Male Gaze and Patriarchy 

In every civilization, human expression is used to survive and grow, whether in, economic, political, or social order. These societal systems are formed and maintained through formal as well as the informal articulation of ideas, emotions, and feelings, which in turn are used to base rules, customs, and laws. As an everyday practice, art is used to communicate these foundations to educate its target audience without the stigma of being strict, as it is also seen as a form of entertainment. For instance, gender roles are propagated in society through motion pictures, magazines, and paintings, where men are portrayed as being the dominant gender while women as the subservient and weak gender. Women are depicted as homemakers and subordinate to men, who are shown as masters. Similarly, women are represented as objects to be possessed by men, where they are never seen through their individuality, instead of through what the men that claim them see. Therefore, the ideology that we live in a patriarchal society is credible due to the biased gender roles in favor of men and the unfair objectification of women in various media.

In our society, men are considered as they are while women are judged based on their presentation of themselves, mainly through the male gaze. According to Berger (1972, pg. 46), the existence of a woman is conveyed by her life choices; such as how she chooses to dress, behave, talk and carry herself around others. Berger (1972, pg. 46) further suggests that women view themselves from the perspective of another person, usually a man, and are influenced by the need to gratify. Thus, the male gaze constitutes the presumption that they are being watched and a voyeur is a man. Therefore, they will model their actions to please the imaginary male spectator. As art and other media are used to influence popular culture that is dominated by men, the male gaze has always prevailed in these media due to their intention to please men (Trier-Bieniek, 2015, pg. 2). Men are viewed as the primary consumer of those media; therefore, most of the content is addressed to the male perspective whether the viewer is male or female. Additionally, this prevalence has been cemented by the patriarchal view of what is desirable to men, not women (Ponterotto, 2016, pg. 135). To illustrate, in advertising, women are depicted as objects to be looked at by an assumed male observer even though those advertisements are meant for women. 

Figure 1: A swimsuit advert depicting a woman how men might see her.

These advertisements are targeted at women but take on the outlook of men, to make the woman see herself through the eyes of the perceived man. Similarly, beauty and fashion shows are targeted at female audiences, but the presentation of the models are cast with a male interpretation in mind.  

Figure 2: A Victoria's Secret show. The show is targeted towards women, but everything is paraded to male observers.

The example is the ideal body, hair, makeup, and clothes or lack thereof. Whether men are present or not, models are paraded how men might view them.

In retrospect, our patriarchal society has bred this harsh landscape and continues to consciously and unconsciously influence men as well as women, from childhood. According to Hooks (2004, pg.18), patriarchy amounts to the assertion that men are fundamentally a cut above women. As a result, they are obligated to rule over everything beneath them through physical harm, or at least the threat of it, or through mental violence. This male supremacy is founded within the household and sips through into society (Sultana, 2011, pg. 3). For example; gender roles are assigned on the basis that males are better in physical and emotional strength, intelligence, and moral authority. Men are set as masters of women, whereas women are mere servants of men. Similarly, in topics of female reproduction, society values the power of the male ideology of right and wrong. Consequently, the concepts of the male gaze and patriarchy confirm that women are not their selves but rather a mirror of who they are in the eyes of men. That society is founded on the ideals of men, what they deem is right or wrong, what they consider as the standard of beauty, and what are the principles of behavior. Women are always dependent on male approval. Today's films and music videos are of despondency due to the misuse of women and the indifference of society towards the same. Moreover, the complacency of women in those media in propagating these biases is disheartening. 

Our female role is to confront the biases rather than conform to them. Subsequently, modern counter-arguments have risen, such as female gaze, to challenge the narrative of the male gaze. The female gaze is the reclamation of the female body from being the object to being the subject, by eliminating the presumed perspective of a man (Riley et al., 2016, pg. 97). Historically, women have been depicted in art and film as the article of the literature, but men are the ones to give the article substance with their viewing. Female gaze aims to change this by injecting the view of a female artist, like an equalizer. It brings a female perspective in the examination of the role of media in upholding this bias. Finally, the argument of the female gaze accommodates intersectional ideas of feminism as it advocates for the inclusion of all outlooks, unlike the male gaze meant for males.

References

Berger, J. (1972). Ways of Seeing.London, England: Penguin Group. 

Hooks, D. (2004). The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. New York, NY: Atria Books.

Ponterotto, D. (2016).Resisting the Male Gaze: Feminist Responses to the "Normatization" of the Female Body in Western Culture. Journal of International Women's Studies,17(1), 133-151.

Riley, S. & Adrienne E. & Alison M. (2016). It’s just between girls: Negotiating the postfeminist gaze in women’s ‘looking talk.’Feminism & Psychology, 26(1), 94-113.

Sultana, A. (2011). Patriarchy and Women’s Subordination: A Theoretical Analysis. The Arts Faculty Journal, 1-18.

 Trier-Bieniek, A. (Ed.). (2015). Feminist Theory and Pop Culture. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers.