Hazards of being female at large

[bluescreen]

I didn’t insult him back; I didn’t ignore him either. Instead, I went up to the mirror, and became an object to myself

This excellent article by Joanne Limburg describes what it's like for so many of us, having to consider how we present and how we are judged.
unbound.com/boundless/2018/08/14/what-was-virginia-woolf-afraid-of/

Brilliant - thanks for posting Bluescreen.
My wake-up call was John Berger 'Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves.'
I'm old and officially don't give a bugger any more but reading this I realise that am actually incapable of not watching myself. Which is bloody irritating.

I seldom watch myself any more. I wrote recently on another thread how lovely it is to reach an age when I get ignored. The male gaze slips off me.

I dress how I like and often don't check the mirror when I go out. This has some weird outcomes. I worked from home for many years so I don't dress for the office.

When I was affluent (I'm not now) I wandered into a shop to check out some pricey electronics. The woman in the shop came over and said quietly that I wouldn't be able to afford them. I was so surprised I just left. When I got home I had a look and registered that I looked like a bag lady.

Then there was the time I got very obviously followed by a store detective. In the lightbulb aisle at B & Q FFS.

oldstyle Reading John Berger was a big lightbulb moment for me too. He got it exactly right.

Yes yes John Berger.

Yes to being ignored. I’m middle aged now but am currently on holiday wearing a flattering item of clothing. I have attracted Male gaze for the first time in years. I craved it as a young girl. Now this brief reprise is showing me how unpleasant it is.

As a young woman I was once frump-shamed in an appraisal at work so the piece resonates.

As a younger woman I was never 'classically attractive', nor did I make any effort to make myself so (didn't care). Now I'm post-menopausal, I don't even notice what a lot of my women friends have called their 'new invisibility' - though I have noticed a recent, bizarre trend when I'm at the gym: older men want to 'banter' with me. As I'm extremely stand-offish with men of all ages (apart from kids, to whom I'm probably now the crazy old trout who keeps talking to them), this annoys me.

I've always been a bit of a shabby dresser, so have mostly been overlooked by the male gaze. I work for myself, so whilst I'm clean, I wear what's comfortable and I rarely, if ever, look in my full length mirror. The bathroom mirror is used to check my teeth for spinach. I'm sure I look like the stereotypical bag lady at times. I don't give a toss. I'm very happy being me.

Ironically, the person who judges me the moist, ow my mother is dead, is a polished, glamorous and perfectly turned out friend of mine. She says little, just the odd comment about how I'm naturally a thin person (under the fat I'm carrying), she gives me make up items she says don't suit her, but would "calm down" my rosy cheeked complexion, she talks about how thin she is and how she wishes she was able to put on weight, like me. I know what she's doing, and I know how to steer our conversations onto our shared enjoyments of theatre, history and music, but it is tirig, and it is making me reluctant to spend time with her. It doesn't make me feel bad. My husband finds me irrisistable so I can't be Shrek, but sometimes I just cannot be arsed to gird my loins and the stretches between our meetings are getting longer.

Moist??? Most!! Most!!

Yes!

I have frequent moans to dp about how much easier it is for him to get dressed than me.

I find the emotional work of choosing clothes every day very tiresome.

I had an interesting experience last night. I was walking home alone about 10.30pm. I stopped outside a Fringe venue to look at the what is on board. The venue was closed. It is a large standalone venue standing in its own grounds , which are on both sides of the building so no houses on this section. The rest of the street is residential apart from a couple of offices , which were obviously closed and a hotel some distance away. There was no one else out.

Someone came up behind me and put their arm round my shoulder. I screamed, as you would expect. The person who did this was a woman in her 30s. I shouted don't creep up like that. She just laughed. I said, I don't know you do I? (vaguely thought it might be a neighbour or even an employee I didn't recognise ) She said , no I didn't know her.

I walked on quickly and she followed me still laughing. As I sped up so did she. I said - are you following me?. She said she was- so what? why I was making a fuss?. I crossed the street to the side where the houses were. She eventually turned off into a side street.

I wonder if she would have done that to a man? I have lived in cities all my adult life. I've never been groped or cat called or followed like this.

God, how creepy, Lass. I'd assume she was on E.

Good article.

My natural looks are "patriarchy approved" and I hated the attention from randoms etc. The intrustion, the obvious looks, staring, the following and the comments and the shouting and the beeping and all of it. Hated it.

I have hit the age of invisibility now and I feel so much more comfortable and confident in my own skin, now that I do not have these eyes on me all the fucking time. The only other time it happened was when I was very heavily pregnant - I felt that something was different and it was on on the tube in a crowd when a man was looking and then he saw my belly and it just switched off, that I realised what was so nice. The male gaze was gone.

And then I thought - for most men - men who are not unusually tall, unusually short, unusually something, this much be what it's like all the time. Able to go about your business unintruded upon, unstared at, uncommemted, no-one coming and sitting next to you in the bus / pub / tube and talking at you and expecting you to smile prettily and be polite and getting angry when that wasn't what you did when they didn't take a hint...

Yes it's lovely.

Bloody hell Lass what a horrible experience my heart would have been pounding.
Longing for September & some normality to return to Edinburgh! the book festival can stay