Response to comment: Celebs cut their hair!!

I'm posting this here because I wrote a really long response in the comments, which I then lost. But I'd also like to hear what other people think about patriarchy. (I'm assuming this is okay with you, Ben, but let me know if not and I'll repost in comments.)

Here's Ben's comment:

"At the risk of being a dissenting voice, I think the notion of patriarchy making you read fashion magazines is a little...well, I mean, I barely know who those people were, so it's got to be something more specific to you.

And, to take the other side, no, I don't feel compelled to read politics magazines either. Whatever is going on with respect to women and fashion these days, I'm going to hazard that they are in some ways as responsible for it as men are for the travesty that is politics.

I was listening to two female critics talk about actresses, and whether or not they've had plastic surgery, and they said, "but we all have that moment that takes us out of the film, when we're like 'yeah, but what about her hair' or whatever. And I thought, "No, no that's just you." Because, honestly, I've just never, ever thought of it. Maybe that (some?) women have that moment is a patriarchal one, but I don't see the male gaze or what have you within that moment itself.

just not our thing, sorry"

***

Well, that's fair enough, I suppose, as an "I don't jive with that" response.

Except that the equation of you (an individual) with patriarchy (a hierarchical social system) doesn't jive. And I never accused men of knowing who female celebs are -- in fact, I'd expect them/you not to, if what I'm saying is at all accurate.

Men have the option of not knowing in a patriarchal culture; white men have the option of not knowing anything at all. (I don't believe you've taken this route, Ben, but some have.) Being a white man is being normal, invisible, individually powerful. White middle-class people (again, I'm not accusing anyone of being middle-class) are the ones who get to talk about individual responsibility, because a straight, white middle-class man is "normal," meaning his privilege is made invisible -- and talking about laziness or oversensitivity or individual responsibility of marginalized groups is a way to keep that privilege invisible.

It's not that we're racist -- it's that they're lazy! It's not that women are reacting to us or the society we've historically presided over, it's that they LIKE to dress up in pretty things and wear high heels and make up! They like paying attention to hair -- it's why they do it! People on welfare are taking advantage of us and need to be stopped! Black people are better at sports and talk funny!

It's only because we have "men's" bathrooms and "women's" bathrooms, not "transsexual" bathrooms! We're not prejudiced, it's just how the system IS.

And there's where I think the male gaze can be seen clearly, even for the ones doing the looking. By "male gaze," I don't mean individual men's eyes looking anymore than Freud meant individual penises when he wrote about the phallus. Women are complicit in the "male gaze," too, and certainly to the extent that we're explicitly policing each other's hairstyles in celeb magazines. But just because it's equal-opportunity-cisgendered heteronormativizing doesn't mean it isn't patriarchy.

If we were free of gender policing, of the kind of heternormative patriarchy that Marxists claimed was inevitable thanks to the capitalist system, we wouldn't make life a living hell for so many transgender people.

The only reason it's set up this way is the "normalness" and invisibility of the white middle class (in modern capitalism). Only in this kind of society could Freud propose such a bizarre system of family alliances that rely on a certain familial structure (two parents, for instance), a certain middle-class hierarchy (dad possesses the phallus, always), a certain middle-class neurosis (power over nurturing or any other covetable value), and find acceptance. When you remove any of those elements, psychoanalysis falls apart -- in fun ways, but completely.

It may be helpful to note here that anthropologists have linked the beginning of women's fashion to the beginning of capitalism: male capitalists, who had power, stopped peacocking around like they'd done during Henry VIII's time and instead showed their wealth through how their women dressed. Men adorned women, more or less, to indicate their wealth to other men -- women were actually dressed to be looked at by other men. The male gaze is absolutely present, and appropriative of women's bodies, in that moment. How could it not be present in all the moments based on that?

Are women not looking at themselves with the same evaluative gaze when they adorn themselves, now? Are women not in the process of evaluating themselves and each other through the imaginary, appropriative stare of those men? Doesn't it seem possible, even likely, that women have merely internalized the male gaze?

Perhaps we've moved beyond this history into something new. I mention consumer culture for no small reason in my original post -- I'm willing to blame capitalism rather than men. But if we have moved on, it's strange that we're doing the same things.

Women are socialized differently, to think about haircuts, to notice dirt and feel the need to clean it up, etc. It's true that women police each other in these things more than men do. But it's certainly not true when men claim "it doesn't matter to me -- it doesn't matter." A man who doesn't need to think about haircuts or the need to clean up after himself is a man with privilege. Such a man is living in a world where women think about their haircuts in relation to how beautiful they can be for their romantic partners, and who have a felt need to do the cleaning necessary for sanitary living. For some reason, these women are reduced by the same society to begging for haircut compliments and nagging about the laundry and the dishes, because that's the vocabulary and power offered to them. The only other option for these haircut-and-dirt-noticing women is to try to stop noticing -- in which case they may still be policed and punished as "not feminine enough" or told they will "never get a man."

But again, all this pales in comparison to the way the whole system comes crashing down on people who, for individual or spiritual or practical reasons choose to define themselves outside of the gender binary entirely. And that's IF we let them define themselves -- in which case, we still pathologize them and then make them (you know, for legal reasons) choose from between "male" or "female."

We've made some progress, such that not all transgender individuals are left jobless and homeless by a vitriolic prejudice, but we're certainly not beyond the "male gaze" yet. Not by a long shot.