Dyke Ideas: Process, Politics, Daily Life

by Joyce Trebilcot

Book Overview

Joyce Trebilcot is a writer who has long been active in lesbian, feminist, and women's studies affairs. One of the founders and former coordinator of the Women's Studies Program at Washington University in St. Louis, she helped make the Program a source of activism and a haven for radical feminists and lesbians. Her writings appear in lesbian, feminist, and philosophical contexts.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0791418944
• ISBN13: 9780791418949
• Release Date: February 1994
• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Length: 151 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Invention and creation are possible only at the edge

I found this book to be an unusual and beautiful documentation of feminist process through living. Philosopher Trebilcot describes how she has used her life experiences to inform struggles and choices in her life, to deconstruct heteropatriarchal values, and to develop innovative non-hierarchical means towards shaping person-centered community. This book reflects on new ways of interacting to alternative perspectives on sex while being written in a wonderful style that is a gentle weaving of philosophy as conversation, as poetry, and as feminist academic.The book has six parts, Mystery, Guilt, Process, Competition, Sex, and Value, with some valuable notes on language. Process contains one of my favorite pieces and, for me, her most important contribution: "Dyke Methods". I have offered these "methods" in the college classroom setting and found them to be very successful in bringing about difficult discussions of issues that are heated for women and discussions between those of us with white privileged and those of us more oppressed in our culture. In the chapter on Sex the focused question is: Are patriarchal values controlling our expectations of sex? This set of essays have prompted me to think more carefully about the distinction in our culture of sex as a physiology required for good health and sex as the most important expression of love between equals. We are asked to consider what is necessary for intimacy? ....and for identity? I highly recommend this book. It encourages one to spiral out to the edge in a Mary Daly type of journey, to commit to inventing one's own world, to creating community that centers yourself along with each and everyone else. It's at the edge where invention and creation are possible.