The male gaze is a term used to suggest a sexualised way of looking at women that is empowering for heterosexual men but is objectifying toward women, meaning the woman’s feelings, thoughts and sexual drive are of less value than her being desirable for men to look at.

Laura Mulvey is a British film theorist made the term ‘the male gaze’ in the 1973 paper Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.

John Berger was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. He broadcasted a television series called Ways of Seeing as well as publishing a book for it too which spoke about the image of women being portrayed as a sexual object in Western culture.