Lesbians and Womanhood

While diving deeper into the intersection of womanhood and lesbianism, I began thinking a lot more about lesbianism and gender norms as well as non-binary lesbians. In many ways, being a lesbian goes against many traditional views of womanhood and can sometimes even be its own identity. Because of society’s expectations of women, lesbians face unique issues in terms of body image, gender presentation, and womanhood.  

     Although this is not necessarily the case for all women, many lesbians such as myself feel the pressure to conform to the ideas of womanhood we’ve been taught which go directly against our identities as lesbians. One of these core ideas is the idea that we’ve been taught is that an essential part of womanhood is desiring men and wanting to be desired by men. In addition, in the media, women are taught that they don’t have to be that attracted to men to marry or date them.  

     The idea that being a lesbian in some way goes against traditional gender roles is very central to some women’s views of themselves as lesbians. There is a huge history of non-binary lesbians and while some may argue that these identities cannot exist together, they actually are very deeply intertwined. Lesbianism in itself is a form of gender non-conformity given the expectations of women to be attracted to men. Cis heteronormative womanhood goes directly against lesbianism.  

     Another thing that unites women as a whole is dissatisfaction with their bodies. While this is not inherently central to womanhood, this is something that an overwhelming majority of women feel. Lesbians are not an exception to this. While some people argue that lesbians, as a somewhat separate group from cishet women, do not experience these same body image issues, and this is true to an extent, lesbians still experience a large amount of body dissatisfaction. In a recent study, it was found that “masculine traits or characteristics may act as protective factors against body dissatisfaction” (Beck, 30). I find this really interesting how more feminine -presenting lesbians experience body dissatisfaction more than more masculine-presenting lesbians. This intersection between womanhood and femininity is very fascinating.  

     Regardless of whether or not one considers lesbianism to be a subgroup of women, a totally separate group, or somewhere in between, it’s interesting how society’s expectations of women and feminine-presenting people can shape the way that they view themselves. Even as lesbians are disconnecting from cishet society, they are still bound to its expectations in many ways.  

     Beck, Christine Laura, "Lesbian Body Dissatisfaction: The Roles of Gender Identity, Body-Gender Identity Incongruence, and Internalized Appearance Ideals. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2017. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/4604