these terms. The tenuous nature of this self-constitution is later made evident when a boy
- himself citing masculine paternalism - intervenes on Toni’s behalf when another boy
flicks saw dust on her. This intervention has the potential to reconstitute Toni as not
physically competent but, instead, as in need of protection, that is, as feminine. While this
intervention could also be seen as lesbian-friendly support offered in response to flicked
sawdust that has been interpreted as an intentional punishment for Toni’s Otherness, such
intent renders the intervention no more commensurate with Toni’s self-constitutions. The
support of a boy/man given unbidden to a girl/woman is potentially constitutive of their
respective hetero-masculinity and hetero-femininity. Toni’s dismissal of the intervention
then, is not only a refusal of a feminised concern for cleanliness, but also a refusal of the
hetero-femininity intrinsic to the intervention itself. That is, it is an attempt to resist the
hetero-femininity in whose terms she has been constituted and inscribe herself once again
beyond the bounds of this.
These practices extricate Toni from compulsory heterosexuality, but, as I have shown,
this is not a once and for all extrication. Furthermore, by citing the lesbian Other her
practices inscribe again normative heterosexual femininity. As such, the extent to which
the heterosexual matrix is troubled is limited. Indeed, by constituting the Other such
practices may also act to bolster the heterosexual matrix, underscore the privilege of the
Same, and mark once again the boundaries of this constitutive binary.
Possibilities
<images with „femme’ titles>
Pipa and Toni’s constitutive practices evidence in different ways the possibility for
female-hetero-femininity to be exceeded. These troubling constitutions are well
illustrated through the girls’ respective outfit choices for the school’s graduation
ceremony which are represented in images 1 and 2. Toni’s attire in image 1 reflects that
discussed in the previous scene. Flanked here by working-class girls adorned in that
summer’s requisite short-skirted two-piece or frock with strappy high-heeled and neatly
styled long hair, the contrast between the bodies of female-hetero-femininity and the
body of female-homo-(un)feminine/ (impossibly)masculine - the androgynous dyke - is
rendered starkly visible. All three of the girls in this image are surely cognizant, at least
tacitly, of the effects of their outfit choices - the hetero-femmes „know’ their dresses
„are’ feminine, Toni „knows’ her cords and t-shirt „are’ lesbian/bi/queer. Yet once again,