About Lillian Faderman
Lillian Faderman is a historian whose books on lesbian history and LGBT history have earned critical praise and awards. The New York Times named three of her books on its “Notable Books of the Year” list. In addition, The Guardian named her book, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, one of the Top 10 Books of Radical History.
She was a professor of English at California State University, Fresno (Fresno State), which bestowed her emeritus status, and a visiting professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She retired from academia in 2007.
Faderman has been referred to as “the mother of lesbian history” for her groundbreaking research and writings on lesbian culture, literature, and history.
Where to find Lillian Faderman
Woman: The American History of an Idea
What does it mean to be a “woman” in America? Award-winning gender and sexuality scholar Lillian Faderman traces the evolution of the meaning from Puritan ideas of God’s plan for women to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and its reversals to the impact of such recent events as #metoo, the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, the election of Kamala Harris as vice president, and the transgender movement.
This wide-ranging 400-year history chronicles conflicts, retreats, defeats, and hard-won victories in both the private and the public sectors and shines a light on the often-overlooked battles of enslaved women and women leaders in tribal nations. Noting that every attempt to cement a particular definition of “woman” has been met with resistance, Faderman also shows that successful challenges to the status quo are often short-lived. As she underlines, the idea of womanhood in America continues to be contested.