What Does Femme Power Look Like In The Creative Industry?
By Irene Yu | Photos by Lupe Pacheco-Gomez @lupepac_
“I wish that femmes and queers talked more about the disrespect we face. We have to deal with condescending people, men sexualizing us, abusers coming to events, and simply just having to cater to the scene. I wish we could just be ourselves. I wish we could voice our anger when our boundaries are crossed. I wish we could call out the men in the industry who act like we don't know what we’re doing.”
Adhila
As a DJ and creative professionally known as 4DHILA, Adhila has all too often faced situations where she “did not feel welcomed, seen, or heard” within the creative community. Despite this, she and Sarah Zuberi, designer and founder of Zuberi Studios, were able to find solidarity and strength in coming together to create an event where femmes and queers could and feel both welcomed and safe to express themselves.
“There definitely aren’t many people that look like us in these spaces. We realized if there weren’t people that looked like us in these spaces then we just had to create our own spaces for people like us.”
Sarah Zuberi
On April 5th, Adhila, Zuberi Studios and Zay Bishop hosted Femme Fatale, a party “by Baddies 4 Baddies” featuring local Bay Area vendors, artists and DJs. An immersive celebration of femme creativity, community and resilience, the event took place at Bissap Baobab in the Mission, with half of the proceeds going to Black Women Revolt, an organization that provides resources specifically for Black women and their families to both increase awareness about the impact of intergenerational violence in the Black community and remove barriers for those who have experienced domestic abuse.
Femme Fatale’s main goal was to create a space where “femmes and queers could celebrate their joy, beauty, frustration, and rage all in one night.” A space “created by girls who know what it feels like to go unnoticed.” As a business founded by two women of color, Hotspot Creatives was honored to be a part of the event and get further insight into the minds of these incredible femme creatives.
Adhila and Sarah met at the No to APEC protest for Palestinian solidarity in 2023. As South Asian and Muslim creative girls — “literally the black sheep in [their] community” — they formed a genuine friendship based on ambition and empathy, bonding through late night chats and spamming each other’s phones when getting frustrated and wanting to give up.
“There have been so many events where I felt so uncomfortable and unsafe. There’s been countless times where I felt like I was in a testosterone pool. And I’m not saying men inherently make me feel unsafe, but unfortunately… There's only a handful of male DJs who have made me feel safe and welcomed. So I wanted an event where we could come together for a purpose — community and revolutionary love.”
Adhila
Femme Fatale achieved that and more, raising over $1,000 for Black Women Revolt throughout the night. Taylor Strommel, a youth coordinator at BWR, said she finds empowerment through being able “to provide resources for [her] community that [she] would have really loved to have as a teenager or as a young adult.”
“My favorite part about what I do is providing spaces for folks to talk about healthy and unhealthy relationships, because I feel like sometimes we're afraid to bring topics up with the people that we're closest to.”
Taylor Strommel
The event brought together femme creatives of all mediums, including Tasha Malan, Mexican born, Bay Area raised artist and “accidental content creator.” Tasha started writing music when she was 7 years old, releasing her first single in high school. Now, she is working toward releasing her debut album. Tasha’s music is inspired by the 80s, 2000s pop, contemporary R&B and Spanish music — all of which came through during her live performance at the event.
“Femme creatives not only have immaculate taste but are also well connected, so you're going to get the best of the best. Good DJs, great vendors, a great crowd — you get a little bit of everything — and on top of that, it’s a fundraiser so it's feeding back into the community too. It's validating to know that these are the kinds of peers I'm attracting — boss babes really!
Even though we all have different creative mediums, journalism, photography, event organizing, visual artists, we always find ways to work together and support each other and our community which is really special to me. I honestly just love seeing us win.”
Tasha Malan
As a female artist, Tasha feels the most empowered knowing that she’s “making content and making music for the sake of creating, no expectations or strings attached.”
“When you’re an artist or an entertainer sharing your creations, it's really easy to get imposter syndrome, doubt yourself and wonder what the point is of spending time and energy on all of your ‘silly hobbies’ without knowing if it will lead to anything. But I think of it like we are vessels for the universe’s creativity. It's not our job to understand why we need to create, we just have to do it.”
Tasha Malan
Tasha’s live performance was followed by DJ sets by 4DHILA, DJ SweetMeat, IllumiNATi, Estrella, and BRIIZV, all femme or queer identifying Bay Area DJs. Coordinating the DJs, vendors and logistics was one of the hardest parts of organizing the event, according to Sarah. Sarah and Adhila were able to work closely with Zay Bishop, who works with Bissap Baobab, in order to plan the event.
“My overall goal was to get as much community involvement as possible and stay within Marco’s [owner of Baoab] constant practice of developing a community and village and giving back. The next was giving an opportunity for femme organizers to do whatever they wanted creatively, as I don’t get to actually work with many femme organizers and do my best to help.”
Zay Bishop
“I want artists, musicians, DJs, and creatives as a whole to remember that we have a purpose. We have a purpose to create with intention. And now, we need intentional efforts to build community. We need to build our own political consciousnesses as well as an understanding of how we interact with the people around us — we can’t just turn a blind eye to Palestine, to Kashmir, to Sudan, to Trump kidnapping undocumented people and sending them concentration camps and prisons, to how Black and Brown kids in SFUSD are being targeted by their schools facing closure threats… It is impossible, if not almost sinister, to be a creative and ignore what is happening to the communities around you.
And I am not saying that we need to bend over backwards and cut our arms and legs off. What I am saying is that we can do small things like mutual aid, fundraisers, reading the history about the cities we live in, even saying hello to your neighbors. Change starts with radicalizing ourselves. It is possible to still have fun with a purpose; joy is resistance, but let’s not forget that the essence of resistance is rooted in action and revolutionary love.”
Adhila
Femme Fatale served as a prototype for what spaces can look like when femme organizers are given the freedom and resources to lead. The overwhelming success of the event proves that femmes and queers not only need to be heard, but also highlighted within the creative industry.
