The Purse: Unpacking Femme Privilege

[ButterflyKisses]

I don’t think of passing as straight as a privilege. True, no one cares when I enter a public restroom; no one hurls gay slurs at me when I’m walking around by myself. But I do get drunken idiots who assume I'm straight, and that they have a right to grab me. I have gotten cat calls and crude sexual comments that made me want to carry around a bat and curl up in a ball at the same time. As many femmes here probably have.

On the flip side (while I'm not Butch and would never pretend to know what that feels like) I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, past the wrong side of the tracks. Clerks would follow me around in stores, would ask me if I was in the right place, or even kick me out. My face still burns at those memories and I have a hard time talking about my past. Of being judge instantly as a deviant or “un-normal” because of the way I looked and dressed, and where I was from.

People see what they want to see. Whether it’s as someone who fits society "norms" or not, both sides have their share of bad and good.

[MsMerrick]

My thoughts..
The other day, I had a .. shift or a moment.. when I felt deeply , how much I can never really experience or know, what it is like, to always steel oneself, before going to a public bathroom, and other such things that being clearly Butch, lends it self to.
I think that some of the thoughts i have had recently, concerning how there's no way to convey, how demoralizing and tiring it is, to constantly have to think in terms of how many steps are involved in any journey around town, something that is a recent fun thing in my life , due to my knees and other conditions.. That something I never noticed, because i didn't have to.. when I was younger .
Maybe it was some conversation with a Butch friend, I really don't know.. I just know that moment for me..happened.. and I got, that its not something I can ever fully comprehend..though I can and do empathize.
I thought I already understood it, but this emotion that passed through me, made it clear that I didn't.
But yes, is this a cisgendered privilege or a Femme one?
I tend to go with cisgendered.
I also am tending to think, that that is pretty much the privilege from which most others spring .
While I understand Heart's deep suspicion that being seen as female, in this society, is not quite all that privileged, even so, it is an "extra" in too many instances, and one in which everyone should be able to partake, not just those that are in conformity with, a general idea of what female looks like..
Within the queer context, its NOT such a good thing, and many people have already mentioned this. Yep,, I too tire of coming out over and over.. to groups people etc..
Actually , most of the masculine appearing woman I know, have also been hot on, and although they are usually pretty surprised, its a real example of the sexist way society operates..

[Diva]

Well.

Some of these posts have made me cry. And they have made me think. And they have pissed me off. And they have given me the courage to say the following....

I came out later than some ~ I was 36. I'm not sure why I landed in Dallas, but I did. My future partner, with some mutual friends who wanted us to meet, saw me first and said, "She's not a lesbian! She's somebody's MOTHER!"

At first, I want You to know, I was incredulous at best. What???

Well....from that point on, I began to notice that we were always stared at/glared at in public. I hated that, but soon, I learned to stare them down because, by God, I wanted them to know that *I* was a lesbian, TOO, dammit!

And there is privilege coming out of every pore, even now. These days, financially, I guess I would be considered poor, but I have an upper~middle class mentality. I grew up in a white collar household, though my parents were both very frugal. I don't have to worry about going into the bathroom....there are never raised eyebrows there. And, like Merrick, the thought of having to 'steel oneself' is a foreign thought to me. I can't even imagine, though I know it is a reality.

But now, I am reading that the GOP ~ for their convention (in Texas, I'm sad to say) ~ has made their platform known, in that they will 'officially' state that homosexuality should be punished with incarceration .....that marriage should only take place between a "natural man and a natural woman"....and that anyone who performs a marriage for anyone other than those 2 folks will also subject themselves to incarceration.

And in seeing that this morning, I felt as thought it was now time (past time, actually) for me to flush my privilege down my Queer Toilet and scream very loudly against THEIR privilege, which takes away mine and those I love.

[Diva]

Jeez, I hope ANY of that made sense....in reading it over again, it seems disjointed at best....my apologies....I have a bazillion thoughts bouncing all around in my brain on this subject......one post just won't cover it all.....

My heart's in the right place....whether my brain is or not.....

[Kätzchen]

Originally Posted by Diva

Well.

Some of these posts have made me cry. And they have made me think. And they have pissed me off. And they have given me the courage to say the following....

I came out later than some ~ I was 36. I'm not sure why I landed in Dallas, but I did. My future partner, with some mutual friends who wanted us to meet, saw me first and said, "She's not a lesbian! She's somebody's MOTHER!"

At first, I want You to know, I was incredulous at best. What???

Well....from that point on, I began to notice that we were always stared at/glared at in public. I hated that, but soon, I learned to stare them down because, by God, I wanted them to know that *I* was a lesbian, TOO, dammit!

And there is privilege coming out of every pore, even now. These days, financially, I guess I would be considered poor, but I have an upper~middle class mentality. I grew up in a white collar household, though my parents were both very frugal. I don't have to worry about going into the bathroom....there are never raised eyebrows there. And, like Merrick, the thought of having to 'steel oneself' is a foreign thought to me. I can't even imagine, though I know it is a reality.

But now, I am reading that the GOP ~ for their convention (in Texas, I'm sad to say) ~ has made their platform known, in that they will 'officially' state that homosexuality should be punished with incarceration .....that marriage should only take place between a "natural man and a natural woman"....and that anyone who performs a marriage for anyone other than those 2 folks will also subject themselves to incarceration.

And in seeing that this morning, I felt as thought it was now time (past time, actually) for me to flush my privilege down my Queer Toilet and scream very loudly against THEIR privilege, which takes away mine and those I love.

DIVA, do you mind if I use your thoughts as a segueway for mine?

Your last paragraph above, comes closest to what's been on my mind about "privilege."

In my mind, privilege finds its roots in the idea that who we are, what we do, how we live, what systems of beliefs and values we own are at risk when it comes to whether we are accepted by others or choose to accept others into our lives. We (the general "we") experience privilege when we find ourselves granted the favor of social acceptance. But at what cost do we accept that privilege???

And that's just it - the cost factor - when it comes down to how I make decisions about whether or not I experience privilege or align myself with others who might believe similarly to how I might make sense of my world or the world at large or am willing to accept privilege in all its shape-shifting forms.

At what cost am I willing to experience privilege if the end-goal results in minimizing or marginalizing the identity, lifestyle or political gems that comprise who each of us are individually as people who long to find community that is willing to embrace us for who we are?

It's complicated, this thing called "privilege."

I want to say that I would be strong enough on my own and not be in need of being granted a particular construct of what privilege can mean. What I am trying to say is that, when privilege comes knocking at my "door" - there's always the risk that a person may have to compromise their views, their identity, their anything and sometimes I am not all that willing to compromise - even if it falls under the rubric of finding common interests that might facilate a larger-scaled social model of acceptance of that which is not all that common.


In other words, the term "Privilege" (to me) means a particular form of inequity and I'm not so sure how equitable privilege will ever be when it comes down to the cost of accepting privilege if it means that I will never be accepted unless I do "X, Y & Z" to earn favor (the privilege) to be me.

I'm not sure if I have conveyed all that is on my mind about privilege, but I remain open to dialogue and discussion of how we perceive what privilege means to each of us in this community.

~ALK

[jelli]

Originally Posted by Diva

Well.

Some of these posts have made me cry. And they have made me think. And they have pissed me off. And they have given me the courage to say the following....

I came out later than some ~ I was 36. I'm not sure why I landed in Dallas, but I did. My future partner, with some mutual friends who wanted us to meet, saw me first and said, "She's not a lesbian! She's somebody's MOTHER!"

At first, I want You to know, I was incredulous at best. What???

Well....from that point on, I began to notice that we were always stared at/glared at in public. I hated that, but soon, I learned to stare them down because, by God, I wanted them to know that *I* was a lesbian, TOO, dammit!

And there is privilege coming out of every pore, even now. These days, financially, I guess I would be considered poor, but I have an upper~middle class mentality. I grew up in a white collar household, though my parents were both very frugal. I don't have to worry about going into the bathroom....there are never raised eyebrows there. And, like Merrick, the thought of having to 'steel oneself' is a foreign thought to me. I can't even imagine, though I know it is a reality.

But now, I am reading that the GOP ~ for their convention (in Texas, I'm sad to say) ~ has made their platform known, in that they will 'officially' state that homosexuality should be punished with incarceration .....that marriage should only take place between a "natural man and a natural woman"....and that anyone who performs a marriage for anyone other than those 2 folks will also subject themselves to incarceration.

And in seeing that this morning, I felt as thought it was now time (past time, actually) for me to flush my privilege down my Queer Toilet and scream very loudly against THEIR privilege, which takes away mine and those I love.

{{{{{Diva}}}}}