[Kaiserschmarrn]

Tomboys who became feminists

Text: Hilde Kvalvaag

So far, Ingrid Birce Muftuoglu has interviewed ten heterosexual women for her doctoral project on ‘everyday activism’ and the personification and aestheticisation of the struggle for women’s liberation in the 1970s. It came as a surprise to Ms Muftuoglu that eight of the ten informants introduced the term ‘tomboy’ within ten minutes of being asked to describe their childhoods.

‘I began to think that the stories about tomboys could perhaps be viewed as a prerequisite for a feminist aesthetics in the 1970s, and that the women’s tendency to refer to themselves as tomboys was important to understanding their politically active lives during that decade,’ says Muftuoglu. She tells how some of the informants associated values such as impulsiveness, freedom of choice, creativity and strength with resembling boys during childhood and adolescence. These values, which were associated with masculine behaviour, were subsequently negotiated into what some of the women consider a ‘natural’ femininity. Ms Muftuoglu believes that when the women became politically active, their masculinity was concealed.

‘Some of my informants are among those who were against the idea that “femininity” should be hidden. They broke with the aesthetics of the tomboy identity they had previously embraced, because, as young adults, when these women were active in the women's movement, they turned against their former tomboy identity. They chose instead to explore other aspects of femininity. Some of the informants define femininity as being in opposition to what they understand to be the women’s movement’s demand for gender neutrality, while others tell of how good it was to escape the tyranny of beauty by dressing themselves in workmen's shirts, comfortable shoes and loose-fitting clothes. In the 1970s, dressing up was controversial; it was associated with the male-dominated view of women held by the popular culture of the day. But many women did not feel comfortable with this de-gendered ideal, and there were discussions about whether it was possible to be a feminist and still wear lipstick.’

Everyday activism

'The personal is political' was the most important slogan for 1970s feminists. Ms Muftuoglu takes a particular interest in how the new feminists handled the ‘private sphere’.

There were diverging views within the feminist movement about what 'the personal' actually was and how it should be politicised. Some of the first issues of the feminist periodical Sirene encouraged women to take action both at home and in their local community.

‘Whereas I was expecting stories about the division of labour and great practical upheavals in their private spheres, many of my informants portrayed themselves as being equal in relation to their partners. Some said that they had fought for women’s rights on behalf of other women who were less socially aware than themselves. They tell of how their mothers had made sure that their daughters would be free. They barely knew how to use a vacuum cleaner, but they were very socially aware. Many of them lived with men who were also politically active. One of the conflicts was that feminism was not taken seriously by the men and was looked upon as subordinate to other bigger and more important political issues, such as the class struggle.’

Trained to be defiant

Ms Muftuoglu points out that class is an extremely important concept in understanding the baggage women in the feminist movement brought with them to the struggle for women’s rights. Many of the informants emphasise that they were women who enjoyed respect and status, while other girls were not given the freedom to develop themselves as they wished in childhood. They were moulded into a girls’ world. My impression so far is that this distancing of themselves from others who did not have the freedom to 'be a boy' and cross gender barriers during childhood is to a certain extent linked to perceptions of belonging to a class.

‘For some of my informants, the tomboy identity of their childhood gave them freedom to be wild, naughty, critical and enquiring. And this was carried over into the feminist movement's critical discourse. The “tomboys” describe the material circumstances of their childhood as good. They came from nice homes and had active and socially aware mothers. In many ways, the informants camouflage their narratives about class but at the same time speak of their mothers' paternalistic attitudes towards those who were worse off and needed help and guidance, something they themselves carry on in their own narratives about the 1970s feminist movement,' says Ingrid Birce Muftuoglu.

The article is published in Hubro 2/2009

(This seems to be a somewhat clumsy translation from Norwegian.)

Without making too much of this as research, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the idea that previous feminists tended to be tomboys as a child - as well as in all likelihood their mothers - turned out to be true, especially considering the contrast with today's feminism which demands special treatment and accommodation for women pretty much as a matter of course. I'd imagine the "tomboys" of old wouldn't have had any of that.