Male Gaze and Patriarchy

Raoudah Samir

Professor Cacoilo

Art & Women

7 February 2019

Male Gaze & Patriarchy

 In 1975, the term “male gaze” was first introduced by Laura Mulvey in her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”. Mulvey explains that art involving women is solely for the satisfaction of the audience (heterosexual men). She describes how women in films are usually the objects rather than the possessors, because society has a general assumption that by default, hetersosexual men are the targeted audience for most film genres. In John Berger’s “Way of Seeing”, he notes that the cultural presence of the woman is still very much different than that of a man and that “a woman must continuously watch herself. She is almost continuously accompanied by her own image of herself”. Meaning, a woman is always subconsciously thinking if she appears presentable to the male whether it is publicly or in a photo or image.

 Although many people may not realize it, but the Disney princesses such as Cinderella, Jasmine, Ariel, etc., are examples of the Male Gaze. What makes this an example of the male gaze is that these princesses were created to satisfy the male eye. Jasmine, the princess from Aladdin for example, wears a revealing crop top which exposes her breasts, stomach, and her unrealistically slim waist. Also, in Cinderella, the step- sisters who were not as pretty as Cinderella were not chosen by the prince because they were not as pretty as Cinderella. This makes girls feel like they want to look and aspire to be like these princesses and may make children question their worth and societal view of their race.

 The Male Gaze is pervasive in art and popular culture because it is largely a accepted answer to why women portray themselves the way they do and why they were painted a specific way. Why else would women pose and or be painted looking completely available, seductive, and nude?

In the piece “Understanding Patriarchy,” Bell Hooks defines patriarchy as 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 rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence”. (Hooks, 18) The idea of patriarchy can be a major contribution as to why sexism and the male gaze continue so casually in this day and age. For instance, I myself have been affected by patriarchy growing up in a middle eastern family. My brother (only a year apart from me) is allowed to come and go as he pleases and can even stay several days as he pleases and can even stay out several days without being questioned. God forbid I stay out past 10. This is all because society has an idea that men can be free and dominant while girls should stay confined and “protected”.



Citations and Links

https://i2.wp.com/www.filminquiry.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Disney-Princesses.jpg?ssl=1

 Berger,John “Ways of Seeing”



Hooks, Bell "Understanding Patriarchy"