ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how many queer femme accounts paradoxically align with feminist accounts that critique femininity as oppressive and seek to “reclaim” femininity through a kind of wilfulness. This chapter looks at how femmes often identify as feminists, whilst also showing awareness of the history of critique that feminism has offered on the topic of femininity. Though many femmes describe coming to the identifier as a term that “fit”, they also emphasise that femme identity must involve a wilful adoption of femininity in order to align appropriately with feminist critiques. This chapter seeks to challenge this emphasis on choice and intention and looks at the way that such a focus might in fact work against the ability to see the queer potential of femininity in the first instance. This chapter argues that in trying to align with feminist critiques queer femme identity readily focuses on seeing femininity as part of an essential political strategy, which thereby reduces the ability of queer femmes to simply “be”.
