John Berger Ways of Seeing:
"Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves.
The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object - and most particularly an object of vision: a sight."
In a way this can be true for woman however the intentions of men looking at a female can simply just make women feel secure or insecure. Woman can be hard critics on themselves and I know that for sure back in the day woman were more about their looks being approved by men. Now this isn't so true, women just want to embrace beauty for themselves.
"But this has been at the cost of a woman's self being split into two. A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself."
Woman are like prey when they're alone, it's said by our parents and older folk, "woman can't be alone outside." or "woman at night alone is dangerous" we (woman) have heard this said many times before, and physiological there's this imprint that we actually do go outside always having to look over our shoulders just to see who the predator is looking at.
Bell hooks: Understanding Patriarchy and Oppositional Gaze
"Patriarchy is a political-social system that insist that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females."
Still today we see these acts of machismo in latin countries, middle eastern, and asian countries following these customs. the progressive countries kind of died down that stereotype but still sometimes you can see it, examples can be wage earnings discrepancies when two sexes work in the same field. Could be the same reason we still do not have a female PRESIDENT in the U.S. but I guess Vice President is a start. Woman continue to fight for this and I think it will be a forever war.
" To experience pleasure Miss Pauline sitting in the dark must imagine herself transformed, turned into the white woman portrayed on the screen"
Miss Pauline is a character in Toni Morrison's ,"The Bluest Eye", was described by loving films however she got too deep and would close her eyes to envision herself as a white woman to enjoy the beautiful house she had, the toilets, the family. All this made the black female spectators avoid watching films because the unrealistic life they saw and had to compare. This made movie watching very uncomfortable.
Overlooked No More: Ana Mendieta, a Cuban Artist Who Pushed
Boundaries
"In the 1973 short film “Moffitt Building Piece,” Mendieta and her sister captured the reactions of strangers who walked by a puddle of pig’s blood that Mendieta had spilled outside her apartment. Some stared and most walked around the mess. Eventually someone washed it off the sidewalk. To Mendieta, the recording offered a thought-provoking experiment on people’s indifference to violence."
Ana was described as a dare-devil artist who did not care of the risks or how explicit her art was shown. She capture raw moments and dramaticized the intensity of pain, anger, neglect, and unapologetic. Not to make this morbid or anything but it feels like Ana had premonitions of her future being dramatic too. Just recently looking at her art and how powerful it felt to me I wondered what her life was now (before I knew she passed).
The Photographed, Collaged, and Painted Muses of Mickalene Thomas
“By selecting women of color, I am quite literally raising their visibility and inserting their presence into the conversation,”
I enjoyed reading and looking at Mickalene's photographs and how she utilizes raw textures and fun prints to elevate female black beauty. She shows glamour and sophisticated sexuality that makes these images pop, while keeping the footage raw she doesn't alter body-shapes or skin color through other mediums.
Art That Looks at What Women See
“The female artists’ gaze is shaped by their lived experiences, which are different for women and men.”
Everyone has their own unique life whom which experience different scenarios. It could be growing up without parents, being an immigrant, being rich or poor, being a teenage mother. All these factor create different world-views and strengths that females develop.
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| Recreating "Susannah is looking at herself in a mirror" |
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