Public Faces, Secret Lives

Public Faces, Secret Lives A Queer History of the Women's Suffrage Movement Wendy L. RouseNew York University Press, 2022ISBN 9781479830947 Softcover, 248 pp.5.98 X 8.9 X 0.71 inches | 0.75 pounds Honorable Mention for the 2023 Francis Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize 2023 Judy Grahn Award-Publishing Triangle Finalist Restores queer suffragists to their rightful place in the history of the struggle for women's right to vote The women's suffrage movement, much like many other civil rights movements, has an important and often unrecognized queer history. In Public Faces, Secret Lives Wendy L. Rouse reveals that, contrary to popular belief, the suffrage movement included a variety of individuals who represented a range of genders and sexualities. However, owing to the constant pressure to present a "respectable" public image, suffrage leaders publicly conformed to gendered views of ideal womanhood in order to make women's suffrage more palatable to the public. Rouse argues that queer su