A recurring theme in nineteenth century Parisian literature and art is the objectification and commodification of women. Female characters often lacked the depth afforded to their male counterparts, instead being reduced to receptacles for the male protagonists’ desires. In Charles Baudelaire’s To a Passer-By, the narrator describes a fleeting encounter with a woman on the street. The poem is told from a man’s point of view as he walks down the street, and most of the poem’s verbs relate to the man’s actions. Watching the woman, he “drank”, was “reborn”, and questioned whether he will see this mysterious passerby again. The woman, in contrast, is described as statuesque. It is not she who “enthralls” or “kills”, rather her “sweetness” and “pleasure”. Baudelaire deconstructs her so that she isn’t even worth the sum of her parts. She’s composed of discrete body parts, like her “glittering” hand, her “graceful” leg, her eyes “where tempests germinate”, all which function to captivate the male observer. She cannot have a personality when she is not considered a person.

My photo was inspired by this objectification of women. Like the headless mannequins in Émile Zola’s The Ladies’ Paradise, this photo’s subject is an effigy of a woman, but not a real one. Its sole purpose is to display an item for sale or to evoke a desire. The cut of the dress which accentuates the mannequin’s delicate contours and the gentle curvature of the wrist all coalesce to feed into the male gaze, a lens which views women as items for male consumption. There is no woman, just a suggestion of one, a prototype onto which men project fantasies. This fantasy is so pervasive that women themselves embrace it. Shops aren’t just selling items but ideal types which consumers strive to model. The legacy of nineteenth century France influences us to this day.