Lesbian Lifestyles: Women's Work and the Politics of Sexuality [Paperback]

Gillian A. Dunne (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1996

Lesbian Lifestyles graphically illustrates the importance of taking sexuality into account in order to deepen our understanding of the constraining and liberating influences on women's domestic and working lives. Charting the lives of 60 women from childhood, through school, to their paid work and home lives as adults, the book explores their experiences of gendering in childhood and their changing feelings about society's prevalent culture of 'romantic heterosexuality'. In particular, it documents the impact of 'coming out' on their adult lives - most importantly on their approach to intimate relationships and paid work. Casting new light on how sexuality is socially constructed, the book argues that the capacity to evaluate the taken-for-grantedness of heterosexuality is linked with empowerment and it offers a vision of what working life and domestic arrangements can look like when gender difference as a structuring principle is absent.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'This is a ground-breaking study which should lead to a profound reassessment of some key elements of feminist and non-feminist understandings of women's relationship to employment and the domestic sphere.' - Christine Griffin, University of Birmingham 'It's rare to read research that is truly exciting and path-breaking - and this is...The linkages made here between sexuality, domestic life and economic opportunities serve to locate the work within central areas of sociological concern and alert us to the intersections between sexuality and other aspects of social life. I found the work fascinating and thought-provoking.' - Stevi Jackson, University of Strathclyde 'Dunne mounts a powerful argument that lesbianism should not be studied simply as an aspect of difference among women, in line with current post-modern preoccupations with feminism; rather the study of lesbian lifestyles can provide important analytic insights concerning inequality and power, revealing that it is not merely gender but also heterosexuality as a social institution which leads to female dependence and inequalities in the division of labour.' - Harriet Bradley, University of Bristol --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press; First Printing edition (October 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802079512
• ISBN-13: 978-0802079510
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,201,124 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A useful first examination of lesbianism and work, July 11, 1998

By 

Charlene Vacon ([e-mail]) (Halifax, Nova Scotia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lesbian Lifestyles: Women's Work and the Politics of Sexuality (Hardcover)

This is the book that I've been waiting for. If you have an interest in the history of lesbians or in women and work, this will be a useful addition to your library. However, if you are exploring lesbians' participation in work, as I am, this is a must. I have been able to find no other rigourously researched study of this kind.

Dunne's work specifically explicates the relations of sexuality, not only gender, as they intersect with work. The effect is to illuminate the experiences of work that may rise directly from being a lesbian. This, finally, gives an added dimension to years of research into women and work.

Dunne's study combines a qualitative approach with empirical data collection. Quotations from many of the research participates are interspersed liberally with discussion, historical information, and related theoretical arguments.

Her analysis of the sociology of lesbians and work is helpful not only in explicating the complex social relations, but also as a continuation of the project of building documents of lesbians' social history. For example, Dunne uses a constructionist framework of sexuality built from Foucault's work but continues the feminist critique of that work by using prominant women social historians such as Faderman to elaborate on specifically lesbian-centred historical relations.

Lesbian Lifestyles creates even more than this useful study of the personal lives of lesbians at work. From the standpoint of lesbians, it is also able to contribute to building the larger political project of theorizing the lives of women.