Changing last names

Martina · 11-09-2013, 11:21 PM

I'd like to take up the issue that butch-femme history was "masculine driven" or however it was put. That is simply not the case. For material reasons. Queer folk have not enjoyed institutional support for our unions. Few employers, churches and family members took an interest in how butch-femme couples ran their lives except to condemn them outright. The state granted no legal privileges to either partner as there was no legal marriage. (Most butch-femme couples were marginalized socially and economically.) And as was noted, butches were not economically more powerful than femmes; often they were less so.

So there was no great power disparity between butches and femmes. While many femmes deferred to butches in public and private, this was not a patriarchal institution. It just didn't work that way. I am old, and I knew some butch-femme couples from the fifties and even the forties. And they were not couples whose relationships were marked by real power disparities.

Butch-femme culture is, and has been, rife with sexism. And that matters, but our relationships have never been like heterosexual relationships because real power never rested with butches. And material power differences are what maintain oppression, not ideology alone.

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11-09-2013, 11:21 PM	#11
Martina Senior Member How Do You Identify?: * Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: * Posts: 4,999 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 13,409 Thanked 18,286 Times in 4,167 Posts Rep Power: 21474854	I'd like to take up the issue that butch-femme history was "masculine driven" or however it was put. That is simply not the case. For material reasons. Queer folk have not enjoyed institutional support for our unions. Few employers, churches and family members took an interest in how butch-femme couples ran their lives except to condemn them outright. The state granted no legal privileges to either partner as there was no legal marriage. (Most butch-femme couples were marginalized socially and economically.) And as was noted, butches were not economically more powerful than femmes; often they were less so. So there was no great power disparity between butches and femmes. While many femmes deferred to butches in public and private, this was not a patriarchal institution. It just didn't work that way. I am old, and I knew some butch-femme couples from the fifties and even the forties. And they were not couples whose relationships were marked by real power disparities. Butch-femme culture is, and has been, rife with sexism. And that matters, but our relationships have never been like heterosexual relationships because real power never rested with butches. And material power differences are what maintain oppression, not ideology alone.