Female Desires [Paperback]

Evelyn Blackwood (Editor), Saskia Wieringa (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0231112610 | ISBN-13: 978-0231112611 | Publication Date: April 15, 1999

Evelyn Blackwood and Saskia Wieringa have compiled thirteen essays from a group of historians, sociologists, and anthropologists who discuss same-sex desire among women outside the West, exploring female eroticism in such societies and cultures as India, Polynesia, Latin America, Native North America, and southern Africa. Female Desires offers compelling evidence against the commonly accepted notion that non-Western women are generally passive victims of male domination and compulsory heterosexuality. It also dispells the idea that same-sex female desire is rooted in Western neo-imperialist culture: contributors show non-Western women to be active agents of their own sexual identities. Essays include Giti Thadani on lesbian desire in ancient and modern India, Saskia Wieringa on butch-femme social types in Indonesia and Peru, and Norma Mogrovejo on the lesbian movement in Mexico.In a larger sense, the essays attempt to look past the ethnocentric categories in which sexuality, identity, and culture are often considered.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A landmark event in a number of different fields: lesbian and gay studies, women´s 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 women´s alternative sexualities. . . . A significant contribution to the exciting and growing literature on international feminism and women´s political organizing. -- Review

Review

Fills a major gap in gender/sexuality studies by providing cross-cultural material on 'lesbian-like'relations outside of Europe and the United States.... An exciting book.

(Patricia S. Lander, Brooklyn College, CUNY )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press (April 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231112610
• ISBN-13: 978-0231112611
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,067,129 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

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 (Homewood, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Female Desires (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.