Male Gaze and Patriarchy

‘The Judgement of Paris’ by Lucas Cranach the Elder

‘Olympia’ by Manet

In John Berger's,Ways of Seeing, he speaks heavily about the male gaze, though he doesn’t explicitly say it in the text he allows readers to understand what it is and the lasting effects it can bring. One’s perception of another individual not only impacts how the person sees the individual that they are viewing, but the individual themselves. Though in some instances, it can be harmless, this instance not so much because the male gaze oversexualizes women, objectifying them, looking at women and how they may be perceived. When women are oversexualized by men, it then effects how women look at themselves and define themselves, especially in the media, for instance movies, tv shows, advertisement, and works of art. Women in suggestive poses, minimal clothing, and demeaning positions are normalized and regarded as unproblematic. Some dismiss the connection between these types of media and the objectification/oversexualization of the women that they feature, but looking at the images, it reflects the values that society holds and what they are willing to sacrifice in order to gain satisfaction. In this instance, the body of a women is being sacrificed in order to gain the satisfaction of those who are viewing it. Berger makes a profound statement, “While she is walking across a room or weeping at the death of her father, she cannot avoid envisioning herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she is taught and persuaded to survey herself continually. She has to survey everything she is and everything she does, because how she appears to others – and particularly how she appears to men – is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life” (46). Going back to the idea of the male gaze being present in almost everything we look at, if we examine early Western paintings, majority of the painting had women in the nude. This wasn’t a coincidence, even though the paintings are regarded as phenomenal works of art, it’s important to focus the underlying message that it’s delivering especially during that time period. The painting isn’t satisfying the women’s sexual desires or aiding further in her identity, but we can see the purpose it serves for a man, it’s rare you see men being the nexus of a painting nude. Standing in the center, unclothed, the women is there to be looked at and ultimately judged.

So there’s the male gaze, it’s also important to look and discuss the ideas behind the term patriarchy. bell hooks defines patriarchy as such, “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” (1). Both the ideas behind the male gaze and patriarchy go hand in hand. First, i’ll further analyze patriarchy and its relation to masculinity. To be masculine in a heterosexual society is means to be strong, violent, and not sensitive. Masculinity is socially constructed, simply because society tends to create a criteria that either says this is what makes a person a man or not if the criteria isn’t met. Many other men, try their hardest to measure up to the masculine image, but fall short of doing so because of their insecurities. While men fail to fulfill this image due to their insecurities, the desires of them wanting to measure up to the masculine image reveals a much larger insecurity in themselves. To mask this insecurity, they often put down others, while trying to build themselves up. This suggest that the masculinity of men is disrupted by even the simplest things because, in their minds, they failed to reach the top of the patriarchy or achieve the expectations society has laid out for them since birth. The patriarchy represents the everyday male, the one who possess all the power and glory. Men are influenced by this and often aspire to be that way. They believe that the more aggressive and demanding they are, the more likely they are to receive the same respect.

Going into the idea of the male gaze, while some instances, Berger speaks of the oversualization of women, this isn’t always the case. Oversexualization doesn’t always have to be the main negative effect stemming from the male gaze. The male gaze in general, exerts this powerless image among women, making them look weak and incapable. On the other end of the spectrum opposite of masculinity, there’s femininity, where women are expected to be vulnerable, gentle, pure, and kind, in some instances, even submissive. Women that portray anything but those characteristic listed, are then associated with negative words, like “bitch”. When women become the opposite of what’s expected they are referred to as those dehumanizing words. Women taking back their self-worth and purpose is a threat to most men because they don’t know how to cope or deal with someone who sees themselves as an equal. This reflects the way that women are often treated by men, they are placed in the background and overlooked. To most men, women are “accessories” to their self-image, expected to boost the image of their man by devaluing their own in the process. Getting ideas and thinking was a subtle threat to men, in fear that women would see themselves as an equal to men. That once they start educating themselves and learning, they wouldn’t be restricted to just the private sphere (i.e. the home). but also the public sphere where they can work and fulfill many other opportunities. This idea threatens a man sense of masculinity because men, from birth onward, are forced to think and act on the expectations society has set out for a man, to be a strong, assertive, provider in the household.

‘Three Graces’ by Raphael

Works Cited

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books. 1972. Print.

Hook, Bell. "Understanding Patriarchy". Willing to Change. Atria Books 2004.