Please educate me!!
Hello! Posting from a burner account bc I know this is an absolute trash take but it is something that I genuinely want to be educated on:
I (transmasc nonbinary, disabled, he/they, 26) am the femme in a butch/femme dynamic with my butch fiancé (transmasc, he/they, able-bodied, 28) and we have stumbled upon some deep internalized prejudice that I have towards femmes in a butch4femme relationship. In my mind, because providing emotional care and support in a relationship is the absolute bare minimum you should be doing, it is not on par with the practical support that butches offer. In my mind, a relationship that is purely practical support without reciprocal emotional care and vulnerability is either unhealthy or entirely transactional and doesn’t function as a romantic or platonic partnership. Thus, with emotional care being the fundamental principle on which meaningful relationships are built, it can’t be considered on par with emotional AND practical contributions to a relationship.
For the record, I have been in healthy and deeply meaningful relationships where the only thing we had to offer each other was emotional support, and I never had this notion crop up in those relationships because it felt like we were on equal footing and contributing equally. This is my first relationship with a butch though, and I can’t help feeling like he would be better off in a butch4butch relationship.
To state it in an extreme way, I have somehow internalized that femmes are useless and not valuable partners in a butch4femme dynamic, and that butch4butch relationships are inherently better.
Yes, I am aware that this definitely stems from internalized misogyny, ableism and capitalist ideals on value being found in material contribution and productivity, a lack of knowledge of historical queer relationship dynamics, and some deep-rooted self esteem issues. Now that I am aware of this belief that I have, I want to be proactive about changing it.
Does anyone have insight into what makes femmes (as an identity both now and historically, not just femme aesthetics) valuable contributors to relationships? What are the flaws in my line of thinking? Are there good books/articles/podcasts that I can look to for educating myself?
Thanks in advance for any advice/resources! I promise this is in good faith- I want to understand better!!