Ben Waber reviewed To Believe in Women by Lillian Faderman
An Individual-Focused History of Women's Rights
4 stars
This book is a fascinating deep dive into a formative period of women's rights (mostly post Civil War to 1920), keeping the focus on the lesbian leaders of these efforts. This individual focus works well here because foregrounding the sexual orientation of the leaders of this movement makes it clear how important it was in creating the space for its ultimate success. It's also fascinating how socially accepted "Boston marriages" were pre women's suffrage, with the US only very recently reacknowledging the normality of those relationships. Faderman does gloss over some of the deeply racist sentiments and statements of these folks, however, and the lack of macro perspective here makes it hard to gauge overall progress. Still, this is a great history on an important topic. Highly recommend
This book is a fascinating deep dive into a formative period of women's rights (mostly post Civil War to 1920), keeping the focus on the lesbian leaders of these efforts. This individual focus works well here because foregrounding the sexual orientation of the leaders of this movement makes it clear how important it was in creating the space for its ultimate success. It's also fascinating how socially accepted "Boston marriages" were pre women's suffrage, with the US only very recently reacknowledging the normality of those relationships. Faderman does gloss over some of the deeply racist sentiments and statements of these folks, however, and the lack of macro perspective here makes it hard to gauge overall progress. Still, this is a great history on an important topic. Highly recommend