What is the Male Gaze?
The Male Gaze is rooted in film studies, however it can be seen everywhere in media and in reality. The concept was coined by Laura Mulvey who is a British feminist, film theorist and filmmaker. She introduced the male gaze in an essay titled “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” in 1975. The male gaze describes a way of portraying and looking at women that empowers men while sexualizing and diminishing women. People are biologically driven to look at each other as potential partners or mates, but the male gaze challenges this urge. The male gaze is not just about how women are used to satisfy men’s fantasies.
Examples of the Male Gaze
When understanding the male gaze, you have to recognize it. For example, female film characters driving the plot seem attractive, sexy, or can feed the sexual interests for male characters. Or, advertisements with women in bikinis along with female singers performing concerts with minimal clothing. Women are used to sell and attract attention to products, while advertisements with men are more proactive without showing a lot of skin. Women are shown as passive or highly sexualized or other stereotypical versions of womanhood.
How it can Effect Women
This is very harmful to women, particularly those in marginalized communities or groups such as black women. This concept also fetishizes Asian and lesbian women, portraying them as exotic examples for men to enjoy. This objectifies women through media and society. It can lead to multiple negative consequences, such as self objection, mental health issues, and pressure to follow certain beauty standards and pressure to conform.
Conclusion
The male gaze reinforces a cycle in which women are more valued for more than how they look rather than who they are. Audiences can become more critical of the media they consume. By moving away and beyond the male gaze, this can not just improve the media, but it improves a culture where women can exist without being reduced to objects of desire and where women are free to be seen in their full complexity.
Sources:
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-male-gaze-5118422
https://www.thecrimson.com/column/new-romantix/article/2017/2/17/qiu-the-gaze/
https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/the-invention-of-the-male-gaze
