The Strong Butch Female/Woman in a Patriarchal World

[Parker]

Originally Posted by Kobi

<snip>

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.

<snip>

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.

<snip>

Originally Posted by Kobi

<snip>

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.

<snip>

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.

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Parker

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.

This made me start thinking.....did you ever notice how we, as women, have been socialized to put qualifiers in the things we say?

We should be able to just speak what we experience or feel and it should stand on its own as a reflection of our experience.

Yet, we are taught to be mindful of how something we say or feel might impact on others and to acknowledge it and address it in some way.

[Parker]

This is true .... I have to wonder if that stretches into the realm of labels, for lack of a better term. I rarely ever hear gay men - the gay men in my experience and my circles (to add another qualifier lol) - talk about being male or female ID'd - save for the occasional butch or femme reference, nor do I hear a lot of my gay men friends speak in terms of cis- this or that, for them, it is straight up gay, straight, men, women.


But thb, I learned some of it on-line as well - because if we were irl, you could see my face, hear my tone and inflections and you would know that I was speaking for and about me, while not diminishing others; you would know that 99% of my sarcasm and humor is said and meant with zero malice because that's just how I am - a sarcastic smartass who means no harm.

On-line though, my sarcasm and humor can sometimes come across as asshole-ish behavior and I have had people in the past take posts like that and think I was trying to diminish others by speaking of my experiences; so have I learned to add a lot of and and sometimes, like above, just flat out say that I wasnt trying to marginalize others.

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by Parker

This is true .... I have to wonder if that stretches into the realm of labels, for lack of a better term. I rarely ever hear gay men - the gay men in my experience and my circles (to add another qualifier lol) - talk about being male or female ID'd - save for the occasional butch or femme reference, nor do I hear a lot of my gay men friends speak in terms of cis- this or that, for them, it is straight up gay, straight, men, women.


But thb, I learned some of it on-line as well - because if we were irl, you could see my face, hear my tone and inflections and you would know that I was speaking for and about me, while not diminishing others; you would know that 99% of my sarcasm and humor is said and meant with zero malice because that's just how I am - a sarcastic smartass who means no harm.

On-line though, my sarcasm and humor can sometimes come across as asshole-ish behavior and I have had people in the past take posts like that and think I was trying to diminish others by speaking of my experiences; so have I learned to add a lot of and and sometimes, like above, just flat out say that I wasnt trying to marginalize others.

Bouncing into the online subject, While being online in Virtual Reality for a while (Second Life to be exact) and on these forums i found that many butches use the *he* pronouns online, then in real life they use *she* pronouns. (In real life i find this confusing). i chatted with a few of them when told me they are really more comfortable with *she* pronouns but felt that it was expected that if they were butch they were male ID'd. My Syr is the only one that i can remember that insisted on *she* and constantly correcting all of us that she is a she.

i don't feel one pronoun is better than another but i do feel that some people do, and there is some expectation that butch = male, that all butches should want to transition... even in our own community.

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Cajun_dee

Bouncing into the online subject, While being online in Virtual Reality for a while (Second Life to be exact) and on these forums i found that many butches use the *he* pronouns online, then in real life they use *she* pronouns. (In real life i find this confusing). i chatted with a few of them when told me they are really more comfortable with *she* pronouns but felt that it was expected that if they were butch they were male ID'd. My Syr is the only one that i can remember that insisted on *she* and constantly correcting all of us that she is a she.

i don't feel one pronoun is better than another but i do feel that some people do, and there is some expectation that butch = male, that all butches should want to transition... even in our own community.

I found this very interesting.

In real life, I cant think of anyone who used any pronoun but *she*. Then again, I dont remember there being another option either.

Online, things seem to be a little different.

Perhaps there is more exploration of identities, more experimentation to see if something else works better, more opportunity to be exposed to new and different ways of conceptualizing oneself, more variety to find the niche that defines the you you know yourself to be.

Perhaps there is some degree of peer pressure involved in our effort to fit in, be accepted, and attract the type of person we are looking to attract. We define, refine, sometimes even find ourselves in relation to others. So others have the potential to have a profound effect on us.

Perhaps, on some level, if you identify as masculine or are perceived as masculine, there is the recognition of the privilege that comes with it. It can be very seductive, very powerful, and very empowering.

Interesting to think about.

[Parker]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Perhaps, on some level, if you identify as masculine or are perceived as masculine, there is the recognition of the privilege that comes with it. It can be very seductive, very powerful, and very empowering.

I feel like you are mixing up "masculine" and "male" here, but I dont want to assume - are they synonyms for you?

I am masculine - I just also happen to be a woman at the same time and I, personally, dont believe the two are mutually exclusive.

Originally Posted by Cajun_dee

Bouncing into the online subject, While being online in Virtual Reality for a while (Second Life to be exact) and on these forums i found that many butches use the *he* pronouns online, then in real life they use *she* pronouns. (In real life i find this confusing). i chatted with a few of them when told me they are really more comfortable with *she* pronouns but felt that it was expected that if they were butch they were male ID'd. My Syr is the only one that i can remember that insisted on *she* and constantly correcting all of us that she is a she.

i don't feel one pronoun is better than another but i do feel that some people do, and there is some expectation that butch = male, that all butches should want to transition... even in our own community.

I have seen this as well - I have been told the same thing, re: expectations of being male id; and I have also been told that that is how some people tell the difference between a femme and a butch - the former is she and the latter is he.

I feel like that's bullshit, but what can you do - each person has to do right by and for themselves, not by and for me!

Personally, I've never been he/hy - on-line or irl.

[BullDog]

The idea that you call femmes she and butches he so you can tell them apart is such bullshit. What do you do when you have two friends named Terry, call one by a different name? No. It seems like a lot of anxiety- like heaven forbid a butch might be talking in chat and someone makes the fatal mistake of thinking it was a femme typing. Oh my. Talk about the worst crime in the world.

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Perhaps, on some level, if you identify as masculine or are perceived as masculine, there is the recognition of the privilege that comes with it. It can be very seductive, very powerful, and very empowering.

Originally Posted by Parker

I feel like you are mixing up "masculine" and "male" here, but I dont want to assume - are they synonyms for you?

I am masculine - I just also happen to be a woman at the same time and I, personally, dont believe the two are mutually exclusive.

I was using masculine in a non-gender specific way.

[CherylNYC]

Originally Posted by Kobi

This made me start thinking.....did you ever notice how we, as women, have been socialized to put qualifiers in the things we say?

We should be able to just speak what we experience or feel and it should stand on its own as a reflection of our experience.

Yet, we are taught to be mindful of how something we say or feel might impact on others and to acknowledge it and address it in some way.

Whoops. I was busy writing my own missive while Kobi beat me to the punch with her far more succinct post.

[CherylNYC]

Originally Posted by Parker

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]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]

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

Exactly! I highlighted the part of your post that seems to never be spoken about or aknowledged in our community. It's still percieved to be soooo much cooler to be a man than it is to be a woman. Butches are sometimes pressured into transitioning, and it's all about misogyny. I've seen/heard trans and male IDed people from within and without the bf community exert that pressure, and it makes me sick. I never let it pass. I'm an old school lesbian feminist, and I will NEVER allow anyone to get away with telling a woman that she ought to become a man.

Parker, I'm so sorry that you've had to hear that, and that you continue to hear it. I also highlighted your disclaimer. I understand that you have good reason to feel that a disclaimer must be appended. I wish we could simply say, "We don't want to be men" without having to sooth the possibly outraged males who may perceive our matter-of-fact statements of female ID as an insult to themselves.

The phenomenon bears a strong resemblance to the responses I've read here on this site whenever men are criticized. Five of the first six responses to a linked article written by a trans guy about the incredibly offensive things men say to each other about women when they think they are amongst themselves essentially said, "You shouldn't criticize men because women are terrible." Yes, I know that's somewhat reductive, but that was the strong, clear message I took away from that exchange.

I was treated similarly to you within my family. My parents told my sister and I that we would have to get scholarships to college, but that they would find a way to pay for my brother's education. He would be responsible for supporting a family, after all. (Those conversations happened in the 1970's, and he has not, as yet, supported anyone at all.) We have a long way to go before we can eradicate the internalized misogyny that was and is inflicted on us.

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Parker

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.

I spent a lot of time mulling this over today and having flashbacks to less pleasant times.

Having grown up in a very traditional Italian family, the message was very clear.....girls/females/women behavior, dress, think, aspire to, prefer, defer, etc certain things. I very much felt female but the traditions didnt fit who I was, how I behaved, how I thought, what I aspired to, or how I preferred to dress.

Heck, I even remember the day my brother told me I didnt wash my hands like a girl. There was a girls only way of washing hands? Really? I remember watching people wash their hands after that. I didnt have the words for it back then, but today I can say it was really weird to me that people ascribed masculine and feminine to something as mundane as handwashing. Little did I know how deep and far reaching that dichotomy ran.

There was never a disconnect inside of me, or between my internal self and my body. There was a disconnect between the internal me and the external world. Society was saying my way of being female was being interpreted as being masculine/male-like and that was not a good thing.

When I came out as a young adult, once again, what felt perfectly normal and natural to me was framed into something else because I didnt fit the norm of what being a woman was about back then. So, who I was was transformed into, "I was a lesbian because I wanted to be a man." Sigh.

Throughout my life, I have tried on different labels hoping to find one that reflects the totality of who I am and is perceived in the way I wish it to be. Considering our community invents more and more labels to reflect its growing diversity, you would think I could find one that works, or at least one that I dont have to continuously explain or qualify.

Nowadays, I just prefer to say I am a female/woman who expresses my femaleness/womanness my way. Simple, yes? Nah.

Regardless of what I say or feel, others still experience me and treat me from within their own frame of reference/experience which does not always match mine.

People stuff is really tricky shit. Society stuff is really tricky shit. A lot of the isms have become so institutionalized, and so internalized that it is sometimes different to distinguish between what might be an ism vs a preference, or an ism vs humor, or malicious intent vs naivete, or cultural differences vs ???.

Very, very, tricky stuff.

[Glenn]

[QUOTE=Kobi;630097][COLOR="Navy"]
.

Having grown up in a very traditional Italian family, the message was very clear.....girls/females/women behavior, dress, think, aspire to, prefer, defer, etc certain things. I very much felt female but the traditions didnt fit who I was, how I behaved, how I thought, what I aspired to, or how I preferred to dress.


Kobi; A lot of traditional Italian families were also matriarchal led such as mine . Mine nurtured my strength as a butch, gave me independence, did'nt make me or my partner of thirty plus years do or think anything we did'nt want too. Please do not give this thread the wrong impression about what traditional Italian families are or are not concerning butches and others. Thank-You

[Kobi]

[quote=Glenn;630220]

Originally Posted by Kobi

[COLOR="Navy"]
.

Having grown up in a very traditional Italian family, the message was very clear.....girls/females/women behavior, dress, think, aspire to, prefer, defer, etc certain things. I very much felt female but the traditions didnt fit who I was, how I behaved, how I thought, what I aspired to, or how I preferred to dress.


Kobi; A lot of traditional Italian families were also matriarchal led such as mine . Mine nurtured my strength as a butch, gave me independence, did'nt make me or my partner of thirty plus years do or think anything we did'nt want too. Please do not give this thread the wrong impression about what traditional Italian families are or are not concerning butches and others. Thank-You

Glenn, we had different experiences.

In the 1950's, my traditional Italian experience was very patriarchal, very male, very old fashioned male-female rigidly defined roles, expectations, and even laws. I had many exceptional female role models who did exceptional things under extraordinary circumstances but it saddened me to know they didnt see themselves as exceptional women. It saddened me that they didnt value the other females in their lives in the way I expected. It saddened me when my maternal great grandmother who owned a successful farm which was run by her and her 2 unmarried daughters, left those daughters destitute and homeless when she died because she left the farm to her sons.

I am speaking to my experience. Perhaps you might wish to revisit my earlier post which read:

"This made me start thinking.....did you ever notice how we, as women, have been socialized to put qualifiers in the things we say?

We should be able to just speak what we experience or feel and it should stand on its own as a reflection of our experience.

Yet, we are taught to be mindful of how something we say or feel might impact on others and to acknowledge it and address it in some way."

You are welcome and encouraged to speak from your experience. I would love to hear how a strong matriarchal led family shaped the person you are.

Thank you