The Male Gaze

What is the male gaze and why is it such a big problem? There are many ways to answer this or interpret what the male gaze is, for me the male gaze describes the idea that women are held up to an impossible standard not just in the media but in real life as well. This is due to how the media represents us, how it is created, who it is created for and for what purpose. The male gaze is essentially the concept that most media today is created for and by men, meaning that what we are seeing is seen in the point of view of a man, for men. This is an issue because it not only effects how men view us as women, but how we as women respond to this gaze and how we in turn begin to view ourselves. It also effects the way some men choose to treat women, the way they act towards us, they way the talk to us and etc.

Being that there are so many types of media out there, and it is constantly being pushed down our throats it makes sense to say that it has some type of effect on everyone. The effect varies from individual to individual but it none the less results in some type of shaping of our thinking or on what we do or how we act towards ourselves and each other. How? Well take a second and think about how many times in a day you are exposed to some type of media. Be it watching a movie or TV, reading something online or in a magazine/newspaper, (yes people still read those), walking down the street or riding the subway, seeing an advertisement, checking your Facebook or going on YouTube and seeing ads on the side bar or before a video, there are a number of different ways it can happen, and that’s just one day. How much media have we been exposed to in our whole lives and how has it shaped ours and society’s views on, well everything? How has it shaped the way you think of yourself and others, and vice versa? Think about how of what we see we absorb, (consciously or unconsciously). Many of things we are exposed to, we soak up like sponges—most times without even wanting to—but what can we do its literally everywhere there is no escaping it!         

Now with this being said if most of the media we are exposed to is created through the looking glass of a man, how is that shaping how they view and treat us as women? Well like I mentioned before, they hold us women to an impossible standard, one that we could never truly reach. If all the images that they see are of super skinny women, or women made up in Photoshop, always an accessory to a man or for a man regardless of what is being advertised or what the plot of the movie is, this is a problem. They as men begin to see us not as their equals, not even really as human beings, but as people who are inferior to them, mere objects in a way only there for their pleasure. Even in advertisements that are supposedly geared for women, the focus of it becomes to attract a man, it is centered towards their gaze regardless of what is being advertised. Women in this sense are used as props to sell whichever product is being advertised.

 

In this image, what is being advertised is speaker,however it is the woman

that grabs the attention. This advertisement is geared towards

Men because although she is covered, she is still naked. Looking into the camera,

For the pleasure of the man taking the photo, and the men that will view the ad. This attracts

Them to buy what is being sold.

 The same thing can also be seen in essentially most of the movies that we see today. Most of the films that we see today are centered around a man even if there are female characters in the movie, they are never the real focus. In her book “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Laura Mulvey speaks to the idea that even when a woman is in a movie, she is only there for the pleasure of a man.

“Traditionally, the women displayed has functioned on two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium…” (Mulvey 838)

When a female enters the screen, it is intended for her to be there for the viewing pleasure of a male audience and she usually doesn’t contribute anything significant to the movie’s plot. When a woman enters on screen, especially for the first time in a movie, the shots tend to linger on her body, since it is created centered around men and pleasing them. For example in this scene from a very popular movie Transformers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ch0Hu917CQ

As she walks down the road the camera pans out and we see her in very short tight shorts, and short top that accentuates her small waist and her breasts. The car breaks down and her character knows how to work with cars, but instead of focusing on the skill set the character is more interested in her attractiveness. Although the characters seem to be talking about the car, conversation alludes of sex, in this instance she once again begins to be an object of sexual desire for the audience as well as the protagonist. The camera is placing her body in main focus and lingers on it for a while, geared towards the male audience. This is just one scene from one movie but regardless of what the plot of the movie is, there are several other scenes like this one out there. In all of these instances the women are meant to be an object of sexual desire and nothing else.

But it doesn’t just shape the men view us, the male gaze shapes how we women view other women and ourselves as well. Growing up in a media-centric world has had quite an effect on this generation since we are the ones that have been the most exposed to it so far. If the media is telling men that women have to look and act a certain way, we begin to feel the pressure to look and act that way for many different reasons. A lot of young girls begin to suffer from things like eating disorders because the media tells that them being a certain size is equal to being beautiful. They go out and buy all the latest products and trends to try and fit in with everyone else. We fear that if we do not conform to what the media tells us we should look like that we will never attract someone, we will fail in life and basically be unhappy when quite the opposite is true.

Instead of focusing so much of our time trying to look a certain way, there are so many other productive things we could be doing with our time. I think about all the time I spend worrying about my weight, what my hair should look like, my makeup, my clothes all these things but if I just let go of all that worrying about trying to look a certain way, I would stress out way less than I do now.

Now that we know that there is such a problem, what can we do to make a change? The answer comes in the form of something called the female gaze, and term that refers to the idea that now that we women have been made aware of this problem, we gaze rather than watch when viewing any type of media. There is a significant difference between just watching something and gazing at it, when we gaze at a movie we become more critical of what we are watching, and that it turn inspires us to go out there at do something. For me the gaze had me me all the more determined to succeed and find a way to make a change within myself, a change on how I view myself and how I let others views of me not effect me as much as it used to. If we as women want the world to start seeing us as equals and not just objects, then we must go out there and create the types of media that we want to see. We have to go out there and demonstrate that we are not going to buy into the medias superficial definitions of what beauty is, because if we keep trying to strive to be that “perfect” woman instead, the problem will continue.

The Male Gaze, Everywhere

The sexualization of women in pop culture is not an unfamiliar notion. There are countless displays in advertisements, films, and music videos of women, adamantly promoting the lure of sex appeal and in doing so, retaining the male fantasy. Although we paid a lot of attention to the word "feminism" in 2015, it didn't keep us from generating music videos that carried on with the cliched portrayal of women in scanty clothing, like that of in Justin Beiber's What Do You Mean or the fetishizing of women's butts in hip-hop community, like in Drake's Hotline Bling where many women are seen twerking.

In her music video Anaconda, Nicki Minaj dances brazenly and provocatively and at first glance, this piece seems to feed to the sexual connotations, further establishing the idea that women are solely the object of male pleasure. The artist, a vocal feminist, however, offers another interpretation that speaks of female sexual empowerment. So, which is it--is it empowering that a woman, let's not forget that a women of color, confidently expresses her body and sexuality or is it disempowering that an artist of color is hypersexualized?

One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Womenwatch 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. - John Berger, Ways of Seeing

Laura Mulvey, in her article Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema written in 1975 speaks of the male gaze in the film where women are observed through the eyes of a heterosexual man, who's most likely white. She emphasizes how women are simply passive on screen, being panned from head to toe like an exhibition, "freezing the flow of action in moments of erotic contemplation" (837). This theory then questions how women in the audience view themselves and other women while identifying with the male by default. Berger in Ways of Seeing notes the danger in this form of visual consumption for women who come to accept and value themselves as objects.

But what if we were to switch roles? What if women played the roles meant for men? In the video above, BuzzFeed Celeb recreated scenes from well-known films like the Titanic, where the female figure is under observation and Twilight, where once again, the female body is watched (or rather, crept upon by Edward) while asleep. The query at the end of the video--"Is seeing men and women like this uncomfortable?" is a resounding yes. I remember watching this clip in class, giggling along with my peers in the beginning and thinking how ridiculous it all looked. Then the scene for Pretty Woman came on and the re-enactment of the sex scene where Julia Robert's character imitates Richard Gere's motions of dominance became just unbearably awkward to watch. A silence stretched over the room until some people in the back let out muffled laughs. It became apparent to me how securely we've normalized gender roles and the male gaze that at that moment, the alternatives made us shift in discomfort.

BuzzFeedYellow follows a similar theme and remakes a few commercials where the roles of women hypersexualizing food, are reversed as well.

The Avengers movie poster. 

The male gaze continues in movie posters such as the Avengers. Let's set aside the fact that there are only one or two women in a room full of men or that there's not much diversity in the cast. Let's focus on how the advertising where Scarlett Johanson, the Black Widow, is sexualized in comparison to her male co-stars. While the male superhero barely exposes the full body suit, the female anatomy is always visible, along with her defined curves. She must be portrayed this way to appear both physically strong and sexually appealing. In other Marvel films such as the Iron Man andThor, the heroine, no matter how smart and powerful, is almost always leaning towards the hero, as though she is dependent upon him (which most often she is, as the heroine's storyline is never self-sufficient but always entwined with that of the hero).

If the heroes of Avengers were to pose like the heroines,
according to The Hawkeye Initiative.

The Hawkeye Initiative, a project that brings attention to the hypersexualized illustrations in comics and movies, takes every female pose in comics and replaces it with the character of Hawkeye, resembling the same pose. The image that is recreated stresses the humor but also makes an important note about sexualizing men.

Although we're starting to recognize and become aware of the dangerous trail male gaze is leaving for the future generation, it is not enough to know. Because the media is a predominantly male, the film and tv companies keep producing and perpetuating same old narratives.



Works Cited:

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. 1973.

Mulvey, Laura. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. 1975.

The Female Gaze and a Woman's Body

The male gaze is an objectification of women as sexual commodity in media. Because men control a majority of media, women are often portrayed with the assumption of heterosexual man as the default target audience. We see a focus in media on this concentration of sexuality surrounding women, they merely become objects of entertainment for the assumed male audience.  This gaze permeates real life, past media. I feel the male gaze every day, men stare at me in the street, on the train...nearly everywhere I go- not because I am dressed provocatively or purposely seeking attention, but because this hyper sexualization of women is embedded in their minds. 

In a satirical article by The Onion titled, Women Now Empowered By Everything A Woman Does, the author quotes Barbara Klein, a professor of women's studies at Oberlin College.

"As recently as 15 years ago, a woman could only feel empowered by advancing in a male-dominated work world, asserting her own sexual wants and needs, or pushing for a stronger voice in politics. Today, a woman can empower herself through actions as seemingly inconsequential as driving her children to soccer practice or watching the Oxygen network."

http://www.theonion.com/article/women-now-empowered-by-everything-a-woman-does-1398

         The topic of weight loss and gain are mentioned in the article, one quote which I found to be amusing- is as follows, 

"Eating energy bars specially fortified with nutrients "for women" has become a feminist trend, as well. "Unlike traditional, phallocentric energy bars, whose chocolate, soy protein, nuts, and granola ignored the special health and nutritional needs of women, their new, female-oriented counterparts like Luna are ideally balanced with a more suitable amount of chocolate, soy protein, nuts, and granola," Klein said. "Proto-feminist pioneers like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony could never have imagined that female empowerment would one day come in bar form.""

I found this is advertisement for ProtienFX, a protein company in Australia. 

The ad suggests that being fit and thin is beautiful, and that

it is somehow a woman's responsibility to keep Australia beautiful 

by being thin.

The purpose of this article and most satire is usually meant to be humorous; its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society, like the objectification of women in the media and a manifested obsession with weight loss and thinness. We could assume that all media has negative portrayals of women, indeed most do. With the new age of technology and social media, we are exposed to massive amounts of images and videos that send out adverse ideals and false representations of women. 

And advertisement for for Pretzel Chips
stating "you can never be too thin" and "tastes
as good as skinny feels", implying that
skinnier and thinner are better.

We are constantly told we are not good enough, that we need to be thinner, prettier, and that our intellect doesn't matter. In "The More You Subtract The More You Add: Cutting Girls Down to Size" by Jean Kilbourne, she breaks down and analyzes the way women take in messages from media, and how they effect girls at a fairly young age.

“Most of us know by now about the damage done to girls by the tyranny of the ideal image, weightism, and the obsession with thinness. But girls get older messages too that “cut them down to size” more subtly. In ad after ad girls are urged to be “barely there”--- beautiful but silent. Of course, girls are not just influenced by images of other girls. They are even more powerfully attuned to images of women, because they learn from these images what is expected of them, what they are to become. And they see these images again and again in the magazines they read, even those magazines designed for teenagers, and in the commercials they watch” (Kilbourne, pg. 138). 

This cover of Nitro has the same woman on both the left and right side,
the original photo on the left is how the woman actually looks, however, the photo
on the right...which has been photoshopped, airbrushed and altered--- is
the one that gets published and is viewed by media consumers. Creating a false
expectation and desire for what the female body should look like.

This idea that our body is meant for the enjoyment of others seems quite ridiculous to me, I see so many advertisements telling me how thin I should be, or how I can never stop trying to lose weight. Kilbourne also discusses this topic of weight, how its become completely normal for women to be insecure about their size, and needing men to confirm their beauty. It has become nearly impossible for a woman to feel secure about her body, however, it is not only girls who are not "thin" that are made to feel insecure. In an example given by Kilbourne she says,

"Being obsessed about one's weight is made to seem normal and even appealing in ads for unrelated products such as Scotch add that features a very thin and pretty young woman looking in a mirror while her boyfriend observes her the copy address to him says listen if you can handle honey do I look fat you can handle this these two are so intimate that she can share her deepest fears with him and he can respond by chuckling at her adorable vulnerability  and knocking back another scotch.  And everyone who sees the ad gets the message that it is perfectly normal for all women, including thin and attractive ones, to worry about their weight" (Kilbourne, pg. 136) 

Who are we to be thin for? Why do we put ourselves in a position to feel insecure? Most young women who are dealing with insecurities surrounding their bodies fail to understand is that a woman's sole purpose is not to please men- no matter how much the media makes us feel like it is. 

"To be born a woman has to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The social presence of women has developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. But this has been at the cost of a woman's self being split into two. A woman must continually watch herself. She's almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across the room or whilst she's sleeping at the death of her father she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself by walking or weeping.  From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually" (Berger, pg. 46). 

We are taught to always be self conscious, we are taught that being ourselves simply isn't good enough. There is this ideal body image portrayed by the media that is almost nearly atomically impossible, and therefore impossible to obtain. Young girls who are exposed to these images don't understand that the women depicted in the photos have been airbrushed and photoshopped to look like something they are not. This is a direct cause on women by the male gaze in media. 

This photo of a young woman
displays the realistic and natural
forms of the female body, pubic
hair and imperfect thighs are
being celebrated and embraced. 

However, social media is becoming a vehicle for women to control the male gaze and provide their own female outlook, especially on sites like Instagram, where photography and video are the main forms of sharing.
Ashley Armitage, the photographer behind Ladyist, http://www.refinery29.com/pubic-hair-instagram - slide has said of her desire to show women in their most natural states, “I’m interested in creating a platform for girls, by girls, completely the female gaze.” (NY Mag)

There is a history behind the gaze- the way we view and the way we are viewed. Bell Hooks studies the oppositional gaze held by black women, as well as its progression throughout time and media in the form of films.

“All attempts to repress our/black peoples’ right to gaze has produced in us an overwhelming longing to look, a rebellious desire, an oppositional gaze”(Hooks, pg. 116).

           Hooks speaks about how as children we were chastised for staring. Through punishment they began to realize that the way we look at a person can be risky. During the course of slavery, white slave owners punished enslaved black people for looking. Consequently, the gaze became a procedure of deviancy and opposition. As viewers of the media, we are the ones who develop an interpretation, which is usually based by our ethnicity/race, gender, and social class. It became obvious for black people that they were misinterpreted in film, their portrayed roles displayed they where there only to serve white women. As a result, some black women would boycott film altogether. As said by Hooks,                   
     "that some of us choose to stop looking was a gesture of resistance, turning away was one way to protect, to reject negation" (pg. 121). There, the oppositional gaze developed.

          My understandings of the male and oppositional gazes allows me to gain more perspective when analyzing advertisements, tv shows, movies etc, that I see today. I've developed a habit of paying close attention to women in media, what their roles are and how they compare to men. I feel as if I've gained some major clarity because I have been so accustomed to seeing women portrayed in the way they are without questioning it. 

Works Cited:
"The More You Subtract The More You Add: Cutting Girls Down to Size" by Jean Kilbourne

"Understanding Patriarchy/The Oppositional Gaze" by Bell Hooks

"Ways of Seeing" by John Berger 

Post 2 (Edited)

Post 2

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”.

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.

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

bad ways women appear in ads

Works cited:

Berger, John. Chapter 3 Ways of Seeing page: 47

Hooks, Bell. Chapter 7 The Oppositional Gaze page: 116-117, 126

Group 1 Presentation: Signifying Gender

   Summary:

            Humanity's obsession with categorization is often seen as harmless. However, when it assumes such a great part of our social world, it is something that cannot be simply ignored. Categorization is the result of our desire to define and explain the functions of the world. One particular form of categorization is the act of signifying genders, where both tangible and intangible things are tied to society's definition of gender. Our presentation will address the signification of gender is tied to social contexts that are constructed by society. It is implemented across all age groups with little restrictions, from toys and colors to movies and clothing. As a result, it constructs and assumes the male/female image that society demands. Awareness and education come essential tools in combating the imposing identities that society has created.

Presentation by:

Alexa Cooper

Egzona Hadzaj

Smith Chongvanich

Post 2. The Gaze.

The male gaze is defined as the way a masculine figure sees and recognizes a female. The meaning a female has throw his eyes and in reference to what his culture, habits, and of course, media, has made him to think about women.

"There are circumstances in which looking itself is a source of pleasure, just as, in the reverse formation, there is pleasure on being looked at" (Mulvey, 835). This quote really called my attention because it is true that the male gaze has been implanted mostly by media. Males observe how women are "disrespected" or treated with inferiority when giving them roles for a show or movie for instance. A woman usually portrays a fragile and manipulative character, while her story is not centered in anything in concrete but a love story, which centers it in a man's life. It is true that women have been seen as weak human beings but, it is important to know that most women instead of fighting for their rights and equality, accept things the way they are. This makes it more complicated for men to see that equality between male and woman.

Some of the examples I would like to highlight related to the male gaze are the following:

In this image I have observed how the woman is portrayed, once again, as an object for the man. She wants to show the man that by using that lipstick she has the power to control him, but on the other side, the actual power is given by the red passion color lipstick and the way she would look while wearing it. Which, from my point of view, takes the man to see the woman as an attractive object and not as a simple natural woman who wouldn't need lipstick to call a man's attention. 

Once again, by observing this example, the female character is portrayed as an object. Although in this case, the message is reinforced by text, which is clearly comparing the taste and size of the hamburger with sexuality. 

On the other hand, when talking about the oppositional gaze, as explained by Hooks, is developed when treating with our children and controlling their gaze by telling them not to look at something but at the same time to look at us to make sure they are following our "rules". " The child who has learned so well to look the other way when necessary. Yet, when punished, the child is told by parents, 'look at me when I talk to you' (Hooks, 115). As Hooks explains, by doing so, we create a feeling on the child where he would be afraid to look straigh at his/her parent, but at the same time he/she would feel amaze by his/her gaze. This is something that has a lot of power while growing up. And it is not the only way the opposite gaze is used for. As explained in The Opposite Gaze, by Hooks, this method was also used by white Americans many years ago to have power over the black slaves. As shown in the book, I found very shocking the fact that even in the actuality, many dark skin people learn how to deal with light skin people by consuming media. "Unless you went to work in the white world, across the tracks, you learned to look at white people by staring to them on the screen" (Hooks, 117).

In conclusion, given the fact that I am not an extremely media consumer, instead of changing the point of view I see media, I have understood why and how this differences were developed. Since I am originally from another country and I have only lived here for about four years, I have never had the chance to explore indeed the reasons why racism is a very common theme in the United States, as well as the woman’s figure seen by the eye of a man. Although, since media is everywhere, I remember watching advertisements back in my country, mostly made in America I believe, and I have to recognize that in most of them women were portrayed as an object to men and were also represented by a really thin, blond and with blue eyes woman, as if that prototype was what defined perfection. One of the advertisements that I could recall right now, where women were naturally portrayed with the objective of showing other women the reality and beauty, was the one done by DOVE.

On the other hand, I also recall advertisements where women were portrayed again as an object to men. One of them would be the one created by Dolce and Gabbana, where a woman is surrounded by multiple men as if they had the power over her for consuming the brand. Something I consider myself insulting when representing the women's perception. 

The Gaze.

        As a woman in 2016 and while growing up, I can constantly feel the gaze of men around me. Is it because of my height? My makeup? Why is it that as a woman, I am constantly feeling judged and picked at for my appearance. This is not only in my personal life, but also in the personal life of every single woman. We also see this in the media. We see it in magazines, TV Shows and movies. The Male Gaze, a term coined by Laura Mulvey, explains that when a woman is in front of a camera for either a photo-shoot or a movie, she is always posing for a man. Her very essence is purely for the male eyes. She must be attractive so that men will find her attractive. She must strive to fulfill her goal to make sure men will deem her sexy. Everything that a woman does, and everything that a woman sets out to be will be nothing if it is not somehow benefiting a man. Laura Mulvey also brings up in her article, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” she states, “To summarize briefly: the function of woman is forming the patriarchal unconscious is two-fold, she first symbolizes the castration threat by her real absence of a penis…” (Mulvey 832). At the end of her article she also stated, “The argument turns again to the psychoanalytic background in that woman as representation signifies castration, inducing voyeuristic or fetishistic mechanisms to circumvent her threat.” (Mulvey 843) Now castration doesn’t have to be in the physical sense, but more in the psychological sense. In which the definition of that is, “to render impotent, literally or metaphorically, by psychological means, especially by threatening a person's masculinity or femininity.”1 This is a very interesting explanation as to why women are being subjected to these kind of beauty expectations. The male gaze effects the way society looks at women. Women are constantly being told how to act, look and speak in order to attract and not scare off men. 

        However, I think that as a society we can become more increasingly aware to the sexism that is at work in media across all types of plat forms. For example in magazine ads, images like this:

Natalie Portman modeling for a woman's perfume, yet somehow is posed
to be pleasing to the male mind. Her innocent stare, the bow, the fact that she is topless
all contribute to the idea that women must contain this "innocent image" for men

is really confusing to me as a woman. She is advertising a woman’s product, however, the way she is staring into the camera and the fact that she is topless makes it seem that this advertisement was not directed towards me, a woman, at all.  There are countless advertisements of women being used as sexual objects. Not only are women being depicted in a sexual way, a way that is supposed to be appealing to men. Women are then in turn criticized and judged for being too sexual. In his book “Ways of Seeing” John Berger stated, “ 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 proves the point that Mulvey was making when she claims that the women in the media is purely just for the pleasure of men, but also taking it a step further by adding that we as a society judge those same women being sexualized. As if they had a choice to be represented this way. Women did not ever in the history of time want to be a mans sexual object but because in todays corporate world is filled with men that they advertise women to appeal to them. What they think is sexy. Same goes for the movie/TV industry. Most casting directors are male, so they will pick women that look like other women he has seen being advertised and shown off as sexy, because it "works". It becomes an endless cycle of growing up and becoming immune to society's male gaze we see on TV and then incorporating in the entertainment world or even in our own work. We have been brainwashed by our culture that women must be sexy to please the male gaze, at the same time be mocked and shamed for it. Hopefully there will be a time where women can be sexy just because she wants to be not because she feels like she has to be for men and not be shamed for it. 

       
         Now according to Bell Hooks, the gaze is not referred to in a sexual, objectifying manner. Hooks speaks of the gaze as a way to learn, study and be critical of something. In this case it is for young black women to be critical of the representation they get or do not get in the media. Hooks notes that to be black and to gaze was something that did not sit well.  Hundred years ago, her people were killed for staring at a white person a certain way. I think in a way, this just means that in a world where predominantly white men run the media, to gaze upon it in a critical way is to prepare yourself for backlash. There is something to be said about our society when women of color do not have equal representation in the media as much as they should and many women of color just decide to turn a blind eye to it. Hooks states, “Every black woman I spoke with who was/is an ardent moviegoer, a lover of the Hollywood film, testified that to experience fully the pleasure of that cinema they had to close down critique, analysis; they had to forget racism.  And mostly they did not think about sexism.” (Hooks 120) But women of color must never forget this. They must always carry their oppositional gaze. They must always be critical of the world around them because that is the first step to make a change. Women of today cannot sit back and allow the current racism and sexism that occurs in the media like they did when shows like Amos and Andy were on the air. Not only are women of color not being represented in the way they should, but they are also being misrepresented. I cannot begin to count how many times a black woman was the sidekick to her white friend and she played the "sassy friend". Is that the only representation that women of color deserve? No. Simple as that. It always amazes me how a show/movie only includes one person of color and calls it "representation"

Viola Davis making a powerful speech on women of color being represented in the media. Very powerful. Very moving.

                          As a woman and as a Latina, I too must avoid and ignore the male gaze and start to look at the world around me with the oppositional gaze. I must be critical of movies being made because there is close to no representation of hispanic women and if there is, she is being over-sexualized or stereotyped to be "the help" and does not at all contribute to the plot of the story. I must avoid the hypocrisy that comes with the male gaze as well as becoming aware that I am constantly being watched by the world to fit other people’s idea of beautiful and sexy.  I know that by becoming more self aware of the world around me and not let myself get sucked in to the entertainment, this generation can change the way media is presented to us. We want our children to grow up being able to identify to characters in movies and TV.