In the art world, women are painted and depicted for men by men. As stated by Berger, "To be born a woman has to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men" (Berger, 46). It can be related to that of a nude drawing or painting, in which a woman is depicted to that of man and his imagery for himself to keep and is for himself to judge. This is where I feel the Male Gaze comes into play, where being the "surveyor" and the "surveyed", "She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to others, and ultimately how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life. Her own sense of being in herself supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another. Men survey women before treating them" (Berger, 46). What Berger is saying is that women are basically here for men to have and look at and the way she acts and looks will help a man determine how she gets treated because he has the power to do so and to feel superior. Using what Berger is stating, we see this in our modern day within business and even politics. As said before by Berger is that women are to be "surveyed" and as more women attain greater roles in organizations and politics, it is causing that tilt of power from the male spectrum towards the female spectrum. However there will always be a constant fluxuation as women are proving they are as equal as men but then are those who continue to reinforce the male gaze like famous celebrities posing in swimsuits or nudes (ex. Kim Kardashian) that just fall back into the same pattern and in essences, has become the modern day nude painting.
Patriarchy as defined by Bell Hooks is " a political-system that insist 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 to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence" (hooks, 18). By reading this by Hooks I was able to gain more of an understanding of how patriarchy works and how some believe in it and raise their children by it. As Hooks said, her brother was raised "to provide; to be strong; to think, strategize, and plan; to refuse or nurture others" (hooks, 18) and that she was taught "that it was not proper for a female to be violent, that it was 'unnatural'" (hooks, 18). In some ways I can relate that there is this sense of responsibility to be "strong and to provide" among men, and it might be because that is what we see among older men and how our fathers and grandfathers were. Hooks really hit the marker when she tells the story about how her and her brother would play marbles and she would win and the brother would not be worried about it. The mother did not care, but the father did, "His daughter, aggressive and competitive, was a better player than his son. His son was passive; the boy did not really seem to care who and was willing to give over marbles on demand. Dad decided that his play had to end, that both my brother and I needed to learn a lesson about appropriate gender roles" (hooks, 20). The father was upset that she was dominant over her brother and that he was OK with it, but her father would not stand for it and when she demanded to play he "...broke a board from our screen door, and began to be me with it, telling me, 'you're just a little girl. When I tell you to do something I mean for you to do it'" (hooks, 20). To myself that is mind blowing and made me realize the real effects of patriarchy. Personally I have not been apart or have seen gender roles forced up people, especially children, and to read this really opened up my mind.
Overall, who are we (men that is) to say what women can and can't do or tell them how to act? To tell a daughter they cannot act a certain because they were born a different complex? Although patriarchy is still ongoing in the world, the strides that women had made in recent time has been remarkable and although it is not completely abolished, I believe that we are on the right path and well on our way to an equal society and that gender roles shall eventually be a thing of the past.
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| Kim Kardashian posing nude for Paper Magazine only enforcing the male gaze even more. |
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| A simple image not only indicating what could be seen as domestic abuse, but both the male gaze and patriarchy put in action. The man is essentially putting the woman in "her place" as she stares into the camera. |
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| These are images from a UN Campaign to raise awareness of the gender inequality that still remains in today's society around the world. |
- 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.
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