1940s: (Vieux-Chauvet’s Love as Political Theory — Writer Marie Vieux-Chauvet as a Contemporary of the LFAS Founders Who Although Politically Nonaligned Was …

1940s: (Vieux-Chauvet’s Love as Political Theory — Writer Marie Vieux-Chauvet as a Contemporary of the LFAS Founders Who Although Politically Nonaligned Was Preoccupied with the Complexity of Women’s Political Subjectivity, Through Her Protagonist Claire Clamont in Love Anger Madness Offering a Bold Calibration of Women’s History Politics and Love — Caring and Calculated Deep and Shallow Defined and Messy Public and Private Conservative and Experimental, LFAS Women’s Record Looking Something Like Love — Voluminous Sometimes Unproductive Excessively Adorned and Self-Interested, LFAS Leader Jeanne Perez Noting That Women Perhaps Can Have a Personality Other Than the One They Have So Often Swallowed, This Love Not a Romance and Not to Be Romanticized but Rather Naming Probing and Ultimately Dismantling the Power of Abuse): In consideration of these processes and possible futures for women’s lives, LFAS women’s record looked something like love. Writer Marie Vieux-Chauvet, a contemporary of the LFAS founders who although politically nonaligned was preoccupied with the complexity of women’s political subjectivity, offers through her protagonist Claire Clamont in Love, Anger, Madness a bold calibration of women’s history, politics, and love — caring and calculated, deep and shallow, defined and messy, public and private, national and foreign, conservative and experimental, long-lasting and quickened, consistent and mostly inconsistent, evolving, negotiated, playful, erotic, aware of our actions and more often painfully aware of our inaction. This love is voluminous — sometimes unproductive, excessively adorned, and self-interested. It is a love in which, as LFAS leader Jeanne Perez noted, women “perhaps can have a personality other than the one that we have so often swallowed.” This love holds space for women who dress up for tea as a political theory and practice of being in the world. But this love is not a romance. As Carolle Charles earnestly reminds, it should not be romanticized, for thinking alone cannot violate the norms and constraints imposed by class and color hierarchies. This love does not excuse abuse — rather it names, probes, and ultimately dismantles its power. Alice Garoute’s retort to an assemblyman who called elite women “full of manure” exemplifies this spirit: “Manure is fertilizer of the greatest order. Mud dirties everything it touches.” These women produced a record that made space for them to be both the protagonists and antagonists of their own philosophical creations.