Feminism- John Berger

TO WHAT EXTENT DO YOU AGREE WITH BERGER THAT:
“A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually. And so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman. She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life. Her own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another....
One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object -- and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.”
-John Berger, Ways of Seeing 

Throughout the years, mass media has played an important role in shaping society’s representation of men and women. There have been raising awareness for women to be portrayed as more than just a sexualised, emotional, submissive figure as well as having a specific physique. However, mass media has continued to carry out narrowed down conventions and a small range of characters. There would be a very limited area of the media where a female would be represented as a dominant, main figure or an expert of controlling a situation.

In advertisements and magazines, women are commonly portrayed as young, slim figure with soft curves and sleek arms followed by beauty that meets an accepted standard. The continuation of advertising the idealisation of “perfection” seen in women for so many years has created our society to only accept what should be seen in women. The characterised female image goes along the beauty myth which is increasing generalised perception across cultures and society of having flawless skin, a slender structure and certain beauty features. Women with this kind of appearance are often associated as sexual objects and what is attractive to men; which is why it’s said that “women are tailored to men’s preferences” for what they wish to see/ want in a woman since women are “an object of vision”. In reality, this could lower the self-esteem of women for not being that image of “perfection” and feel socially out casted for not feeling accepted.

As for film industries, women were at first were preached to be dependent on men by being more of a subordinate taking on roles such as: housewives, mistresses, mothers or sidekicks. But now in the modern age attitudes have started to change in the film industry where women are beginning to be strong willed, independent minded characters also take the lead role breaking away from those conventions. For example, a family animated film Zootopia stars a female bunny called Judy Hopps who wants to pursue her dream job of becoming the first rabbit police officer; though she would get a lot of heavy prejudice for being too small and lacking physique, she would challengingly overcome this stereotype. This would send a positive message to families and young viewers that societies standards should be conquered and that it doesn’t define who you are. Overtime, Disney has successfully been able to develop their female characters from relying on their “prince charming” to come rescue them to “I can take matters into my own hands”. This can allow new generations to grow up knowing that it’s okay to bend the rules of society and that they are capable to do things as long as they have their heart set to it.

To John Berger’s statement from Ways of seeing is agreeable at a certain extent in my opinion. This is because in the film industry there is a well development based on female roles being represented. In addition to that feminist campaigns and posts on social media is playing a huge factor to society to empower woman to break such stereotypes of obedience, weak and sensitive. In the music industry Beyoncé is a well-known iconic star bringing her feminism into the spotlight for the greater good, in order to simplify and normalize the word and the concept behind it. However, the main issue is how women are presented on fashion magazines. Some would even exploit women objectifying what would be appealing to men and what would be considered as sexy.