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

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, 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. 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.