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Rebecca J. Sheehan Rebecca J. Sheehan i(10926999 works by)
Gender: Female
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1 Intersectional Feminist Friendship : Restoring Colour to the Second-wave through the Letters of Florynce Kennedy and Germaine Greer Rebecca J. Sheehan , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: Lilith , November no. 25 2019; (p. 76-92)

'Situated in the context of renewed efforts to examine and expand the historical scholarship on 1970s American feminism, this article argues for the centrality of black feminism to the story of 1970s feminism, the importance of intersectional friendship for feminist work, and the critical role of intersectional awareness and consciousness about one's own identity position for feminist scholarship. Through its three-part structure, the article seeks to demonstrate and illuminate the relationship between historical scholarship, scholarly identity, and methodological choices. First, it examines the U.S. media construction of Germaine Greer as an idealised white, heterosexual feminist subject and considers the dialectical relationship between media output, scholarship that draws on it, feminist group politics, and the making of a singular hegemonic white feminist past. Second, in order to tease out the role of the historian's identity in scholarly production, I discuss my own experience of fluid, intersectional identity as a racially ambiguous woman in Australia and the United States, and the influence of this experience on my research and methodological choices. Third, through an analysis of previously unexamined letters between Germaine Greer and Florynce Kennedy, the article explores their influential and mutually supportive friendship. Allied across lines of race and nation, their intersectional friendship is a powerful example for working across difference and reconceptualising our feminist pasts and futures.' (Publication abstract)

 

1 ‘If We Had More like Her We Would No Longer Be the Unheard Majority’ : Germaine Greer’s Reception in the United States. Rebecca J. Sheehan , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Feminist Studies , vol. 31 no. 87 2016; (p. 62-77)
'This article examines Germaine Greer’s reception in the United States in 1971, the year that The Female Eunuch was first published there. Using hundreds of previously unexamined letters sent by television viewers after she hosted The Dick Cavett Show, the article explores the impact of Greer’s media engagement and the overwhelmingly positive reception she received from this particular audience. The letters detail Greer’s strength, intelligence, wit, and keen ability to communicate. They demonstrate that she educated many audience members about feminist issues including abortion and rape, and inspired pride in her female audience. The sympathetic portrait of Greer in these letters contrasts with the more polarised view of Greer in the print media responses to her: the mainstream print media portrayed and embraced Greer as its ideal non-threatening, attractive and heterosexual feminist, and American feminists dismissed her as an opportunist. Taken together, the unpublished audience letters and the print media sources provide a more complex portrait of Greer’s reception and effectiveness. The letters speak for Greer and – now that they are available in Greer’s carefully preserved personal archive – restore the voices of the ordinary people who helped to shape the history of feminism.' (Publication abstract)
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