The male gaze is seeing oneself, usually females, through the eyes of a man. It involves a constant perspective from the male mind and sensing being watched . It means dressing, acting, and appearing attractive for the male sexuality. It is so universal in the world, because the beauty of women have been judged since the beginning of time by males, and beauty standards were set by males. In today’s world, especially in pop culture, it’s common to see women wearing exceedingly less in music videos, and feeling objectified afterwards. It’s not surprising considering how much our society has become highly sexualized through the media. Women may be independent but because men are still adjusting to this independence, they start derogatory labeling on women in attempts to still control a woman’s self image. Some women even agree and hop on to the bandwagon of judging another woman’s body. Instead of women supporting each other, things are compared and seem more like a competition amongst women. John Berger describes how all post Renaissance European sexual imagery is frontal(Berger 56), this depicts the idea of the viewer looking at it. The male gaze is something many, if not all females experience unconsciously because of how ingrained it has become in our heads and in this world.
Most women are unaware that their confidence comes from how others view them, whether it be successful at work, or by how their beauty is judged. I feel as though I have been unaware, myself, of this patriarchal society because it was so normalized in my life, reflecting in my own relationships. Gender roles seem to have evolved through this social hierarchy that has been fixed in society but is slowly being challenged in the 21st century. I did not realize how much I have seen myself through a male gaze until I read John Berger’s book “Ways of Seeing.” Feeling as though my beauty and what people thought about it, gave me my value. Until this class, I have not really addressed this issue about how I appear and this role I felt I had in relationships. Now I question my own actions and how I appear to my subconscious viewer, or as John Berger says “the surveyor.” He states how the surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus, turning herself into an object, a sight (Berger 46.) A business example of the male gaze is Victoria Secret. The models dress to appeal to the male sexuality and their bodies are used as sexual objects, having a whole brand dedicated to the female body in lingerie. It’s something most people do not question because people enjoy the sight and unconsciously decide to go to these stores to look like these models, once again, trying to satisfy the male gaze.
Bell hooks illustrates how patriarchy was normalized in her own household growing up. It is extremely difficult to sit back and accept something that is clearly unjust in society. From getting paid more, to not holding the burden of childbirth, and still holding more dominance in the American society, men seem sometimes unaware of the power they hold. Women hold power too, but it underlies the power that men hold, which seems much more pronounced in everyday life. For example, when couples go through a divorce, the female receives ownership of the house and receives money from the male. She holds power here, power of receiving, dictating the patriarchal rule that the man should provide. Patriarchy is a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it. During the post Renaissance, many men held an arbitrary role in the home, ruling over the wife and kids. It is not a peculiar delusion that in patriarchal households, violence is used to ensure patriarchy is continued and taught to kids.
Gender roles have been inscribed into the minds of people so deeply that accepting a girl playing a so called “boy’s game” was unfeasible(Hooks 20.) Just like Bell Hooks’ parents, my mother’s role was to reinforce that my dad’s decisions were right and support him even when he was wrong(Hooks 21). I recall having been told that as a female I had a role to take care of myself, learn how to cook so that I could my feed my husband in the future. I did not accept this gender role placed on me, because I felt that it always called for a relationship to be imbalanced. I disliked that my mother served my father food everyday and felt patriarchy take place when I saw my mother come home from work, yet cook for the whole family, almost everyday. It is expected and a burden that my father never has to deal with. The long traditional role of the bread winner being the male may have been around because an average man always had a natural physical advantage of being stronger than an average woman. This gave men an advantage, because they could manipulate that power and hurt anyone weaker than them. However, many women could not receive the same education a man could because a male had a say in how they lived their lives, as if women were just puppets controlled by men.
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