Black "Soft-Femme" Icons

What does it mean to be a soft femme?* Tender, radically vulnerable, dainty, "girly", gentle, peaceful, nearly maternal. In the realm of "soft femmes", unlike in other feminist theory, these traits are viewed as a source of strength rather than weakness.

Being pretty or beautiful alone doesn't make someone a soft femme. If we go beyond aesthetics, soft femmes exhibit classic and traditional feminine traits while still supporting independence, intellect, wit, sexual freedom, and fearlessness. Instead of regarding soft femmes as weak, it is more accurate to envision a piece of hard candy with a razor blade surreptitiously hidden in the middle.

Traditionally, the soft femme aesthetic has been dominated by amazing white (and more often than not, blonde women) like Brigette Bardot, Marilyn Monroe, Dolly Parton, Audrey Hepburn, Princess Diana, Britney Spears, Pamela Anderson, and, lately, artists like Sabrina Carpenter.

Now don't get me wrong, here: I LOVE these women. I look up to many of them, and Sabrina Carpenter is hands down my favorite new singer. As a little girl in Texas, I dreamed about the day when I'd wear my own big hair, lipstick, satin gloves, high heels, feathers, furs, and short skirts. But I rarely ever saw women who looked like me being described as "soft" or "feminine" in the media, and for a while even I thought that only blonde white women were "free" enough to be soft. I thank the goddess every day that I discovered burlesque and shake dancers; this art form has radically changed my life, my politics, and my perspective.

Now I understand that there are highly-orchestrated sociopolitical reasons for this lack of representation of Black women as soft femmes. In the not-so-distant past, Blackness was synonymous with struggle and upheaval. So, to the modern Black woman, being a soft femme is an active form of resistance. Our chosen self-selected personhood is marked by beauty and femininity, rather than struggle.

Black women have historically and legally been unallowed to embrace their femininity in ways that white women have always been encouraged. In America, white doctors founded gynecology by literally performing experiments on us without anesthesia because they did not regard us as "women" in the same way white femmes were viewed. Our pain -- our vulnerability, which is so fiercely guarded by modern Black soft femmes -- was ignored.

So yeah, because that wasn't even that long ago, it's difficult for some people to accept us in roles other than being workhorses or experiments -- especially other white soft femmes! Historically, white femininity (especially blonde femininity) trumped all other forms of womanhood. So even when Black women are right there being soft and vulnerable and pretty and strong, people take this as an affront to their worldview and pretend we do not exist.

But we DO exist!

If you want to add some Black soft femmes to your list, broaden your horizons and consider these hotties! Google them, watch them act and model, listen to their music... I argue that they all proudly embody everything from the soft femme aesthetic to the politics:

Rosanne Katon, Model/Actress/Activist

Jean Idelle, Burlesque Star

Betty Wright, Singer

Sylvester, Disco Singer

Venus LaDoll, Burlesque Star

Azizi Johari, Model

Etta James, Singer

Gina Byrams, Model/Playmate

Lottie the Body, Burlesque Star/Activist

Jackee Harry, Actress

Julie Woodson, Model/Playmate

Marie Bryant, Burlesque Star

Tina Turner and the Ikettes, Singers/Dancers

Miss Topsy, Burlesque Star

See also: RuPaul, Dorothy Dandridge, Eartha Kitt, Mya, Aretha Franklin, Sade, Lena Horne, Beyonce, Diana Ross, Josephine Baker, Marsha P. Johnson, and every Black burlesque dancer and shake dancer in the history of time. And I know they're not Black, but Selena Quintanilla and Charo. But those names (save for the Black burlesque stars of yesteryear) tend to be more well-known!

I know there's WAY more people we could add to the list, but these are the strong Black soft femmes I could think of off the top of my head! As I reiterate over and over, I do not think it is unjust or unkind to acknowledge the beautiful white women who embody soft femininity -- I just don't want to leave out the beautiful women of color who embody it as well!

Until next time,

Bebe xoxo

* There's also a definition of "soft femme" that is inherently queer and stands in juxtaposition with other types of queers: