An independent eye

In the mailbox on this June day named after Thor...

And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?

And have you changed your life? – Mary Oliver

Women's bodies have become a valuable commodity only ‘within the confines of a cis-hetero, capitalist, patriarchal world … in which beauty and sex appeal are valued solely through the satisfaction of the male gaze.’ – Emily Ratajkowski

It might be nigh impossible to escape the patriarchal gaze, but that it is possible to borrow its visual language to subvert its values....We must keep looking consciously and with intention for the impossibly thin distance between what we see, and what it might begin to mean. – after Lauren Elkin

Machismo is a myth, as well as is feminine passivity. As her passivity passes into the dustbin of history, so will machismo slowly dissolve into the ocean of its own design. The male gaze is a product of the past; the female gaze is an attempt to remain open to the unfolding future. Our future progeny will look back, as we are now becoming, with embarrassment; then, eventually, with disbelieving humor.