A question about male gaze

[msagara]

Last night, when I was falling asleep at my keyboard and did not want to sleep, I went off to the internet to read about books. (Not my books, though, because that frequently wakes me up in the Bad Way, because - author.)

One of the books was a novel called Stormdancer. It is the first in a series that is set in not-Japan but which makes use of elements of Japanese society in a kind of “this is cool, let’s use this” way. This is a book, according to quotes in reviews, which is firmly anchored in the male gaze.

The protagonist is a woman.

I’ve been thinking about books, written by men, in which women are handled well. Or, to be more specific, in which I think women are handled well. It’s a question I used to be asked while working at the bookstore, and therefore a question I’ve turned over on the inside of my head, time and again.

And this morning, because I am writing and my creative writer brain has slowed, I have returned to this, having spent an evening reading about male gaze.

All of the male authors I’ve recommended or cleared as “writing women well” (Sean Stewart for example) are entirely absent male gaze.

(I once asked Sean Stewart how he handled his women, because he was one of the few male authors whose viewpoint felt so natural to me I would have believed he was a woman if I hadn’t met him, and he said “It’s not magic; I just write about them as if they’re…people.” One of the ways he achieved this, I realize in hindsight, is jettisoning male gaze.)

Male gaze irritates the crap out of me. Most of the women I know who notice their bodies are likely to say “I need to lose weight around my thighs” or “my stomach is so flabby”, so if you really want to write from a female viewpoint, you don’t have your character notice her fabulous perky breasts or creamy skin or etc. Because. Well.

But…

Is there a female gaze that has the same weight, and is irritating or reductionist in the same way? Do male readers feel reduced to uncomfortable margins by female gaze?

I realize that this is a touchy question. I am actually interested in the answer and will accept any answer that is given that does not constitute a personal attack on any other answer that’s given - but I want people to answer without fear of censure.

Comments

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

There's a disconnect I'm noticing in the discussion here that's interesting, assuming I'm seeing it correctly. "Male gaze" often involves 1) men writing women but 2) having the women describe themselves as the men would see them (boobs, butt, and hair, basically).

But the "Female gaze" keeps getting described as 1) women writing women who 2) judge the sexiness of male characters.

I would think a closer analogy would be a woman having a male POV character think about his "lion-like tresses and strong hands," or some such nonsense.

I've certainly read my share of unconvincing guys-written-by-women, but I'm not smart enough (apparently) to spot a pattern or trend to it.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

Women can have the "male gaze" too. Patriarchy, you're soaking in it.

The distinction is the sexualization. When men write testosterone-fueled adventure novels in which they talk about the hero's mighty thews, they're not commenting on how sexy the guy is (unless they are. But that's not the usual approach). They're creating a fantasy for themselves (or their readers) to vicariously embody.

Women can write women this way--the description of the character makes her someone for the female reader to vicariously embody. Or she can simply be eye candy, written the way John Norman might write her. Women are not exempt from absorbing bad tropes, even ones that are harmful to them.

The idea of "sexy women" in advertising can go two ways:

1. "The woman that other women want to be, and men want to be with."

2. "The woman men imagine will fuck them."

The former is sexy and desirable, but also high quality. A man envisions having this beautiful creature around all the time, but also on some level imagines that she might be entertaining when not actively having sex. Most men are not actually simple creatures ruled by their penises, and advertisers targeting a more enlightened demographic try to hit multiple buttons.

Whereas the latter is a woman for a man to fuck and discard. They appear in lowbrow advertising, often in bad beer commercials. They're targeting the demographic of men who have been trained to think of women as a class (with individual exceptions) as sandwich-making orifice systems.

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

I do understand that women can write with male gaze.

My point was that I don't think the counterpoint to "male gaze" (ie female POV written in a specifically bad way) is the female POV written correctly.

[msagara.livejournal.com]

I would think a closer analogy would be a woman having a male POV character think about his "lion-like tresses and strong hands," or some such nonsense.

I feel that you are now pulling far, far ahead in the Win The Internet race.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

This is what signaled to me that S. E. Hinton was a woman, though the POV was a teenage boy, when I read it as a teenager. I had never heard my brother or any guys I know comment about one another's long eyelashes, beautiful eyes, beautiful hair. They were looking at each other the way girls looked at boys, though supposedly het boys. (It was the first book that got me thinking, however hazily, about voice.)

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

That is so funny.

(standard derailer: oh god I hated that book when we were required to read it in 9th grade)

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

I'm starting to think I might want to reread Child of Fire to see if I missed something. ;-)

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

...good call.

[rosefox]

But the "Female gaze" keeps getting described as 1) women writing women who 2) judge the sexiness of male characters.

I would think a closer analogy would be a woman having a male POV character think about his "lion-like tresses and strong hands," or some such nonsense.

The latter sounds to me like "gender-flipped parody of male gaze". I read the question as being genuinely about a POV style that embodies the way women see the world. And believe it or not, women spend a lot of time evaluating and talking about the sexiness of men.

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

And believe it or not, women spend a lot of time evaluating and talking about the sexiness of men.

There's no need to be rude.

As I said in another (collapsed) comment, it doesn't seem to make sense that male gaze is defined as writing from unexamined male assumptions whether they're appropriate for the POV character or not while female gaze is women writing women correctly. It seems to me that whatever female gaze is (and my "tresses and hands" comment was meant to be illustrative but non-serious) whatever it is, it ought to represent some sort of blind spot or error caused by unfounded assumptions.

That's all I was trying to say.

[rosefox]

Apologies; no rudeness intended. I find that fact really does surprise a lot of men.

[rosefox]

As for the rest, I think you and I were addressing different things; I was talking about why people are responding to the post the way they are, while you're talking about what the concept of "female gaze" might mean.

I think women's blind spots are broadly (no pun intended) the same as men's: they assume everyone wants what the author wants. I see this most prominently in romance novels, a lot of which are about the heroine deciding that what her family/her love interest/the people in their small town want for her is what she wants too, while the hero wants the heroine despite all her foibles and flaws. It's incredibly rare to see real rebellion from local cultural norms in romance novels. When women write for women, they do so in a way that strongly, strongly reinforces particular roles. And I hardly ever see anyone question that, though a few splendid people in the romance world (like Sarah Wendell and Jane Litte) do their best.

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

First, sorry about taking offense; I misread your tone (I know, right? That never happens on the internet). I've known that girls and women talk about guys since high school and I thought you were giving me a "Why don't you google that" thing. Mea culpa.