male gaze

[meyl geyz]

noun

1. Often the male gaze the assumption in visual and creative arts that the default or desired audience consists of heterosexual males, and inclusion of women in narrative or art should seek to please this audience with the objectification or sexualization of these depicted women.

Word History and Origins

Origin of male gaze¹

Coined by Laura Mulvey (born 1941), British feminist film theorist in her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975)

Example Sentences

They were etherealized through delicate pastels, and while Brundage created images to appeal to the male gaze, she also could portray women as purposeful agents rather than passive victims.

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Not since “Charlie’s Angels” has there been a “feminist fantasy” with such a male gaze.

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Now we have, as a counterbalance to a lurid male gaze as the season’s new opera for L.A.

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Christina Ramberg and Martha Edelheit upend notions of sexiness in their paintings, thumbing their noses at the “male gaze.”

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Some argued it pandered to the male gaze and promoted misogynistic stereotypes.

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