The Male Gaze: From the One Who Puts “Male” in Male Gaze

== Introduction ==
I'm a man. A very simplistic and self-explanatory statement, but one with a much deeper meaning pertaining to the title of this page you're reading (thank you by the way). When I first walked into this class, I was very nervous and was very hesitant to be learning about a bunch of random women, some of which I had never even heard of. But, as the class went on, I not only learned about the impacts these women have had, but also different issues affecting women and their portrayal in our modern society. One of these issues being: the Male Gaze. To be completely honest, it's something that I don't think I'd ever heard of before this class, but something I haven't stopped mentioning since. As the title suggests, I put the "Male" in Male Gaze. I was completely oblivious, but now that I have an understanding of the Male Gaze, it is my goal to inform others about the male gaze, including what it is, examples we have seen, and how to combat it. Throughout this page, you will see some examples of the male gaze in modern society, some of which are very obvious once mentioned, but something men don't notice (I was one of the men who didn't notice). I aim that when you see some of the things throughout this page that you get angry upon seeing them. If you do, yay! If not, check yourself. 
== What is the Male Gaze? ==
So, what even is the male gaze? As defined by Oxford Languages, "The perspective of a notionally typical heterosexual man considered as embodied in the audience or intended audience for films and other visual media, characterized by a tendency to objectify or sexualize women."https://languages.oup.com/ According to another source, MasterClass, "...the male gaze is a sexualized way of portraying women. By objectifying women, the male gaze represents women through the sexual desires of heterosexual male viewers. It depicts the female body and personality as an object for men to view, own, and conquer."https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-the-male-gaze Essentially, these definitions say that the male gaze is more of a way of thinking for men, this way of thinking being that men are superior to women. Due to this idiotic belief, some men believe that women should be more submissive and obey men in all means, including the way they dress, act, and speak. This is the ideology that gives us the evidence of the male gaze we often see in many different places today. 
== Where Do We See the Male Gaze? ==
=== Where Is the Male Gaze Seen? ===
Now that you know what the male gaze is, where do we see examples of the male gaze today? My answer is too many, but factually we see the male gaze in multiple different areas, including video games, printed media, and movies. Since these areas are very broad, they encompass lots of different material infected with the male gaze. This means that there are tons of women seeing this content, which according to MasterClass, "...has a negative impact on women since it conditions women to adhere to a patriarchal conception of how a woman should look and act. It influences how women view themselves, as it emphasizes physical appearance, which can negatively impact their mental health, lowering their levels of self-esteem. By placing women in subservient roles to please the male spectator, female empowerment is secondary to male sexual desires and the patriarchy." With this in mind, let's take a look at the different places we see the male gaze in effect. 
==== Video Games & Comics ====
One place we see the male gaze very often is in the realm of video games. This is due to the main audience of video games being men. Since the main audience is men, producers of video games want to make the game appeal to men in some way, usually choosing to sexualize the female characters. According to Darvin Baez Hernandez, "From horror to games to basic drawings, the view of the female figure has been exploited exponentially in the history of character design."https://www.theplantnews.com/post/gaze-goes-beyond-how-the-male-gaze-took-over-modern-video-games Let's break Hernandez's statement down one part at a time. One, horror. The point of horror games is to have a scary environment, so why is it at all necessary to have some female characters having lots of cleavage showing? To make the game more exciting or to make someone more excited? This is seen in Resident Evil 3,4, and 8, and an example is provided in the picture to the left of Lady Dimitrescu. Two, games. I'm not really going to get into this one, just due to the fact I could talk about it all day long. There are an insane amount of sources and pictures you can find with a simple google search, all disgusting, nonetheless. Three, basic drawings. While not exactly basic, comics are a great example of how we see this. one of the most profound examples is the Marvel Studios character Black Widow. According to Paul Thomas, "Black Widow...fits into the pattern of hypersexuality and othering as exotic (her Russian and mysterious as well as isolated background)...the way that superheroines are portrayed as sexual objects on comic book covers.”https://plthomasedd.medium.com/black-widow-underestimating-and-hypersexualizing-women-in-the-marvel-universe-156cd7a49892 Just based on almost any image of Black Widow in comics, you can see how over the top it is, and also how unnecessary. Comics of Black Widow commonly show a very tight suit, large chest, and usually some chest cleavage showing. Along with this, the super active secret spy is almost always seen wearing platform boots with heels. Nothing in the previous sentence makes sense, which shows just how hard people are trying to actually play into the male gaze. 
==== Other Printed Media ====
Besides comics, there are still many places we see evidence of the male gaze in printed media. The one I most commonly think of is in magazines. There are many, many different magazines that play into this, but two common ones are Sports Illustrated and Playboy. Sports Illustrated is a sports magazine, meaning their stereotypical audience is men. This heavily caters to their annual swimsuit edition magazine, which features very exposed pictures of models in bathing suits. While some may say that it's the model's job to cater to the male gaze in this situation, there's still many cases in where models were very close to exposure. An example of this was at the 2024 Swim Week runway in Miami with model Xandra Pohl. According to Andrew Holleran, "… but hey we made it out without a nip slip… barely..."https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/fashion/sports-illustrated-swimsuit-model-dangerously-close-to-wardrobe-malfunction/ar-BB1nCTJV Due to the feeding of the male gaze, a model was almost exposed to public, which would haunt her for the rest of her career. Another example is Playboy magazine. I won't go into too many details to keep this PG, but based on common knowledge of what Playboy is, you can see how it feeds into the male gaze. Also, the name Playboy explains what it is; play for boys. Except, this play is demoralizing and overly sexual towards women, which is in fact the act of boys, not men. 
==== Movies ====
Probably the place we see most of the male gaze in effect is in movies/film. Ranging back all the way to the early days of showing the infamous flapper in films, to now having movies based on literally just sex, and everything in between, there so many examples of the male gaze in modern film that this section could easily be over 100,000 words. That insane number of words would include multiple examples of the male gaze, including the unnecessary portrayal of women in films going down to their outfits, their language, and their motives. But I don't want to write that, and the reader probably doesn't want to read that, so here are a few examples of how we see the male gaze in modern films. 
===== Transformers =====
Anyone who has seen Transformers can already tell exactly what I'm going to say, but some have not seen the movies (highly recommend by the way), so it's a need to address. Starting off with the first Transformers movie, Megan Fox is portraying the character Mikaela Banes, who is probably the most overly sexualized character you can think of. From the way she plays the "dumb girl", to the way she is dressed, to the things her character enjoys such as cars and motorcycles, you can feel the testosterone boost men get just from thinking about it. Overall, the character's traits that make her attractive to men are highly unnecessary to the plot of the movie and are only there to make men want to watch the movie more. 
===== Tomb Raider =====
This time, more or less the same things apply as with Megan Fox in Transformers, but this time the female character is the lead. In the Tomb Raider movies, Lara Croft is supposed to be an empowering, badass female lead who goes on missions, rides a motorcycle, shoots a bow and arrow or has dual pistols, fighting the bad guys in the wilderness, yet she's dressed in a crop top or tank top and biker shorts. Does that make any sense to you? Yeah, didn't think so. According to Princess Weekes, "...got to see a heroine who was badass, smart, in control, and better than every dude in the room, without trauma, without pain, without fear of rape or assault, and without a romance," showing how much women look up to her, to Weekes saying a few sentences later, "...No, let’s make her breasts more obvious, is a testament to why it’s hard to completely love this movie and her character."https://www.themarysue.com/lara-croft-empowerment-male-gaze/ This goes to show how a movie over an empowering/looked up to character can be ruined by filmmakers trying to meet the male gaze. 
== How Do We Combat the Male Gaze? ==
According to MasterClass, there are three ways you can combat the male gaze. The first way is to apply a critical lens. To apply a critical lens, you need to understand what the male gaze is. This can be by reading articles and looking for real world examples. By doing this, you can help yourself think critically on the male gaze, as well as identify stereotypes and negative images people associate with the male gaze. The second way is to place women in roles of empowerment. The Tomb Raider movies and Maleficent (2014) both have very strong, independent female leads, but their characters are brought down due to how they are still made to appear attractive to male viewers. By eliminating these unfair tropes, we can change how people view women in roles of power, therefore increasing awareness and making people accustomed to it. The third way is to simply spread awareness. Before this class, I really had no idea what the male gaze was or how to look for and see it in my everyday life. But, now after learning and writing this article, I have become aware and can see the stupidity behind it. By spreading awareness, we can educate society as a whole and help stop the sickness that is the male gaze.
== Links & Resources ==
Oxford Languages (ignore the [1], it’s there and I can’t get rid of it)
MasterClass
Gaze goes beyond. How the male gaze took over modern video games. (theplantnews.com)
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model 'Dangerously Close' To Wardrobe Malfunction (msn.com)
== References ==