body language

The Muse’s Misfortune
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The Muse’s Misfortune

The Muse’s Misfortune 

To be a muse is to be worthy. To be a muse is to be beautiful and talented, chosen and seen. To be a muse is to be exhilarated and exhausted, honored and objectified, proud and pornified. There cannot be one state of being without the other, so long as there is one being to perceive and one being to be perceived.

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In some societies, perhaps, it is possible for a muse to exist without the constant fear and awareness of their own and another’s presence. In patriarchal and sexist cultures, however, the muse faces an internal and external threat of surveillance, and therefore sexualization. “(Patriarchal and sexist) society defines woman as object, as a mere body, and… are in fact frequently regarded by others as objects and mere bodies” (Young, I. “Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment Motility and Spatiality,” p. 153-154). For feminine muses, they “learn to live out (their) existence in accordance with the definition that patriarchal culture assigns to (them, and) are physically inhibited, confined, positioned, and objectified” (152). The definition becomes internalized, which then manipulates and forces women into being more feminine- more submissive, docile, small, quiet. “Women often approach a physical engagement with things with timidity, uncertainty, and hesitancy… (They) lack an entire trust in (their) bodies to carry (them to their) aims. There is… a double hesitation here. On the one hand, (women) lack confidence that (they) have the capacity to do what must be done… The other side of this tentativeness is… a fear of getting hurt… (They) often experience (their) bodies as a fragile encumbrance, rather than the medium for the enactment of (their) aims” (143-144). The subordination of feminine beings is at the root of patriarchy, and it grows as more minds and bodies accept the notion that feminine and masculine categories cannot intermingle. The stronger the patriarchy becomes, the more ‘natural’ it seems that feminine bodies are weaker than masculine bodies. In reality, women “have more of a tendency than men to greatly underestimate our bodily capacity,” as well as the relentless pressure of being perceived as a muse, which results in under-performance.

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What Lies Behind a RBF

Little did I know when coming into college how many opinions were really out there regarding my resting face. Who knew that there’d be so many comments and concerns about me when I thought I was simply going about my day-to-day life?

I never thought much about the way that I looked while walking around, minding my own business in public spaces, but apparently, I don’t look as content as I may feel. I remember walking to Potomac Hall, where I lived during my freshman year at UMBC, when an employee from True Grits said, “Having a bad day?” I can’t exactly recall what I said or how the situation occurred, but I believe he followed with “You look mad.” This, of course, caught me completely off guard, and I’ve been aware ever since of how I come off in public spaces.

Truthfully, it bothers me most when my friends mention times that they’ve seen me out and about, unsure of whether I was doing alright or not. I also have a tendency to be ‘in the zone’ when walking about, so not only do I accidentally ignore my friends, but I do so with a certified ‘RBF.’ I always feel terrible and apologize, but times like these can’t help but make me laugh, as I know that my friends can see right through the RBF.

This ties into concepts from Iris Marion Young’s “Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment, Motility, and Spatiality,” and how women’s lives are often associated with confinement and enclosure. To those in public spaces who don’t know me personally, it’s probably easy for them to assume that I’m the closed-off, keep-to-myself type. Men may be quicker to assume from looking at my face that I’m not as happy as I actually am. So much is assumed about women based solely on their looks. While women certainly have a whole lot to be angry about, we don’t necessarily aim to visualize our feelings as we go about life on a daily basis.