June Cleaver : Femme Friend or Femme Foe

[Martina]

Originally Posted by aishah

to me, being femme is largely about interpreting femininity in ways that are queer and subversive.

It is not to me. My femininity is really very like my mother's. I actually do feel that it connects me to straight women in many ways, and I celebrate that. I actually think it's dangerous to repudiate that. But that's another thread. (I actually wrote a paper on this, which I presented to a bored crowd at the first femme conference. It's a pet peeve of mine.)

[aishah]

Originally Posted by Martina

It is not to me. My femininity is really very like my mother's. I actually do feel that it connects me to straight women in many ways, and I celebrate that. I actually think it's dangerous to repudiate that. But that's another thread. (I actually wrote a paper on this, which I presented to a bored crowd at the first femme conference. It's a pet peeve of mine.)

i'd be interested to hear more of your thoughts on that. i definitely don't ever see my views on this changing but i'm curious to know how others understand femme for themselves.

i don't think any one view of femme should be or is universal, but for me at least, june cleaver as a paragon of what it means to be femme is absolutely fucked up. and really soul crushing. i'm glad some people see it differently...femme can hold so many different meanings for different people. but for me, to embrace june cleaver as a role model would be dangerous. not the other way around.

(i guess in many ways my femininity is like my mother's, too, but my mother was the antithesis of june cleaver, LOL.)

[Martina]

Yeah, my mother, not June Cleaver. What I was disagreeing with -- for me -- was femme as by definition subversive, femme as performing femininity free from sexism and oppression (would that were true). That shit gets way old.

Originally Posted by aishah

i'd be interested to hear more of your thoughts on that. i definitely don't ever see my views on this changing but i'm curious to know how others understand femme for themselves.

i don't think any one view of femme should be or is universal, but for me at least, june cleaver as a paragon of what it means to be femme is absolutely fucked up. and really soul crushing. i'm glad some people see it differently...femme can hold so many different meanings for different people. but for me, to embrace june cleaver as a role model would be dangerous. not the other way around.

(i guess in many ways my femininity is like my mother's, too, but my mother was the antithesis of june cleaver, LOL.)

[aishah]

Originally Posted by Martina

Yeah, my mother, not June Cleaver. What I was disagreeing with -- for me -- was femme as by definition subversive, femme as performing femininity free from sexism and oppression (would that were true). That shit gets way old.

okay, i'm trying to wrap my head around that. i don't think it's possible to perform femininity (or anything) free from sexism and oppression. i also don't necessarily see being femme as a performance but as an identity. but as someone who has experienced being shamed a LOT for being femme, among other things, to celebrate queer femininity as a form of resistance is empowering - to me, anyway.

in another thread (i don't remember which), there was a discussion of butch as a form of queer masculinity (specifically as butch being -queer- masculinity). in a world where sexism, transmisogyny, and heteronormativity are what is celebrated and what we are measured against as human beings, personally, i'm not interested in celebrating or embodying more of the same.

i'm even more disgusted by june cleaver as an icon in particular because she is white and middle/upper class, and honestly, as a poor indigenous woman, it gets REALLY fucking old to be compared or measured against some sort of white middle/upper class feminine ideal. i mean, it makes me REALLY sick. because that shit has been going on forever and it is disgusting and it is everywhere and it is pushed on me all the time. fuck that.

edited to add: i would rather celebrate leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha, aurora levins morales, audre lorde, june jordan, frida kahlo, minnie bruce pratt, chrystos, or any number of other femmes who have lives and experiences that in some way resemble my own, and who are doing really amazing shit for themselves and their communities. not a woman who i've always been told i (and women like me) should kill ourselves to be like and who i could never possibly measure up to even if i really wanted to.

[Martina]

I get that. But I don't want to define myself as femme in OPPOSITION to straight women or feminine lesbians. I don't want to lose my solidarity with them. I also think some of them are doing incredible things to create a space where femininity is powerful. I want to acknowledge that we are in this together. I am not better or substantially different because I am queer.

Also it's perfectly fine -- imo -- to wear your femininity in a comfortable way, in a non-transgressive, this is how my mother did it, way. That's good too. My femmeness is not any more transgressive than many straight women's. I learn a lot from them. I am in it with them. That's how I feel.

I do not think queer femmes say this as much as they used to, but it used to be in every statement of we are fabulous femmes, this is who we are. Not so much anymore, thank heavens.

[aishah]

celebrating being a queer indigenous poor disabled femme does not mean i am saying i am better than or i am defining myself in opposition to.

but it is inherently an act of resistance because i live in a society where being white, upper class, straight, able-bodied, and conforming to heteronormative gender roles is what is celebrated and what i am measured against as a human being and told i should want to live up to.

so it might get tiring to hear that i think that femmes who don't conform to those ideals are fucking amazing. but i'm going to keep saying it because the reality is - we are constantly told we are unlovable and less than and not worthy. there are enough people in the world who celebrate june cleaver. somebody needs to celebrate us.

[Martina]

I don't disagree with any of that. I am really making a different point, one I am not even that invested in making right now.

Originally Posted by aishah

celebrating being a queer indigenous poor disabled femme does not mean i am saying i am better than or i am defining myself in opposition to.

but it is inherently an act of resistance because i live in a society where being white, upper class, straight, able-bodied, and conforming to heteronormative gender roles is what is celebrated and what i am measured against as a human being and told i should want to live up to.

so it might get tiring to hear that i think that femmes who don't conform to those ideals are fucking amazing. but i'm going to keep saying it because the reality is - we are constantly told we are unlovable and less than and not worthy. there are enough people in the world who celebrate june cleaver. somebody needs to celebrate us.

[JustJo]

I, too, am loving this conversation....loving that femmes of all kinds of perspectives are coming in here and speaking from their hearts and minds. Beautiful.

I also love that there's enough room for all of us. I, personally, can't relate to the issues and feelings that femmes of color have shared because I haven't walked in those shoes, but I can relate to hearing over and over the "not good enough" message though - in my case because I was overweight, extremely poor, and dressing out of the Goodwill box in Southern California in the 70s....while all the other girls were rocking their Farrah Fawcett hairdos and getting a brand-new Camaro from Daddy on their 16th birthday.

I so hear you dee about the escapism of those shows. I used to go to a friend's house and watch The Brady Bunch like it was some kind of divine message. My fantasy was to have a mother that really was one, a father that was present (for a start), dinner on the table, and siblings that I didn't have to barricade myself in the bathroom from to escape serious injury.

My version of motherhood grew, not out of a good example, but a long list of "remember when you are older to never be like this" mental notes. In large part, the adult I am was shaped by the damage I received. No, I'm not saying that I'm "walking wounded"....but I spent many years learning to flip everything I had learned on its head to arrive at the right place for me.

So....long way around, sorry...the woman I have become, the femme I have become...is a distillation of my experiences, my thoughts, my heart, my hurts, and my emotional scars. I'm not doing it this way because anyone told me I should. I'm doing it this way because this is who I am....at the core.

And I love that we have as many versions of femme on this site as we have femmes. For me, that's a wonderful thing.

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by aishah

celebrating being a queer indigenous poor disabled femme does not mean i am saying i am better than or i am defining myself in opposition to.

but it is inherently an act of resistance because i live in a society where being white, upper class, straight, able-bodied, and conforming to heteronormative gender roles is what is celebrated and what i am measured against as a human being and told i should want to live up to.

so it might get tiring to hear that i think that femmes who don't conform to those ideals are fucking amazing. but i'm going to keep saying it because the reality is - we are constantly told we are unlovable and less than and not worthy. there are enough people in the world who celebrate june cleaver. somebody needs to celebrate us.

Thank you for stating that so well!! Celebrate Femme, please do not compare us some fantasy made up by men of what Femme is.


Celebrate us! All of us!

[blush]

While I think femmes intersect other female embodiments, I don't think we follow the same path. To say that a femme and a straight woman both shop at the same store, or share similar life experiences and are therefore more alike than they are different seems to be an over simplification.

I came out late. I am a vastly different person than I was when I was "straight." I don't like to pass because it is fundamentally not my truth. For me, it isn't a political statement or an invisibility issue, "passing" is a reminder of something I am not.