The Male Gaze and the Oppositional Gaze

In John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, Berger begins to explain that the story of the male gaze started by the story of Adam and Eve. They both ate the apple and as a result, became aware of each other’s nakedness. From that point on, the separation between woman and man became clear and the illustrations that came after created a narrative of the objectification of women. Women’s bodies are portrayed to be for the male’s view and enjoyment. Upon a quick Google search for the word "women", the following picture was found within the first couple image results: 

http://www.esquire.com/women/ The Sexiest Woman Alive 2016

Does this gaze look familiar to you? Perhaps this picture from Ways of Seeing will ring a bell.

Berger, 55

In the words of Berger, "Is not the expression remarkably similar in each case? It is the expression of a woman responding with calculated charm to the man whom she imagines looking at her-although she doesn't know him. She is offering up her femininity as the surveyed" (Berger, 55) Amazing how the expression is so similar and that it didn't even take very long to find a picture like this. Even the name of the article itself where the picture comes from objectifies her beauty into something that can be judged. The declaration of her being the "sexiest" is no different than The Judgement of Paris, where beauty becomes competitive. If you are not declared the sexiest, you are not the sexiest.

"The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female figure which is styled accordingly," states Laura Mulvey in Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Not only were the pictures above a good example of that (because the phantasy would be the male having sex with the portrayed female), but there are countless examples in mainstream media as well. One example I'd like to bring up is the female sexualization of working out.

In the video above, which can also be found here, you can easily tell that the video was catered for males. It is a woman working out, so shouldn't the video be showing how a woman works out. All the angles from her cleavage to her butt and just overall shots of her body makes it overly apparent that this is for the male gaze and pleasure. An image like this:

Linda Durbesson / LDFIT

is not only another example of catering towards the male gaze, but is also the result. Because we're so used to seeing things that cater towards the male gaze, we become prone to creating things that do the very same. What does an image of her showcasing her butt and being topless have to do with training and working out? This is an example of the "psychological terrorism" (Hooks, 18) that is introduced in Bell Hooks' The Will to Change. One of the forms of psychological terrorism is the subconscious or even conscious feeling of having to attract and cater towards the male gaze and yet, once we do attract this male gaze, we become wary and fearful of what else can happen. Because we are use to the objectification of women, men feel entitled to our bodies. On the event that we attract the male gaze, we can only be fearful and wary of the possibility of getting harassed or raped. This psychological terrorism extends into the workplace as well, where women are harassed there, or treated unfairly. This video from Buzzfeed illustrates it by switching the roles of men and women: 

It's funny how in the end, after getting a sense of how bad it is, he doesn't realize it's how women feel and gets back to being submersed in a dominant male society. 

With the Oppositional Gaze (term introduced by Bell Hooks), perhaps we can rival the male gaze. Bell Hooks, in The Oppositional Gaze says, " By courageously looking, we defiantly declared: "Not only will I stare. I want my look to change reality." We should challenge the current meta right now. In fact, that Buzzfeed video above is one way we're chipping away at it. There are many videos and articles that contain material like this and it brings awareness to what is going on. The first step is making people aware of what is happening and the next step is coming together to fix it. It's so hard to break society's molds, especially since they're so ingrained. We're trained to associate the color pink with girls and the color blue with boys. We're taught that "boys will be boys" but girls have to watch themselves. I'm not holding my breath for an immediate change but I am looking forward to more content that sheds light on this difference between men and women. 

Works Cited:
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London, 1973. Print. 
Hooks, Bell . In Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press, 1992, 115-31. Print.
Hooks, Bell. The Will to Change: Understanding Patriarchy. 17-33. Print.
Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford UP, 1999: 833-44.