Can femme be theory? Exploring the epistemological and methodological possibilities of femme

Abstract

Narrative-works are the lifeblood of femme scholarship. Through this medium, femmes write themselves into existence. In this article, I begin with my own story of femme and examine the backdrop of patriarchal femininity that positions pieces of me as being at odds, disjointed, and something needing to be reconciled. Indeed, many current frameworks and dominant framings for understanding femininity create disjunctures needing to be reconciled and fail to include diverse feminine perspectives in ways that constitute epistemic and hermeneutical injustices. Using my own femme becoming as a guide, I offer this process of femme reconcilement as a framework that can be applied to dislodge feminine normativity and challenge the assumptions researchers make about femininity within their work. In this article I highlight the importance of femme epistemologies; the importance of valuing feminine knowledge, and how the absented femme highlights the continued god-trick of objectivity. Here, I discuss how femme narratives can be used to bolster femme as theory and critical analytic. This situated knowledge holds the possibility to inform novel methodological frameworks and to substantially shift the way researchers think about femininity and feminine people.

Motherhood and guilt in a pandemic: Negotiating the “new” normal with a feminist identity

“…Indeed, this point of view sits well with decolonial feminist views (e.g., Manning, 2016). Sensemaking our lockdown experiences via the lens of critical femininity and femmephobia (Hoskin, 2019a(Hoskin, , 2019bHoskin & Taylor, 2019) allows for the possibility that mothers who work can simultaneously relish their lived experiences with their children and grieve for its loss.…”

Breastfeeding, ‘tainted’ love, and femmephobia: containing the ‘dirty’ performances of embodied femininity

“…We looked to the work of Butler (1999) to theorise that women who breastfeed in public, who do so for an 'extended' time, and who enjoy it are performing gender trouble. We looked at the work of Hoskin (2017, R. A. Hoskin, 2019a on femme theory to position breastfeeding as femme and, therefore, subject to psychological and physical femmephobic containment. We also looked to the work of Douglas (1966) and Rivera (2015) to theorise breastfeeding as (unpaid) work that evokes disgustobjectionable, inappropriate, excessive, or vulnerable emotions.…”

“…Femme, originally used to refer to feminine lesbians, offers an alternative theoretical framework that repudiates hegemonic femininity norms and refuses to 'cater to and appease' patriarchal expectations (R. A. Hoskin, 2019a). Femme is about defiance; it is about challenging and renouncing the (socially constructed) idea that femininity is for men and that masculine right of access is woven in its very fabric.…”

“…(Mathews, 2018, p. 11) It has been argued that patriarchal femininity must be offered up to the heterosexual male gaze (R. A. Hoskin, 2019a), which serves to restrict the spatial mobility of women and their presence in the world (Fenster, 2005). (Public) breastfeeding is one such 'space' where we see the complexities of these expectations playing out.…”

“…To do so, we look to three streams of literature to unsettle taken for granted assumptions about breastfeeding. First, we draw on Butler's (1999) work on gender performance to position breastfeeding as a performance of femininity, and on Hoskin's (2017a;R. A. Hoskin, 2019a) work on femme theory to propose that women who breastfeed in public, who do so for an 'extended' time, and who enjoy it are performing (femme) femininity.…”