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

[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.

[cleverthylacine]

I get the imperious/arrogant thing a lot too. And I'm like, whatever, fuck you, so I guess to a certain extent it is true. But I refuse to believe that femmes must be submissive and demure and ready to fall all over people to accommodate them. I mean, seriously, in these shoes? I don't get $50 manicures so I can scrub your back and polish your ego. :p (Not you personally lol.)

[amadi]

The whole femme = submissive thing? No. Absolutely not. Not this femme. No, no, no.

[cleverthylacine]

See I think that this is a LARGE part of why we really do like each other (at least I think we do ^_^) even though we often have differences of opinion (and I love that we can respect those). Solidarity. <3

[amadi]

Yes! Absolutely!

[cleverthylacine]

I got at 12 on that, but I also saw as I was taking it that it should probably be lower (i.e. I do seek other opinions regarding books/music/movies, but that's not because I don't know what I like, it's because I want to know if there are any gross rape scenes or other triggery stuff) although I am actually a very good actor.

But you know I get punished a lot at work and in most mundane social situations for being that way. My supervisor continually gives me shit for not being able to hide my feelings about things, and I've been fired for that in the past at other gigs.

Ironically I am probably one of the femmiest people you'll know.

I'm not sure this is the same as the image thing though. I do watch myself a lot, especially when I'm dressed up, but I kind of like it. It's not a thing where I'm unhappy and watching myself to make sure I pass societal muster, it's a thing where I'm watching myself to see if I'm presenting the way I want to present at that time. Or a thing where (especially if I am wearing a new dress) I'm just really excessively pleased with the way I look in the moment. (I was doing a lot of that yesterday as I had pulled off a really nice lolita coordinate, or at least in my opinion I had.)