Overview

Renowned feminist philosopher Card courageously explores the complex ethical and political questions lesbians face regarding their identities and their relationships both within and outside of lesbian communities.

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9780231080095

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Relying both on her academic training as a philosopher and her position in the academy (and the community) as an out lesbian, Card tackles topics ranging from the ban on gays and lesbians in the military to questions of battering, female on female incest, and sadomasochism in the lesbian community... This book should be in any collection supporting women's studies and/or lesbian and gay studies. -- Choice This exploration of the ethical and political dilemmas that challenge lesbians in a hostile society is wide-ranging and evenhanded... Card discusses the sometimes uneasy alliances between feminism and gay activism, ambiguous distinctions between friendship and lesbian desire, and the ethics of outing. She also devotes a chapter to lesbianism as a 'choice'and its implications for lesbians as a salient determiner of self-discovery. Card's analyses of battering and stalking of lesbians by other lesbians and lesbian sadomasochism are informed and tactful approaches to potentially volatile, under-explored topics. -- Publishers Weekly

A dense examination of the complexity of lesbian identity. Card (Philosophy/Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison; Feminist Ethics, not reviewed) introduces Lesbian Choices as the result of learning to speak with [her] own voice as a lesbian feminist philosopher with a certain set of histories. While the subject of this volume is highly personal to Card and is born from her identity as a semi-rural white-anglo woman, a woman-lover, and a survivor of domestic abuse, her book is by no means a memoir. It is in fact ruthlessly academic and may prove difficult for the general reader. Card explores lesbian culture, ethics, and friendship and expands this more personal construction of identity onto a broader societal panorama through her discussion of lesbians in the military, closeting, and homophobia. Card is at her most insightful in a chapter that explores sexual agency; she observes there that in patriarchal society lesbians are more likely to actively choose their sexuality while heterosexual women are less conscious of the decision they make vis-a-vis their sexual preference. She offers a lesbian genealogy from ancient Greek and Roman Amazons to 19th-century passionate friends as a means of grounding this choice historically; she also references the lives and work of writers Mary Wollstonecraft and Virginia Woolf, among others, as examples of an early awareness, though not explicit, of lesbian possibility. Card is delicate and brave when speaking out about lesbian battering and stalking and female incest, giving voice to what some feminists want left unspoken. Her breaking the silence around mother-daughter incest is especially important in that much of the writing on this is found in personal narratives and is left out of academic and clinical literature. A learned inquiry into lesbianism, more useful to Card's colleagues in academia than to popular readers. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Claudia Card is Professor of Philosophy with affiliations in Women's Studies and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she has taught since 1966. She is editor ofAdventures in Lesbian Philosophy (1994) andLesbian Ethics (1991).

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