Rita Banerjee’s essay “The Female Gaze,” which was published in PANK Magazine was recently named a Notable Essay in the The Best American Essays 2023 (edited by Vivian Gornick).
Rita Banerjee’s essay in three parts, “The Female Gaze,” is an excerpt from her memoir and manifesto on how young women of color keep their cool against social, sexual, and economic pressure.
In her essay exploring the female gaze, female agency, and female cool, Banerjee asks: What if women, especially women of color, were the progenitors of cool? That is, did women have to cultivate their own cool—their own sense of style, creative expression, and coldness—in order to survive patriarchy across millennia across cultures? If the male gaze aims subordinate and colonize, what does the female gaze, tempered by cool, desire? What does the female gaze cherish or hold dear? If a woman were fully aware of her gaze, would she use it to objectify and colonize, or could her gaze destabilize and decolonize?
You can read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of “The Female Gaze” on PANK here:
https://pankmagazine.com/2022/01/27/the-female-gaze/
https://pankmagazine.com/2022/02/08/the-female-gaze-pt-ii/
https://pankmagazine.com/2022/04/26/the-female-gaze-pt-iii/
Rita Banerjee 