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I see femme as just a fluidity of inner beauty that resonates who you are and who you want to be. I see all gender that way. If a masculine butch stood in front of me or FtM or Trans or any person and said they feel they are femme, or they ID as femme? More power to them!!!! There is no "femme detector test" that we walk into and it closes the door and the light goes green or red. It is our own truths. IMO the one and ONLY thing that is important with IDs is what you, yourself decide. There is no ifs, ands or buts or becauses or rules or guidelines how you dress or who you take to bed, about it at all. If you are straight and want to ID as femme? Do it. If your vision is that femme's only date lesbians or other femmes or FtMs or whatever...have at it. No one's view or opinion on things will ever negate or transfer my ID. No one has the power to do that. No one ever will. |
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I wasn't intentionally starting a conversation on Feminism, I knew it would come up because a lot of us are Feminists and we come here because this place was built on Feminist values. Also there was no intent on redefining Femme. I believe Femme's get to do that for themselves because of how Femme is so vast. The intent I had when it came to this particular thread is and will be to dissect, discuss, tear apart the continuous subject of "The Cleavers" and the comparison of the correct way to be Femme via June Cleaver. This particular comparison gets brought up over and over in threads and I keep wondering why so therefore the question to all Femme's and how they feel about being compared to "June Cleaver" a straight woman who is being put in a Femme Icon place. That shit right there drives me fucking bonkers to the point I was be like $$#@!! because if I compared a butch to some hunky straight guy we all know there would be hell. I can't say I blame them because butches aren't straight guys, unless they are and like our Gender/Identity/Label it's variant and all over the gender marker spectrum that it's almost ludicrous to compare anything QUEER to anything *straight* (hetero). Then I go OMGay I am a Latina, so therefore once again my Femme/Gender is disregarded via I can't identify culturally to "The Cleavers" *deep breath* ETA I also spoke and am speaking about Femme from my personal experiences and view, they do not define others and how they are Femme just me:) |
I agree Belle but it does bug me when straight people say they are femme or queer. I guess I feel that way because my road to claiming queer and femme came with a lot of loss and grief and I feel like I fought to be seen as who and what I am today. I don't quite understand why a straight person would identify tha way except to be even more than an ally? It does make me cranky though!
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Know what pisses me off even more. When I log in here and I see the Femme, Butch, Trans, Zie's, post a picture of a feminine woman and refer to her as Femme or when describing a straight (hetero) woman they see on the street and have a boner for as Femme. It's a mixture of anger, hurst, angst, and seperation. It's nothing to do with insecurity, jealousy it's all to do with stop giving other's what is MINE and I've worked hard for! |
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It doesn't bother me about straight people doing that either. Maybe i should examine the "why" it doesn't bother me a little more. I guess for one thing i've never ran into that. Most of my friends when i say i am a femme, they don't have a clue what i'm talking about. LOL. Anyway, good discussion. |
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Julie |
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Makes perfect sense..
I guess i've never encountered that. I would probably have a different view point. Actually, never gave it much thought at all. I live a very sheltered, straight cultured, life down here in Tennessee. No body ever says femme, besides me. I'll have to think on that some more.... |
As a person who spent a long time in contemplation before any action was taken outside of "straight" behavior - never having kissed another woman before the age of 27 - I didn't feel the right to identify as anything other than possibly bisexual until I had moved beyond crushes and imaginings and dreams and contemplations and into the "reality" of physicality.
Now I look back at all that time I denied myself to myself not simply because I was ashamed but because I didn't let myself identify more accurately without the *proof* I felt the physical/sexual would have given (and eventually did give) me. Because I lived in a "straight" marriage, I felt voiceless when talking about my own sexuality/orientation. A girl or woman who has only been with men talking about not knowing if she's a lesbian - who listens to her or respects what identity she forms? I shut myself up. And though I do get tired of women I perceive as straight talking to me about how they might be lesbian or wish they were lesbian or hate men or blah blah blah, I don't want to deny anybody the right to identify as queer no matter what state their lives are in. I'd rather I hadn't silenced myself - feeling the need to manifest sexually my desires before allowing myself a claim to any real queer identity. I have never been a thing like June Cleaver. She represents much of what I see as society's expectations of me as a female person. I could totally get into some Lucy/Ethel slash though. |
piggybacking off of the processing about straight women using the word "femme" as part of their identity --- i've heard other people use this word to describe themselves too. can a particular word actually "belong to" (for lack of a better descriptor) a particular group of people? i dont think it can in 95% of the cases. i know a solid handful of gay men who use the word "femme" to describe themselves. i know a straight man who uses the word to describe himself. i knew a transguy in Seattle that used the word "femme" to describe himself.
can we be perschnickity about this sort of thing? arent people's ID words theirs to choose? i bring it up, despite not knowing exactly where i stand on the idea because i'm still shuffling the info, because recently someone told me that i wasnt who i described myself to be. i called myself something, i cant remember what, something like blah blah blah stonefemme blah blah blah and the person i was talking to sort of laughed and said "oh Nomad, you're not a stone femme." (as if SHE would know!) i felt like she was negating my definition of myself and i dont know anyone who has the right to do that. so maybe that's where my curiosity-questioning-processing comes from, even though the two arent necessarily related. and i hope this isnt derailing the thread because i dont want to do that. (just trying to sort it all out) |
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I have straight girlfriends, who are female bodied we are worlds apart when it comes to how we live our lives. Kelly doesn't have to endure the questioning I do if I do come out as Femme at work. Kelly doesn't feel out of place at the Buffalo Wings during a game. Kelly and her whomever she dates can hold hands and kiss (peck) on the lips and people aren't going to be like WHAT! As soon as I open my mouth and speak my queer identity is known because of the way I speak on certain subject manners and how I address them. |
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i am soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Lucy (with some Elyse Keaton and some Florida Evans thrown in) |
Wow that's some great points!!!
I think maybe that is why i feel the way i do about femme being used by anyone who claims it, because, like Nat, i lived a straight life with a bio man. Didn't change who i was on the inside. I knew i was gay, didn't know the term femme at the time. Did people have the right to tell me i wasn't gay? I may not have been living a gay life, but that didn't change who i was or how i felt on the inside. I guess my point is, if we put femme into a box of what it can "only" be.... Isn't that limiting? Isn't that forming a certain type of hierarchy? And if we agree that femme does not mean you have to dress or ____ (insert descriptive), doesn't it also mean that ANYONE can claim that identity? If that is what you feel in your heart? Or is the line drawn at being straight? Or living a straight life? I'm talking in seriousness here. Not someone making fun or poking at us. I mean if a straight women says "im a femme" how can i tell her, no you aren't. Ya know? Still trying to sort this out... |
This is the best conversation I have had in a long time! Thank you all so much.
I am young in lesbian years having only come out 5 years ago. That could be why I bristle at others using femme. I don't have a problem with a gay man or a Transman or even a butch bringing femme into their identity. Maybe that is because they are still queer. I feel sometimes that straight people use queer or femme because it is "cool" and they want to have some of that coolness. They want to say "hey I'm like you too!" I totally agree with you Nat about not wanting to put a questioning person on the outside or negating their process. My experience was very similar to yours. But I did not know the first thing about being queer, femme or lesbian when I was in that questioning phase. I had to experience it first hand before I felt I could speak to it or identify myself as any of those things. It goes a lot deeper to me than just using the words. |
I know this is meandering off the subject of June Cleaver, but I see this as a way in which femmes do not have privilege - if a butch were with a man and claimed to be queer nobody would resent it.
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It's just not June Cleaver
When i think of the evolvement of women's roles in the home and society regarding television i not only think of June Cleaver.
Bewitched ~ Samantha was a stay at home mom. Soon as Darren walked in she fixed him a *double*. She was allowed to pop in at the office but usually just for a visit. The Honeymooners ~ i absolutely loved this show, but poor Alice. All hell broke loose because when Ralph got laid off, she went and got a job. And as was brought up in another thread *Bang zoom*.. with a fist in her face. You never saw Alice threaten to Bang Zoom Ralphieboy. Ozzie and Harriet ~ i only saw the reruns but Harriet Nelson was just like June Cleaver i think. Dick Van Dyke ~ Same as above I Love Lucy ~ Lucy of course wanted to be in the show (Another sign of the times, Lucy was the first woman to be shown pregnant on TV, and the word pregnant was not allowed. She was shunned for years for being in a *mixed marriage*. ) There were so many more back then.. Then we progressed The Flintsones ~ modeled after the Honeymooners, even in cartoon land the wives were opressed. That Girl ~ Marlo Thomas as a female lead Mary Tyler Moore ~ A woman working in an office.. i LOVED her. and the list goes on. My point is that unfortunately June was not an unusual character for Hollywood and as kids it's all we had. i wonder what the kids of today will have to say in 50 years? |
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I don't deny who she is, the likely hood of a heteronormative Femme and I kickin it won't happen, sure we'll hang out once in awhile but it's not the same it truly isn't and I love love my hetero friends but it's not the same... I am coming from a Gender perspective and no hetero woman is going to view her gender as I do We'll have a very different kind of relationship than I do with Julie (of the New York Julies) |
thinking out loud
It's like the Femme Swap, my friend Kelly doesn't get it why it's so defining.
Erika does..... |
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Femme is part of our history. It dates back in time and it is how we connected. If you hand over Femme and say it's okay/accept for anybody to use this. Then in reality you are erasing our history. Without our history and the Femme's and Butches who have come before us - then you are erasing me, as I am Femme, it is who I am and it is my identity. It has no place in the straight community. Julie EDITED TO SAY: You can say to the straight woman who identifies as straight - Our history. Tell her. Be honest. If you do not know our history, then please read as much as you can about it, and perhaps you will not see it as being placed in a box - but an honor to be surrounded and loved as a Femme by and for your Femme sisters. |
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