The female=passive/male=active myth has been around for a long time, and you’d think by now we’d have discarded it, and in some ways we have. Except in terms of how some men interact with most women. Obviously not all men treat women this way, but every woman has at some point been treated this way by at the very least a sizeable minority or a depressing majority for most of her existence.
Now, the male gaze has been well documented, argued with and discussed. It’s not a one-size-fits-all patriarchal hat, many images and media ephemera exist for the gaze of women, not men. Although you could argue that women have internalised the male gaze and are now women gazing as men at women well…anyway. There is one place, as a woman, that you can feel the male gaze almost constantly. You may not be aware of it, indeed many women have conditioned themselves to not see being seen, much like a nervous public speaker ignores their audience, but once you step off the promontory and up the lights all of a sudden you’re aware of all these…eyes…
I had it happen today. I stepped out my front door and waited to cross the road to get to my car. The man driving the first car that came past from my left slowed to negotiate the double-parked section by my house and used the opportunity to stare at me. Not just a glance, he stared for a good few seconds and made eye contact. Now if I spot this sort of situation about to happen I prepare a one finger salute, or pull a funny face. But sometimes I am taken by surprise and I’m caught, like a rabbit in headlights, in the gaze of whatever man has decided he has a right to survey me like a slab of meat. Now, a bit of eye contact and some friendly flirting is fine – all part of human interaction. What I am flagging up here is the aggressive stare, where it seems the only reaction the gazer is trying to provoke from the gazee is intimidation. When offered a sarcastic stare back, or a one finger salute, or even a face-pull, the reaction is always anger. A ‘how dare you react negatively to my appraisal of your worth’ kind of anger. Which is why I always feel dissapointed if I don’t manage to fit one of these physical retorts, because I do enjoy irritating such people.
Anyway my point here is that sometimes, if I am not bumbling along in my oblivious bubble, it really freaks me out just how watched I am. All I need do is walk down the street, go into a shop, anything…and I can feel I’m being watched. And it’s really quite unnerving once you realise it. But why? Why am I stared at? Men aren’t stared at (indeed, if you read Norah Vincent’s ‘Self Made Man’ – men avoid anything other than a cursory glance, as anything else is deemed aggressive and can turn into something nasty) so why is it ok to stare at women? Why is it ok to make eye contact not in a ‘hey there’ flirty kinda way, but in a ‘I’m going to make you a sexual object and there’s nothing you can do to stop me’ kinda way?
Women are property. We can be stared at in such an aggressive way because men *own* us. Of course they can stare at us, that’s what we’re for. Our bodies are not our own, they are to be stared at, judged, fantasised about and used for male pleasure (see Figleaf’s discussions concerning women as the no-sex class, we are viewed as sexless and therefore stripped of the power in our sexuality) We are owned, disempowered and objectified by this gaze, all too many women see it as affirmation of their worth rather than the exertion of the imbalanced power relationship that leaves them valued only for their appearance.
So what can we do, faced with this gaze, this exertion of power from a minority of men every day? Well…a little. Firstly, show we aren’t intimidated by these appraisals. Fuck being judged on your appearance – make a funny face, give a one finger salute…whatever. A confident show of disregard for their aggresive stare will annoy them, and while it may not change their ways, it’ll sure make you feel better. Secondly, don’t view these stares as an affirmation of your worth. Your worth lies in your value as a person – physically, emotionally, sexually and psychologically, not in how many men stared at you. Fuck the beauty myth, dress how you want to and know that you as a person are worth a whole lot more than how perky your tits are/big your arse is/tight your top is. Be proud of your body, of course, but don’t see being eyed up like a slab of steak in a butchers as an affirmation of your worth, you’re worth way more than that.
