Patriarchy is Not Power

The male gaze is a tool of patriarchy; it is the taking of the bodies of women, by men, and the claiming of them as objects created for a man's pleasure.  The male gaze shows itself not only pervasive in popular culture but is the foundation of art history.  The majority of art created by men, historically and comparatively speaking, are written works, photographs, and paintings of women that depict women in a context preferred by men.  The male gaze emphasizes the idea that men attain control and power, and women exist to fulfill those needs of control and power.  As John Berger writes, "To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men" (Berger, 46).  What Berger is attempting to conceptualize is the notion that women exist for men's satisfaction, so men are entitled to the writing, photographing, and painting of women to fulfill their sexual desires and fantasies.  From Berger's point of view, women are born into the keeping of men, they have no choice or free will regarding the matter, so men are to do with them and their image as they please. 

Episode from the TV Series "30 Rock"

Within the male gaze are different ways in which men use a woman’s body to exploit her and insert male dominance.  Details such as how she stands, where she looks, who she is with, what she is showing, and where she has hair, are all legitimate concerns of critics and details purposefully done by their male artists.  To describe this phenomenon of laboring over every detail within a painting to receive the most pleasure possible, Berger writes, “Her body is arranged in the way it is, to display it to the man looking at the picture.  This picture is made to appeal to his sexuality.  It has nothing to do with her sexuality…the convention of not painting the hair on a woman’s body helps towards the same end.  Hair is associated with sexual power…the woman’s sexual passion needs to be minimized so that the spectator may feel that he has to monopoly of such passion” (Berger, 55).  What is to be taken from this bold statement made by Berger is that men paint the ideal vision of a woman, and the ideal woman is young, sexual, and powerless.  Finally, men receive part of the pleasure from the ability to morally condemn the women, which they paint.  Again, Berger asserts, “You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her…morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure” (Berger, 51).

Further, the male gaze can be categorized as “Pornography of patriarchal violence” (Hooks).  The point of a woman’s powerlessness feeds on patriarchal values in which the patriarchy deems anything feminine.  A woman has no power; furthermore, she is “wrong.”  Similarly, when a man acts like a woman, he is considered “wrong”, and “to indoctrinate boys into the rules of patriarchy, we force them to feel pain and to deny their feelings” (Hooks, 22).  Thus, we teach our children that to be female is to be other and that only when a boy opposes natural emotions and desires, other than the desire to have sex, that he is “other” as well.  

Art of the Suffrage Movement

Art of the 2nd Wave of Feminism

Art of the #MeTooMovement

Responses to such beliefs include social and political movements that are retaliations to patriarchal beliefs and values.  Movements studied by feminists, sociologists, and psychologists alike, are the Suffrage Movement, the Second Wave of Feminism, and the #MeToo Movement.  Over the last one hundred years, women have demanded to drop the walls built by the patriarchy, such as a woman’s inability to vote in free and fair elections, a woman’s entitlement to live her life without her sexuality being oppressed, and a woman’s right to consent. These movements all relate to the patriarchy as they were all ways for women to oppose social norms and reclaim their bodies and their minds.  Similarly, these three movements relate to the male gaze as well as they were about women becoming more than sex objects and establishing that sex was more than just for a man’s pleasure.  These movements and their purposes were recorded through written works, performance art, and fine art, and found their ways into magazines, art galleries, and the streets.  

Finally, through studying the male gaze and patriarchy, I have come to understand that they are not only pervasive, but toxic, and should be treated as such.  I have learned to approach art, literature, music, film, and society with the expectation that the patriarchy exists in all mediums of communication and influence. Most of us learned patriarchal attitudes in our family of origin, and they are usually taught to us by our mothers” (Hooks, 23).  Patriarchy and male gaze are pervasive in popular culture and art alike, because both popular culture and art exist within a historical and contemporary patriarchal society which allows patriarchal values to seep into every aspect of life. Patriarchy is spread through “Blind obedience” (Hooks, 23), and we must be aware of that if we want to counter it.  Similar to Hooks’ point of view, the patriarchy maintains itself even within the most matriarchal settings.  With myself avoiding those structures and cognizant work against them, I also understand that I must work to radiate anti-patriarchal values because if I am not working against it, then I am working for it.

References:

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. British Broadcasting Corporation, 1972.

Hooks, Bell. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Washington Square Press, 2005.