“He feeds upon her face by day and night,//And she with true kind eyes looks back on him”- Christina Rossetti, “In an Artist’s Studio” (1894)
Have you ever felt objectified by the leering eyes of a male stranger? I have and this is my story. Okay, so, let me set the scene for you. It was the end of summer on a sunlit day. I was out walking around my neighborhood, feeling the music in my headphones, and immersing myself in the purifying afternoon air. A smile wiggled on my face as I mouthed the words of the feel-good tune distracting my eardrums. My cheeks were raised to the blue sky for it to powder them with its milky clouds. I was planning what meal I was going to gift to my body, something loaded with cheese and salt, satisfying.
I was nearing the end of my walk, and so I turned the corner on the sidewalk by my house, and that’s when I saw him, an older man standing on the sidewalk before me. I met his bagged eyes, which jumped wider as a slim grin twitched the crinkled skin by his lips, which I tried to not pay much attention to. My eyes hit the pavement, and I increased my pace. He held a can of beer in his paw and in the other, he was dragging a cigarette like a piece of string that looked like it could snap from too much flailing. He had fuzzy, felt-looking grey hair that peaked out of his worn baseball cap as his head slowly swiveled to follow me cross the street to the other side of the sidewalk. His body turned to face me moving across the way.
I glanced back over my shoulder, and he was taking sips from the can, but making sure not to tip it to his mouth at too severe of an angle as to cut off his view of me. That’s when I understood what I was to him, another subject of his male gaze. He wore baggy jeans and a blue, starchy shirt that stretched by his beer gut. And I guess I should also tell you what I was wearing, and it was none of his damn business.
I was wearing what I wanted to on that sunny day. I was wearing what made me feel beautiful and confident. I was wearing clothing that reminded me of happy times. I’ll tell you what I wasn’t wearing, and it was clothes in which I was asking this stranger to gawk at me as if I was his afternoon entertainment. I am grateful this situation didn’t escalate into something even more horrific, but I want to make clear that how this man made me feel, like an object for his consumption, is disgusting and never okay. If you have experienced anything similar to this experience of mine, I want you to know that I believe your story. You are a strong, beautiful, and valued person who deserves to be treated with respect. And if I ever do become another subject of a male’s gaze, well, sorry Christina, but my eyes won’t be so true and kind this time around.