What We Learn From Girlhood: The Male Gaze and Visible Femininity

What does it mean to be a woman? What visually defines femininity? For me, these questions question, though they appear simple, are challenging to answer. Yes, a woman is a female human being with biologically female sex and reproductive organs. Yes, a woman is also a female human being who does not inherently possess the innate biological sex or reproductive organs associated with the female body. Also yes, a woman is human being who identifies with, and performs this gender identity. However, these examples fail to adequately define what visually constitutes womanhood and femininity.

For me, the lived experience of being a woman within a patriarchal society is more complex than merely a gender identity or a biological sex. My own understanding of what it means to be a woman has evolved over time. One of my earliest memories from childhood are moments dancing around my mother’s bathroom with Shania Twain’s “Man, I Feel Like A Woman!” blasting on the radio. I loved this song. I still love this song. However, I loved this song long before I understood the meaning the song’s lyrics.

As I grew up, I noticed how my body was received by men and women in society. While men notoriously objectify and sexualise the female body through imagery, language, and behaviour, women propagate this narrative by adopting and observing themselves in accordance with the same imagery, language, and behaviour. Thus, men have defined the visual and aesthetic categories of femininity and womanhood.

In Grade 5, I wore a bra to school for the first time—mind you, it was a lined sports bra. Regardless, a bra is a bra as far as I’m concerned. Within the first hour, a male classmate explicitly looked me up and down, before pausing on what was no longer a concave chest. Let me reiterate, I was wearing a padded sports bra. And yet, this visible difference in my appearance ostensibly gave this young boy the social acceptability to view (and comment) on my body and/or my appearance. This visible difference inspired this young boy to explicitly sexualise me and my nine-year-old body. That evening, I told my mother about this interaction. I told her that this attention made me feel embarrassed. I told her that this attention made me feel uncomfortable. She recommended I dress differently to avoid similar interactions in the future. And so, I dressed differently. But I didn’t want to. Ironic, isn’t it? This kind of attention made me noticeably uncomfortable, and yet I had been groomed by society to appreciate this kind of attention.

This kind of attention assured me that I was doing something right because I was able to attract the male gaze. This is because our society teaches girls from a young age that physical attractiveness is a woman’s greatest currency. And we believe it! I willingly bought into the narrative that beauty and male attention equates to social, emotional, and economic success. How could I not? Capitalistic society and clever marketeers degrade women to encourage them to spend more money. As a result, girls learn to rely on the aesthetic categories defined by the male gaze in order to determine their own physical and sexual attractiveness.

The other night, I listened to a podcast interviewing Melissa Febos. She discussed how society’s narratives around the female body impact the lived experience of women; those narratives that begin in early girlhood and persist throughout adulthood.

Febos notes that the narratives around the female body are inherently contradictory. Women are told to dress in a way that accentuates their features in order to appeal to the male gaze, and yet we are at fault when men take notice of these features; women must wear just enough so as to pleasure the male gaze while simultaneously preserving their modesty. We are told to wear makeup to 'make ourselves presentable' presentable, but visible makeup is too much makeup. We are told to speak in a certain way and to sound intelligent, but not too intelligent so as to threaten the men in the room. The male gaze (and commentary) is the thread which weaves these two narratives together; the male gaze has come to visually and aesthetically define what visually constitutes femininity. Fundamentally, this is a way to exert control and power over women.

This is not a new phenomenon. In fact, the female body has been a popular object of artistic expression since the Renaissance; the female nude curated by and for the male case established a norm of what visually constitutes femininity, and by extension feminine beauty. The traditional female body, as depicted in artworks representing the female nude, exhibits visually feminine traits that distinguish these bodies from male bodies, while highlighting those body parts that appeal to the heterosexual male gaze.

In The Female Nude, Lynda Nead argues: “the classical, high-art tradition of the female nude” developed an “aesthetic category [based upon] ...race, size, health, age and physical ability,” thus linking “desire [and] visual representation” to the “female body.” Thus, the breasts, buttocks and wide-set hips came to define the aesthetic category of what visually constitutes femininity.

It is no surprise that today’s women often experience shame and discomfort within their own bodies. This begins in girlhood and continues throughout adulthood as women are fed the narrative that they will never be good enough. Indeed, clever marketeers convince women that if they use this product/buy this product/do this procedure, they will finally satisfy the visual and aesthetic categories established by men. This is a never-ending cycle that inherently degrades women to order to sell them the aesthetic beauty standards established by and for men.

But fuck that.

As an adult, I have developed a sense of personal style that intentionally does not appeal to the male gaze. I love dungarees, baggy knits, and straight leg jeans. I love crew-neck t-shirts and heavy soled oxford-style shoes. I love boxy tunic-like silhouettes that negate attention from my breasts and buttocks. Whether I was aware of it at the time, this uncomfortable experience as a girl has fundamentally shaped the way that I curate my appearance as an adult. In effect, I've developed a sense of style that deliberately limits the male gaze's access to my body.

Throughout my adult life, I've realised that I cannot separate my lived experience as a woman. However, this small sense of control has been incredibly empowering as I've relinquished control over how my body is perceived by society, and by the male gaze. As a result, I've used clothing to challenge how the male gaze perceives my body. While this may be a small step in the large journey towards deconstructing the male gaze, this sense of authority over my body and its appearance has enabled me to find a sense of empowerment. My notoriously 'man-repelling' clothes have enabled me to disempower the male gaze from visually accessing (and thus sexualising) my body.

Until recently, I’ve never stopped to question how the male gaze has impacted my own relationship to my body. Perhaps I've never considered how my body plays an important role in my own lived experience as a woman. While I continue to deconstruct this topic in my personal and professional life, I will continue to make a conscious effort to control how men (and the male gaze) see and perceive my body.