![]() ![]() While having enough money to live comfortably as we age is a major concern for all of us, there are other factors that complicate financial planning and aging that are particular to lesbians. She never returns to this issue after presenting the political activities of her narrators. In one example, she states her disagreement with a central thesis in Kennedy and Davis's Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, but she doesn't grapple with their analysis about the differing roles of working-class and middle-class lesbians in creating public communities. Claassen raises questions about families, self-definitions, class differences, communities, political activism, and butch-femme roles, but she doesn't treat any of the issues with great depth or cohesion. Major themes and the threads of the main arguments often get lost or are left hanging among the numerous topics Claassen attempts to address. Though the focus of this book is important, it was difficult and frustrating to read for several reasons. This finding is worth additional attention. Toward the end of her book, Claassen reflects that it might have been useful to compare women who never married with those who had been married since she finds that marriage is a significant influence on wealth accumulation. As a result of Claassen's focus on finances and wealth, we hear more about the wide variety of methods these women used to achieve their economic autonomy, an important topic when older women still face high levels of poverty. Though literate and mostly financially comfortable, these women, it is clear, would not have left their life stories if not for Claassen's study. Along with these explicit themes, Claassen addresses a full range of life issues.Įven though Claassen's sample is limited in its diversity, the greatest strength of this book is its contribution to an understanding of the range of lesbian lives in the twentieth century. The second interrogates the role of middle-class and wealthy lesbians in the lesbian and gay liberation movement. ![]() The first focus responds to literature that argued that earlier generations of women were ignorant of financial matters. Though she chose to present the life stories of these lesbians in "snippets" to preserve a level of anonymity, most of the transcribed interviews have been placed with the Clio Foundation in Gulfport, Florida.Ĭlaassen states that her themes will be economics and politics. Claassen gives both qualitative and quantitative analyses of her findings. Several were wealthy enough to own second homes, and many could retire early. Her subjects were overwhelmingly financially savvy and successful. Claassen's Whistling Women: A Study of the Lives of Older Lesbians was inspired by lesbians whose lives seemed to contradict what we saw in this video.Ĭlaassen interviewed 44 women over 55, 43 of whom were white. Until recently it was hard to know since there have been few studies of lesbians of this era and class background. always wondered if this naiveté was an accurate portrayal. While I am happy to watch Vanessa Redgrave do most anything, I have. ![]() Her lover died without a will, and the house was in her lover's name alone. In the first act of If These Walls Could Talk II, a lesbian character circa 1961, played by Vanessa Redgrave, is stunned when she discovers that she has no claim on the home that she shared with her long-time partner. His ideal world merges with his nightmare in the cellar and a macarbe twist at the end plunges him into a dark world where the fates of the torturer and his helpless victim are finally decided. Paul's happy world starts crumbling as terrible events take place in his hometown. The pills allow one to dream of one's death and one's reincarnation.Ī yellow butterfly carved out of a stone taken from the mountain near the village is believed to be cursed and was sold to a South African tourist - the yellow butterfly became an integral part of the madman's childhood. The madman's life and the ten dreams are connected to a remote village in India where an eighty-year-old hermaphrodite virgin, Shamele, is responsible for creating dream pills. There is lots of goings on in the jacuzzi of the gay couple's home and an atmosphere of sexual jealously arises. The couple are friends with their neighbour Sheila, a dovorcee, her boyfriend Peter and her son Liam, who gets close to the gay couple. The couple have the special ability to experience the same grotesque dreams - they recite their ten dreams to a psychologist. Nirraz is a sociologist and his lover Paul teaches biology at the local school. In South Africa, the narrator, Paul, drifts between an ideal world, where he is happily married to his partner Nirraz, and a dark and horrible nightmare where an unidentified madman is torturing him in the gay couple's own wine cellar. The story takes place in South Africa and India.
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