FEMME (DISAMBIGUATION)?

In the last month, the entry on ‘Femme’ has been re-written on Wikipedia.

You can read that entry here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femme

There is now no mention of the historical origins of Butch and Femme - as people of colour and working class lesbian identities - and according to the anonymous author, these relationships were ‘hegemonic’ and is when 'lesbians perform and embody the traditional stereotypes of cisgender-heterosexual couplings’.

This is completely untrue and is a fundamental misunderstanding of what butch femme relationships are about. It’s a misunderstanding of lesbian sexuality and identity and of women loving women. And it literally deletes the long, rich and wonderful history of butch and femme within lesbian culture.

And now it’s written on Wikipedia so it must be the truth right?

The internet, like the queer community was supposed to be the place of many truths, many stories, a place for everyone. But as it’s turns out, again, there’s no place for our herstories.

The global Women’s March on Saturday was an amazing thing. But if we refuse to talk about the violence enacted on women’s bodies and minds every day and all over the world by the men in our lives and the patriarchal state we won’t have our stories heard.

Those stories, that feminism fought so hard to be heard, like The Feminist Library in London will no longer have a home.