Femininity

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Masculinity

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Identity

Using different gazes of the genders to explore stereotypes in gender/sexuality

• Observe: Viewing how each gender sees the opposite and their own gender (i.e. women looking at men vs women)
• Seek: Look for other people’s views on gender and gender stereotypes
• Challenge: Looking at different gender stereotypes and going against them (masculinity vs femininity)

Photoshoot ideas:

• Using people of different genders to photograph and be part of different images using their own gaze to create them.
• Using the artists referenced (Yuri Yasumasa, Claude Cahun and Nancy Honey) to explore how the different genders view each gender
• Experimenting with gender fluidity and identity

To understand the difference between the female and male gaze, it is important to look at how both are viewed in society.

The male gaze focuses more on the power that is held within the gaze, rather than the degradation of a woman. Objectification comes more from the viewers rather than the initial male gaze we see. The male gaze is represented more so by the power which is held in his look, leaning more towards the ego that is taking place in the man. This idea is that he is looking at a woman; in his mind, she is already his. The male gaze and objectification both share the similarity of high egos being involved, meaning that they are degrading women to get themselves higher. When looking at the male gaze, it becomes quite clear that this is the lens cinema has been casting for decades.  “The man controls the film phantasy and also emerges as the representative of power in a further sense”. There is this stereotypical viewpoint on women that cannot be escaped by the male gaze, which I also see as the gaze of society.

After understanding the male gaze, it is appropriate to believe the female gaze is quite opposite of that. It is a way of speaking and listening, rather than the action and chaos that fills a screen. As well as, looking through the lens of both desire and detail that take place in a women’s cinema. Allowing there to be this connection to desire, but in a way that isn’t just purely sexual. I also think that the female gaze can be viewed in a few different ways. The female gaze is how women view themselves. That there is finally this ability to look in, rather than just the reflection of how society has wanted to see us. There is also the definition of the world being viewed from a female gaze, meaning more feminine without the purpose of benefiting men. I do believe the two definitions I have named also tend to intertwine with each other.

What is the Photographic Gaze?

The gaze, as a visual act, generates modes of power, domination, and control. It has the ability to categorize people, generate feelings of shame, and assert one’s superiority. The gaze of the superior and privileged person, specifically directed toward oppressed and less privileged groups of people, is one type of the manifestation of power and control.

The camera lens is another demonstration of a powerful gaze, referred to as the photographic gaze, simulating the gaze of the naked eye. Indeed, the former could even be more powerful than the gaze of the naked eye due to photographic permanence. Susan Sontag in On Photography notes that “photographs are a neat slice of time, not a flow” (17). It is the stillness of a photograph that gives it power and makes it more effective than television broadcasting or film. Photography, then, has the ability to capture in “still time” the expression of oppressed subjects as the camera gazes at them.

John Berger’s In Ways Of Seeing

In Ways of Seeing, a highly influential book based on a BBC television series, John Berger observed that ‘according to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome – men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at’ (Berger 1972, 45, 47).

Writing in 1972, Berger insisted that women were still ‘depicted in a different way to men – because the “ideal” spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him’ (ibid., 64). In 1996 Jib Fowles still felt able to insist that ‘in advertising males gaze, and females are gazed at’ (Fowles 1996, 204). And Paul Messaris notes that female models in ads addressed to women ‘treat the lens as a substitute for the eye of an imaginary male onlooker,’ adding that ‘it could be argued that when women look at these ads, they are actually seeing themselves as a man might see them’ (Messaris 1997, 41). We may note that within this dominant representational tradition the spectator is typically assumed not simply to be male but also to be heterosexual, over the age of puberty and often also white.

Observe

verb.

1. to notice or perceive (something) and register it as being significant.
2. to make a remark.

synonyms

watch, study, view, look at, note, check, regard, survey, gaze at

etymology

• “to observe, watch over, follow” (10c.), from Latin observare
•  sense of “watch, perceive, notice” is from 1560s, via the notion of “see and note omens.”
• meaning “to say by way of remark” is from 1600s.

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Seek

verb.

1. to attempt to find (something).
2. to attempt or desire to obtain or achieve (something).
3. to ask for (something) from someone.

synonyms

search for, try to find, look for, look about for, look round for, look around for, cast about for, cast round for, cast around for, be on the lookout for, be after

etymology

• old English sēcan, of Germanic origin
• related to Dutch zieken and German suchen, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin sagire ‘perceive by scent’.
• from PIE *sag-yo-, from root *sag- “to track down, seek out”

Challenge

noun.

1. a call to someone to participate in a competitive situation or fight to decide who is superior in terms of ability or strength.
2. a call to prove or justify something.

verb.

1. to invite (someone) to engage in a contest.
2. to dispute the truth or validity of.

synonyms

noun.

dare, provocation, summons, confrontation with, dispute with, stand against, test of, opposition, disagreement with, questioning of, defiance, ultimatum

verb.

question, disagree with, object to, take exception to, confront, dispute, take issue with, protest against, call into question, demur about/against, dissent from, be a dissenter from

etymology

• Middle English (in the senses ‘accusation’ and ‘accuse’)
• from Old French chalenge (noun), chalenger (verb)
• from Latin calumnia ‘calumny’, calumniari ‘calumniate’

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