Before Stonewall: Jacky's Interview Clip 4 of 4
From the collection of
From the collection of
Jacky talks about the butch look and lifestyle and reveals what she thinks about some of the more modern issues affecting lesbians in the UK.
In this extract, Jacky talks about the butch/femme dress codes that feature prominently in her and her partner's lives. Jacky recounts how Jane, her partner, wore the heels while Jacky wore the Ben Shermans. Both of them 'zestfully' obeyed the accepted dress codes, especially when going out, but Jacky admits that though they played the roles on many levels, in reality, Jane was the 'bossy femme'.
The 'butch' look, however, still required a degree of bravery, as its visibility could often lead to hostility, not that Jacky received much abuse when she and Jane were living in genteel South Oxfordshire.
Jacky concludes her interview by referring to her more intellectual approach to an understanding of her sexuality. Having read most of the available literature, including works by Henry Havelock Ellis at the local public library, Jacky was able to observe the great number of rapid changes in lesbian identity; from the butch/femme dichotomy to the more recent 'aggressive feminism'.
Recalling the split between lesbians and feminists and the subsequent re-unification as well as the issue of motherhood and children, Jacky goes on to admit that she couldn't even conceptualise being a mother, citing her own internalised homophobia as a probable factor. Believing too that she herself would not have made a good mother and was not the right type of person to raise a child, Jacky ends with her belief that the issue of lesbian mothers hasn't been entirely worked out... yet.
Born into a working-class family in 1945, Jacky was a bright girl who would eventually study at St Anne's College, Oxford. Here she met her lifelong partner, Jane.
Jacky remained in academia while Jane became a teacher and lived in both London and Oxfordshire until both retired. Together, they've written lesbian fiction under the pen name of Jay Taverner.