The Male and Female Gaze, from a Trans-Masculine Perspective
(Part 5 of 6)
By Orlando G. Bregman, November 17, 2023
(They/He)
(Originally written in late 2019 and saved as a draft on Medium but completely forgotten to publish due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and my mother’s death from it in late 2020, so now slightly updated in late 2023 and published finally in mid-2024.)
My name is Orlando G. Bregman, my pronouns are They/He, meaning I prefer they over he but will also respond to he, and I identify as, or simply am trans-masculine, gender nonconforming, and lesbian. (And I do not personally feel the need to medically transition.)
(Part 5 of 6)
(Click here for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 6)
WHAT IS THE FEMALE GAZE THOUGH?
It has already been established by many female filmmakers that the female gaze is not the exact opposite of the male gaze, in that it does not objectify women, nor men for that matter.
So how do women look at other women, and if her gaze is heterosexual in particular? This has admittedly never been an easy question for me, as both trans-masculine and as still lesbian myself, to honestly answer. And in my early youth, in the 1980s and mostly in the Netherlands and Europe in general, I’ve had my fair share of mistakingly reading presumably sexual attention in what turned out to be heterosexual gazes from women towards me, who were in general probably mostly wondering about my sexual orientation or why I behaved so differently from them, in some instances thinking I was at least “cool” because of it. So I thought they’d liked me romantically or sexually instead.
Whereas in my later youth, in the 1990s and primarily in the US, and already having been burned by these early mistakes, I ended up passing up on a lot of actual lesbian gazes, often from either closeted lesbians or feminine ones, or femmes as we call them, because despite their sometimes pretty overt sexual advances, I misread them as heterosexual women with exclusive sexual interests in cisgender men. Most cis-gender men would not have hesitated at the opportunity, but my introverted trans-masculine self already erred on the safe side. What gives?
As far as my own trans-masculine gaze towards women though, it was probably still problematic, in terms of not understanding women nor particularly caring to understand women, especially at a younger age, and full of desire myself, and yet probably wasn’t quite as toxic, overt or possessive as most cis-male gazes.
Especially since having no words for my own experience as a trans-masculine person in my youth, I still to some extent considered myself lesbian, and even today still actually do, and to be or feel lesbian in my youth, still necessitated a gaze that was necessarily shrouded in secrecy, not mainly voyeuristic in nature, but secretive in gazing, as to openly stare at women as a female-perceived person myself, would have caused a considerable amount of trouble and danger from heteronormative, heterosexual society.
But I would think, as fairly and as objectively as I can be in this matter, that indeed the female gaze towards women in particular, is less to do with power, ownership, competition or even voyeuristic desire, than that of the male gaze. And I know for a fact that she is either way not backed up and empowered by the patriarch rule in her gaze.
This is surely also the reason where some women fail, as artists or as human beings, and turn on each other as a result, that is if she has allowed herself to prioritize the patriarch rule and the false sense of empowerment she mistakingly think she can attain, just like her male counterparts at least could, this is exactly how she would lose her own self-worth, her sense of self altogether, and her potentially innately more compassionate nature, towards other women and all beings altogether, and so get jealous or envious of other women or people in return.
And this is where other women have succeeded, artistically and humanly, in maintaining their sense of self and worth and empathy, despite often paying a heavy price for it in society either way.
This is also where the true and righteous feminist, even when possessing a righteous anger, but the one who strives for real equality between all genders and sexes, and by natural extension all races and ethnicities, and so never at each other’s expense but to the betterment of us all, outdoes the fake feminist, today most often exemplified by the TERF, or Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist, who blinded by her anger or trauma and thirty for revenge lashes out at all real and moreover imagined enemies in order to regain her self-worth and respect in society.
But can a woman still objectify a man? I would like to think she could, since she could potentially be just as sexually motivated as men, even if society at large mostly denies this. And does this make her sexualized and objectifying gaze then male all of a sudden? Or does it still remain female, specifically according to the concept of the female gaze that is, if she is naturally to be more empathetic?
What if there were no power imbalance between the sexes? Would she remain empathetic, or vengefully take back what was always rightfully hers to begin with? Complete and total equality in everything. And yet, in reality equality has never implied sameness. So would she handle things differently, and according to her supposed nature, even if accorded the exact same rights as men? Or lose her way, like many men have? Or regain it, after all, and according to her supposed true nature? I imagine I won’t be around long enough in this world to truly find out, even though I’d like to believe in the latter, for her to regain her senses after maybe some necessary time of exercising revenge.
And so what of a lesbian gaze? Surely the lesbian gaze views women very differently than the heterosexual female gaze, and obviously must look at men differently as well, by mostly not paying attention to them the way heterosexual women would, or primarily in negative ways if they do, since many men oppress lesbians along with heterosexual women of course, though again neither the female heterosexual nor the female homosexual gaze supposedly objectifies men.
And what of the way bi-sexual people might see the world? Bi-sexual men, women, gender nonconforming bi-sexual people? Gay trans-masculine or lesbian trans-feminine people? Pansexual people? Asexual people? Intersex people ? Non-binary people or those of multi-gender experience?
(And as not to complicate things any further in this article I won’t even get into race, ethnicity, or nationality, or culture, other than to mention that the gender-binary, as exclusively enforced legal system, recognizing only two biological sexes and necessarily opposite and even opposing yet completing each other somehow in nature, is at its’ root solely a Western, colonialist invention, invented and enforced specifically to control the entire world’s population and resources.)
I always find it rather telling that whenever the Bechdel test is mentioned, it is never really specified that Alison Bechdel is in fact a lesbian, and that it should be rather obvious that lesbians in films, or in real life for that matter, do not really have men on their minds but women instead.
But for heterosexual women to talk about men still has a whole different connotation. While heterosexual women obviously would do well to have other interests in life than men, they would still hold men to have a considerately important role in their lives, and that isn’t necessarily wrong either, and only becomes hurtful if they negate their own importance as individual beings in the process. It is therefore not even entirely conductive to have a Bechdel test apply to heterosexual women.
It is therefore only satisfying from a progressively political perspective to see women focus on themselves but in reality women, specifically heterosexual ones, would talk about men quite a bit and it wouldn’t be necessarily wrong to show that at all.
The political goal should be to dismantle the patriarch rule as a necessarily oppressive system to ultimately everybody and everything, not to eliminate men from society altogether after all. The ultimate goal should be to humanize and equalize all people.
And so this whole discussion about the male and female gaze is also saying nothing in particular about a homosexual male gaze neither.
Does the gay male gaze objectify women? No, not in particular, although it might still dismiss them as less than equal somehow. The gay cis-male person, despite experiencing a certain amount of discrimination for being gay, still enjoys most of the privileges assigned to cis-gender men, unless he presents as very feminine himself. But the gay male gaze isn’t in particularly gazing at women at all of course, or at least not sexually anyway.
Does it objectify men though? Yes, very possibly so. Would this even be a real problem? As systematic sexism against cis-men does not actually exist it is of much less social relevance of course but the very idea of solely objectifying anyone in general is still disrespectful and ultimately harmful.
Does the gay male gaze then, while never explicitly implied, in principle also subscribe to the simple notion of objectification of someone else? It’s very possible. Does the lesbian gaze do this well though? I would think so, yes. But perhaps less crudely? Maybe more longingly, or anticipating an actual response in return? Maybe. Probably. And certainly not backed up by the ruling patriarch.
But in a patriarchal system, which for the most part still rewards gay men certain privileges just by virtue of being male, it could still to some extent then mean that the male gaze also includes the gay, male gaze, just to a lesser extent, while by definition excluding the lesbian gaze, by simply negating her capacity for female objectification.
And also, while the patriarchal system doesn’t as readily extent those privileges to trans-men, and certainly not lesbians, it can be implied that if the male gaze necessarily implies a gaze of objectification, especially of women, it might also to an extent include the trans-male and thus even the lesbian gaze.
But I just implied earlier that I think that the male gaze, while often and rightly associated with objectification, does not necessarily have to be that.
That is, the male gaze, just like men themselves, does not have to be toxic but often is.
The same thing that makes certain men, or certain masculine behavior, toxic, is of course the same thing that pollutes their views on the world, and so their male gaze in films, as both creators and as viewers.
It is the prioritizing of certain, often primal, needs alone, and primal mostly of a sexual nature, and in particular without providing any human context and respectful consideration towards others and even oneself that seems to lie at the heart of objectification, and so often is the real problem behind certain kinds of masculine-ascribed behaviors and views.
In other words, the real problem with the male gaze is primarily that is often disrespectful, besides one-sided, mostly non-consensual and voyeuristic, and not inherently in that it is male or masculine, or even that it often contains elements of sexuality.
It is more often the way in which sexuality is portrayed, and prioritized, that is problematic.
At the root of it all lies simply a problem of disrespect of others, and a lack of care to change that part by attempting to understand others.
The female gaze therefore is particularly important for three primary reasons, to simply allow women the right to portray their own points of view creatively, to possibly add to the understanding of female points of view and thereby hopefully working to eradicate disrespect towards women, in film and in life, and to change up the monotony created by exclusively male gazes.
When I initially started hearing about the female gaze and the particular problems around it it was a refreshing and welcome angle to my ears but over time it lost a lot of its’ resonance with me personally.
I had to come to the strange realization that not only were films made from a male perspective because they were made for men in particular to identify with, and that this mostly excluded women’s point of views and their ability to relate to these stories at all to a large extent even. But I had also realized that for me, on a personal level, this wasn’t necessarily a problem.
That in fact, films were already showing the world from my point of view exactly, except that I had the issue of having a female body, which ultimately complicated things and that complication was not ever dealt with on-screen, not until Kimberly Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry in 1999 anyway, followed by Silas Howard’s By Hook or By Crook in 2001, possibly the only two narrative feature films to represent me in that more complicated, trans-masculine way in particular thus far. And it is 2023 when I’m writing these lines.
Of course there was Max in The L Word, the original show I mean here and which I actually still followed, unlike The Generation Q version I just had to drop out off, but my focus is particularly on narrative feature films in general and for the sake of this article. I will say this of Max though, that this quite disastrous portrayal of a trans-masculine experience was in absolutely no part due to the actor portraying him, as Daniel Sea, a since openly trans-man himself, and genderqueer identifying person before if I recall correctly, is in reality a formidable actor for being able at all to make the best of a terribly written part. He was in fact able to instill Max with all the humanity he himself seems to contain and thereby made more than a few fans, myself included, root for him, while the original intention of the show’s writers was most likely quite the opposite, or else they would have put in the actual work to correct his storyline immediately.
But the male point of view itself, as in the cis-male view, and heterosexual in particular, aligned itself perfectly with my own point of view and I did relate to those male characters on screen. In fact, I had related so much from an early age, due to just being exposed to many films from an early age, that it had become my great escape from life itself, for I personally felt that I could only truly live through films, and literature, and music, as long as it portrayed the male gaze exactly.
That is, I could only properly live through watching films, because the characters were unhindered, not discouraged from being their gender, like I was in real life. It had for me, entirely unconsciously, been a psychological method for survival.
It was from these male characters, portrayed by James Dean, Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, that I learned how to dress, how to speak, how to drive, how to smoke a cigarette. It was through screaming along to the music of my favorite singers, with Jim Morrison, with Robert Plant, with Axel Rose, with Kurt Cobain, that I could feel myself be completely male for a little while, unhindered, not questioned, doubted, disbelieved, humiliated.
Undoubtedly, and mostly unconsciously, I unfortunately must also have picked up on some of their male toxicity however, besides not dealing with my own trans-masculinity in real life head on, and becoming an escapist in the arts instead.
(Part 5 of 6)
(Click here for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 6)
Orlando G. Bregman
(They/ He)
Writer/Publisher at The Auteur
Documentary Filmmaker at Bregman Films
All Rights Reserved (2024)
Click here for a List Of Essays
