music, books, love and kindness

I'm trying to find the right words to describe the way straight men will look so dismissively (or worse!) at women they find unattractive.

As a woman who is less than pretty I have this seen firsthand and it has cut to the bone, but while I own my un-attractiveness (totally) I also feel that men who think and act this way don't value women for their whole selves and that it is on them, not women, to change.

Here are some of the looks I'm talking about:

A flick of contempt: that quick, involuntary eye-sweep that lands on “not worth my time.”

The dead-eyed scan: registers your presence but refuses to see you.

Dismissive inventory: men take stock of your face and body like a bored customs agent stamping “reject.”

The micro-sneer: a split-second curl of the lip that says ugh, next.

Value subtraction: the way their gaze subtracts personhood the instant attractiveness is ruled out.

The invisible-woman glare: a stare that slides right through you, erasing any humanity that isn’t ornamental.

I used to feel like a non-entity the moment I failed the attractiveness test, but I'm just too tired for that anymore. And as a queer person I find that though women can also be very shallow and dismissive of, it somehow doesn't carry the same weight or hurt or societal impact/value. The male gaze has a history and a context that is completely different and far worse and you don't have to be a straight woman to be affected by it.

I've been in my workplace for over 30 years so I've seen a lot, mostly good, but some bad. I have a lot of happy memories, particularly from the 90s and early 00s.

But, just like in middle school (though then was much, much worse), people have felt the need (compulsion?) to say hurtful things you should never say to another person.

One time a friendly man came up to the desk where I worked and said, "Is _ here? She and I talked on the phone a few minutes ago about a book I'm looking for." When I said I was the person he spoke with, his smile dropped and he said, "That's impossible! You sounded so pretty on the phone."