Is it a fact about the objects in the world? Really? Because the only way I can see anything needing to be "explained away" is if it is a *fact*.
That's fine, you have doubts, and they should not be dismissed, but I disagree with your doubts and this is (the brief internets version) why:
It's a social construct; now you can definitely argue that, in order to be properly empirical about any social construct or phenomenon, you would have to somehow get purely factual answers from every generator of that phenomenon (in this case, every creator of every piece of artistic expression depicting a woman) about their motives and who they thought of as their audience.
In return, I can argue that's like testing for bilateral symmetry in mammals by getting every mammal on the planet that ever existed and physically confirming it. Every mammal. That is to say even the "hard" sciences are not subject to that kind of rigor.
But no, there is no Male Gaze you can put in a box, and you cannot stand on the corner of Male Gaze and smoke a cigarette. It's not a mammal, so you can't check to see if it's bilaterally symmetrical. But you can look at it as observed phenomena, observed and tested, and while it may not be as rigorously tested as the properties of thallium, you might be willing to grant that anything a person observes is a phenomenon, and anything that many people observe with certain characteristics, well documented. This is why we allow theologians to speak in public and do not lock them in asylums. This is only an aside, but I have seen more phenomena I can solely attribute to Male Gaze in a half hour than phenomena I solely can attribute to a simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent entity with personal interest in my affairs.
Let us also say that many creators are aware of this phenomenon when they create (as I am a creator and aware of it - you can argue I'm the only filthy one of us and the rest of the creators of visual and textual art are totally innocent or above thinking of it... I don't suggest you take that argument, but you could), aware enough to use and, yes, deconstruct it as part of their artistic technique. So even if the historical fact that most of the well-known artists were men working for male patrons does not hold water for you as an argument, the fact that there is at least one creator who has consciously used Male Gaze, the phenomena, the social construct as a technique in their work might.
I may come across as combative, and if I do, I apologize.
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Date: 2009-02-28 05:41 pm (UTC)That's fine, you have doubts, and they should not be dismissed, but I disagree with your doubts and this is (the brief internets version) why:
It's a social construct; now you can definitely argue that, in order to be properly empirical about any social construct or phenomenon, you would have to somehow get purely factual answers from every generator of that phenomenon (in this case, every creator of every piece of artistic expression depicting a woman) about their motives and who they thought of as their audience.
In return, I can argue that's like testing for bilateral symmetry in mammals by getting every mammal on the planet that ever existed and physically confirming it. Every mammal. That is to say even the "hard" sciences are not subject to that kind of rigor.
But no, there is no Male Gaze you can put in a box, and you cannot stand on the corner of Male Gaze and smoke a cigarette. It's not a mammal, so you can't check to see if it's bilaterally symmetrical. But you can look at it as observed phenomena, observed and tested, and while it may not be as rigorously tested as the properties of thallium, you might be willing to grant that anything a person observes is a phenomenon, and anything that many people observe with certain characteristics, well documented. This is why we allow theologians to speak in public and do not lock them in asylums. This is only an aside, but I have seen more phenomena I can solely attribute to Male Gaze in a half hour than phenomena I solely can attribute to a simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent entity with personal interest in my affairs.
Let us also say that many creators are aware of this phenomenon when they create (as I am a creator and aware of it - you can argue I'm the only filthy one of us and the rest of the creators of visual and textual art are totally innocent or above thinking of it... I don't suggest you take that argument, but you could), aware enough to use and, yes, deconstruct it as part of their artistic technique. So even if the historical fact that most of the well-known artists were men working for male patrons does not hold water for you as an argument, the fact that there is at least one creator who has consciously used Male Gaze, the phenomena, the social construct as a technique in their work might.
I may come across as combative, and if I do, I apologize.