The Male Gaze
In the second essay of Ways of Seeing, Berger made an argument that would become foundational for feminist film theory: the European tradition of the female nude was not merely depicted women without clothes. It was structured by a viewer who was assumed to be male — his pleasure, his judgment, his possession of the image the organizing purpose of the painting. The woman in the painting often looked out at the viewer, acknowledging his presence. The arrangement of her body, the lighting, the framing, the narrative context were all calibrated to the male spectator. Berger's famous compression: Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.
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The argument was not that every painter was conscious of imposing this structure, nor that every viewer was conscious of occupying it. The gaze was not in the eye of any individual. It was in