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Who’s oggling who now?

Jill

This collection of photos is captioned thusly:

Magnum presents a gallery about girl-watching all over the world—a truly universal activity. Be sure to read Troy Patterson’s “A Dandy’s Guide to Girl-Watching” in Slate.

Leaving aside everything skeezy about that description (and the far more uncomfortable “Guide” to watching “girls”), the photo collection itself offers an (unintentionally) interesting look at how we gender the act of watching itself — and who we assume does the watching and who is watched. Take, for example, this image:

A man in a bathing suit stands on an outdoor staircase. A woman dressed in a short and skirt sits at the bottom of the stairs and looks up at him.

He’s the one who is nearly naked, standing against the wall. She’s the one fully clothed, with her head tilted up towards him. But he’s the one “watching all the girls”?

This image too:

Three West Point cadets stand with their backs to the camera; two girls look at them smiling.

We can’t see where those West Point cadets are looking; we assume it’s at the girls, since the girls are smiling and looking back at them. But it’s the girls who look giddy and smitten.

This image, too, seems to be a mutual check-out and not Him Watching Her:

A young woman and a young man look at each other. Her face is turned towards the camera, and his is turned away.

Without going into the gender politics of public watching and of the male gaze and “Men look at women; women watch themselves being looked at,” I think it’s at least fair to say that public aesthetic admiration is not a male-only sport. We’re not all watching people of the opposite sex, either. And if “girl-watching” is a universal activity — and, as a girl-watcher myself, I don’t doubt that it is — then I would suggest that boy-watching is nearly as popular. It’s just not as recognized or emphasized, and it’s not tied to the same kind of social power and commandeering of public space.

15 thoughts on Who’s oggling who now?

  1. Maybe off topic, or not, but has anyone seen Transporter 3?

    It has a couple great moments in which the audience is invited to participate in the female gaze, if maybe a little cartoonish.

  2. I read all three as the woman looking, the man being “looked at.” Not sure what that means, other than “if you can see the eyes=looking”

  4. I think the Slate article makes the generalization about male gaze b/c most of the pictures they feature have a group of men either unilaterally or mutually looking at fewer women, and we don’t get to see most of the men’s eyes.

    Slightly off-tangent, but I’m wondering what people’s take on Ann Friedman’s column on subtle behind-the-back sexism in the Prospect is.

  5. t-ster: I read all three as the woman looking, the man being “looked at.”Not sure what that means, other than “if you can see the eyes=looking”  

    Of course, if you can see the eyes, it means the photographer was likely “looking” too–in two of these three cases, at the women. Who is the photographer?

  6. Given the perspectives we are given in those photos I think all three of them are mutual looking. In the second and their pictures with the (with the camera only getting the back of the men’s heads) I think by the way their heads are tilted I think they are certainly looking at those women.

    (In fact in that second photo I suspect that there is a another woman between the two we see. The guy on the left is looking at said middle woman. The guy in the middle is looking at the woman on the left. The guy on the right is looking at the woman on the right. Mind you this is pure speculation.)

  7. oops.

    ” In the second and their pictures with the (with the camera only getting the back of the men’s heads) I think by the way their heads are tilted I think they are certainly looking at those women”

    should be

    In the second and third pictures (with the camera only getting the back of the men’s heads) I think by the way their heads are tilted I think they are certainly looking at those women.

    I had retyped that a few times and forgot to grammar check it.

  8. I agree that all of these photos show mutual looking, if not outright women-checking-out-guys. I think what those photos in mean in relation to the article is to provide the male reader with a better feeling about the idea of “girl-watching”. If you have an article about looking at women, and feature a bunch of pictures of guys leering, it’s going to bring up some negative associations. If you have the same article, but with photos of women looking at men, it helps make the subject more palatable (implying that ones gaze will be reciprocated and appreciated).

  9. The last two pictures are an example of the classic over the shoulder shot which asks you to see as the see-r sees, in which case the layout of the shot is asking us to identify with the men looking (subject) even if the woman is looking back (object).

    The first shot is probably the most interesting example of gaze, because although we are looking as the woman looks, the placement of the man, as naked as he is, is such that he becomes the subject because of the power differential in the placement of their bodies. Basically this is a picture of a man (subject) looking at a woman, and her body (object) frames the bottom of the photo of him.

  11. Bushfire: I don’t think I believe in a Female Gaze.  

    That’s funny, because as a teen I used to go down to the park with my friends for the sole purpose of gazing at shirtless skater boys while pretending to swing or seesaw.

    1. Bushfire: I don’t think I believe in a Female Gaze.

      That’s funny, because as a teen I used to go down to the park with my friends for the sole purpose of gazing at shirtless skater boys while pretending to swing or seesaw.

      …that’s not “the female gaze.” Females can gaze at men, but it’s not the female equivalent of the male gaze.

      If you need more background, see here: http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/08/26/faq-what-is-the-%E2%80%9Cmale-gaze%E2%80%9D/

  12. All the pictures are women looking at the men, I will agree with you there! Not a bad thing, I’ve done that myself time to time. (Er, day to day. Minute to minute.)

    That said, there seems to be a subtle “It’s OK for women to look at men, but not vice versa” sentiment. Now that, I respectfully disagree on. I like being looked at. Hell, I’d even go so far as to say I like being objectified. It lets me know I look good! And I’ll be honest, when I get dressed and ready for the morning, it’s so that men find me attractive.

  14. @Jill #14: So, I guess you would say that yes, “females gaze” (verb) but there is no “Female Gaze” with caps and a (TM)? I wasn’t sure if that was what bushfire was getting at.

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