My Vanity and Me ~ Luz

The Photographed, Collaged and Painted Muses of Mickalene Thomas

“By selecting women of color, I am quite literally raising their visibility and inserting their presence into the conversation.”

“But the social commentary in her work is never heavy-handed or preachy; her approach throughout is both playful and political.”

 

 Overlooked No More: Ana Mendieta, a Cuban Artist Who Pushed Boundaries

She urged viewers to disregard their gender, race or other defining societal factors and instead connect with the humanity they share with others.

It’s about kind of capturing moments through various forms of documentation.

 

Understanding Patriarchy

“growing up is the system of patriarchy, even if we never know the word, because patriarchal gender roles are assigned to us as children and we are given continual guidance about the ways we can best fulfill these roles.”

“Most of us learned patriarchal attitudes in our family origin, and they were usually taught to us by our mothers.”

 

The Oppositional Gaze

“Unless you went to work in the white world, across the tracks, you learned to look at white people by staring at them on the screen.”

“The extend to which black women feel devalued, objectified, dehumanized in this society determines the scope and texture of their looking relations.”

 

Way of Seeing - John Berger

“Consequently, how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated.”

“To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself. A naked body has to be seen as an object in order to become a nude.”

Short Response 

To understand male gaze, it is important to consider the consequence of an act. As Berger states, “how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated.” For instance, if a woman is beautiful to behold, the man may pursue her whereas if the man does not fancy her, he will avert his gaze. These chapters by John Berger, there is a focus on nude from European oil painting where were portrayed as subjects. This nudity stands as “criteria and conventions by which women have been seen and judged as sights.” In other words, the author makes several references to the Eurocentric standard of beauty being the focal point for women. This perspective enables this patriarchal impression to dictate the treatment of women based on their skin color, shape, and other physical features. To retaliate against this view, one way to understand ourselves is to understand what it means to be naked, which is to be oneself. This view is a self-focused idea where the goal is to recognize the beauty that lies in women bodies. Unlike this notion of being naked is to be nude, where one's naked self is unrecognizable and objectified which is what the male gaze employs if left unchallenged. Unfortunately, most women, like myself, have grown accustomed to this theory of male gaze. This idea of how women should be “are assigned to us as children,” where it is taught to us in our family origin, particularly “taught to us by our mothers.”