Male Gaze

Alexa Sanchez

Art & Women

Professor Cacoilo

2/7/2017

What is male gaze? 

The male gaze is something that is spoken of frequently but not fully understood. To understand male gaze, is to comprehend the power that the male gender obtains. The male gaze defines a women’s place, as she is looked at as an object for the male viewer. The male gaze depicted the way the world of women is viewed from a perspective of men through a lens of literature and visual arts.

 Male Gaze through the lens of John Berger 

In John Berger's Ways of Seeing, he states, "in relation to the woman, the man becomes the agent of god" (Berger 48.) Theoretically, this is interchangeable with the topic of patriarchy as it portrays the social construct that revolves around our world and the power of men.

"Men 'act' and women 'appear.' Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at." (Berger 47)

John Berger sets the mood, although perhaps it is not universal, is familiar to many, many women. Many women recognize that it is developed within the younger ages of life. You are never yourself; you are yourself as you appear to others. To men, yes, and to the women with whom you are supposed to compete for their attention.

The female of this advertisement is asked to envision herself as being looked at by a cluster of men. The distorted, unfocussed glance that the woman is giving is the expression of someone who is not only not looking at anything directly, but is rather engaged in the act of being looked at.

The image above which is from a panel that was taken from the comic All Star Batman And Robin, the Boy Wonder correlated the script written by author Frank Miller, illustrated the way that male gaze works in a real, tangible way. Miller asserted, “We can’t take our eyes off her” he was speaking directly about the presumably male audience, and then miller proceeded with, “Especially since she’s got one fine ass.” This spoke a loud and clear message that sexually portrayed the pleasure of the envisioned lustful, heterosexual male viewer. Miller bluntly spoke and clearly illustrated his intent within the picture. He practically said that no matter the women, they are always being watched.  The representation of women in cinema and media nowadays is a well-known issue with a long-standing history that is still a topic of debate today. Women were almost always viewed as sexual objects, whether they were physically or sexually desired.

 As well as in Sin City not the original comic by Frank Miller but the film with only a few differences, the women are defined by their sexuality. Jessica Alba’s character Nancy is first introduced dancing at a “Sleazy Saloon” not wearing much. The cameras sure enough captured that and focused on it, pleasing many men and the let alone the audience. A  perfect, self explainable example of male gaze!

In the opinions and eyes of many, the cinema only offers visual satisfaction of where the men look and the women are being looked at. In other words, even powerful women characters are often valued and seen only for their sexual appeal.  A fine example of the male gaze in action would be this scene from the Marilyn Monroe film The Seven Year Itch in 1955, From ones perspective, the story was being told entirely from a males perspective. The infamous scene depicted Marilyn Monroe, who is wearing a dress, walking down a city street with a male companion. She stops to walk across an air vent above the subway tracks. "You feel the breeze from the subway?" she asks her male companion. "Isn't it delicious?" The camera then pans down to Monroe's exposed legs, now visible from under her raised skirt, and focuses on them for several moments. But what strikes me most about the scene and the photo above is how perfectly it embodies the male gaze

What is Patriarchy?

Do you understand the true meaning of patriarchy? The author of "Understanding Patriarchy", Bell Hooks defines 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.) Patriarchy still exists today and everywhere around us. Men have time after time made these rules towards women,  that gives them a power almost as if it puts them in control. Hooks entails patriarchy as a way of thinking. Patriarchy is a system of defining gender roles within society where men are dominant and there are no equal rights for both men and women as one. Hooks’ feminist ideology is very clear and profound. Patriarchy is often misunderstood for many reasons. Reasons being that many times men don’t realize their oppression towards women and justify it by making themselves a victim.

  Male gaze should almost be like an offense, a misdemeanor. No-one should have the right to feel as if they can talk down, oppress  on anyone. Male gazing isn't something that everyone notices but is something that I firmly believe should be acted upon. It leads to many more serious cases than just an "innocent act" of hitting on a woman, but almost making them feel uncomfortable in their own skin just freely walking around fully clothed.