The Male Gaze and Patriarchy

Women As Profit 

The Male Gaze surrounds women at all times in society: watching the morning news, on the commute to work, social media, and even from the females around us. John Berger's article "Ways of Seeing" analytically defines women in European paintings as the "surveyor" and the "surveyed" within herself as they construct her identity as a women in society. The female nude in Western painting – hairless, plump, skin as white and perfect – was there to feed an appetite of male sexual desire. She did not have desires of her own. She existed to be looked at, posed in such a way that her body was displayed to the eye of the viewer, there only to be consumed. In other words, the woman is always given meaning by how the male character views her. She exists purely as a spectacle for both the male character and the male viewer, with no meaning within herself






Of course, there was hypocrisy in this, too – “You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her,” wrote Berger, “Put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting ‘Vanity,’ thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for you own pleasure.” It was acceptable to be lusted by a man, but looking at oneself, was morally incorrect.

Vanity by Memling 1435-1495

Naturally, the way female bodies were presented culturally as objects to be looked at had an effect on women, on the way they came to see themselves – their mental appearance. Beginning with adolescence – school bullying or being cat called – young girls are forced to constantly live as their own spectator. You are never yourself, you are yourself as you appear to others. Men are the first and next are the women with whom you are supposed to compete for their attention. Women aren’t given meaning unless someone wants to be with us and finds us attractive, is the perpetual message invading our consciousness. To grow up a woman in a Western patriarchal society is to be constantly analyzing and critiquing your own appearance, constantly struggling with the reality of your body and the ideals with which you have been presented, measuring yourself up – not for your own pleasure but for the eyes of men. 

Detail from The Judgement of Paris, Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1530. Victoria's Secret branding image, 2012

Advertising tells us that buying a product will transform us by showing pictures of those who have already been transformed by it – these are people we should aspire to be like or be with. An image of an underwear model is desired by men and envied by women. Glamour, envy and the act of looking: these are the foundations on which our current fashion and social media obsession rests. Consider the Victoria’s Secret Angels. A fleet of women so beautiful, so primped and preened that the name bestowed on them is otherworldly. The Angels present the ultimate female fantasy, with one donning the multimillion dollar jewel-encrusted ‘Fantasy Bra’ for her strut down the catwalk – each year held in a different global location. They are living, breathing advertisements, existing for mass consumption – the show, seen by millions of mostly women, is the most watched fashion event in the world.

Laura Callaghan

Women are conditioned to excuse mistreatment. We’re taught to see a shallowness of emotions and questionable morality as “masculine.” We are taught that men interested in us for the wrong reasons are there for the right reasons. It is encouraged to be passive in the courting ritual, to ignore our needs, and to protect our relationships at all costs. Berger points out from the beginning of mankind in religion, the story of Adam and Eve, the woman is blamed for their sin and punishment.

Social media makes this a time when the visual begins to take prominence over the real. Establishing value on social media means accruing more followers and likes which pushes women to post only what people like to see. When women are reduced to visual pleasure, that’s when rigid expectations of body types and age are created. It’s not about their strength of character, wisdom, intellect, nor a capacity to love. 

This vulnerability makes it easier to sell unneeded beauty products and treatments. A focus on beauty, on being “seen” “ushers women to a place where men want them, out of the power structure. Capitalism and the patriarchy define beauty for cultural consumption, and plaster images of beauty everywhere to stir up envy and desire.

Bell Hooks defines patriarchy as 

"a political-social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed week, especially females, and endowed with the rights to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence."

Her personal experience with patriarchy in her family allowed her to view it as a social disease that needs to be dismantled. Many people believe it to be "a necessary construct if humans are to survives as a species" (Hooks, 29). It is completely unfair for gender assignment roles to exist at a young age when doing many things out of the gender-norm binary is beneficial for youth development. My personal experience with patriarchy also relates to religion and family but knowing the imbalance it sets has pushed me to fight against it. As a women, it is frightening to know how men are the dominant gender in society.

BELL HOOKS CRITIQUES BEYONCÉ'S DEPICTIONS OF FEMINISM AND RACE IN 'LEMONADE'

Obstructing the Male Gaze in a Gaze-Dependent Culture

Citations

Hooks, Bell. "Understanding Feminist Historiography." Economic and Political Weekly 25.31 (1990): 1735-736. Imagine Borders. Web. 7 Feb. 2017.

Berger, John, Sven Blomberg, Chris Fox, Michael Dibb, and Richard Hollis. Ways of Seeing. London, England: British Broadcasting Corportion, 1973. Print.