What Is She Like? by Rosa Ainley

Rosa Ainley looks at how lesbians see themselves, sexually, socially and politically and at the questions of identity that have always defined and divided the lesbian community. From the repressive 1950s, through so-called sexual liberation in the 1960s to the freedoms and limitations of (lesbian) feminism in the 1970s, she brings her own perspectives to bear on lesbian lives in the 1990s, when lipstick lesbians are the sometime darlings of the mainstream media. In a series of interviews interspersed with the text, over 20 women, of varying ages, races and backgrounds, talk frankly about their lives and lifestyles as lesbians, focusing on their own identity in terms of politics, leisure pursuits, fashion and affiliations.