Men's Gaze and Power

In John Berger's, Ways of Seeing, he describes the male gaze as the perception of women from a man's view. Berger breaks down this topic a lot into different pieces but one part of the text that stood out to me was , “ Men survey women before treating them”. As a verb the word survey means to look carefully and thoroughly at someone or something, especially so as to appraise them. Therefore, before a man treats a woman he looks for what value she has or what she has to offer to him, which he is then known as the “surveyor”. A little before Berger says this, he states, “ and so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman. Which he explains later on in the text, as the woman being composed of two roles. The same role a man plays which , is looking and a woman and being the surveyor. Except in the woman's case she is the surveyor of herself. Constantly looking at herself and trying to find her value in herself because she know she is being looked at by the other surveyor. Which leads me to the second role she plays , which is the surveyed. The one who is being observed ,  not only by herself by men. Then the question at hand is how come the woman have these two roles within her. The answer is simple, it because the “ Men survey women before treating them”. All a woman wants is to be respected, admired , taken care of and loved. A woman can not find any of these things if she does not first appeal to a man. In the male gaze , a woman is only an object of his gratification.

We have come along way since the middle ages. From a time when women were on the same level as cattle or livestock. We are now , lawyers, doctors , presidential candidates,  mayors, and public figures. Although how far have we really come since then? The male gaze is still prominent in pop culture and art today. One of the biggest leading factors in why women are still seen as an item is because of  social media and pornography. In social media , females basically brand themselves and put themselves out there for the views, the likes, tweets, all because they want the attention. Sound familiar? .... “Her body is arranged in the way it is, to display it to the man looking at the picture”. Even though Berger is referring to the artwork made during that time, I still feel that it's relevant today. Don’t get me wrong not every female applies to this but for  the ones who do it purposely and show themselves in a  way where they know a man or someone will see it. Although this way of bing is a lot more subtle than pornography. The basic principles of porn is basically everything involving the male gaze is. It's only for pleasure, sometimes for women, but the majority of the audience is men.

In Bell Hooks, The Will To Change: Men , Masculinity and Love, describes patriarchy as , “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 psychological terrorism and violence.’’ This basically means that Men have this overall authority over anything, as if they’re second to God. For example , in churches the idea that men were put on earth to rule over it and take control of everything on it was reinforced. I’ve come to see patriarchy as a concept that grew into a way of being and it's just being spread intentionally and unintentionally. Understanding this concept now makes sense when you apply it to different art forms. For example, when you see different art pieces of nude women , they’re body positions give off the idea of submission, with the man being behind the brush being the dominant. Even with some art pieces like the “ We Can Do It” propaganda poster , also called “ Rosie the Riveter”. One of the most iconic posters during the 1980’s ad an inspiration, but it's just a woman flexing. Why is this inspirational? It’s inspirational Because she is a woman. Which in a way shows what woman weren’t seen as during that time by their male counterpart. They weren’t seen as strong , hard workers because even during the 1980’s there was still patriarchy being upheld in the workplace and households.

Now that I’ve grasped the idea of patriarchy and the male gaze , I feel like I can apply it to my life in some aspects. Some things will come as little as someone not wanting me to lift something at work because I’m a female and they don’t think I can do it. Then there are things when being in a relationship with someone , they claim dominance in the relationship , which isn't all negative but can be if used inappropriately. In today’s society there are still specks of the past ideas  sprinkled throughout the subconscious of some people's minds which influences us to still do things unknowingly and knowingly that we have already recognized as a concern, but as time goes by I think we’ll get better.

Work Cited
Hooks, Bell. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Washington Square Press, 2005.
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books, 2008.