How I feel about 'the female gaze'

Our existence is defined by concepts such as femininity and masculinity, but can we break free from them?

Libby Griffiths
7th February 2023
Image Credit: Unsplash
What is the ‘female gaze’ as opposed to the ‘male gaze’?

As soon as I saw this prompt I thought to myself, there is no such thing as the female gaze. Perhaps a controversial opinion, I digress. But living in a patriarchal society where I perceive my third eye through a voyeuristic lens, it is hard to believe I can exist in a world where the gaze I feel burning through every pore and fibre of my being is a female presence. 

It is hard to believe I can exist in a world where the gaze I feel burning through every pore and fibre of my being is a female presence. 

When you see or hear of other women sleeping in makeup, setting up their phones to record themselves from all angles whilst pacing around their rooms, and cultivating targeted social media posts, immediately, you think, I do that too! But this isn’t an example of the female experience, but an internalised male perception of viewing yourself. 

Sometimes you see ideas of the female gaze plastered across TikTok’s for-you-page, curating audios to express the universal experiences of being a woman. Audios like, ‘Oh, how I love being a woman!’ or – at the other end of the spectrum – a compilation of screaming and crying in female rage. All used to express the collective ideologies of womanhood, but even then, usually, they hold a male focus on how we are all collectively perceived. 

I could say a lot on this topic, but I feel my opinion is entirely overshadowed by a quote I read from The Robber Bride. A quote from the astonishingly brilliant, well-read, raging feminist, Margaret Atwood:

“Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman.” 

To limit the existence of women for the pleasure of men is rather depressing. Instead, I choose to think about it with another incredibly famous quote of Atwood’s, nolite te bastardes carborundum: "Don’t let the bastards grind you down."

AUTHOR: Libby Griffiths
Campus Comment Sub-Editor | Journalism Student

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