A Different Kind of Herstory: Longing for Femme Mentors
Filed by: Guest Blogger
March 23, 2009 9:30 AM
http://www.bilerico.com/2009/03/a_different_kind_of_herstory_longing_for.phpEditors' Note: Guest blogger Amanda Harris is an activist-artist-queer-southern-feminist-femme. She is currently a Clinton Fellow at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
Recently an organization that I am a part of in New York called the Femme Family NYC hosted a speaking event for femme-identified queer women. During the event, a friend of mine, Sassafras Lowrey, read a piece ze wrote, about desperately craving the voices, faces, and stories of femmes before hir. Ze talked of their faces in old photographs, the way ze would listen so intently if they were to sit at hir kitchen table while ze served them cold drinks. Sassafras struck a chord with me that night and put words to something that I haven't had the language for in quite some time. As a newly identified (but always fiercely) femme woman, I wanted to know "Where are all of my femme and butch mentors?"
Growing up in rural Arkansas, I'm not sure I even heard the word "lesbian," much less "femme" until I was 19 and in college. I do remember hearing the word "butch" but always in negative contexts. What's more is when I did discover my queerness, I flaunted it in beautiful, erotic ways. I wore fishnets and heels and taunted the bois (butch and masculine women) at the bars. Diving into a gender studies curriculum that focused solely on the ways patriarchy has oppressed women made me feel guilty for liking my seemingly gender normative performances.
