What is
the male gaze? In simplest terms: How a man perceives a woman. To break that
down into more detail, “gazing” is often
used as a stronger term than just simply looking. Gazing can be seen as giving
a certain type of look; almost perceived as a stare with some sort of intention
behind it. From the middle ages to the present day in the 21st century, the male gaze in particular,
is more or less giving the power to men to visualize women as objects over
humans. Many artists of the past, and even today, focus on women within their pieces
of work by giving an overall emphasis on her feminine parts such as her
breasts, legs, buttocks, as a form of something that is known as “eye candy” to
admirers. The simplest line in John Berger’s Ways of Seeing states how “men act and women appear,” (Berger, 47).
These simple five words make up a bold statement that should speak volume
towards how the roles of men and women vastly vary from each other and how
masculinity is taken into consideration to demonstrate a particular authority
that men carry over women. Berger furthermore states, "a man's preference is dependent upon the promise of power which he
embodies. If the promise is large and credible his presence is striking,"
(Berger, 45). In other words, a woman can only get a man’s attention and
approval if she is able to lure him in with her physical beauty and that “she
has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears
to others, and ultimately how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what
is normally thought as success of her life,” (Berger, 46). If a woman doesn’t
match a man’s preference, she must hold some sort of flaw.
But what exactly put
this form of authority into play? Well, old habits die hard. And one of these
habits include giving the male gender a dominant role play over the female
gender. Looking back on history, patriarchy is a word that has set its stone
for many years now and there is barely any concrete site of it rolling over
anytime soon. The definition of patriarchy is “a system of society or
government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it,”
(Webster). Within the reading Understanding
Patriarchy, Bell Hooks demonstrates multiple guidelines that boy and girls
were taught growing up, – such as how “a boy should not express feelings [and]
that girls could and should express feelings, or at least some of them” (Hooks,
19). But it doesn’t stop there. This form of gender discrimination is an issue
that is reoccurring within many different forms of public interaction in today’s
society, making it a more common host on things all the way from social media
platforms and advertisements to magazine covers in local grocery store checkout
lines.
In all honestly, these
structures have become part of the “norm” in today’s generation that the gaze can
often be overseen until we take a step back to look at the bigger picture. No
matter how much we all deny the fact that we don’t let content on magazine
covers or Instagram pages affect our self-esteem, deep inside, every single one
of us has – even perhaps unintentionally – felt some sort of comparison between
us and that piece art or media that we are viewing. Things such as perfume or
cologne ads, like Axe, for example, prove to men that if they smell good, they
can lure women their way. On the flip side, it also shows how women go for the
men that smell better. In one way or another, this could persuade a man to buy
the product for the reputation it has with achieving women over the fact of
whether or not he even admires the scent of the product that much.
Above and Below: Axe ads demonstrating sexual tension and attraction to sell the product, which is barely even noticed as the main attraction within either ad images
One a more
personal level, I realized the depth of male gazing (and gazing overall) more
after being associated with the area around our very own campus. In terms of
being safe and cautious in the surrounding area, one of the biggest pieces of
advice that I was given is that we should watch how we present ourselves on the
streets. I’ve heard comments such as “watch what you wear” and “be careful
about the length of your dress and how much you’re exposing to people on the
streets” because apparently “exposing is calling for trouble” and can be on the
“unsafe side” making me appear as an easier target to being a victim of one thing or another. This made me realize that
not only can simple things such as dressing styles boost confidence within ourselves, but it can also play a
part with how strangers see, gaze, and perceive us, which is probably partially drawn from the idea of male gaze.
Works Cited
Berger, J., & Dibb, M. (2008). Ways of seeing: Based on the
BBC television series directed by Michael Dibb. London: British Broadcasting
Corporation.
Hooks, B. (2005). The will to change: Men, masculinity, and
love. New York: Washington Square Press.
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