Week 3- Ana Mendieta

 John Berger: Ways of Seeing Chap: 2 and 3

Quote: "She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to others, and ultimately how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success  of her life. Her own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another

Response: This quote stuck out to me. It's crazy how much time and life didn't change much. As women of this time we don't openly talk about wanting to impress anybody let alone the male species. We like to pretend we don't care of our others see us. Or even how the same sex view us as well. We treat ourselves like barbie dolls. We get dressed up I'm hopes to get the right amount of attention from people. 

Quote: " Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This is determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of women in herself is male: the  surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object-and most particularly an object of vision: a sight

Response: I found this statement very interesting and true. Especially when viewing it from today's perspective. 

 Bell Hooks- Understand Patriarchy 

Quote: To indoctrinate boys into the rules of patriarchy, we force them to feel pain and to deny their feelings

Response: Its amazing how we as a people view men in a way that expressing any emotion that makes them seem "vulnerable" would make them "unmanly."When that is not true. If you don't show how you truly feel makes you week in a male perspective. 

Quote: "Patriarchy demands of men that they become and remain emotional cripples." 

Response: What is a man that is not fully in tuned with his emotions? A Man-child. Patriarchy wants men to be strong, demanding and be dominate amongst the female and children. But when it comes to emotions it's unnatural. But it's crazy how they deems emotions unnatural when we were born with them. 

Bell Hooks: The Oppositional Gaze 

Quote: The "gaze" has always been political in my life. Imagine the terror felt by the child who has come to understand  through repeated punishments that one's gaze can be dangerous. The child has learned so well to look the other way when necessary. Yet, when punished, the child is told by parents "Look at me when I talk to you. Only, the child is afraid to look. Afraid to look, but fascinated by the gaze. There is power in looking

Response: Its funny reading an article that seems to hit home on so many levels. But it also makes you wonder of how much learned behavior that has been passed down from generation. You don't know what

Quote: Most of the women I talked with were adamant that they never went to movies expecting to see compelling representations of black femaleness. They were all acutely aware of cinematic racism-its violent erasure of black womanhood.

Response: Its a tale as old as time. Having to watch a movie where you as a black was always the Mammy or the single mother always hurts. It was like we were nothing more than just someone's mother, maid, wife or daughter. Although there is nothing wrong with being any of those things but knowing that you can be more than just those things boosts your confidence. It would be nice to know you are desired like the white female. 

Art that Looks at what Women See NYTimes

“The female artists’ gaze is shaped by their lived experiences, which are different for women and men.”

Ana Mendieta: Artist Who Pushed Boundaries | NYTimes

"If not naturally fearless" Mendieta used fear well, transmitting a profound sense of psychological and cultural displacement into experience of merging with the natural wold and its history through art.

The Male Gaze: The ability to hold a a power given to them from birth. In which they exercised that power over the woman. 

Women were subjected to the male gaze. In some ways yearned for it. If the woman a get the males gaze it gives them some sort of power over him. Women exercised the male gaze to their advantage. But if the attention of the male can't be captured they were left exposed.  

Female Gaze: Can be critical. It all depends on where she lands her gaze. Whether on ourselves or others of the same sex or the opposite. The female wants to either regain power of her gaze. 

The Oppositional Gaze: A rebellious desire to stare at the oppressor. To reclaim the power and right to gaze