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Old 05-27-2010, 07:48 AM   #21
Heart
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Do you use the term "woman" as part of your identity?

Yes, unequivocally. My gender is woman (not femme).

What does it mean to you to use/not use the term "woman?"

I have always identified as/with women, but that identification has morphed, grown, changed, and deepened over the years as my own awareness and activism on behalf of women as a group has grown.

Does tension/discomfort exist for you in using the term "woman" together with butch, femme, queer, or any of your other identity definers? If so, why?

I do experience some tensions, yes. The term woman is weighted with assumptions that can feel rigid and limiting to me. Some of what woman conjures are things I am not always comfortable identifying with, even when they are things that are part of me -- submission, yielding, softness, motherhood, for example. Traditional notions of womanhood are rooted in the kind of sexism and misogyny that results in oppression and huge amounts of violence towards women. The very word “womanhood” can make me cringe because of the narrow oppressive ground/roles upon which it tries to force women to stand; and punishes them if they stray. Being a woman can be dangerous, scary.

If you do not use the term "woman" how did you come to the decision not to?

I never considered not using the term woman. But I do use it very consciously now. I use it in part because it feels natural to me, it is me; but I also use it because I want to claim it, I want to demonstrate that woman can mean queer, old, disabled, single, etc. Woman can be not-mother, not-soft, not-yielding, not-submissive, etc. Woman can be feminine in traditional and non-traditional ways. Woman can also be butch, lesbian, masculine, etc.
How is "woman" different from "female" (and I don't mean in the academic sense, but in the lived experience sense).

I don’t resonate with the word female. It sounds biologically based to me, and although biology is an aspect of gender and identity, and may be analogous to woman in some cases, I actually see/feel distinctions. To me, female feels narrow and concrete, woman feels related to history, to cultural, social, and political contexts that are important to me. Solidarity with diverse women throughout the world who do not have the option to parse their identities is important to me.

What does "woman" mean?

It’s a vast landscape of possibilities, potential, communities, images, visions, wisdom, roles, resistance, courage and power.

What does "woman" not mean?

It does not mean vagina. It does not mean mainstream notions of femininity. It does not mean mother, victim, catty bitch, manipulative, bimbo, bottom, or any expected, coerced, stereotyped role of womanhood. A woman may be these things, but these things are not, ipso facto, what a woman is.

I have noticed that I am not the only one who feels that using the term “woman” connects me to a history, exists in a context that has to do with culture and politics. While woman can simply be a fact, it is also, for me, a politicized identity.

By post-gender, I meant a world in which there is no longer any reason to politicize a gender identity. And no, we do not live in that world. Not when it comes to women.

I will be post-gender in the post-patricarhy.
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