Long ago from the European art to nowadays photoshop images, things have not changed quite a bit. People judge each other base on the standard they adapted from arts and media, with those gazes, parts of people in the society are still struggling.
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| Picture from SheWeird.com |
The male gaze, which is how a male critique females with certain standards they create. The ways men look at women are criticized and base on their own tastes, but it's a different story for women. Because of the male gaze, women tend to be insecure and objectified themselves. Berger mentioned in his book " She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to men, is crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life," which women are used to surveying themselves according to men's desires (Berger 46). Berger argues the portraits of women are whatever men desired, and women never really questioning why. Some women may be struggling with those male gazes because they could not be as perfect as those images are presented in society. Some women may not be struggling because they empowered themselves with the male gazes. Either type of these women is not making things better. Living under the male gaze, women should be more confident and realize the virtue of loving yourself not to desire to be loved by any others.
Another article by Bell Hooks discusses the oppositional gaze, which is the gaze often happens in black women, in general. There are different kinds of categories of human beings, for example, genders and races. People have a hard time to fit into certain kinds of categories in various cultures, but things can be changed. In Bell Hooks article, she came up with the idea of oppositional gaze because she couldn't find herself in the majority. Hooks said " Clearly, the impact of racism and sexism so over-determine spectatorship---not only what we look at but who we identify with---that viewers who are not black females find it hard to emphasize with the central characters in the movie," which makes total sense. It's difficult for other people to feel the harm of the certain images we are given to because they never experience it before (Hooks 130). As a black women with oppositional gaze, allows them to see the problem within the society, and she encourages people always to critique with the gaze in media.
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| Picture from the blog "Rebel with a Cause" |
I am a female born and raised in Taiwan. I sort of feel that I have been affecting by the male gaze and the oppositional gaze. In Asian country, which patriarchy are extreme since ancient emperor era. Living in the society that man long dominate makes me numbness, I am so used to how this society works so I have not doubted about the male gaze. The movies, magazines, shapes and teaches us how to be a "women", the right one. After taking class like Women Gender Studies and Women in Media really opens my mind and think differently, now I become less aware of the male gaze. Not only the black women suffer in society, but in fact people with different race might struggle in the same situation. The way to solve the problem is to be aware. We need to start creating things that women and people of different races can relate to in media.
Link is provide under!!
The Inspiring speech Patricia Arquette gave on her Oscar win!
Citations:
Berger, John. "2." Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting, 1973. Print.
Hooks, Bell. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. New York: Atria, 2004. Print.
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