Belittling Women

Dayanara Sanchez

              John Berger describes the male gaze in his novel, Ways Of Seeing, which is essentially saying that men look at women, and women are looked at. This is seen in art when men paint and draw women based on what they see how they look at them: women are often drawn as naked bodies, objectifying and sexualizing women based on a mans perspective. “To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized by oneself. A naked body has to be seen as an object in order to become a nude”(Berger 54). In other words, male artists if not always paint women naked and objectify them to be nude. They’re not recognizing a woman's true beauty because they’re painting them based on their sexual views. Berger likewise gives an example of how the structures of the paintings work. The male artist will look at the woman, sexualize her nakedness based on his pleasure, and take immense pride in his painting. “You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure” (Berger 51).  The male gaze is pervasive because most of popular artists are men, and they all have the male gaze when it comes to their art work.

Ways of Seeing, John Berger. An example of the Male Gaze

Cameron Diaz, Bad Teacher, 2011
Elizabeth is seen as a sex symbol in this scene because she uses her body and objectifies herself to get men to wash their cars for a school car wash. Essentially, she's selling her body to raise more money at the school car wash

The male gaze is often seen in the media of the 21st century. For example, In the movie Bad Teacher, Elizabeth is played by Cameron Diaz. Elizabeth participates as a supervisor in a school car wash but in reality she's trying to make extra money for her breast implants. Instead of having a normal car wash, she quickly goes from being a teacher to a sex symbol and uses her body and attractiveness to get more customers to wash their cars. This scene affects the audience watching the film because it shows them that the more she shows her body, the more money she makes. In the film, it is seen that she's selling her body to get money for her breast implants, which is an example of the ideal concept of the male gaze in the media.

When individuals hear the word “patriarchy” they think about women’s liberation and feminism. On the other hand, Bell Hooks describes patriarchy as “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.” (Hooks 18). Although patriarchy clearly puts women down, Hooks has made me understand that it also puts down men. As defined by Bell Hooks, “patriarchy is the single most life-threatening social disease assaulting the male body and spirit in our nation” (Hooks 17) and  I couldn't agree more. Before reading her chapter on “Understanding Patriarchy” I never thought that patriarchy affected men as badly as it affects women. “Patriarchy promotes insanity. It is at the root of the psychological ills troubling men in our nation” (Hooks 30). Men are often expected to be strong and angry instead of sensitive and caring which makes them feel out of place when they feel something that isn’t anger and dominance. Men being raised in patriarchal households lead to troubling psychological problems because they’re raised to suppress their emotions and only to display dominance, violence, and anger, which is extremely unhealthy for one's mental health. Patriarchy leads men to have psychological problems because they don’t express their emotions. Hooks makes it clear that patriarchal rules govern our world’s religion, school systems, and family systems. As soon as newborns enter the world, each individual is assigned a role in society based on their gender. These roles are formed by patriarchal rules that raise women and men to act, think, and behave a certain way. To most people, patriarchy is a mans fault but Hooks explains that both genders are to blame because it’s a societal construct that both genders play a role in. Hooks has opened my eyes to realize that patriarchy as well rules the media: very few women are seen as superheroes in movies or comics because in our society women are “weak” and “caring” and men are “strong and violent”. Hooks has made me understand that it’s okay for me to feel angry and I don’t always have to present a sensitive and quiet personality. 

Work Cited:

Hooks, Bell. Understanding Patriarchy. Louisville Anarchist Federation Federation, 2010.

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. British Broadcasting Corporation, 2008.