Prompt: What is the male gaze(as described by John Berger)
and why is it pervasive in art and in popular culture? What is patriarchy (as
described by Bell Hooks)? Give examples. How have you come to understand these
structures and in what ways has this understanding changed your views about
various art and media examples and of your own identity and role in these
structures. Give illustrative examples (citations and links of pics and links
in gereral.
The male gaze in a contemporary point of view generally
consists of objectification of women and acting sexist towards women as well, inciting
actions like violence or cat calling. In my personal experience, contemporary
views of the male gaze is quite one dimensional because it issues a problem
without proper context or reason why events like cat calling or sexual
harassment happen. In the reading ‘Ways of Seeing’ by John Berger, he proposes
an alternative of the male gaze in relation to art. He defines the male gaze as
a duality of surveyor and surveyed. Berger simplifies the male gaze to being “Men
act and women appear” (Berger 47). Women survey themselves as men would,
however not in relation to themselves but to other men. On the man’s side, they
merely survey and judge the women through eyesight and eyesight alone. The
acting that men do is the male gaze, while females ‘appear’ as something to be
stared at. The relation towards contemporary views is similar, objectification
is being surveyed, and the male gaze is the culmination of religion and
traditional beliefs.
Two females pictured together in what seems like an intimate
relationship. Well, in the 19th century where this painting was drawn,
lesbian and homosexuality were clearly not defined or accepted at all. Thus, we
have some sort of grasp of the opaqueness of the painting. Something that is
quite pervasive in art, especially in early art was nude women. In this
specific category, nude women were drawn as sensual and disproportioned to reality.
In the painting above, not much of the detail is exaggerated, though the
concept of it is clearly exaggerated because of the way the bodies are
positioned. It isn’t very sensual at all when the act of censoring the vagina
are common practices in nudes and the bodies are directly in view of the
surveyor. A depiction of lesbianism, a good contemporary point of argument, but
the focus seems to be more so on the deed of lesbianism: two females having
sex. To relate it to the present, painters were merely people that had a lot of
kinks. If this was done in the present, one would assume it’s a tribute to a
male’s fantasy of lesbians. Something that is quite popular in these times are
porn, and one of those categories that top the charts are lesbians. Porn, like nudes
are exaggerated in concept and execution. Some nudes have elongated necks, backs
and maybe large breast yet small heads and feet. As a male myself, objectification
is a big part of the male gaze, and most of it has to do with the culture and traditional
upbringing of men. Lesbianism is no different than objectification because we
don’t see it as love, rather just a category for porn, especially when things
like girls having sex with girls is such a fetishized thing in popular culture.
The importance
of traditions in upbringing, especially men and today’s society, is the term patriarchy.
Defined as a system where men are the bread earners that weight more of an
importance to society than women, who are often considered as the child bearers
and house maids.
Bell Hooks describes patriarchy as a “political-social
system that insists that males are inherently dominating...” (Hooks 18). This
formal definition is solid but it’s vague. From a male’s perspective, I don’t
see much of the patriarchy that females may see in their life. Some examples
that Hooks provides give insight to males since she has told anecdotes of her
childhood growing up with boys as a girl. Her brother was raised differently
than her in the perspective dealing with rage, where “a boy should not express
feelings,” and “enjoying violence was a good thing” (Hooks 19). The opposite
was her, being female, could not express rage and she was forced or at least
coerced to express overwhelming emotion. Another example where Hooks was
impacted by patriarchy was when her dad allowed her brother to play marbes
while she was not. A key element here is the boy girl difference, where one is
able to do something, and one cannot. Limitations placed on one’s gender
because of an even greater feat, the tradition and upbringing of males and
females. However, it’s that way for a reason, something that is something even
bigger than just women must raise our boys right.In this case, males have to be
straight with their children and boys cannot just be boys and girls cannot just
be girls. They should be able to freely express themselves in every way
possible, just allowing them to experience issues will make their kids more open
minded and stronger, more important that there is this bond between the parents
and the child. To this day, men are not held accountable by other men, and men
that want to hold others accountable aren’t very sure how to do it because it
so deeply ingrained into the culture f boyhood that awareness of this toxic
masculinity is the only way to solve this problem. Thanks Gillette.
Works cited:
Berger, John. 1972. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin
Books Ltd.
Bell Hooks Understanding Patriarchy
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