Graphic by Christopher Ikonomou (Xe/He) *This article is a modern analysis of the themes and content of “Too Femme To Fit“ (Winter 2002), the ninth installment of our From The Archive series.* “If your presence disturbs me, I have the responsibility…
From the Archive: Too Femme To Fit (Winter 2002)
Welcome to OutWrite’s “From the Archive” series! This series is designed to provide an opportunity to interact with our organization’s archives, assess the opinions and relevance of our past content, and bring that content into the present. In doing so,…
ABCs: F is for Femme Visibility
I’ve always been a little feminine. One day, while talking to my friend in 8th-grade after school, her little brother came up to me and asked “Why do you talk like a girl?” I didn’t know how to respond. On…
Book Review: Keeping You A Secret by Julie Ann Peters
The first time I ever saw Julie Ann Peters’ Keeping You a Secret was at the foot of my mom’s bed, face up and daunting. The image on the cover might have inspired less wariness if my mother hadn’t already informed me of the contents of the book, because I knew the image was not simply indicative of two female characters. It was indicative of two female characters in love.
Queer Your Reading List: The Well of Loneliness
Women getting it on. With each other.
Even today, this premise strikes a chord with audiences. Imagine in 1928, when The Well of Loneliness was first published in England and America. Obscenity trials tried to ban the novel. Still the book sold 100,000 copies in its first year on the shelves. The Well was one of the first lesbian novels ever published, written by Radclyffe Hall, an English author and gay lady. The novel tells the story of Stephen Gordon, an English woman living at the turn of the century discovering and coming to terms with her sexuality.
A Skirt Does Not Equal Damsel in Distress
The words “feminism” and “femininity” are only a few letters away from the same. Some people, however, force these two words to live in feuding worlds, as if someone cannot be feminine and a feminist, a person who truly believes in gender equality. This is, first of all, completely untrue, and second of all, the fact that so many people insist that the concepts of femininity and feminism need to be spread apart is actually a lingering sexist view in today’s society.
