The Male Gaze and Patriarchy

The Male Gaze and Patriarchy

Stephanie Zito

The male gaze was created by men and has continued to follow us throughout the centuries. It is where women in art are objectified in a way to please the male audience.  In John Berger's reading, "Ways of Seeing", he discusses how men act and women appear. Berger writes, "Thus she turns herself into an object--and most particularly an object of vision: a sight" (Berger 47). Women are put on display as an object. This objectifies the women to being pure pleasure to the "male view". Women were viewed in this sense for years, not only does it affect the woman in the art, but it affects all women. We are then told this is what men want, this is what I must become, but the women on display is are objects. The whole idea that women do things for the pleasure of a male should not exist. The male gaze created women being subjected to what males want.

In Berger's "Ways of Seeing", he also discusses the difference between being nude vs being naked. In art women are sought to be nude, rather than naked. Which before I thought there was no difference between the two, but Berger's reading clears up the difference. Berger explains, "Nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display...The nude is condemned to never being naked" (Berger 54). Being naked is to be oneself in the most authentic form, but being nude is a way of depicting a woman and turning her into an object. When one is nude, they cannot also be naked because they are no longer themselves they are now sexualized by the male artist.

The male gaze was created by white men in the 15th century and unfortunately has followed us today. Today the male gaze surrounds us everywhere without us even noticing it, because society has made it "normal" for a women to be sexualized for her body. The male gaze can be found in films, commercials, advertisements, television and throughout social media. In the cologne advertisements as seen in the pictures below, women are being used as objects to quickly attract attention to both her and the advertised product. Which obviously grabs the attention of the male with a nude women on display.

Connecting to the male gaze as defined by Berger, patriarchy also plays a role in how women are viewed to be. Patriarchy as defined by Bell Hooks in "The Will to Change" is:
"Patriarchy is 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 also still lives on today in our society. Men have continuously made these objectifying rules for women, that gives them power to feel stronger and better than women.

In Bell Hook's writing she discusses a first hand experience of patriarchy. Which was when she was playing marbles with her brother and she was being more competitive as where her brother did not care for who was really winning. Marbles was often times played by young boys, not girls. Her father saw she was stepping out of line with what he believed in and punished her for playing like a boy. By doing this he is limiting Hooks to expressing herself. Her brother was not punished for not playing his particular role as a boy, Hooks was because she was a girl and her father had to feel superior to her. He exemplified to his son that men are in control and women are always below by his actions. I found her story to be unjust. Such a young girl should not have to experience sexism so early from her parents. Hooks as well as many other young girls have faced a similar situation which is quite awful.

Patriarchy continues on today everywhere around us, an example of patriarchy today is in the work place. Men dominate higher level jobs giving them power to control the lower level workers, that are often times women. Not to mention men are paid more than women for the same job, that then lessens the value women once again. Men are constantly restricting women. Similar to our new unfortunate president Donald Trump. He is obsessed with power and making women feel less than men. As discussed in class, the "global gag rule" was recently signed by Trump while surrounded by all men. These men are making decisions for women, which gives them power to make women feel weak. We feel weak because we have no choice, he is making decisions that will soon affect many.

After learning about the male gale and patriarchy, I notice now that I have been so blind to these issues. Before this class I had never heard about these two terms and how much they objectify  women. I found it bizarre that this has been around for so long and continues today. I hope changes are made for future generations, men do not deserve the power they have over women. We need equality to better ourselves as a society.