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The Female Façade:

How Performance Artists Are Changing the Way Patriarchal Pressures

Objectify Women

Who Sees Through the Lens of the Male Gaze?

It’s 9:30pm on a Thursday night and I haven’t shaved my legs yet. Looking through my

bottom drawer to find a suitable pair of covering yet curve revealing pants, I find the high

waisted leggings my best friend in high school said would, “Show not Tell.” After, I put on a

plunging corset and excessive amounts of makeup, and head down to the pregame I was invited

to earlier that day. The host of the pregame is male. He invited exclusively women, knowing that

a party filled with girls will attract men like moths to flame. I can’t hear my own thoughts. This

is in part because of the alcohol that keeps getting passed my way, and in part because of the

lyrics blasting, “I don’t fuck with you! You little stupid ass bitch I ain't fuckin’ with you!”

Around me, women move their bodies like snakes, slithering up and down the men behind them.

All throughout I am thinking to myself, “They must be so thirsty,” or, “They have no self

respect.” One looks over at me, smiles widely, and says, “You look so sexy in that top! I wish I

could pull off something like that!” I reply, “You would rock it! You can totally try it on for

tomorrow!” I keep getting more strange glances so I go to the bathroom to fix my makeup. I

apply more lipstick and readjust my corset to reveal more cleavage, “Unless you go home with

someone all of this was for nothing, pull yourself together. You probably just need more

alcohol.” I take a swig from the flask a guy at the party had given me. Once returning I head

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straight to the table girls are dancing on, I know my legs look great and clearly this is the only

way I am going to get noticed by the opposite sex.

The expectations presented to women by societal pressures imposed by patriarchal

standards affect the female’s psyche in every aspect of her life. These pressures are explicitly

visible at night, however, as within the boundaries of a party the worth of a woman shifts from a

focus on her ability to be quiet and modest, to the expectation of being visible and open to sexual

exploitation. This phenomenon is implemented through the standards created by patriarchy, and

therefore anyone who lives within it is innately impacted by it. Because women live in a society

dominated by the patriarchy they see through the standards set by the same societal expectations

men see through,

“Observation is always conditioned by perspective and expectation… It involves

asserting the central role that gender plays in formulating those expectations.

Feminism insists, moreover, that these expectations are disproportionately

affected by male needs, beliefs, and desires. Both men and women have learned to

see the world through male eyes… women judge themselves according to

internalized standards of what is pleasing to men… In this sense, the eyes are

female, but the gaze is male (Devereaux, 337).”

These internalized standards have been actualized through the language actively being

controlled by male privilege. Most art, movies, novels, media images and texts, fashion,

colloquial dialects, and many other mediums have all been shaped by men. In our society and

many others, women’s voices are not heard nearly as loudly as men's because men have shaped

the language: “… women, unlike men, do not learn to describe the world from their own point of

view. As the ‘other,’ woman learns to submerge or renounce her subjectivity. She finds her

identity in the subjectivity of the men to whom she is attached (father, husband, lover). In the

eyes of men, she finds her identity as the object of men’s desire (Devereaux, 340).” Because men

control both the language and the lens, women find their identity in the lens created by

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patriarchal dialect. One cannot form a thought outside of the language they are supplied with.

Women are constricted by the idiom we possess, and therefore to claim that women could speak

or act out of this idea would be false. As a society our thoughts and how we communicate them

all must be expressed through the words already given to us: “Not positing themselves as

Subject, women have not created the virile myth that would reflect their projects; they have

neither religion nor poetry that belongs to them alone: they still dream through men’s dreams

(Beauvoir, 195).” Patriarchy has shaped not only how the genders interact, but how women

interact with women and men interact with men.

The vast majority of communicative mediums are formed by this patriarchal dialect,

including the process of expressing sexual attraction. Typically, women inherently play the

passive role in acts of sexual coercion, exemplified in heterosexual and cisgendered relationships

by the active male courting ritual all the way through to having the male text the female

postcoitally in the morning. This lens can be exemplified in movies, where women see through

the male gaze implemented through the lens of the camera,

“…in locating herself in fantasy in the erotic, the woman places herself as either

passive recipient of male desire, or, at one remove, positions herself as watching a

woman who is passive recipient of male desires and sexual actions…woman

speaker largely arranges the scenario for her sexual pleasure so that things are

done to her, or in which she is the object of men’s lascivious gaze (Longacre,

126).”

By immediately positioning a female as passive, the male becomes the active and therefore the

more powerful figure in the relationship. Men do to women, women take, men need from

women, and women provide, whether it is consensual or not. For this reason, many feminist

performance artists use sex and objectification as a means of explaining the exploitation of

women. This occurrence is of course not exclusive to heterosexual relationships, the male gaze

and the expectation that a woman will be subservient is active in female to female relationships

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as well, “… it is important that in the lesbian fantasies… women occupy both positions…

excited either by dominating another woman, forcing her to have sex, or enjoying being so

dominated. These fantasies suggest either that the female positioning is not as monolithic as

critics imply, or that women occupy the ‘male’ position when they become dominant (Longacre,

127).” The assumption that the female who is dominant in a homosexual act is taking on the

masculine role is inherently patriarchal and oppressive to women. Not only this, but the fact that

even in a female to female relationship the effects of the male gaze are apparent supports the

claim that the male gaze can be, and is, the lens from which women see through.

The act of conforming to the male gaze is internally oppressive to women. In our natural

desire to fit in with our environment, women are unable to break the cycle of oppression. By

regulating their appearance, women use the shield of conformance to external standards so as not

to be ostracized by society. These standards are provided by the omnipresence of media images

depicting ‘the perfect woman.’ By having a standard of perfection, women learn to adopt the

view of the outside observer in understanding their own bodies: “The outside (sexist) observer

becomes internalized, and women may come to experience their bodies primarily as they are

seen from the outside and compared against external standards rather than as they are felt and

inhabited from within (The Fabric of Internalized Sexism, 17).” As can be seen throughout both

our research and the male dominated principles upon which society’s expectations are based, we

as a community are trapped under an umbrella of patriarchy in which everyone sees through the

male gaze that both internally and externally oppresses women.

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The interdisciplinary combination of theatre and humanities gave our love of art a sense

of purpose and showed us that because the personal is almost always political, we should

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implement the balance between being an artist and an activist into something tangible, which

thus developed into an interest in feminist performance art. We found that using our own

physical being as a canvas gave us an extensive amount of freedom. The phrase “protest art” is

redundant, in the sense that all art is a form of individual expression and protests the idea of

conformity given that art is an action of individuality. The word ‘protest’ standing in front of

‘art’ emphasizes that the art being produced in this category is made to challenge authority and

contradict a higher collective power for the sake of the individual. We researched how various

performance artists challenged patriarchal authority by subverting the male gaze to transform

themselves from object to subject. Subverting the male gaze is a form of protest because it is a

push against a reproduced and circular societal structure of oppression. Protest has historically

been used to liberally and radically question authority, and the male gaze is an inescapable form

of patriarchal authority. Performance art questions and analyzes the relationship between the

oppressors and the oppressed.

Inspiring Artists

Orlan

As a result of patriarchy, the voices of male artists are heard and addressed more often

than that of women artists. The portrayal of women in art, through the filter of the male gaze, is

both objectifying and sexualized. The role of women in the art world has been restricted to being

‘art’ rather than an ‘artist.’ By using their own bodies as art, women become both at the same

time: “Women have rarely been permitted agency in art, but instead have been restricted to

enacting—upon and through their bodies—the theatrical, musical, cinematic, and dance

scenarios constructed by male artists. Centuries of this traditional sexual division of cultural

labor bear down on … ([any] woman performer) when she performs (Korsmeyer).” By using

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their own physical bodies as art, feminist performance artists become both the art and the artist,

which allows them control over their own agency in the art world. Another important aspect of

protest is the element of surprise, breaking societal code, and subverting the expectations of

authority. When researching protest we asked whether it was more effective to develop change

by liberally working within the system versus radically working against and outside the system.

A large spectrum of performance artists use shocking material to draw attention to the issues

they protest: “Many performance artists hoping to evoke visceral emotions from the viewer use

aggressive themes such as choking to portray their message. Rather than keeping these themes in

the uncanny but clean realms of myth, however, the presentation of entrails, blood, and—

sometimes literally—flesh confronts the audience with a particular and disturbing presence of the

artist herself (Korsmeyer).” The female body is more than just a simplistic outline of her physical

appearance, and performance art gives depth to women’s physical appearance by displaying the

female body within controversial mediums.

One of the first women we researched who was very influential in the performance art

world is the French artist Orlan. Orlan counters the male gaze and society’s obsession with

image by putting her own physicality to the test. Most visual art, including social media,

television, film, etc., is both created and viewed through the male perspective. Through this, the

male gaze has implemented a singular image of the ‘perfect woman,’ by which all women are

constantly forced to compare themselves to. Most people respond to this image of the ‘perfect

woman’ by striving to attain an image as close to this projection as possible. Plastic surgery is

one of the many ways women transform themselves to this ideal image. In her art Orlan subverts

the male gaze by using plastic surgery to create the anti-image of the ‘perfect woman.’ The

female body is in most cases objectified in visual art, and through anti conformity Orlan turns

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her own body into a subjective piece of art. She uses the operating room as a stage by

reconstructing the aesthetics, including the appearance of the operators themselves, to how she

feels will enhance her artwork. After setting the stage, Orlan films her plastic surgery operation

and includes in her performance every possible grotesque and bloody detail of her body getting

disfigured. Orlan is considered one of the most controversial artists of her time because in

watching her performance, the audience is forced to redefine what is considered to be ‘art.’

Without dismissing her sanity and while still respecting her role as an artist, viewers must

question why Orlan feels it is necessary to comment on the objectification and sexualization of

women through the medium of carnal art: “Throughout her career as a well- known French

multimedia artist, Orlan has trafficked in notions of an ambiguous and constantly shifting

identity. Her actions call into question whether our self- representations conform to an inner

reality or whether they are actually carefully contrived falsehoods fabricated for marketing

purposes--in the media or in society at large.” Orlan uses performance art to comment on the

performance human beings take part in every single day, burying our inner realities beneath a

public falsehood. The public falsehood is based on our desperate need for connection and

relationships, consequently prioritizing conformity over individuality.

How women go about conforming to their ideal image has developed the idea that

femininity is a masquerade. Orlan uses plastic surgery as a mask. Her performance is terrifying

because plastic surgery is both painful and permanent; however, so is the performance of

conforming to society’s female beauty standards.

“Orlan's performances might be read as rituals of female submission, analogous to

primitive rites involving the cutting up of women's bodies. But actually she aims

to exorcise society's program to deprive women of aggressive instincts of any

kind. During the process of planning, enacting and documenting the surgical steps

of her transformation, Orlan remains in control of her own destiny. If the parts of

seven different ideal women are needed to fulfill Adam's desire for an Eve made

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in his image, Orlan consciously chooses to undergo the necessary mutilation to

reveal that the objective is unattainable and the process horrifying. Orlan the artist

and the woman will never play the victim: she is both subject and object, actress

and director, passive patient and active organizer (Phelan).”

Orlan has combined art and artist into one being, developing a sense of agency for women that is

continuously suppressed in the art world. Through her art Orlan manages to take control over one

of the most vulnerable and objectifying spaces our community can offer, the surgeon's table. Her

work was inspiring to our project because she embodies the contrasting duality of subject and

object. The male gaze focuses on keeping the subject and object within a woman very separate,

however by combining these terms together in her individual self, she is eradicating the male

gaze,

"Revisiting Orlan’s history, from the early sixties to the present day, means,

above all, rediscovering the history of the poetics of the body, in which body art and carnal art are the fundamental stages. Real body and imaginary body, lived body and emotional body, mystic body and social body, diffuse body and hybrid

body, all merge together in the ceaseless flow of references in Orlan’s work (Phelan).”

Orlan is protesting the strict and objective image of the ‘perfect woman’ by demonstrating the

flexibility and subjectivity of the female body in her art. While all women are striving to

transform into the ‘perfect woman’, we disregard the incredible amount of variety in which our

bodies can be portrayed. We give up the freedom to express our individuality and take on the

burden of conforming in order to avoid potential ostracization.

Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman explores the theme of active/male and passive/female in her art. As a

result of the male gaze and female conformity to gender roles, women are simultaneously looked

at and displayed. Their appearance is coded for eroticism and strong visual impact in order to

connote a to-be-looked-at aesthetic. Sherman’s artwork contributes to our thesis: “She explores

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the myths of femininity from the outer of the body to its inner, unsettling the relationship

between authentic body and its pictorial representation, between original image and body

masquerade (Subverting).” In this way, Sherman uses her own body to illuminate the

masquerade of femininity imposed upon herself and all gender-conforming women.

In her piece “The Heroine with a Thousand Faces,” Sherman appears as a character who

could be seen in classic Old Hollywood films. She creates a fifties-esque atmosphere through

dress, makeup, and set, and addresses her work to the young women who grew up in the era. By

showing childhood images from the 50’s to women who are adults in the 80’s, Sherman is

expressing to her audience the socialization that occurred to them in their youth through media

consumption and the cisgendered women around them. Sherman operates as actress, director,

wardrobe assistant, set designer and as camerawoman all at once. She, “creates a range of female

roles stereotyped by the Western patriarchal society, which she then shoots in apparently

solitary, unguarded moments of reflection, undress, or in conversation with somebody off-set

and outside of the frame (Subverting).” In this way, Sherman is never looking directly into the

lens of the camera. In the photos she is in high contrast in order to stand out from her

surroundings, conveying her vulnerability to the outside world. In our own work we were deeply

influenced by the fact that Sherman stands out from her environment to express the isolation that

the male gaze creates.

Sherman encourages audience participation by suggesting through the voyeuristic nature

of her poses that she is the object of someone’s gaze. However, by depicting herself in several

different roles she is creating a profound statement of power, “As a result, she appears as a

hybrid being, ranging between masquerade and vulnerability, between empowered subject and

disempowered object of the gaze (Subverting).” Sherman uses audience participation in the

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process of objectifying herself, and this meta-aspect of the photos in turn transform her into the

subject of the male gaze.

We would like to do a photo collection inspired by Cindy Sherman. Using the blue light

system, we would like to portray how women always feel a sense of danger or looked-at-ness on

Conn’s campus. An important aspect to Sherman’s collection is that she is caught in intimate

moments alone. Because the blue light system is supposed to be visible from any point on

campus, and because it is a rape prevention tool, using the lights as the male gaze will help us to

emphasize the consistency of female objectification through the male gaze. The photos will be

taken during both sunset and sunrise to create both a lighting where the blue lights are distinct,

and to show how this is a day to day occurrence. We will be dressed in our normal clothing and

will not be looking into the camera, to once again portray how this fear is constant.

Hannah Wilke

Hannah Wilke was a pioneering feminist artist and considered the first to use vaginal

imagery in her work. We chose to focus on Wilke’s piece S.O.S. Starification. In this piece

Wilke is posed as a nude pin-up artist with gum placed all over her body. By sexualizing herself,

Wilke reclaims the ways women have been manipulated and victimized through various cultural

representations of the naked female form. In many circumstances, a nude women in the public

eye is naked for the viewing of other and completely objectified by the male gaze. When Wilke

chooses to be nude in her photos, yet does not make it the focal point of the art, she reclaims her

body as natural and subverts the sexual objectification, making herself the subject. By taking

back the control of how and when women’s sexuality is portrayed in art, the feminist pin -ups

have taken themselves out of the realm of ‘objectiveness’ and into the realm of ‘subjectiveness’

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(American Beauty, 1).” The work of Hannah Wilke can be seen as a testament to the overturning

of patriarchal male Western dominance over women’s sexuality and objectiveness.

In the series, Wilke places gum on her body. Wilke claims that she “...chose gum because

it’s the perfect metaphor for the American woman- chew her up, get what you want out of her,

throw her out and pop in a new piece (American Beauty, 2).” Wilke forces her viewer to

empathize with the negative impacts of the male gaze for women. Doing so, Wilke once again

makes her art and therefore body, the subject rather than object. The gum placed on her body is

in a V shape with multiple folds, for it is meant to look similar to a vagina. “S.O.S” exposes the

conception that all viewers can claim to know a female’s identity, and addresses the

preconceived notion that one can judge a woman solely on her external appearance.

We were so inspired by Wilke’s art that we made images similar to hers, while set in a

modern college setting. The first thing we chose to change about the piece was the shape of the

gum. We are aware now as a society that a woman is not defined by her reproductive organs, and

therefore we did not want the representation of a woman to be a vagina. We still appreciated the

philosophy behind the gum however, so we kept that aspect while making the gum shapeless.

Secondly, we wanted to put the piece in a college setting because that is the environment in

which we know and are aware of, and we did not want to appropriate the struggles women in

other environments face. We also wanted the environment to be in a male dorm room to show

how our world is shaped by men. The dorm room itself is hyper masculine to show the stark

difference between masculinity and femininity. We took many photos in the series, but we shall

only explain two. In one photo Samantha is drinking out of a glass in a phallic manner, showing

how alcohol can be seen as a social lubricant in college. In another photo Miranda is conforming

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to the male gaze by lying on a bed in a hyper-sexual pose. Both pictures subvert the gaze through

the use of pin-up philosophy.

We chose not to use these photos for a series for many reasons. One is that the photos we

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took do not progress, but rather each picture itself comments on a separate means of college life.

This was an active choice of course, yet after looking through both series’ we thought it would

be more interesting to use photography to demonstrate a process rather than a spectrum of

women’s experiences at college. Secondly, we felt that this piece was too directly inspired by

Wilke’s work and that we did not think in depth enough about our own lives to find inspiration

rather than direct influence.

Karen Finley

Karen Finley is an American performance artist, poet, and musician who currently works

at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Our research was derived from Finley’s

novel “A Different Kind of Intimacy,” which is a commentary on the production of the majority

of her work. This collection was important to our research because it shows not only how Finley

developed as an artist, but also how she responded to the critique and backlash of the public,

which she used to become a cultural icon in the fight for freedom of speech and women’s rights.

Finley’s urge to protest comes from a deep-seated anger and frustration with long-term injustice.

The explanation of her creative process was extremely helpful for organizing the vast breadth of

information we had accumulated throughout the semester. The book inspired and encouraged us

to move forward with our own project ideas. Through reading this book, we learned how Finley

created success by developing her anger into artwork, which drew attention to what she was

passionate about: issues with patriarchy and oppression. In her own words, “Up until then, I had

seen the culture as being divided into liberals vs. conservatives, and I had expected that issues

like sexism and homophobia and free speech would always break down along those lines. But

now I saw that, more often, they broke down along lines of power.” Language has caused us to

put labels on everything, including ourselves. Being born into a society with pre-created labels

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categorizes us into starkly contrasted groups such as liberals vs. conservatives, and individuals

use the contrasting ideals between groups such as these to define their own specific values.

Finley dismisses labels and does her art and activist work based on power, because power is

what determines our place in the large spectrum of human hierarchy and thus generates

oppression and discrimination.

Finley is also widely known for her intense involvement with the court case National

Endowment for the Arts vs. Finley. This case went to the Supreme Court and ruled that the

chairman of The National Endowment for the Arts had to ensure that "artistic excellence and

artistic merit are the criteria by which [grant] applications are judged, taking into consideration

general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American

public (Bezanson)." Finley talks about how while her body art was deemed “indecent,” the art

being produced at the same time by male artists was deemed acceptable. Although the issues that

were surfacing due to the court case were extremely necessary to address, she was conflicted in

how to balance her roles as both artist and activist. Karen Finley was an individual experiencing

largely relatable pain and anger, but publically and on a stage. Whether or not it was supposed to

be protest, it was going to be taken as protest because this pain is usually suppressed and never

addressed publicly.

Karen Finley dedicates a large section of her book A Different Kind of Intimacy to her

piece “The Chocolate Smeared Women”. This piece is a response to the Tawana Brawley rape

allegations. In this case, Tawana Brawley was allegedly raped by police officers and a

prosecuting attorney at the age of 15. She was found in a trash bag, covered in feces with racial

slurs written on her body. Finley responded to the court case results and to the unsympathetic

reaction of the public by doing a staged performance piece with an audience. In this

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performance, she smeared her naked body with chocolate to both represent the feces as well as to

eroticize the rape. After this, she covered her body in tinsel to exemplify that, “no matter how

bad a woman is treated, she still knows how to get dressed for dinner…” Finley attempts to

eradicate the male gaze in this project by pointing directly to the negative impacts of the gaze on

the female body. The male gaze is a, “concept coined by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey. It

refers to the way visual arts are structured around a masculine viewer. It describes the tendency

in visual culture to depict the world and women from a masculine point of view and in terms of

men's attitudes.” The male gaze has been historically prominent throughout art history, and then

reproduced on a societal level. By using her body for performance and replicating how the

alleged rapists viewed Tawana’s body, she turned the gaze around to the audience so that it no

longer was reflecting her physical being but instead reflecting the eyes of the viewer.

The photo series we created was derived from Finley's response to the Tawana Brawley

court case and was mainly inspired by her metaphor using tinsil. We were inspired by her

proclamation that women, no matter their emotional state, still are forced by the pressures of the

male gaze to present themselves as positive and sexual. We saw this pressure most prevalently at

Connecticut College in the social scene on weekend nights.

In the beginning of the series, the photographs illustrate a depressed emotional state that

women feel the need to hide under the public eye. As the series continues, the photos exhibit the

process of manically covering the shame and depression that the male gaze perpetuates.

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Photo #1:

This is the most intimate photo of the series

because it is the first in displaying the steps in

getting ready to go out at night. The lighting in

this photo is evocative of depression through

the blue tones that blanket the image. The white

sweatshirt I am wearing blends into the white

tiles behind me, metaphorically representing

how shame pressures me to disguise myself by

using the environment around me. I am

covering my face in response to the blinding

atmosphere and to shield myself from the

unwanted light and the unwanted gaze of the

viewer. This illustrates the constant tension

women feel between wanting to be seen and

wanting to hide from the male gaze, however the single uncovered eye is a demonstration of the

constant need to recognize it. By acknowledging the male gaze this image also evokes a form of

protest. In her paper “The Second Sex,” Simone De Beauvoir claims, “We shouldn’t try to

escape it because it’s still going to be their so instead we need to return it, protest it.” By staring

back into the gaze, I am acknowledging its presence, therefore taking away the power of

mystery. When the enigma of the gaze is eradicated, power is transferred from the looker to the

individual being looked at: "The conflict can be overcome by the free recognition of each

individual in the other, each one positing both itself and the other as object and as subject in a

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reciprocal movement (Beauvoir, 193).” Sartre explained the existing duality of subject and object

within the human mind through a phenomenon called “The Look,” which is the recognition of

another human being’s consciousness, or the transcendence from seeing someone else as an

object into a subject through eye contact. By returning the gaze I am using Sartre’s idea of “The

Look” to protest my objectivity and exhibit myself as a subject, a consciousness. This is crucial

to the protest aspect of the project because it is threatening to the viewer’s individuality.

By taking a close up, it is showing the viewer how I feel on the inside, in contrast to the

ending photo where the emphasis lies in how I wish to be portrayed on the outside. The photo is

taken in a corner to show how I feel caged by both my emotions and the viewer. The messy

nature of my physical appearance is a representation of the messy nature of my mind. In “The

Laugh of Medusa”, Helene Cixous explains the negative impacts of the gaze upon the female

psyche,

“Men have committed the greatest crime against women. Insidiously, violently,

they have led them to hate women, to be their own enemies, to mobilize their

immense strength against themselves, to be the executants of their virile needs.

They have made for women an antinarcissism! A narcissism which loves itself

only to be loved for what women haven't got! They have constructed the infamous

logic of anti love (Cixious, pg. 878).”

Because the male gaze has created standards for women that can only be justified by the

perpetuator of the gaze, it is impossible for women to have self love created by their own moral

values, unless they consistently stray from the gaze and gain power from this protest. Later in

this paper I will demonstrate why women themselves also possess the male gaze, and why this

makes the gaze so difficult to eradicate and/or subvert.

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Photo #2:

Similar to the previous photo I am in a

corner, however here I am holding onto

a wall to show my exasperation and my

fear of being seen by the outside

viewer. My face is turned half way

towards the objects on the counter,

acknowledging the journey I am about

to take through getting ready to

conform to the male gaze. Having the

viewer far away is the beginning to

how we illustrate the male gaze seeing

my form from the outside, whereas the

previous photo was an exploration of

how I was dealing with my emotions

on the inside. Simone De Beauvoir explains the inborn influence that men hold, “The

representation of the world as the world itself is the work of men; they describe it from a point of

view that is their own and that they confound with the absolute truth (Beauvoir, 196).” The wide

snapshot contrasts the vastness of the male gaze with the individual. The male gaze in many

ways obtains power by keeping women at a distance. This distance keeps women enslaved

through the innate objectification of only looking and not conversing, “...his distance from the

object is the ransom for his being present to himself… (Beauvoir, 194).” We felt that

photography was the most effective way to present this idea because we could play with how

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different shots contained a variety of meanings. As seen in the last photo, I noticed that I

continue to blend into my surroundings by having pants that match the dark tiled floor and a

sweatshirt that melds with the white walls around me. The suppressing surroundings are plastic,

harsh, and dead, contrasting how I as an individual am soft-rounded and alive.

Photo #3:

Here, finally on my feet, I am reluctantly

getting ready to go out to the Cro Dance that

awaits me. I have changed from the

sheltering sweatshirt into a revealing top in

order to show the immediate sexualization

of my body once leaving the floor. The

geometric and triangular V of my shirt

draws attention to the most desired parts of

my body as seen by the male gaze: my

breasts and waist. However, my physical

form is still doused in the feelings of shame

and repulsion, which can be seen by how

my body continues to be pulled down to the

floor. My clothing is now all dark in order to continue the assumption that I must stand out using

my physicality rather than my intellect. This metaphor continues in the noticeable line of square

tiles which cuts off my personality, living in my face and brain from the rest of my sexualized

body. This inherently creates a sense of submission, “She pits neither the hostile silence of nature

nor the hard demand of a reciprocal recognition against him; by a unique privilege she is a

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consciousness, and yet it seems possible to possess her in the flesh (Beauvoir, 194).” The word

‘college’ written on my pants acknowledges my place in a larger social structure, whereas before

by only looking at my mental image I was ostracizing myself from the society around me. The

tears, though not seen in previous photos, are finally revealed to the viewer. I wear the tears to

enhance my negative emotions just like I use makeup to later exaggerate my fake yet positive

emotions. Throughout the series the makeup on my face will change based on how I am

illustrated to the viewer.

Photo #4:

We consider this photo to be the turning point

in the series because it’s the first photo where

I am staring at the doorway, explicitly

confronting the process I will have to

endeavor to conform to the male gaze. I am

looking away from the reflection of the space

where I was in the past (which has darker

tones in the photo) and leaning in to the

brightness of the prospect of being seen. This

is also the first photo where I am looking out

at the outside world and express a sense of

fear, whereas before I felt more depressed or

sad. My facial expression is uncovered and divided by the duality of having one profile face the

gaze, and another face the mirror. We thought the mirror was a simple way to show how the gaze

can be perpetuated by both the outside viewer and the individual being objectified. The idea of a

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21

mirror entails the need to understand how society views my physical body, which is why my

body is both facing my reflection and towards the geometric environment around me. I fearfully

avoid looking into the camera and the viewer because I am focused on the broader influence of

the social scene outside. I am leaning over the sink, still drawn towards the ground, but I protest

gravity by grasping the sink and using the counter to pull myself up. By bending over, I am also

revealing cleavage to the mirror, exhibiting to myself what I will soon exhibit to the rest of the

world. By creating an explicit awareness of what others will look at on my body, I am seeing

through the eyes of the individuals I fear most, "Not positing themselves as Subject, women have

not created the virile myth that would reflect their projects; they have neither religion nor poetry

that belongs to them alone: they still dream through men’s dreams (Beauvoir, 195).” As stated

before, my body is angular, conforming to the geometric nature and harshness of my

environment, whereas before I was attempting to hide my body by making it soft and malleable.

My entire body is now under the line of boxes on the wall: my entire form is now being

objectified by the viewer. For this reason I am

at the sink, preparing to change my face and

my mental state to conform to what is expected

of me by the viewer and social scene.

Photo #5:

In this photo there is an acknowledgement of

the multiple layers of steps that I will have to

go through to conform to the male gaze,

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including the tinsel we derived from Finley’s project. It shows the timeline of the rest of the

series, starting with the shoes, ending with a view of the doorway which creates a sense of

purpose and destination. The arches of light curve over each step of the process ahead of me, the

shoes, accessories, and alcohol. Again, the viewer is placed far away from the individual, and the

gaze is knowingly asking me to take these steps to conform. My body stands completely upright

as if on trial for the viewer, “For women's bodies in western culture have almost always been

viewed as objects of display… (Korsmeyer).” Both the light shining on my body and the dark

clothing I am wearing cause me to stand out in a similar fashion to the objects lined in front of

me, which is inherently objectifying. Simon Burke explains the comparison between woman and

object by claiming,

“... grace and delicacy of line that mark beautiful objects are reminiscent of the

curves of the female body (Burke 1757/1968). If women are the objects of

aesthetic pleasure, then the actual desire of the perceiver must be distanced and

overcome in order for enjoyment to be purely aesthetic. This outcome is one

implication of the notion of disinterested pleasure. This requirement, it would

seem, assumes a standard point of view that is masculine and heterosexual. But of

course women are also subjects who exercise taste. This implies that women are

unstably both aesthetic subject and object at the same time (Korsmeyer).”

Both the distance in the photograph and the positioning of object in accordance with the female

form exemplify this phenomenon. The light continues to be shed on my chest, yet the light is

now making a shadow below me, a shadow very similar to that being made by the Svedka bottle.

This shows how I will soon become like the bottle, an object that is pushed upon the conformist

and fills the conformist from the inside out.

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23

Photo #6:

This photo is taken from below to enhance my

objectivity. By leaning into the objects on the

ground and making the conscientious effort to put

my body on their level, I am in turn innately

objectifying myself. We have not seen the objects

on the ground this close until now, and by bowing

to become one with these objects, we are

explicitly showing the nature of accepting an

inferior level beneath the gaze. Stefania

Sorrentino explains this by saying, “The gaze

alienates subjects from themselves by causing the

subject to identify with itself as the objet a, the

object of the drives, thus desiring scopic satisfaction. Hence the subject is reduced to being the

object of desire and, in identifying with this object, it becomes a stranger to itself (Subverting).”

By making the conscious effort to put myself physically below my superior, I am in turn

showing my weakness through my body, the form of myself that my superior sees explicitly as

my identity. I took my hair down and I am blushing which shows a submissive and modest

reaction to the close up camera, and these feelings are ones that are accepted and encouraged.

Similar to the tears at the beginning, the neutrality of my face has continued to become falsified

in the makeup which I am wearing. Through the extravagant blush and eyeshadow, I am

transforming into the modest yet sexual being that society pressures me to be. It is not to be

overlooked however that the display of distress on one’s face can also be seen as beautiful.

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24

Displaying distress is inherently displaying weakness, and therefore by adding blush to one’s

cheeks the individual is allowing the viewer to see the subservient nature which women are

meant to possess. We have set a form of “ideal beauty” in our society, and the journey to

accomplish this goal has become central to becoming the perfect woman. It is not in our

intelligence nor in our passions in which women are judged, but instead in our ability to conform

to the societies standards of physical beauty and positive demeanor. Through a bureaucratic

system comprised of hierarchies and built on capitalism, the beauty we must obtain is controlled

by how many objects we can adorn ourselves with and how much they cost. Carolyn Korsmeyer

perfectly explains this phenomenon as it applies to women,

“… Perfection is the constituent cause of beauty. This opinion has been made to

extend much further than to sensible objects. But in these, so far is perfection,

considered as such, from being the cause of beauty, that this quality, where it is

highest, in the female sex, almost always carries with it an idea of weakness and

imperfection. Women are very sensible of this; for which reason; they learn to

lisp, to totter in their walk, to counterfeit weakness, and even sickness. In all they

are guided by nature. Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.

Blushing has little less power; ... I

know it is in everybody’s mouth, that

we ought to love perfection. This is to

me a sufficient proof, that it is not the

proper object of love. Who ever said

we ought to love a fine woman, or even

any of these beautiful animals which

please us? Here to be affected, there is

no need of the concurrence of our will

(Korsmeyer).”

Photo #7:

This is the picture where we explicitly use the

tinsel concept to illustrate the silencing and

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25

choking of the male gaze on the female body. As a result of the male gaze, women are only

looked at and not heard, and the pressures of society (metaphorically the tinsel) are creating this

phenomenon. The camera is below, illustrating how I am growing more worthy in the eyes of

the viewer. I am now looking directly out the door, this time without fear but with purpose. In

my dark clothing I continue to stand out from my environment, just like the colorful bottle of

alcohol that is the final step to my transformation. The shadows created by my body and the

bottle itself intensify our similar objectivity. Usually on college campuses alcohol is used

excessively as a social lubricant, therefore once drinking the alcohol it will be easier for me to

conform.

Photo #8:

Although my hand is still gripping onto the

frame, I have now exited the hallway and

am being completely eroticized. The space

around me is completely illuminated,

following the metaphor of light as gaze.

Svedka bottle in hand, it is obviously

necessary that the act of going out must be

numbed by alcohol. I am excitedly holding

the alcohol above me, and by creating these

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26

levels I am saying that my actual personality is less important than my drunk personality. This

gap in personality we noticed is encouraged in the college social world. My mouth is wide to

exaggerate my positive emotions,, and my eyes are closed to show I am shutting down my

mental state and becoming exclusively my body, “One further possibility of refiguring the

traditional female identity is performing the self explicitly as a masquerade …notion of sexuality

as the realm of masquerade (Subverting).” By explicitly sexualizing my body, both in my

physical stance and in my scandalous clothing, I am putting on a mask for the viewer. I am

finally putting on a complete disguise for the individuals I will interact with. “Women

photographers took this notion of femininity as a distortion, a disguise, as their point of departure

for restoring the tradition of female self-portrait. They transformed their own bodies in order to

proclaim that their femininity, as any other public identity, can be thought only in terms of

disguises. The self is always concealed behind an ambivalent and ever-changing play of masks

(Subverting).” Throughout the entire photo series I don a variety of different masks, adding

levels of disguise, until this false femininity becomes my public identity.

______________________________________________________________________________

As shown through the analysis of our own art and through the performance artists who

we researched, the male gaze can be uprooted through the process of subverting the viewing of

women from object to subject. The patriarchal society which we all attempt to exist in inherently

oppresses women both internally and externally. The medium of feminist protest art allows

women to take back the power of making the personal political, and through the inspiration we

have found in these artists a sense of control and power has been given to us over our own

identity. As Marina Abramovic, one of the most famous and acclaimed performance artists of

our era shows in her piece “The Artist is Present,” “it is not about me [the artist] anymore, I am a

mirror of their [the viewer’s] own self.”

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27

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Bezanson, Randall P. "Performing Art: National Endowment for the Arts v. Finely." Maurer

School of Law: Indiana University, n.d. Web.

Cixous, Hélène. "The Laugh of the Medusa." Feminisms (1991): 334-49. Web

Devereaux, Mary. "Oppressive Texts, Resisting Readers and the Gendered Spectator: The New

Aesthetics." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 48.4, Feminism and Traditional

Aesthetics (1990): 337-47. JSTOR. Web. 28 Dec. 2015.

Jeffrey S. Longacre. Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 21.1 (2002): 129–133. Web...

Korsmeyer, Carolyn. "Feminist Aesthetics." Stanford University. Stanford University, 07 May

2004. Web. 28 Dec. 2015.

Phelan, Peggy. Lane, Jill. The Ends of Performance. New York, New York University Press.

1998.

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Sciences, Journal Of Integrated Social. THE FABRIC OF INTERNALIZED SEXISM (n.d.): n.

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"SUBVERTING THE MALE GAZE." CuratingtheContemporary CtC. N.p., 07 Nov. 2014.

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