XII. Femme-inism: In daily pursuit of personal liberation

Coming into femme feminism

Moore (2006) describes ‘femme’ as a lesbian who “wears dresses or skirts, form-fitting jeans, tops that are low cut or that show cleavage, makeup, jewelry, and accessories such as a purse or high-heeled shoes that display a sense of femininity” (p. 124). This paper primarily focuses on the personal liberation struggles of those Black Queer women who engage ‘femme’ identities. We are cisgender, femme-identified/femme-allied, able-bodied, spiritual, young, Black, Queer women interested in personal, social, and political liberation. While we share similar identities, we differ in our occupations: Two of us are academic researchers, while the other has extensive experience as an advocate for a community-based organization. The first two authors began deep conversation on feminism at a leadership conference for women of color that prompted serious inquiry into the complexity of negotiating a femme identity as Black, Queer women. The third author is a colleague of the first two authors. With each other and the third author, a reflection on how purposeful investment in presenting a femme identity as Queer women connected to our engagement in Black and Queer feminisms has continued into the present. This paper represents the nexus of that joint reflective inquiry.

Similar to our Black lesbian foremothers (Clarke, 1995; Combahee River Collective, 1995), our adoption of feminism has been complicated. Even today, we still experience the legacy of invisibility by White women feminists (Combahee River Collective, 1995; hooks, 1999). Simultaneously, we bear witness to the internalized domination and patriarchy asserted by Black men. We also remain cognizant of overt and subtle heterosexism and homophobia that permeates the Black community spaces we frequent in order to find refuge from racism. We even acknowledge the contradictions of patriarchy and femme-phobia in the (Black) Queer community spaces we hold dear.

Our knowledge of these multiple exclusionary histories and present-day experiences guide our focus on the complexity, politics, and possibilities of contemporary aspects of feminism in the intersections we live daily. To contribute to conversations about young feminism, we have focused on three aspects of our lived experiences: (1) the complex need for personal liberation, (2) learning and recognizing the tools needed to enact our community visions, and (3) integrating femme-inism into our practices of resistance and personal liberation.

Shani: The need for personal liberation

During my later school years, I was purposely feminized. Those in authority attempted to teach me that a girl should never be better at sports than a boy, never speak out of turn, and never get angry. Girls should remain “lady like” even in the face of incredulous action. Still, I often asserted my own humanity in the face of these spoken and unspoken rules. Nonetheless, adults defined and packaged femininity neatly for me to pick up and wear. I guess, I was never a “girl” by societal standards. I did not like skirts and felt more comfortable in jersey shirts. Rather, I was too loud, too brown, too skilled on the soccer field, and too much better at karate than my brother.

My feminization extended into my household. My dad was always in charge; my mom was most often seen—but not heard. Though three years younger than me, my brother was treated better than I. Both spoken and unspoken messages were expressed to me about what it meant to be female-bodied. For example, one day after finding blood on my 13-year-old underwear, my Haitian dad looked at me in disgust and said, “You are dirty and a slut. No good man is ever going to want you.” My Jamaican mother added to the cacophony by stating, “Yes. No good man’s ever going to want you!” The exchange has stuck with me ever since. The assumption that being a girl meant that my worth was somehow wrapped up in a man’s decision to want me felt like a violent violation. Not only did boys need to like me, but I needed to like boys. I found feminism in questioning and resisting these purposeful attempts to make me more like a girl. For as long as I can remember, feminism has been my closest companion. Yet, I would not have the language to name my experiences and recognize the need for feminist resistance until young adulthood.

Nkiru: The tools for personal liberation

My parents raised me nested between two cultures: African American and Nigerian. My mother taught me feminism—though not by that name. As a product of growing up in a racist town in the 60 s, she valued Blackness and sisterhood and held tightly to both. Her bookshelf reflected this love of her communities: I found feminism in her books. They exposed me to elaborate and brilliant fictional and nonfictional stories by Black women about Black women across generations. I devoured the works of Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and many other intellectuals, who constructed stories that taught me the essence of Black womanhood. From these stories and from watching my mother struggle with the frequent assertions of male domination from my father, I learned quickly that being a Black woman meant struggle—particularly, struggle with the people that you loved the most. Even when the world seems to be working hard to dehumanize you, being a Black woman also meant being fiercely defiant about maintaining and sustaining your personhood. At home, practices of patriarchy, assertions of love, daily acts of resistance, and continuous requests for forgiveness coexisted. The complexity of this patriarchal reality was frustrating; yet, I did not have the language to name why.

While my mother taught me to value Black women, my work to end gender-based violence taught me how to cherish them. The realities of being Black, woman, poor, survivor, and the intersections of these social identities showed me how Black women lived in the complexity of multiple forms of domination and hopefulness. In my junior year of college, I met a mentor who connected these lived experiences with the theory of Black feminism. She explicitly told me that simply because I was Black, and woman, my voice was powerful and of worth. From then on, I have proudly proclaimed myself as a Black feminist and have felt grateful for the validation this discovery brought me.

Abigail: The reclamation of personal liberation

I found femme-inism in the arms of my lovers. These women taught me the blessing of being woman, the vulnerability of being female, and the power of being femme. Growing up as an Afro-Caribbean Pentecostal, I disparaged the bondages of womanhood: The mandatory skirt was female repression. Playing basketball I fantasized about the freedoms of male slacks. After coming out as gay, I shed these presumed sexist chains of my upbringing. However, I did not shed my femme-phobia until I found lesbian intimacy. In my eyes, my female lovers were queens. They taught me, the masculine-identified partner, that the secret to femme-power was simply a sleight of the hand or cut of the eye. As my body grew into its own womanhood, I applied their lessons of femme-nirvana to find power in my own feminine-self: Baggy clothes could no longer protect the femme in me from the male gaze.

Our stories indicate that our introduction to feminist thinking did not begin in a college classroom. Our development of personal feminism derived from living the uncomfortable realities of patriarchal injustice that manifested themselves in our school and home lives. We saw how larger systems manifested themselves on societal (e.g., gender-based violence), interpersonal (e.g., purposeful attempts to feminize women), and individual (e.g., recognition of male domination in the household) levels. Our personal histories reveal an early awareness of feminist consciousness. Yet, as young girls, we did not initially name this awareness as feminist.

Many concerted efforts to end oppression begin with consciousness-raising. However, raising consciousness is a complex process. As women who occupy multiple social identities, increased consciousness about multilayered and multidimensional oppression engenders an acknowledgement that our family spaces, which are a refuge from racist discrimination, portray, and embed assertions of patriarchal domination that can be unsafe for the Black women in our lives. To uphold our human dignity, we honor what we have learned from these spaces yet recognize the need to create counter-spaces where we are protected from racism, sexism, heterosexism, and homophobia.