Watch out

Years ago, and well into my seventh month of pregnancy in New York City, it occurred to me one day that, as I would be unable to run from a fast predator, I was lucky not to run into an urban panther. These weekly blogs will consider women's lives from the perspective of one who is now older.

In our commercial culture, merchants for decades have been using sex, and by that I mean images of comely women, to sell their products -- from mattresses to car mufflers. And I think the only thing that has drawn marketers away from that blatant and obvious sexual appeal is that women are now making millions of dollars’ worth of buying decisions.

So now, while commercials aimed at men -- for beer, say -- still feature eager-looking young women, advertising seems more varied: now we are shown many other types of women and they don’t all seem to be “looking for a good time” as many a public toilet cubicle would have it.

We are a most visual species and marketers are targeting our visual susceptibility. It seems we all do watch women, in one way or another. Women may watch women to see what’s in style, or for agreement, or to check out the competition. I think I don’t have to go into why men watch women.

But what about the beings being watched? When I was living in New York City, I saw a range of women every day -- secretaries and clerks and executives and doctors and models and students and homeless crazy women. It occurred to me that they all had in common the sense that they were constantly being watched, not because of the individuals they were, but because they had legs and breasts. They had no fault, no merit, no control in the situation. (Really, if I wanted comments on my flanks, I’d enter a 4-H show.)

It seems to me that constantly being watched is not healthy; a woman can never relax. It stands to reason that if one is constantly stared at, she is likely to become self-conscious. I think insane women, the bag ladies who live in the subway or under bridges and carry their worldly possessions with them, are an example of the most extreme reaction to being under such surveillance. In their bag lady form, they at least are their own cause of being stared at. 

I’ve been out of the sexual availability viewing market for some time; it’s one of the advantages of aging. Maybe the situation is better now, maybe women don’t have to steel themselves when walking past a construction site or a group of teenaged boys. Maybe both women’s and men’s attitudes have changed. Maybe the message of today’s women pop singers, for example, who embrace and flaunt their sexuality, is that women can control when they are looked at, can choose.

Wouldn’t it be nice?