The Male Gaze

The male gaze is the process in which an art work is created depicting women as nothing but a source of satisfaction to the male audience. These in terms objectify women.  John Berger states “Almost all post Renaissance European sexual imagery is frontal, either literally or metaphorically because the sexual protagonist is the spectator owner looking at it “(Berger 56). In this case the spectator owner is the male viewer.  According to Berger “Everything must appear to be the result of his being there. It is for him that the figures have assumed their nudity” (Berger 54). A perfect example of the male gaze is Titan’s Venus Of Urbino, Venus is simple laying naked on the bed just waiting for her “master” to arrive. She seems to be staring right at the viewer, the male viewer. She was painted that way with the male viewer in mind. Berger says “Nakedness reveals itself; Nudity is placed on display “(Berger 54). Since Venus was painted naked she was put on display simply for the satisfaction of the spectator owner.

Venus Of Urbino: Titan 1538.

The male gaze itself is pervasive in art and in popular culture because in our society to be male means you have power and money. The only audience in pop culture and art would be the male audience because they can afford the art so it’s best for artist to make the art appealing to men. That is why the male gaze is used in advertising, men have money therefore men are buying the products.
This is because of our patriarchal society. In our society the male lives in the public sphere, in this sphere the male is the main source of economic gain and power. The women live in the private sphere in which all they do is take care of the family. This also shows the importance of the male gaze as mentioned before. 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 rue love the weak” (Hooks 18).With patriarchy women have no power at all; they are to be the perfect stay at home wife. Women were merely objects, property of their husbands and fathers.She talks about how back in the fifties marbles were toys for boys and how she one day decided to play with it. She got caught by her father and he scolded her and said “You’re just a little girl. When I tell you to do something, I mean for you to do it”(Hooks 20).  That statement itself tells you how much power her father believed he had over what Hooks herself could and couldn't do. That basically describes our society as a whole. When men say something it’s automatically set in stone, it’s the right thing to do, it’s the only thing to do. Women have no freedom. She believes that patriarchy not only hurts women but it also oppresses the male society as well. . Since patriarchy is this unspoken way of life, men have no choice but to live by it because that’s how they were raised. If a male were to have different views on things or softer characteristics then they most likely would hide it for the fear of not being accepted by society. Although Hook’s exposure of patriarchy happened in the fifties it is still very similar to what happens in our society now. The double standard still exists. 

Marc Jacob's Daisy's perfume ad. 2007.

  After learning about the male gaze things have become more apparent to me. I started to notice how an advertisement really is directed towards the male viewer. As they say “Sex sales” and the more provocative something appears the more I realized it has to do with the male gaze.For example many perfume ads are geared toward the male gaze. In most ads you see the women with hardly any clothes on and the perfume isn’t even shown sometimes and when it is shown it’s small in a corner somewhere in the ad. These ads continue to objectify women and honestly it probably won’t change because society hates change. Perfume ad's are not the only places in advertisement where the male gaze is relevant. In the video The Male Gaze: How Women Are Presented In Beer Ads
, the narrator discusses how women are also objectify in beer ads. As long as men are the center of the consumer world, then the male gaze will continue to be used in advertisements.
Therefore artist will continue to think of the spectator owner when they create art. I've always been aware that we live in a patriarchal society so my thoughts on that haven’t changed. I still believe that patriarchy is old fashion and should be left in the past but it won’t. Men are raised to continue this cycle of patriarchy whether they are aware of it or not. I agree with Hook’s patriarchy is detrimental to not only women but men because now men who aren't natural born leaders or aggressive will be consider outcast and that is wrong. 

                                                            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.