The Purse: Unpacking Femme Privilege

[Dance-with-me]

Originally Posted by Reader

Just a few thoughts. One cannot fake being a femme, nor can one fake being a butch.

Take a femme, throw her in a flannel shirt, dirty jeans and work boots and she will still scream femme.

I had to chuckle at this, remembering my pathetic attempts to do the flannel-shirt short-haired dyke routine. Maybe the dangly earrings were the problem?!?

Someone else in this thread commented about the issues the older femmes faces in the lesbian community. I started going to "lesbians united" meetings in 1979 in Dayton Ohio, and would go there right after work wearing a dress, with long hair and nothing at all about me that (to them) said "lesbian" and they didn't hesitate to tell me so - sometimes with a level of sheer meanness that makes me so amazed that I didn't just run away and stay away.

So to take it back to the point about privilege, I really do get that from the bigger picture, femmes do enjoy the privilege of "passing" but I would challenge that as a privilege. Let's put it a different way: Would I consider it a privilege that I "pass" as a Jew and people presume I'm Christian? Would I consider it a privilege if my biracial granddaughter "passed" as white? I don't know that passing as a privileged class of people is in itself a privilege FOR THAT INDIVIDUAL. There is an advantage to being able to walk into a room and have people know something about you that's an important part of your identity without your having to say a word. I can only come out by deliberate action: Telling someone that I'm gay walking on the arm of a handsome butch, for example. There's very little feeling of privilege in having to always correct people's assumptions of being straight and Christian.

[Nomad]

Originally Posted by Dance-with-me

I had to chuckle at this, remembering my pathetic attempts to do the flannel-shirt short-haired dyke routine. Maybe the dangly earrings were the problem?!?

Someone else in this thread commented about the issues the older femmes faces in the lesbian community. I started going to "lesbians united" meetings in 1979 in Dayton Ohio, and would go there right after work wearing a dress, with long hair and nothing at all about me that (to them) said "lesbian" and they didn't hesitate to tell me so - sometimes with a level of sheer meanness that makes me so amazed that I didn't just run away and stay away.

So to take it back to the point about privilege, I really do get that from the bigger picture, femmes do enjoy the privilege of "passing" but I would challenge that as a privilege. Let's put it a different way: Would I consider it a privilege that I "pass" as a Jew and people presume I'm Christian? Would I consider it a privilege if my biracial granddaughter "passed" as white? I don't know that passing as a privileged class of people is in itself a privilege FOR THAT INDIVIDUAL. There is an advantage to being able to walk into a room and have people know something about you that's an important part of your identity without your having to say a word. I can only come out by deliberate action: Telling someone that I'm gay walking on the arm of a handsome butch, for example. There's very little feeling of privilege in having to always correct people's assumptions of being straight and Christian.

(grumbling over a well thought out post that was lost when my computer crashed)

i'm working out some understanding here and you're all cracking my skull open at once so bear with me. (arrggghhhhh! the light! THE LIGHT!!!!)

what i think you're saying Dance, is that privilege can also be a twisted variety of the backhanded compliment because it is also a negation of reality -- that it doesnt have the feeling of a benefit when it diminishes who one is. am i close?

so in THAT context, privilege becomes a double edged sword and someone is going to be hurt no matter which way it swings?

(**disclaimer** i am NOT being the "oh poor me! everyone thinks i benefit because i'm (insert amazingly privileged group word here) and i dont i dont i dont! boo hoo hoo" girl. my statement is meant to indicate that i'm used to thinking of the impact of privilege as a one way street rather than wondering if damage is done no matter what side of the privilege coin one is on.)

another thing that struck me in your observation was the part about being able to walk into a room and have people understand something important about you without having to explain (or justify?) ourselves. this is an example of femme/female invisibility but not a negation of the reality of femme (straight) privilege, yes? as women we are often invisible. as straight femmes and queer femmes both we are often invisible. (i imagine that men who ID as femme are subjected to their own kind of invisibility --- it's wrong to think that the ID word "femme" is one that should be limited to female bodied people, isnt it?)

if the subject at hand were invisibility i would say that i am typically a non-entity and undefined by the normative-minded masses unless i present myself for inspection accompanied by the person who defines me in the eyes of the pigeon-hole types:

if i enter a room with a man, i'm assumed straight.
if i enter with a butch, i'm assumed queer.
if i enter with another femme, we're both invisible or we're considered meat, which is to say that someone there wants to take on the role of defining who we are (slut, conquest, new girl friend, etc) by adding themselves into the picture.

--losing my train of thought-- sorry for the ramble.

i dont know what i meant to say here. maybe just that i saw the difference between the subject of privilege and the subject of invisibility. i imagine that they overlap in some places.

i think i AM privileged in this and many other ways. i pass as straight no matter what i might do to counter that culturally accepted image and i benefit from the assumption that i am straight in that i am not ridiculed or threatened or intimidated for being other than straight. but that's a completely different issue than invisibility.

also, to adopt the 'i'm not privileged because i dont want to pass' stance might probably be just as dismissive as saying 'just because i'm white/a citizen/speak english/etc doesnt mean i'm privileged' wouldnt it? (NOT saying anyone is doing that -- just working out my jumbled thoughts aloud)

thanks for the discussion everyone. looking forward to more enlightenment.

[aishah]

i totally get what you're saying, nomad. and what dance-with-me is saying.

i have privilege because i usually pass as white - i have the privilege of not, for example, automatically being stopped by the police (although i have been for being muslim). or automatically being denied a job.

i also deal with the erasure and colonialist violence inherent in being mixed-race and indigenous. passing as white is partly a function of genocide. it erases my identity and means i often don't fit in either white or poc spaces. but it sure as hell does afford me a lot of privilege in the world in terms of getting through my day to day life.

same with being femme. it really fucking sucks not to be seen for who i am, but i also don't have to worry that someone is going to attack me for my gender presentation when i walk into a bathroom. i don't have to worry that my gender doesn't match my id. i don't have to worry that someone's going to beat me up because they automatically assume i'm queer. (unless i out myself somehow.) that is privilege. that is really really real.

[Femminator]

Sometimes I feel sad that I actually have Femme privilege,and my wife does not have it. We go places, and I see other people stare at her, because she's pretty Butch, and they don't realize that I am with her, so they are quite open with it. I try to show I am with her, to let people know we are an united front, but I get very,very frustrated.