For Lesbians and Friends: Butch- the Masculine Woman: Interesting Reading

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http://www.lesbian.org/amy/essays/bf-paper2.html
Excerpt from: Lesbian Identity
and the Politcs of Butch-Femme Roles, Part 2

http://www.lesbian.org/amy/essays/bf-paper.html

Lesbian Identity
and the Politics of Butch-Femme Roles
I. LESBIAN IDENTITY/POLITICS
One of the fundamental tenets of postmodern theory is that all identities are socially constructed, and that, throughout history, dominant groups have had the power not only to construct their own identities, which they disguise as "innate" or "natural" rather than created, but also to construct the identities of groups the dominant group has a vested interest in marginalizing. The appeal of postmodern theory lies in its method of "deconstructing" the power relationships inherent in constructions of identity so that it becomes possible to articulate a counter-ideology which has as its aim the liberation and de-objectification of marginalized groups. The irony in this is that those most often attracted to and who are in a position to utilize postmodern methodology are themselves members of the dominant group, even if only in terms of level of education, and in the attempt to give voice to those historically silenced and oppressed, they frequently run the risk of re-inscribing oppression along very different lines.

According to Newton, in "The Mythic Mannish Lesbian: Radclyffe Hall and the New Woman" (1984), the figure of Stephen Gordon "was and remains an important symbol of rebellion against male hegemony" (281) because of the way she challenges the "natural" relationship between sex and gender. As Newton notes, the "mannish lesbian should not exist if gender is natural" (291), and the sexologists answer that she is, in fact, the victim of "inversion" does not work in the case of Stephen Gordon. According to Newton, who counters the feminist critique that the novel perpetuates the stereotypes created by the sexologists, the character of Stephen Gordon is not "mannish" because she wants to be a man, but for the more complicated reasons of resistance to the dominant construction of "femaleness," and decision to publicly announce and act on her desire for other women -- which, in a phallocentric culture, means appropriating the male role.

The claim Newton is making for Hall's character is that, rather than capitulating to the dominant construction of lesbian identity as a defect of nature, she instead destabilizes gender categories by exposing them as roles that can be assumed by either sex. Masculinity then becomes nothing but a social role, albeit one accorded power and dominance in the culture, and therefore women who reject the prohibitive and dehumanizing role of "femininity" symbolize this rejection by "cross-dressing," appropriating the codes and symbols of masculinity while remaining fully female. Role-playing then becomes, at least for the "butch" woman, a challenge to heterosexuality rather than a replication of it.

Despite recent theoretical trends which make Newton's reading of Hall's novel seem "obvious," there has long been a good deal of resistance within the dominant culture, and especially within lesbian-feminism, to the idea of the mannish woman, due largely to the failure to see the power of such a figure as a challenge to stereotypes rather than a fulfillment of them. Martha Vicinus traces the resistance to this particular type of lesbian identity in her essay, "'They Wonder to Which Sex I Belong': The Historical Roots of the Modern Lesbian Identity" (1989). According to Vicinus, there have been times in history when it was considered socially acceptable for women to fill male social and economic roles, the most notable example being during wars, but as soon as these periods of necessity end, the dominant culture seems to forget that it was possible for women as women to cross gender boundaries into male roles.

When there is no clear social need for gender-crossing, women who do so face public persecution, and with the increasing influence of the sexologists around the turn of this century, persecution might involve being labelled a "congenital invert." Of course the irony is that many women adopt a masculine style of dress and behavior precisely in order to signal their desire for other women, with little regard for whether their condition is the product of a birth defect or simply a choice, so that the label has little effect except as a means of inspiring fear in the culture at large. In other words, they are not mannish because their nature compels them to be, an assumption which rests on the belief that sex and gender are the same thing; "mannish women" instead disrupt the sex/gender system by crossing genders out of choice, which therefore challenge the very foundation on which compulsory heterosexuality is built. Such women, according to Vicinus, also lay the foundations of what later lesbians would appropriate as the "butch" identity.