By The Throat

SHOOTS TEAM ON SITE Tia Kearney, Abby Gleason, Nia Alexander, Sydney Tindall BEAUTY Katie Russell and Stephanie Kraus MODELS Tia Kearney, Quinn Cote, Josh Emanuelli PHOTOGRAPHY Lalo Ambris/Lily Fox WRITTEN BY Noelle Knowlton EDITED BY Lexi Fernandez VIDEOGRAPHY Sophie Kish LAYOUT Molly Custis

BY THE THROAT

Femme Fatale

“From now on, it’s gonna be nothin’ but short, short skirts around the office,” retorts the outstretched superior, arched on the desk in licentious fervor as she flays herself afoot her coworker. The cascading neckline and ruched curves of her pantsuit accentuate the sultry sensuality of her contorted frame, the bold impiety of her dishabille uniform juxtaposed against the solemnity of the workplace. In this narrative of hegemonic femininity, the seductive femme fatale coyishly spreads her stiletto-speared legs for the libidinous male voyeur, paralyzed in tortured perversion at the sight of our pimped-out heroine’s weapon of choice: her womanhood.

A euphoric scene of female dominance and sexual liberation has been crafted as an underhanded manifestation of male fantasies, parading under the false guise of empowerment. The geisha archetype represents merely an eroticized subversion of the traditional power dynamics of sexual politics. The domineering, “grab ‘em by the balls” persona upholds the notion that maleoriented constructions of femininity exist to serve men. Even when men like the depraved voyeur reduce themselves to subordinate positions, they do so to position themselves in a dignified role of sexual gratification. Our femme fatale’s role is purported to be one of dominance, yet she exists to perpetuate the old social order of female submission and servitude.

Contemporaneously, the masculinized “boss babe” with dominion over the workplace exacerbates the dichotomy between masculinity and femininity, where the former is equated with dominance and the latter connotes submissive subordination. By fetishizing females in positions of authority, these archetypes are proven to be counterproductive in subverting and redefining gender norms.

Hegemonic femininity emerged as an anthem of reclamation, the rallying cry for a creed of women disillusioned to the facade of egalitarianism. Femme fatales flipped the script by weaponizing their femininity and sexuality to secure the same power coveted by men through hegemonic means. Made in the image of the male gaze, these prurient archetypes of virility transformed sex appeal into an equalizing instrument of authority.

While empowering, hegemonic femininity can become problematic when played off of the status quo of female objectification. Inherently misogynistic men devise these scenes to entice a hedonistic male audience, offering up the bare femme fatale to fetishize the dominance of women as an abnormality that can only exist to satiate the depravity of men. As female dominance is rare in our society, female empowerment has been sexually warped into something that can only exist in debauched fantasies. This sets the precedent that hegemonic femininity is only permissible if it ultimately serves men. Sexual liberation has become another sensualized aberration of feminism for men to reign dominion over. The destigmatization of women’s sexuality has transformed into a perversion that men feel entitled to benefit from. Genuine empowerment can only be derived from exclusively female-oriented contexts of sexuality, independent from the desires of men. While the presence of such femme fatales can help facilitate sexual liberation, we can only purge the toxicity of hegemonic femininity by freeing women from the constraints of male hedonism. Only in the ruins of the old sexual order can women truly emerge in an empowering light; incandescent as we bask in the glow of our innate preeminence, forged by the fire of unrelenting feminine devastation.

Femme Fatale