It’s no secret that we try to look our best not only in real life but also on social media. By sharing different places we travel, interesting things we are doing, and most importantly, the best way we look, we create a fantasy for ourselves and others that life is perfect and it couldn’t be any other way. Even though, it is an open secret that hardly anyone lives like that. There’s always been this battle between appearance and personality, and recent times showed that this battle became fiercer. It might seem that we live in a kingdom of distorting mirrors, but a recent video found on TikTok showed some interesting facts about people and how they “assess” each other.

More Info: TikTok

It seems that men and women perceive attractiveness differently, which may lead to miscommunication between the two

Image credits: Giuseppe Milo

She explained that the reason why he was less interesting when he was “super fit” is that he was giving “the male power fantasy”. That is when men look how they think that women want them to look instead of what women actually find attractive. She continued by stating that men are the ones who care about aesthetics and appearances more than females do, hence the miscommunication happens when men put a lot of effort into looking good when women don’t find this necessary.

TikTok user posed a question not knowing why he wasn’t seen as more attractive when he was more sporty

Image credits: torres.alejandro

She explained that the reason why he was less interesting when he was “super fit” is that he was giving “the male power fantasy”. That is when men look how they think that women want them to look instead of what women actually find attractive. She continued by stating that men are the ones who care about aesthetics and appearances more than females do, hence the miscommunication happens when men put a lot of effort into looking good when women don’t find this necessary.

Image credits: torres.alejandro

Bored Panda contacted the TikToker @the.claire.b***h.project and asked her a few questions on the matter. When asked whether she was surprised to see that her video got so much attention, Claire told that she didn’t expect it to become viral and explained a possible reason for this to happen. She first hesitated to post the video, but the idea that most of her followers were women made her think that females TikTok users will agree with her. By stating this, Claire touched on another important point of how being in “the bubble” with people who are interested in the same things and share the same values makes us think that everyone is like that. The girl continues to tell how she felt after the video was released and the bubble was popped: “I will be honest, it sort of made me upset because I’d previously been in a bubble on TikTok with people I liked and who are knowledgeable about the same things as me, so to suddenly have an influx of people who felt that my studies and my knowledge actually discredited me to speak on a topic made me pretty angry. It amazed me the amount of men who wrote me off simply because I had studied Gender Studies, and I think that speaks to misogyny on the internet”.

Another TikTok user gladly explained the situation by using her knowledge from gender studies, talking about “the female gaze”

Image credits: the.claire.b***h.project

So whether the key to understanding each other better lies in knowing more about concepts such as “the female gaze”? Claire explained that people misinterpreted the video by thinking that “the female gaze” is related to attraction and dating, “when really it’s about the way women see the world as a whole”. She also continued by saying that “allowing yourself to see the world through someone else’s eyes helps you gain empathy for that person, and I think a lot of men lack empathy and understanding of how women see the world”.

Image credits: the.claire.b***h.project

At the very beginning of this article, we talked about how social media changed the way we present ourselves. We asked Claire whether she thinks that social media has an impact on the whole male/female attractiveness to which she answered first explaining “the internalized male gaze” – that is when women start to “identify” with the sexualized and objectified version of themselves presented in media and also live up to the expectations of the “right” man. She notices that “with the rise of social media, this internal need to perform is happening in all genders, not just women. So in a sense, everyone now feels like they have to be aware of how they’re presented at all times.”

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Image credits: the.claire.b***h.project

We were curious whether there are any tips on how to present yourself on social media knowing how it is related to the way people see each other and knowing the fact how much time we spent there creating these “portfolios” of our lives. According to Claire, this is not what is important in this case. What she agrees to is that we should stop relying on what other people expect from us. Women are not only attractive as men are not only strong. In the end, the girl stated: “I want everyone to feel free to just be themselves as they are and however that ends up presenting is the best way to present oneself”.

Image credits: the.claire.b***h.project

The post that got 946.5k likes and 19.3 shares cover a few terms that relate to gender studies. What is then “the female gaze”? It all started with a concept of “the male gaze” that was created by British feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey who stated that in cinema context women are seen by men as an object of desire. So the opposite should cover the term of the female gaze? Well not exactly. While “the male gaze” is seen as a norm, showing everything from their perspective and making them the main character, “the female gaze” depicts what women feel and experience.

It’s interesting to see how many movie plots are created according to “the male gaze”: Transformers, Iron Man 2, Suicide Squad, and many more. Not without reason, it’s said that movies reflect real life, and “the female gaze” helps to make it even more real and full of emotions.

Do you know any good real-life / movie plot examples of “the female gaze” theory? Feel free to share it in the comments down below!

You can check the full video down bellow

@the.claire.bitch.project#stitch with @torres.alejandro Female Gaze vid: @ms.eggy #genderstudies #malegaze #femalegaze #feminism #feminist #patriarchy♬ original sound – 🌈 Claire 🌈

TikTok users showed their interest in the comments while sharing their own remarks as well as experiences

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