Feminizing Theory

Making Space for Femme Theory

Rhea Ashley Hoskin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000436853
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Estudios LGBT

The term "femme" originates from 1940s Western working-class lesbian bar culture, wherein femme referred to a feminine lesbian who was typically in a relationship with a butch lesbian. Expanding from this original meaning, femme has since emerged as a form of femininity reclaimed by queer and culturally marginalized folks. Importantly, femme has also evolved into a theoretical framework. Femme theory argues that "femme" constitutes a missing piece in queer and feminist discourses of femininity. Attending to this gap, femme theory centres queer femininities as a means of pushing against the deeply embedded masculinist orientation of queer and gender theory. Thus, femme theory offers tools to shift the way researchers and readers understand femininity as well as systems of gender and power more broadly.

This book is an introduction to femme theory, showcasing how femme can be used as a theoretical framework across a variety of contexts and disciplines, such as Film & Media Studies, Psychology, Sociology, or Critical Disability Studies; from countries, including Canada, China, Guyana and the USA. Femme theory asks readers to reconsider how femininity is conceptualized, revealing some of the many taken for granted assumptions that are embedded within cultural discourses of gender, sexuality, and power.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Lesbian Studies.

INTRODUCTION
Can femme be theory? Exploring the epistemological and methodological possibilities of femme

Rhea Ashley Hoskin

ABSTRACT
Narrative-works are the lifeblood of femme scholarship. Through this medium, femmes write themselves into existence. In this article, I begin with my own story of femme and examine the backdrop of patriarchal femininity that positions pieces of me as being at odds, disjointed, and something needing to be reconciled. Indeed, many current frameworks and dominant framings for understanding femininity create disjunctures needing to be reconciled and fail to include diverse feminine perspectives in ways that constitute epistemic and hermeneutical injustices. Using my own femme becoming as a guide, I offer this process of femme reconcilement as a framework that can be applied to dislodge feminine normativity and challenge the assumptions researchers make about femininity within their work. In this article I highlight the importance of femme epistemologies; the importance of valuing feminine knowledge, and how the absented femme highlights the continued god-trick of objectivity. Here, I discuss how femme narratives can be used to bolster femme as theory and critical analytic. This situated knowledge holds the possibility to inform novel methodological frameworks and to substantially shift the way researchers think about femininity and feminine people.

Introduction

What are the failures of society, feminism, queer and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)+ communities that positioned pieces of me as being disjointed and that made my fem(me)ininity something needing to be reconciled? It is not that I was disjointed; while in my skin I feel a sense of wholeness, I exist in a world that has at times made me feel fragmented. My story of femmeness is about navigating the social world that pulled pieces of me apart and told me they did not match. My story is about disentangling the messages I received that my pieces were not reconcilable, and the disjuncture of my own femininity that led me to femme. This is the story of my femmeness as a white, mostly-cisgender, queer-lesbian and disabled femme of Jewish descent. It is just one story and articulates only one of the many ways of being and becoming femme; one of the many paths of finding and carving out one’s own fem(me)ininity. Like Kattari and Beltran (2019), I feel a sense of responsibility to illuminate the complexities of femme, while at the same time grappling with how to attend to femme multiplicity within the given word count. Thus, this article comes with the reminder that “my femme is not your femme” (Burke, 2009, p. 11) and that my story is not a “measuring tape” for femme identities more broadly (Volcano & Dahl, 2008). My femme story is my own, and it begins with my family.

I was born into feminism; a legacy passed down by my great-grandmother. My family did not partake in traditional gender roles: my stepfather would wake us up every morning with breakfast prepared, after taking our “orders” the night before. He would pack our lunches and help us get ready for school and work. I still look back fondly at the memories of him sending us on our way, kissing us on the forehead, and waving goodbye from the driveway. My mother worked, and she worked hard – juggling full-time employment with part-time gigs to support the family. My grandmother also lived with us and would spend an hour each afternoon watching soap operas with my stepfather. I grew up attending vigils for the Montreal Massacre¹ and Take Back the Night marches in my hometown, picketing beside my mother, grandmother, brother and stepfather, just barely above knee-height. Heteronormativity and gender roles were not enforced at the familial level, and my family never attempted to douse the fiery spirit with which I was born. Now, I am a sociologist by trade, so I am aware that the overthrowing of social norms is not such a simple task, and I would indeed be remiss to argue that I was removed from normative gender socialization in its entirety. However, I do know that one of the major social institutions to facilitate gender norm socialization— the family— did not contribute to this process.

I turned out to be the head-strong, fearlessly brazen little girl my mother raised me to be; yet, to her surprise, I was highly feminine. Despite my mother’s conscious efforts to not enforce feminine gender norms, despite her raising me in my brother’s hand-me-downs, I was unmistakably and undeniably drawn to all things feminine. By no means is this to posit a gender essentialist paradigm, as I never felt as though my femininity was an expression or outgrowth of being assigned female. From a very young age I claimed femininity as my own and did so on my own, in ways that felt separate or detached from my assigned sex. And, although my mom could not quite understand my unusual affinity for femininity (identifying herself as androgynous), she always accepted and allowed that part of me to flourish.

In elementary school I was always a “good” kid; respectful, studious, and engaged – although my headstrong and opinionated tendencies, combined with my propensity to ask too many questions, would often get me in trouble with teachers and, oddly enough, boys. I would often butt heads with the boys in my class, which prompted teachers to comment on my report cards about their concerns that I “didn’t like boys.” As one teacher noted, “Ashley loves snack time and doesn’t get along with boys.” My mother was unconcerned, and to this day she laughs about how little I have changed in each of these respects. Nevertheless, concerns over heteronormative milestones seem quite an odd thing to note on a kindergartner’s report card. What was clear was that my femininity and my lack of interest in catering to boys were not seen as compatible. From a young age, my surrounding world, and the world outside of my family, positioned these pieces of me as being disjointed and as needing to be reconciled.

While I was feminine, my femininity was never compliant, never catering or appeasing to the men around me – as femininity is often expected to do. The ostensible discordance between my gender and my behavior brought with it a type of social rupture, causing me to wonder: What is the backdrop of femininity that created an environment in which I was always expected to toe the line, be silent, and seek to please the boys in my class? How might the lens of heteronormative feminine expectations have distorted my teachers’ perspective of me “disagreeing with boys,” and turned it into “doesn’t like boys”? How might this distortion come to inform the allegations of me being a man-hater, like so many of my feminist peers, that began when I was a teenager? Paradoxically, while I came to be seen as a man-hater, I could never be seen as authentically queer; when I was called a dyke, it was in reference to my feminist politics, never to the possibility of my being a lesbian. Through my femininity, the heterosexual world had claimed me as theirs. To this day, society has still not widely made cognitive space for the existence of femininity that is not aimed at men.

In high school, the femininity that I had always expressed, cherished, and loved was suddenly seen as inappropriate, and of a sexual nature. Outside of my family home, and in the eyes of my surrounding world, the dresses, makeup, sequins and accessories of my childhood had become crude, vulgar or inappropriate. According to this new world, adorning my body could never again be an act of self-expression – it had forever changed into an indication of my presumed heterosexual availability. This shift sent the message that not only was my gender expression inappropriate, but so too was my changing body. My gender expression was no longer my own, it was a cue for male access. While many of my feminine peers would receive comments from their parents about how they were not to leave the house “dressed like that,” or other remarks about getting unwanted attention from boys, my mom remarked on my creativity and expressive style. In many ways, my family and my mother kept my femininity safe. My mom always made space for me to express my femininity without it being tethered to an expression for someone else. For that, and so much more, I owe my mother a great deal of gratitude. I was not taught that my gender expression was a solicitation for men’s attention and it never was.

While my claiming of femininity was very clear, something else created confusion for me: despite my social world concluding that I “did not like boys,” because I was so feminine, I did not realize that I could alternatively like “girls.” In many ways, it was my femininity that made figuring out my sexuality all the more confusing. I grew up in a feminist, queer-friendly home. I learned from an early age that families can have a multitude of organizations beyond the heteronormative nuclear prototype, and that love transcends the gender binary. Unlike many of my peers, I did not require a period of unlearning family indoctrinated gender roles or heteronormativity. Why had “liking girls” not dawned on me as a possibility?

In my undergraduate university I majored in sociology and women’s studies. There, at a time when the majority of my peers found greater clarity surrounding their sexuality and gender, my sexual and gender confusion really set in— queer women were androgynous or masculine, and thus to be queer one must reject femininity. Therefore, given my love of femininity, I must not be queer. At the time, this seemed logical. Of course there are plenty of representations of feminine queer women on TV, but they are usually critiqued within these disciplines as just a way of pleasing the male gaze and not as “accurate” media portrayals of “real” queer women. No, the “authentic” queers were the masculine ones, like Ellen DeGeneres or Shane from The L word.

And then I discovered Joan Nestle (1992), whose work marked my awakening into femme consciousness and was among the first texts produced by femmes that theorized femme experiences. Discovering this foundational piece of literature felt as though my world suddenly came into focus and realigned to make space for a part of me that never seemed to fit or make sense. Shortly thereafter I discovered the anthologies Brazen Femme (Brushwood Rose & Camilleri, 2002), and later on Femmes of Power (Volcano & Dahl, 2008), discoveries that led me down a wonderous rabbit hole of many others. Highlighting the multiplicity and multidimensionality of femme as an empowered and agential form of femininity resonated with my own experiences in the most profound of ways. Like McCann noted (2018), this discovery “opened up an entangled world of queer feelings and experiences that had previously been occluded” (p. 280). Importantly, femme offered a way out, out of heteronormative assumptions, oppressive rules governing femininity, and the limitations imposed upon me by virtue of my femininity (or failure thereof). Femme helped me to realize that:

…People can claim femininity on their own terms!

…For some people, femininity is not inherently disempowering or oppressive!

…Femininity can be queer!

…Femininity is not always performed for men!

…Femininity can be a form of self-expression!

…Feminine lesbians are not just for the male gaze, femmes actually exist!

After these discoveries, I was introduced to the work of Julia Serano (2007). Serano’s work on transmisogyny, anti-femininity and femmephobia was invaluable in helping me to articulate my experiences, and to connect these experiences to broader social frameworks ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 Introduction: Can femme be theory? Exploring the epistemological and methodological possibilities of femme
• 2 Why femme stories matter: Constructing femme theory through historical femme life writing
• 3 What do glitter, pointe shoes, & plastic drumsticks have in common? Using femme theory to consider the reclamation of disciplinary beauty/body practices
• 4 “Femme ain’t frail”: (re)considering femininity, aging, and gender theory
• 5 Theorizing TL esthetics: Forming a femme gaze through yes or no 2.5
• 6 The Cauxin-femme binary: Femme performativity as a response to violence in Guyana
• 7 Queer eye for the housewife: Julianne Moore, radical femme-ininity, and destabilizing the suburban family
• 8 Making intelligible the controversies over femme identities: A functionalist approach to conceptualizing the subversive meanings of femme genders
• 9 TBG and Po: Discourses on authentic desire in 2010s lesbian subcultures in Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan
• Index