June Cleaver : Femme Friend or Femme Foe

[Nomad]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

I went to bed tired last night because I have spent 2 days discussing, dissecting, analyzing, and most of all examining myself and how June Cleaver and I had in common. Then my cock had a spot light shown on it and I was like

*CLARITY*

Not only will I never be her because I am Latina, not in the same economic level as her but I have a cock.


Mrs Cleaver would of been institutionalized for even attempting to suggest to Ward that she wanted to insert her cock into him. It wouldn't of mattered of the desire, need, want was there. Her womanly cock would of been rejected, she would of lost her boys, her life, her marriage everything.


I am glad we are examining this together, as Femme's and even though we may don the pearls, heels, and apron for some fucky/kinky/power dynamic time. We should not allow or stand by and continue to have someone who isn't Femme, who isn't Queer be held up as a role model for Femme. There are plenty of powerful, beautiful, not white, white, sexy women/Femme's out choose as role models.

June Cleaver just isn't it.

a-f*cking-men

i might have had an epiphany of my own. i think that June Cleaver is the inspiration for feminism

i dont want to be June Cleaver and i never have. she's not my icon. and i dont think that June Cleaver wants me to be June Cleaver either.

i think, as time went on, June Cleaver would have looked at anyone holding her up as an icon and said, "oh HELL no! i was doing what i needed to do, with the resources i felt were available to me, in order to safeguard my children and THAT is all."

June watched real icons like Shirley Chisolm graduate from Columbia and go on to be elected to Congress and run for president. She read Gloria Steinum's articles about women being forced to choose between home and career. she had a copy of The Feminine Mystique under her pillow and read it 4 pages at a time while Ward was sawing logs or between vacuuming and folding the laundry and at some point the laundry was left unfolded because she couldnt put the damn book down.

i like to pretend that June raised sons that werent assheads. i like to imagine June raising daughters because those women raised the people who changed that world into our world. there may not be much to admire about her era but there was something to learn from it and the women who came from there are the women who created and/or educated us, for better or worse, to separate ourselves from the trap they lived in. we have a lot to acknowledge them for, even if it was just because they provided an example of what we didnt want. people dont always know what they want but they usually know what they dont want and we know some of what we dont want because of June Cleaver and women like her. i dont think June wanted it either. i think it was what she had and she decided to rock it with some heels and some pearls.

it's a mistake to think that the Junes didnt want something different, that they didnt work toward something different, or that they have nothing to do with the something different that was created in the 60s. it's also a mistake to pretend that these arent the same women who envisioned, outlined, and took the some of first steps toward undermining a corner of patriarchy from the inside.

after a few years of saying "Ward, dear....." i think June got tired. i dont see the June Cleavers of the world as continuing to consent to oppression. i see them as the founders of a part of feminism's underground

[The_Lady_Snow]

Romney would love for all women to be like Mrs Cleaver, and I don't mean in a kink/dynamic/sexy time kinda way

[The_Lady_Snow]

During the Cleaver years only white women could vote. I can see how maybe June Cleaver could of gained power and gone to school, educated herself, had the opportunity to join the feminist movement. I get where Nomad could think about how June could of.


It wasn't till 1964-65 that POC could vote in Southern states.



I can toy with the idea of her being a feminist, educated, working mother. Someone like me, my mom, my cousin, my friends.

They wouldn't of had the chance, or would of died trying.


It's profound when you look at it in this way for me. She, Mrs Cleaver would be in my life only in kink, and even then I would be in charge of what Ward would from his tie to his meals.


ETA

I thought more about this and then I was like FML

If Mrs Cleaver would of come out of the closet, had she been like US, here on BFP she would of lost her sons, her life, her comforts. Hell, let's be honest she wouldn't of been able to date outside her race without worrying about both of them being KILLED.


WOW....

[girl_dee]

Holy heck i am cross posting on the Planet.

i realized i probably should have posted this here!





i think for some people, possibly myself included, we don't feel that we are whitewashing history by adopting certain behaviors from that time period.

i get that women had no rights, i get that women were stripped of our dreams, hopes and the right to live in our own skin. Hell as an adult i was told i made less money than my male co-worker because he had a high house note to pay. We did the exact same job, only i did mine more efficiently.

By me choosing to embrace being a home maker doesn't by any stretch mean that i do not get and honor that time period and the struggles we still go through.

In fact it feels even more empowering in some ways because i am choose to live this way, i love what i do, i get to choose, and no matter what my choice it is honored.
__________________

ETA Maybe this is my kink?

[The_Lady_Snow]

I hear and get your choice.


Your choices differ from mine.


When I speak of racism when it comes to The Cleavers, I have to, it's a kick to the gut when someone wants to hold you up to something you will never be.

(not saying dee is)

So when I bring up race, culture I do because it's part of my everyday function as Snow the Latina.

[The_Lady_Snow]

I thought of getting some ink, and I was discussing it with my Pack and I shared what I was thinking.

Months passed by and on Friday Worm comes to me and says:

"I've been thinking about you Joker tattoo and then I realized you could NEVER (he used quotation marks when saying never) EVER be Harley Quinn."


I was like oh?

"Nope, I am pretty "SURE" you can't and let me tell you why"

I sat quietly and waited....

I've gone through this with my kids before so it happens.


He reminds me that no only am I "Mexican" I was not "Blonde" I did not have "Straight Hair" then he went on this description of my hair.

I was like.

I can be Harley Quinn if I fucking want Worm, because it's Halloween.

He walked away and I started having this long and deep discussion about that AHA moment with a few other people.


I can role play somethings, I can pretend to be something, but somethings. I will never be able to be.

He's right.

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

I thought of getting some ink, and I was discussing it with my Pack and I shared what I was thinking.

Months passed by and on Friday Worm comes to me and says:

"I've been thinking about you Joker tattoo and then I realized you could NEVER (he used quotation marks when saying never) EVER be Harley Quinn."


I was like oh?

"Nope, I am pretty "SURE" you can't and let me tell you why"

I sat quietly and waited....

I've gone through this with my kids before so it happens.


He reminds me that no only am I "Mexican" I was not "Blonde" I did not have "Straight Hair" then he went on this description of my hair.

I was like.

I can be Harley Quinn if I fucking want Worm, because it's Halloween.

He walked away and I started having this long and deep discussion about that AHA moment with a few other people.


I can role play somethings, I can pretend to be something, but somethings. I will never be able to be.

He's right.

But do you want to be?

[girl_dee]

Yes and i hadn't read your post before i posted mine. i just did.

Thanks for the reminder because in my world/skin it's easy to forget.

i've been thinking lots about this since this thread started. Thanks for that!

[aishah]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

When I speak of racism when it comes to The Cleavers, I have to, it's a kick to the gut when someone wants to hold you up to something you will never be.

this, for me, is the biggest kicker. the fact that non-white women are held to this standard when it is something that we could not and never could have met - and it's really a double bind because the system is set up specifically to deny us ever having the possibility of being like june cleaver. during this time period native & black women were also being sterilized by the state, as were disabled women, and our children were forcibly taken from us and sent to boarding schools for forced assimilation or adopted out to white families.

[Sachita]

Originally Posted by Cajun_dee

Holy heck i am cross posting on the Planet.

i realized i probably should have posted this here!





i think for some people, possibly myself included, we don't feel that we are whitewashing history by adopting certain behaviors from that time period.

i get that women had no rights, i get that women were stripped of our dreams, hopes and the right to live in our own skin. Hell as an adult i was told i made less money than my male co-worker because he had a high house note to pay. We did the exact same job, only i did mine more efficiently.

By me choosing to embrace being a home maker doesn't by any stretch mean that i do not get and honor that time period and the struggles we still go through.

In fact it feels even more empowering in some ways because i am choose to live this way, i love what i do, i get to choose, and no matter what my choice it is honored.
__________________

ETA Maybe this is my kink?

I understand choice. I don't understand any type of support for discrimination..... however,

I always viewed the adoption of such things more as a type of fetishism. Fetish doesn't have to be tangible, although can be. It's a set of behaviors, rituals and maybe "things" that unlock a desired state of being or passionate response. Ain't nothing wrong with this or role-play for that matter. It becomes empowering because YOU own it, it doesn't own you or dictate rules.

I think June Clever was a hardcore female supremacist who made her husband wear panties under his suit. She used her feminine magic to subliminally control her family. She also cuckolded her husband by having a beautiful black man at her disposal. This is why she was always happy and smiling.

[blush]

I wonder why we hold up a white male fantasy as any kind of definition of femme.