Up the escalator is where they keep the books under the section labelled ‘Art’.  It is a small section consisting mainly of beautiful heavy coffee table books you could imagine in an airy apartment waiting to be flicked through and thumbed at ease.  But I wasn’t looking for a pretty book; I was looking for a book about women.  More specifically, I was looking for a book that would explain to me why all the women I see in galleries and museums, books and media, look the same: the same features, the same bodies, the same angles. 

So, I avoided the heavy books and eventually found what I was looking for.  A short chapter in a small book that talked about the male gaze and the depiction of femininity in Western European art.  The book is called ‘Ways of Seeing’ by John Berger and though it was a fascinating read about the male gaze, it inspired me to write about something else – something that to me is the complete antithesis.  It inspired me to write not about the male gaze – but of the possibilities of a female one.

It is often said that art reflects society, so that the art we produce is a mirror image of ourselves and our culture. The male gaze – a tool of the patriarchy that reduces women to objects of male voyeuristic pleasure – has been reflected in much of (primarily) Western European art over the centuries.

The concept of the male gaze can be characterized as an act of “objectification, fetishism, [and] scopophilia”, so art that reflects this merely reinforces patriarchal thought and oppression. The figure of a nude or semi-nude woman is one we see over and over again, and an image we often admire when hung within an ornate gold frame against the white walls of a prestigious gallery. However, her figure is always objectified: she is “seen naked by others and yet not recognized for herself” (Berger, p 54). Her gaze is almost always pointed toward the spectator, who is presumed male, in a way that either entices him, or innocently seeks his aid. Berger explores the parallels between the representation of women in Western European art over the centuries and the representation of women in the visual arts today (Berger, p 45-64). There are few differences. Centuries ago, men considered women objects existing solely to please their eyes, and believed they had the indisputable right to observe them as they wished. Even today, we can use art to see that the same patriarchal thought remains.

The representation of women in art is not, however, a solely feminist issue.  Art that depicts women as objects of male desire reinforces the gender binary, which not only limits women, but everyone.  According to the gender binary, femininity is synonymous with passivity, weakness and (white, Western) beauty; masculinity is synonymous with heroism, power and brutality.  We see this play out on the canvas, where the woman is the beautiful passive object, and the presumed male spectator becomes the powerful, brutal – sometimes even heroic – observer.  As such, the male gaze, and art that mirrors it, perpetuates the gender binary.  However, it is not just cisgender women who feel the constraints of the gender binary.  In Susan Stryker’s book, Transgender History, the overarching narrative is that the Transgender movement, LGBTQ+ movement and the Feminist movement are all connected by one base desire: to break down the boundaries of the gender binary that enforces rules and regulations upon each body (Stryker).  The image of a woman whose ‘feminine beauty’ is elevated and reflected by the ornate gold frame within which she is confined, is not just a symbol of female oppression.  It is a symbol of the oppression of all who do not identify as cisgender male. 

So, when we consider the male gaze as this all-encompassing, suffocating tool of the patriarchy, we can consider the female gaze as a challenge to this.  Where the male gaze signifies impossibility (for example, the impossible standards placed upon women), the female gaze signifies possibility.  Where the male gaze signifies boundaries, the female gaze signifies freedom.  Since art has the ability to enforce the male gaze, it also has the ability to embrace the female gaze.  Bowers’ essay on the image of Medusa defines the female gaze as “women reclaiming their own sexuality, […] learning to see clearly for themselves, thus reconstructing traditional male images of women”.  The key word she uses is “learning”.  To embrace the female gaze, we must unlearn traditional rules set out by the gender binary, so that those who are constricted by the binary learn how to reconstruct themselves, in their own image.  It is true that over the centuries a lot has changed; no longer are “painters and spectator-owners usually male” (Berger, p 63), however the patriarchy does still exist, and the male gaze is “so deeply embedded in our culture” that we have internalized its ideals.  With more women and people who reject the gender-binary creating art, we can see an unlearning of the male gaze through art, and a relearning of our own bodies as we see them.  Thus, the female gaze means freedom of expression and the rejection of a heteronormative, cis-normative, patriarchal gender binary.  It is the “antidote” (Bowers, p 218) to the male gaze that we see so often depicted in art and one which we must challenge with our own art made through a Female Gaze.

I sit to write these final few words in a hotel room in London, aware of being surrounded by the multitude of museums and galleries that this city has to offer.  Many of these buildings are home to paintings like the ones I have discussed in this article, but they also house collections from artists like Tracy Emin, Eva Gonzalès: women who reject the male gaze.  These are the sorts of pieces I want to discover.  Soon, I will leave my hotel room in search of somewhere to explore, and I think you know where I will be headed.

This article was written by contributing author Eloïse Jones and reviewed and published by Avery Ches Fine Art. To submit an article proposal, please click here.