Can femme be theory? Exploring the epistemological and methodological possibilities of femme

Abstract

Narrative-works are the lifeblood of femme scholarship. Through this medium, femmes write themselves into existence. In this article, I begin with my own story of femme and examine the backdrop of patriarchal femininity that positions pieces of me as being at odds, disjointed, and something needing to be reconciled. Indeed, many current frameworks and dominant framings for understanding femininity create disjunctures needing to be reconciled and fail to include diverse feminine perspectives in ways that constitute epistemic and hermeneutical injustices. Using my own femme becoming as a guide, I offer this process of femme reconcilement as a framework that can be applied to dislodge feminine normativity and challenge the assumptions researchers make about femininity within their work. In this article I highlight the importance of femme epistemologies; the importance of valuing feminine knowledge, and how the absented femme highlights the continued god-trick of objectivity. Here, I discuss how femme narratives can be used to bolster femme as theory and critical analytic. This situated knowledge holds the possibility to inform novel methodological frameworks and to substantially shift the way researchers think about femininity and feminine people.

Keywords:

• Femme theory
• femme identities
• critical femininities
• femme
• femininity

Introduction

What are the failures of society, feminism, queer and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)+ communities that positioned pieces of me as being disjointed and that made my fem(me)ininity something needing to be reconciled? It is not that I was disjointed; while in my skin I feel a sense of wholeness, I exist in a world that has at times made me feel fragmented. My story of femmeness is about navigating the social world that pulled pieces of me apart and told me they did not match. My story is about disentangling the messages I received that my pieces were not reconcilable, and the disjuncture of my own femininity that led me to femme. This is the story of my femmeness as a white, mostly-cisgender, queer-lesbian and disabled femme of Jewish descent. It is just one story and articulates only one of the many ways of being and becoming femme; one of the many paths of finding and carving out one’s own fem(me)ininity. Like Kattari and Beltran (2019), I feel a sense of responsibility to illuminate the complexities of femme, while at the same time grappling with how to attend to femme multiplicity within the given word count. Thus, this article comes with the reminder that “my femme is not your femme” (Burke, 2009, p. 11) and that my story is not a “measuring tape” for femme identities more broadly (Volcano & Dahl, 2008). My femme story is my own, and it begins with my family.

I was born into feminism; a legacy passed down by my great-grandmother. My family did not partake in traditional gender roles: my stepfather would wake us up every morning with breakfast prepared, after taking our “orders” the night before. He would pack our lunches and help us get ready for school and work. I still look back fondly at the memories of him sending us on our way, kissing us on the forehead, and waving goodbye from the driveway. My mother worked, and she worked hard – juggling full-time employment with part-time gigs to support the family. My grandmother also lived with us and would spend an hour each afternoon watching soap operas with my stepfather. I grew up attending vigils for the Montreal Massacre¹ and Take Back the Night marches in my hometown, picketing beside my mother, grandmother, brother and stepfather, just barely above knee-height. Heteronormativity and gender roles were not enforced at the familial level, and my family never attempted to douse the fiery spirit with which I was born. Now, I am a sociologist by trade, so I am aware that the overthrowing of social norms is not such a simple task, and I would indeed be remiss to argue that I was removed from normative gender socialization in its entirety. However, I do know that one of the major social institutions to facilitate gender norm socialization— the family— did not contribute to this process.

I turned out to be the head-strong, fearlessly brazen little girl my mother raised me to be; yet, to her surprise, I was highly feminine. Despite my mother’s conscious efforts to not enforce feminine gender norms, despite her raising me in my brother’s hand-me-downs, I was unmistakably and undeniably drawn to all things feminine. By no means is this to posit a gender essentialist paradigm, as I never felt as though my femininity was an expression or outgrowth of being assigned female. From a very young age I claimed femininity as my own and did so on my own, in ways that felt separate or detached from my assigned sex. And, although my mom could not quite understand my unusual affinity for femininity (identifying herself as androgynous), she always accepted and allowed that part of me to flourish.

In elementary school I was always a “good” kid; respectful, studious, and engaged – although my headstrong and opinionated tendencies, combined with my propensity to ask too many questions, would often get me in trouble with teachers and, oddly enough, boys. I would often butt heads with the boys in my class, which prompted teachers to comment on my report cards about their concerns that I “didn’t like boys.” As one teacher noted, “Ashley loves snack time and doesn’t get along with boys.” My mother was unconcerned, and to this day she laughs about how little I have changed in each of these respects. Nevertheless, concerns over heteronormative milestones seem quite an odd thing to note on a kindergartner’s report card. What was clear was that my femininity and my lack of interest in catering to boys were not seen as compatible. From a young age, my surrounding world, and the world outside of my family, positioned these pieces of me as being disjointed and as needing to be reconciled.

While I was feminine, my femininity was never compliant, never catering or appeasing to the men around me – as femininity is often expected to do. The ostensible discordance between my gender and my behavior brought with it a type of social rupture, causing me to wonder: What is the backdrop of femininity that created an environment in which I was always expected to toe the line, be silent, and seek to please the boys in my class? How might the lens of heteronormative feminine expectations have distorted my teachers’ perspective of me “disagreeing with boys,” and turned it into “doesn’t like boys”? How might this distortion come to inform the allegations of me being a man-hater, like so many of my feminist peers, that began when I was a teenager? Paradoxically, while I came to be seen as a man-hater, I could never be seen as authentically queer; when I was called a dyke, it was in reference to my feminist politics, never to the possibility of my being a lesbian. Through my femininity, the heterosexual world had claimed me as theirs. To this day, society has still not widely made cognitive space for the existence of femininity that is not aimed at men.

In high school, the femininity that I had always expressed, cherished, and loved was suddenly seen as inappropriate, and of a sexual nature. Outside of my family home, and in the eyes of my surrounding world, the dresses, makeup, sequins and accessories of my childhood had become crude, vulgar or inappropriate. According to this new world, adorning my body could never again be an act of self-expression – it had forever changed into an indication of my presumed heterosexual availability. This shift sent the message that not only was my gender expression inappropriate, but so too was my changing body. My gender expression was no longer my own, it was a cue for male access. While many of my feminine peers would receive comments from their parents about how they were not to leave the house “dressed like that,” or other remarks about getting unwanted attention from boys, my mom remarked on my creativity and expressive style. In many ways, my family and my mother kept my femininity safe. My mom always made space for me to express my femininity without it being tethered to an expression for someone else. For that, and so much more, I owe my mother a great deal of gratitude. I was not taught that my gender expression was a solicitation for men’s attention and it never was.

While my claiming of femininity was very clear, something else created confusion for me: despite my social world concluding that I “did not like boys,” because I was so feminine, I did not realize that I could alternatively like “girls.” In many ways, it was my femininity that made figuring out my sexuality all the more confusing. I grew up in a feminist, queer-friendly home. I learned from an early age that families can have a multitude of organizations beyond the heteronormative nuclear prototype, and that love transcends the gender binary. Unlike many of my peers, I did not require a period of unlearning family indoctrinated gender roles or heteronormativity. Why had “liking girls” not dawned on me as a possibility?

In my undergraduate university I majored in sociology and women’s studies. There, at a time when the majority of my peers found greater clarity surrounding their sexuality and gender, my sexual and gender confusion really set in— queer women were androgynous or masculine, and thus to be queer one must reject femininity. Therefore, given my love of femininity, I must not be queer. At the time, this seemed logical. Of course there are plenty of representations of feminine queer women on TV, but they are usually critiqued within these disciplines as just a way of pleasing the male gaze and not as “accurate” media portrayals of “real” queer women. No, the “authentic” queers were the masculine ones, like Ellen DeGeneres or Shane from The L word.

And then I discovered Joan Nestle (1992), whose work marked my awakening into femme consciousness and was among the first texts produced by femmes that theorized femme experiences. Discovering this foundational piece of literature felt as though my world suddenly came into focus and realigned to make space for a part of me that never seemed to fit or make sense. Shortly thereafter I discovered the anthologies Brazen Femme (Brushwood Rose & Camilleri, 2002), and later on Femmes of Power (Volcano & Dahl, 2008), discoveries that led me down a wonderous rabbit hole of many others. Highlighting the multiplicity and multidimensionality of femme as an empowered and agential form of femininity resonated with my own experiences in the most profound of ways. Like McCann noted (2018), this discovery “opened up an entangled world of queer feelings and experiences that had previously been occluded” (p. 280). Importantly, femme offered a way out, out of heteronormative assumptions, oppressive rules governing femininity, and the limitations imposed upon me by virtue of my femininity (or failure thereof). Femme helped me to realize that:

…People can claim femininity on their own terms!

…For some people, femininity is not inherently disempowering or oppressive!

…Femininity can be queer!

…Femininity is not always performed for men!

…Femininity can be a form of self-expression!

…Feminine lesbians are not just for the male gaze, femmes actually exist!

After these discoveries, I was introduced to the work of Julia Serano (2007). Serano’s work on transmisogyny, anti-femininity and femmephobia was invaluable in helping me to articulate my experiences, and to connect these experiences to broader social frameworks within and outside of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ)+ communities (Hoskin, 2017a; 2019). Importantly, her work helped me to connect my experiences of anti-femininity and femmephobia to others in LGBTQ+ communities with whom I share tenets of identity, namely those who claim and celebrate femininity within a world (and sub-culture) that privileges and prizes masculinity. Her work elicited a conversation around how femininity is treated, separate from misogyny or sexism. Serano’s (2007; 2013) work places femme scholarship in the current zeitgeist of gender-based violence discourse, shaping and shifting the way researchers talk about femininity, queerness, and anti-femininity (Hoskin, 2019).

In femme, I finally found words to express who and why I am. I could place myself within a community, understand social responses to my gender, and place those responses within the broader social devaluing or regulation of femininity inside and outside of LGBT+ communities. While my self-knowledge liberated my own understanding of femininity, it did not change the cultural messages I received nor the sociocultural practices surrounding me. My self-understanding marked an important shift, but it was only one part of the change I needed, and it alone was not enough. Rather, this knowledge of myself was still met with erasure within LGBTQ+ and feminist spaces (Blair & Hoskin, 2015; 2016; Mishali, 2014). Within feminist spaces, there was a failure of being pro gender-equality, yet throwing femininity under the bus (Serano, 2007; Hoskin, 2017b). Even in women’s studies courses I recall a professor listing feminine esthetic practices and asking students why “we” do these things: “for men!” she exclaimed. Having participated in said esthetic practices earlier that day, and sitting beside my butch partner in class, this sweeping statement about feminine gender expressions felt overly simplistic and lacking in intersectional analysis (Crenshaw, 1991).

The ostensible disjuncture between my gender, sexuality, and feminism set into motion what has become the focus of my research program to date. My graduate studies began by investigating how femininity had been taken up within course textbooks used to teach feminist theory at Canadian institutions (Hoskin, 2013; 2017b). As I embarked on my own work in this area, I took notice of how the field of femme studies and femme communities had shifted and grown since my initial introduction, encompassing not just feminine lesbians, but queer femininities more broadly (Blair & Hoskin, 2015; 2016). Furthermore, femme scholars began to recognize the epistemological value of femme knowledge in further-reaching domains, increasingly using this framework to re-think experiences within and outside a femme existence (Harris & Crocker, 1997; Shelton, 2018).

While I worry that my own narrative runs the risk of reducing femme to an esthetic expression, I also cannot help but reflect on how esthetics and political acts are often positioned as being at odds in the literature (McCann & Killen, 2019), specifically how this positioning unfairly disqualifies feminine people. Indeed, I would argue that femme makes esthetics political, particularly disabled and Black femmes, or femmes of Color who are excluded from femininity. For example, Black femme esthetic can push back against a white norm that has systematically excluded them, making the donning of feminine accoutrements an act of defiance (Tinsley, 2015). Equally, as described by Gomez (1998), “the act of moving deliberately between society’s prescribed roles, in opposition to the gender categories, even if only in wardrobe, remains a profound political statement” (p. 103). In other words, femme esthetics can be a political act in that they help to imagine a world wherein meaning is rearranged, that affects and effects a “reordering of the world” (Rice et al., 2017, p. 214).

Valuing feminine knowledge

To some, a narrative-based introduction might be an odd editorial choice. Academia asserts a masculinist imperative of stoicism, and the removing of “self” from analyses (as though it were possible). This notion of objectivity creates what Haraway (1988) calls the god-trick, suggesting knowledge comes from an all-seeing eye, rather than an embodied, contextualized, socially located being. This sterilization of scholarship, and the practice of removing subjectivity is at odds with much of femme scholarship and has a history of being used as a way of minimizing or dismissing the contributions of femmes and people with other marginalized identities. Yet, personal narratives and life-writings are the lifeblood of femme scholarship (Schwartz, 2018). Through these works femmes write themselves into existence (Harris, 1996; Lewis, 2012). Some have argued that the tendency to overlook femme within academic spaces is in part due to the canonical tendency to ground this scholarship in personal narrative, which is at odds with academia’s valuing of masculinist, objective science that necessitates an omission of the self (Mishali, 2014; Schwartz, 2018). This systematic devaluing of knowledge is a form of epistemic discrimination (Dalmiya & Alcoff, 1993). Personal narratives can be situated within a broader debate among scholars and feminists; one that supports narrative scholarship, making the personal political, femme science (Duggan & McHugh, 1996) and grounding theory in situated knowledge (Flyvbjerg, 2006; Rak, 2018; Stanley, 1992). A narrative lead article is not just a potentially appropriate choice, it is also a symbolic and deeply political one; a choice that maintains a historical connection with the literature and the femmes to which this issue pays tribute, while also pushing back against masculinist norms of subjectivity to radically value feminine knowledge. As will be discussed below, femme scholarship is not a view from nowhere (Haraway, 1988), and it is precisely this situated viewpoint that brings with it the unique ability to re-think femininity and gender hegemony (Hemmings, 1999). Thus, the editorial choice to open this article with my own narrative is to connect with this history and to value feminized forms of knowledge.

Honoring and expanding femme

Traditionally, femme has referred to feminine lesbians within butch/femme relationships (Kennedy & Davis, 1993; Levitt, Gerrish, & Hiestand, 2003; Nestle, 1992). Branching² in some ways from this original understanding, perhaps, contemporary research highlights the various invocations of femme across sexual orientations and gender identities (Blair & Hoskin, 2015; 2016; Brushwood Rose & Camilleri, 2002; Burke, 2009; Coyote & Sharman, 2011; Hoskin & Hirschfeld, 2018; Volcano & Dahl, 2008). Often, this branching spans across identities, including transgender men, cisgender men, transgender women, cisgender women, and non-binary individuals of all sexual orientations (Blair & Hoskin, 2015; 2016; Coyote & Sharman, 2011). Consequently, contemporary femme centralizes and brings together the plurality of queer femininities (Hoskin, 2017a; Shelton, 2018). This ostensible distinction brings with it a reoccurring question within femme scholarship: How can scholars explore emergent contemporary invocations and meanings of femme without conceptually severing the femmes of the “past”? In many ways, contemporary uses of the term femme branch from its identity of origin; but, there are also many ways in which femme remains fundamentally the same.

While femme has certainly branched in many ways, it is important to throw off the yolk of presentism and anchor, or at least pay tribute, to the femme lesbians from whom the term originated; to recognize the term of origin while allowing for queer outgrowth. This is not to situate femme lesbians in the past but rather to understand femme lesbians as the theoretical jumping point from which contemporary femme identities have proliferated (Hoskin, 2017a). While the two “camps” of femme may be seen or positioned at times as being at odds, they remain at their core more similar than dissimilar. For example, one of the attributes frequently used to distinguish the two “camps” is contemporary femme’s departure from cisgender butch/femme lesbianism. Yet, the dissolution of binary systems of classification based on sex, gender, or sexuality is repeatedly evidenced as a shared goal across traditional and contemporary femme invocations (Pratt, 1995). Femme has always been, and remains, a radical invocation of queer femininity. Femme has many features, as an affect, as a way of relating and nurturing one another, as an esthetic, an erotic, and a politic; it can be a matter of acting feminine or dressing feminine, both or neither. Some of these features are shared, many are not. Thus, can it really be claimed that femmes occupy any type of shared quality? Perhaps not; but perhaps, in focusing on what femme does rather than what femme is we can find a common ground or a central feature (McCann, 2018). Indeed, I believe that the very quality that makes femmes a heterogenous identity is what makes them perpetually resistant and queer— their failure to conform, even to their own ostensible identity, while continuously challenging, reworking, and reimagining the norms of feminine classification (Hoskin & Taylor, 2019). Importantly, resistance from within cannot be employed by those who have been historically and systematically excluded from the category of femininity (e.g. black femmes, femmes of Color, disabled femmes; Tinsley, 2015; Samuels, 2003). Instead, some femmes resist by staking claim to a femininity that has been historically, and often legally, denied (Tinsley, 2015). Thus, what femme does is employ various approaches to resist patriarchal norms of femininity, particularly those that restrict, exclude, and limit expressions across intersectional axes. Femmes have always pushed back against rigid constraints of identity and normativity and continue to do so. This is not to homogenize femme plurality, or to posit a universal definition of femme. Rather, it is to illustrate the shared features among femmes and that while femmes diverge, they may at times connect. In line with previous femme scholarship, this is not to draw boundaries and delineate the parameters of femme, thereby shaping femme through exclusion. Instead, my goal is to conceptualize femme as a process of “inviting in” – an open invitation to DIY³ femininity (Hoskin & Taylor, 2019).

How can one identity label hold so many sets of meanings, yet remain the same? What can the slipperiness of femme teach about the need for unification or cohesion? What does the discomfort with unbound femininity teach about society at large? As this body of work continues to grow, shift, and expand, and as researchers make infinite attempts to pin down and define such a mercurial identity (Lev, 2008; Levitt et al., 2003), what can be said concretely about the apparition that some claim femme has become? In this erosion of classification, what has femme come to mean – as an identity, a politic, an adjective, or a theory? Can femme be a verb, a noun, an adjective… a theory? Can femme be used as a theoretical framework akin to queer? Can femininity be re-valued via femme? When femmes do, are they befalling femmephobic and masculinist ableist rhetoric by valuing femininity through masculine codes (Galewski, 2005)? Is it possible to resist masculinizing femininity in order for it to be empowered? Can the soft be made powerful … without hardening? For instance, can femininity only be valued through discourses that connect femininity to power, strength and domination? Can vulnerability, compassion, empathy and relationality become valued qualities and, if not, what does that say about the governing principles in society? Echoing Middleton (2019), what would it be like to exist in a world that values femininity?

What can be made of femme proliferation or plurality, and can femme be applied as a theoretical framework (Hoskin, 2017a; 2019), a figuration (Dahl, 2012), a frame of reference (Shelton, 2018), a category crisis (Samuels, 2003), or an assemblage to rethink femininity (McCann, 2018)? Is the only way to honor fore-femmes by keeping this identity rooted in the very systems by which they, and their butches, were oppressed? Importantly, is femme not strong enough to evolve in multifaceted ways? Surely nothing in femme’s history indicates that it ought to buckle under the weight of complexity. Then why, to some, does this evolution or growth necessarily signal a severed historical connection? It is my hope that this issue encourages femme scholars to maintain the tendrils of femme legacies and carry them forward into the capacious femmes of contemporary queer times. This journal special issue is a celebration of the continued legacy of femmes, rooted deeply within the history of femme narratives, but still proliferating through contemporary invocations. This issue is a powerful recognition of how a queer feminine figure that was once relegated to the past, and at various times thought of as “less relevant” (Lehavot, King, & Simoni, 2011, p. 384) continues to resurface in complex ways, each of which offers novel approaches to being femme and rethinking patriarchal femininity.

Femme Theory?

Often, femininity is an overlooked intersectional axis under consideration – of course, there is an abundant body of scholarship addressing and deconstructing how femininity has been a tool of patriarchal oppression⁴. However, outside of femme scholarship, little theory has addressed how femininity is treated within intersectional analyses independent of womanhood, or how people are treated for being perceived as feminine across social locations (Hoskin, 2019; McCann, 2015; 2018; Schippers, 2007). In response, femme theory is used to analyze the commonalities across femme identities, while proposing a theory of critical femininities and feminine gender policing ( femmephobia; Hoskin, 2017a; Shelton, 2018 ). This is achieved by centering traditional femme lesbians as the conceptual jumping point from which to theorize how departures from norms of femininity bring together these multiple femme invocations. Thus, femme refers to the deviations from patriarchal norms of femininity – whether by race, ability, sexuality, class, gender/sex, or the value afforded to femininity. Femmes represent disruptions to social and categorical claims (Skeggs, 2001). Like ruptures in femininity, femmes highlight the permeability of categories and redress the intersecting norms of femininity that work to exclude and devalue. Femme is femininity with “mistakes” (McCann, 2018), and defiant in its “failure” to occupy the intersecting norms of patriarchal femininity (Hoskin, 2017a). Femmephobia is therefore a response to these deviations: it is the regulation and overall devaluing of femininity across gender/sex and sexuality, separate from sexism or misogyny^5,6 (Hoskin, 2017a; 2019).

The anchoring of femme as an analytical framework is a novel contribution that makes femininity salient within interdisciplinary research, urging scholars to consider how femininity is conceptualized, how it might be theorized differently, and why it might be important to do so. Femme theory asks scholars to consider how the teachings and trajectories of femme can aid in the recuperation of femininity, or in the explication of femininity necessary to buttress the field of femininities. Perhaps most importantly, femme theory asks scholars to consider what assumptions have been made with respect to femininity, by the researchers but also within the phenomena at stake. Femme theory turns assumptions about femininity on their head (Volcano & Dahl, 2008), causes one to re-think, if only for a moment, the process of coding bodies, systems of normativity and classification – be it whiteness (Keeling, 2007; Lewis, 2012; Story, 2017) disability (Erickson, 2007), sexuality, body size (Taylor, 2018), or aging (Hoskin & Taylor, 2019; Walker, 2012). Just as queer is used as a theoretical framework to question the confines of normalcy, while shifting the focus away from the naturalization of compulsory heterosexuality, femme tutelage can be used to bolster femme as a theoretical framework through which to understand femininity beyond patriarchal norms and feminine gender policing. Additionally, femme subjectivities can be applied to bring to focus the complexities of femininity more broadly.

Born out of queer contexts and communities, femme theory draws on femme histories and experiences to analyze the intersection of femininity (and the treatment of femininity) within broader contexts. Femme theory reflects femmes’ subjugated theorization of their own treatment within multiple contexts, and how these experiences are influenced by femininity, thus making femininity a focal intersectional axis. In doing so, femme perspectives cultivate a framework through which to understand the contextual treatment of femininity across multiple intersecting axes of privilege and oppression. In other words, femme theory centers femme and expands on femme teachings in order to analyze and understand broader social phenomena. Consequently, femme theory offers a radical framework that promotes thinking from the margins, rather than the typical dominant perspective looking outward. Like queer, a femme perspective is not only vital, but also uniquely equipped to reconfigure and analyze dominant culture, while also challenging and exposing the deeply ingrained femmephobic meanings attached to femininity. Femme theory is thus a framework for dislodging these prescriptions of femininity; checking what assumptions might be held about femininity and feminine people. Femme theory is deeply personal, subjugated and community driven knowledge turned into a critical theoretical framework. Such a framework is comprised of femme experiences and theorizations of the world, straddling both invisibility and hypervisibility, hetero/queer worlds, sometimes passing but always “failing.”

Femme theory is informed by feminist standpoint epistemology (Harding, 1991; Sprague, 2001), which recognizes marginalized experiences as a way of knowing that can guide the choices researchers make in terms of the questions they ask, the assumptions or analyses they make, and the interpretations or conclusions they draw (Ussher, 1996). For example, performance artist Alok Vaid-Menon (2017) asks “What feminine part of yourself did you have to destroy in order to survive in this world?” Illustrating an application of femme theory, this question prompts Middleton (2019) to reflect on how the disavowal or partial perspective of femininity has informed their own work, and how their practice has “suffered as a result of their own self-censorship” (p. 91). Additionally, using femme theory, scholars consider hegemonic gender relations alongside intersecting dimensions of race, disability, sexuality, and class as a means of making feminine margins central. Gender hegemony refers to the privileging of masculinity over femininity (Connell, 1987). Typically, this concept has been used to refer to the ways that men are privileged over women. However, it can also refer to the ways masculinity, separate from men or male, is valued over femininity (Hoskin, 2019; Skeggs, 2001). Thus, femme theory offers a standpoint epistemology that values the knowledge of those who are marginalized through gender hegemony. Femme theory values the ways of knowing of the oppressed by centralizing a gender located at the margins or subordinated in masculinist social order.

The importance of valuing femme epistemologies is explained by the concept of double or multiple consciousnesses (Du Bois, 1994). Femme has been taken up as a doubly-conscious identity whose ostensible contradictories generate skills to negotiate the world (Hoskin, 2013; Sandoval, 1997; VanNewkirk, 2006). Femme cisgender lesbians “pass” as sexual majorities yet occupy a sexual minoritized status. Femme is not merely invisible, it is an impossibility, a disjuncture needing to be reconciled. Those rendered unintelligible by “the laws of culture and of language,” whose subjecthood is made an impossibility, have yet to achieve human status (Butler, 2004, p. 30). Thus, femme occupies both the center and the margins, and is ostracized within many of the communities that femme might yearn to call home. Consequently, as a means of survival, those located at the social margins must develop an awareness of how their social world is regulated at both the center and the margins; thus, acquiring a dual understanding of their social world. Those occupying the margins must remain cognizant of their subordinated status, while simultaneously wielding knowledge of the center in order to manage their realities (hooks, 2000; Harding, 1991). Occupying the feminine margins, straddling a paradoxical in/visibility (Story, 2017), femmes offer a unique vantage point, an oppositional consciousness (Collins, 1998; hooks, 2000; Sandoval, 2004) or multiple consciousnesses (Ladson-Billings, 2000) that can provide an epistemic advantage over masculine ascendency. In this way, femme theory is intended to make visible the taken-for-granted ways of privileging and centralizing masculinity.

Conclusion

Femme theory is a proclamation that femme existence – my existence – means something; that the way femininity is predominantly understood is only part of the story – a partial perspective (Haraway, 1988). Femmes constitute a missing piece of the story that has been lost to histories of sexism, misogyny, racism, colonization, transphobia, fatphobia, homophobia, ageism and ableism. Femme stories are overlooked by the history of femininity (Harris & Crocker, 1997), tossed aside due to the tendency to see femininity as “socially regressive or anti-intellectual” (Middleton, 2019, p. 84). These feminine expressions remain chiefly unaccounted for by queer or feminist discourses and theoretical frameworks attending to femininity (Hoskin, 2017b; Mishali, 2014; Story, 2017). At best, femmes remain relegated to the margins within femininity scholarship, rarely made central. Femme theory attends to this gap and seeks to restore this epistemic and hermeneutical injustice. Thus, as a theoretical framework, femme theory requires:

• Bringing feminine multiplicities and feminine devaluation into focus within interdisciplinary and intersectional research.

• Recognizing feminine intersections as central to understanding the ebbs and flows of power.

• Questioning the assumptions made about femininity and seeking to understand how these assumptions are informed by way of intersecting aspects of identity, or modes of oppression.

• Situating femme subjectivities in order to unpack anti-femininity and femmephobia.

• Connecting experiences based on shared femininity, or perceived femininity.

• Recognizing that current assumptions about femininity and feminine inferiority are rooted in colonization.

• Decolonizing understandings of femininity by looking to the past in order to imagine the future.

• Consider the possibility that femininity is not the source of oppression, but the assumptions and associations attributed to femininity itself.

While not comprehensive, the methodological goals outlined above remain tethered to fore-femmes and the history of femmes, while allowing for femme expansion – a femme-inine outgrowth rooted within the historical context of femme communities who re-worked femininity in their own image, who fought for the rights of feminine folks, queer folks, masculine folks, sex workers, and everyone else who had been cast aside by a heteronormative white-supremacist patriarchal colonial world (e.g. Nestle, 1987; Harris & Crocker, 1997). This is femme’s continued legacy and remains at the heart of femme theory.

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rhea Ashley Hoskin

Rhea Ashley Hoskin is an interdisciplinary feminist sociologist and an Ontario Women’s Health Scholar working as a postdoctoral researcher in the departments of gender studies & psychology at Queen’s University. Rhea’s work focuses on femininities, femme theory, femme identities, critical femininities, and femmephobia. In particular, her work examines perceptions of femininity and sources of prejudice rooted in the devaluing or regulation of femininity.

Notes

1 The Montreal Massacre is the mass shooting of December 6, 1989, that targeted women at the Université de Montréal.

2 Following van Anders (2015), I use the terms branched or coincides to refer to the ways aspects of identity align or misalign without inferring judgement or a correct way of being situated.

3 DIY is a colloquial term for “do it yourself.”

4 See Hoskin (2017b) for an overview of feminist theory’s undertaking of femininity.

5 I am currently working on a theory that examines the differences between femmephobia and anti-femininity, and how these two concepts might be empirically distinct.

6 Notably, however, even femininity that is sanctioned under patriarchal norms is devalued. For a full overview see Hoskin 2017a.