anxiety – Discourse Institute

Can We Escape the Male Gaze?

The term ‘the male gaze’ was coined when describing how people interact with media. The concept is that media is usually catered towards what a heterosexual man would find appealing: showing men in a powerful way and women in a sexual way. Women become sexual objects, and their most appealing qualities are those that benefit the male protagonist. This concept has seeped out of the media, and into day-to-day life. Women walking down the street are cat called and their intelligence is devalued in the workplace. This concept is exemplified by the wage gap: women get paid less for doing the same amount of work because their value is seen in their looks, not their intellectual or physical capabilities. Women begin to see themselves as valuable if they are sexually appealing, or can please the straight man. Eating disorders and body image issues permeate women’s lives. Additionally, the male gaze frequently fetishizes other cultures or hypersexualizes marginalized women. However, the feminist perspective emphasizes reclaiming female sexuality.

Sexual liberation is a pinnacle of the feminist movement. For example, as feminism progressed more forms of contraception became available to women and access to abortion is generally widening. Women having sex outside of wedlock is seen less as a sin and dirty and more liberating. Although there is still a stigma against women for having sex that is much less applicable to men, it is progressively dissolving. Where it used to be seen as ‘disgusting’ for women to dress provocatively, many progressive women see that as sexually liberating. There is however a discrepancy in the male and female vision of this.

To many women, dressing provocatively, and feeling good about the way that she looks is a form of liberation and is not done to please the male gaze. However, when seeing a woman dressed in a provocative way many men assume that she is ‘asking for something’ or dressing to please him. This begs the question, when are a woman’s appearances the consequences of internalized misogyny and when are they reclaiming their appearances? When are women’s positive feelings about how they look related to their own reclamation, and when are they positive because they are pleasing the male gaze? Giving women the freedom to dress as they please and have sex with who they want without shame will allow women to escape the sexual stigma placed on them that is evaded by men. How can we accomplish this without catering to the male gaze? How can we allow for these freedoms without valuing a woman’s worth based on her sexual activity?

Instead of asking women to change the way that they act, a big part of this needs to be educating men and changing pillars of society. For example, if examples are set by this generation that it is unacceptable to view a woman dressed provocatively as a subliminal message that she is seeking to please men, this may erode the stigma for the next generation. Also, if there is more media representation of women in power as well as more representation of women in powerful corporate and political positions, there will be more respect for a woman’s intelligence beyond her physical appearance. Women should continue to dress the way that they please and have sex with whomever they please, however the male gaze itself will not change until these societal changes are implemented. Therefore, despite women’s attempts at reclamation, men will continue to see women as sexual objects until gender roles have a complete overhaul.

by Cora Fagan

Singing birds in sickness, Sing the same blues songs

The title is poignant, a lyric from the band Song: Ohia in a song called Blue Chicago Moon. Fronted by the late Jason Molina who passed prematurely due to alcoholism, the song like many of those sung by him, is deeply seeded with pain and anguish. It’s a seeming pain of a man who maybe could not fit into the world coming up against its increasing modernity, individualism, free marketisms or ill gotten ways. That in itself is a speculation as to know exactly what went through Molina’s head is impossible.

Singing birds in sickness, Sing the same blues song. This lyric stands out and could be applied to the many voices through the ages that cried out in need of help, in warning, or in pain, repeating the bringing to attention a problem at hand. Those that hear the shouts are very often more willing to suggest its a cry of “wolf” than a true warning. It seems particularly fitting in explaining for the recent unsettling existential dread that seems to hang over us. If the Covid-19 pandemic was a fire alarm regarding our changing world, the latest IPCC report on climate change is the fire in the front room. It is more or less around us, the sickness if you will, whilst those in the know continue to sing the same blues song. Are we to continue ignoring it?

I have struggled recently with this seeming existential dread as some have termed it climate anxiety. I think applying such a label is not helpful and narrows focus to climate change and inaction solely, when in reality it’s a combination of many things, at least in my own case.

For example, I seek out philosophy likely to negate my lack of spirituality, but my lack of spirituality feeds my seeking out nihilism and existentialism in philosophy. The political structures of neoliberalism enforcing a culture of individualism, reinforced particularly in the Anglosphere to the point of stressing ownership of property or a home, and the competitiveness of you against others, reduces the sense of community and belonging.

This combination of commonplace belief systems already weighs heavy on many, specifically a lack of spirituality and neoliberalism, which restricts support, economically, socially and therefore fundamentally mentally. It already places many individuals in a position of apparent futility, broken or unmotivated to begin with, existing and occupied by their black mirrors. Couple this with the inaction over climate change, therefore current and coming disasters (even with dramatic action tomorrow) and you have recipe for a generational anxiety or angst, not solely climate related anxiety.

The so called “climate anxiety” is much deeper, it has many structural causes within culture, society and the economy. But some of us continue to Sing the same blues song, whether about climate, politics, economics, society which seems to fall on increasingly deaf ears, with those around us becoming passive and uninterested. The use of general labels introduces categorisation and therefore grouping of individuals reducing scope for collective action for the totality of our problems. Our song should be loud and in every wording so that is understood by many and not reduced to a few.

By Anonymous