D.D. P.
How do you self-identify?
As a queer femme.
If you most closely relate to femininity as a model of self-presentation, what does that concept mean for you?
Femininity transforms into a performative, chosen role when the target sex is one of your own. The roles reserved for women in society become radicalized and substantially changed for queer women who choose to appear more feminine. However the femininity (in my case at least) is strictly portrayed through dress. To simplify- I wear dresses and paint my nails and wear high heels and paint my face, but the high passivity of a typical feminine woman stops there.
Which of these words most closely relates to your identity: queer/femme/butch/lady/girlie/woman/dude/lesbian/gay/straight/andro/trans? (add other terms if necessary)
Queer Femme.
Is a combination of these words necessary to define your self-identity?
Absolutely. Queer becomes the friendliest, most applicable term to "what I am". It becomes a choice of not identifying rather than doing so. terms like "Lesbian" or "Dyke" (which I will use on the rarest of occasions) feel exclusive and restricting. By labeling myself as Queer I am recognizing myself as a part of a greater community that includes people of all and non-orientations. As for femme, well, that becomes like a sub community. A small indicator to potential dates that nail polish dry time might need to factor into pre-date dressing times. ;)
How do you define "femininity"?
This is completely a personal definition, but femininity to me becomes two things. On the street and in public every day life it becomes the obvious. It becomes how I walk and carry myself, how I dress and style myself. But in a queer community it gets more complicated. Femininity becomes whatever people decide to call it. It becomes the revolutionary act of defying previously set gender roles. It becomes the butch woman who looks in the mirror and notices that her face looks handsome when her cheeks are flushed. It becomes the boy who comes out of the closet and he feels more attune to the world and nature. It becomes the group of non-gendered people who find a community and care and cultivate it like they would a garden.
So in a word, femininity is indefinable as it becomes a completely subjective experience to each and every person.
Do you see femininity as limiting or freeing? How do you argue for or against "traditional" forms of femininity?
When I look at my grandmother who has spent the better part of her life in mourning over a man who took advantage of her, cheated on her, and left her with nothing. I see it as limiting. I hear stories either from her or my own mother of how marriage to him was a kind of servitude. Her entire life dreams were stopped, because she was “supposed” to raise a family and be a wife. It was the horrifying image of 50’s housewife played to the tee. Yet this was how she was raised, to understand that she existed to serve a man. This is probably to story of everyone’s grandmother or someone they know and in a way it is disappointing.
Femininity has become such a stereotype, and it is partially warranted. For many, to be feminine, means something very serious in this society. In many ways it still means that one must marry and become a mother, and commit themselves wholly to a man. Granted, things are changing for the better and the rise of single moms and queer moms (or dads) and female bachelors (who reject the term spinster), femininity is becoming less of a curse. And I think in many ways, with the openness and acceptance of queerness (especially in younger communities) we are seeing a shift in our notions of femininity. now femininity is not just limited to women, its something that is in all of us, so in that respect, it is slowly becoming a very freeing thing, although I don’t believe we are there yet.
What does "femme" or "femininity" personally mean to you? Do you relate to these terms? Do you project your own definition onto these terms and re-define them?
I have basically preached this in previous answers, however for me femme becomes a community, and femininity is an act. I am “femme” when people look at me they will see a woman as they understand it. Someone who could be a textbook definition for a young lady (if you ignore my extremely butch looking partner) in everyday society. However beneath that is a queer girl, who identifies as femme, and therefore puts her into a specific group of people within the queer community who look out for each other as “straight-appearing dykes” as my straight male co-worker so eloquently put it. Femme means having to take heat from the outside strange world for being female and what that means when you walk down the street and some man feels it is his duty to holler after you shouting revolting derogatory things. But it also means having to create a small pocket of people who are like you, who understand that when you wear a dress and date someone who looks like a man, and you seem to fall into all the seemingly “hetero-normative” roles (I almost got through this poll without using that word!) it does not mean that you are straight, or insulting the queer community, nor are you “getting off easier” because of the way you look. It becomes imperative to find people who support and love you and thus bore the term “Femme Unity” so in many ways, femme becomes, as I said earlier, performative. It is this thing that can absolutely become a projection, a meta-act, a constant transformation and re-evaluation as we see fit. As I see fit.
Can femininity be a revolutionary act?
YES. It is. For everyone who dares to embrace their femininity. Just to do so is flipping the bird to extremely patriarchic regiments put in place, and confoundedly still upheld. I wont get into how women are continually oppressed in this society, rather explain that every time a person embraces their femininity they have made the conscious decision to be something that is not the easiest choice. They are doing and being something that will not make life any easier for them, and because of that, in numbers, and just walking down the street with your head held high and a big grin on your face, it becomes a revolution
Do you consider yourself a feminist? If yes, have you ever seen femininity as limiting to your feminism? If no, why not?
I consider myself a feminist in the respects that I am part of a greater community that binds me morally to other people. And I consider myself a feminist in the regard that I am a female who has to sustain in this society, and for that, I think yeah. I am my own kind of feminist, making my own kinds of revolutions daily.
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