The Male Gaze

 Male Gaze and Patriarchy

Male gazes is a term use in everyday Society. It is something that has existed  from the beginning of time till now.  In John Berger's passage, "Ways of seeing," he shows us a clear understanding of what it means. He states, " men act and women appear. Men look at women and women watched themselves being looked at. " (John Berger 47) what Berger is trying to imply  here is that women are view as objects to man while the man has the women for pleasure only.  Throughout history  men have been sent as the dominant ones in society. The first presidents was a man, men own land, properties,  and we're allow to vote. On the other hand women were only allow to stay home, cook,  clean, and just take care of the kids. This was not fair at all. Even black man were able to vote before the women was allow to.  This is not only seen in person but also in the art world.  Many men artist drew girls that were fully naked. Why?  Well because they believed that women' were made to serve them. Taking it back to Adam and Eve, the first the people ever made,  Berger says," the second striking fact is that the woman is blame and is being punished by being made subservient to the man. In relation to the woman,  the man becomes the agent of God." With this passage Berger is trying to inform the readers that God made the man first and made him a woman so that he won't be lonely and she would serve the man.  Still today we see the term male gaze.  The reason because society has this view that men are the one who would be the most successful.  Women still earn less than men working on the same job.

Patriarchy is the world we live on. Patriarchy is describe by Bell  Hook in, "understanding patriarch as ,"a political social system that insist 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... " ( Hook) this is similar to Berger views about society. Who we are as a person is already determine by our gender. If you were born boy you're the dominate one . If you were born girl society is against you. Patriarchy views women as the weak ones and man as the tough ones. So it's saying that men are allow to rule women because that's how it suppose to be. we see this everyday and that is the sad part. oh no men don' cry. Only girls can do that because crying is for the weaks. But the truth is everyone cries and sometimes it feels good. Who we are is majorly influence by our parents. we are who we are for how we were raise. If someone grows up in a bad neighbor with parents being aggressive the kid would most likely be the same. We are raised similarly. Girls could cry during a break up but if men were to cry he would be consider a baby or a loser. Not a man. In society we hear "you throw like a girl" or " be a man or man up." This is how you know that society is messed up. By saying you throw like a girl, one is referring to throwing weak or bad.  It's not right but we choose to stay quite and not do anything. As If they have already accepted their fate as weak women.
I witness this everyday as a women in society. Looking at Instagram, women are accepting this instead of saying no. They post pictures in sexual ways. But it shouldn't be like this. Being a girl is hard because we are viewed as objects many times and are are not respected for what we do. I feel like instead of fighting it we accept it because we are raised that way. This change my view in the sense that we have the power to change through art though words but we choose to accept society as is. We have the power to change what people think, women are on the rise and who knows maybe in the future the roles would be flipped. 

https://www.thoughtco.com/patriarchal-society-feminism-definition-3528978