F**k Femininity: punk appropriation of the working-class ‘feminine’

The Sex Pistols relationship with (Vivienne) Westwood & (Malcolm) McLaren opened a space within fashion and self-styling for alternative versions of femininity to step forward and be temporarily accepted. This chapter will suggest that working-class versions of the 'feminine' that had previously been pushed to the margins, derided and excluded from the dominant bourgeois discourse around what it is/was to be a woman, were temporarily made visible through the punk movement. The punk fashion aesthetic allowed for embodied attributes often negatively aligned to the lived experience of working-class women, such as aggression, strength, resourcefulness and sexual empowerment to become positively re-appropriated. This form of embodied or clothed contestation (Lefebvre 1989 [1969]) prompted a shift in what was considered feminine, and by extension masculine - the influence of which can be felt to this day.