"Lesbian Vertigo: Living the Women's Liberation Movement on the Edge of Europe"

As far as I know, I'm the only feminist nerd in my family. So when I went to Manchester it felt like I was opening my eyes for the first time. It was such a big thing for me. I started questioning the church, and the power of those who spoke inside it. I started remembering things. Like being asked to get up and get a fork for my brother at dinner, or being told to clean his room when we went to university, or being unable to acknowledge that I was a sexual being. And yes, I did go through my personal 1970s fit of glory, by taking my life and re-writing the story and changing the ending. When I found myself working with Hilary Owen I realised that, without having even planned it, this is where I wanted to be. I was happy, but of course I didn't feel happy. It was all very difficult and most of the time during my MA I felt miserable. The world as I had known it had disappeared, and I had to come to grips with this other world where I had a potential voice to use, if only courage didn't fail me. The truth is I couldn't disagree loud enough. I was often ashamed of writing articles and getting published on issues that I was unable to tackle with my closest family. I fell into the usual traps of transforming books about other women's experiences into mirrors for my own life. I also discovered another difficulty, which came attached to the situation of being supervised by a brilliant academic: being massively influenced by your mentor's ideas. As a PhD student, I didn't give this much thought, as I was young and naive, and I knew very little to the point of actually believing I was breaking totally new ground (Ha!) 

I'm now at a point where I think I know nothing. So the issue of influence was very much on my mind this summer, as I was writing a piece on Novas Cartas Portuguesas and Borderlands: La Frontera. These books had a huge impact on me as an MA student at Manchester in 2005. So what do you do when you feel massively influenced by your own mentor's readings? You just keep on writing, hoping that someday you'll eventually find your way. My article, "Lesbian Vertigo: Living the Women's Liberation Movement on the Edge of Europe" is a tribute to Hilary Owen, who introduced me to these two books 8 years ago. It's about the impact of feminist ideals on the different stories of canonisation of these books and it will come out in a book edited by Kristina Schulz.