page_title: Butch and femme
section_title: Femme
hierarchical_section_title: Butch and femme / Attributes / Femme
caption_attribution_description: Just married
context_page_description: Butch and femme are terms used in the lesbian subculture to ascribe or acknowledge a masculine or feminine identity with its associated traits, behaviors, styles, self-perception, and so on. The terms were founded in lesbian communities in the twentieth century. This concept has been called a "way to organize sexual relationships and gender and sexual identity". Butch-femme culture is not the sole form of a lesbian dyadic system, as there are many women in butch–butch and femme–femme relationships.
  Both the expression of individual lesbians of butch and femme identities and the relationship of the lesbian community in general to the notion of butch and femme as an organizing principle for sexual relating varied over the course of the 20th century. Some lesbian feminists have argued that butch–femme is a replication of heterosexual relations, while other commentators argue that, while it resonates with heterosexual patterns of relating, butch–femme simultaneously challenges it.
context_section_description: Like the term "butch", femme can be used as an adjective or a noun. Femmes are not "read" as lesbians unless they are with a butch partner, because they conform to traditional standards of femininity. Because they do not express masculine qualities, femmes were particularly vexing to sexologists and psychoanalysts who wanted to argue that all lesbians wished to be men. Traditionally, the femme in a butch-femme couple was expected to act as a stereotypical feminine woman and provide emotional support for her butch partner.  In the first half of the twentieth century, when butch-femme gender roles were constrained to the underground bar scene, femmes were considered invisible without a butch partner - that is, they could pass as straight because of their gender conformity.  However, Joan Nestle asserts that femmes in a butch-femme couple make both the butch and the femme exceedingly visible.  By daring to be publicly attracted to butch women, femmes reflected their own sexual difference and made the butch a known subject of desire.
  The separatist feminist movement of the late 1960s and 1970s forced butches and femmes underground, as radical lesbian feminists found lesbian gender roles to be a disappointing and oppressive replication of heterosexual lifestyle. However, the 1980s saw a resurgence of butch and femme gender roles.  In this new configuration of butch and femme, it was acceptable, even desirable, to have femme-femme sexual and romantic pairings. Femmes gained value as their own lesbian gender, making it possible to exist separately from butches.  For example, Susie Bright, the founder of On Our Backs, the first lesbian sex periodical of its kind, identifies as femme. Beyond depictions in pornography, the neo-butch and neo-femme aesthetic in day-to-day life helped add a sense of visual identity to lesbians who had abandoned these roles in the name of political correctness.
  In "Negotiating Dyke Femininity", lesbian scholar Wendy Somerson, explains that women in the lesbian community who are more feminine and do not fit into the "butch" stereotype can pass as straight. She believes the link between appearance and gender performance and one's sexuality should be disrupted, because the way someone looks should not define their sexuality. In her article, Somerson also clearly talks about how within the lesbian community some are considered more masculine than others.
  Femmes still combat the invisibility their presentation creates and assert their sexuality through their femininity. The dismissal of femmes as illegitimate or invisible also happens within the LGBT community itself, which creates the push for femmes to self-advocate as an empowered identity not inherently tied to butches.
caption: Butch lesbian (left) and femme lesbian (right)
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