Male Gaze & Patriarchy

The male gaze is dependent upon the promise of power and survey of the body. The surveyor vs. the surveyed where the surveyor is the beneficiary of the relationship. The woman becomes a nude, an object, and therefore becomes available to the viewer, the man. The surveyor objectifies the surveyed and this allows the privilege of looking and owning the surveyed. When you objectify somebody you take away their power and humanity so you can control them, own them, and have power over them, And by identifying with him, through active participation in his power, the spectator can possess her too. The woman has been taught from an early age to survey herself because how she appears to others is how she appears to men. And how she appears determines how she will be treated, “men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women look at themselves being looked at. Thus turning herself into an object” (Berger, 47). Men have the power to look but women see themselves being seen because their power isn’t the same. John Berger argues that, “the woman responds with calculated charm to the man who she imagines looking at her and by doing this she is offering up her femininity as the surveyed” (Berger, 55). The mirror is used to symbolize the vanity f women and this is illustrated in the painting Vanity by Memling. The male gaze also introduces the judgement of beauty as a contest and the prize is to be made available to the man.

The male Gaze is pervasive in art and in popular culture because “the nude in European painting is usually represented as an admirable expression of the European humanist spirit” (Berger, 62). The woman’s body is a sign of obedience to the man’s demands but the “nude is a form of art and always conventionalized derived from tradition of art” (53). This means that the nude is seen by others but not recognized, simply placed on display. An example is the painting by Bronzino, Allegory of Time and Love, where Venus’ body is drawn to appeal only to the man’s sexuality. Removing the hair on the woman’s body takes away her sexual power because it represents her maturity, and sexual appetite because she is not there for her sexual pleasure but for the viewer, the man. Furthermore, the nude is not allowed to engage the male gaze, she can only gaze at herself through a mirror. And this gives the male spectator permission to look without feeling guilty.

The male gaze causes the woman to be fetishized as an object to be looked at, while the man is given the privilege to actively look at the woman. The mirror is a symbol that allows the viewer to say, she’s asking for it. Holding the mirror and removing the hair on the body gives women a model to imitate if they want to hold value. The painting is not gives the name of the women so man can look at it and apply vanity and narcissism to the nude, this gives the viewer an excuse to look without feeling guilty, making her appear like she’s asking for it. Man in the painting would not hold any sexual power so they don’t rival the sexuality that is in front of the painting, which is the person looking. Based on the class discussion, we can argue that the female gaze is not in balance with the male gaze because although Tyson Beckford is seemingly in the same role as a nude woman he is not objectified in the same way because his authority is still present, because he is male. He is still sexual even in his objectified state. The male gaze is not theoretical, it’s all around us. For example, harassment such as cat calling is focused on male gaze, it is about men feeling the power to own a woman’s body as a spectator owns a painting and this system is set up to translate in real life. Selfies are also in conversation with the nude woman because women are aware of being looked at.

According to bell hooks, “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 various forms of violence” (hooks, 18). Women often take up a subordinate role in contrast to a man because their behavior has to follow a predetermined script depending on gender and this was done to “organize life.” The father would step in to restore the natural order of things because he was the ruler of the household. They become the teachers of patriarchal thinking by “promoting and condoning sexist violence” (hooks, 24). This stresses “polarization between the sexes” (hooks, 26).  Because it gives the notion that men are all powerful and women are made to be the victims, which is wrong. I too was raised in a patriarchal home, where my father is the head of the household and my mother is obedient. My sister and I had a 8pm curfew and had to dress appropriate but my brother had no restrictions. What is even more alarming is the face that citizens in this country fear challenging patriarchy even through it is to their benefit because throughout the years it has damaged men, “Imprisoned by a system that undermines their mental health” (hooks, 30). It is no longer about the biology of strength but perceived strength that has to be dictated and taught. The men’s problem is they refuse to share the public rein with women arguing that women have gone too far with their demands for equality. A great example would be Hillary Clinton running for President. Based on the class discussion, in certain cultures, a male child is often preferred and those populations can’t procreate because there are no women. Also modern marriage is based on a very patriarchal institution whether it’s religious or legal. Marriage follows this system of power and submission, rights, subservient, taking the man’s n ame and ownership. In bell hooks video, she argues that Critical thinking is the key to transforming your life and does thi by challenging the system and opposing the norms.   

America Is Still a Patriarchy

Woman as Object, Woman as Subjects 

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting, 1973. Print.
Hooks, Bell. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. New York: Atria, 2004. Print.

Yahya, Wan W. "The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences: Annual Review." Male Gaze, Pornography and the Fetishised Female (2010): 26-36. Web.