The male gaze is a way of seeing women. It’s an idea that
men are the ones who look at women, and women are the ones who are looked at,
they also have to look at themselves from a man’s point of view. “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 surveyed
female. Thus she turns herself into an object – and most particularly an object
of vision: a sight.”(Ways of Seeing Page 47). This way of seeing is so popular
because it reinforces the core virtues of patriarchy, which is the invisible
set of values that guide society.
A lot of examples, as explained in “Ways of Seeing”, come
from Renaissance paintings. In a lot of paintings, women are naked and looking
to the spectator. Many of these painted women are either looking at the
spectator while posing naked, or looking at themselves naked in a mirror.
Sometimes there’s a male lover, but the woman is usually looking at the
spectator. The way these women are posed as if to say “I am submissive and
passive to you, spectator” or, in the paintings with mirrors, saying “I am also
observing myself for I am a sight and also vain”.
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| In The Birth of Venus, Venus is posed naked, looking passively at the spectator |
The oppositional gaze originally started as a small way of
slaves in the U.S. to oppose their oppressors simply by staring at them. It’s a
way of implicitly stating “Not only will I stare. I want my look to change
reality.”(The Oppositional Gaze 116) More recently it was a way to challenge
African American representation in mainstream movies and television when they
first came out. They did this by making “independent black cinema”(117).
Gazing, throughout history, is a means of control over oneself and a sign of
resistance to the ones being stared at.
Oh my gosh, could this relate to the “women are objects”
theory? Is this treatment of women as something to be stared at a way of psychological
anger brought about by the implied hostility of just glaring at someone? Is
this direct or indirect? Perhaps there’s a distinction between staring as a
sign of disobedience and staring for the sake of pleasure. If that’s the case,
what makes clear that distinction, or what doesn’t? There are so many psychological
components to this, to treatment and views of women in a patriarchy, I can’t
even think of a clear answer to one question without opening another hundred
doors to another hundred questions. And all those doors leave me finding something
horrible that’s been happening for my entire life behind the curtains. It’s
actually really scary to think about because staring has such significance. “… it
has only been through resistance, struggle, reading and “looking against the
grain” that black women have been able to value our process of looking enough to
publicly name it.”(The Oppositional Gaze 126). Imagine such a significant form
of resisting used by the ones opposite of those who need it.
I now understand a little more about these structures of
male gazing as a byproduct of patriarchy influencing everything, even the way
we look at each other. The whole male dominator idea fits pretty well with the
idea of women being objects and the ones that are supposed to be looked at. And I don’t
even want to elaborate anymore on the hostility-attraction relationship in
staring.
There are a thousand current examples on how women pose as
people meant to be looked at in the media, especially in magazines. It’s pretty
rare to go by a magazine stand without seeing at least one cover where a women
staring seductively at the spectator. Looking back on it, these magazine covers
kind of parallel with old Renaissance paintings. Not the nudity, of course, but
the woman looking at the spectator in a somewhat passive pose.
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| Kristen Stewart looking passively at the spectator on the cover of Vogue |
There are also more than enough examples in movies. In
movies, women are not represented well. I mean, half the movies made today
don’t even pass the Bechdel test. This test is the absolute minimum of having
women in a movie. Just that there are two characters who talk to each other
about a non-man related subject. And half the movies that pass don’t have women
playing the more important roles, such as the main protagonist. Usually a woman
will be as his love interest. Even “chick flicks”, which receive the name when
the main characters are mostly women, usually have a man-related conflict in
the movie, such as finding true love.
I don’t exactly know about my role in either of these
structures. I don’t really engage in staring in the name of opposition nor have
I even noticed this whole psychological way of viewing women until recently.
Perhaps I’ve contributed to staring at women that way because I didn’t know,
which I guess is how patriarchy works. It’s a bunch of customs built in the
back of our minds without a name.
women and men switch roles in ads
Works cited:
Berger, John. Chapter 3 Ways of Seeing page: 47
Hooks, Bell. Chapter 7 The Oppositional Gaze page: 116-117, 126
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