MALE GAZE AND PATRIARCHY BY KRUTI PATEL

In “Ways of Seeing”, John Berger discusses the most engaging topic called The Male Gaze. The definition of The Male Gaze can be stated as the male's way of seeing female as object of interest and getting joy out of it. John Berger also stated about the male gaze 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 47) The male gaze today, can be seen everywhere and not just in paintings. Most men’s only interest in women is their appearance and how “sexy” they look in front of them.

The Male Gaze is there to show us the male actions that contribute to male engagement with women in today's culture. The Male Gaze is so powerful in today’s culture because women are also satisfying men in every ways they can. It can easily be found in books, television shows, or even when you are just walking on the road. Men are never judged for what they do and that’s the reason the topic like The Male Gaze even exists today. John Berger also states, “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.” (Berger 51) This statement means that the male artists likes to paint naked woman but they don’t want their name to be out in public that this particular male artist likes to paint naked woman so instead they hand a mirror in her hand to make it look like it was the her idea of getting naked and showing her body in public in form of art.

In Bell Hooks, “Understanding patriarchy” she 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 is type of structure that worships men and their superiority over women. There are generally traditional gender roles assigned to men and women. Men are supposed to be, as Bell Hooks describes them, “Patriarchy demands of men that they become and remain emotional cripples. Since it is a system that denies men full access to their freedom of will, it is difficult for any man of any class to rebel against patriarchy, to be disloyal to the patriarchal parent, be that parent male or female” (Hooks, 27).

Men are always supposed to be strong. If a man cries, the society always says that crying is for girls and men have to control their feelings and emotions. Even though the society has advanced a lot since ancient times, some specific roles of male and female will never go away.

For instance, when I was a kid, I used to wear clothes like my brother since he was elder than me. So, my grandparents and most of the relatives used to tell my mom to make me wear girls clothes only because men are superior and girls aren’t supposed to do anything like them. Because of these gender roles, I feel contained to what I can and can't do as a female. A lot of it is because the media shows us. They tell us what we can do, what we should wear, how we should look but females shouldn't abide by those boundaries. Especially since we know we are capable of doing more.

WORK CITED

https://monoskop.org/images/9/9e/Berger_John_Ways_of_Seeing.pdf

http://imaginenoborders.org/pdf/zines/UnderstandingPatriarchy.pdf

http://www.thecrimson.com/column/new-romantix/article/2017/2/17/qiu-the-gaze/