Looking ugly for the male gaze

Last week I left my apartment wearing, for the first time in months, heels, a dress, and makeup. I knew this was a risk that would likely attract unwanted attention, but I thought the sound of my heels against the sidewalk might snap me out of a dissociative void and anchor me within my surroundings. Plus, I walk faster when I’m feeling confident about the way I look. 

I made it 650 metres before a man did a double take—trapping my body inside his locked gaze as he approached the corner where I waited to cross Spadina Avenue. I remember thinking, “I should have looked uglier today,” as the walk sign lit up. I could still sense his presence behind me a block later, though I assumed I was overreacting until, after two blocks, he overtook me and cut off my line of sight. “Excuse me, can I ask you a question?” I mumbled something in response, already eyeing escape routes, making lists of what those around me were wearing so I could single someone out and avoid the bystander effect, if necessary. He showed me his phone, and I skimmed the sentences he had composed above an illustration of a rose drawn with the app’s highlighter tool. I absorbed “beautiful” and “coffee” and “treat you” before I mumbled something else I no longer remember and hurried away.  

I don’t know why this experience in particular was so unsettling. It’s just another addition to a long list of examples many of us have. The time a man followed me home from the bar and I let him into my residence because I didn’t know if he would hurt me otherwise. The stranger who used to follow me to school several times a week. The man in London who chased me back to my hostel at 2 am when I told him I wouldn’t take his money for sex. I was 15. 

Leaving the house instigates a series of choices I must make to navigate a world that has commodified my body, no matter how I present it. Consider mascara, heels, tights as simultaneously coverings and accentuations. Consider the influence of socialization, the inability to ever measure its extent. Consider the underlying question of whether “it’s even possible for women to reclaim their sexuality in this deeply entrenched patriarchal society, or if claiming to do so is just a lie we tell ourselves so we can more comfortably cater to the male gaze,” asked in passing in a cartoon about a talking horse named Bojack Horseman.   

When I feel like I look good, I know it’s based on the way I’ve been socialized to recognize beauty. Often, the reality is that feeling good about the way I look also means warding off more unwanted attention—but even when I try to fade into the background, there is no guarantee that I will succeed. How do I reclaim my own body when it belongs to the public whenever I leave the house? How do I feel safe when I am public domain by default? Most days I want to look ugly because I think it will protect me. But I am still catering to the male gaze—it structures my life through my attempts to avoid it.