Book Quest - 'Odd Girls and Twlight Lovers' by Lillian Faderman

[wolffyluna]

Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers is a history of lesbianism in 20th century America. It's really interesting! ...and quite dense and depressing, at times. I can't really say much about the earlier chapters, because I put the book down for a few months before picking it up again.

But it's a fascinating, and fairly comprehensive look at the topic. (Even if sometimes I'm shouting 'tell me more about Europe!' or 'but what where the gay men doing?') There's general theme of how society shapes the way we think about things and how people identify. And, like a lot of good history books, there's this thread of 'for want of a nail'. If the 1940s (with it's attitude of 'hey, there's a war on. there are bigger fish to fry than the incredibly useful lesbians.') hadn't been followed by the repressive McCarthy 1950s, lesbian culture might not exist.

It's good, but it's really hard for me to say things about it other than just gesturing wildly at the book.

So, I'm going to talk about some inconsequential things that I can actually articulate.

'Kiki' is such a good word. It was mostly used in working class 50's lesbian bar culture to describe what we'd call 'futch,' though it was usually an insult. But it's a good word. And I kinda appreciate the connotations of wishy-washiness. Will I ever use it to describe myself? Probably not; I am none of '1950s working class lesbian' and language is, yaknow, used for communication, so using an old obscure word isn't useful. But it's tempting. (Also, 'bluff,' the other insulting-50s word for futch is also growing on me. I am a ridiculous person.)

I'm not sure if creative radical feminist spelling has got better or worse since this book was written. On the one hand, it doesn't seem like 'wombyn' existed in 1991, but on the other, I have never seen anyone ever use 'hisicane' (as opposed to 'hurricane.') So.

Also, a lot of the chapter on 1970s-80s lesbian feminism really reminds me of tumblr. Like, there's similar themes of fanatic idealism that has no grounding in reality, or the tension between white lesbians who want to be inclusive and welcoming and the lesbians of colour going 'well, you're being very bad at it if you're trying.'

This book was written in 1991, which occasionally leads to weird things. Like, there's a few points where Faderman goes 'this is currently ongoing, so who knows how this will turn out.' I am generally stuck going '...honestly, I have no clue either, and it already happened.' There was also a point where Faderman was like 'You know the Michigan Womyn's Festival, the one with the controversy about s/m' and I was like 'THAT Michfest? THAT's the controversy you think of?' And then I looked it up. The 'not allowing in trans women' controversy started in 1991. Possibly after the book was published. Which leaves me struck by-- not the feeling of being old, or young, but the feeling of 'gee, time sure is a thing, huh.'

Comments

[chocochipbiscuit]

God, this is a book I keep meaning to read, but have always been slightly intimidated by. I'm glad you've found it interesting; bumping it to the top of my library list.

[wolffyluna]

It is interesting! If occasionally depressing. (There's a bit of a pattern of 'So, this decade didn't completely suck-- and then the next decade happened.')