The Female Gaze in Passing

Passing by Nella Larsen discusses themes of race, and how it relates to identity, but she also has a strong focus on the female gaze. There are many instances where Irene is self-conscious about how she is presenting herself to Clare. For example, in one instance, Irene is analyzing how Clare is treating her and immediately figures something is askew about her presentation. ON page 18 when she first encounters Clare at the hotel she worries, “Had she, in haste in the taxi, put her hat on backwards? …Perhaps there was a streak of powder on her face… Something wrong with her dress?” Irene, as a character, is someone who is very neurotic. She likes to be in control and always needs to know what is going on for her own sanity. gives off a very neurotic nature as a character, needing to be in control of every little detail. In this reaction to a another woman looking at her, she immediately things that something is wrong, a feeling that many women have experienced. The relationship that Irene and Clare embody throughout the book, demonstrate a toxic culture that is intertwined with this ideal image that women are expected to achieve.

Girlfriend culture is often linked to the term sisterhood where women unite to form connection and defy the patriarchal system, yet it is not nearly the same. Girlfirend culture is often defined in relation to the term female chauvinism mentioned by Airel Levy in her book, Female chauvinist pigs: women and the rise of raunch culture. Winch writes, “Levy argues that much contemporary misogyny is perpetuated by women themselves. She coins the term ‘female chauvinist pigs’ to describe women who make sex objects of other women and themselves” (360). The argument that both Winch and Levy are making, is that the constant competitiveness and jealousy that females have are not linked to a man, but rather an image. It is not a man that causes women to conform to some kind of standard image, but rather the culture that pits women against other women causing them to hyper analyze the way they present themselves. What is interesting about this concept is that Ariel Levy, coined this turn in the 21^st century, yet these mannerisms between the women in the story take place hundreds of years before. Of course Irene’s personality, social class, and the fear of being caught as “passing” also play a factor in her response to Clare staring at her, but we see her act this way outside of a setting where she would be worried about passing later on in the story as well.