What does the word 'butch' mean to you? Is it more about gender or sexuality?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Just trying to figure out answers to this question for some work I'm doing. It's absolutely nothing relevant to MN - I'm researching historical ideas from 500 years ago, but finding myself wondering what words we'd use to describe certain women today. As a break from work, I watched Hannah Gadsby's 'Nanette' where she says someone wrote to her saying she had a duty to identify as transgender rather than butch, and it made me think. What do you think being 'butch' is? Could you be butch without being a lesbian, do you think?

Please ignore if this is boring or intrusive!

I used to work in theatre lighting, my typical work wear was combat trousers, steel toe cap boots, black T-shirt and pockets full of tools. I remember some of the men I worked with (who were a mix of gay and straight) discussing the fact that most women who did our job were butch, but I wasn’t. I asked them why they thought that, and they couldn’t put their finger on it. They acknowledged it wasn’t to do with sexuality, citing another female college of ours who was straight, as being very butch.

So I guess it’s not clothes or job or sexual preference but more of a personality type.

I used to think of it as describing men as much as women, meaning strong, muscular, possibly connotations of being a bit of a meathead in attitude too. I think that comes from Enid Blyton times.

I think the appropriation of the term by women is fairly recent, maybe since the 80s or so - but I'm not part of lesbian culture, so fairly clueless on that.

So to me (without applying much thought) it's someone muscular, in a lumberjack shirt and jeans, who could be relied upon to help carry something heavy without fuss.

The beardy lumberjack-shirt-wearing men of today are subverting this image, as far as I can tell, by going 'we're so urban and twee and couldn't put a shelf up, that we're going to play with this mode of dress, just to highlight that it's what we're not and what we hanker after only in the most disconnected and dreamlike way'.

Actually that's is a very good question. Get everybody thinking.

The female I think of as butch is a 6ft rugby playing straight with long hair. I think it's a mix of clothing style, build and lifestyle.

I also know a lesbian who tries to dress to butch but is too short / podgy to actually be butch!

Me I'm a tomboy at heart. Happiest in trousers but like getting dressed up now and again.

Lottie I think I would coin that as a snowflake hipster, haha.

I remember listening to something years ago about lesbian style tribes (it may have been soneone’s PhD) which was fascinating and was largely about wanting to be identified as lesbian by other lesbians.

I love language and this discussion!

Butch to me is generally about a female presenting herself in a more masculine way (by our current standards, little or no makeup, short hair, in trousers/jeans, clothes are not form fitting, etc.)

I do have gay male friends who are quite effeminate who use the term ‘butch up’ to describe acting in a more masculine way. They would also use butch to describe a gay male who wasn’t effeminate at all, “Oh, Darryl is very butch, isn’t he? I wouldn’t want to date him.” (Actual comment from a friend of mine)

I’m straight. I have cropped short hair and sometimes wear clothes from the men’s section if I prefer the colour or cut. Sometimes I am mistaken for a man by men, including on occasions when I’ve been wearing a dress - some men seem to rely on a very simple set of visual clues and short hair = man.

Dress + lipstick + dangly earrings + heels ... Yup. Still called ‘sir’ by people who can only cope with one piece of information at a time ... So they’re making a mistake about sex based on their perception of gender. Fine. Not so fine if they add a mistaken perception of sexuality. (After all the effort one’s expended in front of a mirror.)

I was thinking about this earlier, about where I'd first come across the word. Realised my neighbours growing up had a dog called Butch I think it was used as a synonym for 'macho'.

Yes, to the poster who asked, stone butches are indeed a thing. I think there is some overlap between stone butch identity and some trans identities.

My mother-in-law is quite butch! She has very short hair in a spiky crew cut, always wears trousers and a shirt and jumper, usually in grey or navy, although I have occasionally seen her in lilac. Shoes are always flat lace ups. She says she dresses for comfort and has “no nonsense” hair.

I think the single word I'd consider most synonymous with butch would be muscular. Related words would be stocky and masculine.

Macho to me implies more swagger. Butch is more, straightforward. Doormen are often butch.

I don't think I'd perceive a slim or curvy woman, with short hair and masculine clothing, as 'butch'. I might see that she was adopting a 'butch style of dress', she might even be a 'butch lesbian' in identity terms, but I wouldn't perceive her as actually being butch.

pp's dog-name comment makes me think of bull terriers.

To me, a child of the 70s, 'Butch' applies to both men and women.
I see it as a strong/stocky build, short or close cropped hair, no frills, no make up, masculine clothes, & a bit of a hard nut!

'Butch' to me conveys a stockier body shape (muscular, generally but not always) and 'masculine' hairstyle and clothes. The latter on a slender frame I'd probably think of as 'androgenous'.

As to sexuality - none of my business!

Yeah my head can’t compute butch and size 8. Surely you’d be too stocky and muscular.

Thanks, this is really helpful and interesting!

Never thought about the implication of being stocky or fat at all, so interesting that that keeps coming up.

I'd say being androgynous is quite different from being butch, but I can't quite say why.

science, why do you say that's a 70s view? Is it about deliberately rejecting the earlier use of 'butch' just to describe women?

Btw, what I'm actually working on is stone butch identity, so interesting that that came up.

The person who coined it (who then turned a bit weird, but hey ho) wrote a novel where the heroine describes herself as being 'stone' and being teased by men as a woman 'who would wear a raincoat in the shower' - but she says she'd not be completely not open to sexual contact, just it would take her a lot of time to relax and open up.

To me it means a style but usually I associate a butch women as a lesbian

Butch is stocky / muscley not fat or podgy.

The doormen / bouncer is a good example of butch - you tend not to get fat bouncers.

Butch needs to have an element of fitness / bodybuilder about them.

I see butch as a very masculine man, or woman. No stereotypically feminine qualities.

When I think of a butch man, I visualise puffed up muscles, big jaw. Biker groups I would call butch. When I think of a butch woman, I think of a large set or muscly woman with a no nonsense very short hair cut. I think of Nessa from Gavin and Stacey

I’ve never heard of a man being described as butch. Only ‘big built’ or ‘ thick set’ that kind of thing.
A woman can be 6ft and sporty but not look butch ( the Williams sisters for example still look very feminine despite their build )
so it’s definitely associated with women who deliberately go for a masculine look, & these women are usually lesbians.
Why would any straight woman want to look like a man?
So yes. It is to do with sexuality.
Fwiw. as a heterosexual woman, I’d be insulted if someone described me as butch - I never have been despite dressing quite tomboyish.

I think there’s definitely an element of body type, in that slender body types (male or female) tend not, for me, to lend themselves to being butch. I think a lack of curve/bulk is more androgynous than butch.

As an aside, a Greek friend told me that in Greek, androgynous describes a woman with masculine appearance. I suppose that comes from the andros/gynae etymology - or is it entymology? Anyway, words, not insects.

Some years ago I read a book 'Stone Butch Blues' (is that the novel?) and I suppose that is where my idea of what butch is stems from. Basically, a lesbian who does not have any 'feminine' traits (that's more than 'style' - you can be wearing short hair and clothes associated with men and still be feminine, just by the way you move and flick your hair and relate to other people in the room, for example).

I remember the book to have been really interesting, historically. For example the thing about when there were police raids on known gay hang-outs, every person was required to be wearing at least three items of appropriate-sex clothing/accessories (clothing at the time being seen as something to do with sex, not gender; gender or rather the distinction between sex and gender not really a thing altogether). Else they were arrested (for homosexuality). This was a problem for half the lesbians (the butch ones) and half the gay men (forgot the term of the times, but would have been the feminine ones). Because apparently at the time, you had to be either/or, either extremely femme or extremely butch.

Also that being a butch lesbian automatically used to signal that you were sexually interested in femme lesbians only. I remember the sense of taboo-breaking and betrayal the protagonist felt when she had a brief sexual encounter with another butch lesbian/heard of two femme lesbians being together. By the end of the period covered in the book, this had become more normal though. It was interesting to see how the idea of what it means to be butch changed even within that timeframe.

So perhaps at the beginning of the time covered in 'Stone Butch Blues' butch referred to sexuality, as in, 'a woman sexually attracted to/attractive to femme lesbians'. You couldn't say 'gender' (as distinct from sex) really as that would be sort of anachronistic. At the end it was different, and it has changed since then. Today it seems to me that a lot is reduced to 'style'.

It sounds to me that butch nowadays is often perceived as a style, and as such open to anyone, male/female/straight/gay; and something you can 'put on', so one day you can go out butch, the next day feminine, it doesn't affect your identity/who you are. And I guess that I would see it as such too. Whilst remaining aware that for some butch lesbians, it might be more than 'what should I wear', and form a fairly basic and important part of their identity, including their sexuality. That for some people, butch is who they are, even if some days they wear a dress and makeup.

Yeah, I don't see it as being either sexuality or gender. It is a description of appearance. Quite specific aspects of appearance attributed to both men and women. Usually short hair, masculine dress and broad shoulders.

surferjet I know several butch looking straight women. They don't see it as looking like a man. They just do not like traditionally female clothing and prefer short hair as it is easier to care for. They do not enjoy make up or dressing up.

On androgyny, I think there are variations - Ruby Rose is beautifully androgynous, but most definitely not butch.

But there are 'soft butch' women who have an element of androgyny to how they present, imo. Ellen Degeneres comes to mind. Or the character played by Cherry Jones in Transparent.

It’s an overtly (or occasionally caricature) masculine appearance, so would relate to gender. Not related to sexual orientation at all unless for the sake of stereotypes.

Gender = masculine or feminine

Sex = Male or female.