Feminist and Lesbian-Feminist Scholarship of the 1980s

Unless teachers are lucky enough to have a student raise the question of Dickinson's sexuality as I did while student teaching, the topic doesn't flow quite as naturally from a discussion of her frequently anthologized poems as it does from Whitman's. Moreover, most of the biographical information in textbooks and even in the video documentaries available on Dickinson simply do not bring it up. I usually introduce her attachment to Susan Dickinson and the debate over how to characterize it as part of a general biographical overview. Another approach Tag Heuer Replica might be to have students do some Web research on Dickinson's background because they are bound to find discussion of her sexuality online. Regardless of how the discussion is initiated, it's important to explain the concept of 19th-century "romantic friendship" as central to scholarly debate over whether to classify Dickinson's love for Susan as "lesbian."

Feminist and lesbian-feminist scholarship of the 1980s, work by Carroll Smith-Rosenberg and Lillian Faderman in particular, brought to light a broad spectrum of pre-20th-century evidence, from women's personal letters and diaries to published essays and mainstream literature, of intimate relationships between women, often with varying degrees of homoeroticism. In most cases, these relationships appear to have been "casually accepted in American society" (Smith-Rosenberg 53). Smith-Rosenberg suggests that the reason for this was the sex-segregated nature of 19th-century American life; women's relegation to the domestic sphere forced them to rely on each other rather than on men for emotional support and for instruction in domestic tasks, so their intimacy was encouraged and expected. Moreover, 20th-century psychology had not yet pathologized homoerotic behavior, which allowed these relationships to exist as a norm within the culture. Faderman offers additional reasons for the acceptance of what she calls "romantic friendships" between women: Women were believed to have "little sexual passion," and few women had the financial means to refuse marriage to a man. Faderman thus links the pathologizing of romantic friendships to "women's greater independence in the twentieth century" because "{n]ow a woman can hope to carry on a love relationship with another woman for life" (Surpassing 20).

Faderman finds many similarities between romantic friends of the past and contemporary lesbians: "'Lesbian' describes a relationship in which two women's strongest emotions and affections are directed toward each other. Sexual contact may be a part of the relationship to a greater or lesser degree, or it may Tag Heuer Carrera Replica be entirely absent. By preference, the two women spend most of their time together and share most aspects of their lives with each other. 'Romantic friendship' described a similar relationship" (Surpassing 17--18). She deemphasizes "sexual contact" in her definition to draw parallels between the two terms. However, Faderman's and Smith-Rosenberg's insistence that such intimacy between female friends produced no self-consciousness and that these relationships probably were not at all sexual has drawn fire from some lesbian scholars who feel the "romantic friendship thesis" has erased an important part of lesbian history.

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