a woman's body is soft porn.

the passivity of sexual harassment, the brainwashing of the word "beautiful", and a little bit of shakespeare.

This essay is written with “we” as a means to connect the women readers of this piece. If you do not identify as a woman I hope you can take this language as a means to understanding the bond young women must form in order to reject the roles placed upon them.

My jeans are the only thing creating space between my body and the grimy seats of the streetcar. My purse is in front of my stomach, my jacket wrapped around my chest, and my head down. These are precautionary measures so as to keep a low profile. They are now the unconscious steps I take to avoid the looming presence of the man just a few seats away.

The man sits diagonally from me. The man x-rays the purse off of my stomach. The man unwraps the jacket around my chest with his eyes. The man makes me look up from the floor, but he quickly turns his head to the street outside as if he’d never noticed me in the first place.

All art used in this essay is by Gerard Dubois

I exist in this world to be stared at. “Everyday-makeup” is not “self-expression”. I conceal myself so I can seamlessly slot into the crowd of this streetcar like all the other women around me. I cover up pimples and expose the parts of my body I am convinced are beautiful and hide the ones that are not. I line my lips, colour my nails, and say thank you each time I leave a retail store. I am not confident in the “beautiful” parts of me, I am brainwashed to just exist in this park, this library, and this streetcar for the entertainment of others. And so are you.

They start us young. They give us dolls like some sick version of a practice round. Brush their hair, change their dresses, take them to cafés with a friend and learn manners. Learn. Learn how to belong. Learn how to look beautiful. Say the word, over and over again. Beautiful. Beautiful. Look beautiful. Come on, ten more times now. It won’t lose meaning, because to be unattractive is a sentence to a lifetime of social rejection. The only way to exist in this world unscathed is to be beautifully beautified—that’s the biggest lie they told. This knit sweater, modest and unassuming, does not stop the fact that I am a young woman and I am here.

Everyone is unwrapping each other like chocolate bars. Greedy. I do it to. I guess it’s unintentional. But, some people just have a bigger sweet tooth. There are two kinds of cravings, one that takes you to the pantry at 2am, orders something other than a salad and promptly says, “this is going straight to my thighs”. The other is just as villainous, just as violent, it is the male kind. The one that’s been around decades longer than me and you, and hopes that staring at a young girl will bring him closer to his “good old days”.

As I read the words of that previous sentence, I reflect on just how much I avoided saying what I meant with flowery language and a candy-wrapped metaphor. They want to have sex with me. With girls like me. Did that make you uncomfortable? It made me uncomfortable. Why don’t we say it out loud? We are walking soft porn for the men around us to lap up. Hunting dogs, hound dogs—they know what they want. It’s only when they break into the pantry that it’s wrong, but, staring at it from afar? Now, that’s within the rules. They just “look with their eyes”.

Shakespeare says, “all the world’s a stage”. Not sure whether William knew he was contributing to my feminist agenda, but nonetheless, this 400 year old quote is more than relevant; as women, we are watched. It doesn’t start the minute we turn 18, instead, the world puts hidden surveillance on our every move the moment we are born and wrapped in a pink baby-blanket. That blanket becomes our armour.

I was eleven the first time I was told I had “child bearing hips”. I didn’t understand what they really meant. From that day on I lived with the knowledge that I had curves, it was only through harassment and unwanted observations that I realized what that means for me as I walk about the world. We all have that thing that defines how we look, no matter how much we love it or hate it. So, we are told to revel in the beauty of our youth, as if this beauty dwindles each day we survive. Curves or not, I won’t accept the idea that I should love how I look now because I will “never be this young again”. I will not love who I am because of the presentation I put together each day before I leave the house. Beauty is a construct made to confine women. You aren’t having a good day just because your skin, your body, or your hair finally fits the agenda the world tells us we must abide by.

I find myself wanting to accentuate the accepted parts of me. Tying my t shirt in a knot or adding a belt for a “more flattering look”. We are lied to, made to believe that their is power in beauty. There is privilege in beauty but there will never be power. Not until a young woman can enter a streetcar and feel an absence in place of the wandering eyes of a man three times her age, just a few paces away from her.

I try to control the amount in which I tell women in my life that they are beautiful. It is not that I believe that they are undeserving or I am unwilling to show love—they are most definitely deserving. But, I only want to empower the women in my life. The context which comes with these “compliments” aims a gun at their forehead. When I notice someones physical beauty I try to take a step back. If I verbally acknowledge this, the gratification for the woman may last for a day, a week, a year. She may find the thing she did differently that day and do it every morning, in search of validation from women like me, to praise the time she takes for herself. The idea of “self-care” the media presents, the one ridden with charcoal face masks and brazilian wax appointments, are about caring to be accepted not caring for yourself. So, one day this woman will look in the mirror and tear herself apart, she will be on the hunt for a clue, something to tell her whether she is still worthy of those words. “You look beautiful”, even when said in earnest, packs a patriarchal punch that begins with a burst of flattery, but when taken apart it reveals that it thrives off corrosive ideologies which begin and end with the oppression of women through the gaze of others. “You look beautiful” is a reminder that we are all watching. You are watching yourself just as much as the man a few seats away.

“You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur”

- Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride

I try to change my wording, as an act of restructuring. I try to say, “you are beautiful”. I don’t want to “look beautiful” I want to “be beautiful”. Beauty should be about being (If I write long enough I’ll just have to quote Hamlet, but I’ll refrain). If this beauty can begin to live within me rather than being a delicate sheet placed forcefully over me, maybe beauty can become synonymous with more than a means of presentation—maybe beauty can become our whole selves. Each day, we have lived within the unconscious confines of the feminine existence, one in which expression lives on a limited spectrum. Funky glasses, brown mascara or a dark red lipgloss might be “in” right now—whether you like it or not—but in no time it will be like it was never there. We as women must live in a limbo, ready to adapt, to consume on a rapid level, all in an effort to appease the mindset of men. It’s as if there is a rule book, where nothing is written down, it’s said through comments and gazes that imply something more than the oxford dictionary can convey.

There was a shift from the male perspective onto my own meditations on femininity, if you have made it this far, I hope this intentionality becomes apparent. As women, gaining consciousness of the barriers we exist between, which the mass majority of us do not give a second thought to, is the first step towards rejection. Just knowing you live within an inclosure created by the likes of someone outside of yourself, is a powerful punch towards the man on the streetcar and the man inside your head.