Catch-22

"After all, even if it is admitted that the woman is frequently the object of the voyeuristic or fetishistic gaze in the cinema, what is there to prevent her from reversing the relation and appropriating the gaze for her own pleasure? Precisely the fact that the reversal itself remains locked with the same logic. The male striptease, the gigolo–both inevitably signify the mechanism of reversal itself, constituting themselves as aberrations whose acknowledgement simply reinforces the dominant system of aligning sexual difference with a subject/object dichotomy." (Doane 134)

I always get into trouble when I discuss anything related to feminist. Either because I'm a chauvinist , or because I always like to play "devil's advocate" and doing that with someone arguing for feminist ideals is a bad idea. This quote from Doane exemplifies the problem with feminist gusto. How can the masculine dominant ideology be conquered if acknowledging it and working to reverse it only strengthens its position? This "Hydra" masculinity cannot be defeated because the problem exists in the woman. As Doane writes, "For the female spectator there is a certain over-presence of the image–she is the image. Given the closeness of this relationship, the female spectator's desire can be described only in terms of a kind of narcissism" (Doane 135). This "lack" of distance now nicely matches the feminine "lack" of the phallus. Both are irreversible and eternal.

The question of the female gaze not being able to "gaze at herself" is an interesting one. We are caught in a Catch-22. The female cannot remove herself from the gazed at position and replace herself with the male (for this confirms her original position) and she cannot view herself because of a lack of distance and a narcissistic side-effect. She instead must leave herself in a gazed-at position, subjugated, and create a new, enlightened persona outside of the traditional dichotomy of masculinity / femininity. This process cannot be artificially created, but instead must be born in the slow fires of successive generations making strides towards a feminine rebirth. 

I tend to think that at the level of aesthetics, women will always be gazed upon in cinema. They are the fairer sex (unfortunately?). Even as we wait for the passing of sexist psycho-analysis axioms about femininity, we can still work to increase equality of agency on screen for both sexes.