The Male Gaze and The Oppositional Gaze

The male gaze is evaluative and intrusive. It is alive and powerful, integrated as a part of our society’s values. As women we never fully escape it. The male gaze objectifies women and makes us into possessions, as John Berger showed in his article that discussed the history of oil paintings, in particular European ones. Powerful men had paintings of naked women. These paintings were bought and then possessed, reflecting women's actual position in society.  Similarly today, women are on display in multiple outlets of media from magazines to tv ads to exploitative films. From our readings of Mulvey and Berger I have gotten a heightened awareness of this social construction that, even though I knew it existed, I didn't actively think about.         

             John Berger writes, "A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself." page 46 This is a phrase I connect to. I remember the moment when I went from not being aware that I could at any time be evaluated, to realizing that there was a value put on my appearance. When I was in high school I found out from my boyfriend at the time that the reason he became interested in me was because his class had played a poker game in order to determine who would date me. This was done as a joke on my brother, who was in the class but did not participate in the "poker-game. I had no idea that they all knew who I was, much less how I looked which was apparently why I was picked. In fact they they had been judging all the little sisters of their classmates. I became an object and even if the boy I got together with did not win the "game" I felt weird and actually everything but flattered. Instead I became increasingly aware of how I presented myself and acted because I was aware that at any moment I  could be evaluated.

            Mulvey writes in "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" that "pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female". This ties into John Berger's statement of "men act and women appear". The words active/act in comparison to passive/appear are significant. There is power in a man while a woman is seen as flowing and airy and not having a voice. Mulvey also says "The determining male gaze projects it's phantasy on to the female figure which is styled accordingly." Although this is said about film, which is a form of media, I feel this is very true when looking at advertisements and magazines. In ads and in representations of almost everything out there, the female body is represented not by a true to life image but an ideal fantasy that fits social norms. It's interesting to note that men run most of the companies producing these images. So its not surprising that they try and determine how we are supposed to look and create their own ideal woman.

Much like in the European Oil paintings although there is a male in the ad the woman is turning her attention to the spectator. As to signify that you can have this body. In this case it is directed for both men and females, they can both posses that body. This particular ad is for the gym Equinox.

Calvin Klein Jeans ad. These ads have been seen all over new York where over-sexualized women are supposed to inspire us to buy the jeans that have hardly made it into the picture.

Its very hard for me as a Swedish person living in America for only 3 years to culturally relate to the oppositional gaze in terms of African Americans. I grew up in a society that in many ways did not expose me to any kinds of differences. I understood the readings from a foreigners perspective. I understand about being judged by how you look racially, but my view comes from a person thrust from a historically homogenous society into the melting pot of America. This made me realize that the oppositional gaze has a lot to do with cultural background, nationality and race. I can relate as a woman but have difficulty with cultural context of the African American experience.

Bell Hooks points out how the oppositional gaze developed as resistance to the controlled parameters that have through centuries been put on the right to gaze, from times of slavery to present era. The gaze allows those who are oppressed to actively look at their surroundings and society with power. And with the gaze comes the right to make up your own mind and to actively question ideas and social values. Hooks writes: "Not only will I stare. I want my look to change reality" and "There is power in looking". These two quotes stood out to me because they signify the essence of the gaze. It becomes an active way to resist the oppression of the society.

            As mentioned in the class discussion, the restrictions on African-American women are two-fold. Not only are they women living in a male driven society, they also have society's racial values layered on top of it. Hooks turns our attention to the cinema and the lack of symbols of African-American womanhood in particularly the early movies. Hooks writes "Black female spectators have had to develop looking relations within a cinematic context that constructs our presence as absence, that denying the 'body' of the black female so as to perpetuate white supremacy" and "where the woman to be looked at and desired is 'white'". The society is thereby stripping these women twice, first taking away any representation or significant image for them to relate to as well as then telling them and society at large that women have to fit a certain skin color to be desired. It leaves these women without an outlet or identity and a right to be part of society. Hooks used the word "absence", that they simply were not there and if they were it really wasn't as a true depiction of their lives and value.