There Is No Escaping the Male Gaze — and Women Are Crumpling Under Its Weight
With technology giving us unprecedented access to images of women, the dangers of objectification are becoming increasingly evident
I’m in a stage in my life where I suddenly feel like a horrified Narcissus. Unlike this well-known figure from mythology, I am not gazing into a reflective pool of water, admiring my own beauty… I’m watching myself through a camera as I pursue my goal of monetizing my YouTube account.
It’s true that, like many women, I do not like what I see. Or, more accurately, I have been taught not to like what I see.
But what truly horrifies me is how attuned I have become to the male gaze. In this case, I don’t mean the ways I used to expend so much effort in shaping, grooming, and dressing my body in a manner I hoped would be pleasing to the male gaze. (This is called self-objectification, by the way, a mindset that is inevitable for most women who live in patriarchal cultures.)
When I say I’m attuned to the male gaze, what I mean is that, after five years as an internet presence, I have an eagle eye for the tiny details men will catch and then catalog like a robot, data they will use as an open door to assert their desire.
