June Cleaver : Femme Friend or Femme Foe

[aishah]

Originally Posted by Martina

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.

[Martina]

I get that. But I don't want to define myself as femme in OPPOSITION to straight women or feminine lesbians. I don't want to lose my solidarity with them. I also think some of them are doing incredible things to create a space where femininity is powerful. I want to acknowledge that we are in this together. I am not better or substantially different because I am queer.

Also it's perfectly fine -- imo -- to wear your femininity in a comfortable way, in a non-transgressive, this is how my mother did it, way. That's good too. My femmeness is not any more transgressive than many straight women's. I learn a lot from them. I am in it with them. That's how I feel.

I do not think queer femmes say this as much as they used to, but it used to be in every statement of we are fabulous femmes, this is who we are. Not so much anymore, thank heavens.

[aishah]

celebrating being a queer indigenous poor disabled femme does not mean i am saying i am better than or i am defining myself in opposition to.

but it is inherently an act of resistance because i live in a society where being white, upper class, straight, able-bodied, and conforming to heteronormative gender roles is what is celebrated and what i am measured against as a human being and told i should want to live up to.

so it might get tiring to hear that i think that femmes who don't conform to those ideals are fucking amazing. but i'm going to keep saying it because the reality is - we are constantly told we are unlovable and less than and not worthy. there are enough people in the world who celebrate june cleaver. somebody needs to celebrate us.

[Martina]

I don't disagree with any of that. I am really making a different point, one I am not even that invested in making right now.

Originally Posted by aishah

celebrating being a queer indigenous poor disabled femme does not mean i am saying i am better than or i am defining myself in opposition to.

but it is inherently an act of resistance because i live in a society where being white, upper class, straight, able-bodied, and conforming to heteronormative gender roles is what is celebrated and what i am measured against as a human being and told i should want to live up to.

so it might get tiring to hear that i think that femmes who don't conform to those ideals are fucking amazing. but i'm going to keep saying it because the reality is - we are constantly told we are unlovable and less than and not worthy. there are enough people in the world who celebrate june cleaver. somebody needs to celebrate us.

[Martina]

The Lady Snow encouraged me to post part of the femme paper I referred to. I can't find the Bibliography. This was something I read aloud, so I didn't worry about formatting, spelling and so on. So this is the whole thing. To do excerpts, I'd have to think. And I am opposed to thinking on Friday evenings. I thought I excerpted parts on the old site, but a search did not bring up the post. Oh well.

OH, this is from 2006. The articles I cite are even older. Things have changed. Heart pointed out that one of the keynote speakers at a later femmecon made a lot of these points -- that we cannot define femme in opposition to other feminine people, that there are real dangers to doing that. So the arguments here are dated.

I am not being falsely modest when I say that I do not encourage anyone to slog through it. Personally, I'd rather be watching "Gangnam Style" on youtube. But here it is. I will probably have to post twice to get it all in.

Many people writing or creating art on the subject of femmes and femme identity are aware of the pitfalls of presenting femme as a cohesive collective identity. At the very least, they are conscious of the risks of exclusion. In their wonderful essay, “A Fem(me)inist Manifesto,” Lisa Duggan and Kathleen McHugh write, “It diminishes a femme, all femmes, to talk about a femme identity in itself. How could that be? Femme is neither an ideal nor a category.” (p.165) There is an awareness that a collective identity that is normative, rather than descriptive, one that might be felt to have prescriptive force, does not serve us well. This awareness is fairly widespread, i think.

Creating numbers of identities within femme to accommodate our diversity is not effective either. Judith Butler claims this “only produces a greater factionalization, a proliferation of differences without any means of negotiating among them.” Clearly there is the risk of creating hierarchies and of establishing categories which compete. It’s also an additional opportunity to police others’ or one’s own identity. Many femmes i know refuse an identification more specific than "femme" out of fear of inadvertently excluding or creating such hierarchies. They may be high femme in practice, but not in name.

However, many seem to find constructing femme identity through disavowing identification with straight women and with feminine lesbians less problematic. In her essay “How Does She Look?” Rebecca Ann Rugg writes, “the problem for the femme dyke who is not assimilationist is not only distinguishing herself from straight women, but from those femmes who consider straight-acting a compliment.”

Judith Butler acknowledges that identities are created through a series of disavowals and repudiations. She explains that “certain disavowals are fundamentally enabling and that no subject can proceed, can act, without disavowing certain possibilities and avowing others.” (p. 116) Identities do not have to be cohesive, logical, or water-tight. They should not be. But they do have to mean something. Excluding possibilities creates meaning. Moreover, gender identity is not an optional project. We cannot become desiring subjects in the world without constructing gender identities for ourselves, even if multiple and fluid.

However, as some femme writers do it, distinguishing ourselves from straight women has meant more than asserting our existence. It has included the ongoing project of rehabilitating femininity from its association with powerlessness and loss. A great project, but as we have carried it out, one that has characterized straight women in terms of that powerlessness and loss. Distinguishing ourselves from feminine lesbians has provided femme writers the opportunity to protest femme invisibility and politicize our identity, also laudable projects, but, in characterizing feminine lesbians as women who do not problematize their femininity or who welcome passing, we ignore their contributions and struggles.

From the amazing “Femme Manifesto” again: “Refusing the fate of girl-by-nature, the femme is girl-by-choice. Finding in androgyny . . . too much loss, too little pleasure, and ugly shoes, the femme takes from the feminine a wardrobe, a walk, a wink, then moves on to sound the death knell of an abject sexuality.” She continues, femmes “are never heterosexual. Though they may traffic in men, they do not, cannot, will not take up a position within a heteronormative framework. Those femmes who desire masculinity in a partner prefer queer masculinities occupied with irony and ambiguity. The heteronormative man is inadequate in this department. The phallus he has seems not to be detachable.” (p.167)

From a frequent contributor to butch-femme.com: “But for many of us out here in cyber land, our entire lives are formed and created and lived WITHOUT A SINGLE DESIRE or attempt to be heteronormative, heteroqueer, het in any way, without the need to 'pass.' . . . What I'm saying is this: the desire to 'normalize' one's queerness, the desire to pass as het-anything, when one is -- by definition -- NOT het, is horrifying to me. And I don't share it in any way. I'd appreciate not having that forced on my very NON-normative body, sexuality, and desire.”

In response to these disavowals, i quote Butler again. She states that the refusal to identify with a position “suggests that on some level an identification has already taken place.” She adds that "heteronormativity remains a spectre in our identities if we cannot acknowledge our connection to heterosexuality." Assertions that the very fact of our queerness makes us different do not keep us safe. Wouldn't it be wonderful it it were that easy? Such assertions, in fact, make us less safe. For example, they make the fact that sexism still plays a role in butch-femme culture more difficult to recognize.

Characterizing queered femininity as reclaimed or rehabilitated by virtue of being queered might also suggest that escaping internalized misogyny is easy for those privileged with our gender identity. There may be a lot of proud fat femmes out there and many whose sexual agency inspires awe, but we are not alone in our struggles to love our bodies and sexuality, and those struggles do not begin or end with our queer ID's. To understand femme as somehow unique, or even as leading the way, isolates us from other feminine beings whose efforts to free their bodies and spirits are as authentic, creative, and powerful as our own.

Butler talks about intense disavowals as cruelties that we visit upon ourselves. Straight women and feminine lesbians are not made abject by their exclusion from our identity. We do not have that power. Their identities and ability to speak remain untouched. An unintended and often devastating effect of these assertions, these efforts to stake out a unique and unassailable territory, is to exclude other femmes who can not or will not repudiate their heterosexual pasts or their commonality with their heterosexual women friends and family members. These statements differentiate between femmes and feminine lesbians in ways that disparage the latter, creating in those who identify as both femme and lesbian an unnecessary conflict. Finally, in order to exaggerate difference, our femininity is often constructed as transgressive and performative in ways that many femmes do not experience.

The most prominent metaphor in femme cultural products is femme femininity as more performed, more ironic, more exaggerated and daring than straight or lesbian femininities. Femme as parody, even as burlesque. It’s a powerful metaphor that resonates strongly for many femmes. It continues the project of reclaiming femininity as powerful and allows for an inclusive understanding of femme since it points out the constructedness of gender. Unfortunately, it is also used extensively as a means of distinguishing femmes from straight women and feminine lesbians, whose femininities are understood as less ironic and transgressive.

There is an expression of this metaphor in “A Femme Manifesto," which claims that "femme is the performativity, the insincerity, the mockery, the derision of foreplay – the bet, the dare, the bringing to attention of the suitor, the one who would provide her pleasure. The performer who demands performance in return, the player who brings pleasure into play. . . . On the question of style, femme science reviles any approach to appearances that is sincere. Femme science questions the dignity and wisdom of anyone who would wear pink without irony, or a floral print without murderous or seditious designs.” One remark I have heard a few times goes something like "if you set a femme down in a baby shower, she would stand out like a sore thumb."

Even if we try to avoid creating a cohesive cultural identity for femme, some of the metaphors and narratives we use to describe ourselves gain more currency than others. My understanding of how this works comes from Richard Rorty. People who make cultural products, artists and writers, in the process of their own self-becoming generate innovative language, new metaphors, which catch on because of a “particular need which a given community happens to have at a given time. . . It’s the 'accidental coincidence of a private obsession with a public need.'”

These creators found a self which the past never knew was possible, making those possibilities available for all of us. In a given historical moment, there are always a number of people working through the same cultural ideas. In describing the relationship of the work of Victorian philosophers and writers, Rorty says, “All of the figures of this period play into each other’s hands. They feed each other lines. Their metaphors rejoice in one another’s company.” This explains the prominence some metaphors gain over others.

In constructing femme as performative and ironic, we exclude femmes whose identities are not experienced as transgressive. In "A Woman's Prerogative," Marcy Sheiner, a sometimes passing femme married to a transman, talks about relaxing into her femme identity in mid-life. A former editor of On Our Backs, she said that in her past, she “lived and breathed lesbian femininist radical sex analysis.” Like many women at mid-life, she is looking again at the life her mother lead, reconnecting to the legacy of previous generations. And she is simply relaxing. Her family does not know that her husband is trans, and she benefits, in fact, she luxuriates, in the occasional benefits of heterosexual privilege. Now that she is older and in this relationship, she reports she can better relate to a childhood friend, a straight woman. She writes, “Now that I am in a monogamous relationship with a man, we’re talking about our loves with the same kind of synergistic understanding we shared when we were fourteen.”

She sums up: “I don’t feel like I am caving in; I feel like my natural self is emerging. It is no longer so imperative to achieve fame and fortune and/or transform the world, and that’s an enormous relief. Some of this mellowing, of course, comes inevitably with age. . . . Feminine qualities were forced on me as a girl, adolescent and young woman. Because they were mandatory and restrictive, they were oppressive. Feminism was a rebellion and a way out of the oppression, but certain aspects of feminism turned into a new form of oppression. My rediscovered femme identity feels neither oppressive nor rebellious, but integral to who I am.”

[Martina]

Second page. Hope it's all there. Had to paste paragraphs separately ---

This is a woman, a femme, for whom invisibility is not a source of anxiety. She is a housewife and a writer. She passes and experiences her femininity as more and more natural, integral to herself, as she says. Sheiner makes the point that a lot of her changing understanding of herself as femme is a function of age, not just of her relationship and of heterosexual privilege. But she does benefit from that, and her experience points out that, like it our not, many of us do. What else do we gain from Sheiner’s experience and wisdom? We are reminded that a passing femme is still a femme, an invisible femme is still a femme, and that our connection to her, and hers to straight women, is useful and powerful -- in part because all of us spend some time passing, some time invisible. Including the experience of women like Steiner is not just inclusive; it is empowering. There are numbers of femmes whose sexual agency and power are not expressed or experienced by performing femininity in apparently transgressive ways. Moreover, femmes who experience their femininity as similar to their mothers and their straight women friends remind us of our connection to these women and the richness of their lives.

Katherine Payne is a femme who did not connect to other femmes until she read Joan Nestle's story of her straight mother. In her essay, “Whores and Bitches Who Sleep with Women,” Payne discusses the connection between sex workers and femmes. For her, the metaphor of femme as performative and transgressive resonates. Payne believes that there can be “no sound analysis of the cultural position of femme without a basis in an analysis of the cultural, legal, and economic position of prostitutes." She holds that “femininity and sexual agency equal potential social chaos and, therefore, those who combine these qualities must be stigmatized, criminalized, and maligned.” Speaking as a sex worker, Payne addresses femmes: “Betcha we shop in the same stores, wrestle the same demons, carry comparable fears through the world. Chances are we frequently get mistaken for each other.”

However, Payne didn’t connect strongly with her femme identity until she read Joan Nestle’s “My Mother Liked to Fuck.” In that amazing essay, Joan explains that her will to fight the sex wars arose from remembering her mother’s love of sex and unwillingness to let anyone make her ashamed of it. Payne says, “Nestle gave me a huge and priceless gift in her affiliation with and defense of her trampy working class mom. The woman Nestle described had unapologetic sexual agency, and was consequently marginalized, shamed, and economically at risk. This resonated for me. For the first time, I could imagine a place in the history of ‘lesbians’ where I might find allies and assert my priorities.” Payne’s understanding of femme is very close to the dominant metaphors of performance, parody, and excess. But what is interesting to me is that it is Nestle’s avowal of her connection to her straight mother’s complex life, Nestle's understanding of that history as available to empower her to fight for her right to fuck the way she liked, that reaches across time to Payne, who continues to make connections outside of the queer community to sex workers of all genders.

Avowing a connection to straight housewives, as Sheiner does, or straight women who risk themselves to create a place for their own sexual agency, as did Nestle and does Payne, entails a willingness to accept even the scary and heteronormative parts of our lives. It requires us to look at how sexism might operate in our own communities. It requires that we confront the potential for violence and abuse in our worlds. But it is also incredibly empowering and creative, and it acknowledges the lives of real femmes as they are actually lived.

Butler writes that “it may be only by risking the incoherence of identity that connection is possible.” However, even when we do try to avoid the creation of prescriptive identities, some metaphors will gain more power in our culture than others – for very good reasons. They do resonate. They do address current issues and concerns. They are pushing forward the goals that the group shares. But we need to always take stock of what we are defining ourselves against and what pieces of ourselves we leave behind as we do.

Butler does not argue that we should change all disavowals into avowals, that we should assert only similarities and ignore differences. Most femmes are, in fact, not straight. There are differences between femmes and feminine lesbians. Her argument is simply to note the exclusions, to know what we are doing and to trace the connections.

My personal experience is a bit like Sheiner’s. As I get older, I relax into my femininity and feel more sure of it. It feels more natural. In the last year or so, I have lost a great deal of weight. And as my face changes, the person I see in the mirror is my mother. My mother was a working mom, a school teacher. She kept her hair short and used only three items of makeup. She had no doubt about her femininity and was not doubted in it. She was also comfortable in her body. As I see her in myself more and more, and as I age, my connection to my own femininity feels stronger, less like performance and more as something indistinguishable from who I am in all respects. My performance of femme is not excessive or transgressive. If you set me down in a baby shower, I would fit right in. And that would be fine. My fear is that some femmes who come to the identity now won’t find the thing that catches their attention, that makes them feel that they are part of the lineage, as Payne did when she read Nestle’s article, or that their road to it will inspire unnecessary self doubt.

Even Rebecca Ann Rugg, whose great line in "How Does She Look?" advocates our "running in loud mouth packs," agrees that foregrounding femme identity as transgressive has its drawbacks. She fears that it might end up excluding women who are older, “relegating these ladies to some older than hip shelf.” Melanie Murtry and Kristin Tucker, in an essay called "Femme Femininiites," also consider femme’s ironic performance of gender its core identifying feature. They argue that visibility and the power to transform femininity do come from extreme performance – body modifications, a pomo style etc. They also argue for loudness and excess, for us to celebrate the sexiness of women of size and femmes who strap it on. But they also – briefly -- mention that there are femmes for whom silence is powerful.

Distinguishing ourselves from straight women and from feminine lesbians by virtue of our extreme performance of gender, by our fight against invisibility, by the transgressive potential of our expression of gender politicizes femme in the same way that some lesbians politicized that identity in the seventies, a politicization that, as we all know, excluded femme. In making the opposite of the brazen femme the domain of oppressed straight women and sell-out dykes, we create no place for femmes of different styles and gender expressions to occupy.

[aishah]

In constructing femme as performative and ironic, we exclude femmes whose identities are not experienced as transgressive.

the issue i have with this is that - people whose identities are not experienced as transgressive are visible and celebrated already. the rest of us aren't. the reason my identity is transgressive is because i am marginalized - not because i am going out of my way to "perform" femme as something transgressive. i didn't ask to live in a society where being a sex worker is transgressive, for example, but i do. and i do sex work out of economic necessity, not to be performative or ironic.

i don't know. i'm really really trying to understand, and i found what you shared to be extremely thought provoking, and for that i am grateful. but i am struggling to wrap my mind around it.

there are scary and heteronormative parts of my life. i like it when my butch opens doors for me. and i love to bake. but i bake with money i bought with food stamps and then go feed homeless people. or working class folks who come to the sliding scale acupuncture clinic where i work. or at potlucks. sort of far removed from the 1950s housewife baking scene. i covered my hair for years and dressed really conservatively...that's rather scary and heteronormative, i suppose. i embrace those parts of myself.

my issue isn't wanting to exclude people who have identities or values or things they enjoy that fall within the realm of heteronormativity. it's that - when we talk about holding people up as icons or ideals - i feel like we need to have some sort of analysis around the fact that the ideal of the 1950s housewife has been used to marginalize many women, especially working class, poor, and non-white women.

no one should be excluded. but whose voices and experiences are we choosing to center? i choose to center the voices and experiences of disabled folks, sex workers, people who are working class and poor, indigenous & poc, women and/or gender non-conforming folks, because there are so few spaces where our voices and experiences are centered. it sucks that some people feel that that means they are excluded because they don't fall within those categories - i deeply love all of the people in my life, regardless of how they identify. but many of the privileged folks in my life also have a lot of support and they can turn on the tv and see people like them and have role models that look like them and they don't have to worry about how they are going to get medical care or food or about being arrested because of working. the society i live in centers the voices and experiences of people who have privilege. so when i think about where i want my priorities to be, i prioritize and celebrate (and idolize) people in my life who are transgressive.

thank you so much for posting your paper. i'm still sorting through things and it's bringing up a lot for me (and making me think really deeply).

edited to add - i do definitely get the whole - if you aren't x then you aren't queer/femme enough issue. for me at least, especially when i went through a period of being celibate and abstaining from alcohol and dressing conservatively, i often felt awkward in queer community because i wasn't drinking or having sex or wearing provocative clothing, for example. and because i looked pretty heteronormative (as a muslim). i was lucky enough to be around queer folks (many of whom were also muslim, and who dressed differently and did all sorts of different things) where i eventually felt embraced regardless of what i wore or ate or drank or who i slept with (or didn't). and i was able to come to make decisions based on what i wanted to do versus how i was afraid people would perceive me or whether or not i would fit in. i think it's really problematic when we start saying that people HAVE to look or act a certain way to be femme. could someone be a housewife a la june cleaver and be femme? absolutely. do i think june cleaver is a femme icon? no. (at least, vehemently NOT for me.)

[JustJo]

I, too, am loving this conversation....loving that femmes of all kinds of perspectives are coming in here and speaking from their hearts and minds. Beautiful.

I also love that there's enough room for all of us. I, personally, can't relate to the issues and feelings that femmes of color have shared because I haven't walked in those shoes, but I can relate to hearing over and over the "not good enough" message though - in my case because I was overweight, extremely poor, and dressing out of the Goodwill box in Southern California in the 70s....while all the other girls were rocking their Farrah Fawcett hairdos and getting a brand-new Camaro from Daddy on their 16th birthday.

I so hear you dee about the escapism of those shows. I used to go to a friend's house and watch The Brady Bunch like it was some kind of divine message. My fantasy was to have a mother that really was one, a father that was present (for a start), dinner on the table, and siblings that I didn't have to barricade myself in the bathroom from to escape serious injury.

My version of motherhood grew, not out of a good example, but a long list of "remember when you are older to never be like this" mental notes. In large part, the adult I am was shaped by the damage I received. No, I'm not saying that I'm "walking wounded"....but I spent many years learning to flip everything I had learned on its head to arrive at the right place for me.

So....long way around, sorry...the woman I have become, the femme I have become...is a distillation of my experiences, my thoughts, my heart, my hurts, and my emotional scars. I'm not doing it this way because anyone told me I should. I'm doing it this way because this is who I am....at the core.

And I love that we have as many versions of femme on this site as we have femmes. For me, that's a wonderful thing.

[aishah]

i can definitely relate to the escapism in childhood. i absolutely hated being - well - everything that i am when i was a kid. i wanted to grow up and be june cleaver. i went to a catholic school where about 98% of the student population was white and upper class and the parents lived in the rich section of town and a lot of the moms were like june cleaver. i used to fantasize about having a totally different life. i was ashamed of my family and the house we lived in. i was ashamed that my mom worked a lot and didn't wear heels or makeup and that most of my family members were/are fat, dark skinned, poor, and disabled.

in some ways, fantasizing helped me escape and was a coping mechanism for dealing with trauma and poverty. in other ways, it was a really negative thing because being ashamed of who i was and who my family was led to a lot of internalized oppression and self-loathing (and an eating disorder that wrecked my body, among other things). and eventually i grew up and i realized that even if i really wanted that ideal, it would be impossible for me to achieve. i realized that that ideal was fed to me for really specific (and oppressive) reasons.

now i am proud of the things i used to be ashamed of. and i am ashamed that when i was a kid i used to wish my mom was june cleaver. because my mom was a strong, brilliant, amazing woman. she was far from perfect and i have hella family issues and childhood trauma and shit. but now i am sad that i felt that way as a kid and i wish i had realized and valued myself and the women in my family and the community that i come from sooner.

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by aishah

i can definitely relate to the escapism in childhood. i absolutely hated being - well - everything that i am when i was a kid. i wanted to grow up and be june cleaver. i went to a catholic school where about 98% of the student population was white and upper class and the parents lived in the rich section of town and a lot of the moms were like june cleaver. i used to fantasize about having a totally different life. i was ashamed of my family and the house we lived in. i was ashamed that my mom worked a lot and didn't wear heels or makeup and that most of my family members were/are fat, dark skinned, poor, and disabled.

in some ways, fantasizing helped me escape and was a coping mechanism for dealing with trauma and poverty. in other ways, it was a really negative thing because being ashamed of who i was and who my family was led to a lot of internalized oppression and self-loathing (and an eating disorder that wrecked my body, among other things). and eventually i grew up and i realized that even if i really wanted that ideal, it would be impossible for me to achieve. i realized that that ideal was fed to me for really specific (and oppressive) reasons.

now i am proud of the things i used to be ashamed of. and i am ashamed that when i was a kid i used to wish my mom was june cleaver. because my mom was a strong, brilliant, amazing woman. she was far from perfect and i have hella family issues and childhood trauma and shit. but now i am sad that i felt that way as a kid and i wish i had realized and valued myself and the women in my family and the community that i come from sooner.

My mother and I have a cultural clash, it's of EPIC proportions, she's a very conservative catholic latina woman, ruler of her roost to the point of being cruel. We didn't watch a lot of TV my mother monitored the shit out of that, I had to "sneak" watching it. I was well into my teens when I learned about the Cleavers and other shows like that.

My mother who was an immigrant and hid a lot during our childhood (we were undocumented till I was in 5th grade) spent more time policing and making sure her kids had the values (her words) that were part of our culture. It was maddening to me as a child to understand why this woman was so fucking stuck on stuff that seemed so Mexican.

We were so fucking Mexican I would sometimes be ashamed of my lunches because they were different, I hadn't experienced this when I was younger because my parents sent me to school in a predominantly Latino Catholic school so I was surrounded by kids going through similar family structures.

I didn't want my Ma to be like a TV mom, but I did want her to be not so Mexican, she would be so hurt when I would say this, it was a struggle for us both being she was from Mexico and I was too but I was being raised as a Chicana would.

I sometimes hug my mom tightly and apologize for being so harsh with my words as a teen age punk, and I understand now that our battles were cultural, about unspoken abuse in immigrant families, educational. I know and hear stuff that my mother has endured, as a woman, as a Mexican and I am like fuck, what a brat I was and at the same time wish I could of helped her find help sooner to help her cope with so much that it couldn't but bleed into our upbringing...

The women in my family are amazing, yet so so different than the women who were and are raised in an American society.

[princessbelle]

What a beautiful thread!!!! Reading these posts after a long day at work was exactly what i needed to remind me of how wonderful our community can actually be.

I would have to say my mom was June Cleaver to a tee.

But, i can remember at a VERY young age, it bugged me greatly. However, instead of me embracing this and wanting this because of how i was raised. I wanted the opposite. Even though it appeared we had the perfect family, i felt she was oppressed in so many ways. It drove me crazy even at a very young age.

I remember challenging her on things...

"Mom, what would happen if you didn't have Daddy's supper on the table at exactly 6"

"Mom why don't you ask Daddy to help with the laundry or shopping"

"Mom, why do you say Mrs. so and so and not introduce and sign your first and last name"

"Mom why do you let him make all the decisions"

I was always pushing her like that. She has told me many times, she saw signs of my stand on equality for women and feminism at a VERY early age.

You know, i'm not sure it is what she wanted to be honest. I couldn't imagine it would be, even back then. But, she says it is what she loved, keeping a house and home with no real life outside dad and us kids. *shrugs

I know i didn't want it. I didn't have it and i'm happy about that decision. When i was married to a bio man, i worked solid, i made him help me with things and as soon as my kids were big enough to reach dishes, laundry, they helped too.

I was no June Cleaver. Never wanted to be. Never could be. It just doesn't interest me at all. I like to cook, but i don't love it. I just get hungry LOL.

So many different ideas and thoughts and experiences and lives here.

It's really a beautiful discussion.

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by princessbelle

What a beautiful thread!!!! Reading these posts after a long day at work was exactly what i needed to remind me of how wonderful our community can actually be.

I would have to say my mom was June Cleaver to a tee.

But, i can remember at a VERY young age, it bugged me greatly. However, instead of me embracing this and wanting this because of how i was raised. I wanted the opposite. Even though it appeared we had the perfect family, i felt she was oppressed in so many ways. It drove me crazy even at a very young age.

I remember challenging her on things...

"Mom, what would happen if you didn't have Daddy's supper on the table at exactly 6"

"Mom why don't you ask Daddy to help with the laundry or shopping"

"Mom, why do you say Mrs. so and so and not introduce and sign your first and last name"

"Mom why do you let him make all the decisions"

I was always pushing her like that. She has told me many times, she saw signs of my stand on equality for women and feminism at a VERY early age.

You know, i'm not sure it is what she wanted to be honest. I couldn't imagine it would be, even back then. But, she says it is what she loved, keeping a house and home with no real life outside dad and us kids. *shrugs

I know i didn't want it. I didn't have it and i'm happy about that decision. When i was married to a bio man, i worked solid, i made him help me with things and as soon as my kids were big enough to reach dishes, laundry, they helped too.

I was no June Cleaver. Never wanted to be. Never could be. It just doesn't interest me at all. I like to cook, but i don't love it. I just get hungry LOL.

So many different ideas and thoughts and experiences and lives here.

It's really a beautiful discussion.

You know, i'm not sure it is what she wanted to be honest. I couldn't imagine it would be, even back then. But, she says it is what she loved, keeping a house and home with no real life outside dad and us kids. *shrugs

i could totally see myself being content with what i bolded out from your post. For me and some others that is having a real life. Just like you love nursing, it's a passion for you i assume. For others they feel this same passion around the kids and the home, or just the home. Until now i've never afforded that lifestyle. i work two days a week at the clinic so i can rest! Keeping up with the Syr and the house is real work! i've always found it interesting that some women work to have a life outside the home, when i've always wanted to work solely at the home. i've always wanted time to enjoy my home, make it a real home and volunteer somewhere when i wanted to venture out.

When i was in banking there was a fellow officer sitting at the lunch table with me, an older lady than the rest of us. She spoke about how she lovingly laid her husbands clothes out for him everyday before she left for work. Not because he was incapable or demanding, but because she loved choosing his clothes. Everyone but me jumped her case about it. How demeaning and terrible of a thing that was they said. She was so embarrassed and ashamed. That always has bothered me, that they were so judgmental towards her.

Then again, i've always felt like an oddball.

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by aishah

celebrating being a queer indigenous poor disabled femme does not mean i am saying i am better than or i am defining myself in opposition to.

but it is inherently an act of resistance because i live in a society where being white, upper class, straight, able-bodied, and conforming to heteronormative gender roles is what is celebrated and what i am measured against as a human being and told i should want to live up to.

so it might get tiring to hear that i think that femmes who don't conform to those ideals are fucking amazing. but i'm going to keep saying it because the reality is - we are constantly told we are unlovable and less than and not worthy. there are enough people in the world who celebrate june cleaver. somebody needs to celebrate us.

Thank you for stating that so well!! Celebrate Femme, please do not compare us some fantasy made up by men of what Femme is.


Celebrate us! All of us!

[blush]

While I think femmes intersect other female embodiments, I don't think we follow the same path. To say that a femme and a straight woman both shop at the same store, or share similar life experiences and are therefore more alike than they are different seems to be an over simplification.

I came out late. I am a vastly different person than I was when I was "straight." I don't like to pass because it is fundamentally not my truth. For me, it isn't a political statement or an invisibility issue, "passing" is a reminder of something I am not.

[Martina]

Originally Posted by blush

To say that a femme and a straight woman both shop at the same store, or share similar life experiences and are therefore more alike than they are different seems to be an over simplification.

That would be an oversimplification, and I don't think that's what Payne meant if you are reacting to that.

I do think that there are straight women and feminine lesbians who are thoughtful about femininity and creative in their efforts to live as healthy powerful feminine beings. That doesn't mean that they are just like femmes.

The reason that the first femme conference was organized is that some femmes went to a conference on femininity and found that their experiences WERE different than many of those they saw represented.

I also think that seeing how we have changed since we came out is different than repudiating our former selves. Haven't you met lesbians who have done that? Everything about their lives as a straight woman was a compromise, a loss, inauthentic and lesser. And maybe for some women that is true. But for some there is a strong sense of continuity of self between their straight lives and their queer lives.

Truly the points I make in that paper, assuming you are responding to that, are not directly relevant to the discussion. And I don't think they are easy to argue. I think we'll just end up saying, it depends on the femme. We're all different.

[pinkgeek]

First I'll say I don't identify with June Cleaver, never have. I don't keep house, bake cookies (except for charity events), etc. I often jokingly refer to myself as a failure of a femme because while I love my makeup, shoes, fashion and glitter I'm not June Cleaver!

I choose to spend my time on academics and work and yay for me no one expects otherwise. (In fact everyone would probably think I'd lost my mind if I wasn't knee deep in books, research and obscure medical facts) I usually hire a housekeeper and I make a mean phone call for reservations or take out. Some days I wear pearls and I rock some 50s dresses, but I have no love for the 50s or the history behind why it produced the images it did.

In my experience there are two things to be mindful of about the images/movies/TV that came out of Hollywood in the 50s and 60s and even the 70s.

First McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities played a huge part in art and culture from that era. To deviate was to be investigated and that investigation could and did ruin a lot of lives. Conversely there are some incredible queers and allies who thumbed their noses at McCarthy and survived, but that wasn't the usual outcome.

Second from Hollywood directly was the HAYS code. Women could NOT be seen to deviate from "loving their man the right way" unless the production ended with their death or suicide. An excellent example was the movie Queen Christina with Greta Garbo. For the first 3/4 of the movie we see a strong gender bending portrayal of a character and then to make sure it got past the sensors you'll see an abrupt shift to the Queen falling in love with a man and throwing it all away for him.

June Cleaver and Leave It To Beaver fall smack into both of these lovely oppressive codes. (Referred to as the HAUC & HAYS codes in our queer studies department) For Leave It To Beaver to have the run it did June had to be the way she was, same with Mary Tyler Moore, etc. I Love Lucy had more leeway, but by the end of EVERY episode she "loved" her husband.

Both of these codes also dictated how characters of color and LGBT characters were portrayed, neither in a good way. Hollywood is littered with amazing acts of defiance from that era which are really only seen on close inspection. Numerous marriages were blatant covers to protect the sexuality of many actors, directors and artists.

What anyone does in their own house, bedroom etc. with the "50s ideal" is their own thing. I won't judge cause chances are I've done or do some things that will make someone go all kinds of sideways. BUT I will say I prefer that when people make the choice to idealize anything that they are educated and understand the reality behind the glamour.

Your mileage will probably vary and pardon the typos it's 1am.

[easygoingfemme]

I think it's time to visit the Housekeeping Monthly Good Wife's Guide from 1955: Printed May 13, 1955

The Good Wife's Guide

1. Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have be thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they get home and the prospect of a good meal is part of the warm welcome needed.
2. Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you'll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people.
3. Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.
4. Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives. Run a dustcloth over the tables.
5. During the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering to his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.
6. Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum. Encourage the children to be quiet.
7. Be happy to see him.
8. Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.
9. Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first - remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.
10. Don't greet him with complaints and problems.
11. Don't complain if he's late for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through at work.
12. Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or lie him down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him.
13. Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.
14. Don't ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.
15. A good wife always knows her place.

[Medusa]

Originally Posted by Martina

That would be an oversimplification, and I don't think that's what Payne meant if you are reacting to that.

I do think that there are straight women and feminine lesbians who are thoughtful about femininity and creative in their efforts to live as healthy powerful feminine beings. That doesn't mean that they are just like femmes.

The reason that the first femme conference was organized is that some femmes went to a conference on femininity and found that their experiences WERE different than many of those they saw represented.

I also think that seeing how we have changed since we came out is different than repudiating our former selves. Haven't you met lesbians who have done that? Everything about their lives as a straight woman was a compromise, a loss, inauthentic and lesser. And maybe for some women that is true. But for some there is a strong sense of continuity of self between their straight lives and their queer lives.

Truly the points I make in that paper, assuming you are responding to that, are not directly relevant to the discussion. And I don't think they are easy to argue. I think we'll just end up saying, it depends on the femme. We're all different.

I wanted to bounce off on this a little.

I was at the Queering Femininity conference in Seattle when all of the hullabaloo went down and was one of the original founding members of the Femme Collective.

When we all heard about the conference,we were so excited about the possibility of convening with other Femmes. In our misunderstanding, we heard "Queering Femininity" and thought "Femme Conference". It couldn't have been further from the truth.

There were about 20 of us who were part of a larger tightly-knit circle of Femmes who made the journey. I roomed with WickedSuzi and another Femme. When we arrived, we quickly discovered that not only was the conference NOT a Femme Conference but that Femininity was basically being used as a cash cow for the organizer. (a Transman)

While he made no bones about the fact that he was there to make money, it felt gross to us on a lot of levels that the conference was #1 very expensive and #2 racist and classist as shit.

There were several women of color there who had either been part of the steering committee and had been summarily dismissed or had outright quit over concerns about racism and white privilege that were not being addressed. I watched as one woman of color put up a hand written manifesto on the wall as you entered the large conference area where our main speaker, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and watched two minutes later when a white woman, one of the organizers, came and scribbled some "Nu-uhs" on it.

I watched as one of the women of color later boarded the stage to talk to Aiden, the main organizer, and laid down on the stage and asked him to step over her to demonstrate what it felt like to be a woman of color at this conference. I watched in HORROR as he did.

I went to some of the only workshops I found palatable. Needless to say, "Stalking the Wild Butch" was not one of them. I listened as Gay men claimed "Femme". I listened as Straight women claimed "Femme". I listened as a Transman claimed "Femme".

I watched thousands of dollars change hands at the registration table and I watched as at least 2 young Femmes were denied entrance for not having enough money.

Needless to say, Poochie, Kenya, Marjorie, Eve, Heart, and many others convened on that Sunday after all of the "festivities" in the lobby of the hotel and came up with a plan to do it better and to do it without harm.

The first 2 Femme conferences that I worked on weren't perfect but I do still wholeheartedly think that the intent was good.

Point to all of this is that I think Femme is co-opted in a lot of ways. By people, by movements, and in ways that are really harmful to us.

I think Femme gets co-opted when it is compared to straight woman or when it is seen as Stepford pussy.

I think it is co-opted when it is seen as a way to make money or a way to further your "organizing" career with no real interest in making the Femme community better or more accessible.

I think Femmes have to constantly and consistently shield ourselves from that kind of shit and I think it can get really tiring.

I don't know what my point was now but I think it is something about how we have to keep demanding space that makes us feel honored.

[femmsational]

Can I ask two questions???


And please know that I mean NO disrespect, there is absolutely NO judgement, and I admire everybody for doing what they feel is authintic in their life.


1- When I saw Snow's first question. It seemed real simple to me. As evidenced by my response.

My question......how do we go from what *I* feel is a simple straight forward, the world was stupid, some people are still stupid answer, into a discussion of the feminist movement and the power players and et al.?

I know that sometimes I don't get down and dirty with things, but for me, the most simple answer is the most logical solution kinda thing?? Again, there is no judgement. I strictly want to understand the line of thinking. Cause maybe a little part of me feels I should go there too. you know? I really do. When I was in law school we had many courses in which we had to dig into the minds of others and I think I still have a hangover from that.


2- Medusa's last post help me formulate this question that has been bouncing around in my head for a while. Thanks Medusa!!

As a femme, I enjoy, love, need the bonding with other femmes. I love talking about what makes each one the femme they are. I like hearing histories and being invited into their lives and understanding what made them the femme they are today. However, I'm not understanding why we as femmes need to completley tear apart the meaning of femme, try to understand and put constraints on what *femme* is, is not, should be, could be...etc. Or Medusa are you talking more about just bonding discussions on a larger scale. Because I understand those. Obviously, I've never had the gift of being able to attend a conferance. And I sure am glad I missed that first one you described. I'm not nice.

It concerns me for a couple reasons if we are trying to label and define *femme.* But that's just me. And I really want to understand how other think about that?

Another note....I do COMPLETLEY agree that in the past, present and future, people have and will, display horrible bigotry towards people that are not *them*. The others I guess I'd call it. I believe that whatever group has been *othered* should stand up and call that bullshit out real quick and in a hurry!!! Actually, I feel that even when not in the *othered* group, if dumb shit behavior is displayed, you (general) should call it out. But I have concerns about how some of this sets up an us-vs-them sorta vibe which to *memememe* can be just as harming.

I'm not going real deep into my thinking because I really want to see what *you* think about my questions. Cause to me, that's WAY more interesting that thought i live with daily.

Or maybe this should be a different thread. Oh well, I just thought I'd through it out here and see.



j

[Julie]

I grew up in an unconventional home. My Mom and Dad were Hippies.. My Mom was raised beyond privileged and my father very poor. My mother informed him, she had to have her hair done every week and a housekeeper was expected. He complied and provided everything a princess could ask for.

First there was Mrs. Grimm (elderly) who made me say my prayers at night and gave me nightmares. Then came Georgia, an African American woman who cared for my sister and I, while my parents were busy living their life-style from the ages of 4 till about 10. In between a few others who didn't survive the household. Then came Olivia imported (pretty gross) by my parents from Mexico who still holds a place in my heart, that is deep and filled with admiration and love. She taught me how to love. She was 19 when she joined our family and when I say joined... She became part of us. My mother said, I ruined her.

I am not a caregiver in the sense of *June* - I do not cook and only eat, because I have to. I am lazy, beyond lazy when it comes to household prettiness. I do not prepare meals for my partner and honestly.. Could care less if my partner prepares meals for me - I don't care about food. I do want to be taken care of -- Honey, please take the garbage out and mow the lawn, so I don't break a nail. I am okay with this. Sometimes I just feel inept.

I have some pretty fucking dynamic Femme sisters here, and I am just in awe of them. They cook, they clean and they are oh so pretty while doing it - yet... These Femme's who I have mad respect and love for, are the most dynamic and powerful Femme's I have met, thus far. I can close my eyes and see a few in an apron, and it makes me smile. This does NOT diminish who they are as Femme's - They DO NOT live the 1950's stereotype - unless of course it is their kink!

This is a hard topic for me. It makes me angry and I feel repulsed, in part by me. I am not even a little bit June. I don't even have the ability to pretend to be June. Even if it were part of my kink - I couldn't do June. Nobody ever taught me how to be that woman - Olivia tried, but I failed. I was taught by Jimmy and Keith (they took me in as a runaway) how to do laundry. When I was in Australia, I was on the phone with Snow... Remember? DJ (Dreamer) was at work and I decided to be domestic. I was doing our laundry. Seriously.. Australia is still 1950's. I couldn't figure out how to hang the clothes on the line. I think you were impressed Snow (lol). I felt really proud and excited that finally - I could do something *Femme* like for my very very *Butch* partner. That little feeling of inept inside of me went away for just a moment... Until DJ came home and said honey - how cute you are! What an interesting way you hung my socks! Seriously baby? Seriously?

And it's not my parents who taught me to feel shame, or the straight women in my life... Sadly - It is my community who has instilled this sense of shame as a Femme, because I did not do (all that is femme and june like) for my partner. It is the Butches I have dated, that have judged me and some of the Femmes as well. And then came my strong fabulous Femme Sisters who whispered in my ear and reminded me, that who Julie is (me) is perfect the way she (me) is.

Julie

EDITED: As a side note. I was jealous of my friends who had *June Cleaver* households. I still am a little bit. I feel like I was denied a rite of passage, even though - the thought of this, repulses me.



Momma pretending to be the happy housewife - My father made the bottles and bathed us!