June Cleaver : Femme Friend or Femme Foe

[Martina]

Originally Posted by femmsational

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.

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?

j

I think it's a bad idea to insist on some kind of public definition for femme although we all have our own. I think femme exists. We can attest to that. It can be named. But defining it will inevitably exclude. Iamkeri's definition is exclusionary. It would exclude me, for example. There are some amazing discussions about what it means to be African American. Finally, it comes down to being subjected to the kind of racism we in this country reserve for that group.

We can talk about what it MEANS to be femme, and I think those conversations are valuable. They include descriptions of our sexuality, our aesthetics, our politics, our humor, our experiences with invisibility, and so on. They will vary widely. That is the stuff out of which some sense of what femme means comes. And it should stay as unformed as that. IMO. As Judith Butler says, you have to risk a little incoherence for connection to be possible.

Part of allowing for incoherence means that the cooptation that Medusa decries is even easier. I don't favor policing our boundaries. People will coopt femme. That stuff happens, and policing it is pointless. If you start policing such things, you will end up policing one another too -- and excluding.

In a way, this discussion is very uncomfortable. I have no stake in arguing with Iamkeri. I have read her posts and respected them for a long time. I respect how she lives her life. But she just told me I am not femme. I had an emotional reaction to that even though I grant her definition no authority over me. I think these conversations are valuable, but they are not without risk. I think, femmsational, you are acknowledging that in your expression of concern.

But they are also valuable. That thread about femmes fucking femmes was very helpful to me. MY personal perception lately has been that the way femme is here has been narrowing a bit. I am so not going to take that on. If my feelings about that had remained unchanged, I imagine my partipation would have waned. That thread gave me a real lift, opened things up for me. I appreciated it.