Study Task 2 - Reading and Understanding a Text

For this task I chose John Berger's Ways of Seeing in relation to the question about gender and advertising.

Tone of voice:

Berger makes some good points throughout the piece about women being present as objects for the visual pleasure of men, but seems to suggest through his writing that women can't think for themselves and realise this. The tone of voice is quite patronising and there's an air of 'wannabe-knight-in-shining-armour', in that he assumes by telling women this he is freeing them from their fate. We must consider his authority on writing about this subject as a man himself, and also the context - being written in 1972, women are still in the early stages of liberation.

5 key points:

• Women are conditioned to objectify themselves and view themselves as men see them.
• Women in nude portraits are painted by men, for men, and are never shown enjoying their own nakedness because their sexuality is not for them to enjoy and embrace.
• Non-European art is not so sexist - women are as active as men in depictions of love and sex.
• Nakedness and nudity are different - a naked body has to be objectified to become a nude. Nudity equals a display.
• Photos in porn magazines represent these paintings too - their expressions are aimed at a male viewer, seductive yet not pleasured.

5 key quotes:

• "From earliest childhood, she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually."
• "Men act and women appear. Men look at women, women watch themselves being looked at."
• "You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure."
• To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognised for oneself. A naked body has to be seen as an object in order to become a nude."
• "The 'ideal' spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him."

In Berger's (1972) analysis of classical European painting, he suggests that women are conditioned from a young age to "watch themselves being looked at" and view themselves as sexual objects for the pleasure of men. This can be translated to much of modern media today, particularly the use of women's bodies in advertising. Berger suggests that the depiction of women in these paintings as nude is solely for men, the "ideal spectator", and therefore ideal consumer, as they are never shown through body language or facial expression to be enjoying their own nakedness. He also points out that there is a difference between nudity and nakedness, as a naked body must be objectified and dehumanised in order to become a 'nude'. This is evident across many advertisements in the last 30 years, as advertisers pander to male wants and needs by using images of naked female bodies depicted for their pleasure in order to entice them into buying products. Although Berger's theories can be applied even now, forty years on, and in particular to modern media including advertisements and pornography, we must consider the context of the time in which he was writing. Female liberation was (and by some accounts, still is) in its early stages and there is a patronising air to his writing, that insinuates a 'hero complex', by which Berger believes his writing will 'save' women from their destiny to be sexual objects and visual pleasures to men.

(I'm not entirely sure if I've done this task right? It said to summarise the 5 points and quotes but I've tried to link it to my own essay in order to gain some starting ground!)