Negotiating relationships with powerfulness: using femme theory to resist masculinist pressures on feminist femininities

ABSTRACT

Finding power within femininity, typically through masculinised dimensions of femininity, has long been a mechanism through which to recuperate feminised identities, experiences, and aesthetics within feminism. However, privileging powerfulness to the exclusion of dimensions of powerlessness, such as vulnerability, pathologizes femininity and maintains masculinism within feminism. Using queer femme autoethnography alongside intersectional feminist, femme, queer, and critical race theories, I demonstrate this tension surrounding how feminist feminine-of-centre folx negotiate masculinist pressures related to powerfulness and powerlessness in order to be considered properly feminist. I argue that continuing to prioritise powerfulness exclusively within feminism leaves little space for valuing femininized experiences, affects, and qualities, which are concomitant components of femininity. Ultimately, I conclude that the one-dimensional assertion that femininity is powerful, and only acceptable or potentially feminist when powerful, serves as a re-instantiation of a masculinist recuperation framework within feminism’s relationship to femininity. I assert that moving forward critical femininity studies should advocate for moving towards an acceptance framework regarding feminism and femininity in order to move beyond individualistic debates surrounding acceptable feminist femininities.

KEYWORDS:

• Feminism
• powerful
• critical femininities
• powerless
• femme theory
• recuperation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Patriarchal oppression is used to signal interlocking and co-constitutive forms of oppression including, but not limited to, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, racism, classism, colonialism, sizeism, and ageism. Patriarchal femininity and hegemonic masculinity signal coercive gender expectations that support these systems. See Hoskin (2019b) and McCann (2020) for elaboration.

2. This has propped up neoliberal critiques of femininity that contribute to recuperation frameworks (see McCann, 2018, 2020).

3. I maintain a feminine/masculine dichotomy due to the overall masculinisation of androgyny and gender-neutrality (Barton & Huebner, 2020; Scott, 2019; Serano, 2007) and the pushback, hostility, and even violence that trans, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming individuals describe when living betwixt feminine-of-centre and masculine-of-centre expectations (Hoskin, 2019b, 2020; LeMaster et al., 2019), both of which demonstrate the theoretical and practical non-neutrality between femininity and masculinity.

4. Certainly there have been different theoretical treatments of femininity within various forms of feminism (see Dahl, 2012; Hemmings, 2011). However, these theoretical differences do not appear to be translating into markedly different generational differences in the lived tensions between femininity and feminism as associated with various forms of feminism. Additional research is needed to determine a broader range of feminine-of-centre feminist experiences including the role of the recuperation framework within transnational contexts.

5. The recuperation framework represents a masculinist value system within feminism because it leaves uninterrogated the overall negativity associated with femininity. This devaluation of femininity within feminism, including blaming femininity for experiences of sexist discrimination, is in line with masculinist logics addressed by Hoskin (2020) and Serano (2007).

Additional information

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Jocelyne Bartram Scott

Jocelyne Bartram Scott is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Texas Tech University. Her research focuses on the intersections of critical femininity studies with feminist and queer theory and critical race theory. Her current major research project addresses the role of femmephobia in homosocial community creation for marginalized populations.