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Butterfly Effect - ressourcesfeministes

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98<br />

19 saints. Suniti Namjoshi asks, “Are poets by definition always saintly” St Suniti<br />

and the Dragon, p. 35. In India poets are considered saints, this lesbian poet<br />

wonders whether they will give her the honour of sainthood, especially as she is<br />

“not a proper woman”. See Suniti Namjoshi. 1993. St Suniti and the Dragon, p. 19.<br />

Perhaps she's a lemon.<br />

20 sybils. “A lesbian, like the sybil, lives out of time, out of place, out of history. She<br />

is an aberration. Her social identity is factitious – a grotesquerie somehow<br />

accommodated at dinner parties, at weddings and funerals, in workplaces, on<br />

census forms. I claim the sybil because there are thousands of us who also want<br />

to tell the truth: to each other and to anyone.” See Gillian Hanscombe. 1992.<br />

Sybil: The Glide of her Tongue, p. xiv.<br />

21 Cassandras. Cassandra’s ears were licked by serpents when she was a child and,<br />

as a result, she was able to hear the future. She prophesied the fall of Troy but<br />

was doomed never to be believed. This has also been the fate of many lesbians.<br />

“We talk of Cassandra. Belief is as important as knowledge. For what is<br />

knowledge if no one believes it There have been many times when destruction<br />

could have been avoided, when the future was glaring at people. That was the<br />

fate of Cassandra, though her ears had been licked by a serpent, no one would<br />

believe her prophesies. //They laughed at her story of the wooden horse – and<br />

the city fell. They laughed even as they died. //There have been many<br />

Cassandras. Many of us.” Susan Hawthorne. 1992. The Falling Woman, p. 86

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