- Hardcover: 348 pages
- Publisher: Columbia Univ Pr (March 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0231112602
- ISBN-13: 978-0231112604
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 15 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 612 g
- See Complete Table of Contents
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
Review
A landmark event in a number of different fields: lesbian and gay studies, womens studies, postcolonial studies, and cultural studies. It addresses a significant silence in recent treatments of feminist movements and gender in developing countries, in that it focuses specifically on womens alternative sexualities. . . . A significant contribution to the exciting and growing literature on international feminism and womens political organizing.
Book Description
This is a compilation of multidisciplinary essays which discuss same-sex desire among women outside of Western culture. It explores female eroticism in such societies and cultures as India, Polynesia, Latin America, Native North America and southern Africa. The book offers evidence against the commonly accepted notion that non-Western women are generally passive victims of male domination and compulsory heterosexuality. It also attempts to dispell the idea that same-sex female desire is rooted in Western neo-imperialist culture. In a larger sense, the essays attempt to look past the ethnocentric categories in which sexuality, identity and culture are often considered.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.ca
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Move over, Sappho and Gertrude Stein!, May 31 2005
By Jeffery Mingo - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Female Desires: Same-Sex Relations and Transgender Practices Across Cultures (Paperback)
So much writing about homosexuality covers men in the West only. Through his monographs, Stephen Murray has done a lot to cover same-sex love between men outside of the West. Finally, this anthology is an attempt to cover non-Western lesbian and transgendered women.Many books have said female bisexuals have tensions with monosexual lesbians. (Examples include "Bi Any Other Name," "Closer to Home," and "Bisexual Politics.") Halberstam has said that female-to-male transsexuals and butch lesbians have also had tensions. In this anthology, the writers discuss lesbians, bisexual women, and transgendered women equally. In fact, the lines between these identities get blurred. This book is diverse covering Asia, Africa, and the Americas. (Nothing is written on Arab lesbians, however.) The contributors are all Western-educated; still, some are white and some are of color.
Unlike work on non-Western gay men, which often never says anything about non-Western lesbians, this often must mention the situation of gay men before it can describe their female counterparts. One contributor said she is a bisexual sex worker. I wish her good luck trying to find a professor's job after admitting that fact.
The articles range in quality. The chapters on mati in South America and female m-ah-u in the South Pacific were fantastic. Though Thadani is a well-respected expert on lesbian South Asia, I thought her chapter was boring and unnecessary. There is a large focus on Southeastern Asian islands. Since few American immigrants come from those nations, I am not sure if this book will be less compelling to many readers.
I hate the cover of the book. I think it's meant to be a photo of able-bodied and disabled women, with a primitive artistic twist. It's ugly: they could have shown a photograph of a committed female couple of color (whether heterogenderal or homogenderal) to get their point across more effectively. This book is incredibly academic. I am not sure if the average lesbian or FTM would be able to comprehend it. Still, I think it is a book that every lesbian or FTM of color should own. I thank the editors for their efforts and vision.
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Gay & Lesbian > Literature & Fiction > Literary Criticism
- Books > Gay & Lesbian > Nonfiction > Transgender
- Books > Health, Mind & Body > Psychology & Counseling > Sexuality > Human
- Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Anthropology > Cultural
- Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Sociology > Culture
- Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Sociology > Marriage & Family
- Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Special Groups > Gay & Lesbian
- Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Special Groups > Lesbian Studies
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
