The Strong Butch Female/Woman in a Patriarchal World

[Parker]

Originally Posted by Kobi

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It seems to me, we as women, have an easy time identifiying sexism as it relates to employment issues, salary issues, sexual harrassment and the like. We have a harder time seeing how our internalized sexism and misogyny affects how we see and treat other women. I suspect we also have a harder time seeing how this internatized stuff affects how we treat masculinity within this community.

In the same vein, internalized sexism and misogyny also affects our dating/mating rituals in ways that can be concerning. And, I am not referring to what happens in private between consenting adults. I am referring to what occurs in a public arena.

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Invisibility is an area we need to rethink. It seems to me, many of us, for different reasons, feel invisible to our own people. Yet rather than rally around "invisibility" as an issue for our community to grapple with, we get sidetracked by trying to decide who has the greater right to be pissy about it. The common demoninator here is "invisibility" not id's. Yet, there is a tendency to make people feel more invisible by not acknowledging what they are feeling and why they are feeling it.

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Originally Posted by Kobi

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Secondly, this is a thread for the experiences of butch women in a patriarchal society and I do not wish to derail that into a different focus.

However, you did mention something that does fit into the current conversation and perhaps is a good example of how we internalize our patriarchal socialization and how it colors our perceptions of other people.

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Yeah, that shit made me twitch too, so I am moving on .....

The internalized stuff is huge because we dont always see it - and even when it is pointed out to us, we still dont always see it .... sometimes, even just having it pointed out to us can make us angry because it goes against what we have been conditioned to believe for how ever long we've been around.

That internalized stuff comes from our conditioning that masculine and maleness is valued more than femininity and femaleness. From birth, girls are ingrained with this idea - we are treated differently than boys, we are given different toys, told what games to and not to play, etc. and we are shown that in most, if not all ways, boys are more valued.

Hell, when I was 16 years old, my parents got me an old 1972 Pontiac LaManns in banana yellow - and I loved the hell out of that car lol. A year and a half later, when my little brother turned 16, they took the car from me and gave it to him, telling me that "boys need cars" and that if I wanted to get a ride somewhere, I should ask a boy or find a boy with a car to date.

This wasnt in the 1950s - this was in the mid-late 1980s - but I do understand that a lot of what they said and felt came from their own upbringing in the 50s.

From an early age until I left home - and even after I left home and was in the Navy (and dont get me started on how the Navy treated/treats women with what jobs we can and cannot do!) - I was taught by my parents who I was supposed to be and that I would never be as good as a boy or man; that being male was the top of the pyramid. Hell, all the way through college and well into being in the Navy, all my mom wanted for me was to find a nice rich man to take care of me - a sugar daddy - because, apparently, I couldnt take care of myself.

I have to wonder if that's part of why I almost transitioned when I was in my early 20s. I never wanted to be a man, but so many people already thought I was a man and so many others were telling me I should transition that I thought that maybe I should just get it over with (I still, to this day, have people telling me I should transition). I started to hate the woman in me because, according to what I had learned so far, she was holding me back, keeping me from certain jobs, clothing, sports, etc.

It took me such a long time to realize it was society that was fucked up, not me.


I wanted to add that I am not in any way trying to say that I dont like men or male id butches or that I think they are bad or somehow wrong - I am not trying to imply that I have had it worse off than anyone else - I dont play the oppression olympics .... we all face violence, we all feel invisible at one time or another, and we all can have feeling of being devalued.

I am just speaking about my experiences as a butch woman walking through this patriarchal world.