"Why is it so difficult to see the lesbian— even when she is there, quite plainly, in front of us? In part because she has been “ghosted"—or made to seem invisible—by culture itself. It would be putting it mildly to say that the lesbian represents a threat to the patriarchal protocol: Western civilization has for centuries been haunted by a fear of “women without men"—of women indifferent or resistant to the male desire. Once the lesbian has been defined as ghostly—the better to drain her of any sensual or moral authority—she can then be exorcized.”
The Apparitional Lesbian by Terry Castle
Is Sevika a lesbian? Does it matter?
Maybe from the outside, it doesn’t. Maybe you think it shouldn’t matter at all. But, from the perspective of many sapphic people, of course it does. Representation has always mattered, and to have a strong beautiful woman represented in a complex and positive light is a treasure, especially with a woman so powerfully queer coded.
“QUEER WOMEN OF COLOR HAVE A PARTICULARLY DIFFICULT TIME FINDING THEMSELVES ONSCREEN; THEIR CHARACTERS FALL PREY TO TROPES MORE OFTEN AND ARE MUCH RARER ...THAT IS WHY REPRESENTATION IS SO IMPORTANT. IF I HAD BEEN SURROUNDED BY THOUGHTFUL AND RELATABLE QUEER CHARACTERS, ESPECIALLY WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, I WOULD HAVE GROWN UP TO BE MORE ACCEPTING OF MYSELF, AND THOSE AROUND ME WOULD HAVE BEEN MORE ACCEPTING TOO.” (PARKER)
Lesbianism is vastly unrepresented, and when they are it’s often shallow and white. Sevika, while fitting some stereotypes associated with lesbians (especially lesbians of color), is complex.
There are moments of sexuality in Sevika’s character, i.e. camera angles focused on her hips and waist, the infamous reference to her spending habits at the brothel; but these moments are brief, offering glimpses of sexuality to someone that the heteronormative world often ignores or de-sexualizes: a butch woman.
We are given a woman who is no nonsense, strong, aggressive- set up to be a crude stereotype of an over-masculine brown woman; but then she softens. She is allowed softness, sexuality, beauty, femineity; without denying her masculinity or her strength.
“TO BE BUTCH, WE ARE LED TO BELIEVE, IS TO BE THE ANTITHESIS TO "TRADITIONAL" BEAUTY. BY APPEARING DELIBERATELY GENDER-NONCONFORMING, BUTCH WOMEN AND PEOPLE ARE SEEN TO BE REJECTING TRADITIONAL FORMS OF FEMININITY. BUT REJECTION OF FEMININITY IS NOT A REJECTION OF BEAUTY. NOR IS IT A BID TO "LOOK LIKE" OR EMBODY MASCULINITY. THE BEAUTY OF BUTCHNESS IS THAT IT CREATES ITS OWN CATEGORY, ONE THAT STANDS APART FROM PATRIARCHAL STANDARDS AND CELEBRATES NEW VERSIONS OF WOMANHOOD AND NON-BINARY IDENTITY.” (O'SULLIVAN, 2019)
It is something many women are plagued with, a truth that is hard to escape even in the most feminist spaces: “Women are constantly pushed to only perform the type of womanhood approved by patriarchy’s standards.” (Antoine, 2020)
Sevika, as a character, gives us a rare glimpse of a woman that isn’t punished for her gender “abnormality”. We are shown a woman who isn’t hated for her butchness, who isn’t hated for not catering herself to men or to stereotype; something we rarely see in our reality.
“IT'S SO ACCEPTABLE TO SEE BUTCH WOMEN AS 'OTHER' AND SEE THEM AS WRONG, GROSS, EVEN DIRTY. I’M DOING EVERYTHING YOU'RE TAUGHT NOT TO DO AS A WOMAN, AND THE HARASSMENT SEEMS LIKE A MORE CULTURALLY ACCEPTABLE HOMOPHOBIA. I APPEAR VERY CLEARLY AS SOMEONE WHO IS REJECTING BEING SEXUALIZED BY MEN AND THEIR GAZE.” (O'SULLIVAN, 2019)
Again, I bring us back to the importance of representation, why it’s crucial to see characters that push back against the patriarchal world view that is often shoved down the throats of queer people and women in general.
What makes Sevika “queer-coded”?
The simple answer is her more masculine appearance. She is feminine in many ways, yes, but she is distinctly masculine; especially to the misogynistic, toxically masculine society we live in. Men fear her, she fears little, and she’s buff as hell; all of which makes her distinctly unappealing to the average American man. She is masculine, sexual, and beautiful, while not being the stereotype of the predatory lesbian. Her androgyny; her juxtaposition of masculine and feminine are given room to breathe. She’s realistic, she could be a real butch woman (if it weren’t for the chemtech arm). Like a real life lesbian: she takes care of her community, stands up for her people, and fights for what’s right.
“One reason the general American public did not openly connect mannish women with lesbianism before the early 1920s is relatively simple: The books that provided information about the lesbian were mostly medical books—ponderous, expensive tomes written in medical jargon, which were supposed to be distributed only to physicians and other medical professionals. These books could not have been better designed for a restricted readership. At the end of the 1910s, a limited network of professionals was informed about the perceived linkage between the masculine woman and lesbianism. By the early 1920s, however, this connection was broadly recognized, as information about lesbians and gay men had become more readily available to the general public. In particular, Freud's theories [...] gained a popularity never achieved by the earlier sexologists' ideas (Faderman, Surpassing 314). Watered-down versions of his works appeared in countless massmarket periodicals, in pseudoscientific publications, and in self-help literature. As Faderman points out, writers of popular literature "regurgitated" Freud's writings on lesbianism for the general public (Surpassing 315). Through popularized versions of Freud such as Dr. Joseph Collins's The Doctor Looks at Love and Life (1926) or somewhat more scholarly studies like Wilhelm Stekel's Homosexual Neurosis (1922), the information about homosexuality that was available to the public slowly began to grow.”
The Lesbian Menace: Ideology, Identity, and the Representation of Lesbian Life || Sherrie Inness
Butchness, whether queer or not; and lesbianism, whether butch or not, are more widely accepted, both by the self and the wider community, when they are represented as something that is human and relatable. Sevika, as a butch woman, offers a complex image of someone our society constantly tries to other.
In a world that pushes women to perform for men, and treats abnormal women so poorly, does that make masculine presentation queerness in itself? In a world that didn’t other masculine women (and thus feminine men) would being such no longer automatically make you queer? Is it the treatment, (and/or) the othering, of these people what makes them so queer, rather than the presentation itself?
We can’t ignore the way Sevika looks at women. Men (aside from Silco) get basically no positive attention from her. There could be plenty of reasons for that, of course, that shouldn’t be ignored. That being said, it’s the way that she looks at women that makes me, and a good deal of the Arcane fandom, think that Sevika is a lesbian. She’s almost always engaged when a woman is talking to or fighting with her. From her excited glances to her lip biting to the eye contact she gives women; there is no denying (in my opinion) her attraction to woman. I don’t think she ever gives a man the same attention in the entire show.
“We could begin with the very figure of the lesbian feminist; so often coming up as being anti, antisex, antifun, antilife. The investment in her misery needs to be understood as just that: an investment. To live out a lesbian life is to become willfully estranged from the causes of happiness.”
Sara Ahmed, Living a Feminist Life (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017), 222-223.
