I had a great time tonight speaking to Dr. Anne Rosenthal’s class in Gender Communications at Oglethorpe University (Atlanta, GA) about body image as it relates to gender issues. There were many thoughtful and provocative comments, and I’m looking forward to hearing more from these students and anyone else interested in the topic.

We discussed many subjects, but one that we kept returning to was the notion of the “male gaze.” Here’s an excerpt from some research that I did on the topic in 2003 that is, to me, my personal experience with gender and the media portrayal of body image:

[The current media standard of beauty's] connection to the idea of feminine perfection is directly linked to Laura Mulvey’s “male gaze” [Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema]. Mulvey describes two sides of scopophilia, “circumstances in which looking itself is a source of pleasure” and “pleasure in being looked at” (835). These two sides have been split into the male/active viewer and the female/passive image. According to Mulvey, filmic images encode female erotic and sensual appeal as a function of a woman’s “to-be-looked-at-ness.” In other words, to be feminine is to be looked at, with sexual desire, by a man. And what constitutes “to-be-looked-at-ness” in modern Western media? [The media standard of the ideal female body].

Some researchers suggest that modern mass media, particularly the film industry, has begun to produce a female gaze in opposition to the male gaze. Thelma and Louise is often cited as an example of women using “the gaze.” However, I contend that turning the male gaze back on men is not the same as developing a counter female gaze. Women’s magazines, created by women for women, still use the male gaze to sell magazines—“[Women’s] magazines have a larger audience among women age 18 to 49 than do TV shows” (Wellner). [Wellner, Alison Stein. “The Female Persuasion.” American Demographics 24 (2002): 24-29.]

I look forward to your thoughts and ideas on the subject.