Shiela Jeffries: The Influence Of Friendship And Lesbianism On Women

After reading Shiela Jeffries Chapter 6 on Women Friendship and Lesbianism, I felt as though I was reading something out of a Shakespeare play. The chapter had all the trademarks of a tragedy gone array, full of confusion. It’s understand that men could or would understand the complex nature of the relationship between women. While I was quite taken back by the chapter where the writer described her “inclination to hang myself oftener than once with the last month”. It is difficult for any outsider to understand the closeness, bond or friendship that exist between gender and race. Notwithstanding the sexuality, it’s similar to any African American that was raised in the continental United States. It’s understandably that some don’t get it or wish to portray it is as “somehow deviant and needs more explanation than heterosexuality.” It is impossible to avoid the obvious, which is to say that each of us has been impacted by years of societal privilege and class. These bias viewpoints have helped shape our perspective on women, men, parenting, careers and acceptable power dynamics.

It would be easy for any man or women to dismiss the

As the lecture notes, “middle class women reaped most of the benefits of what they advocated for in politics, education, and overall social reform.” It makes sense that he changes that were occurring forced those impacted the greatest to changes and adopt policies more favorable to women. While women and men were fighting for equality, women were fighting in a male dominated society that included the workforce. The intersectionality of our gender identities impacted the profession that women sought after since profession like lawyers and doctors were closed off to women. As poor working class person regardless of being a women or not often times you could find yourself being employed in an under paid and underwhelming job based exclusively on