Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window

"Women are there to feed an appetite, not to have any of their own." (Berger, 55). 

The male gaze is putting objectified women in front of male eyes for their entertainment. From rap music to movie film, women are always objectified.  Women are mostly used for entertainment and advertising in media.  The entertainment part is for men, they see a half naked women and immediately a man would be interested in watching.  For women, when seeing a half naked woman with the perfect body, all they can think of is how can they have that body.  Neither male or female don't see that  women are being objectified.  We've ignored the fact that women are looked as less individual by having them naked on screen or called a "bitch" in a music video sang/rapped by a male.

This goes back to patriarchy, “a political-social system that insists that males are inherently dominating and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence” (Hook, 18).  It is believed that men has all the power over women and women are just there to serve the man. Bell explains “...I was taught that it was my role to serve, to be weak, to be free from the burden of thinking, to caretake and nurture others.  My brother was taught that it was his role to be served; to provide; to be strong; to think;strategize, and plan; and to refuse caretake or nurture others.” (Hooks, 18).  Girl are taught from a young age what role they have, and growing up believing they should serve men.  And what men want? For women to satisfy them, which includes having power over women.

“Men act and Women appear.  Men look at women.  Women watch themselves being looked at.  This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relations of women to themselves. Thus she turns herself into an object -- and most particularly .an object of vision.”  (Berger,47).  The male gaze has a strong effect on both the male and female audience.  Like I’ve mention before, its their for the entertainment of men but what about women?  Women see women in media, half naked or actually naked, dancing provocatively and changing up their appearances; in the end it is all for men.  Women gets the idea to impress men from what media shows them (perfect bodies, big breast, big butt, etc.). Women then crave the attention from men and objectifies themselves so men would be interested.

The oppositional gaze is a way to eliminate the male gaze.  Bell Hooks came up with the idea of the oppositional gaze, where she used it to criticized  and analyzes the role of black women in films.  When Hook was younger, she was taught that staring was inappropriate, but ironically she uses staring or gaze as a way to give her power by criticizing. “There is power in looking” (Hooks, 115). They way Hooks criticizes the white supremacy films should be the way all women should criticizes everything that objectified women.

The objectification of women in the media affect women badly. It changes the way women view themselves and gives them the idea that women are object.  I've seen a lot of rap music videos objectifying women and instead of women being upset, they are encouraged to act the way men want to.  The famous Sir Mix-a-Lot’s hit “Baby Got Back” is an example on the objectification of women with their body part.  Instead of criticizing, women enjoy the song.  I've notice how women are represented, but after looking into the readings, I took the time to look through rap videos and wonder to myself, why are we still okay with the representation of women?  Why do we allow men to objectify women? The male gaze should be seen as a big problem for women, instead of women living by it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JphDdGV2TU