The male gaze is often described as a way of looking; but in reality, it is a way of ordering reality. Laura Mulvey famously argued that mainstream media positions men as active subjects and women as passive objects, structuring vision itself around masculine desire. But the gaze is not confined to cinema.
It continues to shape how women’s achievements, labour, and creativity are perceived in everyday life. The unsettling truth is that men do not simply “look” at women differently; they interpret what women do through a hierarchy that predates the individual encounter.
John Berger captures this succinctly: “Men act and women appear.” In this formulation, men are granted agency while women are granted visibility, as though visibility were a substitute for power. What follows is a cultural logic where women’s contributions are not simply undervalued — they are fundamentally misread. A woman may produce work equal or superior to a man’s, but the gaze frames it as derivative, emotional, accidental, or ornamental. Her competence becomes a spectacle, her mastery a surprise.
This perceptual inequality is not a matter of individual prejudice; it is structural. Butler’s theory of gender performativity helps explain why: femininity is culturally coded as affective, embodied, and expressive, while masculinity is coded as rational, authoritative, and intellectually grounded. When a woman excels in fields associated with objectivity or high cultural value, her success is interpreted as an exception rather than an expansion of what gender means. The gaze cannot easily accommodate women who exceed the script it has assigned them.
Mulvey goes further by arguing that the gaze is ultimately a mechanism of control, it stabilises male subjectivity by positioning women as mirrors reflecting back men’s fantasies, anxieties, and desires. When a woman creates work that resists this reflectiveness; when she acts, thinks, critiques, innovates; the gaze experiences it as a disruption. Rather than admit its own limitations, it reframes the woman as limited.
This logic extends beyond individual men to entire media systems. As Scannell and Goffman suggest, communication is a moral, interactive order shaped by unspoken rules. In this order, women’s expressions are often treated as lower stakes: a man’s opinion is a position; a woman’s opinion is a mood. A man’s creative output is genius; a woman’s is a hobby. These distinctions masquerade as neutral judgment, but they reveal the deeper truth: the male gaze devalues women not because women lack value, but because the gaze itself is incapable of recognising value outside its own frame.
The tragedy – and the opportunity – lies here. The gaze is not omniscient. It is simply habitual. Women have always produced knowledge, art, theory, and innovation that exceeds what the gaze is prepared to acknowledge. The fact that men often fail to see this is not evidence of deficiency in women, but in the gaze itself.
To dismantle this hierarchy, we must learn to see differently. The task is not simply to challenge men’s perceptions, but to deconstruct the systems that taught them how to perceive in the first place. Only then can we recognise women’s work not as exceptional, but as essential; not as decoration, but as foundation.
After reading your blog, I gained a clearer understanding that the inequality within the male gaze is not just about different ways of “looking,” but about how reality is interpreted through a framework dominated by men. Women’s effort and achievements are often misread—not because they lack ability, but because the gaze itself cannot recognise their value. When women express independent thought or take initiative, it is frequently labelled as resistance or disobedience, exposing the unequal power structure. Yet in both family and society, women carry roles that are essential and irreplaceable. Their value is not supplementary but foundational. Your article reminds us that to truly challenge this hierarchy, we must first learn how to see differently and question the systems that taught us to see in the first place — so shouldn’t we now start thinking about how to make the public truly see women’s power?
Thank you for such a powerful and deeply considered comment! I really appreciate the way you engaged with the ideas in the post. You’re absolutely right that the male gaze isn’t just about “looking,” but about an entire interpretive framework that shapes how women’s actions, abilities, and identities are understood. The way women’s independence is so often misread as defiance really does expose the unequal structures beneath everyday life. I also love your point that women’s roles aren’t secondary or supportive they’re foundational, even though dominant systems often fail to recognise that value. Challenging this hierarchy really does begin with learning to see differently and questioning the lenses we’ve inherited. As for your final question: yes, I think the next step is imagining how to make women’s power visible on their own terms. That means shifting who gets to define value in the first place through media, education, representation, and everyday interactions.
I think you have explained the concept of the male gaze very well, especially when you pointed out that it is a way of ordering reality. As you noted, women’s achievements are often seen as unexpected, whereas similar situations rarely occur for men. This shows how our evaluation systems are shaped by gendered power structures. Historically, our society was once dominated by males, a pattern that persists into the contemporary era. The evaluation system still centres on men, which positions women in relation to them, making it harder for their talent and contributions to be recognised on their own terms. The problem is not that women lack ability, but that the framework itself struggles to recognise women’s value outside its fixed ideas. Your blog makes me realise that it is hard to challenge this framework, but it also reminds us to question it and change the way we view and value women’s work.
Thank you so much for this insightful comment! I really appreciate the depth you brought to the discussion. You’re absolutely right that the male gaze functions as a way of ordering reality, shaping not only how women are seen but how their achievements are interpreted. The contrast you mention where women’s successes are treated as surprising while men’s are taken as standard highlights just how deeply gendered our evaluation systems still are. I agree that the issue isn’t women’s ability, but the framework itself, which struggles to recognise women’s value outside the ideas it was built on. As you point out, these patterns have historical roots but continue into the present, subtly reinforcing whose contributions are legitimised and whose are overlooked. I’m really glad the post encouraged reflection on how difficult it can be to challenge these structures and how necessary it is to question them. Changing how we view and value women’s work is a crucial step toward shifting the framework altogether.
This piece hits so hard— the male gaze isn’t just ‘looking’; it’s boxing women’s brilliance into pre-written labels. From ‘men act, women appear’ to the double standards in media systems, that structural bias runs way deeper than individual moments. Fingers crossed more people can step outside that habitual frame and see women’s talent as the norm it’s always been.
Thank you so much for this comment! you captured the issue so clearly. The male gaze really does operate as a system that pre-labels women long before they even express their abilities, and that “men act, women appear” dynamic still underpins so many of the double standards we see in media and everyday life. You’re right that it goes far deeper than isolated moments it’s a whole framework that shapes what’s seen as natural, expected, or valuable. I completely agree with your final point: the real shift happens when people learn to step outside that habitual frame and recognise women’s talent as the norm it has always been, not the exception.
I really enjoyed reading your post because it makes something very abstract feel immediately recognisable. The way you describe the male gaze as an interpretive system rather than just a way of looking captures so many everyday moments that women experience but rarely have the language to explain. I found myself nodding along to your point about how women’s achievements are so often framed as surprising or accidental. It is something many of us notice intuitively, and seeing it articulated this clearly is both validating and unsettling.I also appreciate how you bring theory into the conversation without letting it overwhelm the human element. Berger’s line about acting and appearing suddenly feels very contemporary in your reading, and Butler’s ideas make sense in a way that ties directly to lived experience. What stayed with me is your observation that women who move beyond the roles assigned to them are treated as disruptions to the system rather than contributors to it. That feels very true to how recognition often works.
Thank you so much for this beautifully written comment!! I really appreciate how deeply you engaged with the post. I’m glad the idea of the male gaze as an interpretive system resonated with you; it’s something so many women feel instinctively but rarely get the vocabulary to name. That pattern you mention where women’s achievements are framed as unexpected or accidental; is such an everyday example of how deeply these structures shape our understanding of value. I’m also really happy to hear that the theory felt grounded rather than overwhelming. Berger and Butler can feel abstract on the page, but their ideas become strikingly immediate when you look at how women’s lives are interpreted in practice. Your point about women who exceed their “assigned” roles being treated as disruptions is so true and it reveals a lot about how recognition is allocated in the first place.