The Male Gaze

Laura Mulveys theory of the Male Gaze would suggest that female appearance is coded for strong visual and erotic impact for men. In order for women to be desirable in our current society we are forced to believe we should have large perky breasts, a slim waist, and full lips, to name a few. But where have these ideal traits come from and why are they what they are?

The ‘ideal woman’ is based around this preconception forced by the mass media that to be beautiful you have to be sexy, and desirable. Many people believe that this is a form of  sexual objectification. “Sexual objectification is the process of representing or treating a person like a sex object, one that serves another person’s sexual pleasure.” (Carol Heldman, the Sexy Lie). New technology increases the sheer number of sexually objectifying images that we see, on average we see about 5,000 ads a day! For women these images are selling us the idea that this is how we get our value and that this is the only form of beauty.