The Femme Archive
At the Femme Conference, I attended “The Trouble with Femme History,” a workshop co-presented by Cookie Woolner and Mira Bellwether on the history of femme. One of the discussions after the talk centered around the need to create and/or add to femme archives to aid in solidifying our own collective and individual presences in history. Obviously, one of the difficulties in locating “femme” in history is the absence of tangible evidence of its existence (as well as other things being barriers to this like language and identifiers that span time and place). So I’ve had this on my mind the past few weeks: how I can personally be more responsible in contributing to a larger history and future of femme identity by being conscious of what evidence I physically hold onto and eventually leave behind.
This post is a longtime coming in many ways, as I think continually about creating space for femme community both offline and online; this is part of the reason I’m so excited about *this* blog, after all. Creating an archive now, as spurred by Cookie and Mira’s talk, not only will serve queer communities in the future, but also help us right now in finding each other, sharing experience, and creating space for those of us detached from any sort of femme or queer communities at present. I’m specifically thinking about sublimefemme’s Love Letter to a Femme in Need (one of the best posts I’ve read in a long while), about my own evolution to being femme, and about the stories of so many others who’ve traveled a long, bumpy road to get to claiming this fierce, but sometimes volatile, f-word. Last week, I received an email from a reader of my personal blog, femme FATale, about the “lack of good femme role models” and about resources that aided in coming into one’s femmeness. I was able to respond with a few things that have personally affected me or felt validating, but there’s so much more that others could contribute if there was a space for it – a composite of our femme resources!
So let’s do this. Let’s post the who, the what, the where, the when of how we got to call ourselves “femme.” There’s no wrong answer here. It could be a book, a song, your best friend, your uncle, that time at the homo bar, that time on the bus. What were the things that got you to this place? This is our chance to share information that moved us, that got us, that made us cry or laugh or just made us finally feel fucking recognized. Here’s a space to share stories with each other, to thank the people who helped keep our femme hearts pumping. Post your contribution to this wee start of a femme archive below or link us to your own blog where you flesh out your own list. Send it to your friends, forward it around. You get the idea. Ready? Go!
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my list of contributions:
- jennifer tilly’s character, “violet,” in the film bound. silly, maybe, but i watched this movie nearly 50 times my junior and senior years in college. after the first two years at my women’s college where butch and androgynous were the only two queer identities seemingly present and after hiding my awesome rack under a puffy vest and actually crying when i was told i couldn’t wear mascara to a dyke frat party, violet reminded me that i could be every bit as queer and still love and wield my skirts and eyeliner as trophies of that.
- jen cross. her essay “surface tensions,” in the anthology nobody passes. jen cross is an inspiration, an amazing femme role model, and an incredibly talented writer. her spoken word should never be missed. everything she writes gives me chills.
- chris. though we’re not together anymore, she loved and nurtured my femme. got me, got it. taught me how to be good to a butch. real good. validating. we made sense, made fireworks. she taught me to love, love, love, and made me strong enough to love myself, respect my hot femme self and get up, get out, and get on with it. without her.
- charlotte. my best friend, my femme sister. she keeps femme fun and exciting for me. she also reminds me of how important it is to always keep my sense of self, my femme sense of self, in check. she is always true to herself and i love and respect her for it. thanks. for so much. always.
- e. she has always respected and loved the way i do femme. i have grown and cultivated this femme self through us and her arrival into her own butchness. in ways, she helped to bring my femme heart back to life after a good ol’ smash-up. she reminds me of what i’m good at.
- femme mafia. if there is a femme mafia chapter near you, you’re a lucky femme. if there isn’t and there’s community for it, you might want to consider taking the time to start one. a year ago, there was no femme mafia twin cities, now there is and i’ve been connected with some of the smartest, most thoughtful femme friends, role models really, a femme could ask for. thank you, fmtc for reminding me of the importance of having so much femme love in my life. minneapolis/st. paul femme community never looked so good!
- as a fat femme, bevin’s femmecast, for sure, as well as just knowing of the existence of fat femmes who organize like fat femme mafia, queer fat femme l.a., fat and queer/f.a.q.
- linda. mommy. she is my favorite embodiment of femme. though not queer, she taught me at four years old that even dressed up pretty in heels, hair pinned in a french twist, it’s still ok to raise hell when you’ve been done wrong, curse like a trucker, and spit on a guy’s car window who has just stolen your parking space in a crazy new jersey mall parking lot at christmastime.
- the brazen femme anthology. for being there in words when femme community wasn’t. for instilling in me so deeply that femme is so much more than merely an aesthetic and never, ever “just” a counterpart to butch.
- femme conference 2008. leah lakshmi-piepzna-samarasinha. dorothy allison. julia serano. veronica combs. i will trust and honor and love my fellow femmes. i will, i will, i will.
ok, your turn.
Last 5 posts by Hussy Red
- With bated breath - September 10th, 2008
- Pasties for Everyone!: A How-To Guide - August 23rd, 2008
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Tags: femme, femme archive, femme conference, resources
9 Comments
Colleen
August 31st, 2008 at 6:08 pm
• Queering Femininity Conference, Seattle, 2005: I went mostly because a good friend of mine (who had recently gone through a painful break-up, and who I was worried about) was going and his mental health was so tenuous at the time that I didn’t want to let him out of my sight. (Fiercely protective mamabear? You bet yer sweet ass, I am!) This conference changed my life. I started understanding what femme was, and that femme was something *I* was. I realized I’d been waiting for some kind of permission to shave, wear skirts, like pink, etc. Upon realizing I’d been waiting for permission, I granted it to myself and my bathroom and closet haven’t been the same sense.
• Stone Butch Blues, by Leslie Feinberg: There are so many fucking awesome femme role models in this book, and I read it anytime I need to feel the big hug of my butch/femme community. This book helps me understand “femme” in the way I think it helps others understand “butch.” It exposes the strength of femmes, the way we hold the fragile, hurting spaces that our butches so often occupy. It helps me understand the value in subtlety, of substituting gentle for direct (even though it’s against my nature) because sometimes that’s all their sensitive hearts can bear. This book flies in the face of every notion that femme is passive, weak, and quiet. We may sometimes be subtle, but we are stronger than steel.
• My ex, Holden: Despite how things ended between us, this relationship was incredibly transforming for me and I value it dearly. My prior gf was confused, put-off-by, and uncomfortable with my femme-ness. Holden loved it, wanted it, was attracted to it and encouraged it. I felt seen as a femme, and valued for that femme-ness. I’m so glad I had this relationship because it helped me to be comfortable in my own skin, and that’s a precious gift.
• Sharon, another ex of mine: She defined herself as “studly femme,” and I always liked that seemingly-contradictory label. Watching the geeky, funny, sexy way she performed femme in her tight black jeans, stompy, steel-toed boots, and long curly hair showed me that gender and labels are what we make of them, everyone else be damned.
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What Makes (Me) a Femme? « Sublimefemme Unbound
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:23 pm
[...] writing this piece in response to Hussy Red’s terrific post “The Femme Archive” on The Femme Guide, which asks all of us to share our own stories about how we’ve come to our [...]
Sublimefemme
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Hi Hussy Red (and everyone):
This is such a great post, I was inspired to write a piece in my response on my blog
http://sublimefemme.wordpress.com/2008/09/04/what-makes-me-a-femme/
It’s called “What Makes (Me) a Femme.” Here’s a preview:
Long, long ago in a gender galaxy far, far away…
…I was butch!
I know what you’re thinking: how could your favorite ravishing femme queer theorist–who is typing these words with perfectly manicured red nails–have ever been butch?….
Reply
Jen Cross
September 4th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Such a fantastic idea! I’m gonna pass the call-for-comments around as well!
Quick-shot thoughts for right now:
- Tara Hardy: Incredible writer, survivor and femme dyke, takes-no-shit kinda writer/role model… the founder of Bent writing institute in Seattle; Tara says and writes the things that aren’t supposed to be said, claims space for femmes in all of our complexity, and every time I read her writing I’m further spurred to be more brave in my own!
- Amber Hollibaugh: Her book, My Dangerous Desires: A queer girl dreaming her way home, is one I’ve read repeatedly. She deals with deep and painful struggles around desire, and introduced me to language for the kind of vulnerability I experienced when I found myself longing for butches… it was one thing to be a butch into other butches; femme into butch was so, so different…
- Becca Cooper: This union organizer & femme spoken word artist BLEW UP the stage at the 2005 Femme Conference in Seattle — she rocked my world in was I still haven’t found language for; however, one important piece about her performance for me was something about claiming working class & midwestern femmenesses (as also Tara Hardy and Amber Hollibaugh engage with); I had a opened for me a possibility to “do” femme that didn’t look like all my SF sisters and might look a little more like the women back home… what an idea.
There’s more… I’m excited to think on this and do some writing and come on back to it time and again! Thanks so much, y’all!
Oh, wait… one more:
- DSW: For the shoe-fetish that came BLAZING out of the closet as soon as I came out as a girl…:)
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Miss Avarice Reply:
December 24th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
omg shoe fetish of dsw! I had the same problem! My shoe collection doubled within a year of becoming femme!!
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Miss Avarice
September 4th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
My femme role model was none other than Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. I kid you not. She taught me how to be feminine in all sorts of circumstances, totally sexy and enticing, and still be large and in charge. rah!
Reply
Sarah Deragon
September 5th, 2008 at 11:08 am
I am so happy that this site exists!!
Attending the Femme Conference in Chicago was a very powerful experience for me. I am grateful that we are creating a femme archive, I know that I could use it for my work….which will hopefully culminate into a PhD program in the near future.
For the conference, I wrote a piece called “Femmeizm: A Request for an Ideological Utopia” or F*RIU for short. The workshop was attended by about 30 people and I was lucky enough to have Shar Rednour present with me.
Some of my femme role models are:
Dorothy Allison: Her writing and keynote speech were heartbreaking and beautiful all at the same time. She talked about the “crack in the soul” and I will never forget how she made me laugh and then brought me to tears 4 seconds later.
Ulrika Dahl: A hot queer femme anthropologist!!! Come on. I was lucky enough to spend an evening hanging out with her and she’s passionate, wicked smart and is working to expand femme visibility across the globe with her book “Femmes of Power”.
Krista Smith AKA Kentucky Fried Woman: KFW is one kick ass performer. I have seen her in numerous pieces in the Bay Area and she always tears up the stage. Tap dancing in fishnets and pasties is something I admire a great deal. She is also a great writer and if you haven’t seen Hogwarts Express yet, you seriously should, brilliant.
Jen Cross: I know she was already mentioned earlier, but she is a dear friend of mine and always an inspiration. She is my ultimate femme role model and I am so lucky to have access to her great mind and talent. She’s taught me a lot about femme and its various manifestations throughout our lives.
Vixen Noir: Although she doesn’t identify as “femme,” her presence as a keynote at the femme conference was very appreciated. She facilitates workshops to teach us how to light our inner fire and I feel like all of us could use a little more fire from time to time. After she performs my cheeks always hurt from smiling.
Ok, I could go on and on and on, but I have other things to do today…..so here is my F*RIU.
Femmeizm Request For An Ideological Utopia or F*RIU
I am fucking glitter femme.
I also identify as a radical lesbian feminist.
Let’s talk about femmeizm….are you ready??
* We read books and we don’t.
* We care about community and have been shut out.
* We have dirty penetrative sex and ho-hum quickies.
* We eat our daily allotment of vegetables and we love big gooey ice cream sundaes.
* We like to get spanked and we like to do the spanking.
* We want the proper information to make informed decisions about our bodies and we want health care providers to ask us what we want our private parts to be called.
* We have different body types and badass hairstyles.
* We are people of color and we are white.
* We refuse to be labeled and we like to be called: gay, bisexual, asexual, queer, femme dykes, star bottoms, hard femme, drama queens, MTF, FTM, transwomen, feminist, womanist, fags, perverts, macho femmes, butch, drag queens, fagettes, bois, wicked tops, lezbros, two-spirit, lesbians, femme sharks, tomboys, women, men, genderqueer and trans.
* We want to overthrow the heteropatriarchy.
* We are intersex.
* We express ourselves through dance, music, poetry, painting and crafts.
* We masturbate 3 times a day and there are some of us that are unable to orgasm.
* We are exhibitionists and some of us are painfully shy.
* We come from broken homes and our parents are still married.
* We’re poor and we have class privilege.
* We want a gender inclusive ENDA and we don’t even know what E N D A stands for.
* We adopt and we raise our children to think for themselves.
* We can get married and some of us have experienced gay divorce.
* We are angry and we think about productive ways to express it.
* We volunteer our time and sometimes a well-written blog once a month enough is enough.
* We care deeply and sometimes we don’t give a fuck.
Femmeizm is all-inclusive. It practices alliance.
Femmeizm is in solidarity with everyone in the queer community. It works to build alliances across differences of race, class and gender identities.
Femmeizm welcomes anyone who feels that their lives are lived outside of the prescribed norms of our society.
Femmeizm attempts to remain current with what comes out of the academy about feminism, postcolonial theory, gender, trans and queer studies, but wants to mark the divide between academics and the actual lived experiences of those being theorized about.
Femmeizm wants the opportunity for everyone to get a fully funded education and for all of our student loans to magically disappear.
Femmeizm challenges what LGBTQQI is supposed to look like and wants to complexify the markers by which we identify one another. We’re not frustrated if you refuse to categorize yourself, actually, it might be better that way.
Femmeizm is a dynamic space in which difference can be vigorously debated and no one is shut down or pushed out.
Femmeizm is about performing interventions and standing up/speaking out.
Femmeizm encourages difficult conversations.
Femmeizm struggles to make sense of our daily-lived experiences through words and practice.
Femmeizm thinks that inclusion of trans women into lesbian spaces is non-negotiable. Period.
Femmeizm is concerned with a whole mess of “isms” such as: racism, sexism, ableism, and heterosexism. Other issues we’re working on: transphobia, immigration, homophobia, misogyny, discrimination, reproductive rights, corportization, corruption, health care, addiction, grassroots organizing, Christian cultural dominance, the prison industrial complex, hate crimes, the aging LGBT community, disability rights, housing, education, violence, war, job discrimination, rape, economic justice, marriage equality, genocide and cultural erasure.
This piece is a call to action. Go back to your communities and seek out (or create yourself) spaces to have discussions about exclusion/inclusion, ask questions, and challenge one another to think critically.
Think about the ways in which you want to shift the dominant’s understanding of what social justice looks like?
How do you walk through the world?
How can you make it more remarkable?
What is in your utopia?
Femmeizm wants you……………….oh yeah, it so wants you.
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