What Women Want: To Keep Wearing Masks to Thwart the Male Gaze
UN Women raises awareness of the shadow pandemic of violence against women during COVID-19
New York, 27 May, 2020– UN Women, the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, today launched the Shadow Pandemic public awareness campaign, focusing on the global increase in domestic violence amid the COVID-19 health crisis. The Shadow Pandemic public service announcement is a sixty-second film narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Kate Winslet, who has championed many humanitarian causes. The video highlights the alarming upsurge in domestic violence during COVID-19 and delivers a vital message urging people to act to support women if they know or suspect someone is experiencing violence.
Some women mask up to deflect attention, but what we really want is freedom
One image of the pandemic that will stay with me forever is a photograph of an unmasked woman standing in front of a Baskin Robbins during a lockdown protest in April 2020, holding a sign that reads “Give me liberty or give me death.” The photo was universally mocked and memeified in my neighborhood of the Internet: This was an archetypal “Karen,” a White woman who wants to speak to the manager of the lockdown. She was protesting a restriction of her freedoms, just like liberal women do when they march with “My body, my choice” signs — the obvious difference being that the pandemic lockdowns were not only about the right to choose what to do with one’s own body but the responsibilities and trade-offs that come with being a member of a society. Still, even while I disagreed with the target of this woman’s protest, I recognized her anger.
I wonder if feminists’ true desire is not actually public privacy, but something more akin to freedom: freedom from impossible beauty standards, freedom from judgment, freedom from the expectation that as women we exist to please. But continuing to mask up — to hide our faces from the world — will not bring us any closer to those freedoms.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/05/20/voluntary-masking-women-privacy/
The Bandari women of the Persian Gulf have worn the niqāb for centuries, a mask that is said to have been first worn to escape the leery gaze of slave masters. The only part of the face it reveals is the eyes.
In Korea over the summer of 2018, women were chanting, holding signs, and wearing masks for personal security and safety. Many passersby, especially men, were attempting to take photographs of the faces of protestors, so wearing a mask or sunglasses to protect ourselves from being attacked in the media was essential. This seemingly absurd, extra step for protection is of course unheard of in peaceful feminist marches in Western countries such as the Global Women’s March where women feel safe, welcomed, and empowered without the concern of being assaulted.
An Egyptian woman’s rights activist is taking advantage of the fact that face masks are likely here to stay.
Hadia Abdel Fattah decided that if she was going to wear a mask every day to protect herself and others from COVID-19, she was also going to use it to make a statement.
Abdel Fattah recently launched an initiative called Kemama Naswaya, which translates to “feminist mask,” according to Daily News Egypt. She’s been affixing phrases and photos that champion women’s rights on masks that meet the World Health Organization’s (WHO) health standards and wearing them to raise awareness.
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/rights-advocate-creates-feminist-masks-egypt/
More women want to be able to wear a mask outside, even though science has declared it no longer medically necessary.a mask has become a handy device when it comes to deflecting unwanted attention — which men, in particular, have a reputation for doling out. As one woman told the Guardian, “It’s almost like taking away the male gaze. There’s freedom in taking that power back.”
While graphic clothing can’t solve human rights issues on its own, experts say it can spark important conversations, which are an important first step toward creating change.