Constituting Southern feminists: Women's liberation newsletters in the South

Saying Goodbye to Men: Southern Feminists Publishing News While Challenging Patriarchy

“…Frequent announcements were made encouraging lesbian mothers to discuss the politics of their identities both as mothers and lesbians. Streitmatter (1995c) makes no mention of this theme in his analysis; however, Stokes (2005) found a similar theme in her analysis, as the Southern lesbians frequently:…”

“…While standpoint theory helped construct the basis of this research, it could not fully explain why GTAT was exceptionally different compared with other lesbian publications. Stokes (2005) found that early lesbian publications in the South took on a more conservative tone and featured discussions of motherhood more frequently compared with west and east coast newsletters and newspapers. Stokes argued that the politics of a Southern second-wave lesbian feminist ran directly into the politics of Southern culture, which directly defined women as both an object to cherish and to control.…”

“…It is clear from analyzing GTAT, the women attempted to gain their own agency by publishing news on their own terms and disseminating opinions critiquing patriarchy. However, their writings about sex are unique compared with what other lesbian feminists were publishing at the same time, and this difference could be attributed to the South’s legacy of gentility (Stokes, 2005). While other lesbian newspapers across the country published sexual images, explicitly discussed sex and masturbation, and tackled sexually risqué topics, such as polygamy, sadomasochism, and eroticism through drinking menstrual blood (Streitmatter, 1995c), GTAT was relatively chaste .…”

“…His analysis and other scholarly research virtually ignore lesbian publications in the South. As was common among second-wave feminists who lived outside of the metropolitan activist centers, these women used publications and newsletters to communicate with each other because they did not have the well-organized and well-funded organizational structures as were typical in places like New York City and Boston (Stokes, 2005). With the previously mentioned similarities among early lesbian publications and the lack of research on Southern lesbian publications, this textual analysis sought to understand: RQ1: How was GTAT—a newsletter published by women in the South—different from other lesbian publications of the same era?…”

Editorial introduction: Towards a transnational feminism: Dialogues on feminisms and psychologies in a Latin American context

“…More recently, attention has been paid to the impact of globalization and national and international policies in women's lives (Stokes, 2005). The analysis of mobility of capital coupled with the historic marginalization of peasant and indigenous populations across the globe has allowed for the scrutiny of the consequences produced by the advance of neoliberal logics and demise of support services such as state subsidies, welfare and the minimum wage.…”