“Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” Or, upping the ante on the female gaze as a strange, feathered lady
A long-winded soapbox about Gertrude Stein, Bella Baxter, Taylor Swift, and Reneé Rapp
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Today, I'm giving you the tip of the iceberg—large as it may be—of my thoughts on the female gaze and my personal how-to guide in taking it one step further in its expression. By now, if you’re a woman with a pulse on social media, you’ve heard the phrase “dressing for the female gaze.” If you’re a woman who was at the same birthday party I was last month, you may have even overheard my own Gen Z sister telling a friend of mine “Oh, Cassie has been dressing for the female gaze for the last three years at least.” Indeed, I have! My elder millennial heart goes pitter patter!
I’m not here to necessarily define the female gaze, or even dive into the act of dressing for it, though I could certainly fill pages on both topics. Surprisingly, the definition does not pique my interest today so much as the reaching effects of the female gaze more broadly applied. This is especially true because defining the “female gaze” is much like the Supreme Court’s approach to the definition of obscenity—“I know it when I see it.”1 There are other great minds that have, over the years, given their two cents on the topic as well—for example, in her 2017 LA Times article, Meredith Blake says that “If the male gaze takes one essential form, the female gaze takes many.” In other words, there are multiple definitions—so let’s just work with the one in your head right now.
Swimming in my brain are questions like: how do I personally live in the female gaze? How do I subvert the societal norms or expectations placed on me individually as a woman? How can I undo the programming of the “Cool Girl” or “Guy’s Girl” that my female millennial upbringing has instilled in me? Who are my north stars—my female rage/female gaze godmothers—keeping me on the right path?
I’ve already ranted on the topic of the “Cool Girl” as it relates to female rage over on the Dear Readers Substack, so I won’t dip into that specific topic here today. I marvel at the mutual exclusivity of the two ideas, though: one cannot be a “cool girl” (re: guy’s girl) and also something that is wholeheartedly of or for the female gaze. The Venn diagram doesn’t overlap, or at least, I don't see how it can. And, for me, female rage is an undercurrent of why the female gaze is so powerful.
When I think about what it means to dress for the female gaze, I think about the Coastal Grandma turned Eclectic Grandpa trend cycle or the opting for voluminous silhouettes versus form-fitting, figure-forming pieces. In other words, enhancing what society tells us men value (male gaze) versus literal comfort via artistic expression (female gaze). When we as the female gazers see a woman in the wild wearing billowing tunics, donned with tinkling sparkling baubles on her ears, wrists, and neck, we think simultaneously: “CHIC AS HELL” and “f*ck the patriarchy.” Taking that billowing tunic/bauble clad look one step further, I want to up the ante and translate the sartorial choices into the pursuit of a larger life code.
To that end, I posit four figures as guiding north stars, our female gaze/female rage godmothers, if you will: Gertrude Stein, Bella Baxter, Taylor Swift, and Reneé Rapp.
TENDER BUTTONS: Gertrude Stein
Recently, I was delighted to find a copy of Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein in one of my neighborhood little free libraries. Flipping through this particular edition, I was immediately transported to Paris in the early 20th century with Stein's quirky, delightfully inaccessible, and downright dense writing crashing into me like a wave. I haven’t encountered many non-English-Lit-nerds who know of Gertrude Stein, and I say this without an ounce of pretention. My undergrad English lit curriculum and an early obsession with the modernists are the reasons why I know her.
Even the nerdiest of the nerds may have only heard of her in relation to the company she kept—Picasso, Hemingway, and Matisse were all frequent fliers at her home, 27 Rue de Fleurus. She was even credited with coining the moniker for that group of writers: “The Lost Generation.” The high-walled foyer of her Paris home was a literal gallery of early Picasso and Matisse paintings, including a portrait of herself done by Picasso (and the cover of the very edition of her writing I’m flipping through currently). She is described as “an avant-garde American writer, eccentric, and self-styled genius whose Paris home was a salon for the leading artists and writers of the period between World Wars I and II”—let’s emphasize the words eccentric, self-styled genius here.
You would probably recognize her most famous line, “a rose is a rose is a rose.”2 Generally speaking, and much to her own chagrin, her own work never really achieved the level of critical acclaim as the certain man-friends who frequented her salon, likely due to the self-styled genius of it all. Her writing is a literal trip to read, and as close to psychedelics I’ve ever gotten. If you have an itch for a weird afternoon, pour yourself a glass of wine and read the entirety of my favorite piece of hers, Tender Buttons—Stein’s attempt at Cubism via the written word. “A cool red rose and a pink cut pink, a collapse and a sold hole, a little less hot” is a real line from this piece. Let your mind scramble into a word soup—it’s delightful and uncomfortable, and that’s entirely the point…I think.
Despite all of this, her literary opinions were revered. When she approved of a talent—artist, painter, writer—it was shorthand for their success. Her opinions mattered.
Why do I start with this short bio of Stein? For a young, impressionable, and early-20s “Well…Actually” Cassie, she was a fascinating entrée into what it could look like when a woman lived by her own code and had confidence in her opinions and connections. She was outwardly queer, she was opinionated, she was an eccentric expat with artist friends,3 and she was the epicenter of culture. She was also rageful that her avant-garde writing never received the critical acclaim she believed it warranted. Her confidence was tragic and her intuition magic, and she served as inspiration for my love of TOO MANY GALLERY WALLS, long form discussions about literature and art, and the pursuit of my own version of being an eccentric, self-styled genius. And yes, I am aware I quoted the early aughts’ popstar band Train in describing a 20th century cultural stalwart—does this help my case? Well…actually, I believe it does.
Bottom line: she was my first literary godmother, and now, I view her life as an early iteration of eccentric female gaze/female rage. The missive from her? To take the female gaze one step further, fueled by rage, inhabit your version of an eccentric, self-styled genius, and crowd your walls with whatever you deem to be art.
SUGAR AND VIOLENCE: Bella Baxter
From the Parisian salon of Gertrude to the mesmerizing mind and story of Bella Baxter in the 2023 film Poor Things, let’s collect more female gazer north stars. The satire and the outlandish visuals of this movie utterly transfixed me. This movie has gorgeously haunted me because of the writing, the costumes, the superb acting, and quite frankly the WEIRDNESS of the whole story. Emma Stone deserved every ounce of gold in that Oscar for this performance.
With the obvious Gothic odes, this movie was a brilliant interpretation of a book by the same name which was loosely based on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein—another personal favorite. The story starts with an infantilized version of Bella. On the surface, she is seemingly an adult woman, but her mannerisms give away her mental age: she is wobbly on her feet, she is throwing temper tantrums, she is wide-eyed, and by all measures, she is an innocent little girl full of wonder.
As Bella progresses through the mental stages of girlhood, she finally reaches the state of hormone-fueled adolescence/early adulthood. She’s exploring her sexuality with crazed, quirky abandon. Having been raised in a societal vacuum, the experiment of her existence shows us what happens when “girlhood” is left to its own devices. It’s raw, rageful, passionate, and mesmerizing to witness. She dons outlandish, colorful, puffy-sleeved, and audacious outfits (bordering on theatrical costumes). She speaks her mind without filter, which at times comes out as head-scratching, profane jibberish. At one point in the film, she hears a wailing infant, and exclaims: “I must go punch that baby.” Hilarious, but also unsettling.
Wildness of this story aside, I was inspired by Bella in the abstract. She adventured it and found nothing but sugar and violence, her empathy crept towards what she would describe a contemptuous rage, and she realized she was a changingable feast, as are all of we.4 She fully embodied every bit of who she was internally and let that manifest in how she spoke, dressed, and interacted with others, even it it was slightly off kilter by societal standards. At one point in the movie, a woman of the obvious high society type approaches Bella, calling her by her previous name: “Victoria Blessington? I haven’t seen you for years.” To which Bella responded matter-of-factly, “And you still have not. As I’m Bella Baxter, strange feathered lady.”
I still laugh at the dialogue and the madness of this film. But, the vibrant and playfully sexual coming-of-age story and raw exploration of girlhood clings to me, begging to be included in this pursuit of launching the female gaze into the shameless, technicolor fever dream it deserves, and pushing us to all become a strange, feathered ladies, because why the hell not.
TORTURED POET: Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift has reached a level of meta-commentary herself. Her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, is a 31-song magnum opus of intense emotion with a red lip, a cheeky hair-toss, and all sequined everything—female rage for female gaze.
In her song, The Prophecy, she packs the punch of all punches:
A greater woman stays cool But I howl like a wolf at the moon And I look unstable Gathered with a coven round a sorceress' table
Every woman I’ve spoken to about this song agrees—it slices so deep in an exacting way. But, why? Does a greater woman actually stay cool? Is this satire? What I gain from these lyrics is more support for taking the female gaze further into the woods. Perhaps by societal (re: patriarchal) measures, a “greater” woman does stay cool: she smiles politely and doesn’t push back. She is demure. A good girl. A COOL GIRL. A girl who is worthy of the male gaze, of course.
A greater woman by the female gazer standards is actually the woman in the next three lines: she is howling like a wolf at the moon, she looks unstable, she is gathered with a coven round a sorceress’ table. She is loud, she is true, she is powerful.
In one breath, Taylor is gathering that coven to say make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it, and in the other, she is screaming don’t call me kid, don’t call me baby. She is capturing girlhood and womanhood perfectly, in that, they are not so different or separate, after all. One an extension of the other. One (girlhood) is eclipsed by the other (womanhood) under the male gaze.
Under a female gaze, we allow women to shed the expectation that she must leave behind that which is girlish, and instead allow her to fully embody the woman she is, girlish interests and affectations included. I can’t help but reminisce about the two times I saw The Eras Tour last year—once in Seattle and once in L.A. The amount of pure, magical joy and wonder that everyone had, individually and collectively, was staggering. And, it wasn’t just the preteens—it was the starry-eyed women with stacks on stacks of friendship bracelets crawling up their arms. Everyone giving compliments, everyone exchanging smiles, everyone feeling safe. In my Instagram post after the Seattle show, I said, “to be a Swiftie is to worship at the altar of pure unadulterated femme-centric JOY, and wow wow wow did I go to church on Saturday.” I still believe in that sentiment.
Perhaps the hymnal for the Church of Femme-centric Joy, a/k/a the Church of Female Gaze, requires a spectrum of refrains: The joy of girlhood is captured by sounds of laughter, and I’m feelin’ twenty twoooo. While the soulful sound of howling like a wolf at the moon captures the layered lamentations of female rage. And somewhere in between all of that, we know what we deserve: karma is a cat purring in my lap ‘cause it loves us.
SNOW ANGEL: Reneé Rapp
Recently I watched the Mean Girls musical and will readily admit I was initially skeptical. How dare Tina Fey remake her classic and try to sell us anyone other than a young Rachel McAdams as a Regina George. I willingly eat crow: Gen Z’s version of Regina George was played with perfection by Reneé Rapp, even though it read like a horror film to me. Rapp’s version, likely because of the musical aspect, was more Sultry Siren Luring You to Your Imminent Demise With A Sassy Smirk than I ever anticipated from Regina George.
The original Mean Girls came out the year I graduated high school (2004), and the McAdams’ version of Regina George was intimidating, sure, but only in the slicing, manipulative confidence she exuded. Rapp, on the other hand, is utterly terrifying, eliciting many emotions, most of which are a confusing mix, even for a woman in her late 30s: do I want to be in her good graces? Do I want to avoid being on her radar at all? Will I literally melt if she looks at me through the TV screen? Also, her hair is perfect, and she is HOT AS HELL.
Rapp’s portrayal of Regina George is a manifestation of Rapp as a fire-breathing cultural figure. On her press tour for the movie, she was savage, unfiltered, and hilarious. Every clip I’ve seen of her, felt to me as if she were literally living the lyrics of Not My Fault, the song she did with Megan Thee Stallion for the soundtrack:
'Cause I woke up hotter than I was yesterday
Don't care about no rules 'cause I always get my way I bet you DID wake up hotter than me, Reneé—stop gloating and please tell me your secrets. Her confidence is enviable,5 and her willingness to let female rage simmer auspiciously on her surface makes her both relatable and (again) terrifying. And, she does so with a sly smile! And gorgeous hair!! In her solo album Snow Angel, she has a song called Poison Poison where she unabashedly calls out another woman:
You got another suit to lick Anything it takes to run your mouth to bring me down To anybody listening You love that sh*t And yes, I am a feminist But b*tch, you're making it so hard for me To always be supporting all women I hate that b*tch
Girl, same. Yes, I am also a feminist. And, yes, there are b*tches (a gender neutral term, by the way) in my life making it so hard for me. What stuns me about this song is the amount of self-love and confidence it takes to even admit this—my elder millennial heart, yet again, goes pitter patter. My generation of women was not raised to be able to do this in our youth. This is why Taylor Swift’s TTPD album is striking such a chord with us now. This is why we love the loud confidence of Reneé who wears female rage like a vintage fur coat—luxuriously and at times, ironically. This is why we are transfixed by the bold sexual freedom of characters like Bella Baxter. This is why I am channeling an eccentric self-styled genius/literary weirdo. This is why the female gaze is only step one of the pursuit.
SO WHAT’S THE POINT?
Well, actually, I’m not sure, which is not the most satisfying way to end a novel-length soapbox, amirite? Let me propose that we don’t need a to-do list or set of crystal clear takeaways from this discussion. We also don’t need a one-size-fits-all path forward. What we do need is more girls, gays, and theys, and even men, to have their own space free from the expectation and assumption that the male gaze is the norm. And, their own space that looks and feels authentic to them, perhaps spruced up by their own female gaze/female rage godmothers’ tips and tricks. The purpose of this missive was to show you what I know to be true for me and my space.
And, here is what I know:
I am adventuring it finding sugar and violence without the intention of punching babies. I am Cassie, strange feathered lady… I am suffering no fools with unapologetic confidence as a savage and unfiltered Sultry Siren. I am Cassie, waking up hotter than I was yesterday… I am swiping on a red lip and wearing sequins screaming my rage-filled hymn WHO'S AFRAID OF LITTLE OLD ME? at the alter of femme-centric joy. I am Cassie, howling like a wolf at the moon… I am gathering at my salon with the weird and the artistic, reciting a rose is a rose is a rose. I am Cassie, eccentric, self-styled genius...
I kid you not, this was an actual SCOTUS Justice's comments in the case of Jacobellis v Ohio (a case hinging on whether a motion picture was considered “obscene”, i.e., pornographic). These are the juicy tidbits I retained from law school, which is a surprising hotbed for some hot goss. If you’re on TikTok, follow @rebmasel for hilarious readings of iconic court transcripts.
I acknowledge that some of these friends are problematic (lookin’ at you, Picasso). I don’t mean to gloss over this fact, but wanted to focus on my journey in learning about women living in ways that do not conform to society.
Paraphrased quotes from the Poor Things film (2023).
My best friend is 100% theater kid and is wildly obsessed with Reneé Rapp. Apparently, it was the 2018 Jimmy Awards that won her over. She assigned me the following required reading and listening that I’m sharing with you, especially for you theater nerds out there: this Vulture article, this medley at the 2018 Jimmy Awards, and this winning performance at the 2018 Jimmy Awards. Furthermore, my sister is 100% Gen Z and is also wildly obsessed with Rapp. She gave me two assignments as well: watch the SNL episode hosted by Jacob Elordi with Rapp as musical guest and the Call Her Daddy interview of Rapp.