Butterfly Effect - ressourcesfeministes

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1 long leather boots. Photographs of Vita Sackville-West in her Sissinghurst garden
show her leaning up against a wooden paling fence wearing high leather boots. The
photograph of Edna Walling that opens chapter one of Sara Hardy’s biography,
depicts her in jodhpurs and long boots. See The Unusual Life of Edna Walling (2005).
2 narrow beds. Anchee Min in Red Azalea (1994) tells the story of how she is sent to Red
Fire Farm to work with the peasants. There on the farm she meets Yan, the
company leader. Her first impressions of Yan as powerful, as someone not to be
messed with are followed by a deepening respect and love for this woman who
“… was famous for her iron shoulders … carrying over a hundred and sixty
pounds in two hods hanging from a shoulder pole.” Anchee Min begins to emulate
Yan; she tries to work as fast as her, and Yan begins to reward her. As Anchee Min's
awareness of her sexuality grows, she falls more and more deeply in love with Yan.
Soon she begins to find out other things about Yan, and it is not long before they are
sharing the same narrow bed.
3 golden threads. Golden Threads is a USA-based contact publication for older and
mid-life lesbians. Older lesbians are often faced with the assumption that lesbianism
is a young woman’s lifestyle choice. In fact, a significant number of women wait
until their children have left home before deciding to act on their feelings for
women. Jennifer Kelly explores how lesbians at menopause – because of
expectations within the lesbian community about body image and the aging body –
experience it in significantly different ways. See Zest for Life (2005).
4 salt of the earth. According to Barbara Walker, salt of the earth was a Semitic
metaphor applied to seers. And “Cabalistic tradition suggests that the biblical Lot’s
wife was really a form of the Triple Goddess. Hebrew MLH “salt” is a sacred word
because its numerical value is that of God’s name of power YHWH, multiplied
three times.” The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, p. 887.
5 husbandry. The original meaning of “to husband” is farm work to win the hand of a
woman. Women also worked farms and wooed women, cross-dressing until such
time as a woman revealed herself. There are many stories of such women,
particularly farm workers. Eve Langley’s The Pea Pickers (1942) includes crossdressing
women, and Eve Langley herself had a history of cross-dressing. Lesbian
usage of the word “husband” has a long history. Eliza Raine writing to Anne Lister
in 1806 refers to Anne as “my husband”. Jill Liddington. 1998. Female Fortune: Land
Gender and Authority, The Anne Lister Diaries and Other Writings, 1833-36, p. 15.
6 raised cows. The Ladies of Llangollen, Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, eloped in
1778, set up in a cottage together and raised a cow, Margaret Ponsonby. For more on
the Ladies see Elizabeth Mavor. 1973. The Ladies of Llangollen: A Study of Romantic
Friendship. Unfortunately Mavor’s book plays down the lesbian sexuality of this
pair. Also see Lillian Faderman. 1981. Surpassing the Love of Men, pp. 75-81.
7 everyday lesbian separatists. Suniti Namjoshi’s wonderfully irreverent tale about
migration and cultural difference, The Conversations of Cow, has as its central
character Bhadravati, a Brahmin cow who strikes up a friendship with Suniti, the
narrator. Bhadravati, on taking her new friend, Suniti, to visit friends in the country
remarks, “I ought to tell you, Cow informs me, ‘that this is a Self-Sustaining
Community of Lesbian Cows.’ I scrutinise Cow. So, Cow and I have something in
common.” Suniti Namjoshi. 1985. The Conversations of Cow, pp. 17-18.