Hypothetically speaking...butch and femme

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 12:53pm by jenna

Play along with a hypothetical situation, if you will.

If you happened to strike up a friendship with the Godfather of the Gay Cataloging Mafia who also happens to be a God (Cataloging) of SACO, and if he were willing to work with you to pitch butch and femme subject headings to the Library of Congress, what would you want those headings to be?

The headings would want to be separate, right? Something like
Butch (Gender expression) and
Femme (Gender expression)?

Should they be plural?
Should the parenthetical be Gender identity?

Something else entirely?

free:

Comments

Jeremy (not verified)

Tue, 05/10/2011 - 10:31am

For what it's worth (since

For what it's worth (since I'm neither an expert on cataloging nor one on gender politics), I would use "gender identity" rather than expression - I think it captures a larger range of meanings of the terms, and leave "butch" and "femme" as singular. Pluralizing it seems to imply a reference to the people that identify, rather than the identity itself.
And thus, my $0.02 for you.

Jeremy

jenna

Tue, 05/10/2011 - 2:55pm

Thanks for the pennies,

Thanks for the pennies, Jeremy!

FG (not verified)

Wed, 05/11/2011 - 9:43am

I like the singular butch and

I like the singular butch and femme. However, I would use both expression & identity in the parentheses (Gender identity/expression). People I have talked to are divided about how they experience their butchness or femmeness -- some people feel like they take it on and off, some people feel like it is an intrinsic part of them, immutable and innate. Sooo...there's my two cents as well!

Adam (not verified)

Mon, 05/16/2011 - 2:33am

I can tell you that LC would

I can tell you that LC would not approve a parenthetical of the type (Gender identity/expression). The qualifier should be one or the other, especially it would likely be preferred to be an existing LCSH term itself.

Adam (not verified)

Mon, 05/16/2011 - 2:44am

Follow up: just checked LCSH

Follow up: just checked LCSH and there is no term for Gender expression in it. Do we need to propose that as a separate term or would it be a cross-ref to Gender identity? It is not currently in the LCSH vocabulary at all.

jenna

Mon, 05/16/2011 - 9:14pm

Thanks for following up. I've

Thanks for following up. I've been meaning to...

So, would LC have to establish the parenthetical separately before it could go into a subject heading?

I hesitate to make the call on identify vs. expression. I'll try again to scare up feedback from people who know better than me.

Emily (not verified)

Tue, 05/17/2011 - 10:09am

How about just Butch and just

How about just Butch and just Femme? No matter how you further clarify, it will be wrong to someone. Like for me femme is an identity a hundred ways to Sunday--until I use it just to describe my own expression. Does the subject heading need to say more for some reason?

Adam (not verified)

Tue, 05/17/2011 - 2:13pm

I think that there would need

I think that there would need to be a qualifier in this case. The words by themselves could mean something else, particularly in the singular. For example it Femme could be the concept we're talking about, or one could have a work about the word itself, in which case the qualifier would be Femme (The French word). I don't think LC would approve the terms without qualifiers.

As to whether the qualifier has to be established itself, I'd say no it doesn't, but since the term has to be put into a hierarchy, if the Broader Term would be Gender identity, I think the qualifier would need to match it.

jenna

Tue, 05/17/2011 - 5:42pm

That makes sense to me. It

That makes sense to me. It seems like the most viable (without being too horrible) headings would be
Butch (Gender identity) and
Femme (Gender identity).

If the BT is Gender identity, what should RTs be?

Do we even go there with
Bisexuals, Gays, Homosexuals, Lesbians, Sexual minorities, etc.? Or with pejorative terms that people might use?

Are there terms more often associated with gay men that we should be pushing for along with Butch and Femme?

Adam Schiff (not verified)

Fri, 05/20/2011 - 5:32pm

Weekly List 19 was just

Weekly List 19 was just posted and on it was the following:

Butch (Dog) [Not Subd Geog]

So you see, I was prescient in saying that Butch would need to be qualified!

jenna

Fri, 05/20/2011 - 6:47pm

Mind blowing.

Mind blowing.

Adam Schiff (not verified)

Mon, 06/20/2011 - 5:25pm

The proposal for Gender

The proposal for Gender expression is on Weekly List 22: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/wls11/tentative/twls1122.html Once we get a result from that, I'll do some serious focusing on butch and femme.

jenna

Tue, 06/21/2011 - 1:47pm

Yay!

Yay!

Bill (not verified)

Sun, 05/22/2011 - 6:18pm

You should probably research

You should probably research whether anyone finds these terms derogatory. (And I don't mean just among people who read librarian blogs.) I suspect there are people of a certain age who apply the terms to themselves, but would be offended if the library catalog did. Granted these might be just the people hardest to find and ask, but you could ask an organization like GLAAD if they have an opinion.

Adam Schiff (not verified)

Mon, 06/20/2011 - 5:26pm

I will check dictionaries too

I will check dictionaries too to see if the terms are labeled in any way as offensive.