The Male Gaze

The male gaze is the way in which a man looks at a woman. The way a man looks at a woman will also dictate how he will treat her later on. Due to continued traditions, men have been objectifying women for years. Even today, men are treating women like they are objects and simply there for their entertainment. You will see examples of the male gaze in almost every magazine you look at: women’s bodies being praised, sometimes their faces won’t even be part of the picture. The male gaze also impacts how a women looks and perceives herself. Everywhere a women goes, she has to watch herself and make sure that she is acting like a lady. At a young age women were “taught and persuaded to survey herself continually” (Berger, 46). Some say that woman have the ability to choose how they want to be treated by the way they carry and present themselves.  In John Berger’s article, Ways of Seeing, Berger, states that “Men act and women appear. 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 themselves” (47). Women know that they are always being watched and in some ways have just learned to accept it. The male gaze has a lot of power over woman and Berger states that to men, woman will always be an object of vision.

Both of these pictures are from the same magazine. As you can tell even years ago they still portrayed women the same way they do today. They both have faces seducing whoever is looking at them and they are displaying their body in a sexual manner.

Cosmopolitan Magazine

The male gaze is so pervasive in art and in popular culture because it has become such a norm in our society. Young girls have come to accept the male gaze and men obviously do not have a problem with it. It is considered normal to have women expose their bodies in magazines, music videos, art, anywhere, as long as they are attracting an audience. In this day of age media and technology have blown up and due to this, it has become a lot easier to objectify women. Everyone is always on their phones and watching television which increases their chances of seeing ads, shows or music videos that display women as nothing more than eye candy. The male gaze in pop culture will continue to be pervasive as long as people continue to use women in order to sexually satisfy another person. The male gaze is also extremely popular in art. There are countless art works that have women naked and looking away. The majority of art that has nudity, is those of women, and it is clear that they have been created in order to entertain the male eyes.

       Patriarchy is a political-social system where the males inherit power and superiority. It is a system that largely excludes women and view women as weak. Bell Hook’s definition of patriarchy in her article Understanding Patriarchy is that “patriarchy is the single most life-threatening social disease assaulting the male body and spirit in our nation” (17). Hook believes that most men do not think the word patriarchy is relevant or important because they instantly associate the word with feminism. In her article, she mentions some personal situations in which she has encountered patriarchal acts in her household when she was younger. One of those situations was when her father beat her with a board for wanting to play marbles with her brother; her father saw her as being too aggressive and competitive and since he was very patriarchal, he did not like his daughter acting that way. After the beating her mother tries to defend her father’s actions by saying “I tried to warn you. You need to accept that you are just a little girls and girls can’t do what boys do” (Hook, 21). At that point, is was clear that her mother was accepting the views of a patriarchy. Girls should always act like good little girls and let men be superior. Another situation she mentions is when her husband started to change his view on male domination. He was very opposed to patriarchy but when he started a new job his views started to shift the other direction.  Hook’s states “these changes in his thinking and behavior were triggered by his desire to be accepted and affirmed in a patriarchal workplace and rationalized by his desire to get ahead” (Hook, 28). Her husband knew that in this society, in order to succeed, he needed to become a “man” otherwise he was not going to be respected. Like Hook said, “the overall message: men cannot be men, only eunuchs, if they are not in control” (30).

            I have personally experienced the effects of the male gaze and patriarchal views since a young age. Since my parents would be at work, I would have to walk home every day after school. Those walks would be awful, men that would be standing on the corners would say sexual things to me as I walked by, and cars would slow down and shout dirty things to me as they drove by me. I would feel so disgusted and belittled. I was simply an object to them and they had no ounce of respect for me. They would eye me down and make me extremely uncomfortable, but to them that is what I was there for, to be looked at and for their pleasure. Also, since I was a little girl I’ve been a major "tomboy". I loved/love playing sports and I could always be found playing with the guys. It wasn’t so easy playing with them though. The boys always assumed that I was bad because I was a girl and never wanted me on their team. They automatically thought they were better than me just because they were boys. And the sad part is that the girls would also always make fun of me and would tell me that I had to stop acting like a boy. There was a role that everyone expected me to play and when I didn't, I would get judged for “not acting like a girl”. I don’t care now but when I was little it was hard for me because I was stuck in a dilemma where I felt like I couldn’t play sports liked I loved to do because I knew I was going to be ridiculed. Till this day I still see girls being starred at by men and cat called as they walk by and little girls being called tomboys when they’re good at a sport or are stronger than a boy. Unless there is a change, to men, women will always be below them, and they will never be looked at as anything more than eye candy.

This meme might be funny but it is what some men actually think about women sports

This is another meme that shows what some men think about women being really good at a sport.

http://www.arasite.org/nswomen.htm - This link is takes you to an article where Nick Sherriff strictly talks about women sports and patriarchy 

Works Cited: 

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London, England, 1972.

Hooks, Bell. In Black Looks; Race and Representation. Boston Massachusetts:

      South End Press, 1992.