Define Femme.
Now stop. Did you define YOUR femme-ness, what femme-ness looks like to you, and how you embody it? Or perhaps what femme looks like or is in those femmes that you happen to be attract to? Or did you happen to come up with a definition that embodies all Femme?
If you chose the latter, please tell me, because I'm having a hell of a time.
I feel a bit like Justice Stewart, when he spoke of obscenity and said "I know it when I see it." But it's true. Femme is just one of those terms that happens to be incredibly hard to pin down, incredibly hard to define, and I've been trying for years.
I hate when people define Femme and include clothing as part of it; lipstick, heels and pencil skirts do not a Femme make. Can a Femme WEAR lipstick, heels and a pencil skirt? But of course. But is it a requirement for the definition? Certainly not.
Then I got in the habit of defining it by attitude, by Femmitude if you will. There is just a certain fiesty-ness, a certain sass that Femmes possess. We give it out when we feel invisible, showing people that we have our own identity and please stop grouping me in with the other straight girls/women here, thank you very much. We have it in how we interact with our love interests, our partners, our lovers.
But how do you define that attitude? And what about people full of that sass and attitude and vitality that aren't Femme/femme-identified? How can attitude be the only definition of an entire identity.
Femme is so many things, and one of the best parts is that it is so many different things for so many different people. I find myself re-examining my own Femme identity all the time, and I've identifed as such for a good few years. I've identified as being part of a Butch/Femme dynamic, and as a Femme on my own, and as a Feisty Femme and a Kinky Femme, and an Invisible Femme, and a Disabled Femme and so much more. And if I can barely figure out and pin down my own identity, barely figure out out what Femme means to me, and define it for myself, how the heck could anyone ever try to define it as a whole, for all the Femme-identified people out there?
So you - yes you. How do YOU define Femme? For yourself, and for others. How do you definie it as an identity? What makes a Femme a Femme....or is it just the magic pixie dust covering all of us?
-Essin' Em
***I've already written a lot about finding my Femme identity and coming out as a Femme in various settings, so I've chosen to write about the struggles I have with the definitions of my own identities on a regular basis***
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uh, yeah. i try to do this all the time. it's not the clothes, though sometimes they help. it's not the attitude, cuz i'm not that sassy. well, not all the time. i've been told i should be defined by my attraction to butches. well, no thanks, that's not all i am.
got me. it's just Who. I. Am.
I'm a new reader of this blog, so please forgive me if the definition I use is something that's already been discussed at length here. Like Kim, I personally think that femme identity isn't so much about attitude or clothing. For me, being femme is about willfully adopting some aspect(s) of femininity (it could be a clothing style or a mannerism that is largely thought of as effeminate or it could be something else entirely) and queering it, making it your own. I guess that's kind of vague, but I like using it because it doesn't exclude a lot of the queer femmes I know who don't fit certain femme stereotypes.
Surely it's defined (with reference to De Beauvoir) as women who refuse to view their self-actualization in terms of becoming more manful.
[...] Aug Essin’ Em at Femme’s Guide asked how we define femme, both our own femme and femme in general. It’s not easy. She locates the essence of femme in [...]
Here's what I wrote on the words I like to use:
http://femmeguy.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/words/
To me, it's the energy of a woman. You can put Michelle Rodriguez in a tight little dress, but she still exudes a butch energy.
For me, when someone says "dress up so you feel sexy", I would naturally wear heels, a skirt or tight pants, and a cute top. Lingerie of course is a must. Now mind, I have my days when I feel sexiest in a pair of pajamas or ratty old jeans and sneakers. But still, my sexy feeling is defiantly female in nature. When I put on a suit or baggy masculine wear, I feel utterly sexless. I want to rip off a piece of clothing and show my shape.
I think femme is also in a woman's hips. Femmes sway. Butches swagger. We bring out the areas of ourselves that seduce another, and I, as a femme, find my hips sway more when I'm feely saucy. However, when I've watched butches in sexy mode, they usually emphasize a more dominant and square hipped walk, shoulders forward, pounding pavement a bit more in a defiantly rebellious kind of way.
Beyond the clothes though is just the energy of a person. I think the clothes just suit a woman's energy and when it doesn't, it feels false and looks "wrong."
One of the definitions I've come up with is this:
“Femme means doing femininity in a way that refuses to carry the baggage that the culture as a whole tends to heap on femininity and those who are feminine.”
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