Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Male Gazing and Patriarchy - As It Is...


          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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