What is
Critical Femininities?

(written by Andi Schwartz, Hannah McCann & Laura Brightwell)

Critical femininities is an emerging field of study that aims to examine and theorize femininity in complex and nuanced ways. We understand femininity as sometimes connected to but never synonymous with “women.” We understand critical femininities work as a feminist project, but not synonymous with feminism. 

Critical femininities scholarship responds to certain feminist framings of femininity as patriarchal, heteronormative, and harmful to women. Critical femininities scholarship also responds to lingering gaps in queer theory where the subversive potential of feminine genders and sexualities has, historically, been overlooked. We strive for critical femininities scholarship to be a space in which feminist theory becomes queerer, and queer theory becomes more feminist. 

Critical femininities scholarship retains the feminist critiques that challenge the imposition of feminine gender styles and roles on women while celebrating femininity embodied and enacted by cis and trans women, cis and trans men, nonbinary folks, and others who live outside or beyond the binary. Critical femininities scholarship retains the feminist critiques of the patriarchal order that subordinates women, and extends this consideration to other feminine and feminized people. While critical femininities is about broadening how we understand the subversive and radical aspects of femininity, it also theorizes femininity as an axis of oppression and a foundation of discrimination and violence towards women, femmes, and other feminine people. 

Critical femininities scholars take feminist, queer, decolonial, crip, and critical race approaches to reclaim feminine aesthetics, emotional and sexual styles, roles, and work as political, radical, valuable, and—above all—worthy of examination. Critical femininities scholarship addresses and examines feminine adornment, care work, body modification and regulation, motherhood, sex work, bottomhood, aesthetic labour, fat politics, emotions, eating disorders, and more. 

The language of “critical femininity studies” is drawn from femme scholar Ulrika Dahl’s foundational 2012 article “Turning like a Femme: Figuring Critical Femininity Studies.” We recognize and work with/in the multiple lineages that critical femininities stems from, including femme life writing, Black feminist thought, sex work activism, and Indigenous feminisms, that predate this language. 

Critical femininities scholars understand femininity as a theoretical framework and a site of knowledge production. As scholars, we work across many forms, including academic, literary, artistic, and activist. 

Interested in getting involved? Email critfemininities@gmail.com

An incomplete and always-evolving list of works that inspire and animate the field of critical femininity studies

(Compiled by Andi Schwartz, Sarah Redikopp, Hannah Maitland, Jade Crimson Rose Da Costa, Ruth O’Sullivan, Mackenzie Edwards, Kathleen Cherrington, Maisha Mustanzir, Laura Brightwell, Allegra Morgado, Ramanpreet Annie Bahra, Lindsay Cavanaugh)

Ahmed, Sara. 2010. The Promise of Happiness. Duke University Press.  

Albrecht-Samarasinha, Leah Lakshmi. (1997). On being a bisexual femme. In Femme: Feminists, Lesbians, and Bad Girls, edited by Laura Harris and Elizabeth Crocker. Routledge.

Alexander, M. Jacqui. 2005. Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred. Duke University Press.  

Allison, Dorothy. 1994. Skin: Talking about Sex, Class and Literature. Firebrand Books.

Arani, Alexia. 2025. “Burnout: A Queer Femme of Color Auto-Ethnography.” In Decolonizing
Bodies: Stories of Embodied Resistance, Healing and Liberation, edited by Carolyn
Ureña and Saiba Varma. Bloomsbury Press.

Bailey, Marlon M. 2014. “Engendering Space: Ballroom Culture and the Spatial Practice of Possibility in Detroit.” Gender, Place & Culture, 21 (4): 489-507.
https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2013.786688

Banet-Weiser, Sarah. 2018. Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny. Duke University Press.  

Bordo, Susan. 1993. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. University of California Press.  

Brightwell, Laura. 2018. “The Exclusionary Effects of Queer Anti-Normativity on Feminine-Identified Queers. Feral Feminisms, 7: 15-24.  https://feralfeminisms.com/exclusionary-queer-anti-normativity/

Brightwell, Laura and Allison Taylor. 2021. “Why Femme Stories Matter: Constructing Femme Theory through Historical Femme Life Writing. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 25 (1): 18-35. https://doi.org/10.1080/10894160.2019.1691347

brown, adrienne maree. 2019. Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good. AK Press.

Brownmiller, Susan. 1984. Femininity. Linden Press/Simon & Schuster.  

Brushwood Rose, Chloë and Anna Camilleri, eds. 2002. Brazen Femme: Queering Femininity. Arsenal Pulp Press.

Case, Sue Ellen. 1988. “Towards a Butch-Femme Aesthetic.” Discourse 11 (1): 55-73. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41389108?seq=1

Cavanaugh, Lindsay. 2025. “What Can Femme Teach us About Pedagogy?” Journal of Femininities 1: 1-25.

Chepp, Valerie. 2015. “Black Feminist Theory and the Politics of Irreverence: The Case of Women’s Rap.” Feminist Theory  16 (20).

Cleto, Fabio, ed. 1999. Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject: A Reader. Edinburgh University Press. 

Connell, Catherine. 2012. “Fashionable Resistance: Queer ‘fa(t)shion’ Blogging as Counterdiscourse.” Women’s Studies Quarterly, 41 (1/2): 209-224. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23611784

Conte, Matthew Thomas. 2018. “More Fats, More Femmes: A Critical Examination of Fatphobia and Femmephobia on Grindr.” Feral Feminisms 7: 25-32.

Cvetkovich, Ann. 2003. An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures. Duke University Press.

Dahl, Ulrika. 2012. “Turning like a Femme: Figuring Critical Femininity Studies.” NORA, 20 (1): 57-64. https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740.2011.650708

Dahl, Ulrika. 2014. “White Gloves, Feminist Fists: Race, Nation and the Feeling of ‘Vintage’ in Femme Movements.” Gender, Place & Culture 21 (5): 604-621. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2013.810598

Davis, Angela Y. 1983. Women, Race, and Class. Vintage Books.  

Dawson, Leanne. 2018. “Playing Femme and Not Playing it Straight: Passing, Performance, and Queering Time and Place.” Feral Feminisms, 7: 85-101. https://feralfeminisms.com/playing-femme/

Deliovsky, Katerina. 2008. “Normative White Femininity: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Beauty. Atlantis 33 (1): 49-59.

Dosekun, Simidele. 2020. Fashioning Postfeminism: Spectacular Femininity and Transnational Culture. University of Illinois Press. 

Duggan, Lisa and Kathleen McHugh. 1996. “A Fem(me)inist Manifesto.” Women & Performance, 8 (2): 153-159. https://doi.org/10.1080/07407709608571236

Eguchi, Shinsuke. 2011. “Negotiating Sissyphobia: A Critical/Interpretive Analysis of One “Femme” Gay Asian Body in the Heteronormative World.” The Journal of Men’s Studies 19 (1): 37-56.

Ellison, Treva Carrie. 2019. “Black Femme Praxis and the Promise of Black Gender.” The Black Scholar 49 (1): 6–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/00064246.2019.1548055

Gay, Roxane. 2014. Bad Feminist: Essays. Harper Perennial.

Gentile, Patrizia. 2020. Queen of the Maple Leaf: Beauty Contests and Settler Femininity. University of British Columbia Press. 

Hernandez, Jillian. 2020. Aesthetics of Excess: The Art and Politics of Black and Latina Embodiment. Duke University Press. 

Hollibaugh, Amber. 2000. My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home. Duke University Press. 

Hoskin, Rhea Ashley. 2017. “Femme Theory: Refocusing the Intersectional Lens.” Atlantis, 38 (1): 95-109. 

Hoskin, R. A. (2019). “Can Femme Be Theory? Exploring the Epistemological and Methodological Possibilities of Femme.” Journal of Lesbian Studies. 1-18. 

Hoskin, Rhea Ashley and Allison Taylor. 2019. “Femme Resistance: The Fem(me)inine Art of Failure.” Psychology & Sexuality 10 (4): 281-300. https://doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2019.1615538

James, Joy. 1999. Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics. St. Martin’s Press. 

Kafai, Shayda. 2021. “The Politics of Mad Femme Disclosure.”  Journal of Lesbian Studies 25 (3): 182-194.

Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky and Madeline Davis. 1994. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. Penguin Books.  

Khanmalek, Tala and Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes. 2020. “A Decolonial Feminist Epistemology of the Bed: A Compendium Incomplete of Sick and Disabled Queer Brown Femme Bodies of Knowledge.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 41 (1): 35-58. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/fro.2020.a755339.

Khubchandani, Kareem. 2022. “Critical Aunty Studies: An Auntroduction.” Text and Performance Quarterly 42 (3): 221-245.

Kokka, Kari, Rochelle Gutiérrez, and Marrielle Myers. 2024. “A Love Letter to Women, Femme, and Nonbinary Critical Scholars of Color: Theorizing the Four I’s of Love in SiSTARhood.” Qualitative Inquiry 0 (0). https://doi.org/10.1177/10778004241269909

Kumar, Rebecca and Seulghee Lee. 2024. Queer & Femme Gazes in AfroAsian American Visual Culture. Springer Nature.

Lewis, Mel Michelle and Shannon J. Miller. 2018. “How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? A Conversation between Two Feminist Black Queer Femme Chairs.” Feminist Formations 30 (3): 79–90. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26776939

Lewis, Sydney Fonteyn. 2012. “Everything I know about being femme I learned from Sula’ or Toward a Black Femme-inist Criticism.” Trans-Scripts, 2: 100–125.

Lorde, Audre. 1984. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. The Crossing Press.  

McCann, Hannah. 2016. “Pantomime Dames: Queer Femininity Versus ‘Natural Beauty’ in Snog, Marry, Avoid. Australian Feminist Studies 30 (85): 238-251. https://doi.org/10.1080/08164649.2015.1129685

McCann, Hannah. 2018. “Beyond the Visible: Rethinking Femininity through the Femme Assemblage.” European Journal of Women’s Studies 25 (3): 278-292. 

McFarland, Jami, and Allison Taylor. 2021. “‘Femme ain't frail’:(Re)considering Femininity, Aging, and Gender Theory." Journal of Lesbian Studies 25 (1): 53-70.

Mingus, Mia. 2011. “Moving Towards the Ugly: A Politic Beyond Desirability.” Leaving Evidence, August 22. https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/moving-toward-the-ugly-a-politic-beyond-desirability/

Muñoz, José Esteban. 1999. Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics. University of Minnesota Press.  

Musser, Amber. 2019. Sensual Excess: Queer Femininity and Brown Jouissance. New York University Press.

Nash, Jennifer C. (2013). “Practicing Love: Black Feminism, Love-Politics, and Post-Intersectionality.” Meridians 11 (2): 1-24. https://doi.org/10.2979/meridians.11.2.1

Nestle, Joan. 1987. A Restricted Country. Allyson Books.  

Nestle, Joan, ed. 1992. The persistent desire: A femme-butch reader. Boston, MA: Allyson Publications. 

Nicholson, Nichole. 2014. “Tumblr Femme: Performances of Queer Femininity and Identity.” Carolina Communication Annual 30: 66-80.

Padan, Maayan. 2023. “‘Strength and Courage in a Wonderbra’: Femininity, Drag, and the Spice Girls. Sexualities. https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607231152600. 

Park, Shelley M. 2013. Mothering Queerly, Queering Motherhood: Resisting Monomaternalism in Adoptive, Lesbian, Blended, and Polygamous Families. SUNY Press.

Pratt, Minnie Bruce. 2005. S/he. Firebrand Books.  

Rice, Carla. 2009. “Imagining the Other? Ethical Challenges of Researching and Writing Women’s Embodied Lives.” Feminism & Psychology 19 (2): 245-266. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353509102222

Ross, Andrew. 1989. No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture. Routledge. 

Russo, Mary. 1995. The Female Grotesque: Risk, Excess, and Modernity. Routledge.

Schwartz, Andi. 2016. “Critical Blogging: Constructing Femmescapes Online.” Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, 9. 
http://adanewmedia.org/2016/05/issue9-schwartz/

Schwartz, Andi. 2018. “Locating Femme Theory Online.” First Monday, 23 (7).  https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/9266 

Schwartz, Andi. 2018. “‘Put On All Your Make-Up and Cry it Off in Public’: The Function of Ugliness in Femme Grieving Practices.” In On the politics of Ugliness, edited by Sara Rodrigues and Ela Przybylo. Palgrave-MacMillan. 

Schwartz, Andi. 2020. “Soft Femme Theory: Femme Internet Aesthetics and the Politics of ‘Softness.’” Social Media + Society 6 (4). 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120978366

Schwartz, Andi. 2022.“Low Femme, Low Theory: Memes and the New Bedroom Culture.” Feminist Media Studies 22 (4): 949-964. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2020.1861050 

Schwartz, Andi. 2023. “‘Any Cosmo Girl Would’ve Known’: Collaboration, Feminine Knowledge, and Femme Theory in Legally Blonde.” Sexualities 27 (8): 1430-1444. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13634607231160060

Scott, Jocelyne Bartram. 2019. “What Do Glitter, Pointe Shoes, & Plastic Drumsticks Have in Common? Using Femme Theory to Consider the Reclamation of Disciplinary Beauty/Body Practices.” Journal of Lesbian Studies 25 (1): 36-52. https://doi.org/10.1080/10894160.2019.1689329

Serano, Julia. 2008. Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. Seal Press.

Spurgas, Alyson K. 2021. “Solidarity in Falling Apart: Toward a Crip, Collectivist, and Justice-seeking Theory of Feminine Fracture.” Lateral 10 (1).

Shelton, Perrē L. 2018. “Reconsidering Femme Identity: On Centering Trans* Counterculture and Conceptualizing Trans*Femme Theory.” Journal of Black Sexuality and Relationships 5 (1): 21-41. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/bsr.2018.0013.

Shraya, Vivek. (2018). I’m Afraid of Men. Penguin Canada.  

Skelly, Julia. (2014). The Uses of Excess in Visual and Material culture, 1600-2010. Ashgate. 

Skelly, Julia. (2018). Radical Decadence: Excess in Contemporary Feminist Textiles and Craft. Bloomsbury Academic.

Story, Kalia A. 2016. “Fear of a Black Femme: The Existential Conundrum of Embodying a Black Femme Identity While Being a Professor of Black, Queer, and Feminist Studies.” Journal of Lesbian Studies  21 (4): 407–419. https://doi.org/10.1080/10894160.2016.1165043

Taylor, Allison. 2022. "Fashioning Fat Fem(me)ininities." Fat Studies 11 (3): 287-300.

Taylor, Allison, and Rhea Ashley Hoskin. 2023. "Fat femininities: On the convergence of fat studies and critical femininities." Fat Studies 12 (1): 72-85.

Teekah, Alyssa, Erika Jane Scholz, May Friedman, and Andrea O’Reilly, eds. 2015 This is What a Feminist Slut Looks Like: Perspectives on the SlutWalk Movement. Demeter Press.  

Thomas, Cathy. 2021. “Black Femme Rising: Cosplay and Playing Was as New Narratives of Transgression.” American Journal of Play 13 (2&3).

Tinsley, Omiese’eke Natasha. 2022. The Color Pynk: Black Femme Art For Survival. University of Texas Press.

Volcano, Del LaGrace and Ulrika Dahl. 2008. Femmes of Power: Exploding Queer Femininities. Serpent’s Tail. 

Walker, Lisa. 1993. “How to Recognize a Lesbian: The Cultural Politics of Looking Like What You Are.” Signs 18 (4): 866-890.  

Walker, Lisa. 2012. “The Future of Femme: Notes on Femininity, Aging and Gender Theory.” Sexualities 15 (7): 795-814. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460711417482

Whitehead, Joshua. 2019. “‘Finding We’wha’: Indigenous Idylls in Queer Young Adult Literature.” In Queer as Camp: Essays on Summer, Style, and Sexuality, edited by Kenneth B. Kidd and Derritt Mason. Fordham University Press.  

Zhang, Erique, Julian Kevon Glover, Ava LJ Kim, Tamsin Kimoto, Nathan Alexander Moore, æryka jourdaine hollis o'neil, and LaVelle Ridley. 2023. "A Tranifesto for the Dolls: Toward a Trans Femme of Color Theory." TSQ 10 (3-4): 328-349.