Best of
Gender-And-Sexuality

1985

The Two-Step


Eileen McCann - 1985
    Why do all couples have such a difficult time becoming-and remaining-close? Now, for everyone who has ever struggled with the pain of an unhappy relationship, psychotherapist Eileen McCann answers this age-old question in a book destined to become every lover's favorite bedside companion. McCann argues that the thorny path of love is nothing less than a highly choreographed dance that steps around issues of power, distance, and intimacy. With the help of Douglas Shannon's delightful and insightful drawings, McCann charts our unwitting steps in the dance of pursuit and avoidance and shows us how to transform it into one that returns joy and meaning to our lives. The Two-Step is a wise and witty guide to affairs of the heart that delights the eye as it instructs the mind. "I find this book to be a pictorial treasure of how we act, showing the games we play, while trying to hide what we want. Out of these pictures comes a clear realization of what we are doing. With that realization, we can laugh at ourselves and be inspired to make the changes we need to make." - Virginia M. Satir

The Swashbuckler


Lee Lynch - 1985
    Provincetown... Travel with Frenchy Tonneau through these legendary gay meccas during the sixties and seventies when lesbian life changed forever.

A Poison Stronger than Love: The Destruction of an Ojibwa Community


Anastasia M. Shkilnyk - 1985
    The only thing I know is that alcohol is a stronger power than the love of children. It’s a poison, and we are a broken people. We suffer enough inside, and therefore we understand each other.”—Resident of Grassy Narrows "A work of luminous compassion and rigorous analysis. . . . Should be required reading . . . for anyone interested in the bonds of community that make people human." —M.T.  Kelly, Toronto Globe and Mail Grassy Narrows is a small Ojibwa village in northwestern Ontario, Canada. It first captured national attention in 1970, when mercury pollution was discovered in the adjacent English-Wabigoon River. In the course of the assessment of environmental damage, an even more compelling tragedy came to light. For in little more than a decade, the Indian people had begun to self-destruct. This powerful book documents the human costs of massive and extraordinarily rapid change in a people’s way of life. When well-intentioned bureaucrats relocated the Grassy Narrows band to a new reserve in 1963, the results were the unraveling of the tribe’s social fabric and a sharp deterioration in their personal morale – dramatically reflected in Shkilnyk’s statistics on violent death, illness, and family breakdown. The book explores the origins and causes of the suffering in the community life and describes the devastating impacts of mercury contamination on the health and livelihood of the Indian people. In essence, this is an in-depth and comprehensive study of the forces and pressures that can rend a community apart. As such it is of interest not only to those particularly concerned with the fate of aboriginal peoples on the continent but also to those more broadly concerned with human collective response to unprecedented stress.

Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire


Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick - 1985
    Hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most influential texts in gender studies, men's studies and gay studies," this book uncovers the homosocial desire between men, from Restoration comedies to Tennyson's Princess.

Byron and Greek Love: Homophobia in 19th Century England


Louis Crompton - 1985
    He argues that Byron's homosexuality was a motive for his first journey to Greece and his later ostracism and exile from England, and an important source for the mood of proud alienation that colors his serious poetry. Byron and Greek Love is at once a fascinating biography and an incisive social commentary; its far-reaching implications for the social and cultural history of early 19th-century England have been widely acclaimed. Original hardback edition was published by University of California Press (1985).

For Better, for Worse: British Marriages, 1600 to the Present


John R. Gillis - 1985
    For Better, For Worse, the most comprehensive treatment to date of the history of marriage in a major Western society, presents aradically different perspective on both past and present marriages. Using fresh evidence from popular courtship and wedding rites since the 17th century, John Gillis argues that love was never wholly absent in the past and that the passage of time has by no means produced a perfect conjugalitytoday.

Women, Work and Protest: A Century of U.S. Women's Labor History


Ruth Milkman - 1985
    This book will be valuable for scholars, students and general readers alike.