White Gloves, Feminist Fists: Race, Nation and the Feeling of ‘Vintage’ in Femme Movements

In this piece, Dahl explores the way the 1950's "vintage" aesthetic has been taken up by (white) queer femmes and how it "can be linked to 'the performativity of whiteness.'" (3) She begins by defining the contemporary femme movement as consisting of "lesbians and other queer sexual subjects, most but not all of who identify as women and above all, to whom feminine gender expressions and the politics of visibility and femininity are central to their body politic." (4) Dahl posits that the lack of research done on femmes and the femme community is a result of a contempt for femininity where it aligns with strict, more outdated gender roles. Because femme is said to be more than just determined by clothing, she questions what the clothing choices of "vintage" mean outside of simply the aesthetic pleasure, and what it means for someone to be "nostalgic" for an era. She writes that she is working towards answering the following questions: If vintage... ‘connects us to women before us’, whom does it connect (us) to? What, to be a little provocative, are the consequences of (trans)national femme organizing and aesthetic practices invoking 1950s legacies of high femininity that also have ties to white supremacy, US (cultural) imperialism and nationalism?" 

 

 Dahl then begins talking about the femme movement in Australia, charting how Sydney's Femme Guild incorporated and referenced Euro-American politics in their activism, as well as how the Guild's manifesto notes their appreciation for diversity ("femme is a radical queer embodiment of femininity 'camping' out in bodies regardless of sex or race or class", "an aspiration towards ‘global collaborations with other femme networks'", etc [7].) Interestingly, the Guild's float for the Mardi Gras parade (with "‘big flowing skirts’ and ‘big hair’" and a banner that referenced Rosie the Riveter) was put into the "America section", which Dahl asserts is an indication of the ability of "vintage" to unite the femme experience. Dahl also remarks that in using the image of Rosie the Riveter, participants of the parade were able to heighten their activism and queer the image of Rosie (which she remarks specifically in reference to a sign reading "see how straight do I look with my fist up your cunt!") She also notes, however, that "As Osuri and Banerjee (2004, 160) have argued, ‘the ownership of Australia as a white, Western country is articulated through its political, cultural and military alliances with the UK and the USA’," and that the using Rosie in a queer, non-American context, furthers that (9).

She follows these observances of The Femme Guild's use of vintage in the parade with remarks made by the two women at the beginning of the piece who have found their place in the vintage femme movement. Both women see vintage aesthetics in part as a way of accessing family members - for one, her grandmother, for the other, her mother. One woman admires the way things in the 50's were built to last - quality over quantity - and the other praises the time's expectation of "domesticity and nurturance". Dahl summarizes that "vintage is thus a term variously used to describe a style of dress, a home decorating style, an ‘old- style’ aesthetic or a fetish, each of which has an attachment to a set of values, memories or identifications that exceed beyond a visual representation or costume" and that in this way, it is a form of "femmebodiment." (10) Because these are aspects of white femininity during the 50's, utilizing vintage in the femme movement has the potential to exclude femme people of color.

 
The final part of Dahl's piece focuses on Bird la Bird, a white femme performer who arrived in Australia from Britain in 2009. At a small local bar, Bird's debut performance, which relied on "a white-dominated history of feminism and queer critiques of normativity," was met with praise and laughter, while "‘Rank’, a commentary on imperialism and racism," was not so positively received (12). After an extraordinarily vulgar depiction of colonialism and racism in her performance, a riot broke out in the crowd, "and while her whiteness facilitated her arrival on that stage, she was not protected by her British or her royal queer status as an international performer." (13) Dahl continues on to claim that "By calling the seemingly ‘banale’ choices of aesthetic cues and themes for public displays of femme visibility into question and pointing to their entanglements with histories of racism and imperialism, Bird ran the risk of becoming a ‘sore point’ or a feminist kill-joy (Ahmed 2010); a characteristic far more often attributed to non-white bodies," and observes that through her article, she can be accused of doing the same (14). 

Dahl concludes that "although the raised fist, dressed in a white glove, can point to the strength of femininity, it also serves as a reminder of a second skin, the preciousness of whiteness and a colonialist and racialized order that unfolds from and is oriented towards some femmes and not others," closing with the fact that the Femme Guild removed the white fist as their logo for this exact reason.

I've noticed the trend of "nostalgia" for 50's and 60's culture from people who weren't alive at the time (which calls into question whether or not this is a good use of the term nostalgia) and have found the celebration of the look without any consideration for the political climate surrounding those times particularly disconcerting. The anecdotes in the beginning, at first, placated me, as the women acknowledged these things ("'I know not everything was rosy back then (genocide, prejudice and so on)'"/"she saw [the 50's] as also marked by ‘McCarthyism and racial apartheid’"), but Dahl's questioning of how dress ties to culture made me believe that there is no way to access a culture without also accessing the general attitudes of the time surrounding it - in this case, racism, sexism, xenophobia - a whole slew of fears and aggressions acted out towards marginalized peoples. I can understand an appreciation for the look but to have strong positive feelings (or even a "fetish," as one woman described it) about the culture and perspectives of the time (especially on morality) I feel is concerning. In other words, I definitely agree with Dahl's remark that "The privilege of whiteness here enables gesturing towards an acknowledgement of ‘prejudice’, ‘genocide’ or ‘racial apartheid’ and yet, a simultaneous emphasis on ‘some lovely attitudes’ that can be recuperated or kinkily reworked," and can see where issues from that may arise (10).

(There are lots of run-on sentences in here, let me know if you'd like any further clarification on anything.)

 
Discussion questions:

1. Do you find that the celebration of the vintage aesthetic and the implications of the culture surrounding it results in its participants aligning themselves with an imperialistic and ultimately harmful nature?
2. Does linking Western countries in their queer pride erase queerness in non-Western countries?
3. Is it possible to remove the aesthetic from the culture it resided in? That is to say, is there a way to appreciate the look without associating the sexist/racist (etc.) attitudes of the time?