I am different now. And I think about all the odes to femme’s I heard this weekend. All the womyn who couldn’t help but spill on about the beauty, the love, the support. I could write one too. Write something about how you all showed me sisterhood. How you all challenged me, invited me and lifted me up. I could write about love and coveting and gratitude. But I can’t quite pull it all apart. Can’t quite find the words to say how hir jeans and hir stilettos gave me permission. Can’t quite say just what it felt like to walk hallways of endless smiles and what’s your names and kind feedback about words we each said days ago. How does one speak to the complexities, the nurturing, of belonging? Of seeing bits of you held up, named and honored? Are there words for that kind of beauty?
On Friday I spoke as part of a panel of Femme Organizers. I was honored to sit beside womyn who open their mouths and pour wisdom each time. I was grateful to sit in a room and be seen. Be seen as both, femme and organizer. I’m still building and rebuilding. Both had been stripped from me and I had done that stripping myself. I let go of femme to be a radical organizer and found burnout quickly. I spent my college years wondering why people couldn’t see me. Wondering why folks would call me to fix a problem/a car/a document but not to adventure. I mourned my place as the playful one. The fun one. But I had given that up. I got serious and plain in order to feel relevant, committed, tough, capable.
From the first time someone called me Femme I had felt wary of it. Wary of its ties to capitalism, patriarchy and heteronormativity. But this space I spent my weekend in, this Femme space, was perhaps the queerest most feminist space I have ever been in. It was a space where womyn looked each other in the eye, thanked one another, heaped appreciation, admired each other’s beauty. For me it felt like a space free from competition and scarcity.
Saturday night on the stage a womyn said “scarcity is not your inheritance,” and I believed hir. So there is no need for any competition. Not for love, for resources, for place as most beautiful. There need not be a hierarchy of Femme. I need not measure myself up to some sort of Femme imagined to be higher than another. I can admire seamed stockings that always manage to stay straight and know that mine will forever be crooked. Know that mine will forever be bare. I can work towards believing that is good enough. Because I have all of you to show me, not tell me, that it is.
I spoke on Friday about Femme Organizing tactics. About how my Femme strengths lay in intuition, deep honesty, story telling, permitting complexity and walking the middle path that lay between worlds. Walking that path with dignity. Some of my best ‘organizing’ has been done in listening. In witnessing. In allowing room for humynity. And this weekend I got to hear other Femme’s talk about their tools of generosity, abundance, sweetness, snark and subversion. I got to learn from them. I got to walk away from the weekend feeling relevant, committed, tough, capable. But this time there was no stripping of self. This time there was joy and community too.
1 comment:
"I can admire seamed stockings that always manage to stay straight and know that mine will forever be crooked."
I get this so much. I also that feeling of jumping when being called Femme at the conference. For me, I think it's cuz it can sometimes sorta be an attack in other places when it feels like it's reflecting heteronormativity.
This was my first Femme Con, and I was overwhelmed at how gender-queer I instantly felt and almost like I was "femme-lying", yet how much by the end I realized that, well exactly what you said: there's not a hierarchy. I don't have to feel left out for not rocking high femme everyday. I can also rock it, full speed if I feel like it..but yes my stockings will inevitably crooked, it's kinda what I like about that part of my character though. Every time I dress up in full pearl regalia, I hope to do something that breaks the stereotype of what that costume once meant. Every time I wear jeans and my hair up too.
I hadn't thought about the eye contact, the respect, but just like you said, I *saw* it. I love that when I see femmes in that shared adoration. It doesn't always happen. In that crowd in felt perfect. I got so much to think about that weekend.
Thanks for posting love. I adore you.
Ana aka Ella aka Analisa <3
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