The Male Gaze and Patriarchy Understandin

http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/34166/1/why-we-still-need-ways-of-seeing-john-berger

The male gaze is having women look available and enticing to the man/viewer that is observing the painting, and or the page in a magazine to feel a sense of feeling wanted by the woman.  Berger mentions, "…but because the “ideal” spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of woman is designed to flatter him” (64).  The women in society is always checking and changing themselves to please the male through advertisement and movies since the beginning of time in the western culture.  Berger writes, “the unequal relationship is so deeply embedded in our culture that it structures the consciousness of many woman.  They do to themselves what men do to them.  They survey, like men, their own femininity” (63).  Lots of women are always judging themselves daily and they also judge and critique other women by trying to talk down on other woman if they do not fit their ideal beauty standards.  Men are not catty and so judgmental of other men, resulting in so much pressure that is placed on the woman.  Diversity makes women beautiful and if you were born with certain distinctive characteristics that are unique it can make others transform and or want to transform even through surgical procedures at times to please the male gaze.  Once women love themselves naturally and embrace other women beauty, I believe men would appreciate and value them more than just objects, but with respect and pride.  The media portrays factitious women most of the time making it impossible for young women and women in general to relate to.  Most men do not even see beauty in those falsified women in the media, but into an unrealistic object.  Berger states, “consequently how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated” (46).  In many cases women sexualize themselves constantly showing off their bodies by objectifying themselves to feel wanted by the male risking losing respect and promoting to youth to believe it is ok to sell sex and unhealthy appearances.  It is important to stand up and promote realistic beauty for the men to conform to, not the women because women have the power and it time that we stand up and stop allowing the media and other sources to sell women in a way that is false and displeasing in society.  The author writes, “thus she turns herself into an object-and most particularly an object of vision: a sight” (Berger 47).  Modern woman will risk her self- respect to get the attention of men through the male gaze putting their worth and value to the side just to be noticed like an object for many generations to see.  Berger suggests, “…thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure” (51).  The women still will get judge and criticized just to please the viewer, but the male gaze is important to the surveyor if the portrait and or movie is to be seen to please the person in power.

https://genderpressing.wordpress.com/2013/10/22/flipped-images-and-highlighting-the-male-gaze/

Patriarchy described by bell books means both the female and the male needs to be reprogrammed and stop placing limitations on one to distinguish between male and female.  The author mentions, “we need to highlight the role women play in perpetuating and sustaining patriarchal culture so that we recognize patriarchy as a system women and men support equally, even if men receive more rewards from that system” (Bell Books 24).  Patriarchy promotes violence causing the woman to be silenced when faced with the decision conform to allow the male to take the lead.  Bell Books examines, “the point of such violence is usually to reinforce a dominator model, in which the authority figure is deemed ruler over those without power and given the right to maintain that rule through practices of subjugation, subordination, and submission” (24).  For example, boys that play with dolls are deemed for doing so and girls that are interested in playing football are deemed as well in a patriarchal society.  Bell books states, “If patriarchy were truly rewarding to men, the violence and addiction in family life that is so all-pervasive would not exist” (31).   Unconsciously women and men do this to their children and it must stop. Boys should learn to nurture because eventually they may have children and women should be able to do play rough if safe.  It is time to break the silence and restrictions because no one should be more dominate then the other when genders are concerned.  Standing up against gender roles can trickle down to the people in political power to change this “imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy system”, mentioned in bell books (17).  Women and men can then be free from worry and stress to fit into a society that caters to men because times have changed.