The Femme, the Mother, and the Lesbian Feminist: Rereading Queer Theory's Difficult Family Relationships

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dc.contributor.advisorBrushwood Rose, Chloë
dc.contributor.authorBrightwell, Laura Anne
dc.date.accessioned2025-04-10T10:55:58Z
dc.date.available2025-04-10T10:55:58Z
dc.date.copyright2025-01-16
dc.date.issued2025-04-10
dc.date.updated2025-04-10T10:55:58Z
dc.degree.disciplineGender, Feminist and Women's Studies
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractThe Femme, the Mother, and the Lesbian Feminist: Rereading Queer Theory’s Difficult Family Relationships argues that queer theory propels itself forward by abjecting phenomena it frames as the normative, the outdated, and the politically regressive. Queer theory’s methodological paranoia, often articulated by its commitment to antinormativity, creates problems for real-life queer subjects. I examine the implications of this framework for the queer femme, the mother, and the lesbian feminist. By re-evaluating the place of each figure in queer theory, I find a bridge to reintegrate critical considerations of femininities and culturally feminized experiences, including the maternal, into queer theory. Life writing by queer femmes is one site of queer feminist narrative that explores femininity beyond its characterization as a patriarchal imposition. Femme authors Dorothy Allison (1994; 1996), Beth Brant (2019a; 2019b), Joan Nestle (1998; 2003), and Minnie Bruce Pratt (1988; 1990; 2005) vindicate cultural figures and discourses that are associated with the feminine and the normative. These include the family of origin, the mother, the femme, and the lesbian feminist. I read queer theory’s flight away from feminism and femininity in the context of the field’s inaugural framing as the study of sexuality as opposed to a feminist concern with gender. I then explore femme writers’ counternarratives to the coming out story to argue that a return home might repair our relationship to that which has hurt us. Taking a reparative approach to abject mothers offers one way for queer to reconcile itself to its own horrifying mother, the lesbian feminist. Femme writers recuperate the ‘bad’ mother in their life writing to gesture toward a femme theory that finds points of solidarity between queer and straight feminine subjects. This dissertation offers a new orientation to queer theory’s own coming out story and a reparative approach to the ideas queers and feminists find ourselves troubled by, specifically the feminine, the maternal, and outdated feminisms. I weave intellectual genealogies and life writing to investigate the legacies of many families: families of feminist and queer thought; families of origin; chosen families; and created families, and each family’s effect on queer communities and individuals.
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10315/42860
dc.languageen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subject.keywordsGender studies
dc.subject.keywordsSexuality studies
dc.subject.keywordsQueer
dc.subject.keywordsQueer theory
dc.subject.keywordsFemme
dc.subject.keywordsFemme theory
dc.subject.keywordsFemmephobia
dc.subject.keywordsLife writing
dc.subject.keywordsMemoir
dc.subject.keywordsMothers
dc.subject.keywordsQueer mothers
dc.subject.keywordsQueer parenting
dc.subject.keywordsQueer communities
dc.subject.keywordsLGBTQ communities
dc.subject.keywords1980s
dc.subject.keywords1990s
dc.subject.keywordsLesbian feminism
dc.subject.keywordsAntinormativity
dc.subject.keywordsLesbian feminist
dc.subject.keywordsFeminist theory
dc.subject.keywordsFeminist history
dc.subject.keywordsQueer femininity
dc.subject.keywordsQueer femininities
dc.subject.keywordsCritical femininity studies
dc.subject.keywordsCritical femininities
dc.subject.keywordsMaternal theory
dc.titleThe Femme, the Mother, and the Lesbian Feminist: Rereading Queer Theory's Difficult Family Relationships
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

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