This summer I have had the novel (for me) opportunity to work closely with a straight cis-gendered man. He is polite, respectful, and probably identifies as a progressive, leftist feminist. But I’ve noticed him looking at my breasts. A lot.
I often wear bust-hugging, low-cut tops. I wear them because they are comfortable and sexy. I have no problem with my breasts — I like them a lot. They feel good in a push-up bra, packaged up and displayed in a low-cut shirt. (I also tend to overheat, so having my chest & neck free of fabric is also practical for me. But this isn’t a post about my practical clothes — this is a post about how I wear deliberately sexy/revealing clothes and the responses I get.)
Generally in my life I have very few interactions with straight cis-men. I actively avoid them in social contexts, and have always worked in a heavily female-dominated field. Even my school is very female-centric — only 11.5% of my classmates are straight cis-men. So working closely with one every day is a new experience. And working with one who blatantly stares at my breasts hasn’t really happened since I was in college.
I’m torn about what to think about this. My first reaction is a sort of surprise — am I so attractive to warrant that kind of attention? I don’t feel that beautiful or sexy; his reaction in my mind is an over-reaction to what is really a very ordinary set of breasts on an ordinary slightly-pudgy woman. Then my second reaction was to sort of shrug it off. The blame-the-victim mentality is very deeply rooted — if I am going to display them so appealingly, then he can’t really be blamed for looking. After all, there they are, cleavage visible.
But he really does it a lot. Like, every time we talk. So last night I did an experiment with M.’s help. She sat at a height that approximated his and mimicked his eye-wandering, with narration:
“OK, now I’m looking at your necklace. Now your breasts. Now your collarbone. Now your lips. Now your face.”
And what I gathered from this research is that I’m not crazy, he really looks at my breasts.
M. thinks that maybe I should say something to him. Something along the lines of, “I know you are a good person, and that you work really hard for things that I also believe in and care about, and I don’t doubt your commitment to doing good in the world. But I have noticed that you look at my breasts quite a bit, and the overall impression that gives is that you are a jerk. I don’t want other women to have to weigh that about you — just don’t look at women’s breasts when you’re talking to them. Once is forgivable — multiple times per conversation is not.”
I’m honestly not sure I have the courage to do that. I considered leaving him an anonymous note, to be found on his desk sometime. But that seems sneaky and not credible. M. also says that just because I dress them up appealingly doesn’t give a person the right to look at them whenever they want. Which is true, and in other contexts I can understand that. But this one has so much cultural baggage! We are bombarded with images of women’s breasts that are designed to make us look and look again and to want her and want them and want what she/they are selling. In some ways the way I present my breasts to the world is a political statement — here they are, they are beautiful and sexy and they are not for men. I am not for men. But then the other half of my brain says hey — you put them out there, you’re asking for that kind of attention. If they’re not for men, don’t show them to men.
Sigh. The worst thing is, if it were a hot butch I wouldn’t mind at all. I would smile and flirt and wear even more outrageous things to work to try to get them to blush. So am I also hypocritical? What do you all think?
