The term male gaze is described as the way of how heterosexual men look at women as an object, that the relationship between men and women are asymmetric; men often feel they have greater power than women, and their masculinity always threatens the femininity. For example, men would never be afraid of women; but females would be scared that the males might attack them or rape them.
According to John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing”, he stated the idea that men look at women before treating them. In other words, this means that a woman’s appearance determines the way that men treats her. “Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at” (Berger, 47). From his words, he clearly explained that women are acting like objects for men to be viewed at, women are aware that they are being viewed by the men, therefore women attempted to behave in good manners and tried to attract attentions from the opposite sex. In addition, Berger addressed the subject of vanity. In European oil paintings, women are portraying in nakedness and are viewed by men. Male enjoy looking at female nudity, but directly looking will make masculinity seem to be too aggressive; by putting a mirror in a woman’s hand, “make the woman connive in treating herself as, first and foremost, a sight” (Berger, 51). When a woman looks at herself through a mirror is called Vanity, that she is treating herself as an object to be viewed, and this allows the spectators (males) to penalize female by looking at herself, not the spectators’ fault by looking at nudity.
The male gaze becomes a pervasive form of vision in popular culture due to media depiction. As addressed in Laura Mulvey’s article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, she discusses various issues such as spectatorship that occur while viewing a film. Women are viewed as the image on screens whose purpose is to fulfill men’s desire. “Women displayed as sexual object is the leit-motiff of erotic spectacle…she holds the look, plays to and signifies male desire” (Mulvey, 837). In other words, she is saying that women act as images; they dress beautifully in order to attract men’s attention, to satisfy the male’s desire of sexuality. We do see men and women act in different roles upon films; men portray as active and women portray as passive in the narrative structure. The actives will carry the plot, leading the story; and the passives often there to make the men feel powerful, they are never be able to be a representative within the role of gaze. For example, the video shown below demonstrates the idea of active and passive gender roles. The male characters in Disney films are always illustrate as heroes, usually two males fight with each other to save the female character. The purpose of the female to be onscreen is to display her weakness and inability to protect herself, thus helping to strengthen the masculinity in films.
According to Bell Hooks’ “The Oppositional Gaze”, the term oppositional gaze refers to the challenges color people have towards the white supremacy. In male gaze, the spectators are all considered as whites, there are no color people involved, they are not permitted to gaze. As Hooks addressed in her article, the oppositional gaze developed in order to change their lives, “not only will I stare. I want my look to changed reality” (Hooks, 116). In the black male gaze, women wanted to participate in the mainstream media, identifying themselves as being white women; however, this is very difficult. “Much feminist film criticism disallows the possibility of a theoretical dialogue that might include black women’s voices” (Hooks, 125). In order to change the gaze is very difficult, that during that era of time, only white women considered as in the women hood, colored females still have a very challenging way to identify themselves as into the gaze.
After reading all these three articles, I think that the male gaze gives too much pressure for women, that women compete for their beauty. For instance, whenever a woman walks down the street, I think she would liked to dressed up as pretty as she can be, and if any man looks back at her, that woman will feel very happy like she achieves something important in her life. To my own life, I follow the same thing as what other women did. I do put on make-ups sometimes when I go out, and I do try to lose weight like all other girls. I think this is like a “social norm” which every woman will follow throughout her life, to be beautiful and being the surveyed by the male gaze is her success in life.
Berger, John, "Ways of Seeing" 1972.
Mulvey, Laura, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," 1975
Hooks, Bell, " The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectors," Black Looks: Race and Representation, South End Press, 1992.
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