The female gaze

On my flight back to Karachi once, I was forced to change my seat in the plane because the Pakistani man sitting in front of me wouldn’t stop leaning his seat back and staring at me. The air hostess asked me if I had spoken to this man in my language and explain to him how disrespectful this was but sadly I had to tell her that he wouldn’t stop and I would rather just move. Not that it matters how I was dressed on the plane. But, it was baggy and comfy as one does when flying.

. These women started forming in my head during the flight. They were fed up, angry, frustrated. They wanted to scream at these men, make them to feel what I feel. When I reached back home, I immediately started sketching them out. They were getting bigger in size. Their necks longer. More dressed up. Their eyes bigger. A couple of my guy friends came over, they looked at some of the painted women in my studio and said ‘wow these paintings are really staring at us, kinda making us uncomfortable’. And that’s when I knew, these women represented revenge. They wanted to stare back. They wanted the men to feel uncomfortable, to feel fear. They wanted the men to understand what they had taken, the basic human right of feeling safe and free in my own country like I did in a foreign country. They wanted these men to know what this gaze feels like. This hungry nonstop gaze to objectify, to put in fear, to show power, to make uncomfortable. That’s the gaze I wanted these women to take ownership of and make it the female gaze.