The male gaze can be defined as the way that visual arts and literature depict the world and women from a masculine point of view, focusing on presenting women as objects of male pleasure. Essentially this concept relies heavily on objectification of women, and defines women as being surveyed by men, who are the surveyors. 

On a personally level, I really enjoyed the things that Kilbourne had to say about woman and cigarettes. I started smoking when I was thirteen and had never had any intention of quitting, until my twenty third birthday last year. Kilbourne states, “Teenager women today are engaging in far riskier health behavior in greater numbers that any prior generation.” Kilbourne continues to state that girls who were active confident and feisty at ages ten often tend to become hesitant insecure and self-doubting at eleven. That really spoke to me, even though I didn’t want to admit it. Reading that was like a sense of self analysis, its like I had an epiphany. I started smoking when I started hanging out with boys. What I had seen through advertisements for tobacco products and women who smoke in movies and on tv is that smoking made you mysterious and seductive, and I wanted to be viewed as such. My addiction was a produced from the pressures of the male gaze, and my naive young mind didn’t realize that. Reflecting on this concept now, I feel like Im in shell shock and quite frankly I’m disgusted with myself. But que sera, sera.  

In the reading cutting girls down to size, Kilbourne chooses to identify the issues of the male gaze through examining magazine advertisements. A quote from the reading states, “Girls try to make sense of the contradictory expectations of themselves in a culture dominated by advertising. Advertising is one of the most potent messengers in a culture that can be toxic for girls self esteem.” This is true throughout all aspects of media, including television, movies, music ect. 

Even though we are moving into an era that is trying to eradicate the male gaze, it is still prevalent in our society. Magazine covers still bare overtly sexualized women on the covers, while the men that are pictured are clothed. It is expressed through images in magazines that a woman's shape is directly related to her value and attractiveness. In an article that I found online, Gill states that women have now even absorbed the male gaze, and are "doing it to themselves" by wearing making, having elective surgeries, and wearing skimpy clothing. I agree with this, but also feel that women can chose to do what ever they feel with their bodies and how they project themselves to the world. Some state that it can be viewed as self empowerment. Is there still a 'male gaze' in magazines

Films and television still set to determine what is an acceptable style or type of woman. Mulvey states that, “Main stream film neatly combined spectacle and narrative… the presence of woman is an indispensable element of spectacle in normal narrative film, yet her visual presence tends to work against the development of a story line, to freeze the flow of action in moments of erotic contemplation.” What Mulvey is saying is that in film women are viewed as a distraction to the male led, instead of playing a role a bigger role in the over all development of the film. 

Bell Hooks concept of the oppositional gaze is kind of like the opposite of Mulvey’s point of view. As a woman of color, she shares her experiences with the male gaze and what that means in society. She explains how women of color experience a lack of representation in media, and how that has done violence to their image. “We laughed at shows… at these white representations of blackness, but we also looked at them critically. Black viewers of movies and television experienced visual pleasures in a context where looking was also about contestation and confrontation.” Bell Hooks examines a lack of adequate representation, and poses the question who will make movies with blackness portrayed in the right way?

I think that in this day and age we are at the forefront of trying to over come these stereotypes and create a dialogue about body positive imagery and discussions about intersectionality. These topics will help to crumble the concepts of the male gaze in our society.