It never occurred to me that it wasn’t my job to look appealing to men. Even typing that now, makes me want to vomit. A therapist said to me at 39 that the way I dress doesn’t need to be pleasing to a man and it exploded my brain. I’d been living my whole life trying to look pleasing to men!!! That was 3 years ago and let me tell you, I am much happier and comfortable in my clothing now.
You're not alone in this! I want to barf, too, just thinking about it, but don't shame yourself for it -- I think a majority of people on this thread have had the same experience.
It really is indoctrination. I didn’t even question my lifelong (?) belief that I was supposed to dress to please men until I read More than a Body by Lindsay and Lexie Kite, about 3 years ago, at age 31. Mind blown!
I love that this was your next post because it's something I've been mulling over since your last. Coming out of my intuitive eating journey a couple sizes larger, I found myself in a crisis of confidence. I felt great about myself, my strength, my values, but unsure of my reception in the larger world. I knew that in embracing my healthy size, I was giving up a bit of conventional attractiveness. I know intellectually that anyone who I can truly have a great relationship with will love me just as I am, but there is (was?) still some lingering fear after a lifetime of conditioning. Recently, I traveled longterm in two areas of the world where men apparently like their women a bit larger. That really affirmed to me that our ideas of "good bodies" are extremely cultural and subjective. And so for that time, I enjoyed the attention and took it as an opportunity to get over my old hangups around strapless dresses and crop tops, etc. It felt healing for me in many ways, but I have also been feeling recently, "over it." I wish it didn't take knowing that my body can be pleasing to get to a point where I don't care whether I am pleasing. And so the shift for me might be continuing to wear the clothing I like but not caring what the reaction is.
Now that I've said all that, I'm going to backpedal a little because I'm seeing a lot of comments where women are feeling shame for having dressed for the male gaze, but I'm just not 100% certain that doing so is always "wrong," and I would love feedback on these thoughts. There is, of course, a power dynamic in male:female relations, but even gay men dress to impress other men, and lesbian women dress for a female gaze. Where I see dressing for others going wrong is when one dresses in a way that isn't pleasing to the self, or one feels coerced into doing so. If choosing from a closet of clothes she loves, is it really wrong for a woman to opt-in to dressing for male gaze on a date night with a man? Presumably, he is dressing to please her, too, in a mutual form of consensual objectification that doesn't preclude treating the other as also a subject, a person, in the interaction as well. Thoughts?
I agree with this too! I do think there is an aspect of dressing for someone else that can be fun. i think the distinction for me is that it's not expected or uncomfortable.
Hi! Thanks for making me think deeper about this. For me, I often didn’t love / wasn’t comfortable in the clothes that I was wearing to attract men. That feels like a critical detail to me. If I loved those clothes and felt like they represented my style, I think I wouldn’t feel this way about the whole thing. :)
This is interesting in that as I've become a mother I notice that I no longer attract the male gaze. And I'm weirdly conflicted about it - I enjoy being invisible and at the same time I want to feel like men find me still attractive. I choose my clothing based on functionality (comfortable, easy to wash, no thighs eating my shorts, no wedgies, etc.) and how I feel in it. But I am wondering if "how I feel in it" means "I feel attractive to men". Interesting thought. I struggle with this for hair as well, I'd much prefer to have short, no-fuss hair but my husband doesn't like it.
Funny you ask this now because I'm seeing an intuitive eating counselor, and she wants me to challenge/push back/dig deeper on those thoughts that I notice about my body and our culture. Just 2 days ago I took my kids to our rec. center pool, and I noticed that I had these little, creeping thoughts about how I looked to these teenage boy lifeguards! Totally irrational. I'm 46, married, have zero interest in these kids, and honesty, those boys were um, kinda gross (like teenage boys can be I guess). Anyway, since I'm intentionally trying to notice these thoughts more, I'm REALLY noticing them - like they just happen in the background - with men and women (other mom's at kid functions). As if I'm supposed to look attractive to every person - whether or not I'm attracted to them, even know them or like them. It's kind of fascinating and also SUPER annoying to realize that I've spent most of my life in that subconscious headspace. I'm trying to figure out the root of that so I can move past it - I'm thinking it just goes back to being a young kid and wanting to be accepted by boys and peers - man, that stuff sticks with you!
I would say that I tried to dress in a way that I was taught would be appealing to men for most of my life (I’m 53 now). The majority of the attention that I received from men was not good attention, meaning not from the men that I was trying to attract. I learned that if I dressed in “less flattering” clothes, i.e. more comfortable and more my own style, I received less of that unwanted attention. So that’s what I’ve been doing. I’m much more comfortable in my clothes, but I guess you could still say that the male gaze is driving my clothing choices, just in the opposite direction.
i second the comments about watching/guiding daughters through this. i was mid-sentence recently with my 13yo (trying to discuss her clothing choices and skirting around the concepts of age-appropriate modesty & what is/isn't appropriate for various settings) and abruptly stopped and just said outloud "wait i don't know if i actually believe this." i couldn't sort out whether i was encouraging her to dress respectfully for an occasion (a funeral visitation) or whether i was encouraging to dress in a way that wouldn't attract male attention and others' judgment.
I definitely think teens need the space to work through a lot of this on their own. It sounds like you did some great parenting by acknowledging that you might not have everything figured out either.
This is something I've thought a lot about over the years. I definitely did it when I worked in a male-dominated field. I noticed when I gained wait/got older and the attention lessoned. I became fairly invisible. And I liked it, but also missed the attention. I had a lower weight interlude for a while and the attention came back and I had very mixed feelings about it. Now I'm pretty invisible again, but raising tween/teen girls, and I think about it a lot as they move around in the world. One of them is gay and could care less. The other is pretty caught up and it is hard to watch from my perspective of the other end of the spectrum. This stuff is so complicated.
Oddly enough, I have never dressed for the male gaze. I think this is for a few reasons. I went to an all-girls Catholic high school. We wore uniforms and my friend group did not extend over to the boys school. During these fundamental years, the male gaze was not an option. In addition, I was a fat kid and my teen and adult body has never fit traditional beauty standards, so I probably felt subconsciously that I would endure more teasing if I even attempted to dress for the male gaze. Heading into college, it was the mid 90's and thanks to grunge influence, my "coolest" outfit was dark grey wide wale corduroys, a light gray t-shirt, and an orang/red heathered wool sweater. Apparently this was enough to catch the gaze of my husband, who I met at 19, but definitely was not "flattering". Once I started working and had more disposable income to buy clothes, I developed a style for myself and other women. Mostly basic but with either an architectural bent or one bold item. Something to get a friend to notice. My husband is constantly telling me that he hates half my clothes but loves that I wear them. I feel pretty lucky.
I began dressing for the male gaze after I was sexually assaulted in college. Looking back, I think I was trying to reclaim power that had been taken from me: “I have something you want; I’m keeping it for myself. This is my choice, over and over and over.”
I still dress for the male gaze. Less so, but it shows up, and I am embarrassed and ashamed when it does. I am a feminist. I am raising feminist children. But there is a part of me that is still so fucking Indoctrinated.
I'm so sorry you experienced that, and I understand your response. It seems a lot of us (myself included) feel embarassed or ashamed and I wonder if there's a way to give ourselves grace, like, of course this is part of life in this society.
I definitely have spent a majority of my time dressing for the male gaze. I also inhabited a larger body in my teens and twenties, so I think I felt more of that pressure because I was already deemed unattractive because of my fatness (not using the term in a disparaging way, just being factual). If I was already "working against" my fatness, I had to try extra hard to say "Look at my butt! Look at my cleavage! I am worthy!" UGH. I hate that I thought that's where my value was. But I think we're all here becuase we're trying to untangle that.
Honestly, for most of my life I have felt that I mostly am dressing for other women. When I was a teenager I wanted to be cute and trendy and now, as a mom, I don't want to look frumpy and like "i've let myself go". I have never been the "Hot girl" so I've never felt like a lot of men have been looking at my body. lol I do have big boobs, but I've always been self conscious about it and tried to minimize them. Was that to avoid the male gaze? Idk. In m head it's just that I hate how big they are but who knows. It also has been WILD moving from Arizona to Georgia because style here is so so different and now I feel like I just always look like a west coaster and not a georgian.
I don't really know how to describe it other than everyone where I live in Arizona dressed, for lack of a better descriptor, in Utah influencer fashion haha. Then here in Georgia, there's a variation of very dressed up and put together and athleisure that is different than the west in some way that I can't quite put my finger on it. More tennis dresses, less matching bike shorts and bras. More big oversized shirts, less crop tops? IDK if I am even doing it justice! I just feel like I stick out!! But it is totally possible it's all in my head. And it also might be the fact that in school pickup line, I'm one of the few stay-at-home moms so I'm never dressed for work while most moms are?
Though I'm gay, I definitely dressed for the male gaze, particularly in high school and college. I feel like doing so is the status quo. Now I dress for myself, which at times does mirror the male gaze. How do I know if I *really* like it or if I've jus been trained to think I like it. I will also sometimes dress for my partner on occasion because it always feels fun to do so!
i’m sill working through all my feelings / grief / sadness / anger around this subject and don’t really have anything super well formed to contribute right now except that this post and your note on the notion of « tomboy » concurred with me starting the Elliot Page memoir this week-end … Elliot speaks harrowingly of being forced to dress and perform for the male gaze in films and on the red carpet, lest he loses his career. He writes: « I cringed at the way people lit up when seeing me in feminine clothes, as if I had accomplished a miraculous feat. » and later: « there was always the pressure to appear more feminine- dresses to event, high heels, « take off your hat » […] I got lost in the part, unable to fully lean into the character but still losing track of myself. Stuck in the liminal space »…
Thanks for this thread Dacy. Like others, it’s complicated. I don’t consider myself a fashionista and have never been (or tried to be) fashionable. But I definitely dressed for the male gaze (and just to fit in with my peers) for most of my life. I’m still working on finding that sweet spot with clothes...just not sure what that looks like.
This is a tough one! I can't imagine that I'm not somehow dressing for the male gaze, but there are other "gazes" I think I consider more. I am straight-presenting but was primarily in same-sex relationships throughout my late teens and early 20s - now that I'm a married mother of two, I do feel the need to present my queer identity through rainbow-themed apparel, stickers on my work notebook, and so on. I'm also in a faith community that tends towards the austere, so I sometimes find myself dressing more plainly in those environments. As an educator, I'm trying to find a spot between "peers confuse me for a student" casual and "students perceive me as unapproachable" professional.
This is interesting, and I don't know if I'd totally categorize it for dressing for a gaze, but just wearing what you feel comfortable in in different settings.
This one is a doozy. I’ve tried to unpack this and they are so many different issues here. My mother experienced severe sexual abuse which influenced her behavior and beliefs. I was always encouraged to be attractive/pretty/feminine. I grew up trying to leverage this to cover up my embarrassment for being poor and having a mother who was an addict. Getting attention from men and boys felt valuable even though I was often in physical danger. After having kids, I had breast implants for 15 years most definitely for the male gaze (I do not miss them one but). As my sons got older, I kept dressing more and more conservatively because I was worried what they would internalize about the way men would look at me. I didn’t want them to think it was ok to leer at women. My weight has fluctuated over time and being in a smaller body now, I feel confused about how much of my shape to show. I’m anti-diet and weight-inclusive so can I wear a fitted dress that attracts the male gaze??? 😵💫 I also have tighter things that I will wear out with my husband but not if I’m out on my own. 😵💫😵💫 It feels endless and I try to remind myself there is no win within this game. The point seems to be feeling bad about it no matter what you do.
I hear your struggle. The idea that "it's your responsibility to dress in a way that pleases men" and its counterargument that "it's your responsibility to dress in a way that *doesn't* please men" are equally stifling, and both put responsibility for men's reactions and behavior onto the women.
It never occurred to me that it wasn’t my job to look appealing to men. Even typing that now, makes me want to vomit. A therapist said to me at 39 that the way I dress doesn’t need to be pleasing to a man and it exploded my brain. I’d been living my whole life trying to look pleasing to men!!! That was 3 years ago and let me tell you, I am much happier and comfortable in my clothing now.
You're not alone in this! I want to barf, too, just thinking about it, but don't shame yourself for it -- I think a majority of people on this thread have had the same experience.
Isn't that amazing? We're so indoctrinated.
It really is indoctrination. I didn’t even question my lifelong (?) belief that I was supposed to dress to please men until I read More than a Body by Lindsay and Lexie Kite, about 3 years ago, at age 31. Mind blown!
SUCH a good book. Recommend it for everyone here!!
I love that this was your next post because it's something I've been mulling over since your last. Coming out of my intuitive eating journey a couple sizes larger, I found myself in a crisis of confidence. I felt great about myself, my strength, my values, but unsure of my reception in the larger world. I knew that in embracing my healthy size, I was giving up a bit of conventional attractiveness. I know intellectually that anyone who I can truly have a great relationship with will love me just as I am, but there is (was?) still some lingering fear after a lifetime of conditioning. Recently, I traveled longterm in two areas of the world where men apparently like their women a bit larger. That really affirmed to me that our ideas of "good bodies" are extremely cultural and subjective. And so for that time, I enjoyed the attention and took it as an opportunity to get over my old hangups around strapless dresses and crop tops, etc. It felt healing for me in many ways, but I have also been feeling recently, "over it." I wish it didn't take knowing that my body can be pleasing to get to a point where I don't care whether I am pleasing. And so the shift for me might be continuing to wear the clothing I like but not caring what the reaction is.
Now that I've said all that, I'm going to backpedal a little because I'm seeing a lot of comments where women are feeling shame for having dressed for the male gaze, but I'm just not 100% certain that doing so is always "wrong," and I would love feedback on these thoughts. There is, of course, a power dynamic in male:female relations, but even gay men dress to impress other men, and lesbian women dress for a female gaze. Where I see dressing for others going wrong is when one dresses in a way that isn't pleasing to the self, or one feels coerced into doing so. If choosing from a closet of clothes she loves, is it really wrong for a woman to opt-in to dressing for male gaze on a date night with a man? Presumably, he is dressing to please her, too, in a mutual form of consensual objectification that doesn't preclude treating the other as also a subject, a person, in the interaction as well. Thoughts?
I agree with this too! I do think there is an aspect of dressing for someone else that can be fun. i think the distinction for me is that it's not expected or uncomfortable.
Hi! Thanks for making me think deeper about this. For me, I often didn’t love / wasn’t comfortable in the clothes that I was wearing to attract men. That feels like a critical detail to me. If I loved those clothes and felt like they represented my style, I think I wouldn’t feel this way about the whole thing. :)
This is interesting in that as I've become a mother I notice that I no longer attract the male gaze. And I'm weirdly conflicted about it - I enjoy being invisible and at the same time I want to feel like men find me still attractive. I choose my clothing based on functionality (comfortable, easy to wash, no thighs eating my shorts, no wedgies, etc.) and how I feel in it. But I am wondering if "how I feel in it" means "I feel attractive to men". Interesting thought. I struggle with this for hair as well, I'd much prefer to have short, no-fuss hair but my husband doesn't like it.
Yeah, it's hard to untangle. I certainly grieved the loss of my visibility to men, feminist or not.
Funny you ask this now because I'm seeing an intuitive eating counselor, and she wants me to challenge/push back/dig deeper on those thoughts that I notice about my body and our culture. Just 2 days ago I took my kids to our rec. center pool, and I noticed that I had these little, creeping thoughts about how I looked to these teenage boy lifeguards! Totally irrational. I'm 46, married, have zero interest in these kids, and honesty, those boys were um, kinda gross (like teenage boys can be I guess). Anyway, since I'm intentionally trying to notice these thoughts more, I'm REALLY noticing them - like they just happen in the background - with men and women (other mom's at kid functions). As if I'm supposed to look attractive to every person - whether or not I'm attracted to them, even know them or like them. It's kind of fascinating and also SUPER annoying to realize that I've spent most of my life in that subconscious headspace. I'm trying to figure out the root of that so I can move past it - I'm thinking it just goes back to being a young kid and wanting to be accepted by boys and peers - man, that stuff sticks with you!
I would say that I tried to dress in a way that I was taught would be appealing to men for most of my life (I’m 53 now). The majority of the attention that I received from men was not good attention, meaning not from the men that I was trying to attract. I learned that if I dressed in “less flattering” clothes, i.e. more comfortable and more my own style, I received less of that unwanted attention. So that’s what I’ve been doing. I’m much more comfortable in my clothes, but I guess you could still say that the male gaze is driving my clothing choices, just in the opposite direction.
Oh interesting. Many of my clients have expressed this as well, that they dress to avoid unwanted attention. We just can't win.
i second the comments about watching/guiding daughters through this. i was mid-sentence recently with my 13yo (trying to discuss her clothing choices and skirting around the concepts of age-appropriate modesty & what is/isn't appropriate for various settings) and abruptly stopped and just said outloud "wait i don't know if i actually believe this." i couldn't sort out whether i was encouraging her to dress respectfully for an occasion (a funeral visitation) or whether i was encouraging to dress in a way that wouldn't attract male attention and others' judgment.
fwiw - she felt good in her clothes ... but who knows if that's because she felt aligned with male gaze approval?
I definitely think teens need the space to work through a lot of this on their own. It sounds like you did some great parenting by acknowledging that you might not have everything figured out either.
This is something I've thought a lot about over the years. I definitely did it when I worked in a male-dominated field. I noticed when I gained wait/got older and the attention lessoned. I became fairly invisible. And I liked it, but also missed the attention. I had a lower weight interlude for a while and the attention came back and I had very mixed feelings about it. Now I'm pretty invisible again, but raising tween/teen girls, and I think about it a lot as they move around in the world. One of them is gay and could care less. The other is pretty caught up and it is hard to watch from my perspective of the other end of the spectrum. This stuff is so complicated.
SO complicated.
Oddly enough, I have never dressed for the male gaze. I think this is for a few reasons. I went to an all-girls Catholic high school. We wore uniforms and my friend group did not extend over to the boys school. During these fundamental years, the male gaze was not an option. In addition, I was a fat kid and my teen and adult body has never fit traditional beauty standards, so I probably felt subconsciously that I would endure more teasing if I even attempted to dress for the male gaze. Heading into college, it was the mid 90's and thanks to grunge influence, my "coolest" outfit was dark grey wide wale corduroys, a light gray t-shirt, and an orang/red heathered wool sweater. Apparently this was enough to catch the gaze of my husband, who I met at 19, but definitely was not "flattering". Once I started working and had more disposable income to buy clothes, I developed a style for myself and other women. Mostly basic but with either an architectural bent or one bold item. Something to get a friend to notice. My husband is constantly telling me that he hates half my clothes but loves that I wear them. I feel pretty lucky.
I started college in '95 and yep to all of that!
I began dressing for the male gaze after I was sexually assaulted in college. Looking back, I think I was trying to reclaim power that had been taken from me: “I have something you want; I’m keeping it for myself. This is my choice, over and over and over.”
I still dress for the male gaze. Less so, but it shows up, and I am embarrassed and ashamed when it does. I am a feminist. I am raising feminist children. But there is a part of me that is still so fucking Indoctrinated.
I'm so sorry you experienced that, and I understand your response. It seems a lot of us (myself included) feel embarassed or ashamed and I wonder if there's a way to give ourselves grace, like, of course this is part of life in this society.
I definitely have spent a majority of my time dressing for the male gaze. I also inhabited a larger body in my teens and twenties, so I think I felt more of that pressure because I was already deemed unattractive because of my fatness (not using the term in a disparaging way, just being factual). If I was already "working against" my fatness, I had to try extra hard to say "Look at my butt! Look at my cleavage! I am worthy!" UGH. I hate that I thought that's where my value was. But I think we're all here becuase we're trying to untangle that.
Good point to bring up. I 100% used my body to try to distract from other things I felt insecure about.
Honestly, for most of my life I have felt that I mostly am dressing for other women. When I was a teenager I wanted to be cute and trendy and now, as a mom, I don't want to look frumpy and like "i've let myself go". I have never been the "Hot girl" so I've never felt like a lot of men have been looking at my body. lol I do have big boobs, but I've always been self conscious about it and tried to minimize them. Was that to avoid the male gaze? Idk. In m head it's just that I hate how big they are but who knows. It also has been WILD moving from Arizona to Georgia because style here is so so different and now I feel like I just always look like a west coaster and not a georgian.
I felt this too, about making sure I wasn't the mom who looked like i didn't care anymore. but...I don't?
Ooh tell me more about this! I've lived in ga my whole life and want to hear how you see style here
I don't really know how to describe it other than everyone where I live in Arizona dressed, for lack of a better descriptor, in Utah influencer fashion haha. Then here in Georgia, there's a variation of very dressed up and put together and athleisure that is different than the west in some way that I can't quite put my finger on it. More tennis dresses, less matching bike shorts and bras. More big oversized shirts, less crop tops? IDK if I am even doing it justice! I just feel like I stick out!! But it is totally possible it's all in my head. And it also might be the fact that in school pickup line, I'm one of the few stay-at-home moms so I'm never dressed for work while most moms are?
Though I'm gay, I definitely dressed for the male gaze, particularly in high school and college. I feel like doing so is the status quo. Now I dress for myself, which at times does mirror the male gaze. How do I know if I *really* like it or if I've jus been trained to think I like it. I will also sometimes dress for my partner on occasion because it always feels fun to do so!
Thank you for this perspective! The need to perform for this gaze starts so early.
i’m sill working through all my feelings / grief / sadness / anger around this subject and don’t really have anything super well formed to contribute right now except that this post and your note on the notion of « tomboy » concurred with me starting the Elliot Page memoir this week-end … Elliot speaks harrowingly of being forced to dress and perform for the male gaze in films and on the red carpet, lest he loses his career. He writes: « I cringed at the way people lit up when seeing me in feminine clothes, as if I had accomplished a miraculous feat. » and later: « there was always the pressure to appear more feminine- dresses to event, high heels, « take off your hat » […] I got lost in the part, unable to fully lean into the character but still losing track of myself. Stuck in the liminal space »…
wow. yes, a lifetime of things to process and mourn.
Thanks for this thread Dacy. Like others, it’s complicated. I don’t consider myself a fashionista and have never been (or tried to be) fashionable. But I definitely dressed for the male gaze (and just to fit in with my peers) for most of my life. I’m still working on finding that sweet spot with clothes...just not sure what that looks like.
it's so hard, because belonging is a real human need, right?
This is a tough one! I can't imagine that I'm not somehow dressing for the male gaze, but there are other "gazes" I think I consider more. I am straight-presenting but was primarily in same-sex relationships throughout my late teens and early 20s - now that I'm a married mother of two, I do feel the need to present my queer identity through rainbow-themed apparel, stickers on my work notebook, and so on. I'm also in a faith community that tends towards the austere, so I sometimes find myself dressing more plainly in those environments. As an educator, I'm trying to find a spot between "peers confuse me for a student" casual and "students perceive me as unapproachable" professional.
Now that I've said all that ... no wonder it takes me forever to get dressed in the morning!
This is interesting, and I don't know if I'd totally categorize it for dressing for a gaze, but just wearing what you feel comfortable in in different settings.
This one is a doozy. I’ve tried to unpack this and they are so many different issues here. My mother experienced severe sexual abuse which influenced her behavior and beliefs. I was always encouraged to be attractive/pretty/feminine. I grew up trying to leverage this to cover up my embarrassment for being poor and having a mother who was an addict. Getting attention from men and boys felt valuable even though I was often in physical danger. After having kids, I had breast implants for 15 years most definitely for the male gaze (I do not miss them one but). As my sons got older, I kept dressing more and more conservatively because I was worried what they would internalize about the way men would look at me. I didn’t want them to think it was ok to leer at women. My weight has fluctuated over time and being in a smaller body now, I feel confused about how much of my shape to show. I’m anti-diet and weight-inclusive so can I wear a fitted dress that attracts the male gaze??? 😵💫 I also have tighter things that I will wear out with my husband but not if I’m out on my own. 😵💫😵💫 It feels endless and I try to remind myself there is no win within this game. The point seems to be feeling bad about it no matter what you do.
I hear your struggle. The idea that "it's your responsibility to dress in a way that pleases men" and its counterargument that "it's your responsibility to dress in a way that *doesn't* please men" are equally stifling, and both put responsibility for men's reactions and behavior onto the women.
💯💯💯