Butch visibility

Soon · 04-28-2014, 05:08 PM

Photographer Meg Allen Explores 'Butch Imagery' With New Project

Oakland-based photographer Meg Allen embarked on a photography project last spring to explore how the idea of a "butch" woman has changed over time.

Allen joined HuffPost Live's Marc Lamont Hill on Friday to talk about what exactly she was trying to understand with her work.

"I really wanted to show the variety of butch women that were in my community," Allen said. "There had been a lot of social media and Instagram and all these things, and I felt like there was this lapse in butch imagery, so I really wanted to kind of bring that back to the limelight.”

The discourse around butch women has certainly changed over time. Some feel there has been a shift in how younger generations evaluate sexual identity. Allen said the term "butch" includes many more types of people than it did before:

"There has been a lot of terms changing over the last 10 years. A lot of people use 'masculine of center,' or they’ll use 'boi' [spelled] b-o-i, or 'stud.' And I think traditionally the word was generally more of a white term for more masculine women, and so I just wanted to explore if that term is still relevant and what it looked like. It was more an exploration into what does that word mean, what does it look like now, and I that found it meant a variety of things, which is why I’ve taken so many different types of portraits of different types of butch women."
Below are examples of some of Allen's work from her "Butch" project:

04-28-2014, 05:08 PM	#11
Soon Infamous Member How Do You Identify?: femme Relationship Status: attached Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: . Posts: 6,896 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 29,046 Thanked 13,093 Times in 3,386 Posts Rep Power: 21474859	Photographer Meg Allen Explores 'Butch Imagery' With New Project Oakland-based photographer Meg Allen embarked on a photography project last spring to explore how the idea of a "butch" woman has changed over time. Allen joined HuffPost Live's Marc Lamont Hill on Friday to talk about what exactly she was trying to understand with her work. "I really wanted to show the variety of butch women that were in my community," Allen said. "There had been a lot of social media and Instagram and all these things, and I felt like there was this lapse in butch imagery, so I really wanted to kind of bring that back to the limelight.” The discourse around butch women has certainly changed over time. Some feel there has been a shift in how younger generations evaluate sexual identity. Allen said the term "butch" includes many more types of people than it did before: "There has been a lot of terms changing over the last 10 years. A lot of people use 'masculine of center,' or they’ll use 'boi' [spelled] b-o-i, or 'stud.' And I think traditionally the word was generally more of a white term for more masculine women, and so I just wanted to explore if that term is still relevant and what it looked like. It was more an exploration into what does that word mean, what does it look like now, and I that found it meant a variety of things, which is why I’ve taken so many different types of portraits of different types of butch women." Below are examples of some of Allen's work from her "Butch" project: