Blog Post 6

Olivia Lakes

Prof. Melissa Santos

EN199-003

6 March 2015

This week in class we talked about the female gaze, what it is and if it exists. Through the quotes and discussion in class, we got to better understand what the female gaze was and looked like, as well as being able to go off and find images and videos of what we thought the female gaze was. 

I found it interesting that a lot of times, we ended up connecting the female gaze with images/videos that blatantly objectified and sexualized men, because that is exactly the purpose of the male gaze. However, the fact that these images struck me as strange and out of place was what showed me the real problem: the objectification and sexualization of women in media isn't only normalized, but expected. So the fact that the roles were reversed caused me to give the images a second or third look, because I really wasn't used to it. 

Another thing I realized through finding our own images of the "female gaze" was that even when men were objectified, a lot of times the song was about them. I found this interesting because in almost every genre, you can find music videos for songs about almost anything that will still contain half naked women as arm candy or just walking around. So even thought, visually, they were the object, regarding the actual lyrics of the songs they happened to be the subject. 

In a more positive light, a lot of people, also found that the female gaze isn't only the whole idea of role-reversal, but also just the ability for women to perform and create art with the help of other women, while remaining in control of their bodies and actions and using them however they feel fit. And not only that, but just for women to be able to have fun with what they're doing and the music they're making.