SOCIAL-CLASS AS A CORRELATE OF GENDER IDENTITY AMONG LESBIAN WOMEN

Traditionally, researchers have portrayed ''butch'' and ''femme'' iden tities among lesbian women as gender roles. To complicate matters, rat her than ask lesbian women to define butch and femme within the contex t of their own culture, researchers defined the terms themselves. This study adds to the literature in two ways: (1) lesbian women are asked to define butch and femme on their own terms and (2) social class is considered as a correlate to the formation of butch and femme gender i dentities. A snowball sample of 235 women participated in the study. N inety-three percent of the participants are white, 7% are women of col or Social classes, as measured by income and education are diverse wit hin the sample. Findings indicate that lesbian women define butch and femme differently than have researchers, and that social class is a si gnificant determinant of whether or not a lesbian woman defines hersel f as butch or femme.