Projecting the Male Gaze

The other day, I was listening to a podcast. The host was recalling her time at the nail salon recently, and said she overheard the Woman next to her telling her nail tech that she’d like her nails “similar to hers, but more lady-like”. So, obviously this is rude, and that was the whole purpose in the host recalling the story, but it made me think even deeper than just the rudeness. Who decided what is “lady-like”? 

As I thought about this, my mind traveled back and through all the instances that either I or a Woman I know was taught to internalize this very specific idea of being a “lady”. Whether it was the no spaghetti straps or shorts too high above the knee rule in school, or being told to lower our voices. Just like a lot of Women, the “be a lady” and “that’s not lady-like” reminders were seemingly passed down in my family. My Mother would tell me all the time that her being loud, just like her brothers, would result in her being told to be quieter, to be a lady. 

I knew My Grandmother, My Mother’s Mother, I knew her to be so kind, so sweet, so Loving, and accepting. So, I don’t hold this against her as a character flaw, even though it makes me cringe so much. When My Mother told me that, I was pretty disgusted, but I understood it so deeply. This directive “be a lady”, “be more lady-like”, it was already so normal to me by the time I’d heard that story. So, even while I can identify how problematic it felt to me, it still felt really normal. I feel just as brainwashed. 

The “male gaze” in feminist theory is defined as “the act of depicting Women and the world, in the visual arts and in literature, from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents Women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the heterosexual male viewer.”. Before seeing that definition, I could guess pretty close to accurately what it was. Seeing the definition written out elicits the same gross feeling as the term itself. So, why do I see myself projecting the male gaze myself? Even though I know personally how disgusting and limiting it could be? 

The answer is that as simple as the “male gaze” sounds, it’s actually a system that’s plagued a lot of us. In my experience, Women that I know and have experienced through the media have been conditioned to only calculate their value if it equates in some way or another to what is appeasing to Men. Not just appeasing, what is most comfortable for our male counterparts as well. When I think back on our dress codes in school, the main reason was not to distract boys. 

So many of us were taught so early that our bodies were distractions. Not to ourselves, not that if our thighs were exposed we’d be drawing on them instead of paying attention to our lessons, but because boys would be distracted. And that was our business. Our fault. Our responsibility. Bullshit. Little girls like My Mother were taught that ladies were quiet. It was okay for her brothers to be loud, unruly, but if she did it, she’d be being like them, being masculine, and Men don’t like other Men, so you better learn to act like a lady. So stupid.

I don’t know if it ran that deep in My Grandmother’s or her foremothers’ minds, but that’s how I take it. Men’s comfort and pleasure are upheld constantly while we teach little girls to adjust to it. Then those little girls grow up to be Women who continue to spread this lady-like gospel. She teaches it to her daughters, and gossips about her unlady-like peers, she keeps it going. 

The crushing realization for me is that I am now one of those Women. As much as I’ve rebelled, rallied around that outcasts, grown, and learned to Love the abnormal, I still have my ways of keeping this in the spaces I inhabit. I used to think I was different or special because I didn’t do things “like other girls”. I didn’t care to be dolled up everyday, I secretly relished in not being the girl with all the hairstyles, I spent a long time not getting into makeup, even though I was interested in these things when I really looked deeper within. 

I thought I was doing the opposite of what the girls who wanted guys’ attention were doing, but then I’d use those same anti-girly points to sell myself to some dude. It was still about them! Disgusting! I actually like being cute and dolled up, I like makeup and having my hair done, and it’s okay to like or not like anything, as long as it’s about you. I used to brag about returning the favor if a guy took me out, even if I didn’t really like him enough to see him again! I used my “independence” to differentiate myself from the others and guess what?? Still for the male gaze! 

The point is, nothing can be dismantled without our awareness of it. Also, the most important point of all, we should all just mind our business. The patriarchy has more than enough fuel and we just add to it by judging other Women and ourselves for what we do or don’t do to appease our male counterparts. I can’t lie, I’m a little disappointed in myself for these realizations, but I want to offer myself the grace that I want to give to every other Woman. I am a Womanist after all, and we gotta have us with or without the preferences of Men. 

Let’s just be who we are and learn to Love and enjoy who we are ever becoming.