LHMP

While the dual meaning of "beard" that Klein plays with in this chapter may have been the inspiration for combining the motifs, I'm not sure I agree that there's a meaningful connection in that historic era between facial hair and the use of courtship scripts to bolster one's public identity. Both existed; it's the direct connection that feels anachronistic.

Including artwork in the Lesbian Historic Motif Project is a tricky project, especially when I don’t have a publication to cite as a source, but only my own attempts at reconstructing a context. But this lovely item is worth going to the effort for. If anyone knows more about the historic context of the people involved, I'd love to be able to add to the discussion of how this image was perceived and received by contemporaries.

I pulled this article to read, not specifically for the Lesbian Historic Motif Project, but more for the general topic of economic options for women outside of marriage. But I think it’s relevant enough to include. Posting a bit late this week due to [waves hands vaguely at the world].

A regular experience in the random nature of how I encounter and summarize articles is the sense of whiplash when I think, “Wait, haven’t we already dealt with this question?” And, of course, I’m thinking of other publications that came after the one I’m reading. Diggs’ analysis is in correspondence with some of the early challenges to Faderman’s view of romantic friendship. I have to keep reminding myself that it was published a quarter of a century ago, and the ideas being presented here were fairly new at the time.