John Berger’s “The Way of Seeing” explains the male gaze as something we had never recognized before because we are so used to society allowing men to treat women as objects. Berger believes that looking is a powerful political act which makes the person who is constantly being watched feel a high level of consciousness. He uses an example of a post renaissance painting where women are seen as objects, as they are there for the man to look at. Berger states that a woman “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” (Berger). This gives us a clear representation of how the male gaze diminishes the female’s esteem and what she thinks of herself. The male gaze is the way a perspective of a man can takes ownership of a woman’s purpose. The male gaze can sexualize a woman when she, herself, does not want or is not trying to sexualize herself. Berger wants to emphasize that the male gaze is not something new and has been happening in art, and film for centuries. He ends the text by saying “Women are depicted in a quite different way from men not because the feminine is different from the masculine but because the ideal spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him.” (Berger 64). Since the man is always assumed to be the viewer, women are constantly worrying about their image, not for them, but for a man. Not only in art, but in pop culture women are displayed for a man’s eye, and other women looking at this art do this same thing without even recognizing how they can be objectifying themselves.
Although the idea of the male gaze does stem from a woman’s purpose being to be there for the eyes of a man, it should be recognized that women do play a part in objectifying women. Since young age, women are taught to be aware of their surroundings and what they do. We, women, are first acknowledged for our looks as babies therefore we grow up fixated on what we look like not for ourselves, but for a man who might look at us. For example, the simplicity of a woman’s nude body has been put on display when a man is looking at it, but before it is looked at it is simply a body, which means being nude is a way to dress for men. Berger states “To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself. A naked body has to be seen as an object in order to become a nude. The sight of it as an object stimulates the use of it as an object.) Nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display. To be naked is to be without disguise. To be on display is to have the surface of one's own skin, the hairs of one's own body, turned into a disguise which, in that situation, can never be discarded. The nude is condemned to never being naked. Nudity is a form of dress.” (Berger 54). Berger is trying to tell us that the naked body is seen as object appealing to men. I believe women, especially in this generation are not aware of how they can be promoting the male gaze. Questions emerge such as: Do you dress like that for you or for a man’s attention? But also, do women always think about what a man wants to see or is there no actual audience of men watching? Since we, women, are spoon-fed to constantly keep up with our looks from birth, do we actually play a part in objectifying ourselves?
The male gaze and patriarchy are in similar wrongs. The male gaze is the idea that men will always be the audience and they are given that power because women are not seen as equal, but as objects. Patriarchy allows things such as the male gaze to create a continues cycle between women and men. For instance, the assumption that men are always the audience for a woman’s actions is a form saying that a man is so superior, a woman regards her every move because of him. Hooks goes on to explain, “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 rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence.” (Hooks 1). This male dominance effects women not just with how they are seen, but how they are raised. Hooks explains how patriarchy affected her when she was growing up when it came to gender roles, she says, “One evening my brother was given permission by Dad to bring out the tin of marbles. I announced my desire to play and was told by my brother that “girls did not play with marbles,” that it was a boy’s game. This made no sense
to my four- or five-year-old mind, and I insisted on my right to play by picking up marbles and shooting them. Dad intervened to tell me to stop. I did not listen. His voice grew louder and louder. Then suddenly he snatched me up, broke a board from our screen door, and began to beat 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.” He beat me, and he beat me, wanting me to acknowledge that I understood what I had done.” (Hooks 2). This vivid form of abuse stems from patriarchy. The father beat his daughter to enforce that she cannot be as tough as her brother simply because she is a girl. I can relate to the author because I grew up with older brothers, and I was always told I could not do what they were doing because it’s “only for boys” or “too rough”. Gender roles set us back and make women lack experience.
The second image Danae was painted by Rembrandt in 1636, portraying a woman naked laying on a bed. After reading the greek mythology behind this painting, I found that she is pregnant and her son is destined to kill her father. Her father is supposed to go see her, and she is illuminated and welcoming as they say. When analyzing this painting it has been evident that they are using light to make her the main focus of the painting. She is naked which shows her vulnerability, but she is acting as if there isn't someone there painting her.
Works Cited
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing; a Book Made by John Berger. Viking Press, 1973.
Gunaratnam, Yasmin, and Vikki Bell. “How John Berger Changed Our Way of Seeing Art.” The Conversation, The Conversation, 16 Sept. 2018, theconversation.com/how-john-berger-changed-our-way-of-seeing-art-70831.
Hooks, Bell. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Washington Square Press, 2005.
“The Male Gaze.” Discussing & Debating Art, artissues-bodyrepresentation.weebly.com/the-male-gaze.html.
Links
Images
La Grande Odalisque
1814 by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
This image shows the unrealistic body of a woman showing every feature of her body, the artist wanted to construct the perfect woman in this painting with unreal features such as her neck, her back, and her legs. Berger referenced this piece in his book.
Danae
1636 by Rembrandt
This image was referenced in John Beger's book as an example of the male gaze.
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