The Evolution of Butch as a Lesbian Signifier - The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 146

The Evolution of Butch as a Lesbian Signifier

The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 146 with Heather Rose Jones

An investigation across time of how the use of “masculine” clothing developed into a deliberate signal of women’s same-sex interests.

A slideshow version of this show is available on our YouTube channel. (This version does not have the re-mastered intro and references to TLT are obsolete.)

In this episode we talk about:

• Historic Attitudes Toward Clothing Gender
• How Gendered Clothing Confers Gender Characteristics
• Cross-gender Garments Signifying Sexual Unruliness
• Theatrical Contexts Interpreted as Sexually Desirable to Men but Also to Women
• Male-coded Garments in Gender Play Combined with Same-Sex Erotics
• Women with Same-Sex Interests Depicted as Behaving Mannishly
• The Sartorial Stylings of Amazons and Bluestockings
• Lesbians in Riding Habits
• “Mannish” Clothing and the Decadent Movement
• People and Publications (Links are to LHMP blog posts or podcasts unless otherwise noted)
  • Tournament with Cross-dressing Women 14th c
  • Hic Mulier
  • Mary Frith/Moll Cutpurse (podcast)
  • The Roaring Girl by Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton
  • Julie d’Aubigny
  • Charlotte Cibber Charke
  • Charlotte Cushman (podcast)
  • The Convent of Pleasure by Margaret Cavendish (1668)
  • The New Atalantis by Delarivier Manley (1709)
  • The Travels and Adventures of Mademoiselle de Richelieu (1744) (podcast)
  • Memoirs of the Life of Count Grammont by Anthony Hamilton (1713)
  • Pamela by Samuel Richardson (1740)
  • Sir Charles Grandison by Samuel Richardson (1753)
  • Belinda by Maria Edgeworth (1801)
  • Diaries of Samuel Pepys (1666) (Wikipedia)
  • Anne Damer (podcast)
  • Ladies of Llangollen: Eleanor Butler & Sarah Ponsonby (podcast)
  • Anne Lister
  • Eupheia by Charlotte Lennox (1790)
  • The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1844) (Wikipedia)
  • Mademoiselle de Maupin Théophile Gautier (1835)
  • Nana by Émile Zola (1880)
  • Lélia by George Sand (1833)
  • Natalie Clifford Barney (Wikipedia)
  • Colette (Wikipedia)
  • Rosa Bonheur
• Other References Used
  • Albert, Nicole G. 2016. Lesbian Decadence: Representations in Art and Literature of Fin-de-Siècle France. Harrington Park Press. (not yet blogged)
  • Bennett, Judith and Shannon McSheffrey. 2014. “Early, Exotic and Alien: Women Dressed as Men in Late Medieval London” in History Workshop Journal. 77 (1): 1-25.
  • Castle, Terry (ed). 2003. The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall. Columbia University Press, New York. ISBN 0-231-12510-0
  • Donoghue, Emma. 1995. Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668-1801. Harper Perennial, New York. ISBN 0-06-017261-4
  • Donoghue, Emma. 2010. Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. ISBN 978-0-307-27094-8
  • Faderman, Lillian. 1981.  Surpassing the Love of Men. William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York. ISBN 0-688-00396-6
  • Lanser, Susan S. 2014. The Sexuality of History: Modernity and the Sapphic, 1565-1830. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 978-0-226-18773-0
  • Loughlin, Marie H. 2014. Same-Sex Desire in Early Modern England, 1550-1735: An Anthology of Literary Texts and Contexts. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-8208-5

A transcript of this podcast is available here.

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Twitter: @heatherosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)