Hello ladies (current and former) of Lemmy (current) - I’m curious how your experience of the male gaze has changed as you moved in and out of young-woman-hood.

How has your opinion of being seen changed through this process?

  • davidagain@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    5 months ago

    That was helpful, thanks. I’m very much looking for insight, explanation and experiences.

    If I’ve grasped what you’re saying (and please re-steer me if not), the male gaze is a kind of societal expectation that women would present themselves in certain ways to walk the tightrope of some sort of impossible-to-attain universal male approval, and where women are harassed on the one hand for for not pleasing male eyes and on the other hand, harassed for pleasing male eyes - an obviously lose-lose situation. As such then, this male gaze would exist in the way some men behave towards women and in the head space this takes up in the minds of women who have been repeatedly hit with these expectations.