“Women watch themselves being looked at.” John Berger

Females have always been exposed to the subjective standards of beauty and most of them try to fit within the beauty ideals of their society. The female body has become an object of social control. As we are surrounded by images of beauty and constantly bombarded with air-brushed images of females on streets, in magazines and on television, women compare themselves to celebrities and models who are skinny and “beautiful”. It becomes a look to achieve. As women are always ‘looked at’, it creates a fantasy of the body we have - a desire to look wonderful. No matter how the vision of beauty varies within culture, women want to be beautiful and attractive, because to be beautiful is to be desired.

We always see women posing. Females are presented as passive, and their body is controlled, waiting for desire. Images of women posing and waiting to be admired, creates a fascinating relation between the viewer and the subject. In a world ordered by visual culture, pleasure in looking has been split between active male, and passive female. Women are simultaneously looked at and displayed. Viewers get the pleasure of looking at the female, as an object. The visual pleasure produce voyeurs whose satisfaction comes from watching, in a controlling way, an objectified other. The woman holds the look, plays to and signifies the viewers desire. “She turns herself into an object - an object of vision: sight.” (John Berger) Her facial expression is her imagination of the viewer, looking at her. She is aware of being observed. She stares at the audience, watching her nudity, and has the power to control the viewer looking at her. The image can be seen as a metaphor of every women, being always looked at. Pleasure of looking functions as using another person as an object of simulation through sight, or constitution of the ego, which comes from identification with the image seen. Being the one who looks at the body, the viewer becomes the camera, a gaze.

Body On Display