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There is a strong implication that only men are artists, photographers etc; and thus women are depicted not as they are. This is wrong on two levels On the fi
by dijit 4y ago
There is a strong implication that only men are artists, photographers etc; and thus women are depicted not as they are.
This is wrong on two levels
On the first level: there absolutely are women painters, photographers and artists, throughout history. Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun almost exclusively painted women and was a large influence on the depictions of women throughout the remainder of the 18th, the 19th and even 20th century.
On the second level: outside observation is a valid truth, what one person sees is not the same as that person themselves sees.
There was a hair dye ad in the 90s that covered this notion pretty nicely: a man is riding up an escalator feeling himself quite handsome, believing that his grey hair makes him look distinguished! A woman rides down the escalator, they lock eyes, she thinks he looks tired and unkempt.
The things we see as strengths can be seen as weaknesses and the things we see as weaknesses can be seen as strengths; but a self-portrait is rarely true to what people actually see.
- preommr 4y ago> I'm going to flag it because I know the flame war that's coming. That's not a valid reason to flag a post.
- dijit 4y ago1) Yes it is, content moderation is everyones job here. 2) I could also say that it's misleading, and flag it for that reason. If there is something intellectually curious in the content submitted: then I'm wrong. As it stands it reads like bait to attract controversy for the sake of advertising. *EDIT:* After reading the HN guidelines I've removed that line. Third line from the bottom of the page says not to mention if you flag, likely to avoid conversations like this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- neopw 4y agoDang downranks controversial stuff from the homepage, locks comments, etc all the time.
- maxbond 4y agoWorth considering that in the example you cited, the outside observer reduced and derided the subject, took something they viewed as reflective of their rich inner life and a product of their experience and chose to view it as contemptible. And so the subject presumably decided to buy the hair dye to erase this part of themselves. Outside observation is a truth, but it is overvalued in our society. Our emphasis on it leads us to pressure people into conforming to arbitrary standards and narrows the human experience.
- PierceJoy 4y ago> On the first level: there absolutely are women painters, photographers and artists, throughout history. Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun almost exclusively painted women and was a large influence on the depictions of women throughout the remainder of the 18th, the 19th and even 20th century. If you had to guess, what do you think the ratio is of men to women, in terms of well known artists in those time periods? > On the second level: outside observation is a valid truth, what one person sees is not the same as that person themselves sees. No one is denying that. The premise here is that other perspectives, or valid truths, were not seen because the observers were almost always men. Even passive observing can introduce biases, which is why we have things like double blind trials. Do you not believe it's interesting to try and imagine what art might look like from different perspectives?
- dijit 4y ago> Do you not believe it's interesting to try and imagine what art might look like from different perspectives? I do, actually, unfortunately the time has passed for those painters. We certainly have a lot of diverse representation in art these days, so fortunately it is no longer something I need to imagine.
- PierceJoy 4y ago> I do, actually, unfortunately the time has passed for those painters. The most famous piece of art is the modern world is the Mona Lisa. Historical art carries much more weight than modern art in almost all cases. Just like we continue to examine and analyze historical events/people/etc, I don't see why we wouldn't also do that with art.
- dijit 4y agoAre you saying that this product allows us to analyse works of the past in new light? Because, We can't create new works of the past and we can't remix them to make something originally genuine with accurate intent. So... what is it you're saying exactly? I don't have a time machine.
- ablatt89 4y ago100% legit. In addition, the female gaze DOES exist. Has the creator never been to a gym full of attractive men with fit bodies, and observed women oogling at the men? Has the creator never observed how straight women will oogle at men with handsome faces? There's a show called "The Sex Lives of College Girls" where objectively average/cute women are objectifying and sexualizing relatively attractive men. There's a lot of modern shows like this, where women of all attractive levels are dating handsome men which is a form of "gazing".
- maxbond 4y agoI'm sure the female gaze exists, but it's worth considering that straight men often look attractive and even seek to attract women to impress other straight men (so sometimes the "dudes at the gym" are really subject to a weird inverted male gaze), and reality TV shows are so distorted and deceptively edited and we really can't cite them uncritically.
- ablatt89 4y agoAnd women use makeup and look good to attract men, and there's no shame in it. I don't think there's any shame in attempting to look attractive, as if it's shallow. But that's aside the point, being that there's some implication that women don't objectify men via some "gaze" when clearly, they do. The representation of female attraction to men is done in different formats.
- Manuel_D 4y agoWomen also definitely try to impress other women via the status of their mates. The conversation about male vs. female gaze isn't about who's gazing (both are) but rather what they're looking for when they gaze at the other sex.
- bogwog 4y agoI'm guessing you skipped the intro portion of the OP, since that's not the "gaze" this is about.
- 4y ago