On Women: Three Ways of Being Invisible.
In a world in which magazines and TV are filled with perfect, idealized images of women, it’s sometimes tempting to forget the ease with which we can disappear. In fact, stage magicians across the world have made it a traditional part of their show, along with women being sawn in half, used as targets in knife-throwing stunts and generally used as accessories to the main (and male) event.
But that’s not the only way women become invisible. The disappearance and death of Nicola Bulley earlier this year has once more raised issues around women, and their visibility. First, why was the disappearance of this particular woman given so much attention? Many women disappear without ever making the papers. But the disappearance of Nicola Bulley – a mother of two, from a reasonably affluent home and a professional background – became a kind of obsession to armchair sleuths and online conspiracy theorists, all keen to speculate on what might become a murder investigation, to the point of intrusion onto the search and to the distress of the family. As a response to growing criticism, the Lancashire police felt obliged to release details of Nicola’s “vulnerable” state - her menopausal problems; her self-medication with alcohol, all privileged information with little relevance to the case – so that when her body was finally found in the river some days later, the narrative around her had changed considerably. Instead of being a professional, active mother-of-two who had vanished under mysterious and unusual circumstances, she was now portrayed in the Press as a hormonal, unreliable woman with a possible alcohol problem, whose disappearance was no longer seen as suspicious, and who was now assumed to have “found her way” into the river, the implication being that she brought about her own death, either through suicide or negligence.
And it worked. People lost interest. The armchair sleuths moved on. It’s not my place to speculate on why poor Nicola Bulley died. But the shift in public sympathy following the release of her medical information is a shocking illustration of how women are treated, and how fast they can become invisible. Nicola is a case in point. She started to vanish from the headlines when her flaws were made public. Now she’s back in the news again. After weeks of invisibility, her narrative is being rewritten once again – somewhat reluctantly, it seems – as that of a murder victim.
But what all this teaches us is that the death of a woman is “tragic” only when she is young, attractive, white, and the mother of young children. Older women, women of colour, working class women, trans women, women with disabilities, women who do not conform to societal norms of desirability and virtue – the deaths of these women rarely make the news, and when they do, the coverage is often less than sympathetic. The first way of being invisible is not to be of value to men.
Because of this, when a woman’s death manages to hit the headlines, the language surrounding her murder tends to suggests that this is a rare occurrence. Sadly, not: about a dozen women are killed every month in the UK, most often by a partner. Unless there are newsworthy details, the majority of these are overlooked. The second way of being invisible is to be a victim of men.
Society centres the comfort of men over the welfare of women. How many rape and murder cases have we seen, where the victim has been eclipsed by a narrative that excuses the perpetrator? How many college rapists have been let off with a caution because of the damage to their prospects? How many true crime TV shows exist to serve society’s fascination with serial killers, portraying them as complicated, even heroic figures? It’s like a magician’s sleight-of-hand, in which the man’s visibility always eclipses the woman. And when women protest – as we so often do – about this prioritizing of men’s narratives over ours, we are portrayed as unreasonable, hysterical, hormonal.
The third way of being invisible is to compete in the world of men. History is filled with women’s inventions, art, political achievements and scientific discoveries attributed to men instead. Women’s sport is generally seen as less important than men’s sport – unless reporting accounts of women who are seen as too masculine to compete. The world of literature is filled with men who are simply seen as great writers, while women continue to battle the myth that women write for their own kind, rather than portraying the wealth and universality of the human experience. According to history - and literature, and politics, and science, and sport - you’d never guess that women were over 50% of the population.
But for centuries, men have tried to hide women’s light behind their own, whilst at the same time exposing women to the harshest kind of scrutiny. The male gaze can be extremely unkind, subjecting women to the strictest judgement, policing and control, deciding what they should wear, what size they should be, when and where they should be seen. Beauty is prized, whilst at the same time being seen as a kind of incitement. Modesty is prized - at least until the woman refuses to put out. Perfection is the ultimate goal, a goal that can never be approached, thus making women perpetually insecure about themselves, while men stride on in confidence. And when women do give men what they want – sexual attention - they are all too often shamed for it, referred to as whores, or subjected to public humiliation – which has become easier with the rise of revenge porn. In short, women are expected to fulfil a multitude of conflicting roles at once. To be visible as well as invisible; alluring as well as reticent. And when they fall short, as they inevitably do, they are held to account, not just for their perceived failings, but for those of men as well.
So, what is a woman to do? There’s a price to be paid for claiming our space. In spite of the risks, invisibility is sometimes safer. To be visible is to be a target. To stand out as a rival to men is even more perilous. Modesty – that double-edged virtue so beloved of the patriarchy – becomes a weapon with which to strike out at women who are successful. As with Emma Pattison, whose “high-flying” career has been blamed in the Press for driving her husband to murder - there is a narrative that suggests successful women – like crowing hens – are not only unnatural, but are somehow asking for trouble. Women who demand their space are seen as pushy, shrill and unfeminine. This is especially true of women who do not have the advantage of white, middle-class, cis privilege: they are especially likely to be viewed as mannish, aggressive, dangerous. All women are at risk because of their gender. But some are more so than others. Which is why we need to be visible not just for ourselves, but for each other: that means amplifying the voices of those who struggle to be heard. It means to protest on behalf of all women, not just the ones we see socially. Because women are as different and diverse and imperfect in every way as any other social group. All women are valid. All women deserve to be seen. And when we have visibility, we need to make sure our shadows don’t fall on the women behind us in our race to catch the light. Because only when all of us have the same rights will women have equality. And only when the illusion of perfect womanhood is gone – along with its toxic counterpart, the one who gives womanhood a bad name, the woman who doesn’t know her place - will women have the right to stand and be seen as they really are; as individuals, not types, with unlimited range of potential.
