I’m a bit sleepy, here in my office early on a Thursday morning. I had a pre-dawn breakfast with my friend Steve, and the three cups of coffee I consumed are helping me to join the living. I’ve got three lectures today: a discussion, based on this book by Lynn Phillips, of the competing "love hurts" and "love conquers all" discourses in my women’s studies class at 8:50AM; a lecture on Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age at 10:25; and Napoleon’s Russian campaign and eventual downfall at 1:00PM. And I still have many, many midterms to grade.
I’ve been reading through the 90+ comments below Monday’s post on Tough Bunnies. The thread moved on to issues of dress and the visual nature of men’s sexuality, and a couple of comments caught my attention.
Gonzman writes: There is no right not to be looked at - or a right not to be ignored. There is no right not to be admired - or a right not to inspire repulsion.
Well, he’s right. But I’m not nearly as concerned with "rights" as I am with ethics and responsibility. Many of the men and women commenting in the thread raise the point that women send signals to men with the way that they dress; some (particularly the MRAs) point out that women ought not to be surprised by the fact that men will make certain judgments about them based upon their clothing choices.
But while there is no right not to be looked at, I’m not sure that means that it is always right to look! I’ve made it very clear that as a man doing pro-feminist work, my primary concern is on helping men to transform their thinking and their behavior. This does not mean that I think that women are blameless victims, misunderstood angels, exploited and helpless little girls. I’m perfectly aware that many women do use their sexuality quite consciously, often with an intense desire for attention and validation. I’ve written about women and clothing before, and invite readers who have not done so to check out my post on the subject "Sisterhood is Easier in Winter." I do not absolve all girls and women from responsibility, not by any means.
But because my concern is with boys and men, I’m adamant about insisting that the counterpart of "there is no right not to be looked at" must be "it is not always right to look." I’m tired of the right-wing rhetoric in praise of female modesty and conservative dress, not because I am an enemy of modesty but because I loathe the perpetuating of the myth of male weakness that undergirds the discussion! As a man, particularly as a pro-feminist Christian man of faith, I reject the implication that I am visually helpless before a bare midriff or a miniskirt. The assumption that if girls and women wear revealing clothes, they deserve the penetrating gazes they receive is rooted in a notion that male sexuality is simply too powerful a force to be subject to self-discipline. Modesty theory assumes male vulnerability and fragility, and thus makes women into their brothers’ keepers, protecting us from ourselves by dressing demurely.
But while modest dress is perhaps desirable, Scripture is very clear that male lust is something men must be expected to control. I argue that we men are called, like Job, to make a covenant with our eyes not to "look lustfully" at girls and women. That responsibility to avert our gaze is not abrogated when a woman wears revealing clothing. Our responsibility to avert our gaze is not contingent upon whether or not the woman in question wants to be looked at; the responsibility not to objectify is ours regardless of whether or not we are being invited to gaze and lust.
I realize I’m taking an unpopular position. Secular feminists are usually uncomfortable with my hostility to lust. Mythago suggests that I’m taking the position that "lust is some kind of evil cancer whose mere touch destroys any aesthetic or intellectual value a thing may have." I’ll admit that I do take Matthew 5:27-28 very seriously. I don’t think we can lust for someone without consequences for ourselves and for those around us. Lust is never truly idle, I believe — it is the desire to appropriate, if only in fantasy, something for ourselves that is not ours to have. Lust is distinct from sexual desire for one’s partner or spouse, precisely because with one’s partner, that desire is a reflection of a commitment that already exists. Though we are all prone to lust as part of our human nature, that does not mean that we cannot, through effort and prayer and mutual support, channel our visual sexuality entirely towards our primary relationship. I believe it can be accomplished without shame and guilt.
Of course, I lose most right-wing social conservatives by suggesting that the primary onus ought to lie with the one who is lusting, not with the one who is the object of lust. While I am not encouraging immodest dress, ultimately the struggle against objectification can’t hinge on what other folks are wearing. To put it in economic terms, I’m not interested in cutting off the supply of visually stimulating bodies and images, I’m interested only in addressing the demand. I’m anti-porn, as my readers know — but I have no interest in lifting a finger towards the goal of getting laws passed to ban porn. My hatred of porn rests comfortably with my zealous belief that porn is protected by the First Amendment. And while I don’t think that low-riding jeans with high-riding thongs is a particularly enlightened fashion choice, I’m not interested in expending any energy railing against contemporary dress. To paraphrase Paul, all things ought to be legal, but that doesn’t give us the right to do them: "Everything is permissible for me"—but I will not be mastered by anything. Whether the woman in front of me is in a thong or a burka, what I do with my eyes and my thoughts is all on me, 100%.
Look, I’m aware that women and girls lust too. I’m not suggesting that we can create a society where none of us ever gazes at another person with a fleeting sensation of desire. But lust is about more than passing desire, lust is a conscious choice to not only look for a moment, but to continue to look. It’s the difference between an "appreciative glance" and a "penetrating gaze." I don’t think it’s a tortuous and artificial distinction, either. I think it’s straightforward and practical, and with discipline, easily applied. And let me be clear that my goal is not to create a de-sexualized, guilt-ridden society! My goal is a world where men and boys, women and girls, interact with each other as loving members of the human community, with a sense of responsibility for each other and a commitment to love and protect each other. I want a world where young women can feel validated and seen, not because of their physical desirability but because of their essential worth as human beings.
So I’m sure I’ve alienated secular feminists with my hostility to lust, MRAs with my insistence that men hold themselves accountable, and social conservatives with my conviction that overcoming lust is only about addressing demand, and not at all about supply.
Anyone I haven’t annoyed?
Pro-lust secular feminist here. I am not annoyed at all. Where I differ from your perspective, I think, is that I believe it is possible to harbor purely private thoughts that do not effect one’s actions. I focus on disciplining my actions rather than my thoughts. I may think of someone lustfully but I would never act in such a way that would imply to the object of my lust that I have a right to him in some way. Likewise, I don’t care if some co-worker privately thinks that I’m hot as long as he doesn’t look me up and down during a business meeting. In other words, I don’t mind the lust but I do mind the disrespectful conduct.
Another not-offended one. For me, the gaze or the attraction is not the issue, it is when the gaze becomes predatory that it becomes problematic. As a lesbian, I know which women I find visually appealing and I know when the line of lust is crossed. As a woman, I know when men find me attractive, when they find my clothing attractive, and when they start acting in a predatory manner (usually not the same guys).
Yesterday on campus I was catching the bus home from work. A middle-aged guy was lounging near the bus-stop and mentioned to the traffic monitors that he was (heh-heh) just checking out the “eye-candy”. I told him, as I walked by, to “fuck off.” Why? Because I don’t really care how a man debases women in his mind, but once he acts on it or speaks about it in public, he is open to public criticism. Women (and most men) are intimidated by someone staring at them. Just think how offended both men and women would be if I, an open 38-year-old lesbian, stood by the bus-stop, leering at young women and calling them (heh-heh) “eye-candy”. Most people would find my actions abnormal, if not slightly insane.
I personally find lust to be more on the creative end of the spectrum of human emotions, rather on the immoral or wrong. Lust does not directly lead to improper action or even sex. Lust can, and has, lead to art, music, war, and peace. Lust, if viewed in a patriarchal continuum of sex, ownership, exclusivity (emotional, not sexual), dominance, and moral propriety, becomes problematic and has only a few, mostly inappropriate, outlets.
Is the issue averting the gaze? Not if through that problematic gaze is self-awareness and god-awareness strengthened. Christ would teach us that to live in Christian community and in community with the world, we don’t need ownership, exclusivity, dominance, or even moral propriety. What we do need is a love for others as for ourselves and a belief that all human emotions and actions are worthy of redemption. Averting the gaze avoids the issue and leaves unexamined our societal tendancies to objectify and dominate.
… at least that’s my $.02
The Happy Femininst makes a good point, that being responsibility for ones actions. I happen to agree with her on this regard.
And once Hugo, yes, your predictability re. men’s accountability and inconsistencies vis-a-vis women’s accountability shine through.
A week or so ago you posted on the new HPV vaccine “One of the most important things we in the pro-feminist movement try to do is teach young men to take an interest in, and to some degree, a responsibility for, the health of their current or future sexual partners.” and “Those vital lessons might be easier to teach if young men were already familiar with doing something simple and practical to protect a woman or women whom they have — likely — not yet even met!” Essentially, you said that when it comes to boys/men being responsible for girls’/women’s health and well-being, we boys/men are indeed ‘our sisters’ keepers’ vis-a-vis our behavior re. sexual promiscuity, ensuring we get vaccinations, use proper BC, etc.
However, in this post, which to me speaks of women’s responsibility to accept the consequences of their behavior, rather than telling them that they should consider “doing something simple and practical to protect” their sensibilities vis-a-vis percieved ‘lustful stares,’ you instead once again make it boy’s/men’s responsibilities to ‘look away.’ Never mind that girls/women might want to consider doing something “simple and practical” like not dressing like a cheap (or expensive) hooker if they don’t want to invoke lustful stares (real or imagined) from boys/men.
Come on Hugo, can’t you see how patronizing and, ahem, inconsistent you appear to be? You hold boys/men responsible for everything that they do, as well as everything girls/women do. And in doing so, you’re treating girls/women like helpless little children who need constant protection from those big, bad, mean males, who (gasp!) might do something horrible like, e.g., visually assaulting (i.e., staring at) them. Or something.
Man, I wish I had my Muck Boots on - it’s getting deep in here.
Q Grrl, the man you described - if indeed the incident actually happened - is truly a pig, but I’m not convinced that this sort of behavior is common at all. Personallly, I’ve never in my life witnessed such a thing from a man. Sure, I’ve seen guys sitting around on the mall watching the girls, checking out the “eye candy” (especially in the springtime), but frankly, the girls are checking out the guys just as intently. IMO it’s all part of the mating dance that humans do. But to do as Hugo is, castigating one sex for engaging in it while giving the other sex a pass is, well, sexist.
Oh, and Q Grrl, you mentioned that he was talking to the traffic monitors and not you, so perhaps you might consider minding your own business and not eavedropping in on other people’s private conversations if the content bothers you.
Just a thought.
A great philosopher [okay, it was Seinfeld] once said: “Looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun. You don’t stare at it. It’s too risky. You get a sense of it and then you look away.”
Mr Bad: I will reply, but I hope that you don’t tend to derail this thread with your dislike of feminists. As I said, the man was having a public conversation with public (and working) individuals in a public setting. It was by no means private, nor meant to be — why else would the man be shouting to other men 20 yards away? If men have a “right” to gaze, women have a “right” to respond as they feel appropriate. Free speech and all that.
For heaven’s sakes, Mr. Bad, I am not letting women off the hook here. As a pro-feminist man, my job is to be an advocate for feminism to men. There are countless men and women out there preaching accountability to women, and far fewer doing so to men.
Yes, I focus much more on what men can do than what women can do. That’s at the heart and soul of pro-feminist work; we must always be focused on transforming ourselves and those who share our sex before pointing fingers across the gender divide. And while women are often very, very hard on other women — men are rarely really hard on each other.
And I am hard on men because I love them and believe in them.
I’m also not offended, though I agree with The Happy Feminist and Q Grrl that my big issue is respectful action — and to fend off the inevitable comments that women are terribly conceited by assuming that staring indicates lust on the part of the starer, it doesn’t much matter to me whether the staring originates with lust, revulsion, or anything in between. As Q Grrl says, being stared at is threatening for most people, men included, and nobody should be the object of threatening behavior based on their body shape or manner of dress. I say this as a fat girl who favors jeans and loose t-shirts as my public and private mode of dress; the stares, whistles, shouted insults, etc. directed at me in public from time to time are presumably due to my being insufficently decorative for the guy who decided to hold forth rather than any lust on his part, but that doesn’t make it any less wearying.
I hate to take on Mr. Bad when we are happily in agreement at the moment, but I would challenge his perception that the behavior described by Q Grrl is rare. I bet most any woman you talk to could name a litany of similar examples involving men who have expressed lust in a propietary or disrespectful manner. (Also, I don’t think Hugo was confining his thoughts to just men looking at women, it works the other way around too.)
Just off the top of my head, I can think of a guy who commented to his buddies “check out the semen receptacle” as I trotted down the street in my lawyer suit just the other day, the boss who used to call me “pussycat,” and the most common example, the men who blatantly look me up and down in business contexts. I would never describe this stuff as “a visual assault” and it may not be the end of the world, but it’s disrespectful and it’s all too common.
>If men have a “right” to gaze, women have a “right” to respond
>as they feel appropriate. Free speech and all that.
Yes — it looks to me like this isn’t about men having the “right” to stare at women; as Hugo rightly points out, they already do. It’s about a desire to engage in rude behavior without fear of societal disapproval or reprisal on the part of the target of that rude behavior.
FWIW, I find it just as rude when it’s women staring at men, although I submit that being gawped at is considerably more threatening when it’s done by somebody who’s twice your size and can easily wrestle you to the ground.
Q Grrl, sorry that I got on your case about nosing in on a private conversation, but if you re-read your original post you were not at all clear that he was “shouting to other men 20 years away.” You said that he “was lounging near the bus-stop and mentioned to the traffic monitors” etc. You have to admit that your revision is definitely quite different than your original statement. But hey, now that you’ve cleared it up (?), again, sorry for jumping on your case about that.
Hugo, as long as you’re up front and make it clear that you hold men to a higher (i.e., double) standard than you do women then I suppose I’m Ok with that. But you seem to think that we men don’t hold each other accountable, and that’s not true; spend some time at SYG sometime and you’ll see that we most definitely do hold each other accountable. Further, you said that “we must always be focused on transforming ourselves and those who share our sex before pointing fingers across the gender divide”, but do you hold female feminists to the same standard? Seems like female feminists (and women in general) do a lot of finger-pointed across the gender divide, yet I’ve heard a whole lot of nothing from you and other feminists re. this. More double standards IMO.
Or is that more of that “male privilege” I keep hearing about? ;)
i’m interested in this one sentence: “Lust is distinct from sexual desire for one’s partner or spouse, precisely because with one’s partner, that desire is a reflection of a commitment that already exists.”
are you saying here that sexual desire for one’s partner is lust within the boundaries of commitment? if so, then it’s not really fundamentally different from lust, it just has different parameters. if not, then what makes sexual desire for one’s spouse fundamentally different from lust, not just categorically different?
it’s an interesting distinction, but i can’t quite see where the hair splits here….
Hi THF, no problem re. disagreements - I’m a very disagreeable person, so I’m down with that. ;)
Like I said, I’ve not had any experience with guys like the ones you describe, but they do sound like jerks and losers who deserve condemnation. But I’m not about to make broad generalizations about my entire gender simply based on the poor behavior of a few; it would be like you characterizing all women as cheap hookers based on the poor behavior of a few. And as I’ve said before on other threads, IMO sometimes gazes that women just know are lecherous may in fact be motivated by something else (e.g., disbelief, shock, etc.). As I’ve said before, you might be misinterpreting the look.
But as far as rude behavior goes, I agree - nobody should tolerate it. Which is why I was bothered by Q Grrl’s story about telling the guy to “fuck off” based on what he said to another person in a conversation that Q Grrl was not intended to be involved in. Now I don’t know about you, but I consider being told to “fuck off” by someone with whom I’m not talking with a pretty rude thing to do irrespective of whether or not the guy deserved it. So if we’re going to cite Christian teachings, etc., then “turn the other cheek” comes to mind in that scenario.
>And as I’ve said before on other threads, IMO sometimes
>gazes that women just know are lecherous may in fact be
>motivated by something else (e.g., disbelief, shock, etc.).
>As I’ve said before, you might be misinterpreting the look.
It hardly matters what it’s motivated by, IMO.
Mr. Bad: You believe on one hand that the man I described deserved condemnation, but on the other hand you find it rude that I actually did condemn him with my “fuck off” reply. How would you envision his condemnation? [this is not meant as a snarky comment, I’m interested in where you draw the particular line, and why]
Mr. Bad’s comment about the possibility of women misinterpreting men’s conduct as lecherous is interesting. I think one of the more uncomfortable things about being a woman is that you are always trying to guage whether you are overreacting to something or not. As a dewy young thing many years ago, I was constantly in the position of having to decide whether questionable conduct warranted some sort of reaction on my part. Maybe it really is accidental that so-and-so keeps brushing up against me at work . . . Maybe I am just imagining that so-and-so is staring at my chest . . . Is it really that big a deal if so-and-so tells a dirty joke involving me . . . etc.
Women constantly have to decide “Do I risk overreacting or do I risk doing nothing and then possibly losing respect or being blamed if the situation escalates?”
>Mr. Bad’s comment about the possibility of women misinterpreting
>men’s conduct as lecherous is interesting. I think one of the more
>uncomfortable things about being a woman is that you are always
>trying to guage whether you are overreacting to something or not.
Yup. My experience as well.
Q Grrl, IMO both of you chose to be rude. He chose to make insulting public statements directed at nobody in particular, and you chose to make insulting public statements directed at an individual using profanity that some people are just as offended by as the words that he used. He did what he did, but you chose to escalate the situation rather than ‘turning the other cheek.’
It’s a common dilemma for us men: Do we just let the general insulting behavior slide or do we chose to respond, not only escalating the situation but also validating the original behavior. We men are constantly told to ‘turn the other cheek and walk away,’ so perhaps this is why I thought of this and you didn’t. IMO you got away with what you did because you’re a woman; if a man had told the guy to “fuck off” I think there’s a strong likelihood that he would have had a fight on his hands. After all, a guy who makes such remarks in public would IMO be likely to take it up (verbally or/and physically) with another man under those conditions.
For me, personally, I would have ignored his remarks and not validated them by responding in any way whatsoever. It would also spare me the risk of confrontation.
It’s interesting that Mr. Bad should mention “turn the other cheek” as an appropriate response. It’s not really about humbly accepting the scorn, but rather the person who turns the other cheek is saying, in effect “Try again. Your first blow failed to achieve its intended effect. I deny you the power to humiliate me. I am a human being just like you. Your status (gender, race, age, wealth) does not alter that. You cannot demean me.”
see http://www.soulofacitizen.org/newimp/impexcerptwink.htm
Okay folks, and meanwhile, back at the thread…
Let’s consider discussion of this particular incident closed, and move back to discussing the post.
Of course, I lose most right-wing social conservatives by suggesting that the primary onus ought to lie with the one who is lusting, not with the one who is the object of lust. While I am not encouraging immodest dress, ultimately the struggle against objectification can’t hinge on what other folks are wearing. To put it in economic terms, I’m not interested in cutting off the supply of visually stimulating bodies and images, I’m interested only in addressing the demand. I’m anti-porn, as my readers know — but I have no interest in lifting a finger towards the goal of getting laws passed to ban porn. My hatred of porn rests comfortably with my zealous belief that porn is protected by the First Amendment.
The fundamental (and fundamentally correct) conservative insight is that human nature is not particularly malleable, which makes pretty much any social change which requires a “change of heart” impossible to enact or sustain without some sort of agency outside the individual enforcing conformity with the change.
Men (in general) will always feel lust, and will always be drawn to look at attractive women dressed revealingly. And some of those men will look in disrespctful ways, or act disrespectfully, unless there is a strong social or legal constraint against doing so. In the pre-sexual-revolution days, the supply of revealingly-dressed women was rather lower than it is now (even in summertime), but there were also strong social sanctions against acting like an asshole towards women. Those sanctions were different in different classes, though the values of the middle class were stronger in the working and non-working classes than they are today. Also, there are far more women today than then who were deliberately attempting to evoke lust in men, and much less social sanction against those women who do so. (That too, is partly class-bsaed.) The fact that some women are trying to create that behavior is pretty effective in defeating attempts to restrict the behavior.
Appealing to men’s “better nature” isn’t going to create change, unless you can show men that they will be better off, or if you can create a sanction which men will care about. Being hectored by feminists is not a sanction which will deter most men.
The social conservative agenda of eliminating the most blatant displays of sexuality from the public square aims at the same end, but proposes a somewhat practical method of reaching that end, as people’s mores do follow the law to some extent, and a law which discouraged pornography will also increase the social sanction against it. It’s also not likely to be terribly effective, as most social conservatives don’t understand the relationships between the other social institutions and laws which have changed, and so have no idea which changes can be reversed while leaving others alone and still acheiving results they desire, so they propose going back to a mythical 1950s utopia, which most Americans will reject.
What do you propose?
Regarding offensive speech and overreaction, this is the same problem that many minorities face in our society when it comes to racetalk. Because it’s usually socially unacceptable in mixed company to state sexist or racist opinions directly, non-verbal communication and obscure language may or may not be masking disrespect or even hate. It’s hard for the person on the recieving end to know what to do when the action may be acceptable but the attitude clearly is not.The prevalence of PC language etiquette doesn’t get rid of nasty attitudes. It might spare people having to listen to racial or sexist slurs directly, but the fact is they’re still there and they still come out.
That’s why standards of etiquette for behavior - like the discussions of “looking” on this thread and Wednesday’s post - are needed to encourage us, like PC language really ought to, to think about the other person as a person. It might require that we go out of our way, but that shouldn’t change our responsibility to respect each other.
OK, I’m going to get in trouble here. But to answer Anthony’s question (which I realize was directed at Hugo), I guess I like the status quo. I want people to have some degree of freedom to behave badly (whether that means leering at someone or wearing clothing that some may consider inappropriate) unless it’s going to screw up my safety or my job.
There have always been some men who leer at women even in eras when women were more covered up. Although I may feel anger and discomfort from time to time, I also feel that I have the tools with which to stand up for myself when my safety or my job are threatened — including a legal system that has a better understanding of rape than in previous eras and options for responding to sexual harassment that has an adverse impact on my job. The key is to improve the public’s understanding of these things so that more people understand why it is wrong to objectify others and what the potential consequences are in terms of criminal or civil penalties.
In the pre-sexual-revolution days, the supply of revealingly-dressed women was rather lower than it is now (even in summertime), but there were also strong social sanctions against acting like an asshole towards women.
I think this overlooks a huge array of circumstances in which acting like an asshole was perfectly acceptable. (Discrimination in the workplace and sexual harassment come immediately to mind.) There’s also a certain level of approbation associated with this kind of conduct along the lines of boys will be boys.
I think the point here is that “boys will be boys” or “girls will be girls” or human nature is a cop out. It excuses/attempts to explain away conduct that is legitimately worthy of condemnation. I think Hugo’s emphasis on personal responsibility is well placed because it makes the point that individuals are not some helpless figure adrift in a world of scantily clad women and porn. These are things that you will be exposed to. The point is to encourage people to elect to say “that’s not right/appropriate/suitable” rather than to say “oooh, look! gimme, gimme.” We are responsible for our choices and to say “I couldn’t help it, she was flaunting” just diminishes our own responsibility.
evil fizz: As another pointed out (in this thread or the other related one earlier this week), girls and women are (or at least should be) fully aware that when they dress provocatively (e.g., with langerie, undergarments, lace, skin, etc., exposed) this will turn men on. So, would you also encourage “personal responsibility” on the part of girls who dress provocatively, and if/when they do so, to not take it as an insult, etc., if boys or men stare at them lustfully? After all, the girl/woman is inviting a look, so what’s the problem with boys/men complying?
And as I’ve already said, acting on the lust is unacceptable. But we’ve covered that, so please just stick to the topic and answer the above question.
Mr. Bad is referring to the thread A Note on Tough Bunnies & Feminism
…girls and women are (or at least should be) fully aware that when they dress provocatively (e.g., with langerie, [sic] undergarments, lace, skin, etc., exposed) this will turn men on.
Again, this is missing the point. Whatever the “standards” for women’s fashion or their participation/culpability in the effect of the styles, Hugo is saying that men’s sexual response to this is neither necessary nor “innocent.” People are responsbile for their thoughts, not only their actions, whether they are lustful or disrespectful or whatever else.
As to your claim that Hugo doesn’t call women to equal accountability - do check out the “Sisterhood is Easier in Winter” post - I think he does deal with accountability between women there. In each thread the focus is on our responsibility to respect ourselves and each other.
As feminists, we simultaneously must hold in tension a desire not to shame the female body with a desire not to foster a culture of competitiveness and objectification. We must hold in tension the importance of individual rights of self-expression with the community’s right not to be offended.
So, would you also encourage “personal responsibility” on the part of girls who dress provocatively
Sure. Everyone is required to acknowledge that their choice of dress will influence how people percieve and look (literally) at them. But there’s a difference between knowing that people may look at you lustfully and asking to be ogled. Admittedly, a fine line, but not a wholly artificial distinction, I don’t think.
Is the looking itself an insult? It depends, and I think this point has been thoroughly discussed. Likewise, the problem with “complying” is that it’s not a monolithic response. Wanting to be looked at, admired, or seen as a attractive is distinct from wanting someone to try and fall (metaphorically) into your cleavage. Yes, it’s a fine line to walk.
I think the other issue that’s complicating things here is this line between looking and acting. Is a man who won’t look at my face because I missed a button on my blouse looking or acting? Or is he not acting until he says “nice tits” or tries to touch me? Are looking and acting mutually exclusive?
I’d like to point out, also, that the phrase “dressing provocatively” contains the assumption that a woman intends to “provoke” attention from men by wearing revealing clothing. This may be true in any given case; then again, it may not.
FIzz, I’ll answer you and hugo all in one:
I am perfectly capable of admiring a well-shaped female form for it’s own sake, being aware that it is not mine to touch, reasonably concluding that it will probably never be “on limits” to me, and harboring no long -term fantasies or obsessions about it.
As are the very very vast and overwhelming majority of men.
Admiration does not always lead to lust to harassment to criminal actions. It just isn’t so. Men are a lot stronger and more moral than that - you’re trying to circumscribe behavoior for all men based on the actions of a scant few.
If I wore a muscle shirt that showed off the abs, a tight pair of jeans that left little to the imagination, an unbuttoned shirt that showed off my chest, I’d reasonably have to expect the consequence - namely, those who find such things nice to look at, be they women, gay men, or whatever, will look. I’m not being oppressed. I’m not being objectified. I’m making a choice to dress in a fashion, and being an adult enough to accept the consequences.
And honest to God, if the biggest thing I had to worry about in my life was whether or not I was being ogled, I’d have it pretty easy. Right now it’s at a point on my list of concerns that has four digits. I’m really glad other people have life so good that it’s much higher - and if they don’t, it’s time for a serious re-assessment of priorities.
Excellent thread, folks. Anthony, I’ll see if I can’t take a stab at answering the serious questions you ask soon.
Admiration does not always lead to lust to harassment to criminal actions. It just isn’t so. Men are a lot stronger and more moral than that - you’re trying to circumscribe behavoior for all men based on the actions of a scant few.
Genuinely perplexed on this point…circumscribe what behavior? Looking at women?
Whether the woman in front of me is in a thong or a burka, what I do with my eyes and my thoughts is all on me, 100%.
Are you on drugs? For somebody who claims to be a “pro-feminist Christian man of faith” you’ve got an awfully patriarchal view of male/female relations. When feminism was a respectable point of view it insisted on a fundamental equality of the sexes, so the default assignment of responsibility for anything that takes place within the nexus of male/female relations is 50/50.
Women who dress provocatively are making a statement, and if you choose to ignore that statement you infantilize, silence, and disempower them. Women who dress in burkas are making a statement, and if you choose to ignore that statement, so also diminish them.
So why don’t you get down off your high-horse and join the world of the living? This wall of stereotypes you’ve erected against honest interactions is really hurting you. Rather than telling yourself that you have a “job” because you believe yourself to be a set of stereotypes, or that others think as they do because they’re “MRAs” or some other stereotype, embrace your fundamental humanity and that of your brothers and sisters on this planet and accept reality on its own terms. A sexy young women in tight low-riding jeans, a bare midriff and a low-cut top is asking you to check her out and form the opinion that you’d like to hit that. That doesn’t entitle you to any action, of course, and we all know that. But she is asking you to look, to approve, and to feel a little swelling as she walks by. She made a conscious choice when she dressed herself, she’s not an inanimate little object, and she deserves to be noticed. Similarly, the woman who chooses to adorn herself with a burka is asking you to think of Allah and to respect her for her purity, which isn’t actually all that different from what the sexy chick is saying. In burkaland, a woman in a burka is a desirable woman. In sexyland, a sexy woman is desirable. And we all want to be desirable at some level.
Being a “pro-feminist Christian man of faith” doesn’t mean you have to give yourself a lobotomy, does it? Or that you have to castrate yourself?
“Are you on drugs?”
Four cups of coffee count?
“Being a ‘pro-feminist Christian man of faith’ doesn’t mean you have to give yourself a lobotomy, does it? Or that you have to castrate yourself?”
Well, there’s always Matthew 19:12.
The point is to encourage people to elect to say “that’s not right/appropriate/suitable” rather than to say “oooh, look! gimme, gimme.”
EvilFizz, the point I was making is that people need institutional support for the sort of change you want.
Right now, there is actually some social sanction against saying “that’s not appropriate” in all except the more extreme cases. How do you propose to change that? Encouraging men (and women) to not act “inappropriately” for themselves is not going to reach the people it most needs to reach. How do you encourage people to speak out against inappropriate behavior, when there’s a fairly strong social animus against “making value judgements”?
The social conservative answer - ban all display of sexuality, and all sexual acts outside marriage, and encourage women to take traditional homemaker roles only, won’t work, because too many people are unwilling to give up some of the freedoms gained in the past 50 years, and the social conservatives can’t figure out how to discourage “licentious” behavior without suppressing those freedoms.
Remember that in large part, this is a class issue - working-class men are far more likely to make crude comments or otherwise behave objectionably than middle-class men are. How do you penetrate the attitudes of the working class?
OK, you’re addressed the easy part of my comment, the first and last sentences that provided the wrapping around the actual thought. Be a man and show me you read the meat of it.
Well, now. Lust is a class issue, and women are 50% responsible for what men do. The things one learns in blogs…
Remember that in large part, this is a class issue - working-class men are far more likely to make crude comments or otherwise behave objectionably than middle-class men are. How do you penetrate the attitudes of the working class?
Um, wow. I was unaware that manners and appropriate behavior were the province of the middle class. My experience is that money and being classy have sod all to do with each other.
On the issue of institutional support, there are mechanisms in place for dealing with sexual harassment and inappropriate physical contact. It’s called the legal system. Lawsuits may not be the ideal solution, but knowing that you can be fired, censured, and sued for acting inappropriately (at least in a professional or academic environment) seems to be a significant incentive. Admittedly, it cannot address things like catcalling (although technically, I’m sure egregious behavior could warrant civil claims).
Also, in terms of sexual harassment, the legal system has put a tremendous amount of pressure on companies to ensure that their employees behave appropriately. Companies without internal systems for dealing with sexual harassment or those seen as being nonresponsive to such allegations can get annihilated in court.
However, I think I’m not adequately addressing the more subtle issues and circumstances that we’ve been talking about in this post. I’ll have to think some more about that.
One wonders why we bother teaching women to speak or write at all, when they’re always making “statements” by covering or revealing parts of their bodies.
A sexy young women in tight low-riding jeans, a bare midriff and a low-cut top is asking you to check her out and form the opinion that you’d like to hit that. That doesn’t entitle you to any action, of course, and we all know that. But she is asking you to look, to approve, and to feel a little swelling as she walks by.
And for the sexy young woman - non-sexy women’s “statements” aren’t particularly important here, I take it - who likes to do her “asking” and “telling” with her words, not her tits, what outfits do you recommend? Burkas are right out, you’ve already said. So are jeans and women’s t-shirts. Your great respect for women’s “conscious choices” makes it clear that it’s you who decide what women mean by our clothes, not us, so be a pal and help us out here. What should we wear when we don’t want to “ask” you for anything at all?
What should we wear when we don’t want to “ask” you for anything at all?
I’m sure you can figure it out if you put your mind to it.
Well, sophonisba, I’m sure we could play process of elimination. I’ve managed to attract unwanted attention recently in a business suit and a sweatshirt and baggy yoga pants, so clearly those are out.
Oooh! I think I know! I was left alone while wearing a cassock and surplice at church recently.
Regardless, I would imagine that every woman posting here has had an experience with negative attention when she hasn’t been wearing her lowrider jeans and dinner napkin of a shirt. The issue is not exclusive to those times when women are trying to titillate or appear sexy. Those are the times where suggesting that women take responsibility for their outfits won’t carry us far enough.
Oh no, I’m not that bright. See, I’ve been wearing what I please for most of my adult life, and much of the time, you can see that I have breasts - sometimes even cleavage! and for the past four years, all of my jeans have been low-riding. It’s what they sell in stores, you know. I was too dumb to know that I was communicating complex messages to strangers - I thought I was dressing like other college students, and later, I thought I was dressing like other women in their twenties. If I’m too dumb to know I was asking men for attention all along, as I clearly was, I certainly can’t figure out how to stop on my own. Other women are no help; they pretend they’re “dressing for themselves” or their “boyfriends” or the “weather” or even, get this, their “friends.”
Like women have friends. Ha! And female friends? As if women care what other women think! Silly, huh? No, it’s all about the erections you can cause, like you said. How can another woman’s opinion of your clothes matter to you when you can’t even make her penis swell?
So you see, you’re my only hope for some honest advice on how to make my clothes stop speaking for me. But I can see why you’re reluctant to help. This must be the first time a woman’s asked you for something in words in a long time. Perhaps you could pretend I’m asking you questions by silently wearing a miniskirt and a tube top and miming, if my use of language unnerves you.
I know this is relatively off topic, but I’d encourage people to go look at this Slate article, which is about a growing fashion market for conservative Muslim women.
evil_fizz - yeah. And plenty of women who wear baggy sweats get yelled at for not trying to be sexy, too. How dare we! The message that we don’t care if men are turned on or not is clearly the most provocative message of all.
The notorious FCOS (”feminist chip on the shoulder”) has reared its ugly head here. It never fails that whenever somebody tries to inject a little reason into any discussion of women’s grievances, real or imaginary, that the discussion is sidetracked with sarcasm, sneering, and straw women.
Dress any way you want, write any way you want, sneer any way you want. The patriarchy is relentless in its oppression of you, so you’re doomed no matter what you do. Give up, you can’t win.
Biological life has evolved on this planet in concert with all sorts of signals of sexuality and sexual attraction for literally hundreds of millions of years, and the aberrations represented by fundamentalist Islam and sneering pseudo-feminism won’t make a dent.
The forces you’re dealing with are vast, and the current fads are tiny.
And of course it’s completely unreasonable to develop a chip on one’s shoulder in response to those who claim the right to define which of other one’s grievances are real and which are imaginary.
Erin: “FWIW, I find it just as rude when it’s women staring at men, although I submit that being gawped at is considerably more threatening when it’s done by somebody who’s twice your size and can easily wrestle you to the ground.”
I appreciate your fairness, and I agree with the point you’re trying to make. I’ll say, though, that — just like I mentioned in the “assault” thread — sometimes the bigger person becomes the hidden victim.
I’ve relayed this story before. At my music camp over a year ago, there was a woman — I’d put her at around 65 — grabbing other women’s butts. They said, half as a joke and half as a “get the hell away from me, psycho,” that she should do that do a guy. So she saw me in the distance and made her move. I kept her at arm’s length with a stiff-arm block. I remember her looking at me defiantly and saying “I’M allowed!” (That might be the part that p’d me off the most, the sense of entitlement and “that’s different.”) So I disabused her of that myth rather quickly. I wish I could have maced her.
And the thing is: too many people will hear that story and figure that I almost got “lucky” (with the unwanted butt grab) and wouldn’t understand why I wouldn’t want that done to me without my permission. Most of those people, of course, would admonish me if *I* were the one copping a feel of women at camp, of course, but would see it differently this way. Hidden victims…
boy genteel
From a Christian perspective, I believe the responsibility lies with both parties. As a Christian woman, who seeks to help my Christian brothers abide by the principles they believe, I feel a certain responsibility to not wear clothes that invite people to look at intimate parts of my body. For instance, I will not wear a shirt that exposes my breasts, I will wear short skirts, but nothing that exposes my butt when I bend over. To me, you can look fashionable and still dress modestly. Of course, I, having gained a considerable amount of weight after babies one and two, don’t really have to worry about this so much anymore. Back when I was thinner and much more comfortable with my looks, however, I really did try to watch what I wore around my male friends. On the other hand, men absolutely have to accept responsibility for their thoughts and actions. If someone were standing on front of them wearing a string bikini, they have responsibility on how to act in that circumstance. They can’t place all the blame on the person in front of them. This would be easier for me if we were all Christians and lived by the same ideals :)
Now the feminist part of me will tell you that a woman has every right to dress how she would like and not be ogled or have rude comments made to her and vice versa for men. It’s all about basic respect. A woman or a man in a sexually provocative outfit should expect to be looked at, they are fooling themselves if they are not. However, adults of both sexes should be able to look and say, oh wow she’s pretty or he’s handsome, without drooling, staring, ogling or making obnoxious comments. That’s where this personal responsibility comes in… you are 100% responsible for what you do with your eyes, thoughts and words.
And to answer someone (I can’t remember the name) but I don’t think it’s infantalizing a woman for Hugo to say he’s responsible for where his eyes and thoughts wander. She may be inviting him to look, but that is absoluetly not an invitation that he must accept. We are all responsible for our own thoughts and feelings, even though we may look to help another person in their struggles, ultimately they must do it themselves. I would personally be very unhappy if my husband looked at another woman and thought “I’d like to hit that”, no matter the invitation she was offering by her outfit. Not that I have a problem with him looking at another woman and admitting that he finds her attractive, but actually taking the step to say “she’s hot and I want to have sex with her” is to me, the line between acceptable and not acceptable.
Richard, petal, ruminating at length and in public about your “swellings” is perhaps less indicative of “reason” than you would like to believe. The fact that men of your age and ideology believe young sexy women dress with the aim of giving men of your or Hugo’s age erections makes you fun to play with, but it does not make you scary.
(Go on, ask me how I can tell what generation you belong to.)
And “vast forces?” Oh dear, dear, dear. You’ll never convince anyone you don’t like feminist mockery if you keep dressing that way - I mean, if you keep setting yourself up like that. Those tight jeans - er, rhetorical flourishes, I mean - don’t suit you half as well as you think, either. Leave them to the younger, sexier MRAs, hmmm?
bmmmg - I’ll bet that woman’s age had a lot to do with her entitlement. Dirty old women, like dirty old men, tend to think they’re a lot more charming than they usually are. I’m glad you got her to back off.
I wondered how long it would take Richard to make his way over here, although Mr. Bad kind of has his niche.
I wish I could have maced her.
Me too.
Hugo, you (intentionally?) took my comment out of context. You said that it was OK to look at another human being with, for example, awe at their dancing ability, or to marvel at the aesthetic grace of a performer. But when that awe is infused with lust, suddenly that’s bad. I don’t see why.
The comparison to ballet dancers was also kind of hilarious, as if lust isn’t a natural consequence of watching the aesthetic grace of the young Peter Martins or Mikhail Baryshnikov. If lust is as corrupting as Hugo insists, every middle-aged balletomane is as bad as all the Playboy readers.
The definition of lust as acquisitive and possessive is where my agreement shuts down, incidentally, that and the lauding of the mighty, powerful, “penetrative” male gaze. (This thread has a pretty good example of how quickly male gazer becomes flustered and impotent when a woman gazes back at him.) Lust has no more to do with possession than admiration does, and in fact, healthy lust is not unlike admiration. There’s no appropriation going on - the contents of my own head were not appropriated from anybody. They are only ever mine. From the original post:
it is the desire to appropriate, if only in fantasy, something for ourselves that is not ours to have. Lust is distinct from sexual desire for one’s partner or spouse, precisely because with one’s partner, that desire is a reflection of a commitment that already exists.
A wife or a girlfriend is no more her lover’s “to have” than a random woman on the street is. The idea that a person can’t lust without wanting to own, but it’s ok to own a woman who’s legitimately yours, is amazingly repellent. Also instantly recogniseable as false to anyone who’s felt non-posessive lust, as most adults have. Sex is not possession, not ownership; therefore, the desire for sex is not, in itself, desire for possession or ownership.
The difference between my partner and a stranger is that my partner is entitled to tell me when he fantasizes about me and not expect to give offense. But his fantasies about me have no intrinsic power over me. Having regular sex with me doesn’t make his imagined mental image of me any more real than anyone else’s. I don’t exist in his brain, I exist in real life. Thinking about me isn’t manipulating my physical body. Fantasies aren’t real.
Mr Bad, women often recieve lustful stares (and comments) when dressed in an entirely unremarkable and professional manner. I’ve been catcalled while wearing a trouser suit and carrying a laptop case - hardly hooker-wear.
What some seem to be missing here is what Hugo clearly stated in his original post - there is a difference between noticing an attractive person and giving them a quick appreciative glance, and impinging upon their personal space by openly staring or making rude comments. The first is a natural and almost universal human impulse. The second is bad manners. I’m not seeing why some people have such a hard time seeing the difference. Do people actually think that certain categories of individuals are somehow deserve to be treated rudely?
I don’t really buy the lust versus desire dichotomy you’re setting up here though, Hugo. I think that what we feel for our partners is still lust, the difference is not so much in the basic impluse as it is in the way that impulse is expressed. In other words, we feel lust for the people we love, but the lust is combined with a lot of other feelings such as love, respect, comfort, familiarity, etc. It’s still lust though, IMO.
I’m also going to second sophonisba RE the aesthetic appreciation of dancers and other performers. I think that lust is a commonplace and quite harmless part of the way people react to many of the visual arts. To the extent that there’s a difference between the lust that people feel for a beautiful ballet dancer and the lust that they feel when watching porn the difference isn’t so much that one reaction is lustful and the other isn’t, it’s more that the lust they feel for the dancer is tempered with respect for the person’s skill, admiration for their talent etc. It’s still lust, it’s just that the other emotions occurring at the same time are important in forming one’s overall perception of the person being lusted after.
Also, in reference to this statement
“A sexy young women in tight low-riding jeans, a bare midriff and a low-cut top is asking you to check her out and form the opinion that you’d like to hit that. That doesn’t entitle you to any action, of course, and we all know that. But she is asking you to look, to approve, and to feel a little swelling as she walks by.”
The thing that you’re missing here is the fact that, even if a deliberate visual display is being made and/or a message sent, that doesn’t mean that the message is aimed at you, random person on the street. To assume that it is is more than a little arrogant.
The thing that you’re missing here is the fact that, even if a deliberate visual display is being made and/or a message sent, that doesn’t mean that the message is aimed at you, random person on the street. To assume that it is is more than a little arrogant.
Why? If I have a message for one person and one person only, I communicate it in such a way that only that person perceives it. If I stand on a rooftop and shout it, then I can’t very well claim it was private.
Somebody advertises in front of random people on the street, then random people on the street are going to have a response. Quibbling about the intensity and character of the reponse we can do, but it’s silly to deny the basic fact that people will respond, at the physical and biological level. Seeing a disgustingly fat person just before you step into a restaurant can make you lose your appetite as well.
In the end, nature always wins.
Remember that in large part, this is a class issue - working-class men are far more likely to make crude comments or otherwise behave objectionably than middle-class men are. How do you penetrate the attitudes of the working class?
This is a common stereotype held by middle-class folks, but isn’t true. Boorish behavior is completely unrelated to the contents of one’s wallet. I’m blue-collar, have worked on construction sites for the past seventeen years (in twelve different Local’s jurisdictions), have literally grown up going to union halls and blue-collar taverns, and have never seen the kind of obnoxious behavior towards women that I’ve seen from middle-class, suit-wearing men. Why? Because this is a power issue. If you feel powerful (or want to), then you’re likely to assert that power over someone you perceive to be less powerful. Working-class men don’t tend to have anywhere near the sense of entitlement that middle-class men do—and you have to have a certain overriding sense of entitlement to yell out jeers, leers or insults to total strangers.
I’m not sold on the value of “modesty”, mostly because of this: what is deemed to be “modest” usually has less to do with the cut of the clothing than with the body of the woman wearing it. Don’t believe me? Then why would Julie have felt the need to say “Back when I was thinner and much more comfortable with my looks, however, I really did try to watch what I wore around my male friends.” In other words, the female form itself it what’s determined to be the problem. When it comes down to it, the dividing line between modest/not modest always seems to be “is there a visible female form?” and sometimes “is that female form one I deem to be attractive?”
Seeing a disgustingly fat person just before you step into a restaurant can make you lose your appetite as well.
Wow. That’s never happened to me. Are you afraid that if you enjoy a meal you’ll end up fat?! You’ve got issues, pal.
BritGirlSF said: “What some seem to be missing here is what Hugo clearly stated in his original post - there is a difference between noticing an attractive person and giving them a quick appreciative glance, and impinging upon their personal space by openly staring or making rude comments. The first is a natural and almost universal human impulse. The second is bad manners. I’m not seeing why some people have such a hard time seeing the difference. Do people actually think that certain categories of individuals are somehow deserve to be treated rudely?”
This really is the key and highlights what I have the most disagreement with. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: The line is drawn when clearcut, unambiguous action occurs. This means a man or woman acts out on his/her lust. I personally don’t buy the argument that simply looking at a person the wrong way constitutes an actionable offense; if so, then the guy in the bar who attacks you because you “looked at him wrong” is as justified as the woman who takes offense at a stare. Grabbling tits? Obviously that’s actionable, but stares? Nope.
The main problem with this whole conundrum is the issue of “lustful thoughts.” Advocating enforcing some sort of code against ‘improper thoughts’ is truly Orwellian and a very slippery, steep slope indeed.
I’m not sure that anyone’s advocating for a code against improper thoughts, but rather an acknowledgement that not all thoughts are equally worthy of entertaining and some clearly shouldn’t be. I, for example, have entertained some fleeting, wildly inappropriate thoughts about my professors. The point is not that I didn’t act on it, but thought to myself “oooh, terrible idea/thought. get a grip!” I think that’s the position Hugo’s advocating. Not one in which you seek to control people’s thoughts, but rather where want people to carefully consider what they’re thinking and to take responsibility for how they choose to act as a consequence. (And for these purposes, acting includes looking.)
I’m also curious to know what constitutes an appropriate response to a stare. If someone’s starting in a way that makes me uncomfortable and I respond by saying “Knock it off, already,” have I crossed some kind of boundary? Hitting him or trying to pick a fight is clearly out, but do I have some sort of obligation not to respond?
This really is the key and highlights what I have the most disagreement with. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: The line is drawn when clearcut, unambiguous action occurs. This means a man or woman acts out on his/her lust.
One factor I haven’t seen mentioned which I think affects the perception of impropriety, is *who* does the action in question.
When women dress provocatively, it has been mentioned that it is a “public” act. Kindof like a radio beacon. You hit everyone within visual range, both men and women, with it. It’s not possible to limit who you “look sexy” to. A women might want to attract that sexy guy over in the corner, but she doesn’t want to attract that old guy at the next table that seems to be “learing” at her.
While the action in question might be acceptable to a guy she wishes to attract, it’s improper if it is a guy or gal (sorry ginmar) she is not interested in or even repelled by.
I’m also curious to know what constitutes an appropriate response to a stare. If someone’s starting in a way that makes me uncomfortable and I respond by saying “Knock it off, already,” have I crossed some kind of boundary? Hitting him or trying to pick a fight is clearly out, but do I have some sort of obligation not to respond?
What if it is someone you *want* to look at you. Might you go over to him and strike up a conversation? Perhaps share a coffee, a drink or a dance? Might you signal him that you are receptive to him (or her) doing so?
Admiration does not always lead to lust to harassment to criminal actions. It just isn’t so. Men are a lot stronger and more moral than that - you’re trying to circumscribe behavoior for all men based on the actions of a scant few.
Genuinely perplexed on this point…circumscribe what behavior? Looking at women?
Yeah, that pretty much covers it.
I’ve not had much time for the blogs the past few days, but I’d like to touch on something that I’ve seen a couple of times in these two threads.
It’s been posted by some that while boys/men should be held accountable for their reactions to girls/women, girls/women should also be held accountable for dressing “provocatively.” The problem is, though, that different people have different reactions to the varying styles of clothing.
For some men, the “provocative” clothing is a “come-on” that they respond to with inappropriate behavior. For some, it’s “nothing special,” just what they’re used to seeing. And some have a negative reaction to what most of us term “provocative” clothing.
I’ve known men for whom women dressed in more modest clothing, whether it be business suits or some more traditional-style modest dress, are more provocative. I’ve been told by some that there is something alluring and attractive about “leaving something to the imagination.”
I’ve also spoken with men from cultures where a woman’s wrist showing beneath her sleeve is “too provocative.” I’ve had discussions with these men about cultural beliefs that men are “too weak-willed” to be able to act responsibly if they can see any part of the women around them.
So, to me, blaming men’s reactions on the clothing that women wear is simply a refusal, by some men, to take responsibility for themselves. Whether a woman is covered in a burkha or is stark naked, the men around her are still responsible for their own reactions. It never ceases to amaze me how many would prefer having that responsibilty removed from their own shoulders and placed upon the shoulders of the people to whom they are reacting.
It’s kinda like kicking a dog because it growls at you when you startle it.
Maybe I’m going a bit off topic here, but as I was reading this thread, I kept coming back to a line from Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues: “My short skirt is not your invitation.”
I have been told I have good legs. I don’t show them off very often, because I hate shaving, but I do. Generally, there are two reasons for this. I am going somewhere where I want people (usually people I know) to look at me with lust, or I am going somewhere that I want to look nice for. (e.g. synagogue or the theatre or a family dinner.) In either case, yes, I like being appreciated for my physical appearance. However, even in the first case, I do not appreciate anything more than looks without my permission. Yes, dressing provocatively is a lighthouse, not a laser beam. This does not mean, however, that it is proper, polite, or humane to act on the signals being sent out without permission of the sendee. What if I’m wearing a blouse and short skirt to a restaurant, because I’m waiting for my boyfriend to show up for a date? It’s much more likely that I’m dressed that way for him and not random guy X, and neither my boyfriend nor random guy X has permission to do more than look without my agreement.
I’m also really, really clueless when it comes to reading people, so I can’t tell when people are ogling me, leering, or even just looking appreciatively. I just never see it. But I can say that all of the times that I have recieved catcalls, I have been wearing clothing that, with a headscarf, would have been permissible in, say, Egypt or Syria. Once, I was wearing my friend’s cloak, a swathe of wool that showed my head on top of a vast triangle of fabric, down to the tops of my sneakers. So, no, conservative clothing, even something akin to if not more concealing than a burka, will not stop the lecherous, objectifying behavior. My *long* skirt is not your invitation either.
I’ve also spoken with men from cultures where a woman’s wrist showing beneath her sleeve is “too provocative.”
Interesting point. I am reminded of a professor of mine who did a lot of work in a rural village in Senegal. The women frequently went topless, but exposing their legs between hip and knee was strictly verboten (almost comparable to women here walking around topless.) Students who came to visit were completely and totally perplexed that miniskirts were a no-no but going topless was fine. Talk about having to deal with your own responses right quick.
repeating: The line is drawn when clearcut, unambiguous action occurs. This means a man or woman acts out on his/her lust. I personally don’t buy the argument that simply looking at a person the wrong way constitutes an actionable offense; if so, then the guy in the bar who attacks you because you “looked at him wrong” is as justified as the woman who takes offense at a stare. Grabbling tits? Obviously that’s actionable, but stares? Nope.
:-) Mr. Bad, thank you for reminding me of something from my honeymoon 5 years ago. Some probably won’t find it nearly as amusing as I’ve always found it to be.
When we got married, we decided to postpone our honeymoon until July so that we could go on an annual canoe trip with some of my husband’s good friends, whom I’d never met. He was really looking forward to introducing me to these friends of his.
When we got to Wisconsin, he called the friend who organizes the trip and made arrangements for us to meet the night before the canoe trip was scheduled to start. It was intended as a time for me to meet this very good friend of his and for the two of them to do some major catching up. The place where they arranged for us to meet was a bar in the “hippy district” with which the two of them were familiar.
Now, this was before I started dressing the way I do now (dresses and a headscarves), but I was still raised to dress “reasonably.” I wanted to make a good impression on this very close friend of my husband’s, so I was wearing a nice blouse and a simple skirt that came just above my knees.
We met, introductions were made, the friend and I got along well. Then I was in the position of just sitting there listening while they, standing beside where I sat, reminisced.
As I sat there at the bar watching the people around us, contemplating this environment that is so much different than the environment in which I grew up, a man walked up and started talking to me. He asked about the van outside that had the canoe on top. I told him that it belonged to my husband and nodded toward where he stood, less than a foot away from me.
The man had noticed the TX plates, so he asked if we were familiar with the area. I told him that my husband grew up in the area and that we would be canoing with friends. He proceeded to tell me about a strip of beach where nudists (and those trying to take advantage of the nudist aspect of the beach) congregate. Then he started telling me about how he and his wife had an “open marriage” and went on from there.
As he’d been telling me all these things, he’d been reaching behind me to put his glass on the bar, then reaching behind me to pick up his glass to get a drink. Each time he reached behind me, his other hand would “accidentally” (?) run up my leg.
I smiled. I pretended that I’d not noticed his hand running up my leg and that I wasn’t getting more and more creeped out by the guy. I just kept smiling, then started playing the bubbly stereotypical “S’th’n Belle,” telling him that I’d never been up there before in the summer-time, that we were on our honeymoon, and somehow slipping in the fact that my husband had been in the Marines for 15 years.
Ya know, it’s amazing how quickly he stopped putting his drink on the bar behind me. Pretty soon, he excused himself and mosied on down the bar.
But what *really* tickled me was that my husband and his friend, standing right beside where I was sitting, were so involved in catching up that they never even noticed what was going on.
So, to me, blaming men’s reactions on the clothing that women wear is simply a refusal, by some men, to take responsibility for themselves. Absolutely, Caitriona.
I suspect that the male defensiveness we’re seeing in reaction to this topic has a lot to do with barely acknowledged issues of shame connected to sexuality. These days we like to think that we’re enlightened and open-minded about sex, but I don’t think we’re quite there yet.
So this sense of shame manifests itself in men’s desire to remove reponsiblity for the “male gaze” from themselves and place it onto women. As I said above, the popular phrase “dressing provocatively” suggests that women “provoke” attention from men, so therefore it can’t be the fault of men if they have lustful thoughts. (This is why I prefer not to use that phrase, because it’s so loaded.)
Mr. Bad writes:
“This really is the key and highlights what I have the most disagreement with. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: The line is drawn when clearcut, unambiguous action occurs. This means a man or woman acts out on his/her lust. I personally don’t buy the argument that simply looking at a person the wrong way constitutes an actionable offense; if so, then the guy in the bar who attacks you because you “looked at him wrong” is as justified as the woman who takes offense at a stare. Grabbling tits? Obviously that’s actionable, but stares? Nope.”
And what you have neatly dissected out of your scenario is the heavily gendered socialization of boys and girls. You will most likely *not* find grown males staring at each other — it is a highly aggressive act, and everyone knows this. What the men also know is that there are repurcussions from other males for staring which could and often lead to physical violence. They figured this out by the time they were 8 probably. Girls, on the other hand, are socialized to accept boys’ aggression [neatly summed in the trite phrase: boys will be boys]. Grown men have a sense of social freedom in staring at women. After all, they learned as boys that most girls will not return the aggression. In fact, I believe that because men have learned that girls/women will not return the aggression that the act of staring at women is itself non-aggressive. Which is bullshit of course.
Mr. Bad, you seem to have a hard time grasping the nuance between looking at a woman and staring. Being so obtuse is rather transparent in my book. You seem to think men stand to loose something if their social actions are criticized - yet I have not seen you articulate exactly what it is that men stand to lose by us examining their lust, their actions, or their perceptions of the female body and women’s choices. Without explicitly saying so, you imply that an attempt to treat women as fully human somehow decreases the humanity of men. Your default stance is the male body and male action as the status quo and delimiter of all human behavior, emotions, and morality. It is a strange world, indeed, that you inhabit.
You’re probably right, Dave. I know that my husband and I both react more strongly to things when there is something that tweaks a sense of past guilt over having not done something the way we wished we had.
Oh, and on the comments above about weight - FWIW, I tend to get just as much attention at a heavier weight as I did when I was thinner. I started to say that perhaps it’s more about self-confidence, but I think there’s a lot more to it, since I also see a lot of people with nearly no self-confidence who receive those “admiring glances.”
Even very “homely” can be very attractive to people when they exude an aura of happiness and confidence. I’ve a book where the author relates a story about a woman who lives near her and her family. This woman wasn’t very “good-looking,” by typical standards, but she was always smiling and bubbly.
The author noticed one day that men flocked around this woman in droves, always wanting to talk with her. The author asked her husband about it, and he responded that the woman was very pretty and people came away happy when they spent time around her.
Then one day, they saw her at the grocery store. On this particular day, the woman wasn’t her usual smiling, happy self. She was very angry with her teenage daughter and was scolding the girl in the store. The author’s husband didn’t even recognize the woman, thought she was someone they didn’t know.
Her whole attitude was what made the difference.
Eh, the above should read: “In fact, I believe that because men have learned that girls/women will not return the aggression that men wholly believe that the act of staring at women is itself non-aggressive. Which is bullshit of course. “
So this sense of shame manifests itself in men’s desire to remove reponsiblity for the “male gaze” from themselves and place it onto women. As I said above, the popular phrase “dressing provocatively” suggests that women “provoke” attention from men, so therefore it can’t be the fault of men if they have lustful thoughts.
the issue i have with the last statement is that there is the assumption of lust. people have a horrible time reading body language, especially of the opposite gender, and staring generally unnerves most people. so it is entirely possible that women misread or project something into a stare that actually is not there. it also assumes that men are attracted to the woman to begin with, which also could not be the case.
another issue i have with the statement is assuming that people, particularly women, do not dress to attract attention. this strikes me as terribly untrue. many women, i would even hazard to say most women, dress to attraction attention to themselves, either from other women, men, or both. dressing provactively draws attention, as we all know, and it is not fair to say that men are projecting their shame onto women when women themselves are dressing in a manner they know draws attention to them. i do not think there is any “responsibility” for “male gaze” since staring in and of itself is something our society considers rude. however, if it is a poor excuse to say that you are staring because of the way someone looks, it is equally ridiculous to say women do nothing to attract the attention.
the responsibility, if there is any in this case, is mutual.
QGrrl >> And what you have neatly dissected out of your scenario is the heavily gendered socialization of boys and girls. You will most likely *not* find grown males staring at each other — it is a highly aggressive act, and everyone knows this. What the men also know is that there are repurcussions from other males for staring which could and often lead to physical violence. They figured this out by the time they were 8 probably. Girls, on the other hand, are socialized to accept boys’ aggression [neatly summed in the trite phrase: boys will be boys]. Grown men have a sense of social freedom in staring at women. After all, they learned as boys that most girls will not return the aggression. In fact, I believe that because men have learned that girls/women will not return the aggression that the act of staring at women is itself non-aggressive. Which is bullshit of course.
Bullshit is right. Because a man might stare at other men for reasons that are completely different than when men stare at women. Surely you can see the different motivations for the stare.
So, to me, blaming men’s reactions on the clothing that women wear is simply a refusal, by some men, to take responsibility for themselves. Whether a woman is covered in a burkha or is stark naked, the men around her are still responsible for their own reactions.It never ceases to amaze me how many would prefer having that responsibilty removed from their own shoulders and placed upon the shoulders of the people to whom they are reacting.
Is it just me or is the irony a little thick here..
Dave, women dressing “provocatively” is terminology for women dressing in a manner intended to attract men; I agree it’s an unfortunate usage of the stem word “provoke,” but that doesn’t really change the contextual meaning vis-a-vis intent, i.e., to attract. As for attributing what you call the “male gaze” to shame and not wishing to take responsibility, that’s just absurd. Good grief, where do you come up with this kind of stuff? The so-called “male gaze” is in the eye of beholder - Q Grrl wrote about it, so I address that below.
Q Grrrl: “Mr. Bad, you seem to have a hard time grasping the nuance between looking at a woman and staring.”
Not at all Q Grrl, I certainly do “(grasp) the nuance between looking and staring.”
“Being so obtuse is rather transparent in my book. Y