A question from a reader: Does anyone know any resources about role models for LGBTQ people from non-White/Western cultures, in terms of things like Butch/Femme or other identity issues?
She was responding to my post on Butch/Femme as formed by my Bengali/Malaysian cultures and wanted to know if there was more like it. I don’t know of any offhand but am continuously looking - do you know?
Tiara, I definitely know that lesbian scenes in the Global South often do take on a butch/femme role-playing dichotomy. I’ve read academic stuff about this, and heard about it second-hand from friends.
Global Metaphors and Local Strategies in the Construction of Taiwan’s Lesbian Identities, by Antonia Chao (2000) in Culture, Health & Human Sexuality, Vol. 2, No. 4. (I can get you a copy if you don’t have access to a journal database.)
Interview with Zero Chou, a lesbian Taiwanese filmmaker.
Article about lesbians in Thailand from Pink Ink, a gay & lesbian monthly publication from Thailand.
This article about lesbian culture in South Africa mentions that butch-femme tropes aren’t as apparent in South African lesbian scenes.
Lesbian Identity and Sexual Rights in the South: an Exploration, by Saskia Wieringa (problematic since the writer is white, but useful if you take it as an overview).
A couple more books on lesbian cultures in the Global South by the same author.
Amy Lind & Jessica Share Queering Development: Institutionalized Heterosexuality in Development Theory, Practice and Politics in Latin America.
Lourdes Torres, Boricua lesbians: Sexuality, nationality and the politics of passing, about Puerto Rican lesbians.
Peter Drucker, ‘In The Tropics There Is No Sin’: Sexuality and Gay-Lesbian Movements in the Third World also problematic because it’s kind of white-gaze-y, with the white author casting a glance across, well, the entire world.
Ronny Kraft, Bofes e Sapinhas: Lesbian life in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil also informed by the white gaze & generalisations about Brazilian culture, but based on empirical research, so read with caveats.
And that’s just scratching the surface. To be sure, there’s a dearth of material about lesbian subcultures in the majority world, but it is out there. Google is as good a place to start as any.
Aha thank you! I never felt comfortable with the Western idea of Butch/Femme, and in Malaysia they get adopted to absurd extents, hence my deconstructive post. But thanks for the resources!
Also,
The ambiguity present in conceptualizing butch-femme identities is complicated significantly by broadening the scope to include other countries. When representations of butch-femme subjectivity around the world are taken into consideration, it is apparent that social and cultural factors play a large role in how butch-femme is constructed and viewed by mainstream society. The degree to which women can move between, and within, classifications of gender roles depends greatly on influences from mainstream media, feminist movements and how long the community has existed. In the United States, Canada and several other countries, the stereotypes of lesbianism are linked irrefutably with traits recognized as “butch”. By being too butch, a lesbian is considered to be crossing a boundary and is treated as though she were offensive. This leads to femme invisibility and pressure for many lesbians to fit into the “sea of androgynous anonymity.” (Lynne) This tension is also evident in “Out On Main Street”, Shani Mootoo’s story of a Caribbean-Canadian butch-femme couple’s outing to a restaurant in downtown Vancouver. “Walking next to Janet, who se femme dat she redundant, tend to make me look like a gender dey forget to classify.” (Mootoo 171) The narrator feels targeted when she is with her partner, as though when situated beside a femme, her butchness, and therefore their lesbianism, becomes “too” apparent. “I tell she I don’t know why she don’t cut off all dat long hair, and stop wearing lipstick and eyeliner. Well, who tell me to say dat! She get real vex and say dat nobody will tell she how to dress and how not to dress, not me and not any man”. (Mootoo 176) Social and cultural climate has an effect on how butch-femme is perceived in other countries as well. In “Queering the State: Towards a Lesbian Movement in Malaysia”, Rais Nur writes how the lesbian feminist movement of the west has not been carried through to Malaysia. She states that “without feminism’s insight on how patriarchy works to oppress women and how gender roles function to reinforce patriarchal power, many lesbians simply adopt heterosexual notions of gender and replicate heterosexual relationships without questioning them”. (Nur 75) Without access to other models, lesbians in Malaysia generally view butch-femme as the only possible dynamic. In Tina Machida’s “Sisters of Mercy”, she examines lesbianism in Zimbabwe. Social and cultural forces are strongly traditional and view lesbianism as a punishable offense. Butch lesbians are sometimes said to be inhabited by a “male spirit”, and after going through certain rituals can marry other women. In this way, lesbians can openly love other women, but only by adopting a heterosexual paradigm. The social climate in Zimbabwe currently does not offer any alternatives. In this instance, conforming to traditional gender roles is considered more important than conforming to traditional (heterosexual) sexuality.
- Butch-Femme & The Politics of Gender by Elizabeth Gusnoski, which is, again, plagued by an imperial gaze that normalises white queerness & reduces everything else to the (apparent) lack of feminist politics in the majority world.
(Source: creatrixtiara)
