her Editor
FANS of lesbian icon Jane Rule will celebrate the publication of her letters to a man whom she came to love. Less familiar to U.S. readers, Rick Bébout—editor of the Toronto gay paper The Body Politic and the book Flaunting It: A Decade of Gay Journalism from The Body Politic.
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Indigenous Alien
Despite the predictable but disturbing litany of abuse, Ma-Nee Chacaby emerges as a talented visual artist and a heroic survivor who eventually nurtures both children and adults in need.
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Ethel Smyth: Composer, Feminist, Suffragette
IN LATE SPRING OF 2015, I received a flyer from Bard College advertising their SummerScape opera production of The Wreckers (1904), by the British composer Ethel Smyth, with a…More
Where to Find Virginia Woolf
IN THIS CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY of Virginia Woolf, Ira Nadel takes us on a tour of the places of significance in Woolf’s life while drawing connections among these places, her relationships, and her writings.
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The Sappho Craze
NEWLY TRANSLATED from the French, this intriguing inquiry is divided into three parts and twelve information-packed chapters. From the outset, author Nicole G. Albert sets out to show how male writers and artists propagated falsehoods about lesbianism in fin-de-siècle France. She argues that the renewal of interest in Sappho is inseparable from the vogue for antiquity that reached a high point in the 1890s. She shows how, between the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, a veritable cottage industry arose to produce books and pictures dealing with lesbians. Lesbian Decadence is a kind of decadent tour of lesbian Paris according to mostly male writers and illustrators obsessed with what women do with each other in bed.
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A Foremother of Lesbian Publishing
Indomitable is well-documented and provides helpful aids to readers: a timeline, end notes, and a useful index. Joanne Passet has done justice to a complex personality who played an indispensable role in the development of lesbian publishing.
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Reassessing a 19th-century Novelist
IF WRITER Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840-1894) is remembered today, it is usually for her close friendship and literary rivalry with Henry James. Both writers had made a pact early in their friendship to burn their correspondence, and much of their relationship remains wreathed in mystery.
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Barbara Hammer Reflects on a Life of Filmmaking
LESBIAN FILMMAKER and video artist Barbara Hammer, now in her early seventies, has been exploding long-held myths about both gender and the art of filmmaking since the 1970’s. Her…More
Get to Know Frances Kellor
I HAVE LONG MARVELED that my hero, the subject of my dissertation and book, Frances Kellor (1873–1952), is not as famous as her contemporary Jane Addams. You’ve probably heard of Addams, who started settlement houses for immigrants, most famously Hull House in Chicago. Kellor worked with immigrants at the same time. And yet, Addams is in every high school textbook on U.S. history, while Kellor is nowhere to be found. While a few explanations are plausible, I believe Kellor has been written out of history mostly because she was a lesbian and because she publicly challenged gender norms.
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