pov: you stopped dressing for the male gaze

Newsflash: you might've dressed for the male gaze.

Glow up with me mentally and physically.

//🕙Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:50 What is the male gaze
1:32 “You are what you wear”
5:08 real change or just a change of package?

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Sub count at upload: 670k

[zoeunlimited]

Thoughts on dressing AND not dressing for the male gaze?

[kokiiaa]

i dont really like to limit myself based on male gaze or female gaze. i just dress how i feel. if i feel feminine, i’ll wear a dress, a skirt, or clothing that compliments my body shape. if i feel masculine, i’ll wear something looser, or something that makes my shoulders look bigger and stronger. i get gender euphoria looking at how certain people dress, and then i use them as inspiration for future outfits and clothing pieces.

[julieclancy]

I would like to add that dressing to avoid male attention is still dressing for the male gaze. It also doesn’t work imo 🥴I got catcalled recently while wearing full length pants, long sleeve button down and a blazer. It’s almost like it doesn’t matter what you wear, because some men will objectify you no matter what.

[heidipoart]

Hi, just a quick thing about corsets. As someone who actually wore one almost daily for a whole semester when I had back pain more often, they are actually super comfortable, I could even run a little in it when late for class. I still pull it out occasionally when the pain gets a bit much. Helps with posture and keeping upright. Mine is fitted to my body, and that really makes a difference. I had tried to use a generic back brace you could get from Walmart, but that was actually worse cause it wouldn't match my curves and would feel like it was crushing my ribs. As other have mentioned I think the problem with corsets comes with tight lacing and improperly fitted ones. I enjoyed the video otherwise, it's good content. Just wanted to throw in a personal anecdote that corsets aren't as bad as they are portrayed

[emerea]

hey giiiirl, while you raise up many interesting points about how the male gaze influences fashion and beauty standards, i have to point out the fact that the male gaze also plays a role in the demonisation of corsets. back in the days, corsets where made by women, for women and were used not only as a fashion statement, but also as means to help with back pains for example, and grumpy old men did anything in their power to bring down the work of these women in charge of the fashion industry.
Karolina Żebrowska (who specialises in fashion history) made an in depth video about the topic: "How Victorian Men Taught Us to Hate Corsets" if anyone is interested !
thanks for taking the time to read my rant lol and thank you for the hard work you put in your videos♥

[kaly_ths_]

Male gaze is not about clothes.
Male gaze is directed at women and their bodies.
You can be subjected to the male gaze no matter what you wear.

[deborahlee]

Why can’t we just wear what we want without concerning ourselves about what men think? “Not dressing for the male gaze” is doing the exact opposite of what people want it to do. Forget about men, I want to look good for myself.

[KangelofEcho]

I feel like the term "male gaze" was coined for how male movie makers were shooting movies, or how male writers use to describe women, and the tiktok and twitter essayists decided to apply it to regular women living their regular lives. Every single thing we do nowadays can and will be politicised, even by ourselves. That’s crazy.

[sunnyrain]

a few things:

karolina zebrowska made a video called "How Victorian Men Taught Us to Hate Corsets: The Biggest Lie in Fashion History"
(Which btw the title already says it but the corset doesn't have to do much with the male gaze and isn't as harmful as everyone thinks it was. It was worn by men too and for women it was the pre-bra option.)

also I started dressing more covered up and wearing baggier clothes because I don't like men looking me up and down, it's like, it's fun getting attention when you're interested too but not when 40y/o men do it.

if that wasn't an issue I would totally dress more revealing, like mini skirts or low rise jeans with a crop-top...

I once wore low rise jeans and a crop top (they weren't even that low but not high waisted) and a middle aged dude came up to me to ask how old I was and I wearing headphones, trying to pass him but he was like "I'm not gonna steal anything" I was 16 at the time I think.

don't get me wrong modest clothes are also beautiful

sooo what I wanted to say in the end - wear whatever you want/feel comfortable in

[urbelovedmary]

I don’t dress for the male gaze and I don’t dress for the female gaze I dress for my gaze and that’s that let girls do whatever they want without putting labels on what they do

[anaztazya]

Hi beautiful :D

Historical Reminder : Corsets were part of undergarments and a small part of woman actually tied them very hard !

By the way…

Many actresses say that they felt discomfort at wearing them, because there are not shaped into their body figure.

[catherinesmoor]

I just wanted to add a lil something in regards to corsets. Historically, they weren't actually that bad. They were the everyday women's means of support that would also allow them to do what ever their every day labor called for. On the other hand, there was a practice called "tight lacing, " and as the name suggests, it consisted of tying the laces of the corset insanely tight. Of course, that practice isn't good and in fact, the people of that time knew that it wasn't. And then there's also those sayings you hear of people being like, "oh their corsets were so tight that the Victorian women were constantly fainting!" I'm not even sure where that thought came about, but trying to find evidence of that occurring is incredibly difficult. And all the common women had so much work to do, it doesn't make sense for them to get the work done while simultaneously fainting.
Anywho, I just wanted to share that :)

[cozywalrus]

I wanted to say that almost all women used to wear corsets but not for the sole purpose of getting an “hourglass” figure. Back then they didn’t use bras so corsets provided support. Even working class women used corsets. Also even when it was worn for fashion tight lacing wasn’t all that common and corsets were usually well fitted and tailored. To create an hourglass figure they would exaggerate the hips instead of cinching in the waist to an extreme extent. The literature about corsets back in the day was mostly written by men who viewed women as “vain” and “shallow” and would often over exaggerate the effects of corsets including claiming that it causes fainting spells and bone deformities. If you wear a corset correctly it is perfectly safe :)

[Currentlyprocrastinating]

Just wanted to say that -while I’m not an expert- historical corsets weren’t all that bad, many working women wore them as support, like back braces. They were really just long bras, and while they *could* cause damage, it was really only if you were wearing one not fitted to you, or tightened it too tight.
A lot of myths about the corset were incredibly exaggerated truths, corsets were popular during a time where “yellow journalism” this thing where newspapers messed with facts just to sell more, was very rampant.
Also, I think that corsets were originally created for men?

Edit: I agree with what you said about main issue of the male gaze, just had to be a bit nitpicky.

[shcaptinshmarica]

It's so sad that we are taught to love ourselves if we are wanted by males. If a guys find a girl attractive, only then she's considered attractive. The things guys find pretty or attractive for girls become the beauty standard for females, for example, because boys find bigger chested girl hot, so it became a beauty standard. I hope soon all the girls and boys do things for themselves, not for others.

Edit: here, i don't mean that every men is like this and also, I don't mean only females suffer from this beauty standard, men do to. I just didn't mention it in the original comment because the video was addressing the problems faced by females.

[meganknight]

Not the misinformation on corsets. I love your vids Zoe but pls don’t spread misinformation on corsets. They are actually good undergarments that supported women. The idea that they were bad came from men who wanted to take down the corset industry since it was an industry run by women. Also the famous actors who talk about how “horrible” a corset was is bc it wasn’t made and fitted correctly. There are many historical dress YouTube channels that provide great information on corsets. Again I love the vids!!

[mahfoumil_sfeir]

I’m not particularly female, but i love dressing feminine a lot of the time. Then, the times i like to dress more masculine, it’s, “who are you dressing up for, huh?” I’ve learnt to just stop questioning myself through the eyes of our society, and wear, act, or behave the way *I* truly am, aspire to be, and need to be to thrive in this world.

[lilguyonhiswaytothemall]

As someone who does wear historically accurate Edwardian corset regularly, they do not damage your body unless you tight lace. They mainly just move your fat around (so your waist looks more narrow from the front but wider from the side, they actually make my waist a little bigger despite seeming significantly smaller) and adds paddling (mainly to the hips) to make you appear to have an hour glass figure, while supporting your chest.

Most people who have issues with corsets either are wear badly made ones, are not wearing a chemise under the corset (this helps avoid rubbing on the skin, similarly to wearing socks while wearing shoes), have not worn the corset in (again like new shoes, you have to wear a corset in so it fits you perfectly, just like if you wear new shoes for 12 hrs without wearing them in you'll hurt your feet), or are tight lacing (which historically, was very rare and only really done by some wealthy ladies).

No hate to you or the rest of the video. But women wore corsets mainly as a form of chest support, and saying it was the male gaze forcing women to wear them really just enforces the idea women in the past were passive idiots who would put mens desires above their own basic needs and health (they didn't, especially to the extent some people like to push). And they definitely didn't cause miscarriages, this was a myth spread by men. Partly because the corset industry was overwhelming run by women and men would argue it was a form of lying to men (similar to some men saying makeup is women lying to them today), but also because male doctors couldn't actually workout why miscarriages were happening so just chose corsets, ignoring that there were corsets specifically made for pregnancy (Katherine Sewing has a video on this, as I have never been pregnant so can't comment on this)

Women were able to be just as active and work in insanely difficult jobs while wearing corsets, just like women now are able to do the same while wearing bras. Personally I go on regularly hikes in winter in a corset and find it's better than a sports bra 🤷‍♀️ (tho I don't in summer as I have yet to make a summer corset made out of lighter material, but you definitely can wear a corset in the summer)

[nrpxgpn]

i hate term ''male gaze'' because lots of people use it wrong and now it just reinforces the idea that when you are feminine and sexy you exist only to gain male attention... i'm a lesbian who really likes makeup, dresses and heels and i hate that men thinks that i dress for them and girls think that i dress for men. also often fans of this term are just puritans who are scared and disgusted by women in ''revealing'' clothes.

[bandana_rathore]

Rather than living our lives as happily as possible we are creating more and more difficulties for ourselves. Girls please wear, do, be whichever way you like. Life is already full of so many challenges.