Chapter

Through various forms of fashion media, the fashion industry is one of the main determinants to influencing how the male gaze views women. This dissertation will examine how the male gaze hypothesis contributes to women’s exploitation and how it impacts women in fashion media and society. This will be followed by analysing the correlation between the exploitation and empowerment of females through fashion media, with an understanding, research and analysis into how the male gaze sexually objectifies the female body and equates a women’s worth to her body’s appearance.

Previous research found that both men and women perceived sexualised women to lack certain human qualities such as mental capacity and moral status. Therefore, a combination of both primary and secondary research will be undertaken to complete this dissertation. The primary research will consist of approaches such as interviews, surveys, online questionnaire, observations and focus groups. The secondary research will conduct on the use of books, articles, magazines, and online journals.

“In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female form which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role, women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness.” – (Mulvey, 1975)

This dissertation will outline how the impact of the male gaze is one of the main pressing problems women face when it comes to fashion media and societal appearances; and will build a wide understanding of whether this exploits or empowers women. The four chapters investigate and explore the following: the sexual objectification through male-gaze and feminist perspectives; an insight into raunch culture and the endorsement of sexualisation; the physical and psychological effects media has on women and finally if the sexualisation of women can be accredited as empowerment.

The objectification and stigma surrounding the female form became an issue due to the way, predominantly males, perceive women through fashion media. The sexualisation of women now dominates the creative industry through film, advertisements, media, arts and mainly photography. Fuelling the fire for males, is the way their imaginations run at unimaginable speed and create certain demoralising ideologies of women based on appearance. This visual feast the creative industry provides for the male gaze to objectify, emphasises the importance of power for women in empowering state of well-being. Is it the viewers and interpreters, or the creators of this stereotype image, the reasoning behind this stigma women appear to hold? Proving that you are hot, deserving of desire, and necessarily trying to evoke lust, is still entirely women’s work. Is it not enough to be good, wealthy, and just accept what women have collectively accomplished to this day; or pursuit the risk of independence in society once more. A focus upon secondary research methods was undertaken using a wide variety of books, articles, journals and magazines. These research findings are pivotal to gain an understanding into the way previous academics have approached similar concepts within the male gaze, exploited and empowered bracket. Due to this particular topic being controversial, it is imperative to provide an unbiased opinion based on a range of opinions, and findings, so a breadth of reading is vital.

Furthermore, information used has been sourced from qualitative and quantitative data, found in many of the secondary research methods. To be able to support the points made, quantitative data findings are key to increase the impact of a given point in a concise manner. In addition to this, another form of secondary reading of the opinionated form is analysed, in particular – Ariel Levy: Female chauvinist pigs, women and the rise of raunch culture. Her findings and opinions on raunch culture has formulated key motives for debate throughout. However, there were limitations found regarding primary and secondary research particularly in regard to access to articles in relation with fashion to this topic.

Following from this, a variety of primary research was undertaken. Two initial surveys were conducted to gain an insight from both male and female perspectives, as well as age range, social and political viewpoints. This was very beneficial to be able to gain a public view on issues regarding each chapter, holding the intention to explore the results further and combine with previously conducted secondary research. In addition to this, a large interview was proved significantly helpful. The Photographer interviews, Mia Sakai, from a fashion background and as a woman, was able to shed insight into her perspective on this topic. Her unique ideology towards this matter was fascinating and is a driving force for her current works. It was important that this source in particular was selected as an opinion leader in order to gain a crucial insight into her methods of working and experience she has gained as a female photographer.