This has been a very long, very busy weekend, and I didn’t have time to write my usual Sunday Sermon. So instead I have a piece from the archives. I should have a nice new atheist rant up in a day or two. This piece originally ran in Gilrfriends magazine; it was obviously addressed to a lesbian readership, but I think it’ll be interesting to my non-lesbian readers as well.
Not Butch, Not Femme
by Greta Christina
Once upon a time in the ’50s, all lesbians were supposed to come in two flavors: butch and femme. If you didn’t, you got called “kiki,” and people pointed and scoffed. Then the androgynous ’70s happened, and if you were one of the two old flavors, you got scolded and called a bad feminist. And at last came the sexy, liberating modern era, with its dyke porn and dildos and fuck-as-you-are mentality.
Except it seems like we’re all supposed to come in the two flavors again. And if you don’t, if you say you’re cool with butch/femme but it’s not who you are, plenty of dykes will scoff and sneer and say, “Yes, dear, you keep telling yourself that.”
And it annoys the fuck out of me.
Okay. First, I need to convince you that I’m not a femme. After all, I do have long hair, wear dresses, and even use lipstick now and then. When I’m doing historical recreation, I typically go in male drag (hence the tricorn hat and the Napoleonic uniform in the blog photo)– but in my daily life, I look like a girl. Woman. Whatever.
But here’s how I know I’m not a femme. See, women who are femme usually say it isn’t about clothes. Or makeup. Or how you fuck, or even who you fuck. It’s about something else, they say, some core identity, impossible to explain but still crucial.
And I have no idea what they’re talking about. Oh, I believe it exists for them — I have my share of inexpressible but crucial identity things. But femme, I have to take on faith. On that bones-and-guts comprehension level, I just don’t get it.
But a lot of dykes react to this sentiment with either “Isn’t that funny” or “Isn’t that sad.” Isn’t it funny, the girl thinks she’s not a femme; isn’t it sad how she denies the obvious. Lots of dykes are convinced that butch/femme is universal, a lesbian archetype that applies to every woman with the hots for other women. I guess it’s understandable: plenty of people think the defining features of their lives are true for everyone. Like that headline in the Onion: “Area Stoner Convinced Everyone On TV Also Stoned.”
I gotta tell you, though, it’s annoying as heck. I once worked with a hardcore butch who saw me hauling a 50-pound box downstairs and got seriously alarmed. “You shouldn’t be doing that,” she said, with an obvious stare at my sundress and shaved legs. I laughed it off, reminding her that hauling boxes was, in fact, my job. But I had to wonder: If she’d been boss, would she have even hired a “femme” for the box-hauling job?
And there’s all these conclusions people jump to based on my supposed femmeness. I’m sick of dykes assuming that, because I’m a femme, I therefore must: lust after butches, obsess about my looks, hate physical labor, be a do-me queen in bed, and follow when I dance. (It was ever such fun to come from the hetero ballroom scene, with its assumption that women are always follows, and arrive in the dyke ballroom scene — with its assumption that femmes are always follows.) Even if I were a femme, I might find this stuff presumptuous.
Plus it’s totally patronizing. Telling other grownups that you know them better than they know themselves? When you barely know them at all? Ew. It’s not that I’m always perfectly self-perceptive. But telling adult women that they don’t know who they are — don’t we gripe about the heterosexist patriarchal blah blah world doing that to us? Do we really want to do it to each other?
So cut it out, y’all. Be butch or femme all you want — it clearly means a lot to you, and I think that’s ducky. But quit assuming that it applies to every dyke you meet. It doesn’t. Deal with it.
The funny thing is that even though I’m straight (and my husband is a lot more butch than I am), I still don’t feel like I fit into the butch/femme personality style dichotomy….
Interesting indeed. Nice post!
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Hmm, I’ve been flagged as a potential spam comment, even though I did not write any URLs…
That’s some butch security you got there, Greta!
I get that a lot. I’m “butch” in mind but femme in body. I’m very small, have really long hair and look very delicate. But I wear combat boots and BDUs and my tool belt weighs almost as much as I do.
I regularly get talked down to as if I’m a “girl” because of how I look, but I don’t identify as a “girl”. I don’t identify as a guy or as a butch either. I think the closest I have ever come is: I am a gay man who just happened to be born in the body post-op of a girl. People who know me better, though, think of me more like a tough butch chick. One of my boyfriends makes jokes (in the ironic sense, not to be mean) that he can’t believe I’m not a lesbian.
I like the androgyny. I like that I think like a stereotypical male but I look very feminine. I prefer to wear mens clothing for comfort, but like any stereotypical gay man, I like to get dressed up in flirty dresses and flaunt my body or go dancing. I like that this very delicate body can climb to the rafters of a convention center, dangle my legs around a beam 50 feet in the air, and haul up a 1/4 ton motor chain for the purpose of hanging truss for events.
Screw all that femme/butch dichotomy bullshit. I am me. A strong, independent, pretty, flirty woman and I don’t care if it crosses gender lines and bothers people who want to characterize me. I am just me.
I think that pigeonholing seems to be a human universal. It saves having to think.
I’m a big hairy male, so obviously… [I understand everything about cars (nope), like football (not generally), and couldn’t possibly enjoy mending a sock or sit and have a tea party with my daughter (wrong again).]
I’m mathematically able, so obviously… I am illiterate, unfeeling and socially inept.
I like science, so obviously… I cannot appreciate art, poetry, music or have any sense of mystery.
I’m a roleplayer, so obviously… I am socially inept (again!?) and I have questionable bathing habits.
I’m an atheist, so obviously… I have no morals and want to ruin Christmas.
I’m a father, so obviously… I never look after babies and would never need to change a baby in a shopping mall (which is presumably why the change facilities are often in the women’s toilets, etc). [In fact, I did most of the nappy work. And more than half of the toilet training.]
I could go on, but you get the idea.
Oh, Greta, I understand you just fine. I’m equally unahppy to be labelled ‘femme’ and equally likely. What you described is what I’m often subjected to, too, and it gets my blood boiling. If we’re not classifying straight girls by how “traditionally feminine” or “traditionally masculine” they are, why are we doing it to the dykes?
Wow, do I hear you on this. I’m the same way. I’m a genderfluid bio-female. I feel I’m mainly masculine, but just because I feel more like a guy than a girl, why the hell does this mean that I should hide or deny my feminine side? It’s there and there’s nothing wrong with it. So sometimes I dress butch, sometimes I dress femme and sometimes I dress with some of both (not really androgynous, but more of a both). Yeah, I wear guy’s raver/goth pants, but I also have long hair (more of a hippy thing than a gender thing… if I was a guy, I’d still have long hair) and feminine glasses. Some days I wear a suit and tie… some days I wear a dress. Why not? I’m just going to express me as me. And society’s butch/femme dichotomy just doesn’t fit me. Hell, even butch/androgynous/femme doesn’t fit me.
Maybe that’s why I have so many problems fitting in in the Dyke scene in DC. Because I refuse to choose. Because, I mean, why should I?
I think I learned this from the Radical Faeries (or perhaps this is part of why I’m drawn to them). We’ve got big bear men wearing dresses… and NOT shaving off their beards. Showing their copious chest hair via the low cut collars. And why not?
I support you in your non-butch, non-femme, both-butch-and-femme, whatever-the-hell-you-identify-as… uhm… -ness. I know! I support you in your Greta-ness! Go forth and conqueror genderlabel roles!
Well, we have discussed this topic many times while we maintain your tresses, but it is always nice to see your thoughts in print!
I was trying to join a yahoo group about ftm surgeries, since im travelling with a pal for his final stage. They asked my to chose a gender, and there were only two to choose from! somehow that still surprizes me!
Having been crammed by others into that femme box, i find myself pounding on the box walls to be let out, and stop being punished and isolated for what others assume I am.
If I had balls, i’d be scratchin’ em right now.
Tell me that I’m Femme now!
xoxo Deena
This is a really weird issue for me. I’m 19 and I’m just now finding my sort of lesbian sexual identity. It’s confusing to me when people ask me to put myself in a box. What are you: butch or femme? I don’t feel like I’m either. I don’t look like a boy – I think I’m pretty feminine though I dress (mostly) androgynous. I never wear skirts and dresses but sometimes I do a smoky eye or wear lipstick. I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t fit in a category but I fear other people will still try to put me in one. :[