View Single Post
Old 10-26-2012, 06:42 PM   #37
aishah
Member

How Do You Identify?:
queer stone femme shark baby girl
Preferred Pronoun?:
she, her, little one
Relationship Status:
dating myself.
 
aishah's Avatar
 
1 Highscore

Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: dallas, tx
Posts: 1,495
Thanks: 13,823
Thanked 6,435 Times in 1,288 Posts
Rep Power: 21474850
aishah Has the BEST Reputationaishah Has the BEST Reputationaishah Has the BEST Reputationaishah Has the BEST Reputationaishah Has the BEST Reputationaishah Has the BEST Reputationaishah Has the BEST Reputationaishah Has the BEST Reputationaishah Has the BEST Reputationaishah Has the BEST Reputationaishah Has the BEST Reputation
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Martina View Post
Yeah, my mother, not June Cleaver. What I was disagreeing with -- for me -- was femme as by definition subversive, femme as performing femininity free from sexism and oppression (would that were true). That shit gets way old.
okay, i'm trying to wrap my head around that. i don't think it's possible to perform femininity (or anything) free from sexism and oppression. i also don't necessarily see being femme as a performance but as an identity. but as someone who has experienced being shamed a LOT for being femme, among other things, to celebrate queer femininity as a form of resistance is empowering - to me, anyway.

in another thread (i don't remember which), there was a discussion of butch as a form of queer masculinity (specifically as butch being -queer- masculinity). in a world where sexism, transmisogyny, and heteronormativity are what is celebrated and what we are measured against as human beings, personally, i'm not interested in celebrating or embodying more of the same.

i'm even more disgusted by june cleaver as an icon in particular because she is white and middle/upper class, and honestly, as a poor indigenous woman, it gets REALLY fucking old to be compared or measured against some sort of white middle/upper class feminine ideal. i mean, it makes me REALLY sick. because that shit has been going on forever and it is disgusting and it is everywhere and it is pushed on me all the time. fuck that.

edited to add: i would rather celebrate leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha, aurora levins morales, audre lorde, june jordan, frida kahlo, minnie bruce pratt, chrystos, or any number of other femmes who have lives and experiences that in some way resemble my own, and who are doing really amazing shit for themselves and their communities. not a woman who i've always been told i (and women like me) should kill ourselves to be like and who i could never possibly measure up to even if i really wanted to.
aishah is offline   Reply With Quote
The Following 8 Users Say Thank You to aishah For This Useful Post: