“… in a flannel shirt … “

[Cross-posted from Vox.]

A few years ago, the choir I belonged to sang a song with a chorus that goes like this:

(I want a) Big Butch Woman
in a flannel shirt
who drives a pick-up truck
and who smells like dirt

(Perhaps someone else can fill in the next stanza, which has escaped my memory.)

Kinda gives new meaning to the short form "BBW", doesn' t it?

As
part of our costuming for this song, the women were all required to
wear flannel shirts. This posed a dilemma for me as I had gotten rid of
a couple of flannel shirts in the few years just prior to being
required to have one. Happily,Tessera came to the rescue by swooping down on an outlet store and snagging a
few of the discount yet top-of-the-flannel-line models. I wound up with
a nice soft blue checked number with snap buttons.

The flannel
shirt, solid butch lesbian iconography from way back. And yet – not
flawless "gaydar" material. There are numerous amusing anecdotes of
lesbians travelling north to communities where every woman looks like a
lesbian because she has solid footwear, short hair and the ubiquitous
flannel shirt. Of course, in communities where one's femininity is
deemed of less value than one's ability to dig a truck out of a snow
bank, women may indeed lean towards the butch side of the female gender
spectrum.

Butch.

Femme

Woman.

Where do these concepts intersect?

Why
did I rid myself of my two prized flannel shirts a few years ago? Was I
(am I) afraid of my butchness? Does working in a predominently
heterosexual environment make me eschew the less normative side of my
identity?

I've been out of the gender politics loop for a while
and am now gingerly re-entering the debate, thanks largely to the
provocative and thought-inducing questions asked by New Love. I shall
carefully stick my toe back in and see what happens.

It is a
very common experience for me to be mistaken for a man, usually by
people who aren't paying attention. I have Hummer-sized hips and
proportionately well-endowed bosoms so the people who regularly call me
"sir" in stores and restaurants just aren't paying attention. My
clothing, although sort of androgynous, is cut to show rather than
conceal my shape. I wear some jewelry, but of the subtle variety, not
huge sparkly things. I do wear Bluntstone boots year round and possess
a rather heavy foot-fall. I have two walking speeds – saunter/amble or
stride. I've been told I have nice eyes and an open smile. I have also
been told that I project a very male energy or presence, which I find
so very odd. I'm just "me". I put no effort at all into being one way
or another.

For those who know me in person … I'm open to
debate on how I "present" to the world. I'd be curious to see how far
off my own interpretation is.

What is intriguing to me is the
rigidity of our own notions of "gender".  Femininity / femme "means"
roughly the same thing to most people.  More male or butch behaviours
and styles are also easily read, by most people in North America. What
room is there for women who remain resolutely female yet project a more
male attitude or presence?

It is my perception that it is more
acceptable for me live out my "tomboy" persona while it is less
acceptable for men who are more feminine to live out in the world in
that place. Even in the gay community, I have seen prissy men
experience some isolation and taunting.  From my study of power
politics, way back when, I know that it is acceptable for the less
powerful group to mimick the more powerful group (i.e. women to imitate
men) yet for the more powerful group in society to take on the
characteristics of the less powerful group … this is, literally,
disempowering for that group. Popular subconscious perception would
label this A Bad Choice … there must be something wrong with someone
who would choose to do that.

Of course, our Western notions of
male and female are merely societal constructs. A woman who embraces
her maleness is still a woman, or should be able to be so. A man who
embraces that which is identified as femaleness should be able to do
so. Yet there is so much resistance. I wonder sometimes if the current
wave of butch women transgendering fully to a male identity is really
about our society's inability to make room for a different kind of
woman. I am completely not informed on this issue and am speaking from
the position of a butch woman who sees a generation of butch women
younger than me who are turning to surgery so they will feel more
themselves in the world. I find it sad and a bit frightening, but I'm
looking forward to learning more as I delve deeper into this issue.

As
it turns out, my New Love describes herself as "soft butch" and she
never imagined being with someone who was also on the butch side of the
spectrum. We are having loads of fun with this, debating who is
butchier on a particular day or in a particular circumstance. This is
fun – it isn't a deep heavy debate about our own personal identities.
She doesn't care that I wear more jewelry than her and she thinks it is
funny that most people observing us think that I am "the butch". Maybe
that is just because I'm taller – who knows? Most important, she loves
my soft blue checked flannel shirt with snap buttons. I've realized
that I love it too, and I missed not having it for a while. Now that I
get to wear it most weekends, the world seems back in balance.