I would like to describe the male gaze as a mindset. It's a mindset where females are there male viewing pleasure. In John Berger's "Way of Seeing" he says during the early post-renaissance, the female form was largely painted for the male spectator. The women were painted in the nude with generally a submissive posture and an alluring stare. Therefore female is not simply naked, but she is naked for the spectator's enjoyment. The male gazes at the painting as an object for his sexual appetite not as a representation of the women behind it. In Way of Seeing it describes the painting "The Judgement of Paris","Thus beauty has become competitive....Those who are judge not beautiful are not beautiful.Those who are, are awarded a prize. The prize is to owned by a judge-that is to be available to him."(Berger 52) The male gaze has also taken effect on the female, it's only for the male. Women started to feel being desired by men for visual appeal is success.The male gaze essentially is to see women as visual objects to satisfy a man's appetite.

The male gaze is largely present in all forms of media here in our society. We are constantly shown an idealized women shown for the male spectators. We are bombarded by this even just walking around the city, advertisements use the female form to sell to both sexes. For the male perhaps they suggest you will get a woman like this. For women they probably are saying you can look like this, you can be "beautiful". We are constantly consuming this and then are trained to start believing it. The ideas bleeds into our actions and speech and are reinforced by others affected by the male gaze. One of the reason why it's so widespread is because much of our media is made with women as objects of the male gaze.
The oppositional gaze is in rebellious stare to the existing structures that oppress you. In Bell Hook's "Black Looks" it describes the origin of this gaze. "That all attempts to repress our/black peoples' right to gaze had produced in us an overwhelming longing to look, a rebellious desire, an oppositional gaze. By courageously looking, we defiantly declared: "Not only will I stare. I want my look to change reality."(Hooks 116) Although this starts out in the physical interaction between whites and blacks. She talks about watching the cinema also with this oppositional gaze. She describes the cinema at her time had a a huge under representation for African-Americans. If there happens to be one, they were negatively depicted. This can be painful for the black spectator to watch and accept. "...to experience fully the pleasure of that cinema they had to close down critique,analysis; they had to forget racism."(Hooks 120) Hooks instead suggest us to critique and to want change.
In terms of the black women Bell Hooks says the have it the worst. Even in black cinema, the black women are depicted with the male gaze. They are subjected to both racism and the male gaze. One lady reveals that enjoy mainstream cinema she "must imagine herself transformed, turned into the white woman portrayed on the screen. After watching movies, feeling the pleasure, she says,"But it made coming home hard."(Hooks 121) Instead of resisting it she gave in so may enjoy the film, but she is hurt afterwards. The ironic thing is that much of the images of females that are shown in media are unnatural. Women are getting plastic surgery and images of them are getting digitally manipulated.

The structure of the male gaze is something I was some what aware of. I always thought why is there so many girls wearing revealing clothing in ads. It's disproportionate to amount men and their shirts off on ads. I thought isn't it demeaning to look at those ads as a female knowing it's designed for guys to stare at. Now that I know a bit more about it. I want to analyze while I consume media to be aware whether it is re-enforcing the male gaze on me. To become more aware of what I support and how I interact with others. Every view, click, page turn adds to the structure of the male gaze.

I feel like this animation is quite relevant and entertaining.(Contains nudity) http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/596083

Bell Hooks. In Black Looks: race and Representation. Boston: South End Press, 1992

Berger, John. Chapters 2,3. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting, 1972

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