Why The Female Gaze Does Not Exist
Ever since the idea of the male gaze erupted in popularity on Tiktok at the beginning of the decade it became one of the internet’s favourite buzzwords. Though as often happens online the term quickly became widely misunderstood, and misused. Through this misunderstanding soon followed the conception—or false conception—of a so-called feminine equivalent dubbed the female gaze.
Though no one can seem to agree on what exactly defines the female gaze. Is it thick eyeliner and a cut crease? A tight fitted body-con dress? Platform boots? TradCath milk maid dresses? Is Megan Fox boy pretty or girl pretty? One struggles to decipher between the two as these distinctions are not representative of a female gaze because the female gaze does not exist.
What is The Male Gaze?
Before understanding if there is or is not a female gaze, we must first understand what the male gaze is. The concept of the male gaze was first popularized by John Berger in his 1972 work Ways of Seeing, though at the time Berger merely referred to it as “the gaze.” It’s important to remember that this idea of the gaze is not referring to the literal act of seeing from ones own eye, but rather refers to a subconscious state that influences the way in which we perceive what we are looking at—due to how we have been told to look, who we have been taught to look at, and by whom we have been taught the act of looking by. Berger was expanding on Lacanian theory of gaze which argues that when a person looks at something, they are never a neutral observer. Rather the act of looking is shaped by unconscious desire, and social influence (language, culture, ideology). Lacan differentiates the act of looking (the eye) from the gaze (objet petit a). The gaze according to Lacan is not simply the way in which we see the world, but the way in which the world looks back at us, making us feel like objects rather than subjects. What Berger did was specify the way in which the gaze when applied to culture must be assessed through a framework that addresses the historical context of art and media in the gaze and recognizes the intersections of race, class, and gender.
Film theorist Laura Mulvey drew from Berger and Lacan’s theory of the gaze in her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, and honed in on the gendered aspect of the gaze when applied specifically to film, thus coining the term the male gaze. In her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative cinema she writes:
“Woman then stands in patriarchal culture as a signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his fantasies and obsessions through linguistic command by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer, not maker, of meaning.”
In some ways I think the coining of the term “male gaze” to expand on Bergers ideas was a mistake that led to much of the confusion as to what the term means, as the male gaze is only focusing on one aspect of the gaze as Berger highlights in Ways of Seeing. Author bell hooks criticized Mulvey’s essay and rejected the idea of the male gaze in her essay The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators as Mulvey failed to adequately assess the intersection of race in her gendered analysis of film.
The coining of the term the male gaze has in part led to the assumption that if there is a male gaze there must be a female gaze by contrast—but this fails to acknowledge the power imbalance intrinsic to the gaze—or the male gaze. Berger addresses not only gender in his analysis, but also he addresses the disparities in class, race, and colonialism. The gaze therefore is not defined only by men but of a very specific type of man who creates art for a very specific type of man. The gaze was not criticizing the way men inherently see the world, but rather an acknowledgement of how art and media—exclusively being made by and for men of a very specific demographic—creates an echo-chamber in its expression and representation of the female form that went on to influence the masses both consciously and unconsciously.
The feminine relation to Berger's idea of the gaze is that within culture women have been allotted the social position of object to be looked at, while men have been allotted the positon of those who look. The gaze is less about male vs female than it is active consumer vs passive consumed. The masculine has been socially allotted the position of consumer, whilst the feminine has been socially allotted to the positon of consumed.
Historically (in this context), women being not the creators of art, nor the target audience, but merely incidental consumers, have in turn come to internalize this representation of the female experience as expressed by a specific demographic of men who consume women and go on to depict them for other men of a specific demographic’s consumption. Media has allowed women to consume themselves only as vessels to be consumed. Media has in this way trained women on how to best present themselves within the context of being consumed. But more specifically on how to be consumed by a very specific target demographic. The gaze then manifests itself as an internal spectator within ones mind, and the feminine becomes aware of not just how to be consumed but how to best alter oneself in order to appeal to the consumer.
Berger emphasizes this in Ways of Seeing:
“A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually.
And so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman. She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to others, and ultimately how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life. Her own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another.”
This is why the gendered parallel dubbed “the female gaze” cannot and does not exist—as it does not embody the systemic dissonance in power. Men are not and cannot be influenced by a so-called female gaze because they have not been socially positioned within culture as objects to be looked at. To compare any type of aesthetic male performance to aesthetic feminine performance would be inaccurate because the visual nature of masculinity is not intrinsically tied to a man’s value and worth in the same way feminine performance is. This is why the modelling industry is one of the only industries where women out-earn men on such a large scale—and why the demand for male models is significantly lower.
Men do not perform for a female gaze, but rather are also influenced by the gaze as Berger defined it. Because within a patriarchal framework men are also taught to value themselves, not through the lens of feminine desire but to be validated firstly by other men. Where a man’s worth is defined primarily by capital, a woman’s is defined by her appearance. Thus reinforcing their social positions as masculine consumer and feminine consumed.
The Female Gaze
When scrolling through TikTok it quickly becomes evident that no one can decide what feminine expression constitutes as the male vs female gaze—as it stems from a misunderstanding of what these terms suggest. One TikTok will suggest a sexier silhouette with heavy eye makeup caters to the male gaze whilst a more traditionally feminine silhouettes cater to a female gaze—though the next TikTok will claim the exact opposite. Because all of these are feminine performance influenced by not the female gaze—but the gaze.
Much of the misunderstanding surrounding the male gaze and therefore the female gaze is the misinterpretation that the male gaze refers to the act of men literally looking—so to dress for the male gaze would be to dress for men’s attention. Gender swap this misinterpretation and you have the female gaze, the literal act of women looking and to dress for the female gaze would be to dress for women’s immediate attention.
When the term the male gaze was initially gaining traction with the rise of TikTok in 2020, and with it the female gaze there seemed to be a greater emphasis on associating the female gaze with dressing in more vintage aesthetics—perhaps due to the popularity of cottage core and Bridgerton at the time. The “male gaze” aesthetic would often be attributed to a type of modern beauty standard whilst the “female gaze” was more likely to have a slightly older beauty standard—often drawing inspiration from the 50s, the regency era, the rococo era, perhaps fantasy inspired outfits, etc.
I understand why women associate these aesthetics with a so called “female gaze” as these are outfits that likely cater to an inner child with the long billowing skirts, corsets, and puff sleeves of a Disney princess. They’re aesthetics that women in our day to day lives would be more likely to understand and admire. Though the 50s, the regency era, and the rococo era are all still eras in which the gaze existed, and by dressing in the feminine beauty standard of a bygone era this doesn’t absolve you from omnipresence of the gaze—you are merely performing for an echo of the gaze passed. I’ll see photos of women suggesting they are dressing for the “female gaze” and insert a photo of themselves dressed like the Stepford Wives—a film about robots created to be the idealized vision of a wife. Disney princesses also don’t exist in a vacuum, they are modelled after the image of a beautiful, young, pure, maiden and created by a team of often primarily male animators. Whilst female villains in animated children’s films often dawn sexier, darker, sultry aesthetics. Therefore even when we revisit out purest and earliest appreciations of feminine beauty from our childhood the gaze has already begun to alter our perception of what is means to be feminine in the context of aesthetic performance and the characteristics that are associated with certain aesthetics. This becomes further nuanced when we include the intersection of race into discussions of the gaze and see what women are permitted to be depicted as what archetypes. To use Disney Princesses again as an example—the traditional image of purity and innocence through archetypal aesthetic depiction has been repeatedly reserved for the white Princesses whilst the WOC were often illustrated in a more sexualized light. From earliest childhood the learning of feminine performance as characteristic branding has already started.
Though I’ve likewise seen just as any many suggestions that these aesthetics cater to the opposite gaze. That sexier aesthetics cater to a “female gaze” whilst the hyper feminine aesthetics appeal to a “male gaze” In one TikTok the creator highlighted a version of herself that she dubbed as “performing for the male gaze” vs “performing for the female gaze” on the side performing for the male gaze her makeup was slightly lighter, her light eyes contrasting with her blackish brown hair, lending to a Megan Fox-esque appearance. On the side that she dubbed as performing for the female gaze her makeup was heavier, her eyes framed by long sultry false lashes, thick black eyeliner, and a cut crease, her hair bleached platinum blonde. The aesthetic to me evoked an almost Anna Nicole Smith Playboy Bunny appearance. So it was interesting to me that she would dub this aesthetic as catering to an alleged female gaze, when both looks seemed to be pulling from women well known and associated to be popular sex symbols amongst men.
These inconsistencies also show up in online conversations about what is considered “guy pretty” vs “girl pretty” There is never an agreement on what celebrities are “girl pretty” (appealing to the so called female gaze) and what celebrities are “boy pretty” (appealing to the so called male gaze). I have seen Emily Ratakowski, Megan Fox, and Adrianna Lima placed in the “girl pretty” category despite these women being some of the most unanimously agreed upon sexiest women by men. One Twitter user writes “I’ll never understand “boy pretty” vs “girl pretty” because I feel like if you’re pretty you’re just pretty idk I dont think looking a certain way makes you less attractive to a certain gender” this is because no matter your gender you grow up being influenced by the gaze. This is why Margot Robbie who has been one of the most praised sex symbols amongst men since the beginning of her career—also played Barbie—arguably the most idealized figure amongst little girls. There is nuances in the way men and women appreciate and understand feminine beauty, however on a grand subconscious level the gaze trains us to appreciate much of the same qualities.
What is often represented in these expressions of the male gaze vs the female gaze is actually feminine performance to express purity vs feminine performance to express sex appeal vs feminine performance to sell commerce. The madonna, the whore, and the mannequin1.
Even the reason why women gravitate towards certain features that at first seem entirely independent of an alleged male influence can be attributed to the cultural context of the gaze, and the socialization of being a woman within this cultural framework. The reason why women often aesthetically gravitate towards thinner frames whilst men prefer curves is not due to a “feminine” gaze that exists independent of the gaze—it is because the gaze has taught women to see themselves as figures to be consumed. And feminine worth is based around how well this task is performed. The women framed as the pinnacle of this performance are of course fashion models—whose entire job is the very representation of this social phenomenon.
Almost unanimously more editorial looks or faces get allotted as appealing to the so called “female gaze” but these exist under the section of the mannequin, mentioned above. Anya Taylor Joy is an example of a celebrity who is almost always positioned within the “girl pretty” category because she has more unconventional, high fashion features and is very slender. Though this is still reflective of the gaze. Capitalist culture has acknowledged women as purchasers of commerce, and thus advertising to them—though they do so under the framework that women exist as consumable objects themselves. Products then are marketed to women also within the context of the gaze that places women as consumable. 1950s advertisements marketing towards women emphasized the importance of being a good wife (the Madonna). The entire Victorias Secret brand was aimed around creating a male sexual fantasy (the Whore) and women loved it. Emphasizing the gaze that positions the men as those who gaze and women as those whom are gazed upon.
The mannequin as a category in reference to editorial campaigns differs only because it doesn’t always center ones interpersonal relationship to a man at the center of it’s marketing—as seen with the husband of the madonna or the lover of the whore—but rather places women as the target demographic in order to sell commerce. Though even with women in mind as a target demographic the images are most often not shot with the idea that women are consuming the woman in the photo. The photo is shot in a way for a woman to project herself onto the woman in the photo, as a figure to be gazed upon. That if she purchases this product she too will be worthy of being consumed.
Instead of an interpersonal relationship the mannequin still centers an ambiguous male figure, the same one we see when we look at old paintings, as the omnipresent spectator assumed to be just beyond the confines of the photo. Though still is influenced by the gaze as it doesn’t exist outside of culture and still enforces women in the position of being consumed. Her worth is still defined by her appearance as defined by the gaze. These marketing patterns are influenced by and continue to perpetuate the gaze—training the next generation of young girls consuming these advertisements and media on what their social position it how to achieve it—through buying.
Berger writes:
“The spectator-buyer is meant to envy herself as she will become if she buys the product. She is meant to imagine herself transformed by the product into an object of envy for others, an envy which will then justify her loving herself. One could put this another way: the publicity image steals her love of herself as she is, and offers it back to her for the price of the product.”
The feminine relationship to the gaze is also defined by the excessive self awareness of being perceived. This influx of TikToks dissecting what outfits would be appreciated by men vs women is actually further evidence of the influence of the gaze. You are so aware of how others will perceive you. To again reference Lacan’s original theory of gaze; it is not simply how we see the world, but the way in which the world looks back at us. You as a woman are aware of what outfits draw more attention from men vs women, because you’ve been trained to notice these patterns of behaviour as a consumable object. Most men don’t think about the way they are perceived this much because they haven’t been trained to be, and the men who are this self aware are probably mentally ill2.
The gaze exists within a greater cultural context and a dissonance in power. A power hierarchy is in place. Within the current cultural landscape one cannot achieve the female gaze. The point of addressing and naming the gaze or the male gaze is to acknowledge the inherent power imbalance it exists as a result of—and continues to enforce. The female gaze cannot exist in a true paralleled sense due to the fact that while the gaze exists as we know it, by cultural definition the female gaze cannot exist. The gaze can only exist by suppressing and oppressing the feminine on a mass scale. The female experience is inherently defined by the gaze, we consume media since the day we are born that enforces the standards of the gaze, and thus we are both consciously and unconsciously influenced by it. It becomes interwoven with the very essence of ourselves. If you are knitting a pink blanket, and as you knit a blue thread finds it’s way into the blanket, and you continue to knit and knit and knit. And suddenly you realize your knitted pink blanket has been interwoven with blue thread it would be very difficult—almost impossible—to divorce the pink blanket of the blue thread without destroying the blanket in totality. The concept of the gaze was theorized in order to address this inherent interwovenness and influence of culture on the psyche.
The reality is, the gaze is not something you can consciously opt out of or easily subvert. It’s a deep seeded cultural language that permeates almost all aspects of media, art, and fashion. It’s not about whether you dress for “the male gaze” or not, because you don’t really get to decide. It’s already been decided for you. If you are feminine presenting you have already been allotted the social position as object to be consumed.
If masculinity has come to be defined as the flesh of humanity—femininity has come to be defined as the altering of that flesh. Within a culture defined by the gaze, the very essence of expressed femininity becomes the packaging within a marketing campaign—positioning oneself as the product to be consumed.
These are not the only categories of feminine performance, but are arguably the most common ones.
My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself, and a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I’ll put on an ice pack while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial masque which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion. There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman. Some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me. Only an entity. Something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable, I simply am not there.
What I find interesting about this discussion is that there isn’t much consideration given to naming the desire to attract women as a woman. I’ve written a little bit about the female gaze—which I concede doesn’t exist because of the inherent and implied power imbalance—but I think that within the understanding and internalization of their inherent consumption by men as objects of desire, women are eager to learn how to signal sexual / romantic availability to other women. There’s no social blueprint and no master consensus, but I think that’s what these TikTok trends are getting at. As a bisexual woman I’ve wondered this too—I understand that femininity can be a performance of sexuality / purity / etc but how would I tweak the performance for a niche audience even though I can’t exclude the general population? Many women abandon the performance of femininity altogether, often adopting masculinity in its place, but what about the rest of us? I think a new term should just be coined so that WLW can more easily explore these possibilities for themselves. The need is there and it’s strong.
finally! Reminds me of the episode of the Polyester Podcast released earlier today where they’re talking about how an internet trend/ semi-ironic meme takes on a kind of intellectual significance that distorts scrutiny of the actual thing that is being analysed (in todays episode’s case, recession indicators) - I feel like this with the ‘female gaze’; with the ubiquity of the ‘male’ gaze, how will we ever know we are operating outside of it?
Last year, I had a pretty heated debate with a friend over Poor Things and it circled around the miscommunication of the gaze— he argued that Poor Things was misogynistic on account of the sexual content — I felt it was more nuanced than just representing a female body that gets fucked, albeit, a female sexualised object, but to argue that it was “male gazy” felt so redundant, such it its ubiquity. Even his naïveté wrt ladies and BDSM (when I tried to argue that perhaps Lanthimos wanted to explore the nuances of how men navigate and rationalise their sense of ownership over female bodies, he cited the scene where she is tied up as blatant misogyny bc - and I quote - it’s the woman who’s tied up — go figure) was informed by this binary that flattens women’s experiences and desire to be totally relational to how they are positioned towards males — the same binary he was touting as the downfall of the film. He wasn’t willing to discuss anything further as he was so adamant in his diagnoses of the male gaze; as if that set it apart from other kinds of media. I know there’s a lot held in contention about Poor Things and the film does have its faults no doubt, but it’s so frustrating when you’re trying to discuss a convoluted piece of media and any discussion is shut down with decontextualised buzzwords.
If we are to begin to work against the matrices of power that form the very parameters by which we think, we need to acknowledge the molecular level by which it is integrated in us, somehow, as opposed to reasserting it through the insinuation of its alternative.
Rant aside, I fuckin loved this essay, thank you for sharing