I agree with you. I think we are speaking about femme counterparts, whether they're butch or trans.

In my butch-femme relationship, our identities and attributes interact to the extent that we define who we are to each other. I, in this b-f relationship, am probably not exactly the same as I would be in another relationship with another butch. The relationship doesn't define who I am. It impacts on other aspects of life, and, can affect them greatly. The same could be said for other identities, like who I am at work, at home, as a mother, or whatever else I assert as my role.

As blush said, I don't want to be identified by who I choose to fuck. It's one aspect of me. I agree that labels are useful. Labels and language are meaningful and powerful.That is why I have yet to find myself comfortable with being identified as a femme. I've said elsewhere, and probably here...to me, and for me, femme is an attribute, not an identity.

How do I contribute to the idea that femme is defined or refined by butch? I don't know. I don't equate the masculinity of a butch with male-centric (that means "patriarchal"--right?). I have NO expectatation of any trappings (I think they're trappings) of stereotypical male-female roles and duties in my relationship, but I don't have any problem where they would appear to be so, for me or for anyone else. I think we've come to the point where we have the right to be, without apology.

I've been working on this for far too long...might I be self-censoring? Perhaps. So, it's time to post.

I have not spent hardly any time as an unattached femme. I met someone and then immediately was defined by that person and his ID. The fact that my partner is trans has brought many suprising interactions my way both in the queer world and the straight world. I wish I could say that they were good surprises. So sometimes I feel like I have no clue who I am as a femme and that all the word means is who I am partnered with. That is why I love this thread!!!!!

I love all labels. I am a labely kind of gal. The supportive role and label we have talked about is one I don't like sometimes. As a woman I am expected to be supportive of everyone, all the time. That gets old and it is my mistake and my responsibility to support myself first always. I don't do that and that is a problem. It is the age old lament I think. When is there time for me?

Dear Poodle... Thank you for reminding June of her humanness and in doing so, reminding me.

I am a woman of peace... Conflict breaks me and the good little girl in me comes out, because sometimes my voice is lost. I flinch at a silencing hand and I dare to revolt against it.

When I find my ground and the big voiced Femme in me appears, I stand up, not to be heard, but to stand tall within myself.

I have been silenced, though only for a moment in time, as I do remember who I am, and shame on the energy who has attempted to silence me, because when I do wake up and hear the voice of the speaker, I walk, and I will walk slowly with great belief in myself. Sometimes without even uttering a goodbye.

What a brilliant topic.

Julie

Oh my! Well I was a straight married mama. I have always been queer and attracted to butches but could not figure out why I did not fit in the lesbian world. Femme was not a concept or word I was familiar with. Finding out that there was a label for how I felt was a revelation to me. I also have OCD and only was diagnosed and treated in the past two years. I am kind of new in the world in general right now. So I left my husband who was and still is abusive and came out to all my friends and family. It's been Mr Toad's wild ride here!!! It's been a year since I left and just recently I have taken a breath and assessed all the changes in my life. Some are good and some are bad. Some are inevitable and I can't control them and others are choices I can reexamine. The main thing I know is that leaving and coming out was the right decision and has made me happier and more free than I had thought possible.

Yeah, my baby and I buck each other up. But for me, I'm speaking to that public and cultural perception that femmes have. The idea that the highest compliment we can pay a femme is to say she is supportive. Yet the highest compliment we can pay our counterparts is to say they are "strong."

I'm speaking in generalities, which is always sometimes true, yanno.

I do totally agree that the answer lies within. Our own truths lie within. But its damn lonely and hard to find those truths. I know that, particularly this last year, I've missed the femme voices in the forums.

Oh hell yeah, June. I am still struggling with this issue of being silenced in ordered to conform. I've done this for years and years and years. Only lately have I found the strength to draw a line in the sand and truly stick to my personal safety boundaries.

And it is more than hard. It's like concrete with those little rocks thrown in for texture. It hurts to rub up against. I don't like it but I have to maintain it for my own good.

It causes uncomfortable silences. It makes for hard conversation. It requires blunt, raw self-honesty that does not flinch when it looks in your mirror.

It is, one might want to say, not feminine.


QUOTABLE ALERT. I want to cross-stitch this and hang it in my house. Thank you.


This space here seems to be allowing us to do that at least in this thread. I don't go into some of the other threads so I may be missing things.

This was honestly one of the best posts of this thread for me personally. I have fought with myself over this one. The thing I get hit with when I voice an unpopular opinion or speak stridently or "meanly" is that I am being "toppy".

Same thing. Apparently femme also equals submissive (can someone tell Snow that because I'm just not that brave.) So it becomes a silencer to tell someone they are being "toppy" when all they are doing is expressing an opinion.

Having a voice doesn't make you dominant . It makes you human.

Thanks, poodle. Your next haircut (topiary included) is on me.

This is going to sound harsh.

There is time for you when you make time for you. Expecting others to fulfill your needs is a waste of precious time. Do for yourself or don't get it at all.

I do not mean that your partner can not complement you as well as compliment you. Far from it.

But how tiresome would it be to feel that you have to meet your partner's every need.

So I challenge you to make time for yourself this week and stick to it. :)

Harsh away!!! I didn't take it as harsh at all. I just spent the evening with my two sisters, a friend we have known for 20 years and my niece. It is way past my bed time!! I had a delightful evening.

I appreciated this post....so much.

And I guess I'm oblivious and/or naive....as I didn't realize that there WAS a 'public & cultural perception' with other femmes.....now....when I lived as a wife in the church of Christ? Oh HELL yeah.....it was that "good little woman" syndrome....can You even imagine me in that role? I was very good. But I nearly lost my sanity because I nearly lost myself.:twitch:

And now You know.

Indeed. To find our own truths can sometimes be lonely. But once they're found, they're so liberating.

I love this thread!:stillheart:

I loved this, Junebug.

You are so mighty, mighty.

Femme certainly means different things to different people. For some femmes, it is their gender, for others, it is their sexuality, and for others, it is a descriptor.

For me, masculinity simply describes the energy. Our counterparts are more masculine than femmes.

My understanding of male-centric is a "centering" or anchoring of our community(butch-femme) around masculinity. It differs, in my mind, from patriarchy because we do not depend upon a "father-figure."

Yeah...It's that whole "you throw ALMOST as good as a boy."


Aren't there always private and public perceptions of just about anything? The public/private perception of a teacher? A doctor? A mother? A wife?

Laughing at you as a COC wife...JesusChristonacracker...

LOL! That pretty much sums it up, for sure!
:laundryday:

I have been reading and rereading this thread, trying to wrap my head around some of the points of view and perspectives. Some things really hit home… others not so much, but I recognize that they are valid points of view.

What I am hearing is a majority consensus that we femmes are seen as supporting cast members rather than the headliners.

That we are seen as “less than” our masculine counterparts.

That we are seen as “less than” in our queer community.

That we have been silenced because our presenting energy isn’t masculine.

That we are the sum of our roles rather than an entity in our own right.

I also think that quite a bit of what is being spoken here is very generalized and vague. Perhaps it’s just that I am not in the majority in my experiences of navigating the world as a femme. Maybe it’s that like for some, femme is just another facet of me. If I start listing all that is Christie, femme, while important, is just an ingredient in the recipe of me.

While I can certainly understand all of these things, for the most part, they just don’t apply to me; or at least they don’t apply to the majority of my lived years. Is it that I feel like they don’t apply in my “real life” and that I see it happening more in online communities? Have we considered that the surge in BDSMers in the BF world might have something to do with the perceptions of being silenced, of being seen as less than and in a supportive role? It seems that the majority of kinksters in the Top realm of power exchange relationships are predominantly masculine and that most bottoms are feminine. That in M/s dynamics, the “s” is akin to chattel, without a voice or expected to have/use a brain, that in D/s, a submissive is consenting to the Dominant’s will.

I would hope that no one interprets my observation above about BDSM as anything but more in that I think as the subcultures of the queer world grow and expand, so does the coloring of our perceptions. I think that as a subculture within a subculture (BDSM within BF) becomes more highly visible and is the “chatter (latest, greatest new thing)” that “voice” or that image can be seen as the collective view.

In my early adulthood, yes, I tried to live the life my parents mapped out for me. It was very apparent to me that I could never be “that” woman. In the end, I had to give myself permission to live my own life. I think that all young adults, no matter gender or ID, have to move through this process.

Even in living that lie, I was still who I am today. Perhaps not as enhanced and evolved, but the core of who I am has always been there. Different qualities taking on more presence, or less presence, as I grew, matured and moved through the world.

There was a point made by evolveme about who we are outside our roles. For me, I think that even in shedding the labels, the attributes of that role are still present. For example, if I had not had the role of “mother”, I would still be a nurturer. I don’t think I would have quite the same depth of nurturing ability. For me, being a mother makes me be “better.” My perception of what being a mother means has meant those qualities, which I already possessed, were brought to the surface and utilized and challenged.

I don’t use males or masculinity as the scale by which I am measured, unless, of course, it’s to be superior. I never “threw a ball like a girl”; I always “threw a ball better than anyone else.”

I do think that my motherinlaw’s view of women has caused me to be more in “competition” with what she considers male superiority. When we were taking bids for floor refinishing, she said something about my crackhead, IQ of a piece of cardboard brotherinlaw and how she wanted to rent the equipment for him to refinish his own floors. I looked at Jess and said, “Oh fuck that. If he can do it, so can we.” Moral of the story, four weeks of backbreaking labor and love and we have amazing floors… all done at the hands of two women.

A man who inherited the business from his father employs me. Both are very staunch, conservative republicans with stay home wives and are both the walking, breathing epitome of male privilege. They had never had a woman in power at their company, in its entire 56 year history until I joined them 1.5 years ago. I could tell at the beginning that I would have to stand toe to toe with the elder so as to not be pigeonholed into what I felt his ideas of my role would be. The son, who is my age, has said that I have changed his father’s perceptions of women. Just last week, I was promoted and will be taking over the helm of the business in January. I am not so naïve as to think that I won’t have a struggle ahead of me just because I wasn’t born with a penis.

I am a strong, independent, intelligent, feminine, imperfectly perfect, simply complex, female entity. My relationship does not define me. My partnering with a beautifully exquisite masculine female does not define me. Demanding that my voice be heard does not make me less feminine. It does not make me more masculine. Running the world and being Queen of all I see doesn’t make me less feminine or more masculine. It just makes me intelligently strong. It’s just me.

For me, it’s not about letting the world chose my role within it… It’s about me choosing how I am viewed in the world.

Christie