Catcall Culture: Navigating the Unwelcome Male Gaze
Thank you, no thank you.
Trigger warning: this post includes brief mention of sexual assault near the end. Please read with care.
Sex and Style is written by Somatic Sex Coach Sarah Ward. This is intended as general advice. If you’d like a personalized guidance, I’d be honored to connect with you in a discovery session.
There’s this thing that happens to women as they age: They begin to be a little more invisible than they were before.
This is the premise of the novel Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray. A mother of two children wakes up one day and realizes that she is invisible. And no one seems to notice — not her husband, not her children, not her community. So she stops going to work. She stops wearing clothes. And she stumbles upon other invisible women in the process. (It’s a great read.)
After decades of unwelcome advances from men, Part of me can’t help but think that a degree of invisibility might be welcome.
The modesty training I received growing up in the Mormon church told me that men wouldn’t be able to restrain themselves if they saw my shoulders, or thighs, or the small of my back. What power we women seem to wield over the opposite sex. The church inadvertently taught me that my body is a weapon I can wield: for good or otherwise.
Like scripture of Spiderman reads, with great power comes great responsibility. It became a young woman’s responsibility to clothe herself thoroughly to protect herself — and him — from the carnal urges he would be powerless to keep at bay. Thus making her responsible for whatever came next.
When I opted out of Mormonism, modesty was the first thing to go. Hello shoulders! Hello world! The jigsaw puzzle of being both stylish and modest (no small feat) was no longer my concern. But it wasn’t without its price.
Enter the hungry male gaze, stage left. Like a bloodhound, it can sniff out exposed skin a mile away.
As Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes says:
“Anywhere there is beauty, the predator shows up.”
Scroll down for social proof.
One
I’m wearing a cropped dress shirt from Banana Republic with high-waisted paper-bag pants and feeling good. As I walk into my local coffee shop where they know me by name, a man comes up behind me.
“Here, let me fix this,” he says, inviting himself into my personal space to adjust my outfit to his liking, pulling down the shirt to tuck it into my waistband.
I’ve never seen this man in my life.
I am so caught off guard that I freeze. And then I fawn: the nice girl comes out and mumbles some sort of thank you. In my shock, I don’t know how to respond.
Wtf?!
“What was that about?” another man asks as we stand in line for lattes. He is as incredulous as me. It feels validating to have someone else recognize this unwelcome behavior. It’s not all in my head.
Sure, I’ve done my fair share of tucking an visible clothing tag in for another woman. It’s different, woman to woman, or gay man to woman. There’s a kindness in this type of grooming. We’re helping a sister out.
This is different.
May the record show. Strange men do not have consent or permission to touch my body. I am a Stylist. And even if I wasn’t, I don’t need you “fixing” my outfit. Hands off.
Touch is a privilege that has to be earned.
Two
Another day I’m watering the garden outside my downtown townhouse. It’s blisteringly hot and I’m wearing short shorts when I hear a woof. There are plenty of dogs in my neighborhood, so it barely registers. The woof sounds again. I look up to see a strange man on a bike ogling me from the end of my block… and woofing. At me.
Has that ever worked on a human woman before?
I flee, escaping to the safety of my flat — but not before mumbling an apology: “I’m sorry, I need to go.”
An apology for what? For wearing short shorts (on my own property) that causes this man to descend into animal mating calls? I’m not responsible for someone else’s feelings or actions.
That nice girl training dies hard though. And inconveniently shows up at the most inopportune times.
I would much rather tell these men to go fuck themselves instead of being demure.
Three
On Meta, a classical pianist I used to know slides into my DMs. He sees that I’m a Sex Coach and without preamble, starts speaking to me in sexually explicit ways. We barely knew each other in another life.
I have my wits about me. “This is inappropriate and unwelcome. You need to stop.” He doesn’t listen and even seems to delight in my discomfort. He turns up the heat with his revolting remarks.
I block him and report it to Meta. Nothing is done about it.
This is not an uncommon story. During the writing of this, Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction is overturned.