Arthur and I got into a conversation about makeup. Specifically, “should” women wear makeup. And that morphed into a conversation about the male gaze.
Understanding the male gaze is probably the most abstract and hard to grasp part of feminism. Equal rights, equal wages; everyone gets that. Double standards about sexuality and sexual freedom, about social freedom, outspokenness and aggression; not hard to define and explore. But how we look at things, how we display or do not display ourselves, how we use our eyes and images to create subject and object; these are pretty highfalutin.
I am not opposed to the idea that the male gaze is hard-wired. We certainly know other species in which one gender draws the gaze of the other; peacocks are prettier than peahens. On the other hand, male and female gorillas and chimps look more or less alike, and I’d wager I’m more a chimp than a peahen. (Remind me to tell the story about the lesbian peahen someday.)
I notice lots of social evidence that men like to look more than women do, and that preening is more oriented towards drawing the gaze than towards pleasing the self. Lots of Dave Barry types will snort and say, hey, they have no idea what all that fuss over appearance is about, women must do it for each other. But gay men preen for partners far more than lesbians do, and women show far less interest in the visually erotic than men.
Is that evidence of hard-wiring? Maybe, maybe not. None of us were raised without acculturation, so how could we tell? Maybe if girls and women were shown more images specifically for our own gaze, and socially rewarded for showing interest in them, we’d grow up to buy Playgirl. Maybe not.
So here’s the question: Does it matter? Maybe it’s “natural” (there’s that word) for women to be the subject of gaze, and men to be the object. Maybe there’s nothing inherently sexist about it, maybe it’s a built-in feature of being gendered. So what?
“Should” women wear makeup? Sure, if they want to. But should we require women to be prettier, more erotic, and more subject to gaze than men in order to succeed in the world? Hell, no. That we might be wired towards a thing matters no more than that we have a history of a thing, if that thing is oppressive and limiting and fundamentally meaningless.
Maybe women are hard-wired to be more nurturing. Or maybe we have a history of being socially expected to be more nurturing (or maybe both). But when we are required to be more nurturing less we face ostracism and loss of opportunities, then it is sexist. Same with the pretties and the makeup. Same with the having babies. Same with the slutfulness.
I suspect you could apply the same principle to any and every oppression, especially oppressions based on biology (sexism) or history (homophobia). So gay marriage has no historical precedent…so what? See how well that works?
so, here’s a reminder…..tell the story about the lesbian peahen someday.
Women look — I almost drove off the road looking at a “topless” guy the other day.
An older study technologically monitored both sexes to detect sexual arousal. They were then shown pornographic movies. When women said they were not aroused, often their genitals said otherwise. Acculturation.
In a newer study… http://cooltech.iafrica.com/technews/856723.htm … http://www.psych.northwestern.edu/psych/people/faculty/bailey/responsetimes.htm … women reacted to more of a variety of porn than men did?
Men wearing makeup sometimes turn me on, usually turn out to be gay in Western culture, but around where I used to live some Asian men were wearing earring(s) and perhaps some eyeliner … and they were not gay. http://www.asiansinmedia.org/forum/fashion/topic.php/11614/index.html
Using the word “marriage” or the term “same-sex marriage” has interesting influences on scope and perception of history and same-sex unions. Compare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_same-sex_marriage to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_same-sex_unions.
Reminder: Do tell about the lesbian peahen. 🙂
Women look — I almost drove off the road looking at a “topless” guy the other day.
Oh definitely. The question is not whether we look, but whether we look as much or as often, and if we would look if our gaze was socially reinforced. Straight women often look at other women because that’s where our gaze is directed.
An older study technologically monitored both sexes to detect sexual arousal. They were then shown pornographic movies. When women said they were not aroused, often their genitals said otherwise. Acculturation.
Maybe acculturation, maybe not. It may be that women simply take longer to process the signal. A follow-up study on that suggested that women with larger external genitalia become aware of their own arousal more quickly.
If socially reinforced or if no one else is around, yes, many look just as often…such as when no one else is in the car (then again, some women act proper even when no one else is around?) or when around other “wild women,” for example (the later was my experience in college).
As far as women gazing at other women goes (yes our gaze is somewhat directed, but…), given the Kinsey scale and the results of some studies, I think there is a lot more going on there.
Also, I have to question the focus on size of (women’s) external genitalia in relation to speed of arousal. I do admit to big huge whopping helpings of skepticism regarding such “equations.” http://www.mysticwicks.com/showthread.php?t=114001&referrerid=21179
There have been a lot of misleading presentations and findings in human sexuality studies and one is discussed in the “Sexual Arousal” section of http://www.psych.northwestern.edu/psych/people/faculty/bailey/research.html.
Funky social filtering and scientific blinders…they get thicker than usual when it comes to women’s sexuality.
If socially reinforced or if no one else is around, yes, many look just as often
Impossible to say; we can’t effectively remove the observer from the experiment, 😉 and I’m reluctant to equate “many” with “most” or even to guess at percentages. That’s why I conclude with “so what?”. Essentially, the conjecture is purely intellectual goofing off (which I enjoy) and shouldn’t affect social policy.
In terms of misleading studies, I’m right there with you. But I think there is something to be said for the idea that a large clitoris tucked into the pelvis may take a longer time to send and receive signals than a large clitoris with a longer external area.
I guess it’s “so what” until more women are more far more honest and influence/remove filtering/blinders as well as each other’s perception of the array of women’s truths.
I’m going to leave the “external size = rate of arousal” debate alone for now.
I wouldn’t even say it’s a debate; there’s too little evidence. More like idle conjecture.
I think you use a wonderful phrase; “array of women’s truths.” Anything that may or may not be true about women as a group, or more true about women than men or whatever, should never be used to diminish or invalidate the experience of individual women.
Most people like chocolate. We don’t (seriously) consider people who dislike chocolate less human for being in the minority. We should treat differences among women as just that—differences—without suggesting it impugns a woman’s womanhood.
“I wouldn’t even say it’s a debate; there’s too little evidence. More like idle conjecture.”
I agree.
Arrays…very useful things, yes. 🙂
It’s not just idle conjecture Deb,it’s idle conjecture by men who think women are to stupid to figure themselves out.
Well…
…except how the hell would we know the answer? We’ve each only got the one clitoris. So it’s outside research (NO PUN) or idle conjecture we depend on.
just saying.
As I understand the research, men and women were shown erotic stimuli, and each were hooked up to whatever prurient devices are used to measure moisture, engorgement, etc.; the physical evidence of arousal. The subjects were also asked to verbally report when they were aroused.
Men averaged six seconds between arousal and reporting. Women averaged two minutes.
Some of the possible interpretations include; women are accultured not to recognize arousal, women’s arousal takes longer for some reason to reach the forebrain (conscious awareness) than men’s, and external body parts in general send signals to the brain faster than internal body parts. So each of these interpretations might have feminist implications, but we can’t prove any of them.
Yup. Unless you bring a physical test for arousal, you are counting on the socio-influenced brain.
I had a thing happen last weekend… I was all kinds of aroused, and didn’t recognize it for like a minute because it was out of the blue and not for any reason I could explain.
(yikes!)
(and my first reaction, btw, was to squelch it.)
[…] But I know my audience. You all want to hear about the lesbian peahen. Peacocks and peahens wander freely about the zoo. As they do so, they engage in sexual display behavior. Your basic sex play among peafowl is, the male opens his big fancy tail and thrusts his butt upward to make it look very fine indeed (peacocks would wear high heels if they could) while the female feigns disinterest. Parade thrust parade, snore yawn snore. […]
[…] but because they are all tall and busty and forceful, they don’t seem objectified. Their gaze is direct and outward, not meek and askance, and their presence dominates the scene and the screen. […]