I used to see this expression on Metafilter. I don't recall really seeing it anywhere else. Oh, maybe once on Reddit on a Lesbian Fashion sub of some sort I recall seeing a gal talking about dressing to NOT conform to "male gaze" expectations as a means to try to signal she's gay.
I don't really get it. I find the expression baffling.
I kind of know what people are TRYING to say: Men treat women like sex objects and only care how you look and male expectations in that regard "control" women and how they dress or are expected to dress.
That's delusional bullshit. ALL OF IT.
You do porn films for women and you need a LOT bigger budget for designer lingerie and crap like that. Suddenly, what kind of bra she's wearing MATTERS a whole lot.
Clothes matter a LOT more to WOMEN than to MEN. Men mostly want to know if you will take them off for him.
Many years ago, I read an article in a magazine where a guy said he was dating two women, they found out about each other and got mad and the brunette dyed her hair blonde, the blonde dyed her hair red and both began dressing dramatically differently.
Neither of them dumped him. They just tried to play "siren" and lure him into being faithful to her by LOOKING different.
He just kept on seeing both of them and found the whole thing funny.
Most likely, he was a guy with a sex drive who didn't want to hear "Not tonight, honey, I have a headache." Two gals was enough sex for him.
He didn't CARE how they looked. That was in THEIR MINDS.
The one exception is hair length. Sex workers who cut their hair see a dramatic drop in their income.
Men like long hair.
Dolores French, author of the book Working: My life as a prostitute, spent some time doing her hooking in malls. She said if she had long red nails and high heels, she could be wearing a potato sack and men would pay her for sex.
Once, she was shopping with a friend or something and she took her heels off because her feet hurt or whatever. She put them back on later for some reason and this repeated a few times. She said it was like putting her heels on was putting on an "open for business" sign and taking them off was like "Shop is closed."
If she had on high heels, men would approach her. If she wore flats, they didn't.
At a SUBURBAN SHOPPING MALL.
It is a stereotype that men are oblivious to the new outfit their wife or girlfriend just bought and I have experienced that firsthand while married. I picked the husband up from work and he did NOT NOTICE I had a new coat on that I had purchased.
Most men don't care how you DRESS.
Why do women think that matters? Probably because women typically get power via social relationships and dressing appropriately is a factor in playing that game.
A guy who knew a lot about clothes and power dressing and body language and this kind of manipulative shit went to the office of a guy who made his wealth in construction. And the more powerful, wealthier individual he was trying to play games with was oblivious to all his manipulative shit.
He was dressed in jeans and all the intimidating body language and crap like that which worked for this other guy in the corporate world had no impact. The guy was blind to it.
If you have long hair, wear high heels and fit in adequately clothes-wise and socially that you aren't a raging embarrassment so he feels okay introducing you to people he knows, that's sufficient for him in most cases. Your long hair and high heels told him "I'm a whore for sale. You pay for our dates and support me financially, you can get what you want in bed. AND I will dress respectably enough in public to meet your mother."
That is, for most men, sufficient.
This is not about male gaze "controlling" everything. This is not about male taste in clothes controlling everything.
The real problem is "good girls" don't look at themselves naked. Girls don't see their own girl parts when sitting on the toilet peeing.
Boys handle their own boy parts multiple times per day while peeing and look at them in a non-sexual context. Girls need a mirror to see their parts at all.
And boys look at YOUR parts too.
Men are expected to have experience and so on average men have more experience than the women they tend to marry. Society sets things up such that MOST women are "good girls" with low mileage and a smaller number of women are "bad girls" that sleep with everyone, often for pay.
And in most cases, female sex workers don't know much more about female sexuality than other women. They mostly get paid to give men pleasure and some sex workers think it's a PROBLEM if you start having orgasms "on the job."
The problem is not that men are evil psycho controlling nutters with strong opinions about how women MUST dress.
The problem is women are scared to death to look at themselves, at men, at much of anything and nature abhors a vacuum.
Stop caring so much about what you IMAGINE he wants you to wear and do. Get a mirror. Take your clothes off. It's YOUR body. Look at it and get to know it.
Don't accept the status quo that men are the only ones really allowed to know anything about human sexuality and girls who know anything must be "bad."
Worry less about where his "gaze" supposedly goes and what you imagine is in his mind and more about not being an airhead yourself on topics like your OWN sexuality.
Buy an anatomy book or something. Read. Educate yourself. Form an opinion of your own.
And then so-called "male gaze" won't supposedly "control" everything women do by filling the vacuum we choose to leave that allows that to happen.
I don't really get it. I find the expression baffling.
I kind of know what people are TRYING to say: Men treat women like sex objects and only care how you look and male expectations in that regard "control" women and how they dress or are expected to dress.
That's delusional bullshit. ALL OF IT.
I dress for women and undress for men.I read an article, probably posted to Hacker News, but I have no idea what the title was and no idea how to find it again. It talked about the budding porn film industry for women and the industry insiders said that porn for men is all about boobs and that kind of thing and men do NOT CARE how people are dressed in their porn films. Get naked and get it on and they are happy.
-- Angie Dickenson
You do porn films for women and you need a LOT bigger budget for designer lingerie and crap like that. Suddenly, what kind of bra she's wearing MATTERS a whole lot.
Clothes matter a LOT more to WOMEN than to MEN. Men mostly want to know if you will take them off for him.
Many years ago, I read an article in a magazine where a guy said he was dating two women, they found out about each other and got mad and the brunette dyed her hair blonde, the blonde dyed her hair red and both began dressing dramatically differently.
Neither of them dumped him. They just tried to play "siren" and lure him into being faithful to her by LOOKING different.
He just kept on seeing both of them and found the whole thing funny.
Most likely, he was a guy with a sex drive who didn't want to hear "Not tonight, honey, I have a headache." Two gals was enough sex for him.
He didn't CARE how they looked. That was in THEIR MINDS.
The one exception is hair length. Sex workers who cut their hair see a dramatic drop in their income.
Men like long hair.
Dolores French, author of the book Working: My life as a prostitute, spent some time doing her hooking in malls. She said if she had long red nails and high heels, she could be wearing a potato sack and men would pay her for sex.
Once, she was shopping with a friend or something and she took her heels off because her feet hurt or whatever. She put them back on later for some reason and this repeated a few times. She said it was like putting her heels on was putting on an "open for business" sign and taking them off was like "Shop is closed."
If she had on high heels, men would approach her. If she wore flats, they didn't.
At a SUBURBAN SHOPPING MALL.
It is a stereotype that men are oblivious to the new outfit their wife or girlfriend just bought and I have experienced that firsthand while married. I picked the husband up from work and he did NOT NOTICE I had a new coat on that I had purchased.
Most men don't care how you DRESS.
Why do women think that matters? Probably because women typically get power via social relationships and dressing appropriately is a factor in playing that game.
A guy who knew a lot about clothes and power dressing and body language and this kind of manipulative shit went to the office of a guy who made his wealth in construction. And the more powerful, wealthier individual he was trying to play games with was oblivious to all his manipulative shit.
He was dressed in jeans and all the intimidating body language and crap like that which worked for this other guy in the corporate world had no impact. The guy was blind to it.
If you have long hair, wear high heels and fit in adequately clothes-wise and socially that you aren't a raging embarrassment so he feels okay introducing you to people he knows, that's sufficient for him in most cases. Your long hair and high heels told him "I'm a whore for sale. You pay for our dates and support me financially, you can get what you want in bed. AND I will dress respectably enough in public to meet your mother."
That is, for most men, sufficient.
This is not about male gaze "controlling" everything. This is not about male taste in clothes controlling everything.
The real problem is "good girls" don't look at themselves naked. Girls don't see their own girl parts when sitting on the toilet peeing.
Boys handle their own boy parts multiple times per day while peeing and look at them in a non-sexual context. Girls need a mirror to see their parts at all.
And boys look at YOUR parts too.
Men are expected to have experience and so on average men have more experience than the women they tend to marry. Society sets things up such that MOST women are "good girls" with low mileage and a smaller number of women are "bad girls" that sleep with everyone, often for pay.
And in most cases, female sex workers don't know much more about female sexuality than other women. They mostly get paid to give men pleasure and some sex workers think it's a PROBLEM if you start having orgasms "on the job."
The problem is not that men are evil psycho controlling nutters with strong opinions about how women MUST dress.
The problem is women are scared to death to look at themselves, at men, at much of anything and nature abhors a vacuum.
Stop caring so much about what you IMAGINE he wants you to wear and do. Get a mirror. Take your clothes off. It's YOUR body. Look at it and get to know it.
Don't accept the status quo that men are the only ones really allowed to know anything about human sexuality and girls who know anything must be "bad."
Worry less about where his "gaze" supposedly goes and what you imagine is in his mind and more about not being an airhead yourself on topics like your OWN sexuality.
Buy an anatomy book or something. Read. Educate yourself. Form an opinion of your own.
And then so-called "male gaze" won't supposedly "control" everything women do by filling the vacuum we choose to leave that allows that to happen.