Hear, hear! It was very odd to see that bizarre comment on prawfs. I think even the men were uncomfortable and not quite sure how to deal with it. (I know I was, hence an attempt to joke it off.)
I think part of the remedy for the kind of ignorance that sees it as appropriate to sexualize a female professor in a one-line comment is for more women to speak, as you are in this post, of their own experiences with gazing and being gazed. Because it is ignorance -- a lot of the post-hoc rationalization for that kind of comment sounds like "but I'd be flattered if she said it about meeeee!"
Hi Prof. Gowder,
Thanks for stopping by! I agree that more speech is the response to rude speech. I suppose another option would be fuming silence or "turning the tables" retaliation (but isn't that just co-optation?), but I was never one to be silent or succinct.
I too fall into "I'd Rather Defuse This With A Bad Joke" category, about which I felt guilty when my wife told me how inappropriate she thought the comment was.
This is more than "pretty good" (see PrawfsBlawg comment). What a thoughtful, funny, human, beautifully written essay. Without compromising itself, and avoiding stridency, blame , or rationalization, it tries to go outside itself (the original meaning of "ecstasy" by the way), to struggle with, if not reconcile, those mysteries of mind and body we all encounter every day.
Thanks very much for your kind comments Jeff, I really appreciate them. Blogging is like shouting in the dark, one-handed clapping, or a tree falling in the forest--is anyone listening?
I definitely second what Jeff just said. WRT Simon's A3G comparison, not only is everything you said true, but it represents kind of a willful avoidance of the context of the remark. A3G is some kind of a satire site (personally, I've never understood the appeal), not a place where one would ordinarily expect to find serious responses to the profiles of academics.
(p.s. -- not prof -- yet -- I'm doing something similar to what I gather from this blog you're doing, veering down the phd route.)
What if a male reader sees a picture of a rather attractive law professor, and although he may respect her work, thinks only "wow, she's hot." Is he then ignoring her intellectual acomplishments and sexually objectifying her physical form? Is he, like most patriarchal society valuing only one part of the woman above others?
Oh come on, let's be fair. I said she was easy on the eyes as well. I was duly impressed by her CV.
No longer is she cum laude this, or editor of that--she's just a pretty face.
Not true at all, she is both!
While the male gaze objectifies and sexualizes, the female gaze is "emmasculated," that is powerless....I would argue that while the male gaze is a reflection of male patriarchy's very real political, economic and social power over women, the female gaze lacks that same power (thanks to the patriarchy, of course). Thus, were a female reader of a blog/article see a male professor's picture and think/comment "Wow, he's hot," it wouldn't be the same objectification. In fact, her response might be diminished and patronized as being mere "schoolgirlishness."
I believe my comment was referred to as "assholishness" and "teenage-boy media drivel."
The male gaze communicates sexual and political power, the power to strip a woman of her intellectual credentials and essentializing her into a sexualized trope.
But who is this "power" exercised over? Am I actually stripping away her credentials? No. To the extent that I am doing it at all, I do it only in my own thoughts. (Which is all I really have "power" over anyway.) Now if my remark stimulates similar thoughts in others, can I be blamed?
I will admit that, being human, in my human desire to know the face of my author or interlocutor, I have on many occasion personally remarked to myself their physical attractiveness. I am human. But I would never make such a remark on a public forum in which such a remark would not be relevant.
And that makes my remark inappropriate and even rude. It would be also rude to compliment a scholar on her brilliant work at a funeral, but it's hard to say that something is fundamentally wrong when you would say something similar in a different time and place.
While the male gaze objectifies and sexualizes, the female gaze is "emmasculated," that is powerless....I would argue that while the male gaze is a reflection of male patriarchy's very real political, economic and social power over women, the female gaze lacks that same power (thanks to the patriarchy, of course). Thus, were a female reader of a blog/article see a male professor's picture and think/comment "Wow, he's hot," it wouldn't be the same objectification. In fact, her response might be diminished and patronized as being mere "schoolgirlishness."
Playing off this for a moment. I'll accept that as true generally. But isn't it at least partially contextual? That is, if I (white male me) am in a room full of feminists, does that effect the power dynamics at all? I think--disavowing the question of whether they are applicable in the present case--there are contextual concerns that come into play and need to be addressed. The situation in mid-range structures can be different from both the superstructure and the individual level, and we'd do well to remember that as a general (not specific to this case) point.
Chris,
Feminist literature re "the male gaze" argues that it essentializes only one part of a woman, that is her physical and sexual qualities such that it diminishes the consideration of her other qualities. So a male employing the gaze, while not in reality "stripping away her credentials," does reduce (at least in that instant of estimation, i.e. in your "own thoughts") her other qualifications.
And if your remark stimulates a similar reaction in others, are you not then responsible for having caused the first distraction away from the consideration of the woman as an intellectual being? A part of fighting against patriarchy is recognizing your role in perpetuating it, however well-intentioned or inadvertant.
But thank you for stopping by and I appreciate your comments.
Feminist literature re "the male gaze" argues that it essentializes only one part of a woman, that is her physical and sexual qualities such that it diminishes the consideration of her other qualities. So a male employing the gaze, while not in reality "stripping away her credentials," does reduce (at least in that instant of estimation, i.e. in your "own thoughts") her other qualifications.
Well, yeah. I mean let's be serious; it is a gaze after all. It's in the nature of a gaze that it focuses on physical attributes. (A gaze that focused on someone's inner thoughts or credentials would be quite a look!)
Men look at women. Men evaluate women's looks. Men might even do this more often and more rapidly than women. (Never having been inside a woman's thoughts, it's hard for me to know.)
I still fail to understand how it follows that these actions make men appreciate other qualities less; how it "diminishes the consideration of her other qualities."
I can't help deciding whether a girl is pretty or not, it's my automatic reaction, but it's separate from my evaluation of whether she's intelligent and humorous.
Chris Schmitt,
The Jerk Who Started it All
You're welcome to internally decide whether she's pretty, Chris, but respectfully, why not keep your judgment to yourself, or perhaps send her a private e-mail to that effect? Certainly that would have been far more appropriate. What purpose does commenting on her looks in that context serve? Or are you a victim of Turrets and simply have no control over what you type, and thus leave randomly spewed "stream of conciousness" comments across the blogosphere? If that's the case, your posts must be quite entertaining. Perhaps I'll google your name when I'm in need of a pick-me-up.
And, Belle, great post. I referred to it at my blog here: http://sidebar.blogspot.com/2006...sy-on-
eyes.html
Blogger doesn't allow trackbacks, so kindly consider this to be a trackback.
"Pretty" women may be hired as secretaries over "unattractive" women, but it "may be a liability when women seek male sex-typed" employment" (think higher paying, "traditionally male," and managerial positions).
The study that this comment is linked to concludes that the 'beauty is beastly' hypothesis is not supported by this original study or in the literature. Saying that it 'may be a liability' ignores the empirical evidence that you link to.
Brilliant. I'm always glad to see guys called out on this sort of thing because every little bit helps change the world. Gals' looks are not there as a service to the viewer, and commenting on them when they are not the subject under discussion implies otherwise.
Came here via the Carnival of Feminists, fwiw
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