At first, a pair consisting of a “butch” and a “femme” appears to conform to the concept of heteronormativity, but, at second glance, it undermines the concept.
It may seem that the terms “butch” and “femme” reinforce heteronormativity seeing how one assumes the typically masculine role while the other assumes the typically feminine role. A butch wears BVDs, rides bikes, gets into fights, and makes love to her woman—pretty similar to the generally accepted masculine role. On the other hand, a femme wears make-up, puts on dresses, and seduces her lover. But when we begin believe that this relationship supports the concept of heretoronormativity, we start forget that the relationship is between two women.
Heteronormativity suggests that a relationship must be between masculine and feminine characters to be normal and accepted. We know, however, that this isn’t the case when we see society’s reaction to a butch and a femme. Stone Butch Blues suggests that the butch-femme relationship is just as deviant as, if not more than, a lesbian relationship. According to the novel, outside of their “turf,” the gay bars that host them, their relationship is neither normal nor accepted. If this type of masculine-feminine relationship isn’t normal and accepted, then the masculine-feminine relationship itself may not necessarily be as natural as it is understood to be.
Judith Butler accurately partitioned sex and gender, by calling gender a product of cumulative performance. According to her theory butches have a masculine gender and femmes have a feminine gender because of the way they act. What is also striking is that her theory considers the audience of the performance. Butches are masculine because they act that way for themselves, for their femmes, and for society. Likewise for femmes. A relationship between the two is heteronormative, but, oddly enough, isn’t accepted.
I think it would be interesting to consider the reason that butch-femme lesbian relationships aren't considered "normative." Perhaps it's not because there is something essentially lacking or unnatural about a masculine-feminine pair. It seems that the reason butch-femme relationships aren't "accepted" is because they are neither "hetero-" nor "normative." As far as the current constructed standard of gender goes, women act feminine and are attracted to men. While the femme of the pair fits the first criterion, the exclusion of men for the lesbian relationship doesn't satisfy the standard. Furthermore, the butch partner doesn't perform her gender "correctly": she dresses and behaves superficially in what we consider a masculine way. Again, she is also a lesbian, so the sexuality standard is not met.
ReplyDeleteWhile at first I did think that the two roles, "butch" and "femme," supported the dichotomy of sex and gender, I too came to the same conclusion that they actually undermine heteronormativity. One sentence from the book in particular made me seriously consider what the two terms truly meant: "The other femmes--male and female--looked at me differently" (34). I though it was striking that the term "femme" was not only given to the feminine partner in a lesbian relationship, but also was assigned to certain men. In this way, the terms seem to set each and every one of them on an equal playing field--regardless of sex--and to see them for their true gender.
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