POST 2 --ways of seeing/viewing

The male gaze is the idea under which women are viewed as social constructs, existing only to motivate and signify men. Women are viewed as objects, "a sight" according to John Berger. Under the male gaze, women are subjected to men; "To be born a woman has been to be born within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men." This ideas as discussed by Berger arose form the story of Adam and Eve in the garden, in which Eve was made subject to Adam after they sinned. With this idea, women aren't seen as relevant in themselves but as how they relate to men; their presence is only made valid by having men notice and appreciate them, and that according to Berger is key to success in their lives.
This view paints a woman as inferior, existing in a man's world and not one of her own. Everything she does is based on how she is viewed by men. Berger says" men watch women and women watch themselves being looked at"; because of this, a woman has to be careful of what she does and how she presents herself in the voyeuristic gaze of a male spectator, because that determines her significance and how she is treated. Hence, without a man noticing her, a woman would be invisible. as if she doesn't exist.
In contrast with this view is the oppositional gaze. The idea behind the oppositional gaze is one of resistance to "the dominant order of knowing and looking" based on phallocentrism. The oppositional gaze as discussed by Bell Hooks, is one in which women, having felt "devalued, objectified and dehumanized in this society" become aware of the power in looking. Thereby, they become equipped with the drive to look critically at media representations of women and refuse to accept the construction they been place in, hence not taking on "the phallocentric gaze of desire and possession."
The oppositional gaze is all about empowerment; finding self and building self esteem. Women who take on the oppositional gaze no longer sit back and remain content with how they are portrayed; rather, they move towards destroying the negative image of women that exist and choose to look at themselves and making that important rather than how others see them. It's about women building their own identity instead of having it defined for them. The oppositional gaze is about strength and self awareness; about changing the the statement "woman, without her man, is nothing" to "woman: without her, man is nothing."
Grasping a better understanding of these ideas, I see where they prove true and how they relate to me. I guess I could say I developed an oppositional gaze when I started college. Coming from an all girls' high school in Jamaica to this country to high school here is where I first really became aware of what would have been the male gaze after overhearing some boys in school making sexual derogatory remarks about a girl because of how she looked. Surrounded by this kind of judgment, I was in every sense of the word a victim to the male gaze; it definitely played on myself esteem. Now, however I have developed self love and respect; I choose to separate myself from girls out there who need male attention to validate them. I now have a strong sense of self, my purpose and where I fit in the world. I know that because we live in a very superficial society in which objectification is so prevalent, what I do will always somewhat be affected by how others see me, however, I rank how I see myself more important than how anyone else sees me, one of the main ideas behind the oppositional gaze.