Through influences ranging from religion to the philosophical ideas of Plato, the objectification and over-sexualization of women’s bodies seems to invariably persist throughout time. Only further being implemented due to the sexist societies people live in, the unjust ideologies about women have definitely influenced a particularly striking depiction of a girl’s body. Merely emphasizing her outer appearance, a girl’s worth does not lie in her character, but rather how much gratification she can bring to the opposite gender. Through John Berger’s Ways of Seeing and Bell Hooks’ The Will to Change, each author explores the male gaze and patriarchy as two structures that support each other and continue to perpetuate the dangerous ideas that women are somehow inferior beings whose sole purpose lies in serving men.
Formatting our entire worlds to please a heterosexual male, Berger explains how the male gaze involves creating art, whether that be through film or a drawing, that displays girls’ bodies as sexual objects. It denies women’s humanity and instead simply views her as a tool meant for the pleasure of the opposite gender. The author further denotes this through his concepts of the surveyor, and the surveyed. He states, “[Women] she 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 46). In other words, two conflicting ideas exist in a girl’s mind because she is constantly being judged and watched throughout her life. A young girl will continuously be taught that her reputation and her physical appearance is of the utmost importance. Normalized through the media because of the sexist rhetoric that is part of our society, the male gaze remains a huge issue as white men continue to possess the power to do as they please. Evident in blockbuster films like The Avengers, the sole female protagonist, Black Widow, is contorted in a way that shows of every inch of her body. While this may not seem obvious at first glance, it is when people contort the bodies of men to fit in a particular way that the viewer truly sees the poster’s intention. Even in popular romantic comedies like She's All That, the camera often focuses on the lead's body and only sees her as popular once she undergoes a transformation. Pertinent in the world, these types of images are consistently seen in the media and are thus seen as something ordinary. The fact that most men control the entertainment industry and are the successful artists who create the films and artwork that people see greatly contributes to the male gaze. Only in giving women a chance to show their perspective and giving girls agency will these social structures change.
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| The male gaze in The Avengers |
In Bell Hooks’ The Will to Change, the author describes patriarchy as “a political-social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything...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). In other words, patriarchy is a system in which white, heterosexual men are usually the best in their fields and granted all the power in their industries. Constructing the way they want to see the world, the patriarchy caters everything to the expectations of the men in charge. Harmful to both men and women because of the stereotypical gender roles that pressure people to act a certain way, the patriarchy is extremely oppressive. Stemming from things like Christianity that denote men as rulers of all, the status of girls as submissive creatures turns into a structure that denies women the same liberties as men. Norms that tell boys that they have to be tough and may only possess anger justify issues like domestic abuse. Even more troubling, rape is permitted and even excused in American culture because of the hierarchy that exists in society. When threatening a man’s power, the blame instead deflects to the female. Rather than accepting the horrible actions that have been done, women are told “boys will be boys” and are even told that men just have “uncontrollable urges” (Leonard Fradet). In displacing the gravity of this situation, women often become reluctant to be open about the events that took place and bear an enormous emotional weight. In an almost paradoxical turn of events, the patriarchy that denounces that men bear extreme power also blames women for somehow being able to force men to denounce their morality and simply force women to have sex with them. Men love to watch women and rule over them, but simultaneously punish them for feeling comfortable in the same bodies they gain pleasure from. Slut shaming girls whenever they do not want to engage with men, the patriarchy acts as a force that manages to always blame women whenever they deny men what they desire.
Given the normalization of such oppressive structures, it is obvious that the representation of women in media needs to change. Instead of “mostly exist[ing] in terms of what they represent to, the hero[s]” in movies, it is time that the girls become more than just subplots in the life of men (Simmons). The male gaze and patriarchy emphasize the great strides society needs to make in order to give women the agency they lack. Rather than simply settling with such ideas, the role women, and in particular the role women of color in male-dominated spaces possess only further emphasizes the need for things like intersectional feminism. While white women are surely seen as objects, minorities are even more marginalized. In other words, intersectionality is defined as “‘the complex, cumulative manner in which the effects of different forms of discrimination combine, overlap, or intersect’... discrimination doesn’t exist in a bubble – different kinds of prejudice can be amplified in different ways when put together” (IWDA). Significant due to the fact that feminism often only speaks to the struggles of white women, intersectionality amplifies the voices of those who seek justice from more than a single source. Seeking the answers to how to combat such demeaning systems, intersectionality uplifts the voices of women of color and continuously asks people to analyze how to help them too. Women can be privileged and oppressed in all different aspects of life (religion, sexuality, etc.). Thus, patriarchy is not just held up by male privilege but also ties in the heteronormative structures in society. Only through intersectionality will people be able to dismantle such oppressive systems through all different sides.
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| Women at a 2011 SlutWalk protest in New York. |
Works Cited
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing: Based on the BBC Television Series with John Berger. British Broadcasting Corp., 2012.
Hooks, Bell. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Washington Square Press, 2005.
“How Can We Fight Rape?” SocialistWorker.org, https://socialistworker.org/2013/03/21/how-can-we-fight-rape Loreck, Janice, and School of Media.
“Explainer: What Does the 'Male Gaze' Mean, and What about a Female Gaze?” The Conversation, The Conversation, 10 Jan. 2019, http://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-the-male-gaze-mean-and-what-about-a-female-gaze-52486
“What Does Intersectional Feminism Actually Mean?” IWDA, 8 Nov. 2018, iwda.org.au/what-does-intersectional-feminism-actually-mean/.
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