Fellas! Has this ever happened to you?
You’re at the grocery store, stocking up on Hot Pockets and Mountain Dew, when all of a sudden you discover a human female in the middle of the Frozen Food aisle with her shopping cart. You point out that she is blocking your access to the T.G.I.Friday’s Cream Cheese Poppers; she apologizes and moves out of your way.
Seems innocent enough, right? NOT SO FAST. This lady may have just HARVESTED YOUR MALE GAZE for her own nefarious purposes, using her ability to get your attention to “wield …power over you for narcissistic or material gain.”
According to Gynocentrism.com publisher Peter Wright, writing for Men’s Rights hate site A Voice for Men, this lady may have been using a SEEKRIT FEMALE TRICK known as THE BLOCKADE.
This happens when you are the target of a woman who wants to slow you down and make you absorb her presence. She will stand in the doorway, middle of the footpath, or in the shopping center aisle sometimes aided by a shopping trolley which she leaves strategically placed across the aisle.
Sneaky sneaky!
If done well, this forces an interaction: âExcuse me, Iâll just move your trolley so I can get past,â to which she replies âOh, Iâm so sorry,â while flashing her most attractive features at you â her favorite dress, beautifully shampooâd hair, or that smile she was famed for in high school.
Damn these wily females and their habit of REGULARLY WASHING THEIR HAIR.
And this is but one of many sneaky male-gaze-harvesting techniques practiced by the modern female.
Men’s Rights Activists have long argued that women secretly control men using the hypnotic power of their sexy,sexy bodies. Warren Farrell, the intellectual godfather of the Men’s Rights movement, famously suggested in his 1993 book The Myth of Male Power that women in the workplace use “miniskirt power” and “cleavage power” to get the better of their male bosses.
When it came time a couple of years ago to pick a new picture for the latest edition of this book, Farrell couldn’t quite decide which sexy female body part he wanted to highlight, ultimately settling on an arty picture of a woman’s butt, apparently the fundamental source of female power over hapless lady-butt-loving men.
But as Wright makes clear, women have much more than butts in their, er, arsenal. Sneaky women can “harvest” the male gaze by:
Wearing brightly colored “hats, shawls and scarfs …Â with the wearers settling for nothing less than complete molestation from every set of eyes in the immediate vicinity.”
Using eye-catching accessories to draw male attention — from handbags to dogs and children. Yes, that’s right. You may have assumed that the woman you saw walking down the street this morning with a small child in tow was simply, you know, being a parent, but in reality she may have been trying to SWIPE YOUR MALE GAZE.
[C]hildren can be fawned over, or chastised, just as a target male walks by, where mother will say âDonât let that nice man see you eating candyâ or âDonât get in the way of the nice man or you might get hurt.â
I’ll take “sentences never actually uttered by any human female for $400, Alex.”
Walking down the street without even so much as glancing in your direction. Yep, it may look like she doesn’t give two shits about you, but smart men know better! Especially if the woman in question HAS ARMS and is wearing CLOTHING and SHOES.
Strutting gorgeously, exuding self-sufficiency with an I-donât-need-a-man look, the strutter has mastered the art of appearing disinterested in attention, while making a distracting physical display of swinging arms, loudly clopping heels, eye catching attire, and a chin-in-the-air look that begs a second glance from the target males.
But wait, you ask, if these strutting women aren’t looking at the men whose attention they want, how can she tell if she’s HARVESTED THEIR GAZES? It’s all done with mirrors. Or at least with shop windows. Wright claims that women tend to use the
Look At Me Strut … in central business district [sic] where she assiduously scans shopfront windows to capture all those reflected male gazes that her empowered strutting dreams of capturing. Her skill at using shopfront windows to look at both herself and the reflected faces of those gazing at her rises up to an artform that allows her to look sideways and yet not trip over when having little focus on the road ahead.
HOW DEVIOUS ARE THESE SNEAKY SIRENS OF CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT?
Other male-gaze-harvesting tricks include: Talking loudly (with friends) talking loudly (to no one in particular), gesturing, and of course “bamboozaling with boobs.” Strangely, Wright omits the old “drop the handkerchief” ploy, which is totally a real thing that doesn’t just happen in old black and white comedies.
Stay safe out there, boys!
@ Skiriki
I hope law enforcement is investigating that creep. I guarantee that he has sexually assaulted at least once, and his daughter is a likely victim.
Imagine being so icky that you want to subjugate an entire gender because it would be the only way you could get laid…
@Axe
…I’ve got a slouch hat. Closest thing to a fedora I own atm.
@rogue angel
Where can I turn them in? Cos the sessions it’s gonna take to finish the one I got yesterday won’t be cheap.
@Dali
Bright/striking color? Doesn’t have the same oomph in dull, gray green
Also, you could totes rock a sun hat. The beige ones with the ribbon, ya know?
@Axe
Black. Slightly faded.
I agree. don’t have one just now though.
Ktoryx:
Gazebo?
@Dali
Yuh huh, that works!
@Jesalin: hugs if wanted.
@Jesalin – the folks at Pride Health (here: http://www.cdha.nshealth.ca/pridehealth) should be able to hook you up. I’m not from NS, but I am an Atlantic Canadian, so I’m pretty aware of resources in the area.
Anddd yeah I totally get you on almost wanting to shove it all into the box. Not knowing… wasn’t exactly bliss, but it was to a certain degree easier. Just this free-floating melancholy without the abject terror of what the fuck is a trans person who needs to travel for work a lot of the time (including to the States) gonna do about transition in the awkward two-years-ish I’ve been told to expect for second puberty (esp considering my voice is currently like one of the goddamn Chipmunks and when it changes that’s gonna be pretty obvious)? Assuming I even have a job after I transition?
And I know I’ve got it easier than trans women who typically face much greater risk of violence and much higher stigma. Like, I’m worried about backlash for me – but for me it’s an “if” whereas for most trans ladies I know it’s a “when/how often.”
If I figure out how to brain pre-transition, I’ll let you know. :\
@LindsayIrene
I managed to sleep, and yet, the memory of that article continues to disturb me to such levels that I want to hurk.
@skiriki I can usually get through articles like this fine, but the look of horror and disgust on my face reading that was so bad that my boyfriend got very worried.
Thank you for the hugs (I actually teared up, and instead of feeling super awkward about admitting that I’m just going to plow on..)
@ischemgeek
I doubt PrideHealth can do anything for me. I’m almost three years into transition, it’s all the so-called “cosmetic” stuff that really gets to me (everything except for hormones/bottom surgery is considered cosmetic, and thus unneeded/unfunded in MtF transition).
Exactly.
I hope everything works out for you!
I love the narcissism of the original article. Simple act of politeness, cloathing covention for young women or familly life is all a ploy to seduce and manipulate them. If a women dress in a arousing manner its for them, not the potential significant other of the women in question or simply because it raises her self-estime. That’s what I found so fascinating and creepy about his article. The world revovles around the author and nothing else. Women aren’t people with an agency, their own idiosyncrasy, contradictions and ambitions. They are both bitter enemies and simple good and valuable that can be purchased and displayed for status. It tell so much more about their own solitude, longing for recognition and near incapacity for honnest self-reflection.
http://i.imgur.com/MNGrXOk.jpg
See? Men obviously can’t drive when evil feeemales are wearing SHORTS.
Why, you can see the back of her knees, the harlot!
I like to store my Male Gazes in my Dread Gazebo.
OT: I saw Get Out today. It was pretty good. You feel very anxious throughout, and concern about how some things can and did go. I feel there was a point that could have been punctuated more and there was comic relief but there may have been slightly too much comic relief (it’s funny but it kinda messed with the tone in some places) but otherwise you guys should really see it. I don’t wanna talk about it any more because I’ll be delving into spoiler territory, but I’m very excited for the other horror films Jordan Peele has planned for the future.
@Paradoxical Intention: omg that story was amazing!! Thank you for the link.
@Jesalin: there are always hugs if you need or want them. Or some really nice pear tea, if you’d rather. Or a slice of ice cream cake i bought for myself for my birthday because my grandma gave me money to do so. It’s only slightly melty! Still good!
I hope you find some help with what you’re dealing with.
@ischemgeek: hugs and slightly melted birthday cake for you as well, if wanted. It’s mango!
@Rhuu
I really appreciate that!!
(Also, pear tea sounds delicious!)
Did I remember to wish you a Happy Birthday? If not, Happy (belated) Birthday!
@Jesalin: I bought it a little while ago, stashed it at home, and promptly forgot about it. I found it a few days ago and was so happy at this present I sent future me! Haha.
Thank you! I think you did, actually. đ
Hmmm. If I’m supposed to be harvesting male gazes for use (what’s the resale value on a stack of that?) using shawls, then I’ll have to learn me some knitting skills and make some shawls like the neat Dragon’s Rest Shawl and the lovely Renaissance Fan Shawl. Pair those with the right outfits, I could likely get a few male gazes even though I’m not in their preferrred subset of women.
Or I could make those (and other just as pretty shawls) for my own amusement and not care about males and their gazes. Might be the smarter move in the long run.
Redsilkphoenix,
Oh, my. That Resistance Fan Shawl is a thing of beauty; it is magnificent.
Happy Belated Birthday, Rhuu!
Whoops, that reminds me….
Happy Belated Birthdat, Rhuu! ? (See if that birthday cake symbol shows up here or not. ETA: it did!) I may have to get one of my dragons to bake you something. If/when I figure out which one(s) are my cooks, that is.
(And one of these days I’ll respond to your message on FR; I keep getting eaten by RL every time I think about it. đ )
Thank you, PeeVee!
Also thanks to everyone else who wished me happy birthday that I didn’t thank back, I think I did but I just realised I might not have. :C It was really nice!
Hmm, in the Masterson related article provided by Weirdwood,
it is written : “three alleged cases of rape or sodomy”. It is written more clearly after in the article that the person was analy raped, but the sentence i quoted gives the impression that sodomy is illegal. Is it the case ?
This is precisely the subject of my favorite Baudelaire poem: A une passante. But Baudelaire, not being a MGTOW, finds pleasure in his brief encounter in the street. Pleasure in exchanging an electric glance with a beautiful woman, but not simply the pleasure of the dominant male gaze. Pleasure in her pleasure at having elicited that gaze. It’s a game they’re both playing, and she wins.
And then he runs back to his mom’s basement and cries. Oh, actually, no. He makes art. And moves French poetry forward by a quantum leap from romanticism to the first glimmer of modernism. What a loser.
@occasional
Sodomy laws were invalidated by Supreme Court case Lawrence v Texas in 2003. By some fluke, the military is still sorta kinda allowed to charge servicemembers with sodomy, but that’s it. There are still sodomy laws on the books (cos queerphobes want to keep em there symbolically), but they have been unconstitutional since 03. Some jurisdictions dropped the specifics and just made sodomy more or less equivalent to sexual assault. Also, sodomy can apply to bestiality
There is a case where (guess which state) Mississippi has been using sodomy laws. They call it ‘unnatural intercourse’, so it’s not technically a sodomy statute. The case centers more on the sex offender registry rather than the law itself tho
I harvest male gazes with my well-turned ankles, which I flash as I alight from my horseless carriage.
This whole thing reminds me of the “sexual harassment” episode of Beavis and Butt-head, in which B&B try to sue a pretty girl for harassment because they feel horny around her.