Woman versus woman Book

Even though this book seems to be more so about examining and comparing bi (and mspec, as not every woman identified as bi or with any labels) women's lives than being about their sexuality specifically, it was a bit more engaging than the two queer nonfictions i read before it.

content/trigger warnings; discussions of mspec/biphobia, internalized mspec/biphobia, homophobia, lesbophobia, poverty, child abuse/neglect, alcoholism, sibling death, ableism, r slur, institutionalization, sex, misogyny, rape culture, cheating, religion, molestation, sexual assault, rape, incest, attempted kidnapping, fatphobia, transphobia, racism, n slur, d slur, intracommunity issues, lesbian separatism,

i'll start with some quotes i liked:

"sweeping generalizations are dangerous, restrictive, and misleading."

"the third reason [for becoming involved with women] cited was simplest. they 'just happened to fall in love with a woman.'"

"patricia, as well as the other women interviewed, did not race out to convince friends that bisexuality was the only and best game in town. she believed this sexual orientation was preferable for her."

"approximately 20 percent said they disliked all labels. they were willing to be interviewed because they met the 'requirements.'"

"maria said, 'if i must have a label call me pansexual ambisexual, antisexual, androgynous, neutral, undecided....just don't make me into something i'm not!'"

"the word choice is not a semantic hang-up but stems from their evolving self-concept."

i find it interesting that a definition i relate to ("regardless of gender") was used once in this book, but nothing that it means to me, nothing about it that i relate to, was expressed in the book. every conversation about these women's sexuality was in terms of (binary) gender, and that's not what "regardless of gender" means to me. so it just really drives home that the labels we choose are so much more than fitting a unique definition. that people can use the same label to express completely different things. that even the same exact definition can mean different things to different people. queerness is not uniform.

now, the things i didn't like. there were a lot of opinions expressed in this book that i very much do not agree with.

there's the assumption of bisexuality based on sexual behavior. there's a bit of concluding certain women were or could be appropriately assumed bisexual based on things that are purely speculative. the whole "everyone is bisexual by nature and other sexualities are learned" theory. some of the women discuss hoping for and planning to encourage bisexuality in their children......encouraging one sexuality over others.....sound familiar? there's some extremely mspec/biphobic passages from/about lesbian separatists.

and lastly, there is a very ableist section (around pages 53-55) where one of the women discusses having a disabled brother who was institutionalized at age 4, and the way she talks about him is fucking horrifying. he's described as "severely [r slur]", being "blocked" from her memory, the "albatross around her neck", "this mistake that had been born". she says she doesn't know if she loved or hated him, went years without seeing him, and was "tremendously" relieved when he died at age 22.