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The Ways of Seeing

What is the male gaze? The male gaze is defined as how men perceive women. It is when you are looking at an object and you begin to see something more than just the thing itself, this is when you see a relation between the object and yourself. This is what men related too. Referring to an article by Berger, Ways of Seeing, male gaze is seeing through the eyes of men. Berger states, “ Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at” (47). This statement explains how women became not only became an object but, “an object of vision: a sight” (47). Basing this among the subject of European oil painting, the nude oil paintings were the mostly focused on this subject.

The main idea of the nude oil painting was to define the difference between naked and nudity. According to Berger, “ Naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen by others and yet not recognized for oneself “ (54). These nudes were made to attract viewers, especially men. Even till this day in the modern society, there are many ways that women are being looked at. It is seen in modern day television, fashion, and photography that these women are a sight for men too look at and see women as an appetite. Berger states, “ A woman’s presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her- her presence is manifest in her gestures, voice, opinions, expressions, clothes, chosen surroundings, taste” (46).
Even these examples that inquire the same similarities among these two images and how they are seen to men, also known as spectator.

A famous artist made the first image and the other is a magazine cover in the 1950s. Looking at both images it is easily pointed out the body language that each woman portrays. For the first image the woman is laying down, giving a desiring look to her viewer, declaring that is available to him.

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