Awfully Devoted Women

Lesbian Lives in Canada, 1900-65

Cameron Duder author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:University of British Columbia Press

Published:14th Apr '10

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Awfully Devoted Women cover

This intimate study of the lives of middle-class lesbians who came of age before the gay rights movement unveils a previously unknown world of private relationships, discreet social networks, and love.

The lives of many lesbians who grew up before 1965 remain cloaked in mystery. Historians have turned the spotlight on upper-middle-class “romantic friendships” and on working-class lesbian bars, but the lives of the lower-middle-class majority remain in the shadows.

Drawing on a rich collection of archival sources and interviews, Awfully Devoted Women offers a nuanced portrait of middle-class lesbianism in English Canada in the decades before the gay rights movement. Accounts and explorations of these women’s sexual practices, thoughts on same-sex desire, and relations with friends and family unveil a world of private relationships, house parties, and discreet social networks. This intimate study of the lives of women forced to love in secret not only challenges the idea that lesbian relationships in the past were asexual, it also reveals the courage it took for women to explore desire in an era when they were supposed to know little about sexuality.

Engaging and accessible without slacking on the analysis, this book is required reading for anybody with an interest in the history of lady-lovin’ ladies. -- Kate Zieman * QueeriesMag.com *
An excellent contribution to canadian lesbian historiography and to the growing literature on gender and sexuality. Highly recommended. -- D.A. Chekki, University of Winnipeg * CHOICE, Vol. 48, No. 3 *

ISBN: 9780774817387

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 600g

328 pages