Male Gaze and Patriarchy: To Be a Female Anywhere at Any Point in Time

Women in all types of art are seen as the object, not the creator. The painted not the painter. The photograph of, not the photographer. In these works of art women are presented through the male gaze, or the way women are portrayed as sexual objects for the enjoyment and pleasure of men to look at, explained by John Berger author of “Way of Seeing.” The idea that “men survey women before they treat them,” (Berger 46) is a never dying paradigm. Surveying is aligned with looking carefully at someone or something to appraise their value. With men being the surveyor, they have the power to ask, What can this woman offer me? The male will then treat the female based off his answer to his own question. The female also plays the role of the surveyor and surveyed. The female is only seen playing the role of the surveyor when she is surveying herself. She has to constantly look at herself for her own value, because she is aware that she is being surveyed from more than just her personal lens.  Playing the role as the surveyed is the female, “[having to] survey everything she is and everything she does and ultimately how she appears to men.” (Berger 46) The female needs to appeal to or intrigue her male audience. 

1. Detail from The Judgement of Paris, Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1530.
Victoria's Secret branding image, 2012. Male gaze example.

The male gaze theory is pervasive because it has yet to die down in modern society.  Image one, to the left compares and contrasts the Detail from The Judgement of Paris, from 1530 and the Victoria's Secret branding image from 2012. Nearly 500 hundred years later and women are portrayed in parallel. Regardless of time the male gaze is still present and sells just as well as it did, if not better 500 years ago. 

2. Miss World Pageant Bikini Round 1951. Male gaze example.

Although this idea of the male gaze was presented long ago it still lingers in advertisements, television shows, and societies lens. The societal lens essentially tells women how to “express her own attitude to herself, and define what can and cannot be done to her” (Berger 46). This means that females are not to take time to admire themselves, love themselves; but rather think of what others expect from her and worry about how she appears to others. The photo above is of the Miss World Pageant bikini round in 1951. Most women in pageants are shown off as trophies, which according to this theory men love. The women want to be watched and voted on, it is what they signed up for. The truth is men are going to enjoy watching and voting regardless of if the women wants him to do so in a bikini or not.The idea of a woman partially or fully nude not only intrigues males, but it makes them feel empowered. The term empowerment brings along the idea patriarchy seen in multiple societies placing males as authoritative figures and females in submissive roles.

In Bell Hook’s, “The Will to Change,” patriarchy is defined as a “politcal-social system that insists males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weaker, especially females and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence.” (Hook 18) Hook describes patriarchy as a disease that men do not seem to know about or disregard because they align this word female problems that do not belong in their world. Examples of patriarchy can be seen in all time periods. The United States of America was founded on the principle that men held power and women stayed submissive. This idea seems like an ancient idea but is in fact how societies are still structured all over the world, including the United States. Patriarchy in modern times is most commonly seen in professional settings. Companies are hesitant to hire women as executives because they feel she could not be strong enough, to emotional or lack the vigor it takes to complete her position. 
Hook highlights the fact that patriarchy is generational curse that is taught at a young age. Patriarchy in my family was never a thing. My parents both work equally. They cook dinner equally. They wash laundry equally. They take care of my siblings and I equally. I, identifying as a cis-female with a semi-masculine gender expression, have experienced patriarchy because of the way I look and the job I perform. Being a military police officer is a very male dominant career choice and it is shown day in and day out by the behavior of some of my male colleagues. After studying patriarchy for a short time it makes me  question my choice of art. I used to question where a piece of art came from , but now I see myself questioning who created this piece of art and why did they chose to present this female character the way they did?

3. Female gaze satirical meme. 

The female gaze is arguments that has sprung from the theory of the male gaze and the idea of a patriarchal society. The female gaze is the opposite of the male gaze. Being the opposite of the female gaze focuses on empathy, not the assertion of dominance.  The idea of portraying men how females would “like” to see them. This idea is pervasive because it can be flopped between female and male characters. In any modern television series or movie, the viewer can swap between the male or female gaze. The female gaze is utilized to express the negatives emotions females have about the male gaze and its direct connection to the patriarchal society we live in. 

Works Cited

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

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