The Paradox of the Internalised Male Gaze - by Ash Prabaharan
“You are a woman with a man inside of you. You are your own voyeur.”
- Margaret Atwood
The term ‘internal male gaze’, pioneered by film critic and feminist Laura Mulvey in her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, has revolutionised the way women define and view themselves. The male gaze outlined an objectified and sexed relationship between observation and women, where women are viewed amid an overtly sexual landscape. It often is seen in cohorts with imagery and symbolisms of the phallus, further advancing the male voyeuristic tendencies to both control female agency and to give birth to a phallocentric and patriarchal word view.
While it was originally used in a cinematic environment, the term began to seep into social and cultural interactions, until it became an undeniable fact. The most troubling aspect of the male gaze is exemplified through the internalisation of this view by women – women are cajoled into both adopting and creating a view of themselves that adheres to the male gaze, to subconsciously please and cater to the needs of the male voyeurs.
The impact of the internal male gaze is catastrophic – it is completely at odds with the concept of breaking down patriarchal beauty norms while further contributing to self-objectification. A prime example is when a female influencer or celebrity chooses to forego her usual makeup-clad look, she is typically applauded for her bravery in showcasing her ‘natural beauty’, but what most people tend to ignore is that she is simply allowing herself to exist outside of human constructed beauty ideals. Internalisation occurs when women are repeatedly exposed to this subtle external pressure to enhance physical beauty to the degree that they come to experience their internal efforts to enhance their beauty as ‘freely chosen’.
And so, the problem arises of what one does past recognising the internal male gaze. It is not merely as simple as choosing to ignore one’s internal male gaze, for the idea of a choice presented to women in a male-controlled world order is paradoxical. Simone De Beauvoir perhaps puts it best when she questions how one’s image can ever be a decidedly private experience when socialisation of the sexes is dictated by patriarchy and women are acculturated to internalise an observer’s perspective as a primary view of their physical self.
How do we distinguish between acts we do for ourselves and acts we have been unknowingly manipulated to do so? Is the reclamation of female sexuality even possible in a deeply misogynistic and patriarchal society or is it simply a way to more easily and less guilty serve the male gaze, and thus society’s expectations? There is no right answer to these questions and the multitude of other questions asked in feminism, and while it can be slightly distressing to understand much of how we view ourselves internally could be dictated by an intrinsic need to satisfy our male counterparts, the first step will always be to dismantle and understand our own internal male gaze.
by Ash Prabaharan
