Like so many other differences
I shouldn’t laugh, but…who could possibly help it?
What We Mean When We Say “Femme”: A Roundtable
Oh wow, don’t you just long to know what they mean when they say “femme”? I’m all agog, myself.
Femmes. We live in different places. We’re different ages. We have different gender identities. Some of us are people of color, some of us are white. In this representative sample, we are Autostraddle writers, or artists, or musicians, or educators, or all of these things. The only thing we have in common is that we’re queer and that, in our own deeply personal way, we breathe life into the word femme. But like so many other differences, we don’t agree on what the word femme means to us. This is the beauty of gender fluidity. We live in a world where it is totally possible to claim the same word as someone else and completely disagree on what the word means.
We are this Word, but we disagree on what the word means – yet all the same we know we are it. Isn’t life exciting? Isn’t having everything both ways a joy? Isn’t it fabulous to be fluid and rigid at the very same time? And by the way, don’t you just hate femmephobes?
In organizing this roundtable, I did have some questions in mind, like: what does the word femme mean to you, personally? How do you think the meaning of the word femme has changed in the past ten years? Do you tie your experience of femme to emotional labor, or care work? What are your femme roots? And do you lean on a queer femme aesthetic to signal your queerness, and if so, do you think this aesthetic has been co-opted? The answers revealed the exciting ways the queer world is living the word femme, right now, in this moment.
And are you totally self-obsessed, or mostly self-obsessed, or very self-obsessed indeed? The answers reveal the exciting ways self-obsession has completely replaced actual politics while nobody noticed.
Or did someone notice? Did Rudy notice?
None of the ways I describe femme are based on how someone looks. When I re-discovered femme, it was really linked to witchy things, and spirituality, and care work. Femme is connected to emotional labor and healing. It’s based on the energy you put into the world, the connection you make with people and the care you have for them. It’s allowing a particular kind of tenderness to be part of your identity. That might sound really woo-woo, but it’s true. It’s not just an aesthetic. Having something based on just aesthetics is really dangerous because it removes the politics from things.
Look around you, Rudy. It’s coming from inside the house.
I can’t help but think of this:
And that makes it all so much easier to talk to each other, right? Of course, if it’s all about ‘me’, why would I need to understand words used by someone else?
iknklast, I was thinking of the same quote.
But even Humpty Dumpty thinks this is stretching the definition of a word too far.
And even Donald Trump thinks this is too narcissistic.
Who knew! I’m Femme. At least, a lot of the time. Or, maybe I’m a man who is likes to behave that way as much as I can. Either the words are wrong or my identity is wrong. I’m so confused.
Well being confused is the beauty of gender fluidity! As is not being confused. All things flow together in the mystery of the great Paradigm, where they both transcend and don’t transcend, rise and fall, burn and freeze, affirm and deny, understand and get everything completely wrong. Ommmmmmmmmmm
There should have been a Ministry of Meaning in the novel ‘1984’. This person would fit right in, if there had been.
If I actually bother to read the article will anything resembling intelligible writing materialize?
No.
Apparently some people haven’t discovered that you can waste time more pleasurably by playing Pokemon GO. The Pokemon bestiary also makes more sense.
For all their nattering about “appropriation,” these folks seem to be unaware that they are adopting–er, appropriating–mid-twentieth century “woman’s magazine” speak. The various looks they’re going for may be more-or-less postmodern contemporary, but their preoccupations are those of “cis” white women Vogue subscribers c1955 crossed with Cosmo subscribers c1980. The tender descriptions of the Look and how to achieve it. The reliance on sensual adjectives. The fifties’ obsession with (and anxiety about) “femininity” has been coupled with the 70-80s obsession with self-help and “spirituality.”
It’s a perfect storm of narcissism masquerading as politics.
Oh good and hilarious point.
This also seems to be a definition coming from 19th century– “Woman as angel”– gender ideology.. Women are innately more spiritual, doncha know, and therefore so well suited to caring for the young and the elderly, while gently pushing men to be more moral. At the same time, her nurturing qualities make her unsuited for the public sphere; the rat race of the business world and the dirty world of politics would be far too degrading for them.
Women are innately more (fill in word no one agrees on the definition of, and think you’ve said something profound).
Play the game…what word makes as much sense as spiritual in this sentence? Free round of applause for the winner.
Infinite ‘fluidity,’ self-declared snowflake freedom to annex a term like ‘femme’ for any damn’ use anyone wants… And then, almost in the same breath, a gasp-worthy gender essentiallist paragraph that would bring the house down around any cis-white-male-sentient creature who spoke in such silly terms.
Scrolling through today’s B&W, I can’t help be reminded of the piled up layers of chowder-headed foolishness in the Baton Rouge killer.
‘We believe anything as long as it flatters us and requires no thought!’
This was the bit that bothered me:
“Femme labor is silently sewing your mouth shut, as you lift your lover’s ego high enough that you can both float away to the planet that you’ve been building together… all the while praying that your held breath and your heavy heart can stand to hold the both of you. Femme means that you’ve got some sensitivity that doubles as strength and you are down to aestheticize it, commune over it, or fucking fuck about it.”
I think this might be the source of some “femmephobia” among feminists.
Reducing words to ‘definitions’ and ‘meanings’ is just soo exclusionary and violent and hateful. Also, taking insulting and stupid stereotypes that used to only be for cis women and transferring them to ‘femmes’ of all sexes and genders is progressive and feminist!
I can’t get over there being discussion about appropriation in an article where people are redefining one of the most common and basic words of another major world language. Is there a link to that article in the dictionary under “irony”?
Poe or no?
“Lots of people like to consider themselves radical without actually being able to make any space for people coming from a different place.”
Sadly not.
I feel so sorry for lesbians, they truly are on the frontlines in the new culture wars.
So “femme” is about emotional labour and healing, but no evidence is offered that any of these precious beings have taken time out of contemplating their own navels to help or heal another living person.
And “oh I’m 36 and some of my friends are even older, but we’re still cool & down with the kids!” If you’re 36 and basing your self worth on looks and being “with it”, the next decade is going to be really rough!