femme vs geek space

[piranha]

misia wrote an interesting post with her experiences of femme turf. [now alas locked; sorry.]

hm. i am an anti-femme (not as in hating femmes, but more like an anti-hero :), and knitting stores have IMO changed a lot over the last 30 years, to become more general geek space than pure femme turf. such geek space can be found anywhere, and butch spaces certainly have loads of it -- hardware stores, tool shops, fishing tackle sections at canadian tire, do-it-yourself shipyard facilities all fall into that category. wherever we share passionate hobbies with other people, i suspect. SF conventions are wonderful geek space, so are lots of virtual places on the net.

geek space has a lot in common with what misia describes as femme turf: there's helpful communication between total strangers, there's knowledge-sharing, asking even the most basic questions is ok, show-and-tell is common.

what it doesn't have is the sort of behaviour that makes me uncomfortable in femme space: strongly proffered advice without being asked, and a large amount of solicitation, for example. i've also not actually noticed that there is enough distance when it comes to my aura of "i am just browsing and don't want help, unless i look around for it", which is usually respected in geek space, but always violated in femme space, though people will back off if i clearly reject help. and there definitely is also less physical distance, which is possibly the largest reason for me not liking femme space (and my desire for physical space isn't driven by fear of malice; i am just not into random touch).

i've lately been spending a lot of time in aromatherapy and natural health stores, and that's an interesting space -- it's not as femme-dominated as cosmetics counters in department stores, because it has herb geeks in it too. it still makes me itchy (no pun intended), but that's probably more because of the high new-age content, not because of the femme contingent.

Comments

[firecat]

I just read misia's post, and I have to say that I don't understand why she is calling that set of behaviors "femme." That set of behaviors seems to have nothing whatever to do with gender presentation.

I've had my "just browsing" aura violated in stores for many different kinds of products, not just products that femme folks are interested in.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

You've got me really interested, but I can't read misia's post. Was it generating a lot of controversy?

I'm not really sure what a femme space would be. I've always felt incredibly uncomfortable in the cosmetics section of department stores, and hate the fact that one has to go through it to get to anything else (suggesting to me that they don't think this is a space anyone will deliberately seek out).

But I don't feel like that in the Body Shop, and certainly not in any craft kind of shop I've ever been in. There my problem is usually more that I'm not intending to make the "normal" thing with whatever I'm purchasing.

And high new-age content also makes me twitchy, but that's nothing I can classify as gender related.

femme space

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

hm, she seems to have locked it. huh. i didn't think it was generating a lot of controversy. there was one post that could have been read as an insult (and from a comment elsewhere it seems that it was), but mostly a whole bunch of "yeah! finally somebody put words to my femme feelings" replies, and also a bunch (fewer) sorta like mine, with people saying they experience various other spaces as similar to what misia delineated as femme space. i wonder why she locked it -- damn. i don't want to paraphrase her, i couldn't do it justice.

yeah, i definitely dislike cosmetic counters, *brrr*. though part of that for me is the horrid smell -- too many fragrances mingling.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

(and my desire for physical space isn't driven by fear of malice; i am just not into random touch).

That was something that startled the hell out of me a couple of months ago, when I went shopping for women's clothes - the number of saleswomen who touched me for no apparent reason. I wasn't expecting it.

[lcohen]

hmmm. i definitely present as femme in appearance, but i'm not the "high femme" that i look like to the untrained eye (the trained eye will note that i'm not wearing makeup and didn't shave my legs recently). i can't read the post to see if i would sign on for her definition of femme space and i'm not sure i've experienced it the way that she experienced it and oy am i tantalized but without reading how can i comment intelligently.....

okay, quiet now ;-) .