ABSTRACT

Femme seeks to redress the ways that femme identities have been elided, idealized, or not fully historicized in a productive reconsideration of lesbian and butch-femme history, of feminism, and of queer thought. As a feminist project, Femme offers an alliance between many communities of women previously passed over by feminism. Contributors: Leah Lilith Albrecht-Samarasinha, Barbara Cruikshank, Madeline Davis, Heather Findlay, Jewelle Gomez, Kelly Hankin, Leslie Henson, Amber Hollibaugh, Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, Mabel Maney, Katherine Millersdaughter, Joan Nestle, Lisa Ortiz, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Rebecca Ann Rugg, Gaby Sandoval, Marcy Sheiner, Alex Robertson Textor.

part |90 pages

Histories

chapter |25 pages

The Hidden Voice

Fems in the 1940s and 1950s Selections from Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community

chapter |12 pages

Fish Tales

Revisiting “A Study of a Public Lesbian Community”

chapter |9 pages

Femme Icon

An Interview with Madeline D. Davis

chapter |7 pages

“Articulate Silence [S]”

Femme Subjectivity and Class Relations in the Well of Loneliness

chapter |14 pages

Mysteries, Mothers, and Cops

An Interview with Mabel Maney

chapter |10 pages

Bad Girls

Sex, Class, and Feminist Agency 1

part |57 pages

Generations

part |62 pages

Futures

chapter |7 pages

Forever Femme

A Soap Opera in Many Acts and an Agony of Analysis

chapter |8 pages

Pronouns, Politics, and Femme Practice

An Interview with Minnie Bruce Pratt 1

chapter |12 pages

Marilyn, Mayhem, and the Mantrap

Some Particularities of Male Femme