Hello ladies (current and former) of Lemmy (current) - I’m curious how your experience of the male gaze has changed as you moved in and out of young-woman-hood.

How has your opinion of being seen changed through this process?

  • Pandantic@midwest.socialEnglish
    6·
    12 days ago

    I think it’s about power or a different mindset (as in, “they will take it as a compliment”). And the “Bitch” was only after I didn’t turn around to look at them when they yelled the “compliment”, I think. They didn’t get the response they wanted so they determined I was a bitch.

    • Clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      4·
      12 days ago

      I try to do drive by compliments, but not while literally driving … Just stuff like “cool hat!” and walk off so they don’t need to respond or engage with me.

      I would like to be told I have a nice ass, but that’s because it doesn’t happen (even though I think I deserve it). It sounds like being hit on often cheapens it.

      • Pandantic@midwest.socialEnglish
        3·
        12 days ago

        I do drive-by compliments too, especially if someone is sporting a fandom I like. I think it’s different when it’s a stranger complimenting a body feature - it implies sexual attraction which can feel objectifying and, unfortunately in the world we live in, unsafe. I don’t know this person, I just know they felt comfortable enough to anonymously shout a comment about a sexual part of my body, so what else do they feel comfortable enough to do?

        • Clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          2·
          11 days ago

          Gotcha. Yeah, I would never comment on a stranger’s body/face/smell. Even if I don’t mean anything by it, creepy is in the eye of the beholder.