Being a Woman: The Male Gaze and Saying No

(x-posted from my blogspot)

In response to this (blog entry that just has an embedded video) and this:

The author here grosses me out.

That guy isn’t real. Somebody decided to make him up so they could write the “write fuck me on your chest and smile” line, claiming female = victim and that somehow, if only men would understand and be sensitive to this, it would be okay.

Most men aren’t anything like this guy, and for the rest of us the author has done nothing to improve our understanding of “what it’s like to be a woman.” If the author were listening, I’d respond: “Being a grownup means taking the fuck me sign off your chest and telling people ‘no’ or ‘piss off’ whenever necessary.”

Giving a reality check to a straw man, kind of annoying.

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I see where the commenter is coming from, but I think it's a *very* shallow reading of that clip. The message I got from this video/scene was different. Writing "fuck me" on his chest would be about drawing a parallel between the symbolic gesture and the reality of inhabiting a woman's body--a body that is unfortunately read by some as "willing" just by virtue of being female. If the guy had actually gone out with the FUCK ME on his chest, it wouldn't have been the same thing/feeling...but it wasn't about him actually doing it. It was about showing the parallel between that and walking around with an INVISIBLE (yet oh so visible) marker of "oh yeah, sure, fuck me, that's great, I really want it from you, thank you."

A man walking naked with FUCK ME on his chest would be seen as abnormal, whereas a woman just walking around would not be. Violence against women is perpetrated because it's, in a way, normalized. This is the narrative that we've been given; people assuming a naked man with FUCK ME scrawled on his chest wants and is ready for sex is not realistic, but people assuming a woman walking down the street wants and is ready for sex IS realistic. This whole scene is about the psychological impact; it's about the female character trying to show this man how it feels by creating a "story" that APPROXIMATES that feeling. Taking that story to reality wouldn't work, but THINKING about it and thinking about what it MEANS would certainly make an impact.

Woman is not inherently "victim," but the truth is that in society, many times there is a strong correlation between the two. And if it's not "victim," it's still the receiving end of violence, be it symbolic, physical, or both. And that being said...yeah--if only men could understand and be sensitive to the realities of living in a body marked as "female," we would probably have less scenarios like this. A man would be way less likely to invade a woman's privacy like what happened on The L Word if he understood how that shit felt. A man would be less likely to leer at a woman and think it's okay to grab her ass if he understood how that felt. Obviously it would only be a start. Someone's knowledge doesn't predict what they will do with it.

But the thing is, there's no real way to understand, FULLY understand, unless one has lived through it. Anything else is just an assumption, removed to a certain degree, or a sympathetic thought. No one can TRULY and wholly understand or "feel" what someone else is feeling. We have approximations, yes, and a "common language," yes, but these are only approximations. Still, these approximations are valuable--very valuable. They're the closest we have to the real thing, and they are important. And even if we can't feel exactly what someone else has felt, there are probably huge overlaps, and we can sympathize and find solidarity.

Finally, the "...telling people ‘no’ or ‘piss off’ whenever necessary" comment? Telling people "no" or to "piss off" when necessary is a right (and sort of one's duty to a certain extent), but to have that right respected? A totally different ballgame. Women usually don't have the privilege of not having to worry that their "no" may not be respected or even taken seriously. Saying "no" doesn't necessitate or equal a respect of that "no." Just because a woman screams NO and fights back, does that mean a rapist will stop raping her? Just because we say NO, does that mean a mugger will suddenly return all our money and leave us alone? Just because a NO is necessary doesn't mean it will WORK. There are various situations when saying NO just isn't enough.

And sure, most men aren't like the guy in the video, who will set up cameras all over your house...but that's not the point. Most men aren't rapists, or murderers, or robbers--but we still have to talk about those that are, and represent them in the media, and show that they exist. We still have to show that women are hurt, not to normalize that violence, but to show the realities of the world and that they are NOT ACCEPTABLE. We have to put these things in the forefront so people cannot ignore them, so people have to acknowledge them and get educated and DO something about it. The fact that a (presumably) Average Joe (whatever that is) cannot relate at all to this clip and feels that it provides NO insight into how it feels to be a woman is VERY distressing to me.