Homoerotic friendship and college principals, 1880-1960
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4349079 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Elizabeth Edwards (0000-0003-2973-8749, Homerton University Hospital, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1995 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 149-163 |
| Publication date | 1995-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Women s History Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0961-2025 • E-ISSN: 1747-583X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09612029500200146 |
| OpenAlex | W4245383632 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 8 |
This paper is written as a contribution to the debate on the construction and interpretation of those close relationships between women, which took place before or outside the lesbian cultures and identities which have emerged in the twentieth century. The term ‘homoerotic’ was first used by Vicinus to describe close friendships between women in residential educational communities in England during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this study of four women principals – Mary Allan, Alice Skillicorn, Constance Maynard and Winifred Mercier – it is argued that although these women did not claim a lesbian identity as such, their emotional/sexual bonding with other women, coupled with their refusal of the hegemonic heterosexual discourse places them within the lesbian past. Inside the confines of women's colleges, homoerotic friendship was accepted within certain limits – namely that the friendship remained invisible to the outside world, and that the women concerned did not violate standards of respectability by indiscreet behaviour. Principals also faced an additional difficulty in homoerotic friendship from the necessity of reconciling the power discourse of their public role with their own private gender needs
Aesthetics · Art · Friendship · Hegemony · Human sexuality · Lesbian · Political science · Politics · Sexual identity · Social science · Sociology · Gender Studies · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,05 |
| Citation span | 2007 - 2007 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |