US Women in the World.

“… A woman’s presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her. Her presence is manifest in her gestures, voice, opinions, expressions, clothes, chosen surroundings, taste… Presence for a woman is so intrinsic to her person that men tend to think of it as an almost physical emanation, a kind of heat or smell or aura.” (Berger p.46) The appearance of the female has long been expressed as most important throughout history. To be beautiful or to be wanted by men has long symbolized female power. And because so many women instinctively play this role of desirability today, it is as though they do not even notice that there is role to be played. For the role of a female has been created over such a long period of time that it has become a natural part of society.

So much of the media today contributes to the role of the female and the role of the male. As we look at pop-stars and famous people throughout the media, it is easy to see just how accepted these images have become to the public.  To be on TV or in a magazine or movie someone must be, in a word, “beautiful” to the people who will hire them. This is why we see so many famous people (typically female) endure countless plastic surgeries to stay within the image (the “image” meaning being sexually attractive to those watching them, most of whom are men) and in turn feeding the image to the public. This depiction of women in the media can be discussed as the male gaze, a term created by Laura Mulvey. The male gaze can be defined as how the media interprets women. The male gaze is used to describe cinema but can also be applied to everyday life because the media has the power to influence the daily lives of the public. Mulvey describes the male gaze as, “Going far beyond highlighting a woman’s to-be-looked-at-ness, cinema builds the way she is to be looked at into the spectacle itself.” If we look at the media today the objectification of women is still extremely recognizable, not only in movies and television but even going far as sexualizing women’s sports team. Like this ad featuring the American water polo team on the ESPN front cover.

 (American water polo team poses for espn)

The objectifying of women is not an idea created by feminists but a true reality in this patriarchal society.  Bell hooks best explains this as,” Patriarchy is 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 dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence”. (hooks p.18)

The male gaze in the media has been created by the patriarchal society we have all been taught and grown up in. The idea of men as solely powerful and women as the objects of men’s pleasure is a huge issue that the media plays into teaching our society.

Growing up I used to idolize strong male characters in action movies. I didn’t want to be their object of affection I wanted to be them. As a female I was taught that I was supposed to like certain things and dislike like other things just because of my sexuality. And unware I had rebelled against this notion and became a “tomboy” as I used to be called. I used to say I wanted to be a man, even though I am not a lesbian because as a child unknowingly, I knew through tv, books, and at home that men had power and women were somehow inferior. Now that I am older I love being a female, I want to be a female, but not an inferior human being. I think of Bell Hooks Idea of the oppositional gaze.

Bell hooks example of the oppositional gaze is, “Looking at films with an oppositional gaze, black women were able to critically assess the cinemas construction of white womanhood as an object of phallocentric gaze and choose not to identify with either victim or the perpetrator”. (hooks p.122) Because most women depicted on screen were white women, black women like Bell Hooks did not have to identify themselves as either the white woman or white man, because they were not represented on screen. Instead they could deconstruct white supremacy. I see this as an interesting concept. It a sense of power through looking but also a sense of liberation in knowing what is really being depicted in film. If white males and females had the ability to not associate oneself with a character on the screen or associate themselves with the opposite gender, then perhaps the male gaze and hence the patriarchal hierarchy could be challenged to a further extent to change the way women are depicted in the media. I unfortunately feel as though there has not been much progress in this.

I feel like some people feel like progression is high, perhaps because women are seen in the media but I feel like the way women are depicted has only gotten worse. The clothing, the amount of makeup advertised, the painful stripping of ones bodily and natural hairs, the ideas that women who are skinnier are prettier, and countless of other things makes it hard for me to see any progress in societies male gaze.  Especially because most women still contribute to this picture.

Berger, John (1973). Ways of Seeing. London. British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin

Hooks, Bell (2004). New York. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love.

Hooks, Bell (1992).  Boston. In Black Looks: Race and Representation. South End Press

Mulvey, Laura (1999). Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. New York: Oxford Journals.