It the elephant in the room that has remained there for decades. The very obnoxious blinking light that no one likes to discuss because of all the heated debates mentioning this shining beacon can bring up. I am talking about the male gaze. For those of you not leaving under a rock, the male gaze is a term that is used to refer to how the media portrays women, even more so attractive women.
Now the male gaze has been around for decades, whether you have been aware of it or not. It can range how the camera pans down on an attractive woman's body when she walks into a scene for the first time in a film to how female characters are designed and created within the new popular video games. These depictions of women are shown purposefully for one thing and one thing only. To attract the male eye and appeal to the idea of the male fantasy.
Think about it in term of video games. A male gamer will definitely be keeping his eye out for the next big and exciting game that has all the best graphics and enriching storyline to play through. But how many hours does that same gamer spend playing the game in one day, one week? How long does it take to finish the game? Now place a female character into the game, maybe one that either appears within the storyline a lot or is even the main character a gamer has to play as. What does that character usually look like? Small waist, big chest, "protective armor" that usually reveals long legs and a midriff? These are all characteristics of the male gaze.
But what is the point of feeding into this male fantasy? Besides the world of media gaining more money from men buying these games or watches these movies? Well here is a more realistic list of how feeding into the male gaze actually affects society.
These depictions of women only make the standards for women even higher and more unrealistic to reach.
Men hold women to the standard of being these seemingly perfect models due to hours of watching the same toned body and long hair for hours on end. Furthermore, what happens to female gamers? While they continue to play these games they not only hold themselves up as a comparison to these game characters but are forced to watch and interact with them. While male characters get to walk around with full suits of body armor, the female characters strut around in metal bikinis and small daggers strapped to obnoxiously curvy hips.
So while the gaming community has come a long way and tries to include representation of all types and shapes, there are still many games and character designs out there today that belittle women down to the male fantasy. A woman's body was not made to be gawked at, so remember that the next time you watch a comedy movie or design your own original character.
