amazon_syren (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
amazon_syren) wrote2007-01-20 06:44 pm
amazon_syren) wrote2007-01-20 06:44 pm
Entry tags:
Femme/Feminine
Further to this post, I present more thoughts on the concept of 'femme' as it applies to me. :-)
See, apparently the whole 'butch'/'femme' pairing/dichotomy is more common in working-class lesbian communities.
As such, it's not that surprising that many of the contributors to Femme: Feminists, Lesbians, & Bad Girls come from working-class back grounds. Many of them also come from non-white back grounds -- which, given that the social stratification of the US is even more racially based than it is here, is also not that surprising.
Anyway. What I'm getting at is that, because I come from a different socio/economic background than many/most of these writers, my experience of 'feminine' (and, given the age difference between these authors and me, also 'feminist') will, likewise, be different.
So.
I site an example. In "I'll be the Girl: generations of Fem" (Joan Nestle & Barbara Cruikshank), Barbara Cruikshank states that 'feminine', in the community where she grew up, meant being saddled with kids, a factory job, the high liklihood of spousal abuse, and a high level of (financial, if nothing else) dependency.
As such, for her, 'fem(me)' and 'feminine' are two different things. For her, 'fem(me)' is... empowering. A persona that one puts on to ensure that one never settles for second best, that one gets exactly what one wants and needs, whereas femininity meant being power-less, weak, vulnerable, breakable and *having* to settle for the worst of everything.
My background is white, middle class, and very educated. There was never any question that I would go to university. It was just the thing that you did after highschool, and the thought of not going never occurred to me.
My mother belonged to CFUW, so most of her friends were also highly educated (and many of them were career women instead of, or in addition to, being mothers).
My mom would host these evenings at her house, where diplomats and professors and CEOs and what-not would come over for tea and a lecture on something or other.
And everyone would dress up.
So, for me, feminine has never, *ever* meant 'powerless'. Feminine is intelligent women drinking tea out of delicate china cups and talking about environmentalism or politics or music, dressed in skirt-suits and coctail dresses, with silk scarves draped around their necks and exotic rings on their fingers.
So, for me, 'feminine' means being able to be glamourous and sparkling and vivacious despite the fact that you are not independently wealthy, despite the fact that you've got three kids under the age of ten, despite the fact that you've got a crushing mortgage and a hopelessly boring day-job. It means finding time, despite all that, to keep learning, to have intelligent, grown up discussions with like-minded women, to wear the good jewellery and to use the good china, and to know that you deserve this good stuff, that you deserve the best, because you've damn well earned it.
Another image of femininity is... a sound. *click-clack* *click-clack*.
Teacher shoes.
High-heeled feet marching down tiled hallways: authority in a demure skirt and blouse. (Go on, push my sexy-librarian buttons. ;-) No wonder I get crushes on my professors. :-)
Anyway. I discuss all this 'femininity' stuff because, for me, to be 'femme' is to be 'feminine'. The two aren't mutually exclusive, and the power of the femme is not in subverting femininity but in embodying it. Power-full, play-full, beauty-full. Female, feminine, feminist, famme, femme.
I am all these things. :-)
See, apparently the whole 'butch'/'femme' pairing/dichotomy is more common in working-class lesbian communities.
As such, it's not that surprising that many of the contributors to Femme: Feminists, Lesbians, & Bad Girls come from working-class back grounds. Many of them also come from non-white back grounds -- which, given that the social stratification of the US is even more racially based than it is here, is also not that surprising.
Anyway. What I'm getting at is that, because I come from a different socio/economic background than many/most of these writers, my experience of 'feminine' (and, given the age difference between these authors and me, also 'feminist') will, likewise, be different.
So.
I site an example. In "I'll be the Girl: generations of Fem" (Joan Nestle & Barbara Cruikshank), Barbara Cruikshank states that 'feminine', in the community where she grew up, meant being saddled with kids, a factory job, the high liklihood of spousal abuse, and a high level of (financial, if nothing else) dependency.
As such, for her, 'fem(me)' and 'feminine' are two different things. For her, 'fem(me)' is... empowering. A persona that one puts on to ensure that one never settles for second best, that one gets exactly what one wants and needs, whereas femininity meant being power-less, weak, vulnerable, breakable and *having* to settle for the worst of everything.
My background is white, middle class, and very educated. There was never any question that I would go to university. It was just the thing that you did after highschool, and the thought of not going never occurred to me.
My mother belonged to CFUW, so most of her friends were also highly educated (and many of them were career women instead of, or in addition to, being mothers).
My mom would host these evenings at her house, where diplomats and professors and CEOs and what-not would come over for tea and a lecture on something or other.
And everyone would dress up.
So, for me, feminine has never, *ever* meant 'powerless'. Feminine is intelligent women drinking tea out of delicate china cups and talking about environmentalism or politics or music, dressed in skirt-suits and coctail dresses, with silk scarves draped around their necks and exotic rings on their fingers.
So, for me, 'feminine' means being able to be glamourous and sparkling and vivacious despite the fact that you are not independently wealthy, despite the fact that you've got three kids under the age of ten, despite the fact that you've got a crushing mortgage and a hopelessly boring day-job. It means finding time, despite all that, to keep learning, to have intelligent, grown up discussions with like-minded women, to wear the good jewellery and to use the good china, and to know that you deserve this good stuff, that you deserve the best, because you've damn well earned it.
Another image of femininity is... a sound. *click-clack* *click-clack*.
Teacher shoes.
High-heeled feet marching down tiled hallways: authority in a demure skirt and blouse. (Go on, push my sexy-librarian buttons. ;-) No wonder I get crushes on my professors. :-)
Anyway. I discuss all this 'femininity' stuff because, for me, to be 'femme' is to be 'feminine'. The two aren't mutually exclusive, and the power of the femme is not in subverting femininity but in embodying it. Power-full, play-full, beauty-full. Female, feminine, feminist, famme, femme.
I am all these things. :-)