From the <i>Male Gaze</i> to the <i>Female Gays</i> : Universalizing Lesbian Experiences in Alison Bechdel’s <i>Dykes to Watch Out For</i>

This article argues that Alison Bechdel envisioned a new way of looking at lesbians in her long-running comic strip <i>Dykes to Watch Out For</i> (1983-2008). Through simultaneously universalizing lesbian experiences while celebrating the ways in which her characters' sexualities rendered them different from each other and from the so-called 'universal' white male protagonists of much mainstream media, Bechdel created what I term a 'universalizing' gaze. This gaze usurped Laura Mulvey's 'male gaze' through presenting lesbian characters, not as sexual objects drawn for the reader's pleasure, but as aligned <i>with</i> readers: as the sexual <i>subjects</i> of the comic. This technique allowed Bechdel to portray lesbians as sexual people without hyper-sexualizing them, enabling a diverse group of readers to see themselves represented in the strip.