Gender query: Self-consciousness of image

[firecat]

I read a blog called The Beheld.

In this post, "Recommended Reading," Autumn Whitefield-Madrano discusses Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth and recommends some books that "go beyond" and "work alongside" Wolf's book. One of them is Ways of Seeing by John Berger. Whitefield-Madrano includes the following quote from the book:

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. … 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. … Thus she turns herself into an object—and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.

Whitefield-Madrano says that she relates to this quote.

I don't. Sometimes I dress to look and/or feel a certain way, but once I'm dressed, I don't go around constantly surveying myself. And when I do feel that way, I hate it.

So I'm trying to figure out whether this is in fact a part of being a woman or identifying as feminine (and thus my not doing it is part of my being genderqueer) or whether the author maybe doesn't know what he's talking about or is exaggerating what he's talking about (by using terms such as "continually" and "scarcely avoid").

I'd love for people of all genders to comment on this. What is your gender? Do you constantly watch yourself and feel aware of your image of yourself most of the time? Do you think women or people who identify as feminine usually do that?

Ways of Seeing was published in 1972. In what ways do you think enforced image self-consciousness for women or people who identify as feminine has changed since then?

Comments

[rhivolution]

I find this remarkably close to feminist film theory, with regards to 'the male gaze' concept and the idea that women on screen are always the object. Interesting.

As a genderqueer person whose feminine side is relative but who was raised in a FAAB environment, it's soemthing I do have but not all the time. When I do have it, it's very much from a filmmaking/on-screen perspective, but I do have it and dislike it in myself sometimes. Those are the times that I try to look at it 'objectively' (read: from the dominant paradigm) rather than with myself as the viewer of myself.

If that makes sense.

I think less women now, at least from anecdotal experience with friends, think of their behaviour and action as 100% mask/presentation, which I would say is a sociopolitical shift towards some cultures being more emotionally open and that gaze, that claim over others' autonomy, not always being acceptable. But it's definitely not something completely eradicated.

[pipisafoat]

As a genderqueer person whose feminine side is relative but who was raised in a FAAB environment, it's soemthing I do have but not all the time. When I do have it, it's very much from a filmmaking/on-screen perspective
Huh. Me too. FASCINATED.

[owlectomy]

I identify as a woman but (a bit self-consciously) as a woman who has zero interest in performing femininity. There are times when I can relate to that statement but it's usually in a situation where, for example, I'm crying on public transit, or I'm otherwise conspicuous in a way that makes me uncomfortable. Otherwise -- not at all.

[evilawyer]

What is your gender? Do you constantly watch yourself and feel aware of your image of yourself most of the time? Do you think women or people who identify as feminine usually do that?

Female.

No.

No. Going on nothing but my experiences moving through and meeting the people I've met in life, I don't think gender, whether other- or self-identified, is the big factor. I think people who shallowly value looks over personality and intelligence do that, and I haven't noticed a huge correlation between the attitude in question and gender identification. Others, of course, may have different experiences.

[elainegrey]

I recognize that understanding of how women see themselves from movies and novels. It seems familiar: a scene where a female character is practicing looking a certain way, where she's reflecting in inner monologue in text about the way she appears. I think that is why that practice of appearance-awareness seems familiar. (I keep thinking, "Steel Magnolias!") There's the woman character who is "in rollers" or some equivalent, who a moment into the scene gives a horrified, "Oh heavens, i can't believe..." and dashes off stage to reappear shortly coifed and poised.

Me, i can be appearance assessing as i stand infront of a mirror and as i leave the house: how much cat hair? Do my pants look way too short with the shoes and socks? Did i put on earrings? But i would never notice in the middle of things that i'd forgotten to switch a sweatshirt for a more professional sweater or that i had absent-mindedly pulled my hair back in some bizarre way. (After a meeting in the bathroom, "Oh geeze, my hair was like that?")

I'm female and feminine, but some combination of Quaker simplicity, family-of-origin learned practicality, and general geekiness far outweighs that self awareness. I've pondered that i spend so many spoons on taking care of other needs i have that i have no spoons for more than a double check of "Will i appall someone by having horrible hygiene?" and "Am i going to try and present as 'professional' today?"

My knee jerk and probably misogynist assumption is that "those girls," the members of the cliques i could never understand, the ones who seemed to have Ambitions, are trapped by such a frame, but those independent minded folks who are reflective and authentic don't. But

I also think it's a terribly classist frame, because i don't think women picking in the fields, toiling in mills, cleaning bathrooms and emptying trash cans, cooking and washing dishes have time to worry about that. I think it shows up in the "She let herself go" turn of phrase, when the overwhelmed mother has no time to get her nails done.

I'm not saying that i think a woman working in a mill doesn't care how she looks or doesn't dress up and want to look pretty: i'm saying she doesn't have time or energy to wonder if she's seated in such a way that the shadows hide her crows feet or whatnot.

enough!

[laughingrat]

Oo! I agree with you on the appearance bit, but what about all the other ways women are supposed to watch themselves? Mourn decorously; keep your kids in line; don't be too loud; don't be "slutty"; don't be too shy or "cold"; don't be unfriendly; etc. etc. Hmm.

[striped]

I'm a man.

When I was still presenting as female, a lot of the time it felt exactly like the quote describes, like a performance I was watching from the outside. (And I thought that this must be more or less what all women feel, which I've since learned isn't the case.) I've chalked this up to a combination of (1) how that role felt unnatural to me, like an image I had to maintain so that I or others wouldn't know who I really am and (2) how women in general are taught to be conscious of how they look. These days, I might be conscious of whether other people read me as a man or a woman, but I'm nowhere near as conscious of my looks per se. Again, I think it's half male privilege and half that I'm in a role that comes naturally to me, I don't have that much to hide from the world so I don't have to consciously "perform".

[flarenut]

I think it's a cultural thing, but/and I think that it's not necessarily a bad thing per se, it's the inability to escape it that's the bad thing. Oddly enough, I've felt that kind of self-observation more at times of extreme emotional stress, which may be about displacing the discomfort from the actual source to a "how am I appearing" discomfort.

[laughingrat]

I feel like this. I feel like it nearly all the time; the only times I haven't felt like it were brief moments or grace, or times I dressed so anonymously that I could be invisible for a little while. And yes, I hate it. It's a rotten feeling.

We all live in the same culture, but in a way we don't, because temperament, parenting, and local variations can make a huge difference in what everyone takes in and comes away with. Is what they're describing real? Yes. Is your happy lack of such real? Yes. :)

Oh sorry, I forgot--biologically female, raised in a context that involved a lot of gender-policing, current attitude is that gender is a whole lot of socially-constructed BS, but that it's not so easy to rid yourself of the training of a lifetime.

[trouble]

I'm a woman, and the only times I ever feel like this are when I'm about to be seen by my father or when I'm about to go into other very stressful situations. With my father it's because he inevitably comments on my appearance negatively and it's to the point where I refuse to send photos or talk on Skype with him and he doesn't know why, and with stressful situations it's because I'm suddenly very aware that I'm an unattractive woman who says unattractive things and I freeze up and wish I was cute.

[lilacsigil]

Yes, this (though in my case with my mother, not my father)! I used to feel this a lot more, but fat acceptance is an awesome thing, so I no longer police my own voice/appearance/posture unless there's another stressor in play.

[libskrat]

Cis woman-identified woman.

For me it's not so much looks (leaving aside weight issues, which I have liek whoa) as behavior. I've been smacked down PLENTY for wandering outside acceptable feminine behavior norms, particularly in the workplace -- my former workplace was a total sausagefest at the top.

So I learned to be scared of my natural speaking voice (which is low and loud), my natural habit of answering quickly (must defer to the dudebros), and any wish to express anger or frustration, even merely through facial expression.

I found it exhausting, demoralizing, and just plain difficult. I'm ever so much happier in my current job, where most of us are women, and several have similar general demeanor to mine.

[mswyrr]

Oh JESUS. Fellow cis woman popping up to commiserate on having a naturally low/loud voice. I deliberately pitch it higher/softer for strangers so I don't get negative reactions, and it pisses me off so much that it's just easier to do than be myself.

[sofiaviolet]

I am not constantly aware of my own image, but I am semi-frequently aware of my own image. I feel as though I am more frequently aware of my own image than most people, including other women.

Edit: I should note that I don't feel particularly uncomfortable about it and it doesn't feel particularly gender-linked to me. It seems to have much more to do with my fundamental personality and my sense of myself as a subject, the protagonist of my own life. So it's not about thinking "do I look okay? Will other people think I look okay?" so much as it's about pondering myself from dramatic camera angles as I go about my daily life.

[cleverthylacine]

thisthisthisthisthis so much. You and I are both SO the stars of our own memoirs/documentaries. I see this in lindensphinx too :)

[zeborah]

I'm female. I think on the whole I listen to myself more than watch myself. I mostly only think about how I look at the start of the day (am I dressing appropriately), and only about posture etc if I'm, say, teaching or in a job interview or trying to remind myself that slouching at my desk is bad for me. But I frequently listen to and evaluate-on-the-fly my conversations - am I being too wishy-washy, too pushy, too embarrassing, what does my interlocutor think of me.

[jinian]

I'm a woman, on the femme side most of the time. I absolutely do identify with the quote. And, a little shamefully, it's not about looking or behaving correctly; it's about looking better than the other women. I was born after 1972, so it can't have changed all that much.

[wild_irises]

Cis woman-identified queer woman.

This is not true of me, but I think it is true (still) for a huge percentage of "mainstream" women. What I think it is about (w/r/t appearance, rather than the points about behavior discussed above) is believing that men have a right to judge you for your appearance. I don't. I quite literally never have. I was asleep when the "worry about your appearance" card was dealt, and every once in a while that catches me on the ass, but on the whole it's a blessing. But most women got it.

[bitterlawngnome]

Gay male.

To survive where I grew up, I had to be able to act straight enough to not get beaten to death, so I was hyper-conscious about how I was presenting; then after coming out, there was the competitive aspect of being in the fishbowl. I care much less about both, at 47, but they're old habits that die very hard.

My experience with straight men is that although most of them would be unable to articulate it, they equally have a strong sense of whether they are presenting as "too gay".

[bibliofile]

Cis queer female, a geek person who has spent time with techies and hippies and fans. A while ago, though, I decided that it's ALL drag, so I often dress consciously, but I'm not always looking at myself throughout the day.

Growing up, I cared about appearance and then didn't care about it as a form of rebellion, I suppose. Also, I spent most of my childhood in preppy midwestern suburbs, which wasn't my style at all, so I felt less pressure regarding appearance.

As a young adult, however, I became very self-conscious about my appearance whenever I encountered my local women's community. The portions of the lesbian community that I encountered in '80s Chicago seemed to spend significant energy on coding appearance. (The biphobia didn't exactly make me feel at ease, either.)

I'm pretty sure that things would've been different had I grown up in, say, the South or Texas.

(continuing the thought, for coherence)

[bibliofile]

I know that things were different for people even ten years older than I am, much less in my parent's generation. For example, my mom wore girdles and stockings; I wore pantyhose instead, thinking more of stockings and garters as for sex play, not "real life." I wore slacks to job interviews and was surprised to find even one place where the hiring manage even had an opinion about that.

The advent of colored hose and opaque tights over the last twenty years has made life even better for dressing at all femme. It's possible to look acceptably feminine without shaving one's legs! And bare legs are normal for summer for GenX and GenY and Millenials, as workplace dress codes have relaxed tremendously since I started working. I'm not sure what the strictest business wear requires today, though I suspect it still bans bare legs along with open toed shoes and pants made from stretchy fabric....

[staranise]

I feel like this isn't a gender thing, it's a psychological construct that is largely valid in Western society (though changes outside of it) called self-monitoring. Self-monitoring refers to how much people are continually aware of their presentation, its effects on others, and restrict their presentation, speech, and action to limit that effect. People with more social power/privilege tend to be lower self-monitors than people with less privilege/more stigma: they tend not to worry as much about how they come across, and think people should just deal with them "as they are". So men tend to be lower self-monitors than women, American whites are lower self-monitors than blacks, etc etc etc.

But self-monitoring is not an immutable trait, nor is it inherent to a particular identity. It's very context-dependent, can be situationally triggered, and can be altered long-term. I went from being rather a high self-monitor to a lower one (on a scale of 25, I went from perhaps a 23 to a 16) thanks to psychotherapy for social anxiety.

[amadi]

I was thinking this very same thing. I think on that 25 point scale, I'm at a 10 unless circumstances are quite strange.

I'm a cis queer woman with pretensions of high femme presentation -- that is, if it were possible at my size and with my physical limitations I'd strut around like the fat black lovechild of Dita Von Teese and Charlotte Charles 24/7, but even if I did, I wouldn't be watching myself perform myself from a remove, that way.

But I think that my size has always made me a presentation outlaw, and gave me an exemption: I knew that I was never going to conform to most people's expectations in terms of appearance, so I stopped caring about anyone else's opinion and please myself in that regard. And as for behavior, most of the time, I do what I please with no damn given, unless I have no choice. I tend to come across as rather imperious for some people's tastes. I do not care.

[branewurms]

Eta: Cis-woman.

I definitely do this and I hate it. For me it has a lot to do with social anxiety. I do think that women have a tendency to do this, but it's not inherent in being a woman, it's a byproduct of the anxiety we're taught to have over our appearance. (Well, that's a vast oversimplification, and there are lots of reason any person might do this, but speaking in a very general way, that's what I think.)

[cleverthylacine]

I've answered a lot of these so I'll just say here for reference:

I am female, mostly cis (though occasionally sufficiently cis that it stops being cis, and I don't know if that makes any sense, but I've been known to say that my gender is "princess"), bisexual, and so on. Sometimes I feel very masculine and at those times I like to dress the part, but it's definitely a sometime thing and a funsie thing.

[gramina]

I'm basically cis female, and I am only very rarely aware of myself in the way described. I suspect I would be more socially ept if I were, actually, but it just seems like so much work and so much self-consciousness...

I'm interested in that link above, though, and will be curious to see how I test out on the self-monitoring thing.

(Oh, and I was born in 1962 and grew up in the American South, but as a social outsider to a very high degree.)

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

I identify as genderqueer, and don't usually feel this way unless I'm "dressed up" in some way, especially any kind of femme drag. A lot of it has to do with how the rest of the world reacts to me, too. I feel much less observed when I'm not in girl-drag.

[graymalkin13.livejournal.com]

A lot of it has to do with how the rest of the world reacts to me, too. I feel much less observed when I'm not in girl-drag.

This resonates with my experience. I wear baggy, shapeless dresses and birkenstocks whenever I'm out in public because they're the most comfortable option for me physically and emotionally. I don't feel like my outfits are girl-drag. If I were going to dress up in femme drag, I'd add jewelry, stockings, shoes with heels, and makeup. And I'd feel horrendously uncomfortable, and also very much observed, whether people were actually looking at me or not. The self-surveying thing would definitely kick in.

So even people who normally wear dresses aren't necessarily in girl-drag! I never thought of it in those terms before. I love it!

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

I do feel that way all the time, but I have no way of telling whether that's because I'm a woman, because I'm femme, or because I'm a recovering bulimic.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I identify as "mostly female" and "geek girl". In my usual state of being dressed like an engineer (i.e. clothes that are comfortable & practical & cover the parts that make people scream if seen in public), definitely not. If I'm dressed up in girl clothes, especially traditional middle class woman clothes (e.g. at a family wedding) rather than my own preference of lolita-goth, absolutely. The more uncomfortable I am (both physically & socially), the more I feel like I have to watch myself.

I think I've established that the constant vigilance needed for traditional smart woman clothes is so bad for my mental health that I shouldn't ever do a job that requires them. Which is interesting, because I hadn't ever put that into words before now.

Does this answer your question?

[graymalkin13.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, YES!!!!! to all of this!

[bunnybutt.livejournal.com]

I identify as cis-female, and I have worked very, very hard to get past and beyond that sort of self-surveying and focus instead on actually experiencing the moment.

I credit a lot of therapy, fat-acceptance work, and, ironically, a brain injury, with my no longer engaging in that behavior.

[graymalkin13.livejournal.com]

I'm not current with genderqueer thought and writing, but I'll do my best to respond to this. I remember reading Ways of Seeing decades ago, but can't remember anything about the book. I think I liked it a lot at the time. The quote Whitefield-Madrano pulled out is conceptually consistent with the radical feminist theory I was reading in the 1980s and in that context, it still strikes me as well observed and well expressed. In other words, before feminism brought this constant self-auditing into the light, I think most women (probably including trans-women) in my culture and many others lived this way without even being aware of it. I believe that a lot of women still live this way. I would be interested in knowing whether this quote describes the experience of people of genders other than mine.

I am pansexual cis female. I would say I have a mostly feminine appearance. (By which I mean that I wear dresses 100 percent of the time and keep my hair as long as it will grow, but I don't wear makeup or non-flat shoes or nylons. I don't shave anywhere and I don't remove the small amount of facial hair I have.) But I experience myself as an androgynous being, not invested in "being a woman." I have various drives and fantasies that are considered "masculine" in my culture.

For much of my life, I often experienced what Berger describes. Even after exploring radical feminism and identifying with it, I was aware of my image most of the time. When I began to gain weight rapidly because of illness, my self-awareness turned into harsh self-criticism. It took years of work and interaction with the fat-acceptance community to find some acceptance of my body as it aged and my appearance became less "desirable."

These days, I'm not constantly surveying myself. I'm comfortable in the clothes I wear and I'm not trying to think of ways to "improve" my appearance (for example, by coloring my gray hair). My appearance is what it is, and I'm only conscious of it if someone comments on it. It's a much more serene way to live than the self-consciousness I had when I was younger.

In what ways do you think enforced image self-consciousness for women or people who identify as feminine has changed since then?

I'd guess that since the feminist discussion of "feminine" appearance entered mainstream culture (became more accessible to more women), it has created space for women to play with their image if they choose to do so -- even in small ways such as wearing green nail polish. So their image-consciousness could become pleasurable. It has also created the option of working to stop the constant self-surveying, by putting forth the idea that it's OK and liberating to do so.

As a side note, I find the notion of "people who identify as feminine" puzzling. It's not just because "feminine" has so many potential definitions. It's also because I don't think I've ever known well anyone who fits that description. I know people who identify as female, and people who prefer to look like the cultural standard of "feminine," but I really can't claim to understand people who specifically identify as feminine.

[clawfoot.livejournal.com]

I identify as female (cis), and I do the self-monitoring thing quite a lot, although I won't say "constantly."

I really can't tell, however, if I do it because I'm female, because I'm fat, or because I'm fat-female.

Probably "yes."

[mama-hogswatch.livejournal.com]

While not at the geisha level, I am conscious of how I present myself. I identify as a woman. I choose the word over female because of the mother-image part that goes along with it with my own self-identity. Few people would say I'm exactly a model of traditional femininity.

I think my image consciousness is less being female and more the lower-middle class "respectability" influence of my paternal grandmother. If you're a Discworld fan, the woman was Cockbill street all the way.


Unlike the Shades, though, Cockbill Steet was clean, with the haunting, empty cleanliness you get when people can't afford to waste dirt. For Cockbill Street was where people lived who were worse than poor, because they didn't know how poor they were. If you asked them they would probably say something like 'mustn't grumble' or 'there's far worse off than us' or 'we've always kept uz heads above water and we don't owe nobody nowt'.

He could hear his granny speaking. 'No one's too poor to buy soap.' Of course, many people were. But in Cockbill Street they bought soap just the same. The table might not have any food on it but, by gods, it was well scrubbed. That was Cockbill Street, where what you mainly ate was your pride.

What a mess the world was in, Vimes reflected. Constable Visit had told him the meek would inherit it, and what had the poor devils done to deserve that?

Cockbill Street people would stand aside to let the meek through. For what kept them in Cockbill Street, mentally and physically, was their vague comprehension that there were rules. And they went through life filled with a quiet, distracted dread that they weren't quite obeying them.

People said that there was one law for the rich and one law for the poor, but it wasn't true. There was no law for those who made the law, and no law for the incorrigibly lawless. All the laws and rules were for those people stupid enough to think like Cockbill Street people.

...

The gods had made the people of Cockbill Street poor, honest and provident, Vimes reflected. They might as well have hung signs saying 'Kick me' on their backs and had done with it. Yet Cockbill Street people tended towards religion, at least of the less demonstrative kind. They always put a little life by for a rainy eternity.