Abstract

This paper examines how men and women are represented differently in pictures and in society at large: males have agency, but women are largely involved in a perpetual project of monitoring their self-presentation rather than focusing on external duties. In his Ways of Seeing, John Berger famously summarizes this by noting, “Men act while women appear.” This link, he observes, is particularly visible in a certain genre of European oil painting that frequently displays naked female figures. The ladies in paintings are often naked not because it makes sense for the narratives in which they are shown, but rather because their nudity is constructed by and for the (supposedly) masculine observer. Women are painted to selfconsciously display their sexuality, accused of vanity through associations with symbols like mirrors and beauty products, even though women were seldom the ones behind this pictorial tradition. Rather, women looked naked for the benefit of the paintings’ owners, who were their primary audience for most of history. Although pictures are more freely available now, many components of this representational legacy persist, presenting women as passive or existing for male pleasure while males enjoy a broader array of portrayals. By applying the feminist theory of the male gaze by Laura Mulvey to the analysis, it can further examine the power dynamics, gender roles, and the objectification of women in both visual representations and society at large. This allows for a critical understanding of how women’s agency is undermined and how patriarchal structures influence the creation and interpretation of literary and visual texts.

Keywords: Misogynistic Culture, Male gaze, Artistic tradition, Objectification, Power dynamics, Commodification