Austin

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Our mother-daughter relationship is a work in progress. WeMami, Sis and l-struggle through newways of being in the world that
Femme-lnism:
Lessons of MY Mother
will help redefine what kind of mothers and daughters we will be in
the future, and what kind of sons, daughters and grandchildren we
will
I
Poulo Austin
raise.
xpecially thank Mami, Melinda, Blanca and
for making this
WLL (a
colledive fur women of color writers)
essoy possiDle.
about "feminism" even if
My mother taught me everything I know
She taught me to work hard' to
she didn't think she was teaching me'
She taught me
to fight mean' to fear love (to question love)'
be hard,
fear, and pain that goes
the meaning of honor and retribution and
knew' She taught me about desire
way back. She taught me what she
be
How to flirt' be coy and demure' How to
and sex and sensuality'
How to be looked at' how
femme, a high diva, show off my cleavage'
to stay alive' She taught me
to be invisible and afraid' How to survive'
and authority'
what she could. About women's powff
Reflections
brought me and my three older
I was four years old when my mother
Guiana' a small Caribbean
sisters to the United States from British
country on the norEhern
tip of
South America' The United States
higher education and the ability
offered a different kind of access to
play the game' My
to change one,s economic class, if you could
British Guiana during the
mother, Ena, had Srown up in colonial
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coveted her' and
had always been men who
"boyfriends." There
where darkat a time and in a country
used this to her advantage
outside of teleIike her had few opportunities
skinned, poor women
to make money' Colonialism'
operator, secretary or teacher
she
Black
poor and
in rural Bartica' where people were
My grandmother washed the
and struggled to feed their children'
people seven days a week' She
dirty laundry of rich, white English
1930s. She lived
the ironand basin and then later at
stood all day at the washer board
left his family when my mother was
ing board. My grandfather had
her
mother scrubbed floors to help
ten years old. As a child' my
says she
ended at the sixth grade' She
mother. My mother's education
keep any
or book-learning'" She couldn't
"never had a head for school
she had already had wo
got. By the time she was sixteen'
iob that she
family' My
been raped by a friend of the
nervous breakdowns and had
also
self-medicate with alcohol' She
mother eventually learned to
work'
learned to do hair and sex
the power of her sexuality' Looking
Ena's idea of strength lay in
On her limited budget she was
good and getting what you needed'
wide hips
sexy' Heaving breasts' round
always clean, well groomed'
on
and girdle' Her hair wound up
hugged in by a long-line brassiere
knew
shining with hair grease' She
the top of her head, pressed and
and food for
kerosene to light the lamps
how to "get" things-money'
to survive and keep her girls alive'
her children. This was her work,
other
years her senior-supported his
while her husband-twenty
familY across toYtT *
Through
-
accommother found reason to feel
Lucille' to
her family' sending her sister'
found a
as well as her own' Ena
t.i sti *"t) *'
plished, adequate, oi
u'/to
children
school and feeding Lucille's
body' Even
control both her life and her
means by which she could
she continued to have several
after my mother married at twenty-one'
i
n
158
phone
economic separation
supremacy created an
imperialism and white
women as smart
Black women and white
between light-skinned
Black women as thick-headed
women of leisure and dark-skinned
laborers.
a
In 1984 I was sixteen' I was iunior
This is the same
my best friend, Jennifer'
published her book Eemininity'
l
in high school' in love with
year that Susan Brownmiller
did not read
it until two years
later
college
course at my liberal arts
a women's studies
taking
was
I
when
go away to collegeunheard of that I would
in New York City' (lt was
with my mother in Flatbush'
So I lived
only white kids did that'
work each day')
subway to school and
Brookllm, and took the
heterosexuality and aJ
a femininity rooted in
Brownmiller discussed
abouti
for male attention' She talked
female-to-female competition
in the
armor"' not a suit of metal
femininity as a t]'?e of "feminine
display of]
an overstated and distorted
rather
but
sense
Eaditional
and safe to men'
weakness that was comforting
She would
my mother from the bed'
As a child, I often watched
pressed black hair
her hair and rings of long'
take out each clip from
and back' and
head' She brushed it hard'
her
down
unravel
would
in a French
Then she twisted the back
pinned it up and to the side'
it there' She
behind her ear and pinned
bang
little
a
brushed
roll and
thighs and
panty hose over her shapely
pulled on her control-fitted
I
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ass. Over her hose she
brassiere. Sometimes
put on her girdle and fastened her long-line
I would
have to help pull the hook and
eyes
together behind her.
I often watched her do her makeup in front of the small mirror
that sat on a tiny square table across from the bed I slept on, in the
bedroom
I shared with
my mother and sister. She would dab some
foundation from the bottle into her hand and smear
it
evenly across
Somewhere between the apartment door and the building's
front door
down five flights of stairs, I would hurriedly apply the makeup, lining
my eyes with the blue pencil and combing on the black mascara I had
stolen from woolworth's. I was never delicate enough. I was rough,
rushed and heavy-handed. once applied, as hideously as
looked, I stepped out from that apartment building.
Avenue
it may have
out onto ocean
in Flatbush, where I was a poor Black girl, living in someone
a pencil. She wore eye shadow and mas-
in an all-white neighborhood, where my family was
,,the help.,' And at eight in the morning, on that street with
seen as
all of its white faces staring down at me or not seeing me at all, I
cara. Lastly, she lined her lips, using some shade of burgundy. When
walked with my head high and made it to the bus stop without flinch-
she finished dressing, her shoes and pocketbook always matching, the
ing. It was mY armor, too.
and around her face. She used concealer around her eyes and covered
that with powder. She wore black eyeliner, above and below her lid,
which she administered with
else,s apartment
room smelled like her expensive perfume long after she had gone.
This was her ritual each day, the donning of her costume. This
was her feminine armor, her feminist attire. This was the very thing
that brought her strength and power. I could tell this by the way
stepped
she
out onto the street in her blue polyester floral dress that
hugged her hips and thighs, her strong calves shaping down into her
white pumps, her ass and pocketbook both swaying. Her sory gait was
evidence
of her prowess, and both she and I were proud.
She was
My introduction to what "feminism" was and what it could mean
for me as a woman of color came when I was twenty. At my private'-,,
predominately white college, we read many things, including This
the
B,ridge called My Back: Radical wntings by womm of Color.It was
first time I saw in print something I could identifu with, the intersection of history culture, oppression and identity. It was a rite of passage
for me. That year I came out as lesbian, as visible in terms of my
unknowingly modeling for me.
When I was eleven or twelve, I was punished for wearing makeup.
Caribbean culture and heritage, as an abused daughter of a wounded,
until this point my
existence as a chunky, curly-
I would wait until my mother was out of the room at bedtime and I
alcoholic mother.
would sneak an eyeliner pencil from the makeup drawer to under the
bed. In the morning I would pretend I was looking for my shoes and
haired, brown-skinned, large-chested girl had been very much about
how to remain unseen. I felt ugly, undesirable, unlovable. During sum-
it out of the house.
mers as a teenater, in the heat of my Brooklyn neighborhood-which
slip the eyeliner into my pants pocket, sneaking
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U)
My Radicalism
767
was changing from lewish affluent to Puerto Rican/west Indian work-
ing class-l had felt large and uncomfortable in my T-shirt and shorts
and the
as well as in my own skin. Now in college I began to see myself
organized
I worked with five white women in a student group' We
around "diversity" issues on our campus. I learned about
leadership, voice and coalition-building as we worked on racism, sex-
ism and homophobia at our school. we read and wrote together,
staged actions, hung up signs and held caucuses, panel discussions
and consciousness-raising groups.
I
learned about internalized
oppression, not so much about racism as about sexism, and under-
it to be at the heart of my desires for invisibility during those
summers. Understood it to be at the heart of my sense of myself
stood
teen
(
\
mother's apartment, which was downstairs from my mother's
employer's apartment. It was this life, after school, where I would
face my reality without the
world differentlY'
There
and I needed to support myself. I wanted to move out of my grand-
built-in support of women from college,
with whom I had become accountable for fighting against iniustice.
There were mornings on the subway, being felt up and doing nothing except enduring it. Sexual harassment at the gym, and being too
ashamed to even feel my indignation
until much later. Without the
anger and righteousness of my women friends, how could I remember that I had a right to my own body, a right to say no? What a priv-
ilege
it
had been to be able to sit and talk about these things, to
scream our rage, to write essays. 'yvhat would I do
with this new sen-
sibility? Out here, alone.
(At
as ugly and undesirable-and simultaneously sexually perverted.
My mother had known racism. She understood its existence as a fact
this time I was being unhappily sexual with random men at my iob')
of life, a given. It wasn't something changeable, moveable. It was some-
This internalization of all the destructive messages
over the years-which
I
I had
gotten
continued to receive-about brown, round
thing to be maneuvered around, waded through like muck and mire.
It
wasn,t even something necessarily to be talked about. And she moved
it
slowly, her pace crippled by clinical depression, little
women was at the heart of my short stint of trying to deny my femme
(after I had come out) for a more politically correct (and
through
of
accepted, by my white lesbian friends) androgynous presentation
myself. Still, in manyways this was an idyllic time: social actMsm and
strength in doing hair and sex work. she always said to her daughters,
,,you have two things against you: you're Black and you're a woman.
I wouldn't know the
Nothing is going to be easy." She would urge us to get our education so
that we would not have to "depend on a man." My sister and I would
self
diversity work
in a relatively
safe environment.
real impact of patriarchy and its intersection with racism, sexism and
homophobia until I left school'
in New York and found a fob working
I wanted to teach but wasn't quite sure how to do it
After graduation
as a secretary.
I
stayed
education and hard work from an early age.
I think
she found some
cringe at hearing ourselves referred to as "Black," certain that it wasn't
a good thing.
often in the
same breath my mother would urge us to
marry white men, so that we would have babies with "good hair"'
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be raped or lynched?
MyArmor
I
always admired my mother's sense of what was powerful about
they realize the person
I am with is not
a
boy? Even with alt my fear, there is no question between us that my
femme affect is the safest bet here. I ask to use the phone, saying we
seemed a
My girlfriend nods, smiles, stands idly by' The
man directs me to the phone and I call Alil{. I tell them I have a flat
completely natural way of interaction. What I learned, listening to my
tire. "l can't seem to get those screwy things off, you know, they hold
mother's sultry voice-placating, or asking questions like a little girl,
the tire in place?" I say. The tone in my voice is of distress and silli-
giggling, sighing, her eyes wide and suggestive-was that women who
ness.
herself: flirting.
I
remember hearing my mother on the phone or
watching her with company. She flirted with everyone.
It
had this skill had power. Did the men, and women' she used this on
know what she was doing? Did they allow themselves to be manipuIated, or distracted from the task at hand?
now when I use my powers of
flirt
I don't know-not
even
have broken down.
I shift my weight from hip to hip, smiling at the greasy man
I wait for them to dispatch a truck. My girlfriend does not speak.
There is no real reason for me to maintain my femme performance on the phone with the AAA customer assistant.
I am not really
being paid attention to by the garage attendant' Still,
and distract.
as
I am deep in
It is moments like being stranded on the highway with a flat tire
character, and it brings me a sense of control in the midst of this dan-
that what I have learned from my mother becomes necessary. I am
on my way back from the beach with a white lover who looks like a
and my lipstick.
ter, as does the two-inch elevation from my shoes
boy.
I am in
a long cotton dress, slits up both sides, flip-flop high
heels, hair in a curly pom-pom on the top of my head. We are some-
where between Durham and Wilmington, North Carolina'
I am a
Thedonningofmyarmorhelpstoholdatbaytheanxietyandpanic
until it can be safely expressed later in the arms of my lover or with
my friends.
off
the phone I talk more with the greasy man about the "screwy
all of which come into play when I am stranded on the side of the
things,' that we could not seem to remove and the iack, which we
couldn,t get to work. When the tow truck arrives, we squeeze into the
road at dusk.
front
Northerner with all kinds of frightening stereotypes about the South,
seat
with me next to the driver,
a
white man with
a
thick drawl
We trudge across the highway to what looks like a road toward
in
and the smell of stale coke and cigarettes permeating everything
town or houses, at the very least. We end up at a bus repair shop' A
man with a deep southern drawl and geasy overalls emerSes from the
the truck. He has had to move aside several girly magazines to make
back ofthe shop to greet us. My lover is concerned about her baseball
cap and butch appearance. I am concerned about being Black.
764
+
will
will
I
room for us. we drive ten miles before we can get back to the highway. In an effort to distract him from too much observation about
the Black woman and white woman in his truck, one of whom looks
765
suspiciously like a boy,
I
chatter. More conversation about the
"screwy things."
"Lug nuts," he
my femme
saYs.
"Oh, is that what they call them?"
I giggle' "I just don't know a
thing about changing a tire. And what is that?" I point toward the
fields of crops we whiz
it
looks like?" More giggling' My
lover's leg is anxiously pressed up against mine'
it
back to my stranded car' The tow truck guy
my car'
hoists a large iack from his truck, upon which he begins lifting
around him. "Man size," I say, referring to the iack suggestively.
is
I am aware of my play-acting, feeling powerful in the skill of it. He
the part, like
responding to it. I think it brings comfort to him. I look
flit
my Mama taught me.
/
fft.
if only for a moment'
Sometimes
I hate that
part of me.
Femme-Inism
"Ohhh, really, is that what
I
away from her partner,
bY.
"T'bacca."
We finally make
with a woman who already had
Hoochie Mama after having an affair
particular relationship was damaging'
a wife. And even though this
to steal this woman
self finds pride in having been able
fine is thin between empowerment of "femme" and its poten-
i
tial self-destructiveness. I wonder if it was like this for my mother' she
to
turned to sex work out of necessity' This is not something I have
do. Femme brings with it
what we have learned about what
it means
to be female and woman in this country and culture. As many times
power of my
as I have felt empowered by it, I have also found the
femme affect slipping away' leaving instead the ways
I feel defeated'
inept,unabletohandledifficultsituations.Rationally,Iknowthese
tobethemessagesoftheoppressorsandcolonizers.Still,Ihave
and transcompeted with other femmes for the attention of butches
and
gender men. I have both claimed and loathed the titles of Jezebel
because it leaves out women who
I have felt left out of feminism mostly
feminine' of color' poor' powerlooked like my mother-Eaditionalty
on her psyche' It leaves no room
ful despite the impacts of oppression
forwomenwhofindtheirpowerthroughaperceivedpowerlessness.
ex-hooker' gypsy-says that it is
Amber Hollibaugh-lesbian sex radical'
femmes with a history of sex work'
no accident that there are so many
other
moving in the world differently than
She
talks about sex workers
Men looked at my mother when
women, with their heads held high'
down or away' This
down the street, and she never looked
she walked
in the face of what we are taught as
display of blatant subiectivity flies
little girls, how to be a "good girl'"
power' art'
But there is also
My femme dance is reassuring to men'
mother and myself' colonization and
objective, resistance in it' For my
the battle against
deeper survivals.
H*story
Atchives
it
and
poses a contradiction between appearances
of the ksbian
loan Nestle' author and founder
"There is a need to
and general femme hero' has said'
at him yet at the same time to keep
reflect the colonizer's image back
culture' even if it is misunderstood by
alive what is a deep part of one's
he knows what he is seeing"'1
the oppressor, who omnipotently thinks
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766
l'qr ttte atul trty rrrgllter tttlt lctltttc cxlrlCttCe utrtl ottr lctlttrte pcrformance have been the ways in which we have found pleasure in our
wonlcll who have strttgglccl to support thctnsclvcs, atrd thclr tarnlllcs,
bodies, wide-assed, round and brown. Bodies that society teaches us
manifestations of oppression and colonization. The stories my mother
to scorn. To ignore the way in which femme reclaims ourselves is to
seriously diminish our resistance. It is this resistance that is at the
has told me about herself-of an ouffageous girl washing her naked
heart of my "femme-inism." My mother's feminism was limited,
mixed in with very traditional West Indian and Catholic views of
for herself and her children in a different country and culture at the
who have struggled to be strong through the physical and emotional
self on the back steps in the twilight, of a mother starting a new life
age
of forty-two, of a woman whose empowerment knew
many
bounds, who did what she had to for her children to survive, a woman
gender and sexualitY.
There is no language that can create an understanding of how my
who somehow in the midst of her own internalized oppression trans-
femme identity and "feminism" function in me as one, with no space
ferred racial and gender pride, as well as she could, to her daughters-
between them. The same way race, gender, sexuality and class exist
these stories
simultaneously in me, and how who I am is the filter through which
the women in my family.
I
see everything. The same
how
I
is true for my femme-inism. Maybe it is
can reclaim my mother's high-femme practice
in a more
empowered way. To survive, I had to allow myself to be who I am, con-
strained for a while by the lesbian feminism of
the
7970s, which
rejected both butch and femme as a "heterosexist imitation
of the
oppressive gender roles of patriarchy." Even though I came out as les-
bian femme in the
separation
of
799Os, when
I keep alive and recount
as evidence
of the strength of
These stories are the context of my femme-inism. The monster
of
colonization, acculturation, prejudice, discrimination, poverty,
misogyny takes shape
in me as I struggle here to bring together, in
myself, these two aspects of my mother, which her life only hints
at-'
her true and deep passion and sexuality and her strength to proac;,'
tively address the limitations of her situation.
folks had begun to write about the
sex and gender, making room
for the possibilities of
gender play as itself a political and erotic option, there was still a very
large community
of lesbians, young and old, primarily middle
class
and white, who continued to subscribe to the lesbian feminism of the
early women's movement.
I have only to look at my mother to see it is possible to be both
femme and feminist. For me and for many poor and working-class
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