Male Gaze and Patriarchy

The male gaze is the oppression of women and their sexuality. In "Ways of Seeing" John Berger digs deeper than what meets the eye in order to fully describe the effects the male gaze has always had on society. Through paintings, books, and other ways, women were seen as submissive, while the heterosexual men were dominant. Women’s bodies would be painted naked, but they would be positioned in a way to be enjoyed by men. The male gaze made the assumption that women were only for the sexual pleasure of the heterosexual man and nothing more. Berger was able to show these injustices towards women through his work. He says, "Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at" (47). This means that men will look at women although they are doing something simple like walking, while women would see those men watching them. The male gaze is still true for todays society unfortunately. Women are still pictured the same ways as they were hundreds of years ago. Naked women appear in women’s magazines, while men are pictured fully clothed. 

Berger states that, “Men survey women before treating them . . . how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated. A woman’s worth is depicted by a man. If a man feels a woman is worthy of respect, then he will treat her with respect. If he feels she is not worthy of respect, then he will treat her otherwise”. This statement says that men will determine how they want to treat a woman based off of what he sees her as and what he thinks she represents. Opposed to treating all women with respect, men would pick and choose who they think is worth it. This is true for today’s society where men will label women as “wifey material”. This means they would consider being in a relationship with her and even marrying her. This term is extremely sexist because most of the time it is used because the women is displaying domestic duties such as cooking, cleaning, etc. 

Male gaze comes from patriarchy and the ways that men continue to believe that women were created for them. Bell Hooks described patriarchy as “. . . a political-social 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 of psychological terrorism and violence” (Hooks 18). We see often times men as the breadwinners of the household, while the women are left at home to tend to the children, this is also known as gender roles. Patriarchy enforces the idea that women are to always be submissive to the man.  “To indoctrinate boys into the rules of patriarchy, we force them to feel pain and to deny their feelings” (Hooks 22). Young boys are taught that crying is for women, and often times this leads to those same boys growing up angry and harboring years’ worth of hurt. Any emotion other than anger is seen as soft and many man try to harbor these emotions in order to not be seen as “gay” or soft. Today, we see way more women trying to change the narrative of the male gaze. They have created empowering paintings and changed the way the female body is seen. More women aren’t afraid to show their bodies and make sure it is known that it is for them and not for anyone else. The feminist movement has quickly grown. The feminist movement serves as a way for women to control the visual representation and tell their own stories the right way through their various forms of art. Unlike the male gaze, the female gaze or feminism does not attack or try to dehumanize men. More women are even speaking up and taking legal action against men who have hurt them or done them any injustice. Time magazine, one of the most influential of today’s society did a feature called “The Silence Breakers”. http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2017-silence-breakers/ In this feature, they interviewed various women who told their stories. These were women who weren’t always brave enough to even tell their stories. Even in movies, we are now seeing more women take over roles they weren’t granted before. Although the male gaze is still extremely present in movies, women are slowly trying to get away from the old tradition and make a way for the future generations. 

Works Cited 

  Hooks, Bell. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Washington Square Press, 2005. 

Berger, John, and Michael Dibb. Ways of Seeing: Based on the BBC Television Series Directed by Michael Dibb. British Broadcasting Corporation, 2008. 

The Silence Breakers for TIME magazine

Naked Women for Cosmopolitan Magazine

Sofia Vergara Naked for Women's Health Magazine

If it is uncomfortable, there is a problem.

The inability to relate to constant oppression has been the excuse for men to discard the vivid issue of the male gaze. Entertainment has been one of the many resources that channeled women as an object with fleeting values; in other words the female character is often built for pleasure. From early years women were already the object sculpted through paintings made by male artists,   author John Berger explains in his book “Ways of Seeing” explains the issue was never the biological differences between genders but the objectification of a male designing the image of a women to flatter himself (Berger 64). Men has had the liberty to incorporate the male gaze since the beginning of time from commanding power and condoning a women weakness, to paintings filled with sexual desires. Male gaze has been normalized due to the freedom men has incurred, silencing  women when speaking about their [female] values, it  has empowered men to feel as if they are given the access to such actions. Male gaze is described to be a power that man has stolen to use the female body for its own sexual appeals, ignoring women feelings. As much as a glance at a woman’s body might seem discrete it is the most silent invasion committed. Berger goes on explaining that, “consequently how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated" (Berger 46). In a Brazilian comedy TV show, a social experiment was made where a woman pretends to be helpless with a popped tire. For one part of the experiment she is dressed in an attractive way and in another she is shown to be dressed messy, it was proven men would not bother to glance at the woman when she was messy and chaotic not even for the fact that she needed help. However, when the outfits changed, men would instantly notice the woman and stare long enough to make the decision to help; not out of courtesy but out of the appeal they [men] have built from a stranger. Women are imprisoned in their own bodies, as if it being a curse to be a woman, unable to live life without the glance of oppression and patriarchy. 

Advertisements are built for a specific audience, Gucci presents to be selling a perfume however the women is selling her sexuality to sell a product. There is a purpose for every detail, possibly could have sold this product without invading a women character. Women are always categorized as sensual and desiring, constructing the idea in which the female body is no longer personal to a women but is ordered to live according to standards set for her.

Laura Callaghan

  Patriarchy easily branches off the male gaze, the most uncomfortable word to a man ear. The sound of intimidation spurs from the idea of being equal to a woman. It has come to a time where a man yells, and a woman nods and that is seen as respectful and obedient as if a woman does not have the same comprehension as a grown man. The question rises how women can fight for patriarchy, if there is fear towards the adversary. Validation in power is what men seeks, Bell Hooks author of “The Will to Change” gives the reader a first-hand experience of her patriarchal family. Patriarchy has been the social oppression of gender roles defining the survival by differentiating women and men.  Men are built to be a wall that feels nothing and a woman that obeys with in silent, Hooks writes, “Indoctrinate boys into the rules of patriarchy we force them to feel pain and to deny their feelings (22). Inability to confront feelings makes an individual numb to anything. The topic of patriarchy often pushed aside in a conversation always being the elephant in the room, the current issue that is always overlooked because it is too uncomfortable to talk about it. Hook continues to say that a good fight cannot be made if we don’t familiarize society, she writes,” how can we organize to challenge and change a system that cannot be named" (Hooks, 25). Patriarchy has been  clouded by men and pushed to be normalized to the point of acceptance, often times men might argue there is nobody fighting for their pain but, "Until we can collectively acknowledge the damage patriarchy causes and the suffering it creates, we cannot address male pain" (Hooks, 30).  As patriarchy continues, the fight to further educate about equality still stands, many women artist have taken courage and through paintings that shown that they are not chained to a society standard anymore. Young artist Laura Callaghan paints empowering paintings that demostrate the the individualaity of a woman being comfortable in her own skin. If this idea makes anyone unfomrtable, there is a problem.