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Color photo of Earth (from Silueta works in Mexico), 1973–1977 |
John Berger, Chapters 2+3
Quote: "To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The social pressure of women has developed as result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by hero own image of herself." (pg. 48, Ch 3)
Response: This is quite true. As shown in media the allure of women and their body towards men is always a constant. Even in places where the women are not looked at for her body she is still being observed and judged. Even children or babies are put into this category. Though not seen in a sexual manner they are protected by a paternal/maternal instinct of how they look and should be around others. This manifest in these future women as the same feeling adult women deal with everyday.
Quote: "There was a special category of private pornographic paintings in which couples making love make an appearance. But even in front of these it is clear that the spectator-owner will in fantasy oust the other man, or else identify with him. By contrast the image of the couple in non-European traditions provokes the notion of many couples making love." (pg. 56, Ch 3)
Almost all post-Renaissance European sexual imagery is frontal- either literally or metaphorically- because the sexual protagonist is the spectator-owner looking at it.
Response: When looking at theses’ paintings I, as the viewer never thought of them as in effect as trophies pieces of sexual material meant for some perverse owner. Many in today’s society value them for their artistic value but to find that they are in effect some form of sexual fetish token is highly disgusting. Even when depicting multiple different couples, the owner of the work is inserted and is found dominating those around him. As though the women were sexual conquests that he personally had done.
Bell Hooks, The Oppositional Gaze
Quote: "When most black people in the United States first had the opportunity to look at film and television, they did so fully aware that mass media was a system of knowledge and power reproducing and maintaining white supremacy. To stare at the television, or mainstream moves, to engage its images, was to engage it negation of black representation. Black viewers of mainstream cinema and television could chart the progress of political movement for racial equity via the construction of images and did so. Unless you went to work in the white world, across the tracks, you learned to look at white people by starting at them on the screen. Black looks, as they were constituted in the context of social movements for racial uplift, were interrogating gazes. Before racial integration, black viewers of movies and television experienced visual pleasure in a context where looking was also contestation and confrontation." (The Oppositional Gaze)
Response: It is interesting how the only way for black people to truly look at and be on equal levels with a white person was by means of media. Even in this vain attempt at supposed equality they were still being looked down upon by said media do to their lack of representation in this media. Today we still embody some of this supposed equality of media why being in a world of inequalities and injustices.
Quote: "Conventional representations of black women have done violence to the image. Responding to this assault, many black women spectators shut out the image, looked the other way, accorded cinema no importance to their lives. Theen there were those spectators whose gaze was that of desire and complicity. Assuming a posture of subordination, they submitted to cinema’s capacity to seduce and betray. They were cinematically “gaslighted.” " (The Oppositional Gaze)
Response: To know this perspective of black women is interesting and disheartening. Of the little representation of black women in media it has left little to be positively said. To have the women submit themselves to this and to “look away” is horrid. To have to force oneself to deny reality to just enjoy some trivial media is just unspeakable.
Bell Hooks, Understanding Patriarchy
Quote: “They assume that men are the sole teachers of patriarchal thinking. Yet many female-head households endorse and promote patriarchal thinking far greater passion than two-parent households. Because they do not have an experiential reality to challenge false fantasies of gender roles, women in such households are far more likely to idealize the patriarchal male role and patriarchal men then are women who live with patriarchal men every day.” (Understanding Patriarchy)
Response: To have those who are oppressed be ones who uphold the oppression the most is a sad irony. Even in a setting where patriarchy should be at its lowest form it still finds a way to infect and promote itself.
Quote: “Patriarchy demands of men that they become and remain emotional cripples. Since it is a system that denies men full access to their freedom of will, it is difficult for any man of any class to rebel against patriarchy, to be disloyal to the patriarchal parent, be that parent female or male.” Understanding Patriarchy)
Response: This is the one tenet of patriarchy that I feel has the most overt and oppressive heel on me. I wish to say and do things that exist outside of patriarchy but am blocked. Friendships that seem to allow the exploration of nearly every topic are still blocked by this force. I’m unable to break this force without fear of retribution or isolation.
Female Gaze: Art that Looks at What Women See | NYTIMES
Quote: “They created a shift, a change in perspective, from being the model, the person a painter is looking at, to being the painter herself.”
Of the 294 portraits Berthe Morisot painted, for example, only about 10 depict men. The rest are women and children. This was partly because women were restricted from using live models until the mid-19th century, and partly because, she said, “Decidedly I am too nervous to make anyone else sit for me.” Her models were her mother and sisters, so in a sense she was creating an image of the world in which she lived.
Ana Mendieta: Artist Who Pushed Boundaries | NYTimes
Quote: In 1973, while she was in college, Mendieta learned about the on-campus rape and murder of a nursing student named Sarah Ann Ottens. Her outrage over the incident drove her to stage one of her most confrontational and violent pieces, “Rape Scene.”
For the piece, Mendieta upended her apartment, covered herself with blood and tied herself to a table to recreate the aftermath of brutal sexual assault. She invited an audience to the made-up crime scene, where she remained bent over the table with blood dripping down her legs and pooling at her feet as they discussed the incident.
The Gazes
Male Gaze: The ability to have perceived power and to look upon others without worry of how oneself looks. By looking at women you can either escribe them power or remove it entirely without worry of your own power. By looking at men you may give or take power or do nothing at all.
Women who embody of this: The ability to have no power and to worry about what others see you as. By looking at women you may strip them of their power while either losing or maintaining your own. By looking at men you lose your power to them or only gain sexual power.
Female Gaze: Looking at others without malice, power play, or sexual desire. To see people as who they are to neither give or take or be given or taken power from anyone.
Oppositional Gaze: Looking at the oppressor of the world forcing them to confront your and their humanity. To look a upon oppressor is to transform them into you, a person.
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