Making Girls into Women

"In the pages of American women's literature, lesbians are made, not born. Kathryn R. Kent expertly surveys the many creative acts of instruction, imitation, and invention among women that ultimately make modern lesbian identity more than just a product of medical discourse. At the heart of all these narratives of self-fashioning lies a central paradox: girls can only freely invent themselves by imitating someone else. Kent brilliantly profiles both sides of these mimetic couples (mothers and daughters, teachers and students, lovers and friends), demonstrating in the end that imitation is inevitably a two-way street."--Diana Fuss, author of "Identification Papers"