"Intimate, audacious, and exploding with interpretive trajectories, these images reach beyond their edges to re-invision projects of queer visiual testimony."—Juana Maria Rodriguez, University of California, Berkeley
Going beyond identity politics, Femmes of Power is a photographic tribute to a diverse range of queerly feminine subjects whose powerful and intentional redress explodes the meaning of femme for the twenty-first century. Celebrating the growing femme presence, here you will meet members Atlanta’s Femme Mafia, San Francisco’s Harlem Shake Burlesque, and Paris’ Fem Menace.
Femmes of Power features both everyday heroines and many queer feminist icons, including Michelle Tea, Virginie Despentes, Amber Hollibaugh, Marla Stewart, Lydia Lunch, Kate Bornstein, and Lois Weaver.
The first book of its kind, Femmes of Power unsettles the objectifying male gaze on femininity and presents femmes as speaking subjects and high-heeled theorists. Look closer—these powerful, sexy, and sincerely ironic feminine figures are larger than life, bravely challenging femininity’s negative connotations and replacing femme invisibility with a fresh new face for femme-inism.
Del LaGrace Volcano is one of the world’s leading queer cultural producers, cited and reproduced in numerous publications, journals, and books on visual art, including The Drag King Book.
Ulrika Dahl is a writer, activist, and cultural anthropologist who has been a femme voice in the Scandinavian feminist and queer debate since 2002. She teaches gender studies at Södertörn University College in Stockholm.
