women watching themselves being looked at

will we ever truly be women written by women?

I am obsessed with mind-body connection, proprioception, social conditioning through the patriarchal lens, trauma impacts on the body, feminist frameworks— as seen in much of my paintings and writings. Here’s one of my recent existential journal pulls: what it means to be constantly perceived by the invisible “man” in your own head.

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

Who am I if I am not objectifying my body? A woman written by a man. Women watch themselves being looked at. Is it possible to ever end the internalized male gaze we live with in our own minds? 

I’ve been deconstructing thoughts around this for years. Is it aging? Is it the line of work I’m in? Is it the fact that my work’s very purpose is to deny any and all sense of the male gaze? I’m working tirelessly to tell an honest story of true embodiment. How our bodies hold a wisdom long forgotten until we tap back in. How it still lives on, in the world and in our own minds…begging to be noticed. But much of this wisdom is covered and lost, because our bodies become a construct of desire, a presentation. They are the agent of how we show up in the world. Our own cultural judgment day. 

Much of this shows up when attempting to keep up with an online presence. The more time that passes, the more I am no longer interested in being viewed in the studio. I don’t want to put on clothes, brush my hair and perform. Witnessing this routine exhausts me. I’m bored by it. I’m aggravated by it. But how else does my work get seen? Am I then attributed to nothing more than just a body standing in front of a canvas, asking you to look? All of this asking feels exhausting. A bit unsafe, a bit tiresome. 

Despite women being disregarded in many areas, the physical presence will remain relevant forever. There is a very westernized, eurocentric pretty privilege that protects some women from certain things. It can also open you up to specific forms of violence. I have had this privilege most of my life. I’ve also experienced insane levels of violence because of it.

A performance. A construction formulated by the world we live in. Designed from the inside out, by our own oppressors. 

Feminism and empowerment has become entangled with our own choices to make alterations to our faces and bodies; disregarding that it is somehow powered by both consumerism and patriarchy. I know, I know— I’m no longer a girl’s girl if I question the reality of botox and filler and cosmetic surgeries. Real women support women making their own choices about their bodies and appearance. (at least, that’s often the response I get) I’ve made decisions about my face, my outfits, my body– believing them to be empowering. But are they, really? Do we really believe it’s possible to buy our way out of the internalized male gaze? 

Through capitalism and patriarchy and classicism, our bodies become consumable marketing strategies. We live in a world where agency is rebranded through commodification and altering, where sexualization becomes empowerment and healing. If we buy into the idea that certain kinds of features are beautiful, and change our faces and bodies to accommodate that… will we then be safe? Will we then be accepted and praised in our culture? finally have a seat at the male-dominated table? Years ago, when I still felt empowered by modeling, I argued that my self-objectification was truly a means of expressing myself and loving my body. I felt empowered. Sometimes, I very much still do. 

When our bodies and faces begin to move away from these standards, when the youth recedes and we can no longer hold ourselves to the line, what then? Where is my offering? How can I prove to you that I am worthy of being seen? Why do I even want to be seen in the first place? 

I once read somewhere that when women are continuously exposed to subtle external pressures regarding our appearance and presentation of our bodies; an internalization happens that allows us to believe we chose this freely. The patriarchy gaslights us and makes us believe it was truly our choice, made in a sense of empowerment. Makeup or no makeup, plastic surgery or natural, body hair or no body hair, tight or baggy clothes: we all have conformed to an internalized male gaze at one point or another; because we cannot exist in a vacuum. We are actively viewing ourselves from the lens of a camera, from the lens of our social media, from the admiration we receive or do not receive from both. 

*sigh*

Attempting to sort out what is truly mine and what isn’t can be grueling. When I take a bathing suit selfie, is it because I’m finally at the point where I love and accept the body I was born into? Or is it because I secretly long for the validation of sex appeal?

There are all of these contradictions inside of me pulling in both directions. Both promise dissatisfaction as my role as the woman. When you overly sexualize me, and I become nothing more than an objectification; I learn how to perform. But without my sex appeal, do I lose my power? Am I not allowed to celebrate my own sexuality after so many traumatically stripped that from me? Walking contradictions.

When I make the choice to not inject my lips or get a nose job, is it because I am trying to push back on the beauty standards I didn’t ask for? Attempting to reclaim the concept that women are no longer useful when their youth is gone? Or am I just subconsciously working to prove that I am not like other girls? That my values are different and that I can further philosophize, therefore making me elite?

When I choose my docs over high heels time and time again, is it because I’m happier with feeling comfort over looking sexy? Or because my more ‘down to earth’ aesthetic feels more appealing and safe…with less attention or possible violence? Who am I attempting to be safe from? Whose gaze am I avoiding? It all circles right back. 

I want you to look at me but I am ashamed that I want you to do so. I do not feel safe when you look at me, so I will shrink. I want to be of-value based on who I am as a person, not how attractive I am. 

Outside of all of it, of choosing what is right, empowering, feminist, revolutionary or wrong– where are women allowed to exist outside of any beauty standards? Outside of any objectification? How can a sense of embodiment ever occur privately? Will we ever have the luxury of choice in private? If there were no mirrors, no sizes, no means of capitalism left; what would surface? When do women have the opportunity to view their faces and their bodies through their own lens and not the lens of the oppressor? And is our view really ours at all? 

In our ever-growing performance as an online society, where will we draw the line?

Things to endlessly spiral about x