Mary M. Read: Mary M. Read, M.S., MFCC is a psychotherapist practicing in Los Alamitos, CA, a part-time instructor in the M.S. in Counseling program at California State University, Fullerton, (her alma mater) and a Ph.D. student in Counseling Psychology at the University of Southern California. She is doing qualitative research on lesbian identity, with a focus on narrative construction.
Monika Reinfelder, of working-class German descent, teaches Women's Studies and Politics at the University of London and serves as editor for this collection of accounts from lesbian feminists all over the globe. Besides the UK, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Costa Rica, Argentina and Chile are represented by the fourteen contributors. The intentional weaving of international webs to connect these activists is reflected in the text, through the voices of the women and the conferences they create to meet and exchange ideas. These reports are intense, filled with suffering born of prejudice and power relations, yet there is no sense of despair. These women are fighters, and they tell the tales of their countries with passion and pride for what has been accomplished against all odds. A sense of history, of entitlement to an identity as women-loving-women pervades the stories. In triumph or defeat, these women are carving out the territory of lesbian feminism with their very lives, if need be. The truths of their oppression are not for the faint-hearted to read, but for those who want to know that lesbianism is not a modern, Western construct. Global feminism exists and lesbians are forging it, however embryonic it might be in countries locked in the vise-grip of heterosexist patriarchy.
Amazon, dyke, entendidas, jami, mati, wicker, zami—naming the names for lesbians in other cultures through the ages affects the identity of those aware of them. It is oddly comforting to know that these colorful terms exist, even though the cultures from which they spring attempt to cover the differences of those to whom they are applied. At least lesbians have, in each of these countries, caused enough stir to be called something, to transcend the invisibility of marginality, albeit into still contested, often detested ground.
The myths and ‘herstory' of each culture are discussed in light of the present political standing of lesbians and women in general in that country. The universality of oppression and willingness to blame the degenerate West for lesbianism leave the reader challenged with becoming involved in the struggle. There is tremendous impact from seeing the lives of these women, fighting for the right to love women openly, without shame or economic ruin or threat of bodily harm. And there is great joy in realizing that, in culture after culture around the globe there are other lesbians, other feminist sisters, other long-told tales of womanlove down through the centuries.
All of the women authors do not know each other, nor agree with the positions and actions of those they do know. Not all of them identify as lesbians per se. They live in different circumstances: some partnered, some alone, some in groups. Their socio-economic status varies widely, as does their level of formal education. Some embrace their lesbian identity; some still fear it, within and without. The strength of this collection lies not only in its breadth but also in its honesty. Varnished niceties are lacking. What is apparent is a deep, abiding respect for the women who carry on, called by many names, from Amazon to Zami.
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