Published in 1992, Lion Woman’s Legacy: An Armenian-American Memoir is the first [*] memoir written by an Armenian-American woman and Lesbian Armenian-American.
Avakian (born 1939) is an Armenian-American academic specializing in women’s studies and food history.
She is the author of Lion Woman’s Legacy: An Armenian-American Memoir (1992), Through the Kitchen Window: Women Explore the Intimate Meanings of Food and Cooking (1997) and From Betty Crocker to Feminist Food Studies: Critical Perspectives on Women and Food (2005). Avakian helped found the Women’s Studies Program at University of Massachusetts Amherst. Avakian’s papers are held in the university’s archives collection.
“Confused, I asked what she meant and realized from her response that she had misinterpreted what I’d said about wanting to reclaim some of Armenian culture for a desire to become part of an Armenian community. I told her that the two things had been very separate for me. I didn’t believe that I ever would live within an Armenian community. She asked why with such sincerity that I responded honestly. I said I could not live my life as an adult woman within the confines of an Armenian community where there was no room for me to be who I am. To my surprise, she said she knew what I meant, but she did not elaborate. No one else spoke.”
Lion Woman’s Legacy, Arlene Voski Avakian
Avakian shares her journey through American and Armenian identities and how these impacted her sense of gender, race, feminism, and trauma.
Avakian embarks on a risky but exciting career pathway into Feminist studies, with all of the corresponding expectations and desires to explore new possibilities. But then there is the frustration of how those expectations and desires collide against the barriers of societal expectations.
Avakian doesn’t just take us on our tour of her academic consciousness-raising. Rather she grounds her memoir in how that consciousness raising transforms her reality in very visceral ways, as she begins to reinterpret how she perceives and interacts with her world.
There is a tendency (a trope?) in queer literature that coming-out solves all problems. Yet, as Avakian walks us through her divorce and her first relationships with women, she shares the wide ranging emotions that come with the transition of breaking free from heteronormative relationships and expectations. While she values and affirms the need to live her full truth by the end of the book, she is clear that the struggle for truth is messy and complicated.
If available, please consider buying a copy at Abril Books. This book may also be available for purchase through the Queer Armenian Library’s shop at Bookshop.org. If you purchase a copy through Bookshop.org we will receive a commission.
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ISBN: 978-1558610521. Published by the Feminist Press at CUNY.
