The Male Gaze in Women

 Popular culture constantly demonstrates women as sex objects and what is believed that men would want to see. The male gaze is exactly that; it is the tendency of presenting women in the media as objects that are only there for the visual pleasure of the men and are only portrayed through the male's point of view of what a woman should be. Berger states that the picture and paintings of naked women "is made to appeal to his sexuality. It has nothing to do with her sexuality." (pg.55)

In today's media we are constantly told that sex sells. For example if you see a beer commercial or advertisement it's usually a man on a hot day sweating and thirsty and luckily for him a half naked woman comes to his rescue to serve him a beer. Therefore the idea is the woman is being made into a commodity as a way to sell the beer. It gives off the idea that if you buy this beer you might just get the woman as well. Some products even go as far to not just insinuate the idea but suggest that this is exactly what will happen if you purchase their product such as Axe Body Spray. My issue with this is that in all advertising and market classes you're always told that women are the largest target audience because they tend to be larger percentage in the consumer market. With this being known, why do we still sell sex to women? Berger suggests that we do this because of the mirror effect, the idea that we are viewed by men and not by ourselves. "Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This Determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male; the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object - and most particularly an object of vision; a sight." (pg.47) As much as I would like to deny this, it's true. I don't just say this from a personal point of view but also based on friends and families and comments that I hear from women around me. Purchasing a bathing suit is a perfect example. Women always stress over this every summer, having the ideal beach body or buying the perfect bathing suit. Realistically we only obsess over this because the images that are being sold to us are these beautiful women with ridiculously well built bodies. The message her is that if we buy this bathing suit we can look like her.

As much as I hate to admit this but you would be less incline to buy a two piece bathing suit that is on an overweight woman. I decided to put this concept to a test. I asked 10 female friends that if they saw a plus size model wearing a cute bathing suit would they purchase it. Majority of them responded that they don't even look at the bathing suit if its on a plus size model, so I proceeded to ask why? The first answer was because I'm not plus size. I then asked but what if the bathing suit came in all sizes, it just happens to be a plus size model demonstrating the bathing suit? The popular answer was silence. There was no real way to explain why they wouldn't look at it. One girl though did say "I guess it's because I want to look pretty and if the model looks pretty with the bathing suit then I feel that I will look pretty also if I buy this bathing suit." That's exactly what Berger is telling us. Women also view themselves the way that the photographer/painter/director is viewing the model and wants the world to view her.

The Opposition Gaze is a rebellious, confrontational way of viewing and looking it challenges the authorities. Bell Hook talks about the lack of representation of black women and how the male gaze hardly relates to black women. Media only tends to be the views of white male and females excludes all other ethnicities from television, advertising and film. This has been both negative and positive. Negative because it lacks the voice and image of the black woman but positive because it has helped women to make their own assessment of women and choose not to identify with the portrayals that media demonstrates. "Looking at films with an oppositional gaze, black women were able to critically assess the cinema's construction of white womanhood as object of phallocentric gaze and choose not to identify with either the victim or the perpetrator." (pg.122)