Look the Other Day

           As I was growing up, my mother used to tell me to lower my gaze in front of the elders. When they speak, I was to be quiet and pay close attention to what they are saying. Looking back at them during an argument meant disrespect, and disrespecting an elder was highly frowned up. To this day, I have followed that rule wholeheartedly to the point where it became a strong habit. And human beings are bound to adapting. Similarly, the males in my culture were taught to keep their heads held high and always keep their gazes straight. But what happens when that gaze is geared towards a female who has been taught all her life to keep her eyes to the ground? Moreover, what if the gaze itself projects a sinister surrounding in which the woman is slowly being consumed?

            Women have always been the second choice, the second option for any situation. They are known for being the nurturer never the protector. Because to us, a protector means someone who possesses an immense amount of power which is why we accept the idea of there being a God or an external force who is responsible for creating us. And not surprisingly, we address that Supreme Being as ‘he’ majority of the time. Even as generic as writing an essay and addressing someone of who’s gender we are not sure of, we tend to assume that person to be a male. Why do we do it? We do so because women have been brought up thinking that they are born to be presented below men. They are born in a “confined space” and “into the keeping of men” because men are known for providing the sense of a protector (Berger, 46). But is it necessary for us to remain within that confined space? I presume so. Because we constantly seek approval from the men surrounding us because being appreciated by the ‘protector’ is what we strive for.

            But is it ideal? To strive for approval instead of appreciating who we are as an individual? Morally, the answer is no, we do not need to have constant appreciation. But socially, yes, we do need to be noticed and esteemed worthy because our values and morals have been corrupted by us. Even though we blame the society for constantly giving us a vision of what perfect should be, we forget the fact that we are part of the society. We built it, we lead it, and now we are being run by it. We enjoy being “looked at” and appreciate the gaze towards us (Berger, 47). In today’s media, the ways to please men are innumerable. From dressing and acting down to speaking and looking: everything is done so men’s eyes can be pleased. Society teaches us how to become independent and at the same time, pushes us to our limits and makes us be subordinate to men; the irony.

            A woman being subordinate to men is not a recent issue; it has been built up over centuries. From the beginning of time, women ‘naturally’ learned to stay at home and look after the families while the men went out to provide for the said family. But without any influence of an outside media, how did they know which role to assign each gender? It is a tough question to answer since we lack sufficient amount of evidence from those time periods. But moving onto the time periods of which we do have records of, we see the same, never-changing role played by women. Women are viewed as something to be appreciated but never be valued whereas, men are known for being authoritative and often the “ideal spectator” (Berger, 64).

            Now comes the point where women are so accustomed to the male stare that they attempt to manipulate it. By the means of fashion, style, make-up, and even down to how they hold themselves and walk down the street. We are aware of “critical gaze” and we do our best to avoid that “oppositional gaze” which is posed by the authoritarian (Hooks, 116). We change ourselves completely in the presence of a male that we will not be able to recognize ourselves if we were a mere spectator. We clothe ourselves in a manner of a seductress; we act as a sexual being. Why do we do that? No one says it better than Berger: “we are overwhelmed by the marvelous simplicity of the familiar sexual mechanism” (Berger, 59). And that overwhelmed feeling manipulates our own thought process and makes us appear different than our natural self. We become so numb to the stares that we, subconsciously, become the object men admire. But is that all for us? Is that the peak of our success? To be appreciated by men? If so, then we have not progressed one bit from where we started out. 


http://www.slrlounge.com/how-i-shot-it-a-deep-gaze-by-lauri-laukkanen