Since the beginning of art, women artists were not praised for their work or were not able to actually study and practice art. Through women's history, they had very few rights and opportunities than the men in the society.  From there, the male gaze has been one concept that has affected the art of many artists and how it affects women in today's society. In John Berger's, "Ways of Seeing", he establishes that women are objects, in which men pay close attention to them and how they look. He states that the "surveyor", which are men, survey or check women and the way they portray themselves towards men. Berger says, "The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object- and most particularly an object of vision: a sight" (47).Women are sights that need to be watched, whether they like or not. The men are almost like cameras; they tend to focus on the woman from the bottom up or from the top down. Either way, the woman is seen as a sight, where she is the object that needs attention. In the painting below by Diego Velasquez, it is Venus that is looking at herself at mirror and admiring her own beauty and what she has to offer to a man. She looks at the mirror, but its almost as if through the mirror she is staring at the person who is looking at this painting. She is grabbing their attention and her sensual body keys the fact that she wants to have sex.

Patriarchy is one key factor that every man and woman should know about them selves. It is a political social system that is mainly dominated by males and the ideas that they have will only make them superior to their enemies, which are women. Throughout history, women have been the called the enemies, especially the ones that were outspoken and were somewhat intelligent. By keeping women from going to school and working, men were able to focus on bettering themselves and kept women at home to make everything run smoothly. In Bell Hooks, "Understanding Patriarchy", she states, "Since it is a system that denies men full access to their freedom of will, it it difficult for any man of any class to rebel against patriarchy, to be disloyal to the patriarchal parent, be that parent female or male" (27). At birth, babies are already put into this societal standard if it is a boy or girl. They are taught to play with toys that are for their gender and are not to explore what other toys are there. Patriarchy is a system that had worked for over many generations and continue to pass on the legacy of what it means to be a man in the eyes of their parents.

This photo represents one way that women did not speak or were not able to speak out the truth during these times. The bar code is used for when its needed and the same thing with women. Once they were able to speak through the agreement with a man, she was able to talk.

http://www.trebuchet-magazine.com/sex-slashing-and-suffrage-the-rokeby-venus-diego-velasquez/