Lock your doors, hide the children, and frighten the horses—"femme theory" has come to town!
As a heterosexual girl who is nevertheless more femme-y than feminine, I’ve been following Sublime Femme ‘s "Rethinking High Femme" series ( part 1 , part 2 ) with great interest. First, her definition:
High Femme — Lesbian or queer gender marked by a highly stylized and aestheticized form of femme gender expression or identity. Uses exaggeration, artifice, and/or theatricality to denaturalize femininity. When combined with parody or irony, the effect achieved is akin to drag: femininity in quotes . . .Omit "lesbian" and "queer," and there’s nothing here for a Christian pomocon to complain about. I’m especially in favor of denaturalizing femininity—gender is presentation, not representation. Femininity should always be in quotes.
Occupying as I do a strange intersection of the queer community (insofar as, unlike my fellow straights, they’ll talk about gender theory for as many hours as I generally want to) and Catholic conservatism, I’ve noticed a strange thing: Feminists and queer theorists both hate the un-PC aspects of femininity that I find attractive—e.g. thinking of your partner as both lover and leader, being mostly okay with objectification (why else would I wear these heels?), and taking the word "ladylike" seriously—but, strangely, these characteristics of femininity become acceptable to them as characteristics of high femme .
I don’t want to suggest that there are no differences between traditional femininity and high femme. On the other hand, I’d caution against overestimating the irony and mannerism inherent in being a femme (i.e. excusing their exaggerated femininity on the grounds that they don’t really mean it); highly stylized gender involves a lot of playacting, but also plenty of sincerity. (I’d also caution against under estimating the irony involved in traditional femininity, but that’s another post. Suffice it to say that we are all Straussians now.)
Basically, given my druthers, I’d like to see two things happen: first, to see theory-inclined conservatives help SF pilot the good ship High Femme. Second, I’d ask feminists to consider whether there’s really much of a difference between straight women endorsing the patriarchy and queer women buying into butch/femme. If the right could get them to yield that ground, it might go a long way towards rehabilitating the gender roles we think are in crisis.