Male Gaze and Patriarchy

For the longest time in history, women have gone through many struggles to break out of the stereotypes that have been defined and labeled onto them by men. It took more than 140 years (since the constitution was signed) for American women to gain equal suffrage rights as men. Women were confined and limited to what they can and cannot do and their roles have been set by tradition. Whoever dared to question these traditions was looked down upon. How women act, dress, behave, speak and the beliefs that they uphold have also been defined by men. Images of women in art masterpieces are vital to our understanding of how women were viewed.

The male gaze played a major role in almost all of the females depicted in art. In John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing”, male gaze is described as a man objectifying woman. Berger states, “men act and women appear” (47).  Women are being seen by men, their gaze is extremely powerful. The gaze is supposed to be nonexistent by the woman in the painting. Women are just to be looked at; the sole reason for the artist’s painting is for the male spectator only. Berger emphasizes a woman’s view of herself “she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman” (46). The meaning behind this is that the surveyor is the male and the surveyed is the female. Women are being constantly judged by the superior sex and whatever way women decide to act is seen as how they want to be treated. (46) Berger highlights that women’s ultimate goal is to receive the male’s attention and to be seen and called “beautiful”. When we see these images of nude women, we sometimes fail to realize that men are objectifying them. They are merely seen as objects and not as humans. These art pieces are to empower men, it is all about flattering him. Till this day we still see the male gaze influencing media. Everyday we encounter these images, whether you are driving around and you see this huge billboard-advertising victoria’s secret or you see the cover of sports illustrated/cosmopolitan of women wearing the tiniest bikini ever. These pictures and ads are hard to avoid we all have encountered these images someway or another.

This is the usual victoria secret ads that many of us have seen. The model is trying to sell the bra, however the way she's looking into the camera shows her trying to capture the male gaze. 

When I think of the word patriarchy my automatic thought is male dominancy; men possessing most of society’s power. In bell hook’s “Understanding Patriarchy” she defines patriarchy as a “political-social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especial females”(18) We sometimes implement these patriarchal ideologies into our life, most of the time without even knowing it. Patriarchy has a huge influence on gender roles and it all begins when we are children. This influence occurs by way of the child’s learned manner of conducting one’s self in their social and physical environment, and also the impact of the parents behavioristic treatment towards the child in regards to reward and punishment. Many parents teach their children at a young age about the gender roles that are socially acceptable. For example, bell hooks recalls her father being persistent to teach bell that she should act like a girl, which means to be gentle and delicate. I do not agree with condemning female children for engaging in supposedly male normative behavior and vice versa. I feel that placing gender related pressures on our children, only set them up to continue the narrow minded cycle of society onto future families. People should learn how to be more accepting and understanding of the notion that gender is a universal aspect of the human race. If we, as people, put less negative energy and effort into pushing others to believe in gender stereotypes, there would be less prejudice and discrimination in the world. Why should a woman be considered manly, when she succeeds in a stereotypically male task? Why should a man be considered weak, when he openly expresses his sadness like how many people stereotypically believe only women should be able to cry. I may not have lived through these implementation of specific gender roles since I grew up in a household with just my parents and older sister, my father made sure that we stay tough and let no one take advantage of us for being females. During my childhood, I had to do all different types of chores that weren’t deemed as feminine. For example, my mom would tell me to do the dishes and laundry while my dad made sure that I do the yard work, shovel the snow, take me to karate lessons (all of this which is associated as being a “boy’s “activity/job). 

In this video below participants of all ages (the youngest being 10), both female and male, were interviewed and asked questions. The first question the director posed to the participants separately was "what does it mean to run like a girl." What happens next, is not shocking to me at all, stereotypically they start flailing weakly, breathing heavily and prancing timidly. It is very unfortunate that we live in a society where the phrase “like a girl” is so prone to us, women especially. Women themselves get offended when someone says “you kick like a girl” or “you run like a girl”, well how is that offensive? We were taught that saying something like that meant your weak and it certainly disempowers our abilities. This can relate to bell hook's article because clearly there is a huge influence of male patriarchy views of gender roles. 

This photo shows a search engine (most likely google) with the sentence beginning with "women should" and there is a bunch of suggestions that depict discriminatory and prejudice ideals of women roles. 

Patriarchy has a strong influence on our favorite childhood Disney princesses movies. These movies repeatedly emphasized the major role these princesses had which was to look pretty and have the prince save you. This article dissects the underlying gender issues in these movies.

Works Cited

Berger, J. (1973). Ways of Seeing (pp. 45-64). London: British Broadcasting Corporation.

Hooks, B. (2004). Understanding Patriarchy. In The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (pp.17-33). New York: Atria Books.