This book looks at how differences among women have been textually represented at a variety of historical moments and in a variety of cultural contexts ranging from Victorian mainstream fiction to African-American mulatto novels, from late twentieth-century lesbian communities to contemporary country music. Michie uses the term "sororophobia" to describe the negotiation of sameness and difference, of identity and separation, among women of the same generation, encompassing the desire for, and at the same time, the recoil from identification with, other women. Arguing that the generic "woman" suggests a connection between women which transcends race, class, and other differences, she shows how it also translates all too easily into a master-category of gender which obscures or denies the basic differences between individual women. Exploring how the language of feminism has contributed to the confusion through a dependence on the concept of the family--in its entanglement with the figures of the sister and mother--Michie calls attention to the problematic metaphor of a literal sisterhood of accord, and advocates a move outside the family to look at a figure excluded from that prescribed structure, the "other woman". She argues for the centrality to feminism of a paradigm that moves beyond celebrations of identity and sisterhood to a more nuanced notion of women's relations with other women which may include such uncomfortable concepts as envy, jealousy, and competition as well as more institutionalized ideas of difference such as race and class. Each of the chapters deals with a different impersonation or embodiment of the other woman and with the process by which that otherness iscreated. Chapters on literature are interspersed with "inter-chapters" on the choreography of sameness and difference among women in popular culture, Sororophobia represents a fresh perspective on the complex and shifting relations between women's attempts to identify with oth
Industry Reviews
"In a time when culture depicts women either at each other's throats or joined in cheery, uncomplicated sisterhood, Michie's subtle and original probing of women's relations with each other is especially welcome."--Virginia Quarterly Review
"Twenty years ago 'sisterhood' was synonymous with feminism. Shortly thereafter the term dropped out of usage, as feminists began to take stock of the contradictions behind the ideality. Helena Michie is the first feminist theorist to fix her attention on the shadows lurking behind the sunny assertion of sisterhood. Strong, subtle, original, and careful, Sororophobia takes a shockingly honest look at relations between women as they appear in theory and
culture. What she finds will affect feminist theory for years to come."--Jane Gallop, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
"Offers an important revisionist account of the role and value of "sisterhood" as an organizing rubric for feminist theory and politics....[Michie's] work has particular relevance for gay and lesbian studies, and especially for lesbian feminist theories of sisterhood, a lesbian continuum, and the history of female erotic friendship."--Lesbian and Gay Studies Newsletter
"With its painfully close examination of the divisions among women--whether of race, color, class, sexuality, or nationality--Sororophobia could not have been an easy book to write. Its success is a tribute to Michie's ability to write respectfully of women no matter what choices they make or how different they are from one another or from her....Michie's book will make troublesome but insightful reading. In these days of flamboyant performativity, its
sincerity deserves respect."--American Literature
"Responding to a society both fascinated and repelled by diversity, Michie's major contribution to American studies lies in [her] ability to thread sameness and difference through...divergent aspects of literature, art, music, cinema, dance, and life. Furthermore, without demeaning or substantially weakening feminist critique, she brings it into a real world not explained in such a Pollyanna-esque fashion as the sisterhood mode."--Journal of the American
Studies Association of Texas
"In a time when culture depicts women either at each other's throats or joined in cheery, uncomplicated sisterhood, Michie's subtle and original probing of women's relations with each other is especially welcome."--Virginia Quarterly Review
"Twenty years ago 'sisterhood' was synonymous with feminism. Shortly thereafter the term dropped out of usage, as feminists began to take stock of the contradictions behind the ideality. Helena Michie is the first feminist theorist to fix her attention on the shadows lurking behind the sunny assertion of sisterhood. Strong, subtle, original, and careful, Sororophobia takes a shockingly honest look at relations between women as they appear in theory and
culture. What she finds will affect feminist theory for years to come."--Jane Gallop, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
"Offers an important revisionist account of the role and value of "sisterhood" as an organizing rubric for feminist theory and politics....[Michie's] work has particular relevance for gay and lesbian studies, and especially for lesbian feminist theories of sisterhood, a lesbian continuum, and the history of female erotic friendship."--Lesbian and Gay Studies Newsletter
"With its painfully close examination of the divisions among women--whether of race, color, class, sexuality, or nationality--Sororophobia could not have been an easy book to write. Its success is a tribute to Michie's ability to write respectfully of women no matter what choices they make or how different they are from one another or from her....Michie's book will make troublesome but insightful reading. In these days of flamboyant performativity, its
sincerity deserves respect."--American Literature
"Responding to a society both fascinated and repelled by diversity, Michie's major contribution to American studies lies in [her] ability to thread sameness and difference through...divergent aspects of literature, art, music, cinema, dance, and life. Furthermore, without demeaning or substantially weakening feminist critique, she brings it into a real world not explained in such a Pollyanna-esque fashion as the sisterhood mode."--Journal of the American
Studies Association of Texas
"[Michie's] skill as a textual critic along with the richness and variety of the terrain she traverses are keys to her success."--Novel (Brown University)
"A thoughtful meditation on the problems of female identity and difference within the family."--Victorian Studies
