The Purse: Unpacking Femme Privilege

[Medusa]

Originally Posted by dixielady

I agree with this. For me, I feel that older femmes do usually have more advantages such as experience, respect, etc. Younger femmes may have more time for opportunities, but are sometimes viewed as "less than" or not taken as seriously, based solely upon age.

Dixieboo!

I hear you and experienced some of this when I was a 23-year-old Femme first signing up on the Dash site. I was head-patted by lots of older Femmes because "How could I possibly know anything about life" and also by older Butches who thought of me as a "party girl" or whatever.

I did, however, feel that I had privilege in the dating pool as a younger Femme because I felt like many Butches in my orbit objectified younger Femmes as sexier/more sexual or whatever. But I dunno if that was such a privilege, only being seen for sexual value. IMO now, not so much.

I have been witness to older Femmes being called things like "crusty" or having insults hurled about like "who'd want to fuck her old ass?" so I do think there are huge elements of ageism when it comes to us...but more than anything, this is residual from the ageism in the world at large and our community has proven that we are not immune to it.

I always try to keep in mind that there are Femmes older than me who "know things" and also Femmes younger than me who "know things" and that all of those experiences are valid, valued, and essential!

[Julie]

I believe the bottom line falls on ourselves.
We can allow ageism, sexism, misogyny and all the other negatives to influence our lives.

None of us are better than the other... As Medusa said (without quoting) We all bring something valuable to the table.

It is my hope always - that all of us are empowered by the Femme's we are and by one another. That we do NOT ever allow someone to get away with dis-empowering us.

And I challenge any person to call me "crusty." Perhaps though, it will be a great day in my life, when I have this descriptor thrown on me. It will mean, I have lived.

Julie

[princessbelle]

Originally Posted by Julie

I believe the bottom line falls on ourselves.
We can allow ageism, sexism, misogyny and all the other negatives to influence our lives.

None of us are better than the other... As Medusa said (without quoting) We all bring something valuable to the table.

It is my hope always - that all of us are empowered by the Femme's we are and by one another. That we do NOT ever allow someone to get away with dis-empowering us.

And I challenge any person to call me "crusty." Perhaps though, it will be a great day in my life, when I have this descriptor thrown on me. It will mean, I have lived.

Julie

Yes!!!

I have a hope as well. I sincerely hope that the young femmes do have more privilege than i had.

My hope is that *our* existance in this world is way more than self appropriating. I hope that we have, even in some small way, smoothed the path, added an additional stone on the yellow brick road, attended a gathering standing proud to be a femme, forged an accepting thought from others, signed at least one petition for human/femme/any ID's rights that actually helped broaden the world's acceptance. I hope that we have some how made the journey a tiny bit easier, a little more obvious that we exist, and have shined a little light toward the beautiful ID of femmes for the younger generation.

For all of the hard times *we* have shared, the fights for identifications and self-recognition, standing proud with our brothers/sisters and being heard, it was worth it for ourselves as well as providing a beacon for the young, ever evolving femmes.

Just as the ones before us have done and just as these femmes will do for the next generation.

That is my hope.

[CherylNYC]

Originally Posted by princessbelle

Yes!!!

I have a hope as well. I sincerely hope that the young femmes do have more privilege than i had.

My hope is that *our* existance in this world is way more than self appropriating. I hope that we have, even in some small way, smoothed the path, added an additional stone on the yellow brick road, attended a gathering standing proud to be a femme, forged an accepting thought from others, signed at least one petition for human/femme/any ID's rights that actually helped broaden the world's acceptance. I hope that we have some how made the journey a tiny bit easier, a little more obvious that we exist, and have shined a little light toward the beautiful ID of femmes for the younger generation.

For all of the hard times *we* have shared, the fights for identifications and self-recognition, standing proud with our brothers/sisters and being heard, it was worth it for ourselves as well as providing a beacon for the young, ever evolving femmes.

Just as the ones before us have done and just as these femmes will do for the next generation.

That is my hope.

I was thinking about this very thing just the other day after shopping in a vintage clothing store with a femme friend. We found a fluttery pink chiffon skirt with pink spangles, and it was her size. She really wanted to buy it, and we had a fascinating discussion about how very transgressive it would be for her to wear it. We called it 'the skirt one must not wear'. This skirt would have been sooooo off limits to any lesbian when I was in my twenties. Had I shown up to any of our events in such a thing I would have been the object of derision, and I probably wouldn't have gotten laid for the rest of the decade. Even though my friend is 10 years younger than I, she's certainly felt the judgement of many a lesbian for her interest in all things girlie. Not to the extent I would have of course, but enough. She ended up not buying the skirt, but only because she couldn't find a blouse that would match. When she put it back on the rack she commented that a 20 something femme with no idea that the skirt represented anything or was in any way transgressive would happily buy it and wear it for her Daddy, conflict-free.

It took me a day or two to realize that this reality for many young femmes, that they can express themselves without the judgement and conflict those of my generation experienced, is an awesome gift that we've given to them. I don't personally care whether or not any one of them recognises it as such. I'm quite certain that I took many things for granted when I was in my 20s, and those advances had been purchased in blood by my forebears.

I'm not sure what this has to do with femme privilege. Probably not much at all. My point is that whether or not we're privileged over butches, or any other stripe of our communities, we still face and fight our own battles. This is one battle that seems to have had a wonderful outcome.