Lesbian Lifestyles by Gillian A. Dunne

Lesbian Lifestyles graphically illustrates the importance of taking sexuality into account in order to deepen our understanding of the constraining and liberating influences on women's domestic and working lives. Charting the lives of 60 women from childhood, through school, to their paid work and home lives as adults, the book explores their experiences of gendering in childhood and their changing feelings about society's prevalent culture of 'romantic heterosexuality'. In particular, it documents the impact of 'coming out' on their adult lives - most importantly on their approach to intimate relationships and paid work. Casting new light on how sexuality is socially constructed, the book argues that the capacity to evaluate the taken-for-grantedness of heterosexuality is linked with empowerment and it offers a vision of what working life and domestic arrangements can look like when gender difference as a structuring principle is absent.