The (Fe)Male Gaze and Patriarchy

Johnathan Schroeder, Professor of identity, media, and visual culture

The image and the quote above represent the multi-faceted definition of the male gaze, and simply summarizes it the best. The beginning of the male gaze, is first and foremost about the promise of power, power that men have. In the case of the male gaze, men possess power over the visual of women, treating them as visual objects, for the male experience. In the image above, the men are watching the woman from every angle, but look at the woman's face. The woman's face is conveying that she enjoys being stared at men, most likely because she knows that she should be stared at because of her appearance. While it is sad to say, the look from men are almost equivalent to women deeming themselves worthy, especially in today's society. Berger stated, "Those who are not judged beautiful are not beautiful. Those who are, are given the prize. The prize is to be owned by a judge-that is to say to be available for him" (Berger 52). It is more evident, that because of the male gaze, women feel the need to feel accepted because of it, which is why women survey themselves, while being surveyed, because that look has become validation. In a sense, can this be considered female empowerment?

And while speaking of female empowerment, is there a such thing as the female gaze in today's society? With the creation of male strippers, there is.

 Film Magic Mike (2012)

Looking at Channing Tatum in the film Magic Mike, it was CREATED for women. In this case, the tables turned and men became the visual objects for women. Men are judged for their sex appeal, which ultimately depends on their abs and buffness, and instantly, the women will swoon.

The female gaze even exists when women look at other women. It could be for the purpose of the women being lesbian, but more often it is because women are looking at other women to compare themselves, which is something that all women are guilty of. Women look at other women for this purpose because of the male gaze. When an individual is judged because of their looks or sex appeal and approached by men, women who are not begin to feel a way about themselves, which cause them to compare themselves to other women. This leads to women wanting  plastic surgery and telling the doctor that she wants to look like her and also the idea of vanity, which women became condemned for. Berger wrote, "You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure" (Berger 51). Simply put, women cannot look at themeselves nor love themselves, but men can look at women and love what they see.

Meme addressing Berger and the idea of vanity

This leads to the Berger's point that, "Her body confronts us, not as immediate sight, but as experience-the painter's experience" (Berger 61). Berger was refering to older paintings of women, created by men, which represent what men want to look at. In today's society, this leads to women viewing themselves in a different light, trying to conform to what men want. This is also equivalent to the process of photoshop. We photoshop and filter today to convey a different 'experience' than what is really true.

Today's male gaze in film, television, music, and magazines are all about what sells. Film maker, Alfred Hitchcock was notorious for using the male gaze and women as objects in his films. In his film, Rear Window, and like many of his other films, Hitchcock created the femme fatale, whose sex appeal was distracting but also drew the audience in. What most do not know is that the film is based off of a short story, in which the femme fatale was not a character in the story. Instead, her character in the story was a man. But what makes a great movie for men to watch? Eye candy.

The idea of the male gaze and patriarchy go hand-in-hand, as two natural instincts for men. Hooks defines patriarchy as, "...a social-political system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms psychological terriorism and violence" (Hooks 18). Men are born with and exude the essence of patriarchy without even knowing it.

Meme addressing the male need of Feminism

Perhaps the most devestating aspect about patriarchy is the need for men to convey their masculinity through violence, violence towards men and women. It is detrimental to the mental process of men because men are only taught to hide their emotions and feeling that make them cry or feel sad, while men showing anger and agressiveness is what is wanted. This especially hurts men who are more emotional than usual, they will be deemed by other men as 'acting like a woman' and even women will view men who act that way as 'not being man enough' or telling to grow balls. The same can be said for women. Women are deemed as normally emotional, but when they become angry or even passionate, especially if she is black, she will be deemed as the 'angry black woman' while Latina and Hispanic women are viewed as 'spicy and feisty', which is a turn on when they do it.

Works Cited

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. 1972

Hooks, Bell. Understanding Patriarchy . s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/learn-us-east-1-prod-fleet01-xythos/5af494bf200ea/349191?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27bellhooks_Chapter2.pdf&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20180919T155227Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=21600&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIBGJ7RCS23L3LEJQ%2F20180919%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=3d9f60ecf69147abc8397bc4c6b0c411095796f0de419495a74f70db613616cb.