The
Mission
A Letter from Rachael...
Hey, ya'll. Yeah, I know. I got us all into this. And, frankly, I count it as one of my most fabulous accomplishments. I talk about Femme Mafia a lot. I'm very excited about it, and people are always eager to hear more and to ask me questions, all of which I love. Who wouldn't be excited to talk about the subject that might, just maybe, turn out to be her life's work? But I know, I know... you have questions. So I'll stop blabbing and answer some of the ones I get most often, and then I'll let some of the Mafia Femmes give you their own personal (and sometimes very different) takes on some of the questions they get.
What is The Femme
Mafia?
At its most basic, it's an Atlanta-based progressive, edgy organization of
self-identified femmes open to all genders and sexual orientations that seeks to
foster connections between femmes, reinforce femme identity and provide members
with the occasion to bask in their own fierce fabulousness and the fabulousness
of others. In a larger sense, it provides us with a sense of community, a forum
for the examination of our identities, of how each of us fits in the community
at large and of how we femmes as a group can make a place for ourselves. The
organization also does a lot to counter the many misconceptions and preconceived
notions about what a femme is and what a femme does and to show none of those
assumptions are true all the time. Being
at a Femme Mafia event and seeing Femme reflect back at you in so many different
forms can be a challenging and transformative experience. It can also be
addictive. I find that Femmes are hungry for it, and so am I. For me, Femme is an
umbrella under which we find solace, and not an exclusionary or
restrictive predetermined formula. Femme Mafia is reinforcement, it's
challenging, it's celebration, it's discussion and it's fucking fun.
But I'm (
). Can I still come?
In the context of your attendance at Femme Mafia...
I don't care if you currently have a boyfriend (trans or not.) I don't care if
you like to date femmes. I don't care if you have never been to anything like
this before. I don't care if you were identified as male at your birth. I don't care if you are new to your
Femme identity. I don't care if your mother's maiden name was "Femmsuck".
I only
care that 1) you identify yourself as Femme in the context of a queer community and 2) that your attendance not
disturb the carefully and deliberately created "Femme Only" space of our events.
And if you don't meet that, there's always the after-party!
Why did you choose the term
"Mafia"?
I like the
connotation. It's an advertisement that this organization doesn't shy away from
being aggressive. A mafia is organized, dangerous, unapologetic. And so are we.
As someone who was raised in a proud Italian family, I thought very much about
the name of the organization before deciding on it. And when researching the
etymology of the word mafia, I was struck by the difference between the
origins of the word and its current popular perception. Like so many words
reclaimed by feminism and queer politics, the early uses of the world were very
interesting. From my research, I came across a widely held theory that "mafia
is a corruption of the Arabic word mu afah, in which mu means
something like inviolability, strength, vigour, refuge and afah something
like to secure, to protect. Mu afah had therefore been an association
which provided security for its members." (Henner Hess, Mafia and Mafiosi)
And while the source of the current popular connotations of the word are related
to Italy and Italian Americans, the term has now been extended to any large
group of people engaged in activity which society deems dangerous- a development
which really spoke to my ideas about how femme identity has been villanized by
feminist and lesbian communities and about how I feel that unless we construct
for ourselves an association in which members can find security while working to
counteract the perceptions of femmes as weak, passive, and powerless the voices
of queer femmes will be lost in the GLBTQ melting pot.
I'm not a Femme, is there some way I
can get involved, help out, come to the afterparty?
Join the Mailing
list, **here**.
I have more questions.
I want to
join.
How can I get additional info?
Email me!
FemmeMafia@gmail.com
From Brook...
Why Femme Mafia?
Because
we are all tough broads who need to band together and fight oppression and be
fabulous and glossy while we do it. We need each other's camaraderie to get us
through--we need that girly girl love and support. And I love the mafia part of
it--it gets at the lawless, fuck it and fight attitude so many of us fabulous
femmes share.
What does Femme Mafia do for you?
I think this group does a number of things--it gives us an opportunity to see
and meet each other (something that can be difficult because we so often don't
recognize each other as queer), to socialize and network and have fun together.
I don't think that the importance of pleasure can be minimized when we're
talking about activism and survival. Femme Mafia gives us an opportunity to bask
in each other's wonderfulness and re-charge our batteries, so to speak. And, we
get to share makeup tips and shit.
What does Femme Mafia do for
butches, trannyboys, femmechasers, admirers and allies?
For our allies
and stuff, I think it fulfills a similar function--it lets "them" see "us" and
helps with our aforementioned problem of invisibility. I also think it functions
to counter these pervasive negative notions about femmes by exposing our
fierceness and intelligence and the myriad ways we fight the fight. I think
there are ideas about femmes out there, like because we don't stand out like our
butchier counterparts that we lack political consciousness or ability. I think
Femme Mafia helps reveal all the ways we are politically subversive and our
various strategies for effecting change.
From Vanessa...
What is femme?
The topic was gender. Gender presentation and its oppressive nature. At eighteen
I remember reluctantly raising my hand in my first women’s studies class to ask
a question I knew I’d be shamed for: “But if we eradicate gender can I still
wear glitter? You see, I like being a girl. I don’t want to rid our society of
that.” I can look back on that moment with an overwhelming fondness for my
naïveté. If I was ever to hear a queer girl ask a question like that we’d
embrace with a hug, I’d offer her a menthol, and then we’d head to Lenox. As an
Arab woman, I am always struggling for visibility. And as I form my femme
identity, I realize the struggle is somewhat similar. My visibility as a queer
Arab femme validates and politicizes me in ways I am still discovering.
Why Femme Mafia?
Why Femme Mafia? I’ll tell you why: Visibility and community (and a visible
community) are revolutionary. We come together and laugh, drink, gossip, and
dance. Whether we’re complimenting one another’s ensembles, sharing
insecurities, or soaking up one another’s loveliness, we are mutually
recognizing our shared struggle and consciously working to erase the alienation
we have all endured in various queer circles. I have forged connections with
countless women because of Femme Mafia and I am forever thankful. And we are an
unstoppable force. We’re hot! Can I say that? The Femme Mafia is overflowing
with the hott hott hottest women in this city.
What does Femme Mafia do for you?
This is the deal, I’m extraordinary. And I’d rather not waste my time with women
who don’t share this same quality. I like my friends loud and shameless and
beautiful. (Enter: Femme Mafia). The Mafia reminds me that I’m no less of a
queer for getting facials, watching America’s Next Top Model, or wearing
stilettos. I can be superficial. I can be angry. I can be political. I can be
sincere. And I can be lovely.
From Kathleen...
What is Femme?
Femme is
NOT about attire or fashion choices/day to day fluidity, as stated in the
original SoVo article [article "The Death of Femme" was published by Southern
Voice, Atlanta's GLBT community newspaper on 5/27/05 and can be found
here]- It is a CORE identity, fixed, constant,
an outward expression of Gender and Sexuality, A CONSCIOUS CHOICE TO QUEER
FEMININITY. Those of us for whom Femme is our Gender Identity LIVE that identity
every single day, we do not remove it with a piece of clothing or move in and
out of that identity depending upon whom we are interacting with. Rather, it
DRIVES our every interaction.
Why Femme Mafia?
Because
it is a space that CELEBRATES the FIERCENESS and BEAUTY of our Femme spirits and
Identities - a Queer space that challenges binaries and beliefs of what feminine
SHOULD be - a community of voices that share some common ideas about Gender and
Sexuality, but more importantly - a community that RESPECTS and holds sacred our
varying voices, all Queer Femininity - all ALPHA FEMME!!!
From Aly...
Why Femme or what is femme?
First of all, like all identities, femme is self-defined. I define femme as the
conscious performance of femininity. By femininity, I mean the
socially-constructed set of physical appearance-related expectations our culture
has for female-bodied people. I am not inherently feminine. Yes, strip away my
fancy clothes, gorgeous makeup, sassy jewelry and other props and all that I am
is an honest, smart, funny and friendly human who wants her costume back.
I use the word costume for many reasons. First, it corresponds to my assertion
of performance. Second, it implies a sense of fun and frolic. Third, it also
implies an assumption of a character. Far from feeling oppressed by my high
heels and long-last lipcolor, I feel emboldened. When I get my costume just
right, I feel like taking up space, like being loud, like strutting and
sashaying and if necessary, starting a fight.
I don't feel oppressed by performing femininity because I'm doing it on my
terms. And my terms mean that I'm doing it bigger and brighter and with much
more glitter than (boring old) popular culture would advise. If Dolly Parton and
Rupaul had a child and that child was female-bodied with inexplicable fair skin,
green eyes, and dark brown hair but they taught her all she needed to know about
being a diva and makeup application anyway, that's who I want to be. I'm not
trying to attract the males of our species at all, although this occasionally
happens, whereupon I delight in coming out and proud. I've never desired to have
sex with biological males (as opposed to genderqueer bois or transguys), so I
never have. People associate my high level of femininity performance with
heterosexuality so they are usually shocked when I say that, at 25, I've *never*
had heterosexual sex.
Some of my first femme memories are of the smell of my mother's perfume and the
sound her heels made on the kitchen floor on nights that she and my father were
going out. I remember eyeing her jars of cold cream and tubes of rouge (rouge!)
and thinking they were magic ingredients. Somehow my mother put all of this
stuff on and she became more glorious, ethereal even. The props of femininity
transformed her into someone who was more confident, someone who could leave my
father at an office Christmas party because he was being a jerk, instead of just
dealing with it, like she did the rest of the time.
From Treah...
Why Femme Mafia and what it does
for me:
Once upon a time a sweet southern
girl moved to the Pacific Northwest. She identified as a queer and a femme. She
was so excited to meet other femmes, queers, trannies, and all kinds of
transgressive folk. In the green and wet world of Seattle, she was disappointed.
No one wanted to play with her. Oh, they liked her burlesque; they appreciated
her outfits, but no one was friendly. They had their cool toys and their cool
friends and she was not invited out. Sad and pale faced she sat at home with her
roommate and her three cats and ate veggie burgers and bbq chips and knitted. It
was sad times indeed. Then her life changed and she got to move back home to the
warm and kinky dirty south. Oh, how her little heart sang, back home back home!
She looked up and looked around and thought, “I have queers to hang with, I have
anti-racist folks to hang with, I have my great family, but I don’t have a group
of femme ladies to play with. And that’s what I need!” So she searched and not
far into her search she stumbled onto Femme Mafia. Her heart sang again, she
signed up for the evites. She went in gold heels by herself to meet these other
ladies and she was nervous. She knew the breathtaking Aly, but she got to meet
Vanessa and Rachael, and Brook, and Robbin, and Kathleen. She was home. A group
of smart, beautiful, sassy, fierce, different, hot women sitting around talking
about the world from a similar perspective.
This is water; it’s life giving to be a part of this group of women who are my
women. I don’t have to start from scratch, I can start where sisterfemme left
off talking about her knitting, or her lip-gloss, or her post-modern analysis of
Luce Irigaray, or I can start wherever I need to and these ladies will get it.
They get how subversive we all are in our sexy lingerie, high high heels,
beautiful things, because we choose them, and now we get to choose each other.