The Panopticon of the Feminine Self

"To men a man is but a mind. Who cares what face he carries or what form he wears? But the woman's body is the woman." - Ambrose Bierce

My morning routine goes as follows these days: wake up, analyse pictures of myself taken the night before, zoom in, flip them, look in the mirror and push my face around violently until my chubby cheeks disappear, search for ways to improve whatever feature I'm unhappy with on that day, practice it, check again, no change, maybe take a few side profile pictures, look at my phone in disgust, take a few front facing ones, start to tear up, and then I start my day, already ruined.

I never used to care about how I looked, at least not to this extent, it would cross my mind every now and again but this level of scrutiny never entered my consciousness. 

I am a woman, yet my mind's eye is one of a man's. 

An internalised male gaze. I don't see myself as a person, but as a place in a ranking. 1-10? What type of pretty? If I were in the public eye, what would people say about me? What do people say about me?

Those men online who scrutinise female celebrities' appearances, discussing their recessed jawlines, their narrow palate, their double chins; they narrate my life. I evaluate myself as if there were a jury in the room, I wonder if [insert male here] would find me attractive, and unfortunately, this always results in a harsh 'no'. 'How could a man find my cheeks, my slight overbite, my hooded eyes, my poor posture, my downturned mouth attractive?' is the refrain that echoes through my days.

The first thing that comes to mind when I discuss my experience of this body dysmorphia is Foucault's panopticism.

The Panopticon is a prison layout designed to keep inmates in check; there is a shaded watchtower in the centre, with well lit cells surrounding it, ensuring all inmates could be visible at all times. This uncertainty is what the Panopticon thrives on - the inmates do not know if they are being watched by the guards in the centre, so they partake in their own form of surveillance - the surveillance of the self. They are plunged into a state of constant monitoring, yet no force is used to uphold this, which makes it even more pervasive.

It is very clear to see the similarities between this literal prison system and the way in which I, and other women, view the self. It is a rarity for me to be in a first person perspective; I am constantly scanning for possible flaws in my appearance, even when I am alone. As I sit here writing this in a cafe, I am worrying about my side profile, how ironic.

I was not born policing myself like this, but learned through repeated experiences which confirm that this is how the world works. Every time I hear a male friend discuss a woman solely in terms of her appearance, have seen a beautiful woman get millions of likes for posting herself doing nothing, have ingested countless and countless self-improvement videos to get rid of an endless list of undesirable features, I build up this watch tower brick by brick. 

Sounds horrible right? Yes. It is. It is exhausting. But once you fall into the trap, it is gruelling to claw your way out of it. The genius of panopticism is that it is not an external reality you can leave, it is all from within. "It is far harder to kill a phantom than reality", Virginia Woolf wrote - the 'phantom' being internalised norms women hold in their minds. We can break down all the glass ceilings and prison walls we want, but until we kill this phantom, we will never be free.

Where now? I realise I have been quite pessimistic, probably because I've had an especially difficult day with my dysmorphia, but all the more reason to fight against it. 

The first thing to realise, if you also face these patterns of obsessing over your appearance, is that it is not your fault. Criticising yourself will not suddenly stop the patterns, but self compassion and gentleness will. It's pretty inevitable I and other women have fallen into this, and it does not make us bad feminists or any lesser women than those who are confident. 

What I find helps is realising I am so much more than my appearance and that I am a human being, not a product to be consumed. I may have a bit of a double chin, but I am a great friend. I may have round cheeks that make my side profile different to the trending face of the time, but I have conquered both OCD and PMDD. But let's not discount what I love about my face too: my bright blue eyes, my freckles that come out in the summer, my short hair which highlights my delicate features. You don't have to completely discount your appearance, you can cherish and value it, but stop wasting your energy hating it. It is yours. No one else's. Break down that watch tower, brick by brick.

Thank you for reading :)