On the female body as public space

*When referring to the female body throughout this text, and unless expressly noted, the author includes all female-presenting bodies, not only those assigned as female at birth.

Opposing women’s right to control our own bodies is always the first step in every authoritarian regime.

Gloria Steinem.

People have felt the need to comment on my body without being prompted ever since I have a memory. I gained weight, says my mother; my ass looks great in those pants, say random men on the street; that dress is showing too much cleavage, says a friend; I’m “unfuckable”, say anonymous people online; I would look better if I put some makeup on, say old ladies at the bank. Even my ex has thoughts about me having cut my hair short that nobody asked him about. The thing is that I know why: female bodies seem to be up for discussion by and from anyone because they are treated as public property.

The notion that us walking down the street somehow “invites” these comments stems from the idea that female bodies are public spaces, perform a public service, and belong to society as a whole, unlike male bodies, which are private and not a battleground for public discourse. The so-called “male gaze” is not only that, it’s the “male prodding” and the “male poking” and the “male choice” about what I can and cannot do with my body. It’s the male gynecologist who berated me about my age and not having had kids yet as if I was a small child and not a paying customer; it’s the policeman who stopped me in the street and told me I shouldn’t be walking around with a skirt so short as if he was doing me a favor, it’s the cab driver who felt the need to tell me that women with tattoos were less worthy of a man’s respect.

After the derogation of Roe v. Wade by the United States’ Supreme Court, we all seem to be thinking about this in some way. The notions of bodily integrity and bodily autonomy, already flimsy in the US, seem to be vanishing after abortion is no longer protected at the federal level. But the thing is that predicating sexual and reproductive rights, and in general, rights about our own bodies, over the right to privacy is problematic as the barrier between what’s private and what’s public continues to be erased and women’s bodies are put in the public side of the equation.

Even among the people who are now questioning or plainly refusing this derogation, there seems to be little discussion about why is it so difficult, not only in the US but everywhere, to get a long-term or permanent contraceptive solution, why doctors deny a woman who wants to get a sterilization because she’s under 30, or she doesn’t have a partner, or she does have a partner but he hasn’t expressed his consent, or she hasn’t had any kids yet and her desire to not have them means nothing (“you will change your mind later”, we are told, because apparently, these doctors know more than ourselves about our own minds). Women everywhere keep being treated as if we were only worth three-quarters of a full person: we get asked for the opinion of our non-existent husbands on a weekly basis, every time we have to make decisions about our health or our money, and we still feel the need to make up a name for that non-existent husband when a random man wants to hit on us and won’t quit, because a non-existent man is something more worthy of respect in his eyes than a real, existing woman who is telling him to fuck off.

For Latinas, this notion of not owning our bodies is part of how we are raised (I got a tattoo, in part, to claim ownership over my own body, and yet I still get berated by my mom, at age 37, every time she remembers it, or when I cut my hair, or when I gain some weight). This is, in large part, because our appearance is a commodity, and thus, it’s part of our family’s patrimony, because in Latino culture we’re still endowed with the task of helping our family move up the social ranks and this is done by means of trading our beauty in the marriage market. Unsaid as this is, it is something that we carry inside us as a sort of evident truth that even the most deconstructed of women will recognize the minute we watch a pageant or are told by our auntie we should lose some weight or we’ll never find a husband.

In current culture, women’s bodies are spaces of public debate ―however I choose to present myself, whatever I choose to wear, I must accept that I’m inviting people to comment on it― but also as spaces that perform a public service ―should we choose not to have children, we must accept this will come with years of uninvited comments about our wrongness in refusing to fulfill our sacred purpose in society; should we choose to have them, and our bodies automatically become a space not only for people to watch and discuss, but also to touch without consent. 

Reclaiming one’s own body is seen as disruptive – women enjoying their bodies is disruptive, women’s pleasure is taboo, and in general, women are not supposed to express needing, wanting or enjoying sex ―sex is supposed to be something we do for men, in order to fulfill their needs. The idea of enthusiastic consent seems too much because men are not socialized to expect women to enjoy sex enthusiastically, and therefore the bar appears to be too high when demanded that they only have sex with women who are excited to be there. It should not be a surprise, then, that pregnancy is seen as punishment for having felt pleasure ―the only acceptable exception for abortion, and then, only theoretically, is rape or peril to the mother’s life, and even then they would have to be proved to a degree where it would likely be too late: even then, you would have to convince men to grant you a special pardon over your sins, over the original sin of womanhood. Abortion is seen as scandalous because it is a woman attempting to avoid her rightful punishment for having enjoyed sex without the intent of reproduction. 

Moreover, the sexualization of women’s bodies is completely normal and accepted when done by men through means of popular culture, advertising, or mere catcalling. But when a woman chooses to sexualize herself ―by taking sexy selfies, posting “thirst-traps”, or creating an OnlyFans account― she will be accused of narcissism, vanity, banality, and “whoreness”. The most innocent selfie will have a comment telling the person that they are “trying too hard”, basically shaming them for attempting to like themselves, even in a culture that is constantly shouting at us to “love ourselves”. 

Like all other attempts at claiming our own bodies back, the selfie is the drawing of a line around how we define our identities. When we step back and allow the world to claim the land that is our bodies, we are being stripped away from our ability to define ourselves in the world, which is just one step away from living without the freedom to determine who we are.