Review by grace_b_3 - Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America

A review by grace_b_3
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America by Lillian Faderman

1.0

I finished this book because I wanted to learn more about lesbians of the past. I did walk out of this book knowing a little bit more about lesbian subcultures of the past.

My issue with this book has everything to do with the social constructionist lense that Faderman utilizes. I also found this book dated, and while I try to be understanding of the time a book was published in, I found the way that trans and racial issues were handled distasteful.

Here is a quote from the introduction that I feel illustrates my issues with this book (honestly, should have stopped reading here):

…in the debate between the "essentialists" (who believe that one is born a lesbian and that there have always been lesbians in the past just as there as lesbians today) and the "social constructionists" (who believe that certain social conditions were necessary before "the lesbian" could emerge as a social entity) my own research has caused me to align myself on the side of the social constructionists. While I believe that some women, statistically vey few, may have been "born different, i.e., genetically or hormonally "abnormal," the most convincing research I have been able to find indicates that such an anomaly is extremely rare amongst lesbians...A small number of the women I interviewed told me they were convinced that they were born men trapped in women's bodies; however, for the most part they suspected that they were not lesbians but "transexuals" (two of them had actually had sex change operations and are living as men). Others told me they were born lesbians, but what they said in the interview suggested to me that what they saw as the earliest signs of "lesbian feeling," erotic interest in other females, in most cases may have not been particularly different from the childhood crushes that even Freudians have described as being "normal" in the young. Their early "lesbian behavior" also seemed often to have amounted only to "inappropriate" gender behavior, a phenomenon that has been convincingly called into question by feminism.

If, after reading that quote, you feel like you could read about 300 more pages, maybe it would be worth wading into this book for more insight into lesbian history. If that quote makes your blood boil, skip this.

Content Warnings

A review by grace_b_3 Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America by Lillian Faderman

A review by grace_b_3
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America by Lillian Faderman