Male Gaze- Umradha Shievkumar

Berger said that “one might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.” (Berger, 1972) Berger is saying that women are depicted as men wish them to be. If a man wants to see a woman in nude, he will paint her nude because it pleases him. The woman herself did not ask to be painted but she was chosen because she inevitably succumbs to the male gaze. He also points out the vanity in these paintings. He says “she is not naked as she is; she is naked as the spectator sees her.”(Berger, 1972) He brings up the mirror when he talks about a famous face- Susannah. “The mirror was often used as a symbol of the vanity of women. The moralizing, however was mostly hypocritical…You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure. The real function of the mirror was otherwise. It was to make the woman connive in treating herself as first and foremost a sight.” (Berger, 1972) He explains that it is the male who decided to paint the woman and so it is the male who is creating the statement behind it. He placed a mirror in her hand because he wanted to gaze at her as she so called admires herself. But the question is, is she really admiring herself? Or is she looking at herself because she knows others are looking at her? Either way, the woman will always be seen as conceited even if she was never trying to be.

Pervasive is defined as “existing in or spreading through every part of something”- (Merriam-Webster, 2017) This idea of the Male Gaze is spreading like wildfire because we encourage it. Models are the most prominent examples in today’s societies. We pose and dress our models with little to no clothes at times. In particular Victoria Secret models. We pose young women in lingerie with the excuse of displaying the products but subliminally with the message that males enjoy looking, it draws attention. When young girls than see these women on TV walk around with little to no clothes on, they are influenced and therefore want to do the same. They see these women are being admired because of what they wear and how they are carrying themselves and opt to act the same way. This creates a ripple effect and is the reason why the male gaze is pervasive. Some women do truly enjoy being admired and that may also be the reason for this.

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, 2008) She gave the examples from her own life. Stating many times that her family were strong believers in the patriarchal system. She said “when my older brother and I were born with a year separating us in age patriarchy determined how we would each be regarded by our parents. Both our parents believed in patriarchy; they had been taught patriarchal thinking through religion.” (Hooks, 2008) She goes on to explain how at church they were taught that god created man to rule the world and since god was male himself, we must regard all males as such, god. Another statement stuck out to me. She states that “-they taught it to their children because it seemed like a natural way to organize life.” (Hooks, 2008) The natural feeling seemed to have been brought on by the continuing idea of patriarchy that was passed down to each generation.

The male gaze and patriarchy have both been understood to me as I felt I’ve dealt with them or encountered them in my life. In my culture patriarchy seemed to be an idea embedded in all of us.  It was enforced as a child that the man was always right, and the husband/father came first and whatever was said by him, was the final decision. The male gaze is an aspect of every woman’s life I feel. Whether or not we like it, men inevitably will gaze and watch as they are mesmerized by us. Considering each of us are beautiful and exquisite in our own ways, it’s hard not to stare. Either way it is not appreciated sometimes and it gets uncomfortable as well. After reading both of these I became more aware of the male gaze. I agree with Berger’s theory in that “men act and women appear”. I never noticed that as a male does a work on a nude female, it is not because she asked to be painted and depicted as conceited. Rather he felt he wanted to look at her as it pleased him.

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. Penguin Books, 1972

Hooks, Bell. Understanding Patriarchy, 2008