Changing last names

[Cin]

I am talking about the 70s not the 40s or 50s so that might make a difference.

[Martina]

Originally Posted by Miss Tick

I am talking about the 70s not the 40s or 50s so that might make a difference.

I doubt it. I think it's all true, what I am saying AND what you are. I think a lot of those femmes had a lot more power than it may have looked like from the outside, as did some straight women. There was not much social reinforcement of the power of butch women in their relationships. And no economic or state. I definitely saw women adopt roles in their relationships. Of course they did. But it was different from heterosexual relationships, and their understanding of it was very different from what we imagine it was like.

Yes, gender roles were a given, and some folks were pretty entrenched in them. Probably some of those relationships were made miserable because of that. And some worked well. But I think that folks worked out all kinds of variations on a theme. Straight people did too, but lesbians had less social pressure on them and therefore more freedom to do what worked for them.

And it looked way different to me. So much emphasis on making the femme happy. And not just from stone butches. And not just in the courting phase. That was kind of the center of the connection, not the butch's masculinity or the femme's femininity. Yeah, people grooved on that. That was the source of a lot of the heat. And of course it was part of people's personal identity. But it wasn't as defining as it is now. Nor was it defining of the dynamic. It just wasn't.

I will say that the women I knew at the time were older. Older folks in long-term relationships work things out and mellow. Plus times were already changing.

What I was reacting to was the statement that the dance was somehow first and foremost about gender roles. We emphasize some parts of these identities and interactions more than they did. They emphasized others. Pleasing the femme is still important. But if you watch some unreflective young butches now, you'd never get that. It would seem to be ALL about gender performance. It was about gender performance then too. There were codes of dress. But it WAS different. Every social construct changes over time, and if it is maintained, people later in the timeline assume what they experience was always the case. Not so.

I will add that -- not just to you -- but can you imagine how brave femmes were at the time? How incredibly brave. These were not, in general, people who were thrown out of their families for being dykey-looking. They stepped away from privilege and safety by choice. And while the old ethos was that butches "protected" their femmes, it seemed to me that in many ways, it was the other way around. Femmes patched up butches up emotionally and physically, but they also stood with them side by side and took all the social disapproval and some of the violence meted out to such couples.

And the butch and femme women I met -- mostly through politics -- were on the left, members of unions and long-time fighters for social justice. They believed in the equality of women. That had to have affected the way they lived their personal lives.

I will also add that I sure never denied the degree of violence and hatred directed toward gay people from the outside. So that part of your post puzzled me.

[Cin]

Originally Posted by Martina

I will also add that I sure never denied the degree of violence and hatred directed toward gay people from the outside. So that part of your post puzzled me.

I didn’t mean to make it about violence directed toward gay people. There was violence directed toward lots of people. Violence was part of the fabric of people’s daily lives. It still is I’m sure. But violence directed toward gay people was not the point I was making. I can see I do way too much meandering when I write a post. Sorry. It was about how butches dealt with the violence that I was talking about and how that affected me as a kid. It was impressive to me at that time. I wanted to be that. I wanted to be a dangerous butch when I grew up. And then I talked about how as I got older I moved away from wanting to emulate the butches I knew because of some of the things I saw in their relationships. And then how I worked through that and back out the other side.

And for me it still is about making my wife happy. Even though I know I cannot be responsible for another person’s happiness, I just make damn sure I am never responsible for her unhappiness. That seems to work pretty well.

[Cin]

Originally Posted by Martina

I doubt it. I think it's all true, what I am saying AND what you are. I think a lot of those femmes had a lot more power than it may have looked like from the outside, as did some straight women. There was not much social reinforcement of the power of butch women in their relationships. And no economic or state. I definitely saw women adopt roles in their relationships. Of course they did. But it was different from heterosexual relationships, and their understanding of it was very different from what we imagine it was like.

And I was very young when I become aware of butches. I barely registered femmes until I got a bit older. My interpretations may be skewed by my limited understanding of what I was seeing. But we interpret the world the way we see it and form our personal beliefs based on these experiences, even though they may be skewed for a variety of reasons. I have no doubt it isn't as simple as my 10 year old brain imagined. And just like now, there is no one way of being butch or femme or being in a butch femme relationship. Your original post that i responded to just struck me and brought up some deeply entrenched memories. So i was like, that's wasn't my experience. I don't think entrenched is exactly the word i'm looking for. Deeply moving, deeply important, deeply personal, deeply affecting, damn I hate it when I can't find the right word.

[Apocalipstic]

Really interesting and thought provoking thread!

As a child coming up in the 60's, 70's and 80's I strongly knew I would never get married and if I did...I would keep my name.

Older now. For me, if I think of things in a heteronormative sense, it would make more sense to take the name of the Butch I love, rather than have that of my abusive father, though I have made peace with that
name.

I don't know if I ever will be in a marriage situation, at 50 it seems unlikely, though not out of the question. I'm really not sure what I would do.

[imperfect_cupcake]

everyone is still, even though ive said it four times now doing this

heteronormative ritual = bad.

yes of course I got my feminine rituals from a white middle class heteronrmative culture. duh. I didnt grow up in a vaccume. I had to do years and years of work to understand which things I was doing because I adored them and which things I did because I was afaird not to, or which things I did because I hadn't thougjt about not doing them.

it took me a good 8 years of pretty full on self deconstruction.

if I took someone's name I would be doing it by choose but its *still* a white European heterosexual ritual. to say it isnt is like saying you got it from matrians or made it up yourself. do I own that it is (acknowledge this where I borrowing it from?). YES.

why is that so hard? I took some Jewish dutch heterosexual rituals too, cause that was my wife's back ground and her upbringing.

I dont see people really grasping what I'm saying yet.

[Martina]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

to say it isnt is like saying you got it from matrians or made it up yourself. do I own that it is (acknowledge this where I borrowing it from?). YES.

why is that so hard?

who is saying this? where else would it come from? I do think when material conditions are different, the same "content" can look the same, but not BE the same. But I've beaten that dead horse too.

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

everyone is still, even though ive said it four times now doing this

heteronormative ritual = bad.

yes of course I got my feminine rituals from a white middle class heteronrmative culture. duh. I didnt grow up in a vaccume. I had to do years and years of work to understand which things I was doing because I adored them and which things I did because I was afaird not to, or which things I did because I hadn't thougjt about not doing them.

it took me a good 8 years of pretty full on self deconstruction.

if I took someone's name I would be doing it by choose but its *still* a white European heterosexual ritual. to say it isnt is like saying you got it from matrians or made it up yourself. do I own that it is (acknowledge this where I borrowing it from?). YES.

why is that so hard? I took some Jewish dutch heterosexual rituals too, cause that was my wife's back ground and her upbringing.

I dont see people really grasping what I'm saying yet.

i thought it was a given that we adopted this practice as most of out other ones from straight folks.

Not sure what you were exactly looking for, but for me, it was just a given.