Butch and femme
1972
Pam said the butch/femme roles all changed with the introduction of jeans and tee shirts and unisex fashion.
“People
became less formal. What you did in the bedroom didn’t matter but she
was no longer this feminine thing, but was dressed the same as you in
jeans and tee shirt. Equality came and this butch ‘you’re my woman’
changed to just two women together, and it’s changed more and more
through the seventies and eighties so women now are fairly equal. In
the sixties the butch would sit there and be waited on and her woman
was expected to do the cooking and cleaning and all the things that
housewives would do, but the rules changed, and I do feel it was to do
with unisex clothes, and with it, unisex thinking, and hairstyles all
got mixed up (and the roles in heterosexual relationships were also
being challenged).”
Contributed by: Pam Hudson, 63