Editor's Note: This column comes to us courtesy of Ashley Lindstrom and LillyLikes.com.

Mad Men fans, consciously or unconsciously, have been getting a healthy dose of Freud. The questions "What is femininity and what is feminine desire?" were as enigmatic to Dr. Freud as they are to Don Draper. This is perhaps an unorthodox window into our discussion, but hold tight.

You see, Freud referred to woman as "a hieroglyph." And what is a hieroglyph but -- as feminist thinker Mary Ann Doane explains -- "indecipherable to the uninitiated" even as it is one of the most immediate forms of communication: a picture.

Doane connects male bewilderment with femininity to film in this way:

... the cinema, the theater of pictures, a writing in images of the woman but not for her. For she is the problem.

Well what the heck does that mean? To start, it means that predominantly heterosexual male filmmakers' representations of women, especially female bodies, put female viewers in a wonky -- sometimes sadomasochistic -- place.

Why? Because we are both the signifier and the signified -- the actual woman and the male inscription of woman. According to Doane, this results in our having to look at the film as both a woman and a man. We identify with the female character, and yet we are also often asked to look at her lasciviously.

While watching a movie, at one time or another, you've probably found yourself to be the object of your own desire. That sounds crazy, but let me explain: We tend to identify with our own gender in film narratives. I recently watched the remake of The Last House on the Left. So, I'm going along, identifying with the teen-girl protagonist, when suddenly I get a gratuitous upskirt shot. I've already put myself in her shoes, and then the voyeuristic male gaze or look -- which the director controls, because he ultimately controls the camera; you see the world as he looks at it -- makes her a lust object. Again: It was for no good reason. Seeing the shot didn't serve the story at all.

I'm not saying a woman shouldn't be portrayed as sexy in a film: They can, are, and should be. That representation often serves character and story. The female body is beautiful, as the director Pedro Almodovar shows us again and again in a way that is matter-of-fact (yep, here they are, boobs!) without -- at least I think -- making anyone feel like an uninvited guest at their own party.

Not long ago I was watching a movie called The Betrayed. I knew nothing about it, but it was around because a family member had rented it, and I was bored. So I popped it in. Now, this was not a horrible film, but it was not Oscar-winning fare, either. Melissa George plays a woman named Jamie who is held captive in a gross warehouse because her husband is some kind of criminal. At one point she asks if she can bathe, and a river of water is just poured onto her from above. My knee-jerk response was sarcastic: "Great, I'll bet she 'accidentally' forgot to wear a bra too."

But no ... here was a woman, Jamie, in the middle of psychological and emotional trauma, who was clearly beautiful, and the director didn't force my perspective to see her as a sex object. I checked the DVD case and sure enough, The Betrayed was directed by a woman.

It made me sad -- again -- to think about Batman Begins, which was directed by a filmmaker I much admire, Christopher Nolan. I love the film, but every time I watch it I'm irked at how underdeveloped the sole female character Rachel is. They didn't seem to have enough time to write or direct her, but in the last few scenes there is some effort on the lighting and costume end of things to ensure that we are able to check out her nipples. Watching The Dark Knight, you can sense that the casting of Maggie Gyllenhaal made a difference -- she was reported to be very active in the writing and costuming of the new Rachel, and she's a better character for it. Gyllenhaal understands female desire.

I'm sure you've intuited the gender of a director before based on just seeing one of his or her films, and I'm interested to know if a certain look or gaze has ever put you in an uncomfortable place. (Horror films are an obvious choice!) This is why I'm so looking forward to seeing Jennifer's Body -- how will a pair of feminists do the horror genre? How will they subvert and challenge the predominantly male look in ways that are specifically theirs? How will other women do it in their own ways in the future?

Finally, I want to point out the obvious: There are certainly holes in the theory I've cited above -- of course not every heterosexual man inscribes/shows/looks at women in the same way. I think there are some major deviations out there, but I think we can admit that some of these points frequently ring true.

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