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Women staring at women
If you’re a woman you’re probably aware of another woman having stared at you. In fact, at a very particular part of you, like your clothed belly or naked thigh or upper lip. What is she looking for, anyway?
I think that she’s looking for similarity or difference in order to determine, perhaps unknowingly, an equivalence or a discrepancy that makes you or her the “better” woman. In other words, the staring reflects a competitive “achievement” of femininity or beauty. Whose abs are firmer? Whose thigh is more slender? On whose upper lip is the hair invisible?
Last week I walked into a jewelry store, in Tucson, known for its unique and elegant designs, intending to purchase a silver chain, which I did. My feet drew a stare from the woman who helped me–I was wearing red sandals with black socks–and later she stared at one of my cheeks–a swift scrutiny of faded, teenage acne scars? She was kind, helpful, and respectful, as a customer would expect in such a shop, yet I felt strange, even when we mentioned our short fingernails and she looked at hers and then mine. She was gathering evidence–for or against me, I’m not sure.
Granted, socks and girly sandals are not a common style, and black socks apparently signal an especially odd fashion sense, maybe an outré femininity. (To that, I’m tempted to say, “Yay, me!”) One of my best girlfriends exclaimed lovingly a couple months ago, “Jo, you’ve got to wear black socks?!” Well, I almost always wear socks or stockings with any shoe because blisters develop easily on my feet. As for black, I wear a lot of it, it goes with everything, and, most important, I’m very comfortable in it. Despite the odd stare now and then.
I got only the barest glimpse of my “competitor’s” fingernails, but I think they were polished. Mine have been polished maybe 10 times in my whole life. I tend to buff them when I’m readying for a performance or when I haphazardly think of it, though my nails and hands are certainly nicely groomed. Mom, who was a pianist, kept her nails short and rarely polished them. Her hands moved with grace, not to mention talent and skill! A memorable model of beauty and purpose. Indeed, my maternal model of feminine hands veered from the current vogue of polish and professional manicures.
Can a stare be aimed at a whole body, or does staring entail a scrutinizingly concentrated focus? One to which I react with a feeling of having been invaded, and having been, paradoxically, completely unseen. Inadvertently, a woman can begin to edit her appearance under the unseeing eyes of another woman’s stare. Gee, shouldn’t have worn those socks! Gee, gotta let those nails grow and hide that skin under foundation. (Foundation holds no appeal, and I feel good in a translucent loose powder, these days one with a delicate rose scent.)
A woman’s stare objectifies another woman. That effect is comparable to the “male gaze,” which is a term that circulated widely in academia and the art world from the late 1970s into the 1980s and can be attributed to the film maker and theorist Laura Mulvey, in an essay of hers, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” published in 1975. Mulvey posited that the male gaze sees woman as body and as other and therefore less than man. Similarly, a woman’s stare sees another woman as body and as other from the starer–as being either more or less. The first conclusion creates pain for the starer and the second conclusion increases her ego. Pretty limiting positions, both of them.
- October 19, 2009
- Filed under: Beauty, Body and mind, Men and women, Pleasure
- Comments 9
So true about the “male gaze” as it has been created by corporate/porno sculpting of culture/gender as well as by feminist theory (in the same way Ireland and England define each other). Aaaah, but romantics still abound and course through all genders; there are some of us “women” who sometimes stare in an unabashed moment of adoration (perhaps Rossetti’s gaze had both? adoration and objectification?), or an organic sensual fantasy, or in an act of anthropological curiosity, or in a prayer of compassion or empathy, or in a desire to befriend or be-sister. Then, as you note, there are those moments of solipsistic encounter in a competitive boxing ring, both players trying to catch the golden (wedding) ring, both women duped by and adopting the male gaze and material gaze as measuring sticks (and mutually defining each other in the same “imaginative” way referred to above). Many people are crushed by the standards drilled into them by media so powerful that one could metaphorically say that their lives are just dreams in black and white.
Thank you for your writings in print and on this blog and sharing your well reasoned, well studied, and well intentioned thoughts with us.
Funny–after reading this days ago, it raised my awareness of me staring at women. And I have noticed that, for me, it comes from admiration. So, it was good to read Kathleen’s comment. Sometimes I really like looking at the way a girl applies her make-up or enjoying a really nice trait of hers. We really are visual creatures!
Thank you for writing this, Joanna, and thank you both Kathleen and Rebekah. This is such a delicious conversation on so many levels.
I love women. I love them in all of their incarnations. I recently met a woman who lives on the street–her tired, glorious brown eyes gazed at me with love and thanks from the depths of her face streaked with dirt and sweat. I love little girls and teenagers, with their painted nails and eyelids.
I modeled in my youth and loved high fashion, the feeling of silks against my skin, the perfume of another model’s hair, the gaudy sensuality of my feet and legs as they stepped onto the runway in 5 inch, red, patent leather, Valentino pumps. I love manicures and pedicures, getting my underarms, legs and bikini waxed (Brazillian!). I love facials – long, deep, steamy hot face massages performed by women with soft, delicate skin over strong, sinewy palms and fingertips.
I love watching women’s skirts sway on 4th avenue as they move in and out of shops, I love the young, generous bellies that spill over twenty-first century hip huggers. I love the way my daughter looks in mini-dresses, her tatoos peeking out of neckline and sparkling sock.
When I look at you, Joanna, I see a woman who loves being a woman as I love being a woman. I see a magnificent manifestation of the Great Mother, Aphrodite, who IS love, who IS beauty.
One day, I’d like to visit that jewelry store with you.
oh I love this conversation!
I have noticed that I look at women for all different reasons depending on my mood — sometimes I am envious of their beauty, other times I want to learn from them — why does that coat/dress/outfit look so good on her when it looks like hell on everyone else? I wonder how she got her makeup on so superbly? How does one apply makeup anyway??? Some day I will have someone like her — (yes, her, over there on the corner of Spring and Greene – someone I have never seen before) teach me, because hers is perfect. Sometimes my very critical self enters into the conversation, but it is usually intended as helpful — if I could just tell her to add a streak of blond in the front she’d be perfect — I wonder if she knows that? And then if really fascinated — I wonder how she sees herself in comparison to how each other person sees her, because of course this is the question we all wonder about ourselves looking out with wonderment at the world from behind our eyeballs.
Sometimes, I feel the effects of or wonder about how other women are looking at me! I gravitate toward being an organically androgynous woman, an Adonis kind of woman, more than an Athena (who I often think of as a Condi Rice or Hillary Clinton type, defending “The Man”!). An Adonis woman is loved by women and has a happy noble eunuch quality. She is also the “runaway slave” articulated by Monique Wittig. Joanna’s woman in the jewelry store, adopting and adapting to the male gaze and being competitive with straight women, hasn’t a clue how to figure out my worldview. The reaction ranges from intrigue to disdain. Anyway, that tangent actually sets the stage for the following anecdote. In this case, however, a woman wasn’t staring but, rather, listening. Recently, I was chatting with a sister while waiting for a play to start. In a jocular mood, I quipped about how no matter whether I am in a lesbian crowd or a straight woman crowd, if I don’t wear makeup, I feel as if I’m being stereotyped as “not classy” or F2M or other marginalizing pigeonholes. When I do wear makeup, either to fit in with the professional dress codes of women (whether lesbian or straight), I personally feel like a drag queen. A friendly woman sitting in front of us turned and said, “I’d love to be your therapist!”
I appreciate Joanna’s writings on teaching, learning, spirituality, art through developing your authenticity. Oh, if only the dominant pedagogy would embrace that!
Note 1: I don’t feel like that when I am performing on stage as it is common for all to wear makeup.
Note 2: I don’t have a judgment against women who do wear makeup, such as a woman who sneers about “lipstick lesbians.” Bring on those artfully painted eyelids!
Wow, I can’t believe she said she wanted to be your therapist.
I took it as a compliment. I would have been her own private untitled and unraveling performance artist, for which she would have charged me a few hundred bucks an hour! Again, more about women staring at or studying women, themselves, and the concept of “women.”
Me again.
This weekend, I stumbled on a 1929 essay by Joan Riviere titled like “Womanliness as Masquerade” and thought I’d throw this into the salon here.
http://www.mariabuszek.com/kcai/DadaSurrealism/DadaSurrReadings/RiviereMask.pdf
Very interesting to see the continuity as well as the departures from how these matters were discussed 80 years ago.
Thanks, Joanna, for kickstarting and hosting this salon.
Thank you, Kathleen, for bringing the Riviere essay into the conversation. Perfect–this classic reading in feminist theory regarding the pose, mask, and, of course, masquerade of femininity. So helpful for those of us born into a woman’s body and thinking about it all. Thinking too about the situation of “having to be” feminine if you’re a woman. And I love that your link goes to Maria Buszek’s course. She’s a fabulous scholar!