Written by Sonia Liu
Edited by Gesi Huang
“Just sports.” – or is it? This was the infamous slogan advertised last month by Novig, a sporting betting platform, in a campaign intended to promote its exclusive focus on sports trading as compared to broader prediction markets which allow trading on politics, wars, and celebrity deaths. The ad, which starred actress Sydney Sweeney, received massive backlash on social media. Throughout the advertisement, Sweeney appears nude, with sports equipment positioned to cover parts of her body. The camera intentionally captures her through angles that seem to place emphasis on her body and appearance, rather than the topic of sports itself. Consequently, many prominent female athletes argued that the ad trivialized and undermined women in sports. The sexualized portrayal of Sweeney in this advertisement–and by extension, popular media – demonstrates how women are presented through a heterosexual male view, referred to as the “male gaze,” which objectifies and sexualizes women rather than celebrating their strength and dedication.
The term “male gaze” was coined by Laura Mulvey in her 1975 essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Mulvey used this term to describe how films cater to the male viewer and his desires [1]. In film and across different visual arts, women are often sexualized and reduced to an object by the perceiver. A prime example that can be used to illustrate this is the famous painting by Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus. Aphrodite is pictured nude in the center of the painting, and her body becomes the aspect that draws in the attention of the audience. Although the painting depicts a mythological figure, it still highlights the recurring theme of nude women being used as objects of desire.
Additionally, the “male gaze” can extend beyond the way women are represented in art. For example, when the “male gaze” is understood as societal expectations surrounding women's
appearance, it can lead women to become conscious of how their bodies are viewed and evaluated by others. In a recent analysis conducted by researcher Chen [5], this mindset is especially emphasized in the context of social media. Repeated exposure to idealized images of women can reinforce beauty standards and encourage women to compare their appearances to these representations. Thus, over time, constant comparison can contribute to dissatisfaction, anxiety, and eating disorders [5]. Given the prevalence of this mindset, it raises the question of how it is perpetuated by heteronormative society. Even women themselves are susceptible to internalizing the “male gaze,” so how is this possible?
Psychology can offer a way to investigate these questions by examining how most human interpretations of the world rely on cognitive processes, which influence how we comprehend and react to the information we receive. One cognitive process is implicit bias, which is defined as having associations with a group of people that an individual is not consciously aware of [2]. Associations can develop by exposure to societal standards and cultural representation. When women are pictured in the media as objects of desire, people might interpret and evaluate women by their appearance in real life, even if it is not intentional [3].
Women are not excluded from this mindset, and many may hold the “male gaze” for themselves. This can be explored through the Objectification Theory, developed by psychologists Barbara Fredrickson and Tomi-Ann Roberts, and through a more modern take of the theory by Chen [5], as mentioned earlier. They maintain that through exposure to societal culture and standards that promote sexual objectification, women might evaluate or judge themselves in a way that focuses on how their appearance is perceived by others and encourages them to monitor their bodies in comparison to others [4]. This could be seen in everyday interactions, such as when a woman asks another woman, “Who are you trying to impress?” after
seeing her dress up or put on makeup. Though it does not reflect the definition of the “male gaze” as defined by Laura Mulvey in particular, it still reveals the assumption that a woman’s appearance is intended to capture someone’s attention, rather than her own artistic expression. In fact, a 2019 eye-tracking study found that both heterosexual women and men viewing sensual photographs of couples spent longer looking at women’s bodies than men’s bodies [3]. The authors suggest that societal objectification of women may contribute to this shared pattern of attention, although the study did not directly verify this explanation.
From paintings during the Early Renaissance era to modern media, the male gaze has appeared in different forms of art. The way women are portrayed to the general public influences how the audience interpret appearances. Psychology offers a way to examine the associations that people hold from cultural exposure and can be used to explain why women might also judge their appearances through the perspective of others. While art and media can be used to push progress and embrace beauty and diversity, they can also be used to reinforce harmful societal standards and values, such as women’s beauty being defined by desirability through the eyes of men.
Sonia Liu ’29 is in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at sl3642@cornell.edu.
