My wife, who is most definitely butch, loves to say about other lesbians similar in appearance and mannerisms to her as “she’s so butch”. I just shake my head and grin every time she does it and she gives me her twisted up butch face look that says “what’s so funny?”
For those of you that are new to my blog, I’ll recap my personal story briefly: I was married to a man for nearly 16 years and we have a son together. He’s now 16. 7 or 8 years ago, I figured out that I’m gay. We divorced amicably 5+ years ago and share custody of “the boy”. I started dating women. Nearly 3 years ago, I met my wife. We married last November. End of recap.
There are times when I just totally don’t get my wife. She’ll react in a more typical feminine emotional fashion to some things and in a more stoic male fashion to other things. Now my expectation of which way she’ll react to something is typically the reverse of how she does but I’m right just enough for it to throw me. She revels equally in the more common feminine acts of cooking and child nurturing as she does the typically male pursuits of hunting, fishing, and “playing” with 4-wheeled toys like quads, pick-ups and muscle cars.
Now, it’s not common but it happens on occasion that people will call my wife “sir” because of her appearance although, if they were paying even minimal attention, they would know she’s a woman. She doesn’t let it bother her so I don’t either. What does bother me is when people make comments and question me about leaving a man for what they perceive is a woman that looks and acts like a man. Even though, in a relationship sense, she’s “all woman” to me, it’s been very hard to express that to the insensitive souls who bring it up and I really always struggled to convey my thoughts on the matter and open their eyes to see her and through her, other butch women, as I see her.
Not anymore! I got a hold of an older version of the book, Butch is a Noun
The book is written in a multiple essay format. There are easy bites to digest but you’ll still find yourself going from one to the next to the next. In the words of the publisher the book is:
…a funny, insightful, and purposely unsettling manifesto on what it means to be butch (and not). In thirty-four deeply personal essays, Bear makes butchness accessible to those who are new to the concept, and makes gender outlaws of all stripes feel as though they have come home. From girls’ clothes to men’s haircuts, from walking with girls to hanging with young men, Butch is a Noun chronicles the perplexities, dangers, and pleasures of living life outside the gender binary.
I finally have my answer to the questions like why don’t I just date a man rather than a woman who acts like a man. My favorite line is the book is this: a butch is “someone who has taken on the best gendered characteristics of both woman and man, left a lot of the stuff born of misogyny and heterosexism behind, and walked forward into the world without apology.” From now on I’ll use words to that effect to let them know how I feel. That, and I’ll continue to tell them that I love her very much exactly the way that she is and that I wouldn’t change a thing!
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