Feminism, sexism, and racism, are things that have existed for centuries. Sad to say it is something that is still very prevalent in today’s society. While we are all “equal” there are still people today that are ignorant and adhere to male patriarchy. It is something that seems to be embedded in the minds and hearts of some people today and it will probably still exist hundred years down the road. The male gaze as described by Bell Hooks is how men perceive women whether it be sexually or artistically, and how the gaze seemed to support white supremacy in the book. Berger suggests in his story that the male gaze is powerful. This gaze is still used today but there are women who practice what Bell Hooks calls the oppositional gaze. These kind of women are bold and strong in the sense that they refuse to give in to white supremacy or male patriarchy and want to show what they as not only women but women of color could bring to the table.
Men’s being considered the dominant sex throughout the course of time plays a big part in how their gaze is pervasive in art and in popular culture. Berger described the man’s gaze as being powerful and that a man’s presence is dependent upon the promise of power which he embodies. He further adds that a man’s presence suggests what he is capable of doing for you and to you (Berger 45-46). This is probably the idea that many people have. This is even more true for a white man’s gaze because as brought out in chapter seven of Bell Hooks book. White supremacy and racism is mentioned in the chapter as well. Women in plays were white, and black female spectators had to perceive themselves as these beautiful white women because the idea was that white women are beautiful or that beauty is white. It is mentioned in the chapter, “with the exception of early race movies, black female spectators have had to develop looking relations within a cinematic context that constructs our presence as absence, that denies the “body” of the black female so as to perpetuate white supremacy and with it a phallocentric spectatorship where the woman to be looked at and desired is “white”(Hooks 118).These are all things that were approved by the male gaze but if a black woman was portrayed on screen it would be criticized because according to the male gaze white was desirable and black was not.
Since racism is involved in all of this, white men had the power they were dominant and their thoughts and input was respected. Berger believes that women and men have their own roles he describes the woman as being beautiful desirable and that they are there to serve men. Berger brings out in his story that “to be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men” (Berger 46). In Bell Hooks story through male white supremacy black women are being molded into wanting to be white and being portrayed as beautiful and sexual because white is attractive and white is desirable, so the idea in both stories is actually very similar in how woman are viewed and how they should look for men.
The oppositional gaze came about because in the world there are strong minded people and very strong minded women, in this case that was even more so of the black female women. If there is one thing I know is that women do not like being told what to do, how to think, or how to act. Women eventually become rebellious against this established concept so to speak. Bell hooks mentions in the reading “Those black women whose identities were constructed in resistance, by practices that oppose the dominant order, were most inclined to develop an oppositional gaze.”(127) The women obviously in this did not think that they should look white that they were beautiful being black and so they dared to go against the common male gaze and opposed it making the oppositional gaze. The oppositional gaze challenges the male gaze and white supremacy in how it is views women.
Women were trying to make a statement in Bell Hooks book that the male gaze is wrong and they were not going to support white supremacy and try to perceive themselves as white because white is desirable. They felt that they can do the jobs that men could do to, they felt that they can be spectators that they can critique and direct and so that is why the oppositional gaze happened because women were not going to put up with all that nonsense.
I believe that this story by Bell Hooks just reinforced my idea that women and men are equal in all sense and that race or sex has nothing to really do with anything. Before reading Bell I did not even know that this sort of thing even happened. I agree with Berger in what he said about a man’s presence is dependent upon the promise of power that he embodies (45) but, not so much about women being tools for men. There is a painting that he mentions a painting and how he looked at it and it reminded him he was a man implying that the painting was obviously drawn by a man. What I learned through the readings is that sex should not determine your capabilities of being a great artist, or spectator, or your ability to be in film. More importantly art does not have a sex behind it because a painting can be drawn by either sex. I feel that my role in all of this is to continue in how I feel about women and how they are equal to men and how they should be free to express themselves however they want and not how men want them to.
To conclude, women especially black women were correct in not submitting to the male patriarchy because they shouldn’t feel like they have to submit to the idea that white is right. Women, black women should be content with who they are and they should not submit to male supremacy. Women should be considered equal to men.
http://robertwiblin.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/obama-check-out-girl.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Young_woman_painting_and_drawing_in_Gambia.jpg
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