Representing the Lesbian in Law and Literature

Goldstein, Anne

Representing the Lesbian in Law and Literature

REPRESENTING WOMEN: LAW, LITERATURE AND FEMINISM, p. 356, Susan Sage Heinzelman, Zipporah Batshaw Wisemam, eds., Duke University Press, 1994

29 Pages Posted: 22 Dec 2011 Last revised: 10 Nov 2016

See all articles by Anne Goldstein

Anne Goldstein

Western New England University School of Law

Date Written: 1994

Abstract

This Essay addresses the question "what is involved in representing a lesbian?" In two contexts, law and literature. Its premise is that the work of novelists is enough like the work of lawyers that lawyers can learn how to represent lesbian clients better by studying books with lesbian characters. This is a preliminary, anecdotal, and impressionistic effort. The Author relies upon several systematic surveys of the field and her seven years' experience as a litigator and eight years' further reading and reflection about the problems and strategies of representing lesbians. The Essay begins by exploring the general problem of representing lesbian clients. Then, after a broadbrush survey of lesbian literature, with particular attention to the problems of character construction and presentation, it explores ways images of lesbians from literature have been used, and ways they could be used, to represent the lesbian clients in two paradigmatic cases.

Keywords: lesbian, lesbian novels, lesbian clients, representing lesbians, civil rights, discrimination

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Goldstein, Anne, Representing the Lesbian in Law and Literature (1994). REPRESENTING WOMEN: LAW, LITERATURE AND FEMINISM, p. 356, Susan Sage Heinzelman, Zipporah Batshaw Wisemam, eds., Duke University Press, 1994, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1975338